Love Nest (23 page)

A
t the Silver Bell Motor Lodge, Chick the desk clerk said, “You can’t see her. She’s got high-powered people with her. Big business deal.”

“What’s it about?”

“Hush-hush, Sonny. My mouth is sealed.”

“You’re very loyal to her, aren’t you?”

“Sure I am. Why shouldn’t I be? She’s a fine lady.”

“But what would you do if you couldn’t work here anymore?”

“Drop down and die. Everybody’s got to do it sometime.” His wrinkled face cracked into a smile. “I don’t get much sleep, so I got a lot to catch up on. Every time I yawn I think how good it’s going to be.”

“You make it sound wonderful.”

“You’re dead lots longer than you’re alive, so you got to see the bright side.”

“Not when you’re nineteen. That’s how old she was.”

“That’s not fair, Sonny. I mean, not fair to me. You’re acting like …”

“Like what, Chick?”

“Like I don’t know.”

“If there were things I didn’t know and you did, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

“Everything.”

“I don’t believe you, Chick, but it’s nothing personal. I just don’t believe anybody.” Dawson reached into the depths of his coat and produced a coffee cup half out of its paper wrapping. “Give this to Mrs. Gately when she’s done with her business and tell her I’ll be waiting for her in room forty-six.”

“Forty-six? Sure, Sonny. I’ll give you the key.”

“You don’t seem surprised.”

Chick drew in his lower lip as if to ponder his reply. “Each new day, Sonny, that surprises me. I can’t think of nothing else that does.”

“Nor I, Chick,” Dawson said and took the key.

He drove his car around to the rear of the motel. In the room he opened the drapes and tossed his coat on the bed, where it fell in a way that disturbed him, the flop of the arms invoking too keen an image. He was about to remove it when the phone rang, Chick on the line.

“I tried to listen at the door, Sonny, see how long she’d be, but I couldn’t hear anything. Could be an hour, maybe more.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said.

“How about I have someone bring you a sandwich or something, pot of coffee you want it?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

“Sonny, I thought all this was kind of cleared up. I mean, you know, the boy.”

“No, I don’t know, Chick. Do you?”

“I told you I didn’t.”

“Then why are you bothering me?”

“Because I saw her last night. I mean, who she said she was, just fooling.”

“Who did you see?”

“On television. Tina Turner. It didn’t look nothing like her, Sonny, but it made me sad.”

Dawson replaced the receiver, left the coat where it was, and sank into a chair facing the window. It was late in the day, and the sky had the rosy color of gasoline. He watched the wind pick up and push through a towering stand of firs. Through the window, it sounded like the ruffle of a drum. He closed his eyes.

Paige Gately woke him with a touch on the arm and then stepped back on fashionable high heels, her neat silvery hair garnering light from the lamp she had switched on. Her lips suggested the flare of a match. With sluggish effort, Dawson drew himself erect in the chair. “I was dreaming,” he said.

“How pleasant.”

“Not really.” He stretched a leg to get rid of a small cramp. “How did your business meeting go?”

“That’s not your concern.”

“Did you get the cup?”

“Not my pattern.”

“I hoped it’d be close.”

“A famous man once said close only counts in horseshoes and grenades. Is that your new jacket?”

He fingered one of the buttons. “Yes, do you like it?”

“It almost suits you,” she said and moved imperturbably toward the bed, brushing aside his rumpled coat, sweeping away a dangling sleeve, and sitting hard on the edge. He watched her cross her legs.

“That’s where she was killed.”

“I don’t need to be reminded, Sergeant. If it hadn’t happened here, it would have happened somewhere else. She was ill-starred. She came out of the wrong womb. Blame that big bastard in the sky.”

“You’re a cool one, Mrs. Gately.”

“Do you think I had no feeling for her? I’m the one got her the job with Rollins, and I’m the one got her off drugs. I suppose you think you did it.”

“I wouldn’t know.” His tone was curiously light, his smile vacant. “I do know I let her down.”

“I’m sure you did, but I doubt you ever promised her anything.”

“Not with words.”

“Then you’ll have to live with that.”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

Her throat tightened. “Why are you here, Sergeant? Why am I here?”

“To help.”

“Nothing I can do for you.”

They faced each other more with an ear than an eye, as if they were listening to each other through a thin wall, their voices mere murmurs but each word charged. “The least I can do is bring in her killer.”

She said, “Get yourself a shovel.”

“Can I be sure it was him?”

She rose from the bed’s edge and ever so slightly leaned toward him on her high heels. “Does it matter anymore? Would it bring her back? If it did, she’d stink of the grave and hate you for it. As it stands now, she died loving you. We talked a lot, so you have my word.”

“Why do I feel you know everything?”

“I
seem
to know everything. It’s how I get ahead.”

“Is that how you got the Silver Bell?”

She did not answer. Making fists, she stretched her arms obliquely and arched her back. “I’ve had a long day, Sergeant. I’m leaving.”

“I’m staying,” he said, and she brought her arms down fast as if alerted by an inner signal.

“You worry me,” she said.

“I should,” he replied, his green eyes luminescent like a cat’s.

“This is private property. You’re not a paying guest.”

“Have Chick register me. And tell him I’ll have that sandwich now.”

She hesitated, unsure and unsettled. “Anything else?”

“Yes,” he said. “Get in touch with Alfred Bauer. Tell him I want to see him.”

“Tell him yourself.”

“No,
you
tell him,” he said and pointed to the telephone. “Do it now.”

Something in his face, the eyes, made her decide to accommodate him. Two steps took her to the bedside table, where she picked up the receiver, struck a button for the outside line, and looked back at him. “Have you ever killed anybody, Sergeant?”

“No.”

“Have you ever drawn your revolver?”

“Only to qualify.”

“Then I’ll tell Alfred he has nothing to fear.”

Dawson laid his head back and closed his eyes. “You’d be lying.”

• • •

Chick gave her a broad smile from behind the desk and said, “I got good news for you, Mrs. Gately. A big group of Japanese engineers checked in. They’re here visiting Raytheon. Rolling Green’s all full, so they came here.”

“That’s wonderful,” she said with scant attention and added automatically, “Alert the restaurant.”

“Already did. I wouldn’t forget something like that,” he said, hurt that she had thought otherwise. She continued on toward her office. “Mrs. Gately.”

“Yes,” she said with irritation, stopping in her tracks.

“Mr. Fellows is in there waiting. I guess it’s OK he went in. He said it’d be. I mean, I didn’t do nothing wrong, did I?”

“You never do, Chick.”

She entered the office, closing the door slowly and firmly behind her. Ed Fellows was pouring coffee for himself, his back to her. “You have a cup here doesn’t match,” he said. She went to her desk and sat down, a weariness invading her all at once. She forced off one shoe and then the other. Fellows breezed forth with his coffee, drew up a chair, and fell carefully into it. On the desk was the crystal dish of pink cupcakes and glazed cookies she had laid out for her earlier visitors. Fellows picked up a cookie and bit off half. He eyed her searchingly. “I don’t like the look on your face.”

“It didn’t go right. They chopped their offer by fifteen percent.”

“Son of a bitch,” he said, chewing fast. “They’re playing a game.”

“No game,” she said. “They’re considering another site, but they’re still interested in this one. Only at their price.”

“I should’ve been here.”

“Wouldn’t have helped.”

“You at least should have had Rollins here.”

“Don’t tell me what I should have done, Ed.”

“We’ll get them back,” he said, eating the rest of the cookie. “We’ll dicker.”

“Won’t do any good.” Her voice was unhurried, un-modulated. “It was take it or leave it. They weren’t kidding.”

“What did you do?”

“I took it.”

He did some fast figuring in his head, eyes rolling, thick fingers twitching. “We still make a profit.”

“Not what I planned.”

He smiled to make the best of it. “You know what they say about the best-laid plans.”

“I don’t need to be reminded,” she said with the irony of someone struck down by an unknown hand. “There were three of them, and one didn’t look any more than twenty-five, though he was probably thirty. Hotshots in Brooks Brothers suits. They won’t keep much of the help. They took one look at Chick and gagged.”

“Not your problem.” Fellows brushed crumbs from his pinstripes and reached again into the dish, this time choosing a cupcake. In his big hand it looked like a fluffy Easter chick, much care needed not to crush it. “You have to be philosophical about these things.”

“Have I ever not been?” she said, more to herself than to him. Then in a louder voice: “You usually send me something nice from Nazarian’s for Christmas.”

“Yes, I do.”

“This year make it money.” She pushed back in her chair and swung her stockinged feet up onto the desk. “You have coffee. Where’s mine?”

He rose on the instant, frosting on his mouth, and lumbered to the service set. He chose the cup that did not match. His head bent over his chore, he said, “Was anything wrong before? Chick said you had to go to one of the rooms.”

She wondered how much to tell him and then said simply, “A problem with a guest.”

• • •

Chick delivered the sandwich and a pot of coffee himself and said, “You’d’ve got it sooner if she’d said something. You hadn’t called, I wouldn’t’ve known.” He dragged a low table close to Dawson’s knees and set the tray on it, fluffed out a napkin, poured the coffee.

Dawson said, “Who’s minding the store?”

“A kid from the kitchen. He’s a Puerto Rican from Lawrence, but that don’t make no difference to me. I mean, long as he’s clean and honest.”

“Mrs. Gately gone home?”

“No, Sonny. She’s in her office with Mr. Fellows.”

“Ed Fellows? Does he come here often?”

“Not much. Just on business. He’s her banker, her money man, but I guess you know that.”

“You’d be surprised at the things I don’t know.”

“I know what you mean. People think because I work at a motel I know all kinds of things. I just mind my business is what I do.” He backed off. “You want anything else, phone’s right there.”

The sandwich was spiced ham and cheese on rye with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. Dawson ate it all. He drank the cupful of coffee and then a half cup more. He felt stiff from the neck down when he went into the bathroom, where he first used the john and then bent over the sink to gargle and to wash his face. Straightening, he smoothed his hair back with wet palms. He tried to read his face in the glass, but it had little to say. Before resettling in the chair, he drew the drapes against the evening dark. He was not asleep but his eyes were shut when a draft of cold air briefly washed over him. Alfred Bauer’s entry into the room, accompanied by the telltale redolence of bay rum, was nearly soundless.

Dawson rubbed his eyes before opening them. “I don’t know if it’s still hot,” he said, “but there’s coffee in the pot.”

“Seldom touch it,” Bauer replied. He started to remove his coat but then decided against it. “Chilly in here.”

“Feels warm to me.”

Bauer anchored himself in a chair six feet away, near the silent television set. The velvety collar of his dark coat crept up on him. A protective lotion gave his bald head a shine, but his face was dry and paste-colored.

“Have you been in this room before, Mr. Bauer?”

“Don’t give me any shit,” he replied without rancor or force. His usually rich voice was hoarse and hollow. Dawson scrutinized him.

“You’re the fellow was going to grind me up. Looks like somebody’s done it to you.”

“Don’t breathe easy, Sergeant. I’m biding my time.”

“It’s good to know where we stand.”

“We’ve always known,” he said, still without rancor but with a bit more drive. Then he smiled. “Do you know what I was thinking about, driving here? My first piece. Do you remember yours, Sergeant? Eve James, wasn’t it? Mine came late, in the army, somebody’s wife. I opened her, entered her, thoroughly enjoyed her. Then afterwards, when she was dressing, she stared through me as if I didn’t exist. Always struck me as inhuman. Melody was never like that.”

Dawson had no comment, no reaction other than a compression of the lips.

Bauer said, “Mel and I had something in common, you probably didn’t know that. We both got off to bad starts. Lousy parents. My father was a prosperous lawyer but a violent man, and my mother unfortunately had an eye for men. He killed her and then himself, forgot about me. I was brought up in a private institution for male orphans with trust funds. In upstate New Hampshire, not a bad place. Overlooked a lake and the green side of a mountain. From my bedroom window I could watch the sun glance off the water. The buildings were brick, the floors marble. I was there eight years, though it seemed forever, every day the same. I was never mistreated, but never shown affection either. I was just there. Do you know what I mean, Sergeant?”

“I’m not sure I’m interested.”

“A man you suspect of murder you ought to let talk. The only good thing at that place, Sergeant, was its physical culture program. The director was a woman. She was in her sixties, but when she got in her tights you’d have thought she was twenty. She drummed it into us every day, nothing more important than your God-given body. I worshipped that woman, but I don’t think she ever knew my name.”