“He didn’t send me. He suggested your name when I put a question to him.”
“What question?”
I considered his wise, tough, worldly face. I said, “You’ve probably heard, Salvatore Aiello was murdered.”
“Yes.” He watched and listened expressionlessly, slightly skeptical but not aroused. I felt disconcerted.
I said, “I’m not a cop, but I’ve got an important stake in finding out who killed Aiello. The only lead I’ve got is a pink Cadillac that was seen leaving his house at about the time of the murder. Brawley told me you had a pink Cadillac.”
“I did,” he said, without emphasis. “Anything else?”
“What’s your connection with Aiello?”
The bushy brows lifted; nothing else moved. After a moment he said, “None whatever. Of course I know who he is—was. I won’t deny I’ve had a few dealings with an associate of his, but I’ve never had anything to do with Aiello.”
“Vincent Madonna?”
“If you like naming names,” he said. “Yes.”
“Politics?”
“Naturally,” he said. In the back of his tone there was the hint of a Texas drawl, but it wasn’t pronounced. He had a voice like a bassoon. He said, “Madonna and I are on different sides of the fence. It’s no secret. He wants to bring the gamblers into our state, legally, and I want to keep them out. I’ve met Madonna a few times, tried to negotiate the question, but he doesn’t believe in negotiating. That’s all right—I can be pretty stubborn myself. I don’t like those bastards but I respect them. Do you want to know anything about my pink Cadillac?”
“Sure.”
“I sold it a month ago.” He gave me a look that might have passed for a fleeting smile; he said, “I can prove it if necessary.”
“Who’d you sell it to?”
“The Cadillac agency. I swapped it for a new car.” His chuckle was a thunderous rumble. “Naturally the word went around that I traded it in because the ash trays had filled up. That’s the curse of wealth in this country. The fact was, the car was several years old and I don’t treat cars gently. It needed replacement. Well, never mind. The rich are always hated, you know, and I’ve learned there’s no way to prevent it. You can donate a lot of money to good causes but you’re accused of dodging taxes. You can drive around in a cheap used car and wear old clothes and act like one of the boys and they say you’re cheap or phony or trying to suck up to somebody or crazy or insecure. If you’ve got good manners you’re a snob and if you’ve got bad manners you’re nouveau riche and that makes you a slob. If you live according to your income you’re conspicuous and vulgar, and if you don’t you’re a tightwad. There’s only one answer to it and that’s to quit giving a good goddamn what anybody thinks and just do the hell what you feel like doing, because that’s the only thing money can do for you anyway—buy you freedom.”
He stopped suddenly and gave me a sharp glance. “Hell, you didn’t come here to listen to a sick old man bleat about the poverty of riches. Is there anything I can do for you besides tell you about pink Cadillacs? Another beer? A bite of lunch?”
“No. No, thanks.” I got up, feeling like an intruder. “I’m sorry I bothered you. I had a feeling before you walked in the room that I’d been given a bum steer.”
“It happens,” he said, “all the time. I’m sorry I couldn’t help more. You’re sure you won’t stay and put on the feedbag with me?”
“No, I’ve got to—”
“Nobody around here eats with me any more,” he said, overriding me with the parade-ground strength of his big voice. “The hired help think it ain’t proper and I’ve got no family left. My wife died two years ago and my only son was an Air Force colonel, shot down in Vietnam. How about a bite of lunch? You look like a man who can make good conversation.”
The poor, sick, lonely old fossil. I shook my head and declared, “I’ll take a rain check. If we’re both still alive next week I’ll take you up on it.”
“By God, I’ll hold you to that.” He smiled for the first time.
Heat clung to the ground like melted tar. It was past one o’clock; I felt the crowding press of time as I drove out the front gate and turned left on the highway, pushing the Jeep up to speed. One or two thoughts had begun to jell in my mind and I knew where I wanted to look next.
Ten miles west of Baragray’s gate the plateau ended abruptly at the Mogul Rim. The desert lay beyond, below the three-thousand-foot scarp. The highway made several sharp turns and went down the face of the rim with long slopes and hairpin switchbacks, hugging the cliffs. I’d started down the steep narrow pitch, with the sheer drop at my left, and a green car ahead of me pulled out onto the road, going in my direction. I braked and mouthed an oath. The car ahead built up a little speed but after that I knew I was stuck. He wasn’t much of a mountain driver. I had to keep it down to twenty-five to accommodate him, and I couldn’t see any place to pass. I chafed. This was no time to get stuck behind a schoolteacher. I could see vaguely past the sun glare on his back window the faint shape of his head and shoulders hunched nervously over the wheel.
The road bent around a promontory and kept going down; we crawled around two tight hairpins and then I spotted a straight stretch approaching, where I might be able to get by. Impatient, I moved up close behind him, downshifted, hit the horn button and pulled into the left lane, gunning it.
It was downhill; the Jeep shot forward. But as I pulled parallel, the green car accelerated.
I turned my head to yell at him—and saw his wide, florid face.
It was Ed Behrenman—the tail I’d shaken off last night. The crimson face broke into a taut grin. I saw a gun in his right hand, coming out across the sill, a big Army .45 automatic. He tugged the wheel over, bringing his car across the white stripe, crowding me onto the edge.
Chapter Ten
A few times in my life I have done things for which I would like to have taken credit, as if I had reasoned them out beforehand, prepared for them and accomplished them with cool deliberation, unruffled and supreme. The truth was, in each case I acted with unthinking reflex, and it happened to work. Call it luck; call it fate. Call it a natural endowment of good reflexes.
Behrenman swung his car against me. We were both streaking toward a sharp right-hand bend, with the 2,500-foot drop at my left. I hit the brakes hard and it was those unthinking reflexes that made me crab the wheel—not away from him, but toward him.
He was expecting it but he was a shade slow reacting. My bumper banged along the side of his car with a garbage can racket. He slammed his brakes and slewed across the road at an angle, trying to shove me off the cliff with the superior weight of his big car. He might have done it, if the Jeep had had a longer wheelbase. I heard the crack and roar of his pistol. A glazed star appeared in the windshield before me. I was crabbing the wheels over hard, fighting the weight of his car, and as he slid forward the protruding edge of the Jeep bumper swung into the scalloped fender opening over his left rear wheel. There was the sudden sharp stink of burning rubber as the bumper shredded his back tire; then the hooked edge of the bumper caught the inside of his fender. I held the brakes down hard. The green car skidded, swiveling on the pivot. He spun left. His front wheels went over the edge—I saw terror on his suddenly white face. The .45 boomed and roared. In that broken instant of time my reflexes sent messages to feet and arms: I gunned the Jeep forward, got free of his fender, spun around with my rear wheels skidding to the right.
The gun was still thundering. A ricochet screamed off the Jeep’s hood. Freed of bumper-hook restraint, the green car pitched forward over the rim and turned a slow somersault.
The Jeep shuddered and stopped, skewed across the road at an acute angle. My front wheels were inches from the edge. I jammed the shift into reverse, backed onto the pavement and set the hand-brake. I got out on wildly trembling legs and made my way to the edge. I could still hear the bang and crash of the tumbling car.