Free Till Death Do Us Part by Louis Trimble Page B

demonstrate any time. Now let’s get started or we’ll be late.”
    I said, “This is a big affair, I think. Navarro will probably be there. He can nursemaid me for one night.”
    She said, “He’ll be there, but he’ll be busy.”
    That ended that. We went to the barbecue together. At least we went as far as Fronteras together. There Arden agreed to go on her own. Her idea of doing that was to hire a taxi and follow the car I rented.
    The ranch was eight miles from town, out in the middle of the cactus and sage hills east of the river. I later learned that the land Rosanne held covered eighteen square miles. It wasn’t much in the way of a cattle ranch, but it made a nice quiet place to go and relax.
    Like so many ranches, most of the money tied up in this one had gone for cattle and water wells. The outbuildings were no better than they needed to be, and the ranchhouse was a rambling, weather-beaten Victorian horror.
    I parked the rented car in front of the house, beside a long line of cars, and sat and smoked a cigaret. By that time Arden had left her taxi and disappeared. I gave her ten minutes all together and then went after her.
    The party was in full howl by the time I appeared. The cooking took place behind the big barn in what I presumed was one of the corrals. Fires had been built in pits and allowed to burn down to coals and now the heat from them was making whole steers turning on great spits sizzle and fill the air with the best smell I’d sniffed in a long while.
    The first person I met was Rosanne. She was dressed as Arden was, but her clothes looked as if she’d done some work in them. I said, “Did I miss anything?”
    “Just the first round of drinks.” She led me to a long table where bottles and ice and glasses and mixers were lined up. “Help yourself.”
    I helped myself. She went away. I was half through my first drink when she came back with a man in tow. As they neared, I heard him say in a pettish voice, “But Rosanne, darling, I was so enjoying myself talking to that dancer of Navarro’s.”
    “There’s someone else I want you to meet,” she said in one of her firm voices. She stepped aside so that I had a good look at the man with her.
    I recognized him as the “very funny fellow” I’d seen at Navarro’s the other night. Rosanne said, “Mr. Blane, I’d like you to meet Calvin Calvin. He’s our local celebrity. Mr. Blane is a detective on vacation from Mexico City, Cal.”
    He said, “Pleased,
amigo.”
He didn’t offer me his hand. I didn’t offer mine.
    Seen close up, Calvin Calvin was even less prepossessing than from a distance. He was a little man, still quite young, with a jaundiced complexion and one of those thin, pointed faces with a long nose that looks boneless at the tip. It was the kind of nose that dripped in chilly weather. Now it just wriggled. With that kind of nose, he should have had rabbity front teeth and a sloping jaw, but instead he had a pugnacious, bulldog jaw.
    I said, “Pleased. I heard your show.”
    He said, “Like it?”
    “Fine,” I said. “Damn funny.” If he could talk shorthand, I figured I could too.
    Our sparkling conversation might have continued for quite a while except that just then Delman appeared, plowing toward the table as if he thought Rosanne needed rescuing. He came in swinging his shoulders and forced Calvin against me. I backed away. Calvin smelled as if he’d got too close to the smoke from the barbecue pit.
    I turned on Delman as he tried to crowd me against the edge of the table. “Since I’m a guest here,” I said, “I’ll let it pass this time.”
    He turned, scowling, looking as if he was eager to take up where we’d left off in Rosanne’s office. Rosanne put a hand on his arm and said something very low and very quick. He swung around again and stalked off. She went with him.
    I got myself another drink. Calvin said, “My, what’s with you and our local cattle baron?”
    I said, “We’re both just