Ross Thomas - The Fourth Durango

“And if he stands trial,” the mayor continued, “a lot of funny stuff could come out about you, me, Teddy and Dixie from the old days-funny-peculiar stuff that most people don’t know or have forgotten. Stuff that wouldn’t do me any good on November eighth.”

“If there is a trial,” Fork said.

“You mean, of course, a trial that soon,” Adair said. “Before November eighth.”

“Ever,” Fork said.

“The chief’s talking about something else, Jack,” Vines said.

“I’m well aware of that.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m going to find Teddy,” Fork said, almost musing aloud. “Or maybe he’ll find me. But either way I’m pretty sure he’ll resist being arrested.”

“Which means you’re pretty sure you’re going to kill him,” Adair said in a mild and almost indifferent tone he might have used to remark upon the weather.

The tone made Fork suspicious. “That bother you just a whole lot, Judge?”

All mildness left Adair’s voice. It now sounded sternly judicial and, in his opinion, terribly pompous. “I’ve never been convinced that premeditated homicide is ever justified, whether committed by the individual or the state.”

“That’s bullshit if I ever heard it,” B. D. Huckins said.

“Is it now?”

“Sure it is. Look. You and Vines dreamed this thing up, this plan of yours, set it in motion and it’s already got two people killed. Maybe three, counting that friend of yours in Lompoc. So it’s time to switch off the sermonette. But if you guys want to walk away, fine. That’s your business. Of course, Sid and I’ll have to finish what you started because now there’s just no way to stop it.”

“None at all,” Fork said.

“I could be off base,” she continued, “but I think the only way you two can come out of this thing about even or a little ahead-and I’m not talking about money-is to finish what you started. Otherwise, you’ve wasted three lives for nothing-although maybe you can justify that but somehow I don’t think so. And that, Mr. Adair, is why I said you were talking bullshit.”

Adair, his cheeks a bright pink, stared down between his knees at the hotel room carpet while the woman and the two men stared at him. Finally, he looked up at Huckins and said, “After careful reconsideration, Mayor, you’re not altogether wrong.”

She looked at Vines. “What’s that mean?”

“It means we’re still in business.”

“Good,” B. D. Huckins said.

By five o’clock that same Saturday afternoon, Jack Adair and Kelly Vines hadchecked out of the Holiday Inn and were dutifully following Virginia Trice into the large old bathroom on the second floor of her fourteen-room Victorian house.

The bathroom, at least ten by thirteen feet, separated their two bedrooms and contained a very old six-foot-long tub that stood on cast-iron claws; a fairly new tiled shower; a sink with separate faucets; a chain-flush toilet; and more towels than Adair could ever remember seeing even in the finest hotels.

“Towels,” Virginia Trice said, indicating two large stacks of them.

“Very nice,” Adair said.

They left the bathroom and regrouped in the hall. “What d’you guys like for breakfast?” she asked.

Adair looked at Vines, who said, “Anything.”

“Bacon and eggs?” she said. “Coffee? Juice? Home fries? Biscuits or toast? Cantaloupe maybe?”

“Coffee, toast and juice would be fine for me,” Adair said.

“Me, too,” said Vines.

“You can have anything you want,” she said. “After all, for what you’re paying…” The sentence died of acute embarrassment.

“Speaking of the rent,” Vines said, removed an unsealed Holiday Inn envelope from his hip pocket and handed it to Virginia Trice.

She looked inside the envelope, but didn’t count the twenty one-hundred-dollar bills. “It’s way too much, isn’t it?”

“Not considering the inconvenience we’re putting you to,” Adair said.

“Okay. If you say so. And it sure comes when I can use it.”

“I was very sorry to hear about your husband,” Adair said.

“That’s nice of you. Funeral’s Monday. If you like funerals, you’re welcome. It’ll be at Bruner’s Mortuary because Norm wasn’t much of a churchgoer. The Eagle’ll be closed all day Monday out of respect. Sid Fork says I oughta keep it open. But I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right. What d’you think?”

Adair said he was certain she knew best.

Obviously grateful for the reassurance, Virginia Trice said, “Well, the phone’s down at the end of the hall near the stairs on a small stand. I put radios in both your rooms-cheap little jobs-but they’ll bring in our local FM station, which sucks, and for some reason an all-news CBS station down in L.A. that’s AM. No TV though. Norm wouldn’t have one in the house because he had to buy a dish for the set in the Eagle and they’d never let him turn it off. Norm really hated TV. Let’s see. What else? Oh. I almost forgot the keys to the front door. They’re in your rooms on the bedside tables. Come and go as you like. If you wanta have a friend spend the night, fine. I don’t get home till around one on weeknights and around two-thirty on Saturday nights like tonight. And I guess that’s about all the rules there are.”

Adair smiled and said there didn’t seem to be any so far.

“Probably because I’m not much of a landlady,” she said.

Vines said he thought she was the ideal landlady.

Virginia Trice nodded at the compliment, tried to smile, didn’t quite succeed and suddenly remembered something. “Jesus. There is one rule. This place is all wired up. But as long as you use your front door key to go out and come in, you’re okay. And don’t open any windows either because they’re wired up, too. I don’t know if you noticed, but the whole place is airconditioned-except the attic. So if you don’t use your front door key going out and coming in, or if you forget and open a window by mistake, the cops’ll be here in three minutes, maybe four.”

“That’s very reassuring,” Adair said.

“Can I ask you guys something?”

Vines nodded.

“How bad is it-your trouble?”

“Moderate,” Vines said.

“Sid said you might help him catch Norm’s killer. Is that straight or was Sid just shining me on like he does sometimes?”

“He wasn’t shining you on,” Vines said.

“Good,” Virginia Trice said, nodded to herself and, a moment later, said “Good” yet again.

By 5:35 that same Saturday evening, Adair and Vines stood beside the Mercedes sedan and watched the four-seat Cessna taxi toward them along the cracked and broken runway of what once had been the Durango Municipal Airport. All that was left of the airport was its disintegrating runway, two roofless corrugated aluminum hangars, a couple of rusting gasoline pumps, from which somebody had stolen the hoses, and the airport “terminal”-a one-story building about the size of a gasoline station office, which had long since been vandalized.

“All part of the trend, I guess,” Adair said as he watched Merriman Dorr cut the engine and climb down from the Cessna. “The small-town train depots were the first to go, then the bus stations and now we’re getting ghost airports.”

“You sure you don’t want me to come along?” Vines said.

“I think one of us at a time’s about all Dannie can handle.”

“Don’t expect too much, Jack.”

“No.”

“Don’t expect anything at all.”

“All I expect is a visit with my last living blood relative.”

Merriman Dorr, now no more than twenty feet away from the Mercedes, wore a brown leather flight jacket that Vines thought was either very old or the kind that was advertised as being “pre-distressed.” He also wore dark aviator glasses, chinos, cowboy boots and a blue Dodgers baseball cap. When he was fifteen feet away, Dorr said, “That runway’s a bitch.”