Росс Макдональд - The Three Roads

She started the car and turned it back onto the highway. It was hard to see the road through the tears that had been brought to her eyes by the wind or by her sudden feeling of desolation. The present and the future were slipping away again, and in some way the fault was hers. She blamed her own stupidity and weakness.

They rode in silence through the green valleys and the barren hills, past the scrubbed whiteness of the sea resorts and the geometric forests of the Long Beach oilfields. The past slid along behind them on a trailer, as real as the buzzing, sprawling confusion of the Los Angeles suburbs. She longed for a city where she could submerge herself, ditch the trailing past, forget even the future. But the roaring blankness of Los Angeles was a comfortless backdrop to her loneliness.

It was loneliness that made her speak at last, though she didn’t trust her voice.

“You didn’t really mean it when you said you mightn’t go to Dr. Klifter?”

“Didn’t I?”

She lifted one hand from the wheel and touched his arm. “I don’t think you should make any decisions when you’re feeling depressed.”

“I’ve got a reason for being depressed. I’m not going to get rid of it by fooling around with my childhood memories. I’ve got to act in the real world where the trouble started.”

“Act?”

“My wife was murdered. God knows our marriage never amounted to much, but I owe her something. The least I owe her is some attempt to find the man that killed her.”

The concrete pavement billowed before her eyes, and for the second time that afternoon she felt unable to drive. They were far out on the boulevard, so it was easy to find a parking space. She turned off the motor and leaned against his shoulder in a gesture of weariness and abandonment.

“You know you’re not fit to plunge into a thing like that. They only let you leave the hospital on the understanding that you’d be in Dr. Klifter’s care.”

“I can’t rest until I find the man that killed her. That makes no sense to you, does it? What makes no sense to me is your idea that I should waste my time telling my dreams to a psychoanalyst, instead of settling the trouble at its source.”

“Are you sure this is its source? Even if it is, it can’t be settled. You’ve got to learn to live with it.”

He gave her a narrow look of doubt. “What makes you so sure?”

“The police spent months on the case. You can’t do anything by yourself. I won’t let you bury yourself in the past–”

“You sound afraid.”

“I am afraid.”

She pressed her face against the rigid muscles of his arm. Even in this moment of doubt and alienation she felt an undercurrent of pride in his strength, and gratitude that he had come back to her physically whole from the war.

“I won’t argue with you any more,” he said. “Give me the key to the trunk compartment.”

“But you’re coming home with me now? I told Mrs. Roberts to have dinner ready at seven.”

“I’m sorry I have to spoil your plans. I’ve always spoiled your plans, haven’t I? Give me the key.”

“I won’t!” She turned the ignition key and started the motor. “You’re coming home with me whether you like it or not.”

Before she had finished the sentence he was out of the car. She called his name and started after him, running awkwardly on her high heels. A seedy old man who was standing in the doorway of a cigar store turned to watch her, smiling knowingly. Bret was walking rapidly away, his wide blue shoulders perfectly impassive. She called once more, but he paid no attention.

She went back to the roadster and crawled in under the wheel. His white hat was a hundred yards away, moving steadily along the sidewalk. She watched it like a fading hope until it was out of sight.

As soon as she got home she went to the telephone in the hall and dialed a number. While the signal buzzed at the other end of the line she shut the door of the kitchen with her foot so that Mrs. Roberts wouldn’t hear.

“Yeah?” A man’s voice answered.

“Larry Miles?”

“Well, this is a pleasant surprise. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you for a week or so.”

“It isn’t pleasant. Bret Taylor is in town.”

“Do tell,” said the softly modulated voice. “I thought he was all safely locked up with the other boys with the fantods.”

“And it isn’t funny. He may be looking for you.”

“So what do I do? Take a powder?”

“Yes. Get out of town.”

“It costs money to take a powder.”

“You have the money.”

“But nix, I had bad luck this week. No money. No money, no powder. Now a couple of C’s would take me to Las Vegas. I got friends there.”

“All right, you can have the money. If you’ll get out of town for two weeks. I’ll let you have it tonight.”

“That’s the good girl,” said the engaging voice. “Usual time, usual place?”

“Yes. In the meantime, you know a place called the Golden Sunset Café?”

“But yes. Do I pay it a visitation?”

“Stay away from there,” she said. “Do you hear me, Miles?”

“Excuse me while I adjust my hearing aid.”

“I said this isn’t funny. Bret Taylor’s a big man, and there’s nothing he wouldn’t do.”

“Be calm, my sweet, I heard you.”

“Then bear it in mind.”

She set down the receiver and climbed the stairs to her room. The solid floors and brick walls of her house seemed as insubstantial as a cardboard studio set. Even her bedroom lacked intimate meaning, as if its fourth wall were missing and the bed on which she flung herself stood in full view of the unfriendly city.

She got up and went to the mirror and looked at her face and didn’t like it. She crossed the room to the great closet to look for a beautiful dress to wear. Her wardrobe appalled her. Gowns and sweaters, suits and scarves and skirts and coats, were garish and hideous, like masquerade costumes on hangover morning. Out of the thousands of dollars’ worth of colored silk and cotton and wool, there wasn’t a thing she’d be seen dead in.

When Larry went back to the bedroom the girl was sitting on the edge of the bed. In the excitement of the telephone call he’d forgotten all about her. Her red hair was tangled, but it shone prettily in the thin light that filtered through the closed blinds. When you looked at it in a better light you could see the darkness at the roots.

“You were gone a long time,” she said. “Lover.”

She stood up and came toward him with a dopey look on her face. Her navel and two nipples made a cartoon of another face, a long and mournful one. Whenever he saw that face instead of a body, he knew that he’d had enough of a girl. He let her kiss him, but he didn’t kiss her back.

“What’s the matter, Larry?”

“Not a thing.”

“Who was that on the phone?” she whispered in his ear. Her arms felt sticky against the back of his neck.

“Business. I got irons in the fire.”

“Such as?”

“My business, not yours. Listen, Fran, why don’t you blow for now?”

“So you can keep a date with another girl.”

“I said it was business.”

“I heard the way you talked on the phone. You think I’m dumb?”

He looked straight into her eyes and grinned. “What do you think?”

“Who is she?”

“I thought I advised you to blow. Scram, fade, beat it, go away!”

She placed her right cheek against his chest and held on. “I’ll go if you tell me who she is.”

“All right,” he said. “You want to do it the hard way.” He took hold of her elbows with the air of a man removing an uncomfortable collar, broke her grip, and thrust her away.