Talk of the town

  ”No good night?”

  “We’ve already said good night. I’m just trying to keep it airborne.” The gray eyes were dreamy, and large enough to swim in. “Take your damned shoulder and get out of here.”

  The taxi honked out front.

  There’d been something I was going to do. I shuffled through the rose-tinted chaos in my mind and came up with it.

  “Right, Georgia,” I said. I turned in the doorway. “If I find him, I’ll phone.”

  * * *

  By the time we reached town I had the lipstick off my mouth and the rest of her bulldozed far enough towards the outer edges of my mind to be able to think rationally. The chances were he wasn’t the acid thrower at all. It was a common description. And he certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to come back here. But I had to try. As flimsy as he was, he was our only lead at the moment.

  It was nine-thirty. I still had a good general idea of the location of all the beer joints from the other day. I paid off the cab and started making the rounds of them on foot. In the first two I drew nothing except a few blank and unfriendly stares, but at the third place I hit the jackpot. It was a smoky but air-conditioned dive on the street south of Springer, facing the railroad tracks. The instant I pushed through the door, I saw him. There were six or seven men in the place, but I spotted the white shirt about half-way down the bar and caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror. He didn’t see me. I ignored him and strolled to an open space near the front of the bar. There were a couple of pinball machines along the left wall, and at the rear an empty phone booth, and jukebox that was silent at the moment.

  I considered swiftly. He had a half-empty bottle of beer before him. The minute he ordered another, so I was sure he’d stick around, I’d duck into the phone booth, and call her. We could park in front of the place till he emerged. She’d be able to get a good view of his face, and once she gave a positive identification, he was my boy. I thought of the way that room had looked. Getting the police would be no strain; he was going to need them by the time they got there.

  I’d paid no attention to the other customers when I came in, but now it struck me all at once a strange and rather ugly silence had fallen over the place. I looked around. On my left was Frankie, the hard case who’d backed into me. Beyond him was another familiar face with the same trouble-seeking stare. It was one of the two loafers who’d made that remark as we went back to the car. I didn’t know any of the others, but they all had the same ugly expression. The bartender, a fat man with a hearing aid, was shooting uneasy glances at them.

  Well, there wouldn’t be any stupid brawl. There were too many of them, for one thing, and I had something much more important to take care of. That was out.

  “She give you the night off?” Frankie asked.

  I hit him with a left, and put down the beer I was holding in the right in time to take the next one just before he recovered his balance from having Frankie bounce off him. The third one, the loafer from the corner, was trying to claw his way between them waving a beer bottle. I caught his shirt and helped him through and hit him in the face as hard as I could with a right at the same time. He took Frankie back with him and they both slammed into the first pinball machine and turned it over with an explosion of glass and scattering of steel balls I across the floor.

  Somebody must have dropped a coin in the jukebox, for it erupted with a hot flood of sound above the ugly scuffling of shoes and the meaty impact of fists and gasped curses and hoarse and labored breathing. They were all over me. I didn’t have a chance, but I couldn’t even feel the blows, if any of them were landing. All I was conscious of was the bright ocean of rage sloshing around inside me and faces popping up like targets in a shooting gallery. They backed me up against the bar with two of them riding my arms while three more jockeyed and scuffled for position in front of me, trying to swing. There were so many they defeated their own purpose; nobody could throw a solid punch. I heaved forward, trying to break my arms loose, and we all went to the floor in a flailing heap. I tried to fight my way up through them, and then in the midst of chaos I became vaguely aware of an odd phenomenon. They were disappearing. There was no other way to describe it.

  It was as if they were birds taking off in flight. I turned my head and saw two solid, khaki-clad legs apparently growing out of the floor. It was Calhoun. He was unpiling them and throwing them behind him towards the rear of the bar, methodically, effortlessly, like some huge and completely noiseless machine. He yanked the last one off me and flung him backwards and I pushed to my knees, still raging, and saw Frankie hanging to the bar just beyond him. I shoved him aside and lunged towards Frankie, and then the roof fell on me. He caught me by the shoulder and spun me around, and a hand like a picnic ham stiff-armed me in the chest. I shot backwards and slammed up against the wall and slid down beside the wreckage of the pinball machine. It was like being hit by truck.

  13

  “All right!” he barked. “That’s all!”

  He was right as far as I was concerned. I felt sick. A large section was torn out of the front of my shirt and dangled from my belt. Both hands hurt, and blood ran down my face from a cut over my right eye. I mopped at it. Something dangled and flapped alongside my neck. I wondered whether it was an ear, or merely a section of scalp. It was neither. It was the gauze dressing the doctor had put on my head, hanging by one strip of tape. I tore it loose and let it fall to the floor. It was too heavy to throw.

  All the others were lined up along the bar, eyeing Calhoun uneasily. The bean-pole in the white shirt was gone, of course; he’d be out of town by this time. Swinging at Frankie had been a shrewd move; there was no doubt of it. I was too weak even to curse myself. The jukebox quit and a tense silence fell over the place.

  “How much damage?” Calhoun asked the bartender.

  The latter came nervously out from behind the bar and looked around. “Uh—three stools—the pinball machine ain’t mine, but I’ll have to pay for it—”

  Calhoun stabbed with a forefinger, counting. “. . . Four, five.” He swung around to me. “Six. Seventeen bucks apiece. Shell out,” he ordered coldly.

  There wasn’t a murmur of protest. Wallets came out of pockets and money began dropping on the bar. One man was short by eleven dollars. Calhoun fixed him with a bleak eye. “You got till noon tomorrow. He better have it by then.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They were cowed. Well, I could understand that, I thought. I’d seen a few really rugged men in my time, but Calhoun was in a class by himself, a lumbering fat slob who was around two hundred and sixty pounds of solid muscle and moved like a cat when he was in action. “You too, Chatham,” he said. He caught the front of my jacket and draped me on the bar. I got my wallet out somehow and was counting the money into his hand when the door flew open and Magruder came charging in. He gave me a cold stare and grabbed me roughly by the arm.

  He nodded to Calhoun. “I’ll book this goon in.”

  Calhoun put a forefinger against his chest. “Go home and blow your nose, kid. I’m talking to one of the men.”

  Magruder’s face darkened. “He’s a trouble-maker—“

  “You’re inside the city limits, bub,” Calhoun told him coldly. “When I need your help to keep order in this town I’ll give you a call, huh? Now give the man back his arm.”

  Magruder stared savagely at me, turned, and went out. I leaned on the bar again, too sick to have much interest in this jurisdictional squabble. I’d taken a lot of pounding in the abdomen.

  Calhoun jerked a thumb towards the door. “All right, you guys, out! And I’d better not see any of you downtown again tonight!”

  I was conscious of surprise. He’d made us pay for the damage, but he wasn’t going to arrest anybody. The others went out past me, one or two giving me a surly stare. I noted with satisfaction the loafer had an eye that was going to be swollen shut in another ten minutes and Frankie had a beautiful fat lip and swollen jaw. I pushed off the bar and aimed myself at
the door.

  “Not you, Chatham,” Calhoun said. “You’re going with me.”

  That added up, I thought bitterly. I was the stranger in town; I’d have the book thrown at me. I stopped and leaned wearily against the bar.

  “Give this man a shot of whisky,” Calhoun said to the bartender.

  He put it on the bar. I gulped it and reached for my pocket. Calhoun shook his head. “That one was on the house. Let’s go.”

  I followed him out, walking unsteadily, and we got into the sedan parked in front of the place. He shot across Springer, going north for two or three blocks, and then turned west. It was odd, I thought dully; the jail and police station were in the west end, near the river, all right, but south of Springer.

  This was an older and rather shabby residential district, not too well lighted. I didn’t know what he was up to and at the moment I was too beat to ask. He could be looking for a quiet place to work me over; if so, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

  He pulled to a stop under some big overhanging trees near the end of the street. I could see the dark bulk of a two-story house beyond the side-walk. We went through a gate and up the walk, but he turned before going up on the porch and we continued on round the side of the house. There were more trees back here and it was quite dark. I could feel mossy bricks under my feet. There was a guest house in the backyard. He pushed open the door, which was unlocked, and turned on a light.

  It was apparently Calhoun’s residence, and there was no need to ask whether he was married or not. A woman would have taken one look and run screaming into the night. Not that it was untidy; it was just the unrelieved and overpowering masculine effect of it. There was one large room, with a small kitchen beyond it and a doorway opening into a bathroom on the left. The floor was concrete, bare except for two small Indian rugs. His bed was a steel cot, and the other furnishings were an old leather chair, a straight chair, and a big table covered with hunting and fishing magazines. On the walls were a number of autographed pictures of fighters, a pair of boxing gloves, the tanned skins of two enormous diamond-back rattlers, an alligator skin, and two mounted bass that must have weighed at least ten pounds when they were caught. I saw a case full of shotguns and rifles in one corner, and another on the right side of the room held fishing rods. Two screened windows were open, but there was no air-conditioner. It was hot and still, and I could hear mosquitoes buzzing. I mopped at the blood on my face to keep it from dripping onto the floor.

  “Sit down,” he said. I collapsed into one of the straight chairs at the table. He went into the bathroom and came out with a small metal box like a first-aid kit. Taking out some gauze and a couple of medicated sticks like large styptic pencils, he went to work deftly on the cut over my eye. There was a sharp stinging sensation. He mopped again, and grinned. “That does it. With twenty seconds to spare.”

  “You used to be a pro?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Go wash up, and we’ll have some beer.”

  I went into the bathroom and repaired as much of the damage as I could. When I came out he handed me a can of beer.

  “Sit down, son, and get your breath.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me before, but he probably was on the other side of fifty. I remembered the way he’d slammed me against that wall, like a thrown bundle of laundry, and was glad he hadn’t done it when he was twenty-five. Studying him now at close range, I decided he’d probably also fooled about as many people who had thought he was stupid as had thought he was fat. He was a hick, a town-clown, if you weren’t careful where you looked. He wore a farmer’s straw hat, suede shoes, and the pair of wide braces holding up the khaki trousers could have been props in a vaudeville skit. The eyes under the shaggy brows, however, were a piercing and frosty blue.

  We sat down. He leaned back in the leather chair with his beer. “So you came back to look for him?” he asked “I heard him make the crack.”

  I got out a cigarette and fumbled with the lighter. “He wasn’t the one I was looking for,” I replied. “But while we’re on the subject, I saw you give the two of ‘em the roust. How come?

  “Why not?” he asked. “That’s what they pay me for.”

  “But you think she’s guilty yourself.”

  “If I do, I keep my mouth shut. And women don’t get jockeyed around on the streets of this town while I’m patrolling it.”

  “They could use you in the Sheriff’s office,” I said.

  “They’ve got a good man in the Sheriff’s office,” he replied. “He’s a friend of mine.”

  I drank some of the beer and said nothing.

  “What’d you go over to Warren Springs for?” he asked.

  I looked at him in surprise. “How’d you know?”

  “I find out things. And around here you’re about as hard to keep track of as a moose in a phone booth. What were you looking for?”

  “I’d rather not say,” I told him.

  “You should have made up something,” he said. “Don’t you figure maybe you’ve answered the question by refusing to?”

  “I haven’t said a word,” I replied. “And, incidentally, who wants the information?”

  The eyes went cold. “I wanted the information, son, and for my own reasons. If you think it’s a trick, for somebody else—”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “It could be I’m just trying to keep you from getting yourself killed. There’s been enough people killed already.”

  “Then this party we’re so carefully not naming is crooked?” I asked harshly. “I wouldn’t have thought so. At least, not at first.”

  “He’s not. He’s as honest as they make ‘em. But down here they don’t consider a man’s crooked just because he defends his wife’s reputation with a gun.”

  “And what would make him think it needs defending?” I asked.

  “Easy, son. Look, I wouldn’t talk this way to everybody, believe me. But you used to be in this business yourself, and I like what I’ve heard about you—-”

  “How’d you know I was a cop,” I asked.

  “I was in the Sherriff’s office when the wire came in from San Francisco. He showed it to me. There’s nothing wrong with the way you left the force.”

  “When was that?” I asked quickly. “I mean, when did it come?”

  The other afternoon, Tuesday—”

  “No,” I said. I mean, do you remember exactly what time?”

  “Two o’clock. Quarter after.”

  Then it couldn’t have been Redfield who’d tried to get me with the shotgun. It was almost exactly the same time.

  Calhoun must have read my mind. He shook his head. “You didn’t really think that, did you? In the back of the head with a shotgun? Let me tell you, son; if you’re not careful, he may kill you, but when he does you’ll be looking at him.”

  “That’s a big help,” I said wearily. “Now I’ve got two of ‘em after me.”

  “You could knock off and leave it alone. I don’t think it’ll ever be settled, one way or the other.”

  “Listen, I’m not guessing any more,” I said. “I know who killed Langston.”

  He put down his beer. “Can you prove it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “And you won’t. I think you’re wrong—”

  I leaned forward quickly. “You what?”

  He realized the mistake, but it was too late. “I mean—you’re a mile off base. Of course you’re wrong.”

  “Cut it out, Calhoun,” I snapped. “You know damn well what you said. You thought I was wrong. So maybe you’ve wondered just a little yourself. Why?”

  He glared at me, but said nothing.

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “I’m not going to gossip about a man’s wife,” he growled. I told you I was a friend of his—”

  I stood up and banged down the can of beer so hard it splashed on the magazines. “Yes, and goddammit, you’re a cop too! You want to go on seeing an innocent woman crucified?”

 
“Don’t get hard-nosed with me, Chatham. I was a cop when you were on the schoolboy patrol.”

  ”Forget it,” he said.

  “It’s beginning to get you, huh?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “Well, it’s got a lot of people at one time or another. You can go crazy trying to figure it out. It’s open and shut, see? It’s routine, it’s even trite; a hundred of ‘em happen every year—husband, wife, and boy friend. Only here they’ve never found a shred of proof the wife and boy friend even knew each other. And to make it even worse, the boy friend is dead, so you can’t play one off against the other till one of ‘em cracks—”

  “Right,” I said. “So then you begin to wonder if you’ve got the right woman, and start looking for somebody else.”

  “Except there is nobody else.”

  I lit another cigarette. “And that’s where they’re wrong. There not only is somebody else, I know who she is. Listen, Calhoun, why don’t we stop pussyfooting and say what we mean? Strader’s girl friend was Cynthia Redfield.”

  He sighed. “After I just got through telling you he was an old friend of mine. If I picked up that phone and called him, you wouldn’t get out of this town alive if you started running right now.”

  “I know that.”

  “And you’re going to take my word I won’t tell him?”

  “I don’t even need your word.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m returning the compliment. I like what I’ve heard about you.”

  He shook his head at me with a quizzical expression in his eyes. “Brother, you’ve got a lot of nerve.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll admit that with this weird and goofy set of values people seem to have, we can’t discuss the possibility Mrs. Redfield might have a lover, or have had one, because it’s simply not done. But there’s no social law says we can’t speculate as to whether or not she’s guilty of some relatively minor thing like murder. Just talk a little shop.”