"No place yet, but I'll find a flop."
"Then try the Blue Sky Motel. Harry Coleman is a friend of mine and will treat you right. You on wheels?"
"No."
He picked the card from my hand, scribbled something on it, and handed it back. "Take it to the Mermak garage. They'll rent you wheels without breaking your back."
"Thanks."
There was no hitch in getting a car. I picked a two-year-old Ford, paid out three days in advance, got directions from the clerk to the Blue Sky Motel, and drove out to meet Harry Coleman. He was a big, genial guy tanned to his elbows and neck, but otherwise, like most of the natives, a sun-dodger. He put me in a duplex all the way down the row of buildings, brought me a paper, a cold can of beer, and some ice.
I wondered if I could do it or not. One lousy drink could have set me off anytime a week ago. Somehow now it was different, and sooner or later I was going to have to find out.
It went down just right. It tasted good and was just enough. I looked at myself in the mirror and winked.
Then I flopped down on the bed and let the sleep ooze over me.
When I woke up I called the desk and found out that it was 7:30 and that I had wasted the whole afternoon.
Before I left I got the operator and gave her Terry's hotel in New York. We got right through and she answered on the second ring with a querulous "Yes?"
"Phil, honey."
"Oh, Phil!" She caressed my name the way no one else ever had. "Are you in Phoenix?"
"Here and working, kitten."
"What did you find out?" She said it almost breathlessly and waited for my answer.
"Nothing I can put in logical sequence yet. I've got some ideas but they'll have to keep."
"Phil" . . . and now she sounded worried, "you will be careful, won't you?"
"Don't worry about me, kid. Now, how did you make out? Anything on Harris?"
"Well, I went to several places and in three of them she was recognized at once. She had had a stage career right after high school, went through nurse's training and, instead of going into a hospital, went back to the stage. She had numerous small Broadway parts, several minor Hollywood things, and some TV work. Between engagements she served as a nurse in several hospitals but would give up nursing immediately for a stage part."
"Did anyone know where she could be found?"
"No, the last address they had on her was Phoenix. In fact, one agency wanted her very badly for a part. I even tried the unions and a press agent from Hollywood who was here in town, but she's dropped completely out of sight."
I let it run through my mind for a minute, then said, "Okay, kid, you did fine. Now stay put until I get back and keep checking on that contact at the Sherman."
"How long will you be there, Phil?"
"Another day at least. Can you hang on?"
"As long as I know I have you."
I grinned at the phone and threw her a kiss. "You have me, baby. I just hope you know what you're doing."
She said so-long with a kiss of her own and hung up.
I had a fine Mexican supper at the Sign of the Gaudy Parrot and found out what I needed to know by asking just one question . . . where Rhino Massley's old place was. In a small way he was a local legend for having left his place to a polio research foundation.
His old ranch was in the long shadows of the mountains, a compact group of buildings built to give a western touch to modern design. At the main building I blew my horn until lights came on from inside, then went up on the porch and waited. The man who opened the door was bald and in his 70s and not at all friendly like the bunch back in town. He looked me up and down and in no uncertain voice said, "What the hell you want?"
I let a laugh rumble around in my throat, then pushed the door open and squeezed inside, "Hello, Buster," I said.
The gun he was trying to clear from the back of his pants came loose and dangled from his hand. The skin on his face pulled tight until wrinkles showed in his scalp. "How come you make me?"
"Easy enough, Buster. You want the whole rundown just to show you how much I know?"
"Knock it off." His voice was real uncertain this time.
Buster Lafarge was one of the old-time killers from the roaring '20s. He was wanted by three states and the Feds and I personally knew five people who would pay 100 grand to have old Buster delivered alive to their private basements for old times' sake.
I held out my hand. "The heater, friend."
It was strictly his kind of rod, a big blue Army .45 that could knock a horse down. He laid it in my hand and I could feel him shaking when he touched me. All the toughness has gone out of him long ago. He was old now, too old to fight and just old enough to want to hang on to the last inch life had to give him.
He said, "Pal . . . look, I . . . I . . ."
"What're you doing here, Buster?"
"Pal . . . ."
"I can make money on you, you know that," I said. "I could drop you now and take a payoff or bring you in still kicking."
This time his voice came out in a dry rasp. "Jeez, pal, what'd I do? I don't know you. Look, pal . . ."
"What're you doing here?" I repeated.
Buster's shoulders sagged with the weight of the load he carried. "Rhino . . . he gimme the job here. They got to keep me on here. It's in his will. Jeez, pal. . . ."
"What do you do?"
"Nothing. What the hell can I do? I can't go no place. So I sweep up and paint some and keep the yard clean and make sure Rhino's grave is okay and that's all."
"Where's this grave you take care of?"
"West. About a quarter of a mile. By the palm grove."
"Good. Get a couple of shovels, Buster."
"What for?"
"We're going to dig old Rhino up, that's what for."
Very slowly he backed away from me, his eyes wide. "Man, you're plain crazy. Nuts. You got bats!"
"Out," I said. "Shovels."
A thick cluster of palms smothered the grave with a protective apron, screening it from casual eyes. The ground was flat, like a putting green and, instead of the ornate headstone I expected, a small bronze plaque on a marble backing nestled in the grass. The inscription was as simple as the setting. From overhead the light of night filtered through the gently moving fronds of the palms giving the place a peculiar life of its own.
I made Lafarge spread-eagle himself on the ground while I dug so I could keep him in sight, and when I was halfway down I threw him the shovel and made him get into the hole. He was caught between me on top and Rhino below and with every shovel full of dirt he tossed up came a whining moan broken with an occasional sob. He was a miserable slob, but in his time he had put enough people into the same kind of hole he was in now, and I wasn't wasting any sympathy on him at all.
He was completely out of sight, handing me the shovel with every stroke to throw the dirt up, when he hit the coffin. Even in the darkness I could sense what came over him, a sudden terror too great to call out, too big to run away from. He turned his head up slowly, the whites of his eyes almost fluorescent in the black pit of the grave.
I said, "Scrape it clean."
Mechanically, he went to clearing off the boxlike affair that covered the casket, each motion forced, each moment bringing Lafarge closer to that one second of supreme terror.
In a way it was laughable. Lafarge who had been afraid of no man and who had killed many with his own hand was shaking with fear of meeting one who could do nothing to him at all. Nothing.
I had to jump in the hole to help him tear the boards off to expose the coffin. They were pulpy rotten with time, smelling of mold, and came up easily. Then there was old Rhino Massley's last bed and I had the point of the shovel banging into the edge until it broke loose.
And now I'd know the answer.
I carved a niche into the wall and made Lafarge stand in it while I climbed out. He looked like a shrunken-up gnome standing there, shivering silently at the thought of what I was going to make him do.