Hamilton, Donald - Novel 02 by The Steel Mirror (v2.1)

they
came in. The clerk behind the desk was in shirtsleeves and there was
perspiration on his bald head. Emmett signed the register: Mr. and Mrs. John E.
Emmett, Chicago, Illinois, making the address agree with the license plates of the
car. He was aware of the girl beside him, watching as he wrote it down.
                 “That’ll
be four-fifty for a double room with bath,” the clerk said. He sounded ready to
make a deal.
                 “That’s
all right,” Emmett said.
                 He
took Ann Nicholson’s arm and they followed the boy with the bags into the
elevator. On the fourth floor they got out and followed the boy down a long dim
corridor, around a corner, and into a fairly large, barren room, the most
obtrusive piece of furniture in which was a large iron double bed. The air of
the room had the stagnant heat of a summer cottage that had not yet been opened
for the season.
                 The
boy set down the bags, raised the shade, and strained at the window until it
opened with a crash. The room looked better with sunlight entering it, but the
open window did not make it perceptibly cooler. The boy opened the bathroom and
closet doors, arranged the suitcases neatly, and set the aluminum rod case
carefully in a corner of the closet, while Emmett and the girl stood stiffly,
watching him. Emmett thought that they must look very much like lovers waiting
to be left alone. He squirmed out of the strap of his camera case and put the
camera on the dark ornate dresser that looked as if it had crossed the plains
in a covered wagon and had not been refinished since. The top was ringed with
yellow liquor stains, partially concealed by a paper doily, upon which stood
two glasses and an empty pitcher.
                 “Did
you put the car in the shade?” Emmett asked the boy. What he wanted to ask was,
had the car been put where it could not be seen from the street.
                 “Yes,
sir. The parking lot’s got shade most of the afternoon.”
                 “Well,”
Emmett said, “see if you can scare up half a dozen cokes and some ice.” He
relinquished a five-dollar bill.
                 “Yes,
sir.”
                 He
watched the boy leave, wondering what there was about the kid that recalled
something unpleasant; then he realized that the boy had freckles. He was almost
as freckled as the sheriff of Lane County, Nebraska.
                 When
the door had closed, Ann Nicholson walked slowly towards the bed, pushing the
damp hair back from her face. Her pale satin blouse looked like a rather grubby
boy’s shirt, dust-stained, with the sleeves rolled up and the collar open; it
was quite wet across the back and shoulders where she had been in contact with
the cushions of the car. Her black purse and shoes, even streaked with dust,
looked incongruously dressy against the damp open-necked blouse, and the
smudged, badly rumpled skirt of her gabardine suit. She laid the purse aside,
sat down on the edge of the bed, and reached down to push at one shoe until it
fell off to the floor, then, changing her legs around, at the other. Then she
sat rubbing her foot in her lap, unaware or too hot and tired to care that her
skirt had worked up to reveal the limp folds of a white silk slip and the tops
of her stockings.
                 “Why
did you register like that?” she asked without looking at him.
                 “Don’t
get skittish,” he said. “We’ll be out of here before dark; I just figured we
needed a break while I figured out what I’m going to do with you.”
                 She
glanced up. “I thought you were going to turn me over to the police.”
                 He
said wryly, “Well, it’s occurred to me that I don’t officially know you’re
wanted, Nicholson. If I take you to a police station they’re going to want to
know where I heard about it,