The Dream Walker

by Charlotte Armstrong

  “Did you show the people in that bar Cora Steffani’s picture?” He smiled and I said hastily, “I mean, what did they say, when you did?”

  “They can’t be sure. Don’t want to be sure.” I could tell he was hesitating; there was something he could tell me. I just sat across the desk and stubbornly waited for him to do so. “We get what you might call rumors,” he said. (I knew he was still trying to make up his mind about something else.) “This Jones may have been seen in Texas. May have been seen in Nevada.”

  “Does that help?”

  “If he was in Texas, it was with a woman. In Nevada, they think he was alone.”

  “Who was Ed Jones?” I asked.

  The sergeant rubbed his chin. “You know Cora Steffani very well, I guess.”

  “Very well. For seventeen years.”

  “I’d like to show you something.” He had made up his mind. He reached inside the desk. “More or less my own little idea,” he said, “but a check is being made, just in case. I want you to look at this page and tell me what you see.”

  He had a brown imitation-leather book, a high school annual. He showed me a group picture, class of 1939. “Now, this”—he tapped a face in the back row—“is Edward Jones.”

  I looked at the glum, self-conscious young face. It only slightly resembled the rather horrible newspaper pictures of an older Ed Jones in death. I’d never seen the face alive, I knew. I glanced up at Sergeant Bartholomew. He was stubbornly just waiting. He wanted me to see something of my own accord.

  So I looked back at the page and my eye ran through the ranks. All these lost, no longer existing faces, so young and so self-conscious, each so convinced that all the world was watching him. When I gasped, the sergeant handed me a magnifying glass so quickly it was as if he had pulled it out of the air. The last girl in the first row was looking off haughtily to the right. She had Cora Steffani’s nose.

  She seemed to be a blonde. The chin was not too like, nor the brow. “That nose!” said I. And looked among the names and found, for the first time, and seared it into my memory, her name. Darlene Hite. “But that would be the one!” I cried. “She must have known Ed Jones. And it’s Cora’s nose, exactly! What are you doing about this?”

  “Checking,” said he.

  “It hasn’t been in the papers.”

  “A nose isn’t a lot to go on. You have to stop and think, Miss Hudson. It’s not our business to injure innocent people. Suppose this Hite girl was married and had a few kids and lived quietly someplace? The publicity in this thing is murder, you know. I’ll tell you this, though. If you recognize that nose as easy and quick as you did, well, it sure must be like.” I thought he seemed pleased.

  “Do you know anything about this Darlene Hite?”

  “Comes of a big family. Fifth child, two younger than she.” (His grammar astonished me.) “No money. Darlene came to Hollywood and found some motion picture work.” (People in and around Hollywood speak of “motion pictures” not “movies.” Just as a pilot speaks of an “airplane” not a “plane.”) “She lost out, I guess. She was working in a nightclub, up until last fall.”

  “Where is she now?”

  He looked at me with a light in his eye. “She’s missing,” he said with a certain amount of satisfaction.

  “Missing!”

  “Dropped out of sight. Left the job. Said nothing to anybody. A misleading postal card is all the sign of her.”

  “Since last fall!”

  “That’s right.”

  “You are looking for her?”

  “We sure are.”

  “Then, she’s not married with kids and all that,” I reproached him.

  “She is not. We turned up that much so far. But still a nose in an old picture isn’t much to go on and we don’t know enough.”

  I seemed to have heard this before. “But it’s so important,” I cried. “Marcus is going to be crucified. The publicity will be murder for him. Wouldn’t the newspapers, the public, help you find this Darlene Hite? Shouldn’t you let them try?”

  “It’s a question, all right,” said the sergeant judiciously. “But if this Darlene Hite is the double who’s been in on these stunts, then the general reading public isn’t going to notice her around because she’ll take care. Whereas, if Darlene Hite has nothing to do with it, then we should be able to locate her pretty soon and easily, without excitement. Follow me?”

  “I guess so,” I said reluctantly. “But.…”

  “Oh, we’ll find her. It’s not up to me to release her name and description but I can tell you this. If it seems best, then they will be released.” He was proud of his job and his colleagues, I could see.

  “Are you asking me to keep quiet?”

  He said, “I wouldn’t have told you, Miss Hudson, if I hadn’t thought you were a reasonable and balanced person. I don’t expect you to go hysterically to some tabloid. I know you’re pretty anxious, but we’ll find her.”

  “How soon? It has to be soon. Could I make a long-distance call on your telephone? I’ll pay. I think … don’t you?… we’d better know what’s going on in Washington.”

  “I was wondering how I was going to find out,” he said and shoved his phone over.

  I called Marcus’ very private number. Johnny Cunneen answered. “Where are you, Ollie? Charley’s been having a fit.”

  “I’m in Los Angeles. How is Marcus?”

  “Oh Lord, Ollie, it’s a mess.”

  “Is it?” I wailed. “How?”

  “Look, Ollie, I was there in the damn park. Not a soul spoke to Marcus or gave him a thing. There was no dame in any gray coat.”

  “But that’s good. Isn’t it?”

  “Nobody believes me.”

  “What do you mean, nobody believes you? Why not?”

  “Because I’m Marcus’ boy, that’s why. The idea is, I’d die for him. So naturally, I’d lie for him.”

  “Who doesn’t believe you?”

  “Ned Dancer, for one. He practically called me a liar.”

  “Is he there?”

  “He got away,” said Johnny in a voice of despair, “and all hell’s going to break loose.… Wait. Here’s Charley.”

  Charley Ives barked across the continent. “Ollie, for God’s sake, where are you and why?”

  “I’m in Los Angeles, finding things out. What’s happening there?”

  “That damned blue envelope—”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Oh, yes! Ned called the hospital back this morning and I, like a fool, let him do it.”

  “You had him there, at Marcus’?”

  “We practically had him in chains. But listen. Cora, damn her eyes, told Doc Harper after we left, and she told Ned Dancer this morning, that she saw Marcus put the envelope inside the jacket of a book. Said it was a lurid-looking jacket and the title had the word ‘stranger’ in it. I’ll bet she deliberately saved that bit for Ned’s ear, so I couldn’t suppress anything. Well, of course, when Ned hung up he poked around on Marcus’ shelves. How could I stop him? And it was there.”

  “Oh, no,” I moaned.

  “Thriller I’d sent him in a big bundle, two months ago.”

  “Oh, Charley … How could they?”

  “Yeah, how could they? Those books were wrapped in our own shipping department. Thin little envelope, seemed to be stuck to the binding. Ned got it out. We may be able to prove it was glued. As if a little glue was enough to stop this thing.” His voice faded.

  “Did Marcus have that book with him?”

  “In the park? Of course not.”

  “Then.…”

  “And how’s he going to prove he didn’t have it? Everybody thinks Johnny and Ruthie and all of them would lie for Marcus.”

  “Was the envelope bad, Charley?”

  “Pretty bad,” he said so quietly that my heart stopped. “We’ve got the envelope, but Dancer read the note. And what’s worse, in the turmoil and confusion, he got away.”

  “How is Marcus?” />
  “The same,” Charley’s voice fell in descending tones of sorrow.

  “Wait, Charley. Hang on, please.” I repeated much of this rapidly to Sergeant Bartholomew. “I’m going to tell him about this Darlene Hite. I want you to agree. You see.…” I began to flounder and bite my tongue. “There are … I mean, there must be … may be other kinds of police organizations that could help find her.” He nodded. “She has to be found. Please, won’t you tell him?”

  Sergeant Bartholomew said briskly, “No. You go ahead, Miss Hudson. I’ll want you to talk to my boss.” So he left the room and I told Charley Ives about Darlene Hite.

  I heard him sigh. “Teacher,” he said much more cheerfully, “you revive me. I’ll get Bud Gray on it. Of course, she may not be the right one.”

  “Of course,” I repeated, “she may not be.” But our hope pulsed on the wire, just the same, that she was.

  “Let me talk to your policeman. Wait. What are you going to do now? Come back here, will you?”

  “There?”

  “Marcus would like to see you. I have an idea you can be useful.”

  “How?”

  “I want you to help me get the truth out of the one we know has got it. The one we know where to find. It’s got to be done, Ollie.”

  “Cora?” said I.

  “How soon can you get a plane?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hurry. And don’t go near Cora. Come here first.” Charley’s voice got sharp and stern. “Don’t let her know that you’re not still standing by. Maybe you don’t like that, but it’s damned necessary.”

  “I’ll see you,” I said, “probably by morning.”

  “Coz, you heard what I said?”

  “I heard. I want to poke about L.A. a little more.”

  “Ollie,” said he, “I hate to tell you this but the Los Angeles Police Department is on the telephone. I can even talk to them anytime I want. You don’t need to get their information by a personal interview, you know. Now come home, coz. All is forgiven.”

  “Charley, my boy,” I said, nettled, “expect me when you see me.”

  I gave the phone to Sergeant Bartholomew, who had come back. Afterward, he and his boss and I talked for an hour. (I never did pay for that phone call.) After that, the sergeant and I went to the ratty little nightclub where Darlene Hite had been employed.

  We found a girl singer and a man who played in the band, both of whom had known Darlene. For an experiment, I turned myself into Cora Steffani. I’m a pretty good mimic. I spoke in her affected voice and I lit a cigarette in her exaggerated way, with the eyes squinted against the smoke, with the wide flapping of the fingers to shake the match out, with the arm moving full length from the shoulder to flick ashes in a receptacle placed that far away. I not only used her flying gestures, I used what I knew of her inner attitude. I became alert for my own advantage, slightly mischievous, inquisitive, and full of schemes and yearnings. “Darlene Hite was about my size?” I asked. “Was she like me?” I let my hands plead, as Cora’s do.

  “Darlene had blond hair,” the singer said. “What do you want to know all this for? I told you, she’s in Vegas. I got a postcard.”

  The sergeant said quietly, “She’s not in Vegas.”

  “Do I remind you of her?” I said in Cora’s bursting manner.

  “She isn’t anything like you,” the boy said distastefully.

  I raised my brows and slid my eyes to the corners as Cora does.

  “Darlene isn’t so nervous,” he said. “She don’t keep waving her arms around.”

  “Does she smoke?” asked the sergeant.

  “Yeah, but not like that. Darlene, she sticks a cigarette in her face and that’s it. She don’t make a big thing out of it.” He stared at me with a kind of stolid disgust.

  “She doesn’t talk like that,” the singer said. “Not so Eastern and fawncy. Darlene isn’t trying to make herself so damn glamorous,” she blurted. Evidently they didn’t like me one bit.

  “What’s it about?” the boy glowered.

  I changed. I let my hands fall and be heavy. I spoke a trifle nasally. “More like this?”

  Now, they stared indeed. “What goes on?” the boy said suspiciously. “Darlene’s okay. Minds her business. I don’t feel like answering questions.”

  “She works for a living,” the singer said severely.

  “I’m trying to find her, that’s all,” I said in my own voice. “Tell me anything you can about her. How does she walk? Does she turn her toes in or out? Has she any pet gesture?” I worked on it as I sometimes work on a characterization with my girls. I got them to say that Darlene walked, bent forward from the hips, and carried her head forward. That she smiled with her lips closed. But it was so slight. Almost nothing. The shadow of Darlene Hite against the mists of nothing was very thin.

  Nor was there anything they could tell us about Darlene’s departure. Nobody had come. No letter. No phone call had been noticed. Darlene had not said what her new job was or who had hired her. They despised us for not believing she was in Las Vegas.

  I said to the Sergeant when we left, at last, “I may have overdone it, acting Cora Steffani. But was it just coincidence that they mentioned the hands, and the voice, and the businesslike attitude?”

  The sergeant said, “It was very interesting, Miss Hudson.” And our eyes met and both of us privately believed that Cora’s traveling second body was Darlene Hite, all right. I’ve never seen a better demonstration of the difference between belief and knowledge.

  Well, I went back on my tracks, hotel, airport. When I got on the plane for Chicago, one of my fellow passengers was Kent Shaw.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When I got on the plane at 8:00 P.M. a late Los Angeles paper had the story, printed cautiously in a small box, full of hedges and alleges, about Marcus and Raymond Pankerman, Dream Walker carries mystery message? Ned Dancer had got away and the story was out and the fierce light was going to beat on Marcus and the jabber would begin and I felt sick.

  Kent Shaw saluted me with appropriate surprise. He got out of his aisle seat and peered down the plane’s length for two empties, side by side, assuming that we would so travel. But I quickly sat down in the aisle seat opposite his. I was tired, having had no real sleep in something like thirty-six hours, and I wasn’t going to stay awake and talk if I could help it—not to hear his sour comments. I was feeling failure; time had run out. I wanted to be alone.

  Just as soon as we were all buckled in and the door locked, Kent Shaw inclined his head. “What are you doing out here, Ollie? I thought you taught school nine days a week.”

  “Flying trip, obviously,” said I. “Business.”

  His eyes were jumpy. He looked as tense and bouncy as usual, as if only the seat strap held him down. “What do you mean, business?” he demanded.

  “My business,” I said, making a big bright smile as rude as possible.

  “Excuse me, I’m sure.” He subsided with a grimace of his own. We lumbered in mysterious figure-eights over the field. After a while, Kent unfastened his belt and leaned over. “I see your friend, Cora, is at it again.” He looked moist at the mouth, almost as if he licked his lips over this. “Notice the paper?”

  I felt revolted. He was to me a symbol of the pawing and fingering, the terrifying curiosity of millions. And I was exhausted, but he would talk. He was bursting with talk. “Excuse me, Kent,” I said. “I’ve got to do my laundry.”

  “What?”

  I fled to the tiny washroom where the roar and the rattle of flight is so loud. Conquering my sickness, pulling myself to numb but anyhow calmer acceptance, and taking what comfort I could from the homely chore, I washed out my collar and cuffs once more, while we bounced a little over the pass and streaked out above the desert land.

  When at last I went back to my seat, Kent Shaw was humped over, apparently dozing. I softly asked for a pillow and a blanket and spread my laundry, nearly dry already, to hang over the edge of the
seat pocket before me. I went to sleep.

  I’ve wondered. Did I save my life by doing my laundry? Would I have been enticed into telling Kent Shaw that I had heard of Darlene Hite? Would he then have thought I knew too much? I suppose not. After all, he couldn’t get rid of the Los Angeles Police Department. And I didn’t talk. I didn’t tell him. But would he have taken fright, if I had? Did I save Cora’s life, for then, by doing my laundry?

  Now I can guess he was panting to know what I, so close to Marcus, was thinking and doing. But he tried to seem, of course, less eager than he was.

  Anyhow, stupid with sleep in Chicago, I changed planes for Washington, and since Kent Shaw stayed on for New York, I got away. I had no paraphernalia. It was only a matter of slipping on my coat and walking out with the leg stretchers. If Kent Shaw had been working at some cautious way to pump me between Chicago and New York, he was disappointed.

  The morning paper had a bigger, juicier story. Oh, it was out and it would soon be roaring.

  Marcus was just the same, just the same. I hadn’t wired. I took a cab to his house. Charley Ives grabbed me with both hands and smacked my cheek. “What, no suitcase? Come in, coz. There’s a council of war.” He was kind, but I suddenly felt very feeble. What had I been doing that was any good?

  Marcus has a room full of books and papers, deep in the house, and there I found him and embraced him and he was just the same. Not a man who bewails cruel fate or cries, Oh, why have they done this to me! He looked his usual blend of spryness and serenity. And if he was hurt in his feelings he didn’t bother to express it. “Well, Ollie, I hear you’ve done some detective work, too.”

  “Not much, Uncle John.” I looked around.

  Bud Gray was there, calm and alert. Johnny Cunneen was there, miserably angry. Little Ruthie Miller’s nose was pink with woe. Sig Rudolf was there. (He is a lawyer and an in-law.) His broad face, and even his scalp where the hair recedes, was mottled red-and-white, as if his effort to suppress distress and rage were only skin deep. Charley Ives, however, looked easier than I had last seen him. He’d been in action. He and Bud Gray were men of action. They understood fighting, and the waiting involved, too, and all sorts of real things. I could feel I was in the presence of professionals.