Free Live Free

The witch said, “You have not consulted me, Mr. Stubb.”

“I don’t have to. You agreed we’d give them fifteen. That was thirty for them and thirty-five each for us. I’m giving them another ten each out of my share. You have thirty-five; they have twenty-five apiece; I have fifteen.”

“No way,” Candy said.

There was a knock at the door.

For a moment they were silent, looking at one another. Stubb asked, “Proudy?”

Barnes lifted his shoulders. “Maybe.” The witch called, “Who is there?”

“Maid.”

Barnes opened the door. A middle-aged woman waited there with a dust cloth in her hand; behind her was a laundry cart full of crumpled sheets. “You still eatin’?” she asked. “I can come back.”

Stubb rose. “We’re about through, except for Ozzie. We didn’t know you’d be back, Ozzie, so we didn’t order for you.”

Candy told him, “I haven’t finished my eggs.”

“It’ll only take you a minute. I suggest we adjourn to the coffee shop. Ozzie can get a bite there, and this lady’ll have a chance to clean.”

The maid said, “It won’t take long. Just make the bed and vacuum and straighten around a little.”

The witch told her, “I’m afraid you will find the bath rather untidy. I indulged myself in an orgy of towels.”

In the corridor, Barnes said, “It might be better to go the other way.” Stubb nodded, and they trooped behind him. “What does he want?” Stubb asked when they had reached the elevators.

“I don’t know.”

“He thinks we’re up to something, huh?”

Barnes tried to remember everything that had been said in the vacant room. The coffee and cigarette had whetted his appetite, so that as he stepped through the doors his mind vacillated between Proudy and waffles. “He thinks we’re part of some vast, evil conspiracy, I believe,” he said at last. “Just one cell, but an important one.”

Candy said, “You’re putting us on.”

“No.” As they dropped past Six, Five, and Four, he showed them how he had taken Proudy’s gun. “That wouldn’t have worked with you,” he told Stubb. “And I don’t think it would have with Proudy, yesterday. Actually, it wasn’t a question of its working; I just got it out to light my cigarette. It’s a sample novelty. I can take orders for them.”

“Yeah. Let me see it.” As the elevator inched to a stop, Stubb pulled the trigger and inspected the blue flame. “Doesn’t look much like a real gun. Especially at the end of the barrel.”

Candy called, “Come on!” She was already at the door of the Quaint. “They’re just opening up, but they’ll serve us.”

“How wonderful,” the witch replied. She was looking around; and though her dark, handsome face was as expressionless as ever, she might have been sightseeing in the tunnel of some monstrous beetle.

The Quaint was furnished in a style called (in the catalogue of the firm that had supplied its decor) Middle Colonial Double Dutch. Its tables were of thick and irregular planks reproduced in Formica. Its false windows, lit from behind by electric bulbs, were furnished with inutile shutters pierced with hearts and tulips. Its walls boasted hex signs and polystyrene reproductions of long clay pipes.

“We want a booth,” Candy insisted. “A big one—we’re expecting two more people.” When the hostess, who wore a Dutch bonnet, a Dutch frock, and vinyl wooden shoes, had led them to one, Candy said, “You get in first, Ozzie. I’d rather not have to slide over.”

Stubb said, “Still mad?”

“No, not a bit. But you two are on one side and we’re on the other.”

Barnes asked, “Who else are we expecting?”

The fat girl giggled. “Only me. I always say that.”

A waitress appeared. The witch ordered orange juice, Stubb coffee, and Candy corned beef hash with a fried egg. Barnes asked for a cream waffle with sausage. “It’s very nice of you,” he told the witch, “to pay for my breakfast. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have gotten one.”

She shrugged. “This vile hotel pays. I shall charge everything to my room.”

“But if we find Mr. Free’s treasure …”

“Yes, if. None of you, not even Mr. Stubb, will devote himself as I. I will seek ceaselessly, for the rest of my life if necessary. Nevertheless, I know how unlikely it is that I shall succeed.”

“I’m more of an optimist,” Stubb told her.

“I know you are. So are most, and that is why they prefer roseate dreams to the great, hidden truths.”

“We’ll see who hangs in longest.” Stubb looked across the table at Barnes and Candy. “Have we got this partnership settled?”

The witch said, “Nothing is settled, Mr. Stubb.”

“What the hell does that mean? Those were my shares. Don’t I have a right to give them to these two if I want?”