The Long Ride (8 page)

He’d tumbled out of the car and staggered to the edge of the road and been sick. He’d been blind with sickness, shaking so badly he could hardly hold on to the gun in his hand. Then he stumbled back toward the car, and that was when he’d accidentally shot himself in the left arm.

Charissa, swearing bitterly, had pulled him into the car and yanked the gun out of his hand. He’d bled badly on the way back to the shack. The next thing he’d realized was that the sun was up again, hot, smoldering through the dirty windows as he lay in bed. Charissa was quietly and coldly explaining to him that he had not really done very well. They had no money, no food, no liquor.

“This arm,” he’d gritted, “is killing me.”

“I will do something,” she’d said.

She disappeared for twenty hours. He’d lain in pain and utter fright. Finally she’d come back with a tall, raw-boned Negro woman, saying, “You know what one must do, little boy, when one has no money—someone like me, little baby? I do not like to earn money that way.”

“What the hell is she doing?” he said, seeing the flash of the knife in the hand of the large, funereal-looking Negro woman.

A glass was pushed close to his chattering teeth. “Drink, little boy. Keep drinking.”

He had. But it hadn’t stopped realization of the nightmare that followed. When it was over, when both the tall Negro woman and his arm were gone, he knew he’d lost more than an arm. He’d lost something inside himself that he was never going to get back.

The days following were painful, dreary, nerve-racking. Charissa had been cool toward him, yet careful to take care of him properly. He was certain he was going to die, but he did not. Finally, when she had bathed him and stood looking at his bare body with a flashing look in her dark eyes, she’d said, “You are getting stronger, little boy. We have held up the trip to Mexico for you to get stronger. But my friends are getting impatient.” She’d smiled brightly, then disappeared into the bath. He’d listened to the shower running. Pretty soon she’d come out, her good, full body gleaming in the hot shafts of sunlight flowing into the small room. “Now,” she’d said, “let’s see just how strong you’ve gotten again.”

He’d finally said desperately, “No use.” He could not even keep his mind on it, because he kept hearing drops splattering on the galvanized metal that formed the shower’s floor. They hit and splattered in an infuriating regularity, and that was all he could keep his mind on.

She’d smiled sadly and got a bottle of whisky from the cupboard.

“It’ll come back,” he said, a pleading note in his voice. “Everything’ll come back, all of a sudden.”

“Sure, little baby,” she’d said softly. “Have some of this to help it along.”

He’d tasted the whisky. “Can’t you stop that shower from dripping?”

“I’ll see,” she’d said. “Have some more whisky while I do. There is nothing else to do anyway, is there?”

He’d gotten drunk lying in bed. He’d finally gone to sleep, listening to that dripping in the shower that Charissa had been unable to stop. He woke up realizing he was being moved from the bed, through the house, to a car. He was certain that he was being moved by the two men he was supposed to accompany to Mexico. But it was vague; he’d drunk too much. The last he’d remembered was Charissa’s face close to his, those bright, white teeth gleaming. He’d heard her voice, soft, polite, “You are good for nothing, eh, little baby?” Then felt her long, sharp fingernails gouging down the side of his face.

He’d awakened on the edge of a swamp, muddy, face bloody and sore, arm-stump hurting because he’d been rolled down to the edge of that swamp; there was a fever in his head.

He’d stumbled, staggered, crept into town, to the Salvation Army and claimed he had been the victim of a hit-run accident. He’d refused a doctor’s examination and been able to hide the fact that the arm was newly gone. They gave him food, a bed. Slowly he’d got control of himself and got some decent strength back. They had loaned him a ticket for a bus back to Loma City. He went back to discover that his mother had died while he was gone. He’d lived on the money from a small insurance policy she’d had, in Loma City. When that ran out he’d married Cicely, who’d idolized him when he was a football hero in high school.

Now they were together in a room in Cheyenne. And he was thinking that one of the things he was going to do with that $100,000 was return to New Orleans. He was going to find Charissa. She was going to know what kind of money he had. She was going to get down on her knees and plead for his favor. And then he was going to enjoy her again, because he’d never forgotten what she was like. Then she was going to pay for the way she’d left him by that swamp. The fingernail scratches had healed, but not the wounds inside. And she was going to pay for them…But New Orleans was a long way off. He could not keep his mind on Charissa right now. He was thinking of that money, how it had better be there when he went to get it in the morning. Then ditch, only maybe not before he’d made a try with Margaret Moore, just because she reminded him of Charissa…

He suddenly thought of Mrs. Landry, how she’d stood down there in front of the desk when they’d checked in, running on about when they were leaving in the morning. His entire body tensed.

“When,” he said to Cicely, “did they say we’re leaving in the morning?”

“Eight o’clock,” Cicely said, looking at him hopefully, as though wishing desperately for his mood to shift and place her in greater favor.

He swore softly.

“What’s the matter, dear?” she asked, the hope going from her voice.

“Why is that damn faucet dripping in the bathroom?” he asked angrily, thinking: eight o’clock. Why didn’t I pay attention to that before? The post office won’t even open before nine o’clock.

“I don’t hear any dripping, dear.”

“Well, check it!” He would, he thought, have to stall some way.

Cicely hurried to the bathroom. He watched her peering at the sink, trying to tighten the faucet. She came back. “It wasn’t dripping, dear, really.”

“You say,” he snapped bitterly, his mind spinning back to that moment when Charissa had come out of the shower in that shanty house outside of New Orleans, her body gleaming. He said to Cicely harshly, “Aren’t you ever coming to bed?”

She blinked at him, wholly confused.

“Why,” he said, “don’t you turn the lights out?”

When she had gotten into bed, in the darkened room, he put his hand on her savagely.

Later, perspiration on her upper lip, her teeth tight together, she lay with her eyes closed, the fury of it over. She was content. So long as it was this way, then nothing else at all mattered. She turned to him again, kissing his cheek lightly, tenderly. But he was already asleep.

CHAPTER

When the elevator had brought up the boy with dinner for the Garwiths, John Benson and Margaret Moore rode down to the lobby, just in time to miss the invitation by Miss Kennicot and Mrs. Landry to join them for dinner. There, Mr. Brander, standing beside his desk clerk, had motioned to John.

“Will you wait for me at the door?” John asked Margaret Moore, and crossed the lobby to the desk.

Mr. Brander bent forward, his excitement showing through his effort to look nonchalant. He spoke in a hoarse whisper, “Mr. Benson, you asked me to report to you anything unusual and telephone you. Now I just did telephone you. But you didn’t answer, you see, and so—”

“What is it, Mr. Brander?”

“Well,” Mr. Brander said, voice quivering a little, “Albert here just told me that one of your party, Mr. Wells, stopped at the desk earlier and gave him, Albert here, ten dollars to report if and when that young fellow with one arm in your party left his room and came down here. Now what do you think of that? Wouldn’t you put that down in your book as unusual, Mr. Benson?”

John nodded slowly. “Yes. It might be. That’s very good to know, Mr. Brander.” He smiled at the desk clerk. “I think you’ve both done a fine job.”

“What are we going to do now?” Mr. Brander asked.

“Just,” John said, “keep ourselves calm. Act quite naturally. If the boy with one arm goes out of his room, why, you, ah—” He looked at the desk clerk.

“Albert Thompson,” the desk clerk said positively.

“Mr. Thompson, you inform Mr. Brander here and then telephone Mr. Wells, just as he asked.” He looked at Mr. Brander. “Then, when I come back, if that’s happened, why, you let me know, Mr. Brander.”

“That’s all?” Mr. Brander asked.

“That’s all.”

“Well, but are you leaving the hotel now? I mean, if you’re gone—”

“Let me know when I get back,” John said. “If there’s anything to let me know. And one thing more. The boy who delivered the food to the Garwiths’ room—he was coming up just as we were going down. Who is that?”

“That’s Albert’s boy. Albert, right here. That’s his boy.”

John nodded. “Fine.” There was one thing he was certain of—Mr. Brander and all of his employees including Albert and Albert’s son were trustworthy. And it would be quite a trick to smuggle a hundred thousand in small currency underneath a few silver warming covers on a food tray even if you had an accomplice in this hotel, which John was certain Allan Garwith did not have. He knew a good deal more about Allan Garwith now, but he looked at both of the men behind the registration desk calmly. “Thank you both very much. You’ve been very co-operative. But remember, we have to be careful. No unnecessary contacts.”

Mr. Brander nodded excitedly. “I understand, Mr. Benson, I absolutely understand!”

John smiled at them and returned to Margaret Moore, who was waiting at the door. They walked outside, into the cooling twilight. She looked at him curiously.

“I guess I overdid my complaint. I’ve got the manager, Mr. Brander, worried.”

“Somehow,” she said, “that doesn’t fit into my impression of you. Your calling a manager of a hotel to complain about something.”

He looked at her quickly, then grinned. “No? Well, everyone has his peculiarities. I have a temper, you know.”

“No,” she said, “I wouldn’t have known.”

They crossed the street and started through the park. “Still hungry?” he asked.

“Famished.”

The man in the light gray suit and straw hat who had driven up in the blue Chevrolet was sitting on a bench, newspaper folded now on his lap. He looked at them idly, as they passed.

“Well,” John said, “I am likewise. I wonder if we should have eaten at the hotel?”

“It could be crowded,” Margaret Moore said, smiling.

“Yes,” he said, nodding. “I’ve got that feeling. Did you hear Miss Kennicot singing when we passed her door?”

“I still hear her,” Margaret Moore laughed.

“Well, all we need is a good restaurant. Maybe—” He stopped. “If you want a good restaurant, ask a native. Excuse me a moment, Margaret.”

He turned and walked back to the man sitting on the bench. Out of earshot of Margaret Moore he said to the man, “Harnet called you?”

The man looked up, a friendly, polite look on his face. “That’s right. Benson?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’m Dornig.”

“I saw you get here from the hotel. It was fast. Harnet’s really a florist?”

“That’s right. We use him for things like that now and then. Nobody’ll trace it.”

“Well, I don’t think they’ll try. I don’t think anybody’s suspicious of me yet. But I just found out something. It’s important. Wells bribed the desk clerk to tell him if Garwith left his room. We know now that either Garwith’s got the money and Wells is waiting for a chance to get it back or they’re in this together but Wells doesn’t trust him. I swing to the first. I don’t think they’re in this together.”

The man nodded casually. “I’ll relay it back to Loma City.”

“Have you got the back of the hotel covered?”

“Yes. But all we can do is watch and let you know what happens. We don’t want to make too much noise and screw it up for you. When do you leave tomorrow?”

“Eight o’clock.”

“Where do you stop then?”

“Mrs. Landry drives like she’s on fire. We’ll make Salt Lake, at least. I’m not sure we won’t go beyond it. They’re set up in Salt Lake?”

“Yes. But maybe it’ll take all the way to the Coast before anything breaks.”

“Could be. But I think Garwith faked a stomach attack to stop us in this town. Keep a close watch. Where’s a good restaurant, by the way? That’s what I’m supposed to be talking to you about.”

“There’s a good place straight ahead two blocks and a half block to your left. Best we’ve got. Good steaks. Good-looking woman. Which one is she?”

“Margaret Moore.”

“The one we don’t have much background on. You’re not worried about her? I mean, as far as—”

“I don’t know. We’ll see. Thanks, Dornig.”

“All in the job.”

John turned and walked back to Margaret Moore. He smiled at her. “They’re talky in Cheyenne. He said there’s a good place a couple of blocks away.”

“Well, let’s merely run then, before I faint from undernourishment.”

The restaurant was small, cool, dim, with round, leather-covered booths. John asked, “Drink?”

“Beer. I thought about a beer all the way across Nebraska in that desperate heat.”

“I know what you mean. How about a steak?”

“Please, God. The thickest. We split this, by the way, since I trapped you into it.”

“I’m willing to be trapped like this any day, any time. Don’t forget that.”

“I won’t.”

She leaned her head back against the leather of the booth, closing her eyes. He studied her face when he’d ordered for them, noting the clear, smooth complexion, the fine lines of time at the corners of her eyes and mouth that did nothing to destroy her beauty, only gave it a durability, a depth that he had seldom seen in a woman. Not even in Maggie, he thought guiltily.

She turned her head, opening her eyes, meeting his stare directly. “Now tell me about yourself, John Benson.”

“I was going to ask you to do the same.”

“You told Mrs. Landry you were from Lafayette?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I’ve been through Indiana. Very lovely in the fall. In the south part especially. All those rolling hills, yellow with flowers, the trees with their leaves golden and red. I was there with my husband.”

He nodded. Then waited.

An eyebrow flickered. “We had a very pleasant and agreeable parting.” She smiled faintly. “I was very fond of him. I still am.”

“Maybe it’s none of my business, but you said you divorced him? Why?”

“We separated by mutual consent. We got a divorce to make it legal.” The beers had been brought and poured. She lifted her glass and tasted. She shuddered happily. “Delicious, no?”

“Yes. Do you want to tell me about him? Maybe I’ll understand you better if you tell me about a man you were fond enough of to marry, then divorce amiably, and still feel fond of. What kind of man is this?”

“Or,” she said, “what kind of woman is this? That might make more sense.” He gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. “He was sixty-four when I met him, a nice gentleman’s gentleman, with a white mustache and impeccable manners and soft, far-away eyes—like a child dreaming on a summer day.” She looked at him. “Make sense?”

“No,” John said. “I mean, I hadn’t figured it that way.”