The Third Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 25 Classic Mysteries

The Favor

Originally published in Manhunt, September 1957.

At first there was only pain. It filled his whole being. It crackled down his nerves and flowed into his muscles. He lay and endured it because there was nothing else to do. He didn’t fight it or analyze it. There was this moment of pain and nothing else to Lonnie’s way of thinking. No past. No future. Only the present tick of time.

After awhile the pain subsided to a slight degree. He opened his eyes. He was lying in a comfortable bed in a room that was strange to him. It was a room of faded, peeling wallpaper, furnished with a rickety washstand and the bed on which he lay. But to Lonnie it was a very good room, the cleanest he had ever been in.

He wondered briefly how he had gotten there. He remembered sticking the knife in Marti during the teenage gang rumble in L.A.. He hadn’t meant to do it. But Marti had got in his way and there’d been the knife in Lonnie’s hand. He recalled, without feeling, the way Marti had looked in the alley, loose, disjointed.

It was Hawkins who’d advised Lonnie to get out of town. “You’re in trouble, plenty,” Hawkins said. “Marti ain’t just another punk.” Hawkins paced back and forth before Lonnie. Hawkins had brought Lonnie to his room, and Lonnie sat on the edge of the rumpled bed and considered everything Hawkins said.

“The Panthers’ll be after you, Lonnie.” Hawkins said.

“I ain’t scared of them,” Lonnie said.

“Hell, I know that. But look at the spot it puts our boys in. You wouldn’t want some of them getting hurt because of you?”

“Nah. Hawkins you know I wouldn’t want that. They’re my friends.”

“Sure. Lonnie,” Hawkins said, laying his hand on Lonnie’s beefy shoulder. “You got a screwy way of looking at things. But in your own way you’re a right guy. That’s why I stuck my neck out and took the trouble of getting you here.”

“You’re my friend, Hawkins,” Lonnie said.

“And I’m giving you the best advice. Get out of town. Lay low for awhile. Work on a farm or something.”

“You think I should? You really think so?”

“I know so. Otherwise you’re going to cause some of your friends to get hurt.”

“I wouldn’t want that. I like to help my friends. I was trying to help the Spig when Marti got in my way.”

“I know, kid. Just do as I say. Here, this’ll help you a little.” Hawkins opened the bureau drawer and took out a five dollar bill.

Lonnie sat with his hands hanging between his knees and shook his head.

“Take it,” Hawkins said.

“Nah, I couldn’t. You need it. And I wouldn’t have no way of paying it back.”

Young, sleek, hard, Hawkins looked at him a moment. “I don’t want it paid back. Now take it. Do what I say. Hop the first freight out of town.”

“All right, Hawkins, if you say so.”

“I’m saying so. So long, kid, and good luck.”

“Good luck to you,” Lonnie said, standing up.

He’d gone down to the freight yards and got into a box car without any trouble. Because things had happened fast, his mind felt confused and tired. He’d closed his eyes and gone to sleep, under some straw far back in the corner.

The train had been in motion when he’d awakened. A big, bearded guy had been bending over him, going through his pockets.

“Hey, you!” Lonnie had said.

The big hobo had hit him hard in the face, smashing the back of his head against the side of the car. From that point on there was no memory.

The door across the room opened, the sound bringing a movement of Lonnie’s head.

A girl was standing in the doorway. She looked to Lonnie to be about twenty to twenty five. She was slender and had a nice figure that swelled against her faded cotton print dress, pulled snug about her slim waist with a cracked patent leather belt. Her hair was dark blonde, uneven in its short cut as if she’d done the cutting herself. She wore no makeup, and her face was tanned, not pale like the faces of the girls on Lonnie’s street.

“Hello,” she said. “Feeling better, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Lonnie said. “But I got a awful headache.”

“I guessed as much,” she smiled. “I’ll fix you something.”

She went away and came back in a few seconds with a glass of water and a couple of pills. She crossed the room, stood beside the bed, and offered the pills on her open palm. “These’ll make you feel lots better.”

“Thanks,” Lonnie said. “You’re really a friend.” She smiled. She had even, white teeth. Lonnie forgot the pain, looking at the smile. She was sweet and wonderful and his friend, even if he didn’t know her name.

“Anybody would have done as much for you,” she said.

“I guess not,” Lonnie said. “You could have left me be. Some people would have.”

“The people where you came from?”

“Some of them.”

“Is that why you were going away?”

“Yeah.”

“We guessed you’d been on the freight. We found you in the gravel beside the roadbed.”

“We?”

“My husband and me. We run this place here.”

“It’s a nice place.”

“No, it ain’t much. A stinking little farm out in the middle of the desert.”

She didn’t look so bright talking about the farm and that gave Lonnie a moment of brief sadness. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Louise. What’s yours?”

He sipped the water to swallow the pills and said, “Lonnie Speare.”

“From L. A.?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d like to go there sometime. I never been in a city.”

“It’s all right,” Lonnie said.

She put her hand forward and wiped the fine hairs back from Lonnie’s brow. He closed his eyes. He wished she’d keep doing that for a long time. Her touch was cool and gentle. His heart swelled as he realized how kind she was being to him.

“You’re tired,” she said. “Rest now. I’ll look in on you again when supper’s ready.”

Lonnie heard her go out and close the door softly. He went to sleep without effort.

He felt much refreshed when he woke. He lay content, a big-framed, fleshy youth regenerating physical power quickly. He threw back the sheet and stood up. He was dressed in his dirty shorts. He padded to the chair near the bed and picked up his jeans. He put them on and stood scratching the matted brown hairs on his chest. He was dizzy for a few seconds; then it passed.

He moved to the washstand and looked at himself in the faded brown mirror that hung on the wall. Close cut brown hair was like a cap on his head fitted close about his protruding ears. The features of his face were heavy, without visible bone structure. There was a mottled yellow and purple discoloration on his left cheek where the big hobo had struck him.

He turned from the mirror and ran his hand in the pocket of his jeans. Sure enough, the fiver that Hawkins had given him was gone.

“Okay, big fellow,” Lonnie muttered under his breath. “I’ll remember you. I’ll fix you if I ever run across you again.”

Moving to the bed, he sat on the edge of it and put on his socks and shoes. He was getting into his shirt when the door opened and a man came into the room.

He was taller than Lonnie, but slender. Slender to the point of looking stooped and hollow-chested. His face was narrow with thin, sharp features, his skin rough, flaked from the sun and hot wind. The whites of his slate gray eyes were bloodshot and he brought the smell of whiskey into the room.

“You about ready to eat?”

“Yeah,” Lonnie said.

“Well, come on. Louise has got it waiting.”

Lonnie buttoned his shirt quickly. “I want to thank you...”

“Skip it,” the man said. “Louise found you. Wasn’t nothing else we could do, except leave you out there for buzzard bait.”

Lonnie followed the man out of the room. They entered into the kitchen where Louise was busy at the oil cookstove. There were four chairs about a bare, scarred table, a kitchen cabinet, and an electric refrigerator to complete the furnishings of the kitchen. Through a second doorway Lonnie glimpsed a small living room in which were cramped an old wicker set and straw rug.

“This is Bart Houser, my husband,” Louise said.

The tall, slender man grunted and moved around the table.

Lonnie sat down stiffly. Bart had destroyed his feeling of contentment. It was plain that Bart didn’t want him here. Bart would have left him for the buzzards, Lonnie guessed. Too bad. People ought to be friends and help each other. It was only right to do things for your friends.

“Give me the bottle, Lou,” Bart said.

She turned from the stove, her face clouded. She didn’t look as young as she had earlier today when she’d smiled. “Bart, don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

“No, I don’t. And I’m big enough to do my own thinking. A man works hard all day, he’s entitled to a little relaxation without a she-cat jawing at him. Now give the bottle to me.”

Louise opened the cabinet and took out a half full quart bottle of cheap whiskey. She set it on the table.

“Now water,” Bart ordered.

Louise moved to the sink and worked and worked the hand pump to bring up a glass of fresh water. She put it on the table beside the whiskey.

“Something’s burning on the stove,” Bart said. “You gonna burn the supper?”

Louise sprang to the stove. Bart took a pull at the bottle and chased it with water. He set the bottle on the table, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and glanced at Lonnie. “Man works like I do deserves a little waiting on at the end of the day.”

Lonnie said nothing. He sat staring without expression at the red death of the desert day outside.

“From L. A.?” Bart said.

“Yeah,” Lonnie said.

“What you running from?”

“Bart...” Louise said.

“Shut up,” Bart said. “I’m talking to him — not you.”

“I ain’t running from nothing,” Lonnie said, keeping his hands under the table because his palms were sweating.

“Then what you doing out here?”

“I got throwed off the train.”

“Railroad dick?”

“No. A bozo robbed me, slugged me, threw me off.”

“Robbed you?” Bart sneered. “Of what?”

“Bart, please,” Louise said. “Can’t you see the boy’s been through a rough time? I know he’s telling the truth. Why don’t you leave him alone?”

Bart finished a second long drink. “He’s probably got a record a mile long in L. A.. Or maybe you’re so lonely out here you don’t care what kind of riffraff you talk to.”

“No, I ain’t got a record a mile long,” Lonnie said.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Bart said. “I was asking her something. Come on, Lou. Why the look? Maybe you think because he’s from L. A. he can talk a lot better than your husband?”

“Bart,” she said quietly, “you’re tired.” She glanced at Lonnie. “He isn’t always this way. He’s a good, hardworking man, really. It’s just that we’ve had troubles and they’re getting him down.”

Lonnie’s throat filled with feeling. She was like an angel, he thought.

Bart laughed without humor. “The very soul of generosity. That’s you, Lou. Why don’t you give up and go back to Salinas?”

“Quit torturing yourself, Bart.”

Bart shoved his chair back. “Oh, the hell with it. I don’t want any supper.”

He stalked into the other room, the whisky bottle dangling in his hand. He slammed the door so hard the small frame house shook.

Lonnie sat looking at the closed door. Then he turned his head and saw that Louise was crying.

She brushed the back of her hand across her eyes and brought a smile to her lips. “Why don’t you tell me about L. A.? I’m going there someday. See the lights. Eat in the restaurant.”

“You’d look real good there,” Lonnie said.

“Would I? Well a woman appreciates compliments — and I thank you.”

“You deserve nice things, Louise. You’re real pretty.”

She looked at him, suddenly serious. Then she wagged a finger. “Don’t you forget — I’m a married woman.”

“I know,” Lonnie said, “and my friend. About the best friend anybody ever had, I guess.”

She took fried potatoes from the stove. “How old are you, Lonnie?”

“Twenty two,” he said, stretching his age three years. “Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes you impress me like a serious old man — then again you’re like a little kid with the heart swelling inside of him.”

“Louise!” Bart shouted from the next room.

“Yes, Bart?”

“Open the door! Or maybe you wouldn’t like to. Maybe you’re making gaga eyes in there at the railroad bum.”

Lonnie felt a quiver pass over his big frame. What a snake this Bart was! He understood nothing. Louise is my friend, Lonnie thought. I’d risk my neck to help her for what she’s done for me, but I’d never lay a finger on her.

Never. This thing between him and Louise was so beautiful it stopped the breath in his chest. And across the face of that beauty Bart had thrown sullied words, like mud.

Louise crossed the room and opened the door.

“Eat hearty, L. A.,” Bart called. “I’m taking you to the junction tomorrow morning early. You can bum a ride from there. I ain’t having you eat my hard-earned grub and moon-eye my wife, understand?”

Lonnie half rose from his chair. Louise laid her fingers on his shoulder. Her touch was light, delicate, but the most real thing in the world. Lonnie sat down again and began eating in silence.

After supper Bart called Louise into the living room and closed the door. Lonnie washed the dishes and tidied the kitchen. After that there was nothing else of immediate nature he could do for her.

He opened the back door and stepped outside. The short, tense desert twilight was over the face of the land. The solitude and loneliness caused a shudder across Lonnie’s shoulders as he walked aimlessly over the fields.

There wasn’t another house visible anywhere in the twilight. Nothing moved. Even the very air seemed dead. The whole earth felt empty.

But it was not. Back there stood her house, like a small, lost thing. A tiny prison. Worse. A cell. This endless emptiness, this lack of life, this ear-crushing silence was the real prison.

Back in L.A. right now, the lights were beginning to twinkle on. There would be talk and occasional laughter and shouted hellos on the sidewalks. People would be eating in restaurants, rubbing elbows with each other. Juke boxes would be playing, and if you were in the know you could slip through the gimmicked window over the alley, through the men’s room, across the lobby, down into the theater itself and catch the movie for free at the Bijou.

People, lights, sound. That was life. That was all Lonnie had ever known. This emptiness was a thing of terror, a trap, a suspended moment of death.

And she was out here. The moment never ended for her. While in the midst of life moved women that were not half so pretty or nice or friendly as she was.

A lump came to Lonnie’s throat as he thought of the waste. He wondered how she had come to marry Bart and be imprisoned here in the wide circle of death.

Maybe Bart was hiding from something out here. A man must have something pushing him to live in a place like this.

Pain returned to Lonnie’s head as he struggled with his thoughts. He was confused. It was too much for him. He shook his head and started back toward the house. He noticed how quickly the twilight was fading, how complete the darkness was over the bluffs in the east. His steps quickened.

He could hear Bart’s voice before he stepped again into the house. Bart was cursing, railing at her because of some money she’d spent a week ago.

Lonnie stepped into the kitchen.

He heard her say, “Bart, please...”

And then he heard Bart slap her. Lonnie could have taken the blow without feeling it very much. But when she took it, Lonnie flinched.

She cried out softly as Bart slapped her again. Lonnie sucked in his breath as if he’d been hit hard in the stomach. A burning sensation filled his chest.

He had dried the long, thin butcher knife when he’d washed the dishes and put the knife in the wall rack. His hand went out. He took the knife down.

He crossed the kitchen and jerked open the door to the living room.

Bart was standing in the middle of the room taking the last drink from his bottle. He could barely keep on his feet. Louise was half sprawled on the wicker settee, holding her cheek and crying bitterly.

Both of them turned toward the noise of Lonnie’s sudden entry.

Bart saw the long, shinning length of the butcher knife and his eyes were suddenly, coldly sober. He instinctively backed away from Lonnie and the knife.

Lonnie advanced with a heavy stride, the knife held at his belt pointing forward.

Bart stood slack-jawed, his knees backed hard against the easy-chair. “What do you want?”

“You can’t hit her,” Lonnie said. “I won’t let you hit her anymore.” He moved closer to Bart.

“You’re crazy!” Bart shouted.

“No. I’m just going to stop you from hitting her again.” He came a step closer, the knife now held out from his body.

Louise had stopped crying. She looked with terror from Bart to Lonnie, her eyes wide and staring. She was fascinated by the flashing knife in Lonnie’s hand.

“You keep away from me! You got no business interfering. She’s my wife; I can do with her like I please!” He was shouting again. The bottle fell from his nerveless hand with a crash, but he didn’t even look down.

“You’ve been keeping her here like she was in prison. I’m just going to stop you, that’s all.”

Bart was going to say something, but the knife was quicker. The knife slid into him to the hilt in the point of very soft flesh where his chest bones parted to yield to ribs.

Bart toppled without a sound, and Lonnie let out a soft, satisfied breath. A heavy weight seemed to have gone from his chest. He felt good.

And then the bewilderment came to his eyes as Louise leaped up from the settee, her eyes wild, and started screaming.

Lonnie had never heard such screams in all his life, not even in the kind of movies he liked to see. He couldn’t understand why she was screaming.

He stood there, trying to explain everything to her. She had saved his neck, and for a friend like that you were compelled to do a favor at every chance. He had done her the highest favor he could think of.

He had given her freedom, but, somehow, she didn’t seem happy about it.