Росс Макдональд - The Name is Archer

“Go where?” I said.

“To hell if necessary – if his life is really in danger.”

“I’ll do my best. Where shall I get in touch with you?”

“I’ll get in touch with you. I’ve made a reservation for you at the Rubio Inn. Right now I’ll drop you at the courthouse. Oh, yes – the money.” She opened her leather handbag, and I caught the gleam of a blue revolver at the bottom of the bag. “How much?”

“A hundred dollars will do.”

A few bills changed hands, and we went to the car. She indicated the right rear door. I went around to the left so that I could read the white slip on the steering column. But the leatherette holder was empty.

The little girl stood up in the front seat and leaned over the back of it to look at me. “Hello. Are you my daddy?” Her eyes were as blue and candid as the sky.

Before I could answer, her mother said: “Now Janie, you know he isn’t your daddy. This is Mr. Archer.”

“Where is my daddy?”

“In Pasadena, darling. You know that. Sit down, Janie, and be still.”

The little girl slid down out of my sight. The engine roared in anger.

It was ten minutes past eleven by the clock on the courthouse tower. Superior Court was on the second floor. I slid into one of the vacant seats in the back row of the spectators’ section. Several old ladies turned to glare at me, as though I had interrupted a church service.

The trial was more like an ancient tribal ceremony in a grotto. Red draperies were drawn over the lofty windows. The air was dim with human exhalations. Black iron fixtures suspended from the ceiling shed a wan light on the judge’s gray head, and on the man on the witness stand.

I recognized Glenway Cave from his newspaper pictures. He was a big handsome man in his early thirties who had once been bigger and handsomer. Four months in jail waiting for trial had pared him down to the bone. His eyes were pressed deep into hollow sockets. His double-breasted gabardine suit hung loosely on his shoulders. He looked like a suitable victim for the ceremony.

A broad-backed man with a straw-colored crewcut was bent over the stenograph, talking in an inaudible voice to the court reporter. Harvey, chief attorney for the defense. I had met Rod Harvey several times in the course of my work, which was one reason why I had followed the trial so closely.

The judge chopped the air with his hatchet face: “Proceed with your examination, Mr. Harvey.”

Harvey raised his clipped blond head and addressed the witness: “Mr. Cave, we were attempting to establish the reason behind your – ah – misunderstanding with your wife. Did you and Mrs. Cave have words on the evening of May nineteenth?”

“We did. I’ve already told you that.” Cave’s voice was shallow, with high-pitched overtones.

“What was the nature of the conversation?”

“It was more of an argument than a conversation.”

“But a purely verbal argument?” Harvey sounded as if his own witness had taken him by surprise.

A sharp-faced man spoke up from the prosecution end of the attorneys’ table. “Objection. The question is leading – not to say mis leading.”

“Sustained. The question will be stricken.”

Harvey shrugged his heavy tweed shoulders. “Tell us just what was said then, Mr. Cave. Beginning at the beginning.”

Cave moved uncomfortably, passing the palm of one hand over his eyes. “I can’t recall it verbatim. It was quite an emotional scene–”

Harvey cut him off. “Tell us in your own words what you and Mrs. Cave were talking about.”

“The future,” Cave said. “Our future. Ruth was planning to leave me for another man.”

An insect-buzzing rose from the spectators. I looked along the row where I was sitting. A couple of seats to my right, a young woman with artificial violets at her waist was leaning forward, her bright dark eyes intent on Cave’s face. She seemed out of place among the frowsy old furies who surrounded her. Her head was striking, small and boyishly chic, its fine bony structure emphasized by a short haircut. She turned, and her brown eyes met mine. They were tragic and opaque.

The D.A.’s voice rose above the buzzing. “I object to this testimony. The witness is deliberately blackening the dead woman’s reputation, without corroborative evidence of any kind, in a cowardly attempt to save his own neck.”

He glanced sideways at the jury. Their faces were stony. Cave’s was as white as marble. Harvey’s was mottled red. He said, “This is an essential part of the case for the defense. A great deal has been made of Mr. Cave’s sudden departure from home on the day of his wife’s death. I am establishing the reason for it.”

“We know the reason,” the D.A. said in a carrying undertone.

Harvey looked up mutely at the judge, whose frown fitted the lines in his face like an old glove.

“Objection overruled. The prosecution will refrain from making unworthy comments. In any case, the jury will disregard them.”

But the D.A. looked pleased with himself. He had made his point, and the jury would remember. Their twenty-four eyes, half of them female, and predominantly old, were fixed on Cave in uniform disapproval.

Harvey spoke in a voice thickened by emotion. “Did your wife say who the man was that she planned to leave you for?”

“No. She didn’t.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“No. The whole thing was a bolt from the blue to me. I don’t believe Ruth intended to tell me what she had on her mind. It just slipped out, after we started fighting.” He caught himself up short. “Verbally fighting, I mean.”

“What started this verbal argument?”

“Nothing important. Money trouble. I wanted to buy a Ferrari, and Ruth couldn’t see any sense in it.”

“A Ferrari motor car?”

“A racing car, yes. I asked her for the money. She said that she was tired of giving me money. I said that I was equally tired of taking it from her. Then it came out that she was going to leave me for somebody else.” One side of Cave’s mouth lifted in a sardonic smile. “Somebody who would love her for herself.”

“When did she plan to leave you?”

“As soon as she could get ready to go to Nevada. I told her to go ahead, that she was free to go whenever and wherever she wanted to go, with anybody that suited her.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I packed a few clothes and drove away in my car.”

“What time did you leave the house?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

“Was it dark when you went?”

“It was getting dark, but I didn’t have to use my headlights right away. It couldn’t have been later than eight o’clock.”

“And Mrs. Cave was alive and well when you left?”

“Certainly she was.”

“Was your parting friendly?”

“Friendly enough. She said good-bye and offered me some money. Which I didn’t take, incidentally. I didn’t take much of anything, except for bare essentials. I even left most of my clothes behind.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Because she bought them for me. They belonged to her. I thought perhaps her new man might have a use for them.”

“I see.”

Harvey’s voice was hoarse and unsteady. He turned away from Cave, and I could see that his face was flushed, either with anger or impatience. He said without looking at the prisoner, “Did the things you left behind include a gun?”

“Yes. A twelve-gauge double-barreled shotgun. I used it for shooting rabbits, mostly, in the hills behind the house.”

“Was it loaded?”

“I believe so. I usually kept it loaded.”

“Where did you leave your shotgun?”

“In the garage. I kept it there. Ruth didn’t like to have a gun in the house. She had a phobia–”