Ross Thomas - The Fourth Durango

“That Parvis Mansur’s made contact.”

The mayor turned quickly and almost yelled at her sister, who was standing near the Prelude, talking cheerfully to a glum Sid Fork. Dixie Mansur turned slowly and, accompanied by Fork, strolled over to Huckins and Vines, giving the dead Ivy Settles an incurious glance and altogether ignoring the dead woman photographer.

“Mr. Vines tells me Parvis made contact,” the mayor said.

Her sister nodded.

“You forgot to tell me. Or Sid.”

“I didn’t forget,” Dixie said. “Parvis told me to tell Vines and Adair. Adair was out of town, so I told Vines. I like to do exactly what Parvis says. It makes life simpler.”

“He didn’t tell you not to tell Sid and me?”

“No. Why?”

Instead of replying, the mayor turned to the chief of police. “You and I have to decide right now if we’re going to invite Charlie Coates and his task force in.” Sid Fork turned away to look across Noble’s Trace at the same young uniformed policeman who had waved on the Aston Martin. The policeman was now bending over to lecture a dedicated gawker in a Thunderbird.

“Well?” the mayor said.

“If you invite Charlie Coates and his task force in, B. D.,” Fork said, still watching the young policeman, “I quit.”

“Don’t threaten me, Sid.”

“That’s a guarantee, not a threat.”

Before the mayor could make some possibly irrevocable decision, Kelly Vines interceded. “Like some professional advice?”

“From you?” she said.

Vines gave her his crooked, boyish grin, full of charm, the one Jack Adair knew to be a disguise. “My body’s disbarred, not my brain.”

“I’m sorry,” she said and looked around. “Where?”

“My car,” Sid Fork suggested.

“You want me along?” Dixie Mansur said.

“No,” the mayor replied. “We don’t.”

“Good,” Dixie said and started across Noble’s Trace toward the young uniformed policeman who was again directing traffic.

The mayor and the chief of police sat in the rear of the four-door sedan. The disbarred lawyer sat in front, half-turned behind the steering wheel, his right arm resting along the top of the front seat’s back.

“Don’t turn the sheriff down cold,” Vines said without preamble. “Stall him. When the media show up, give them your ten-minute scenic tour and make it last half an hour. Express grief, shock, horror and outrage about the murders. When they ask about motive, express bewilderment, but hint that arrests are imminent. Invite them to the funerals. Mention Durango’s growth and investment potential until they’re sick of it. Finally, call a press conference for the two of you and tell them again what you’ve already told them.”

“Bore ’em to death, huh?” Fork said.

Vines nodded.

Huckins, after nodding her unenthusiastic agreement, said, “We can’t stall Coates forever because he’ll insist on a deadline. And unless we come up with the killer before it expires, we’ll have to let him and his task force in.”

“What about jurisdiction?” Vines asked.

“We’re two blocks past the city limits,” Fork said. “So it’s my dead detective but his jurisdiction.”

“Tell the sheriff he can send in his task force on the fourth of July,” Vines said. “A week from Monday.”

“Why the fourth?” Huckins asked.

“Because if Mansur hasn’t closed the deal by then, it’s not going to be closed. After that, even if he swears it’s still on, neither Adair nor I will touch it.”

It was obvious Sid Fork didn’t like the date of the deadline. He glared at Vines, then at the mayor, gave his gray mustache a hard brush with his thumb and said, “You let a sheriff’s task force in here on the fourth of July, B. D., and you can forget about being reelected on the eighth of November.”

“Christ,” Vines said. “Make it the fifth then.”

Fork nodded, satisfied. “The fifth’d be a whole lot better.”

B. D. Huckins turned to gaze out the car window at her sister, who was talking to the young uniformed policeman. “It doesn’t really matter if it’s the fourth or the fifth, Sid.”

“The hell it doesn’t.”

The mayor turned to him and spoke in a voice that was slightly weary and extremely patient. A teacher’s voice, Vines thought. “Charlie Coates doesn’t want to send in a task force to help us find a killer. He wants to send in a task force to lift up the rocks and peek into our dark corners.”

“Let ’em,” Fork said. “You and me, B. D., we never took a dime from those hideout deals. The city got every last cent.”

She smiled at him sadly. “Is that what you plan to tell Charlie Coates and his task force, Sid?”

Kelly Vines sat behind the wheel of the Mercedes at the end of the abandonedDurango Municipal Airport’s crumbling runway, waiting for the sound of the Cessna’s engine and wishing he had brought along the Baby Ruth candy bars.

A 9:58 P.M. he heard the Cessna’s engine as it made a low pass over the airport. Guessing its altitude at 250 or 300 feet, Vines switched on the car’s headlights and flicked them up to bright. At 10:02 P.M. he watched Merriman Dorr make another perfect landing.

The Cessna taxied to within seventy-five feet of the Mercedes and stopped, but Dorr kept the plane’s engine running as Jack Adair climbed out, made a wide berth of the spinning propellor and walked quickly toward the Mercedes, swinging the black cane. Before Adair reached the car, the Cessna had turned around, raced down the runway and disappeared into the night.

After Adair settled into the passenger seat, Vines switched off the headlights and asked, “How was she?”

“About like you said.”

“She recognize you?”

“No.”

“What else?”

“She thinks you’re a very silly man,” Adair said, unscrewed the cane’s handle, removed the cork and silently handed the glass tube flask to Vines, who sighed before taking a swallow.

As he passed the glass tube back to Adair, Vines said, “Mansur made contact.”

“He say who with?”

“He sent word by Dixie but she didn’t seem to know much more than that.”

“What else?”

“Well, there’s Teddy, the plumber-priest.”

“They caught him?” Adair asked, sounding less than hopeful.

“No, they didn’t catch him, but he killed Sid Fork’s bunco and fraud guy from Dallas, Ivy Settles.”

“When?”

“About an hour ago. They also say that while he was at it, Teddy killed that woman photographer who took our pictures in Lompoc.”

“Well, shit, Kelly,” Adair said and lapsed into silence. Vines also seemed to have run out of things to say and the silence continued until Adair said, “From the beginning. Everything.”

“All right.”

It took Vines fifteen minutes to tell it. He began with his purchase of candy bars, mixed nuts, whiskey and the paperback novel, and ended with B. D. Huckins’s gloomy assessment of the real purpose behind the sheriff’s proposed task force.

Adair listened, asking no questions, until he was sure Vines had finished. Then he asked, “You know what I’m having?”

“Second thoughts?” Vines said.

“Exactly.”

“Tell me about Dannie and we’ll come back to your second thoughts.”

“Well, she didn’t know me from Adam’s off ox and she thinks you’re some silly but harmless gentleman caller.”

“What about Soldier Sloan?”

“I made the mistake of asking her about Soldier P. Sloan and she immediately wanted to know what the ‘P’ stood for. I told her Pershing and suddenly she was back in junior high school, reciting the first verse of ‘I Have a Rendezvous with Death’ and asking whether I’d also like to hear the one about how poppies blow in Flanders fields.”