The Far Side of the Dollar la-12

by Ross Macdonald

  `Worse than this?'

  `You know it, or you'd be over the fence yourself. Did Tom say anything about where he was going?'

  The boy didn't answer.

  `Then I assume he did tell you something?'

  `No.'

  But he wouldn't meet my eyes.

  Mr. Patch came into the room and changed its carefree atmosphere. The dancing boys pretended to be wrestling. Comic books disappeared like bundles of hot money. The Ping-Pong players put away their ball.

  Patch was a middle-aged man with thinning hair and thickening jowls. His double-breasted tan gabardine suit was creased across his rather corpulent front. His face was creased, too, into a sneer of power, which didn't go with his sensitive small mouth. As he looked around the room, I could see that the whites of his eyes were tinted with red.

  He strode to the record player and turned it off, insinuating his voice into the silence: `Lunchtime isn't music time, boys. Music time is after dinner, from seven to seven-thirty.'

  He addressed one of the Ping-Pong players: `Bear that in mind, Deering. No music in the daytime. I'll hold you responsible.'

  'Yessir.'

  `And weren't you playing ping-pone'

  `We were just rallying, sir.'

  `Where did you get the ball? I understood the balls were locked up in my desk.'

  `They are, sir.'

  `Where did you get the one you were playing with?'

  `I don't know, sir.'

  Deering fumbled at his windbreaker. He was a gawky youth with an Adam's apple that looked like a hidden Ping-Pong ball. `I think I must of found it.'

  `Where did you find it? In my desk?'

  `No sir. On the grounds, I think it was.'

  Mr. Patch walked toward him with a kind of melodramatic stealth. As he moved across the room, the boys behind him made faces, waved their arms, did bumps and grinds. One boy, one of the dancers, fell silently to the floor with a throat-slitting gesture, held the pose of a dying gladiator for a single frozen second, then got back onto his feet.

  Patch was saying in a long-suffering tone: `You bought it, didn't you, Deering? You know that regulations forbid you fellows to bring in private Ping-Pong balls of your own. You know that, don't you? You're president of the East Hall Legislative Assembly, you helped to frame those regulations yourself. Didn't you?'

  'Yessir.'

  `Then give it to me, Deering.'

  The boy handed Patch the ball. Patch stooped to place it on the floor - while a boy behind him pretended to kick him - and squashed it under his heel. He gave Deering the misshapen ball.

  `I'm sorry, Deering. I have to obey the regulations just as you do.'

  He turned to the roomful of boys, who snapped into conformity under his eyes, and said mildly: `Well, fellows, what's on the agenda-?'

  `I think I am,' I said, getting up from the couch. I gave him my name and asked if I could talk to him in private.

  `I suppose so,' he said with a worried smile, as if I might in fact be his successor. `Come into my office, such as it is. Deering and Bronson, I'm leaving you in charge.'

  His office was a windowless cubicle containing a cluttered desk and two straight chairs. He closed the door on the noise that drifted down the corridor from the lounge, turned on a desk lamp, and sat down sighing.

  `You've got to stay on top of them.'

  He sounded like a man saying his prayers. `You wanted to discuss one of my boys?'

  `Tom Hillman.'

  The name depressed him. `You represent his father?'

  `No. Dr Sponti sent me to talk to you. I'm a private detective.'

  `I see.'

  He pushed out his lips in a kind of pout. `I suppose Sponti's been blaming me, as usual.'

  `He did say something about unnecessary violence.'

  `That's nonsense!'

  He pounded the desk between us with his clenched fist. His face became congested with blood. Then it went starkly pale, like a raw photograph. Only the reddish whites of his eyes held their color. `Sponti doesn't work down here with the animals. I ought to know when physical discipline is necessary. I've been in juvenile work for twenty-five years.'

  `It seems to be getting you down.'

  With an effort that crumpled up his face, he brought himself under control. `Oh no, I love the work, I really do. Anyway, it's the only thing I'm trained for. I love the boys. And they love me.'

  `I could see that.'

  He wasn't listening for my irony. `I'd have been pals with Tom Hillman if he'd lasted.'

  `Why didn't he?'

  `He ran away. You know that. He stole a pair of shears from the gardener and used it to cut the screen on his bedroom window.'

  `Exactly when was this?'

  `Sometime Saturday night, between my eleven-o'clock bedcheck and my early-morning one.'

  `And what happened before that?'

  `Saturday night, you mean? He was stirring up the other boys, inciting them to attack the resident staff: I'd left the common room after dinner, and I heard him from in here, making a speech. He was trying to convince the boys that they had been deprived of their rights and should fight for them. Some of the more excitable ones were affected. But when I ordered Hillman to shut up, he was the only one who rushed me.'

  `Did he hit you?'

  `I hit him first,' Patch said. `I'm not ashamed of it. I had to preserve my authority with the others.'

  He rubbed his fist. `I knocked him cold. You have to make a show of manliness. When I hit them, they go down for the count. You have to give them an image to respect.'

  I said to stop him: `What happened after that?'

  `I helped him to his room, and then I reported the incident to Sponti. I thought the boy should be put in the padded room. But Sponti countermanded my advice. Hillman would never have broken out if Sponti had let me put him in the padded room. Just between you and me, it's Sponti's fault.'

  He brought himself up short and said in a smaller voice: `Don't quote me to him.'

  `All right.'

  I was beginning to despair of getting anything useful out of Patch. He was a little dilapidated, like the furniture in the common room. The noise coming from that direction was becoming louder. Patch rose wearily to his feet.

  `I'd better get back there before they tear the place down.'

  `I just wanted to ask you, do you have any thoughts on where Tom Hillman went after he left here?'

  Patch considered my question. He seemed to be having difficulty in imagining the outside world into which the boy had vanished. `LA,' he said finally. `They usually head for LA or else they head south for San Diego and the border.'

  `Or east?'

  `If their parents live east, they sometimes go that way.'

  `Or west across the ocean?'

  I was baiting him.

  `That's true. One boy stole a thirty-foot launch and headed for the islands.'

  `You seem to have a lot of runaways.'

  `Over the years, we have quite a turnover. Sponti's opposed to strict security measures, like we used to have at juvenile Hall. With all the breakouts we've had, I'm surprised he wants to make such a production out of this one. The boy'll turn up, they nearly always do.'

  Patch sounded as if he wasn't looking forward to the prospect.

  Somebody tapped at the door behind me. `Mr. Patch?' a woman said through the panels.

  `Yes, Mrs. Mallow.'

  `The boys are getting out of hand. They won't listen to me. What are you doing in there?'

  `Conferring. Dr Sponti sent a man.'

  `Good. We need a man.'

  `Is that so?'

  He brushed past me and opened the door. `Keep your cracks to yourself, please, Mrs. Mallow. I know one or two things that Dr Sponti would dearly love to know.'

  `So do I,' the woman said.

  She was heavily rouged, with dyed red hair arranged in bangs on her forehead. She had on a dark formal dress, about ten years out of fashion, and several loops of imitation pearls. Her fa
ce was pleasant enough, in spite of eyes that had been bleared by horrors inner and outer.

  She brightened up when she saw me. `Hello.'

  `My name is Archer,' I said. `Dr Sponti brought me in to look into Tom Hillman's disappearance.'

  `He's a nice-looking boy,' she said. `At least he was until our local Marquis de Sade gave him a working-over.'

  `I acted in self-defense,' Patch cried. `I don't enjoy hurting people. I'm the authority figure in East Hall, and when I'm attacked it's just like killing their father.'

  `You better go and make with the authority, Father. But if you hurt anybody this week I'll carve the living heart out of your body.'

  Patch looked at her as if he believed she might do it. Then he turned on his heel and strode away toward the roaring room. The roaring subsided abruptly, as if he had closed a soundproof door behind him.

  `Poor old Patch,' said Mrs. Mallow. `He's been around too long. Poor old all of us. Too many years of contact with the adolescent mind, if mind is the word, and eventually we all go blah.'

  `Why stay?'

  `We get so we can't live in the outside world. Like old convicts. That's the real hell of it.'

  `People around here are extraordinarily ready to spill their problems-'

  `It's the psychiatric atmosphere.'

  `But,' I went on, `they don't tell me much I want to know. Can you give me a clear impression of Tom Hillman?'

  `I can give you my own impression.'

  She had a little difficulty with the word, and it seemed to affect her balance. She walked into Patch's office and leaned on his desk facing me. Her face, half-shadowed in the upward light from the lamp, reminded me of a sibyl's.

  `Tom Hillman is a pretty nice boy. He didn't belong here. He found that out in a hurry. And so he left.'

  `Why didn't he belong here?'

  `You want me to go into detail? East Hall is essentially a place for boys with personality and character problems, or with a sociopathic tendency. We keep the more disturbed youngsters, boys and girls, in West Hall.'

  `And Tom belonged there?'

  `Hardly. He shouldn't have been sent to Laguna Perdida at all. This is just my opinion, but it ought to be worth something. I used to be a pretty good clinical psychologist.'

  She looked down into the light.

  `Dr Sponti seems to think Tom was disturbed.'

  `Dr Sponti never thinks otherwise, about any prospect. Do you know what these kids' parents pay? A thousand dollars a month, plus extras. Music lessons. Group therapy.'

  She laughed harshly. `When half the time it's the parents who should be here. Or in some worse place.

  `A thousand dollars a month,' she repeated. `So Dr Sponti so-called can draw his twenty-five thousand a year. Which is more than six times what he pays me for holding the kids' hands.'

  She was a woman with a grievance. Sometimes grievances made for truth-telling, but not always. `What do you mean, Dr Sponti so called?'

  `He's not a medical doctor, or any other kind of real doctor. He took his degree in educational administration, at one of the diploma mills down south. Do you know what he wrote his dissertation on? The kitchen logistics of the medium-sized boarding school.'

  `Getting back to Tom,' I said, `why would his father bring him here if he didn't need psychiatric treatment?'

  `I don't know. I don't know his father. Probably because he wanted him out of his sight.'

  `Why?' I insisted.

  `The boy was in some kind of trouble.'

  `Did Tom tell you that?'

  'He wouldn't talk about it. But I can read the signs.'

  `Have you heard the story that he stole a car?'

  `No, but it would help to explain him. He's a very unhappy young man, and a guilty one. He isn't one of your hardened J.D.' s. Not that any of them really are.'

  `You seem to have liked Tom Hillman.'

  `What little I saw of him. He didn't want to talk last week, and I try never to force myself on the boys. Except for class hours, he spent most of the time in his room. I think he was trying to work something out.'

  `Like a plan for revolution?'

  Her eyes glinted with amusement. `You heard about that, did you? The boy had more gumption than I gave him credit for. Don't look so surprised. I'm on the boys' side. Why else would I be here?'

  I was beginning to like Mrs. Mallow. Sensing this, she moved toward me and touched my arm. `I hope that you are, too. On Tom's side, I mean.'

  `I'll wait until I know him. It isn't important, anyway.'

  `Yes it is. It's always important.'

  Just what happened between Tom and Mr. Patch Saturday night?'

  `I wouldn't know, really. Saturday night is my night off. You can make a note of that if you like, Mr. Archer.'

  She smiled, and I caught a glimpse of her life's meaning. She cared for other people. Nobody cared for her.

  3

  SHE LET ME out through a side door which had to be unlocked. The rain was just heavy enough to wet my face. Dense-looking clouds were gathering over the mountains, which probably meant that the rain was going to persist.

  I started back toward the administration building. Sponti was going to have to be told that I must see Tom Hillman's parents, whether he approved or not. The varying accounts of Tom I'd had, from people who liked or disliked him, gave me no distinct impression of his habits or personality. He could be a persecuted teen-ager, or a psychopath who knew how to appeal to older women, or something in between, like Fred the Third.

  I wasn't looking where I was going, and a yellow cab almost ran me down in the parking lot. A man in tweeds got out of the back seat. I thought he was going to apologize to me, but he didn't appear to see me.

  He was a tall, silver-haired man, well-fed, well-cared for, probably good-looking under normal conditions. At the moment he looked haggard. He ran into the administration building. I walked in after him, and found him arguing with Sponti's secretary.

  `I'm very sorry, Mr. Hillman,' she intoned. `Dr Sponti is in conference. I can't possibly interrupt him.'

  `I think you'd better,' Hillman said in a rough voice.

  `I'm sorry. You'll have to wait.'

  `But I can't wait. My son is in the hands of criminals. They're trying to extort money from me.'

  `Is that true?'

  Her voice was unprofessional and sharp.

  `I'm not in the habit of lying.'

  The girl excused herself and went into Sponti's office, closing the door carefully behind her. I spoke to Hillman, telling him my name and occupation: `Dr Sponti called me in to look for your son. I've been wanting to talk to you. It seems to be time I did.'

  `Yes. By all means.'

  He took my hand. He was a large, impressive-looking man. His face had the kind of patrician bony structure that doesn't necessarily imply brains or ability, or even decency, but that generally goes with money. He was deep in the chest and heavy in the shoulders. But there was no force in his grasp. He was trembling all over, like a frightened dog.

  `You said something about criminals and extortion.'

  `Yes.' But his steel-gray eyes kept shifting away to the door of Sponti's office. He wanted to talk to somebody he could blame. `What are they doing in there?' he said a little wildly.

  `It hardly matters. If your son's been kidnapped, Sponti can't help you much. It's a matter for the police.'

  `No! The police stay out. I've been instructed to keep them out.'

  His eyes focused on me for the first time, hard with suspicion. `You're not a policeman, are you?'

  `I told you I was a private detective. I just came down from Los Angeles an hour ago. How did you find out about Tom, and who gave you your instructions?'

  `One of the gang. He telephoned my house when we were just sitting down to lunch. He warned me to keep the matter quiet. Otherwise Tom will never come back.'

  `Did he say that?'

  `Yes.'

  `What else did he say?'

  `They want to sell m
e information about Tom's whereabouts. It was just a euphemism for ransom money.'

  `How much?'

  `Twenty-five thousand dollars.'