The Golden Gizmo

The gun pointing at his back, Toddy preceded the cop down the side street, across the main thoroughfare, and so on down another side street. Tourists and sightseers stared after him-curiously, haughtily, grinning. Mexican shopkeepers gazed languidly from their doorways, the dark eyes venomous or amused at the plight of the gringo. Toddy walked on and on, his jaw set, his eyes fixed on the walk immediately in front of him. He knew something of Mexican jails by reliable hearsay. When you got in down here, brother, you were in. The length of sentence didn't mean a thing. They took weeks and months, sometimes a year, to get around to sentencing you. They just locked you up and left you. And- and Shake and Donald!… Toddy's step faltered and the cop's gun prodded him… There wasn't a chance that he could persuade the two thugs to play quiet. They'd squeal their heads off about Elaine's death and the supposed dope racket, and- Somewhere a horn was honking insistently. Then a car door slammed, and Dolores called, 'Un momento!'

The cop grunted a command to halt, and swept off his cap. 'Si, Seсorita?' he said. 'A servicio de-'

He didn't get a chance to finish the sentence, or any of the several others he started. After three minutes of Dolores' rapid Spanish, he was reduced to complete silence, answering her torrent of reprimand only with feeble shrugs and apologetic gestures.

At last she snapped open her purse and uttered a contemptuous 'Cuбnto?-how much?' The cop hesitated, then drew himself erect. 'Por nada,' he said, and walked swiftly away.

Toddy said, 'Whew!' and, then, 'Thanks.'

The girl nodded indifferently. 'I must go now. You are going with me?'

Toddy said he was. 'Shake and his boys were trailing me. I-'

'I know; I saw them enter the bar. That is why I waited.'

'It didn't occur to you,' said Toddy, 'to do anything besides wait?'

'To call the police, for example? Or to intervene personally?'

'You're right,' said Toddy. 'Let's go.'

As they neared the international border, Dolores took a pair of sunglasses and a checkered motoring cap from the glove compartment and handed them to him. Toddy put them on, glanced swiftly at himself in the rear-view mirror. The disguise was a good one for a quick change. Even if his mug was out on a pickup circular, he should be able to get past the border guards.

He did get past them, after a harrowing five minutes in which the car was given a perfunctory but thorough examination. He had to get out and unlock the trunk compartment. On the spur of the moment-since he had neglected to do so sooner-he had to invent a spurious name, birthplace and occupation.

He was sweating when the car swung out of the inspection station and onto the road to San Diego. As they sped past San Ysidro, he removed the cap and glasses, mopped at his face and forehead.

'I am sorry,' said Dolores, so softly that he almost failed to hear her. She was looking straight ahead, her eyes intent on the road.

'Sorry?' said Toddy vaguely.

'You are right to be angry with me, to be suspicious. What else could you be? Except for me you would not have been involved in this affair.'

Well, Toddy thought, she'd called the turn there. But what he said, mildly, was, 'Forget it. I was asking for it. A guy like me wouldn't feel right if he wasn't in trouble.'

'Wouldn't he?'

Toddy looked at her, looked quickly away again. She couldn't mean what she seemed to, not with Elaine murdered and himself the principal suspect. That, and everything else that was hanging over him. Of course, she wouldn't be any angel herself but… But he couldn't think the thing through. It was a hell of a poor time to try to.

'I don't know,' he said shortly. 'Probably not.'

'I see.' Her voice was flat.

'I'-Toddy hesitated-'maybe. It would depend on a lot of things.'

20

The house was in the Mission Hills section of San Diego, located on a pie-shaped wedge of land overlooking the bay. On one side a street dropped down to Old Town. On the other side another road wound downward toward Pacific Highway. In the front, a multiple intersection separated the house from its nearest neighbor by a block. There were no houses in the rear, of course; only a steep bluff.

Toddy sat in the front room-a room as sparsely furnished as the one in Chinless' Los Angeles dwelling. He had been sitting there alone for some fifteen minutes. As soon as he and the girl had arrived, Alvarado had spoken rapidly to her in Spanish-too rapidly for Toddy's casual understanding of the language-and she had gone down the hallway toward the rear of the house. Alvarado had followed her, after politely excusing himself, and closed the door; and dimly, a moment later, Toddy had heard another door close. Since then there had been silence-almost.

It seemed to Toddy, once, that he heard a faint outcry. A moment later he had thought he heard the dog bark. Thought. He wasn't sure. He strained his ears, held his breath, listening, but the sounds were not repeated.

Toddy waited with increasing uneasiness. In the far corner of the room was a desk littered with papers. When he and Dolores had arrived, Alvarado had been working there, and something about the sight had given Toddy an inexplicable feeling of danger. He wanted to get a better look at those papers. He wondered whether he dared risk the few steps across the room and a quick glance or two.

He decided to try it.

Rising cautiously, an eye on the hall door, he tiptoed across the floor and looked swiftly down at the desk. The papers were covered with rows of neatly written figures, interspersed occasionally with what appeared to be abbreviations of certain words. They were meaningless.

'Meaningless, Mr. Kent,' said Alvarado, 'unless you have the code book.'

He came in smiling, closing the door behind him, and crossed to the desk. He picked up a small black book that had been lying face down and riffled its pages of fine, closely printed type.

'This is it. Regrettably, it is much too complex to explain in the brief time we have.'

'Better skip it, then,' said Toddy, matching the other's irony. And as he resumed his seat on the other side of the room, Alvarado chuckled amiably.

'A man after my own heart,' he declared, sitting back down at the desk. 'I cannot tell you how disappointed I am that we shall not work together… For the time being, at least.'

'No?' Toddy crossed his legs. The air was heavy with perfume. Alvarado apparently had doused himself with it.

'No. Unfortunately. But we will come to that in a moment. I have had you visit me so that I might explain-explain everything that may be explained. You are entitled to know; and, as I say, I hope we may work together eventually. I did not wish you to be left with an unfavorable opinion of me.'

'Go on,' said Toddy.

'After I dispatched you to Tijuana, I communicated the fact to our supplier of gold… the man I suspected of killing your wife. He, reacting as I believed he would, ordered you murdered. To be slugged and disposed of permanently as soon as it was expedient. As soon as the first half of the order was carried out, I intervened. I had the proof I wanted.'

'Proof?' Toddy frowned. 'I don't get it.'

'But it is so simple! He killed your wife-I was certain-merely as a means of disposing of you. He hoped to involve you, and through you me, in a crime which would break up our syndicate and release him from duties which have long been onerous to him. Now you understand?'

'No,' said Toddy. 'I don't.'