Till Death Do Us Part (7 page)

I
HEARD THEM
heading for the door and I backed into the library. They walked in on me. I tried to put a silly smile on my face.

I said, “I was looking for the ah … er….”

“That door in the corner,” Rosanne said frigidly, and marched away.

I went through the door in the corner. After a suitable length of time I came out. Kruse was still in the room. He looked as if he might be waiting for me.

I said, “The answer to your question is that I came in here through the kitchen door about four seconds before you arrived. And if you wipe that lipstick from under your ear, no one can prove anything else.”

I went back to the barbecue before he could decide whether to hit me or not. I ate great hunks of meat. I drank mugs of coffee. I ate more meat. When I finally came up for air, the liquor had all been burned out of me by the barbecue sauce. I took a final mug of coffee and went off to a dark corner by the bunkhouse. I hadn’t seen Arden since I’d arrived; I wondered how she was making out.

I was draining my mug when Jim Kruse came out of the lighted area and hunkered down beside me. He had a mug of coffee and he set it down while he rolled himself a cigaret.

“Look, Blane—you are Blane, aren’t you?”

I said, “Yes, and forget it. It’s not my business.”

“What
is
your business here?”

I said, “Tonight, to eat myself silly.”

He had to keep pecking away at it as if he enjoyed hurting himself. He said, “What is Rosanne—Mrs. Norton—to you?”

I was tired and a little thick in the head from having drunk too much before I ate. I said nastily, “Look, fellow, we’re acquaintances, that’s all. And for me, it’s enough. I don’t like ice in my drinks.”

He didn’t even bother to get up. Hunkered on his heels, he still had a lot of maneuverability. He swung on me. His fist bounced off the side of my head and sent me skidding on my rump in the dust. Still not bothering to get up, he made a dive for me.

I rolled and kicked. I got a shoe alongside his jaw. I got to my feet. He got to his. He had a boxer’s stance and a boxer’s footwork. He also had a boxer’s way of using his fists. I ducked three stabs, parried one, and then took the fourth in my full stomach.

I picked myself up. I said, “I’ve changed my mind. You aren’t the guy that clobbered me last night. You’re too good.”

He wasn’t even breathing heavily. He said, “If I’d clobbered you last night, you wouldn’t be here now.” He came at me again.

From behind him Rosanne said sharply, “Jim!”

He stopped. His hands dropped to his sides. He hung his head and stood like a small boy waiting for a scolding. I said quickly, “We were just showing each other some old football plays and we got a little excited, that’s all.” I grinned at her. “Boys will be boys.”

Delman made a rude sound. I said to him, “I’d like to show you some of the old plays too.”

He glared at me. I said, “Would you mind taking a poke at me? I’d like to make a comparison with the clumsy ox who gave me a beating last night.”

He turned on his heel and stalked away. Rosanne, her lips clamped tight, said to Kruse, “Go see if there’s enough ice.”

He trotted obediently away. Rosanne looked frostily at me. “Come to my library at ten, Mr. Blane.”

“Why wait until ten?” I demanded. “Why not get it over with now? Then you can get rid of me that much faster.”

She looked suddenly tired, as if trying to balance her two lover boys was getting too much for her. I found it hard to generate any sympathy. She said, “Ten o’clock, please,” and left.

I went off to find Kruse. I wanted information on Porter Delman, and I couldn’t think of anyone who should be more eager to give it to me.

I located him spiking a mug of coffee with rum. I had some of the same. My remark to Delman seemed to have mellowed Kruse toward me. He reached out his mug and clinked it against mine. “Here’s to the cattle business. May it prosper without brokers.”

I had been wondering how to bring Delman into the conversation. Here was my opening, and I grabbed it. I said, “That Delman seems to be bothering Rosanne. Do you think he’s trying to pull a shady deal?”

“I wish he was,” Kruse said regretfully. “But he’s pretty famous in these parts for being an honest trader. He just looks like he isn’t.”

I said, “How’s his financial rating?”

Kruse gulped some spiked coffee. “I thought you were on a vacation, Blane. Why all these questions?”

“Rosanne is a friend,” I lied cheerfully. “And I guess detectives have built-in curiosities. Or maybe I just don’t like the guy and hope I can get him in trouble.”

Kruse seemed to accept that. He said morosely, “I wish you could give him trouble, but there isn’t much chance. Financially, he’s in better shape than anyone in these parts.” He gulped more coffee. “That’s why Rosanne is marrying him.”

I said, “I didn’t know she needed money.”

“She doesn’t,” Kruse said, “but she thinks she does.” He glared at me. “Don’t get the wrong idea, Blane. She’s a fine woman, a real fine woman. But since her husband died, she’s taken on a load of responsibility. She feels she’s got to protect the stockholders of Norton Enterprises. That idea’s made her a little obsessed about money.”

I thought that “a little obsessed” was a kind way of putting the matter. I said, “How long have they been engaged?”

Kruse thought that over. His lips moved as he counted back, and I heard him mutter something about “fall roundup.” Like so many persons who live with the land, he had his own special kind of calendar. He said finally, “Going on three months unofficially. Officially just a couple of days.”

I said, “I remember that. I was in Navarro’s
cantina
when you came in for the engagement party.” This was a touchy subject; I wanted to ask him questions but without arousing his suspicions.

I said carefully, “I was going to come to the table and say hello but before I could, you’d all left.”

He grinned sheepishly. “We did break up kind of early. That was my fault. I got one too many drinks and took a poke at Delman. Rosanne sent me packing.”

“What time was this?”

“About nine-thirty,” he said.

I said, “Leaving them alone in Rio Bravo must have stuck in your craw. Or was Calvin still hanging around?”

Now that we’d established a friendship on the basis of a mutual dislike for Delman, Kruse didn’t seem to find anything suspicious in my persistent questioning. He said readily, “Calvin was with them when I left, but I imagine he went pretty soon. He’s got his radio program at ten.”

He made himself another drink. “But Delman didn’t last long, either. Rosanne told me later he got nasty about me and she sent him packing.”

I thought, one way or another, all four of them were alone in Rio Bravo. Any one of them could have visited Pachuco. But then so could Navarro; so could Arden; so could Nace. For that matter, I had no alibi.

I said, “You mean she stayed in Rio Bravo all alone?”

“Why not?” He sounded puzzled. “Rosanne can take care of herself.”

“She’s always struck me as being sort of fragile,” I lied.

He laughed at that. “You ever see her sit a horse for twelve hours and then go dance half the night?”

“Sitting a horse isn’t the same as running into some of those tough boys across the border.”

He snorted. “I’d hate to be the one trying anything with her. She can split a lath turned sideways from thirty paces off—and with a knife. Her paw taught her when she was a girl.”

I didn’t say a word to that. I didn’t even think much about it. Throwing a knife is one thing; holding it and stabbing a man to death is something else. Not that I didn’t think Rosanne capable of stabbing a man to death, especially if a matter of money was involved.

I looked at my watch. It was edging toward ten. I said, “I think I’ll go find that door in the corner again.” And I moved off like a man in a hurry to find the washroom.

Rosanne was waiting in the library. She had the curtains drawn over the windows and the radio turned up. She got right to the point.

“The man I wanted you to meet was Calvin Calvin,” she said.

I said, “Why? I prefer girls.”

She didn’t find that amusing. She said, “He left about a half hour ago to go to the radio station. He’ll be on in a minute and I want you to listen carefully to his program.”

I’d heard enough of his program before. But I didn’t say anything. I lowered myself into an old-fashioned leather easy chair and lit a cigaret. The radio was on a table beside the chair. Rosanne perched on one chair arm.

The ten o’clock break came. Then Calvin started in. He worked his way through his corny commercials and then started announcing requests. He announced that he would play a tune for
señor
Fulano de Tal of Rio Bravo.

Rosanne said, “This is it!”

I listened to a record of
Home on the Range
sung in Spanish. I had begun to think she’d lost some of her marbles when Calvin’s voice came in again; this time he was using Spanish-accented English. “An’ now for
el
mister Pagador, request numero 212—
dos-uno-dos—amigos
, an’ do not forget the Posada y Cantina del Padre Sin Cabeza in Rio Bravo for bes’ entertainment
todos los
nights.”

Rosanne turned the volume a little higher and leaned toward me. She pitched her voice under the noise from the radio. “You heard,” she said. “Did I?”

She said impatiently, “The request by Fulano de Tal is the key. That means the following message is for me.”

I muttered to myself, recalling what Calvin had said. Something about a
señor
Pagador and a Posada called the Priest without a Head. Suddenly it clicked. I said, “
Pagador
means, the one who pays. That’s you, right?” She nodded. I went on, “And the mention of the
posada
told you where to go to pay.”

I was right again. She stood up and took a few paces around the room and came back to stand in front of me. She looked down pleadingly. “I’m being blackmailed.”

I thought that was rather obvious. I said, “By Calvin? By that little goon?”

She waved a hand impatiently. “Can you imagine him involved in such a scheme? No, I think he’s the innocent carrier of the messages.”

I said, “You
think
, but you aren’t sure?” She shrugged. I went on, “Let’s say for the moment that he is innocent. Then who’s blackmailing you? Pachuco?”

She shook her head. “I think he found out I was being blackmailed.”

“And wanted a piece of it for himself,” I said. Sure, that was like Pachuco. He’d try to cut himself in both ways. Blackmailers have a way of becoming irritated by people like Pachuco. Apparently this one had, to the point of killing him.

I said, “If not Pachuco, who then?”

She looked as if she wanted to crawl into my lap and have a good, blubbering cry. “I don’t know,” she said helplessly.

I
SAID
, “Let’s start at the beginning.” Despite her woebegone expression, I couldn’t feel any great amount of pity for her. Somehow Rosanne Norton left me cold.

She took a deep breath and when she had it all let out, she was all efficiency again. She said, “It started a number of months ago. I received a telephone call. I was told to listen carefully as the instructions would not be repeated.”

I nodded. I said, “That was to prevent you from calling in the police to tap your phone or make a trace on the call. What kind of voice was it?”

“Tinny,” she said. She bobbed her head. “I know it sounds silly, but that’s the only way I can describe it. It sounded as if he were using one of those electronic devices singers make funny noises with.”

I said, “He?”

She looked a little surprised. “I assumed so.” She thought about that. “But I don’t really know.”

I let that pass and told her to go on. She had herself well under control by now and she perched on the chair arm again. She asked me for a cigaret. I gave it to her. When I held out my lighter, she put the tips of her fingers against my hand to guide it to her cigaret. She held her fingers there a little longer than necessary.

“I feel better already, telling you,” she said. Her voice had some of the same throaty quality she had used on Jim Kruse when they did their routine on the veranda.

I said, “You haven’t told me yet.”

She had her mouth fixed in a warm smile and despite my abruptness she kept it. She said, “My instructions were to listen to Calvin’s program on the second and fourth Wednesdays and Thursdays of each month. And I was told how to interpret the instructions.”

I said, “So you go to room 212 of the Inn of the Priest Without a Head and do what?”

“Open the door, walk in, leave the money on a table, and go.”

I said, “what is room 212 of this place?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never been there.”

“A different place each time?” She nodded. I said, “When do you go? There was no time mentioned in the message.”

“That’s always the same,” she said. “At one in the morning, tomorrow. Day after tomorrow, really, since it’s after midnight.”

I said, “This is a lot of rigmarole, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is. But in towns as small as ours, any simple contact could easily be found out.”

I had to agree with that. I said, “And just what are you paying for? Hardly a new washing machine.”

Her mouth almost lost the smile in disapproval of my levity. But she was going to be friendly in spite of me. She said, “If I knew what I was paying for, I’d try to do something myself.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You pay blackmail and you don’t know why?”

“Yes.”

“You’re being absurd,” I said, using her favorite word on her.

“All I definitely know,” she said, “is that I was made to understand my business would suffer if I didn’t do as I was told. The implication was that the money my husband used to set up Norton Enterprises came from sharp dealing-worse, illegal dealings.”

“And you have no idea what those dealings could have been?”

She shook her head. I noticed that as she talked, she moved so that by now her hip was brushing my shoulder. She said, “I met him when I was doing war work in San Antonio during the Korean conflict. He was an officer, career army. But when everything had quieted down, he resigned his commission and came to Fronteras. He told me that he had some money and was looking for good investments. I needed capital to expand the ranch—my father left it to me—and I sold him a half interest. Shortly after, we got married. He was a good businessman and he had quite a bit of money and so we built up what I have now.”

“When did he die?”

“Two years ago. He was away on a business trip and his plane crashed. He always flew his own plane.”

“You’re sure that was an accident?”

“No,” she said simply. “He was too good a pilot and too careful. And the weather was good. That’s why I think there might be something to the threat.”

I followed her reasoning on that easily enough. I said, “How much do you pay?”

“A thousand dollars every two weeks.” Her voice had that hopeless tone again. “And I’m not so wealthy that I can afford it. If it doesn’t stop soon, I’ll have to destroy my business—sell it off—to keep on paying.”

I said, “Why did you wait so long to call on someone like me?”

“I’ve been hoping I could find out who was behind it and stop it,” she said. “But when Pachuco started threatening me, I knew I had to have help. I couldn’t afford another bloodsucker.”

If she moved her rump much farther toward me, she’d be in my lap. And now she had one arm across the top of the chair, in a convenient position to drop down around my neck.

I said, “You say you don’t think Calvin is behind it.”

Her smile was almost pitying. “You don’t know Calvin,” she said. “He’s one of our most respected citizens. He’s the local scout master and he has the best attended Sunday School class in Fronteras. He gives the rest of his free time to the local high school band. He’s just wonderful with boys.”

I’ll bet he was! But I didn’t say it. She went on, “He makes a lot of money from his radio program. He buys the time from the station and sells the advertising direct. No, I don’t think it would occur to him that he’s sending messages.”

“How can the blackmailer be sure Calvin will use his messages?”

She said, “He has a standing rule—all requests accompanied by a cash donation for any charity are put on the first half hour of the program and on the day the donor wishes.”

I still didn’t see how it could be done without Calvin’s connivance. The blackmailer would be taking too many chances; too many little things would have to go just right each time. But I didn’t argue with her. Who was I to destroy her illusion of that paragon, Calvin Calvin?

I said, “Could Navarro be behind it?”

This time she didn’t duck when I mentioned his name. “I doubt it,” she said. “He has more businesses than he can handle now.”

“Delman?”

“Porter! Don’t be absurd. Porter is the most honest, upright man I ever knew. Besides, he has a good deal of money.”

“Jim Kruse?” Before she could protest, I said, “Delman seems to think Jim’s the root of a lot of your trouble.”

“Porter isn’t even sure I have any trouble,” she said. “And he’s jealous.”

“He should be,” I murmured.

She was halfway into my lap by now. She looked a little angry but she didn’t back away. She said, “Jim is just one of those things—an interlude. And he knows it. After all, we are together out here quite a lot. And Porter is rather stuffy.”

She turned so that I got a full face view. “And am I so hag-ridden, Mr. Blane, that you can’t understand Jim Kruse liking a woman older than he?”

I had my opportunity, but if I took advantage of it, I’d have one alienated client. I wasn’t ready for that yet. I swallowed back the obvious retort and said, “I didn’t realize you were older. And I can understand Kruse, all right. I can even envy him.”

Talking like that in English should have been a lesson to me. In Spanish, you can say as much and even more—in the floweriest of phrases—and everyone knows it’s blarney. But English is a language people seem to take at face value. The last two words of my little speech almost didn’t get themselves said. La Norton was in my lap; her arm was around my neck; and her mouth was aiming for mine.

I wished I hadn’t sobered up so thoroughly. Maybe full of good liquor I could have enjoyed this. But I was only full of barbecued beef and coffee. And I couldn’t enjoy myself.

Which was too bad because, for all her apparently normal frigidity, Rosanne had a way about her. I remember thinking that if something didn’t happen quickly, in five minutes at the most something else was going to happen.

Something happened. From outside the windows, someone started kicking the wall apart. Then there was a high-pitched, definitely feminine yowl of anguish. That was followed by a deep-voiced curse.

Rosanne was on her feet and rearranging her clothes before the whole gamut of noises registered on me. When they did, I got up and started for the window.

“That was Porter’s voice,” she said as calmly as if she hadn’t been in what is known as a “state” a moment before. “Wipe the lipstick off your face.”

I wiped but kept going for the window. I pulled back the curtains, noticing that one hung askew at the upper corner, and ran up the window sash. I leaned out into the cool night air.

And there was Arden. She was half buried in a mixture of thorn bush and cactus, and her legs were thrashing wildly. Her heels beating against the wall had made the first noise. Her arms were thrashing too, and with each motion, she managed to dig her nails into a little more of Porter Delman. At first I thought he was trying to pull her free and then I realized that he was being his own brave, masculine self. He was trying to slap her.

Behind Delman was Jim Kruse, and he was trying to pull Delman away from Arden. All the time Delman was swearing at Arden. “You dirty little spy! Who hired you to spy on Mrs. Norton? I’ll make you answer, by God, you …”

I’d had enough. I went out the window and helped Kruse pull Delman away from Arden. As he swung around, we both hit him at once.

We had to carry him into the library.

Rosanne brought Delman around with brandy. I pried Arden out of the bushes. Finally we were all in the library, and everyone stood glaring at everyone else. Except Kruse. When he looked at Rosanne, his expression got positively fatuous.

When Delman was on his feet, I said, “Did you get fun out of hitting Miss Kennett like you did hitting Amalie?”

“She was spying on you!” he said to Rosanne.

“That’s right,” Kruse said reluctantly. “I was the one who caught her. I came around the house and there she was, balancing on the window sill and looking in where the curtain had fallen away from the window. I guess Delman was following me, because before I could do anything, he went past me and made a grab for her.”

I looked at Arden and had a hard time to keep from laughing. I thought,
You got yourself into this one, honey
. But even if she had, I couldn’t leave her in a spot like this. I could see legal prosecution glittering in Delman’s eyes.

I said, “For the record, Miss Kennett wasn’t spying on Mrs. Norton. She was spying on me.”

Everyone gaped at me, including Arden. I said, “It happens that she’s my fiancee, and she’s a bit—uh, jealous. Tonight I didn’t want her to come to this shindig because she hadn’t received an invitation. I think she thought I had another reason for not wanting her to come.”

I thought it was pretty good, myself, for a spur of the moment performance. But from the expressions on several faces, it wasn’t being bought.

Then Arden sold it. She let out a sob that could only have come from her boot soles. She rushed at me and threw her arms around my neck and buried her face under my ear, standing on tiptoe to do it.

She wailed, “Oh, Tommy, I’m sorry, but I can’t help myself. I do lo-o-ove you so!” She sounded like a cow with her tail caught in a barbed wire fence.

I whispered, “Don’t overdo it, for God’s sake!”

She whispered back, “You have lipstick under your ear, you bastard!” in the sweetest of voices.

I untangled her arms from around my neck and held her gently away. I gave the assembled audience my most sheepish grin. “I’m sorry about this. Maybe I’d better take her home.”

“Do that,” Rosanne said. She was all frost and no fire now.

Delman said, “Isn’t this young lady the dancer at Navarro’s?” He made a sneer of every word.

I said, “She is. Why do you think I came down from Mexico City, to enjoy your scenery?”

On that note, I thanked my hostess and steered Arden outside and into the rented car. I got behind the wheel and headed for Fronteras.

Arden couldn’t seem to sit quietly. She leaned first to one side and then to the other. Finally she hoisted herself up by bracing her feet on the floor and supporting her weight on her hands.

I said, “Haven’t you done enough for one night? Don’t get to horsing and wreck the car too.”

“Horsing!” she wailed. “You try sitting down after you’ve fallen into a big old pile of cactus.”

My evening was made. I sang all the way to Rio Bravo.

By the time we reached the hotel, Arden was obviously more than just uncomfortable. She was in pain. I got her upstairs and face down on the bed.

Her jeans were close fitting and in places they were pinned to her shapely bottom by long-shanked thorns. I sat down and started yanking at the thorns. I pulled a good two dozen out of her.

When I stopped, she got up and headed for the bath. “I’m full of cactus needles too,” she said plaintively. “Get me a drink, please.”

I picked up the phone and ordered a bottle of brandy. I could hear Arden stirring in the bath. Every now and then she gave a small yip.

When the brandy came I sampled it. I was taking a second sample when the telephone rang. Amalie was on the other end. She said in a solid rush of Spanish, “I must see you at once, Tomaso.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“It is not for myself that I call. I have something important to tell you.”

“I’m listening,” I said. I tried the brandy again.

“I cannot tell it on the telephone.”

I had the feeling that she wanted to see me more than she wanted to tell me something. At the same time there was that breathless urgency in her voice. But I was bushed. I explained to her that it was already past midnight and that tomorrow I would be fresher.

She didn’t like the idea of waiting but she finally agreed. I said that I’d meet her at her place the next night at seven. I rang off just as Arden came from the bathroom.

She was wearing a jersey robe that clung to every line of her. It was quite something when she walked. She went straight to the bed and lay face down. I looked hurriedly in the other direction.

She said sweetly, “First one woman and then another. What did this one want?”

“To tell me something,” I said. “I suppose she’s been eavesdropping at Rosanne’s office door again.”