The Fourth Durango

by Ross Thomas

  “You turn the handle to the left instead of the right until you hear a click,” Adair said. “The click means a tongue-in-groove catch has fastened on the blade.”

  Contraire nodded, as if in appreciation, and looked at the M-16 Vines was aiming at him, much as he might aim at a not-quite-dead snake.

  “You gotta pull the trigger to make it work, dickhead,” Contraire said.

  Vines nodded, as if in thanks for the reminder, wrapped a forefinger around the trigger, aimed the M-16 more carefully at Contraire, glanced briefly at Jack Adair and said, “Well?”

  There was a long pause before Adair said, “No.”

  “Why not?” Vines said, his eyes on Contraire.

  Adair sighed. “Because, Kelly, it’s against the law.”

  Chapter 44

  Contraire, his hands now locked behind his neck, came out of the bathroom first, followed by Vines with the M-16 and Adair with the black cane, its curved handle back in place, its stiletto sheathed.

  They were moving silently toward the poker room’s steel door when the telephone chirped. Adair answered it with a hello. Contraire, hands still locked behind his neck, turned to look at Adair, who was again massaging closed eyes with thumb and middle finger as he listened, the corners of his mouth curved down into twin hooks. Kelly Vines kept his eyes and the M-16 on Contraire.

  After listening for almost thirty seconds, Adair asked his first question. “When did it happen?” After nodding to his unseen caller, he asked, “And you’re sure she’s all right?”

  There was another listening pause before Adair said, “I don’t quite know what to say except that I’m very, very sorry. Does Chief Fork know?”

  The answer made Adair frown and say, “I see.” After abruptly hanging up the phone he turned slowly to Theodore Contraire and said, “Dixie Mansur’s dead. She was killed in an auto accident while driving Dannie back to the sanitarium.”

  Contraire had to digest the news. But Vines said, “How’s Dannie?”

  “She’s all right. A little shaken and bruised but all right. They have her under sedation at the sanitarium.”

  Instead of digesting the news of Dixie Mansur’s death, Contraire rejected it with a small knowing smile and a headshake. “What’re you guys trying to pull?”

  “That was the mayor on the phone,” Adair said, his voice patient. “The Highway Patrol just called her after they couldn’t locate Parvis. They have Dixie’s driver’s license. Her credit cards. They say she was wearing a wig. She’s dead.”

  Contraire swallowed, looked away and managed to get the word out, “Dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “No,” Adair said. “Probably not.”

  Contraire slowly brought his hands down from behind his neck and used them to rip open the top of his camouflage battle fatigues, exposing his bare chest that was matted with thick graying hair. “Do me a big favor, Vines, and pull the fucking trigger.”

  Vines shook his head and, still looking at Contraire, said to Adair, “What do we do with him, Jack?”

  “We let him go.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s the wisest thing to do.”

  “I’m not feeling very compassionate.”

  “I didn’t say compassionate. I said wise.”

  “Which door do we use-front or back?”

  “The front.”

  “Let’s go, Teddy,” Vines said, “with your hands back up behind your neck.”

  The three of them went down the long hall, past Merriman Dorr’s office with its large Chubb safe that still contained the body of Parvis Mansur, and on past the private dining room that had no windows. Contraire was in the lead, hands still behind his neck and limping slightly, favoring his right leg-the only sign of physical pain he had displayed since they left the bathroom.

  Behind Contraire came Vines with the M-16. And behind Vines was Jack Adair, following slowly, swinging his black cane in time with his steps, an expression of unresolved doubt on his face.

  When they reached Cousin Mary’s front door, Contraire stopped and said, “Can I take my hands down before I bleed to death from the butt?”

  “What you can do, Teddy,” Vines said, “is open the door slowly and go out. Once outside, you can do anything you want.”

  Contraire lowered his hands. He used the left one to grasp the door-knob. He stuck his right one down into the same pocket that still held Parvis Mansur’s small.25-caliber automatic.

  “Well,” Contraire said, “I guess I won’t be seeing much of you guys anymore.”

  Before Vines or Adair could reply, Contraire was opening the door, darting through it and snatching the small semiautomatic from his pocket.

  Not looking at each other, Vines and Adair remained behind the closed front door of Cousin Mary’s, waiting to hear what happened next.

  Sid Fork, the chief of police, crouched behind the hood of his Ford sedan and used both hands to aim his five-shot Smith & Wesson Bodyguard Airweight revolver at the front door of Cousin Mary’s. He shouted neither “Freeze!” nor “Police!” when Theodore Contraire burst through the door, the small semiautomatic in his right hand.

  Fork instead shot Contraire in the left shoulder, which rocked the short heavy man back and made him grunt as he returned the fire, hitting the Ford’s rear side window. Fork shot Contraire again, this time in the stomach. Contraire looked down at the wound in his bare stomach almost curiously, looked up and again fired back, this time hitting the Ford’s front door panel.

  Fork watched as Contraire sank to his knees, firing the small semiautomatic for the last time into the earth. Taking careful aim, Fork shot him in the chest. Contraire looked up, smiled slightly, as if to say, “That’s the one,” and toppled over onto his right side. Sid Fork walked around the hood of the Ford, reached Contraire and shot him in the head.

  After the swarm of media arrived, and after Sheriff Charles Coates congratulated Chief Sid Fork-on camera-for “having solved the Durango serial murders and for having made the killer pay the ultimate price”-almost choking on the words-Mayor B. D. Huckins took Charlie Coates aside and informed him-some said warned him-that she didn’t want to see him inside the city limits until after the November election, if then. After that the four of them-Huckins, Fork, Vines and Adair-met a little after 10 P.M. on the fourth of July in the mayor’s living room.

  She sat in her favorite chocolate-brown leather chair. Vines and Adair were on the long cream couch. Sid Fork perched on the only other chair in the room, which was really more stool than chair.

  B. D. Huckins sat slumped down in the chocolate-brown chair, holding a glass of wine with both hands and staring at the far wall when Fork said, “I’ve got this kind of dirty feeling-like I’ve been used and jerked around by somebody a whole lot smarter’n me.”

  “You have been,” the mayor said. “All of us have. By Dixie.”

  Adair gave his throat a judicial clearing and said, “While you were holding your press conference, Kelly and I called in a few favors from an attorney we know.”

  “Christ,” Fork said. “That’s all we need-another lawyer.”

  “Why?” Huckins said.

  “We retained him to represent you,” Adair said.

  “I don’t need a lawyer.”

  “Nevertheless, we retained him in exchange, as I said, for past favors.”

  “Must’ve been some favors,” Fork said.

  Huckins looked at Vines. “Why do I need a lawyer, Mr. Vines?” she said, as if seeking a second opinion.

  “To find out whether Dixie left a will.”

  “And equally important,” Adair said, “to determine the provisions of Parvis’s will.”

  “Dixie didn’t have anything,” Huckins said. “Well, she did have some clothes and jewelry and that nutty car, but that’s all.”

  “I might as well be blunt,” Vines said. “From what we can determine, Dixie died after Parvis died. The lawyer we retained interrupte
d the holiday of some people in Santa Barbara and called in some favors of his own. He’s discovered that Parvis left everything to Dixie except for a few relatively minor bequests to some pet charities.”

  “Parvis had pet charities?” Fork said.

  Vines ignored him and spoke to Huckins. “Dixie had also made a will. She left everything she owned to Parvis. But in the event that Parvis died before she did, Dixie left everything to you.”

  “You see, Mayor,” Adair said, “we’ve established that Dixie died after Parvis did. And during those last forty-five minutes or that hour of her life, she was the sole legal heir of Parvis’s estate, which now goes to you.”

  “Unless,” Vines said.

  “Unless what?” Fork said.

  “Unless it can be proved that Dixie conspired to murder Parvis. And the only evidence of that is right here in this room.”

  “I get everything Parvis had?” Huckins said. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “In essence,” Adair said.

  “How much?” the mayor asked.

  “Well,” Adair said, “Teddy was in a position to know and he said it was around thirty million.”

  “What I mean,” B. D. Huckins said, “is how much do you guys want to keep quiet about Dixie?”

  Adair later swore that somewhere beneath the long silence that followed he could hear the choler in the room coming to a boil and the hostility sizzling in an equally imaginary pan. He even swore he could taste some rancor and smell the bitterness. He also thought it would never end.

  But it did when Sid Fork sighed, rose slowly, went over to stand in front of Huckins and stare down at her until he said, very quietly, “Goddamn it, B. D. That was the dumbest fucking thing you ever said in your life.”

  Huckins closed her eyes and nodded. “I know. I knew as soon as I said it. I must’ve said it because I wanted to blame somebody for Dixie. But there’s nobody to blame.”

  She opened her eyes and looked first at Jack Adair. “I apologize, Mr. Adair.” She next looked at Kelly Vines. “And I apologize to you, Mr. Vines. I’m very sorry.”

  Adair smiled. “I guess the first thing you’ll have to learn, Mayor, is that rich folks don’t ever have to explain or apologize for anything.”

  On their way down to the Blue Eagle in Vines’s Mercedes, Jack Adair said, “You want to come in and say good-bye to Virginia?”

  “I’m not much on good-byes, Jack.”

  “Well, I’ll say it for you.”

  “How long do you think you’ll stay on?”

  “Until I have someplace else to go. For the time being, I’ll help out at the bar and turn her house into a bed-and-breakfast inn since, as she says, it already looks like one anyway.”

  “With chocolates on the pillows by courtesy of your host, genial Jack Adair.”

  Adair grinned as the Mercedes stopped in front of the Blue Eagle. “I’ll borrow Virginia’s car tomorrow, drive down to Agoura and see Dannie.”

  “Tell Dr. Pease I’ll keep the money coming,” Vines said. “Somehow.”

  “Any idea of where you’ll light?”

  “None.”

  Adair got out of the car, closed the door and bent down to look through the window at Vines. “When you do, let me know.”

  “Okay,” Vines said and drove away.

  Four blocks later, Kelly Vines took Garner Road up to the fifth hairpin turn and drove down Don Domingo Drive until he came to the small measle-white house whose front lawn was adorned with six very large and very ugly igneous boulders and the foot-high stumps of a dozen giant saguaro cacti.

  Vines parked at the curb, cut his headlights, switched on a dash light and took a no-longer-valid professional card from his wallet. He scribbled a note on the back of the card and wrapped it around the black cane, binding it in place with a rubber band.

  He got out of the Mercedes, walked up to Sid Fork’s front door, leaned the cane against it and returned to his car. After that he took Noble’s Trace until it reached the twin on-ramps to U.S. Highway 101. Just before he got to the ramps, Vines pulled over, parked and sat there, trying to decide whether to go south toward Guadalajara or north toward Nome.

  Sid Fork left B. D. Huckins at 2:04 A.M. on Tuesday, July 5, arrived home at 2:09 A.M. and smiled when he found the black cane leaning against his front door.

  In his living room he removed Kelly Vines’s business card and read what had been written on its back: “Turn to the left and pull.”

  Fork turned the curved handle of the cane to the left until he heard a faint click. He pulled. The handle came off, transformed into a seven-inch stiletto. Fork grinned and touched the point to see how sharp it was. He reinserted it into the cane, turned the handle this time to the right, again removed it-along with the silver-capped cork-and poured a small measure of Jack Daniel’s Black Label whiskey into a glass.

  He sat down in an easy chair, sipped the whiskey and thought about starting a new collection of American artifacts. Maybe the Fork Collection of Strange and Terrible Weapons of Death. Or something along that line.

  Ross Thomas

  ***

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