The coming of the diesel made these jerkwaters obsolete, at least for the railroad. But by then, Route 66 paralleled the tracks and some of the stations, like Amboy, Essex, and Goff, got a reprieve from extinction, servicing tourists instead of 4-6-4 Baldwins.
Devlin was average for the breed, a gaunt two-story combination store-gas station-lunchstand-residence and a short row of auto-court cabins. The buildings were whitewashed to bounce off a little of the sun and were all set within a perimeter of rabbit brush, hulked cars, and rusting mining machinery. Tin signs advertised DuPont dynamite and Bull Durham and a yard-tall Nehi promotional thermometer told you what you already knew.
I’d sent an eastbound driver on ahead to let the folks at the station know we were bringing the old man in. They were waiting as our ad hoc ambulance rolled into the shade of the gas-pump shelter. There were only the two of them, a fading middle-aged woman and a lanky, taciturn teenaged boy. I wondered if they might be the entire population of Devlin, California. It turned out I was wrong.
I bailed out of the ’57 and jogged back to the station wagon to find the woman peering in through its side windows.
“Oh Lord, Teddy! It is Rupe!” Her voice was strange. Soft and flat, but with rags of emotion trailing from it, like she wanted to get excited or hysterical but just didn’t have the energy for it. The kid just grunted and hung back, his hands in his dungaree pockets.
“You know him, ma’am?” I asked, coming up beside her.
“He’s my husband.”
Jesus! I’d have figured him for her father. The woman had the remnants of a baby-doll prettiness left to her and she must have been a good twenty years younger than the unmoving old man in the back of the Buick. She wore a limp nylon waitress’s uniform and a stained apron and she had a dishtowel twisted around her right hand.
“Have you called a doc?” I demanded. Any other questions could come later. Still, my cop’s instinct for putting things in their places made me do a mental comparison between the face of the old man and the pimply features of the teenager. No resemblance. A second marriage and a stepfather-stepson deal? A good chance of.
“Yes, our doctor is driving out from Barstow,” the woman’s hands clenched and twisted on the dishtowel. “I knew this was bound to happen. This place will kill us all!”
“He’s not dead yet, ma’am.”
The tailgate of the station wagon swung down and Lisette scrambled out. She’d ridden in with the old guy, keeping wet compresses on his head.
“How’s he doing, Princess?”
“Better, I think. He’s still out, but his heartbeat’s steadier and his color’s improved.”
It had. There was a nasty bruise developing on his forehead, but the blue-gray tinge had left his face and the rise and fall of his chest was deepening. I had the sense this old coyote still had some mileage left in him.
“Let’s get him inside. Where you want him, ma’am? And don’t worry, I think he’s going to be okay.”
The woman twisted the dishtowel more tightly around her hand. “That’s good,” she said in her washed-out voice. “I think it would be easier to put him in one of the cabins than to take him up the stairs to our room.”
Jeez, lady. Try to control your joy.
We got the old gent into bed in the first of the four tourist cabins. Then I shook the hand of the station wagon’s driver and sent him on his way. He was only a passing tourist with a lousy taste in shirts, but he’d gone out of his way to help a stranger in a jam. I hoped the story would make for a good brag back in Des Moines.
A boxy swamp cooler filled one of the cabin’s windows, precious water dripping onto its burlap panels. Its roaring electric fan didn’t exactly render the room cool, just less hot. The cabin was like the rest of Devlin: clean, barring the perpetual dust haze of the desert, and well maintained by somebody’s hard work. But the furnishings and fixtures were 1930s vintage and wearing down.
The closemouthed boy gave Lisette’s legs a long last study and went out to tend the gas pumps, leaving the three of us to stand awkwardly around the bed.
“Thank you for your help,” the woman said finally. “I’m Sue Kelton and this is my husband Rupert. We own the station here at Devlin.” She gave a brief laugh that didn’t have any real meaning behind it. “Nowadays I suppose we are Devlin.”
“No big deal, ma’am. My name’s Kevin Pulaski and this is Lisette Kingman. We’ve been visiting in Flagstaff and we were heading home to L.A.”
I didn’t mention that my visit had been at the invitation of the Arizona District Court. I’d been giving testimony relating to an interstate car-theft ring.
A big part of my job with Metro Intelligence revolved around me not letting people know what I actually do for a living. I’m pretty good at it, too. Damn few folks ever pick up on the fact that this slouching, jeans-wearing, hot-rod driving kid with too much slicked-back brown hair is actually a Los Angeles County deputy sheriff, and that’s just how it’s supposed to be.
“I don’t know what happened, ma’am. We were following behind your husband when he kinda like blacked out and went off the road. Has he been sick lately or anything?”
“No, nothing like that. He’s just... old.” She stared down at the slack, seamed face on the pillow, her words drifting. “It’s the heat and the work. I’ve told him it’s time we took things easier. I’ve warned him...”
She shook off some thought and looked up at us, her voice growing brisker. “Thank you again. I suppose you’ll want to get back on the road. My son and I can take care of things until the doctor gets here.”
I glanced down at Sue Kelton’s hands again, knob-knuckled and work reddened, the one still twisted in that dishtowel. I hesitated for one last extra second before making the call. “Nah. It’s too hot to go on now. I guess we’ll stay over until tomorrow morning. Can we have a couple of your other cabins?”
Mrs. Kelton didn’t have a reason to say no, no matter how much she might want to.
Teddy Kelton stared at us from the shade of the pump shelters as I backed the ’57 in between our cabins. He didn’t offer to help us carry our bags in.
The Princess held off until we were inside of her airless little clapboard box. “Look, lover, I know it’s hot out there but I’d vastly prefer prickly heat to this!”
“Me, too,” I replied. I put down her makeup case and sat on the edge of the cabin’s creaky iron-framed bed. “But I’ve got kind of a funny feeling about this place.”
“No kidding!” Lisette braced her hands on her hips. “This place is strictly nowheresville... literally! The giant radioactive tarantulas are going to come crawling out of the desert at any minute! If you think I’m...” The Princess stopped revving her engine and looked at me sharply. “Wait a minute. You mean cop funny, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” I untwisted my Luckys from my T-shirt sleeve and drew one of the smokes from the pack with my lips. “I want to talk to that doc when he gets here,” I said around the cigarette, “and with the old man. And I don’t want to leave that old guy alone for too long either.”
Lisette crossed to the cabin’s front window and peered around the edge of the cracked shade, the outside glare putting a bar of light across her suddenly intent features. The Princess likes to hunt, too, although she maintains her amateur status. “The boy’s still watching us from over by the gas pumps. What do you think the caper is?”
I touched my lighter flame to my smoke. Standing, I joined her at the window, putting my arm around her slim shoulder. “I dunno, Princess. It could be the sun’s just getting to me, but when we brought that old Joe in breathing, I got the feeling that somebody was disappointed as all hell.”