He left.
“You didn’t answer the phone,” I said. “Or the door.”
“Answer the phone?” She looked at me as if I’d gone completely crazy. “I never answer the stupid telephone when I’m working. I don’t even hear it. What do you want, anyway? I thought the radio news this morning said you’d been cleared of that murder charge.”
“I was,” I said. “But I wanted to see you again. And tell you that you were right about every bit of it.”
“All right, all right.” She tore the sheet from the machine and rolled in a new one. “Now you’ve told me.”
“And thank you.”
“Ummmmhh?” she said, and the stick-against-a-picket-fence started again.
She had forgotten I was there.
I picked up a blank sheet of her paper, sat down at the coffee table in the living room, and wrote out a short note.
”Dear Suzy:
This is for the hat and coat. Thanks a million for everything. And I hope the Southern girl who hides the injured Union soldier is just half as nice as you.
Irish.”
I took a hundred dollars from my wallet, dropped it on the note, weighted it with the ashtray, and went out. She didn’t even look up.
THE END
Man on the run Page 16
