Росс Макдональд - The Barbarous Coast

“I was going to. But Mr. Bassett was in his office. He called them. I went down to the end of the pool and peeked down through the fence. She was lying there in the sand, looking up at the sky. Tony had pulled her up out of the surf. I could see sand in her eyes, I wanted to go down and wipe the sand out of her eyes, but I was afraid to go down there.”

“Why?”

“She had no clothes on. She looked so white. I was afraid they’d come and catch me down there and get a crazy idea about me. They went ahead and got their ideas anyway. They arrested me right that very morning. I was half expecting it.”

“You were?”

“People have to blame somebody. They’ve been blaming us for three hundred years now. I guess I had it coming. I shouldn’t have let myself get – friendly with her. And then, to make it worse, I had this earring belonging to her in my pocket.”

“What earring was that?”

“A little round earring she had, made of mother-of-pearl. It was shaped like a lifesaving belt, with a hole in the middle, and U.S.S. Malibu printed on it. The heck of it was, she was still – the other earring that matched it was still on her ear.”

“How did you happen to have the earring?”

“I just picked it up,” he said, “and I was going to give it back to her. I found it alongside the pool,” he added after a moment.

“That morning?”

“Yes. Before I knew she was dead. That Marfeld and the other cops made a big deal about it. I guess they thought they had it made, until I proved out my alibi.” He made a sound which was half snort and half groan. “As if I’d lay a hand on Gabrielle to hurt her.”

“Were you in love with her, Joseph?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“It’s true, though, isn’t it?”

He rested his elbow on the counter and his chin on his hand, as though to steady his thinking. “I could have been,” he admitted, “if I’d had a chance with her. Only there was no mileage in it. She was only half Spanish-American, and she never really saw me as a human being.”

“That could be a motive for murder.”

I watched his face. It lengthened, but it showed no other sign of emotion. The planes of his cheeks, his broad lips, had the look of a carved and polished mask balanced on his palm. “You didn’t kill her yourself, Joseph?”

He winced, but not with surprise, as though I’d pressed on the scar of an old wound. He shook his head sadly. “I wouldn’t hurt a hair on her head, and you know it.”

“All right. Let it pass.”

“I won’t let it pass. You can take it back or get out of here.”

“All right. I take it back.”

“You shouldn’t have said it in the first place. She was my friend. I thought you were my friend.”

“I’m sorry, Joseph. I have to ask these questions.”

“Why do you have to? Who makes you? You should be careful what you say about who did what around here. Do you know what Tony Torres would do if he thought I killed his girl?”

“Kill you.”

“That’s right. He threatened to kill me when the police turned me loose. It was all I could do to talk him out of it. He gets these fixed ideas in his head, and they stick there like a bur. And he’s got a lot of violence in him yet.”

“So do we all.”

“I know it, Mr. Archer. I know it in myself. Tony’s got more than most. He killed a man with his fists once, when he was young.”

“In the ring?”

“Not in the ring, and it wasn’t an accident. It was over a woman, and he meant to do it. He asked me down to his room one night and got drunk on muscatel and told me all about it.”

“When was this?”

“A couple of months ago. I guess it was really eating him up. Gabrielle’s mother was the woman, you see. He killed the man that she was running with, and she left him. The other man had a knife, so the judge in Fresno called it self-defense, but Tony blamed himself. He connected it up with Gabrielle, said that what happened to her was God’s punishment on him. Tony’s very superstitious.”

“You know his nephew Lance?”

“I know him.” Joseph’s tone defined his attitude. It was negative. “He used to have the job I have a few years back, when I started in the snack bar. I heard he’s a big wheel now, it’s hard to believe. He was so bone lazy he couldn’t even hold a lifeguard job without his uncle filling in for him. Tony used to do his clean-up work while Lance practiced fancy diving.”

“How does Tony feel about him now?”

Joseph scratched his tight hair. “He finally caught on to him. I’d say he almost hates him.”

“Enough to kill him?”

“What’s all this talk about killing, Mr. Archer? Did somebody get killed?”

“I’ll tell you, if you can keep a secret.”

“I can keep a secret.”

“See that you do. Your friend Lance was shot last night.”

He didn’t lift his eyes from the counter. “He was no friend of mine. He was nothing in my life.”

“He was in Tony’s.”

He shook his head slowly from side to side. “I shouldn’t have told you what I did about Tony. He did something once when he was young and crazy. He wouldn’t do a thing like that again. He wouldn’t hurt a flea, unless it was biting him.”

“You can’t have it both ways at once, Joseph. You said he hated Lance.”

“I said almost.”

“Why did he hate him?”

“He had good reason.”

“Tell me.”

“Not if you’re going to turn it against Tony. That Lance isn’t fit to tie his shoelaces for him.”

“You think yourself that Tony may have shot him.”

“I’m not saying what I think, I don’t think anything.”

“You said he had good reason. What was the reason?”

“Gabrielle,” he said to the floor. “Lance was the first one she went with, back when she was just a kid in high school. She told me that. He started her drinking, he taught her all the ways of doing it. If Tony shot that pachuco , he did a good service to the world.”

“Maybe, but not to himself. You say Gabrielle told you all these things?”

He nodded, and his black, despondent shadow nodded with him.

“Were you intimate with her?”

“I never was, not if you mean what I think you mean. She treated me like I had no human feelings. She used to torture me with these things she told me – the things he taught her to do.” His voice was choked. “I guess she didn’t know she was torturing me. She just didn’t know I had feelings.”

“You’ve got too many feelings.”

“Yes, I have. They break me up inside sometimes. Like when she told me what he wanted her to do. He wanted her to go to L.A. with him and live in a hotel, and he would get her dates with men. I blew my top on that one, and went to Tony with it. That was when he broke off with Lance, got him fired from here and kicked him out of the house.”

“Did Gabrielle go with him?”

“No, she didn’t. I thought with him out of the way, maybe she’d straighten out. But it turned out to be too late for her. She was already gone.”

“What happened to her after that?”

“Listen, Mr. Archer,” he said in a tight voice. “You could get me in trouble. Spying on the members is no part of my job.”

“What’s a job?”

“It isn’t the job. I could get another job. I mean really bad trouble.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I thought you wanted to be serviceable.”

HE LOOKED up at the light. His face was smooth. No moral strain showed. But I could feel the cracking tension in him.

“Gabrielle is dead,” he said to the unblinking light. “What service can I do her by talking about her?”

“There are other girls, and it could happen to them.”