The Big Bite

by Charles Williams

  I said, “Sure, sure,” and on the way out I saw a 1950 Chevrolet tagged at $595. I looked at it once, kicked the right front tire, and went on toward the sidewalk. They hauled me back, rubbed the Chevy up against me with a lingering, hot-bellied caress and said we could do business for five and a quarter. I fumbled in my pockets and dropped the folder of hundred-dollar traveler’s checks on the ground, and said I guessed I’d look around. I got almost to the sidewalk again. I drove the Chevy around the block while a salesman pointed out how they’d just refurbished the frammistan and put new whirtles in the springerwarp, and I said sure, but maybe his sister was diseased. Very young, he said; first time piecee, she don’t catch nothing from sailors. It was a one-owner car used by an elderly clergyman just to go back and forth from the parsonage to the church on Sundays when it was raining. I said, sure, you could see that; he’d only rung up 76,000 miles on it and had the fenders ironed out so often you could read Braille through them. But, hell. It ran, and the motor sounded all right. I offered $425. They said $500. We all cried some more. I came in on the second chorus with an offer of $450, and started for the street again. We closed at $475, with a free tankful of gas and an offer to clean the windshield.

  “Never mind,” I said. “Just kiss me, and help me up.”

  I drove it around to a parking lot not too far from the bus station, and put the bags in. It was one-thirty. The next stop was a pawnshop. I picked up a second-hand portable typewriter, a pair of 7-by-50 binoculars, and a Colt .45 automatic. Then I stopped at a sporting goods store, after thinking it over, and bought a box of ammunition for the gun. I didn’t like the idea, but this wasn’t a child’s garden now: Stowing all this in the car, I looked up the biggest store in town that specialized in sound and recording equipment. I was there nearly two hours getting a thorough fill-in on tape recorders and trying out the different models. When I left I had a good one with a sensitive microphone designed for wide-angle pickup. I caught a cab and went back to the lot with it. After putting it in the trunk of the Chevy I walked out to the corner again. A boy was calling the final edition of one of the afternoon papers. I bought one and sat behind the wheel as I shuffled through it. They had found Purvis.

  “Private Investigator Slain,” the second page story led off. “The body of Winton L. Purvis, 38, private detective and former insurance investigator, was discovered early this afternoon in his apartment at 10325 Can line Street. He was apparently struck on the head with terrific force by some heavy object, though no trace of the murder weapon was found at the scene. Police are as yet without clue as to the identity of the assailant, but are convinced he is a large man of great physical strength.”

  There wasn’t much more. Apparently it had broken just in time to get the bare essential facts in the last edition; there’d be more tomorrow. But there was enough here to start it rolling—the address and the fact they were looking for a big man. I hoped that cabby wasn’t sitting behind his wheel somewhere in the city as I was, leafing through the paper.

  Well, the ball had to bounce—one way or the other. But I couldn’t sit here and waste time. I switched on the ignition and rolled out into the river of traffic. Mrs. Cannon, here I come.

  5

  Wayles . . .

  I tried to remember it as I drove. It was a small town, a county seat, built in the old style around a square and a brick courthouse where pigeons cooed in the early mornings and made a mess of the red walls with bird lime at all times of the day. I’d lived, in several just like it when I was a kid growing up; there are a thousand of them in the south. Just driving through, you wouldn’t think there’d be anybody in one of there who’d be worth $300,000, but it would fool you. There are always a few, the second and third generations, the business families who made it in cotton and timber and sometimes in oil or banks or real estate. I shook my head impatiently, watching the headlights bore a tunnel in the darkness. That didn’t matter. I knew she had it. I was trying to remember something about the town. I thought there was a hotel at one end of the square. I hoped there was, for it was important.

  It was odd now, to think I had been there for near five weeks and was still this vague about the actual layout of the square, but I hadn’t lingered after I got out of the hospital. As soon as I was able to drive I just got into the repaired Buick and shoved for Oklahoma City. Wayles? I’ve had Wayles, buster, and I give it to you. In Oklahoma City I’d had some more medics proofread the leg for typographical errors and they said the local talent had done a good job and that was as good as ever. It was there I’d finally signed clear with the insurance company.

  There were two or three likely-looking motels with vacancy signs out in the edge of town, but I passed them up. If I had to, I could come back, but I wanted that hotel if it was where I thought it was. The highway from Houston came in the southwest corner of the square, ran along the south side, and then went on straight east. It was after ten p.m. and few cars were on the street. I passed the courthouse and slowed, and then I saw it on the east side of the square, just where I vaguely remembered it and hoped it would be. The sign said Hotel Enders.

  It was near the middle of the block. I turned and went up the east side and slid into the loading zone. The entrance was through a screen door between a dress shop and a jewelry store, both closed now but throwing light out onto the walk from their display windows. I went down a narrow corridor on cocoa matting. There was a small lobby at the end and some stairs beyond the desk. A bridge lamp was burning near the cigarette machine and to the left was a wire rack of paperback books. An airplane type fan on a standard was droning away in a corner, keeping the stale air in circulation even if it didn’t cool anything. A fat woman with short gray hair and jowls like a bulldog was reading a magazine at the desk. A colored boy about eight feet long was folded up and stacked in one of the armchairs against the other wall, asleep, with sections of arms and legs dangling out onto the floor. He wore an old maroon jacket with an ROTC type collar, and shoes like overnight bags. The woman looked up at me from her magazine with the unwinking stare of one of the more haughty types of turtles.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “You got a single with bath?” I asked. “In front?”

  She nodded. I signed the register. She looked around the edge of me,” and snapped, “Raymond!”

  Nothing happened. I put the pen back in the hold and turned just as she let him have the other barrel, “Ray-mond!”

  He whimpered a little, and moved one of his feet which was a neat trick in itself without a dolly. “Don’t get him up,” I said. “He might fall on somebody. I’ll bring in the bags.”

  “Parking behind the hotel,” she said. “Turn in at the alley two doors down.” She nodded her head toward the corridor going on through to the rear of the building. “Just bring your bags in through the back.”

  I drove the car around and unloaded. It was very dark. Two other cars were parked in the area. I had already put the gun and binoculars in one of the bags. Locking the typewriter in the trunk because I didn’t need it tonight, I took the two bags and the recorder, which was in a case that looked like any other piece of luggage when it was closed—and walked toward the oblong of light where the rear door of the hotel had opened. Raymond shuffled out and took the bags; I held onto the recorder. He led the way through the lobby and up a flight of stairs. The room was near the end of the corridor on the second floor. He unlocked the door and we went in. He snapped on the light. It was any third-rate hotel room anywhere, iron bedstead, dingy spread, worn carpet, and a dresser covered with a pane of glass under which was the card that would tell you about the Bonton Cleaners and the Black Cat Café. The only thing I actually saw in it was the window. The blind was pulled all the way down so I couldn’t see out now, but I had a hunch the location was just right. Raymond goofed around, opening the closet and then the bathroom door as if he half expected bats to fly out of them. Maybe he’d leave in the next day or two and I could get a look out that window.

&n
bsp; “Anything else, Cap’n?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. I handed him a dollar. “Go buy your feet a bowl of chili.”

  He drifted out and closed the door. I threw the bolt, snapped off the light, and stepped quickly across to the window. Raising the blind, I looked out. It was good. It was like a sniper’s nest, covering a pass. The whole square was spread out in front of and below me. I could see everything except the area directly beyond the courthouse and the section of the sidewalk just under me. If he lived in Wayles, I’d see him. Even if he worked in one of the outlying side streets and lived in the edge of town he’d come around the square sooner or later because all the principal business section was here.

  People were coming out of a movie on the north side. Some more were stooging around the front of a drugstore on the corner beyond it. A few went past along the sidewalks on the south side, mostly couples with the women looking in the lighted store windows. I stepped back and unsnapped one of the bags, groping in it for the binoculars. Sliding them out of the case, hunkered down by the window and adjusted the focus. Their faces leaped up at me. Pretty girls, teenagers, housewives, men of all sizes and ages. I saw no one who looked anything like Mrs. Cannon, but there I were several men well over six feet. It wasn’t going to be easy. The population of the town would probably be between six and eight thousand, and this was Texas, where they grew tall. There’d be a lot of men the size of the one I was looking for. I could see a little of what Purvis had been up against and why that big goon had been able to move in on him like that. He couldn’t have remembered the faces and descriptions of all the oversized men in a town this size.

  I swept the glasses on around the square. On the west side, partly cut off by the dark bulk of the courthouse, a sign caught my eye. —NNON MOTORS. That would be it. I knew that—in addition to other things—he had owned an automobile agency. Most of the showroom was in view behind its plate glass window. I readjusted the focus slightly and it all leaped into hard, sharp detail. I could see the white sidewalls of the tires on the display models, the door opening off the showroom floor which presumably led into an office, and the counter further to the right where the parts department was. I could even see some gaskets hanging on hooks behind the counter. This was luck. There was always good chance he was somebody who worked there, and if he were he had as much privacy now as a goldfish.

  There was no use looking any more tonight. I pulled the blind down and switched on the light. It was fine so far. The success of the whole thing depended on my finding him before he knew I was here looking for him, and I was in a good spot to do it. Success, hell, I thought, lighting a cigarette. It was more than that. If I didn’t find out who he was before he found out who I was, I’d wind up where Purvis had. I had to spot him fast, or he’d be stalking me from behind while I was still looking.

  I put the glasses back in their case and opened the recorder. I hadn’t been able to try it out thoroughly and test it under operating conditions in the store because naturally I couldn’t explain what I wanted to do with it. Finding a wall outlet behind the writing desk, I plugged it in, turned it on, and cranked up the gain. There was a long cord on the microphone. Putting back the sheet and bedspread, I shoved the mike under them and then threw my jacket over it, covering it completely. It wouldn’t have to be that muffled under actual operating conditions, but the room would probably be larger. Going into the bathroom, I turned on one of the taps in the wash basin. I turned it off. I whistled a few bars of some popular tune, very softly. Coming back into the room, I picked up the telephone.

  When the lady bulldog at the desk answered, I said, “I’d like to leave a call for six o’clock.”

  “Six o’clock. Thank you,” she said.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I took the change out of my pocket and placed it on the glass top of the dresser. Through the open window floated the sounds on the street below. A car went past, its tires squealing a little as it made the turn at the corner. A horn beeped, and a kid’s voice said, “Hi, beautiful.”

  1. That was enough, I thought. I wondered how much I of it I’d got. Rerolling the tape, I switched in on play back and cut the gain way down. Water ran out of the tap and I could even hear my shoes squeaking on the linoleum in the bathroom. I whistled. The telephone knocked against its cradle. It all came through. I let it run out to the end. “Hi, beautiful,” the speaker said softly, just above the level of the tube hiss and background noise. Perfect, I thought. I coiled the power cord and mike cable and put them back in the case and I locked it.

  I undressed and turned out the light. It was very hot and the sheet stuck to me with sweat. I got up and I turned on the overhead fan, which helped a little. Fifty thousand. Seventy-five. A hundred thousand. After taxes, I thought, grinning coldly. The gasoline tax, driving up here. But the figures were too big to have any actual meaning. You couldn’t imagine that much. Sure, over a period of five years, or ten, working for it. But not in an afternoon. Not by just walking in and telling her, “I’ll take a hundred grand off the top. Slip it in my I hip pocket, honey.” It was a dream. It was too simple and easy to be real.

  The hell it was. She had it, didn’t she? She had it and plenty more, and where was the percentage in being rich in Death Row? She’d be able to see that, without any trouble. There was plenty for both of us. Hell, at a hundred thousand I was the biggest bargain since free lunch and the nickel beer.

  * * *

  I awoke before six and almost by the time my eyes, were open excitement began to take hold of me. This was the day. I could feel it. I rolled out of bed and stepped to the window. Pulling the blind back a little, I peered out. The square lay peaceful and almost deserted in the growing light. There was no breeze, but the air was faintly cool and there was a fresh early-morning-in-summer look about the scene that reminded me of when I was a boy in other towns like this, of riding my bike out in the dawn to go fishing for crappies and goggle-eyes in some creek in the country where everything would still be wet with the dew. Jesus, you’re a lyrical bastard, I thought. Go ahead and remember the rest of it, like how it was stepping over the old man where he’d passed out in his own vomit in the middle of the bedroom floor. And don’t forget that old sow he used to bring home with him when he was crocked to the eyeballs. There was a dewy sight in the dawn.

  On the north side of the square, a few doors this side of the movie house, an all night café was open. The only cars in evidence in the whole square were parked in front of it. While I was watching, two men wearing hard hats and carrying lunch boxes came out, got in one of the cars, and drove off. Pipeline workers, probably: Get in gear, I thought. If I wanted any coffee or breakfast, I’d better get it now. I took a quick shower. While I was rubbing down with the towel, the telephone rang. It was the six-o’clock call, a man’s voice. I dressed and went downstairs. The gray-haired woman and Raymond were gone. The man behind the desk was pleasant looking and middle-aged, with brown eyes and steel-rimmed glasses. I dropped the key on the desk.

  “Good morning,” he said. “Are you staying over?”

  “I may,” I said. “I’m headed for a fishing trip out at Swanson Lake, but I might wait over and go tomorrow. Don’t feel too well, for some reason. Something I ate last night, I guess.”

  “Stomach cramps?” he asked sympathetically.

  I shook my head. “Just a little upset. Think I’ll try some coffee and orange juice, and maybe a couple of aspirin, and see what happens.”

  I cut across the corner of the square. There were five or six people in the restaurant, mostly hard hats and a truck driver or two. A blonde with a Georgia accent brought me some toast and a cup of coffee. I bought two packs of cigarettes and came back to the hotel. The square was still quiet except for the pigeons flapping around under the eaves of the courthouse.

  “Any better?” the brown-eyed man asked.

  “Not much,” I replied. I grabbed a couple of the paperbacked books off the stand and dropped fifty cents on the
desk as I picked up the key. “Think I’ll stay in the sack for a while. Tell the maid just to pass up my room.”

  “Sure thing,” he said. Then he added, “We can get you a doctor, if you’d like.”

  “It’s not that bad,” I said. “Thanks just the same.”

  I went up to the room. Stripping down to my shorts because it was going to be hot, I slid the binoculars out of their case and put them on the carpet under the window. I placed an ash tray beside them, and a pack of cigarettes and some matches. I sat down on the floor and raised the blind about three inches. By putting my face up close I could see nearly all the square. There was practically no chance anybody down there would notice me; this side of the building would be shadow until noon. Who ever looked up at the second floor anyway?

  Hardly anything was moving yet. A bakery truck stopped before the café on the north side and a man went in carrying a tray of rolls. About halfway down the block on the south side a man on a stepladder was cleaning the windows of the J. C. Penney store. Yellow sunlight hit the gables of the courthouse, inched down the slopes of the red tile roof, and began to shatter in hot sprays of color against the third floor windows. The cool freshness of early morning was wilting a little. It was going to be a scorcher. I got up and turned on the fan, and brought a towel from the bathroom to mop the sweat from my face.