by Gil Brewer
“You stay in the house,” I told her. “Don’t go out for anything.”
“All right.”
She stood watching me. I moved away, out across the lawn and along the hedge to the sidewalk.
• • •
I started down toward town, I was a lot more frightened than I wanted to admit to myself. If he had sounded like she said he might take action. I had an idea he wouldn’t, though. Not right away, and all I needed was time.
There was nothing else to be done tonight. I was a wreck. I needed sleep badly, and there was no place I could go, no place to start—nothing to start with.
The pale neon glow of a guest house sign beckoned, down in the middle of the next block.
Chapter Sixteen
THERE WAS the chance that, lying in bed calmly, I might be able to sort out everything. I might come up with something, but I was far from satisfied.
The guest house was about eight blocks from Eve.
When I rang the bell, I had to wait for some time before anyone came to the door. I tried the door, but it was locked. Finally I saw a shadowy, nightgowned and robed shape coming slowly down the stairs inside the hallway. It was an old woman who kept craning her neck to see who it was. But there were lace curtains over the doorway, and the inside hall light was turned on. I could see in, but she couldn’t see out.
I rang the bell again. She jumped a little, holding one hand to her bosom. She clutched the front of her robe. She stood gripping the newel post, rubbing it hesitantly, as if the post were her husband’s hand.
I hoped she hadn’t been put wise to my description in any way. And I hoped she wasn’t the suspicious type.
For a long time she stood there. Finally, she worked on her bravery and came down the last step and across the hall to the door.
“Who’s there?”
“I’d like a room for the night.”
“Who is it?”
“I know it’s late,” I said. “But I’m tired and I need a room. It’s perfectly all right, believe me.”
Her hand started for the door latch, hesitated. Finally she sighed to herself, her lips moving a little, and a chain rattled. I tried the knob; still locked. Then she flipped the night latch and turned the key, and the door opened.
“Thanks,” I said.
She looked at me, thin white hair wisping about her head from knotted black curlers. Pink skull showed through. Her eyes were like a bird’s. The nightgown, in this heat, was heavy white flannel, clear to the floor, with a tiny pink ribbon at the throat. She looked quite cool.
“All right. Come in, sir.”
Now, what if I had planned to beat her over the head and rob her teapot? It would have been that simple, and I was willing to bet she had a china teapot, out there in the kitchen cupboard just to the left of the sink. You could spot that in a moment; all of them like this one have teapots, jammed full of limp dollar bills and twenty-five-cent pieces.
She was gambling like mad, betting against her better judgment.
“It’s late,” she said.
“True, ma’am. That’s why I need a room so badly. I’m just coming through town and I have a fear of hotels, you see? Also, rooming houses like this one always remind me of home. I’m away from home and a little lonely, I guess. Anyway—I am tired.”
She touched her lips with her hand and stifled a short laugh. Her eyes twinkled.
“well,” she said. “I was scared of you. It’s so late. But I’m not scared any more.”
“Boo!” I said, leaning close to her old white head to say it.
“And boo! to you, sir,” she said. “Now, I’ve got two rooms left. One at the back and one at the front. The one up front is three dollars for the night. The one in the rear, two. There are two baths upstairs; you take you choice.”
“Front room,” I said. “Here you go, I’ll pay now.”
I handed her three dollars from the bills Andy Leonard had given me. She folded them up and unfolded them and rolled them around her forefinger, watching me.
“All right,” she said. “It’s the room directly at the head of the stairs. I reckon you can find it for yourself.”
I grinned at her. I knew her secret about that teapot.
“Thanks.”
I started for the stairs and she started for the kitchen. I went on up the stairs, stopped at the first landing and listened. There was a light, clinking noise from the kitchen. Three more dollars in the till.
I lay in the hot bath for a long time, while I let my mind rove back and forth over everything. The bathroom steamed and when the water began to cool down, or when my body became accustomed to the heat, I turned on the hot water and let it froth in and warm it up again. Finally I sat there up to my neck in a tub-ful of brimming, steaming water. Blue swirls and whir-pools gleamed and glistened. I knew that when I climbed out the only pain would be that cigarette burn in my belly.
I let the hot water work on me, lying back against the rim of the tub. I went carefully over this morning’s episode. It was painful. That business about my arm not bending the right way was a little maddening.
I looked at my arm. It was slightly crooked, but it didn’t hamper me any. It worked as good as anybody else’s arm, damn them. Especially after I had worked so blamed hard on my draw and target practice. Out there on Big Bayou, on my property, there wasn’t a single tree without a gutful of lead slugs. The leaves were shredded, the limbs perforated. Every beer can and bottle, every jar and tin in sight had been riddled and raddled and bounced. I’d caught mullet on the fly when they leaped in the twilight, then took a boat out and brought them back for dinner. I’d become so good with my snub-nosed .38, I had doubts that anyone in the area could outshoot me. Now look.
I could keep trying. Maybe I would eventually break them down. Maybe if I solved this thing I was on they would see the light and take me back.
It made me want to get out of that tub and go crusading around after the murderer of Jinny Foster.
But I couldn’t. I lolled in the hot, steaming water.
That crazy household out in Jungle Acres kept coming back to me. I hadn’t got much out of them, except for impressions on my mind—and, I figured, impressions on my skull and body. There was something tangible, all right. Only I might never know if those were the same kids who had shellacked me.
I needed something really tangible to go on….
Out of the tub, I felt much better physically. Tired, washed out, but I didn’t agonize any more. That spot where the blonde had burned me was bad, though. It was a flaming red hole in my side. I flipped open the medicine chest in the bathroom and a couple of boxes tumbled into the sink. It was jampacked with stuff. I started searching and finally found an old half-used tube of Unguentine. I broke the tube and there was some in the bottom that looked all right. I smeared that on, found some tape and gauze and finished the job. With iodine, I touched up some more of the scars here and there. There was a lump on the right side of my jaw, and a gouge over my left eye. Otherwise nothing on my head. There were heel and toe marks on my chest, so the kid had landed on his heels, after all.
I went in to bed. The room was airy and hot, but the bed was as comfortable as a familiar dream. I lay under the clean sheets in the still dark, and worried about Eve.
Then I remembered that letter. I started up for my trousers, then sank back. They had got that, sure enough. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Talbot Swanson knew I had the letter, and if he even faintly suspected I was with the police, then he’d want that letter back, so he took steps to get it.
He’d want it back even if he figured I wasn’t a cop.
And if I had been a cop, what could I do about them? Hold an investigation, that’s all. But I had no witnesses. And the letter was gone.
I remembered it almost word for word, and went over that.
Talbot Swanson could have killed Jinny Foster.
I thought of Inez Harrington, lonely, unloved, unwanted, and the sharp feeling of concern over wh
at was happening to her came to me again. At a time in her life when she most needed her parents’ devotion, she wasn’t getting anything. I wondered if her folks had returned from wherever they were? If they didn’t return pretty soon, and if they didn’t stay with her, they might find they no longer had a daughter. Maybe that’s what they wanted. It seemed as if I could still smell Inez and the choking atmosphere of her home.
I went to sleep with the letter on my mind, and woke up late in the morning with the letter’s wording in my dreams, all messed up with everything else that had happened. It was ten o’clock by a dime-store clock on a dresser across the room. Ten on the nose.
I woke up with a resolution.
Chapter Seventeen
SOMETIMES, the first thing in the morning, before you’re fully awake, your mind is the clearest it will be during the day; unencumbered by blocks, mental wars, perpetually insistent troublesome trivialities.
I woke up like that, knowing I was going to get dressed and walk over to have it out with the guy. It was senseless to continue the way we were. Thayer was a human being. Maybe he just didn’t understand.
I wanted to make him understand the truth about Jinny Foster, and that Eve and I were not mixed up in it—especially Eve. Keep him from calling the cops, and settle the whole thing.
It seemed so simple. Maybe I was tired.
I was plenty sore and stiff, so I did a series of setting-up exercises by the front window. The day was sunny, and as hot, or hotter, than ever. But it was a good morning, and I was going to accomplish something.
Downstairs, I saw nothing of the little old lady. The house was quiet. There was an odor of baking from the kitchen. I stepped over to the door, reached for the knob and happened to glance through the window.
Andy Leonard was standing out there on the curb, staring at the house, motioning quickly to a cop who was just stepping out of a prowl car. Andy wasn’t playing the game any more. Another police car came down the street, motor turned off, coasting.
I turned and went quickly through the house into the kitchen. Something was in the oven, but there was no sign of the old lady. I didn’t stop to think why they were here—only that the old gal must have turned me in.
I came across a sunny back porch, down onto the lawn and ran through some papaya trees, and on around the side of the garage.
I waited a minute, checking back there. It was getting much too close. It was daylight. If they caught me now, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
Heading down through an alley, and then out onto the other block, I decided it was still best to go over to Eve’s. They wouldn’t figure I’d go there.
I cut down four blocks, through alleys, and didn’t see a soul. Finally, there was an open garage that looked cool. Inside, I sat on an empty orange crate and got my breathing under control, not allowing myself to think. There was a spigot on the side of the garage, so I drank some water, then walked down the alley to the sidewalk, and took my time walking through the shade, heading for Eve’s.
Maybe they would figure I’d left during the night. I didn’t think so. She could have turned me in any time during the night, and I began to wonder why she hadn’t.
On the way over to Eve’s, I remembered it was Saturday and a lot of men would be going fishing. They would be driving to my place at Big Bayou. The police would greet them.
No, they couldn’t rent a boat. What did they know about Cliff Reddick? The land would become haunted. They would wander around and stare at the house of The Fiend.
I waited at the end of the block while a police cruiser pulled away from the front of the house down there. I waited until it was out of sight around the corner. The boys were busy again today, all right.
I came along the sidewalk and turned bravely in at the front door. It seemed the right thing to do.
The front door was wide open, and a light was burning in the hall. As I rang the bell, looking inside, the maid came tearing through the house, with her hat in one hand, a coat half on, and a white apron slipping down around her knees.
The phone was ringing.
The maid looked at me and screamed.
She turned in midstride and started back where she had come from. Her hat fell. The apron slipped down over her knees to her ankles and she tripped, sprawled headlong on the hall floor, sliding on a rug. She gave little screams of pain and fright.
The phone stopped ringing and I went over and grabbed her hand. She nearly fainted.
“Come on,” I said. “What’s the matter?”
“Oh! Oh! Please!”
“Come on, now.”
I knelt down beside her and looked her in the eyes. She was quite young and she had red hair, the skin very white and translucent. Her lips were open and round and her fingers kept twitching. Her skirt was up across her thighs, revealing wide blue garters and lacy black pants. She was a plump little bird.
“Something’s wrong,” I said. “Where’s Mrs. Thayer?”
She began to calm down. She must have seen something in my eyes that assured her I wasn’t going to slit her throat or ravish her on the spot. But she was still plenty scared.
I helped her to her feet and she stood like a frightened fawn, looking at me.
“They said you—they said you’re a maniac—a—”
“Please,” I said. “They’re wrong. And that’s no way to talk to a maniac, believe me.” I thought for a moment that she might scream again.
“Mrs. Thayer’s gone. They said you did it—you!”
“Gone? What do you mean, gone?”
“She vanished from her bedroom. Last night.”
“Where’s Mr. Thayer?”
“He—he went over to the Foster home. I think that’s what he said, he said—” She kept shrinking away from me.
“Listen,” I said, “try and take it easy. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She shook her head and swallowed with a weird expression. All the fright was returning into her now. All she could think of was getting away.
I kept trying to talk with her. But it’s very difficult to change a person’s opinion once it’s taken a firm hold.
“Okay,” I said. “Have it your way.”
Turning, I went over to the telephone and yanked the wires out of the wall. I looked at the maid. She was so damned young, and getting younger every minute. Her eyes rounded larger and larger. I grinned, and that did it.
She whirled and ran out of the house, the apron flapping on one foot.
By the time she reached the street, I was standing in Eve’s bedroom. The Venetian blinds had been torn off the window. The screen she had taken off for me was on the floor, twisted and ripped. The guy who did this was the same troublesome bird who had been out there at the beach. He didn’t care about noise; he cared only about doing what he’d set out to do.
I checked through the bedroom quickly, but found nothing. Then I went on through the window and ran around the rear of the house and across the drive to the double garage.
The doors were open. Thayer’s black Cadillac was gone. Eve’s Buick convertible was there, the keys in the ignition, so I took that and backed swiftly onto the street. I turned it and gunned it, heading for the Foster home over on Palm Drive. I had to see Thayer.
Eve was gone. The guy had reached her. I cursed myself for leaving her as I had last night. The police should have been sharp enough to spot something like that, even if they didn’t know what I knew. And I had told Andy what I did know, up to a point. Why hadn’t he insisted they post a guard?
I was pretty certain I understood the type of man the killer was, and it scared me more than anything had ever frightened me before. I had been up against a lot of types, but this was the worst, and he was working under pressure. He wouldn’t care what he did; he wouldn’t exactly know what he was doing. There would be no realization or understanding of crime to him now. It would be all desperation and a frantic leap toward escape.
Wouldn’t it be grand, I thought, cutting through a back st
reet across town, if little Edward had conceived this whole thing?
Chapter Eighteen
THE CADILLAC was parked in front of the Foster place, and there were no police cars in sight. If the law only knew what was coming off now, they’d have every prowl car in the city over here in a matter of minutes.
Some kids of ten or twelve were playing baseball in the street. They got out of the way as I nosed the car toward the curb near the end of the block. I looked up toward the Foster place, and the kids looked at me, probably wishing to hell I’d move along. The house seemed quiet, but if Chief Harnett suspected that I might return here, he’d have men posted.
I had to take the chance. I pulled out into the street again and drove on, and the kids went back to their game.
I parked the Buick behind the Cad, got out and ran up the front walk.
Thayer met me on the porch, looking as if he wanted to leap at me. Instead, he just stood there, fuming. He was dressed in a gray business suit and his horn-rimmed glasses. His face was very red and he pointed at me.
“You—” he said as I stepped on the porch.
“Take it easy,” I told him. “Let’s go inside.”
“Ruined!” Thayer said. “I’m ruined—absolutely ruined!”
I looked at him, then gave him a gentle shove.
“Keep your hands off me,” he said.
“Just go inside, then.”
He stared at me, blinking, his face looking as if he’d stuck his head into a fire. Then he turned sharply and walked into the house. We came into the hallway and I saw the Fosters standing there. She was still crying and he had his arm around her. When he saw me, he released her and moved toward me, a sick look in his eyes.
I said, “You’ve got it all wrong. I’m telling you the truth, Mr. Foster.”
He kept coming, his arms stiff and a little forward. His eyes were the sickest eyes I had ever seen, and his face was colorless.
“I wouldn’t have come here if what you’ve heard about me is true,” I said. “Just think that over before you start anything.”