The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (75 page)

“So you think I’m mistaken?”

He hesitated. “No…I don’t. Not anymore. I think your brother discovered something very wrong with the Bowens or their place. I think he was killed to keep him from causing trouble. Now that I know about the racing it fits too well; who better to force someone off a mountain road than a man who drives in demolition derbies!”

“Johnny once told me that the less I knew the better. That knowing about what went on out here could be dangerous.”

“He was right. Keller knows it, too. I think that’s why he is going to Fresno.”

“Oh! That reminds me. He said he wanted to talk to you.”

“I’ll go see him.” Shannon paused. “You know, Bowen was away from here for about six years. I wonder where he was?”

They left the bar and Shannon walked her to her car. They were standing on a side street when Steve Bowen walked up. Turning at the sound of steps, Shannon ran into a fist that caught the point of his chin. He was turned half around, and a second punch knocked him down.

“That’ll teach you to mess around in other people’s business!” Bowen said. He swung a kick at Shannon’s face, but Shannon rolled over swiftly and got up. He ran into a swinging right and a left that caught him as he fell. He got up again and went tottering back into the car under a flail of fists. When he realized where he was again, he was seated in the car and Marjorie was dabbing at his face with a damp handkerchief.

“You didn’t have a chance!” she protested. “He hit you when you weren’t looking.”

“Drive me to my car,” he said.

Turning around a corner they stopped at a light, and alongside were Steve Bowen and his brothers. They were in a powerful Chrysler 300. The heavy car was stripped down for racing, and from the way the engine sounded they had hot-rodded it for even more horsepower. They looked at Shannon’s face and laughed.

“Stop the car.” Shannon opened the door and got out, despite her protests.

Ignoring the three, he walked to their car and studied the headlights. One had been replaced by glass from another make of car. When he straightened up, the grins were gone from their faces, and Joe Bowen was frightened.

“I see you’ve replaced a headlight,” Shannon commented. “Was there any other damage?”

“Look, you…!” Tom Bowen opened the door.

“I’ll handle this!” Steve Bowen interrupted. “You’re looking for trouble, Shannon. If the beating you got didn’t teach you anything, I’ll give you worse.”

Shannon smiled. “Don’t let that sneak punch give you a big head. Is the paint on this fender fresh?”

There was a whine of sirens, and a car from the sheriff ’s department and also one of the city police cars pulled up.

“That’s all, Shannon.” Deputy Sheriff Clark stepped out. “It looks to me like you’ve had yours. Now get in your car and get out of town. You’re beginning to look like a troublemaker and we don’t want your kind around.”

“All right, Clark. First, though, I want to ask if Tom has a permit for that gun he’s carrying. Further, I want you to check the number on it, and check the fingerprints of all four of them. Don’t try putting me off either, I’ll be talking to the DA and the FBI about why certain vehicle identification tags are missing and who’s been bought off and who hasn’t. Bowen, by the time this is over you’re going to look back in wonder at how stupid you were when you refused to tow those cars like John Shaw asked!”

Clark was startled. He started to speak, and the Bowens stared angrily at Shannon as he got back into Marjorie’s car.

They drove off. “I’ve talked a lot, but what can I prove?” he said. “Nothing yet…. The Bowens could explain that broken headlight, even if the make checks out perfectly. What we need is some real law enforcement and a search warrant for those barns.”

“What’s going on? What are you talking about?” Marjorie asked.

“Hot cars…and I don’t mean the kind you race.”

K
ELLER WAS NOT
around when they rolled into the yard, but there was a telegram lying open on the table, addressed to Shannon. He picked it up, glanced at it, and shoved it into his pocket.

“That’s it! Now we’re getting someplace!”

Shannon seemed not to hear Marjorie’s question about the contents. The message had been opened. Keller had read it. Keller was gone.

“Hide the car where we can get to it from the road, then hide yourself. No lights. No movement. The Bowens will be here as quick as they can get away from Clark. I don’t have a thing on them yet, but they don’t know it. Push a crook far enough and sometimes he’ll move too fast and make mistakes.”

There was little time remaining if he was to get to the barns before the Bowens arrived. They pulled the car behind the house, and Shannon made sure that Marjorie locked herself inside and turned out the lights. Then, careful to make no noise, he descended into the canyon and followed the path from near the junked cars through the wash and then an orchard to the barns back of the Bowen farmhouse.

By the time he reached the wall of the nearest barn, he knew he had only minutes in which to work. There was no sound. There were two large doors to the barn, closed as always, but there was a smaller door near them that opened under his hand.

Within, all was blackness mingled with the twin odors of oil and gasoline. It was not the smell of a farmer’s barn, but of a garage. There was a faint gasping sound near his feet, then a low moan.

Kneeling, he put out a hand and touched a stubbled face. “Keller?” he whispered.

The old man strained against the agony. “I stepped into a bear trap. Get it off me.”

Not daring to strike a light, Shannon struggled fiercely with the jaws of the powerful trap. He got it open, and a brief inspection by sensitive fingers told him Keller’s leg was both broken and lacerated.

“I’ll have to carry you,” he whispered.

“You take a look first,” Keller insisted. “With that trap off I can drag myself a ways.”

Once the old man was out and the door closed, Shannon trusted his pencil flashlight.

Four cars, in the process of being stripped and scrambled. Swiftly he checked the motor numbers and jotted them down. He snapped off the light suddenly. Somebody was out in front of the barn, opposite from where he had entered.

“Nobody’s around,” Perult was saying. “The front door is locked and the bear trap is inside the back.”

“Nevertheless, I’m having a look.” That would be Tom Bowen.

The lock rattled in the door and Shannon moved swiftly, stepped in an unseen patch of oil, and his feet shot from under him. He sprawled full length, knocking over some tools.

The front door crashed open. The lights came on. Tom Bowen sprang inside with his gun ready. But Shannon was already on his feet.

“Drop it!” he yelled.

Both fired at the same instant, and Bowen’s gun clattered to the floor and he clutched a burned shoulder. Perult had ducked out. Shannon stepped in and punched Tom Bowen on the chin; the man went down. With nothing to shoot at Shannon put two rounds into the side of one of the cars just to make them keep their heads down and ran out back.

He was down in the canyon before he found Keller, and he picked the old man up bodily and hurried as fast as he could with the extra weight.

He was almost at the house when Keller warned him. “Put me down and get your hands free. There’s somebody at the house!”

Marjorie cried out and Shannon lowered Keller quickly to the ground, and gun in hand went around the corner of the house.

Shannon saw Steve Bowen strike Marjorie with the flat of his hand. “Tell me,” Bowen said coldly, “or I’ll ruin that face of yours.”

Perult came sprinting in the front gate. “Hurry, boss! Tom’s been shot.”

Shannon stepped into sight and Perult grabbed for the front of his shirt, and Shannon lowered the gun and shot him in the thigh. Jock screamed, more in surprise than pain, and fell to the ground.

“Fast with the gun, aren’t you?” Steve Bowen said. “I suppose you’ll shoot me now.”

“We’re going back to your place,” Shannon said, and then he whispered to Marjorie. “Get on the phone and call the district attorney. After you’ve called him, call the sheriff. But the DA first!”

“What are you going to do?” Marjorie protested.

“Me?” Shannon grinned. “This guy copped a Sunday on my chin when I wasn’t looking, and he beat up Johnny, so as soon as you get through to the DA I’m going to take him back to that barn, lock the door, and see if he can take it himself.”

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER
, Neil Shannon untied Steve Bowen and shoved him toward the door with his gun. They reached the barn without incident. Inside, Shannon locked the door and tossed the gun out of the window.

Bowen moved in fast, feinted, and threw a high, hard right. Shannon went under it and hooked both hands to the body. The bigger man grunted and backed off, then rushed, swinging with both hands. A huge fist caught Shannon, rocking his head on his shoulders, but Shannon brushed a left aside and hooked his own left low to the belly.

Getting inside, he butted Bowen under the chin, hit him with a short chop to the head, and then pushing Bowen off, hit him twice so fast, Bowen’s head bobbed. Angry, the big man moved in fast and Shannon sidestepped and let Bowen trip over his leg and plunge to the floor.

Bowen caught himself on his hands and dove in a long flying tackle, but Shannon moved swiftly, jerking his knee into Bowen’s face. Nose and lips smashed, the big man fell, then got up, blood streaming down his face.

Bowen tried to set himself, but Shannon hit him with a left and knocked Bowen down again with a right.

Stepping in on Bowen, Shannon got too close and Bowen grabbed his ankle. He went down and Bowen leaped up and tried to jump on his stomach. Shannon rolled clear, got up fast, and when Bowen tried another kick, Shannon grabbed his ankle and jerked it high. Bowen fell hard and lay still.

There was a hammering at the door. Shannon backed off. “You’re the tough guy, Bowen,” he said, “but not that tough.” Bowen didn’t move.

The door opened and Clark came in followed by several deputies and a quiet man in a gray suit.

To the assistant district attorney he handed a telegram. “From the FBI. I checked on Bowen and found he had done six years in the federal pen for transporting a stolen car. I wired them on a hunch. I think you’ll find that they were paying off certain people in county government to be left alone.”

“Hey, now wait a minute!” Clark protested.

“Shut up,” Shannon snapped. “They’ll be looking at you, your boss, and a couple of commissioners, so you’d better start checking your hole card!

“Johnny Shaw got suspicious when he tried to get the county to make the Bowens move those derelict cars. He found out enough and Bowen ran him off the road. The headlight glass was a Chrysler lens and Bowen drives a 300. Perult and Steve Bowen walked over to the wreck afterwards to be sure Johnny was dead. The tracks are still there, but I made casts of them to be sure.”

Steve Bowen moaned and sat up.

“Come on, Steve,” Shannon said. “I think we’re all going to have to go to Ventura and answer a lot of questions.”

Bowen winced as he stood up. “You broke my ribs,” he growled.

“Count yourself lucky. If these boys hadn’t come I’d still be at it. You beat up Johnny Shaw…he carried me out of a firefight in Korea when I was wounded. There were shells going off everywhere and he’d never even seen me before. They gave him a medal for it. Now, he wasn’t a big guy like you, he didn’t know how to box, and he’d become a medical corpsman because he knew he couldn’t bring himself to kill. But when the chips were down he did what was necessary.”

Shannon took a deep breath. “Plead guilty,” he said. “Because if they don’t have enough evidence to put you away, I’ll find it. No matter how long it takes.”

They were led to the waiting cars, and with the ambulances in the lead and Marjorie following, they headed for Ventura.

The Vanished Blonde

O
nly one light showed in the ramshackle old house, a dim light from a front window. Neil Shannon hunched his shoulders inside the trench coat and looked up and down the street. There was only darkness and the slanting rain. He stepped out of the doorway of the empty building and crossed the street.

There was a short walk up to the unpainted house, and he went along the walkway and up the steps. Through the pocket of the trench coat, he could easily reach his .38 Colt automatic, and it felt good.

He touched the doorbell with his left forefinger and waited. Twice more he pressed it before he heard footsteps along the hall, and then the door opened a crack and Shannon put his shoulder against it. The slatternly woman stepped back and he went in. Down the hall, a man in undershirt and suspenders stared at him. He was a big man, bigger than Neil Shannon, and he looked mean.

“I’ve some questions I want to ask,” Shannon said to the man. “I’m a detective.”

The woman caught her breath, and the man walked slowly forward. “Private or Headquarters?” the man asked.

“Private.”

“Then we’re not answering. Beat it.”

“Look, friend,” Shannon said quietly, “you can talk to me or the DA. Personally, I’m not expecting to create a lot of publicity unless you force my hand. Now you tell me what I want to know, or you’re in trouble.”

“What d’you mean, trouble?” The man stopped in front of Shannon. He was big, all right, and he was both dirty and unshaven. “You don’t look tough to me.”

Shannon could see the man was not heeled, so he let go of the gun and took his hand from his pocket.

“Get out!” The big man’s hand shot out.

Shannon brushed it aside and clipped him. It was a jarring punch and caught the big fellow with his mouth open. His teeth clicked like a steel trap and he staggered. Then Shannon hit him in the wind and the big fellow went down, his hoarse gasps making great, empty sounds in the dank hallway.

“Where do we talk?” Shannon asked the woman.

She gestured toward a door, then opened it and walked ahead of him into a lighted room beyond. Shannon grabbed the big man by his collar and dragged him into the room.

“I want to ask about a woman,” he said, his eyes sharp. “A very good-looking blonde.”

The woman’s face did not change. “Nobody like that around here,” she said sullenly. “Nobody around here very much at all.”

“This wasn’t yesterday,” Shannon replied. “It was a couple of years ago. Maybe more.”

He saw her fingers tighten on the chair’s back and she looked up. He thought there was fear in her eyes. “Don’t recall any such girl,” she insisted.

“I think you’re wrong.” He sat down. “I’m going to wait until you do.” He was on uncertain ground, for he had no idea when the girl had arrived, nor how, nor when she had left. He was feeling his way in the dark.

The man pulled himself to a sitting position and stared at Shannon, his eyes ugly.

“I’ll kill you for that!” he said, his voice shaking with passion.

“Forget it,” Shannon said. “You tried already.” His eyes lifted to the woman. “Look, you can be rid of me right away. Tell me the whole story from beginning to end, every detail of it. I’ll leave then, and if you tell me the truth, I won’t be back.”

“Don’t recall no such girl.” The woman pushed a strand of mouse-colored hair from her face. Her cheeks were sallow and her skin was oily. The dress she wore was not ragged from poverty, merely dirty, and she herself was unclean.

Disgusted, Shannon stared around the room. How could a girl, such as he knew Darcy Lane to be, have come to such a place? What could have happened to her?

H
E HAD LOOKED
at her picture until the amused expression of her eyes seemed only for him, and although he told himself no man could fall in love with a picture, and that of a girl who was probably dead, he knew he was doing a fair job of it.

Right now he knew more about her than any woman he had ever known. He knew what she liked to eat and drink, the clothes she wore and the perfume she preferred. He had read, with wry humor, her diary and its comments on men, women, and life. He had studied the books she read, and was amazed at their range and quantity.

He had sat in the same booth where she had formerly come to eat breakfast and drink coffee, and in the same bar where she had drunk Burgundy and eaten Roquefort cheese and crackers. Yet despite all the reality she had once been, she had vanished like a puff of smoke.

Alive, beautiful, talented, intelligent, filled with laughter and friendship, liked by both men and women, Darcy Lane had dropped from sight at the age of twenty-four as mysteriously as though she had never been, leaving behind her an apartment with the rent paid up, a closet full of beautiful clothes, and even groceries and liquor.

“Find her,” Attorney Watt Braith had said. “You’ve three months to do it, and she has a half million dollars coming. You will get twenty-five dollars a day and expenses, with a five-hundred-dollar bonus if you succeed.”

Whatever happened to Darcy Lane had happened suddenly and without preliminaries. Nothing in all her effects gave any hint as to what such a girl would be doing in a place like this. Yet it was his only lead, flimsy, strange, yet a lead nonetheless.

The police had failed to find her. Then their attention had been distracted by more immediate crimes; the disappearance of one girl who, it was hinted, had probably run off with a lover, was forgotten. Now, he had a tip, just a casual mention by a man he met in Tilford’s Coffee Shop, to the effect that he had once seen the beautiful blonde, who used to eat there, living in a ramshackle dump in the worst part of town. The description fit Darcy Lane.

Six months after she disappeared, prospector Jim Buckle was killed in a rockslide that overturned his jeep and partially buried him, and Darcy Lane sprang into the news once more when it turned out that Buckle had two million dollars’ worth of mineral holdings and that he had left it to four people, of whom Miss Lane was one.

“T
ALK
,” N
EIL
S
HANNON SAID
now to the disreputable-looking pair before him, “and you might get something out of it. Keep your mouths shut and you’re in trouble. You see,” he smiled, “I’ve a witness. He places the girl in your place, and you both were seen with her. You”—he pointed a finger at the man—“forced her back into a room when she wanted to come out.”

The man glared balefully at him. “She was sick,” he said, “she wasn’t right in the head.”

Neil Shannon tightened, but his face did not change. Now he had something. At all costs, he must not betray how little it was, how the connection was based on one man’s memory, a memory almost three years old. “Tell me about it.”

He reached in his pocket and drew out a ten-dollar bill, smoothing it on his knee. The woman stared at it with eager, acquisitive eyes.

“He found her,” she said. “She was on the beach, half naked, and her head cut. He brought her here.”

“Shut up, you old fool!” The man was furious. “You want to get us into trouble?”

“Talk, and maybe you can get out of it. You’re already in trouble,” Shannon assured them. “If the girl was injured, why didn’t you take her to a hospital? Or report it to the police?”

“He wanted her,” the slattern said malevolently. “That’s why he did it. She didn’t know who she was nor nothin’. He brung her here. He figured she’d do like he said. Well, she wouldn’t! She fought him off, an’ made so much fuss he had to quit.”

“What about you?” the man sneered. “You and your plans to make money with her?”

Sickened, Shannon stared at them. What hands for an injured girl to fall into! “What happened?” he demanded. “Where is she now?”

“Don’t know,” the man said. “Don’t know nothin’ about that.”

Neil got up. “Well, this is a police matter, then.”

“What about the ten?” the woman protested. “I talked.”

“Not enough,” Shannon said. “If you’ve more to say, get started.”

“She’d been bumped or hit on the head,” the woman said. “First off, I thought he done it, but I don’t think he did from what she said after. She was mighty bad off, with splittin’ headaches like, an’ a few times she was off her head, talkin’ about a boat, then about paintin’, an’ finally some name, sounded like Brett.”

“Where did you find her?” Shannon asked the man.

He looked up. “On the beach past Malibu,” he said. “I was drivin’ along when I thought I saw somebody swimmin’, so I slowed down. Then she splashed in an’ fell on the sand. No swimmin’ suit, nor any dress, either, nor shoes.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “She was some looker, but that gash on her head was bad. I loaded her up an’ brung her on home.”

“What happened to her?” Shannon watched them keenly. Had they murdered the girl?

“She run off!” The man was vindictive. “She run off, stole a dress an’ a coat, then took out of here one night.”

“You ever seen her again?”

“No.” Shannon felt sure the man was lying, and he saw the woman’s lips tighten a little. “Never seen nor heard of her after.”

W
HEN HE WAS BACK
in the street, he walked a block, then crossed the street and came back a little ways, easing up until he could slip close to the house, the dripping rain covering his approach. Listening, he could hear through a partly opened window, but at first nothing but the vilest language and bickering.

Finally, they calmed down. “Must be money in it,” the man said. “Mage, we should’ve got more out of that feller. Private detective. They ain’t had for nothin’.”

“How could we ever git any of it?” the woman protested.

“How do I know? But if there’s money, we should try.”

“I told you that lingerie of hers was expensive!” Mage proclaimed triumphantly. “Anyway, she ain’t writ this month. She ain’t sent us our due.”

“This time,” the man said thoughtfully, “I think I’ll go see her. I think I will.”

“You better watch out,” Mage declared querulously. “That detective will have an eye on us now. We could git into trouble.”

There was no more said, and he saw them move into a bedroom where the man started to undress. Neil Shannon eased away from the window and walked down the street. He was in a quandary now. Obviously, the two had been getting mail from the girl, and from the sound of it, money. But for what?

They had found her with a cut on her head. That part would fit in all right, but what would she be doing in the sea? And who had hit her? If she had been struck, she might have amnesia, and that would explain her not returning to her apartment. That she was an excellent swimmer, he knew. She had several clippings for distance swimming, and others telling of diving contests she had won.

She must have come from a boat. Yet whose boat, and what had she been doing on it? One thing he resolved. These two must never learn that she was Darcy Lane, and heiress to a half million—if they did not already know it.

B
EFORE DAYLIGHT
, he was parked up the street, and he saw the man come from the house and start in his direction. From where he sat, he saw the man draw nearer and, without noticing him, drop a letter in a mailbox. As soon as the man was out of sight, Shannon slid from his car and, hurrying across the street, he shoved a dozen blank sheets of paper from his notepad after it.

They would, he knew, provide an effectual marker for the letter he wanted to see. It was almost two hours later that the mail truck came by, and he got out of his car and crossed the street again. He flashed his badge.

“All I want to see is the top envelope under those blank pages I dropped in.”

“Well”—the man shrugged his shoulders—“I guess I can let you see the envelope, all right, but only the outside.”

From their position, there were three letters that it could have been. He eliminated two of them at once. Both were typewritten. The third letter was written in pencil, judging by the envelope, and it was addressed to Miss Julie McLean, General Delivery, Kingman, Arizona. The return address was the house down the street, and the name was Sam Wachler.

“Thanks,” Shannon said and, noting the address, he climbed into his car and started back for his office.

W
HEN HE OPENED
the door, a tall, slender man with sharp features and a white face rose. “Mr. Shannon? I am Hugh Potifer, one of the Buckle heirs.”

Shannon was not impressed. “What can I do for you?” he asked, leading the way into his private office.

“Why, nothing, probably. I was wondering how you were getting along with your search for Darcy Lane?”

“Oh, that?” Shannon shrugged. “Nothing so far, why?”

“There isn’t much time left, Mr. Shannon, and she has been gone a long time. Do you really think it worthwhile to look?”

Shannon sat down at his desk and took out some papers. His mind was working swiftly, trying to grasp what was in the wind.

“I get paid for looking,” he replied coolly, “it’s my business.”

“Suppose”—Potifer’s dry voice was cautious—“you were given a new job? Something that would keep you here in town? Say, at one hundred dollars a day?”

Neil Shannon looked up slowly. His eyes were darker and he felt his gorge rising. “Just what are you implying? That I occupy myself here, and stop looking for Darcy Lane?”

“At one hundred dollars a day—that would be seven…no…. six hundred dollars.” Potifer drew out his wallet. “How about it?”

Shannon started to tell him to get lost, then hesitated. A sudden thought came to him. Why should Potifer call on him at this time? What was the sudden worry? It was easy to understand that he might not want Darcy to show up now and lay claim to her share, which otherwise would be divided among the remaining three heirs. But why come right now? There was little time left and no indication that the girl would ever be found. So what did Hugh Potifer know?

Shannon shrugged. “Six hundred is a nice sum of money,” he admitted, stalling. “On the other hand, you’d stand to make well over a hundred thousand more if she doesn’t appear. That’s a nicer sum, believe me!”