Novel 1966 - The Broken Gun (v5.0) (4 page)

Suppose the room was bugged? Belle had known where I was to stay, so apparently it had been decided before I arrived. Who would bug it? I did not know, but the thing to do when in doubt was to act as if it were so.

Crossing the room to the unknown man, I took him by the arm. “Come!” I whispered. In the bathroom I turned on the water to drown other sound.

“The room may be bugged,” I whispered; “they may be able to hear what we say there.” I heard a sharp intake of breath. Since the coming of movies and television everyone knows about bugged rooms.

“Who is it I must fear?” I asked.

“All of them. You must fear them all! I was to warn you, señor to get away quickly!”

“How did Pio know I was here?”

“He knows, señor, but I work on the ranch and it was my brother who served your drink, only I have no business at headquarters, and if I am found here I shall be suspected.”

“One more thing. Do you know the name of Toomey?”

“Aaah? So that is it? I—”

There was a faint whisper of approaching footsteps and the man vanished like a ghost. For a moment a shadow showed in the bedroom door, and was gone. Then a shadow against the open window, and that was all.

Instantly I pushed a chair over and under cover of the sound I flicked the switch on my tape recorder. The door whipped open without warning, but as the lights went on I was calmly dictating.

“Marie,” I was saying, “delete the last three lines and mark the pages for a change from Spanish to Portuguese. That way I can use Macao. Get me a rundown on Macao as it is today, everything in current publications over the past few years.

“Particularly, anything dealing with Red China. You know the sort of thing I’ll need. You should get my first tape by Monday, and I shall be flying in by the middle of the week. I have an appointment with Randall on Friday.”

As I spoke I glanced over my shoulder. Colin Wells stood just inside the door, still gripping the knob in his left hand, the hardness in his eyes fading to doubt as he saw the tape recorder.

“Excuse me, Colin. You know how it is with writers. We never stop working. Others can leave their job at the office, but a writer carries it with him, buzzing around in his head wherever he goes. Am I late for dinner?”

Without waiting for a reply, I spoke into the mike. “I deleted the last bit of dialogue, Marie. Too melodramatic.” After a momentary pause I added, “Murder is often very undramatic. At least, unannounced.”

Colin’s eyes swept the room, then he crossed to the bathroom, where he even pulled back the shower curtain.

“Is the maid taking care of you? We have to check on them, you know. I don’t want my guests lacking anything, particularly towels.”

Then almost as an afterthought, he said, “Yeah, supper’s ready. I thought you’d forgotten. We eat earlier than folks do in town.”

He went back to the door and, flicking off the recorder, I followed him.

The room was bugged, I felt sure now. Wells had been listening, and had come down on the run hoping to catch whoever was warning me. He had almost succeeded. It was unlikely that he was fooled by the tape recorder, but he would be in doubt, for what I had said might well be true.

The dining room was bright with silver and crystal. We walked past the door and entered the playroom, a comfortable room with sofas and easy chairs, and at one end a pool table. Nearby a TV set was going, with nobody watching.

Doris glanced up, her expression enigmatic, her eyes flickering from me to Colin. “You have beautiful nights,” I said to her; “it is no wonder you like living here.”

Colin had started away, but he stopped and looked back. “My people built this place, Sheridan, built it from scratch, and we’ve reason to love it. Nobody is going to take it from us. I mean…
nobody!
”

Lacking anything else to say, I commented, “If you can keep the real estate people away, you should be all right.”

Mark Wilson, talking to a big young man at the other end of the table, faced around. “What do you mean by that remark?”

Belle interrupted, ignoring him. “Real estate people in Arizona aren’t as bad as in Los Angeles, Mr. Sheridan. Out there they seem to be trying to buy every empty piece of land for a subdivision.”

“Dinner is on the table,” Doris suggested. “If you boys can stop talking real estate, we can eat.”

Belle got up at once. “You must be hungry,” she said to me, “and I certainly am. Come on!”

As we reached the table, Belle turned. “You haven’t met Colin’s brother. This is Jimbo Wells. You may have heard of him. And this is Benton Seward, our closest neighbor.”

Whatever else might be said of them, they ate well, and I am a man who appreciates good food. But as the evening wore on I began to wonder, and kept remembering the line so often printed in accounts of executions: “The condemned man ate a hearty meal.”

The dress that Doris Wells wore was scarcely less revealing than the bikini, but it was not entirely her fault. Nature had provided her with equipment that defied concealment…and it was Doris who brought gaiety and laughter to the meal.

No doubt I contributed my share, for there is something in me, some nervous reaction, that is stirred to levity by the deeply serious or the dangerous. Tonight was no exception.

Without doubt they had me in a corner, but I had no idea what had brought it about. For some reason they were afraid of me, and their instinct, like that of some wild animals, was to kill whatever they feared. But for the first time I had a lead.

The sharp reaction to my idle comment about real estate brokers opened a door to speculation.

What was it they feared?Were they afraid I might stir up something to cloud the title of the Wells holdings? Was that title somehow vulnerable?

If that was the case then I could understand their worry. This ranch and the adjoining property they held must be worth several millions.

Was there a connection between the killing of Manuel Alvarez and this ranch? Pete Alvarez had been killed here, by Floyd Reese—for rustling…or because he knew something that must not be told?

As we ate, one part of my mind kept worrying over the problem like a dog over a bone. Suppose the Toomey brothers had settled on this land and somehow been displaced by the Wells outfit? If the Wells family had never tried to sell any of their land perhaps there had never been a title search; and even if there had been, the methods of acquiring land in pioneer days had been irregular, to say the least.

From time to time my eyes wandered to Jimbo Wells. I knew of him, of course. He had been a runner-up for the All-America, had broken an intercollegiate shot-put record, and had played three years of professional football. He was big, fast, and notoriously rough, even in such a rough game as pro football.

He had that close-cropped, freshly washed look so often associated with bright young college football players and nice boys, but my recollection of his playing and of the gossip around the world of sports was that he was something less than a nice boy.

“We never had a writer on the place before.” He was looking right at me, and I knew trouble when I saw it coming.

“You must have met a few at college.”

“Pantywaists.” Jimbo was deliberately contemptuous. “They had a few around all right. I had nothing to do with them.”

It was a comment to ignore, and I did, turning to exchange a comment with Belle.

For the first time in years I had suddenly wanted, really
wanted
, to throw a punch. I felt it rising in me, but my good sense rang a warning bell. I was on their property, far from possible intervention in case of trouble, and in a situation where I couldn’t win without losing.

My first warning was the grating of his chair and the rattle of a dish as he pushed against it. Then he had grabbed me by the collar. “Now look, writer, that wasn’t polite. I wasn’t through talking to you.”

“No?”

“You just tell me: I want to know how you writers work. Now supposin’ you were going to do a story on this ranch, how would you go about it?”

My left hand lifted and I suddenly dug my thumb under the hand that held my collar and got hold of his little finger, bending it sharply back. He had to let go or have his finger broken, and he let go.

“Why, you—”

“You were asking how I’d work,” I replied calmly. “In the first place, I doubt if there is a good story of my type concerning this ranch. As for stories of the Apaches, I had considered that, but they have been done and overdone, mostly by people who know little about the subject. No, I think I’d look elsewhere for a story.”

Jimbo was mad clear through. He had been stopped, and stopped at something he probably believed he could do better than anyone else. What I had done had required neither strength nor skill, and he knew it.

Eager as I was to take a punch at him, I knew the best thing I could do would be to get away from this ranch, and quickly. But how? I could scarcely walk out, and the only transportation would have to be provided by them. Would they refuse? I was sure, now, that they had no intention of letting me leave…unless they could decide that I was harmless.

My eyes had seen their faces while Jimbo held my collar. Colin had looked smug, and pleased. Doris was simply curious. She was not disturbed by what was happening at her dinner table, just curious to see what the two man-beasts might do to each other. Rather, at what Jimbo might do to me, for the idea that I might have a chance with him never, I was sure, entered her mind.

Doris, I thought, would have wanted a seat down front when the Christians were fed to the lions. She was the sort whom violence excited…pleasurably.

I had not seen Belle’s face. Benton Seward had been alarmed, I thought. He impressed me as one who would not care what happened as long as he was not called upon to witness it, and as long as he was safely away with an alibi.

My anger was mounting. A good deal of it was because of my own foolishness in ever getting trapped in a place like this, but a lot of it was with them, so smug, so assured, so sure they could get away with whatever they chose to do. Suddenly I wanted to slap them right in the face with it.

I sat up a bit and leaned toward them. “As a matter of fact, if I planned a story on this ranch I’d first come here, ride around a bit, and then I’d dig into the history of it. Not the obvious stuff that everybody knows, but the forgotten stories, stories about the men who first drove cattle into this country, and what happened to them.”

Belle’s knee came hard against mine under the table, and I knew it was a warning pressure. She wanted to stop me before I bought trouble. But I was mad, and in no mood to stop.

That beefy gorilla across the table had made me mad clear through. Had he grabbed me at that moment he would have got himself a fat lip or a broken nose, no matter what the consequences might be. I’d met a few of his kind in the lumber woods and mining camps, and I had never liked the type.

“The first comers were Mexicans or Spanish,” I went on, “but the Texans were not far behind. I would find out about the first Texans who drove cattle into this country, and I’d ask questions, I’d dig for the old records, look into the old diaries. I would find out what happened to them.”

Colin’s cold, measuring eyes were on me, and all trace of his drinking was gone from them. “What do you think did happen, Sheridan?” he asked.

“Where there is wealth,” I said, “there are always men who will kill to get it.”

He looked hard at me, and he was not smiling. “And kill to keep it, Sheridan,” he said.

Doris got up. “Let’s go into the playroom,” she suggested. “We can have some coffee and brandy there.”

Every grain of common sense I had warned me to make any excuse to get away from there, but I was feeling stubborn. If they wanted trouble, they could have it.

Belle stayed seated beside me, her face a little pale, her eyes unnaturally large.

Doris had reached the bar. The Mexican in the white coat was there, his face impassive. “Brandy or a liqueur?” Colin said.

“Do you have Calvados?” I asked.

“We have it,” Colin replied, too sharply. “Whatever you want, we’ve got it.”

With an attempt at a diversion, I commented, “I’d been thinking of an article on the Indian remains—picture-writing, that sort of thing.”

“It’s been done,” Colin replied irritably.

“They may have missed something.”

Colin swirled his brandy, then looked up at me, his eyes coldly amused. “If you want to see picture-writing, and if you can ride well enough to stay in a saddle, I’ll show you some of the best. We can ride over that way tomorrow.” He smiled. “In fact, we’ll show you the handwriting on the wall.”

“I’d like that. As for staying in a saddle, I can give it a try.” I got to my feet. “Now, if you will excuse me, I’ve had a long day, and after Riley woke me up I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“That’s right, city boy,” Jimbo taunted. “You’ll need all the sleep you can get.”

Doris had turned her head and was looking directly at me. “You say Riley woke you up last night? Now, what Riley would that be?”

“Sergeant Riley. He was investigating a murder.” I kept my face expressionless and my tone casual. “A man named Manuel Alvarez was murdered in the alley near my motel.”

They were all looking at me now. Jimbo was no longer sneering. He looked belligerent, but scared too.

“Why would they want to question you?” Doris asked.

“They found a newspaper clipping in his pocket that mentioned my being in town, and he had tried to make an appointment with me. In fact, he made one, but was killed before he could keep it.”

“Then you never talked to him?”

“No, I knew nothing about him.” Suddenly I decided to buy myself a little insurance, slight though it might be. “I’m not sure Riley believed me. He told me to keep in touch, so I left him a note before coming out here.”

I stifled a yawn. “Good night, everybody. It was a wonderful dinner.”

Out on the terrace I looked at the night, inhaling deeply. The sky was alive with stars. Down at the corrals a horse stamped and blew through his nostrils.

Belle came out and stood beside me. “You’re a fool, Dan Sheridan, if you ride into those hills tomorrow. Colin means to kill you.”