A. Fair - Gold Comes in Bricks

“Shucks,” Pete said. “They don’t know where the old level of work was. That bunch don’t know anything. They’re just goin’ through motions. I watched ’em. They’re so damn clumsy, I swear to God I almost started over and said to the driller, ‘Look here, buddy, I don’t want to tell a man his business, but if you can’t make a better job of salting a claim than that, for God’s sake, stand to one side and let a guy that really knows how give you a few pointers.’ ”

Ashbury chuckled. Alta laughed out loud. I pushed the five one-hundred-dollar bills across the table toward Pete Digger.

“It’s all yours,” I said.

Pete picked up the bills, folded them, and put them in his pocket.

“When can you start?” Ashbury asked.

“You’re in a hurry?”

“Yes.”

“I got a little dust in there,” Pete said, jerking his head toward a cupboard. “Stuff I’ve picked up here and there in the pockets, pay dirt that had dropped out of some of the old cleanups. It’s enough for what we’ll want.”

“How can you get on the property?” I asked him.

“That’s a cinch. They’ve been trying to get me to work ever since they started. They don’t know too much about handling the job.”

“You don’t dare to have values start running up just before you go to work. It would be too much of a coincidence,” I warned.

“Leave that to me, brother. I’m going down there tonight in the moonlight an’ take a marlinspike, an’ salt a bunch of gold in that drill rope. Their values’ll start pickin’ up tomorrow. I think that drill rope’s all I’m goin’ to need.”

I said, “Keep it up until I tell you to stop.”

“How’ll you tell me?”

“When you get a postal card signed ‘D.L.’ saying, ‘Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here,’ you’ll know it’s time to quit.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll get started in about half an hour.”

We shook hands all around, and as we climbed in the car Ashbury said, “That’s a fine piece of work, Donald.”

No one talked much as I drove the car to the main highway, turned into the automobile camp, and switched off the lights and motor. I got out and started to open the door on the other side, then saw a car I hadn’t seen before, and got a glimpse at an E embedded in a diamond on the license plate.

I didn’t say a word to the others, but walked directly toward my own cabin.

Two men stepped out of the shadows. One of them said, “Your name Lam?”

I said, “Yes.”

“Donald Lam?”

“Yes.”

“Come on in. We want to talk with you. We have telegraphic instructions to pick you up.”

I was hoping that Ashbury and Alta would have sense enough to keep out of it. They got out of the car and stood by the door. Alta’s face was white in the moonlight.

“Who are these folks?” the officer asked, indicating Ashbury and his daughter with a jerk of his head.

“They picked me up down the road a piece and asked me if I wanted a ride.”

One of the officers wore the uniform of the state highway patrol, and the other, I gathered, was a local officer.

“What do you want?”

“Didn’t you leave rather suddenly?”

“I’m working.”

“On what?”

“I’d prefer not to make any statements.”

“Did you know a man named Ringold?”

“I read in the paper about his murder.”

“Know anything about it?”

“No, of course not. Why?”

“Weren’t you in the hotel the night he was killed? Didn’t you talk with a blonde at the cigar stand, and again with a clerk, trying to pump them about Ringold?”

“Gosh, no!” I said, backing away a step or two and staring at them as though I thought they were mad. “Say, wait a minute. Who are you birds, anyway? Are you officers?”

“Of course we’re officers.”

“Got a warrant?”

“Now listen, buddy. Don’t go getting hard, see? And don’t start playing wise guy. Right now we’re asking questions. That’s all.”

“What do you want to know?”

“According to the D.A., you could have had an interest in Ringold.”

“How do you figure?”

“Well, buddy, it’s this way. Jed Ringold was working for the Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company, see? And that company has a bunch of land up here near Valleydale. Now the president of the Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company — Cripes, it tangles my tongue to say the damn thing. What did they want to get a name like that for? Well, anyway, the president is a guy named Tindle, and you’ve been out living with him and taking orders from him.”

I said, “You’re nuts. I’ve been visiting out at Ashbury’s house. Tindle is Henry Ashbury’s stepson.”

“You ain’t been workin’ for him?”

“Hell, no. I’ve been taking some fat off Ashbury. I’m giving him jujitsu lessons.”

“That’s what you say. Tindle’s got interests up here. Ringold is working for Tindle. Somebody goes into the hotel and bumps Ringold off. This guy has a description that’s a helluva lot like yours, and—”

I moved forward to stare at him. “Is that what’s eating you?” I asked.

“That’s right.”

“All right, when I get back, I’ll go call the cops and tell them how crazy they are. There were a couple of people who saw the guy that went into the hotel, weren’t there? — Seems to me, I remember reading about it in the papers.”

“That’s right, buddy.”

“All right, I’ll be back in a couple of days, and we’ll clean it up.”

“Well, now, suppose you ain’t the guy that was in the hotel?”

“I’m not.”

“You’d like to get it cleaned up, wouldn’t you?”

“Not particularly. It’s so absurd I’m not even bothering about it.”

“But suppose you are the guy? Then something might happen, and you just wouldn’t remember about going back.”

“Well, you’re not going to take me back just because I happen to know the president of this corporation, are you?”

“No, but the D.A.’s office got hold of a photo of you, Lam, and showed it to the clerk at the hotel, and the hotel clerk says, ‘That’s the guy you want.’ So now what?”

Ashbury and his daughter had taken the hint. Instead of going on into their cabin, they’d got back into the car and turned it around. Ashbury rolled down the window on the driver’s side, leaned out, and asked, “Is there anything I can do for you, my friend? Are you in any trouble?”

“Nothing,” I said, “just a private matter. Good-night, and thanks for the lift.”

“You’re entirely welcome,” Ashbury said and slid the car into gear and whisked out of the auto camp.

“Well?” the officer who had been doing the talking asked.

I said, “There’s only one answer to that. We’re going back. I’ll make the damn clerk get down on his knees and eat those words — every one of ’em. The guy’s just plain nuts.”

“Now that’s the sensible way to look at it. You know we could take you back, but we’d have a lot of notoriety which wouldn’t do anybody any good. If it’s a mistake, the less said about it the better. You know how it is, buddy. It’s kind of hard to identify people from a photograph. We drag you back and get a lot of newspaper publicity that the clerk’s positively identified you as the guy. Then he takes a look at your mug and says he ain’t so certain. Then a while later the real bird turns up. He looks something like you, but not too much, and the clerk says, ‘Sure. That’s the guy.’ But you know what some shyster lawyer would do? He’d make that clerk look like two bits on the witness stand because he’d identified somebody else first.”