The Cockeyed Corpse

A Shell Scott Mystery

Richard S. Prather

For

SKIP and GLORIA FICKLING

Table of Contents

chapter one

chapter two

chapter three

chapter four

chapter five

chapter six

chapter seven

chapter eight

chapter nine

chapter ten

chapter eleven

chapter twelve

chapter thirteen

chapter fourteen

chapter fifteen

chapter sixteen

chapter seventeen

chapter eighteen

chapter nineteen

chapter twenty

chapter one

I left the office, Sheldon Scott, Investigations, walked down the one flight of stairs to Broadway, and stepped out of the Hamilton Building into L.A.s five oclock shadow.

I looked at it. Fooey, I said.

It was one of those days: smog thick enough to drop large birds on the wing, moist heat lying like sweat over the city, sun peering through the haze like a bloodshot eyeball. It looked as if Nature was dying.

I didn’t feel as if I were dying, exactly. I didn’t even feel like an old man, not at thirty. But I felt — well, nearly thirty-two. Moreover, my short-cropped hair which sticks up in the air as if each individual hair has a little spring attached to it, and my unfortunately bent-at-the-ends eyebrows, are ordinarily white, as if bleached by a mad hairdresser; but a few more hours in this stuff and I’d be prematurely gray, like the lungs of Los Angeles.

What I needed was a vacation from Los Angeles — in the Alps, say. Or Tahiti. Or Eastern Somaliland. Any place where there was some air. In this muck even a midget would have to breathe through open mouth and both nostrils just to keep on suffocating, and I am six feet two inches tall, and weigh two hundred and six pounds, and use lots and lots of oxygen even when I’m not thinking strenuously.

Ah, I dreamed, to be somewhere where the air is airy, and the sun is sunny, and the girls are girly. Yeah, breathing like crazy, surrounded by beautiful tomatoes . . . But probably, I thought, that was asking too much.

I drove my Cadillac from L.A. to Hollywood and the Spartan Apartment Hotel, trotted up to my three-rooms-and-bath on the second floor. I’d just finished pouring some brine shrimp into the tropical fish tanks — the two just inside the front door — when my phone rang.

The guy calling was an old friend, Benjamin Z. Freedlander. Millionaire, bon vivant, Broadway angel, movie producer, driller of oil wells, all kinds of fun things. He said, Shell, how would you like to go to Arizona? Little job I’d like you to handle for me.

Arizona? Airy air? And —

I’ve got a movie crew up there, five beautiful girls —

Five? Five beautiful —

— but one of them got killed a few days ago. Fell off a horse. Might have been an accident, but I want to be sure. The rest of them — Ed Finch, my associate in Edben Productions, and the four girls —

There are still four left, huh?

— are shooting scenes on location at The Sun and Sage dude ranch. You know Russ Cordiner, the owner, dont you?

Yeah, I’ve known old Russ for years. Tell me about these gir —

That’s why I called you, Shell. You know Russ, and he can fill you in on any background you need. He doesnt think the girl’s death was an accident. Besides, he tells me there are a lot of hard-boiled characters up there, maybe gangsters or something, I dont know.

Gangsters?

You got me. Russ can fill you in. Now, what I want you to do is find out if Jeannes death — Jeanne Blair, that’s the dead girls name — was an accident or not. If it was, just take a vacation at my expense. If not, get to the bottom of it. And if she was murdered, I dont want anything to happen to the other girls, got it?

You bet. I dont, either —

Besides, while this thing isnt a very big operation it’s still costing me money. Jeannes death has fouled things up even more, but it was fouled up before then. Ed was a week over his shooting schedule even before they got to the Sun and Sage, and since I’m putting up all the money, a few days ago I told him to finish in a week or he’s out. He’s got till Sunday to finish The Wild West and this is Friday night so youll have to get a move on. Better get up there tomorrow.

Right. I’ll grab a nap, and start up in the early A.M.

Fine. I’ve already talked to Russ. He’ll fix you up in the best suite he’s got, everything on the house — on me, that is. When you get back well figure out the rest of your fee, O.K.?

Sure, Ben. He’ll, that sounds like enough fee, the mood I’m in. Whatd you call this movie? The Wild West?

Yeah.

One of those shoot-em-up ride-em-cowboy epics huh?

Well . . . um, not exactly.

I wondered what that meant. But Ben was saying, I just got back in town, from Chicago, and learned about this, or I’d have given you a buzz sooner. Get the background from Russ, Shell. Well, give me a call from the ranch when youve got something. And have fun, kid.

Oh, sure —  he’d hung up.

I went into the kitchenette and mixed a bourbon-and-water, then took my drink to the chocolate-brown divan in the front room, settled down by the phone and placed a call to the Sun and Sage in Arizona.

Russ Cordiner, now fifty-nine, had retired at fifty and built a two-story cabin at the top of a little isolated canyon in the Arizona desert, on the edge of several thousand empty acres he owned. The cabin was near a small stream, lovely and quiet, and it was all Russ and his wife had needed — until his wife died. After that, restless, and with plenty of money, Russ had bought more land and built the Sun and Sage. I’d spent a few weekends in the old cabin with Russ and his wife, and two years ago had stayed a week at the dude ranch, so Russ and I were good friends, even though I hadn’t seen him in these past two years.

When he came on the line I said, Shell Scott, Russ. Got a room up there for an L.A. cowboy?

Sure do, Shell. How you been, stranger?

And so on. After wed cut up a few old touches I said, Whats the trouble there, Russ? I just talked to Ben Freedlander and he said youd fill me in.

Uh-huh. Ben was on the phone about half an hour ago. About this Jeanne Blair who fell off a horse here and hit her head on a rock.

That’s how she was killed?

Uh-huh. Sheriff’s men decided it was an accident, but I’m not so sure, like I told Ben.

How come?

She was riding Vixen, the most peaceable mare on the ranch. Shes never thrown anybody, or even given a bit of trouble before. He’ll, I’ve let six-year-old kids ride her, shes that dependable.

I see. Ben mentioned something about a few hard-looking characters. Whats the score there?

Well, it probably isnt important, Shell. It’s just that for nearly a year thereve been three men staying here who — well, I simply dont like their looks. And in the last month several more have shown up. They all know each other, keep pretty much to themselves. At least one or two of them carry guns.

Guns? When I’d been at the Sun and Sage before, nearly everybody had dressed most of the time in Western costume, a few carrying big revolvers on their hips. I thought a lot of your weekend cowboys carried hardware.

Not like this. One of them carries a gun on a belt holster.

Could they be police officers?

I dont think so. Besides, Shell, when the deputies were here after the woman was killed, a couple of them talked to one of these men. Not in connection with the girls death, just talked; but later one of the deputies mentioned to me that the man had a criminal record. He’s a man named Green, about thirty-five years old — a real quiet, creepy sort of person.

I had known a quiet, creepy monster named Green, and started to ask Russ if the muggs first name was Tay, then decided it must not be the same man. The Green I’d known wasn’t  likely to be living at a luxurious dude ranch; if he liked anything, it was the hustle and crowds of a big city, the smell of smog and sweat.

And then Russ said, He has an odd first name. Tay. That’s not how he’s registered here, but his real names Tay Green.

I sat up a little straighter. So it was Tay Green. The name brought back a lot of memories — ugly memories. Some concerned Tay himself, but most of them revolved around the man he — and several other miserable bastards — had worked for: their boss, a hard-as-rivets, sour, mean, belligerent sonofabitch named Jules Garbin. I knew Garbin was dead now, and maybe you shouldnt speak I’ll of the dead, but I was glad the sonofabitch was dead. Few men in my not-uneventful years as an investigator had built a bigger or more painful boil in me, and seldom had any hood given me more trouble than Jules Garbin had while he’d been alive. I’d been responsible for sending him to the slammer, and providing much of the evidence which got him sentenced to the gas chamber, but I hadn’t killed him, nor had the gas chamber. He’d killed himself. I’d seen him do it. And, believe it or not, looking at his mashed, bloody body after I’d seen him leap to his death, I had felt cheated.

I’d been quiet so long Russ said, Shell? You still there?

Yeah. Tay Green, huh? Any other hard-looking characters at the ranch? Anyone named Farmer? Or Hooper? Or Dodo, for example?

Not that I know of. But this Tay wasn’t  registered here under his real name. Calls himself Thad Gray. Who are the others you mentioned?

Some sub-humans I used to know. I thought a minute and added the most important name of the bunch. What about a guy named Hal? There’s a Harold Calvin — he just might use his real name.

He does. A Harold Calvin checked in over a week ago.

Big handsome guy? Shoulders a couple yards wide, clever, jolly, wavy blond hair — sort of a golden boy with lots of muscles?

That’s him.

It was the damndest thing. After all this time of comparative peace and quiet, the old names, the old memories, were popping up again. Calvin had been Jules Garbin’s right-hand man, and I’d been thinking about him for the last day or two — on Wednesday I’d read about the funeral of Hals wife, the former Mrs. Garbin. Last Monday, four days ago, shed died in an automobile accident, her car, in which she was driving alone, tumbling axle-over-headlights into a canyon, and she was D.O.A. at the bottom.

I said, I’ll be up there about noon, Russ. I’ll catch a nap, then head for the ranch in the early a.m.

Fine. Be good to see you, Shell.

We chatted another minute or so, then Russ told me he’d fill me in on anything else I wanted to know when I arrived, and we hung up.

It was a funny thing. I knew that Harold Calvin — known as Handsome Hal and sometimes called Hal the Bastard by his friends — would stab me with an icepick, shoot me with a tommygun, or drown me in sheep dip, should the necessity and opportunity arise. I knew he would do it cheerfully, without a twinge of remorse. But, still, he was the only member of the late Jules Garbin’s heavies and hangers-on whom I didn’t want to sock in the teeth on sight. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Hal was a hood, and I have no use for hoods. He was one of the expanding something-for-nothing segment of parasitical society, which segment I class with the viruses which chew on our livers or the amoebae which inhabit intestines. He was a thief and a thug and a liar. Even so, in paradoxical defiance of conditioning and logic, I liked the lousy bastard. Knowing who and what he was, I still responded affirmatively to the man’s warmth, his magnetism, his eternal and buoyant optimism. But Hal was the exception that proved the rule; he was unique.

It seemed unlikely that Hals presence at the Sun and Sage, and the presence of Tay Green and possibly others of what I still thought of as the Garbin Gang, could have any connection with the death of a minor movie actress. Nonetheless I was pleased in a queer way that I was heading for the ranch. I was actually looking forward to seeing Hal Calvin again.

Besides, I thought, most likely this Jeanne Blair had simply plopped off her horse, and the sheriffs men were right in thinking her death an accident. If so, during these next few days I could probably loll waxlike in the sun and do nothing more strenuous than watch cactus growing. Except, of course, when I was interviewing the four beautiful women Ben had mentioned.

Yes, even when I’d crawled into bed and was dropping off to sleep, I was looking forward to the Sun and Sage, to fresh air and bright sunshine, and a restful, relaxing vacation. . . .

chapter two

When I saw the sign I eased my big cordovan down on the brake, started slowing the Cad. The sun was hot and I had the convertibles top up, so I leaned over to get a good look as I passed the sign.

SUN AND SAGE

Dude Ranch

Arizonas Finest

A line added that the turnoff was a mile ahead on the right, and the sign was decorated with pictures of a cowboy on a bucking bronc, people riding more cooperative horses, a coiled rope, and a pretty girl in a cowgal outfit.

I straightened up, stretched the kinks out of my spine. I’d driven straight from Los Angeles, except for a coffee-and-hamburger stop on the way, but I felt fresh and energetic. It was invigorating just to be out of the smog and breathing air, out of the rattle and bang of L.A. traffic, rolling through empty miles of Arizona desert. Soon I spotted a split-rail gate closed before the dirt road leading toward the Sun and Sage, turned in and parked in front of it. Already this looked like the Old West. A couple of cowboys were on the other side of the gate, galloping about on mean-looking horses. The cowboys seemed friendly, though. One of them waved in friendly fashion, trotted his horse to the gate and leaned over to open it for me.

I waved back, smiling. Friendly service, hot sunshine clean air — this was the life. I guessed Russ must have sent a couple of the hired hands — or were they called wranglers out here? — to meet me. But, no, wed decided it would be better if nobody knew in advance that a detective was coming up. Maybe these guys were out here wrangling cows, or whatever such people do.

The gate swung open and the mounted man turned his horse and got out of the way, then stopped and sat watching me. He was a real cowboy, all right: five-gallon hat on his ten-gallon head, colorful yellow shirt, jeans with black leather chaps over them. Even a toy gun in a well-worn holster at his hip.

I drove through the gate and waved my thanks to the cowboy. And he put his hand on the toy gun, and yanked it out of it’s holster, and aimed it at me.

I just kept smiling.

Look, I have been shot at almost as often as those little ducks you see in shooting galleries. I have been shot practically everywhere there’s room. And I have done my share of shooting back.

But a cowboy with a toy gun?

A friendly, helpful cowboy?

He would sure as He’ll have shot me except for one thing. When he yanked his big revolver out and swept it up from his body, it must have loomed large and ugly in his horses right eye — and the horse rared back and skittered just a little. But suddenly. Just suddenly enough.

The gun boomed and the slug tore through the canvas top of my Cad — and I stopped smiling at the friendly cowboy. I stopped smiling and started moving. I didn’t think about where I was going, I was just going, and I lunged to my right away from the man and toward the Cads door, slammed the handle and shoved with my feet as the door opened.

I flopped outside the car, hit the ground and rolled, stopped with a jarring thud on my back. But by that time I had my hand on the butt of the .38 Colt Special under my coat — the .38 always under my coat. The Cad, still in gear, kept rolling slowly forward. As it moved away from me I saw the cowboy again. Only a few seconds had passed since that sudden shot, and he didn’t yet know I’d flopped out of the car. He’d spurred his horse and ridden close to the Cadillac, gun extended toward the cars interior. By the time he realized I wasn’t  in the car, and had jerked his head — and gun — toward me, I was on my knees, the .38 nestled in my right hand.

He fired once more before I got off a shot, but he was rushed and missed me by several feet. I held my revolver at arms length, looked over the short barrel at his chest, and squeezed the trigger. I knew I hit him; I could hear the slug smack, see the tiny dark hole in his yellow shirt. But I steadied the gun, fired again.

The other cowboy was coming toward us. He was a blurred movement in my eyes because I was watching the man close to me, but I heard a gunshot and saw the puff of dust on my left as he fired. The man I’d shot didn’t fall right away. I saw his gun drop. He raised up in his stirrups, thrust his right hand out as if for support that wasn’t  there. Then he slumped forward, fell against the horses neck, slid sideways and flopped toward the ground.

I didn’t see him hit. I snapped a shot at the other man and he reined his horse sharply, veered to his left. He fired once more at me, then was galloping away, toward the ranch. I aimed at his back, fired, and missed. Then he was out of range.

But the cowboy near me wasn’t . His horse moved off, snorting and prancing, then trotted several yards away. I walked to the man, rolled him over. He was dead. Often they live a long time with two bullets in them, sometimes even when a slug hits the heart. But not this one.

I knew the bastard. I hadn’t recognized him from a distance, and with him in the cowhands outfit. But now I did. He was big, with a fleshy pink face, sandy hair, a small scar at his hairline. An L.A. muscleman named Karl Hooper.

Russ had mentioned Tay Green, and Handsome Hal Calvin. Both of them had worked for Jules Garbin when that monster had been alive. So had Karl Hooper. But since Garbin’s death I’d had no trouble with these men, or any of the others. Not, at least, until now.

I straightened up, glanced at the dwindling figure of the second man, then down at the dead cowboy again.

Restful, relaxing vacation. Yeah.

chapter three

Horses!

You can have them. Give me dogs or cats, or lions — or tropical fish. That’s my kind of animal: Fish. I am an expert on tropical fish. But what I dont know about horses is a lot more than I know about fish.

I’d thought it would be a simple matter to put the dead guy on the horses back and tie him there loosely, and then lead him to my Cad — which had stopped a couple of hundred yards away against some kind of spiny flora, which was probably a cactus. Maybe I should have gotten the Cad first, then come back to pick up the dead man and the horse. I hadn’t, simply because it didn’t seem to make much difference, so long as I got all three — Cad, man, and horse — together. Who would think youd have to plan such a thing like an engineering problem? So that was my second mistake of the day.

The damned horse was now about half a mile away, apparently bound for Wyoming, the dead guy still U-shaped over the saddle, apparently hung on the saddle horn, or pommel, or whatever those things are that saddles have. I finished swearing, climbed into the Cad and headed after him.

Well, I got close. Never there, but close. You can’t tell me horses dont have intelligence. They have a diabolical intelligence. This one was playing a game with me, and winning. I’d drive to within a few yards of the animal, stop the car, get out, and start sneaking up on him, then he would snicker at me and trot away. The last time that happened I left the Cad behind and stayed on foot, walking in the horses general direction — as if going somewhere else.

It had occurred to me that I was going to have to outwit this horse. Well, I said aloud, guess I’ll go over there and look at those mountains.

Maybe it wasn’t  exactly a cool, logical approach to the problem, but I was still somewhat shaken by the episode at the gate and since the horse had been winning so far it seemed entirely sensible to adopt a new and tricky approach. So I stood there, alone in the middle of the empty desert, feigning vast disinterest in horses.

He was watching me out of glittery eyes, arching his neck and tossing his head. Just beyond him there were some mountains, or at least hills, spotted with silvery-gray sagebrush, greasewood, and occasional gray boulders. A lizard or snake scurried from under a bush and vanished behind a low flat rock.

Above me, a mile or more away at the end of a narrow boulder-cluttered canyon, was some kind of wooden building, and when I saw it I suddenly realized where I was standing now. I’d been here before. The cabin was the one Russ Cordiner had built several years ago, when he and his wife moved to Arizona; I’d spent those few weekends up there with them. So the dude ranch itself would be five miles or so on my right — to the north — and nearby on my left, I remembered was a small lake, a cool and pleasant spot where Russ and I had several times sat and talked. The little stream that fed the lake curved around and flowed back out of Russs property, and at the bend of the stream he’d bulldozed an acre or so to enlarge the small pool already there into a quite satisfactory lake.

And I would have sworn I heard sounds from the spot where that lake was. I listened, but they werent repeated. Maybe it was just my imagination. I knew nobody lived up in the old cabin now.

Then the horse let out another nickering snort. Maybe that’s what I’d heard. A nickering snort. I sauntered casually away. Then he broke into a trot and moved another few yards farther to my left.

And I heard the sounds again. Voices. I couldnt make out the words, but there definitely were people somewhere near. The sounds had come from where I remembered the small lake to be, though I couldnt see it from here. At either side of the dead-end canyon, it’s walls sloped gently upward into small rolling hills. Close by on my left the ground rose precipitately, studded with a jumble of rocks and boulders, and beyond that spot was the lake.

Quite likely it was Mom and Dad and two kids on a picnic; but once shot at is twice shy where I’m concerned. So I pulled my Colt out, held it in my right hand and moved shyly forward, following the base of a small cliff as it curved slightly around toward the lake. I could hear a voice clearly now. It was a man’s voice.

O.K., it said. Waitll I move that damned rock and well wrap it up.

What the He’ll? Wrapping rocks? I moved forward, not quite so carefully, but with the .38 still ready. There was the glint of sunlight on water, view of a few stunted trees, several large boulders — but no people. Directly ahead of me, ten yards away, was a big gray boulder, worn smooth by wind and rain, about eight feet high at it’s peak, six or seven feet wide at it’s base. I could hear movement from beyond the boulder.

I moved forward quickly, reached the boulder and was starting to step to my right so I could peek around it — and stopped. Something queer was going on. Something very queer.

I was sure I was standing stock still. But the boulder was moving. I guessed the thing must have weighed twenty tons if it weighed an ounce, but it sure as He’ll was moving.

I heard a guy grunt and say, Goddam, this is sure a heavy rock.

I closed my eyes, shook my head. Had all those bullets missed me? I just stood there, my mouth hanging open a little way.

The boulder wobbled, moved, and floated up into the air! Two legs, and a pair of feet, stuck out from beneath it. They walked several feet to the left, the boulder tilted then thudded down onto the ground.

And I let out a high honking noise.

Not because the boulder had moved. But because, by moving, it revealed what had been concealed behind it. Between me and the lake were four women, four gorgeous women, and nothing was concealed any more, since those gorgeous women had no clothes on. They just stood there like art studies for progressive citizens, not more than ten feet from me, unmoving, unclad, unretouched, undulating, and apparently totally uninhibited, and my eyes started bugging out like corks preparing to pop from bottles.

But a wave of sadness swept over me. Of course — none of this was happening. It couldnt be; it was too grand. There hadn’t been any friendly cowboy trying to kill me, or intelligent horse outwitting me, or boulder levitating — and there werent any four gorgeous nude tomatoes. I was home in bed, twitching a little, a wide, contented smile on my chops. This was a fantasy, a dream — or maybe I was dead. He’ll, if I was, it was better than living.

All this went through my dead brain like lightning, and I was still standing there with my gun stuck out like a metal appendage, and my eyes sticking out more than a little, and making the high honking sound — when things started to happen.

Those four nude tomatoes let out four bloodcurdling screams, and there was action like you never saw in your life. One gal went this way and another that way, and a third began flailing her arms about — up top, then down below, then ineffectively half and half — and the fourth gal scrunched over, flipping up one leg and hugging her chest with both arms. Chest! That’s a euphemism if I ever heard one, for the most astounding pair of, well, chest, this side of Mississippi. She was a tall, slim blonde gal, but not at all slim where she was hugging, and she yelped, Aaaaaaah!

It was real. I had stumbled into a Nudist Camp.

For another few seconds the activity continued and even accelerated, and there was a wild fleshy flurry of arms, hands, knees, breasts, thighs — all those good things. Then there was a roar — a male roar — as a man shouted:

Where in bloody He’ll did you come from?

It’s real, I said.

What? A tall, good-looking bushy-haired young guy was moving forward on my left. He stopped a couple feet from me and said, Who the He’ll are you, Charlie?

My brain came to life again. I’m not Charlie, I said. I still didn’t know what kind of picnic was going on here, but I was anxious to find out. Ah . . . I’m Shell Scott, I heard voices, and I didn’t know . . . That wasn’t  it. I started over. I didn’t have any idea . . .

Keerist! he interrupted me. Dont shoot! He’d just noticed the gun in my hand.

Sorry, I said. I slipped the Colt back into it’s holster and went on, I thought it might be somebody else here. Some ape just took a shot at me, tried to kill me, and I thought maybe his pal was here.

Huh. He didn’t believe me. A clever story. You had no idea we were filming The Wild West here, did you? Not much, you didn’t.

The Wild . . . is this it? I looked around, and my eye fell on a station wagon and some equipment over on the far side of the little lake. I spotted a tripod topped by what was obviously a movie camera. Ben didn’t tell me, I mumbled half to myself. The dog — he didn’t want me to know!

What in He’ll are you talking about? Did you say Ben?

Yeah, Ben Freedlander. I guess youd be Ed Finch, right?

That’s right. What the He’ll have you got to do with Ben? Did he tell you to come sneaking up here and peek at the girls, or was it your idea?

I glanced at him. With all that dark hair and tanned skin and blue eyes, he was quite a good-looking guy, except that his eyes were maybe too close together. But if he did work like this every day, I was surprised they werent actually touching. He was beginning to bug me a little with his big mouth, however.

I said, I already told you, Finch, I came — sneaking up here as you put it — because a fake cowboy took a shot at me, and I thought maybe his co-shooter was here.

I was looking away from him as I said that, for the same reason I’d only glanced at him in the first place. The four lovelies, who had been scattered over a sizable portion of the landscape, had overcome their shock very quickly and walked toward us. Now they were standing in a group only a few feet away.

It was almost impossible to avoid looking at the gals from time to time, and I was exhilarated to note they didn’t seem to mind my not avoiding it. In the group was a tall blonde — the one whod been hugging her chest, but was not now hugging it — a little black-haired gal about five feet, two inches tall, and two medium-sized ones, a stunning gal with chestnut-colored hair and a flaming redhead who looked as if shed graduated from Vic Tannys at least twice.

The redhead was looking straight at me, and said in a peculiar high voice reminiscent of several crickets rubbing their legs together, I’ll bet I know what you are. Youre a Peeping Tom.

Good grief, no. You have entirely the wrong —

Youre a masher! Fortunately, she was smiling.

No, no. Well, not exactly —

The other medium-sized lovely, the stunning gal with long chestnut-colored hair — medium referring only to her vertical inches — said, I heard what you were just saying. Did someone really shoot at you, Mr. Scott?

This wasn’t  a voice like crickets. This was low and soft, like honeymoon whispers, aural hormones that tied granny knots in my dendrites. No, not granny knots, or even granpa knots, but something more like sheet knots. She looked vaguely familiar to me, intriguingly familiar.

We thought we heard something, she went on, maybe gunshots.

At last somebody here was making sense. I said, Yes, maam, someone really did shoot at me. As a result of which I was forced to shoot him. And I truly thought there might be other such anti-social fellows here, which is why I skulked up with a gun. If I’d had any idea . . . I let it trail off. How did you know my name was Scott?

I recognized you — I live in Los Angeles. You are the detective, arent you? Shell Scott?

Yes, maam.

She smiled. Dont call me maam. I’m April. There’s no point now in being . . . stuffy, is there?

I’ll say not. Well, ah . . . how do you do, April? I looked at the other three. And I suppose these are May, June, and July?

They all laughed; they thought I’d said a funny. I guess part of me, the head part, was still dreaming, and I’d assumed they had sprung at me from the private files of Playboy magazine.

This April, for example, was a shockingly beautiful woman, especially dressed as she wasn’t . The chestnut-brown hair tangled the sun, and her eyes were the blue you sometimes see in the flames of acetylene torches. Plus smooth, generous lips that were smiling now, lips that hadn’t ever frowned much. And that voice — youd almost swear it was nude. And about 37-22-36 at that.

All four of these gals were fashioned like you-wouldnt-believe it, but never mind the specific measurements; who cares about mathematics at a time like this? Besides, probably the only man who could describe it would be the guy who wrote Fun With Figures. Suffice to say, the sight of all four of them at once was enough to turn cats into tigers or make mice tree lions or — to get back home again — make weak men strong as Samsons. And I’d started out pretty peppy, in the first place.

April said, May and June. . . . Oh, goodness no. This is Choo Choo.

She indicated the Vic Tanny graduate, the redhead, who said in the crickety voice, Hi, Shell.

Hi, yourself. I grinned at her.

And Delise, April went on, pointing to the tall, slender blonde. And Zia. Zia was the small black-haired doll.

They all smiled.

Look, Charlie, why dont you beat it? Weve got work to do. That was the bushy-haired lad on my left.

I looked at him. This egg sure knew how to raise my hackles, but I merely said, I already told you I didn’t intend to interrupt the proceedings. But as long as I have, you might as well know now why I’m here. You already know I’m a private detective, and I guess you all know Ben Freedlander.

They nodded; the girls hadn’t met him, but they knew he was the big wheel and money man of Edben Productions. I went on, He’s hired me to check on the death of Jeanne Blair, just to make sure it was really an accident.

Really an accident? Ed interrupted. He’ll, she fell off a horse.

That’s what I hear, I said. Do you think that’s what happened? Any chance she might have been helped a little? I looked around at the five faces.

There was a murmur of comment from the girls. It was awful what had happened to Jeanne, but theyd never had the slightest idea it might have been anything but an accident. Why would anyone kill little Jeanne? For just a moment I’d thought April, alone of the four girls, might have been going to say something else.

Look, I said, I dont say anyone killed her. I just want to be sure, before I leave here, that it really was an accident, I paused, thinking about Karl Hooper, and what Russ told me on the phone last night. By the way, I said, do any of you know a man named Calvin, supposed to be staying here?

Delise said, Harold Calvin? Hal?

That’s him.

She nodded. We all know him — oh, only to talk to. Or rather he talked to us a couple of times, by the pool. She took a deep breath, and I almost forgot to pay attention to what she was saying. Golly, he’s a handsome one, though.

That’s him. I thought a minute. Tell me if any of these names ring a bell. Karl Hooper? No reaction. Dodo, Farmer —

There’s a big fellow I’ve heard Mr. Calvin call Farmer, Zia said. He looks like he might be a farmer.

He wasn’t .

Listen, Finch said, this is a lot of fun, but I’ve got to wrap up this damned picture today, understand? Or at the latest by tomorrow — so just blow, will you, Charlie?

Zia, the little black-haired girl said, Ed, dont get him mad. He looks like he might eat you alive.

Well, that was an exaggeration, surely. It’s true that I loomed a bit large next to this Eds approximate five-nine and one-sixty, and I’m an ex-Marine with an ex-Marine face on which a little of the war was fought, and with that mess topped off by the white hair and eyebrows I look no more delicate than a sabretoothed tiger — but I wouldnt eat him alive.

Ed sucked air through his teeth but didn’t say anything more. Zia did, though. Looking up at me she said, speaking slowly and deliberately, and with a slight accent, We do have to finish a couple of scenes this afternoon, Mr. Scott —

Shell.

Shell. But we ought to be through by five or so. We usually stop in the bar before dinner —

I’ll be there!

She smiled. So maybe youd like to buy us all a drink about . . . six?

You bet. I’d even be willing to bring some booze out here —

Well get all dressed up for you. Wouldnt you like to see us in something pretty?

I considered that one for several seconds, with what must have been a very blank look on my face, before I realized that Zia was playing a little game with me. First a horse, then Zia, this was my day.

Finally I said, I can’t think of anything more exciting.

She chuckled, and casually shifted her weight from one shapely leg to another, hips rolling as if on liquid ball bearings. Man, there simply wasn’t  much choice among these gals. Take this Zia, for instance. The smallest of the bunch, she was only about five-two and a hundred pounds or so, but she had a thick hawser of black, black hair that was now hanging down past her neck and over one shoulder, veiling one provocatively protruberant breast, black brows and lashes like slashes of India ink against the dark tan of her skin. Her lips looked as if they might start frying each other, and dark lids hung heavily over eyes as black as the devils. She was young, perhaps twenty-one, but the eyes were wise, burning into mine now.

Come on, Charlie, move, Ed said. Youve seen what you came here to see, havent you? So go back where you came from.

I will take a lot of lip under some circumstances, but those circumstances did not at the moment apply. I could feel my jaw muscles bulging, and the cords in my forearms tightening, but I turned my head slowly toward him and kept my voice level. Ed, if you call me Charlie again, I am going to pop you. And I am going to tell you once again, for the last time in my life, the only reason I came here at all . . .

I heard something.

Ed pulled his brows down, lowered his head slightly, started to speak — and stopped. He turned his head, listening. He’d heard it, too.

Then I saw what was making the noise. It was my horse.

Maybe he only wanted to play some more. But he walked slowly closer, saddle leather creaking in the stillness, and stopped three or four yards away. The dead cowboy was still draped over the saddle. Draped very loosely to be sure, the rope nearly off his back and his cartridge belt caught on the saddle horn, but still there. His legs stuck out almost at a right angle from the saddle and his head hung down loosely, arms dangling so that his fingers were only a foot or so above the ground. Blood had seeped from the man’s chest and drained down over one side of his face, thick and red on his cheek. As the horse moved slightly, the dead man’s head swayed rhythmically to and fro like a pendulum.

My God, Ed said. Whats that? Whos that?

I waited till he looked at me again. Then I said, I thought I told you, Ed. That’s the guy I just shot.

His lips appeared to get dryer as I watched. His face paled and seemed to shrink, the way brain surgeons tell us an exposed brain does before an epileptic seizure, and he moved his lips as if trying to say something, but didn’t make any sound. Clearly, he hadn’t believed all I’d been saying. But now he was a believer.

I glanced at the four girls. See you in the bar, I said. They didn’t look at me. They were staring at the dead man.

This time the horse didn’t run from me. I took the reins and led him back toward my Cadillac.

chapter four

After I’d dumped the body on the Cads floor, behind the front seat, and tied one end of a rope to the horse and the other end to the cars rear bumper, I climbed behind the wheel and started driving slowly toward the Sun and Sage — with plenty on my mind.

I hadn’t seen that second cowboy clearly enough to identify him later, but he obviously had known who I was. And when a man knows what you look like, while all you know about him is that he wants to kill you, that’s a little like playing Russian roulette with the other guy holding the gun, and cheating. And that second cowboy had headed for the Sun and Sage.

Perhaps even more important, the first cowboy, the one now getting colder by the minute behind me, was Karl Hooper. Moreover, now present at the Sun and Sage were Handsome Hal Calvin, cold-eyed Tay Green, and — according to little Zia — Farmer, the hayseed assassin. Each and every one of them had been part of what I still thought of as the Jules Garbin gang. Whether the presence of these creeps here at the Sun and Sage had anything to do with Jeanne Blairs death or not, it was high time for me to do some thinking about creeps. And no matter where I started, the thinking always led back to Jules Garbin. Even dead, he gave me a bigger pain than most men alive.

How long ago had it been? Over a year, well over a year. When I’d met Jules he was well on his way to becoming the little Napoleon of the L.A. rackets. He had his fingers in everything: gambling, prostitution, wire services, the union rackets, narcotics, extortion, murder — and it was extortion, then murder, that brought me into the picture.

Jules was forty-one then. Five-seven, a hundred and seventy pounds, a mean, violent character, belligerent and anti-social, with a sour thick-lipped mouth and deep frown-lines between glittering gray eyes the color of a cold morning. He had the kind of blue-black beard always visible under the skin, and his skin was dark and leathery as if his face had been tanned like an animal hide. Eternally angry, foul-mouthed, continually griping, he acted like a man with curdled blood or snake venom in his veins, and I always wondered why such a miserable s.o.b. didn’t poison himself with his own juices. He just hated everybody — which made it seem strange to me when I learned his right-hand man was Harold Calvin. Not that Hal was anybodys angel, but at least he was a man of charm and grace and wit, pleasant and polished — everything that Jules was not. But I didn’t know, at first, that Hal was Garbin’s lieutenant.

The way it started, I’d been hired by a man named Sloan, a wealthy industrialist who owned a company manufacturing a number of items in aerosol cans, everything from paint and shellac to throat sprays and pancake mix — carefully marked, so you wouldnt shellac the frying pan or coat your throat with little flapjacks. Sloan had been approached by two men and told to take out accident insurance at $1,000 a month or thered be accidents; Sloan refused, and sure enough, accidents started — fire in his factory, sabotaged production lines, damaged supplies, deliveries late. That was when Sloan called on me.

I was on the case four months. There’s no point in covering all the details — that’s another story — but in the first week I learned the two salesmen were Jules Garbin’s men. Right after that I was warned to drop the case. They had a cute way of warning me. Three large hoods — named Farmer, Dodo, and Karl Hooper — cornered me in a mens washroom, and beat He’ll out of me. Not without suffering some damage, but they caught me off guard and definitely won the battle. Dodo was hanging onto one of my arms. Farmer the other, and my legs werent quite springy enough to hold me up. Then Karl Hooper stepped to the door, opened it, and let in Jules Garbin.

That was how I met Jules.

I could still see through puffed eyes, and Garbin was dressed — as he always later was — in beautifully tailored black suit, custom white shirt with high collar, white silk tie, immaculate French cuffs held by solid-silver links, glossy black shoes. While they held me, he went to work. On my head, chest, stomach, with quiet concentration, cold efficiency. He didn’t seem to get any fun out of it; this was business.

He kept on slamming me until I dropped, and probably afterwards. Because when I came to in the hospital there were black and blue marks all over me, in addition to the three broken ribs and bruised kidney. I spent two weeks in that hospital. When I got out, I went back on the case, and of course it wasn’t  just a case any longer.

When the warning didn’t take, later came the attempts to kill me. Two attempts: slugs whistling past me in the night. I’d never been sure who fired the shots, but I thought it had been Tay Green; if so, I was probably the only man Green had ever missed twice.

After four months I had almost enough on Garbin — and Sloan was murdered. I’d been reporting to Sloan every night, and on the night of the murder Garbin himself and one of his gunmen called unannounced at Sloans West Los Angeles home. Sloan saw them park in front and phoned me before letting them inside. During the violent argument that followed — while I was on my way to my clients home — Garbin yanked out a gun and shot Sloan twice. I arrived as the two men ran from the house; I saw them run to their car and race away. Sloan wasn’t  yet dead when I got to him; he had time to tell me whod shot him. I told the law, and the law grabbed Garbin and his sidekick, who spilled his guts and drew a sentence of life imprisonment in Folsom.

Garbin got the gas chamber. But the gas chamber didn’t get Garbin.

Long before Garbin’s sentencing, though, months before he was tossed into jail, I’d met or learned about most of his hoods and hangers-on, including Hal Calvin — and Letty. Letty was Letitia Garbin, Jules wife, and the lives of Jules, Letty, and Hal were wound together in a most peculiar way. Some of it I was told, some I guessed, but it was a sure thing that Letty had married Jules solely for his money — counting cash in and out of banks, property, stocks and bonds, he was worth three to four million dollars — and in her own sweetly feminine way, Letty was as big a thief as Jules. On their wedding night and succeeding nights the marriage was, in that quaint phrase, consummated; but after some time had passed Jules learned to his exceeding consternation and shock that there would be no more consummation, though he would not — and did not — express it in precisely that way, being a man no more refined than a belch after Italian meatballs.

Sexually, Jules was a man of gargantuan profligacy to begin with — again, stating it delicately — and seldom since the discovery of consummation had a man been so consternated; among other things, from that moment, if not before, he began cutting a wide swath among Hollywoods models, waitresses, starlets, and even school girls. The marriage could not be annulled; and if he had attempted to divorce Letty she fully intended to stick him for at least half of his sizable estate and, through alimony, bring thievery to an artistic peak worthy of Eight-Finger Eddie, who between vacations in stir stole a million bucks for each finger. Jules, of course, would have died before letting Letty grab a penny of alimony; in fact he was known to have said exactly that:

I’d die first.

While I was working on Jules during those four months I learned that Handsome Hal Calvin was often — but not constantly — at Jules Garbin’s side. Not constantly, because he came to spend more and more time with Letty, and was with her practically day and night while hubby Jules was in jail. What they did, I dont know, but I have a hunch, based on what happened later. Because two months after Jules was lowered into his grave, Letty became Mrs. Hal Calvin.

It would almost have seemed that Hal had planned to knock off Jules so he could grab off Letty — except that nobody killed Jules. Except himself.

That was the night I wouldnt forget.

From the very moment of his sentencing in L.A. Superior Court, Garbin swore he wouldnt die in the gas chamber. One way or another he’d beat it. He really sounded as if he meant it. And I guess he did, because he beat it.

Even before his sentencing a jailer had found him with his wrist cut. It was bleeding profusely, but Garbin was still conscious enough to swear filthily at the jailer. Then came the night when Jules was scheduled to be removed from the jail and transferred to San Quentin the next morning.

For some time he’d been popping off, swearing he had enough dirt on everybody from the governor of the state on down through the L.A. mayor and including police and other city officials to send them all to Q. with him. Nobody really believed him, but a reporter got much of it into an issue of an L.A. paper and it caused a little stink.

On that last night he got to Phil Samson, Captain of Central Homicide, and said he would turn over to me — nobody but me, Shell Scott — all the papers, photostats, tapes, the whole jazz he claimed to have on the officials and others he’d named. Well, Sam set it up, and I went along not only because Garbin had named me, but because Sam is my very good friend, and I’d stuck Garbin in the first place. We didn’t know what the He’ll Jules was up to; we figured he was lying, or foolishly hoping to make a break, or maybe was trying to get back at me some way — but there was just a chance he was telling the truth. He wasn’t , of course. But we didn’t know that then.

Two odd items: First, he wouldnt say where the stuff was hidden, just that it was hidden and he’d take us to the place; and second he insisted he get to dress in his fine duds, black suit and high collar and all — for the last time, he said. That was his price for taking us to the cache of information. It didn’t make much sense then — later, of course, it did.

Sam and I, and six well-armed police officers, took Garbin from the can. We didn’t know where he was going, but he had been living in one of the penthouse suites of the swank Hollywood-Crown Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard, and that’s where we went. In, and up to his suite on the sixteenth floor, as high as the elevator went.

When we were all inside the suite Samson stopped, grabbed Jules by the arm, and said, Garbin, if this is a gag —

It’s not a gag, cop. Garbin’s gray eyes had never been colder, his expression never more cruel and sour. The stuff’s here.

Samson looked just as hard as Jules — maybe harder. His big jaw wiggled a moment, then he said, You must know we searched this place. Just in case.

Sure. Did you search the bedroom carpet? Under it? More important, in it?

Sams face told me Jules had scored a small point. Maybe a large one. Jules did a good job; he really built it up.

He laughed, jerked his arm free from Sams hand and swaggered across the room — accompanied by all of us — into the bedroom and toward a window through which could be seen that marvelous view of Hollywoods lights at night. Two policemen went with him to the window. There Jules bent over, pulled at the carpets edge, ripped it free from the molding, then stepped backward pulling the thick cloth with him.

Get the He’ll off the rug, you goddamn fuzz, he said, sweetly cheerful to the last.

By then we were all actually interested, half-believing him. Nobody was even near him when he moved. He dropped the carpet in the middle of the room, bent as if to fumble with something on the floor, then suddenly sprinted for the window he’d just been standing near. We were, all of us, caught flat-footed. He leaped to the window sill, crashed through the glass, went through and out. There was no stopping him then; he’d beaten the gas chamber, all right — but maybe, in that last split second, he changed his mind. Because he screamed.

Only a short hoarse scream, quickly bitten off — then a moment later bursting out again, even louder and higher than at first but quickly fading. This time he didn’t stop. He screamed all the way down, screamed for the rest of his life.

We were on the sixteenth floor.

I saw him hit.

He’d moved so fast I didn’t even jump forward until he’d gone through the glass, and at that I was the first one to reach the shattered window. I looked out and down, and he still had a good two floors to go. He hit and bounced — they do bounce, from that height — and even from the sixteenth floor I could see the horrible spurt of blood, and hear the slightly delayed sound of his impact.

None of us spoke for several seconds. Then Samson said savagely, I’ll be goddamned.

When we got down to Hollywood Boulevard a crowd had gathered around the mashed and misshapen body. A siren was already cutting through the air. Those French cuffs were red again — as theyd been red while Garbin was beating me in that washroom.

Well, this was Hollywood Boulevard. The main artery cutting through the heart of the cinema city. When a man splashes himself on Hollywood Boulevard, it’s news; when the man is a Jules Garbin, and eight husky men were supposed to be on their toes and guarding him — and especially when there is a hint or two that in order to avert a major scandal maybe the police, and Shell Scott, helped Jules Garbin out the window — then it is really news.

It died down finally; but it left scars. Even dying, Garbin had slipped us the sharp end of the stick.

And now, braking my Cad in the Arizona desert and looking at the people — including, undoubtedly, several of the late Garbin’s hoodlums — moving around the Sun and Sage, I wondered if I was about to get stuck again. . . .

chapter five

I slowed even more when I caught sight of the low cream-and-beige buildings of the Sun and Sage. It was after three p.m. As I got closer I could see people moving around among the buildings and near the sparkling swimming pool, and soon the sound of voices carried to me through the hot, dry air.

Of several buildings only one, by far the biggest, was two stories. That was the main building of the Sun and Sage, containing the hotel, desk and lobby, rooms for guests, cocktail lounge, and card-and-game room. Scattered around the two-story hotel were a couple dozen small buildings, each separate from the others; these were individual suites called cabins. Two of the cabins, the Phoenix Suite and the Tucson Suite, were quite a bit larger — and more expensive — than the others, and I assumed from what Ben Freedlander had said that I might wind up in one of them.

I stopped in a parking area near the hotel entrance, made sure a blanket still covered the dead guy, then climbed out of the Cad and walked into the Sun and Sage.

The lobby was big, high-ceilinged, with colorful Indian rugs on the parquet floor. Heavy couches and chairs of rough wood were scattered around the room. Fifteen or twenty people were moving about or seated in the lobby, but I didn’t recognize any of them. A male clerk behind the desk blossomed there like the flowers which bloom from cactus: White Stetson with a rim approximately two yards in circumference, pink shirt, yellow neckerchief, cream-colored whip-cord pants, and — believe it or not — pale blue chaps. I leaned over the desk far enough to see his feet Yep, high-heeled cowboy boots — blue, with jewels on them. I could almost have kissed him.

I said hello, adding, I’m Shell Scott.

Who?

He didn’t know me. That was good. Too many cats here did know me. Wheres Russ? I asked him.

Mr. Cordiner?

Yes. Mr. Cordiner.

Why, he’s out at the stables, sir.

Fine. Thanks.

The stables were behind the hotel and fifty yards north. I went behind the hotel and fifty yards north, following my nose into the heavy, not unpleasant smell of the stable area. There I spotted Russ looking a horses hoof. He didn’t see me until I stopped next to him and spoke.

Looks as if the animal has bruised his left wither, I said. Or is it fetlock? Anyway, I’ll bet youre going to have to amputate his udder —

Not at all, Russ said dryly, without looking up, he’s merely hurt his paw. And I’ll bet that’s a Scott named Shell. Then he straightened up, and socked me in the stomach.

Russ was nearly as tall as I, but his weight could almost have been reported in ounces instead of pounds. He was spaghetti thin, but hard and tough as jerky. The Sun and Sage was not only a dude ranch but a working ranch as well, though not on a very large scale, and Russ, despite his fifty-nine years, did plenty of the work. He bred both Brahma bulls for rodeos and wiry little quarter horses, some of which he raced at tracks and fairs in the Western states.

He had bright, alert brown eyes, crooked teeth, a prominent Adams apple, and a great mass of thick white hair so long it was virtually a mane on his neck, plus a magnificent white mustache, neatly trimmed. He looked a little like the skeleton of Buffalo Bill.

After wed poked each other stupidly — an action men sometimes indulge in for no apparent reason — he said, Well, things should liven up now youre here, Shell.

There’s a dead man in my car, I said.

There’s a what?

A dead —

No. Dont tell me again. Not yet. His Adams apple bounced. Then he said, Yes, things should . . . liven up. All right. Show me.

I showed him. After a few seconds he dropped the blanket back over the man’s face and said, Hooper. Karl Hooper.

I know.

He just got here today.

Here today, gone tomorrow. Did you see him with any of the hard boys you mentioned?

No. Only when he registered, Shell.

Another guy registered with him?

No, he was alone. Why?

There was another cowboy with him when I shot him. They were both, just for the record, shooting at me when this happened.

Russ was silent for a while. Then he said, Come on. Well lay him out in one of the horse stalls for the time being.

Which we did. We dumped him in an empty stall and Russ put the horse Hooper had been riding — a nag named Sugarfoot, it turned out — in his own stall. Then we went to Russs suite, behind the hotel and separate from it, and phoned the nearest office of the Sheriffs department. It would take the deputies an hour to get out here, but they would soon be on their way.

We sat on a leather couch in his sparsely furnished but comfortable living room, and I asked Russ if Hooper and another man might have taken out horses at the same time, thinking I might get a lead to the second cowboy, but there wasn’t  any help from that angle. A couple dozen people had been out riding, singly and in pairs, and Hooper had gone out alone.

Finally I said, O.K. What else can you tell me about this Jeanne Blair, the dead girl?

He got up and walked to a kneehole desk in the comer, rummaged in the top drawer, then came back and handed me a sheet of paper. Wrote this down for the police, Russ said. All I was able to find out. And I added there on the bottom what the police told me. Not much.

There wasn’t  much. Jeanne had been only twenty-three years old at the time of her death, home address an apartment hotel in Hollywood, occupation actress. Death accidental, due to a fall from horse. Nobody had seen her riding alone, that Sunday morning; nobody had seen her fall. Shed been found dead about ten a.m. by a young married couple out for a gallop, and Vixen had been standing quietly a few feet away from her body. Jeanne had arrived at the Sun and Sage on the previous Friday, eight days ago, along with four other girls and Ed Finch, the entire male complement of Edben Productions present. So Ed, apparently, was director, cameraman, and maybe even film developer for all I knew. So he was either non-union, or about to have lots of union trouble. I had, of course, met those four other girls.

At the bottom of the sheet was a small list of films, most of which I’d never heard of, in which Jeanne Blair had appeared. As I was looking at them Russ handed me a photograph of the dead girl, and something clicked.

The photo was a clear Polaroid snap of Jeanne standing by a horse and smiling, very shapely even in the concealing white blouse and dark jeans, her head lifted and tilted a bit to one side. I’d seen that face before, and glanced back at the list of film credits, my eye falling on Hang Your Clothes on a Hickory Limb. Sure. Now I remembered.

As anybody with half an eye is aware, to the movie industry of these Soaring Sixties something nude has been added. A whole gang of independent film-producing companies has sprung up turning out low-budget high-profit movies dedicated to the proposition that the best part of a woman is all parts, the intent being to show as much of said parts as the law allows, and sometimes a little bit more.

From the day when a photograph of an ankle clad in a black sock was considered an orgy, we have arrived at the acreage of epidermis displayed in such productions as The Immoral Mr. Teas, Once upon a Knight, and Her Bikini Never Got Wet. And, obviously. The Wild West. Whether this is an improvement upon the black-sock days, I’ll not say. But the films are very successful, and someone once cleverly said: Find a Need And Fill It.

Jeanne Blair had appeared in Skin Game, Weekend of a Nudist, and Hang Your Clothes on a Hickory Limb. In that last one, she and two other beauties and draped their clothes on a limb and gone for a swim, whereupon an evil character swiped the garments, forcing Jeanne and the other girls to race nude about the countryside, the evil character in hot pursuit — much in the manner of Hedy Lamarr in Ecstasy, only with much clearer photography. It was a lousy story, no plot — although the girls had very meaty parts — as I can attest, since I sat through it twice.

And that, I recalled, was also where I’d seen lovely April. She and Jeanne had both been in Hang Your Clothes, and that was why April had looked so intriguingly familiar to me earlier today.

There seemed no motive for murder in all this, however. Quite the contrary.

I said to Russ, I was inclined to think this Jeanne merely fell on her head, but maybe your hunch is right — at least somebody didn’t want me to show up here today. Incidentally, who besides you could have known I was coming? Did you tell anybody?

He shook his head. No, but . . . when Mr. Freedlander phoned I was in my room, but I took your call in the lobby last night. Someone might have heard me. I dont know. He paused. I didn’t even think —

Never mind. No real harm done. Except to Hooper. Well, there’s probably nothing to see there now, but I’d still like to have a look at the spot where Jeanne died.

Russ nodded, looked at his watch. I was about to leave when you showed up, Shell. The Rolling M is buying two of my Brahma bulls, and well be loading them into vans in a few minutes. One of them, a He’ll of a big sonofagun, busted clean through the corral and I have to shoot him. Come along with me and on the way back I’ll show you where the woman was found.

Sure. Youre going to — shoot a bull?

Yes. This particular Brahmas always been full of He’ll. He’ll probably hold up loading for an hour — not to mention tearing the van apart — if I dont shoot him first.

That went right by me. Shoot him? Just for raising a little He’ll? That didn’t sound like Russ — but probably he was pulling my leg, I thought. So, O.K., I’d go along with the gag. Shoot a bull, indeed.

We wont have time now, Russ said, but I’ll fix you up with some Western clothes later. Youre not exactly dressed for riding.

That’s because I’m not exactly about to go riding. You know how I feel about —

Dont be silly. 1ll let you ride Vixen. Vixen, ha —

Because she really is the most easy-going mare on the ranch, Shell. If six-year-old girls can handle her —  I dont care if two-year-old —   — and we can’t go out there in a car. Come on. I scowled. Russ knew very well — because he was present when it happened — that the first time I got on a horse I wound up looking at his tail. How come? How in He’ll do I know? The damn horse tricked me, that’s all. But Russ insisted this was the only way, and in another couple of minutes we were at the stables again looking at two black horses, side by side in adjacent stalls.

They looked just alike, both glossy black, except that the one on my left had a white patch or blaze on it’s nose. I started to pat the all-black one on my right, just to show I was a friend, and Russ cried, Dont touch him, Shell. He’s just mean enough to bite your hand off.

I turned and grinned at Russ. Knowing how I am about horses, he was always kidding me. Then, CLOP! I felt the hot slobber and steamy breath on my fingers. That goddamned horse had tried to bite my hand off!

I leaped a couple yards backwards, staggered, kept my balance. Russ was laughing, slapping one skinny thigh. I should have warned you sooner, he said. I’m going back to the hotel —

He wont hurt you if you stay away from him, Shell. I’ll stay away from him all right. I’ll stay so far away —  That’s Diablo, Vixens brother. This is Vixen, the one youll ride.

The He’ll with Vixen, too. Very funny. I’ll ride Vixen if you stick your hand in Diablos mouth.

Oh, come on, Shell, youre not afraid of horses.

Who says I’m not?

Diablo was looking right at me. Trying to hypnotize me. He laid his ears back, snorted and bobbed about menacingly, rolling his red eyes and baring his huge, sharp, white choppers. Why dont you call him White Fang? I asked Russ. How many people has he eaten?

He chuckled, having a fine time. Hasn’t eaten anybody. But nobody rides this one — nobody can. Some have tried, some cripples. Cripples? Before or . . .

After trying to ride him, of course. Last one, Diablo tossed him and stepped on him and then kicked him in the head. Didn’t kill the man, but he’s never been quite right since.

That’s odd. Why do you keep the assassin around? Why dont you break his leg and shoot him?

He’s got wonderful blood; too valuable not to utilize; good stock. I keep him for stud.

A dirty trick to play on a mare, I thought. But we jawed a little while longer, and finally Russ got me up on Vixen. It turned out to be easy; nothing to it after all. Russ mounted a gray gelding and we walked the horses to one end of the stables, where he went inside a small office. I saw him take a rifle from pegs on the wall, then grab a box which apparently contained cartridges. He mounted the gelding again, put the box in a saddlebag and slipped the rifle into it’s scabbard. It gave me a peculiar feeling. Maybe he really was going to shoot that bull. But then I grinned: the phrase shoot the bull was the tipoff. Some kind of gag.

We headed away from the ranch, going north, first walking and then trotting. I did pretty well, except that I bounced a lot, and most of the time when I was coming down the horse was going up. After twenty minutes of this the thirty-three vertebrae I’d started out with were trying for sixty-six, but then we reached a rough wooden corral at the base of a low hill. Half a dozen lean men were near the corral apparently repairing part of it. A big enclosed truck was backed up against a wooden ramp that slanted down inside the corral. Russ dismounted, talked to a couple of the men. They pointed, and he climbed onto the gelding again.

Come on, he said.

We galloped off — that is, he galloped and I trotted — about a quarter of a mile and reached a group of perhaps twenty cows and one enormous black bull with wicked-looking horns, a big hump above his shoulders and a lot of loose skin dangling under his chops.

There’s the devil, Russ said. Boys had him in the corral but he busted right through that tough mesquite wood. Strong as a . . . bull.

No kidding, I said.

Boys started fixing the corral and sent word to me. Russ pulled the rifle from it’s scabbard, got the ammo box and took some kind of slug from it, loaded the rifle and snapped it to his shoulder, aiming at the bull.

Russ, I said aghast. Dont —

Then the gun went spah. Almost no noise at all.

I didn’t speak, just stared wide-eyed at the bull, waiting for him to fall over. But he didn’t. Instead he wheeled around and glared at us — much in the manner of Diablo — squirting air out of his big snorty nostrils and banging the ground with a massive hoof.

After a few minutes Russ said, He’ll calm down pretty quick.

I should hope so, with a rifle slug in him.

Russ glanced at me, and really seemed surprised. He raised his eyebrows, and then showed his crooked teeth in a grin. He’ll, you didn’t think I shot him, did you?

Unless something is wrong with both my ears and eyes —

Here. Russ tossed the rifle at me and I caught it, then caught the box of cartridges which followed it through the air. The gun looked normal enough on first glance; it was a plain old pump-action rifle — I thought.

But the bullets were goofy little items about the size of a .30- .30 cartridge, with a tuft of feathery stuff at one end and a big ugly hollow-pointed needle sticking out of the other.

Keep forgetting youre a city boy, Shell. Russ was saying. This is a well-established technique in the cattle industry now. This heres a gas-powered gun — you pump it, like a BB gun — and we dont use bullets; but darts filled with drugs or tranquilizers — whatevers required.

The He’ll you say.

Yep, I do. A lot of ranchers shoot their cattle with serums or drugs or hormones. Like stilbestrol, say — a hormone, stimulates growth, fattens the cows up faster — which brings the rancher a fatter price in the market. I dont do it, since people will be eating the meat, which might have traces of stilbestrol still in it. But we do use the tranquilizer-filled cartridges — little plastic syringes, actually — once in a while, especially when shipping the bulls. Like now.

I smiled. That’s what you shot the bull with? One of these little rockets filled with a tranquilizer?

Yep. That wild bull now has a good 10 c.c.s of meprobamate, circulating wildly in his bloodstream.

Well, he doesnt look so wild, I said. He didn’t. He had been furiously pawing the earth; but now he was merely patting it occasionally. He opened his mouth and let out a noise, not the savage bellow of before, but something much more like a moo.

Thatll fix him, Russ said. He turned in his saddle, waved a hand at the men by the corral, and added, Boys wont have any trouble with him now. Come on, I’ll show you where the girl was killed. Or died, he added.

The spot was about two miles from the ranch, on a well-worn path beaten into the earth by hundreds of hooves. A yard off the path near a stunted, crooked-branched mesquite tree, was a jagged rock, little more than a foot in diameter. Still visible on it was a dark stain.

There it is, Russ said.

Uh-huh. Only rock for twenty yards on either side. Pretty bad luck for her to fall in that exact spot.

If she fell. He’ll, she was a pretty good rider to begin with. And I’ve told you about Vixen.

Yeah. Shes Diablos sister?

Right. Only difference in them is that white blaze on Vixens forehead. That and their temperament. And sex, of course.

Of course. Vixen had certainly been mild enough while I’d been on her. I clambered to the ground and looked around for a few minutes, but there was nothing to see. Investigators — and then curious guests — had tramped all over the area since the accident, anyway, so I hadn’t really expected to find anything.

O.K? Russ asked. I nodded, and he said, Lets go then. Youll give the place a bad name wearing those clothes, you know. I’ll get you some sensible duds when we get back to the hotel.

When we did get back to the hotel the sheriffs men had arrived. There wasn’t  much to it, surprisingly. I spent twenty minutes with one of the deputies — a heavy, sloppy-looking man of about fifty, who needed a shave and probably wouldnt have been ruined by a bath — going over my story and writing out a statement. I’d half expected to be taken to the sheriffs office for further questioning, but the deputy merely said he’d check with Los Angeles — and Captain Samson in Homicide there, whose name I gave him — and I’d hear from him again. It helped that Karl Hooper was known to have a record as long as an orangutans arm.

The deputy had also been out here on the Jeanne Blair death. I asked him and another sheriffs investigator about their findings, but they had no more than I did; shed fallen off a horse, so what? Yeah, I agreed mildly, so what?

A few minutes after five p.m., then, I was installed in one of the two fifty-buck-a-day suites, the Phoenix. Russ had told me a man named Simon Everett was in the other, the Tucson — and also that he was one of the three hard-looking men who had been at the Sun and Sage for nearly a year; the other two were Thad Gray — or my buddy, Tay Green — and somebody whose name I didn’t recognize, but whose description sounded suspiciously like Farmer. That I intended to check later, but at the moment I was admiring myself in the bedrooms full-length mirror. Russ had provided me with a whole closet-full of sensible clothes, and I was now almost as pretty as the hotels desk clerk.

I wore a fawn-colored shirt and trousers, a wide heavily-tooled belt with big silver buckle, yellow-silk bandanna around my neck and with the ends pulled through a silver gadget which resembled a hollow cow skull: on my feet were white cowboy boots, and a white Stetson was on my head. I looked ridiculous. But this was the way almost everybody dressed up here, and unless I went along with custom I would — like the girl wearing a bikini bottom in the nudist camp — be the object of all eyes. And I was already the object of more eyes than I liked. So a cowboy I was.

My suite was very comfortable — spacious living room with a small wood-burning fireplace, two couches and a couple of massive rough-wood chairs; bedroom with king-sized bed, dresser, big closet; bathroom with both bath and shower; and off the living room a small patio or Western lanai, enclosed by crooked mesquite-wood fencing. There were two ivory-colored phones, one in the bedroom and one in the living room, each equipped with a twenty-five-foot cord so guests could converse on the phone while wandering about the suite, sitting outside, or even, should one so desire, while in the john — talk about class. And it was all free, part of my vacation.

I put on my gun harness, including the fully loaded Colt Special, then slipped an ivory-colored jacket of soft tanned leather over my shoulders, hiding the gun. I felt like a drink or two. Besides, Delise, April, Choo Choo, and Zia were supposed to meet me in the bar about six.

And before I could face those gals in this outfit, I had to have a drink.

chapter six

The two wings of the Sun and Sage stretched out to the north and south, so the first rays of the rising sun would fall on the hotels face, and the two wings were referred to, not surprisingly, as the North Wing and the South Wing.

In the South Wing, besides rooms on part of the lower and all the upper floor, were the main portion of the lobby, the card and game room, and a dining room the guests could use when they werent eating outside at tables fronting the hotel, or around the pool — or at one of the nightly barbecues held near another building called the Cactus Corral. In the North Wing was the Sun and Sage Saloon, a cocktail lounge with all the comforts of a Sunset Boulevard bar, but done in a determinedly Western decor.

My suite was about fifty yards from the hotel building, opposite the end of it’s North Wing, and I walked along a curving path, headed for the bar. The sun was low, and the air was tangy with the ever-present, slightly bitter aroma of sage. This was sure a pleasant, peaceful hunk of desert, I thought — or it could be. But at one of the tables before the hotel sat three men. Two of them I didn’t know, but the third man I not only knew, I wasn’t  likely to forget.

His name was Dodo. At least that’s what he was called; I never had known his real name. He was a hood, of course, one of the musclemen whod muscled me. Formerly one of Jules Garbin’s boys. I was starting to wonder if maybe he was one of Hal Calvvin’s boys now. I had been developing some interesting ideas about Hal.

Before going into the hotel I walked up to the table where the three men were sitting, stopped there and said, Hello, Dodo.

Slowly he lifted his head and squinted up at me.

I waited. This would take a while.

As you may have guessed from his name, Dodo was not considered an intellectual Superman. His eyes and general expression conveyed all the gayety and brilliance of a great auk, which is a pretty dumb bird. In fact, it’s extinct. He was a great, hulking auk, about six-four and 250 or 260 pounds, more than a little of which was fat. Even so, he was strong enough to rip safes single-handed, with a little help from his teeth and toenails. His face was faded and pasty because Dodo was a man who didn’t like the sun; and he was always squinting when I saw him in daylight.

He squinted at me. His eyes focused. The message started back toward his brain. Now we were getting somewhere. I had often wondered if there were something drastically wrong with Dodos nervous network, or was it simply that he had a microscopic brain which the nerve impulses occasionally missed entirely. Or possibly, he was a Twentieth Century diplodocus.

One of the brainy writers on the brain tells us that the diplodocus, a prehistoric monster which had a tail thirty feet long, was very sluggish in it’s reactions, especially on cold mornings. Why, when the frost was on the ground a toothy creature could sneak up and bite a hunk out of the dips tail, and be off in the distance having breakfast before the message reached the diplodocus brain and he got his head turned around.

Well, Dodo said. Finally.

You see how much thinking I was able to do before Dodo said something? This isnt to say I’m a speedy thinker — or even that what I was doing was very exciting thinking — but you should now have Dodo pretty well pegged.

Scott! he went on. And then Well —  To which he added a pithy noun, one falling into the same broad category as natural fertilizer. Yeah, he said, Scott.

You got it, I told him. Is Hal around? Harold Calvin? Handsome Hal?

He squinted. Who wants to know?

I shrugged. Skip it. The Hell with it. I hadn’t expected any really vital clues, since Dodo rarely had much to say. By the time he thought of something, the conversation was over.

I waved and headed for the lobby — not, however, before getting a good look at the chops of the two men sitting with Dodo. I hadn’t seen these particular cousins before; but I was well-acquainted with the family.

I walked into the lobby, refrained from blowing a kiss to the desk clerk when he smiled at me, and walked ahead to the swinging-door entrance to the saloon. I peeked inside, but the guy I was looking for — Hal — wasn’t  there, so I checked the card room, then went outside to the swimming pool. That’s where I found him.

He was in swim trunks, sprawled on a chaise longue near the water, talking to three guys standing next to him. This soon after seeing Dodo, my reaction was just the same as it used to be when I had seen Hal with Jules Garbin. Man, I thought, what a contrast.

He was a big sonofagun, with hellishly broad shoulders, well-muscled chest, a weight-lifters corded stomach. He saw me walking toward the group, raised up on an elbow and waved one hand lazily, saying something to the men with him and then giving me a big white grin.

I waved back, looking at the three other men. One of them turned immediately and walked away, a short stocky guy with a gray crew-cut and bristly black mustache, wearing big Hollywood-star-type dark glasses. There was something familiar about him, but I couldnt place him. Of the other two, one was a stranger, and the other I knew too well. The stranger was a husky, medium-sized guy with a pink scalp and face like a fish. I’d never seen him before, I was sure. But the fourth man was Tay Green.

Hal got easily to his feet, moving as he always did, with a healthy animal grace, the impression of controlled power. Grinning, he stuck out his hand, and as I grabbed it he said, Either youve grown or I’ve shrunk, Scott. Either way, I dont like it.

Neither way, I said. Elevator boots. I lifted one foot to show him.

Ah, he said, looking me up and down, and me in my stocky feet. Aint you pretty?

Tay Green, still standing next to us, said one foul word. I turned slowly and looked at him. As always, looking into his eyes gave me mental goose-bumps. Because Green had the eyes of a professional killer, which of course he was. Maybe a murderers eyes are the same as anybodys elses, maybe nothing changes in them — but I dont believe it. You ask me, something dies in those eyes. Greens were like polished chips from a tombstone, just as hard, just as lifeless. Above them were sparse brows, his face was thin and white, and on both cheeks were even whiter marks, as if he’d had an infection or little wounds there and picked off the scabs. He should have carried a little scythe in a shoulder holster and an hourglass in his hand. I couldnt stand him, and vice versa. And we both knew the bastard had tried to kill me in Los Angeles. At least, I thought he had; he knew.

I said, Why dont you go haunt somebody else, Green?

A burning cigarette, smoked almost down to the filter, was stuck in one corner of his small mouth. I’d rather stay here and let you scare me to death, he said softly. He always spoke in a half-whisper, the way people speak at somebodys funeral. But then, he was usually on his way to somebodys funeral.

He glanced at Hal, then shrugged . . . Come on, Pete, he said to the fish-faced guy, and they walked off.

Squat a spell, Hal said, sprawling again on the chaise. I sat on the end of it as he went on, That Green is a caution. He’d sure like to kill you, wouldnt he?

Acts like it. But I’ve never seen him act any other way. I paused, remembering reading of the death, only last Monday, of Hals wife, the former Letitia Garbin, and went on, Hal, I can tell youre in mourning, all choked up.

He dropped his wavy blond head back on the cushion. You mean Letty? Well, it’s too bad, sure. Kind of got me for a few hours, when I dashed home for the funeral. But whatre you going to do? Life belongs to the living. Got to keep your eye on the eagle, never look back — like Satchell said, Somethin may be gainin on you. Dad, I aim to keep way out in front of It.

I shook my head. This Hal Calvin never ceased to amaze me. He was utterly callous, completely dishonest, a seven-hundred-percent bastard. But he could be just as charming as he wanted to be, whenever he wanted to be. He was intelligent, even brilliant, and I’d heard him say things nobody else ever even thought of. His conversation was often crude or vulgar, but never profane, never the filth common among hoodlums. And there was no question: He was a hoodlum. He might help an old gal across a street — or shove her under a truck if there was a chance he could collect her insurance.

Hal was that rarity of the criminal class, a gifted confidence man who had also worked the heavy, a man born with a silver spoof in his mouth and an embryo sap in his hand. And born, sadly enough, with something missing. He had put the slug on trembling victims of extortion; and he could charm a banker out of his roll or a maiden out of her pants, both of which activities he had engaged in on occasions too numerous to mention. And he might very well have been the guy who sent those two gunmen out to the gate today, to kill me.

I said, You hear about the cat shooting at me when I got here today? And missing?

Missed you, eh? Must have been an exhilarating experience. As Winnie Churchill once said, Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result. You fortunate devil, what a gay life —

You heard about the fuss then?

As who hasn’t? Where there’s fuss there’s fuzz, and one of the fuzz even braced me — whereupon I got lockjaw. He’ll, for all I know the guy you pooped might have been a friend of mine. He grinned, delighted.

He was, you bastard, I said.

Most likely. May the flowers bloom —  He stopped, grimaced suddenly, pressed a hand against his stomach.

I said, That old ulcer still riding you, Hal?

He grunted. Just digging in his wee spurs.

Maybe youve got a conscience hidden away somewhere after all. You look like the last man in the world to have a bleeding ulcer.

He winced again. Please do not say bleeding. An ulcer sounds rather refined, an almost shining thing. But a bleeding ulcer — besides, it isnt conscience. A sick M.D., who should have been practicing on himself, told me I would have to give up booze or become attached to my ulcer. And who would give up booze?

Who indeed?

Not me. When I drink, Scott, I think intriguing thoughts, which even I cannot answer — and if you want to know, that’s what gave me my attached ulcer. Straining my gut for answers to such vital questions as: Do armadillos mate? And if so, how? And if so, why? Or: Is there free will? Does the dancer move the G-string, or does the G-string move the dancer? Or: What if we could feel the bacteria biting? Or: —

There was no telling how long he might have kept that up, or into what weird fields he might have strayed, if I hadn’t interrupted him. So I interrupted him. Or: How well did you know Jeanne Blair?

He raised his head. Who?

Jeanne Blair.

Youve got me. Am I supposed to know her?

The gal who got killed last Sunday.

Oh, her. Jeanne. Yeah, I met her. Met all five of those — wow! The gals making the movie, I mean. What in He’ll kind of movie they making?

I didn’t tell him. If I knew Hal, he’d go right out there and get in the picture. You didn’t know her well, then?

Nope, Scott. Not well enough. Just Hello, my love, and such. And the Continental touch: Dont be frightened, it’s only a man’s appurtenance. She always said No. Even when I said, Lets get married afterward, and I can tell youve been deeply hurt, and even I can tell youve never been deeply hurt —

Oh, shut up, I said.

I got to my feet. The only reason I’d asked him about Jeanne in the first place was because if she hadn’t died a very natural accidental death, it was odd that thered be so many hoods around when she was killed. But I wasn’t  getting anywhere with Hal, which was exactly where I’d expected to get. I knew he would have carried on in the same fashion if he’d wrapped his big hands around her throat and strangled her.

As if reading my mind he said, You think she was knocked off, Scott?

It’s possible.

He’ll, I’ll tell you the truth. I did it. But diabolically. I hypnotized the horse —

He was saying something about, Your ugly eyelids are getting heavy as gobs of lead . . . when I walked away.

chapter seven

I went back into the hotel, and through the swinging half-doors of the saloon. It was twenty minutes before six — twenty minutes before Zia, Choo Choo, April, and Delise — and about a dozen people were already in the long room. Four were at the bar stretching almost the entire length of the wall on my right, and others were at tables and booths on my left. Only one person, an old woman drinking straight whiskey from a shot glass, was not in Western garb.

As I slid onto one of the bar stools and admired myself in the long mirror, I heard the old gal say, Henry, I’ll have another.

There was an old duck with her, and he said, Now, dear, youve had two. Your limit is two. Dont have any —

She cut him off. Henry, I am a little old lady from Pasadena, she said. And I’m sick of it.

I grinned, glanced around. There was nothing excruciatingly original about the furnishings and decor of the saloon, but the room was warm and had a definite Western air. The table tops were glass-covered wagon wheels, and the seats of the bar stools were small leather saddles — minus saddle horns, presumably in deference to the ladies — and the pine-paneled walls were liberally splattered with pictures of cowboys shooting Indians and Indians scalping cowboys and buffalo stampeding and horses bucking and gunfighters gunfighting; not all at once of course, but in separate paintings and prints and etchings. But it was all pretty exciting.

I signaled the tall, thin, sad-faced bartender and said, I’ll have a shot of Redeye.

The bartender stiffened, shuddered, gagged a little — overcome by my originality, I guess — and said quietly, Yes, sir. Anything for a chaser? He smiled like a man dying of tuberculosis. Such as sarsaparilla?

Sorry, I said. It’s the saloon — I suddenly got that wild old Wild West feeling . . . Uh, give me a bourbon and water, pardner.

He smiled, more friendly now, and poured a very healthy slug of Old Crawdad over ice cubes, adding a dollop of water.

Old Crawdad, huh? I said. Never heard of that brand in L.A.

You wont, he said, as I slugged down a good gulp.

It started boiling at my larynx, blistered my gullet, and burst into roaring flame in my stomach. But I wouldnt let it show.

Not ba — ba —  I said. Not bad!

He watched my eyes watering, quivering with delight. Ask for Redeye, will you? he said.

Never again. You win, pard — mister.

Unresisting, I let him take the stuff away and mix me another drink. This one I sipped, sipped again, then had a cooling glug. What was that . . . other? I asked him.

Old Crawdad. I got to have some means of self-defense, working here. All these dudes come in — gimme a shot of Redeye, pardner. Shot o Redeye, shot o Redeye!

Easy.

He calmed down. I fix em.

I know.

I’ve seen false teeth shoot clear out of guys mouths. Why, once I got badly bit, four feet away.

That’s a shame.

He walked down the bar and I worked on my drink. I’d just finished it when I felt a light tap on my shoulder.

I turned and looked into blue eyes hotter than Old Crawdad, at one neatly arched brow lifted questioningly, at smiling red lips. Unable to resist the impulse, and having no intention of resisting anyway, I glanced down at the rest of her. It was covered in uncivilized fashion now, which is to say she was wearing a lot of clothing. At least it seemed like a lot, all of it white and fetching enough — open-collared shirt, skin-tight jeans, white belt and boots. From long chestnut-brown hair to little high-heeled boots, she was a sight for healthy eyes.

April, I said. Hello, hello. Come join me.

Hello, hello yourself. And I will. My, dont you look nice!

Man, that voice went through me like soup through a strainer. Very hot, nutritious soup. Big hat and boots and all, she went on, looking me over.

Thank you, maam, I said. I’m a regular cowboy, all right. Drink Redeye and everything.

I glanced beyond her but shed come in alone. April caught the glance and said, The other girls will be along soon, Shell. We were all going to come in together, but I wanted to talk to you first.

That’s good. That’s great.

It’s not what you think.

How do you know what I think?

I can tell. She smiled gorgeously again. I wanted to talk to you before they joined us. About Jeanne. You mentioned her this afternoon, remember?

I have twenty-twenty memory —

I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others.

Why?

Well, if Jeannes death was an accident, it doesnt make any difference. But the sheriff investigated, you know, and if she was murdered . . . well, I dont think she was, but if she was I can’t afford to get involved in that kind of mess. I’ve already signed the contract for a really marvelous part in a major picture at one of the big studios. I mean a real acting part. I can’t back out, but they could cancel the contract — if there were a big mess, you know. With the police involved and all.

Uh-huh. Well, anything you can tell me about Jeanne, I’d sure like to hear. If it’s possible, I’ll never mention your name — to anybody else, that is.

That’s good enough for me. Besides, this has been on my mind — I havent told anybody else about it yet. She paused and smiled again. Those were sure happy lips. If youll buy me a drink I’ll tell you what there is to tell.

April had a Stinger and I ordered another bourbon and water. After a moment she said, We all got up here Friday, and did a little work Friday, a lot Saturday. Delise and Zia had one room, Choo Choo another, and Jeanne and I were together in a room upstairs. She pointed toward the ceiling. Saturday night, we all went to the barbecue — everybody does — for the steaks and ribs and then the square dancing afterward. I spilled some barbecue sauce on my jeans, so I came back to the room to change. Jeanne came with me, but didn’t come up to our room. She said she wanted a drink, and would meet me here in the saloon when I was ready.

What time was this?

Oh, about nine oclock. Square dancing starts at nine, and I was getting ready to go there.

Uh-huh. So? What then?

Well, I’d just changed when Jeanne came up to the room — and she was a mess. I dont mean she was untidy or anything, it was just that she was white as a sheet, nervous, scared. Like she was in shock almost. I thought she was going to faint or something.

April had another sip of her Stinger and I asked, Did she say what was wrong?

No. Jeanne had a bottle of brandy in the room, and she tossed almost half a glass of it down like water. I asked her what was the matter, but then there was a knock on the door. I started to answer it but Jeanne laughed in the strangest way and said, Never mind, April. It’s for me. And it was. It was a man she knew. All I heard him say was, Come on down to the saloon, honey. Wed better have a little talk. Something like that.

Do you know who the man was?

I didn’t see him. I did hear his voice, and it sounded sort of familiar, but I havent been able to think who it could have been.

We drank silently for a minute, then I asked the bartender who was standing nearby, Were you behind the bar Saturday night?

He nodded.

You saw Jeanne Blair in here a time or two, didn’t you? The girl who got . . . fell off her horse?

The question made him uncomfortable, but he said, I guess so.

I got my wallet out of my fawn-colored pants, showed him the card attesting my legal status as a private investigator — in California, that is — and sneaked a ten-dollar bill out onto the bar. But I was not so sneaky that he failed to notice.

Remember if she was in here last Saturday night? Around nine oclock?

Saturday . . . He thought about it for quite a while.

One week ago, I said. That was the night before she was killed.

He nodded slowly. Yeah, she come in, had a drink and left right away. Brandy Presbyterian, I remember. She was a brandy drinker.

She left right away? Was she with a man — or did she leave and then come back in with a man?

He shook his head. No. I’m sure of that much. Place was empty except for her — Saturdays most everybodys at the barbecue or Cactus Corral. She just tossed down that Brandy Press and took off.

Yeah. Well, thanks. I indicated our empty glasses. Do these again, will you?

He took our glasses, walked away. I said to April, Mustve been somebody she knew. She went with him even though she was shook up about something. You said he called her honey.

And she knew it was for her, too. Not somebody wanting to see me.

Well, who did she know up here? Youve been here a week longer than I have. The only people I know here are guys like Tay Green and Farmer and Dodo. And Harold Calvin — all crooks. Except for Russ Cordiner, that is.

I heard April take in her breath with a gasp.

I turned to look at her. There was an oddly strained expression on her face, and her blue eyes were very wide. That’s who I heard talking to Jeanne. Hal. It was Hal!

That rocked me — for two reasons. The bartender had just put our drinks in front of us and I grabbed mine, gulped a large gulp of it. Because for a second there I’d thought she was referring to Russ Cordiner. Shed said Hal, which was bad enough — but why would she call him Hal instead of Harold Calvin, or Mr. Calvin? And why with such shock?

I waited till the bartender had moved away and said to April, Hal? You mean Harold Calvin? She nodded, and I went on, Did you and Jeanne both meet him here?

No. I . . . went out with him once.

You went — Since youve been here?

No, in Los Angeles. That’s one of the things I was going to tell you, Shell. I knew Jeanne in Hollywood; I’m the only one of the girls here who did — Jeanne and I made a movie together.

Yeah, I know. I grinned. I saw it.

She laughed. Oh-ho, and how did you like it? She turned her head to one side and slanted a sizzling look at me.

Well, they didn’t have to give away dishes to get me in there. What about Hal?

It was Hal and . . . whats his name? The gangster that killed himself?

I closed my eyes. Softly I said, Would you be talking about Jules Garbin?

That’s him, Garbin was his name. Look, Shell, it was like this. Jeanne and I made that film about two years ago, and during shooting and for a few weeks afterwards we lived together in Hollywood. About three months altogether. Jeanne went out with this Mr. Garbin four or five times, and one night she asked me to go along on a double date — that’s when I went out with Hal. She paused. I only went out with him once, in case youre interested.

I’m interested.

I didn’t know Hal was a — crook of some kind. Or that Garbin man, either. Not until there was all that mess in the papers. Golly. Jeannes fellow was married, too.

She made it sound as if that was worse than being a crook of some kind. I said, Did Jeanne know Hal was here at the ranch? Or did she just run into him?

I dont know, Shell. I didn’t even see him until late Sunday afternoon, by the pool.

I’d been so interested in what April was saying that I barely noticed the guy whod climbed onto the stool at my left and said softly, The usual, Clyde. But now I glanced into the mirror at his reflection. It was Pete, the fish-faced guy whod been talking to Hal and Green and that fourth man whod left immediately. I didn’t know if Pete had been here long enough, or near enough, to hear anything April and I had just been saying, but he sure seemed interested in the conversation now. He was staring slightly to his left, as if examining something at that end of the bar, but his right ear was leaning this way.

I started to turn around and brace him, then stopped. Instead, I said to April, Well, enough of that. Lets liven the joint up, have some fun. Wed been speaking in very soft tones, which would have been inaudible a few feet away, but possibly were audible to the guy on my left. So I continued, in the same quiet tone, Watch this. I’m going to spill my drink in this guys lap next to me.

Then I casually lifted my glass and turned, not with any sudden movement — but there was sudden movement from the man next to me. I smiled at his startled face and said, Kicks riding the earie, Gapper?

He looked innocent. I wasn’t  ri —  He cut it off, but too late again. He dug the hoods lingo. And he’d been listening. But it couldnt have been for long. Not long enough, I hoped.

I kept smiling at him, but I guess it was a kind of thin smile. He went out, leaving his unfinished drink on the bar.

I did a little adding in my head, starting with the now dead Karl Hooper. After him, Hal and Green and Pete, and probably that fourth man whod been with them by the pool; Dodo and the two men he’d been sitting with. Farmer somewhere. Seven or eight live ones so far. Plus the second cowboy, unless he was one of the men I’d already seen here at the ranch.

What was that about? April asked me.

A guy with big ears.

She moistened her lips, frowning slightly, but didn’t say anything. After a few seconds she asked, Shell, do you think Jeannes death was really an accident?

No. Not now. I did for a while, but I dont think so any more. I offered her a cigarette and she took one, then I lighted the smokes for us both and went on, That doesnt mean she was murdered. I dont have anything really solid to go on —

Right then something occurred to me, and it was odd I hadn’t considered the peculiar coincidence before. Jeanne had been killed, fairly or foully, on Sunday morning. And I had read about Mrs. Harold Calvvin’s funeral in Wednesday nights paper — shed died in that auto accident on Monday afternoon.

Jeanne on Sunday. Letty on Monday. Letty was Hals wife; and he’d been with frightened Jeanne Saturday night. Which was food, almost indigestion, for thought.

As was something else I now considered, thinking back to the night when Garbin had jumped from the Hollywood-Crown. Jules wasn’t  the only hood who lived there; Hal Calvin lived there, too, among others. And on that night when I’d rushed through the lobby, headed for the mess on Hollywood Boulevard, I’d seen Hal Calvin sitting in one of the lobby chairs. He’d been smiling. At the time I’d wondered why. But now I wondered if perhaps he’d been thinking — even then, two months before their marriage — of Letty.

And I wondered now, too, if when Hal had been told of Lettys death he might have smiled that same kind of smile.

But then came interruption that would derail any train of thought. It was the bubble and hubbub and babble and squeal which in any language or no language means: Women. In this case, three women: blonde Delise, redheaded Choo Choo and black-haired, black-eyed Zia.

Little Zia came in first, stopped a few feet inside the swinging doors as the other two gals came in behind her, pointed an accusing finger at April and cried, There you are. You tricked us!

And an octave higher, Youre a cheater, cricketed Choo Choo.

And Delise said dramatically, April, youve gone back on your own sex.

The He’ll she has, I thought.

But then we were surrounded, all the gals talking at once, accusing each other pleasantly of monstrous things, and accusing me monstrously of pleasant things, and I was ordering drinks for all, including myself, and drinking one highball very rapidly. When the very rafters seemed to be weakening I held up a hand and shouted, Silence!

Boy, I wouldnt do that again. All of a sudden it was as though my ears had fallen off. There wasn’t  a peep out of anybody, even including the other twenty or so customers in the saloon.

Well, somebody say something. I said weakly.

Silence. Except for a faint, I’m lil ol lady fm Pasadena . . .

Go ahead, ah . . . I said. I was only kidding. Lets — I was going to say, why dont we all crowd . . . get into a booth? Wouldnt that be . . . fun?

Squeals and such again. That would be fun; we could see who was talking, have drinks in comfort, get really acquainted; here we are, wholl sit where, yak, yak, yak.

We got seated in the booth eventually, however. Zia on my left and April on my right; Delise across from Zia and Choo Choo next to her. I had drinks sent over and told the waitress who had arrived at six, to keep filling the glasses when they got empty.

About three minutes went by, and occasionally I’d say, Well —  or But —  or, If you want to know what I think —  But that was as far as I ever got. Blah, blah, blah, yakkety, blah. Finally the absolute essentials had been covered, and the girls were up to date on all their most recent activities such as pleats, pincurls, pains, cosmic thoughts, exciting developments — theyd been separated a whole hour — and Choo Choo, at last, looked directly at me, and spoke directly to me.

Shell, how do you think I look?

She was wearing a cute little white hat with a shallow flat crown and wide stiff brim, a cord from it looped under her shapely chin; a white nylon blouse and pale-blue man’s necktie; pale-blue skirt and soft white calf boots which I’d noticed when shed been standing next to the bar on her shapely feet.

How do you like me in a cowgirl outfit? she continued.

Well, it makes you look a lot more girl than cow. It was the first whole sentence I’d manipulated, and not the happiest possible choice.

Choo Choo blinked her brown eyes, and fashioned a small O of her mouth. I hate you, she said.

Arrgh, I thought. These babes were going to drive me nuts. And I could hardly wait. Women. Who needs them? Choo Choo, I said, thinking rapidly. Choo Choo.

Well, that’s better, she said, mollified. I thought maybe you didn’t like the way I look.

Ah, Choo Choo, I said sincerely. It sounded as if I were sneezing, but the little dear beamed happily at me. That’s the nutty thing about women: it doesnt make any damn difference what you say, they hear what they want to. Or maybe they tune in on your thoughts, which is frightening, but probably the truth.

This shapely redhead was, however, in comparison with the other three gals, just a wee bit heavier, carrying perhaps one additional quarter-ounce of weight per inch of height — the little bit extra that women, despite the protests of more sensible men, are always trying to take off. So, to make sure the wound was healed, I said, Stated with more clarity, you look delicious, divine, scrumptious. Why, you look almost as good right now as you — woops.

But she understood; I was forgiven. However, in order to bring back the rapport with the other babes, which naturally had been diminishing for the last half-minute, I had to tell them how much better each of them looked than anybody else. Fortunately, it was true of each in her own fashion, and therefore easy.

Zia, on my left, was dressed all in black — a riding habit of black shirt, flared pants, and gleaming black boots. April, all in white, I had already examined minutely. But Delise was, in a way, the most eye-catching gal in the area at the moment. The reason was that the tall, slim, super-busty blonde, had not climbed into Western garb, but had instead chosen a simple cotton dress, yellow with a small checked pattern, a bulgingly low neckline that was a sort of decolleté scoop, and shoulder straps so thin that they could not by any stretch of imagination be shouldering the burden they apparently bore. Though, really, it could hardly have been considered a burden.

Delise had the face of a magazine model, high cheekbones, little hollows in her cheeks as if she consciously sucked them in, as maybe she did, and her eyes were the deep dark-green of moss in shadow. She had full, moist lips that looked as if theyd just been kissed by a caveman — and enjoyed it. She was the oldest of the four girls, I guessed — maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine — though she might have been a few years older. Or a lot younger.

The conversation became almost normal for a while. I had to explain again about the dead man whod appeared on my horse, and I asked several questions about Jeanne Blair. The answers were of no value to me, except in a negative way. I gathered that only April bad known Jeanne before; the other three had met her for the first time when filming began on The Wild West — that was one of the exciting things I learned: When the name of the movie was in print, wild was printed bigger for emphasis. Which made a lot of sense, I thought.

I also learned that the levitating boulder was just a hollow old rock from the special-effects department of one of the Hollywood studios; Ed Finch had brought it along because they needed a boulder near the water, so the girls could take off their clothes behind it and run to the water without making a hundred-yard dash out of it, though it seemed to me Ed was missing a pretty good thing there.

The girls also brought me babbily up to date on all the news and gossip. There was a nice outdoor barbecue here every night, but on Saturday nights, one of which this was, there was a square dance in the Cactus Corral, which according to Zia was too much! I promised them I’d be at the square dance, if I lived, in return for their individual promises to save me a dance, something slow and uncomplicated, preferably one in which you didn’t dance three feet away from your partner as if preparing to go somewhere else. And tomorrow, Sunday, there was a rodeo to be held here, a real Big Rodeo with horses and bulls and cowboys and everything, and they only held one here about once every two months, and the girls were just sick because theyd miss it — Ed would go absolutely fruit if he didn’t finish the movies final scene tomorrow, so theyd have to work, but they were just sick about it. And theyd miss tomorrows special barbecue after the rodeo — at the Running M, another dude ranch twenty miles away — with champagne and everything.

A couple of the girls had finished their drinks — I couldnt see how, since they hadn’t shut their mouths for three seconds running — so I looked around for the waitress. I saw something else: Pete. The solidly built, fish-faced guy whod been so briefly next to me at the bar, was back, sitting on a bar stool now, staring at me. That wasn’t  all. Just inside the saloons swinging doors were two large, unpleasant citizens.

One of them youve met: Dodo, the Twentieth Century diplodocus. The other was the mugg called Farmer. I had, of course, met both of them — along with Karl Hooper — in that mens washroom.

April said softly, Is something wrong, Shell?

I dont think . . . As I spoke the fish-faced guy slid off his stool and started toward our table. So I added, Maybe. You girls sit tight.

I certainly didn’t want any trouble, not in here, and especially not with these four lovelies nearby. But I didn’t expect any real trouble. At least not right then, simply because it seemed a fool play from the point of view of the three men, and of no possible advantage to them so far as I could see.

The husky guy stopped next to our booth and looked at the girls, then at me. I been thinking about you there at the bar, he said. You and your big mouth.

It jarred me. His voice was hard, belligerent; I hadn’t expected the tough-man approach. I didn’t say anything.

He looked at the girls again. Besides, you got too many sweet twists here for one fink. Dont seem right.

I felt my jaw muscles bulging, muscles in my forearms tightening involuntarily. But I didn’t move. Quietly I said, Maybe youve had one too many, friend. I would suggest, politely, that you go back to the bar.

Politely, he said. Hey, that’s what I like. Yeah, lets have a lot of politeness. Farmer and Dodo were walking across the room now. It looked as if it was going to happen. I couldnt figure why; it still didn’t make a damn bit of sense.

I turned to April and whispered, Listen, if there’s trouble, you gals stay the He’ll out of the way. And you and the others get out of here if you can.

But —

Dont argue, dammit. Do it!

Her face was pale, except for little spots of pink in each cheek.

Farmer and Dodo stopped a yard from the other man. Whatsa matter, Pete? Farmer said. Having trouble?

Nah, Pete said. We got a polite one here.

Farmer grinned at me. Lo, Scott, he said pleasantly.

He was a lanky, rawboned hayseed who really had been raised on a farm. He might still have been milking cows, instead of people, but in his teens he’d gotten involved with city slickers and discovered there was more to life than manure and plowing. His speciality was acting as front man, and casing joints before robberies and such, since he didn’t look dangerous or deadly at all. He was, though.

I didn’t answer him. I looked at Dodo. There was something . . . Something I could sense, feel in the air. It brushed the hair on the back of my neck, rippled slowly up my spine. And I did not like it at all.

Pete, the fish-faced hard guy, leaned toward Delise, stared deliberately down at the low front of her dress, and said, Why dont you and me take a walk, baby? His right hand was flat on the table, next to Zias half-filled drink. I could see the scars on his knuckles; the knuckle of his little finger had been broken and bulged like a bony growth higher than the rest. Probably an ex-pug.

He went on speaking to Delise, Lets cut out, Chickie. I got crazy plans for us.

She looked at me, fright in her green eyes. Shell, arent you going to —

Shut up.

She took a long look at my face, and swallowed.

I said to Pete, I’ll ask you once more —

His right hand moved, deliberately toppled the drink in front of Zia. It spilled off the table into her lap.

Well, it was going to happen.

chapter eight

As the drink spilled into her lap, Zia said Oh, in a very small voice, but didn’t move.

I jerked my head — and Farmer said easily, Dont try it, Scott. Dont jump us.

Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut. Because in that moment I got it, knew what was happening. It was a certainly as solid in my thoughts as a stone. This wasn’t  going to be just a barroom brawl. It was supposed to be murder.

It could happen. There are a lot of ways to kill a man in a barroom brawl. When he’s down, the toe of a shoe driven against the temple, splintering the fine bones; stiff fingers jammed into the right spot, the side of an open hand slammed into throat, back of neck, kidneys . . . dozens of ways. And in a spontaneous brawl it wouldnt be first-degree murder; it would be simple manslaughter, third degree, an easy rap.

I’ll ask you once more, I said slowly. Blow. Vanish. I’ll ask you — politely, if you like. Drop it now; pick it up later if you want it, but drop it now.

Pete said mildly to me, Bag your head, punk, then glanced at Zia. Say, sorry I spilled the drink on you, honey. Then he reached toward her and began mopping at the black riding pants. Not with a handkerchief or napkin, but with his scarred, big-knuckled hand.

That was it.

Zia turned her head to one side, eyes tightly shut, teeth pressed into her lower lip.

There was that cottony feeling in my mouth. I ran my tongue over my lips, but they stayed dry. I was just about to pop out through the top of my skull, and I fought to hold the anger down, keep anger from jumbling my thoughts.

Zia, I said. Slide over, honey, and let me out, will you? I felt her move beside me — and then it came, the anger lessened, and a chill settled over me, falling from brain and face down over my skin. It was a real, physical chilling, and I got quite cold.

Zia was standing beside the booth, both hands clenched before her. I slid to my left, got slowly up out of the booth, my back almost square to the three men. I was pretty sure they were going to let me get in the first punch, start the fight. Well, if I did get the first punch, I meant to make it a good one.

The fish-faced sonofabitch was right behind me, and he was the one I wanted right now. So as I straightened up, before turning around, I said, primarily so they would listen to the sound of my voice, turn at least part of their attention to the sound, Pete, I tried to ask you politely —

But by this I was turning, feet planted, left foot pulled back so there was plenty of freedom for body movement as I turned, and I turned fast. I hadn’t straightened all the way up, but as I turned I straightened, shoving with all the strength in my thighs and calves, jerking my shoulders around, uncorking my coiled right arm and slamming my fist up and out toward Petes face.

Everything was right. Weight shift, timing, direction — as if Pete had unconsciously placed his chin in the precise spot where my fist would arrive with maximum effectiveness, and when my knuckles landed on the point of his chin the sound must have been heard in the hotels South Wing. I felt the skin over my knuckles split. The jar sent pain clear up into the joint of my shoulder. But by then Pete was feeling no pain.

His head snapped up and back, then bounced forward, flopping to one side as he sailed away from me, slammed into an empty chair, crashed against the floor. He rolled over once and lay still.

I’d hit him so hard I was off balance, and the damned cowboy boots made it difficult to get my feet planted under me again. It probably wouldnt have made any difference, because Dodo was all set, anyway. He was right in front of me, in a slight crouch, knees bent I caught my balance, started to shift my weight — not in time. Dodos big fist snapped two feet through the air and smacked into my face.

I managed to jerk my head aside but not far enough. His fist caught me on the side of the jaw, just under my left ear. That almost ended it; a solid blow would have ended it for sure. The blow threw me backward and my hips jarred against the tables edge. I went clear back on the table top, hearing the sound of glasses breaking, screams from the girls.

Still on my back, I saw Dodo move toward me, hands reaching. I pulled my legs up and kicked at his face. The heels of my boots caught him on the forehead. The skin ripped. He staggered back a step or two, still on his feet but with blood streaming down into both eyes. I scrambled off the table top, slipped and stumbled to one knee. Dimly, as if from a distance, I could hear people in the bar yelling. Farmer was a yard away, stepping toward me, right leg swinging.

I grabbed at his foot, slowed it, but the toe of his boot dug into my chest. Then I had my feet under me, stood up fast, hanging onto Farmers leg, yanked it up as high as I could. He fell, head smacking the floor. He was turned sideways before me, and as he started to get up I stepped over him, raised my left arm, hand opened and thumb pulled as far from the fingers as I could stretch it, tightening the ridge of muscle on the outer edge of my palm, then swung toward him and down, hacked my palms edge against the back of his skull.

It was a blow that could have killed him. A little lower and it would have for sure. Whether it did or not, I couldnt take time to tell. Dodo came out of nowhere, beefy fist slamming into my chest. He yelled suddenly and at the same moment I felt the jarring pain — under my holstered gun. Dodo grabbed the knuckles of his right fist, then let go and swept fingers over his eyes, raking at the blood.

But that gave me time. I got my right shoulder and right leg shoving at the same time, landed one on his left eye, then a left on his mouth. He didn’t go down, swung, caught my ear with his left hand. But he couldnt see well now. And I could almost leisurely pick my spots.

It was like hammering a spike. You smack it and it goes down an inch, then another inch, and another. I must have hit Dodo ten more times, and the last time he was on his knees. I gave the last blow every ounce of strength I had, caught the side of his jaw, and he sprawled face down on the floor. Finally.

I stood in the silent room, and felt my arms drop of their own weight. I was suddenly, in that instant, extremely tired. My knees shook slightly, and pain started throbbing in my chest, skull, the side of my face.

I looked around. Ten or twelve people were still in the room, but theyd moved clear over against the walls. Except for one couple five or six yards away at a table. It was the old duck and the little shot-belting lady.

It was horribly silent. Then the little lady spoke in a shrill, completely sober voice. Henry, take me back to Pasadena.

That broke the tension. I looked at the mess around me. The three men lay still. Dodos face was turned toward me, and it didn’t look very good. But it looked better than mine had after that washroom party.

I stooped down by Farmer, felt his pulse. It still wiggled, even if he didn’t. So Farmer wasn’t  dead.

I got up, turned to the girls, who were still in the booth — jammed close to the wall. Lets get the He’ll out of here, I said. But there was a pause in the middle of the sentence, while I got enough breath in my lungs to finish it.

Then moved, trancelike. All four of them slowly got out of the booth.

Delise, near me, put a hand on my arm. I’m . . . sorry, Shell, she said slowly.

Huh? I didn’t know what she was getting at. Sorry?

Yes. For a minute there, I — I thought you were afraid of them.

I managed a grin. Dont kid yourself, I told her. I was.

We headed for the swinging doors, then I stopped and looked at the bartender. When my friends come to, I said, they may want a drink. If they do, put it on my tab, will you?

A true telepath, he nodded, lifted up the bottle of Old Crawdad, and grinned. I grinned back, then turned to the girls, and we went out.

chapter nine

At eight p.m. I was still alive, but my muscles were stiffening in a kind of friendly rigor mortis. I’d soaked in a hot tub, changed into clean clothes identical with the ones I’d been wearing before, and tossed down a shot of brandy.

There were no more repairs I could make, and at least my face hadn’t been badly marked up — not that it made a lot of difference — so I put on the calfskin jacket to conceal my gun, and went out into the Wild West again.

An insistent commotion in my stomach reminded me that I’d had nothing to eat since early this morning. And I’d used up a lot of calories a little while ago. So it was me for the barbecue. Then, maybe, a whirl, or buck and wing, or whatever activity people engage in at square dances, though I’d confessed to the girls that I wouldnt have the faintest notion of what step to make or foot to kick. They would show me, theyd said.

So far, those gals were all that had saved this trip from total catastrophe. But they stuck closer together than was normal, certainly than was fair. They were going to the barbecue together, to the dance together, and — I got the impression — to bed together, which was certainly a sickening impression.

There was already a lot of activity around the two big stone barbecue pits, maybe a hundred colorfully costumed people milling about, steaks sizzling over glowing charcoal on the grills, three ancient musicians playing a couple of fiddles and a banjo. Usually I go for Les Baxter, Latin rhythms, and mood music with low screams in it, that sort of thing, but this rickety-ticky music was a lot of fun, peppy and crammed with rustic bounce. I liked it. Plenty of hayseed in the city boy, I guess.

I found Russ near one of the barbecues and we talked for several minutes. He had, naturally, heard about the wreckage in the saloon, and I told him what had happened, suggesting he add damages to injury by including repair costs on the bills of Farmer, Dodo, and Pete.

He nodded dumbly and said, Whats happening here, Shell?

I wish to He’ll I knew.

Something sure was, but exactly what? I saw Hal Calvin walking alone toward one of the long tables set up for diners. As usual, the guy had lied to me — about Jeanne Blair, at least, and April, too. I couldnt figure him. But, then, I never had been able to.

Gradually, though, and without any proof yet, I had become convinced that Hal had neatly taken over what had once been Jules Garbin’s collection of thieves, muscle men, and torpedoes. But that was only a part of it, and I had to admire even while I deplored.

Take a look. A year and a half ago, maybe a little more, Harold Calvin had been a relatively minor hood, even though second-in-command to Garbin. Then I’d seen Garbin crash through a window and smashed on pavement, and I’d seen Hal Calvin smiling. Two months later Hal was married to Letty — who, it should be considered, was Jules Garbin’s widow, the lady who inherited all. Nine months after that, the lady was dead. Which meant — in the natural order of such things — Hal Calvin would inherit from the lady.

What it boiled down to was that Handsome Hal Calvin, sometimes called Hal the Bastard, was literally and figuratively Jules Garbin’s heir. From next to nothing approximately a year and a half ago, to a millionaire today. Head of a criminal complex, not a very big or impressive one as such things go, but head of it nonetheless — and possessor of houses, lands and cash-money totalling at least two or three million dollars.

Not bad. But none of it told me whether Jeanne Blair had been killed or just died accidentally. Nor, for that matter, did it explain the sudden, violent, and continuing antagonism to me. I let it all stew, while I got a plate and silverware, waited in line for a thick top sirloin steak and trimmings, then headed for a seat.

I was looking around — for the gals, actually — when somebody called, Hey, Scott.

It was Hal, waving me over. I joined him and he pointed to an empty spot next to him and said, Sit down and chow up. Between bites you can tell me what happened to Pete and Farmer —

Word gets around.

Doesnt it? And especially tell me about Dodo. Howd you ever get past that hulk?

Just lucky, I guess. But, Hal, you shouldnt have sent those apes to slaughter me in the first place.

He shook his head. What you need is a long rest, Scott. Youre getting suspicious of everybody. Even me. That’s what comes from being a black sheep, an outsider —

Me?

— an outcast. And honest. Why, just because a man is a crook you think there’s something wrong with him. But to refute your implication, I didn’t send those demented savages after you.

That’s a load off my mind, Hal. Thanks a lot. By the way, you told me you met Jeanne Blair here. Didn’t you know her when she was going around with Garbin? In L.A.?

It didn’t faze him a bit. Sure, Scott. I’m a liar. What else is new?

What do you do with a guy like that?

He looked at my mangled red knuckles, then at my face. You know, Scott, youre a little bit better than I thought. Is that steak cooked, or are you eating it raw?

Rare, and it’s delicious. Arent you eating? He had a glass in his hand, but no food before him.

I already ate, and it is interfering with my drunkenness, he said soberly. I can’t square dance unless I’m stiff enough to be very loose. Swing your partner, shake your bustle —

Youre going square dancing?

I’ll try anything.

I dont suppose Farmer and Dodo and Pete will be there.

He smiled. They are — resting, in their rooms.

Something I wanted to tell you about that episode, Hal. The next time one of your boys jumps me —

Scott, please. They are not my boys. I wouldnt even want them if they were grown up. I’m here on a vacation, that’s all. I knew the lads pretty well when Jules was alive, so when we run into each other we cut up a few touches, that’s all.

Yeah. I’ll tell you anyway. The next time one of these slob jumps me I am not going to hit him — my hands hurt already. I am going to shoot the bastard.

That’s the spirit. That’s the way I like to hear you talk, Scott. You can’t be all good —

A question, by the way. When we talked there at the pool, I saw Green and Pete. But who was the other egg? He looked familiar, but I havent been able to make him.

What other guy — oh, you mean the gray-haired cat?

Yeah, mustache, dark glasses.

That’s Everett. You wouldnt know him. Simon Everett. Sis from back east, a struggling businessman.

Sure. Like youre a businessman, and Tay Greens a businessman —

No, he’s legit. Youd probably get along famously. He owns a factory in Pennsylvania.

Making what?

Caskets.

It figures.

He laughed. Scott, you kill me. If a guy stabbed his wife with the silverware, youd hang the salesman. Come on, lets go square dance.

I’d been making headway, or toothway, on my steak, and now shoved the plate from me and got up. After a little digestion, I said, I’ll do just that.

The Cactus Corral was a big barn, nothing fancy, high-ceilinged and almost bare. But at one end of the barn the three musicians whod been outside earlier were on a raised platform, scraping and plucking. The lead fiddler and caller was a bewhiskered character about a hundred years old, or maybe a little more, with the improbable name of Zeke Goober. Zeke was clattering one foot on the floor in arthritic spasms while sawing wildly at his fiddle, and cackling, Do-si-do and fiddle-dee-dee, go to the middle now, one-two-three —  or something equally nutty.

At least forty people were stomping about in the middle of the big barn, moving in numerous directions, with very little correspondence between what they were doing and the beat of the music, and no apparent understanding of the words Zeke was cackling, which didn’t surprise me a bit. Saturday night. Big deal.

Ah, but then a tall, slim-but-not-thin, blonde tomato, astoundingly decolleté, scurried across the floor toward me, saying as she approached, Come on, Shell, do-si-do, and had it not been Delise I would have said Do-si-do yourself, but it was Delise, so I said, Crazy! and away we went.

Well, we did our own version of Swing Your Partner, and I got lost a couple of times but each time made my way back, and I probably looked as silly as I felt, but about all I remember about the dance was that Delise sure as He’ll bounced a lot. Then wed finished and shed whirled off with somebody else — and hot-eyed, sweet-lipped, dandy-everythinged April was next to me.

Shall we? she asked brightly.

Why not?

I cocked an ear. Zeke was wheezing at the top of his old lungs, Round and round and round you go, round you go like thunder . . . up and down and round you go. . . . You pop her under!

Ye Gods, I said, I take it back. I can’t do that!

Oh, come on, silly. Dont be scared.

I’m not scared. But, April, I can’t pop you under.

Try. Those hot blue eyes burned holes in my reluctance.

O.K. I shrugged. Youre the one that gets popped. I warn you, I am not exactly light on my feet. I can break a gals leg doing a waltz, and when I really get going I’ve been told it’s like guerilla warfare —

I’ll take a chance.

You can say that again.

As we started toward the lively people, Hal Calvin walked past us and said to me, You sure looked like a nut out there.

Ah, shut up. I noticed he didn’t look so good and said, Whats the matter, Hal? Are you — oh-ho, the old ulcer, hey?

He stopped briefly and said, Ulcer, He’ll. I should never have eaten, that’s all. I asked for a nice rare steak, but that damned cook gave me a bum steer. Man, the thing was tougher than teeth. Youd need diamond choppers just to gum it. Then he suddenly got a kind of green-taste-in-the-mouth look and said, You will forgive me if I leave in the middle of a sentence —  and left in the middle of the sentence.

As he went rapidly out the door April, laughing, said to me, Shell, is he really a criminal. Really?

In practically every sense of the word, April.

But he just can’t be. Why, he’s intelligent, and amusing, and — well, he’s beautiful. He can’t be completely bad.

Who is? But he’s bad enough. Honey, sometimes you can’t tell by looking — and in Hals case, even by listening. It’s unfortunate. In a lot of ways he’s a nice guy.

It’s not just unfortunate. Shell. It’s — it’s tragic.

Maybe she was right. But I said, Take my word for it — and stay away from him. Just pretend he’s Pete or Dodo, on the inside.

She tossed her head, mass of rust-brown hair flying, then hauled on my arm and soon we were flying. We got into a bunch with three other couples, and none of us knew what we were doing, but I was getting the hang of it until Zeke cackled:

. . . A do and a do and a little more do . . . chicken in the bread box, up you go . . . one more turn and home you go . . .

I just stood there, teetering on my high heels.

Then April grabbed me, and we ignored Zeke, and by the time wed finished I was enjoying square dancing. She said breathlessly, That was fun. Promised somebody, got to go. And she was trotting away.

I saw Hal come in again, much slower than he’d left. He spotted me, cupped a hand around his mouth and called, No wonder I was sick — my stomach was full of puke.

I started laughing, even while I winced, and then I stopped laughing. Because there was another door in the back of the barn, open to provide a little circulation of cooler desert air, and through it like an I’ll wind came Tay Green. He was looking around, all business, and when he spotted Hal he went straight to him. He was so all-business I wondered if something important had just happened and checked my watch. It was not quite ten p.m.

They talked earnestly, Hal nodding from time to time, then Hal turned and walked briskly toward the open door. Green called something to him and Hal stopped, waited while Tay walked to him and said something else.

Since I’d been here in the Cactus Corral, and dancing, I’d naturally kept my eyes pretty well peeled. I hadn’t spotted the three muggs I’d had the beef with earlier, but I hadn’t expected to. I’d seen just about every other hoodlum I’d marked as being at the Sun and Sage, however, except for Green, and he was here now. If they stayed here, fine; because wherever Hal was going, I figured I would go. I’d been on the receiving end of the pushes so far; it was time I initiated a little pushing.

I walked to the entrance, through which Hal and I had come earlier, paused for a last glance around. Hal was just going through that other door. Nobody seemed to be looking my way, but I couldnt be sure. But what the He’ll; you can’t wait till youre sure of everything. Green was lighting a cigarette. I turned and went out.

Several people were still around the barbecues, some at tables eating. Hal walked past the tables, but I skirted the lighted area, keeping him in sight. He went straight to the Tucson Suite and inside. By the time I got there no light was showing. I could hear the mumble of voices, though, and started hunting for a spot where the mumble would become distinguishable conversation.

This was the other end of the two fifty-buck-a-day suites, and Russ had told me one of three men whod been here for about a year was in the Tucson. And now Hal Calvin was in there with him. With Simon Everett. Interesting. I’d been wanting to talk to Everett.

It took me a minute or so, and I was lucky, but I found a window slightly cracked. By putting my ear up against it I could hear the voices inside, not clearly but well enough to understand what was being said.

I was just in time to hear, . . . so shes got to go. That’s all there is to it.

Another man said, I still dont like it. It’s too damn much. The fuzz was already out here about Karl today, and before that on the Blair twist. If Scott and another gal get knocked off therell be a helluva stink.

I blinked. That was a lot to absorb suddenly. Besides which, there was something about that first voice, that poked around in buried memory. The voice was like a couple of steel files rubbing together, and I’d either heard it, or one very much like it, before. He- was talking again, Let it stink. It’s better than having the whole goddam thing blow up. If this was L.A., or something to bring the feds in, itd be different. But this way, no sweat, we got the fix in here. Why the He’ll else you think were stuck in this godforsaken desert?

I know, but —

Shove your buts. We didn’t get no heat on that Blair thing, did we? He’ll, no — it’s Scott and that woman we got to worry about, not the local law. You set it up tonight and dont miss this time, goddammit.

Yeah. Well . . . I can see Scotts got to go, sure.

That voice sounded like Harold Calvvin’s. The one saying, I can see Scotts got to go. Good old Hal.

The girl, too, the other voice continued. Even if she dont know how much she knows, it’s too much. And Christ knows how much Scott said to her that we dont know about.

Well, that told me a few things. The second man in the conversation was good old Hal for sure; and Pete must have heard more than I’d thought — enough anyway. And Jeanne Blair had been murdered. Obviously these coldblooded bastards were talking about my conversation with April, there at the bar. Something began building up in my thoughts, but building in a strange and almost frightening way.

Hal was saying. You want it to look like an accident?

I dont give a goddamn, just make sure theyre both fatally dead. If you can make it look like accidents, O.K. If not, just get it done any way you can, but fast.

I left Scott at the square dance. I can probably get him out of there without anybody noticing the action. But it might be harder with the girl — those four twists stick pretty close together. I know. They even sleep two in a room. And she wont have anything to do with me or the other boys, now.

There was silence for a few seconds. Then the rasping voice said, Well, Scotts more important than the girl. Maybe you can dump him in with that crazy horse, let the horse jump on him a little.

Diablo?

Yeah, that’s the crazy one. And if you can’t get to the girl tonight, have one of the boys pick her off tomorrow morning while theyre screwing around with that movie. Tell Farmer and Green to squat up in the hills there and pick her off with a rifle, if you got to. It wont look like no accident, but there’s just no time to do it cute. Besides nobodyll know who done it — and I can fix it to pin the rap on somebody else if it comes to that.

It sounded as if Hal was about to leave — and I sure as He’ll didn’t want him getting this word to Farmer and Green, or any of the other hoods in the area. Besides, the two men inside — at least I guessed there were only two, since I’d heard only the two voices — couldnt know I’d overheard their conversation. Which meant there was a chance that, right now, I could wrap up most of what I’d come here to do.

So I didn’t wait. I walked quickly to the front door and knocked.

chapter ten

As soon as I knocked the talk inside came to a stop.

After seconds of silence, I heard a mumble of words and then footsteps approaching the door. I made sure my jacket was unbuttoned but still covering my .38 Colt, tried to push a pleasant expression onto my face.

Light streamed out on me as Hal Calvin opened the door.

Hi, Hal, I said cheerfully, and walked right in past him. Thought I saw you come in here. Pretty fancy. This your suite?

I cut it off as the other man in the room made a sudden movement. For a nerve-jerking second I thought he was reaching for a gun, but he’d merely grabbed a pair of big Hollywood-star-type dark glasses and shoved them on. It was the short, stocky guy Hal had called Everett, all right. The cat who made caskets. He needed a shave.

What the He’ll do you mean busting in here? he rasped.

Hal stepped up next to me, looked at the other man and said quickly, It’s all right, Si. He must have thought this was my suite. This . . . maybe this is a stroke of luck. Youve been wanting to meet Shell Scott, you know. Well, here he is.

I’d glanced around the suite, seeing nobody else, then looked back at the other man. He was obviously angry, or at least worked up about my appearance. The muscles around his thick-lipped mouth moved as if he were jamming his jaws together.

Shell, this is Simon Everett, Hal went on. I told you about him. Si, Shell Scott.

I said hello, but the other man didn’t speak. One of his hands clenched into a fist, then relaxed, clenched again. I’d thought he looked familiar when I’d first seen him near the pool with Hal, and I still thought he did, but I couldnt make him. But there was something . . .

A queer alarm raced through my nerves, alerted my senses, the way a sudden soft sound near you will on a quiet night. It was like that queer and almost frightening sensation I’d felt while listening to his voice outside. I couldnt figure out what was causing it, and the strangely disturbing sensation grew.

Hal said something but it didn’t register. The other man was looking straight at me, and I stared back, noting the short-cropped gray hair, the bristly black mustache. And the dark glasses. That was one of the things bothering me — why would a man suddenly put on dark glasses? And inside his rooms, at night. Almost surely because he didn’t want to be recognized — which meant he must have reason to fear I might recognize him.

I nearly had it. Then Everett turned his head a little, as if looking past my shoulder at the door behind me, and slowly nodded. I almost turned, then stopped, managing not to smile. They werent going to fool me with that old trick.

Not me.

No, sir. I’m too smart,

And then: BLAM!

It might have been blam, or smack, or clunk, whatever sound a sap — or gun butt, or house falling on you — makes when it contacts your skull. But it was a He’ll of a noise.

I dont know how it is that you can know youve been sapped, when the fact of the matter is that a split second after being sapped youre unconscious. I guess it’s just that my mind works with lightning speed — because I knew I’d been sapped.

There was even time for several other lightning thoughts and fantastically fast-moving pictures to swish before my minds eye: the man’s face as he’d put on his dark glasses, Aprils smiling face, the words I’d just heard and the thoughts I’d just thunk, the certainty that these guys would now haul me away out in the desert and kill me and bury me — lots and lots of interesting things. It was a brilliant performance. I even had time to consider it’s brilliance and to think, just before the looming, booming blackness: Yes, I’m sure a smart one. . . .

I was climbing out of a dark, slippery hole, and soft tentacles of blackness wrapped themselves around me, holding me back. I knew I was coming to, coming out of some kind of thick darkness, but it was almost as if I were watching someone else struggling to rise up out of unconsciousness. It was much like a weird dream I’d once had. I had dreamed that I was dreaming; and that dreamed dreamer, shrinking from the nightmare it was dreaming, forced itself awake and rose from sleep and moved through it’s separate life — while I continued sleeping. When I had finally awakened, for weirdly warped moments I had wondered crazily if some other I was dreaming me. It was a pretty jarring experience, I can tell you.

And so was this.

Because now, in this black-and-blue-laced consciousness of unconsciousness I knew I was coming to, but at the same time felt I might be dead, rising out of death into — whatever follows death. With me was a dead man, at least the man was with me in my mind or thought, and I knew this man was dead. The face before me shifted and changed, as sometimes faces in dreams will change; at first it was Everetts face, with the short gray hair and bristling mustache and big dark glasses, but then the face seemed to melt and the mustache disappeared, the hair became long and black. The glasses melted, drooped like objects in paintings by Dali, became liquid and flowed away, exposing the man’s eyes, glittering gray eyes the color of a cold morning.

And then, of course, it was not Everetts face but the face of Jules Garbin. And I knew Jules Garbia was dead. I knew because I had seen him die, and had seen him horribly dead.

Sound, from far off, brushed against my eardrums. Something shook me gently. The darkness slipped farther away. It seemed to take a long time, a very long time. But then my eyes were open. Near me was Russ Cordiners thin face. His lips and flowing white mustache moved slowly. After a while I heard him saying, Shell? You all right, Shell?

I licked my lips. Are we both dead?

Wha-at? He laughed. Dead? He’ll no. Shell. Youve got a lump on your skull, but youre still with us. And lucky to be here, believe me.

I said, But I just saw —  I stopped.

I had tried to sit up and the movement sent pain crashing through my skull. Pain swelling, growing, filling my skull and spreading down into my neck, my shoulder muscles, the length of my spine.

I flopped back on softness beneath me, felt a pillow under my head. I was in bed, apparently in my own rooms. Russ said, You saw what. Shell?

I . . . I dont know. Something was still there, in my thoughts, but fading. As consciousness returned, the memory of whatever had been there in unconsciousness diminished, faded, and was gone, leaving behind only a definite unease. In a few minutes I was able to sit up.

I looked around again. I was in my rooms, all right, the Phoenix Suite. What the He’ll happened? I asked Russ. Howd I get here?

One of the hands and I brought you here. We were in the truck, coming back from delivering those two Brahma bulls, you remember?

Yeah.

Truck lights fell on a couple men carrying somebody — I didn’t know it was you, then. I pulled up right in front of them and they dropped you and ran to a car nearby — guess that’s where they were carrying you. Got in and beat it. I didn’t follow them, because when we found out it was you, knocked cold, we brought you here.

Where was this? Whered you spot the guys carrying me?

He pointed. Over there on the little road in front of the Tucson Suite and the cabins. Pretty near the Tucson Suite. Simon Everetts suite.

Yeah. I remembered seeing him with Hal near the pool earlier today. But it seemed there was something else, just below the surface, just out of my reach. I said, Did you get a look at the men hauling me around?

Russ nodded. One of them was that fellow I told you about, registered as Thad Gray. Other was the big blond fellow, Calvin.

Handsome Hal. And Tay Green, the man with the little scythe and hourglass; Young Death, with tombstones for eyes. Green, and charming Hal Calvin. Marching me to my grave, undoubtedly.

Russ stroked his magnificent white mustache. Whatd they do, slug you?

Damned if I know. I dont even remember . . . I stopped, frowning. Lets see, I went to the square dance, then Green came charging in and talked to Hal. Hal . . . I wasn’t  sure what had happened then; that part was all mixed up with people square dancing, and the old guy cackling out the calls.

I told Russ what I could remember, then asked him, What time was it when you spotted the two men with me?

Must have been about ten-twenty. When we brought you in here I had Doc Brown take a look at you, and he got here at ten-thirty.

I remembered it hadn’t been quite ten p.m. when Green had come into the Cactus Corral. I remembered checking the time. What had happened between then and the time Russ spotted me, I hadn’t the faintest idea. But it didn’t seem likely I could have been knocked on the head there in the Cactus Corral.

I explained that to Russ and he said, Well, just lie quiet for a minute. Shell. I want Doc Brown to look at you again, anyway. He went out.

When the Doc came back with Russ he thumped me and probed me a little — they always thump you and probe you a little — then flashed a light in my eyes, and even looked in my ears, as if expecting to find some of my brains in there, which wouldnt have surprised me greatly. Then be straightened up and said, You dont recall anything except the square dance? Around ten p.m.?

Nope. Of course, I might have been unconscious from then on, for all I know.

Hmmm, possibly. Or could be a slight general amnesia.

Oh?

Temporary amnesia. It often follows a concussion, or solid blow on the cranium.

I felt my head. I seem to have had that, all right.

Doc Brown continued, Sometimes the amnesia is for only a few minutes or hours immediately preceding the blow, occasionally for the weeks or months preceding. Yours is a mild case, apparently.

It doesnt feel very mild. He laughed, amused. I said, You mentioned temporary amnesia. How temporary?

In your case, assuming you do recover the memories, if any, it might require only a few hours. Rest and sleep, that should do it. Youll probably be sound as a dollar after a good nights sleep.

That’s not sound enough.

Assuming, of course, there is no irreparable organic damage.

Irreparable org — what do you mean, assuming there’s —

Now, now, we must be calm. We dont want to get excited.

That’s easy for you to say — what are you doing?

He had stuck a big ugly needle into a little bottle of clear fluid in his left hand, the needle projecting from a big ugly syringe in his right hand.

No, you dont, I said. I’m not a bull. You dont stick me with that —

Not a bull? He chuckled. This is to help you.

Yeah. Sure. I’d just as soon get —

He pulled the needle out with a little nerve-scraping smuck and I concluded  — bitten by a horse.

Now, now, he said. This wont hurt a bit.

You can say that again. Because youre not going to stick me with that — get away from me!

Doctor Brown paused, taken aback. I do believe, he said to Russ, he means it.

Yeah, he does, Russ agreed. I can tell.

But I always . . . nobody ever objects . . . I’ve never . . .

What is that stuff? I asked him.

This? He waved the thing. Why, it’s merely a sedative. Good for your nerves. Itll help you sleep.

What kind of sedative?

It’s a new compound called Psylofarbicran, containing erthomedicillin.

Good God, it sounds fatal. Whats in it? What is it, really?

The doctor was silent for several seconds. Then he said bemusedly, Why — I dont really know.

Uh-huh.

But according to the literature —

So give me the literature.

He pierced me with a gaze very nearly as sharp as his needle, then said abruptly to Russ, Will that be all, Mr. Cordiner?

Yes, and thank you. Doctor. If he gets violent I’ll sock him into his amnesia.

Out the doctor went. Russ said to me, I guess youre all right. Shell. You seem to be your usual obnoxious self.

I wasn’t  being obnoxious. I simply — hey, what the He’ll time is it? I was looking at the window, and there was a light like gray dawn outside.

About seven in the morning. Why?

That was gray dawn outside. I said, You mean I’ve been out for — since ten oclock or so last night? This is already Sunday morning?

He nodded. That’s right. You must have been hit pretty hard.

I started getting up — slowly — but a lot of gruesome activity started in my head. I paused, moved a little more, a very little more.

Where do you think youre going?

To find some aspirins, and then find Hal Calvin and, or, Tay Green. You said they were casually hauling me about, didn’t you?

Yes. But theyre not here now. I havent seen them since they left in their car. Theyre not in their rooms.

I was in my fawn-colored slacks and shirt, no jacket or boots — or gun. But when I asked Russ about the Colt he pointed it out on the dresser; he’d removed it along with the few items of clothing when he and his helper had put me on the bed. I thought a minute, then said, In that case, I’ll call on Mr. Everett, in the Tucson Suite, since that’s where you spotted them carrying me.

Mr. Everett isnt here, either. I called at his suite, to find out if he’d heard anything, had any idea what had happened. He wasn’t  there — and still wasn’t  when I was by again a little while ago. Bed hasn’t been slept in.

For a moment it seemed as if that should be rather important to me, but I wasn’t  sure why. I thought about it for a while, then dropped it and found the aspirin, and took four of them with water. The wild exertion wore me out, so I went back and lay down on the bed,

No sense your leaving the room for a while, Russ said. When youre ready for it, I’ll send in some breakfast.

Fine. Make it strong and black. In about an hour, say.

Strong and black — accompanied by ham and eggs, he said, and left.

I continued to lie on the bed. I wasn’t  sleepy, but I didn’t feel like engaging in any strenuous activity. About eight oclock a waiter brought in a tray laden with a lot of breakfast, a little of which I ate, and approximately a gallon of steaming black coffee, much of which I drank.

By the time Russ came in again I felt ambulatory, instead of ready for an ambulance, and I said to him, Thanks, Russ. That hit the spot. But I have the damndest feeling I should be up and about, doing something decisive and highly productive.

Such as?

Youve got me. That’s the trouble. Anything exciting going on this morning? Anything unusual?

He shook his head. Everything, he said, was normal. People were having breakfast, some had eaten and were already out riding horses. Still no sign of Everett, Calvin, or Green. The movie people had already left for more shooting on their film, whatever it was.

I know what it is, I said. And they should hold the premiere at my apartment. Theyve already left, huh?

Yes. Mr. Finch, who is apparently the producer —

That’s what he is.

— seems in a great hurry to finish it.

He’s always in a great hurry. But I gather it’s a matter, primarily, of finishing the thing today for sure. He’s already eight dollars over budget, or something like that.

Russ went on about his business, and I sat quietly, thinking — or trying to. Trying to remember. I almost had it; I seemed aware of a moment when I had been standing next to the Tucson Suite, listening . . . the sound of a grating, scratchy voice . . .

It was there; but I couldnt quite reach it. That area of hidden memory was like a bubble about to burst; all I needed was the pin of memory to prick it with. But I poked around for a minute or two, without success. So then, as I often do, I said the He’ll with it and turned the matter over to my unconscious.

Sometimes when youve pulled and pushed at a problem without getting an answer, or tried to grab a too-slippery memory, if you completely dismiss the matter from consciousness, often — when it’s least expected — the answer will pop up like toast from the depths of your unconscious toaster. I do it all the time. In fact, that may be why some people call me Shell Scott, the Unconscious Detective.

There was a dull ache at the base of my skull and in the neck muscles; tendons across the top of my back were stiff and sore, almost knotted with tension. A little hot water beating on my back might unwind the muscles, help the juice flow more freely. I undressed, noting that at least Hal and Green hadn’t emptied my pockets. Some change, car keys, wallet, were still in the fawn-colored trousers; my gun and holster were on the dresser across the room. I guessed theyd intended to bury all of my property with me, everything neat and tidy.

In the shower I turned on the water as hot as I could stand it and let the stream drum on my back, against my head and neck and base of my skull. Slowly the heat melted tension, washed some of the ache away.

I hadn’t been thinking about anything at all, just soaking almost voluptuously in the moist heat, and cooked nearly pink fore and aft I reached, on impulse, for the hot faucet and turned it off.

Cold water smacked me like a blizzard of little snowballs and I yelled Yow! — and in that instant I remembered.

Everything.

chapter eleven

I remembered it all. Not in order as it had happened last night — following Hal, the overheard conversation, my knocking at Everetts door — but every bit of it all at once crammed into a split-second now.

When it all slammed up into my brain it was like getting sapped from inside; a hundred thoughts ripped through my mind. I saw Everetts face — and realized it was like Jules Garbin’s face. The hair and mustache were different, but except for those minor bits it was exactly like Garbin’s face. It was Garbin. And that was impossible — unless I really was nuts. What I’d seen and heard mingled with the shifting impressions which had floated in my mind in those weird moments before I’d regained consciousness, and I wondered for a moment if somehow those dream thoughts had congealed into schizoid reality in my brain. But Everett was the same as Jules Garbin, same face, height, weight, even the same voice, either Garbin or a dead ringer for him. A twin? Some goofy double? That didn’t make sense.

Simultaneously with those impressions I heard the steel-file voice saying Shes got to go, and saw April smiling, imagined a slug of steel tearing through her skull, ripping it open, twisting her lovely face.

I was already moving, I leaped from the shower, ran to the door and yanked it open. An old guy in cowboy togs was walking past my suite accompanied by an even older gal with an astoundingly long, thin nose, and clad in pink shirt and fuzzy peach-colored jodhpurs. She was smiling, looking past her nose at the old guy — then at me as I came leaping through the door.

She let out a dandy scream, threw up her arms as if throwing them away — reeled about and fell like a stone.

I jumped back into my living room and slammed the door. Pants, I was thinking, Pants, where in He’ll are my pants?

I spotted them on the bed, climbed into them and then raced out — past the prone gal and vastly perplexed old guy — and around to my Cad. I found the car keys in my trouser pocket, started the car and was on my way.

Leaning forward and looking up through the windshield I could see the empty cabin at the closed end of the narrow valley, the low shrub-and-boulder covered hills slanting down toward me. I thought something moved up there, three or four hundred yards away, but couldnt be sure. Then I could see the gleam of water bouncing from the lakes surface, figures moving.

I slid around the station wagon and skidded to a stop, jumped from the Cad and ran toward the lake, yelling. I could see the big fake boulder, two of the girls visible on it’s left, and on this side of the lake two cameras set up, Ed Pinch behind one of them apparently shooting a scene. Something glinted above and on my right and I looked up. I couldnt see anybody there, but sunlight flashed again, like sun glinting from metal. The metal of a gun, a rifle, maybe.

No maybe about it.

As I ran barefooted past the big gray boulder I could see April and Zia in the water — at least April was still alive. Delise and Choo Choo were the two I’d first seen at the boulders left.

Finch let out a yell and shouted at me, You bastard, you — another scene ruined! And it’s the final scene, the last scene! I’ve got a good mind to —

Shut up. Somebody may get killed here — get out of sight! I waved an arm. All of you.

One of the girls on my left, either Delise or Choo Choo, yelped, Killed? Killed? But I wasn’t  looking at them.

I ran toward the water, and April. I splashed in, stopped near her and Zia and said rapidly. There might be some guys up on the hill there —  I waved a hand again  — getting ready to pick you off. Shoot you. I dont even know why — but there’s no time to explain. Just get out of here. Get behind some rocks, anything.

I reached for my gun and clawed my bare chest. No gun — of course not; I was lucky I had on my pants. Everybody here heard me, apparently understood what I was saying. They just didn’t believe me.

Finch yelled, Goddamn you, Scott! I’ve got to wrap this picture up today! It’s in my deal with Ben —

And Aprils eyes opened wide as she said softly, Kill me? But that’s preposter —

After that moment, everybody believed me. The sharp, flat crack of the gunshot slapped our ears, then there was the fainter crack of an echo. A small geyser of water leaped from the lakes surface between April and me. Zia screamed.

Run, I said to them. Run like He’ll.

I turned, looked up toward where the shot had come from. Seconds passed, dragging, then there was another crack. A bullet snapped by near me, close enough so I could feel the twitch of air against my cheek. This time I saw the faint puff of brightness as the gun was fired. It came from above us, only a hundred and fifty, possibly two hundred yards away, near a cluster of three boulders on the hills crest.

And the realization seeped in that whoever was up there was not only trying to kill somebody for sure, but that I was the somebody now. Which figured. Me first then April — even if I didn’t really know yet why April had to be killed. I leaped backward, hit the water and turned, digging under it like a mole in dirt, hands and arms flying, legs kicking.

The water was less than four feet deep and when my fingers scraped the muddy bottom I kept kicking, and pulling with my arms, eyes open. Foam slanted suddenly down through the water before me, like a bar of tiny bubbles, as a bullet tore into the water a foot away. I got my feet under me, stood up, struggled toward the lakes shore as my head broke the surface.

There was a lot of movement. On my left I could see Pinch running like a rabbit back the way I’d come — past my Cad, heading for the station wagon. On my right, racing toward a narrow path between steeply slanting walls of earth and clustered rocks were Delise and Choo Choo, Delise slightly in the lead. Several yards behind them were April and Zia.

Another shot cracked in the still air and I felt a sudden sting high on the outside of my bare left arm. The slug had barely touched the skin, burning and breaking it. I made it to the dry sandy earth beyond the waters edge, started sprinting. There were no more shots.

Either the bastards were pulling out, giving up, or — more likely — knew we couldnt get away from them, couldnt run from them and a rifle or two. From that first shot until now no more than fifteen or twenty seconds had passed, and the first girl was just now going out of sight. Here on the south side of the small lake a natural path led slightly uphill through that narrow gorge. Delise must have headed that way without thought, simply because it was in the opposite direction from which the bullets had come flying. But it had been a good choice, because after a few feet the narrow path veered sharply left behind a mound of earth and soaring rock masses, hiding anyone beyond it even from the men on the hill behind us.

Delise went out of sight, and immediately behind her Choo Choo. Moments later April, and little Zia. They had all followed Delise automatically, after the fashion of startled and stampeding turkeys. Well, not turkeys. Chickens, maybe? Plucked. That’s not it, either. But turkeys or chickens, they were all naked as jaybirds, such being their apparently near-permanent condition, and I knew that even if I got shot in the head this instant, I would carry a tremendous vision with me into the next world. I will not describe it. I cannot. Nobody could. But I’ll give you a hint: For the last twenty yards of my sprint I forgot all about guns behind me, and was not in any sense whatsoever running away from anything.

Then I charged around the turn to my left, out of sight of anyone behind, and slid to a stop before what was ahead. And the temporary fever fled my brain, to be replaced by the reinforced and chill realization of the fix we were all in. The girls had stopped several yards ahead of me, clustered together, and obviously extremely frightened. The path slanted gently upward for another hundred yards or so beyond them, apparently ending at the surface of a bare, rolling hill. There was, of course, not a defensive weapon in sight, and the most dangerous objects I had on me were a silver half-dollar, and my car keys, which I’d automatically grabbed and stuck into my pants.

I turned, walked back until I could look up toward the hill on the lakes north side. I didn’t like what I saw. Two men, mounted on horses, were riding down the side of the hill, skirting boulders and clumps of sage, taking their time. Near the base of the hill one of the men turned and trotted to his left, either headed toward my Cad or trying to catch up with Finch, who had run in that direction. At the rate Ed had been moving, however, I guessed he was by now in the station wagon and a mile away. The other man skirted the lake; he would be coming this way.

If I’d had a gun — but I didn’t. And if those hoods killed me. . . . The flickering thought that they might kill all of the girls was simply too monstrous to be believable. But for them to sit hidden on a hill and attempt to kill even one of them, April — and me, for that matter — was pretty monstrous itself. I swore under my breath. Unarmed, I didn’t have a chance against a couple of men carrying guns. I glanced around, picked up two rocks big enough to fill each hand, then turned and ran to the girls.

There wasn’t  time for explanations — or need, for that matter. Choo Choo looked as if she had decided to faint immediately, and the other three didn’t look much better. I tried to keep my voice calm, without the slightest success, and said, You gals keep running. Find a place to hide, if you can. I dont know what else to tell you. Just get moving.

April licked dry lips and said, But what are you —

Get going. Run, dammit.

They ran. This time I didn’t watch them. I went back to the spot from which I could look toward the lake. Bent over and peering around a big hunk of stone I could see one of the mounted men. I’d wondered why he hadn’t already caught up with us, but he’d reined his horse to a stop, rifle held in his right hand, waving his left arm at somebody hidden from me.

Then he glanced this way, and then to his left again. I could just make out his features. Farmer. It was too bad hadn’t hit the sonofabitch hard enough to kill him in the saloon last night. And here the slob was, waiting for reinforcements. As if he needed any reinforcements. But — maybe he thought he might need help. Almost certainly both men had gotten a good look at me, noted I wasn’t  wearing a shirt or jacket. But they couldnt be sure I didn’t have a gun on me. Even though I hadn’t fired at them, they couldnt know I was unarmed. And guys like Farmer and his pals, even when they get real pleasure from shooting at citizens, get no pleasure at all from citizens who shoot back.

I looked at the two rocks in my hand, and swore some more. I might as well have two pebbles, or just my bare hands in my hands, for all the good theyd do me. Then the man turned and started walking his horse toward me, and the cold chill settled in my bones; I knew it wasn’t  going to be any good.

I could feel my bent legs starting to tremble a little beneath me, tension pulling the muscles tighter and tighter. Then there was a sound — from behind me. I whirled, jumped, lifting one rock-weighted hand. And stopped. It was April.

Shell, she called softly. This way, quick.

She waved one hand frantically, then turned and ran up the path. Well, I just stood there wobbling, heart lunging in several directions at once, tongue dangling loosely out of my mouth. If I’d had a weak heart it would have split open flapping like a toy balloon, and I was in no shape to follow April up the path, but I did, even almost caught up to her by the time she slowed, moved left — and disappeared.

A huge boulder stood there, split down the middle maybe a hundred thousand years before, the once-jagged edges smoothed by weather and time. The opening was only a couple of feet wide, narrowing even more at it’s far end ten or twelve feet away. I turned sideways, followed April in, brushing my chest against the rock as it narrowed. Behind the mass of rock was a small, enclosed space barely large enough for the five of us — since the other three girls were already there ahead of April — to stand far enough to the side so that we wouldnt be seen by anyone glancing in from the path.

Fine — as long as those guys just glanced. But unless something miraculous suddenly happened, theyd have time to do a lot more than glance. A horseshoe rang on rock; now I could hear the clop-clop as a man rode nearer. I moved back a little — into warm softnesses. Oops, I said, very quietly, and glanced over my shoulder.

It was pretty crowded in there. Those two softnesses had belonged to two different people. Even Zia, the farthest distant of the lovelies, was no more than a couple of feet away; we were all scrunched together in what, under more euphoric circumstances, an innocent bystander would have considered wildly abandoned chumminess at the very least.

Stop it, I told myself. He’ll, it’s no use. Clop-clop went the horses hooves, followed by another clop-clopping close behind. Farmer and whoever was with him, getting close. I had to think about getting out of here. Then came a hint, an idea — my Cad. If these guys trotted far enough away and we could run back to my car. . . .

But at that moment I heard voices, one man calling to the other, They can’t be far away, can’t just disappear. The other said, Well, I ripped the wires on Scotts heap. Take him an hour to start that buggy even if he got to it. So that settled that.

But once I’d turned my thoughts in the right direction and was thinking a little, even if feebly, I kept on thinking. I inched forward, dropped to one knee and peered out the cleft in the boulder. I missed seeing the first man, caught just the flick of a horses tail. But it had been Farmer, because I saw the next man clearly as he went past, and that second man was Tay Green. If both of them would just keep going, far enough. . . . I stood up, whispered to the girls, told them what I had in mind. Then we waited.

I was still holding those two rocks. I put them on the ground, slipped through the crevice in the boulder and inched my head forward until I could aim my right eye at the mens backs. I would almost have traded it for a gun at that moment The men were about fifty yards away; another fifty and theyd be at the end of this narrow gorge, and would either go on — or turn and come back. In the opposite direction, toward the lake, the path was open for thirty yards then turned sharply to the right. If a woman could run unseen for those thirty yards, shed be out of sight after that. I didn’t know how fast these gals could move, but with a little luck I’d soon find out.

Green swiveled around in his saddle and I yanked my head back. My heart pumped a couple dozen times, jumping about a bit, then I looked again. Both men were still moving ahead. There was no point in waiting. I waved a hand behind me at the girls. A cool hand touched my shoulder.

Without turning I said, Remember, all at once, and as fast as you can. Dont look back, kids; I’ll be watching those guys. If you dont hear any yells or . . . or noises, just keep going.

There was room for only one person at a time in this crevice, and I was blocking the exit. So I took a deep breath and stepped out in the open. Behind me I heard the girls moving. One gal said, Oh golly, oh God, and it sounded like a dying cricket, so I guessed that was Choo Choo.

I heard the soft — and rapid — thump of bare feet, but I didn’t look. I was staring at Green and Farmer, praying they wouldnt turn.

chapter twelve

The seconds seemed elastic, stretched into different, slowly-flowing time. Green stopped his horse, leaned back and put one hand behind his saddle, started to turn. I jumped back out of sight, involuntarily squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fists. If that last girl, whoever shed been, hadn’t gotten out of sight . . .

But there was no outcry, or shot, no sudden sound of hooves. I could feel perspiration under my eyes, on my upper lip, cool on my bare chest. Finally I looked again. Green was just sitting there, watching Farmer who was trotting to the paths end. I jumped from the crevice and landed with my feet digging into the soft earth. I ran, and I followed the instructions I’d given the girls: I didn’t look back.

Believe me, I moved. The girls had a long head start on me, but even so I passed the slowest two before they reached the big papier-mâché boulder — because that’s where I’d sent them. April and long-legged Delise were already there, panting enormously, and by the time I’d dug my hands into dirt under the boulders edge and lifted it high off the ground, both little Zia and completely-winded Choo Choo had joined us.

They all scurried under the big rock without another word from me, and — with a last glance back, to make sure we hadn’t been spotted — I climbed under with them and let the thing down over us.

And then the strength seemed to drain out of me like cold bath water out of a tub. A pair of two-by-fours were criss-crossed inside the prop boulder, to give it rigidity and make it easier to move, and on my knees I hung against one of them, realizing it didn’t give me any rigidity at all. There was no more starch in me than there is in a tramps collar, and the breath whooshed out my nose so fast I distinctly heard a different note from each nostril.

Somebody said fervently, We made it, we really made it, and Choo Choo produced some high unintelligible noises, and I said, For Petes sake, shut up.

We werent out of the woods yet, but I had a feeling the remaining trees were few and far between. I was certain we hadn’t been spotted, since if we had there would have been noisy action long before now, and unless those bums knew about this Hollywood-type hunk of scenery — which wasn’t  likely — theyd never guess it was a fake by looking at it. All we had to do was keep quiet until the men took off. Or until help arrived.

Ed Finch had wasted no time getting away from the area, for which you couldnt really condemn him, but almost surely he would soon be returning with help. If, that is, he’d really gotten away.

We waited. The sound of heavy breathing slowed. There wasn’t  a peep out of anyone. I let go of the two-by-four and moved quietly into a more comfortable position. In fact, much more comfortable. Ah, sorry, I whispered.

It’s all right, she whispered back. Dont . . . be sorry.

I couldnt be sure from the whisper which of the gals it was. But I liked her forgiving attitude.

Time passed. I was almost starting to enjoy it here — then there was the sound of horses galloping nearer. And soon, voices. I heard the snort and flap of lips as a horse blew air out his nostrils and mouth.

Then, Where the goddamn He’ll could they of gone to? They got to be here somewhere?

And the colder, lower voice — Greens: That sonofabitch Scott could fall in a sewer and come up with a golden toilet. And I was lookin forward to killin that bastard.

We can’t mess around here much longer, Farmer said.

Yeah, that goddamn jerk what took off in the wagonll probably bring back a goddamn posse.

So Finch had gotten away. Silence for half a minute.

Tay, Farmer said, what you think? Should we ought to blow this stinkin place, like the boss said if there was trouble? I’m damned if I want to ride a horse to L.A.

After a pause Green said, Nah, we can go back to the cabin, I guess. They wasn’t  close enough to see who we was. And the bossll be havin fits till he hears what happened.

Yeah, then He’ll really throw a fit.

Go on up where we was and give it another good look. I’ll gander around here. But make it fast.

One of the horses clopped off. Closer to us the sounds of movement were audible for a minute or two, then all I could hear were small scraping sounds or the rustlings of imagination. In another two or three minutes more I thought I heard horses galloping away, the noise getting fainter. But I wasn’t  sure.

One of the girls heard it, too. Was that them? she whispered. Are they gone, do you think?

Maybe, I said softly. But wed better wait a few minutes. It might have been something else — or it could be a trick.

The minutes dragged by, and slowly the tension lessened. Conversation began, raggedly, then took on more sense and spirit, the words still, however, either whispered or spoken in very low tones.

I thought we were dead, somebody said. Just dead.

Then two or three others at once: Why did they want to kill us? What did we ever do —

Oh, golly, oh. God, I hope theyre gone, really gone —

. . . actually shot at us, I thought I’d die . . .

The soft bubble of words swelled, then ebbed. Silence for a moment. And in the silence Delise — by now I could identify the voices, and knew this one was Delise — said, Shell . . .

Yeah?

Last night in the saloon you were, well, you know. You know how much we appreciate what you did.

Well, ah, actually I was mainly trying to keep from getting my brains killed. I mean knocked out — from getting killed, myself, that is. The reason for the somewhat disconnected slop of wordage was because Delise — at least, in the darkness, I assumed it was Delise because she was speaking — had put a soft, warm hand on my shoulder.

Sliding her fingers nervously — I guessed it was nervously — against my skin, she went on, I dont care. But just now, out there — it was marvelous. The way you took charge and all, thinking of hiding us and everything.

Yeah? I said. Uh . . .

Before I could think of anything else to say, which might have taken quite a while, April said, It’s true. Shell. Delise is right. I knew it was April because the voice came from very close on my left, and I had earlier deduced from a few clues, being a detective, that the position which had accidentally turned out to be much more comfortable was Aprils. Moreover, the voice continuing now was the soft and warm whisper of Aprils honeyed-honeymoon voice, saying At least I’d probably be dead now if it werent for you, Shell. Maybe we all would.

Well . . . they were shooting at me mostly, you know. I wasn’t  simply being big about the whole thing . . . I considered you girls of course, especially there crammed in that . . . uh . . .

Zias accent caressed the next words, Dont be so modest, Shell. It’s true. I just can’t tell you!

April had taken my left hand in both of hers, and either Delise was using two sets of fingers or else Zia had accompanied her words with impulsively friendly action, because somebody had discovered a damned sensitive spot in the middle of my back.

I was kind of happy it was pitch dark in here — I mean, what with all the flowery words I was glad these gals couldnt see my face, which was getting pretty hot, and it was at least possible that I was blushing. It was a little hard to be sure, though, since I seemed to be blushing all over. Probably it was due to the kind of steamy atmosphere engendered when people sit close together, as in two-hundred-degree Finnish saunas, for health purposes.

I said, How . . . did we all get so close?

Somebody chuckled softly, and a voice said, It is nice and close, isnt it? and I said, Hoo. Everything, of course, was all open and aboveboard as the saying goes, but with April hanging onto my left hand, and fingers moving on my shoulders, and something sending cold shivers of hot lightning over my back, I was in a fair way of being totally electrocuted, nonetheless.

At least I had one hand free, so I reached out for that two-by-four, but I didn’t get the two-by-four. I guess it was Choo Choo. It had to be Choo Choo; she was the only one left.

Yeah, it was Choo Choo. You know, she said, now that were not all getting killed, this is kind of fun now.

It is? I said.

Delise said softly, Do you think theyre gone yet. Shell? I mean, do you think were safe?

I’m . . . not sure, I said hoarsely. I mean, there might be — gangsters out there. Wed better wait another hour or so. I mean, couple of minutes.

Oh, Shell, Choo Choo squealed. Youre too much!

I was getting electrocuted in a Finnish sauna. Inside my skull was a sparkling radiance, a kind of glowing incandescence, like radioactive oatmeal; and, or so it seemed, an occasional click. Ever since I’d gotten sapped on the head, there had been moments when I’d felt the blow must have knocked something loose up there, for every once in a while I did seem to hear a little muffled clicking sound.

So now I thought: Yes, it’s loose. I’m not right. Because this isnt happening. Not really, I simply can’t be under a rock with four naked babes.

But I was.

chapter thirteen

I climbed out first, took a good look around, then ran to the Cadillac. I didn’t have another handgun in the car, but there was a Weatherby .300 and a box of cartridges in the trunk. Carrying the loaded rifle I trotted back and hoisted up the edge of the boulder, held it high until the four gals scooted out.

All clear? April asked, smiling up at me.

So far. Those hoods are gone, at least. But weve still got the problem of getting back to the ranch. I paused. By the way, where, uh, are your clothes?

In the wagon, Choo Choo said brightly. They went away with Ed.

That settled that.

Silence.

Well, Zia said, youve got a gun now. Thank goodness. As she looked around, sunlight burned streaks of silver-blue in her black hair. So I’m going into the lake and get the dust off.

It didn’t look to me as if she had any dust on. But she and Choo Choo raced to the water. The gals were nuts; we still might get shot, for all I knew.

I said to April and Delise standing near me, I’ll take a look at the car and see what kind of damage those apes did. If it’s not wrecked, I’ll get it going as soon as I can.

I might as well cool off in the meantime, then, Delise said, stretching slowly, arching her back. I closed my eyes, but only briefly. I could have stood a little cooling off in the meantime myself.

Me too, April said. Fix the car fast, Shell, and join me — us for a dip.

Well, maybe. I feel a bit dippy at that.

They raced toward the water. I watched them. Just a little. Then I spun about and sprinted to the Cadillac.

Tay Green hadn’t done any real damage; he’d merely raised the hood and yanked some wires loose. I had the mess fixed in ten minutes. Of course Tay must have assumed, and quite logically at the time, that I wouldnt have anything like ten minutes in which to fiddle around with wires.

I turned the engine over to make sure all was well, then cut it off and walked back to the lake ready for anything. Armed now, with a kind of peaceful and contented feeling oozing through me, I looked with relaxed amazement at the vista before me. Despite the fact that there was little grass or greenery except right around the small lake, which was like a little oasis in the desert, and that the permanent scenery consisted primarily of water and sky, sage and greasewood, sandy earth and rugged rocks, the sight was like something out of Scheherazades Arabian Days.

Much of the impact, quite likely, was due to the temporary scenery. At the edge of the lake Delise lay on her stomach, head turned to look at April sitting beside her. Aprils thick rusty-brown hair was wet, much darker than usual, and she lifted both arms to fluff the hair over her bare shoulders. In the water, Zia and Choo Choo bounced about and splashed water at each other like a couple of kids. At least, a little bit like a couple of kids.

It was a marvel. I kept waiting for my bead to go click. But it didn’t. April saw me, raised a hand and waved, motioning me toward them. It was the kind of invitation I dont need half a dozen of, and I started walking forward.

Started.

I took two steps and heard a faint drumming sound. It got louder. Oh, no, I thought; not again.

I turned, ran back toward the Cad, and looking out over the desert saw a cloud of dust. At the base of the dust cloud were a lot little animals — horses again. With people on them. There must have been twenty or thirty people racing at us, all on horses.

Probably this was that rescue squad, the posse Tay Green had been grumbling about. Of course, the way things happened around this joint, it was conceivable that it was a whole gang of bloodthirsty hoodlums — there sure as He’ll were enough crooks in residence hereabouts. But it was a whole flock of people for sure, flying at us. . . . Not until then did I think of the gals — the gals with no clothes on! The gals with no clothes on here with me. And I wasn’t  exactly overdressed, myself. I could explain, sure, but sometimes rumors start and you never catch up to them.

I sprinted back to the lake. Get dressed, I yelled. Get — I mean, hide yourselves! I see a posse!

What did you say? Delise cried.

And Choo Choo yelled, very high, You see what?

A posse, a posse, I shouted. Didn’t you ever hear of a posse?

I was right up next to the lake now and Delise said in a kind of flat voice: Yes.

There must be twenty or thirty of them, I yelled, all excited. Flying over the desert at us.

Well, the four girls made such peculiar comments then that it sounded as if they were all actually deranged. I went on rapidly, Theyre probably coming to rescue us — not that I dont want to be rescued — but all these characters from the ranch will catch you with your pa . . . without any clothes on.

The girls just looked at me. I suppose I had sounded a little keyed up, but a guys nerves will only stand so much, and mine were starting to get gummy. The drumming got louder. I said stiffly, Well, all right. If that’s the way you want it.

It’s a posse from the ranch! Delise yelled.

Finally. Thank God the country isnt run by women. But I’ll say this for them, once they got the idea they moved with alacrity. April and Delise leaped up and spun about in a veritable whirlwind of activity and leaped toward the lake; Choo Choo flung up her hands and covered her eyes — I was beginning to wonder about Choo Choo; and Zia squatted down in the water, but failed to take into consideration the fact that she at that moment was in about six inches of water.

They all were, every one of them — almost as if it was predestined — much too late. Vroom, and thumping clatter, dust all over the place, everywhere horses snorting. And I beard some guys snorting, too. I think I even heard some women snorting. There were, it developed, three daredevilish women along with the approximately twenty men. Including, I was horrified to note, the old gal I had attacked outside my door back there.

Everything stopped.

Dust began to settle.

There was near silence — except for the sound of splashing, as those four stupid babes galloped into the lake. If they had just listened to me — blah, I thought. Women. Who needs them? Especially now?

After what seemed forever, all four of the lovelies were in water up their necks, and I strangled the impulse to go in there with them, and maybe drown them, and myself, and pulled myself together and erect. This was still a kind of prickly situation.

So I turned to the approximately two dozen citizens here assembled, fixed them with a stony glance and said, Well, it’s about time.

The old gal, still wearing the peachy jodhpurs — and very nearly the identical expression — shed had on that last time I saw her, eyeballed me aghast and sniffed. She had the nose to do it with, too. Well, she sniffed. I never!

Maam, I began politely, I never, either —  but then there was too much noise for anybody to hear me. Mostly, I guess, it was questions. I spotted Russ and Ed Finch in the crowd, waved Finch over. When things settled down a bit I explained to them all what had happened, mentioning Farmer and Tay Green and several gunshots, with my story corroborated by Finch.

After a while it seemed to have been made clear to everybody except the old gal with the long beak. You hid? she asked me? Where did you hide?

I’d told them the five of us had hidden, but not where wed hidden; and I was damned if I was going to tell them — at least her — now. What difference does it make where? I said to her. We hid. Isnt that enough? Maybe we hid in the water and breathed through hollow tubes, like in movies.

What tubes? I dont see any tubes. Where are the tubes?

She had me in a bind there. If I’d been under the water for any length of time at all, I sure would have needed some hollow tubes. O.K., I said, getting pretty teed off at this one, so we didn’t hide in the water. Men —

She sniffed. He’s got a gun. I wouldnt be surprised —

Men, I think the moment of greatest danger is past, I went on. That is, if this old battle-axe . . . That is, assuming the criminals have fled, uh, have departed the area. Which is a reasonable assumption. Yes —  I went on and on, sounding like an absolute idiot, but finally conveyed to the posse that I could now take the four ladies back to the ranch myself, in my car, although a mounted escort would be more than welcome, since criminals might yet be lurking about.

And that’s what we did, though it was a bit more complicated than that. Everybody had to ride out in the desert, and hide their eyes, then I drove the Cad as close to the lake as possible, and the girls scooted into the back seat where they huddled under a blanket, which I just happened to have there handy.

Then we headed over the desert, and every one of those horsemen bravely accompanied us home.

After I’d brought the girls enough clothing so they could get to their rooms without causing fainting spells among the elderly on the way, and they were safely out of my sight, I looked around briefly and checked with Russ, discovering a notable absence of hoodlums in the area. It appeared that not only Green and Farmer, understandably, but even lesser criminals such as card cheaters, had vacated the Sun and Sage. Whether that was a temporary or permanent condition I had no idea, but it was a question I meant to pursue further, at a later moment; at this moment I had another question to pursue. So I bought a bottle of bourbon and went straight to the Phoenix Suite.

Inside, I mixed a highball and sipped it, sitting on the edge of my bed. Slowly I pushed from my mind the events just past and started thinking about Jules Garbin. I let my thoughts center again on that moment of sudden illumination or memory, in the shower.

It had all seemed very clear in that moment. But now I wasn’t  so confident, wasn’t  so sure — possibly because of the sudden and jangling action which had immediately followed. So I finished the drink, took my time. Then I lay back on the bed, hands laced behind my still very sore head, and thought about it, all of it.

The most elementary logic said: Either Simon Everett was not Jules Garbin; or Jules Garbin was not dead. Well, I knew damn well Garbin was dead; so it followed that Everett was — well, probably Simon Everett, casketmaker.

But if there’s anything that sticks in my craw, it’s the too-pat bit in life, the staggering coincidence, the lightning bolt striking the villains zipper, that sort of thing. Sure, it happens; once in a few million times.

So, it was possible that Everett was Garbin’s twin brother, or a dead ringer for Garbin. But even a twin — He’ll, I couldnt buy it. You can find a man almost like another man, similar features, same height and build — but not a man identical with another. And the face I’d seen last night was burned like a brand in my brain. Except for the gray hair and black mustache — simple enough to add or remove — Everett was identical with Jules, even to his voice. He was Jules.

But here we go again — I’d seen Garbin kill himself. It wasn’t  something I’d been told, or read in the papers, though it had been all over the papers when it happened. I’d been there.

Of course, maybe I’d been hit on the conk once too often, too, maybe I was nuts.

O.K., I told myself, be nuts. Just for one minute assume Jules Garbin is alive, and here at the Sun and Sage. That could sure explain a lot of things. Jeannes murder, the attempts to kill me — Even the order to kill April — April, who had once double-dated with Hal Calvin and Jules, who had roomed with Jeanne in Hollywood, who knew Hal had gone off with Jeanne that Saturday night . . .

I stood up suddenly, thoughts popping in my mind — if Jules was alive it not only explained everything that had puzzled me, but even some queer things I hadn’t had sense enough to be puzzled about. Until now.

I started pacing the floor, getting excited, feeling the familiar tension building up inside me. He’ll, it was beautiful — if. Yeah, and that if always sent me back to that moment when I’d seen Jules Garbin leap through the window of the Hollywood-Crown. So I mixed another drink, kept on pacing the floor, and went over it again, every second of it, from the jail to the hotel to the bedroom. I’d seen Jules smash through the glass, throwing his hands over his head, starting to yell. I’d seen him plummet through the lights, smash on the sidewalk. Then I’d run to Hollywood Boulevard . . .

Right then I remembered, again, Hal Calvin sitting in the lobby. Hal, smiling his peculiar smile . . .

I stopped pacing, stood still. Almost audible in my thoughts I heard Hal saying to me, . . . or does the G-string move the dancer?

And then from somewhere, from something I’d read, came another oddly amusing thought. In parts of Africa, said the book, there are natives whove never seen a gun, and when a hunter aims his rifle and fires and the distant animal falls, the natives — never having heard of bullets — think the crack of the rifle is what makes the animal fall. They think the pop kills the game.

As I turned and walked to the phone those phrases ran through my mind like part of a doggerel rhyme: The G-string moves the dancer, and it’s the pop that kills the game . . .

I got long distance, and placed a call to Los Angeles, the Police Building, Homicide Division, still pacing the floor, letting the long phone cord trail out behind me. When my connection was made I asked for the Captain of Homicide, Phil Samson. This was Sunday, but Sam was in the office.

He came on, his voice gruff. He was probably chewing a black cigar, heavy jaw wiggling as he clamped down on it like an alligator softening up his meal. Not only had Sam been with me that night in the Hollywood-Crown, he’s also my closest friend in L.A., an immensely capable career cop — and basically a hardboiled no-nonsense man, despite the fact that we occasionally clown around in and out of the squadroom. Consequently I didn’t tell him, immediately, exactly what I was after, but kind of sneaked up at it on a tangent. After all, he’d been there in the Hollywood-Crown with me.

After the hellos, and my telling him I was at the Sun and Sage in Arizona, I said, Sam, I know youre busy —

I hope to He’ll. Some nut just knocked off two gas station attendants —

Yeah, Sam. I know youre overworked and underpaid and a sterling character, but listen, will you? This is important.

Sure, shoot. He sounded interested.

You remember the Jules Garbin thing —

That s.o.b. Yeah, go on.

Well . . . I stopped. No matter how I told it, Sam was going to think my noodles had softened completely. He had already, and on numerous occasions, threatened to have me hidden away. Jokingly, I hoped. But I had to tell him somehow, so I simply spewed it out.

I saw — that is, I think I saw — Jules Garbin here at the Sun and Sage last night.

He didn’t flip, just said mildy, Youre mixed up, Shell. Garbin’s the hood jumped from the Hollywood-Crown. He’ll, you were there. You must be thinking of somebody —

No, Sam, I interrupted, I’m talking about Garbin — the boy who splashed on the sidewalk. Nonetheless, I’m damned near certain I saw him here last night. I mean he’s alive, he’s here.

I stopped. Silence.

So, I went on, whats the chances of opening up his grave and checking the stiffs prints or bones or teeth —

Then he flipped. The silence had been merely the gathering of the storm. For about a minute neither of us made any headway, since the dialogue was unintelligible, but finally I half-yelled, Sam, dammit, quit popping your gums and listen to me. This is not a gag, I am deadly serious.

You can’t be.

I am.

You been drinking?

I had a couple, that’s all. Nothing —

Were you possibly stoned last night, when you saw this zombie?

No, I was not stoned, I said. Nor am I now. Please listen to me, quietly, for one full minute. O.K.?

Grudgingly he said, O.K.

At the end of that minute he was at least convinced I was serious. He was also convinced I was about two degrees away from flaming psychosis, and rapidly getting hotter. But at least he humored me. O.K., Shell, I believe you. You dont think it was Garbin we buried.

No, but —

Give me a minute now. I subsided and he went on. Let me remind you of a few unimportant items. It was Garbin jumped, in front of eight witnesses — including me and you. It was Garbin landed. At least, he went on with some sarcasm, whatever it was, it was human, it had Garbin’s face on it, his body, height, weight, feet, ears, you name it. It was wearing his black suit, his shirt, cuff links, and possibly even his Playboy Club key with a Bunny on it. So you think it wasn’t  Jules Garbin but Moe the Weasel or somebody.

Oh, Sam, for Petes sake — look you didn’t fingerprint the corpse, did you?

No, what for? I heard him sigh. You dont think it was Garbin jumped out the window.

No, it was Jules, all right. Had to be. No argument there.

No arg . . . Well, what in the He’ll. You dont think he went down? You think he flew the goddamn He’ll away?

Sam, dont get excited —

Whos —

Sam, listen. Sure he jumped. And, clearly, there are only two ways he could have gone, down or up.

Down . . . or . . . up, he said, each word like a stone falling in mud. Down . . . or . . .

Sam, we dont always see what we think we see. Why, in Africa there are natives who think the pop kills the game —

Pop —

Strike that. What I’m getting at is this: With enough planning and preparation, the right kind of preparation, you can do damn near anything not actually in defiance of natural laws —

Like gravity?

— and you dont have to be a magician, either. Youd swear the things a magician pulls off, right in front of your eyes, couldnt happen, either. Except you know his miracle is a trick. Right?

Well . . .

So if Jules — if Jules isnt dead, then the reason we think he’s dead and buried is: A trick. More than that really, but it boils down to trickery, deception. Incidentally, if he’s alive, obviously nobody shoved him out that window to cover up any high-level shenanigans. All that aside, though, I started to say Jules did go out that window; and then he either went down or up — or sideways, of course — but assuming he went down he didn’t have to go all the way down. Somebody had to, of course, and that’s what I want you to check. He’ll, I’m half sold on the idea that Jules went only one floor down, and was caught there somehow, or other —

Youre reaching, Shell.

Sure I’m reaching. I had to reach once I saw Jules alive up here. Dammit, if he jumped, and if he’s alive anyway, there has to be a logical explanation. I paused. Sam, I’ll admit I’m not positive. But I really believe it was Garbin I saw. The rest of it is — well, it’s guesses, deduction. But it all fits so perfectly. . . . Look, you get an order and open up that grave, and if Garbin’s in it I’ll push a peanut down every hallway in the Police Building. With my nose.

He started to speak, then stopped. There was a long silence. Then another sigh. Shell, this is the most cockeyed thing you ever asked me to do. I . . . He let it trail off, started again. You know, dont you, that if I get an order to exhume, and if whats left of Garbin is in there, nice and dead — well, they might as well embalm me and lower away.

I knew what he meant. If Sam managed to get a legal O.K. to open the grave, he would have to do one He’ll of a lot of fighting first. And if the result then was exactly what everybody else expected — what everybody else knew — the least that would happen to Samson would be an enormous amount of laughter, laughter and giggles and snickers. It might even hurt him in his job, his career.

For a moment I hesitated, almost weakened. But then I swallowed and said, Sam, I wouldnt have asked in the first place, unless I was pretty sure.

He swore softly. O.K. I’ll do some checking, at least, and call you later. He sighed again. Go buy a peanut.

chapter fourteen

I gurgled a fist of bourbon into a large glass, added some tap water, and poured booze on my nerves from inside. With alcohol further restoring the inner man, I refreshed the outer man with another hot-and-cold shower, then dressed in clean and fancy cowboy duds — different this time; more splendid.

Crazy red shirt with yellow cords on it ending in little arrowheads, trousers the approximate shade of weak coffee, white sombrero and belt, and slick red cowboy boots with an intricate purple design worked into them. And silver spurs on them. Around my neck a purple-silk bandanna matching the design in my slick boots. Plus banana-colored chaps, and on my hip an off-white holster containing a pearl-handled six-gun — real, and loaded — and over my shirt, hiding my snub-nosed Colt, a fringed yellowish-beigeish buckskin jacket. That accomplished, I mixed another drink and eyeballed my handiwork in the bedrooms full-length mirror.

It was quite a lot. I do like a little color in my garb, but . . . Actually, I looked as if I were giving off cosmic rays. If I got near any cows theyd probably moo at me and give pasteurized milk from then on. Man, I thought, if I had on vermilion shorts I’d probably explode. However, thus dudishly attired, and with several belts of bourbon under my belt, I discovered I was feeling, if not complete ecstasy, at least very little pain. Moreover, for the first time since I’d arrived at the Sun and Sage — assuming that all my hoodlum acquaintances were still conspicuous by absence — I had absolutely nothing vital to do until I heard from Samson again. And that wouldnt be for several hours yet, if ever. So, sort of gliding euphorically on my high-heeled boots, I advanced toward the door, opened it happily, and stepped into dreamland.

I didn’t, of course, at that precise moment, know I was stepping into dreamland — the scene was pretty much the same as before, except that all the cabins and buildings and little bushes and such seemed . . . well, happier. But slopping gently upon the surface of my brain, like little ripples spreading over a shallow swamp, were hints of what was to come. Their effect though, was merely that I felt a kind of pleasant twitchiness, a sense of enjoyable neurosis.

I toured the area again, but either all hoodlums were in hiding or any remaining were minor muggs I didn’t recognize. Perhaps they had all actually pulled up stakes and headed away. Far, far away, I hoped. I went through the public rooms, buildings, the saloon, and wound up near the rodeo ring well out past the stables. This was the circular ring, surrounded by tiers of wooden seats, chutes for horses and so on, where later today the Big Rodeo would be held. Without, by the way, me.

People were already gathering, I noticed. I checked my watch, discovering it was nearly noon; the rodeo was to commence at twelve and last for an hour, after which most of the hotel guests would travel to the Running M twenty miles away for their monthly champagne barbecue — real Wild West stuff — and other festivities.

Fifteen or twenty cars were parked near the ring, and possibly fifty people were already getting settled on the wooden seats. Among the cars I spotted Ed Finchs station wagon, loaded down with cameras, reflectors and other equipment — and a couple of girls in the front seat.

I walked over, noting that the gals were Zia and Choo Choo. I leaned in the window and said, Hi. Are we still speaking?

Zia winked one black eye and smiled, lips curling and sending forth ultrasonic sizzles. Sure, she said. What do you want to speak about?

Well —

I know what would be fun, Choo Choo said. Lets —

Wait a minute. I was curious to know what Choo Choo thought would be fun to speak about, but something slightly hideous had occurred to me. I said, Whatre you doing in the wagon?

We just came out to see the bucking horses and all, Zia said. Eds going to enter one of the contests, and he promised he’d get you to enter, too.

That’s good. For a minute I had the awful suspicion you might planning to shoot that last scene. . . . What do you mean Ed promised —

Choo Choo ignored my last words and bubbled merrily, Oh, Ed did want us to finish the final bit this afternoon, but we were too scared.

I should hope —

And, anyway, we told him youd kill him if he made us shoot the scene today.

You bet I’d —

Zia chimed in, He almost had us talked into it, anyway. It really doesnt seem likely anything else awful would happen, after all the fuss. At least that’s what Ed said.

He did, huh? And he almost had you convinced? That’s nice.

They both chattered on at once, and from one or the other or both at the same time I got most of what, I gathered, must have been Eds argument to them. Ed had told them they really ought to finish the last scene, just the one little final scene, or he’d be ruined, and all the gunsters had gone away anyhow, and there wasn’t  a chance in a million thered be more trouble after what had already happened already, and they could have it all wrapped up in an hour. Just dont say anything to Scott because that ape might get violent or something, and didn’t they want to get the thing over and done with? Then they could head straight for L.A. — without even bothering Scott. The girls wanted to help him, and Ed had almost talked them into it, but theyd all been a little too scared. And so on.

When they stopped there was silence. I didn’t even feel like disturbing the silence. The suspicion had been growing that Choo Choo was no brainier than absolutely necessary, but I’d expected more rationality of Zia.

And it was Zia who said again, But we told him we didn’t really want to, Shell. And you wouldnt like it. He said he knew you wouldnt like it.

Especially after youd saved us from the fate of death, Choo Choo chimed in. We told him youd render him limb from limb.

Eat him alive, said Zia.

Well . . . something like that, I said. Did April and Delise come out with you?

Yes — there they are now. Zia pointed past me.

The three of them were walking toward the wagon, Ed Finch in the middle, with April on one arm and Delise on the other. When Finch saw me he stopped suddenly, his expression becoming pained, as if he’d eaten something which had just started violently disagreeing with him. But then, with surprising suddenness, his expression changed to a large, friendly smile and he advanced toward me, sticking out his hand.

Scott, there you are, he said, grabbing my hand and pumping it as if delighted to see me. I tried to find you at your suite, but there wasn’t  any answer. Wanted to thank you for — well, what you did this morning.

It seemed a bit phony, and I suppose if it hadn’t been for the euphoria in which I seemed to be dwelling now, and perhaps the slight flutter of madness in the air, I would have handled all that followed differently.

But I said, Whats this I hear about The WILD West? You were thinking of finishing it up today, hey?

Oh, He’ll no, Scott, he said, openly and honestly. I’ll admit I was thinking about it. There’s only the one scene left, and we could probably get it done without any trouble. But there’s still a chance, and — well, it was a crazy idea. I must have been off my rocker.

You must have been.

I’ll lose my shirt, of course, he said, the happy expression fading momentarily. But then he brightened. Which is little enough. You risked a lot more than your shirt this morning, Scott.

Yeah, I risked my pants. When do you plan to finish shooting?

Sometime next week, I guess. If it’s safe even then. That is, if Ben hadn’t kicked me the He’ll — but never mind that.

Yeah. Even next week might be too soon, I said. Of course, it’s none of my business, I guess. The girls are all twenty-one, and it’s up to them. And you. I smiled. Of course, if you had gone ahead, and thered been more trouble, you could hardly expect me to come to the funeral.

Oddly, he paled a little beneath his tan. My . . . funeral?

I laughed. That’s not what I meant. I dropped that line of conversation, said hello to April and Delise. The gals all looked great, wearing identical cowgirl outfits, beige shirts and tight white jeans, tan-and-white boots, and very feminine little beige hats, like I. Magnins idea of a sombrero.

They all, incidentally, commented on my outfit, but the He’ll with that. What did they know, anyway?

Delise smiled at me and said, What are you going to do in the rodeo?

Watch.

Oh, come on, Shell, April said in the soft, whispering voice. I’ll bet you could win a prize. Ed said —

I dont care what Ed said. I have a feeling about horses —

Arent you going to do a little bronc riding, Scott? That was Ed. He was still smiling, friendly, but I couldnt miss the undercurrent of — something. Bitterness, anger, sarcasm — something.

He went on, I thought sure youd wrestle a bull, or do something brave. The girls have been bending my ears all morning about how brave and marvelous you are.

There it was. The last I’d seen of Finch after those gunshots, he’d been running like a scared rabbit. Well, so had I; but I’d sort of happened to be running after the girls. It seemed apparent that Ed was feeling a little guilty about taking the wagon, leaving the gals and me behind. And often when a man feels guilty, instead of getting angry with himself He’ll lash out at those around him. Under the circumstances, I thought, it wouldnt be too surprising if he felt like lashing me more than anyone else.

He went on, Now I know you can’t be afraid of horses —

Friend, if you really want to know, I am afraid of horses.

But a big, brave fellow —

I dont know just where he’d meant to put that needle, but unconsciously I took a half step toward him and he clammed suddenly. I wasn’t  crazy about this Ed Finch to begin with, and while I didn’t mind a few cracks at my expense, Ed was getting a little too near the out-of-bounds crack.

But after subsiding for only a little while, he joined the conversation again by saying, I’m entered in the calf-roping contest, Scott. It’s the safest contest being held, so naturally that’s the one I entered. Why dont we both give it a try, have a little two-man contest.

Just between us, huh? I grinned at him. Mano a mano, and may the better idiot win?

That’s it.

Youre pretty good, huh?

He shook his head. I’ve never tied a calf — or even thrown a rope at anything in my life. But, he added slowly, I’m not afraid to try.

Well, you go ahead. I’ll sit with the girls and applaud —

April said, Oh, do, Shell. You can do it, I know you can.

And Delise chimed in, Go ahead. I’d love to see you out there —

What is this, a conspiracy?

— breaking a cayuse, or —

I’d break my fat head. Listen, I may not have much sense, but I’ve got more sense than to —

There was a girlish chorus of Do! Yes! and Oh, youve got to! amid dopey squeals and fluttering of hands and such.

I said firmly: I will not even enter the cow-milking contest.

And then Ed took a chance on getting smacked hugely in the teeth, as he said, lips curling, obvious contempt in his voice, Let it go, girls. Dont embarrass the guy any more. I dont say he’s afraid, but some of these tough ones, unless theyve got a gun in their hands —

There’s a little sap in all of us, I guess, and probably more than the usual amount in me, but when I start burning the heat affects the coolness of my mental processes, and I was burning.

O.K., I said. I’ll tell you what. You name it, and well both do it. We can go out in the ring and wrestle a Brahma bull, or shoot at each other, or do a tap dance — you name it. Though I’m damned if I know why youre so anxious —

He broke in, Calf-ropings the one I’m interested in. Fact of the matter is, Scott, I entered both our names.

You what?

Well, I thought sure youd want to take part in the show — impress the girls, and all. You want to impress the girls, dont you?

I kind of want to impress your nose, Ed. So dont get carried away, understand?

He understood. And it wasn’t  like Ed Finch to be so dangerously big-mouthed — at least not like the Finch I’d seen so far. He hesitated a moment, then said, You got me wrong. I just assumed youd want to enter one of the contests. Most of the men do, you know — and were all amateurs, all in the same boat.

Uh-huh. And with your almost psychic awareness of what I’d want to do, you realized I’d want to rope a calf more than anything.

He didn’t comment. But April caught my eye and took me aside. Far enough from the others so they couldnt hear us, she said, We dont care if youre in the old rodeo at all, Shell. But — oh, he makes me so mad! I just want to see you beat Ed. We all do.

Honey, if I get out there, I am apt to rope myself and strangle before help arrives. Me and large toothy animals — we have very little in common —

We dont even care if you win. But youve just got to beat him.

They didn’t care; but I had to. That was one of those things which I’ve found only women say. God love em. Well, I’ll try, I said wearily. But dont be surprised if the calf wins.

She smiled. After that smile, I thought, it would almost be worth it even if the calf did bite me. We walked back to the others, and twenty minutes passed in a kind of daze. With growing nausea I realized that very soon I would be on a horse, swinging a rope around my head, and throwing the rope at a little calf.

Really, it was ridiculous; there’s nothing much to calf roping. You sit on your horse, the calf is freed and starts running, and then when he passes a certain point youre allowed to go after him. Then, if you get the rope around him somewhere, you get off the horse, flop the calf over, and tie his legs with a length of cord carried for that purpose. Simple enough. I just have a thing about it, that’s all. Besides which, though I’ve managed it a time or two, I’m still not exactly sure how to start a horse.

All six of us were sitting together, watching the events now under way. There was a lot of color in the stands — and noise, everybody yelling and whooping. Already dust hung in the air around us, earth smell mixed with the aromatic odor of sagebrush. The current event was bronc-busting, which seems to be a sport in which you get on a bronc and it busts you.

Only three of the contestants were what might be called professionals, and theyd put on an exhibition of bronc busting which curdled my blood. One guy got tossed — well, like eight feet in the air, landed with a thud audible even over the crowds yells, and got up, and then fell down again. Two other guys managed to help him from the ring before the horse could jump around on him, but it was a near thing.

Following that the calf-roping began, and after seeing the vacationing dude ranchers making themselves look foolish out there but still having a good time doing it I decided my part of this affair wouldnt be too bad after all. The first man missed the calf and fell off his horse, only to get up laughing. The second man actually roped his calf, had a He’ll of a time tossing it to the ground, but got it tied finally and threw his hands over his head to roars and laughter from the crowd. There were well over a hundred guests present, and it was really quite a ball, everybody having fun.

The calf-ropers were being called alphabetically, and now it was Finchs turn. After him there were three other men and then Scott: Me.

Ed said, Well, here I go. Wish me luck, Scott.

Sure — hey. Dont I have to put my name in for a horse or something? Or —

That’s all taken care of, he said. I took care of it for you.

You did? That’s nice. I guess. What am I riding, a mad bull?

He grinned. Of course not. I talked to Mr. Cordiner, and he said you rode Vixen yesterday, got along well with her. So I arranged to bring Vixen over for you.

Big of you. I guess. I just couldnt get that I guess out of my thoughts.

Well, I wouldnt want to take an unfair advantage, Scott.

Yeah. I guess.

He waved, and went off. I watched him closely from that point on, since I didn’t really know all a man ought to know about this operation. From where we all sat, the chute, in which the horse was held until the calf was released, was on our left, just inside the ring. A brown horse was brought into the chute and Ed climbed up over the rail of the chute and lowered himself gently into the saddle.

He was about ready to go. The girls, and I, leaned forward, waiting tensely. The calf was released and raced forward, then the brown horse tore out of the chute. Ed clinging to the saddle horn with one hand and whipping the rope around his head with the other. He let out a wild Yippeee! and leaned forward a little, and I had to hand it to the guy for a minute there. He looked pretty good. But he missed the calf with his first try — in this amateur thing all rules went by the board, and a contestant could try till he got tired — and Ed gathered up the rope and gamely tried again.

This time he did sling the rope around the calfs neck, managed to get off his mount, stumbled, grabbed the calf and wrestled with it. The calf had a mind of it’s own, and it seemed a stronger mind than Eds for a while, but he got her down, managed to twist a rope around several legs and threw his hands in the air.

We all yelled and applauded — yeah, even me — and Ed limped back toward us. Before he reached us the announcer called out his time: Two minutes and eight seconds. It was the best time of the day at that, although I’d been told professionals could do it in ten or eleven seconds, or some such obvious falsehood.

Also before Ed reached us, each of the four girls had managed to give me a pearl or two of advice. I was to be sure I didn’t miss the calf with the rope; go faster than Ed; go slower than Ed; jump off the horse fast to save time; be careful getting off my horse; stay on my horse; and a few obviously impractical suggestions.

The next man slipped off his horse and broke his arm.

By the time it was my turn, the days record was still two minutes and eight seconds, and as far as I was concerned they could give the little silver cup to Ed. But I couldnt back out now, so I left my seat, feeling numb.

Then I was standing alongside the chute. My mount was already penned inside there, and as I climbed up to get on I looked her over. Yeah, Vixen, coal black except for that white blaze on her pretty nose, good old Vixen.

That’s what I said: Good old Vixen, trying to establish a little rapport. Vixen had at one time been used occasionally in the calf-roping dodge, but no more, now that she was a riding horse. I hoped she still remembered what to do, because I sure didn’t.

My calf was ready, horse ready, everything ready but me, but that didn’t count. The lasso was in my right hand, reins and short length of rope coiled in my left. I climbed over the top rail of the chute, hung poised above the saddle for a moment, then sat. So far, so good; I even started thinking about doing this job in two minutes flat.

The way to do it, I figured, was to take my time and make sure I didn’t miss the calf on my first throw. If I managed that, throwing the calf and tying it shouldnt take more than another twenty or thirty seconds, with luck. Vixen was keyed up — horribly keyed up, it seemed to me. Excited by all the noise and activity, I guessed. I could feel her actually vibrating under me, like those things barbers use on your neck. Man, this old mare was twitching about like a regular old dynamo.

She turned her old head around and looked at me. Good old Vixen, I said. That white blaze on her nose looked a bit odd. Just a bit. As if wet. My calf was about ready to be released, and I could feel my nerves winding up in anticipation of my big moment. Yes, that was sure an odd blaze. Why would it be wet?

I grabbed the lasso, or lariat, or whatever in the fingers of my left hand and patted Vixen on her nose. Yep, it was wet. I looked at my fingers. There was wet stuff on them — white wet stuff. Paint. That was odd.

And then Vixen, staring at me, laid her ears back and rolled her red eyes, and peeled big red lips back from enormous white fangs, and:

CLOP!

I didn’t believe it.

I wouldnt believe it.

There went my calf, lickety-split.

Now! Somebody yelled.

No! Somebody else yelled. That was me.

The chutes gate sprang open.

No!

But the answer was: Yes.

Then we were moving. And I mean, moving.

And there was one more horrible, blood-curdling yell. From me:

DIABLO!

chapter fifteen

It was true, all right. Now I believed it. I was going to kill Ed Finch. If I had to come back from the next world to do it — which, clearly, I was going to have to do, because I was on my way there already.

It started with a rocket-bomb under me, exploding once, then once again. My spine went right up into my brain and pecked at the inside of my skull as, from hills far away, came back the echo:

. . . diablooo . . .

Then I was way up in the air.

Way up.

Earth and sky spun about, dotted with colorful people, and if I hadn’t been going to die it might possibly have been pretty. But I was doing a great number of things besides admiring the scenery, and I grabbed and grabbed for something to hang onto, but of course there was nothing to hang onto, not way up there.

I knew I was starting down again. Down there where the wild animal was. I got out one more yell. That’s all there was time for. Just time enough for:

DIABLOOOOO-OOOPHHH.

chapter sixteen

I knew this place.

This was a familiar place; I’d been here before. This was where all the losers came. The people here knew me, too. They all welcomed me with open heads.

Somewhere a ghastly voice was saying, He’s coming around, I think.

And a ghostly voice replied, He looks dead to me.

No, I saw an eyelid twitch. See, there it goes again.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I think youre right.

Silence. Blackness swirled into grayness. I felt my eyelid twitch. After two or three more twitches it opened. Then the other eye opened.

How do you feel? Russ said.

I looked at the thin, interested face, flowing mustache, mane of white hair. Let me think about it, I said.

I thought about it. Yes, now I remembered everything. No sickening temporary amnausea or whatever Doctor Brown had talked about last time. I hadn’t lost anything this trip. In fact, considering the added aches and pains and changes in skull structure, I’d come back with more than I’d had when I went. I guess the more often you do a thing the better you get at it. But I was getting damned tired of this.

Russ moved away, came back with a small glass. Brandy, he said. I drank it, slowly. Then he gave me another brandy. Then he gave me another. Any better? he asked.

I think I’ll live. I may turn into a drunkard, but I think I’ll live.

A few minutes later I was sitting up, apparently dead except for a splitting headache. Remembering those ghastly ghostly voices I said to Russ, I learned something interesting this time, at least. Even when I was unconscious I could hear you guys talking about me looking dead, and my eyelid twitching and all that spooky stuff. I looked around the room.

Then I said, Wheres the other guy?

And Russ said: What other guy?

We didn’t have much in common for a while after that.

But, boy, I was never going to get clunked on the head again, if I could help it — of course, you usually dont plan that sort of thing. Maybe I wouldnt even sleep, except fitfully — that wasn’t  the word. Just sleep, half an hour at a time, maybe — dont give them time to grab you, that’s the ticket.

Russ, I said, hows that brandy holding out?

I sipped the brandy, thinking of the billions and billions of cells in the brain, and how, with that many, it’s natural for a few of them to lose their minds once in a while. But finally I forced my mind away from my mind — and that’s a neat trick — and asked Russ to tell me what had happened in the outside world.

I had discovered that my tail felt almost as obsolete as my head, as if I had tried to make both ends meet and succeeded beyond my wildest expectations, and Russ explained how that had happened. I had landed on my hind end, he told me, not my head — which surprised me a lot — and then flopped back slamming my head. It was practically one movement, Russ said.

How in He’ll did Finch get Diablo over to the ring? I asked him.

I thought he was bringing Vixen. But Diablos O.K. as long as he’s just led around. If you dont try to get up on him he’s not especially violent.

Except he bites. He goes CLOP at you, and if youre not pretty speedy, zip, there goes a finger. Zop, there goes a hand —

Shell, you want me to get the doctor?

— zap — no, he’d just want to stick that great big ugly —

You really should have him look at your head.

What good will it do him to look at it? He’ll say, Yes, it’s out of place. Here, take a squirt of this —

Do you feel all right, Shell? He did sound concerned.

He’ll, no, I dont feel all right, I said. My head hurts. Not to mention my aching — by the way, hows Diablo?

He’s fine.

He . . . didn’t bite me anywhere, did he?

No. He started to, but a couple of the hands got to him before he could really get going.

Started to, huh? Yeah. Either that horse hates me, or likes me an awful lot. I think you should tuck him away somewhere, Russ. As he grows old and crotchety, he might get mean. I stopped as a thought struck me. Oh, boy, I guess Finch won the little cup. Where is he, Russ? I smiled, and my teeth felt sharp and pointed. I want to — make sure his cup runneth under.

Oh, he left right after you got hurt. Him and them four actresses.

How long ago was that? I mean, how long was I out?

About an hour. They left maybe forty-five minutes ago.

Yeah, I suppose they . . . I let it trail off as the depressing thought struck me. I dont imagine they said where they were going.

Russ shook his head. No, they just climbed in that station wagon, and headed off over the desert. Like they do every morning. Seemed they had a little argument first, but then they all drove off.

Uh-huh. I stood up gingerly, tried everything out. My legs were a little weak, and of course my head was splendid, but otherwise I felt in fair condition. I sat down on the bed again. Please bring me, I said, the aspirins.

Down went the standard four. Then I got up, made sure I had all my keen clothes — and guns — on, mixed a drink and sat down on the bed. I liked that bed.

You going somewhere? Russ asked.

I havent quite made up my mind, what there is left of it. I’m considering the question.

I was considering it. Probably Finch and the girls were about through shooting that stupendously important last scene by now. Ben Hur meets Cleopatra in the Nudist Camp. Colossal Spectacle, with a cast of dozens. My mind was wandering. One thing was sure; Ed Finch and the girls had been at their location for nearly an hour by now, and if anything horrible was going to happen to them it would have happened by this time — but I wasn’t  going to let Finch wander out of here until I’d massacred him. And I probably should get going if I hoped to catch him.

Any calls for me, Russ? While I was exploring my unconscious?

Nope. You expecting a call?

One. From Los Angeles. A mighty important call. I looked at my watch; it was only one-forty-five. But it wont come in for at least another couple of hours. If a call does come in for me from a Captain Samson —

Captain Samson? Oh, he called, Shell — but it wasn’t  for you.

Wasn’t  for me? What . . . did he leave a message for me?

No, he just wanted to know how you were. I told him you were unconscious again.

Ah — fine. Fine.

Naturally he wanted to talk to Doctor Brown.

Grand. He’ll sure put in a good word for me.

I was sitting there stewing when Russ said, almost hesitantly, Shell, the rest of the guests, about a hundred or so — well, theyve already started driving over to the Running M. I really should be there when they start the program.

Good Lord, I hope to shout you should — youre only the owner of this spread. I didn’t even think about the barbecue and all, so get going.

Will you be all right?

Of course. Youve stuck around here too damn long as it is.

Well, if youre sure youre O.K., Shell. He turned and started toward the door, saying, I’ll stop in when I get back.

Right. And — thanks, Russ.

He showed me his crooked teeth in a grin, and went out.

I got up, stretched my muscles around a little, went into the bathroom and washed my face and hands in cold water, then walked back into the living room. And, finally, I was as normal as I was going to get. For a while there I’d been sort of disconnected, but all the connections were made now and I was wired for action. Despite the battering around I’d had I was in pretty good shape — surprisingly good shape. The only thing really bothering me was the pain, in my head, hind end, bones. But I didn’t feel weak; I felt strong enough, reasonably clear-headed, and perhaps not unreasonably angry. I was starting to get mad.

Pretty quick I was going to win a round. It was time; it was past time.

So the first thing was to phone Samson and find out what the score was there. Then I was going to find Ed Finch before he got away. That, I decided, was what I would do.

Only that’s not what I did.

I was at the phone, just starting to dial, when I heard a sound behind me. I hadn’t locked the front door, and the guy just opened it and stepped inside. I knew him. I also knew the gun in his right hand, an unusual gun, a Beretta Brigadier, 9 mm. Luger.

The Brigadier is an automatic pistol which fires nine shots. In the right place, one would be enough. And he had it aimed at one of the right places.

But more surprising, even than the sight of the gun was the sight of the guy.

You, too, huh? I said. Youre one I missed, you bastard.

chapter seventeen

The guy holding the gun on me was the saloons tall, thin, sad-faced bartender — Clyde, I’d heard Pete call him.

Well, this explained a thing or two. When I’d been talking to April at the bar, it probably wasn’t  what Pete had heard — but what Clyde had heard that put April on the spot.

I said, So you were bending an ear when April said she was in the room Saturday night, when some guy picked Jeanne Blair up. And when April suddenly remembered out loud that it was Hal Calvvin’s voice she heard — in fact, youd just brought our drinks back then.

Right you are, Scott, he said cheerfully, now that there was no point in hiding it.

He was good; he knew what he was doing. He had already locked the door behind him without taking his eyes off me, and now he made me assume the posture against the wall — hands spread, legs way back — and took my guns. Both guns. Except for that brief time he stayed well away from me, well out of reach.

O.K., Scott, you can relax, he said. A little, just a little.

I said, That’s why April had to be killed, huh? Because she was the only person — until she told me — who knew Hal Calvin was with Jeanne that last night.

I didn’t really expect him to answer. But he did. And that bothered me. But a lot of things were bothering me. I couldnt understand why he hadn’t just stepped in here and shot me. There had to be a reason.

Clyde said, You got it again. Hal didn’t know there was anybody else in Jeannes room when he picked her up. He thought he was clean. Naturally when I passed on what I heard this April chick saying, it meant she had to be taken care of.

Naturally. And you couldnt wait to pass that right on to Hal.

Not Hal — Jules.

It almost made my knees buckle. Jules — you admit he’s alive?

Clyde grinned. Why not? You already know it, dont you?

I started getting it then. Not much of it, but enough so it scared He’ll out of me. I said slowly, You know about my call to . . .

To the fuzz. Samson in L.A. Sure.

Wheres the bug? In here?

Dont be silly. On the main switchboard, every line tapped. For the last year Farmers been checking the tapes of every call in and out of here — how do you suppose we knew you were coming up yesterday? He grinned again. Except I had to check the tapes today, myself, since Farmer and all the other boys took off — no trouble about my staying, of course. When I told Jules about that call you made to the fuzz, he like to evacuated in his cowboy pants. He paused. Jules tells me youre smarter than you look, Scott.

So?

So he figures youll have sense enough to cooperate. I guess, if youre so all-fired smart, you know whats next.

I thought I knew what; but so would an imbecile have known what. You tell me, I said.

Why, you make another call to the fuzz, what else? You tell your old buddy Samson you take it all back, when you talked to him this morning you were drunk, or out of your mind — anything you want to, just so you convince him. Convince him only a damn fool would open Jules grave when everybody knows Jules is in it.

Uh-huh. All I have to do is convince Sam that the guy I saw, and thought was Garbin — well, I saw him again a while ago and it turns out to be a tall, thin girl.

Something like that. He wont have any paper so he can open up the grave yet — even if he could maybe get it. So you just call him and tell him not to bother.

I grinned slowly, starting to feel better than I had in quite a while, certainly since Clyde had poked that gun at me.

Whats so damned funny? he said.

I’ve kind of got you — and Jules — over a barrel, havent I?

He blinked. Huh?

Except for you hoods, I’m the only person who knows Jules is alive, right? He didn’t answer. I went on, So, I’ve got to be killed. But I’ve told the fuzz, Captain Samson, and in a few hours he may be peering into Garbin’s casket, in which Garbin is not. Who is in it, by the way?

Knock it off. Whats this over-the-barrel?

Yeah. O.K., I’ve got to be killed, but if Sam opens that grave and a couple million people learn Garbin’s alive, well, Jules can’t kill all two million of them. And he can’t kill me either — not until I call off the fuzz. I grinned. Go ahead, Clyde. Shoot me.

He grinned back, and I did not like the grin. Guess whos over the barrel, Scott, he said. I told you, Jules figures you for a pretty good head. But Jules himself is a brain, and dont forget it — he fooled everybody in the country, didn’t he? Including all the L.A. fuzz, and you?

This time I didn’t say anything.

Jules told me youd probably come up with something like this. He knew, unless he had a lever, youd probably tell him to go jump. So he got a lever he thinks will move you — since he knows how you are about babes. If his covers blowed, if it’s found out he’s alive, they can’t do anything else to him for knocking off four more twists — he’s already set for the gas chamber. But the fact is, he dont want to go to the gas chamber, and he’s so anxious not to He’ll let the girls go and even let you off scot-free, he says, if youll call off the cops and the heat.

Let the girls go? What —

He grinned that unpleasant grin again. Didn’t I tell you yet? He had Farmer and Pete grab them there at the lake. Saw them coming, and grabbed them before they even got started taking pictures.

How could he see them coming? See from where?

Everybodys up at the cabin, the old Cordiner cabin. Jules couldnt take off across country, you know. He had to stick around till you were — till you cooperated.

Till I was killed, he’d started to say, no doubt. Once I was killed, and the police were called off the scent, then of course Jules wouldnt have to take off across country. He could continue sitting around here in the desert.

I said, Dont con me. You can’t see the lake from the Cordiner cabin.

Clyde shook his head. Look, you know we got them or we wouldnt say so. And Jules is ready to prove it anyway — I’m coming to that. He paused. Sure, you can’t see the lake there, but you can see a hunk of the desert, and they was spotted in their wagon coming toward the lake. Jules says, There’s the answer, go grab them four bitches, something like that.

It sounds just like Jules, I said, but I wasn’t  feeling very flip. I believed Clyde now. I said, What about Finch?

He tried to be brave this time. Clyde shrugged. He’s dead.

And I believed that too. Oddly, knowing Finch was dead, suddenly knowing it, I found it difficult to remember I’d been griped at him, ready to beat He’ll out of him, I just felt very sorry, and a little sick.

The girls are all right, Clyde said. So far. But they wont be if you dont make that call.

How do I know they arent already dead? I hope you dont expect me to take your word for it.

I dont. That is, Jules dont. Look, why do you think I’m telling you all this — that Jules is alive, everybodys at the cabin, we got the girls and so on? Because Jules told me to. He says that’s the only way to handle you. Youd know, if I told you to call off Samson, that nobodyd be worried about the fuzz cracking open his casket if Jules was in it. And you wouldnt believe the girls was alive and O.K., right, unless he proved it. If they were dead already, you wouldnt have no reason to phone, would you? So he can prove it.

How?

From out in the desert — with glasses I got in my car outside — you can look straight up at the cabin. Girls are upstairs in front of the big window, right up front, alive and O.K. Now heres the deal. We go take a look. When we do, Jules will see us down there at the same time. Then you got exactly a half-hour to make your call to the fuzz. A half-hour ticks off. If I havent told Jules by then everythings O.K., he kills every goddamn one of them.

It felt as if my temperature dropped ten degrees. Everything would be, I felt sure, exactly as Clyde had just said; I didn’t have to take that look . . . and maybe not taking it would slow down Garbin’s schedule, a little. But, although the girls were undoubtedly alive now and probably would remain alive until I made that call to Samson, then they would almost surely be killed; certainly April would be. Why? Because by then I’d be dead. I knew if I called and convinced Sam I’d tried to send him on a wild goose chase, as soon as I hung up the phone Clyde would kill me. And Garbin would live — maybe not here at the Sun and Sage, but somewhere in the country — happily ever after.

Now you understand the picture, Clyde said, lets go convince you the babes are O.K. and then —

Skip it. I’m convinced.

It surprised him. And, maybe that was good. They couldnt know what was happening here, and until Jules was sure, he might not harm those lovelies. I tried not to think of lovely, warm April, Delise, Choo Choo, Zia with guys like Green and Pete, or whoever was with them.

So make the call, Clyde said.

All right.

I had to think of some way to tip Sam — without getting this bastard suspicious. And more important — much more important — at least a chance of getting to this guy before he could shoot me. Looking at the situation in the worst possible light, if I could somehow tip Samson to what was going on, even if I then got shot several times, at least Garbin’s goose would be cooked.

And — there was a chance. I thought maybe I had it. A way to tip Samson, and just maybe a slim hope of catching Clyde off guard. Awfully slim; but even a fraction is better than zero.

Clyde complicated things some more then. He knew there were two phones in the suite, and made me bring the other one from the bedroom and put it on the floor; then before picking it up, he waved me to the living room phone. That twenty-five-foot cord on his phone would reach from it’s outlet in the bedroom to the opposite living room wall here, so he’d have no trouble watching me and listening to the conversation at the same time.

And he watched me with a kind of relaxed attention or coiled ease, just enough, just right — keeping the gun correctly pointed, no lapses. As I moved, he moved too, keeping approximately the same distance from me all the time — far enough away so I couldnt possibly jump him, and close enough so he couldnt miss me if I tried. If I moved toward one wall he moved toward the opposite one, and if I had kept moving around the room we would undoubtedly have gone in a circle. That was good; I was counting on that.

Then Clyde said, One more thing, Scott. You mentioned this over-the-barrel bit. Dont count on it too much. If you try to jump me, or get smart on the phone, I blast. Just like that. Believe me, Jules told me that, too.

I didn’t doubt it a bit. I got long distance, placed the call to Homicide, person to person as Clyde instructed. He listened, receiver against his ear.

You better convince him, Scott, he said. You better convince him.

You can count on me, I said, and moved across the room, carrying the phone with me.

Hey, stand still, he said.

Shut up. I’m supposed to be alone in here.

He started to speak, stopped. I kept walking, back and forth, as if nervous. I was nervous. Sam came on:

Hello?

Hi, Sam. This is Scott.

Who?

Scott, Shell Scott, you idiot. Something wrong with the connection?

Oh, Shell. What is it this time.

I almost groaned aloud. I could tell he’d missed it. It hadn’t worked. Sam never, absolutely never, calls me Scott, but when I’d said This is Scott he hadn’t picked it up. Sam is usually fast, too, very fast, but for some reason today wasn’t  the day.

It’s, uh, about that other call I made, Sam, I said, acutely conscious of the gun in Clydes right hand. Did you . . . have any luck with the authorization?

Well, no. Shell. Now I know I told you I’d do some checking, and I did. I damn near got my head bitten off. You dont know how silly it sounds down here — and I wanted to ask you about that? How, uh, how are you feeling now? All right?

What in He’ll do you mean? Of —  I cut it off. Well, I’m not feeling too hot at that, Sam. Had a little trouble up here. I couldnt think of a way to tip him, not any way at all, now that my one try had flopped.

So I gather, Sam said. Look, Shell, you sounded a little . . . stirred up, you know? I called the owner of the Sun and Sage — after all, before I made a fool of myself I wanted to know more of what was going on.

He stopped. Uh-huh, I said.

Sam sounded apologetic. This Cordiner said youd been banged up pretty good, and he had a doctor in to look at you. So I spoke to this doctor . . .

Uh-huh, I said again: Good old Brown. While talking I’d been walking back and forth continually, a few feet each way. This time I’d almost reached the door, and turned toward Clyde. He popped a couple inches into the air, but controlled himself, moved across the room keeping his distance.

Yeah, Doctor Brown, Sam said. He claimed you wouldnt let him treat you — you had a paranoid reaction directed at doctors. He was going to give you a sedative and you told him you werent a bull. Then something about getting bitten by a horse. He thought you were going to hit him. And I hear you jumped naked out a door at some old woman. And there was something about you breathing through hollow tubes —

Never mind, Sam There was more; but I didn’t want to hear any more. Thank God he didn’t know all. It occurred to me that it would be very easy, by proper selection, to prove a perfectly normal person crazy; after all, I’m perfectly normal — and obviously I was mad as a hatter.

Sam went on, After that, you can understand I didn’t push too hard to get authorization — you can understand can’t you?

Sure, I said dully. Sure, Sam. I can understand. I take it you didn’t get any authorization to exhume —

Christ, no. You arent still going to tell me Garbin flew out that window and floated away into the sunrise, are you?

Well, I suppose I could have told Sam, bluntly, right then and there, some of the truth — what was happening now, or that Garbin really was alive, or that a man named Clyde was holding a gun on me — and have evidence in support of my words by letting Samson hear the shot that killed me. Besides, at this point, Sam would probably assume I’d had a paranoiac-schizoid reaction directed inward and shot myself to get even with me.

I said, No, of course not, Sam, and felt my spirits sinking, lower and lower, felt the fire that always keeps me going, going out.

Thank God for that, he said. I was, well, really getting worried about you, Shell. That was the He’ll of it. There just wasn’t  a nicer guy anywhere than Sam and he probably was worried about me.

Dont worry, I said. I’m . . . fine. Life has never seemed sweeter than at this moment, Sam.

Clyde was grinning that miserable grin. Well, if nothing else I’d completed one full circuit of the room, letting the twenty-five-foot phone cord play out behind me. That cord lay on the floor in a wavering oval.

Then Samson said, Shell, take it easy, will you? Dont — well, dont overdo it, hear? He really sounded concerned. Come in when you get back. Look, I’m five minutes late now — meeting with the Chief. Glad youre O.K. See me when you get back, right? Well . . . so long, Shell. And he hung up.

Just like that. Click. And it was over.

With that click, the zip just went out of me. If my spirits had been low before, they had been soaring compared to now. It seemed as if I sort of crumpled inward, as if everything just sort of squeezed in toward the middle. That had been my one chance at Sam, and it had been a bust; Garbin and his hoods had the girls; Clydes gun was steadied on my chest. That moment, that long second, was for sure the lowest point, the depths. The fire flickered, and went out — well, almost. Not all the way out. It hadn’t ever gone all the way.

Clyde wasn’t  grinning now. Not many guys grin when theyre going to kill a man. And Clyde was preparing to kill his man.

It would probably take him a few seconds to work up to it. Not many; a few.

So now was the time — my time. Right now.

Clyde was eight or ten feet from me. The plastic-covered cord hung from my phone to the floor, then ran in that wavering oval over the carpet, ending at it’s outlet in the wall. And the ovals rim opposite me was about a foot from Clyde — a foot behind Clyde.

I stepped toward the little stand against the wall as if about to hang up the phone, extending it in my right hand — while with my left hand, at the same time, I started gathering in the cords slack. The cord snaked over the floor, pulled taut against the back of Clydes shoe.

And good old Clyde, for the first time, looked down.

I straightened fast, cord gripped tight in my left hand, flipped it up and yanked as hard as I could. I really yanked, dropping the phone and getting my other hand on the cord, getting arms and turning body into the movement, and the cord pulled clear out of the wall.

But first it had flipped up and caught Clyde almost squarely behind his knees. His gun blasted and the slug smacked the wall behind me. Even toppling, he’d managed to keep the muzzle pointed toward me and pull the trigger, but the bullet was wide. Then he was falling backward.

I took one step and jumped, hit the floor next to him swinging my right fist. Without anchorage for my feet there wasn’t  real power in the blow, but it landed on his chin and snapped his head up and back. I skidded, got a handful of face in my right hand, scrambled to my knees and tried to pull his face off, snapped my body around and hit him on the mouth with a solid, jolting left.

That one dazed him. The next one dazed him more. Because I got a little leverage into that right hand, and let my fist come down from high over my head, slamming his nose as if I were driving a nail with a hammer.

He wasn’t  out. But his eyes lost focus and his hands moved without direction. I started to slam him again, but held back the blow; his nose was broken, pouring blood over his mouth; his lips were already puffing. Instead I bound his wrists and ankles with the phone cord, bound them tight enough to encourage gangrene.

Then I leaned over Clyde. All right, you bastard, I said. Now it’s my turn. How much that you told me was the truth?

All . . . all of it. The words were thick and mushy, but he could talk.

How many men at the cabin? And who are they?

Five, he said: Five besides Jules. Hal, Dodo . . . Green . . . A tooth fell out. Pete, Farmer . . .

The girls are there — and all right.

They were . . . they were.

I jumped to my feet — and just stood there.

For seconds I didn’t move, thinking, or rather trying to think — but it all added up to zero. I knew where they all were, even how many men, but there wasn’t  a thing I could do about it. To get to that cabin I’d have to walk a quarter of a mile, in the open for a good four hundred yards at least, with hardly any cover. And even if I could become invisible and get there, which I couldnt, there wasn’t  a hope in He’ll that I could take six armed men by myself. There was nobody here to help me either. Just about every able-bodied man had gone to the Running M, and even if one or two were still here theyd probably never handled a gun in their lives. Even a machine-gun expert would hardly join me in committing suicide, though. But I couldnt just sit here, I bad to do something.

I could call the sheriffs department, but — even without the fix in, according to what I’d heard Garbin say — it would take them an hour to get here. And I couldnt wait that long. Nor could April, Zia, Choo Choo, Delise. I swore aloud.

Scott. It was Clyde, trying to sit up on the floor.

Shut up, I’m trying to think. I had been trying to think for a good two minutes, banging my brains on a brick wall. Nothing. I was getting nerve-jangled, panicky. I had to move, but I had to have some kind of plan or it was sheer, simple suicide.

Clyde said, No, listen. Let me go.

I turned and stared at him blankly. Let you go?

Yeah — wait a minute. Look, I’ve been in with Jules here the whole year. I did heavy time back east, I’ll admit, but I havent pulled anything here — except tipping Jules — bartenders hear everything. Jules has been lying low, except for working on some politicians trying to get a legalized gambling bill into the legislature.

So?

What I mean, youve got nothing on me, except this — me making you call the fuzz.

Coming here to kill me, you mean.

He’d worked himself onto one elbow, stared at me. O.K. I’ll even admit that. Sure, I was supposed to blast you. But I didn’t. What I’m saying is this, Scott. Except for you there’s no charge, no complaint, if you let me go. And the partys over. Jules will kill me himself if he gets out of this — but you know the whole score now. It’s all going to He’ll. It was good only as long as nobody suspected Jules was still living.

What are you getting at?

I’ll make you a trade. I know everything — how come Jules is alive, who got killed in Hollywood, what happened to Jeanne, all of it. I’ll spill it all to you — just let me powder.

Why, you miserable —  I stopped. Maybe he was making sense. He wasn’t  the guy I realty wanted, anyway. And there were still a lot of things I wanted to know. In fact, if I was going to get killed, which seemed a pretty good bet, it would help a little if I knew the whole score before I died. Not much, but a little.

Besides, I thought, I’d been racking my brains and not producing anything but confusion, getting my thoughts more jumbled. If I turned my mind from the problem of getting to the cabin, maybe that Unconscious Detective would stir something up. And, too, there was just a chance that the more I knew, the more I learned from Clyde, the better chance I’d have of staying alive.

So I said, I’ll make you a deal — but this is it. I wont let you go now. But I’m going up to the cabin, and if I get back I’ll turn you loose then. Not before.

Are you nuts? You go up there and youll get slaughtered, you wouldnt have a —

That’s it, Clyde.

He swallowed. I got your word on it?

Youve got it.

Great. A lot of good itll do me. Youll get kill —

Take it or leave it. And hurry up.

I’ll take it.

I stepped over to him and squatted by him. Then talk, and make it fast. Start with Jules. I know damn well he jumped through that window in the Hollywood-Crown. But he sure as He’ll didn’t land. So who did?

Booster named Dandy Eddie Wirtz. He did bits in Q a couple times, you can find his mugg in the L.A. books.

How was it worked?

It was all set up, everything planned. A beautiful caper — like robbing a bank. Jules went over and over it with Hal while he was in jail — he knew he was going to get the book, probably gas. Then Hal rehearsed us a dozen times. It had to be planned and timed like the Brinks heist.

Rehearsed what?

How Jules could keep from killing himself, that’s what. He knew he had nine hundred chances to kill himself even if it all went right and he got the chance to try it. But he didn’t have any chance in the gas chamber. The way they set it up, Green and Pete had Eddie Wirtz in a room two floors down, right under Jules penthouse. Still alive, of course — so when he fell he’d yell good and loud. When Jules went through the window on the sixteenth floor and let out his yell, Green and Pete shoved Eddie out the window down there on fourteen — and then, naturally, Eddie started yelling.

Naturally. For just a moment I shivered, putting myself in Eddies place. Starting down.

Clyde went on, It went just like Jules figured. He crashed out and grabbed the ladder and they hauled him up to the roof — and Eddie hit the bricks.

Ladder? I said. What ladder?

Sixteenth floor is the top of the building. On the roof was Dodo, since he’s the strongest, and Farmer. They got a ladder like the kind you climb on boats with, only not made out of ropes. It’s a nylon ladder, they call it. Thin, but strong enough to hold up Jules. It’s tied to a pipe on the roof, with Dodo and Farmer letting it hang down alongside the window Jules means to jump out of, and hanging onto it themselves, besides. Jules, when he’s pulling back the carpet in his bedroom, could look out and see it dangling off to one side there before he went through the window, see? All he had to do was grab it — a He’ll of a lot easier with a ladder than a rope, which was the idea — and hang on good, while Farmer and Dodo hauled him up to the roof. That’s how it was, didn’t take more than five seconds to have him on the roof and out of sight — dark up there, anyway. Well, once up there he changed coats with Pete, stuck on a fake mustache, a hat and dark glasses, and walked down during the time when everybody was flipping — walked right past his dead body. It wouldve been embarrassing if Jules had missed the ladder, naturally, since then thered of been two guys splashed on the bricks. And the boys would all have been in the soup. Especially Jules. But it worked just like Jules planned it.

This guy. Dandy Eddie. They had him dressed in one of Jules suits well in advance, same kind of shirt and tie, that sort of thing?

Yeah. Hal fixed all that up, made sure there wouldnt be anything obvious to give the switch away. Hal said when Eddie landed after falling fourteen floors he’d get knocked cockeyed. Eddie looked a He’ll of a lot like Jules — which is why he was picked for the switch — but not that much like Jules. It was essential, said Hal, that his head bust open, which it would. And did.

Then Jules came straight here?

Yeah, with Green as gun and bodyguard, and Farmer for the wiretaps and tapes, odds and ends. Chose here because it’s isolated but close enough to the action — and he’s got good contacts here. Besides, along with changing his hair and mustache and all, the cowboy duds he can wear make him look nothing like what he did.

You mention Green and Farmer. Was one of them the other cowboy who tried to blast me when I got here yesterday? Along with Hooper?

That was Farmer.

How about Jeanne Blair? My guess is she was killed because she recognized Jules up here.

You guessed right. I was working the bar when it happened. Saturday night almost everybodys out at the barbecue or dance, so Jules and Hal and Farmer were alone in the saloon having a drink. This Jeanne came in. He’ll, nobody even knew she was anywhere around, it was like she came out of nowhere. She sat at the bar, and I noticed she kept watching the guys in the booth by looking in the mirror behind the bar. I didn’t know who she was. She looked kind of shook up, got a creepy expression. Then she turns and just stares at the booth — at Jules, it turns out. Finally she walked across the room to Jules, reached out and took off his dark glasses, and let out a scream you wouldnt believe. Then she ran out like something was after her.

Something was. Jules sent Hal after her, I suppose.

Yeah. Go get that bitch, he says.

And . . . who killed her? Was it Hal?

No.

I was surprised at the sense of relief I felt when Clyde said it wasn’t  Hal. He went right on, Hal took her straight to Jules suite, and Jules made her stay the night with him there, then the next morning, early, Jules took her for that last canter. Pops her on the head. That’s it.

And that was it as far as I was concerned, too. I stood up.

I wish you werent going to get killed, Clyde said.

Quit saying that. Every logical atom in me insisted it was total battiness for me to think I could charge a quarter-mile, in broad daylight, up an open canyon, arriving with bullet holes — and possibly even spears, and bows and arrows sticking in and out of me — and then casually dispatch to their just rewards six maniacal hoodlums. Thered be no help from the sheriffs department, nor from Samson, nor from anybody else here at the ranch — which left it up to me, if anybody. And that was a laugh. What I needed was about forty good marines.

Well, I was an ex-marine, and by God I was going to do it. At least, come He’ll or high water, I was going to have a crack at it. Crack? Either my head was opening, or little bony castanets were clicking, or something was stirring again in the mind of Shell Scott, the Unconscious Detective.

It was odd, but the very moment I decided, come He’ll or high water and in defiance of logic, sense, and maybe even sanity, to go ahead and give it a try — then, right then, the answer, or some kind of answer, came.

It wasn’t  all at once, not in a rush, but a slow surge of thought, pictures, goofy images clicking before my minds eye. It started with a tickling sensation on the back of my neck, a chilling of my spine, and then the whole thing, the fruitcake answer. Maybe it was still bats; but not totally bats. At least there was a chance it would work.

Then I got my two guns, slipped the Colt .38 into it’s clamshell holster under my fringed buckskin jacket, and dropped the pearl-handled six-shooter into the holster on my hip and stuck Clydes nine-shot automatic in my pants pocket, and put on my white sombrero. All I needed was a horse — but that I could do without. Instead of a horse, I ran to my Cadillac. There was no point in overdoing this thing.

Then with Jules Garbin, four beautiful tomatoes, and numerous ugly hoodlums revolving under my sombrero, I galloped off in the Cad, headed that away.

chapter eighteen

I gunned the Cad to the stables, past the stalls in which Vixen and Diablo stood eyeballing me as I zoomed by, and slid to a stop at the little office where Russ and I had been once before.

Inside the office I spotted the peculiar rifle which Russ had used for calming that obstreperous bull, grabbed it and the box of syringes, then jumped back into the Cad and was on my way again.

I had my weapon now. Only one more item was needed. My disguise. In the jungle warfare of World War II, Japanese soldiers tied gobs of jungle on themselves, so they would not look like Japanese soldiers, but like gobs of jungle. Where I was going, up that open canyon, there was no jungle, at all. But there were little desert shrubs, sandy brown earth, and lots of rocks and boulders.

So far, so good. Here I was, armed with my tranquilizer rifle, and disguised as a rock.

Not exactly a rock. A boulder. Taking the long — safe — way around from the ranch to the lake I’d traveled by Cadillac; from the lake to here I’d traveled by feet. More precisely, foot-by-foot by feet, walking inside the big gray Hollywood-prop boulder, hanging onto the two-by-fours inside it. And hiding behind other boulders whenever possible.

I could see, not well, but enough. With the rifles butt I’d butted a hole in the boulder, through which hole I could look. The field of view was limited, but whenever I put down the boulder to rest — which was pretty often during the final two-hundred-yards — I could move to the peephole and peep about. To this point, nothing calamitous had befallen me, except that my arms felt as if they might be falling off. There remained, I guess not more than seventy-five or eighty yards between me and the cabin. I rested, pooped, eyes at my peephole, near another, smaller, boulder. I had been inside the cabin on those weekends I’d spent there with Russ and knew what it was like inside. It was two stories, with a big rugged living room below, a kitchen, bedroom and bath; upstairs two more bedrooms and a den. So far the only sign of life I’d seen was a man sitting on the porch fronting the cabin.

Now I could see who it was. Big, lumbering Dodo, the Twentieth-Century diplodocus. His face was marked up and puffy, forehead cut, one eye blackened. As I watched him he got up and stretched, then stepped off the porch, scratching himself vigorously. I waited. He looked around, yawned, rubbed his chin, and looked straight at me. I thought he looked a little longer than seemed normal for a guy looking at rocks, but finally he shrugged, then turned and went into the cabin.

Well, if nobody was looking out the windows, this was a good time for me to roll. As soon as the door closed behind Dodo I hoisted on the two-by-fours again and staggered forward. I made thirty yards, rested, had at it some more, and had covered a good fifty yards all told before Dodo came out again with a can of beer in his hand. Unfortunately, I was still moving at the time.

I had become so exhilarated by my success that I suppose I would have just gone clattering right up on the porch if nothing had stopped me. But Dodos appearance stopped me. And vice versa. When he clumped through the doorway and over the porch I spotted him through my little peep-hole and stopped as quickly as I could, squatting and letting the boulder down suddenly, and immediately stepping forward to the hole and unslinging the loaded rifle from my shoulder. But Dodo was staring right at me, even when the boulder hit the earth and skidded a couple feet.

Well, Dodo didn’t really know what to make of it. The first thing he did was drop the can of beer. Then like a man entranced he just kept walking ahead, eyes very wide and stary and his mouth a great cavern, jaw hanging down loosely. He missed the first step off the porch, stumbled, caught his balance, but not for an instant did he take his eyes off me — or, rather, off my twenty-ton boulder.

He took three or four steps toward me, then stopped. He leaned forward. His lips moved as he mumbled something. Hey! he said to the scenery. Hey!

Then he straightened up, gave a little laugh, a little flip of his hand. He dug fingers into both eyes and rubbed them about. Then he looked all around, suspiciously. My rifle was loaded, pumped up, ready to shoot — or squirt, or stab, or whatever it did — but the distance was still a little great for real accuracy, especially when I’d never shot this contraption before. So I waited.

Dodo looked about, then glanced very casually toward my boulder. Apparently satisfied he turned and stepped back toward the house. Now, I thought. And forward I went again. I cut the distance in half, got even closer, narrowed the distance between us. For a wild moment I thought maybe I could just roll right over him, like an avalanche, crushing him, smashing into the house! — my head was hurting quite a lot, thumping, thumping. But I stopped — because Dodo heard me.

I must have been no more than forty feet from the big ape when he heard my feet smacking the ground behind him. I let the boulder down with a thud.

Dodo just froze. After what he’s seen, or thought he’d seen, I guess he was afraid to look. As the sound penetrated his consciousness he stopped and was immobile for a long second, then his hands jerked up — over his ears. Slowly he inched his neck around, rolling his eyes. When he saw me, I realized I’d gone too far. Coming up the canyon I had been merely one boulder among many, but here, now, I was a boulder where never had a boulder been before.

Dodo opened his mouth again and out of it came one of the strangest sounds I had ever heard. It was like a very deep, low, hollow scream. HOOOOOooooOOOOO — or something like that.

Then he turned his back to me, still emitting that noise. It rose and fell for four or five full seconds, then stopped.

Hey, fellows, he yelled. Come look!

Then he bent over and put his face in his hands. Bent way over. And that, of course, was asking for it. Even using a bean-blower, from this distance I couldnt have missed the vast, magnificent target he presented — magnificent, naturally, only when considered as a target.

I thrust my rifle through the hole, sighted quickly, and pulled the trigger. There was a little spat, and the projectile went straight and true as I dug into my pocket, got another cartridge, loaded and pumped the gun.

Dodo straightened up with real violence, clapping both hands to his rear end. Fellows, quick! he yelled. Ohmigod! Quick!

Farmer came running out, gun in his hand. What in the He’ll is comin off? he yelped. He snapped his head around, didn’t immediately notice anything unusual, and gave all his attention to Dodo.

Dodo had turned to face me and was pointing at me with a quivering finger, and with the other hand he started banging Farmer on the shoulder, in a high state of excitement. You wont believe this, he said. But that rock just shot me in the ass!

Farmer started to speak but then took another look. He knew very well he hadn’t seen this boulder before, and he got an expression approximating Dodos. Well, all He’ll was soon going to break loose anyway, so I shoved my re-loaded rifle through the hole again and aimed.

As I sighted down the barrel at Farmers middle I could also see his face. It was worth seeing. I guess to anybody, under any circumstances, too see a gun poking out of a rock would jar you, but I thought Farmer was going to have a hemorrhage, a bowel movement, and a seizure, all at once. I pulled the trigger. Zip, and I got him with my no-zip gun.

He clapped a hand to his middle, then looked at his hand, then shook his head rapidly. But then he yanked up his gun and shot at my rock. Maybe he didn’t know what the He’ll it was, but it was alive and dangerous, and he was going to kill it. He damn near did. The slug ripped through the papier mâché no more than six inches from my head and I jumped backward, hitting one of the crossbeams and toppling over it, dropping the rifle. It’s job was already done, anyway, and more speedily effective firearms were called for now.

I lifted the back edge of the boulder and crawled out, not yet seen from the house, but by now there was all kinds of yelling — and shooting. Three or four slugs bit through the mâché behind me, one kicking up dirt an inch from my hand, but then I was on my feet, bent over with the .38 in my fist.

I couldnt stay behind the rock now, not with bullets tearing through it, so I jammed my teeth together and took two steps forward and then one long leap, landing well to the boulders right, in a crouch, gun raised and right elbow pressed against my hip. And I landed firing.

My first shot missed. Along with Dodo and Farmer, there were now Pete and Green, Pete swinging a .45 toward me and Green just leaping off the porch steps. I aimed at Pete, fired and missed and fired again, and saw him stagger. But he didn’t go down, and I triggered the gun once again, saw the puff of dust as the slug slammed his chest just left of his breastbone. He turned slowly and started to fall.

Three guns — their guns — cracked almost at once. Both Dodo and Farmer were still on their feet — even with enough soup in them to stop a fifteen-hundred-pound bull — and both fired but missed. Tay Green, however, was cooler than they. He’d stopped running, stopped moving, and stood with his legs spread wide and bent, gun thrust before him. There was no expression on his face whatever, just the usual cold mask, and the cold dead eyes staring. His first slug snapped past my middle; the second one smacked my side, high on the left. The slug didn’t knock me down, it passed between my chest and left biceps, pressed tight against my chest, but the impact spun me around, sent shock slamming through me.

I dropped to my left knee, raising the Colt, firing. The first bullet went right over Greens head; I saw it actually flip his hair. But I got the second one down. The second one went through his throat.

I pulled the trigger again and missed and then the hammer clicked on an empty cartridge and I dropped the gun, turning to my right toward Farmer and Dodo, grabbing for the pearl-handled .38 on my hip. I didn’t even get my hand on it.

Dodo stood over me, gun two feet from my head. Beyond him Farmer still held his revolver, but his arm was drooping as the drug in his blood hit him. He fired but hit the ground between us, two yards from me. Then Dodo, looming above me, pulled the tirgger.

He must have fired several shots into the boulder earlier, because there was only a dull click. He dropped the gun, fell on top of me, slapping his hands around my throat. He had already been weakened by the drug, even though not as much as Farmer, because normally he would have been almost strong enough to squeeze his fingers through my neck. Even so, he cut off the wind completely and red and black dots swirled before my eyes.

I threw both hands up, got them around a thick wrist but couldnt pull it loose, grabbed for one of his fingers and pried it from my neck. Then I got that one finger in both my hands and bent it back till it snapped. Dodos grip loosened and I banged his other hand away, got to my feet, and kicked him in the head. As he rolled over on his hands and knees I yanked the pearl-handled .38 from it’s holster — and a gun cracked behind me. The slug hissed past my ear and I spun, tightening my finger on the trigger.

Hal was ten feet from me, gun in his raised right hand. He was standing straight, tall, sunlight bright on his golden-blond hair. I fired twice, saw him bend in the middle, saw the gun drop from his hand. I jerked around, flipping my gun toward Dodo. But he was still on his hands and knees, head hanging down. Farmer lay on his face in the dirt. It was silent.

Then, suddenly, and with a queer shock, I realized I’d shot Hal. It affected me strangely, cutting, like something tearing inside me, that queer shock leaping through my nerves and seeming to cool my blood.

As I turned, he was just starting to fall.

chapter nineteen

He didn’t pitch forward. Hal Calvin went down slowly, sank to his knees, both hands pressed against his middle. He landed with a slight jar, swayed but remained erect, a red stream of blood spilling between his fingers. Slowly he settled back on his haunches, legs bent beneath him.

I moved to him, dropped on one knee next to him. Shock showed on his face, but his eyes were still bright.

He managed a grin and said, Youll never believe this, Scott. I aimed . . . right at you. But I didn’t really try to hit you. Not . . . He winced slightly. Not in the back.

For once, and against all logic, I believed him. Right then I forgot about what else I still had to do, even about Garbin. Maybe it didn’t make sense. O.K.; so it didn’t. A slim line of blood oozed from the corner of Hals mouth. He felt it, moist and warm on his chin, raised a hand and with the back of it mashed the blood away. I swore, softly but fervently. Finally I said, Goddamn it, Hal. I didn’t want —

Never mind, he said. No time. I know what you mean. No time. His voice had gotten a little thick.

How bad is it? I asked him.

It’s — it . . . All the way this time, Scott. All those questions . . . hows it go? His eyes werent so bright any more; and he was rambling a little. I knew, in a minute, he’d be dead.

Tell all the girls goodbye, he said. Tell the world, tell the . . . Somethins gainin, like the man . . . Uh, that goddamn ulcer. Hey, I . . . This time his mouth stayed open. He just slumped a little, fell to one side.

I looked at him a moment, then stood up slowly.

It was a damn fool thing to do, I suppose. But sometimes a man’s entitled to be a damn fool. I took the pearl-handled gun, grabbed it by the barrel, and threw it as far as I could.

Something moved near me. It was Dodo. He was sitting up, still conscious, but not very. Farmer was out cold. Pete looked done for. I stepped over by Tay Green. He lay on his back, the cold eyes staring blankly at the sky, a pool of blood caught in the hole in his throat. As I looked at him his heart pumped one last time, very weakly. The blood didn’t spill, just rose up a little way in the hole, then sank back down. It didn’t rise again.

Finally, then, I started thinking about Garbin. It was a wonder he hadn’t shot me by now. I bent, picked up Tay Greens gun, a short-barreled .357 Magnum, straightened and turned back toward the cabin. Something moved in an upstairs window, but as I glanced that way movement much higher up caught my eye. And that higher movement explained why Jules Garbin hadn’t shot me.

Behind the cabin, the end of the canyon was a jagged cliff, a wall that appeared to be straight up and down. But Garbin had clambered up it, was almost at it’s top.

Garbin! I yelled.

His head snapped around. I raised the .45 automatic, aimed at him. He turned, scrambled up the last few feet. I fired. It was a long shot, and I missed. The bullet struck the cliffs face beneath him. Then he was over the top and out of sight.

There was the crash of window glass breaking. Feminine voices started yelling. That was the spot where I’d first noticed movement — the gals at the window upstairs. I ran toward the cabin, jumped onto the porch and on inside. The stairs were to my right and I went up them three at a time, ran down a hall to the room at the front of the house. The door was locked. I kicked it open and stumbled inside.

Well, it was pandemonium. I had no time to jaw with these gals, and had merely wanted to be sure they were alive and well — and still had their clothes on, if youve got to know — and then get going. But with all of them talking at once, it took a full minute before I could even make myself understood.

They were ecstatic, I’d rescued them, they knew I’d gallop up on a horse or something, theyd been watching from the window, but oh theyd been so scared — the gunsters had grabbed them right away, before they could even get undressed, and been very rough, but they hadn’t done anything really, you know, except with Ed, whom they shot, and yak-yak-yak.

QUIET! I said.

Boy, it was like when I’d yelled Silence. I continued, Youre all right, then?

They were all right.

I asked if any of them could handle a gun.

Zia said, I can. I’ve shot an automatic revolver.

Great. I gave Zia the nine-shot automatic pistol I’d taken from Clyde, explained about the safety and pulling the trigger, cautioning her to aim it well away from herself.

I dont think, any of those guys out front will be leaping in here for a frolic, I said, but there may be a hood or two around here I missed, unlikely as that may seem. If so, dont you miss him. Just keep pulling the trigger.

Zia was nodding her head in vigorous agreement, pointing the gun at her leg. I looked at her. I looked at the others. Goodbye, I said. I was actually leaving these four gorgeous tomatoes. Life shouldnt do this to a man, I thought.

Well, I said, I’m off! And away I went again.

By the time I reached the top of that cliff, the exertion — plus the neural and glandular catastrophes of the past hours — had caused every one of my internal glands to shoot too much of everything into my blood stream and at each other, and my blood was bubbling like brew in an electric percolator. Also by that time I had heard something whinny.

And what it it that whinnies?

Well, unless it was something new — which might possibly be true, here in dreamland — it was a horse.

Standing at the top of the cliff, wobbling about, blood hissing and perking in my veins, it looked to me as if there were horses all over the landscape. One was only about ten yards away, and farther off — I counted them — were four others. In the distance I could hear the faint drumming of hooves.

I guessed the horses had been brought here by Garbin, in case he and his pals had to leave by the back exit. Which meant he was even now, undoubtedly, out there where those drumming hooves were. Numbly, I walked toward the nearest horse, so beat I was actually glad to see him. He was saddled, reins trailing on the ground, and at that point I didn’t care if he was Diablo. He didn’t run; I climbed aboard, got settled in the saddle, reins in my hand.

O.K., I said. Lets go, horse. He just sat there, no more wild about going anyplace than I was. But I kept talking to him, and kicking at him, and pretty soon we were moving, gaining speed, and finally flying over the ground. Far off in the distance I could see the dot that was Jules Garbin on his horse. I aimed my mount that way.

It required, I would guess, about ten minutes to get close to Garbin, though it seemed hours longer. Suffice to say, it was the longest localized beating I ever took. After the first minute or two I began getting the hang of it, but most of the time I was bouncing a lot, and my bouncer was pretty well-ruined to begin with.

But finally I was close to Garbin and it was obvious my animal was much the speedier and soon wed catch him. Then Garbin turned in the saddle, raising his right arm and pointing it at me and: blam. The bullet whistled past a few inches from my head and I ducked, digging for the Magnum I’d crammed into my holster.

Blam, Garbin fired again. I could see his face clearly enough as he turned and aimed at me. No dark glasses this time. I got the gun out, leveled it at his body, squeezed the trigger. The revolver bucked in my hand. But shooting from a horse, I found, is like shooting during a collision on the freeway. Any approach to even minimal accuracy is, to put the best possible light on it, absolutely impossible. I must have missed him by three yards. This was ridiculous.

Garbin fired again. So did I, leaning over the neck of my horse. And a weird feeling swept over me, mingling with the coffee in my arteries. This was just like a movie. A lousy movie. There was Jules, here was I. Here I was, chasing the villain over the desert plains. He had to be the villain — he was wearing a black sombrero, obviously a slicker. But I — ah, I was resplendent in all the honest hero’s regalia, and I had a white sombrero.

I could imagine cameras grinding, centered on the hero’s profile. I lifted my head a little, jutted my honest chin forward another inch, aimed and fired. Then I fired again, aiming carefully: click.

This can’t be, I thought. Click. Either my gun was empty, or my head was doing that thing again. It had to be my head; in movies, the guns are never empty. Click!

It can’t be! If my guns empty, the villain will kill me! Click-click-click. The sonofabitch was empty!

And I had been tearing along, too, gaining on the villian rapidly. Certain of Justices triumph in the last reel I had galloped to within ten feet of Jules, and now he was turned in the saddle, reins in his left hand, great big gun in his right, the gun aimed with stupendous accuracy squarely between my eyes. It hadn’t bothered me until this moment. Now it bothered me.

I saw his face contort in an expression of fiendish joy.

He squeezed the trigger. He fired. Click.

Somebody had goofed. Both guns empty, eh? Somebody was going to pay for this. I threw my gun at him, and missed. He threw his gun at me and hit me. Everything was going to He’ll! The gun bounced off my skull, and a furious anger flamed in my loins, even though he’d hit me in the skull. I let out a wild yell. And his horse fell down.

To be perfectly honest, even though my yell was pretty wild, it didn’t really affect the horse. But when Jules threw his gun at me he had unthinkingly yanked on the reins, and his horse charged left into a clump of something or other which looked very prickly. Down he went. Jules did a flip, rolled, started to his feet.

Now I had him. I let out another yell and dived at him, leaping from my horse, hands outstretched to grab him.

Thunk something went. My leg broke. A great invisible hand grabbed Jules and yanked him rapidly away from me. And then somebody hit me with the desert. It flew up and smacked me right in the mouth. This was all wrong. I was plowing up the desert, leaving a shallow furrow behind me. Jules receded. Stop, goddammit! I yelled. Stop!

And then my horse was racing away, with my leg flopping from a stirrup, and I was sitting bewildered on the desert. No, my leg was still attached to me. It was my boot in the stirrup. I managed to get up. My leg wasn’t  broken. It just felt broken. I looked around. Ah, there was Jules. The Hell with him. No, I’d come to this stinking place to get him, and I was going to get him.

I hobbled at him.

He waited.

He bent, did something near his feet, then straightened up and walked toward me. The distance between us narrowed. We stalked each other, alone in the empty desert, hands hovering near our empty holsters. It didn’t seem right.

We were five yards away. Three. Then two feet. Something had to happen pretty quick.

A little trickle of sand trickled between his fingers. Ah-ha, I thought. He’s going to blind me with sand. Not me, he — aaah!

I was blinded.

My goddamn eyes were full of sand.

Pow, bang, whop, he was all over me. Sock, smack. I swung wildly, connected with something — it had to be Jules, since there wasn’t  anything else for miles around. Unless I’d hit a horse. I kept swinging, and finally was able to see out of my left eye. I saw a fist. Smack. That was a good one. Right in the left eye.

I managed to grab him, clinch, hang on. I rubbed my eyes against his shoulder, got enough vision back to see him as a blur, got a hand on one of his shoulders and spun him — and hit him with a good right hand: the first good blow I’d landed.

It hurt him. My sight cleared even more and I saw his knees buckle. He almost went down. I measured him, slammed a left hand at his face. It landed high, on his forehead, but he went back, stumbled and fell. Jules shook his head, spat, started struggling to his feet. I stood over him, left arm high, hand stretched open. I knew in two more seconds it would be over. But then I stopped, stepped back a foot, let him wobble to his feet.

He was disoriented, movements not coordinated, and I had quite enough time. As he got up I thought briefly of that night when he’d worked me over in the restroom, the dozens of blows he’d slammed into my face, my stomach, my ribs. And of the shots at me, the sapping last night, of Jeanne and April and all the rest, even Hal the Bastard.

And when Jules Garbin was almost straightened up I launched the final blow. I had my legs spread, feet well-planted in the sand, body set, right arm pulled back, fist cocked. I just uncoiled, trying to get every ounce of flesh and muscle and bone into the blow. I guess I did.

My fist landed on his chin and his chin snapped far to the side with a sound like sticks breaking, and he spun clear around in a circle, arms flailing, before he hit the ground. He trembled slightly, as if an electric current were running through him, and then lay still.

Too still.

I knelt beside him, felt for his pulse. I couldnt find it. At the back of his neck, little bones bulged oddly under the skin. I rolled him over, put a hand on his chest, above the heart. His chill gray eyes stared blankly. Over one brow a cut had dripped blood down into the eye itself; his nose was broken; his chin lay, sagging, unbelievably far to one side, twisting his mouth into a grotesquely crippled grimace.

His face was just about as mashed and twisted and distorted, as cockeyed, as had been Dandy Eddies face.

And he was just as dead.

chapter twenty

It was nearly dark when we arrived at the Sun and Sage again.

Next to me in the Cads front seat was lovely chestnut-haired April, of the sweet-hot voice and torch-blue eyes, and all the other goodies. On her right, wantonly-fashioned Delise, blonde hair pale in the fading light, eyes now like moss in even deeper shadow. In the seat behind us were Zia, hair and eyes and brows as black as night, lips silently frying each other; next to her curvy Choo Choo, silent, not cricketing at all.

There had been a little conversation on the way, but not much. Perhaps because we had left at the cabin behind us, Jules Garbin, dead; Hal Calvin, dead; Tay Green, dead; Pete, only half alive, but still breathing; and Farmer and Dodo, sleeping a most tranquil sleep.

As we parked before the hotel entrance, April said, Shell.

Yeah.

What are you going to do now?

Well, I imagine I’ll be pretty busy for an hour or two. I’d seen an official car, a sheriffs car, parked ahead of us. Therell be explanations, statements. I wouldnt be surprised if Captain Samson shows up here from L.A. later. I’ll clean up the loose ends. Then — I dont know. I’ll probably have numerous drinks, and fairly stiff ones at that.

I’d like a stiff one myself, said Delise.

And from the back seat, with a sizzle and high-pitched cricketing, in that order, That’s for me, and Wow, and how!

And April whispered, Me, too.

That reminded me. What are you gals going to do now? I mean, Eds . . . no longer with us. The movies kaput. What are your plans?

As usual, it was yak-yak all at once. What it boiled down to was their real boss, Ben Freedlander had laid down the law a week ago, and they were all supposed to go back to Hollywood tonight, whether the picture was finished or not, which it wasn’t . If they didn’t, Ben might even shelve the picture, and after theyd put in so much work on it. Of course, that had been mainly to make Ed finish the picture, but now Ed was dead and they didn’t know what would happen. Theyd all planned — since theyd all decided to do everything together — to stay on at the Sun and Sage for a few days, just to relax and rest, unwind, sort of have a vacation. It would really be fun now that everybody wasn’t  killing everybody else. But now — well they couldnt afford to do that if Ben —

Look, I said, thus interrupting all four of them with one word, I sort of need a vacation myself. To recover from my vacation. Now what if I could sort of smooth things over with Ben —

Yak-yak. Boiled down: That would be ecstatic.

Well, I said, grinning, feeling life flowing back into parts of me I had thought dead, I, uh, may be able to work something out.

After the squeals and bubbles and yips and such it was agreed that we would meet, in two hours, in the saloon. They went their separate ways, and I went hunting for Russ, and the law.

An hour and a half later Russ and I were sitting in his living room, having highballs. I’d turned Clyde loose as promised. I’d finished my stint with the police, and wires were humming between here and Los Angeles. And, I gathered, clear across the country, because the Jules Garbin story was front-page copy for all the wire services.

Russ had missed most of my talk with the sheriff and his deputies, and now he said to me, I understand this Garbin was supposed to have killed himself, and even how he made it look like he was dead. Seems a pretty complicated scheme, to me.

Not so complicated, Russ, not really. Jumping and grabbing that ladder, for instance, would be a fairly simple job — if you were two feet off the ground. Not much to it, really. But sixteen floors in the air? Well, that would have made it a lot tougher.

And he planned all this because he knew he was going to prison?

Yeah — or, rather the gas chamber. It wasn’t  enough just to escape, even if he could have managed it, and have thousands of policemen looking for him. But if he was thought to be dead, no search would be made. Besides, there were the other considerations.

You mean his wife? And this Calvin fellow? I nodded and Russ said, shaking his head, That’s still not clear to me, Shell.

It’s simple enough. Remember, Garbin hated his wife with a passion. Moreover, he couldnt divorce Letty without getting stuck with a horrendous alimony grab. In fact, he is known to have said that he’d never give her a nickel of alimony — in his exact words, I’d die first. Well, ironically, when he died she inherited everything. And Garbin was worth at least three or four million dollars, counting the stuff stashed in safe deposit boxes and elsewhere.

But Jules took even this into consideration, Russ. All part of the one plan. You see, he figured nothing was too good for Letty. He figured his fortune or half of it was too good for her, ten bucks was too good for her, and even nothing was too good for her. Besides, if he lived he wanted those millions of goodies himself. So he had Handsome Hal smooch up to his wife, then after Jules died Hal married Letty, with her late husbands blessing. So Letty actually committed bigamy. Then, later, Garbin killed his widow, in an automobile accident. So naturally Hal inherited from his wife, Letty — and Jules got his goodies back. What it boils down to is that Garbin inherited his own estate from himself.

Stop, Russ said, white mustache wiggling. Go lie down.

He’ll, it’s true, Russ. He inherited it back — minus, of course, the estate and inheritance grabs. You see, Jules Garbin —

Stop, he said. Killed his widow, committed bigamy, inherited from himself — I refuse to listen to any more of this nonsense.

I grinned. Well, knowing that much, you can figure out the rest of it for yourself.

Lets have another drink instead.

A capital idea. Lets. We did.

I was only five minutes late when I walked into the saloon. There was a new bartender, of course. But in a booth — the same one in which wed sat before — were April, Delise, Choo Choo, and Zia.

I joined them. Same as before. Except that this time all four of the gals were dressed in city clothes — low, plunging, décolleté and all that, and I mean all that. Boy, it was really exciting.

After a while I yelled, SILENCE!

It worked every time. Girls, I said what about The WILD West? I mean, is all your work going to waste? Suppose Ben gave you girls a free hand? Do you know how it’s supposed to be finished?

Lots of noise. Finally Delise made herself heard.

Maybe — you know . . . I wonder. With Ed . . . gone. His partner, I mean Mr. Freedlander, surely still wants the movie —

And it’s practically finished, said April.

I know what youre thinking, Zia said brightly. We could almost finish it ourselves, couldnt we?

And Choo Choo cricketed, Why not?

Slyly, I led them on. By golly, you may have something there. Yes, sir, that makes a lot of sense.

April, falling willingly into my trap, turned the flame of those hot blue eyes on me and said, Shell, do you know how to use, or work, or operate, a movie camera?

Do I know how to use, or work, or operate a movie camera? Do I?

As soon as there was a moment of near-silence I went on, Girls, I’ll confess. I have news for you. Just a little while ago I talked by phone with my client, Ben — Mr. Freedlander. As I told you, I’ve known Ben for a long time, and I handled a little job for him these past two days. As for my fee, he told me in the beginning that wed work something out later, and it is now later. Well, he definitely does still want the picture finished. But the demise of Ed Finch means the demise, naturally, of Edben Productions. So Ben Freedlander is forming a new company, operative at least until The WILD West is completed. So you four girls can just stay on here at the ranch until —

No! But how wonderful —

Shell!

You mean —

Really? Are you saying —

I’m saying that, if youd like, you can stay on here at the Sun and Sage as the guests of Ben Freedlanders new company, Scott-Free Productions —

Bubble and squawk and all that, the usual.

Finally April said, But, Shell . . . will you be here?

What do you mean? Do you think I’d leave? I looked at the four of them and added, Dears, I am the Scott of Scott-Free Productions.

Lots of noise again. Then I said, Girls, girls. There’s no problem, nothing to decide right now, really. Relax. These things will all work out in the restful, carefree days ahead, here at the Sun and Sage. I looked from one of them to the other. Agreed?

Well, it was agreed, all right, it was sure agreed.

And the din, here in the saloon, became almost painful to the eardrums. On and on it went, on and on into the night.

Blah, blah, blah, squeal, yak-yak-yak.

Women! I thought. Who needs them?

Well, by now, I guess you know who needs them.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1964 by Fawcett Publications, Inc.

Copyright renewed 1992 by Richard S. Prather

Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media

ISBN 978-1-4804-9913-3

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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Table of Contents

Dedication

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty