Ross Thomas: The Fourth Durango

“Well,” Adair said, “Teddy was in a position to know and he said it was around thirty million.”

“What I mean,” B. D. Huckins said, “is how much do you guys want to keep quiet about Dixie?”

Adair later swore that somewhere beneath the long silence that followed he could hear the choler in the room coming to a boil and the hostility sizzling in an equally imaginary pan. He even swore he could taste some rancor and smell the bitterness. He also thought it would never end.

But it did when Sid Fork sighed, rose slowly, went over to stand in front of Huckins and stare down at her until he said, very quietly, “Goddamn it, B. D. That was the dumbest fucking thing you ever said in your life.”

Huckins closed her eyes and nodded. “I know. I knew as soon as I said it. I must’ve said it because I wanted to blame somebody for Dixie. But there’s nobody to blame.”

She opened her eyes and looked first at Jack Adair. “I apologize, Mr. Adair.” She next looked at Kelly Vines. “And I apologize to you, Mr. Vines. I’m very sorry.”

Adair smiled. “I guess the first thing you’ll have to learn, Mayor, is that rich folks don’t ever have to explain or apologize for anything.”

On their way down to the Blue Eagle in Vines’s Mercedes, Jack Adair said, “You want to come in and say good-bye to Virginia?”

“I’m not much on good-byes, Jack.”

“Well, I’ll say it for you.”

“How long do you think you’ll stay on?”

“Until I have someplace else to go. For the time being, I’ll help out at the bar and turn her house into a bed-and-breakfast inn since, as she says, it already looks like one anyway.”

“With chocolates on the pillows by courtesy of your host, genial Jack Adair.”

Adair grinned as the Mercedes stopped in front of the Blue Eagle. “I’ll borrow Virginia’s car tomorrow, drive down to Agoura and see Dannie.”

“Tell Dr. Pease I’ll keep the money coming,” Vines said. “Somehow.”

“Any idea of where you’ll light?”

“None.”

Adair got out of the car, closed the door and bent down to look through the window at Vines. “When you do, let me know.”

“Okay,” Vines said and drove away.

Four blocks later, Kelly Vines took Garner Road up to the fifth hairpin turn and drove down Don Domingo Drive until he came to the small measle-white house whose front lawn was adorned with six very large and very ugly igneous boulders and the foot-high stumps of a dozen giant saguaro cacti.

Vines parked at the curb, cut his headlights, switched on a dash light and took a no-longer-valid professional card from his wallet. He scribbled a note on the back of the card and wrapped it around the black cane, binding it in place with a rubber band.

He got out of the Mercedes, walked up to Sid Fork’s front door, leaned the cane against it and returned to his car. After that he took Noble’s Trace until it reached the twin on-ramps to U.S. Highway 101. Just before he got to the ramps, Vines pulled over, parked and sat there, trying to decide whether to go south toward Guadalajara or north toward Nome.

Sid Fork left B. D. Huckins at 2:04 A.M. on Tuesday, July 5, arrived home at 2:09 A.M. and smiled when he found the black cane leaning against his front door.

In his living room he removed Kelly Vines’s business card and read what had been written on its back: “Turn to the left and pull.”

Fork turned the curved handle of the cane to the left until he heard a faint click. He pulled. The handle came off, transformed into a seven-inch stiletto. Fork grinned and touched the point to see how sharp it was. He reinserted it into the cane, turned the handle this time to the right, again removed it-along with the silver-capped cork-and poured a small measure of Jack Daniel’s Black Label whiskey into a glass.

He sat down in an easy chair, sipped the whiskey and thought about starting a new collection of American artifacts. Maybe the Fork Collection of Strange and Terrible Weapons of Death. Or something along that line.