We spent the next twenty minutes in the freezing cold running around looking for a ladder. I was losing my patience, I have to admit. I was cold and I was tired and I was hungry and it was nearly ten o’clock at night. Finally, we found a goddamned ladder.
Perkins put the ladder inside the storefront and used it to climb onto the roof of the adjacent building. He got up there, stood for a moment, and then climbed down.
“Fine,” he said. “We can go now.”
“Go where?”
“To the Holiday Inn, of course.”
* * *
A man can take only so much. Driving back in the car, I asked him what was going on, and he didn’t answer, and I lost my temper.
“Look,” I said, “it’s bad enough I’ve had to follow you around for two days and listen to all your cryptic questions, but now you drag me all the way out here in the middle of the night and the only explanation you can give me is that you’re trying to prevent another murder.”
“I was merely trying to stimulate your curiosity,” Perkins said.
“Well, it worked,” I said. “I’m curious.”
“So am I,” Perkins said. “Now, I won’t see you in the morning. I’ll meet you at the location. So don’t go looking for me tomorrow, all right?”
“All right,” I said.
“Everything will be just fine,” Perkins said. And then the son of a bitch patted my hand.
* * *
Back at the hotel, Claude was waiting for us in the lobby. He went over to Perkins. “I have the girl you wanted to see.”
“Oh, excellent,” he said. He was smiling. Harlow Perkins was actually smiling. “You want to come?” he asked me.
“No,” I said. I was still in a sour mood. “I want to eat dinner.”
“Fine, I’ll see her alone. Where is she?”
“In the production office.”
“Fine,” Perkins said. He went off with Claude. I went to the dining room to eat some dinner. I didn’t know who the hell he was going to see, but I was through for the night, let me tell you.
Then I got into the dining room and discovered that the kitchen was closed. I was so mad I couldn’t see straight. I made a little bit of a scene, and the waitress said she’d try to get me a steak sandwich. I said that was fine, and it was—I’d have eaten anything at that moment. She brought me a Scotch and disappeared, and I sat alone in a booth and drank it and listened to my stomach growl. The Scotch made the growling worse and didn’t improve my mood. I was still grumpy when in walked Sally.
She was crying.
I was the only person in the dining room, and she apparently didn’t notice me. She walked to a side table and sat down and put her head in her hands and bawled. I stared at her for a while, feeling like the world had gone crazy. For one thing, Sally was never unhappy. She was never happy either. She was never anything except sort ofplacid. Now here she was, crying.
But also, she was never out of her room after nine or ten at night. And she was certainly not out without Charles Mann. So it was crazy to see her here alone at night.
I finished my drink, wondering if she would look up and notice me, but she didn’t so I went over and sat down next to her. She looked up at me and said, “Oh, it’s you.” The tears were running down her cheeks. She was beautiful. I couldn’t help but feel a certain heart-wrenching empathy.
I said something clever like, “What’s the matter, Sally?”
She said she wanted to die, and she sobbed some more. I said she should come sit at my table, and I helped her up and steered her over to the booth. She sat down and kept on crying. I kept asking her what was the matter, and she kept saying she wanted to die.
And then finally she said, “He hit me.”
“Who?”
“Charles. He hit me.” Her voice made it sound like it was the strangest thing in the world, something unthinkable, like all the water in the world turning to ice.
