Dames Don’t Care (15 page)

She never forgets a thing."

"OK," I say, "an' there's somebody else too. There's the watchman on Cotton's Wharf. I reckon if this guy's sight was good enough to see that it was a woman who got outa Granworth's car, it was good enough for him to remember the fur coat an' hat she was wearin'. I'm takin' this description to New York, an' I'm goin' to get the police to check up with the maid an' the watchman. If they can identify those clothes then I'm comm' back here to pinch Henrietta, because I tell you now that I'm dead certain that she bumped Aymes.

"There's another thing, Fernandez," I go on. "I reckon that I mighta made a mistake about you bein' the guy who had a shot at me the other night. Maybe it wasn't a guy at all-maybe it was a dame."

I look at him sorta old-fashioned.

He grins.

"Well, you might be right at that," he says. "It certainly wasn't me. Periera here an' a coupla the boys know I was stickin' around there all the time. But," he goes on, "I reckon that maybe you're right. I like Henrietta, but I don't hold with murder an' it looks like you say that she bumped Granworth all right, but I'm sorry all the same," he says, "because she is a swell dame."

"You're tellin' me," I say. "An' it's always swell dames who start the trouble. They're always worse than the worst he-killer. They just don't care."

I get up.

"OK, boys," I tell 'em. "Be on your way. Don't you forget, Periera, that you're responsible for Henrietta, an' thanks for the tip-off about the maid, Fernandez. I'll take care of that job right away."

When they have gone I sit down at the desk an' do a little quiet thinkin'. I reckon that maybe this thing is goin' to work out, an' if it don't, well it's just too bad.

Metts blows in. He is grinnin' all over his face.

"You certainly handed it to the dame," he says. "I thought one time that she was goin' to crown you. I was listenin' in the next room," he goes on. "I just couldn't miss it. You see I don't get much excitement around here."

He hands me the developed photographs of Henrietta, an' the fingerprint card, an' the record card. I put 'em on the desk.

"Where do we go from here, Lemmy?" he says. "I don't know what this set-up is, but whatever it is you gotta helluva technique I will say. Can I do anything else?"

"Yeah," I say, "there is just one or two little things that you can do around here. One Is just get it around this burg that I have scrammed outa here for New York an' that I am not expected back for a week or so. The other thing is that you can keep a quiet eye on the Hacienda Altmira an' see that dame Henrietta don't start gettin' windy an' takin' a run-out powder on us, an' the third an' last thing you can do is to fix me an airplane. I wanna go places."

"You flyin' to New York?" he says.

"New York my eye," I tell him. "I'm flyin' to Yuma an' then I'm goin' to coast along the Arizona State line an' bust into Mexico. I got a date with a dame."

He grins.

"Is she a good dame, Lemmy?" he says.

"I wouldn't know," I tell him. "I ain't ever seen her, but I reckon that she is due to get acquainted with me. Now will you be a good guy an' fix that plane?"

He says OK an' he goes off. I grab the telephone an' I send a code telegram to the 'G' Office in New York. I send the list of henrietta's clothes an' I ask 'em to check on this list with the maid Marie Dubuinet, an' the watchman at Cotton's Wharf an' to telegraph me the result back to Palm Springs to wait for me when I come back.

Just when I have got this done Metts comes in. He has been on the 'phone in the next room an' fixed about the airplane. He is a pleasant sorta guy this Metts an' he is feelin' good an' talkative.

I am sittin' at the desk lookin' at the police pictures of Henrietta. I read the record card:

HENRIETTA MARELLA CHARLSWORTH AYMES. Widow. Wife of Granworth Aymes. Suicide 12-13 January, 1936. Height five feet seven and one half inches. Brunette. Eyes blue. Complexion healthy. Features regulan Figure slim. Carriage erect. Speech educated, voice cultured. Weight 135 pounds.

This is a pretty good picture of Henrietta I think. Then I look at the fingerprints. They have certainly made a neat job of these, an' the photographs are very swell.

"Nice work, chief," I tell him. "You gotta good staff around here."

I nod. He comes around behind me an' looks over my shoulder at the pictures an' the fingerprint an' record cards.

"I put you to a lotta trouble, chief," I tell him, "so you won't get burned up when I do this?"

"Do what?" he says, lookin' at me.

I tear up the pictures an' the fingerprint an' record cards, an' I throw 'em in the waste basket.

He looks at me with his eyes poppin'.

"What the hell?" he says.

I grin.

"Just technique, chief," I tell him. "Just a spotta technique.

I'll be seem' you."

I scram. Mexico is callin'.

CHAPTER 9

HEY PAULETTE!

I
T Is seven o'clock an' a fine evenin' an' I am drivin' along the state road that runs along the Mexican border between Mexicali an' Sonoyta.

There is one swell moon. There is a lotta people who don't like this desert scenery, but me, I go for it. I'm for the wide open spaces where men are men an' 'women are durn glad of it.

An' I am plenty curious about this Paulette. Speakin' confidentially, I am keen to have a look at this dame. Why? Because I like lookin' at dames and, speaking confidentially some more, I am hot to get a look at the dame that Aymes turned down Henrietta for, because believe it or not this baby has gotta have what it takes in a big way to get a start of Henrietta. Get me?

Besides which I am not certain just where Henrietta is breakin'. I told you how I tore up the record card an' fingerprint cards an' pictures of her I had taken at Palm Springs, an' maybe you are wonderin' why I done this. If you got intelligence you will realise that the show I put up down at the Palm Springs police station was a big act an' if you stick around you'll see why I played it that way.

I start singin' Cactus Lizzie again because I have always found that I drive quicker when I am singin' this jingle.

I go on eatin' up the miles an' wonderin'. Sonoyta is about ten miles over the Mexican side of the Arizona-Mexico State line, an' it is about a hundred an' fifty miles from Mexicali, but what the roads are goin' to be like when I pull off the road I am on is another business.

It is eight o'clock when I get to the intersection. The left road runs inta Arizona an' the right inta Mexico. I pull the car round an' find myself on some helluva lousy road that shakes up my liver like a broncho. About five miles down this road I see a Mex sittin' on the side of the road, smokin' a cigarette an' thinkin' - which is what Mexicans is always doin' when they ain't tryin' to come the neat stuff with a dame or makin' a swell try to stick the other guy who is one jump ahead of 'em on the same game.

I pull up an' ask the dago if he knows a jane called Sefiora Paulette Benito who is livin' in some hacienda around here, an' after gettin' over a lotta surprise at finding an Arnericano who speaks his own lingo he says yes, an' he tells me how to make this place which is about six miles from where we are.

After stickin' me for two cigarettes an' thereby provin' that there ain't even one Mex who will even give you some information for nothin' I ease off an' ten minutes later I see the hacienda.

It is a swell little dump. It is all white an' stuck on the side of a little hill with a lotta tropical stuff an' cactus around behind it. There are some white palisades around the front an' an old-fashioned rancho gate, an' I drive in, get outa the car an' walk up to the door. There is a big knocker an' I bang plenty.

Pretty soon the door opens an' a Mexican jane stands lookin' at me. She is as ugly as a gorilla, an' by the looks of her pan I reckon that there is durn little Spanish about her. Maybe she had a Spanish mother about ten generations back who didn't know how to say no to Great Leapin' Moose or whatever the local chief's moniker was, an' since then her ancestors ain't met up with anybody except Indians.

I say goodnight very polite an' I ask her if I can talk with the Senora Benito an' she gets very excited an' says that the Seflora ain't around an' that she is at some dump called the Casa de Oro, after which we go inta a huddle an' eventually I find out that this Casa de Oro is the nearest thing they got to a roadhouse around these parts. She tells me that I can know this dump by the lamp that is hangin' outside an' I say thanks a lot an' scram.

I go on down the road an' after a bit I see this Casa de Oro. It is an ordinary adobe house standin' off the road with an old Spanish lamp hangin' outside. I drive the car off the road an' park it around by the side of the house an' I go in.

There ain't anybody around, but I can hear the sound of some guy playin' a guitar. I go along a stone passage, an' at the other end I stop an' look with my eyes bustin' because the place is like a fairyland.

All around the patio at the back there is an adobe wall, an' fixed on this wall is a lotta trellis work. There is flowers an' things stuck all over this trellis an' swung across the top from side to side is a lotta candle lamps.

All around the patio are tables with people sittin' around. The guy playin' the guitar is standin' over in the far corner lookin' like he was nuts-he is so carried away with the song he is singin'. In the middle of the patio there is a sorta smooth stone floor about twenty feet square.

I sit down at a table. Mosta the guys turn around an' take a look at me like I come out of some museum, an' after a minute some Mexican waiter comas an' does a big bowin' act an' asks what is my pleasure.

I tell him that my pleasure is usually dames, but that at the moment I'll take a glass of tequila. Then I ask him if he knows the Senora Benito.

He nods an' makes a gesture towards the dancin' space, an' as I look over a couple get up an' start dancin'. I look over an' I see that the dame is American an' I know that this is Paulette.

Boy is she good or is she? Get this: I seen plenty janes an' I'm tellin' you that this Paulette has got the makin's. She is one swell bundle of woman an' I get thinkin' that maybe if I wasn't so busy on this case I would like to get around an' try out my personality on this baby.

She is a honey. She is as cute as Henrietta, but in a different way. She is as different like a pineapple is to a plum.

She has got curves that woulda made King Solomon sign off the roster an' turn into a one-woman man, an' she has got the sorta style that woulda made that Roman baby they called Juno look lika case of gallopin' consumption. If Henry the Eighth coulda taken one peek at her ankles he woulda figured to have got himself born about six centuries later just so's he coulda given Anne Boleyn a quick bum's rush an' made this Paulette top sergeant in the royal runaround squad.

An' can she dance? I have seen dames dance plenty an' I reckon that she can swing a mean hip. I tell you she is as supple as a snake, an' as she turns around in the tango she is dancin' I catch a look at her white teeth flashin' an' see her red mouth smilin' up at the guy she is dancin' with, an' I start thinkin' that dames are very interestin' things an' that I would like to know very much just what a swell dame like this was doin' kickin' around with a cheap mug like Granworth Aymes.

An' the guy is good too. He is a dago an' he is wearin' tight black Mexican pants with a silk shirt an' a bolero jacket. He has got a silver cord in his shirt an' all the trimmin's. He is a tall, wiry lookin' cuss, with a lotta black hair an' a little black moustache. He dances swell an' I reckon that if this guy went to Hollywood he would probably be such a success that maybe he could get married to some film star for a coupla months before she got sick of anteing up all the time to keep this palooka in hair-oil.

He also looks dangerous to me. He has got that sorta wicked look like a rattlesnake, only I reckon that this baby wouldn't even rattle before he started spittin'.

After a bit the music stops an' they sit down again. I sit at my table sippin' the tequila an' watchin' them. You gotta understand that it is not quite so easy for me this side of the border an' as I don't wanta get mixed up with the local cops I have gotta play my hand easy.

Lookin' at Paulette I try an' make up my mind as to how I am goin' to play this thing, but lookin' at her don't help me any. You never know how a dame is goin' to take anything. You never know with females; whatever you do they ain't satisfied.

I remember hearin' about some high-hat butler in some swell dame's house in England. One day this butler guy busts into the bathroom just when the dame is takin' a shower. Now this butler has gotta lotta tact so he just says 'Excuse me, Sir,' an' scrams, an' thinks that he has got himself outa that one very good.

But he didn't feel so good next day when she made him go an' get his sight tested.

So I just sit there an' just as I am beginnin' to get tired of stickin' around, Paulette looks my way an' sorta gives me the once over, after which she gives me a sorta little smile.

I reckon that this is only because she reckons that I am an American in Mexico, but I act quick. I get up an' I ease over to her table an' I say how are you an' haven't we met some place before.

She say's she don't remember me but maybe she has met me somewhere.

"Anyhow, lady, I've been waitin' years to meet you," I tell her. "My name's Caution - Lemmy Caution - an' I wanta have a little talk with you sometime."

"Sit down, Mr Caution," she says, "an' have a drink. This is Senor Luis Daredo."

I sit down. The Mexican gives me a sorta look that might mean anything. I reckon he ain't so pleased with my bustin' in like this. He just nods.

I send the waiter to get the tequila that I have left on my table. While I am waitin' for it I see her watchin' me sorta interested, with a little smile playin' around her red mouth.

"And what was it you wanted to know, Mr Caution?" she says. "I'll be glad to help you."