Росс Макдональд - The Instant Enemy

Mrs. Fleischer repeated her question. I answered her carefully: “I think it is. Where did you get this picture?”

“I got it out of Jack’s wallet while he was taking his shower. He started carrying it again. It’s an old picture he’s had for a long time.”

“How long?”

“Let’s see.” She counted on her fingers. “Fifteen years. It was fifteen years ago he picked her up. He kept her in Rodeo City, claimed she was a witness, that everything he did was strictly business. But the only crime she ever witnessed was Deputy Jack Fleischer taking off his pants.”

There was sly satisfaction in her eyes. She was betraying her husband to me just as completely as he had betrayed her. And as an old cop’s wife, she was betraying herself.

She took the picture and laid it on the table and picked up her glass. “Drink up. We’ll have another.”

I didn’t argue. Cases break in different ways. This case was opening, not like a door or even a grave, certainly not like a rose or any flower, but opening like an old sad blonde with darkness at her core.

I emptied my glass, and she took it out to the kitchen for a refill. I think while she was out of the room she sneaked an extra drink for herself. Coming back she bumped the doorframe of the living room and spilled gin on her hands.

I took both glasses from her and set them down on the stony table. She swayed in front of me, her eyes unfocused. She forced them back into focus, the cobweb of fine lines surrounding them cutting deep into her flesh.

“It’s the same woman, isn’t it?” she said.

“I’m pretty sure it is. Do you know her name?”

“She called herself Laurel Smith in Rodeo City.”

“She still does.”

“Jack’s living with her in L.A., isn’t he?”

“Nobody’s living with her that I know of.”

“Don’t try to kid me. You men are always covering up for each other. But I know when a man’s spending money on a woman. He took more than a thousand dollars out of our savings account in less than a month. And I have to beg him for twelve dollars to get my hair done.” She pushed her fingers through her fine dry wavy hair. “Is she still pretty?”

“Pretty enough.” I gathered my élan together, and paid her a compliment. “As a matter of fact, she looks quite a bit like you.”

“They always do. The women he goes for always look like me. But that’s no comfort, they’re always younger.” Her voice was like a flagellant’s whip, turned against herself. She turned it against Fleischer: “The dirty creep! He has the almighty guts to spend our hard-earned money on that bag. Then he comes home and tells me he’s investing it, going to make us rich for the rest of our lives.”

“Did he say how?”

“You ought to know. You’re one of his cronies, aren’t you?”

She picked up her glass and drained it. She looked ready to throw the empty glass at my head. I wasn’t her husband, but I wore pants.

“Drink up your drink,” she said. “I drank up mine.”

“We’ve had enough.”

“That’s what you think.”

She carried her glass out of the room. Her mules slid along the floor and her body leaned as if she was on an irreversible slope, sliding away forever into the limbo of deserted women. I heard her smashing something in the kitchen. I looked in through the open door and saw her breaking dishes in the sink.

I didn’t interfere. They were her dishes. I went back through the living room, took Laurel’s picture from the table, and left the house.

On the porch next door, a white-haired man wearing a bathrobe stood in a listening attitude. When he saw me, he turned away and went into the house. I heard him say before he closed the door:

“Jack Fleischer’s home again.”

HENRY LANGSTON’S one-story house was in a newer tract on the northern outskirts of the city. The lights were on, both inside and out. The doors of the attached garage were open but there was no car in it, only a child’s tricycle standing against one wall.

A young woman wearing a fur-collared coat came out of the house. She had bright dark eyes and a piquant oval face. She stopped short before she reached me, ready to be alarmed.

“I’m looking for Mr. Langston,” I told her.

“Why? Has something happened?”

“I’ve no reason to think so.”

“But it’s so late.”

“I’m sorry. I tried to get him earlier. Is he home now?”

She glanced over her shoulder at the open front door. She was disturbed by me, as if I carried trouble like a communicable disease from the last house I had visited.

I smiled a midnight smile. “Don’t get upset. This has nothing to do with you. I have some questions to ask him about one of his former students.”

“I’m sure he won’t want to talk to you tonight.”

“I’m sure he will. Tell him it has to do with Davy Spanner.”

“Him again.” She tossed her head like a rival, then bit her lip. “Is Davy in trouble again, or is it still?”

“I prefer to discuss that with your husband. You are Mrs. Langston?”

“Yes, and I’m cold and tired and ready to go to bed, and we had a lovely evening with some friends, and now it’s spoiled.” Perhaps she had had a drink or two, but she was deliberately indulging her feelings. She was pretty enough to do that.

“I’m sorry.”

“If you’re so sorry, go away.”

She went inside and slammed the door with a carefully calculated degree of force, between six and seven on the Richter scale. I stood where I was on the flagstone walk. Mrs. Langston reopened the door, carefully, like somebody reopening a law case.

“I apologize. I know it must be important or you wouldn’t be here. Are you a policeman?”

“A private detective. My name is Archer.”

“Henry should be back any minute. He’s just driving the baby-sitter home. Come in, it’s a chilly night.”

She backed into the living room. I followed her. The room was jammed with furniture and books. A closed baby grand piano was its central feature.

Mrs. Langston stood beside it like a nervous soloist. “Let me make you some coffee.”

“Please don’t bother. And please don’t be afraid.”

“It’s not your fault. I’m scared of Davy Spanner.”

“You were scared before his name came up.”

“Was I? I guess you’re right. You looked at me in such a strange way, as if I was going to die.”

I didn’t bother reminding her that she was going to. She took off her coat. She looked about six months pregnant.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’m just plain going to bed. Please don’t keep Henry up all night.”

“I’ll try not to. Good night.”

She fluttered her fingers at me, leaving a kind of tremulous feeling in the room. When I heard the car in the driveway I went outside.

Langston got out, leaving his station wagon outside the garage with the headlights on and the engine running. A sense of alarm seemed to be in the air, and I could see it reflected in his face. He was a large, homely, sandy-haired young man with sensitive eyes.

“Is Kate all right?”

“Your wife is fine. She let me in and went to bed.” I told him who I was. “Davy Spanner was in town tonight.”

Langston’s eyes seemed to withdraw, as if I’d touched invisible antennae. He went back to his wagon and turned off the engine and the headlights.

“We’ll talk in the car, okay? I don’t want to disturb her.”

We got into the front seat, closing the doors without slamming them.

“You didn’t see Davy tonight by any chance?”

He hesitated before answering. “Yes, I did. Briefly.”