But he seemed to accept her decision without curiosity. “I’ve chosen a place I hope you’ll like. It’s not a café in the ordinary sense, but a private home, but they do serve a most superior dinner. Mexican food. I haven’t asked yet if you like it.”
“Oh, very much. We almost burst ourselves at Tijuana.”
They smiled together. Amy wondered what he was thinking at that moment, whether his thoughts boiled with plans for lying and betrayal as hers did. He’d like to know if she didn’t think Tzegeti left some sort of evidence. Well, he’d get a surprising earful.
They went out upon the terrace and crossed the grounds to the parking lot. Raoul’s car was a small coupé. He backed it, maneuvered it out into the road that led to the highway. Behind them the great hotel seemed to hang in space against the setting dark along the beach, all its lights shimmering in the touch of fog, its spires and turrets pricking the sky full of stars. Amy had been looking back at it. “It’s very beautiful.”
“And not very profitable,” Raoul said, as if carrying in his head all the figures he’d added that day. “Of course the space devoted to the casino is dead weight. It has to be cleaned and cared for, and there’s no return.”
“Will they ever have gambling here again, do you suppose?”
He shrugged, a typically Latin gesture. “Who knows? It’s a matter of politics. People gamble anyway. It’s just up to the current governments, everywhere, as to whether they do it in the open or in secret.”
“Had your father owned gambling establishments before the Picardy Club?”
The change of subject may have surprised him; there was a moment of silence, of measured waiting. “No, I don’t believe that he did.”
“You really don’t know what he did all those years, do you?”
He kept his eyes on the road. “No, that’s correct—I don’t. I used to think of him always as a mining man, until we met again a year or so ago. But I realize now . . . after he left Mexico he could have been anything.”
“Which came first, his marriage or his building the Picardy Club?”
“The marriage. That gave her the claim, you see, under the community property law—otherwise I could have sued and taken half, as legal heir.” His voice was bitter. Of course there could still be real resentment, even though he had sold out to the others. Amy wondered what he was getting out of it. Was he infatuated with Cunninghan’s secretary? Was he being made a fool of by a woman?
Well, she thought, whether for love or money, he was their man. Only the accidental glimpse of the two in the lobby had given her their secret. Now she knew. Now she had plans for them.
She threw out a bit of bait. “It must be frustrating to know that your father meant to leave you something—and didn’t. It’s like being robbed.”
“I feel that I was robbed,” he answered, and waited.
“I don’t like injustice . . .” She let her voice die, let the words hang there unfinished, as though she were considering doing something in his behalf. He seemed to crouch above the wheel, motionless in spite of the motion of the car, eager for her to go on. Then she switched subjects. “You said that you might have additional information for me tonight.”
She thought he let his breath out on a sigh. “Yes, I have.”
Amy smiled grimly to herself. What bit of nonsense had Cunninghan decided to let drop, had decided that she might safely have? The secretary had come to tell Schneider that. “I’m eager to hear it.”
“There’s the café ahead.” He drew the car to the curb in front of a house. It seemed much like the other houses in Ensenada, from what Amy could make out by the porch light. Stucco, shabby, and too individualistic to have been designed by an architect. They went inside, to a big linoleum-floored room furnished with tables and chairs.
The air smelled of cookery, spicy, mouth-watering. A man came out of the kitchen; he was small and dark and wore a clean white apron. When he saw Raoul Schneider he nodded and smiled in greeting, then examined Amy with a brief glance. “For two?”
Raoul directed Amy to a corner table. “Yes, Turo.”
There was an exchange of remarks in Spanish, and Turo went away. He came back with a chilled bottle of sherry and two glasses, left them on the table between Amy and Raoul, and went out again.
Raoul poured the wine. “Here’s to us, to our success in finding the truth.” He lifted his glass solemnly.
“I’ll drink to that.”
They were fencing, Amy knew; each wanted the other to come out with what was to be offered—lies, of course. He had a lie for her and she had one for him. A big one. The juiciest possible. Amy licked her lips, fixed her eyes on him. “You were going to tell me something, some new information.”
He seemed to study the reflections in the wineglass. “Do you remember the circumstances when my father was found? It was supposed to be not more than a minute or so after the murder. Cunninghan’s story was that he was bringing my father some legal papers to sign—he’d intended to wait until morning, then discovered by a telephone call that my father was still at the club. He drove to the club, found my father there, located Tzegeti at the other end of the club finishing up his sweeping. The place was empty, of course, and only half lighted.”
“Your father was dead?”
“He’d been shot with his own gun, and was dying. There was time for a few words between him and Cunninghan. A large sum of money was on the desk. He instructed Cunninghan to deliver that money to me.” A faint smile touched Raoul Schneider’s lips. “I see that you look doubtful. But you can believe this story. The money is in Cunninghan’s safe at this moment—the money that was supposed to have provided Tzegeti’s motive for killing my father. The money that Tzegeti was supposed to have stolen and to have hidden so well that no one has ever found it. It’s there. Cunninghan has had it all this time.”
For an instant she forgot that this was, of course, a lie; that she must examine Raoul’s—and behind him, Cunninghan’s—motive for telling it to her. “How do you know this?”
“I can’t give you the name of the person who overheard Cunninghan and Neece discussing it.”
The secretive look on his face brought her up sharp. No, he couldn’t admit that Cunninghan’s secretary had come bearing instructions, bringing the tale that he could exchange for the Tzegeti diary. With a flash of irony, of self-scorn, she recalled Cunninghan’s air of sincerity. How easily she’d been taken in, made a fool of! And now . . . she was walking into the second web, willing to believe, because a man across the table had a fiery and bitter look of truth.
She paused for a moment as if to reconsider what he had told her. Actually she was trying to figure out what Cunninghan had expected to gain. Obviously he didn’t really have the money in his safe. He had a lot of other things, criminal enough, perhaps, but the money wouldn’t be one of them. She was being gulled, a smoke screen thrown up to obscure some real part of the puzzle.
“Right now our hands are tied,” Raoul Schneider went on. “I can’t prove that the money in Cunninghan’s possession is the same as that which my father left. We have to have further evidence. If we could find something of Tzegeti’s——”
Oh yes, here it came, Amy thought. The pay-off. The time for her to deliver.
She pretended to have found a stumbling block. “Why did Cunninghan keep the money, since a man’s life and reputation depended on his bringing it into evidence?”
Behind the lenses, Raoul’s eyes were bleak with shadow. He had wanted an answer to that hint he had thrown out. He didn’t want to have to answer more questions, to bolster a thin yarn with further lies. “I don’t know how he justifies his actions to himself. He pretends to believe that Tzegeti did actually commit the crime, and that the money was simply not the motive. In other words, that the police got their hands on the right man and that the reasons behind the murder might as well be left in the dark.”
Amy recalled all the elaborate hocus-pocus about Tzegeti’s activities as a blackmailer.
I ought to be flattered, she told herself, since they’ve gone to so much trouble to convince me of Tzegeti’s guilt. They’ve worked like mad to bolster the conviction of a poor immigrant. But they’ve been remarkably shy about producing any evidence about the murders on the train. She jerked her thoughts back to the matter at hand. Raoul Schneider was speaking again.
“Somewhere there must be evidence that my father wanted me to have a share of what he left. It’s possible he talked about it to Tzegeti, and that Tzegeti either mentioned it to other people—to his wife and child—or made a record of it.”
“He left a diary.” She tossed it in, as you throw a scrap of meat into a pot.
Raoul’s hands had been twirling the wineglass; they stopped abruptly. “What did you say?”
“Tzegeti left a diary, a journal. Didn’t you know that?”
“I . . . well, I had hoped——” He stammered and flushed a bit, his glance uneasy.
“It’s quite a popular document, to judge by the number of people who’ve been after it. Mr. Cunninghan has led the pack.”
“He mustn’t have it,” Raoul said quickly.
“And Mrs. Schneider has hinted that the book might be valuable.” Amy let her voice linger over the last word; she caught the flash of surprise as Raoul looked up, unbelieving, and for a moment shame made a scorching heat inside her brain. She thought, hating him and hating the part she played to fool him—I’m ashamed because I’m an idiot, because I haven’t sense enough to realize how much deeper is his deception of me than mine of him. I could actually believe, if I hadn’t been forewarned, that he really does think his father meant him to have something of the estate, and that a sense of justice and a sense of what is due that dead mother of his is driving him to uncover proof of his claim.
“She made you an offer?” Raoul said in a tight voice.
“No definite sum was mentioned, but I got the idea,” Amy told him. “The police would merely bury the book in a file on the Tzegeti case. She could do things with it.”
“She would destroy it. She’s worse than Cunninghan.” Raoul reached across the table, gripped Amy’s wrist. He had a surprising strength. “I’d rather Cunninghan had it than she did—there’s some shred of decency there, in him, though he’s deluding himself. She doesn’t pretend. She’s rotten. She knows it, accepts it.”
Amy wondered if this meant that there was a schism in the camp of Mrs. Schneider and her attorney. Were they at loggerheads, not trusting each other? She remembered that Mrs. Arkuto had said that they had come separately, looking for the diary.
She widened her eyes. “You’d prefer Cunninghan had it?”
“I’d like to see it first.”
She went on gently, testing him. “You’d turn it over to Cunninghan afterward?”
A touch of color came into his face. “I haven’t any money to offer, if it’s a sale you’re interested in.” His hands at the edge of the table were trembling a little. “If I could see it once—just for a short while—I’d have a photostat made of the pages relating to me, providing there were any, and then return it to you.” He paused to clear his throat. “You could do what you wished with it. You could sell it where you wanted.”
Amy forced herself to appear oblivious to the meaning, the heat, under his words. “I was thinking of the Tzegeti youngster. She has nothing, except the house. And that isn’t much.”
He calmed down somewhat. “I see what you mean. Yes, it’s only right that something be given her, if her father’s diary means money to other people.”
Amy folded her hands demurely. The waiter came with a platter of Spanish food. “It has been under the broiler, señora. Don’t touch the plate.”
The food was delicious. Amy ate heartily. Across the table, Raoul seemed uneasy. He was not sure, of course, that she meant to give him a chance to see the Tzegeti diary. No doubt there was a big price involved, a big split for him. Cunninghan and Mrs. Schneider meant to have the diary, and Raoul Schneider was their tool, working in their behalf. If Amy told him some lie, the little secretary would scurry back to Lomena with it.
All at once, as if coming to a sudden decision, Amy put down her fork. “I’ll tell you about Tzegeti’s journal. It’s hidden in his home. I haven’t taken it from its hiding place as yet, since I haven’t quite decided what to do with it. If Mrs. Schneider is to have it, I’ll want to see her money first.”
“You’re right,” he said quickly. “But—in the house, and the house empty? Mightn’t it be found by someone else?”
“Oh no.” Amy smiled slyly. “The little niche is quite invisible. The bed sits over it, and——” She broke off as if realizing what she had just said. “I . . . I shouldn’t have betrayed its whereabouts to you.” She put a flash of anger in the words.
“I won’t tell anyone!”
“Promise?” She sat erect, glaring at him as though the fault for her lapse had been his.
“My lips are sealed. I’ve already forgotten what you said.”
She relaxed a trifle. “Well-——”
“When can I see the diary?” He had forgotten his food.
“I’ll need a few days to sound Mrs. Schneider out, to bring her up to the price I want. I can’t seem eager to sell, or she’ll hedge on the money.” Amy let smugness ooze into her tone, let him see a small-minded greed. “Let’s say—Sunday. You come to my house in Lomena Sunday morning, and I’ll let you have a look.”
“It may be necessary for me to make photographs!”
She waved generously. “Bring along a camera!”
“You’re very kind.” He said the words without meaning them; Amy sensed his doubt of her. Or, rather, the pretended doubt. It was nothing to him, of course, if Cunninghan or Mrs. Schneider got hold of the diary. His job had been to discover its whereabouts, to give the information to Cunninghan’s other employee, the black-and-gold secretary. No wonder that in the office she’d tried to seem invisible, unnoticeable. She didn’t want people recognizing her when she sneaked off on Cunninghan’s errands.
A nice pair, Amy thought, looking at him. That kissing scene, now—it could have been very pretty, very moving, if you didn’t know that they were actually about as capable of honest love as a couple of vultures.
She finished the dinner with elaborate slowness, aware of Raoul’s desire to rush away.
When they went outside again, the fog had thickened. As they went down the steps, Raoul touched her sleeve. “It’s getting pretty thick. Do you think you could stay over until tomorrow? It might be safer.”
She shivered, pulled her coat closer. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“As long as you have the motel room, why not simply stay in it?”
“I could, couldn’t I?” Her mind was busy. He wanted her to stay in Ensenada. It was possible that he intended to telephone, and that the floor of the Tzegeti bedroom would be ripped up before she could reach it. But there was a better chance that he needed time to bargain, that money would change hands before her lie was allowed to reach Cunninghan’s ears.
Well, it was a chance she had to take. Let him think that he had the time to bargain, anyway.
“Are you going to stay over?”
“Yes, I’ll stay.”
He left her at the motel cabin with a promise to see her Sunday morning. She sat inside with Elizabeth and the pup for a half hour, letting him get a slight head start so that she wouldn’t meet him on the highway. Then she bundled the girl and the dog into the car and started off. The road to Tijuana is winding in places and narrow; but Amy drove like a machine. Her mind was on other things.
She intended to meet, face to face, whoever it was came for Tzegeti’s diary.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE FOG lifted for a few miles on the far side of San Clemente, then closed in again above Huntington Beach, thicker than ever. There was little traffic now. Amy was forced to drive slowly. At one-thirty she crept through the business district of Lomena, between the street lights glowing emptily in th
e woolly mist, in a silence devoid of life, windshield dripping, the pavement slick. She turned at last into the side street that led to home. The houses were shrouded, invisible. She sensed the vacant spaces, weedy and desolate under the smothering damp. The drive fanned out under her headlights as she nosed the car in to face the garage. She switched off the motor, looked at the girl and the pup, both asleep, curled in the seat. Tiredness was a wire strung through the marrow of her bones.
Elizabeth lifted her head all at once, looked around. “Are we home?”
“Yes, we’re home.” Amy stretched, stifling a yawn. She ached for sleep, but there would be no sleep this night. She said to Elizabeth, “Can you manage the pup?”
The girl nodded.
“I’ll put the car away. You go inside.”
“No,” said Elizabeth with surprising firmness. “I’ll wait for you.”
Amy smiled a little. “Afraid to go in, in the dark?”
“I don’t want you to be out, in the dark,” said the girl solemnly.
“Okay. I’ll just be a minute.”
The child got out and waited beside the drive until Amy had put the car into the garage. They went up the steps together. It was pitch dark. Amy stumbled over something, a coiled thing that rolled underfoot. She kicked it aside, heard it fall softly beside the porch. The neighbors’ kids, she thought—they’d played here during her absence, left a jump rope or some such toy. In the kitchen, Amy heated milk and kibbled dog biscuits for a snack for the pup, fed him while Elizabeth got into bed.
When she was sure that Elizabeth must be asleep in the spare bedroom, Amy went into her own room, turned on the lights, and took from a drawer the revolver which had been Robert Luttrell’s. She examined it, made sure that it contained bullets. She didn’t know a lot about guns. She and her husband had done a little target shooting, sometimes, when they were out far enough in the country not to alarm other people with the firing. The gun was clean, of course. Her mouth grew bitter as she remembered that Robert Luttrell had had no chance to use it on the train.
Nets to Catch the Wind Page 13
