Росс Макдональд - Meet Me at the Morgue

“You’re a generous woman.”

“No, I don’t claim that. I do believe that people are entitled to at least one big mistake. Fred’s been a decent sort as long as I’ve known him. He drank too much one night and ran over a man – even if he knew he’d hit him, it’s understandable why he ran away. He’d had bad experiences in the war. Maybe he panicked. It could happen to anybody.”

“You’re still his advocate, then?”

“I wouldn’t say that. At the moment I’m quite confused. In a thing like this, it’s hard to keep hold of reality. When I let myself go I’m suspicious of everyone.”

The conversation was obviously becoming a strain on her. Ann shook her head and frowned slightly.

I finished my black coffee and stood up. “Is it all right with you if I make a few inquiries in town? We should see whether the money’s been picked up; there may have been a witness. I think you can trust my discretion.”

“Do as you think best, Mr. Cross.” Her gaze was dark and deep, lit by shifting green lights. “I have to trust someone, don’t I?”

Going back along the curved side of the pool, I kept away from the water’s edge. I had a strange fear of falling in, though I had never been afraid of water.

There was a witness, but he was blind. A small gray sign on the newsstand counter said: BLIND OPERATOR. The man behind the counter wore frosted glasses and spoke in the slow, clear accents of the sightless:

“What can I do for you, sir?”

I had just stepped into the shop, and hadn’t spoken. “How did you know I was a man?” I knew by experience that sightless people seldom resented a direct reference to their loss.

He smiled. “Your footsteps, naturally. I’m sensitive to sound. You’re a fairly big man, I’d guess. About six feet?”

“You hit it on the nose.”

“I usually do. I’m five foot nine myself, you’re about three inches taller. It’s not too hard to estimate the level of the mouth. Now your weight. About one sixty-five?”

“One eighty,” I said, “unfortunately.”

“You’re light on your feet for one eighty. Just a second, now. I’ll guess your age.”

“Aren’t you getting into the psychic department?”

“No, sir. Voices change with the years, just like faces do. I’d say you’re thirty-five, give or take a couple.”

“Close enough. I’m thirty-seven.”

“I’m practically never more than two years out. Bet a quarter you can’t guess my age, though.”

“Taken.” I looked at the unlined brow, the carefully brushed black hair, the serene smiling mouth. “About thirty?”

“Forty-one!” he announced with gusto. “I lead a quiet life.” He pushed a jar with a slotted lid across the counter. It was half full of quarters. “Drop your two bits in here. It goes to the Braille fund.” He nodded briskly when he heard the fall of the coin. “Now what can I do for you? ”

“Someone left a suitcase outside here this morning. Behind your newspaper rack.”

He thought for a moment. “About eleven o’clock?”

“Exactly.”

“So that’s what it was. I thought I saw a suitcase.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“That’s just a manner of speaking,” he explained. “I see with my ears and touch and sense of smell. You’ve just been out in the country, haven’t you? I can smell country on you.”

“Right again.” I was beginning to hope that the kidnappers had outwitted themselves in choosing this blind man’s store for their money-drop. He made a point of noticing everything. “About the suitcase, it was left there shortly before eleven.”

“Did you leave it?”

“A friend of mine did.”

“He shouldn’t have left it out there. I’d have kept it behind the counter for him. Was it stolen?”

“I wouldn’t say it was stolen. It’s simply gone. I think it was gone a few minutes after eleven.”

He raised his sightless forehead. “Your friend doesn’t think I took it?”

“Certainly not. I’m trying to trace the suitcase. I thought perhaps you could help me.”

“You’re a policeman?”

“I’m County Probation Officer. Howard Cross.”

“Joe Trentino.” He held out his hand. “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Cross, heard your talk on the radio last winter. The one on juvenile delinquency. Now let me think.”

His hand, when I had shaken it, returned to the jar of coins and twirled it on the glass counter-top as he concentrated:

“The ten fifty-five was in. It was standing there when I heard that suitcase plop down on the platform. It wasn’t a big one, was it? Then somebody walked away. Your friend a heavy, older man? I couldn’t see him too well, there was too much interference from the train.”

“You’re a wonder, Joe.”

“Quiet,” he said. “I’m listening. I had a couple of customers from the train, they wanted Racing Forms . They didn’t stop at the newspaper rack. I guess they already got their papers before they left L.A. Hold it a minute, I had another customer, right after the train pulled out. He brought in a paper from the rack, a News . Now which one was it?”

He tapped his forehead lightly with blunt fingertips. I watched him with a sense of strangeness growing on me. His awareness of the life around him seemed almost supernatural.

His tongue clicked. “It was one of the bellhops from down the street, they come in here all the time. I can tell them by the way they walk, the way they handle a coin. He flipped his dime on the counter. Now which one was it? I know it was one of the boys from Pacific Inn.”

Water started from the pores of his face. It was an arduous job, reconstructing reality from blowing wisps of sound.

“By golly!” he said. “He was carrying the suitcase. He picked it up before he came in. I heard it bump on the doorframe. I think it was Sandy, the one they call Sandy. He usually passes the time of day, but he didn’t say a word to me. I wondered why he didn’t speak. Was he stealing it?”

“No, probably he was just doing his job. Somebody sent him for it. I can’t tell you any more about it right now, Joe.” I caught myself up short. I had almost said: you’ll read it in the papers. “Thanks for your trouble.”

“No trouble at all,” he said, with the water running down his face. “Drop in any time, Mr. Cross.”

The Pacific Inn was a low, rambling building with sweeping tropical eaves and a deep veranda screened with split bamboo. Diagonally across from the railway station and in full sight of the newsstand, its various wings and bungalows occupied half a city block. As buildings went in Southern California, the Inn was an antique. Oldtimers at the courthouse remembered when it had been an international watering-resort, crowded in season with dubious European aristocrats and genuine movie stars. That was before the great earthquake of the twenties cracked its plaster, before the economic earthquake a few years later cut off its clientele.

Since then the prosperous center of town had shifted uphill, away from the harbor and the railroad tracks. The Inn hung on, sinking gradually from second-rate to disreputable. It became the scene of weekend parties from Long Beach and Los Angeles, haunt of race-track touts, brief resting-place for touring stock-companies and itinerant salesmen. My work had taken me to it more than once.

Its atmosphere of depression surrounded me as I climbed the steps. A couple of old men, permanent residents of the bungalows, were propped on cane chairs against the wall like living souvenirs of the past. Their tortoise gaze followed me across the veranda. The lobby inside was dark-beamed and dusty. It hadn’t changed in ten years. From one wall a grizzly’s head snarled through the murk at an elk’s head on the opposite wall. There were no humans.