A car with a skiff strapped to its top turned in from the highway and Mr. Coombs waddled over to meet it.
The sign, Sullivan’s Log Cabin, was hung between two posts just off the highway, but the building itself was set a hundred yards back from the road in a grove of redwoods. There was a cleared space for parking to the left of the sign. Charlotte left her car there and began walking up the footpath to the bar. There had once been a string of lights along the path but the bulbs had worn out or been broken; only the wires and empty sockets remained, and fragments of glass that crunched under Charlotte’s feet In spite of the brisk wind a sour smell rose from the ground, as if a long succession of drunks had tottered down the path, paused to be sick, and gone on. In the east a full moon was rising but its pallid light couldn’t penetrate the trees, and Charlotte had to feel her way timidly along the path.
She stopped suddenly and looked back over her shoulder—an instinctive movement; she’d heard nothing behind her, but she had an overwhelming impulse to look around.
A man stepped out from behind a tree, a tall man with massive sloping shoulders that gave his body an aspect of menace.
“Hello, Charlotte.”
“Oh. I—you startled me.”
“I hope so,” Easter said. He sounded angry. “Quite a fast one you pulled, coming here ahead of me.”
“I didn’t intend it as a ‘fast one.’ I merely drove up to…”
“Get some fresh air. I know. Well, now that fate and a mutual interest in fresh air has brought us together, let me buy you a drink.”
“No thanks.”
“Weren’t you on your way into Sullivan’s?”
“No.”
“Just out for a stroll, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t snap. It’s unbecoming.” He took her arm. “Come on, Charlotte. You and I have some things to discuss.”
“What things?”
“Things,” he said vaguely.
His hand on her arm was firm and surprisingly reassuring. She realized that this strange, somber place frightened her, and her fear of Easter was lost in the more immediate fear of walking alone up the dark path.
He matched his step to hers. “I talked to Mrs. Reyerling. She told me about the ‘nice-looking lady’ who claimed to be a friend of Violet’s.”
“Oh?”
“About the only additional fact that I learned about Violet was that she couldn’t swim. But—there was a girl with Mrs. Reyerling in the apartment, a Miss Morris. She seemed very quiet, very nervous.”
“Well, I didn’t make her quiet and nervous, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“I didn’t imply it. But it’s a thought—maybe you did.”
“How?”
“Why don’t
you
tell
me?
” Easter said.
“I like to see you guess, you’re so good at it.”
“All right, I’ll guess that she gave you some information and you asked her not to tell me for some reason. You’re quite a devious character, Charlotte, in spite of that honest pan, that let’s-put-all-our-cards-on-the-table look.”
“You’re awfully quarrelsome, aren’t you?”
“I don’t think so. I get along all right with other people.”
“So do I. By the way, I don’t very much like being leaped at from behind trees. It’s cute and boyish and all that, but it gives me a pain.”
His teeth gleamed white in the darkness. “I’ll have to keep on giving you a pain if I can’t get any other reaction.”
Sullivan’s was a long narrow building made of logs, with
Acme on Tap
written across the front window in green neon. Inside, a middle-aged man in levis was playing two nickel slot-machines alternating between them with such quick precision that he seemed to be working a machine in a factory rather than enjoying himself. At the bar two men were studying a racing form, checking selections with a pencil, conferring in whispers, checking again. Sullivan’s had an air of deadly earnestness.
The bartender was young and bored.
“Beer for me, please,” Charlotte said.
“Make it two. Easter flipped a coin on the counter. “Things slow tonight, eh?”
“Slow every night at this time. It’s too early. The afternoon drunks haven’t had a chance to sober up and come back again.”
Easter sipped his beer. It tasted metallic. “I see O’Gorman’s not around any more.”
“He quit last week. You a friend of his?”
“We have a lot in common.”
“I heard just tonight that he’s back in town,” the bartender said.
“Good. I’d like to catch up with him again.”
“I figure it’s just a rumor, though. This guy that claims he saw him said O’Gorman was driving a new Ford convertible. O’Gorman’s car was an old Plymouth that couldn’t do fifty if it was going downhill. You don’t get rich tending bar, believe you me.”
“Funny if he’s in town and didn’t call me. I’m kind of disappointed.”
“Yeah?” The bartender blinked. “I wouldn’t be too disappointed.”
“If he shows, tell him Easter is looking for him, Jim Easter.”
“He won’t show. He stuck me with a bum check for ten dollars. That and the convertible don’t make sense, unless the car’s hot.”
“Maybe it is.”
“A cop, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want any trouble here.”
“You won’t get any.”
“That’s a promise. I hope.” He ambled down to the other end of the bar and began talking to the two men who were bent over the racing form.
“So that’s the real reason you came up here,” Charlotte said. “Not to talk to Violet’s sister, but to look for O’Gorman and Voss.”
“Both. There was an off-chance that O’Gorman might be stupid enough to come home. In fact, he may not even know there’s a warrant out for him and Voss. The last report I had on O’Gorman was that he was heading north. He sold his ‘38 Plymouth at Crescent City for a hundred and fifty dollars. That’s about fifty dollars less than the list price, and after the deal was closed the new owner got a little suspicious about it. He called the local police and they called us.” He drained his glass. “This is the first I’ve heard about the Ford convertible, though. It makes it fairly certain that he’s around here someplace, not to stay, probably, but to do a little showing off in front of the home-town folks.”
“How could he buy a new car? He had no money.”
“He has now. What I’d like to know is where he got it. Any ideas?”
“No.”
“Sure of that?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Not even one tiny idea?”
“No! What are you getting at? I—you’re confusing me. You don’t think that
I
gave O’Gorman the money? I didn’t. When I went there, he and Voss had already gone.”
“Let’s be confused together,” Easter said lightly. “You know, I went to a lot of trouble for the privilege of buying you a beer.”
“Trouble?”
“Of course I didn’t think it would end up the way it did. I’m an incurable optimist. I figured that you would drive up here with me and give me a chance to parade my wit and charm etcetera, and we would return home, you with the first flush of love on your cheeks, and me feeling the same way as I did when I started. As I do now. Well,” he added, “it didn’t work out.”
“I’m beginning to see a little light.”
“Yes? Tell me about it.”
“It concerns a doctor I know called Bill Blake.”
“Blake? Yes, I believe I know him too.” He was smiling. “In fact we went to college together. I introduced him to the girl he married.”
“You also introduced him to the idea of calling me up and offering to…”
“Well, don’t get sore about it.”
“I’m not sore. I’m boiling.”
“You ought to be flattered.”
“You planned everything.”
“Not quite everything,” he said dryly. “I underestimated your obstinacy, or whatever quality a woman like you has that makes it impossible for her to see what’s good for her.”
“You’re good for me, are you?”
“I am,” he said. “Ballard isn’t.”
“Please leave him out of this.”
“How can I? You think you’re in love with the man.”
“I think so and I am.”
“You intend to marry him.”
“When it becomes possible, yes, of course I’ll marry him.”
“The thought makes me sick.” He ordered another beer, but when it came he didn’t drink it. He kept tracing a letter with his forefinger on the mist that appeared on the outside of the glass. B, B, and then again, B. “I have an interesting theory about you, Charlotte.”
“Have you?”
“I think the reason you picked Ballard is because you unconsciously wanted to avoid marriage. By falling in love with a man who couldn’t marry you anyway, your problem was solved for you, at least temporarily. Until his wife dies. Or something.”
“What do you mean,
or something?
”
“Just or something.” He erased all the B’s from his glass with one swipe of his palm. “People do die, you know. Like Violet.”
She stared at him, her eyes hostile. “If you’re implying that Gwen Ballard might possibly kill herself, I assure you you’re wrong. She isn’t the type.”
“You know her, then?”
“She’s been a patient of mine for a year.”
“Well,” he said. “Well. That’s very interesting. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been tempted to slip a little prussic acid in her cough medicine.”
“No,” she said steadily. “I’ve never been tempted. And I consider the remark incredibly boorish.”
His face had gone suddenly grave. “I’m glad it shocked you. It was intended to. If anything ever hap-pens to Mrs. Ballard, you’ll be hearing lots of remarks like that. You’re asking for them. You’re not only her doctor, you’re her husband’s girlfriend. That’s boorish too, eh?” When she turned away without answering, he added, “I suggest, very seriously, that you turn Mrs. Ballard over to another doctor.”
She was too proud to tell him that she had already tried. “Thanks for the advice.”
“You have a lot to lose, Charlotte. Stop leading with your chin… Now I suppose you’re sore again.”
“I’ve never stopped. You’re simply—simply impossible.”
“Now that’s a silly remark,” Easter said patiently. “I’m the most possible man you know.”
“I want to leave.”
“The door’s open.” He saw her hesitation. “What’s the matter, afraid of the dark?”
“No!”
“Well, go on. Leave.”
“Thanks, I will.”
“By the way if you want to get in touch with me, I’m staying at the Rose Court Motel. That’s where Miss Morris works. I thought it would be a nice place to stay. She’s such an interesting character.”
Charlotte walked to the door. She felt Easter’s eyes on her back, and she wondered if her stocking seams were straight
At the motel, there was a light in Mr. Coombs’s office but the door was closed and the blinds were drawn. A radio was turned on inside, a crime program, Charlotte thought as she drove past and heard the loud, heated voices and the eerie background of organ music.
She parked the Buick in the carport beside Number Four. She was still breathing hard, angrily, as she unlocked the door of the cabin and fumbled for the light switch on the wall. Before her hand reached the switch the light clicked on, as startling as a flash of lightning.
“Surprise,” Voss said with a low satisfied chuckle. “Hey look, Eddie. She’s surprised all right, ain’t she?”
“She sure is.” Eddie grinned self-consciously and stroked the lapel of his green and brown plaid coat. They were both wearing brand-new outfits that were almost identical. Plaid suits, with vests, and brown suede loafers, and ties with the picture of a half-naked woman hand-painted on each.
With a motion so swift that Charlotte had no time to forestall it, Voss reached behind her and slipped the bolt into place across the door.
She didn’t try to unbolt it. She made no physical movement at all.
“Surprised, eh?” Voss repeated. “I kind of thought you would be.”
“Get out,” she said, “or I’ll call the manager.”
Voss made a half-circle around her and sat down on the luggage rack at the foot of the bed. “The manager? That’s a hot one. Why, Coombs is an old school chum of Eddie’s. That’s how we come here. Eddie wanted to drop in on Coombs and say good-bye, and maybe show off his snazzy new outfit.”
“Who’s a show-off?” Eddie muttered. “Say that again. Who’s a show-off?”
“Oh, take a joke, can’t you, and stop interrupting me. Like I was saying, we came to pay Coombs a little social call, and I just happened to glance at the register in his office and see your name. I figured I better wait around and find out what’s your angle.” His eyes roamed the room. “Not a bad little dump, eh, Eddie? But this is peanuts compared to how we’ll be living some day.” His gaze returned to Charlotte and settled there. “We’re leaving the country, Eddie and me.”
“Good.”
“Came up here to say good-bye to the folks, and then we’re heading for better climes, like they say.” He paused, frowning. “Hey, Eddie, take off your hat. Ain’t you got no manners? And offer the lady a chair—she looks like she could use one.”
Eddie took off his hat. He had a new duck-tailed haircut, the kind affected by some of the gangs of juveniles Charlotte had seen on Olive Street.
She said, “I’ll stand, thank you, and Eddie looks better with his hat on.”
“Don’t act so snippy. Remember, we still have some information about you that wouldn’t do you much good if it got around the right circles.” But he didn’t say it threateningly. He was smiling, in fact, and the smile broke into a chuckle, as if he had some secret and wonderful joke. “The right circles. Oh dear, oh dear. I guess my sense of humor gets the best of me sometimes.”
Eddie was laughing too, in a feeble, puzzled way, as if he didn’t know what the joke was, but was willing to go along for the ride.
“Yes, sir,” Voss said. “It’s better climes for Eddie and me.”
“Where did you get the money?”
“We earned it. That’s a good one, eh, Eddie? We
earned
it.”
The two men began laughing again, gleefully, like a couple of boys who had outwitted a parent.
“I don’t claim to be extra smart,” Voss said at last, wiping his eyes. “Just lucky. For once I was in the right place at the right time and I got the right answers.”
“Answers to what?”
“I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you exactly how it happened. Eddie and me was walking up the street and suddenly the guy in front of us started to toss thousand-dollar bills in the air, and Eddie and me picked them up. How’s that?”