Fugitive Nights (10 page)

Lynn saw the guy with the red bag go to a GTE phone stand at a gas station across from the Alan Ladd hardware store, and Lynn figured maybe he was just a tourist hoping to buy an old movie poster from
Shane
or
The Great Gatsby
at the Alan Ladd store. But what the hell had he been doing on foot out there in the canyon?

For a second or two, Lynn was almost curious enough to turn around and tail
that
guy. But he stayed with Clive Devon, per instructions of his temporary boss, Breda Burrows.

His heart was crashing against his breastbone. He was suddenly
very
frightened, now that he was standing alone on a busy street in Palm Springs, California. He was dripping sweat, and was about to remove his baseball cap to wipe it off when he caught himself just in time. They were looking for a bald man, so he had to wear a hat for the rest of his time in this city.

He ran across Indian Avenue, realizing halfway that he should have gone to the intersection, to a crosswalk. He wasn't at home now. He'd have to be very much aware of traffic laws. Having come this far it would be a tragedy to be caught because he'd failed to cross a street at the right spot.

He went to the phone stand, keeping his red flight bag pressed against his chest, wanting to get rid of it as soon as possible. He wished he had any color other than high-visibility red, but he couldn't have anticipated the policeman bursting into the rest room like that.

He'd read the morning news account, in which the policeman said he'd only entered the rest room to relieve himself, that he probably wouldn't have paid any attention to the other man inside. Easy to say now, but what does a policeman in the States do when he sees a man of the Third World get off a private plane and carry a bag to a rest room? Except that the policeman claimed he wasn't even aware of the private plane having landed with engine trouble on its way to who-knew-where.

He leafed through the yellow pages at the telephone stand while the unplanned events of the previous day blazed through his mind. It was almost impossible to read in English and think in his own language, so he put the phone book on the tray, telling himself to be calm. He'd simply panicked yesterday, and now he had to deal with the unexpected turn. He was a fugitive and that was a fact.

The fugitive found what he wanted on page 571 of the Palm Springs yellow pages. He tore the page from the phone book, folded it, and put it into his jacket pocket. Then he leafed through more pages until he found the listing for used car sales. He took change from his pocket, then cursed. They were the coins he'd been given in the cantina in Mexicali, after he'd received his forged documents. Useless. He had to get some U.S. coins to make calls.

The fugitive left the coins on the tray and walked toward the gas station just as a Palm Springs police car cruised by. The fugitive ducked behind the gas station until the car had passed, then thought he'd better get into a shop immediately and buy some clothes. He removed a package of one thousand U.S. dollars from the red flight bag. He wished he'd brought a change of clothes for an emergency such as this, but it had been decided by the others that he'd buy his clothing in Palm Springs. They had wanted him to look as much as possible like a tourist.

He chose to head toward the mountain, and walked north on Belardo Road in the direction of downtown, avoiding both Indian Avenue and Palm Canyon Drive, which he knew from his map and briefing to be busy thoroughfares. He was ready to leap from the pavement at the first sign of a police car.

Thinking of the police made him regret kicking the policeman so hard. As to the blow that put the man down, reflexes did that. Danger was there, the adversary was identified, and he had put down the adversary just the way he'd been taught. The only deliberate thing was the stomach kick to keep him down long enough to escape. The fugitive was glad that the policeman had not been badly hurt. There was no point in hurting anyone, except for the one he had come here to find.

When he saw Clive Devon turn into his street in Las Palmas, Lynn Cutter broke off the surveillance and sped back toward the Alan Ladd building, his curiosity killing him. But the guy with the baseball cap was no longer at the phone stand. Lynn got out of his car and went to the phone, looking for what, he didn't know, perhaps a phone number scribbled on the writing tray.

There were no numbers and no scraps of paper on the tray, but there were four coins that somebody had left. Three were Mexican, the fourth a ten-peseta Spanish coin. Lynn examined that one just to be sure it was Spanish.

Not knowing why, Lynn put the coins into his pocket and walked toward the Alan Ladd hardware store. He looked inside but the man was not among the customers wandering around. He couldn't afford to waste any more time, so he returned to his Rambler, sped to Clive Devon's house in Las Palmas and parked on the next block. Then he strolled past the Devon house, stopping to peer through the oleander. He was relieved to see that the Range Rover was in the driveway next to Rhonda Devon's silver Mercedes 560SEC.

When Lynn was finally back in his own car, massaging his aching knees, he began truly regretting that he hadn't broken off the surveillance at the Salton Sea and followed the young woman. He was even sorrier he hadn't indulged his whim and stayed with the guy in the baseball cap.

The sun was still high, white as bone, and hot, but the sky was streaked with a pearly hint of sunset. Lynn leaned back and closed his eyes. At six o'clock he was startled by a familiar voice. It was Breda Burrows, who had parked behind and walked up on him.

“Damn!” he said, disoriented. “You scared me!”

“Next time I'll wear a cowbell,” she said with that mean little smile. “What happened today? And don't bother with a description of your wet dream.”

She got in his car on the passenger side.

“I wasn't asleep.”

“Okay, you always snore on stakeouts. So what happened today?”

God, the woman had
such
an irritating grin! Lynn said, “This guy Devon's gonna be harder to trace than the Basque language. How much did you say you were making for this job?”

“Never mind that,” Breda said. “What happened today?”

Lynn was stalling while he pulled himself together, trying to sneak a peek at his watch, stunned to see it was nearly 6:00
P.M.
! All that running and skulking like a goddamn coyote had obviously drained him, except that coyotes had sense enough to hole up in the daytime.

“The guy has a friend,” Lynn finally began.

“What kind of friend?”

“A young woman.”

“I'll be damned. Who is she?”

“I don't know,” Lynn said. Then, “Can we drive somewhere and talk? Clive Devon's not going anywhere.” He couldn't admit to Breda that he'd been so out cold he didn't know if Clive Devon was at home or surfing in Malibu.

“We better hang around here this evening,” Breda said. “Mrs. Devon said she might go home to L.A. today. If she's gone he might not stay home.”

“Wait here,” Lynn said.

He jumped out of the car and did a very painful jog on water-filled knees to the Devon property. Peeking through the oleander he saw both the silver Mercedes and the black Range Rover. Pausing a moment, he also saw a slender woman in lounging pajamas walk past a window with a drink in her hand. Then he jogged even more slowly back to his Rambler.

“She's there having a drink,” he told Breda. “And she's wearing her Frederick's of Hollywood silkies for beddy-bye. With that drink in her hand she ain't going to L.A. till tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Breda said. “Let's go back to the office. I want to hear
all
about today.”

“The Furnace Room?” he said hopefully. “You can buy me a drink.”

“Not The Furnace Room,” she said. “I sat in chicken gravy last time. Do they ever clean that dump?”

“Couldn't a been chicken,” Lynn said. “Wilfred doesn't serve it. Was it sorta sweatsocks gray? I think I know what Wilfred calls it but I dunno what's in it.”

In ten minutes they were seated in the bar of a French restaurant with huge tapestries on the walls, where sauces were identifiable by name and ingredients, not by color. It was a very expensive, quite lovely restaurant that Lynn had never entered in the twelve years he'd lived in Palm Springs. When the valet had taken their cars Breda had to assure Lynn that she'd take care of the tips.

They sat at the bar and were served by a Belgian in formal attire. One wall of the barroom was lined with low plush banquettes, and the place was bustling with well-heeled drinkers. Lynn doubted that the management needed to reduce prices at happy hour. He figured that when people drank from crystal tumblers and goblets they weren't worrying about price.

Most of the chic older women were drinking white wine, of course, and Lynn was surprised when, after he ordered Chivas, Breda said, “Two.”

“I'm trying to learn to drink like a P.I.,” she explained. “I never did learn to drink like a cop, and all my male partners were
so
disappointed in me.”

Lynn took a couple of big hits of Scotch, showed her a yum-yum smile, then said, “Okay, here's how
my
day went. First I followed him down to the Salton Sea. Ever been there?”

“Not on business,” she said. “I've done a few bike rides around there. What was he up to?”

“Met his squeeze,” Lynn said. “They went for a picnic out near Painted Canyon. It was touching. She even brought her doggie along.”

“Did they do anything besides picnic?”

“He didn't spread anything on the blanket except maybe peanut butter,” Lynn said. “And he fed her doggie from his very own sandwich. It was a domestic scene if ever I saw one. After they were through they went for a hike in Painted Canyon.”

Lynn hesitated, finished the drink, and nodded to the bartender for another. Breda noted that the nervy bastard didn't bother to ask if she'd pop for one more.

After he got his fresh drink, Lynn said, “Only thing is, I wasn't able to get the babe's license number.”

“Shit!” she said. “Why not?”

“Hey, I was lucky he didn't make me! It's open country out there. I got enough sand in my shoes to toilet train a thousand cats!”

“Okay, but do you know where she lives?”

“I didn't follow her. You said to stay with his car. He drove her back to the café and then went home. But there was a weird part.”

“What?”

“He wasn't alone. He picked up a guy in Painted Canyon. Devon and the guy drove back to Palm Springs together. He dropped him down by Indian and Ramon Road. Weird.”

“What'd the guy look like?”

“Dark, maybe Mexican. Husky. Wore a baseball cap and a windbreaker.”

“I wish you'd followed the woman.”

“You told me to stay with Devon.”

“I know.”

“I wish I'da followed the guy with the baseball cap.”

“Why?”

“It bugs me. Who
was
he?”

“Some guy that needed a lift.”

“But all the way to Palm Springs?”

“Maybe he lives in Palm Springs.”

“Then how'd he get to Painted Canyon?”

“Does the Sun Bus run down there? What difference does it make?”

“I don't like third parties barging in on a nice clean soap opera is all.”

“I just wish you'd followed the woman.”

“You said that. How about buying me another drink?”

Breda pushed her tumbler of Chivas toward him. “Here, drink mine,” she said with a barely concealed sneer.

And then her jaw muscles tightened because the son of a bitch turned the lipstick mark the other way before he drank!

“Okay,” he said, “next time I'm using my own judgment. If Clive Devon starts picking up mysterious people and I think they oughtta be followed then I'll follow em.”

“I assumed you'd use your own judgment. You've been a cop long enough. By the way, how long
have
you been on the job?”

“Thirteen years in this town. Six years before that with San Diego P.D. I came to the desert when I hurt my knee and started getting problems from the dampness down there. Now both my knees're so wrecked I could live in Greenland, it wouldn't make no difference.”

“When's your pension coming through?”

“Hopefully this month,” he said. “That's why I don't want anybody at the department or anywhere else to know I'm running around the desert in places a bighorn wouldn't go. The great giver-of-pensions might have second thoughts about my disability.”

“Going to get a P.I. license after the pension's in the bag?”

“Why not?” he said. “Anybody can from what I see.”

“How sensitive you are.”

“I wasn't referring to you.”

“Of course you weren't.”

“I don't insult people when they're buying the drinks. Not on purpose.”

“I've gotta make a call,” she said, getting up, and he watched her walk toward the rest room, admiring those cyclist's calves. He
loved
babes who wore tailored jackets and skirts, with buffed-up calves!

After rooting inside her purse, she found her phone file jammed under her holstered two-inch revolver. Everyone said that after she'd been retired a few months she'd stop carrying a gun. Most P.I.'s wouldn't carry one even if, like Breda, they were retired from police work on a service pension and could do so anywhere in the state. P.I.'s who weren't retired from police work seldom even bothered to try for a gun permit. But Breda was used to having a gun handy, and hadn't broken the habit as yet.

Rhonda Devon had assured her that her private line was safe and that Clive Devon seldom answered it. If he did he wouldn't think anything of a woman asking for his wife. It was Rhonda Devon who picked it up on the second ring.

“Mrs. Devon?”