Росс Макдональд - The Doomsters

A large wooden sign, painted black on white, appeared at the roadside ahead: Hallman Citrus Ranch. I braked for the turn, made it on whining tires, and almost ran down a big old man in a sheriffs blouse. He moved away nimbly, then came heavily back to the side of the car. Under a wide-brimmed white hat, his face was flushed. Veins squirmed like broken purple worms under the skin of his nose. His eyes held the confident vacancy that comes from the exercise of other people’s power.

“Watch where you’re going, bud. Not that you’re going anywhere, on this road. What do you think I’m here for, to get myself a tan?”

Mildred leaned across me, her breast live against my arm: “Sheriff! Have you seen Carl?”

The old man leaned to peer in. His sun-wrinkles deepened and his mouth widened in a smile which left his eyes as vacant as before. “Why hello, Mrs. Hallman, I didn’t see you at first. I must be going blind in my old age.”

“Have you seen Carl?” she repeated.

He made a production out of answering her, marching around to her side of the car, carrying his belly in front of him like a gift. “Not personally, I haven’t. We know he’s on the ranch, though. Sam Yogan saw him to talk to, not much more than an hour ago.”

“Was he rational?”

“Sam didn’t say. Anyway, what would a Jap gardener know about it?”

“A gun was mentioned,” I said.

The sheriff’s mouth drooped at the corners. “Yeah, he’s carrying a gun. I don’t know where in hell he got hold of it.”

“How heavy a gun?”

“Sam said not so heavy. But any gun is too big when a man is off his rocker.”

Mildred let out a small cry.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Hallman. We got the place staked out. We’ll pick him up.” Tipping his hat back, he pushed his face in at her window. “You better get rid of your boyfriend before we do pick him up. Carl won’t like it if you got a boyfriend, driving his car and all.”

She looked from him to me, her mouth a thin line. “This is Sheriff Ostervelt, Mr. Archer. I’m sorry I forgot my manners. Sheriff Ostervelt never had any to remember.”

Ostervelt smirked. “Take a joke, eh?”

“Not from you,” she said without looking at him.

“Still mad, eh? Give it time. Give it time.”

He laid a thick hand on her shoulder. She took it in both of hers and flung it away from her. I started to get out of the car.

“Don’t,” she said. “He only wants trouble.”

“Trouble? Not me,” Ostervelt said. “I try to make a little joke. You don’t think it’s funny. Is that trouble, between friends?”

I said: “Mrs. Hallman’s expected at the house. I said I’d drive her there. Much as I’d love to go on talking to you all afternoon.”

“I’ll take her to the house.” Ostervelt gestured toward the black Mercury Special parked on the shoulder, and patted his holster. “The husband’s lurking around in the groves, and I don’t have the men to comb them for him. She might need protection.”

“Protection is my business.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m a private detective.”

“What do you know? You got a license, maybe?”

“Yes. It’s good statewide. Now do we go, or do we stay here and have some more repartee?”

“Sure,” he said, “I’m stupid – just a stupid fool, and my jokes ain’t funny. Only I got an official responsibility. So you better let me see that license you say you got.”

Moving very slowly, the sheriff came around to my side of the car again. I slapped my photostat into his hand. He read it aloud, in an elocutionary voice, pausing to check the physical description against my appearance.

“Six-foot-two, one-ninety,” he repeated. “A hunk of man. Love those beautiful blue eyes. Or are they gray, Mrs. Hallman? You’d know.”

“Leave me alone.” Her voice was barely audible.

“Sure. But I better drive you up to the house in person. Hollywood here has those beautiful powder-blue eyes, but it don’t say here” – he flicked my photostat with his forefinger “–what his score is on a moving target.”

I picked the black-and-white card out of his hand, released the emergency brake, stepped on the gas. It wasn’t politic. But enough was enough.

THE PRIVATE ROAD ran ruler-straight through the geometric maze of the orange trees. Midway between the highway and the house, it widened in front of several barnlike packing-sheds. The fruit on the trees was unripe, and the red-painted sheds were empty and deserted-looking. In a clearing behind them, a row of tumbledown hutches, equally empty, provided shelter of a sort for migrant pickers.

Nearly a mile further on, the main house stood back from the road, half-shadowed by overarching oaks. Its brown adobe walls looked as indigenous as the oaks. The red Ford station wagon and the sheriffs patrol car on the curving gravel driveway seemed out of place, or rather out of time. The thing that struck me most as I parked in the driveway was a child’s swing suspended by new rope from a branch of one of the trees. No one had mentioned a child.

When I switched off the Buick’s engine, the silence was almost absolute. The house and its grounds were tranquil. Shadows lay soft as peace in the deep veranda. It was hard to believe the other side of the postcard.

The silence was broken by a screen door’s percussion. A blonde woman wearing black satin slacks and a white shirt came out on the front veranda. She folded her arms over her breasts and stood as still as a cat, watching us come up the walk.

“Zinnie,” Mildred said under her breath. She raised her voice: “Zinnie? Is everything all right?”

“Oh fine. Just lovely. I’m still waiting for Jerry to come home. You didn’t see him in town, did you?”

“I never see Jerry. You know that.”

Mildred halted at the foot of the steps. There was a barrier of hostility, like a charged fence, between the two women. Zinnie, who was at least ten years older, held her body in a compact defensive posture against the pressure of Mildred’s eyes. Then she dropped her arms in a rather dramatic gesture which may have been meant for me.

“I hardly ever see him myself.”

She laughed nervously. Her laugh was harsh and unpleasant, like her voice. It was easy for me to overlook the unpleasantness. She was a beautiful woman, and her green eyes were interested in me. The waist above her snug hips was the kind you can span with your two hands, and would probably like to.

“Who’s your friend?” she purred.

Mildred introduced me.

“A private detective yet,” Zinnie said. “The place is crawling with policemen already. But come on in. That sun is misery.”

She held the door for us. Her other hand went to her face where the sun had parched the skin, then to her sleek hair. Her right breast rose elastically under the white silk shirt. A nice machine, I thought: pseudo-Hollywood, probably empty, certainly expensive, and not new; but a nice machine. She caught my look and didn’t seem to mind. She switch-hipped along the hallway, to a large, cool living-room.

“I’ve been waiting for an excuse to have a drink. Mildred, you’ll have ginger ale, I know. How’s your mother, by the way?”

“Mother is fine. Thank you.” Mildred’s formality broke down suddenly. “Zinnie? Where is Carl now?”

Zinnie lifted her shoulders. “I wish I knew. He hasn’t been heard from since Sam Yogan saw him. Ostervelt has several deputies out looking for him. The trouble is, Carl knows the ranch better than any of them.”

“You said they promised not to shoot.”

“Don’t worry about that. They’ll take him without any fireworks. That’s where you come in, if and when he shows up.”