Vanishing Ladies

by Ed McBain

  “All right,” I said. I signed and then fished out my wallet. Barter went to the closet to get some towels. When he came back to me, my fourteen dollars was on the desk, and my wallet was back in my pocket.

  “I’m giving you twelve and thirteen,” he said.

  “Are they adjoining?”

  “Well, not exactly. Eleven and twelve are adjoining. Thirteen’s got a little driveway between it and twelve.”

  “Then give me eleven and twelve.”

  “Can’t. Somebody’s in eleven.”

  “Then give me thirteen and fourteen.”

  “Somebody’s in fourteen, too.”

  “All right,” I said, disgusted. “All right.”

  “If you want to start getting your stuff, I’ll take the towels up.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  We went out of the office and he trudged up the path with his flashlight and then a cabin light splashed on, and I saw the number “13” under the light and then Barter entered the cabin with his towels. I went to the car and leaned in, “Ann,” I whispered.

  “Mmmm?”

  “Ann, are you awake?”

  “Urhmmm,” she said.

  “Ann, I’ve got a place for us to stay the night.”

  “Good,” she said.

  “Do you want to get out of the car now?”

  Ann didn’t answer.

  “Honey?”

  Still no answer. I sighed, went around to her side of the car, opened the door, and then reached in for her. She hardly stirred when I picked her up. I braced myself, hiked her a little higher in my arms as soon as I was clear of the car, and then went up toward the cabins. Barter was just coming out of number 13.

  “Got it all tidied up,” he said. “Sheets was changed this afternoon, and I just now put clean towels in.” He looked at Ann, studying her hard. “Dead asleep, ain’t she?”

  “We’ve had a long trip,” I said.

  “Pretty girl,” he answered, his eyes never leaving her face. Then, “Why don’t you put her in 13? I’ll get 12 ready for you meanwhile.”

  “Fine,” I said. I climbed the steps and went into the cabin. It sported the same knotty-pine wallboard as the office. There were two windows and a bed and a maple dresser and a sink Hand a closet. I went to the bed, dropped Ann down on it, and then yanked the covers from under her. I noticed there was a kerosene burner in the cabin, but there seemed to be plenty of blankets on the bed, and I doubted if Ann would need the burner. I took off her shoes, left the cabin light on, and then went back to the car for her bags. She was still asleep when I returned to the cabin. I put both bags in the closets, and then I went to the bed. I propped her into a sitting position, unzipped her dress down the back and somehow managed to get her out of it, in spite of the fact that a sleeping girl is all dangling arms and legs. I left her in her half-slip and brassiere, pulling the blankets to her throat. I hung the white dress on a hanger in the closet. Her purse, which I’d taken from the car, I left on the dresser. I flicked out the light then and walked outside.

  Barter was standing just outside the cabin door, a leer on his face. The leer made me wonder just how long he’d been standing there.

  “All tucked in?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “All tucked in,” I said curtly, and I closed Ann’s door.

  “Your cabin’s ready now,” he said. I walked across the narrow gravel driveway which separated 12 and 13. Barter had-left the light on and I could see the clean towels he’d put on the rack near the sink.

  “Are those showers working?” I asked.

  “Running water all the time,” Barter said proudly.

  “Good. I’ll take one and then turn in.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said. He paused, then added, “Wear a robe to and from the shower, will you? I have other guests.”

  “Well,” I said, “I usually run around stark naked.”

  “Huh?” Barter asked.

  “Singing Christmas carols,” I added.

  “Well,” Barter said, completely unfazed by my highhanded attempt at wit, “here you got to wear a robe.”

  “It won’t be easy,” I said, and I left him worrying that one while I went to the car. I took my valise from the back seat, and I took O’Hare’s .32 from the glove compartment. Then I looked up and went back to number 12. Barter was gone. A light burning in the office told me where he was. I went into the cabin, closed the door, undressed, and then took a robe from the valise. I picked up a bar of soap from the sink, a towel from the rack, and then I put on a pair of loafers and started for the shower. The office light was out now, and there was hardly any moon. I found my way along the gravel path as best I could.

  The shower was a simple wooden coffin set on end. I opened the door, took off the robe and hung it outside with the towel, and then backed off while I experimented with the water. The cold water was frigid. The hot water was cold. I left the cold water off entirely, turned on the hot, and planned to make this a really quick wash. I was under the shower for about two minutes when I heard a truck starting in the woods somewhere behind the motel.

  The sound was unmistakably that of a truck, and I remember wondering what a truck was doing in the woods at that hour of the morning, but I didn’t give it too much thought. The truck hit the gravel and did a little maneuvering, and then it stopped and I heard a few doors slamming, and a few whispered voices, and then the truck headlights splashed across the door of the shower, illuminating the booth for just a moment. The driver threw the truck into second, navigating the small rise leading to the road, and then the wheel noises told me the truck had left the motel gravel for the dirt road. I kept listening. In a few minutes, the engine sound was just a hum, and then it faded completely.

  I rinsed off all the soap, opened the door a crack and pulled in the towel. There was a nip in the air, and the shower booth collected every draft in the neighborhood and left me shivering. I dried myself quickly and then pulled in the robe and got into it. I put on my loafers, then picked up the bar of soap and headed back for number 12. There wasn’t a light burning anywhere in the motel. On impulse, I stopped at cabin number 13, half-hoping Ann had awakened and would feel like talking a little. From outside the door, I whispered, “Ann?”

  There was no answer. I opened the door a crack and poked my head into the darkness. I couldn’t even see the bed, no less Ann.

  “Ann?” I whispered again.

  Again, there was no answer. Gently, I closed the door and walked across the driveway to my own cabin. I opened the door, reached inside for the light switch, and turned it on.

  I was closing the door behind me when I saw the girl on the bed.

  4

  You get used to hookers in the 23rd Precinct.

  You get used to them because they’re a part of the scenery. They roam all over the precinct. They sit in bars, and they stand on street corners or in hallways, and after a while you get to know everyone who’s hustling. “Hello, Ida,” you’ll say, or “Hello, Fritzie,” or like that. You watch them to make sure they don’t hustle in the bars because you can revoke a man’s license for that. You watch them, too, to make sure their old man isn’t a mugger who’s just looking for a sailor from downtown, a john with a few sheets to the wind. Prostitution in our city isn’t government-protected the way it is in Panama. But the vice cops don’t always overexert themselves and a lot of policemen feel that sex is a thing best let alone.

  The hookers in the 23rd Precinct don’t look at all like movie versions of “loose women.” They don’t wear skintight satin dresses, and they don’t plaster make-up all over their faces, and they don’t swing red purses, and they very rarely walk with suggestive wiggles. They’re usually pretty conservatively and stylishly dressed. They wear lipstick and once in a while some face powder. Generally, the younger ones look like clean-cut high school girls except when they’re dressed up to visit a friend downtown, on which occasions they accumulate years with the high-heeled pumps they don. Sex with the hookers i
n the 23rd is a business. You may find their talk a little rough because they speak of their business in terms which have become connected with it over the years—but only among themselves. With their gentlemen friends, their sex talk is usually refined and probably educational.

  I only mention the hookers in my precinct to point up a comparison.

  The girl on my bed, you see, in cabin number 12 at Sullivan’s Point was obviously a hooker.

  She was a redhead.

  Her face was ghastly white with the covering layers of make-up it carried.

  Her lips were a garish red, the lipstick extended above and beyond the lip line to exaggerate the size of her mouth.

  Her dress was extremely low cut so that her small breasts in their tight brassiere were bunched together and uplifted like crowded passengers in an ascending balloon.

  The dress was purple. It was not lavender, not violet, but purple. The brightest, gaudiest, shiniest purple I’d ever seen in my life.

  Her legs were crossed, and the dress was pulled to a few shades above her knees.

  She wore no stockings.

  She wore black patent high-heeled pumps with ankle straps.

  She jiggled one foot, and there was a gold ankle bracelet on that foot.

  If she was more than seventeen years old, I’d have been willing to eat all of Mike Barter’s gravel driveway.

  We looked at each other for a few minutes, and then she said, “Hi.” She drew out the word, gave it a throaty sound, tried to pack into that single word all the allure of Cleopatra floating down the Nile on a barge.

  “You’ve got the wrong cabin, haven’t you?” I said.

  “Have I?” she asked. She was still the femme fatale, throwing her curves with all the subtlety of a Little League pitcher.

  “I think so,” I answered. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t know what or who this little girl was, and I didn’t particularly care. I was sleepy. I wanted to go to bed. Alone.

  “I don’t think so,” she answered.

  “Well, I’d enjoy kicking the problem around with you,” I said, “but I’m really too tired to argue.”

  “Would you enjoy kicking it around with me?” she asked, a knowing smile on her mouth.

  “I think the best way to solve this,” I said, “is to run up to the office a minute. If you wandered into the wrong cabin …”

  “You look young,” the girl said, “but you can’t be that young.” She studied me for a moment. “I like blonds,” she added. “Blond-haired men send me.”

  She was still blithely unaware of the fact that I wasn’t interested, nor did she fully realize just how far I intended to send her.

  “Little girl,” I said, “I don’t think you un—”

  “Blanche,” she corrected, raising one eyebrow.

  “All right, Blanche. Why don’t you go home, Blanche?”

  “I want to stay here.”

  “So do I.”

  “That can be arranged.”

  “No, Blanche, it can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I snore. I’d keep you awake.”

  “That’s the whole idea,” she said.

  “Honey …”

  “See,” she said, leaping on the word, “you’re getting affectionate already.”

  “I’ll get so affectionate in the next ten minutes that I’m liable to kick you out of here on your ass.”

  Blanche giggled. “That sounds like fun.”

  “Look,” I said, “you’ve drawn a blank. Chalk it up to experience and go home.”

  “I’m staying,” she said flatly.

  “I’d hate like hell to really scare you,” I said.

  “Go ahead. Really scare me.”

  “I’m a cop.”

  She studied me levelly for a moment and then said, “Sure. And I’m a robber. Let’s play cops and robbers.”

  “Do I have to show the tin?”

  “The what?”

  I sighed heavily. “Blanche, let’s play this straight. I don’t know who steered you to this cabin, but whoever did made a mistake. I didn’t order anything. I’m not interested. I’m tired, I’m sleepy, I don’t like redheads, and I don’t like seventeen-year-old kids who should be home reading comic books. Now don’t force me to get tough, and don’t force me—”

  “I wouldn’t dream of forcing you,” she said coyly.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” I exploded.

  “Now you’re swearing.”

  “How old are you, Blanche?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m interested.”

  “I figured you’d eventually get interested. I’m over eighteen. Stop worrying.”

  “When were you born?”

  “What?”

  “When were you born?”

  Blanche chewed her lip while she did a little addition. “January of nineteen thirty-nine,” she said at last.

  “Give or take a few years.”

  “You’re a real worry wart. Have I asked you how old you are?”

  “Where do you live, Blanche?”

  “In town.”

  “Sullivan’s Corners?”

  “The Corners? I wouldn’t be caught dead in a Maiden-form bra there.”

  “Where then?”

  “Davistown.” She paused. “It’s a real big city.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “It is,” she said, suddenly sparking with adolescent rebellion. “How would you know? You ever been there?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Then okay.”

  “Okay.”

  “If we’re going to sit and talk, let’s make ourselves comfortable,” she said, her anger suddenly dissipating.

  “We’re not going to sit and talk,” I told her. “I’m going to sleep. You’re going home to that huge metropolis of yours.”

  “I couldn’t get there tonight if I wanted to. I haven’t got a car.” She reached behind her for the zipper on her dress.

  “Hold it right there, Blanche,” I said. I fished into my pocket and pulled out my wallet. I let it fall open to where my shield was pinned to the leather. Blanche studied it with mild interest.

  “A detective, huh?” she asked casually.

  “I said I was a cop.”

  “So what? Are you on duty?”

  “Twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Don’t give me that bull,” she said. She looked at the shield again. “You ain’t even from this state. You got no authority here.”

  “I imagine I can pull a little weight with the local police,” I said, remembering my earlier brush with the trooper and the j.p. and doubting my statement even as I said it.

  “You think so?” Blanche said, raising the eyebrow again, her voice edged with sarcasm.

  “I think so,” I bluffed.

  “What would you charge me with?”

  “Soliciting.”

  “Anybody in this room expose her privates?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “Then climb off your soapbox.” She paused and then grinned. “Your scare didn’t scare me. You’re a cop, okay. Ain’t cops human?”

  “We’re human.”

  “Good. Let’s start acting that way.”

  We both fell silent. I didn’t know what she was thinking, but I was trying to figure a new approach. I suppose I could have picked her up and thrown her out but she was, after all, a kid—and I’m not in the habit of knocking kids around.

  “Let’s take it from the top,” I said.

  “Let’s.”

  “One: what do you want here?”

  “I thought that was obvious.”

  “Two: how much?” The reason I asked this was simple. If I could establish her price, I was willing to give her the money to get rid of her.

  Blanche grinned. “First time, the treat’s on me,” she said.

  “Oh?”

  “It begins to sound interestinger and interestinger, doesn’t it?” she asked.

  “It begins to sound fish
ier and fishier,” I told her. “Why me?”

  “Why not? I told you. I like blond men.”

  “Blond cops?”

  “Blond men. Cops are men, same as any others.”

  “And your business is men, huh?”

  “My business is men.”

  “You’re a little young to be in business for yourself, aren’t you?”

  “American initiative,” she said. “Supply and demand. There’s a big demand.”

  “Then why give it away?”

  “Mister, you should never learn never to look a gift horse, you know what I mean?”

  “Sister,” I said, “you should learn about leading horses to water.”

  “Huh?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Good. I’m glad that’s settled.” She unzipped her dress and started shrugging out of it.

  “The minute that hits the floor, I dial the local cops,” I said.

  The dress hit the floor, and she stepped out of it, grinning. “Ain’t no phone,” she told me.

  She was surprisingly well-built. The tight dress had somehow made her look thinner than she actually was. She owned good hips and firm thighs, and since she hadn’t removed her high-heeled shoes her legs were long and shapely and tapering. She wore white cotton pants and a white cotton bra. Her flesh, below the neck, had a healthy glow to it. Her face, covered with make-up, looked sickly against it.

  “Nice?” she asked, still grinning.

  “Lovely,” I said. “Put on your dress and get the hell out.”

  “I’m staying,” she said. “Let’s get that straight. I’m not leaving. I’m sleeping in this cabin tonight.” She tossed her red tresses in the direction of the bed. “In that bed.”

  “My fiancée is in the cabin next door,” I said.

  “She scares me, too,” Blanche said.

  “She’s a big girl. She’s liable to be a little tougher with you than I care to be.”

  “I can handle big girls and big boys too,” Blanche said. She looked at me archly and said, “Admit it. I’m a nice package, ain’t I?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “And I came gift-wrapped. God, but some men are lucky.”

  “Go wash your face,” I said.

  “I always do,” she answered, and she wiggled over to the sink. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched her, somewhat bewildered. I honestly didn’t know what to do next. I was toying with the idea of taking a blanket and going to sleep in the woods outside. I was also fighting to keep my eyes open. The water splashed into the sink with monotonous regularity. Finally, Blanche began drying herself. When she pulled the towel away from her face, she looked more like fifteen than the eighteen she claimed. I began to feel like a father about to hear a recounting of his daughter’s evening at the junior high school prom.