The Silver Tombstone

Chapter Ten

Dan Tompkins shoved back his chair. His eyes went quickly to Laura’s face. Then he moistened his lips with his tongue. “Uh, yeah, what I was going to ask you was, do you think Helen Walker is likely to, ah...”

“What’s the secret of the Silver Tombstone?” Laura Henderson suddenly cut in.

Astra passed a hand over her crystal ball, as if wiping away a mist. She peered into its murky depths, peered long and painfully, then she pressed a hand to her forehead.

“I can’t tell you,” she said and Dan Tompkins could not stifle an audible sigh of relief. “I can’t tell you, because it would not be right... yet.” She brushed the ball again. “The crystal is clouded... I see trouble... police...” She let out a low moan. “This man, Fletcher...”

“Never mind Fletcher!” exclaimed Tompkins. “Tell me about myself...”

“You’re mixed up with Fletcher. The police...”

“All right,” snapped Laura Henderson. “What about the police? Are they going to nab Fletcher? Did he commit the murder...?”

“Murder?” the princess gasped. “What’s this about murder?”

Behind the velvet screen Johnny Fletcher cursed under his breath.

“What’s the matter?” Laura asked witheringly. “Didn’t your ball tell you about the murder?”

“I don’t mix in murder.” Princess Astra grabbed the edge of the table, pressed a button.

The black-haired secretary popped into the seance room. “Yes, Princess?”

“Call the police,” said the princess. “Tell them—”

Johnny Fletcher jerked aside the velvet drapes. “Never mind,” he snarled.

“Fletcher!” cried Dan Tompkins. “What are you doing here?”

“Being taken by a double-crosser...”

“Nadine!” said the princess sharply.

The secretary started to turn back, but Johnny Fletcher took two quick strides and cut her off. “Uh-uh,” he said. Then, to the princess, “Give me back my twenty-five bucks.”

“Go to hell,” said her highness. “You didn’t tell me anything about a murder. You just wanted some questions...”

“Say,” cut in Tompkins, “I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all. What’s the gag, Fletcher? Did you rig this up...?”

“Of course he did,” said Laura Henderson. “That’s how she knew our names and that business about the Silver Tombstone.”

“Fortune tellers,” sneered Sam Cragg. “Anybody who’d believe in fortune tellers...”

Dan Tompkins blushed. “Fellas, I played fair with you. I paid you the dough you asked...”

“You got gypped,” said Laura.

“Look, beautiful,” Johnny Fletcher said, through bared teeth, “I like you a lot, but you keep on sticking that knife into me and you’re going to spoil what might have become a beautiful friendship.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Laura retorted coolly. “And if there was any chance of that friendship materializing I’d be with you... but you can’t expect me to wait thirty-five years for you, now can you? And that’s how long you’re going to be in San Quentin... if you’re lucky enough to escape...” She pantomimed an execution, by running a finger across her tanned throat.

“Come on, Johnny,” said Sam, uncomfortably.

“All right, I’m going,” Johnny said, bitterly. “But I’m not quitting. Somebody who’s mixed up in the Silver Tombstone killed Hugh Kitchen and I’m going to find out who that someone is.”

“I don’t monkey with the cops,” the Princess Astra stated. “In my position I can’t afford to. I’m going to report this...”

“Then give me back my twenty-five bucks.”

“I’ll give back nothing,” Astra declared. “I earned that dough and I’m going to keep it.”

Dan Tompkins got up suddenly. He made a movement toward his coat, but Sam Cragg held up a hand warningly. Tompkins’ hand stopped in mid-air as he remembered what Sam had done to him that morning when he had pulled out a gun. He said, surlily: “This finishes our deal, Fletcher. You ain’t working for me any more.”

Johnny gave him a bitter look, then brushed past the receptionist, Nadine. At the door he turned. “Good-bye, now. But don’t forget me. I’ll be back.” He went out. Sam Cragg gave Dan Tompkins one last scowl, then followed Johnny out of the seance room and down to the street.

Outside they walked quickly for a block up Wilshire Boulevard. Then Johnny slackened his speed.

“That was twenty-five bucks wasted.”

“What you expected to get out of a fortune teller I don’t know...”

Johnny shook his head. “Dan Tompkins hasn’t told us half of what he knows. They were fighting last night across from my room. Joe Cotter, Charles Ralston and Helen Walker.” He frowned. “And I can’t figure out where the Hendersons come in.”

He took Tombstone Days, from under his arm and looked at it. For the first time Sam seemed to notice the book. “You snitched it.”

“I was reading and the phone rang, so I figured I’d borrow the book and read it in my own room. Then the cop came along... You know, there’s some interesting things in here; about old Jim Walker and Dan Tompkins — not our Dan, though. His father or grandfather... Wish I could get a chance to read the book all the way through.”

“If the cops catch us you’ll have a lot of time to read.”

Johnny groaned. “This is no good. We’ve got to get out of town. And we can’t go by train or bus, because the cops’ll be watching the depots and bus stations.”

“You mean we’ve got to hoof it,” Sam said bitterly. “The doggone city limits of this town reach out thirty-five miles...”

“And after that, there’s three hundred miles of desert.” Johnny fixed his eye on a used car lot a short distance away. “No, we’ve got to have a car. A good one, too.”

Sam grunted. “What sort of a car can you buy for around fifty bucks? We haven’t got much more than that left, have we?”

“No, but we could buy a pretty good car for about two-fifty down.”

“Yes,” said Sam, sarcastically, “if we had two-fifty for the down...”

“There are ways...”

Sam blinked. “Johnny, you aren’t...” Then as he saw the speculative gleam in Johnny’s eyes, “Here we go again...”

“They’re after us for murder,” said Johnny. “Anything less is a breeze. Come along...”

He headed into the used car lot and began examining the cars. A man came out of a little buildings in the rear and strolled over.

“I’d like to get a jalopy,” said Johnny. “Just about the worst jalopy you could imagine.”

The salesman looked at him curiously. “Something to drive, or just to wear on your watch chain?”

Johnny grinned. “If it would run two-three miles, that’d be swell.”

The salesman hesitated, eyeing Johnny skeptically. “Come along,” he said, then.

Johnny and Sam followed him to the rear of the little building, where stood a late ’20 Model T. “Look,” said the salesman, “it’s even got tires.”

“Will it run?”

“We guarantee it unconditionally... that it’ll run off this lot.”

“Ten bucks,” said Johnny.

“The junk man offered forty.”

“I’ll make it thirty.”

“Thirty-five and it’s a deal.”

“All right, but you’ve got to give me papers.”

“It’s a deal.”

Ten minutes later Johnny was behind the wheel and Sam beside him. He tried the starter. Nothing happened. Johnny waggled a finger. “Your guarantee, Mister.”

The salesman scowled and got the crank out of the rear of the car. He put it into a hole at the front of the machine, turned and turned and after a long time coaxed some response. The flivver began shaking and Johnny let in the clutch.

“S’ long, Mister!” he cried to the salesman.

“Remember,” said the salesman, “when you hit the street, you’re on your own.”

Johnny drove out of the lot and stopped the car a block away. But he did not shut off the motor.

“All right, Sam,” he said, “give me three minutes, then drive into the place up there in the next block. You want two-fifty for her, but you’ll come down to two hundred. Not a nickel less...”

“Are you crazy, Johnny?” Sam cried.

“If it doesn’t work — yes. If it works, no. Leave it all to me. Act natural — you’re a rube; you want two hundred for her and you don’t give a damn. When you get the money, walk right back here and wait for me. You can’t miss...”

“What do you mean, I can’t miss?” wailed Sam, as Johnny walked off. He tried blowing the horn as Johnny refused to turn, but the horn wouldn’t work. In despair he slumped over the wheel.

Johnny meanwhile strolled blithely up the street and turned into the big used car lot — a place more than twice the size of the one where they had purchased the flivver.

They were high-pressure boys here; two or three salesmen were coursing about the lot, waiting for victims. Two of them surrounded Johnny promptly.

“This Buick here,” one of them cried. “Less than five thousand local miles; a steal at twelve ninety-five.”

“Nope,” said Johnny. “She’s too low down on the ground.”

“That’s the beauty of a Buick,” said the second salesman. “Holds the road...”

“No good for the desert, though. You got to have a car that’s got some space underneath — even when you deflate the tires to about fifteen pounds of pressure... that’s the only way to ride the sand, you know...”

“Here’s a Packard that rides pretty high. But she’s fifteen-fifty...”

“I’m not worried about the price,” said Johnny. “Although I’d just as soon have an old car. When the wind blows the sand out there, your paint job goes pretty quick. And the ore doesn’t help it much, either. Pretty rough stuff...”

“Ore,” said the first salesman. “Mining man?”

Johnny nodded. “Got the best little tungsten mine in Mendocino County. That’s where I’ll be driving this car... if you can fix me up with what I want... something like that old-timer over there...” He pointed to the jalopy that Sam Cragg had just driven into the lot. “Those old boats are the thing for the desert... That doesn’t happen to be your car, does it?”

The salesmen exchanged glances. One of them nodded almost imperceptibly and suddenly turned away. The other blocked Johnny’s sight.

“Got a honey of an old Model A back here — an old doctor had it, but he wasn’t practicing any more and he had the bus in his garage for seven years. Took it out every spring for a day, then put it back in the garage again. She’s as good as new... and only four-fifty.”

Johnny looked at the shellacked old wonder. He shook his head. “I dunno; she’s still not as high off the ground as I want.” He walked around the car, kicked a tire, stooped and peered underneath.

The salesman frowned. “I’ll be back in just a moment.”

Johnny nodded absent-mindedly and started walking around the Model A again.

The second salesman strode quickly up to Sam Cragg’s car, where the first salesman was leaning over the side. He turned as his fellow worker came up.

“A comic,” he said, “wants two-fifty.”

“Two-fifty,” cried the second salesman. “Why, it’s nothing but a pile of tin and rubber.”

“Two-fifty,” said Sam, doggedly. “Wouldn’t sell if I didn’t need a new plough.”

“Look, Mister,” said the first salesman, “we almost never buy a car as old as this. In fact, there ought to be a law condemning such clap-trap, but you look like a nice fellow and we’ll help you buy that plough. Fifty bucks — cash.”

Johnny Fletcher started to come toward the group. The second salesman tried to head him off, but Johnny stepped aside and admired the old flivver.

“That’s what you need for the desert. Doggone old cars are worth two of these city busses. Like to make you...”

“Just a minute,” said the salesman, taking Johnny’s arm. He started leading him away. “That’s my wife’s second cousin; got a big ranch out here in the Valley. Eighty-five acres of oranges, twenty lemon. You wouldn’t think to look at him he was worth a half million, would you?”

“Him?” exclaimed Johnny. “Doesn’t look like he’d have ten bucks to his name.”

“That’s his trouble,” said the salesman. “Eccentric, been trying to get him to trade in that old — that little car for a Cadillac. Think he’d do it? No.”

“Don’t blame him, if he lives out in the desert. That’s the kind of job you want...”

“But he doesn’t live in the desert. He’s attached to the car, that’s all. Mm, he likes money pretty well. Ha-ha! Like all the rich guys, more they have, more they want. Maybe... if we offered him enough, he might sell that car.” Brightening, “Then I could sell him a Cadillac.”

“That’s right,” said Johnny. “What do you think he’ll take for it?”

“He’s asking four-fifty. Of course the car isn’t worth it, but he doesn’t want to sell. That’s the trouble.”

“Mmm,” said Johnny. “I guess he doesn’t want to sell.” He shook his head. “Been to four lots already, though. That’s the kind of a job I want for the desert. Suppose he’d take two and a half?”

The salesman shook his head. “Sure, he wouldn’t. I offered him three-fifty on a trade-in.”

“I might go three hundred...”

The salesman could not conceal the gleam in his eye. “Wait here a minute.”

Johnny nodded lackadaisically. The salesman hurried back to the other man, signaled him to one side and got into a whispered huddle.

The first salesman said: “The damn farmer’s nuts. Holding out for two twenty-five.”

Second salesman: “The other guy’ll go three-fifty; I’m sure of it. Let’s try him at two hundred.”

“The heap’s junk, I tell you,” protested the first salesman. “He’s got baling wire holding it together.”

“A profit’s a profit,” said the second man.

They converged back upon Sam. “One seventy-five,” said the first salesman.

“Two’n a quarter,” persisted Sam.

“Two hundred!” cried the second salesman.

“Cash,” said Sam.

He got out of the car and the first salesman grabbed his arm and hurried him toward the office. The other man detoured back to Johnny.

“He said he’d sell for three-fifty, but he’s not too keen...”

“Well, I dunno,” said Johnny. “I been thinkin’ it over. I might go two-fifty...”

The salesman shot a look toward the office, into which Sam was just disappearing with the other salesman.

“I’d like to try him with three hundred.”

Johnny hesitated. “Ask him.”

Again Johnny was left alone, while the salesman hurried into the office, where Sam was already seated at a desk, signing a form. The second salesman nodded to the first, turned on his heel and went out of the office, back to Johnny.

“It’s a deal.”

“All right,” said Johnny. “I suppose you throw in the registration and license transfer?”

“We don’t usually, but we’ll make an exception this time.”

Johnny nodded and began strolling toward the flivver. He examined it critically, nodding approval as he stooped and looked under the car.

“She’s all right,” he said. He kicked a fender that was fastened to the body with wire. “Little wire won’t hurt it.”

“Of course not,” said the salesman. “Shall we step into the office?”

“Just a minute,” said Johnny. “The tires are kinda worn.”

“There’s plenty mileage in them yet.”

“I dunno, the sand does things to tires...”

“You can get them recapped for five bucks apiece.”

“Maybe so, but if I’m buying a car, naturally I want it in running condition.”

“I’ll guarantee there’s a lot of miles in those tires,” exclaimed the salesman. Sam Cragg was in the doorway of the office, shaking hands with the other salesman.

“You’ll put it in writing?”

“Put what in writing?”

“The guarantee?”

“Yes!” cried the salesman, getting desperate. “I’ll guarantee they’ll go a thousand miles.”

“Three thousand.”

“All right, three thousand.”

Sam Cragg passed behind Johnny and the salesman. The second salesman hovered in the background, then began coming forward. Johnny lifted up the hood, looked into the innards of the car, then let the hood fall back into place: Some rusty wire gave way and the hood fell askew. But Johnny didn’t mind. He walked around the car, leaned over and tried the horn. There was no sign.

“Hey!” cried Johnny. “The horn doesn’t work.”

“We’ll fix it!” howled the salesman.

Johnny shook his head. “When a horn’s gone on a car, the car’s pretty well shot. Tires no good, baling wire all over, horn broken...” He grabbed the steering wheel and shook it. “Steering wheel loose, too. Nope, I’m afraid she’s too far gone for me...”

“What do you mean?” cried the frantic salesman. “You said you wanted this car — you agreed to pay three hundred for it...”

“I assumed it was in good condition,” Johnny said, coolly. “Naturally, I’m not going to pay good money for a pile of junk.” He shook his head. “Better let your cousin keep her.”

“You can’t do that, you made us buy her for you...”

“I made you buy this car — for me?” Johnny stared at the two salesmen in amazement. “Now, wa-ait a minute. I said I was interested in a car like this. I didn’t say I would buy it...”

The first salesman grabbed Johnny’s arm. “What kind of a game do you call this?”

Johnny took the man’s hand, knocked it off his arm. “Don’t you lay a hand on me...”

“I’ll do more than that,” snarled the man, “if you don’t buy this car...”

“That settles it,” said Johnny. “I wouldn’t do business with you people now, if...”

He broke off and started rapidly out of the lot.

The two salesmen stared after Johnny a moment, then at each other, then at Johnny’s back again. “You...!” one of them called after Johnny.

Johnny continued quickly out of the lot.