The Transgressors by Jim Thompson Page B

of it.
    The plates remained where they had been put. The doors remained unlocked. And strangers continued to stray inside. As he entered the house today, paused in the doorway of his father’s office, he saw that still another had come in. She was a pretty little gal, he thought. Cute as a bug’s ear and just about as tiny, but with proper amounts of meat in all the right places. Awful peaked-looking, though. Seemed to have just enough blood in her to pink up her mouth and put a spot on each cheek.
    “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, looking her over impassively. “Were you waitin’ to see the doctor?”
    “Well, no. No, I wasn’t.” She half came to her feet. “I wanted to see his son—that is, I guess it would be his son. Tom Lord…?”
    The statement came out as a question. She found herself smiling weakly, already pleading and placatory when there was no reason at all to be. She had a right to be here. She certainly had the right to come to this town, to press the investigation into Aaron’s murder. But while these people—all of them out here—did not deny that right, neither did they concede it. They volunteered nothing. They looked at you and through you, as though you had no real substance. And if you blew up and lost your temper, as she had already done once today, they remained completely unmoved. Coolly polite, laconically impassive. Silently demanding that you justify yourself, while they decided what should be done about you.
    “Tom Lord,” she said firmly. “I want to see Tom Lord.”
    “Yes, ma’am?”
    “Yes! Can you tell me where I can find him?”
    “Might be I could. What’d you want to see him about, ma’am?”
    “About m-my, my—” Her head swam with sudden dizziness, and she sank back on the lounge. “P-lease,” she said. “Can’t you answer a simple question? Can’t anyone in this crazy place answer a question without asking one?”
    “Yes, ma’am. Can you?”
    “Can—? All right,” she sighed. “I’m Mrs. Donna McBride. My husband, Aaron McBride, was recently killed out in the fields. I want to talk to Mr. Lord about his death.”
    “Tom’s not a deputy anymore, ma’am. Seems like you ought to talk to the sheriff.”
    “I know he’s not a deputy, and I did talk to the sheriff! I talked to him and all those other stupid oafs that’re supposed to be officers, deputies, and they were as bad as you are! Worse even! I almost exhausted myself just finding out where Mr. Lord lived!”
    “Maybe they figured Mr. Lord didn’t want to see you.”
    “But I—I—!” She wanted to yell. In fact, she realized, she had been yelling. “Please,” she said, fighting down the swelling hysteria, struggling up from the growing dizziness. “Please. I can’t tell you exactly why I want to see Mr. Lord. I’m not completely sure myself, and I just don’t know why I should. It’s between Mr. Lord and me.”
    “You mean it’s none of my business, ma’am?”
    “Well…frankly, no, it isn’t.”
    “Reckon I better not butt into it then, had I? Shouldn’t be asking me to.”
    She stared at him, dully, despairingly. He looked back at her, his expression blankly polite. Or—or was it completely so? Wasn’t there a trace of amusement, of mockery, in the cool dark eyes.
    “All right,” she said, her voice shaky with weakness. “I’ll go now. You won’t help me. No one in this rotten, filthy place will help me. Just where anyone ever got the notion that Westerners were p-polite and courteous is—is—”
    She faltered, the blackness rolling over her in a wave.
    “Yes, ma’am?” he said. “Maybe they got it from people that was polite and courteous themselves.”
    Another black wave hit her. When she floated up out of it, she was lying on the lounge, and he was seated on its edge looking down at her.
    “You shouldn’t be up wandering around, ma’am. Not so soon after a Caesarean.”
    “Oh…” She blushed, tugged primly at her skirt. “Then, you’re Doctor