Si, mi Coronel."
"My God, what a horrible accent! I think you are a reckless man. I think you are a mischievous man. But you have good intentions. You have a sour view of yourself, eh? You are... I would say a talented amateur in these matters. But an adult, I think. One finds so few American adults these days. To you, the village Mexicans are people. Not quaint dirty actors we supply to make the home movies look better. I have some problems I work on. Tampico, Acapulco, Mexicali. Three kinds of nastiness. If you're bored, we could have some fun. I can give you no official protection. I would use you, and pay you very little out of some special funds they give me. I would throw you into those situations, and see what happens."
"I'm flattered, but no thanks."
"No temptation at all?"
"Not very much. I guess I get into things, Colonel, because I get personally and emotionally involved."
"The stamp of the amateur, of course. But why set up an order of which has to come first, my friend? Because you have the soul of an amateur, you will find that personal emotional involvement after you get into these things. You will always bleed for the victims. And always have the capacity for terrible righteous anger. This recruiting is very irregular, McGee. But when you are in the business of using people, it is hard to let a special person slip away."
"Give me a great big medal for what I accomplished here, Marquez."
"Don't be bitter about the woman. If she wasn't willing to accept risk she wouldn't have come here. She could stand there unharmed while a thousand boats blew up. This was the thousand and first."
"You are overvaluing me, Colonel."
"Maybe you mean this thing is not over for you yet."
"Possibly."
He put his hand out. "When it is over... if you survive it... if you have some curiosity, write me at this address. Just say you are going to visit Mexico and would like to have a drink with me. By then I will know much more about you than I know now. But I don't overvalue you, McGee. The affair of the knife at the Tres Panchos was very swift and competent. One day I would like to know just how you managed the dog. And before leaving, do not forget the interesting photographs in the base of the lamp."
"Colonel, you are showing off."
He made a sad face. "That is the flaw in my personality. Vanity. And your flaw is sentimentality. They are the flaws which will inevitably kill us both. But let us enjoy them before the time runs out, eh? Buena suerte, amigo. And good hunting. And God grant we meet again."
Sixteen
UPON RETURN to this country from any quiet corner of a foreign land, the most immediate impression is that of noise; continuous, oppressive, meaningless noise. Highway noise-from the labored snarl of the big rigs shifting on the grades to the pneumatic whuff of fast passenger traffic. The bell sounds of wrenches dropped on cement garage floors. Diesel bray. Restaurants all clatter and babble like huge cocktail parties, the sound rising above that stupefying placebo of Muzak, which is like cotton candy being stuffed into the ears. Sound trucks, brash snatches of radio music and TV laughter, shuffle and tick-tock of sidewalks full of people, rackety clatter of machines filling out paper forms, horn blatt, brake squeal, yelps of children, shrieking passage of the jets.
There is a spurious vitality about all this noise. But under it, when you come back, you can sense another more significant and more enduring vitality. It has been somewhat hammered down of late. The bell ringers and flag fondlers have been busily peddling their notion that to make America Strong, we must march in close and obedient ranks, to the sound of their little tin whistle. The life-adjustment educators, in strange alliance with the hucksters of consumer goods, have been doing their damnedest to make us all think alike, look alike, smell alike and die alike, amidst all the pockety-queek of unserviceable home appliances, our armpits astringent, nasal passages clear, insurance program adequate, sex life satisfying, retirement assured, medical plan comprehensive, hair free of dandruff, time payments manageable, waistline firm, bowels open.
But the other vitality is still there, that rancorous, sardonic, wonderful insistence on the right to dissent, to question, to object, to raise holy hell and, in direst extremity, to laugh the self-appointed squad leaders off the face of the earth with great whoops of dirty disdainful glee. Suppress friction and a machine runs fine. Suppress friction, and a society runs down.
As I holed up in the City of the Angels, I was also aware of a comforting feeling of anonymity. In the world's biggest third-class city I could pass unnoticed. I spoke the language. I was familiar with the currency. I could drink the water. I could almost breathe the air, late April air, compounded of interesting hydro-carbons.
I wanted transient accommodations, of a very special kind. I did not want to sign in anywhere as McGee or anybody else. I did not want to impose on old friends and get them implicated in anything.
I did not want to be within that strata subject to routine police checks. I wanted anonymous transportation and freedom of movement. I wanted to be the nearest thing to an invisible man I could achieve. It might turn out that all such precautions were unnecessary. But I had to follow my hunch. The hunch said that this might get messy before it was over---0r, more accurately, might continue to be messy.
I got in at six in the evening. By seven I was prowling the area where I hoped to work something out, the trash end of Sunset Boulevard. My luggage was in a bus station coin locker. By nine o'clock, in several assorted bars and lounges, I had surveyed several groups, ingratiated myself with a few and then given them up and gone on. By ten I had a promising group in a crowded corner of a place called The Pipe and Bowl.
Extremely local cats, in the restless middle twenties, overdressed and slightly stoned, trying to look as if they hadn't spent their week in insurance agencies, department stores, dental labs and office buildings. They accepted the amiable stranger, with the usual reservations, indirect challenges, the waiting to see if there was any angle, any kind of hustling.
I did my verbal card tricks, and struck the right attitudes, and bought my share. I was Mack, a boat chauffeur by trade. They shuffled me around to one of the two free lassies, perhaps on the basis of a girls' room conference, and amalgamated me into the group. Her name, unfortunately, seemed to be Junebug. She had a round merry face, a lot of gestures and animation, cropped brown hair. Her figure, as revealed by a little beige stretch dress, was quite pretty, except for a potentially dangerous case of secretarial spread. She was careful to tell me her boyfriend was an engineer working on some kind of rugged project up in Canada.
From time to time, according to mysterious signals, we all left and piled into cars and went to other places which seemed to be identical to the ones we left, the same music, the same drinks, the same faces at the bar. We had drop-offs, and we picked up some new recruits. By the third stop I had become an old time buddy. At the fourth stop, well after midnight, I had her trapped in a dark corner and made my pitch.
"Junebug, I've been living a little too much tonight. This check will take me down to cigarette money."
"Gee, Mack, I've got a few bucks in my purse if..."
"It isn't only that, honey. What happened, this isn't home base for the boat I was running. And I got fired today. It's no real sweat. The owner got a wrong idea of me and his wife. I've got money coming. And no problem about a job. The man said get off my boat, and I got my gear and got off. But now I am definitely hung up for a place to stay. My gear is in a bus locker."
She moved as far away from me as she could get, which was about six inches, and she stuck her underlip out and said, "if you think you're going to shack with me, buddy boy, if this is one of those cute ideas, I haven't had that much to drink. No sir. Oh-you-tee. Out."
"Honey, believe me, you are a very exciting woman, but that wasn't my play. I want a place where I can hole up until the money comes through. That's all. Not your place. I thought you might know of a place. As soon as the money comes through, I'll pay you a going rent."
"So ho
w long is that supposed to be?" she asked with great skepticism.
I unstrapped my watch and handed it to her. "This is a solid gold case. You can check it anywhere."
"No. I don't want it. Look, I just thought you were trying to make it cute. Okay? Maybe one of the guys has an open couch."
"As a last resort. But maybe if somebody is away. How about your engineer?"
"No. He lives with his folks in Santa Barbara. Let me think."
She sat and pulled at that protruding underlip and scowled into her drink. Then she glowed with inspiration and went off to phone. She came back and wedged herself in again and in a conspiratorial tone said, "Bingo. And we're neighbors yet. The girlfriend I phoned was sore as hell at being waked up at all hours. But she's the one Francine left her key with. And she'll go over and put it in my mailbox she said."
"Who is Francine?"
"Oh, she's away on this thing. What it is, the executives where she works, they take this trip and go to a whole mess of regional offices and have sales meetings. She's gone every year for a month about this time. It's pretty nice, going in a company plane and all, and they ball it up pretty good. She sacks out for days when she gets back believe me. She shouldn't be back for another couple weeks anyway."
When the group decided to hit one more place, we broke away. Junebug had a little grey English Ford. She drove it with slap-dash efficiency. When I came out of the bus station with my bags and put them in the back seat, she said, "You know, Mack, I damn near drove off. I was thinking, this is pretty stupid, not knowing you or anything."
"I wondered if you would drive off."
"What would you have done, baby?"
"Had some naps in the bus station."
"Am I doing something real stupid?"
"I think you're smart enough to have a pretty good idea of whom you can trust."
"Well... I guess that's the way it has to be."
The place was off Beverly Boulevard, not too far from City College. It was one of those depressing little residence courts, small attached bungalows, about thirty of them, in a hollow square, facing a common courtyard. You drove in through an ornamental arch, from which hung a sign saying Buena Villas. There was a weak night light and a dead fountain in the middle of the court. Cars were parked in front of most of the bungalows. The bungalows all had shallow porches, one step up from minuscule yards with low iron fences.
She parked in front of hers. Number 11. While I got my gear out of her car, she went onto her porch and got the key from her mailbox. Then we went diagonally across the court to number 28.
After she put the key into the front door lock, she turned and whispered, "Honey, honest to God, you got to promise me you won't make me regret this. I mean no big phone bills, or messing the place up, or breaking stuff or stealing stuff. I told Honey it was a girl friend I wanted it for. Even so, she dragged her heels,"
"You have no cause for alarm, Junebug."
We went in. She found the lights. Living room, bedroom, kitchen and bath. Quick tour of inspection. No side windows. It would be depressingly dark by daylight. And Francine was a miserable housekeeper. Junebug found beer in the small noisy refrigerator. I agreed to replace anything I used up. We sat on the couch in the living room. She was mildly, apprehensively flirtatious. She expected the pass, and I knew she could react in only three possible ways-rebuff, limited access, or totality-and I had not the slightest curiosity about finding out. Perhaps she wanted a chance to dizzy herself then bravely retreat, for the sake of the engineer. When I sensed she might get a little bolder, I cooled the situation by asking friendly questions about the engineer. Finally we said our polite goodnights, with thanks and reassurances, and she left.
I poked around my new domain. Francine had left dirty sheets on the double bed. I found fresh ones in a narrow cupboard in the bathroom. She had left long blonde hair in all the expected places. I got rid of those, and the ring in the tub, and the hardened fragments of cheese sandwich on the kitchen table. I am a confirmed snoop. I went through the living room desk and found out she was Mrs. Francine Broadmaster. Divorced. Age 27. I found some treasured little packets of love letters from several males. They were semiliterate, and so shockingly clinical they awed me.
I found myself conducting a search for whatever it was she would hide away. Everybody hides things. They think they have dreamed up the most perfect place, but it is always a very ordinary place. Hers was a brown envelope Scotch-taped to the underside of a bureau drawer with the flap paperclipped shut. She had three one-hundred-dollar hills in there, and six fifties, all crisp and new. And she had twenty or so polaroid pictures in there. Evidently she or her boyfriend had a polaroid camera with a timing device. She was featured in them. She was a medium-sized blonde, with more than her share of jaw and breast. The boyfriend was a burly rascal. In the pitiless glare of the flash bulb they looked toward the camera, whenever possible, wearing that dazed blind nervous grin typical of all amateur pornography. I could imagine nothing of a more ghastly sadness than these little souvenirs.
After I had gathered up stray garments and shoved them onto a closet shelf, I did the minimum of unpacking for myself and went to bed.
I had become a city rabbit and found a burrow. In the darkness, stretched out in Mrs. Broadmaster's play pen, aware of the late mumbles of the city I took a tentative rub at the place that hurt. "Forgive me," her dying eyes said. "Forgive me for being such a bloody mess."
And the black anger came rolling up, turning my fists to stones, bunching the muscles of arm and shoulder. Don't go away Mr. Tomberlin.
At eight in the morning the people of Buena Villas started going to work. The court made for considerable resonance. Apparently standard procedure was to bang every car door at least three times, rev up to 6000 rpm, then squeak the tires and groan out in low low. I could have sworn half of them drove back in and did it all over again. By nine it had quieted down, and I got another hour of sleep before the phone started ringing. I began counting the rings, waiting for it to quit. It was beside the bed. It was a white phone. It had lipstick on the mouthpiece. After twenty-seven rings I knew who it had to be, so I reached and picked it up. "Boy, you sleep pretty good," Junebug said.
"I wanted to make sure it wasn't for her."
"I was beginning to think you cleaned out the place and took off."
"What would I steal, honey? Dirty underwear? Eddie Fisher records? That beautiful refrigerator?"
"Look, is everything okay? Honey didn't come over to check on who I borrowed it for before she went to work?"
"No callers."
"Baby, you want to get in touch with me, you ask for Miss Proctor. You got something there to write down the number. I'll give you both numbers, my place and here. You got plans for after I get off today?"
"I'm not sure yet."
"What I'll do to keep from waiting so long next time I want to phone you, I let it ring once and hang up and dial you right back. Okay?"
"Fine."
After I got dressed I checked the emergency reserve in my money belt. I had eight hundred there, in fifties. I moved half of it into my wallet. I had a Lauderdale account I could tap at long range, but I still didn't want to have my name on anything. I imagined the car in front of the bungalow belonged to Francine. It was a sand-colored Falcon. It took a ten minute search to turn up the keys. They were in a bowl on the table by the front door, under some old bills and circulars.
It was one of only four cars left in the court. The battery sounded jaded, but it started in time. After I was out of the neighborhood, I filled the tank and had a soft tire pumped up. I found a breakfast place, and then looked in a phone book and found no listing for Calvin Tomberlin. I reviewed what I knew about him. Loads of money from his mother's real estate investments. Several residences, including a lodge up near Cobblestone Mountain. A boat big enough to go down the coast with. A persistent buyer of art objects, perhaps. And unlisted phones.
It wasn't a difficult problem. There are dozens
of ways. My problem was to find a way which would leave no trace. I did not want anyone remembering the invisible man. Money can buy a lot of fences. Try phoning Howard Hughes sometime. Tomberlin could be on the other side of the world. He would find that wasn't far enough. But I hoped he was nearby. I had a pretty good hidey-hole. He had enough money to be wary of anybody with cute ideas, like selling him back to himself. Almah had called him spooky.
I started phoning the expensive retail establishments. I hit a vein on the third one, Vesters on Wilshire. I got a Mrs. Knight in the credit department and said, "This is Mr. Sweeney of Sweeney and Dawson, Mrs. Knight. We're doing an audit on Mr. Calvin Tomberlin's personal accounts. Could you please tell me his present credit balance with you?"
"Just a moment, sir."
I waited. If she thought to look in the yellow pages, she would find the accounting firm of Sweeney and Dawson listed therein. If she was bright, she would have suggested she call me back.
A Deadly Shade of Gold Page 25
