Give ’Em the Ax

11

I had a confused impression of white lights over a portico, a row of neat little stucco bungalows. I heard Billy Prue say, “...my husband... sick... back from the tropics... thank you... Extra covers... yes, a double.”

I was dimly conscious of water running, then I was on a bed, and a steaming hot towel quieted jumpy nerves that were causing the muscles to cramp.

Billy Prue was bending over me.

“Go to sleep.”

“I’ve got to get my clothes off.”

“Don’t be silly. They’re off.”

I closed my eyes. Warmth enveloped me and sudden oblivion.

I wakened with sunlight streaming across the bed. The aroma of fresh coffee was in my nostrils.

I knuckled sleep out of my eyes.

The door gently opened. Billy Prue peeked into the room. Her face relaxed when she saw I was awake.

“Hello,” she said, “how you feeling?”

“I think I’m feeling fine. Gosh! Did I pass out last night!”

“There wasn’t anything wrong with you except you were weak and completely fagged.”

“Where did you get the coffee?”

“I’ve been shopping. There’s a store down the block.”

“What time is it?”

“How the hell would I know?” she said. “I don’t carry a watch. You remember you pointed that out to me yesterday night when you were trying to pin a murder on me?”

Almost instantly all of the various ramifications of the Stanberry murder came crowding back into my mind.

I said, “I’ve got to telephone the office.”

She said, “You’ll eat before you do a thing. The bathroom’s all yours. Don’t be too long about it because I’m cooking waffles.”

She went back in the kitchen. I went into the bathroom, had the luxury of a hot bath, dressed, combed my hair with a pocket comb, and went out to the kitchen. Billy had grub cooked, and I was really hungry.

She watched me with wide, thoughtful eyes. “You’re a good kid, Donald,” she said.

“What have I done now?”

She smiled. “It’s the way you didn’t do the things you didn’t do,” she said, “that makes you a gentleman.”

“How are we registered?” I asked.

She said nothing, simply smiled at me.

I ate quite a bit before my stomach suddenly went dead on me, right in the middle of taking a bite.

I pushed the plate back.

Billy said, “Go out there and sit in the sun. If the woman who runs the place comes over and talks with you don’t be embarrassed. We haven’t any baggage and she thinks we’re living in sin but she’s got a boy in the Navy.”

I went out and sat in the sun.

The auto camp was out of town on the rim of a valley that stretched away to where a tracery of white snowcapped mountains hung against the deep blue sky.

I settled back and relaxed.

The woman who ran the place came over and introduced herself. She had a son who was on a destroyer somewhere in the South Pacific. I told her I had been on a destroyer myself, that I might have seen her son, might have even talked with him without knowing his name. She sat down beside me in the orange blossom scented sunlight and we both kept quiet, each respecting the thoughts of the other. After a while Billy Prue came out and sat down beside us. Then Billy said we had to go and the woman who ran the place made some excuse to get away so she wouldn’t embarrass us by letting us know that she knew we didn’t have any baggage.

Billy slid in behind the wheel of the agency car and started back toward town.

“Cigarette?”

“Not while I’m driving, Donald.”

“Oh yes, I forgot.”

We were almost at the Rendezvous when she suddenly asked, “How much are you going to tell your friend Sergeant Sellers about what I’ve told you?”

“Nothing.”

She slid the car in to a place at the curb and stopped.

Soft gentle fingers that somehow had a lot of strength in them squeezed mine. “You’re a good egg, Donald,” she said, “even if...”

“Even if what?” I asked as she stopped.

She opened the car door. “Even if you do talk in your sleep. Good-by, Donald.”