“Certainly. There in the hall. Is this Anderson a spy, or something like that?”
“Something like that. I’d tell you more, but the FBI asked me not to.”
“I know as much as I want to,” she said. “I’ll make you some coffee.”
I called the local airline office and added my name to their cancellation list. After breakfast with Laura Eaton I taxied out to the airfield on spec, and managed to get a seat on the next plane to Burbank. There I had a long wait for the San Diego plane. I called Mary’s hotel and was told that she had checked out, leaving me a message to meet her in San Diego.
The afternoon seemed to be holding its breath. I paced the waiting room, tried to read a newspaper, saw Anderson and murder between the lines, got up and paced again. I tried to call Gordon at the FBI office but he hadn’t been there. I watched the planes from the north and east drop down unarmed out of the sky like harmless hawks. From one a female movie star emerged and grinned starkly at a starkly grinning flashbulb.
I watched the soft-bodied stern-faced executives, the wealthy enameled women who commuted from coast to coast, the brass hats rubbing gold-heavy sleeves with casual soldiers and nonchalant seamen, sucked back from leave by the maelstrom in the Pacific. Parting couples embraced in the last agony of separation; reunited couples met and embraced in a similar agony of delight. I thought continuously of Anderson hustling somewhere across the southwestern states, sowing evil with jovial and expansive gestures.
A few minutes before my plane was due I called Gordon again and this time I got him.
“I’m glad you called,” he said. “But I thought you were going to San Diego.”
“I’m waiting for my plane now. Any trace of Anderson?”
“A man answering to his description registered at a motel near Delmar last night, under the name of Isaac Randall. He drove away in the direction of San Diego. Of course it may not be the man we want, but we’ll get Anderson. We’ve telegraphed his description all over the southwestern states, and the state police are on the lookout for him.”
“You haven’t heard from Honolulu yet?”
“No. I’m expecting to anytime. I’ll give them another hour or so, and then fly down to San Diego. I want to talk to Lieutenant Swann. His ship’s still there.”
“Are you going aboard tonight?”
“If I get away in time.”
“I’ll see you then.”
“Right.” He hung up.
When I opened the door of the phone booth the loudspeaker system was announcing that the San Francisco plane was about to land. I went outside and watched it come in and taxi down the field.
The second man out of the door in the side of the plane, which was almost too narrow for his bulk, was Gene Halford. He had shed his correspondent’s uniform and was wearing bright new California clothes. But he had the same old face, and it gave me no pleasure to see it again.
I stepped back from the gate, intending to let him pass without speaking. But before he went by his glance fell on my face. I thought that his heavy body became a little awkward and self-conscious under his new clothes, and I didn’t go out of my way to put him at ease:
“You were only half a civilian before. I see you decided to go the limit.”
He flushed and said: “It’s not my own choice. My syndicate wants me to write background material for the big international conference that’s on its way. So that’s what I’m writing.” Then he remembered his sense of importance: “Not that it’s any pressing concern of yours.”
“I’d hate to feel it was.”
Halford moved toward me out of the line of passengers which he had been obstructing. There was a vague threat in the way he held his heavy shoulders. “Look here, whatever your name is,” he said. “I’ve had about enough of your gratuitous unpleasantness. I haven’t forgotten that you took a girl away from me that night in Honolulu.”
“Neither have I. It’s one of my pleasanter memories.”
“It is, is it? What would you think if I told you the girl was simply sorry for you?”
“I’d think you have more imagination than brains.”
“I don’t happen to be depending on my imagination. I spent an evening with Miss Thompson in San Francisco a week or so ago. A very pleasant evening.”
If I kept hurt surprise out of my face, it was because I’d played a lot of poker. “I expect to see her in an hour,” I said. “I’ll ask her about that evening and probably we’ll both have a good laugh.”
“Why, where is she?”
“Out of your reach. So long.”
I walked past him and up the ramp into the plane. The plane roared, sprinted and took flight. As we went up, the horizon spread out to include many mountains and wide blue meadows of ocean. But my whole mind was involved in a tight little knot of jealousy which wouldn’t come loose. Anderson and his nasty business dropped out of my thoughts. Throughout the short flight to San Diego and the long taxi ride from Lindbergh Field to the Grant Hotel, my mind stayed on Mary and Gene Halford.
I found her in her room. When she opened the door she said, “Darling! I’m so glad to see you,” and kissed me on the mouth.
After a minute the knot inside me loosened a little and I kissed her back. Then I held her away from me and looked into her eyes. They were transparent and bottomless, like deep water where men have drowned.
She laughed with charming girlishness. “You’re awfully solemn, Sam. Are you still thinking?”
“Look,” I said. “I take you seriously. Can you get that through your head? As seriously as hell.”
A warm emotion swam up from the shadowy depths of her eyes. But she said, “Really?” with smiling lips.
“I just said it. I didn’t say it before.”
“I wondered if you ever would.”
“But get this. If I take you seriously I expect to be taken seriously myself. I met Gene Halford for a minute at the Burbank airport.”
“So? I suppose he told you I went out with him in San Francisco.”
“That’s right. I didn’t like the idea. You told me in Pearl you barely knew him. And you didn’t tell me you saw him in Frisco. I don’t like him.”
“Neither do I,” she said demurely.
“You go out with him. And it’s important enough to you that you didn’t tell me about it.”
“Don’t be silly, Sam. I went out with him once. We just happened to meet the night our transport docked. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid you’d get irrational about it. Just like you are getting.”
“Sure I’m irrational. I’m irrational about anything with you in it.”
She touched my cheek with her fingers. I caught her hand and kissed its palm. She said, “Please look at it sensibly, Sam. When I came back from Honolulu I had no way of knowing I’d ever see you again. Gene Halford has a lot of important contacts in the radio business. He does a lot of broadcasting himself. Well, I’ll probably be going back into radio after the war. I’d be stupid if I didn’t make the most of my chances.”
“Do you think you can use Halford? Anything you get out of him you’ll pay for.”
“I know. I found that out.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that anything I get out of Halford I’ll pay for. There aren’t many men that isn’t true about.”
“Is that a crack?”
“How could it be?” She smiled with deceptive sweetness. “I haven’t got anything out of you.”
I was taking a beating, and I knew it. I said unpleasantly: “Yeah, they pay the boys that write about it a hell of a lot more than the boys that do it.”
That broke her down. She moved in to me. “Let’s not quarrel, Sam. I detest the man. You and I got along so well from the beginning. At least, I thought we did.”