Росс Макдональд - The Instant Enemy

“No. The victim’s family asked me to handle it myself.”

“Who is he?”

“A Los Angeles financier. The girl’s father works for one of his companies.”

“It does sound more complex than a crime for money.”

“Will you help me?” I said.

“I don’t have much choice. We’ll take your car, okay?”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Langston.”

“Please call me Hank, everybody else does.” He got out of the car. “Come into the house for a moment, won’t you? I have to leave a note for my wife.”

He wrote it on top of the baby grand while I looked over his books. They covered a surprising range including law and history. His psychology and sociology books emphasized the freer spirits in those fields: Erik Erikson and Erich Fromm, Paul Goodman, Edgar Z. Friedenberg.

He left the note to his wife on the music rack of the piano, with a small light shining on it. I read it on the way out:

Dearest:

Just in case you wake up and wonder where I am, I’ve gone for a little spin with Mr. Archer. If anybody comes to the door, don’t answer. Please don’t worry. I love you with all my heart, in case you were wondering. Back soon.

Love

H.

(12:30 a.m.)

I DROVE THE CAR, and told Langston he could sleep. He claimed that he wasn’t sleepy, but soon after we got onto the highway he butted his cigarette and dozed off.

The highway left the sea for a while, looping inland through a mountain pass, and then returned to the sea. The railroad ran between the sea and the mountains, and I caught the gleam of the tracks from time to time.

There was very little traffic. This northern part of the county was mostly open country. On the ocean side a few oil stations and gas flares broke up the darkness. Inland, the fields sloped up to the rocky flanks of the headless mountains. There were cattle in the fields, as still as stones.

“No!” Langston said in his sleep.

“Wake up, Hank.”

He seemed dazed. “Terrible dream. The three of us were in bed to–” He stopped in mid-sentence, and watched the night rush by.

“Which three of you?”

“My wife and I, and Davy. It was a rotten dream.”

I said after some hesitation: “Are you afraid that Davy might go to your house?”

“The thought did occur to me,” he admitted. “But he wouldn’t do anything to anyone I love.”

He was talking against the darkness. Perhaps I should have left him at home, I thought, but it was too late now. Since leaving his house I’d added over fifty miles to the odometer.

“How much further, Hank?”

“I can’t say exactly. I’ll know the place when I see it. You have to make a left turn onto a gravel road. It crosses the tracks.” He peered ahead through the windshield.

“How long is it since you’ve visited the place?”

“About three years. Deputy Fleischer drove me up.”

“Why did you go to all the trouble?”

“I wanted to know exactly what had happened. The people at the Shelter told me Davy was practically autistic when he was admitted – mute and almost unreachable. I wanted to know why. Fleischer hadn’t told them much, if anything.”

“Did he talk freely to you?”

“Policemen never do, do they? And I can understand an officer getting quite possessive about a case. At the time he brought me up here, he’d been working on this one for twelve years.”

“Did he say so?”

“Yes.”

“Then he couldn’t have thought it was an accident.”

“I don’t know what he thought, really.” Langston thrust his head forward. “Slow down. We’re coming to the place.”

Several hundred yards ahead in the lights of an approaching truck I could make out a gravel road sloping away to the left. A lonely hitchhiker was at the corner. It was a girl, standing with her back to us and frantically signaling to the truck driver. The truck passed her, and then us, without slackening speed.

I made a left turn onto the side road and got out. The girl was wearing sunglasses, as if the natural darkness wasn’t deep enough for her. Her body made a jerky movement. I thought she was going to run. But her feet seemed to be stuck fast in the gravel.

“Sandy?”

She didn’t answer me, except with a little moan of recognition. I had a vision of myself seen from above, a kind of owl’s-eye view of a man moving in on a frightened girl at a deserted crossroads. Somehow my motives didn’t enter the picture.

“What happened to the others, Sandy?”

“I don’t know. I ran away and hid in the trees.” She pointed toward a grove of Monterey pines on the far side of the railroad tracks. I could smell their odor on her. “He laid Mr. Hackett across the railroad tracks, and I got really scared. I thought he was pretending, until then. I didn’t think he really meant to kill him.”

“Is Hackett unconscious?”

“No, but he’s all taped up – his hands and feet and mouth. He looked so helpless lying across the rail. He knew where he was, too, I could tell by the noises he made. I couldn’t stand it, so I ran away. When I came back they were gone.”

Langston moved up beside me. His feet crackled in the gravel. The girl shied away.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said.

“Who are you? Do I know you?”

“I’m Henry Langston. Davy wanted me to take care of you. It seems to be working out that way after all.”

“I don’t want to be taken care of. I’m all right. I can get a ride.” She spoke with a kind of mechanical assurance which seemed to be unconnected with her real feelings.

“Come on,” he said. “Don’t be so stand-offish.”

“Have you got a cigarette?”

“I have a whole pack.”

“I’ll come with you if you give me a cigarette.”

He brought out his cigarettes and solemnly handed them over. She got a cigarette out of the pack. Her hands were shaking.

“Give me a light?”

Langston handed her a book of matches. She lit one and dragged deep. The end of her cigarette was reflected double like little hot red eyes in the lenses of her dark glasses.

“All right, I’ll get into your car.”

She sat in the front seat, with Langston and me on either side of her. She gulped her cigarette until it burned her fingers, then dropped it in the ashtray.

“You didn’t have very good plans,” I said. “Who made your plans?”

“Davy did, mostly.”

“What did he have in mind?”

“He was going to kill Mr. Hackett, like I said. Leave him across the track and let the train cut him up.”

“And you went along with this?”

“I didn’t really believe he was going to do it. He didn’t do it, either.”

“We’d better check on that.”

I released the emergency brake. The car rolled down the grade toward the crossing, which was marked by an old wooden sign with drooping crosspieces.

“Where did he put Mr. Hackett?”

“Right here beside the road.” Sandy indicated the north side of the crossing.

I got out with my flashlight and looked over the railbed. There were fresh marks in the gravel which could have been gouged by heels. Still it was hard to imagine the scene that the girl had described.

I went back to the car. “Did Davy tell you why he picked this place?”

“He thought it would be a good place to kill him, I guess. Then he probably changed his mind when I ran away.”

“Why did he choose Mr. Hackett as a victim?”

“I don’t know.”

I leaned in at the open door. “You must have some idea, Sandy. Mr. Hackett is or was a friend of your family.”

“He’s not my friend,” she said guardedly.

“You’ve made that fairly clear. What did Hackett do, if anything?”