"Some kitchen, huh? It was Mona's wedding present to me. She worked it out with Johnny, my husband. A surprise. When we got back from the trip, here it was. They had to move the wall there way back to make room. Look at the crazy refrigerator. It's hotel-size. You'd like a cold beer?"
"Thanks."
She gave me the beer. I sat with it at a cheery little breakfast bar. She stood in the middle of the kitchen, facing me, ironing white shirts.
"I don't know what I can tell you."
"Well, you can tell me if you were surprised when you heard it. And why you were surprised."
''I'll say I was surprised. I knew she was getting involved with that guy. But what I think she wanted, she wanted her husband to take her seriously. You know what I mean?"
"Not exactly"
"Well, Mr. Yeoman treated her like a kid. And she is a kid in a lot of ways. But him being so much older and all, when she wanted to be real serious, he was kind of laughing. Oh, he likes her a lot. Don't get me wrong about that. You know, a lot of the time even though I'm six years younger than she is. I felt older."
She frowned down at the cuffs she was working on. "She gets these ideas about herself. Like she was living in a soap opera. Life isn't like that. It's too bad she can't have kids. Except for not having babies, it's a pretty good relationship. They have kin together. And old as he is, I can tell you he's plenty of husband for a girl. But I didn't think she'd actually take off. Boy, that's pretty stupid! I thought it was pretty stupid her actually going to bed with that professor. I think if I'd still been working for her. I would have talked her out of that. But I left to get married last April, and after we got back from the honeymoon she was over here practically the next day, crying and carrying on and saying John Webb was the great love of her life and he treated her like a real woman and so on. She said she could never never let Jass know she'd been unfaithful, but I knew darn well the next brawl they had she'd throw it up to him and she did. And the next time she came to see me, she still couldn't sit down without whining. I'm surprised because I know darn well she didn't get Jass to finance this trip, and she at least knows herself well enough to know she can't get along without money and lots of it, and Jass cut her off months ago. I guess they must have quarreled or something and she did it to hurt Jass. But I'll bet you by now she's scared and worried."
"I understand you and Mona had a good friendly relationship."
"Oh sure. She knew I wouldn't take advantage. Like being too friendly when anybody was around. But we didn't have any secrets. We couldn't really be friends, because I was working for her. You understand. But we talked a lot, and trusted each other. She'll be back. You tell Mr. Yeoman he can count on that. I guess he knows it already. She'll be back, and he'll make her sweat some, but he'll take her back. He'll give her one grade A thrashing, which she deserves, and take her back like before. I just don't know what's been making her act so silly. Why should she leave a man she gets along with so good? I swear, because I've seen it happen, all he ever has to do is lay a hand on her and her knees sag and she starts breathing hard."
"Maybe she didn't run off with John Webb."
"Oh, everybody knows she did."
"Dolores, there are some people who believe they didn't run off at all. There's some reason to believe they were both murdered and the bodies hidden."
The iron came to rest. She stared at me. Suddenly she snatched the iron up and took a worried look at the shirt. She set the iron on the stand and came over to the little bar. There were stools on both sides. She sat opposite me and stared at me.
"Mr. Yeoman would never never do anything like that!"
"I don't believe he would."
She bit her lip. "But who would? It doesn't make any sense!" She tried to smile. "John Webb's weird little sister... Mona told me all about her... she wouldn't have the nerve for anything like that." She shook her head. "You must be mistaken, Mister McGee, really. Everybody says they went to El Paso together."
"That was two people who vaguely resembled them."
She studied me. She was a most attractive woman-golden flesh tones, strong features, splendid dark eyes. "There'd be no point in your telling me a lot of crazy lies, I guess. But I just can't imagine Mona... dead. She's so alive!"
"Dolores, I'm sorry I've upset you. I thought you might be able to think of something useful."
"She's been stopping by to see me and tell me her troubles. Those tax guys worried her. That's what they were, you know. I'm sure they were just what they said they were. But she thought they were maybe working for Jass. She wanted things to be real dramatic, always. Poor Jass. If it turns out to be true, he'll be all broken up over it."
"Why would somebody want to make it look as if Mona had run away?"
She looked blank. "Gee, I don't know. So they'd have a better chance of getting away with it, I guess."
She walked out onto the front porch with me. She had a good smile. I said, "Have yourself a prize baby Dolores."
Her eyes turned surprisingly cool. "Only the Anglos are supposed to wait so long, eh? It better be twins, to catch up. We're supposed to breed at fifteen."
"Hey, take it easy"
"Maybe I don't like being patted on the head."
"Mrs. EstobarR I did not mean to offend you in any way."
"Believe me, I am through bending the humble neck, the years I worked for the Yeomans. I say what I damn please to anybody."
She glowered at me. Fire and iron, blood and pride. Some Indio blood there. I couldn't help it. I laughed. In a few moments the corners of her mouth twitched and she laughed too. But I was glad there was no knife in her hand before she decided to laugh.
"I'll try again. Have a happy baby. Okay?"
"Okay. He'll be happy. I promise."
But even with good temper restored, she seemed a little bit distracted. She glanced beyond me. She seemed glad to have me leave.
As I walked to the car I saw a heavy-duty pickup truck parked on the other side of the street, about three doors down. It was a dusty pickup, and the two young men who stood behind it-lounging against the tailgate, wearing work clothes-looked big and brown and fit, their Indio-Latino faces broad, watchful, impassive.
As I drove past them I could understand why Mrs. Estobar wanted me to leave. On this street, at this time of day, a strange gringo calling on the pretty housewife was an object of suspicion. Salesman, bill collector, cop or boyfriend? Watch and wait and find out for sure.
There are too many men who feed on the minority groups, and too many ways to take advantage. So they have little ways of taking care of their own. As I turned off her street, I had the feeling that I would not have wanted those two by the truck to misunderstand my little mission.
I looked before I drove away, and she waved from the porch. I drove a half dozen blocks and phoned Yeoman's home from a drugstore. A man told me I might reach him at the office. He gave me the number. There a woman with a nasal drawling voice told me he had been in early and had left a little while ago. She asked my name and when I told her she said that I might be able to reach him at the Cottonwood Club, the Kendrick Building, the three-hundred block on East Central Avenue, use the private elevator.
It was a new office building. I had noticed it before. Glass and aluminum on stilts with pierced concrete to kill the desert glare. In the lobby was a bigger than life-size statue of a prospector leading a loaded burro, done in silver. The club elevator, labeled in a very small silver script; took me to the fourteenth floor. I walked out of it into a sturdy cage of heavy steel mesh. The attendant left me in the cage while he murmured into a phone. He then pressed a buzzer which opened a door in the cage. A small man led me back through paneled baronial silences to a small elevator and took me to the sixteenth floor. He took me past shower rooms, exercise rooms, game courts, to a small gym and pointed across to where Jass Yeoman in sweat pants, stripped to the waist, was working the weights, breathing hard, sweat rolling down his chest, the tough muscles of his shoulders r
olling under the brown hairy hide.
He quit when I walked up, took a towel from a hook and mopped his face. "Sweating the best bourbon, son," he said. "Waiting for the call from Charlie. How about this layout? We had a fine old club, but it set on land too valuable for it. So we sold it, tore out all the paneling and fixtures, leased these top three floors from one of Boone Kendrick's companies, and we never had it so good. Best food in a hundred miles. Two hundred. Biggest drinks, too. What have you got on your mind?"
"That it could be a game of doubles, Jass. First Mona and then you. For all the marbles you've got. Gimmicking it up made it less evident. Say she'd died in an everyday car crash. You'd start thinking about a new will."
He swabbed his chest, slowly and thoughtfully. "Even if you're dead wrong, you just earned your scorched money Trav."
"Who gets it?"
"In the event of a common disaster, it's set up to go into a little foundation, provided there's any left after they get through picking little pieces off it. But this isn't any common disaster. She's predeceased me. We put in a lot of miles together in that little airplane of mine. I don't know if this situation is covered, even. She had absolutely no blood kin. The nearest I got is an old maid first cousin in Yuma. If they say it was intestate, if somebody did knock me off about now, I guess her claim would be honored, if she'd dirty her paws reaching for my money. Then there's about nine kinds of business insurance. I'd have to check that out. Tell you what. It's getting on toward lunch, you go up to the roof to the bar there and tell Armando to make you a bourbon sour the way he makes them for me, and I'll be along soon."
With a little help I found my way to the roof. The chairs were deep; the drink excellent, the view spectacular. I sipped the drink and wondered if I should have called on the Sheriff and done enough hinting to widen his area of speculation. I had stayed busy. I had moved out of the Latigo Motel and into The Sage. I'd gone to the bank and dropped forty-five hundred into a lock box, paying a $7.70 fee for a year's rental. I like lock boxes. Before you can get to the money, you have a better chance to change your mind. I had placed a call to Isobel Webb. She had said in a listless voice that she had slept too hard. She said she felt tireder than when she went to bed. It was a strange and aimless conversation, with long pauses where neither of us said a word. I said I would run down and see her if I got a chance, and she said, with no enthusiasm at all, that that would be fine.
I wondered how Buckelberry was doing with the search for the car, the search for a tall skinny man with a scarred neck, the Indian search among the rugged rocks of the mountain next door to the cabin where she had died. I had found absolutely nothing in the morning paper.
Prosperous-looking and healthy-looking men were beginning to drift in for the prelunch drink, alone and in small groups. I asked the waiter where the nearest phone was. He brought one over and plugged it in and brought me a book. I hesitated and then tried Buckelberry.
They caught him as he was leaving for lunch. "Congratulations, McGee."
"What do you mean?"
"I had a little chat with Jass this morning. I was going to look you up and ask you not to push it too hard."
"Push?"
"For chrissake, man! That hands-off label is only good under certain conditions, Jass or no Jass. In the city limits you've got Chief Kittering to contend with. Out in the county, you've got me. If either of us find you making motions like a private investigator, we'll jam you up pretty good for operating without a state license and without county approval. One more little thing like that stewardess trick and..."
"Stop beating your chest, Sheriff. You're the law. I recognize that. I wondered how you were doing. And I was going to make a suggestion."
"I suppose I should be overwhelmed."
"I thought you might give Jass a little quiet protection."
"Jass? Why?"
"It's just a hunch."
"I have all the problems I need."
"Had any luck with anything?"
"Why should I tell you what... Well, hell, we located her car about an hour ago. Tompkins is out there now. It was about six miles from the cabin, off in the opposite direction from Cotton Corners. Off a little road under some trees. Tell Jass if you plan to see him. After it's checked out, I'll have it left at his place. There's nothing else new, but you can't tell when things will break."
"How long can you sit on this, Sheriff?"
"Until in my considered judgment I have enough proof to show that murder has been done, smart guy."
"If you want to leave a message for me or anything, I've moved to The Sage."
"Why not? Now that you can afford it." He banged the phone down. As the waiter carried it away, I saw Jass approaching, his strides swift and his face intent. His dark hair was spikey from his shower. He signaled Armando and dropped into the chair beside me.
"Took me longer than I thought. Charlie finally did what I pay him for."
"And?"
"One of the special groups of agents down there has been working on it for nearly a year. They're scheduled to hit me with it next February. Charlie got hold of a list of names. Statements they've taken checked off, and the ones they intended to take, left blank. Wally Rupert was checked off. Mona was on there. No check mark. A lot of other names, from way back. Stinking little clerks, son. Little people with no reason to like ol' Jass Yeoman. People ready to smear. Charlie says the minute they hit me, they'll slap papers on everything I've got to keep me from moving it out of the country. Bank accounts ,a securities, boxes., everything. He says they are working independent of the boys who usually work on my account down there, but with access to all back records on taxes." His drink came. He sipped it and leaned back and smiled and shook his head. "I tell you, boy I try to stay steamed up, but I can't quite make it. Know what I dreamed last night? I was up there on the mesa road trying to find the place I buried that rabbit. I'd buried something with him that I had to have. Something important. Couldn't remember just what it was. Suppose it was my sense of self preservation?"
"I don't know."
"God damn, how I miss that fool woman!"
"They found her car this morning, in that same area, tucked away on a back road. They'll leave it at your house after they check it out. Nothing else is new."
"I told Buckelberry we were trying to work this out together."
"I know."
"He wasn't real pleased."
"I know that too. Jass, one thing bothers me. Everybody in this town seems to know everything that goes on. But nothing's in the papers."
He shrugged. "Shouldn't bother you. Jaimie DeVrees has the paper and the TV and radio. Full of bright young kids. The first thing they learn is to go get just what they are sent to get, no more and no less. Jaimie likes a lot of initiative in handling the news they get, but he sure as hell squats on anybody that goes out and tries to find some. The way he figures it, it's a waste of money. Why try to dig up things that will be handed to you when people are ready?"
"But if Buckelberry's people find either body..."
His face twisted with sudden pain. "Then he'll phone Jaimie and Jaimie's people will purely cover the hell out of it. I want my girl found. I want her buried right. And whatever son of a bitch did this to me..." He shivered and unclamped his hands and said, "Let's go down and get us some slabs of good rare roast beef, son."
He was silent during most of lunch, and over good coffee he said, "I've got some detail work. How about along evening you and me go calling on Wally Rupert?"
"Is that the way to do it?"
"That's my way to do it. I got something to go on. What Charlie found out. I'll just push on that. I'll push hard and watch him and see if I can see anything else."
"What time?"
"You come to the house about eight, say." He stood up and dropped his napkin on the table.
"I left word out front. You use this place like a charter member long as you're here."
"Thank you."
"Try to burn my money,
boy, and you get to go first class."
Eight
I HAD six free hours before meeting with Jass again. As I walked out of the Kendrick Building into the brightness of the afternoon, I had that small prickling sensation of being watched.
I moved around in appropriate ways, in and out of a drugstore, around a corner and back - and I could not pick anyone up. Everyone seemed to have that introspective innocence of total strangers. Sometimes the alarm bells go off by mistake. I could not understand why I felt vaguely disappointed to learn it was a false alarm.
Then I knew I wanted something to happen. I wanted a new factor added. The whole situation, as it stood, made very limited sense. I belonged in an arroyo, drying out behind the rocks. Jass's people should be hunting for Mona and John Webb in Mexico.
John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 03 - A Purple Place For Dying Page 11
