I picked Lucille Grimes up at the stroke of five in front of the post office. "I made a reservation at the Black Angus, since it's early enough for a drive," I said. "Okay?"
"It's a nice place," she replied. She smoothed her skirt beneath her on the front seat, palms flat against her pliant thighs. Her eyes were bright. There was an electric current between us from the instant she got into the Ford.
I headed north on the highway and just rolled it along. It was about a thirty-mile drive. I watched the rear-view mirror without being obvious about it. I saw no indication of a jealous deputy sheriff in pursuit, but Jed's warning stayed in my mind.
Lucille sat beside me in seeming tensed expectation. I couldn't understand it, and it made me cautious. Still, I was satisfied to leave it that way for the time being. I intended to probe a bit during dinner and try to find out what made this woman tick.
It didn't work out that way. Lucille had three Martinis in quick succession in the huge dining room. She apologized for asking me to order the third, but she downed it quicker than its predecessors. She ordered steak but just toyed with it. Conversation stayed at a minimum as Lucille closed out my tentative leads with terse replies. Her tone was brittle.
Her responses included incomplete sentences, dangling phrases, and half-finished verbalizations. These were punctuated by an occasional loose-lipped, dazzling smile.
An aura of almost febrile excitement emanated from her. I almost expected to see sparks fly from her fingers. She was the epitome of promise if I ever saw it.
All this for me, I asked myself?
Careful, man. Careful.
I suggested brandy after dinner. She had two, then another after a cigarette. I was becoming more curious by the minute. Lucille took on a high gloss. She was pronouncing her words carefully. She stepped a bit too high over the threshold when we left the restaurant.
She lapsed into complete silence in the car. Her gaze was fixed dreamily straight ahead down the road. If she felt the car slow down as I studied the motels we drove past, she gave no sign. When she finally spoke, she surprised me. "This one," she said huskily, and pointed.
I turned into a long driveway that wound between individual cabins set well back from the edge of the road. I stopped at the one marked "Office" and got out and went inside. Lucille stayed in the car.
I registered under the bored eye of the bald-headed manager. He read my upside-down "Mr. and Mrs. Chet Arnold" with practiced ease. "Anything special, Mr. Arnold?" he inquired.
"A quiet one."
"Certainly, sir." lie turned to the key rack behind him.
When he faced front again, I was filling in another registration card. "That one's for my brother-in-law and his wife," I said, pointing to the Arnold card. "I'll pay you for both."
The manager dropped the key in his hand on the Arnold card and turned to get another. He performed his upside down reading stunt on the second card. "This one's every bit us good, Mr. Reynolds. They're together, the last two on the right."
"Fine " I paid him, picked up both keys, numbers 10 and 11, and went out to the car. Number 10 was the Arnolds' cabin, Number 11 the Reynolds'. I drove to the end of the wooded lot and stopped in front of number 11. I got out and let Lucille out on her side, opened the cabin door, and stepped aside to let her enter. "I'll be back in a second," I told her.
I went back to the Ford and backed it off the driveway on the grass behind the cabin. I parked it between two trees. We'd eaten so early the sky was still bright overhead, but under the trees it was nearly dark.
Lucille displayed no curiosity about my short absence. She had every light in the place on when I went back inside. She was humming to herself, moving slowly about the room in a way that suggested a dance step. Her eyes were enormous, the biggest part of her face. She began to undress leisurely, without saying a word.
I went into the bathroom and closed the door. I took off my jacket and removed my shoulder holster, I extracted my .38 from the holster, and wrapped the gun loosely in a towel. I put the holster in a jacket pocket, shrugged into the jacket again, and left the bathroom carrying the towel.
Lucille was sitting on the edge of the bed in her panties. She smiled up at me lazily. The tip of her tongue flicked over her lips. I put the towel down carefully on the night table, then sat down on the bed beside her.
I stood her up between my spread legs, and made a production of removing her panties. Her thighs were tanned, her buttocks milky. She looked like a two-toned animal. Fleecy blonde curls covered her prominent mound.
She crawled onto the bed and stretched out on her belly while I undressed. I kept my shoes on. I walked to the door and locked and bolted it. When I turned, Lucille was on her back watching me. Her eyes looked almost filmed. Her head was up slightly from the pillow and slightly turned, as though she were listening.
I was listening, too.
I walked back toward her. I was only a stride from the bed when we both heard it with no trouble at all. There was a splintering crash from the next cabin as the door of number 10 went down. Blaze Franklin had arrived on schedule. I could hear the thump of heavy boots as he blundered around in the dark.
Lucille's eyes widened when she realized I'd somehow
sucked Blaze into the wrong cabin. Her breasts lifted as she opened her mouth to scream. I slapped her bare belly solidly. Her legs jackknifed as the intended scream emerged as a blurted gargle. That was all.
Franklin couldn't stay to hunt for us. He was all done on this caper right now. He had no business there, and he had to get away from the empty cabin where he'd forced entry. Not seeing the Ford, he had to think we'd come and gone already. The .38 and my shoes were insurance against his being smarter than I thought.
I covered Lucille's mouth with my hand until I heard the whine of the cruiser pulling away. She tried to bite me, and I slapped her. When she tried it again, I showed her my knuckles. She quieted down. It was no blacker under the trees outside than in the depths of her eyes.
"You get yourself wet watching him beat them up?" I asked her.
Her mouth was damp at the corners. "He makes them crawl," she said almost in a whisper. She didn't look particularly afraid at being left alone with me. "What are you going to do?"
"I'll show you what I'm going to do."
I took hold of her.
She submitted passively until she realized my intention.
She squirmed like a mink and hissed like a cat all the time I abused her.
It was four in the morning before we left there.
Fifty percent of us had enjoyed it.
I drove back to Hudson and let Lucille out a block from her house. False dawn was lighting the sky. I didn't want to drive to her door in case Franklin was waiting for her or. ha front porch. Given his present mood he might cut down both of us with his police special.
Lucille hadn't said a word all the way back to town. She looked around when I stopped the car. It took her a moment to recognize where she was. She opened the car door and got out, unsteady on her high heels, then leaned back in to spit at me. "Blaze will kill you for this," she rasped.
I appreciate a good hater. "Think again, sister," I told her. "How are you going to explain it to your lord and master? You set up the place, and then you weren't there. What does Blaze use on you when he's a little out of sorts? His belt? A jealous man believes what he wants to believe, and Blaze is going to figure you were a partner in your disappearance tonight."
I could have counted to ten while she stared at me. I'd given her something to think about. Then she slammed the car door and started up the street. I sat and watched her
It wasn't hard to see where Jed Raymond had found the adjective "shark-toothed" in connection with the widow Grimes. I owed Jed something for keeping me from making the play with my eyes shut. Franklin and his blonde must have had a Roman holiday with the suitors she'd set up for him to knock over. And of course none of them would ever talk about it.