Built for Trouble (14 page)

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. There’s a lot Nola can’t be sure of. She can guess hell out of things but the only sure result for Nola is still the same—no matter what happens to Baker, Nola Norton faces an unbeatable first-degree murder charge. She doesn’t have any hope of winning; it isn’t even a gamble from her side of the fence. Sure, she can make it rough for me, but she has to pay with her lovely head for the privilege, and I know her better than that.”

We stood there looking at each other, and maybe we were thinking the same thing. Chauffeuring a cadaver all that distance wasn’t going to be any picnic. Of course, I could slide into my Ford and gun out of there and then—but I couldn’t. This wasn’t the time or place to go into a clinch or make a pitch, but something was beginning to build between us. An understanding. A hope for some sort of future. The quicker I got under way, the better.

“I’ll have to show myself at the hotel,” I said. “I’ve been coming in from the desert every day, and we don’t want to change anything. Have you got your part straight?”

She nodded and started the engine of the Ford. When she drove down the road, I walked all around Joe’s Plymouth to make sure the newspapers covered him from every angle, then slipped behind the wheel and followed Carol. Just outside of Ojai we stopped and traded cars.

“Don’t park. Don’t drive too fast or too slow,” I said. “Go out the highway for fifteen minutes, then turn and head back. You won’t enjoy the next thirty minutes; I know that. But we can’t park something like this along the road. It has to keep going and I’ll be back to relieve you as soon as I can. Check?”

“All right.”

I hopped into my own car, whipped into town and over to the hotel, and rolled into the parking lot. Catching up a couple of sample bags, I went through to the lobby and asked for mail.

“Nothing, Mr. Edwards,” the clerk said.

I grunted and went on back to eighteen. It was after five. I lost fifteen minutes getting cleaned up and into some slacks and then I eased out to the Ford again and got out onto the highway. We met about a mile beyond the city limits and switched cars once more.

“Park it in the residence district just beyond the hotel,” I said. “Throw the keys on the floor. I’ll be by in the wee hours of the morning to pick it up and move it over to the hotel—I hope.”

“All right, Eddie.”

“And good luck.”

She nodded and the car moved away. I got into Joe’s Plymouth, glanced into the back seat once more to be sure he was still covered, and pulled onto the highway. I had a piece of the map I’d torn out back in the canyon, just the bit showing the roads leading from Ojai over to Victorville, and I took it out of my pocket now as I drove along. Adding up the distance, it came to only a hundred and thirty-six miles, but on this end they were going to be slow miles. On the long flat stretches I could make time, but the first sixty miles would be curves and hills.

An hour later, just east of Fillmore, I stopped and went over the car with my handkerchief—door handles, window cranks, plastic seat covers—everything I’d touched as far as I could remember. On my way once more, I began to think about disposing of some of the evidence. I moved the paper, got the .45 in my lap, and began to dismantle it as I drove along. It was registered to me; it had killed Joe Lamb. The gun had to go. One by one I tossed the bullets out into stunted growth along the edge of the highway, a shell each time the speedometer of Joe’s car turned over another mile. Between Piru and Saugus I jettisoned other parts of the gun, each tossed from the car far into desert growth or bushes. I stopped only once. This was for the piece with the serial number. When it grew dark and I came to a reasonably remote spot, I got out, found a stick, dug a shallow hole near the base of a cactus and buried it.

One down and one to go. When I got back into the car, I picked up Joe’s gun, and in the next few miles I gave it the same treatment. Now I was rid of both guns.

His jewelry was next. To make this look like a hitchhiker had killed Joe, the watch and ring had to go, but I sure as hell didn’t want them on me. I stopped on the Mint Canyon highway long enough to get out and crush the ring under my heel. I gave the same treatment to Joe’s watch, then picked up the pieces. Between there and the turnoff just beyond Vincent Station, I tossed them away—watch case here, the twisted ring there, the setting another place, and the wristband from the watch still farther on. The chances of any of these parts getting together again would be one in several billion, I guessed, and now I was rid of everything except Joe’s wallet.

And Joe.

I went through the glove compartment and found nothing of value. I didn’t like taking his money but it had to be done. There were just over ninety dollars and, driving along, I tore the bills into small bits and poked them into the pocket of my sports shirt. I was as ready now as I was going to be until I hit the main highway just out of Victorville.

Over and over I went along the trail mentally, asking myself if I’d taken care of everything. My nerves were on edge, and I had to force myself to hold the speed down; the last thing I needed was to be stopped on a traffic violation. Or for anything else. A routine road-block along the way and I was completely unhorsed. A brush of fenders with another car, witness to an accident—there were a dozen things I didn’t even want to think about.

About nine I hit the main highway. There are plenty of ways Joe Lamb could have left L.A. on his way to Las Vegas, but eventually he’d have to wind up on 66 and pass through Victorville. I came east on the road from Pearblossom, which cuts into the big highway only a couple of miles south of Victorville. I turned north, drove along slowly until I found a place that looked abandoned, and parked the car, very conscious of Joe Lamb’s body. It was just a shack along the desert, set back from the highway, and it would do nicely. I took out my handkerchief once more, wiped the ignition key, the wheel, the door handle on my side, and the window trim. Then I rolled the window up, got out, used the handkerchief to close the door, and picked up a piece of weed near the car. Waiting until there were no cars in sight, I went toward the highway, brushing away my footprints in the dust as I walked, and at the concrete I tossed the weed away and started toward Victorville.

If someone remembered seeing a man hiking along the highway, at least they’d recall that he was heading for town, but I didn’t want anyone to offer me a lift. I couldn’t afford to get that close to anybody for a while.

At the first big service station I went into the men’s room. Emptying every scrap of torn bill from my pocket, I dropped them into the can and flushed it twice. Then I took out Joe’s wallet, wiped it carefully with toilet paper, and slipped my arm down the side of the waste-paper-barrel until I hit bottom. It was a good place for the wallet. In the morning, when they emptied the waste towels, it would come to light and, being empty and discarded, there wouldn’t be any doubt that someone had stolen it. I dropped the toilet paper into the can, flushed it down, and went back out to the highway.

It took a while to get out of Victorville and on my way to L.A. Busses were out. So was hitching. I went over to a service station catering to truck trade and hung around for a while. I was shot and going on nerves and it would have been nice to hand one of the truck jockeys a five-spot and sleep in the bunk behind the cab of a big rig all the way to. L.A., but I couldn’t afford to come to light so close to Joe Lamb’s car. Then, just after ten, something came along that looked pretty much like what the doctor ordered. It was almost empty, a big flat-bed job with a tarp over something stacked in the first few feet against the front end. I drifted over to the side away from the bright lights of the station, and when the driver went into the men’s room I slipped over into the shadow of the cab, moved back a few feet, pulled myself up onto the bed, and wiggled under the edge of the tarp.

The cargo was about a dozen oil drums, a chain around their middle holding the stack to the forward part of the long truck-bed. I held still and waited, and a few minutes later we rumbled out onto the highway. We thundered along over the pavement, a rough ride, with my rear getting sorer every mile, but the driver was in a hurry and we made the forty miles to San Bernardino in damn good time, considering that we had to go over Cajon Pass. I stayed with him almost into the business district then lifted the canvas on the right side, rolled across the bed, and jumped down. I heard him yell something and knew he’d caught a flash of me in his big rear-view mirror on the right, but I didn’t wait to discuss it. I took off on a dead run for the next corner back, swung left, and was out of sight.

When I got to the bus depot I bought a ticket to Los Angeles and went the rest of the way in style. In the washroom I cleaned up, then bought a ticket as far as Ventura on the next bus leaving for San Francisco.

The run up to Ventura took another hour and a half, and from there I took a cab to Ojai. I had him stop in front of another hotel up the street from mine, and when he headed back toward Ventura I went over one block, came up the back street, picked up the Ford, drove down to my hotel, and slipped in the rear entrance. I was dead for sleep from the nervous exhaustion wearing away at me, and I stripped off my shirt and shoes, then hopped on the bed. Before I could close my eyes there was a light tap on the door. I cracked it open, then swung it wide enough for Carol to slip in.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered. “You want to foul us up completely?”

“Eddie, I can’t sleep, I can’t rest, I can’t—”

I put my arms around her then and held her close for a moment. She closed her eyes and clung to me and I ran my fingers through her long red hair until the tension eased a little. At least I’d had freedom to move—she must have had holy hell sitting here in a hotel room. When she was under control again I tipped her chin up.

“I’m afraid you’d better get back to your room,” I whispered. “We don’t want to blow it. Not now.”

“Where is—is Joe?”

“I found a place near Victorville. So far so good. Now run back to your side of the hall and take a hot shower and—No, it’s four a.m.; don’t run the water this late. Or maybe just enough to sponge off your face. And try to calm down.”

“Eddie, I’m worried.”

“Sure you are. We both are. But the hard part is over; you’re so far from Joe’s car that the few questions they ask you when they call you back to Hollywood will almost be routine.”

“But won’t they know he’s been driven quite a ways?”

“I guess. But they won’t know how far or from where. And don’t forget this: they’ll
expect
you to be upset. It wouldn’t be natural any other way, your business partner being murdered. So don’t try too hard to be casual about it.”

“All right. I—I feel better now. And thanks.”

“It’s going to be all right,” I said. “You’ll have to handle both sides of your office for a while until you find a new partner, and that’ll help keep you busy. I’ll stop by in a few days. But one thing for sure—don’t tell Nola Norton a thing. Not a damn thing. Do you understand that, Carol?”

“Nothing, Eddie. I’ll remember.”

When I was alone again I flopped across the bed and tried to sleep. But at seven in the morning I was still there, still awake, and still worrying.

I cleaned up and went through the motions once more, but this time I didn’t drive out to my usual place. I got papers and drove off in a different direction, then took the Geiger counter into the hills and walked around. It was noon before I finally dropped down in the shade of a low bush, put my head on the roll of papers, and closed my eyes.

The evening papers had the story when I got back to the hotel. A couple of dames in the lobby were buzzing like magpies and devouring the front page, and after I’d had my shower I went down town, found a pool hall, and sat down to glance at the news. It hit the headlines.

Hitch-hiker Slays L.A. Man

The body of Joseph Lamb was found in his car this morning a mile south of Victorville. He had apparently been murdered some time before, and…

Carol Taylor was mentioned only in passing. She had been called home from her vacation at Ojai, the article said, to identify the body. The police fixed the time of death at about six o’clock on the night before, which was shooting damn close to the line. They knew that he’d been carted quite a way but here they were slipping a little; their estimate was from just out of San Bernardino to the place of discovery, forty miles instead of the hundred and thirty-six he had really traveled. But they were figuring on Lamb’s going from L.A. to Las Vegas and guessed that he’d given the wrong man a lift. He had been robbed, the paper said, of money, a ring, and watch.

The wallet, it seems, had actually turned up first. I’d guessed wrong on when the paper can would be emptied at the service station; the night man dumped it at midnight, and the police were given the wallet before they actually had the body. No description was yet available; the fact that the wallet was found north of the car indicated that the killer was on his way toward Barstow and, most likely, was going on to Las Vegas.

The wound indicated that the bullet was heavy enough to be a .45. It had been fired at close range, and they surmised that Lamb had thrown up his arm to grab for the gun—the bullet having entered below the armpit on his left side and flattened when it ripped away the spine. They were, of course, trying to locate anyone who might have seen the Plymouth stopped along the highway between San Bernardino and Victorville, in the hope of getting some idea as to the size and appearance of the hitch-hiker.

I put the paper down and went back to the hotel. One more day I spent in the hills, then checked out with no forwarding address and headed for L.A. There was no point in remaining at Ojai; the entire publicity scheme was one big bucket of bubbles, a spot marked X on which they had hoped to nail Eddie Baker. So now only Nola remained, and she was still going to have to pay off.