The following is a continuation of the April 20, 1949 entry in the Rocky Stone notebooks:
I stepped through the open door at the top of the stairs and into a world made of light. The sun burned with fury outside and it took some time for my eyes to adjust. When they did, I could see I hadn't gone anywhere: they hid me in the basement of the Gehenna Tavern. Gloria handed me the keys to my car and showed me the contents of the small handbag she slid under her arm. My gun resided there.
“I'll hold on to it, if you don't mind.”
“I mind. Why do you need it?”
“I don't want any guns,” she replied. “Not where we need to go. No offense, but I don't know you well enough. You don't look like the type to wave a gat in someone's face the moment times get tough, but there's always a chance.”
I let her get to the car first so I could watch her figure from behind. It was better than I remembered, but the better they looked, the more dangerous they were. I popped into the Buick and started driving it down the side street. After a few yards, the pavement disappeared, replaced by a flattened path of scorched dust. It wound its way down a slight hill through a minefield of short, brave shrubs. She didn't tell me I was going the wrong direction, so I kept moving forward until I heard otherwise.
I said: “You say this Mitch is Marjorie's husband. You know she already has her limit.”
She kept her eyes on the road. “Mitch married her when they were both sixteen. They spent three rough years together until she took off. No sign of a divorce. He'd work as a laborer around the local towns for months at a time, then go off to try and find her. Ten years he did that.” Her eyes twinkled. “Romantic, don't you think?”
“I don't. Stubborn is what I think.”
“I might have known,” she sighed.
“So let me guess: Romantic Mitch goes to Los Diablos and finds her at the Pink Slipper. He gets a job mopping the floors and they run off together with a bunch of Max Blank's money.”
“Something like that.”
“It doesn't end there. The Good Reverend hires me and Blank hires you. Blank follows them to the edge of nowhere and they each end up with a bullet in the head for their troubles. This story doesn't have a happy ending, kid. You should know that. You're part of the romance.”
In a second, I felt my gun against my temple. It was just for show. “Shut up and drive.”
I laughed and did so. We drove through the barren landscape for miles and the road continued to get worse. Gloria kept my gun pressed against me the entire time. After a few minutes of nothing, a group of shacks came together, forming what passed for a town.
“Are we here?” I asked her.
“First house on the left.”
That one was in the worst shape of the lot, a mound of boards rising out of the dirt, topped by a sheet of rusty metal. The wind picked up and pushed a cloud of dust against the side of the building, nearly knocking it over. Whoever put it together painted a red “G” on the boards nearest the door. I killed the engine.
Gloria glanced away for just a second and it was just long enough. I ducked and swiped the rod out of her hand. “There,” I said, replacing the gun in my shoulder holster, “maybe now we can do this in peace.”
She rubbed her wrist. I didn't mean to bend it back on her but I guess I did. She muttered something to herself but refused to talk to me. I was fine with that. We stepped out and she rushed past so she could make it to the door before I did. She knocked lightly, once, twice, three times, but no one came. It confused her.
“Does he know you're coming?”
She glared at me and opened the door. Something pushed against her as she moved in and she forced it, shoving aside a pile of garbage. A smell: one of those scents you know right away if you've been around long enough. I wanted to think it was something else but I knew by the way Gloria was acting it wasn't. She moved quickly and kept her eyes open, because that smell let us both know something was dead in there. A board wall stood in my way and another pile of garbage. Gloria climbed over the mess and cursed to herself as she did. I reached around the board and saw the man she described the previous night: a man in his thirties, blonde hair, cowboy hat. Mitch Gomer was curled up on the floor with a congealed hole in his side. Gloria shook her head.
“The things a person will do to avoid a bigamy charge.”
Tune in next week to The Lost Love, Part 11 on The Adventures of Rocky Stone!
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