All Grass Isn't Green

14

Even taking a shortcut by way of Puertecitos and Riito, it’s a long ways from Mexicali to El Golfo de Santa Clara, but one thing was certain-no one was going to be looking for a missing witness at El Golfo.

From the time the road passes Riito, it runs down as a straight and virtually deserted ribbon through barren desert country until it comes to the place where it drops down from the higher country and comes to the alluvial deposit of the Colorado River near the Gulf.

Then, after a few miles, one comes to El Golfo Santa Clara, a little fishing village, beautifully picturesque, where a fishing fleet is tended by an ancient amphibious “duck” which goes from boat to boat as sort of water taxi, bringing in fish and passengers.

The fish are used to supply the local restaurants and are the overflow of the cargoes which the fishing fleet keep iced for commercial deliveries.

Here also is where the supply of clams for the California markets comes from. Miles and miles and miles of tideflats are literally filled with clams. Clammers light boats with outboard motors, drive them up over mud flats, wait until the tide goes out, then start gather clams. By the time the tide comes back in high enough float the boat, the clammers will have a load of clams which, when brought to the United States, will command a fancy price.

Aside from that and the few tourists who know of the fishing and the clamming, El Golfo basks serene and deserted in the sunlight of the Gulf.

The motel there is clean with indoor plumbing and showers in the Mexican style which tend to flood the floor of the bathroom whenever a shower is taken, and water, as I had remarked, was at “room temperature.”

Nanncie was a good sport and I felt she could put up with things and be happy.

On the way down I had a chance to get acquainted with her.

“You must think I’m something of a tramp,” said.

“Why?”

“Well, I have done so much for Cole Hale and I’m friendly with Milt Calhoun and I’m — I have quite a few friends.”

I could see she wanted to talk so I just devoted my attention to driving the car.

She said, “It’s hard for an outsider to understand the way we live — us writers.”

Again I kept quiet.

She said, “It’s’ sort of a society of its own, a freemasonry. We have very close friendships, but we’re not prepossessed with sex the way some people think. It’s more like an organization where everybody is just a close friend, as though we were all men or all women. We have so many things to think of, so much to do, so much to keep us occupied.

“Life is something of a struggle. We have to support ourselves and it’s a grim fight, but it’s a lot of fun.

“We watch the mail for envelopes, rejection slips with the returned manuscripts, and now and then a check.

“For the most part, we hit the smaller markets, the religious magazines, the trade magazines. We sell fillers, little articles, sometimes a short story of fiction.

“We all seem to keep just about one jump ahead of the landlord, and after you get to be a real part of the gang you can make a touch once in a while if a person has sold two or three good articles in succession and you’re up against it for the rent. You can make a small touch to tide yourself over. But woe to you if you don’t pay back at the first opportunity you have. The deadbeat is completely ostracized.

“It’s hard to tell you how we work out’ there on Billinger Street. It’s something like — well, from all I can hear, it’s like Greenwich Village in New York used to be many, many years ago.”

“And Milton Calhoun fits into that picture?” I asked.

“He emphatically does not fit into that picture,” she said, “and that’s why I’m afraid of him. Milt wants to be received as a friend, but you know instinctively that he isn’t one of us. If I married him I’d be jerked out of the environment I love so well. We’d be on the French Riviera, or cruising in yachts. If I wanted to have friends visit me in that environment I’d be uncomfortable and so would they.

“Right now Milt tries hard to be one of the gang, despite the act he puts on he’s an outsider.”

“Do you mean he’s a hypocrite?” I asked.

“No, no, no, I’m afraid you don’t know what I mean. You don’t understand what I’m trying to tell you.

“Milt thinks that is a poor life. He would like to me from that life. That’s the way he thinks of it as a rescue. He would like to marry me when he becomes free and give me a big house and servants and a yacht and the stuff that still goes with extreme wealth.”

“And you don’t want it?”

“I don’t want any part of it, not the way I feel now. I like Milt. I’m tremendously fond of him. I could probably fall in love with him if I’d let myself, but I love this life that I’m living, this being just one jump ahead of landlord, this studying the magazines, the writer’s magazines, looking for tips on what can be sold and where can be sold.

“Sometimes I’m a little behind in the rent, sometimes I’ve even been short on postage, but I’m one of the gang. We all of us sort of pull together. It’s a great life and I like it.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “you’re getting the cart before horse.”

“What do you mean?”

“Perhaps you ought to rescue Calhoun.”

“Rescue him from what?”

“From the same thing he’s trying to rescue you from.”

“I don’t get it.”

“From the life he leads,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, then laughed. “He’d like that!”

“Here’s a guy with money running out of his ears. He puts in his day turning to the financial column of the papers, reading the stock listings, giving orders to his brokers, having all the accessories of wealth including a dissatisfied wife. You could save him from all that.”

“Yes,” she said, laughing. “I’ve even thought of that. Suppose I did marry him and had all the glittering embellishments of wealth. Pretty quick he’d be burying his nose in the financial page at breakfast and then hurrying away to give orders to his brokers. I’d be sitting there — I won’t say a bird in a gilded cage because it’s too damn much of a cliché, but you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” I said.

“Why not tell Calhoun that if he’ll cut himself off from his bank account and move down on Billinger Street, take up writing and support himself by his earnings, you’ll feel different about it?”

She laughed gleefully. “It would be a great gag at that. I’d like to see his face when I pull that on him.”

“And Hale?” I asked. “What about Hale?”

“Hale,” she said, “is one of the gang. He’s a friend.

“Good Lord, I run onto a chance to give him a real first-class article on dope smuggling. It’s something that a man has to do — a woman can’t do it.

“So I pass the tip on to Cole Hale and do everything I can to make the story jell.”

“And what will you get out of it?”

“It depends upon what Cole gets out of it. He’ll cut me in for a percentage.”

“And you’ll take it?”

She looked at me in surprise. “Sure, I’ll take it,” she said. “What do you think I’m doing this for?”

“I thought perhaps it was from a sense of devotion.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I like Cole, but I have a living to make just as he has a living to make.”

“So you’re in this thing together?”

She nodded.

“And in deep,” I said.

Again she nodded.

After a while she said, “You’re the one I don’t get... don’t get the sketch.”

I said, “I’m a private detective. I have loyalty to person who employs me. I don’t have all of the immunities that an attorney would have. As a result I have to protect myself and my client.

“For instance, I can’t hold out evidence on the police if the police demand that evidence, and I can’t conceal evidence and I can’t conceal evidence that would tend solve a case on which the police are working. If I did, I’d be in trouble.”

“But you’re concealing me.”

“No, I’m not,” I told her. “I’m just taking you where you’re not going to be disturbed by a lot of newspaper reporters.”

“Newspaper reporters?”

“That’s right. Have you seen the evening papers?”

“No, I guess I haven’t.”

“Well,” I said, “the evening papers are making a feature of the Los Angeles millionaire who was arrested for murder.”

“But he hasn’t said anything about me, has he?”

“He hasn’t said anything about you, but don’t underestimate the skill of the reporters.”

“But how could the reporters find anything that would lead to me from the fact that Milt Calhoun has arrested?”

“They’ll talk with Calhoun’s attorney,” I said. “His attorney will be very mysterious. He won’t mention names, but the name of Colburn Hale will be brought into the case. Then the reporters will start talking with Hale.”

“Do you think he will talk?” she asked.

“Do you think he’ll keep quiet?” I countered.

She thought that one over and said, “Then why don’t you spirit him away?”

“Because,” I told her, “Hale is a witness. He enters into the case. The police wouldn’t like it if a private detective spirited Hale away. And don’t get the idea that I’m spiriting you away. I’m just taking you to a place where you won’t be disturbed and where you can get a good rest.”

“All right, we’ll let it go at that,” she said, laughing.

We let it go at that.

By the time we got to El Golfo I felt that I knew Nanncie very well indeed and she was one nice kid. I could see her viewpoint. I didn’t know how long she’d have it. I knew that sooner or later some guy would sweep her off her feet and I knew that it might well be Milton Carling Calhoun once he learned the proper approach, but I didn’t think it was my duty as his private detective to give him the proper approach. It was up to him to find that out for himself.

We got into El Golfo in time to get two rooms in the motel I told Nanncie, “There’s a bus service out of here that you can take if you have to, but you won’t be hearing from me, you won’t be hearing from anybody, unless someone comes to get you.”

“And suppose someone comes to get me?”

“Then,” I told her, “you’ll have a nice long ride.”

“Will we have breakfast together in the—”

“I’ll be long gone by breakfast,” I told her. “I have work to do.”

I filled up the agency heap and took Nanncie over to the little restaurant café. It was late, but they still had some fried prawns and I saw the surprise on her face at the quality of food.

“Just watch that you don’t get fat,” I warned.

“What am I going to do for money?” she asked.

“How much do you have?”

“Damn little.”

I laughed and said, “You have no objection taking money from me which came from Milton Calhoun as expense money?”

“Get this straight, Donald. I have no hesitancy whatever in accepting money from you for anything.”

I handed her a hundred dollars.

She looked at the money with wide-eyed surprise.

“This,” I said, “is going to have to last you for a while. Don’t try to account for it. Just put it in as a hundred dollars expense money, and if you have any left you get home, just forget about it.”

“But this is your money.”

“There’s more where that came from.”

She hesitated, then folded the money and put it in purse. I had an idea it was more money than she had one time in quite a spell.

We finished our dinner. I got her a couple of bottles of Tehuacán mineral water and a bottle opener to keep in the room, told her it was better to drink Tehuacán, the mineral water of Mexico, then it was to take a chance on drinking tap water.

When I started to say good night, she reached up kissed me.

“Donald,” she said, “I don’t know whether anyone ever told you, but you’re a very wonderful person.”

“Are you telling me now?” I asked.

She said, “I’m telling you now,” and kissed me again.