Till Death Do Us Part (9 page)

M
Y FIRST
thought was to make for the border, but after hearing the police radio, I changed my mind. Right now, I was hotter in Rio Bravo than I was in Fronteras.

I wondered what I’d done to Navarro to make him pull the string on me. Then I wondered if Navarro had been the one. Others knew about Pachuco’s death. Nace knew, Arden knew. And if one of those three wasn’t Pachuco’s killer, then the murderer knew too.

Whoever had tipped the cops, had also tipped me, I realized. I didn’t think I’d have been turned in if I hadn’t been getting close to homeplate. As I saw it, until tonight I hadn’t been regarded as dangerous. But now I’d talked to Calvin. And Calvin knew enough about a blackmailer to be frightened for his life.

I remembered the shadowy figure who had watched from the plaza and from the street behind the vacant lot. I remembered thinking him about the size of Nace.

Thinking of Nace brought Amalie to my mind. I wondered if her crush on me was deep enough for her to agree to hide me. I decided to find out. I couldn’t drive this prowl car around Fronteras forever.

I wheeled the police car into the narrow, rutted alleyways that passed for streets in the Spanish-American section. I found a convenient, empty garage that looked as if its walls would fold inward at any moment. I buried the prowl car there and started hiking.

I located Tiburon Street and walked down it until I came to the five hundred block. Amalie lived in the middle unit of a long adobe row house. A light shone from her window from behind drawn shades.

I went around to a littered alley and walked up it until I reached her back yard. I went through a gate and up a narrow walk to the back door. When I tried the knob, it turned. I opened the door and stepped quietly into a small, dark kitchen.

Light shone from under a door across the room. I cat-footed to the door and pushed it gently. It was the swinging kind and it gave under my hand. I looked into a tiny bed-sitting room. It contained the usual quota of rental furniture plus a television set. Amalie was absorbed in the television picture.

I said softly, “Amalie, it’s Tomaso.”

She wasn’t at all startled. She came out of her chair and up to me in one quick move. She jumped up and plastered herself against me, her arms around my neck.

“Tomaso!
Querido mio!”
she whispered.

All her weight hung from my neck. I was surprised to find how solid she was. Then she started giving my lips a workout and I forgot all about her weight. Since my high school days, women seemed to get a great kick out of kissing me. Most of them displayed the technique of a soapy washrag. But the sample I had from Amalie was something else.

I finally pried her loose and came up for air. “What convent did you say you were educated in?”

She giggled and took my hand and led me to the chair where she had been sitting. “Did I do right, Tomaso? I do not know. I just try to show you how I feel.”

I said, “Before you get in too deep, you’d better hear something about me.”

She half pushed me into the chair. “I hear on the radio that you kill a man.” Her voice took on a spitting quality. “First I think you have killed this Porter Delman for me!” A sad note crept in. “But it is not so. Did you kill this Pachuco for that
rubia?”

I didn’t know whether by
rubia
she meant Arden or Rosanne. Both were blonds. I said, “I didn’t kill anybody.”

Her large, dark eyes were wide and adoring as she looked down at me. “I do not care if you kill,” she said. “In my family, the woman loves only one man—always. For me, you are that man. Even if you kill.”

I said desperately, “Listen,
chica
. I didn’t kill anybody. But the
policia
think I did. So if you don’t want me sent where I will never be able to love you, you have to help me.”

“Anything, querido mio”

I’d never seen anyone so determined to be helpful, and so unconcerned over the consequences. I said, “Perhaps if you tell me the important news, that will help.”

She looked at me in silence. Finally it sank into my slightly dulled brain that she was, in a sense, blackmailing me. I said, “Okay. Come on and sit down.”

She plopped herself in my lap and burrowed into a comfortable position. She still made me want to pat her on the head, but as I didn’t think she’d appreciate that kind of treatment, I patted her somewhere else.

She made a sound of pure ecstasy. Then she said, “Yesterday I listen at the
señora’s
door. The
señor
Delman is talking to her. I hear him say, ‘I have to draw the line somewhere, Rosanne. And I refuse to be a party to this. I insist you go to the police.’”

Amalie was talking in Spanish. I made an approximate English translation for myself. I figured that was adequate.

Amalie said, “Then the
señora
answered, ‘Porter, you always say you want to help me. Now that I ask for help, you refuse me. I dare not go to the police. And he say, ‘Listen to reason, my dear. This is criminal, what you wish to do.’ And she say, ‘I do not think that combatting a criminal act by any means at my disposal can be considered criminal, Porter. I will do what I must to protect myself.’ And then he goes from her office and I hear her cry.”

She looked appealingly at me. “Do I help,
querido?”

I said, “I think so. Did you find out what she wanted him to do?”

“I am sorry, Tomaso. I do not go to the door at once when he enters the office. You understand, I am afraid. But I give myself the courage because I think I help you.”

She looked so woebegone that I kissed her. That was a mistake. I finally had to set her on her feet. I got up. I said, “Amalie, what do you want to get all tangled up with a guy like me for?”

“You save me from that man,” she said. “And you are tall and strong. My father was tall and strong. But his hair was long.”

I could feel Freud chuckling in my ear. I said hastily, “I’d better be going,
chica.”

“No! They will find you.”

I said, “I can’t help myself hiding here.”

“Tell me what you must do. I will do it for you,” she said. Her over-developed upper anatomy pressed against me. “It is the
señora
Norton you wish to watch, is it not? I shall watch her for you.”

I said thoughtlessly, “No, it’s Delman I’m interested in, but I already have someone watching him.”

“It is that other
rubia!
The one who will marry you!”

I said, “Take it easy,
chica
. She’s just a friend.”

She was about to give off a few more explosions when I heard a noise from outside. I touched her arm to silence her and moved to the front window. I peered around the edge of the blind. Coming down the street was a police car. It moved very slowly as if looking for someone.

I said, “The police.”

“What can it mean,
querido?”

I said, “It either means that someone who knew I was coming here tipped them off or that I was followed.”

“But who could know?” Her voice was frightened. “Tomaso, you think that I tell the police you are coming to me!”

I started for the kitchen. She clung like a limpet. I said, “Take it easy,
chica
. Other people knew too.” I was thinking that Arden knew. And she had probably told Navarro. And there was Nace….

I said, “Did you tell anyone I was coming? Anyone at all?”

“No, I swear. I …” Her voice trailed off miserably. She said in a tiny voice, “Ignacio called me today, and I told him that I could not see him tonight. He asked if I was seeing you. I did not say yes. But I did not say no, because I do not like the lie.”

I said, “Maybe he heard the news on the radio and called the police.”

“He is so jealous,” she said. “Tomaso, I am sorry.”

I said, “Forget it. I couldn’t stay here anyway. I don’t want to get you in trouble.” I was by the back door now. “Listen, can you stall the police when they come to the door?”

“I will kill them for you!”

“Just stall them,” I said. I leaned down and kissed her gently. “Go now.”

She turned and ran. I heard her open the front door. Suddenly she started having hysterics. She had a fine pair of lungs. By the time those cops got her quieted down, I’d be long gone. I gave her a mental pat for her quick wit and took off.

I wasn’t used to running from the police. It hadn’t occurred to me that they would surround the place. But what I saw coming through the rear gate was all cop. Amalie’s hysterics had him moving on the double.

I didn’t have time to slow down. All I could do was lower my head and keep running. I felt the stiffness of his military belt across the top of my skull. Then he was gone and I was still on my feet. I turned down the alley and kept running. I didn’t look back.

I was three blocks away before I dared take time out for a breath. I leaned in shadow against an adobe wall and panted. I wondered where I went from here.

The answer was simple. I had only one possible refuge left.

Rosanne.

• • •

To reach Rosanne’s, I had to go back through the main part of town. It took me a while, darting from alley to alley, shadow to shadow, and when I reached the rear of her building, I was breathing hard and was sticky with sweat.

A light shone dimly through a small frosted glass window. I tried the rear door. It was locked. I took a deep breath and rapped.

I pushed myself in shadow against the wall and waited. I heard hesitant footsteps. Then the door came slowly open. It stopped, held by a chain.

I whispered, “Rosanne?” I figured I had a fifty-fifty chance of not being turned in by her. I didn’t know where else I could get better odds right now.

Her answering whisper carried surprise. “Tom!” The chain rattled as it was slid free. The door opened. “Quickly.”

I went in fast. Rosanne slipped the chain back into place and turned toward me. She said, “I heard the news. Oh, darling, you didn’t have to kill him for me. We could have worked something out.”

Before I could answer, she brought her body hard against mine. I had the strange feeling that I’d gone through all this before. Then I realized it wasn’t so strange after all. It hadn’t been very long ago that Amalie had pulled the same routine. I began to wonder if the two women had got hold of the same script.

I said, “I didn’t get a chance to kill him, Rosanne. Someone beat me to it.”

She stepped back, catching both my hands in hers. Grey eyes searched my face. Her mouth no longer seemed thin; it had a warm and hungry look.

She said simply, “I’m glad. I’ve been worried sick.”

“About me and Calvin?”

“Just about you,” she murmured. “Last night you thought I was acting. I know you did. You thought I just wanted to make sure that you’d help me and that’s why I tried to get you to make love to me.”

I said, “Considering our earlier relationship, what did you expect me to think?”

“I don’t blame you,” she said. “But it isn’t true.” She stopped and squeezed her hands down hard on mine. “You’re tired. Let me get you a drink.”

I said, “I’d rather have something to eat.”

She led me into her apartment. It wasn’t much bigger than Amalie’s living room. It was furnished with a sofa bed, coffee table, two chairs, a pair of lamps, and a dinette table. A radio on the coffee table played softly. A curtained off alcove held a motel type kitchenette and through an open door I could see a small bathroom. It looked pleasant and warm and, for the time being anyway, it was a refuge.

I went into the bath and washed the mixture of dust and sweat from my face and neck. When I returned to the room, Rosanne parked me on the couch and put some sliced roast beef and bread on the coffee table. I could smell coffee percolating. I was surprised to find that I wasn’t very hungry after all.

“Whatever happened?” Rosanne demanded.

She sat across the coffee table, in a straight chair, and watched me nibble on a sandwich. She wore a pale gray suit that picked up the color of her eyes. An emerald green scarf at her throat made the silver blond of her hair shimmer. All the harshness had been smoothed from the corners of her mouth. She was really something to gawp at.

I said, “Someone thinks I’m getting too close to home and they want me stopped.”

“But who?”

I said, “I don’t know who, but I think I know why.” I told her about my talk with Calvin and about the person shadowing us. She listened with parted lips, incredulity reflected in her eyes.

“I can’t believe it of Calvin!”

I said, “He either smokes or smuggles weed, or both. So you can figure he’s liable to do anything. A man in his position in this town can’t afford to get caught even thinking of marijuana.”

She still seemed to find this hard to believe. She said finally, “Let’s assume you’re right. What are you going to do now?”

I had a lot of ideas in my mind, but I couldn’t see myself succeeding in doing any of them alone. Not with every cop on both sides of the river looking for me.

I nibbled my sandwich and tried to figure how Rosanne fit into this. I couldn’t see her having turned me in. To have done that, she would have to have known about Pachuco’s death and to have been able to tell the police where to find the body. And, I reasoned, if she wanted me out of the way, she could have called the cops when I was washing up in her bathroom.

But I still couldn’t trust her. I kept remembering her frostiness and how hungry she was for money. And I remembered hearing her cool down her fiancee and then trot out onto the veranda to perform with Jim Kruse. And an hour or so after that she was giving me the business.

As though she had read my mind, she said, “I know what’s bothering you, Tom. But I’m not really the person I act like when I’m behind a desk. A woman has a hard time in business, and I’ve built that attitude as a protective screen.”

I didn’t say anything. She got up and brought the coffee. She poured each of us a cup and lit a cigaret for herself. She said, “And if you’re thinking of Porter—well, after I lost my husband, he was here. He’s always been around, waiting for me. He helped me through the first bad months and then encouraged me to immerse myself in the business. I guess I just got tired of saying no to his proposals.”