Free Wild Town by Jim Thompson

the last thirty minutes.”
    She laughed and scampered out of the car. She turned her head back through the window. “And another thing. I’m sure you ask a great many questions on short acquaintance.”
    And then she was crying. The laughter had changed suddenly to tears.
    Weeping, she fled up the walk to the house.
    Bugs kicked open the door, called a question after her.
    “Y-yes!” she stopped and whirled around. “Why shouldn’t you see me? Why shouldn’t anyone, everyone? Why—why—”
    She started running again. Bugs let her go. After all, he was going to have this Dudley matter to deal with tonight. And he’d damned well better keep his mind on it until it was safely wrapped up. And, aside from that, well…
    Well?
    He cursed, cursing himself and Lou Ford with equal venom. Feeling frustrated, his mind churning with confusion, he drove back to the hotel.
    Ford was loitering in front of the entrance, one boot heel hooked back against the bricks, one of his thin black cigars in the corner of his mouth. He slouched out to the curb as Bugs climbed out of his car.
    “You’re bein’ paged,” he announced. “Looks like you got a suicide on your hands.”
    “A suicide?” Bugs managed a satisfactory start. “Who was it? How did it happen?”
    “Joyce Hanlon. Drank herself a cup of poison. Guess she heard about you bein’ with Amy and it plumb broke her heart.”
    He nodded soberly, very long of face. Then, as Bugs gaped at him, he laughed and slapped the big man on the back. “Just jokin’ with you, fella; doubt if they’s anything on the market that would make a dent in Joyce.”
    “Very funny,” Bugs snapped. “Look, has there actually been a suicide, or—”
    “Oh, sure, there’s been one all right. Sure looks like one anyway. Man name of—Well, let’s see if you can guess. Three guesses, and if you hit it right I’ll give you a see-gar.”
    “Never mind, goddammit.” Bugs started for the entrance. “Of all the—!”
    “You mean you don’t like see-gars?” Ford easily joined stride with him. “Well, seein’ as you’re so impatient-like, it was a fella named Dudley, Alec Dudley. You know him, I reckon?”
    “Sure, I know him; he’s the Hanlon’s auditor. I don’t mean I was well-acquainted with him, but—”
    “Uh-huh. Then, you wouldn’t have any idea why he’d kill himself? Don’t know of any trouble he was in, or whether he was feelin’ dee-spondent or anything like that?”
    “No.”
    “Well, let’s see what we can find out.” Ford linked arms with him companionably. “Been waitin’ for you to come back before I did any investigatin’. Me, I’m a great hand for observin’ pro-to-col, as the sayin’ is. Guess you might call it my greatest vice and my strongest virtue…”
    They made the investigation together—if such a casual asking of questions and looking-about could be called an investigation. Then, an ambulance having removed Dudley’s body, they stood once more at the entrance of the hotel.
    Bugs didn’t want to be there; not with Ford, at least. He wanted to be alone, to relax his taut nerves, to sort out his thoughts about Amy Standish. But the deputy held him as if by an invisible magnet. He didn’t have anything to say. He simply rambled on and on, with his usual drawling, rube-ish chit-chat, until Bugs was on the point of crawling out of his own skin.
    And then Ford broke off suddenly, staring at Bugs out of shrewd, narrowly amused eyes. “Ain’t you got some work to do?” he inquired, his voice soft-hard. “Hadn’t you maybe ought to be gettin’ at it?”
    Bugs said he had. He added curtly that he couldn’t very well work while he was standing around listening to a lot of goddamned nonsense.
    Ford nodded equably. He took the cigar from his mouth, and examined the tip. And then, swiftly, he looked up, his gaze striking into Bugs’s face like a blow.
    “Why listen to it, then?” he said. “Why not just say good-night or go to hell, and