by Jay Flynn
He left the bar by the back door and cut across the court yard and through the Swedish restaurant that adjoined El Fumador. He turned down the hill on Dolores, walking casually toward the market in the middle of the block. The station wagon was about ten parking spaces from the corner. He saw no one near it, but there was a two-door sedan double-parked across the street.
There was a man behind the wheel, a dark-skinned man who chewed a cigar, glanced idly at McHugh and then looked away. The car was a two-tone job; pale gray over medium blue. Close enough, McHugh thought, to be the one Cece had watched in her rear-view mirror. McHugh hesitated, then went into the market.
It was open to the air in front, with racks of fruit and vegetables. He paused, as though studying a pyramid of apples, eying the parked car.
“Help you, mister?” A clerk in a green smock was at his elbow.
“Huh?” McHugh said absently. “Oh, yeah. I want an apple.”
“One apple?”
“One apple. You know—keep the doctor away.”
“Looks like you’re starting kind of late, friend.” He selected an apple and handed it to McHugh. “Fifteen cents.”
“For one apple?” McHugh shrugged and dug into his pocket for a dime and nickle, then bit into the fruit. He did not take his eyes from the car across the street. The clerk departed in the direction of the cash register. From the corner of his eye McHugh saw Cece and Tony leave the bar and stroll toward him.
Blue smoke spewed from the sedan’s exhaust, and the driver blew his horn twice, looking nervously over his shoulder at the station wagon.
McHugh started around the counter, tossing the half-eaten apple away, reaching for his gun. He saw a head pop up behind the wheel of the station wagon and heard its motor start. The car leaped back and smashed its bumper against the one parked behind it. It was slicing away from the curb, rear wheels spinning, as McHugh ran across the sidewalk into the center of the street.
The station wagon was gathering speed rapidly, swinging wide to cut around the corner at the next intersection. McHugh dropped to one knee, sighted and fired a single shot.
Then the car was gone, and the sedan was hurtling at him. He had a momentary glimpse of the driver’s face as the man spun the wheel and swung across the street. The front of the car was a chrome-toothed mouth reaching to devour him. He jumped back, off balance, and his feet went out from under him. The flaring fender hit him, and he felt his feet leave the pavement. The street and buildings pinwheeled around him, and he came down hard rolling with the momentum of his spill, bouncing under a parked car. His hand hit a part of the car, and the gun bounced from his numbed fingers. He heard the squeal of tires, and then the sedan was gone.
He lay still for a moment, then tried his arms and legs. They worked. He had lost a few patches of skin, and the raw spots burned. He swore and crawled out from under the car. His gun lay in the center of the street. He picked it up and jammed it into the holster. He saw Tony and Cece picking themselves up from where they’d ducked, behind a real-estate office. The girl ran up to him.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he said grimly, slapping at the dust on his clothes. “I was superb. I didn’t even get the guy’s number.”
“Neither did we,” Tony said. “We ducked.”
A crowd was gathering. A cop on a three-wheeler motorcycle pulled up. The clerk who had sold McHugh the apple spoke to the cop. The cop used his radio, climbed off his cycle and came over to McHugh.
“You the one who fired that shot?”
“Uh-huh.” McHugh flipped his identification case open before the cop could ask any more questions. “A Federal case, and the middle of the street isn’t the place to talk about it.”
“I’ve radioed for a car. You can tell it to the chief.”
“I was shooting at a stolen car, and it wasn’t an ordinary boost job. Get it on the air now and maybe you can pick it up fast.”
Cece gave the cop the license number and description, and the cop passed it along to headquarters. McHugh was unwrapping a thin cigar when an olive-green patrol car wheeled around the corner. The driver flipped his rear door open.
The police station was a small, whitewashed building, three blocks away. The chief was a tall, heavy-set man with a scant covering of sandy hair. He leaned forward across an old desk and motioned them to chairs. McHugh showed him his identification, then gave what description he could of the second car and its driver.
“Ah, yes,” the chief said. “You’re the guy who went out a window and left Hudson watching an empty room.”
McHugh nodded.
“And what’s so important about this young lady’s station wagon?”
“It looks like a guy who’s now dead stashed something very valuable in it, and some other people want to get it back. So far we don’t know just what it is.”
The chief turned to Cece. “You’ll have to sign a waiver so any officer that stops the car can arrest whoever is in it.” He took a pad of forms from his desk and offered a pen.
“No,” McHugh said. “We don’t want to arrest them yet. We want to see where they go and what they do.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll have the radio man put that on the air.” The big man left the room. McHugh slid forward in his chair and stared at the toes of his shoes.
Cece put a cigarette between her lips with nervous fingers. McHugh held a light for her. She took a deep puff, exhaled and said. “What do we do now? Just wait?”
“Not much more we can do. Suppose we take a look at your cottage. They might have left something behind.”
“Looks like you won’t need me. I might as well head back to the bar,” Tony said.
McHugh had forgotten that the boy with the guitar was in the room. He nodded agreement as the chief came back.
“Well, it’s on the air,” he said. “Nothing you can do now but wait.”
“Sure. Where can I rent wheels?” McHugh said.
“Garage on the next corner has a few cars. Try there.”
They left the police station. McHugh rented a Ford sedan. Cece sat close to the far door, silent, staring through the windshield as he drove. She spoke only to direct him to her cottage. He followed her up the narrow walk and waited while she took a key from her purse and unlocked the door.
“I don’t know why I bother to lock it,” she said. “People seem to keep coming in anyway.”
“True. See if you can find anything missing.”
The signs of a search were obvious. Pictures had been removed from the walls and pried loose from their frames. In the living room, the chairs and the couch had been upended, their insides explored with a knife. The same had happened in the bedroom. The mattress and box spring had been cut open, the bureau drawers emptied on the floor. The gas stove and small refrigerator had been yanked loose. Contents of the cupboards made a messy pile on the floor.
McHugh went through the rooms quickly. The girl wandered along behind him, white-faced.
In the living room, he righted the sofa and sat on it.
“Well—miss anything?”
Cece shook her head. “I don’t think so, but with this mess I can’t be sure.” She slumped beside him, and he could feel the trembling of her slender body.
“Whatever it is, it’s small and flat. Something that could be stuck on the back of a picture or under a drawer or inside a cushion.”
“But this is the second time, McHugh. Why didn’t they do it like this before?”
“I suppose that gal thought she had everything she came for when she found that box key. She must have expected to find something more in the box.”
“McHugh, I’m frightened.” She shuddered and moved closer to him. “I don’t think I’m a coward, but something like this is enough to make me wonder. Suddenly beset by all these people I never knew or even heard of. I thought things like this only happened in books....”
His hand moved around her and stroked her back. He could feet the lithe muscles quiver under h
is touch. Her wide eyes were immense, her hair jet black against the lightness of her face.
“Oh, God...” she whispered. Her fingers traced the outline of the patch on his eye. Her mouth moved and found his. The parted lips were soft and warm, the tongue gently probing. She found his hand and put it on her breast.
McHugh broke away, shaking his head. He wanted this girl, and he knew this wasn’t the time.
“Kid, you’re all shook up. I’d like to. I’d love to, but it wouldn’t help you any.”
She sat up, eyes bright now, mouth swollen. There was a foggy edge to her words as she said, “I’m not a kid. I know what I need right now. An hour from now I won’t, but this is now.”
“Listen...”
She shut her eyes. Her fingers caught the bottom of the sweater and pulled it over her head. There was a light snapping noise, and her bra dropped away. Her breasts were small, firm white hills tipped with pink, hills that rose and fell with her quick breathing.
She slid back on the cushions, hair spraying over her shoulders. Her hand caught his head and pulled it to her breast.
“Kiss me, McHugh. Let me feel your teeth.”
He kissed her. Her hands moved, stirring the urgency in him. She arched her back. A zipper purred, and the slacks slipped off her slender hips. When his fingers fumbled with his belt buckle, she helped him.
She fingered the bruises on his face. “It would be nice to have a drink now. But there’s nothing here. Somebody emptied the one bottle I had.”
McHugh was buttoning his shirt. He looped his tie around his neck and watched Cecille Marie Harnois stretch. The movement emphasized the slenderness of her waist, the length of her legs.
“They sell the stuff downtown.” McHugh grinned. “The cops might have something for us. Better we check while we still have the strength.”
She chuckled, then began to squirm back into her clothes. “Whatever you say. I’ll be ready in a minute.”
“If there’s a line on them, you’re not coming.”
“Why?” she demanded.
Maybe she was right, McHugh thought. The fright isn’t with her now. “Because if I find our people there’ll be plenty to do without worrying about you. This isn’t a bridge party, girl.”
He let her off at Whitney’s, a small bar on Ocean, then drove to the police station. The chief was not in, but the lieutenant on desk duty had a message.
“That car was seen about twenty minutes after you left. A deputy sheriff spotted it heading up Carmel Valley.”
“He still on it?”
“No. He was coming into town because his radio was out of whack, and when he passed the wagon he didn’t know it was on the hot list. He’s on his way back out now, and says if you want to see him, try the substation at the village. It’s about thirteen miles up.”
McHugh sighed. He knew the Carmel Valley. Long and narrow, it followed the Carmel River into the Santa Lucia mountains. There was just one road, which eventually wound through a series of passes and linked up with Highway 101 down the Salinas Valley. An area of small farms, cattle ranches and good hunting and fishing country. Sparsely settled.
He drove down the coast road and turned left, watching the valley unfold. He told himself the valley didn’t fit in right with the picture he had in mind.
If he’d guessed wrong and they were going to run with the car, they were running in the wrong direction. The valley road could be bottled up easily. A couple of roadblocks would do it. And, if they were hiding out at one of the summer places, taking time to make sure they had what they wanted, they could be spotted. A stranger in ranch country is invariably known of and speculated about.
He shrugged it out of his mind and stopped at the first gas station in the village. The attendant directed him to the sheriff’s substation, which turned out to be a room in the fire station. A deputy with sergeant’s stripes and a bent nose was hanging up a phone as he came in.
“You’re McHugh?”
“Right. Any luck?”
“Nothing yet, but I haven’t had much to go on. I can tell you the car hasn’t gone five miles above the village, and it didn’t turn off on the Salmas road. That’s all.”
“It helps. You sure?”
“Well, one of our cars was on the Los Laureles grade, which is the Salmas road, and the station wagon didn’t go out that way. And up the road at the Cachagua turnoff there’s an old lady that’s crippled up and doesn’t have much to keep her busy. She watches the road all day. I called her, and she said it hasn’t gone by.”
“Uh-huh.” McHugh sank into a wooden chair beside the desk. “I think we’re looking for a woman and three men. At least the woman I’m sure of. Her name would be Carlotta Artellan, but she’s not a Latin. Came from Nevada. Medium tall, slender, dark hair, good-looking.” He reached into his wallet. “Here’s a picture.”
The deputy looked at it. “Nope. Haven’t seen her around.”
“How about Carlos Real, Juan Quesada and Miguel Olivera? They’d be Cubans.”
“No. But if they’re Cubans and on the dodge around here, they’d probably pick up some local Spanish names out of the phone book.”
McHugh sighed. “Presuming they’re around here somewhere, how would we go about finding them?”
The sergeant tilted the cap back on his head. “You’re working this alone, huh? Well, about all I can do is get on the phone and start calling around. Might turn something up. Might not, too.”
“I could try the heel-and-toe bit around the village, I suppose.”
He drove back to the main road and parked under a twisted white oak that crowded the edge of the pavement. He got out, stretched and studied the business section. It ran for about a quarter mile, and he saw four real-estate offices. He tried them all. None of the agents had rented any houses to Latin types. He showed Carlotta Artellan’s picture to waitresses in the two small restaurants. She was not known. It was the same with the small delicatessen, the two grocery stores, and the gas stations, the post office. He went into the Stirrup Cup bar, ordered a gin-and-tonic, borrowed the phone and checked with the deputy sheriff.
“Negative on the motels and lodges,” the deputy said. “The phone company and the light company both have crews working around the valley today, and they’re keeping an eye out. So is the rural mail carrier.”
“My God. This valley isn’t so damned big,” McHugh grumbled.
“No? Listen, there’s better than three hundred square miles, and close to two hundred miles of road you can drive a car on, including the ranches. Plus God only knows how many box canyons back in the mountains. It’s a great place to strip a car. But in a few hours maybe five or six hundred people will know about this. I’ll start getting some calls.”
“Sure. Thanks.” McHugh cradled the phone. He signaled for another drink and, when the bartender brought it, showed him the picture. “Ever see this woman?”
“Ummmm...don’t think so. Supposed to five around here?”
“No. Maybe staying here a couple of days. There could be three men with her.”
“Uh-huh. Not unusual for these parts.” He looked down the bar to-where a shaggy blond woman was nursing a short beer. “Jeanne works for the paper and maybe she’d know.” He flipped the photo along the bar and said “Hey—recognize this gal?”
The woman rubbed her forehead and looked at them with red eyes. “Today I couldn’t recognize Christ at six feet.” She took the picture and squinted at it, then at McHugh. “Maybe I’ve seen her. You a cop or a bill collector?”
McHugh looked at her steadily with his one eye. “Try to remember. Perhaps a drink would help.”
“A Bloody Mary will either kill me or cure me. Either one would be better than this.” She nodded to the bartender. “I think I saw this gal early this morning. Real early, about five-thirty. It was just getting light, and I was wending my way home. She was standing beside a car, and a couple of men were changing a flat. It was on the top loop of Robles Hill.”
McHu
gh picked up his drink, and walked over to her. “Notice the kind of car?”
“No. Maybe a Chev coupe.”
“Color?”
“In that kind of light it’s easy to be wrong.” The bartender brought her drink, and she drained half of it. “Blue, I guess. Two tone.”
McHugh felt a stir of excitement. Pin down that sedan and its murder-minded driver and he’d be some points ahead “Tell me just where this was.”
The blond woman pointed out the front window of the bar at the small mountain which rose steeply from the far side of the Carmel River. “There. That’s Robles Hill.” She dug through a big purse, found a map. “Here. There’s one road that twists up the side of the hill you can see from here. It makes several loops back and forth. This was on the top one, just about at this turn.” She pointed with a pink fingernail.
McHugh gazed out the window. “Many houses up there?”
“Oh, not more than six or seven. I’ve got a little place at this end practically a shack. People live year-round in a few of the others. They come and go.”
“Can you tell me of any that have been empty in the past couple of weeks?”
The woman sipped at her drink. She looked up at the hill, then found a pencil and marked two small squares on the map. “These two are the only ones I can think of. The two on the right-hand end of the loop. The first one is a big house with brown shingles and a shake roof, set back behind a stone fence. The other is more of a cabin, board-and-bat. You can’t see either one from the road.”
“Good enough. I’ll take a run up there.” McHugh finished his gin-and-tonic. “Have another eye-opener.”
“Thanks. I might even five through this.”
McHugh left money on the bar, went out through the Dutch door and got his car. He drove across the river and up the twisting mountain road.
CHAPTER 13
THE BLACKTOP ENDED where the top loop began. McHugh made a full circuit, seeing only a couple of houses from the road. The others were concealed behind clumps of oak and manzanita and sage, built on the downhill slope of the mountain, with a view of the valley. He parked the car midway between the first and second driveways and debated for a moment which to try first. A big house and a cabin. The big house sounded more likely.