"You don't have to have an alibi, Fernandez," I tell him. "I just sorta wanta know where everybody was on that evenin', that's all."
He looks at Periera sorta quick. I walk over to the side table an' give myself a drink. I am just imbibin' this liquor when the telephone bell rings. Fernandez picks up the receiver an' then looks at me.
"It's for you," he says. "Metts, the Palm Springs Chief of Police, wants you."
"Say listen, Lemmy," says Metts. "There's a marriage threatenin' around here an' I wanta know what I oughta do about it. I suppose it's OK?"
"What are you talkin' about, Metts," I ask him. "Who's goin' to marry who an' why, an' what's it got to do with me? I thought that maybe somebody else had got committin' some crime or something. Who is it that's goin' screwy an' wantin' to get hitched up?"
"It's Henrietta an' Maloney," he says. "When they got back here Maloney says that you have pinched Henrietta for killin' Aymes an' on a counterfeitin' charge as well, an' that you're a heel. He says that she's broke - she ain't got any dough at all, an' that you're framin' her. He says that he reckons the best thing he can do is to get married to her so's there'll be somebody to look after her an' get her a lawyer an' generally hang around. He says that he's talked it over with her an' she's so het up that she's prepared to agree to anything.
"Well, what could I say. They both been resident here an' they're entitled to marry, so I rang up the Justice an' he's comm' around here in about half an hour to tie 'em up. After a bit I sorta got the idea that maybe you oughta know something about this an' so I called through."
"Thanks a lot, Metts," I say. "Don't you worry about it. I'm comm' back right now, an' I reckon I'm goin' to stop this marriage pronto. Say, what the hell does Maloney think he's doin' usin' your police office as a marriage bureau?
"Don't you say anything until I get around. Just stall 'em an' play 'em along, but don't you let any marriages take place around there. Got me?"
He says he gets me, an' scrams.
I put the telephone down.
"Fernandez," I say, "I often been wonderin' why you was so keen to get yourself hitched up to Henrietta an' then suddenly shied off. I suppose it was because you thought that she'd had a hand in this counterfeitin'?"
He nods.
"That's the way it was," be says. "An' when you come gumshoem' around here it began to look to me like she knew a durn sight more about Aymes' death than a lot of us thought, so I sorta laid off."
"I got it," I tell him. "Well, I gotta scram now, but there's just one little thing I gotta say to you guys an' that is that I'll probably have to ask both of you to take a trip back to New York with me tomorrow. I reckon that you're both goin' to be material witnesses in this case against Henrietta. Anyhow, I reckon the DA ought to hear what you gotta say."
Periera starts a lot of stuff about not being able to leave the Hacienda, but Fernandez shuts him up.
"If we gotta go we gotta go," he says. "An' personally speakin' a few days in New York at the government's expense wouldn't be so bad neither."
"OK," I say. "Well the pair of you had better be ready to go back there with me tomorrow. If you got any business to clean up here you better get it fixed. We oughta be leavin' pretty early in the mornin'. Welt so long, I'll be seem' you."
I scram. I get outside an' start the car up. I drive pretty fast for half a mile an' then look out for the cop that I fixed with Merts to have waitin' for me. In a minute I see him, sittin' behind a joshua tree off the road.
"Get along the Hacienda Altmira as quick as you can," I tell him. "Come in by the back way, an' keep your mount under cover. Don't let 'em see you. Watch the place. There's only Periera an' Fernandez inside. If they come out an' go any place tail 'em, but I don't reckon they will. I reckon they'll be stickin' around. I'll be back in pretty near an hour or so."
He says OK an' he scrams.
I drive on. I go whizzin' along the road to Palm Springs like somebody has put hot lead in my pants, an' I am hurryin' because I reckon I gotta stop this marryin' nonsense on the part of Henrietta an' Maloney.
But when I come to think this thing out, I sorta realise that I don't really give a continental durn if Henrietta does marry Maloney. It won't make any difference anyhow, except that k might sorta be inconvenient havin' regard to one or two things that I got in mind about that dame.
My old mother always usta tell me that there was only one thing worse than one dame an' that is two dames. I reckon King Solomon musta been nuts. Just fancy stickin' around with four hundred dames an' tryin' to play ball with the whole outfit. Still you gotta admit that these old time guys had got something an' if you read your history books why I reckon you gotta say that as the centuries go rollin' by guys just get more and more indifferent all the time. Maybe you reckon that this English guy, Henry the Eighth, was a real he-man, just because he had six wives, but if you compare him with King Solomon he is nothin' but a big sissy. What's six against four hundred?
When I get to Metts' house, I bust right into his room an' he is sittin' behind the desk waitin' for me an' smokin' a pipe that smells like it was loaded with onions.
"What's all this hooey about Henrietta marryin' Maloney?" I ask him.
He grins.
"Maloney brings her back here," he says, "an' she is all burned up about bein' pinched for killin' Granworth an' she hasn't got any dough an' reckons that she won't be able to get a lawyer So Maloney says he reckons that if they sorta get married he can see her through. So he speaks to me about it) an' I says it's OK by me. So I dig out the local Justice an' he's in there now gettin' ready to marry 'em."
"Well he ain't goin' to," I say. "Look here, Metts. That pinch of Henrietta's was a fake. She never killed anybody, but I just hadta play it that way. Take me along to this weddin'."
He gets up an' puts his pipe away, for which I am very glad, an' we go into the next room.
Somebody has putta lotta flowers on the table an' standin' in front of it, with a Justice gettin' ready to shoot the works, an' a coupla State coppers for witnesses, are Henrietta an' Maloney.
"Justa minute," I say. "I think that I'm stoppin' this weddin' because it don't look so good to me."
I turn around to the Justice an' tell him that I am sorry that he has been troubled about this an' got outa bed but that there ain't goin' to be any weddin'. He scrams an' the two coppers go with him.
Then Henrietta starts in. She asks me what I think I am doin' an' who I am to get around stoppin' people from gettin' married. She says that she has got Metts' permission an that she's goin' through with it. She says that I have been houndin' her around, bringin' false charges against her an' generally ridin' her around the place an' that if Maloney is man enough to try an' protect her against any more stuff on my part then he is entitled to go through with it.
I'm tellin' you that Henrietta was burned up. Her eyes are flashin' an' she looked swell.
"I don't think I've ever hated anybody like I hate and detest you," she says. "I told you that you were a heel and that is what I think you are."
She shuts up because she ain't got any more breath.
Maloney weighs in.
"Look here, Caution," he says, "have a heart. You've got no authority to stop a marriage. Somebody's got to look after Henrietta. She's in a bad jam, an' you're ridin' her an' makin' it a durn sight worse. An' let me tell you this...
I put my hand over his mouth.
"Now shut up you two, an' listen to me," I tell 'em both, "an' you can be in on this too, Metts. Henrietta, I want you to get a load of what I am sayin' an' remember it because it's important.
"Just how much you don't like me don't matter a cuss. I'm doin' a job an' I'm doin' it in my own particular way. Maybe, Henrietta, when this job's over you'll be inclined to take a kick at yourself for bein' so durn fresh, but in the meantime get this: