Росс Макдональд - Black Money

“Why not?”

“They don’t like the way he combs his hair, I guess.”

“Or the way his wife combs hers?”

“I suppose she has something to do with it. But frankly I’m not interested in retailing faculty gossip. We are supposed to be talking about Pedro Domingo, alias Cervantes. If you have any more questions about him, I’ll be glad to oblige. Otherwise–”

“Where did he get the name Cervantes?”

“I suggested it the night he left. He always struck me as a quixotic type.”

I thought, but did not say, that the word applied more exactly to Bosch himself. “And did you send him to study under Tappinger?”

“No. I may have mentioned Taps to him at one time or another. But Pedro went to Montevista on account of a girl. She was a freshman, apparently quite gifted in languages–”

“Who said so?”

“Taps said so himself, and as a matter of fact I talked to her, too. He brought her up for our spring arts festival. We were putting on Sartre’s No Exit , and she’d never seen a contemporary play in French before. Pedro was there, and he fell in love with her literally on sight.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me. In fact he showed me some sonnets he wrote about her and her ideal beauty. She was a lovely thing, one of those pure pale blondes, and very young, no more than sixteen or seventeen.”

“She isn’t so young and she isn’t so pure, but she’s still a lovely thing.”

He dropped his fork with a noise which merged with the continuous clatter of the room. “Don’t tell me you know her.”

“She’s Pedro’s widow. They were married last Saturday.”

“I don’t understand.”

“If I told you all about it, it would only make you feel worse. He made up his mind to marry her seven years ago – perhaps the night he saw her here at the play. Do you know if he made any approach to her that night, or afterwards?”

Bosch considered the question. “I’m pretty sure he didn’t. Morally certain, in fact. It was one of those secret passions the Latins seem to go in for.”

“Like Dante and Beatrice.”

He looked at me in some surprise. “You’ve read Dante, have you?”

“I’ve read at him. But I have to admit I was quoting another witness. She said Pedro followed the girl with his eyes the way Dante followed Beatrice.”

“Who on earth said that?”

“Bess Tappinger. Do you know her?”

“Naturally I know her. You might say she’s an authority on Dante and Beatrice.”

“Really?”

“I don’t mean that quite seriously, Mr. Archer. But Bess and Taps played comparable roles in their time: the intellectual and the girl ideal. They had a very beautiful Platonic thing going before they had– before real life caught up with them.”

“Could you be a little clearer? I’m interested in the woman.”

“In Bess?”

“In both of the Tappingers. What do you mean when you say real life caught up with them?”

He studied my face, as if to read my intentions. “There’s no harm in telling you, I suppose. Practically everybody in the Modern Language Association knows the story. Bess was a sophomore studying French at Illinois and Taps was the rising young man in the department. The two of them had this Platonic thing going. They were like Adam and Eve before the Fall. Or Héloïse and Abélard. That may sound like romantic exaggeration, but it isn’t. I was there.

“Then real life reared its ugly head, as I said. Bess got pregnant. Taps married her, of course, but the thing was messily handled. The Illinois campus was quite puritanical in those days. What made it worse, the Assistant Dean of Women had a crush on Taps herself, and she really hounded him. So did Bess’s parents; they were a couple of bourgeois types from Oak Park. The upshot of it was, the administration fired him for moral turpitude and sent him off to the boondocks.”

“And he’s been there ever since?”

Bosch nodded. “Twelve years. It’s a long time to go on paying for a minor mistake, which incidentally is a very common one. Teachers are marrying their students all the time, with or without shotgun accompaniment. Taps got a very raw deal, in my opinion, and it just about ruined his life. But we’re wandering far afield, Mr. Archer.”

The young man glanced at his wristwatch. “It’s half-past one, and I have an appointment with a student.”

“Cancel it and come along with me. I have a more interesting appointment.”

“Oh? With whom?”

“Pedro’s mother.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I almost wish I were. She flew here from Panama this morning, and she’s staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I may need a translator. How about it?”

“Sure. We’d better go in two cars so you won’t have to drive me back.”

Bosch and I met at the desk of the hotel. I was a few minutes late for my appointment, and the clerk told us to go right up.

The woman who let us into the sitting room of the suite was fifty or so, still handsome in spite of her gold teeth and the crater-like circles under her eyes. She was dressed entirely in black. A trace of musky perfume hung around her like the smell of fire, giving her an aura of burnt-out sex.

“ Señora Rosales?”

“Yes.”

“I’m the private detective Lew Archer. My Spanish is not too good. I hope you speak English.”

“Yes. I speak English.”

She looked up inquiringly at the young man beside me.

“This is Professor Bosch,” I said. “He was a friend of your son.”

In an unexpected gesture of emotion, more hungry than hospitable, she gave us each a hand and drew us across the room to sit on either side of her. Her hands were those of a working woman, rough and etched with ineradicable grime. Her English was good but stiff, as if it had been worked over.

“Pedro has told me about you, Professor Bosch. You were very kind to him, and I am grateful.”

“He was the best student I ever had. I’m sorry about his death.”

“Yes, it is a great loss. He would have been one of our great men.”

She turned to me. “When will they release his body for burial?”

“Within a day or two. Your consul will arrange to ship it home. You really needn’t have come here.”

“So my husband said. He said I should stay out of this country, that you would arrest me and take away my money. But how can you do that? I am a Panamanian citizen, and so was my son. The money Pedro gave me belongs to me.”

She spoke with a kind of questioning defiance.

“To you and your husband.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Have you been married long?”

“Two months. A little longer than two months. Pedro was content with my marriage. He gave us as a wedding gift a villa in La Cresta. Pedro and Señor Rosales, my husband, were good friends.”

She seemed to be trying to justify her marriage, as if she suspected a connection between it and her son’s death. I had no doubt it was a marriage of convenience. When the vice-president of a bank in any country marries a middle-aged woman of uncertain background, there has to be a sound business reason.

“Were they business associates?”

“Pedro and Señor Rosales?”

She put on a stupid mask and lifted her hands and shoulders in a shrug that half resembled a bargaining gesture. “I know nothing of business. It is all the more remarkable that my son was so successful in business, n'est-ce-pas ? He understood the workings of the Bourse – you call it Wall Street, do you not? He saved his money and invested cleverly,” she said in a kind of rhythmical self-hypnosis.

She must have suspected the truth, though, because she added: “It isn’t true, is it, that Pedro was killed by gangsters?”