Richard Marsten - Vanishing Ladies

I have to admit that when his call didn’t come at midnight, I began to get a little worried. I’d talked to Simms in his room as soon as I’d finished dinner and checked in. Simms told me that Lois and a redhead had boarded the 9.44 a.m. train to Davistown. From the way the stationmaster had described the redhead to him, and from the way Simms in turn described her to me, she couldn’t have been anyone but Blanche.

I’d seen Blanche in town at about two in the afternoon at the restaurant. If she’d gone to Davistown that morning, she had high- tailed it back in a hurry. And apparently without Lois. Simms was all for scouring the town until we turned up Blanche. I asked him to wait until the call from Mitchell came, and he agreed that would be the best course to follow.

I left him in his room at 11.30. I gave him my room number in case anything important came up, and I told him I’d go back upstairs to him as soon as I heard from Tony. Then I went down to wait. Midnight came too fast. Tony is a punctual guy, and when that phone didn’t ring at midnight, I began to have my first doubts. At 12.15, the phone still hadn’t rung.

Someone knocked on the door instead.

‘Who is it?’ I called.

‘Bellboy, sir,’ the voice answered, and I fell for the oldest gag in the universe and opened the door.

Tex Planett was standing in the corridor. Two deputies I’d never seen were standing behind him. The last time Planett and I had met, he was wearing his .45 in a side holster. This time, he was wearing it in his fist.

‘What for?’ I said.

‘Want to talk to you in my office.’

‘What for?’

Planett shrugged. ‘Suspicion of burglary. How’s that? Get your coat.’

I moved toward my jacket on the bed. Sandy’s revolver was in the inside pocket of that jacket.

‘Hold it, Colby,’ Planett said. He gestured to one of the deputies, and the deputy went to the jacket, frisked it for about half a second, and found the gun. He handed the gun to Planett, and the jacket to me.

‘ Now put it on,’ Planett said.

I shrugged into the jacket.

‘Where’s your pal?’ he asked.

For a moment, I thought he meant Mitchell, and my hopes rose slightly. ‘What pal?’ I said.

‘Simms. We were just up to his room. He’s not there.’

‘I don’t know where he is.’

Planett smiled. ‘We’ll find him. One of us is sure to find him. Come on.’

We went down to the waiting police car. The town seal was painted on the side of the car. The car was blue with an orange top. It was, at that hour, the loudest thing in Sullivan’s Corners. We drove to Planett’s office. When we got there, he didn’t bother booking me. He took me straight to the cell block, opened one of the cells, and then locked it behind me.

He was starting off when I called him back.

‘What’s the story, Planett?’

‘The story? No story, Colby.’

‘Why am I here?’

‘You’re waiting for somebody. As soon as I make a phone call, somebody’ll pick you up.’

‘Who?’

Planett smiled.

‘And when I’m picked up, where do I go?’

Planett smiled again.

‘Come on, what’s the story?’

‘The story is simple. We don’t want D.A. trouble. We don’t want State’s Attorney trouble, either. We like the setup the way it is. Sometimes things happen that can foul up a situation. We take care of those things. Simple?’

‘Simple. What happens to me?’

‘I think you die, Colby,’ he said flatly.

‘Just like that?’

‘Just like that.’ Planett smiled. ‘It’s nothing personal, believe me. A setup has to be protected. I earn about $30,000 a year. That’s not so much. A man needs a setup.’

‘I earn $25,000 a year,’ I said, ‘and I don’t have any setup.’

Planett shrugged. ‘You’re the one’s going to die — not me.’

‘All this to cover a whorehouse?’ I asked.

‘All this to cover a murder,’ Planett said, and he wasn’t smiling any more. He turned and started off down the corridor. He unlocked the door at the end, and I watched him, and then he began backing into the corridor again, and he puzzled me for a moment until I saw what he was backing away from.

Johnny Simms was coming through the door. Johnny Simms had a fire ax in his hands. Planett was reaching for the .45 at his hip when Simms swung. He swung as if he were about to fell a tree, except that he used the broad flat side of the ax. His aim was true. He caught Planett on the side of his head, and Planett slammed sidewards into the corridor wall, and then collapsed like a dish rag. Simms stooped and pulled the ring of keys from Planett’s belt. He unlocked the cell door, and I said, ‘You might have killed him.’

‘Maybe I did,’ Simms answered. He grinned. ‘You should see his two deputies out there. I caught them in the middle of a card game.’

‘Where’d you get the ax?’

‘In the hotel corridor, alongside a fire hose. I was coming down to your room when I saw Planett and his boys. I didn’t think he was taking you here for a piano recital.’

‘Where’d you learn to use that ax that way?’

‘I was a Marine,’ Simms said. ‘Remember?’

‘I remember.’ I stooped down and pulled Sandy’s gun from Planett’s belt. Then I yanked the .45 from his holster and handed it to Simms. ‘This should feel familiar to a Marine.’

He took the gun. ‘It does.’

‘Come on.’

We passed through the outer office. The deputies had been playing poker. One of them had obviously been trying to fill an inside straight. He had filled a knock on the head instead.

‘My car’s down the street outside the hotel,’ I said. ‘Let’s get it.’

‘Where we going?’ Simms wanted to know.

‘To the motel.’

‘Good.’

We were walking rapidly, our heels clicking on the sidewalk of the silent town. I turned to Simms. ‘There may be trouble.’

‘I’m just itching for trouble,’ he said. ‘Can’t you tell?’

‘I mean big trouble.’

‘Lois is gone,’ Simms said simply. ‘That’s the biggest trouble I can imagine.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Come on.’

When we reached O’Hare’s convertible I started the engine and then reached for a knob on the dash. ‘You may get chilly, but I’m putting the top down,’ I said. ‘I want to be able to get in and out of this thing in a hurry.’

‘All right,’ Simms said. He watched the top as it folded back over his head. Then he looked up at the sky. ‘It looks like rain.’

‘Yes,’ I said as I pulled away from the curb.

We didn’t talk much on the way to the motel. When we got there, the grounds were pitch black. I kept the headlights up, splashing across the office door. ‘There’s a flash in the glove compartment,’ I said to Simms. ‘You’d better get it.’

I drew the .38 and went to the door. I banged on the door with the gun butt. There was no answer. Simms was out of the car, splashing light on the ground with the flash.

‘Tire tracks here,’ he said. ‘Leading into the woods.’

I walked over to where the flash made a circle of light on the soft earth just off the gravel court.

‘Truck tires,’ I said.

‘Want to check it?’

‘Yes.’

Simms walked ahead of me, the flash in his left hand, the .45 in his right. The truck had made big ruts in the soft earth. It wasn’t a difficult trail to follow.

‘There she is,’ Simms said.

The truck sat in a clearing ringed with tall pines. The air smelled good. There was no moon and no stars, and the sky was sown with rain clouds, but the pines smelled antiseptic and the silence was pure. The truck sat like a brooding prehistoric monster. Simms splashed the light onto the tailgate.