He still looked moody. “I do not know—yet.”
I said, “You mean that you don’t trust me.”
He said flatly, “That is true.”
I said, “You’re a hell of a friend.” I tried to be light about it because Nace’s attitude hurt. “And after I rescued your girl friend too.”
That brought a response. His head came up in a quick snap and his moody look went away. “What does that mean, Tomaso?”
I said, “I caught Porter Delman pushing her around Rosanne’s office. He claimed he caught her listening at the door to Rosanne’s private office.”
“Did he hurt Amalie?” His voice was tight.
I said, “He bruised her a little.” I got up to put out my cigaret. “By the way, did you plant her there or did you pick her up because she worked for Norton Enterprises?”
Nace said, “You are very smart fellow, Tomaso.”
I said, “Smart enough to guess that it’s one or the other. And to figure that in either case, it means you have an interest in Norton Enterprises. Why?”
“Maybe I wish to invest some money,” he said.
I said, “Damn it, Nace, if you’d be logical instead of emotional, you’d damn well know I couldn’t have been the bastard the newspapers made me out to be. Try trusting me a little and let’s see if we can’t get this mess cleared up. Together we might be able to do something. Fighting each other, we’ll never get anywhere.”
“I know this,” he agreed. “With you about, I gain nothing. That is why I am telling you to go back to Mexico—to your tourists.”
That made me mad. I started to swear at him. He said imperturbably, “If you do not, I shall be forced to turn you over to the police for the murder of Pachuco.”
I said, “That’s Navarro’s privilege, amigo. And besides, maybe he doesn’t want me to leave.”
Nace made a face. I realized that I had come up with a threat that matched his against me. So there we were, at a stand-off.
Only I’d learned something. I’d learned that Navarro carried weight, even with him; and I’d learned that Nace badly wanted me out of this part of Mexico.
All I needed now was to know why.
I went quietly out of Nace’s room and down the hall to mine. Arden was in bed, propped against the headboard. She had fallen asleep with one finger between the leaves of a mystery novel. Light from the bedlamp shone down on her hair and face. She was very pretty. Her lips moved a little as she breathed in sleep.
I tiptoed to the bathroom and stripped. I hated to take a chance on waking her but I couldn’t stand the smell of myself after spending two hours on a garbage heap. I turned on the shower and stepped under it.
I let the water run hot. I let it run cold. I soaped. I rinsed. I soaped and rinsed again. I let the hot water turn my skin broiled steak red. When I was through, I felt cleaner, but my bruises all stood out, looking more vicious than they really were.
I put on my pajamas and went into the bedroom. Arden was awake, reading her book and smoking a cigaret. She glanced up. “I suppose you feel superior, having had an evening all to yourself.”
Just then the after-effects of my beating and the hot water boiling I’d given myself got together and hit me hard. I staggered.
Arden was on her feet and helping me to bed almost before I caught myself. She was a terrific sight in rayon satin pajamas. The way they clung to her should have been declared illegal. And when she put a hip against mine to help me to bed, I almost forgot I’d been beaten up.
I said, “For God’s sake, put on a robe and go back to bed. I’m not unconscious.”
She ignored me and flipped back the covers and helped me onto the bed. She drew up the covers and then stood, hands on hips, looking me over.
“Who did it?” she asked.
I shut my eyes. “I hoped you’d know.”
“You are a bastard,” she said, but there was no anger in her voice. “Tell me what happened.”
I told her. She said, “And you’ve been lying in that alley all this time?”
“No, your friend Nace found me about twelve and took me to his room. We had a cozy little chat and then I came here.”
She gave me a frigid look and went back to her own bed. She lay on top of the covers. I said, “Don’t forget, technically we’re married, and according to law, a wife’s duties include….”
She flipped under the covers and glared at me from there. I said, “Just what are you doing here anyway?”
“Dancing.”
I said, “Come off it, honey. Do you work for Nace or Navarro?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
She was trying, but she wasn’t hitting the target. I reached to the night stand and borrowed one of her cigarets. I lay back and smoked it. I was too tired to ask any more questions. In fact, I was tired of asking questions. I never seemed to get any straight answers. I decided that beginning in the morning, I’d try a more direct approach.
I smoked half the cigaret, put it out, rolled over and went to sleep. If Arden had anything to say, she didn’t say it to me. I didn’t hear a squeak out of her.
• • •
I awoke to bright sunlight and the stiffest set of muscles since my football days. I got up and looked myself over. My bruises had gone down enough for me to feel almost respectable.
Arden wasn’t in the room. I figured I knew where to find her. I was right. When I reached the dining room, she was there fueling up for the day’s watchdogging.
She said, “Sleep well?” in a normally cheerful voice.
I grunted at her and tried one of the hard rolls on the table. One bite convinced me that for this morning anyway I was relegated to mush. Arden murmured something about being sorry for me, but that didn’t stop her from eating three eggs, a slice of ham, and two large oranges. I ate mush and hated her.
Over the coffee, she said, “All right, you’re grumbly enough to be a husband. Now let’s play some other game. What’s on the agenda for today?”
I remembered my decision of the night before. I said, “I’m going to Fronteras.”
“I’m going to get awfully tired of that drugstore,” she said, “but let’s go.”
We went. I parked her with a book and a cup of coffee in the booth by the front window of the drugstore and went across the street to Rosanne’s office.
Amalie was there. She looked pretty good; someone had painted out her bruises. Her eyes went wide when she saw mine. “Oh señor, I did not realize the fight was so bad yesterday.”
I said, “This was another one, chica. But you look good.”
She pouted. She was very cute when she pouted. She made me want to pat her head and wipe her nose again. “You did not come to see if I was bad hurt.”
I said, “I was going to,” I said. “I swear it. But someone put me to sleep on a pile of garbage and when I woke it was too late.”
Her eyes got even wider as she digested what I’d said. “This is true?”
I said, “I never tell anything but the truth. Now can I see your gorgeous boss?”
“You make the joke of me,” she said. “And you cannot see her until you promise to come and see me first.”
I thought she was being flirtatious until I had a good look at the expression on her face. I felt myself flushing a little. The kid had a crush on me, probably because I’d “rescued” her from Delman.
I said, “I don’t think your boyfriend would like my coming to see you, chica.” She looked so blank that I added, “Ignacio.”
“Oh, him!” She began to giggle. “But he is small and you are big. And he is only some of the time. You too can be some of the time.”
I began to wonder if the business of a crush was an act, and if Nace hadn’t steered her onto getting me alone and pumping me. But those calf eyes of hers were awfully convincing.
I said, “Soon. I promise. And we’ll do up the town. Both towns.”
“All right, now you can see her. But she is not so gorgeous, that rubia.�
�
“As blonds go, I’ve seen better,” I conceded. “Tell me, Amalie, did a piece of paper really blow off your desk and land in front of the señora’s door?”
“Señor!”
I grinned. She was too indignant. She jerked open the door to Rosanne’s office. I walked in. Amalie shut the door firmly.
Rosanne looked me over, said, “A drunken brawl?” and dismissed the whole matter of my appearance.
I said, “I came to tell you that I’m earning my money. Pachuco hasn’t checked out of the hotel yet.”
“A telephone call would have brought me that information.”
She was being frosty this morning. I decided to begin my new campaign. I said, “By the way, what’s with you and Navarro?”
I caught her flat-footed on that one. She had no time to duck or even to spar with me. She sat bolt upright and the frost got thicker. I ignored it. I said, “You didn’t seem eager to talk about him yesterday; yet he’s your partner in two businesses. Do you think he’s connected with Pachuco?”
“You’re being absurd!”
I’d hit a tender spot. I put my thumb on it and pressed hard. “Navarro seems to think you hired Pachuco to check on him,” I lied.
The color left her cheeks. She was almost whispering when she said, “You talked to him about my bringing you here?”
I said, “Not before I resigned from this job.” I tossed the money she’d given me to date on her desk. She let it lie.
I said, “I don’t like the runaround. And that’s what I’ve been getting from you. As far as I can tell, this business about Pachuco and his telephone call is so much crap.”
Something was worrying her. She had started to gnaw on her lower lip. It was too thin for her to lose very much of it. She stopped gnawing and began pushing the money around the desk top with the tip of a manicured finger. I decided that she was having some kind of argument between greed and self preservation.
I just waited.
Finally, she said, “Just what do you want, Mr. Blane?”
I said, “I want some answers. You know a lot more than you’ve told me. Pachuco’s threat wouldn’t have caused you to part with the money to hire me unless there was something behind it—something you were afraid of.”
She gnawed at her lip again. She said, “Perhaps I misjudged you.” She didn’t explain what she meant by that. She took her finger and pushed the money toward my side of the desk. “Please consider yourself still working for me.”
“Not under the present conditions.”
She took out her purse and found a fifty dollar bill. She laid it on the other money. I said, “What’s the point of that? I want information, not money.”
She left the fresh fifty lying there. “Tonight I want you to come to a barbecue at my ranch.”
I said, “Thanks, but I don’t feel very social right now.”
“There’s someone there I want you to meet,” she said. The frost was gone from her voice. The warmth of yesterday was creeping back in. I wondered if she was the type who liked to be pushed around. If so, it would explain her attraction for Delman. He probably slapped her every Friday night just for kicks.
I said, “Why should I meet this person?”
“So that when I explain what you need to know, you’ll understand my problem.”
I picked up her money. I said, “I’m making a condition. I’m working for Navarro too. If there’s a conflict of interest, I’ll decide which of you is being more honest with me. I’ll return the money to the other one and do everything I can to make trouble.”
She didn’t even hesitate to think that over. She got up. “I accept that,” she said. She came around the desk to where I was standing. “Until tonight, then, Mr. Blane. Come about seven o’clock.”
We went to the door. She had turned on the warm smile again. It was too bad she didn’t have the mouth for this sort of thing. I couldn’t look at her without thinking that the corners of her mouth were joined together by steel trap springs.
It was very much too bad. Today she wore a pale cream suit, and nobody could have asked for more than she had beneath it.
I went out before I let myself forget what a professional bitch she really was.
VIII
WHEN I OPENED the door, Amalie was standing close to it. For a moment I thought she’d been up to her old tricks but then I saw a man standing by the desk.
She said, “The señor Kruse to see you, señora,” to Rosanne.
I recognized the man now. He was the member of Rosanne’s party who looked as if he worked. The one Navarro identified to me as Jim Kruse, the foreman of her ranch.
He gave me a cold look, full of suspicion and hostility, and stepped toward the door. I moved aside. Rosanne said, “What are you doing in town at this time of day?” Her voice was sharp. She was playing hard at the role of female executive.
His expression changed as he looked at her. Instead of hostility, he now registered cow-like devotion. His voice matched his face when he said, “I came to get some stuff for the barbecue, and I thought I’d better talk to you about how many are coming.”
I could see that Rosanne was thinking the same thing I was—that he had dug up an excuse to get a look at her. She didn’t seem overly pleased at such flattery. She stepped back. “You could have phoned,” she said, “But come in now that you’re here.” As he went by her, she gave me a final look and a smile. “Until tonight, Mr. Blane.”
“Hasta la noche,” I agreed.
I gave Amalie a smile as I walked into the waiting room. She came after me, catching me at the front door. “You are going to spend the night with that woman!” she said accusingly.
“Just business,” I said.
She slammed the door behind me. I looked back. She was staring through the glass panel. I waved and she went away. I hurried across the street and got Arden and headed back for Rio Bravo.
I spent most of the day lying on my bed and trying to think. By evening, I was right back where I’d started—as I saw it, Navarro and Rosanne were in some kind of business that Pachuco decided he could cut himself a piece of. Whether the business was legal or illegal, I had no way of knowing yet, but I didn’t doubt that Pachuco’s angle would be illegal.
The logical one to have killed Pachuco—assuming my premise to be true—was Navarro. But I found it hard to picture him as a torturer. It was easier to think of Rosanne twisting a thumb screw. I was willing to credit her with almost any action.
But no matter how I twisted the facts, I couldn’t find a logical explanation for Nace or Arden, and not much of one for Amalie. The more I thought of Amalie, the less sure I was that she was pretending to have a crush on me. I hoped she was pretending; if not, then I had one more problem on top of the rest. I had no idea what to do with a hero-worshipping child.
I smoked and nursed my bruises and finally got around to wondering just who was interested enough in getting me out of Rio Bravo to have given me that beating. Nace, of course, but Nace wasn’t big enough. Porter Delman possibly. After all I had made him look somewhat of a fool before his fiancee. Or someone else—Navarro perhaps—who was in a position to hire a thug to do the job.
I thought of another possibility—Jim Kruse. The look of adoration I had caught when he looked at Rosanne gave me an idea. I saw him finding out that Pachuco was causing her trouble and of him taking care of the trouble in his own way—by murder. It wasn’t hard to see him deciding that I was just more of the same and giving me a beating as a warning to get out of her hair. He was big enough to break me in two.
And then there was always the possibility of its being someone I didn’t know. In other words, señor Fulano de Tal—which is Spanish for Mr. So-and-So.
I thought hopefully, maybe Rosanne will have all the answers tonight, and I rolled over and went to sleep, a pastime Arden had sensibly been working at for about the last hour.
When I awakened, it was growing dark. I could hear the shower running in the bath. In a few momen
ts Arden appeared, bright-eyed and dressed in jeans, high-heeled boots, a plaid shirt, and a flat-brimmed hat. She looked real sharp.
I said, “Where do you think you’re going in that rig?”
“With you,” she said sweetly, “to the barbecue.”
“The hell you are,” I said flatly. “This is no time to connect yourself to me. Remember, someone wants me to leave this part of the country. Since I haven’t, they just might decide to try to get at me some other way—and that way could be you.”
She said, “Darling, I didn’t know you cared.”
I got up and washed and changed my suit and came back. She smiled sweetly at me. I said, “This is no kidding matter. You could get hurt.”
She said, “I was hired to do a job and I’m going to do it.”
Something in her tone warned me that she was going to be difficult to argue with. She stood with hands on hips and her body posed so that her peculiar loose-jointedness thrust the more interesting parts of her anatomy at me. But she wasn’t being coquettish. That was just one of her ways of standing.
The pose gave me an idea. I stepped closer to her. “Look, honey,” I said, “can’t you see I don’t want to take a chance on your getting hurt?”
She just cocked her head and gave me a half grin. I took another step, put out my arms, and tried to move in even closer. But she was a smart girl. Either that or she could read my mind. One way or another, she guessed that I wasn’t making a pass but was trying to grab her so I could tie her up.
She kept her half smile as she took a step backward. I made a grab for her. She went up in the air in one of her dance steps. She reached the top of her leap and let one leg fly. If I hadn’t moved fast, the high heel of her boot would have taken me squarely in the Adam’s apple. As it was I caught it on the collarbone. The jolt was enough to change my mind about rough-housing her.
I said, “What happens to the guy who makes a real pass at you?”
She had landed on both feet, and for all her exercise, she was a good deal calmer looking than I. She said sweetly, “I’m ready to demonstrate any time. Now let’s get started or we’ll be late.”
Till Death Do Us Part Page 6