He saw the smoke first, a curling black column beyond a slight rise. As he drove toward the marker, very slowly now, the building came into view by degrees, vertically, like an approaching ship at sea. A high mansard roof, a row of dormer windows, then the square, block-like façade of the old frame structure, from the top down, a row of high, narrow windows at each of three floors, ranked with geometric precision across the front and on the side that he could see from his angle on the through highway. Finally he could see the long porch across the front, a short, broad flight of steps descending to a drive that curved in a long, slow arc from the valley road. There was a stand of pine trees beyond the building. The road continued beyond the hotel, disappearing into more woodland.
Just short of the turn and marker, he stopped the car abruptly. A long, black Cadillac, with motor idling, sat on the hotel drive. He could see the pale puffs of the exhaust, slowly rhythmic. He put the car in reverse and backed straight down the road as far as the icehouse. From there, only the upward-drifting smoke from the hotel was visible. He glanced at the broad drive and it looked solid enough. He turned into it, drove fast toward the loading platform, then swerved to circle the building. The snow was soft on top but there was a hard crust underneath and it supported the light car.
He pulled in close to the rear wall of the building, where a loading chute and a row of oil drums formed a protected runway, largely clear of snow and invisible from the road. There were trees along the road between the icehouse and the corner where the valley road turned off to the hotel. He walked in ankle-deep snow, moving behind the trees, to the junction and looked down toward the hotel.
The car was still drawn up in front of the long porch. There were no others in sight. Mickey stood in the snow that drifted into his shoes, slowly soaking his feet, and waited. Five minutes passed. The front door of the hotel opened and a woman in a fur coat and shiny patent-leather boots came onto the porch. With her was a tall man in an overcoat and white scarf, carrying a suitcase. They stood for a few seconds on the porch, then moved down to the Cadillac. The one with the suitcase helped the woman into the front seat under the wheel, then put the suitcase on the back seat. He closed both doors and leaned into the front window for a moment, then stepped back. The car rolled slowly down the drive to the road. The woman put out a gloved hand and waved and the man in the overcoat waved in reply. Then he turned and went back up the steps and into the hotel.
Mickey walked back behind the trees toward the icehouse, watching the road, keeping out of sight. He got a look at the woman as the big car passed. She was around forty, he guessed, and good-looking in a severe way, with a straight nose, and a small, tight mouth. She looked neither right nor left as she drove.
Mickey got into his car and drove slowly toward the road, stopping short of it. He looked down toward the canyon, but the big car had wound out of sight, though he could still hear it. He waited till the last of the sound had died away, then turned into the road, turned again at the junction and drove to the Peabody Hotel. He parked on the drive and climbed the steps. There was a bell forged by a blacksmith from heavy iron bars, with another bar to strike it with. He rang, lightly at first, waited and rang again. He waited a couple of minutes and the door opened. The tall one, without the overcoat and scarf, looked out at him. He seemed startled, but no more than that. Mickey gave him a long chance to look him over. His own pulse was pounding in his temple like a powered hammer. His hands in his pockets opened and clenched tight.
Because it was him, all right. It was Lou Roberts.
CHAPTER 10
He looked back at Mickey without recognition. He was neither friendly nor hostile, but seemed annoyed. Mickey waited for him to speak.
What he finally said was, “Yeah?”
“I need a room for the night,” Mickey said.
“A room—look, it’s practically Christmas.”
“You mean you’re closed?”
“Yeah—this time of year? Well, not exactly closed, but nobody comes up here in the winter.”
“Well, I happened to come up to look over some property, and I figure it will be late before I start back. So I don’t feel like driving down that canyon after dark and they told me down below I could put up at your place.”
Roberts frowned past him, then shouldered the door open reluctantly. “We’ve got the room, I guess, if you don’t mind the service. I’m all alone here for a couple of days.”
“All I need is a bed,” Mickey said.
He walked into a large entrance hall, high-ceilinged, with a handsome staircase winding up to the second floor. Beyond the staircase was a hall leading to the rear of the building. There was a waist-high counter in one corner with a bank of open mail slots behind it. A sign carved in polished wood read: “PEABODY HOTEL—ELIZ. PEABODY, PROP.”
Roberts led the way to the desk, where he went behind the counter and shuffled through some odds and ends as if he didn’t know what to do with them. There was a small desk set with a pen and clips to hold registration cards, but there were no cards in place.
“Not my end of the business,” Roberts grumbled. “I don’t know where in hell she keeps the stuff.”
Mickey took out his wallet.
“What’s the rate?” he said.
Roberts shrugged impatiently.
“I don’t know. Single rates in the summer are ten dollars a day.”
Mickey tossed a ten-dollar bill on the counter.
“It’s worth it to me not to have to drive down tonight,” he said. “Nobody knows I’m here. Forget the red tape.”
Roberts dropped the bill into a drawer.
“You got any luggage?” he said.
“One bag,” Mickey said. “I can handle it.”
He walked outside. He got his suitcase out of the back of the car and when he got to the porch with it, Roberts opened the door for him.
“It’ll have to be a room at the back,” he said, turning to the stairs. “We can’t keep the whole place heated all winter.”
“Sure,” Mickey said.
He carried his own bag, following Roberts up the winding stair. There were intersecting halls on the second floor, with rooms along the outside wall from front to back and on both sides of the transverse hall, front and rear. Roberts led him toward the back to the fourth room down the hall. When he opened the door, a draught of cold air swirled around them.
Roberts went in ahead and, stooping, turned on a large steam radiator. It hissed and banged metallically. Mickey set his bag on a luggage rack in front of a high window. The shade was drawn and when he raised it, he looked out over the valley to the near mountains, high and snow-covered. The scattered pines in the valley were filled with snow and among them he could see cabins, half buried.
The road that ran past the hotel continued for some distance and he lost sight of it among the trees. On the slopes rising from the valley he saw more of the old mine shafts such as he had noticed in the canyon.
“It’ll take a while to warm up,” Roberts said. “You better wait downstairs. About time for lunch.”
“All right,” Mickey said.
Roberts was wearing a richly embroidered Western shirt, black slacks and loafer shoes. He stood slightly taller than Mickey, was well set up, with black, wavy hair and brown eyes.
A gigolo, Mickey thought. A real ladies’ man.
He took off his gloves, pushed them into his coat pocket, took off the overcoat and laid it over his suitcase. Roberts looked at him with some curiosity as they left the room, but no trace of recognition showed in his eyes.
“I didn’t know there was any property for sale up here,” he said, as they went downstairs.
“The owner didn’t want it spread around,” Mickey said, “until we could make a deal. I told him I’d just look around.”
On either side of the lobby, glass-paneled double doors opened into adjoining rooms. To the left at the foot of the stairs, Mickey saw a small shop stocked with fishing tackle and souvenirs. Beyond th
e store was a barbershop with a single chair.
On the right, the doors gave onto a small tavern and cocktail lounge. Roberts led him in there.
“I don’t know how good you’ll eat,” he said, “but the bar’s open twenty-four hours a day.”
It was a warm, comfortable room. Above the small back bar was an antique harness yoke and a mounted elk’s head. There were some large leather armchairs and a leather sofa with a curving back rest. There were a few tables with casual chairs. The bar featured a brass rail; there were no stools. The lounge occupied the front corner of the building, and toward the rear another set of doors opened onto a dining room. In the dim light, Mickey saw bare tables with chairs stacked on top of them.
There was a fireplace in the lounge and Roberts picked a log from a well-stocked wood box and tossed it onto a bed of slow-flickering coals. A fountain of sparks filled the firebox momentarily and the wood crackled and snapped, igniting.
Roberts offered a drink and Mickey declined. He sat down in one of the armchairs, facing the fire, and propped his wet feet on the hearth. He watched Roberts pour a generous slug of whisky into a squat, thick glass.
“Miss Peabody isn’t here?” Mickey said.
“She had to go to Denver for a couple of days,” Roberts said. “She’s got folks there.”
Mickey shifted his feet on the hearth. He could feel his shoes stiffening as they dried.
“How old a woman is Miss Peabody?” he said.
Roberts was pouring himself another slug.
“She’s not too old,” he said.
Mickey waited for him to expand on the reply, but nothing more came. He wasn’t discouraged. It would come. It would all come, even the worst of it…
* * * *
They sat over steak sandwiches, potato chips and whisky in the tavern. Mickey wasn’t hungry, but the meat was edible and he chewed on it doggedly, now and then taking a sip of the whisky. From time to time he was aware of Roberts studying him.
“Funny time of year to look at property up here,” Roberts said.
“It was the only time I could get away before spring.”
“What business you in?” Roberts asked.
“I travel.”
“Spend any time in Denver on the way up?” Roberts asked.
“A couple of weeks. I had business there.”
“Money business, or monkey business?”
“Some of both.”
Roberts chuckled with approval.
“If you’re going back that way,” he said, “I can give you some numbers.”
“Okay,” Mickey said.
They finished the meal and Mickey helped carry the dishes back to the kitchen through the vast, cold dining room. In the lounge again, they sat by the fire and Roberts drank some more.
“Denver’s not bad,” he said reflectively, “but, man, that Kansas City. That’s the greatest.”
“You spent time there?” Mickey said.
“Yeah. There are girls in Kansas City—anything. Anything you want, you know? People talk about Las Vegas. Hell, it’s nothing.”
“You spent time in Las Vegas too?”
“Long time. Too long.”
That’s where he got that suntan, Mickey thought, and probably those Western clothes, too.
“Don’t you get lonesome up here, with no girls?” Mickey asked.
“When that time comes, I’ll move,” Roberts said. “It’s not exactly no girls. There’s Liz.”
“Oh,” Mickey said. “I forgot.”
It was about two o’clock. Mickey stretched and got up and looked out the front window. The weather hadn’t changed since before lunch. It was gray, cold, but quiet.
“I don’t know anything up here,” he said. “You feel up to showing me around some?”
“Outside?”
“Just up the road a ways. I’ll pay a guide’s rates. Don’t want to be out long.”
Roberts shifted his long form indolently.
“I guess I got enough whisky in me to stand it for a while,” he said. “Better get your coat. From now on, it won’t get any warmer out there.”
* * * *
From the porch, Roberts, in a heavy leather jacket, ear muffs and boots, looked dubiously at Mickey’s small car.
“Better take the Jeep,” he said. “You can run yours in the garage.”
“All right,” Mickey said.
A drive ran along the east side of the hotel to a large building at the rear. Roberts walked back to open the doors, while Mickey got the small car started and drove it into the garage. The interior was spacious, but much of it was taken up with stored furniture and household effects. There was an empty slot where the Cadillac had been parked and against the wall stood a Jeep, its top removed.
It took a few minutes to get it started and warmed up. Mickey waited outside till it backed out, then closed the big doors and climbed in beside Roberts. They turned slowly onto the drive, the Jeep protesting but making it all right when they hit soft snow.
“Which way?” Roberts shouted, as they reached the road.
Mickey pointed west, toward the woodland. Roberts shrugged, put the Jeep in gear and turned in that direction. The road had been scraped recently, but lay under several inches of snow. Where the crust had softened, the heavy Jeep broke through and the ride was rough.
They passed cabins on both sides of the road. All were deserted, their windows sealed with heavy shutters.
“Nobody up here at all?” Mickey said.
“Nearest person,” Roberts shouted, “is four miles up the road.”
The road dipped entering the woods and the snow was deeply drifted. The Jeep sank in to the tops of the wheels, slid, lunged and came out of it, grinding. On the level again, they wound for half a mile through a miniature forest of pine and aspen, with cabins set far back in clearings.
They came out on a shallow slope strewn with snowcapped boulders and a few stunted pines. Ahead, he could see how the road began to climb sharply into the mountains. At the far edge of the slope, the road forked. One branch wound off along a ledge of rock toward the north; the left fork continued roughly straight ahead. Roberts, with a kind of dogged hospitality, pushed the Jeep hard through the ruts to the fork.
“Only place to turn around,” he said.
He swung onto the right branch and stopped. Roberts waved his arm.
“That’s about it,” he said. “You find the property you’re interested in?”
“I think so,” Mickey said. “I don’t know if I’m interested.”
In the triangle formed by the road fork was one of the old mine shafts, a square, timbered entrance into an outcropping of rock. Snow was banked shallowly at the entrance. A broken, narrow-gauge railroad track emerged from it. A rusted ore car sat on the track. Miscellaneous debris was scattered here and there.
“Isn’t it kind of dangerous for kids, with those old mines?” Mickey asked.
“I don’t know,” Roberts said. “I never fooled around in them.”
He reached behind the seat and brought up a heavy-duty flashlight about a foot long.
“You want to take a look,” he said, “go ahead. I’ll wait.”
Mickey took the flashlight, climbed down and walked up to the mine tunnel, staying clear of the ore car as he passed. He had to stoop slightly to enter. As soon as he passed the outer portal, it was dark. He switched on the light and saw that a half-rotted timber had fallen at one end and partially blocked the entrance. Debris was scattered over the floor. A segment of the railway had been broken and lay in twisted fragments.
He could see that the shaft ran level for some distance, then dropped off. Timbers were laid vertically at intervals against the rough rock walls and anchored to crossbeams overhead. The air in the shaft was damp, with an odor of rusted metal and rotting wood.
As he approached the drop-off, he saw it was the result of a cave-in. The tracks continued beyond a ragged hole some ten feet across. He walked to the edge cautiously and threw
the light beam downward. The hole was maybe fifteen feet deep. Timbers and pieces of twisted track had fallen into it, along with other debris. He picked up a rock and dropped it into the hole. It banged dully on a timber and came to rest. He looked at it for a minute, then turned and made his way out of the shaft. Despite the grayness of the day, he found himself blinking against the sudden whiteness of the surrounding snow.
Roberts was waiting for him in the Jeep. He gunned the motor suggestively as Mickey approached. Mickey put the flashlight away behind the seat and climbed up.
“Very interesting,” he said. “Never saw one of those before.”
Roberts backed the Jeep carefully along the ledge and into the other branch of the fork.
“Lot of guys put a lot of sweat in those holes,” he grunted, “and for nuthin’.”
“That’s the way it goes,” Mickey said.
He pushed back his overcoat sleeve and looked at his watch. He found himself pressing hard with both feet against the floorboards of the Jeep.
CHAPTER 11
They put the Jeep away and closed the garage. Roberts didn’t bother to lock it. In the lobby, Mickey said he thought he would go up to his room and change his wet shoes, take a rest.
He opened his suitcase and took out a pair of dry socks; set his shoes on the radiator to dry. He draped his overcoat over a stiff-backed leather chair and sat down. After a while he got up, unlatched his door and left it barely ajar. Then he returned to the chair and sat with his hands on his thighs, waiting.
Gradually the room darkened. He had looked at his watch once, at three-thirty. The next time he looked it was a quarter to five and he could hear Roberts coming upstairs. The footsteps reached the top of the staircase, hesitated, then went on briefly. Mickey heard a door open toward the front of the hall.
He waited another half hour. From time to time he could hear the sounds Roberts made in the room down the hall. At five-fifteen, the door opened down there and he heard Roberts go down the stairsat waiting for another five minutes. The room was dark now and he could see a thread of dull light along the edge of the doorjamb, light coming from downstairs. Then he heard music, a hi-fi record player, booming loud for a few moments until the volume was adjusted and it faded to a steady, distant rumble.
The Noir Novel Page 10
