Manhunt. Volume 14, Number 2, April/May 1966

“Go ahead... shoot,” Short laughed. “I’ll bet you a harp and a halo I explode this thing before I die.”

1

The first thing Oliver Short saw as he stepped from the train into the blazing hot sun of San Jacinado was a man some sixty or seventy pounds fatter than himself. That put the guy at an even three-hundred. He was standing on the dry wooden train-platform, dressed in a white linen suit and a broad-brimmed panama hat, staring fixedly at Short. His face, burned a fiery red, was a jellylike thing of bulbs and pouches, and it overhung a white collar secured by a black shoestring tie. The man’s eyes, all but lost in the fat, were like tiny jet-black licorice pastiles, hard and shiny. He was about five-yards away from Short. He stood solid, feet well apart, weight thrown back on his heels, and he projected an air of authority.

Short frowned, took his eyes away from the man, and let them go down the length of the platform. Just past the center, standing by a bright red bottled-soda machine, he saw a blond woman in a white and green print dress. She was wearing sunglasses and carried a large white purse. Short hefted his overnight bag from left to right hand, gave the fat man an amused look, and walked toward the woman. At the soda-machine he paused and stuck in a dime. The bottle he got was warm as soup and he tossed it, unopened, into the slotted box provided for empties.

“Nice racket,” he said, grinning and nodding at three or four other unopened bottles beside the one he’d discarded. “All profit.” Then his face became serious. “You’re Susan McCrory?” he asked, as his eyes swept down from the woman’s crown of golden hair to her trim ankles and neat white sandals.

She removed the sun-glasses and blinked. “Yes. You’re the man from the Cosmopolitan Agency?”

“Yes. I’m Oliver Short. I caught the first morning train from Frisco. You told the Chief on the phone that it was a matter of life or death—” Short glanced over his shoulder and saw that the fat man was staring at them intently — “anything to do with the heavy boy down there?”

“Yes.” Susan McCrory’s blue eyes narrowed. “His name’s Clymer. Martin Clymer. He’s the sheriff, the magistrate, the mayor, and everything else in San Jacinado. He owns the Paloma Hotel, the Sierra Royal Restaurant, the San Jacinado Garage and Auto Sales Company, and just about everything and everybody around here. The people obey him like trained dogs.”

“He sounds important.” Short hung a Kent on his lip after Susan refused one. He flipped open his Zippo lighter and sucked on the flame. “He’s giving you trouble?”

Susan’s lip trembled and for a moment Short thought she was going to cry. “Take it easy,” he advised. “He’s not going to do anything right now. You can be sure of that.” Short looked round and took in the flat yellow sand that stretched from the station platform in all directions, then said, “Shall we go wherever we’re staying and you can tell me on the way?”

“All right. But go off the platform on this end. I don’t want to talk to him — not till I tell you the story.” Short nodded. “We’re walking? I don’t see any car.”

“It’s not far. Less than a half-mile. The town’s behind that rise over there. From here it’s hidden, but you’ll see it in a minute.”

Short nodded again and guided Susan’s elbow as they stepped from the low platform to a rutlike path of hard yellow clay. “We’re staying at his hotel?”

“There’s no other,” Susan answered simply. After a few steps, she added, “It’s empty except for me. They say it’s off-season for tourists. There were some old ladies and a minister there Monday and Tuesday, but they checked out.”

Short looked at the girl — in terms of his fifty years he could only consider her a girl, although she was perhaps twenty-three or twenty-four — and he decided if she wasn’t so frightened and worried looking, she’d be a real beauty. Her complexion was soft and white, and there was no trace of habitual squint about her eyes — sure indications she was not a native of San Jacinado or its environs. By her dialect, Short set her origin as the north middle-west.

“Are you armed?” she asked suddenly, before Short got round to commenting on the empty hotel.

“Yes.” Short smiled with the word.

“That’s good. I am too. When I got the anonymous phone call to go down to Sonora — that’s in Old Mexico — I bought a gun while I was there.” Susan patted her handbag. “I have it right here. Loaded.”

Tugging at the corners of his mouth to hide the smile, Short said, “Maybe you’d better tell me the whole thing from the beginning.”

Susan nodded and began talking, slowly at first, then as the matter came to a head, much more rapidly. Short listened, said “yes” many times, and twice glanced back over his shoulder. Martin Clymer, the fat boss of San Jacinado, was not to be seen.

2

By the time they stood in the adobe walled courtyard of the Paloma Hotel, what Short knew about Susan McCrory and her troubles added up to the following:

A week before — which made it a Friday — Susan McCrory and her newlywed husband of a month had arrived in San Jacinado. They’d been driving to Old Mexico and had stopped for dinner and a night’s rest in what had impressed them as being a pleasant, quaint little bordertown. Susan’s husband, John McCrory, a tall, thin, heavily bearded, prematurely bald man of thirty, had been enjoying the best of spirits. They’d wined and dined well at the Sierra Royal Restaurant, then, after John left instructions at the San Jacinado Garage to have the car checked, they retired to their room at the Paloma.

In the morning when Susan awoke, the first thing she noticed was that the twin bed John had occupied was empty. It was also neatly made up. Surprised that John had risen so early and that he’d troubled to make the bed, Susan had puzzled the matter for several minutes before getting up herself and dressing. She finally concluded that John had either gone to see about the car, anxious that it be ready for an early start, or had decided to do a little sight-seeing on his own. Also, she remembered that John had once or twice shown traces of restlessness and insomnia during the early morning hours. He was a music composer by profession and often worked the night through, going to bed at dawn.

When she came down to the hotel lobby, Susan asked the desk-clerk if her husband had left a message. The clerk gave her a blank look and wanted to know what she was talking about. Although exasperated at the man’s stupidity, Susan patiently explained that her husband, John McCrory, had come down from their room earlier and she wanted to know what message he’d left for her concerning his whereabouts. To this the clerk had replied that Mrs. McCrory had no husband in the hotel to his knowledge. While looking her straight in the eye he said she’d checked into the Paloma alone. For a moment this answer staggered Susan, then she decided the clerk was either drunk or insane — or a little of both. She told him in no uncertain terms to stop talking damn nonsense and tell her when and where her husband had gone. The clerk shrugged, called a Mexican boy who worked as a bellhop and porter, and an old woman chambermaid, and both of these persons solemnly confirmed that Susan McCrory had come into the hotel alone. Hearing this, Susan lost control and screamed. She rushed upstairs, intending to get some of John’s things, clothing and whatnot, to prove he existed and had been there. But not an item of luggage, clothing, or personal property was to be found. Even the paper wrapper from the new razor-blade he’d used the night before was gone — John didn’t shave, but he had a troublesome callous on his right foot and he’d spent a half-hour or so soaking and trimming it. Also gone was John’s attache-case which contained hundreds of pages of musical scores — all his current work-in-progress. This was too much for Susan and she fainted.

Upon regaining consciousness she decided the events of the early morning had been a dream. But the made-up bed was still there and John’s luggage was nowhere about. With a great effort, Susan got control of herself then and once more went down to the clerk. She quietly told him that unless he admitted the truth — that she had had a husband in the hotel — and unless he gave some explanation of his whereabouts, she would go directly to the police. The “police” turned out to be Martin Clymer. On the screened-in porch of his home next to his general store, he listened to Susan’s story with great interest and concern. Then he accompanied her back to the hotel and questioned everybody — desk-clerk, bellhop, and chambermaid. Their stories were consistent down to the minutest detail — Susan McCrory had checked into the Paloma alone. Sheriff Clymer asked to see the hotel register. When it was produced it showed opposite Room 3 the single signed name, Mrs. Susan McCrory, and following that the address, 22 Pike Street, Chicago, Ill. Clymer then asked Susan for her driver’s license. The address on it tallied with the one in the register and the signatures were identical. It was a bad moment for Susan and she came near to fainting again.

Sheriff Clymer told her there was nothing he could do unless she could explain the register and could produce some kind of evidence that John had existed. It was impossible for him to believe that everybody in the hotel was lying. Then Susan thought of the garage where John had taken the car the night before. Clymer agreed to question the mechanic. But when they got there, the mechanic, a middle-aged Mexican of serious mein whose speech was interspersed with all kinds of religious avowals involving various saints and the Holy Trinity, said quite plainly that Susan had brought the car and given instructions to check it over. This closed the matter as far as Clymer was concerned, except that later on in the evening he sent Doc Haines, the local bonesetter, over to the hotel to look at and talk with Susan.

For a couple days nothing happened. Susan refused to leave the Paloma without her husband, and since she’d paid her bill in advance nobody could object to that. She searched the town, questioned everyone she could, and drove miles and miles hunting for John — or his body — in the surrounding desert. All this was to no avail, except that in actually moving about and doing something, Susan found that her strength and courage rose to the situation. She became grimly determined. Then Monday morning, three days after John’s disappearance, she received a mysterious phone call. A woman’s voice told her to drive down to a certain address in Sonora, across the Mexican border, and she might find something she’d lost. Then the voice laughed softly and clicked into silence. Susan went at once. It was a drive of fifty miles and ended in a blind alley. Number 14 Balboa Avenue — the address she’d been given — turned out to be a tourist shop whose owners disclaimed all knowledge of Susan, her husband, or of any phone calls to San Jacinado. After that, Susan spent the remainder of the day in Sonora, reporting the matter to the local police, asking questions in unlikely places, and finally buying an automatic pistol in a pawn-shop. Then she drove back to San Jacinado. Martin Clymer looked skeptical, bored, and mildly sympathetic when she told him about the strange phone call.

On Thursday evening, in desperation, Susan suddenly thought of the Cosmopolitan Detective Agency, whose Chicago branch provided security for the bank where she worked as a cashier. She phoned San Francisco and spoke to the Chief of that branch, requesting the services of an operative immediately and giving the name of her bank-president uncle as reference that the required retainer would be paid. The following afternoon she — and Martin Clymer, doubtless informed of the phone call by the hotel clerk — awaited Short’s arrival by train.

3

After hearing all this, Oliver Short put a cigarette between his lips and lit it. He stared at a dry pool and fountain in the center of the Paloma courtyard. “Before we go in,” he said, “I’ve a couple questions.”

Susan put a hand on his arm and stared at him with wide anxious eyes. “You believe me, don’t you? You don’t think I’m crazy?”

“Is that what Doc Haines said?”

“Just about.”

Short rubbed his fat neck, squinted at the girl, and shook his head sideways. “I’ve heard of one or two women who imagined they had husbands. One of them — a case in Spokane — used to go out and buy clothes, shaving-cream, and special food for hers. She even answered ads in the help wanted columns for him. Laziness was his big trouble. But—” Short patted Susan’s hand — “none of these women looked anything like you. These gals had to imagine they had husbands. You get my point?

“Yes.” Susan flushed pink with the word.

“Anyway,” Short added, “I believe your story.”

A great deal of tension and fear drained from Susan’s face. “Thank you. After a week of everybody saying you’re crazy, just having somebody believe you is a relief. You can’t guess how much.”

“Sure I can. Now tell me what John looks like. I assume any pictures you had of him were taken along with his luggage?”

“Yes. Our wedding pictures. And I had a few snapshots from back in Chicago that are gone too.”

“I see. Well, describe John, please.”

Susan was silent a moment while she looked pensively at two stone turtles that formed the fountain. “Like I told you, he’s tall and thin and prematurely bald. He has a heavy, full brownish-black beard. His face is long, narrow, and strong; especially the jaw which you can see forming powerful ridges at his cheeks and ears. His neck is lean and corded. His eyes are large, deep-set, and burning-dark. They smoulder with unexpressed feeling. He’s sensitive and tense and sort of charged with vitality. He’s alive to things in a way that other men — most of them — aren’t. It’s hard to explain.”

“Was he in the service? Army? Navy?”

Susan looked blank. “I don’t know. The subject never came up. He’s not much interested in war, politics, and things like that. He’s an artist — a gentle person. His music is beautiful and important — one day he’ll be famous.”

Short nodded. “How does he dress?”

“Not too carefully, I’m afraid.” Susan smiled. “He likes old rumpled tweeds — worn, comfortable things. There’s nothing pretentious or middle-class about him; he’s spontaneous and happy — like a big boy. I think that’s because he loves his work. His whole life’s doing the thing he wants most to do — creating music.”

“Uh huh.” Short considered a moment. “What kind of an income does his music bring?”

Susan hesitated and looked from Short to the stone turtles. “Nothing yet,” she said. “You see, he doesn’t write popular music. It’s deep serious stuff — symphonies, string-quartets, tone-poems — that kind of thing. There’s no immediate market for it.”

Short studied Susan’s face in silence.

“You have to understand,” she added quickly. “It’s hard to explain John. He sounds weird to people who don’t understand. He’s not interested much in money or property—”

“You mean he’s a Beat?” Short asked. “And was scrounging along in some cellar or attic while he wrote music? And now you’re paying the bills?”

A defiant look came into Susan’s eyes. “We all live off the earth. In a sense, we’re all parasites. Those of us who are ethical try to give something back. Something truly worthwhile. John’s trying to give something tremendous. He works long hard hours without ever thinking ‘What am I going to get out of it?’ Why shouldn’t I share in his project? In fact—” Susan’s chin rose — “it’s a privilege.”

“All right,” Short said, smiling. “I’m not criticizing you or John. What does your banker-uncle think of this marriage?”

“He didn’t know until John and I left. I wrote him a letter. I don’t know what he thinks.”

Short digested these facts. He looked at the dry fountain and saw, lying on the bottom, two perfect little fish skeletons, bleached white as lime from the hot sun. Goldfish, probably.

“How long had you and John known each other?” he asked.

“Two months. We met at a concert and took to each other at once. If—” Susan paused and shook her head — “if you’re thinking John married me for money and then run out, you’re wrong. All I have is what I saved from my job. It’s true my uncle is well-to-do, but he has a large family of his own.”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Short said. “But speaking of money; how much was John carrying?”

“About twenty-dollars. He hates to be bothered handling money and was glad to let me take charge of it. I have our traveler’s checks and my regular checkbook here in my purse.”

“What exactly is your financial situation?”

“We have the car — a new Chevrolet that’s paid for — and a little over two-thousand dollars.”

“Well,” Short smiled, “that rules John out as a kidnapping and ransom prospect — unless the local boys work awful cheap. The checking account’s in your name?”

Susan smiled archly. “Yes. I suggested changing it over, but John said, ‘Why bother?’ ”

Short nodded. “Did you and John have any kind of disagreement last night? Was everything going along okay?”

“Everything was fine. We got along perfectly. Besides, if John left me, for any reason, how would that explain the behavior of Clymer, the desk-clerk, and the others? You think he could bribe the whole town to say he didn’t exist.

“Not likely. Have either of you ever been in this town before?”

“No.”

“No connection of any kind with anybody here?”

“None.”

“Remember,” Short pointed out, “you’ve only known John three months.”

Susan shook her head. “No, he’s from the East. New York. Besides, we only came here by accident.”

“What do you mean?”

“About twenty-miles north there’s a major fork in the highway. A sign says ‘San Jacinado’ one way and ‘Silver City’ the other. Both go down into Mexico. John asked me which way I wanted to go and when I said I didn’t care he flipped a coin, heads for San Jacinado and tails for Silver City. It came up heads.”

“That’s conclusive enough,” Short said, shrugging. “Now about the hotel-register — John actually signed it?”

“Certainly.”

“Yet Clymer found your signature and it checked with the one on your driver’s license.”

“I can’t explain that. I never signed the register.”

“How long have you been driving?”

Susan looked surprised. “About three years. Why?”

“Wouldn’t your license be in your maiden-name? Shaw?

“Oh—” Susan shook her head — “I had it changed a day or two after the wedding.”

“Most people aren’t so efficient.”

“I am. I like records and things kept up to date and accurate. I also changed my library-card and my voting registration. It’s a habit you pick up working in a bank. Loose ends prey on my mind.”

“The Beats I’ve known,” Short said drily, “hardly measure up to those standards. Most of them don’t bother to keep track of the day of the month.”

“Meaning why did I marry a man like John if I like system and order?” Susan shrugged and smiled. “Maybe it’s a case of opposites attracting. To be honest, John’s hardly even conscious of the month, let alone the day. In practical matters, he’s an overgrown child.”

“Has he had any kind of success with his music?” Short asked. “Since he’s thirty, I imagine he’s been working at it a few years at least.”

“His quartets and trios have been played by the Chicago Friends of Music Society. And he’s had work played in New York. All free concerts, open to the general public. His work is very advanced — ultra modern — what we call anti-Gestalt, Primary-Process expression. It’s unsigned, atonal, dissonant, and tremendously exciting.”

“Yes,” Short said. He lit a cigarette and walked to the edge of the fountain. He stared at the dry stone, watching heat waves rise from its surface and distort the line of the opposite side. “It’s funny,” he added after a moment, “that they don’t run this thing. It’s kind of pretty.”

“They drained it,” Susan replied, moving to Short’s side. “I understand there was a serious water shortage a few months back.”

“You’d think,” Short pointed to the fish skeletons, “that somebody’d be decent enough to have put those fish in a bowl first. A little detail like that says a lot about people. Well—” he smiled and nodded at the pink stucco fronted hotel building with its sloping roof of interlocked red tiles — “I guess we go in now.”

4

Short rented room 5, next door to Susan’s. He put his bag on a chair, removed a blackjack and a pair of handcuffs from it, slipped them into his hip pocket, and looked round. It was a plain room. It had two windows, chintz-curtained and draped at the sides with gray monk’s cloth; a pair of twin beds of brown painted metal, two small chests of drawers, and two wooden chairs. A cheap printing of a dying Indian on a horse was framed and hung over one bed; nothing hung over the other. A multicolored oval rag rug was placed on the bare wooden floor between the beds. There was a Bible placed squarely on top of one chest of drawers.

Completing his survey, Short moved to the hall doorway in a quick jump and flung the door inward. His arm flashed out and caught the wrist of a thin, wiry Mexican boy of nineteen or twenty-years. The kid struggled hard and missed a poorly aimed blow at Short’s face; Short grunted, twisted the wrist round hard, and brought the kid down to his knees, yelling with pain.

“Gotcha!” Short grinned. “I bet you were listening to see if I needed water.”

“Si — yes, yes, Senor! That is right. You need ice-water, no?”

Short laughed. He passed his hand along the kid’s belt and shirt front. “No shiv?” he asked in surprise. The Mexican looked at him in stubborn silence. “Maybe,” Short said, frowning, “we’ll find something here.” He reached behind the kid’s collar and pulled from a sheath nestled between his shoulder-blades a ten-inch, leaf-bladed throwing-knife, flat at the guard and ground from a single cut of steel. “Well, well—” Short hefted the knife in his palm, testing the balance — “you’re a real little pro. Bet you could spear a fly at ten yards with this dingus, no?”

The kid’s eyelids lowered and his face froze into a stubborn mask of hate. His jaw muscles tensed as he locked them in silence.

Short let go of his wrist, saying, “Go back and tell your fat boss I’ll be around to see him in about a half-hour. Meanwhile,” he opened his coat and slipped the knife into his belt, “I’ll borrow your pig-sticker.”

“Bitch! Dog!” the boy cried, spitting and backing away. “Fat overfed Gringo!”

“That’s bad language, Son. Now go ahead and deliver my message while you still got teeth.” Saying this, Short followed the kid a short way down the hall and watched him as he descended the stairs. Then Short went back and tapped lightly on Susan’s door. She opened it at once.

“What happened out here?” she asked. “I was changing and I heard a noise.”

“Nothing. I caught the bellhop spying on me. Look, I’m going to make a couple calls. I suppose we’ll be eating at that Sierra Royal Restaurant you mentioned — Clymer’s — suppose I meet you there in about an hour?”

“All right. It’s only a block down the main street. But I thought you’d want to check in here first.”

“No point.” Short shook his head. “There won’t be anything of John’s — not if somebody thought of his razor-blade wrapper. I’ll put the time to better use. By the way, where was that razor-blade wrapper? Where’d John put it?”

Susan stepped back from the door and pointed to a small table placed between a pair of twin beds exactly like the ones in Short’s room. “He twisted it into a ball and tossed it at me in fun. It bounced off my arm and landed behind that table. Then he went into the bathroom.”

Short looked at Susan curiously. “After your first encounter with the clerk, you rushed up here to get something of John’s to prove his existence. You were in a distraught condition, near to fainting, minutes later you did faint — yet you thought of a little thing like a razor-blade wrapper behind a table? It seems strange.”

Glancing nervously at the table again, Susan caught her underlip between her teeth and frowned. She looked back at Short. “I guess it’s because he tossed the paper at me — or because it went behind the table. John’s careless about things — cigarette-ashes, coins, letters — all that sort of stuff; he tosses it wherever he happens to be standing. It... it annoys me a little. I guess that’s why I remembered.”

“That’s probably it.” Short nodded. “It sounds like a funny question, but I thought the Beat crowd was against marriage — how come John took the plunge?”

Susan shook her head. “They’re against marriage in the conventional sense. I’m not the kind of woman who’d be a drag and take John away from his creative work. In fact, I wouldn’t want him if he wasn’t what he is. I think good music’s the most important thing in the world.”

“Ever study it yourself?”

“Many years. The piano. I play competently; I began at seven; but I’ve no creative power. John has.”

Understanding came into Short’s pale blue eyes. He smiled and bobbed his head once. “Okay — I want to talk to the clerk now. I’ll meet you at the Sierra Royal in an hour. Just take it easy.”

The desk-clerk was a sallow, horse-faced man of some sixty years. Long-drawn wrinkles, a loose chin, and watery bloodshot blue eyes made him tired and weary looking. He was reading a Los Angelos newspaper and picking at his decayed front teeth with a bent-open paper-clip. Hovering about him was the smell of cheap, strong tobacco and stale wine. A crescent of white showed under his eyes as he peeped upward at Short’s approach.

“Something wrong with the room?” he asked indifferently.

“No. Just the help.” Short pulled the throwing-knife from his belt and tossed it on the desk. “No wonder this joint’s empty — since when do bellhops carry these?”

Looking at the blade, the clerk gave a loose, flabby grin. “That don’t mean nothing. All these Spiks carry knives. Makes ’em feel important.”

“Yeah,” Short said. “Guess I’m just getting touchy.” He leaned over the desk. “What happened to Mrs. McCrory’s husband?”

The clerk kept grinning. “She never had any — not here anyway.” He touched his temple with a yellow-stained forefinger. “It’s all in the mind.”

“You’re telling me she’s crazy?”

“What else? Ha! — ” the clerk cackled — “who’d steal her husband? Why? Ha, ha! Doc Haines says she’s got what they call demon’s cocks. It’s pretty bad.”

Short frowned and thought. “He probably said dementia praecox.”

“Yeah, that’s it. You a doctor too?”

“Come off it, Old Timer — you know I’m a detective. Look, if this dame who hired me is really nuts, why’s everybody acting so cagey?”

The clerk shrugged. “She’s a nuisance. Makes everybody nervous talking about a big bearded bald-headed guy who don’t exist. Saying somebody stole him. We’re quiet folks down here. Sheriff Clymer’ll be satisfied if she just drives back to Chicago. She’s been bugging him every day for a week.”

Short lit a Kent, drew on it hard, and held in a great lungful of smoke. He eyed the clerk thoughtfully as he slowly exhaled. “Sheriff Clymer — is that exactly what he said? — that he’d be satisfied if she just drives back to Chicago?”

“Sure.”

“Those were his very words?”

“Yeah, sure. Clymer’s a sport. He had Doc Haines look her over — no charge. He’ll bill the county. That’s pretty white, I’d say.”

“Yeah, it is,” Short agreed. “Maybe I’ve come down here on a wild goose chase. Maybe,” he considered, smoking, “I’ll run over to the garage, check her car out, and get her home as soon as possible. Maybe I’ll start tonight. Let her folks back in Chicago handle her.”

The clerk nodded emphatically. “You’re talking sense, Mr. Short. That’s where the poor girl belongs — with her folks. And her car’s out back in the parking lot.”

“It wasn’t repaired in the garage? She imagined that too?”

“No. Juan Colum had it that first night. He cleaned the plugs and timed it. She’s run it down to Sonora since then. In fact—” the clerk giggled — “she bought herself a gun.”

“She didn’t get a phone call sending her down there?”

“Not while I was on duty.”

“Who handles the board when you’re not?”

“Nobody,” the clerk grinned. “I just leave the phone here in the lobby plugged for outside.”

“Then she couldn’t get a call in her room when you weren’t on duty?”

“Right. And she didn’t when I was.”

“Are things always so slow in this hotel — just one or two guests, I mean?”

“It’s off-season.”

Short nodded. “Okay, Old Timer.” He ground his cigarette into a tin tray loaded with butts. “Maybe I’d better see Sheriff Clymer before I haul her off. Make it official when I talk to her folks.”

“That makes good sense. He’s most likely in his general store — right down the street, past the Sierra Royal, and on the other side. Can’t miss it.”

“Thanks. See you later—” Short began to move away, then stopped — “oh... one thing — how come you know she bought a gun?”

The clerk gave his cackling laugh. “She asked me where she could buy one. I told her Sonora.”

“Wasn’t that kind of dumb — considering she’s deluded?”

“Maybe,” the clerk admitted. “Guess I just didn’t think.”

“Everybody makes mistakes,” Short told him, waving a generous hand. “See you later.” He left the hotel then, crossed the patio, and looked up and down the main street. He saw the Sierra Royal Restaurant sign, the words formed of unlit neon tube and set within a neon crown; and beyond it, on the other side of the street, a plain black and white printed board that read: M. Clymer. General Merchandise. Walking rapidly up to it, Short saw a large window loaded with everything from shoes to farm implements; and beside the window, separated by a narrow alley but attached to the same building, a screened-in white-painted porch. Through the screens he saw the fat man, Sheriff Martin Clymer, sitting in a wicker rocking-chair, and on a wicker taboret at his elbow was a tall frosty-looking glass containing some beverage. Beside it was a telephone. Short walked up two flat wooden steps and rattled the screen-door by its brass knob.

“Come in, sir,” the fat man nodded, smiling with the words. “Come in, by all means. I’ve been expecting you for the past hour. Just turn the knob; it’s unlocked. I always say that honest, Godfearing folks have little need of bolts, catches, and keys. Those who live behind locks do so because of the larceny in their own souls. Take a chair, sir — you’re most welcome.”

Short sat in a rocker that faced Clymer’s at a distance of four feet. He planted his arms on the wicker rests, laced his fingers across his stomach, studied the fat sheriff, and said nothing.

The fat man smiled again. His lips, lumped round with rings and gullies of pink flesh, were a perfect little cupid’s bow, uptilted at the edges and lost in deep dimples. His nose was a black clotted button, a lump centered on his face, to all appearances lacking bone or bridge. And little black eyes, wide-spaced on each side of it, sparkled with a kind of puckish delight. He still wore white linen, but it was a freshly cleaned and pressed suit. His tie was a blue bow, mostly hidden under the enormous folds of flesh that constituted his chin.

“I’m Martin Clymer, at your service, sir.” The pink lips moved girlishly, and the voice, pitched high with a nasal twang, suggested bubbles of merriment. “Sarah! Come, Sarah!” he called, cranking his neck round and sending his voice into the doorway of the house proper. Almost on the last syllable of her name a tired-looking, gray-haired woman appeared. She was small and birdlike. Dressed in a blue cotton dress, no cosmetics on her face, hair pulled back and tied into a large bun on her thin neck, she glanced once, quickly and nervously, at Oliver Short. Then she lowered her mild gray eyes, saying, “Yes, Martin?”

“Something to drink for our guest, Sarah. This is Mr.... ah—”

“Short. Oliver Short,” the detective said, standing up.

“My wife,” Clymer added. “Now, a gin and tonic for Mr. Short, please.”

The woman bobbed her head in reply to Short’s smile and scurried away without a word. “Be seated, sir,” Clymer insisted, taking a long, flat case from his inner breast pocket. He flicked it into halves and held it in a chubby palm before Short. “Cigarette? Those on the left are an Egyptian blend; on the right, Chesterfields. I alternate and find the combination delightfully complementary.”

Short took a Chesterfield. Clymer held out a lighter and asked, “You’re a silent, reserved type of man?”

“No. I talk a lot. Right now I’m wondering why the town of Jacinado would want to steal and make vanish a not wealthy, not famous, relatively unimportant beatnik composer.”

Clymer watched Short steadily and closely for a few seconds, then, all, at once, he slapped both hands down on his fat knees. “Ha, ha!” he wheezed, rocking forward and backward, “Ha, ha! Very good and very well put! Ha! Why indeed? Isn’t it ludicrous, sir?”

“But on the other hand,” Short continued, keeping his expression sober, “why would Susan McCrory make up a story that such a thing had happened? What’s in it for her?”

Before Clymer could reply, Mrs. Clymer reappeared bearing a tray with two tall glasses exactly like the one Clymer had at his elbow. She served both men and left without a word. Clymer picked up his glass and said:

“Well, here’s to mutual understanding.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Short agreed. He tasted his drink and nodded. “Good. Excellent. Now, Sheriff, how can you help me clear up my client’s troubles — no point beating round the bush; you know who I am and exactly why I’m here.”

Clymer put his glass beside its twin on the table and held out his pudgy hands, palms up. Baffled sincerity was in his eyes, the lines of his forehead, and in his smile. “I can’t help you, sir. How can I? As you yourself so aptly expressed it, the situation is absurd. There’s neither motivation for the hypothetical missing man’s existence or his disappearance. We must therefore conclude that the poor girl is sick. At least three persons saw her enter this town and the hotel entirely alone. There’s not a scrap of evidence — not a shoelace — to indicate the reality of Mr. John McCrory. What can I possibly do?”

“That lack of evidence is what bothers me,” Short said. “It works two ways — if the girl’s really deluding herself, it seems to me she would have all kinds of evidence handy — a man’s clothing, shaving-cream, personal papers, and that kind of thing.”

“I’m not a psychopathologist,” Clymer shrugged, “and know nothing of the variations of the schizophrenia syndrome.”

Short smiled. “I’d say you’re an unusual man for a small town sheriff.”

“Contrary to the popular notion—” Clymer glanced at his neatly trimmed, pink fingernails — “environment and circumstances do not make the man. But to return to Mrs. McCrory, I’ve had Doctor Haines over to see her and he’s convinced she’s suffering from delusions. However, she’s broken no law; I can’t order her out of the hotel or take her into custody. Outside of notifying the authorities in White County, where there’s a mental institution, my hands are tied.”

“Why haven’t you done that?”

“Conscience, sir. A matter of conscience.” Clymer’s head wagged forward on his big shoulders. “According to Haines, the girl could snap out of this thing as quickly as she snapped into it. Is it my place to institutionalize her and possibly stigmatize her life? Is such a decision my responsibility?”

“I guess not,” Short admitted. “Well, she can’t hang round here forever. What if she just drove back to Chicago to her parents? You’d be satisfied?”

Clymer exhaled a big sigh. “That I would, sir. I certainly would. I’d rather be faced with smoking out a gang of bandits than this sort of problem.”

“She could be dangerous in her delusions,” Short suggested. “She bought a gun down in Sonora.”

“Yes. A used 7.5 mm. Mauser automatic pistol.” Clymer smiled. “And a box of American .32 caliber cartridges, which, being—” Clymer paused and eyed the porch ceiling while he calculated swiftly — “0.6 mm. oversize will either jam or eventually ruin a fine weapon. I have the serial number of the pistol in on my desk. We get full reports on guns and jewelry bought below the border — nothing official, you understand; the merchants simply cooperate informally. As to her having the gun, well—” Clymer shrugged — “we have no local ordnance against firearms. Criminals carry them regardless of the law, and we see no sense in preventing honest citizens front protecting their lives and property. Outside of her delusion about a husband, the girl seems sensible and reasonable enough. So far, I’ve just let the matter of the gun ride.”

Short listened to all this with considerable interest while he sipped his drink. “You know German guns?” he asked.

“I’ve a fine collection of Lugers and Mausers.” Clymer nodded. “On another occasion I’d be pleased to have you examine it.”

“Years ago, when I was with the OSS, I picked up a few nice guns,” Short said. “Which reminds me, I spent some time in these parts. There used to be a hell of a big traffic in heroin and morphine.”

“There’s still some. However, the Border Patrol and the FBI men keep it pretty well down. But what does the OSS have to do with smuggling?”

Short looked surprised and vague, as if he’d been caught thinking of something else. “Smuggling? Oh, nothing. We were tracking enemy agents holed up in Mexico; the smuggling was just something I heard about. Heroin and morphine came to our attention because the Nazi bigwig we were after kept himself feeling like a superman with a skinful of dope. We traced him through his supplier.” Short laughed. “In the fatherland he had chemically pure demerol; here he took plain sugar-cut junk.”

“Circumstances change, sir,” Clymer said, staring fixedly at Short.

“Yeah, they do. But like you said, it’s the man who counts. Well—” Short rubbed his jaw with a thumb and forefinger — “as soon as I nail down some definite evidence that my client’s dreamed up this husband of hers, I’ll get her back to her parents. Anyhow, I’ll wire Chicago and my Frisco office.”

“Maybe I can save you some trouble. I wired the Chicago police Tuesday for a run-down on the girl and her supposed husband. I’m expecting a reply any hour. As far as your company’s concerned — what’s its name, sir — Metropolitan?”

“Cosmopolitan Detective Agency.”

“Yes. Well, if I sent the girl back with my deputy, it’d cost the County his salary plus considerable inconvenience to me. If you accompanied her on the drive, I think your fee could be guaranteed at this end.”

“That’s damned decent of you, Sheriff,” Short said.

Clymer waved a hand. “Not at all. These emergencies come up. You may depend on it, sir; your firm will lose nothing on the girl’s behalf. The truth is that although—” Clymer cleared his throat and his fat bulbs shook like bags of jelly — “I dislike and distrust sentimental speeches, I don’t mind admitting I’ve a certain fatherly affection for the girl. It’s a painful thing to see one so young and with so many natural advantages afflicted in such a way. It makes the heart ache and enlivens the skeptical elements of the mind. Indeed it does, sir. Were I not a devoutly religious man, the very senselessness of the girl’s mania might cause me to suspect the order and harmony of the Cosmos. But on that score, who are we to decide what transcendent motives may or may not lurk behind seemingly senseless — even cruel — phenomena?”

“Who indeed?” Short muttered, draining his glass and getting to his feet. “Well, I guess that covers the situation. I’m going to talk seriously to Miss Shaw — Susan — at dinner and suggest we begin the drive back to Chicago tonight.” He held out his hand. “I want to thank you for your patience and help.”

“Not at all.” Clymer came up from the rocker, vast belly quivering, and pumped the offered hand warmly. “You’re dining at the Sierra Royal?”

“Where else?” Short grinned.

“Indeed. Well put — where else?” Clymer’s answering grin made a tiny pink crescent under his stubby nose. “If you’ll give me a half-hour to freshen up and dress, I’d be honored to be your host. Do you think you might convince the lady to accept my presence?”

“I think I can manage.”

“Fine. Shall we say a half-hour?”

Short agreed and left. Out on the main street he glanced back at the Paloma Hotel, then turned and walked in the opposite direction. A hundred yards or so, where the brick and cobble-stones petered out into plain hard-packed clay, he came to a low building that suggested a converted stable. A pair of red gasoline pumps were posted in front of it, and between them, in the driveway, a short, husky, greasy-brown man was working over a tire, banging with a pair of irons. He squinted up at Short.

“You Juan Colom?” Short asked.

The man didn’t speak. He shook his head “no” and pointed to the door of the building with one of the irons. Short nodded and went inside. Another short, husky, greasy man — this one not so brown — was busy talking into a wall telephone. He looked at Short and frowned. Short shook his head by way of greeting, sat on a high metal stool by the door, and lit a cigarette. While he smoked, he let his eyes travel over the smudged wood and cement walls, which were decorated with oil and gas advertisements, frayed spark-plug and ignition charts, and cut-out calendar cuties in varying degrees of undress. Over everything was a film of grease that made the reflected light dirty and saturated the air with a rancid smell.

The man at the phone turned his back toward Short, as if by that movement to insure the privacy of his conversation. For his part, the conversation consisted of little more than a series of “Yeahs”, pauses, and more “Yeahs”. Finally he hung up, turned to Short, and asked, “What can I do for you?”

Short studied the man’s face. Square, flat, framed in black hair, the mouth thin and cruel-looking, the jaw aggressive and surly, it was anything but pleasant. There was a three-inch scar, white-centered and purple-edged, lacing down the left cheek.

“Well?” the man asked. As he spoke his jaw formed a ridged line down from the ear on each side.

“I’ve a couple questions about Mrs. McCrory and her car.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re an American? You sound like New York.” Short tossed the question in an offhand way. The man didn’t answer. “It doesn’t matter,” Short added. “Only when the hotel-clerk tossed the name Juan Colom at me, I sort of expected a Mexican.”

“I’m not Mexican,” the man said. “But you’re Juan Colom?”

“Yeah.”

“All right. What was wrong with Mrs. McCrary’s car?”

Juan Colom tilted his head back and to one side, ran his eyes up and down Short’s half-seated figure, and smiled without a trace of humor. “Who’re you?” he asked.

Short stood up. “You know who I am. I just left your boss’s house. Just tell me a couple things and I’ll beat it. Call Clymer back for the okay if you want.”

Colom shrugged his shoulders and muscles rippled under his tight, sweatstained shirt. “The work on her car was just an ignition job. Couple plugs were fouled and the points needed setting.”

“And she brought you the car herself last Friday evening?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Then she came back for the car a couple days later — Monday morning?”

“Yeah.”

“But the car was supposed to be ready Saturday morning, wasn’t it?”

“It was ready,” Colom said. “She didn’t show up till Monday.”

“And you didn’t see her husband?”

“Are you kidding? Everybody in town knows she came alone. She’s nuts.”

“Yeah, I’m being forced to that conclusion,” Short said. “Did you actually see her drive into town?”

“No. I saw her when she came here with the car.”

“How was she dressed?”

Juan Colom blinked and shook his head sideways. “How do I know? You think I notice women’s clothes?”

“She had a dress on — you saw that, didn’t you?”

Colom looked disgusted. “Yeah, sure. You think she drove up naked? I guess she’s not that nuts or she wouldn’t be running loose.”

“Well, if you’re not color-blind, what color was the dress?”

Staring at one of his ignition-charts for a few seconds, Colom worked his jaw silently, pulling up his lips and grinding the edges of his front teeth. Then he said, “Sort of light blue.” He nodded. “Yeah, I remember now. It wasn’t a dress; it was a skirt and jacket. When she got out of the car I noticed she had a nice behind and the suit fit pretty damn tight around it.”

“Was she wearing a hat?”

“Yeah. A white hat — no, maybe not white — more like a light gray. She had a bag the same color.” Short grinned. “You remember pretty good for a guy who couldn’t remember at all. Maybe if you try harder you’ll remember a tall, thin, baldheaded guy with a beard.”

“I never saw anything like that.” Colom’s face was sullen. “Now, if that’s all, I got work to do.”

“Yeah, that’s all.” Short got up. “That car of hers in shape to reach Chicago?”

“It was when it left here. Why?”

“Because I want to get there,” Short answered. “See you later.” He left then and chuckled softly as the man working on the tire glared evilly at him.

5

Susan McCrory was waiting at a table in the Sierra Royal when Short arrived. Her blond hair was piled high, green-violet shadows accented her eyelids, and she wore a strapless, backless gown of hard-finished emerald green stuff that hugged her figure and hid nothing at all. Short turned his surprise into a smile and an apology for being late.

“Oh, I haven’t been here long,” Susan told him. “Just a minute or two. The waiter seemed to be expecting us and had everything ready.”

“Sheriff Clymer’s work,” Short replied. “He’s asked us to dinner. I hope you don’t mind; I accepted because it’s important to the job.”

A tinge of annoyance crossed Susan’s face. “That man.” Then she shrugged her smooth, nude shoulders. “Well, if it’ll help find John, I can stand it. Did you learn anything?”

“I learned one thing beyond all doubt — Clymer owns everything and everybody in this burg. He owns them body and soul.”

Susan smiled. Far more relaxed than she’d been earlier in the afternoon, her high-fashion get-up seemed to give her confidence. She tilted an eyebrow and said in mock reproval, “I don’t need a high-powered San Francisco detective to tell me that.”

“I’m not from Frisco,” Short smiled back. “I’m from the East — to the degree that I live anywhere. I was just wrapping up a job at the Frisco office when your call came. They were short-handed and I had an urge to see this country again, so I came down. And I’m glad I did.” Short looked appreciatively at Susan and added, “You’re the most beautiful client I’ve had in years.”

“Thank you, sir. And you’re the most handsome detective I’ve ever hired.”

“Have you ever hired any other?”

“No,” Susan admitted and they both laughed. Then Susan’s face became serious. “Did you find out — is John alive?”

“I believe he is. In fact, the only sense I can make out of the whole thing depends on his being alive. And believe me, this case is not an easy one to make sense of. Now — I want to warn you that Clymer’s going to toss a few bombshells at us during dinner. Think you can take it?”

“Now you’re scaring me. But I’ll do my best.”

“Good girl.” Short brought out his cigarettes and lighter. “Can you remember what you were wearing last Friday? What kind of an outfit?”

“Of course. My powder blue suit, a wide-brimmed gray hat, gray gloves, gray purse, and gray and blue shoes. Why do you ask?”

“I almost wish I hadn’t.” Short shook his head. “The guy at the garage — where you’re supposed to have taken the car — described you to a T.”

“But anyone could have told him what I was wearing,” Susan protested. “The hotel-clerk, the bellboy — or he could have seen me himself, here or in the hotel or out on the street.”

“I know. It’s just that everything keeps adding up in their favor.” Short hung a cigarette on his lip and spun the wheel of his lighter. “I guess that one’s got to be handled by Sweeny’s Law.”

“Sweeny’s Law?”

“Yeah.” Chuckling softly as he puffed smoke, Short explained, “Sweeny’s Law is the principle that the better a thing looks, the phonier it is inside; and if you jam a monkey-wrench into an apparently perfect machine, the phony part will fly apart and destroy the rest. Very soon now we’re going to toss a wrench.” He paused a moment, then asked, “You want to tell me exactly what happened when you went down to Sonora?”

“But I did.”

“No, I want more detail.”

“Well, I went to the address I’d been given on the phone — No. 14 Balboa Avenue. It was a tourist-shop. A store full of stitched leather handbags, sandals, straw-hats — stuff like that — and on the second-floor was an attorney’s office. The man and the woman in the store claimed they knew nothing about any phone-call or about John, and neither did the lawyer upstairs. He was an old, white-haired Mexican. He listened very carefully to my story and then went down and talked the matter over with the people in the store. All three advised me to go to the police. I did. The officer — a captain, I think — wrote it all down and said an investigation would be conducted. After that I went to the pawn-shop, bought the gun, and drove back here.”

“And you can’t remember anything unusual?”

“I got a flat tire — if that’s the kind of thing you mean.”

Short’s face lighted with interest. “Where?”

“In Sonora. When I came out of the souvenir-shop I saw my front right tire was flat. Kids. The Mexican kids stick nails into tourists’ tires unless you give them a nickel or a dime to guard the car. So the old lawyer explained. He was very apologetic.” Susan shrugged. “I’d gladly have given the child a dime, but I didn’t see any when I parked.”

“Don’t tell me — a man appeared from nowhere and changed the tire for you.”

“No. But there was a service station directly across the street. The mechanic changed the wheel and repaired the tire while I had coffee in a place nearby.”

Short nodded. “That about does it.” His eyes flicked toward the restaurant entrance. “But look sharp now, Clymer’s coming.”

“But what happened down there?” Susan asked, frowning.

“No time to explain now,” Short whispered. He stood up as Sheriff Clymer approached their table. “Good evening, Sheriff. Mrs. McCrary was delighted to accept your kind invitation.”

Clymer, now wearing a maroon sash under a white dinner jacket, a stiff shirtfront and maroon tie, took Susan’s hand, bowed as low over it as his vast belly would permit, and brushed it lightly with his cherubic lips. “I’m honored, Madam. Rarely has the Sierra Royal been graced with such beauty.”

Susan flushed and withdrew her hand, murmuring, “Thank you.” Clymer straightened, looked about the room, nodded, and snapped his fingers. A huge, ornately carved chair was brought by two uniformed flunkies, was placed at the table, and then a dark-suited waiter appeared, bowing and smiling.

“Everything’s as ordered?” Clymer asked.

The waiter did his best to touch the floor with his nose. “Si, si— Es—”

“Speak English, Manuel. Now and throughout the evening.”

“Yes sir. All is ready.”

Short watched this little comedy with a glint of amusement in his eyes, but otherwise his face was expressionless. As dinner proceeded, Clymer went through an elaborate soup-testing, salad-tossing, winesampling ritual that would have done justice to the Ritz cuisine. And when a four-inch thick, 12 pound London broil was served, he made a great to-do over a special mushroom-onion-soy sauce of his own invention. The man was a gourmet and his joy in serving and consuming the meal was unalloyed. Short did full justice to his portion. Susan ate moderately, mostly in silence, but replying pleasantly enough to Clymer’s compliments and little attentions. All during the various courses, Clymer kept up a light, cheerful conversation, mostly about food, and it was gradually revealed that he was a well-traveled man who had dined at the finer restaurants of most of the world’s great cities.

When dessert arrived — a thing of chilled fruit, cream, brandy, and exotic spices — Clymer asked Short if he intended to adhere to the course he’d indicated during their earlier conversation. Short said that he did.

Susan looked first at Clymer, then at Short. He smiled and dug a spoon into his dessert, saying, “I told Sheriff Clymer we’d be starting the drive back to Chicago tonight.”

Susan’s eyes went wide. Short looked at her steadily and she said nothing. From his thronelike chair, Clymer, watched them both closely and then said, in the attitude of one who’d come to a decision, “I may take it then that some degree of the confusion of the past week has been cleared away?”

At these words, Susan’s eyes snapped into angry fire. “If you mean have I changed my mind about having a husband when I came here, the answer is ‘no’.”

A sort of patient disappointment crossed Clymer’s face; then a frown descended on the tiny black eyes and the little girlish lips drooped at the corners, merging into folds of fat on the chin. He shifted his glance from Susan to Short and let a question form by tilting his eyebrows.

“We’re leaving,” Short said. “Tonight if possible, and certainly in the morning.”

Clymer nodded and looked satisfied. “Miss Shaw, I’ve a couple questions, more in your interest than mine—”

“I’m Mrs. McCrory,” Susan snapped.

Short hid a grin behind a heaping spoonful of creamed iced fruit.

“Very well,” Clymer conceded. “Mrs. McCrory, I believe you told me you were married in Chicago on the twelfth of last month?”

“In Fayetteville — a suburb of Chicago.”

“In a church?”

“No. In a minister’s private home. The Reverend James Bush. On Foster Street. I told you all this at least three times before.”

“Please bear with me. Your husband, a man named John McCrory, is a music-composer, known in certain concert-music circles in Chicago?”

“He’s not famous, but he’s known. The Chicago Friends of Music Society certainly knows him. He’s known at the Hibbard School. And at the State College.” Susan sighed and looked at Short. “I’ve told him all this.”

“It’s all right.” Short nodded and patted her hand.

“Hmmm,” Clymer mumbled, rubbing his chin. “I wonder if you could explain this, Miss — Mrs. McCrory?” Clymer took a folded paper — a telegram — from his pocket, opened it out flat, and handed it to Susan. Her eyes turned to Short inquiringly and he bobbed his head once up and down.

Susan read. When she finished her eyes were deeply troubled and she nibbled at her lip nervously. Short took the wire and read:

SHERIFF MARTIN CLYMER COMMA SAN JACINADO COLON NO RECORD OF MCCRORY DASH SHAW MARRIAGE JUNE TWELFTH FAYETTEVILLE OR ANY LOCATION COOK COUNTY STOP NO SUCH RECORD PAST YEAR STOP SUSAN SHAW EMPLOYED AT MERCHANTS TRUST BANK AND HOME ADDRESS AS STATED STOP UNCLE THOMAS SHAW BANK PRESIDENT AS STATED STOP NO RECORD ANY JOHN MCCRORY MUSICIAN STOP EXTENSIVE INVESTIGATION INDICATE NAME UNKNOWN TO CHICAGO MUSIC SOCIETY COMMA HIBBARD MUSIC SCHOOL AND STATE COLLEGE STOP MAN IS UNKNOWN TO MUSICIANS LOCAL UNION COMMA NEWSPAPER CRITICS AND ASCAP STOP NO REVEREND JAMES BUSH IN FAYETTEVILLE FOSTER STREET OR OTHERWISE STOP LIEUTENANT HAROLD GEROME BUREAU OF IDENTIFICATION COMMA CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT STOP REQUEST ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THIS TELEGRAM AND DEVELOPMENT IF ANY STOP REFER TO FILE WX 3 DASH 2977 STOP

When he finished, Short handed the telegram back to Clymer and said, “Kind of puts the lid on things, doesn’t it? I know Harold Gerome; he’s nobody’s fool and his word’s beyond question.”

Clymer nodded and looked at Susan. “You see, my dear girl, even if someone had some reason to steal your husband — which nobody has — they could hardly influence a disinterested Chicago police lieutenant two thousand miles away. And even if you could bribe him, you could hardly get him to put obvious lies into the official record — that McCrory, Bush, and your marriage-record do not exist, if they really do. You understand my point, dear girl?”

Tears swelled in Susan’s eyes. “Unless I’m really completely insane, I can’t explain this, Mr. Short. It’s just impossible. Unless when you’re insane you don’t know it and everything seems real and normal. John does exist. We were married. He came here with me. I just can’t be crazy — it’s all too real.”

Sighing sympathetically, Clymer reached forth to pat Susan’s hand, but she withdrew it quickly. She kept her eyes on Short and added, in a pleading tone, “There must be some explanation.”

“Try not to worry about it,” Short said. “Now after such a fine dinner, I hate to run off; but in view of the telegram I think we’d best get back to the hotel and pack. That is—” he smiled — “you’ll pack I haven’t even unpacked.”

“And we’re really leaving?” Susan looked rueful.

“Certainly”. Short’s face was bland, composed, and relaxed. “I’m sure if we hung around here the next six months, we’d never find any John McCrory.”

6

After parking the car in front of the Paloma Hotel, Short knocked on Susan’s door and found her ready with suitcases packed. Unhappiness was written all over her face. “I don’t want to leave without John.”

“John isn’t here.” Short replied, picking up two large suitcases.

“You’re sure?”

“It’s an educated guess. Unless I’m greatly mistaken, he went back to Chicago that first night. He got up while you were asleep, quietly got his stuff together, made the bed, and left.”

“You’re saying he deserted me?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“But why? I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true. Nobody but John would have thought of a crumpled razor-blade wrapper behind that nightstand. Anybody kidnapping a full-bearded man wouldn’t dream of moving furniture to find blade-wrappers. Of course, John knew it was there and took it.”

Susan shuddered. “But why?”

Short nodded toward the door. “I think we’ll know everything in a few minutes. We’re going to jam in that monkey-wrench. Now keep your chin up.”

When they arrived at the desk in the lobby, Short was not surprised to see Clymer on hand. Still in formal dress, he carried a small, but tastefully selected, corsage and he approached Susan with a beaming smile. “A little farewell gift,” he said, offering the flowers, “which inadequately conveys my fond wishes.”

Susan hesitated, then accepted the present. “Thank you,” she said, but held it rather stiffly and away from her body, much as if it contained a poisonous asp. Clymer then handed Short a slim cedarwood box, saying, “Fifty Coronas del Supremos, if I may presume on our brief acquaintance, sir. Despite conditions, I still manage to have them shipped from Havana. A small token of regard, sir.”

Short accepted the box and looked at its gold-embossed wax-seal and tuft of silk ribbon. He smiled, shook hands with Clymer, and said, “For a Southwestern smalltown sheriff, sir, you’re a man of the most delicate taste. If I recall, Herman Goering served these same vintage cigars at his dionysian orgies. A fellow agent of mine found some at a certain address in Berlin — a palace of pleasure — and being a curious and clever fellow, he worked three hours extracting a time-released wobbler with a kit of defusing tools contained in a case no larger than a pack of cigarettes. The man had ice-water for blood. Every now and then he stopped the work to snap 35 mm. pictures and report to me over a walkie-talkie. But he wasn’t clever enough for the Nazis. Extracting the first wobbler primed a second wobbler by slipping out a thin insulator. My friend picked the box up and — boom!” Still smiling, Short looked down at the cigar-box ruefully.

Clymer laughed and slapped Short’s back. “By Gad, sir! I’ll wager you’ve a round of adventures you could relate, if you wanted to!”

“Yes, I guess I could.” Short put the cigars under his arm. “Well, we’re checked out, the car’s waiting; so I guess this is it.” Picking up the suitcases, he began walking toward the door. The Mexican boy followed with the remaining luggage.

“I envy you Chicago,” Clymer said, waving a fat hand at chest level, “for you’ll have the opportunity of dining at the New Munich. Second to none in the world, sir. Give my best regards to Karl Hoffman, if you do. He brews his own weissbier; you must try it.”

Short smiled and shook his head. “Afraid I can’t — not immediately, anyway. I’ve changed our plan. We’re driving over to San Diego instead of Chicago. Mrs. McCrory has an aunt there with whom she’ll spend a month or two recuperating.”

An ugly shadow crossed Clymer’s face. “San Diego? You said you were driving to Chicago — to return Miss Shaw to her parents.”

“She can go home later by plane. As for the car, I’ve a couple friends over in Diego — FBI boys. They’ll get a kick out of looking it over.”

Clymer dropped his right arm and snapped his hand forward. An inlaid silver pistol appeared in it, supplied from a spring-released sleeve holster. The gun was tiny, but it possessed a large, wicked-looking bore — a modern, efficient derringer. “I think,” Clymer said, “that you and the lady will be going nowhere.” He glanced quickly to his side and said to the Mexican boy in rapid Spanish, “Ramon, get his gun. Approach him from the left side. Quickly!”

A look of disappointment and disgust crossed Short’s face. “A rod,” he said in a tone that was practically a sneer. “So all your finesse boils down to that — a rod. That’s the kind of answer I’d expect from your punk at the garage, not you.”

Ramon passed a hand into Short’s coat, frowned, then patted his hip pockets. He shook his head. “He has no gun, Senor Clymer.”

Moving very casually, Short hung a cigarette on his lip and lit it with his Zippo. “It’s packed in my bag,” he said, shrugging. “The truth is, I thought I was in the big leagues. I tracked Otto von Keppelwise halfway round the world and played chess with him over white wine, caviar, and cigarettes of laudanum and Latakia while we plotted each other’s death.” Short paused and grunted. “For a moment I thought you were of that caliber. Keppelwise was responsible for the death of a hundred-thousand men, yet he loathed the sight of a pistol. The man was an artist.” Short pointed his cigarette at Clymer and continued, “In your position, Keppelwise would have reasoned that if I was really going to Diego and the FBI, I wouldn’t say it — I’d just go, pretending to head for Chicago. Then, knowing — as you do — that I’m wise to the lay, he’d have six counterplots going in his mind to suck me into the deal in a way that would use me and destroy me. But—” Short sighed — “there’s a big difference between a top-level Nazi and a small-town, tin-horn punk play-actor. A rod? — phooey!”

“Be careful!” Clymer cried in a squeaking tone. There was a strange look on his face, a look combining shame, chagrin, hate, rage, and doubt. His vast body trembled and his skin went pasty white. But he held the pistol firmly leveled at Short’s chest and at last he got control. “Sorry to disappoint you, my friend,” he said in a high-pitched, strained croak, “but I’ll succeed in an area where your Keppelwise failed — in killing you.” He shot a quick look at Susan and motioned with his small black eyes. “Stand over there beside him, Miss Shaw. That’s it — fine. Well—” his eyes went back to Short — “why did you tell me you were going to Diego?”

Short grinned and puffed smoke. “Maybe I just got a boot out of pushing you round a little.” He glanced at the Mexican boy and the desk-clerk, adding, “You want me to talk in front of these stooges?”

“Certainly. Go ahead.”

“How much heroin’s stashed in the car?”

Clymer shrugged. “Two hundred thousand dollar’s worth — give or take a couple thousand.”

“Probably not the biggest shipment you’ve ever made.”

“No. But it’ll do for now. The market’s nervous.” Clymer gestured with the gun. “You realize, of course, that in answering these questions, I place you and Miss Shaw in a position of certain death.”

“Unless I could show you how foolish that would be.”

Clymer frowned and wet his pretty lips with his tongue. “What do you mean?”

“A couple more questions first.” Short shook his head. “Let’s take Miss Shaw off the hook.”

Clymer made a mock bow, carefully, so as not to disturb his pistol-aim. “As you wish,” he said, “since we are in no wise pressed for time.”

“John’s waiting for the car in Chicago?”

“Yes.”

“And the lay is this: he goes to a big city, plays long-haired composer in some Beat-joint long enough to find a likely girl, rushes her, hires some grifter to put a collar on backwards and perform a wedding with a fake license in a rented house near a church. He brings his ‘bride’ here after going through a little coin-tossing act up at the fork in the road. He signs only her name in the hotel-register, imitating her writing well enough to get by — after all, she’s barely used to writing the new name herself. Then he quietly packs up and vanishes. You and your cohorts start to convince the girl she’s nuts. Then she gets a tip to go down to Sonora and everybody steers her that way. Down there your agents is waiting and they build a dope-cache into her car, flattening a tire to delay her. She drives the stuff over the border — if she’s caught, well, you lose some dope at the wholesale price, but otherwise it’s no skin off your teeth. If she makes it — which she probably does, since nobody can pass a border-patrol like somebody who doesn’t know what they’re carrying — she hangs round here a few days and finally drives home, half convinced maybe that she is nuts. She transports your hop to Chicago or whatever the city is you’ve chosen. John’s there waiting to unload the stuff — when she’s not near the car, of course — turn it over to your jobber and collect the dough. Once again, if she’s caught on the way, you’re in the clear. It’s not bad at all — plenty of profit and no danger — plus the fact that lover-boy John gets a nice bonus of pretty women. Who is he, anyway?”

“My son,” Clymer replied. “And he has musical talent. When we retire far from this barbarous country, he will devote his time to creation and his work will rival Wagner. Not the decadent Wagner of Parsifal, but the glorious man-god of the Ring Tetralogy.”

“Could be,” Short grunted. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. Anyway, when you wire the police of the city you’re working, the answer is no marriage, no John McCrory — or whatever name he uses — and no Reverend Bush. By then the poor girl’s damn glad to get out of here.”

“Quite so,” Clymer smiled. “And now that you’ve shown your knowledge of the modus operandi, will you please explain how I can avoid killing you? And be assured of my safety, of course.”

Susan McCrory swayed. All through Short’s speech she’d been standing stiff and wide-eyed, hands clenched into fists at her sides. “Things are turning,” she moaned. “Help, I—”

Short caught her round the waist with one arm and started to move toward a couch at the end of the lobby. He’d long before put the suitcases down, but he still held the box of Coronas del Supremos in his freehand.

“Careful!” Clymer warned. “I’ll fire at the slightest provocation. Don’t be fooled by the size of this pistol; it carries five 9.5 mm. bullets.”

“I’m not fooled,” Short replied. “I just want to get her on that damned couch.”

“Go ahead, but move easy.”

Susan’s face was white and drawn, but she was still conscious. Short took her to the couch and eased her down into it. “Good girl,” he whispered. “Hang on — we haven’t much further to go.”

“But John—” she muttered. “It was all a trick. He—”

“I’m afraid so. It happens a lot — in different ways. Life’s not like the movies and television, kid — there’s no romantic happy endings. If you had any good times with John, you better just remember those and write off the rest to experience.”

The brusqueness of these words startled Susan into full awareness of the situation. Color flushed her face and she looked at Short with surprised eyes.

“I detest him now,” she said. “He’s loathsome.”

“All dope-traders are,” Short told her.

“What are you saying?” Clymer demanded. He moved nearer, brandishing his pistol.

Short looked round pleasantly. “I was just telling Miss Shaw that killing us multiplies your troubles instead of solving them. My agency knows we’re here and you yourself informed the Chicago police of Miss Shaw’s whereabouts — that’s a part of your scheme that backfired nicely. Even if you got away with killing us, it’d spell the end of your little empire.”

Pursing his shapely red lips, Clymer raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “A chance I’ll have to take, sir. Besides, there’s always Argentina — a veritable heaven-on-earth for a man of culture and substance.”

“And his entire retinue?” Short asked, glancing at the desk-clerk and the Mexican. “Or do they stay here as fall guys?”

Clymer giggled and his big belly shook. “That line won’t work, sir. My people are loyal. Now — it’s time to put an end to this.” He nodded at the Mexican. “Close the door and shut the blinds.”

“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” Short said. In his left hand was the cedarwood cigar-box; his right held the bit of red ribbon embedded in the gold seal. “I think a fine cigar is in order at the moment.”

“Don’t!” Clymer cried in high falsetto, his face becoming a pasty white blob. His fat finger trembled on the trigger of his ugly little gun.

“Go ahead — shoot,” Short laughed. “I’ll bet you a harp and a halo I explode this thing before I die.” He began walking toward Clymer, who took a step backward.

“What’s the matter?” Short asked. “Afraid to die? You want to play Uebermensch, don’t you? Death’s part of that game, mister. The guy you’re imitating bit down on a cyanide capsule. Valhalla’s waiting for you, Clymer.”

As Short approached, Clymer went backward two more steps. “Tell the Spik to throw his knife,” Short advised. “Or shoot. Or drop the gun and go to jail. Do something, you yellow-livered tub of lard. Christ, I hate a phony!”

Clymer licked his lips and moved them soundlessly while he stared with disbelieving eyes at Short. The gun in his hand began to sag. Short grinned and kept moving forward.

“Look out!” Susan screamed from the couch. “Behind you!”

Instantly Short threw himself sideways and dropped to the floor. Something swished past his head and, as if by magic, a short piece of steel protruded from Clymer’s bulbous throat. It was the haft of the Mexican’s knife. Clymer’s eyes bulged horribly in their pockets of fat, while two big blobs of blood gushed from his lips and spilled down his white shirt-front. He gurgled, dropped the pistol, and grasped the steel with his fat hands, trying to pull it from his windpipe. There was another great gush of blood from his mouth and he fell, his huge mass collapsing into a disorderly mound of flesh and red-stained linen. The knife remained buried in his throat.

Short wasted no time. He scooped up the gun and fired twice at the Mexican boy, both bullets ripping into his chest and slamming him back against a plaster and wood post. His eyes glazed and he slumped to the floor, sliding down along the post. Then, coming up to his feet, Short whirled round in time to see the desk-clerk bringing a twelve-gauge, double barreled shotgun up from behind the counter.

“That’s far enough,” Short said, pointing the derringer at the man’s chest. “Drop it.”

The clerk did as he was told. He shrugged and said, “I wasn’t going to use it. To hell with Clymer and his gigolo son.”

“I don’t believe you,” Short said, taking the gun, breaking it, and removing the shells, “but I’m in a generous mood.” He turned to Susan. She was standing now, and although pale of face and drawn-looking, she had herself under firm control. Short nodded. “Nice going.”

“Did you have to shoot the boy?” she asked. “He was unarmed and he killed Clymer for you.”

Taking a pair of handcuffs from his overnight bag, Short snapped them on the clerk. He said to Susan, “The kid threw that knife at me — this way he’ll never throw another.” Then to the clerk he said, “The Federal boys’ll want you for evidence — that’s what saved your life. Sing loud enough and you might get off with a couple years.”

“And John?” Susan asked.

“They’ll pick him up in Chicago when he tries to unload the car. An agent’ll probably drive back with you. And that’ll be that.” Pushing the clerk into a chair, Short went to the telephone. “I’m sorry it turned out this way, but you sure picked a wrong guy. Maybe you should’ve got your uncle’s opinion — I know it’s an old-fashioned idea, but a guy don’t make it to bank-president by accepting wooden nickels and it wouldn’t hurt to hear what he’s got to say. But anyhow, I hope you’re smart enough to get over it.”

Susan’s chin became firm. She tilted it slightly before asking, “How long did you know — before now, I mean?”

“I didn’t really know until Clymer admitted everything. But I put the pieces together almost as soon as I finished speaking to you and the clerk. You see, the whole thing was so senseless. Motiveless. All this trouble to deceive you and yet nobody seemed to want anything from you. Why had John disappeared? Well, the clerk there spoke the exact literal truth and gave the game away.”

“Me?” the clerk looked up in surprise.

“Yeah. You told me Clymer’d be satisfied if Susan McCrory would just drive back to Chicago. That’s quite a definite thing when you mull it over. He didn’t just want her to get out of town and stop bothering him; he didn’t want her to take a train; he didn’t want her in a mental institution; he wanted her to drive back to Chicago. This is a specific thing. Now why would he want this particular thing? Because something’s in the car he wants to go to Chicago — something he wouldn’t dare send in any normal way or take himself. What? On the Mexican border that’s an easy question — pornography, dope, or espionage material. Clymer’s operation was a little too big for pornography and not quite big enough for espionage, and that left dope. Heroin. Next question — who’ll take it from the car in Chicago? Who knows where it’s hidden? Who else but the missing person in the affair — John? So, when I put this all together, I proceeded to test it. I went along with the notion—” Short smiled at Susan — “that you were goofy and that John didn’t exist, and told Clymer I was driving you back to Chicago. That suited him fine. But then at the last minute I threw in the monkey-wrench, telling him we’d changed plans and were driving to Diego. And when I mentioned the Feds, he knew the jig was up and showed his hand.”

“But the cigar-box bomb?” Susan asked. “Why’d he do that?”

“A crazy piece of melodrama he couldn’t resist. Clymer was one of those two-bit Nazi-worshippers. He fancied himself as the superior, cold, cultured arch-criminal — you heard the bit about Wagner? Well, Von Keppelwise said almost the same words to me years ago in Cairo. Clymer liked to play Hermann Goering, Goebbels, Keppelwise, and the rest of those butchers. And he shared their biggest weakness — an insatiable thirst for melodrama. That’s the idea behind all the fancy cuisine, super-politeness, and ultrasophistication. No doubt Clymer read every book and magazine article ever written about Hitler’s gang and he picked up the information about the Coronas del Supremos from one. The idea of blowing you, me, and the car to hell and gone — even with the loss of his dope cargo — was too theatrical a chance for him to miss. Then, of course, there was always the possibility I’d open the thing later — much later, long after we’d delivered the stuff.”

“I don’t know much about Nazis,” Susan said, shuddering.

Short picked up the phone. “No. I guess not. You were too young.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of Clymer’s body. “They were pretty much like him at that — dream merchants. Phony supermen.”

Susan glanced at Clymer and quickly turned her head back to Short. “Why did you call his bluff — throw in the monkey-wrench, as you say, without even carrying your gun?”

Short laughed low and somewhat bitterly. “I guess I’m something of a ham myself. Maybe—”