Hard Case Crime: Fade to Blonde (25 page)

Rebecca stared straight ahead, still holding the gun, a black streak of blood down her belly. Gradually, she lowered her shadowed face and looked down at her brother. She looked at him for maybe a minute. Then she looked back up at the wall again and gazed at that little sailboat sailing past the lighthouse.

I elbowed the bedside lamp onto the floor. Rebecca didn’t seem to hear it smash. I sat down on the bed and twisted around on my rear, to get the covers mussed, and then I got up and took hold of Rebecca’s shoulders and shook her. She dropped the gun. I took hold of a shoulder strap and ripped it down. She blinked and stopped
looking at the little sailboat. Palms isn’t Beverly Hills, but if you call the police, they come, and I heard sirens now, very faint in the distance.

Her hair still didn’t look right, so I ruffled it with my fingers. She was looking at me now.

“You,” she said. “You’ve.”

She licked her lips and blinked.

“I don’t,” she said.

She reached out slowly with both hands, as if she wasn’t sure where I was, and found my chest. She sort of petted it.

“We,” she said.

She ran out of breath and licked her lips. “We could... “

I once saw a cat half-squashed on the side of the road, the front half still trying to crawl. I turned from her and went over to the projector, which was grinding away on the floor and smelling hot. I nudged the cord with my foot until the light went out. I didn’t want a fire. The room seemed very quiet now. The sirens were faint, but getting louder. “I know,” I said, not looking at her. “I know you weren’t just acting the other night. The night that Shade, the night you killed him. I kept telling you. Murder isn’t a lark. I guess you know now. I know, I know it was difficult.”

I had no idea what I was talking about, and I stopped.

I turned and, without looking at her, went over and knelt by Halliday’s body. I started taking off his rings.

“You were robbed,” I said, keeping my eyes on what I was doing. “You’re very beautiful. And you’re, you’re a good actress. You could’ve made me think you loved me, could’ve done it easily. But you didn’t. Thank you for that, anyway.”

I stopped again. I was sweating pretty badly.

She hunkered down and began petting my back, clumsily, with both hands.

I got up and she flinched away from me. Her eyes were wide and senseless. I took her by the shoulders and led her over to where she’d been standing. The sirens were getting louder. I pulled off my right glove and started to put on Halliday’s rings.

“All right,” I said. My mouth didn’t want to work properly. I was trying to keep in mind which order he wore his rings in. “I think that about does it,” I said. “The police’ll be able to tell someone else was here, if they look hard enough. I don’t think they’ll look too hard. Between Halliday’s record, the movies, the match between the bullets in Shade’s body and his, the mark of his rings on your face... “

“... my face... “ she said.

“Maybe you can sell them on the idea of looking,” I said. “It’s possible. You’re a good little saleswoman.”

She licked her lips and set her hands on my chest.

“You’ve got a fighting chance,” I told her. “That’s more than you gave Lorin Shade. It’s more than you were going to give me. Goodbye, Rebecca.”

By then I’d worked the last of his rings onto my right hand. I made a fist and drove it into her jaw.

I’d meant to just let her drop, but I couldn’t stop myself from catching her halfway and easing her down. I looked at her lying there and decided I hadn’t spoiled it. The way the gun had fallen looked about right. I bent over Halliday again and put the rings back on his fingers, giving each one a wipe as I did. I tugged his lapels around a bit and cuffed his dead face hard, frontways and backhand. The sirens were pretty loud now. I picked up my own gun and flashlight and had a last look around. It all seemed okay. Halliday was right: it’s best not to get too fancy. I slipped out the back door, locking it behind me,
and was in my car, pulling out onto Remsen, by the time the police turned onto Shippie. It all went about as well as you could have hoped for.

The guy with the load of avocados was nice to me and went a few miles out of his way to let me off at a diner he knew outside Gault, Nevada, where it was cheap, he said, and they treated you all right. I thanked him and got down, and he started up again with a roar like you’d pressed all the keys on a church organ at once. He made a big U-turn that took him way off the shoulder on either side and headed back the way he came. Then there was nothing but the smell of diesel exhaust. It was a smell I knew. The diner wasn’t the kind gotten up to look like a railroad car. It wasn’t gotten up to look like anything, and I couldn’t help noticing the shape the roof was in. I was tired enough that everything I looked at seemed to be grainy and crawling. It was just past dawn, and the desert was cold. The cold felt clean. I picked up my toolbox and suitcase. My typewriter was still on my desk at the Harmon Court. Round Head could give it to his kids to play with. The door jingled as I pushed through, awkwardly because of my bag and toolkit, and the waitress looked up. It was just me and her in the place.

We said good morning and I asked if there was somewhere I could wash my face.

When I got back she came over and I ordered the thirty-cent breakfast special. There wasn’t even a cook. Once she had my order, she went behind the counter to
fix it herself. She moved without hurrying. Twenty years ago she’d been the prettiest girl in Gault or some other little town. Now she had a little extra around the hips and still no ring that I could see. The ceiling sagged pretty badly by the steam table, and looked like it had for a while. I wondered where I was going to sleep.

She came back and set my order down: three eggs up, home fries, four link sausages, and rye toast, all on thick, chipped plates, plus a big glass of orange juice and a coffee in a cup with a blue stripe around it. She gave me the rag end of a smile as I tucked in.

It was all good, and the coffee was better. When I finished it I ordered the same all over again.

“You can eat,” she said.

“When they let me,” I said.

I put down the second breakfast and wiped my plate with bread, and she refilled my cup.

Then she stood beside me holding the pot. I was looking into my wallet. “Can you make it?” she said gently.

It seemed a long time since I’d heard anyone speak gently.

“Just about,” I said.

She set the pot on the heater and came back over. She sat herself down across from me. You could tell it felt good for her to get off her feet. I put down my wallet.

“Looks like you work with your hands,” she said.

I looked down at them myself. That when I noticed it, a dark gold hair on the sleeve of my jacket.

She watched me pick it off and drop it on the floor.

“What do you need done?” I said.

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