The Ferguson Affair

by Ross Macdonald

  He went as far as the archway, and paused there, deterred by the privacy of grief. I wasn’t so sensitive. I went in past him. “Ferguson, was that phone call about your wife?”

  He nodded.

  “Is she dead?”

  “They claim not. I don’t know.”

  “ ‘They’?”

  “Her abductors. Holly has been abducted.”

  “Kidnapped?”

  “Yes. They demand two hundred thousand dollars for her return.”

  Padilla whistled softly behind me.

  “Have they called you before?”

  “Yes, but I wasn’t home. I haven’t been here much in the past day.”

  “This phone call was your first communication from them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you say so at the time? We might have had some chance of tracing the call.”

  “I don’t want anything done along those lines. I didn’t even intend to tell you and Padilla. I’m sorry now that I did.”

  “You can’t handle a thing like this all by yourself.”

  “Why not? I have the cash. They’re welcome to it if they give Holly back to me.”

  “You have two hundred thousand dollars in cash?”

  “I have more than that. I had it transferred to the local Bank of America because I’ve been intending to buy some property here. I can draw it out when the bank opens in the morning.”

  “When and where are you supposed to pay them?”

  “He said I was to wait for further instructions.”

  “Did you recognize his voice on the telephone?”

  “No.”

  “Then it wasn’t Larry Gaines?”

  “It wasn’t Gaines, no. It wouldn’t make any difference to me if it was. They have her. I’m willing to pay for her.”

  “It may not be quite that simple. I hate to say this, Colonel, but this could be a shakedown. Some petty crook may have heard that your wife is missing, and is trying to cash in on the fact.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” The thought sat heavy on him for a moment. Then he shook it off. “But it can’t be the case. Even if it were, I’d have to go ahead with it.”

  He was still holding the photograph against his chest. He polished its glass with his sleeve and held it up to the light, gazing at it almost reverently. The pictured woman was a blonde in her middle twenties.

  Ferguson set the picture on the piano, very carefully, as if it were an icon whose exact position might somehow affect his wife’s fate. I took a closer look at it, and remembered seeing the same face on movie marquees and in the newspapers.

  It had the standard perfections of her trade, but it had an individual cast as well. It was a face which had known trouble, and smiled back at it. The smile was a little too bold for comfort. The knowledge in the eyes was a little too definite. Holly May would be interesting to know, but perhaps not easy to live with.

  “It’s a good picture of her,” Padilla said at my shoulder. “You ever see her?”

  “Not in the flesh.”

  “Christ, I hope she’s all right. I was afraid that something happened to her, I told you that. But I didn’t think it could be a snatch.”

  Ferguson moved between us and the picture. Perhaps he was jealous of our stares. I could understand why jealousy of Gaines had been eating him. He was at least twice his wife’s age, and not nearly so pretty. An unlikely match, in spite of all the money he had, or was supposed to have.

  “I want you men to keep this affair to yourselves,” Ferguson said. “It’s of the utmost importance that you do. If the authorities get wind of it, it will put her life in danger.”

  “The dirty crumbs,” Padilla growled. “Is that what they said on the telephone?”

  “Yes. He said that they are in a position to know every move the police make. If I call in the police, they will kill my wife.”

  I said: “This may not be the way to save her, Colonel. You’ve had a hard day, and you may not be thinking as straight as usual. In a situation like this, you need all the help you can get. You should take the local police into your confidence. The chief detective, Wills, is a friend of mine. He can advise you about contacting the FBI-”

  Ferguson cut me short. “It’s absolutely out of the question. I want your solemn word that you won’t go to the police, or anyone else!”

  “You should listen to the man,” Padilla said. “Like he was saying, you’ve had a lot to drink. Maybe you could use a little advice.”

  “I know what I have to do. No amount of advice will change the facts. I’m bound and determined to do my part.”

  “Let’s hope that they do theirs, Ferguson. I think you’re handling it wrong. But it’s your wife.”

  “I’ll trust you to remember that. I don’t want either of you to endanger Holly by going to the police. The criminals have a friend on the force, apparently-”

  “That I doubt.”

  “I know something about American police. If the RCMP was available, I’d gladly go to them.”

  The man’s naïveté would have been funny under other circumstances. I made one last attempt. “Listen to me, Ferguson. I urge you to discuss this matter with someone. Do you have a lawyer you trust?”

  “I have in Calgary, Alberta. If you think I’m going to hire you to give me advice I don’t want and won’t take-”

  “I’m not trying to get myself hired.”

  “That’s good, because I know you American lawyers. I had dealings with some of your breed when Holly was trying to get free from that wretched studio.” He paused, and gave me a canny look. “Of course, if a small retainer will keep you quiet-you can have a couple of hundred.”

  “Keep it.”

  He smiled grimly, as if an angry atmosphere suited him. “We’re mutually agreed then. Can I trust you to respect my confidence?”

  “Naturally.” I realized, a second too late, that I had been manipulated-maneuvered into a dubious position.

  “What about you, Padilla?”

  “You can trust me, Colonel.”

  chapter 8

  “THE OLD BOY HAS GUTS,” Padilla said in the car.

  “Yes, where his brains should be. I’ve got a good mind to go to the police, in spite of what he said.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Why not? You surely don’t believe the police are collaborating with the kidnappers?”

  “Naw, but it wouldn’t be fair. You got to give him a chance to handle it his own way. He’s no dope, you know. He may talk like a dope, and act like one, but he’s got a head on his shoulders. You don’t make his kind of money without a head on your shoulders.”

  “I don’t make his kind of money, period. Where did he get his money?”

  “Out of the ground, he told me. He started out on a ranch in Alberta where they discovered oil. He used his royalties to buy more oil rights, and the thing just went on mounting up. I guess he ran out of things to buy in Canada, so he moved in on California.”

  “And bought Holly May?”

  “I don’t think it was like that. If you ask me, the lady was never for sale.”

  “She is now.”

  “Yeah. I only wish I could do something.”

  We emerged from the hedge-lined private lane. With a sudden, angry twist of the wheel, Padilla swung the big car into the road. “Where do you want me to drop you off?”

  “Downtown, if you have the time.”

  “I have the time. I’m not going back to the Club tonight, let Frankie wash the glasses. Maybe I’ll cut over after and see how the Colonel’s doing. He shouldn’t ought to be alone all night. Where downtown?”

  “Pelly Street.”

  “What you want to go down there for? You could get yourself rolled.”

  “That’s not what I had in mind. You know that street pretty well, don’t you?”

  “Like the back of my hand.” In the glow of the dash lights, he glanced at the back of his hand. “I just moved my mother off it withi
n the last four years, when the old man died. Four years ago next November twenty-three.”

  “Do you know Gus Donato?”

  “I know him. Frankie told me he heard on the radio that Gus is wanted for murder. Old man Broadman. Is that what you heard?”

  “It’s no rumor. How well do you know him, Tony?”

  “About as well as I want to. I see him on the street. I know his brother better, Manuel. He’s the worker in the family. Manuel and me was in the same class at Sacred Heart school one year, before he quit to go to work. Gus has always been a cross on his back. They sent him up to Preston when he was sixteen years old.”

  “What for?”

  “Stealing cars and stuff. He was stealing cars when he was so little he couldn’t see over the top of the steering wheel. I guess they taught him some fancier tricks at Preston. He’s been in and out of jail most of his life. Now he’s really fixed himself good.”

  Padilla’s tone was carefully indifferent. He performed his ritual of rolling down the window and spitting.

  “I talked to his brother and his wife tonight. The wife claims he’s innocent.”

  “Gus’s wife?”

  “Secundina, her brother-in-law called her. You know her, don’t you?”

  “I know her. Working in different kinds of bars, you see a lot of people. I watch them the way you watch the flies on the wall. But let’s get this straight, Mr. Gunnarson, they’re not my kind of people.” His tone was formal. The discussion had put an obscure strain on our relationship.

  “I realize that, Tony.”

  “Why ask me questions about them, then?”

  “Because you know Holly May, and want to do something for her. There seems to be some connection between what happened to her and the Broadman killing. Gus Donato may be the key to it. And I got an impression talking to his relatives that he may be ready to give himself up. If he’s approached carefully, through his brother, or through his wife-”

  “I don’t like to step on cops’ toes.”

  “Neither do I. But I’m within my rights as a lawyer in trying to reach Donato and talk him into surrendering.”

  “Sure, we could get knocked off, too. That’s within anybody’s rights.” But Padilla was with me. “I know where Manuel lives.”

  The shoreline road crossed the highway on an overpass and curved around to the left to join the northbound lane. Neon-lighted clouds hung low over the city, changing like red smoke as we moved under them.

  The freeway slanted up across a wilderness of railroad sidings, packing plants, and warehouses, and then the residences of the lower town. Its swarming courts and overflowing cottages were squeezed like living sponge between the freeway and the railroad. Padilla turned off on a ramp and circled under the freeway between concrete pillars that seemed as ancient and deserted as Coliseum arches. Somewhere ahead, the sound of a siren rose in jungle howling and fell away into animal sobbing.

  “Jeeze, I hate that noise,” Padilla said. “Practically every night of my life for twenty years I heard that noise. It’s the main reason I had to get out to the other side of the tracts.”

  Manuel Donato lived on this side of the tracts, in a white clapboard bungalow which stood out among its neighbors. The rectangle of lawn behind its picket fence was green and smooth, hedged by white-blossoming oleanders. The porch light was on. Padilla knocked on the door.

  In the yard next door, shadowed by the oleanders, some boys and girls were playing late giggling games. One of the boys raised his voice. “Donato ain’t home.”

  “Is he still downtown?” Padilla said.

  “I guess so.” The boy came up to the fence. His fluorescent shirt made him look like a torso miraculously suspended, until I saw his eyeballs reflecting the light. “You cops?”

  “We’re friends of Manuel Donato’s,” Padilla said.

  “He may be down at the police station. A cop came a few minutes ago, and Manuel went away with him. Is he in trouble?”

  “I hope not,” Padilla said.

  “Reason I asked, it looked like he was crying.”

  “Yeah,” one of the girls said from the shadows. “He was crying. I felt sorry for him.”

  The desk sergeant at the police station told us the reason for Manuel Donato’s grief. His brother Gus was in the morgue. Pike Granada had shot him.

  “Just like that, eh?” Padilla said.

  The desk sergeant looked at him thoughtfully, then at me. “You representing the family, Mr. Gunnarson?”

  I pretended not to hear him. “When did all this happen?”

  “Within the last hour or so. It wasn’t channeled through me,” he said with disappointment. “Pike was off duty. He got a tip where Donato was hiding out. He’s young and eager.”

  “Who tipped him?”

  “Ask him yourself. He’s back in the squad room making up his preliminary report. He probably won’t tell you, but go ahead and ask him.”

  The squad room was dim except for the circle of light from the lamp on Granada’s desk. His two-fingered typewriter stuttered and gave up when we walked in. He lifted his head, heavily, as if it had been cast in the bronze it resembled.

  “I understand you shot Augustine Donato.”

  “Yeah. He went for his gun.”

  “Too bad you had to silence him. He might have told us some useful things.”

  “You sound like Wills. He just got off my back. Don’t you climb on, Mr. Gunnarson.” He peered through the dimness at Padilla. “Who’s your friend?”

  “You remember me,” Padilla said.

  “I used to tend bar in the Rosarita Room.”

  “Oh, yeah. Tony. Still working around town?”

  “At the Foothill Club,” Padilla said in his formal voice. There was tension between the two men.

  “Where did you catch up with Donato?” I said.

  “In the old ice plant out by the railroad tracks. It’s a good place to hide, truck and all, and I figured he was out there.”

  “That’s pretty close figuring.”

  “I had some help. A little bird told me they seen a truck. I live on that side of town, so I mosied over. I caught him unloading the stuff.”

  “What stuff was it?”

  “Loot from the burglaries, cameras and furs and dresses. Apparently Broadman had it stashed in his basement. Donato killed him to get at it.”

  “Then you killed Donato.”

  “It was my neck or his.” In the light from the green-shaded lamp, Granada’s face was greenish, his eyes gold. “You sound as if you wished it was my neck. I’m not asking for the rubber medal, but I did go out on my own time and take a killer.”

  “His wife claims he’s not a killer.”

  “Naturally. She’s been claiming he’s innocent through four or five arrests. He’s been innocent of everything from pushing dope on the high-school grounds to armed robbery. So now he’s innocent of murder.”

  “Innocent and dead.”

  Granada looked up quickly, his eyes glinting like coins. “You don’t take her seriously, for Christ sake? She’s been lying her head off for years.”

  “You ought to know,” Padilla said.

  Granada rose slowly, about three feet wide in his linen suit, and well over six feet tall. He leaned with both hands gripping the edges of the desk. He appeared to be getting ready to pick up the desk and throw it. “What is that supposed to mean? I used to run with lots of dames before I got wise to myself and settled down.”

  “Her husband is the only one you shot,” Padilla said. “Was she the little bird?”

  Granada said in a very gentle tone: “Mother told me there would be nights like this. I go out of my way to take a killer, and what happens? The Lieutenant eats me out. People come in off the street to tell me off.”

  Padilla said: “I’ll bring you a crying towel.”

  Granada called him a bad name and lifted his hand. A woman scurried and moaned in the hallway. Then she shrieked in the doorway. Granada looked at the lockers al
ong the wall as though he was considering hiding in one.

  “Who let her in, for Christ sake?”

  Secundina Donato ran at him, stumbling and sobbing. One of her stockings was down around her ankles.

  “Murderer! I knew you would kill him. I warned him. I warn you now. Look out for me.”

  Granada was. He kept the desk between them.

  “Calm down, now, Sexy. You threaten an officer, I got to lock you up.”

  “Lock me up! Kill me! Put me in the morgue with Gus!”

  She went on in Spanish, pouring a torrent of words at Granada. She tore her dress at the neck and scratched her breast with chipped carmine fingernails.

  “Don’t do that,” Granada said helplessly. “You’ll hurt yourself. You don’t want to hurt yourself.”

  He moved around the desk and caught her by the wrists. She sank her teeth in his hand. Granada shook her loose. She backed up to the row of lockers and sat down against them with a crash.

  Granada looked at his bitten hand. It was his gun hand, and the trigger finger was dripping blood. Nursing it in his other hand, he went into the washroom.

  Padilla stood over the woman. “Get up, Secundina. I’ll take you home before you get into worse trouble.”

  She covered her head with her skirt.

  “At least she isn’t Granada’s little bird.”

  “I’m not so sure, Mr. Gunnarson. Women can do one thing and mean something else.”

  “Not this time. Don’t let that psychology kick get the best of you, Tony. What did she say to Granada in Spanish?”

  He regarded me coldly. “I don’t remember my Spanish so good. We always talk American at home. Besides, she was talking bracero. Her old man was a wetback.”

  “Come on, Tony, don’t play dumb.”

  He was embarrassed by her presence. He waved me to the far side of the room and said with the air of a schoolboy reciting a lesson: “She said that Gus was very good-looking, better-looking than Granada even when-even now that he’s dead. She said she would rather have Gus dead than Granada alive. She said that Gus didn’t kill Broadman, and he didn’t steal from him, either. The stuff he took from Broadman belonged to Gus, and the Holy Mother would see to it Gus got his rights in Heaven. She said she was looking forward to the day when Gus and her would be looking down from Heaven and see Granada burning in Hell, so they could take turns spitting.”