by Wade Miller
Kevin studied the mirror. “I do need lipstick.”
Walter James flicked the headlights. The carhop scowled and ambled over, pulling out the bill. “Dollar twenty-eight,” she said.
The slender man tossed down a bill and a coin. The carhop unfastened the tray from the steering wheel. Kevin handed her tray across the car. The carhop swung her hips back to her stool.
Kevin said in a small voice, “What do those men want?”
“Scared?”
“Uh-huh.” She didn’t look at him. “I guess I shouldn’t be after all that’s happened, but — uh-huh.”
Walter James grinned at her. “Where’s that old frontier spirit? The West is dead, podner.”
The girl tried a weak smile. “I guess you’re the last of the vigilantes, sweetheart.”
“Don’t be scared,” he said, “I’ll take care of you.” He started the car and pulled out into the Causeway, switching on the headlights when they had passed the intersection. Kevin looked back and watched the convertible slide away from the curb.
“Where to now?” she asked.
“Hither hence, whither whence? We’ll try to shake them. I didn’t mean to get you mixed up in this, redhead. I didn’t think they’d pick me up till I got to my apartment.”
She put her head to one side. “What makes you think that I was going to leave you when we reached your apartment?”
“What’s out this way?” he asked.
She laughed and pressed his sleeve. “All right. Ignore me. We’re passing through Ocean Beach, Walter. After we cross the bridge up ahead we’ll be on a straight divided road which runs parallel with the beach. It passes through New Mission Beach — that’s the roller coaster and the fun zone — then Old Mission Beach and Pacific Beach.”
“Crowded?”
“Fairly so. After that we hit the road to La Jolla. I don’t know how that will be. What do you want?”
“A narrow curved road without much traffic. And sudden side roads.”
“There’s the hills back of La Jolla — a road running up to 101. It’s got a couple of side roads into gullies. It’s about as curved as they come around here.”
“Tell me when, redhead. After the traffic thins out, I’ll pick up speed. Give me a little warning.”
She pressed her litheness close to him and shivered. “I’m not scared any more, Walter. This is exciting.”
Walter James gave her a quick smile. “I guess we like the same things.”
“We’re different,” Kevin said, stroking the cloth over his upper arm. “Most people say that about riding merry-go-rounds or walking in the rain. I think it’s silly to walk in the rain. Will they shoot us, Walter?”
“Not now. Maybe not at all if we figure this right.”
“Funny — ” she began. “No, it’s not so funny. I’m not afraid at all now — just keyed up. It’s because you’re here. I know our side will win. You always win, don’t you, Walter?”
“I haven’t picked a loser yet,” he said soberly.
The Buick bounced over old streetcar tracks and they were out of Pacific Beach. They spun left onto the scarcely lighted boulevard that led to La Jolla. The girl jerked his cuff.
“When,” she announced. “To the right. Two streets ahead.”
Walter James swept off the headlights. “How soon does it begin to curve?”
“When we reach the hills. It doesn’t curve much, but it’s the best I can do. There are a couple of side roads.”
The Buick was a dark blob speeding up the hill. To the right was the scarred canyon wall, sliced away to make a shelf for the two-lane road. To the left was a sagebrush covered drop-off that grew steeper as they climbed.
“Sure we won’t meet anybody?”
“No. I’m not sure. Are they still following us?”
“If they’ve got a brain in their heads. I hope we still have a good lead.”
“Here’s one road,” Kevin said excitedly. “The next one’s around this curve. I think it’s better.”
He squealed the car around the bend with all his weight on the brake pedal. The canyon was a black yawn beneath them. His hand hit the gear shift rod, knocking it into reverse. Full gas sent the Buick bumping backwards into a slot in the mutilated canyon wall.
Fifty feet off the road, with the car’s nose pointing at the main highway, he stopped. The motor idled and frogs began chirruping again.
Kevin whispered, “I used to come up here to neck.”
“Get out,” Walter James commanded swiftly. “Hide in the brush and stay there till I call you. Take this. Don’t touch the trigger until you plan to use it. Wait till somebody’s within ten feet of you, then just point it — like you would your finger.”
He pressed the short coldness of the .32 into her hand, “Yes, Walter.” Kevin scrambled out of the car into the close darkness. There was a scraping of branches and then stillness. The frogs had stopped.
The slender man opened the glove compartment and took two .38’s out. Laying them on the seat beside him, he buttoned his coat, except the bottom button. The lapels he folded over his white shirt front. One gun was tucked under his belt, the butt outside his coat. He pushed the other weapon under him and sat on it. His hand moved through the darkness and pushed the gearshift into second.
At the sound of a speeding motor, Walter James clicked the Buick’s headlights on and off swiftly. The other motor slowed. He strained his eyes at the narrow patch of road fifty feet away. A low blob crept onto it and stopped — the black convertible.
A smile of savage triumph carved itself across the detective’s lean face. Inside the car three shapes were barely visible — two spheres that were heads and a thin stick that was a rifle barrel. Walter James stomped on the gas and let the clutch free.
The two spheres jerked and the door toward him began to open hurriedly as the Buick hurtled toward the main road. As his front wheels hit the pavement, Walter James slammed one foot on the brake pedal and jerked the emergency back. The big car screamed in agony across the two-lane road.
It looked like Little Steve trying to get out the convertible door. He was moving in slow motion. Darmer was a frozen statue behind the wheel of the smaller car.
The hills echoed the crash of metal as the Buick hit the convertible broadside. For a sickening eternity, the bumper of one car caught under the running board of the other. Then the massive shapes wrenched apart and one rolled over the lip of the road into the canyon darkness. Hideous unrhythmical noises spewed up as the convertible bounced crazily out of sight.
Walter James rolled out of the Buick onto the road. Metal gleamed from either fist as he wormed to the edge of the road and looked over. There was nothing; he was alone with black bush-shapes and the dead night.
Kevin came running and stumbling out of the side road. Walter James rose and brushed off the front of his suit. He caught her as she came up to him.
“No use looking. There’s nothing to see.”
She threw her arms around him and clung to his body. After a minute, he pushed her away and took the weapon that hung loosely in her hand. All three guns bounced softly onto the car seat.
“I don’t feel anything,” her whisper came to him. “It was too easy — too quick. Is it always like that?”
“It’s always like that,” he said.
She stood with her elbows pressed into her sides. “Kiss me, Walter! Kiss me now!”
He pulled her against him and their trembling merged into one universal hammer beat. Their mouths fought fiercely; he could feel teeth cutting against his lip.
“Don’t ever leave me, Walter. I love you. Don’t ever leave me!”
18. Wednesday, September 27, 9:00 A.M.
SOMEBODY KNOCKED at the door.
Walter James, cradled in a big chair, watched the smoke corkscrew up from his cigarette. He was wearing a deep blue dressing gown over patterned pajamas. The ash stand by the chair was a stew of soft-ashes and ground-out butts.
The knock sounded
again. He glanced at the electric clock on the desk. Nine. Nine o’clock the morning after. Nine o’clock, Wednesday, the twenty-seventh of September. He punched out the cigarette and walked wearily to the door.
A boy was standing outside, about to knock again. He had thin hawkish features and big eyes; he couldn’t have been much over twenty. Walter James looked at him blankly for a moment before he recognized Bob Newcomb.
He said frostily, “What do you want?”
Newcomb’s big eyes were surprised and caught by the ragged stitched wounds on the smaller man’s head. He blinked and remembered. “I’ve come for Laura.”
Walter James looked him up and down. “What makes you think she would be here?” The boy stepped into the apartment. “I didn’t invite you in. I asked what makes you think she would be here?”
The boy glanced around wildly. Walter James noticed his eyes were tired — more tired than his own felt. “She must be here!” he blurted. “I waited till three o’clock last night and Laura didn’t come home. You brought her here last night and kept her here!”
The slender man’s eyes didn’t feel worn any longer. They were alive and filled with blue ice. “You’d better go, sonny. Take your dirty adolescent mind back to school and peddle your paper.”
“I’m not going unless I take Laura with me.” His voice bounced around, uncontrolled. He was wearing a sport coat and a sport shirt; open-necked, it revealed every gulp and made his smooth throat childish. “Laura’s my girl. You had no right to bring her here. What have you done with her?”
Walter James said between his teeth, “Get out!”
The boy’s voice fell into half-pleading. “Mr. James, Laura’s my girl. She’s a nice girl. I don’t know what you told her, but you had no right to take advantage of her.”
“Advantage!” Walter James laughed without mirth. “Is that what you learned in school? Don’t you know any better words? I suppose you think I slept with her last night!”
The boy clenched his fists, his face burning. “You can’t talk about Laura like that!”
The detective laughed scornfully. “Beat it, sonny. Go read a dictionary.”
The youngster brought his fists up in front of him and advanced. “I’m taking Laura home and you can’t stop me! She’s just a girl and — and — you’re an old man!”
Walter James hit him in the stomach and the boy bent over, retching. The back of the same fist came up under his chin and he collapsed on the rug. Walter James looked down at him grimly.
The boy was on his hands and knees when Kevin walked in from the bedroom. Her bare feet poised unsteadily on the nap of the rug. Little sleep creases surrounded her surprised eyes and her copper hair tangled about her face. She wore a flesh-colored slip over her naked girl’s body.
She put her puzzled face to one side and said, “Bob!”
Newcomb looked up at her silently, pain-stricken. Runaway tears gleamed on his cheeks.
“You’ve seen what you came to see,” said Walter James. “Now get out of here!”
“Walter,” the girl said reprovingly. She padded forward and took Newcomb’s arm, helping him clumsily to his feet. “Bob, I’m so awfully sorry that this had to happen. You shouldn’t have come. You had no right to.”
Newcomb caught at her hand. “Laura — ”
Kevin stepped back a pace, evading his grasp. “No, Bob, don’t. What I do is my own business. I’m sorry that I’ve hurt you — but I love Walter and I want to be with him.”
The boy looked incredulously at Walter James. “Love?” he said hoarsely.
“Yes. You’d better go, Bob. Please don’t feel too bad.”
Newcomb blinked nervously, undecidedly. He looked at the girl’s serious face, at the rust-brown eyes sobered by deep emotion. Then he turned and walked out down the hall without lifting his feet very high. The sound of his footsteps going down the stairs had completely died away before Kevin sighed and closed the door.
She said, without looking at him, “I’m sorry, Walter.” She crossed to the window and stood looking out.
Walter James said softly, “Kevin.” The girl turned and looked at him across the room. Her eyes mirrored the old unhappiness.
“Yes, Walter?”
“Has this — spoiled it for you?”
She gave a soft little cry and came running forward to throw herself into his arms and hold him tight. “Oh, Walter, Walter, of course not! Nothing could spoil you for me.”
Walter James sat down, sagging into the chair. The girl slipped onto his lap, seeped her warmth against him. She put her lips close to the scars above his ear.
“I was afraid you’d feel different,” she whispered. “Bob has nothing to do with us. There’s just the two of us. We can’t be touched by other people unless we want to be.”
He put his arms around her youthfulness. “I don’t deserve you, redhead. But I’m going to try to keep you just the same.”
“You deserve so much more than just me,” she said softly. “But please be satisfied with me because that’s all I want.”
19. Wednesday, Sept. 27, 11:00 A.M.
SHE DIDN’T WANT to go out to the college at all, but he insisted. At eleven o’clock she was standing on the curb in front of the college book store, waving good-by to the Buick as it drove off.
Fifteen minutes later, Walter James walked into the office at 45th Street and El Cajon. Gilbert had watched him drive up. As the screen door banged, the old man winced and turned the desk radio lower.
“I don’t know what you have to tell me, Mr. James,” he said wearily. “I know my daughter didn’t come home last night. That’s all.”
The lines in his face were deeper in the daytime. Walter James decided they had nothing to do with character; they were simply the result of being worried for years.
“Your daughter is in no danger, Mr. Gilbert,” he said. “I can guarantee that for a while.”
Gilbert shuffled some forms on his desk with brown corrugated hands. “Danger? There’s no way to escape it. There’s no point in trying. It’s dangerous to cross the street or to eat things out of tin cans.”
“The odds are with Kevin. I’m on her side.” The slender man fitted himself into the leather chair for clients.
“Kevin.” Gilbert let out a quick breath. “That was her mother’s idea. No, I never had any particular plans for Laura — I just wanted her to be happy. I wanted to be a real father to her, but she wasn’t my idea of a daughter. Her moodiness, her romanticism — I don’t know where she gets them. I’ve never had any longing for adventure the way she sees it. Things are unstable enough as they are. All I’ve ever wanted was security.”
“Kevin doesn’t want security,” said Walter James.
“No, she never has,” said the old man. “She’s not old enough to realize how valuable it is. She doesn’t know what she wants.”
“Affection.”
Gilbert twisted his old mouth and gleamed his eyes at Walter James. “It’s hard to really like what you don’t understand. I’ve given her everything I could. I’ve done my best for what seems like a long time. What can you offer her, Mr. James?”
The slight man lit a cigarette. After the match died, he flung it straight down with all his might into the wastebasket by the desk. “Nothing,” he said. “The same thing you’ve given her.”
“I see you’re getting old, too. Anybody with any sense gets bitter as they grow old. The whole thing’s so insecure, so planless. I’ve rented houses to people through two wars now — that’s a long time. There’s been couples who rented them clandestinely — thought they’d be happy that way. And there’s been couples starting marriages together who couldn’t afford what they wanted and couldn’t be happy in a thirty dollar a month duplex. None of them have been happy. Where’s the plan?”
Walter James clasped his hands together tightly. “I didn’t drive down here to discuss philosophy. I haven’t the time to search out a pattern for living.”
Gilbert smiled weakly
. “I see you’re not old enough. You’ll find time later on. Later on.”
“As far as I’m concerned, Kevin is a free agent. If she wants to walk in my direction, nothing is going to stop her. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Don’t expect an outraged father, Mr. James. I’m not perturbed at whatever arises between you and Laura. Perhaps I was at first because I didn’t expect her to be courted by an older man. But events have changed that. It doesn’t matter now.”
Walter James contemplated the tips of his fingers. “You keep missing the point. Maybe the God you’re worrying about doesn’t have a plan, but I have. Nothing is going to interfere with Kevin and whatever she wants. Particularly the arrest of her father.”
“Do you come from the police?”
“My connection with the police is as strong as the help they can give me. In Atlanta I’m a private detective. I’m after a man who killed a friend of mine. I’m not interested in upholding the law.”
“My daughter told me about your partner. I can’t give you any help there.”
“You know of Dr. Elliott Boone?”
“I’ve never heard the name. Is he the man you’re after?”
The radio began a rhumba undertone. A slender hand turned the knob and plunged the office into silence.
“He’s the man I’m after. I wasn’t expecting help from you. I don’t think you would know Dr. Boone. You did know the Filipino. You know Shasta Lynn.”
The old man shrugged tired shoulders. “I’ve been waiting for the police for some time.”
Walter James sprang to his feet. “Damn it! I don’t want you to wait for the police. You — I don’t care if you dry up in jail and blow out through the bars. But Kevin deserves something better.”
Gilbert shook his head slowly. “There’s no use to fight, Mr. James. I made my bid for security and I failed. I knew I had failed after the Filipino talked to Miss Lynn.”
“That tramp will keep her mouth shut or have it shut for her. The Filipino’s dead. Melvin Emig has been dead for some time. Little Steve and Darmer — well, they ran into a little trouble last night. Esteban Luz will be taken in by the Mexican police this afternoon.”
