he said without joy. `Leastways, they were this morning.'
He gave me a doubtful look. My claim of acquaintanceship with the Browns had done nothing for my status. I tried to improve it. `Do you have a cottage vacant?'
`Ten of them. Take your pick.'
`How much?'
`Depends on if you rent by the day or the week. They're three-fifty a day, sixteen a week.'
`I'd better check with the Browns first, see if they're planning to stay.'
`I wouldn't know about that. They been here three weeks.'
He had a flexible worried mouth in conflict with a stupid stubborn chin. He stroked his chin as if to educate it. `I can let you have number eight for twelve a week single. That's right next door to the Browns' place.'
`I'll check with them.'
`I don't believe they're there. You can always try.'
I went outside and down the dreary line of cottages. The door of number seven was locked. Nobody answered my repeated rapping.
When I turned away, the old man was standing in front of number eight. He beckoned to me and opened the door with a flourish: `Take a look. I can let you have it for ten if you really like it.'
I stepped inside. The room was cold and cheerless. The inside walls were concrete block, and the same unnatural green as the outside. Through a crack in the drawn blind, yellow light slashed at the hollow bed, the threadbare carpet. I'd spent too many nights in places like it to want to spend another.
`It's clean,' the old man said.
`I'm sure it is, Mr. Dack.'
`I cleaned it myself. But I'm not Dack, I'm Stanislaus. Dack sold out to me years ago. I just never got around to having the signs changed. What's the use? They'll be tearing everything down and putting up high-rise apartments pretty soon.'
He smiled and stroked his bald skull as if it was a kind of golden egg. `Well, you want the cottage?'
`It really depends on Brown's plans.'
`If I was you,' he said, `I wouldn't let too much depend on him.'
`How is that, Mr. Stanislaus?'
`He's kind of a blowtop, ain't he? I mean, the way he treats that little blonde wife. I always say these things are between a man and his wife. But it rankles me,' he said. `I got a deep respect for women.'
`So have I. I've never liked the way he treated women.'
`I'm glad to hear that. A man should treat his wife with love and friendship. I lost my own wife several years ago, and I know what I'm talking about. I tried to tell him that, he told me to mind my own business. I know he's a friend of yours-'
`He's not exactly a friend. Is he getting worse?'
`Depends what you mean, worse. This very day he was slapping her around. I felt like kicking him out of my place. Only, how would that help her? And all she did was make a little phone call. He tries to keep her cooped up like she was in jail.'
He paused, listening, as if the word jail had associations for him. `How long have you known this Brown?'
`Not so long,' I said vaguely. `I ran into him in Los Angeles.'
`In Hollywood?'
`Yeah. In Hollywood.'
`Is it true she was in the movies? She mentioned one day she used to be in the movies. He told her to shut up.'
`Their marriage seems to be deteriorating.'
`You can say that again.'
He leaned toward me in the doorway. `I bet you she's the one you're interested in. I see a lot of couples, one way and another, and I'm willing to bet you she's just about had her fill of him. If I was a young fellow like you, I'd be tempted to make her an offer.'
He nudged me; the friction seemed to warm him. `She's a red-hot little bundle.'
`I'm not young enough.'
`Sure you are.'
He handled my arm, and chuckled. `It's true she likes'em young. I been seeing her off and on with a teen- ager, even.'
I produced the photograph of Tom that Elaine Hillman had given me. `This one?'
The old man lifted it to the daylight, at arm's length. `Yeah. That's a mighty good picture of him. He's a good-looking boy.'
He handed the photograph back to me, and fondled his chin. `How do you come to have a picture of him?'
