Росс Макдональд: The Instant Enemy

“He doesn’t know anybody,” she said foolishly.

“That’s good.”

I went through the rest of the place. There were sliced ham and cheese and milk in the little refrigerator in the kitchenette. I found a few books on the desk by the window: The Prophet , and a book about Clarence Darrow, and one about an American doctor who had built a hospital in Burma. Meager wings to fly on.

Tacked up over the desk was a list of ten “Don’ts.” They were written out in the precise hand I recognized as Davy’s:

Don’t drive cars.

Don’t drink alcoholic beverages.

Don’t stay up too late – the night is the bad time.

Don’t frequent crummy joints.

Don’t make friends without careful investigation.

Don’t use dirty language.

Don’t use ‘ain’t’ and other vulgarisms.

Don’t sit around and brood about the past.

Don’t hit people.

Don’t get mad and be an instant enemy.

“You see what kind of a boy he is?” Laurel said at my shoulder. “A real trier.”

“You’re fond of him, aren’t you?”

She didn’t answer directly. “You’d like him, too, if you only got to know him.”

“Maybe.” Davy’s list of self-regulations was kind of touching, but I read it with a different eye from Laurel’s. The boy was beginning to know himself, and didn’t like what he saw.

I went through the desk. It was empty except for a sheet of paper jammed into the back of the bottom drawer. I spread it out on the desk top. It was covered with a map, crudely drawn in ink, of a ranch or large estate. Its various features were labeled in a girlish unformed hand: “main house,” “garage with L.’s apt.,” “artificial lake and dam,” “road from highway” passing through a “locked gate.”

I showed the map to Laurel Smith. “Does this mean anything to you?”

“Not a thing.” But her eyes had grown small and intent. “Should it?”

“It looks as if they’ve been casing some joint.”

“More likely they were just doodling.”

“Some doodle.” I folded the map and put it in my inside pocket.

“What are you going to do with that?” she said.

“Find the place. If you know where it is you could save me a lot of trouble.”

“I don’t,” she said abruptly. “Now if you’re finished in here, I’ve got other things to do.”

She stood by the door till I went out. I thanked her. She shook her head gloomily; “You’re not welcome. Listen, how much would you take to lay off Davy? Lay off the whole damn business?”

“I can’t.”

“Sure you can. I’ll give you five hundred.”

“No.”

“A thousand? A thousand cash, no taxes to pay.”

“Forget it.”

“A thousand cash and me. I look better without my clothes on.” She nudged my arm with her breast. All it did was make my kidneys hurt.

“It’s a handsome offer but I can’t take it. You’re forgetting about the girl. I can’t afford to.”

“To hell with her and to hell with you.” She walked away to her apartment, swinging her keys.

I went into the garage. Against the dim rear wall was a workbench littered with tools: hammer, screwdrivers, pliers, wrenches, a hacksaw. A small vise was attached to the bench. Under it and around it, bright new iron filings mixed with sawdust were scattered on the concrete floor.

The filings suggested a queer idea to my mind. I made a further search, which ended up in the rafters of the garage. Wrapped in a dirty beach towel and a rolled-up carpet remnant I found the two barrels and the stock which Davy had sawed off the shotgun. They gave me an ugly moment: they were like the leavings of a major amputation.

I PUT THE SEVERED BARRELS and stock in the trunk of my car and drove to my office on Sunset. From there I phoned Keith Sebastian at Centennial Savings and Loan. His secretary told me he had just gone out for lunch.

I made an appointment with Sebastian for early afternoon. In order not to waste the noon hour I put in a call to Jacob Belsize before I left my office.

Belsize remembered me. When I mentioned Davy Spanner’s name, he agreed to meet me for lunch at a restaurant near his building on South Broadway.

I found him waiting for me in a booth. I hadn’t seen Jake Belsize in several years, and he had aged in the interval. His hair was almost white now. The lines around his mouth and eyes reminded me of the fissured clay surrounding desert water holes.

The Special Businessman’s Dollar Lunch was a hot beef sandwich with French frieds and coffee. Belsize ordered it, and so did I. When the waitress had taken our order, he spoke under the clatter and buzz of eating, talking men:

“You weren’t too clear on the phone. What’s Davy been up to?”

“Aggravated assault. He stomped me in the kidneys.”

Jake’s dark eyes jumped. He was one of the good ones who never could stop caring. “You going to press charges?”

“I may. But he’s got heavier charges to worry about. I can’t mention names because my client won’t let me. His daughter is a high-school girl. She’s been gone for a day and a night – a night which she spent with Davy in his apartment.”

“Where are they now?”

“Driving around in her car. When I lost them, they were on the coast highway headed for Malibu.”

“How old is the girl?”

“Seventeen.”

He took a deep breath. “That isn’t good. But it could be worse.”

“It is worse, if you knew all the details. It’s much worse.”

“Tell me the details. What kind of a girl is she?”

“I saw her for two minutes. I’d say she’s a nice girl in serious trouble. This seems to be her second go-round with sex. The first go-round made her suicidal, according to a friend of hers. This time could be worse. I’m guessing, but I’d say that the girl and Davy are spurring each other on to do something really wild.”

Belsize leaned across the table toward me. “What do you think they might do?”

“I think they’re building up to some kind of crime.”

“What kind of crime?”

“You tell me. He’s your boy.”

Belsize shook his head. The lines in his face deepened, like cracks in his conception of himself. “He’s mine in a very limited sense. I can’t follow him down the street or out on the highway. I have a hundred and fifty clients, a hundred and fifty Davy Spanners. They walk through my dreams.”

“I know you can’t make it for them,” I said, “and nobody’s blaming you. I came here to get your professional judgment on Davy. Does he go in for crimes against the person?”

“He never has, but he’s capable of it.”

“Homicide?”

Belsize nodded. “Davy’s pretty paranoid. When he feels threatened or rejected he loses his balance. One day in my office he almost jumped me.”

“Why?”

“It was just before his sentencing. I told him I was recommending that he be sent to jail for six months as a condition of probation. It triggered something in him, something from the past, I don’t know what. We don’t have a complete history on Davy. He lost his parents and spent his early years in an orphanage, until foster parents took him on. Anyway, when I told him what I was going to do, he must have felt abandoned all over again. Only now he was big and strong and ready to kill me. Fortunately I was able to talk him back to his senses. And I didn’t revoke my recommendation for probation.”

“That took faith.”

Belsize shrugged. “I’m a faith healer. I learned a good many years ago that I have to take my chances. If I won’t take a chance on them, I can’t expect them to take a chance on themselves.”

The waitress brought our sandwiches, and for a few minutes we were busy with them. At least I was busy with mine. Belsize picked at his as if Davy and I had spoiled his appetite. Finally he pushed it away.