Ross MACDONALD - The Archer Files

“I know how to shut her mouth,” the younger man said very quietly.

“First we try a better way, my way. You learn when you’re as old as I am there is a use for everything, and not to be wasteful. Not even wasteful with somebody else’s blood. She shot your brother, right? So now we have something on her, strong enough to keep her mouth shut for good. She’d get off with second degree, with what she’s got, but even that is five to ten in Tehachapi. I think all I need to do is tell her that. First we have to find her, eh?”

“I’ll find her. Bart didn’t have any trouble finding her.”

“With Vario’s tip to help him, no. But I think I’ll keep you here with me, Gino. You’re too hot-blooded, you and your brother both. I want her alive. Then I can talk to her, and then we’ll see.”

“You’re going soft in your old age, Angel.”

“Am I?” There was a light slapping sound, of a blow on flesh. “I have killed many men, for good reasons. So I think you will take that back.”

“I take it back.”

“And call me Mr. Funk. If I am so old, you will treat my gray hairs with respect. Call me Mr. Funk.”

“Mr. Funk.”

“All right, your friend here, does he know where Fern is?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Mr. Funk.”

“Mr. Funk.” Gino’s voice was a whining snarl.

“I think he’s coming to. His eyelids fluttered.”

The toe of a shoe prodded my side. Somebody slapped my face a number of times. I opened my eyes and sat up. The back of my head was throbbing like an engine fueled by pain. Gino rose from a squatting position and stood over me.

“Stand up.”

I rose shakily to my feet. I was in a stone-walled room with a high beamed ceiling, sparsely furnished with stiff old black oak chairs and tables. The room and the furniture seemed to have been built for a race of giants.

The man behind Gino was small and old and weary. He might have been an unsuccessful grocer or a superannuated barkeep who had come to California for his health. Clearly his health was poor. Even in the stifling heat he looked pale and chilly, as if he had caught chronic death from one of his victims. He moved closer to me, his legs shuffling feebly in wrinkled blue trousers that bagged at the knees. His shrunken torso was swathed in a heavy blue turtleneck sweater. He had two days’ beard on his chin, like moth-eaten gray plush.

“Gino informs me that you are investigating a shooting.” His accent was Middle-European and very faint, as if he had forgotten his origins. “Where did this happen, exactly?”

“I don’t think I’ll tell you that. You can read it in the papers tomorrow night if you are interested.”

“I am not prepared to wait. I am impatient. Do you know where Fern is?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I did.”

“But you know where she was last night.”

“I couldn’t be sure.”

“Tell me anyway to the best of your knowledge.”

“I don’t think I will.”

“He doesn’t think he will,” the old man said to Gino.

“I think you better let me out of here. Kidnaping is a tough rap. You don’t want to die in the pen.”

He smiled at me, with a tolerance more terrible than anger. His eyes were like thin stab-wounds filled with watery blood. Shuffling unhurriedly to the head of the mahogany table behind him, he pressed a spot in the rug with the toe of one felt slipper. Two men in blue serge suits entered the room and stepped towards me briskly. They belonged to the race of giants it had been built for.

Gino moved behind me and reached to pin my arms. I pivoted, landed one short punch, and took a very hard counter below the belt. Something behind me slammed my kidneys with the heft of a trailer truck bumper. I turned on weakening legs and caught a chin with my elbow. Gino’s fist, or one of the beams from the ceiling, landed on my neck. My head rang like a gong. Under its clangor, Angel was saying pleasantly:

“Where was Fern last night?”

I didn’t say.

The men in blue serge held me upright by the arms while Gino used my head as a punching bag. I rolled with his lefts and rights as well as I could, but his timing improved and mine deteriorated. His face wavered and receded. At intervals Angel inquired politely if I was willing to assist him now. I asked myself confusedly in the hail of fists what I was holding out for or who I was protecting. Probably I was holding out for myself. It seemed important to me not to give in to violence. But my identity was dissolving and receding like the face in front of me.

I concentrated on hating Gino’s face. That kept it clear and steady for a while: a stupid square-jawed face barred by a single black brow, two close-set brown eyes staring glassily. His fists continued to rock me like an air-hammer.

Finally Angel placed a clawed hand on his shoulder, and nodded to my handlers. They deposited me in a chair. It swung on an invisible wire from the ceiling in great circles. It swung out wide over the desert, across a bleak horizon, into darkness.

I came to, cursing. Gino was standing over me again. There was an empty water-glass in his hand, and my face was dripping. Angel spoke up beside him, with a trace of irritation in his voice:

“You stand up good under punishment. Why go to all the trouble, though? I want a little information, that is all. My friend, my little girlfriend, ran away. I’m impatient to get her back.”

“You’re going about it the wrong way.”

Gino leaned close, and laughed harshly. He shattered the glass on the arm of my chair, held the jagged base up to my eyes. Fear ran through me, cold and light in my veins. My eyes were my connection with everything. Blindness would be the end of me. I closed my eyes, shutting out the cruel edges of the broken thing in his hand.

“Nix, Gino,” the old man said. “I have a better idea, as usual. There is heat on, remember.”

They retreated to the far side of the table and conferred there in low voices. The young man left the room. The old man came back to me. His storm troopers stood one on each side of me, looking down at him in ignorant awe.

“What is your name, young fellow?”

I told him. My mouth was puffed and lisping, tongue tangled in ropes of blood.

“I like a young fellow who can take it, Mr. Archer. You say that you’re a detective. You find people for a living, is that right?”

“I have a client,” I said.

“Now you have another. Whoever he is, I can buy and sell him, believe me. Fifty times over.” His thin blue hands scoured each other. They made a sound like two dry sticks rubbing together on a dead tree.

“Narcotics?” I said. “Are you the wheel in the heroin racket? I’ve heard of you.”

His watery eyes veiled themselves like a bird’s. “Now don’t ask foolish questions, or I will lose my respect for you entirely.”

“That would break my heart.”

“Then comfort yourself with this.” He brought an old-fashioned purse out of his hip pocket, abstracted a crumpled bill and smoothed it out on my knee. It was a five-hundred-dollar bill.

“This girl of mine you are going to find for me, she is young and foolish. I am old and foolish, to have trusted her. No matter. Find her for me and bring her back and I will give you another bill like this one. Take it.”

“Take it,” one of my guards repeated. “Mr. Funk said for you to take it.”

I took it. “You’re wasting your money. I don’t even know what she looks like. I don’t know anything about her.”

“Gino is bringing a picture. He came across her last fall at a recording studio in Hollywood where Alfie had a date. He gave her an audition and took her on at the club, more for her looks than for the talent she had. As a singer she flopped. But she is a pretty little thing, about five foot four, nice figure, dark brown hair, big hazel eyes. I found a use for her.” Lechery flickered briefly in his eyes and went out.