The Expendable Man

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  There was no one near it. The few cars parked at this end of the area must belong to employers or employees who left the more convenient places for the customers. He closed himself in the booth. It was stifling. He palmed the paper from his pocket, put in his coin, and dialed the number. There was no delay in reaching it.

  A metallic recording began without preamble, “If you will leave your telephone number, Mr. Ess will call you. This is a recording. If you will leave your telephone number, Mr. Ess will—”

  He hung up. The recording didn’t specify how soon the return call might be expected. Minutes? Hours? The sun pouring on the metal roof, the narrow confine devoid of air, made of the booth a dangerous sweat box. Could he remain there safely to await a return call? Did he dare tie up the booth for that long?

  He opened the door and stepped outside. There was another possibility. By night Edward’s office would be safe from interruption. And Edward knew what he was about. But it would mean giving the doctor’s number to the criminal outfit, involving Edward definitely in the dirty business. He had no doubt at all that Mr. Ess would check on a number before he returned the call.

  In his frustration and need, it came to Hugh that there could not be a measurable delay in returning the call. Neither party could risk having a third person answer the phone. The area of the booth continued to be avoided. The lady shoppers knew better than to use it when the temperature neared one hundred. Again Hugh entered the box, this time leaving a small aperture for air. Again he dialed the number and reached the metallic voice, but after the repetition of the statement, the recorder stated, “At the beat of five, recite slowly the number to be called,” repeated this instruction. The beats were distinguishable and were followed by silence save for the faint movement of the tape. Hugh covered the mouthpiece with his handkerchief, and after the repetition of the five, read off the number printed on the dial. The silent interval was right for a precise reading. He waited and the record went back to its initial statement, “If you will—”

  He hung up. He did not dare step out of the booth, someone just might approach to use it. He did open the door wider, not that the hot heavy air brought any illusion of refreshment but it made it easier to breathe.

  And he waited. And waited. The perspiration ran down his cheeks like rain, his shirt was like wet paper against his body. He eyed his watch incessantly, then forced himself not to look at it, trying to measure the passage of time in his mind. When he glanced again, three minutes had evaporated. He sucked a mint and his thirst became acute. Why hadn’t he bought a newspaper instead of candy and gum? If he had something to read, the time would pass and the phone would ring. He wiped the sweat from his face with the handkerchief, then hung it again over the mouth-piece. And he waited, stepping into the fastness of the booth whenever an occasional car ran to this end of the lot to make its turn. He was tempted to give up, to believe that the organization would not return a booth call for fear of entrapment. But he waited, just a little longer.

  And the phone rang. He caught it on the first jangle, pushing the door shut with his foot. “Hello.”

  A male voice which might have been speaking through a hospital mask said, “Mr. Ess is returning a call to—” and gave the telephone number.

  “Mr. Ess . . .” Hugh began.

  “Mr. Ess speaking.”

  It wasn’t hard to make the words come haltingly. As they must be spoken by most of those who were forced to deal with this man. “A friend give me your number,” Hugh said.

  “Speak up,” the man commanded. “I can’t hear you.”

  He might be aware that the caller was protecting his voice from identification. But Hugh did not remove the handkerchief. He said louder, “I am speaking up,” and repeated, “A friend give me your number.”

  There was silence at the other end of the wire.

  “A friend give me your number,” Hugh said again. “You see, I’m kind of in trouble . . . I need some help . . . I got a hundred dollars . . .”

  He was interrupted. “The price is five hundred.”

  Neither Iris nor any friend of hers would have that amount. Hugh invented quickly. “I got a job. I could pay you a hundred dollars now and—”

  Again he was interrupted. Dispassionately. “The price is five hundred. Call again.” The connection was broken.

  Thoughtfully Hugh replaced the receiver. He grabbed the soaking handkerchief and in relief stepped outside. Iris had not been put into the merciless hands of Mr. Ess. If by any chance her friend could have raised that kind of money, he would never have wasted it on a girl he wanted only to be rid of.

  Hugh walked back to his car and drove away. The stirring breeze cooled him. There was left Doc Jopher. He wouldn’t go there by daylight, it was too close to Scottsdale. He might not be watched as closely as he feared, but he wouldn’t mock fate by taking his car to the house of a twice-convicted abortionist until he had cover of darkness.

  6

  ELLEN WAS PERFUMED, silken, and inaccessible. For once he was on time, exactly six-thirty as he knocked on her door. Venner’s visit and the ordeal of the telephone booth had been washed away from him by leisurely dressing for the evening.

  “I thought we’d eat at the airport restaurant,” he told her. “The food’s good, the air conditioning is good, and no one will hurry us.” It was also the first fine restaurant in Phoenix to ignore segregation.

  She asked, “Would you like to mix a drink while I gather up my things?”

  “Not tonight. This is my party. We’ll have our cocktails with dinner.”

  Her purse and gloves, a furred sweater were at hand. She checked her key, cut the air conditioning, and they moved to the door. He had it opened when the phone rang. Neither of them moved. It rang again, long, demanding.

  Ellen put her hand on his arm. “Don’t answer it.”

  He hesitated while the after-tone of the bell reverberated in his ears. It began again. He said, “I must.” She let out a forlorn sigh as she followed him into the room.

  He had a prickle of excitement as he lifted the handset. This could be what he needed. It was still daylight, easy to spot the man if he were using the phone in any of the neighboring places. Hugh gave a tentative “Hello.”

  “Dr. Densmore?” It wasn’t the voice he awaited.

  “Yes?”

  “Marshal Hackaberry would like you to come out to his office.”

  This time Hugh did venture a protest. “I was just going to dinner. Would it be possible to come later?”

  The officer said, “You’d better come now. He’s waiting.”

  Hugh choked, “All right. I’ll come.” He hung up. Disappointment was lead in his mouth. “The marshal wants me.”

  She said, “Don’t be worried.”

  “I’m not worried,” he lied. “I’m hungry.” He spilled out futile anger. “Why does he always have to call me at dinnertime?”

  “Possibly because he can’t reach you earlier. At any rate, he’s still asking you to come in, not sending someone to bring you in.”

  Be grateful for small favors. He said, “You’d better not wait to eat dinner. If I can’t get back to take you to Skye’s—”

  She broke in. “For heaven’s sake, Hugh, by now you should know that I won’t be left behind.”

  “No,” he began, but she walked past him, out the door, and into the car. He was in time to close the car door after her. He said, “I don’t want them to see you. I don’t want them to know about you.”

  She waited until he was at the wheel before she answered him. “It’s no good. They know about me. This is the second time they’ve found you at my apartment. I’m not afraid of anything they could say to me. I’m Ellen Hamilton and they can’t change that.”

  She didn’t know Venner, she could never have been exposed to a Venner. When they approached the Scottsdale station, he asked, “Won’t you drop me and get something to eat at Victor’s? To tide you over?”

  “No,” she replied, as if her ans
wer had been waiting for this question since they left the motel. “You and I have a dinner date. We dressed for it, we’re ready to go on with it as soon as the marshal finishes his business with you. I’m going in with you simply to remind him tacitly of these items. Maybe next time he’ll be more considerate.”

  She didn’t intend to change her mind, therefore he didn’t argue with her. Instead he helped her from the car and down the steps into the station. The two deputies in the anteroom did not conceal their wonder over Ellen’s entrance. Hugh stopped before the nearest man and said, “Marshal Hackaberry called,” as if he had never before entered the place.

  “He’s waiting for you.” The man was eying Ellen, but not offensively, rather with a cool curiosity. “You can wait here, miss.”

  “Thank you very much,” she said. She walked with Hugh only as far as a corner chair. “I hope it won’t take long.” She smiled, as if they both knew the call was trivial. The play-acting carried him to the marshal’s door without tremor.

  Hackaberry wasn’t alone. Ringle’s chair was pulled close to the desk and he was prodding with a heavy forefinger the contents of a report. Venner wasn’t present; it was too much to be hoped that this respite would continue.

  When Hugh entered, the two men were immediately silent. They glanced down the room at him, not speaking; Ringle with a ponderous satisfaction, Hackaberry rather as if he’d never seen Hugh before. Hugh waited just inside the door, unsure, unable to understand the changed attitude of the marshal. They could not have found anything damaging in the medical kit or on his car tools. There was nothing to find.

  The marshal pushed back his chair. “Did you drive out here this evening?”

  “Why, yes.” He didn’t comprehend.

  “Will you show us where you left your car?” The marshal strode down to Hugh, nodded at him to follow. Ringle ambled in the rear.

  Hugh said, bewildered, “It’s outside, right in front of the Town Hall.” He didn’t glance toward Ellen as he accompanied the men through the outer office, out the door and up the steps to where the car was parked. One of the deputies, the one who had been in charge of Mr. Crumb, joined Ringle as he passed. For one awful moment Hugh wondered if something had happened to Iris’ father, if somehow his car could be involved. But this was impossible. The car had not been left by the motel long enough last night or today to be borrowed and returned. It could not have happened at his grandparents’ home; if the killer knew that Hugh had moved there, the harassment would also have moved.

  He asked, “Do you want the keys?”

  He was ignored. Ringle was half stooping, examining the fenders. Marshal Hackaberry was close by his side. The deputy was there to guard Hugh. Not overtly; he stood apart, but when Hugh moved, he too moved. And his thumb absently rubbed over the leather gun case at his hip.

  Ringle was surprisingly agile as he suddenly squatted beside the left front fender. His hand disappeared under it and he looked up at the marshal. “Something’s there.”

  Hugh swept forward, his shadow with him. “That’s crazy,” he said. “There couldn’t be.”

  The marshal had bent down and pushed his own hand under the curve. He stood up again. He said to Ringle, “Let’s see it.” Then he looked at Hugh and he sighed. He said nothing, turning his back to watch Ringle. The heavy man was on his knees, his hands working to free something affixed beneath the fender.

  Hugh watched, hypnotized, unable to believe. When had this frame been stealthily fitted to him? Last night at Ellen’s? The night before? Or as early as Sunday night; while he slept, did the murderer prearrange proof of guilt, to be divulged at the right moment?

  Ringle puffed to his feet. What he held was wrapped in a grease-stained piece of flannel, one that might have been discarded at any garage. It was wound with copper wire and heavy black masking tape. The ends dangled unevenly. Ringle loosed the wire and unwound the tape without destroying the pattern made by the cloth. He shook out the contents on his open palm. It was a small, common wrench, indistinguishable from any other of its size and years of use.

  Hugh became aware that all three men were studying his face. He said, and he knew he sounded hysterical, “It isn’t mine. Someone’s trying to frame me. I never saw it before. You know it isn’t mine. You took my tools to the lab.”

  Hackaberry broke through. “We’ll go back inside.”

  Ellen would know from his face as they passed. She would get to Skye in time, before he could be formally arrested, printed, locked up with no hope of proving the truth. He didn’t dare look at her lest he start babbling again.

  The marshal marched over to his desk. “Sit down,” he ordered. They sat as they had on other occasions, Ringle to one side of the desk, Hugh opposite the marshal. The difference was the deputy guarding the door. Ellen wouldn’t know, she couldn’t hear through that closed door.

  Hackaberry bumped down into his chair and picked up his pipe. Ringle carefully deposited the weapon on top of the marshal’s papers, as if it were another paperweight. The silence was unendurable, but Hugh kept it during the interminable time it took the marshal to pack his pipe and set it to smoldering. He then said to Hugh, “You’re entitled to call your lawyer.” There was no more hope, he was to be charged with the murder. “I’ll get him if you like.”

  There was no trickery to the offer, the phone was at the marshal’s hand. “Thank you. I would like him here.” At least the hysteria was out of his throat, he could speak as factually as the others.

  Hackaberry spoke into the mouthpiece. “Get Skye Houston for me.”

  Would Skye be at home yet? Or was he at the airport meeting Meg? Or with some other clients at dinner? He must be found in time to prevent this arrest.

  Hackaberry said, “You deny knowledge of this?”

  “You know it isn’t mine.” Hugh tried to make the words reasonable. “You went all over my car the other night.”

  “Not under it,” Ringle stated.

  Hugh continued, separating his thoughts with care, “If it had been mine, if I had used it to murder, you can’t believe I’d have kept it in such a precarious hiding place. I’d have had plenty of time and opportunity to get rid of it.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Ringle’s absent smile held all the knowledge and vagaries of uncounted criminals met in years of service. “Might have been you’d be afraid somebody’d see you throwing it away. Might have worried you that somebody would stumble across it, somebody always does, and it would be traced back to you. Might be you’d figure it was safer to hide it until we let you go home, where you’d know how to get rid of it so it would never turn up.”

  Hugh said, “You can’t trace it to me because it isn’t mine.”

  “We won’t find your fingerprints on it.” Ringle poked at it with a pencil. “You can tell it’s had a good run. But may be we’ll find out where it was bought and who bought it.”

  “I hope so,” Hugh declared.

  “May be we won’t. May be it was bought a long while ago at the five-and-ten or some big hardware store where they won’t remember. Could be it was sold in L.A.”

  It would confirm his guilt to them. It was too much to believe that the murderer had once gone to Los Angeles and bought a simple tool.

  The telephone jangled and the marshal grabbed it. “Yeah,” he said. “We’ve got your boy here. The probable murder weapon was hidden under his car.” He scowled at the crackling of the earpiece. “That’s your opinion. Do you want to get over here before I charge him?” Briefly he listened, then said, “I’ll wait just that long.” He broke the connection with an angry hand. He said to Hugh, “The lab will find out if this is the weapon. You know that. We’ll wait for your lawyer to get here before we continue.”

  Ringle took out a cigar and lit it. It was a good cigar. He spoke almost affably. “Why don’t you make it easy on yourself and tell us what happened?”

  Hugh repeated hopelessly, “I’ve told you and told you. I never saw Iris alive again after I sent h
er away Friday night. I had nothing to do with the operation or with her death.” His words fell into a vacuum of unbelief. And there came to him what should have come before, if he hadn’t been disturbed beyond reasonable thought. “Who told you to look under the fender of my car? Did you have another anonymous tip?”

  The marshal had the decency to look abashed, but Ringle said, “I don’t mind where a tip comes from. As long as it proves out.”

  Hugh cried to the marshal, “And you don’t believe I’m being framed?”

  The marshal studied his face, then his eyes went beyond to the door. Skye Houston was entering. He greeted Hugh with a quiet “Hello there” in passing. He stood before Hackaberry, tall, arrogantly disgusted. “Just what is this all about?”

  Hackaberry said, “A call came in late this afternoon from a man who identified himself as staying at The Palms. Two nights ago he saw a man—the description fitted Densmore—hiding something under the fender of a white Cadillac with California license plates. This is what we found there.” He indicated the wrench.

  “Did your informant have a name?”

  Hackaberry flushed angrily. “He’d been reading about the murder and worrying about what he’d seen and decided to call us before he left town. No, we didn’t get his name. He wouldn’t give it. He’s a businessman and doesn’t want the publicity of being involved in a murder case.”

  Ringle said without interest, “Venner’s looking into it but he won’t find out anything. They come and go at the motels. This guy was checking out right then.”

  Houston was icy. “On this you intend to arrest my client?”

  The marshal snapped, “On this and other evidence, I intend to hold him on suspicion of abortion and murder.” The scorn on Houston’s face made him break out in an appeal to the lawyer, “For God’s sake, Skye. With all I have, how long do you expect me to sit on my hands?”