Free Monkey on a Chain by Harlen Campbell Page B

okay.”
    “I don’t know. Empty.”
    “His mother said you can keep the car.”
    “I don’t know if I want it.”
    “He wanted you to have it.”
    “Did he?”
    “He gave it to you.”
    She took a swallow of her beer and shivered.
    “We have a couple of hours. Is there anything you want to do?”
    “Where are we?”
    I stared. She seemed serious. “Phoenix.”
    She closed her eyes and lay her head back in her chair. I looked at her. Her skin was faintly red above her top and on her face. Her passivity bothered me. When the waiter stuck his head out again, I ordered two club sandwiches. April groaned when they arrived, but I made her eat one and then walked her back to the room.
    She sat on the foot of the bed and stared at the television. It wasn’t turned on. I opened her suitcase, picked out a pair of panties, a brassiere, white slacks, a cream-colored blouse, and laid them beside her. She didn’t seem to notice.
    “Damn it, do I have to dress you?”
    She stood and started taking off the bikini top. I grabbed some clothes and headed for the bathroom. When I came out, she was dressed. She had picked out a different blouse. I thought that was probably a good sign.
    We spent a couple of hours in the nearest mall. I told her she had to buy clothes, that I wouldn’t let her leave until she’d spent two hundred dollars. She shopped apathetically at first, but toward the end she was showing a little enthusiasm. We got back to the motel by three-thirty. I made her model the dress and pants outfit she’d decided on. She acted pleased when I complemented them.
    At four o’clock I called the number again. The man I’d spoken to earlier answered on the first ring.
    “Mr. Stephenson?”
    “I don’t want to talk to you,” I told him.
    “Unfortunately, Mr. Coleman will not be available. He asked me to convey his regrets and to say that he remembers the last time you met with fondness, but he will not see you again.” The man’s voice never strayed from gentle civility. “Goodbye, Mr. Stephenson.”
    I hung up before he could. His politeness irritated me. Walker’s caginess was beginning to irritate me. I said “Shit.”
    “What’s wrong?” April was watching me from the bed.
    “Nothing. I’m just irritated.” She waited. I threw myself on the bed beside her. “Walker wants to play games. Or maybe he’s scared. I don’t know which.”
    I stared at the couple in the mirror opposite the bed for a long minute before adding, “At least nobody is shooting at us.”
    She said nothing. Well, there was nothing to say. I told her I was looking at a long night and to wake me at seven. She reached for the television controller as I rolled over. I spent some time deciding how to play the few cards I held, and then I let myself drift off. I woke a few minutes before seven. April was asleep. I woke her and prodded her to dress. She wore one of the new outfits. Before we left the room, I turned on the radio and all the lights and opened the curtains over the patio door. We ate a leisurely dinner at the motel and were on the road by eight-thirty.
    My last meeting with Walker, the one he remembered with such fondness, had been in a lounge near the American Airlines gates at the Phoenix airport. I was delivering some papers that would transfer ownership of a shipment of machine tools being held in bond at the port of Los Angeles. The value of the cargo had been small, around fifty thousand. The twenty thousand profit he would make on the shipment represented the last payment on Walker’s account, and I hadn’t expected to see him again.
    He had to catch a flight too, and we barely had time to meet. The transfer had gone smoothly. I had walked into the lounge, seen him standing at the bar, handed him an envelope, shaken hands quickly, and walked away. Very businesslike. But as I walked away, I’d felt as though I were floating. It had been the last payment. I had felt as if the war was finally over. Maybe he had