I left him communing with the silent bird and drove Fawn into State Line. We had filets mignons, carelessly served in one of the gambling clubs. The fat drunk in the white Stetson was balanced precariously on a stool at the bar. He seemed to have shifted gears under his load. His imperfectly focused eyes were watching the girls in the place, especially Fawn.
She had some wine with her meat, and it set her talking about Ralph again. He used to take her fishing at Luna Bay when she was in her early teens and he was in his late ones. Once he rescued her from the San Gregorio surf. Her memories had a dreamlike quality, and I began to wonder if she had dreamed them in the first place. But she ended by saying: “I can’t take your twenty dollars. It’s the least I can do for Ralph.”
“You might as well take it–”
“No. There has to be something I won’t do for money. I mean it.”
“You’re a good girl.”
“He said as she lifted his wallet. The hustler with the heart of gold – cold and yellow.”
“You’re being hard on yourself, Fawn.”
“And don’t keep calling me Fawn. It isn’t my name.”
“What do you want me to call you?”
“Don’t call me anything.”
“Tell me your real name.”
“I hate my real name.” Her face was as blank as a wall.
“What is it, though?”
“Mabel,” she said with disgust. “My parents had to give me the most unglamorous name in the world.”
“Where are your parents, by the way?”
“I put them out for adoption.”
“Before or after you changed your name to Fawn?”
“If you have to know,” she said, “I changed my name the night King went AWOL on me and left me in this hole. The funny thing is, I’m getting sick of calling myself Fawn. I used to think it was glamorous, but now it just sounds like nothing. I’m getting ready to change my name again. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Not on the spur of the moment.”
She leaned toward me, smiling intensely and nudging the edge of the table with her papillae. “Let’s go to my place and have another drink and talk about it.”
“Thanks, but I have work to do.”
“It can wait, can’t it? I stood up my date for you.”
“Also, you’re too young for me.”
“I don’t get it,” she said with her puzzled frown. “You’re not old.”
“I’m getting older fast.” I rose and laid some money on the table. “Do you want me to drop you anywhere?”
“I’ll stay here. It’s as good a place as any.”
Before I reached the door, the drunk was moving in on her with his white Stetson in his hand and his bald head glowing.
18
I FOUND A TELEPHONE booth and called Arnie Walters’s office in Reno. He answered the telephone himself.
“Walters here.”
“This is Lew Archer. I have some information on Campion’s movements. He’s driving a red Chevvie convertible–”
“We know that.” Arnie’s voice was low and fast. “Campion’s been seen in Saline City, talking to the key boy of one of the local motels. A patrol cop made him but he didn’t pick him up right away. He wanted to check with our bulletin, and he had an idea that Campion was checking in. But when he got back to the motel, Campion had cleared out. This happened within the last couple of hours. Do you have later information?”
“You’re ’way ahead of me. Did you get the name of the motel?”
“The Travelers, in Saline City. It’s a town in the East Bay.”
“What about Harriet?”
“Nothing so far. We’re starting dragging operations in the morning. The police lab established that the blood in the hat is her type, B, but that doesn’t mean much.”
“How do you know her blood type?”
“I called her father,” Arnie said. “He wanted to come up here, but I think I talked him out of it. If this case doesn’t break pretty soon, he’s going to blow a gasket.”
“So am I.”
By midnight I was in Saline City looking for the Travelers Motel. It was on the west side of town at the edge of the salt flats. Red neon outlined its stucco facade and failed to mask its shabbiness.
There was nobody in the cluttered little front office. I rang the handbell on the registration desk. A kind of grey-haired youth came out of a back room with his shirttails flapping.
“Single?”
“I don’t need a room. You may be able to give me some information.”
“Is it about the murderer?”
“Yes. I understand you talked to him. What was the subject of conversation?”
He groaned, and stopped buttoning up his shirt. “I already told all this to the cops. You expect a man to stay up all night chewing the same cabbage?”
I gave him a five-dollar bill. He peered at it myopically and put it away. “Okay, if it’s all that important. What you want to know?”
“Just what Campion said to you.”
“Is that his name – Campion? He said his name was Damis. He said he spent the night here a couple months ago, and he wanted me to look up the records to prove it.”
“Was he actually here a couple of months ago?”
“Uh-huh. I remembered his face. I got a very good memory for faces.” He tapped his low forehead lovingly. “Course I couldn’t say for sure what date it was until I looked up the old registration cards.”
“You did that, did you?”
“Yeah, but it didn’t do him no good. He took off while I was out back checking. The patrol car stopped by, the way it always does around eight o’clock, and it must of scared him off.”
“I’d like to see that registration card.”
“The cops took it with them. They said it was evidence.”
“What was the date on it?”
“May five, I remember that much.”
It was evidence. May the fifth was the night of Dolly Campion’s death.
“You’re sure the man who registered then was the same man you talked to tonight?”
“That’s what the cops wanted to know. I couldn’t be absotively certain, my eyes aren’t that good. But he looked the same to me, and he talked the same. Maybe he was lying about it, though. He said his name was Damis, and it turns out that’s a lie.”
“He registered under the name Damis on the night of May the fifth, is that correct?”
“They both did.”
“Both?”
“I didn’t get to see the lady. She came in her own car after he registered for them. He said his wife was gonna do that, so I thought nothing of it. She took off in the morning, early, I guess.”
“How do you remember all that, when you’re not even certain it was the same man?”
“He sort of reminded me. But I remembered all right when he reminded me.”
He was a stupid man. His eyes were glazed and solemn with stupidity. I said: “Do you have any independent recollections of the night of May the fifth?”
“The date was on the registration card.”
“But he could have registered another night, and said that it was May the fifth? And the man who signed in on May fifth could have been another man?”
I realized that I was talking like a prosecutor trying to confuse a witness. My witness was thoroughly confused.
“I guess so,” he said dejectedly.
“Did Campion tell you why he was so interested in pinning down the date?”
“He didn’t say. He just said it was important.”
“Did he give you money?”
“He didn’t have to. I said I’d help him out. After all, he was a customer.”
“But you’d only seen him once before?”
“That’s right. On the night of May five.” His voice was stubborn.
“What time did he check in that night?”
“I couldn’t say. It wasn’t too late.”