How Like an Angel

Twelve

Quinn spent the night in San Felice, and by noon the following day he was back in Chicote. The weather had not improved during the week and neither had Chicote. It lay parched and prosperous under the relentless sun, a city of oil that needed water.

He checked in at the same motel downtown.

Mr. Frisby, on duty in the office, looked a little surprised. “My goodness, it’s you again, Mr. Quinn.”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad you’re not bearing a grudge about that little episode in your room a week ago. I’ve warned Grandpa to be more careful in the future, and it won’t happen a second time, I can assure you.”

“No, I don’t think it will.”

“Any luck yet with your story about O’Gorman?”

“Not much.”

Frisby leaned across the counter. “I wouldn’t want this to get around—the sheriff’s a friend of mine, sometimes he appoints me special deputy—but in my opinion the case was bungled.”

“Why?”

“Civic pride, that’s why. None of the authorities would admit we’ve got juvenile delinquency around here same as the big cities or, maybe even worse. Now according to my way of thinking, here’s what happened: O’Gorman was on his way back to his office at the oil field when an earful of young punks spotted him and decided to have a little fun and games. They forced him right off the road. They did the same thing to me last year, I ended up in a ditch with two broken ribs and a concussion. Just kids they were, too, and with no motive at all except they wanted to raise hell. Some of the kids around here, especially on the ranches, learn to drive when they’re ten, eleven years old. By the time they’re sixteen they know everything about a car except how to behave in it. Well, I was luckier than O’Gorman. I ended up in a ditch, not a river.”

“Was there any evidence that O’Gorman was forced off the road?”

“A big dent in the left side of the bumper.”

“Surely the sheriff must have noticed it.”

“You bet he did,” Frisby said. “I pointed it out to him myself. I was there when they pulled the car out of the river and the first thing I looked for were marks like were found on my car last year. That dent was in the very same spot and there was a faint trace of dark green paint in it. Maybe not enough to take any scrapings for scientific tests, but enough so you could see if you looked real close and knew exactly what to look for.”

Reliving the excitement had sent the blood rushing up into Frisby’s face. It seemed to be increasing in size and getting ready to explode like a bright pink balloon. But even as Quinn watched, the balloon began diminishing and its color began fading.

“Everything was there to support my theory,” Frisby said with a sudden deep sigh. “Except for one thing.”

“And that was?”

“Martha O’Gorman.”

The name struck Quinn’s ears like a discord he’d been expecting to hear and was trying to avoid. “What about Mrs. O’Gorman?”

“Now I don’t claim the lady was lying. What I’ve seen of her, she seems a nice, quiet-spoken young woman, not like some of these overpainted floozies you meet on the street.”

“What did Martha O’Gorman say about the dent in the bumper?”

“Said she’d put it there herself a week beforehand. She claimed she backed into a lamppost while she was trying to park on the left side of a one-way street. What street and what lamppost she couldn’t remember, but everybody believed her.”

“Except you.”

“It seemed a peculiar thing to forget, to my mind.” Frisby glanced uneasily out of the window as if he half expected the sheriff to be lurking outside. “Let’s suppose for a minute that I was right in thinking O’Gorman was forced off the road by another car, only this car contained not a bunch of juveniles but somebody who had reason to hate O’Gorman and want him dead. In that case Mrs. O’Gorman’s story would make a pretty good cover-up, wouldn’t it?”

“For herself?”

“Or a—well, a friend, say.”

“You mean a boyfriend?”

“Well, it happens every day,” Frisby said defensively. “Heck, I don’t want to cast aspersions on an innocent woman, but what if she’s not innocent? Think about that dent, Mr. Quinn. Why didn’t she remember where she got it so her story could be checked?”

“There’s a point in her favor you seem to have overlooked. The lampposts in Chicote are all dark green.”

“So were about fifteen percent of the cars that year.”

“How do you know that?”

“I did my own checking,” Frisby said. “For a whole month I kept track of the cars that came here. Out of nearly five hundred, over seventy of them were dark green.”

“You went to a lot of trouble to try and prove Mrs. O’Gorman was lying.”

Frisby’s soft round face was swelling and getting pink again. “I wasn’t trying to prove she was lying. I wanted to find out the truth, that’s all. Why, I even went around examining lampposts on one-way streets to see if I could locate the one she hit, or said she hit.”

“Any luck?”

“They were all pretty beat-up, as a matter of fact. They were put in too close to the curbs. That was a long time ago, before somebody dreamed up those crazy tailfins.”

“So you proved nothing.”

“I proved,” Frisby said brusquely, “that fifteen percent of the cars on the road that year were dark green.”

From a drug store Quinn telephoned the hospital where Martha O’Gorman worked and was told that she had taken the day off because of illness. When he called her at home the O’Gorman boy said his mother was in bed with a migraine and couldn’t come to the phone.

“Give her a message, will you please?”

“Sure thing.”

“Tell her Joe Quinn is staying at Frisby’s Motel on Main Street. She can get in touch with me there if she wants to.”

She won’t want to, he thought, hanging up the phone. O’Gorman’s more real to her than I am. She’s still waiting for him to walk in the door—or is she?

Or is she? The little question with the big answer echoed and reechoed in his mind.

Martha O’Gorman called out from the bedroom, “Who was that on the phone, Richard? And don’t yell, the windows are open. Come right in here and tell me.”

Richard came in and stood at the foot of the bed. The shades were drawn and the room was so dark his mother was merely a white shapeless lump. “He said his name was Joe Quinn and I was to tell you he was staying at Frisby’s Motel on Main Street.”

“Are you—are you sure?”

“Yes.”

There was a long silence, and the lump on the bed remained motionless, but the boy could sense the tension in the air. “What’s the matter, Mom?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve been acting kind of funny lately. Are you worrying about money again?”

“No, we’re doing fine.” Martha sat up suddenly and swung her legs over the side of the bed in an attempt at vivacity. The movement brought a spasm of pain to the entire left side of her head. Pressing her hand tight against her neck to lessen the pain, she said in a falsely cheerful voice, “As a matter of fact, my headache’s much better. Perhaps we should do something to celebrate.”

“That’d be great.”

“It’s too late for me to go to work now and tomorrow’s my day off and the next day’s Sunday. We’d have time to take a little camping trip. Would you and Sally like that?”

“Gosh, yes. It’d be super.”

“All right, you get the sleeping bags out of the storeroom and tell Sally to start fixing some sandwiches. I’ll pack the canned goods.”

The mere act of standing up was agonizing to her but she knew it had to be done. She had to get out of town. It was easier to face physical pain than it would be to face Quinn.

After lunch Quinn drove over to the office of the Haywood Realty Company. Earl Perkins, the young man he’d met before, was talking on the telephone at the rear of the room. His facial contortions indicated that either his stomach was bothering him again or he was having trouble with a client.

Willie King sat behind her desk, elegant and cool in a silk sundress the same green as her eyes. She didn’t seem overjoyed at Quinn’s return. “Well, what are you doing back here?”

“I’ve grown very fond of Chicote.”

“Baloney. Nobody’s fond of this place. We’re just stuck here.”

“What’s sticking you? George Haywood?”

She looked as if she wanted to get angry and couldn’t quite make it. “Don’t be silly. Haven’t you heard about me and Earl Perkins? I’m madly in love with him. We’re going to get married and live happily ever after, all three of us, Earl and I and his ulcer.”

“Sounds like a great future,” Quinn said. “For the ulcer.”

She flushed slightly and stared down at her hands. They were large and strong, and, except for the orange polish on the fingernails, they reminded Quinn of Sister Blessing’s. “Go away and leave me alone, will you please? I have a headache.”

“This seems to be headache day for the ladies of Chicote.”

“I mean it. Just go away. I can’t answer any of your questions. I don’t really know how I got into all this—this mess.”

“What mess, Willie?”

“Oh, everything.” She watched her hands wrestle each other as if they were separate entities over which she had no control. “Have you heard about Jenkinson’s law? It says, everybody’s crazy. Well, you can add Willie King’s law, everything’s a mess.”

“No exceptions?”

“I don’t see any from where I sit.”

“Change seats,” Quinn said.

“I can’t. It’s too late.”

“What brought on all the gloom, Willie?”

“I don’t know. The heat, maybe. Or the town.”

“It’s the same heat you’ve had all summer in the same town.”

“I need a vacation, I guess. I’d like to take a trip some place where it’s cold and foggy and rains every day. A couple of years ago I drove up to Seattle thinking that would be the right place. And you know what happened? When I got there Seattle was having the worst heat wave and the worst drought in its history.”

“Which goes to prove Willie King’s law all over again?”

She stirred restlessly in her chair as if she was having a delayed reaction to Quinn’s suggestion about changing seats. “You never give a straight or serious answer to anything, do you?”

“Not if I can help it. That’s Quinn’s law.”

“Break it for once and tell me why you’ve come back here?”

“To talk to George Haywood.”

“About what?”

“His visits to his sister Alberta in Tecolote prison.”

“Where on earth did you get a crazy idea like that?” she said impatiently. “You know perfectly well George broke off all connections with Alberta years ago. I told you.”

“What you tell me isn’t necessarily the truth.”

“All right, so I’ve lied a little here and there, off and on, but not about that.”

“Maybe you didn’t lie about it, Willie,” Quinn said. “But you were certainly misinformed. George goes to see his sister once a month.”

“I don’t believe it. What reason would he have for pretending?”

“That’s one of the questions I intend to ask him, right this afternoon if I can arrange it.”

“You can’t.”

“Why not?”

She bent forward in the chair, her hands clasped tight against her stomach as if to ease the sharp pain of a cramp. “He’s not here. He left the day before yesterday.”

“For where?”

“Hawaii. He’s been having a bad time with bronchial asthma for the past couple of months and the doctor thought a change of climate would help.”

“How long will he be away?”

“I don’t know. Everything happened so suddenly. He came into the office three days ago and out of the blue he announced lie was flying to Hawaii the next morning for a vacation.”

“Did he ask you to make a reservation for him?”

“No. He said he’d made it himself.” She groped in her pocket for a handkerchief and held it against her forehead. “It was quite a... a shock. I had done a lot of planning—or dreaming I guess you’d call it—about George and me spending our vacation together this year. Then suddenly I get the whammy, he’s flying to Hawaii. Alone. Period.”

“So that’s what’s causing your glooms?”

“Well, at least he could have said something, sorry you’re not coming along, Willie, some little thing like that. He didn’t, though. I’m afraid. I’m afraid this is the end of the line.”

“You’re over-imagining, Willie.”

“No, I don’t think so. God knows I’d like to, but I can’t. George acted like a different man. He wasn’t George any more. The real George, my George, wouldn’t go on a trip like that without careful planning in advance about where he’d stay and what he’d do and how long he’d be gone. He didn’t tell me a single detail beyond the fact that he was leaving the next morning. So you see, I have reason to be afraid. I’ve got this terrible feeling he’s not coming back. I keep thinking of O’Gorman.”

“Why O’Gorman?”

She pushed the handkerchief across her forehead again. “Endings can happen so suddenly. I should have argued with George, begged him to take me along. Then if the plane crashed, at least we’d have died together.”

“You’re getting morbid, Willie. I didn’t hear of any plane crash day before yesterday. Right this minute George is probably surrounded by a bevy of sun-browned maidens who are teaching him the hula.”

She stared up at Quinn coldly. “If that was intended to cheer me up, I assure you it didn’t. Sun-browned maidens, hell.”

“With hibiscus in their hair.”

“I have a hibiscus growing in my own backyard. Any time I want to put one in my hair, I can. I can also get a tan and do the hula, if I have to.”

“I’d bet on you any day, Willie.”

“Would you?”

“Try me.”

“Oh, stop kidding around, Quinn,” she said with a brisk shake of her head. “I’m not your type, and you’re not mine. I like older, more mature men, not the kind who know where they’re going, but the kind who are already there. I’ve been through that stardust and baked beans routine once. Never again. I want security. I don’t think you even know what you want.”

“I’m beginning to find out.”

“Since when?”

“Since I hit rock-bottom a couple of weeks ago.”

“How far down is rock-bottom for you, Quinn?”

“Far enough,” he said, “so there’s no direction to go but up. Have you ever heard of the Tower of Heaven?”

“I had a very religious aunt who was always using phrases like that in her conversation.”

“This isn’t a phrase, it’s a real place in the mountains behind San Felice. I’ve been there twice and I’ve promised to go back a third time. Which reminds me, did you ever have acne?”

Her precisely plucked brows moved up her forehead. “Say, are you losing your marbles?”

“I may be. I’d like an answer to my question anyway.”

“I never had acne, no,” she said carefully, as though she were humoring an idiot. “My kid sister did when she was in high school. She got rid of it by washing her face six or seven times a day, using Norton’s drying lotion, and not eating any sweets or oils. Is that what you want to know?”

“Yes. Thank you, Willie.”

“I suppose if I asked why you wanted to know, you wouldn’t—”

“I wouldn’t.”

“You’re a very peculiar man,” Willie said thoughtfully. “But I’m sure that’s already been pointed out to you?”

“At my mother’s knee. Besides, we can’t all be perfect like George.”

“I didn’t claim he was perfect.” There was a sharp note in her voice as if she had suddenly had too vivid a picture of George surrounded by the sun-browned maidens. “He’s headstrong like his mother, for one thing. When he gets an idea, he goes right ahead and acts on it, without consulting anyone else or caring what I... what someone else might think.”

“Like the sudden trip to Hawaii?”

“It’s a good example.”

“You’re sure he went to Hawaii?”

“Why, I... of course. Of course I’m sure.”

“Did you see him off?”

“Naturally.”

“Where?”

“He came to my apartment to say good-bye,” she said. “He was going to drive to San Felice, catch a plane there, and then transfer at Los Angeles to a jet liner for Honolulu.”

“Leaving his car at San Felice airport?”

“Yes.”

“They don’t have a garage at San Felice airport.”

“There must be garages nearby,” she said anxiously. “Aren’t there?”

“I guess so. What kind of car was he driving?”

“His own. A green Pontiac station wagon, last year’s. Why are you asking me all these questions? I don’t like it. It makes me nervous. You seem to be implying that George didn’t go to Hawaii at all.”

“No. I just want to make sure he did.”

“Why, it never even occurred to me to doubt it until you started hinting around,” she said in an accusing voice. “Maybe you’re deliberately trying to cause trouble between George and me for reasons of your own.”

“There’s already been trouble between George and you, hasn’t there, Willie?”

Her jaws tightened, giving her face a strong sinewy look Quinn hadn’t seen before. “None that I couldn’t handle. His mother has been, well, rather difficult.”

“Last time you talked about her she was an old harridan. Is she improving, or are you?” When she didn’t answer, Quinn went on. “I heard an interesting rumor a few days ago from what I consider a reliable source. It concerns George.”

“Then I don’t care to hear it. A man in George’s position, especially after what happened to Alberta, becomes the target for all kinds of rumors and gossip. He’s borne up under it the only way he could, by living a clean, decent, exemplary life. There’s something about George you couldn’t know since you haven’t met him—he’s an extraordinarily brave man. He could easily have left town to avoid the scandal. But he didn’t. He stayed here and fought it.”

“Why?”

“I told you. He’s a brave man.”

“Maybe he had ties in Chicote, the same kind that keep you here.”

“You mean his mother? Or me?”

“Neither,” Quinn said. “I mean Martha O’Gorman.”

Willie’s face looked ready to fall apart, but she caught it in time and held it together by sheer will power. The effort left her trembling. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t see why. She’s an attractive woman and she has class.”

“Class? So that’s what you call it when someone acts as though she’s better than the rest of us. I know all about Martha O’Gorman. My best friend works with her at the hospital lab and she says Martha throws a fit if anyone makes the least little mistake.”

“The least little mistake in a hospital lab can be pretty big.”

Quinn realized that Willie, not for the first time, had quite neatly turned the conversation away from George. There are certain kinds of birds, he thought, that protect their nests, when they’re threatened, by pretending the nest is someplace else. The maneuver involves a lot of squawking and wing-beating; Willie’s good at both, but she’s a little too obvious, and she suffers from the current disadvantage of not being entirely sure where her nest is and what’s going on inside it.

Willie kept right on squawking, anyway. “She’s a cold, hard woman. You’ve only to look at that frozen face of hers to figure out that much. The girls at the lab are all scared of her.”

“You seem pretty scared of her yourself, Willie.”

“Me? Why should I be?”

“Because of George.”

She began, once again, telling Quinn how ridiculous the idea was, how absolutely absurd to think of George paying attention to a woman like that. But her words had a hollow ring, and Quinn knew she wasn’t even convincing herself. He knew another thing, too: Willie King was suffering from a severe case of jealousy, and he wondered what had caused it. A week ago she had seemed a great deal more sure of herself, and the only fly in her amber was George’s mother. Now the amber was polished and other flies had become visible. Martha O’Gorman and the sun-browned maidens with hibiscus in their hair, and perhaps still others Quinn hadn’t yet discovered.