The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes Read Free Book Online

from the bed. It was still too early to dress for the evening. He decided to go across to the newsstand and buy the Los Angeles papers. Just possibly there might be a report of a missing girl. He didn’t have to believe that Iris’ father and mother were what she said they were, although that too had had the ring of truth. Like the name of Mayble Carney.
    He walked across the green to the motel office. The heat of the afternoon was a shock after the air-conditioned room. It was little wonder that the only guests in view were clustered by the pool. In the lobby the clerks and the bellboys were listless before the evening rush. At the desk he made arrangements for the car to be serviced and washed. With its cross-country dust, it was not fitting for wedding activities. He bought the Times and the Herald-Examiner at the newsstand. They were mail editions and most of the news would be old, yet the girl had left home yesterday. There could be a mention.
    Returned to his room, he searched all the pages with care but there was no story of any missing person. Maybe she wasn’t a runaway, maybe that denial had been honest. Leisurely he caught up on the sports and columns, on Gordo and Charlie Brown and Dick Tracy. By then it was time to shower and dress and go gather the grandparents. He wasn’t worried any longer. He was actually relieved that there hadn’t been an Aunt Mayble to find out who had given Iris a ride to Phoenix.
    It was past midnight when he returned to the motel. It had been a singularly happy evening. Lieutenant John Bent was almost good enough for Clytie. As for Ellen Hamilton, Clytie’s former roommate—why hadn’t any of the family told him what to expect? She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, he who came from a family of beauties.
    Ellen carried herself like a model, tall and slender and prideful. Small nose, enormous black eyes slightly tilted, skin like golden sand. Smooth dark hair not worn in one of the silly modern French fashions but with a bang across her forehead, and brushed down to a slight curve just above her shoulders. He could almost believe his mother and Stacy had entered into a conspiracy of silence lest he shy away from her.
    He hadn’t had half a chance to make headway tonight. John’s Air Force friends had surrounded her as if she were a shiny new spaceship. What Hugh had learned about her had been from his mother. Ellen had graduated cum laude from Vassar. She was taking special courses at George Washington, preparing for foreign diplomatic service. On that item, he had realized that her father was the Judge, that she was the Washington, D.C., Hamiltons.
    It was just as well he hadn’t had a chance to be alone with her, he might have fallen. A young doctor, not yet in practice, had nothing to offer an Ellen Hamilton. Moreover, he had no intention of getting involved with any girl until he had paid back the family for their backing him all these years, and was earning enough to support a wife on a decent economic level.
    At this hour the cars were parked closely in their lanes at the rear of the units. Not that all the guests were in bed; there were lights behind most of the drawn curtains. The late, late TV show echoed from open lanai doors. He parked as close as possible to 126, locked the car, and walked over to his door. He let himself in, flipped the night latch to keep the maid out in the morning, and put on the lights. He’d left the air conditioning on when he went out; he turned it off now, the motor hum would be disturbing for sleep. It wasn’t needed, the night had turned definitely cool. He checked the door screen, it was locked, and he drew the draperies across it, leaving the doors open.
    He turned on the TV set, tuning until he found the one with the old movie. He removed his jacket and hung it in the wardrobe, loosened his tie, and stretched out on one of the beds. The soporific picture would relax him for