Росс Макдональд - The Far Side of the Dollar

“Could he have been talking about alcohol?”

“Tommy doesn’t drink. It was somebody he had to see, somebody very important.”

“Like a drug pusher?”

She opened her wonderful eyes. “You’re twisting meanings, the way Dad does when he’s mad at me. Are you mad at me, Mr. Archer?”

“No. I’m grateful to you for being honest.”

“Then why do you keep dragging in crummy meanings?”

“I’m used to questioning crummy people, I guess. And sometimes an addict’s own mother, or own girl, doesn’t know he’s using drugs.”

“I’m sure Tommy wasn’t. He was dead against it. He knew what it had done to some–” She covered her mouth with her hand. Her nails were bitten.

“You were going to say?”

“Nothing.”

Our rapport was breaking down. I did my best to save it. “Listen to me, Stella, I’m not digging dirt for the fun of it. Tommy’s in real danger. If he had contacts with drug users, you should tell me.”

“They were just some of his musician friends,” she mumbled. “They wouldn’t do anything to hurt him.”

“They may have friends who would. Who are these people?”

“Just some people he played the piano with this summer, till his father made him quit. Tommy used to sit in on their jam sessions on Sunday afternoon at The Barroom Floor.”

“Is that one of the dives your mother mentioned?”

“It isn’t a dive. He didn’t take me to dives. It was merely a place where they could get together and play their instruments. He wanted me to hear them play.”

“And Tommy played with them?”

She nodded brightly. “He’s a very good pianist, good enough to make his living at it. They even offered him a weekend job.”

“Who did?”

“The combo at The Barroom Floor. His father wouldn’t let him take it, naturally.”

“Tell me about the people in the combo.”

“Sam Jackman is the only one I know. He used to be a locker boy at the beach club. He plays the trombone. Then there was a saxophonist and a trumpeter and a drummer. I don’t remember their names.”

“What did you think of them?”

“I didn’t think they were very good. But Tommy said they were planning to make an album.”

“Every combo is. I mean, what kind of people were they?”

“They were just musicians. Tommy seemed to like them.”

“How much time had he been spending with them?”

“Just Sunday afternoons. He called it his other life.”

“His other life?”

“Uh-huh. You know, at home he had to hit the books and make his parents feel good and all that stuff. The same way I have to do when I’m at home. But it hasn’t been working too well since the accident. Nobody feels good.”

She shivered. A cold wet wind was blowing through the windows of the tree house. Mrs. Carlson’s voice could no longer be heard. I felt uneasy about keeping the girl away from her mother. But I didn’t want to let her go until she had told me everything she could.

I squatted on my heels in front of her. “Stella, do you think Tommy’s appointment that Saturday night had to do with his musician friends?”

“No. He would have told me if it had. It was more of a secret than that.”

“Did he say so?”

“He didn’t have to. It was something secret and terribly important. He was terribly excited.”

“In a good way or a bad way?”

“I don’t know how you tell the difference. He wasn’t afraid, if that’s what you mean.”

“I’m trying to ask you if he was sick.”

“Sick?”

“Emotionally sick.”

“No. I– That’s foolish.”

“Then why did his father have him put away?”

“You mean, put away in a mental hospital?” She leaned toward me, so close I could feel her breath on my face.

“Something like that – Laguna Perdida School. I didn’t mean to tell you, and I’m going to ask you not to tell your parents.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll never tell them anything. So that’s where he is! Those hypocrites!”

Her eyes were fixed and wet. “You said he was in danger. Are they trying to cut out his frontal lobe like in Tennessee Williams?”

“No. He was in no danger where he was. But he escaped from the place, the night before last, and fell into the hands of thieves. Now, I’m not going to load your mind with any more of this. I’m sorry it came out.”

“Don’t be.”

She gave me a second glimpse of the woman she was on her way to becoming. “If it’s happening to Tommy, it’s just like it was happening to me.”

Her forefinger tapped through nylon at the bone between her little breasts. “You said he fell into the hands of thieves. Who are they?”

“I’m trying to answer that question, in a hurry. Could they be his friends from The Barroom Floor?”

She shook her head. “Are they holding him prisoner or something?”

“Yes. I’m trying to get to them before they do something worse. If you know of any other contacts he had in his other life, particularly underworld contacts–”

“No. He didn’t have any. He didn’t have another life, really. It was just talk, talk and music.”

Her lips were turning blue. I had a sudden evil image of myself a heavy hunched figure seen from above in the act of tormenting a child who was already tormented. A sense went through me of the appalling ease with which the things you do in a good cause can slip over into bad.

“You’d better go home, Stella.”

She folded her arms. “Not until you tell me everything. I’m not a child.”

“But this is confidential information. I didn’t intend to let any of it out. If it got to the wrong people, it would only make things worse.”

She said with some scorn: “You keep beating around the bush, like Dad. Is Tommy being held for ransom?”

“Yes, but I’m pretty sure it’s no ordinary kidnapping. He’s supposed to have gone to these people of his own free will.”

“Who said so?”

“One of them.”

Her clear brow puckered. “Then why would Tommy be in any danger from them?”

“If he knows them,” I said, “they’re not likely to let him come home. He could identify them.”

“I see.”

Her eyes were enormous, taking in all at once the horror of the world and growing dark with it. “I was afraid he was in some awful jam. His mother wouldn’t tell me anything. I thought maybe he’d killed himself and they were keeping it quiet.”

“What made you think that?”

“Tommy did. He called me up and I met him here in the tree house the morning after the accident. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. But you’ve been honest with me. He wanted to see me one more time – just as friends, you know – and say goodbye forever. I asked him if he was going away, or what he planned to do. He wouldn’t tell me.”

“Was he suicidal?”

“I don’t know. I was afraid that that was what it all meant. Not hearing from him since, I got more and more worried. I’m not as worried now as I was before you told me all those things.”

She did a mental double take on one of them. “But why would he deliberately go and stay with criminals?”

“It isn’t clear. He may not have known they were criminals. If you can think of anyone–”

“I’m trying.” She screwed up her face, and finally shook her head again. “I can’t, unless they were the same people he had to see that other Saturday night. When he borrowed our car.”

“Did he tell you anything at all about those people?”

“Just that he was terribly keen about seeing them.”

“Were they men or women?”

“I don’t even know that.”

“What about the Sunday morning, when you met him here? Did he tell you anything at all about the night before?”