The single row of white cottages was neat and freshly painted; each unit had a covered carport with a door leading directly inside. Above the first cabin a large red neon sign proclaimed MOTEL with vacancy underneath in smaller pink letters. After he had rung the bell twice the office light went on and an old man with a sour face like the taste of lemon came out of the back room rubbing his eyes. An old-fashioned nightshirt covered bowed legs.
“Is your last unit in the line empty?”
Clicking his false teeth together he leaned past Falkoner as if to make sure there was a last unit. He smelled sourly of sleep.
“Yep.”
“Fine. I have trouble sleeping if I can hear traffic passing. How much?”
“Five bucks.”
“Commercial rates.”
“Well... four, then.”
Falkoner did the other careful things the years had taught him: wrote ‘Simmons’ on the register in a slanting backhand script that was not his own, mixed up the license number in a way that could have been accidental, and took Genevieve’s suitcase with him before locking the car. Opening the motel room door he breathed deeply; orange groves flanking the highway made the air faintly sweet. Maybe it was getting to him. Five years ago he’d never considered the possibility of anything going wrong. Tomorrow I’ll dump her with Dannelson, he thought, and maybe get lined up with a little piece. I’ve been living like a monk lately.
“Let me talk to Danny,” Falkoner said, rubbing his eyes and cursing the grey fingers of smog reaching out from Los Angeles. Sunday morning traffic made it difficult to hear.
“Who’s calling?”
“Falkoner.”
“Falkoner? I’m sorry, Mr. Dannelson is out.”
Falkoner squeezed the receiver tightly. The palm of his hand had gone sweaty.
“Is Dannelson out or did he say he was out?” he asked.
“Mr. Dannelson is out.”
There were muttered angry words, a click, and Dannelson’s voice came jovially over the wire.
“Hello, Jack? That damn fool didn’t get your name right. Listen, boy, S.F. said you have a parcel for us. Where in hell are you?”
Falkoner hung up abruptly, returned to the car, and tuned the radio to a ten o’clock newscast. It carried the item for which Dannelson’s clumsiness had prepared him.
Palm Springs police were investigating the disappearance and possible murder of Genevieve Ostroff, fortune-teller at the Green Cactus bar in Palm Desert. Two boys playing near her house had seen a man carrying what looked like a blanket-wrapped body to her black station wagon. Investigating police had found no sign of violence and her clothes had been gone, but there had been over seven hundred dollars in small bills under the paper lining of a dresser drawer. After the first newscast Chester Langly, parking lot attendant at the Blue Owl, had furnished the description of a man who had hitched a ride with him from the airport to a point near Genevieve’s house. A man who had called himself Simmons.
Damn that fairy Langly, Falkoner thought. The police were easy, but Mr. David had given him the contract for Genevieve personally... now he was too dangerous to live. The word was already out: lucky Danny’d been so anxious. Los Angeles and Las Vegas and San Diego — probably Tucson and El Paso, too, because they’d figure him to try for Mexico. No place to run: and to run would mean admitting to himself he was afraid. Suddenly his pale morose face cleared. What if he went back to San Francisco after Mr. David? That was it. It was what they should expect of Jack Falkoner.
The maid had finished his room. He paid at the office for a week in advance, then carried the heavy un-wieldly package that was Genevieve in through the side entrance and dumped it on the bed.
A light blue 1955 Ford pulled out behind him on the traffic circle at Bakersfield. The tail job was clumsy. Falkoner drove fast: this boy mustn’t have time to get to a phone. On the new freeway north of Delano he suddenly floored the accelerator and squealed into the right-angle turn for the Earlimart overpass, swung over to old U.S. 99, and pulled up in front of a little general store he had remembered. It was the run-down country crossroads sort of place occasionally surviving in the San Joaquin valley. The sort of place to do what had to be done.
A short man wearing dirty overalls and chewing a large cud of tobacco came out.
“Fill it up — regular,” said Falkoner.
He waited in the store by the vegetable counter. Three dirty bare-footed children slammed through the screen door and began noisily clamouring at the candy counter like puppies worrying a bone. A tall faded lady in a washed-out dress came from the bowels of the store to scream harsh threats at them.
When the blue Ford rounded the corner and braked sharply, Falkoner went out the door and around behind the store to the primitive outdoor restrooms. Lattice works into which thick vines had grown flanked the entrance. He slammed the lean-to door loudly, stepped out of sight behind the vines, and took the magnum from its shoulder holster. Feet scuffed in the dust and foliage rustled. Door hinges squeaked cautiously.
The young red-haired man had freckles and a homely face and a switchblade knife in one broad paw. As he turned from the empty shanty, puzzled, Falkoner stepped around the lattice work and slammed the magnum down on his hand. Pimples of sweat popped out on his hard young face. The knife fell. He snatched clumsily for the magnum with his left hand, breathing hoarsely, his eyes already sick with the sure frightful knowledge of defeat.
Falkoner’s gun rammed him in the stomach, bending him over; then it clipped him across the back of the neck and knocked him to his knees. A knee driven into his freckled face upset him against the wall. The magnum struck his bright hair with a sound like a wet rag slapping concrete. He tipped forward on his face and was still.
Falkoner dragged him around the corner of the shanty and killed him.
The short man was still cleaning bugs from the Mercury’s windshield when the blue Ford dug out and sped past the gas pumps.
Night had darkened San Francisco when Jack Falkoner took the down ramp off the freeway at Seventh, crossed Market, and went up Larkin. He drove over the hill to Pacific, turned right, crossed over the Broadway tunnel on Mason, and parked the Ford. His hands shook a little as he checked the magnum: going after Mr. David was something like going up against God.
Turning downhill at Glover, a narrow one-block alley, he walked on the right-hand side, crossed over, and came up the other side breathing heavier from the incline. There were no cars he knew, no people at all, so he turned in at an ornate wooden gate and climbed a series of stone steps. In less than a minute he had opened the heavy oak door with a small metal pick and was prowling the five-room apartment. His rubber soles made no sound on the polished floors and thick carpets. On Sundays Mr. David and the girl he kept there usually watched Ed Sullivan, but tonight the apartment was empty.
I can wait, Falkoner thought as he returned to the Ford, and slid in behind the wheel.
A round hard object poked the base of his neck and a smooth voice said:
“Hands on the head, Sweets, and slide over slow.”
Strangely, he thought of his first hit. It had been in a car like this and the man had said: ‘I’m not afraid of you.’ He did not say anything. A dark figure came erect in the back seat and another crossed the street swiftly to get in under the wheel and hold a gun on Falkoner while the first one took the magnum. Later the man had cried and babbled and even prayed. Falconer had been much younger then and had laughed before shooting him in the back of the head.