In a Lonely Place

by Dorothy B. Hughes

“One’s okay. Meet me here?”

  “I’ll be there, Brub.” He replaced the phone and turned to look on her. She was beautiful, she was younger than he’d thought her on first meeting; she was beautiful in the morning after sleep. Her hair was cobweb on the pillow, her dusky amber-flecked eyes were wide. She didn’t smile up at him, she looked at him with that long wondering look.

  She said, “Who’s first on the shower?”

  He put his fingers to her cheek. He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was. He wanted to tell her all that she was to him, all that she must be. He said, “The one who doesn’t fix the coffee.”

  She stirred, lazy as a cat. “I don’t cook.”

  “Then you do the scrubbing, Lady. And don’t take all day.”

  “You have a lunch date,” she mocked.

  “Business.”

  “It sounded like it.”

  He didn’t dare touch her, not if he were to make it to Brub. He slid away his fingers, slowly, with reluctance. Yet there was a pleasure in the reluctance, in the renunciation. This moment would come again and he would not let it pass. Postponing it would make it the sweeter.

  “Go on,” she urged. “Make the coffee.”

  She didn’t believe that he meant to leave. He surprised her when he rose obediently, wrapped his bathrobe about him. He wanted to surprise her; he wanted her interest. She knew men so well although she was too young to know so well. Only by whetting her interest would she remain with him long enough to become entangled with him. Because she was spoiled and wise and suspicious.

  He put on the coffee in the kitchen and then he went to the front door. The paper had hit the doorstep today, he didn’t have to step outside for it. It was habit that unfolded it and looked at the front page. He didn’t really care what was on it. The story wasn’t there; it was on the second page, the police quizzing friends of the dead Mildred, the police admitting this early that there were no leads. He read the story scantly. He could hear the downpour of the shower. There was no mail in the slot. Too soon to hear from Uncle Fergus. The old buzzard had better come through. He’d need money to take Laurel where she should be taken. To expensive places where she could be displayed as she should be.

  He flung down the paper, went back to the bedroom, impatient to see her again. She was still in the bathroom but the shower was turned off. He called, “How do you take your coffee?” Touching the soft yellow of her sweater there on the chair. Wanting to look on her, to smell her freshness.

  She opened the door. She was wrapped in a borrowed white terry bathrobe, it was a cocoon enfolding her. Her face was shining and her damp hair was massed on top of her head. She came to the quick take of his breath, came to him and he held her. “Oh, God,” he said. Deliberately he set her away. “I’ve got a business luncheon in one hour. How do you want your coffee?”

  Her eyes slanted. “Sweet and black.”

  He hurried as she sat down at the dressing table, hurried to return to her. She was still there when he brought the coffee, she was combing out her hair, her fiery gold hair. He put the coffee down for her and he carried his own across the room.

  “You’d better shower, Dix. You don’t want to be late for that business appointment.”

  “It is business. Someday I’ll tell you all about it.” He drank his coffee, watching the way she swirled her hair below her shoulders. Watching the way she painted her lips, brushed her lashes. As if she belonged here. Jealousy flecked him. She knew her way around, had she been here before? He couldn’t bear it if Mel Terriss had touched her. Yet he knew she had been touched by other men; there was no innocence in her.

  Abruptly he left her, long enough to shower. He couldn’t stay with her, not with the anger rising in him. It washed away in the shower. Mel Terriss wasn’t here. She couldn’t have had anything to do with Terriss. She wouldn’t ever have been that hard up. He opened the door when he’d finished showering, fearing that she might have slipped away from him. But she was there, almost in the doorway. “I brought you more coffee,” she said.

  “Thanks, baby. Mind the noise of a razor?”

  “I can take it.” She was dressed now. She sat on the edge of the tub with her coffee, watching him shave. As if she couldn’t bear to leave him. As if it was the same with her as with him. The burring didn’t annoy him with her there. He could talk through it, gaily. “I knew you’d be busy. That’s why I said okay.”

  “And if I weren’t?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I have a voice lesson at two,” she admitted.

  “What time will you be home?”

  “Why?” she mocked.

  He didn’t bother to answer, only with his eyes. He finished shaving, cleaned the razor.

  “Busy tonight?”

  “Why?” she repeated.

  “I might be free,” he said.

  “Call me.”

  ”I’ll camp on your doorstep.”

  She frowned slightly, ever so slightly. He might have imagined it. Only she said, “I’ll come here.” And she curved her lips. “If I’m free.”

  She didn’t want him to come to her place. It could be the ex, yet how could it be? It could be she was tied up with someone else. She could have lied. There might be a Mr. Big in the background. The man she’d lied to last night.

  He said definitely, “If you aren’t here, I’ll be on your doorstep.”

  She followed him into the bedroom again, lounged on the edge of the bed while he dressed. Gray slacks, a blue shirt—he wouldn’t need a coat, warmth filled the room. From the back of the chair he took the tweed jacket he’d worn last night. He’d forgotten to hang it.

  She said, “That looks like Mel’s jacket. He was a good dresser.”

  He turned with it in his hands. She hadn’t meant anything, it was just a remark. He admitted, “It’s Mel’s,” casually but boldly. “In Rio it’s summer. Mel was going to buy up all the best Palm Beach. He left his old stuff here, told me to help myself.” He explained it, continuing into the closet, the closet filled with Mel’s expensive clothes. “My own things shrank when I was in the service. And thanks to the shortages, I arrived here practically destitute.”

  She said, “I’m surprised anything of Mel’s would fit you.”

  He closed the closet door. “His backlog before he developed that paunch. He was skinny enough at Nassau.”

  He transferred his billfold and car keys.

  She said, “He even left you his car. You must have done him a favor once. I never thought he’d give away an old toothpick.”

  He smiled. “He’s making up for all of it on the sublease. But I did do him several favors.”

  ”At Nassau,” she mimicked.

  “Yeah. I used to speak to him.” He took her arm, steered her to the door. “Is your phone still disconnected?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ll start calling you the minute I’m back here.”

  “I’ll call you when I get back.”

  They were at the front door and she turned to him, into his arms. Her mouth was like her hair, flame. This time she broke from him. “You have a business date,” she reminded.

  “Yeah.” He took his handkerchief, wiped his lips. “Somebody might be in that empty patio.”

  She laughed. “The nice part about departing at noon, Dix, is that no one knows what time you arrived.”

  They left together and he heard her footsteps passing the pool to her staircase. He knew he was behaving like a love-smitten sophomore but he waited by the entrance until she was on her balcony, until she lifted her hand to him in goodbye.

  He’d left his car standing in the street. There hadn’t been time last night to put it away. He was pleased it was there, that he didn’t have to go through the back alley to get it out. He felt too good to do more than step into it and swing away on its power. He was even on time for the appointment with Brub.

  He drove up Beverly Drive, turning over to the city hall. It looked more like a university hall t
han headquarters for the police, a white-winged building with a center tower. It was set in green grass, bordered with shrubs and flowers. There was nothing about it that said police save that the huge bronze lamps on either side of the door burned green. He climbed the stone steps and entered the door.

  The corridor inside was clean and businesslike. A sign directed to the police quarters. He went up to the desk, it might have been the desk in any office. If it hadn’t been for the dark blue uniform of the man just leaving, it would be hard to believe this was the Beverly Hills police station. The pleasant young man behind the desk wore a brown plaid sports coat and tan slacks.

  Dix said, “Brub Nicolai?” He didn’t know a title. “Detective Nicolai. He’s expecting me.”

  He followed the young man’s directions up the hall entered another businesslike room. Brub was sitting in a chair. There were a couple of other men present, a little older than Brub, in plain business suits. They didn’t look any different than ordinary men. They were L.A. Homicide.

  Brub’s face brightened when he saw Dix. “You made it.”

  “I’m seven minutes early.”

  “And I’m hungry.” Brub turned to the other men, the tall, lean one and the smaller, heavier-set one. “See you later.” He didn’t introduce Dix. But they were Homicide. It was in the way their eyes looked at a man, even a friend of one of their own. Memorizing him. Brub said, “Come on, Dix. Before I start eating the leg of a chair.”

  Dix said, “Sawdust will give you a bay window if you aren’t careful.”

  They walked down the corridor, out into the sunshine. “My car’s here.”

  Brub said, “Might as well walk. We can’t park much nearer. Where do you usually eat?”

  “If you’re hungry and don’t want to stand in line, we’ll go to my favorite delicatessen. Or the Ice House.”

  They walked together the few blocks. The sun was warm and the air smelled good. It was like a small town, the unhurried workers of the village greeting each other in the noon, standing on the corners talking in the good-smelling sunshine. He chose the Ice House, it was the nearer, just around the corner on Beverly. Man-food in it. He was surprised that he too had an appetite. Good sleep meant good appetite.

  He grinned across the table at Brub. “For a moment this morning you startled me. I thought you were clairvoyant.”

  “About your redhead?” Brub whistled. “That’s a piece of goods. How did you arrange to meet her?”

  He could talk of her to Brub. And like a love-smitten swain he wanted to talk of her. “It’s time the Virginibus Arms had a good-neighbor policy.”

  “Virginibus Arms? Not bad,” Brub said.

  He realized then that Brub hadn’t known his address until now. He’d given his phone number, not his address.

  “Yeah, I was lucky. Sublease. From Mel Terriss.” Brub didn’t know Mel. “Fellow I went to school with at Princeton. Ran into him out here just when he was leaving on a job.”

  “Damn lucky,” Brub said. “And the redhead went with it?”

  He grinned again, like a silly ass. “Wish I’d known it sooner.”

  “Is she in pictures?”

  “She’s done a little.” He knew so little about her. “She’s studying.”

  “What’s her name?”

  Brub wasn’t prying; this was the old Brub. Brub and Dix. The two Musketeers. A part of each other’s lives.

  “Laurel,” he said, and saying the name his heart quickened. “Laurel Gray.”

  “Bring her out some night. Sylvia would like to meet her.”

  “Sylvia, my eye. You don’t think I’d expose Laurel to your wolfish charms, do you?”

  “I’m married, son. I’m safe.”

  “Maybe. What about that little gal yesterday? Wasn’t she cooing at you?”

  Brub said, “Maude would coo at a pair of stilts. Cary’s sort of a sixth cousin of Sylvia. That’s why we get together. Maude thought you were wonderful, hero.”

  “Did she ever stop talking?”

  ”No, she never stops. Although after she saw you with Redhead, she subdued a bit.”

  It was good to know that it didn’t matter how many saw him with Laurel. That he could appear with her everywhere, show her everywhere; there was no danger in it. Only he wouldn’t take her to Nicolai’s. Not to face Sylvia’s cool appraisal. Sylvia would look at her through Sylvia’s own standards, through long-handled eye glasses.

  “She was certainly hipped on your case,” Dix said. It was time to steer the conversation. “How’s it coming?”

  “Dead end.”

  “You mean you’re closing the books?”

  “We don’t ever close the books, Dix.” Brub’s face was serious. “After the newspapers and the Maudes and all the rest of them forget it, our books are open. That’s the way it is.”

  “That’s the way it has to be,” Dix agreed as seriously.

  “There’ve been tough cases before now. Maybe ten, twelve years the department has had to work on them. In the end we find the answer.”

  “Not always,” Dix said.

  “Not always,” Brub admitted. “But more often than you’d think. Sometimes the cases are still unsolved on paper but we have the answer. Sometimes it’s waiting for the next move.”

  “The criminal doesn’t escape.” Dix smiled wryly.

  Brub said, “I won’t say that. Although I honestly don’t think he ever does escape. He has to live with himself. He’s caught there in that lonely place. And when he sees he can’t get away—” Brub shrugged. “Maybe suicide, or the nut house—I don’t know. But I don’t think there’s any escape.”

  “What about Jack the Ripper?”

  “What about him? A body fished out of the river, an accident case. A new inmate of an asylum. Nobody knows. One thing you can know, he didn’t suddenly stop his career. He was stopped.”

  Dix argued. “Maybe he did stop it. Maybe he’d had enough.”

  “He couldn’t stop,” Brub denied. “He was a murderer.”

  Dix lifted his eyebrows. “You mean a murderer is a murderer? As a detective is a detective? A waiter a waiter?”

  “No. Those are selected professions. A detective or a waiter can change to another field. I mean a murderer is a murderer as . . . an actor is an actor. He can stop acting professionally but he’s still an actor. He acts. Or an artist. If he never picks up another brush, he will still see and think and react as an artist.”

  “I believe,” Dix said slowly, “you could get some arguments on that.”

  “Plenty,” Brub agreed cheerfully. “But that’s the way I see it.” He attacked his pie.

  Dix put sugar in his coffee. Black and sweet. And hot. He smiled, thinking of her. “What about this new Ripper? You think he’s a nut?”

  “Sure,” Brub agreed.

  The quick agreement rankled. Brub should be brighter than that. “He’s been pretty smart for a nut, hasn’t he? No clues.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Brub said. “The insane are much more clever about their business, and more careful too, than the sane. It’s normal for them to be sly and secretive. That’s part of the mania. It makes them difficult to catch up with. But they give themselves away.”

  “They do? How?”

  When is more important. But plenty of ways. Repetition of the pattern.” Brub finished off the pie and lit a cigarette. “The pattern is clear enough with the strangler. It’s the motive that’s hard to fix on.”

  ”Does an insane man need a motive? Does he have one?”

  He lit a cigarette. “Within the mania, yes.”

  Dix said offside, “This is fascinating to me, Brub. You say you have the pattern. Doesn’t that in a way incorporate the motive?”

  “In a way, yes. But you take this case. The pattern has emerged. Not too clearly but in a fuzzy way, yes. It’s a girl alone. At night. She doesn’t know the man. At least we’re reasonably sure of that. This last girl, as far as we can find out, couldn’t possibly have known t
he man. And there’s no slight connection between the girls. All right then: it’s a pickup. A girl waiting for a bus, or walking home. He comes along in a car and she accepts a ride.”

  “I thought you were figuring he didn’t have a car. What were you talking about?”—he appeared to try to remember—”Going into a drive-in to eat—”

  Brub broke in. “He had to have a car. Not in every case but definitely in the last ones.” His eyes looked seriously into Dix’s. “My own theory is that he doesn’t make the approach from the car. Because girls are wary about getting into a car with strangers. The danger of that has been too well publicized. I think he makes the approach on foot and after he has the lamb lulled, he mentions he’s on his way to get his car. Take this last one. She’s waiting for a bus. He’s waiting on the same corner. Busses don’t run often that time of night. They get talking. He invites her to have a cup of coffee. It was a foggy night, pretty chilly. By the time they’ve had coffee, he mentions his car isn’t far away and he’ll give her a lift.”

  Dix set down his coffee cup carefully. “That’s how you’re figuring it,” he nodded his head. “It sounds reasonable.” He looked at Brub again. “Do your colleagues agree?”

  “They think I may be on the right track.”

  ”And the motive?”

  “That’s anybody’s guess.” Brub scowled. “Maybe he doesn’t like women. Maybe some girl did him dirt and he’s getting even with all of them.”

  Dix said, “That sounds absurd.” He laughed, “It wouldn’t hold water in my book.”

  “You’re forgetting. It’s mania; not sanity. Now you or I, if we wanted to strike back at a girl, we’d get us another one. Show the other gal what she’d lost. But a mind off the trolley doesn’t figure that way.”

  “Any other motives?” Dix laughed.

  “Religious mania, perhaps. There’ve always been plenty of that kind of nut out here. But it all comes back to one focal point, the man is a killer, he has to kill. As an actor has to act.”

  “And he can’t stop?” Dix murmured.

  “He can’t stop,” Brub said flatly. He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to go up Beverly Glen. Want to come along?”

  Dix’s eyebrows questioned.