Behind the reference desk Louise was acting very busy but Miss Albert wasn’t fooled. Checking the number of sheep in Australia or the name of the capital of Ghana hadn’t put the color in her cheeks and the dreamy, slightly out-of-focus look in her eyes.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Miss Albert said, knowing very well she was, but feeling that it was the kind of thing that should be interrupted, especially during working hours. “This is Mary Martha Oakley, Louise. Mary Martha, this is Miss Lang.”
Louise stared at the girl and said, “Oh,” in a cold way that puzzled Miss Albert because Louise was usually very good with children.
“Mary Martha,” Miss Albert added, “wants a book on divorce.”
“Does she, indeed,” Louise said. “Am I to gather, Miss Albert, that you’ve encouraged the child in her request by bringing her over here?”
“Not exactly. My gosh, Louise, I thought you’d get a kick out of it, a laugh.”
“You know the rules of the library as well as I do, or you should. You’re excused now, Miss Albert.”
“Good,” Miss Albert said crisply. “It happens to be my lunch hour.”
Over Mary Martha’s head she gave Louise a dirty look, but Louise wasn’t even watching. Her eyes were still fixed on Mary Martha, as if they were seeing much more than a little girl in a pink dress with daisies.
“Oakley,” she said in a thin, dry voice. “You live at 319 Jacaranda Road?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“With your mother.”
“Yes.”
“And your little dog.”
“I don’t have a little dog,” Mary Martha said uneasily. “Just a cat named Pudding.”
“But there’s a dog in your neighborhood, isn’t there? A little brown mongrel that chases cars?”
“I never saw any.”
“Never? Perhaps you don’t particularly notice dogs.”
“Oh yes, I do. I always notice dogs because they’re my favorites even more than cats and birds.”
“So if you had one, you’d certainly protect it, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Louise leaned across the desk and spoke in a smiling, confidential whisper. “If I had a dog that chased cars, I wouldn’t be anxious to admit it, either. So of course I can’t really blame you for fibbing. Just between the two of us, though—”
But there was nothing between the two of them. The child, wary-eyed and flushed, began backing away, her hands jammed deep in her pockets as if they were seeking the roots of the embroidered daisies. Ten seconds later she had disappeared out the front door.
Louise watched the door, in the wild hope that the girl would decide to come back and change her story — yes, she had a little dog that chased cars; yes, one of the cars was an old green Ford coupé.
There was a dog, there had to be, because Charlie said so. It had chased his car and Charlie, afraid for the animal’s safety, felt that he should warn the owner. That’s why he wanted to find out who lived at 319 Jacaranda Road. What other reason could he possibly have had?
He’s not a liar, she thought. He’s so devastatingly honest sometimes it breaks my heart.
She rubbed her eyes. They were dry and gritty and in need of tears. It was as if dirt, blowing in from the busy street, had altered her vision and blurred the distinctions between fact and fantasy.
“Don’t talk so fast, lamb,” Kate Oakley said. “Now let me get this straight. She asked you if you had a little brown dog that chased cars?”
Mary Martha nodded.
“And she wouldn’t believe you when you denied it?”
“No, ma’am.”
“It’s crazy, that’s what it is. I declare, I think the whole world has gone stark staring mad except you and me.” She spoke with a certain satisfaction, as if the world was getting no more than it deserved and she was glad she’d stepped out of it in time and taken Mary Martha with her. “You’d expect a librarian, of all people, to be sensible, with all those books around.”
Immediately after Kate’s departure, Ralph MacPherson made two telephone calls. The first was to the apartment where Sheridan Oakley claimed to be living. He let the phone ring a dozen times, but, as on the previous afternoon and evening, there was no answer.
The second call was to Lieutenant Gallantyne of the city police department. After an exchange of greetings, Mac came to the point:
“I’m in the market for a favor, Gallantyne.”
“That’s no switch,” Gallantyne said. “What is it?”
“A client of mine claims that her husband, from whom she’s separated, is harassing her and her child. She says he’s driving around town in a green Ford coupé, six or seven years old, license GVK 640.”
“And?”
“I want to know if he is.”
“All I can do is check with Sacramento and find out who owns the car. That may take some time, unless you can come up with a more urgent reason than the one you’ve given me, say like murder, armed robbery—”
“Sorry, no armed robbery or murder. Just a divorce, with complications.”
“I think your cases are often messier than mine are,” Gallantyne said with a trace of envy.
“Could be. We’ll have to get together on one sometime.”
“Let’s do that. Now, you want us to contact Sacramento about the green Ford?”
“Yes, but meanwhile pass the license number around to the traffic boys. If they spot the car anywhere I’d like to hear about it, any time of the day or night. I have an answering service.”
“What’s that license again?”
“GVK, God’s Very Kind, 640.”
(11)
He bought the new car right after work, a three-year-old dark, inconspicuous sedan. As soon as he got behind the wheel he felt safe and secure as though he’d acquired a whole new body and nobody would recognize the old Charlie any more. He felt quite independent, too. He had chosen the car by himself, with no help from Ben, and he had paid for it with his own money. The used-car salesman had taken his check without hesitation as if he couldn’t help but trust a man with such an honest face as Charlie’s. And Charlie, inspired by this trust, was absolutely convinced that the car had been driven only 10,000 cautious miles by one owner and a Detroit-trained garage mechanic at that. A man so skillful, Charlie reasoned, would have practically no spare time and that would account for the extremely low mileage on the car.
It seemed to him that the salesman, who had paid little attention to him when he first started browsing around the lot, noticed the change in him, too. He started to call him sir.
“I hope you’ll be very happy with your car, sir.”
“Oh, I will. I already am.”
“There’s no better advertising than a satisfied customer,” the salesman said. “The only trouble with selling a man a good car like this is that we don’t see him around for a long time. Good luck and safe driving to you, sir.”
“Thank you very much.”
“It was a pleasure.”
Charlie eased the car out into the street. It was getting quite late and he knew Ben would be starting to worry about him, but he didn’t want to go home just yet. He wanted to drive around, to get the feel of his new car and test the strength of his new body before he exposed either to Ben or Louise. They would both be suspicious, Ben of the car and the salesman and the garage mechanic, Louise of the change in him. He realized, in a vague way, that Louise didn’t really want him to change, that she was dependent on his weakness though he couldn’t understand why.
When he started out, he had, at the conscious level, no destination in mind. At crossroads he made choices seemingly unconnected with what he was thinking. He turned left because the car in front of him did; he turned right to watch a flock of blackbirds feeding on a lawn; he went straight because the road crossed a creek and he liked bridges; he turned left again because the setting sun hurt his eyes. The journey took on an air of adventure, as if the streets, the bridge, the blackbirds, the setting sun were all strange to him and he was a stranger to them. He wasn’t lost — nobody could get lost in San Félice where the mountains were to the east and the sea to the west, with one or the other, or both, always visible — he was deliberately misplaced, as if he were playing a game of hide-and-seek with Ben and Louise. An hour must have passed since the game started. Ready or not, you must be caught, hiding around the goal or not.