Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

“I will question the Señorita,” Colonel Ortega said. “I am curious about her part in all this.” He turned to Hope. “Señorita, what are you doing here?”

  “I told you yesterday why I wanted to go south,” Hope said.

  Sergeant Gomez appeared in the doorway. Colonel Ortega nodded to him. He came forward and saluted.

  “Mí coronel, there is nothing in the Señor’s car but a camp outfit, food in tins, and two cans of gasoline.”

  “Very well, sergeant; search the lady’s bags and the Señor’s suitcase.”

  Colonel Ortega turned to Hope. “You said yesterday that you had papers for Fitz Jordan which he had asked you to deliver in person. I offered to have them delivered for you. But no, that would not do. What do you say now?”

  “Just what I said then.” Her voice was steady, but Jim could see that she was scared.

  “Let’s see the papers you are delivering to Mr. Jordan.”

  “Colonel Ortega,” Hope said, “you are asking me for the private papers of an American businessman.”

  “Yes, señorita, I am. I don’t expect to be kept waiting.”

  Hope slowly pushed her purse across the table to him.

  Colonel Ortega opened it and dumped the contents on the table. Jim expected the automatic pistol to come bouncing out, but it didn’t. Colonel Ortega pushed aside the lipstick and the rouge and a toothbrush in a transparent case and picked up a thick envelope of heavy paper with a patent string fastening. He opened the envelope and took out two packets of hills, each wrapped with a strip of gummed paper such as banks use. Jim saw that one packet was of hundred-dollar bills and the other of twenty-dollar bills. He guessed there was five thousand dollars in the two packets.

  Colonel Ortega looked up from the bills at Hope Graham. “So, señorita, you do not tell the truth either.” Hope said nothing.

  “Where did you get all this money?” Colonel Ortega asked.

  Hope pointed to a small envelope with the address of a San Diego hotel in the comer.

  “By fallowing the instructions in that letter,” she said.

  Colonel Ortega took the letter out of the envelope and read it.

  “I see nothing wrong about this,” he said. “Mr. Jordan instructs you to take bonds out of his safe and use them as security for a loan at his bank and bring the money to him at Carmichael’s.”

  “Then why should you arrest me?” Hope asked.

  “The company you keep is bad, Señorita. You go to Ensenada with me “in the morning.”

  Hope Graham began to put things back into her purse. “You are going to prevent Mr. Jordan from getting his money?” she said.

  Colonel Ortega smiled. “Not at all. The proprietor of Carmichael’s is a responsible man. You may leave the money for Mr. Jordan in his care.”

  Jim saw that Hope wasn’t too pleased with this answer, though he couldn’t guess why. He had his own trouble. He had to make Colonel Ortega see what he was doing.

  “Colonel Ortega, do you know what will happen to me if you take me to Ensenada tomorrow morning to await extradition?”

  “I am afraid that you will go to jail, Señor,” Colonel Ortega said. “Although innocent,” Jim said. Colonel Ortega shrugged his shoulders. “That is not for me to decide.”

  “But you are deciding it, colonel. I am absolutely certain that Fitz Jordan robbed me and framed me. He had an apartment in the same building with me. He used it when he had to stay late in town. That’s how I happened to know him. He was the man I went to dinner with. No one else had a chance to slip the waiter a bad bill in place of the one I gave him.”

  “Señor,” Colonel Ortega said, “your only evidence against this man is in your own mind.”

  “I have no evidence until I find him with the bad bills,” Jim said. “That is what I am asking you to give me, colonel—a little time.”

  Colonel Ortega shook his head. “You can tell your story to the authorities in the United States, Señor, when you have been extradited. It is not my affair.”

  “And while I am trying to persuade them to go after Fitz Jordan, he will have come here and got his five thousand dollars in good money. He will cross the Sierra to the gulf and hire a fisherman to take him to La Paz or Mazatlán. Six months from now the department will hear of bad bills in Mexico City or Havana or Buenos Aires. In ordinary times, with ordinary luck, the department would catch up with him in six months or a year. But these are not ordinary times. Half the world is at war. We may be in it ourselves in a few weeks. The department may never catch up with him if you persist in giving him a head start. And I will be in Atlanta serving a sentence of ten or twenty years.”

  “Where is this Fitz Jordan?” Colonel Ortega asked.

  “He was here today, colonel. He has been gone only a few hours. He can’t be far away.”

  “Baja is a haystack and he is a needle,” Colonel Ortega said. “It might take weeks to find him. I cannot wait.”

  The sergeant came back to report to Colonel Ortega.

  “Mí coronel,” he said, “I find nothing but clothes in the luggage, except this.”

  He handed Colonel Ortega a small cotton bag. The Colonel opened the bag and poured out a dozen revolver cartridges.

  “Señor,” he said to Jim, “I see you like a heavy gun. These are forty-four caliber. And the bullets are the man-stopping kind.”

  “I am an officer of the law,” Jim said.

  Colonel Ortega handed the cartridges back to the sergeant and told him to put them with Jim’s gun.

  “You were an officer of the law, Señor,” he said to Jim. “I received word over the telephone this morning from your superiors that you are now under suspension, pending trial.”

  “Colonel,” Jim said, “why not give me a day—just one day—in which to find Fitz Jordan? One day can make no difference to you.”

  Colonel Ortega stood up, looking very much the soldier in his uniform, “You made a monkey of me once, Señor. You will not do it again. You made it possible for this Johnson to say over the telephone to his office in Los Angeles, ‘You know how these Mexicans are—always tomorrow.’ I am going to show him how we Mexicans are. It is long after midnight. I am going to bed. Breakfast will be at eight o’clock. The plane leaves at nine. You will be in my office at Ensenada at ten—before this Johnson knows that I have gone south.”

  “Colonel Ortega,” Hope said, “we have had nothing to eat since this afternoon. May we—”

  “I beg your pardon, señorita.” Colonel Ortega said. He snapped his fingers and Juan came running.

  “Give these people anything they want,” he said. “When they have eaten, show them to their rooms.”

  He turned to Jim. “I trust to your good sense, Señor. You are not foolish enough to try to get away on foot, without a gun.”

  “No, colonel, I am not that foolish.”

  “I have your word, Señor?”

  “You have my word. I will see you at eight o’clock for breakfast.”

  “Then good night, Señor.” He bowed to Hope. “Good night, señorita.”

  WHEN Colonel Ortega had gone, Jim asked Juan what he could give him to eat.

  “There is always chile, Señor,” Juan said. “I can also cook ham and eggs.” Jim looked at Hope.

  “Ham and eggs,” she said.

  “Sí, señorita,” Juan said, and hurried off.

  “You get a good enough break,” Jim said to Hope. “You satisfy your boss by leaving the money here. And they won’t hold you at Ensenada. Johnson doesn’t want you—except, perhaps, as a witness at my trial a month from now.”

  She nodded, but he wasn’t sure she heard what he said. She looked as if she were thinking about something else. He could see how tired she was. He knew how tired he was. They’d had three or four hours’ sleep on the beach of Todos Santos Bay before dawn. They’d been going ever since. All the glow had gone out of her. Even her blond curls had lost their life.

  “You don’t seem happy about it,” he said.

&nb
sp; “I’m not.”

  “You want to see him. You’re fond of him.”

  “No,” she said. “Not in the way I suppose you mean.”

  “Are you going to tell me what he said in that letter you burned up?” She drew her shoulders together as if she were cold. “Please put wood on the fire,” she said.

  He took wood from the pile beside the fireplace and got the fire going and sat down again at the table beside her, “He said he was going hunting and he’d be back here in a couple of days.”

  “So I lose by two days.”

  Hope took her mirror and her lipstick out of her purse. When she had repaired her make-up she got up and stood with her back to the fire and ran her fingers through those blond curls of hers until her head was a halo of curls.

  “You look marvelous,” Jim said, “except for the alkali dust.”

  She looked down at her slacks. They were gray with alkali.

  Juan came back with ham and eggs and homemade American bread and coffee.

  They sat down before the fire and ate. They ate all the ham and eggs and all the bread and butter.

  “Jim,” she said, “I’ve been thinking.”

  He waited, watching her. Some of the glow had come back into her. She had lowered her eyes until the lashes almost touched her cheek. Now she looked up at him.

  “About those bonds I took to the bank,” she said. “They were in an envelope marked Parmenter. And Parmenter had been Fitz Jordan’s partner in several things. I didn’t worry about it at the time. Fitz Jordan was always honest. It never occurred to me to question his instructions. But now—after what you’ve said—I can’t help wondering.”

  “You’re beginning to believe me.”

  She looked at him gravely. “Yes,” she said. “I believe you.”

  “That means a lot to me,” Jim said.

  “In the morning I’m going to tell Colonel Ortega that he’s making a mistake. I’m going to remind him that you found two of the bad bills on your way down here. I’m going to tell him I won’t leave the money here for Fitz Jordan, because I’m afraid it’s stolen money.”

  “Do you think it will do any good?”

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid it won’t. His pride has been hurt. He’s bound to put Johnson in his place, and the only way he can think of is to get you to Ensenada before lunch.”

  “I know,” Jim said. “I wish I’d had sense enough to tell him last night what I was coming down here for. He offered to help me, and if I’d told him the whole truth I think he would have.”

  “You were a perfect fool,” Hope said.

  “I know it. I should have let Johnson take me in that night he came to arrest me. I had a good record. I could have persuaded them to go after Fitz.”

  “You wanted to do it all yourself.”

  “I couldn’t stand the idea that I’d been made a fool of.”

  She smiled. “You and Colonel Ortega.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I still can’t believe Fitz Jordan is a crook,” she said.

  “I couldn’t either, until I had to.”

  “He was such a free, happy, openhanded sort of guy,” Hope said.

  “If he’d had five thousand dollars in real money he’d never have been tempted by counterfeit money. Not if he’d had five hundred. He had turned a shoestring into a bank roll often enough. He must have been worse than broke. He must have taken things he couldn’t make good, before the Parmenter bonds.”

  She shook her head. “I just don’t know,” she said. “I never saw anything wrong in his office.”

  They finished their coffee and walked down the room. Juan was asleep, his head in his arms on the counter. And then they both stopped suddenly.

  “What was that?” Hope asked.

  “A car coming into the patio.”

  Jim went to the door and listened. The car had stopped. He couldn’t hear anything at all. And then the door opened and El Tigre stuck his head in.

  “He’s here,” El Tigre said to somebody behind him, and lunged forward, Jim caught him with a straight left on the nose. El Tigre shook his head and rushed, throwing punches with both hands. Jim gave ground to get more room. He ducked a right swing and got in close. El Tigre grabbed his arms and Jim broke away. El Tigre rushed again. Jim stabbed him with a left. But El Tigre came on, Jim backed into a table with chairs around it and almost fell and caught himself. He saw the heavy figure of Solid Man Johnson circling with a gun in his hand. Juan was awake and yelling. And then Jim saw Hope behind Johnson, She had something in her hand.

  El Tigre caught him with a right high on his head that staggered him. He crouched and went in. He ducked El Tigre’s left and drove his right into the middle. El Tigre staggered back, and then something landed on his forehead and he was down. He rolled over and got his elbow under him, and there was Colonel Ortega in white pajamas with his pistol poised. And then Jim had to wipe the blood out of his eyes.

  “This will be all,” Colonel Ortega said.

  Jim saw that Johnson was down too. He was holding his head as if it hurt.

  Colonel Ortega turned and called out, “Gomez! Bring your rifle!” The sergeant came running. He was only half dressed, but he had his rifle. “Fix your bayonet,” Colonel Ortega said. The sound of metal on metal was clear and sharp as the sergeant fixed his bayonet.

  “Señor Johnson,” Colonel Ortega said, “what does this mean? Why is Señor Howard bleeding?”

  “He was resisting arrest, colonel,” Johnson said.

  “Ah!” Colonel Ortega said. “And who are you to arrest a man on Mexican soil? By what right do you appear here, in a country of which you are not a citizen, in which you have no standing, except what I give you as a courtesy, seeking to arrest a man who is a prisoner of mine?”

  “Colonel,” Johnson protested, “I didn’t know you were here. I thought—”

  “I know what you thought, Señor Johnson. I have heard what you think of Mexicans. I remember what you said over the telephone. ‘You know how Mexicans are,’ You thought I was careless of my duties and you would do them for me.” Colonel Ortega turned to his sergeant. “Disarm this fool.”

  The sergeant advanced on Johnson and took his gun.

  “Colonel,” Johnson protested, “I brought one of your men with me.” Colonel Ortega turned on El Tigre. “You,” he said. “You dared to show this gringo the way here.”

  “Mí coronel,” El Tigre said, “I did not know you were here. And this Johnson asked me—”

  “If you ever were a policeman, you are one no longer,” Colonel Ortega said. “Gomez, see if this Johnson has handcuffs.”

  The sergeant bent over Johnson and came up with a pair of handcuffs.

  “Good,” Colonel Ortega said.” Handcuff El Tigre and Señor Johnson together.”

  “Colonel,” Johnson said, “this is not the treatment the United States expects from Mexico.”

  Colonel Ortega walked slowly over to Johnson. “And what treatment do you think Mexico expects from the United States, Señor? What do you think your superiors will say when I report your conduct?”

  Johnson got to his feet. He was a tough egg, short and powerful, with a big jaw, a big nose and a grim mouth. But he was licked, and he knew it.

  “Colonel,” he said, and Jim could see him swallow hard, “I—I made a mistake.”

  “It seems so, Señor,” Colonel Ortega said. “Where did you get that lump on your head?”

  “That girl hit me with something.”

  “Señorita, is it true that you struck this man down?”

  Hope pointed to a cast-iron disk with a sort of handle that lay on the floor. “I hit him with the paperweight,” she said.

  Colonel Ortega bowed to her and turned to Johnson. “In view of your great wounds, Señor Johnson, I will forget the handcuffs and permit you to go to bed. In the morning you will write an apology to my government . . . Gomez, find a room for Señor Johnson and El Tigre out of here—anywhere.” Colonel Ortega be
nt over Jim. “You have a bad cut over your eyes, Señor. It needs attention.”

  “I have a bandage and adhesive tape,” Hope said. “I’ll fix him up.”

  Jim got to his feet. The sergeant was marching Johnson and El Tigre out, the point of his bayonet close to El Tigre’s back.

  “Juan, show the way,” Colonel Ortega said. “If the Señorita wants warm water, get it for her.”

  Jim followed Juan down a corridor with rooms on both sides. Juan opened a door and lit an oil lamp on a table beside a bed.

  “Your room is across the hall, señorita,” Juan said. “I will light the lamp.”

  “Lie down,” Hope said to Jim.

  Jim lay down on the bed. He was so tired he almost went off to sleep while Hope washed the blood off his face and brought the edges of the cut together with adhesive tape.

  “What hit me?” he asked.

  “Johnson hit you with the barrel of his gun,” she said. “I was too late with the paperweight.”

  She finished the job. She stood poised in the doorway.

  “Good night, Jim,” she said.

  “Good night, Hope,” he said. He wanted to say a lot more, but he couldn’t say it then.

  HE was drifting off to sleep when he caught himself. He swung his feet out of bed and found a cigarette to keep himself awake. He couldn’t sleep. He had to get Fitz. No matter how long the chance was, he had to take it. He had till eight o’clock and no longer. He meant to keep his promise to Colonel Ortega.

  He remembered that Fitz Jordan had left in the middle of the afternoon. He’d left word for Hope that he’d gone hunting and he’d be back in a couple of days. He couldn’t have gone far in one afternoon if he was hunting. He’d want to camp before dark.

  Jim got up and went to the window. His room was on the patio. All the lights were out, but the moonlight was still bright. He opened the window carefully and stepped out. If he kept in the shadow and moved slowly, no one would see him. He crept along the wall until he found the gate.

  At the main road he turned south. The moon was fading fast. He guessed it was nearly daylight.

  He came, after half a mile, to a trail that led along a stream bed toward the Sierra. He stood there thinking it out. Fitz wouldn’t have taken the road south. He would have headed for the Sierra. And this was the only trail there was. He looked at his watch and guessed that he could do nearly four miles in an hour. He had nearly three hours before breakfast.