“It hasn’t done you much good. You don’t know the truth when you hear it.”
“Don’t I? Let her bring that story into court, we’ll punch it full of holes like wet tissue.”
“The hell you will!”
Wills laid a restraining hand on my shoulder. “Come on, now, don’t blow your top. Don’t be a hothead all your life. Learn something.”
“She’s conning you,” Reach said. “You just haven’t got the humility to admit it.”
I was blind mad by this time, loaded with hot and cold running adrenalin. I turned on my heel and walked out. Neither of them followed me this time.
The public telephone booth in the corridor stopped me like a sentry box. I stepped inside and phoned home.
“I knew it was you,” Sally said, “as soon as I heard the phone ring.
“If you’re so strong on extra-sensory perception, what am I calling about?”
“Don’t tell me you’re not coming home for dinner?”
I sidestepped that question. “You go to a lot of movies. Did you ever hear of an actress named Holly May?”
“Naturally I have. Everybody has.”
“I haven’t.”
“That’s because you’re fixated on your work. If you took me to the movies more often, you’d know what’s going on in the world. Not that she’s in the movies any more. She decided to get out of the rat-race before it wrecked her emotional health. That’s a direct quote.”
“Have you been reading movie magazines again?”
“No. She told me herself.”
“You know Holly May?”
“I met her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried to last night, but you weren’t listening. I ran into her in the clinic Monday afternoon. She wanted to know what time it was, and I told her. Then I asked her if she wasn’t Holly May. She admitted that she was, but she said she didn’t want it spread around. She’s trying to stay as incognito as possible.”
“What’s she doing in town?”
“I gather she’s living quietly here with her husband. I only talked to her for a couple of minutes, and then Dr. Trench took me. Dr. Trench said I was in wonderful shape for a woman in her ninth month.”
“Good. Did she mention her husband’s name?”
“No, but I read it in the columns last summer when she got married. I think she married a Canadian oilman. Let’s see, it was some Scotch name-something like Ballantine. Anyway, she seems to have done all right for herself. She was dripping with mink and things.”
“What kind of a woman is she?”
“She seemed nice and down-to-earth for a movie actress. She asked me how long I had to go and such. She’s a stunning creature, but it doesn’t seem to have gone to her head. Why?”
“Nothing special. Her name came up. I had no idea that she was living in town.”
“A lot of people live here that you never hear about.” Sally’s voice changed gears, with a faint ominous clash. “There is, for instance, the unknown housewife whose specialty is leg of lamb. She sits in her modest home awaiting recognition-”
“Are you fixing a leg of lamb?”
“It’s already fixed. With mint jelly. I know it’s an extravagance, Bill, but I wanted to make you something special for a change. I spend so much time dreaming lately, I haven’t been doing my duty by you. You will be home for dinner, won’t you?”
“As soon as I can make it. Keep it warm.”
“But you can’t keep a leg of lamb warm. It dries
“I enjoy it that way. Like pemmican.”
Sally hung up on me, and there I was again with the adrenalin singing in my veins. I decided to walk it off. Something that was not ESP pushed me down the long slope of Main Street to the lower town.
chapter 5
THERE WAS A POLICE SEAL on the front door of Broadman’s store. I peered through the dusty pane. The evening light fell slanting across the furniture and bric-a-brac which Broadman had laid up against hard times, before time stopped for him.
I became aware of voices next door, a woman’s voice raised high, and a man’s growling under it. I strolled over and looked in through the window of the tamale shop. The man in the white hat was arguing across the counter with a black-haired woman. Her hands gripped the edge of the counter as if it was a high ledge from which she would fall to her death if she let go.
“But they will kill him,” she cried.
“Let them. He asked for it.”
“What will I do if they kill him?”
“You’ll be better off.”
His eyes were brown liquid slits under his white hat. They widened when they saw me through the glass door. I tried it. It was locked.
He shook his head curtly, and waved me away. The movement of his arm was jerky, like a semaphore’s. I pointed at a sign in the window which said: OPEN 7 A.M. TO MIDNIGHT. He came around the counter, opened the door about a foot, and thrust his nose out. His nose was longer and sharper than it had appeared in the afternoon.
“I’m closed, I’m sorry. There’s a good place around the corner on Main Street.” Then he gave me a second look. “Are you a policeman? I saw you with Mr. Granada this afternoon.”
“I’m a lawyer, William Gunnarson. Could I talk to you a little, Mr. Donato?”
“I have already talked about my brother, to the police.”
The woman had crowded up behind him. She was a young pretty woman, but her face was puffed and dissolute with trouble. She said with one hand in her tangled licorice hair:
“Tell him nothing!”
“Be quiet, Secundina. You are a fool.” He turned back to me, trying to control his feelings. Their pressure forced the flesh of his face into stark shapes, like cracked clay. “I see, you have heard that my brother is wanted by the police. You want to offer your services?”
“That wasn’t my idea. I want to talk about your neighbor Broadman. Your ex-neighbor.”
Donato didn’t seem to hear me. “I have no need for a lawyer. I have no money to pay a lawyer.” I guessed he was using me to continue his argument with the woman. “If I had money I would go and buy a nice new rope and hang myself.”
“Liar,” she said. “You have a savings account. And he is your only brother.”
“I am his only brother, too. What has he done for me?”
“He worked for you.”
“He broke dishes. He mopped the floor and left it dirty. But I paid him, I kept you eating.”
“Big shot!” Her mouth curled.
“Gus is the big shot. He throws his weight, and I pick up the pieces. This time there’s one big piece, a dead man. I can’t pick it up.”
“But he is innocent.”
“Like the Devil himself, innocent.”
Her teeth flashed. “Dirty liar, you must not say that.”
“And Gus is the one who tells the truth? I tell you, I am finished with Gus. He’s not my brother. He can live or
