Vanishing Ladies Page 4

  “Clean?” she asked.

  “Very clean.”

  “I hate that junk on my face.”

  “Then why do you wear it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. She seemed to be thinking this over for a moment. “What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Phil,” I said.

  “You don’t look like a Phil. There’s a Phil in Davistown but he’s a jerk. You look more like a … a Richard.”

  “That’s a good name,” I said.

  “Sure it is. Phil’s okay, too. Don’t take offense.”

  “I didn’t.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Well, here we are, Phil. Alone at last.”

  “Blanche,” I said, “you’re going to be very much alone in the next few minutes. I’m taking a blanket and going outside.”

  “You’ll get eaten up alive. We’ve got mosquitoes here that break the sound barrier.”

  “I’ll chance it.”

  “You’d be safer in here.”

  “I prefer the mosquitoes.”

  “We can work this out, you know. I’m really not that horrible.”

  “You’re very nice,” I said.

  “But?”

  “But I’m sleepy.”

  “I’ll let you sleep. Get undressed, go ahead. I won’t bother you.”

  “Why don’t you be a good kid and get out of here? Come on, huh? Let’s cut the nonsense.”

  “I can’t, Phil,” she said seriously.

  “Why not?”

  She looked at me hard and long, the guileless penetrating stare of a very young girl. And then she shook her head slightly and the grin came back, the hard grin of a professional prostitute. “Do you sleep in pajamas?” she asked, the eye-brow cocked. “I’ll bet you’re cute.”

  “You’re not leaving?”

  “Sorry,” she said, impishly.

  “I suppose I could go wake up Barter and tell him there’s a big grinning woodchuck in my cabin.”

  “If I know Mike, he’ll come join us,” Blanche said, grinning.

  “The boys back at the 23rd will never believe this,” I said, shaking my head. I sighed, got off the bed and then took one of the blankets from where it was folded near the foot. Blanche sidled over to the door and leaned against it. I turned with the blanket in my hands.

  “Let’s don’t play games,” I said.

  “Let’s do,” she answered.

  I took a few steps toward her. “Kid, I’m being very nice,” I said. “If you weren’t so young, and if I weren’t so kind, I’d kick you out just the way you are and give the mosquitoes a feast. I’m being nice, you understand? I’m leaving instead. I paid for this cabin, but I’m leaving. So don’t start playing games because I’m mighty damn tired and I’m liable to snap.”

  “You look good when you get sore,” Blanche said.

  “Get away from the door,” I said tiredly.

  “Make me,” she said, grinning.

  I didn’t grin back. “Get away from the door,” I said.

  Blanche tossed her head and grinned. I reached out for her, dropping the blanket. She ducked inside my extended hand then threw herself against me and wrapped her arms around my waist, locking her fingers behind me in the small of my back.

  “It’s not so bad when you get close to it,” she said. She lifted her face. “Why don’t you kiss me? My face is clean.”

  “Your mind isn’t,” I said. I reached behind me and broke the lock of her hands. She tried to reach the door again, but I sideswiped her with my arm, and she reeled back into the cabin. I picked up the blanket and headed for the door again.

  “You’re strong,” she said softly.

  “Good night,” I said.

  “Wait. Phil, please. Wait.” Her voiced sounded very small. I turned to face her.

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t … don’t go yet. Please.”

  “We’ve been through this already.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have … this isn’t right, what I’m doing.”

  “Damn right it isn’t.”

  “I guess … I guess I’m not so good at it. I should have … have made you want to stay.”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself,” I said.

  “Look, Phil … I … please, I have to talk to someone. Please stay a minute.”

  “Go ahead. Talk.”

  “Just like that?”

  “How else?”

  “Do you … do you have anything to drink?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. I … I thought I could use a drink.”

  “You probably can.”

  “Do you hate me?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “A little?”

  “Not even a little. My father taught me to look for good in people. It gets difficult sometimes, but I still try.”

  Blanche laughed a short, hard laugh. “Do you see anything good in me?”

  “I see a girl of sixteen or seventeen who’s in way over her head.”

  “I’m really eighteen, Phil.” Blanche paused. “Well, not really. I’ll be eighteen next month.”

  “You’re still in over your head. Why don’t you be smart about this, Blanche? Why don’t you go back to Davistown and get married and have kids and raise petunias?”

  “I don’t know if that’s what I want.”

  “Who sent you here tonight?”

  “I just came. Of my own accord.”

  “How’d you know I was in this cabin?”

  “I saw you when you went to the shower. So I came over.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where were you when you saw me going to the shower?”

  “Cabin number 3. That’s in the back.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “I took the cabin for the night.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted a place to sleep.”

  “What made you change your mind?”

  “About sleeping?” Blanche shrugged. “I saw you, I guess.”

  “And?”

  “And you looked nice. I figured I’d spend the night with you?”

  “Free?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long have you been hooking?”

  “About a year now.”

  “Why’d you start?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must be doing pretty well if you can afford to be so generous with your time.”

  “I told you. I liked you. I saw you and I liked you.”

  “I could hardly see my hand in front of my face out there. But you saw me and liked me, huh?”

  “I saw you when you stepped outside. In the light.”

  “That’s an amazing feat, considering the fact that I turned out the light before I left the cabin.”

  Blanche was silent.

  “Now what’s the real story?” I asked.

  “I … I was frightened,” she said.

  “Of what?”

  “Just the darkness, I guess. I saw you …”

  “We’re back to that again, huh?”

  “I saw you when you first pulled up, damnit!”

  “Then you know there’s a girl with me?”

  Blanche hesitated. “Yes,” she said at last. “I know there’s a girl with you.”

  “But that didn’t matter, huh?”

  “I figured she was your sister. Hell, she took a separate cabin.”

  “She’s not my sister. We’re going to be married.”

  “Anyway, I was frightened,” Blanche said. “When I saw you … you looked strong. So I came over. I thought … I thought you’d be glad to see me.” She paused. “Weren’t you even a little glad to see me?”

  “No,” I said flatly.

  There was the sound of a high-powered automobile outside. The headlights splashed across the cabin window. Blanche went to the window quickly. She watched for a moment. The
car cut its engine, and Blanche let the curtain fall.

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Go back to cabin number 3. Sleep well. In the morning if you’re still here, Ann and I will drive you to Davistown. How does that sound?”

  “I think my idea is better. Don’t I tempt you even a little?”

  “You try too hard,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she answered noncommittally. She chewed her lower lip, thinking. “Can’t we talk a little more? I hate to go back.”

  “If we talk a little more, it’ll be morning,” I said. “Come on, be a good kid.”

  “I suppose you’re right. Besides …” She was ready to say more, but she cut herself off.

  “You’ll leave?” I said.

  “Sure. I’m sorry if I caused you any trouble.”

  “No, not at all,” I said, hoping the relief wasn’t shining out all over my face. “Put on your dress, okay? Come on, get dressed.”

  Her dress was still lying on the floor, a limp puddle of purple passion. She scooped it up, dusted it off gingerly, and then said, “You sure? I’m a nice package.”

  “I’m sure you’re delicious,” I said. “But not tonight.”

  “Josephine,” she added, and then she giggled and pulled the dress over her head. She smoothed it down over her hips and her thighs, and then turned so that she was facing the wall which divided my cabin from cabin number 11 next door. With her back to me, she said, “Zip it up, will you?”

  I zipped up the back of her dress.

  She turned and backed away from me, moving closer to the wall.

  “Which way do I look better?” she asked. “With or without? Take your time. Examine it carefully.”

  I went along with the game. I studied her face, and then I let my eyes drop. When they reached her ankles, my eyes stopped. She was standing close to the wall, and I was more interested in what was happening at the base of that wall than in her ankles.

  Because close to the exact spot where the wall met the wooden floor, a red puddle was seeping from beneath the wallboards in a slowly widening circle.

  5

  “What’s the ma …?” Blanche started, and then she saw what I was looking at. Her face went white, almost as white as it had looked when it was plastered with make-up. Her hand went to her mouth, and I thought I’d hear a full-bodied scream, but no sound came from her throat. She moved away from the wall quickly, as if the spreading red smear were a Martian fungus which would envelop and destroy her.

  I walked to the wall quickly. I stooped down and touched the red smear with my fingers. It was sticky and cold. It seeped steadily from a crack in the wall, seeped steadily from cabin number 11.

  I got to my feet.

  “Where are you going?” Blanche asked. There was panic in her eyes now, a sick panic that made her lips tremble.

  “Next door,” I said. I started for the door, and then I went back to the dresser where I’d unceremoniously dumped my trousers before heading for the shower. I took my .38 and holster from the back pocket. I unholstered the gun, threw off the safety, and then walked out of the cabin.

  There were no lights in 11. I climbed the steps and rapped on the door with the butt of the .38.

  “Open up!” I said.

  I tried the door. Usually a door will give just slightly when you twist the knob and lean on it. This door didn’t budge an inch. It was sealed more tightly than an Egyptian crypt. I rapped on the door again. “Open up, goddamnit!” I yelled. I heard footsteps behind me on the gravel, and I swung around, bringing up the .38. It was Blanche.

  “What are you doing?” she said. “Are you crazy?”

  “Crazy enough to know blood when I see it,” I said. I pounded on the door again, and then I stopped pounding and came down off the steps. I went into the cabin next door to 11, the cabin that was mine for the night, the cabin with a 12 under the light, the cabin with a spreading puddle of blood on the floor. Blanche followed me in.

  “That’s not blood,” she said. “You’re crazy.”

  “Am I?” I put the .38 down on the dresser. “I’m going to take off this robe and put on my pants,” I said. “You’d better leave.”

  “I’ll stay,” she answered.

  “Your choice,” I told her. I took off the robe and flipped it onto the bed. I pulled on a pair of undershorts, a tee shirt, and my trousers. Then I opened the dresser drawer and took O’Hare’s .32 from where I’d left it. I stuck that in my left hip pocket. I picked up the .38, and that stayed in my hand. Then I started for the door again.

  “Where are you going now?” Blanche asked. She was very upset. Her mouth was still trembling, and she could hardly keep her hands still.

  “Up to see Mike Barter. He should have a key for that cabin.”

  “Why don’t you stop acting like a cop?” she shouted. “A little red paint—”

  “Red paint, my foot!” I said, and I went out onto the gravel.

  The light from 12 splashed onto the gravel for a good ten feet before darkness swallowed the path. I walked at a fast clip, and behind me I could hear Blanche struggling with her high heels on the loose stones. There was a hardtop Cadillac parked in front of the office. It hadn’t been there before, so I assumed it was the car which had pulled in while I was talking to Blanche in my cabin. There was no light coming from the office. I banged on the door.

  “Barter!” I yelled. “Mike Barter!”

  There was no answer. I began to bang on the door again, and it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t even tried the knob. I don’t know if your mind ever has short-circuited like that, where the simple obvious things don’t seem to register, where everything seems to be an insurmountable problem that has to be solved the hard way. The easy way was trying the door knob. I tried it, and the door swung open.

  The office was pitch black. I groped for a light switch. The first thing I saw when the lights came on was Marilyn Monroe’s handwritten belly.

  “Barter!” I yelled.

  My voice echoed throughout the cabin and the woods. There was an interior door in the office, and I opened that and walked into a small surprise. The surprise shouldn’t really have been one because motel owners do have to live some place. But I hadn’t expected a full-fledged apartment tacked to the back of the office. Nor had I expected one quite as sumptuous as this. I had, to be truthful, expected the door to open on a closet or something.

  It opened on a big living room covered with a plush rug, furnished in expensive modern. It opened on a hi-fi cabinet about a hundred miles long with a bar at one end of it, the bar stocked with stuff I couldn’t afford to pronounce. There were doors leading from the living room. There was more.

  I only tried one of the doors. I wasn’t house-hunting at the moment. The door I tried opened on a bedroom. There was a large double bed, and a circular white rug thick enough to swallow up a safari. There were dressers and mirrors and a night table and a chaise longue, and a frilly woman’s dressing table. A woman’s pink mules rested at the foot of the dressing table. The sheets on the bed were made of blue silk, and the white monogram on them read SBR. The sheets were as out of place in this neck of the woods as Satan would have been at the last supper. The covers on the bed were turned down, but the bed had not been slept in.

  The room was something of a mess.

  Dresser drawers were open, clothing askew. The closet door was open, and there were a lot of empty hangers, and a lot of hangers on the floor, and also one dress which had probably slipped from a hanger.

  I left the light burning on the night table, just the way I’d found it. I walked into the living room, and maybe I should have tried the other doors, but I didn’t. When you’re making a search, it should be a careful one. That’s elementary police work. But I was searching for a key, so I left the closed doors closed, and I walked through the living room and into the office again.

  I went directly to the desk, figuring Baiter was most likely to keep his keys in it
somewhere. I pulled open the top drawer.

  Mike Barter kept a well-oiled .45, a few bills from a milk company, a letter from a linen supply outfit, a blotter, and a few broken pencils. He did not keep his keys in that top drawer. I spread a handkerchief on my open palm, picked up the .45, and sniffed the barrel. Whatever else Mike Barter had done, he had not recently fired the automatic. I put the gun back in the drawer, closed it, and was opening the second drawer when Blanche came into the cabin.

  I swung around. “Where does Barter keep his keys?” I asked. “Do you know?”

  “No. Listen to me,” she said.

  “Don’t give me the red paint story again, or—”

  Her eyes blazed at me. For a second, she didn’t look seventeen any more. She looked as old as Methuselah, and her eyes held all the secrets of the universe. “Listen to me,” she said, and there was a tight wire-thin edge to her voice. “Get out,” she said. “Get out of here. Forget Barter and forget that blood. Just get out.”

  “I’m getting into that cabin,” I said.

  “You’re a fool,” she answered.

  I began digging through the second drawer. There were paper clips and stationery and more pencils, but no keys. I slammed the drawer shut. Blanche glanced swiftly toward the interior office door.

  “Phil,” she said softly, “please … take my advice. Don’t bother with this. Get out. Please.”

  “Ann and I are staying right here until …”

  I stopped.

  “Ann!” I said, and I could feel everything inside me go cold. For two heartbeats I stood welded behind the desk. Then I turned and ran out past Blanche, and onto the gravel driveway, and then to cabin number 13. I ran up the steps. I didn’t knock. I simply threw open the door and flicked on the light.

  The cabin was empty.

  6

  It was three o’clock in the morning.