The Expendable Man

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  DOROTHY B. HUGHES (1904–1993) was an American mystery writer and critic. Born Dorothy Belle Flanagan in Kansas City, Missouri, she received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and worked as a reporter before attending graduate school at the University of New Mexico and Columbia University. In 1931 her collection of poetry, Dark Certainty, was selected for inclusion in the Yale Series of Younger Poets. The next year she got married and it was not until 1940 that she published the first of her fourteen mystery novels, The So Blue Marble. For four decades Hughes was the crime-fiction reviewer for The Albuquerque Tribune, earning an Edgar Award for Outstanding Mystery Criticism from the Mystery Writers of America in 1950. The Expendable Man, published in 1963, was her last novel. “I simply hadn’t the tranquility required to write” while caring for her family, she later said. In 1978, however, she published The Case of the Real Perry Mason, a critical biography of Erle Stanley Gardner, and that same year she was recognized as a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. Among Hughes’s best-known books are The Cross-Eyed Bear, Ride the Pink Horse, and In a Lonely Place (which was made into a movie directed by Nicholas Ray and starring Humphrey Bogart).

  WALTER MOSLEY is the author of more than thirty-four books, including the best-selling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins. Among the many honors he has received are an O. Henry Award, a Grammy, and PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

  THE EXPENDABLE MAN

  DOROTHY B. HUGHES

  Afterword by

  WALTER MOSLEY

  NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS

  New York

  CONTENTS

  Biographical Notes

  Title Page

  THE EXPENDABLE MAN:

  Dedication

  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  AFTERWORD

  Copyright and More Information

  THE EXPENDABLE MAN

  For my friend, Charlesetta

  1

  ACROSS THE TRACKS there was a different world. The long and lonely country was the color of sand. The horizon hills were haze-black; the clumps of mesquite stood in dark pools of their own shadowing. But the pools and the rim of dark horizon were discerned only by conscious seeing, else the world was all sand, brown and tan and copper and pale beige. Even the sky at this moment was sand, reflection of the fading bronze of the sun.

  It was good to be out on the road, away from the banging of the town on the other side of the tracks. Driving into Indio after six of an early May evening, the sun-blazing of the earlier hours of the day had become an invisible cloud of heat which lay heavily, suffocatingly, upon the town. Noise had intensified the discomfort, and there was noise—the kind which only a covey of teen-agers in spring could engender. Their cars roared and popped and spluttered, their car radios blared above the din, while their voices screamed and shouted over the combined cacophony.

  Hugh’s intent, on driving in, had been a stop at an air-cooled drugstore. But once he had seen the size and temper of the invading young people, he settled for a drive-in restaurant. It had been a mistake, this he knew once he had parked. Almost immediately the jalopy which had cut across his way not once but often on his entrance to town, came rocketing back up the street and swung precariously into the drive-in’s court. The car was crowded with high school youngsters; he didn’t count them, only observed they seemed to be spilling over the sides of the open chassis. He shut his ears to their din and waited for one of the serving girls to bring him a menu. There were three of these girls, dressed in red band-uniform type trousers and wilted white shirts, topped with bolero-length jackets of the same red. Two were no more than teen-agers, the third a little older.

  He waited for some time. He would have quit the place but he hadn’t eaten since noon. If he were going through to Phoenix tonight, he’d have to eat something now. Between here and Phoenix, there wouldn’t be much opportunity. Therefore he waited, refusing to be driven away by the vulgar young people or the disinclined help.

  Eventually, as he knew eventually it would happen, the less pretty of the young waitresses came to his car and thrust a menu at him. He ordered a bacon and tomato sandwich and iced coffee. It was too hot for anything more. There wasn’t an undue wait for the order to come and it wasn’t bad when it came. The jalopy had roared off with thunderous pipes before then, and he was allowed to eat in peace. Nevertheless he’d been relieved to get out of the town, to cross the tracks into this empty sand world.

  He switched radio stations until he found a Los Angeles one with good pop records, lit another cigarette, and settled back into a comfortable driving position. In spite of the heat in Indio, it wasn’t too hot on the desert here at sundown, not the way it would have been in summer. Most evenings were still cool, the nights chill, on the desert in May. It should be the same in Phoenix—hot days, cool nights, perfect weather.

  He had wound through the small canyon outside of town, and was moving on to the long desert plain, when he noted ahead an extra shadow in the tree shadow marking a culvert. It looked as if there were someone resting under the tree. It couldn’t be possible, here, close to fifteen miles out of town. There wasn’t a car in sight in either direction, and there was no habitation of any sort in any direction. Yet it looked like a person’s shadow.

  It was just that. The shadow, raised up from its haunches, waited for his car to approach. He knew better than to pick up a hitchhiker on the road; he’d known it long before the newspapers and script writers had implanted the danger in the public mind. Most assuredly he would not pick up anyone in this strange, deserted land. But he reduced speed when he approached the shadow, the automatic anxiety reaction that a person might step in front of the oncoming car. He passed the hitchhiker before he was actually aware of the shape and form; only after he had passed did he realize that this was a young girl. From the glimpse, a teen-age girl. Even as he slowed his car, he was against doing it. But her possible peril if left here alone forced his hand. He simply could not in conscience go on, leaving her abandoned, with twilight fallen and night quick to come. He had sisters as young as this. It chilled him to think what might happen if one of them were abandoned on the lonesome highway, the type of man with whom, in desperation, she might accept a lift. The car was stopped. He shifted to reverse and began backing up.

  As soon as the girl saw that he had stopped, she scooped up her belongings from the ground and started running toward his car. Hugh spoke through the open window. “Do you want a ride?”

  She didn’t answer at once. She stood there looking through the window at his face. She was a teen-ager, she might have been one of the girls he’d seen at the drive-in. She wasn’t pretty; her face was just a young, thin, petulant face, too much lipstick on the mouth, wisps of her self-bleached hair jutting from beneath the gaudy orange and green scarf covering her head. She was wearing tight green slacks. A boy’s shirt, too big for her, hung almost to her knees; a dirty white shirt pin-striped in blue. She carried a boy’s jacket, a high school club jacket of maroon and gold. She also carried a box handbag of white plastic in one hand, in the other a small canvas traveling bag. She wore white socks and white wedgie sandals, the kind his younger sister said only the cheap girls wore.

  He repeated his question, a little impatiently because he didn’t like this situation at all, his car stopped here on the road, the girl standing outside looking in at him. At any moment a car from Indio might overtake them, or one appear from the eastern crest of the road. A chill sense of apprehension came on him and he wished to hell he hadn’t stopped. This could be the initial step in some kind of shakedown, although how, with nothing or no one in sight for unlimited miles, he couldn’t figure.

  He spoke up mor
e sharply than was his wont. “Well, do you want a ride or don’t you?”

  “I guess so.” As if in speaking she’d made her decision, she opened the door and piled in.

  He set the car in motion again, picking up speed until he hit the sixty-five-mile maximum for this highway. He didn’t look at her or say anything more to her. From the periphery of his eye, he saw her set her traveling bag on the floor mat, away from him, close to the door. Her soiled sandal touched it protectively, as if it were filled with gold and precious gems. For no particular reason, he was relieved that his suitcases and his medical bag were locked in the trunk of the car.

  Far ahead on the road, he saw the shape of an oncoming car as it lifted itself over a culvert. He switched on his lights. The sky was still pale, the pale lavender of twilight, but the sand world had darkened. It was difficult enough to drive at this hour, the lights would identify the presence of his car to the one approaching. When the other car passed his, headed toward Indio, he saw it was yet another jalopy filled with kids. It was hopped up; it zoomed by, with only scraps of voices shrilling above the sound of the motor.

  In his rear-view mirror, he watched until it disappeared in the distance. Just for a moment, he had known fear. It might have been the same group which had hectored him in town. The trap might be sprung by his picking up the girl; they might swing about and come after him. Only when the car had disappeared from sight, did he relax and immediately feel the fool. It was surprising what old experiences remembered could do to a presumedly educated, civilized man.

  If the girl had recognized the group, she gave no indication. She was slumped down in the seat, her eyes fixed on the long road ahead.

  He held the wheel steady, and lighted another cigarette. He asked then, “How did you get there?”

  “Where?” She was defiant.

  “On the road. Where I stopped for you.”

  “I got a ride that far.”

  “How could you get a ride that far and no further? There are no ranches around.”

  She considered her answer. “I got a ride that far and then I didn’t like—I didn’t like it—so I got out.”

  It could have been true. “Where are you going?”

  “Phoenix.”

  “Hitching?”

  “How else could I get there?” The defiance heightened. “I haven’t got a big Cadillac and money.”

  He was going to ignore her remark, but because of his uneasiness, he didn’t. He said, “It’s a borrowed car.” He didn’t say borrowed from his mother. He spoke placidly, wanting to diminish her tension. “Does your family know you’re hitching to Phoenix?”

  “My family doesn’t care what I do,” she flung at him. She’d have told him it was none of his business but for the fact that, having accepted this ride, she didn’t want to take any chances on losing it. “I’m not running away,” she said. “I’m going to Phoenix to visit—my aunt.”

  There had been a perceptible hesitation, his ear was certain. Just as sure as he was that no family, how little they cared for this unappealing girl, would knowingly permit her to hitchhike to another state, so he was sure she’d invented the aunt. Most likely, her family had given her bus fare for the trip and she’d spent it. She wasn’t going to tell him whom she would visit and he didn’t care.

  “What about school?” he asked.

  “We got a holiday until Monday. Some teachers’ meeting or something.”

  She didn’t hesitate on that, and it explained the number of young people running free in Indio.

  “How old are you?” he asked suddenly.

  She was angry at the question, but she answered. “I’m—eighteen.”

  She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, possibly no more than fourteen or fifteen. One thing certain, she wasn’t any eighteen. She hadn’t the maturity which came imperceptibly at that age. His younger sister, Allegra, at fifteen, no matter what she thought, was still a child. Celeste, the older, coming up eighteen, no longer was. This one was a child, telling her whoppers, expecting them to be believed. He knew now he would not drive her all the way to Phoenix. Not across the state line.

  He asked, “Where are you from? Indio?”

  “No, I’m from Banning.” She spoke too fast, lying again. Even she knew she was caught out; she raced on to ask him, “Where you from?”

  “Los Angeles.”

  “What do you do?” The Cadillac was still on her mind.

  “I’m a doctor—an intern.”

  “Really?” She stretched the word, like a credulous child. Yet the answer had somehow taken away her uneasiness, even her resentment. She half turned in the seat to look over at him.

  “Really,” he said good-naturedly. The response didn’t disturb him. “I’m at the Med Center—UCLA.”

  “Did you go to UCLA?”

  “I did my pre-med there and finished at Northwestern. UCLA didn’t have a full medical program at the time. Then I did my Army stint and now I’m interning.” He was talking with purpose, to keep her relaxed, with a hope of her becoming friendly. If he could get her to that point, possibly he could find out the truth about this trip of hers, perhaps help her. A young girl hitchhiking to Phoenix needed all the help she could find. “Are you in high school?”

  “Yeah, I’m a junior.” She said it with pride. But if she was a junior, she was older than he thought she was and brighter.

  “Do you want to go to college?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t like school much.”

  Again she was retreating, and he made conversation quickly. “I have a sister, a freshman in college. UCLA. She’ll be eighteen this summer. She’s a brain, I guess you’d call it. Not that she’s always in a book, she’s a babe. My other sister, she’s fifteen, is a sophomore at L.A. High. She’s not so much on books but she’s knocking herself out to get college grades so that she can go to UCLA too. She doesn’t want to miss the fun.”

  She said, “If I was going to college, I’d go to UCLA. They have the best teams.”

  “They usually do,” he admitted.

  “Did you play football?”

  “No. I played some basketball.”

  “How tall are you?”

  He smiled. “Only six and a point. Not tall enough to be a star.”

  “There’s a boy on our team is six seven. All the schools are after him. He’s good.”

  “Where does he want to go?”

  “UCLA, of course. If he can get in. You have to have awful good grades to get in there.”

  “Don’t I know it? Doesn’t Allegra know it—that’s my younger sister.”

  “Allegra. That’s a funny name.”

  “‘Brave Alice and laughing Allegra—”’

  She was lost.

  “Don’t you know ‘The Children’s Hour’?”

  “I never watched that.”

  He said gently, “It’s a poem. By Longfellow.”

  “I guess we haven’t had that in school yet.”

  He guessed she didn’t read anything out of school but comics and lurid romance magazines. He said, “My mother said Allegra was laughing as soon as she was born. My mother learned the poem in school when she was a girl.”

  The girl asked then, “What’s your name?”

  “Hugh Densmore. What’s yours?”

  She hesitated rather too long. “Iris Croom.” It might be. The hesitation could mean only that she didn’t want him to know her name. Without warning, she asked, “What kind of a doctor are you?”

  He didn’t quite understand her meaning. He began, “At the moment, I’m not practicing. I’m interning. That means working at a hospital before actual practice.”

  “I know.” She flounced. On television they learned all manner of bits and pieces. “But what are you going to be? A brain surgeon? Or a baby doctor? Or just plain.”

  “I want to do research,” he said. “Cancer research. That’s why I’m lucky to get in at Med Center. They’re doing exciting things about cancer.”

 
He didn’t know if she understood what he was talking about. She was abruptly silent, watching the road ahead. Then again she turned suddenly to him. “I’m hungry.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t even have a candy bar. Didn’t you eat before you left Indio?”

  “I had a malt. But I’m starved now.”

  She wasn’t hinting, there was not so much as a service station in sight. There’d be no place to get food until they reached Blythe. Nor would he stop if there were one, not until he got to Blythe, where he could put her off at the bus depot. “I have some gum.” He felt in his pocket and found the package.

  “Maybe it’ll help.” She extracted a stick and handed the package back to him. He unwrapped a piece for himself.

  “This’ll keep me from smoking so much,” he said.

  After a moment, she stated, “I guess I’ll put up my hair.” She rooted in her handbag, found bobby pins and a man’s black pocket comb. She pulled off her scarf and ran the comb through her hair. She looked even younger with the lank, badly bleached hair hanging around her face.

  “Don’t you need a mirror?”

  “I have one.” She showed him, inset in the lid of her box purse. But she could wind the pin curls without it, there wasn’t enough light from the dashboard for her to see in the mirror. By now it was quite dark outside the car. Johnny Mathis was singing from the radio; she hummed with the song.

  He wondered again just whom she was meeting in Phoenix in the morning. Or was it simply habit that she put up her hair at night. He asked, “Do you have a boy friend in Phoenix?”

  She was immediately suspicious. “Why’d you ask me that?”

  “Putting up your hair—”

  “I don’t want to get to Phoenix looking a mess. It got all wet this afternoon when I was swimming.”

  He didn’t say anything, but it must have been quite a day. From Banning to Indio to the desert highway. Swimming where?