County Kill

by Peter Rabe

  “The reason I keep thinking about dope,” I said, “is because Johnny Chavez served time for selling reefers to high-school kids.”

  He stared at me in shock. “That’s a lie. When?”

  “A few years back, probably before you knew him.”

  “Are you sure, Callahan?”

  “Yes.”

  “God!” He sat on the bunk and stared at the carton of cigarettes I’d brought him. He looked up. “Cripes, I never knew that. Hell, Johnny wasn’t like that at all!”

  “He was a friend. You weren’t critical. Knowing that, can you now believe Johnny might have been planning a double cross up in that cabin?”

  “If that’s true — what you told me — I don’t know what the hell to believe. Has Pete — what kind of record has Pete got?”

  “I don’t know. When the police here were co-operative, I hadn’t heard of Pete Chavez. Since this morning, I’m not likely to get a chance to look at the files.”

  He still seemed shocked by my revelation about Johnny Chavez. I had a feeling he also felt conned.

  I said, “A revolt against Montevista mores didn’t have to go as far as a racket, did it?”

  He didn’t answer.

  I asked, “Is there a possibility that Pete Chavez would work with me? He’s not a logical member of my fan club.”

  “I don’t know,” he said wearily. “You can tell him I hired you.”

  “I already have. It didn’t help. Well, I’ll try again. You still aren’t ready to open up and help your own cause?”

  His voice was dull. “If I opened up, I’d get ten years. I think I’ve been a sucker, Callahan, though I’m not completely sure — not yet. I wish I could help you. If you want to quit, I’ll understand.”

  “I never quit,” I told him. “Though I often lose. Chin up; you’re still breathing.”

  I didn’t think it was politic to add that I had former clients who weren’t.

  In the front room, Farini was waiting on a bench. He said, “Any luck?”

  “None. Can you throw your weight around here some more and learn if Pete Chavez has any record?”

  “I’ve already checked him,” he told me. “Traffic violations; that’s all.”

  “The way Chief Harris talked, I had the impression that Pete would make an unacceptable witness for the defense. Does he have a bad rep?”

  “He’s Johnny’s cousin; that’s enough.” Farini rubbed the back of his thick neck. “You have no lead, have you? No place to start?”

  “Maybe. I’d rather not reveal it to a man hindered by ethics. In my world, I’ve evolved my own code. The Bar Association has established yours. Did you have any people in mind I might contact?”

  “None,” he said. “Corporation law is my field. But I like this Skip Lund and I think he’s worth straightening out. He got a bad start up here.”

  “He tells me he was a solid citizen in Beverly Hills,” I said.

  “He was,” Farini said. “I checked that, too.” He smiled. “Skip was a friend, but a lawyer is a lawyer. You know, when I was younger your trade appealed to me.”

  I returned his smile. “Joe, you’re big enough for it, but I don’t think you’re dumb enough. Well, back to the jute mill.” I shook his hand. “If the police get obnoxious, I’ll know who to call.”

  I went out into the day again, and two cars down from mine a red Porsche was parked. June Lund was coming along the sidewalk toward me. I waited.

  The blue eyes under the chestnut hair were clear and young this afternoon. Her chin lifted when she recognized me.

  “Hello,” I said. “It must have been a long luncheon.”

  She frowned.

  “Glenys told me about it,” I explained, “but it’s four o’clock now.”

  “I had some shopping to do,” she said. “Are you checking up on my actions, Mr. Callahan?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “Only making polite conversation.”

  She asked gravely, “How is Skip? Is he all right? Is — I mean, will they be holding him long?”

  “He’s healthy,” I said. “I think at the moment, he’s regretting the path he took after leaving the Montevista boozers. Could you live on eleven thousand two hundred dollars a year, Mrs. Lund?”

  Her chin stayed high. “I suppose. But I don’t have to. Will it be enough for Mary Chavez? It should be a step up for her.”

  I said nothing.

  She said, “All right; I didn’t have to say that. Not to you, anyway. But he is going to marry her, isn’t he?”

  I shrugged.

  “I heard that he was taking instructions,” she said, “that he was going to turn Catholic. I heard it was all settled. Didn’t you learn that?”

  “I heard it. I don’t believe everything I hear. What’s your church, Mrs. Lund?”

  “Don’t lecture me,” she said. “You’re not qualified. What’s your church, Mr. Callahan?”

  I smiled. “Let’s not fight. You’re here; that’s the first step. We can always fight later.”

  “I’m here,” she informed me coolly, “to tell that retarded hot-rodder exactly what I think of a man who neglects to maintain contact with his own son. I’m here to give that arrogant idiot a piece of my mind.”

  “Sure you are,” I said. “Hell, yes. Good luck, Mrs. Lund.”

  It was only a little after four o’clock, but I was hungry. Juanita had bragged about her enchiladas. Perhaps I could kill two birds with one beer. Coming at her with direct questions had availed me little, but maybe I’d be luckier if I gave her more time.

  On a Saturday afternoon one would expect a workingman’s bar like Chickie’s to be well populated. It wasn’t, when I entered. There was a short, thick, and dark man with a scar under his right eye working the bar.

  At a table near the entrance to the kitchen the lanky guitar player was playing cards with two shorter, heavier men.

  The bartender asked quietly, “What’ll it be, sir?”

  “A beer for now. Enchiladas a little later. Is Mrs. Rico here?”

  “She’s in the kitchen. Did you wish to speak to her?”

  “It can wait. Draught beer.”

  He poured a glass and set it in front of me and went over to stand near the cash register. It was quiet in here, the distant, hushed crackle of frying food in the kitchen, the halfhearted buzzing of a fly, the scarcely audible slap of playing cards. But under the lazy passing of time I felt a tension.

  “Quiet town, isn’t it?” I said to the bartender.

  “Mostly. Quieter than down south. I like it.”

  “Lot of money in this town,” I added.

  He smiled sadly. “Not in this end of it. Plan to open a business here?”

  At the table one of the men said something in Spanish and the other two laughed. They probably weren’t talking about me, but I felt uncomfortable. The bartender glanced at me doubtfully, and away. That was the tension I probably sensed — the insularity here.

  I said, “I’ve got a business already, in Beverly Hills, and I don’t plan to move it.”

  Again there was a remark in Spanish from the table and another laugh. I turned to look that way and one of the heavy men met my gaze steadily, smiling without warmth.

  And then the swinging door to the kitchen opened and Juanita stood there, staring at the three men. They gave immediate and complete attention to their cards.

  Her smile was warm when she finally looked at me. “Mr. Callahan! Still on vacation?”

  “Nope. Working. I thought I’d have some of those enchiladas you were bragging about last night.”

  “In five minutes,” she promised. “Nurse your beer. In five minutes you’ll see if I was bragging.” The door swung shut.

  The men at the table continued their game quietly. The bartender commented, “Best enchiladas in town.”

  “Good. Another beer.”

  A man and woman came in. Filipinos. The man wore a sport jacket composed of all the colors there are; the woman was small and shap
ely in tight black silk. They took a table as far as possible from the card players.

  The woman in black made me think of Mary Chavez, and I wondered if she was still bearing up or if grief had finally pierced her composure. Perhaps she and her wild brother had grown apart. While she had gone to school to learn typing, he had set out on the trail of the fast buck.

  And wound up being nibbled by rats.

  Sadness and an uneasy peace, the beer putting a blurred benediction on the day. The man and his woman talked softly; the smell of food from the kitchen stirred my hunger.

  And then the front door opened once more and Lars (Red) Hovde stood there, grinning apishly at us all. The slob hadn’t even changed his crummy sport shirt.

  “Back again,” he said happily. “Start the music, professor!”

  TEN

  HE CAME OVER to where I sat and I managed to nod civilly.

  “Callahan,” he said genially. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Why not, Red?” I asked. “I wasn’t knifed or slugged.”

  “They weren’t from here,” he said scornfully. “These are my friends.” He called to the men playing cards, “Right?”

  Without looking up, the guitar player said, “Si, amigo.”

  “Gracias, gracias,” Red said, and looked smugly at me. “I even got the lingo now.” He climbed up on the stool next to mine. He slapped the bar. “Double bourbon, buddy.”

  He was about half-gassed already. I could smell the sweet wine on his breath. Sweet wine and bourbon — what a mess he was going to be. I didn’t want to move away from him too obviously; I sat where I was.

  He relished the alliteration of his order and repeated it. “Double bourbon, buddy. If I can say that, I’m not drunk, huh?”

  “Right. I thought you were in the hospital. I heard you were knifed.”

  “Hell,” he said, “I’ve cut myself worse than that shaving. Where’s Juanita?”

  “In the kitchen, making enchiladas. You gave Vogel my name, didn’t you?”

  “Vogel? Oh, that cop? Yeah. I was drunk. He give you a bad time?”

  I shook my head.

  Red called loudly, “Hey, Juanita!”

  Everyone in the room stared, and then Juanita was standing in the open kitchen doorway. “Oh, God!” she said bleakly. “Tanglefoot is back. Good evening, Mr. Hovde.”

  “When does the dancing start?” he wanted to know.

  “Later,” she told him. “Much later. It’s not even five o’clock, Mr. Hovde.” She closed the door again.

  The bartender set the double jolt in front of him and Lars said to me, “She don’t fool me. I was getting to her last night. Mr. Hovde, huh! You should have hung around. You have a date or something?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t want to miss Jack Paar.”

  “Jack Paar,” Red said scornfully. “He don’t fool me.” He lifted the double shot and gulped it down.

  It had been too unpleasant a day for me to sit next to this freak and listen to him detail the list of people who didn’t fool him. But if I moved away, his aggressive sense of inferiority might be triggered into pugnacious action, and it was no time for a fight. I was cornered.

  “Double bourbon, buddy,” he said again, holding his glass high.

  And then I saw a chance to get away. Because Juanita was coming from the kitchen, a steaming plate in her hands, and I assumed that it held my enchiladas.

  I slipped from the stool and beckoned to her as I headed for the smallest table in the room, a corner table.

  She nodded understandingly as she followed my lead.

  She put the plate on the table and said, “Isn’t he awful? I’ll get my plate and some lettuce.” She went back to the kitchen.

  She returned in a few minutes with a big bowl of ice-cold chopped lettuce and a plate for herself. The table was crowded with the two of us; there wasn’t an inch of room for Hovde.

  He hadn’t missed me yet; he was trying out his new three-word Spanish vocabulary on the bartender.

  Juanita said, “Skip turned himself in, I hear.”

  I nodded and dug into an enchilada. “Wonderful!” I said. “You weren’t bragging.”

  “Thank you. Are they trying to railroad Skip downtown?”

  I shrugged. “He isn’t helping himself much. He claims he was on some kind of trip, but that’s all he’s willing to say about it.”

  “Oh?” Her voice was casual, but she had stopped eating.

  I looked at her directly and asked, “Would you know what kind of trip it was?”

  Her voice was tight. “Why should I?”

  “That’s no answer. Skip has hired me to find Johnny’s killer. I’m not going to get any help from the police on it. Am I going to get any from you?”

  “You’re talking nonsense, amigo,” she said in her deep voice. “Skip and Johnny were close friends. A hundred people will tell the judge that, or the police. Skip could never be convicted.”

  “You’d like to believe. Let me tell you, Juanita, if I don’t come up with the murderer, the police are going to put a lot of pressure on Warren Temple Lund the Second.”

  Silence. She was less angry than thoughtful, it seemed, but there was some anger in her dark eyes. I ate some of the cold lettuce and some more enchilada. I glanced toward the bar to see Lars Hovde studying us speculatively.

  “Don’t look now,” I whispered to Juanita, “but Red is watching us. If he gets belligerent, I’m going to pop him.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “I already had enough trouble with the police about him. I can’t afford any trouble now.”

  “No trouble,” I assured her. “One punch and he’ll be asleep.”

  “No. No, no, no! Please?”

  Red was getting carefully off his stool now and walking over.

  “Please,” Juanita said urgently. “I’ll handle this.”

  “O.K.”

  She looked up with a big smile as he walked over with the deliberate pace of the conscious drunk.

  He missed the smile; his attention was on me. “Callahan, you’re asking for trouble. You don’t fool me.”

  “I wouldn’t try to fool you, Red,” I said. “Calm down.”

  Juanita said quickly and warmly. “Red, the night is young. Mr. Callahan and I have very important business to discuss, but it won’t take long.”

  He looked at her suspiciously.

  She said softly, “No trouble now, Lars. We don’t want the police in here, do we?”

  “Hell, no,” he agreed. He studied me carefully for a few seconds and then smiled at her. “But if this guy gets fresh, you holler. O.K.?”

  She nodded.

  He winked at her, sneered at me, and went over to where the men were playing cards. I fought the annoyance in me.

  “Deal me in,” he said to the players. And, to the bartender, “Drinks for this table on me. Mucho.” He sat down heavily.

  Juanita said, “For two months he says nothing but ‘double bourbon.’ I wish he’d never learned to talk.”

  “I wonder who worked him over last night.”

  She smiled. “Always digging, digging, digging, aren’t you?”

  “That’s why my clients pay me,” I told her. “Right now, all I’m trying to do is save Skip Lund’s neck. People who hire private investigators usually have some reason why they can’t go directly to the police, but Skip’s secrecy could destroy his alibi.”

  “He’ll be all right,” she said. “He always lands on his feet.”

  I said irritably, “Don’t be so damned smug. Johnny Chavez was murdered. Keep that in mind. Wasn’t he a friend of yours?”

  She nodded, her eyes sad and angry. “He’s dead. The world goes on. I cry for the living, not the dead.”

  “I don’t think you cry for anybody.”

  She stared at me, her eyes now hard. She stood up. “I’ll get our coffee. You watch your tongue, Brock Callahan.”

  I watched her walk toward the kitchen, enough woman for anyone. I was
sorry my frustration had made me tactless.

  She came back with two mugs and an enameled coffeepot. “Cream or sugar?”

  “Neither,” I said. “I apologize, Juanita. It’s been a sour day.”

  “Of course,” she said calmly. “And why did you come here tonight?”

  Because Mary Chavez told me to, I thought. I said, “Because I think you can help Skip Lund and he’s my client. And also because if I clear Skip, I help his son. That’s the biggest motivation in this mess.”

  “If you don’t work with the police,” she said, “you lose your license and you are out of business. You cannot hide things from the police and stay in business.”

  “Yes, I can. I have before. Justice is not always complete and perfect, and no reasonable police officer expects it will be.”

  “In San Valdesto,” she said, “the police are not reasonable.” She sipped her coffee.

  The front door opened and a man came in, the same man I had seen in uniform down at Headquarters, the Mexican patrolman. He wasn’t in uniform now.

  He waved at Juanita and went to the bar.

  She looked from him to me and away.

  “Is that your pipeline into Headquarters?” I asked. “Is that how you found out where I was staying?”

  She sipped her coffee, ignoring me.

  “You called me originally,” I reminded her, “and told me you were worried about Skip’s son. And you knew where Skip was. That should mean you knew what he was doing. Maybe what Skip was doing is involved in why Johnny died and maybe not. But I can’t work blind!”

  Her face was blank, her breathing heavy. She took a cigarette from a pack and I held a light for her.

  She inhaled and said, “You don’t smoke, do you?”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I’m not changing it; I’m ignoring it. I thought you came to eat, not to snoop.”

  “O.K. To hell with it. If you don’t want to help Skip Lund, I’ll have to work without your help.” I paused. “And hope you’re not involved.”