Vanishing Ladies

Chapter thirteen

‘Inside’ was a suite of rooms behind the motel office.

There was a living room with a long cabinet and a longer couch and a rug that needed mowing. Stephanie went directly to the cabinet, opened one of the doors, and pulled out the record-player unit.

‘I like music,’ she said. She picked up one of the LP albums from the cabinet top, and then pulled a Sinatra record from its protective cover. Sinatra began singing. Stephanie listened for a moment and then said, ‘He phrases beautifully.’ She nodded in agreement with herself, went to the other end of the cabinet, took a bottle and two glasses, and then said, ‘Come on.’

I followed her into a luxurious bedroom. There were blue silk sheets on the double bed, and a white monogram where the sheets were folded over, the letters SBR. Stephanie Something Barter.

‘What was your maiden name?’ I asked.

‘Roscanski. Horrible, isn’t it?’ She went to the closet, took something from a hanger there, and then went to another door. ‘I won’t be long,’ she said. ‘Sit down.’

She closed the door behind her. I sat in the chaise lounge. I got up, walked to the bed, and touched the blue sheets. They were cool and smooth. I sat down again. In the bathroom, the water was running. It was getting dark outside. I went to the lamp on the night table and snapped it on. The water in the bathroom stopped. There was only Sinatra then, and the beginning night song of the katydids. The bathroom door opened. Stephanie Barter had pulled her blonde hair back into a pony tail, tied it at the nape of her neck with a green ribbon that caught the color of her eyes. She wore a white robe with the SBR monogrammed on the left breast. She wore pink ruffled mules.

‘Rye all right?’ she asked.

‘Rye will do very nicely,’ I said.

She walked to the dressing table where she’d left the bottle. She picked it up. The label read Canadian Club. She held out the bottle. ‘All right?’ she asked.

‘Fine,’ I said.

There was a keen glow of proprietorship in her eyes. She was proud of the Canadian Club, happy she could afford good whisky. She poured it liberally and handed me one of the glasses.

‘Toast,’ she said.

‘Here’s to truth and beauty,’ I said. We clinked glasses.

‘Why that?’

‘Why not? They’re the two most elusive things around.’

‘Beauty’s cheap,’ Stephanie said. ‘You can buy beauty.’

‘You can’t buy truth.’

‘Who would want to?’ She thought a moment. ‘Besides, you can buy truth, too. You can buy anything you want in this world.’

‘Can I buy you?’ I asked.

Stephanie laughed. ‘I’ve already been bought.’

‘Oh?’

‘A long time ago. The man wanted beauty. He bought it.’

‘Which man?’

‘Mike. My husband.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘He’s a gorilla.’

‘That’s nice.’

‘That is not so nice,’ Stephanie said, and she drank. She poured another drink for herself. I still had not tasted mine. ‘I like nice things,’ she said, ‘good things. The best. Why drive a Ford when I can drive a Cadillac?’ She savored the name of the car. She rolled it on her tongue.

‘There’s always a Mercedes Benz,’ I said.

‘Is that better than a Cadillac?’

‘Well, it costs more.’

She seemed troubled. ‘I didn’t know that,’ she said.

‘You’ll have to look into it.’

‘Yes.’ She sipped at her drink. ‘You’ve got a lot of nerve, do you know?’

‘Have I?’

‘Yes. You’re lucky, too.’

‘How so?’

‘If this were yesterday, you wouldn’t be in this room.’

‘What makes yesterday different from today?’

‘Lots of things. The todays are always different from the yesterdays, didn’t you know?’

‘I suspected.’

‘What line of work are you in, Tony?’

‘Why?’

‘I’ll bet I can guess.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Advertising.’

‘How’d you know?’

‘I can tell. You dress like an advertising man.’

‘I didn’t know we were so obvious,’ I said. ‘How does your husband dress?’

‘How do gorillas dress? Like gorillas?’ She giggled. ‘I believe in bargains, don’t you?’

‘Bargain basement bargains?’

‘No, no that’s not what I meant. A bargain. A contract.’

‘Yes, I believe in contracts.’

‘So do I. At least, I did. You make a bargain, you stick to it. You buy something, you sell something, that’s it. You put your name on the dotted line, and it’s signed, sealed, and delivered. F.O.B. San Diego.’

‘Is that where you’re from?’

‘Yes. Do you know it?’

‘No.’

‘It’s a crumby town. A sailor town. Not really as bad as Norfolk, but bad, anyway.’

‘What brought you east?’

‘Bigger pickings. I learned my trade with sailors, but what can sailors do for you?’ She paused and then said again, ‘I like nice things.’

‘And now you’ve got them.’

‘Now I’ve got them. Mrs Michael Barter. I believe in bargains. I don’t like contracts to be broken.’ She paused. ‘Do you really want to take me to bed?’

‘I want to talk a while,’ I said.

‘Mike doesn’t talk much. Busy man. Very busy. You live with a man so many years, you never know about him. All of a sudden, I discover a lot about Mr B.’

‘What’d you discover?’

‘A lot. Have another drink.’

‘All right.’

‘Advertising men drink a lot, don’t they?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Here.’ She poured. She touched her glass to mine. ‘To truth and beauty. I sold the beauty, but I was fair. That’s truth. You make a contract, you stick to it. Both parties, I’m a pretty girl.’

‘You are.’

‘I was even prettier. When I married Mike, I was really pretty. When it starts to go, it goes fast. I swim every day, do you know? Winter and summer. Some days it’s so cold I think I’ll die. But I go down to the lake and take a dip. The only time I don’t go is when the lake is frozen over. I skate then. Exercise. I got the good looks free, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t take care of them. You’re not the first who liked the office better than the cabins.’

‘I didn’t think I was.’

‘But you’re the first who ever got past the door. Doesn’t that make you feel good?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’re just mad at your husband. I could have been anybody.’

‘That’s not true. You drink to truth and beauty, but you’re a liar.’

‘Aren’t you mad at your husband?’

‘Sure.’

‘Well?’

‘That’s got nothing to do with you.’

‘What contract did he break?’

‘Who said he broke a contract?’

‘You did.’

‘I said nothing of the sort.’

‘Somebody did, and it wasn’t me.’

‘You think too much about contracts. That’s all advertising men think of.’ She paused. ‘Are you important?’

‘I run the company.’

‘I run this company, too. Iron fist in a velvet glove. Do you want another drink?’

‘No.’

‘Neither do I.’ There was a long silence. Frank Sinatra sang. ‘The whole world is contracts,’ Stephanie said. ‘Contracts signed, or about to be signed. Contracts kept, and contracts broken. I keep a contract. If you’re going to be fair, you keep a contract. Otherwise, you’re dirt.’

‘What contract did you make?’

‘I contracted to be a wife.’

‘And have you been one?’

‘I certainly have.’

‘Then there’s no problem.’

‘No problem,’ Stephanie said. ‘You understand, I don’t love Mike. Never did. I just made a contract. He bought me. He got beauty and a wife. I got anything I wanted — and a husband. That was the contract.’

‘What happened to it?’

‘I don’t like dirt,’ Stephanie said. ‘I had enough dirt when I was a kid. I didn’t even have sheets on my bed, do you know? I slept with just a blanket over me. A blanket is coarse. I don’t like coarseness, and I don’t like dirt.’

‘For someone with such an aversion to dirt,’ I said dryly, ‘you’re in a peculiar business.’

‘I run it clean. Everyone gets a fair shake. The girls are good. You make a contract with me, you don’t get cheated.’

‘How’d you meet Mike?’

‘Came out here one night on business. From the city. Mike ran it on a small scale. Don’t misunderstand. He’s rich. He looks like a gorilla, but he’s rich. Owns half the lake. And now the business is a paying one, and I mean paying. There are fifteen cabins, and on most nights all of them are full. Some girls, we get as high as five hundred for the night. Quality stuff, do you understand? We pay the girls whatever we can get by with. Some of them insist on half, most of them’ll accept a hundred a trick. So say we average three thousand a night, seven nights a week, fifty-two weeks a year. You add it up. It comes to a million-dollar business. For a town like this, that’s not bad, is it?’

‘Are you happy?’

‘Who is?’

‘I am.’

‘Are you married?’

‘Yes.’

‘If you’re married, and you’re so happy, what are you doing here?’

‘Well...’ I grinned.

‘A temporary breach of contract,’ Stephanie said.

‘I guess you could call it that.’

‘Maybe I don’t like you so much after all.’

‘You never said you did.’

‘I do,’ she answered. ‘I haven’t really talked to anyone in the longest time.’ The Sinatra record ended. Captured in the retaining grooves at the end of the record, the needle clicked and wove a crazy path. Stephanie stood near the bed, looking down at me. She went outside to the record player and lifted the arm. The room was very quiet when she came back.

‘You’re a gentleman, aren’t you?’ she said softly.

‘Maybe.’

‘You must be. We’ve been alone for a half-hour and...’ She stopped. Apparently she had heard something which eluded my ears. I listened. The sound came to me, too, then — the whine of a motor in the distance.

‘Mike,’ she whispered, and she went to the door. I followed her into the office. She went behind the desk and opened a drawer, taking out a register. The motor sound was closer now, the sound of a heavy truck laboring into the court and then grinding to a halt.

There were footsteps on the gravel outside. The cabin door opened. The man standing there was short, and squat, and partially bald. He had small pig eyes and powerful arms. Behind him was a tall hulking brute with a face as expressionless as a pan of dishwater.

‘Who’s this?’ the short man said.

‘Tony Mitchell,’ I said. ‘I’m a friend of Joe Carlisle.’

‘Yeah?’

‘He’s all right, Mike,’ Stephanie said wearily. ‘How’d everything go?’

Barter glanced at me quickly. ‘Fine,’ he said. He turned to the giant behind him. ‘Put the truck away, Hez,’ he said, and Hez turned and walked out of the cabin without a sound. Barter looked at me. ‘I don’t think we’ll be able to accommodate you tonight, Mr Mitchell,’ he said.

‘Why not?’ Stephanie asked.

‘We won’t,’ Barter said simply.

‘Joe specifically said I should come here,’ I said.

‘Joe was wrong.’

‘He even told me who to ask for.’

‘I’m afraid he—’

‘A girl named Lois,’ I said.

Barter stopped in mid-sentence. Stephanie looked up sharply. A quick glance passed between them.

‘There’s nobody by that name here,’ Barter said.

‘Isn’t there?’

‘Never was.’

‘A tall brunette,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ Stephanie said. ‘Lois.’

‘Yes.’

‘She left.’

‘That’s too bad,’ I said.

‘You remember Lois, don’t you?’ Stephanie asked Barter.

‘Lois? Oh, yes, yes. She left.’

‘This morning,’ Stephanie said.

‘Do you remember her now?’ I asked Barter.

‘Yes, I do. She’s gone.’

‘Where’d she go?’

‘Home.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Are you sure she’s gone?’

‘I put her on the train myself,’ Stephanie said.

‘Train to where?’

‘Davistown.’

‘Is that where she lives?’

‘I don’t know. That’s where she went. I never asked her where she lived.’

‘Well, I’m a little disappointed,’ I said.

Stephanie caught my eye. ‘I am, too,’ she answered.

‘Lois or no,’ Barter said, ‘we can’t accommodate you.’

‘Then I guess I’ll be shoving off.’

‘That would seem to be the thing to do,’ Barter said.

‘Nice meeting you both.’

‘Try us again,’ Stephanie said.

‘I will.’

‘If you see Joe,’ Barter said, ‘give him my regards.’

‘I will.’

‘He still lives in Murraysville, don’t he?’ Barter asked.

‘ Murraysville?’

‘Yes,’ Barter said.

‘I wouldn’t know where he lives,’ I said. ‘I met him in a bar.’

‘Where?’

I took a wild shot in the dark. ‘Davistown,’ I said.

‘Well,’ Barter said, sighing, ‘give him my regards.’

When I got outside, the truck was gone. I pulled the car away from Stephanie Barter’s Cadillac, and headed down the road.

I drove for four minutes before I doused the lights and pulled over into the bushes.