Wild Town

by Jim Thompson

  He looked around wildly. He saw the empty bottles on the floor, and had no memory of how they had got there.

  Ted and Ed, he thought. It was they who had done this to him. They’d been after him to stop drinking, and now—

  “Kill ’em,” he mumbled fiercly. “Kill ’em, kill ’em, kill ’em. I—I got to have something. I—I GOT TO HAVE—”

  Staggering into the kitchen, he pawed frantically through the cupboards. He went from room to room, jerking out drawers, knocking over furniture, upturning cushions and mattresses. In the bathroom medicine cabinet, he found a pin bottle of rubbing alcohol. He clutched it to his breast and staggered back into the kitchen.

  He set a small pan on the work shelf. He held a stack of bread over it, started to filter the alcohol through the bread. And his hand jerked convulsively, crashing the bottle against the wall.

  He screamed, sobbed, over the terrible loss. For a moment he was too dispirited and hopeless to go on. Then he jerked open the refrigerator, and began jerking out its contents.

  There was nothing in it. Nothing, Westbrook thought angrily, but crap: food. The bastards! Oh, those fiendish, sneaky bastards! They’d loaded their refrigerator with eggs and butter and milk and cream, and steaks and roasts and—dozens of worthless items. And not a lousy, wonderful drop to drink.

  “Kill ’em,” Westbrook babbled. “Kill ’em. If it’s the last thing I ever do. I’ll—I’ll—”

  Back in the rear of the refrigerator, concealed until now by a bag of grapefruit, was a bottle. A jug-like, gift-type carafe filled with a chocolately liquid. It would be syrup, of course. They had guessed that he would be dying, by now, and had planned this ultimate and unbearable disappointment to shove him over the brink.

  Westbrook thrust his head inside the refrigerator, scraping his ears in the process. Squinting, the print wavering and blurring before his eyes, he read the label on the bottle.

  Creme de Cacao! A full fifth—minus a sip or so—of seventy-proof liqueur!

  Westbrook let out a low moan. He started to grab for it; then, remembering the horrible accident with alcohol, he held a pan against the shelf, and raked the bottle into it. He put the pan on the floor. He tilted the bottle on its side, and pulled the cork.

  There was a gentle gurgle, a rich brown flow. Whimpering, Westbrook reached for a teacup. He wasn’t risking the loss of a drop of this. They might fool him once, by God, but they couldn’t do it twice. He’d get it all out into the pan, an—

  The flow stopped. Something inside the bottle had lodged in its neck. Westbrook moaned piteously. Somehow, he managed to nip the obstruction between a trembling thumb and forefinger, and yanked it out.

  The wonderful gurgling resumed. Westbrook tilted the bottle, cautiously assisting the flow. Finally, his patience exhausted, he snatched it up, shook out the few remaining drops and hurled it into the corner.

  And then, at last, he drank.

  He drank two full cups, one after the other. Cheeks puffed, eyes bulging, he shuddered violently. He sighed and leaned back against the refrigerator, breathing in long, deep, grateful breaths.

  He got a cigarette lighted. Picking up the pan—and he could trust his hands now—he started to fill his cup again.

  Something plopped into it. The object that had stopped up the neck of the bottle. Gingerly, he got it between two fingers, examined it frowning.

  It wasn’t a cork, as he had thought. It was a small balloon, stuffed tightly with something, and its end closed with a rubber band.

  A premonitious shiver ran through Westbrook. He wiped the thing off with his handkerchief, wiped his fingers clean, and ripped open the balloon.

  The “stuffing” fell to the floor. It consisted of currency, a tightly rolled wad of five-hundred-dollar bills. He counted them, and a low yowl of mingled triumph and outrage spewed through his teeth.

  Outrage, yes. For while he didn’t know how they’d latched onto this dough, he knew damned well where it had come from. Dudley had been short five grand and here was five grand. And if they hadn’t stolen it from him—the selfsame sum that he had pinched—who had they stolen it from? And if it wasn’t stolen—laughable thought!—if it wasn’t too hot to handle, why had they hidden it so carefully?

  The questions were nonsensically elementary; their answers axiomatic to a man of Westbrook’s background. He thought of the terror and hopelessness he had lived in because of the theft, and his lips parted in another yowl.

  “Now, I am going to do it,” he vowed grimly. “Now, I will kill them!”

  There was a supply of clean shirts, underclothing and the like in his bedroom; and his suit, unworn since he had moved in here, was also cleaned and pressed. He bathed and shaved, dressed himself meticulously. He made and drank a pot of coffee, casually kicking the creme de cacao pan out of his way.

  Alcohol. Why had he ever wanted the stuff? What could it give him that he didn’t have, or could easily get? Well, no matter. He didn’t want it now, and he had a strange conviction that he would never want it again.

  He finished the coffee. Then he began prowling through the apartment; looking in closets and on shelves. Studying various maneuverable objects.

  He took his time about it, and at last he found exactly what he was looking for: a heavy wooden rod, some three inches in circumference and approximately four feet long.

  It was installed in a closet where it served as a clothes hanger rack. Ripping it out, he took a few practice swings with it, and grimly satisfied, returned to the living room.

  This would do the trick, he thought. He wouldn’t quite kill those bastards, but he’d make them think they’d been killed. He’d—

  “God!” he said suddenly. “God!”—he flung the pole from him. “What’s the matter with me? What’s been the matter with me?”

  And when the Gusicks arrived from work, he only talked to them.

  There was nothing funny about theft, he said. It was not amusing or shrewd or sharp, ever to inflict pain or loss upon another. And it was the job of everyone—not just the individual affected—to see that no one suffered preventable pain or loss. You had to do it. Otherwise you had no peace; you had constantly to keep your guard up. And when you wearied, as you inevitably must, you got it in the neck yourself.

  He liked them, he went on. In many ways he was deeply indebted to them. They were sharp and on their toes—and he liked that. But if they were to work under him again, they had better be sharp in the right way. And he hoped he’d made it clear what the right way was.

  That was what he said, in substance. Having said it, and clutching the money tightly in his pocket, he returned to the hotel.

  But this, as had been indicated, was days after Dudley’s death.

  And the fate of Bugs McKenna—and various other parties—had already been settled.

  13

  There was nothing incriminating in Rosalie Vara’s purse, and nothing on her personally. He had searched her briefly but efficiently—and God, how he hated himself for it now!—and all he had found in her clothes was Rosalie.

  She had gone to the post office for an entirely innocent reason, and the evidence was in his hands. He went on staring at it, the postcard he had found in her purse; feeling stupider and stupider, feeling his face grow redder and redder. He didn’t know what to say to her. He was afraid to look at her. So he kept his eyes on the card:

  Dear Rose:

  Sure was glad and surprised to get your telephone call today, and sure wish I could see you. But like I told you, I had to check with my boss, and he says he is going to need me straight on through until six o’clock. So unless you’re going to be in town that late, I guess we can’t get together. Sure sorry Rose. Let me know a little more ahead of time when you’re coming over again. Love, Ella Mae.

  Bugs could stare at the card no longer. Awkwardly, he laid it in her lap; gave her a sidewise miserable glance. She was wearing a crisp linen suit, with a starched white shirtwaist. Her small, beautifully arched feet were
shod in high-heeled canvas-like pumps. A wisp of a hat, pert and attractive but with the indefinable stamp of the homemade, perched atop the glossy smooth-lying thickness of her coal-black hair.

  It was a cheap outfit, very low-priced at least. Charming and chic only because she wore it, and because of the hours that must have gone into its selection and preparation.

  And this was supposed to have been his blackmailer! This was supposed to be a common tart, a gal who would hustle a fast buck in a guy’s bedroom! This, this quietly good-mannered young woman who was so honest that she announced, unnecessarily and to her undeniable disadvantage, that she was a Negro!

  Well, sure. The postcard didn’t absolutely establish her innocence. She might have planted it herself, suspecting that he intended to trap her. She might have, could have, but he knew damned well she hadn’t. Everything about her contradicted the theory.

  She’d liked him, as he had liked her. Right from the beginning. So she had accepted his invitation, got herself all tyked out in her Sunday’s best, tried to arrange a meeting with her girlfriend, thus tactfully freeing him of any necessity to entertain her. And he had repaid all this by—

  “Rose,” he said. “I wish I could tell you how sorry I am, Rosie.”

  “It’s q-quite all right.” Her lips trembled. “After all, you don’t have to apologize or explain to anyone in my position. You can do anything you want to, and if they don’t like it—”

  “Don’t. Don’t, Rosie,” he begged. “You know I’m not like that.”

  “W-well. I certainly never thought you were. I thought…s-something awfully foolish, I guess. That, you asked me to come with you as a mark of respect. T-that you were saying we were f-friends, and you weren’t ashamed to—to—”

  Her eyes brimmed. Sobbing, she turned suddenly, and buried her face against his shoulder.

  “I f-feel so dirty. So degraded. Like there was just no use in—in—”

  “You mustn’t.” Bugs patted the small square shoulders. “I was just gagging, see? I mean, a guy’s been pulling a gag on me, and I thought maybe—”

  “…t-took me back to something I thought I’d forgotten. To a time in Chicago years ago. A man struck up a conversation with me on a streetcar, and he seemed very nice. So—”

  The guy had gotten off the car with her. He’d grabbed her purse suddenly, and shoved a five-dollar bill into it. Kept possession of it while he whistled up a prowl car. A vice dick, yeah. One on the make like a lot of them were. So he’d fallen for her, he said. And if she’d like to stay out of the can, keep from getting a police record, why he was willing…

  Bugs listened hard-faced, sharing her heartbreak. He said again that the post office thing had been in the nature of a gag. He couldn’t explain it just now. But—

  “Aw, go on”—Lou Ford peered through the window. “Sounds like it’d be real amusin’.”

  Bugs gave a start, and Rose drew away from him quickly. Scowling, he snarled a question at the deputy.

  “What am I doin’ here?” Ford said. “Well, now, what would I be doin’ here? Banking some dough maybe? Investin’ some of my ill-gotten gains?…How does that sound to you?”

  “I’ll buy it!”

  “Like it, huh? Figured you probably would. Yes sir, I plain counted on it, and that’s a fact. But maybe that ain’t the real reason. I ain’t sayin’ it is or it ain’t, but let’s just suppose. Suppose I said I was here to keep an eye on you?”

  Bugs snorted, laughed hollowly. Ford beamed at him.

  “Like that even better, do you? Really rubs you on the funny bone. Well, maybe we ought to take it a couple hops further down the trail then. Let’s say the reason I was keepin’ an eye on you was because I thought you might do a runout. And the reason I thought that—let’s say—is because I thought you’d killed a guy and robbed him of five thousand dollars.”

  The deputy waited, grinning widely. He had the air of one who has sprung a delightful joke.

  “You don’t think that’s funny?” he said. “It don’t tickle you, a-tall?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bugs grunted. “Where’d you get the idea that Dudley had five thousand dollars?”

  “Well, it wasn’t too hard to come by. Hotel’s got lots of employees. Employees all got mouths. And I got a couple of ears, just in case you hadn’t noticed. They ain’t as good as yours maybe, don’t hear somethin’ that ain’t said, and—And I didn’t mention Dudley’s name, Bugs. I didn’t say it was Dudley that had the five thousand.”

  Bugs shrugged. He’d seen his mistake the second he made it. “Hell,” he said casually. “He’s the only guy that’s died recently that I know of. I figured you had to be talking about him.”

  “Yeah? Well”—Ford moved his head in a judicious nod. “Ought to give you an A for sharpness, anyhow. Or maybe an A-minus. Can’t hardly give you a perfect score when you ain’t introduced me to your lady friend.”

  “What makes you think she wants to be introduced to you?” Bugs snapped. But he curtly performed the introductions.

  Rosalie murmured a polite acknowledgement. Ford leaned further through the window, studying her interestedly.

  “Believe I’ve seen you before, ain’t I? Look a lot prettier in them street clothes, but—”

  “Thank you,” said Rosalie. “Yes, sir, I work at the hotel.”

  “Mmm-hmm. Night maid, right? Did you make up Dudley’s room when he was alive?”

  “No, sir. He worked days so his room would be done by one of the day maids.”

  “But you got up around that way at night. Could have dropped in on him easy enough.”

  “Yes, sir, I could have. But I never did. I had no reason to.”

  “Real sure about that? Sure you didn’t have about five thousand reasons to?”

  “Five thou—!” She gave him a startled look. “But—but, Mr. Ford. You surely don’ think that I—”

  “No, he doesn’t think it?” Bugs cut in angrily. “This is just his way of amusing himself. It gives him something to do between shakedowns.”

  Ford winked at him. He said maybe he’d give Bugs that A for sharpness after all. “But gettin’ back to the subject…Ever use any chloral hydrate, Miss Vara? I don’t mean did you ever take any personally. Just if you used it.”

  “Why, I—I don’t believe so. I’m afraid I don’t even know what it is.”

  “Well, maybe you don’t know it by that name. Maybe you’d call it knock-out drops, or—”

  “Knock-out drops? But how—w-why would I—”

  “You wouldn’t,” Bugs said, “and he knows it! Now, what are you getting at, Ford? What’s chloral got to do with Dudley?”

  “I didn’t tell you? Well, now I guess it plumb slipped my mind,” Ford drawled. “Dudley had a whoppin’ load of it in his innards. Enough to coldcock a cow. The doc figures it’d’ve killed him if he hadn’t gone out the window first.”

  “But—”

  “Kind of knocks the suicide idea in the head, don’t it? Makes everything as confusin’s as—excuse me, Miss Vara—all hell. There wasn’t none of the stuff in his room, so we know someone slipped it to him. But if they was gettin’ home that way, why bother with the window deal? They didn’t have to. The guy’d have been out cold inside of five or ten minutes and anyone who knew anything about chloral hydrate would know it.”

  “Well…” Bugs couldn’t think. A great burden had slipped from his conscience, and his one thought was that Dudley would have died regardless of the scuffle between them. “Well, I suppose this person, whoever he was—”

  “She, you mean, don’t you? It’s a woman’s weapon, and a woman’d have the best chance of slipping it to him.”

  “She, then. I’d say she pushed him out the window—if he was pushed—to cover up on the chloral. You know, to make it look like a suicide instead of murder.”

  “That’d make her pretty stupid, wouldn’t it? Even halfway bright, she’d know that an autopsy was a cinch.”

&nb
sp; “So she was stupid,” Bugs said. “So are a lot of people.”

  He had seen Amy at last, standing in a nearby doorway. He caught her eye, and she smiled uncomfortably, disclaiming connection with the situation with an embarrassed gesture.

  He looked away from her coldly, turning to Ford. “You don’t really suspect Miss Vara. You have no reason to. But she’s answered all your questions, and—”

  “Uh-uh. ’Fraid you’re wrong there,” Ford said. “Ain’t begun to ask ’em all.”

  “Then ask them back in Ragtown! Follow along behind us, if you want to but we’re leaving. I’ve had enough, by God! I’m not going to sit here while you pull your clown act on Miss Vara. And she’s not going to sit here and take it. We—”

  “You mean you don’t like sittin’ here?” Ford’s eyebrows went up. “Well, now, I thought it was right comfortable. But o’course if you’d rather go down to the jail…That’s right, yep,” he nodded, “You’re still in my county.”

  “But—” Bugs choked up with fury. “What’s it all about, for God’s sake? Why are you—”

  “Now, dogged if it don’t look like you’re gettin all excited,” Ford said. “Miss Vara, maybe we ought to do our talkin’ out on the walk.”

  “She’s not doing any more talking. We’re going,” Bugs said.

  “Wouldn’t be much point to it. Doubt if you get six blocks before a squad car brought you back. Hardly figure it’s worth doin’, do you, Miss Vara?”

  Rosalie didn’t answer him. She simply opened the door quickly and got out. Ford strolled around the car and joined her on the walk.

  “Now which-all rooms do you make up at night, Miss Vara? Besides Mr. McKenna’s, that is.”

  “Well, the other night workers sleep out, so his would be the only one I do regularly. But there are always a few others—not always the same ones on the same nights—that I occasionally make up.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Hanlon, for example. Mr. Hanlon particularly. He frequently doesn’t go to sleep before morning because of the pain he’s in, and…”