by Jada M Davis
She stood beside him, her body brushing his shoulder. “You must come again,” she whispered. “I’ll call you.”
“Do that.”
Halliday saw him to the door. “Drop by my office some day this week, Ree,” he said. “We’ll have a nice, long talk.”
“I’ll do that, Mr. Halliday.”
Willa Ree got out of the cab in front of Ma Ferguson’s boardinghouse, but he didn’t go inside.
As soon as the red glow of the cab disappeared, he started walking.
Twenty minutes later he circled to the back of a service station.
He took a glass cutter from his pocket and went to work.
Ten minutes later he was walking through town. There was a roll of bills in his pocket.
Eighty-seven dollars.
He whistled.
Enough to pay for the new suit.
Laura Green was asleep. She had dreamed, and in her dream she had been happy, for she was in Willa Ree’s, arms.
But the dream had gone, Ree had gone, and she reached out her arms in search of him.
And then there was a knocking sound, a knock-knock-knocking sound, and she fought up out of sleep and realized that someone was at the door.
She went to the door and opened it, and only when the night air touched her body did she realize she wore no gown.
It was Ree!
“Where’ve you been?” she asked. “You were supposed to have come tonight.”
“It’s tonight and I’m here.”
“What time is it?”
“Eleven-thirty.”
“Well, that’s a heck of a time to—”
But he took her in his arms and cut off her words with a kiss.
Her body was warm, her breasts firm and full as they pressed into his chest, pressed deeply into his chest.
His lips were eager and seeking, but her lips were demanding, pulling at his senses, until he was lost in a deep dark, with the only reality the warm softness of her lips.
Her hands were in his hair, pulling, and he drew her to him, closely to him, and more closely to him, his hands sliding and stroking the satiny smooth hot curves and hollows of her back.
He picked her up, still buried in her kiss, and stumbled his way into the bedroom.
After a while, a long while, he went to sleep.
He went to sleep, but his body didn’t relax. Once, when she dozed, he began grinding his teeth, and she laid her hand on his face. It was wet with sweat.
She put her arms around him and held him tight. Once, twice, he cried out.
Chapter Twelve
The sun scorched a calendar path across July and dawned in August with wind-seared heat.
Ree called Halliday.
Ben Halliday’s secretary told him, “Mr. Halliday’s out of town.”
“When’ll he be back?”
“Is this Mr. Ree?”
“Yes.”
“He said you might call. I’m afraid he’ll be out of town three or four days. Maybe longer.”
“Oh, I see. Well, I’ll call again.”
“I’ll tell him you called.”
“Thanks.”
Well, he could wait if Halliday could.
Bronson called him into his office in the afternoon.
“Well, have you and Halliday made some little plans?”
“You said you didn’t want to hear about any of our plans.”
“So I did. Forget it.”
“Well, you asked a question, Chief, and the answer is no.”
Bronson gave his head a side twist and raised his shoulders and eyebrows. “Well, Ree,” he said, “I know it’s coming, and I hate to see it. To be perfectly frank, I don’t know a hell of a lot about this business. Oh, I guess,” and he paused to consider, “that I handled this town all right when it was small. But this oil hit and everybody and their dog moved here, and it’s getting out of hand. Now, Sheriff Messner is a better sheriff than I am a police chief. That is to say, he is in a way, though— Well, you can form your own opinion of Messner. Anyway, I was about to say that you’ve got a flair for this kind of work, and it’s a shame that you can’t see your way clear to steer away from Halliday. You could go places in this business, Ree.”
“How far?”
“Maybe, well, maybe to a big town. Some day.”
“Police work is too slow, Chief. And, anyway, it’s political. You have to pull the wires, Chief.”
“You’re right,” Bronson said heavily. “And I’m an example. I’m an example because I won’t play ball, and my job’s safe just as long as it suits Halliday. I don’t mind telling you, because Halliday knows how I feel. And because I don’t care any more.”
Bronson left the office. “I’m going home,” he said. “I’m going home and read a book about poultry.”
Ree called Laura.
“It’s about time, society boy,” she said. “You’ve been in the papers and on the radio, but you haven’t been coming around often enough. And I see by the paper that you’ve been to some fancy dinners.”
“They call it supper.”
“Well, that’s better than dinner. Anything that makes me sick, it’s these corn-pone boys with honey and social ambition. Only mostly it’s the wife that gets the society bug, and I can always tell when the bug bites, because then they start saying dinner instead of supper.”
“You’re just class conscious.”
“Maybe. Are you coming over tonight?”
“Bright and early. Order a steak and some beer.”
“Well, your tastes haven’t changed. See you about eight.”
He hung up and dialed Halliday’s home number.
“Halliday residence.” He almost didn’t recognize the voice, the soft slurred woman’s voice.
“Hello. This is Willa Ree.”
“I recognized the ring,” she said, “and about time, too.”
“How are you, Mrs. Halliday? Are there burglars in your pantry? Are your jewels missing?”
“Not my jewels, Ree. My husband.”
“Well, that’s more interesting. There’s nothing that interests me more than the wife of a husband who is missing.”
“Tell me,” she said, “would you like to have dinner at my house?”
“Dinner?”
She laughed. “Supper.”
“I’d like having supper with you. What time?”
“Eight o’clock.”
“Then I’ll see you at eight.”
But he was late—deliberately late.
He waited until eight-thirty before calling a cab, and then cautiously got out a block from the Halliday home and walked the rest of the way.
A dim light glowed in the Halliday living room.
He pressed the buzzer.
Martha opened the door, anger in her eyes and in the taut lines of her face. “You walked?”
“One block,” he said, handing her his hat.
She was furious. “That was rather silly, don’t you think? The neighbors would have thought nothing of a cab, but....”
“You mean it was suggestive,” he said.
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
He helped mix drinks, and they drank, and the anger left her eyes. She relaxed.
“So you’ve never dared have a friend out while your husband was away.”
“I’ve never cared to have a friend out when my husband was away.”
She wore a white gown, simply cut, of some soft material, the neckline low, not immodestly low, but low, and trim over the hips and flowing about her ankles. Her hair was up, and her neck was beautiful, unadorned and smooth and creamy, and the soft light in the dining room complimented and complemented, bringing out lights in her hair and in her enormous eyes.
They had two drinks. She had prepared a Mexican dish, which she served with beer, and he laughed inwardly at the contrast between the softly lighted dining room and its beautifully laid table and the dish she served.
She chattered of this and that, of a plane trip she’d made
, and, quite suddenly, she was talking about forty thousand dollars.
“... and so the Old Man doesn’t believe in banks,” she was saying. “Oh, he deals with banks and buys bonds and that sort of thing, but he keeps forty thousand dollars in a package in the company safe.”
“Who was that again?”
“Old Man Johnson. You know. The Johnson Tool Company.”
“Does he advertise the fact?”
She laughed. “Oh, no, not exactly. A friend of mine told me about it. Old Johnson lost money when the banks failed during the depression, you see, and now he keeps a reserve in his safe.”
“You seem to be well informed,” he said.
“About many things, Mr. Ree.”
The conquest was no conquest, but surrender—on both sides.
He played the piano, at random, and then she was in his arms, leading him to the bedroom. “That bed,” she said pointing.
Her gown fell about her feet, in a shimmering puddle, and she stepped out of her shoes.
“This is Ben’s bed,” she said.
She helped him undress and hung his clothes up neatly.
He took her in his arms then.
Her lips were prim and hard and cold.
Tonight, he thought, I’ll have no alibi. After all, I can’t say I spent the evening in Ben Halliday’s bed.
His own bed.
He chose a liquor store, entering through a rear window after cutting a hole in the glass and reaching through to unlock it.
A town full of clay pigeons.
The haul amounted to three hundred and forty-six dollars. And some change.
What I need, he thought, is a car. If I ran a business, he told himself, I’d be damned if I’d leave my money in the register for anybody with guts enough to climb through a window. If I stay in this town long enough, he wrote on the blackboard of his mind, I’ll be too rich to count my money. Every little town, he thought, is a potential customer of mine. I wonder, he wondered, how long it’ll take the people in this town to get wise.
He left the building, circled around it, and hit the sidewalk. No hurry. Whistling softly, enjoying the feel of rustling money in his pocket, he passed by the store he’d robbed.
A man’s footsteps clicked out of the darkness, and a man’s bulky outline loomed in front of him.
“Hello, Ree,” the man said.
He peered.
It was Wesley.
“Well, Wesley, are you out late or up early?”
“Both.”
“Well, come on downtown and we’ll find some coffee.”
“No, thanks, I’ve got some business up this way.”
“Take it easy.”
He walked on down the street, chiding himself for allowing himself to be seen so near the burglarized store.
My friend, Wesley, he told himself, is nobody’s fool. He’ll be able to add two and two. But, a comforting thought, the guy won’t be able to prove a thing. Not only that, but he won’t have the guts to make an accusation against me, not without proof, at least.
Whistling softly again, he walked faster, until he saw the café where Halliday had found him when he first hit the town. He went inside and drank coffee, enjoying the stillness, forgetting the store and Wesley and thinking only of the night with Martha in Ben Halliday’s own bed.
He shook with silent laughter.
When he’d finished his second cup of coffee, and dawn was breaking outside, he decided to go see Laura.
Laura, he knew, would be furious. He wondered if she’d cooked the steaks.
He walked, and the sun was coming up when he rattled the handle of her door.
Laura was furious. She cried. She was furious, and she cried, and she stormed and cursed and ordered him from the house.
Two steaks, cold and ugly and silly-looking, rested on a platter in the kitchen.
“We’ll warm them and have them for breakfast,” he said. “And don’t feel stood up and unloved and hurt, honey, because I wouldn’t have stayed away if there’d been anything I could have done about it. I wanted to call you, but there wasn’t any phone where I was.”
“Don’t hand me that!”
“Listen, honey,” he said, “I’m a policeman. If you married me, see, you’d be like a doctor’s wife. Alone at night, half the time. I never know when something’s going to break, you see, and I have to go when anything does break.”
They had the steaks for breakfast.
He showered and left the house, whistling.
Chapter Thirteen
Willa Ree bought two suits, three pairs of slacks, six shirts, a hat, and four ties. He paid cash.
The clerk handed him his change, and a voice said, “You’re flush.”
Wesley.
“Hello, Wesley.”
“I said you’re flush.”
“I save my money.”
“Another store was knocked off last night.”
“I got the report.”
“You must have been investigating when I met last night.”
“That was this morning.”
“Night, morning. It was still dark.”
“No, I wasn’t investigating.”
“Well, I’ve been investigating, Ree.” Wesley’s voice was soft and drawly. “Say, you’re quite a dresser.”
“Clothes make the man.” Willa Ree kept his voice low, disinterested, as if he had half heard Wesley’s small talk.
“You never wear a uniform, I notice. You look more like a sheriff than a cop.”
“Never liked uniforms.” And to the clerk, he said, “Send these suits to the cleaners for me, will you?”
“Cup of coffee?” Wesley asked.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
They went to a small café and drank beer instead of coffee. Wesley traced a moist pattern on the table, idly tracing spilled beer with his finger.
“You know, Ree, you don’t fool me a bit.”
“No? What makes you think I’m trying to fool you?”
“Well, for one thing, you handed me that bunk about being a private detective from California. You might be from California, my friend, but I know that detective business was a bunch of crap.”
“You told me once.”
“Well, I’m telling you again.” Wesley leaned back in the booth, stuck his feet out in the aisle, and sipped at his beer. “You’re pulling these jobs we had lately.”
“I’m wondering whether to laugh or make you swallow that bottle.”
“You’d better laugh.”
“You could take your suspicions to the Chief.”
“I have.”
“Then it’s up to the Chief. And you can forget it.”
“No.” Wesley shook his head. “No, Bronson wasn’t in the least surprised. He said to arrest you—when I get the proof.”
Ree threw his head back and laughed.
Wesley blushed. “You might be laughing on the other side of your face one of these days, Ree,” he warned, his voice trembling with anger.
“I hope you’re around to see it, Wesley. I really hope you’re around to see it.”
“I’ll be around.”
“Don’t be too sure. Listen, and get this straight, chum! Your pal is on his way out! Even he knows that! The council keeps Bronson for a front, and that’s all. And something else. Bronson’s front is getting a little thin.”
Wesley slammed change on the table and left. Ree finished his beer.
The work was routine. For days he worked in the office, ignored by Bronson and scowled at by Wesley. He took Laura to the movies twice, but didn’t see her again for a week.
When he did call, on a Sunday afternoon, she pouted. Then she slammed into the bathroom and showered, taking her time, a long time.
Willa Ree took off his shoes and stretched out on the couch. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked when, draped in a towel, she emerged from the bathroom.
She flounced over to the dressing table and sat down. Her hands worked at her hair, swiftly a
nd surely. She stuck bobby pins in her mouth.
“You’ll chip your teeth opening those things,” he warned. “Come on and spill it. What’s the matter?”
She shrugged her shoulders, opened another pin with her teeth.
The towel slipped, exposing a breast and her back.
“You’re getting fat,” he said. “I never did care for fat women.”
“That’s not what they tell me!” she gritted.
“Tell you what?”
“They tell me you’re after every woman in town!”
“Just stay the way you are, honey,” he teased, “and I won’t even notice any other woman in town, no matter how they wiggle.”
“Don’t be cute!”
“Now, listen! Either tell me what you heard or shut up!”
She gave her hair a final pat, peered into the mirror, and whirled around.
“What about Martha Halliday?”
He whistled. “What have you heard about Martha Halliday?”
“I heard she’s on the make for you and that you make easy!”
“All men make easy, honey, but you don’t have to worry about Martha Halliday.”
“Who’s worried?”
“Well, you sound worried.”
“Listen, you no-good bum! I can get any man in this town, and don’t you forget it! And you needn’t think I’m going to sit here keeping the home fires burning while you go sniffing around every woman in town!”
“Take it easy.”
“Take it easy, hell! I heard you spent most of a night with Martha Halliday! That makes a fool out of me and I’m not going to stand for it!”
“I said take it easy.”
She walked toward the couch, forgetting to hold the towel, and it slipped away and fell to the floor. She stood above him.
“Get to hell out of here!” she raged. “Go to Martha Halliday and every other worn-out tramp in town for all I care!” She stamped her foot.
He clasped both her legs in his arms and pulled. She fell forward across him, hitting and kicking and scratching.
They wrestled to the floor. She clawed his face, and the blood came.
Finally she stopped fighting and said, “You don’t have to go chasing around town,” she murmured. “I can supply the demand.”
The sun was sinking, but was still hot, and the air had an acrid gunpowdery taste. Along the street, in the yards, men and women held garden hoses from which feeble streams of water squirted at withering lawns.
