Wild Town

by Jim Thompson

  He bathed, shaved, and dressed. By seven o’clock, he had finished his dinner in the coffee shop and was out of the hotel.

  And it would be a good four hours before he was due on the job.

  He’d already seen the picture playing at the local movie house. He had no money to waste on gambling, even if he had been inclined toward such diversions. And nothing can be more wearisome than simply driving or walking around, with no objective in mind.

  So he stepped into a drugstore and called Amy Standish’s house. He wanted to see her; he had meant to, he guessed, from the moment he had waked up. He had a feeling that being with her again would do much toward expunging the memory of his session with Joyce Hanlon.

  She didn’t answer the phone. He hung up with an annoyed sense of having been mistreated. He could be like that, almost childish. Once he decided to do something, he wanted to do it right then. And he was unreasonably affronted if he couldn’t.

  She’d said he could see her again, hadn’t she? Well, why couldn’t he then? Why didn’t she stay at home like she ought to?

  He walked around for a half-hour, and called again. Still no answer. Smoldering and stubborn, he continued to call at thirty-minute intervals. And, finally, a few minutes after ten o’clock, she answered the phone.

  By that time, of course, it was too late to see her. To do anything more, that is, than get out to her house before he had to turn around and come back.

  “Oh, Mr. McK—Mac,” she said, and was there or was there not a trace of disappointment in her voice? “Were you trying to get me a little while ago?”

  “Probably. Been trying to get you all evening,” Bugs grunted.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’d just stepped in the door, and I got to the phone just as fast as I could, but—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Bugs cut in gruffly. “I just thought we might have got together for a soda or a drink or something. Ridden around a little while. But I suppose you probably enjoyed yourself a lot more with—doing something else.”

  The phone went silent. Quiet with rebuke, or indecision. Then, she spoke, not with coolness, perhaps, but something not too distantly akin to it.

  “I was working, Mac. At the library.”

  “The library? I thought you were a teacher.”

  “I am. The library’s in the school, and it’s only open in the evenings. We teachers have to take turns serving as librarian.”

  Bugs waited, not knowing quite what to say. Feeling that it was up to her to go on from that point.

  At last, he broke the dragging silence with a gruff “I see. And I suppose you’ll be working there tomorrow night, too.”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I will. I have these two nights together.”

  “I see,” Bugs said again. “Okay, forget it. Sorry I bothered you.”

  He started to slam up the receiver. Her quick cry stopped him, just before it went down on the hook.

  “Wait, Mac…Mac!”

  “Yeah? Yeah?” he said quickly. “I’m still here, Amy.”

  “I was just going to say that I’ll be through by nine, or a few minutes after. Just as soon as I can get the patrons out and lock up. If you’d like to meet me then…”

  “Swell! Fine,” Bugs exclaimed. “I mean, yeah, I can do that. I guess that’ll be all right.”

  She drew a quick breath. She frowned; he could hear the frown in her silence, just as he had heard the rebuke. And then—and he knew it as well as he was standing there—she was smiling. It began with her lips, curving them with lovely tenderness. It spread slowly over the heart-shaped face, dimpling her cheeks, gently indenting the laugh lines. And then it was in her eyes, lighting them up as though the sun had arisen behind them.…

  “Mac,” she said. “Mac, you’re crazy.…”

  “Huh? Well, yeah,” Bugs admitted sheepishly. “I guess I probably sound like it sometimes.”

  “Fortunately, I like crazy people. Particularly those named McKenna who work as house detectives. Now, isn’t that a happy coincidence?”

  Bugs swallowed. A warm pleasantly prickly feeling spread over his hulking body. There were a thousand things he wanted to say, and he couldn’t cut loose with one of them.

  Amy’s voice came over the wire, soft and understanding. “I’m glad you called, Mac. And I’ll look forward to seeing you…And, now, good night.”

  And very gently, she broke the connection.

  Bugs returned to the hotel, walking on the sidewalk, ostensibly, but seemingly treading on air. It was preposterous to feel that way over a girl who—over Lou Ford’s ex-girlfriend, if she was his ex. But that was the way he did feel, and nuts to whether it was preposterous or not. In fact, with very little effort, he managed to exclude Ford from his thoughts about her. He could cut that tin-starred lunk out of the picture as completely as though he did not exist. Which, to Bugs’s way of thinking, would have improved the world by several thousand per cent.

  There were two telephone call-slips in his room box. Two requests that he call Mrs. Hanlon. Bugs ripped them into shreds, dropped them into a sand jar, and started on his nightly rounds.

  It was an unusually quiet night. A good night, Bugs supposed, to take Mike Hanlon along with him. Still, there wasn’t any rush about it, and he didn’t feel like carrying on an extended conversation, as he would have to with Hanlon. So he dropped the idea, and went it alone.

  There was a little ruckus on the tenth floor—some poker players in a corner suite. Bugs asked them to quiet down, and, replied to with belligerence, he quieted them. He elbowed one guy across the windpipe. He grabbed another by his necktie and slapped him in the chops. He hustled the remaining two—who had been drinking heavily—into the bathroom, and shoved them under the shower. Then, he gathered up the cards and chips, tossed them down the waste chute, and calmly departed.

  That was the only trouble he encountered on his whole tour (although Bugs could hardly regard an incident so innocuous as trouble). Well, there was a very small rift in the routine on the sixth floor: A guy was pounding on a door with the butt of his six-shooter, threatening to kill his wife as soon as he got inside. But he was just drunk, and the gun, which Bugs took away from him, proved to be empty. So there was really nothing to get the wind up about.

  Nothing else happened. Nothing, that is, that was worth a second thought in Bugs’s opinion. By a few minutes after one, he had completed his rounds and was back in the lobby again.

  Leslie Eaton was talking on the telephone as he started past the desk. He saw Bugs and gestured to him, silently mouthing a name. Bugs shook his head and went on toward the coffee shop.

  Joyce again. Well, let her call all she damned pleased. When she got tired maybe she’d quit. He no longer felt obligated to her. Neither, needless to say, did he feel constrained to be pleasant or polite to her. She was a tramp; she couldn’t lose him his job, do anything at all to hurt him with Hanlon. And she was smart enough to know it.

  The night wore on uneventfully. Strolling about the hotel, wandering through the always amazing world that was the back-o’-the-house, Bugs wondered about Westbrook: What had happened to the little man? How had he disappeared so suddenly and completely? And yet, there was really nothing much to wonder about, was there?

  The manager had been without hope, convinced that he was thoroughly and finally washed up. As an alcoholic, then, he had taken refuge in booze. Abandoning all else before it could be taken from him—as he was sure it would be. Holing up in some dive where he could drink and drink and drink, until…?

  It was too bad, Bugs thought sadly. It just went to show that a man shouldn’t throw in the sponge too quickly. All Westbrook would have had to do was make a clean breast of things to Hanlon. If he had done that he would still be on the job, none the worse except for an A-1 chewing-out.

  There was something else that Bugs wondered about. A riddle which, at last, would no longer be ignored. What had become of the five thousand—or whatever the exact sum was—that Dudley had stolen?
/>
  Certainly, the auditor must have had it. Specifically, he had had it in his trousers—their zippered money-belt, rather—from which, he assumed, Bugs had stolen it. You just couldn’t account for his attitude in any other way. You couldn’t, at least, except by a fantastic stretch of the imagination. And that being the case—

  Bugs’s thoughts reached this point, and could go no further. So he indulged in some of the aforesaid imagination-stretching…Hell, Dudley might have stashed the loot somewhere and forgotten that he had. Or, well, maybe he’d lost it. Or maybe it wasn’t the dough that he’d gotten so excited about. Maybe he hadn’t stolen it, and it had been something else that had made him make that wild lunge at Bugs.

  You couldn’t be sure…could you? The room had been dark. They’d hardly exchanged a half-dozen words. And everything had happened so fast, been over and done with in the space of seconds.

  Yeah, Bugs thought, there was bound to be some “simple” explanation for the missing money. Just about had to be. Otherwise…well, he wouldn’t let himself think about that. He preferred to think about Amy Standish, and this new life he was building for himself. And he did.

  He turned in early again that morning. He again hung the “Don’t Disturb” sign on his door, and left word to the same effect with the telephone operator.

  He got another good day’s sleep. He had dinner in his room, and by eight o’clock was on his way out of the hotel. Passing the desk, he saw two white oblongs in his key-box. He grinned sourly and went on, leaving them there…A pretty stubborn gal, this Joyce Hanlon. Well, let her be. It didn’t bother him any.

  The school—a combination high and grade—was on the immediate outskirts of town, adjoining the brief blocks of houses which comprised the “old family” section. Bugs idly circled the ancient red-brick structure. Then, since it was still well before nine o’clock, he drove back past the austere old houses, looming aloofly in the night like so many box-like fortresses.

  Driving as slowly as he could, it took him no more than a couple of minutes. He returned to the school, and parked.

  At a minute or so after nine, the double-doors of the school opened and a trickle of people—youngsters and a few adults—came down the walk. A few minutes later, the building lights that had been on went off and Amy came out.

  She smiled and squeezed his hand as he helped her into the car. He restarted the motor, asked her where she’d like to go.

  “Oh, anywhere. Just so it’s not too far. I have to work tomorrow, and I know you don’t have much time either.”

  “Well. Like to turn into town—pick up a couple drinks?”

  “No!”—the word came out almost sharply. And then she laughed, with a trace of sadness and apology. “This is a small town, Mac. The people are pretty free and easy about some things, but never their women. And they’re the direct opposite of free and easy when it comes to women school-teachers.”

  “I see.” Bugs yanked the car into gear. “You have to be careful about your reputation.”

  “Yes,” she said evenly. “I have to be careful about my reputation.”

  They rode over to the highway, to a recently erected drive-in restaurant. After consulting her stiffly, Bugs ordered malted milks and hamburgers. He had no appetite for the repast, but she ate hers to the last bite and swallow. Gaily, making a joke of it, she even finished the French fries he had left on his plate.

  By then it was ten o’clock, and time to be going. At least, she said timidly, she was afraid she’d have to. “I was up so late the other night, you know, and…”

  “I know,” Bugs grunted. “But that was on a date with Ford. That made it all right.”

  “Yes. With someone I’ve known all my life, someone I supposedly was going to marry, it was all right.”

  “And anything else would be.”

  “No, anything would not. In fact…” She left the sentence unfinished, her voice trailing away wearily—and worriedly. Then, she sighed and said, “I’m sorry, Mac. That’s about all I can say at this point: that I’m sorry.”

  “What the hell?” Bugs shrugged. “You don’t owe me any explanations.”

  “No, I don’t. Or any apologies, either. I simply said I was sorry because I like you, and I thought it might make you feel better.”

  Much of Bugs’s hurt and anger went away, and his feeling of compassion returned. He stopped the car in front of her house, turned humbly and faced her.

  “I’m a dope,” he said. “A big fat-headed dope. And you can take that as an apology and explanation.”

  “All right…” Her smile came back. “And, Mac, I would like to see you longer than this. Just for an hour or so, it hardly gives us time to say hello, does it? So would you like to come here and have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

  “Would I?” Bugs beamed. “But that would be a lot of trouble for you, and—”

  “No, it wouldn’t. Not in any way. There’s a Negro woman who used to work for the folks. I can get her to come in and help, and by the time she’s eaten herself and got things cleared up…”

  He’d be gone. There’d be a third party with them throughout the evening.

  She looked at him, obviously anxious but too proud to press the invitation. Choking back his resentment, Bugs said he’d be very glad to come to dinner.

  “Then it’s all settled. You can come early, around six, and we’ll have the whole evening together. And now”—she leaned back in the seat, held her arms out—“If you’d like to kiss me good night, I’d like to have you.”

  Bugs drew her to him. He kissed her not at all in the way that he wanted to nor in the way that, subconsciously, he felt that he was entitled to. It was no more than a gentle touching of their lips, and his arms were loose around her body.

  She drew her head back, studied his hard face dreamily. She brushed a lock of hair from his forehead and said, “Thank you, Mac. Thank you, very much.”

  “You’re thanking me? What for?”

  “You know. For not spoiling things. For not making me feel that…But I knew you wouldn’t. You couldn’t with eyes as kind as yours.”

  “Yeah,” Bugs said gruffly. “Kind of screwy, you mean.”

  “I mean, kind, good. Like they had seen so much hurt that they could never cry enough.”

  “Hell, I never cried in my life.”

  “Then I think it’s about time. And I think you’ll be happier when you do. But, anyway…” Her voice sank to a drowsy murmur. “Kiss me again, Mac. And, Mac, if you want to do it a little harder…”

  He kissed her again, a very little harder, only a little less chastely. She thanked him simply, as she had before. And then they said good night and parted.

  Bugs drove back to the hotel, very happy and pleased with himself. Ignoring the tiny voice which jeered him for a chump and insisted that he was a sucker.

  He felt good. He had a nice thing going here. Why wonder about its niceness, then? Why take it apart to see what made it tick?

  He stopped at the desk, and got the stuff out of his box. He almost tore the letter up before he discovered that it was a letter, and not another of Joyce’s call-slips.

  Absently, his mind still on Amy, he sat down in a corner of the lobby and opened it.

  11

  Mr. McKenna: You killed Mr. Dudley. I know you did because I was in the bathroom, and I heard everything that happened. And if you are stubborn or uncooperative, I will see that Mr. Lou Ford knows about it. You have a choice, Mr. McKenna. You can mail five thousand dollars to me, at the address below, or you can go to jail—perhaps, to the electric chair. Naturally, I’d prefer that you did the former, since telling what I know would necessarily be embarrassing for me, and would make me nothing. But I will do it, if I don’t get the money. The choice is up to you, Mr. McKenna. Better not delay in making it.

  Jean Brown,

  c/o General Delivery

  Westex City, Texas.

  The letter was printed neatly in pencil; the text as well as the address on
the envelope. It was postmarked Westex City, but that was just a dodge, of course. The blackmailer was right here in the Hanlon, someone who had been on intimate terms with Dudley, and who knew enough about him, Bugs, to know that he had two strikes against him.

  It had to be. Also, considering the circumstances of the blackmailer’s rendezvous with Dudley, it just about had to be a woman. One of two women. For Bugs could think of only two with the necessary qualifications. Both would have some knowledge of his past. Both would have or could have known Dudley well. Both could come and go about the hotel without attracting attention.

  Joyce Hanlon? Well, she was capable of it, all right. And it would perfectly suit her purposes to swing a club like this at him. She wouldn’t actually want the money, of course. It would simply be a means of making him sweat, crowding him into a corner. Then she would step in and offer him a way out.

  Unfortunately—unfortunately since Bugs wanted her to be the culprit—he knew that Joyce could not have been the lady in the bathroom. He’d talked to her seconds after Dudley’s tumble from the window. She couldn’t possibly have got from Dudley’s room to her own in time to receive that call.

  So that left Rosalie Vara; she had to be it. Rosie whom he had always liked and gone out of his way to be nice to.

  She’d gotten the five grand, and now…Well, maybe Dudley had kidded her that he had more, another five. Or maybe she was just making the old college try.

  A man may not have much, but he’s apt to bust a gut getting it. If it seems the only way to stay out of jail or the chair.

  Bugs shredded and re-shredded the letter, and dropped it into a sand jar. He guessed he must have kind of been expecting something like this—although not from Rosie. Because he was worried, naturally, but not greatly surprised. This was the kind of lousy break he always got. It would have been damned strange if he got anything else.

  But he’d smartened up a lot since his last bad break. And he had a lot more to fight for than he’d used to have. So maybe he’d wind up catching it in the neck again—catching it worse than he ever had before—but he sure as hell didn’t plan to. What he planned (and the details were already forming in his mind) was something else entirely.