'Chris, this is Karyn Beatty. I'm in trouble, and I need your help. If you hear this, please come to Drago for me. And, Chris, bring a gun.'
She hesitated, knowing how crazy the rest of it would sound. She forced herself to go on. 'Load the gun with silver bullets if you can. There isn't time to explain anything now, but please, oh please, Chris, believe I need you.'
Gently she replaced the instrument and stood for several seconds staring down at it, wondering what effect her words would have on Chris Halloran. Wondering if he would even hear them in time.
'All through with your phone calls?'
Karyn started, then put on a smile as Oriole Jolivet came up beside her.
'Yes, I am. I'll just find out how much it was.' She dialed the operator and was told that the charge was another $1.19.
'The total comes to $2.38,' she told Oriole. She dipped into her change purse for two dollar bills, a quarter, dime, and nickel.
'I'll owe you the two cents,' Oriole said.
'I guess I can trust you for it.' Karyn tried to smile, but her face felt all wrong.
Oriole regarded her soberly. 'Listen, Karyn, if there's anything I can do, anything at all, just say the word. People sometimes think I'm just a fat, silly woman. I'm more than that.'
'I know you are, Oriole,' Karyn said softly.
'And maybe I'm not an old friend, but I can be a good one if you'll let me. You know where to find me. You tell Roy hello for me, now, and come on back when you feel like playin' some gin.'
'I will,' Karyn said. 'And thank you, Oriole. Goodbye.'
She went out of the store, and the hot desert wind pushed against her as she walked up the street. The dry heat sucked away the moisture of her skin, leaving it feeling scaly. In Los Angeles they called it the Santa Ana wind. They said it made people a little bit mad.
In the shadow of a doorway on the far side of the street —
When she reached the turnoff to the road that led to her house, Karyn stopped and looked around. There was no tree anywhere near the road that was big enough to smash a car. Whatever had killed Inez Polk, Karyn was sure it was not an accident.
A short distance up the narrow lane, something glittered on the ground. Karyn bent down to look, and recognized the metal frame, now twisted, and thick lenses of Inez' glasses. She slipped the ruined glasses into her pocket and started home again when something else caught her eye. At the side of the road, partly hidden by the brush, was a tennis shoe. A worn Adidas, white with blue stripes. Roy had a pair like that.
Karyn shuddered, despite the hot wind, and turned away. She walked on rapidly toward the house. In a very few hours it would be dark.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chris Halloran's hopes of getting away early for a weekend of loafing in Ensenada were fading fast. He had planned to hit the border by midmorning, but here it was afternoon and he hadn't left yet. His mistake had been to drop in on one of the clients of his engineering firm to see how a new tool-design concept was working out. There were problems. Nothing serious, but as long as Chris was on the scene he could hardly refuse to have a look. By the time he finished it was two o'clock.
On the way home he had made one more stop at a drugstore to pick up a few small items for his traveling bag. He waited impatiently in the checkout line while everyone ahead of him, it seemed, had to cash a check written on a Hong Kong bank.
At last he pulled into the underground parking area of the Surf King Apartments. The image conjured by the name had always amused Chris. Blond young giants in deep tans and cutoffs hanging ten as they hotdogged in with the heavies. Actually, the average age of Surf King tenants was comfortably over thirty, and there weren't half a dozen of them who could stand up on a surfboard. The whole marina scene was beginning to pall on Chris. The same funky-chic people in the same overpriced bars on Friday nights, telling the same lies over the same drinks and looking for… what?
Chris shook the thought away. He was not by nature a moody young man, and he did not much like himself when he became gloomy. That was the main reason for spending a weekend in Baja. He would go down by himself, get a small, comfortable hotel room, drink a little tequila, maybe do a little fishing. Or maybe just loaf. He liked to walk among the local people on streets where the tourists didn't go. He smiled in anticipation of tortillas hot from the fire and beans and Mexican chilis washed down with icy Carta Blanca. A weekend in Ensenada had always been effective therapy for Chris. He was in a hurry to be on his way.
Back in his airy two-level apartment Chris quickly packed his one small travel bag. He pulled on a comfortable old suede jacket and headed for the door. He stopped before going out to take a last look around. This was the day the cleaning lady came, so everything was shipshape — the big mirror polished, the ash trays gleaming, magazines fanned on the coffee table, cushions geometrically arranged on the three-piece sectional sofa. Chris walked over and pushed the magazines into an untidy stack. When he came back he did not want to feel he was walking into a setting for
He started out the door again, but once more he hesitated. Should he play back the morning telephone calls? What if there was one from his office with some problem or other that would mean further delay? He could ignore the message, of course, but it would bother him all the time he was in Baja. If he never heard the message, he wouldn't feel guilty. And who else but the office would call on a Friday morning?
No, he could not ignore it. Now that the thought had occurred to him, he would have to play the tape. It shouldn't take long, and then he could leave with a clear conscience. He walked back into the apartment, dropped onto one end of the sofa, and switched on the machine to play back the taped telephone calls.
The beep sounded, there was a short silence, then a male voice said, 'Oh, the hell with it.' A hollow click followed, and the rest of the allotted thirty seconds was dial tone. Many people, Chris had found, refused to talk to a machine. He didn't much blame them.
The machine beeped again. Karyn Beatty's voice came over the tiny speaker, and Chris sat suddenly upright. He was so surprised to hear her voice that the first time through the message did not fully register. Something about being in trouble and a gun and silver bullets. He recycled the tape and played it through a second time, listening carefully.
It was not a joke. There was no mistaking the urgency in Karyn's voice, and she was not the type to play this kind of joke, anyway. But the message…
Chris played back the thirty seconds of Karyn a third time, trying to pick up any kind of clue or hidden meaning. As far as he could tell, there was none. He had to assume that she meant exactly what she said. But,
He played out the rest of the tape to see if there was anything more from Karyn, but the only other call was a reminder from his dentist to come in for a checkup.
Chris snapped off the machine and sat for a moment frowning in thought. He would go at once to Drago, of course. It was possible that Karyn was imagining some kind of peril — she had certainly acted irrationally the last time he had seen her — but something in the way she spoke told him the danger was real.
His first impulse was to call the police. But what would he tell them? 'My friend's wife is in a little town called Drago and she needs help and says to bring silver bullets.' It didn't take much imagination to picture some desk sergeant's response to that. And Karyn must have reasons, or she would have called the authorities herself. He would have to go on his own.
