“Hell no. You wanted to see if Charlotte Lang had told you the truth.”
Millie nodded. “And to help this Chandra along, Ern. Besides, I couldn’t remember what came after pheasant. That’s the last of the game birds, actually. She’d skipped duck, goose, woodcock, and quail. Venison comes next.”
I nodded. It seemed clear that the person Chandra was cooking for hunted, and I thought of the deer rifle I’d found in Conrad Coldbrook’s mine. It had been a swell gun, but it was gone forever now, and all of a sudden I missed it a lot.
Still remembering, I choked down five or ten minutes worth of stuff I was itching to tell Millie about that gun and substituted, “Rose isn’t through yet?”
Rose’s voice came from behind the curtain. “I’ll be out soon. Just a minute.”
Millie told her there was no need to hurry, one of the few times I was tempted to yell at Millie.
It was another half hour at least. Neither of us went out again; but Millie told me various things she had found out about Chandra, and that Chandra had told her the name of the town. I was still not feeling too friendly toward Millie; even so I told her a little bit about the stacks of Ancient History and the tall windows, and what I had seen out of those windows.
When I had finished, Millie said, “There was one other thing I should have told you. You’re going to think I’m a liar, but it would be another kind of lie—a really wrong, really terrible lie—not to tell you.”
She quit talking then, and I could see she was hoping I’d talk and change the subject. I didn’t, and finally she whispered, “I saw a little girl in a white dress, Ern. This wasn’t Chandra.”
I nodded, trying to make her think I was interested when I really wasn’t.
“She was white, too. Her face was paler than her dress, actually. She watched me for a minute, and then she turned away and melted into the wall.”
I didn’t know what to say. I think I may have said something silly like “wow.”
“I can’t prove it and you don’t have to believe it, but that’s what I saw.”
Neither of us said anything after that, sitting side by side on a bench and each wrapped in our own thoughts. I was pretty sure somebody had slipped Millie some kind of dope, but who would do that? Who could have done it, and why? Either dope or she was cracking up, and why would she crack up when she wasn’t under all that much pressure? I kicked both of those around for quite a while.
Then Rose came out, all fresh and smiling, and looking a lot more like a romance writer in a sleeveless red dress that was almost as low-necked as she liked them and might have been next to new. Have I said that they get our clothes from those places that take clothes donations and give the money to charity when they sell them? Those are dead people’s clothes, mostly, and for a minute or two I wondered about the woman who had worn the red dress first.
After that I went in, carrying the clean underwear, the socks, the blue canvas jeans, and a sturdy work shirt that would soon be mine. There had been a clean jacket, too, a quilted black jacket that looked pretty warm; that had been on a hanger. When we came into the room with the curtained tub, Charlotte Lang had taken it off the hanger and hung it on a nail. I had left it there, knowing I could get it when I came out.
Meanwhile, here was a nice clean bathtub with no ring around it (Rose must have scrubbed that off), a thin old washcloth with a hole in it, a little cake of dark yellow soap, and what seemed to be plenty of hot water. I filled the tub as high as I dared and got in, feeling as though I could have stayed right there in the tub for the rest of my life.
There are places to plan and places to dream. Probably you’ve noticed that yourself. Behind a desk is a place to plan, and so is a seat in just about any kind of a vehicle. The places to dream all begin with B—bed, bar, boudoir, and bathtub. “B” for bemused.
When I finally got out, I found that the ladies had left me one dry towel, just one and no more, a thin towel and pretty small. I could have used three of those, but I poached a little on the ones that they had used and dropped into the laundry bin. I found three or four that were barely damp.
Then it was time for striped cotton (?) undershorts and black socks, with all of them going on smoothly. When I unfolded the work shirt—yellow torso and blue sleeves—I found two shiny metal rectangles on the coarse cloth. There was one well down on the right sleeve, and another on the left side of the torso. Touch one to the other and they stuck together like glue; you had to pull them apart, which was not easy. I tore a fingernail, swore, and tried to pull off the one on the yellow fabric, but they stuck so hard I had to give up on that. Pretty soon I figured out what they were there for.
It was not until I was dressed and looked myself over in the foggy old mirror that I noticed some faint stains. My shirt had been washed and probably bleached, too, and that had weakened them; but they were still there. Small bloodstains up near the right shoulder.
3
THE HOUSE ON SIGNAL HILL
The reclone section was in nonfiction, which was fine for Millie but wrong for Rose and me. The ponticwood shelves here were four high, just as they were in Spice Grove; but that was where all resemblance ended. Here there were no washbasins and no curtained toilets—no plumbing of any kind on the shelves. There were beds, but they were no wider than graves and not much thicker than our old mats. These beds had reading lights on the headboards; that was about it. No sitting down in a red leather chair with a nice floor lamp for reading; if we wanted to sit down, we sat on the bed or on the shelf, cross-legged or with our legs hanging over. If we had to go, Millie from her two and I from my three climbed down the ladder and went back to the restroom we’d been in before. Bathing, the same. Patrons used that restroom, too; it wasn’t just for us. Librarians had their own (I found out later) across the hall from Prentice’s office. They had to get the key from her and give it back as soon as they were finished. If one of us asked for that key, she threw her stapler or the kafe cup from her desk. I know because I had to duck them both.
So that was Polly’s Cove except for the food, which came as a happy shock to all three of us—it was one hell of a lot better than Spice Grove’s. We got lobster that first night, half of a big broiled lobster for each of us. Fish chowder came first; and our lobsters brought along corn on the cob, a baked potato, and a first-rate salad. Salad at Spice Grove had been chopped lettuce splashed with vinegar and oil; in Polly’s Cove it was tender young spinach with chopped red onions, cheddar, and country ham mixed in. Your choice of Thousand Island or ranch. Millie and I chose Thousand Island, and happily. So good food, and good food makes a big difference.
What’s more, I surprised the living hell out of Rose, Millie, and everybody else at the library (very much including me) by getting checked out on the third day.
If I said “girl,” it would sound like nineteen or twenty with curves and makeup, right? So I won’t. Let’s call her a kid. The first time I was with her I figured her for twelve. Later I found out she was almost thirteen, so I had been right but close to wrong. She told me her name was Chandra, but at first I didn’t make the connection.
“I have to bring you home to my mother, Mr. Smithe. I’ll tell you all about that after I check you out, or else my mother will.”