The Expendable Man (21 page)

“No, Hugh, no!”

He tried to put away the hands clutching his arm, but her arms closed around him, holding him entangled.

“You mustn't go out there. You mustn't!”

He tried to force her away but she clung. Short of hurting her, he couldn't break loose.

“He isn't out there! He's on the telephone!”

The words came through and the fight went out of him. Not the rage which made fear nonexistent, but the will to action. His arms closed around her and for the moment he stood there holding her, as he'd wanted to hold her. He didn't kiss her, didn't caress her, he simply held her in his arms. After that moment, he released her.

“You shouldn't have stopped me.” He pushed open the lanai doors to recover his breath, parting the draperies, gazing out on the peaceful moon-gilt greensward. No one at all was in sight. He closed the curtains before he turned. She had dropped into a chair. The flame of the lighter she held to her cigarette was shaking as in wind. He completed the operation for her, then took the other chair and lit a cigarette for himself. “It was the man we're looking for.”

She too had no doubt. “Yes.”

“He saw my car come in. He didn't know I'd moved out. He called the room, not my name. He was on a phone somewhere nearby.” He was sure of it. Anger returned. “I might have caught him.”

“You might have been killed.” Her voice was pale. “You might have been lynched.”

He said, “He's safe only as long as he's the invisible man. I'm going to have to come against him to find out who he is.”

“You may be right.” She was breathing more easily. “But rushing out at midnight to lay hands on a white man isn't going to help you. If he killed you, he could and would call it self-defense. He'd need only say you tried to kill him because he knew you'd murdered Iris.”

“He'd have to involve himself to say that.”

“I can think of a dozen ways he wouldn't have to. So can you. The simplest would be that she came to him, an old friend, with her trouble. That at her request he brought her to you, and that he never saw her again.”

“He's not going to kill me,” Hugh said. “He needs me to bear his crime.”

She couldn't argue with that. She asked, “Would you like that drink now?”

“I don't need it. I'd rather not. He may try again.”

“I doubt that. I think he's long gone. He may not have been around here, anyway.”

“He had to be. To know I was here. He might have been calling from the lobby.”

“That can be checked.” She walked to the phone, lifted it, and when the office responded, she said, “This is Miss Hamilton in 126. That call you put through to me a few moments ago, can you tell me if it was from outside the hotel?” After listening to the response, she said, “I wondered. It wasn't for me. It was a mistake.” She thanked the night operator and hung up. “It was from outside.”

He said, “I think we should try to change your room. I'm afraid to have you stay in this one.”

She considered it, then shook her head. “We couldn't ask it without letting too many people know you are concerned in this case. If he should call again, I'll simply say that you've checked out, that I'm the new occupant.”

He wasn't thinking of a telephone call but of personal violence. However, if it were the white car that the man watched for, he wouldn't appear at Ellen's door unless it was parked outside. In which case Hugh would be there.

She said, “He must wonder why your name hasn't been in the papers. That must bother him.”

He hadn't thought about that. “Yes. He may believe I've been cleared by the police. That would account for his warning me to get out of town, to make me look guilty.” Excitement mounted. “He may be afraid I caught a glimpse of him that night, that I can identify him!” He said, “Ellen, he's got to call again! And when he does you'll have to keep him on the phone until I can find him.”

She insisted, “He may be calling from Scottsdale. Or Tempe.”

“It's the car,” he reiterated. “He waited for the car. The timing isn't coincidental. From the time we drove in here tonight until your phone rang was just what it would take to put a call through at this hour, when the lines aren't busy.”

She agreed with him but she didn't want to.

“There's that hamburger stand in the next block that stays open until midnight. There's an all-night dispensary right across from the hotel office. He could watch from either of them.”

“And there are residential developments all around.”

“He can't call from home. He has to have a phone booth or be somewhere with no one around to listen. Tomorrow I'll have a look at those late places.”

“You'll be careful what questions you ask.”

“I won't open my mouth unless the atmosphere is right. I'm not looking for trouble, I'm trying to get out of it. For all we know, he may work in one of those spots.”

“You'd better let the police take care of the questioning.”

“The police.” As if they cared. But he suddenly said, “Do you think we should let them know about the call?”

“It's too late now. Let Skye do it tomorrow, he's your lawyer.”

“Should we call Skye?” He didn't want to. Not at this hour.

She decided, “Tomorrow's soon enough. There's nothing he could do tonight.”

“I'd better go.” He didn't like leaving her alone, but fatigue had caught up again.

She said, “Let me look outside before you leave. I hate to have you drive alone at this time of night.”

He said then what he had been thinking. “I don't like leaving you here alone.”

“I won't open the door to anyone. Not without first checking with the office.”

Before he could stop her, she had stepped outside onto the walk. He came close behind her and moved past to survey the silent rows of cars. There was no person stirring.

He said, “It's all right. You go back in now.” He wanted to have her in his arms, not by accident this time, by design. He was falling in love with her as he'd never known love before, even with full realization of the hopelessness of the situation. Because of a moment of charity on a desert road, he would have to live with the taint of this case forever. That was cold truth. He could never sully an Ellen Hamilton with its ugliness.

“I'll wait until you get the car started.” She managed a smile. “We'll synchronize. When the engine's running, I'll dash in and bolt the door.”

He couldn't match her smile. It wasn't funny. She stood there framed in the doorway not only until he was under way but until he'd backed out and was turned toward the exit drive. He stopped then until she lifted her hand and shut herself behind the door.

As he drove away, he felt certain he was not followed, but nevertheless he circled several blocks. He wouldn't chance leading the man to his grandparents' home. When he was again on Van Buren, he covered it slowly in the area on either side of the motel. The hamburger stand was closed by now; in the dispensary a tired man stood behind the counter. But Hugh saw what he'd missed before, or seen without seeing, a lighted service station a block beyond the motel. A car parked in front of it could watch The Palms driveway. And there was at hand, on the corner of the lot, the total privacy of a public phone booth.

He was late, six minutes late, the next morning, as he descended the steps of the Scottsdale station; seven minutes late as he stood in the doorway of the marshal's office.

They were waiting for him, the marshal moving the rocks on his paper reports, Ringle sucking a Coke bottle which looked like a toy in his heavy hand. Venner, wearing a damp plaid shirt of pink and yellow-green, was skitting about the small room as if he knew there was to be a pickup order soon.

An innocent man could apologize. Hugh said to Hackaberry, “I'm sorry. Traffic seemed slow-moving this morning.” Nothing of how difficult it was to get away from the family without revealing his destination.

“Doesn't matter.” Hackaberry waved the apology aside. “I'm running late myself. Have a chair.”

Today there were extra chairs, empty ones aligned with Ringle's, two under the windows. Venner, his mouth snaked with disappointment at Hugh's entrance, blocked the latter.

Hugh said, “I'm sorry,” and lifted one from Ringle's line, placing it near the marshal's desk. He sat down.

“We couldn't seem to find you yesterday.” Hackaberry spoke genially, just as if it weren't important.

Hugh reacted the same way. “So I understand. I was out most of the day.” If they wanted to know where he'd been, they would have to ask.

“You know the results of the autopsy?”

“I've read the reports in the newspapers. And I know what Mr. Houston was told.”

Ringle rumbled, “Were you surprised?”

Hugh glanced at him briefly, then back to the marshal. “I don't believe I understand.”

Venner said maliciously, “We been wondering how surprised you were to find out she'd had an abortion.”

Hugh didn't let the insinuation disturb him. He continued to address himself to the marshal. “I hoped the autopsy would not show that she'd been aborted.” It might not be wise to say more but he did. “Both as a doctor and as the person I am, I hoped she had been spared that.”

Point-blank Ringle demanded, “Did you commit that abortion?”

“No, I did not!” His denial rang out, strong, true. There was no change in the attitude of the three men. They'd been conditioned to the guilty as well as the innocent forthright denials. He might just as well have saved his breath. He continued passionately, “I'm a doctor. I've sworn the Hippocratic oath. Under no circumstances that I can think of, would I violate that oath.”

“But you weren't surprised,” Ringle said flatly.

“No, I wasn't surprised. What did surprise me in the report was that her death was caused by concussion, not the operation.”

The marshal asked, “Why did that surprise you?” He seemed interested.

He might be sticking his neck out, far out, to venture his opinions. But Houston wasn't here to advise him. He knew the interview was being taped and tape could be mutilated. Yet an innocent man would answer, frankly and freely. Hugh said, “Because if he was going to kill her, why would the man take her to an abortionist?”

“You don't think the abortionist killed her?”

“No, I don't,” he returned. “I think she was killed by the man who got her in trouble and who found an abortionist for her after I turned her down.”

“The mystery man.” Venner sounded amused.

Hugh snapped the sentences, “The man she came to meet. The man who drove her to my motel Friday night. The man who telephoned an anonymous tip to the police.” He brought out his wallet, removed the ugly scrap of paper and put it in front of the marshal. “The man who pushed that under the door of my room Sunday night. The man who telephoned the motel last night and warned me again to get out of town.”

The marshal read the message and held it out to Ringle. The sedentary detective reached across for it, read it without expression, and waited for Venner to cross the room for his reading. Venner read it and tittered.

The marshal said, “You don't know who he is.” He held out his hand to Venner for the return of the slip.

“I wish I did.”

“He seems to know you.”

“He knows my car. He knows my name. He knows the motel where I was staying.” He might also know Hugh's appearance but he wasn't going to give Venner a chance for another titter.

Ringle said, “I thought you'd moved out of the motel.”

“He doesn't know that; he asked for the room number, not for me by name.” He had to go on with the explanation. “I happened to be there when the call came. A friend of my sister's has the room now, I had just brought her home from dinner at Skye Houston's.” Deliberately he brought the lawyer's name in, a reminder that he was no longer without support. “Doubtless the man saw my car drive in and thought I was still staying at the motel.”

While he was explaining, the marshal's phone had sounded and he had spoken unheard words into it. Now he said, “You can give us the full run-down on that telephone call later. Right now I've got another matter to take up.”

One of his deputies was already at the door. With him was an undersized man, his face weathered from outdoor work, his thinning hair plastered with water, his eyes dull. He wore trousers needing a press, unshined shoes. For one wild moment of hope, Hugh believed they'd found the unknown man. And then he knew, from the deference in the deputy's manner, from the demeanor of Hackaberry, who this man must be.

The marshal spoke to the man, “I'm sorry to have to bother you at a time like this but I won't keep you long. Do you mind standing up, Hugh?”

Hugh came to his feet, without haste and without delay. As if he didn't mind. He looked down the room without expression, as if he were to identify the man, not the reverse. And he wondered what thoughts lay beneath the skull with the pasted hair, wondered what regrets would gnaw on a man whose daughter had died as Iris died.

The marshal was asking, “Do you know this man?”

He barely glanced at Hugh. “No.”

“Have you ever seen him before?”

This time the man did peer at Hugh, as if to him all dark men looked alike and he was being asked to discover a birthmark to distinguish this one from the others.

“No, I never.” The answer came flatly.

“You're sure of that?”

“If I'd seen him before I'd tell you.”

The marshal didn't quite know how to phrase it. He asked hesitantly, “You never saw him with your daughter?”

“What you driving at?” Crumb's voice was no longer lack-luster; it scraped. “What you trying to make out of her? My daughter wouldn't go with no niggers.”