Росс Макдональд - The Far Side of the Dollar

“Why did you agree to it?”

“I dunno. It’s hard to say no when Mike wants something.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“Not in so many words. I knew he had a gun with him. I saw him take it out of his car.”

He lifted his eyes to mine. “You always feel sort of under a threat when Mike has something going. Stand in his way and he’ll clobber you soon as look at you.”

I had reason to believe him. “What was the make and model and license number of your car?”

“1958 Plymouth two-door, license IKT 449.”

“Color?”

“Two-tone blue.”

I made some notes. “I’m going to ask you a very important question. Was the boy with Mike? This boy?”

I showed him Tom’s picture. He shook his head over it. “No sir.”

“Did he say where the boy was?”

“He didn’t mention any boy, and I didn’t know about it, then.”

“Did you know he was coming here last night?”

“In a way. He phoned me from Los Angeles yesterday afternoon. He said he might be dropping by but I wasn’t to tell anybody.”

“Did he say anything about changing cars when he phoned you?”

“No sir.”

“Did you and your brother have any previous agreement to change cars?”

“No sir.”

“And you didn’t know about the kidnapping until you read about it in the paper today?”

“That’s correct. Or the murder either.”

“Do you know who was murdered?”

His head hung forward, moving up and down slightly on the cords of his neck. He covered the back of his neck with his hand as if he feared a blow there from behind. “I guess – it sounded like Carol.”

“It was Carol.”

“I’m sorry to hear about that. She was a good kid, a lot better than he deserved.”

“You should have come forward with information, Harold.”

“I know that. Lila said so. It’s why she left me. She said I was setting myself up for a patsy again.”

“I gather it’s happened before.”

“Not this bad, though. The worst he ever did to me before was when he sold me a camera he stole from the Navy. He turned around and claimed I stole it when I visited him on his ship on visiting day.”

“What was the name of the ship?”

“The Perry Bay . It was one of those jeep carriers. I went aboard her in Dago the last year of the war, but I wisht I never set foot on her. The way they talked to me, I thought I was gonna end up in the federal pen. But they finally took my word that I didn’t know the camera was hot.”

“I’m taking your word now about several things, or have you noticed?”

“I didn’t know what to think.”

“I believe you’re an honest man in a bind, Harold.”

My spoken sympathy was too much for him. It made his eyes water again. He removed his hand from the back of his neck and wiped his eyes with his fingers.

“I’m not the only one you have to convince, of course. But I think you can probably work your way out of this bind by telling the whole truth.”

“You mean in court?”

“Right now.”

“I want to tell the truth,” he said earnestly. “I would have come forward, only I was ascared to. I was ascared they’d send me up for life.”

“And Mike too?”

“It wasn’t him I was worried about,” he said. “I’m through with my brother. When I found out about Carol–” He shook his head.

“Were you fond of her?”

“Sure I was. I didn’t see much of her these last years when they were in Nevada. But Carol and me, we always got along.”

“They were living in Nevada?”

“Yeah. Mike had a job bartending in one of the clubs on the South Shore. Only he lost it. I had to–” His slow mind overtook his words and stopped them.

“You had to–?”

“Nothing. I mean. I had to help him out a little these last few months since he lost his job.”

“How much money did you give them?”

“I dunno. What I could spare. A couple of hundred dollars.”

He looked up guiltily.

“Did Mike pay you back last night by any chance?”

He hung his head. The old refrigerator in the corner behind him woke up and started to throb. Above it I could still hear the sound of the boulevard rising and falling, coming and going.

“No he didn’t,” Harold said.

“How much did he give you?”

“He didn’t give me anything.”

“You mean he was only paying you back?”

“That’s right.”

“How much?”

“He gave me five hundred dollars,” he said in horror.

“Where is it?”

“Under my mattress. You’re welcome to it. I don’t want any part of it.”

I followed him into the bedroom. The room was in disarray, with bureau drawers pulled out, hangers scattered on the floor.

“Lila took off in a hurry,” he said, “soon as she saw the paper. She probably filed suit for divorce already. It wouldn’t be the first time she got a divorce.”

“From you?”

“From the other ones.”

Lila’s picture stood on top of the bureau. Her face was dark and plump and stubborn-looking, and it supported an insubstantial dome of upswept black hair.

Harold stood disconsolately by the unmade bed. I helped him to lift up the mattress. Flattened under it was an oilskin tobacco pouch containing paper money visible through the oilskin. He handed it to me.

“Did you see where this came from, Harold?”

“He got it out of the car. I heard him unwrapping some paper.”

I put the pouch in my pocket without opening it. “And you honestly didn’t know it was hot?”

He sat on the bed. “I guess I knew there was something the matter with it. He couldn’t win that much in a poker game, I mean and keep it. He always keeps trying for the one more pot until he loses his wad. But I didn’t think about kidnapping, for gosh sake.”

He struck himself rather feebly on the knee. “Or murder.”

“Do you think he murdered the boy?”

“I meant poor little Carol.”

“I meant the boy.”

“He wouldn’t do that to a young kid,” Harold said in a small hushed voice. He seemed not to want the statement to be heard, for fear it would be denied.

“Have you searched the car?”

“No sir. Why would I do that?”

“For blood or money. You haven’t opened the trunk?”

“No. I never went near the lousy car.”

He looked sick, as if its mere presence in his garage had infected him with criminality.

“Give me the keys to it.”

He picked up his limp trousers, groped in the pockets, and handed me an old leather holder containing the keys to the car. I advised him to put on his clothes while I went out to the garage.

I found the garage light and turned it on, unlocked the trunk, and with some trepidation, lifted the turtleback. The space inside was empty, except for a rusty jack and a balding spare tire. No body.

But before I closed the trunk I found something in it that I didn’t like. A raveled piece of black yarn was caught in the lock. I remembered Sam Jackman telling me that Tom had been wearing a black sweater on Sunday. I jerked the yarn loose, angrily, and put it away in an envelope in my pocket. I slammed the turtleback down on the possibility which the black yarn suggested to my mind.

I WENT BACK into the house. The bedroom door was closed. I knocked and got no answer and flung it open. Harold was sitting on the edge of the bed in his underwear and socks. He was holding a .22 rifle upright between his knees. He didn’t point it at me. I took it away from him and unloaded the single shell.

“I don’t have the nerve to kill myself,” he said.

“You’re lucky.”

“Yeah, very lucky.”

“I mean it, Harold. When I was a kid I knew a man who lost his undertaking business in the depression. He decided to blow out his brains with a twenty-two. But all it did was blind him. He’s been sitting around in the dark for the last thirty years. And his sons have the biggest mortuary in town.”