The Blue Hammer

by Ross Macdonald

  "He seemed very tired," Lashman said. "But excited, too. Buoyed up by excitement."

  "What about?"

  "He was very eager to talk to Mildred Mead. It had to do with the attribution of a painting. He told me he works for the Santa Teresa Art Museum. Is that correct?"

  "Yes. What about the girl?"

  "She was very quiet. I don't remember that she said a word." Lashman gave me a questioning look, which I didn't respond to. "Come inside."

  He led me through an inner courtyard into his studio. One large window looked out across the desert to the horizon. There was a painting of a woman on an easel, unfinished, perhaps hardly begun. The swirls of paint looked fresh, and the woman's half-emerging features looked like Mildred Mead's face struggling up out of the limbo of the past. On a table beside it, which was scaly with old paint, was a rectangular palette containing daubs of glistening color.

  Lashman came up beside me as I examined the painting. "Yes, that's Mildred. I only just started it, after we talked on the phone. I had an urge to paint her one more time. And I'm at the age where you have to put all your sudden urges to work."

  "Are you painting her from the life?"

  He gave me a shrewd look. "Mildred hasn't been here, if that's what you want to know. She hasn't been here in nearly twenty years. I believe I mentioned that to you on the phone," he said precisely.

  "I gather you've painted her often?"

  "She was my favorite model. She lived with me off and on for a long time. Then she moved to the far end of the state. I haven't seen her since." He spoke with pride and nostalgia and regret. "Another man made her what she considered a better offer. I don't blame her. She was getting old. I have to confess I didn't treat her too well."

  His words set up a vibration in my mind. I'd had a woman and lost her, but not to another man. I'd lost her on my own.

  I said, "Is she still living in Arizona?"

  "I think so. I had a Christmas card from her last year. That's the last I've heard from Mildred." He looked out across the desert. "Frankly, I'd like to be in touch with her again, even if we're both as old as the hills."

  "Where is Mildred living now?"

  "In Chantry Canyon, in the Chiricahua Mountains. That's near the New Mexico border." He drew a rough map of Arizona with a piece of charcoal and told me how to get to Chantry Canyon, which was in the state's southeastern corner. "Biemeyer bought her the Chantry house about twenty years ago, and she's been in it ever since. It was the house she always wanted-the house more than the man."

  "More than Jack Biemeyer, you mean?"

  "And more than Felix Chantry, who built the house and developed the copper mine. She fell in love with Felix Chantry's house and his copper mine long before she fell in love with Felix. She told me it was her lifelong dream to live in Chantry's house. She became his mistress and even bore him an illegitimate son. But he never let her live in the house in his lifetime. He stuck with his wife and the son he had by her."

  "That would be Richard," I said.

  Lashman nodded. "He grew up into a pretty good painter. I have to admit that, even if I hated his father. Richard Chantry had a real gift, but he didn't use it to the full. He lacked the endurance to stay the course. In this work, you really need endurance." Leaning into the afternoon light from the window, his face bunched, he looked like a metal monument to that quality.

  "Do you think Richard Chantry is alive?"

  "Young Fred Johnson asked me the same question. I'll give you the same answer I gave him. I think Richard is probably dead-as dead as his brother is-but it hardly matters. A painter who gives up his work in mid-career, as Richard apparently did-he might as well be dead. I expect to die myself the day that I stop working." The old man's circling mind kept returning with fascination and disgust to his own mortality. "And that will be good riddance to bad rubbish, as we used to say when I was a boy."

  "What happened to Felix Chantry's other son by Mildred-the illegitimate brother?"

  "William? He died young. William was the one I knew and cared about. He and his mother lived with me, off and on, for some years. He even used my name while he was going to art school here in Tucson. But he took his mother's name when he went into the army. He called himself William Mead, and that was the name he was using when he died."

  "Was he killed in the war?"

  Lashman said quietly, "William died in uniform, but he was on leave when it happened. He was beaten to death and his body left in the desert, not very far from where his mother lives now."

  "Who killed him?"

  "That was never established. If you want more information, I suggest you get in touch with Sheriff Brotherton in Copper City. He handled the case, or mishandled it. I never did get the full facts of the murder. When Mildred came back from identifying William's body, she didn't say a word for over a week. I knew how she felt. William wasn't my son, and I hadn't seen him for a long time, but he felt like a son to me."

  The old man was silent for a moment, and then went on: "I was on my way to making a painter of William. As a matter of fact, his early work was better than his half brother Richard's, and Richard paid him the compliment of imitation. But it was William who became food for worms."

  He swung around to face me, angrily, as if I had brought death back into his house. "I'll be food for worms myself before too long. But before I am, I intend to paint one more picture of Mildred. Tell her that, will you?"

  "Why don't you tell her yourself?"

  "Perhaps I will."

  Lashman was showing signs of wanting to be rid of me before the afternoon light failed. He kept looking out the window. Before I left, I showed him my photograph of the picture that Fred had taken from the Biemeyers.

  "Is that Mildred?"

  "Yes, it is."

  "Can you tell who painted it?"

  "I couldn't be sure. Not from a small black-and-white photograph."

  "Does it look like Richard Chantry's work?"

  "I believe it does. It looks something like my early work, too, as a matter of fact." He glanced up sharply, half serious, half amused. "I didn't realize until now that I might have influenced Chantry. Certainly whoever did this painting had to have seen my early portraits of Mildred Mead." He looked at the painted head on the easel as if it would confirm his claim.

  "You didn't paint it yourself, did you?"

  "No. I happen to be a better painter than that."

  "A better painter than Chantry?"

  "I think so. I didn't disappear, of course. I've stayed here and kept at my work. I'm not as well known as the disappearance artist. But I've outstayed him, by God, and my work will outstay his. This picture I'm doing now will outstay his."

  Lashman's voice was angry and young. His face was flushed. In his old age, I thought, he was still fighting the Chantrys for the possession of Mildred Mead.

  He picked up a brush and, holding it in his hand as if it were a weapon, turned back to his unfinished portrait.

  XIX

  I drove south and then east across the desert, through blowing curtains of evening. The traffic was comparatively thin and I made good time. By nine o'clock I was in Copper City, driving past Biemeyer's big hole in the ground. It looked in the fading evening light like the abandoned playground of a race of giants or their children.

  I found the sheriff's station and showed my photostat to the captain in charge. He told me that Sheriff Brotherton could be found in a substation north of the city, near his mountain home. He got out a map and showed me how to get there.

  I drove north toward the mountains. They had been built by bigger giants than the ones who dug Biemeyer's hole. As I approached the mountains, they took up more and more of the night sky.

  I skirted their southeastern end on a winding road that ran between the mountains on my left and the desert on my right. Other traffic had dwindled away. I had begun to wonder if I was lost when I came to a cluster of buildings with lights in them.

  One was the sheriff's subst
ation. The others were a small motel and a grocery store with a gas pump in front of it. There were a number of cars, including a couple of sheriff's cars, parked on the paved area in front of the buildings.

  I added my rented car to the line of parked cars and went into the substation. The deputy on duty looked me over carefully and finally admitted that the sheriff was next door in the grocery store. I went there. The back of the store was dim with cigar smoke. Several men in wide-brimmed hats were drinking beer from cans and playing pool on a table with a patched and wrinkled top. The heat in the place was oppressive.

  A sweating bald man in a once-white apron came toward me. "If it's groceries you want, I'm really closed for the night."

  "I could use a can of beer. And a wedge of cheese?"

  "I guess I can handle that. How much cheese?"

  "Half a pound."

  He brought me the beer and cheese. "That will be a dollar and a half."

  I paid him. "Is Chantry Canyon anywhere near here?"

  He nodded. "Second turn to the left-that's about a mile north of here. Go on up about four miles until you hit a crossroads. Turn left, another couple of miles or so, and you'll be in the canyon. Are you with the people that's taken it over?"

  "What people do you mean?"

  "I forget what they call themselves. They're fixing up the old house, planning to make it some kind of religious settlement." He turned toward the back of the store and raised his voice: "Sheriff? What do those people call themselves that took over Chantry Canyon?"

  One of the pool players leaned his cue against the wall and came toward us, his polished boots kicking his shadow ahead of him. He was a man in his late fifties, with a gray military-style mustache. A sheriff's badge glinted on his chest. His eyes had a matching glint.

  "Society of Mutual Love," he said to me. "Is that who you're looking for?"

  "I wasn't. I was looking for Mildred Mead." I showed him my photostat.

  "You're in the wrong state, Mister. Mildred sold out about three months ago and took off for California. She told me she couldn't stand the loneliness any more. I told her she had friends here, and she has, but she wanted to spend her last days with her folks in California."

  "Where in California?"

  "She didn't say." The sheriff looked uneasy.

  "What was the name of her folks?"

  "I don't know."

  "Did she mean relatives?"

  "Mildred didn't tell me. She was always close-mouthed about her family. I had to tell the same thing to the young couple that came through here earlier today."

  "Young man and a girl in a blue Ford sedan?"

  The sheriff nodded. "That's them. Are they with you?"

  "I'm hoping to join them."

  "You'll probably find them up there in the canyon. They went up about sunset. I warned them they were running the risk of getting themselves converted. I don't know what those Mutual Love people believe in, but the belief they have is certainly powerful. One of the converts told me he turned over everything he had to the organization, and they work him hard besides. Looks to me like they're coining money. I know they paid Mildred over a hundred thousand for the place. Of course that includes the acreage. So hold on to your wallet with both hands."

  "I'll do that, Sheriff."

  "My name is Brotherton, by the way."

  "Lew Archer."

  We shook hands. I thanked him and turned toward the door. He followed me outside. The night was clear and high, after the smoky interior of the store. We stood in silence for a minute. I found myself liking the man's company, in spite of his rather artificial folksiness.

  "I don't want to pry," he said, "but I'm kind of fond of Mildred. Quite a few of us are. She was always generous with her money _and_ her favors. Maybe too generous, I don't know. I hope she isn't in any kind of trouble in California."

  "I hope not."

  "You're a private detective there. Right?"

  I said I was.

  "Do you mind telling me what your business is with Mildred?"

  "It isn't really Mildred I want to see. It's the young man and the girl who were asking for her earlier. They haven't come down the mountain again, have they?"

  "I don't believe so."

  "Is this the only way out?"

  "They could get out the other side if they had to, towards Tombstone. But, as I told them, it's a hard road to drive at night. They on the run from something?"

  "I can tell you better after I talk to them."

  Brotherton's look hardened. "You're close-mouthed, Mr. Archer."

  "The girl's parents hired me."

  "I asked myself if she was a runaway."

  "That's putting it a little strong. But I expect to take her home with me."

  He let me go up the mountain by myself. I followed the storekeeper's directions, and they brought me to the head of a canyon whose open end framed the distant lights of Copper City. There were several lighted buildings in the canyon. The highest and largest was a sprawling stone house with a peaked shingled roof and a wide porch shelving out in front.

  The road that led to the stone house was blocked by a wire gate. When I got out to open it, I could hear the people singing on the porch, singing a kind of song that I'd never heard before. Their refrain was something about Armageddon and the end of the world. Raising their voices on the prowlike porch, they made me think of passengers singing hymns on a sinking ship.

  Fred Johnson's old blue Ford was parked in the gravel lane ahead of me. Its engine was dripping oil like something wounded. As I approached it, Fred got out and walked uncertainly into the wash of my headlights. His mustache was wet and spiky and he had a beard of blood. He didn't know me.

  "Are you in some kind of trouble?"

  He opened his swollen mouth. "Yeah. They've got my girl inside. They're trying to convert her."

  The hymn had died in mid-phrase, as if the sinking ship had gone down abruptly. The hymn-singers were coming off the porch in our direction. From somewhere out of sight in the building, a girl's voice was raised in what sounded like fear.

  Fred's head jerked. "That's her now."

  I started for the gun in the trunk of my car, then remembered that I was driving a rented car. By that time, Fred and I were surrounded by half a dozen bearded men in overalls. Several long-skirted women stood to one side and watched us with cold eyes in long faces.

  The oldest man was middle-aged, and he spoke to me in a monotone. "You're disturbing our evening service."

  "Sorry. I want Miss Biemeyer. I'm a licensed private detective employed by her parents. The sheriff of the county knows I'm here."

  "We don't recognize his authority. This is holy ground, consecrated by our leader. The only authority we bow down to is the voice of the mountains and the sky and our own consciences."

  "Tell your conscience to tell you to go and get your leader."

  "You must be more respectful. He's performing an important ceremony."

  The girl raised her voice again. Fred started toward it, and I went along. The overalled men came together and formed a solid phalanx blocking our way.

  I stood back and shouted at the top of my voice: "Hey, leader! Get the hell out here!"

  He came out onto the porch, a white-haired man in a black robe who looked as if he had been dazzled or struck by lightning. He walked toward us, smiling a wide cold smile. His followers made way for him.

  "Blessings," he said to them, and to me: "Who are you? I heard you reviling and cursing me. I resent it, not so much for myself as for the Power I represent."

  One of the women moaned in awe and delight. She got down on her knees in the gravel and kissed the leader's hand.

  I said, "I want Miss Biemeyer. I work for Miss Biemeyer's father. He used to own this house."

  "I own it now," he said, and then corrected himself: _"We_ own it now. You're trespassing."

  The bearded men let out an assenting growl in unison. The oldest one of them said, "We paid good money for this pla
ce. It's our refuge in time of trouble. We don't want it desecrated by cohorts of the devil."

  "Then bring Miss Biemeyer out here."

  "The poor child needs my help," the leader said. "She's been taking drugs. She's drowning in trouble, going down for the third time."

  "I'm not leaving her here."

  Fred let out a sob of frustration and grief and rage. "That's what I told them. But they beat me up."

  "You gave her drugs," the leader said. "She told me you gave her drugs. It's my responsibility to purge her of the habit. Nearly all of my flock took drugs at one time. I was a sinner myself, in other ways."

  "I'd say you still are," I said. "Or don't you believe that kidnapping is wrong?"

  "She's here of her own free will."

  "I want to hear her tell me that herself."

  "Very well," he said to me, and to his followers: "Let them approach the dwelling place."

  We went down the lane to the house. The bearded men crowded around Fred and me without exactly touching us. I could smell them though. They stank of curdled hopes and poisonous fears and rancid innocence and unwashed armpits.

  We were kept outside on the porch. I could see through the open front door that there was reconstruction work going on inside. The central hallway was being converted into a dormitory lined with bunks two high along the walls. I wondered how large a congregation the leader hoped to gather, and how much each of them might pay him for his bunk and his overalls and his salvation.

  He brought Doris out of an inner room into the hallway. His followers let me go as far as the open door, and she and I faced each other there. She looked pale and scared and sane.

  She said, "Am I supposed to know you?"

  "My name is Archer. We met in your apartment yesterday."

  "I'm sorry, I don't remember. I think I was stoned yesterday."

  "I think you were, Doris. How are you feeling now?"

  "Sort of woozy," she said. "I hardly got any sleep in the car last night. And ever since we got here they've been at me." She yawned deeply.

  "At you in what way?"

  "Praying for me. They want me to stay with them. They won't even charge me. My father would like that, not having to pay for me." She smiled dispiritedly on one side of her mouth.