I went in and, thank God, the juke box stopped just as I went through the door. I went over to the bar, glancing at the line of booths; Lamb wasn’t there.
I said, «Hi,» to the four of them that I knew, and to the stag if he wanted to take it to cover him, and to Harry, behind the bar. «Has Lamb been here?» I asked Harry.
«Nope, haven’t seen her, Wayne. Not since six; that’s when I came on. Want a drink?»
I didn’t, particularly, but I didn’t want it to look as though I’d come solely for Lamb, so I ordered one.
«How’s the painting coming?» Charlie Chandler asked me.
He didn’t mean any particular painting and he wouldn’t have known anything about it if he had. Charlie runs the local bookstore and—amazingly—he can tell the difference between Thomas Wolfe and a comic book, but he couldn’t tell the difference between an El Greco and an Al Capp. Don’t misunderstand me on that; I like Al Capp.
So I said, «Fine,» as one always says to a meaningless question, and took a swallow of the drink that Harry had put in front of me. I paid for it and wondered how long I’d have to stay in order to make it not too obvious that I’d come only to look for Lamb.
For some reason conversation died. If anybody had been talking to anybody before I came in, he wasn’t now. I glanced at Eve and she was making wet circles on the mahogany of the bar with the bottom of a martini goblet. The olive stirred restlessly in the bottom and I knew suddenly that was the color, the exact color I’d wanted to mix an hour or two ago just before I’d decided not to try to paint. The color of an olive moist with gin and vermouth. Just right for the main sweep of the biggest hill, shading darker to the right, lighter to the left. I stared at the color and memorized it so I’d have it tomorrow. Maybe I’d even try it tonight when I got back home; I had it now, daylight or no. It was right; it was the color that had to be there. I felt good; the black mood that had threatened to come on was gone.
But where was Lamb? If she wasn’t home yet when I got back, would I be able to paint? Or would I start worrying about her, without reason? Would I get that tightness in the pit of my stomach?
I saw that my glass was empty. I’d drunk too fast. Now I might as well have another one, or it would be too obvious why I’d come. And I didn’t want people—not even people like these—to think I was jealous of Lamb and worried about her. Lamb and I trusted each other implicitly. I was curious as to where she was and I wanted her back, but that was all. I wasn’t suspicious of where she might be. They wouldn’t realize that.
I said, «Harry, give me a martini.» I’d had so few drinks that it wouldn’t hurt me to mix them, and I wanted to study that color, intimately and at close hand. It was going to be the central color motif; everything would revolve around it.
Harry handed me the martini. It tasted good. I swished around the olive and it wasn’t quite the color I wanted, a little too much in the brown, but I still had the idea. And I still wanted to work on it tonight, if I could find Lamb. If she was there, I could work; I could get the planes of color in, and tomorrow I could mold them, shade them.
But unless I’d missed her, unless she was already home or on her way there, it wasn’t too good a chance. We knew dozens of people; I couldn’t try every place she might possibly be. But there was one other fairly good chance, Mike’s Club, a mile down the road, out of town on the other side. She’d hardly have gone there unless she was with someone who had a car, but that could have happened. I could phone there and find out.
I finished my martini and nibbled the olive and then turned around to walk over to the phone booth. The wavy-haired man who looked as though he might be from Hollywood was just walking back toward the bar from the juke box and it was making preliminary scratching noises. He’d dropped a coin into it and it started to play something loud and brassy. A polka, and a particularly noisy and obnoxious one. I felt like hitting him one in the nose, but I couldn’t even catch his eye as he strolled back and took his stool again at the bar. And anyway, he wouldn’t have known what I was hitting him for. But the phone booth was just past the juke box and I wouldn’t hear a word, or be heard, if I phoned Mike’s.
A record takes about three minutes, and I stood one minute of it and that was enough. I wanted to make that call and get out of there, so I walked toward the booth and I reached around the juke box and pulled the plug out of the wall. Quietly, not violently at all. But the sudden silence was violent, so violent that I could hear, as though she’d screamed them, the last few words of what Eve Chandler had been saying to Charlie Chandler. Her voice pitched barely to carry above the din of brass—but she might as well have used a public address system once I’d pulled the juke box’s plug.
«… may be at Hans’s.» Bitten off suddenly, if she’d intended to say more.
Her eyes met mine and hers looked frightened.
I looked back at Eve Chandler. I didn’t pay any attention to Golden Boy from Hollywood; if he wanted to make anything of the fact that I’d ruined his dime, that was his business and he could start it. I went into the phone booth and pulled the door shut. If that juke box started again before I’d finished my call, it would be my business, and I could start it. The juke box didn’t start again.
I gave the number of Mike’s and when someone answered, I asked, «Is Lamb there?»
«Who did you say?»
«This is Wayne Gray,» I said patiently. «Is Lambeth Gray there?»
«Oh.» I recognized it now as Mike’s voice. «Didn’t get you at first. No, Mr. Gray, your wife hasn’t been here.»
I thanked him and hung up. When I went out of the booth, the Chandlers were gone. I heard a car starting outside.
I waved to Harry and went outside. The taillight of the Chandlers’ car was heading up the hill. In the direction they’d have gone if they were heading for Hans Wagner’s studio—to warn Lamb that I’d heard something I shouldn’t have heard, and that I might come there.
But it was too ridiculous to consider. Whatever gave Eve Chandler the wild idea that Lamb might be with Hans, it was wrong. Lamb wouldn’t do anything like that. Eve had probably seen her having a drink or so with Hans somewhere, sometime, and had got the thing wrong. Dead wrong. If nothing else, Lamb would have better taste than that. Hans was handsome, and he was a ladies’ man, which I’m not, but he’s stupid and he can’t paint. Lamb wouldn’t fall for a stuffed shirt like Hans Wagner.
But I might as well go home, now, I decided. Unless I wanted to give people the impression that I was canvassing the town for my wife, I couldn’t very well look any farther or ask any more people if they’d seen her. And although I don’t care what people think about me either personally or as a painter, I wouldn’t want them to think I had any wrong ideas about Lamb.
I walked off in the wake of the Chandlers’ car, through the bright moonlight. I came in sight of Hans’s place again, and the Chandlers’ car wasn’t parked there; if they’d stopped, they’d gone right on. But, of course, they would have, under those circumstances. They wouldn’t have wanted me to see that they were parked there; it would have looked bad.
The lights were on there, but I walked on past, up the hill toward my own place. Maybe Lamb was home by now; I hoped so. At any rate, I wasn’t going to stop at Hans’s. Whether the Chandlers had or not.
Lamb wasn’t in sight along the road between Hans’s place and mine. But she could have made it before I got that far, even if—well, even if she had been there. If the Chandlers had stopped to warn her.
Three quarters of a mile from the inn to Hans’s. Only one quarter of a mile from Hans’s place to mine. And Lamb could have run; I had only walked.