Death’s Sweet Song
by Clifton Adams
Chapter One
The blue Buick pulled off the highway about fifty yards past the station. I could see the driver looking back at the cabins, and there was a woman beside him in the front seat. They sat there for two or three minutes while the man made up his mind, and finally the Buick began backing up and stopped in front of the gas pumps.
“Fill her up?” I said.
“All right.” He opened the door and got out. “What we're looking for,” he said, “is a place to stay for the night. Do you have a vacancy?”
“Sure thing.”
There were five cabins behind the station and they were all vacant, Most of them would remain vacant, even during the tourist season. That's the kind of place it was. I wondered about that while I put gas into his car. Here was a tourist with a new car, wearing expensive clothes, so why should he want to put up in a rat trap like mine when there were first-class AAA motels all along the highway?
He must have read my mind.
“Engine trouble,” he said. “Nothing serious, but I thought I'd better get a mechanic to look at it.”
“Oh. Your best bet is to go back to town and talk to the people at the Buick agency.”
He smiled pleasantly. “That's what I was thinking.”
He was a pretty good-sized guy, and you could see that he kept in condition. His face was burned to the color of old leather, and I guessed he was the type that spent a lot of time on a golf course, or maybe a tennis court. We talked a little about the weather and how hot it was, and then I hung up the hose and went to work on the windshield. That was when I got my first good look at the woman. And she just about took my breath away.
At first I thought she was asleep. She sat there with her eyes closed, her face completely expressionless. Her hair was blonde and short, and her skin was pale, almost white. She wore tan shorts and a white T shirt. The tan shorts looked almost black against that skin of hers. As I was finishing with the windshield, she opened her eyes. For just an instant we stared at each other through the glass, and then she smiled the smallest smile in the world and curled up slowly like a well-fed cat.
“Will you check the oil?” the man said.
I added a quart of oil. Then we went inside the station and he signed the register: “Mr. & Mrs. Karl Sheldon, St. Louis, Mo.”
“You want me to call the Buick agency for you?” I asked.
He smiled again. “Don't bother. I can drive it back to town all right. Anyway, I'd like to freshen up a bit.”
I put them in Number 2 cabin, right next to the one I kept for myself. I went around every morning and put the cabins in shape, but it would take more than clean sheets and a few licks with a mop to make them look like anything. They were all just alike, bedroom, bath, kitchenette—lumpy beds, peeling dressers, cracked linoleum on the floors. But I hadn't realized how shabby they really were before I saw the look on that blonde's face.
“Really, Karl! It seems to me—”
“It's just for a little while.” And he looked at me, almost apologetically. “Don't bother with the luggage. I'll bring it in after a while.”
That was a dismissal, so I went back to the station.
The thermometer on the east side of the wash rack had reached an even hundred. I opened a bottle of Coke and stood in the doorway, watching the endless stream of traffic rushing by on the highway. License tags from everywhere—Nebraska, California, Illinois.... Where do tourists go, anyway, in such a hell of a hurry? What difference does it make? I thought, with a taste of bitterness. They're not going to stop here!
And who could blame them? No air-conditioning, no fancy lunchroom, no AAA sign hanging out. Why should anybody want to stop at a place like this?
That started me thinking about Karl Sheldon and that blonde"” wife of his. Now, if I could afford a wife like that, you wouldn't catch me putting up in a fire trap like this, not by a long shot. Sheldon seemed like a nice guy, but apparently he wasn't very smart. A woman like that was meant to have nothing but the best. Several times that afternoon I caught my imagination beginning to get the best of me. That white skin; I'd never seen anything just like it before. I was almost glad when a customer came by and left a flat for me to fix; it gave me something else to think about.
Around five o'clock Ike Abrams, my part-time helper, came on duty, and a few minutes later Sheldon backed his Buick out of the carport and headed toward town.
“I see you've rented one of the cabins,” Ike said. “Maybe the tourist business is beginning to hit its stride.”
“I hope so. Say, did you notice anything wrong with the way that Buick was running?” “It sounded fine to me.”
Ike may not be the smartest man in the world, but he's as good a shade-tree mechanic as you'll find. When he doesn't hear something wrong with an engine, then there's nothing wrong with it. That started me thinking again. Now, why would Sheldon bother to hand me that cock-and-bull story about car trouble? And even if it was true, why would he wait until five o'clock to get started for a garage that would already be closed for the day?
Well, a man had his own set of reasons for everything, and it was none of my business, anyway. I was just glad that a cabin was rented.
After a while I checked the cash register with Ike, turned the station over to him, and headed toward my own cabin to get cleaned up for my usual date with Beth Langford. I could hear the shower running in Number 2 cabin, and I stopped for a moment and listened, thinking about that blonde. You'd better hold on to that imagination of yours, I thought.
My own cabin was like a farmer's oven at harvest time. The sleazy marquisette curtains hung limp and still at the open windows. No hint of a breeze. Through the sagging screen door I could see the glistening ribbon of Highway 66, and beyond it the shimmering, sun-blasted monotony of Oklahoma prairie. It hurt your eyes, just looking at it.
I tried to tell myself that the tourist business was just getting started, as Ike had said, and pretty soon I'd be renting the cabins every night and the money would begin rolling in.
It was a pipe dream. And I knew it.
I kicked my shoes off and lay across the scorching bed, and in no time at all I was cursing myself for ever getting into the business in the first place. The heat was getting me down. I was going to be late for my date with Beth, but that didn't seem to matter.
For about fifteen minutes I lay there with the sweat rolling over my ribs. Pretty soon that old feeling of frustration began gnawing at me, that nameless anger that I knew so well began sinking its claws in my guts.
I wondered if Karl Sheldon appreciated the woman he had. I wondered if he appreciated that car of his, the money in his wallet, the way he could afford to live. By God, I thought, I would appreciate them if I had them!
There had been a time when I was going to have such things. There had been a time when I was going to take the world apart and put it together again just the way I wanted it.
But it didn't work out like that. Nothing worked out the way I planned it. Even now I could feel this tourist-court business falling down around my shoulders. Another failure, Hooper; but you ought to be used to it by now.
I never got used to it. Every time I went under, something inside me got harder, that anger got hotter. One of these days, I thought, I'm going to do it!
But not today.
I lay there, groggy and listless in the heat, “not caring a damn whether or not I ever got up, whether I ever kept my date with Beth Langford. Finally I did get up and stripped and got under the shower. The cold water jarred me, made me feel a little better. I pulled on some clean slacks and a fresh shirt and got out of that cabin before the heat could get another hold on me. Mrs. Sheldon was sitting on the steps of Number 2.