Black Money la-13

by Ross Macdonald

  He went into the bar. Peter trudged to the end of the line that had formed at the dessert table. He stood like an earnest communicant, his eyes dreaming over the pies and cakes and pastries.

  10

  I FOLLOWED DR SYLVESTER into the bar. A bartender whose eyes moved like black quicksilver poured him a double scotch without being asked to. Sylvester called the bartender Marco. Marco wore a red waistcoat, a white shirt with long collar-points, and a flowing black silk tie.

  I waited until the doctor had knocked back about half of his drink. Then I sat on the bar stool beside him and watched Marco making a daiquiri.

  Sylvester's square hairy-backed hands fiddled with his lowball glass. The hairs were slightly grizzled, like the hair on his head. The bones of his face were prominent, and accentuated by harsh lines running from the base of his nose to his mouth. He didn't look like an easy man to strike up a conversation with.

  To have something to do with my hands, I ordered a bar bourbon. The bartender wouldn't accept my dollar.

  "Sorry, no cash. Are you a member, sir?"

  "I'm Peter Jamieson's guest."

  "I'll put it on his bill, sir."

  Dr Sylvester turned and raised his black eyebrows at me. He used them so conspicuously that they seemed to be his main sense organs, distracting attention from his hard bright eyes.

  "Jamieson senior or junior?"

  "I know them both. I noticed you were talking to the young one."

  "Yes?"

  I told him my name and trade. "Peter hired me to look into this business of his ex-fiancée."

  "I was wondering how you got in here."

  He wasn't trying to insult me, exactly, just letting me know my place in his scheme of things. "Didn't I see you at the Fablon's house this noon?"

  "Yes. I understand you were Virginia Fablon's employer at one time."

  "That's true."

  "What do you think about her marriage?"

  I had succeeded in interesting him. "Good Lord, did she marry the fellow?"

  "So she told me. They were married on Saturday."

  "You've talked to her?"

  "An hour or so ago. I couldn't figure out what was going on in her mind. Of course the circumstances weren't normal, either. But she seemed to be living out some kind of romantic dream."

  "Most women are," he said dryly. "Did you see him?"

  "I talked to them together at his house."

  "I've never met him myself," Sylvester said. "I've seen him around here, of course, at a distance. What did you make of him?"

  "He's a very intelligent man, highly educated, with a good deal of force He seems to have Virginia pretty well dominated."

  "It won't last," Sylvester said. "You don't know the young lady. She has a lot of personal force of her own."

  He added wryly: "I've served in loco parentis to her since her father died, and it hasn't always been easy. Virginia likes to make up her own mind."

  "About men?"

  "There haven't been any men in her life, not lately. That's one of the problems she's had. Ever since her father's death she's done nothing but work and study French. You'd think her life was nothing but a memorial to Roy. Then a few weeks ago, as you might expect, the whole thing broke down. She dropped her studies, when she was within easy shooting distance of her degree, and went hog-wild for this Martel."

  He sipped his drink. "It's a disturbing picture."

  "Are you her doctor?"

  "I was until quite recently. Frankly, we had a disagreement about the - the wisdom of her course. I thought it best to refer her to another doctor. Why do you ask?"

  "I don't like the emotional risk she's taking. She's managed to convince herself that she's crazy about Martel, and she's perched way out on a limb. It could be brutal for her if the limb gets sawed off."

  "I tried to tell her that," Sylvester said. "You think he's a phony, eh?"

  "He has to be at least partly phony. I've had one Washington reference checked, and it didn't pan out. There were other things I won't go into."

  The rat, the blood on his heel, the gun peering out of his hand at Harry Hendricks.

  "What can I do about it? She's got the bit in her teeth, and she running with it."

  Sylvester paused, and finished his drink.

  "You want another, doctor?" the bartender asked.

  "No thanks, Marco. One thing I've learned in twenty years of practicing medicine," he said to me: "you have to let people make their own mistakes. Sooner or later they come around to reason. The men with emphysema will eventually give up smoking. The women with chronic alcoholism will go on the wagon. And the girls with bad cases of romanticism turn into realists. Like my dear wife here."

  A big woman in a kind of mantilla had come up behind us. Her chest gleamed like mother-of-pearl through black lace. She had bouffant yellow hair which made her as tall as I was when I stood up. Her mouth was discontented.

  "What about me?" she said. "I love to be talked about by men."

  "I was saying that you were a realist, Audrey. That women start out being romantic and end up realistic every time."

  "Men force us into it," she said. "Is this my daiquiri?"

  "Yes, and this is Mr. Archer. He's a detective."

  "How fascinating," she said. "You must tell me the story of your life."

  "I started out as a romantic and ended up as a realist."

  She laughed and drank her drink, and they went in to dinner. Some other people followed them.

  For a moment I was the only one at the bar. Marco asked me if I wanted another drink. He was staring at me intensely as if he had something on his mind. His mouth was sort of wreathed with unspoken language. I said that I would like another drink.

  "On me," he said as he rapped it down, and poured himself a Cola to take with me. "I couldn't help hearing, you said you were a detective. And some of the things you said about Miss Fablon."

  "You know her?"

  "Seem her around. She don't drink. I've been here for over twelve years, I knew her father. He drank, and he could carry it. Mr. Fablon was a man. He had machismo."

  Marco's red lips protruded, savoring the word.

  "I heard he committed suicide," I said without emphasis.

  "Maybe. I never believed it." He shook his bushy blackhead.

  "You think he drowned accidentally?"

  "I didn't say that."

  "The other alternative is murder."

  "I didn't say that, either."

  Without moving from his position behind the bar, he seemed to back away from me. Then he crossed himself. "Murder is a big ugly word."

  "It's an uglier fact. Was Mr. Fablon murdered?"

  "Some people thought so."

  "Who?"

  "His wife, for instance. After he disappeared she was yelling bloody murder around the club here. Then suddenly she quit, and all you could hear from her was a loud silence."

  "Did she accuse anyone?"

  "Not that I heard. She didn't name any names."

  "Why would she change her story?"

  "Your guess is as good as mine, mister. Probably better."

  The subject seemed to make him nervous. He changed it: "But it wasn't that I wanted to talk about. This other guy - calls himself Martel - the big-shot Frenchman?"

  "What about him?"

  "I got a funny feeling I've seen him before someplace."

  He spread his fingers. "Anyway I'm sure he ain't no Frenchie."

  "What is he?"

  "Same like me, maybe." He made a stupid face, deliberately humbling himself in order to make what he said more insulting to Martel. "Just another paisano. He never came in here only the once, and then he took one look at me and never came back."

  The orchestra had started up. Some people drifted in from the dining room and ordered brandy. Dodging a few dancing couples, I went back to Peter's table. The dessert plate in front of him was empty except for a few faint smears of chocolate. He looked smug and guilty.

&nbs
p; "I thought you'd left," he said.

  "I was in the bar talking to some friends of the Fablons."

  "Dr Sylvester."

  "He was one of them," I said.

  "I had a word with him, too. He puts on that hard front of his, but he's worried about Ginny, I can tell."

  "We all are."

  "Do you think we better go back to Martel's house?" Peter made a move to get up.

  "Not until we have something substantial to hit him with."

  "Like what?"

  "Some actual proof that he isn't what he claims to be. I'm trying to develop something now."

  "And what am I supposed to do?"

  Go and take another run on the beach, I almost said. I said: "You have to wait. And I think you better get used to the idea that this may not turn out the way you want it to."

  "You've found out something?"

  "Nothing definite, but I have a feeling. This one didn't start out happily and it may not end happily. I think it goes back at least as far as Roy Fablon's alleged suicide."

  "Alleged?"

  "At least one man who knew him doesn't believe he killed himself. Which implies that somebody else did."

  "Whoever told you that is making it up."

  "Perhaps. He's a Roman Catholic, and he admired Roy Fablon, and he wouldn't want to think that he was a suicide. Your father told me an interesting thing though."

  "I didn't know you ever talked to my father."

  Peter's tone was formal and suspicious, as if I had gone over to the enemy.

  "I went to your house to find you this afternoon. Your father told me among other things that Roy Fablon's body was so chewed up by sharks it could hardly be identified. Just what was the condition of his face?"

  "I didn't see it myself. My father did. All they showed me was his overcoat."

  "He went into the water wearing an overcoat?"

  "It was more of a waterproof."

  He heard the word, and grimaced at the irony.

  It caught in my own mind like a fishhook. It was hard to imagine a sportsman and athlete walking into the ocean in a waterproof coat, from a beach estate which his ways with money had forced his wife to sell, unless he meant to leave her and her daughter a legacy of malice.

  "How do you know exactly where he went into the water?"

  "He left his wallet and wristwatch on the beach. There wasn't anything in the wallet, except identification, but his watch was a very good one that Mrs. Fablon had given him. It had their initials on the back, and something engraved in Latin on the case."

  "No suicide note?"

  "If there was one, I never heard of it. That doesn't necessarily prove anything. The local police don't always release notes."

  "Do you have a lot of suicides in Montevista?"

  "We have our share. You know, when you have money to live on, and a nice house, and good weather most of the time, and still your life goes wrong - well, who can you blame?" Peter seemed to be taking about himself.

  "Is that how it was with Roy Fablon?"

  "Not exactly. He had his troubles. I was a guest in their house, and I shouldn't talk about them, but I suppose it doesn't matter now."

  He breathed in. "I heard him tell Mrs. Fablon he would kill himself."

  "That same night?"

  "A night or two before. I was there for dinner, and they were arguing about money. She said she couldn't give him any more money because there wasn't any more money."

  "What did he want the money for?"

  "Gambling losses. He called it a debt of honor. He said if he couldn't pay it he'd have to kill himself."

  "Was Ginny there?"

  "Yes. She heard everything. We both did. Mr. and Mrs. Fablon had reached the point where they weren't trying to hide anything. Each of them was trying to win us over."

  "Who won?"

  "Nobody won," he said. "Everybody lost."

  The orchestra was playing again, and through the archway I could see people dancing in the adjoining room. Most of the tunes, and most of the dancers, had been new in the twenties and thirties. Together they gave the impression of a party that had been going on too long, till the music- and the dancers were worn as thin as the husks of insects after spiders had eaten them.

  11

  ELLA STROME crossed the corner of the dance floor and came to our table. "I've got hold of the photographer for you, Mr. Archer. He's waiting in the office."

  He was a thin man in a rumpled dark business suit. He had a lot of brown hair, a lumpy Slavic jaw, and sensitive-looking eyes protected by horn-rimmed glasses. Ella introduced him as Eric Malkovsky.

  "I'm glad to meet you," he said, but he wasn't. He glanced restlessly past me towards the door of the office. "I promised my wife to take her to the Film Society tonight. We have season tickets."

  "I'll reimburse you."

  "That's not the point. I hate to disappoint her."

  "This may be more important."

  "Not to me it isn't." He was speaking to me, but his real complaint was directed towards Ella. I gathered she had used pressure to get him here. "Anyway, as I told Mrs. Strome, I have no pictures of Mr. Martel. I offered to take some, the way I do with any other guest, but he said no. He was pretty emphatic about it."

  "Unpleasant?"

  "I wouldn't say that. But he certainly didn't want his picture taken. What is he, a celebrity or something?"

  "Something."

  My reticence irritated him, and he colored slightly. "The only reason I asked, another person was after me for a picture of him."

  Ella said: "You didn't tell me that."

  "I didn't have a chance to. The woman came to my studio in the Village just before I went home for dinner. When I told her I didn't have a picture of him, she offered me money to go to his house and take one. I told her I couldn't do that without Mr. Martel's permission. At which she got mad and stomped out."

  "I don't suppose she gave you her name?"

  "No, but I can describe her. She's a redhead, tall, with a gorgeous figure. Aged about thirty. As a matter of fact, I had a feeling that I've seen her before."

  'Where?"

  "Right here in the club."

  "I don't remember any such woman," Ella said.

  "It was before your time, at least five years ago."

  Malkovsky screwed up one side of his face as he was squinting through a view finder. "I think I took a picture or two of the woman. In fact I'm pretty sure I did."

  "Would you still have those pictures?" I said.

  "Maybe, but it would be a terrible job to find them. I don't keep files except for the current year and the year before."

  He looked at his wristwatch, dramatically. "I really have to go now. The wife would kill me if she misses the Bunuel. And the club doesn't pay me overtime for this kind of a deal."

  He tossed a sour look in the direction of Ella, who had gone back to the reception desk.

  "I'll pay you double time for as long as it takes."

  "That would be seven dollars an hour. It could take all night."

  "I know."

  "And there's no guarantee that I'll come up with anything. It may be an entirely different woman. If it's the same woman, she's changed the color of her hair. The woman I remember was a blonde."

  "Blondes turn into redheads all the time. Tell me about the woman you remember."

  "She was younger then, of course, with the dew still on her. A lovely thing. I remember now. I did take some pictures of her. Her husband wasn't too crazy about the idea but she wanted it done."

  "Who was her husband?"

  "An older guy," he said. "They stayed in one of the cottages for a couple of weeks."

  "What year were they here?"

  "I couldn't nail it down - maybe six or seven years ago. But if I find those pictures I can tell you. I generally make a note of the date on the back."

  By this time Malkovsky was eager to get to work. Before leaving for the Village, he gave me the address and telephone number of h
is studio. I said I would check with him there in an hour or so.

  I thanked Ella, and went to the parking lot to get my car. An unsteady wind carrying a gritty taste of desert was blowing down from the direction of the mountains. The eucalyptus trees swayed and bowed and waved in the gusts like long-haired madwoman racked by impulse. The night which loomed above the trees and dwarfed them seemed threatening.

  I had been concerned about Harry Hendricks ever since I found his car at the roadside near Martel's house. Harry had no more earned my concern than the alleged rat, which Martel said he had killed. Still I had a foolish yen to see Harry alive.

  The road to the harbor cut across the base of the headland where Fablon had taken his final swim, and back to the ocean. As I drove along the windswept boulevard, my mind was so fixed on Harry that when I saw the Cadillac parked at the curb I thought I was dreaming. I braked and backed and parked directly behind it, and got out. It was Harry's old Caddie, all right, standing there with a cold engine, empty and innocent, as if it had driven itself down from the foothills. The key was in the ignition. It hadn't been before.

  I looked around me. It was a lonely place, especially at this time, with a wind blowing. There was no other car in sight, and nothing across the street but rattling palms and the sighing sea.

  On the inland side a tall cypress hedge shielded the boulevard from a view of the railroad tracks and the hobo jungles. Through a hole in the hedge I could see the dark shapes of men crouched around a bonfire which flared and veered.

  I went through the hole and approached them. There were three of them drinking dark red wine out of a half-gallon jug, which was nearly empty. Their faces all turned toward me in the firelight: the seamed and gap-toothed face of an aging white man; the flat stubborn planes of a young Negro's head; a boy with Indian features and an Indian's stolid apathetic eyes. He wore nothing above the waist but an open black vest.

  The Negro got up with five or six feet of two-by-four in his hands. He staggered toward me on the uneven ground.

  "Amscray, 'bo. This is a private party."

  "You can answer a civil question. I'm looking for a friend of mine."