The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything (25 page)

When he returned to Betsy he did not bother to reappear in the same place and position. She started violently. They walked further into a small park. He opened the suitcase on a bench. She went behind bushes and changed to the cotton dress and Orion cardigan he had brought her, and stuffed Charla's sodden playsuit under a bush. At a drinking fountain under a street lamp he held the mirror he had brought her while she wiped the smudges from her face and used the hair brush he had brought her, and used the stolen lipstick.

He risked a cruising cab and had the driver stop a block away from the Hotel Birdline. She went in with the money he gave her and rented a room, using a name they had agreed upon. He loafed in the shadows for ten minutes, and then halted time and went into the hotel. He looked at the register and saw they had given her room 303. He went up the stairs. She had left the door ajar as agreed. When he materialized instantaneously in front of her, her leap of surprise was smaller than before. He closed the door and said, "You're doing better, Miss Betsy."

"I think I'm just too tired to react. What is the world like when you're—doing that?"

"Absolutely silent. Red light. No motion anywhere. It's like being in a strange kind of a dream."

"Does it seem evil? Or is that a silly question."

"It could be evil. I don't think it's a silly question. I guess it would depend on the person using it. I guess it would sort of—multiply whatever you are by ten. Because it's absolute freedom. You can make your fantasies come true. And if your fantasies are—sick, then that's the way you'll use it. Maybe it's just like any other kind of power. I haven't really had time to think about the implications. And not much time now. You'll be safe here and I have a girl to find."

"Just any girl?"

"Not exactly."

"Your face is dirty."

"I'll use guest rights on the shower."

"Of course.Go ahead."

He showered and put the stolen clothing back on. He reached into his pocket and found the watch gone. He ran out of the bathroom. She was sitting huddled on the edge of the bed. She held the watch out to him at arm's length. Her eyes looked haunted. "I didn't have the guts," she whispered.

"What did you have in mind?"

"Please don't be angry. I just wanted to try. But I couldn't. Maybe—I was afraid of my own fantasies. They aren't—particularly nice." She lifted her chin with a kind of tired defiance. "I would have killed them."

"I know."

"For many many reasons. But you didn't. So maybe you have the right to use that magic, and I don't."

"You had the sense not to try. That's something."

She stood up and sighed and moved into his arms. She turned her mouth up to him and he kissed her without passion.

"Will you come back here?" she asked.

"I don't know. I'll leave money in case I can't. I'll phone at least."

When she looked up at him her eyes seemed softer, more gray than green. There was a faint smell of smoke caught in that palomino hair. Her back was hard and slender under his hands. "I owe you lots," she said. "And I think you are quite a guy. If you can make any use at all of a sort of neurotic but very grateful girl, and you want to come back here, feel free." She pushed herself away. "Have I said something so terribly amusing?"

"I'm sorry. It isn't you. It's me. I was thinking of all the other nights I spent in this pleasure palace. It was just sort of ironic for the moment. Betsy, you are very tired and very sweet and very desirable."

"Desirable in general. Nothing specific."

"I'm sorry. Nothing specific."

"Then I'm sorry too, because I do feel sort of specific." She sighed and smiled and touched his check. "Go find your girl."

Two blocks from the hotel he suddenly came upon a disguise which would render him completely invisible in nighttime Miami. It was a little past nine o'clock. He removed the disguise from a man who was in no condition to realize he was being robbed. Kirby donned the disguise and looked at his reflection in a store window. A comedy derby, a bright red plastic cane and a big round beribboned badge on which was printed "Eddie Beeler—Lubbock, Texas." He lurched slightly, faked a soft hiccup and nodded at himself with satisfaction.

He hailed a cab and asked to be taken to Rio's in North Miami.

The driver said, "You wanta go where the action is, you don't wanta go there, sport."

"Going to meet some buddies there."

"Okay, so what you do, you go in and bring them out and I'll take you where the action is."

The driver started up. He had the news on. Kirby asked him to turn up the volume. "... were involved in the search for Kirby Winter and Wilma Farnham when police traced a shipment of Winter's personal possessions to the yacht. Prompt action by area firefighting units prevented serious damage to the luxury vessel. The scene of the fire looked like attempted arson, but the three crew members aboard at the time can shed no light on the matter. The stateroom was occupied by Betsy Alden, actress niece of Mrs. O'Rourke, and as yet the police have been unable to locate either Miss Alden or Mrs. O'Rourke. While the fire was being brought under control, Joseph Locordolos, owner of the
Glorianna
, was being apprehended in a nearby cocktail lounge. Locordolos, severely battered and lacerated by the women upon whom he was forcing his attentions, and in a semi-hysterical condition, was booked for assault, exposure and lewd behavior, and is reported as not yet being in condition to be questioned regarding the two women who were aboard or the origin of the fire.

"A further element of mystery concerns the other two members of the crew of the
Glorianna
, Rene Bichat and Raoul Feron who were apprehended earlier today in the Hallandale home of Professor Wellerly of Florida Eastern. When Metro police went to the house in response to an anonymous phone tip, they found considerable damage to the house and found the two seamen in the shuttered living room, bound hand and foot. The two men have refused to explain their presence there and are being held.

"Evidence collected on the scene indicates Wilma Farnham may have been hiding out in the Wellerly home. Professor Wellerly and his family are in Europe, and he is a friend of Roger Farnham, Miss Farnham's brother, who denies any knowledge of his sister's whereabouts.

"Another factor, as yet unexplained, was the presence of a sports car behind the Wellerly residence, registered in the name of Bonny Lee Beaumont, a night club entertainer now working in the Greater Miami area. As yet police have been unable to contact Miss Beaumont.

"It is now believed that there was a closer connection between the people aboard the
Glorianna
and Kirby Winter and the Farnham woman than was first presumed. But an aura of mystery thickens around the millions embezzled from the estate of the late Omar Krepps."

The news ended. The driver turned the radio down and said, "Why the hell do they have to make it sound so hard? This Winter had it all set up for his buddies to bring that Glory Annie here and take him off with his broad and the money. But it's so much money and so much heat, everybody wants a bigger cut, so they start fighting among themselves and they screw up the whole deal for everybody. Why is that so hard to figure?"

"So where are they now?"

"Who knows, sport? This town has a million transient rooms, and there's so many ways to get out of it, you can't seal it off. Right? And there's enough confusion going on, how can anybody find anybody? It's like the whole town is going nuts. Beach riots, crazy traffic jams, people all over claiming they're seeing spooks. What it is, it's the humidity. It gets just to the right place and this town always starts to unravel. I seen it before."

When they reached Rio's, Kirby told the driver there would be no point in his waiting. The structure looked as though a pagoda had been mated with Mount Vernon, then boarded up and used as a proving ground for neon tubes. It sat in the middle of an asphalt field half full of cars. At intervals, a little worm of blue neon would appear way over on the left, out of total blackness. It would start to move across, picking up speed, picking up more width, additional colors until, when it reached the far right it occupied the whole height of the building. Then it turned into a huge white waterfall. Then it said RIO'S—in red—big enough to drive a truck through the O. And, as it was shouting RIO'S, three banks of floodlights flicked on, one after the other, illuminating three plywood girls, thirty feet tall. The first one was a brunette labeled Perry Meson. The middle one was Bonny Lee. The third was a redhead disastrously named Pooty-Tat O'Shaugnessy. They were all smiling. They were bare, except for the strategic placement of their name signs. They were all of a height, standing elbow to elbow, reproduced by some color photomural process, and the six breasts aligned, big as bushel baskets, had a fearsome implausibility which induced, rather than lust, a feeling of inadequacy. This peculiar vision of his love gave Kirby a feeling of petulance and indignation, like a small boy discovering he is expected to share his candied apple with the entire first grade. It was but a minor compensation to note that the incredible Pooty-Tat made the other two look immature. RIO'S flickered off and the lighted cutouts lingered another two seconds. The building was in total darkness for a moment and then the little blue worm reappeared.

When he hauled the heavy door open, he was assailed by a blast of noise so tangible he wondered that it did not push him back out. He went through the hat check foyer without relinquishing funny hat or cane, and moved into the smoky gloom. Waiters pounced, scurried, slid through tiny spaces between the shadowy tables. Everyone seemed to be yelling to be heard over the brass din of a small and exceptionally noisy group of musicians on a cantilevered shelf playing an accelerated version of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," with the compulsive, crashing beat of a twist number. A lot of people seemed to be yelling "Go!" in time to the beat. At the far end of the large room, on a small platform stage, bathed in a hot pink spotlight stood Miss Pooty-Tat O'Shaugnessy wearing nought but a drowsy smile, a sequined G-string and two little silk tassels. She had her fingers laced at the nape of her neck and seemed totally relaxed, except that one little red tassel was revolving clockwise, the other counterclockwise, each completing one revolution exactly on the smashing beat.

"Parm me!" a waiter snarled and shoved Kirby out of his trance. He went to the crowded bar and found a four-inch space between two beefy men. The service was fast, the drink small, weak and expensive. When the harried bartender brought his change, Kirby tried to ask when Bonny Lee would be on, but the barman was gone before he could get the words out. At the final thump of the last bar, Pooty-Tat added a bump to the other activities, and the pink spot went off.

"She ain't on tonight," one of the beefy men said.

"Cop trouble, somebody said," the other man said.

"How come?" the first man said.

"Her car got used on a B and E that went sour and they made her through the plates, but she should have showed and said it was borrowed. You fade and they nail you every time, like accessory."

When the bartender started to snatch Kirby's empty glass, Kirby grabbed him by the wrist and said, "How can I get in touch with Bonny Lee?"

The man yanked himself free and said, "Try a classified ad, doll."

Five minutes later, as Kirby was wondering what to try next, there was a tap on his shoulder. He turned and saw an old waiter with a face like a tired bulldog. The waiter moved away, giving a little jerk of his head for Kirby to follow him. Ten feet from the bar the waiter stopped.

"I play a little game, okay? Like I say a front name and you give me the rest of it, okay? Bernie?"

Kirby stared at him blankly. As the waiter shrugged and started to turn away, Kirby said, "Sabbith?"

"Slow thinker, huh. Come on with me."

Kirby followed him along the side of the big room, through a door, down a corridor and past a noisy kitchen to other doors. He knocked on one of them. "Yes?" a high clear voice called.

"It's Raymond. I got with me maybe the guy you wannit."

"Let him in, love. And thank you so much."

Raymond opened the door and let him in. It was a small, incredibly cluttered room, harshly and unpleasantly lighted. Pooty-Tat sat on a ratty couch eating a steak sandwich, sharing the couch with a precarious pile of clothes, cartons, magazines, empty Coke bottles, paper editions, phonograph records and other debris. She wore a blue denim smock.

"Do sit down," she said. The dressing table bench was the only place available. She had a high voice, a rather chilly and precise English accent, with that special clarity of tone English girls often have.

"Actually, love, I hardly expected such a festive look. But the little scar is just where she said it would be, so you must be the one. Do take off that insane hat, Mr. Winter."

"Is she all right?"

"You do ask that rather nicely. Concern, anxiety. As far as I know, she is perfectly all right."

"Where is she?"

"In due time, Mr. Winter. I have been wondering about you. We are all terribly fond of Bonny Lee. A limited background of course, but marvelous instincts. Sometimes her instincts fail her, though, and she does become involved with some horrid sod. Then we do what we can, you see."

"I would like to know where—"

"Are you quite certain you are good for her, Mr. Winter? You do seem to have involved her in some sort of stickiness. And you're even more of a fugitive than she at the moment. I can't pretend to know much about it, but haven't you made off with rather a lot of money? Don't look so alarmed, love. I trust her completely, and she trusts me. I wouldn't turn you in."

"I didn't mean to get her into any trouble or danger."

"You certainly
seem
harmless enough. You have quite an earnest look. You see, I was just getting up when she rang me up, and I had to scurry over to the Beach and pick her up. She'd cadged a dime to phone me, and she was in a drugstore, absolutely sopping wet, terribly busy fending off a randy little clerk. But she would not take time to change. She was frantic with worry about you. I couldn't even drive fast enough to suit her. We went to the health school and picked up three of my friends. I have this ridiculous letch for horribly muscular men. They're invariably dumb as oxen and sexually not very enterprising, but sometimes they are useful if one anticipates a brawl. So then we went scooting to Hallandale, with Bonny Lee on the edge of the seat using rather bad language, but the place was crawling with police officers. We parked a block away and I sent my brightest oaf to go find out what was up. No sign of you, he said, or of some girl Bonny Lee was asking about. Just two rather bitter and surly fellows, low types apparently, being led into a police vehicle. So then we took my fellows back to their muscle flexing. Bonny Lee was wondering what she should do about her poor little abandoned car. She had stopped fretting about you. In fact she seemed awfully amused about something, but wouldn't give me a clue. I took her to that horrid nest amongst those squadrons of tireless old ladies, but quite suddenly she scrooched down and hissed at me to go right on by. It seems two unsavory types were parked on her street, the two she had apparently eluded by plunging into a canal. She was all for our gathering up my friends once more and returning to give them a bashing about, but I must say I had begun to have quite enough of this darting about, and I became a bit cross, so I took her back to my place where at last she had a chance to get out of that dank clothing and rinse the salt out of her hair."