Two

Lucille Hart was smiling at me with her best imitation of loose-lipped friendliness.

“I like you,” she said.

“I like you.”

She put her hand over mine. “Have a Hart,” she said.

“Yes, Miss Hart,” I told her.

She giggled. “Know what?”

“What?”

“I’ve got to go home.”

“I’ll take you.”

“I’ve got my sister’s car. I was s’posed to deliver it by eight o’clock. I guess it’s past that now, isn’t it?”

“Nine five.”

“Ouch! I didn’t know it was so late. Time flies, doesn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“Look,” she said, “you’re more sober than I am, aren’t you?”

I regarded her owlishly and said, “Fifty-fifty.”

She giggled again. “Look, you drive the car. What we do, we drive to my sister’s house and then my brother-in-law picks up the car and drives us back.”

“Is your brother-in-law going to like me?”

She made a raspberry with her lips.

“What’s his name?”

“Dover Fulton.”

“Meaning he won’t like me?”

“Probably not. He likes him. You will, won’t you?”

“What?”

“Drive.”

“Okay,” I said. “Where do they live?”

“San Robles.”

“That’s way out,” I told her.

“Not so far. Listen, Donald, you going to let me pay the check?”

“Nope. It’s my party.”

“It’s mine.”

“Mine,” I said.

I summoned the waiter and paid the check. We walked a block to a parking lot and she gave me the ticket. I walked down with the attendant when he went to get the car and looked at the certificate of registration fastened to the column of the steering wheel. It showed the car was registered in the name of Dover Fulton, and the address was 6285 Orange Avenue, San Robles.

So far everything checked. That bothered me. In keeping with the picture, that car should have been as hot as a firecracker.

We eased the car out of the parking lot, and I opened the door for Lucille to get in.

I didn’t like it. I wanted a witness. I stopped at a service station and told the attendant I thought we needed air in the rear tyres. I walked around behind the car with him, pushed two dollars into his hand, and said in a loud voice, “Go ahead and drive, Lucille. Since you say it’s your sister’s car, I’d much prefer to have you drive it.”

She shook her head, her chin drooped forward on her chest.

“You’re all right. You aren’t too drunk. You can drive.”

“Sure I’m a’righ’. But I ain’t gonna.”

I didn’t buy any petrol. The attendant would remember me and remember the argument. I winked at him and said “Okay, I’ll drive if you insist, but I’m doing it under protest.”

“It’s all right.”

“This is your brother-in-law’s car?”

“My sister’s car,” she said. “Dover said it hadda be registered in his name. He’s a kind has to be big shot. Otherwise Dover won’t play. M’ sister’s money paid for it — Dover Fulton!” she said, and her voice had a note of disgust.

The attendant washed off the windscreen, puttered around the headlights. I snapped on the petrol gauge, looked at it, smiled, shook my head, and we went away from there.

I saw Lucille looking me over, studying me carefully.

“You’re not tight, are you?”

I said, “Whenever I get my hands on the steering wheel of an automobile I sober up.”

“But you can feel the stuff sloshing around inside of you, can’t you?”

“Sure.”

“That’s a’ right, then,” she said, and settled down with her head on my shoulder.

We went out the freeway and hit the Valley Boulevard. “Slow down,” Lucille said sharply.

“Why?”

“I’m lonesome.”

I slowed down.

She crawled up against me, her hands clinging to my arm. She said, “Pull off to the side of the road and kiss me.”

I pulled off to the side of the road and kissed her. It was quite a kiss.

Ahead, on the right, I saw the neon sign, ‘KOZY DELL SLUMBER COURT’ and down underneath it a sign that said, ‘Vacancy’.

“Drive on slow,” she said.

I drove on.

“Stop the car,” she commanded. “Right here.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t feel well. I’m... Oh, Donald, I’m so lonesome, and I’m afraid I’m going to have a horrible hangover tomorrow. Drive off the road,” she said. “Here, drive in here.”

“That’s an auto court.”

“Well?” she asked.

I said, “I just wondered.”

“I’ve got to get off the road. They’ll have a rest-room here,” she said.

I turned the car into the auto court.

“Go find where the women’s rest-room is,” she said.

I went into the office. The woman who ran the place looked me over with a cold, fishy eye and told me they didn’t have rest-rooms. They had baths in the cabins. She had a single. Did I want that?

“I’ll go and find out,” I told her.

Her eyes were contemptuous.

I went back to the car and said, “No rest-rooms, honey. All the bathrooms are in the cottages. They have one cottage left.”

“Okay,” she said, heaving herself up out of the car. “Take me into the cottage.”

I went back and registered as Mr. and Mrs. Dover Fulton. I gave the address as 6285 Orange Avenue, San Robles, and put down the licence number of the car — 45S531.

The woman who ran the place showed me where the cabin was. Lucille was slumped down in the seat.

I got the key to the place — cabin number 11. The woman from the office wished me an acid good-night and went back to the office. I helped Lucille into the cabin. She went to the bathroom and made noises of being ill. She came out and lay on the bed.

I sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at her.

“Turn out the lights,” she said, “they hurt my eyes.”

I turned out the lights. She lit a cigarette.

She said, “I guess I need air.”

“I’ll open the door.”

“No, I want to go outside.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No, you stay here,” she said. “I’m not feeling well. I’m going to be unglamorous. Tell me, Donald, how are we registered?”

“How do you think?”

“I want to know.”

“As husband and wife,” I said. “You don’t think we’d have got the cabin otherwise, do you?”

“You think I’m terrible, don’t you.”

“No, I think you’re nice.”

She said, “Wait here, Donald. I’ve got some Kleenex in the car. Where’s the key?”

I gave her the key. “The car doors are locked, honey.”

She said, “I’m glad I was sick. Now I’ll feel better in the morning. How do you feel?”

“Swell.”

She said, “We shouldn’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“Stay here.”

I said, “We’re not really staying here. Don’t you remember we’re taking the car back to your sister. Your brother-in-law is going to drive me back. You only stopped in here because you needed the bathroom.”

“Oh,” she said, and there was a half twinkle in her eyes.

She went out.

I went to the window, pulled up the blind and sat where I could watch the car.

Nothing happened. She didn’t go near the car. She walked out around the houses, getting a breath of fresh air.

Ten minutes later she hadn’t returned.

After twenty minutes I went out to look for her. The auto court was on the outskirts. There was quite a bit of vacant property around. The graveled driveway showed as a red path in the light of the neon sign at the front. Cars were whizzing by with considerable regularity on the highway.

I crunched gravel around the auto court. The cabins were, for the most part, dark and silent. There was a party in one of the front cabins where a foursome was making a little whoopie, with occasional bits of giggling laughter. A man’s voice told a story which was followed by a burst of merriment.

A married couple, with an Iowa licence plate on the car, were having a quarrel in one of the middle cottages. I didn’t get all the words. It was something about the way the man was treating his stepdaughter. The woman was talking in a high-pitched, rapid monotone, apparently afraid that something would happen before she had a chance to say all that she wanted to say. In the few seconds that it took me to walk past the place, I heard enough to gather that the man had never appreciated Rose, that he had been unkind to her from the first and made her feel that she wasn’t wanted; that Rose was sensitive and shy; and that it was only natural for any girl to resent that kind of treatment; that he owed Rose an apology and that he didn’t amount to much anyway; that he was all wrapped up in himself and was inclined to nag and wasn’t at all like her first husband; Rose had always loved her father so much and respected him because he had been so much of a gentleman and so courteous and considerate; whereas, under the present circumstances, you couldn’t blame her for being disillusioned and...

I moved on out of earshot.

There was no sign of Lucille Hart anywhere around the auto court. In one of the cabins a portable radio was turned up loud.

I tried the car. The doors were locked.

I walked around the back part of the houses but I couldn’t see anything of Lucille. She might have been lying down somewhere on the ground, perhaps putting on the second scene in her act of being drunk. I made a wide circle through the vacant lots.

No Lucille.

When I was starting back, I heard a sound that could have been the backfire of a motor.

I waited and listened. There were two more sounds that could have been caused by a truck back-firing; but I couldn’t see any truck at the moment.

I went back to the cabin I had rented and looked it over. Lucille had left a package of cigarettes and a book of matches. The match book carried the ad of the CABANITA NIGHT CLUB. I put it in my pocket. I picked up the package of cigarettes. It was two-thirds full. The cellophane wrapper had been torn off the top of the package and a folded piece of heavy white paper thrust down between the cellophane and the package.

I unfolded the paper.

It was part of a menu. On the reverse side was written in pencil, KOZY DELL SLUMBER COURT-VALLEY BOULEVARD.

There was nothing else.

I put the cigarettes, the paper and the matches in my pocket. I looked around and couldn’t see anything else.

I carefully polished all fingerprints off the doorknobs and off anything I had touched. I didn’t bother with the bathroom. Only Lucille’s fingerprints were in there. I might want them.

I wiped all fingerprints off the key, put it on the inside of the door, covered the doorknob with my handkerchief and pulled the door shut. I couldn’t get my fingerprints off the steering wheel of the automobile because the car doors were locked.

The radio in the near-by cabin was still blaring.

I detoured the office and walked to the highway. I didn’t try to hitch-hike. I kept as far as I could to the side of the road so that the headlights of approaching automobiles wouldn’t show me clearly.

I came to a little roadside restaurant that was still open.

There was a telephone booth. I dropped a nickel and dialled the number of Bertha Cool’s apartment.

It took a couple of minutes before Bertha answered. I could see she didn’t like the idea of being disturbed.

“Well,” she snapped, “what is it?”

I said, “It’s Donald, Bertha. I want you to pick me up”

“Well, I’ll be a dirty name!” Bertha said. “Of all the crust! So you want to be picked up, do you? You…”

I said, “It may be important. I’m out on the Valley Boulevard in a small roadside restaurant. I don’t want to be seen here. I’m going out and wait in front. Get out here just as fast as you can.”

“The hell with that stuff!” Bertha said. “Get a taxicab!”

“If I get a taxicab to come out here,” I said, “the driver will remember it and you’ll see my name in the papers.”

“Get your name in the papers and see who gives a damn!” Bertha screamed into the telephone.

I said, “It will have a bad effect on the reputation of the agency.”

“The hell with reputation! What’s reputation? That’s just what a lot of fools say about you. It…”

“And will cause us to lose money,” I said.

Bertha stopped screaming as fast as though I had put my hand over her mouth. She waited three or four seconds without saying anything. I knew she was there because I could hear her heavy breathing over the phone. Her indignation had used up the reserve oxygen in her system and she sounded as though she’d been running upstairs.

“Well?” I asked.

“Okay, lover,” she said. “What’s the address?”

The spluttering began all over again when I gave it to her so I hung up.