Росс Макдональд - The Name is Archer

“Could I speak to Mrs. Dolphine?”

“What you want with her?” His hand grew heavier on my shoulder. His eyes were narrow and empty between puffed lids.

“She might know where Lister went.”

“You think so?”

“Yes.” I shrugged, dislodging his hand. “I hear she’s a friend of his.”

“You do, eh?”

He fell against me, his upturned face transfigured by sudden rage, and reached for my throat. He was strong, but his reactions were clumsy. I knocked his hands up and away. He staggered back against the doorpost, his arms outstretched in the attitude of crucifixion.

“That was a silly thing to do, Dolphine.”

“I’m sorry.” He was shuddering, as if he had given himself a terrible scare. “I’m not a well man. This excitement–” His hands came together, clutching at the hula girls on his chest. An asthmatic wheeze twanged like a loose guitar string in the back passages of his head. His face was blotched white.

“What excitement?”

“Stella’s left me. She took me for all she could, then dropped me like a hotcake. I’ll give you a piece of advice. Don’t ever marry a younger woman–”

“When did this happen?”

“Last night. She took off with Lister.”

“Both of the women went with him?”

“Yessir. Stella and the other one. Both of them.” A drunken whimsy pulled his face lopsided. “I guess the big red bull thinks he can look after two. He’s welcome. I’ve had enough.”

“Did you see them leave?”

“Not me. I was in bed.”

“How do you know your wife took off with Lister?”

“She told me she was gonna.” He lifted the heavy burden of his shoulders, and dropped it. “What could I do?”

“You must have some idea where they went.”

“Nah, I don’t know and I don’t want to. Let them go. She was no good to me anyway.” The asthma wheezed behind his words, like an unspoken grief. “So I say let her go, it’s a good riddance for me.”

He sat down on the step and covered his face with his hands. His hair was wild and torn, like a handful of gray feathers. I left him.

I drove to the Oceano Hotel and called Harlan on the intramural telephone. He answered immediately, his voice high and nagging.

“Where on earth have you been? I’ve been trying to get you.”

“Checking on Lister,” I said. “He’s decamped with your sister–”

“I know. He telephoned me. My worst forebodings were justified. It’s money he wants, and he’s coming here to try and collect.”

“When?”

“At twelve noon. I’m to meet him in the lobby.”

I looked at the electric clock on the wall of the desk clerk’s alcove: twenty minutes past eleven.

“I’m in the lobby now. Shall I come up?”

“I’ll come down.” He hesitated. “I have a visitor.”

I sat on a red plastic settee near the elevator door. The metal arrow above it turned from one to three and back to one. The door slid open. Harlan’s mother emerged, tinkling and casting vague glances around the lobby. She wore a greenish black cape over her sackcloth dress, which made her look like an old bird of ill omen.

She saw me and came forward, taking long skinny-legged strides in her flat sandals.

“Good morning, Mrs. Harlan.”

“My name is not Harlan,” she said severely. But she neglected to tell me what it was. “Are you following me, young man? I warn you–”

“You don’t have to. I came to see your son. I guess you did, too.”

“Yes, my son.” A black mood clawed her face downward. From its furrows her eyes glittered like wet black stones. “You look like a decent man. I know something of spiritual auras. It’s my study, my life work. And I’ll tell you, Mr. Whatsis, since you’re involved with Reginald, my son has an evil aura. He was a cold-hearted boy and he’s grown into a cold-hearted man. He won’t even help his own sister in her extremity.”

“Extremity?”

“Yes, she’s in very serious trouble. She wouldn’t tell me what it was. But I know my daughter–”

“When did you see her?”

“I haven’t seen her. She telephoned me last night, and she was desperate for money. Of course she knows I have none, I’ve been living off her bounty for ten years. She wanted me to intercede with Reginald. As I have done.” Her mouth closed like a pouch with a drawstring.

“He won’t open the family coffers?”

She shook her head, dislodging tears from the corners of her eyes. The arrow over the elevator door had turned to three and back again to one. Harlan stepped out. His mother gave him a sidelong glance and started away. She flapped across the lobby and out into the street, a bird of ill omen who had seen a more ominous bird.

Harlan came up to me with a tentative smile and an outstretched hand. His handshake was dead.

“I didn’t mean to be unpleasant last night. We Harlans are rather emotional.”

“Forget it, I’m not proud.”

He glanced at the sunlit door through which his mother had vanished. “Has she been filling you with fantasies? I ought to warn you, she’s not entirely sane.”

“Uh-huh. She told me that Maude needs money.”

“Lister does, at any rate.”

“How much money?”

“Five thousand dollars. He says he’s bringing Maude’s check for that amount. I’m to expedite payment by telephoning our bank in Chicago. It amounts to his asking me to cash the check.”

“Did you talk to your sister at all?”

“No. It’s one of the things that alarm me. Just one of them. He had a long involved explanation, to the effect that she’s not well enough to leave the house, and there’s no telephone where they’re staying.”

“He didn’t say where that was?”

“Absolutely not. He was most evasive. I tell you he means her no good, if she’s still alive–”

“Don’t jump to conclusions. The most important thing is to find out where she is. So handle him carefully. Accept what he says.”

“You don’t mean I should cash the check?” He spoke with great feeling, five thousand dollars’ worth of it.

“It’s your sister’s money, isn’t it? Maybe she does need it. She told your mother she did.”

“So Mother claims. But the old fool would lie for her. I suspect they’re in cahoots.”

“That I doubt.”

Harlan paid no attention. “How could Maude need the money? She took a thousand dollars with her last week.”

“Maybe they stopped off at Vegas.”

“Nonsense. Maude detests the very idea of gambling. She’s quite a frugal person, like myself. She couldn’t spend a thousand dollars in a week, unless the man is bleeding her.”

“Sure she could, on her honeymoon. This whole thing may not be as bad as you think. I’ve made some inquiries, and Lister has a fair reputation.” I decided that was stretching it, and added: “At least he isn’t totally bad.”

“Neither was Landru,” Harlan said darkly.

“We’ll see.” It was ten to twelve by the electric clock. “Don’t accuse him of anything. But tell him he’ll have to come back for the cash. I’ll wait outside and tail him when he comes out. You sit tight. I’ll get in touch with you when I find out where they’re holed up.”

He nodded several times.

“And for God’s sake, take it easy with him, Harlan. I don’t believe that he’s a commercial killer. But he could turn out to be a passional one.”

Lister had the virtue of punctuality, at least. At one minute to twelve, an old Buick sedan appeared from the direction of downtown Santa Monica. It pulled up at the curb a hundred feet short of the hotel entrance. Lister got out and locked his car. His beret and dark glasses gave him the look of a decadent Viking.