“So you waited two hours?”
“Not quite two hours, but pretty close to it.”
“Did it ever occur to you that he might be in danger?”
“Of course it occurred to me. Why do you suppose we checked out the way we did and didn’t leave any back trail? We’re dealing with people who are playing for keeps.”
“Hale had his own car?”
“Yes.”
“Anything distinctive about it?”
“No, it’s just an ordinary black... Now, wait a minute, there is too. The left front fender has been struck and pushed up. He’s been going to have it fixed but... Well, he’s been busy and he hasn’t had too much money.”
“You don’t have a car?”
“I don’t have a car.”
“All right, how did you get from the Maple Leaf Motel own here?”
“Milt drove me across.”
“You mean Milton Calhoun?”
“Yes.”
“And how did he find you?”
“I don’t know. He came to the window and called my name about... I don’t know, it was along in the night. He asked me to open the door so he could talk with me.”
“And you did?”
“I opened the door and I was a little bit annoyed. I told him that I didn’t appreciate being called in the middle of the night that way and that he didn’t have any claims on me and that I was annoyed.
“Then he told me to keep my voice down, to get my things packed up; that I was in danger and he was going to move me to some other hotel. He finally convinced me and I packed up and got in the car with him and he drove me across here, registered, and paid for the room three days in advance.”
“What are you going to do at the end of the three days?”
“I don’t know, but I presume that by that time they will have broken and there’ll be no further danger from those dope smugglers.”
“You sound to me like a bunch of amateurs trying to climb a perpendicular rock face,” I said. “You just don’t know what you’re getting into. You’re dealing with professionals.”
“What would you suggest doing?” she asked.
The first thing we’d better do is to try to find Colburn Hale. He’s evidently somewhere between here and San Felipe. Get your clothes on and we’ll take a ride.”
She said, “I think he can take care of himself all right. He... he had a gun.”
“What kind of a gun?”
“A thirty-eight-caliber revolver.”
“Where did he get the gun?”
“I gave it to him.”
“And where did you get it?”
“I got it from Milton.”
“Now, wait a minute,” I said. “Let’s get this straight. Milton Calhoun gave you a thirty-eight-caliber gun?”
“That’s right.”
“When?”
“A couple of days ago when he first learned that I was working with Cole on a deal involving some dope smuggling. He told me that I could get in a lot of trouble that way and that he wanted me to be protected.”
“So he gave you the gun?”
“Yes.”
“His gun?”
“Of course it was his gun, if he gave it to me.”
“And then you gave that gun to Colburn Hale?”
“That’s right.”
I did a lot of thinking. Then I said, “Come on, we’re going to drive down the road to San Felipe and keep our eyes open on the side roads.”
“Why?”
“Because,” I told her, “we may find a car with a front right fender that’s been bent up and a dead body in it.”
“A dead body!”
“Your friend, Colburn Hale.”
“But he... they... they wouldn’t...”
I said, “You’re dealing with a professional bunch of dope smugglers. Their deals run into the thousands of dollars. A murder now and then is more or less of an incident. Get your clothes on and meet me here in as close to five minutes as you can make it.”
She hesitated for a moment, then got to her feet and said, “Well, perhaps that’s the best way, after all.”
10
The road from Mexicali to San Felipe runs for some distance through a territory where there are occasional roadside restaurants selling ice-cold beer to the thirsty traveler together with a few of the more simple Mexican dishes.
There are some houses along this section of road before it crosses a barren stretch of desert to climb through a mountain pass. The Gulf of California is on the left, the barren desert on the right, and to the south the heat-twisted volcanic mountains where the hot desert winds have blown the sand high up on the rocky slopes.
I had settled for a long run and we had gone some distance in silence. Then Nanncie said to me, “I don’t want you to get me wrong. I don’t play my boyfriends against the other. I am gregarious. I’m fond of people. I’m a writer. I don’t want to give up my career so I can be a housewife and raise squalling babies. I’m not cut for that kind of work. I’m ambitious.”
“You’re living your own life,” I told her.
“And,” she went on, “I want you to know that I didn’t have anything to do with breaking up Milt’s home. He his wife had separated before I ever met him, and I never did furnish a shoulder for him to cry on about how she didn’t understand him or how cold she was... But I admit I gave him a taste of the sort of life he had never seen. A taste of bohemian life, a taste of associating with people who were living by making their minds work. A rather precarious living, I’ll admit. But that’s not because of any lack of talent on the part of the people who are doing the writing. It’s on account of edit policies.”
“What’s wrong with editorial policies?” I asked.
“Everything,” she said. “The good magazines have tendency to close the doors against free-lance writers. They have more and more adopted a policy of staff-written written contributions.
“And then the bigger magazines cater to the big name the people who are well established.”
“And how do you get to be well established in literary world?” I asked.
“By having your stuff published.”
“And how do you get your stuff published?”
She smiled and said, “By getting to be a big name. You can’t... Donald! Donald, there’s Cole’s car!”
“Where?”
“Over at that roadhouse restaurant parked right by open-air kitchen. See that fender?”
I swung my car off the road and we came to a stop a somewhat battered old-model car that was parked against the rail of an open-air dining room.
There was no one in this dining room, but I opened door which led to a rather cramped interior and suddenly Nanncie was flying past me with outstretched “Cole! Oh, Cole, oh my God, how glad I am to see you! Tell me, are you all right?”
The man who had been sitting at the table drinking beer got stiffly to his feet.
He and Nanncie embraced, completely oblivious me.
“I made it,” he told Nanncie, “but it was touch go.”
“Cole, you’ve got a black eye and there’s blood on your shirt!”
“And my ribs are sore and I’ve taken a beating,” he said.
She remembered me then. “Cole, I want you to meet Donald Lam. Donald, this is Colburn Hale.”
Hale backed away suspiciously, ignoring my outstretched hand. “Who’s Lam?” he asked.
“A detective,” she said. “A...”
Hale started to turn his back.
“A private detective,” she said. “A private detective who has been looking for you.”
Hale turned back. He regarded me with suspicious eyes, one of which was badly swollen and had turned purple, the eye being bloodshot underneath the discoloration.
“All right,” Hale said, “start talking.”
I said, “I know just about everything there is to know. When Nanncie told me that you were going to meet her at the Monte Carlo Café at seven o’clock last night and didn’t turn up and when I knew that the shipment of dope you had been tailing had crossed the border, I thought it might be a good idea for us to drive down the road toward San Felipe and see if we could find some trace of you.”