Росс Макдональд: The Instant Enemy

“I think you’d better. I’m not a troublemaker by choice, but trouble can be made. If Davy Spanner’s on probation, he broke it when he swung on me.”

“You were asking for it.”

“That depends on which side you’re on. You’re obviously on Davy’s side. In which case you better cooperate with me.”

She thought about this. “Cooperate how?”

“I want the girl. If I get her back in reasonable shape, in a reasonable period of time – like today – I won’t bear down hard on Davy. Otherwise I will.”

She unhooked the chain. “Okay, Mr. God. Come in. The place is a mess but then so are you.”

She smiled with one side of her mouth and one eye. I think she wanted to be angry with me, but so many things had happened in her life that she couldn’t stay angry. One of the things that had happened to her, I could tell by her breath, was alcohol.

The clock on her mantel said it was half past ten. The clock was under a bell jar, as if to shield Laurel Smith from the passage of time. The other things in the living room, the overstuffed furniture and the gewgaws and the litter of magazines, had an unlived-with feeling. It was like a waiting room where you couldn’t relax, for fear that the dentist would call you in any minute. Or the psychiatrist.

The small television set in one corner of the room was on, with the sound turned off. Laurel Smith said apologetically:

“I never used to watch TV. But I won this thing in a contest a couple of weeks ago.”

“What kind of a contest?”

“One of those telephone contests. They called me up and asked me what was the capital of California. I said Sacramento, and they told me I’d won a portable TV set, just like that. I thought it was a gag, but within the hour they turned up here with the set.”

She switched it off. We sat facing each other at opposite ends of the chesterfield.

There was a cloudy glass on the coffee table between us. The picture window behind us was full of blue sky and blue sea.

“Tell me about Davy.”

“There isn’t much to tell. I took him on a couple of months ago.”

“In what sense took him on?”

“To do the clean-up work around the place. He needed a part-time job, he’s planning to start at junior college the first of the year. You wouldn’t know it the way he acted this morning, but he’s an ambitious young man.”

“Did you know he’d been in jail when you hired him?”

“Naturally I did. That’s what got me interested in his case. I’ve had my own share of troubles–”

“Troubles with the law?”

“I didn’t say that. And let’s not talk about me, eh? I’ve had a little luck in real estate, and I like to spread the luck around a little. So I gave Davy a job.”

“Have you talked to him at any length?”

She let out a short laugh. “Til say I have. That boy will talk your arm off.”

“What about?”

“Any subject. His main subject is how the country is going to the dogs. He may be right at that. He says his time in jail gave him a worm’s-eye view of the whole business.”

“He sounds like a poolroom lawyer to me.”

“Davy’s more than that,” she said defensively. “He’s more than just a talker. And he isn’t the poolroom type. He’s a serious boy.”

“What’s he serious about?”

“He wants to grow up and be a real man and do something useful.”

“I think he’s conning you, Mrs. Smith.”

“No.” She shook her artificial head. “He isn’t conning me. He may be conning himself a little. God knows he’s got his problems. I’ve talked to his probation officer–” She hesitated.

“Who is his probation officer?”

“I forget his name.” She went to the telephone directory in the hall and consulted the front of it. “Mr. Belsize. Do you know him?”

“We’ve met. He’s a good man.”

Laurel Smith sat down nearer me. She seemed to be warming up slightly, but her eyes were still watchful. “Mr. Belsize admitted to me that he was taking a chance on Davy. Recommending him for probation, I mean. He said Davy might make it and then again he might not. I said I was willing to take my chances, too.”

“Why?”

“You can’t just live for yourself. I found that out.” A sudden smile lit her face. “I sure picked a hot potato, didn’t I?”

“You sure did. Did Belsize say what was the matter with him?”

“He has emotional trouble. When he gets mad he thinks we’re all his enemies. Even me. He never lifted his hand against me, though. Or anybody else until this morning.”

“That you know of.”

“I know he’s been in trouble in the past,” she said. “But I’m willing to give him the benefit. You don’t know what that boy’s been through – orphanages and foster homes and getting kicked around. He never had a home of his own, he never had a father or a mother.”

“He still has to learn to handle himself.”

“ I know that. I thought you were beginning to sympathize.”

“I do sympathize, but that won’t help Davy. He’s playing house and other games with a young girl. He’s got to bring her back. Her parents could hang a rap on him that would put him away until he’s middle-aged.”

She pressed her hand against her breast. “We can’t let that happen.”

“Where would he have taken her, Mrs. Smith?”

“I don’t know.”

She raked her dyed head with her fingers, then rose and went to the picture window. With her back to me, her body was simply an object, an odalisque shape against the light. Framed in dark-red curtains, the sea looked old as the Mediterranean, old as sin.

“Has he brought her here before?” I said to her black-and-orange back.

“He brought her to introduce her to me last week – week before last.”

“Were they planning to get married?”

“I don’t think so. They’re too young. I’m sure Davy has other plans.”

“What are his plans?”

“I told you, about going to school and all. He wants to be a doctor or a lawyer.”

“He’ll be lucky if he just stays out of jail.”

She turned to me, clutching and pulling at her hands. Their friction made a dry anxious sound. “What can I do?”

“Let me search his apartment.”

She was silent for a minute, looking at me as if she found it hard to trust a man.

“I guess that is a good idea.”

She got her keys, a heavy clinking loop like an overgrown charm bracelet. The card with “David Spanner” written on it was missing from his door. That seemed to imply that he wasn’t coming back.

The apartment was a single room with two convertible beds at right angles in a corner. Both beds had been slept in and left unmade. Mrs. Smith pulled back the covers and examined the sheets.

“I can’t tell if they were sleeping together,” she said.

“I assume they were.”

She gave me a worried look. “The girl isn’t Quentin quail, is she?”

“No. But if he takes her someplace against her will – or if she wants out and he uses force–”

“I know, that’s kidnapping. But Davy wouldn’t do that to her. He likes her.”

I opened the closet. It was empty.

“He didn’t have much in the way of clothes,” she said. “He didn’t care about clothes and things like that.”

“What did he care about?”

“Cars. But on probation he isn’t allowed to drive. I think that’s one reason he took up with the girl. She has a car.”

“And her father had a shotgun. Davy has it now.”

She turned so quickly that the skirt of her housecoat flared out. “You didn’t tell me that before.”

“What makes it so important?”

“He might shoot somebody.”

“Anyone in particular?”