Росс Макдональд - The Instant Enemy

She pulled my face down and kissed me. This gesture was unexpected, perhaps even by her. It may have started out as a thank-you kiss, but it turned into something more involved. Her body leaned into me. Her tongue pushed into my mouth like a blind worm looking for a home.

I didn’t like the woman that well. I took her by the arms and released myself. It was like handling a soft statue.

“Am I no good?” she said. “Am I not attractive?”

“You’re very attractive,” I said, stretching the truth a little. “The trouble is, I work for your husband and this is his house.”

“He wouldn’t carel” The ambiguous light in her eyes crystallized in a kind of helpless anger. “Do you know what they’re doing? She’s on the bed beside him feeding him soft-boiled eggs with a spoon.”

“That sounds like an innocent pastime.”

“It’s no jokel She is his mother. He has an Oedipus fixation on her, and she encourages it.”

“Who told you that?”

“I can see it with my own eyes. She is the seductive mother. The soft-boiled eggs are symbolic. Everything is symbolic!”

Gerda was disheveled and close to tears. She was one of those women who dishevel easily, as if the fronts they turned to the world were precarious to begin with. She would never be the equal of her mother-in-law.

But that was not my problem. I changed the subject: “I understand you’re a friend of Sandy Sebastian’s.”

“No more. I helped her with her languages. But she is a little ingrate.”

“Did she spend any time with Lupe?”

“Lupe? Why do you ask?”

“Because it may be important. Did she see much of him?”

“Certainly not, not in the way you mean. He used to go and get her sometimes, and drive her home.”

“How often?”

“Many times. But Lupe isn’t interested in girls.”

“How do you know?”

“I can tell.” She flushed. “Why do you ask?”

“I’d like to have a look at Lupe’s room.”

“For what reason?”

“Nothing to do with you. Does he have a room in the house?”

“His apartment is over the main garage. I don’t know if it’s open. Wait, I’ll get our key.”

She was gone for a few minutes. I stood and looked at the Klee, and found that it grew on me. The man was in the maze; the maze was in the man.

Gerda Hackett came back carrying a key with a tab attached: “Garage apt.” I went out to the garage and used the key to open Lupe’s door.

It was what is called a studio apartment, consisting of one large room with a pullman kitchen. It was furnished in bold colors with Mexican fabrics and artifacts. Some pre-Columbian masks hung over the serape-covered bed. If Lupe was a primitive, he was a sophisticated one.

I went through the chest of drawers and found nothing unusual except some pornographic pictures of the handcuff school. The bathroom medicine cabinet yielded only a jar of something labeled Psychedelic Love Balm. But some of the sugar cubes in the bottom of the bowl in the pullman kitchen were amateurishly wrapped in aluminum foil.

There were six wrapped cubes. I took three, tied them in my handkerchief, and put them away in an inside pocket.

I hadn’t heard anyone coming up the stairs, and was mildly surprised by the door opening behind me. It was Sidney Marburg, wearing tennis shoes.

“Gerda said you were out here. What’s with Lupe?”

“Just checking.”

“Checking what?”

“His morals and his manners. He’s no ordinary houseman, is he?”

“You can say that again. Personally I think he’s a creep.” Marburg walked toward me silently. “If you get something on him, I’d like to know about it.”

“Are you serious?”

“You’re bloody right I’m serious. He puts on a show of being interested in art, because my wife is, but she’s the only one that’s taken in.”

“Is there something between the two of them?”

“I think there is. He comes to our house in Bel-Air sometimes when I’m away. Our houseboy keeps me posted.”

“Are they lovers?”

“I don’t know,” Marburg said in pain. “I do know she gives him money, because I’ve seen some of the canceled checks. According to the houseboy, Lupe tells her everything that goes on here in her son’s house. It isn’t a healthy situation, and that’s putting it mildly.”

“How long have they known each other?”

“Practically forever. He’s worked here, if you can call it work, as long as I can remember.”

“How long is that?”

“Fifteen – sixteen years.”

“Did you know the Hacketts when Mark was still alive?”

For some reason, the question irritated him. “I did. That’s hardly relevant to what we were talking about. We were talking about Lupe.”

“So we were. What do you suspect him of, besides spying for your wife? Does he mess around with drugs?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Marburg said, a little too readily. “I’ve seen him high more than once. He was either manic or on drugs.”

“Did you ever see him with the Sebastian girl?”

“I never did.”

“I understand he chauffeured her quite a bit.”

“No doubt he did. She spent a lot of time here in the summer.” He paused, and gave me a questioning look. “You think he tampered with her?”

“I haven’t come to any conclusion about it.”

“Boy, if you can get that on him–!”

I didn’t like his eagerness. “Slow down. I’m not going to shove the facts around to suit you.”

“Nobody asked you to.” But he sounded angry. I suspected he was angry with himself for talking to me too freely. “If you’re finished here, I’ll drive you bloody well home.”

“Since you put it so charmingly.”

“I don’t have to be charming. I’m a serious painter, and that’s all I have to be.”

In spite of his lousy manners, I felt a certain liking for Sidney Marburg, or a tolerance bordering on liking. Perhaps he had sold out for money in marrying Ruth, who was nearly twenty years older. But like a shrewd agent he’d held back a percentage of himself.

“That sounds like a declaration of independence,” I said.

His angry grimace changed to a smile, but there was self-deprecation in it. “Come on, let’s go. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.” We went out to his Mercedes. “Where do you live?”

“In West Los Angeles, but I’m not going home. My car’s in Woodland Hills.”

“That’s where the Sebastian girl lives, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the matter with her? Schitzy?”

“I’m trying to find out.”

“More power to you. Excuse my little flareup a minute ago. I’m glad to drive you. But this place has bad associations for me.”

As if he hoped to leave them behind forever, he started the Mercedes’ engine with a roar. We rocketed along the shore of the lake, across the dam, and down the long winding grade to the gate, where Marburg braked the car to a jarring halt.

“Okay,” I said, “you win the Distinguished Flying Cross.”

“Sorry if I alarmed you.”

“I’ve had a rough two days. I was hoping this one would be some improvement.”

“I said I was sorry.”

Marburg drove more carefully down to the coastal highway and turned north. At Malibu Canyon he turned inland again. In a few minutes we were surrounded by the hills.

I said that they would make a pretty picture.

Marburg corrected me. “No. Anything that would make a pretty picture makes a bad picture. The picturesque things have all been done. You have to do something new. Beauty is difficult, as somebody said.”

“That Klee in the gallery, for instance?”

“Yes. I advised Stephen to buy Klee ten years ago.” He added: “Stephen needs advice. His taste is terrible, in everything.”