Dark Trail (2 page)

Soon enough he'd have to start looking for work again. Good as the mine job had been, the money was mostly gone now. He didn't live high, but this time he'd treated himself to new clothes and some dental work and more than a few nights in good restaurants, ones where they served wine in a glass, not a bottle, and big porterhouse steaks with big pats of butter melting down the sides. Sometime during all this he'd turned fifty-seven.

He was recalling all this when there was a soft knock on the door. “Yes?”

“Are you decent?” asked Mrs. Tomlin.

“Some people don't seem to think so.”

“Oh, you. I meant do you have clothes on?”

“Yes, I do,” Guild said. Mrs. Tomlin was a widow with a quick girly smile and Guild loved to tease her.

She opened the door aways, then peeked her tiny gray head inside and saw him stretched out on the bed. “You feeling all right, Leo? Haven't seen you sleep in this late.”

Then he went and coughed, just exactly what he didn't want to do around Mrs. Tomlin, because she was sure to give him a lecture.

“Maybe you should see a doctor.”

“I'm fine.”

“You've been coughing since you got here.”

“I'm still fine.”

“I worry about you, Leo.”

“I know you do and I appreciate it.”

“There's breakfast left. And I'll make you some fresh toast.”

“That's nice of you. But is that what you came up here to tell me?”

She flushed. “I nearly forgot.” She reached in her apron and pulled out a white envelope. “This came.”

“Isn't it kind of early for the mail?”

She shook her graying head. “Not the mail. A boy brought it over from the Skylark Hotel.”

“I see.”

She walked across the floor and handed it to Guild. As she did so, their eyes met. She was the kind of woman he liked, intelligent and purposeful but sweet, too. He took the letter.

His name was written in blue ink on the front of the envelope. He recognized the hand immediately.

He must have made a face because Mrs. Tomlin said, “Somebody you know?”

“Yes. My former wife.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Tomlin sounded almost hurt for some reason. “I never knew you were married.”

“For a while I was.”

“Is she pretty?”

He looked at her and smiled, realizing now that she was jealous. He found that oddly touching. “Not any prettier than you are, Mrs. Tomlin.”

She laughed. “Aren't you the devil-tongued one, though?”

“It's the truth, Mrs. Tomlin. You're a fine-looking woman and you know it.”

And then he went and spoiled this sweet moment by coughing.

“You really should—” Mrs. Tomlin began.

“See a doctor,” Guild finished for her, in between his racking hacks. Then he rolled off the bed and started pulling on his boots.

“Thank you, Mrs. Tomlin.”

She nodded and left, taking a sad final look at Leo bent over to his boots—a big melancholy man with blue eyes and hair very white in the small room's bright autumn sunlight.

There was a restaurant on the first floor of the hotel. It was filled with businessmen with their cigars, and proper ladies in their organdy dresses and bright paste jewelry.

In the center of the large room Sarah Evans sat staring down at her small white hands. She looked as if she might be trying to levitate them.

Guild got about the kinds of looks he'd expected from the men—a ruffian—and the ladies—an interesting if not exactly handsome man.

Sarah didn't glance up even when he reached the table. He pulled a chair out and sat down.

He'd seen her this forlorn only once before in her life—the night she'd miscarried, the night they both knew she'd never have children, despite the reassuring words of the doctor.

“Hello,” Guild said.

And finally she looked up. “Hi, Leo.”

“You look pretty bad.”

“I feel pretty bad.”

“What happened?”

“Frank.”

“I figured.”

“He's got this girlfriend.”

“You two still married?”

She nodded. She seemed about to cry.

“That son of a bitch. The next time I see him I'm going to punch his nose in and don't goddamn try and stop me.”

She laughed sadly. “The way I feel right now, I won't try to stop you, believe me.”

“Where is he?”

“Up in his room on the fourth floor.”

“When did this happen?”

“A few nights ago.”

“The last time I saw you two, you seemed reasonably happy.”

“The farmhouse that night. You went in and got him from Karl.”

“Right.”

She shrugged. “Things were pretty good after that. He was pretty scared that night, even if he didn't let on.” Her gaze drifted back to her sweet, small hands. “Then he went back to being Frank.”

The waitress came. They got another pot of coffee—she'd already polished one off all by herself—and Guild got a piece of toast. The older he got, the hungrier he got. It didn't make any sense.

“Who is she?” Guild said. “His usual?”

“She's pretty, if that's what you mean, and she's got a very fancy body.”

“You still in love with him?”

“I guess so.”

“How many times've you let him do this to you?”

She shrugged again. “Maybe ten.”

The waitress came with the coffee and the toast, filled their cups, and left.

“She's Ben Rittenauer's girl.”

“The gunnie?”

She nodded.

Guild whistled. “Maybe Frank's finally going to get what's coming to him.” He saw that his remark had scared her. He put his big hand on her small one. “I'm sorry, Sarah. I shouldn't have said that.”

She started to cry. Nothing dramatic, just silver tears in the corner of her blue eyes. She looked, just then, old and sad, and Guild remembered how much he used to love her and how scared she could get sometimes and for no good reason at all. Sometimes he felt more like her father than anything else; and many times she acted as if Frank were her son.

“Frank'll be all right,” Guild said. “He always is.”

“He deliberately took her from Rittenauer to make him mad.” She shook her head. Her hair was gray-streaked these days. “He got tired of people telling him that Rittenauer was going to kill him someday.”

“If they ever get into it, Rittenauer
will
kill him,” Guild said.

She looked at him and said, “Not according to Frank he won't.”

Then she smiled sadly again. “You know what's going on here? Frank's almost forty. He's afraid women don't find him appealing any more and he's afraid men aren't afraid of him. Taking Rittenauer's girl helps him out both ways. He's betting Rittenauer won't call him on this.”

“She must be some girl to let herself be picked off this way.”

This time Sarah reached across and touched Guild's hand. “Sort of the way Frank picked me off. Me leaving you for him and all?”

“I wasn't exactly a perfect husband.”

“I wish I hadn't done it that way, Leo. I hope you know that.”

“I know that now. I guess I didn't then. And hell,” Guild said, “maybe there's no easy way to do that anyway, to leave somebody. Maybe the way you did it was the only way it could be done.”

She said, “You know why I sent that letter over to your sleeping room?”

“You want me to go see him.”

“If you would.”

Guild stared at her. “You really want him back?”

“I'm pretty pathetic, I know.”

“You know better than that, Sarah.”

Then Guild lit a cigarette, and they talked some about him going upstairs and seeing her husband Frank.

And Guild said, finally, “Aw, hell, Sarah, you really want me to go up there?”

The corridors were carpeted in red. The mahogany doors of each room were shined fine and the brass doorknobs polished bright. As he passed down the hallway, Guild heard small snippets of lives behind each door: a married couple snapping at each other here, an old man coughing up phlegm there, and the last a woman with a pretty voice singing “Beautiful Dreamer” to an infant she was apparently rocking in her arms. The infant made happy sounds as the woman sang on.

The room he wanted was at the end of the hall. There was a fire exit door on the back wall and a window that looked down on an alley. Two black men were loading a buckboard with crates from the back of a store, and they were laughing about something secret as they worked.

Guild put his ear to the door. What he heard made him walk back down the hall aways. He felt almost ashamed listening to the noises they made. This sort of thing was their business. He was just glad that Sarah hadn't come along. It would be rough, hearing them go at it that way.

He gave them ten minutes before trying again. He walked back to the door and put his ear to it.

Just then an impressive-looking man with white muttonchop sideburns and an expensive Edwardian suit came out of a room down the hall. He saw Guild there, pressing his ear to the door. Guild blushed. He started to explain and then decided the hell with it. The man had already made up his mind about what sort of person Guild was anyway.

They were done making noise. Guild knocked.

“Who is it?” Frank Evans said.

“Guild.”

“Leo?”

“Yes.”

“I'll be a son of a bitch.”

“Who is it, sweetheart?”

“Leo Guild.”

“Who's that?”

“Old friend of mine.”

Which wasn't exactly true, Guild thought, but now wasn't the time to worry about that.

He could hear them scrambling into their clothes now, buttons snapping shut, boots being jerked on.

Frank Evans opened the door.

The first thing Guild noticed was his hair, how it had gone heavily salt-and-pepper. And the second thing he noticed was that Frank held a Colt right in Guild's face.

“Sorry, Leo. Just had to be sure.” Frank dropped the gun.

“Same goddamn Frank as always.”

Frank paid no attention. “Come on in, Leo, and meet my sweetheart.”

She sat at a dressing table, combing long lustrous red hair into a fancy pile on top of a well-shaped head rising from a long white neck. She was not at all what Guild had expected. She was elegant and beautiful. She wore a green organdy dress. In the mirror he saw that she had green, intelligent eyes and a soft, friendly smile.

Guild felt sorry for Sarah. This wasn't the chippie she'd described.

This was a decent woman, at least judging by appearances.

“Good morning, Mr. Guild.”

“Good morning.”

She patted white powder on her face with a puff. Just the right faint amount. “Would you care to join us for breakfast?”

“No, thanks, miss.”

“We'd be happy to have a guest.”

“All the same, miss,” Guild said. He'd taken off his hat and was picking at its brim with his fingers.

She stood up. She was tall and most intimidating. The organdy rustled as she went over and gave Frank a kiss on the cheek. “I'll go for a walk for awhile then meet you downstairs. I know you two want to talk.”

“Thanks, sweetheart.” As he said this, Frank winked at Guild, as if he were bragging about what a find she was.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Guild,” the woman said at the door.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Guild said.

She nodded and was gone.

A long moment after she had closed the door and could be heard walking down the hall, Frank said, “Sarah sent you, didn't she?”

“Yes.”

“Goddamn her, Leo. Goddamn her anyway.”

Frank wore black pants and a starched white shirt that still needed a collar. He paced. He moved quick like a kid, but now there were lines in the almost pretty face and around his eyes.

“I hear she's Rittenauer's woman.”

He stopped pacing and looked at Guild. “You know something I don't understand, Leo?”

“What's that?”

“Why you care so much about Sarah? After what she did to you, I mean.”

“She's a good woman.”

“She slept with me while she was still married to you.”