“Sit down.” I waved my gun at the deck-chair.
“You’re very kind.” He sprawled in the chair with his long legs spraddled in front of him. “Is it necessary for me to retain the hands-on-head position? It makes me feel ridiculous.”
“You can relax.” I sat down facing him in one of the kitchen chairs.
“Thank you.” He lowered his hands and clasped them in his lap, but he didn’t relax. His entire body was taut. The attempt he made to smile was miserable, and he abandoned it. He raised one hand to shield his worried mouth.
The hand stayed there of its own accord, brushing back and forth across his thin brown eyebrow of mustache. Its fingernails were bitten down to the quick. “I know you, don’t I?” he said.
“We’ve seen each other. This a comedown after the Oasis Inn.”
“It is, rather. Are you a detective?” I nodded.
“I’m surprised at Marjorie.” But he showed no emotion of any kind. His face was unfocused, sagging wearily on its hones. Deep lines dragged from his nose to the corners of his mouth. His fingers began to explore them. “I didn’t think I she would go to such lengths.”
“You hurt her feelings,” I said. “It’s never a good idea to hurt a woman’s feelings. If you have to rob them, you should try to do it without hurting their feelings.”
“Rob is a pretty strong word to use. She gave me the money to invest for her. She’ll get it back, I promise you.”
“And your word is as good as your bond, eh? How good is your bond?”
“One week,” he said. “Give me one week. I’ll pay it back with interest gladly.”
“How about now?”
“That’s impossible. I don’t have the money now. It’s already invested.”
“In real estate?”
“In real estate, yes.” The pale eyes flickered. The exploring hand climbed up to them and masked them for a moment.
“Don’t rack your brain for a story, Speed. I know where the money went.”
He peered at me, still hiding behind his fingers. “I suppose Mosquito told you?”
“Mosquito told me nothing.”
“She tapped my phone at the Inn, then. The sweet sow.” The hand slid down his face to his throat, where it pinched the loose skin between thumb and forefinger. “Oh, the sweet sow.” But he couldn’t work up any anger. The things that had been done to him looked worse and more important than the things he could do in return. He was sick of himself. “Well, what do you want with me? I guarantee she’ll have her money back in a week.”
“You can’t see over the edge of the next five minutes, and you’re talking about a week. In a week you may be dead.”
A half-smile deepened the lines on one side of his face. “I may at that. And you may too. I certainly wish it for you.”
“Who did you pay the money to?”
“Joe Tarantine. I wouldn’t try to get it back from him if I were you.”
“Where is he?”
He lifted his broad shoulders, and dropped them. “I don’t know, and I haven’t any desire to. Joe isn’t one of my bosom pals, exactly.”
“When did you see him last?”
“Two nights ago,” he said, after some reflection.
“When you bought the heroin from him?”
“You seem to know my business better than I do.” He leaned toward me, drawing his legs back. I moved the revolver to remind him of it.
“Put the gun away, please. What did you say your name was?”
“Archer.” I kept the gun where it was, supported on my knee.
“How much is Marjorie paying you, Archer?”
“Enough.”
“Whatever it is, I could pay you much better. If you’ll give me a little leeway. A little time.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I have two kilos of pure heroin. Do you know how much that’s worth on the present market?”
“I haven’t been following the quotations. Fill me in.”
“A clean hundred thousand, if I have the time to make the necessary contacts. A hundred thousand, over and above my debt to the sweet sow.” For the first time, he was showing a little animation. “I’m not even suggesting you double-cross her. All I ask is time. Four days should do it.”
“While I sit holding a gun on you?”
“You can put it away.”
“I think you’re trying to con me the way you conned Marjorie. For all I know, you have the money on you.”
He compressed the flesh around his eyes, trying to force them into an expression of earnest sincerity. Surrounded by puckered skin, they stayed pale and cold and shallow. “You’re quite mistaken, old man.” I’d wondered where Mosquito got the phrase. “You can take a look at my wallet if you like.” His hand moved toward the inner pocket of his jacket.
“Keep your hands in sight. What about your suitcases?”
“Go right ahead and search them. They’re not locked.” Which probably meant there was nothing important in the suitcases.
He turned his head to look at the expensive luggage, and revealed a different face. Full-face, he looked enough like a gentleman to pass for one in southern California: his face was oval and soft, almost gentle around the mouth, with light hair waving back from a wide sunburned forehead. In profile, his saddle nose and lantern jaw gave him the look of an aging roughneck; the slack skin twisted into diagonal folds under his chin.
He had fooled me in a way: I hadn’t been able to reach in behind the near-gentlemanly front. My acceptance of the front had even built it up for Speed a little. He was more at ease than he had been, in spite of the gun on my knee.
I spoke to the ravaged old man behind the front: “You’re on your last legs, Speed. I guess you know that.”
His head turned back to me, losing ten years. He said nothing, but there was a kind of questioning assent in the eyes.
“You can’t buy me,” I said. “The way things stand, you can’t angle out of this rap. You’ve made your big try for a comeback, and it’s failed.”
“What is this leading up to? Or do you simply enjoy hearing yourself make speeches?”
“I have to take you back with me. There’s the matter of Marjorie’s money, for one thing–”
“She’ll never get it if you take me back, not a red cent of it.”
“Then she’ll have the satisfaction of failing you. She’s in the mood to push it to the limit. Not to mention what the police will do. They’ll have a lot of questions to ask you about this and that, particularly Dalling’s murder.”
“Dalling’s murder?” His face thinned and turned sallow. “Who is Dalling?” But he knew who Dalling was, and knew I knew he knew.
“If they ever let you out, Dowser and Blaney will be waiting for you.” I piled it on. “Last time they had no special grudge against you. All they wanted was your territory. This time they’ll cut you to pieces, and you know it. I wouldn’t insure your life for a dime if you paid me a hundred-dollar premium.”
“You’re one of Dowser’s troopers.” He looked at my gun and couldn’t look away. I raised it so he could see the round hole in the barrel, the peephole into darkness.
“How about it, Speed? Do you come south with me, or settle with me here?”
“Settle?” he said, still with his eyes on the gun.
“I’m going back with you or the heroin, one or the other.”
“To Dowser?”
“You’re a good guesser. If Danny gets his shipment back, he won’t care so much about you.”
He said, with an effort: “I’ll split with you. We can clear a hundred thousand between us. Fifty thousand for you. I have a contact in the east, he’s flying out tomorrow.” The effort left him breathless.