Part 6 (1/2)
”I have a prior commitment.”
”If you mean little Mr. Alex Kincaid, I can pay you better than he can. Not to mention fringe benefits,” she added irrepressibly.
”That college grapevine is working overtime. Or is Dolly the source of your information?”
”She's one of them. I could tell you things about that girl that would curl your hair.”
”Go ahead. I've always wanted curly hair.”
”Why should I? You don't offer a _quid pro quo_. You don't even take me seriously. I'm not used to being turned down flat, by the way.”
”It's nothing personal. I'm just the phlegmatic type. Anyway, you don't need me. There are roads going in three directions-.Mexico, the desert, or Los Angeles--and you have a nice fast car.
”I'm too nervous to drive any distance.”
”Scared?”
She nodded.
”You put up a good front.”
”A good front is all I have.”
Her face looked closed and dark, perhaps because the sunlight had faded from the room. Only her hair seemed to hold the light. Beyond the slopes of her body I could see the mountains darkening down.
”Who wants to kill you, Helen?”
”I don't know exactly. But I've been threatened.”
”How?”
”Over the telephone. I didn't recognize the voice. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, or something in between.” She shuddered.
”Why would anybody threaten you?”
”I don't know,” she said without meeting my eyes.
”Teachers do get threatened from time to time. It usually isn't too serious. Have you had a run-in with any local crackpots?”
”I don't even know any local people. Except the ones at the college, of course.”
”You may have a psychoneurotic in one of your cla.s.ses.”
She shook her head. ”It's nothing like that. This is serious.”
”How do you know?”
”I have my ways of knowing.”
”Is it anything to do with Dolly Kincaid?”
”Perhaps. I can't say for sure. The situation is so complicated.”
”Tell me about the complicated situation.”
”It goes a long way back,” she said, ”all the way back to Bridgeton.”
”Bridgeton?”
”The city where I was born and raised. The city where everything happened. I ran away, but you can't run away from the landscape of your dreams. My nightmares are still set in the streets of Bridgeton. That voice on the telephone threatening to kill me was Bridgeton catching up with me. It was the voice of Bridgeton talking out of the past.”
She was unconscious of herself, caught in a waking nightmare, but her description of it sounded false. I still didn't know whether to take her seriously.
”Are you sure you're not talking nonsense out of the present?”
”I'm not making this up,” she said. ”Bridgeton will be the death of me. Actually I've always known it would.”
”Towns don't kill people.”
”You don't know the proud city of my birth. It has quite a record along those lines.”
”Where is it?”
”In Illinois, south of Chicago.”
”You say that everything happened there. What do you mean?”
”Everything important--it was all over before I knew it had started. But I don't want to go into the subject.”
”I can't very well help you unless you do.”
”I don't believe you have any intention of helping me. You're simply trying to pump me for information.”
It was true. I didn't care for her as she wished to be cared for by someone. I didn't entirely trust her. Her handsome body seemed to contain two alternating persons, one sensitive and candid, one hard and evasive.
She rose and went to the gla.s.s wall that faced the mountains. They had turned lavender and plum, with dark nocturnal blue in their clefts and groins. The entire evening, mountains and sky and city, was inundated with blue.
”_Die blaue Stunde_,” she said more or less to herself. ”I used to love this hour. Now it gives me the mortal s.h.i.+vers.”
I got up and stood behind her. ”You're deliberately working on your own emotions.”
”You know so much about me.”
”I know you're an intelligent woman. Act like one. If the place is getting you down leave it, or stay here and take precautions. Ask for police protection.”
”You're very free with brilliant suggestions not involving you. I asked for protection yesterday after I got the threatening telephone calL The Sheriff sent a man out. He said such calls were common, and usually involved teenagers.”