The Instant Enemy

by Ross Macdonald

  “People are always telling me that about their central concerns.”

  “Sex is not one of my central concerns. I can take it or leave it. Keith and I—” She heard herself, and paused.

  “What about you and Keith?”

  “Nothing. You have no right to ask me these questions.”

  I moved toward her. “Tell me one thing. What happened to Sandy last summer—the incident you’ve been suppressing in her diary?

  “It hardly matters any more.”

  “Everything matters.”

  She looked at me with a kind of incredulity. “You really believe that, don’t you? I never met a man like you before.”

  “Let’s not get off on the personal. Did she write about her LSD experience?”

  “That was part of it. Incidentally, I forgot to tell you, the doctor left a message for you. The substance you gave him for analysis was LSD of a poor quality. He said that helped to account for Sandy’s reaction.”

  “I’m not surprised. What else helped to account for it?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “I’m asking you, Bernice. What was the rest of it?”

  Her face darkened. “I can’t tell you. Honestly I can’t.”

  “If Sandy could do it or have it done to her, you should be able to say it. Are we talking about her sexual relations with Lupe?”

  She bowed her head. “There were more than one of them: They took turns at her, doing—different things.”

  “And she spelled this out in her diary?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I see it?”

  “I destroyed it. Honestly. I was so terribly ashamed.”

  “Why do you suppose she wrote it out?”

  “To shame me. She knew I read her diary.”

  “Don’t you think she may have been asking you for help?”

  “I don’t know. It came as such a shock, I couldn’t think clearly about it. I still can’t.” Her voice was hurried and monotonous, with a shrill note of panic running through it.

  “Why, Bernice?” I wondered if the same sort of thing had ever happened to her.

  She raised her head and looked at me with black dislike. “I don’t want to talk to you any more. Go away.”

  “Promise me one thing first. Let me know when you hear from Keith. All I want is a chance to talk to him and Sandy.”

  “I’ll call you. I promise that much.”

  I told her I would wait for her call in my office, and went outside. Late afternoon sunlight spilled over the mountains to the west. The light had a tarnished elegiac quality, as if the sinking sun might never rise again. On the fairway behind the house the golfers seemed to be hurrying, pursued by their lengthening shadows.

  chapter 32

  I BOUGHT A plastic basket of fried chicken and took it my office. Before eating it, I checked in with my answering service. The girl on the switchboard told me I’d had a call from Ralph Cuddy.

  I called the Santa Monica number that Cuddy had left for me. He answered the phone himself:

  “Good evening. This is Ralph Cuddy.”

  “Archer here. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you again.”

  “Mrs. Krug asked me to call you.” His voice was stiff with embarrassment. “I told her Jasper was dead. She wants to talk to you about it.”

  “Tell her I’ll get in touch with her tomorrow.”

  “Tonight would be better. Mrs. Krug is very anxious to see you. You know that missing gun you were asking me about? She has some information on that, too.”

  “How could she have?”

  “Mr. Krug was security chief at Corpus Christi Oil at the time the gun was stolen.”

  “Who stole it? Jasper Blevins?”

  “I’m not authorized to tell you anything. You better get it direct from Mrs. Krug.”

  I drove through heavy early-evening traffic to the Oakwood Convalescent Home. As the nurse conducted me down the corridor, I got a whiff of some patient’s dinner. It reminded me of the chicken I had left untouched on my desk.

  Alma Krug looked up from her Bible when I entered the room. Her eyes were grave. She dismissed the nurse with a movement of her hand.

  “Please shut the door,” she said to me. “It’s good of you to visit me, Mr. Archer.” She indicated a straight chair, which I took, and turned her wheel chair to face me. “Ralph Cuddy says my grandson Jasper was killed in a train wreck. Is that true?”

  “His body was found under a train. I’ve been told he was murdered somewhere else, and that Laurel did the killing. That’s hearsay evidence, but I’m inclined to believe it.”

  “Has Laurel been punished?”

  “Not directly and not immediately. The local sheriff’s man covered up for her, or so I’m told. But Laurel was killed herself the other day.”

  “Who killed her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “This is terrible news.” Her voice had a rustling sibilance. “You say that Laurel was killed the other day. You didn’t tell me that when you came to see me before.”

  “No.”

  “And you didn’t tell me Jasper was dead.”

  “I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to hurt you unnecessarily.”

  “You should have told me. How long ago did he die?”

  “About fifteen years. Actually his body was found on the tracks near Rodeo City in late May of 1952.”

  “A bad end,” she said.

  “Other bad things have happened.” I went on slowly and carefully, watching her face. “Three or four days before Jasper was killed, Mark Hackett was shot on Malibu Beach. Perhaps we’ve both been holding back, Mrs. Krug. You didn’t tell me your husband was security officer for Mark Hackett’s oil company. I admit I should have been able to work it out for myself, but for some reason I didn’t. I think you’re the reason.”

  Her eyes flinched. “I have a lot on my conscience. It’s why I asked you to come here, Mr. Archer. The still small voice wouldn’t let me rest, and now that my grandson Jasper’s dead—” She let the sentence trail off into silence.

  “Did Jasper steal the gun from Hackett’s company?”

  “Joe always thought so. Jasper had stolen before—I had to lock up my purse when he was with us. And he visited Joe at the office that same day.”

  “The day Mark Hackett was killed?”

  She nodded very slowly. “The day before that he had a terrible quarrel with Mr. Hackett.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He told Joe. He wanted Joe to intercede for him with Mr. Hackett.”

  “What was the problem?”

  “Money. Jasper thought he had a legitimate claim on Mr. Hackett, for raising the boy. Actually Mr. Hackett gave Jasper a good deal of money at the time he married Laurel. That was all part of the bargain.”

  “Are you telling me that Davy was Mark Hackett’s illegitimate son?”

  “His grandson,” she corrected me soberly. “Davy was Stephen Hackett’s natural son. Laurel Dudney was one of the Hacketts’ servants back in Texas. She was a pretty little thing, and Stephen got her with child. His father sent him off to study in Europe. He sent Laurel out to us, to find a husband before she got too big.

  “Jasper decided to marry her himself. He was barbering at the time, and he hardly made enough to keep body and soul together. Mr. Hackett gave them five thousand dollars for a wedding present. Later, Jasper thought he should get more. He was badgering Mr. Hackett the day before—” Her precise mouth closed without completing the sentence.

  “The day before he killed him?”

  “That’s what Joe always thought. It shortened my husband’s life. Joe was an honest man, but he couldn’t bring himself to accuse his own daughter’s son. He asked me if he should, and I told him not to. That’s on my conscience, too.”

  “You did what most grandparents would do.”

  “That isn’t good enough. But we were in the habit of making excuses for Jasper. From the time that he was a little boy and first came
to us, he was a Tartar. He stole and fought and tortured cats and got in trouble at school. I took him to a head doctor once and the doctor said he should be sent away. But I couldn’t bear to do that to him, the poor boy wasn’t all bad.” She added after some thought: “He had some artistic talent. He got that from his mother.”

  “Tell me about his mother.”

  Mrs. Krug was confused for a moment. She looked at me with displeasure. “I prefer not to talk about my daughter. I have some right to the privacy of my feelings.”

  “I already have some facts, Mrs. Krug. Your daughter was born in 1910 in Rodeo City. Oddly enough, I have a copy of her birth certificate. She was christened Henrietta R. Krug. You called her Etta, but at some point in her life she dropped that name.”

  “She always hated it. She started using her middle name after she left Albert Blevins.”

  “Her middle name is Ruth, isn’t it?”

  The old woman bowed her head in assent. Her eyes refused to meet mine.

  “And her second husband was Mark Hackett.”

  “There was another one in between,” she said with an old woman’s passion for accuracy. “She took up with a Mexican boy from San Diego. That was over twenty-five years ago.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Lupe Rivera. They only stayed together a few months. The police arrested him for smuggling, and Etta got a divorce from him. Then came Mark Hackett. Then came Sidney Marburg.” Her voice rang harshly, as if she was reciting an indictment.

  “Why didn’t you tell me Ruth Marburg was your daughter?”

  “You didn’t ask me. It makes no difference, anyway. I haven’t had much to do with Etta since she threw herself at Mr. Hackett and rose in the world and became a great lady. She never comes to see me, and I know why. She’s ashamed of the life she leads, with young men half her age. I might as well not have a family. I never even see my grandson Stephen.”

  I said I was sorry, and left her warming her hands at her Bible.

  chapter 33

  I DROVE TO MALIBU, forgetting that I was hungry and tired. Just before I reached the Hacketts’ gate, I passed a car going in the other direction. The man at the wheel looked like Keith Sebastian. I turned in the entrance to the Hacketts’ driveway and chased him down the hill.

  I caught him at the highway STOP sign. He turned right on the highway and then left on a secondary road that looped down along the beach. He parked behind a lighted beach house and knocked on the back door. For an instant, as she opened the door for him, his daughter was silhouetted against the light.

  I got out of my car and approached the house. The blinds and drapes were closed. A good deal of light leaked out but I couldn’t hear anything because of the waves marking time on the beach.

  The name on the mailbox was Hackett. I knocked on the back door, trying the knob at the same time. It was locked.

  Keith Sebastian said through the door: “Who is it?”

  “Archer.”

  There was another wait. Inside the house a door closed. Sebastian unlocked the outer door and opened it.

  I stepped in past him without waiting to be asked. “What are you doing, Keith?”

  He had no decent cover story. “I decided I better get away from it all for a day or two. Mr. Hackett loaned me the use of his private cottage.”

  I moved from the kitchen into the next room. There were dirty dishes, set for two, on a round poker table. One of the coffee mugs had a half-moon of lipstick at the rim.

  “Do you have a girl with you?”

  “As a matter of fact I have.” He looked at me with hopeful foolish guile. “You won’t tell Bernice now, will you?”

  “She knows, and so do I. It’s Sandy, isn’t it?”

  He picked up Sandy’s coffee mug. For a moment his face was open. I think he was planning to brain me, and I stepped back out of close range. He set the mug down on the table.

  “She’s my daughter,” he asserted. “I know what’s best for her.”

  “Is that why her life is working out so beautifully? This is a lousy substitute for treatment.”

  “It’s better than jail. She’d get no treatment at all.”

  “Who’s been telling you horror stories?”

  He wouldn’t answer me. He stood there shaking his stupid handsome head. I sat down at the table uninvited. After a minute he sat down opposite me. We faced each other like bluffing poker players.

  “You don’t understand. Sandy and I aren’t planning to stay here. Everything’s all worked out.”

  “To leave the country?”

  He frowned. “Bernice told you then.”

  “It’s a good thing someone did. If you skip you’ll virtually lose your citizenship. Sandy will, anyway. And how will you support yourself in a foreign country?”

  “That’s all taken care of. If I look after what I’ve got, and live in the right place, I’ll never have to work again.”

  “I thought you were flat broke.”

  “Not any more. The whole thing’s working out.” He spoke with the deaf and blind assurance of terrible anxiety. “So please don’t try to stop me, Mr. Archer. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  “Is your wife going with you?”

  “I hope so. She hasn’t decided. We’re flying out tomorrow, and she’s going to have to make up her mind in a hurry.”

  “I don’t think either of you should decide in a hurry.”

  “Nobody asked for your advice.”

  “You did, though, in a way, when you brought me into this case. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

  We sat and looked at each other, two poker players with lousy hands who were too far behind to quit. For a moment I could hear the sea more clearly, and a cold draft touched my ankles. Something jarred in another part of the house, and the draft was cut off.

  “Where is your daughter?”

  He crossed the room and opened a door. “Sandy!”

  I followed him into a lighted bedroom. It was a strange room, as strange as Lupe’s. Wild color exploded on the walls and ceiling. A round bed stood like an altar in the middle. Sandy’s clothes were scattered across the bed.

  Sebastian opened the sliding glass door. We ran down to the water. The girl was out past the surf line, swimming for her life, or for her death.

  Sebastian waded in in his clothes, then turned to me helplessly. “I can’t swim very well.”

  A wave knocked him down. I had to drag him out of the sucking water.

  “Go and call the sheriff.”

  “No!”

  I slapped him. “Call the sheriff, Keith. You have to.”

  He floundered up the beach. I tore off my shoes and most of my clothes, and went in after the girl. She was young, and hard to catch. By the time I reached her, we were a long way out and I was tiring.

  She didn’t know I was there until I touched her. Her eyes were wide and dark as a seal’s. “Go away. I want to die.”

  “I’m not going to let you.”

  “You would if you knew all about me.”

  “I almost do, Sandy. Come on in with me. I’m too tired to drag you.”

  The eye of a searchlight winked open on the beach. It roved the sea and found us. Sandy swam away from me. Her body was white and faintly phosphorescent, shimmering like moonlight in the water.

  I stayed close to her. She was the only one left. A man in a black rubber wet-suit came out on a paddleboard and took her in unresisting through the surf.

  Sebastian and Captain Aubrey were waiting for us with blankets. I rescued my clothes from under the feet of the onlookers and followed Sebastian and his daughter toward the beach cottage. Captain Aubrey walked with me.

  “Suicide attempt?” he said.

  “She’s been talking about it for months. I hope this gets it out of her system.”

  “Don’t count on it. Her family better take security precautions.”

  “I’ve been telling them that.”

  “You say it’s been on her mi
nd for months. That means it antedates the current mess.”

  “Correct.”

  We had reached the cottage. I was shivering in my blanket, but Aubrey detained me outside. “What made her suicidal in the first place?”

  “I want to talk to you about that, Captain. First I need a hot shower and a chance to get Sebastian squared away. Where will you be in the next hour?”

  “I’ll wait for you in the substation.”

  I opened the glass door and stepped up into the colored bedroom. Sebastian was on the far side of the room. He stood like a sentry beside an open door through which I could hear a shower running. His clothes were dripping. He had wet sand in his hair, and in his eyes a look of maniacal dutifulness.

  “What do you plan to do for the next five or ten years, Keith? Stand suicide watch?”

  He gave me a puzzled look. “I don’t quite follow.”

  “We almost lost her just now. You can’t go on taking chances with her life. And you can’t stand around and watch her twenty-four hours a day.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Take her back to the Psychiatric Center tonight. Forget about South America. You wouldn’t like it.”

  “But I made a promise.”

  “To Sandy? She’d rather die than go on this way. Literally.”

  “She isn’t the only one involved,” he said miserably. “I don’t have any choice about South America. It’s part of the whole ball of wax.”

  “You’d better explain that.”

  “I can’t. I promised not to talk about it.”

  “Who did you make these promises to? Stephen Hackett?”

  “No. It wasn’t Mr. Hackett.”

  I moved around the bed toward him. “I can’t do anything more for you, if you won’t open up. I think you’re being taken for a ride, you and your daughter both.”

  He answered me doggedly: “I know what I’m doing. I don’t want or need your help.”

  “You may not want it, but you certainly need it. Are you going to take Sandy back to the Center?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll have to make you.”

  “You can’t. I’m a free citizen.”