Росс Макдональд - The Instant Enemy

A woman looked over the fence from the next yard. She was an attempted blonde whose eyes were magnified by purple eye shadow.

“What do you want?”

“I’m looking for the man of the house.”

“Big fellow with a bald head?”

“That’s him.”

“He left about an hour ago. It looked to me like he was moving out. Which would suit me just fine.”

“How so?”

She threw me a sorrowful purple look over the grapestake fence. “You a friend of his?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“What do you want with him?”

“He was the one who wanted me. He called me out here to do some repairs.”

“On that electronic equipment he had?”

“Right.”

“You’re too late. He took it with him. Piled it in the trunk of his car and took off. Good riddance, I say.”

“Did he cause you any trouble?”

“Nothing you could put your finger on. But it was creepy having him next door, sitting all alone in an empty house. I think he’s cracked myself.”

“How do you know the house was empty?”

“I have my two good eyes,” she said. “All he took in when he moved in was a camp cot and a folding chair and a card table and that radio equipment. And that was all he took out when he left.”

“How long was he here?”

“A couple of weeks, off and on. I was getting ready to complain to Mr. Santee. It runs down the neighborhood when you don’t put furniture in a house.”

“Who’s Mr. Santee?”

“Alex Santee. The agent I rent from. He’s agent for that house, too.”

“Where can I find Mr. Santee?”

“He has an office on Sunset.” She pointed toward the Palisades downtown. “You’ve got to excuse me now, I’ve got something on the stove.”

I went to the other side of the yard and looked downhill across several other back yards. I could see Laurel Smith’s apartment. Her open door was in my direct line of vision. Detective-Sergeant Janowski came out and closed the door.

ALEX SANTEE was a small middle-aged man with a bold stare masked by glasses. He was just closing his real-estate office when I arrived, but he was glad to stay open for a prospect.

“I only have a few minutes, though. I’ve an appointment to show a house.”

“I’m interested in a house on Los Baños Street. 702, the one with the lava front.”

“It is distinctive, isn’t it? Unfortunately it’s rented.”

“Since when? It’s standing empty.”

“Since November 15 of this year. Do you mean the party hasn’t moved in yet?”

“He’s been and gone, according to the neighbors. Moved out today.”

“That’s peculiar.” Santee shrugged. “Well, that’s his privilege. If Fleischer has moved out, the house will be available for rental on the fifteenth of this month. Three hundred and fifty a month on a one-year lease, first and last months payable in advance.”

“Maybe I better talk to him first. Did you say his name was Fleischer?”

“Jack Fleischer.” Santee looked it up in his file and spelled it out. “The address he gave me was the Dorinda Hotel in Santa Monica.”

“Did he say what business he was in?”

“He’s a retired sheriff from someplace up north.” He consulted the file again. “Santa Teresa. Maybe he decided to go back there.”

The desk clerk at the Dorinda Hotel, a sad man with an exuberant pompadour hairpiece, didn’t remember Jack Fleischer at first. After some research in the register he established that about a month ago, early in November, Fleischer had stayed there two nights.

In a passageway at the rear of the lobby, I found a phone booth and called the Spanners’ number. A man’s deep voice answered: “This is the Edward Spanner residence.”

“Mr. Spanner?”

“Yes.”

“This is Lew Archer. Mr. Jacob Belsize gave me your name. I’m conducting an investigation and I’d like very much to talk to you–”

“About Davy?” His voice had thinned.

“About Davy and a number of other things.”

“Has he done something wrong again?”

“His employer has been beaten up. They just took her to the hospital.”

“You mean Mrs. Smith? He never hurt a woman before.”

“I’m not saying he did this. You know him better than anybody does, Mr. Spanner. Please give me a few minutes.”

“But we were just sitting down to supper. I don’t know why you people can’t leave us alone. Davy hasn’t lived with us for years. We never did adopt him, we’re not legally responsible.”

I cut him short: “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

The sun was setting as I left the hotel. It looked like a wildfire threatening the western edge of the city. Night comes quickly in Los Angeles. The fire was burnt out when I reached the Spanner house, and evening hung like thin smoke in the air.

It was a prewar stucco bungalow squeezed into a row of other houses like it. I knocked on the front door, and Edward Spanner opened it reluctantly. He was a tall thin man with a long face and emotional eyes. He had a lot of black hair, not only on his head but on his arms and on the backs of his hands. He was wearing a striped shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and gave off an old-fashioned impression, almost an odor, of soured good will.

“Come in, Mr. Archer. Welcome to our abode.” He sounded like a man who had taught himself to speak correctly by reading books.

He took me through the living room, with its threadbare furnishings and its mottoes on the walls, into the kitchen where his wife was sitting at the table. She wore a plain housedress which emphasized the angularity of her body. There were marks of suffering on her face, relieved by a soft mouth and responsive eyes.

The Spanners resembled each other, and seemed very much aware of each other, unusually so for middle-aged people. Mrs. Spanner seemed rather afraid of her husband, or afraid for him.

“This is Mr. Archer, Martha. He wants to talk about Davy.”

She hung her head. Her husband said by way of explanation: “Since you called me, my wife has made a little confession. Davy was here this afternoon while I was working. Apparently she wasn’t going to tell me.” He was speaking more to her than to me. “For all I know he comes here every day behind my back.”

He’d gone too far, and she caught him off balance. “That isn’t so, and you know it. And I was so going to tell you. I simply didn’t want it to spoil your dinner.” She turned to me, evading the direct confrontation with Spanner. “My husband has an ulcer. This business has been hard on both of us.”

As if to illustrate her words, Spanner sat down at the head of the table and let his arms hang loose. A half-eaten plate of brown stew lay in front of him, glazing. I sat facing his wife across the table.

“When was Davy here?”

“A couple of hours ago,” she said.

“Was anybody with him?”

“He had his girl friend with him. His fiancée. She’s a pretty girl.” The woman seemed surprised.

“What kind of a mood were they in?”

“They both seemed quite excited. They’re planning to get married, you know.”

Edward Spanner uttered a dry snortlike laugh.

“Did Davy tell you that?” I asked his wife.

“They both did.” She smiled a little dreamily. “I realize they’re young. But I was glad to see he picked a nice girl. I gave them a ten-dollar bill for a wedding present.”

Spanner cried out in pain: “You gave him ten dollars? I cut ten heads of hair to clear ten dollars.”

“I saved up the money. It wasn’t your money.”

Spanner shook his doleful head. “No wonder he went bad. From the first day he came into our household you spoiled him rotten.”