Monkey on a Chain by Harlen Campbell Page A

more,” I said. I told him about the meeting with the lawyer. Then I told him about the letter from Toker.
    He grew as pale as I’d ever seen him, a kind of dark gray, and looked nervously over his shoulder. “I don’t like this at all,” he said. “We’re sitting in a goddamn fish bowl here.”
    I suddenly felt the same way. “Look,” I said, “we’ve got to trust each other. Like in the old days. I came here and I didn’t know what you were up to. But now I think we have the same problem. And we have to talk about it, figure out how to make it go away. Can we get out of this fucking airport?”
    He looked uncertain. He jerked his eyes toward the girl. “What about her?”
    “She’s in it too.” But I knew what he was thinking. “The problem existed before she came along. It would still be here if she were gone. Besides, she’s Toker’s kid.”
    “Or somebody’s,” he said.
    April had given up pretending. She was watching both of us carefully, warily. Walker turned to her. “Who did you say your father was? Your real father?”
    “My aunt said he was a cowboy.” Her lips were tight. “That’s all I know.”
    Walker made a decision and stood abruptly. “We’ll go to my place,” he said. “It isn’t in my name. I think it should be safe.” He gave me an address and we started out. At the entrance to the lounge, he hung back and grabbed my arm, pulled me away from April and close to his lips.
    “Let me give you something to think about,” he hissed. “Who was the most famous cowboy of all time?”
    As we walked toward the lot, I puzzled over his question. And then I saw what he meant and felt a chill in the hot Arizona night and missed a step.
    He noticed. “Got it, huh?”
    I nodded.
    “Got what?” April asked.
    “I’ll tell you in the car.”
    We walked out of the airport in silence. I moved like a mechanical man, eyes scanning the passages ahead for congested points, knots of travelers to avoid, potential ambushes. But I had no thought for the process. One question preoccupied me. If Roy was her father, who was her mother?
    Walker split off in the long-term lot and headed for the Cadillac. I noticed that we seemed to have the same sort of self-protective instincts and knew that was a problem, something an enemy could use to his advantage. I decided to try to be less predictable.
    In the car, April was silent, waiting. I said nothing, and after a mile or so she cleared her throat. “Well?”
    “Well, what?”
    “What did Mr. Coleman tell you about me?”
    “It’s just a possibility,” I said. “Your aunt told you your father was a cowboy.”
    “So?”
    “The other man, the one who started the operation in Saigon, was Bill Rodgers. He was a Captain in the Military Police. He had a nickname too. We called him Roy. Roy Rodgers.”
    “Like the cowboy,” she said.
    “Yeah.”
    She said no more until we pulled up in front of Walker’s house. She put her hand on my shoulder to hold me when I opened the car door. “Do you think Roy was my father?” she asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    “But if he is…? Do you think he might be the one? You think my real father killed my…killed Dad?”
    “I don’t know that either.”
    Walker met us at the door. Behind him, a thin, pretty black woman, about thirty-five, looked anxious. He introduced her as his wife, Joyce. I shook hands and said her name. April tried to smile at her, but it was a total failure. Her lips didn’t want to cooperate. Walker gave his wife a meaningful glance and she excused herself.
    We went into the den. Walker asked if I wanted a drink. I asked him if he was still on scotch. He shook his head and rubbed his belly. “Not anymore,” he said. “The doctor cut me off. Ulcers. But I keep it in the house.”
    I told him a Johnny Walker would be fine. April didn’t want anything. She took a chair and looked impatient. Walker disappeared, came back with a glass of ice, a glass of milk, and a bottle of Black Label.