Ron Goulart - John Easy 03 - The Same Lie Twice

by Ron Goulart

  Joanna stamped both high-heeled feet on the floor, shoving. She got the chair to topple over sideways.

  Rudy, finding himself out in the open, went back a step, pivoted and ran. He went out a glass door still open from the flight of Gerry Santos.

  Easy didn’t try to follow. He shoved Domingues toward a sofa, bent him against it and searched him. He found a .45 automatic and a Boy Scout knife.

  Domingues laughed. “We figured you’d be dead back in Choza by now.”

  “Now and then,” said Easy, “people tend to underestimate me.”

  XVIII

  JOANNA BENNING TURNED HER face toward the wide-open window of the Volkswagen. “What crop is that growing there?”

  Not turning to look at the flickering afternoon fields they were passing through, Easy said, “I’m not sure.”

  “I thought you were sure of everything,” the girl said. “Positive and a hundred percent sure.”

  Easy did not answer.

  “Whatever it is, they have to squat to harvest it,” said Joanna. She was more attractive, warmer, than her formal model photos had indicated. Her face was thinner, and the faintly blue shadows under her eyes made them seem brighter. She rested one arm on the sill, trailing her fingers in the hot still air. “I don’t think you tied up that man securely enough. Didn’t mention it at the time and spoil your daring rescue.” She swung round to watch him. “I’ve been thinking, though. Those were sloppy knots. When I was a girl my father used to take me camping up around Russian River—you know where that is? Well, anyway. He taught me how to make good knots. Even if he didn’t get round to imparting much else of a positive sort. I really think that man will get loose.”

  “Let’s hope so,” said Easy.

  Joanna was wearing a short denim skirt. She ran the fingers of her left hand along the inner side of her left thigh, from skirt hem to knee. “You want him—what was his name? Domingues—you want Domingues to get loose?”

  “Any time now, since we’re two hours away from Segado.”

  “What about the sweet-smelling one? You’re sure he’s not following us?”

  “I’m sure.” Easy’s eyes automatically checked the rear-view mirror.

  “Another thing I don’t feel right about,” said Joanna. “Leaving Gerry there like that and not telling anyone. My god.”

  “We don’t,” Easy said, “want to be detained in Mexico, especially in a Mexican jail.”

  “I didn’t do anything. It was—the other one—Rudy? It was Rudy who killed Gerry. For no reason.” Still rubbing at her leg, she asked, “What do you think will happen to Gerry, to his body?”

  “If all goes well, Domingues will untie himself and then ditch the body someplace.”

  “My god.” Joanna pinched herself. “You mean you’re anticipating those gunsels or whatever they are will dispose of Gerry in some … some nameless hole here in Mexico? That’s awful.”

  “Were you planning to come back down here once a month to put flowers on his grave?”

  The lovely girl almost began to cry. She caught herself, then inhaled with nostrils flaring. “Screw you, Easy.”

  At dusk Joanna asked, “How’s Jim feel about me?”

  “He hired me to find you.”

  “You already told me that,” she said. “He’s upset I suppose?”

  “He looked to be.”

  “Well, he’s the luckiest of the bunch. He’s still alive. Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You’re friends with Jill Jeffers. I imagine that’s how Jim got hold of you. He’s always had sort of a polite, distant and gentlemanly, crush on Jill. It’s like something in Trollope. But then I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of Trollope.”

  “What position does he play?”

  Joanna said, “You must be in your thirties.”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  Suddenly a flying insect smashed to death against the now splotched windshield. Joanna watched it for a second. “I should think you’d be ready to settle down.” She folded her hands in her lap. “I wish I was.” Her hands clutched each other. “Maybe I am. I’ve been thinking I’d like to try. After all this I ought to. What are you going to tell Jim?”

  “Most of what happened.”

  “Yes, I suppose we’ll have to,” said the girl. “This isn’t like coming home a few hours late and making up a good sturdy believable alibi.”

  “Why did you run?”

  “I got afraid.”

  “You know what Moseson had then?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I didn’t encourage him, Easy. I really didn’t.” She shook her dark head. “It’s funny, most of the men I pick have some flaw.”

  Easy said, “There is that about them.”

  “Okay, excuse me for sounding phony. I was really fond of Phil. For awhile I thought maybe we could really have a life together. Something quiet and uncomplicated. I love Jim, I’m fairly positive of that, but the pattern, the life style we have, it just simply grinds me down to nothing. The people, the parties, the obligations. It’s like that agency where they answer the phone by saying, ‘Have a happy day!’ When I hear something like that, it’s like an order I want to disobey. I haven’t had many happy days with Jim. He wants children.”

  “Do you know where Moseson hid the blackmail material?”

  Joanna watched the still hot, and now purple, sky outside the car. “Can’t we let that junk lie?”

  “Ever hear of Sam Troxa?”

  “Certainly,” she answered. “I even met him a few times at parties. I have quite a circle of friends. You didn’t root up half of them I bet.”

  “Did you know Rudy and Domingues are probably working for him?”

  “No,” she said, turning away from the growing darkness. “They didn’t mention. What did they do to Gabe?”

  “He’ll be okay,” said Easy. “He was going to get a few friends over after he got back from the doctor and then turn the third hood loose.”

  “There’s another one?”

  “Rudy left him in Choza to slow me down.”

  “You seem to have a thing about turning cruds loose, some kind of born-free impulse.”

  “I’m not Interpol,” he told her. “I would like to avoid international intrigue as much as possible.”

  “Do you know how they got onto Gabe, to the fact Gerry and I were staying with him until the rental place in Segado came up?”

  “Gladys Waugh probably sold them the same information she sold me. And they had a faster car, plus maybe a good head start.”

  “I don’t think it was Gladys herself,” said Joanna. “Rudy, the oily one, made some reference to the other spade being more helpful than Gabe.”

  “Who, Ram?”

  “Ram doesn’t much like me. A sour grapes situation,” she said. “I sure know how to pick them.”

  “Very few people can pick them in quantity.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Jacobs.”

  “He sends his regards.”

  “You talked to him?”

  “Yep.”

  “I don’t imagine he detailed his therapy notions to you,” said the lovely dark girl.

  “We didn’t get on the couch together, no.”

  “We did,” said Joanna. “Maybe it did help. My god, I find it difficult to tell what’s helpful and what isn’t anymore. Do you know why they shot Gerry?”

  “No. Rudy doesn’t need much reason.”

  “Oh, but they didn’t want to kill Phil. They wanted him to talk, but he died before he did. Phil contacted somebody, somebody in Mayor Zibelli’s lousy administration, and was all set to get his great scheme rolling. That was one reason I wasn’t there that night.”

  “Do you know who he contacted?”

  “Phil kept that to himself. I think he enjoyed playing cloak and dagger in front of me.”

  “You do know where he hid the stuff?”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” answered Joanna. “I was telling you about Gerry. Gerry w
as running.”

  “I saw that.”

  “He was just running. He got away from Domingues and he ran. Maybe he had in mind to go for help to save me,” she said. “The look of him, though, I just think he was running for himself. My god, he was only twenty-four or so. When we get to Calexico can I pick up my car?”

  “No. I’ll take you all the way home. I told you that before. I know people who can pick up the car and drive it to your house.”

  “We thought that was smart. Driving to the border separately to make sure no one was trailing us. Then sticking my car in a parking garage and crossing in Gerry’s old Volvo.”

  “Troxa and his people will, keep trying to get you to talk, Joanna,” said Easy. Night was now upon them. He turned the headlights up full.

  “I know.”

  “Tell me where Moseson hid the file drawer and I’ll turn it over to the right people.”

  “They’re all crooks in San Ignacio.”

  “All the county people aren’t.”

  Joanna said, “Next time we stop I’d like to call Jim.”

  “Not until we’re back in California,” he said. “Now, where did Moseson put it?”

  “In San Amaro.”

  San Amaro was a little beach town near Santa Monica. “Where in San Amaro?”

  “Phil was doing a favor for a friend of his who manages some pieces of real estate. The friend went to Europe for a year and Phil agreed to show the properties while the man was away. He had keys to the various places, you see. The files he borrowed are at the San Amaro Yacht Club.”

  “Been abandoned for years.”

  “I don’t think Phil or his friend had much hope of ever selling it,” said the girl. “Anyway, there’s a yacht club building or two standing and Phil told me he put the papers in the office of the yacht club, in one of the file cabinets. A kind of purloined letter thing he thought, hiding file materials with other file materials.”

  “Obviously he didn’t tell Troxa’s men this before he died,” said Easy. “Or they wouldn’t be hunting for you.”

  “He died too soon,” said Joanna. “He was a brave man, Phil was. Stubborn. The money he hoped to raise by blackmail was not only for him, it was for the two of us. That made him even more stubborn about talking and telling them where what they wanted was. He had to sell it for us to do what we wanted.”

  “He was dead when you found him?”

  “Yes, and there was no one there. It looked like they’d cleaned up afterwards, though. Things were much too neat and orderly for what they must have done to him there. I gathered a few things in one suitcase and ran. I sailed a friend from an all-night gas station, but he wouldn’t help. I finally went to Gladys Waugh’s. I don’t much believe in all that witchcraft nonsense but I knew Gerry would probably be there.”

  “You never thought of going home to your husband right then?”

  “No.” Joanna shook her head. “I was afraid. Afraid that whoever had done that to Phil would want to do it to me. I was afraid to face Jim and tell him all I’d been doing. I’m still a little afraid, but I’ll make myself do it. Because that’s the only way we can possibly get anything going for us again. Dr. Jacobs was right about that much.” Leaning back she added, “At least I got one thing I’ve always wanted.”

  “Which?”

  “A trip to Mexico.”

  XIX

  IT WAS RAINING AGAIN. Jim Benning came cutting across the broad lawn with a closed umbrella clutched straight out in front of him. “Wait,” he called toward Easy’s car. “You don’t want to get wet.”

  “It commences,” said Joanna. She was sitting with knees high and head low, making no move to leave the Volkswagen.

  Six floodlights were planted around the lawn and the short gravel driveway. Two more hung from the eaves of the house’s flat shingle roof and another was mounted over the garage doors. The lights glared in different pastel shades, dyeing the light drizzling rain and turning Benning red, yellow, and blue as he trotted down to the car. It was a few minutes after 4 A.M.

  Before he went around to his wife’s side of the VW, Benning reached in through Easy’s half-open door and tried to shake hands. “You’ve done a terrific job, Easy. I’m sorry about the way I’ve been pressuring you over this. I can’t begin to … aren’t you cold in just that light sweater, Joanna?”

  “No,” she answered. “Mexico is a warm country.”

  “This isn’t Mexico, though. Do you want to wait while I get one of your warmer coats to wrap around you?”

  Joanna unbuckled her seatbelt, raised and turned to kneel in the chair. She made a long stretch and caught her lone suitcase out of the back. “Jim, Easy isn’t bringing me home from the hospital.”

  “Huh,” said her husband, “that isn’t one of our suitcases, is it?”

  “It was a going-away present.” Joanna elbowed her door open and stepped out onto the rainy drive. The garage floodlight made her and the misty rain falling on her shine pale gold.

  Benning let go of the part of Easy’s hand he’d caught. He ran around the front of the car, struggling to unfurl the black umbrella. The ferule of the umbrella poked at Easy’s right front headlight. “I’m glad you’re back,” he said to his wife. “We’ll get you inside where you can rest.” He forced the umbrella to unfurl and open, then held it over his pretty dark wife. “You’ll need rest.”

  Joanna stepped clear of the umbrella’s protection. “I’m not dying,” she said. “It’s only people around me who’ve been doing that.”

  “We don’t have to talk about everything now,” said Benning. “Even though you were a little cryptic when you got around to calling me on the phone. I can be patient. You rest now, Joanna, and we can talk tomorrow or even the next day.” He had the umbrella back shielding her from the drizzle again. “I think I can fix it so I won’t have to go into the agency for a few more days. So we can be together, if you like.”

  Joanna circled the front of Easy’s car. Leaning in, she touched his arm for a moment. “I really will try,” she told him in a low voice. Turning, she walked away across the lawn and into the house.

  “Benning,” said Easy as his client started to follow.

  “I’d better go with her.” He was standing sideways, with one foot pointing at their house and one at Easy’s car. “After all that’s apparently happened, she’s going to need looking after.”

  Easy stood up out of his car. “Don’t protect her too hard,” he said. “But see that she stays home until I get back to you.”

  “Oh, she’s not going to want to go anywhere now.” He held the umbrella over Easy.

  “Other people may want to see that she does,” Easy told him. “Keep her inside, keep anybody you don’t know away. If anything that looks like trouble comes along, call the police.”

  “No, I don’t want any police around here,” insisted Benning. “I hired you because I didn’t.”

  “Then call my office, say its an emergency and you’ll get Nan. She can send somebody.”

  “Is there likely to be more trouble?” Benning was looking back at their ranch-style house. “I guess she’s okay in there by herself for a few minutes.”

  “I’m not sure everything is over yet,” said Easy. “Until I pick up something in San Amaro.”

  “Was she serious, I can’t always tell, when she said something about people dying?”

  “Yeah, she was serious.”

  “But she didn’t …?”

  “No, she didn’t kill anyone. It all went on around her.”

  “Jesus, I still can’t believe any … well, I promised Joanna we didn’t have to talk about this tonight. There’ll be plenty of time for talking it all out, won’t there?”

  “If you’re careful.”

  A small step at a time, Benning was backing away. “I’ll go look after Joanna now. That’s what’s important now, not what she did or didn’t. When you can, Easy, I want to know what all happened. Why she was in Mexico, with who. Tonight, though, I’m j
ust happy she’s come home finally. What do you think? You’ve been with her a long time. A whole day nearly, according to what she said when she got around to calling me. What do you think? Is she ready to stay home?”

  “That’s not one of the questions,” said Easy, “you paid me to answer.” He left his client standing there in the rain with the black umbrella still held out over the spot where he’d been.

  Easy’s office lay between the Benning house and the San Amaro Yacht Club. He stopped at the office. The small parking lot held only two cars. Further down the way, screened by a eucalyptus tree, one single back office window glowed yellow. Everything else was darkness and a fine misty rain.

  From the closet in his private office Easy took a black pullover and a pair of dark slacks. He changed in the little bathroom between Nan’s office and his, noticing his secretary had left one of her contact lenses sitting on the blue glass shelf over the sink.

  He found some packets of instant coffee in the medicine cabinet and, even though he was giving it up, he mixed himself a cup, using hot tap water. He sat behind his desk and dialed Jill’s number. It was now almost five o’clock in the morning.

  After three rings Jill answered in a wide-awake voice. “Hello?”

  “I’m back.”

  “I’m glad about that,” the girl answered. “I know you found Joanna, because Jim called me after she contacted him from Calexico.”

  “Yeah, I just delivered her home.”

  “She really was in Mexico?”

  “She was indeed,” said Easy. “I stopped at my office to call you. I’m en route to San Amaro.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s one more errand to run and then I should be finished.”

  “Good. By the way, you’re supposed to open conversations at this hour by saying, ‘I hope I didn’t wake you.’ I dated a guy once who used to ask that even when he called at three in the afternoon. People get strange ideas about models and actresses.”

  “I’ve had some myself.”

  “Are you any more battered and bruised than when I saw you last?”