The Expendable Man (12 page)

“Of course I'll move from your sister's tomorrow. The Palms looks pleasant.”

“It is. But Stacy won't let you move out.”

She smiled. “I can be very determined. She certainly needs to be free from company.”

“My unit will be available. I'm checking in at my grandmother's tomorrow. She is also a very determined woman.”

He didn't want to make the move. But it would hurt his grandparents if he refused without explanation. And he'd have to invent more explanations for borrowing the money from his mother to stay on at the motel.

There was little time to spare at Stacy's, he'd cut it fine. Somehow, while the girls' suitcases were being closed, Ellen managed to change from her bridesmaid's dress to a dark silk with jacket. It took Celeste longer than that to change the contents of her purse.

They made it to the airport close to eight-thirty, the check-in time. Hugh left the group and the luggage at the entrance and circled back to the parking lots. When he returned and entered the lobby, he saw Ringle. It was a large lobby and the big man was far across by the doors which led to the field. Yet he saw Hugh even as Hugh saw him. He didn't move. He stood there, a monolith, as if he were a passenger waiting for a flight announcement. Not a yard away from where Hugh's family was standing.

Ellen was waiting by the magazine racks. Perhaps she too had recognized the detective. Hugh joined her.

“Don't look now but that's Ringle over by the field exit. I'll go to the news counter and buy some cigarettes. Do you think you can get the family outside?”

“I can try.”

“I don't believe he'll do anything if I explain. But in case—” He put the car keys in her hand.

She didn't waste time discussing it. She started out. He diverged to the counter and asked for two packs of Ellen's brand of cigarettes. The woman at the cash register passed them across to him and he put down the coins. He stayed there, taking time to open one of the packages while he watched Ellen move to the family. If anyone could manage, she could. The girls would be no problem but his parents might want to remain in the waiting room. She must have been persuasive, for in a moment they were all heading out the door.

He shoved the cigarette pack in his pocket and walked with quick steps across the room. He walked directly up to Ringle. “I'm not going anywhere,” he said. “I'm seeing my father and sisters off for Los Angeles.”

Ringle grunted. But when Hugh went outside, he followed, obtrusive in his unobtrusiveness. He watched Hugh join the group by the gate.

Dad said, “We decided to wait out here. There'll be a better chance for seats.”

The sisters were both talking at once, giving and getting directions for the week ahead when their mother would be away. Hugh handed Ellen the unopened pack of cigarettes.

She smiled “Thanks” while her eyes questioned.

He said, “Thank you for the loan,” and hoped his expression conveyed reassurance concerning the situation.

He circled to a position where he could keep an eye on the detective. He didn't think that Ringle would move in now, not unless Hugh started through the gate. But he couldn't be sure, and if it should happen, he was determined to be in a position where he could step up to meet it, not have it touch the family. It seemed an endless time before the plane was called and the passenger gate was opened. The family went on board, waving through the porthole windows to the three left behind. The motors roared, spitting flame, before the big ship taxied away for the take-off. And he had to stand there, still in Ringle's shadow, until his mother saw the flight airborne. After that, he didn't delay. He escorted her and Ellen into the lobby, across it to the outer door, and toward the parking area.

Ringle followed them. Not too close but not far enough for conversation to be unheard. He was by the parking meter when Hugh helped the women into the car. When Hugh drove away, he was still standing there. Perhaps by then it had percolated through his thick head that Hugh had meant what he said, that he wasn't leaving town.

Yet Hugh could not be certain that the car wasn't followed. There were lights at a reliable distance behind him on the road leaving the airport, lights behind him as he left-turned and continued over the country road south to his sister's. It wasn't unusual to be followed by headlights. Now that evening had come, there were plenty of cars on the road, returning from Sunday outings.

It was not until he reached Stacy's house that he was taken with a fear of returning alone to the motel, of being alone through the long evening. He said to his mother, “We won't come in with you. Ellen and I are going to get something to eat.”

His mother scarcely covered her pleasure in having Hugh show an interest in Ellen. She opened her purse. “You'd better take my key, Ellen,” she said. “I'm sure everyone here will be in bed before you get back.” Ellen gave no indication that she hadn't been consulted on Hugh's plans.

Not until they had driven away did Ellen speak. “I'm not really hungry.”

“I'm not either,” he said. “But it won't hurt us to eat.” He admitted frankly, “I didn't think you'd mind. And I didn't feel I could stand an evening of thinking about it.”

“We won't talk about it at all,” she decided. “At least not until after dinner.”

He had turned east when they reached Van Buren. “You won't mind stopping at the motel while I change, will you? Maybe I won't feel so vulnerable if I can get out of this white jacket.”

“Why do you think I changed?” But she seemed relaxed, as if she had put the problem out of mind.

He pulled up at the door of the unit. “Will you come in?” She must come in, not wait in the car, not with the memory of that old sedan driving around and around the block. Not with Ringle hovering.

Before he ushered her through the door, he flicked on the overhead lights. Again he had that overwhelming sense of relief on viewing the room's pristine emptiness.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he said. “I won't be long. I'm used to making a quick change.”

He went into the dressing room. It wasn't until he reached for his sports jacket that he realized someone had been in the room while he was out. It was an occupational necessity that his personal things were kept in filing-cabinet order. The jacket was neat on the hanger but not where he had hung it. He turned to the dressing table and unzipped his shaving kit. Imperceptibly there was change. He pulled open the two drawers he had been using. His belongings had been searched.

Quickly he pulled his doctor's kit from the wardrobe shelf. This too had been opened and searched. His reaction was hot anger. If they'd wanted to search his things, couldn't they have asked, not sneaked in here while he was away?

They hadn't sneaked in. They didn't have to do it that way. They'd gone to the manager and been furnished a pass key. When the realization came, his rage turned to sickness of heart. Not for himself, but for those who would come after him asking for lodging at The Palms. They'd be measured against Hugh's status, against trouble with the police.
He looked all right but . . . That's what happens when you let them
. . . He could hear the reasonable, deprecating decisions. Or their anger.
I don't care what the law says, from now on
. . . And the tedious inching forward had become a long step back.

He returned slowly to the living room. Ellen was standing there by the coffee table, where he had left her. She said, “There's a message,” and extended a slip of paper.

It was a memo from the motel office, a number, and the notation:
Please call
. He twisted the paper in his fingers. He said, “My room's been searched.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “You'd better return the call,” was all she said. She sat down then in the big chair, the one Ringle had chosen last night.

He went to the telephone, and only after he had lifted it and heard the operator's metallic voice, did he remember that a call from this phone had to go through the switchboard. He was quite certain the message had not been from family or friend. He should have waited for an outside line, not compounded the damage done. But he went ahead, reading the number from the memo slip. The operator's voice repeated it to him, and he heard the sound of her dialing.

If the police had been private, the operator and The Palms' staff would not necessarily know of their visit to Hugh's rooms. Yet in any organization, there was a grapevine of communication which functioned without need of authoritative source or even a spoken word. He could be sure the management would curry discretion, having the police around wasn't good for a hotel's reputation. People were funny about the police. They gave lip praise to law and order, but its myrmidons brought an uneasy feeling even to the most innocent. You could taste it in the atmosphere of the receiving room even when the cops were on errands of mercy. Working in Night Emergency at the hospital had taken most of the unease away from Hugh.

On the other end of the wire a male voice stated, “Scottsdale Police Department.”

The words somehow came as a shock. He swallowed and was able to respond. “This is Dr. Densmore.”

The voice at the other end also seemed to have been surprised. There was a perceptible silence before it said, “Oh—hold on a minute.”

Waiting, Hugh muffled the handset against his jacket sleeve. He said to Ellen, “It's Scottsdale. The police.”

She put down the magazine she'd been holding and sat up tall, folding her hands into her lap like a schoolgirl. Her eyes were enormous.

Another voice came on. “Densmore? This is Marshal Hackaberry, Scottsdale. I'd like to talk to you.” There was nothing menacing in the voice, it was as normal and hearty as if the man were suggesting a lunch date.

“Certainly,” Hugh said. “When would it be convenient?”

“Can you come out here now?”

Hugh's hand tightened on the phone. This wasn't a friendly interview being set up. Did he dare say:
Not now, later. I have a dinner date
. He said, and the hesitancy was in his throat despite his efforts to eradicate it, “Well, yes, I can.”

“You know how to get here?”

“Yes, I do.” Surely a knowledge of Scottsdale didn't equate with guilt. Every visitor to Phoenix toured Scottsdale.

“I'll be expecting you.”

Slowly Hugh replaced the phone. He didn't look at Ellen. “He wants to talk to me.” She said nothing. “Now,” and he looked into her eyes.

She rose from the chair. “We'd better go.”

“Not you.” His refusal was explosive.

She smiled as if at a child. “I didn't mean I was going to hold your hand at the interview. I mean I'll drive to Scottsdale with you and wait for you.”

“No.”

“I want to,” she said flatly.

He shook his head and walked back to the dressing room. He didn't care how casually they dressed in Arizona, he needed all possible security. Such a small thing as the campus dress uniform of a white shirt and narrow dark tie was a part of it. He called out to Ellen, hoping she would be more amenable by now, “There'd be nothing for you to do while you waited.”

“I'll find something. Or just stay in the car.”

“No!” Again he was explosive. He strode back to the room, tying his necktie as he tried to explain. “They know the car. It's part of their—dossier, should I say? You can't stay in it, alone, at night, a girl—”

“So I won't stay in it,” she said gravely, and continued, “I'm going with you, Hugh. And I'll find a place to wait, a safe place, where I'll cause you neither worry nor embarrassment.”

They were standing too close together, their eyes meeting, measuring their separate thoughts. He was the one who turned away. “All right. I should say thank you. I do need support—I expect you know that from the way I've been behaving.”

Her smile was small but reassuring. “I'm not thinking of myself as a pillar. It's just—I couldn't stand the waiting anywhere else.”

He understood and he appreciated but he didn't tell her so. Because he couldn't accept the intimacy which was rising between them. He couldn't endure the knowing it must lead to nothing, no more than the finality of a good-bye, it's been fun knowing you.

“I guess I'm as ready as I'm going to be,” he said.

They left the room; he checked the door to be sure it was fast. Not that it made any difference. Locked doors didn't thwart the police. But at least he wouldn't be surprised by anyone else.

He couldn't make conversation on the drive to Scottsdale. He was afraid, he admitted to himself that he was afraid, while insisting there was no reason to be. If this were an arrest, the marshal wouldn't invite Hugh to come out for an interview, would he? He'd send the detectives with a warrant. This meeting would be less dangerous than the ordeal with Ringle and Venner last night. Yet Hugh's hands were icy and his heart leaden.

He turned off Scottsdale Road on East Main Street and found a parking place in front of the darkened windows of an Indian arts shop. He did not want to park by the police station; he didn't want Ellen to be seen there. Although this was one of the principal streets, Scottsdale was a village, and by night it was shadowed and quiet. It would have been safe enough for Ellen to remain in the car if it had not been this particular car.

He said again, “I don't know what you're going to do.”

“Don't worry about me, please. We'll meet here when you're through. I'll check regularly.”

“And if I don't come back?” He had to say it.

“Don't be absurd.”

Before he could get out to open the door, she was out of the car. She walked away without turning her head for good-bye. If she hadn't been Ellen Hamilton, she might have been heading for the luxury restaurant near the corner. But she wouldn't try that, not alone, at night; not with him in trouble. She was doubtless going to Luke's, the large lighted drugstore across Scottsdale Road. There'd be no lifted eyebrows much less outright rejection there, no better place at this hour to while away the time.