I finished my conversation and hung up. I put my fingertips together, my elbows on the desk. “You two shouldn’t have any trouble finding a job,” I said. “In some other town. Mr. Marion has just advised me that he’s replacing you, as of tomorrow night. You can pick up your pay from him. The new man will clean out these thumb-handed mechanics you’ve got in here and put in some artists. This place could net twice as much, if you let the public win once in a while.”
As I came around the desk, they started to make their apologies. I pushed my way out, glad that the brass hadn’t broken the skin, and wondering how soon I’d have to cover my black eyes with dark glasses.
Janet stood up as I appeared in the doorway of the downstairs lounge. In her eyes was mirrored the surprise that I had seen in the eyes of the boys on the upstairs door.
“What on earth did—?”
“Not here, baby,” I said. I took her arm, and we went out the side door to the floodlighted parking lot.
She didn’t speak until we were a half mile away, and picking up speed. Then she said, “You’ve got to explain, Tom.”
I found a quiet spot near a country crossroad, and pulled over. I cut the lights and motor, and held a match for her cigarette. She moved around in the seat so she could face me. “What happened back there?”
“Why do you ask?”
“A horrible little man came up to me in the lounge and said that you’d fallen and hurt yourself and that in a little while you’d be out in the car. I told him I’d wait right where I was. He shrugged and went away. I was getting scared. I didn’t know what to think of that phone call.” She paused. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Tom.”
There was enough pale moonlight so I could see the lovely planes of her face, the delicate hollows at her temples.
“I did fall, but I wasn’t as badly hurt as they thought, Janet,” I said quietly.
“What happened at that dice table?” she asked. “What happened in the card game? Why did they act so funny? It was as though they knew something, and so did you, and they didn’t like your knowing it.”
I was right about those smart eyes of hers. She saw things, and her mind meshed very nicely. By trying to be Mr. Smooth, I had put myself neatly out on a limb.
There seemed to be a very good answer. I put my hands on her shoulders, pulled her toward me, slipped my arms around her. She ducked her lips away from me. But I caught her and kissed her. She went limp and dead, her lips firmly compressed. It’s as good a defense as any. I kissed her ummoving lips until I began to feel silly. Then I felt her stir in my arms, felt her arms creep up and circle my neck. And suddenly she was the most alive creature in the world. It lasted while the car seemed to spin like a crazy top, and then she tore herself away and planted a stinging slap, high on my face.
“Damn you!” she whispered. “Damn you!”
She moved over into the corner of the seat near the door and said in a small voice, “Take me home, please.”
No words were spoken on the trip back to her place. I let her out and walked up to the foyer door with her. She had been fumbling in her bag. In the darkness, after she had unlocked the door, she turned and thrust a wad of bills at me. As I bent to pick up the ones that fluttered to the porch, the front door shut firmly.
I shrugged, stuffed the money in my side pocket, parked the car in an all-night lot near the hotel and went up to my room.
While I was in the shower, the phone rang. I went to it, lifted it off the cradle and said cautiously, “Yes?”
Her voice. “Tom?”
“Yes?”
“Good night, darling.” She hung up.
Once again I found myself humming in the shower. I went to sleep thinking of her.
She must have changed her mind again. During the three days that followed, she gave me, in cool and precise tones, the answers to my questions. She refused to go out with me. I began to run out of questions. I had become an expert on James Fosting. I knew his shirt size, brand of toothpaste and next dental appointment.
On the fourth day, she broke down.
We were awkward with each other during dinner, with more things being said with our eyes than with our empty words.
Then we got in the car and, as I drove out of town, she leaned her head against the back of the seat. Her blond hair was tossed by the wind. We didn’t talk.
I found a secluded spot, and she came into my arms with a little sob that started deep in her throat. When I kissed her, I felt the tears on her cheeks. It wasn’t the sort of kiss I was used to. It was sort of a dedication. There’s no better word.
In my arms, she looked up at me and said, “Who are you and what do you want?”
I held her tight and smiled down at her. “I’m the guy who is writing a book. Remember me?”
She looked up at me, her eyes grave in the moonlight, and shook her head from side to side. “No, Tom. You’re not writing a book. Your publishers have never heard of you. No man named Al Justin has ever worked for them.”
I sat very still, and something inside of me turned to ice. I had guessed the reactions of Fosting, but I hadn’t taken into account the emotional reflexes of a woman.
Before I could answer, she said, “I don’t want anything to hurt him, Tom.”
“Who wants to hurt him?” I said.
“I think you do. You were at home in that gambling place, Tom. You were at home with those people. I–I don’t know what to think. There’s something fine and clean and decent about Jim Fosting. And there’s something about you as black as the grave.”
It jolted me. I tried to laugh it off. “You make me sound like a fiend!”
“Maybe you are, Tom,” she said softly.
“Then why are you here?” I asked her, tightening my arms to show her what I meant.
Her voice was broken. “I don’t know, Tom. I don’t know. I don’t trust you and I don’t love you and yet I can’t help...”
I tilted her chin up and kissed her again. She was eager in my arms, and a dull roaring obscured my hearing. I was conscious only of her, and then, as from a great distance, I could hear her saying, half moan, half sob, “No — no — no — no...”
I fought my way back to sanity and opened the car door. I stood out in the night, breathing in the cool air in great gulps. When I turned and smiled at her, her face was pale but composed.
“Thank you,” she said in a little-girl voice.
I knew it was time to go back. There was work to do. I left her at her door, kissed her lightly on the lips and walked back out to the waiting car.
Chowder had bribed his way into my room. He was sitting on the bed, waiting for me. One of the punks he collects was standing by the bureau, cleaning his nails with my file.
After I shut the door, Chowder said, “The boss thought you were taking too long, Wally. He wants it for tomorrow.”
“Okay, he gets it for tomorrow. Bright and early,” I said.
Chowder liked the plan I outlined. The best plans are the simple ones. This was simpler than most. Three blocks from the hotel was a small freight depot. Big trucks. Fosting left the hotel at seven sharp every morning. To get to the City Hall, he walked down a street with a narrow sidewalk, walled with red brick buildings.
At a quarter to seven there was only one man in the freight depot, a driver who came to hook his tractor onto a trailer full of groceries.
The plan was to get into the freight yard, sap the driver, hoist him into the cab and time it to move up over the sidewalk and crush Fosting against the bricks. The man handling it, which would be me, could then pull the unconscious driver over under the wheel, slip out and make like he was a witness.
The driver’s lack of memory would be taken to be the result of concussion. Shock amnesia. Routine accident. Too bad.