Ross Macdonald - The drowning pool

“Congratulations four times.”

“Yeah,” she answered dryly. “As I was saying, I make mistakes. For most of them I take the rap myself. Maude took the rap for this one. She and Slocum left school before the end of the spring semester and went to live with his mother in Nopal Valley. She was determined to be a good wife to him, and a good mother to the kid, and for twelve years she stuck it out. Twelve years.

“In 1946 she came across a picture of Knudson in the Los Angeles Times. He was a police lieutenant in Chicago, and he’d run down some ex-con or other. It suddenly hit Maude that she still loved him, and that she was losing her life. She came down here and told me about it and I told her to beat her way to Chicago if she had to hitchhike. She had some money saved, and she went. Knudson was still living by himself. He hasn’t been since.

“That fall the Chief of Police in Nopal Valley was fired for bribery. Knudson applied for the job and got it. He wanted to be near Maude, and he wanted to see his daughter. So they finally got together, in a way.” She sighed. “I guess Maude couldn’t stand the strain of having a lover. She wasn’t built for intrigue.”

“No. It didn’t work out well.”

“Maude had enough maturity to see what had to be done, if she could do it. She’d have gone away with Knudson this time. But it was too late. She had Cathy to think about. The hell of it was that Cathy didn’t like Knudson. And she was crazy about Slocum.”

“Too crazy,” I said.

“I know what you mean.” The dark sharp eyes veiled themselves, and unveiled. “Of course, she believes Slocum is her father. I think she’d better go on believing that, don’t you?”

“It’s not my problem.”

“Nor mine. I’m glad it isn’t. whatever happens to Cathy, I’m sorry for her. It’s a shame, she’s a wonderful kid. I think I’ll go up and see her over the weekend.—I almost forgot, the funeral. When is the funeral?”

“I wouldn’t know. You better call her house.”

She stood up quickly, and offered me her hand. “I must be going now—some work to finish up. What time is it?”

I looked at my watch. “Four o’clock.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Archer. Thanks for listening to me.”

“I shouldn’t be thanking you.”

“No. I had to talk to somebody about it. I felt guilty. I still do.”

“Guilty of what?”

“Being alive, I guess.” She flashed me a difficult smile, and darted away.

I sat over a third cup of coffee and thought about Maude Slocum. Hers was one of those stories without villains or heroes. There was no one to admire, no one to blame. Everyone had done wrong for himself and others. Everyone had failed. Everyone had suffered.

Perhaps Cathy Slocum had suffered most of all. My sympathies were shifting from the dead woman to the living girl. Cathy had been born into it innocent. She had been weaned on hatred and schooled in a quiet hell where nothing was real but her love for her father. Who wasn’t really her father.

The ride to Quinto, on and old bus sardined with weekenders, was long and slow and hot. A girl who exhaled beer fumes and mauve-scented perfume regaled me with stories of her bowling triumphs in the twenty-alley Waikiki Bowl on Figueroa Boulevard. At the Quinto junction I bade her a quick farewell and walked out to the pier.

My car was where I had left it. A parking-ticket was tucked under the windshield wiper. I tore it into eight pieces and tossed them into the ocean one by one. I didn’t intend to come back to Quinto if I could help it.

Over the pass again to Nopal Valley. The central street was choked with late afternoon traffic, and parked cars lined the curbs. One of them pulled out ahead of me and I backed into its place. I walked a block to Antonio’s and took a seat at the end of the crowded bar. Antonio saw me and nodded in recognition.

Without a word spoken he went to his safe and opened it. When he came to take my order, the clumsy newspaper package was in his hands. I thanked him. He said I was welcome. I asked for a double bourbon, which he brought. I paid him for it. He lit my cigarette. I drank the bourbon straight and walked out with the money in my pocket.

Gretchen Keck was standing in front of the butane stove just inside the door of her trailer. She was wearing a halter and slacks. Her yellow hair was pulled up into a top-knot, held in place by an elastic band. The egg that she was frying spluttered and popped like a tiny machine gun riddling my guts with hunger.

She didn’t notice me until I rapped on the open door. Then she saw who it was. She picked up the frying-pan and brandished it clublike. The egg fell onto the floor and lay there drooling yellow. “Get away from me.”

“In a minute.”

“You’re a dirty bull, ain’t you, one of the ones that bumped Pat? I got nothing to say.”

“I have.”

“Not to me you haven’t. I don’t know nothing. You can amscray.” With the frying-pan upraised, ready to throw, she should have looked ridiculous. There was nothing ridiculous about her.

I talked fast: “Pat gave me something for you before he died—”

“Before you killed him, you mean.”

“Shut up and listen to me, girl. I haven’t got all day.”

“All right, finish your pitch. I know you’re lying, copper. You’re trying to hook me in, only I don’t know nothing. How could I know he was going to murder somebody?”

“Put it down and listen to me. I’m coming in.”

“In a pig’s eye!”

I stepped across the threshold, wrenching the iron pan from her hand, pushed her down into the solitary chair: “Pat didn’t murder anybody, can you understand that?”

“It said he did in the paper. Now I know you’re lying.” But her voice had lost its passionate conviction. Her soft mouth drooped uncertainly.

“You don’t have to believe what you read in the papers. Mrs. Slocum died by accident.”

“Why did they kill Pat then if he didn’t murder her?”

“Because he claimed he did. Pat heard a policeman tell me she was dead. He went to the man he was working for and convinced him that he killed her.”

“Pat wasn’t that crazy.”

“No. He was crazy like a fox. The big boss gave him ten grand lamster’s money. Pat talked himself into getting paid for a murder he didn’t do.”

“Jesus!” Her eyes were wide with admiration. “I told you he had a brain on him.”

“He had a heart, too.” That lie left a bile taste on my tongue. “When he saw he wasn’t going to make it, he gave me the ten grand to give to you. He told me you were his heir.”

“No. He told you that?” The cornflower eyes spilled over. “What else did he say?”

My tongue wagged on: “He said he wanted you to have it on one condition: that you get out of Nopal Valley and go some place where you can live a decent life. He said it would all be worth it if you did that.”

“I will!” she cried. “Did you say ten grand? Ten thousand dollars?”

“Right.” I handed her the package. “Don’t spend it in California or they might try to trace it. Don’t tell anybody what I’ve told you. Go to another state and put it in a bank and buy a house or something. That’s what Pat wanted you to do with it.”

“Did he say that?” She had torn off the wrappings and crushed the bright bills to her breast.

“Yes. He said that.” And I told her what she wanted to hear because there was no reason not to: “He also said that he loved you.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I loved him, too.”

“I have to go now, Gretchen.”

“Wait a minute.” She rose, her mouth working awkwardly, trying to frame a question. “Why did you—I mean I guess you really was his friend, like you said. I’m sorry. I thought you was a copper. And here you just came to bring me the money from Pat.”