A month later, Cloud was on his couch, hunched over the coffee table, pages of Room 22, Hotel Death spread all around him, when the telephone rang. Goddammit, he thought immediately. He wondered if it was the paper, calling him in on some emergency assignment. It rang again. It wouldn’t be Laurel; this was Monday, her counseling day. The phone rang a third time. Goddammit, he thought again, and snatched up the receiver.
“Hello—”
“Hello, is this Mr. Robert Cloud? Of the Ledger?” It was a woman’s voice.
“Yes, this is Robert Cloud—”
“Mr. Cloud, you don’t know me. My name is Genevieve Neller. We have a mutual friend who asked me to call you: Weldon Whitman.”
For a moment Cloud was too surprised to speak.
“I don’t know if Weldon has mentioned me to you or not, Mr. Cloud,” she continued. “I’m director of the state law library up at Sacramento. I’ve been sending Weldon law books—”
“Oh, yes,” Cloud said. “Yes, as a matter of fact, Weldon did tell me about you. He said you had been kind enough to do some legal research for him.”
“It wasn’t much, really.”
“It was to him, Miss Neller. I’m sorry; is it Miss or Mrs.?”
“It’s Miss, but please call me Genevieve. When I told Weldon in my last letter that I was coming down here, he wrote back and said to be sure and give you a call—”
“You’re in Los Angeles?”
“Yes. There was a library-science convention here. It just ended today.” She paused. “When did you hear from Weldon last?”
“Friday,” Cloud said. “He sent me some more pages of the book we’re—”
“Yes, he told me he was writing a book. I really don’t see how he does it all: studying law, preparing an appeal, writing a book.”
They fell silent for a moment.
“When are you going back to Sacramento?” Cloud asked.
“Tomorrow,” Genevieve Neller said. “I drove down; I’ll be starting back early in the morning.”
“Are you free this evening?” Cloud had a sudden urge to meet this woman who, like himself, was trying to help Weldon Whitman stay alive.
“Why, yes, I am,” she answered.
Cloud glanced at his watch: seven-thirty. “Have you had dinner yet?”
“No, I was just about to when I thought of calling you.”
“Why don’t we have dinner?” Cloud suggested.
“All right. But nothing fancy,” she said. “There’s a nice restaurant right here at the motel—the Warren, on Olympic Boulevard.”
“I can be there in twenty minutes,” Cloud said.
“Good. Why don’t we just meet there? That way we can be informal and relax.”
“Fine with me,” Cloud said.
“This is very nice, our being able to get together like this,” Genevieve Neller said.
They were sitting in a small booth; the waitress had brought them coffee and they had ordered steaks and fries.
“We’re really members of a pretty exclusive club, you and I,” said Cloud. “I don’t think Weldon has any friends at all besides us.”
“I know,” she said enthusiastically. “That’s why I’m so glad we were able to meet.”
Genevieve Neller was a slightly overweight woman in her early thirties. She had lustrous brownish hair above a face that, because of its plumpness, was an accentuated heartshape with a pert, pointed chin. Her smile was radiant but a little hesitant—perhaps, Cloud thought, due to shyness or self-consciousness because of her weight. Cloud liked her immediately.
“Tell me about Weldon,” she said eagerly. “I have my own impressions from his letters, of course, but I’d like to know what he’s really like, in person.”
Cloud smiled. “Why don’t you tell me first what your impressions are?”
“All right.” She leaned forward with her elbows on the table, and put both hands around her coffee cup. “I think first of all that he’s an extremely intelligent man.”
“He is that,” Cloud assured her.
“I think he’s probably hardheaded and stubborn.”
“Definitely.”
“And,” she said very slowly, “I also get the distinct impression that he is a very frightened person.”
“I think you’re right.” Cloud smiled. “He’d probably disown both of us if he could hear us right now.”
“I’m sure he would,” Genevieve agreed. “He sounds in his letters as if he had a great deal of pride and self-confidence, and yet—I don’t quite know how to put it—but I seem to sense from some of the things he writes that all he’s really looking for is someone to give him a chance.”
Cloud stared at her. There it was, he thought. There was the elusive attraction that had drawn him to Weldon Whitman. Suddenly Genevieve Neller’s words made it all so very clear, made it so obvious that it was hard to believe he had not understood it all along. The something about Weldon Whitman that had pulled Cloud to him like a magnet—and apparently Genevieve also—was that he did need a chance. And no one had been willing to give him one.
No one except Robert Cloud. And now Genevieve Neller.
“I’d like to ask you a question,” Genevieve said, “and I hope you’ll give me an honest answer. Do you think he’s guilty?”
“Of some of the crimes, yes,” Cloud said. “But I don’t think he committed the sex crimes, the so-called Spotlight Bandit crimes. I don’t believe he’s a sex pervert. And I don’t believe he deserves to be sent to the gas chamber.”
“I certainly don’t either,” she said emphatically. “I’ve researched the kidnapping-with-bodily-harm law all the way back to its inception, and the clear intent of it was to provide the death penalty in cases where a person was kidnapped for ransom, and was subsequently either killed or seriously injured in some way. The extortion of the ransom is technically a robbery; that’s how the phrase ‘kidnapping for the purpose of robbery’ came to be used. And that’s what has given prosecutors the loophole to file capital charges when ordinarily they wouldn’t be able to. If that section of the Criminal Code had used the proper phraseology—‘kidnapping for the purpose of ransom’—then the law couldn’t be applied as promiscuously as it js today.”
They momentarily suspended their conversation as the waitress served their dinner and replenished their coffee.
“These French fries are the last thing in the world I need,” Genevieve said when the waitress was gone. “I wish I had thought to ask for cottage cheese instead.”
“Let me order you some—”
“No, I’ll eat the fries. I mean, I like French fries; with my weight I just don’t need them.”
As they began eating, Genevieve asked Cloud to tell her what Weldon Whitman looked like.
“He’s an average-looking sort of guy, I guess,” said Cloud. “Tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed. His nose is kind of crooked; I think it’s been broken. But on the whole, he’s not bad looking.”
“I’ve tried to visualize him a dozen times,” Genevieve said. “He’s told me a little about himself in his letters; personal things, you know. And every time he tells me something new, my picture of him changes. At first, I thought of him as being very handsome; I’m an incurable romantic—” She patted Cloud’s hand as she said that and gave him another of her brilliant smiles. “But then,” she quickly went on, “I changed that concept of him when he told me he’d always felt awkward with girls, which was one of the reasons he’d never married—”
Cloud almost interrupted her at that point, to say that she was mistaken, that Weldon Whitman had been married at one time. But he quickly checked himself. He wondered why Weldon had lied to the woman. Perhaps it was simply Whitman’s way of protecting his ex-wife.
“You know,” Genevieve continued, “it’s a very strange feeling for a woman to know that she’s literally the only woman in a man’s life. I mean, if you stop to think of it, Weldon has no contact at all with any other women on the face of the earth. Does he?”
“No, I don’t suppose he does,” Cloud said, although he really was not sure at all. For all he knew, Whitman could be writing to a dozen women—or at least as many as his writing privileges permitted.
“Do you realize,” she said speculatively, “that there may not be another woman in the entire world who can say that about herself?”
“It’s a unique position, all right,” Cloud agreed. He saw that she had finished her dinner, but still appeared to be hungry. “Would you like something else?” he offered.
“Heavens, no! Listen, I want to get your opinion on something.” She reached over and helped herself to several of his French fries. “I belong to several clubs in Sacramento, mostly ladies’ clubs: library groups, literary groups, that sort of thing. I was wondering what Weldon would think if I brought up his case as a topic for discussion at some of the various meetings?”
“For what purpose?” Cloud asked.
“I’m not really sure,” she said. She reached for more French fries. Cloud pushed the plate toward her. “Thank you. I think I have it in the back of my mind to see if I can’t enlist some additional help for him. Perhaps in the form of financial assistance, perhaps political or legal support; a lot of the ladies have very influential husbands. Do you think Weldon would mind?”
Does a fish mind water? Cloud thought. “I don’t think he would mind at all,” he said.
“I thought I might even try to form some kind of separate club, sort of a ‘Help Weldon Whitman’ sodality.”
Cloud nodded. “Why don’t you call it ‘Save Whitman’?” he suggested.
“That’s an excellent idea!” Genevieve said, beaming. “It has much more of a dramatic ring to it, much more urgency.”
She ate the last of Cloud’s French fries. They lingered over their third cups of coffee for a while, and then Genevieve decided she had better return to her room.
“I haven’t even started packing, and I do want to get an early start tomorrow. I’m going to try to be on the road by six.”
Cloud paid the check and walked to her room with her.
“It’s nice that we were able to get acquainted,” Genevieve said. They walked down a long, lighted sidewalk in front of an evenly spaced row of room doors. “Let’s agree to keep in touch.”
“Okay. Good idea,” said Cloud.
“Let’s write each other once a month. I’ll tell you how the ‘Save Whitman’ club is doing, and you tell me how the book is coming along.”
“It’s a deal.”
At her room, Genevieve unlocked the door and turned to say goodbye. “I’m awfully glad you’re Weldon’s other friend;” she said quietly. She reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “Goodbye, Robert.”
“Goodbye, Genevieve.”
When she was safely inside, he started back up the long, lighted sidewalk.
Cloud was halfway back to the front of the motel when one of the room doors opened in front of him and Laurel stepped out. She was followed immediately by a tall, well-groomed man of about forty. The man pulled the door closed behind him. He slipped his arm around Laurel’s waist and they turned toward a late-model Cadillac parked facing the room. As they turned, Laurel saw Cloud standing there staring at them.
“Rob—”
She spoke only the one word, then her breath seemed to catch. Her eyes, which had widened, filled with a bewildered hurt. Cloud continued to stare at her, saying nothing. After a moment, Laurel swallowed and forced an awkward introduction.
“Uh, Rob, this is Ralph Blevins, a friend of mine. Ralph, this is Robert Cloud, a—a friend of mine too—”
Blevins, who had noted the incredulous expression on Cloud’s face, as well as Laurel’s discomposure, nodded, but had the good sense not to offer his hand.
“We were—just leaving, Rob,” she said nervously. “Can we—can we drop you somewhere?”
Cloud forced words past his lips. “No. No, thank you.”
“Well, we’ll be running along then—” She pulled on Blevins’s hand.
“Nice meeting you, Cloud,” said Blevins, his manner strained.
“Goodnight,” Cloud managed to say. He resumed walking past the row of doors. When he heard the Cadillac’s engine turn over, he stopped and looked back to watch them drive off. He stood there for several minutes after they were gone, his expression blank. His mind quickly consumed the disbelief of the incredible seconds that have just passed, and he accepted the fact that what had happened was real. In its wake, he was stunned.
He started walking again, out to the street and down to the cornor bus stop. The bus came and he got on. It was a late-night bus: starkly lighted, nearly empty. He sat near the middle by a window that was open.
The lies, he thought: all the lies. School counseling on Monday and Thursday nights. Because she needed the extra money. And the part about being a virgin—
Why, he wondered, had she done it? Not why had she gone to a motel with Nevins or whatever his name was; but why had she bothered with him, Cloud? He obviously was not what she was looking for in a man: he was not stable enough for her, did not have enough ambition to suit her, did not dress exactly right, never seemed to have his hair properly trimmed, chewed his fingernails—he was biting them now, as a matter of fact—and on top of everything else he was now mixed up in this Weldon Whitman matter. Why in the hell did she take up with him in the first place? Why, when someone like Nevins was interested in her? He certainly looked like the kind of man Laurel would like; he looked successful, tailored, poised.
He sighed heavily and looked out the open window at the quiet night passing by. Fuck this town, he thought. He had had it with Los Angeles. Had it with the Ledger. Had it with Hoskins. Had it even with Lew Lach and his sick thing about young dead girls.
And now he had had it with Laurel too.
Time to hang it up and hit the road. Again.
When the bus came to his stop, Cloud got off and walked the three blocks to his apartment building. In the foyer, he picked up his mail: a couple of advertisements and an envelope from Whitman. Fairly thick: about five or six sheets of paper, he guessed. More pages for Room 22, Hotel Death.
Cloud went up to his apartment, let himself in, and tossed the Whitman envelope onto his coffee table. That was where he had his typewriter set up, where he worked on the book. The typewriter was in the center of the long table. To the left of the typewriter were two neat stacks of paper: the handwritten sheets of lined prison tablet on which Whitman was writing his story and Cloud’s blue-lined yellow sheets. To the right, on the arm of the couch, were an ashtray, his cigarettes, and a small box containing typewriter erasers, black and red ballpoints, typewriter correction paper, and a scratchpad.
It was an ideal work area for him, and as he stood looking at it now, it became the only part of the little apartment that suddenly did not take on a depressing quality. Everything else was too quickly and easily associated with Laurel: the kitchenette where they had often cooked together; the bedroom where they lounged on the bed to watch Sunday-afternoon movies; the big recliner in the living room where he would lie naked while she ministered to him in whatever way she decided to—
Cloud shook his head. The apartment, like the job and the girl and everything else, had gone stale. He decided to pull the pin, right then and there. He rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter and typed a quick note to his landlady: he was moving out of town; she could dispose of the groceries he was leaving behind. He folded the note and put it in his inside coat pocket.
In the bedroom, he took his two-suiter from the closet and packed his meager wardrobe into one side of it. In the bathroom, he put all his shaving gear and accessories in a zippered case and tossed it into the suitcase too. Then he took the bag into the living room and laid it open on the couch. He locked his typewriter in its case and neatly boxed up the various stacks of paper; everything fit neatly into three single-ream boxes. He packed them into the other side of the suitcase. He was about to close it when his apartment buzzer sounded.
Cloud frowned and looked at his watch. Twenty past midnight. He walked over and opened the door.
“Rob, can I come in, please?” Laurel’s voice sounded hoarse; her eyes were red and slightly swollen.
Cloud let her in and closed the door behind her. He followed her into the living room. She saw his suitcase and typewriter. She turned to him, anguish etched in her face.
“That isn’t necessary, Rob.”
“I think it is.” His voice was quiet, without rancor.
Laurel bit her lip. “Let me tell you about Ralph—”
“I am not interested in Ralph.” He really was not.
“Well then let me tell you about me,” she pleaded. “Let me at least explain how I got caught up in the damned situation—”
“Laurel, it won’t do either of us any good for you to go into a long involved explanation of your personal life—” “It might,” she said. “It might make you reconsider this …”
“It wouldn’t,” he assured her. “I’ve made up my mind to go.”
“Rob, listen,” she said, but then her hoarse voice broke. She turned away, biting her knuckle. “Damn, damn, damn! I knew it would be like this!” She snatched a crumpled tissue from her coat pocket and dabbed at her nose. “Would you mind if I made some coffee? My throat feels like sandpaper.”
“Go ahead.”
She left the room. Cloud straightened the things in his suitcase, then sat down in the space remaining on the couch and lighted a cigarette. Laurel returned in several minutes with two mugs of instant coffee.
“I didn’t know if you wanted any or not—”
“I do,” he said, taking one of the mugs. “Thanks.”
Laurel sat in a chair opposite him. She took several brief, steaming sips of her coffee. “God, that feels good.” Looking over at Cloud, she found him staring at her. “Do you feel that I’ve cheated you, Rob?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I know I’m depressed because you lied to me.”
“About being a virgin?”
Cloud nodded. “That, and the lies about your doing counseling work on Monday and Thursday nights.”
“Rob, I don’t know why I told you that lie about me being a virgin. It was just crazy, it was—I don’t know—dumb. I did it because I liked you and I didn’t want you to think I was just ordinary. I wanted you to think I was special in some way, and that was the first thing that came to mind. Can you understand that?”
“Sure,” Cloud said. “I can understand anyone telling a lie. What I can’t understand is a person living a lie.”
“I didn’t intend to, Rob, believe me I didn’t.” She sat forward in the chair, as if putting herself a few inches closer to him would make her story more credible. “I wanted to tell you so many times; God, Rob, you’ll never know how many migraines I gave myself worrying about it. But the longer I put it off, well, finally I reached the point where I just couldn’t.” She was looking at him with frank, wide eyes. “I couldn’t make myself tell you, even when I wanted you to fuck me so badly that I actually ached for it.”
“I did a little aching myself,” Cloud reminded her.
“I know. I know.” She put her coffee aside and knelt in front of him, tears starting down her cheeks. “Rob, I’m so mixed up, I can’t even think straight. I’ve never had anything; my life, the people I came from, everything I can remember, was always drab and dull. We were on welfare half the time, moving from one place to the next the other half. You wouldn’t believe what I was like at fifteen, Rob—” She shuddered involuntarily. “It wasn’t until I left, until I was able to work my way through college and get my teaching certificate, that I finally got to see a little sunlight in all that goddamn gloom. Later, when I met Ralph, I was just so taken with him that he literally overwhelmed me. For the first time I was being paid attention to by a man who was clean. I mean clean all over: fingernails, breath, no dandruff, no body odor, just clean. He wasn’t dirt poor, he wasn’t a little kid college boy, he wasn’t an insecure young teacher just starting out; he was somebody, he had substance, he had—had—”
“Money,” Cloud said. “That’s what it all comes down to, isn’t it? Money. Success. The ability to buy.”
“Maybe it is, Rob—”
“Sure it is. That’s the reason you let him ball you, because he had it all: the money, the clothes, the big car. I didn’t have those things, so I got played with a little; but you couldn’t quite bring yourself to let me have it all, because I didn’t meet your standards.”
She shook her head, tears streaming. “If I didn’t care for you, do you think I would have bothered at all?”
“You cared for me, sure. Enough to try and make me over. But not enough to give me the same thing you were giving Ralph.”
“Only because I didn’t know how, Rob,” she pled tearfully. “After telling you I was a virgin, I didn’t know how to tell you I wasn’t.” She gripped his knees desperately. “Rob, do you believe that I care for you?”
Cloud stared at her anguished face for a moment. He wanted to say no, but he could not. “Yes,” he answered simply.
She quickly got up and took his hands. “Prove you believe me. Come to bed with me now.”
“After he’s just been in you? You can go to hell, Laurel.”
She looked away from him. “He wasn’t,” she told him. “I blew him tonight.”
Cloud stood up. His jaw clenched. He slapped her hard across the face, knocking her six feet away from him. For an instant it appeared that she was going to fall, but she did not. She raised her hand and touched her cheek; it was fiery red from his blow. She did not utter a sound; and, oddly, her tears suddenly stopped. Looking directly into his eyes, locking them with hers, she calmly began taking off her clothes.
Cloud did not take his eyes from hers, but in his peripheral vision he watched her gradually become naked. The sweater was discarded first. The skirt, shoes, pantyhose, satin panties, all fell away, leaving her nude except for the low-cut bra that barely covered her nipples.
“He hasn’t been in me tonight, Rob.” She turned and walked into the bedroom.
Cloud followed her. He stood at the foot of the bed looking down at her as he took off his clothes. She spread her legs for him to see, and folded her arms under her breasts, making them nearly burst from their bra.
“I want it in me so bad, Rob. I’ve wanted it in me for so long—”
“I know,” he said. He climbed onto the bed between her legs. “I want to put it in you just as bad—” He pulled her bra straps down on each arm and uncovered her breasts. They were tight and hard-nippled. Bending over her, he sucked first the left nipple, then the right, as he began working himself into her.
Cloud started his intercourse with her with his arms braced stiffly on each side of her, holding his upper body above her so that he could look down at her beautiful, oddly unmoving tits, or lower his head and see down between their bodies where they joined; then he let himself down on top of her, turning his lips to her neck while he changed from a thrusting motion to a back-and-forth countermotion that caused him to rub around inside her; and finally when he was ready to come, he pulled her legs up and slid back and up, spreading his knees on each side and just under her buttocks to raise her just enough to allow him maximum leverage into her body. He worked slowly, very slowly, toward the end, and when he came, he came slowly and deliciously and for what seemed like a long time.
They rested side by side when it was over, Cloud on his back looking up at the ceiling, Laurel on her side facing him, one cheek against his shoulder, one breast against his elbow.
“Was it good, Rob?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“It’s yours from now on, Rob. You can have it any time you want it.”
Cloud said nothing.
“Can we start over, Rob?” she asked after a moment. Her eyes were closed and she was beginning to sound sleepy.
“I don’t know, Laurel,” he answered. “I don’t know if we can or not.”
She said nothing more for a little while. Then she said, very sleepily, “I hope we can, Rob. I hope we can start over.”
Cloud waited. When he was sure she was asleep, he carefully slipped his arm away from her cheek and breast and got out of bed. He spread the covers over her, gathered up his clothes, and went back into the living room. It was nearly three o’clock. He smoked a cigarette while he sat naked and thought about what Laurel had asked him. By the time he finished the cigarette, he had made up his mind.
When he was dressed, he left the note for his landlady, picked up his suitcase and the portable typewriter, and quietly left the apartment.
Three hours later, when Genevieve Neller came out of her motel room, Cloud was leaning up against her car with his luggage at his feet.