Dames Don’t Care (22 page)

He nods.

"That's the way it was," be says. "An' when you come gumshoem' around here it began to look to me like she knew a durn sight more about Aymes' death than a lot of us thought, so I sorta laid off."

"I got it," I tell him. "Well, I gotta scram now, but there's just one little thing I gotta say to you guys an' that is that I'll probably have to ask both of you to take a trip back to New York with me tomorrow. I reckon that you're both goin' to be material witnesses in this case against Henrietta. Anyhow, I reckon the DA ought to hear what you gotta say."

Periera starts a lot of stuff about not being able to leave the Hacienda, but Fernandez shuts him up.

"If we gotta go we gotta go," he says. "An' personally speakin' a few days in New York at the government's expense wouldn't be so bad neither."

"OK," I say. "Well the pair of you had better be ready to go back there with me tomorrow. If you got any business to clean up here you better get it fixed. We oughta be leavin' pretty early in the mornin'. Welt so long, I'll be seem' you."

I scram. I get outside an' start the car up. I drive pretty fast for half a mile an' then look out for the cop that I fixed with Merts to have waitin' for me. In a minute I see him, sittin' behind a joshua tree off the road.

"Get along the Hacienda Altmira as quick as you can," I tell him. "Come in by the back way, an' keep your mount under cover. Don't let 'em see you. Watch the place. There's only Periera an' Fernandez inside. If they come out an' go any place tail 'em, but I don't reckon they will. I reckon they'll be stickin' around. I'll be back in pretty near an hour or so."

He says OK an' he scrams.

I drive on. I go whizzin' along the road to Palm Springs like somebody has put hot lead in my pants, an' I am hurryin' because I reckon I gotta stop this marryin' nonsense on the part of Henrietta an' Maloney.

But when I come to think this thing out, I sorta realise that I don't really give a continental durn if Henrietta does marry Maloney. It won't make any difference anyhow, except that k might sorta be inconvenient havin' regard to one or two things that I got in mind about that dame.

My old mother always usta tell me that there was only one thing worse than one dame an' that is two dames. I reckon King Solomon musta been nuts. Just fancy stickin' around with four hundred dames an' tryin' to play ball with the whole outfit. Still you gotta admit that these old time guys had got something an' if you read your history books why I reckon you gotta say that as the centuries go rollin' by guys just get more and more indifferent all the time. Maybe you reckon that this English guy, Henry the Eighth, was a real he-man, just because he had six wives, but if you compare him with King Solomon he is nothin' but a big sissy. What's six against four hundred?

When I get to Metts' house, I bust right into his room an' he is sittin' behind the desk waitin' for me an' smokin' a pipe that smells like it was loaded with onions.

"What's all this hooey about Henrietta marryin' Maloney?" I ask him.

He grins.

"Maloney brings her back here," he says, "an' she is all burned up about bein' pinched for killin' Granworth an' she hasn't got any dough an' reckons that she won't be able to get a lawyer So Maloney says he reckons that if they sorta get married he can see her through. So he speaks to me about it) an' I says it's OK by me. So I dig out the local Justice an' he's in there now gettin' ready to marry 'em."

"Well he ain't goin' to," I say. "Look here, Metts. That pinch of Henrietta's was a fake. She never killed anybody, but I just hadta play it that way. Take me along to this weddin'."

He gets up an' puts his pipe away, for which I am very glad, an' we go into the next room.

Somebody has putta lotta flowers on the table an' standin' in front of it, with a Justice gettin' ready to shoot the works, an' a coupla State coppers for witnesses, are Henrietta an' Maloney.

"Justa minute," I say. "I think that I'm stoppin' this weddin' because it don't look so good to me."

I turn around to the Justice an' tell him that I am sorry that he has been troubled about this an' got outa bed but that there ain't goin' to be any weddin'. He scrams an' the two coppers go with him.

Then Henrietta starts in. She asks me what I think I am doin' an' who I am to get around stoppin' people from gettin' married. She says that she has got Metts' permission an that she's goin' through with it. She says that I have been houndin' her around, bringin' false charges against her an' generally ridin' her around the place an' that if Maloney is man enough to try an' protect her against any more stuff on my part then he is entitled to go through with it.

I'm tellin' you that Henrietta was burned up. Her eyes are flashin' an' she looked swell.

"I don't think I've ever hated anybody like I hate and detest you," she says. "I told you that you were a heel and that is what I think you are."

She shuts up because she ain't got any more breath.

Maloney weighs in.

"Look here, Caution," he says, "have a heart. You've got no authority to stop a marriage. Somebody's got to look after Henrietta. She's in a bad jam, an' you're ridin' her an' makin' it a durn sight worse. An' let me tell you this...

I put my hand over his mouth.

"Now shut up you two, an' listen to me," I tell 'em both, "an' you can be in on this too, Metts. Henrietta, I want you to get a load of what I am sayin' an' remember it because it's important.

"Just how much you don't like me don't matter a cuss. I'm doin' a job an' I'm doin' it in my own particular way. Maybe, Henrietta, when this job's over you'll be inclined to take a kick at yourself for bein' so durn fresh, but in the meantime get this:

"My arrestin' you tonight out at the Hacienda Altmira was just a fake. I done it for a purpose an' with a bitta luck what I want to happen will happen, an' then everything will be hunky dory. I hadta make Periera an' Fernandez believe that I was pinchin' you for this counterfeitin' job an' I've warned 'em both that I'm takin' 'em back to New York with me tomorrow.

"OK. Well, right now I'm scrammin' back to the Hacienda, but before I go I wanta wise you up to something, Henrietta, an' don't you forget it. Sometime tonight you're goin' to meet Mrs Paulette Benito - the dame that your husband was playin' around with; the dame that got the two hundred grand in real Registered Dollar Bonds.

"All right, now get this. I'm goin' to pin the murder of Granworth Aymes on this Paulette. I'm goin' to prove she did it. Now Granworth Aymes was bumped by one of two women, because there was only two women saw him on the evenin' of the 12th January. One was Henrietta here an' the other was Paulette.

"Right, now I'm goin' to eliminate Henrietta from this business by producin' a bit of fake evidence. I'm goin' to say that we've checked up at New York an' that we know that Henrietta here couldn'ta killed Aymes because she left New York on a train that left the depot five minutes before the night watchman saw the Aymes car go over the edge of Cotton's Wharf. I'm goin' to say that a ticket clerk an' a train attendant both identify Henrietta's picture as being that of a woman who was on the train goin' back to Hartford.

"Now have you got that, Henrietta? You was on that train goin' back to Hartford, Connecticut, an' it left the depot at eight-forty. An' don't forget it."

She looks at me sorta curious. She is lookin' tired an 'it looks like she might start weepin' at any minute.

"All right, Lemmy," she says. "I don't understand, but I'll remember."

"OK," I tell her. "Now I'm goin' to scram." I turn around to Metts. "Let these two stick around," I tell him. "Henrietta ain't under arrest for anything. But I don't waht 'em to leave here. I want 'em here when I get back."

When I get to the door I turn round an' look at Henrietta. She is almost smilin'.

"An' when I get back, honeybunch," I say, "I'll tell you why I stopped you marryin' Maloney!"

CHAPTER 13

DUET FOR STIFFS

I
RECKON that I am glad I stopped Henrietta marryin' Maloney.

As I go whizzin' along the road towards the Hacienda I start doin' a little philosophising in regard to dames. I have told you that they got rhythm an' technique; but they also gotta helluva lot of other things as well some of which are not so hot.

Dames fly off the handle any time. They just go off anyhow; they are like skyrockets. You can take an ordinary honest-to-goodness dame an' mix her with a little bitta excitement an' maybe a spot of love an' she just goes nuts, an' when she goes nuts she always has to put some guy in bad just so's she'll be in company. It ain't the thing that dames do that worries me, it's the things that they get guys to do for 'em.

I've heard folks say that the difference between a man an' a woman is so little that it don't matter. Well you don't want to believe these guys. They're wrong. A man is controlled by his head an' a woman by her instinct, an' in nine cases outa ten a woman's instinct is just the way she's feelin' that mornin'.

An' the way Henrietta feels now is that she would like to marry Maloney just because she's in a jam an' because she thinks that she ain't got any friends, an' that I am ridin' her like hell an' that in Maloney she will have a good guy who will look after her an' act as a buttress between her an' the wicked world.

Hooey!

Maloney wouldn't be any good at all for Henrietta. Why? Well, didn't I see all them little shoes of hers set out in rows, the night that I bust into the rancho where she is stayin'. Them shoes told me she had class an' although Maloney is a good guy he ain't in the same boulevard as Henrietta, not by a mile, an' another thing is that he only thinks he is fond of Henrietta. He ain't really in love with her at all. If he'd been really stuck on this dame he wouldn'ta let me play her around on this job the way I have had to do. He woulda done something about it.

I reckon I'll be pretty glad when I have got this case sewed up an' in the bag. You gotta realise that except for a coupla hours sleep I had at Yuma I have been kickin' arourid for practically three days an' three nights without sleepin', an' I am a guy who is very fond of bed.

By this time I am half a mile from the Hacienda. I pull the car off the road an' leave it behind some sage brush. Then I start easin' over towards the house. Presently I come across the State policeman's motor cycle where he has left it, an' a few yards farther on I find him.

He tells me that nobody has left the Hacienda except when Fernandez has come out an' driven a car from the garage around to the front. He says Periera an' Fernandez have been droppin' things into this car from the veranda over the front entrance so it looks as if my idea is workin' out.

I do not see that it is any good havin' this cop hangin' around, so I tell him to scram back to Palm Springs. When I have done this an' he is outa the way, I walk over to the back of the Hacienda. I go up past the wall that runs along from the garage an' up to the back door that leads into the store-room, the place where I found Sagers' body. This door is locked, but I work on it an' after a few minutes I get it open.

I go inside, lock it behind me, walk along the passage an' get down into the storeroom. I go across the storeroom an' very quietly I start movin' up the steps that lead to the door behind the bar. This door is not locked. I open it justa little bit so that I can put my eye to the crack an' look out.

In front of me I can see the dance floor of the Hacienda. All the lights are out, but from where I am I can see the door of Periera's office on the balcony along the Opposite wall. The door is a little bit open an' there is a light inside. From where I am I can just hear Fernandez an' Periera talkin'.

I light myself a cigarette, hold it behind the door so that they cannot see the light, an' I wait there about ten minutes. I can still hear their voices dronin'. Then I hear Fernandez laugh. After a bit the door opens an' he comes out an' stands in the doorway. As the light falls on his face I can see that he is smokin' a cigarette an' lookin' pretty pleased with himself.

Then he goes back into the office an' comes out again in a minute carryin' a suitcase. He starts walkin' along the balcony towards the place where it ends which is just over the main entrance to the Hacienda. I think for a minute that he is goin' into the end room on the balcony, but he don't. He passes it. He keeps on walkin' an' he goes to where there is a big picture on the wall.

He waits there for a minute an' then Periera comes out.

They both get hold of this picture an' start takin' it down.

When they have done this, they lean it up against the wall, an' I can see that behind the picture is a sorta hatchway in the wall. Periera goes back to the office an' closes the door behind him. Fernandez climbs through the hatch in the wall an' disappears. I push open the door an' step into the bar. I jump over it an' start gumshoein' up the stairs. I pull the Luger whilst I am goin' up.

I am very quick an' very quiet, an' the first thing that Periera knows is that I am standin' in the open doorway of his office with the gun on him. From this place I can keep an eye on the hatch down the balcony just in case Fernandez decides to come out.

Periera looks surprised. His mouth sags open an' some little beads of sweat come across his forehead. I reckon this Periera is a yellow cuss anyhow.

"Well, Periera," I tell him. "It don't look so good for you does it? It looks as if you two guys are not goin' to have such a good time from now on. Now you take a tip from me an' do what I tell you, otherwise things is goin' to look pretty bad for you. Have you gotta key to this door?"

He says yes an' pulls it outa his pocket. I take it off him.

"OK," I say. "Now I'm lockin' you in here an' leavin' you in here. Just take a word of advice an' stick around until I come for you again, otherwise I am goin' to get very tough with you. I'll be seem' you."

I step out on to the balcony, pull the door shut an' lock it. I reckon I am pretty safe in leavin' Periera there. I don't think he will try anythin' because he is not the sorta guy who would. He is frightened sick. Then I gumshoe along the balcony, keepin' my gun ready in case Fernandez comes through the hatch.