Росс Макдональд: Black Money

He patted the tiles beside him. “You a guest of his?”

“I’m just meeting him here.”

“He was running on the beach. I told him he better take it easy. You got to work up to it.”

“But you have to start somewhere.”

“I guess so. I don’t run much, myself. It wears down the muscles.”

With quiet pride, he glanced down at his bronze pectorals. “I like to look like a typical California lifeguard.”

“You do.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I put a lot of time and work into it. Like surfing. I took this job here on account of the surfing opportunities. I go to college, too,” he added.

“What college?”

“Montevista State College. The one here.”

“Who runs the French department?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m studying business ad and real estate. Very interesting.”

He reminded me of the dumb blondes who had cluttered up the California landscape when I was his age. Now a lot of them were boys. “You planning to study French, mister?”

“I just want to get the answers to a few questions.”

“Maybe Mr. Martel could help you. He’s a Frenchman.”

“Is he here?”

“Yeah, I just been talking to him – he talks English, too, just like you and I.”

He pointed toward the second-floor cabana nearest the sea. Through its open front I could see a man moving in the shadow of the awning. He was carrying a multi-colored armful.

“He’s moving his things out,” the lifeguard said. “I offered to help him but he didn’t want me messing with his personal stuff.”

“Is he leaving?”

“He’s giving up the cabana anyway. The beauty of it is, he said I could have the furniture he bought for it. It’s outdoor furniture but it’s practically brand new and it must of cost him a fortune. It’ll look swell in my apartment. All I have is a sleeping bag right now. All my money goes to keep up the cars.”

“Cars?”

“I have a wagon for surfing,” he said. “And me and my buddy have a sports car for out-of-town trips. You can save a lot of time with a sport car.” The boy was driving me crazy. The trouble was that there were thousands of him, neo-primitives who didn’t seem to belong in the modern world. But it came to me with a jolt that maybe they were better adapted to it than I was. They could live like happy savages on the beach while computers and computer-jockeys did most of the work and made all the decisions.

“Why is Mr. Martel moving out of the cabana? It looks like a good one.”

“The best. You can see down the coast as far as the surfing reef.”

He flung out his muscled arm. “Mr. Martel used to sit there and watch us surfing. He told me once he did some surfing himself in his younger days.”

“Did he say where?”

“On that same reef, I think.”

“Has he been here before?”

“I wouldn’t know about that. Not in my time, anyway.”

“And you don’t know why he’s leaving the cabana?”

“He didn’t like it here. He was always complaining about something, like the water in the pool being fresh – he thought it should be salt. And he didn’t get along with some of the members.”

The boy fell silent. His mind rubbed two facts together and struck a brief spark. “Listen, don’t tell Peter Jamieson that Mr. Martel is giving me his furniture. He wouldn’t like it.”

“Why not?”

“He’s one of the ones that didn’t get along with Mr. Martel. A couple of times they almost had a fight.”

“Over Ginny Fablon?”

“I guess you know all about it, eh?”

“No, I don’t.”

“I better not tell you, anyway. Peter Jamieson will find out and I get called on the rug for talking about the members.”

He was embarrassed by all the talking he had already done. One of the bridge players rescued him from my questions. She called across the pool: “Stan, will you bring us four coffees? Black?”

He rose and trudged away.

I put on sunglasses and in their sudden twilight climbed the wooden stairs to the second-floor deck and walked along to the end. A rattan table in the middle of Martel’s cabana was piled with things: bathing suits and robes and beach outfits for both men and women, flippers and masks, bottles of bourbon and brandy, a small electric heater, a bamboo cane. Martel came out of one of the two inner dressing rooms carrying a miniature television set, which he put on the table.

“Moving out?”

He looked sharply. Now I was wearing sunglasses and he wasn’t. His eyes were very dark and bright, focusing the dark-bright intensity of his face. He had a long nose, slightly curved, which appeared both self-assertive and inquisitive. He didn’t appear to recognize me.

“What if I am?” he said in a guarded tone.

“I thought I might take it over.”

“That won’t be possible. I have it leased for the season.”

“But you’re not going to use it.”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

He was talking to himself more than to me. His dark gaze had moved past me down the coast. I turned and followed it. A blue wave crumbled white on the reef. Further out a dozen boys knelt on their boards like worshippers.

“Ever do any surfing?”

“No.”

“Skin diving? I notice you have some equipment there.”

“Yes, I’ve done some skin diving.”

I was listening carefully to him. He still had an accent but it was much less pronounced that in the argument with Harry Hendricks, and he wasn’t using any French words. Of course he was less excited now.

“Ever try skin diving in the Mediterranean? They say skin diving originated in the Mediterranean.”

“It did and I have,” he said. “I happen to be a native of France.”

“What part?”

“Paris.”

“That’s interesting. I was in Paris during the war.”

“A great many Americans were,” he answered dryly. “Now if you will excuse me I have to dispose of these things.”

“Can I help?”

“No. Thank you. Good day.”

He bowed curtly. I wandered away along the deck, trying to analyze my impression of him. His tar-black hair and smooth solid face and the unblunted sharpness of his eyes placed his age at not more than thirty. He had the controlled force and reticence of an older man. I didn’t know what to make of him.

I found my way into the labyrinth of the downstairs dressing rooms. School was out by now and a gang of small boys were slapping towels at each other’s legs and emitting shouts of menace and horrible laughter. I told them to shut up. They waited until I was out of sight, and laughed more horribly than they had before.

Peter was tying his tie in front of a steam-fogged mirror. He caught a glimpse of me in it and turned with a smile, the first I’d seen on his face. He was shiny and red.

“I didn’t know you were here. I was running on the beach.”

“Good,” I said. “I’ve just been talking to Martel. He’s moving the stuff out of his cabana. He may be planning to skip.”

“With Ginny?”

“I didn’t think I’d better ask him that. Under ordinary circumstances I wouldn’t have approached him at all. It’s not a good way to operate. But we may be running short of time.”

I’d wiped out Peter’s smile and started him biting his mouth. “I was hoping you could do something to stop him.”

“I haven’t quit. The trouble is I don’t know what questions to ask. I’ve never been to France, and I don’t remember much of my high school French.”

“Neither do I. I took a freshman course from Professor Tappinger, but he flunked me.”

“Was this at the local college?”

“Yes.”

He felt called upon to explain that he had been supposed to go to Princeton, and failed to make the grade. “But I did graduate from Montevista State last year.”