Golden Gizmo, The by Thompson Jim

Author:Thompson, Jim [Thompson, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime, Fiction, Noir, Novel
ISBN: 9780316196116
Publisher: Mulholland Books / Little, Brown and Company
Published: 1954-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

16

Bathed, shaved and wearing the freshly pressed clothes and the new shirt the bellboy had brought up, Toddy sat on the bed of his San Diego hotel room and poured out the last of his breakfast pot of coffee.

The bus had arrived at six o’clock. It was now almost eight. Except for Elaine’s death and his own precarious position, he would have felt pretty good. He actually felt pretty good despite those things. He had a sensation of being at peace with himself, of being able to relax after a lifetime of tension. He was not tired—he felt invigorated, in fact—yet there was a strong desire to sit here and rest. Just rest and nothing else.

And he knew that the quicker he got out of this town, the better off he’d be.

San Diego’s unique semi-tropical climate was not the only thing it was noted for. Nor its great aircraft plants, nor Navy and Marines bases. Among the denizens of the world to which Toddy belonged, it was also known as a swell place to steer clear of. Its vagrancy laws were the harshest in the country. To be “without visible means of support”—a surprisingly elastic category in the hands of local cops and judges—was a major crime. In the same month here a vagrant—an unemployed wanderer—and a woman who had murdered her illegitimate baby were given identical prison sentences.

Despite the earliness of the hour, a crowd of holidayers was already waiting for the bus to the Mexican border. Toddy hesitated, thought for a moment of making the seventeen-mile trip in a cab. There’d been nothing about Elaine’s death in the morning papers; apparently, there was no alarm out for him. Still—he took his place in the waiting line—he couldn’t be sure. It was best to stick with a crowd.

He stood up throughout the thirty-minute ride to the border. The bus unloaded, there, on the American side, and he made himself one with the mass which crowded through the customs station.

He had no trouble in crossing the international boundary. The busy United States guard barely glanced at him as he asked his nationality and birthplace. The Mexican customs officers did not bother to do even that much. They simply stood aside as he and the others filed past.

Toddy climbed into a Mexican taxicab, jolted over a long narrow bridge, and, a minute or two later, stepped out on Tijuana’s main thoroughfare. He strolled leisurely down it, a wide dirty street bordered by one- and two-story buildings which were tenanted mainly by bars, restaurants and curio shops.

It was a bullfight day, and the town was unusually crowded. Americans jammed the narrow sidewalks and swarmed in and out of the business establishments. Most signs were in English.

Toddy walked to the end of the street, to the turn which leads off to the oceanside resort of Rosarita. Then he crossed to the other side and walked slowly back. Near the center of town, he turned off onto a side street and strolled along for a few doors.

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