Росс Макдональд - The Instant Enemy

“Women?”

Marburg groaned. “Poor Gerda. When she came back from Germany with him, she thought she was going to live la vie en rose . She had a rude awakening. They live like recluses, never go anywhere, never see anyone.”

“Why?”

“I think he’s frightened – frightened of life. Money does that to some people. And then of course there’s what happened to his father. It’s strange, for fifteen years Stephen’s been acting as if the same thing was going to happen to him. And it almost did.”

“Almost.”

“You’ve had considerable experience, Mr. Archer. Is it possible for people to bring disaster down on their own heads? You know, by assuming a disaster-prone posture?”

“It’s an interesting idea.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Ask me again when I’ve finished with this case.”

He gave me a swift startled look, during which the car almost left the road. He concentrated on driving for a minute, slowing down.

“I thought you had finished.”

“Not with Spanner still at large, and several unsolved murders.”

“Several?”

I let the question hang. We passed the Probation Camp, off the road to the left. Marburg looked at the buildings in a worried way, as if I might be tricking him into custody.

“Did you say several murders?”

“There are at least two others besides Mark Hackett.”

Marburg drove until we were out of sight of the camp. He found a turnout point, pulled off the road, and stopped the car.

“What about these other murders?”

“One was a woman named Laurel Smith. She owned a small apartment building in the Palisades. She was beaten to death there the day before yesterday.”

“I read about her in this morning’s Times . The police think she was beaten by a kook – some sadist who didn’t even know her.”

“I don’t think so. Laurel Smith was once married to a man named Jasper Blevins. He died under a train fifteen years ago – just a few days after Mark Hackett was killed. As far as I can make out, Laurel Smith and Jasper Blevins were Davy Spanner’s parents. I think all these crimes, including the one against Stephen, are tied together.”

Without moving, except for his fingers drumming on the wheel, Marburg gave the impression of squirming. His eyes came up to mine and gave me a quick unguarded look, like a spurt of darkness. “Am I being paranoid, or are you accusing me of something?”

“Maybe I am. What am I accusing you of?”

“It isn’t so funny,” he said in an aggrieved tone. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been accused of something I didn’t do. The cops gave me a really bad time after Mark was killed. They took me down to the station and questioned me most of the night. I had a perfectly good alibi, but to them it looked like one of those open-and-shut cases – you know, the standard triangle. I don’t deny, and I didn’t deny then, that Ruth and I were very close and I adore her passionately,” he said in a rather perfunctory way. “But the fact is she was planning to divorce Mark.”

“And marry you?”

“And marry me. So I had nothing to gain by Mark’s death.”

“Ruth had.”

“Not really. He left her as little as he legally could. Mark changed his will, on account of me, shortly before he died, and left the bulk of his estate to Stephen. Anyway, Ruth had a perfectly good alibi, just as I had, and I resent your imputation for both of us.”

But there was no real force in Marburg’s anger. Like his passion, it belonged to the part of himself he had sold. He was watching me and talking carefully, like a hired advocate for himself.

“Tell me about the alibis, just for fun.”

“I don’t have to, but I will. Gladly. At the time that Mark was killed, Ruth and I were having dinner with some friends in Montecito. It was a large dinner party, with over twenty guests.”

“Why didn’t the police accept your alibi?”

“They did when they got around to checking it out. But that wasn’t until the next day. They wanted me to be guilty, I know how their minds work. They were afraid to tackle Ruth directly, but they thought they could get at her through me.”

“Whose side was Stephen on?”

“He was out of the country, had been for several years. At the time of his father’s death he was studying economics at the London School. I’d never even met him at that time. But he was close to his father, and Mark’s death hit him hard. He actually broke down and wept on the transatlantic phone. That was about the last time I ever knew him to show any real emotion.”

“When was this?”

“Ruth called him immediately after Lupe phoned her, before we left her friends’ house in Montecito. As a matter of fact I put in the call to London for her, and then she took it on another extension. The news came as a terrible blow to Stephen. Frankly, I felt sorry for him.”

“How did he feel about you?”

“I don’t think Stephen even knew I existed, at that time. And I kept out of sight for nearly a year afterwards. That was Ruth’s idea, and it was a good one.”

“Why? Because she’s financially dependent on Stephen?”

“That may have played a part in it. But the fact is she’s very fond of him. She wanted to arrange her life so she could have us both, and that’s what she’s done.” Marburg spoke of his wife as if she was some kind of natural force, a demiurge or deity. “She gave me a – well, a kind of personal scholarship, at San Miguel de Allende. A few minutes after Stephen flew in from London, I flew out for Mexico City. Ruth kept us separate at the airport, but I caught a glimpse of Stephen when he got off the plane. He was a lot less conventional in those days. He wore a beard and a mustache and had let his hair grow long. By the time I finally met him he’d stiffened up a good deal – money ages a man.”

“How long were you gone?”

“Nearly a year, as I said. Actually that year was the making of me. I’d never had any decent instruction before, or painted from a model, or had a chance to talk to genuine painters. I loved the light in Mexico, and the colors. And I learned to paint them.” The part of Marburg that belonged to himself was talking to me now. “I changed from a Sunday painter into an artist. And Ruth made it possible for me.”

“What did you do before you became an artist?”

“I was a geological draftsman. I worked for a – an oil company. It was dull work.”

“Corpus Christi Oil and Gas?”

“That’s right, I worked for Mark Hackett. It’s how I met Ruth.” He paused, and hung his head in depression. “So you have been researching me?”

I answered him with another question; “How do you and Stephen get along?”

“Fine. We follow our separate courses.”

“Night before last, you suggested it would be nice if he never came back. You’d own his art collection then, you said.”

“I was joking. Don’t you recognize black humor?” When I failed to reply, he peered into my face. “You don’t think I had anything to do with what happened to Stephen?”

I still didn’t answer him. He sulked the rest of the way to Woodland Hills.

I WENT INTO a chain restaurant on Ventura Boulevard and ordered a rare steak for breakfast. Then I reclaimed my car from the station where I had left it and drove up the long hill to Sebastian’s street.

It was Saturday, and even at this time in the morning the fairways beyond the street were sprinkled with golfers. A mailbox bearing the name Gensler stopped me before I reached Sebastian’s house. I knocked on the door of the Gensler house instead.

A fair-haired man of about forty came to the door. He had an anxious vulnerable look which was accentuated by prominent blue eyes and almost invisible eyebrows.