Sleeping Beauty

chapter 30

The Myrtle Motel was on old U.S. 101. Hillside apartment buildings clung to the slopes above it. The area below was garish with the lights of liquor stores and restaurants and gas stations.

The buildings of the motel were made of indestructible concrete block, as if in preparation for an obscure war. The green Falcon wasn’t among the cars in the parking spaces.

I parked under the neon “Vacancy” sign and went inside. A man who had been defeated in an obscure war of his own came out of the back and gave me a questioning look across the desk. His hair was thin, but massive sideburns hung like stirrups on either side of his face.

“Can I help you?”

“We may be able to help each other,” I said. “You wouldn’t have any way of knowing this, but you’ve got a wanted man in one of your rooms.”

He shied away in what seemed a practiced movement. His eyes never left my face. “I certainly didn’t know it. Are you a policeman?”

“A private detective.” I gave him my name and showed him my photostat. “His name is Harold Sherry.”

After a moment’s thought, he said, “We’ve got nobody of that name registered.”

“He’s probably using another name. He’s a man in his early thirties, dark-haired, dark-eyed, height about six feet, heavily built with very broad shoulders, probably walks with a limp.”

The key man shook his head. “I’ve never seen him, and I’ve been on the desk since noon. We’ve only got three or four people in the place. Business will probably pick up later,” he added hopefully.

The thought that Brokaw had lied to me rose like a touch of nausea behind my throat. I swallowed it down, and tried again:

“The woman may have registered. She’s a good-looking woman, aged about thirty, dark hair, dark eyes, height about five feet six, very good figure.”

A dim light appeared behind his eyes. “It may be the woman in Number 8. Mrs. Sebastian? She did say her husband was under the weather.”

“What kind of a car are they driving?”

“A little old green Falcon about five or six years old. I noticed it because she forgot to put down the license number. So I went out and filled it in on the card myself.”

“May I see it?”

He fumbled in a drawer and came up with the card for Number 8:

The address given was Tom Russo’s, but the handwriting didn’t look like Laurel’s to me. It was rather childish, round and large.

“The woman filled in this card?” I said to the key man.

“All except the license number.”

I made a note of the license number. “Describe the woman, will you?”

“Your description was pretty close, except that I wouldn’t call her very good-looking. And she’s just a little plumpish for my taste.” His hands shaped a lopsided hourglass in the air.

“Show me her room, will you?”

We went out together. There was no car in front of Number 8. But there was light in the room, leaking out around the edges of the closed blinds. I went back to the office, out of sight of the window, and the key man followed me.

“It looks to me as if they might of left,” he said.

“Do you want to check?”

“Not if there’s going to be any shooting.”

“Tell them you have to inspect the heater or something.”

He shook his head. “I’m not being paid for this.”

But he left me and moved reluctantly in the direction of Number 8. A minute later he came back.

“I don’t think there’s anybody in there.”

“Did you look?”

“No, but the key is on the outside of the door.”

We let ourselves into the room and found it empty. The double bed was unmade. There was some blood on the sheets, neither fresh nor old. Smoke still hung in the air. The place had the quality of a discarded life from which Harold and the woman had barely escaped.

I made a search of the room, with its closet and bathroom, and found nothing significant except for more blood on the bathroom tiles. I went back to the office with the key man and used the pay phone there to make a series of calls.

The first was to Captain Dolan in Pacific Point. I told him where I had found and lost Harold Sherry, and gave him the license number of the green car and a description of the young woman with Sherry.

“Who is she, Archer? Laurel Lennox – Laurel Russo?”

“No. It’s a different woman.”

“Then where is Laurel?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who is this other woman, anyway?”

“I don’t know, Captain,” I said, though I thought I did know.

I called Tom’s house in Westwood, hoping that Cousin Gloria would answer. But it was a man who came to the phone. He said that Tom wasn’t there, and hung up abruptly.

I called the drugstore. A male voice I didn’t recognize told me that Tom was taking the evening off, for a change. No, he had no idea where Tom was now, but he had seen him earlier. Tom had come by the drugstore to pick up some bandages.

“Bandages?” I said.

“That’s right. Tom said a friend of his needed them.”

“Did he mention the friend’s name?”

“I don’t think he did, no.”

I called Dr. Brokaw’s number, expecting to have to talk my way past his answering service. But he answered the phone himself, on the first ring. I told him what had happened.

“So they got clean away.” He didn’t try to conceal the relief in his voice.

“They got away, but not cleanly. We have the license number of their car now. They’ll be picked up.”

“The woman went with him, did she?”

“Evidently.”

“Then it’s pretty clear she isn’t his prisoner.”

“This isn’t the same woman,” I said. “I don’t know what he did with Laurel Russo.”

“Who is the woman with him?”

“I think her name is Gloria. You wouldn’t be likely to know her. Have you had any luck with the hospitals, Doctor?”

“As a matter of fact, I have. I’m not sure that luck is the word, though. The big hospital in West Los Angeles reports a patient missing – a Navy veteran named Nelson Bagley. He was taken out for dinner the night before last, and never came back.”

“Who took him out for dinner?”

“That isn’t clear. Do you want to follow up on this?”

“I intend to. It would help a good deal to have a doctor along, especially at night. These government hospitals can be pretty stuffy about giving out information.”

Brokaw didn’t answer immediately. “All right, I’ll meet you there.”