Росс Макдональд - The Instant Enemy

She turned to Langston. “I don’t have to answer that, do I? I’m only a juvenile but I’ve got a right to a lawyer.”

“You’ve not only got a right,” I said. “You’ve got a need for one. But you’re not going to help yourself by keeping quiet. If we don’t head your boyfriend off, you’ll end up going to trial with him for everything he pulls.”

She appealed again to Langston, the cigarette king. “That isn’t true, is it?”

“It could happen,” he said.

“But I’m just a juvenile.”

I said: “That’s no protection against a capital charge. You already own a piece of a kidnapping. If Hackett gets killed, you’ll be an accomplice in murder.”

“But I ran away.”

“That won’t be much help, Sandy.”

She was shocked. I think she was realizing that the place and the time were real, that this was her life and she was living it, badly.

I felt a certain empathy with her. The scene was becoming a part of my life, too: the grove of trees standing dark against the darkness, the rails reaching like iron strands of necessity from north to south. A late moon like an afterthought hung in the lower quarter of the sky.

Away off to the north the beam of a train’s headlight was flung around a curve. It came toward us swinging, cutting the darkness into illegible patterns, pulling a freight train behind it. My own headlights were shining on the rails, and I could see them dip under the weight of the diesels. The overwhelming noise of the train completed the drastic reality of the scene.

Sandy let out a strangled cry and tried to fight her way past me. I forced her back into the car. She scratched at my face. I slapped her. We were both acting as if the noise had shut us off from the human race.

Langston said when the train had gone south: “Take it easy, now. There’s no need for violence.”

“Tell that to Davy Spanner.”

“I have, many times. Let’s hope it took.” He said to the girl: “Mr. Archer is perfectly right, Sandy. If you can help us, you’ll be helping yourself. You must have some idea where Davy went from here.”

“He didn’t know himself.” She was breathing hard. “He did a lot of talking, about this place in the hills where he used to live. He didn’t know where it was, though.”

“Are you sure it existed?”

“He thought so. I don’t know.”

I got in behind the wheel. Our brief struggle had warmed her, and I could feel her body glowing beside me. It was too bad, I thought, that her parents hadn’t been able to keep her on the back burner for another year or two. Too bad for her, and too bad for them.

I asked Sandy some further questions as we drove south. She was reticent about herself, and about her relations with Davy. But her answers established one thing to my own satisfaction: if Davy Spanner was the one who had beaten Laurel Smith, Sandy didn’t know about it. And she had been with Davy right through the day, she said.

IT WAS PAST THREE when we got back to Santa Teresa. I asked Langston to come along to the motel. He seemed to have a calming effect on the girl.

Sebastian heard us coming, and opened the door of his room before I could knock. Light spilled out over his daughter. She stood in it boldly with one round hip out.

He reached for her with open arms. She moved back abruptly. In a long-drawn-out gesture of contempt she lit a cigarette and blew smoke in his direction.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” he said lamely.

“I smoke pot when I can get it.”

We all went into Sebastian’s room, with me bringing up the rear. He turned to me.

“Where did you find her?” he asked.

“Up the highway a piece. This is Mr. Langston. He helped to locate her.”

The two men shook hands. Sebastian said he was very grateful. But he looked at his daughter as if he wondered what he was grateful for. She sat on the edge of the bed with her knees crossed, watching him.

“We’re still in trouble,” I said. “And I’m going to make a few suggestions. First, take your daughter home and keep her there. If you and your wife can’t control her, hire some help.”

“What kind of help?”

“A psychiatric nurse, maybe. Ask your doctor.”

“He thinks I’m crazy,” Sandy said to the room. “He must be crazy.”

I didn’t look at her. “Do you have a good lawyer, Mr. Sebastian?”

“I don’t have any lawyer. I’ve never really needed one.”

“You need one now. Get someone to recommend a criminal lawyer, and give him a chance to talk to Sandy today. She’s in serious trouble, and she’s going to have to cooperate with the law.”

“But I don’t want her involved with the law.”

“You don’t have any choice.”

“Don’t tell me that. Mrs. Marburg told you to keep this whole thing private.”

“I’m going to talk to Mrs. Marburg, too. The case is too big for me to handle alone.”

Sandy made a break for the door. Langston caught her before she reached it, with one arm around her waist. She burned his wrist with her cigarette butt. He swung her around, pushed her down on the bed and stood over her panting. I could smell singed hair.

Somebody rapped on the other side of the wall. “Knock it off, swingers!”

Sebastian looked at his daughter with pained interest. She had suddenly grown up into a source of trouble. He must have been wondering how large the trouble was going to become.

“I think we better get out of here,” I said. “Do you want to phone your wife?”

“I really should, shouldn’t I?”

He went to the phone and after a good deal of receiver-banging managed to rouse the switchboard. His wife answered right away.

“I have wonderful news,” he said in a shaky voice. “Sandy is with me. I’m bringing her home.” The words brought mist to his eyes. “Yes, she’s fine. We’ll see you in a couple of hours. Get some sleep now.”

He hung up and turned to Sandy. “Your mother asked me to give you her love.”

“Who needs it?”

“Don’t you care for us at all?”

She rolled over, face down on the bed, and lay stiff and silent. I went into the adjoining room to make a phone call of my own.

It was to Willie Mackey, who ran a San Francisco detective agency. His answering service took the call, but shifted it to Willie’s California Street apartment. He answered in a sleep-fogged voice: “Mackey here.”

“Lew Archer. Are you going to be free today?”

“I can make myself free.”

“Good. I have a job on the Peninsula. It’s just a tail job but it could turn out to be important. Got a pencil?”

“Hold it just a minute.” Willie went away and came back. “Go ahead.”

“You know the Sandman Motor Hotel in Palo Alto?”

“Yeah, it’s on Camino Real. I’ve stayed there.”

“A man named Jack Fleischer, a retired sheriff’s deputy from Santa Teresa, is supposed to be checking in there some time tonight. I want to know why if possible. I want to know where he goes and who he talks to and what about. And I don’t want you to lose him even if you have to spend some money.”

“How much is some?”

“Use your own discretion.”

“Do you want to tell me what it’s all about?”

“Jack Fleischer may know. I don’t, except that a man’s life is at issue.”

“Who’s the man?”

“His name is Hackett. He’s been kidnapped by a nineteen-year-old named Davy Spanner.” I described the two of them, in case they turned up in Willie’s territory. “Hackett is very well-heeled, but this doesn’t seem to be a ransom kidnapping. Spanner’s a sociopath with schizoid tendencies.”

“They’re always fun. I’ll get right down to Palo Alto, Lew.”