The Expendable Man (15 page)

“But, Hugh.” She was still reaching out for the bent twig of hope. “If it wasn't an aborticide—”

Hugh said distinctly, “They'll come for me because there was an abortion whether it killed her or not.” Savagely he asked, “Why should they look for the real abortionist? They've got me. A doctor—”

“A Negro doctor,” she emended. “Go on, say it.”

“No,” he refused with violence. “I won't say it.” But after a moment's thought, he admitted, “Perhaps I was beginning to sag into self-pity. I won't even think that way.” He crossed his fingers, smiled a small smile. “I hope.” Immediately he was grave. “I haven't time for that.”

The clock on the wall pointed to one. There were yet a few booths occupied and no one seemed in a hurry, but Hugh picked up the bill. “We'd better get out of here.” He hoped he had enough money with him to pay the tab; it would be the final ignominy if he had to borrow from Ellen on their first date. He made it; the cashier's weary mouth managed a “Thank you” as she returned the change.

The night was sharp with cold at this hour, the stars were broken glass patched against the dark sky. He helped Ellen into the car, unobtrusively noting that there was no police car about, nor a strange sedan. Instead of turning south through the sleeping village, out of some compulsion he followed Indian School Road. The shape of the canal rose on the right. Here, but one night ago—could it have been only then?—a living creature of hopes and dreams, joys and troubles, had mercilessly been given over to death.

It must have been appallingly easy to put her to death. Her cries, if she had warning to cry out, would have been heard only by the sleeping. She would not have been afraid until it was too late to be. She trusted the man, by whose act, if not deed, she had been delivered to death. Hugh remembered her childlike anticipatory delight as they drove into the city. She had known no qualms then, she had been sure of welcome. The man—boy—must have panicked to have killed her here on the Indian School Road. Or had she died here because the abortionist had done delayed murder? Or was it that she died on the table and was dumped by the man or woman who had killed her and what would have been a living child? In Los Angeles the victims were dumped more often than not. In an alley with the refuse cans, among the weeds of vacant lots; one had even been flung too late for care from a moving car onto a hospital lawn.

Ellen said, “It was back there she was killed.”

“Or died.”

She recognized the sadness in him, because she said with emphasis, “You're not to blame yourself. You had nothing to do with it.”

“But I did,” he told her. “I had too much to do with it.” Or not enough. “And everything I did was wrong.” He drove on, turning south toward Edward's home. As if it were a sinuous snake, the Indian School Road seemed to follow him.

When they reached the safe suburbs, he and Ellen sat silently for a moment in the darkness of the car. She asked finally, “You don't think the police are through with you?”

She knew the answer, he'd already told her that. “I know they aren't.” He broke out in savage frustration, “If I were a detective I wouldn't believe my story. Circumstantially, I fit.” He put thoughts into words with crystal clarity. “I'll have to find the abortionist. No one else believes in his existence. I'll also have to find the man or boy she came to meet.” There must be the two, to accuse each other, to prove the fact. Was it a plum tree or a peach?

“A good lawyer could help.” She'd said it twice; the first time he hadn't heard, only her voice speaking from afar.

“Yes,” he agreed. He could admit it now, it was essential to have a lawyer, to ward off arrest until he could find the two guilty ones. A lawyer meant confiding at least in Edward. Edward would know to whom he should go. He sighed his indecision; even after tonight the need didn't overbalance the more important need to keep the family out of this. He didn't know what he should do.

Ellen was waiting for him to continue. When he didn't, she said, “While you were with the police, I telephoned my father in Washington.” She didn't apologize. She didn't seem to care whether he would or would not have consented to it. “He'll ring me in the morning with what he can find out.” She smiled at his blank face. “You needn't worry. He knows everyone in law worth knowing. He'll find us the right man.”

He couldn't help protesting, “Wouldn't it be a lot simpler if I asked Edward about it? He knows everyone worth knowing in Phoenix.”

Her “No,” was imperative, but she explained, “The police would expect our lawyers to believe your story. Or whether or not they believed it, to defend you as if they did. I told my father what you need.” She had thought it out with care; she must have been thinking of little else all day. “A young man, not over forty, but top drawer in his profession; liberal, but not too liberal, no Civil Liberties lawyer, they're suspect from the beginning because they show up in any case involving minorities. As my father says, they're more interested in minorities than in the right or wrong of a case. I may be asking the impossible but I don't want this lawyer to be of any of the minority groups. I want a hundred-percent white American Protestant male. With wife and children, so we'll have them on our side too.”

He found himself half laughing. “Is that all?”

She shook her head but she smiled too. “I know just the man in Washington but we're not in Washington.”

“You don't think you'll find that kind of man here?”

“We just might. My father is quite a miracle man.” She said, “I'll call you in the morning after I hear from him. It will be early—time difference, you know.”

He helped her out of the car and together they went up the walk. At the door she said, “I wouldn't put off telling your family, Hugh. Maybe your luck will hold, yet—”

He said what she wouldn't. “I can't expect it to hold forever.” The police couldn't keep the newspapers off him indefinitely. Reluctantly he said, “Perhaps I'll talk to Edward tomorrow.” And, saying it, realized he must go to Edward. He was the only person who could give Hugh a lead to the abortionists in the vicinity. Doctors knew. He did not tell Ellen his decision. She might go legalistic on him, think it was the lawyer's business. But the lawyer's future life wasn't threatened. Hugh alone was in the realm of danger where the impossible could—must—be achieved. The two men he must find had had the time to cover themselves beyond finding.

Edward's car was gone from the port. For tonight he could continue to bear his own burden. Perhaps by morning there'd be no need for the fuss of a lawyer and the grief to his kinsman. Perhaps the marshal would ring up to acknowledge his mistake. Why not dream? Without dreaming there was no hope.

Ellen was saying, “Don't worry, Hugh. Go home and go to sleep. It will all look better in the morning. I'm sure the lawyer will clear things up for you without any difficulty.”

He said, “Yes, ma'am,” and left her there, not even touching her hand in good-bye.

HE DROVE
without incident to the motel; no news over the radio. There were lights beyond the drawn curtains, the voices of night-blooming young couples poolside lilted with the special heightening of sounds across water. He drove to the rear of his wing and parked. As he opened the door of his rooms, remembering to touch the light switch before entering, the small envelope was livid at his feet.

He took for granted it was a hotel note until he bent to pick it up and saw that it was pale pink, of cheap stationery. It was sealed; there was no name on it, only the room number. With foreboding, he opened it. The message was block-printed in pencil on ruled paper torn from a tablet. It said simply:
NIGGER GET OUT OF TOWN
.

If it had been meant to frighten or anger him, it failed. For he felt a wild surge of exultation as he read the words. His case was proven, if indeed he had needed this proof. He was the one threat which existed for the murderer or murderers, the only factor which stood between their anonymity and their apprehension.

Someone had had to come here, to his very threshold, to slide the envelope under the door. Someone guilty. How long a watchful waiting there would need to be to accomplish it unseen. The comings and goings of a large motor hotel were constant. Or had the man dared make the move openly, fully aware that no one seeing him would ask questions or particularly notice his form and face. It must have been Iris' lover who wrote and delivered this; the abortionist would not creep that far out of concealment. He need not. He was too accustomed to being outside the law to worry, if he were found out, over one accusation with unsupported evidence. It must have been the man, or someone hired by him to deliver the envelope. Even better if he had hired a messenger; that would create a distinct link, after Iris' death, between him and Hugh.

His eyes were framing the five words, and in a quick decision, Hugh switched off the light and returned to his car. It was only half past one o'clock. Inactivity had suddenly become unbearable. The need to take the offensive at once was compulsive. He knew where Edward practiced—St. Hilary's, a large hospital across town near Thomas Road. He headed toward it. If Edward had finished with the birthing and returned home, there was no loss but a half hour's sleep. He was too keyed up at present for sleep.

Hospitals never slept. There was a middle-aged woman handling reception and switchboard. Behind her a nursing nun in white robe and headdress sat at a table, annotating the day's records. Hugh said to the woman, “Is Dr. Willis still here?”

She said, “I'll see,” and checked a paper posted on the partition to her right. “He is,” she told him.

“I'm Dr. Densmore from California.” That had the sound of professional interest, not a family matter which could wait. “Could you tell him I'm here?”

“I'll see if I can locate him.” She moved herself unhurriedly to the switchboard.

The sister came forward. Her smile was as fresh as if it were sun-up, not the weary hours. “Are you the brother interning at UCLA Medical Center?”

He was surprised she would know. “Yes, I am.”

“Dr. Willis speaks often of you. That's a magnificent hospital, isn't it? I visited it last summer. I wish we had some of their equipment. Yes, Miss Deane?”

The receptionist was waiting. “Dr. Willis says he is to come upstairs, Sister Rose.”

“You know the way?” The sister gave directions. “I hope that young woman delivers easily for Doctor. I'm sure he's tired after all the wedding excitement. It must have been beautiful.”

“It was,” Hugh told her. He moved off to the elevator. People were nice if you found the right ones. The trouble was there were so many of the wrong ones.

He pushed the button and the elevator rose slowly. Edward was waiting on the delivery floor as the automatic door opened. “I was just having a cup of coffee, Hugh. Join me?” He didn't ask questions, he didn't even seem surprised to have Hugh appear in the middle of the night. He could have heard rumors. Among doctors and nurses an abortion death would be the epicenter of conversation. “I've a room down this way for napping. It'll be a long night. Both of my mothers are in.” He opened the door for Hugh, said, “I'll get another cup,” and proceeded down the corridor.

Hugh waited on his feet. Now that he was here, it again seemed wrong to inflict this thing on Edward. Yet now it was essential.

Edward returned almost at once. He poured coffee for Hugh, refilled his own cup, and directed, “You take the easy chair. I'll be selfish and take the bed.” He propped the pillows against the headboard and stretched out, his cup on the hospital table beside him. “Now what's happened to bring you here at this hour?” His face was cheerful; perhaps after all there had been no rumors yet.

Hugh stirred sugar into his coffee. “I'd rather take a beating than bother you with this. Especially tonight. I know you're too tired to take it. But I'm afraid to wait any longer.”

From the intonation of Hugh's voice, Edward was already wary of what was to come. The fear of trouble was so close to the surface in even the most secure of them.

“You read in the paper yesterday about the girl found in the canal?” Hugh forced out the husky words, “I drove her to Phoenix.”

“My God,” Edward breathed. It might have been a prayer.

Hugh tried to speak without feeling, as if it had happened to someone else. “Last night when Ellen and I left the dinner party, two detectives were waiting for me. They'd had an anonymous tip that I could identify the girl. They took me to the County Mortuary and I identified her. Not under the name they had, under the name she'd given me.”

He went back to the beginning, to the discovery of the girl on the road. He stripped the story to its bones; Edward might be called away any moment. But he told it all; it didn't come easy in repetition, it became more sickening. He concluded, “They'll do an autopsy on her tomorrow. I am certain they'll find she was murdered. By abortion or after abortion. And they'll come straight back to me.”

Edward's voice was heavy. “There's no way to prove you didn't leave the motel that night?”

“No way. And I wouldn't have had to leave to be the abortionist.”

Edward sighed. “We'd better get you a lawyer first thing in the morning. Before the autopsy results. Roger Hand is our most capable. And prominent. He's served in the legislature. You remember meeting him at the reception today?”

Hugh hated to say it. “Ellen wants a white lawyer.”

Edward didn't believe the words.

“She called the Judge, her father, tonight to arrange it. She didn't tell me until after it was done.”

Edward shook his head, not understanding. “What's wrong with our own?”