John D. MacDonald

In a Small Motel

From Justice, July 1955

1

The couple from Ohio wanted two rollaway beds for their two tired, whining kids, and so Ginny Mallory had hurried to her storeroom and wheeled one down the walk to the end unit of Belle View Courts. The man made no move to help her wrestle the bed over the low sill of the door. He stood, a dead cigar clamped in his teeth, watching her struggle with it.

Ginny hurried back to the storeroom and got the other one and just as she came to the door of the end unit, another car pulled up by the office and began honking. The tourist woman was fussing with one of the children.

The rollaway wedged itself stubbornly in the door. As she pried at it, the man said, “Set the other one up over there, girl.”

For a moment she thought she would howl like a kicked dog. She stood quite still for a moment, then pulled again. The bed came free and she shoved it into the room.

“I’d appreciate it if you and your wife would unfold this one and put it where you want it. I’ve got another customer out there.”

She turned quickly and as she went down the walk toward the office she heard him holler something about ice. Let him holler. Thick October heat lay heavily over south Georgia. Though she walked briskly, she felt as if all the heat of the long summer just past had turned the marrow of her bones to soft stubborn lead. She managed a smile as she went out to the big car with Massachusetts plates. A tall, white-faced man stood by the door of the car. He was alone.

“Do you have a single?” he asked, his voice flat and toneless.

“Yes, sir. Do you want to look at it?”

“No thanks. I’ll take it. Which one is it?”

“Number three. Down there. The third from the end.”

“Can I put my car in back?”

“It will be perfectly safe right in front of your door, sir.”

“Can I put it in back?” he snapped.

“Yes, I suppose so. But it—”

“Where do I register?”

“Right in the office.” She went in and went behind the counter. He followed her in. She laid the card in front of him. He signed J. L. Brown, gave his residence as Boston, wrote in his license number and the make of the big car, gave her the money and she gave him the key. As he went out the door she asked him if he would want ice. He ignored her. She wished they would all be as little trouble. And she wished more would come so that she could cut the lights on the big red-and-blue neon sign, leaving only the sign that said: No vacancy.

She stood behind the counter for a moment, resting a lot of her slim weight on her elbows, the heels of her hands cupped over her eyes. She had finished cleaning the rooms and making all the beds at noon. She had showered, changed to a crisp blue denim sun suit, and had a quick light lunch. Now, at six, the sun suit was sadly wilted. Her long blonde hair, piled high on her head, was damp with perspiration. She smoothed the corners of her eyes with her fingertips. She knew the lines of strain that the long summer had put there. Her eyes felt as if they had sunk back into her head, and they burned like coals.

Out on the highway directly in front of the Belle View Courts the big diesel rigs thundered by. The sun was far enough down to give the world an orange look. There was a hint in the shadows of the blue dusk that would bring the mosquitoes out of the lowlands. And this, she thought, is the slack season. And I can barely keep up with it. And barely keep ahead of the mortgage. You were so damn proud of this hideous white elephant, Scott. And it was so much easier when you were around. I don’t know why. It just was.

She took her hands from her eyes as the screen door slapped. The man from Ohio said, “How about that ice, girl? We going to get it?”

“Right away. If you wait a minute, I can give it to you.”

But he went back out the door, saying, “Bring it over to the room.”

She went back into the small room where she slept and ate. She opened the refrigerator and dumped ice cubes into a glass pitcher. She hurried to the end room with it, knocked, walked briskly in and set the pitcher on the tray on the bureau. As she turned toward the door the man said, “Here, girl.” He pushed a dime and a nickel into her hand.

Ginny looked quite fixedly at his chin, at the dark stubble, and said, “Thank you, sir.”

When she got back to the office she put the fifteen cents in the pottery pig on her window sill. Next came a honeymoon couple, too intrigued with each other to need much service. She settled them in eighteen, and there were only three units left to rent. She wondered if she would try to eat now, or wait in the hope that the three empties would fill up quickly.

She looked with practised eye at the highway traffic. Most of the business was beginning to come from Florida-bound cars. It would continue that way until Christmas, and then the northbound ones would start to build up, and by April the court would be full of the ones headed home, bright with new tans.

She went outside and leaned against the front of the office, her hands shoved deep into the wide front pockets of the sun suit. She felt sticky and weary. The sun was entirely gone and the world was blue. Peepers were beginning to chant over in the patch of swamp beyond the gas station. Cars had turned on their lights. The big rigs were aglow like Christmas trees.

Across the way, the floodlights made the gas station a white glare. She saw Manuel pumping gas into a battered station wagon. Johnny Benton came out and stood in the glare of lights, looking across the highway. When she waved, he saw her and came strolling across. His weight crunched the gravel of her parking area, and her neon made a red highlight on his shoulder and on the side of his tanned face.

He came up to her, offered a cigarette. She took it and he lit both cigarettes with a kitchen match he popped with his thumbnail. “How’s it going, Ginny?”

“Three empties left.”

“Not bad for this time of day. Things are picking up a little. We had a good day too.”

For a time there was no traffic and the night was still. The station wagon had gone. Manuel was back inside the station. Ginny could hear the Cuban station on the small radio across the way, bongo drums and dry rustle of gourds.

“You beat, kid?” Johnny asked, his voice deep and slow.

“I’ll live, I guess.”

“You start filling up every night, you get some help, you hear?”

“Sure, Johnny. I’ll have to.”

“You can get a part-time girl for maybe twenty a week. No need making yourself sick, you know. How much weight you lost this summer?”

“Not much.”

Johnny flipped his cigarette away, slapped at a mosquito on his big bare brown arm. He leaned against the wall beside her. “Funny thing,” he said.

“What’s funny, Johnny?”

“When Scotty brought you up here from Jax and built this layout, we all sort of figured you for something different.”

“How, Johnny?”

“Well, you just didn’t look like the kind of woman to take to this kind of work, that’s all. We figured on you giving Scotty a bad time soon as the novelty sort of wore off. I guess we figured wrong.”

“Maybe you didn’t.”

He laughed again, softly in the night. “You’re too bull-headed stubborn to quit now. I don’t know as old Scotty would have made this place pay out, but I got a hunch you’re going to.”

“Scott would have made out,” said Ginny.

Johnny was frowning. Ginny could tell by his expression that he was thinking of the senseless traffic accident that had taken Scott’s life seven months ago.

Johnny wrapped his knuckles on the bar. “You use a cold beer? We got some over there.”

“Later on, maybe. When are you closing, Johnny?”

“Around eleven, I guess. Manuel’s taking off about eight to go see that gal of his. Look, Ginny. Manuel and I were talking it over the other day. We made the deal with Scotty on that room of yours we share. Scotty set it too low. It isn’t right we pay you so little. Manuel and I, we figure the fair thing to do is bump it about fifteen a month.”

“I don’t want any charity, Johnny.”

“Charity, hell! I’m talking about fair.”

“Let me think about it, Johnny.”

“No need thinking. You’re on summer rates now. When the season is on you get twelve a night for that room. Know what that is? Three hundred and sixty bucks a month.”

“And look how you’ve helped. All the little jobs I can’t do, Johnny. And think of what it would have cost me to have men come out from town. Last week you fixed the electric pump. And Manuel painting all those ceilings for nothing. Let’s not talk about it, Johnny. Please.”

“Okay, okay,” he said softly. He looked through the office window. “More business, Ginny.” She saw his shoulders stiffen. “It’s that guy from Jax. Ferris.” He moved toward the door. “Whistle when you can use that beer.”

She stood in the doorway, heard Johnny Benton and Don Ferris say “Hi” to each other with exaggerated casualness. Don came to the doorway, held her arms tightly, kissed her on the cheek. “Hello, darling,” he said.

“Hello, Don. Surprise visit?”

2

Don made a wry face. He was a brisk, thin-faced man with dark hair, quick, shrewd, humorous eyes. “I should have phoned for a reservation, dear. Can I stay over?”

“Of course.”

“I really have something important to talk about.”

“Don’t you always?”

“Now be good.” He turned and looked quickly across the street toward the gas station. “Does he pester you?”

“Johnny is a good friend, Don.”

“He was a good friend of Scotty’s. I suppose he has some primitive idea of protecting you. Actually, I suppose I feel better having him close by. I’d refuse to permit you to stay out here alone.”

“Permit, Don?”

He looked at her quickly, grinned. “A manner of speaking. You have to forgive any — proprietary manner. Remember, I did propose three times before you married Scotty Mallory.”

“Excuse me, Don. Customers.”

They came in two cars, two elderly couples traveling together. They took sixteen and seventeen and seemed pleased with the accommodations. That left fifteen the only one empty, and Don wanted that. With a tired sense of freedom she came back from getting them settled and worked the switch that turned off the big lights and left the No vacancy sign gleaming. She looked across the way and smiled to herself as she saw Johnny hold up his arm and make a circle of thumb and first finger. She got the key to fifteen and handed it to Don.

“Would you like ice, sir?” she asked him.

“Enough to make a pair of drinks for us, Ginny.”

“I want to clean up, Don. And I haven’t eaten yet.”

“Let me take you into town. Benton will watch the place.”

“He does enough. I don’t like to ask him to do that. I’ve got enough here for both of us.”

“No. I’ll go into town and bring something back. Please let me.”

She thought for a moment. “All right, Don. And thanks.”

Ginny went in and closed the door to her room. She took a quick shower, changed to a yellow cotton dress with a wide belt. It was a dress that Scott had liked. So proud of me, she thought. So pathetically delighted with me. She brushed her hair and let it hang long to her shoulders the way Scott had liked it. She made up her lips carefully in the small mirror.

Just as she finished she heard somebody rapping on the counter. She went out and saw that it was the man from Ohio again. He gave her a slightly startled look. “Uh — you got any aspirin. My wife’s got a headache.”

“Just a moment, please.”

She went and got a tin of aspirin. “Two is plenty,” he said. “They work good on her. Do...  do you manage this place?”

"I own it."

She saw the faint dull flush and knew that he was remembering the fifteen cents he had given her.

He coughed. “It’s a...  nice layout. We’ll stop again sometime.”

“Please do,” she said, and smiled mechanically.

She saw Don swing his convertible in and park in front of fifteen. He got out with a big paper bag in his arms. He came into the office, gave her a quick bright look of approval.

“Take it right in, Don. On the table.”

“Some very special steak sandwiches, darling. Salad. French fries. Let’s put the hot stuff in the oven and have a drink first.”

She set the small table. He made drinks. He was quick in all his movements, sometimes almost catlike. She liked the crisp whiteness of his sports shirt, the good fabric of his slacks. Once upon a time she had very nearly said yes to him. But Scott had come along. She knew that Don sensed how tired she was. He made a special effort, she knew, to be amusing while they ate. The stiff drink had relaxed her. All the customers seemed bedded down for the night. The peepers were in full chorus. She heard the clattering roar as Manuel drove off to visit his girl.

After they had cleaned up, Don said, “Would we get eaten alive if we sit outside?”

“It might not be too bad.”

They went out and sat in the metal chairs on the grass near the florid beach umbrella. Their cigarettes glowed red in the dark. High speed traffic made ripping sounds in the night, stirring warmth against their faces.

“I want you to think over what I’m going to say, Ginny. I want you to consider it very seriously.”

“What is it, Don?”

“I know the amount of your mortgage. You can’t keep secrets from a lawyer, you know. And I talked to Ed Redling about this place. He’s one of the shrewdest real estate people I know. He thinks he can unload it for you, and get you out from under with about fifteen thousand free and clear.”

After a time, she said tonelessly, “I had six thousand saved and Scott had twenty-one thousand from his uncle. So we put twenty-seven thousand in it, plus a fantastic amount of work, Don.”

“Then admit that it was a poor gamble. Take your loss and get out.”

“Scott believed in it.”

“And because he believed in it — because he was wrong, a girl like you has to do coolie labor, wear herself out, get old before her time, to make something work that was a bad gamble from the beginning. Isn’t that being a little sentimental? Scotty had to buy the best in all departments. It gave you too big an investment.”

“I can make it pay off.”

“All right. You can make it pay off. What is going to happen? Just when your mortgage payments start to shrink to the point where you can make more than a bare living for yourself, somebody will come in and put a fancier outfit within a quarter mile of you. And then you won’t even get the fifteen thousand out of it. Ginny, you’ve got to trust me. I’m thinking only of your good. I guess it’s no secret that I want you to marry me. I want you to get off this highway and come back to Jax where you belong. This isn’t the sort of thing you should be doing.”

She laughed flatly. “Johnny says I’m bull-headed stubborn.”

“Let me tell Ed to go ahead with it, dear.”

She sat in the metal chair. The night air was getting cooler. For the first time in many days she was completely relaxed, comfortable. It was a strong temptation to let Don go ahead with it. And so much easier to be Don’s wife than — Scott’s widow. Don would get them a nice little beach house. Long lazy days in the sun. Just a few rooms to take care of. And sleep, sleep, sleep. Thousands of hours of it. It would be so blessedly simple. And he was nice. Quick and funny and nice. It would be cheating him, in a way.

“Suppose I don’t love you, Don. Suppose I don’t feel that way toward you. More like a friend, I guess. A good friend.”

“I’ll take my chances. All that will come later. Believe me.”

“Do you think so?” she asked in a half whisper.

He leaned forward, took her hand harshly, his fingers pressing deep. “No one can say you haven’t done wonderfully here, Ginny. You’ve done more than anyone had any right to expect.”

“Perhaps.”

He released her hand, settled back. “I want to be one hundred percent honest with you, my darling. Right at this point, I’m onto something big. I’ve put everything into it. I’m in it with Redling. If we can hang on for another three or four months, we won’t even have to think about money for the rest of our lives. And to be brutal about it, that dowry of fifteen thousand will help a hell of a lot. We could borrow, but that would mean letting a third party in on it. And that would cut the profit.”

“So you want me for my money, eh?” she said.

In the darkness, she saw him twirl an imaginary mustache. “Exactly, my fair young maiden. At heart, I’m a confidence man.”

“Fool!”

“Seriously, darling, don’t be annoyed with me, but I can’t help feeling there’s something a bit morbid about — working yourself to death to run this thing as a sort of monument to Scott Mallory. And I’m sure he’d be one of the first to tell you that.”

“He had such a big dream, Don. This was going to be the first of a whole chain. And then we were going to get into the restaurant business too. And you don’t know how hard he worked before...  before the accident.”

“Really, Ginny! You believed that big fat dream?”

“Don’t sneer, please, Don. Everybody needs some kind of a dream, I guess.”

“I’m sorry. I came out here to — make sure that next time I come, I can take you back with me.”

She brushed at the thin high whine near her ear. “I can’t decide — boom, all of a sudden.”

“Think about it. But don’t think too long.”

An airliner went over, running lights green and red against the dark sky. She could see into the gas station, through the wide sheet of glass that turned it into a bright white box. Johnny was racking cans on one of his display shelves. He completed the pyramid and backed up to see how it looked. She watched him turn and walk outside, hook up the hose and begin to wash down the concrete apron in front of the station. A mosquito pierced her ankle with its thin sting. She heard footsteps on the gravel and turned to see Mr. Brown from Boston standing there, tall and angular against the light from the office.

“Yes?” she said.

He loomed over her. “What are you telling this man about me?” he asked, quite coldly.

3

For a moment the question dazed her, it was so meaningless. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I had my lights out and I’ve been watching you out here, talking and talking.” He moved his head a little and the floodlights of the gas station across the way caught the lenses of his glasses. The man sounded righteously indignant.

Ginny stood up, a small shivery feeling at the nape of her neck.

Mr. Brown said, “I suppose you told him I put my car in back.”

Don had stood up. “Relax, my friend. Neither of us has the slightest interest in you.”

“That’s so easy to say,” Mr. Brown said. “I heard the plane, too. And the cars slow down when they go by. You must all think I’m a fool, or blind. Why are you all waiting?”

Ginny held her hands clasped tightly. Across the way the small radio was tuned to brassy jazz. A distant truck moved toward them, the sound beginning to smother the music.

Don said, “I don’t think you’re well. Why don’t you go back in your room and let Mrs. Mallory phone a doctor for you?”

Brown took a slow backward step. “Would it be — a doctor?” he asked softly. He turned his head toward Ginny and once again his glasses caught the light. “I suggest you do not use the phone, Mrs. Mallory.” The truck roared by, the motor sound changing to a minor key as it rushed south down the dark road. Mr. Brown turned and walked away, his stride long and slow. They watched him go into his darkened room, and they could not hear the door close.

Ginny giggled, and it was a strained thin sound. Don said, “A crazy, darling. Pure and simple. Persecution complex. I don’t know what else. A paranoiac, maybe.”

“He seemed all right when he registered. He just wanted to put his car in back instead of in front. I didn’t think anything about that.”

“I don’t like this. He might be dangerous.”

“What can we do?”

“I can phone to town, to the police.”

“Maybe he’ll go to sleep now. And leave in the morning.”

“And hurt somebody on the highway, further down the road? We have some responsibility, I think.”

“He said not to phone.”

“How would he know? Come on.” He walked beside her. “Don’t walk so fast, darling. He’s probably watching out the window.”

It’s — creepy.

“He just needs help.”

They walked slowly to the office, and Ginny went in first. Don followed her and she heard the click of the lock after he shut the door. He went briskly behind the counter, took the phone from under it, listened for a moment, hung up. “Somebody’s using it,” he said.

She stood, waiting, and she felt that it was grotesquely melodramatic. The man was just a bit odd. She heard a small clicking against the glass panel of the locked door. She turned and saw Mr. Brown standing outside the office door. He held his elbow a bit away from his side. He tapped again on the glass, metal clicking against glass. A small round metal eye against the glass. He motioned to her with his free hand. For a moment she did not comprehend.

Don said, and his voice trembled a bit, “I think you better let him in.” She turned and stared at Don and he was looking beyond her, at the door, and he ran his tongue quickly along his underlip. She moved to the door and she had the odd feeling that she was floating, her feet not touching the tiles. The world looked bright and faraway, as though she were looking at it through a long tube. She unlocked the door and the round metal eye looked up a little; looked, it seemed, at her throat. She put her hand there instinctively. The screen door was slanted against his shoulder. Across the way Johnny was hosing down the concrete near the pumps.

“I want you and your friend to come and help me, Mrs. Mallory,” Brown said.

“We’ll be glad to help you,” Don said quickly.

Brown moved back a little, “What is your name?” he asked Don.

“Ferris.”

“Mr. Ferris, please walk beside Mrs. Mallory. Walk down to my room and go in and turn on the light as you go in. Don’t walk fast.”

The concrete walk that led down the length of the court was roofed. Metal chairs were aligned against the wall on the right. They walked side by side. Don whispered, so that she could barely hear it, “Do exactly what he says.”

She turned on the lights and they stood inside the room, their backs to the screen door.

“Mrs. Mallory, please stand right there. Mr. Ferris, please close the blinds on the windows.”

As Don worked the cords on the blinds, Ginny heard Brown come in and close the door. She knew that he stood close behind her. She thought she could feel his breath stir her hair. The sudden blow against the back of her head shocked her. It drove her head forward, hurting her neck. She stumbled a few steps and her knee struck the edge of the bed and she fell awkwardly, catching her weight on her hands. She realized that he had hit the back of her head with the heel of his hand. She turned quickly. Brown looked at her calmly. She had not looked at him closely when he had registered, receiving only the impression of paleness and height and dark clothes.

He had a thin face, receding dark hair, prominent frontal bones in his forehead. His glasses had thin gold rims, and his face and eyes had an oddly colorless look — the face of a severe, dedicated and trustworthy clerk. His dark suit was poorly cut, and he wore a gold wedding band.

“Mr. Ferris, please place the large black suitcase on the bed and open it. It is not locked.”

Ginny saw the metal eye follow Don as he moved. It was a thick-looking revolver with a very short barrel. It had a sullen, dangerous look. Mr. Brown’s fingers, wrapped around it, looked long and white and frail.

Don put the suitcase on the bed and opened it. Ginny glanced into it. Apparently the money had been packed with great care, but in moving it about the top layers of wrapped bills had slipped from their orderly stacks. It all had the cold impartial look of money stacked in a teller’s cage.

“Sit beside Mrs. Mallory, please,” Brown said.

Don sat so close beside her that their thighs touched. Ginny felt a small tremor of his body. “It isn’t Brown, of course,” Don said. “I saw the pictures.”

“Very old pictures.” Brown leaned his back against the frame of the closed door and closed his eyes for a second or two, then opened them very wide. “I am sorry to ask you to do this.” His smile was quick, thin, almost shy. “All my life I have handled money. Now, for some reason, I find it impossible to count this. I begin, and each time I seem to become confused.”

“How did you manage it?” Don asked, and Ginny sensed his attempt to be casual. Her head had begun to ache as a result of the unexpected blow.

“It was not difficult, Mr. Ferris. A matter, actually, of merely walking out with it at precisely the right time. Mrs. Mallory, I suggest you get that paper and pencil from the desk. Call the totals off to her, Mr. Ferris. The numbers on the wrappings are correct.”

Ginny wrote down the neat numbers as Don called them out in a flat precise voice. It took a long time. She had to make two long columns. At Brown’s request she added them, announced the meaningless total. Three hundred and seventy-two thousand, Eve hundred. Brown had Ferris recheck her addition.

“There was more at first,” Brown said. “One bundle I checked and I cannot seem to remember where.”

“What will you do now?” Don asked.

Brown looked at him, expressionlessly. “I should like to sleep, of course. I rather imagine I am expected to make some sort of attempt at escape. But they’ve watched me for years. They’ve forgotten that I know precisely what it feels like to be watched. I haven’t slept in a long time.”

“You’re sick,” Ginny said.

He looked at her and he seemed to be puzzled. “Perhaps.”

“Where were you planning to go?” Don asked.

“I had never completely decided that.”

“They’ll catch you,” Don said.

“An error of fact. They already have. They caught me — a long time ago. Now they’re letting me travel, trying to make me think I’m still — free. I suppose it is a form of torture. I’ve seen them in the restaurants and on the highway. When I turned in here, I knew this was where they had planned I would stop. But I was too tired to leave. I can tell by your eyes that you know all about it. Both of you.”

There was silence in the room. Ginny saw Brown’s arm tremble. He steadied the gun hand by holding his wrist with the other hand.

4

For a few moments Ginny was able to look at the world through the eyes of the sick Mr. Brown. Everyone knew. Everyone watched him. Everyone watched him with cold amusement, superior scorn.

“But it isn’t the way you think it is—” she started.

“It’s no use, Ginny,” Don said. His voice was odd. She turned and looked at him in surprise. There was an odd look on his face. He said, “You’re right, Mr. Brown. We all know about it. We were ready for you when you got here.”

“Of course,” Brown said quietly.

Don leaned forward. “But we could — change sides.”

Ginny saw Brown become rigid. He seemed to cease to breathe for a time. “Why?” he demanded.

Don reached over and placed his hand flat atop the stacked money. “Answer enough?”

“How do I know it isn’t a trick?” Brown asked. “You could pretend to help me get away without their knowing. Maybe you would be merely — continuing the sport.”

Don said scornfully, “Don’t you know us better than that? It’s against the rules for us to take any of the money. Once we take the money it means we’ve turned against them.”

Brown frowned at him. “Is that one of the rules?”

“Didn’t you know that?”

“How much would you have to take?” Brown asked.

Ginny watched Don take a bundle of the currency out of the suitcase. His hand was very steady. She noticed that he picked stacks of the older bills. Stacks of twenties and fifties and hundreds. He took out ten stacks and set them aside.

“This much,” he said.

“It’s a lot,” Brown said.

“But think of the risk we’re taking.”

Brown thought a moment, nodded. “That’s true. What is your plan?”

“Do you know how we’ve followed you?”

“That has bothered me. I’ve changed routes dozens of times when there was no car in sight. But you people have always known.”

“A device was installed on your car. It gives off an electrical impulse. And we’ve followed the car by radar.”

Ginny watched Brown, saw him puzzle it out, accept it. “That explains a great deal,” he said, nodding.

“I’ll disconnect the device,” Don said, “and install it on my car. Mrs. Mallory and I will drive north in my car and they will think you have doubled back on your tracks. You head south. If you’re clever, they’ll never find you again.”

“And how will you avoid punishment?” Brown demanded.

“While we’re traveling north, I’ll disconnect it and throw it out at the side of the road. I’ll report that we were following you and lost you. They’ll think you discovered the device and threw it out yourself on your way north.”

Brown shifted uneasily. He looked at Ginny and then at Don Ferris. “We’ll go to my car and you will show me the device.”

Don shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t do that.”

“Another rule?” Brown asked dubiously.

“Of course,” Don said. “I’ll have to do that alone.”

The gun hand sagged slowly. Brown pulled it back up with a visible effort. “I’ll let you out,” he said. “I’ll stay here with Mrs. Mallory. Go change it from my car to yours and come back when you’ve done it.” He reached behind him and unlocked the door. He glanced out, pushed the screen open to back out. Don stood up and took a step toward the door.

Ginny heard a thud, a grunt of effort, a scrape of shoe leather on concrete. The screen slammed. Don stood poised for a moment. Johnny Benton pulled the door open awkwardly and came in, walking Brown ahead of him. Brown’s arm was twisted up into the small of his back, and his lips were flattened back against his teeth with pain. Johnny looked very big, very brown, very welcome. Brown’s glasses hung from one ear. As Johnny shoved him roughly forward the glasses fell to the floor and Brown’s foot came down on them, crunching the lenses. Holding the man with almost contemptuous ease, Johnny examined the revolver in his other hand. He slid it into his hip pocket.

“What goes with this character?” Johnny demanded. “I never heard crazier talk in my life.”

“It’s been in the papers and on the radio for four days,” Don said. He stepped beyond Johnny and pulled the door shut. Johnny had seen the money on the bed. He stared at it and licked his lips and stared some more.

“Heavenly hosts,” he said softly.

“Let go of my arm,” Brown said.

“Sure. You go sit right there and be good,” Johnny said. “Are you okay, Ginny?”

“I’m all right.” She felt better. Johnny was like a breath of fresh air in the room.

Don stood with his hands in his pockets. He was frowning at the money.

Brown sat on a straight chair by the windows. Without the glasses his eyes looked mild and dazed. He said, “You’ll be interested to know that Mr. Ferris and this woman have accepted money. They were going to help me get away. I understand that is against the rules.”

“Shut up,” Don Ferris said thinly. He walked over to the bed, picked up some of the stacks of money, dropped them back into the suitcase. He took out his cigarettes. Ginny accepted one. He didn’t offer one to Johnny. Johnny pulled a single cigarette out of his pants’ pocket.

“Is he nuts?” Johnny asked.

“Completely,” Don said. “It was one of those crazy things. So damn casual about taking it, he walked right out past the guards. He’d worked there thirty years.”

“Twenty-eight,” Brown said.

Don ignored him. “He’s got delusions. He thinks he’s being watched all the time. He thinks we’re part of the big gang watching him. According to the radio, they think he holed up somewhere. They don’t know he got this far. He was lucky. What luck! A crazy man’s luck.” He turned and looked sharply at Johnny. “Three hundred and seventy-two thousand, five hundred dollars.”

Ginny felt an odd prickling on the backs of her hands. She rubbed them together. Don and Johnny were staring at each other. She could read nothing in Johnny’s face.

“Tax free,” Johnny said softly.

The two men looked at each other for a long time. Then, as though on some signal they both turned and looked at Ginny. She looked into Don’s eyes, and then Johnny’s, and she had the feeling she had never met either of them before. It seemed quiet in the room. With the blinds closed the smoke from the cigarettes hung in the air.

“Why are you acting so funny?” Ginny demanded, and her own voice sounded strange to her.

Neither of the men answered her. Johnny stepped over to the bed. Don was watching him carefully. Johnny took the paper with Ginny’s total on it, glanced at it casually, took it over to where the glasses had been smashed against the asphalt tile floor, near the edge of the throw rug. He picked up the gold frames and shook them lightly. Some more fragments of the glass dropped out. He sat on his heels, the pants tight on his blocky thighs. He kept his head tilted to the side to keep the cigarette smoke out of his eyes as he cautiously brushed the fragments of glass onto the paper. When the floor was clean he put the paper down with the frames on top of it and carefully folded it into a small bundle. He squatted there, staring up at Don.

After a long silence Johnny said, “A good eye doctor can take a little bitty hunk of lense and figure out the exact prescription. I read that once in a story.”

Don moved back and sat suddenly on the bed, on the far side of the suitcase from Ginny. He sat down as though his legs had gone weak. Ginny looked at him. He avoided looking at her. He put the separate stack of money back in the suitcase. Ginny looked at Brown. His pointed chin was against his chest. His white hands rested on his knees, fingers slightly curled. He looked as though he might be asleep.

“What are you thinking about?” Ginny asked, her voice a bit too loud. They did not answer her, and she knew she did not need an answer.

Don sat on the edge of the bed and counted on his fingers. “His name on the register. The car. Possible serial numbers of the new stuff.” He looked at Johnny, who had stood up and who was carefully placing the bundle of broken glass in his pants’ pocket.

Johnny turned as though looking out the door. But the blinds on the door were closed, inches from his eyes. Ginny could see the serrated metal grip of the revolver, see the shape of it through the stretched cloth of his hip pocket.

Johnny said softly, “Sure. One at a time. The register is on cards. They aren’t numbered in any serial sequence. No trick there.” He half turned and gave Don an odd smile and pantomimed tearing up a piece of paper.

“You can’t tear up a car,” Don said softly.

“A truck went through that abutment on the bridge near Grover three months ago. It’s still wide open. Deep there, and a pretty good current, and you don’t have to go through any kind of town to get there. I got work gloves in the station, just in case.”

Ginny put her fist so tightly against her mouth that her lips hurt. “No,” she said. “No, I won’t let that happen.”

Don reached suddenly across the closed suitcase and took her wrist in his hand, holding it tightly. His fingers were icy. “Use your head,” he said softly. “Insurance covers their loss. And that man is no loss. They get like that, and you can’t cure them. Just the three of us. And nobody ever says a word. Ever. One hundred and twenty-five thousand apiece, roughly.”

“Not apiece,” Johnny said, tucking his thumbs in his belt, planting himself flatfootedly. “Not if I do the dirty work for you, Ferris. I’ll take one eighty-five. That’s nearly half. How you handle the rest of it with her is your business.”

“A third apiece, Benton.”

“And for that, what do you do?”

Ginny felt as though her throat had closed completely. Don dropped his cigarette on the floor, stepped on it, turning his shoe. He sat with his elbows on his knees, hands hanging limp from the wrists, head lowered. He looked slowly at Brown. Ginny saw the muscles of Don’s jaw bulge, saw an ovoid pulsation at his temple.

Don said in a half whisper, “You take care of the car. I’ll — do that.” And he made a partial gesture of his head toward Brown.

“Without marks,” Johnny said, just as softly.

“I’ll go with you,” Don said. “I’ll stun him and let the water do it.”

Ginny saw Johnny nod in agreement. Johnny went over to the bed, standing half between them. He rapped lightly on the edge of the black suitcase with his brown knuckles. “A cruiser,” he said softly. “And some of those little lovelies who carry hatboxes. And a sports car. All wrapped up in there.”

“Not all at once,” Don said sharply.

Johnny turned his head slowly and looked at him. “I’m not that stupid, Ferris.”

Ginny suddenly saw what she had to do. She jumped up as fast as she could and ran for the door, remembering that it was unlocked. Johnny’s hard arm locked around her middle after she had gone three steps. Her feet slipped on the tiles. He pulled her around roughly, clamped a heavy hand over her mouth. She could smell gasoline on his hand. It nauseated her. She wondered if she would faint. Johnny’s voice came from far away. “This is your problem, isn’t it?” he asked Don.

Don came over to them. He took Ginny’s wrists. He looked pleadingly into her eyes. “Please, darling. There’s no risk at all. There’ll never be another chance like this one. If we don’t do it, local cops will take him. And how much money do you think will be left by the time they turn it over? Say you’ll go along with us. You don’t have to do a thing, and you get a full third. Will you do it?”

She shook her head from side to side. Beyond him she could see Brown in that same position. His head had tilted a bit to one side. She knew he slept.

“It’s no good without her,” Johnny said. “It stinks.”

Don knuckled his chin. He shrugged. “Hold her, then. Let me think.”

“Put her in the same car?” Johnny asked quietly.

5

She saw Don look over her shoulders into Johnny’s eyes. He bit his lip and she realized, with complete terror, that he was actually able to consider it as a possible course of action, even as Johnny had been able to suggest it. Terror was like a veil in front of her eyes, distorting Don’s face, filming it. It was misty and only the shrewd eyes were clear. At last Don shook his head. “Too risky, Benton. Too many questions. We’ve got to make her partly responsible, so she can’t talk about it.”

“Suggestions?”

“Let me think. Damn it, let me think!”

“It’s so perfect, Ferris,” Johnny said regretfully. “Perfect, all except for Ginny and her big mouth. Stash all that money and use it a little at a time. I know where it would be safe to get rid of the new stuff.”

“Can’t you shut up!” Don yelled.

“Keep yelling and you blow the whole thing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m getting an idea. We got to move fast. Knock him out while I’m thinking, Ferris.”

Don looked at Johnny sharply. “What’s the idea?”

“Do like I tell you. Then we’ll bring the car around.”

“Walk him out. That’s safer.”

“Do like I tell you, Ferris. This will work out all right.”

She saw Don turn and look at the sleeping man. She saw Don go into the small bathroom and come out at once, wrapping a hand towel around his fist. He licked his lips uneasily as he went up to the sleeping man. He hesitated.

“Go ahead,” Johnny ordered.

Don had his back to them. Ginny felt Johnny brush aside her hair with his chin and kiss the side of her neck. Both his hands were busy holding her. The callousness of it made her shudder. She tried to bite the palm of his hand, but her teeth could get no purchase on the calloused skin. She saw Don step forward and grasp the hair of the sleeping man, tilt the head back sharply and strike at the jaw with his padded fist. It was a vicious blow and she knew that the scene was implanted so deeply in her mind I that she would never forget it.

Brown did not fall. He looked shocked and dazed. He raised his hands slowly. Don Ferris drew the padded fist back again.

Johnny spun her away from him and said in a conversational voice that sounded loud in the room. “Okay, Mr. Ferris.”

Don turned slowly, releasing Brown’s thin dark hair. He took a step toward Johnny. Ginny, sidling toward the door, saw Johnny pull the stubby revolver out of his pocket, saw Don stop suddenly, midway in his second step.

She saw Don’s eyes turn toward her. His voice was thin. “Ginny! He’s decided to take all of it! Ginny!”

Johnny backed quickly so he could watch both Don and Ginny. He gave her a slow grin and he kept the revolver pointed at Don. “Kid, go phone the police in town. Talk to Tom Heron if you can.”

The towel dropped from Don’s fist to the floor. He straightened up. “Wait a second, Ginny. Okay, Johnny. I see your point. It would have been too risky. Look. He’s too far gone to even remember what the total was. So let’s do this. Grab a few bundles. Not too much. Twenty, thirty thousand. Nobody will possibly know the difference. He’s too crazy to make sense. Use your head, Johnny. And what harm would that do, Ginny? What harm? Come on!”

He reached his hands out, palms upward, half pleading.

“Come back as soon as you phone, Ginny,” Johnny said softly.

She left. She half ran down the concrete to the office. The line wasn’t in use. Tom Heron was at the station. “This is Mrs. Scott Mallory at Belle View Courts on Seventeen. Johnny Benton is holding a man here for you. He’s the one who — took all that money in Boston.”

She heard a distant startled, metallic gasp, heard Heron say, “Right out. Ten minutes.” Fifteen miles, she thought, and maybe they would make it in ten minutes.

She walked reluctantly back to the room. Events, moving so quickly, seemed to have taken her beyond the ability for logical thought. The door to the room was still open. She looked through the screen. The suitcase was on the floor now. Mr. Brown lay on the bed. He was holding a wet towel against his jaw, and his open eyes stared mildly up at the ceiling. Don stood on one foot, the other foot on the chair where Brown had sat. Johnny was lighting a cigarette. The gun was not in sight. As she went in he held the match flame and gave her a cigarette. She leaned close to take the light, looking at the flame, then glancing up at his eyes.

Don looked at her as she turned away from Johnny. Don looked familiar again, his eyes quick and humorous. “Well, it was a thought,” he said.

Ginny could not look into his eyes. She turned her back to both of them.

“What’s the matter, darling?” Don asked. His voice was easy.

She hunched her shoulders as though she were very cold. She could not answer him. The long slow minutes went by. Cars came from the south at high speed, slowed and turned in, slewing on the gravel. She was glad there were no sirens.

Don said quickly to Johnny, “Don’t think you’ve got anything, Benton. Anything you can use.”

“I don’t,” Johnny said in his deep voice. “Hell, you’re a lawyer, aren’t you?”

They had gone. The sedans and the money and Mr. Brown. And Don Ferris had gone, leaving number fifteen empty again.

She stood in the night, arms folded tightly, and she saw the floodlights of the gas station wink out. The night was much darker than before. By the time her eyes had adjusted, Johnny was coming slowly across the highway. He came up to her, tall and slow. He stood by her.

“It wasn’t a good thing to do, Ginny,” he said slowly. “I guess you know why.”

“I guess I do.”

“Ginny, once when I was a little kid and I was sick, the thermometer got dropped and it busted, and they put the mercury in a little dish. Damnedest stuffy Hold it in your hand and give it half a chance and it would run right out between your fingers. Pretty stuff, but tricky.”

“Johnny, I don’t want to—”

“You’ve got to listen to it. He’s like that. Coming up here all the time. Nothing you can really put your finger on. Then I see him looking at all that money. Looking at it in a special way. I could tell the way he was thinking. So I had to give him a little chance. Like tilting the dish and watching that mercury run. You see, I was afraid he was going to take you away from here. I wanted to give you a real good look at what I figured Ferris was, all along.”

“I...  can’t ever forget the way he—”

“I know. Funny thing. I found out I’m no saint either.”

“How do you mean that?”

“For just a minute there. I don’t know. Gun in my hand and all that dough. Just had a sudden crazy feeling about grabbing it and running.”

“You wouldn’t have,” she said firmly.

“Glad you think so, kid.” His voice sounded amused.

She turned toward him.

“Johnny?”

“Yes?”

“You didn’t want him to take me away from here.”

She sensed the way he suddenly became awkward with shyness. “Yes, but I can’t say anything yet. Not so soon. It isn’t right to speak up so soon. Scotty and I, we...  well, you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean, Johnny.”

She went into the office for a moment and turned on the big sign: Belle View Courts. Vacancy. She went back out and stood beside him in the soft Georgia night, and they waited together for a night traveler, for tired headlights coming down the long straight road.

Content

John D. MacDonald
In a Small Motel

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