Росс Макдональд - The Far Side of the Dollar

She hesitated. “I apologize for getting you into this.”

“It’s all right. You’ve been the best help I’ve had.”

Jay Carlson, whom I hadn’t met and wasn’t looking forward to meeting, was standing out in front of his house when we got there. He was a well-fed, youngish man with sensitive blue eyes resembling Stella’s. At the moment he looked sick with anger, gray and shuddering with it.

Rhea Carlson, her red hair flaring like a danger signal, came out of the house and rushed up to the car, with her husband trudging behind her. He acted like a man who disliked trouble and couldn’t handle it well. The woman spoke first: “What have you been doing with my daughter?”

“Protecting her as well as I could. She spent the night with a woman friend of mine. This morning I talked her into coming home.”

“I intend to check that story very carefully,” Carlson said. “What was the name of this alleged woman friend?”

“Susanna Drew.”

“Is he telling the truth, Stella?” She nodded.

“Can’t you talk?” he cried. “You’ve been gone all night and you won’t even speak to us.”

“Don’t get so excited, Daddy. He’s telling the truth. I’m sorry I went to Los Angeles but–”

He couldn’t wait for her to finish. “I’ve got a right to get excited, after what you’ve done. We didn’t even know if you were alive.”

Stella bowed her head. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

“You’re a cruel, unfeeling girl,” her mother said. “And I’ll never be able to believe you again. Never.”

“You know better than that, Mrs. Carlson.”

Her husband turned on me fiercely. “You stay out of it.”

He probably wanted to hit me. In lieu of this, he grasped Stella by the shoulders and shook her. “Are you out of your mind, to do a thing like this?”

“Lay off her, Carlson.”

“She’s my daughter!”

“Treat her like one. Stella’s had a rough night–”

“She’s had a rough night, has she? What happened?”

“She’s been trying to grow up, under difficulties, and you’re not giving her much help.”

“What she needs is discipline. And I know where she can get it.”

“If you’re thinking of Laguna Perdida, your thinking is way out of line. Stella is one of the good ones, one of the best–”

“I’m not interested in your opinion. I suggest you get off my place before I call the police.”

I left them together, three well-intentioned people who couldn’t seem to stop hurting each other. Stella had the courage to lift her hand to me in farewell.

I WENT NEXT door to the Hillmans. Turning in past their mailbox, I heard the noise of a sports car coming down the driveway. I stopped in the middle of the narrow blacktop so that Dick Leandro had to stop, too.

He sat there looking at me rather sulkily from under his hair, as if I’d halted him in the middle of a Grand Prix. I got out and walked over to the side of his car and patted the hood.

“Nice car.”

“I like it.”

“You have any other cars?”

“Just this one,” he said. “Listen, I hear they f-found Tom, is that the true word?”

“He hasn’t been found yet, but he’s running free.”

“Hey, that’s great,” he said without enthusiasm. “Listen, do you know where Skipper is? Mrs. Hillman says he hasn’t been home all night.”

He looked up at me with puzzled anxiety.

“I wouldn’t worry about him. He can look after himself.”

“Yeah, sure, but do you know where he is? I want to ta-talk to him.”

“What about?”

“That’s between him and I. It’s a personal matter.”

I said unpleasantly: “Do you and Mr. Hillman share a lot of secrets?”

“I w-wouldn’t say that. He advises me. He gives me g-good advice.”

The young man was almost babbling with fear and hostility. I let him go and drove up to the house. Elaine Hillman was the one I wanted to see, and she let me in herself.

She looked better than she had the last time I’d seen her. She was well groomed and well dressed, in a tailored sharkskin suit which concealed the shrinkage of her body. She was even able to smile at me.

“I got your good news, Mr. Archer.”

“Good news?” I couldn’t think of any.

“That Tom is definitely alive. Lieutenant Bastian passed the word to me. Come in and tell me more.”

She led me across the reception hall, making a detour to avoid the area under the chandelier, and into the sitting room. She said almost brightly, as if she was determined to be cheerful: “I call this the waiting room. It’s like a dentist’s waiting room. But the waiting is almost over, don’t you think?”

Her voice curled up thinly at the end, betraying her tension.

“Yes. I really think so.”

“Good. I couldn’t stand much more of this. None of us could. These days have been very difficult.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. You’ve brought us good news.”

She perched on the chesterfield. “Now sit down and tell me the rest of it.”

I sat beside her. “There isn’t much more, and not all of it is good. But Tom is alive, and free, and very likely still in Los Angeles. I traced him from the Barcelona Hotel, where he was hiding, to downtown Los Angeles. He was seen getting off a bus in the main station around ten o’clock last night. I’m going back there this afternoon to see if I can find him.”

“I wish my husband was here to share this,” she said. “I’m a little worried about him. He left the house early last evening and hasn’t been back since.”

She looked around the room as if it felt strange without him.

I said: “He probably got word that Tom was alive.”

“From whom?”

I left the question unanswered.

“But he wouldn’t go without telling me.”

“Not unless he had a reason.”

“What possible reason could he have for keeping me in the dark?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Hillman.”

“Is he going out of his mind, do you think?”

“I doubt it. He probably spent the night in Los Angeles searching for Tom. I know he had breakfast this morning with Susanna Drew.”

I’d dropped the name deliberately, without preparation, and got the reaction I was looking for. Elaine’s delicate blonde face crumpled like tissue paper. “Good Lord,” she said, “is that still going on? Even in the midst of these horrors?”

“I don’t know exactly what is going on.”

“They’re lovers,” she said bitterly, “for twenty years. He swore to me it was over long ago. He begged me to stay with him, and gave me his word of honor that he would never go near her again. But he has no honor.”

She raised her eyes to mine. “My husband is a man without honor.”

“He didn’t strike me that way.”

“Perhaps men can trust him. I know a woman can’t. I’m rather an expert on the subject. I’ve been married to him for over twenty-five years. It wasn’t loyalty that kept him with me. I know that. It was my family’s money, which has been useful to him in his business, and in his hobbies. Including,” she added in a disgusted tone, “his dirty little bed-hopping hobby.”

She covered her mouth with her hand, as if to hide the anguish twisting it. “I shouldn’t be talking this way. It isn’t like me. It’s very much against my New England grain. My mother, who had a similar problem with my father, taught me by precept and example always to sulkier in silence. And I have. Except for Ralph himself, you’re the only person I’ve spoken to about it.”

“You haven’t told me much. It might be a good idea to ventilate it.”

“Do you believe it may be connected in some way with– all this?”