A. Fair - All Grass Isn't Green

However, having made out a list of the motels, I got to a public telephone and started making calls.

With each one I said, “This is the Acme Credit Agency. You have a woman who is registered with you who doesn’t have an automobile but who came in a taxicab. Her name is Debora Smith. Can you tell me what unit she’s occupying?”

I got a turndown in three places and then at the Maple Leaf I struck unexpected pay dirt.

“We have a woman such as you describe,” the voice said, “who come here by taxicab carrying two suitcases, but her name is not Debora Smith.”

“What unit does she occupy?” I asked.

“Unit twelve.”

I said, “The party I want is about sixty-two years old. She comes from New York City. She’s about five feet six, rather slender, and—”

“No, no, no,” the voice interrupted me. “This person is around twenty-six with auburn hair. She’s medium height, has a good figure and...”

“That’s not the one I’m after,” I said. “My party is in the sixties and rather slender, a little above average height.”

“I’m sorry, we have no one by that description.”

“Thank you very much,” I said, and hung up.

I got in the agency car, drove to the Maple Leaf, registered and was assigned to Unit 7.

It was a fairly good motel with a small swimming a patio and some beach chairs around the pool.

It was getting late, but a couple of kids and a matronly woman were in the pool.

I put on my suit, went to the pool, hesitated a getting in, and then went to one of the beach chairs relaxed, sitting where I could keep my eye on Unit 12.

It was no dice.

It got dark. The swimmers left the pool and I was getting chilled. I went in and dressed, sat in my parked and kept my eye on Unit 12.

Nothing happened until twenty minutes to nine when my party came in.

I had her spotted as soon as I saw her, even before she fitted the key to the door of Unit 12. She was a nice looker. She arrived by taxicab and she looked dejected.

I waited until I saw she was headed for Unit 12; then started the agency heap, overtook the taxicab, which was headed toward the border, and signaled him over to curb.

The driver was an alert-looking Mexican.

“Is this a Mexican cab?” I asked.

He nodded.

“I want to go across the border,” I said, “but I don’t want to take my car. Can I park it here and go across with you?”

“It is illegal for me to pick up a fare on a return trip,” he said.

“I came across from Mexicali with you,” I told him. “Don’t you remember?”

White teeth flashed in the dim light from the instrument panel. “Now I remember,” he said. “Get in.”

I parked and locked my car and got in the cab.

“We have to make a little detour to cross the border,” he said, “but we make a flat rate. Where do you want to go?”

He looked at the five dollars I handed him.

“You just delivered a young woman at the Maple Leaf Motel,” I said. “Where did you pick her up?”

“Oh ho,” he said, “a detective!”

I grinned at him and said, “A caballero who is lonesome. I would like very much to pick up that young woman, but I don’t think the usual approach would be any good.”

“She came to me,” the driver said, “from the Monte Carlo Café in Mexicali.”

“And that is where you are taking me,” I said.

Again his teeth flashed in a wide smile. “But certainly,” he said.

Pedestrians can walk straight across the border of Calexico, but the automotive traffic has to make a detour around through a side street, then along a street which parallels the border, until it comes to the north and south road where it is stopped by a traffic signal, then has to make a right-hand turn in order to cross into Mexico.

This gave me time for a little conversation with the driver.

“You Mexican taxicab drivers are permitted to drive across and deliver fares in the United States?”

“ Si , señor,” he said. “And the American cab can cross into Mexico and deliver a fare in Mexicali, but we are not supposed to pick up a fare in Calexico to return to Mexico.” He shrugged his shoulder. “Perhaps there is trouble. I do not know. If I am unfortunate I could have a fine.”

I thought perhaps that was an approach for a touch so said nothing.

After a while he said, “That is peculiar, that case of the woman who goes to the Maple Leaf Motel.”

“Yes?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

There was a period of silence.

This time I interpreted the silence correctly and he had made the right approach. I produced another five-dollar bill.

He took it eagerly, said, “I have much trouble at home. I have four children, another is coming, and the cost of living is very high.”

“The cost of living is very high for me,” I said. “What is peculiar about the woman?”

“She does not speak Spanish,” he said. “The waiter that she asked to call the cab called me. He told me he had a passenger for me to deliver in the United States. Then he told me she had gone to the café, she had ordered one drink. She had waited, waited, waited. Then she had ordered another drink. She had waited, waited, waited. The she ordered a meal and she ate very, very slowly, very slowly, indeed, señor... She was waiting for someone who did not come. Does that help, señor?”

“It may help,” I said.

Then he said, suddenly stopping the car, “Get out, please, and walk the one block until you have passed the border. I will be waiting for you there and I will deliver you the rest of the way. It is better this way. I cannot afford the trouble.”

I got out of the cab at the corner, walked down the street and crossed the border. I would not have been surprised if I had never see the cab driver again, but he was there waiting to drive me the four blocks to the Monte Carlo Café.

The café was fairly large restaurant, although the entrance was modest, a single room with a bar at the back and a few tables. There was a door leading into another room and then a door into still another room. These rooms had many tables and there was a good sprinkling of customers.

There was quite a bit of family trade. The restaurant was quiet, conservative, respectable, and the aroma of the food was so appetizing that I sat down and ordered a meal.

While the meal was coming I found a telephone and put through a call to Bertha’s unlisted number at her apartment.

“Fry me for an oyster!” Bertha gasped. “You can disappear longer and make fewer reports! Where the hell are you now?”

“Mexicali,” I said.

“Mexicali!” she screamed at me. “What are you doing down there?”

“Following clues.”

“You’ll use up all of the retainer money in expenses,” she complained.

“I’ve used up plenty of it so far.”

“That’s the worst of you. You throw money away as though it grew on bushes. Why don’t you ever make a report?”

“I didn’t have anything to report.”

“Well, our client has been chewing his fingernails as far as the elbow.”

“You’ve seen him again?”

“Have I seen him again! He’s been in once, and he’s been on the telephone three times. He hung up about half an hour ago and told me if you reported before midnight tonight to let him know. I was to give you his number and you were to call him at once.”

I said, “I’m following a lead that has taken me south of the border. That’s all. I can tell him. You call him and tell him I’m on a hot trail — and, by the way, if he’s so worked up about things it might be a good plan to touch him for another hundred and fifty.”

“He’s worked up all right,” Bertha said, “but he doesn’t seem to be in a generous mood. He’s in an anxious mood. You’ll have to call him yourself. The number is six-seven-six-two-three-o-two.”