The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (60 page)

In a rack near the desk were some timetables, and some maps put out by filling stations. I picked up one of the latter and glanced over the map. Something clicked in me. I was hot. It was rolling my way, for there was one highway they could have followed, and probably
did
follow that would have carried them by not over a mile from the mesa!

Studying it, I knew I didn’t have a lot, although this did bring another suspect into the picture, and a good one. One thing I wanted to know now was the trouble between Caronna and Bitner. I walked restlessly up and down the lobby, racking my brain, and only one angle promised anything at all. Loftus had hinted that Caronna was buying high-grade ore from miners who had smuggled it out of the mines.

Then I looked up and saw Karen Bitner coming down the stairs from her room.

Somehow, the idea of her staying here had never occurred to me, but when I thought about it, where else in this town could she stay?

Our eyes met, and she started to turn away, but I crossed over to her. “Look,” I said, “this isn’t much of a town, and it’s pretty quiet. Why don’t we go have some coffee or something? Then we can talk. I don’t know about you, but I’m lonely.”

That drew a half smile. After a momentary hesitation, she nodded. “All right, why not?”

Over coffee our eyes met and she smiled a little. “Have you decided that I’m a murderer yet?”

“Look,” I said, “you want your uncle’s murderer found, don’t you? Then why not forget the hostility and help me? After all, I’m just a poor boy trying to get along, and if you aren’t guilty, you’ve nothing to fret about.”

“Aren’t you here to prove me guilty?”

“No. Definitely not. I was retained by Caronna to prove him innocent. Surprising as it may seem, I think he is. I believe the man has killed a dozen men, more or less, but this isn’t his kind of job. He doesn’t get mad and do things. When he kills it’s always for a good enough reason, and with himself in the clear.

“Also, from what he has said, I have an idea that he wants anything but publicity right now. Just why, I don’t know, but it will bear some looking over.”

“Do you think old Mr. Holben did it?”

That brought me up short. After thinking it over, I shook my head. “If you want my angle, I don’t think those old reptiles disliked each other anywhere near as much as they made it seem. I’ve seen old men like that before. They had some little fuss, but it probably wore itself out long ago, only neither one would want the other to know. Actually, that fuss was probably keeping both of them alive.”

“Then,” Karen said, “with both Caronna and Holben eliminated, that leaves only myself. Do you think I did it?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “I really do. If you were going to kill a man, you’d do it with words.”

She smiled. “Then who?”

“That, my dear, is the sixty-four-dollar question.”

She smiled, and then her eyes flicked over to our sultry waitress, who was keeping an eye on us from behind the counter. She asked softly, “Who is the Siren of Ranagat? An old flame of yours? Or a new one you’ve just fanned into being? She scarcely takes her eyes off you.”

“My idea is that the lady is thinking less of romance and more of finance. Somewhere in this tangled web she is weaving her own strands, and I don’t think my masculine beauty has anything to do with it.”

Karen studied me thoughtfully. “You do all right, at that. Just remember that this is a small town, and you’d be a break here. Any stranger would be.”

“Uh-huh, and she has a lot of fancy and obvious equipment, but somehow I doubt if the thought has entered her mind. I’ve some ideas about her.”

It was cool outside, a welcome coolness after the heat of the day. The road wound past the hotel and up the hill, and we walked along, not thinking much about the direction we were taking until we were standing on the ridge with the town below us. Beyond, on the other mountain, stretched the chain of lights where the mine stood, and the track out to the end of the dump.

The moon was high, and the mining town lay in the cupped hand of the hills like a cluster of black seeds. To the left and near us lay the sprawling, California-style ranch house where Blacky Caronna lived and made his headquarters. Beyond that, across a ravine and a half-mile further along the hill, lay the gallows frame and gathered buildings of the Bitner Gold Mine, and beyond it, the mill.

On our right, also above and a little away from the town, loomed the black bulk of the mesa. There were few lights anywhere, but with the moon they weren’t needed. For a few minutes we stood quiet, our thoughts caught up and carried away by the quiet and the beauty, a quiet broken only by the steady pound of the mine’s compressor.

Then, from the shadows behind the buildings along the town’s one business street, a dark figure moved. Whether I saw it first, or whether Karen did, I don’t know. Her hand caught my wrist suddenly, and we stood there, staring down into the darkness.

It struck me as strange that we should have been excited by that movement. There were many people in the town, most of them still awake, and any one of them might be out and around. Or was there something surreptitious about this figure that gave us an instinctive warning?

I glanced at my watch. By the luminous dial I could see that it was ten minutes after ten. At once, as though standing beside her in the darkness, I knew who was walking down there, and I had a hunch where she was going.

The figure vanished into deep shadows, and I turned to Karen. “You’d better go back to the hotel,” I told her. “I know this is a lousy way to treat a girl, but I’ve some business coming up.”

She looked at me thoughtfully. “You mean…about the murder?”

“Uh-huh. I think our Cleopatra of the café is about to make a call, and the purpose of that call and what is going to be said interest me. You go back to the hotel, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“I will not. I’m coming with you.”

Whatever was done now would have to be done fast, and did you ever try to argue with a woman and settle any point in a hurry? So she came along.

We had to hurry, for we had further to go than our waitress, and a ravine to enter and climb out of, and much as I disliked the idea of a woman coming with me into such a situation, I had to hand it to Karen Bitner. She kept right up with me and didn’t do any worrying about torn hose or what she might look like when it was over.

T
HIS
C
ARONNA WAS NO DOPE
. Stopped flat-footed by the hedge around his place, I found myself respecting him even more. This was one hedge no man would go through, or climb over, either. For the hedge was of giant suguaro cactus, and between the suguaro trunks were clumps of ocotilio, making a barrier that not even a rattlesnake would attempt. Yet even as we reached it, we heard footsteps on the path from town, and then the jangle of a bell as the front gate opened.

That would be the girl from the café. It also meant that no entry could be gained by the front gate. Avoiding it, I walked around to the rear. There was a gate there, too, but I had no desire to try it, being sure it would be wired like the other.

Then we got a break. There was a window open in the garage. Crawling in, I lifted Karen in after me, and then we walked out the open door and moved like a couple of shadows to the wall of the house. I didn’t need to be told that both of us were right behind the eight ball, if caught.

Blacky Caronna wouldn’t appeal to the law if he caught us. Knowing the man, I was sure he would have his own way of dealing with the situation.

C
ARONNA WAS SEATED
in a huge armchair in a large living room hung with choice Navajo rugs. With his legs crossed, his great shoulders covering the back of the chair, he looked unbelievably huge. He was glaring up at the girl.

Taking a chance, I tried lifting the window. Everything here seemed in excellent shape, so I hoped it would make no sound. I was lucky. Caronna’s voice came clearly. “Haven’t I told you not to come up here unless I send for you? That damn cowtown sheriff is too smart, Toni. You’ve got to stay away.”

“But I had to come, Blacky. I had to! It was that detective, the one you hired. I saw him looking at my copy of
Billboard
.”

“You had that where he could see it?” Caronna lunged to his feet, his face a mask of fury. “What kind of brains you got, anyway?” he snarled, thrusting his face at her. “Even that dope will get an idea if you throw it at him. Here we stand a chance to clean up a million bucks, and if he gets wise, we’re through!”

“But they’ve nothing on you, Blacky,” she protested. “Nothing at all.”

“Not yet, they ain’t, but if you think I’m letting anybody stand in my way on account of that sort of dough, you’re wrong, see? This stuff I’ve been pickin’ up is penny-ante stuff. A million bucks, an’ I’m set for life. What do you think I brought you up here for? To make a mess of the whole works?

“The way it stands, nobody knows a thing but me. Loftus don’t know what the score is, an’ neither does this dick, an’ they ain’t got a chance of finding out unless you throw it in their faces. Let this thing quiet down, an’ that dough go where it’s gonna go, an’ we’re set.”

“You’d better watch your step,” Toni protested. “You know what Leader said about him.”

“Leader’s a pantywaist. All he can do is handle that pen, but he can do that, I’ll give him that much. I’ll handle this deal, an’ if that baby ever wants to play rough, I’ll give him a chance.”

“You shouldn’t have hired that detective,” Toni said worriedly. “He bothers me.”

“He don’t bother me any.” Caronna’s voice was flat. “Who would think the guy would pull this truth-and-honor stuff? It looked like a good play. It would cover me an’ at the same time cinch the job on that dame, which was the right way to have it. It don’t make no difference, though. He ain’t smart enough to find his way out of a one-way street.”

There was a subdued snicker behind me, and I turned my head and put a hand over her mouth. It struck me afterward that it was a silly thing to do. If a man wants a girl to stop laughing or talking, it is always better to kiss her. Which, I thought, was not a bad idea under any circumstances.

“Now, listen.” Caronna stopped in front of her with his finger pointed. “You go back downtown an’ stay there until I send for you. Keep your ears open. That café is the best listening post in town. You tell me what you hear an’ all you hear, just like you have been. Keep an eye on Loftus, and on that dick. Also, you listen for any rumble from Johnny Holben.”

“That old guy? You really are getting scary, Blacky.”

“Scary nothing!” he snapped. “You listen to me, babe, an’ you won’t stub any toes. That old blister is smart. He’s been nosin’ around some, an’ he worries me more than the sheriff. If he should get an idea we had anything to do with that, he might start shootin’. It’s all right to be big and rough, but Holben is no bargain for anybody. He’ll shoot first and talk after!”

She turned to the door, and he walked with her, a hand on her elbow. At the door they stopped, and from the nearness of their shadows I deduced the business session was over. This looked purely social. It was time for us to leave.

Surprisingly, we got out without any excitement. It all looked pretty and sweet. We had heard something, enough to prove that my first guess was probably right, and it didn’t seem there was any chance of Caronna ever knowing we had visited him.

That was a wrong guess, a very wrong guess, but we didn’t know at the time.

We didn’t know that Karen’s shoe left a distinct print in the grease spilled on the tool bench inside that garage window. We didn’t know that she left two tracks on the garden walk, or that some of the grease rubbed off on a stone under Blacky Caronna’s window.

I
N THE MORNING
I sat over my coffee for a long time. No matter how I sized up the case, it all came back to the same thing. Caronna hadn’t killed Old Man Bitner, but he knew who had. And despite the fact that he wasn’t the killer, he was in this up to his ears and definitely to be reckoned with.

That copy of
Billboard
was the tipoff. And it meant that I had to get out of here and locate the Greater American Shows, so I could have a look at Dick Castro. Richard Henry Castro, showman and importer of animals.

Caronna came into the café and he walked right over and sat down at the table. I looked up at him. “I can clear you,” I said. “I know who the killer was, and you’re definitely in the clear. All I need to know now is how he did it.”

He dismissed my information with a wave of the hand. His eyes were flat and black. “Here.” He peeled off five century notes. “Go on home. You’re through.”

“What?”

His eyes were like a rattlesnake’s. “Get out of town,” he snarled. “You been workin’ for that babe more than for me. You’ve been paid—now beat it.”

That got me. “Supposing I decide to stay and work on my own?”

“You’ve got no right unless you’re retained,” he said. “Anyway, your company won’t let you stay without dough. Who’s going to pay off in this town? And,” he said coldly, “I wouldn’t like it.”

“That would be tough,” I said. “I’m staying.”

The smile left his lips. It had never been in his eyes. “I’m giving you until midnight to get out of town,” he snarled. Then he shoved back his chair and got up. There was a big miner sitting at the counter, a guy I’d noticed around. When I stopped to think about it, I’d never seen him working.

Caronna stopped alongside of him. “Look,” he said, “if you see that dick around here after midnight, beat his ears off. If you need help, get it!”

The miner turned. He had flat cheekbones and ears back against his skull. He looked at me coldly. “I won’t need help,” he said.

It was warm in the sunlight, and I stood there a minute. Somehow, the sudden change didn’t fit. What had brought about the difference in his feelings between the time he had talked with Toni and now? Shrugging that one off, I turned down the street toward the jail.

Loftus had his heels on the rolltop desk. He smiled at me. “Got anything?” he asked.