Enchanted Isle by James M. Cain Page A

I stop one place, then another. When I’m settled I’ll let you know.”
    “Then don’t say you weren’t told.”
    “Told what, Mother?”
    “The...reason I’ll have for wanting to know where you are. Which I’m not sure of yet but may be sure of later.”
    “Then, OK, Mother, I called up to say I’m all right, that you don’t have to turn me in as a missing person or something, and...have you, by the way?”
    “No! And after what Ed Vernick told me...”
    “Then, don’t. I’m OK.”
    “And that’s all you have to say?”
    “That’s right. What do you have to say?”
    “...That you have all my love.”
    “And, Mother, you have mine.”
    Suddenly, both of us were crying, but with love mixed in, and then she kept saying, “My love and my prayers, I keep saying them over and over.”
    “Then, OK, Mother.”
    “OK...OK.”
    Then we’d both hung up, and I was standing there in the booth, with an empty, queer feeling, the tears still on my cheeks.
    Walking back to the hotel I kept thinking of Rick, how glad I’d be to see him, to be with him, to have him pat my hand and start talking about our island. But in the lobby he wasn’t there. I looked in the dining room, remembering I’d been gone for some time and thinking he might have decided to eat breakfast. But he wasn’t there, and I came back and went to the desk. I asked, “Would you have Mr. Ruth paged? Mr. Richard Ruth, please.”
    “Mr. Ruth has checked out. He left.”
    “He has what?”
    “Checked out. Are you Mrs. Ruth?”
    “Yes, I am. Did he leave a message for me?”
    “No, Miss. He left this.”
    From behind the counter the clerk lifted my suitcase and set it on the desk in front of me. He kept staring in kind of a funny way. I said, “Oh, I see. Thanks.”
    “Yes, Miss.”

10
    I TOOK THE SUITCASE, but a bellboy grabbed for it, and also for the coat, which I was carrying now, as it was warmer in Savannah than it had been in Baltimore. But I hung on to them both and staggered to a chair, where I sat down real quick, as I had to. I mean I was stunned and might have toppled if I tried to stay on my feet. Because, of course, I knew by now that Rick had played me a trick, sending me down to that drugstore so he could give me the air and skip with all that money. But the jolt wasn’t all. I was hurt too, as at last I’d fallen for him, so I felt warm and close and friendly. On account of all that I sat there quite a few minutes, while the bellboy still stood by and the desk clerk studied me, like wondering what to do in case I became a problem, which I easily could have, as I had no idea what to do next. However, the first thing seemed to be to get on the trail of Rick. So at last I motioned the bellboy and let him take the bag and load me into a cab. I tipped him and told the driver, take me to the bus terminal.
    At the terminal I paid him and went inside and at that hour, which was no more than a quarter to nine, there wasn’t much going on, so the baggage man was sitting on his counter reading the paper. I asked him, “Did a young man in a zipper jacket and gabardine slacks claim a heavy black suitcase here? In the last half hour, I mean?”
    “Yeah, about twenty minutes ago.”
    “Which way did he go, please?”
    “I didn’t notice which way he went. ... Hey, wait, so happens I did. Last I saw of him he was at the ticket window.”
    “Thanks. Thanks ever so much.”
    I asked the man at the ticket window, “A young man in zipper coat, gabardine slacks, and long dark hair: do you remember what ticket he bought? Maybe twenty minutes ago?”
    “Miss, I don’t take note of their coat, their pants, or their hair. All I see is their money. No, I don’t remember.”
    I went out on the platform, where people get on the buses, and, of course he wasn’t there. I asked a man in uniform which buses had left in the last twenty minutes, and he said, “Atlanta local; Memphis express.”
    “Thank you so much.”
    I went to the taxi