«Well,» he said. «That’s easy. That ain’t hard at all. You won’t have no trouble finding Ball Sage Point. You go down here about a mile and a half past the Catholic church and Kincaid’s Camp, and at the bakery you turn right and then you keep on the road to Willerton Boys’ Camp, and it’s the first road to the left after you pass on by. It’s a dirt road, kind of rough. They don’t sweep the snow off in winter, but it ain’t winter now. You know somebody out there?»
«No.» I gave him money. He went for the change and came back.
«It’s quiet out there,» he said. «Restful. What was the name?»
«Murphy,» I said.
«Glad to know you, Mr. Murphy,» he said, and reached for my hand. «Drop in any time. Glad to have the pleasure of serving you. Now, for Ball Sage Point you just keep straight on down this road —»
«Yeah,» I said, and left his mouth flapping.
I figured I knew how to find Ball Sage Point now, so I turned around and drove the other way. It was just possible Fred Lacey would not want me to go to his cabin.
Half a block beyond the hotel the paved road turned down towards a boat landing, then east again along the shore of the lake. The water was low. Cattle were grazing in the sourlooking grass that had been under water in the spring. A few patient visitors were fishing for bass or bluegill from boats with outboard motors. About a mile or so beyond the meadows a dirt road wound out towards a long point covered with junipers. Close inshore there was a lighted dance pavilion. The music was going already, although it still looked like late afternoon at that altitude. The band sounded as if it was in my pocket. I could hear a girl with a throaty voice singing «The Woodpecker’s Song.» I drove on past and the music faded and the road got rough and stony. A cabin on the shore slid past me, and there was nothing beyond it but pines and junipers and the shine of the water. I stopped the car out near the tip of the point and walked over to a huge tree fallen with its roots twelve feet in the air. I sat down against it on the bone-dry ground and lit a pipe. It was peaceful and quiet and far from everything. On the far side of the lake a couple of speedboats played tag, but on my side there was nothing but silent water, very slowly getting dark in the mountain dusk. I wondered who the hell Fred Lacey was and what he wanted and why he didn’t stay home or leave a message if his business was so urgent. I didn’t wonder about it very long. The evening was too peaceful. I smoked and looked at the lake and the sky, and at a robin waiting on the bare spike at the top of a tall pine for it to get dark enough so he could sing his good-night song.
At the end of half an hour I got up and dug a hole in the soft ground with my heel and knocked my pipe out and stamped down the dirt over the ashes. For no reason at all, I walked a few steps towards the lake, and that brought me to the end of the tree. So I saw the foot.
It was in a white duck shoe, about size nine. I walked around the roots of the tree.
There was another foot in another white duck shoe. There were pinstriped white pants with legs in them, and there was a torso in a pale-green sport shirt of the kind that hangs outside and has pockets like a sweater. It had a buttonless V-neck and chest hair showed through the V. The man was middle-aged, half bald, had a good coat of tan and a line mustache shaved up from the lip. His lips were thick, and his mouth, a little open as they usually are, showed big strong teeth. He had the kind of face that goes with plenty of food and not too much worry. His eyes were looking at the sky. I couldn’t seem to meet them.
The left side of the green sport shirt was sodden with blood in a patch as big as a dinner plate. In the middle of the patch there might have been a scorched hole. I couldn’t be sure. The light was getting a little tricky.
I bent down and felt matches and cigarettes in the pockets of the shirt, a couple of rough lumps like keys and silver in his pants pockets at the sides. I rolled him a little to get at his hip. He was still limp and only a little cooled off. A wallet of rough leather made a tight fit in his right hip pocket. I dragged it out, bracing my knee against his back.
There was twelve dollars in the wallet and some cards, but what interested me was the name on his photostat driver’s license. I lit a match to make sure I read it right in the fading daylight.
The name on the license was Frederick Shield Lacey.
TWO
I put the wallet back and stood up and made a full circle, staring hard. Nobody was in sight, on land or on the water. In that light, nobody could have seen what I was doing unless he was close.
I walked a few steps and looked down to see if I was making tracks. No. The ground was half pine needles of many years past, and the other half pulverized rotten wood.
The gun was about four feet away, almost under the fallen tree. I didn’t touch it. I bent down and looked at it. It was a .22 automatic, a Colt with a bone grip. It was half buried in a small pile of the powdery, brown, rotted wood. There were large black ants on the pile, and one of them was crawling along the barrel of the gun.
I straightened up and took another quick look around. A boat idled offshore out of sight around the point. I could hear an uneven stutter from the throttled-down motor, but I couldn’t see it. I started back toward the car. I was almost up to it. A small figure rose silently behind a heavy manzanita bush. The light winked on glasses and on something else, lower down in a hand.
A voice said hissingly: «Placing the hands up, please.»
It was a nice spot for a very fast draw. I didn’t think mine would be fast enough. I placed the hands up.
The small figure came around the manzanita bush. The shining thing below the glasses was a gun. The gun was large enough. It came towards me.
A gold tooth winked out of a small mouth below a black mustache.
«Turning around, please,» the nice little voice said soothingly. «You seeing man lie on ground?»
«Look,» I said, «I’m a stranger here. I —»
«Turning around very soon,» the man said coldly. I turned around.
Then end of the gun made a nest against my spine. A light, deft hand prodded me here and there, rested on the gun under my arm. The voice cooed. The hand went to my hip. The pressure of my wallet went away. A very neat pick-pocket. I could hardly feel him touch me.
«I look at wallet now. You very still,» the voice said. The gun went away.
A good man had a chance now. He would fall quickly to the ground, do a back flip from a kneeling position, and come up with his gun blazing his hand. It would happen very fast. The good man would take the little man with glasses the way a dowager takes her teeth out, in an even smooth motion. I somehow didn’t think I was that good.
The wallet went back on my hip, the gun barrel back into my back.
«So,» the voice said softly. «You coming here you making mistake.»
«Brother, you said it,» I told him.
«Not matter,» the voice said. «Go away now, go home. Five hundred dollars. Nothing being said five hundred dollars arriving one week from today.»
«Fine,» I said. «You having my address?»
«Very funny,» the voice cooed. «Ha, ha.»
Something hit the back of my right knee, and the leg folded suddenly the way it will when hit at that point. My head began to ache from where it was going to get a crack from the gun, but he fooled me. It was the old rabbit punch, and it was a honey of its type. Done with the heel of a very hard little hand. My head came off and went halfway across the lake and did a boomerang turn and came back and slammed on top of my spine with a sickening jar. Somehow on the way it got a mouthful of pine needles.