“I’m a detective,” he stated for no reason at all. It just seemed a good thing to say, a proud thing.
“I like some detectives,” Betty admitted. “I like you.”
“That’s swell. I like you, too. I like your beer. That’s a swell pup. I’m a pretty good detective.”
“I only like good detectives. I don’t like some of them. The kind that get tough and ask stupid questions.”
“I’d better not catch anybody doing that to you. Who did that, anyway?”
“Oh, that was a detective in California. He was stupid. The old lady bashed his head in when he tried to arrest me. He actually wanted to arrest me!”
“Did it hurt?” Horne inquired.
“Did which hurt?”
“The old lady who bashed his head in?”
“Oh, she didn’t really bash his head in. She just thumped him a little. She slipped up behind him when he was trying to arrest me. I was AWOL and he was going to turn me over to the MP. She thumped kind of soft like. But I didn’t like him.”
“I don’t like him either. She must be a nice mother. Why is she named Bridges? Why doesn’t she have the same name as you and your daddy? What is your name?”
“Her name is Bridges because that was the man she was married to when Papa stole her away. It was very romantic.”
“Oh sure, she’s romantic. I met her. She runs a dog hospital. Like that pup there.” He put the remains of his beer in her hand and got himself a fresh bottle. Then he said to the girl, “Your face is too close. I can’t see you very well.”
“Well, sit up, silly. You’re kissing me.”
“Oh. I thought my lips were wet. Excuse it.” He sat up and opened the fresh bottle. “Seems to me I was going to ask you something. Would you like a drink? That wasn’t it.”
“No thanks. I still have one.”
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I’m bleeding... I think.”
“That’s my lipstick.”
“Well, look now, I don’t want to be wearing your lipstick. I’ll put it back.” He bent over her face.
“What happened in chapter two?” he asked next.
“What? Well, what happened in chapter one?”
“The old lady bashed his head in and you was AWOL,” he reminded her,
“Oh, that. Just like a story. In chapter two she sent me here to live. That fat man — what was his name? Oh yes, Channy. Thank you, darling. Channy was here. He bought this house for me to live in and gave me the money. I’ve got lots of money, darling. You can have it all, if you like.”
“You’re my pal. I can always use money. Where does Channy get it? Does he print it?”
“Oh, no, silly! That would be dishonest. He goes to Chicago after it. Every month.” Her voice grew weaker.
Horne looked down at her. She was almost asleep. He changed position ever so slowly, jostling her into wakefulness. “Where does he get it in Chicago? That’s a pretty big town. Is Papa in Chicago?”
Betty didn’t answer. Betty was sound asleep.
Easing himself out from under her, he gently let the pillow and her head down on the couch. She didn’t wake up. He stared at her thoughtfully a few moments, rubbed the back of his head, and grinned.
“Any time you think you can drink me under the table, baby,” he muttered half aloud, “you’ve got another guess coming.”
He strode to the kitchen, followed by the dog.
Horne stopped. “I don’t like your face,” he said.
The animal looked up at him with an expression Horne could have sworn was a friendly grin.
“I dislike your face as much as I do like that other face in there. Too bad it isn’t the other way around. I don’t mind putting the screws on a face I don’t like.
“But then I don’t suppose you make mistakes. You have a different kind of intelligence, maybe. Too bad your mistress isn’t as smart as you. She makes mistakes — she made a lot of them. She talks too much. She told me her Papa can get his hands on beneficiary checks as soon as the company mails them. And she doesn’t know where her Papa is now. Take a tip from me, dog face: don’t talk so much!”
The dog responded with a gentle wagging of his tail.
Horne watched it with growing wonder. Experimentally, he addressed a few soft-spoken words to the animal. The tail wagged furiously. Cautiously putting out a hand, he rubbed the wet nose turned up to him. The dog sidled up close and nuzzled his leg. Horne laughed. He found a can of dog food in a cupboard, opened it, and dumped half the contents on the floor. Then he stalked out of the kitchen, leaving the animal gulping down the unexpected meal.
Betty hadn’t moved. She was beginning to snore lightly. He looked at the two brief pieces of the playsuit and wondered if he had best wrap a blanket around her.
“Red-on-the-head,” he said quietly, aloud, “you certainly ruined a good watchdog with that love scene.” Briskly then, he dropped to his knees beside her to search for the key to the locked room.
She didn’t have it.
Puzzled, he sat down beside the beer tub to think it out. Minutes later, when the dog wandered in from the kitchen to have a look at the state of things, Horne had toppled over on the floor asleep. The animal lay down beside him and put their noses together.
“I’ve got a mouthful of buzzing flies,” Horne grumbled. “And some of them sneaked up into my skull.”
Betty laughed gleefully. “You’re getting old, old man. You can’t take it.”
Horne strode back and forth across the green yard, sucking in the fresh, smoke-free air. The new morning’s sun was climbing high in the sky, already sending the heat that would shortly drive them to the shade. Knots of muscles in his arms and legs ached, punishing him for having slept in a twisted position on the floor all night.
The freshly bedecked, fresh-looking girl skipped along beside him, solicitous and derogatory by turns. The dog whose unfaithfulness she had not yet discovered trotted along at her heels. Betty felt wonderful and said so, although there was still a trace of sleep in her eyes.
Seeing the expression on his face, she said she was very sorry about last night.
“But I’ve never had a hang-over in my life,” he complained. “And on beer!”
“You’ve never drunk my beer before,” she taunted.
“Hell, its all beer—” he closed his mouth and stopped dead in his tracks, suspicion striking him. “Now, see here, redhead...”
“Betty,” she corrected.
“Listen, I never in my life got so woozy so fast on beer. And I’ve never had a hang-over. Was there anything wrong with that stuff?”
“I drank it!” She laughed in his face and darted around the corner of the house. He said to hell with her and sat down in the shade. Had she doped the stuff for his benefit? And then fallen into her own trap? She had slept quickly.
The long days were fairly tolerable, do-nothing days. He read, he explored and re-explored the house. He took apart the mechanism of the oil burner and put it back together. He examined the caps of every bottle of beer stored in the basement and found some evidence of tampering. He fixed an ironing cord which had become frayed on the end, causing sparks. He developed a silent comradeship with the giant Negro.
He got along extremely well with his attractive captor only while he was under the influence of her beer, he soon found, and after that memorable afternoon and night he had refused to touch the stuff. So the long period of time they were together was often strained and difficult. She would spend much of the day in town and he liked that best for then he had the house to himself — except for Hilda, Bumble, and Winken, Blinken and Nod. But with the girl gone the remaining three were so unobtrusive it was like having the house all to himself.
The evenings were different and somewhat of a problem to him. In the evening she invariably turned on the heat and usually in some enticing, eye-knocking dress or slacks job. She made futile attempts to start something. He played cards with her (and discovered she cheated by sleight-of-hand), now and then danced with her (but not often because her idea of dancing wasn’t permitted on a dance floor), and once again (but in a very sober state) allowed her to lie on a pillow in his lap.