Росс Макдональд - The Instant Enemy

“You certainly did that.”

“The police didn’t blame me.”

“They’re not your conscience either.”

He sat swaying on the piano bench. I was disappointed in Hank, and worried about him. The second self that most of us have inside of us had stepped into the open and acted out its violence. Now he had to live with it, like an insane Siamese twin, for the rest of his life.

The telephone rang. I answered it: “Langston residence.”

“Is that you, Mr. Langston?” a woman said.

“I’m a friend of the family. There’s illness in the family.”

“I was wondering why Mrs. Langston didn’t pick up Junior.”

“Is that the nursery school?”

The woman said it was, and that she was Mrs. Hawkins.

“Just keep the boy for now. Keep him overnight.”

“We can’t do that. We don’t have the facilities.”

“Give it a try, will you? Mrs. Langston’s in the hospital.”

“What about Mr. Langston?”

“He’s not well, either.”

I hung up and went back to him. His eyes had a dark used look, like burned ends. He was beginning to feel the change in himself and in his life.

I said good-bye and left the house, stepping wide over the threshold where some of Davy’s blood was turning brown in the sun that had rejected him now forever.

BEFORE HEADING BACK to Los Angeles, I paid a final visit to Mrs. Fleischer. She came to the door wearing a black hat and coat. Her face was freshly made up but under the makeup it looked pasty and inert.

She seemed almost completely sober, but very nervous. “What do you want?”

“The tapes.”

She spread her gloved hands. “No havey, no savvy.”

“Don’t give me that, Mrs. Fleischer. You said they’re where you could put your hands on them.”

“Well, they’re not any more.”

“Did you turn them over to the police?”

“Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t. You’ve got to let me go now. I’m expecting a taxi.”

She started to close the door on me. I leaned against it casually but firmly. Her eyes moved sluggishly up to my face.

“What is this, anyway?”

“I’ve decided to raise my offer. I’ll give you two thousand.”

She laughed joylessly. “That’s peanuts. Chicken feed. If I wasn’t a lady I’d tell you what you can do with your lousy two thousand.”

“Who have you been talking to?”

“A very nice young man. He treated me like a gentleman, which is more than some people do.” She gave the door a fretful shove, which my shoulder blocked. “And he told me how much those cans of tape were really worth.”

“How much?”

“Ten grand,” she said with the pride of a daily-double winner putting down a loser.

“Did he buy them from you?”

“Maybe he did.”

“I know. And maybe he didn’t. Can you describe him to me?”

“He’s very good-looking, with nice brown curly hair. Much better looking than you are. And quite a few years younger,” she added, as if she could score off her husband through his old buddy Jack Archer.

Her description failed to evoke anyone, unless it was Keith Sebastian, which seemed unlikely. “What name did he use?”

“He didn’t mention his name.”

That probably meant she had been paid in cash, if she had been paid. “Ten grand is a lot of cash,” I said. “I hope you’re not planning to carry it around loose.”

“No, I’m gonna–” She bit her lower lip and got lipstick on her front teeth. “It’s none of your business what I’m gonna do. And if you don’t lay off me, I’ll call the police.”

That was the last thing she was likely to do. But I was weary of her, and of myself talking to her. I drove around the block and parked at the corner. After a while a yellow cab came from the other direction. It stopped in front of her house and honked gently.

Mrs. Fleischer came out carrying a light-blue traveling bag. She got into the taxi. I followed it across town to the freeway and north along the freeway to the local airport.

I didn’t try to find out where Mrs. Fleischer was flying to. I didn’t care. She wouldn’t be leaving town if she hadn’t sold the tapes.

I drove south to Woodland Hills, feeling empty and light and futile. I think I’d been harboring a secret wish that I could somehow pull it out for Davy, save his life at least, give him a long-term chance for rehabilitation.

Such wishes for other people were always going sour. Langston’s wish for Davy had turned into a secret triangle which meant the opposite of what it seemed to mean. I was beginning to worry about my wish for the girl.

Bernice Sebastian let me into her house. She was sallow and desolate, with black glittering eyes. Her grooming was coming apart for the first time that I’d seen. She had cigarette ashes down the front of her dress, and her hair needed combing.

She took me into the living room and seated me in a golden drench of late afternoon sunlight which came in through the high glass.

“Would you like some coffee?”

“No thanks. A glass of water would taste good.”

She brought it to me formally, on a tray. She gave the impression of trying to hold together, by such formalities, all the centrifugal pieces of her life. I drank the water and thanked her.

“Where’s your husband?”

“Off on one of his missions,” she said dryly.

“He didn’t go to Santa Teresa, by any chance?”

“I don’t know where he went. We had a quarrel.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. It isn’t the sort of talk I’d care to repeat, to anyone. Essentially we were blaming each other, for this disaster.”

She sat down on a hassock facing me, folding her knees and holding them with locked fingers. Nothing she did was graceless, as she knew. She turned her pretty, disheveled head self-consciously under my eyes.

“I’ll tell you what our quarrel was about, if you promise not to do anything.”

“What do you want me not to do?”

“I don’t want you to do anything to stop Keith. That would be treachery.”

“Stop him doing what?”

“Promise first.”

“I can’t, Mrs. Sebastian. I will promise this: I won’t do anything that would harm your daughter.”

“But not Keith?”

“If their interests turn out to be separate, I’ll do my best for Sandy.”

“Then I’ll tell you. He’s planning to take her out of the country.”

“Jump bail?”

“I’m afraid so. He’s talking in terms of South America.”

“It isn’t a good idea. She’d have a hard time ever coming back, and so would he.”

“I know that. I told him that.”

“How is he planning to finance the trip?”

“I’m afraid he’s thinking about embezzling money. Keith seems to be breaking up. He simply can’t bear the idea of Sandy standing trial and possibly going to jail.”

“She’s still in the Psychiatric Center, isn’t she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Call them and find out.”

Bernice went into the study and closed the door behind her. I heard her talking, too dimly to know what she said. She came out with a frightened grimace pulling at her mouth.

“He took her out of the Center.”

“When?”

“About an hour ago.”

“Did he say where he was taking her?”

“No.”

“Or give you any clue?”

“This morning he talked about flying to Mexico City, and then perhaps on to Brazil. But he wouldn’t go without telling me first. He expects me to go along.”

“Do you want to?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think any of us should go. We should stay here and fight it out.”

“You’re a good girl.”

Her eyes filled up with feeling but what she said was: “No. If I were a good person, my family wouldn’t have got into this mess. I made all the mistakes in the book.”