She knocked on Infante’s motel room door and got no answer.
The woman at the desk, a thin, plain woman about forty, doing the crossword puzzle in the Sunday paper, shrugged without looking up, saying all she knew was the night clerk had left a note saying the man in room 13 had requested not to be disturbed, and that if anyone called, to say he was out. Julie asked to speak to the night clerk, and was told she wouldn’t be on duty till midnight. When Julie insisted, the woman gave her the night clerk’s phone number, and she called her from a booth outside the motel.
“That’s right,” a sleepy female voice said. “He wasn’t really going anyplace. Just wanted some sleep. Like I do. Do you mind?”
“So he wasn’t going out?”
“I was supposed to say he was out and take messages.”
“I see. Tell me. Did anybody check in last night after two?”
“Everybody checked in last night after two. Couples, mostly. Get the idea?”
“Any singles? A man maybe?”
“No single men. There was this girl.”
“Girl?”
“Pretty brown-haired girl. Not real big.”
“What was she wearing?”
“I don’t know. T-shirt and jeans, I guess.”
“Do you remember anything specific? There’s money in it if you do.”
“Well. The T-shirt had the name of a rock group on it.”
“Oh?”
“Not some big group, like Kiss or something. A band from around here, whose name I recognized.”
“What was it?”
“The Nodes. Ever hear of ’em?”
Julie went back to the check-in desk and, for twenty bucks, the clerk tore herself away from her crossword long enough to give her the key to room 13. There Julie found a note, presumably from Infante, saying he’d gone out for a bite to eat and a movie. She looked around the room carefully. She noticed two things: there were no towels in the bathroom, and there was a damp spot on the floor near the bed.
She was driving back to the house, down the tree-lined country lane along which Ron also lived, when she noticed a car, apparently abandoned, pulled into one of the access inroads to a cornfield. She must have passed it before, on her way to the motel, but hadn’t noticed it. Now she did: a Mazda. Infante’s car.
She stopped and got out and had a look, not touching anything. It was empty; the keys weren’t in the dash. But she had a feeling the trunk wasn’t empty.
She got back in her Porsche.
Somehow that kid Jon had gotten a message to Nolan. Maybe there was another phone at the Barn, one she hadn’t known about. Maybe Jon had used Bob Hale’s private phone. That was probably it. Damn! Whatever the case, the kid had obviously got to Nolan, because Nolan was here already; Infante was dead, most likely; and she was shit out of luck.
She pulled into the driveway of her house and stood poised in front of the pillared structure like the heroine on the cover of a gothic paperback. There was no sign of Nolan yet. The only other car around was Harold’s Pontiac Phoenix, in the garage, where it was supposed to be. She went in the back way, through the kitchen, gun in hand. But there was nobody in the house except Harold, still sitting in the study, listening to Beatle records: “All the lonely people...”
“What are you sneaking around for?” he asked, turning down the stereo, eyeing the little automatic in her hand.
“He’s here,” she said, putting the gun back in her purse. “Nolan’s here.”
“Jesus Christ.”
She went upstairs and started packing a bag. He was at her side as she did.
“I’ll get in touch with you,” she said. “It may be a few months.”
“I’m not going with you?”
“No. The Paddlewheel is too good a thing to throw away. We’re going to try to hold onto it. You’re going to hold onto it for me.”
“Where will you be?”
“I don’t know yet. And when I do know, I won’t tell you. If you don’t know, you can’t tell anybody.”
That hurt him. “Tell anybody? What...”
“Look. Nolan will show up, and when he does, the less you know, the better, because you’re probably going to have to take some heat from him. But he’s not going to kill you or anything.”
“Well, that’s nice to know.”
“Harold. Just play dumb. You can handle it.”
“Your confidence in me is overwhelming.”
The bag was packed.
She put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll come through for me. You always have.”
He smiled wearily; he nodded.
“Now,” she said, carrying the bag out of the room, heading down the stairs, Harold trailing after, “you go to the Paddlewheel. I’m going to need that getaway money.”
“The hundred thousand?” Harold said.
“Yes. I can live a long time on that.”
She was at the front door. He grabbed her arm. Softly.
“Don’t leave me,” he said.
“Harold,” she said, pulling away, “I’m not going to leave you. I’m just getting my butt out of here before it gets shot off. I’ll be back. I like my life here. I’m not giving it up easily.” She kissed him on the mouth, hastily, and said, “I’ll meet you at the Paddlewheel in twenty minutes, half an hour.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Ron’s.”
He grabbed her arm again, hard this time. “Why?”
“To tell her to let that kid go, that’s why. That should cool Nolan off a little.”
He let go. Licked his lips nervously. “Oh,” he said.
“See you at the club.”
The person who answered the door at the farmhouse seemed to be Ron, but Julie couldn’t be sure. It was a not unattractive woman with makeup on and a peasant blouse and jeans; also a choking cloud of perfume. Yet this apparently was Ron.
And Ron’s attitude didn’t seem to have changed: she was more than willing to kill the kid, for a price.
Only when she went upstairs to do it, she was gone too long, and Julie followed up after her.
Ron was alone in the room. She was busy undoing handcuffs that were hanging on the bedposts. Her gun, a long-barreled revolver, was on the nightstand. The window was open; cold air was coming in.
Ron seemed startled when she noticed Julie in the doorway.
“Little bastard got away,” she explained.
“I see,” Julie said.
“I don’t know how he got out of these things,” she said, taking the handcuffs over toward the dresser, turning to lay them on top of it, facing a mirror all but obscured by taped-on pinups of Elvis Presley and others.
“Neither do I,” Julie said, and picked up the revolver and shot Ron through the head.
She put the gun in Ron’s hand; with some luck, it would pass for suicide. Ron would just be that sullen lesbian who finally ended it all.
And now Julie was pulling her Porsche into the unlit Paddlewheel lot. Harold was already there; his Phoenix was over by the front door. They were closed Sundays, so there was no problem with staff or customers being around. There was no sign of Nolan, though that didn’t mean anything. She got the little automatic out of her purse. Her suitcase was in the trunk; she was ready to go. All she needed was her money, and no Nolan.
She walked to the front door and unlocked it, glad Harold hadn’t left it open. At least he was thinking. She went in, locking the door behind her. Harold had turned on a few lights, just enough to for her to navigate, and to get a look at some of what she was leaving behind.