The Bamboo Blonde. Dorothy B. Hughes
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There had been no harm in those echoing footsteps, her nerves alone had translated them as such.
She put on the pink-sprigged dimity nightdress that made her look like a Kate Greenaway illustration. Actually there was no point in looking like anything except a deserted wife. She turned out the bedroom light, climbed into bed, and put her face into his pillow.
A fine honeymoon, going to bed alone.
2
Con said, “Are you awake?”
It woke her. He was standing by the bed, his hands jammed into his pockets, rattling something. But he wasn’t smiling. The light from the living room made half-light here; she could see the disturbance in his frown. And a little fear without reason came into her heart.
“Yes, I’m awake.” She pushed over halfway to her own side of the bed. He sat down on the edge, pulled his hand out of his pocket. She saw what had made that rattling. On his palm lay a half dozen shells, not the kind you gathered on the beach, the kind that were put into revolvers for lethal purpose.
“Con!” She gasped it, moved back close to him. “Con–”
He said, “Want to hear what happened?”
“Yes. Con–” She stilled the quaver of her voice. After all there was no reason to be panicky just because once before he had been in danger. He wasn’t now, not here on vacation in Long Beach. Not with Garth safely gone. She spoke easily, “Give me a cigarette first.”
He lit one for each of them and began talking. She could see it as it unfolded.
He’d helped the girl into the old coupe, said cheerily, “We’ll go where we don’t have to be insulted. What do you say?”
She’d been drinking but she wasn’t drunk. She spoke without inflection, as if he were a cab driver. “I want to go to Saam’s Seafood Place.”
“O.K.” He’d started the noisy motor. “Where is it?”
“Down Seal Beach way. I’ll show you.”
They drove across the bridge, on down the San Diego highway. He tried to talk to her but she was silent. And then Con wanted another drink as Con usually did. Saam’s Seafood hadn’t appeared but other places were handy. He slowed at one, said, “Let’s have a snifter before we go on. What do you say?”
She said, “All right.”
It was then that her coat fell to the floor. It made more noise than a light green fleece should. She picked it up quickly, got out of the car quickly, and so did he. He didn’t know what it was all about, and, being Con, he wasn’t going to let her escape until he did. But she wasn’t running away. She went into the little place, took a seat in the second booth. He sat opposite her.
He ordered two beers, and eyed the girl. “Now what’s it all about?” he demanded. He had an idea maybe she was running dope. There was something dopey about her, he told Griselda. She acted as in a trance. But that didn’t disturb him; he was never afraid, not even when he should be. That was why he got involved in things; not scrapes that you could laugh at later, but serious trouble where death whispered, and which you tried never to remember after.
She did show some spirit now. She said, “I told you to skip it.”
“I’m not skipping it.” He waited until the beers were set down and paid for, then he said–Griselda could see him lolling back and saying it–“It’s a long walk back to town, sister. Either you’ll tell me what’s up or you can prepare to spend the night right here in this dump.”
She wet her lips, looked out again at the opposite booth, and quietly showed him the gun in her coat pocket. She said, “I’m going to blow myself out tonight. But I’m not going alone.”
Con said, “Oh no, you’re not.” He told her, “It isn’t that I give a damn if you blow yourself out or how many you take with you, but you’re not going to do it tonight. Too many people have seen you with me. I’m here on my honeymoon and I can’t be bothered hanging around inquests and spouting a lot of fool testimony. Give me the gun.”
They sat there arguing, fortified by beers. How long Con didn’t know. The girl and he were both adamant. She wouldn’t give up the gun; he wouldn’t drive her to Saam’s until she did. He could have reached over and taken it but he was afraid she might get it first, he said, and choose him to accompany her on the voyage out.
Finally he compromised. “I can’t sit here all night. I have a wife waiting for me.”
“You actually remembered me?” Griselda asked. But she didn’t say it acidly. She was holding tight to his hand now, pressed close against him.
He kissed the top of her head. “I never forget you, kitten.”
He told the girl, “I’ll take you back to town if you’ll let me hold the baby until we get there. Then I’ll give it back to you. You can get someone else to drive you to Saam’s joint.”
She agreed to that. “I’m going to powder my nose first.” She was a little unsteady when she stood up.
He waited for her to reappear. When she did, she had the coat on and he could see the gun wasn’t in her pocket.
He demanded, “What did you do with it?”
“I flushed it down the toilet,” she said.
That made him mad; it might have been the beers but he was mad. He said, “I may look like a cretin but I’m not. That’s scientifically impossible.”
He marched into the Women’s Room without any bones about it. He found where she’d hidden it, beneath paper towels in the wastebasket. He didn’t know why or what she’d hoped to gain by it, but he unloaded the gun, put the shells into his trousers pocket, the gun into his coat pocket.
She was waiting docilely by the door when he returned. She said without spirit, “You will give it back to me? I was afraid you wouldn’t; that’s why I hid it. I have to have it.”
They went out to the car. He asked, “So you can kill yourself and some rat?”
She said, “It’s none of your business,” and she didn’t say any more on the ride back.
He let her off where she directed on Ocean Boulevard, handed back her gun, said, “Good night,” and drove away, leaving her there on the walk.
“Then I came home to you, baby,” he said.
That was Con’s story.
3
Griselda breathed again.
Con stood up, yawned, said, “Mind the light?” turned it on, flung the shells on the bureau, and began unbuttoning his shirt.
She asked blankly, “But what was it all about, darling?”
“Damned if I know.” He yawned again. “Screwiest performance I ever heard of.”
Griselda wondered, “What was her name?”
“She wouldn’t answer that one.”
She shook her head hopelessly. “Was she pretty?”
“Might have been on the Congo. I’ve seen too many of her lately. Blondes like that are a dime a dozen in Hollywood. You know. She didn’t even have a mole to distinguish her.”
Griselda shook her head again. “Why do you do these silly things, Con? Why did you go out with her?”
He laughed. “I don’t know. Curiosity, I guess. Ye olde newsy instinct. I couldn’t understand why Bennie refused to serve her. I know now, of course. He’d seen the gun.”
She