Stranger At Home by George Sanders Page A

ninety on the highway. Michael Vickers had once owned a custom-built job that would do one hundred and ten.
    Sessions brought the car finally to a gentle stop in front of Vickers’ house.
    Angie and Joan got out. Vickers stayed where he was. He reached out and patted Angie’s shoulder.
    â€œTry and get some rest,” he said. ‘I’ll be home for dinner.” He turned to Sessions. “You can drop me off at Wilshire.”
    Angie went off with Joan. Her face had a set look. Sessions shrugged, and started the car.
    At the foot of the hill he said, “I can take you wherever you want to go.”
    â€˜I’m not sure where that is. Just let me out...” Vickers saw a red sign ahead. “Here, Sunset will do.” He got out as Sessions made the stop, waved, and went off. Sessions shook his head, and let himself cautiously into the stream of traffic along the Strip.
    Michael Vickers walked slowly west, toward Beverly Hills. The sun was bright. There were cars and people and busses. There were open-front markets with bright pyramids of oranges and grapefruit and carefully artistic arrangements of vegetables. There were drugstores and liquor stores and art galleries and beauty shoppes and professional photographers and antique dealers and exclusive gown shops. There were service stations and veterinaries. There were agencies, dozens of them, the plush-upholstered auction blocks whence bodies, and perhaps even an occasional soul, are consigned to wear the Yellow Kimono in the ice palaces of Hollywood. There was a large, convenient mortuary.
    The remembered places. The Players. Ciro’s, The Mocambo, The Troc. Bit of Sweden and the Tail of the Cock. The city spread out below the Strip. The stink of exhaust vapors, the noise of horns and motors, the drive­in restaurants with girls in tight pants serving cheeseburgers and malts.
    Vickers thought, This hasn’t changed . He looked at his reflection in a store window. The clothes were the same. He had worn them into these swank bars and peeled bills off of a thick wad held in a silver clip with his initials on it and been treated like the Shah of Persia. The clothes were the same. The street was the same. Maybe I’ll forget these last four years. I forgot all the other ones quickly enough .
    He walked on, and there was still a distance between himself and the street.
    He boarded a red bus and stood in the crowded aisle and studied the faces around him. There was a tired young colored woman with a child asleep in her lap. There were housewives with bundles and a man with a lunch pail and a very old woman with sandals made of newspaper folded thick and tied on with rags. People who had never been near the Mocambo. When the bus stopped at Beverly Hills Station Vickers got out with the rest of them, and walked over to Bedford Drive. He pleased himself by not having to hunt for’ the house. It was colonial and pretentious, and the way Vickers thrust his finger against the bell managed to impart a quality of insolence even to the chimes.
    The door opened.
    Vickers said, “Hullo, Stokes. Remember me?”
    The plump, healthy-looking butler obviously did remember him, and the remembrance seemed to be something of a shock.
    â€œOh, come now, Stokes,” said Vickers, walking in. “It’s not as though I were Mr. Bryce coming back.”
    Stokes shuddered. “Please, sir!” He closed the door. “Poor Mr. Bryce. I only heard the news when Mrs. Bryce returned home.” He shuddered again. “Murder!”
    â€œFrightfully ill bred,” said Vickers. “And most inconvenient.”
    Stokes gave him a look. “You’ve changed, sir, if I may say so. But not much.” No one could possibly have taken offense at his tone. He added formally, “May I offer my congratulations on your safe return.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œI’ll inquire whether Mrs. Bryce is able to see you