Росс Макдональд - The Way Some People Die

“You can’t see over the edge of the next five minutes, and you’re talking about a week. In a week you may be dead.”

A half-smile deepened the lines on one side of his face. “I may at that. And you may too. I certainly wish it for you.”

“Who did you pay the money to?”

“Joe Tarantine. I wouldn’t try to get it back from him if I were you.”

“Where is he?”

He lifted his broad shoulders, and dropped them. “I don’t know, and I haven’t any desire to. Joe isn’t one of my bosom pals, exactly.”

“When did you see him last?”

“Two nights ago,” he said, after some reflection.

“When you bought the heroin from him?”

“You seem to know my business better than I do.” He leaned toward me, drawing his legs back. I moved the revolver to remind him of it.

“Put the gun away, please. What did you say your name was?”

“Archer.” I kept the gun where it was, supported on my knee.

“How much is Marjorie paying you, Archer?”

“Enough.”

“Whatever it is, I could pay you much better. If you’ll give me a little leeway. A little time.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I have two kilos of pure heroin. Do you know how much that’s worth on the present market?”

“I haven’t been following the quotations. Fill me in.”

“A clean hundred thousand, if I have the time to make the necessary contacts. A hundred thousand, over and above my debt to the sweet sow.” For the first time, he was showing a little animation. “I’m not even suggesting you double-cross her. All I ask is time. Four days should do it.”

“While I sit holding a gun on you?”

“You can put it away.”

“I think you’re trying to con me the way you conned Marjorie. For all I know, you have the money on you.”

He compressed the flesh around his eyes, trying to force them into an expression of earnest sincerity. Surrounded by puckered skin, they stayed pale and cold and shallow. “You’re quite mistaken, old man.” I’d wondered where Mosquito got the phrase. “You can take a look at my wallet if you like.” His hand moved toward the inner pocket of his jacket.

“Keep your hands in sight. What about your suitcases?”

“Go right ahead and search them. They’re not locked.” Which probably meant there was nothing important in the suitcases.

He turned his head to look at the expensive luggage, and revealed a different face. Full-face, he looked enough like a gentleman to pass for one in southern California: his face was oval and soft, almost gentle around the mouth, with light hair waving back from a wide sunburned forehead. In profile, his saddle nose and lantern jaw gave him the look of an aging roughneck; the slack skin twisted into diagonal folds under his chin.

He had fooled me in a way: I hadn’t been able to reach in behind the near-gentlemanly front. My acceptance of the front had even built it up for Speed a little. He was more at ease than he had been, in spite of the gun on my knee.

I spoke to the ravaged old man behind the front: “You’re on your last legs, Speed. I guess you know that.”

His head turned back to me, losing ten years. He said nothing, but there was a kind of questioning assent in the eyes.

“You can’t buy me,” I said. “The way things stand, you can’t angle out of this rap. You’ve made your big try for a comeback, and it’s failed.”

“What is this leading up to? Or do you simply enjoy hearing yourself make speeches?”

“I have to take you back with me. There’s the matter of Marjorie’s money, for one thing–”

“She’ll never get it if you take me back, not a red cent of it.”

“Then she’ll have the satisfaction of failing you. She’s in the mood to push it to the limit. Not to mention what the police will do. They’ll have a lot of questions to ask you about this and that, particularly Dalling’s murder.”

“Dalling’s murder?” His face thinned and turned sallow. “Who is Dalling?” But he knew who Dalling was, and knew I knew he knew.

“If they ever let you out, Dowser and Blaney will be waiting for you.” I piled it on. “Last time they had no special grudge against you. All they wanted was your territory. This time they’ll cut you to pieces, and you know it. I wouldn’t insure your life for a dime if you paid me a hundred-dollar premium.”

“You’re one of Dowser’s troopers.” He looked at my gun and couldn’t look away. I raised it so he could see the round hole in the barrel, the peephole into darkness.

“How about it, Speed? Do you come south with me, or settle with me here?”

“Settle?” he said, still with his eyes on the gun.

“I’m going back with you or the heroin, one or the other.”

“To Dowser?”

“You’re a good guesser. If Danny gets his shipment back, he won’t care so much about you.”

He said, with an effort: “I’ll split with you. We can clear a hundred thousand between us. Fifty thousand for you. I have a contact in the east, he’s flying out tomorrow.” The effort left him breathless.

“You can’t buy me,” I repeated. “Hand it over.”

“If I do, what happens to me?”

“It’s up to you. Climb into your car and drive as fast as you can as far as you can. Or walk due west until you hit the ocean and keep on walking.”

He raised his eyes to mine. His face was old and sick. “I should have shot you when I had the chance.”

“You should have, but you didn’t. You’re washed up, as I said.”

“Yes,” he said to himself. “I am washed up.” His voice was almost cheerful, in a wry thin way. I got the impression that he had never really expected to succeed, and was taking a bitter satisfaction from his own foresight.

“You’re wasting my time. Where is it?”

“I’ll give you a straight answer to that if you’ll give me a straight answer to this. Who tipped my hand to you? I don’t expect to do anything about it. I’d simply like to know.”

“Nobody did.”

“Nobody?”

“I put together a couple of hunches and a lot of legwork, and worked it out for myself. You won’t believe that, naturally.”

“Oh, I believe it. Anyway, what difference does it make?” He shook his head fretfully, bored by the answer to his own question. “The lousy stuff is in a tobacco can in the kitchen cupboard.”

I found it there.

I had made up my mind about Ruth before I got back to the Grandview Hotel . I knew if I didn’t go back for her I wouldn’t be able to forget her. A teen-aged girl with heroin in her veins was the stuff bad dreams were made of.

The lobby was dark and deserted except where the night clerk sat behind his desk with a science-fiction magazine propped in front of him. He descended from inter-galactic space to give me a quick once-over. Neither of us spoke. I went up in the elevator and down the red-lit corridor again to 307.

The girl was sleeping as I had left her, on her side, her knees bent double and her long thighs clasped to her breast. She stirred and sighed when I closed the door and crossed the room to look at her. The short gold hair fallen across her face moved in and out with her breathing. I pushed it back and tucked it behind her ear. She raised her free arm as if to protect her head from attack, but she slept on. She was sunk deep in sleep, maybe beyond my reach.

I filled the bathroom glass with cold water again, straightened her out on the bed, and poured the water over her face. Her eyelids fluttered open, and she swore.

“Rise and shine, Ruth.”

“Go away, you’re rocking my dream-boat.” She flipped over onto her stomach, and buried her wet face in the soaking pillow.