Джон Макдональд - The Last One Left

Raoul Kelly went through it all, pausing only to organize the material into as orderly a presentation as possible. And again he was aware of how totally and intently Sam Boylston could listen.

“So now I need advice, Lawyer,” Raoul said.

“From a lawyer who’s been up all night two nights in a row waiting for the little white car that wasn’t even there? I wondered about your car there, parked and locked, and I figured you’d tucked it out of sight and moved in with the girl. What’s the problem? I’ll try to think.”

“I want to get Francisca out of range of this whole mess. I was going to leave Thursday the ninth. Only a very few people know about me and Francisca. But that’s a few too many. I have to know how much trouble I can get into if I leave in the morning. The stuff in my room I was going to take to the paper, I can mail in. I could leave her here and go close out the bank account, pack what I need, get a friend to crate up the rest of my stuff, the files and research and so on and hold it all until I send a shipping address. I have to report out there on the nineteenth. A Monday. Those two cops were good guys. When they find out I’m gone, they’re going to be very, very unhappy. What can they do to me, to us? I don’t want to mess up the new job. I don’t want her extradited and brought back here by some damned matron. But I can’t let her get caught up in the kind of fantastic publicity mess there’s going to be. How should I handle it?”

Sam Boylston stood up and roamed the room, stopping to look at Francisca swimming quite prettily and gracefully. He turned and clapped his hands once. “Here it is, client. You are going to go pick up your money and your gear, mail your stuff, with a note of explanation that you are leaving a few days earlier than planned. Come back here and sign a statement that I am representing you and the girl. Then we’ll use my tape recorder and you can question her in Spanish. I’ll put the necessary identifications at the beginning. Take her through everything she knows they might use against the Harkinson woman. Set the background first. How long she worked for her and so on. We want to establish the relationship with Staniker, and the relationship with the boy. How late the boy was at the house, how often, the times she’d hear him drive out. And get in everything she remembers about that last day of March when Kayd visited Crissy Harkinson. Finally, go over the weekend, the locked gates, going to see if the boat was there, looking in at her, bringing her the cocoa.”

“How can you represent us if you aren’t...”

“You are going to leave when we have a good tape, Kelly. And you are going to drive right on through to Texas, and down to Harlingen. I’m going to give you the address of my house there, and by the time you get there, my wife will be expecting you and she’ll know what to do. I advise marriage as soon as my partner can get the usual restrictions bypassed. And if anybody gets ugly, I’ll see that there is a doctor and a judge who see eye to eye on the inadvisability of her being returned here. You sit tight. I can represent you. You’ll be in the state where I’m licensed. I can get a local man to work with me here if it comes to that. If it hasn’t blown over by the eighteenth, you leave your wife with my wife and fly out to California and report in, and we’ll get her out there to you as soon as it makes sense to do so.”

Raoul Kelly stared at him in a long silence and shook his head and said in Cuban Spanish, “You are a one! Truly.”

“El fantástico, seguro, hombre.”

“I should make big protests, Sam. Can’t impose. All that. But for her sake, if it would help her in any way, I’d go beg bread in the streets.”

Raoul went out to the pool and spoke with Francisca and then hurried away.

Sam phoned Lydia Jean at her mother’s home in Corpus. “Sam? Where are you? Why are you still over there?”

“It’s a long story, honey. But right now I want you to do me a favor.”

“Such as?”

“Two friends of mine are leaving here this evening and driving right on through. What I want you to do, honey, is go back home and open the house up and...”

“Now just a minute! ”

“It isn’t a trick. You’re the only one I’d trust to handle the situation. The girl is an emotional disaster area. She and her guy are in a strange kind of a jam. He can explain it to you better than I can. And it is important to get them married as fast as we can arrange it, as you can arrange it. I think you can put more leverage on my partner than I can in a situation like this.”

“Married?”

“If it could be done with a few trimmings, I think it would help. And at the house. I know this is a hell of a thing to ask...”

“Who are these people?”

“His name is Raoul Kelly and he looks like somebody’s gardener, but don’t be deceived. Francisca Torceda is her name, very beautiful, and racked up so bad maybe she makes it, maybe she doesn’t. You could have a lot to do about that, and it could be worth it.”

“These are important people, Sam? Is that why you want me to...”

“They are very important people. I am going to have my neck way out for them here, and somebody might chop it pretty good.”

“Very important. Yes, dear. I understand you perfectly.”

“She’s a housemaid and he’s a newspaper reporter, and they’ll have every personal thing they own in that car with them, and if I can get them out of this jam, my fee is going to be five dollars, and I probably won’t see either of them again ever. But they are very important.”

“Is that the truth?”

“I swear it.”

“I wasn’t going to do it.”

“I know. Why should you? Sam Boylston always looks out for Sam Boylston, and uses you or anybody else.”

“Or,” she said slowly, “Sam Boylston makes a big, fat gesture. He imitates an honest to God human being for a little while, and I might fall for it. Oh, Sam! What are you trying to do to me?”

“Set you up, kid. I hired this couple from an acting studio. See if you can trip them up, then you can hate me forever.”

“I’ve never hated you!”

“Resent me forever, then. Do I keep my word?”

“So scrupulously it’s almost irritating.”

“Word of honor, then. I won’t come near the house until they’re gone and you’ve had a chance to go back to Corpus. I happen to need some help from somebody — with more than their share of sympathy and understanding, at least toward everybody but me.”

“Now why do you have to...”

“Will you do it? Please, Lyd... Lyd?”

“Oh, I’m still here. I’ll drive down early tomorrow.”

“Thanks, dear.”

“Are you going to get into some kind of trouble there?”

“I don’t know. And I can’t seem to give too much of a damn. Maybe — maybe no matter how careful you are, no matter how well you play the percentages, They bitch you anyway, one way or another. They get at you through the side door. The rain comes down, baby, and we’ve all got sixteen buckets and seventeen holes in the roof.”

“Have you had some drinks?”

“Not yet today, but it’s a creative suggestion.”

“You sound so strange. When will those people get to Harlingen?”

“I’d guess it’s around seventeen hundred miles. I’m going to tell him to take a break midway. Make it late Wednesday.”

“Will he be able to tell me why you’re acting so strange, Sam?”

“I don’t know.”

Kelly’s girl swam for a long time. She was showering when Kelly returned.

Lobwohl swiveled his chair and put his heels on the corner of his desk, ankles crossed. “Let’s let her stew another ten or fifteen minutes before we give her another session. Agree?”