The Ferguson Affair

by Ross Macdonald

  My mind picked its way back through the obstacle course of the night’s events, to the previous afternoon. Broadman had cried out in fear and rage. Granada had been in the ambulance alone with him, ostensibly soothing him. He had soothed him very effectively, perhaps.

  “I couldn’t see what happened,” I said. “What is your friend’s name-the nurse’s aide?”

  “I promised her I wouldn’t pass it on. That promise I keep.”

  “Why would Granada kill Broadman?”

  “To keep him quiet. Broadman knew Granada is a crook.”

  “A member of the burglary gang?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But if Granada was in on the burglaries, Gus would know.”

  “They didn’t tell Gus everything.”

  “So you can’t say for sure that Granada was involved?”

  “No, but I think he was. When Gus bust into a house or a store he always knew where the cops were, and he didn’t do it by X ray. He had a pipeline to them.”

  “He told you that?”

  She nodded emphatically. The shawl slipped down from her head. Her hair was uncombed and matted, like torn black felt. She covered it, with a quick and angry gesture.

  “But he didn’t say it was Granada?”

  “No. He didn’t say that. Maybe he didn’t know. There wasn’t much I couldn’t get out of him, if he had it in him.”

  Her refusal to make a blanket accusation against Granada was the most convincing element in her story so far. After stating my suspicions to Wills, I was having a reaction. I had to be very sure of Granada’s guilt before I spoke out again.

  “Who else was in the gang, Secundina?”

  “Nobody else that I know of.”

  “No women?”

  Her eyes shrank to bright dark points turned on me from the ambush of her shawl. “You got no call to point a finger at me. I did my best to talk Gus out of doing what he was doing.”

  “I don’t mean you. You’re not the only woman in the world. Didn’t Gaines have any girl-friends?”

  Her heavy black lashes came down and veiled her eyes completely. “No. I mean, how would I know?”

  “I heard he was running with a blonde.”

  Her eyelids quivered, but her mouth was stubborn. “Then you heard more than I did.”

  “Who is she, Secundina?”

  “I told you I didn’t know about any blonde. I never ever see the guy. Maybe twice in the last two months.”

  “Under what circumstances?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I mean where did you see Gaines? What was he doing?”

  “I don’t remember,” she said stolidly.

  “Have you known Gaines long?”

  “Gus did. He knew him for six-seven years. He met him in Preston, and after they got out, they drove around the country for a while, living off of the country. Then Gus came back and married me, but he used to talk about this Harry. Gaines called himself Harry in those days. He was kind of a hero to Gus, he did such wild things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like conning people and stealing cars and driving faster than anybody and all like that. Crazy stuff. I warned Gus when he took up with Gaines again, last fall. I warned him that Gaines was trouble. He didn’t listen to me. He never had the brains to listen to me.”

  She gazed across the street at the hospital. A local bus stopped at the opposite corner, and the student nurses got on. Secundina became aware of the bus as it roared away. “Now I missed my bus.”

  “I’ll take you home.”

  “What’s the use of go home?” she cried in a raw voice. “So I can tell my children they got no father? What’s the use of anything?”

  She sat like a monument to her own grief. Something had broken in her, releasing the bitter forces of her nature. She seemed to be submitting to them, hoping they would destroy her.

  There was nothing I could think of to say, except: “Your children need you, Mrs. Donato. You have to think of them.”

  “To hell with them!”

  But she was terrified by her words. She crossed herself, and started to mutter a prayer. In spite of the cool shade of the pepper tree, I was beginning to sweat. I’d never been so conscious of the wall between my side of town and hers.

  A dirty black Buick convertible came down the street in front of the hospital. Tony Padilla was driving, slowly, looking for someone. He saw us on the bench and drew in to the red curb.

  “Hello, Mr. Gunnarson,” he said in a subdued voice. “I was in the hospital looking for you, Mrs. Donato. Your sister said I should bring you home. You want to get in?” He leaned across the front seat and opened the door for her.

  I caught a glimpse of her tiny, high-arched foot. Red toenails gleamed through the plastic toe of her shoe. “May I see you for a minute, Tony?”

  “You see me,” he said across her. He didn’t want to talk to me, and was using her as a buffer.

  “What happened to Colonel Ferguson? I thought you were holding his hand.”

  “Until he gave me the brush-off. He went to drop the money off-”

  “Where?”

  “I dunno. He didn’t tell me, didn’t want me along. So I went down to Secundina’s place. I wanted to talk to her some more. Her sister said she was here at the hospital.” He smiled and shrugged automatically, and glanced at the watch on his wrist. “I just got time to take her home before I go to work.”

  He put his car in gear.

  chapter 15

  MY PATH TO THE PARKING LOT led past the emergency entrance of the hospital. The ambulances were garaged across the street, and one of them was parked in the driveway facing into the street. The old youth named Whitey lounged at the wheel, listening to the radio. He turned it low when I came up to the window of the cab. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “You may be able to. I saw you at Broadman’s store yesterday when you took him away. My name is Gunnarson.”

  “I remember you, Mr. Gunnarson.” He tried to smile, without much success. His pale lippy face wasn’t made for smiling. “Broadman died on the way here, poor old boy. I hated to see it happen.”

  “Was he a friend of yours?”

  “I never saw him before in my life. But I have an empathy with them. Like we’re all fellow mortals together. Dead or alive. You know?”

  I knew, though I didn’t like the way he put it. He seemed to be one of those sick-bay philosophers-sensitive wounded souls who lived by choice in the odor of sickness, flourished like mushrooms under the shadow of death.

  Whitey’s eyes were like nerve ends. “It kills me to see a man die.”

  “How did Broadman die?”

  “He simply passed away, man. One minute he was yelling and struggling, trying to get up-he was real panicky. The next minute he sighed and was gone.” Whitey sighed and went a little himself. “I blame myself.”

  “Why blame yourself?”

  “Because I didn’t dream he was going to die on me. If I had only known, I could have given him oxygen, or drugs. But I let him slip away between my fingers.”

  He raised one hand to the window and looked at his fingers. They dangled limply. He rested his chin on his chest, and his long face sloped into sorrow. His pale eyes appeared ready to spurt tears. “I don’t know why I stay in this awful business. There are so many disappointments. I might as well be a mortician and get it over with. I mean it, man.” He was going down for the third time in an ocean of self-pity.

  I said: “What did he die of?”

  “Search me. I’ve had a lot of experience, but I’m not a medical man. You’ll have to take it up with the doctors.” His tone implied obscurely that doctors could be wrong, and often were.

  “The doctors don’t seem to understand the case. Can’t you give me the benefit of your experience?”

  He glanced at me sideways, warily. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  “I want your opinion of what killed Broadman.”

  �
�I’m not entitled to any opinion, I’m just a lackey around here. But it must have been those injuries at the back of his head.”

  “Did Broadman sustain any other injuries?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “On the throat, for instance.”

  “Heavens, no. He certainly wasn’t choked to death, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “I’ll be frank with you, Whitey. It’s been suggested that Broadman was injured fatally after I found him in the store. Between the time that I found him and you took him away.”

  “Who by, for goodness’ sake?”

  “That remains to be seen. It’s been suggested that he was roughly handled.”

  “No!” He was deeply shocked by the suggestion. “I handled him like a baby, with the upmost care. I always handle head injuries with the upmost care.”

  “You weren’t the only one who had your hands on him.”

  His eyes appeared to turn white. The flesh around them crinkled like blue crepe. He opened and closed his mouth, making noises like a hot-water bottle under stress.

  “You wouldn’t be pointing a finger at my partner? Ronny wouldn’t hurt a fly. We been working together for years, ever since he got out of the Medical Corps. He wouldn’t even hurt a mosquito! I’ve seen him take a mosquito by the wings, pluck it right off his arm, and set it free.”

  “Calm down, Whitey. I’m not pointing a finger at you or your sidekick. I simply want to know if you noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Listen, Mr. Gunnarson,” he complained, “I’m supposed to be monitoring police calls. The manager catches me out here batting the breeze-”

  “If you saw anything, it won’t take long to tell me.”

  “Sure, and get my own neck in a sling.”

  “You can trust me to hold any information you have. It may be very important. It’s not just a matter of one man’s death, though that’s important enough.”

  He pushed his fingers up into his hair and slowly closed his fist. His hair sprouted out like pale weeds between his fingers. “What do you want me to say? And who does it go to?”

  “Just to me.”

  “I don’t know you, Mr. Gunnarson. I do know what happens to me and my job if certain people get a down on me.”

  “Name them.”

  “How can I? What protection have I got? I’m no muscle man and I don’t pretend to be smart.”

  “You’re not acting too smart. You seem to have evidence in a murder case, and you think you can sit on it until it explodes.”

  He twisted tensely in the seat, turning his head away. His neck was thin and vulnerable-looking, like a plucked chicken’s.

  “A man name of Donato murdered Broadman. I heard it on the radio. Can’t we just leave it like that?”

  “Not if it isn’t true.”

  “Donato’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. Pike Granada shot him. You know Granada, don’t you?”

  “Sure. I run into him in the course of work.” A tremor ran through his long, asthenic body. It was curled in the seat protectively, knees up. “You think I want to get myself shot, too? Leave me alone, why don’t you? I’m no hero.”

  “I’m beginning to get the idea.”

  All this time the radio had been murmuring in fits and starts. Now the rhythm of the dispatcher’s voice quickened. Whitey reached out and turned the radio up. It said that a new blue Imperial had been clocked at sixty proceeding east on Ocean Boulevard east of the pier.

  I shouted above it: “Did Granada do something to Broadman?”

  Whitey sat and pretended to be deaf. The dispatcher’s voice went on like the voice of doom. The Imperial had collided with a truck at the intersection of Ocean Boulevard and Roundtable Street. Traffic Control Car Seven was directed to the scene of the accident. A few seconds later the dispatcher relayed a report that the driver was injured.

  “You see?” Whitey cried aggrievedly. “You almost made me miss an accident.”

  He started his engine, and honked softly. His fat little partner, the mosquito liberator, came running out of the garage. The ambulance rolled into the street and turned toward the foot of the city, singing its siren song.

  I followed it. Colonel Ferguson had a blue Imperial.

  chapter 16

  THE LONG BLUE CAR had smashed its nose on the side of an aluminum semitrailer. A policeman was directing traffic around the damaged vehicles. At the curb, another policeman was talking to a tough-looking man in oil-stained coveralls. They were looking down in attitudes of angry sympathy at a third man who was sitting on the curb with his face in his hands. It was Ferguson.

  Whitey and his partner got out of the ambulance and trotted toward him. I was close on their heels. Whitey said to the policeman in a tone of whining solicitude: “Is the poor fellow badly hurt, Mahan?”

  “Not too serious. But you better take him to Emergency.”

  Ferguson lifted his head. “Nonsense. I don’t need an ambulance. I’m perfectly all right.”

  It was an overstatement. Worms of blood crawled down from his nostrils to his mouth. His eyes were like starred glass.

  “You better go along to the hospital,” Mahan said. “Looks to me like you bust your nose.”

  “It doesn’t matter, I’ve broken it before.” Ferguson was a little high with shock. “What I need is a stiff drink, and I’ll be right as rain.”

  Mahan and the ambulance men looked at each other with uneasy smiles. The man in coveralls muttered to no one in particular: “Probably had one too many already. He sure picked a hell of a time to run a red light.”

  Ferguson heard him and lunged up to his feet. “I assure you I haven’t been drinking. I do assume full responsibility for the accident. And I apologize for the inconvenience.”

  “I hope so. Who’s going to pay for the damage to the truck?”

  “I am, of course.”

  Ferguson was doing a fine job of setting himself up for a lawsuit. I couldn’t help interjecting: “Don’t say any more, Colonel. It may not have been your fault.”

  Mahan turned on me hotly. “He was doing sixty down the Boulevard. He’s due for a pile of citations. Take a look at his skidmarks.”

  I took a look. The broad black lines which Ferguson’s car had laid down on the concrete were nearly two hundred feet long.

  “I’ve said I’m sorry.”

  “It ain’t that simple, Mister. I want to know how it happened. What did you say your name was?”

  I answered for him. “Ferguson. Colonel Ferguson is not obliged to answer your questions.”

  “The hell he isn’t. Read the Vehicle Code.”

  “I have, I’m an attorney. He’ll make a report to you later. At the present time he’s obviously dazed.”

  “That’s right,” Whitey said. “We’ll take him along to the hospital, they’ll fix him up.”

  He put his pale thin hand on Ferguson’s shoulder, like a butcher testing meat. Ferguson moved impatiently, stumbled on the curb, and almost fell. He glanced around at the growing circle of onlookers with something like panic in his eyes. “Let me out of here. My wife-” His hand went to his face and came away bloody.

  “What about your wife?” Mahan said. “Was she in the car?”

  “No.”

  “How did the accident happen? What did you think you were doing?”

  I stepped between them. “Colonel Ferguson will be in touch with you later, when he’s himself.”

  I got hold of Ferguson’s bony elbow and propelled him through the gathering crowd to my car.

  Mahan pursued us, waving citation blanks. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To a doctor. If I were you, officer, I wouldn’t push this any further right now.”

  I opened the door for Ferguson. He got in, disdaining my assistance. Mahan stood and watched us drive away, his pad of blanks crumpled in his hand.

  “You’re Johnny-on-the-spot, aren’t you?” Ferguson said.

  “I happened
to be listening to the local police calls, and got the first report of your accident. Do you have a doctor in town?”

  “I never go to doctors.” He emitted a sort of snuffling neigh through his damaged nose. “Look here, I need a drink. Isn’t there someplace we can go for a drink?”

  “If you say so.”

  I took him to a bar and grill on the edge of the lower town. The noon-hour crowd had thinned down to a few tables of men drinking their lunches. I hustled Ferguson to the rear of the establishment and suggested he wash his face.

  He came out of the men’s room looking a little better, and ordered rye on the rocks. I ordered a corned-beef sandwich. When the waiter was out of hearing, he pushed his battered face across the table toward me. His eyes were bleak. “What sort of a man are you? Can I trust you?”

  “I think so.”

  “You haven’t simply been hanging around hoping that some of my money will rub off on you?”

  It was an insulting question, but I didn’t let it insult me. I was willing to put up with a good deal for the sake of candor. “It’s a natural human hope, isn’t it? Money isn’t an overriding motive with me. As you may have noticed.”

  “Yes. You’ve talked to me straight from the shoulder. I’d like to feel I can do the same with you.” His voice altered. “God knows I have to talk to someone.”

  “Shoot. In my profession you learn to listen, and you learn to forget.”

  The waiter brought his drink. Ferguson sucked at it greedily and set the glass down with a rap. “I want to engage your professional services, Mr. Gunnarson. That will insure your forgetting, won’t it? Confidential relationship, and all that.”

  “I take it seriously.”

  “I don’t mean to be offensive. I realize I have been offensive, when this matter came up between us. I apologize.” He was trying to be quiet and charming. I preferred him loud and natural.