A. Fair: All Grass Isn't Green

I’d read up on smuggling, and statistics show that literally tons of marijuana come across the border with a goodly sprinkling of heroin and other contraband mixed in for good measure.

The customs inspectors are unbelievably skillful in sizing up drivers but they are snowed under by the sheer volume of numbers.

Do you know what is the leading tourist city in the world? Rome? Paris? London? Cairo? Guess again. The answer is Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, and while there aren’t nearly as many cars crossing at Mexicali as at Tijuana, the volume is still terrific.

Right now the cars were in a long line, the drivers waiting impatiently with motors running, the windshield wipers beating a monotonous, rhythmic cadence.

I saw a pickup carrying a small houseboat on a trailer and it aroused my curiosity.

Quite a few boating enthusiasts trail their boats down through Mexicali to the fishing port of San Felipe, a hundred and twenty miles to the south. There is a good surfaced road, and fishing and ocean adventure are at the end of it.

Other enthusiasts who are more venturesome go on another fifty-odd miles to the south of San Felipe to Puertecitos, a little gem of a bay, where there are a few dwellings, a few house trailers, supplies, and the warm blue of a gulf which is generally quite tranquil.

A houseboat, however, is something of a novelty.

This one was rather short and was mounted on twin pontoons powered with two outboard motors. The pickup which was pulling the outfit was powerful enough to snake it over roads all the way to Puertecitos if the driver had been so inclined.

My eyes came up to the driver and suddenly I snapped to attention. He was the man I was looking for, the one who had been in the Monte Carlo Café a short time before, asking if there was someone there waiting for him, saying that he had been delayed.

I could readily understand the reason for the delay. If he had been fighting his way up from San Felipe over pavement which had suddenly turned wet while he dragging a pontoon houseboat on a trailer, a delay was have been expected.

I moved on, just about keeping pace with the slow moving double line of cars, studying the driver of pickup.

I noticed that my party had a passenger with him, male, but I couldn’t see much of the man’s face because he was on the side away from me and the shadow obscured his features.

Then I crossed the line of traffic and went through the border station myself, giving my citizenship, stating that I had purchased nothing in Mexico.

Again I tried for a taxicab but in vain. I hurried to point where I had my automobile parked by the side the road and drove back to the road that led from border crossing. The pickup with its houseboat had gone. However, I had jotted down the license numbers of the pickup and the trailer. I felt I would find my man again, although from the description I had of Hale, I knew this man wasn’t the one I had been hired to find.

I couldn’t be certain about the other man in the pickup, however. He could have been the man I wanted.

I gambled I could follow up the lead I now had.

The rain had got me good and damp.

I finally drove to the Maple Leaf Motel, got a flask out of my suitcase, had a good swig of whiskey and went sleep.

Sometime in the night, when my senses were still drugged with sleep, I was half awakened by the sound of voices raised in what seemed to be an argument.

I rolled over, punched the pillow, went back to sleep again, then suddenly wakened to a realization that those voices might have been coming from Unit 12.

It took me a few moments to get my senses together, to jump out of bed and get to the window.

There was no light on in Unit 12.

The voices had ceased.

The motel lay silent under the stars, the night light cast shimmering reflections in the swimming pool in the patio.

I stood by the window until I began to feel chilled. Then I went back to bed, but it was a long while before I could get to sleep. I was lying there listening for the sound of voices, and listening in vain.

I arose at seven o’clock, showered, shaved, and started out to breakfast.

I had a desire for the Mexican dish of huevos rancheros , in which fried eggs, swimming in a sauce of onions, peppers and spices, are placed on top of a thin tortilla.

There is no place that makes huevos rancheros any better than the kitchen of the De Anza Hotel.

The rain had ceased. The sky was blue, the air clear. It was only a four-block walk to the hotel and I decided to make it, swinging along with, shoulders back, inhaling the pure desert air in great, long pulls.

I entered the dining room at the De Anza Hotel, found an inconspicuous table, seated myself, gave my order and sipped delicious coffee while I waited for the eggs arrive.

The waiter brought the huevos rancheros . I put do my coffee cup and looked up into the startled eyes of our client, Milton Carling Calhoun, who was seated tables away, facing me.

He hadn’t expected to see me. His facial expression was a dead giveaway.

I waved to him casually, as though seeing him the was the most natural thing in the world, and went on with my eggs, keeping an eye on him, however, to make he didn’t sneak out.

He finished before I did and had the grace to come over to my table.

“Well, well, Lam,” he said, “good morning. How you this morning?”

“Fine, thanks. How are you?”

“A little sleepy but very well.”

“I hardly expected to see you here this morning.”

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I hardly expected to be here, but after talking with you over the phone last night I decided to come down so I could... could... have a chat with you personally. Talking over the telephone is s unsatisfactory.”

“Isn’t it?” I said.

“Indeed it is.”

“Where,” I asked, “are you staying?”

“Here in the hotel. It’s a very nice place, conditioned and all that, and the food is very good.”

“You get down here often?” I asked.

“Not often. Now, tell me, Lam, just what have you discovered?”

“Not very much more than when I talked with you on the telephone last night.”

“But you must have some additional facts. You were so secretive last night. I knew I had to talk with you. You held out on mean the telephone. You know something else, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

I said, “The young woman is waiting for someone to join her. I think it may be Hale.”

“Now, this young woman,” Calhoun went on, “you didn’t want to mention names over the telephone — that’s one reason I wanted to talk with you — just who is this young woman?”

“Her name,” I said, “is Nanncie Beaver. She’s registered here as Nanncie Armstrong, There’s a trick spelling on her name. It’s N-a-n-n-c-i-e.”

“How in the world did you ever get a lead that brought you to her?” he asked.

I said, “I tried to find out all I could about Colburn Hale. I found out that Nanncie was his girl friend, and when I went to look for her I found that she’d mysteriously disappeared at about the same time Colburn Hale had disappeared. It was, therefore, a strong possibility that they were together.”

“But how in the world did you ever find her down here?” he asked. “I couldn’t—” He broke off suddenly.

“Couldn’t what?” I asked.

“Couldn’t imagine,” he said.

“It was routine detective work,” I said, “but quite a bit of work at that. What time did you get in here?”

“Around two-thirty or so this morning. It was a mean drive over wet roads.”

I said, “Expenses are running up. We make a charge of fifteen cents a mile for the agency car.”