It was time for the boyish grin again. “Who is he?”
She smiled a bit wryly. “Every city has its Joe Talley, I suppose. He runs something that is supposed to be a private club. I don’t know why the police don’t close it. Heaven knows all that goes on there. He’d bring her back here at three and four in the morning. We don’t like that sort of guest, but she was quiet and she always paid her bills. I’ll bet you Joe Talley knows where she went.”
“Did she have a gray Buick?”
The elderly woman sniffed. “Not when she came here, she didn’t. Very remarkable. Joe Talley blossoms out in a new car and suddenly she has his old one, with different plates.”
“Where did she garage it?”
“Down at the corner. Landerson’s Service.”
I pushed the register card back to her. Miss Marta Sharry, New York City. Not much information there. “Where is Talley’s place?”
“On Christian Street. Go down Main and turn left on Christian three blocks from here. It’s eight blocks out on the left and it looks boarded up, but it isn’t. There’s an iron deer in the yard. You’ll see the sign on the gate. The Talley Ho.” She lowered her voice and looked around. “They gamble there,” she said.
I thanked her with as much enthusiasm as I could manage. I went to the place where she’d kept the car. It was open. A pimply boy was on duty. Just remembering the blonde seemed to up his blood pressure. He had big wet eyes and they glowed.
I made like I was a friend of hers. The license was 6c424. That surprised me a bit.
Again I was shot with luck. He smirked and said, “I guess that fancy name, that Marta Sharry, was kind-of a stage name, huh?”
“Oh, she told you her right name?”
He had the decency to blush. “No. She had the registration in one of them little plastic things on the key chain. I took it out once because I wanted to see how old she was. The name on it was something like Anne Richards.”
“Anne Richardson?”
“Yeah. That’s it.”
“Good thing Joe Talley didn’t catch you spying on her, eh?”
He licked his lips. His eyes shifted away from me. “I wasn’t doing nothing,” he said sullenly.
“Did she come and get the car when she left town?”
“She phoned, and I drove it over to her. I helped load her bags in the back. She give me five bucks.”
“She seem nervous?”
“No. Kind of excited. Joe Talley came along. He sat beside her in the front seat and I walked back here. I saw her come by ten minutes later and he wasn’t with her then.”
“What time was that?”
“Sometime before midnight.”
From there I went to the Talley Ho. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. It was a big three-story Victorian frame house, with a cupola, a bunch of scroll saw work and an iron deer standing next to a chipped bird bath in the shaggy lawn under the shade of big elms.
I went back to the hotel and slept until ten. When I went back to the Talley Ho I found the narrow side street lined with parked cars. There was a guard at the gate.
“This is a private club, mister.”
“So I’ve heard. I’m a stranger in town. I thought maybe I could join.”
“Maybe you can and maybe you can’t. Write us a letter and we’ll let you know.”
“Couldn’t I talk to the manager?”
“No. Sorry. I got my orders. Nobody gets in unless they got a card.”
“That’s a hell of a note. Miss Sharry wrote me and told me that Joe Talley would treat me right if I ever came through here.”
He turned the flashlight on my face again. “You know her?”
“No. I just made up the name.”
“No need to get fresh, stranger.”
“Hell, I like standing out here. Don’t you?”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Anybody comes along I’ll be right back, tell ’em. What’s your name?”
“Gandy. Russ Gandy.”
He was gone five minutes. He came back with a taller man. At their request I came inside the gate. I stood while they put the flash on me again.
“What’s your business, Gandy?”
“I’ll talk to Talley, if you’ll get him out here.”
“He’s out of town. I’m in charge.”
“What’s your name?”
“Brankis.”
“Come over here a minute, Brankis. This is personal.”
We went over by the deer. I tapped a cigarette on its cast-iron muzzle and lit it. “It’s like this, Brankis. I ran into you-know-who in Chicago. He told me he had Anne Richardson staked out here. At the Westan Arms. I phoned her couple weeks ago. She told me that a guy named Joe Talley is all right, and—”
“Anne Richardson? Who the hell is she?”
“Don’t be cute, Brankis. She’s Torran’s girl.” I purposely made it a little loud.
“Dammit, lower your voice!”
I laughed at him. “Then the name means something to you?”
“How do you figure with Torran?” he said in a half-whisper. “Nobody’s ever been hotter than he is. So why should he pop to you?”
“Maybe you can call me an associate, Brankis.”
“What kind of a word is that? Associate, yet. Joe isn’t going to like any link-up between him and Torran through that girl. She’s all mouth.”
“Like any lush. Now can I come in and play? I just want to kill some time.”
“No, friend. Anybody coming in gets Joe’s okay and I told you Joe is out of town.”
“That’s too bad. I got some merchandise for him.”
“Merchandise? What kind of merchandise?”
“Brankis, you must be a real small wheel in this outfit. Annie knows more than you do. She told me Joe Talley is always in the market for this kind of merchandise.”
It was too dark to see his face. I waited, hoping it would work. When he spoke he piled the words on too fast to cover up the period of silence. “Oh, that stuff.”
“Yes, I got it down at the hotel. Want to come look it over and set a price?”
“Sure. I’ll come take a look.” He couldn’t admit Joe had been leaving him out in the cold, and he had to see the merchandise to know just how far out he’d been left.
We went to the gate and he said, “George, I’ll be back in a while. You have any problems, ask Mac what to do.”
We went out and got in my car. I stopped for the first cross street and glanced at him, seeing his face for the first time, liking the youngness, the weakness, the loose viciousness of his mouth. I started up, took out my cigarettes and, as I offered him one, I managed to drop the whole pack at his feet. He bent over instinctively to pick them up. As he got into the right position I hit the brakes hard. His head dented the glove compartment door and he sighed once and flowed down onto the floor, like some thick, slow-running liquid.
I parked in shadows and looked him over. All he carried was a sap in black woven leather with a coil spring handle. I bent over him, folded his hat double to cushion the blow and hit him hard behind the ear, flush on the mastoid bone. I took his pulse. It was slow and steady.
I headed toward Danville, found a dirt road that turned left. The sign said the towns of Pilot and Collision were up that road. How does a town get to be called Collision?
The sky had cleared and the moon made a good light. The road was a little soft in spots. Farmhouse lights were off. The road made a right-angle turn to the left and another to the right. When I saw a break in a fence, I got out and checked the ditch. It was shallow and dry. The pasture seemed firm enough. I put the car in low and drove across toward a dark clump of trees. I parked and hauled him out and used my tow rope to tie him to a tree. I wrapped him up so that all he could do would be roll his eyes and wag his tongue. He was limp, sagging in the rope. I sat and smoked and waited for him to come around.