Wild Town (12 page)

He liked them, he went on. In many ways he was deeply indebted to them. They were sharp and on their toes—and he liked that. But if they were to work under him again, they had better be sharp in the right way. And he hoped he’d made it clear what the right way was.

That was what he said, in substance. Having said it, and clutching the money tightly in his pocket, he returned to the hotel.

But this, as had been indicated, was days after Dudley’s death.

And the fate of Bugs McKenna—and various other parties—had already been settled.

T
here was nothing incriminating in Rosalie Vara’s purse, and nothing on her personally. He had searched her briefly but efficiently—and God, how he hated himself for it now!—and all he had found in her clothes was Rosalie.

She had gone to the post office for an entirely innocent reason, and the evidence was in his hands. He went on staring at it, the postcard he had found in her purse; feeling stupider and stupider, feeling his face grow redder and redder. He didn’t know what to say to her. He was afraid to look at her. So he kept his eyes on the card:

Bugs could stare at the card no longer. Awkwardly, he laid it in her lap; gave her a sidewise miserable glance. She was wearing a crisp linen suit, with a starched white shirtwaist. Her small, beautifully arched feet were shod in high-heeled canvas-like pumps. A wisp of a hat, pert and attractive but with the indefinable stamp of the homemade, perched atop the glossy smooth-lying thickness of her coal-black hair.

It was a cheap outfit, very low-priced at least. Charming and chic only because she wore it, and because of the hours that must have gone into its selection and preparation.

And this was supposed to have been his blackmailer! This was supposed to be a common tart, a gal who would hustle a fast buck in a guy’s bedroom! This, this quietly good-mannered young woman who was so honest that she announced, unnecessarily and to her undeniable disadvantage, that she was a Negro!

Well, sure. The postcard didn’t absolutely establish her innocence. She might have planted it herself, suspecting that he intended to trap her. She might have, could have, but he knew damned well she hadn’t. Everything about her contradicted the theory.

She’d liked him, as he had liked her. Right from the beginning. So she had accepted his invitation, got herself all tyked out in her Sunday’s best, tried to arrange a meeting with her girlfriend, thus tactfully freeing him of any necessity to entertain her. And he had repaid all this by—

“Rose,” he said. “I wish I could tell you how sorry I am, Rosie.”

“It’s q-quite all right.” Her lips trembled. “After all, you don’t have to apologize or explain to anyone in my position. You can do anything you want to, and if they don’t like it—”

“Don’t. Don’t, Rosie,” he begged. “You know I’m not like that.”

“W-well. I certainly never thought you were. I thought…s-something awfully foolish, I guess. That, you asked me to come with you as a mark of respect. T-that you were saying we were f-friends, and you weren’t ashamed to—to—”

Her eyes brimmed. Sobbing, she turned suddenly, and buried her face against his shoulder.

“I f-feel so dirty. So degraded. Like there was just no use in—in—”

“You mustn’t.” Bugs patted the small square shoulders. “I was just gagging, see? I mean, a guy’s been pulling a gag on me, and I thought maybe—”

“…t-took me back to something I thought I’d forgotten. To a time in Chicago years ago. A man struck up a conversation with me on a streetcar, and he seemed very nice. So—”

The guy had gotten off the car with her. He’d grabbed her purse suddenly, and shoved a five-dollar bill into it. Kept possession of it while he whistled up a prowl car. A vice dick, yeah. One on the make like a lot of them were. So he’d fallen for her, he said. And if she’d like to stay out of the can, keep from getting a police record, why he was willing…

Bugs listened hard-faced, sharing her heartbreak. He said again that the post office thing had been in the nature of a gag. He couldn’t explain it just now. But—

“Aw, go on”—Lou Ford peered through the window. “Sounds like it’d be real amusin’.”

Bugs gave a start, and Rose drew away from him quickly. Scowling, he snarled a question at the deputy.

“What am I doin’ here?” Ford said. “Well, now, what would I be doin’ here? Banking some dough maybe? Investin’ some of my ill-gotten gains?…How does that sound to you?”

“I’ll buy it!”

“Like it, huh? Figured you probably would. Yes sir, I plain counted on it, and that’s a fact. But maybe that ain’t the real reason. I ain’t sayin’ it is or it ain’t, but let’s just suppose. Suppose I said I was here to keep an eye on you?”

Bugs snorted, laughed hollowly. Ford beamed at him.

“Like that even better, do you? Really rubs you on the funny bone. Well, maybe we ought to take it a couple hops further down the trail then. Let’s say the reason I was keepin’ an eye on you was because I thought you might do a runout. And the reason I thought that—let’s say—is because I thought you’d killed a guy and robbed him of five thousand dollars.”

The deputy waited, grinning widely. He had the air of one who has sprung a delightful joke.

“You don’t think that’s funny?” he said. “It don’t tickle you, a-tall?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bugs grunted. “Where’d you get the idea that Dudley had five thousand dollars?”

“Well, it wasn’t too hard to come by. Hotel’s got lots of employees. Employees all got mouths. And I got a couple of ears, just in case you hadn’t noticed. They ain’t as good as yours maybe, don’t hear somethin’ that ain’t said, and—And I didn’t mention Dudley’s name, Bugs. I didn’t say it was Dudley that had the five thousand.”

Bugs shrugged. He’d seen his mistake the second he made it. “Hell,” he said casually. “He’s the only guy that’s died recently that I know of. I figured you had to be talking about him.”

“Yeah? Well”—Ford moved his head in a judicious nod. “Ought to give you an
A
for sharpness, anyhow. Or maybe an
A-minus.
Can’t hardly give you a perfect score when you ain’t introduced me to your lady friend.”

“What makes you think she wants to be introduced to you?” Bugs snapped. But he curtly performed the introductions.

Rosalie murmured a polite acknowledgement. Ford leaned further through the window, studying her interestedly.

“Believe I’ve seen you before, ain’t I? Look a lot prettier in them street clothes, but—”

“Thank you,” said Rosalie. “Yes, sir, I work at the hotel.”

“Mmm-hmm. Night maid, right? Did you make up Dudley’s room when he was alive?”

“No, sir. He worked days so his room would be done by one of the day maids.”

“But you got up around that way at night. Could have dropped in on him easy enough.”

“Yes, sir, I could have. But I never did. I had no reason to.”

“Real sure about that? Sure you didn’t have about five thousand reasons to?”

“Five thou—!” She gave him a startled look. “But—but, Mr. Ford. You surely don’ think that I—”

“No, he doesn’t think it?” Bugs cut in angrily. “This is just his way of amusing himself. It gives him something to do between shakedowns.”

Ford winked at him. He said maybe he’d give Bugs that
A
for sharpness after all. “But gettin’ back to the subject…Ever use any chloral hydrate, Miss Vara? I don’t mean did you ever take any personally. Just if you used it.”

“Why, I—I don’t believe so. I’m afraid I don’t even know what it is.”

“Well, maybe you don’t know it by that name. Maybe you’d call it knock-out drops, or—”

“Knock-out drops? But how—w-why would I—”

“You wouldn’t,” Bugs said, “and he knows it! Now, what are you getting at, Ford? What’s chloral got to do with Dudley?”

“I didn’t tell you? Well, now I guess it plumb slipped my mind,” Ford drawled. “Dudley had a whoppin’ load of it in his innards. Enough to coldcock a cow. The doc figures it’d’ve killed him if he hadn’t gone out the window first.”

“But—”

“Kind of knocks the suicide idea in the head, don’t it? Makes everything as confusin’s as—excuse me, Miss Vara—all hell. There wasn’t none of the stuff in his room, so we know someone slipped it to him. But if they was gettin’ home that way, why bother with the window deal? They didn’t have to. The guy’d have been out cold inside of five or ten minutes and anyone who knew anything about chloral hydrate would know it.”

“Well…” Bugs couldn’t think. A great burden had slipped from his conscience, and his one thought was that Dudley would have died regardless of the scuffle between them. “Well, I suppose this person, whoever he was—”

“She, you mean, don’t you? It’s a woman’s weapon, and a woman’d have the best chance of slipping it to him.”

“She, then. I’d say she pushed him out the window—if he was pushed—to cover up on the chloral. You know, to make it look like a suicide instead of murder.”

“That’d make her pretty stupid, wouldn’t it? Even halfway bright, she’d know that an autopsy was a cinch.”

“So she was stupid,” Bugs said. “So are a lot of people.”

He had seen Amy at last, standing in a nearby doorway. He caught her eye, and she smiled uncomfortably, disclaiming connection with the situation with an embarrassed gesture.

He looked away from her coldly, turning to Ford. “You don’t really suspect Miss Vara. You have no reason to. But she’s answered all your questions, and—”

“Uh-uh. ’Fraid you’re wrong there,” Ford said. “Ain’t begun to ask ’em all.”

“Then ask them back in Ragtown! Follow along behind us, if you want to but we’re leaving. I’ve had enough, by God! I’m not going to sit here while you pull your clown act on Miss Vara. And she’s not going to sit here and take it. We—”

“You mean you don’t like sittin’ here?” Ford’s eyebrows went up. “Well, now, I thought it was right comfortable. But o’course if you’d rather go down to the jail…That’s right, yep,” he nodded, “You’re still in my county.”

“But—” Bugs choked up with fury. “What’s it all about, for God’s sake? Why are you—”

“Now, dogged if it don’t look like you’re gettin all excited,” Ford said. “Miss Vara, maybe we ought to do our talkin’ out on the walk.”

“She’s not doing any more talking. We’re going,” Bugs said.

“Wouldn’t be much point to it. Doubt if you get six blocks before a squad car brought you back. Hardly figure it’s worth doin’, do you, Miss Vara?”

Rosalie didn’t answer him. She simply opened the door quickly and got out. Ford strolled around the car and joined her on the walk.

“Now which-all rooms do you make up at night, Miss Vara? Besides Mr. McKenna’s, that is.”

“Well, the other night workers sleep out, so his would be the only one I do regularly. But there are always a few others—not always the same ones on the same nights—that I occasionally make up.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Hanlon, for example. Mr. Hanlon particularly. He frequently doesn’t go to sleep before morning because of the pain he’s in, and…”

Bugs got out of the car. He asked what the hell Ford was pulling. “If your questions are do damned important, why didn’t you ask them sooner? Why did you wait until now? Why did you just let everything slide until now, and then—”

“Could be I wasn’t ready until now,” Ford said blandly. “What’s wrong with now, anyways?”

“Everything! Miss Vara’s—she’s had a hard day, and she doesn’t feel well. And we both have to work tonight.
Work,
understand? W-o-r-k! We’re working tonight, and if we don’t get back and—”

“W-o-r-k, eh?” Ford said. “Now, I always thought you spelled it with a
u
. Fella learns somethin’ new every day, don’t he?”

“Now, dammit, Ford…”

“But I see your point, got to be gettin’ in your beauty sleep. Can’t say that Miss Vara stands in need of any more beauty-in’, but I can see where you…” He broke off grinning, beckoned without turning around. “Amy, girl. Come on over.”

Amy came forward reluctantly. Lou Ford gave her a jovial nudge toward Bugs.

“Got some talkin’ to do to Miss Vara, here,” he explained. “But her and Bugs have got to be gettin’ back. So I figure maybe you better ride with him, and she can just come along with me.”

“Now, really, Lou”—Amy’s shamed eyes dropped. “I’d be glad to ride with Mac, of course, but—”

“Miss Vara’s riding with me,” Bugs said bluntly. “I brought her here, and—”

“No, please!” Rosalie gave him a quick smile. “It’s perfectly all right, Mr. McKenna. Let’s do as Mr. Ford says.”

Bugs hesitated, assented surlily. There was nothing else to do that he could see. As Ford and Rosalie departed, he yanked the car door open, grunted a rude invitation to Amy Standish.

“Thank you,” she said. “I think I’d better take a bus.”

“Oh, come on, dammit! If I’m willing, why—”

“Yes, why?” she cut in shakily. “Why should I do anything but grovel with gratitude? You can get upset and lose your temper and act just as nasty as you know how, and that’s all right! That’s your privilege and I’m just supposed to put up with it. I’m not supposed to have any feelings! I’m not supposed to feel any humiliation! I’m not entitled to any c-courtesy or u-understanding or—”

She was about to cry, Bugs observed with an inward groan. God, he’d already had one crying woman on his hands today, and a woman in tears was one thing that had always got him. He just couldn’t take it. And he didn’t want to hurt Amy. His feelings about her might be pretty mixed up, but he certainly didn’t want her hurt.

So he apologized profusely. He got her into the car, and they headed for Ragtown. The traffic was even heavier now than it had been in the morning. The around-the-clock oilfield shifts were changing, and the cars of the workmen vied with the mammoth trucks and tractors for space on the highway.

It was impossible to make any time. Bugs finally gave up trying to. Idling along between two trucks, he slanted a glance at Amy, caught her studying him with a peculiar expression on her face.

It vanished instantly. Looking straight ahead, she remarked that Miss Vara was a very pretty girl.

“What is she, Spanish? Mexican?”

“No—I mean, I guess she could be,” Bugs said. Because he wasn’t ashamed, naturally, and of course she’d probably find out the truth from Ford, sooner or later. But right now he wasn’t up to explaining why he’d been in Westex with a Negro maid.