Росс Макдональд - The Doomsters

“Yes.” Mildred stood like a stranger in the middle of the floor. “Is there anything I can do now?”

“Not a thing. Relax. I need a drink if you don’t. What about you, Mr. Archer?”

“Gibson, if it’s available.”

“That’s handy, I’m a Gibson girl myself.” She smiled brilliantly, too brilliantly for the circumstances. Zinnie seemed to be a trier, though, whatever else she was.

Her living-room bore the earmarks of a trier with a restless urge to be up to the minute in everything. Its bright new furniture was sectional, scattered around in cubes and oblongs and arcs. It sorted oddly with the dark oak floor and the heavily beamed ceiling. The adobe walls were hung with modern reproductions in limed oak frames. A row of book-club books occupied the mantel above the ancient stone fireplace. A free-form marble coffee table held Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue and a beautiful old silver handbell. It was a room in which an uneasy present struggled to overcome the persistent past.

Zinnie picked up the bell and shook it. Mildred jumped at the sound. She was sitting very tense on the edge of a sectional sofa. I sat down beside her, but she paid no attention to my presence. She turned to look out the window, toward the groves.

A tiny girl came into the room, pausing near the door at the sight of strangers. With light blond hair and delicate porcelain features, she was obviously Zinnie’s daughter. The child was fussily dressed in a pale blue frock with a sash, and a matching blue ribbon in her hair. Her hand crept toward her mouth. The tiny fingernails were painted red.

“I was ringing for Juan, dear,” Zinnie said.

“I want to ring for him, Mummy. Let me ring for Juan.”

Though the child wasn’t much more than three, she spoke very clearly and purely. She darted forward, reaching for the handbell. Zinnie let her ring it. Above its din, a white-jacketed Filipino said from the doorway: “Missus?”

“A shaker of Gibsons, Juan. Oh, and ginger ale for Mildred.”

“I want a Gibson, too,” the little girl said.

“All right, darling.” Zinnie turned to the houseboy: “A special cocktail for Martha.”

He smiled comprehendingly, and disappeared.

“Say hello to your Aunt Mildred, Martha.”

“Hello, Aunt Mildred.”

“Hello, Martha. How are you?”

“I’m fine. How is Uncle Carl?”

“Uncle Carl is ill,” Mildred said in a monotone.

“Isn’t Uncle Carl coming? Mummy said he was coming. She said so on the telephone.”

“No,” her mother cut in. “You didn’t understand what I said, dear. I was talking about somebody else. Uncle Carl is far away. He’s living far away.”

“Who is coming, Mummy?”

“Lots of people are coming. Daddy will be here soon. And Dr. Grantland. And Aunt Mildred is here.”

The child looked up at her, her eyes clear and untroubled. She said: “I don’t want Daddy to come. I don’t like Daddy. I want Dr. Grantland to come. He will come and take us to a nice place.”

“Not us, dear. You and Mrs. Hutchinson. Dr. Grantland will take you for a ride in his car, and you’ll spend the day with Mrs. Hutchinson. Maybe all night, too. Won’t that be fun?”

“Yes,” the child answered gravely. “That will be fun.”

“Now go and ask Mrs. Hutchinson to give you your lunch.”

“I ate my lunch. I ate it all up. You said I could have a special cocktail.”

“In the kitchen, dear. Juan will give you your cocktail in the kitchen.”

“I don’t want to go in the kitchen. I want to stay here, with people.”

“No, you can’t.” Zinnie was getting edgy. “Now be a nice girl and do what you’re told, or I’ll tell Daddy about you. He won’t like it.”

“I don’t care. I want to stay here and talk to the people.”

“Some other time, Martha.” She rose and hustled the little girl out of the room. A long wail ended with the closing of a door.

“She’s a beautiful child.”

Mildred turned to me. “Which one of them do you mean? Yes, Martha is pretty. And she’s bright. But the way Zinnie is handling her – she treats her as if she were a doll.”

Mildred was going to say more, but Zinnie returned, closely followed by the houseboy with the drinks. I drank mine in a hurry, and ate the onion by way of lunch.

“Have another, Mr. Archer.” One drink had converted Zinnie’s tension into vivacity, of a sort. “We’ve got the rest of the shaker to knock back between us. Unless we can persuade Mildred to climb down off her high wagon.”

“You know where I stand on the subject.” Mildred gripped her glass of ginger ale defensively. “I see you’ve had the room redone.”

I said: “One’s enough for me, thanks. What I’d like to do, if you don’t object, is talk to the man who saw your brother-in-law. Sam something?”

“Sam Yogan. Of course, talk to Sam if you like.”

“Is he around now?”

“I think so. Come on, I’ll help you find him. Coming, Mildred?”

“I’d better stay here,” Mildred said. “If Carl comes to the house, I want to be here to meet him.”

“Aren’t you afraid of him?”

“No, I’m not afraid of him. I love my husband. No doubt it’s hard for you to understand that.”

The hostility between the two women kept showing its sharp edges. Zinnie said: “Well, I’m afraid of him. Why do you think I’m sending Martha to town? And I’ve got half a mind to go myself.”

“With Dr. Grantland?”

Zinnie didn’t answer. She rose abruptly, with a glance at me. I followed her through a dining-room furnished in massive old mahogany, into a sunlit kitchen gleaming with formica and chrome and tile. The houseboy turned from the sink, where he was washing dishes: “Yes, Missus?”

“Is Sam around?”

“Before, he was talking to policeman.”

“I know that. Where is he now?”

“Bunkhouse, greenhouse, I dunno.” The houseboy shrugged. “I pay no attention to Sam Yogan.”

“I know that, too.”

Zinnie moved impatiently through a utility room to the back door. As soon as we stepped outside, a young man in a western hat raised his head from behind a pile of oak logs. He came around the woodpile, replacing his gun in its holster, swaggering slightly in his deputy’s suntans.

“I’d stay inside if I was you, Mrs. Hallman. That way we can look after you better.” He looked inquiringly at me.

“Mr. Archer is a private detective.”

A peevish look crossed the young deputy’s face, as though my presence threatened to spoil the game. I hoped it would. There were too many guns around.

“Any sign of Carl Hallman?” I asked him.

“You check in with the sheriff?”

“I checked in.” Ostensibly to Zinnie, I said: “Didn’t you say there wouldn’t be any shooting? That the sheriff’s men would take your brother-in-law without hurting him?”

“Yes. Sheriff Ostervelt promised to do his best.”

“We can’t guarantee nothing,” the young deputy said. Even as he spoke, he was scanning the tree-shaded recesses of the back yard, and the dense green of the trees that stretched beyond. “We got a dangerous man to deal with. He bust out of a security ward last night, stole a car for his getaway, probably stole the gun he’s carrying.”

“How do you know he stole a car?”

“We found it, stashed in a tractor turnaround between here and the main road. Right near where the old Jap ran into him.”

“Green Ford convertible?”

“Yeah. You seen it?”

“It’s my car.”

“No kidding? How’d he happen to steal your car?”

“He didn’t exactly steal it. I’m laying no charges. Take it easy with him if you see him.”

The deputy’s face hardened obtusely. “I got my orders.”