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I stopped and looked at her as well as I could see her in the freshly darkening evening. Down below, the ocean was getting a lapis lazuli blue that somehow failed to remind me of Miss Vermilyea’s eyes. A flock of gulls went south in a fairly compact mass but it wasn’t the kind of tight formation North Island is used to. The evening plane from L.A. came down the coast with its port and starboard lights showing, and then the winking light below the fuselage went on and it swung out to sea for a long lazy turn into Lindbergh Field.

“So you’re just a shill for a crooked lawyer,” she said nastily, and grabbed for another of my cigarettes.

“I don’t think he’s very crooked. He just tries too hard. But that’s not the point. You can lose a few bucks to him without screaming. The point is something called privilege. A licensed investigator doesn’t have it. A lawyer does, provided his concern is with the interests of a client who has retained him. If the lawyer hires an investigator to work in those interests, then the investigator has privilege. That’s the only way he can get it.”

“You know what you can do with your privilege,” she said. “Especially as it was a lawyer that hired you to spy on me.”

I took the cigarette away from her and puffed on it a couple of times and handed it back.

“It’s all right, Betty. I’m no use to you. Forget I tried to be.”

“Nice words, but only because you think I’ll pay you more to be of use to me. You’re just another of them. I don’t want your damn cigarette either.” She threw it out of the window. “Take me back to the hotel.”

I got out of the car and stamped on the cigarette. “You don’t do that in the California hills,” I told her. “Not even out of season.” I got back into the car and turned the key and pushed the starter button. I backed away and made the turn and drove back up the curve to where the road divided. On the upper level where the solid white line curved away a small car was parked. The car was lightless. It could have been empty.

I swung the Olds hard the opposite way from the way I had come, and flicked my headlights on with the high beam. They swept the cars as I turned. A hat went down over a face, but not quick enough to hide the glasses, the fat broad face, the outjutting ears of Mr. Ross Goble of Kansas City.

The lights went on past and I drove down a long hill with lazy curves. I didn’t know where it went except that all roads around there led to the ocean sooner or later. At the bottom there was a T-intersection. I swung to the right and after a few blocks of narrow street I hit the boulevard and made another right turn. I was now driving back towards the main part of Esmeralda.

She didn’t speak again until I got to the hotel. She jumped out quickly when I stopped.

“If you’ll wait here, I’ll get the money.”

“We were tailed,” I said.

“What—?” She stopped dead, with her head half turned.

“Small car. You didn’t notice him unless you saw my lights brush him as I made the turn at the top of the hill.”

“Who was it?” Her voice was tense.

“How would I know? He must have picked us up here, therefore he’ll come back here. Could he be a cop?”

She looked back at me, motionless, frozen. She took a slow step, and then she rushed at me as if she was going to claw my face. She grabbed me by the arms and tried to shake me. Her breath came whistling.

“Get me out of here. Get me out of here, for the love of Christ. Anywhere. Hide me. Get me a little peace. Somewhere where I can’t be followed, hounded, threatened. He swore he would do it to me. He’d follow me to the ends of the earth, to the remotest island of the Pacific—”

“To the crest of the highest mountain, to the heart of the loneliest desert,” I said. “Somebody’s been reading a rather old-fashioned book.”

She dropped her arms and let them hang limp at her sides.

“You’ve got as much sympathy as a loan shark.”

“I’ll take you nowhere,” I said. “Whatever it is that’s eating you, you’re going to stay put and take it.”

I turned and got into the car. When I looked back, she was already halfway to the bar entrance, walking with quick strides.

SIXTEEN

If I had any sense, I would pick up my suitcase and go back home and forget all about her. By the time she made up her mind which part she was playing in which act of which play, it would probably be too late for me to do anything about it except maybe get pinched for loitering in the post office.

I waited and smoked a cigarette. Goble and his dirty little jalopy ought to show up and slip into a parking slot almost any moment. He couldn’t have picked us up anywhere else, and since he knew that much he couldn’t have followed us for any reason except to find out where we went.

He didn’t show. I finished the cigarette, dropped it overboard, and backed out. As I turned out of the driveway towards the town, I saw his car on the other side of the street, parked left-hand to the curb. I kept going, turned right at the boulevard and took it easy so he wouldn’t blow a gasket trying to keep up. There was a restaurant about a mile along called The Epicure. It had a low roof, and a red brick wall to shield it from the street and it had a bar. The entrance was at the side. I parked and went in. It wasn’t doing any business yet. The barkeep was chatting with the captain and the captain didn’t even wear a dinner jacket. He had one of those high desks where they keep the reservation book. The book was open and had a list of names in it for later in the evening. But it was early now. I could have a table.

The dining room was dim, candlelit, divided by a low wall into two halves. It would have looked crowded with thirty people in it. The captain shoved me in a corner and lit my candle for me. I said I would have a double Gibson. A waiter came up and started to remove the place setting on the far side of the table. I told him to leave it, a friend might join me. I studied the menu, which was almost as large as the dining room. I could have used a flashlight to read it, if I had been curious. This was about the dimmest joint I was ever in. You could be sitting at the next table from your mother and not recognize her.

The Gibson arrived. I could make out the shape of the glass and there seemed to be something in it. I tasted it and it wasn’t too bad. At that moment Goble slid into the chair across from me. In so far as I could see him at all, he looked about the same as he had looked the day before. I went on peering at the menu. They ought to have printed it in braille.

Goble reached across for my glass of ice water and drank. “How you making out with the girl?” he asked casually.

“Not getting anywhere. Why?”

“Whatcha go up on the hill for?”

“I thought maybe we could neck. She wasn’t in the mood. What’s your interest? I thought you were looking for some guy named Mitchell.”

“Very funny indeed. Some guy named Mitchell. Never heard of him, I believe you said.”

“I’ve heard of him since. I’ve seen him. He was drunk. Very drunk. He damn near got himself thrown out of a place.”

“Very funny,” Goble said, sneering. “And how did you know his name?”

“On account of somebody called him by it. That would be
too
funny, wouldn’t it?”

He sneered. “I told you to stay out of my way. I know who you are now. I looked you up.”

I lit a cigarette and blew smoke in his face. “Go fry a stale egg.”

“Tough, huh,” he sneered. “I’ve pulled the arms and legs off bigger guys than you.”

“Name two of them.”

He leaned across the table, but the waiter came up. “I’ll have bourbon and plain water,” Goble told him. “Bonded stuff. None of that bar whiskey for me. And don’t try to fool me. I’ll know. And bottled water. The city water here is terrible.”

The waiter just looked at him.

“I’ll have another of these,” I said, pushing my glass.

“What’s good tonight?” Goble wanted to know. “I never bother with these billboards.” He flicked a disdainful finger at the menu.

“The
plat du jour
is meat loaf,” the waiter said nastily.

“Hash with a starched collar,” Goble said. “Make it meat loaf.”

The waiter looked at me. I said the meat loaf was all right with me. The waiter went away. Goble leaned across the table again, after first taking a quick look behind him and on both sides.

“You’re out of luck, friend,” he said cheerfully. “You didn’t get away with it.”

“Too bad,” I said. “Get away with what?”

“You’re bad out of luck, friend. Very bad. The tide was wrong or something. Abalone fisher—one of those guys with frog feet and rubber masks—stuck under a rock.”

“The abalone fisher stuck under a rock?” A cold prickly feeling crawled down my back. When the waiter came with the drinks, I had to fight myself not to grab for mine.

“Very funny, friend.”

“Say that again and I’ll smash your goddam glasses or you,” I snarled.

He picked up his drink and sipped it, tasted it, thought about it, nodded his head.

“I came out here to make money,” he mused. “I didn’t nowise come out to make trouble. Man can’t make money making trouble. Man can make money keeping his nose clean. Get me?”

“Probably a new experience for you,” I said. “Both ways. What was that about an abalone fisher?” I kept my voice controlled, but it was an effort.

He leaned back. My eyes were getting used to the dimness now. I could see that his fat face was amused.

“Just kidding,” he said. “I don’t know any abalone fishers. Only last night I learned how to pronounce the word. Still don’t know what the stuff is. But things are kind of funny at that. I can’t find Mitchell.”

“He lives at the hotel.” I took some more of my drink, not too much. This was no time to dive into it.

“I know he lives at the hotel, friend. What I don’t know is where he is at right now. He ain’t in his room. The hotel people ain’t seen him around: I thought maybe you and the girl had some ideas about it.”

“The girl is screwy,” I said. “Leave her out of it. And in Esmeralda they don’t say ‘ain’t seen.’ That Kansas City dialect is an offense against public morals here.”

“Shove it, Mac. When I want to get told how to talk English I won’t go to no beat-up California peeper.” He turned his head and yelled: “Waiter!”

Several faces looked at him with distaste. The waiter showed up after a while and stood there with the same expression as the customers.

“Hit me again,” Goble said, snapped a finger at his glass.

“It is not necessary to yell at me,” the waiter said. He took the glass away.

“When I want service,” Goble yelped at his back, “service is what I want.”

“I hope you like the taste of wood alcohol,” I told Goble.

“Me and you could get along,” Goble said indifferently, “if you had any brains.”

“And if you had any manners and were six inches taller and had a different face and another name and didn’t act as if you thought you could lick your weight in frog spawn.”

“Cut the doodads and get back to Mitchell,” he said briskly. “And to the dish you was trying to fumble up the hill.”

“Mitchell is a man she met on a train. He had the same effect on her that you have on me. He created in her a burning desire to travel in the opposite direction.”

It was a waste of time. The guy was as invulnerable as my great-great-grandfather.

“So,” he sneered, “Mitchell to her is just a guy she met on a train and didn’t like when she got to know him. So she ditched him for you? Convenient you happened to be around.”

The waiter came with the food. He set it out with a flourish. Vegetables, salad, hot rolls in a napkin.

“Coffee?”

I said I’d rather have mine later. Goble said yes and wanted to know where his drink was. The waiter said it was on the way—by slow freight, his tone suggested. Goble tasted his meat loaf and looked surprised. “Hell, it’s good,” he said. “What with so few customers I thought the place was a bust.”

“Look at your watch,” I said. “Things don’t get moving until much later. It’s that kind of town. Also, it’s out of season.”

“Much later is right,” he said, munching. “An awful lot later. Two, three in the
A.M.
sometimes. People go calling on their friends. You back at the Rancho, friend?”

I looked at him without saying anything.

“Do I have to draw you a picture, friend? I work long hours when I’m on a job.”

I didn’t say anything.

He wiped his mouth. “You kind of stiffened up when I said that about the guy stuck under a rock. Or could I be wrong?”

I didn’t answer him.

“Okay, clam up,” Goble sneered. “I thought maybe we could do a little business together. You got the physique and you take a good punch. But you don’t know nothing about nothing. You don’t have what it takes in my business. Where I come from you got to have brains to get by. Out here you just got to get sunburned and forget to button your collar.”

“Make me a proposition,” I said between my teeth.

He was a rapid eater even when he talked too much. He pushed his plate away from him, drank some of his coffee and got a toothpick out of his vest.

“This is a rich town, friend,” he said slowly. “I’ve studied it. I’ve boned up on it. I’ve talked to guys about it. They tell me it’s one of the few spots left in our fair green country where the dough ain’t quite enough. In Esmeralda you got to belong, or you’re nothing. If you want to belong and get asked around and get friendly with the right people you got to have class. There’s a guy here made five million fish in the rackets back in Kansas City. He bought up property, subdivided, built houses, built some of the best properties in town. But he didn’t belong to the Beach Club because he didn’t get asked. So he bought it. They know who he is, they touch him big when they got a fund-raising drive, he gets service, he pays his bills, he’s a good solid citizen. He throws big parties but the guests come from out of town unless they’re moochers, no-goods, the usual trash you always find hopping about where there’s money. But the class people of the town? He’s just a nigger to them.”

It was a long speech and while he made it he glanced at me casually from time to time, glanced around the room, leaned back comfortably in his chair and picked his teeth.

“He must be breaking his heart,” I said. “How did they find out where his dough came from?”

Goble leaned across the small table. “A big shot from the Treasury Department comes here for a vacation every spring. Happened to see Mr. Money and know all about him. He spread the word. You think it’s not breaking his heart? You don’t know these hoods that have made theirs and gone respectable. He’s bleeding to death inside, friend. He’s found something he can’t buy with folding money and it’s eating him to a shell.”

“How did you find out all this?”

“I’m smart. I get around. I find things out.”

“All except one,” I said.

“Just what’s that?”

“You wouldn’t know if I told you.”

The waiter came up with Goble’s delayed drink and took dishes away. He offered the menu.

“I never eat dessert,” Goble said. “Scram.”

The waiter looked at the toothpick. He reached over and deftly flicked it out from between Goble’s fingers. “There’s a Men’s Room here, chum,” he said. He dropped the toothpick into the ash tray and removed the ash tray.

“See what I mean?” Goble said to me. “Class.”

I told the waiter I would have a chocolate sundae and some coffee. “And give this gentleman the check,” I added.

“A pleasure,” the waiter said. Goble looked disgusted. The waiter drifted. I leaned across the table and spoke softly.

“You’re the biggest liar I’ve met in two days. And I’ve met a few beauties. I don’t think you have any interest in Mitchell. I don’t think you ever saw or heard of him until yesterday when you got the idea of using him as a cover story. You were sent here to watch a girl and I know who sent you—not who hired you, but who had it done. I know why she is being watched and I know how to fix it so that she won’t be watched. If you’ve got any high cards, you’d better play them right away quick. Tomorrow could be too late.”

He pushed his chair back and stood up. He dropped a folded and crimped bill on the table. He looked me over coolly.

“Big mouth, small brain,” he said. “Save it for Thursday when they set the trash cans out. You don’t know from nothing, friend. My guess is you never will.”

He walked off with his head thrust forward belligerently.

I reached across for the folded and crimped bill Goble had dropped on the table. As I expected it was only a dollar. Any guy who would drive a jalopy that might be able to do forty-five miles an hour downhill would eat in joints where the eighty-five cent dinner was something for a wild Saturday night.

The waiter slid over and dumped the check on me. I paid up and left Goble’s dollar in his plate.

“Thanks,” the waiter said. “That guy’s a real close friend of yours, huh?”

“The operative word is close,” I said.

“The guy might be poor,” the waiter said tolerantly. “One of the choice things about this town is that the people who work here can’t afford to live here.”

There were all of twenty people in the place when I left, and the voices were beginning to bounce down off the low ceiling.