The windshield wiper could hardly keep the glass clear enough to see through. But not even the drenched darkness could hide the flawless lines of the orange trees wheeling away like endless spokes into the night.
Cars passed with a tearing hiss and a wave of dirty spray.
The highway jerked through a little town that was all packing houses and sheds, and railway sidings nuzzling them.
The groves thinned out and dropped away to the south and the road climbed and it was cold and to the north the black foothills crouched closer and sent a bitter wind whipping down their flanks.
Then faintly out of the dark two yellow vapor lights glowed high up in the air and a neon sign between them said:
"Welcome to Realito."
Frame houses were spaced far back from a wide main street, then a sudden knot of stores, the lights of a drugstore behind fogged glass, the fly-cluster of cars in front of the movie theater, a dark bank on a corner with a clock sticking out over the sidewalk and a group of people standing in the rain looking at its windows, as if they were some kind of a show.
I went on. Empty fields closed in again. Fate stage-managed the whole thing.
Beyond Realito, just about a mile beyond, the highway took a curve and the rain fooled me and I went too close to the shoulder.
My right front tire let go with an angry hiss.
Before I could stop the right rear went with it.
I jammed the car to a stop, half on the pavement, half on the shoulder, got out and flashed a spotlight around.
I had two flats and one spare.
The flat butt of a heavy galvanized tack stared at me from the front tire.
The edge of the pavement was littered with them.
They had been swept off, but not far enough off.
I snapped the flash off and stood there breathing rain and looking up a side road at a yellow light.
It seemed to come from a skylight.
The skylight could belong to a garage, the garage could be run by a man named Art Huck, and there could be a frame house next door to it.
I tucked my chin down in my collar and started towards it, then went back to unstrap the license holder from the steering post and put it in my pocket.
I leaned lower under the wheel.
Behind a weighted flap, directly under my right leg as I sat in the car, there was a hidden compartment.
There were two guns in it.
One belonged to Eddie Mars' boy Lanny and one belonged to me.
I took Lanny's.
It would have had more practice than mine.
I stuck it nose down in an inside pocket and started up the side road.
The garage was a hundred yards from the highway. It showed the highway a blank side wall.
I played the flash on it quickly.
"Art Huck — Auto Repairs and Painting."
I chuckled, then Harry Jones' face rose up in front of me, and I stopped chuckling.
The garage doors were shut, but there was an edge of light under them and a thread of light where the halves met.
I went on past. The frame house was there, light in two front windows, shades down.
It was set well back from the road, behind a thin clump of trees.
A car stood on the gravel drive in front. It was dark, indistinct, but it would be a brown coupe and it would belong to Mr. Canino. It squatted there peacefully in front of the narrow wooden porch.
He would let her take it out for a spin once in a while, and sit beside her, probably with a gun handy.
The girl Rusty Regan ought to have married, that Eddie Mars couldn't keep, the girl that hadn't run away with Regan. Nice Mr. Canino.
I trudged back to the garage and banged on the wooden door with the butt of my flash.
There was a hung instant of silence, as heavy as thunder.
The light inside went out.
I stood there grinning and licking the rain off my lip.
I clicked the spot on the middle of the doors. I grinned at the circle of white. I was where I wanted to be.
A voice spoke through the door, a surly voice:
"What you want?"
"Open up.
I've got two flats back on the highway and only one spare.
I need help."
"Sorry, mister.
We're closed up.
Realito's a mile west.