Somewhere a horn was honking insistently. Then a car door slammed, and Dolores called, “¡Un momento!”
The cop grunted a command to halt, and swept off his cap. “¿Sí, Señorita?” he said. “A servicio de—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence, or any of the several others he started. After three minutes of Dolores’ rapid Spanish, he was reduced to complete silence, answering her torrent of reprimand only with feeble shrugs and apologetic gestures.
At last she snapped open her purse and uttered a contemptuous “¿Cuánto?—how much?” The cop hesitated, then drew himself erect. “Por nada,” he said, and walked swiftly away.
Toddy said, “Whew!” and, then, “Thanks.”
The girl nodded indifferently. “I must go now. You are going with me?”
Toddy said he was. “Shake and his boys were trailing me. I—”
“I know; I saw them enter the bar. That is why I waited.”
“It didn’t occur to you,” said Toddy, “to do anything besides wait?”
“To call the police, for example? Or to intervene personally?”
“You’re right,” said Toddy. “Let’s go.”
As they neared the international border, Dolores took a pair of sunglasses and a checkered motoring cap from the glove compartment and handed them to him. Toddy put them on, glanced swiftly at himself in the rear-view mirror. The disguise was a good one for a quick change. Even if his mug was out on a pickup circular, he should be able to get past the border guards.
He did get past them, after a harrowing five minutes in which the car was given a perfunctory but thorough examination. He had to get out and unlock the trunk compartment. On the spur of the moment—since he had neglected to do so sooner—he had to invent a spurious name, birthplace and occupation.
He was sweating when the car swung out of the inspection station and onto the road to San Diego. As they sped past San Ysidro, he removed the cap and glasses, mopped at his face and forehead.
“I am sorry,” said Dolores, so softly that he almost failed to hear her. She was looking straight ahead, her eyes intent on the road.
“Sorry?” said Toddy vaguely.
“You are right to be angry with me, to be suspicious. What else could you be? Except for me you would not have been involved in this affair.”
Well, Toddy thought, she’d called the turn there. But what he said, mildly, was, “Forget it. I was asking for it. A guy like me wouldn’t feel right if he wasn’t in trouble.”
“Wouldn’t he?”
Toddy looked at her, looked quickly away again. She couldn’t mean what she seemed to, not with Elaine murdered and himself the principal suspect. That, and everything else that was hanging over him. Of course, she wouldn’t be any angel herself but…But he couldn’t think the thing through. It was a hell of a poor time to try to.
“I don’t know,” he said shortly. “Probably not.”
“I see.” Her voice was flat.
“I”—Toddy hesitated—“maybe. It would depend on a lot of things.”
20
The house was in the Mission Hills section of San Diego, located on a pie-shaped wedge of land overlooking the bay. On one side a street dropped down to Old Town. On the other side another road wound downward toward Pacific Highway. In the front, a multiple intersection separated the house from its nearest neighbor by a block. There were no houses in the rear, of course; only a steep bluff.
Toddy sat in the front room—a room as sparsely furnished as the one in Chinless’ Los Angeles dwelling. He had been sitting there alone for some fifteen minutes. As soon as he and the girl had arrived, Alvarado had spoken rapidly to her in Spanish—too rapidly for Toddy’s casual understanding of the language—and she had gone down the hallway toward the rear of the house. Alvarado had followed her, after politely excusing himself, and closed the door; and dimly, a moment later, Toddy had heard another door close. Since then there had been silence—almost.
It seemed to Toddy, once, that he heard a faint outcry. A moment later he had thought he heard the dog bark. Thought. He wasn’t sure. He strained his ears, held his breath, listening, but the sounds were not repeated.
Toddy waited with increasing uneasiness. In the far corner of the room was a desk littered with papers. When he and Dolores had arrived, Alvarado had been working there, and something about the sight had given Toddy an inexplicable feeling of danger. He wanted to get a better look at those papers. He wondered whether he dared risk the few steps across the room and a quick glance or two.
He decided to try it.
Rising cautiously, an eye on the hall door, he tiptoed across the floor and looked swiftly down at the desk. The papers were covered with rows of neatly written figures, interspersed occasionally with what appeared to be abbreviations of certain words. They were meaningless.
“Meaningless, Mr. Kent,” said Alvarado, “unless you have the code book.”
He came in smiling, closing the door behind him, and crossed to the desk. He picked up a small black book that had been lying face down and riffled its pages of fine, closely printed type.
“This is it. Regrettably, it is much too complex to explain in the brief time we have.”
“Better skip it, then,” said Toddy, matching the other’s irony. And as he resumed his seat on the other side of the room, Alvarado chuckled amiably.
“A man after my own heart,” he declared, sitting back down at the desk. “I cannot tell you how disappointed I am that we shall not work together.…For the time being, at least.”
“No?” Toddy crossed his legs. The air was heavy with perfume. Alvarado apparently had doused himself with it.
“No. Unfortunately. But we will come to that in a moment. I have had you visit me so that I might explain—explain everything that may be explained. You are entitled to know; and, as I say, I hope we may work together eventually. I did not wish you to be left with an unfavorable opinion of me.”
“Go on,” said Toddy.
“After I dispatched you to Tijuana, I communicated the fact to our supplier of gold…the man I suspected of killing your wife. He, reacting as I believed he would, ordered you murdered. To be slugged and disposed of permanently as soon as it was expedient. As soon as the first half of the order was carried out, I intervened. I had the proof I wanted.”
“Proof?” Toddy frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“But it is so simple! He killed your wife—I was certain—merely as a means of disposing of you. He hoped to involve you, and through you me, in a crime which would break up our syndicate and release him from duties which have long been onerous to him. Now you understand?”
“No,” said Toddy. “I don’t.”
“But it is—”
“Huh-uh.” Toddy shook his head. “Up to a point, I’ll buy it. He killed Elaine. I thought you’d done it. If I played the cards he gave me, I’d have either gone after you myself or hollered to the cops.…But I didn’t do that. You and I squared our beef. He didn’t have a thing to gain by getting rid of me in Tijuana.”
“Hmmm.” Alvarado drummed absently on the desk. “I see your point. It was stupid of me not to think of it.…Of course,” he added, smoothly, “I was not completely sure of this man’s motive. There was a strong possibility that he might have been motivated by revenge.”
“Remember me?” said Toddy. “I’m supposed to be the bright boy. So stop kidding me.…This guy tried to get me killed; I’ll go along with that. And when he did he proved that he’d killed my wife. Why? I’ll tell you. Because he was sure that, given a little time, I’d be able to dope out who he was. You were sure I would, too, and, until you got your orders from abroad, you had to protect his identity. You had to pin the rap on him good before I did too much thinking.”
“Really, Mr. Kent…”
“That’s the way it was. That’s the way it has to be. Now why beat around the bush about it?”
Alvarado stared at him thoughtfully, a quizzical frown on hi
s pale shark’s face. Then, gradually, the frown disappeared and he nodded.
“Very well, Mr. Kent. I suppose there really is no longer need for secrecy. The man you mention has served us well…in the opinion of my superiors. He is now closing out his affairs and will soon be out of this country. Possibly—probably—we will find use for him elsewhere. But that is no concern of yours. Long before you can discover his identity and confirm it, he will be beyond your reach.”
Amazement choked Toddy for a moment. He could hardly credit himself with hearing the words that Alvarado had spoken. Before he could find his voice, the chinless man was speaking again.
“I can well understand your confusion, Mr. Kent. I share it. But there is nothing I can do about it. Our entire hypothesis was wrong. This man we suspected did not kill your wife.”
“You’re lying!” Toddy snapped. “Murder or no murder, this guy is valuable to your bosses. They’re going to protect him at all costs. That’s the whole story, isn’t it?”
“It is not. My bosses, as you call them, do not act so whimsically. The man was able to prove, irrefutably, that he did not kill your wife. As an unfortunate result, our superiors retain their original high regard for him while I—for the moment, at least—have been made to appear a clumsy and vindictive fool.”
“You’re forgetting your lines,” Toddy said grimly. “A minute ago you were saying that—”
“I was speaking in theoretical terms. Like you, I was speeding down a trail of theory and I am at a loss when the trail disappears.”
“My getting slugged wasn’t any theory!”
“Be grateful you were not killed, and dwell no more on the matter. Nothing good will come of it.”
Hands shaking, Toddy lighted a cigarette. After an angry puff or two he ground it out beneath his foot. Alvarado nodded sympathetically.
“You are annoyed. I am withholding information which you feel is vital to you. Does it occur to you that I might easily be annoyed with you for much the same reason?”
“I’m not holding back anything.”
“Knowingly, no. And I am not doing so willingly.”
“I don’t,” said Toddy, “get you.”
“You yourself had the best opportunity to kill your wife. You had ample motive, also. You are not the type to kill with premeditation, but I can readily imagine your doing so in a moment of temporary insanity. And since such a crime is inconsistent with your nature, your conscious mind would refuse to admit it.…All this is conjecture, of course. I know nothing. I want to know nothing.”
Toddy laughed shortly. “Tell me why I was slugged. Maybe I’ll sign a confession, then.”
“You invite the obvious retort, Mr. Kent. Tell me how you disposed of your wife’s body and I will tell you why you were slugged.”
Toddy stared at him helplessly. “You don’t believe that,” he said. “You know I didn’t kill her. Maybe this guy, the supplier, didn’t do it either, but—”
“He didn’t.”
“Then, what’s it all about? What are you trying to steer me away from?”
Alvarado shook his head. Turning back to his desk, he opened the code book. “So that is the way it is,” he murmured. “You will excuse me if I work while we talk.”
Toddy started to speak; his hand started to knife out in a gesture of angry exasperation. The gesture was unfinished. He remained silent—staring, trying not to stare.
That code book was in unusually fine print. And yet Chinless was studying it without difficulty and without his glasses. He couldn’t be—shouldn’t be—but he was. What the hell could it mean? Why had he claimed that his eyes were bad right from the moment of their first meeting? Why had he pretended that he couldn’t read Milt’s card? What reason was there—
“Now,” said Alvarado, “let us leave theory to the theorists and take up practical matters. As I indicated, we are ceasing activities in this country indefinitely; but we hope to resume them. When that time comes we can find a profitable place for you.…”
“Suppose I don’t want it?”
“That is up to you. We have no fear of your talking.”
“All right,” said Toddy, “I’m listening.”
“There is a Pullman train leaving here tonight; what you call a through train. I have reserved you a stateroom. It will not be necessary for you to leave that stateroom until you arrive in New York. You will be given a thousand dollars in addition to your passage. That should maintain you in some degree of comfort until I get in touch with you.”
“How will you do that?”
“A detail. We will work it out before you leave. Does the idea, generally, please you?”
“It doesn’t look like I have much choice,” said Toddy. “I want to know why you’re jumping the country, though. I’m hot enough without getting any hotter.”
“You will not be. I, at this point, am the sole recipient of the heat. The informer in our midst has chosen to make no mention of you to the authorities.”
“Informer? Who is he?”
“That need not concern you.” Alvarado turned a page of the code book and ran a pencil down the column of symbols. “This informer is one of our unwilling operatives. We were able to obtain his”—Alvarado slurred the pronoun—“cooperation through a brother, a political prisoner in one of my country’s excellent labor camps. It was necessary for the brother to die. Our confederate discovered the fact through a relative. He made the very serious mistake of confronting me and charging bad faith.”
Toddy nodded, absently. He was staring at the code book, at Alvarado. Something warned him to look away, but he couldn’t. “I see,” he said. “You knew he’d turn stool pigeon.”
“He already had,” grimaced Alvarado, “though I was unaware of it until yesterday. I had assumed that his tirade against me was immediately subsequent to the news of his brother’s death. Then, through a slip of the tongue, he revealed that he had known of it for a month. He had known of it but said nothing, continued the regular course of his affairs, until his sense of outrage overcame his discretion. Obviously, he had done so for only one reason.…You followed me, Mr. Kent?”
Toddy didn’t speak. Alvarado looked up from the desk.
“I am boring you, perhaps?”
“What?” Toddy started. The answer had come to him at last, at the very moment of Alvarado’s question. A beautifully simple yet almost incredible answer. “I don’t quite get it,” he said, with forced casualness. “This guy has squealed. Why haven’t the Feds moved in on you?”
“Because they hope to trap the man who supplies our gold. He is to meet me here—or so I advised our informer—tomorrow night. The efficient T-men will not come near the place, nor do anything else to arouse my suspicions, until then.”
Toddy nodded absently, his mind still working on the riddle of Alvarado’s “bad eyesight.”…Let’s see, he thought. Let’s take it from the beginning. I gave him that frammis about a friend sending me to him, and then I gave him the card. He let me into the house. Then…well, I didn’t have much to say for a minute or two, and he began to freeze up a little. Asked me my business. Said he couldn’t read the card. He must have, but—
Toddy started slightly. Why, of course! Chinless had thought he’d been sent there to the house. When he discovered the truth, that their meeting was sheer accident, he had pretended that…
The chinless man looked down at the code book. He looked up quickly, and his gaze met and held Toddy’s. A frown of regret spread over his dead white face.
“Well?” said Toddy.
“It is not well,” said Alvarado, and his hand dipped into his pocket and came out with the automatic. “You have an expressive face. Like our informer, Dolores, it tells too much.”
21
Toddy forced an irritated laugh. “What the hell’s the matter with you anyway? What have I done now?”
“It is not so much what you have done. It is what you surely would do…now that you know. I am sorry. I, personally, am sorry you ca
nnot do it. But I have my orders. The man must be protected.”
“I still don’t know—”
“Please!” Alvarado gestured fretfully. “You know and I know you know. In a little while, a few weeks, it would not have mattered. The man would have vanished. You, I believe, would have grown more philosophical about the matter. Now—”
“About murder?” Toddy dropped his mask of bewilderment. “Why would I stand still for a murder that this guy committed?”
“He did not commit one. At least, he did not kill your wife.”
“But—All right,” said Toddy. “He didn’t. I did. Is that good enough?”
“Not nearly, Mr. Kent. You are certain that he did kill her. You would act accordingly. There would be much talk—many secrets would be aired. It would not do.”
“You’re forgetting something,” said Toddy. “I’m in no position to make trouble for anyone.”
“You mean,” Alvarado corrected, “you are in no position to make trouble for yourself. And I am sure you would not. You and I both know that the position of this man is a precarious one. He is, as we noted in an earlier conversation, a sitting duck. You would pick him off, Mr. Kent, even though you did not believe he was the murderer of your wife.”
Toddy’s eyes fell, and his shoulders drooped. He leaned forward a little, disconsolately, his wrists resting on his knees.
“Do not try it, Mr. Kent.”
“You won’t shoot,” said Toddy. “Someone might hear it.”
“Someone might,” Alvarado nodded, “but I will shoot if necessary.”
“I want to ask a question.”
“Quickly, then. And lean back!”
“I know this man didn’t kill Elaine. He was with me at the time. But he had her killed, didn’t he?”
“He did not. It was the last thing he would have wanted.”
“Put it this way. He knew the watch was in our room. He sent someone to get it. Elaine put up a fight, and the guy killed her.”