Part 1 (1/2)

Talk of The Town.

by Charles Williams.

1

It wasn't a very large town. The highway came into it from the west across a bridge spanning a slow-moving and muddy river with an unp.r.o.nounceable Indian name, and then ran straight through the central business district for four or five blocks down a wide street with angle parking and four traffic lights at successive intersections. I was just pulling away from the last light, going about twenty miles per hour in the right-hand lane, when some local in a beat-up old panel truck decided to come shooting backwards out of his parking place without looking behind him.

There was another car on my left, so all I could do was to slam on my brakes just before I plowed into him. There was a crash of metal followed by a succession of tinkling sounds as fragments of grill-work and shards of gla.s.s rained onto the pavement. Necks craned up and down the sun-blasted street.

I locked the handbrake and got out, and shook my head with disgust as I sized up the damage. The front b.u.mper was knocked loose at one end, and the right fender and smashed headlight were crumpled in on the wheel. But the worst of it was the spout of hot water streaming out through the wreckage of the grill.

The driver of the panel came charging out. He was about six feet, thin, dark, and hard-nosed, and the bony face he wanted to shove into mine was flavored with cheap muscadel. ”Look, stupid,” he said, ”maybe you think this is a race track-”

The bad mood had been building up in me for a long time, and I was in just the frame of mind to be jockeyed around by some summer-replacement tough guy with a nose full of wine. I caught a handful of his s.h.i.+rt in my left and started to slap him one across the mouth, but then the childishness of it caught up with me and I merely pushed him away. He sputtered some more, and at the same time somebody behind me clamped a big hand on my arm. I turned. It was a fat man with a hard and competent eye. He was dressed in khaki and wore a gunbelt.

”All right,” he told me. ”You want to start trouble around here, start it with me. I'm in the business.”

”Okay, okay,” I said. ”There's no war.”

He kept the flinty eye on my face. ”You're a pretty big boy to be shoving people around.”

The usual crowd was beginning to gather and I could sense I wasn't likely to be named Miss Northern Florida of 1958. It looked as if I'd started the beef, in addition to running into him, and the Californian license plates probably didn't help any.

He turned to the driver of the panel. ”You all right, Frankie?”

Fine, I thought sourly; they're probably cousins.

Frankie unburdened himself. The whole thing was my fault; d.a.m.ned tourists, doing sixty through the middle of town. When he ran down, I had a chance to put in my nickel's worth, and that's about what it bought. I polled a few of the rubbernecks, looking for witnesses, but n.o.body had seen anything, or would admit it.

”All right, mister,” the fat policeman told me bleakly, ”let's see your driver's license.”

I was getting it out of my wallet and making a mental note that if I ever came through here again I'd s.h.i.+p the car and walk, when a tall girl with dark hair stepped off the curb and came over.

”I saw the whole thing,” she said to the officer. She told him just how it happened.

In some vague way I couldn't quite put my finger on, his reaction struck me as a little strange. He apparently knew her, but there was no word of greeting. He nodded, accepting the story, but it was a curt nod, grudging and perhaps faintly hostile. She wrote something on a card and handed it to me.

”If your insurance company wants me, they can reach me there,” she said.

”Thanks a million,” I told her. I slipped the card into my wallet. ”It's very nice of you.”

She went back onto the pavement. Some of the bystanders watched her, and I sensed the same odd reaction I'd felt in the fat policeman. It wasn't quite hostility-or was it? I had a feeling they all knew her, although not one had spoken to her. But she had poise.

I didn't know whether it was because of her story or because the officer finally got close enough to Frankie to pick up some of his muscadel fall-out, but the picture changed somewhat in my favor. He cut Frankie down to size with a couple of parade-ground barks, and wrote up the report, but didn't issue any tickets. The damage to the panel truck wasn't extensive. We exchanged insurance company information, and a wrecker came along and picked my car up. I rode to the garage with the driver. It was back the way I'd come, near the river on the west side of the business district.

It was hot and still, around two in the afternoon of a day in midsummer. Shadows were like ink in the white sunlight, and I could feel perspiration soaking my s.h.i.+rt. I'd left New Orleans early that morning and had planned to go on through to St. Petersburg and have a dip in the Gulf before dinner. Well, it couldn't be helped, I thought sourly. Then I thought of the girl again and tried to remember just what she'd looked like. The only thing I could come up with was that she was tall and quite slender. Attractive? Somewhat, but no real dish. About thirty, I thought. But there'd been something about her face, a quality that escaped me now-Well, it didn't matter.

The garage was a big place on a corner, with a showroom in front and some petrol pumps in the driveway. We towed the car on into the repair department, and the foreman looked it over. He was a thin slat of a man with a cold face.

”You want a bid, is that it?” he asked.

”No,” I said. ”I'll pay for it myself and let the insurance companies fight about it later.”

”Day after tomorrow's the best we can do. We haven't got that radiator in stock, but we can get it out of Tallaha.s.see on the bus.”

”Okay,” I said. I didn't look forward to spending thirty-six hours or more in the place, but there was no point in griping about it. I lifted the two cases out of the boot. ”Where's a good place to stay?”

”One of the motels would be your best bet,” he replied.

”Fine. Where's the nearest one?”

He wiped his hands on a piece of rag and thought about it.

”Only one on this side is about three miles out. East of town, though, there's a couple of good ones fairly close in. The Spanish Main, and the El Rancho.”

”Thanks. Can I call a cab?”

He jerked his head towards the front office. ”See the girl.”

A big blond kid in a white overall had come in to get something off a work-bench. He turned and looked at us. ”If he wants a motel, Mrs. Langston is out front now, getting some gas.”

The foremen shook his head.

”Who's Mrs. Langston?” I asked.

”She runs the Magnolia Lodge, east of town.”

”Well, what's the matter with that?”

He shrugged. ”Suit yourself.”

He puzzled me. ”Is something wrong with it?” I asked.

”I guess not. It's run-down and there's no pool, but where you stay is your own business, the way I look at it.”

Just then the name clicked. I was almost sure it was the same one. Rather than fish it out of my wallet, however, I merely picked up the two bags, said ”Thanks,” and walked out front to the driveway. I was right. She was standing beside an old station wagon taking some money from her purse.

I walked over and put down the suitcase. ”Mrs. Langston?”

She glanced around and gave me a brief smile. ”Oh, h.e.l.lo,” she said. And all at once I realized what it was about her face that had struck me before. It was tired. Simply that. It was a slender and rather attractive face with good bone structure, but there was an almost unfathomable weariness far back in the fine gray eyes.

”I understand you run a motel,” I said.

She nodded. ”That's right.””If you have a vacancy, I'd like to ride out with you.”

”Yes, of course. Just put your bags in the back.”