After a while my club sandwich came. It was nothing to brag about, but eatable. I ate it. I stuck around for half an hour. Brandon and the girl seemed to be doing all right. They were both quiet. After a while they danced. Then I left and sat in the car outside and smoked. She could have seen me although she didn’t show it. I knew Mitchell hadn’t. He had turned too quickly up the stairs, he had been too mad to see anything.
About ten-thirty, Brandon came out with her and they got into the Cadillac convertible with the top down. I followed it away without trying to hide because the way they went would be the way anybody would go back to the downtown part of Esmeralda. Where they went was to the Casa del Poniente, and Brandon drove down the ramp to the garage.
There was only one thing more to find out. I parked in the side lot and went through the lobby to the house phones.
“Miss Mayfield, please. Betty Mayfield.”
“One moment, please”—slight pause—”Oh yes, she just checked in. I’m ringing the room, sir.”
Another and much longer pause.
“I’m sorry, Miss Mayfield’s room does not answer.”
I thanked her and hung up. I beat it out of there fast in case she and Brandon should get off at the lobby.
I went back to my rented chariot, and poked my way along the canyon through the fog to the Rancho Descansado. The cottage where the office was seemed to be locked up and empty. A single hazy light outside showed the position of a night bell. I groped my way up to 12C, tucked the car in the car port, and yawned my way into my room. It was cold and damp and miserable. Someone had been in and taken the striped cover off the day bed and removed the matching pillowcases.
I undressed and put my curly head on the pillow and went to sleep.
9
A tapping sound awoke me. It was very light but it was also persistent. I had the feeling that it had been going on a long time and that it had very gradually penetrated my sleep. I rolled over and listened. Somebody tried the door and then the tapping started again. I glanced at my wristwatch. The faint phosphorescence showed it was past three o’clock. I got up on my feet and moved over to my suitcase and reached down into it for the gun. I went over to the door and opened it a crack.
A dark figure in slacks stood there. Some kind of windbreaker also. And a dark scarf knotted around the head. It was a woman.
“What do you want?”
“Let me in—quickly. Don’t put any light on.”
So it was Betty Mayfield. I pulled the door back and she slid in like a wisp of the fog. I shut the door. I reached for my bathrobe and pulled it on.
“Anybody else outside?” I asked. “There’s nobody next door.”
“No. I’m alone.” She leaned against the wall and breathed quickly. I fumbled my pen flash out of my coat and poked a small beam around and found the heater switch. I shone the little light on her face. She blinked away from it and raised a hand. I put the light down on the floor and trailed it over to the windows and shut them both and lowered and turned the blinds. Then I went back and switched on the lamp.
She let out a gasp, then said nothing. She was still leaning against the wall. She looked as if she needed a drink. I went out to the kitchenette and poured some whiskey into a glass and carried it to her. She waved it away, then changed her mind and grabbed the glass and emptied it.
I sat down and lit a cigarette, the always mechanical reaction that gets so boring when someone else does it. Then I just sat there and looked at her and waited.
Our eyes met across great gulfs of nothing. After a while she reached slowly into the slanted pocket of the windbreaker and pulled out the gun.
“Oh no,” I said. “Not that again.”
She looked down at the gun. Her lip twitched. She wasn’t pointing it anywhere. She pushed herself away from the wall and crossed to lay the gun down at my elbow.
“I’ve seen it,” I said. “We’re old friends. Last time I saw it Mitchell had it. So?”
“That’s why I knocked you out. I was afraid he would shoot you.”
“That would have fouled up all his plans—whatever his plans were.”
“Well, I couldn’t be sure. I’m sorry. Sorry I hit you.”
“Thanks for the ice cubes,” I said.
“Aren’t you going to look at the gun?”
“I have looked at it.”
“I walked all the way over here from the Casa. I’m staying there now. I—moved in this afternoon.”
“I know. You took a taxi to the Del Mar station to catch an evening train and then Mitchell picked you up there and drove you back. You had dinner together and danced and there was a little ill feeling. A man named Clark Brandon took you back to the hotel in his convertible.”
She stared. “I didn’t see you there,” she said finally, in a voice that was thinking of other things.
“I was in the bar. While you were with Mitchell you were too busy getting your face slapped and telling him to wear a bulletproof vest next time he came around. Then at Brandon’s table you sat with your back to me. I left before you did and waited outside.”
“I’m beginning to think you
