The following is a continuation of the April 19th, 1949 entry into the Rocky Stone notebooks:
Gloria squirmed in her chair as she thought about the name that she had just dropped in my lap: Mitch. She heaved a sigh and let it all out at once: “His last name is Gomer. He comes in here from time to time, whenever he has money, and gambles it away, makes some noise, and leaves. None of the girls can stand him. I can't stand him.” She shrugged. “That's life, though, huh?”
“Is he young? Old?”
“Past thirty. Blonde hair, always wears a cowboy hat, but then, they all do.”
“Do you know where he lives?”
She rolled her eyes. “I wouldn't care to know. Close by. There's not much around here, in case you didn't notice.”
“I noticed.”
That smile of hers returned, a smile she had learned from someone who knew what men like, a seductive look that made you want to see it again. I brushed it off. Maybe I had to stick around for a good bit of time so Miss Lola wouldn't get suspicious, but I couldn't get distracted. Word would get around a town this size and if Marjorie was hiding in it, she'd get wise before twenty-four hours were up. Mitch Gomer sounded like a clumsy enough character, pretty easy to find, but where did he fit in? The Pastor said she had no family other than her mother. A cousin, maybe.
Gloria got up from the bed and sat next to me on the couch, crossed her legs so I could see how nice they were. She pressed into me and I threw my eyes over to that framed picture, the man and woman inside it. They didn't belong, and neither did that fancy hat of hers. The whole scene was wrong from top to bottom and it started with her and I let her know about it. This time I used my gun. I stuck it in her ribs and held it there. She got a screwy grin on her face when I did.
“Is this what you like?”
“What I like is the truth. You're cute, kid. Too cute to belong in a joint like this. Who are you really?”
She slumped off me and winced like I had jabbed her in the breadbasket. She reached along her leg until she came to the garter belt, yanked out a small billfold and tossed it at me. I flipped it open and saw the shining badge inside: private investigator #35619, city of Albuquerque, name of Gloria Wendel Hallward. I tossed it back to her and flashed my own badge back at her, just to be civil.
“You can lower the gun now,” she added.
I held it firm. “I need some answers first.”
She shrugged it off. “Suit yourself, but you'll be dropping it, anyway. You've been poisoned.”
My mind raced around the room for a second and a half. I didn't touch a drop of that ginger ale downstairs and I didn't have a chance to drink anything since then. If anyone stuck me with a needle I would have felt it. Gloria winked at me and licked her lips and I knew how she did it. It was that kiss. She poisoned her lipstick. I had to get out. I tried to stand but the world tipped over on its side and I had to grab hold of the couch to keep from falling.
“It's taken me three minutes to get dizzy, and I weigh twice as much as you.”
She laughed at that. “So?”
“So you've got about a minute and a half. In case you forgot, you licked your own lips.”
Her eyes shot out of her head as soon as she realized. Her first move was to reach for my gun, but the poison worked quicker than either of us thought. When she rose from the couch the knock-out drops pushed her over to the bed. She landed there hard, right on her hat. She wrestled it out from underneath her and it was broken in half, the last image she had before she collapsed.
The only thing I could do was try to get out, get to my car. The door had three doorknobs on it and I reached for one that wasn't there. I made another stab at it and I caught the right one that time, managed to turn it and open it. The hallway was ten times longer than it had a right to be and I stumbled down it, hoping I could gather enough strength to blow past everyone in the common room. Then there were the stairs, the beaded curtain, the old birds seated at the bar. I thought of how far I needed to go and the floor opened up at my feet, wrapped its arms around me and wouldn't let go.
I made it as far as the piano. I looked up at the bar, just before it all went black. A man sat there, a man in black gloves, and as he raised his glass to his lips, his pinky stayed straight as an arrow and it pointed right at me. He put the glass down on the bar, stared at me in contemplation for a moment, and laughed a deep, dark laugh.
Who is this mysterious stranger? Find out next week on this very same inter-net in The Lost Love, part 9!
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