A slight sandy-haired man in a short-sleeved sport shirt, khaki pants, and open sandals of crisscrossed brown leather took his arm when he left the plane at Palm Springs. Falkoner’s only luggage was a briefcase that held his shaving gear and a change of underwear, just in case. Not that he thought he’d need it.
“I bet Mr. David sent you down,” said the sandy-haired man in too-intimate tones. “I’m Langly. My car’s here in the lot.”
It was a blue-and-white 1952 Chrysler. On the two-lane blacktop beyond the airport the sun was hot but the air dry and fresh. Scraggly clumps of dusty green vegetation of no interest to Falkoner spotted the flat tan desert.
“It’s so dry around here they all have these just huge root systems to suck up whatever moisture they can and—”
“Shut the fuck up and drive,” said Falkoner.
Langly lapsed into hurt silence. They passed a man and woman on horseback, wearing riding breeches, who waved gaily. Langly waved back. “He’s a director at RKO. They—”
“Shut the fuck up and drive.”
An Eldorado roared by like an escaped rocket, piloted by a pair of bleached blondes goggled with bright-rimmed sunglasses.
“Who’re they, the Bobbsey Twins?” Before Langly could respond, he demanded, “Where’s the woman, goddamn you?”
“She’s got just a horrible shack in a date grove near Rancho Mirage — it’s a new section this side of Palm Desert — and reads palms at a Mex place in Palm Desert. The Caliente Club. She goes in at five in the afternoon, she’ll be home now.”
“She’d better be.”
But Langly could not be silent. His voice tingled ripely.
“Mr. David must want her terribly badly, I just notified Los Angeles last night, today here you are from Frisco to—”
“Just take me out to her place.”
This guy was not only a pain in the ass; he might be dangerous. Beyond the plush Thunderbird Club and before the Shadow Mountain Club, they turned left on a dirt road. Dust swirled behind them.
“When word came she’d been telling fortunes in Scottsdale a few years ago, and had disappeared from Vegas, well, I just put my thinking cap on. It just seemed to me that she might try it here — I mean, the country’s just almost the same. Then I—”
“A San Francisco skip-tracer told you she liked the desert. Told you she was picking up traffic tickets here. Told you she was readings mitts as Madam Pollyanna.”
“But that was all so vague, so tentative. I spotted her at the Mex place from her name and photo, and—”
“And megaphoned Mr. David’s name all over. Are we close?”
Beyond an old wash, the date groves started. Langly said snidely, “Next road to the right, if you must know, first house on the left.” Almost grudgingly, “Only house.”
“Drive past the mouth of the road, not past the house.”
“I’m not stupid, you know, Mr. High-and-Mighty.”
“You sound stupid,” said Falkoner. “You act stupid.”
Twenty yards in on the narrow dusty track through the date grove, the tail of a black ’53 Mercury Monterey station wagon with wood paneling protruded from behind a palm. The shack itself was hidden by the date trees.
“Turn around and let me off and go back to town.”
Langly was a spoiled child. “But you’ll need me to—”
“I need you to shut your face.”
He walked around the car to drop an envelope in through the open window onto Langly’s lap. The envelope crinkled.
“Your thirty pieces of silver.” He smiled his not-nice smile. “What sort of work do you do, nance?”
“I... I’ve been parking cars at one of the clubs.” His voice got almost shrill with malice. “But I did good work on this and I’m going to make sure Mr. Dannelson in Los Angeles knows all about it and about how you’ve treated me.”
Falkoner leaned into the Chrysler. “You ought to write mystery novels, you got that kind of pansy imagination. Mr. David wants her back, he’s fond of her, he asked me to drive her back up in her car. Capisce?”
“I...” Langly was looking straight ahead. “I... yes.”
“You don’t call Dannelson, you don’t call anyone, you never heard of me. Capisce?” Langly jerked his head stiffly in acquiescence. Falkoner nodded dismissal, said, “Go park cars.”
He removed the Mercury’s distributor cap, eased the hood back down. Something, probably a palm rat, gnawed with cautious haste in the palm fronds clicking drily on the roof of the shack. His shoes made the noise of cats’ feet on glass as he crossed the sagging porch. He cupped his eyes to peer into the living room.
A beaten-down green couch, a red easy chair that looked almost new. One leg of the wooden table in the middle of the room had been cracked and stapled. A plaque that read GOD BLESS OUR HAPPY HOME with embossed flowers around the frame. Foot traffic had worn certain areas of the linoleum almost white.
He knocked on the door frame with his knuckles. A woman’s voice called from somewhere, “I’m not doing any readings today.”
Falkoner kept on knocking. Kata came through the inner doorway. An intricately colored silk scarf was twisted twice around her neck; her striking figure was displayed by a tight black dress. She was nearly as tall as Falkoner’s six-one. Her arms were raised and her hands were fooling with her hair; three hairpins were between her thin hungry lips.
“I told you I’m not doing any readings until tonight at the club.” Her face was fine-featured: straight nose, high cheekbones. Her usually husky, seductive voice was thick with anger. “Now, get to hell away from here or I’ll call Pablo...”
The screen door was unlocked. Falkoner stepped in.
“You don’t have a phone,” he said.
Her face went stark white. Her mouth dropped the hairpins. She tried to push him back out the door, slanted dark eyes smoky with terror.
His almost gentle hands on her shoulders pushed her off. “Pablo, huh? Quite a comedown for you, Kata.”
“Goddamn you, he’s the bouncer at the club.”
“The Caliente Club,” he said with indifference.
Through the archway was a bedroom with a double bed that looked as if two large animals had been fighting on it. Stiff yellowish stains on the sheets testified to Pablo’s virility. The whole setup was perfect — except for the nance, Langly.
Drawing on a pair of thin gray gloves, Falkoner sauntered back to the living room. Kata was standing stiffly in the middle of the floor like a songbird mesmerized by a snake.
“What does he want from me? The Mercury? I earned it.”
“On your back,” he said in brutal indifference.
“Under you a couple of times when he was out of town,” she said shrilly. Her anger died. “I got tired of men like him and men like you. Money and power and women, that’s all you—”
“The men at the Mex place are different?”
“I have to eat. I didn’t steal anything from him, did I?”
“How about his peace of mind?” suggested Falkoner.
Her hands crawled like broad white spiders up the black dress to her breasts, squeezed them brutally, unconsciously.
“I, look, I don’t know anything, I didn’t see anything, I didn’t hear anything. I’m no threat, I...” In a low, almost throaty whisper, she asked, “Why can’t he let me live in peace?”
“He can’t let you live at all, Kata.”