Росс Макдональд - The Instant Enemy

“Blames you for what?”

“For everything Sandy does. Just because Sandy tells me things doesn’t mean I’m responsible.”

“Things?”

“Like about Davy. I can’t run to Mrs. Sebastian with everything Sandy says. That would make me a stool pigeon.”

“I can think of worse things.”

“Like for instance?” I was questioning her code, and she spoke with some defiance.

“Like letting your best friend get into trouble and not lifting a finger to prevent it.”

“I didn’t let her. How could I stop her? Anyway, she isn’t in trouble, not in the way you mean.”

“I’m not talking about having a baby. That’s a minor problem compared with the other things that can happen to a girl.”

“What other things?”

“Not living to have a baby. Or growing old all of a sudden.”

Heidi made a thin sound like a small frightened animal. She said in a hushed voice: “That’s what happened to Sandy, in a way. How did you know that?”

“I’ve seen it happen to other girls who couldn’t wait. Do you know Davy?”

She hesitated before answering. “I’ve met him.”

“What do you think of him?”

“He’s quite an exciting personality,” she said carefully. “But I don’t think he’s good for Sandy. He’s rough and wild. I think he’s crazy. Sandy isn’t any of those things.” She paused in solemn thought. “A bad thing happened to her, is all. It just happened.”

“You mean her falling for Davy?”

“I mean the other one. Davy Spanner isn’t so bad compared with the other one.”

“Who’s he?”

“She wouldn’t tell me his name, or anything else about him.”

“So how do you know that Davy’s an improvement?”

“It’s easy to tell. Sandy’s happier than she was before. She used to talk about suicide all the time.”

“When was this?”

“In the summer, before school started. She was going to walk into the ocean at Zuma Beach and swim on out. I talked her out of it.”

“What was bothering her – a love affair?”

“I guess you could call it that.”

Heidi wouldn’t tell me anything further. She’d given Sandy her solemn oath never to breathe a word, and she had already broken it by what she’d said to me.

“Did you ever see her diary?”

“No. I know she kept one. But she never showed it to anybody, ever.” She turned toward me in the seat, pulling her skirt down over her knees. “May I ask you a question, Mr. Archer?”

“Go ahead.”

“Just what happened to Sandy? This time, I mean?”

“I don’t know. She drove away from home twenty-four hours ago. The night before, her father broke up a date she was having with Davy in West Hollywood. He dragged her home and locked her up overnight.”

“No wonder Sandy left home,” the girl said.

“Incidentally, she took along her father’s shotgun.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know. But I understand Davy has a criminal record.”

The girl didn’t respond to the implied question. She sat looking down at her fists, which were clenched in her lap. We reached the foot of the slope and drove toward Ventura Boulevard.

“Do you think she’s with Davy now, Mr. Archer?”

“That’s the assumption I’m going on. Which way?”

“Wait a minute. Pull over to the side.”

I parked in the sharp morning shadow of a live oak which had somehow survived the building of the freeway and the boulevard.

“I know where Davy lives,” Heidi said. “Sandy took me to his pad once.” She used the shabby word with a certain pride, as if it proved that she was growing up. “It’s in the Laurel Apartments in Pacific Palisades. Sandy told me he gets his apartment free, for looking after the swimming pool and stuff.”

“What happened when you visited his place?”

“Nothing happened. We sat around and talked. It was very interesting.”

“What did you talk about?”

“The way people live. The bad morals people have today.”

I offered to drive Heidi the rest of the way to school, but she said she could catch a bus. I left her standing on the corner, a gentle creature who seemed a little lost in a world of high velocities and low morals.

I LEFT SEPULVEDA at Sunset Boulevard, drove south to the business section of Pacific Palisades, and made a left turn on Chautauqua. The Laurel Apartments were on Elder Street, a slanting street on the long gradual slope down to the sea.

It was one of the newer and smaller apartment buildings in the area. I left my car at the curb and made my way into the interior court.

The swimming pool was sparkling. The shrubs in the garden were green and carefully clipped. Red hibiscus and purple princess flowers glowed among the leaves.

A woman who sort of went with the red hibiscus came out of one of the ground-floor apartments. Under her brilliant housecoat, orange on black, her body moved as though it was used to being watched. Her handsome face was a little coarsened by the dyed red hair that framed it. She had elegant brown legs and bare feet.

In a pleasant, experienced voice that hadn’t been to college she asked me what I wanted.

“Are you the manager?”

“I’m Mrs. Smith, yes. I own this place. I don’t have any vacancies at the moment.”

I told her my name. “I’d like to ask you some questions if I may.”

“What about?”

“You have an employee named Davy Spanner.”

“Do I?”

“I understood you did.”

She said with a kind of weary defensiveness: “Why don’t you people leave him alone for a change?”

“I’ve never laid eyes on him.”

“But you’re a policeman, aren’t you? Keep after him long enough and you’ll push him over the edge again. Is that what you want?” Her voice was low but full of force, like the mutter of a furnace.

“No, and I’m not a policeman.”

“Probation officer then. You’re all the same to me. Davy Spanner’s a good boy.”

“And he’s got at least one good friend,” I said, hoping to change the tone of the interview.

“If you mean me, you’re not wrong. What do you want with Davy?”

“Just to ask him a few questions.”

“Ask me instead.”

“All right. Do you know Sandy Sebastian?”

“I’ve met her. She’s a pretty little thing.”

“Is she here?”

“She doesn’t live here. She lives with her parents, someplace in the Valley.”

“She’s been missing from home since yesterday morning. Has she been here?”

“I doubt it.”

“What about Davy?”

“I haven’t seen him this morning. I just got up myself.” She peered up at the sky like a woman who loved the light but hadn’t always lived in it. “So you are a cop.”

“A private detective. Sandy’s father hired me. I think you’d be wise to let me talk to Davy.”

“I’ll do the talking. You don’t want to set him off.”

She led me to a small apartment at the rear beside the entrance to the garages. The name “David Spanner” had been inscribed on a white card on the door, in the same precise hand as the verse that had fallen out of Sandy’s book.

Mrs. Smith knocked lightly and when she got no answer called out: “Davy.”

There were voices somewhere behind the door, a young man’s voice and then a girl’s which set my heart pounding for no good reason. I heard the soft pad of footsteps. The door opened.

Davy was no taller than I was, but he seemed to fill the doorway from side to side. Muscles crawled under his black sweatshirt. His blond head and face had a slightly unfinished look. He peered out at the sunlight as if it had rejected him.

“You want me?”