Free Till Death Do Us Part by Louis Trimble

again. She said, “Perhaps I misjudged you.” She didn’t explain what she meant by that. She took her finger and pushed the money toward my side of the desk. “Please consider yourself still working for me.”
    “Not under the present conditions.”
    She took out her purse and found a fifty dollar bill. She laid it on the other money. I said, “What’s the point of that? I want information, not money.”
    She left the fresh fifty lying there. “Tonight I want you to come to a barbecue at my ranch.”
    I said, “Thanks, but I don’t feel very social right now.”
    “There’s someone there I want you to meet,” she said. The frost was gone from her voice. The warmth of yesterday was creeping back in. I wondered if she was the type who liked to be pushed around. If so, it would explain her attraction for Delman. He probably slapped her every Friday night just for kicks.
    I said, “Why should I meet this person?”
    “So that when I explain what you need to know, you’ll understand my problem.”
    I picked up her money. I said, “I’m making a condition. I’m working for Navarro too. If there’s a conflict of interest, I’ll decide which of you is being more honest with me. I’ll return the money to the other one and do everything I can to make trouble.”
    She didn’t even hesitate to think that over. She got up. “I accept that,” she said. She came around the desk to where I was standing. “Until tonight, then, Mr. Blane. Come about seven o’clock.”
    We went to the door. She had turned on the warm smile again. It was too bad she didn’t have the mouth for this sort of thing. I couldn’t look at her without thinking that the corners of her mouth were joined together by steel trap springs.
    It was very much too bad. Today she wore a pale cream suit, and nobody could have asked for more than she had beneath it.
    I went out before I let myself forget what a professional bitch she really was.

VIII
    W HEN I OPENED the door, Amalie was standing close to it. For a moment I thought she’d been up to her old tricks but then I saw a man standing by the desk.
    She said, “The
señor
Kruse to see you,
señora
,” to Rosanne.
    I recognized the man now. He was the member of Rosanne’s party who looked as if he worked. The one Navarro identified to me as Jim Kruse, the foreman of her ranch.
    He gave me a cold look, full of suspicion and hostility, and stepped toward the door. I moved aside. Rosanne said, “What are you doing in town at this time of day?” Her voice was sharp. She was playing hard at the role of female executive.
    His expression changed as he looked at her. Instead of hostility, he now registered cow-like devotion. His voice matched his face when he said, “I came to get some stuff for the barbecue, and I thought I’d better talk to you about how many are coming.”
    I could see that Rosanne was thinking the same thing I was—that he had dug up an excuse to get a look at her. She didn’t seem overly pleased at such flattery. She stepped back. “You could have phoned,” she said, “But come in now that you’re here.” As he went by her, she gave me a final look and a smile. “Until tonight, Mr. Blane.”
    “Hasta la noche,”
I agreed.
    I gave Amalie a smile as I walked into the waiting room. She came after me, catching me at the front door. “You are going to spend the night with that woman!” she said accusingly.
    “Just business,” I said.
    She slammed the door behind me. I looked back. She was staring through the glass panel. I waved and she went away. I hurried across the street and got Arden and headed back for Rio Bravo.
    I spent most of the day lying on my bed and trying to think. By evening, I was right back where I’d started—as I saw it, Navarro and Rosanne were in some kind of business that Pachuco decided he could cut himself a piece of. Whether the business was legal or illegal, I had no way of knowing yet, but I didn’t doubt that Pachuco’s angle would be