by W. L. Heath
“Nothing. Let him know you don’t like it, and then if it happens again, fire the hell out of him.”
Boyd laughed. “You’d be rough on him, would you, Shelley?”
“If it happened again I would.”
“I believe you would too.”
They both laughed, and Shelley got up to go. The door opened suddenly and the girl in the green blouse looked in.
“Your wife just called, Boyd,” she said. “She said tell you she was going to play golf.”
“Did she say who she was going with?”
“No, she didn’t.”
There was a fraction of silence and Shelly was careful not to look up. He thought Boyd was probably sorry he’d asked that.
“Okay, thanks, Jane.”
The girl closed the door and Boyd came around in front of his desk.
“Shelley, I’ve got the fishing fever.”
“So has everybody else.”
“You think they’d hit, or is too hot?”
“They’ll hit. I’m planning to try them myself tomorrow. I asked your dad and he turned me down. What about you?”
“Yeah, I’ll go. What time?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Four would be early enough, I guess. The bass won’t feed till nearly dark, but we could fish for bream awhile first.”
“All right, count me in. Can you come by for me?”
“All right. Around four okay?”
“Fine. And bring along a bottle of lunch.”
As Shelley drove back down Lemon Street toward the warehouse and shipping department, he thought about Boyd and wondered a little about the future of the Fairchild Chenille Company. That boy ought to be doing better than that, he thought. He ought to at least know how a dye run is made up, long as he’s been in that office. He don’t seem to have his mind on business. Well, too much wife, maybe. She’s carrying him too fast. Too much wife and too much money. It can ruin you. It can sure as the world mess you up.
The three strangers walked slowly around the courthouse square, two in front and the tall one walking behind. They passed the barbershop and the hardware store and went around the south side past the fire hall, the Masonic building and the telegraph office. When they came to the drugstore, the neat-looking one went in, leaving the other two waiting out front. He bought a pack of gum and some cigarettes and asked Dr. Huff, the pharmacist, if there was a U-drive-it in town.
“No, there isn’t,” Dr. Huff told him. “We’ve got a couple of taxicabs, but no U-drive-it.”
“No place where a man might rent him a car?”
“I’m afraid not,” Dr. Huff said.
Harper thanked him and went out again to where Dill and Preacher were waiting.
“What did you find out?” Dill said, mopping his neck with his handkerchief.
“No luck. We’ll have to do a little figuring.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Dill said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll come up with something.”
They walked on in the bright, hot sun, and the one named Dill looked tired and miserably hot. Preacher, walking behind, was jingling the change in his pocket and whistling softly. They passed the movie theater and a restaurant and then a big glass door that listed the names of several dentists and lawyers who had their offices upstairs. Not many people were on the streets. After a while, when they had made a complete circuit of the square, they crossed the street to the courthouse lawn and sat down on an iron bench under one of the shady maple trees. Several pigeons were waddling around near the big green Civil War cannon.
“Now what?” Preacher said.
“I’m going over to the bank before it closes,” Harper said. “You two can wait here or go on back to the room.”
“I’m going to wait right here in the shade,” Dill said. “This is the coolest place I’ve found.”
“I may walk around some more,” Preacher said. “I like this little burg. I seen a movie once about a little town like this with Mickey Rooney in it.”
Harper looked up at the courthouse clock. “I guess I’ll have time for a smoke first,” he said.
They were silent for a while, and then Dill said: “Movies. They’re hell nowadays, ain’t they? Whatever happened to the good movies they used to have?”
“I don’t think they’re so bad,” Preacher said. He adjusted the wire of his hearing aid. “What do you want for fifty cents?”
“I want something besides a horse opera. That’s all they make any more, stupid cowboy pictures. In gorgeous Technicolor. Three out of every four you see any more is a horse opera. I like a good comedy myself. Whatever happened to Laurel and Hardy and that bunch?”
“The one I like is that June Allyson.”
“You would,” Dill said. “She’s so cute I could puke.”
“All right, who do you like?”
“I like Bogart okay. And that number that played in the one where the guy gets the chair in the end – what was the name of that?”
“You mean where he knocks this broad up and then has to drown her in the lake?”
“That’s it. What was the name of that?”
“A Place in the Sun.”
“A Place in the Sun is right. That number in that show was strictly all right, you know that? Elizabeth Taylor her name was.”
Harper thumped his cigarette away and got up. “Well, I’m going on. You boys do whatever you like and we’ll meet back at the hotel in say an hour.”
“I’m staying put,” Dill said. “I like the feel of this shade, myself.”
Emily Fairchild didn’t really like to play golf. She wasn’t good at it and it bored her. But she did like the idea of golf. It was smart to play. Golf dresses were nice, too, and she looked good in them, and there was something pleasant about being out there in the sun on one of the big smooth greens with a Negro caddie holding the pin and the little red flag fluttering in the breeze. It made a nice scene. And then after you had played a round, it was even nicer to sit on the long cool upstairs porch of the clubhouse and look down through the pines at the other golfers. That was the best part of it, really, Emily thought. When the game was over and you were sitting up here on the porch, sipping a Coke and talking. It was a good expensive feeling.
“What time is it, Madge?” she said. “I left my watch.”
“Nearly four-thirty,” Madge said. “Steve and Boyd should be out soon.”
“I don’t know if Boyd’s coming or not,” Emily said.
They were sitting on a long, varnished pine bench near the top of the stairs, and Emily, who had taken off her shoes, sat with her feet up on the porch rail, relaxing.
“You better get your feet down,” Madge said.
“What for?”
“Well, if somebody happened to walk out down there on the terrace they’d get a good look at your fanny, that’s what for.”
“They wouldn’t see anything they haven’t seen before,” Emily said. But she took her feet down anyway and crossed her legs. “Who’s that? Down there on the eighth tee.”
“Looks like Ed and Bobby Parks, from here.”
“No, I mean the other one, in the checkered shirt.”
“Oh, that’s Harry Reeves. You know. At the bank.”
“Is that Harry Reeves?”
“That’s him. Can’t you see those buck teeth? I can see them from here.”
“Well, I never,” Emily said. “Lord, that checkered shirt. It makes him look about two hundred years younger.”
“From a distance anyway.”
“When on earth did he join the club?”
“Search me. Probably since that new nurse moved to town. She plays occasionally and you know what they say about Harry, don’t you?”
“I’ve heard some gossip,” Emily said, “but I don’t necessarily believe it. Not Harry Reeves. Not with five children.”
“That’s what they say, though. They say he follows her down the street with his tongue practically hanging out of his mouth.”
“Who’s they?”
“Several I’ve heard.”
“What about the girl? Is she supposed to be leading him on or something?”
“I guess so. I don’t know. To tell you the truth, I get most of my information through Janis Beckly, and you know Janis. There may not be a word of truth in it.”
“May not be is right,” Emily said. “Honestly. She’s a fine one to talk, isn’t she? After the way she carried on for years around here with that … character.”
“You mean the one that was here with the TVA? Zimmerman, I think his name was.” Madge finished her Coke, belched softly and set the empty bottle on the floor beside her. “Going back to Reeves,” she said, “I also heard another version of it. I heard he doesn’t even know the girl. Just follows her around and things like that.”
“Well, that’s worse,” Emily said. “That’s pitiful.”
“I’ll tell you something else, too. He’s not the only man in town who’s given her a second look. Do you know her?”
“I’ve seen her is all. She came out here to a party one night with Bill Clayton, but I didn’t meet her ... luckily.”
“She’s not bad looking, I’ll say that for her.”
“Oh now really, Madge. She looks like a goddam chorus girl, if you’ll pardon my French.”
“The thing is, most men happen to like chorus girls.” Madge got up and stretched. “I’ve got to run down and water the cat. Be back in a minute.”
“Leave me a cigarette,” Emily said. “I forgot mine.”
“You forget everything. They’re on the rail there in front of you. By the way, did I tell you about mother losing her purse?”
“No. What was in it?”
“Fifty dollars.”
“Wow. Did she lose it in town or where?”
“In town she thinks. She’s running an ad in the Lost and Found, but I told her she’ll never see that money again.”
“Probably not,” Emily said. “That’s too bad.”
“You bet it’s too bad. Fifty dollars is fifty dollars. Well, be back in a minute.”
Emily watched her go down the stairs, then she lit a cigarette and relaxed, looking down the slope through the big pines.
Presently she heard the sound of golf shoes grating on the stone terrace. She leaned over the rail and saw Pete Brayley and his wife and Dink Hartman coming up from the locker rooms. Dink, who was something of a ioker in their crowd, had a towel in his hip pocket that hung al-most to his heels. All three of them had Coke bottles in their hands, and Dink looked as though his might have something a little stronger than Coke in his.
“Hi,” Emily called.
Dink looked up, whipped off his cap and bowed deeply. He was drinking all right. Dink was always drinking on Friday afternoons.
“Well,” he said. “If it’s not Miss Emily Unfairchild. Come on down and have a toddy.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. Calox, Hadacol or something. Come on down.”
The Brayleys laughed. They had been drinking too, Emily noticed.
She decided to go down.
Chapter Two
It was six-thirty when the three men came down from their room in the Commerce Hotel and went out for supper. Sugarfoot, sitting in his little rattan chair by the door, saw them go and checked their departure by the clock. Sugarfoot was the bellhop at the Commerce. He was the one who carried their bags in and put up the third bed in the double room, and he had taken an uncommon interest in them from the first.
What they up to? he wondered, watching them pause there at the foot of the steps, and then, without saying a word to each other, walk slowly away – two in front and the tall one walking behind.
What they doing in a town like this you suppose?
Sugar had studied about it all afternoon and still couldn’t pigeonhole those three. It worried him. There were lots of pigeonholes in old Sugar’s head, and it was a rare traveler who didn’t fit into one of them. But these three had him stumped. The fact that they were together was what had him really stumped. Take them one at a time and I might could handle them, he thought. Take that least one, he’s going to be a gambler, most likely. That one with the cigar might’ve come here to book in a stage show at the Ritz. And old tall-boy with that thing in his ear, he look to me like some kinda preacher, down here to hold a protracted meeting and pick up some change. But man, you cain’t put all that together in one room. Naw, Sugar, he told himself, you ain’t seen nothing of that style before.
He looked around the lobby and sighed. I got to have me another little smell of that bottle before long, he thought. It don’t look like that last hit going to see me through. I got to wait awhile though. I got to stretch it some tonight. Ain’t but half a pint between me and midnight. I got to rubber-band that stuff tonight.
Sugarfoot drank steadily and heavily, but there was no one in Morgan who had ever seen him staggering drunk. He knew how to gauge it, was why. He knew how to get himself up there just right and stay that way for days, even weeks, if the money held out. He never bruised it, never tried to mess around. “You cain’t mistreat it, man,” he told them. “First thing you know you done met yoself face to face in the bottom of a toilet bowl. Sick? Man alive! Or worsen that, some dark night something liable to come up behind you softly.” He didn’t bruise it any; didn’t try to crowd it at all. And at six-thirty he knew he had till eight, at least, before he made another trip behind the stairs to his bottle.
The lobby was quiet, and with the exception of Mr. Neff and Sugar himself, it was deserted too. The only sounds came from the dining room where five or six traveling men and two or three permanent guests were having supper – a tinkle of silverware and a muted undertow of conversation. The drummers didn’t talk much at the table. They ate. They’d do their talking afterward when they were sitting out on the porch with their cigars glowing in the dark. Mr. Kober and Mr. Tom Matthews were both in tonight, and if they could scare up a couple more there’d probably be a bridge game in the rear of the lobby till way late. Otherwise it was going to be a quiet night. No girls tonight, Sugar thought. There wasn’t a sporting man in the house. Friday was always a dull night anyway at the hotel.
Sugar moved his chair around a little so he could see through the arched doorway into the dining room where the people were eating at a single long table. He noticed that Miss Benson, the nurse, wasn’t eating in tonight either. That meant she had a date probably. Some of these sporting gentlemen ought to look into that, Sugar thought. Naw, that won’t do, he told himself. She ain’t going to mess around with no drummer. She got other fish to fry.
Now there’s another funny thing about them three in 201. Why don’t they take supper in? We got the best food in town, ain’t we? Must be that big table scared them off. Too many at one table. They ain’t doing no talking, ain’t answering no questions, them three. I cain’t place them. I cain’t put my finger on them three to save me.
He shook his head and looked out again toward the street and the soft summer dusk. Got to smell that bottle before long sure enough, he told himself. This here’s Friday and Miz Neff liable to take a gret notion to play the piano. Then I know I got to have me one. I cain’t suffer that racket. She get them fingernails to clicking on the keys and Sweet Jesus if I ever heard a instrument so abused. Rock a Ages. Lord, don’t I hope she ain’t got a notion to sing awhile too. I be out of a bottle before nine o’clock.
Shelley had stopped to get a haircut on his way home from work, and while he was in the chair a man named Ted Proctor came in for a shoe shine and they got to talking. Ted was trying to decide what to do with his vacation that came up at the end of the month.
“I thought about Florida,” he said, but it’s been so hot lately I can’t see going to Florida. Louise favors a trip to the Smokies.”
“It’s nice over there,” Shelley said. “Helen and I went over last spring. You know something? They’ve got wild bears over there. We saw them from the car.”
; “Me, I’d take Florida,” the barber said. “I go for those bathing beauties.” He began to laugh suddenly, remembering something, and came around in front of the chair to tell it. “We stopped at this place they call Silver Springs one time – you probably heard of it – where they have all these different kinds of fish and all? Well, we was taking a tour around the place and the guide we had happened to be a colored fellow, and he had one of these pelicans that followed him around. Pete, he called him. Pete the pelican. Well anyhow, we was looking at a bunch of alligators they had in a tub-of-a-thing there, and there was a girl in the crowd that had on a pair of shorts. This colored fellow was telling all about how dangerous these alligators are, and all at once while he’s talking, Pete the pelican waddles up to the woman in shorts and lays his beak right along the side of her bare leg. Well, I’m telling you that woman let out a screech you could’ve heard to Miami and jumped about three foot off the ground, and when she done that, them shorts split right up the back clear to her waist!”
They all had a good laugh, and the barber went back to work.
“It beat the devil,” he said, “no fooling. I like to died laughing. I swear I couldn’t help laughing, and she was embarrassed to death, naturally. She and I guess it was her husband lit out for the car running, and every step of the way he was trying to hold his hat over her ass – I swear to God, I never laughed so hard at anything in my life.”
They all laughed again and Shelley said, “Well, you can see how she must have felt, all right. And her husband too.”
“I could beat that one though,” Ted Proctor said. “About a woman right here in town, but it won’t do to tell it.”
“I think I know who you mean,” the barber said. “A certain lady that got caught up near the cemetery, wasn’t it?”
“That’s the one. But I’d rather not repeat it.”
“The funniest thing that ever happened around here was old Loy Baxter,” Shelley said. “The time he got the pool ball hung in his mouth.”
“That was good,” the barber admitted. “I guess if it wasn’t for Tom Huff that ball would still be in Loy’s mouth. They would’ve buried him with a goddam pool ball in his mouth.”