“Four to six inches, they said. That’s not very much.”

  “Will the roads be open?”

  “Sure. Don’t worry.”

  “I know a dancer who got snowed in for six days in Vermont,” Blanche said. “It wouldn’t have been so bad, but she was with a Method actor.”

  “Well, I’m a cop,” Hawes said.

  “Yeah,” Blanche answered noncommittally.

  They were silent for several moments. The light snow flurries drifted across the road, turning it into a dreamlike, white, flowing stream. The headlights illuminated the shifting macadam. Sitting behind the wheel, Hawes had the peculiar feeling that the road was melting. He was glad to see the sign for Rawson Mountain Inn. He stopped the car, picking out the sign from the tangle of other signs announcing accommodations in the area. He set the car in motion again, turning left over an old wooden bridge, the timbers creaking as the convertible passed over them. A new sign, blatant red and white, shouted the features of the area—a 1,600-foot mountain, two chairlifts, a T-bar, a rope tow, and, definitely not needed with a storm on the way, a snowmaking machine.

  The inn lay nestled in the foothills at the base of the mountain. The trees around the inn were bare, standing in gaunt silhouette against the snow-threatening sky. Snow-nuzzled lights beckoned warmly. He helped Blanche out of the car, put on his overcoat, and walked with her over old packed snow to the entrance. They stamped their feet in the doorway and entered the huge room. A fire was going at one end of the room. Someone was playing the piano. A handful of tired weekday skiers were sprawled around the fireplace, wearing very fashionable after-ski boots and sweaters, drinking from bottles onto which they’d hand-lettered their names. Blanche went directly to the fire, found a place on one of the couches, and stretched her long legs to the blaze. Hawes found the desk, tapped a bell on it, and waited. No one appeared. He tapped the bell again. A skier passing the desk said, “He’s in the office. Over there on your left.”

  Hawes nodded, found the door marked OFFICE, and knocked on it. A voice inside called, “Yes, come in,” and Hawes twisted the knob and entered.

  The office was larger than he’d expected, a good fifteen feet separating the entrance door from the desk at the opposite end of the room. A man in his late twenties sat behind the desk. He had dark hair and dark brows pulled low over deep brown eyes. He was wearing a white shirt open at the throat, a bold reindeer-imprinted sweater over it. He was also wearing a plaster cast on his right leg. The leg was stretched out stiffly in front of him, the foot resting on a low ottoman. A pair of crutches leaned against the desk, within easy reach of his hands. Hawes was suddenly glad he’d left Blanche by the fire.

  “You’re not a new skier, I hope,” the man said.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Good. Some of them get scared by the cast and crutches.”

  “Was it a skiing accident?” Hawes asked.

  The man nodded. “Spiral break of the tibia and fibula. Someone forgot to fill in a sitzmark. I was going pretty fast, and when I hit the hole…” He shrugged. “I won’t be able to walk without the crutches for at least another month.”

  “That’s too bad,” Hawes said. He paused, and then figured he might as well get down to business. “I have a reservation,” he said. “Adjoining rooms with bath.” “Yes, sir. What was the name on that?” “Cotton Hawes and Blanche Colby.” The man opened a drawer in his desk and consulted a typewritten sheet. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Two rooms in the annex.”

  “The annex?” Hawes said. “Where’s that?”

  “Oh, just a hundred yards or so from the main building, sir.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess that’ll be…”

  “And that’s one bath, you understand.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re adjoining rooms, but the bathroom is in 104. 105 doesn’t have a bath.”

  “Oh. Well, I’d like two rooms that do have baths,” Hawes said, smiling.

  “I’m sorry, sir. 104 and 105 are the only available rooms in the house.”

  “The fellow I spoke to on the phone…”

  “Yes, sir, that’s me. Elmer Wollender.”

  “How do you do?” Hawes said. “You told me both rooms had baths.”

  “No, sir. You said you wanted adjoining rooms with bath, and I said I could give you adjoining rooms with bath. And that’s what I’ve given you. Bath. Singular.”

  “Are you a lawyer, Mr. Wollender?” Hawes asked, no longer smiling.

  “No, sir. Out of season, I’m a locksmith.”

  “What are you in season?”

  “Why, a hotelkeeper, sir,” Wollender said.

  “Don’t test the theory,” Hawes answered. “Let me have my deposit back, Mr. Wollender. We’ll find another place to stay.”

  “Well, sir, to begin with, we can’t make any cash refunds, but we’ll be happy to keep your deposit here against another time when you may wish…”

  “Look, Mr. Wollender,” Hawes said menacingly, “I don’t know what kind of a…”

  “And of course, sir, there are lots of places to stay here in town, but none of them, sir, none of them have any private baths at all. Now if you don’t mind walking down the hall…”

  “All I know is…”

  “…and sharing the John with a hundred other skiers, why then…”

  “You told me on the phone…”

  “I’m sure you can find other accommodations. The lady, however, might enjoy a little privacy.” Wollender waited while Hawes considered.

  “If I give her 104…” Hawes started and then paused. “Is that the room with the bath?”

  “Yes, sir, 104.”

  “If I give her that room, where’s the bath for 105?”

  “Down at the end of the hall, sir. And we are right at the base of the mountain, sir, and the skiing has been excellent, and we’re expecting at least twelve inches of fresh powder.”

  “The radio said four to six.”

  “That’s in the city, sir. We normally get a lot more snow.”

  “Like what I got on the phone?” Hawes asked. “Where do I sign?”

  Cotton Hawes was a detective, and as a member of the 87th Squad he had flopped down in a great many desirable and undesirable rooms throughout the city and its suburbs. Once, while posing as a dock walloper, he had taken a furnished room overlooking the River Harb, and had been surprised during the night by what sounded like a band of midgets marching at the foot of his bed. The midgets turned out to be giants, or at least giants of the species Rattus muridae—or as they say in English, rats. He had turned on the light and picked up a broom, but those brazen rat bastards had reared back on their hind legs like boxers and bared their teeth, and he was certain the pack of them would leap for his throat. He had checked out immediately.

  There were no rats in rooms 104 and 105 of the annex to Rawson Mountain Inn. Nor was there very much of anything else, either. Whoever had designed the accommodations was undoubtedly steeped in Spartan philosophy. The walls were white and bare, save for a single skiing poster over each bed. There was a single bed in each room, and a wooden dresser painted white. A portable cardboard clothes closet nestled in the corner of each room. The room Hawes hoped to occupy, the one without the bath, was excruciatingly hot, the vents sending in great waves of heated air. The room with the bath, Blanche’s room, was unbearably cold. The single window was rimmed with frost, the floor was cold, the bed was cold, the heating ducts and vents were either clogged or blocked, but certainly inoperative.

  “And I’m the one with cold feet,” Blanche said.

  “I’d let you have the heated room,” Hawes said gallantly, “but this is the one with the bath.”

  “Well, we’ll manage,” Blanche said. “Shall we go down for the bags?”

  “I’ll get them,” Hawes answered. “Stay in my room for now, will you? There’s no sense freezing in here.”

  “I may get to like your room,” Blanche said archly, and then turned and walked past him through the connecting door.

  He went down the long flight of steps to the front porch, and then beyond to where the car was parked. The rooms were over the ski shop, which was closed for the night now, silent and dark. He took the two valises out of the trunk, and then pulled his skis from the rack on top of the car. He was not a particularly distrustful man, but a pair of Head skis had been stolen from him the season before, and he’d been a cop long enough to know that lightning sometimes did strike twice in the same place. In his right hand, and under his right arm, he carried the two bags. In his left hand, and under his left arm, he carried his skis and his boots. He struggled through the deepening snow and onto the front porch. He was about to put down the bags in order to open the door when he heard the heavy thud of ski boots on the steps inside. Someone was coming down those steps in a hell of a hurry.

  The door opened suddenly, and a tall thin man wearing black ski pants and a black-hooded parka came onto the porch, almost colliding with Hawes. His face was narrow, handsome in a fine-honed way, the sharply hooked nose giving it the edged striking appearance of an ax. Even in the pale light filtering from the hallway, Hawes saw that the man was deeply tanned, and automatically assumed he was an instructor. The guess was corroborated by the Rawson Mountain insignia on the man’s right sleeve, an interlocking R and M in bright red letters. Incongruously, the man was carrying a pair of white figure skates in his left hand.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. His face broke into a grin. He had spoken with an accent, German or Swedish, Hawes couldn’t tell which.

  “That’s all right,” Hawes said.

  “May I help you?”

  “No, I think I can manage. If you’d just hold the door open for me…”

  “It will be my pleasure,” the man said, and he almost clicked his heels together.

  “Has the skiing been good?” Hawes asked as he struggled through the narrow doorway.

  “Fairly good,” the man answered. “It will be better tomorrow.”

  “Well, thanks,” Hawes said.

  “My pleasure.”

  “See you on the mountain,” Hawes said cheerfully and continued up the steps. There was something slightly ridiculous about the entire situation, the adjoining rooms with only one bath, the pristine cells the rooms had turned out to be, the heat in one, the cold in the other, the fact that they were over the ski shop, the fact that it had begun snowing very heavily, even the hurried ski instructor with his polite Teutonic manners and his guttural voice and his figure skates, there was something faintly reminiscent of farce about the whole setup. He began chuckling as he climbed the steps. When he came into his room, Blanche was stretched out on his bed. He put down the bags.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “I’ve decided this is a comic-opera hotel,” Hawes said. “I’ll bet the mountain out there is only a backdrop. We’ll go out there tomorrow morning and discover it’s painted on canvas.”

  “This room is nice and warm,” Blanche said.

  “Yes, it is,” Hawes answered. He slid his skis under the bed, and she watched him silently.

  “Are you expecting burglars?”

  “You never can tell.” He took off his jacket and pulled his holstered service revolver from his back hip pocket.

  “You going to wear that on the slopes tomorrow?” Blanche asked.

  “No. You can’t get a gun into those zippered pockets.”

  “I think I’ll stay in this room tonight,” Blanche said suddenly.

  “Whatever you like,” Hawes said. “I’ll take the icebox next door.”

  “Well, actually,” she said, “that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t detectives kiss people?”

  “Huh?”

  “We’ve been out twice together in the city, and we’ve just driven three hours alone together in a car, and you’ve never once tried to kiss me.”

  “Well, I…”

  “I wish you would,” Blanche said thoughtfully. “Unless, of course, there’s a department regulation against it.”

  “None that I can think of,” Hawes said.

  Blanche, her hands behind her head, her legs stretched luxuriously, suddenly took a deep breath and said, “I think I’m going to like this place.”

  There were sounds in the night.

  Huddled together in the single bed, the first sound of which they were aware was the noise of the oil burner. At regularly spaced intervals, the thermostat would click, and there would be a thirty-second pause, and then a 707 jet aircraft would take off from the basement of the old wooden building. Hawes had never heard a noisier oil burner in his life. The aluminum ducts and vents provided a symphony all their own, too, expanding, contracting, banging, clanking, sighing, exhaling, whooshing. Down the hall, the toilet would be flushed every now and again, the noise sounding with cataract sharpness on the still mountain air.

  There was another noise. A rasping sound, the narrow shrill squeak of metal upon metal. He got out of bed and went to the window. A light was burning in the ski shop below, casting a yellow rectangle onto the snow. Sighing, he went back to bed and tried to sleep.

  Down the corridor, there was the constant thud of ski boots as guests returned to their rooms, the slamming of doors, the occasional high giggle of a girl skier intoxicated by the mountain air.

  Voices.

  “…will mean a slower track for the slalom…”

  “Sure, but everyone’ll have the same handicap…”

  Fading.

  More voices.

  “…don’t even think they’ll open the upper trails.”

  “They have to, don’t they?”

  “Not Dead Man’s Fall. They won’t even be able to get up there with all this snow. Seventeen inches already, and no end in sight.”

  The 707 taking off again from the basement. The vents beginning their orchestral suite, the ducts supplying counterpoint. And more voices, raised in anger.

  “…because he thinks he’s God almighty!”

  “I tell you you’re imagining things.”

  “I’m warning you! Stay away from him!”

  A young girl’s laughter.

  “I’m warning you. If I see him…”

  Fading.

  At 2:00 in the morning, the Cats started up the mountain. They sounded like Rommel’s mechanized cavalry. Hawes was certain they would knock down the outside walls and come lumbering into the room. Blanche began giggling.

  “This is the noisiest hotel I’ve ever slept in,” she said.

  “How are your feet?”

  “Nice and warm. You’re a very warm man.”

  “You’re a very warm girl.”

  “Do you mind my sleeping in long johns?”

  “I thought they were leotards.”

  “Leotard is singular,” Blanche said.

  “Singular or plural, those are the sexiest long johns I’ve ever seen.”

  “It’s only the girl in them,” Blanche said modestly. “Why don’t you kiss me again?”

  “I will. In a minute.”

  “What are you listening for?”

  “I thought I heard an unscheduled flight a moment ago.”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you hear it? A funny buzzing sound?”

  “There are so many noises…”

  “Shhhh.”

  They were silent for several moments. They could hear the Cats grinding their way up the mountain. Someone down the hall flushed the toilet. More boots in the corridor outside.

  “Hey!” Blanche said.

  “What?”

  “You asleep?”

  “No,” Hawes answered.

  “That buzzing sound you heard?”

  “Yes?”

  “It was my blood,” she told him, and she kissed him on the mouth.

  It was still snowing on Saturday morning. The promised storm had turned into a full-fledged blizzard. They dressed in the warm comfort of the room, Blanche putting on thermal underwear, and then two sweaters and stretch pants, the extra clothing padding out her slender figure. Hawes, standing six feet two inches tall in his double-stockinged feet, black pants, and black sweater, presented a 190-pound V-shaped silhouette to the window and the gray day outside.

  “Do you think I’ll get back in time for Monday night’s rehearsal?” Blanche asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m supposed to be back at the squad by six tomorrow night. I wonder if the roads are open.”

  They learned during breakfast that a state of emergency had been declared in the city and in most of the towns lining the upstate route. Blanche seemed blithely indifferent to the concept of being snowbound. “If there’s that much snow,” she said, “they’ll cancel the rehearsal, anyway.”

  “They won’t cancel the police department,” Hawes said.

  “The hell with it,” Blanche said happily. “We’re here now, and there’s marvelous snow, and if the skiing is good it’ll be a wonderful weekend.”

  “Even if the skiing is lousy,” Hawes said, “it’ll be a wonderful weekend.”

  They rented boots and skis for her in the ski rental shop, and then took to the mountain. Both chairlifts were in operation, but as one of the midnight voices had prophesied, the upper trails were not yet opened. A strong wind had arisen, and it blew the snow in driving white sheets across the slopes. Hawes took Blanche to the rope tow first, had her practice climbing for a while, teaching her to edge and to herringbone, and then illustrated the use of the tow—left hand clamped around the rope, right hand and arm behind the back and gripping the rope. The beginner’s slope was a gentle one, but Blanche seemed immediately capable of more difficult skiing. She was a trained dancer, and she automatically thought of the skis as part of a difficult stage costume, encumbering movement, but simply something to overcome. With remarkable coordination, she learned how to snowplow on the beginner’s slope. By midmorning, she had graduated to the T-bar, and was beginning to learn the rudiments of the stem christie. Hawes patiently stayed with her all morning, restricting his own skiing to the elementary slopes. He was becoming more and more grateful for the snow-clogged roads. With the roads impassable, the number of weekend skiers was limited; he and Blanche were enjoying weekday skiing on a Saturday, and the fresh snow made everything a delight.

 

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