Тэлмидж Пауэлл: The Girl’s Number Doesn’t Answer

“You’re pretty free with suggestions, Rivers. I expect to hear another any second.”

“And it’s a simple one, Ivey. Write into the record that she was forced into it, that she did it under duress.”

“Let her go free?”

“She won’t be free,” I said, “as long as Nick is in a cell. You won’t have to warn her or have any men watching her to keep her from leaving Tampa.”

Ivey thought about it briefly. “I can’t prove she left the cottage on the Point with him, unless one of them admitted it. If he happened to be alone when I picked him up, I wouldn’t have much of a case on her.”

“All right,” I said. Then I told him where Nick was.

Ivey’s knock sounded on the motel shanty door about twenty minutes later. Nick and I were alone in the place. I crossed the front room and opened the door.

Ivey came in, looked at me, then at Nick. He took off his Panama, wiped the sweatband with his fingers.

“Nick Martin?” Ivey asked.

“Yes,” Nick said.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

Nick rose slowly from the couch, picked up a small suitcase. Now that the moment was here, I could see the sinking sickness hit him inside. It showed in his eyes. He tried to grin it out. “Okay if I take my toothbrush?”

“Sure,” Ivey said.

Nick moved to the door, his tall, spare body hunched. “Well, Ed—” He stood trying to keep the grin on his gaunt face, wiping the palm of his free hand on the thigh of his pants. He raised the hand, balled it into a fist, and chunked me on the shoulder. “Don’t forget how to duck, old son.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be seeing you.”

Nick looked at Ivey. “What are we waiting for?” He stepped into the courtyard and started toward the street.

I watched a uniformed cop get out of a patrol car parked at the curb. He opened the door of the car and Nick and Ivey got in.

The car pulled away, with Nick looking straight ahead.

I closed the cottage and went down the street to the restaurant where Helen was waiting. The place was narrow and gloomy. She sat in one of the crude wooden booths near the front.

I squeezed across the booth from her.

She sat twisting a paper napkin in her fingers. She looked at me with a dazed sorrow dulling her eyes. She didn’t need to ask questions, and she was determined not to make a display.

“It’s almost dinnertime,” I said. “Well go downtown to eat.”

“I’d rather find a place to stay first, Ed.”

“Okay.”

“Would you mind — getting my things from the motel? They’re all packed. I’d rather not go back.”

“It’ll only fake a minute,” I said.

I walked to the motel, picked up the two suitcases by the cottage door. I left the tagged key in the lock when I closed the cottage door from outside.

A young, squat, dark man in a rumpled sport shirt and slacks stepped from the manager’s cottage as I carried the bags toward the street.

“I saw the cop car,” he said. “What’s with the couple in number seven?”

“They won’t be back. The lady asked me to get her bags.”

“I dunno...”

“The lady is in the greasy spoon down the street if you want her O.K.”

“I guess I better.”

“They owe you anything?”

“Nah, but I don’t want any beefs about lost luggage.”

He shuffled along beside me toward the restaurant. “What’s with them, anyway? Why the cops?”

“They took a wooden nickel.”

“Smart guy, huh?”

“Just not talkative,” I said.

He followed me into the restaurant. Helen rose as I went toward her. The manager craned his neck to look her up and down.

“She’s accepted the luggage,” I said, putting the bags down and tapping him on the shoulder. “Now scram.”

He looked at my face and backed off, with a sneer of bravado forming on his lips. He walked out of the place with a tough, swaggering gait.

The Martin car took us apartment-hunting.

We found her a place on Florida Avenue. Downtown, the street is a main drag in the business district. As it pushes out mile by mile, stores, shops, and office buildings give way to garages, used-car lots, and one-time grand old gingerbread homes which have been converted to apartment buildings and rooming houses.

An ad in the classified section of the newspaper led us to a rambling, three-story white house. The apartment was small, but clean and comfortable — not bad for what Helen could afford to pay. It consisted of a tiny sitting room, a bedroom with a bay window overlooking the hustle and noise of the street, and a small kitchen with apartment-size refrigerator and gas stove. A pay phone was right outside the door in the hallway. I took note of the number.

When the placid, bovine landlady had completed her quiz, accepted Helen’s money, and plodded downstairs, I carried Helen’s bags into the bedroom.

“Sure you won’t eat downtown?” I asked.

“No, I’ll fix something here.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

“Thanks for everything, Ed.”

She was standing with her back to me, looking out the window.

I left quickly.

When a woman has reached the point where she must weep alone, she’s entitled to that much privacy.

I had a Cuban sandwich and a pint of cold beer for dinner.

Twilight came like a hot mist rising from the river. People dallied in cocktail lounges and restaurants. A fresh edition of one of the papers hit the street with Nick Martin’s picture on the front page.

I wondered if the fiend was still in Tampa to enjoy the photography — somewhere in a plush apartment, or a pink-and-proper stucco in a subdivision, or a vermin-ridden hole in West Tampa or Ybor City.

Relax, fiend. Take your first deep breath in two days.

It was the only hope I had at the moment. I wouldn’t think of the alternative — that he was eating in Atlanta, or hitching a ride in the Carolinas, or stoking the boilers in a freighter that had pulled out of Port Tampa for South America.

I made my way through the theater and windowshopping crowds on Franklin Street, went up to the office on Cass, and turned a light on.

I work for a big outfit, and there’s a routine I have to follow.

I took out the triplicate forms and filled them out. Employer’s name: Helen Martin. Nature of investigation: Husband arrested on suspicion of murder.

After I’d scrawled a signature that could be mistaken for Helen Martin’s, I took out my checkbook and eyed the balance. I work on a salary-commission setup. There was enough in the bank to pay a retainer for several days. Meantime, my salary-commission checks would be coming through. I could keep the financial cycle in motion for a considerable time until the home office cuts dried it up.

With the report ready for the mail, I went around the corner to the Journal building. Ed Price was on the city desk. We swapped our usual and obvious “Hello, Ed.”

“I want to see some files in your morgue,” I said.

“Library’s closed. Librarian goes home at five o’clock, Ed. You know that.” A tall, lean man, Price dropped a copy pencil on his desk, stood up.

I followed him out of the office, down the corridor. “What’s the story,” he asked.

“None yet.”

“The Yamashita thing?”

“You’re a close guesser.”

“Yeah, I’m a walking ouija board. You’re Nick Martin’s close friend. Today he surrenders. Somebody arranged that.” Price stopped before a heavy wooden door.

“I’m doing this for nothing,” he said.

“The Journal’s been my favorite paper in the past.”

“I know. Hence, the favor. You haven’t a chance in hell of helping Nick Martin. Under the setup you couldn’t even frame somebody else for the job.”