Росс Макдональд - The Three Roads

“Hold it,” Larry Miles called, but he was too far away to interrupt the arc of the descending bottle. He had been watching the progress of the argument between Bret and Mustin, but its climax came so suddenly that it caught him flat-footed. He ran to the end of the bar, stepping over the two prostrate men, and faced Sollie the bartender, who was idly swinging the undamaged beer bottle in his right hand.

“Better give me that bottle, friend,” Larry said.

“Who do you think you are? Who do you think you’re talkin’ to?”

“This officer is a friend of mine. I don’t like to see my friends get hurt.”

“Keep ’em from fightin’ in this bar then.”

“Should I call the cops, Sollie?” the other bartender said.

Half of the occupants of the café were watching the men on the floor from where they sat, but the other half had already lost interest in the fight. It hadn’t been much of a fight anyway. Three punches and the usual pay-off with the bottle.

Mustin sat up holding his jaw, then climbed awkwardly to his feet. “You didn’t need to sap the bugger,” he said.

“You want me to call the police?” Sollie said.

“What the hell for? He didn’t hurt me.” Mustin dabbed at his face with a handkerchief and examined it suspiciously, as if a sly enemy of his might have stained it with red ink.

“What about this guy here?” Sollie said. “We can’t just let him lie here on the floor.”

“I’ll take care of him,” said Larry Miles. He kneeled down beside the unconscious man and looked at the bruise on the back of his head.

“Is he hurt bad?” Sollie asked with some anxiety.

“Naw, he’ll be okay. He’d of come to already if he wasn’t drunk. But we better get him out of here.”

“You got a car – you know where he lives?”

“Yeah. I’ll bring the car around to the front, and you can walk him out.”

“You sure you’re a friend of his?” Mustin said. “He’s a set-up for somebody to roll him. What’s his name?”

“Taylor,” Larry answered smoothly. “Lieutenant Bret Taylor, USNR. I work for a very good friend of his.”

“That’s his name, all right,” Mustin said to the bartender. He put his hand under Bret’s shoulder, turned him onto his back, and raised him to a half-sitting position. “Well, let’s get under way. I’m sorry this happened, but I guess it couldn’t be helped. The guy’s a little nuts, if you ask me.”

Maybe you’re righter than you know, Larry thought. Little did you know that you were talking to a fugitive from a padded cell, and little am I going to tell you. He brought his coupé to the front of the café, and looked up and down the street for his best friends and severest critics, the cops. Not that he knew them west of Syracuse, and not that they knew him, but he had a very special reason for wishing to avoid that pleasure. When he had made sure that the coast was clear he honked. Mustin and Sollie came out through the swinging doors with Bret dragging half upright between them. Larry opened the door and helped to haul him into the car. He could tell by the sound of his breathing, or thought he could, that Bret had come to from the knockout and passed directly into an alcoholic sleep.

As Larry drove away with the semirecumbent blue bundle beside him on the seat, the situation pleased him so much that he could have crowed like a rooster. Come to think of it, there was a good deal to be said for being a rooster, even if a rooster did have a hatchet waiting for him at the back door of the harem. Hell, he had a hatchet waiting for him too, but he was going to give the hatchetman a long and merry chase before they buried it in his own particular neck.

He drove toward Hollywood along the wide boulevard, lit by the starry neon symbols of glamour and nocturnal delight, past lighted store windows through which he caught glimpses of the smooth and glittering world he was one day going to crash. Just how the unconscious man beside him fitted into the picture, he didn’t quite see, but it seemed like a good idea to take him along. He’d know what the guy was doing so long as he kept him with him, and the closer tab he kept on the new developments in the Taylor setup the better chance he’d have of keeping things running smooth.

More importantly, he felt, it pleased him to do the exact opposite of what Paula West expected. She’d ordered him to stay away from her lieutenant, and she was going to pay him to take the order. Only it happened he didn’t take orders from anybody. He’d stick to Taylor like a brother as long as he felt any pressure the other way. Matter of fact, he was better than a brother, he was a good Samaritan. He spent the rest of the drive home alternately wondering exactly what a good Samaritan was, and trying to decide whether it would be safe to take a small cut, say fifty per cent, of the contents of Taylor’s wallet. In the end he decided that it wouldn’t. That Navy chief in the Golden Sunset was a pretty shrewd character, and he’d probably have a long memory. Larry thought he’d better play it straight with Taylor and waive the petty profits in the deal. He felt sure that that’s what a good Samaritan would do, whatever the hell a good Samaritan was. Something like the Red Cross probably.

He drove straight into his garage and stopped the engine. Taylor was still sleeping, with his head wedged awkwardly in the corner of the seat. Larry took a flashlight out of the glove compartment and turned it on the closed face. There was a blue welt on the temple where the chief’s fist had caught him, but otherwise he looked all right, snoring away as if he was home in bed. It gave him a pleasant sense of power to have Taylor in his car like this, completely helpless and unsuspecting in the dark garage. Even in sleep it wasn’t the face of a man you’d want to fool around with. It was a strong, hard face, and Taylor was a strong, hard boy. The old one-two that put the chief to sleep was as neat as any he’d seen since the last time he fought himself. But right now the guy was as harmless as a baby. Larry slapped his face a few times in an experimental way, and damned if the guy didn’t open his eyes and try to sit up!

“Take it easy, Lieutenant,” Larry said.

“Who are you?” The words came thickly out of the dry and swollen mouth.

“Just a friend – a fine-feathered friend of the family. You feeling okay?”

“God, no! What happened?”

“You just got conked with a bottle, Lieutenant. The bartender put you out so’s you wouldn’t kill the other guy.”

“I must’ve been tight. What in hell did I want to fight him for? Something about a woman–”

“Yeah, it usually is. You think you can walk up to my apartment? What you need is some shut-eye. It’s no palatial abode, but you can use it if you want.”

“You didn’t tell me your name. I don’t know you, do I?”

“The name’s Milne, Harry Milne.” It was a name he kept handy to use when his own wasn’t convenient. “I was sitting in the café and I saw you get sapped, so I thought I’d get you out of there before the cops came. These L.A. cops can be kind of unreasonable.”

“You’re very kind, but I can’t impose on you–”

“Don’t give it a thought. I like the way you punch. I did a little fighting myself at one time. Let’s go, if you think you can make it.”

Taylor was shaky, but he could walk without help. Larry took him in by the back door of the building and up in the freight elevator, because there was no point in advertising the fact that he had a guest. Women were another matter: the girls that visited him were good for his reputation. If they weren’t, he visited them. But he didn’t know yet what use he’d have for Taylor, so he kept his acquisition to himself.