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Authors: Dorothy B. Hughes

In a Lonely Place (19 page)

BOOK: In a Lonely Place
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He walked out of the alley, all the way around the long block to the walk in front of the apartment. The car was where he’d left it. He got in. threw the clothes on the floor, and drove rapidly away. He drove too fast to the cleaners on Olympic. He wasn’t picked up. The cops were all out at the beach or hanging around the drive-in. He ought to go up there and eat, see how many he could spot. That would be a laugh. Or out to the beach with the curious.

He dumped the clothes. He’d forgotten he had others here, now he had to drive around with them hung over the seat. He asked for a special on this load, three-day service. In case he left town soon, he wasn’t going without that new navy jacket.

He drove on up the boulevard, not knowing where he was going. Not caring. When he saw a corner drugstore he remembered the phone call and drew up at the curb. There wasn’t anyone much in the store, a couple of women at the lipsticks, a few young fellows at the soda counter. Dix closed himself in a booth, looked up the Virginibus Arms number. While he was waiting for the call, he took his handkerchief from his pocket. He didn’t hang it over the phone, someone might look in and wonder. But he held it to his mouth, his back turned to the folding door. It would muffle his voice just enough.

The manager’s voice was strident to match the strident hennaed head he remembered.

“I understand you have an apartment to rent,” he began.

She was as annoyed as if he’d asked for a loan. She not only had all the apartments rented but on long lease. She wondered where he ever got such an idea.

He said, “A friend of my wife’s understood that Miss Gray’s apartment was for rent.”

Her voice was suspicious. “Who said that?”

“A friend of my wife,” he repeated. “She said that Miss Gray was moving.”

“Well, it’s the first I’ve heard of it. She’s paid up—who is this?” she suddenly demanded.

He said, “Lawrence. A. B. Lawrence,” reading initials penciled on the wall. He had no idea where the Lawrence sprang from. “Thank you.” He hung up before she could ask more. He had what he was after, information. And no one to know he’d called.

He came out of the booth, ordered coffee and a toasted cheese sandwich at the counter. It wouldn’t be very good from the looks of the place but it was better than nothing. While he was waiting, he took a morning paper from the rack. He hadn’t had a chance to bring his in from the doorstep.

The murder was still front-page copy. The police were doing the usual, following every clue. Captain Jack Lochner of the L.A. force was working with the Santa Monica force. Captain Lochner was quoted as believing this was another of the strangler murders.

Dix didn’t read all the drivel. The L.A. police were rounding up a maria full of known suspicious characters. The Santa Monica police were rounding up beach bums. There was a lot of questioning going on and no answers. No one had noticed any cars parked along the beach road that night. No one had noticed anything. They never did.

Dix finished his poor breakfast and left. There was more blue in the sky now. The sun was bringing warmth into the day. It was nothing to him. It was an empty day, a day to be passed, before another night would come. Another empty night, and yet another empty day to follow. He ought to leave town at once, not wait for his clothes to be returned by the cleaner, not wait for a woman who would not come again.

He swung the car over to Santa Monica Boulevard, drove into Santa Monica. He intended stopping at the Santa Fe office, to find out about railroad tickets east. He’d have to hold out enough money for return fare. But there was no place to park and in irritation he drove away, cutting across to Wilshire. He had no intention of turning west, yet he did. And he followed the avenue to the Incline, down the Incline to the beach road. It didn’t look any different. There were no police lines. There were perhaps more cars than usual parked along the street. Yet perhaps not. With the day warming, the beach regulars would be out in force. Dix didn’t slow the car. He drove on down the road, turned off into the canyon and back to town.

He didn’t realize that he was being followed until he was held by the light at the San Vicente eucalyptus grove. Until he remembered that the shabby sedan that drew up beside him had been behind him when he turned to the beach. Digging back, he knew it had been behind him when he left the drugstore; uncertainly, he remembered seeing it before then. His hands were cold against the wheel. It couldn’t be.

And he was right, it couldn’t be. The two men in the sedan were ordinary, and the car didn’t wait for Dix to turn, it headed out ahead of him on the green. It was nerves, induced by the early morning visit of Springer and Yates, by the irritation of the gardeners and the lineman and forgetting where he’d left the car. You couldn’t drive many blocks without running into a shabby black sedan with two men in it, Wilshire was full of like cars right now.

He wasn’t being followed. Yet he drove back to the apartment. If there’d been anything he wanted to do, he wouldn’t have cared how many cars were following him. But he was tired. Too tired to fight traffic for no reason. He would go home and sleep.

The front gardener had at last finished with Dix’s side of the patio. He was leaning against a pillar, laying off with a cigarette. If anyone was hanging around, trying to find out what Dix had done with himself this morning, it was obvious. A trip to the cleaners, here was the evidence. A stop at a drugstore and if anyone wanted to know what call he’d made there, he’d have an answer. He’d called to see if Laurel was in. On to Santa Monica to the ticket office but no place to park. The drive down the beach? Simple curiosity. It was legitimate. He wouldn’t be the only man in town with curiosity.

He picked up his paper off the walk, let himself into the apartment. He’d forgotten the cleaning woman. She was flicking the dust off the living-room tables as he entered. She was no more pleased to see him than he to see her. She didn’t speak, she substituted a surly bob of her head.

He gave her a like bob as he carried his clothes into the bedroom to hang them. Hoping she would have started with the bedroom but she hadn’t. It was still in ugly disarray. He left it abruptly, wanting to snarl at her, to ask her why she hadn’t done the bed and bath first. Knowing why, because too often he was asleep at this hour.

Even as he stood there, hating her, the hideous siren of the vacuum cleaner whined suddenly in the next room. He rushed to the doorway. “Get out!” he shouted. She didn’t turn off the infernal machine, she only glanced up at him dully. “Get out,” he screamed. “Take that thing and get out!”

Her eyes bugged at him then, her slack mouth opened. But she didn’t speak. She pulled out the cord fast, gathered her dust cloths, and scurried out the kitchen way. He heard the door bang behind her.

He steadied himself for a moment against the wall. He shouldn’t have lost his temper. He was left with a slovenly bed, an unkempt bathroom. He held himself rigid until he had stopped shaking. Slowly he walked into the kitchen and bolted the back door. He knew the front was locked but he returned to it, made sure. He had to have sleep., undisturbed sleep. Slowly he plodded back to the bedroom, drew the curtains against the sun. He was desperate for sleep.

He tried to pull the bedcovers into some shape but his hands were witless. He did manage to slip out of his jacket and kick off his shoes before flinging himself face down, begging for oblivion.

He lay there, trying to quiet his thoughts, pleading to any gods who might heed to give him rest. And he heard it begin, clip-clip, clip-clip. Outside his windows, clip-clip, clip-clip. His breath hissed from between his set teeth. It had begun and it wouldn’t stop. It would go on, louder and louder, sharper and sharper. He began to tremble. He wouldn’t dare order the man away, he couldn’t risk having another employee run to the manager with tales. He tried to stop up his ears with his tight fists, he sandwiched his head between the pillows, he tried to will his ears to close. But the inexorable rhythm continued, clip-clip, clip-clip.

He began to weep. He couldn’t help it, he tried to laugh but tears oozed from his smarting lids. His whole body was shaken. He twisted the covers in his clenched fists. He couldn’t stand it. He’d go crazy if he lay here longer.

Shaking, he moved into the living room, dropped weakly on the couch. He thought he could still hear the shears but he couldn’t. It was only echo in his brain; it would go away. If he closed his eyes, lay quietly, it would go away. His hand fell on the newspaper; he’d dropped it automatically on the couch when he came in with the cleaning. He didn’t want to look at it. He knew what it said. He knew all about it. But he found himself opening the sheet, staring at the black headlines. He’d read the story once, but he found himself reading it again, reading every word, every tired word. Strength returned to him and he crushed the paper, hurled it across the room. He turned over on the cramped couch, turned his back to the room, clamped his eyes as tightly as his teeth. He must find sleep.

Even as he turned, the door buzzer began its sickening rasp. He ignored the first three drones. Lying there rigidly, willing whoever it was to go away. The buzz continued, in longer pressings now, like a drill boring into his tortured head. Whoever it was had no intention of going away. Whoever it was knew that he was within. There was to be no sleep. It didn’t matter now. Even the need of it was no longer alive. He got up and padded in his sock feet to the door. He opened it without hesitation. He didn’t care who was outside.

Two men. Two men in plain suits and hats and shoes, plain faces to match. Two quiet men. Before either spoke, he knew them for what they were.

He stood aside to let the men come in. He refused to know why they were here.

One of them said, “Mr. Steele?” “Yes?”

One of them said, “Captain Lochner sent us to see if you’d mind coming up to the station, Mr. Steele.”

He had no defenses. He said, “Certainly not.” No matter how pleasantly it was offered, it was a command. “Will you wait while I get my jacket?” He felt naked without his shoes; he was ashamed to mention them.

“Take your time,” one of the men said. He was the one who moved over to the desk as Dix left the room. The other one moved to the windows.

He put on the tweed jacket, pushed his feet into the brown loafers, brushed his trousers with his hands. They weren’t badly wrinkled, not as they would have been had he slept. His hair was tousled. He took time—they’d said, take your time—to brush it. Cigarettes, in his pocket. His lighter—it wasn’t his, it was Mel’s, narrow, gold, real gold. No initials, no identification. He slipped it into his pocket.

The two plain men turned to meet him. They let him lead the way out of the apartment, walked beside him casually, not one on each side, not clamping his arms. The car at the curb was a plain sedan, not a police car. One of the men said, “Maybe you’d rather follow us in your own car.”

Dix caught his breath. He didn’t understand; they couldn’t be offering him a getaway. He couldn’t get away. Not in the fastest car made. He could delay them but he couldn’t escape them.

He said, “It doesn’t matter.”

“You might as well take yours. You know the way?”

“Sure.” He didn’t get it. And he didn’t like it. It wasn’t until he was following them up Beverly Drive that he did get it. This wasn’t an arrest. How could it be, they had no charge to place against him. They hadn’t a thing on him. But this did put his car into their hands where they could get their God-damned dust. He had to laugh at that. Little good the dust would get them. And if they took casts of the tires while he was in the office, little good that would do them.

The laugh had picked him up. Enough so that he felt himself as he parked across from the station. The two plain men had pulled up just beyond him. Not in the police drive. He joined them to cross the street. He didn’t ask what Lochner wanted. He could have now, but it might point up his silence before. Therefore he was silent, going along with them into the flowered grounds, up the stone steps, beyond the door flanked by the great bronze lamps holding green light.

He showed his ease by knowing the way to the office. He was certain it would be the private office; it was. He was surprised to find that Lochner wasn’t alone, to find Brub there with him. Somehow he hadn’t expected Brub to be in on this. His hands twitched slightly. Why hadn’t Brub come for him instead of sending the two zombies? Nevertheless, he gave Brub a wide smile as he spoke, “Good afternoon, Captain Lochner. You wanted to see me?”

“Yeah. Sit down.”

Dix sat down and he calmed down; this wasn’t Brub’s show. Lochner was the boss. Brub looked like a clerk sitting there at the table surrounded with papers. Dix didn’t see the plain men leave the room; he only realized they had gone when they were gone.

Lochner gave him a chance to settle down. The Homicide chief was as drab as before, as tired of it all. He waited for Dix to light a cigarette before he spoke. “Thought maybe you could help us, Mr. Steele.”

Dix lifted his eyebrows. He didn’t have to pretend to be puzzled. “I’d be glad to. But how?”

“It’s that Bruce case.”

His hands didn’t twitch. He lifted his cigarette calmly to his lips.

“Nicolai told you something about it.”

“Yes.” He might have spoken too quickly. He added. “You mean the English case?”

“Yeah. You knew the girl?”

“Yes.” He directed a small glance at Brub. “We both knew her. A wonderful girl.” Lochner was waiting for him to say something more. Dix didn’t fumble. There were several things he could have said. He chose a surprised one. “Are you taking over that case, Captain Lochner?”

“Uh-uh,” Lochner said. “But I got to thinking—”

Dix nodded. “Brub told me your idea. It could have been the same man.”

“I got a list.” Lochner rooted out a paper from under grub’s hands. “These men were friendly with the Bruce girl. All Americans. All in England when it happened. Now I wonder if you’d look it over.” He held onto the paper, swinging it in his hand. “Just read it over, see what you can remember about these men. Anything they might have said or done. Anything you can remember, no matter what it is.” He pushed the paper at Dix suddenly. “Here.”

Dix got up from his chair, walked to the table. He didn’t look at the list as he carried it again to his chair. There was a trick in this. Some kind of a trick. He hadn’t been called in to look over a list. He took his time studying the names, keeping his expression grave, thoughtful. Time to think. To get ready for questions. When he was ready, he smiled up at Lochner, moved the smile to Brub. “My name’s on it,” he said.

“Yeah,” Lochner nodded.

Brub said, “But you’d been transferred before then, Dix. I told Jack.”

“My transfer wasn’t completed until after I returned from Scotland,” Dix explained, as if surprised that Brub didn’t know. “I had a month’s leave, accumulated.” Brub hadn’t known. Brub had been shipped out before the changes.

“You came home after that?” Lochner asked.

“No,” Dix answered. Walk softly. “I was sent to Paris and into Germany. On the clean-up. I was overseas another year.” Say nothing of the months in London. He’d been proud of the cushy job. Adjutant to the general. Say nothing. Lochner was too snoopy. Dix’s war record was none of his business.

“Then you saw something of those men?”

He couldn’t deny knowing the names. Brub knew them too. They were, most of them, part of the old gang. Some he’d liked; some he’d have liked to kick in the teeth. For instance. Will Brevet. If Brub weren’t sitting here, he could send Lochner looking into Brevet. But with Brub present, he couldn’t. Brub knew the louse had tried to grab off Brucie.

Dix shook his head. “I’m sorry but I didn’t. I was transferred immediately after my leave. I didn’t run into any of these men after I left.” Sure he’d run into Brevet in London, he’d even pubbed with him one lonely night. He could lie about that. Lochner wasn’t going to track down all these guys.

Whatever the purpose of this summons, it wasn’t to look into the whereabouts of a bunch of harmless guys or of Will Brevet. It was funny, in this small world, that Dix hadn’t run into any of them after he left London. Not even after he got back to the States. But that was how it turned out, even in the small world.

He walked over and handed the list back to Lochner. He faced the chief squarely. “I don’t know a thing against any man on this list. They were all swell guys. There isn’t a one of them that could have had anything to do with—with what you think.” He’d delivered the defense stirringly; he meant what he said. Brub’s eyes applauded. “Is there anything else?” Dix asked quietly.

“That’s all.” Lochner’s big forefinger rubbed over the names. “I guess that’s all, Mr. Steele.” For a moment, his eyes weren’t sleepy. “You can’t blame a guy for trying,” he said.

He took his list then and walked out of the room, through a communicating door. Dix looked at Brub.

Brub tilted back his chair. “I’ve tried to tell him. He wouldn’t take my word for it.” He brought the chair forward again. The legs hit hard on the floor. “You can’t blame him for trying. Even if the administration weren’t riding him, he’d feel the same. It’s a personal failure. That these things could be happening while he’s the chief.”

Dix sat on the edge of the table. “Yes, I can see how he’d feel.” He took out another cigarette, lit it, pushed the pack to Brub and held the lighter. Held the lighter right under Brub’s nose. “It’s hard lines. For you, too.”

“We’ll get him,” Brub said. There was fight in him, no defeat now.

“Keep me posted. I’ll want to know how you brought it off. The tec who solved the perfect crimes.”

“They aren’t perfect,” Brub said softly. Then he turned his head fast to look at Dix. “You’re going back East soon? Thought you said you’d be around some weeks more—or months.”

“I may have to take off sooner than I expect,” Dix grimaced. “The beckoning hands of business.”

“Don’t just disappear,” Brub warned. “I want to give you an aloha ball. That’ll bring you back.”

“I’ll make my farewells.” He slid off the table. “I won’t take up any more of your valuable time now, Brub. Give me a ring and we’ll have lunch or dinner in a day or so. How about it?”

“Sure.” Brub walked with him to the door. When they reached it, he asked, “How was Scotland?”

He’d forgotten that tangent, it took him a minute to balance the question. He answered, “It was wonderful.”

“I didn’t know you traveled there.”

“Yes.” He was thinking about it, not the way it was, the way he’d wanted it to be. “She loved it so. She talked so much about it. It was everything she said.” And she was dead, but no one had known. Brub was thinking, and Brucie was then dead but Dix hadn’t known.

Dix lifted his shoulders, lifted the memory away. “So long. Brub.” He didn’t look back; he let Brub remember him as a strong man, a man who could, after a first shock, keep his sorrow in check.

He’d carried the whole thing off well. If Lochner had been playing a hunch, he’d lost his wad. He knew now there was nothing to get out of Dix Steele. There was nothing damning in being in Scotland when Brucie died. There was nothing damning in having been in London afterwards. Except that he’d told Brub he knew nothing of what had happened. He might have been expected to know from London. Actually there’d not been a thing in the papers to tie unrelated crimes with the death of Brucie. He’d never seen Brucie’s name in print. But he didn’t want to go into such explanations, they sounded like alibis. He had no alibis; he needed none.

The car was where he’d left it. If the police had gone after dust, they hadn’t taken much. The floor mat was no cleaner than it had been. He felt swell only he was hungry. It was too early for dinner, not more than a bit after four. A big delicatessen sandwich and a bottle of beer wouldn’t spoil his dinner. Not after the starvation wages he’d been on today.

He was lucky, finding a parking place directly in front of the delicatessen. He was always lucky. He ought to kick himself for the megrims he’d had these last couple of days. Something must be wrong with his liver. Or perhaps he was coming down with a cold. From that nap on the beach. Actually he knew what was wrong. It was having Laurel walk out on him. If she’d been around he wouldn’t have had a case of nerves.

He ordered salami and swiss on rye with his beer. Someone had discarded an afternoon paper in the next booth. He reached out for it, folded it back to its regular paging, first page first. The story was still on first. The police had given up questioning the fiance and the college friends and the father; they were satisfied none of them knew any more about the Banning case than did the police themselves. The police were talking fingerprints now. That was a lot of eyewash. Sand didn’t take fingerprints.

Lochner was probably having the force develop fingerprints off that piece of paper right now. Because Lochner would be thorough. Or maybe he’d had them lifted off the steering wheel, you could get dandies off a steering wheel. Only trouble was he had nothing to match them up with. A beachful of sand.

Dix enjoyed the sandwich. The beer tasted fine. So good that he considered another but he didn’t want to hang around here. The phone might be ringing at the apartment. Laurel might be waiting there. He bought a couple of bottles to take out and he hurried away. His luck had turned, and that meant Laurel was coming home.

He was left-turning off the drive when he caught sight of the car. The same shabby black sedan with the same two average men in it. He was certain it was the same. He slowed his speed, eased his car around the block. He drove the entire block and the car didn’t show up behind him.

Rage flushed him. It was reasonless to imagine such things now. He’d come through the interview with banners flying, he’d had a good snack, all the indications were that luck had caught up with him. He couldn’t revert, even for an imagined moment, to the weaknesses of these last days. He wouldn’t let it happen.

As he was crossing the intersection, he saw the car again. It hadn’t followed him around the block. It had come the other way to meet him. It followed him to the apartment. It was almost as if the men didn’t care if he knew they were following. As if they wanted him to know.

When he parked in front of the apartment the other car plodded past. He didn’t get a good enough look at the men to recognize them again. They didn’t have faces to be remembered: they were background men, familiar only in their own setting, in the front seat of an old sedan.

Slowly he entered the patio, thinking, trying to understand. He’d passed Lochner’s examination; he was sure of it. Why should he still be followed? He hit on an explanation, the men didn’t know it as yet, Lochner hadn’t had time to call them off. He took a deep breath of relief. Luck hadn’t defaulted, she was still along with him.

Automatically he raised his eyes to the balcony. He stopped short, his eyes widening in disbelief. The door to Laurel’s apartment was ajar. He didn’t think about who might be watching, he didn’t care. Laurel had returned.

He covered the patio quickly, ran up the stairs, reached the door in seven-league strides. He was about to tap but he let his hand fall. He’d walk in on her, surprise her. He still carried the sack of beer. They would celebrate.

Softly he entered the small foyer, moved through the arch into her living room. It was better than Mel’s living room; she’d had an even better decorator. It was as exciting as Laurel herself, silver-gray and gold and touches of bronze; in this room Laurel would glow, it had been fitted to display her as a Reingold window displayed a precious jewel. The room was empty. But the apartment wasn’t empty; he could hear the water running in the bath. She’d come home! She was getting bathed and then she’d dress and they’d have a swell evening. He was so excited that he couldn’t have called out to her if he’d wanted. But he wanted to surprise her. He set the beer down on the couch, carefully, so that the bottles wouldn’t clink. And he started softly towards the bedroom door.

BOOK: In a Lonely Place
13.96Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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