A Swell-Looking Babe Read Free

about her and hating this interruption.
    Who was she anyway, this Miss Marcia Hillis, of Dallas, Texas? What was she? Not a hooker, certainly. She hadn't propositioned him, and you learned to spot a hustling woman fast around a hotel. It didn't make any difference how they dressed, how high-toned they acted. You could spot them a mile away.
    She wasn't a spotter – a detective – for the hotel, either. If she had been, she wouldn't have quibbled over the room rate. There would have been no reason to since the house would pick up her bill. A business woman, then? Nope, she didn't use the right lingo, and business people didn't arrive at a hotel late at night without reservations.
    A tourist? No, again; there was nothing in this town to attract a tourist, and, at any rate, he just couldn't picture her as a sightseer. ''"One of the horse-racing crowd? Well, yes, she could fit in with them, the upper-class stratum of them which made Hotel Manton its headquarters. She could, but he knew she didn't. The racing season didn't start for at least two weeks.
    Probably, Dusty decided, she was just 'a woman at loose ends. Hungering for adventure, but afraid of it. Wandering aimlessly from one place to another, with nothing to do and all the time in the world to do it in.
    So… so what difference did it make? Whoever or whatever she was, he'd never let her get him into another spot like the one last night. If she tried anything like that again, and for all he knew she might have checked out during the day – he'd put a freeze on her that would give her pneumonia.
    … There was a tired apologetic cough from the bedroom doorway.
    Frowning, Dusty turned and faced his father.

TWO
    Of course, the old man was sick, much, much sicker than he realized. But that still could not account for his appearance; it did not, in Dusty's opinion, excuse that appearance. He had begun to let himself go after his dismissal from the city schools; then, his wife – Dusty's foster mother – had died and he had let go completely.
    He went days on end without shaving, weeks without a haircut. His soiled baggy clothes looked like they'd been slept in. He looked like a tramp – like a scarecrow out of a cornfield. And that wasn't the worst of it. The worst was what he'd let happen to himself mentally. He seemed to take pride in being absent-minded, in seeing how stupidly he could do the few things that were left for him to do.
    Why, good God, Dusty thought. His father was only a little past sixty, and he was practically senile. He couldn't be trusted with the simplest task. You couldn't send him to the store after a cake of soap and have him come back with the right change.
    "Well" – Dusty forced the frown from his face. "How's it going, Dad?"
    "Pretty good, Bill. Did you sleep well?"
    "Not bad. As good as I could in this weather."
    Mr. Rhodes nodded absently. A streak of saliva curved down from the corner of his mouth, and he wiped at his chin with the back of his hand.
    "I got another letter from the lawyers today, Bill. They think that- "
    "Have we got anything to eat in the house?" Dusty interrupted. "Anything I can make a sandwich out of?"
    "I wanted to tell you, Bill. They think-"
    Dusty interrupted him again. He knew what the lawyers thought, the same thing they always thought: that his father's case should be appealed to a higher court; that he, Dusty, was a sucker who could be conned indefinitely into paying their legal fees.
    "Dad!" he said sharply. "We'll talk about the lawyers another time. Right now I want to know why we don't have any food. What did you do with the money I gave you?"
    "Why, I – I-" The old man's eyes were blank, childishly bewildered. "Now, what did I-"
    "Never mind," Dusty sighed "Skip it. But you did get something to eat yourself, didn't you? You did, didn't you Dad?"
    "Why- oh, yes," Mr. Rhodes said quickly. Too quickly. "I've eaten very well today."
    "What, for example? You bought just enough groceries for yourself –