“Something,” I said, to keep her interest alive.
A loose and empty smile took over the lower half of her face. She let it talk for her while her experienced eyes studied me. “Would you be a copsie-wopsie by any chancie-wancie?”
“A private one.”
“And you want some info on Ralph?”
I nodded. In the shadow world behind the archway, the daytime television voices were telling their obvious secrets. I’d love you but I have a fractured libido and nobody ever set it. I’d love you back but you resemble my father, who treated me rotten.
“Where is Ralph?”
“I don’t know,” I lied.
“What do you want him for?”
“Nothing very important. At least, I hope it isn’t important.”
She leaned across the counter, resting the burden of her breast on it. “Don’t play games with me, eh? I want to know what it’s all about. And what does Joe Sperling have to do with it?”
“Remember a tweed suit Joe made for Ralph’s birthday one year?”
Her eyes sharpened. “That was a long time ago. What about the suit?”
“It turned up in the ocean this morning.”
“So? It was just an old suit.”
“Have you seen it lately, Mrs. Mungan?”
“I don’t know. After Ralph left, I threw out most of his things. I’ve moved a lot since then.”
“So you don’t know who was wearing it?”
With her fingers clenched on the edge of the counter, she pushed herself upright. Something that looked like a wedding band was sunk in the flesh of the appropriate finger like a deep scar.
“Somebody was wearing it?” she said.
“A little old man with burn marks on his head and face. Do you know him, Mrs. Mungan?”
Her face went blank, as if the impact of my question had knocked all sentience from her head.
“I don’t know who it could be,” she said without force. “Did you say the tweed suit was in the ocean?”
“That’s right. I found it myself.”
“Right off here?” She gestured across the Coast Highway. “A few miles south of here, off Pacific Point.” She was silent, while slow thought worked at her face. “What about the man?” she said finally.
“The man?”
“The little man with the burn marks. The one you were just telling me about.”
“What about him?”
“Is he all right?”
“Why?” I said. “Do you know him?”
“I wouldn’t say I know him. But I may have given him that suit.”
“When?”
“Answer my question first,” she said sharply. “Is he all right?”
“I’m afraid not. He was in the suit when I found it in the water. And he was dead.”
I was watching her face for signs of shock or grief, or possibly remorse. But it seemed empty of feeling. Her eyes were the color of the low city skies under which she had moved a lot.
“How did you happen to give him the suit?” I said.
She was slow in answering. “I don’t remember too well. I do quite a lot of drinking, if you want the truth, and it washes everything out, if you know what I mean. He came to the door one day when I was slightly plastered. He was just an old bum, practically in rags. I wanted to give him something to keep him warm, and that old suit of Ralph Mungan’s was all I had.”
I studied her face, trying to decide among three main possibilities: either she was leveling, or she was one of those natural liars who lied more convincingly than they told the truth, or her story had been carefully prepared.
“He came here, did he, Mrs. Mungan?”
“That’s right. He was standing where you’re standing now.”
“Where did he come from?”
“He didn’t say. I guess he was working his way along the beach. The last I saw of him, he was heading south.”
“How long ago was this?”
“I don’t even remember.”
“You must have some idea, though.”
“A couple of weeks, maybe longer.”
“Did he have a younger man with him? A broad-shouldered man of thirty or so, about my height?”
“I didn’t see any younger man.” But her look was defensive, and her voice had a whine in it. “Why are you asking me all these questions? I was just being a good Samaritan to him. You can’t blame a woman for being a good Samaritan.”
“But you didn’t remember about it at first. You thought you threw the suit out with Ralph Mungan’s other things. And then you remembered that you gave it to the dead man.”
“That’s just the way my mind works. Anyway, he wasn’t dead when I gave it to him.”
“He’s dead now.”
“I know that.”
We faced each other across the counter. Behind her in the darkened room, the shadow voices went on telling the city’s parables: Daddy wasn’t the only one who treated me rotten. I know that, love, and my libido wasn’t my only fractured part.
The woman was long past her prime, her mind leached out by drinking, her body swollen. But I rather liked her. I didn’t think she was capable of murder. No doubt she was capable of covering for it, though, if she had a guilty lover or a son.
I left, intending to pay her another visit.
chapter 19
It was nearly noon when I got back to Pacific Point. The harbor was even blacker than it had been in the morning. Men wearing oilskins and hip boots were cleaning its rock walls with live steam.
Other workers in small skiffs were scattering straw on the floating oil, then picking up the oil-soaked straw with pitchforks. Hundreds of bales of fresh straw had been trucked in from somewhere and were piled on the beach like barriers against a possible invasion.
There were further changes on the wharf. A couple of dozen picketers were walking back and forth across its entrance. They carried homemade signs: “Do Not Patronize: Oil Facilities,” “Oil Spoils,” “Pollution!” Most of the picketers were middle-aged, though there were several long-haired youths among them.
I recognized the hairy-faced young fisherman I had talked to the previous evening. He shook his sign at me—“Consider the Poor Fish”—and yelled good-naturedly as I drove past him onto the wharf.
Blanche was watching the picketers from the almost empty parking lot of her restaurant. She recognized me as a customer and raised her voice in complaint.
“They’re trying to put me out of business. I want to know, did they use any force on you? Or threaten you?”
“No, they didn’t.”
“Too bad.” She shook her frizzy head. “The police said unless they use force or threats it’s legal and there’s nothing I can do. But it doesn’t look legal to me. I’d like to toss ’em over the railing and give ’em a little taste of that oily water. They’ve got their nerve, trying to take over my wharf.”
“Is it really your wharf?”
“It is to all intents and purposes. I’ve got it on long-term lease, and it gives me the right to rent space to the oil company. I intend to make a personal appeal to the Governor.”
Blanche was flushed and breathing hard. She ran out of breath.
“I had dinner in your restaurant last night.”
“Sure, I remember. You didn’t finish your red snapper. I hope it was all right.”
“It was fine. I wasn’t too hungry. I noticed a couple of other customers while I was here—an older man with a young one. The old man was wearing a tweed suit, and he had burn scars on his head—”
“I remember them. What about them?”
“I’d like to get in touch with them. Do you have any idea where they belong?”
She shook her head. “I never saw them before. They didn’t come from these parts.”
“How do you know?”
“They asked me for directions. They wanted to know how to get to Seahorse Lane.” She pointed south along the beach in the direction of Sylvia Lennox’s house.
“Di
d they say who they wanted to visit on Seahorse Lane?”
“No, but I wondered at the time. It’s a very high-priced development, right on the beach. And they were strictly from hunger—at least the old one was. I mean literally. You should have seen him eat.”
I thanked her and started back to my car. A gray-haired man climbed out of another car and casually intercepted me. He had sensitive blue eyes which wore, like a transparent shield, the detachment of an observer.
“You’re not a local man, are you?” he said to me.
“No. It’s a free country.”
His face wrinkled in a self-deprecating smile which was almost a look of pain. “I’d be the last to deny that. Are you with Lennox Oil?”
“No. I’m a free lance.”
“Exactly what does that mean?” He was still smiling.
“I’m a private investigator. My name is Archer.”
“Mine is Wilbur Cox. I write for the local paper. What crime are you investigating, Mr. Archer? The crime of pollution?”
“I’d certainly like to know what caused this oil spill.”
He seemed happy to oblige. “The oil people say it was an act of God, and in the long run there’s some truth in that. The undersea formations here are naturally porous, delicate to fool with. You might say the area is blowout-prone. But in the short run the oil people are to blame. They didn’t take the danger of a spill fully into account, and they didn’t use the right preventive measures for drilling at this depth. The result is what you see.” He flung out his arm toward the platform which stood against the horizon.
“Why didn’t they take the right preventive measures?”
“It costs money,” he said. “Oilmen are gamblers, most of them, and they’d rather take a little chance than spend a lot of money. Or wait for technology to catch up.” He added after a moment, “They’re not the only gamblers. We’re all in the game. We all drive cars, and we’re all hooked on oil. The question is how we can get unhooked before we drown in the stuff.”
I nodded in agreement and started to move away toward my car. He drifted after me:
“Are you the man who pulled a body out of the water this morning?”
I said I was.
“Can you identify the victim?”
“Not yet. I’m working on it.”
“Do you want to give me a quote?”
“I’m afraid I can’t, Mr. Cox. Any publicity would interfere with my investigation.”
“Was the man murdered?” Through his mask of detachment, the newsman’s eyes burned cold.
“I honestly don’t know. I’ll see you later.”
I didn’t get far. The entrance to the wharf was blocked by a line of picketers facing landward. Beyond them was a big semitrailer loaded with tanks of drilling mud. The driver glared down at the picketers from his high seat and inched the truck forward.
One of the young sign carriers sat down in front of the wheels. His face was pale and scared, as if he knew what a poor brake his body was to the heavy movements of the world. But he sat without moving as the double wheels turned almost on top of him.
The driver spat an inaudible word and slammed on his brakes. He climbed down out of the cab, swinging a tire iron in his hand. I got out of my car at the same time and pushed through the line of picketers to face him. He was a flat-nosed young man with angry eyes.
“Get back,” he said to me, “I’m making a delivery.”
“Sorry, we don’t need a tire iron.”
“You look as if you need one, right across the face.”
“It wouldn’t be a good idea,” I said. “Put it down, eh?”
“When you get out of the way. I’m on legitimate business.”
“You don’t look so legitimate with that thing in your hand.”
The driver glanced down at his weapon with some surprise. Perhaps he recognized that he was a threatening figure, and that he was a minority of one. The picketers were beginning to move around me. The driver climbed back into the cab of his truck and sat there glaring. Thirty or forty feet ahead of him, the newsman Wilbur Cox was leaning on the railing and taking notes.
At the outer end of the wharf, beyond Blanche’s Restaurant, a large black car appeared and moved slowly toward us. It stopped just behind my car. Captain Somerville got out, followed by a younger man who moved like the Captain’s shadow. Both men looked rather haggard, as if they had had a rough morning.
It was threatening to get rougher. The picketers surged around the car, forcing the two men back against its side. Somerville looked grim. His companion was pale and frightened.
“Stand back,” he said in an uncertain voice. “This is Captain Somerville. He’s the executive v.p. of Lennox Oil.”
“We know that,” the young fisherman said. “When are you going to cap the oil spill, Cap?”
Somerville answered: “As soon as we possibly can. We made an attempt this morning. I’m sorry to say it didn’t succeed. We have to stockpile more drilling mud, and bring in some experts, and we’ll make another attempt by the end of the week. In the meantime I’m asking you for your patience and cooperation.”
The picketers groaned. One of them called out: “When are you going to take your platform out of here? We don’t need it.”
“The platform is there legally,” Somerville said in an unbending tone, “with the approval of the U.S. Geological Survey. And when you stop our deliveries—which is what you’re doing now—you’re interfering with our attempts to stop the spill.”
The crowd began to get noisier, its groan deteriorating into a growl. The driver sitting up in the cab of the truck had a restless look in his eye. I decided I had better make a move before he did.
I inched through the crowd to Somerville. “You better get out of here, Captain. Get back in the car and follow my car, eh?”
Somerville and his aide climbed into the front seat, the white-faced younger man behind the wheel. I said to the picketers:
“Let them move out. Nobody wants any trouble.”
“That’s right,” a middle-aged woman said. “We don’t want trouble.”
“We don’t want oil on our beaches, either,” a young man said. I said, “It’s better than blood.”
The crowd made assenting noises. They moved back slowly, away from Somerville’s car. I got into mine, eased it past the semitrailer, and turned toward Seahorse Lane, with Somerville behind me.
I was sweating with relief. Twice in no more than ten minutes, the threat of violence in the air had come very near to being actualized. There were sirens in the distance like the sound of a further threat.
chapter 20
Several cars were already parked under the cypresses in Sylvia Lennox’s courtyard. Captain Somerville’s car pulled up behind mine. He got out and shook my hand, quite heartily, though his eyes were looking past me.
“I have to thank you for your intervention. This is Leroy Ellis, of our public-relations department. Let’s see, your name is Archer, isn’t it?”
The younger man climbed out from behind the wheel and gave me a limp handshake. He wasn’t really young—he was close to my age—but was one of those middle-aging men who have never lost the mannerisms of youth. His eyes were damp and emotional. He smelled as if he had somehow managed to get hold of some whisky.
“Leroy’s an old shipmate of mine.” Somerville spoke with rather forced nostalgia. “He was with me at Okinawa. Today was the most excitement we’ve had since, wasn’t it, Leroy?”
Leroy said that it was. He seemed upset and embarrassed, and I got the impression that the Captain, with a kind of affectionate sadism, was subtly needling him. The two men went inside, Leroy trailing behind. I waited a moment, listening to the pigeons talking in the cypresses.
Tony Lashman appeared beside the garages. His face was pale and intent, and he moved like a man with a grievance. He gestured toward the house.
“What’s going on in there?”
“I was going to ask you. I just arrived.”
“They’re having one of their family conferences. I’m supposed to be Mrs. Lennox’s confidential secretary, but she told me to stay out. Are they letting you in?”
“I hope so.”
I started toward the house, but Lashman stepped in front of me. He was beginning to turn into a nuisance.
“Look,” he said. “I want to know what goes on in there. If you can give me the info, I’ll pay you for it.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know how much. But it could be quite a lot—a lot more than a hundred dollars a day.”
“And where would the money come from?”
He saw that I was trying to pump him, and it made him angry:
“All right. I’ll handle it myself.”
He turned on his heel and walked away from me.
Emerson Little, the lawyer, was waiting for me at the door. He was a bald-headed man with a funereal taste in clothes and an undertaker’s exaggerated poise.
He gave me a soft hand and a hard look. “You’re a bit late, Mr. Archer.”
“I know that. I’m sorry.”
“I had quite a time holding Jack Lennox in place. He’s a headstrong man.”
“Where is he?”
“Inside with his mother. Sylvia Lennox is my client. She wouldn’t release the hundred thousand until you got here, and I supported her in that. The essential point of this operation is to get her granddaughter back safely. The money is quite secondary. Still, we don’t want it wasted on a wild-goose chase.”
“What form is the money in?”
“Unmarked twenties in a plain cardboard carton, as requested.”
“And where’s the drop?”
“Jack Lennox won’t divulge that.” Little’s bland face was moved by a spasm of irritation. “Well. We have to do our best with what we have.”
He went ahead of me into the front room. Sylvia was there with her family. Captain Somerville sat by Elizabeth, his eyes distracted and remote.
Elizabeth gave me a faint smile. Jack Lennox refused to look at me, and his wife Marian looked at me without appearing to see me.
There were spatterings of oil on the windows. A brown cardboard box on the floor beside Sylvia’s chair drew attention like a ticking bomb.
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