Ross MACDONALD - The Underground Man

She hung up, and so did I. When I went back into the living room, Jean was frowning at the receiver in her hand, as if it was a live thing which had died on her.

“Stan lied to me,” she said. “His mother was at the hospital all morning. He took that girl to an empty house.”

“Are you and Stanley breaking up?”

“I guess maybe we are. I don’t want to.”

“Who is the blond girl?”

She lifted the receiver in her hand and slammed it down rather violently. I felt as if she was hanging up on me.

“We won’t discuss it,” she said.

I changed the subject, slightly. “How long have you and Stanley been separated?”

“Just since yesterday. We’re not really separated. I thought if Stanley talked to his mother–” She paused.

“That she’d take your side? I wouldn’t count on it.”

She looked at me in some surprise. “Do you know Mrs. Broadhurst?”

“No. But I still wouldn’t count on it. Does Mrs. Broadhurst have money?”

“Am I – is it so obvious?”

“No. But there has to be a reason for everything. Your husband sort of used his mother’s name to get Ronny away from you.”

It sounded like an accusation, and she bowed her head under it. “Someone’s been talking to you about us.”

“You have.”

“But I didn’t say anything about Mrs. Broadhurst. Or the blond.”

“I thought you did.”

She went into deep thought. It sat prettily on her, softening the anxious angularity of her posture. “I know. Last night, after I called the Wallers in Tahoe, they called you and filled you in on me. What did Laura say, or was it Bob?”

“Nothing. They didn’t call me.”

“Then how do you know about the blond girl?”

“Isn’t there always a blond girl?”

“You’re putting me on,” she said in a younger voice. “And under the circumstances it isn’t very nice.”

“Okay. I saw her.” I realized as I spoke that I was volunteering as a witness – her witness – and my last hope or pretense of staying out of her life was being talked away. “She was in the car with them when they left here.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have stopped them.”

“How?”

“I don’t know how.” She looked at her hands. All of a sudden her face was disorganized by a rueful flash of humor. “I could carry a wife sign, I guess, or sit down in front of the car. Or write a letter to an astronaut.”

I interrupted her before she got hysterical. “At least he’s being open about it. And with the boy along, they’re not likely to do anything–” I let the sentence trail off.

She shook her lovely head. “I don’t know what they’re likely to do. The fact that they’re being so open, as you say, is one of the things that worries me. I think they’re both crazy. I mean it. He brought her home from the office last night, and asked her to stay for dinner without consulting me. She was high on something when she arrived, and pretty vague in her answers.”

“What kind of an office does Stanley have?”

“He works for an insurance firm in Northridge – that’s where we live. She doesn’t work in the office – I don’t mean that. She wouldn’t last a day. Possibly she’s a student at the college or even a high school student. She’s young enough.”

“How young?”

“She can’t be more than nineteen. That was one of the things that made me suspicious right off. According to Stanley, she was an old school friend who’d got in touch with him at the office. But he’s at least seven or eight years older than she is.”

“What was she high on?”

“I have no idea. But I didn’t like the things she said to Ronny. I didn’t like them at all. I asked Stanley to get rid of her. He refused. So I called Laura Waller – and came here.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have.”

“I know that now. I should have stayed in my own house and had it out with them. The trouble is, Stanley and I haven’t been close for a long time. He’s been wrapped up in his own concerns and completely uninterested in me. It sort of deprives a girl of any ground to stand on.”

“Did you want out of the marriage?”

She considered the question soberly. “It never occurred to me. But maybe I do. I’ll have to think about it.” She stood up, leaning like a model on my desk, with one hip out. “But not now, Mr. Archer. I have to go to Santa Teresa. Will you drive me there, and help me get Ronny back?”

“I’m a private detective. I do these things for a living.”

“Laura Waller told me. It’s why I asked you. And of course I expect to pay you.”

I opened the door and set the self-lock. “What else did Mrs. Waller tell you about me?”

She said with her bright disorganized smile: “That you were a lonely man.”

I waited for her in the front room of the Wallers’ apartment. The walls were lined with books, many of them in foreign languages, like insulation against the immediate present. She came out carrying a large handbag, and coats for herself and the absent boy.

I got my car out of the garage at the rear of the building, and we headed inland for the Ventura Freeway. The early afternoon sun glared on the traffic, flashing unpredictably on windshields and chromium. I turned up the air conditioning.

“That feels good,” she said. Her presence beside me sustained an illusive feeling that there was an opening there into another time-track or dimension. It had more future than the world I knew, and not so bloody much traffic.

After I made the turn onto Sepulveda, I spent a little time preparing a remark.

“I seem to be getting less lonely, Mrs. Broadhurst.”

“Call me Jean. Mrs. Broadhurst sounds like my mother-in-law.”

“Is that bad?”

“Not necessarily. She’s a pretty good woman – a lady, in fact, and a good sport. But underneath all that she’s terribly sad. I suppose that’s what manners are for, to cover up.”

“What’s she so sad about?”

“A lot of things.” She looked at the side of my face, my one visible eye. “You’re quite inquisitive, aren’t you, Mr. Archer?”

“It’s my working habit.”

“And you’re working?”

“You asked me to. Did the fact that I live where I do have anything to do with your moving in below?”

“The fact that you’re a detective?”

“Roughly, yes.”

“It may have. You may have been part of the whole Gestalt. Does it matter?”

“To me it does. I don’t believe in coincidences. And I like to know exactly where I stand.”

“You’re lucky if you do.”

“Is that a threat?” I said.

“It’s more of a confession. I was thinking about myself – and where I stand.”

“While you’re confessing – did you send Ronny out this morning to help me feed the birds?”

“No.” Her tone was definite. “That was his own idea.” She added: “If you don’t believe in coincidence, there’s not much room for spontaneity, either. In your world.”

“It isn’t my world. I’m interested in the whole Gestalt you mentioned. Tell me about it.”

She said haltingly: “I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

“Everything that led up to this.”

“You take it seriously, don’t you?” I could hear the slight edge of surprise in her voice.

“Yes.”

“I take it seriously, too. After all it’s my life, and it’s going to pieces. But as for explaining it, I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“Just give me the pieces. You’ve already started, with Mrs. Broadhurst. What’s she so sad about?”

“She’s getting old.”

“So am I, and I’m not sad.”