Till Death Do Us Part (12 page)

N
AVARRO SAID
that he could get me across the border, all right, but that I’d have to wait until dawn. That was over two hours away. I put up an argument.

Navarro said, “Listen and then decide.” He picked up the phone and called police headquarters in Rio Bravo. He asked the man there what steps were being taken in the hunt for me. As Rio Bravo’s leading citizen, he got a full answer.

Every cop in both towns was on the prowl. If I wasn’t apprehended soon, the cop at the station assured Navarro, they would bring in the military.

I said, “But, damn it, she might be trying to get rid of both those girls right now.”

“I do not think so,” Navarro said. “So far the policy has been to make you guilty of the killings, no? Then if they are to die, it will be in a manner and at a time when you can be thought guilty.”

That was great consolation. I sat on the bed and hated Navarro.

The time finally came. Navarro went away and when he returned, he had one of those pajama suits the Mexican workers wear. He also had a pair of rope-soled sandals and one of the most dilapidated straw sombreros I’d ever seen. He tossed me the lot.

“I also have papers,” he said. “You are going in a truck-load of day agricultural workers. The truck will pass the plaza in a few minutes. Hail it and climb aboard.” He watched critically as I got into the outfit. “Except for your height, you will pass easily. Try not to let yourself be seen too clearly.”

I thanked him, not too graciously, and took off. I went to the far corner of the plaza and stood shivering in the raw pre-dawn cold. A man dressed as I was came and shivered along with me. I mentioned that I had come down from Torreon. He didn’t seem to find that strange. I also said that my name was Angel Del Rio. Those were the facts on my papers.

Finally the truck came. It was a regular cattle hauler and the gate enclosed bed was jammed with shivering
obreros
. My companion and I swung aboard as the truck slowed. I started worming my way to the middle where there was a little more warmth. Everyone else wanted to be there too, but I had more weight to throw around. I made it.

We reached the border and, cold as I was, I started to sweat. But all we had to do was call our names and wait until they were checked off a list. At the other end of the bridge, the same thing happened. Apparently, on these daily jobs, there wasn’t too much concern. So many men went over and so many would come back. If a few tried to stay, they’d be caught since they didn’t carry the kind of papers to permit them to remain.

The truck started grinding up the hill for Fronteras. I worked my way to the edge of the flatbed and got ready to jump. I caught a man watching me. I gave him some cigarets. I said, “My
novia
will be surprised to see me, eh,
amigo?”

“There is always one of us who needs his woman more than his wages,” he said. “But be sure and be waiting when we return at dark.”

I said that I would. The truck rounded a curve and started past the mouth of Tiburon Street. The man beside me said, “Now!”

I jumped. I lit running and I kept on running. I burrowed my way into the darkness of the Spanish-American quarter and no one behind me made any noise about it that I could hear.

I was almost to Amalie’s when the realization of what I had done hit me like a club across the back of the legs. I stopped running. I said aloud, “
Madre de Dios!”

Because now I knew how aliens were smuggled across the border. With her labor agency, Rosanne had a perfect set up. Pachuco could supply her with aliens and she could provide not only the papers—buying them from legitimate Mexican nationals—but she could get labor permits and have places for the aliens to go in the United States. And if they slipped away from their work there, was it her fault?

Now I knew the meaning of the names in Calvin’s little black book. And I knew why he and Pachuco had been tortured. As long as anyone else had the list of names of people she’d smuggled across the line, Rosanne was in danger.

No wonder Navarro got hot under the collar, I thought. The rumors affected him since he was part of the agency. I had a good idea that he suspected Rosanne was using it, and that he didn’t want to tell anyone and involve his own good name until he was sure.

I gave up thinking about it and started running again. I reached Amalie’s place. This time I didn’t wait to go around to the rear. I tried the front door. It was unlocked. I jerked it open and ran in.

I was hoping against hope that I’d see Amalie tucked safely down in her bed. And there was someone there, all right, but it wasn’t Amalie. It was Nace. As I shut the door, he stood up and snapped on the light. He had a gun in his hand.

He said, “Where is Amalie?”

That one stopped me cold. I said, “That’s what I came back to find out.” He shifted the gun a little. I decided that I’d better start explaining myself before he forgot that I wasn’t as suspicious a character as I had been.

I outlined my theory to him, right down to the method Rosanne must be using. His eyes lighted up. “Tomaso, I believe you have it. That explains what has bothered me.”

I said stupidly, “What?”

He waved that aside. He said, “I think we must first go to the
señora
Norton’s office. If we are not in time there, we may have to go elsewhere.”

“Wherever we go,” I said, “let’s get started. And put that cannon away.”

He obliged. We went outside to a car he had parked a way up the street. It had American license plates, so I presumed that he’d borrowed it for the night. It was a real hot buggy. We took off down Tiburon Street like a Mexican taxicab. Nace drove Mexico City style. We didn’t slow down until we pulled up behind Rosanne’s car.

I said, “She must still be here.”

“Let’s hope so,” Nace said. His voice had an empty sound to it.

We got out. Nace said, “You make the front door, Tomaso. I will remain here.”

I trotted around to the front. The office was dark but I was in no mood to wait for someone to turn on the lights. I lifted my foot and put it through the glass of the front door. I reached in and turned the latch.

I jerked the door open and went plunging into the darkness of Rosanne’s fancy waiting room. The door that opened into the small office came open, making a dark gray spot in the blackness. I saw a figure in skirts framed there. I took off from the floor in a flying tackle that my old coach would have loved.

My shoulder hit solid thighs. I wrapped my arms around a pair of legs. They went down. My drive carried both of us into the office.

Under me a voice said, “Who in hell’s cornyard are you?” The language was English. The speaker was definitely Arden Kennett.

I let loose and rolled over. I said, “Tom Blane. I’m sorry. I thought….”

What I thought she didn’t get a chance to find out. A car squealed to a stop at the front of the building. From the rear came the hard, sharp bark of a gun.

Arden got to her feet and turned on the overhead light just as Porter Delman charged through the front door and straight at me.

I thought,
brother, you’re too late. You can’t help her out of this trouble
.

A
T THE LAST SECOND
, Delman seemed to become aware of me in front of him. He put on the brakes and reached under his coat. He pulled out of his waistband the biggest hand cannon I’d ever seen. It was big even for Texas.

I said, “Calm down, Delman. You’re too late. The government already got me.”

Arden screamed from across the room, “Tom!”

I looked into his face and suddenly I knew what she was screaming about. Delman had come to get Rosanne out of trouble, all right. He had come to shoot the trouble away if he had to. Because he was in this too.

The lights went out. Delman’s gun went off. I hit the floor. From behind me metal made a pained screech as a bullet struck it. In the darkness I could see Delman move. He could see me too, I thought. In another second, he was going to get that cannon lined right on me.

And then out of the darkness something flipped into the air like a scared bat. It seemed to flow over Delman and then drop quickly away. He made a harsh, choking sound and I heard his gun hit the floor. I didn’t have to have Arden yell, “Get him, Tom!” I was all over him before he finished choking.

The light came on. I lowered my fist and got up. It had been fun while it lasted but there was no use pounding the bejeesus out of a man who can’t feel what’s being done to him.

I looked at Arden. “What did you do to the guy?”

She gave me her sweetest smile. Then she jumped in the air in one of those fantastic high kicks of hers. I was glad she had good control. The heel of her shoe barely grazed my throat before she fell away and landed easily on one leg.

“I didn’t miss him,” she said.

“I won’t miss him either,” I said. As the excitement began to drain out of me, I remembered the shot we’d heard. “Rosanne?” I asked Arden.

She gestured toward the rear. “In there, I suppose.” She pointed toward a small storeroom at the end of the office. “Delman had me tied and in there until shortly before you came.”

I said, “He was the one who caught you then?”

She bent forward so that her hair fell over her face and I could see the lump on the back of her head. “I guess I got a little careless,” she said. “I had his house staked out. He sneaked up behind and hit me.”

I said, “That was my fault. I told the wrong party what you were doing.”

The silence from the rear began to worry me. I thought, by now, Nace should have everything under control and be here. I yelled, “Nace?”

“Tomaso!” It was Amalie’s voice.

I said, “She’s all right too!” and opened the door into the back office.

Arden said, “Tom, for God’s sake …” but she was too late. The knife was coming at me, straight for my throat.

I saw Amalie standing in front of Rosanne’s desk and I saw Nace. I tried to jump to one side but I wasn’t fast enough. The knife hit my collar bone and slid along it, scouring the bone.

It was like watching slow motion. Nace was on the floor, crawling in from the back hallway. He got to his knees and I could see the blood running down his face and dripping off his chin. I could feel the blood coming out of my wound and my right arm felt leaden.

Amalie turned as I took a step toward her. She grabbed the desk set from Rosanne’s desk and ran at Nace. She held the set, a heavy black onyx affair, over her head with both hands. I made a running dive for her.

But she was closer to him and she was faster. I could hear myself yelling as if the noise might ruin her aim. Maybe it did some good. She hesitated for a fraction of a second.

She hesitated just too long. From behind me Delman’s gun went off. The onyx desk set shattered in Amalie’s hands. One piece went zinging by my head. Amalie screamed and threw her hands to her face. Nace’s hand snaked out and caught her ankle. He pulled just as I made a final dive for her.

The cracking sound her head made as it struck the edge of the door was sharp, clear and deadly.

• • •

I said, “I should have stuck to my first hunch. It was Delman all the time.”

Navarro gave a fruity chuckle. His Havana was going hard and smelling up the kitchen. But it was his own kitchen. He said, “Of course, he blames it all on Rosanne for not marrying him many years ago. This, as I understand he told the police, caused him to chase other women and so spend all of his money. Therefore he had to recoup and he began by blackmailing Rosanne’s husband. After Norton died, Delman began to seek other ways.”

I said, “He found some, too. When Rosanne’s business became solid, he started draining it by blackmailing her.”

Rosanne said, “I don’t understand that. We were going to be married. He was just hurting himself.”

I said, “When he started blackmailing you, you hadn’t agreed to marry him. Besides, he wanted control of your company. That was my first and best idea. You were getting too big for him financially. He figured on marrying you and when he did, he wanted to be the kingpin.”

We’d found Rosanne trussed in her own bathroom, furious but otherwise little the worse for wear. She’d demonstrated her gratitude to me—much to Arden’s amusement—but after everything had calmed down and we’d adjourned to Navarro’s
cantina
kitchen for a meal, she began to show less and less interest in me. The more Nace and Navarro told her how I’d charged around like a bull, the farther she moved her chair from mine. Finally she telephoned Kruse to come and take her home. She was waiting for him now.

I was beginning to hope that my “appeal” for her was wearing off.

I said, “Delman really went into high gear when he read about Pachuco and me in the papers. Then the possibility of using her labor agency struck him. So he contacted Pachuco.”

Nace said sadly, “I think that first he contacted Amalie. She was the girl friend he went to Mexico City to see. Once she was my girl, but she liked the money and I lost her. She became a—what you say?—pigeon in confidence games. She looked so young and innocent that she caught many men. One was Delman. But she fell in love with him and became his woman.” He sighed. “She knew many crooks.”

He gave a half-hearted smile. “Then when I come here, I find her working for the
señora
Norton. I do not understand why. So I take her out and pretend to fall in love with her, but I learn nothing.” He beamed at me. “Then Tomaso finds the answer. Amalie works for the
señora
so she can make out the labor permits and doctor the books when the aliens are smuggled.”

I said, “I suppose Delman bought off the previous secretary so that Amalie could get the job.”

“That is correct,” Nace said. He started to nod his head for emphasis, but he had to stop. He was in the worst shape of any of us—except Amalie, who was in the morgue. He had been doing fine until he shot out the lock on Rosanne’s back door. Then as he ran into the back hall, Amalie had hit him with a metal card file, laid his head open, and nearly torn his ear off. She’d left him for dead and gone to the office. She was debating how to attack me—I suppose—when I called out and that’s when she unlimbered her knife.

I stood up because with that piece of buckshot in me, I couldn’t sit long at any one time. I said, “So her big scene with Delman in the office was all faked.”

Navarro, who had been with the police when Delman talked, said, “
Si
, and for the purpose of making you rescue her so that you would become her….” He paused and glanced at Arden on my right. “… friend,” he said lamely.

I thought about the way Amalie had kissed me. I should have known she was no kid. I said, “And the story she told me about overhearing Delman and Rosanne yesterday, what was the purpose of that?”

Navarro passed a pot of fresh coffee around. “Delman forced that conversation with the
señora
. Its purpose was to make you suspect her and not him or Amalie. The idea was hers.”

I said, “Granting everything about her, it’s still hard to believe she would kill and torture two men like she did.”

“She loved Delman,” Nace said, as if that explained Amalie and anything she might do for Delman’s sake. And maybe it did.

Rosanne was thinking of someone besides Amalie. “Poor Calvin,” she said.

I said, “Calvin got mixed up in the affair when Delman caught him smuggling weed and forced him to relay those messages on his program. But in his own scared way, Calvin fought back. He found Pachuco’s list of aliens before Amalie tortured Pachuco into giving them to her. Then, when he got up enough nerve, he let Delman know he was through working for him. So Delman sent Amalie out to get rid of Calvin. She saw me talking to him and, as soon as she could, she killed him. She tried to torture him into giving her the list but he died on her.”

I looked at Rosanne and had the grace to flush a little. “All the things I attributed to you, Delman and Amalie were doing. Sorry.”

She gave me a vague smile. Then she shuddered. “It’s all so horrible. Porter and that sweet looking girl doing all that!”

Nace said, “But there is good from everything. You,
señora,
have your money back from Delman’s safety deposit box. Miss Kennett and I have the names of the aliens who have been smuggled into the United States. And Tomaso has cleared his record.”

I said, “I hope so.”

Nace said, “It is true. My newspaper story of you and Pachuco ruined your business. My next story will make of you a hero. The police will be proud to cooperate with you as they did before.”

He sounded so convincing that I got a bottle of rum and poured some in my coffee and drank to my own future. I was about to repeat the toast when Rosanne got up and motioned me to follow her.

We went into the other room. She said, “Tom, I’m terribly grateful to you but—well, I think I made a mistake about us.”

I tried to look sad. “Because I suspected you?”

“No, I can understand that. It’s just that you take too many chances. Anyone so profligate with his own life wouldn’t be very careful with money, would he?”

I said, “I guess not. I’m always broke.” I felt a great relief. Rosanne hadn’t failed me after all. She was still the same beautiful tightwad I’d first met.

As if to prove that, she said, “Thanks again, Tom. And I’ll send you a check for your services.” Outside a horn honked. She smiled radiantly and started away. “Jim is here,” she informed me.

She stopped and turned. “I think I owe you for just one day. Isn’t that right?”

I said that was right and watched her walk off. I went back to the kitchen and had some more coffee and rum. I drank to Jim Kruse. He was quite a man. He’d have to be, I thought. He was the only one Rosanne had left.

Arden said sweetly, “Not even a smudge of lipstick. What did you do, spurn her?”

I said with dignity, “I’m going to bed.” And I went.

When Arden found me, I was contorting before the bathroom mirror, trying to pry that one piece of buckshot out of myself. It was in a place I couldn’t quite reach.

She said, “For heaven’s sake! Is that why you wouldn’t sit still? Go lie down on the bed.”

I knew better than to argue. I went and lay down on the bed.

She worked on me with tweezers and an orange stick. She said, “Navarro told me to remind you that we’re registered here as man and wife. He feels it will look better if you make an honest woman of me.”

I said, “Wait a minute! I didn’t sign that register. You did …”

She probed. I muffled a yell. She said, “In that case, it’s up to me to make an honest man of you. Will you like living in Washington, Tommy?”

I said, “Don’t call me Tommy. And I hate Washington. I’m going back to Mexico City and start putting the firm of T. Blane, Private Investigator, back on its feet.”

The buckshot came out. Arden poured iodine in the hole. When I stopped yelling, she said, “You know, I think Blane and Blane, Private Investigators, sounds better than just T. Blane. Don’t you?”

I said, “No.”

I lifted my head and shook it emphasizing my point. She did one of her contortionist tricks so that her face was under mine. She got me by the hair, pulled my head down, and kissed me.

She said, “I think it’s a lovely name for a firm. And you’ll get used to it.” She kissed me some more.

I said, “Arden, you’ll hate yourself in the morning.”

I was wrong again. She didn’t hate herself at all. She didn’t hate me either.

And Blane and Blane
is
a fine sounding name for the firm.