Maybe you are supprized to hear from me. I am supprized myself. After what you said the last time I didn’t think I would want to see you again, let alone write a letter. But here I am stuck in Dago with nothing better to do this is a dreary berg since the War. I’m telling you. The ship I am supposed to meet got held up by a storm off of Baja Cal. It won’t dock until tomorrow at the earliest so here I am stuck in a room in Dago for the night. I can see youre face right here in the room with me Anne. Why dont you smile at me.
I guess you think I am mentally nuts but I haven’t even had a drink tonight or anything else. I was out walking before and there was plenty women I could of had. I had no interest. I had no interest in any other women since that time with you. I would marry you if you let me. I know I’m short on cash I can’t complete with certain parties in the booze business but I am a loyal friend. Certain parties are the kind of fellow you should watch out for Anne. He is the kind of fellow you can’t trust I also heard he is going into the hole financeanly his wifes money wont last.
I know you think I am a “Mexican” not good enough for you. It isn’t true Anne. My parents were pure Spanish blood no Mexican blood in my veins. I am just as good as you are and a whiter man than “him.” I would do anything for you Anne.
This is not a threat. I never did threaten you. You didn’t understand when I got mad it wasn’t jealousy like you said. I was sad and worried about you. I stood all night outside your place when “he” was there. I did that many times. I wanted to portect you. I did that many times. I never told you that secret did I. Dont worry I wont tell anybody else.
I love you Anne. When I turn out the light I see you in the dark shinning like a star.
Your loyal friend, Tony
p. s. – Theres plenty women in this town like I said. If I have to stay here another night I don’t know what will happen. I guess it dont matter to you one way or the other Anne. T. A.
I read the letter twice, straining my eyes on its small illiterate scrawl. It was like looking through a dead man’s eyes, deciphering the smudged records of his memory.
When I opened the bathroom door, there had been a change in the cottage. A subtler sense than hearing felt something in the living-room, a breathing bulk solider than the darkness. I was vulnerable with the light at my back. The little hall and the doorless arch were like a shooting-gallery, with me the fixed target at the end of it.
I switched off the light and moved sideways toward the bedroom door, feeling for the doorframe with one spread hand. My other hand held the flash, ready to use as a light or as a club. I heard the rustling of the curtain in the arch six feet from me. Then the ceiling light in the hall went on with a click.
A gun was thrust past the gathered curtain at the side of the arch. It was a .45, but it was small in the hand that was holding it.
“Come out of there.”
I froze in the doorway, half of my body exposed. I could feel the line between safety and danger bisecting my center.
“Out of there with your hands up.” It was the sheriffs voice. “I’ll give you a count of three before I fire.” He began to count.
I dropped the flash in my pocket and raised my hands, stepping out of the friendly shadow. Church came through the arch. The crown of his Stetson brushed the curtain rod. He looked about seven feet tall.
“You.” He came up close, pressing the muzzle of his gun into my solar plexus. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“My job.”
“What job is that?”
“Meyer hired me to look for his truck.”
“And you thought it was concealed here, in Miss Meyer’s bathroom?”
“He also hired me to look for his daughter.”
He pushed the gun deeper into the hollow below my ribs, and leaned on it. “Where is she, Archer?”
I tensed myself against the gun’s sharp pressure, against the sharper pressure of panic. Church’s eyes were wide and blank. The muscles were ridged and dimpling around his mouth. He looked ready to kill.
“I wouldn’t know where she is,” I said. “I suggest you ask Kerrigan.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you’ll drop the tough-cop kick I’ll tell you what I mean. Iron isn’t good for my stomach. Neither is lead.”
He pulled the gun away, looking down at it as if it was a separate entity that resisted his control. But he didn’t return it to its holster.
“What about Kerrigan?”
“He crops up all over the place. When Aquista was shot, Kerrigan was the nearest citizen. The truck was loaded with Kerrigan’s whisky. Now your sister-in-law turns up missing. She was Kerrigan’s employee, very likely his mistress. And that’s only the beginning.” I was tempted to go on and tell him about the conversation I’d eavesdropped on in Sammy’s Oriental Gardens. But I decided not to. It belonged to me.
Church pushed his hat back as if it constricted his thoughts. His hand stayed up, rubbing a spot on his temple: a grooved bluish-white scar, which might have been left there by a bullet-welt. He looked like a different man with his high forehead uncovered – a puzzled, sensitive man who wore the Western hat and the hard-nosed front as protective coloration. Or a man so deeply split that he didn’t know himself. The gun hung down forgotten in his other hand.
When he spoke, it was in an altered voice, shallow and flat: “I’ve already questioned Kerrigan. He has an alibi for the shooting.”
“His wife?”
“Her word is good enough for me. I’ve known Kate Kerrigan for a long time. I knew her father, the Judge. She’s a woman I trust completely.”
“A woman like that would lie for her husband.”
“Maybe. She isn’t lying. In any case, Kerrigan doesn’t need an alibi. He’s a respectable businessman.”
“How respectable?”
“I’m not talking about his private life. When you’ve got as much to lose as Kerrigan has, you don’t shoot truck-drivers on the public highway.”
“Not even for seventy grand? That’s a tremendous order of whisky, by the way. What does he do, take baths in it?”
“He sells it.”
“In his motor court?”
“Not if I can help it. He owns a bar on the other side of town. The Golden Slipper Supper Club, he calls it.”
“On Yanonali Street?”
“You get around.”
“What else has he got that I don’t know about – political pull?”
“I guess he has some, through his wife’s connections.”
I pressed the needle in a little further: “That wouldn’t be influencing you on the subject of Kerrigan?”
This time it struck a nerve. A pulse jerked under the reddening scar on his temple. “You’re kind of free with your questions.”
“I have to take my answers where I can find them.”
“Don’t forget who you’re talking to.”
“You keep it in the forefront of my thoughts.”
“You don’t quite grasp the situation,” he said. “I’m leaning over backwards. I can’t promise it will last. If you want trouble, I can lock you up for breaking in the front door.”
“I do a neater job than that. It was broken when I got here.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. The place was burglarized, but not by an ordinary burglar. There’s an expensive wristwatch on the bedroom table. A burglar would have taken it. He wouldn’t have taken the other things that are missing.”
“What other things?”
“Personal stuff, toothbrush and so on. I think Anne Meyer went away for the weekend and didn’t come back when she expected to. Then somebody else broke in here and pried open her desk and removed various things, traces of her personal life: letters, address-book, telephone numbers–”
“You had no right to barge in here,” he said. “Even if you didn’t jimmy the door yourself, you’re breaking the law.”