taken from the floor. The stained bolo knife and Lucy’s smaller belongings were packed in evidence cases. Its position having been outlined with chalk, the body was lifted onto a stretcher and covered with canvas. The undertaker and the ambulance driver carried it out. Brake sealed the door.
It was twilight, and the courtyard was almost empty. Around a pole in its center, a group of women stood in the spill of light from a single arc-lamp. They were talking in loud self-righteous tones about murders they had seen or read or heard about or imagined. Their voices sank to an uneasy protesting murmur as Lucy’s cortege went by them.Their eyes, bright-dark in faces splashed with white by the lamp on the pole, followed the covered stretcher to the back door of the waiting hearse. The sky was a dingy yellow ceiling.
CHAPTER 8 :
The Mission Hotel was the most im
pressive building on Main Street. It was a concrete cube pierced with four rows of windows and surmounted by a broadcasting mast that thrust a winking red light towards the stars. Its flat white façade was stained red by a vertical neon sign over the entrance.
The lobby was deep and gloomy, furnished with dark wrinkled-leather chairs. Those near the half-curtained windows at the front were occupied by old men sitting in stiff impromptu positions, as if a flood had lodged them there years ago and then receded forever. On the wall above their heads, an obscure mural depicted U.S. cavalrymen riding strange horses with human knees in pursuit of still stranger Indians.
The desk-clerk was a mouse-colored little man who was striving against heavy odds to confer distinction on himself and his surroundings. With hair and eyebrow-moustache scrupulously brushed, a cornflower in his buttonhole matching the delicate pin-stripe in his flannels, and at his languid elbow a vase of cornflowers to underline his point, he might have inspired a tone poem by Debussy. He answered my question in tones of careful elegance, implying that he hadn’t always manned an outpost in the wilderness:
“I believe Mrs. Larkin is in her suite. I haven’t seen her go out, sir. Whom shall I say is calling?”
“Archer. Don’t bother announcing me. What’s her room number?”
“One hundred and two, Mr. Archer. I think she’s expecting you.”
It was opposite the elevator on the second floor. At the end of the corridor a pair of curtained French doors had a red-lit sign above them: FIRE ESCAPE . I knocked on the door of 102. The elevator creaked and thumped behind me like an old heart running down.
A wan voice called through the door: “Who is it, anyway?”
“Archer.”
“Come in.”
The door was locked, and I said so.
“All right, all right, I’m coming.” The door swung inward.
Una looked sick. The olive-drab patches under her eyes had darkened and spread. In red Japanese pajamas she looked less like a woman than a sexless imp who had grown old in hell.
She stood back to let me enter the room and closed the door softly behind me. It was the sitting-room of the bridal or gubernatorial suite, if honeymooners or politicians ever came there. The two tall windows that overlooked the street had drapes of dark-red plush. They were lit from outside by a red neon glow that competed with the light of a parchment-shaded floor lamp made of twisted black iron. The tall carved Spanish chairs looked unsat in and unsittable. The only trace of Una’s occupancy was a leopard coat hanging over the back of a chair.
“What’s the trouble?” I said to her back.
She seemed to be supporting herself on the doorknob.“No trouble. It’s this foul heat, and the waiting and the uncertainty.” She saw where that was leading her, into candor, and switched off the little-girl whine. “I have a migraine, God bless it. They hit me regularly.”
“Too bad.” I added, with deliberate tactlessness: “I have a headache myself.”
She turned on me with a hypochondriac’s fierce competitive
It was twilight, and the courtyard was almost empty. Around a pole in its center, a group of women stood in the spill of light from a single arc-lamp. They were talking in loud self-righteous tones about murders they had seen or read or heard about or imagined. Their voices sank to an uneasy protesting murmur as Lucy’s cortege went by them.Their eyes, bright-dark in faces splashed with white by the lamp on the pole, followed the covered stretcher to the back door of the waiting hearse. The sky was a dingy yellow ceiling.
CHAPTER 8 :
The Mission Hotel was the most im
pressive building on Main Street. It was a concrete cube pierced with four rows of windows and surmounted by a broadcasting mast that thrust a winking red light towards the stars. Its flat white façade was stained red by a vertical neon sign over the entrance.
The lobby was deep and gloomy, furnished with dark wrinkled-leather chairs. Those near the half-curtained windows at the front were occupied by old men sitting in stiff impromptu positions, as if a flood had lodged them there years ago and then receded forever. On the wall above their heads, an obscure mural depicted U.S. cavalrymen riding strange horses with human knees in pursuit of still stranger Indians.
The desk-clerk was a mouse-colored little man who was striving against heavy odds to confer distinction on himself and his surroundings. With hair and eyebrow-moustache scrupulously brushed, a cornflower in his buttonhole matching the delicate pin-stripe in his flannels, and at his languid elbow a vase of cornflowers to underline his point, he might have inspired a tone poem by Debussy. He answered my question in tones of careful elegance, implying that he hadn’t always manned an outpost in the wilderness:
“I believe Mrs. Larkin is in her suite. I haven’t seen her go out, sir. Whom shall I say is calling?”
“Archer. Don’t bother announcing me. What’s her room number?”
“One hundred and two, Mr. Archer. I think she’s expecting you.”
It was opposite the elevator on the second floor. At the end of the corridor a pair of curtained French doors had a red-lit sign above them: FIRE ESCAPE . I knocked on the door of 102. The elevator creaked and thumped behind me like an old heart running down.
A wan voice called through the door: “Who is it, anyway?”
“Archer.”
“Come in.”
The door was locked, and I said so.
“All right, all right, I’m coming.” The door swung inward.
Una looked sick. The olive-drab patches under her eyes had darkened and spread. In red Japanese pajamas she looked less like a woman than a sexless imp who had grown old in hell.
She stood back to let me enter the room and closed the door softly behind me. It was the sitting-room of the bridal or gubernatorial suite, if honeymooners or politicians ever came there. The two tall windows that overlooked the street had drapes of dark-red plush. They were lit from outside by a red neon glow that competed with the light of a parchment-shaded floor lamp made of twisted black iron. The tall carved Spanish chairs looked unsat in and unsittable. The only trace of Una’s occupancy was a leopard coat hanging over the back of a chair.
“What’s the trouble?” I said to her back.
She seemed to be supporting herself on the doorknob.“No trouble. It’s this foul heat, and the waiting and the uncertainty.” She saw where that was leading her, into candor, and switched off the little-girl whine. “I have a migraine, God bless it. They hit me regularly.”
“Too bad.” I added, with deliberate tactlessness: “I have a headache myself.”
She turned on me with a hypochondriac’s fierce competitive
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