Free How Like an Angel by Margaret Millar Page A

“Why, I gave you number seventeen not more than an hour ago. You told me your name and gave me the license number of your car like it’s written right here in the book.”
    â€œI wasn’t here an hour ago.”
    â€œYou must of been. I gave you the key. Only you had a hat on, a gray fedora, and you were wearing a topcoat. Maybe you been drinking and don’t remember? Liquor befogs the memory something fierce. They say Dean has trouble with his lines on account of belting too many.”
    â€œAt nine o’clock,” Quinn said wearily, “I turned my key in to the girl who was here in the office.”
    â€œMy granddaughter.”
    â€œAll right, your granddaughter. I haven’t been back since. Now, if you don’t mind, I want into my room, I’m tired.”
    â€œBeen carousing around, eh?”
    â€œThat’s right. Carousing around trying to forget Ingrid and Debbie. Now find your passkeys and let’s get going.”
    Grumbling, the old man led the way outside and down the driveway. The air was still hot and dry, and not even the brisk wind could dispel the faint odor of oil that hung over the city.
    Quinn said, “Pretty warm night for a hat and topcoat, isn’t it?”
    â€œI ain’t wearing a hat and a topcoat.”
    â€œThe man you gave my key to was.”
    â€œAll that carousing’s befogged your memory.” They had reached the door of Quinn’s room and the old man let out a sudden cry of triumph. “Lookie here, will you? See, the key’s right in the lock where you left it. I told you. I gave it to you and you forgot about it. Now what do you think of that, eh?”
    â€œVery little.”
    â€œYou traveling fellows get careless, belting the booze and all.”
    There didn’t seem to be any way of convincing the old man he was wrong, so Quinn said good night and locked himself in the room.
    It looked, at first glance, exactly the way he’d left it, the bed rumpled, the pillows propped against the headboard, the goosenecked lamp switched on. The two cardboard boxes con­taining Ronda’s file on O’Gorman were still on the desk. It was impossible for Quinn to tell whether anything had been removed from them. Even Ronda, who had collected the material, might find it difficult, since he probably hadn’t looked through it for years.
    Quinn removed the lid from the first box. In a large manila envelope were the pictures of O’Gorman which Martha had given to Ronda: one formal photograph, obviously very old, since O’Gorman looked about twenty at the time; the rest snapshots, O’Gorman with the children, with a dog and cat, with Martha; O’Gorman changing a tire, standing beside a bicycle. In every case O’Gorman looked like a part of the background, and it was the dog and cat, the children, Martha, the bicycle, which seemed the real subjects of the pictures. Only the formal photograph showed O’Gorman’s face clearly. He’d been a handsome young man with curly black hair and large gentle eyes with a faint expression of bafflement in them, as though he found life puzzling and not quite what he’d been led to expect. It was the kind of face that would appeal to a lot of women, especially the ones who might think they could solve life’s puzzles for him and, motherlike, kiss away the hurts and bruises it inflicted.
    Quinn returned the pictures to the envelope, his movements slowed by a sudden feeling of depression. Until he studied the portrait, O’Gorman had seemed unreal to him. Now O’Gor­man had become a human being, a man who loved his wife and children and house and dog, who worked hard at his job, a man too soft-hearted to leave a hitchhiker standing on the road on a stormy night yet brave enough to resist a rob­ber.
    He had two bucks in his pocket, Quinn thought as he took off his clothes and got into bed. Why did he put up a fight for a lousy two