The Three Roads Read online

  He turned to Mustin, who had been silent for some time, and said: “This friend of yours with the unfaithful wife, has he been faithful to her?”

  Mustin’s face registered shock, as if Bret had named an unfamiliar obscenity. “Hell, no! He’s been in the Navy all his life. He doesn’t play around when he’s at home, but when he pulls into Panama or Honolulu, naturally he takes it where he can get it.”

  “What’s bothering him then?” Bret said roughly.

  “You don’t understand, Lieutenant.” Mustin leaned toward him in his earnestness. “You don’t get the situation. He married this girl in 1940 and thought he was getting a pure girl—you know, a virgin. Then when he’s away fighting for his country she turns out to be nothing but a two-bit floozie. Worse than a two-bit floozie, without even the two-bits to show for it.”

  “You mean while he’s away fighting for his country and incidentally picking up all the tail he can get on the side.”

  “What the hell!” exploded Mustin. “I’m a man, ain’t I? A man’s got a right to expect his wife to be pure, even if he isn’t.”

  “Is this your wife we’re talking about?”

  Mustin lowered his eyes. “Yeah. I didn’t mean to tell you.”

  “And you want my opinion on what you should do?”

  “I don’t know.” Mustin’s voice was thickened by alcohol and resentment. “You don’t understand the situation. You never had a wife, did you?”

  “That’s none of your goddam business!” Bret cried. “I understand the situation well enough. You want to take it out on your wife for the rest of your life for doing what you’ve always done. Go home and tell her you’re sorry.”

  The chief’s broad mouth worked and spat. “To hell with you, Lieutenant! You don’t know anything about it.”

  “I know more than I want to. You forced your story down my throat and asked for my advice.”

  “And what kind of advice did you give me? You can stick it!”

  “Don’t talk like that to me.”

  “Why the hell shouldn’t I?” The chief’s face was red and malevolent now, pushing closer and closer like an expanding balloon. “You’re no officer of mine, and I say thank God for that! If that’s the kind of ideas they teach you in a college I’m goddam glad I never set foot in one! Goddam college graduates pretending to be officers in a man’s navy—”

  In a movement that he neither intended nor controlled, Bret placed his open right hand against the angry face and pushed it backward.

  “Hey there, cut that out now!” Sollie the bartender began to climb over the bar.

  Mustin went down heavily on his back and got up with his shoulders hunched and his fists extended. “Come on and fight like a man, you friggin’ coward!” The sentence was punctuated by a blow on the side of the head which sent Bret reeling. He came back to attack the red face behind the fists, as if it represented all the unspoken hatred of enlisted men for officers, and all the venereal sin of all the ports.

  A left jab to the cheek and a right cross to the side of the jaw put Mustin on his back for the second and last time. Bret stood over the fallen man, pleased to see the blood on his face. He heard a sound in the air behind and over his head, but it was too late to duck. A hard blow jolted the back of his head and split the room into many tiny fragments. It must have been a bottle, he thought as his knees buckled and he fell forward onto the floor. Then the black wind blew out the fluorescent lights.

  chapter 11

  “Hold it,” Larry Miles called, but he was too far away to interrupt the arc of the descending bottle. He had been watching the progress of the argument between Bret and Mustin, but its climax came so suddenly that it caught him flat-footed. He ran to the end of the bar, stepping over the two prostrate men, and faced Sollie the bartender, who was idly swinging the undamaged beer bottle in his right hand.

  “Better give me that bottle, friend,” Larry said.

  “Who do you think you are? Who do you think you’re talkin’ to?”

  “This officer is a friend of mine. I don’t like to see my friends get hurt.”

  “Keep ’em from fightin’ in this bar then.”

  “Should I call the cops, Sollie?” the other bartender said.

  Half of the occupants of the café were watching the men on the floor from where they sat, but the other half had already lost interest in the fight. It hadn’t been much of a fight anyway. Three punches and the usual pay-off with the bottle.

  Mustin sat up holding his jaw, then climbed awkwardly to his feet. “You didn’t need to sap the bugger,” he said.

  “You want me to call the police?” Sollie said.

  “What the hell for? He didn’t hurt me.” Mustin dabbed at his face with a handkerchief and examined it suspiciously, as if a sly enemy of his might have stained it with red ink.

  “What about this guy here?” Sollie said. “We can’t just let him lie here on the floor.”

  “I’ll take care of him,” said Larry Miles. He kneeled down beside the unconscious man and looked at the bruise on the back of his head.

  “Is he hurt bad?” Sollie asked with some anxiety.

  “Naw, he’ll be okay. He’d of come to already if he wasn’t drunk. But we better get him out of here.”

  “You got a car—you know where he lives?”

  “Yeah. I’ll bring the car around to the front, and you can walk him out.”

  “You sure you’re a friend of his?” Mustin said. “He’s a set-up for somebody to roll him. What’s his name?”

  “Taylor,” Larry answered smoothly. “Lieutenant Bret Taylor, USNR. I work for a very good friend of his.”

  “That’s his name, all right,” Mustin said to the bartender. He put his hand under Bret’s shoulder, turned him onto his back, and raised him to a half-sitting position. “Well, let’s get under way. I’m sorry this happened, but I guess it couldn’t be helped. The guy’s a little nuts, if you ask me.”

  Maybe you’re righter than you know, Larry thought. Little did you know that you were talking to a fugitive from a padded cell, and little am I going to tell you. He brought his coupé to the front of the café, and looked up and down the street for his best friends and severest critics, the cops. Not that he knew them west of Syracuse, and not that they knew him, but he had a very special reason for wishing to avoid that pleasure. When he had made sure that the coast was clear he honked. Mustin and Sollie came out through the swinging doors with Bret dragging half upright between them. Larry opened the door and helped to haul him into the car. He could tell by the sound of his breathing, or thought he could, that Bret had come to from the knockout and passed directly into an alcoholic sleep.

  As Larry drove away with the semirecumbent blue bundle beside him on the seat, the situation pleased him so much that he could have crowed like a rooster. Come to think of it, there was a good deal to be said for being a rooster, even if a rooster did have a hatchet waiting for him at the back door of the harem. Hell, he had a hatchet waiting for him too, but he was going to give the hatchetman a long and merry chase before they buried it in his own particular neck.

  He drove toward Hollywood along the wide boulevard, lit by the starry neon symbols of glamour and nocturnal delight, past lighted store windows through which he caught glimpses of the smooth and glittering world he was one day going to crash. Just how the unconscious man beside him fitted into the picture, he didn’t quite see, but it seemed like a good idea to take him along. He’d know what the guy was doing so long as he kept him with him, and the closer tab he kept on the new developments in the Taylor setup the better chance he’d have of keeping things running smooth.

  More importantly, he felt, it pleased him to do the exact opposite of what Paula West expected. She’d ordered him to stay away from her lieutenant, and she was going to pay him to take the order. Only it happened he didn’t take orders from anybody. He’d stick to Taylor like a brother as long as he felt any pressure the other way. Matter of fact, he was better than a
brother, he was a good Samaritan. He spent the rest of the drive home alternately wondering exactly what a good Samaritan was, and trying to decide whether it would be safe to take a small cut, say fifty per cent, of the contents of Taylor’s wallet. In the end he decided that it wouldn’t. That Navy chief in the Golden Sunset was a pretty shrewd character, and he’d probably have a long memory. Larry thought he’d better play it straight with Taylor and waive the petty profits in the deal. He felt sure that that’s what a good Samaritan would do, whatever the hell a good Samaritan was. Something like the Red Cross probably.

  He drove straight into his garage and stopped the engine. Taylor was still sleeping, with his head wedged awkwardly in the corner of the seat. Larry took a flashlight out of the glove compartment and turned it on the closed face. There was a blue welt on the temple where the chief’s fist had caught him, but otherwise he looked all right, snoring away as if he was home in bed. It gave him a pleasant sense of power to have Taylor in his car like this, completely helpless and unsuspecting in the dark garage. Even in sleep it wasn’t the face of a man you’d want to fool around with. It was a strong, hard face, and Taylor was a strong, hard boy. The old one-two that put the chief to sleep was as neat as any he’d seen since the last time he fought himself. But right now the guy was as harmless as a baby. Larry slapped his face a few times in an experimental way, and damned if the guy didn’t open his eyes and try to sit up!

  “Take it easy, Lieutenant,” Larry said.

  “Who are you?” The words came thickly out of the dry and swollen mouth.

  “Just a friend—a fine-feathered friend of the family. You feeling okay?”

  “God, no! What happened?”

  “You just got conked with a bottle, Lieutenant. The bartender put you out so’s you wouldn’t kill the other guy.”

  “I must’ve been tight. What in hell did I want to fight him for? Something about a woman—”

  “Yeah, it usually is. You think you can walk up to my apartment? What you need is some shut-eye. It’s no palatial abode, but you can use it if you want.”

  “You didn’t tell me your name. I don’t know you, do I?”

  “The name’s Milne, Harry Milne.” It was a name he kept handy to use when his own wasn’t convenient. “I was sitting in the café and I saw you get sapped, so I thought I’d get you out of there before the cops came. These L.A. cops can be kind of unreasonable.”

  “You’re very kind, but I can’t impose on you—”

  “Don’t give it a thought. I like the way you punch. I did a little fighting myself at one time. Let’s go, if you think you can make it.”

  Taylor was shaky, but he could walk without help. Larry took him in by the back door of the building and up in the freight elevator, because there was no point in advertising the fact that he had a guest. Women were another matter: the girls that visited him were good for his reputation. If they weren’t, he visited them. But he didn’t know yet what use he’d have for Taylor, so he kept his acquisition to himself.

  Taylor was as meek as a kitten and didn’t say a word until they were inside the apartment. Then he asked where the bathroom was and made a run for it. While Taylor was retching and cawing into the toilet bowl, Larry took his collection of autographed nudes off the wall and shut them up in a drawer. As long as things were sort of vague like this between them, he figured he might as well concentrate on making a good impression. The way things were going he and Taylor might end up as bosom pals. And that would be a belly laugh of the first water. He was a card, all right, a real wag out of the top drawer with bells on. In a way he regretted he didn’t have an audience for this, but naturally there was nobody he could trust. He was so slick he barely trusted himself.

  When Taylor came out of the bathroom, he looked ready for nothing but bed. Because there was no blood in his face his tan was a dirty jaundice yellow. His forehead was shining with sweat, and his eyes were still watering from the nausea. He was walking straighter though, and that was a good sign.

  “Feeling better?”

  “Yeah. I had some stuff to get rid of. I’m not used to drinking whisky.”

  “How’s your head?”

  “Not so bad. It doesn’t seem to be bleeding.”

  “You’re lucky the bottle didn’t break.”

  “I suppose I am. Well, I’ll be shoving off—”

  “Don’t do that, Lieutenant. Where do you want to go?”

  “By the way, my name’s Taylor.” He shook Larry’s hand. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Forget it. You’re in no shape to go out again right away. You got a place to stay?”

  “No, not exactly. But I couldn’t possibly take up any more of your time.”

  “Hell, stay here. You can sleep in the other bed. Give me a reason why not.”

  “It’s very good of you—”

  “Nuts. I’d do the same for anybody, for any veteran, that is. The way I look at it we all owe something to you guys that fought the war.” Jesus, what corn! But he certainly put some real sincerity into the lines.

  “If you’re certain it wouldn’t put you out in any way. I admit I don’t feel much like looking for a room tonight.”

  “Consider the question closed, Lieutenant. You can stay here as long as you like. You can even wear a suit of my pajamas—we’re about the same size, eh? And don’t say another word. Your bed’s right in here.”

  By ten thirty Bret was sleeping again, and Larry slipped out quietly to keep his appointment with Paula West.

  Part IV

  DOOMSDAY

  chapter 12

  Bret’s mind resisted the clarity of the morning. He half woke and half opened his eyes, painfully conscious of the shining razors of light that slid through the openings of the Venetian blinds. He closed his eyes again, groping for the severed ends of his dreams. But the shadows of the dream evaded him, fleeing backward down the tunnel of sleep like insubstantial ghosts. Consciousness took hold of him like an obstetrical forceps and pulled him into life by the head. The pressure of reality clamped on his skull was painful and somehow humiliating. He sat up in bed to shake it off, but the pain and humiliation hung on. The pain became distinctly localized in the back of his head, and the humiliation sank to the pit of his stomach and turned to nausea. He swallowed, with a throat as dry as sandpaper.

  The memory of what he had to do came back in a rush, and he looked at his wristwatch. Nearly nine o’clock. He had wasted a whole night in drinking and brawling and sleeping, and was no nearer to the man who killed his wife than he had been before. He jumped out of bed and began to dress quickly.

  He became aware that someone was watching him from the twin bed on the other side of the room. He half turned to see his roommate leaning on one elbow, smiling wryly in his direction. What was the man’s name? Mill? No, Milne. Harry Milne. Their conversation of the night before came to him from a long way back, echoing against the hollow walls of his hangover.

  “Good morning,” the man in the bed said. “Have a good sleep?”

  “Very. I’ve got to thank you for the use of your bed.”

  “Hell, that’s all right. Use it as long as you want. I only sleep in one bed at a time.”

  “Will you let me pay you something?”

  For some reason that seemed funny to Harry Milne. He laughed boyishly. “Christ, no! This isn’t a rooming house I run. I do things for my friends that I wouldn’t do for money.” That was funny too, and he laughed again. “You’re my friend because I like you. I make friends just like that”—he snapped his fingers—“and I drop ’em just as fast when the spirit moves me. Speaking of which, the spirit moved you pretty fast for a while last night. Hangover?”

  “I’m as dry as a chip.”

  “Just a minute. I’ll get you some milk in the icebox.”

  “Please don’t bother.”

  “It’s no bother.” He bounced out of bed and padded across the room. Bret disliked that feline way of walking, but he repressed the f
eeling. The man was treating him like a brother, and he had no right to dislike him.

  Larry saw that something was wrong. Did the guy know him after all? Had he made a slip? No, that was impossible. It was probably something very simple, like the guy not liking to be talking to somebody half in and half out of his underwear. The guy had nothing to be ashamed of though. He had shoulders like an ox. A little too heavy for a perfect figure (like his own) but he was fast too, a good, fast light heavy. Larry had a desire to fight the man, not that he had anything against him at the moment, but just because it would be interesting. Interesting for about thirty seconds, that is. With his ring experience he’d cut the guy to ribbons in six punches. And that would be kind of fun, too. Come to think of it, it would be a hell of a lot of fun.

  Taylor picked up his blue trousers and started to put them on.

  “Hey,” Larry said from the doorway. “You can’t wear those.” He pointed at the triangular rip in the right leg. Even apart from that the whole uniform was streaked with dirt that wouldn’t brush off.

  “Damn it! These are the only clothes I have with me.”

  It didn’t occur to him that he could go to Paula for his things. He didn’t want to see her again until he had done what he had to do. For that matter, she’d probably phoned the hospital and told them he’d broken his parole, so to speak. Maybe they were already looking for him. The idea churned his stomach and made him angry.