The Third Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 25 Classic Mysteries

Bart finished a second long drink. “He’s probably got a record a mile long in L. A.. Or maybe you’re so lonely out here you don’t care what kind of riffraff you talk to.”

“No, I ain’t got a record a mile long,” Lonnie said.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Bart said. “I was asking her something. Come on, Lou. Why the look? Maybe you think because he’s from L. A. he can talk a lot better than your husband?”

“Bart,” she said quietly, “you’re tired.” She glanced at Lonnie. “He isn’t always this way. He’s a good, hardworking man, really. It’s just that we’ve had troubles and they’re getting him down.”

Lonnie’s throat filled with feeling. She was like an angel, he thought.

Bart laughed without humor. “The very soul of generosity. That’s you, Lou. Why don’t you give up and go back to Salinas?”

“Quit torturing yourself, Bart.”

Bart shoved his chair back. “Oh, the hell with it. I don’t want any supper.”

He stalked into the other room, the whisky bottle dangling in his hand. He slammed the door so hard the small frame house shook.

Lonnie sat looking at the closed door. Then he turned his head and saw that Louise was crying.

She brushed the back of her hand across her eyes and brought a smile to her lips. “Why don’t you tell me about L. A.? I’m going there someday. See the lights. Eat in the restaurant.”

“You’d look real good there,” Lonnie said.

“Would I? Well a woman appreciates compliments — and I thank you.”

“You deserve nice things, Louise. You’re real pretty.”

She looked at him, suddenly serious. Then she wagged a finger. “Don’t you forget — I’m a married woman.”

“I know,” Lonnie said, “and my friend. About the best friend anybody ever had, I guess.”

She took fried potatoes from the stove. “How old are you, Lonnie?”

“Twenty two,” he said, stretching his age three years. “Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes you impress me like a serious old man — then again you’re like a little kid with the heart swelling inside of him.”

“Louise!” Bart shouted from the next room.

“Yes, Bart?”

“Open the door! Or maybe you wouldn’t like to. Maybe you’re making gaga eyes in there at the railroad bum.”

Lonnie felt a quiver pass over his big frame. What a snake this Bart was! He understood nothing. Louise is my friend, Lonnie thought. I’d risk my neck to help her for what she’s done for me, but I’d never lay a finger on her.

Never. This thing between him and Louise was so beautiful it stopped the breath in his chest. And across the face of that beauty Bart had thrown sullied words, like mud.

Louise crossed the room and opened the door.

“Eat hearty, L. A.,” Bart called. “I’m taking you to the junction tomorrow morning early. You can bum a ride from there. I ain’t having you eat my hard-earned grub and moon-eye my wife, understand?”

Lonnie half rose from his chair. Louise laid her fingers on his shoulder. Her touch was light, delicate, but the most real thing in the world. Lonnie sat down again and began eating in silence.

After supper Bart called Louise into the living room and closed the door. Lonnie washed the dishes and tidied the kitchen. After that there was nothing else of immediate nature he could do for her.

He opened the back door and stepped outside. The short, tense desert twilight was over the face of the land. The solitude and loneliness caused a shudder across Lonnie’s shoulders as he walked aimlessly over the fields.

There wasn’t another house visible anywhere in the twilight. Nothing moved. Even the very air seemed dead. The whole earth felt empty.

But it was not. Back there stood her house, like a small, lost thing. A tiny prison. Worse. A cell. This endless emptiness, this lack of life, this ear-crushing silence was the real prison.

Back in L.A. right now, the lights were beginning to twinkle on. There would be talk and occasional laughter and shouted hellos on the sidewalks. People would be eating in restaurants, rubbing elbows with each other. Juke boxes would be playing, and if you were in the know you could slip through the gimmicked window over the alley, through the men’s room, across the lobby, down into the theater itself and catch the movie for free at the Bijou.

People, lights, sound. That was life. That was all Lonnie had ever known. This emptiness was a thing of terror, a trap, a suspended moment of death.

And she was out here. The moment never ended for her. While in the midst of life moved women that were not half so pretty or nice or friendly as she was.

A lump came to Lonnie’s throat as he thought of the waste. He wondered how she had come to marry Bart and be imprisoned here in the wide circle of death.

Maybe Bart was hiding from something out here. A man must have something pushing him to live in a place like this.

Pain returned to Lonnie’s head as he struggled with his thoughts. He was confused. It was too much for him. He shook his head and started back toward the house. He noticed how quickly the twilight was fading, how complete the darkness was over the bluffs in the east. His steps quickened.