She patted him under the arms. “That jacket don’t have room enough for a gun. You want, I’ll make you a better one. Fifty, a hundred dollars, depends on the material.”
“I don’t carry a gun.”
“A strangler, huh?” She scribbled figures on a scrap of paper. “Seventy-seven for the coat, down from one sixty-five. Twenty-five for the hat. Fifteen for the sweater, but for such a good customer, I’m making it ten, there goes my profit. Also you’ve got to pay for the pants in case you don’t come back for them. Twenty-three for your pants, with tailoring. Comes to—let’s make it a hundred and thirty, here’s handkerchiefs, package of five, real Irish linen. Go out and your nose’ll run like the river. You get a free tie.”
He said, “I don’t want one. I’ve got plenty.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Since you’re my first customer today and I like you, I’m giving you this lovely all-wool muffler for half off.” She glanced at the tag. “Fifteen ninety-five, one hundred percent pure virgin lambs’ wool. For you, right now, today only, eight bucks.”
“I’ll take it, but I’d like a little information with it. Is there anywhere in the hotel where a woman can get her hair done?”
She shook her head. “There’s a place, Millicent’s, but Millicent ain’t here, this is when she goes on vacation. She won’t be open till the twenty-first.”
“I think I saw her the last time I was here. Blond woman, thin, kind of a long nose?”
“Nah.” The proprietress of the haberdashery was surveying his purchases. “That ain’t her. You’re going to wear the coat, right? And the muffler and the hat. Your slacks’ll be ready tomorrow afternoon. What about the sweater? I’d wear that too, if you’re going to be out much.”
“I will,” he said. He slipped off his jacket.
“Wait a minute, I’ll cut the tags for you. Hey, you got a magic doll. My nephew had one.”
He had laid his jacket on the counter. Tina appeared to be peeping from his pocket.
Not knowing what else to say, he said, “Would you like to look at it? Go ahead.”
She stared at him. “You know, you’re taking a chance, saying something like that. Lots of women don’t like those things.”
“Are you going to damage it?”
She shook her head. “No. Not me.”
“Then why shouldn’t you look at it?”
Gently, she slipped the doll out of his pocket. “My pop had one. Mom said it used to talk to him at night, when they thought she was asleep. I guess I know whose hair you wanted done, right? You ought to carry her in a box, that’s what most of them do. I’ll get a comb and straighten it out a little for you.”
The Land in Winter
Leaving the haberdashery he walked past Dr. Applewood’s office, though it was on the upper level and he on the lower. No light showed through the pebbled glass door; he wondered whether the doctor had gone home or been arrested. It seemed quite possible that Applewood had been an informer—that Applewood had summoned Klamm and Klamm’s agents, that the wound received in the theater had been an accident or a trick, and that Applewood had returned to the hotel that morning in response to instructions from Klamm or the police.
He considered trying the door, entering the doctor’s office if he could, and searching the desk; but decided against it. It was conceivable—though only, he felt, barely conceivable—that they did not know about Dr. Applewood. If so, they would surely learn if he were seen going into the doctor’s office or so much as touching the doorknob. It was conceivable that they had not known where he was—as now they clearly did—before he had gone into the coffee shop; but he doubted it.
In any event, he was already much too warm, bundled as he was into sweater-vest, overcoat and muffler. He wanted to get outside as soon as he could. Some distance beyond the doctor’s office he discovered a short stair labeled PARKING; he climbed it and let himself out through a rusty steel door.
The wind the blonde had mentioned met him at once; it was not strong, but persistent and very cold. He felt that it was not a sea wind but a land wind; it lacked the flavor of the sea, seeming instead to have blown across lonely miles of featureless snow.
Nor could he see the sea from the place to which the rusty door had admitted him. A small lot, plowed clean of snow, lay before him. In it were four cars, all parked as near the door as possible. None was the hunched brown Mink whose keys were in his pocket, though two were very much like it. The third was a bright red convertible, hardly larger. The fourth was a black limousine with jump seats in the back, a car capable of carrying eight in some comfort. Beyond doubt, that was the car in which Klamm’s agents had come—Fanny, the blonde to whom she reported, the new “guest” in the coffee shop, and perhaps Dr. Applewood as well. He found himself wondering who had driven. The blonde—she was the type who would always want to drive, who would never allow anyone else to drive if she could help it; she would be a fast driver, he thought, constantly burning rubber or slamming on the brakes, the kind of driver North would be if he drove.
He tried to open the limousine’s door with the keys of the hunched car. Neither would work, or even enter the lock. To his surprise, the trunk was not locked. He opened it and found a litter of paper; someone had tossed a file folder into it, and the motion of the limousine had emptied it. The wind caught two sheets of paper and sent them flapping across the frozen asphalt like terrified chickens. He seized another before it could make good its escape and glanced at it, then read it with fascination.
7/12/87 mem. Blue September. 12/11/87 chief Iron Boot. Arrested 6/6/88 ngri., U. Gen. Psychiatric Hosp. Expert shot, often carries two or even three guns. Expert knife thrower, may have knife strapped to wrist, arm, or ankle. Violent, uncontrollable temper. Extremely dangerous.
Name: “Wm. T. North,” “Bill North,” “Billy North,” “Richard North,” “Ted West.” Actual name unknown. Name first given is name most used.
Date of Birth: Unknown.
Place of Birth: Unknown, possible Visitor.
Height: 5’ 11”
Weight: 170 lb.
Hair: Dark, balding. Often wears moustache.
Eyes: Blue.
Complexion: Ruddy.
Scars, etc: Burns, palms of both hands. Misc. small scars on forearms, may be fresh. (North is self-mutilator.) Tattoo underside of right wrist “RN.” Often wears watch on this wrist to hide tattoo.
There was a picture of North (looking slightly younger than he remembered) and a set of fingerprints. He put the paper back into the folder and poked among the rest, wondering if he would find a similar report on Dr. Applewood or himself. He did not, but he discovered a sheet headed Daniel Paul Perlitz and stamped DECEASED. Dr. Applewood had called the man in uniform Daniel.
Suddenly afraid he was being watched, he closed the trunk. His uncomfortable warmth had vanished; he was chilled now as he returned to the rusted door, and eager to regain the warmth of the hotel and shelter from the wind. To reassure himself, he put his hand inside his overcoat and made certain his room key was still in the pocket.
The steel door was locked, and neither his room key nor the keys to the hunched brown car would open it. After a moment, he decided that the lot was probably reserved for employees and the concessionaires who leased the shops and offices of the arcade. No doubt they received keys to this door. He would have to walk around to the front of the hotel, and it appeared he might have to do it through the drifted snow.
Turning up his overcoat collar and adjusting the muffler (silently he blessed the woman who had persuaded him to buy it) over the lower half of his face, he circled the lot looking for a path cleared of snow. There was none, only the drive through which the four cars had come (now drifted half full wherever it ran at right angles to the wind) which appeared to wind away in the direction of a few scattered structures nearly at the limit of vision and almost lost in the white erasure of the snow.