appear to the traveler who was considering turning in. The place was going to ruin. Why didn’t she have it landscaped, or sell out? I shrugged. Why didn’t I mind my own business?
She was in the office, making entries in a couple of big ledgers opened on the desk. She looked up at me with a faint smile, and said, “Paper work.” I was conscious of thinking she was prettier than I had considered her at first, that there was something definitely arresting about the contrast of creamy pallor against the rubber-mahogany gleam of her hair. Some faces were like that, I thought; they revealed themselves to you a little at a time rather than springing at you all at once. Her hands were slender and unutterably feminine, moving gracefully through the confusion of papers.
I stopped inside the door and lit a cigarette. “He called from the booth in the Silver King,” I said.
She glanced up, startled, and I realized I had probably only made it worse by telling her he had been that near. “How do you know?” she asked. “I mean, have you been—?”
I nodded. “The fan. I checked them out around town till I found the noisy one.”
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
“For what?” I said. “I didn’t find him. He’d probably been gone for hours. But you can pass it on to the Sheriff, for what it’s worth.”
“Yes,” she said, trying to sound optimistic, but I could tell she had little hope they would ever do anything about it. I was filled with a sour disgust towards the whole place. Why didn’t somebody bury it?
I went across to my room and poured a drink. Taking off my sweaty shirt, I lay down on one of the beds with a cigarette and stared morosely up at the ceiling. I wished now I had belted Frankie while I had the chance. Stranded in this place for at least another thirty-six hours.
You’re in sad shape, I thought; you can’t stand your own company and you’ve got a grouch on at everybody else. The only thing you can do is keep moving, and that doesn’t solve anything. You’d feel just as lousy in St Petersburg, or Miami—
There was a light knock on the door.
“Come in,” I said.
Mrs. Langston stepped inside, and then paused uncertainly as she saw me stretched out in hairy nakedness from the waist up. I made no move to get up. She probably thought I had the manners of a pig, but it didn’t seem to matter.
I gestured indifferently towards the armchair. “Sit down.”
She left the door slightly ajar and crossed to the chair. She sat with her knees pressed together, and nervously pulled down the hem of her dress, apparently ill-at-ease. “I—I wanted to talk to you,” she said, as if uncertain how to begin.
“What about?” I asked. I raised myself on one elbow and nodded towards the chest. “Whisky there, and cigarettes. Help yourself.”
You’re doing fine, Chatham; you haven’t completely lost touch with all the little amenities. You can still grunt and point.
She shook her head. “Thank you, just the same.” She paused, and then went on tentatively, “I believe you said you used to be a policeman, but aren’t any more?”
That’s right,” I said.
“Would it be prying if I asked whether you’re doing anything now?”
“The answer is no,” I said. “On both counts. I have no job at all; I’m just on my way to Miami. The reason escapes me at the moment.”
She frowned slightly, as if I puzzled her. “Would you be interested in doing something for me, if I could pay you?”
“Depends on what it is.”
“I’ll come right to the point. Will you try to find out who that man is?”
“Why me?” I asked.
She took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Because I got to thinking about the clever way you found out where he called from. You could do it. I can’t stand it much longer, Mr. Chatham. I have to answer the phone, and sometimes when it rings I’m afraid I’m going to lose my mind. I don’t know who he is, or where he is, or when he may be looking at me, and when I walk down the street I cringe—”
I thought of that farcical meat-head, Magruder. Nobody had ever been hurt over a telephone.
“No,” I said.
“But why?” she asked helplessly. “I don’t have much, but I would be glad to pay you anything within reason.”
“In the first place, it’s police work. And I’m not a policeman.”