The Way Some People Die by Ross MacDonald Page B

blind in the near window, and I caught the gleam of an eyeball in the opening. The blind fell back into place, and there was a waiting silence. I knocked again.
    Someone fumbled the inside knob. The lock clicked. Slowly the door opened to the width of a brass chain that held it secure. I saw a four inch segment of a woman’s face and the muzzle of an automatic gun.
    “Go away,” she said.
    “I would if I knew how.” The obvious story was the best I could think of. “My car broke down up the road, and I’ve lost my way.”
    “Oh.” Her voice relaxed a little, but her gun was steady. “Where are you going?”
    “Indio.”
    “You’re way off the track.”
    “I know that well enough. I hope you’ve got the safety on that automatic.”
    “If it bothers you, you can go away,” she said. “As Isuggested.” But something told me, probably my ego, that she was glad to see me. Me or anybody.
    “I guess it makes people very inhospitable living all by themselves on the desert like this. Are you a spinster?”
    “No. Why?”
    “You’re acting like one. I wish you’d call your husband if you can’t help me out. He probably has a road map of this place.”
    “Be quiet. You’ll wake him.” It was a natural thing for her to say, but she said it much too vehemently.
    I wondered where Tarantine was sleeping, but I wasn’t interested enough to want to disturb him. I kept my voice down. “Why don’t you put up the gun and let me relax? I’m completely harmless to women.”
    To my surprise, she lowered the gun. Then, to my greater surprise, she unchained the door and opened it.
    “You might as well come in, but please be quiet. I’ll see if I can find a map.”
    I couldn’t understand it. It had been some years since my boyish charm had been able to work minor miracles. “Why the sudden reversal? Not that it isn’t pleasant.”
    “You don’t look much like a holdup man, I guess.” She unhooked the screen door and held it open for me. “Come in if you like.”
    I had my first good chance to look at her face. She was the girl in the picture I was carrying, a few years older, no less striking, I thought. The straight nose, curled lips, round chin, were the same, the boldness enhanced by the short black hair molded to her head. She was wearing a blue skirt and white blouse. The gun hanging low in her left hand completed the costume, and didn’t seem wholly out of place.
    As I passed her in the doorway I reached fast for the gunand twisted it out of her hand. She backed away from me in the confined space until she was flat against the wall of the little hallway. “Give it back to me.”
    “After we have a talk.”
    “There’s nothing to talk about. Get out of here.” But all the time she kept her voice quite low.
    I dropped her gun in my left-hand pocket, to balance the one in my right. A faint cool breeze from an air-conditioning system was blowing past me. I shut the door behind me, quietly. “Why don’t you go home to your mother, Galley? Joe isn’t going to live long, and neither are you if you stick.”
    “Who are you? How do you know my name?” In the half-light from the open door of the living-room her dark eyes shone with an amber gleam.
    “The name is Archer. Your mother sent me to find you. She’s been worried about you. With reason.”
    “You’re a liar. My mother doesn’t know about Joe. She never sent you here.”
    “She gave me your graduation picture, I have it here.”
    “You stole it from her.”
    “Nonsense. You’re just trying to unknow the error, Galley.”
    She recognized the phrase. Slowly she straightened up clear of the wall. In high heels, she was almost as tall as I was. “Please go away. If Mother sent you, tell her I’m all right. Tell her anything.”
    “I think you should come along.”
    “Be quiet,” she whispered.
    From somewhere at the back of the house, I heard a faint dull sound. It could have been a man’s boot drawn softly across the