Ross MACDONALD - The Underground Man

“Good neighbors. My name is Archer, by the way. I live upstairs.”

She nodded. “Laura Waller mentioned you last night, when she offered me the use of their apartment. She said if I needed any kind of help, that I could call on you.” She gave me a small cool smile. “In a way I have already, haven’t I? Thank you for being so kind to my little boy.”

“It was a pleasure.”

But we were ill at ease. As angry people do, her husband had left his impression on the morning. The scene he had made still echoed dismally in the air. As if to dispel it, she said:

“I just perked some coffee. It’s Laura Waller’s special grind, and it looks as if it isn’t going to get used. Would you like a cup?”

“Thanks, but it wouldn’t be a good idea. Your husband might come back.” In the street I had heard a car door open and then close, but no engine starting up. “He’s pretty close to violence, Mrs. Broadhurst.”

“Not really.” But her tone was questioning.

“Yes, really. I’ve seen a lot of them, and I’ve learned not to stir them up when I can help it.”

“Laura said that you’re a detective. Is that right?” Something that looked like a challenge had come up into her face.

“Yes, but this is my day off. I hope.”

I smiled, but I had said the wrong thing. A hurt look darkened her eyes and pinched her mouth. I blundered on:

“May I have a raincheck, Mrs. Broadhurst?”

She shook her head, not so much at me as at herself. “I don’t know – I don’t know if I’m going to stay here.”

In the street the car door had opened. Stanley Broadhurst came back into the yard alone.

“Don’t let me interrupt anything.”

“There’s nothing to interrupt,” the woman said. “Where’s Ronny?”

“In the car. He’ll be all right after a little time with his father.” He spoke as if the boy’s father was someone else. “You forgot to give me his toys and animals and stuff. He said you packed them.”

“Yes, of course.” Looking offended with herself, she hurried into the apartment and came out with a blue nylon airline bag. “Give my best regards to your mother.”

There was no warmth in her voice and none in his answer: “Of course.”

They sounded like a couple who never expected to see each other again. A pang of fear went through me – dull, because I was used to suppressing fear. I think it was mainly fear for the boy. At any rate, I wanted to stop Broadhurst and bring the boy back. But I didn’t.

Broadhurst went out to the street. I climbed the outside stairs two at a time and walked quickly along the gallery to the front. A fairly new black Ford convertible was standing at the curb. A blond girl or woman in a sleeveless yellow dress was sitting in the front seat. Her left arm was around Ronny, who seemed to be holding himself in a strained position.

Stanley Broadhurst got into the front seat. He started the engine and drove away in a hurry. I didn’t get a look at the girl’s face. Foreshortened by the height, she was all bare shoulders and swelling breasts and flowing blond hair.

The pang of fear I felt for the boy had become a nagging ache. I went into my bathroom and looked at my face as if I could somehow read his future there. But all I could read was my own past, in the marks of erosion under my eyes, the mica glints of white and gray in my twenty-four-hour beard.

I shaved and put on a clean shirt and started downstairs again. Halfway down I paused and leaned on the handrail and told myself that I was descending into trouble: a pretty young woman with a likable boy and a wandering husband. A hot wind was blowing in my face.

I walked past the closed door of the Wallers’ apartment and down the street to the nearest newsstand, where I bought the weekend edition of the Los Angeles Times . I lugged it home and spent most of the morning reading it. All of it, including the classified ads, which sometimes tell you more about Los Angeles than the news.

I had a cold shower. Then I sat down at the desk in my front room, looked at the balance in my checkbook, and paid the phone and light bills. Neither was overdue, and it made me feel dominant and controlled.

While I was putting my checks in envelopes, I heard a woman’s steps approaching the door.

“Mr. Archer?”

I opened the door. Her hair was up, and she had on a short stylish multicolored dress and white textured stockings. There was blue shadow on her eyelids and carmine lipstick on her mouth. Behind all this she looked tense and vulnerable.

“I don’t want to disturb you if you’re busy.”

“I’m not busy. Come in.”

She stepped into the room and gave it a sweeping glance which lit up its contents like radar blips, one thing after another, and made me realize that the furniture was rather worn. I closed the door behind her and pulled the chair out from the desk.

“Won’t you sit down?”

“Thank you.” But she remained standing. “There’s a fire in Santa Teresa. A forest fire. Did you know that?”

“No, but it’s fire weather.”

“According to the radio report it flared up quite near to Grandma Nell’s – to my mother-in-law’s estate. I’ve been trying to get her on the phone. Nobody answers. Ronny’s supposed to be there, and I’m terribly worried.”

“Why?”

She bit her lower lip and got a trace of lipstick on her teeth. “I don’t trust Stanley to look after him properly. I should never have let him take Ronny away.”

“Why did you?”

“I have no right to deprive Stanley of his son. And a boy needs his father’s companionship.”

“Not Stanley’s, in his present mood.”

She looked at me soberly and leaned toward me with one tentative hand extended. “Help me to get him back, Mr. Archer.”

“Ronny,” I said, “or Stanley?”

“Both of them. But it’s Ronny I’m most concerned about. The man on the radio said they may have to evacuate some of the houses. I don’t know what’s going on in Santa Teresa.”

She raised her hand to her forehead and covered her eyes. I led her to the chesterfield and persuaded her to sit down. Then I went out to the kitchen and rinsed a glass and filled it with water. Her throat vibrated as she drank. Her long white-stockinged dancer’s legs protruded into the shabby room as if from some more theatrical dimension.

I sat at the desk, half-turned to face her. “What’s your mother-in-law’s number?”

She gave it to me, with the area code, and I dialed direct. The phone at the other end buzzed urgently nine or ten times.

The gentle crash of the receiver being lifted took me by surprise. A woman’s voice said: “Yes?”

“Is that Mrs. Broadhurst?”

“Yes, it is.” Her voice was firm but polite.

“Stanley’s wife wants to talk to you. Hold on.”

I handed the receiver to the young woman, and she took my place at the desk. I went into the bedroom, closing the door behind me, and picked up the extension phone by my bed.

The older woman was saying: “I haven’t seen Stanley. Saturday is my Pink Lady day, as he well knows, and I just got back from the hospital.”

“Aren’t you expecting him?”

“Perhaps later in the day, Jean.”

“But he said he had a date with you this morning, that he had promised to take Ronny to see you.”

“Then I presume he will.” The older woman’s voice had become guarded and more precise. “I fail to see why it’s so important–”

“They left here hours ago,” Jean said. “And I understand there’s a fire in your neighborhood.”

“There is. It’s why I rushed home from the hospital. You’ll forgive me now if I say goodbye, Jean.”