Ross MacDonald - The Ferguson Affair

He stooped and touched Ferguson’s stomach with his finger. Ferguson smiled in his sleep.

PADILLA KNEW WHERE Ferguson lived. He said that he had driven his blue Imperial home before. I went along for the ride, and the answers to some questions.

“Were you acquainted with Larry Gaines?”

“Used-to-be lifeguard? Sure. I figured him for a no-good, but it was not my business. I had a call-down with him first week he was here, back in September. He tried to buy a drink for a sixteen-year-old girl. I told him, get out of my bar and stay out.”

Padilla pressed a button which opened the left front window of the car. He spat into the night air and closed the window again, glancing over his shoulder at Ferguson. “Don’t want to give him wind in his face. Might bring him to. That man’s got a capacity on him, I tell you.”

I looked back at Ferguson. He was sleeping peacefully.

“I suppose you know Mrs. Ferguson.”

“Sure thing. She’s a damn fine woman. Always nice to the help, can hold her liquor, a real lady in my book. I’ve seen a lot of these Hollywood people when I was at the Oasis Club in Palm Springs. Most of them, they get their front feet in the trough, and bingo, they think they’re the kings of the world. But not Holly-Mrs. Ferguson.”

“You call her Holly?”

“Sure. She called me Tony, I called her Holly, in the bar, you know. You can’t make anything out of that. She’s democratic. Her parents were working people, she told me so herself.”

“Was she democratic with Larry Gaines?”

“So I hear.” He sounded disappointed, in Holly, perhaps in me. “I never saw them together. He stayed out of my territory. Something was going on there, but I’ll lay you odds it ain’t what people think. I saw a lot of her in the last six months, over the bar, and that’s when you see people plain. I’ve seen her handle a lot of heavy passes, some of them from experts. But she wasn’t having any. She isn’t that type at all.”

“I heard different.”

Padilla said aggressively: “I know there’s people don’t like her. So what? I didn’t say she was perfect. I said she isn’t the type to play around. If you ask me, I’d say she loved her husband. He isn’t much to look at, but the old boy must have his points. She always lit up like a candle when he came into the room.”

“Then why did she walk out on him?”

“I don’t think she did, Mr. Gunnarson. I think something happened to her. There she was, the life of the party one minute, and the next minute she was gone.”

“Where did she go?”

“I dunno. I had my hands full at the bar. I didn’t see her leave. All I know is, she left and didn’t come back. And her husband’s damned worried about her. If you ask me, that’s what’s driving him crazy.”

“What could have happened to her?”

Padilla sighed. “You don’t know this town like I do, Mr. Gunnarson. I was born and brought up here, right down at the end of Pelly Street. There’s people who will knock you off for the change in your pockets. And Holly-Mrs. Ferguson-was wearing fifty grand in diamonds last night.”

“How do you know what her jewels were worth?”

“Don’t get suspicious of me now. I wouldn’t hurt a hair of that lady’s head. Show me the bum that would, and I’ll beat him within an inch of his life.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“About the diamond brooch? Hell, she told me. Her husband gave it to her, and she was kind of bragging. I warned her to shut up about it. Even at the Foothill Club, you don’t want to broadcast-Hey!” The car swerved under the pressure of his hands. “You think that Gaines was after her jewels?”

“It’s possible.” Two versions of Holly May were forming in my mind, but they refused to combine into a single understandable woman. “Have you spoken to anybody about your suspicions?”

“Just to Frankie, he’s my helper. I tried to talk to Mr. Bidwell, but he didn’t want to hear it. And the Colonel had enough on his mind already.”

“Does he believe his wife has met with foul play?”

“I think he does, in a way. Only he won’t admit it to himself. He keeps pretending she ran off with a guy, so he can be mad about it, instead of-scared.”

“You’re quite a psychologist, Tony.”

“Yeah. That will be twenty-five dollars, please.” But there was no laughter in his voice. He’d succeeded in frightening himself, as well as me.

We had crossed the ridge that walled off the valley from the coastal shelf. I could smell the sea, and sense its dark immensity opening below us. The rotating beam of a lighthouse scanned the night. It flashed along a line of trees standing on a bluff, on the flat roof of a solitary house, then seaward on a bank of fog which absorbed it like cotton batting.

Padilla turned down a hedged lane, a green trench carved out of darkness. We emerged in a turnaround at the rear of the flat-roofed house on the bluff. Parking as close to the door as possible, Padilla plucked Ferguson’s key ring from the ignition, opened the house, and turned on inside and outside lights.

We wrestled Ferguson out of the car and carried him through the house into a bedroom. He was as limp as a rag doll, but as heavy as though his bones were made of iron. I was beginning to be worried about him. I switched on the bed lamp and looked at his closed face. It was propped on the pillow like a dead man’s in a coffin.

“He’s okay,” Padilla said reassuringly. “He’s just sleeping now.”

“You don’t think he needs a doctor? I hit him pretty hard.”

“It’s easy enough to find out.”

He went into the adjoining bathroom and came back with a plastic tumbler full of water. He poured a little of it on Ferguson. The water splashed on his forehead and ran down into his hollow temples, wetting his thin hair. His eyes snapped open. He sat up on the bed and said distinctly: “What’s the trouble, boys? Is the dugout leaking again?”

“Yeah. It’s raining whisky,” Padilla said. “How you feeling, Colonel?”

Ferguson sat leaning on his arms, his high shoulders up around his ears, and permitted himself to realize how he was feeling. “I’m drunk. Drunk as a skunk. My God, but I’m drunk.” He thrust a hairy fist in one eye and focused the other eye on Padilla’s face. “Why didn’t you cut me off, Padilla?”

“You’re a hard man to say no to, Colonel. The hardest.”

“No matter, cut me off.”

Ferguson swung his heavy legs over the edge of the bed, got up on them like a man mounting rubber stilts, and staggered across the room to the bathroom door. “Got to take a cold shower, clear the old brain. Mustn’t let Holly see me like this.”

He walked into the stall shower fully clothed and turned on the water. He was in there for what seemed a long time, snorting and swearing. Padilla kept a protective eye on him.

I looked around the room. It was a woman’s bedroom, the kind that used to be called a boudoir, luxuriously furnished in silk and padded satin. A pink clock and a pink telephone shared the top of the bedside table. It was five minutes to ten. The thought of Sally went through me like a pang.

I reached for the telephone. It rang in my hand, as if I had closed a connection. I picked up the receiver and said: “This is the Ferguson residence.”

“Colonel Ferguson, please.”

“Sorry, the Colonel is busy.”

“Who is that speaking, please?” It was a man’s voice, quiet and careful and rather impersonal.

“A friend.”

“Is the Colonel there?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, he’s taking a bath.”

“Get him on the line,” the voice said less impersonally. “In a hurry, friend.”