The lean, dark man beside the bed introduced himself in a hushed voice. “I’m Lieutenant Bandred. Sorry this had to happen here. I’m waiting to see if he can give us a hint as to who slugged him. I’ve got men out trying to trace his movements, but it’s hard with all the joints closed now. He was in the worst section of town.”
Nick’s swarthy face was gray against the pillow. There were deep lines around the corners of his mouth. His head was lightly bandaged and a nurse stood by to help in case he regained consciousness and started to roll over to the right. Tom stood at the foot of the bed and made fumbling motions with his big red hands.
“He’ll be okay. He’s a good kid. He’ll be okay,” he muttered.
Nick’s mouth twitched. There was no sound in the room. Tom and Stan moved closer to Nick. The nurse bent over him. The lieutenant hitched his chair a bit closer. Nick’s eyes and mouth opened slowly. The eyes were wet and glazed. The lips looked dry. The nurse made a hissing noise and the interne hurried in.
Nick’s damp eyes seemed to focus on Tom. His underlip flapped. “Belt,” he said clearly. “Margi—”
Then his body strained upward, sweat beading his face. The nurse touched his forehead. There was a guttural, dry sound in his throat, and the eyes closed again. The swarthy face seemed to shrink into the pillow, to diminish. Stan had seen it happen before, on the beaches of jungle islands. He turned away. The interne stepped forward with a stethoscope. When Stan turned around again, the face was hidden by the top of the sheet. Tom gulped and stood stricken for a moment. Stan saw the reassurance flood back into him.
“That’s too bad,” Tom said. “He was a good boy. I’ll miss him. I’ll contact his folks. Stan, you get hold of a local undertaker.”
Lieutenant Bandred stood up, wearily. He looked like a man who had had a long, difficult night. “Guess it’s not necessary to tell you folks how much I’m sorry that this thing had to happen in Hoagersburg. We’ll sure do our best on it. How long will you folks stay around?”
“We were leaving tomorrow. Let’s see. Today is Thursday. We can stay until Monday.”
“I sure hope we’ll be able to nail the guy that did this thing before then. I’ve got every exit from town blocked, and we’re pulling in every bum that tries to slip out. What do you think he meant by that belt stuff, and Margy?”
Tom sighed. “Don’t know. Guess he was saying he got belted on the head. And Margy was probably some gal friend. I don’t think you’ll get much of a lead. Stan, boy, do me a favor. You stay here and go through his stuff. I’ll do the same back at the hotel. I’ll have to tell Mary and wire New York for a replacement. I guess he can be shipped back to his folks in Chicago in what he was wearing, if they aren’t messed up.”
“His clothes weren’t soiled. The wound didn’t bleed,” the nurse said.
Tom left. Nick’s clothes were still down in the emergency room. It was a nasty job going through the pockets. Cigarettes. Gold lighter. Money clip with twenty bucks in it. Stan held the money and frowned. He stuffed it into his own pocket. Handkerchief. Nick had said something about a belt. Could be a belt on the head. Could be the belt he was wearing. Ordinary looking belt. Imitation alligator with a gold-plated buckle. Stan rubbed his fingers along it. It seemed rather thick. On a hunch he stripped it out of the loops on the trousers. His fingers began to tremble when he noticed a zipper on the underside of it. A trick belt. Obviously the lieutenant had missed it and Tom hadn’t known about it.
Stan glanced around. No one was watching him. He slid the zipper back, disclosing two flat packs of bills folded the long way. Hundreds. A couple of five hundreds. He picked the bills out of the belt and crammed them into his pocket. He rethreaded the belt through the trouser loops. Odd that Nick should have so much money. Several thousand by the feel of it. And apparently Nick wanted the money sent to somebody named Margy. Margy who? And where? An odd setup.
It was gray dawn when the taxi pulled up in front of the hotel. A man in the hotel uniform pulled himself out of a lobby chair and yawned as he took Stan up in the elevator. The transom over Tom’s door showed an oblong of yellow light. Stan knocked lightly, turned the knob and walked in. Tom was still dressed, slumped in the wicker chair. His red face looked tired and drawn, his gray hair rumpled. Mary, in a maroon robe, sat on the edge of a bed, her face puffed and streaked with tears. She was through crying. Her eyes were calm, and dead.
“Sit down, Stan. Sit down. Have a drink,” Tom said.
There was a bottle of rye and a glass on a table by the window. Stan walked over, poured out an inch of rye and threw it down. It bit his throat and nearly gagged him. He sat on the bed several feet away from Mary.
“This sort of breaks things up, my boy,” Tom said.
“How so? You’re going on with the show, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes. We’ll go on. But losing Nick has made me realize what an empty life I’m leading. I looked on that boy as a son. I’m getting old, Stanley, and I get lonelier every day. I need someone. I’ve been talking to Mary. She has consented to be my wife.”
Stan held his face rigid and then forced a slow smile. He looked at Mary. She was staring at the floor, the smoke from her cigarette winding up in a pale gray thread, as gray as the dawn outside.
“You have my congratulations, Tom. You know that. I hope you’ll both be happy. Let’s talk about Nick in the morning. I’ll see you then.” He felt shocked and unbelieving, but he couldn’t let them see it. Either of them. He managed to walk to the door, say goodnight to them and shut it softly behind him. When he got back to his own room he sat on the edge of his rumpled bed. To take his mind away from Mary, he took Nick’s money out and counted it. Six thousand, six hundred dollars. Too much. Something wrong somewhere. But where?
He lifted his head as he heard Mary’s soft footsteps in the hall. He heard her door close. He got up and went down to her door and knocked. She opened it, saw him, and said, “What is it, Stan?”
“Could I come in for just a minute, Mary? I want to talk to you.”
She held the door open and he walked in. The room was identical with his own. She sat near the window and he sat on the edge of the bed. She looked defeated, completely and utterly tired.
“Why are you doing it, Mary?” he asked, gently.
Her head snapped up, and her eyes widened. “Aren’t you a little out of your area, junior? I’m marrying him because he needs me. Because this thing has nearly licked him. You, bright eyes, don’t know what it means to a woman to be needed.”
“Suppose I told you that I needed you, too?”
“Hah! A lovely thought. You and Nick. Both self-sufficient. You, because you’ve got the brains. Nick, because he knew all the angles. You two needed me like I need holes in the head.”
“You’d like to think you’re hard and tough, wouldn’t you, Mary?” he asked.
Her face crumpled a little. “Not me, Stan. There’s no toughness in me.”
“Why are you doing it?” he asked again.
Their eyes met. Hers, bright with anger, shifted and changed, as he watched. He suddenly knew that he loved her, that it was a desperate, aching love that had been growing under the surface for months. He looked at her and knew that she saw it in his eyes.
Her voice was almost a sob. “Stan, why did you have to wait until now? Until too late. Couldn’t you see? Couldn’t you tell long before this?”
“Go back now and tell him that you won’t marry him.”
She stiffened. “Get out of here. I gave my word. He’s my sort and you’re not. Get out.”