River Girl (20 page)

The heat was beginning to make me weak, and I felt sick. This was the last intersection now, and I leaned against the lamp pole waiting for the light to change. The beauty shop was the fourth door from the corner and I stopped in front of it, not knowing what to do next. People going past in the hot sunlight bumped into me and I moved out toward the curb.

A sedan pulled up into the no-parking zone and stopped. Two men got out, and as I watched in growing horror they walked into the shop. But they’re not in uniform I thought desperately. They’re not police. They couldn’t be! But there was no use trying to kid myself that they looked like the kind of men who frequented beauty shops.

The door opened. She was coming out. I wanted to jump forward and cry out and take her by the arm, but I stopped, rooted where I was. One of the men was right behind her and he had her by the arm, I had to move to get out of their way, for I was standing right in front of their car.

She saw me and I thought she would cry out. The terror was awful in her eyes, but she went past me with no word and no sign of recognition. I could swing and hit him, I thought through the black despair, but she couldn’t run in those high heels, and there’s always the other one. And by now I had seen the shoulder holsters and the guns. One of the men got in the front seat behind the wheel and the other helped her in and then sat down beside her in the back.

Nobody had said a word. The people going by on the sidewalk never knew it. As the car pulled away from the curb her face turned toward me just for an instant through the window and I wanted to die.

Then I was back at the hotel. I had no idea how I had got there, but I was standing in her room looking around at her clothes and the two alligator bags and her robe and nightgown across the bed and feeling all the emptiness and silence of this place where she had been come crawling up over me like ants across a lidless eye. There was no escaping them, and I wanted to turn and run back out, but there was nowhere else to go and I had enough sense left to know that the emptiness was inside me and that I would take it with me when I ran.

The thing I had to do was sit down and try to think, try to see exactly what had happened. This torturing condemnation running endlessly through my mind like a singing commercial through a radio you couldn’t turn off wasn’t going to do anything except eventually drive me crazy, and then they’d have us both. I had done this to her. I had left the picture there where they had found it, I had been responsible for her going to the beauty shop, and I had stood there like a baby and let the police take her away to jail, but it wasn’t going to help any to go on torturing myself with the knowledge.

I sat down on the bed. The maid had already been here and cleaned the room, so I was safe enough from discovery. And they’re not even looking for me anyway, I thought, struggling to reorient myself. They’re only looking for the people who are supposed to have killed me. Then the terrible irony of it went to work on me again and my head was in a spin. I had done such a good job of erasing myself that they had already arrested her as an accomplice in my murder.

But does she know that? I thought. Does she know that it’s my disappearance she’s been arrested for, or does she, in her terror, think they’ve found out about Shevlin? What would she do? What would she be likely to say, to cry out without knowing where she might trap herself? That was the terrible part of it. I had no way of knowing what she was going to say, and no way to get word to her to tell her what to say. I thought of those “Information, Please” experts at work on her and of all their tricks, and had to tear my mind away from it.

If she saw from the first that they had picked her up only because they were trying to find Shevlin, she would be all right. There were a thousand things she could tell them that would leave her in the clear. And all the time she would be secure in the knowledge that the crime for which she had been arrested didn’t actually exist, that they couldn’t actually do anything to her for being accessory to my death, because I wasn’t dead, and that as a last resort I could always reappear to kill the charge. But, I wondered then, suddenly, would her mind, having gone that far, go on to the next fact, the one staring me in the face right now? And that was that if I reappeared, what was I going to tell them when they asked me what it was all about and where Shevlin was? I could tell them that he had escaped from me. Sure. But what was I doing down here? Running from that grand-jury investigation at home? No. Because I didn’t even know that such a thing existed. Again, I had covered my tracks too well. And, also, if I reappeared out of limbo right here in this city where she was and to save her from the charge, it would tie the two of us together. Shevlin missing, and his lovely wife down here with me? It was a tabloid editor’s dream come true, and they’d have a confession out of one of us inside a day.

I was calmer now and my mind was beginning to function, as it always seemed to do eventually when I was in a jam. It was a lot like the way I had felt that day up at the cabin on the lake. After the first shock wore off and I could see that the chips were down and I had to do something, I could think. I was conscious now of this growing clarity, this ability to see all paths at once and the dangers inherent in each one. And the first thing I could see was that I was going to have to get out of this room, and get out of it fast. I wasn’t safe here; this was probably the most dangerous place in town for me right now. I sprang up from the bed. Why hadn’t I seen it before? Someday, I thought, I’m going to realize something like that just a minute too late.

Taking the key out of my pocket, I left it on the dresser. Since she didn’t have it with her and they’d know it when they searched her, it had to be here unless I wanted them to know somebody else had been here with her. As for the other things, the clothes and the bags she had bought, there was nothing to do but leave them. But no, I thought suddenly. I can’t. I can’t leave those two bags. I was with her when she bought them and helped her pick them out. The man who sold them to her could probably describe me to the police as easily as he could describe his brother. And since they were after Shevlin, they’d be backtrailing her all over town to see if anybody had seen him with her. I grabbed them up and looked out into the corridor. It was clear, and I slipped out hurriedly, closed the door, and went up the stairs to my room.

That had been close, and I’d probably caught it just in time. They would have her at the station by now. And, since they were after him and since it would be logical to assume that if she were here in town he might be too, there’d be dozens of them shaking down the hotels right this minute. The thing to do was get out of here, and the sooner the better. They’d be here any minute with her picture. Thank God, I thought, we weren’t registered together and the hotel people had no reason to connect me with her. Of course, they weren’t looking for me, but my description, if they had it, would be one that would stick in the mind, and I couldn’t take any chances of having them begin to wonder just how dead I was.

My bag was already packed. Just for a moment, as I saw it sitting there, the agonizing hell of what-might-have-been and the despair and bitterness came rushing back and hit me. In six more hours, I thought, we would have been on the plane with all the rest of our lives before us. Then I got hold of myself. I couldn’t go to pieces that way. I had to keep moving and I had to keep my head. Dragging a hand roughly across my face, I went over to the telephone and called for a boy to come after the bags. There was no use taking the cheap one I’d bought in the drugstore, I thought, and threw it inside the closet and closed the door. I had two more than I’d checked in with as it was.

We went down in the elevator, and as we came into the lobby I looked guardedly around. There was no one at the desk who looked like a plain-clothes man. I wondered if the clerk would notice the extra bags. The boy took them on out and I settled the bill. There was a cab outside and I got in.

“Where to, chief?” the driver asked. Where? I thought I had to go somewhere.

“Bus station.” I had to get rid of those bags, no matter what I did. We crawled through snarled traffic and heat and blaring horns. The bus station was jammed and sultry, full of a loudspeaker’s blasting and the roar of a departing bus. I put the three bags in lockers and stuck the keys in my pocket. All right, I thought, I’ve cut the trail from her to me to give myself time to think, but where do I go from here?

I pushed through the crowd to the lunch counter and ordered a cup of coffee. What had she told them? That was the question that went through my mind over and over. Everything depended on that, and there wasn’t any way I could know. Suppose she had confessed? In spite of the sticky heat I felt the chill between my shoulder blades. And it was possible; I knew it. In her terror and confusion, not even knowing what she had been picked up for, with all of them firing questions at her, who knew what she might blurt out?

But suppose, I thought, trying to pick up the thread of thought I’d had before I realized I had to get out of the hotel, suppose she kept her head and hasn’t said anything so far? Then we’re safe enough—for the moment. The danger then would lie in the fact that eventually they might wear her down, keep hammering at her until she let something slip, or that eventually, as they kept looking for my body, they might find Shevlin’s. That was a very real danger now that Raines had joined in the search because he wasn’t trying to cover anything up, as Buford was. Therefore, I had to get her out of there. But how? Obviously, the only way I could do it was by turning myself in, or coming back to life. And then they would be asking me the question, the big one: Where was Shevlin?

But wait, I thought. I was very close to it a while ago when I had to run away from the hotel. Suppose I could come back to light in some way that wouldn’t indicate I had ever been down here at all or even knew her? They were still looking for me in that swamp, with some faint hope that I was still alive and only hurt and lost. Well, suppose it turned out that I was? They would release her. The charge then wouldn’t be worth holding her for. That would take the pressure off her before she broke down and confessed, or let something slip.

The girl brought my coffee. “What’s the matter, big boy?” Suddenly I realized she was talking to me.

“Matter?” I asked. “Why?”

She gave me a pert smile. “Well, I don’t know, but you just looked so worried and kind of moving your lips like somebody talking to himself.”

I’ve got to stop attracting attention, I thought. “Oh,” I said. “It’s my wife. She’s having a baby.”

“Oh.” She started to move away. “I hope it’s a boy.”

“Thanks,” I said. Where was I? Oh, yes. Back in the swamp. But if I came back out of there, they would probably dust off that grand-jury investigation again, even providing they’d really dropped it. All right, I thought, what of it? A year, two at-the most. And even a chance of a suspended sentence. We’re young. We could stand it. And it would be a hell of a lot better than what we had staring us in the face right this minute.

I was working on it at top speed now. I could do it. I could get back in there, fake the scalp wound where he had slugged me with the oar, fall in the swamp a few times, wander around all night until I was dirty and bloody and haggard enough, and then start finding my way out, get picked up by some of the searchers, and have a good story ready for them. I could make it stick. But wait, I thought. I’ve got to get that bag back out of the locker and change clothes somewhere. I’ve got on the new suit, and I’d have a hell of a time explaining how I bought it while I was lost in a swamp. But that was easy. I could do it in the men’s rest room. I put a dime on the counter for the coffee and started to get up, and then the other thought hit me. I sat down.

My hands were tied. I couldn’t make a move until I found out what she had said to the police. God, suppose I went back into the swamp, and then, tomorrow morning, when I found my way into one of the searching parties, learned that she had confessed the whole thing! Talk about walking into a trap…I flinched.

Her story would probably be in the papers. I had to wait for them; there was no other way. I couldn’t do a single damned thing now but sweat through the whole, hot, nerve-racking eternity of this afternoon waiting for the story to hit the streets. I looked at my watch. It was twelve-thirty. It would be at least three hours, if it hit the last edition of the afternoon papers, and it might not be in them at all and I’d have to wait until around eight for the morning ones.

But in the meantime there was something else to work on. Was there any way to get word to her to tell her what I was going to try to do so she could hold on and not break down and spill everything after I had started in there? I thought about it for just a minute. There was one slight chance.

I got up hurriedly and got some change from the cashier at the counter and went over to the bank of pay phones along the wall. I dialed, “Long-distance? I want to put in a person-to-person call to a Miss Dianne Weatherford at Bigelow. I don’t know the number.”

“What is your number, please?”

I told her and waited. It was a slim chance. Would Dinah even be there? She was probably still here in town. And suppose she was home; would she talk to me? I remembered the way she had driven off. I could hear the terse, efficient chatter of the long-line operators and then somewhere far off a telephone ringing. It went on, while I waited, sweating. “Hello?” It was Dinah. I deposited the coins.

“Hello, Dinah?”

“Yes. Oh, is that you, Ja—?” She caught herself in time and cut it off.

“Yeah,” I said. “Look, can you get in touch with Buford? It’s important, and I can’t call him at the office.”

“I will if he’s there. He may still be down at the lake.”

“Well, look,” I said urgently. “Try to get hold of him. Ask him to come to your place and I’ll call again exactly an hour from now. Got it?”

“All right.” She paused, then went on blandly. “Oh, by the way, I see they caught that awful Shevlin woman. It was on the radio.”

“Yes,” I said. “I heard it.”

“And isn’t it funny, too, that the creature was right there in Bayou City? Where you are.”

“Yes, isn’t it? Remember. I’ll call you an hour from now.” I hung up. Wait till she sees the picture, I thought. Then she won’t have any doubt of it. Well, it couldn’t be helped now.

Somehow I sweated out the hour. When I called back Dinah said, “Yes, he’s here now. Just a minute.”

“Yes?” It was Buford his voice as impersonal as death.

“Listen. I want you to do something for me,” I said, beginning to talk fast and stumbling over myself. “They’ve just picked up Mrs. Shevlin. I guess you know it by now. And I suppose you’re going to have to send a man down to get her. I want him to give her a message”.

“Yes? What is it?” he asked coolly.

“Tell her not to worry about anything. I’m coming back.”

“I thought so. That’s about the way I had it figured. Well, I’ve got news for you. I can’t do anything about your girl friend. We’re not claiming her; Raines is. That place was in Blakeman County, as I told you, so now they’ve issued a warrant for her on suspicion of murder.”

“What?” I almost shouted it.

“And another thing. Don’t try to come back.”

“What do you mean, don’t try to come back?” The booth seemed to be shrinking, trying to choke me. “Listen, don’t you understand—”

“The thing I understand is that we had an agreement and I carried out my end of it. I didn’t know then that I was just financing your expedition, but I’m satisfied with it because so far it’s worked. And if you come back, it won’t. The minute you show up, everything’ll hit the fan. I don’t like to be doubled-crossed, so I’m telling you to stay away. Do we understand each other?”