"And if Granworth Aymes bumped himself off the day afterwards then I reckon it was because he had a showdown with his wife. I reckon she'd found that the bonds were gone and made it hot for him, or maybe" - she says sorta soft, "maybe Henrietta got annoyed. I reckon I'd get annoyed if he'd done me out of two hundred grand. Maybe she slugged him, you never know."
I whistle.
"Well, well, well," I say. "So that's the way it goes, hey? It looks like we've got this job cleaned up. So Henrietta, findin' that the bonds are gone, thinks that Granworth has got rid of 'em somewhere else an' promptly gets somebody to make her a new lot."
I give myself another cigarette.
"Listen, Paulette," I say. "Is there anybody who could confirm this story? I mean the part about Granworth Aymes makin' a sucker outa Rudy an' gettin' all that money off him?"
"Surely," she says, "Burdell can. He knows all about it. He knew what Aymes was doing, but he was only a secretary. It wasn't his business to butt in."
"OK," I say. "I get it. It looks like this Henrietta Aymes is a pretty cute number," I say. "I don't reckon that there's any doubt that she bumped Granworth. All right. Now maybe I can get ahead. By the way, Paulette," I go on. "Did you say that this husband of yours, Rudy, is around here with some doctor? Where's this Zoni?"
"It's about forty miles away," she says, "and if you go and see Rudy and ask him any questions, go easy with him. The doctor, Madrales, says the poor guy's only got about another eight or nine weeks to go, and I don't want him worried too much."
I get up and put my arm around her shoulder.
"Don't you worry, Paulette," I say. "I'll go easy with him. I don't want to ask him anythin' much. I just wanta confirm that stuff you told me about Aymes takin' him for the dough."
She is standin' pretty close to me an' I can see some tears come into her eyes. I feel pretty sorry for Paulette, because after all even if she is kickin' around with this Luis Daredo, what's a dame to do? I reckon she has to do somethin' to keep her mind off the fact that her husband is slowly handin' in his checks.
She sighs.
"Life can be tough," she says. "Listen, Lemmy, go get yourself another drink. I'll be back in a minute. I got to ring Daredo, that guy's doing some business for me-I'm thinking of buying this place and he's fixing it-and I don't want to get in bad with him."
"OK," I say.
She goes outa the room an' I mix myself another highball an' go back to the veranda. Standin' there drinkin' it, it looks as if I am beginnin' to make some sense outa this case after all. One thing is stickin' out a foot an' that is that Henrietta found out that the original bonds - the real ones-was gone. She gets herself a phoney lot made an' she gets out to Palm Springs an' thinks she stands a chance of changin' 'em there. That's how it looks to me. I have just finished my drink when Paulette comes back. She comes straight up to me an' she puts her hands on my shoulders an' she looks straight into my eyes.
"You know, Lemmy," she says, "a woman has a tough time. I reckon I've had one. A girl has only got to make one mistake an' she pays plenty for it. Mine was in marrying Rudy. He was always a weakling and I guess I was sorry for him. If I'd have married a man like you," she says, "things might have been very different."
She comes a little closer to me.
"When you've got this job finished, Lemmy," she says, "if ever you're tired or you need a rest, you'll always find me down here an' I'll be glad to see you."
"That's swell, Paulette," I say. "That's a little matter I'll take up with you pretty soon. In the meantime I got to get this job finished, so I reckon I'll go over to Zoni an' have a few words with Rudy, an' I won't even be tough with him."
"All right, Lemmy," she says, an' I can see that her eyes are full of tears. "You get along and see Rudy and you can give him my love. Just don't say anything about you finding me with Luis Daredo tonight. I wouldn't want Rudy to get any ideas about my getting around with good-looking Mexicanos."
She tells me the way to get to this Zoni, an' she stands in the doorway watchin' me as I drive off.
Me - I am doing a little more thinkin'. I am wonderin' why she couldn'ta waited until we finished talkin' before she put that call through to Daredo.
I reckon that I am a sort of suspicious guy. An' I reckon that this Paulette fell for me too easy. She is certainly a swell number but she can still play me for a mug if she feels that way.
But I ain't such a sucker. Just when a dame thinks I'm fallin' - well, I usually ain't!
CHAPTER 10
MEXICAN STUFF
I
DRtVB along pretty slow for two reasons. First of all the night ain't so bright as it could be an' the road I am on is not so hot neither. Second I am turnin' over in my mind the stuff that this Paulette dame has handed out, an' it is sure one helluva story.
Maybe it's true because believe me no dame with as much sense as Paulette has got is goin' to spin a lotta hooey about takin' two hundred grand off a guy like Granworth Aymes unless she was surely entitled to it.
An' I feel pretty sorry for the husband - Rudy Benito. I get a picture of him all right. I can just imagine him stringin' along with Paulette, playin' second fiddle to her all the time an' knowin' that he had got TB an' that it was goin' to get him in the long run. I can sorta see this guy suddenly findin' out that Granworth has taken him for plenty an' gettin' good an' excited about it an' knowin' that maybe the amount of time that he'd got to stick around before he was due for a casket depended on whether he could get the dough out of Granworth.
But there is something that I cannot get an' it is this: What the hell was Paulette doin' all that time while Ayrnes was swindlin' Rudy out of his dough? What was a fly dame like that doin' stickin' around an' not gettin' wise to it?
An' then I get another big idea. Supposin' that Paulette was wise to it. Supposin' that she was stuck on Aymes an' knew that he was takin' Rudy for the dough an' didn't do anything about it. Then, all of a sudden she hears that Rudy is goin' to die unless he can get away some place where the climate is right an' have a doctor stickin' around all the time. An' she feels that she ain't been so hot. She feels that she has gotta do something to try an' put it right. Just at this time Aymes makes a killn' on the stock market an' Paulette weighs in an' tells him that unless he cashes in she is goin' to blow what he has been doin' to the cops.
Ain't that just the sorta thing that a dame would do? Wouldn't it be like a dame to make a sucker out of her husband because she fancies a bum guy like Aymes, but when she finds out that the sucker is goin' to die she goes all goofy an' tries at the last minute to put the job right, an' wouldn't this business be a first-class motive for Henrietta to knock off Granworth?
An' then something else hits me like a rock. What about that letter that Henrietta told me about? Didn't she say that she got an unsigned letter from some guy tellin' her that Granworth was playin' around with his wife? Didn't she say that this guy had crossed out the words 'my wife' an' put in instead 'this woman'? Ain't you got it?
It was Rudy Benito who sent that letter to Henrietta.
Here's my new idea of the set-up: Benito gets a hunch that Aymes is playin' around with his wife, so he writes a letter to Henrietta and tells her so, but he don't sign it. OK. Then Paulette discovers that Benito is as sick as a rat an' she gets all washed up an' hates herself for what she has been doin', so she goes along to Granworth an' tells him he has got to kick in with the dough.
Granworth, who thinks a durn sight more of Paulette than he does of Henrietta, hands over the dough. Maybe he thinks that he can get it back again off Paulette when she has got over this sorta sentimental stuff that has got into her about Rudy.
OK. Then Henrietta comes along to New York an' tells Granworth that she hears he's kickin' around with a dame an' that if it don't stop she is goin' to divorce him. Granworth cracks back that if she does he will leave the country rather than pay her alimony. Henrietta says back that she don't give a durn if he pays her alimony or not because she has got the two hundred grand in Registered Bonds. Granworth gets inta one helluva rage an' tells her she ain't gotta dime because he has given the bonds to this other femme.
An' then the hey-hey starts. I reckon that this news just about finishes Henrietta. I reckon that when he tells her this Granworth is sittin' in his car just gettin' ready to driye off - maybe she is sittin' beside him. Well, she is so burned 'up that she just grabs something an' crowns Granworth. Then she finds she's killed him an' she works out that the best thing to do is to drive this guy down to the wharf an' put a good front up for the job bein' a suicide.
That's the way it looks.
By now the road I was on which was bad anyhow has got worse. It has got narrow an' is a sorta wide bridle path runnin' up between the foothills. It is plenty. dark an' I cannot see very well, an' I am drivin' slow an' concentratin' on the road.
Then I hit something. I hit a coupla rocks that are stuck in the middle of the road an' at the same time somebody jumps on the runnin' board an' hits me a smack across the dome with something that feels to me just like the Mexican for a blackjack. I see more stars than ever told a movie director where he got off an' I just go right out as graceful an' as quiet as a baby.
When I come to I am as stiff as an iron girder. The guys who have brought me along to this place ain't been at all gentle with me. I am covered with dust an' there is a trickle of blood down my coat where I have been bleedin' from the crack in the dome.
My feet are tied up with cord an' my hands are tied across my chest with enough manilla rope to have started a marine store.
I am in some dump that looks like the basement cellar of a small house. There is a candle burnin' on a shelf on the other side of the room an' I can just see the watch on my wrist. It is nearly eleven-thirty o'clock, so I reckon I have been out for about an hour. I have been just chucked up against the wall an' left there.
I don't feel so good. My head is buzzin' plenty an' I reckon that whoever took a flop at me with that club was pullin' his weight all right. Altogether it looks like I am in a jam. Just who has taken a fancy to me like this so that they have to corral me an' chuck me in this dump I don't know, although I have gotta' pretty good idea. I reckon I had better get some action pronto.
I work myself up against the wall an' get as easy as I can after which I start singin' Cactus Lizzie good an' loud. This sorta works because after five-ten minutes I hear somebody comm' down some steps an' then the door in the corner opens an' some Mexican dame busts in.
She is carryin' a lantern, an' she looks like a coupla tarantulas who don't like each other, an' she weighs about three hundred pounds. I reckon that this dame is about the biggest ever. She waddles over to me an' she lifts up her foot an' she kicks me in the face like I was a baseball. I'm tellin' you that this daughter of a hellion cops me right on the top of the nose with a boot that a new York flatfoot woulda been proud to wear an' I just see a lot more stars an' I go as sick as hell an' go out again.
I come round pretty soon. I am drenched with dirty water that she has thrown over me an' my face is bleedin' like smoke an' she stands there lookin' at me an' havin' one helluva time.
Then she starts in. She starts bawlin' me out in a sorta bastard Spanish that I can just understand by keepin' my ears flappin' wide open. She tells me all about me. She tells me what I am an' what she hopes is goin' to happen to me an' what my father an' mother was an' the amazin' an' extraordinary way that I was born. After which she spills some stuff an' I begin to get the idea.
She tells me that she is durn glad that I have come around here doin' my stuff all over the place. She tells me that directy I got my foot inside the Casa de Oro some guy recognised me as the dick who pulled in Caldesa Martinguez - the guy who I took back with stingin' nettles in his pants. She tells me that this Caldesa was her son an' that by the time they are through with me, bein' boiled in prohibition whisky would just be sweet dreamin' to what I am goin' to go through. She tells me to stick around an' that in a coupla minutes, after he has got through thinkin' up just what he is goin' to do to me, her other son is comin' down to start operations.
By this time I reckon I am feelin' pretty annoyed with this lousy old eagle an' I tell her the equivalent of nuts in Spanish. Just at this minute the candle lantern she is holdin' decides to go out. She says a nasty word an' just chucks it at me, an' sure as a gun it hits me on the side of the head an' knocks me back in the corner.
Me - I am beginnin' to get good an' tired of hem' treated this way. I am beginnin' to wonder just who my pan really does belong to, because the way it is feelin' I must look as ugly as a gargoyle, an' I am beginnin' to realise that this old dame don't like me at all, an' that if she is just playin' around with me I wonder what her big boy son is goin' to do to me when he gets around to it sorta serious.
She calls me a dirty so-an ' -so an' she scrams.
I wait for a bit an' then I look around an' start workin'. The floor of this dump is earth except in the corner where I am where there is a sorta cement patch. There are plenty of cracks in this patch an' I reckon that if I get enough time maybe I can get rid of the rope.
I start workin' myself around until I have got the lantern between me and the wall an' then I start pushin' it against the wall with my legs an' when I have got it there I put my feet against it an' press hard. It busts an' the broken glass falls out.
I roll over on my stomach an' work towards the biggest bit of glass. You gotta realise that I am lyin' on my hands which are tied across my chest an' I am hurtin' myself plenty. After a bit I get to where the biggest bit of glass is an' I start lickin' this with my tongue, lickin' it along the floor to where there is a little crack, an' I'm tellin' you that the taste of that floor wasn't like no raspberry soda neither. Every time I get this bit of glass moved an inch or so I have to start rollin' again so as to get in position for another lick, but after about twenty minutes I do it. I lick it so's it falls into the crack an' the crack bein' shallow I have fixed that a spike of glass is stickin' up outa the floor.