I’d heard about that rugged peninsula road before—they run well-publicized races down it for trail-type vehicles, and a lot of them fall by the wayside—but I let her finish the geography lesson anyway.
Then I said, “Well, Beverly’s not likely to try the Baja boondocks in her flossy convertible, but Willy’s all set to make the run with that four-wheel-drive heap, once he does his job. Maybe that’s the idea.”
“Or maybe we’re just supposed to think that’s the idea.”
“I’ll keep both possibilities in mind. How’s your car coming?”
“It’ll be another hour or so. I had them wake up somebody to get the parts in LA. and run them down here…”
She stopped abruptly. I heard some odd, choking sounds over the phone.
“What’s the matter?” I asked quickly. “Miss Devlin? Charlie?”
Her voice came back on the line sounding kind of hoarse and strangled. “Just this damn allergy. Don’t get excited. As I was saying, we’ve got the parts now, but the man’s just started putting them in. As soon as he’s finished, I’ll come after you.”
“Name a rendezvous,” I said. “I don’t know the area.”
“The Bahia Hotel in Ensenada. It’s on the main tourist drag, on the right-hand side of the street going south; you can’t miss it.”
I said, “Okay. Incidentally, I’ve switched cars. Look for a Plymouth Satellite four-door, kind of reddish-brown. If the sun visors are down, you make contact with me as soon as possible. If they’re up, stay clear and wait until you hear from me. Watch that allergy, Charlie.”
“Thanks,” she said. “You be careful, too. Oh, I’ve ordered LA to check on Dr. Sorenson for you.”
“Thanks.”
Getting into Mexico was no problem; the uniformed officials at the gate just glanced at my identification and waved me through. Coming back, however, promised to be a different proposition, judging by the line of backed-up traffic waiting to be searched for drugs on the U.S. side. Considering that any smart smuggler would have the word by now, it seemed unlikely that the Customs boys were making any great hauls to justify the unpopularity they were generating on both sides of the border, but maybe they were hardened types who didn’t care whether or not people loved them.
I followed the sparse highway signs through Tijuana in the dark without learning much about that colorful, wide-open town except that it doesn’t spend much money keeping up its streets. Shortly after leaving the city limits, however, I found myself paying toll for the privilege of driving down an excellent four-lane highway at the legal speed of a hundred and ten kilometers per hour, roughly seventy m.p.h.
I could see the ocean on my right, now, in the growing dawn light. Down here the air was clear, and it looked like a beautiful morning coming up, with only a few clouds in the sky. It was like driving out from under a moist, stinking, gray blanket; but that ocean bothered me. Some people, I know, think of oceans in terms of pleasure boats, or sport fishing, or surfboards, or just plain happy swimming; but in my line of work we tend to regard any large body of water primarily as a tempting place to ditch a corpse.
Beyond the southern fringes of Tijuana, there wasn’t much in the way of human habitation to embarrass anyone planning a burial at sea—or a heroin pickup, I reflected. Infrequent highway signs indicated turnoffs to villages that, as far as I could make out from the highway, were largely collections of shabby house trailers parked along the shore for the convenience of fishermen from the north. At least they looked very much like the seaside slums I’d seen elsewhere in Mexico, inhabited, during the season, by dedicated Yankee anglers. At this time of year, in the middle of the week, the villages were mostly deserted. They became more infrequent the farther south I drove.
Seeing the lonely road, and the empty, rocky coastline, I decided that Willy had deliberately waited for his victim—we prefer the word subject—to get down into Mexico where he could do his work conveniently and unobserved. Driving along, I watched the pavement for signs of hard, emergency braking, and the shoulder for tracks leading off the road.
I found them. You’d be surprised how many double streaks of rubber leading away into nothing you’ll see on any highway if you really look; and how many wheel tracks run right off the edge of the road embankment without further traces of the vehicles that made them. I must have stopped half a dozen times in forty miles, quite sure that I’d come upon a broken convertible beyond those swerving tiremarks leading into empty space, only to find myself looking at a virgin hillside or an unmarked cliff, with no signs of wreckage below.
The last time, however, as I was turning back to the car, I saw what I was looking for on the distant rocks beyond the small bay ahead: a pile of twisted metal with gold paint, on it, gleaming dully in the shadow of the coastal hills. Well, at least it hadn’t burned.
I drove over, there and parked above the place and sat a moment in my car, not particularly wanting to see what was down there. I mean, it was too bad about McConnell, I’d been a little slow there, they’d caught me by surprise, but at least I’d been present and trying. Here I might have saved a life by calling in the police and having Willy Hansen picked up on some pretext or other before he crossed the border. Or I could have had the girl picked up and held in protective custody.
It would have involved a lot of explanations and formalities afterwards; it might even have loused up the mission completely. Mac would have been annoyed, but that wasn’t why I hadn’t done it. The fact is, I hadn’t really thought of it until too late. People like me just don’t think in terms of police; and because of my lone-wolf working habits, a girl was dead. There was nothing left for me to do but go look at what was left.
I got out of the car. At this point, the lanes of the dual highway were cut into the steeply sloping hillside at different levels. There was a masonry retaining wall to keep the upper northbound lane from sliding down onto the lower southbound lane on which I stood. There were plenty of signs to indicate what had happened.
Beverly had simply failed to make the sweeping right-hand turn around the head of the bay. She’d lost control of her car somehow and gone clear across the road to the left. She’d caromed off the stone retaining wall, leaving gold paint and chipped stonework behind her. Still fighting helplessly for control, perhaps, she had bounced back across the highway and over the edge. The tracks were clear in the dirt of the highway shoulder.
Professionally speaking, I had to admit that it was a good job. It looked like a simple matter of too much speed and too little driving ability. Well, if Willy was anything, he was a pro in automotive matters. I wondered just how he’d managed to work this.
I started for the edge and paused to study the tracks of a four-wheel-drive vehicle with cleated tires on all wheels. Then I saw a small green suede shoe beyond. I picked it up, frowning. Its presence up here could only mean that Beverly had jumped clear when she saw the precipice ahead, and her shoe had come off in the fall…
I hurried to the edge and looked down. It wasn’t really a precipice, just a steep incline of rocky rubble and tough little bushes, but quite a scramble for a man with city clothes on. I found the other shoe about a quarter of the way down, and some scraps of green wool cloth snagged on the brush, but I didn’t find her. There was other stuff all down the slope, including seat cushions, broken glass, and one door of the convertible. There was also a familiar leather purse, which I picked up. It had gotten badly scratched but it had stayed closed.
There was no girl, alive or dead. I made sure of this, and went over to the car. It was a total loss, smashed and battered into shapelessness, having rolled down a couple of hundred feet of hillside before coming to a sudden stop against the black rocks of the shore. It had ended right side up and the top had been ripped off. There was nobody inside and no blood on the upholstery, which fitted the theory that she’d unloaded before the vehicle went over the edge, but where was she?
That was, of course, a stupid question. I knew where she was, and I la
id down the purse and shoes I’d collected, and walked to the edge of the rocks and looked down. Slow, heavy waves broke into foam twenty feet below, and I could feel a little spray blow up against my face. There was nothing washing around down there, of course. Willy, coming along right after the crash, however he’d made it happen, would have cleaned up tidily. The weighted body he’d dumped off the rocks might break loose and come ashore eventually, but not so soon and probably not here.
I looked out to sea where the waves were breaking over other black rocks, a hundred yards out in the bay. They looked sinister and dangerous out there. I wondered why Willy had bothered to dispose of the body. It would have made a better picture for the authorities, when they arrived on the scene, if he’d left her wherever her headlong dive from the doomed car had deposited her—after, of course, making quite sure she was dead. But maybe he’d had to put a tell-tale bullet into her to keep her from getting away…
Some impulse of anger made me pick up a chunk of rock and pitch it at the water below.
“Help!” The weak voice seemed to come out of the cliff at my feet “Who’s up there? Oh, please won’t you help me! Somebody, please get me out of here—”
11
Getting her out of there promised to be something of a job. First, I tried to pinpoint her location, to see just what I’d be getting myself into by going after her. I couldn’t spot the area at the foot of the overhanging rocks from where the pleading, disembodied voice seemed to come. Well, that figured. If she could have been seen, Willy would have seen her; and disposed of her.
I glanced around warily. Apparently Beverly had managed to survive the crash and conceal herself from her pursuer, which was nice, but if Willy was a patient man, he could be waiting around to catch her coming out of hiding when she thought herself safe. I had an uneasy feeling of being watched…
“Help!” the voice called from below, as the noise of the surf subsided briefly. “Please don’t go away, whoever you are! Help me!”
To hell with Willy. “Hold on, down there,” I shouted. “I’ll be right with you.”
It was an easy promise to make. Living up to it posed a few problems. There was obviously no sense in my diving heedlessly and heroically off the rocks to join her. That would just make two of us at the bottom of the junior-grade cliff, neither knowing a way back up to the top. Besides, I’m not much for making twenty-foot dives into unknown waters off an unknown coast. In fact, I’m a mediocre swimmer; but clearly I was going to have to exercise my limited talents in that direction whether I wanted to or not.
Exploring hastily, I found a crevice some fifty yards off to the right that led down to a kind of shelf less than a foot above the water. As I undressed, I looked around dubiously once more. I’d be in a poor position for self-defense if Willy should appear on the rocky shore above me while I was paddling around in the surf in my shorts. Well, apparently it had to be done, and I was the only guy around to do it.
Taking my gun, I made my way down into the crack. The breeze off the sea was chilly enough to remind me that it was too damn early in the spring for any sensible person to get wet all over in anything but a nice warm bath—well, a hot shower, maybe, but I’m a tub man myself, when I can find a tub long enough. I hid the gun among the rocks down there and approached the launching pad. A wave broke into the entrance and washed about my ankles, letting me know that the water was even colder than the air, but there was nothing to do but go into it, so I went. The shock was breathtaking. I stroked clumsily off to the left, hoping the exercise would warm me. It didn’t.
I found her huddled in a shallow cave, little more than a niche washed out by the waves, at the bottom of the rocky point on which I’d been standing when I heard her voice. The sea sloshed right into the little hollow, drenching her with metronome regularity where she clung to a stone outcropping. I got an impression of a dead-white face, tangled hair, and torn clothing that streamed like seaweed from a small, half-naked body, but at least she was alive enough to watch me hopefully as I came in for a landing.
She tried to say something; but the roar of the surf blotted it out. I was too busy keeping myself from being washed back out to sea to listen, anyway. It was a tougher rescue operation than the previous one in which we’d participated, I reflected grimly. I pried her loose, between waves, shoved her out of there, and dove after her. She started swimming, but feebly and ineffectually. I got hold of some cloth that ripped when the strain of the next wave came on it; then I got a fistful that didn’t Kicking desperately, paddling one-handed, I managed to tow her clear of the rocks. Some time later, I boosted her onto the shelf from which I’d come—with, I was glad to note, some token help from her. At least she was still present and voting.
Climbing up beside her, with no help from her, was harder than it should have been for a healthy man in good condition. I dragged her out of the reach of the waves and crouched there, panting and dripping and trying to keep my teeth from chattering. After a little while, I remembered the gun and found it. If Willy was lying in wait for us above, I was once more in a position to shoot back, even if my chances of hitting anything were slight, the way I was shivering.
Beverly rolled over weakly to look at me through the hair that veiled her face. I reached out and parted the wet strands with a forefinger, so that I could look in as well as she could look out. Her lips moved stiffly.
“Mr. Helm!” she whispered. “I d-didn’t really recog… recognize…” She couldn’t finish. She just curled up into a ball and hugged herself, shaking with cold.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
It was a stupid question. What I’d meant to ask, I guess, was if she was too badly hurt to proceed under her own power.
“Sure I’m hurt… I hurt all over,” she breathed. Her voice was stronger and steadier. “Or I did before I f-froze to d-death.” She made an effort to sit up, succeeded with my help, and went on: “But I don’t seem to have b-broken anything ess-ess-essential.” The shakes hit her again, so violently that she could hardly get the last word out.
“Can you make that?” I asked, after the spasm had passed. I indicated the cleft up which we still had to climb.
“I… I think so, Mr. Helm. Matt…”
“What?”
Her greenish-hazel eyes regarded me with disconcerting steadiness out of her pale, wet face. “You’re b-beautiful,” she said softly. “You’re the p-prettiest man I ever saw, even if your knees are b-b-bony. I’d given up, I guess. I’d have d-d-died there if you hadn’t come after me. Th-thanks.”
“Go to hell,” I said. “If you’re strong enough to make speeches you’re strong enough to start climbing.”
I still had the uneasy sensation that someone was watching and, at the top, I checked the surroundings carefully, gun in hand, but there was no Willy in sight. That was fine with me. I reached down to help Beverly over the last rocks, left her catching her breath, and went over to get her purse and shoes. I brought them back and dropped them beside her.
Then I went to my own clothes, mopped myself off a bit with my undershirt, and tossed the damp garment to her for similar employment. I got dressed except for my jacket. Its warmth tempted me strongly, but there are times when a man has to prove, to himself and to others, that he really is a gentleman at heart, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Besides, I needed a way to show—call it a symbol—that I really was very glad to have found her alive. It was a weight off my conscience, or a stain off my soul, or something.
Tucking my gun back under my waistband, I carried the coat over to where she was standing, a little unsteadily, vaguely rubbing at her hair with my undershirt. It wasn’t very nice of me, under the circumstances, but I couldn’t help pausing to get the full effect. It was pretty spectacular. I’d encountered a lot of beat-up characters in my undercover career, but I’d seldom met a lady who was so literally in rags.
Her neat little wool pantsuit, never designed for hardship, had disintegrated into a scarecrow collection o
f flaps and, loops and pennants of torn green cloth, sodden and dark with seawater. One arm and leg were almost totally bare, and sizeable anatomical areas were raggedly exposed elsewhere. Apparently, the dive from the doomed convertible had scraped most of the clothing, and a good deal of skin, from her right side. The hasty scramble down the slope, and the ocean swim, had completed the job of demolition all around. She was so tattered it was almost funny.
She stopped drying her hair and glanced at me in a puzzled way, as if wondering why I was staring. Then she looked down at herself, becoming suddenly aware of, and aghast at, her shipwrecked appearance.
“God, I’m a clown!” she gasped. “I’m a… a disaster area! I didn’t realize… Matt, what am I going to do? I can’t show myself anywhere like this!”
“We’ll get you some clothes,” I said. “Meanwhile, here’s something to keep you warm—”
“No, wait a minute, please.”
She tossed aside the undershirt she’d been using as a towel, struggled out of the clinging remains of the jacket, and untangled herself from the trailing remnants of the pants. Rolling the garments into a ball, she walked gingerly, barefooted, to the edge of the rocks, and pitched them into the sea.
She came back to me, no longer a comic figure in flapping rags, just a pretty girl who’d got herself kind of wet and scratched and dirty, in a costume that now consisted of a sleeveless white turtleneck jersey and a pair of brief white nylon pants—little more than she’d been wearing in our abortive seduction scene of the previous evening. The scanty outfit wasn’t clean, dry, or even wholly intact, but it wasn’t a cruel joke.
“I’ll take that coat now, thanks,” she said.
I hesitated, frowning at the blood-caked lacerations that seemed to reach almost from shoulder to elbow, and from hip to knee, although it was a little hard to tell how much was injury and how much was just clotted gore.
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