The Venus Death: A Ralph Lindsay Mystery. Ben Benson
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there.”
“We could go to Howard Johnson’s. They have good lobster rolls.”
She slid off her stool and picked up her bag and gloves. “If you’d like to take me,” she said, “I’m ready.”
“You haven’t touched your drink,” I reminded her.
“I don’t care for it,” she said hurriedly. Then, as the bartender stared at her, she touched my elbow.
We went to the door. My car was outside. It was a 1946 Ford coupé. The fenders were battered but it had a good motor. We got in and I drove out the turnpike to the nearest Howard Johnson’s.
It was as simple as that.
The lobster salad rolls and coffee had come and gone. She refused a cigarette. I sat across from her in the booth, looking at her face in the glow of the table lamp. Her face was finely shaped, delicately boned, but inexpressive and immobile. Her eyes were heavily lidded and long-lashed, and their color was like the deep blue of the Gulf Stream. I don’t know what she was thinking. But I knew what I was thinking, and I had a twinge of conscience about it. It was of Ellen back home in Cambridge, to whom I was engaged. Also, I was thinking of fate, and how it was just plain luck the way I had met Manette Venus. You didn’t meet girls like her very often and it would never happen again. And unconsciously I must have said it out loud.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Pure luck,” I said. “The way we met, I mean. My father always said life is ninety per cent luck, but people don’t recognize it. Only the smart ones do, and they take advantage of it.”
“Is your father one of the smart ones?”
“No,” I said. “Not that smart.” I didn’t tell her my father had no luck at all. He had been a state trooper who, in 1939, had been shot in the back and had been paralyzed from the waist down ever since. “Are you one of the smart ones?”
She laughed. “Me neither. You see, I work in the mill.”
“You? Which one?”
“Staley Woolen. Out in Staleyville. I’m in the office. Clerical work.”
“It’s a big mill. I go by there in a cruiser every Friday. It’s on one of my patrols.”
“I’ve never seen you.”
“I go by before noon. I guess everybody’s inside then.”
“Are you alone in the car?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never noticed you,” she said. “Lots of times I look out the window.”
“I’ll slow down the next time,” I said. Then I told her how she couldn’t miss the cruiser. It was pale blue. The state seals were on the doors and there were big white letters on the rear deck that said Massachusetts State Police. And on top of the roof there was a red light and a siren.
“I’ll surely watch for it Friday,” she said. “I’ll wave to you from the window.” Then she smiled. “But Friday’s a long way off, and the evening is still young. Of course, if you’ve made other arrangements–”
“No,” I said. “What would you like to do?”
“Anything you say. I don’t care.”
“We could take in a movie. There’s a drive-in about a mile down the pike.”
“I’d love to see a movie,” she said.
We left Howard Johnson’s. It had grown dark. I was crossing the parking lot with her when suddenly she stopped. She said, “Do you always carry a gun, Ralph?”
I turned to her. “What difference would that make?”
“I’m just curious,” she said with a short, nervous laugh. “It isn’t a secret or anything, is it?”
“No. Cops have to carry a gun at all times. I’ve got a little .38 Smith and Wesson Special here on my belt.”
“Where?”
“At my right hip pocket.” I opened my jacket and showed her the tiny leather open holster and the butt of the S&W.
She said, “No one would ever know. It doesn’t show one bit, Ralph.”
“That’s supposed to be the general idea,” I said.
We went to the drive-in theater. Now I like the movies. But if you asked me, I couldn’t even tell you what the picture was that October night. I was looking at her as she sat beside me. Her face was tilted up toward the screen, her hands clasped primly in her lap, her profile finely etched. She was a strange girl. Before there had been a forced brashness in her, now she seemed shy and timid. She didn’t seem to be too relaxed either, because every once in a while her foot would begin to tap on the rubber floor mat.
The picture ended and the lights went up. I started the car and we left the drive-in theater. I said, “How about a drink somewhere? A nightcap.”
“I’m not much for drinking, Ralph. Thanks, but I think it’s time to go home.”
“Where do you live?”
“I don’t want to trouble you. You can let me off downtown.”
“It’s no trouble,” I said.
“I live on Glen Road. I have a room with a private family. You go down the turnpike, past the Blue Grotto, to the first set of lights. Turn left.”
“You don’t live with your folks?”
“No, I’m all alone in Danford.”
I came to the lights and turned off. I drove along until I saw the sign Glen Road. On either side were curving streets with new houses. The houses began to thin out. I slowed down and looked at her.
“It’s a little way ahead,” she said.
There was a wooded area for half a mile with no houses at all. Then a light gleamed through the trees.
“There,” she said.
I pulled over and stopped in front of it. The house stood alone. Two stories and a high gabled attic. The house was old Victorian, with rotting shingles and a tangled unkempt high hedge. It had diamond-patterned windows. On the lawn was an old-fashioned post lantern. It cast a weak yellow light.
“You’re a long way from the bus,” I said.
“Oh, no. The bus goes right by here to Staleyville. And the driver always stops at the house.” She picked up her bag. She put it down again. Her hand reached for the door handle. She turned to me nervously.
“Well,” she said. “I really have to go in.”
“I hope to see you again some time.”
She moved over in the seat, closer to me. “Don’t you like me?” she asked suddenly.
“Why, sure, I like you,” I said, startled. “I–”
She put her arms around my neck. I could feel the soft resiliency of her body, the cool, scented cheek and a tendril of blond hair. I felt her warm breath on my face.
“This is what I meant,” she whispered. Her lips came to mine, hot and moist, clinging. She broke away, picked up her bag and pushed on the door handle.
“Wait a minute,” I said, catching my breath. But she was out of the car. I slid across the seat and came out on the road beside her. I took her by the shoulders and turned her around. “I want to see you again, Manette.”
“That’s better,” she said. “When?”
“Sunday,” I said. “My first Sunday off since I was assigned to the troop.”
“What time?”
“In