In a Lonely Place

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  Lochner gave him a chance to settle down. The Homicide chief was as drab as before, as tired of it all. He waited for Dix to light a cigarette before he spoke. “Thought maybe you could help us, Mr. Steele.”

  Dix lifted his eyebrows. He didn’t have to pretend to be puzzled. “I’d be glad to. But how?”

  “It’s that Bruce case.”

  His hands didn’t twitch. He lifted his cigarette calmly to his lips.

  “Nicolai told you something about it.”

  “Yes.” He might have spoken too quickly. He added. “You mean the English case?”

  “Yeah. You knew the girl?”

  “Yes.” He directed a small glance at Brub. “We both knew her. A wonderful girl.” Lochner was waiting for him to say something more. Dix didn’t fumble. There were several things he could have said. He chose a surprised one. “Are you taking over that case, Captain Lochner?”

  “Uh-uh,” Lochner said. “But I got to thinking—”

  Dix nodded. “Brub told me your idea. It could have been the same man.”

  “I got a list.” Lochner rooted out a paper from under grub’s hands. “These men were friendly with the Bruce girl. All Americans. All in England when it happened. Now I wonder if you’d look it over.” He held onto the paper, swinging it in his hand. “Just read it over, see what you can remember about these men. Anything they might have said or done. Anything you can remember, no matter what it is.” He pushed the paper at Dix suddenly. “Here.”

  Dix got up from his chair, walked to the table. He didn’t look at the list as he carried it again to his chair. There was a trick in this. Some kind of a trick. He hadn’t been called in to look over a list. He took his time studying the names, keeping his expression grave, thoughtful. Time to think. To get ready for questions. When he was ready, he smiled up at Lochner, moved the smile to Brub. “My name’s on it,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Lochner nodded.

  Brub said, “But you’d been transferred before then, Dix. I told Jack.”

  “My transfer wasn’t completed until after I returned from Scotland,” Dix explained, as if surprised that Brub didn’t know. “I had a month’s leave, accumulated.” Brub hadn’t known. Brub had been shipped out before the changes.

  “You came home after that?” Lochner asked.

  “No,” Dix answered. Walk softly. “I was sent to Paris and into Germany. On the clean-up. I was overseas another year.” Say nothing of the months in London. He’d been proud of the cushy job. Adjutant to the general. Say nothing. Lochner was too snoopy. Dix’s war record was none of his business.

  “Then you saw something of those men?”

  He couldn’t deny knowing the names. Brub knew them too. They were, most of them, part of the old gang. Some he’d liked; some he’d have liked to kick in the teeth. For instance. Will Brevet. If Brub weren’t sitting here, he could send Lochner looking into Brevet. But with Brub present, he couldn’t. Brub knew the louse had tried to grab off Brucie.

  Dix shook his head. “I’m sorry but I didn’t. I was transferred immediately after my leave. I didn’t run into any of these men after I left.” Sure he’d run into Brevet in London, he’d even pubbed with him one lonely night. He could lie about that. Lochner wasn’t going to track down all these guys.

  Whatever the purpose of this summons, it wasn’t to look into the whereabouts of a bunch of harmless guys or of Will Brevet. It was funny, in this small world, that Dix hadn’t run into any of them after he left London. Not even after he got back to the States. But that was how it turned out, even in the small world.

  He walked over and handed the list back to Lochner. He faced the chief squarely. “I don’t know a thing against any man on this list. They were all swell guys. There isn’t a one of them that could have had anything to do with—with what you think.” He’d delivered the defense stirringly; he meant what he said. Brub’s eyes applauded. “Is there anything else?” Dix asked quietly.

  “That’s all.” Lochner’s big forefinger rubbed over the names. “I guess that’s all, Mr. Steele.” For a moment, his eyes weren’t sleepy. “You can’t blame a guy for trying,” he said.

  He took his list then and walked out of the room, through a communicating door. Dix looked at Brub.

  Brub tilted back his chair. “I’ve tried to tell him. He wouldn’t take my word for it.” He brought the chair forward again. The legs hit hard on the floor. “You can’t blame him for trying. Even if the administration weren’t riding him, he’d feel the same. It’s a personal failure. That these things could be happening while he’s the chief.”

  Dix sat on the edge of the table. “Yes, I can see how he’d feel.” He took out another cigarette, lit it, pushed the pack to Brub and held the lighter. Held the lighter right under Brub’s nose. “It’s hard lines. For you, too.”

  “We’ll get him,” Brub said. There was fight in him, no defeat now.

  “Keep me posted. I’ll want to know how you brought it off. The tec who solved the perfect crimes.”

  “They aren’t perfect,” Brub said softly. Then he turned his head fast to look at Dix. “You’re going back East soon? Thought you said you’d be around some weeks more—or months.”

  “I may have to take off sooner than I expect,” Dix grimaced. “The beckoning hands of business.”

  “Don’t just disappear,” Brub warned. “I want to give you an aloha ball. That’ll bring you back.”

  “I’ll make my farewells.” He slid off the table. “I won’t take up any more of your valuable time now, Brub. Give me a ring and we’ll have lunch or dinner in a day or so. How about it?”

  “Sure.” Brub walked with him to the door. When they reached it, he asked, “How was Scotland?”

  He’d forgotten that tangent, it took him a minute to balance the question. He answered, “It was wonderful.”

  “I didn’t know you traveled there.”

  “Yes.” He was thinking about it, not the way it was, the way he’d wanted it to be. “She loved it so. She talked so much about it. It was everything she said.” And she was dead, but no one had known. Brub was thinking, and Brucie was then dead but Dix hadn’t known.

  Dix lifted his shoulders, lifted the memory away. “So long. Brub.” He didn’t look back; he let Brub remember him as a strong man, a man who could, after a first shock, keep his sorrow in check.

  He’d carried the whole thing off well. If Lochner had been playing a hunch, he’d lost his wad. He knew now there was nothing to get out of Dix Steele. There was nothing damning in being in Scotland when Brucie died. There was nothing damning in having been in London afterwards. Except that he’d told Brub he knew nothing of what had happened. He might have been expected to know from London. Actually there’d not been a thing in the papers to tie unrelated crimes with the death of Brucie. He’d never seen Brucie’s name in print. But he didn’t want to go into such explanations, they sounded like alibis. He had no alibis; he needed none.

  The car was where he’d left it. If the police had gone after dust, they hadn’t taken much. The floor mat was no cleaner than it had been. He felt swell only he was hungry. It was too early for dinner, not more than a bit after four. A big delicatessen sandwich and a bottle of beer wouldn’t spoil his dinner. Not after the starvation wages he’d been on today.

  He was lucky, finding a parking place directly in front of the delicatessen. He was always lucky. He ought to kick himself for the megrims he’d had these last couple of days. Something must be wrong with his liver. Or perhaps he was coming down with a cold. From that nap on the beach. Actually he knew what was wrong. It was having Laurel walk out on him. If she’d been around he wouldn’t have had a case of nerves.

  He ordered salami and swiss on rye with his beer. Someone had discarded an afternoon paper in the next booth. He reached out for it, folded it back to its regular paging, first page first. The story was still on first. The police had given up questioning the fiance and the college friends and the father; they were satisfie
d none of them knew any more about the Banning case than did the police themselves. The police were talking fingerprints now. That was a lot of eyewash. Sand didn’t take fingerprints.

  Lochner was probably having the force develop fingerprints off that piece of paper right now. Because Lochner would be thorough. Or maybe he’d had them lifted off the steering wheel, you could get dandies off a steering wheel. Only trouble was he had nothing to match them up with. A beachful of sand.

  Dix enjoyed the sandwich. The beer tasted fine. So good that he considered another but he didn’t want to hang around here. The phone might be ringing at the apartment. Laurel might be waiting there. He bought a couple of bottles to take out and he hurried away. His luck had turned, and that meant Laurel was coming home.

  He was left-turning off the drive when he caught sight of the car. The same shabby black sedan with the same two average men in it. He was certain it was the same. He slowed his speed, eased his car around the block. He drove the entire block and the car didn’t show up behind him.

  Rage flushed him. It was reasonless to imagine such things now. He’d come through the interview with banners flying, he’d had a good snack, all the indications were that luck had caught up with him. He couldn’t revert, even for an imagined moment, to the weaknesses of these last days. He wouldn’t let it happen.

  As he was crossing the intersection, he saw the car again. It hadn’t followed him around the block. It had come the other way to meet him. It followed him to the apartment. It was almost as if the men didn’t care if he knew they were following. As if they wanted him to know.

  When he parked in front of the apartment the other car plodded past. He didn’t get a good enough look at the men to recognize them again. They didn’t have faces to be remembered: they were background men, familiar only in their own setting, in the front seat of an old sedan.

  Slowly he entered the patio, thinking, trying to understand. He’d passed Lochner’s examination; he was sure of it. Why should he still be followed? He hit on an explanation, the men didn’t know it as yet, Lochner hadn’t had time to call them off. He took a deep breath of relief. Luck hadn’t defaulted, she was still along with him.

  Automatically he raised his eyes to the balcony. He stopped short, his eyes widening in disbelief. The door to Laurel’s apartment was ajar. He didn’t think about who might be watching, he didn’t care. Laurel had returned.

  He covered the patio quickly, ran up the stairs, reached the door in seven-league strides. He was about to tap but he let his hand fall. He’d walk in on her, surprise her. He still carried the sack of beer. They would celebrate.

  Softly he entered the small foyer, moved through the arch into her living room. It was better than Mel’s living room; she’d had an even better decorator. It was as exciting as Laurel herself, silver-gray and gold and touches of bronze; in this room Laurel would glow, it had been fitted to display her as a Reingold window displayed a precious jewel. The room was empty. But the apartment wasn’t empty; he could hear the water running in the bath. She’d come home! She was getting bathed and then she’d dress and they’d have a swell evening. He was so excited that he couldn’t have called out to her if he’d wanted. But he wanted to surprise her. He set the beer down on the couch, carefully, so that the bottles wouldn’t clink. And he started softly towards the bedroom door.

  He passed the piano, a magnificent baby grand of a strange, bronze-looking wood. The piano had caught his eye before. It was meant to. He must have noticed the photograph, but he hadn’t seen it. He’d taken it for granted, a picture of Laurel or of someone in her family. It wasn’t. He saw it now. A too handsome, patent-leather-haired gigolo, smiling his too pretty smile, holding the inevitable cigarette wisping smoke. It was a theatrical photo and it was inscribed in bold and banal theatrical style. “To the only one, the wonderful one, Laurel. With all the love of Jess.”

  Dix was turned into stone. He knew he had been turned into stone, he was fully conscious of it. The heaviness, the coldness, the roughness of stone. He was perfectly normal otherwise. He could think more clearly than ever. This photograph wasn’t something old, someone discarded. It still held the place of honor. Nor was it something new. Not that new. The look of the ink wasn’t that new.

  He was surprised that stone could have movement. Movement that was noiseless. He entered the bedroom, her bedroom, as lush, as feral as she. From the dressing table, that face smirked at him. From the bed table that lace leered. From the chest of drawers, whichever way her eyes would lift on waking, she could see only that face. As if the man were a god, her household god. And she’d cheated on him! She’d cheated even on her god.

  The sound of running water had ceased in the bathroom. There were only little sounds, the gathering up of towels, the closing of a medicine cabinet. He stood there waiting.

  Chapter Seven

  When the door opened he was as silent as stone, only his eyes had movement. The door opened and the cleaning woman came out. She took one look at him. Her face twisted, her voice was shrill. “What you doing here? Don’t you look at me like that! Don’t you yell at me!” She lifted the bath brush, threatened him.

  He spoke with quiet dignity, “I thought Miss Gray had returned.” He turned and stalked out, leaving her standing there brandishing the brush. He stalked out of the apartment. But he picked up the beer as he passed the couch. He wouldn’t leave it for the vicious old harridan.

  He didn’t relax until he was within his own apartment. The hag would go running to the manager. Sniveling about a man yelling at her, about a man following her to Miss Gray’s apartment. A certain man. The one in Mr. Terriss’ apartment. He wouldn’t deny he’d spoken to her sharply. Not yelled at her, a gentleman didn’t yell at a charwoman. He’d spoken to her courteously, asked her not to use the vacuum cleaner this day. That was perfectly reasonable. He wasn’t the only man who couldn’t stand that infernal din. As for his following her to Miss Gray’s apartment, that was absurd. He’d gone upstairs to see if Miss Gray had returned from her trip. He would deny, of course, that he’d entered the bedroom. He had been in the living room when the char appeared and started berating him. His word was certainly better than that of a desiccated old hag.

  He put the beer on ice. He didn’t want it now. He was cold, too cold. He poured a shot of rye. To warm him, for no other reason. He didn’t taste it when it went down his throat.

  There had been another man all along, a man she loved, the way Dix loved her. Perhaps the way in which her husband had loved her. There had always been this other man. She couldn’t marry him, Henry St. Andrews had fixed that. It explained her bitterness against St. Andrews. She couldn’t marry Jess because he didn’t have enough money to give her what she wanted. She didn’t love even Jess enough to give up the luxury she’d learned with the rich man.

  Why had she played Dix? Why had she given him what she had, where had Jess been then? Dix rocked his head between his tight palms. Why? She alone could tell him: if there’d been a lovers’ quarrel, if Jess had been on tour, if she and Jess had decided to split up and do better for themselves. But it hadn’t worked. She’d gone back to her love, her little tin god.

  And after she got into it with Dix, she’d been afraid to tell him. Because she knew him too well. Because she knew that he wasn’t a man to give up what was his. She had been his; brief as it was, in that time, she had belonged to him. She’d even cared for him. He knew it, he wasn’t fooling himself on that angle. That was the hardest part of it to face. She had cared for him. The way in which Brucie had. But he’d been second best. He’d been good enough only if the number one was out of the way.

  He sat there while the early twilight dimmed the room. Sat there and hurt and bled until he was again cold and tough and unyielding as stone. Until even the hot blade of anger gave him no warmth.

  He sat there trying to understand. So many things. Why he had been born to live under the rules of Uncle Fergus. Why he couldn’t have had what Terriss had, what
St. Andrews and the Nicolais had without raising a finger. Why Sylvia had distrusted him. From the first moment he’d walked into their house, he’d known she raised a barricade against him. Why? Why had she been suspicious of him, without any faint reason to arouse her suspicion?

  Brub had said it once: Sylvia looks underneath people. Yet how could she see what was beneath the facade? Brub had not been suspicious; even now Brub didn’t trust his suspicion. Yet Brub listened to Sylvia and passed it on to Lochner in line of duty. How could they suspect him? He could open the pages of his life to them; they would find nothing there. Why, why should they suspect?

  There were no slips, no mistakes. There had never been. There would never be. He had no fear, no reason to fear. They could not hold him. He would go back East. He’d get the trunk off tomorrow by express. He’d go by plane. He’d tell Brub goodbye. Goodbye Brub, goodbye Sylvia. Thanks for the buggy ride.

  He could find a room, not too far away, a room to hole up in for just a few days. Once he was gone, Laurel would come back to her apartment. He’d be in the shadows watching. He’d take care of Laurel before he actually left town. He would take care of Laurel.

  The room was dark now, he sat there in the heavy darkness. His fingers ached, clenched in his hands. His head was banded with iron. He’d been hounded all of his life by idiot fate. He’d had to smash it in the face to ever get anything good. He wasn’t licked. He could still smash, walk over the broken pieces, come up bigger than ever. Bigger and smarter and tougher than anyone. He was going to get what he wanted. He was going to have money and he knew where he was going to get it. Once he had his hands on the money, there’d be no more second best for him. He’d be the top man wherever he wanted to go. No one would put him in second place again.

  While he sat there he heard the steps in the patio. He swung around quickly and looked out. It wasn’t Laurel. It was some man coming in from the office, brief case in hand. The man entered one of the apartments across the court.