Night Call and Other Stories of Suspense

by Armstrong Charlotte

“But—”

  “I deduce,” said Toby, “that he has a safe place of his own not far this side of the diner. Come on, we’re going to rent some transportation.”

  “Will they let us?”

  “We’ll find out as soon as we try.”

  “Oh, it was all my fault, Toby. I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, none of that,” he said. “It was not your fault that Byron died. It was not your fault that a thief or thieves came along. It was not even your fault that I drove over the border. Nothing is that simple, Annie.” He was looking at her intently. “Wouldn’t you rather go than sit here?”

  “I sure would,” she said. And they left the hotel, arm in arm.

  Nobody stopped them from renting a car, although it was obvious that someone was following them. A dark car with a single man in it. But Toby shrugged him off as they started on their search.

  Just before reaching the diner, they began to cruise up and down the streets of a straggly neighborhood, a poor section—a hodgepodge of small dwellings, a few shops, gas stations, and small unprosperous-looking warehouses, standing among weeds and rubbishy vacant lots. They noticed many Mexican faces. Then they began to see the uniforms: the police were here too.

  “I guess they also thought of it,” Toby said glumly.

  They thought of it, mused Ann, and now the police will simply look. In every weed patch, in every gully, in every rubbish heap. Very simple, that way—but it takes time.

  She wished, as much as Toby did, that they could somehow cut the search short. Was there anything more to deduce? Any good guesses? We are innocent travelers, she thought—at least, we were. Now, in the clutch of these circumstances, is there nothing at all that we can do to protect ourselves?

  She said aloud, “St. Christopher sure didn’t do much for us, did he?”

  “Hold on,” said Toby sharply. “None of that, Annie.”

  But she smiled at him. “Don’t worry about me, Toby. I’m not going to break down.”

  “Good girl,” he murmured.

  A moment later he stopped their rented car in front of another diner. “We can’t do what the cops are doing. And what else we can do doesn’t occur to me. No point in just riding around. Come on, let’s take a coffee break.”

  He smiled at her, helping her out.

  They paid no heed to the dark car that pulled up and parked behind them, but went into the place which at this hour of the afternoon seemed deserted. It was, however, a popular place. There was an enormous juke box and the tables were well-scarred. The establishment bore, in fact, the raffish air of a neighborhood gathering spot, by night.

  The man behind the counter was small, plump, smiling, and a born host. He rested on his pink-shirted elbows and was obviously glad to see them. “Say, you folks notice all them police cars around?” he said at once. “I guess they’re after somebody in the neighborhood. What do you know?” He was a born gossip, a man who liked human companionship.

  Toby did not volunteer what they knew. But Ann, pulling up her wits and her spirits by a kind of prayer within herself, said, “What kind of neighborhood is this?”

  “Oh, it’s a crazy mixed-up neighborhood, all right, ma’am. But not too bad. People just kinda come in all kinds, you know how it is. I’d sure like to know what’s up, though. Well, meanwhile, what can I do for you good people?”

  He exuded a keen curiosity and an enveloping good will. Ann felt that he wasn’t missing a thing about them—their status in life, their relationship with each other, or their common aura of discouraged anxiety.

  She said, “I’ll bet you know everything about everybody who lives around here.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he objected, but not at all displeased. “I’m kinda interested in people, you know? I will say I never get lonely. Now, what can I do for you good people?” he repeated, with curious emphasis.

  Ann had a strange sensation of leaping off an edge, of suddenly rising, on wings, from solid ground.

  “I think I’ll tell you,” she said. “Will you please show us how to find a young man who lives around here, who hasn’t very much money, who wears jeans, who plays an instrument, or perhaps he sings, or both, who is pretty good at it, almost a professional, who has a friend, a buddy he always runs around with . . . ?”

  Toby was staring at her. She felt like staring at herself.

  The man behind the counter looked thoughtful, then said, “You mean Eddie Rodgers, I guess.”

  “Do I?” said Ann.

  “Americanized his name—lots of them do, you know. Yeah, he’s really pretty clever on the guitar. Probably he’ll get places. Lives with his Mom and his sister. Old man Rodriguez died three or four years ago, right after he got his family into the States. Well, Josephina does the best she can, but I wouldn’t say they was rich. Oh, the kid Eddie will get his break one of these days. This buddy he’s got, though, this Cliff Something-or-other, he comes from somewhere else. I only seen him about two or three times, but he looks to me like he’s got nobody in back of him. Know what I mean?” The little counterman looked sorry.

  Ann had her breath back. “Where does this Eddie live?”

  “Why, he lives right down this street—say, three blocks. I can’t give you the number. And they ain’t got no phone.” Ann stirred. “But listen,” the man said, “there’s been a death. I mean, Ysobel, that’s the daughter, she comes here and calls the priest, only a little bit ago.”

  Toby’s mouth had fallen open but Ann could speak. “Do you know who died?”

  “No, Ma’am, I really don’t. Ysobel, she was upset, I could see that. Thing of it is, there’s no older man to die—not in that family.”

  As Ann slipped off her stool, and Toby from his, the little man’s face began to fall. He would miss them. So Ann cried out to him, “We’ll be back and tell you all about it. I absolutely promise you.”

  The little man took this strange speech exactly as she had meant it. He beamed on her.

  Outside, Ann said, “I could see my green suit in the plastic bag. But the dinner clothes—yours and Mr. Reynolds’—were gone. I remembered they were gone!”

  “But who would steal a dinner jacket?”

  “A bridegroom. A waiter. Someone who works at night. Say, an entertainer. That’s why I said someone who plays an instrument, or maybe sings.”

  “We ought to tell the police,” Toby had her arm and they were almost running.

  “The police,” she panted, “are right behind us.”

  They hurried, counting off three blocks, and the policeman from the dark car followed them. Then they saw the priest, standing in the weedy front yard of a very small house, talking to a dark-haired young girl. Ann ran up the path, with Toby behind her and the policeman trailing.

  “Yes? Please?” The dark-haired girl rolled huge frightened eyes.

  The priest said to Ann, gently, “Perhaps you don’t realize there is a death here.”

  Ann said, “Father, do you know the deceased? Is he one of your own people?”

  The priest shook his head. His intuition was very strong. “Perhaps you can help us.”

  “Please?” Ann looked at the girl who began to cry.

  An older woman had come to the open door, and the priest spoke to her in Spanish. With a cool, proud look the woman inclined her head, inviting them in.

  They all trooped through a neat front room, past the blank eye of a TV set, into a dim bedroom where, on an immaculate white spread, with his limbs straightened, his eyes decently closed, his waxen face peaceful, and dressed decorously in his own dinner clothes, Byron Reynolds lay between tall candles . . .

  It was a good while later that Ann and Toby came back to the diner, as they had promised they would.

  Their little friend in the pink shirt was a marvelous listener.

  “Looks like,” Toby began to wind it up, “the kids wanted the dinner clothes most, but decided to take the whole car. When they got it out of sight, in back of Eddie’s house, they started to poke ar
ound, found the body, and were scared out of their wits. They rushed off with the car, leaving the body. They wouldn’t touch it, but Josephina and her daughter—they have respect for the dead.” Toby swallowed.

  Ann took up the tale. “Josephina couldn’t bring herself to betray her son as a car thief—that’s how the priest translated it. But she did what she considered most important, what she knew to be the right and absolutely necessary thing. She laid Mr. Reynolds out and she prayed for his soul.” Ann swallowed.

  Toby said, “The priest was having a hard time explaining the law to her—about a death certificate and everything.”

  “Uh huh,” said their friend. “Found Eddie, did they?”

  “Hiding in the shed. His buddy is not long for the streets either,” Toby said. “I don’t want to press charges, not against Eduardo.” Toby was gloomy. “I mean, on account of his mother.”

  “Do Eddie all the good in the world to be punished for a stunt like that,” said their friend.

  “His mother doesn’t think so, but—well, we just couldn’t.”

  “You people going to get into any trouble?” The man poured more coffee.

  “Mrs. Reynolds’ lawyer got here,” Toby told him, “and he says that if the autopsy shows natural causes, then there’ll be no trouble. But that’s what it has to say—we know, we were there. So the Mexicans will shrug, Mr. Bixler thinks, since Bryon was not one of their nationals and no crime was committed in Mexico.”

  “It’s the Americans who are mad at us,” Ann continued, “for getting him across the border the way we did. But—especially if Mrs. Reynolds is grateful—I guess we’ll just get our wrists slapped.” Nevertheless, Ann sounded downhearted.

  “So?” said their friend softly, not missing their state of depression.

  “I felt like giving Eddie my dinner jacket,” Toby burst out, “but we didn’t dare.”

  “We didn’t want to offend,” said Ann. “We just didn’t know. I feel like such a slob, such an ignorant lazy slob, not knowing anything about a different people. Any different people from me. How they think. How they feel. Or what counts with them.”

  “I know just what you mean,” said the little man, beaming on her. “Look at this poor Eddie. Now, he could always rent a dress suit, if he should get a job where he needs one. The job itself would be his credit. Or, I can name you ten people, right around here, who would have stood in back of him, to that extent. But some folks—his old man, for instance, as I remember—they think a debt is a kind of shame. But I mean, in this country, people expect people to get a loan and pay it back. I wish Eddie would have looked around and noticed the way we do things. Probably he’ll learn, though. So cheer up, good people.”

  Ann said, “You helped us, you know.”

  The man’s eyes twinkled. “Say, can I fix you a burger? Or a taco, maybe?”

  Back at the hotel, after the news came through that poor Byron Reynolds had had a heart attack, the Hartmans made ready to go down to a late dinner. Toby snapped his fingers.

  “I’m thinking of our little friend, the counterman,” he said. “We forgot to tell him one little touch—the St. Christopher Medal on the dashboard. He’d have enjoyed that—protector of travelers, and so on.”

  Ann smiled at him. “Yes, but no matter,” she said. “Didn’t you notice? He is St. Christopher.”

  Armstrong’s title certainly brings to mind the expression “Waiting for the other shoe to drop.” The inherent suspense in searching for a missing object, and then, wondering when it is found if it is the right object, leads characters in this story to take desperate actions. As characters calculate the timing of their whereabouts in order to ensure an alibi, Armstrong reveals her own strategy at constructing a tightly knit plot. A shoe-in choice for EQMM, this story appeared in 1962.

  THE OTHER SHOE

  “Jenny.” A hand on my bare arm pulled me away from the group around the piano in the den. “Celia and Blair, in there . . .” Carmen said. “Look, I’m a pretty easygoing hostess, but Blair is drunk and Celia is screaming at him and it isn’t funny any more. Do you think you could stop them?”

  “Oh, Carmen, I’m sorry. But Celia pays less than no attention to me.”

  “She’s your sister.”

  “Stepsister,” I corrected.

  Carmen’s big eyes flashed. “You better do something—for Blair’s sake,” she added knowingly.

  “I’ll try,” I said.

  I went into the living room. It wasn’t hard to spot my stepsister, Celia, since she and I were dressed exactly alike. All of us at this party were the remains of a wedding—gay souls who had chased the bride and groom with traditional hilarity and had then wound up at this country house of Carmen’s to carry on into the night.

  Celia and I still wore our bridesmaid’s dresses, pale apricot organdy, and both of us still had on our feet the fantastic straw-colored devices, a few narrow straps tying on some four-inch heels, that were supposed to be shoes.

  Those shoes!

  In the living room, people were silently listening—in malice or in helpless distaste. Celia was standing in an ugly pose, as if her feet hurt and she didn’t care who knew it. Her face, that could look like an angel’s, was pinched and sharpened.

  “And if you thought,” she was saying in a piercing voice, “that you were just going to use my money without any advice from me, you were living in a dream world, genius boy.”

  “Advish, sure,” Blair Meaghan mumbled. There had been a lot of champagne at the wedding and he seemed to have had more than his share of it. “Always glad to lishen to advish. But don’t give me orders. Have another drink.”

  “You take my money, you take my orders,” Celia snapped. “And be glad to get both. I’m in on this deal all the way, or I’m out. Understand?”

  “You don’t unnerstan’,” he muttered. “Papers signed. Bishness deal. Ashk anybody.” Blair waved his glass. His dark hair wouldn’t plaster down—it rose in a crest. I adored him and I hated this ugly scene, but

  I didn’t see what I could do.

  “Business!” Celia hooted. “When you came whining to me, I said I’d keep on with the financing. That was for pity’s sake. But I’m not giving you the money.”

  Blair’s face was pale. “Coursh not. Inveshment . . .”

  Celia said, “You do what I say or I take my money out! Do you hear, or are you too drunk?”

  “Orders, no.” Blair shook his head. “Papers don’t say—”

  “I spit on the papers,” shreiked Celia. “You do it or I’m getting out and there won’t be any money. If you want to start any lawsuits you can count on me telling how you whined and cried after I threw you over. You’d enjoy that. And you’d lose. Don’t think you wouldn’t. Last chance.” She still thought she might get her way.

  But Blair raised his glass. “To the money! Hail and farewell! And

  I hope it’s farewell to you, forever.” He drained the liquid down. “I ought to wring your neck,” he said, rather quietly. “A public servish.”

  Nobody else in the room was speaking or moving. Everybody knew that Celia and Blair had been engaged last summer. Everybody knew that Celia had wanted someone else—and hadn’t got him. Everybody knew how much her money meant to Blair.

  It was her own money—from her dead mother’s family. Neither father nor I had any. Celia did as she pleased with what was her own. She had invested it, all properly, in Blair’s project, and in what he thought was good faith.

  Celia could look like an angel, and be bright and beautiful. It took a while to realize how spoiled, how totally unreliable she was. Blair knew it now, twice over. There she stood, welshing on a business deal in a fit of arrogance, and there he stood, watching his hard-wrought plan, his work, his hope, his dream, dying by her hand.

  He wasn’t in love with Celia any more.

  He had thought she was civilized. But she was like a stone.

  There was only one thing I could think of doing. I took Blair’s arm. “Bla
ir, take me home?” I begged.

  “What, Jenny?” He was so angry or so drunk he seemed blind.

  “I’ve got to go home, right away,” I said urgently. Blair had always been fond of me, and kind.

  “Why, what’s the matter?” He wasn’t seeing me, blind as he was, but at least he recognized my voice. He let me lead him out of that room. I didn’t have to turn and look to know the contempt that would be on Celia’s face. She, and everyone else in the room, knew very well how deeply I was in love with Blair.

  At least I had broken up the nasty scene. Carmen fluttered after us with my stole. Her husband warned me that Blair must not drive a car. So there we were, ten o’clock that night, in Blair’s convertible, with me driving and Blair sodden on the seat beside me.

  The last sound I heard from that house was Celia’s voice: “Let Jenny comfort him. Jenny likes nothing better.” I made the car jump away from the sound of her laughter.

  Carmen’s long low house sits on a hill and the driveway goes to the north and winds down gradually to the highway. We hadn’t yet reached the main road when I discovered that I couldn’t possibly drive a car in those ridiculous shoes.

  I pulled in close to the shrubbery and parked, unbuckled the ankle straps, got the silly things off my feet, and sat massaging my toes.

  Blair said in a clear and sober voice, “I’ll drive, Jenny. Thanks for getting me out of there. I thought it was better to act drunk,” he told me quietly. “Because that is a scene I never want to remember.”

  His voice made me want to cry. But I am not one to cry or rage or carry on. Celia did too much of that. I said in my normal common-sense voice, “What does it mean if Celia takes the money out?”

  “I start at the bottom again,” he said. “It’s all to do over.”

  What Blair Meaghan wanted to do is not impossible. It can be done; it has been done. Yet there is really no way to do it. He wanted to produce and direct a motion picture. The “way” to that is so arduous and chancy, such a zigzag among hopes and promises, such a miracle of timing, that nothing can produce an independent motion picture but a powerful dream and the courage to survive a thousand