“Look,” I said, “you don’t know a thing about me. Suppose I headed east with that Buick and kept on going?”
She didn’t move, except to look me up and down, casually, but as though she wasn’t missing anything.
“The keys are in the car,” she repeated, and I wondered what she’d figured out by looking me over.
“Well…okay. Shall I get you another beer?”
“No. Look in on my husband, though, and see if he wants anything.”
“All right,” I said, though I’d rather have got her the beer. I went into the house again, through the cool, dark, pleasant kitchen, into the cool, dark, perfumed air of the rooms beyond, and then, on impulse, I went back and fixed a pitcher of ice water—one of those fat round ceramic jugs. With that and a glass, I went to the Count’s bedroom.
He didn’t answer my knock, so I pushed the door open. He was looking straight at me, out of that white, shiny mask, doubly pale beneath the dead black hair, white at the roots, I went in and put the glass and pitcher on the bedside table. He didn’t stir. His eyes had rolled toward me and stayed fixed there.
“Can I get you anything else?” I asked.
“Where is Callahan?”
“Who?”
“Never mind,” he said.
“Anything else, then?” I asked.
He didn’t say a word. He watched me. I couldn’t see him clearly, but either he was looking hard at me or else he was dead.
Then he put up his hand and covered his eyes.
The sour, sick odor was strong. My stomach started to tighten up in a series of little spasms. The beer and sandwiches, after my long hike in the sun, hadn’t been such a good idea after all.
I backed out.
Chapter 2
Driving toward Phoenix, with a powerful car under me and the miles sliding past under the wheels, I felt fine. It was good to be riding again. I played with the accelerator till I got the feel of it; then the car was a part of me. There was too much play in the steering wheel. That should have been fixed. And the motor had a knock in it. But all in all the Buick was in fair shape, and it had plenty of power. The sun danced on the road ahead. I slowed down, opened the dashboard compartment, and located a pair of sunglasses there. I put them on—expensive polaroids, I noticed—and then there wasn’t anything else I wanted except perhaps a big bank account. It was pleasant to pass cars. I wasn’t riding my thumb any more, while the cars passed me. I wanted a cigarette, but I didn’t have any, and the dashboard compartment disappointed me this time. When I came to a gas station, I pulled in, rolling forward far enough so I wouldn’t block the pumps in case paying customers came along. It wasn’t a Standard or Shell aviary, all glass and clean paint; it was a wooden shack with a big faded sign named EAT on top, and the pump, out in front, was an afterthought. No water hose, of course—just a big metal can with a spout. I took the key out of the ignition and put it in my pocket, where it rattled against some loose change there. I got out and walked stiffly through the white dust toward the shack.
Beyond the flyspecked screen door was a slow creaking from an overhead fan whose wooden paddle blades revolved lazily. There was just about room enough in the shack for a greasy-spoon counter, with four stools, but a wooden partition, dividing it in half, made it look crowded with only me there. There was a glass showcase with candy and cheap souvenirs in it, and on one end of the counter was a hot plate with a Silex of coffee. I looked for a cigarette vending machine, but there wasn’t any; there was no room for one.
The doorway in the partition had a curtain across it. A man came through the doorway, yawning. He was a thin, withered, brown-faced man with a fringe of gray-white hair tonsuring his scalp. His mouth worked like rubber. I guess it was too hot to wear teeth.
“Hot day, uh?” he said.
“You bet. Got any cigarettes?”
“Guess so. Luckies, Old Gold, Chesterfield—”
“Pall Malls?”
He fumbled around behind the counter. “Nope, but I got Luckies, Old—”
“Luckies. Anything.”
He put a pack on the counter. I said, “Got any matches?”
“Two books for a penny.”
While I was reaching in my pocket, he stared past me through the windows. Something he saw out there made his eyes squint. He chewed imaginary tobacco while he made change for a quarter. Then he said to me, “Heading east?”
“Phoenix, anyway.”
“Nice car you got there.”
I opened the pack and shook out a cigarette. “It could use a ring job,” I said. “But that’s not my worry.”
“Ain’t, uh? How come?”
“It belongs to some people named De Anza. Know them?”
“I thought I recognized the car,” he said, relaxing. “Hell, if you think that Buick needs some repair, you ought to see their Chewy.”
“I’m going to. It broke down. That’s why I’m—” I jerked my head toward the windows. I sat down on a stool and lit my cigarette.
“Never yet saw a Mex that could drive a car,” the old man said. “Did Rafe have a crack-up?”
“I don’t think so. He said the transmission went out. That doesn’t sound like a crack-up.”
“You can get a Mex to believe he’s got to put gas and oil in a car once in a while,” the old man said, “and if you pound it into his head, he’ll give it water and air once in a month of Sundays. But a lube or an oil-change—” he shook his head slowly. “The way that Chewy squeaks, it never had a grease job since it came from the factory. I’ll just bet the transmission went out.” He started to laugh, showing his gums. “Better keep your eye on that Buick. It’s still quite a ways from here into Phoenix.”
“She sounds all right,” I said. “Just the same, maybe you’ve got something. Thanks.” I went out, opened the Buick’s hood, and studied the motor. It was fairly dirty. There was a leaky gasket; oil was greasy on the block. I investigated further. The old man had followed me out and was standing behind me.
“Got any distilled water?” I asked.
“Battery low?”
“Dry, just about. And a quart of Eastern canned oil, thirty.”
“Better use forty, this weather. No canned, though.” He went back to get the stuff, and I let some air out of the tires and then tried the radiator. There was water, but so rusty it painted my finger when I stuck it in.
“It’s a hell of a way to treat a car,” I said, when the old man was bending down the oilcan’s spout and letting the green-gold liquid pour sluggishly through.
“Some people don’t give a damn is all.”
“What’s wrong with the man—De Anza?”
“I dunno. Never seen him. T. B. maybe. They come here in ’forty-five. Sort of standoffish.”
“Funny thing to do, keeping a snake for a pet.”
“Well,” he said, straightening his back and squinting at me, “that’s something I wouldn’t worry myself about, personally. I’ve seen a lot of crazy pets. Knew a guy once who had one of them bobcats—yeah, an ocelot—and it was tame as hell. Then there was a woman from Miami once, she had a couple of monkeys.”
“Some friends of mine tamed a koala, a sort of little bear, when I knew them in Australia, but a snake’s different.”
“No different than a horn toad. You know, there was a while when the kids were wearing chameleons. On little chains, pinned to their coats. Course I wouldn’t recommend a rattler or sidewinder. Is that what the De Anzas got?”
“No, it’s a king snake.”
“Oh, they’re all right. Good to have around. They kill the other kind. Put a rattler in with a king snake, and in the morning you’ll just find the king, a lot fatter. The poison don’t hurt ’em a bit.”
“Just the same, it’s not the kind of pet I’d want around.”
“It’s better than nothing,” he said, shrugging his narrow shoulders. “Me, I’ve got a pup. Fox terrier bitch, one of the real
little ones, you know? Half the time I never know where she is. She goes off hunting jack rabbits.” He nodded toward the shack. “I got a little swinging door fixed up she knows how to open, and sometimes she’ll drag in a dead rabbit bigger than she is. Quite a fighter for a runt.”
I didn’t answer that, and he began moving his lips. “Thirty-five cents, that’ll be. Thirty-five even.”
I didn’t have to break the twenty the Countess had given me.
After I’d paid him, there was still enough change left in my pocket to rattle against the car key. I took that out and got into the Buick and started the motor.
“A ring job wouldn’t hurt, would it? Guess you’re right,” the old man said, nodding.
“Yeah,” I said. “Look, is there a place in Phoenix called the Green Lantern?”
“Green Lantern? Gin-mill? Restaurant?”
“Bar.”
“Don’t place it,” he said. “I can look it up in the phone book, though.”
“Forget it,” I said. “Thanks. See you again.”
“Take it easy.”
He backed up, and I swung the Buick out, waited for a truck to roar past, and accelerated into the highway. The motor didn’t sound any different, really, but I felt better about it. I kept glancing at the dashboard for a while. The battery was charging safely. The temperature gauge swung down to one-eighty after the fan had cooled things off a little, and I lit another cigarette and pushed the Buick along the road at a fast pace. Not too fast, though.
After a while the tourist courts started in. Some of them were pretty, with Spanish architecture and landscaped grounds. Grass and palms and cactus. And plenty of color. Farther out, in the desert, the sun seems to do something to colors. No matter whether you paint a house red or blue or yellow, after a while it starts looking like the natural color you’d find in the scenery. Sort of automatic camouflage. But closer in toward Phoenix it was different. More water, I guess, with date palms and grapefruit trees and even lettuce fields. And the pattern’s different—grounds get landscaped the way a man would do it, not the way nature would. There’s never been a cactus that looks like a beach umbrella.
The garage I was looking for was on a side street. I started wondering the minute I saw it. It was one of those super-duper affairs, covering half a block, with a good deal of dough spent on glass-brick and a lot of attendants in neat white uniforms. The garage work proper was done out of sight, in a long low building that might have been a restaurant or a school or anything but a garage. I gunned the Buick into it, and I spotted the Chewy at once among the rest of the cars. It was jacked up, and a mechanic was working under it.
An attendant came over.
“Yes, sir,” he said cheerfully. “Got some trouble?”
“I’m from Mrs.—Countess De Anza,” I said, wondering if I’d got that right. “I’m supposed—”
“Oh,” he said, still looking cheerful. “Yes, sir! Rafe told me.” He swung around and yelled. “Rafe! Hey!”
A plump little Mexican, dressed fit to kill, came hurrying toward us. He had a face like a fat, amiable gnome, with a button of a nose and a broad, happy grin.
“You bet, Tommy,” he called, waving a comic book at us. “Pretty quick.” His small feet, in smaller shoes, pattered rapidly across the concrete. I got out of the Buick.
The attendant walked away.
“You’re Rafael?” I asked.
“Rafael Fernandez. Hallo. You drive us back, eh? We got to get the groceries out of the Chewy. Nita!”
“I’m Nick Banning,” I said, and he shook hands enthusiastically. In the background, a thin, dark, silent woman was clambering over the jacked-up Chewy, loading herself with packages. I jerked my head in that direction.
“What happened?”
“Transmission go out.”
“How do you know?”
“They say so.”
“Well how did it happen?”
“I let out the clutch—clunk!” he said. “She stop. Truck tow us in.”
“Let’s go see,” I said, and we walked toward the Chewy. There was an extra dolly on the cement, and I couldn’t hurt the clothes I was wearing, so I lay down on my back, with my knees bent, and shoved myself under the car. Springs squeaked as Benita crawled about inside the Chewy.
The mechanic turned a grimy face to me.
“How long will it take?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said and went back to work.
“This an all-night garage?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But we’re shorthanded.”
“Plenty of whitewings outside.”
“They know how to put gas in a tank,” he said sourly.
I watched him work for a minute or two. Then I rolled the dolly out from under the car and got up. Benita was handing down packages to Rafael. I said, “I’ll take some of them.”
She looked at me very quickly, but I thought she saw a lot in that one glance. I couldn’t guess her age—somewhere between thirty and fifty, depending on how hard she’d worked and for how many years. She had a thin, plain face, but remarkably fine eyes. If the Countess’s were mud, hers were zircons.
Rafael spoke to her in quick Spanish. She nodded and put some packages in my arms. Among the three of us, we did it one trip. After the junk was in the back of the Buick, I gave Rafael the key.
“Tell you what,” I said. “Does Nita drive?”
“Hell, no,” he told me, grinning.
“Well, let’s see. I want to stick around a while and watch what’s being done to the Chewy. Does this garage take care of the Buick too?”
He nodded.
“Sloppy work,” I said. “Don’t they ever check the battery for you?”
“Battery?” he repeated blankly, accenting the last syllable. “Battery?” He thought that over. “I don’t know,” he came out brightly, and beamed as though that solved everything.
“Uh-huh. Well, it’s one way for a garage to make sure it gets plenty of work. Tell you what. You and Nita take the Buick back home, and I’ll wait here till the Chewy’s fixed. Then I’ll bring that back.”
He exchanged a questioning stare with Benita, but, under the circumstances, I knew exactly what he’d say. He said it.
“Sí, hombre.”
“Okay. Just tell the Countess I’ll be along with the Chewy as soon as it’s ready to roll. Say, has she got an account here, or do you pay cash?”
“Not the cash. Charge.”
“Well, take it easy,” I said, and they bundled themselves hastily into the Buick and drove wildly off, not quite in all directions. I winced as I watched. But Rafael avoided scraping a fender by a quarter-inch margin, and so that was off my mind. I went back, got under the Chewy again and watched the mechanic work. He didn’t like it.
Finally he turned an annoyed face to me.
“Want something?” he asked.
“Just information,” I said. “I learn things by watching.”
“Yeah?”
“Figuring on a grease job?”
“I can’t pack the transmission till it’s fixed, can I?”
“Guess not,” I said, and looked around some more. After a while I rolled myself out and told the attendant to plan on giving the Chewy a lube and an oil change. He wrote it down on the printed slip stuck under the windshield wiper.
I hung around and made a nuisance of myself. But I made sure the mechanic did a good job. He couldn’t tell when I’d decide to slide under the car and see what he was doing.
Once I went across the street and had a sandwich and coffee, and once I thumbed through the phone book and found the address of the Green Lantern Tavern, on North Central. Time passed, but I was in no hurry.
When the Chewy was ready to roll, it was nearly nine o’clock. I decided to drive out by way of North Central. There was a knock in the motor, the brakes were in lousy shape, and, when it suddenly started to rain, I found the windshield wipers were on strik
e. They made a sucking noise but that was all. I pulled over by a lighted store window, opened the hood, and fixed the hose connection. After that, the windshield stayed clear, but I felt sticky and wet. I wanted a drink, whisky or coffee, it didn’t matter much. I saw the Green Lantern sign ahead of me down the street, and I parked opposite it. For a minute or two, I sat there checking. I might be dressed well enough for a gin-mill, but they wouldn’t let me in the back door of the Arizona Biltmore. From the neon-decorated front, I couldn’t tell much about the Green Lantern’s social status. Finally I got out of the car and walked quickly across the street; there were two doors, and one was marked BAR. I went in through that.
Right away I caught the easygoing atmosphere of the place. It wasn’t a showcase. It was quite a few cuts above a gin-mill, but people came here to drink. The bar was a long one. It reached way back into the dimness. A juke-box was playing a quiet rumba. There was an archway on my left, and I could see tables through it, but here in the bar it was all informal. I hoisted myself on a stool and waited till one of the bartenders stopped in front of me.
I ordered a straight shot, broke my twenty-dollar bill, and then asked for a highball, to give myself time to think. The bartender hadn’t looked at my shirt, dirty as it was, which might have been due to the fact that he was obviously fairly high himself. I worked away on my highball and studied the mirror behind the bar.
After my glass was empty and the bartender had moved down to me again, I said, “The same.” When he brought it, I asked, “Is Sherry around?”
“Why not?” he said, picking up a fifty-cent piece from the dough I’d left in front of me. Before I could ask him anything else, he was gone.
So I drank a little and watched the mirror and the rows of bottles under it. My own face was the only familiar thing I saw. On both sides of me people were talking and laughing and drinking, but I didn’t know any of them. This was a strange place to me, and a strange city outside the bar, and for no reason at all I began to feel jittery.
In a bar, that doesn’t generally happen to me. Because it’s the one place where everybody’s equal. I’m not talking about highclass night clubs where you have to slip the headwaiter ten bucks to get a table; I mean the real bar, whether it’s a gin-mill on East Fifth in L. A. or a brass-and-leather cocktail lounge out along Wilshire.
Man Drowning Page 2