on my feet, but as a rough frisk it was pretty crude Any rookie could have done better. Humiliation is the only object of it, anyway, and without an audience it’s pointless. He stepped back.
“You through?” I asked.
“You got any identification?”
“It’s in my hip pocket. You’ve been over it three times.” “Give it here.”
I took out the wallet, deliberately removed the money from it, and handed it to him. His face reddened. He shuffled through the identification.
His eyes jerked up at me. “Cop, huh?”
“I was one,” I said.
“What are you doing around here?”
“I’m going to wash the acid out of that room as soon as we finish this comedy routine.”
“I mean, what’re you hanging around for? What have you got to do with this place? And Mrs. Langston?”
“I’m staying here, while they fix my car.”
“How come you’re working for her? Can’t you pay for your room?”
“Let’s just say she’s a friend of mine. And I thought she needed help.”
“A friend, huh? How long have you known her?”
“A little less than a day.”
He gave me a cold smile. “You sure make friends fast. Or maybe she does.”
“Tell me something,” I said. “How does it happen she can’t get any police protection?”
“Who said she couldn’t?”
“Look around you.”
“What do you expect us to do?” he asked. “Stay out here night and day because people don’t like her?”
“Who doesn’t?” I asked. “If you’re supposed to be a cop, I’d think that would suggest something to you. It’s just possible the guy who dumped that acid in there didn’t like her.”
“Round up half the people in town? Is that it?”
“You know better than that. There’s not half a dozen people in any town that’d do a job like this.”
I was wasting my breath. He turned away and stepped down onto the gravel. “Here’s your stuff,” he said, and tossed the wallet onto the concrete at my feet.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t mention it. And there’s one more thing. If it was me, I’d be mighty careful who I got mixed up with around here. She’s going to have all the police attention she wants one of these days.”
“Yes?” I said. I’d been wondering if he’d come out and say it. “Why?”
“If you’ve been around here all day, you know why. She killed her husband.”
“Then you don’t arrest people for that around here, and try them?” I asked. “You just let hoodlums burn their places down with acid?”
“You arrest ‘em as soon as you’ve got a case,” he said. “You’re able to tell everybody how to run a police department, you ought to know that.”
“Did you ever hear of slander?” I asked.
He nodded. “Sure. And did you ever try to prove it without witnesses?”
He went over and started to get into his car. “Wait a minute,” I said. He paused and turned.
I reached down and picked up the wallet. “You wanted to see me do it, didn’t you? I wouldn’t want to spoil your whole day.”
He stared coldly, but said nothing as he drove off.
5
I located the fuse box and killed the circuits in that wing of the building so I wouldn’t electrocute myself with the hose. Changing into swimming trunks, I went to work. I stood in the doorway playing the hose on walls and ceiling and furniture until water began running over the threshold. I broke open a half-dozen boxes of the soda and scattered it around and washed down some more. When I tried to move the bedclothes, curtains, and mattresses, they tore into rotten and mushy shreds, so I found some garden tools and raked them out onto the gravel, along with all the carpet I could tear up. It was sickening.
Even as diluted as the stuff was now, it kept stinging my feet when I had to step off the boards. I played the hose on them to wash it off. In about fifteen minutes I had the worst of it out. I dragged the bed-frames and headboards, the chest, the two armchairs, and the night table out onto the concrete porch and played the hose on them some more and scattered the rest of the soda over the wet surfaces. I showered and changed back into my clothes, and went over to the office. Josie said Mrs. Langston was sleeping quietly. She brought me the keys to the station wagon.
“Turn on the “No Vacancy” sign,” I said. “And if anybody comes in, tell him the place is closed.”
She looked doubtful. “You reckon Miss Georgia goin’ to like that? She’s kind of pinched