The Deceivers (23 page)

He toed the lever that diverted the shower into the tub faucet and pushed a partition part way back and looked out at her.

“What’s the matter?”

Her eyes were wide, her mouth trembling, and she looked greenish under her tan. “Oh, my God!” she said.

“What’s the matter?”

“Bucky. Bucky’s sitting out by the pool.”

“You’re crazy! How could he be?”

“He is. I don’t know how he could be there, but he is. I was looking out the window and I saw him and I couldn’t believe it. It was like a bad dream. He seemed to be looking right at me. He’s still there. Oh, God, what are we going to do? What will we do?”

He turned the water off, knotted a bath towel around his waist and walked, dripping, to the front windows. He looked out through the crack between slats of the Venetian blinds and saw Bucky Cable sitting in a chrome and green plastic chair near the pool, with the chair turned so that he faced the door of number twenty, faced Carl’s Ford station wagon parked directly outside the door. He was sixty feet away, motionless, expressionless. He wore a pale tan summer suit, a pale blue bow tie. His legs were crossed and his cocoa straw hat with pale blue band was on his knee. His face was a sweaty bronze red, darker than his thinning hair. He gave the impression of having been sitting there for a very long time.

“What will we do?” she whispered, close beside him, as Carl stepped back from the window.

“I’ve got to get dressed,” he said. He shut the bathroom door when he went in. He dried himself, brushed his teeth for a long time, shaved carefully, combed his hair, drank more water, put on his clothes.

When he came out Cindy got up quickly from the chair and said, “What are you going to do?” He ignored the question. He packed quickly and put the small suitcase next to hers by the door, wishing that on the previous afternoon he hadn’t been so intent on making his departure according to her terms that he had forgotten to bring along his possessions. And he wished his mind was not clouded by the after-effects of the liquor, and wished his body did not feel so frail and shaky.

He sat in the chair and lighted a cigarette, controlling the tremble of his fingers with an effort. She sat on the foot of the bed, turned toward him.

“We don’t know how he found this place, but we can assume he knows we’re both in here,” he said. “He knows my car, certainly. We can assume he’s waiting for us to come out.”

“He sits there like he wanted us to see him.”

“Don’t, for God’s sake, get hysterical. There are some choices. They stink, but they’re choices.”

“Like what?”

“I go out the rear window and circle around and take your car back to town and leave it somewhere, and we make sure there’s no trace of me left here, and then you go brazen it out. Invite inspection. Tell him you borrowed my car.”

“But the … the registration in the office.”

“I know. I know. It would be better if you went out the back, then I could give him some song and dance about it being somebody else I’d been with. Martha Garron, maybe. I think her reputation is beyond any additional damage.”

“Then,” she said eagerly, “I could get to my car and go to the lake or something.”

“It’ll still be sour, but maybe that’s best.”

“Do you think … you can handle it?”

“I can try.”

They went to the rear windows. They were steel casement windows. The panes were small. They had been designed to be opened, but since every unit had individual heat and air-conditioning control, they had been welded shut. The bathroom window was high. It opened on a sliding rod, and at its widest, it presented no more than a five-inch gap. He decided it could be broken to open farther, but before doing so, he stood on the edge of the tub and looked out. The ground fell away behind the units. She would have a fifteen-foot drop onto a ragged shale slope.

“Can’t you
do
something?” she whimpered.

“We both walk out the front and announce our engagement, maybe? Shut up and let me think.” After a few moments he said, “Maybe you don’t have to be actually, physically gone. If we can hide you some place in here, and I carry it off all right, then you can leave later on, after we’re both gone.”

She laughed nervously. “It’s like one of those … continental comedies.”

“Yes, this is a very hilarious situation.”

“Please, Carl.”

“Let’s see now. I’ve got to assume he’ll bull his way in and make a quick inspection. If so, he’ll look in the bathroom and the closet, and in the tub behind those sliding things. But I have a hunch he won’t look under the beds. That would be too damn trite. It would be an undignified
thing for him to do. Look, if I pull this sheet crooked so it hangs almost to the floor …”

“But … I couldn’t.”

“Then think of something. Think of some other place.”

She chewed the edge of her thumb. After a while she looked at him with a certain shyness and said, “I … guess it’s the only thing, isn’t it?”

“It’s either take a chance on that, Cindy, or walk out together. Funny, but I would have thought that would be what you’d prefer to do.”

“I couldn’t possibly do that.”

They checked the room to see that there was no evidence of her occupancy. He plucked a long blond hair from her pillow and, along with her lipsticked cigarette butts, flushed it down the toilet. She sat on the floor between the beds, then slid under the bed and pulled her small suitcase in after her. He adjusted the dangling sheet, then walked around the room, trying to see her. He could not see her.

He stood near the bed and said, “All set?”

“I … I guess so.”

“He’ll come in here, I think. Do you think there’s any chance he saw you?”

“I … don’t think so, Carl.”

“Hold tight. I’ll get him away just as soon as I can.”

“I’ll be all right.”

He picked up his suitcase, gave a last look around the room, fixed the inside knob button so the door would lock, and went out, room key in hand. He did not look toward Bucky. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that there were only three or four cars left at the motel.

He unlocked the left-hand door of the wagon, tossed the suitcase into the rear seat, got behind the wheel and rolled the window down. Just as he was putting the key in the ignition Bucky appeared beside the open window.

“Hey, Bucky!” he said in simulated surprise. “What’re you doing here?”

Bucky was bent from the waist to look in the window. “That’s the question I was going to ask you, neighbor.” Bucky’s voice sounded hoarse. He was smiling. For a moment Carl took assurance from the feeling that this was the same old amiable Bucky Cable, the diligent, likable and uncomplicated young sales executive. But Bucky’s smile was not quite the same. And Carl had never realized how curiously flat Bucky’s pale gray eyes were. They seemed to reflect no light.
His shoulders were heavy under the tan suit jacket. His face was florid, with a square jaw, and the beginnings of slackness under the chin. His crisp blond hair had receded in a widow’s peak. One thick hand rested on the car door, sturdy fingers yellowed with nicotine, the morning sun bright on the pale hair on the back of his hand and fingers.

“Anything I say at this point might tend to incriminate me,” Carl said. “I’m just checking out. I was just about to leave the key at the office. Do a neighbor a favor and forget you saw me.”

“Nice layout they got here.”

“It’s comfortable.”

“And just about the right distance from town. I’d like to see what one of the units looks like. Might have a use for this place sometime. Mind letting me see?”

“Not at all.”

“It won’t disturb your playmate?”

Carl, as he got out of the car, said, “She left a long time ago.”

“Anybody I know?”

“No. One of the girls from the office.”

Bucky wore the same odd smile. “You’re quite an operator, neighbor. All this time I’ve been sucked in by your big act. A real home body. No tomcatting around for reliable old Carl. You’re real cagey, aren’t you?”

Carl unlocked the door and swung it open. “I wouldn’t say that. After you, Bucky.”

Bucky went in slowly and Carl followed him in. He felt as if he could not breathe deeply enough.

“Well, now. A nice big closet. Air-conditioning.” He went into the bathroom. “Tub and shower. Nice place, Carl. Nice picking.” He walked back into the bedroom and sat in the chair and crossed his legs, pushed his hat farther back, took out his cigarettes. “How did you line up the office dish?”

Carl sat on the bed that concealed Cindy. He shrugged. “One of those things. The opportunity just hadn’t come along until now. But you still haven’t answered my question. What are you doing out here?”

The smile did not change as Bucky said, “Looking for Cindy. Looking for the silly bitch I married.”

“Out here?”

“Can you think of a better place?”

“I haven’t seen much of her, but I think she’s been going
up to Scott and Lucy Jessup’s place at the lake. They loaned it to you two, didn’t they?”

“Sure. Maybe she likes to swim in the moonlight. So she comes home in the day and goes up there at night. She gave up sleeping at home, I find out. I think maybe she likes motels better.”

“I don’t know what you’re driving at, Bucky.”

Bucky reached into his pocket, took out a brown packet of paper matches and scaled them over onto the bed. Carl picked them up. There was an exaggerated drawing of the motel and the inscription,
The Traveler. Luxury at a Fair Price. Forty-one miles east of Hillton just off the Governor Carson Turnpike (Route 87)
.

“I flew home last night,” Bucky said. “Got in at one in the morning. No Cindy. No car. And nobody home next door. So I woke up the Stocklands. Eunice filled me in. Cindy doesn’t sleep home any more. Neither do you. Then I started to take the house apart. I don’t know what the hell I was looking for. But about five this morning I found those matches right in plain sight on the breakfast table. So I took a cab out. I had him wait. The office was closed. I spotted your car in front of twenty, so I went out and sent the cab back and made myself comfortable. I tried to look in your windows, but I couldn’t see a damn thing. So where is the round-heeled bitch, neighbor?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Bucky. Honestly. As far as those matches are concerned, I’ve been registered in this place for four nights. And I was over talking to Cindy the other afternoon, and I very probably left them there myself. Why don’t you try the Jessups’ camp? Or just go home and wait. She’ll show up, because I think I remember her saying she expected you today sometime.”

“How is Joan?”

It took Carl a moment to adjust to the quick change of topic. “Joan? She’s doing fine. She’ll be home Monday. Tomorrow.”

“I sent her a present. I don’t know if she got it yet. It’s a word game called Jotto. It’s supposed to be pretty good. Two can play, or four can play, the clerk said. But if it turns out to be too tricky then maybe that will rule Joan and me out and you two eggheads can have a merry time with it.”

“Bucky, I …”

“I get so God damn sick of being patronized by you two, you and Cindy. Like you were so damn superior. You
wouldn’t last a week on my job, and Cindy is no damn good at her job. Come on, old buddy. Brief me on this shack job of yours.”

“I don’t care to talk about her.”

“I always figured you for too damn chicken to step over the line. Too scared of maybe upsetting your nice little red wagon.”

Carl looked at his watch. “I’ve got to get back to town.” He stood up. Bucky made no move to stand up. He sat there, smiling up at Carl. “I’ll drive you back to town.”

“Don’t be in such a rush. How come this office-type shack job of yours wears the same perfume Cindy wears? My nose isn’t as good as it was a million cigarettes ago, but I smelled it when I walked in.”

“I guess it’s a coincidence.”

“You know, I never figured out what it was about Cindy. Not until now. You know, the way the wolves flock around her at a party. The way men watch her on the street. You know what it is, neighbor? She’s got all the instincts of a complete tramp. But up to now she’s never let herself go, at least since she married me, because I guess she thinks it’s unladylike or something. But now I can see how she’d let herself go with a nice safe solemn type like you. She’d take the chance you wouldn’t shoot off your mouth in every bar in town. She can’t walk across a room without waggling her tail around. She was ripe for a chance like this.”

“You’re talking nonsense, Bucky.”

“Sure. I’m a crazy man. I even flew at night. Cindy has standing orders never to fly at night. Something dreadful might happen to her pwecious Bucky-Wucky. Wouldn’t that be a damned shame?”

“I’ve got to get back to town.”

“I almost have to laugh when I think of how disappointed you must have been, neighbor, when you finally set it up. We could have a long talk about how a woman who looks like she looks can be so damn useless in bed.”

“You must be out of your mind.”

“I keep forgetting. It isn’t you and Cindy, it’s you and that office job. You know, from six to nine is a long wait. I wanted to stretch my legs. But I didn’t want you taking off, so I opened your hood and took the cable off one battery terminal. That’s when a big old limey-talking manager took an interest in me right after I’d finished. I told him I was waiting for the folks in number twenty to get up. The Garroways?
he said. That’s right, I said. Tall dark-haired guy in his forties with a young blond wife, also tall. We’d moved out near the pool where we could talk without disturbing anybody. He’s a smart old duck and he had you two pegged right from the start, I think, and it was making him nervous to think I might be the injured husband in the case. We admired the sunrise a while and I was so relaxed he stopped being nervous. Said this was your fourth night here. Said Mrs. Garroway had enjoyed the pool and she certainly is a marvelous swimmer, isn’t she. The best, I told him. You know. I disarm people. People always talk to me. I listen in a real eager way that makes them feel wanted and important. So I nudged the conversation over onto women’s swim suits, and he briefed me on Mrs. Garroway’s, and I got a good description of the one she bought last summer that, if I remember rightly, cost me nineteen ninety-five. Sit down again, neighbor. You look unwell.”