“How should I know? It’s your cabin.”
“They’re your teeth, Hobbs. If you like them in your mouth, you’d better start making sense.”
“Don’t get smart with me,” he said. “I know a few people in this town.”
“And you say Anne left, huh? You say she took a bus, huh? Is that your story?”
“That’s my story. That’s the truth.”
I dropped his shirt. “We’ll see, Hobbs. We’ll see soon enough.”
I barged out of the office and went back to the cabin. The brunette was still there. She was standing near the window, and she wore a half slip, black and lacy, and nothing else. She turned when I came in, and her breasts bobbed.
“You still here?” I asked.
The girl walked toward me, swinging her hips. She cupped her breasts and said, “I thought you might change your mind.”
“I came back to change my shirt,” I said. “Get the hell out.”
“Sure,” she said surlily. “Sure.”
She began putting on her bra, and then slipped a red silk dress over her head. She picked up her purse, walked to the door, turned and said, “You goddamn...”
“Get out sister, before I...”
She left quickly. I took a clean shirt from the valise, slipped into it, and buttoned it hastily. When I went outside, the girl was walking toward the office. A car turned into the road, and the lights splashed through her thin dress and slip, outlining the long curve of her legs. I caught her elbow and asked, “Where’s the bus terminal?”
“You leaving town?” she asked.
“Maybe. Where’s the terminal?”
“Down the road and right. You can’t miss it. It’s near the Esso station.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I walked to the car, unlocked it, and backed off the gravel. I turned into the dirt road and then onto the macadam. The roller coaster was dipping and screaming at the other end of the boardwalk. The ferris wheel circumscribed a brilliantly-lit circle against the stars. I could hear the wash of the surf, and the delighted cries of a few moonlight bathers. I kept the car on the macadam road until I spotted the Esso station, and then I turned right. The bus terminal was a small affair, and I was thankful for that. I parked the car on the concrete strip behind the terminal and then went inside.
It was a conventional station. Benches, a newsstand in the corner, two ticket windows, and an information booth. I walked to the first ticket window and stood behind a fat woman while she bought her ticket and paid for it. She smiled at me when she turned, and I went directly to the window and said, “I’m trying to locate my wife. She may have bought a ticket here. I wonder...”
The clerk looked at me with a bored expression on his face. He was a thin man with a hawk-like nose, and he wore a green eye shade.
“Lots of people buy tickets here,” he said.
“You’d remember my wife,” I said. “She’s a redhead. How many redheads do you have every day?”
“A redhead, huh?”
“Yes. She was probably alone, if she bought a ticket.”
“Then this one ain’t her.”
“There was one?”
“Yeah. But she was with another girl. A blonde. I remember them because they... well, you remember two pretty girls traveling alone together.”
“What time was this?”
“Early this morning. Eight, nine... maybe ten. I don’t remember.”
“And they bought tickets here, is that right?”
“The blonde bought the tickets. The redhead stood right beside her.”
“Tickets for where?”
“New York.”
“What were they wearing? I mean, what was the redhead wearing?”
“A white dress, I think. Yeah, she was in white, and the blonde was in black. I tell you, they made a pretty pair.”
“A white dress? Are you sure?”
“Mister, I’m positive.”
“Were there any other redheads who bought tickets today?”
“I didn’t see any. Hold it a minute.” He walked out of his booth and had a little chat with the guy at the next window. When he came back, he said, “Charlie didn’t sell no redhead. Charlie remembers things like that.”
“Do you think you can recognize her from a picture?”
“The redhead? Maybe.” He shrugged. “I didn’t pay much attention to the face.” He grinned sheepishly, remembering it was my wife I was asking about.
I fished into my wallet and came up with the only picture I had of Anne, a snap we’d taken on our honeymoon. Her hair had been long then, and she now wore it clipped close to her head in the new Italian cut. She’d also filled out a little more since then. I looked at the picture as if I were seeing it for the first time, and then I handed it to the clerk.
“Is that her?” I asked.
He studied the picture and then shrugged again. “Search me,” he said. “This broad had shorter hair.” He studied the picture again. “Gee, mister, I honestly couldn’t say.”
I sighed and took the picture back. “Well, thanks a lot,” I said.
“Not at all. Glad to help.”
I left him and walked outside to the Dodge. A white dress, he’d said. Anne owned a white dress, but it was home in our closet. She didn’t even have a white blouse along with us, no less a dress. And the blonde. Even assuming Anne had made the acquaintance of another woman somewhere on her walk from the motel to the terminal, the friendship couldn’t have blossomed that rapidly. After all, the blonde had paid for the tickets.
It stank. It stank right from go.
To begin with, I knew Anne like the back of my checkbook. If she’d come into that cabin and found me asleep with the brunette, she’d first have kicked the girl out on her fanny, and then awakened me to ask just what the hell was going on.
But even giving her the benefit of the doubt, I knew damn well she was not the kind of girl who’d go traipsing down to the bus terminal, taking up with a blonde on the way. When Anne is angry, she’s angry right down to the roots of her toes. She’d have taken every penny in my wallet, along with the keys to the car. She’d have packed the valise, and probably taken my pants with her, too, just to show me how angry she really was. She’d have driven back to the city, and she’d probably have started suit for divorce within an hour.
That’s the way Anne was. We’d known each other for six years, and we’d been married for three, and I could just about tell what her reactions would be to any set of circumstances. My money was on her awakening me and having it out right then and there. Second choice was a vengeful leave-taking, with no holds barred — not a quiet withdrawal wearing some other woman’s dress.
I drove back to the cabin, and I went through the clothes there. As far as I could tell, she’d taken nothing. Even her purse was still on the dresser, and Anne wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere without her purse. The only garment missing was the robe she’d taken with her to the shower.
I picked up a towel and a bar of soap, shed my clothes and donned a robe, and then started for the office, trying to plan as I walked. Anne had left me to take a shower. All right, the shower was the starting point. I’d start there. Then, later in the night, giving her plenty of time to get to New York, I’d call home. Maybe Hobbs’ story was true. Maybe she had left in high dudgeon. But I’d be damned if I was going to run back to the city after her. The shower was the starting point. My hunch was that Anne had not boarded that bus, or if she had, it was not done willingly.
I opened the screen door to the office, and I was confronted with the semi-nude photographs on the wall again. Hobbs was leafing through a small book, and I had an idea what kind of literature it was.
“Where’s the shower?” I asked.
“You staying?” He looked surprised.
“Yes.”