producer and he does a crime show based on police files. I suppose he hears inside information.”
“But he didn’t hear what Tarantine lifted from Dowser?”
“No. Money, perhaps. He seems to have plenty of it. I rented my house to him in all innocence, and now it’s made me look as if I’m an accomplice.” He gulped the beer that had been growing stale in his glass.
I signaled for more drinks, but he refused another. “I’ve got to keep my wits about me.”
“I don’t think it’s so bad,” I said. “If you’re afraid of Dowser, why don’t you go and talk to him?”
“I daren’t show myself. Besides, if I talked to Dowser, I’d have Tarantine to worry about.”
“Not for long.”
“I can’t be sure of that, either. Frankly, I’m in a mess. I phoned up Galley, Mrs. Tarantine, yesterday after I talked to my friend. She agreed to meet me here. She didn’t realize what a chance she was taking, until I told her about her husband. She was shocked. She said she was practically a prisoner out there. She had to slip away last night while he was sleeping, and God knows what he did to her when she got back.”
“You like her pretty well.”
“Frankly, I do. She’s a lovely kid, and she’s got herself mixed up with an awfully nasty crew.” Not all of his anxiety was for himself.
“I’d like to meet her,” I said. “I never have.”
He stood up suddenly. “I was hoping you’d say that. I have a normal amount of physical courage, I think, but I’m not up to dealing with gangsters, all by myself, I mean.”
I said that that was natural enough.
CHAPTER
9 :
My car was parked six blocks away
, where I had begun my rounds. Dalling’s was waiting at the curb. If I had been asked to guess what kind of car he had, I would have said a red or yellow convertible, Chrysler or Buick or De Soto. It was a yellow Buick with red leather seats.
As we drove out of town, slowing down occasionally for a stop sign, I asked him what he did. He had been and done a number of things, he said, chorus boy in musicals before he grew too big, photographic model for advertising agencies, car and yacht salesman, navigator on a PBY during the war. He was proud of that. After the war he had married a rich wife, but it hadn’t lasted. More recently he had been a radio actor but that hadn’t lasted either because he drank too much. Dalling was frank almost to the point of fruitiness. Starting with the assumption that no man could like him in any case, he said, he figured he might just as well be himself. He had nothing to lose.
When we got on the highway he accelerated to eighty or so and concentrated on his driving, which interrupted our one-sided conversation. After a while I asked him where we were going. “At this rate we’ll be in Mexico before long.”
He chuckled. Surely I’d heard that chuckle on the radio. People didn’t chuckle in real life. “It’s just a few miles from here,” he said. “A place they call Oasis. I suppose it’s not exactly a place yet, but it will be. This country is filling up. Don’t you love it?”
I watched the dim arid tundra sweeping by, dotted with cactus and gray sage like the ghosts of vegetation. “It looks like a sea floor. I like a sea floor with water over it, it’s more interesting.”
“It’s funny you should say that. The Gulf of California reached almost to here at one time.”
We turned right off the highway and followed an asphalt road across the lightless desert. A dozen miles to our right the town lights sparkled, a handful of white and colored stones thrown down carelessly. A few lights gleamed ahead of us, lost and little in the great nocturnal spaces. Dalling said they were the lights of Oasis.
We entered a maze of gravel roads crisscrossing like city streets, but practically uninhabited. A handful of houses scattered here and there, street-lights at most of the corners, that was Oasis. It reminded me of an army camp I had seen at a staging
“But he didn’t hear what Tarantine lifted from Dowser?”
“No. Money, perhaps. He seems to have plenty of it. I rented my house to him in all innocence, and now it’s made me look as if I’m an accomplice.” He gulped the beer that had been growing stale in his glass.
I signaled for more drinks, but he refused another. “I’ve got to keep my wits about me.”
“I don’t think it’s so bad,” I said. “If you’re afraid of Dowser, why don’t you go and talk to him?”
“I daren’t show myself. Besides, if I talked to Dowser, I’d have Tarantine to worry about.”
“Not for long.”
“I can’t be sure of that, either. Frankly, I’m in a mess. I phoned up Galley, Mrs. Tarantine, yesterday after I talked to my friend. She agreed to meet me here. She didn’t realize what a chance she was taking, until I told her about her husband. She was shocked. She said she was practically a prisoner out there. She had to slip away last night while he was sleeping, and God knows what he did to her when she got back.”
“You like her pretty well.”
“Frankly, I do. She’s a lovely kid, and she’s got herself mixed up with an awfully nasty crew.” Not all of his anxiety was for himself.
“I’d like to meet her,” I said. “I never have.”
He stood up suddenly. “I was hoping you’d say that. I have a normal amount of physical courage, I think, but I’m not up to dealing with gangsters, all by myself, I mean.”
I said that that was natural enough.
CHAPTER
9 :
My car was parked six blocks away
, where I had begun my rounds. Dalling’s was waiting at the curb. If I had been asked to guess what kind of car he had, I would have said a red or yellow convertible, Chrysler or Buick or De Soto. It was a yellow Buick with red leather seats.
As we drove out of town, slowing down occasionally for a stop sign, I asked him what he did. He had been and done a number of things, he said, chorus boy in musicals before he grew too big, photographic model for advertising agencies, car and yacht salesman, navigator on a PBY during the war. He was proud of that. After the war he had married a rich wife, but it hadn’t lasted. More recently he had been a radio actor but that hadn’t lasted either because he drank too much. Dalling was frank almost to the point of fruitiness. Starting with the assumption that no man could like him in any case, he said, he figured he might just as well be himself. He had nothing to lose.
When we got on the highway he accelerated to eighty or so and concentrated on his driving, which interrupted our one-sided conversation. After a while I asked him where we were going. “At this rate we’ll be in Mexico before long.”
He chuckled. Surely I’d heard that chuckle on the radio. People didn’t chuckle in real life. “It’s just a few miles from here,” he said. “A place they call Oasis. I suppose it’s not exactly a place yet, but it will be. This country is filling up. Don’t you love it?”
I watched the dim arid tundra sweeping by, dotted with cactus and gray sage like the ghosts of vegetation. “It looks like a sea floor. I like a sea floor with water over it, it’s more interesting.”
“It’s funny you should say that. The Gulf of California reached almost to here at one time.”
We turned right off the highway and followed an asphalt road across the lightless desert. A dozen miles to our right the town lights sparkled, a handful of white and colored stones thrown down carelessly. A few lights gleamed ahead of us, lost and little in the great nocturnal spaces. Dalling said they were the lights of Oasis.
We entered a maze of gravel roads crisscrossing like city streets, but practically uninhabited. A handful of houses scattered here and there, street-lights at most of the corners, that was Oasis. It reminded me of an army camp I had seen at a staging
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