road, I couldn’t tell which way, a truck changed gear.
I checked my room before going in, propped the chair up, took off my clothes, and went to sleep on my side, clutching the extra pillow and letting my left hand rest on the cool steel of my.38.
Morning seemed to come in seconds. I felt great again. My gun was there. The chair was still under the knob, and my head hurt less than the day before. Everything was fine until I moved to the basin to brash my teeth and saw the window in the shower stall. It was not very big, but big enough to let someone in, and it was open. It hadn’t been the night before.
There wasn’t any place for someone to hide, and I was still alive. I checked my gun. It was still loaded. I checked my pants. My wallet was missing. Twenty bucks, a driver’s license, and a Dick Tracy badge. I dressed fast and paid a visit to Rosie, who sat out in front of the office her hands folded in her lap, her head back absorbing the sun.
“Rosie,” I said. She opened her eyes and gave me a little smile.
“Morning,” she returned, shifting her bulk in the chair, which creaked beneath her.
“I had a visitor. Someone crawled through the window and took off with my wallet. Did the guy in the Packard show up last night?”
Rosie shook her head and chins with a definite no.
“Could have come in when I went to sleep around one,” she said. “In this business you sleep on and off, mostly hours when you don’t expect business. Could have been a local through the nearest town, Fowler about ten miles up. Could have been another guest. We get all kinds.”
“Skip it,” I sighed. “You want to buy a.38 automatic?”
She said no.
“How about I leave it with you for the loan of ten bucks and I collect it on the way back with two bucks interest? I’m going to see that client I was telling you about.”
“Got a better idea,” Rosie said, grunting herself up from the chair. “Did some nursing back in Trenton. That’s in Jersey. I’ll change that bandage for you and grubstake you to ten bucks. You can drop it off on your way back through.”
“You married, Rosie?” I said.
She waved for me to follow her into the office.
“Think so,” she said. “Al’s supposed to be cooking for a logging operation up near Portland. Left about a year, year and a half back.”
“Too bad,” I sighed. “I was going to propose.”
“Like so much horse puddles,” she chuckled, turning to sit me down. “You married?”
“Was,” I said. “Not anymore. Her name was Anne.”
“She dead?” asked Rosie, stacking her medical cache on a nearby table.
“No. She’s alive and still Anne.”
“Annie, Annie was the miller’s daughter,” Rosie said, stepping behind me to change my bandage.
“Far she wandered from the singing water,” I continued the song.
“Ain’t it the way,” sighed Rosie gently, tugging at my bandage. “Ain’t it but the way.”
Rose finished patching me, gave me ten singles from a cigar box under the front desk, and filled the Ford with gas, which added a little less than two bucks to my debt.
“Catch the bad guy,” she said, waving me into the morning with a pudgy hand.
And into the north I drove, wondering why anyone would climb through a window where a man with a gun was sleeping and risk getting his face parted for a few bucks.
The rest of the drive was slow, well within the speed limit, since I didn’t have a license and Rosie’s ten-spot couldn’t cover a speed-trap charge for driving too fast without a license.
The radio didn’t help. I gave up trying to listen to a hillbilly wailing on the only station I could pick up through the static. He was singing something about losing his dream in Call-i-for-ni-yuh and wishing he was back in Mizzuruh. Hell, I still felt good. My teeth were clean, I had a new bandage, and somewhere behind me or just up ahead was Ressner in the Packard. Sooner or later one of us would catch up with the other one. Meanwhile, I was leading him back to the Winning Institute.
Fresno came and went. I hit 41, took it to 168 and looked for the road Winning had told me to take. I almost missed it and the double billboard on the rock. I slowed down even more than the crawl I was traveling at and found the road with an enamel sign pointing the way to the Winning Institute. The road was paved, flat and narrow, not wide enough for two cars. Trees leaned down from both sides, their branches occasionally touching the top of the car and tapping a few notes.
About a mile and a half down, an arrow indicated a sharp turn. I took it and found myself in front of the metal fence of the Winning Institute. The fence was about twelve feet high, black iron with spear points at the top.
Beyond the fence about two hundred yards back was a four-story building with a two-story junior partner next to it. Both buildings were dark stone. Both had towers in the corner. It looked a little like Xanadu in
I leaned out of the car and said, “Hi, I’m here to see Dr. Winning.”
The young guy looked over at me, shifted the gum in his mouth, and pushed forward so that all four feet of the chair rested in the dirt.
“Your name?” he said.
“Peters,” I said. “Toby Peters.”
“Yes,” he said, getting up from the chair and pushing open the gate. “Dr. Winning said to look out for you. Drive straight on up. Park where it says ‘Visitors.’”
The guy was smiling the kind of false smile you reserve for those who can’t understand you and have to be tolerated. Considering the residents of the Winning Institute, it might be the attitude everybody in the place eventually adopted.
I thanked him and drove in. In the rearview mirror, I could see him push the gate closed. I drove on. The grounds on both sides were nearly flat, and in a far corner I could see someone in white pushing a mower. One man with one mower might make it a lifetime job to keep the grass of this place trim.
It was about three hundred yards to the front of the institute. Up close, I could see that both buildings were dark stone and constructed to look like castles. The porch or veranda of the larger building, where I parked in a spot with a sign marked VISITORS, threw the illusion off. It was broad, white, and wooden and looked as if it had been grafted on from a retirement hotel.
On the porch sat a quartet of men playing cards with a white-clad nurse standing over them. I got out of the car, walked across the gravel parking lot, and went up the four wooden stairs, which creaked loudly. The card players didn’t look up. The nurse, from behind her glasses, gave me the same kind of tolerant smile as the guard at the gate.
“Play it or lose it,” said one of the card players to another and reached over to slap at the hand of the guy across from him. The nurse turned her attention to the slapper, touched his hand, and put it back on his side of the table. I pushed through the wooden door of the building and stepped into a broad fern-filled lobby with dark wooden floors and walls papered with blue flowers and portraits of contented Winnings of the past.
A nurse was standing inside the door and off to the side. She stepped forward as if she had been waiting for me. She was about average height with brown hair and a poor complexion. Behind her stood a Negro about my height in white. He didn’t give me the tolerant look. His upper body was massive, created by a comic book artist or Michelangelo.
“Mr. Peters?” she said. “I’m Nurse Grace. This is M.C. We’ll take you to Dr. Winning.”
I thanked them and followed her to the left. M.C. walked at my side. I wondered why I needed an armed escort. Maybe they had more reason to fear Ressner than I knew about.
We hiked down a corridor and stopped in front of an unmarked door. Nurse Grace opened it and stepped in before me. I followed her with M.C. behind me.
“Should we wash our hands before I see Dr. Winning?” I said.
“That won’t be necessary,” Miss Grace answered seriously.
