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“San Antonio. Kerrville. Wherever.”
“I’m not keen on travel.” He waited for her to reply, but she didn’t. “What kind of question is that?” he said.
“I was just curious. You’re an unusual man, Mr. Holland.”
“Can you call me Hack?”
“Formality has its purpose,” she said.
He tried to see into her eyes, but she tied on her hat and didn’t look directly into his face again.
HE TOOK A cab to Ruby’s hotel. At first he did not recognize the woman retrieving her room key at the desk. From the back, she looked like a countrywoman whose hat was on crooked and whose hair had come loose and fallen in long wisps on one cheek, as though she were too tired to push it back in place. Then she turned around and looked straight at him, even though there were other people in the lobby. “Hack?” she said.
“How you doin’, Ruby?”
“I just got your message.”
“Where’ve you been?”
“At Beckman’s. Out at the army base, too. I talked to a colonel. I thought they might help us.”
“What’d he say?”
“They have their own problems. Can we sit down?”
“You went to Beckman’s on your own?”
“I’ll tell you about it. I really need to sit down first.”
He was disconcerted by her eyes. He had forgotten how beautiful and mysterious they were, deep-set like a Viking’s, the color of violets.
“Did someone drive you? Did you take a taxi?” he said.
“No, I walked. It’s all right, Hack.”
“No, it isn’t.”
He looked for a place to sit. The lobby had retained a gloomy form of elegance with its floor-standing ashtrays and potted palms and musty sofas and newspapers scattered on an oak table lit by a lamp that had a big rose-colored glass bubble for a shade. He put his hand on her elbow and walked her to a tasseled sofa by the window. She seemed to take no notice of his touch.
“You were at Beckman’s apartment?”
“I hit him with an iron skillet. Several times. I wanted to kill him. If Maggie Bassett hadn’t intervened, I probably would have.”
“Then you just walked away?”
“Beckman wasn’t in any condition to stop me. I forgot to mention something. Earlier I hit Maggie in the face with my fist.”
“We need to move you away from this hotel.”
“Why?”
“Beckman sent a man to throw acid in Beatrice DeMolay’s eyes. What do you think he’d do to you?”
“It’s Ishmael I’m worried about. Maggie warned me. I acted stupidly.”
“Maggie did? After you hit her?”
“She’s a jack-in-the-box.”
