I said, “This is a big affair, I think. Navarro will probably be there. He can nursemaid me for one night.”
She said, “He’ll be there, but he’ll be busy.”
That ended that. We went to the barbecue together. At least we went as far as Fronteras together. There Arden agreed to go on her own. Her idea of doing that was to hire a taxi and follow the car I rented.
The ranch was eight miles from town, out in the middle of the cactus and sage hills east of the river. I later learned that the land Rosanne held covered eighteen square miles. It wasn’t much in the way of a cattle ranch, but it made a nice quiet place to go and relax.
Like so many ranches, most of the money tied up in this one had gone for cattle and water wells. The outbuildings were no better than they needed to be, and the ranchhouse was a rambling, weather-beaten Victorian horror.
I parked the rented car in front of the house, beside a long line of cars, and sat and smoked a cigaret. By that time Arden had left her taxi and disappeared. I gave her ten minutes all together and then went after her.
The party was in full howl by the time I appeared. The cooking took place behind the big barn in what I presumed was one of the corrals. Fires had been built in pits and allowed to burn down to coals and now the heat from them was making whole steers turning on great spits sizzle and fill the air with the best smell I’d sniffed in a long while.
The first person I met was Rosanne. She was dressed as Arden was, but her clothes looked as if she’d done some work in them. I said, “Did I miss anything?”
“Just the first round of drinks.” She led me to a long table where bottles and ice and glasses and mixers were lined up. “Help yourself.”
I helped myself. She went away. I was half through my first drink when she came back with a man in tow. As they neared, I heard him say in a pettish voice, “But Rosanne, darling, I was so enjoying myself talking to that dancer of Navarro’s.”
“There’s someone else I want you to meet,” she said in one of her firm voices. She stepped aside so that I had a good look at the man with her.
I recognized him as the “very funny fellow” I’d seen at Navarro’s the other night. Rosanne said, “Mr. Blane, I’d like you to meet Calvin Calvin. He’s our local celebrity. Mr. Blane is a detective on vacation from Mexico City, Cal.”
He said, “Pleased, amigo.” He didn’t offer me his hand. I didn’t offer mine.
Seen close up, Calvin Calvin was even less prepossessing than from a distance. He was a little man, still quite young, with a jaundiced complexion and one of those thin, pointed faces with a long nose that looks boneless at the tip. It was the kind of nose that dripped in chilly weather. Now it just wriggled. With that kind of nose, he should have had rabbity front teeth and a sloping jaw, but instead he had a pugnacious, bulldog jaw.
I said, “Pleased. I heard your show.”
He said, “Like it?”
“Fine,” I said. “Damn funny.” If he could talk shorthand, I figured I could too.
Our sparkling conversation might have continued for quite a while except that just then Delman appeared, plowing toward the table as if he thought Rosanne needed rescuing. He came in swinging his shoulders and forced Calvin against me. I backed away. Calvin smelled as if he’d got too close to the smoke from the barbecue pit.
I turned on Delman as he tried to crowd me against the edge of the table. “Since I’m a guest here,” I said, “I’ll let it pass this time.”
He turned, scowling, looking as if he was eager to take up where we’d left off in Rosanne’s office. Rosanne put a hand on his arm and said something very low and very quick. He swung around again and stalked off. She went with him.
I got myself another drink. Calvin said, “My, what’s with you and our local cattle baron?”
I said, “We’re both just mad about that gorgeous blond. Aren’t you?”
“Heavens no!” He gave me a long look, his face tipped coyly over toward one shoulder.
I said something about looking for the washroom and got away from him.
I wandered around, looking over the guests, wondering if Calvin was the one Rosanne had wanted me to meet or if it was someone else in the crowd. I saw Navarro, but exchanged no more than nods with him. As Arden had told me, he was busy. He was surrounded by a half dozen of Texas’ prize cornflowers. I gathered that Navarro was still worth three goats.
I saw that Calvin had left the vicinity of the table. I worked my way back there and got another drink. By the time I’d finished it, I found I really did need the washroom. I saw that the rear of the house was invitingly lighted and I headed for it.
I worked my way from the big back porch, through a huge kitchen and into a hallway. I was about to go down it when I heard a voice say distinctly, “You’re being absurd. Jim Kruse is absolutely trustworthy. And you’re imagining things. I am not in any trouble, Porter.”
The voice was Rosanne’s; its characteristic sharpness was unmistakeable. The answer came in Delman’s superior tone. He said, “I don’t believe you. And I damn well intend to do something whether you’ll tell me the truth or not.”
“Porter! I’ll not have you….”
He interrupted her. “If you aren’t in trouble, what’s that crummy private detective doing here?”
That was me. I didn’t like him either.
“Mr. Blane is an acquaintance,” she said. “He’s visiting in Rio Bravo. I asked him to drop by and say hello.”
His snort said that he wasn’t buying this. He said, “There’s something going on, and I think Kruse is mixed up in it. I’ve seen him working on you. He wants a ranch of his own and he figures to marry you to get it. And if he can’t do it that way, he’ll do it some other.”
“Nonsense!”
Both of them must have realized the argument was getting pointless because without answering Delman stomped off one way and she another. I could hear him heading for the hall. I pulled back under the shadow made by stairs going to the second floor. If he looked, he couldn’t miss me, but I didn’t much care. I waited, my fist cocked.
He didn’t look. He plowed on, glaring straight ahead at nothing. His strong, heavy features were set in a hard, uncompromising line. He wasn’t drunk; he was just plain mad.
I heard Rosanne let a screen door close lightly behind her. When Delman was out of the kitchen, I walked on down the hall, looking for her. I came to a kind of foyer. On the left a door opened into a lighted room that looked like a library. On the right was a dark room which I imagined to be the parlor. Straight ahead of me was the screen door I’d heard slam. It led to the big front veranda.
I started to go onto the veranda but for the second time voices stopped me. I was raised to believe that eavesdropping was something no gentleman ever did. But the detective business had taught me that there were times when anything was proper. Considering the mess I was in, I felt that this was one of those times. Rosanne was talking again.
I couldn’t see her so I left the foyer for the darkness of the parlor. From there I could see through the front windows onto the veranda. I could see Rosanne and Jim Kruse outlined by light that came through the screen door.
They were busy. As I watched, I could feel myself flushing. I was, I decided, a damn poor judge of character. I had figured Rosanne for one hundred percent frost. But if what she was doing to Kruse with her arms and her torso was frost, I’d have hated to tangle with her type when warmed up.
Finally she got herself unglued from him. I caught a glimpse of his expression. I was afraid he was about to pass out. I backed into the foyer; watching something like that wasn’t in my contract.
Now I could hear them talking again. Rosanne’s voice had a crooning quality that I’d never caught in it before. When Kruse said, “Let me take care of that big ape for you, dearest,” she murmured, “No, please, lover, you’ve done too much for me already. I can handle him.”
I wondered just what he’d done for her that was too much. Beat me up,
perhaps? Kill Pachuco, maybe?
IX
I HEARD THEM heading for the door and I backed into the library. They walked in on me. I tried to put a silly smile on my face.
I said, “I was looking for the ah … er….”
“That door in the corner,” Rosanne said frigidly, and marched away.
I went through the door in the corner. After a suitable length of time I came out. Kruse was still in the room. He looked as if he might be waiting for me.
I said, “The answer to your question is that I came in here through the kitchen door about four seconds before you arrived. And if you wipe that lipstick from under your ear, no one can prove anything else.”
I went back to the barbecue before he could decide whether to hit me or not. I ate great hunks of meat. I drank mugs of coffee. I ate more meat. When I finally came up for air, the liquor had all been burned out of me by the barbecue sauce. I took a final mug of coffee and went off to a dark corner by the bunkhouse. I hadn’t seen Arden since I’d arrived; I wondered how she was making out.
I was draining my mug when Jim Kruse came out of the lighted area and hunkered down beside me. He had a mug of coffee and he set it down while he rolled himself a cigaret.
“Look, Blane—you are Blane, aren’t you?”
I said, “Yes, and forget it. It’s not my business.”
“What is your business here?”
I said, “Tonight, to eat myself silly.”
He had to keep pecking away at it as if he enjoyed hurting himself. He said, “What is Rosanne—Mrs. Norton—to you?”
I was tired and a little thick in the head from having drunk too much before I ate. I said nastily, “Look, fellow, we’re acquaintances, that’s all. And for me, it’s enough. I don’t like ice in my drinks.”
He didn’t even bother to get up. Hunkered on his heels, he still had a lot of maneuverability. He swung on me. His fist bounced off the side of my head and sent me skidding on my rump in the dust. Still not bothering to get up, he made a dive for me.
I rolled and kicked. I got a shoe alongside his jaw. I got to my feet. He got to his. He had a boxer’s stance and a boxer’s footwork. He also had a boxer’s way of using his fists. I ducked three stabs, parried one, and then took the fourth in my full stomach.
I picked myself up. I said, “I’ve changed my mind. You aren’t the guy that clobbered me last night. You’re too good.”
He wasn’t even breathing heavily. He said, “If I’d clobbered you last night, you wouldn’t be here now.” He came at me again.
From behind him Rosanne said sharply, “Jim!”
He stopped. His hands dropped to his sides. He hung his head and stood like a small boy waiting for a scolding. I said quickly, “We were just showing each other some old football plays and we got a little excited, that’s all.” I grinned at her. “Boys will be boys.”
Delman made a rude sound. I said to him, “I’d like to show you some of the old plays too.”
He glared at me. I said, “Would you mind taking a poke at me? I’d like to make a comparison with the clumsy ox who gave me a beating last night.”
He turned on his heel and stalked away. Rosanne, her lips clamped tight, said to Kruse, “Go see if there’s enough ice.”
He trotted obediently away. Rosanne looked frostily at me. “Come to my library at ten, Mr. Blane.”
“Why wait until ten?” I demanded. “Why not get it over with now? Then you can get rid of me that much faster.”
She looked suddenly tired, as if trying to balance her two lover boys was getting too much for her. I found it hard to generate any sympathy. She said, “Ten o’clock, please,” and left.
I went off to find Kruse. I wanted information on Porter Delman, and I couldn’t think of anyone who should be more eager to give it to me.
I located him spiking a mug of coffee with rum. I had some of the same. My remark to Delman seemed to have mellowed Kruse toward me. He reached out his mug and clinked it against mine. “Here’s to the cattle business. May it prosper without brokers.”
I had been wondering how to bring Delman into the conversation. Here was my opening, and I grabbed it. I said, “That Delman seems to be bothering Rosanne. Do you think he’s trying to pull a shady deal?”
“I wish he was,” Kruse said regretfully. “But he’s pretty famous in these parts for being an honest trader. He just looks like he isn’t.”
I said, “How’s his financial rating?”
Kruse gulped some spiked coffee. “I thought you were on a vacation, Blane. Why all these questions?”
“Rosanne is a friend,” I lied cheerfully. “And I guess detectives have built-in curiosities. Or maybe I just don’t like the guy and hope I can get him in trouble.”
Kruse seemed to accept that. He said morosely, “I wish you could give him trouble, but there isn’t much chance. Financially, he’s in better shape than anyone in these parts.” He gulped more coffee. “That’s why Rosanne is marrying him.”
I said, “I didn’t know she needed money.”
“She doesn’t,” Kruse said, “but she thinks she does.” He glared at me. “Don’t get the wrong idea, Blane. She’s a fine woman, a real fine woman. But since her husband died, she’s taken on a load of responsibility. She feels she’s got to protect the stockholders of Norton Enterprises. That idea’s made her a little obsessed about money.”
I thought that “a little obsessed” was a kind way of putting the matter. I said, “How long have they been engaged?”
Kruse thought that over. His lips moved as he counted back, and I heard him mutter something about “fall roundup.” Like so many persons who live with the land, he had his own special kind of calendar. He said finally, “Going on three months unofficially. Officially just a couple of days.”
I said, “I remember that. I was in Navarro’s cantina when you came in for the engagement party.” This was a touchy subject; I wanted to ask him questions but without arousing his suspicions.
I said carefully, “I was going to come to the table and say hello but before I could, you’d all left.”
He grinned sheepishly. “We did break up kind of early. That was my fault. I got one too many drinks and took a poke at Delman. Rosanne sent me packing.”
“What time was this?”
“About nine-thirty,” he said.
I said, “Leaving them alone in Rio Bravo must have stuck in your craw. Or was Calvin still hanging around?”
Now that we’d established a friendship on the basis of a mutual dislike for Delman, Kruse didn’t seem to find anything suspicious in my persistent questioning. He said readily, “Calvin was with them when I left, but I imagine he went pretty soon. He’s got his radio program at ten.”
He made himself another drink. “But Delman didn’t last long, either. Rosanne told me later he got nasty about me and she sent him packing.”
I thought, one way or another, all four of them were alone in Rio Bravo. Any one of them could have visited Pachuco. But then so could Navarro; so could Arden; so could Nace. For that matter, I had no alibi.
I said, “You mean she stayed in Rio Bravo all alone?”
“Why not?” He sounded puzzled. “Rosanne can take care of herself.”
“She’s always struck me as being sort of fragile,” I lied.
He laughed at that. “You ever see her sit a horse for twelve hours and then go dance half the night?”
“Sitting a horse isn’t the same as running into some of those tough boys across the border.”
He snorted. “I’d hate to be the one trying anything with her. She can split a lath turned sideways from thirty paces off—and with a knife. Her paw taught her when she was a girl.”
I didn’t say a word to that. I didn’t even think much about it. Throwing a knife is one thing; holding it and stabbing a man to death is something else. Not that I didn’t think Rosanne capable of stabbing a man to death, especially if a matter of money was involved.
I looked a
t my watch. It was edging toward ten. I said, “I think I’ll go find that door in the corner again.” And I moved off like a man in a hurry to find the washroom.
Rosanne was waiting in the library. She had the curtains drawn over the windows and the radio turned up. She got right to the point.
“The man I wanted you to meet was Calvin Calvin,” she said.
I said, “Why? I prefer girls.”
She didn’t find that amusing. She said, “He left about a half hour ago to go to the radio station. He’ll be on in a minute and I want you to listen carefully to his program.”
I’d heard enough of his program before. But I didn’t say anything. I lowered myself into an old-fashioned leather easy chair and lit a cigaret. The radio was on a table beside the chair. Rosanne perched on one chair arm.
The ten o’clock break came. Then Calvin started in. He worked his way through his corny commercials and then started announcing requests. He announced that he would play a tune for señor Fulano de Tal of Rio Bravo.
Rosanne said, “This is it!”
I listened to a record of Home on the Range sung in Spanish. I had begun to think she’d lost some of her marbles when Calvin’s voice came in again; this time he was using Spanish-accented English. “An’ now for el mister Pagador, request numero 212—dos-uno-dos—amigos, an’ do not forget the Posada y Cantina del Padre Sin Cabeza in Rio Bravo for bes’ entertainment todos los nights.”
Rosanne turned the volume a little higher and leaned toward me. She pitched her voice under the noise from the radio. “You heard,” she said. “Did I?”
She said impatiently, “The request by Fulano de Tal is the key. That means the following message is for me.”
I muttered to myself, recalling what Calvin had said. Something about a señor Pagador and a Posada called the Priest without a Head. Suddenly it clicked. I said, “Pagador means, the one who pays. That’s you, right?” She nodded. I went on, “And the mention of the posada told you where to go to pay.”
I was right again. She stood up and took a few paces around the room and came back to stand in front of me. She looked down pleadingly. “I’m being blackmailed.”
Till Death Do Us Part Page 7