Black Money

by Ross Macdonald

  “Boy troubler?”

  “What else?”

  I changed the subject. “Did you have a chance to get to the bank, Ward?”

  “Yessir, I had better luck there.” He got his notebook out of his pocket and flipped the pages. “Mrs. Fablon has been getting a regular income from that bank in Panama, the New Granada. They sent her a draft every month until last February, when it stopped.”

  “How much every month?”

  “A thousand. This went on for six or seven years. It added up to around eighty thousand.”

  “Was there any indication of its source?”

  “Not according to the local people. It came from a numbered account, apparently. The whole transaction was untouched by the human hand.”

  “And then it stopped.”

  “That’s correct. What do you make of it, Mr. Archer?”

  “I wouldn’t want to jump to any conclusions.”

  “No, of course not. But it could be underworld money. You remember that thought came up at breakfast this morning.”

  “I’m pretty sure it is. But we’re going to have a hell of a time proving it.”

  “I know that. I talked to the foreign-exchange man at the National. The Panama banks are like the Swiss banks. They don’t have to reveal the source of their deposits, which makes them a natural for mobsters. What do you think we should do about it?”

  I was anxious to talk to Mrs. Sekjar, and I said: “Get the law changed. Do you want to wait for me in my car?”

  He got in. I approached the Sekjar house on foot. It was a small frame dwelling which looked as if the passing trains had shaken off most of its paint.

  I knocked on the rusty screen door. A woman with dyed black hair appeared behind it. She was large and heavy, aged about fifty, though the dyed hair made her look older. Handsome, but not as handsome as her daughter. Her cheap dye job was iridescent in the late afternoon sun.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’d like to talk to you—”

  “About Kitty again?”

  “More or less.”

  “I don’t know anything about her. That’s what I told the other ones and that’s what I’m telling you. I’ve worked hard all my life so I could hold my head up in this town.” She lifted her chin. “It wasn’t easy, and Kitty was no help. She has nothing to do with me now.”

  “She’s your daughter, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah, I guess she is.” Her voice was rough. “She don’t act like a daughter. I’m not responsible for what she does. I used to beat her until she was bloody, it did no good. She was as wild as ever, making mock of the teachings of the Lord.” She looked up through the rusty screen. Her own eyes were rebellious.

  “May I come in, Mrs. Sekjar? My name is Archer, I’m a private detective.” Her face was unyielding, and I went on rapidly: “I’ve got nothing against your daughter but I’m trying to locate her. She may be able to give me some information about a murder.”

  “Murder?” She was appalled. “The other one didn’t say nothing about a murder. This is a decent home, mister,” she said, with the tense precarious respectability of the poor. “It’s the first time since Kitty left me that a policeman came to this door.” She glanced up and down the street, as if her neighbors were spying on us now. “I guess you better come on in.”

  She unhooked the screen door and opened it for me. Her living room was small and threadbare. It contained a daybed and two chairs, a faded rag rug, a television set tuned in on a daytime serial which said, in the snatch I heard of it, that things were rough all over.

  Mrs. Sekjar switched it off. On top of the television set were a large Bible and one of those glass balls that you shake to make a snowstorm. The pictures on the walls were all religious, and there were so many of them that they suggested a line of defense against the world.

  I sat on the daybed. It smelled of Kitty, faintly but distinctly. The odor of her perfume seemed strange in these surroundings. It wasn’t the odor of sanctity.

  “Kitty was here last night, wasn’t she?”

  Mrs. Sekjar nodded, standing over me. “She came over the fence from the tracks. I couldn’t turn her away. She was scared.”

  “Did she say what of?”

  “It’s her way of life. It’s catching up with her. The kind of men she runs with, punks and hoodlums—” She spat dry. “We won’t discuss it.”

  “I think we should, Mrs. Sekjar. Did Kitty do any talking to you last night?”

  “Not much. She did some crying. I thought I had my own girl back for a while. She stayed all night. But in the morning she was as hard as ever.”

  “She isn’t that hard.”

  “She didn’t start out to be, maybe. She was a nice enough girl when her father was with us. But Sekjar got himself sick and spent his last two years in the County Hospital. After that Kitty got hard as nails. She blamed me and the other adults for putting him in the County Hospital. As if I had any choice.

  “When she was a sixteen-year-old girl she went for my eyes with her thumb nails. I chopped them off for her. If I hadn’t been stronger than her, she’d of blinded me. After that I couldn’t do anything with her. She ran wild with the boys. I tried to stop her. I know what comes of running wild with the boys. So just to spite me she turned around and married the first man that asked her.” She paused glaring among her angry memories. “Is Harry Hendricks the one that died?”

  “No, but he was injured.”

  “So I heard at the hospital. I’m a nurse’s aid,” she explained with some pride. “Who got murdered?”

  “A woman named Marietta Fablon, and a man who called himself Francis Martel.”

  “I never heard of either one of them.”

  I showed her the picture of Martel, with Kitty and Leo Spillman in the foreground. She exploded:

  “That’s him! That’s the man, the one who took her away from her lawful husband.” She jabbed her forefinger at Spill-man’s head. “I’d like to kill that man for what he did to my daughter. He took her and rolled her in the mud. And there she sits with her legs crossed, smiling like a cat.”

  “Do you know Leo Spillman?”

  “That wasn’t his name.”

  “Ketchel?”

  “Yeah. She brought him here to the house, it must have been six or seven years ago. She said he wanted to do something for me. That kind always wants to do something for you, and then before you know it they own you. Like he owns Kitty. He said he owned an apartment in L.A. and I could move in rent-free and retire from hospital work. I told him I would rather go on working than take his money. So they left. I didn’t see her again until last night.”

  “Do you know where they live?”

  “They used to live in Las Vegas. Kitty sent me a couple of Christmas cards from there. I don’t know where they live now. She hasn’t sent me any mail for years. And last night when I asked her she wouldn’t tell me where she lived.”

  “So you don’t have any idea where I can find her?”

  “No sir. If I did I wouldn’t tell you. I’m not going to help you send my daughter to the pen.”

  “I’m not trying to put her in jail. I just want information—”

  “You don’t fool me, mister. They’re wanted for income tax, ain’t they?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “A man from the government told me. He was sitting where you are sitting, within the last two weeks. He said I’d be doing my daughter a favor if I could talk her into coming forth, that her and me could even get a percentage of the money because they’re not lawful man and wife. I said it was Judas money. I said I’d be a fine mother, wouldn’t I, if I spread my daughter’s shame in all the papers. He said it was my duty as a citizen. I said there was duty and duty.”

  “Did you talk to Kitty about it?”

  “I tried to this morning. That’s when she left. We never could get along. But that’s a far cry from turning her in to the government. I said it to the other one and I’m saying it to y
ou. You can go back and tell the government I don’t know where she is and I wouldn’t tell you if I did know.”

  She sat there breathing defiance. A train whistled from the direction of Los Angeles. It was a long freight train, moving slowly. Somehow it reminded me of the government.

  Before it had finished rattling the dishes in the kitchen, I said goodbye to Mrs. Sekjar and left. I dropped Ward off at his father’s house, which was just about one grade better than Mrs. Sekjar’s, and advised him to get some sleep. Then I drove to International Airport and bought a return ticket to Las Vegas.

  chapter 26

  IT WAS STILL DAY, with a searchlight sun glinting along the sea, when the plane took off for Las Vegas. We flew away from the sun and came down into sudden purple dusk.

  I took a cab to Fremont Street. The jostling neon colors of its signs made the few stars in the narrow sky look pale and embarrassed. The Scorpion Club was one of the larger casinos on the street, a two-story building with a three-story sign on which an electric scorpion twitched its tail.

  The people at the slot machines inside seemed to work by similar mechanisms. They fed in their quarters and dollars with their left hands and pulled the levers with their right like assembly-line workers in a money factory. There were smudge-eyed boys so young that they hadn’t begun to shave yet, and women with workmen’s gloves on their lever hands, some of them so old and weary that they leaned on the machines to stay upright. The money factory was a hard place to work.

  I worked my way through the early-evening crowd, past blackjack and roulette tables, and found a pit boss watching the crap tables at the rear of the big room. He was a quick-eyed man in an undertaker’s suit. I told him I wanted to see the boss.

  “I’m the boss.”

  “Don’t kid me.”

  His glance darted up to the ceiling. “If you want to see Mr. Davis, you got to have a good reason. What’s your reason?”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Mr. Davis might not want me to.”

  His gaze came to rest on my face. I could feel his dislike. “You want to see Mr. Davis, you got to tell me the nature of your business.”

  I told him my name and occupation, and the fact that I was investigating two murders.

  He didn’t change expression. “You think Mr. Davis can help you out?”

  “I’d like a chance to ask him.”

  “Wait here.”

  He disappeared behind a curtain. I heard him going upstairs. I stood by one of the green tables and watched a girl in a low-backed gown fling herself and the dice around. This was the creative end of the money factory, where you got a chance to finger the dice, and talk to them.

  “They’re getting hot for me,” she said.

  She was a nice-looking girl with a cultivated voice, and she reminded me of Ginny. The man who stood beside her and provided her with money wore furry black sideburns and dude clothes, including high-heeled boots. From time to time, when the girl won, he let out a synthetic vaquero whoop. His hand kept slipping lower on her back.

  The pit boss came downstairs and jerked a thumb at me from the edge of the curtain. I followed him behind it. A second man loomed up behind the arras and went over me for iron. His head looked like a minor accident on top of his huge neck and shoulders.

  “You can go on up.” He followed me.

  Mr. Davis was waiting at the head of the stairs. He was a smiling man with a politician’s malleable face and a lot of wavy gray hair. He wore a pin-striped gray suit with slanting pockets and pleated shoulders, for action. Mr. Davis hadn’t had much action lately. Even the careful tailoring of his suit couldn’t harden or conceal the huge soft egg of his belly.

  “Mr. Archer?”

  “Mr. Davis.”

  He didn’t offer me his hand, which was just as well. I don’t like shaking hands with men wearing rings with stones in them.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Archer?”

  “Give me a few minutes. We may be able to do something for each other.”

  He looked dubiously at my plain old California suit, and at my shoes which needed polishing. “That I doubt. You mentioned murder downstairs. Anyone I know?”

  “I think so. Francis Martel.”

  He didn’t react to the name. I showed him the picture. He reacted to it. He snatched it out of my hand and hustled me into his office and closed the door.

  “Where did you get hold of this?”

  “In Montevista.”

  “Was Leo there?”

  “Not recently. This isn’t a recent picture.”

  He took it to his desk to study it under the light. “No, I see it isn’t recent. Leo will never be that young again. Neither will Kitty.” He seemed to take pleasure in this fact, as if it made him younger by comparison. “Who’s the character with the tray?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  He looked up at me. “It wouldn’t be Cervantes?”

  “Feliz Cervantes, alias Francis Martel.” Alias Pedro Domingo. “He was shot today, on Sabado Avenue in Brentwood.”

  Davis’s eyes went dead. I noticed that this kept happening. They would show a flicker of interest or curiosity, or even malice, then sink back into lifelessness.

  “You want to tell me about the shooting?” he said.

  “Not keenly, but I will.” I gave him a short account of Martel’s death and what led up to it. “You can read the rest of it in the early-morning papers.”

  “And the killer got the money, is that right?”

  “Evidently. Whose money is it?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” he said with sudden vagueness.

  He got up and walked away from me the length of the long office, surveying the desert photomurals on the walls. His footsteps were silent on the desert-colored rug. There was something a little female about his movements, and more than a little ominous, as if his huge belly was pregnant with death.

  “It wouldn’t be your money, would it, Mr. Davis?”

  He turned and opened his mouth as if to yell, but produced no sound. Soundlessly he walked toward me, making a little sideways dance-step as he passed the horseshoe desk.

  “No,” he whispered into my face. “It wouldn’t be my money and I had nothing to do with knocking him off.” He smiled and nudged me as if he was going to tell me a joke, but there was no humor in his smile. “In fact I don’t know why you come to me with this spiel of yours.”

  “You’re Leo’s partner, aren’t you?”

  “Am I?”

  “And Cervantes was his boy.”

  “How do you mean, his boy?” Davis nudged me again. His pleated shoulders opened and closed with the gesture, making it obscene.

  “I thought you’d be able to tell me, Mr. Davis.”

  “Think again. I only saw Cervantes once in my life, and that was last year when he came here with Leo. I don’t know what the deal was. Whatever it was, I don’t want any part of it. I’m a legitimate businessman conducting a legal business, and incidentally Leo is not my partner. There’s nothing on the record that says he owns any part of this casino. As for me, I want no part of him.”

  It was a bold statement. Davis didn’t strike me as a bold man. I was beginning to wonder if Leo Spillman was dead, too.

  “Where can I find Leo?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You send him money, don’t you?”

  “He should send me money.”

  “How so?”

  “You ask too many questions. Beat it now, before you make me nervous.”

  “I think I’ll stick around. I need help with an income tax problem. Not mine. Leo’s. And maybe yours.”

  Davis leaned on the wall, sighing. “Why didn’t you tell me you were Internal Revenue?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then you misrepresented yourself just now.”

  “The hell I did. You can talk about income tax without working for the federal government.”

 
“Not to me you can’t. You can’t con your way into my office masquerading as a federal agent.”

  He knew I hadn’t, but he needed some point of focus for his anger. He seemed to have no continuous focal point in himself. I’d known other front men like him in Vegas and Reno: bar-room gladhanders who had lost their gladness, smilers who gradually realized that they were fronting for death and belonged to it.

  “The feds are looking for Leo. I guess you know that,” I said.

  “I guess I do.”

  “Why can’t they find him? Is he dead?”

  “I wish he was.” He snickered.

  “Did you have Cervantes shot?”

  “Me? I’m a legitimate businessman.”

  “So you were telling me. It doesn’t answer the question.”

  “It wasn’t a good question.”

  “I’ll see if I can frame a better one—the hypothetical kind they ask the experts in court.”

  “I’m no expert, and we’re not in court.”

  “Just in case you ever are, it will be good practice for you.” He didn’t feel the needle, which probably meant he was feeling deeper pains. “How much black money did Leo siphon out of your counting room?”

  He answered blandly: “I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Naturally you wouldn’t know about it. You’re too legitimate.”

  “Watch it,” he said. “I’ve taken as much from you as I’ve ever taken from anybody.”

  “Did he make discount deals with the big losers and use Cervantes to collect and stash the money?”

  Davis looked at me carefully. His eyes were dead but unquiet. “You ask the kind of questions that answer themselves. You don’t need me.”

  “We need each other,” I said. “I want Leo Spillman, and you want the money he milked out of the business.”

  “If you’re talking about that money in L.A., it’s gone. There’s no way for me to get it back. Anyway, it’s nickels and dimes. Our counting room handles more than that every day of the year.”

  “So you have no problem.”