Wild Town (9 page)

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bugs repeated. “But I sure don’t like the way it sounds. Now, either stop beating around the bush, or throw your stick away. Otherwise, I’m walking out of here, and if I do I’ll keep right on going!”

That did it; the return to his normal surliness. Hanlon’s eyes searched his face, the haunted look in them giving way to relief.

“Forget it, Bugs,” he said. “It’s nothing important. Just a foolish idea I had for a moment.”

“Well…”

“Forget it. And thanks very much for stopping by.”

Bugs started to leave. At the doors to the terrace, he paused and turned around. He didn’t know why he did it at the moment. He didn’t know why he said what he did. It was something instinctive, a long step forward—or downward—taken into the darkness of the future.

“I was just thinking,” he said. “I promised I’d pick you up some night and we’d do the rounds together…”

“Yes? Oh, yes, I guess you did,” said Hanlon. “Well, I didn’t really expect you to bother about it.”

“No bother. Would you—I don’t suppose you’d still like to go, would you?”

Hanlon hesitated for the merest fraction of a second. He seemed to waver a little, to melt and lose form like candy over a hot flame. Then, as though plunged suddenly into cold water, he was himself again. Reassembled into a harder, steadier self than he had been that split second before.

“Yes,” he said, “I’d still like to go. Why not, Bugs?”

“I’ll do it then,” Bugs said. “I’ll stop by…some night.”

He returned to his room, and went back to bed. Lying there wakefully, too tired to sleep, rested just sufficiently to keep him from resting more, he struggled with a question.
Why did I invite him, anyway? I didn’t have to. He didn’t expect me to. So, why? Why?

The answer finally came to him. Aided by weariness, it weeded its way through the many mental blocks he had set up. Burst forth into his consciousness.

And, yes, you know it. It scared hell out of him.

I
t was three days after Dudley’s death that Bugs received the letter. A blackmail letter demanding the five thousand dollars which he had supposedly murdered Dudley to obtain. The writer left no doubt about the fact that he, or rather she—it just about had to be a she—meant business. She made it clear that she had the goods on him—and she did have in a hideously false but irrefutable way—and that, failing to get the five thousand, she would turn the matter over to Lou Ford.

So Bugs was back again in his natural habitat: that vulgarly named creek which he always seemed to wind up in. And this time he was not only without a paddle but also a boat.

Because, naturally, he didn’t have and couldn’t get the five thousand which he had to have, or else. He couldn’t get five hundred. He couldn’t have scraped up fifty without seriously straining himself.

That left him with only one alternative. To find out who the blackmailer was. To find her and give her something in place of the five thousand. This presented something of a problem, of course. But he had a good strong lead on the dame, a pretty good idea of who she was—he thought. So it boiled down to a matter of leading her on, concealing his suspicions, and then—

But that was then. All that began on the third day after Dudley’s death.

Taking things as they came, the events following his interview with Mike Hanlon:

…Bugs had a hard time getting to sleep. In fact, it was almost three in the afternoon before he finally did doze off. Then, around six, he was awakened by a soft but persistent rapping. And his several who-is-its and what-is-its being ignored, he yanked on his trousers and went to the door.

It was Joyce Hanlon, dressed in her usual uniform of flank-fitting skirt and overstuffed sweater. She smiled at him brightly, and Bugs tried to smile back at her. The best he could manage was a fearsome baring of teeth.

“Hi, Bugs,” she said. “Were you asleep?”

“Asleep? Oh, no, nothing like that,” he laughed hoarsely. “No, I never sleep in the daytime. I do that at night when I’m walking around the hotel.”

“Oh…Well, I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

Bugs let out an angry moan. He tried to control himself, to smirk politely, to say it was all right and that it didn’t matter a bit. But—but—

She
hoped
she hadn’t waked him up! Goddammit, he’d just got through telling her that he was asleep, and then she
hoped
she hadn’t waked him up!

How goddamned stupid could you get, anyway? And what did she want, anyway?

The questions growled and snarled through his mind. They rushed out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Her eyes widened, and she took a startled backward step.
“Well!”
she said. “I can’t say that I appreciate—”

“Who gives a damn? I just got to sleep, for Christ’s sake, and then you—I—all right, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blow my top, but—”

“Now, that’s better,” she said primly. “Well, aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“Hell, I guess so. I mean, certainly, glad to have you. I—Aah, to hell with it. Come in or stay out, whatever you damned please.”

She marched past him, mouth quirked, cheeks flushed. She sat down on the bed gingerly, and Bugs closed the door with a bang, slouched down in a chair in front of her.

She crossed her legs, brushed at a tiny crease in her skirt. Bugs plucked at an imaginary hangnail. They looked up, and their eyes met. They looked quickly down again, and then slowly up again.

And suddenly she exploded into laughter, flung herself backward on the bed, her heels drumming against its sides, her entire body quivering and quaking with amusement.

“Oh, Bugs—
ha, ha
—the way you looked, like some old bear just out of its cave! And when I asked you if you’d been asleep—
ha, ha, ha
—when I asked you—
oooh-whoops, ha, ha, ha, ha…
”

Bugs grinned, chuckled self-consciously, tried to keep his eyes off those long, luciously fleshed legs. He said he guessed he had acted like the king of the grouches, and that she shouldn’t let it bother her.

“Now, don’t apologize. I’m glad. I feel like I’m finally getting acquainted with you, and I was beginning to think I never would…Come here.”

“Uh—where? What for?” Bugs said.

“
Here,
silly!” She held up her arms, wiggled her fingers at him. “Here to mama. And what do you think, what for?”

So that was how it came about. That was how Bugs wound up in the hay with Joyce Hanlon, the wife of his employer. By talking ugly, telling her to go jump, to go to hell and like it or lump it. That broke the ice between them, advanced their relationship to a point which might ordinarily have taken months to achieve.

But it was a hay-roll only in the literal sense. Just a petting spree, with plenty of kissing and clinching, and probing and pinching, but without the usual climax. And it was no fault of Bugs’s that the climax was missing.

He might be strait-laced, prudish, but a man changes under enough stress. Also, he couldn’t feel that he was depriving or injuring Hanlon; the old man would be disappointed in him, perhaps, but he wouldn’t care about her. So, such credit as was due for their continence, was due to Joyce. It was she who held off, holding him just far enough, letting him go just far enough, to keep a firm grip on him.

That,
she said, was a bedtime story.
That
wasn’t nice.
That
was something she really couldn’t bring herself to do—yet.

“But why not, dammit! If you didn’t intend to—”

“Because, that’s why. Now, be a sweet darling, hmm? Give Joyce one of those real pretty smiles.”

“Horseshit!”

“With sugar on it? Hmm? Hmm? Come on, now, grouchy. Let’s see you smile.”

She tickled him in the ribs. Bugs squirmed, grinned unwillingly.

“Now, that’s better…What did Mike want with you this morning, honey? What did he talk to you about?”

“Nothing. How do you know he talked to me at all?”

“Now, Bugs. I’m a very bright little girl, and the wife of the owner finds out lots of things.”

“Then, find out what he talked to me about…Well, hell,” Bugs said, “it wasn’t anything much. Just wanted a report on the suicide. Why I thought Dudley had done it, and so on.”

“Yes?”

“Well, he was short in his books I know. At least, Westbrook said he was. Incidentally, I suppose you’ve heard that Westbrook has—”

“Yes, yes,” Joyce cut in. “Forget Westbrook. All I’m interested in is Dudley.”

“Why? You and him pally, were you?”

“Now, silly. I hardly knew him to speak to. I doubt if I’d ever passed a half-a-dozen words with him. Why—”

“Whoa, whoa up, now”—Bugs drew his head back to look at her. “I just asked you a question. It’s not a federal case.”

“Well, I didn’t know Dudley at all! He was just another one of the employees, as far as I was concerned. I only asked about him because of you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes! Now, stop it, Bugs! This is serious. Did Mike—did he blame you? I mean—well, you know. Do you think he, uh, held it against you for any reason? That he, uh, trusted you any the less because of it?”

Bugs was getting tired. Perhaps because of his increasing awareness that that was all he was going to get. He studied her covertly, noting the tiny wrinkles around her eyes, a thin furrow of powder on her neck—a dozen distasteful things which the excitement of sex play had blinded him to. Self-disgust rose in his throat. He felt ashamed, dirty, filthy. He told himself—and he meant it—that he wouldn’t take her now if she was served up on a platter.

God, what had he been thinking about, anyway? What kind of a guy was he getting to be? He knew what she was angling for, and here he’d gone right ahead and jumped at the bait.

“No, Joyce,” he said. “No, he does not trust me any less, Joyce. Not one damned bit. And do you know why he doesn’t, Joyce? Because he knows damned well he doesn’t have any reason to. And, Joyce, he never will have!”

He nodded his head firmly. Joyce gave him a playful pat on the cheek, spoke with forced lightness.

“Now, isn’t that nice? That’s real nice, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Bugs. “I think it’s very nice.”

“It’s too bad that he isn’t a younger man. That he’s sick and old. He might do a great deal for you. You’re still young, and—What’s the matter, honey?” Her eyes shifted nervously. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I was just thinking,” Bugs said. “You know I used to play a lot of football? Pretty good at the game at one time.”

“Football? But what—”

“It isn’t worth getting up for, so I was wondering. Whether I could give you a good hard kick in the ass from a prone position.”

“Wh-aat!”
She let out a gasp, sat up angrily. “Well, of all—”

Bugs’s hand slid under her buttocks. He boosted, viciously, and she soared from the bed, came down on her feet on the floor.

“Now, beat it,” he said. “Clear out before I bounce you out.”

She sputtered furiously. Her eyes raged for a moment; there was something close to murder in them. And then she laughed. Laughing down his threats. Leaving him frustrated and disarmed.

She wouldn’t get angry with him. She was not the kind to get angry where it would cost her. And after her first brief flash of temper, she had felt no anger. The rough stuff—she’d been weaned on it. She’d known plenty of guys who substituted a kick in the slats for a kiss, and more than once she had found herself thinking of them fondly. They weren’t so bad, some of those fellows. At least, a girl never got bored around them.

So as Bugs grumbled and cursed futilely, she sat down on the bed, again; rumpled his hair, patted and poked him with caressing tenderness.

“Now, just stop it, you old bear…big overgrown brute. I’ll come back tonight after you’ve rested, and—”

“You’d by-God better not come back tonight!”

“Well, soon then. Whatever you say. We’ll have a nice, sweet talk real soon, and maybe…”

“Get out of here!…”

“Okay, Mama knows he’s tired, so she’ll just tuck him in real good, and—”

“Mama?
Mama!
” Bugs’s voice cracked with outrage. “Jesus Christ, what kind of a woman are you, anyway? How the hell can—”

“Now, now. Just hold your legs out like a good boy.”

She gripped the cuffs of his trousers, pulled them off expertly. Draping them over a chair, she tucked the bedclothes up under his chin and planted a lingering kiss upon his mouth.

“Now,” she said, gathering up her purse. “Now, you’ll sleep
good!…
”

It was probably the misstatement of the century. Despite two cold showers and four aspirins, he didn’t sleep at all. And it did no damned good at all to tell himself that he was eight kinds of a heel, and that he ought to be ashamed.

He was
ashamed.
He was also frightened—plenty. But it didn’t change anything.

He was so far gone that when Rosalie Vara came to do his room, he made occasion to brush against her.

She stood perfectly motionless for a moment, still bent over from the bedspread. Then, gently but firmly, her founded hips returned the pressure of his body.

Bugs got out of the room fast.

B
y morning, he was approximately his old self again. He had wallowed in worry and reproach, shrived his shamed soul with the acid of disgust; and then finally he had emerged, shaky, a little frayed around the edges. But also spotless—practically—and filled with firm resolve.

Dammit, every man had an occasional weak moment. Every man played the jerk at least once. That didn’t mean, however, that he was a weak man, or that he would continue to be a jerk. On the contrary, he was better off for having got the nonsense out of his system.

Bugs was all right now, he told himself. He was back on the ball again, and he intended to stay there. There’d be no more of this hank-panky. Not only that, but he’d steer clear of any and all situations which might lead to such.

He hung a “Don’t Disturb” sign on his door when he turned in. He also warned the telephone operator that he would accept no calls from anyone, except, of course, Mike Hanlon.

Hanlon didn’t call. Bugs got a solid ten hours of sound sleep, awakening about six in the evening. He yawned and stretched luxuriously. He squirmed against the pillows, grinning with contentment. And then remembering his resolutions and the dangers they were meant to forefend—he almost flung himself from the bed.

He bathed, shaved, and dressed. By seven o’clock, he had finished his dinner in the coffee shop and was out of the hotel.

And it would be a good four hours before he was due on the job.

He’d already seen the picture playing at the local movie house. He had no money to waste on gambling, even if he had been inclined toward such diversions. And nothing can be more wearisome than simply driving or walking around, with no objective in mind.

So he stepped into a drugstore and called Amy Standish’s house. He wanted to see her; he had meant to, he guessed, from the moment he had waked up. He had a feeling that being with her again would do much toward expunging the memory of his session with Joyce Hanlon.

She didn’t answer the phone. He hung up with an annoyed sense of having been mistreated. He could be like that, almost childish. Once he decided to do something, he wanted to do it right then. And he was unreasonably affronted if he couldn’t.

She’d said he could see her again, hadn’t she? Well, why couldn’t he then? Why didn’t she stay at home like she ought to?

He walked around for a half-hour, and called again. Still no answer. Smoldering and stubborn, he continued to call at thirty-minute intervals. And, finally, a few minutes after ten o’clock, she answered the phone.

By that time, of course, it was too late to see her. To do anything more, that is, than get out to her house before he had to turn around and come back.

“Oh, Mr. McK—Mac,” she said,
and was there or was there not a trace of disappointment in her voice?
“Were you trying to get me a little while ago?”

“Probably. Been trying to get you all evening,” Bugs grunted.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’d just stepped in the door, and I got to the phone just as fast as I could, but—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bugs cut in gruffly. “I just thought we might have got together for a soda or a drink or something. Ridden around a little while. But I suppose you probably enjoyed yourself a lot more with—doing something else.”

The phone went silent. Quiet with rebuke, or indecision. Then, she spoke, not with coolness, perhaps, but something not too distantly akin to it.

“I was working, Mac. At the library.”

“The library? I thought you were a teacher.”

“I am. The library’s in the school, and it’s only open in the evenings. We teachers have to take turns serving as librarian.”

Bugs waited, not knowing quite what to say. Feeling that it was up to her to go on from that point.

At last, he broke the dragging silence with a gruff “I see. And I suppose you’ll be working there tomorrow night, too.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I will. I have these two nights together.”

“I see,” Bugs said again. “Okay, forget it. Sorry I bothered you.”

He started to slam up the receiver. Her quick cry stopped him, just before it went down on the hook.

“Wait, Mac…
Mac!
”

“Yeah? Yeah?” he said quickly. “I’m still here, Amy.”

“I was just going to say that I’ll be through by nine, or a few minutes after. Just as soon as I can get the patrons out and lock up. If you’d like to meet me then…”

“Swell! Fine,” Bugs exclaimed. “I mean, yeah, I can do that. I guess that’ll be all right.”

She drew a quick breath. She frowned; he could hear the frown in her silence, just as he had heard the rebuke. And then—and he knew it as well as he was standing there—she was smiling. It began with her lips, curving them with lovely tenderness. It spread slowly over the heart-shaped face, dimpling her cheeks, gently indenting the laugh lines. And then it was in her eyes, lighting them up as though the sun had arisen behind them.…

“Mac,” she said. “Mac, you’re crazy.…”

“Huh? Well, yeah,” Bugs admitted sheepishly. “I guess I probably sound like it sometimes.”

“Fortunately, I like crazy people. Particularly those named McKenna who work as house detectives. Now, isn’t that a happy coincidence?”

Bugs swallowed. A warm pleasantly prickly feeling spread over his hulking body. There were a thousand things he wanted to say, and he couldn’t cut loose with one of them.

Amy’s voice came over the wire, soft and understanding. “I’m glad you called, Mac. And I’ll look forward to seeing you…And, now, good night.”

And very gently, she broke the connection.

Bugs returned to the hotel, walking on the sidewalk, ostensibly, but seemingly treading on air. It was preposterous to feel that way over a girl who—over Lou Ford’s ex-girlfriend,
if
she was his ex. But that was the way he did feel, and nuts to whether it was preposterous or not. In fact, with very little effort, he managed to exclude Ford from his thoughts about her. He could cut that tin-starred lunk out of the picture as completely as though he did not exist. Which, to Bugs’s way of thinking, would have improved the world by several thousand per cent.

There were two telephone call-slips in his room box. Two requests that he call Mrs. Hanlon. Bugs ripped them into shreds, dropped them into a sand jar, and started on his nightly rounds.

It was an unusually quiet night. A good night, Bugs supposed, to take Mike Hanlon along with him. Still, there wasn’t any rush about it, and he didn’t feel like carrying on an extended conversation, as he would have to with Hanlon. So he dropped the idea, and went it alone.

There was a little ruckus on the tenth floor—some poker players in a corner suite. Bugs asked them to quiet down, and, replied to with belligerence, he quieted them. He elbowed one guy across the windpipe. He grabbed another by his necktie and slapped him in the chops. He hustled the remaining two—who had been drinking heavily—into the bathroom, and shoved them under the shower. Then, he gathered up the cards and chips, tossed them down the waste chute, and calmly departed.

That was the only trouble he encountered on his whole tour (although Bugs could hardly regard an incident so innocuous as trouble). Well, there
was
a very small rift in the routine on the sixth floor: A guy was pounding on a door with the butt of his six-shooter, threatening to kill his wife as soon as he got inside. But he was just drunk, and the gun, which Bugs took away from him, proved to be empty. So there was really nothing to get the wind up about.

Nothing else happened. Nothing, that is, that was worth a second thought in Bugs’s opinion. By a few minutes after one, he had completed his rounds and was back in the lobby again.

Leslie Eaton was talking on the telephone as he started past the desk. He saw Bugs and gestured to him, silently mouthing a name. Bugs shook his head and went on toward the coffee shop.

Joyce again. Well, let her call all she damned pleased. When she got tired maybe she’d quit. He no longer felt obligated to her. Neither, needless to say, did he feel constrained to be pleasant or polite to her. She was a tramp; she couldn’t lose him his job, do anything at all to hurt him with Hanlon. And she was smart enough to know it.

The night wore on uneventfully. Strolling about the hotel, wandering through the always amazing world that was the back-o’-the-house, Bugs wondered about Westbrook: What had happened to the little man? How had he disappeared so suddenly and completely? And yet, there was really nothing much to wonder about, was there?

The manager had been without hope, convinced that he was thoroughly and finally washed up. As an alcoholic, then, he had taken refuge in booze. Abandoning all else before it could be taken from him—as he was sure it would be. Holing up in some dive where he could drink and drink and drink, until…?

It was too bad, Bugs thought sadly. It just went to show that a man shouldn’t throw in the sponge too quickly. All Westbrook would have had to do was make a clean breast of things to Hanlon. If he had done that he would still be on the job, none the worse except for an A-1 chewing-out.

There was something else that Bugs wondered about. A riddle which, at last, would no longer be ignored. What had become of the five thousand—or whatever the exact sum was—that Dudley had stolen?

Certainly, the auditor must have had it. Specifically, he had had it in his trousers—their zippered money-belt, rather—from which, he assumed, Bugs had stolen it. You just couldn’t account for his attitude in any other way. You couldn’t, at least, except by a fantastic stretch of the imagination. And that being the case—

Bugs’s thoughts reached this point, and could go no further. So he indulged in some of the aforesaid imagination-stretching…Hell, Dudley might have stashed the loot somewhere and forgotten that he had. Or, well, maybe he’d lost it. Or maybe it
wasn’t
the dough that he’d gotten so excited about. Maybe he hadn’t stolen it, and it had been something else that had made him make that wild lunge at Bugs.

You couldn’t be sure…could you? The room had been dark. They’d hardly exchanged a half-dozen words. And everything had happened so fast, been over and done with in the space of seconds.

Yeah, Bugs thought, there was bound to be some “simple” explanation for the missing money. Just about had to be. Otherwise…well, he wouldn’t let himself think about that. He preferred to think about Amy Standish, and this new life he was building for himself. And he did.

He turned in early again that morning. He again hung the “Don’t Disturb” sign on his door, and left word to the same effect with the telephone operator.

He got another good day’s sleep. He had dinner in his room, and by eight o’clock was on his way out of the hotel. Passing the desk, he saw two white oblongs in his key-box. He grinned sourly and went on, leaving them there…A pretty stubborn gal, this Joyce Hanlon. Well, let her be. It didn’t bother him any.

The school—a combination high and grade—was on the immediate outskirts of town, adjoining the brief blocks of houses which comprised the “old family” section. Bugs idly circled the ancient red-brick structure. Then, since it was still well before nine o’clock, he drove back past the austere old houses, looming aloofly in the night like so many box-like fortresses.

Driving as slowly as he could, it took him no more than a couple of minutes. He returned to the school, and parked.

At a minute or so after nine, the double-doors of the school opened and a trickle of people—youngsters and a few adults—came down the walk. A few minutes later, the building lights that had been on went off and Amy came out.

She smiled and squeezed his hand as he helped her into the car. He restarted the motor, asked her where she’d like to go.

“Oh, anywhere. Just so it’s not too far. I have to work tomorrow, and I know you don’t have much time either.”

“Well. Like to turn into town—pick up a couple drinks?”

“No!”—the word came out almost sharply. And then she laughed, with a trace of sadness and apology. “This is a small town, Mac. The people are pretty free and easy about some things, but never their women. And they’re the direct opposite of free and easy when it comes to women school-teachers.”

“I see.” Bugs yanked the car into gear. “You have to be careful about your reputation.”

“Yes,” she said evenly. “I have to be careful about my reputation.”

They rode over to the highway, to a recently erected drive-in restaurant. After consulting her stiffly, Bugs ordered malted milks and hamburgers. He had no appetite for the repast, but she ate hers to the last bite and swallow. Gaily, making a joke of it, she even finished the French fries he had left on his plate.

By then it was ten o’clock, and time to be going. At least, she said timidly, she was afraid she’d have to. “I was up so late the other night, you know, and…”

“I know,” Bugs grunted. “But that was on a date with Ford. That made it all right.”

“Yes. With someone I’ve known all my life, someone I supposedly was going to marry, it was all right.”

“And anything else would be.”

“No,
anything
would not. In fact…” She left the sentence unfinished, her voice trailing away wearily—and worriedly. Then, she sighed and said, “I’m sorry, Mac. That’s about all I can say at this point: that I’m sorry.”

“What the hell?” Bugs shrugged. “You don’t owe me any explanations.”

“No, I don’t. Or any apologies, either. I simply said I was sorry because I like you, and I thought it might make you feel better.”

Much of Bugs’s hurt and anger went away, and his feeling of compassion returned. He stopped the car in front of her house, turned humbly and faced her.

“I’m a dope,” he said. “A big fat-headed dope. And you can take that as an apology
and
explanation.”

“All right…” Her smile came back. “And, Mac, I would like to see you longer than this. Just for an hour or so, it hardly gives us time to say hello, does it? So would you like to come here and have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

“Would I?” Bugs beamed. “But that would be a lot of trouble for you, and—”

“No, it wouldn’t. Not in any way. There’s a Negro woman who used to work for the folks. I can get her to come in and help, and by the time she’s eaten herself and got things cleared up…”