Till Death Do Us Part Page 3

  “You’re warm,” I said.

  He knew American slang too. He said, “I am hot.” He rubbed his hands together and threw one out toward the rug as if he might be tossing dice. He was very gay about the whole affair. “A natural!” His laughter bubbled in his throat like a happy geyser.

  He said, “And she asked that you spy on me.”

  I said, “Snakeyes.”

  He frowned. “You refuse to admit this to me?”

  I said, “No. She didn’t mention you.”

  “You will tell me what she did not say, but you will not tell me what she did say. Is this correct?”

  “Substantially,” I agreed.

  He tapped a well manicured nail against a tooth. He said, “You have a strange kind of ethics, Mr. Blane.”

  I knew what he was getting at. I also knew that I had only a slim chance of getting him to understand my position. But since he had me in an obviously ugly position, I figured that the chance was worth taking.

  I said, “You think it’s strange that I’d hold a client’s business confidential and at the same time be the kind of bastard the newspapers made me out to be.”

  He said dryly, mocking me, “Substantially that is what I think.”

  I said, “It so happens that I wasn’t involved in that deal of Pachuco’s.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “I would enjoy hearing your defense.”

  I wouldn’t enjoy making my defense, but I saw nothing else to do. I said, “Pachuco was great for rustling up work, even when the firm didn’t need any. He located the job that started all the trouble.”

  I lit another cigaret from the butt of the first. I said, “In Mexico, there are many refugees, particularly in the capital. Mexico is very hospitable and it lets in people of all types, especially if they claim political persecution.”

  Navarro said, “I am aware of this about my country.” He didn’t say whether he approved or disapproved of the policy.

  I said, “So when Pachuco found this group of refugees who felt they needed protection, it seemed only logical. I agreed that we take the job of checking to see if there was anyone from their own countries here bent on exterminating them. I was busy and so Pachuco handled the job by himself.”

  He tapped his tooth again. “As I understand it, investigation showed that there were no threats to these people, yet your firm took money they could ill afford to spend, claiming that such threats did exist.”

  I said, “That’s right. Pachuco faked the whole deal. When I found it out, we had words.” I rubbed my knuckles. “We also dissolved our partnership. But by that time, he’d taken not only their money but their valuables as security against what they supposedly owed us. When the police found out what was going on, I was selling my holdings to get the money to repay the people.”

  Navarro said, “Perhaps I was wrong, señor Blane. Your ethics are not strange, they are merely unusual.”

  I said, “Unfortunately, Pachuco was less naive than I. When the police closed in, he was already well out of the affair. He had not only left the firm, he’d fixed the records to make it look as if I was behind the entire deal. He had the money he’d milked from those poor people and I had nothing but a falsified set of records which showed I’d got all that money except a small amount which he took as salary.”

  “I do not understand why you did not lose your license,” Navarro said.

  “It was suspended,” I explained. “But the fact that I was making restitution at the time the police came helped me get reinstated last month. The big trouble was, of course, that I didn’t report Pachuco when I first discovered what he was up to. The police claimed that if I was as innocent as I said, I would have reported him.”

  “The point is well taken,” Navarro said, as if we were having an academic argument. “Why did you not report Pachuco?”

  I said, “Hell, he was my partner. I told him I’d give him a chance to make restitution.”

  “And instead, he left you with the sack empty.”

  I translated that to myself, “If you mean he left me holding the sack, you’re right. Only it wasn’t empty. It was full of grief.”

  He said, “I would like to accept your story. But even if I do, does it make a difference at the moment? Here we are, you and I, both aware that a man has been tortured and murdered. And both of us are also aware that this man was the one who ruined your reputation and your career, who caused you to sell your branch agencies and dismiss your carefully chosen staff and ….”

  I said, “You can stop the obituary, señor Navarro, and tell me what you want.”

  “A favor,” he said promptly. “Tomorrow, I wish you to report to Mrs. Norton.”

  “About what?” I asked, trying hard to look innocent.

  “About your business with her,” he said. His voice told me to stop playing games. “And in the course of the conversation you are to mention Pachuco—but not that he is dead—and you are to mention my name. Observe her carefully. I wish to know her reactions when you mention these names.”

  His eyes had taken on a sleepy look but they weren’t missing much. I had to work to keep a blank look. I said, “And what if I go across the border and stay there.”

  “In that case, I shall call our police,” he said cheerfully. “They will have no trouble in getting the cooperation of the Texas forces and receiving you at the border.”

  I said, “It will be your word against mine that I was ever in Pachuco’s room.”

  He just smiled. He didn’t have to answer that. After all, I had registered at his hotel where Pachuco was staying. And my connection with Pachuco filled a fat police file in Mexico City. Besides, he was Julio Ricardo Fulgencio Navarro, magnate of Rio Bravo or some such thing. I—I was a discredited private detective with a known grudge against the murdered man.

  I said, “I’ll be back.”

  He smiled more broadly. “I believe you. But to insure that you will, I shall arrange for you to have an escort.”

  I said, “A bodyguard? No thanks.”

  He ignored me. He left the room and was gone for nearly five minutes. When he returned, he had my “escort” in tow. She stood with hands on hips, surveying me. She said, “Hi.”

  I said, “Hi,” and my voice sounded weak to my ears.

  My “escort” was Arden Kennett, the eccentric dancer.

  IV

  NAVARRO chuckled. I got the idea that he thought he was a great joker.

  He said, “Señorita, may I present to you the señor Tomaso Blane. Señor Blane, the señorita Arden Kennett.”

  He sat down at a small desk and opened a drawer. “And now,” he said, “if you will both excuse me….”

  We took the hint and left. I was wondering just what Navarro planned to do with Pachuco’s corpse. Even in winter, it couldn’t stand waiting too long before being embalmed. But it was Navarro’s hotel. I decided to leave the problem with him. I seemed to have enough to worry about.

  And right now my major worry was Arden Kennett. She escorted me down the hall and up the stairs and into a large room that contained double beds. It was next to my old room, which had made it convenient for whoever had moved my gear. My pajamas were on the bed farthest from the window. My suitcase and my extra suits were in the closet. My underwear and socks and shirts were in the dresser drawer. And snuggled right alongside my stuff was hers.

  I said, “Our friend has a real sense of humor.”

  Arden Kennett stood with her back to the door, hands on hips. I had to admire the figure she presented. It was disconcerting.

  She said, “Strictly business, Mr. Blane.”

  I said, “What we have to do these days to earn a peso! Do all your dancing engagements include this kind of sidelines?”

  She just grinned at me, ruffled her mop of short, dark blond hair, and walked to her side of the room. She plopped on her bed, throwing herself like a rag doll and yet, somehow, landing with all her parts in the right places.

  I took off my shoes and climbed onto
my bed. Propping myself against the headboard, I lit a cigaret. I let my eyes droop half shut. I think better that way.

  Arden Kennett said, “How can a private detective make a living when the police are down on him?”

  I said, “Oh, they still send me business. But it used to be big business—insurance companies and that sort of thing. Now it’s tourists—lost cameras, misplaced children, however, I get along.”

  “But you got along better before you had trouble with Pachuco?”

  I said, “You seem to know all about me. I suppose Navarro told you.”

  “Of course.”

  I said, “Did he also tell you that I didn’t kill Pachuco?”

  “He didn’t say,” she answered. “He didn’t seem to think it mattered.”

  I thought, the hell it didn’t matter to Navarro. Despite his pretended indifference, he was itchy because Rosanne Norton had hired me to come here.

  I thought about that some more. But I didn’t get very far. I had too little to go on. Or perhaps I had too much. I had Rosanne Norton of Norton Enterprises, Incorporated, and I had Julio Ricardo Fulgencio Navarro, who probably was Rio Bravo, Incorporated or otherwise, and I had Enrico Pachuco, erstwhile partner, now deceased. And I had Miss Arden Kennett, eccentric dancer.

  I also had a job to do for Rosanne Norton and another job to do for Navarro, and I had the feeling that before long one of them was going to conflict with the other. An ethical detective is in much the same position as a lawyer when it comes to clients. He can hardly play both ends of a deal and remain ethical.

  Arden stirred, interrupting my thinking. She got up and went into the bath. After a great running of water, she returned dressed for bed. She snapped off the overhead light and crawled in between the covers.

  I got up too, took my pajamas into the bath, made a lot of water run, and came back. She was still awake, her eyes open and fixed on my bed. I climbed under the covers.

  Up to now, her presence had rather amused me. But I found myself getting irritated. My most expensive indulgence had always been privacy. I said, “What’s to prevent me from getting up and walking out of here?”

  “Me,” she said. “Good night.”

  The curtains were drawn over the window but a light breeze was blowing them apart and letting faint light spill into the room. When my eyes had adjusted to the light, I saw that Arden had apparently gone peacefully to sleep.

  I listened to the church tower chime a soft two a.m. I waited about another ten minutes. Arden’s breathing was soft and regular. I threw back the covers and slipped my bare feet to the rug. I went softly to the bath and got my clothes. With the same soft care, I padded across the room to the door. She had left the key in the lock. I reached out to turn it.

  From her bed, Arden said, “Would you rather be shot in the right or left buttock, Mr. Blane?”

  I went back to bed. I slept without any trouble at all.

  • • •

  Fronteras, Texas, is a nice town if you don’t mind heat ten months a year and part of the time the other two months. I minded it, but there was little I could do but sweat. With the winter thermometer at eighty-five, I took the bus across the river. The trip was a slow one, since we had to stop twice to satisfy customs and immigration men at either end of the bridge. But finally we arrived in Fronteras’ plaza.

  The towns were very like one another, except that where Rio Bravo had a honkytonk section, Fronteras had a narrow-streeted area filled with adobe row houses. Here the majority of the Spanish-Americans resided. Beyond this area was the American town. Except for the plaza, it could have been somewhere in the middle west.

  I strolled along Grande Avenue until I came to a small white stucco building with a big sign over the glassed front door. The sign read: NORTON ENTERPRISES, INC.

  I stopped across the street and slightly kitty-corner to the building. Arden, who had followed a few paces behind, stopped too. We were in front of a drugstore window. I turned as if looking into it. She turned too.

  I contemplated a jumble of hot water bottles, patent medicines, plaster casts of ice cream sundaes, and mechanical toys. I said, “You can’t come in there with me.”

  “Why not?”

  I said, “This job is going to be tough enough without my having to explain you too.”

  “How’ll I know you’ll say what you’re supposed to?”

  I said, “The same way Navarro will know. But he’ll get the information from me, not you.”

  She said, “I don’t want you slipping out the back door.” She sounded genuinely concerned.

  I said, “Honey child, if I’d wanted to shake you, I’d have done it before now. It’s impossible for one person to tail someone else even in a place this size—if the someone else doesn’t want to be tailed.”

  I saw her reflection in the drugstore window. Her short nose had a tiny worry wrinkle right where the freckles went across. She said, “I know that, but I don’t know what to do about it.”

  I said, “Relax. Go in here and have a cup of coffee or a nut sundae. I’ll be back.”

  “Promise?”

  I had to grin. She sounded serious in the way a little kid sounds serious. I said, “If we’re going to play this game without wearing us both out, well have to make a set of rules. The first one is to keep our promises. And I promise. Now you go in here and wait and make up the rest of the rules while you’re waiting.”

  She brightened. “All right.” She trotted docilely into the drugstore.

  I went across the street to Norton Enterprises, Inc. I entered a room that looked so much like a doctor’s outer office that I expected to see a sofa full of patients. The decor had that modern medical reception look about it. But there were no patients, and instead of the usual crop of well thumbed magazines on the end tables, I saw a stack of brochures.

  I picked one up. It told me all about Norton Enterprises and suggested that I inquire about investing in them. Since there was no sign of Rosanne Norton nor anyone else at the moment, I sat down to find out how to double my money.

  I discovered that Norton Enterprises was run by the widow of the founder, Chalmers Norton, that the present enterprises included a cattle ranch, six oil leases, a fruit and truck garden distributing company, a chain of small hotels on both sides of the border, a fuel oil distributing company, and a labor supply service.

  The labor supply service business puzzled me until I came to a paragraph explaining it. I found out that it was a new way of saying employment agency. Only it was restricted, rather than general in the types of labor it handled. In fact, it dealt only with Mexican nationals who came to the United States to work in the various harvests. Farmers and ranchers from all over the United States sent in their needs. Norton Enterprises, Inc., “after carefully examining the facilities provided by the American employer,” contracted with their Mexican outlet for the required number of laborers. They then saw to all the necessary papers, helped clear the men and their families through immigration, and generally made themselves useful. Their fees for all this were paid by the employer, not the employee.

  I was starting on that part of the prospectus describing the six oil wells when a door opened. I needed only a quick look to recognize the girl who stood there. Today she was wearing a light print dress and a secretarial air, but she was the same snub-nosed Mexican girl I’d seen with Nace the night before.

  She said in passable English, “May I help you, please?”

  I put the brochure in my pocket. “I’d like to see Mrs. Norton. The name is Blane.”

  Close up and in a good light, she was cute. Not pretty, except as young girls are pretty because of their freshness, but attractive enough. Her face was a little too broad and her body a little too out of proportion—the breasts too large and the hips too narrow and the legs yet to develop—for real good looks. She was at the most twenty.

  “One moment, please,” she said. She backed away and shut the door.

  In a moment it opened again. She nodded
to me. I followed her through a small office, obviously hers, complete with typewriter, filing cases, and the usual office litter. At the far side of the room was a door standing partially open. On this door, in large, easy-to-read gold leaf was the announcement:

  Rosanne Norton, President.

  I took a breath and headed for the deep freeze.

  V

  THE GIRL STOOD beside the door like a well trained executive secretary. I turned sideways to go past her. She gave me a tremulous smile and a shy appraisal from large, dark eyes. I smiled back. She flushed.

  I went into Rosanne’s private office. She sat behind a wide desk, looking as cool as she had in Mexico City, but today her suit was a lime green.

  She nodded me into a visitor’s chair placed at a slight angle to the desk. I sat down. Rosanne said, “Ask any visitors to wait. I’ll be in conference until further notice. And close the door, Amalie.”

  It was all very crisp and executive and without a trace of politeness. Amalie shut the door. Rosanne looked at me frostily.

  “I found your boy,” I said. “And I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to tell you.”

  She made no expression at all except to let her mouth take on that wary, trap-like expression. But it was hardly worth reporting to Navarro. I had the feeling such an expression was her natural state.

  “Go on.”

  I said, “I don’t know how much you found out about Pachuco, but presumably enough for you to come to me to learn more.”

  She just said, “Assume I know nothing.”

  I said, “He’s a bum. He’s a big, burly bully boy who thinks he’s a devil with the ladies, and sometimes is. He also thinks he knows more angles than a geometry teacher. He makes his living playing those angles. I found out that about him a little late,” I added.

  She wasn’t interested in my problems. She said, “I’d like specific examples, not generalities.”

  Her expression still showed nothing, not even polite interest. I said, “He specializes in what you might call quasi-legal blackmail. That is, he uses confidential information given him by his clients to blackmail those same clients.”