“What people?”
“People.”
She let his curt reply pass. “Had anyone in town seen him?”
“Nobody I talked to.”
“He probably hitched a ride on the highway and is long gone.”
“Maybe,” he grumbled. “But him snooping around gave me an itch I can’t scratch.”
“What snooping? He was lost and asking for directions, that’s all.”
He gave a snort and focused his attention on Pearl, who Laurel had been holding against her shoulder, rocking gently. She’d slept through their conversation.
“You say the baby’s sick?”
“She’s running a fever again. I want to take her back to the doctor.”
“I saw him tonight.”
She stopped her swaying motion and looked at Irv with surprise. “You went to see Dr. Driscoll?”
“Naw, naw. He was at the roadhouse, you know, the place where I pick up burgers on occasion?”
“You told me it isn’t a respectable place.”
“It ain’t. But Lefty fries a damn good burger, and he’s also a fountain of information. Knows everything happening in and around here. I went to inquire about our visitor today.”
“He didn’t know anything?”
“Said he didn’t. But he was dealing with a problem of his own. One of his, uh, girls got crosswise with a customer. He beat her up pretty bad.”
Understanding dawned. “It’s that kind of place?”
“It’s full service, all right.” Irv shook his finger at her. “Don’t you ever darken the door of it. It draws all sorts of lowlifes. The girls who work there… Well, let’s just say that most are experienced and tough enough to take care of theirselves. Lefty’s wife, Gert, is the meanest of them all. When she saw her girl there, beat up and bleeding, she went after Wally—the guy who hurt her—with a meat cleaver.
“Lefty had to literally peel Gert off him. He turned him over to his cousins—them Johnsons cavort in a pack—then tossed the whole sorry lot of them out. They called Doc Driscoll to come patch up the young lady. By the time he got there, Lefty had calmed Gert down. Some. It was quite a scene.”
Laurel listened with incredulity to Irv’s account of the brawl and marveled at the matter-of-fact way in which he’d related it. She marveled even more to think of Dr. Driscoll’s being in such a place.
During her one brief meeting with the doctor, she had thought him to be wholly professional, even a bit cool. Of course, she had been frantic with worry over Pearl, so, by comparison, anyone would have come across as composed and somewhat detached. She couldn’t imagine that man tending to a patient in a brothel.
She said, “Despite his late night, I hope he maintains office hours tomorrow. I can’t drive well enough yet to go into town. You’ll have to take us.”
“Sure, sure. Whenever you want to go.”
“First thing after breakfast.” She hesitated, then asked if he had any fix-it jobs lined up.
“A couple. Why?”
“I was thinking that as long as we’re in town, and if Pearl isn’t too fussy, we could look around, see what might be for rent.”
He gave her a crooked grin. “You’re not as smart as you think. I wasn’t lying about the old house. I knew of it, sought out the landlord and talked him into meeting me there after he finished his supper. It’s a big ol’ rambling place, but it’s stood empty for years on account of the back of it is built into a wall of limestone.”
“Built into the rock?”
He shrugged. “Wouldn’t take much to make it habitable. I could do the work myself. But if you don’t like it—”