Wild Town (10 page)

He’d be gone. There’d be a third party with them throughout the evening.

She looked at him, obviously anxious but too proud to press the invitation. Choking back his resentment, Bugs said he’d be very glad to come to dinner.

“Then it’s all settled. You can come early, around six, and we’ll have the whole evening together. And now”—she leaned back in the seat, held her arms out—“If you’d like to kiss me good night, I’d like to have you.”

Bugs drew her to him. He kissed her not at all in the way that he wanted to nor in the way that, subconsciously, he felt that he was entitled to. It was no more than a gentle touching of their lips, and his arms were loose around her body.

She drew her head back, studied his hard face dreamily. She brushed a lock of hair from his forehead and said, “Thank you, Mac. Thank you, very much.”

“You’re thanking
me?
What for?”

“You know. For not spoiling things. For not making me feel that…But I knew you wouldn’t. You couldn’t with eyes as kind as yours.”

“Yeah,” Bugs said gruffly. “Kind of screwy, you mean.”

“I mean, kind, good. Like they had seen so much hurt that they could never cry enough.”

“Hell, I never cried in my life.”

“Then I think it’s about time. And I think you’ll be happier when you do. But, anyway…” Her voice sank to a drowsy murmur. “Kiss me again, Mac. And, Mac, if you want to do it a little harder…”

He kissed her again, a very little harder, only a little less chastely. She thanked him simply, as she had before. And then they said good night and parted.

Bugs drove back to the hotel, very happy and pleased with himself. Ignoring the tiny voice which jeered him for a chump and insisted that he was a sucker.

He felt good. He had a nice thing going here. Why wonder about its niceness, then? Why take it apart to see what made it tick?

He stopped at the desk, and got the stuff out of his box. He almost tore the letter up before he discovered that it was a letter, and not another of Joyce’s call-slips.

Absently, his mind still on Amy, he sat down in a corner of the lobby and opened it.

M
r. McKenna: You killed Mr. Dudley. I know you did because I was in the bathroom, and I heard everything that happened. And if you are stubborn or uncooperative, I will see that Mr. Lou Ford knows about it. You have a choice, Mr. McKenna. You can mail five thousand dollars to me, at the address below, or you can go to jail—perhaps, to the electric chair. Naturally, I’d prefer that you did the former, since telling what I know would necessarily be embarrassing for me, and would make me nothing. But I will do it, if I don’t get the money. The choice is up to you, Mr. McKenna. Better not delay in making it.

The letter was printed neatly in pencil; the text as well as the address on the envelope. It was postmarked Westex City, but that was just a dodge, of course. The blackmailer was right here in the Hanlon, someone who had been on intimate terms with Dudley, and who knew enough about him, Bugs, to know that he had two strikes against him.

It had to be. Also, considering the circumstances of the blackmailer’s rendezvous with Dudley, it just about had to be a woman. One of two women. For Bugs could think of only two with the necessary qualifications. Both would have some knowledge of his past. Both would have or could have known Dudley well. Both could come and go about the hotel without attracting attention.

Joyce Hanlon? Well, she was capable of it, all right. And it would perfectly suit her purposes to swing a club like this at him. She wouldn’t actually want the money, of course. It would simply be a means of making him sweat, crowding him into a corner. Then she would step in and offer him a way out.

Unfortunately—unfortunately since Bugs wanted her to be the culprit—he knew that Joyce could not have been the lady in the bathroom. He’d talked to her seconds after Dudley’s tumble from the window. She couldn’t possibly have got from Dudley’s room to her own in time to receive that call.

So that left Rosalie Vara; she had to be it. Rosie whom he had always liked and gone out of his way to be nice to.

She’d gotten the five grand, and now…Well, maybe Dudley had kidded her that he had more, another five. Or maybe she was just making the old college try.

A man may not have much, but he’s apt to bust a gut getting it.
If
it seems the only way to stay out of jail or the chair.

Bugs shredded and re-shredded the letter, and dropped it into a sand jar. He guessed he must have kind of been expecting something like this—although not from Rosie. Because he was worried, naturally, but not greatly surprised. This was the kind of lousy break he always got. It would have been damned strange if he got anything else.

But he’d smartened up a lot since his last bad break. And he had a lot more to fight for than he’d used to have. So maybe he’d wind up catching it in the neck again—catching it worse than he ever had before—but he sure as hell didn’t plan to. What he planned (and the details were already forming in his mind) was something else entirely.

Rosie…

Slowly, his eyes lifted up to the mezzanine, seeking her, then shifted to the huge square-faced clock at the head of the lobby.

Eleven-thirty. She’d be, or should be, up on the room floors at this time.

Bugs pushed himself up from his chair. He strolled over to the elevator bank and ascended to the twelfth floor. He was very calm, casual. Maybe, he guessed, the full implications of his predicament hadn’t had time to register on him. Or it could be that he found it hard to feel anything much toward Rosie but hurt and irritation. At any rate, he had seldom been calmer, more sure of himself, in his life.

She had admitted herself to his room with her maid’s key, and was now busily at work. Bugs got some cigarettes and a clean handkerchief out of his dresser drawer, said that, yes, he had been getting out of the room early the last couple of nights.

“Figured I was getting stale, y’know, just eating and sleeping and working. I’m going to try getting out a lot more, from now on.”

“Well, now, I think you should, Mr. McKenna,” she nodded seriously. “This night work…well, of course, I’m very happy in my job. But I do find myself getting into a rut.”

It was an opening, she’d handed it to him herself. Casually, Bugs moved into it. “You get that way, too, huh? Well, look, I’m driving over to Westex City the day after tomorrow. Pulling out right after work. How about coming along with me?”

“With you?”
She gave a start. “But—but—”

“Fellow I’ve got to see a few miles the other side of Westex. Owns a lot of property in that section. I’m having him rush me some money tomorrow, so I’ll have to go over and fix up a note or something.”

“But…well, that’s awfully nice of you to ask me, Mr. McKenna. But I—”

“I could drop you off there in town, and pick you up in a couple of hours. Don’t suppose it would be very exciting for you; just the ride and lunch. But—”

“Mr. McKenna,” she said. “Mr. McKenna…”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think I’d better. There isn’t as much prejudice here in the Southwest as there is in the South, but I am a Negro, and—”

“So what?” Bugs shrugged. “You don’t look like one. You won’t be wearing a sign on your back.”

Her eyes flashed; her lips came together in a proudly angry line. Because even for Bugs McKenna, the statement set a new high or low for tactlessness. And, yet, maybe it was that tactlessness—the apparently complete lack of guile—that turned the trick.

She stared at him a moment, eyes narrowed, lips compressed. Bugs looked back at her, the very picture of innocence personified. And, suddenly, she was laughing, bubbling over with delicious amusement.

“All right, Mr. McKenna.” She dabbed at her eyes. “I’d like to go very much, if you’re sure you want me. And as you say, I won’t have a sign on my back.”

“Now, I didn’t mean that like it sounded,” Bugs said, sheepishly. “I—”

“I know. I know how you mean it.…The day after tomorrow, you said?”

“That’s right. I’ve got an appointment here in town tomorrow. Anyway, I have to be here to receive the money this fellow’s sending me.”

It went over perfectly, it seemed to Bugs. She left and he locked the door and sat down at his writing desk.

He took a half-dozen sheets of stationery from the drawer, tore them into crude oblongs. He stuffed them into a lettersize envelope, and stamped and addressed it. Later that night, he mailed it at a box outside of the hotel.

The night passed in the usual manner of his nights. Retiring at the end of his shift, he followed the routine of the previous two mornings. It wouldn’t work indefinitely, he guessed. Joyce was a very determined dame, and she was playing for big stakes. So, sooner or later, she’d start pressing. She’d ignore that sign on his door, or insist that the operators put her calls through.

But…first things first. He’d take care of her when the time came. Right now, there were other things to be taken care of.

He arose at five o’clock, was on his way in thirty minutes. There were a couple of call-slips in his box—and he leaned over the desk to make sure they were call-slips. Leaving them in the box, he went out the doors to the street.

He bought a bouquet of flowers, the best that five dollars would buy. Also, after a little mental calculation, he bought a one-pound box of candy. Carrying these modest burdens, he knocked on Amy Standish’s door at five minutes of six.

He knocked. He knocked and knocked. He noticed for the first time that all the shades were drawn, that there was no sound of activity in the house. He hesitated, uneasily, wondering if he could possibly have got mixed up on the invitation; whether it had been for tonight or some other night.

And the door cracked open an inch, and Amy spoke to him through the crevice. “Mac”—her voice sounded muffled, choked up. “What are you—? Didn’t you get my message?”

“Message? Oh,” Bugs said, remembering. “Well, I guess there was one in my box. But—”

“I’m sorry. We’ll have to make it some other night, Mac.”

“But look, what’s the matter?” Bugs protested. “What’s wrong? Did I do something that—”

“No, it’s nothing you did. I—I can’t talk about it now, Mac. Now, if you’ll excuse me…
please,
Mac…”

Bugs persisted stubbornly. Hell, if she was sick or something, he wanted to know about it. Suddenly her voice cracked, rose hysterically.

“I said to go on! Leave me alone! I’ve told you and told you that I c-can’t talk, and if you had any sense you’d—you’d.…”

The door slammed in his face. Bugs glowered at it furiously. Then, he flung the candy and flowers to the porch and stamped back to the car.

He had a very bad time with himself for the next few hours. Disappointment mingled with anger, and anger with hurt. And…it was a very bad time. So bad that it burned itself out before much of the night had elapsed, and he could reason and be reasonable.

Of course, there was no excuse for what Amy had done. Couldn’t be any that he could think of. Still, she had doubtless thought she had a reason for standing him up, even if she didn’t have. And no matter how sore he was—or had been—he couldn’t see her pulling such stunts for the hell of it. To see, that is, how much she could get away with. She’d been badly upset, too. She hadn’t liked it any better than he did.

He became reasonably placid again, reasonably at peace with himself. By the end of his shift, he had firmly decided to forgive Amy…provided, naturally, that she was properly contrite, and that she satisfactorily explained her actions.

…He picked up Rosalie Vara a couple blocks from the hotel. He had previously purchased a couple of containers of coffee and some sweet rolls, and they ate breakfast as they rode. Neither did much talking. Rosalie seemed very tired from her night’s work, and Bugs was reluctant to talk. In view of what he had to do—and what she was doing to him—even maintaining a decent silence was an almost intolerable strain.

Westex City was a city in fact as well as name. Not a large one—the population was under fifty thousand—but one that was prosperous and important, since it was the field headquarters for various oil companies.

It was less than sixty miles from Ragtown. But what with the narrow highway and the heavy traffic, it was almost eleven when Bugs and Rosalie arrived. He made arrangements for meeting her later—entirely unnecessary arrangements, he thought grimly—and asked where she would like to be let out. She said politely that any place in the business district would be fine, so he dropped her off seven or eight blocks from the post office.

He drove on, as though he were heading out of town. Then, after a block or so, he whipped around a corner and sped back toward the business section.

He found a suitable parking place. A side-street spot which was near his destination and hers. He left the car in it, hastened up to the main thoroughfare, and entered a restaurant.

It was directly across from the post office. Seated a few stools down the counter, he could see both entrances of the building.

If he had been less intent on those entrances, if say, he had taken a good look around the restaurant, he might have seen—

But, no, probably he wouldn’t have. The place was expensive, pretentious, dimly lit in the sometime fashion of such places. So, even if he had looked around, it is doubtful that he would have seen the two people in the distant rear booth.

But he could be seen. Not by Amy Standish, since her back was to the entrance. But Lou Ford, seated on the opposite bench, could see him perfectly.

He gave no sign of the fact to Amy, made no mention of Bugs’s presence. He went on with his meal, drawling idly, grinning at the girl’s bitter or dispirited rejoinders. But he was watching interestedly, nothing Bugs’s watchfulness, the course of his intent stare. And so he saw what Bugs saw. And when Bugs jumped up and left the restaurant, he also arose.

Bugs had given her a couple of minutes inside the post office. He reached the entrance just as she was coming out of it, shoving something into her purse. And her eyes widened, and she stopped dead in her tracks.

“Why, Mr. McKenna,” she faltered. “What…I thought that—”

“I know what you thought!” Bugs gripped her by the arm. “Come on!”

“But—” Her trembling smile fell apart. She held back fearfully. “B-but—what have I done? Why are you—?”

“I’m warning you, Rosie!” Bugs gritted. “I don’t want to hurt you, but if you don’t move I’ll move you. I’ll rip that arm right off you!”

She held back a moment longer, started to say something else. Then, all the spirit seemed to go out of her, all the quiet pride and self-assurance. And she went with him meekly.

He hustled her back to his car. He shoved her into it roughly, crowded in at her side. She was crying a little now, pressing her fingers against her eyes to hold back the tears.

Bugs took her purse, and yanked it open.…