don’t think he will. He’s been burying his integrity a little at a time to hang onto her, and that probably makes it easier to go all the way in the end.”
“Why did you want to come here, near Talley’s place?”
“A hunch. A very long shot I think I’ve got him tabbed now, and there’s a chance we might even be able to prove it.”
“What do you mean?”
I lit cigarettes for us. Nobody could see us here. “Talley is the boy who was making those filthy phone calls, almost beyond a doubt. He hired the acid job. I think he was there the night your husband was killed. And I’m pretty sure he was the one who tried to get me.” I told her about that.
“Oh, God,” she said.
“The telephone seems to be his favorite weapon, next to acid and shotguns. I kept picking up little leads that seemed to point to him, but I couldn’t believe them because the man we were looking for spoke something that at least resembled English. I didn’t know until tonight that Talley could speak anything but hawg-lawg-and-dawg—”
“He’s a wonderful mimic”
I know. Tell me everything you can about him.”
I suppose you’d say he was the local character,” she began. “There’s always a new Pearl Talley story going the rounds. He deliberately acts like a simple-minded hillbilly or some sort of low-comedy clown—why, I don’t know, because it never fools anybody any more. Actually, I don’t think he has much education, but he has a mind as sharp as a razor. Nobody’s ever beaten him in a business deal. He buys, sells, and trades real estate all the time, as a speculator, but he’ll spend three hours maneuvering and haggling the same way to trade somebody out of a fountain pen.
“He came here from Georgia about eight years ago, as I understand. With nothing but a ramshackle old truck loaded with some scrubby calves he wanted to trade or sell. I told you, I think, what he owns now—that big junk yard, a half-interest in the movie theater, and three or four farms that he runs cattle on, and a lot of highway frontage.
“He lives on this place and has relatives living on the others. Kinfolks, as he says. Nobody knows how many he has, or where they come from, or where they go to, or even whether he pays them anything. He’s not married, so there are usually one or two over here with him, along with whatever ratty girl he’s living with at the moment. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him with a woman that didn’t look like the dregs of something, and usually they’re young enough to be juvenile delinquents, and probably are. I suppose a psychiatrist would say he was afraid of women, or hated them, and didn’t want one around he couldn’t degrade.”
“He apparently does all his business in bars, but they say he drinks very little himself. Somebody once told me his house is even a little like a honky-tonk, with a coke machine and a jukebox. I understand they can play the jukebox with slugs, but everybody has to put real dimes in if they want cokes. On the other hand, though, they say he’ll bring in a bunch of moonshine every now and then, absolutely free, and get them all drunk. Not convivially drunk, but falling-down drunk, animal drunk. While he stays sober, of course, and watches them make beasts of themselves Ugh! You’ve no doubt gathered I don’t like him.”
“Probably with good reason,” I said. I think he was trying to drive you insane or wreck your health, simply to buy your motel at a reasonable figure. No doubt it was perfectly logical from his point of view.
She was aghast. “But, good Lord, Bill, would he try to kill you just for that?”
I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m hoping it was for something else. Do you know whether he’s ever been arrested? For a felony, I mean?”
“Not that I ever heard of. Why?”
“It’s just a hunch so far. I may be able to tell a little more about it when I get to a phone.”
“Where on earth,” she asked incredulously, “do you expect to find a telephone out here?”
“Why, I thought we’d use Pearl’s,” I said.
“But—”
“It strikes me we’ve been shoved around by these telephoning guys about long enough. What do you say we change our tactics and go on the offensive? We’ve got nothing to lose now; any direction from here is up.”