by Jack Lynch
I’d been hired to get his answer, not exchange threats. When I got to the door his voice stopped me one more time.
“And Bragg. In the event you were telling the truth, and your concern is for the little girl, you don’t belong around here anyhow. God knows I have no beef with children, so I might as well tell you. If you want to help her, you belong back in San Francisco.”
“How would you know that?”
“Just coincidence. Lou and Soft Kenny were here in the office when the call came in for them.”
“What call?”
“I don’t know who it was. But it was from San Francisco. It was about a job. I overheard Lou on the phone explain how they already were working. For me. But then they talked price and I guess it was a pretty good offer. Lou said they’d be in San Francisco by this evening.”
“Offer to do what?” I asked quietly.
“Lou wouldn’t tell me much about it. Didn’t mention any names. But he did say they were going to snatch some kid.”
“How do you know it’s the same girl I’m concerned about?”
“Because Lou did tell me, when he was apologizing about their ducking out on me for the new job, that they’d still be doing me a favor at the same time. He said their new job would be like delivering a kick in the balls to Armando Barker. Wishful thinking will get you nowhere, Bragg. It’s the same girl, all right.”
SIXTEEN
I had to make an important phone call, but I didn’t want to do it from Slide’s place. I drove back down Nevada Street, looking for a phone booth that hadn’t been shot up or run over. Except for the car that the truck had smashed, now shoved over to one side of the street, the next intersection and street beyond were empty. Somehow the two forces had disengaged. Maybe everybody had to go over to the bullet factory to stock up again. Two more intersections ahead I saw a funny sight. A truck roared through along the cross street. A couple of seconds later a pair of cars raced through, apparently in pursuit of the truck. A few seconds more and another truck barreled through after the cars, and I heard gunfire fading in the distance. It was like a floating shooting gallery around town.
I found an intact phone booth outside the drugstore. I parked and used my credit card to phone Armando Barker. It took him a while to answer.
“Yeah?”
“Peter Bragg here.”
“How are things going?”
“Good and bad. Things will never be the same in Sand Valley, but that isn’t what I called about, and I’m in a hurry. I want you to go fetch Beverly Jean and go some place. Quietly. Take a week off and enjoy the sights of one of the outer Hawaiian Islands or something. Some place very remote. But fast.”
He hocked and coughed for a while. A truck tractor without a trailer came up the street. The guys inside were looking for trouble. I thought for a minute they’d leave me alone. Then the guy sitting beside the driver leaned out with a handgun. I ducked low in the booth while the guy shot up the glass panels overhead.
“What the hell is that?” Barker asked.
I brushed bits of glass from my hair and around my collar while the tractor picked up speed and continued on down Nevada. “The gun salesman’s been through town and everybody’s out practicing,” I told him. “How soon can you get packed and pick up the girl and get out of town?”
“I can’t. I got a trick knee that goes out on me from time to time. This is one of the times. I’m hobbling around here on crutches. Why, what’s up?”
“There are a couple of hired guns coming your way. They’ve been working for Carl Slide, doing some dirty business down here, but he says they just took another job, up in San Francisco. And from what Slide told me, it sounds as if it involves you and the girl. These are very bad guys. If you can’t do it yourself, send somebody you can trust. Have them check into a motel somewhere outside of town. Keep in touch by phone.”
“How about Connie? The girl who runs the restaurant for me. She’s a good head.”
I agreed that she seemed to be a good head, but there were things about Connie Wells that I didn’t like. Either she lied when she told me she had no contact with Harvey Pastor, or he lied when he told me differently. Maybe it was just a coincidence that out of the hundreds of piano players in the western United States, it turned out to be Harvey Pastor who was working in Sand Valley right then. Maybe Harvey lied out of sheer boastfulness. Maybe Connie lied because she wanted to see more of me and didn’t want me thinking she had anything to do with her ex-husband. It was altogether too many maybes.
“I don’t want you to send Connie. Don’t even tell her about it. I don’t want to spend the time explaining it right now, but there’s stuff in her background that needs more looking into. How about sending Bobbie? She and the girl seem to get along okay.”
“Are you kidding me? Trust Beverly Jean to Bobbie? I mean Bobbie’s a nice kid, but she wouldn’t know the time of day if she worked in a clock shop.”
“She might have some qualities you overlooked. But have it your way. If you don’t want to send her, get somebody else. How about that Adkins woman, or one of her girls at the massage parlors?”
“I wouldn’t feel right about that, either.” He thought about it some and cleared his throat a dozen times. “Tell me honest, Bragg. You really think Bobbie’s got something cooking upstairs?”
“Sure I do.”
“Okay, I guess it’ll have to be her. Anyways, how smart do you have to be in order to check into a motel?”
“Is she there?”
“No, I sent her out to the liquor store. This knee hurts like hell when it’s acting up. Can’t do much for myself.”
“That’s tough. Anyhow, have Bobbie get the girl out of the Academy right away and go into hiding. Call ahead and have them pack a bag for her. The guys on their way up are named Lou and Kenny. Lou’s about your age and size, only he doesn’t have curls on his forehead. The one they call Soft Kenny is something else. He’s in his twenties, slender, has a fair complexion, about five feet ten. He’s got a screw loose and likes to hurt people. Can Bobbie use a gun?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ask her. If she can’t, give her one, and a couple of lessons to go with it.”
“You make it sound like maybe this is the sort of thing I hired you to do.”
“Not quite. I still think that Sand Valley is where I’ll learn who’s behind it all. And if I don’t learn that, there’ll always be guys like Lou and Soft Kenny heading for San Francisco.”
He accepted that and promised to do what I’d asked. I hung up and stepped out of the booth to shake the rest of the glass off me and my clothes. I also tried to decide what I should do next. It really wasn’t my job to spend any more time trying to save the citizens of Sand Valley from the heathens. It was to find out who was complicating Armando Barker’s life. On the other hand, Armando was a fellow who could look out for himself, and I had a lot of faith in Bobbie’s being able to look after the little girl. While the citizens of Sand Valley appeared to need all the help they could get.
Another ambulance sirened past. In the end, it’s usually something like the sound of an ambulance that makes up my mind for me. I’d try doing the citizens one more good turn. I went over to the car and drove to city hall.
They had used a fire engine to shove aside the truck that had bottled up the driveway into the police parking lot. A pair of officers wearing helmets and carrying rifles came down the front stairs. They told me Chief Coffey was back up in his office. I found him alone, standing and staring out the window with his hands clasped behind his back.
“How are things, Chief?”
He didn’t turn from the window, but just took a breath a little deeper than normal. “We’re doing all right for the moment. I have men with rifles up on roofs around the business district to guard against looting. I have men at barricades on streets leading into the residential section to keep out whoever doesn’t belong there. The local radio and TV stations are warning everyone to stay home. I’m
hoping things’ll settle down as the day goes on. Maybe everyone will get tired of shooting at one another and go on back to wherever they came from. I’ve been trying to get calls through to Carl Slide and Ma Leary to see if we can’t work out something.”
“Nothing will work out,” I told him. “I just came from Carl Slide. Ma Leary sent me to see if I could arrange a truce. Slide says he’s lost control of the men he brought in. I doubt if Ma would have much better luck trying to pull back some of the fellows from her place. None of them care about the town. They’re just out for each others’ blood. Slide said his men have sent for reinforcements.”
Coffey turned around. “He told you that?”
“He did. They’re out of control. His gang, her gang, the whole bunch of them.”
The chief sat at his desk. He looked as if he might throw up onto it.
“The town needs help, Chief. More than you can give it. It’ll take a whole bunch of state police or maybe even the Army. I wouldn’t settle for National Guard. By the time they got mobilized there wouldn’t be any town left. At any rate, it’s time somebody put in a call to the state capitol and asked for help. If nobody else will, I’ll do it myself. But it would look better if the call came from you.”
I felt a little sorry for him. It was all on his face, the way he glanced around the office. The good life as Merle Coffey had known it was slipping away, and there wasn’t much he could do about it. All he could do was think of next best things. Give a thought to the citizens, even. He shook his head and flipped a key on his call box. He asked somebody to get him the governor’s office. I waited until the call went through and he was beginning to describe the jam folks were in before I left.
Downstairs I found another phone booth and dialed the Truck Stop to give Ma the bad news. She swore for a while, then settled down enough to say she’d been talking with somebody just minutes ago in Chief Coffey’s office who was trying to arrange a truce.
“And now you’re telling me that even Coffey can’t arrange it?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“Christ Almighty! Well what do I do now, Bragg? Turn tail and run or stick around here and take a chance on getting some more of the girls hurt?”
“I’d stick, for now at least. A lot of what Slide said was just talking through his hat. What he would like to do and what he can do aren’t quite the same. The two gangs of thugs chasing around town are more interested in themselves right now than they are in you and Slide. And Merle Coffey is doing the unthinkable. He phoned the governor’s office for help. I would guess some people will arrive by tonight and start getting things calmed down again. Have you got any straight truckers around there now?”
“What do you mean by straight?”
“Guys just interested in the cheap drinks and pretty legs. Not connected with your shed operation.”
“Quite a few of them, as a matter of fact. They’re sort of fascinated by what’s going on.”
“Good. A lot of those guys carry handguns to ward off hijackers. Ask some of them to keep guard on your place. Don’t bother with the warehouses across the way. Let the ones who’ve been into that operation look out for themselves.”
“Okay, Bragg. And I guess for as long as Joe and Sam are here they’d help out too.”
“They haven’t left yet? That’s interesting. Could you get the Colonel on the phone for me?”
“Sure. He’s downstairs. I’ll get him.”
While I waited I thought of another phone call to make. The Colonel came on to the line.
“Yeah?”
“Bragg here. How much longer do you think you’ll be in town?”
“I don’t know. The jerk who contracted for this load is still running around town like it was the Fourth of July. I don’t transfer goods until I get paid. Period.”
“You figure your plane is safe?”
“I don’t figure anything. I phoned down and had them roll it into the hangar and told them to stay out of sight with a lot of guns at hand. With a little luck, anybody interested will think we flew out. Why do you ask?”
“I figure before the day’s over I’d maybe like a plane ride. Yours is the closest one around.”
“It’ll be around until I get paid. Then it’s up, up and away.”
“Ma probably told you about how it went last night.”
“She did.”
“About the young psychotic called Soft Kenny.”
“Yeah.”
“He and his partner are on the way to San Francisco. I think maybe they have a date with the little girl I told you about.”
He thought about it some.
“I can’t promise anything, Bragg. I guess maybe I owe you a favor for this morning, but you know how it is around this crazy town. I just can’t promise.”
“Okay, don’t promise. Just keep thinking about that little girl and Soft Kenny. You’re a big boy, Colonel. And you have three able men plus a girl who knows how to handle a pistol well enough to give me pause. I need a couple hours. Maybe a little more.”
“What for?”
“I need answers. I’ve been here almost twenty-four hours, but I’ve been sidetracked by all the activities around town.”
“There’s a lot in town to keep you off balance,” he agreed.
“I’m going to concentrate on my own work now. If I knew you’d be here another couple of hours it would help my concentration.”
“All right. Call it six o’clock. Let me hear from you by then, either here or at the field.”
I took down the number of his phone in the hangar and thanked him a couple of times.
The next call was to my office in San Francisco. I’d queried a lot of people my first day on the case, about Barker and Moon and Sand Valley. Maybe one of them had turned up something by then. But it turned out there only had been one call, and that just ten minutes earlier. Only it wasn’t from one of the people in San Francisco I’d talked to on Sunday. It had been from Mrs. Foster. She left word that I should go back out to Sand Valley Hospital when I had the opportunity. She said Mr. Morton, the banker I’d taken out there, wanted to talk to me. She’d said he had some information for me.
SEVENTEEN
The first thing I did at the hospital was to congratulate Mrs. Foster for having had the presence of mind to reach me through my office in San Francisco.
“It’s not all that sensational, young man. Being around doctors you learn about offices and answering services and the people who use them.”
I was directed to a private room on the second floor. A nurse went in to see if Morton were conscious. He was. The nurse cautioned me to keep my visit short, and left us.
Morton had a little of his color back, but he was far from well. The head of his bed was elevated slightly. Without his glasses, the pale patches of skin around his eyes made his face look run-down, ready for replacement. The wounded arm rested limply alongside him. He smiled up weakly at me.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t get here in time. They want to give me something more to knock me out again. I told them to wait a little while. To try getting in touch with you. Young Cathy Carson stopped in to say hello when she came in to work. She’s the one who told me you aren’t in the poster business after all.”
“That’s right, Mr. Morton. But I didn’t want to alarm anybody about my real reason for being here.”
“It doesn’t matter, Bragg. They also tell me you’re the one who scraped me up and brought me in here. Maybe saved my life, even.”
“I won’t be around for long. A local cop named Michaels helped. You might remember that.”
“I will. Thanks.”
“They said I couldn’t stay for long, Mr. Morton. What did you want to see me about?”
“Are things still going to hell around town?”
“It’s worse. Two warring factions are out there, one brought in by Carl Slide, the other from out at the Truck Stop. They’re out of control. Merle Coffey has called the governor’s office for
help. I think there’ll be some changes around town.”
Morton took a shallow breath and shook his head. “I was afraid of that. I was afraid of that lying there on the pavement after I’d been shot. It wasn’t really so bad, you know, being shot. I felt sort of numb is all, and it would have been all right except for Mrs. Morse, one of the ladies trapped in the doorway with me. She kept wailing about how I’d been shot and was bleeding to death and all. That’s what unsettled me. She had me half convinced I was dying, and I was too weak to ask her to pipe down.”
His voice played out in a little rasp, and his eyes drifted to the water glass with a plastic straw in it on the stand beside him.
“Should you?” I asked.
“Please. It’s all right.”
I held the water so he could have some. He nodded his thanks and his head sank back to the pillow.
“Funny,” he continued, “how the questions you had asked me in my office earlier came back to me while I was lying there. Law and order sort of stuff. One thing leading to another. I remember how I’d bragged to you about keeping outside elements out of Sand Valley. I guess we haven’t done that after all.”
“It doesn’t look that way.”
There was a rustle behind me. I turned. A nurse gave me a warning frown and went away.
“They won’t give me much more time, Mr. Morton.”
“All right. I guess you’re here on some kind of job, Mr. Bragg. I know a lot of things about this town, both good and bad. I can even suspect the sort of thing that might attract a private investigator. I think you saved my life today. I’m of a mind to help you in return, if I can. Do you want to tell me about your job, or just ask some random questions.”
“I’ll ask, it’ll save time. Do you know Carl Slide well?”
“Quite well, in a business way. He’s a director of the bank.”
“Now that is something. Mr. Morton, I have a very strong suspicion that there is something a lot more questionable than girls and gambling that Mr. Slide is dabbling in. Could you offer any suggestions?”