Росс Макдональд - The Instant Enemy

“In West Los Angeles.”

“Come out here right away, will you? I’ll tell my husband to open the gate.”

I left without telling the Spanners where I was going or why. On my way to Malibu I stopped at my apartment to pick up a revolver.

THE HACKETTS’ GATE was standing open. I expected to find police cars in front of the house, but the only car standing under the floodlights was a new blue Mercedes convertible. The young man who went with it came out of the house to meet me.

“Mr. Archer? I’m Sidney Marburg.”

He gave me a hard competitive handshake. On second look he wasn’t so very young. His smile was probably porcelain, and the smile-lines radiating from it could just as well have been worry-lines. His narrow black eyes were opaque in the light.

“What happened, Mr. Marburg?”

“I’m not too clear about it myself, I wasn’t here when it happened. Apparently Stephen’s been kidnapped. A young chick and a boy with a shotgun took him away in their car.”

“Where was Lupe?”

“Lupe was here. He still is – lying down with a bloody head. The boy got out of the trunk of their car and held a sawed-off shotgun on him. The girl hit him over the head with a hammer or a tire iron.”

“The girl did that?”

He nodded. “What makes it even queerer, it seems to be someone the family knows. My wife wants to talk to you.”

Marburg took me into the library where his wife was sitting under a lamp, with a phone and a revolver at her elbow. She seemed calm, but her face had a look of chilled surprise. She forced a smile.

“Thank you for coming. Sidney’s a charming boy, but he’s not much practical use.” She turned to him. “Now run along and play with your paints or something.”

He stood resentfully between her and the door. His mouth opened and closed.

“Go on now like a good boy. Mr. Archer and I have things to discuss.”

Marburg walked out. I sat on the leather hassock that matched her chair. “Where’s Mrs. Hackett?”

“Gerda went to pieces – par for the course. Fortunately I always carry chloral hydrate. I gave her a couple of capsules and she cried herself to sleep.”

“So everything’s under control.”

“Everything’s busted wide open, and you know it. Are you going to help me put it back together?”

“I have a client.”

She disregarded this. “I can pay you a good deal of money.”

“How much?”

“A hundred thousand.”

“That’s too much.”

She gave me a narrow, probing look. “I saw you turn down twenty dollars today. But nobody ever turned down a hundred grand.”

“It isn’t real money. You’re offering it to me because you think I may be in on an extortion deal. No such luck.”

“Then how did you know about it before it happened?”

“I came across the evidence. They left the map of this place lying around, almost as if they wanted to be stopped. Which doesn’t make them any less dangerous.”

“I know they’re dangerous. I saw them. The two of them came right into the living room and marched Stephen out to their car. In their dark glasses they looked like creatures from another planet.”

“Did you recognize either of them?”

“Gerda recognized the girl right away. She’s been a guest here more than once. Her name is Alexandria Sebastian.”

She turned and looked at me in surmise. I was glad the secret was coming out.

“Keith Sebastian is my client.”

“And he knew about this?”

“He knew his daughter had run away. Then he knew what I told him, which wasn’t much. Let’s not get involved in recriminations. The important thing is to get your son back.”

“I agree. My offer stands. A hundred thousand if Stephen comes home safe.”

“The police do this work for free.”

She pushed the idea away with her hand. “I don’t want them. So often they solve the case and lose the victim. I want my son back alive.”

“I can’t guarantee it.”

“I know that,” she said impatiently. “Will you try?” She pressed both hands to her breast, then offered them to me, empty. Her emotion was both theatrical and real.

“I’ll try,” I said. “I think you’re making a mistake, though. You should use the police.”

“I’ve already said I wouldn’t. I don’t trust them.”

“But you trust me?”

“Shouldn’t I? Yes, I do, up to a point.”

“So does Keith Sebastian. I’m going to have to check with him on this.”

“I don’t see why. He’s one of our employees.”

“Not when he’s on his own time. His daughter is missing, remember. He feels about her just as strongly as you do about your son.” Not quite, perhaps, but I gave Sebastian the benefit of the doubt.

“We’ll get him out here.” Abruptly she reached for the phone. “What’s his number?”

“We’re wasting time.”

“I asked you for his number.”

I looked it up in my black book. She dialed, and got Sebastian on the first ring. He must have been sitting beside the telephone.

“Mr. Sebastian? This is Ruth Marburg. Stephen Hackett’s mother. I’m at his Malibu place now, and I’d very much like to see you. Yes, tonight. Immediately, in fact. How soon can you get here? Very well, I’ll look for you in half an hour. You won’t disappoint me, will you?”

She hung up and looked at me quietly, almost sweetly. Her hand was still on the phone, as if she was taking Sebastian’s pulse by remote control.

“He wouldn’t be in on this with his daughter, would he? I know that Stephen isn’t always popular with the hired help.”

“Is that what we are, Mrs. Marburg?”

“Don’t change the subject. I asked you a straight question.”

“The answer is no. Sebastian doesn’t have that kind of guts. Anyway he practically worships your son.”

“Why?” she asked me bluntly.

“Money. He has a passion for the stuff.”

“Are you sure he didn’t put the girl up to this?”

“I’m sure.”

“Then what in hell does she think she’s doing?”

“She seems to be in revolt, against everyone over thirty. Your son was the biggest target within reach. I doubt that she picked the target, though. Davy Spanner’s probably the main instigator.”

“What does he want? Money?”

“I haven’t figured out what he wants. Do you know of any connection between him and your son? This could be a personal thing.”

She shook her head. “Maybe if you tell me what you know about him.”

I gave her a quick rundown on Davy Spanner, son of a migrant laborer, orphaned at three or four and institutionalized, then taken by foster parents; a violent dropout from high school, a wandering teen-ager, car thief, jail graduate, candidate for more advanced felonies, possibly somewhat crazy in the head.

Ruth Marburg listened to me with a suspicious ear. “You sound almost sympathetic.”

“I almost am,” I said, though my kidneys were still sore. “Davy Spanner didn’t make himself.”

She answered me with deliberate roughness: “Don’t give me that crap. I know these psychopaths. They’re like dogs biting the hands that feed them.”

“Has Spanner had previous contact with your family?”

“No. Not that I know of.”

“But the girl has.”

“Not with me. With Gerda, Stephen’s wife. The girl was interested in languages, or pretended to be. Gerda took her under her wing last summer. She’ll know better next time, if the family survives this.”

I was getting impatient with the conversation. We seemed to have been sitting in the room for a long time. Book-lined, with the windows heavily draped, it was like an underground bunker cut off from the world of life.