Black Money

by Ross Macdonald

  “Who gave you that name?”

  “No one person. The name came up. I take it it’s familiar to you.”

  “My husband knew a man named Ketchel,” she said. “He was a gambler.” She leaned toward me. “Did Dr. Sylvester give you the name?”

  “No, but I understand that Ketchel was one of Dr. Sylvester’s patients.”

  “Yes. He was. He was more than that.”

  I waited for her to explain what she meant. Finally I said: “Was Ketchel the gambler who took your husband’s money?”

  “Yes, he was. He took everything we had left, and wanted more. When Roy couldn’t pay him—” She paused, as if she sensed that melodrama didn’t go with her style. “We won’t discuss it any more, Mr. Archer. I’m not at my best tonight. I should never have agreed to talk to you, under these conditions.”

  “What was the date of your husband’s suicide?”

  She rose, swaying a little, and moved towards me. I could smell her fatigue.

  “You’ve really been digging into our lives, haven’t you? The date, if you must know, was September 29, 1959.”

  Two days after Malkovsky was paid for his pictures. The coincidence underlined my feeling that Fablon’s death was part of the present case.

  Mrs. Fablon peered up at me. “That date seems to mean a great deal to you.”

  “It suggests some possibilities. It must mean a great deal more to you.”

  “It was the end of my life.” She took an unsteady step backwards and sat down again, as if she were falling back into the past, helplessly but not unwillingly. “Everything since has been going through the motions. It’s a strange thing, Roy and I fought like animals throughout our marriage. But we loved each other. At least I was in love with him, no matter what he did.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Everything a man can think of. Most of it cost money. My money.” She hesitated. “I’m not a money-oriented person, really. That was one of the troubles. In every marriage there should be one partner who cares about money more than other things. Neither of us cared. In the eighteen years of our marriage we went through nearly a million dollars. Please notice the first person plural pronoun. I share the blame. I didn’t learn to care about money until it was too late.” She stirred, and jerked her shoulders as if the thought of money was a palpable weight on them. “You said the date of my husband’s death suggested possibilities. What do you mean?”

  “I’m wondering if he really killed himself.”

  “Of course he did.” The statement sounded perfunctory, empty of feeling.

  “Did he leave a suicide note?”

  “He didn’t have to. He announced his intention to me and Ginny a day or two before. God knows what it’s done to my daughter’s emotional life. I encouraged this Martel business because he was the only real man she’s shown any interest in. If I’ve made a dreadful mistake—”

  She dropped the end of the sentence, and returned to her first subject. Her mind was running in swift repetitious circles like a squirrel in a cage. “Can you imagine a man saying such a thing to his wife and his seventeen-year-old daughter? And then doing it? He was angry with me, of course, for running out of money. He didn’t believe it could happen. There had always been another bequest coming in from some relative, or another house or piece of land we could sell. But we were down to a rented house and there were no more relatives to die. Roy died instead, by his own hand.”

  She kept insisting on this, almost as if she was trying to convince me, or persuade herself. I suspected that she was a little out of control, and I had no desire to ask her any more questions. But she went on answering unspoken questions, painfully and obsessively, as if the past had stirred and was talking through her in its sleep:

  “That doesn’t cover the situation, of course. There are always secret motivations in life—urges and revenges and desires that people don’t admit even to themselves. I discovered the real source of my husband’s death, quite by accident, just the other day. I’m planning to give up this house and I’ve been going through my things, sorting and throwing away. I came across a batch of old papers in Roy’s desk, and among them was a letter to Roy from—a woman. It absolutely astonished me. It had never occurred to me that, in addition to all his other failings as a husband and father, Roy had been unfaithful. But the letter went into explicit detail on that point.”

  “May I see it?”

  “No. You may not. It was humiliating enough for me to read it by myself.”

  “Who wrote it?”

  “Audrey Sylvester. She didn’t sign it but I happen to know her handwriting.”

  “Was it still in its envelope?”

  “Yes, and the postmark was clear. It was postmarked June 30, 1959, three months before Roy died. After seven years I understood why George Sylvester introduced Ketchel to Roy and stood by smiling while Ketchel cheated Roy out of thirty thousand dollars which he didn’t have.” She struck herself with her fist on her quilted thigh: “He may even have planned it all. He was Roy’s doctor. He may have sensed that Roy was close to suicide, and conspired with Ketchel to push him over the edge.”

  “Isn’t that stretching it a bit, Mrs. Fablon?”

  “You don’t know George Sylvester. He’s a ruthless man. And you don’t know Mr. Ketchel. I met him once at the club.”

  “I’d like to meet him myself. You don’t know where he is, do you?”

  “No, I do not. Ketchel left Montevista a day or so after Roy disappeared—long before his body was found.”

  “Are you implying he knew your husband was dead?”

  She bit her mouth, as if to punish it for saying too much. From her eyes I got the swift impression that my guess was accurate, and she knew it, but for some obscure reason she was covering it up.

  “Did Ketchel murder your husband?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t suggest that. But he and George Sylvester were responsible for Roy’s death.” In the midst of her old grief and rage, she looked at me cautiously. I had the strange feeling that she was sitting apart from herself, playing on her own emotions the way another woman might play on an organ, but leaving one end of the keyboard wholly untouched. “It’s indiscreet of me to tell you all this. I’ll ask you not to pass it on to anyone, including—especially including—Peter and his father.”

  I was weary of her elaborate reconstructions and evasions. I said bluntly: “I won’t pass your story on, and I’ll tell you why, Mrs. Fablon. I don’t entirely believe it. I don’t think you believe it yourself.”

  She rose shakily. “How dare you speak to me in that way?”

  “Because I’m concerned about your daughter’s safety. Aren’t you?”

  “You know I am. I’m terribly concerned.”

  “Then why won’t you tell me the truth as you see it? Was your husband murdered?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more. I had a real earthquake shock tonight. The ground was jerked right out from under me. It still isn’t holding still.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. Something was said.”

  “By your daughter?”

  “If I told you any more,” she said, “I’d be telling you too much. I’m going to have to get more information before I speak out.”

  “Getting information is my business.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but I have to handle this my own way.”

  Another one of her silences began. She sat perfectly still with her opposing fists pressed fiercely against each other, her eyes absorbing light.

  Under the sound of the wind I heard a noise like rats chewing in the wall. I didn’t connect it right away with Marietta Fablon. Then I realized that she was grinding her teeth.

  It was time I left her in peace. I got my car out from under her groaning oak tree and drove next door to the Jamieson house. The lights were still on there.

  chapter 15

  PETER’S FATHER ANSWERED the door. He had on pajamas a
nd a bathrobe, and he looked even more transparent and withdrawn than he had in the morning.

  “Come in, Mr. Archer, won’t you? My housekeeper has gone to bed but I can offer you a drink. I was rather hoping you’d drop by, I have some information for you.”

  Talking as if it was the middle of the day, he led me along the hall to his library. His movements were uncertain but he managed to steer himself through the door and into his chair. There was a drink beside it Jamieson seemed to be one of those drinkers who held themselves at a certain level of sobriety all day and all night.

  “I’ll let you make your own drink. My hands are a little unsteady.” He raised his hands and examined their tremor with clinical interest. “I should be in bed, I suppose, but I’ve almost lost the ability to sleep. These night watches are the hardest. The image of my poor dead wife comes back most vividly. I feel my loss like a vast yawning emptiness, in me as well as the external universe. I forget whether I’ve shown you a picture of my dead wife?”

  Reluctantly I admitted that he hadn’t. I had no desire to sit up all night with Jamieson and his irrigated memories. The drink I poured for myself from his fresh bottle was a careful ounce.

  Jamieson groped in a leather box and produced a silver-framed photograph of a young woman. She wasn’t especially pretty. There had to be other reasons for her husband’s extended mourning. Maybe, I thought, grief was the only feeling he was capable of; or maybe it was just an excuse for drinking. I handed the photograph back to him.

  “How long ago did she die?”

  “Twenty-four years. My poor son killed her in being born. I try not to blame poor Peter, but it’s hard sometimes, when I think of all I lost.”

  “You still have a son.”

  Jamieson’s free hand made a small gesture, nervous and irritable. It said a good deal about his feelings for Peter, or his lack of them.

  “Where is Peter, by the way?”

  “He went out to the kitchen for a snack. He was on his way to bed. If you’d like to see him—?”

  “Later, perhaps. You said you had some information for me.”

  He nodded. “I talked to one of my friends at the bank. Martel’s hundred thousand—actually it was closer to a hundred and twenty thousand—was deposited in the form of a draft on the Banco de Nueva Granada—the Bank of New Granada.”

  “I never heard of it.”

  “Neither had I, though I’ve been to Panama City. The New Granada has its headquarters in Panama City.”

  “Did Martel leave his hundred grand in the local bank?”

  “He did not. I was coming to that. He withdrew every cent of it. In cash. The bank offered him a guard but he couldn’t be bothered. He packed the money into a briefcase and tossed it into the back of his car.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Today at five minutes to three, just before the bank closed. He’d phoned first thing in the morning to make sure that they’d have the cash on hand.”

  “So he was already planning to leave this morning. I wonder where he went.”

  “Panama, perhaps. That seems to be the source of his money.”

  “I should report to your son. How do I find the kitchen?”

  “It’s at the other end of the hallway. You’ll see the light. Come back and have another short one with me, won’t you, afterwards?”

  “It’s getting late.”

  “I’ll be glad to give you a bed.”

  “Thanks, I work better out of a hotel.”

  I made my way along the passageway toward the kitchen light. Peter was sitting at a table under a hanging lamp. Most of a roast goose lay on a wooden platter in front of him, and he was eating it.

  I hadn’t tried to soften the sound of my footsteps, but he hadn’t heard me coming. I stood in the doorway and watched him. He was eating as I had never seen anyone eat.

  With both hands he tore chunks of flesh from the goose’s breast and forced them into his mouth, the way you pack meat into a grinder. His face was distorted, his eyes almost invisible.

  He tore off a drumstick and bit into its thick end. I crossed the kitchen toward him. The room was large and white and bleak. It reminded me of a disused handball court.

  Peter looked up and saw me. He dropped the bird’s leg guiltily as if it was a part of a human body. His face was swollen tight and mottled, like a sausage.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m hungry.” His voice was fogged with grease.

  “Still hungry?”

  He nodded, with his dull eyes on the half-demolished bird. It lay in front of him like the carcass of his hopes.

  I felt like getting out of there and sending him back the balance of his money. But I’ve always had trouble walking out on bad luck. I pulled up a chair and sat down across the table from him and talked him out of his stupor.

  I don’t remember everything I said. Mostly I tried to persuade the boy that he was within the human range. I do remember that my broken monologue was punctuated by a banging noise which came from the general direction of Marietta Fablon’s house.

  The first time I heard the noise, I thought it might be gunfire. I discounted this when it was repeated over and over at irregular intervals. More likely it was a shutter or an outside door banging in the wind.

  Eventually Peter said in a clogged voice: “I apologize.”

  “Apologize to yourself.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Apologize to yourself. You’re the one you’re doing it to.”

  His face was like kneaded dough in the harsh light. “I don’t know what gets into me.”

  “You should take it up with a doctor. It’s a disease.”

  “You think I need a psychiatrist?”

  “Most people do at one time or another. You’re lucky you can afford one.”

  “I can’t, though. Not really. I won’t come into my real money for another year.”

  “Use your credit. You can afford a psychiatrist if you can afford me.”

  “You really think there’s something the matter with my head?”

  “Your heart,” I said. “You have a hungry heart. You better find something to feed it with besides food.”

  “I know. It’s why I have to get Ginny back.”

  “You need to do more than that. If she ever saw you on an eating binge—” It was a cruel sentence. I didn’t finish it.

  “She has,” he said. “That’s the trouble. As soon as people find out they turn against me. I suppose you’ll be quitting, too.”

  “No. I’d like to see things get straightened out for you.”

  “They’ll never get straightened out. I’m hopeless.”

  He was trying to lean his full moral weight on me. I didn’t want any more of it than I had, and I tried to objectify the situation a little:

  “My grandmother who lived in Martinez was a religious woman. She always said it was sinful to despair.”

  He shook his head slowly. His eyes seemed to swing with the movement. A minute later he dashed for the kitchen sink and vomited.

  While I was trying to clean it and him up, his father appeared in the doorway. He spoke across Peter as if he was deaf or moronic:

  “Has my poor boy been eating again?”

  “Lay off, Mr. Jamieson.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” He raised his pale hands as if to show what a gentle father he had been. “I’ve been both father and mother to my son. I’ve had to be.”

  Peter stood at the sink with his back to his father, unwilling to show his face. After a while his father drifted away again.

  Attached to the great main kitchen, with its tiled counters and sinks and ovens, was a smaller outer kitchen like a glassed-in porch. I became aware of this outer kitchen because there was a noise at the door, a scrabbling and a snuffling which was nearer and more insistent than the banging noise.

  “Do you have a dog out there?”

  Peter shook his head. “It may be a stray. Let i
t in. We’ll give it a piece of goose.”

  I turned on the light in the outer kitchen and opened the door. Marietta Fablon crawled in over the threshold. She rose to her knees. Her hands groped up my legs to my waist. There was blood like a dyer’s error on her pink quilted breast. Her eyes were as wide and blind as silver coins.

  “Shot me.”

  I got down and held her. “Who, Marietta?”

  Her mouth worked. “Lover-boy.” The residue of her life came out with the words. I could feel it leave her body.

  chapter 16

  PETER APPEARED in the kitchen doorway. He didn’t come into the outer kitchen. Death took up all the room.

  “What did she say?”

  “She said lover-boy shot her. Who would she mean by that?”

  “Martel.” It was an automatic response. “Is she dead?”

  I looked down at her. Death had made her small and dim, like something seen through the wrong end of a telescope.

  “I’m afraid she is. You better call the county sheriff’s office. Then tell your father.”

  “Do I have to tell him? He’ll find a way to blame me.”

  “I’ll tell him if you like.”

  “No. I will.” He crossed the kitchen purposefully.

  I went out into the blowing dark and got the flashlight out of my car. A well-defined path led from the Jamieson garden to the Fablon house. I wondered if Peter’s childish feet had worn it.

  There were evidences that Marietta had crawled along the path all the way from her house: spots of blood and knee-marks in the dirt. Her pink silk cap had fallen off where the path went through a gap in the boundary hedge. I left it.

  Her front door was banging. I went in and found the study. It was dominated by an ornate nineteenth-century desk. I went through the drawers. There was no sign of Audrey Sylvester’s love-letter to Fablon, but I found a letter that interested me just as much. It had been written to Mrs. Fablon by Ricardo Rosales, a Vice-President of the Bank of New Granada, Panama City, on March 18 of this year. It said in rather stilted English that the special account from which the Bank had paid her periodic sums of money had been exhausted, and no further instructions had been received concerning it. Under the rules and regulations of the bank it was regrettably not possible for them to name their principal.