Ross MACDONALD - The Archer Files

They were barer than they should have been. Cosmetics were conspicuous by their absence. I found one thing of interest in the top drawer of the vanity, hidden under a tangle of stockings: a bankbook issued by the Las Vegas branch of the Bank of Southern California. Ethel Illman had deposited $30,000 on March 14 of this year. On March 17 she had withdrawn $5,000. On March 20 she had withdrawn $6,000. On March 22 she had withdrawn $18,995. There was a balance in her account, after service charges, of $3.65.

Clare said from the closet in a muffled voice:

“A lot of her things are gone. Her mink stole, her good suits and shoes, a lot of her best summer clothes.”

“Then she’s probably on a vacation.” I tried to keep the doubt out of my voice. A woman wandering around with $30,000 in cash was taking a big chance. I decided not to worry Clare with that, and put the little bankbook in my pocket.

“Without telling me? Ethel wouldn’t do that.” She came out of the closet, pushing her fine light hair back from her forehead. “You don’t understand how close we are to each other, closer than sisters usually are. Ever since Father died–”

“Does she drive her own car?”

“Of course. It’s a last year’s Buick convertible, robin’s-egg blue.”

“If you’re badly worried, go to Missing Persons.”

“No. Ethel wouldn’t like that. She’s a very proud person, and shy. Anyway, I have a better idea.” She gave me that questioning-calculating look of hers.

“Involving me?”

“Please.” Her eyes in the darkening room were like great soft centerless pansies, purple or black. “You’re a detective, and evidently a good one. And you’re a man. You can stand up to Edward and make him answer questions. He just laughs at me. Of course I can’t pay you in advance…”

“Forget the money for now. What makes you so certain that Illman is in on this?”

“I just know he is. He threatened her in the lawyer’s office the day they made the settlement. She told me so herself. Edward said that he was going to get that money back if he had to take it out of her hide. He wasn’t fooling, either. He’s beaten her more than once.”

“How much was the settlement?”

“Thirty thousand dollars and the house and the car. She could have collected much more, hundreds of thousands, if she’d stayed in California and fought it through the courts. But she was too anxious to get free from him. So she let him cheat her, and got a Nevada divorce instead. And even then he wasn’t satisfied.”

She looked around the abandoned bedroom, fighting back tears. Her skin was so pale that it seemed to be phosphorescent in the gloom. With a little cry, she flung herself face down on the bed and gave herself over to grief. I said to her shaking back:

“You win. Where do I find him?”

He lived in a cottage hotel on the outskirts of Bel-Air. The gates of the walled pueblo were standing open, and I went in. A few couples were strolling on the gravel paths among the palm-shaded cottages, walking off the effects of the cocktail hour or working up an appetite for dinner. The women were blonde, and had money on their backs. The men were noticeably older than the women, except for one, who was noticeably younger. They paid no attention to me.

I passed an oval swimming pool, and found Edward Illman’s cottage, number twelve. Light streamed from its open French windows onto a flagstone terrace. A young woman in a narrow-waisted, billowing black gown lay on a chrome chaise at the edge of the light. With her arms hanging loose from her naked shoulders, she looked like an expensive French doll which somebody had accidentally dropped there. Her face was polished and plucked and painted, expressionless as a doll’s. But her eyes snapped open at the sound of my footsteps.

“Who goes there?” she said with a slight Martini accent. “Halt and give the password or I’ll shoot you dead with my atomic wonder-weapon.” She pointed a wavering finger at me and said: “Bing. Am I supposed to know you? I have a terrible memory for faces.”

“I have a terrible face for memories. Is Mr. Illman home?”

“Uh-huh. He’s in the shower. He’s always taking showers. I told him he’s got a scour-and-scrub neurosis, his mother was frightened by a washing machine.” Her laughter rang like cracked bells. “If it’s about business, you can tell me.”

“Are you his confidential secretary?”

“I was.” She sat up on the chaise, looked pleased with herself. “I’m his fiancée, at the moment.”

“Congratulations.”

“Uh-huh. He’s loaded.” Smiling to herself, she got to her feet. “Are you loaded?”

“Not so it gets in my way.”

She pointed her finger at me and said bing again and laughed, teetering on her four-inch heels. She started to fall forward on her face. I caught her under the armpits.

“Too bad,” she said to my chest. “I don’t think you have a terrible face for memories at all. You’re much prettier than old Teddy-bear.”

“Thanks. I’ll treasure the compliment.”

I set her down on the chaise, but her arms twined round my neck like smooth white snakes and her body arched against me. She clung to me like a drowning child. I had to use force to detach myself.

“What’s the matter?” she said with an up-and-under look. “You a fairy?”

A man appeared in the French windows, blotting out most of the light. In a white terry-cloth bathrobe, he had the shape and bulk of a Kodiak bear. The top of his head was as bald as an ostrich egg. He carried a chip on each shoulder, like epaulets.

“What goes on?”

“Your fiancée swooned, slightly.”

“Fiancée hell. I saw what happened.” Moving very quickly and lightly for a man of his age and weight, he pounced on the girl on the chaise and began to shake her. “Can’t you keep your hands off anything in pants?”

Her head bobbed back and forth. Her teeth clicked like castanets.

I put a rough hand on his shoulder. “Leave her be.”

He turned on me. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“Edward Illman, I presume.”

“And who are you?”

“The name is Archer. I’m looking into the matter of your wife’s disappearance.”

“I’m not married. And I have no intention of getting married. I’ve been burned once.” He looked down sideways at the girl. She peered up at him in silence, hugging her shoulders.

“Your ex-wife, then,” I said.

“Has something happened to Ethel?”

“I thought you might be able to tell me.”

“Where did you get that idea? Have you been talking to Clare?”

I nodded.

“Don’t believe her. She’s got a down on me, just like her sister. Because I had the misfortune to marry Ethel, they both think I’m fair game for anything they want to pull. I wouldn’t touch either one of them with an insulated pole. They’re a couple of hustlers, if you want the truth. They took me for sixty grand, and what did I get out of it but headaches?”

“I thought it was thirty.”

“Sixty,” he said, with the money light in his eyes. “Thirty in cash, and the house is worth another thirty, easily.”

I looked around the place, which must have cost him fifty dollars a day. Above the palms, the first few stars sparkled like solitaire diamonds.

“You seem to have some left.”

“Sure I have. But I work for my money. Ethel was strictly from nothing when I met her. She owned the clothes on her back and what was under them and that was all. So she gives me a bad time for three years and I pay off at the rate of twenty grand a year. I ask you, is that fair?”

“I hear you threatened to get it back from her.”

“You have been talking to Clare, eh? All right, so I threatened her. It didn’t mean a thing. I talk too much sometimes, and I have a bad temper.”