CHAPTER 22

    

    I had parked my car on the street across from the gas station above which the Rancho Springs Development Corp. had its rathole. When I got back to my car it was blocked by a black and white police car with a big silver star on the side. Around the circumference of the star were the words rancho springs police.

    Leaning against my car were two of Rancho Springs' finest. Probably all of Rancho Springs' finest. One was a long rangy leathery customer with a big walrus moustache. He wore a tan shirt and pants that had been laundered threadbare, and a big white ten-gallon hat with sweat stains around the base of the crown. There was a star pinned to his shirt, that said Chief, and he carried an old frontier-style.44 Colt in a scuffed leather holster which hung from a wide cartridge belt. The Colt must have had a barrel ten inches long. The other guy leaning on my car was probably six inches shorter than his chief and maybe a yard wider. He had no neck at all, his jowly red face rising directly from his shoulders, and his faded tan uniform shirt was stretched to its limit over his stomach, so that the buttonholes pulled, and in the gaps between the buttons the pallid skin showed through. He too wore a big hat and it succeeded in making him seem even squatter. Above his small eyes, his blond eyebrows were bleached pale and looked like white slashes against his red face. His silver badge said Sergeant on it. He had a government-issue.45 automatic in a military-style flap holster on a web belt that he wore tight, allowing his belly to hang over it.

    "This your car?" the fat cop said.

    "Nice huh?" I said. "You want to sit in it?"

    "What the hell's that supposed to mean?" the fat cop said.

    "Sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to talk so fast."

    "You'll be talking fast in the back cell under the big lights in a little while," the fat cop said.

    "The smaller the town, the tougher the buttons talk," I said.

    The fat cop put his hand on his holster.

    "You want to say that again, tough guy?" he said.

    The chief put a hand like a catcher's mitt on the fat cop's shoulder.

    "Now, Vern," he said mildly. "Got no call getting yourself into some sort of rutting contest with this fella. Just deliver our message and help him on his way."

    "I figured there'd be a message," I said.

    The fat cop continued to glower at me, hand poised on his holster flap. I could have shot off his nose and put the gun away by the time he got unbuttoned.

    "Smart fella," the chief said easily. "Could tell you were a smart fella, minute you showed up in town. Lotta smart fellas in the city, I guess. Don't get a chance to see many of them out here eating sand with us cactus rats."

    "You actually hire this guy as a cop?" I said, and jerked my head at the fat cop, "or do you just keep him around for shade?"

    "Vern's a handy fella. Does good work with a blackjack. But he ain't always as polite as he should be, I guess. What's the purpose of your visit to our town, Mr. Marlowe?"

    "Did you get it off the registration?" I said. "Or did Rita give it to you?"

    "Registration," the chief said. "Rita couldn't remember if you give her a name."

    I nodded. There was a moment of silence.

    "We asked you a question, city boy."

    "I'm a private detective on a case," I said.

    "What case?" the chief said.

    "Confidential," I said.

    The chief made a little nod of his head and the fat cop hit me on the right shoulder with a blackjack. The pain went the length of my arm and up into my head. The fat cop was very quick with his blackjack, I hadn't seen him take it out.

    "He makes another move with that sap," I said to the chief, "and I'm going to feed it to him."

    The chief made a small move with his right hand and the frontier Colt was in it and pointing up under my chin.

    "Let's just all stop fiddling around with this thing," he said. "You out here asking questions about Rancho Springs Development Corporation. We don't like that. We don't like big-time hotshot city private detectives come weasling into our town and asking questions about our businesses. Vern here, he hates that especially."

    "I guessed that," I said. The muzzle of the Colt was pressing firmly into the soft area under my jawbone.

    "So we don't want you to do it no more, smart boy. We want you to get in your car and haul it out of Rancho Springs and not come back. 'Cause if you do come back we got a cell, way down back with no windows and one bright light where you and Vern can sort of cha cha cha until everything's clear. Comprende?"

    "Yeah," I said. "I can follow that."

    The tall chief turned my head toward the car with the muzzle of his Colt.

    "Dust," he said.

    My right arm was numb and throbbing. I could barely move it. I tried not to let it show. I opened the car door with my left hand, just as if I always opened it with my left hand, and got in and started up. The two cops got in their car and pulled up and I went past them and headed out of town. They followed me all the way to the town line and then U-turned and headed back toward Rancho Springs, leaving a low pall of dust behind them as they dwindled in the rearview mirror. Every day some new friends.