The Bitch (12 page)

“She’s not here?”

Janet’s mother shook her head. “Whatever made you think that? Isn’t she with you?”

“No.”

I moved on through the hall and into the parlor. Janet’s mother always called it the parlor. It was a large room to the left of the hall, with a very high ceiling, domed and with large patches of blue paint flecking off. Straight at the end of the hall, a circular staircase led to the second floor. There was no second floor over the parlor. Sometimes in the very hot months of summer, water dripped from the parlor ceiling—touched with faint grains of paint.

I found a chair by an ancient Stromberg-Carlson console radio that she had brought “carried” back with her from Fort Meyers. She still talked about what such a fine radio it was. It wailed and shrieked like a drunken clarinet whenever you tuned a station in, and after you captured the elusive station, you fought the static and the whistles as you sat there in the evening and listened to Lowell Thomas. Because her husband had always listened to Lowell Thomas just before supper—so she had to carry that on. This was nothing against Mr. Thomas. It was nothing against anybody. It was just that I was very, very tired and ready to fall down, thinking these things, remembering, and maybe trying to find a single grain of peace among the grains of blue paint that fell lightly now and again to the worn surface of the old Oriental rug.

“My boy, my boy,” she said, shuffling up to me. “Whatever has happened to you?”

“You did say Janet wasn’t here, didn’t you.”

She kept nodding slowly. She wanted to touch my face, so I let her. Her fingers trailed across my jaw and she turned and started to shuffle toward the back of the house. Then she turned and came back again.

I lay back in the chair and watched her.

I had been absolutely certain this was where Janet would be. There was no place else she would go of her own accord. I just sat there letting the waves of fear for Janet wash through me, watching the old lady.

I could really feel the exhaustion creep up on me now.

It was all a great big wonderful joke on me.

The old lady wore a gray dress with a ruffle of white lace at the throat and cuffs and a gold locket around her throat. On her feet were heavy, worn carpet slippers. When she walked, she shuffled heavily on the fine old hardwood floors, across the rugs.

‘Tate?”

“Yes.”

“Where
is
Janet?”

“She’s all right,” I said. “I just made a mistake, is all. Everybody’s entitled to a mistake, not so?”

“Tate, have you been drinking again? Janet said—”

“No. Nothing like it. I haven’t been at the bottle for over two years.”

“I see. Then what happened to you?”

“You mean my face.”

“What’s left of it.”

“I had a little argument with a guy.”

“I see.” She nodded. “Tate, you look terrible, terribly tired. I reckon you
had
better go upstairs and lie down.”

“I’m hungry, too.”

“I’ll fetch you something.”

She bustled and hustled, standing still. She clasped her hands and then unclasped them, and looked this way and that way and at me again. She
tisked
and she
tusked.

What the hell? I’d be no good to myself or anybody else unless I got some rest and some food inside me. I was literally shot. I was a wreck.

I tried to get up out of the chair and it was like scaling a cliff. I finally made it and stood there swaying. I was sore all over, aching. My head had turned into a dark, throbbing tunnel of remote aches and pains.

Then I was sitting at the dining room table eating soup. After that it was a plate of beef and gravy, and my head kept falling down almost into the plate. Finally I drank the glass of brandy that was in front of me and the next thing I knew, I was lying across a comfortable bed upstairs and Janet’s mother was covering me with a quilt.

“Now, you sleep, son,” she said. “Everything will be all right.”

Her pink face smiled down at me and I was asleep before she left the room.

• • •

I came awake conscious of the darkness. I looked over at the window and saw the sky out there, a star, then two stars, then nothing again. Clouds scudding across the moon-washed sky, and suddenly I realized I hadn’t just awakened naturally. Something had pulled me up out of sleep. I felt ill. My head throbbed and I was hot, and my stomach was sour. I lay there staring at the window, sorting out the shreds of what was left, where I was, what I had done, what I had to do, and then I knew what had rapped me up out of the deep black pit of sleep. It was a man’s voice, talking monotonously downstairs.

I was half across the room, dragging the quilt with me almost at the instant of hearing. I tried to walk softly, opened the door and moved into the hall. I was still fully dressed. Almost immediately, I began to feel better with the movement. There was a stiffness to my face, but that was all.

“No,” Janet’s mother said. Her voice quavered a little. “I don’t know what you mean, what you men want. I don’t know.”

“Yes—you know,” Johnny Morrell said. “Don’t kid me.”

I came along the upstairs landing.

“Come on,” Morrell said. “He’s here someplace. His car’s right outside in the yard. He’s carrying a big sack with him—a canvas bag. Now, where’s that sack? Where’s he? Upstairs? Where’s your daughter? You’ve got them hid someplace around here, old girl.”

“No,” Janet’s mother said softly.

Sam’s trenchcoat was downstairs with my gun in the pocket, where Sam had put it. Sam’s gun wasn’t in my belt, I had no idea where it was.

Caught up in self-blame, I stood there and cursed myself. I’d come here searching for Janet. Janet was the only thing left in my world and I couldn’t find her. I had to find her. Everything else took on a shadowed, meaningless cast in the confusion of time and action.

Morrell was down there and somebody was with him. Somehow they had trailed me here. How, I didn’t know—and didn’t care. They were here and that was enough, only how was I to deal with them?

I couldn’t just leave the place by the back way and know that fine old lady would be left alone with them. There was no telling what they would do to her, because from the sound of Morrell’s voice there was no doubt in my mind that he believed I’d come here with the money. The money was all that meant anything to him—the money, and me, maybe, too.

He thought I had killed his brother….

“He upstairs?” Morrell said.

She didn’t answer him.

There was a loud slap.

“Jesus, Johnny!” Stewart said. “You have to do that?”

“He didn’t hurt me,” Janet’s mother said. “He’s not enough of a man to hurt me.”

“No?” Johnny Morrell said. “I’ll show you, old girl—I’ll show you.”

I started down the stairs.

“Look,” the man called Bill said.

They were in the hall. Janet’s mother stood a little away from them now and her gaze was on Morrell. They looked the same as they had last night; a little more tired, maybe, a bit more harassed, but otherwise the same. Morrell’s white suit was pretty well messed up.

He turned and saw me on the stairs and Stewart ran across the hall with a gun in his hand.

“Bring him down,” Morrell said lazily.

“Oh, boy!” Stewart said. “Oh, boyoboyoboy!” He came up the stairs toward me and held the gun on me, grinning. “Have I got something for you!” he said. “Get down there.”

I moved on down the stairs, trying not to look at Stewart. His face was bumped and bruised and there was a long scar across his forehead from that broom handle. I knew his head must be a field of lumps.

“Bill,” Morrell said. “Check for Morgan’s wife.” He turned to Janet’s mother. “She here?”

She shook her head.

“Like I thought,” Morrell said. “She wouldn’t tell the truth, anyway. “Go ahead, Bill—check for signs of her. Comb the place.”

Bill wandered off.

I stepped onto the hall floor and Stewart moved along beside me. The funny thing was, nobody knew where that money was. It had to be with Janet. But where was Janet?

“All right, Morgan,” Morrell said. His voice was tired. “You’ve done a lot of things since I last saw you, eh?”

“Have it your way.”

“You killed my brother, Morgan.”

I shook my head. Janet’s mother gasped. I turned to her and said, “Just don’t listen to anything he says. Someday you’ll find out the truth, I hope.”

“What’ll we do with him, now?” Stewart said.

“Wait,” Morrell said, holding up his hand. “Why did you go and kill my brother, Morgan?”

“You won’t believe anything I say, so why ask me? For the record, I didn’t. I found him dead in my apartment when I got there.” Then I wished I hadn’t said that. It would point to Janet, if he started thinking. Morrell didn’t have quite the line on this thing that I did, but he would arrive in time.

Morrell kept watching me. Then he sighed. “Alex talked his way into this. He should have kept out of it. Something was due to happen to him sooner or later. I’m half inclined to believe you didn’t kill him, Morgan. Somehow you don’t come off in my mind as a killer. Maybe I’m wrong. I was plenty hot about that a few hours ago, but I’ve had time to think about it a lot, coming up here. I’m not forgetting it—but at the same time, I’m letting it lay for a while, until I think some more. I don’t know quite what I want to do about it.”

“How did you know I was up here?”

“Well, that’s one of those things. Thelma told us, about an hour and a half ago.”

“Thelma?” This got me a little, because there was no possible way she could know about where I had come.

Morrell nodded. “Little Thelma. She doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going. What with her old man, and me—I had her really scared. I had a notion she might have got to you, Morgan.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Late this afternoon, she found a letter in her driveway. It was written by your wife, addressed to her mother, right here—it said your wife was coming up here. It looked to me as if you dropped it, Morgan. Thelma got to thinking and she couldn’t stand believing you had lied to her. She figured you
did
have the money, and you had gone up to meet Janet here. And that’s what I figured. Thelma told me how you took her car, and all. Don’t you know she can’t keep anything under her hat, Morgan? That letter was pretty soggy, but readable, anyway.”

So that was it. Somehow I had dropped that damned letter when I was pushing Thelma’s car out of the drive.

Morrell brought the letter and envelope, still damp, from his pocket and handed them to me. The paper was wadded. The ink had run. But you could read what Janet had written.

“So,” Morrell said. “I want to know where the money is, Morgan. I’m not giving up on that. Not now. And, of course, there’s a little something to settle about the death of my brother. I still don’t quite know what I want to do.”

I didn’t say anything. Bill came back from his circuit of the house.

“Not a sign of her, Johnny. She hasn’t been here.”

“Uh-huh.” He turned to Janet’s mother. “Grandma, you going to tell us what we want to know?”

She had been standing there, just listening, her hands clasped at her waist. The place still showed lividly on her pink cheek where Morrell had slapped her. I felt sorry for her, I wished I could do something for her. I wasn’t even able to help myself. She still wore the same gray dress with the ruffles that she’d had on this morning when I came in. The old clock in the hallway read a quarter to eight now, so I’d had quite a sleep.

Janet’s mother watched Morrell now, and shook her white head with a slow kind of helplessness.

“We’d better tie her up,” Morrell said. “We can’t let her run around loose.”

“Come off it,” I said. “What can she do? Let her alone. She hasn’t got anything you want. She’s not going to try to do anything.”

“I won’t do anything,” Janet’s mother said. “Not unless I can think of something to do. Then, by swow, I reckon I will!”

Morrell did not smile. He glanced at me. “All right,” he said. “The hell with it. What
can
she do?”

“Tate,” she said. “What have you done? Where’s my little girl? Where is she, Tate?”

“She’s all right,” I said.

“Ah-hah,” Morrell said.

“Okay. I was just reassuring her.”

“Let’s get out to the car,” Morrell said.

Janet’s mother tried to come toward me. Bill stepped in her path and touched her arm lightly. “I wouldn’t,” he said. “Why don’t you just go in there and sit and listen to your radio? Take it easy. All right?”

She watched him.

Morrell tapped my arm and motioned toward the door.

“Wait’ll I get my coat,” I said.

“Go with him while he gets his coat, Stewart,” Morrell said.

Steward and I walked on into the parlor. He looked at the ceiling and I saw my coat hanging over the back of a chair, spread out to dry. I grabbed my coat off the chair, thinking about that gun. There was no weight to the coat, the gun wasn’t there. The old lady had taken it out, as sure as hell.

“Wait,” Stewart said.

He came over and took the coat from me and bounced it up and down and handed it back to me. He grinned and nodded toward the hallway.

We went out there and I shrugged into the coat. I didn’t bother about Sam’s hat. Janet’s mother was still by the wall, with all that disrupted patience showing in her eyes. Lots of fight, too. Only no way to fight, and she knew it, and that was sad, in a way.

“Let’s go.”

Janet’s mother tried to say something. I patted her arm as we moved past her and on through the front door.

There was no light at all out there, but metal gleamed in the darkness, and I saw the Lincoln parked in the yard, a dark shape. And nearly up against the front porch, was another car—an Olds. This was Morrell’s car.

“Bill,” Morrell said. “You drive Thelma’s car. We’ll take the other.”

Bill looked at me with those eyes of his, a little grimly, or what was supposed to have been grim. Then he padded down the front porch steps and went over to the Lincoln.

We got into the Olds. Morrell drove. I sat in the rear seat with Stewart and we cut out of there fast.