Till Death Do Us Part (5 page)

“What is your opinion of that?” he asked quickly.

I said, “You know her; I don’t. I was hoping you had the answer.”

He shook his head. “Perhaps,” he suggested, “she misunderstood Pachuco, and it was not blackmail which interested him.”

I said, “He wanted to sell her information.”

Navarro rolled his cigar around his lips. “Information of value,” he said in a positive voice. He looked at me. “Why else would someone smash Pachuco’s thumb except to demand the location of such information?”

“Hardly for fun,” I agreed. Suddenly an idea rose up and clipped me. I said, “Speaking of torture, your little frame has fallen to pieces. Why would I have done that to Pachuco?”

“Very simple,” Navarro said. “You were attempting to force him to write a confession clearing you of the charges which caused your trouble.”

I said softly, “Sure, and so I put the screw on his left hand. But Pachuco was left handed,
señor
Navarro, and I would not be foolish enough to mangle the hand he wrote with.” I tried to see into his dark eyes. “But someone who did not know him quite so well might make that mistake.”

Navarro said, “It is a minor point.”

I said, “Also, for someone setting up a frame, you weren’t careful enough. Someone else was in the room before I was. And he saw Pachuco dead.”

Navarro was very quiet. He seemed to know the person I meant; he didn’t act as if he wanted to talk about Nace.

We smoked our cigars quietly for a while.

Finally Navarro said, “You fight well,
señor
Blane, but not well enough. Pachuco is now in the coolness of the wine cellar. But when I wish, I can have him placed in your room and found there by the police.”

We laughed at that one together—Pachuco had been a heavy drinker; the wine cellar was a very appropriate place. I thought again what a great joker this Julio Ricardo Fulgencio Navarro was.

I said, “All right, I’m still caught. Where do we go from here?”

“I wish your services further,” he said. “However, so that you will not feel cheated, I shall pay you.”

I said, “I’m already taking Rosanne’s money. I can’t take yours if there’s a conflict of interests.”

“There is not,” he said. “I wish to know the same thing the lady does—what information did this Pachuco have for sale?”

I had the feeling that Navarro knew the answer. I had nothing tangible to go on, but the feeling was there. And I couldn’t reason it away.

I said, “If a conflict should arise, I’ll return her money or yours, depending on which of you I think is the more honest.”

He chuckled. “Ease your conscience any way you wish.” He opened a drawer and took out a fat roll of bills and tossed them to me. I riffled them. The first layer was of thousand
peso
notes; the stuffing was made up of hundred
peso
bills. I was holding a nice hunk of change.

“Use that as you need to,” he said. “There is more.”

I thought, the sonofabitch is bribing me. He was, too, but for what reason? He had me cold on the murder rap. He didn’t have to bribe me.

I
HAD A PROBLEM
. I had a lot of problems. Hanging around Navarro wasn’t going to solve them for me. I had got about all I could expect from him tonight. He had given me ideas without intending to. Now, I thought, if I could get a few more ideas in the same way—from Arden and Nace—I’d have something to think about.

I put Navarro’s wad of
peso
notes in my jacket pocket and went off to badger Arden. I figured that by now she’d be over her mad. If not, I hoped I could talk her out of it.

I thought about ways of doing that, but I got no chance to use them. Arden wasn’t in our room. The desk clerk said that he hadn’t seen her coming or going. I returned to the
cantina
and asked Paco, the waiter if he’d seen her.

He had. About an hour ago, she’d gone through to the rear of the
cantina
, to the kitchen. I went to the kitchen. The cook, a big, moon-faced character, said
si
, the
señorita
had come through his kitchen, stopped to swipe a handful of
tortillas
, and gone out the back door, eating them.

I went out the back door. It led me into a dark alley that smelled ripe with garbage. I looked to the right and saw that the alley ended some distance away against an adobe wall. I turned left and started walking.

I heard someone running and I stopped to listen. The running was heavy and not very fast. I placed it as coming from the street the alley ran into a short distance away. The running stopped. I started on again.

I reached the mouth of the alley and took a step toward the dimly lighted street. I never got there. Someone wound up a fist and blocked me.

The fist multiplied itself like an amoeba. It came at me everywhere at once—first on the back of the head, then against my ear, then twice in the stomach, and finally on my neck. I lost my balance and bounced back against an adobe wall that formed one side of the alley. It was black dark and I never did see the owner of the fist. For a while, I thought I’d tangled with an octopus with eight sets of knuckles. And every set was hitting hard. The only thing that kept me standing was the clumsiness of my opponent.

A final roundhouse caught me under the ear and snapped my head back against the adobe. That was almost the last I remembered. The last was the garbage my face was burying itself in.

• • •

Nace said, “You sonabitch, open your mouth and drink this.”

I opened my mouth. I felt brandy stinging a cut inside my lower lip. I made an effort and swallowed. I opened my eyes.

I was in one of Navarro’s hotel rooms. It was smaller than the room I’d first had, but there was the usual bed and dresser and chair. I was in the chair.

Nace was bending over me, a brandy bottle in his hand. He had a worried frown on his face, and that made him look even younger than he usually looked.

Somewhere in the room there was a radio. An announcer was advertising mattresses in English with an atrocious Spanish accent. When he finished his spiel, he repeated the ad but in Spanish with an English accent.

I said, “For God’s sake, get rid of that clown. My head’s ready to come apart without any help from him.”

Nace said, “He’s a very funny fellow, that Calvin. Everybody in Fronteras and Rio Bravo listens to him every night.”

The very funny fellow was saying, “This is Calvin Calvin calling. Remember, send your requests to me at Fronteras. And now a little number for …”

I shut my ears to him. I took the brandy bottle out of Nace’s hand and had another swallow. It wasn’t too bad if I let it slide down my throat without touching the inside of my mouth. I handed back the bottle and got up. I found I could stand and I walked to where a small mirror hung over a washstand. On the stand was my wad of
pesos
.

I said, “Taken to rolling people these days, Nace?”

He didn’t even bother to get insulted. “That’s a lot of money for you there, Tomaso.”

He was calling me by my first name again. I wondered why. But he wasn’t really friendly. His voice still had a lot of the cold reserve it had had since my trouble with Pachuco.

I put the money in my pocket. Nace said, “In Rio Bravo, that many
pesos
could hire a half dozen killers.”

I said, “When I kill the guy that caught me in that alley, it won’t be for pay.”

Nace came up to me with a slip of paper in his hand. “This was pinned to your coat, Tomaso. I would like you to explain it.”

“This” was a piece of note paper. On it someone had pencilled a message in what looked to me to be deliberately bad Spanish. I read: “Go back to Mejico and do your crooked work. Next time you will be hurt.”

I said, “Next time?” and looked in the mirror. Nace had washed off most of the blood and garbage and I saw that I would be sore but not permanently damaged. Whoever had clobbered me was strictly an amateur. He had given me most of the beating around the head and shoulders, leaving my face more or less unmarked.

I said, “I can’t explain the note, Nace.”

“What is meant by ‘crooked work’?”

I said, “You tell me.”

He took the brandy bottle and poured himself a shot in a waterglass. “All right, I will. You came here to check ona me Pachuco for the
señora
Norton. I think that whatever Pachuco was doing to her, you are now doing.”

“And I killed him so I could have a clear field?”

“I do not think you killed him,” Nace said. “It is not like you to torture nor to use a knife.”

I said, “Thanks. So maybe when I found him dead, I just took advantage of what he was doing.”

“That is probably true,” he said.

“And how did I know what Pachuco was doing?” I demanded. “I hadn’t seen him for months. When I did see him, he was dead.”

Instead of answering that one, Nace gave a typical Latin shrug. I turned back to the mirror and dabbed a little cold water on a trickle of blood at the corner of my mouth.

I went to the chair and sat down. I said, “You aren’t big enough to have beaten me up. Have any ideas who did?”

He shrugged again. He didn’t seem especially interested. He said, “When you did not come to see me at midnight, I went to look for you. I found you in the alley, lying in the garbage like the drunken pig.”

I said, “Midnight!” I figured I had lain in that alley close to two hours. “What time is it now?”

The radio answered me. The character who called himself Calvin Calvin announced that it was one a.m., sign-off time, and would all the
muchachos
and
muchachas
and boys and girls and lovely people who sent in requests and bought all the deliriously wonderful products that he advertised, would they keep up the good work.

I lit a cigaret. Nace went over and sat on the bed and stared moodily at me. I anticipated him. I said, “Would you mind telling me what kind of information I’m using to make Mrs. Norton sweat?”

“That is what you must tell me.”

I said, “Even if I knew, why should I tell you? In fact, what are you doing here? This is no place for a city journalist. Or is there a hot story about to break?”

“I am working,” he said.

I wasn’t getting very far. I decided to try another angle. I said, “You don’t think I killed Pachuco and I don’t think you did. Any ideas as to who might have?”

He shrugged. I said, “Arden maybe?”

He took that in his stride. “What reason would she have?”

So he did know her. I suggested, “Navarro?”

“That I do not know.”

“What of Rosanne Norton herself or that baron of the cattlepens she’s engaged to?”

He said quickly, “You should know the answer to that better than I.”

“I wish I did,” I said. I stared at him, wondering if I should level with him, wondering if—considering how little he trusted me—levelling would do me any good.

I decided to try. I said, “Nace, Rosanne Norton hired me to come here to find out what Pachuco was up to. I found him dead and Navarro found me. He’s got me framed for killing Pachuco. There isn’t much evidence against me but the fact that Pachuco and I had trouble is reason enough for the cops to give me a bad time.”

“I know all this,” he said.

I didn’t ask him where he’d found out. I suspected that I already knew. I said, “Navarro’s price for silence was to have me keep him posted on what Rosanne is doing. Now they’re partners, but she doesn’t want to talk about him and he doesn’t trust her. Does all this add up to anything in your mind?”

He still looked moody. “I do not know—yet.”

I said, “You mean that you don’t trust me.”

He said flatly, “That is true.”

I said, “You’re a hell of a friend.” I tried to be light about it because Nace’s attitude hurt. “And after I rescued your girl friend too.”

That brought a response. His head came up in a quick snap and his moody look went away. “What does that mean, Tomaso?”

I said, “I caught Porter Delman pushing her around Rosanne’s office. He claimed he caught her listening at the door to Rosanne’s private office.”

“Did he hurt Amalie?” His voice was tight.

I said, “He bruised her a little.” I got up to put out my cigaret. “By the way, did you plant her there or did you pick her up because she worked for Norton Enterprises?”

Nace said, “You are very smart fellow, Tomaso.”

I said, “Smart enough to guess that it’s one or the other. And to figure that in either case, it means you have an interest in Norton Enterprises. Why?”

“Maybe I wish to invest some money,” he said.

I said, “Damn it, Nace, if you’d be logical instead of emotional, you’d damn well know I couldn’t have been the bastard the newspapers made me out to be. Try trusting me a little and let’s see if we can’t get this mess cleared up. Together we might be able to do something. Fighting each other, we’ll never get anywhere.”

“I know this,” he agreed. “With you about, I gain nothing. That is why I am telling you to go back to Mexico—to your tourists.”

That made me mad. I started to swear at him. He said imperturbably, “If you do not, I shall be forced to turn you over to the police for the murder of Pachuco.”

I said, “That’s Navarro’s privilege,
amigo
. And besides, maybe he doesn’t want me to leave.”

Nace made a face. I realized that I had come up with a threat that matched his against me. So there we were, at a stand-off.

Only I’d learned something. I’d learned that Navarro carried weight, even with him; and I’d learned that Nace badly wanted me out of this part of Mexico.

All I needed now was to know why.

I went quietly out of Nace’s room and down the hall to mine. Arden was in bed, propped against the headboard. She had fallen asleep with one finger between the leaves of a mystery novel. Light from the bedlamp shone down on her hair and face. She was very pretty. Her lips moved a little as she breathed in sleep.

I tiptoed to the bathroom and stripped. I hated to take a chance on waking her but I couldn’t stand the smell of myself after spending two hours on a garbage heap. I turned on the shower and stepped under it.

I let the water run hot. I let it run cold. I soaped. I rinsed. I soaped and rinsed again. I let the hot water turn my skin broiled steak red. When I was through, I felt cleaner, but my bruises all stood out, looking more vicious than they really were.

I put on my pajamas and went into the bedroom. Arden was awake, reading her book and smoking a cigaret. She glanced up. “I suppose you feel superior, having had an evening all to yourself.”

Just then the after-effects of my beating and the hot water boiling I’d given myself got together and hit me hard. I staggered.

Arden was on her feet and helping me to bed almost before I caught myself. She was a terrific sight in rayon satin pajamas. The way they clung to her should have been declared illegal. And when she put a hip against mine to help me to bed, I almost forgot I’d been beaten up.

I said, “For God’s sake, put on a robe and go back to bed. I’m not unconscious.”

She ignored me and flipped back the covers and helped me onto the bed. She drew up the covers and then stood, hands on hips, looking me over.

“Who did it?” she asked.

I shut my eyes. “I hoped you’d know.”

“You are a bastard,” she said, but there was no anger in her voice. “Tell me what happened.”

I told her. She said, “And you’ve been lying in that alley all this time?”

“No, your friend Nace found me about twelve and took me to his room. We had a cozy little chat and then I came here.”

She gave me a frigid look and went back to her own bed. She lay on top of the covers. I said, “Don’t forget, technically we’re married, and according to law, a wife’s duties include….”

She flipped under the covers and glared at me from there. I said, “Just what are you doing here anyway?”

“Dancing.”

I said, “Come off it, honey. Do you work for Nace or Navarro?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

She was trying, but she wasn’t hitting the target. I reached to the night stand and borrowed one of her cigarets. I lay back and smoked it. I was too tired to ask any more questions. In fact, I was tired of asking questions. I never seemed to get any straight answers. I decided that beginning in the morning, I’d try a more direct approach.

I smoked half the cigaret, put it out, rolled over and went to sleep. If Arden had anything to say, she didn’t say it to me. I didn’t hear a squeak out of her.

• • •

I awoke to bright sunlight and the stiffest set of muscles since my football days. I got up and looked myself over. My bruises had gone down enough for me to feel almost respectable.

Arden wasn’t in the room. I figured I knew where to find her. I was right. When I reached the dining room, she was there fueling up for the day’s watchdogging.

She said, “Sleep well?” in a normally cheerful voice.

I grunted at her and tried one of the hard rolls on the table. One bite convinced me that for this morning anyway I was relegated to mush. Arden murmured something about being sorry for me, but that didn’t stop her from eating three eggs, a slice of ham, and two large oranges. I ate mush and hated her.