Росс Макдональд - The Barbarous Coast

“What for?”

“She didn’t tell me. If you’re a friend of hers, why didn’t you say so? Are you a friend of Rina Campbell’s?”

“Who?” I said.

“Rina Campbell. The girl we’re talking about.”

I made a not very smooth recovery. “I think I am. Is she still here?”

“I gave her a nembutal and put her to bed myself. I haven’t heard a peep out of her. She’s probably still sleeping, poor dearie.”

“I want to see her.”

“Yeah, you made that clear. Only, this is a free country, and if she don’t want to see you there’s no way you can make her.”

“I’m not planning to push her around.”

“You better not, brother. Try anything with the kid, and I’ll shoot you personally.”

“You like her, do you?”

“Why not? She’s a real good girl, as good as they come. I don’t care what she’s done.”

“You’re doing all right yourself.”

“Am I? That I doubt. I had it once, when I was Rina’s age. I tried to save a little of it for an emergency. If you can’t pass on a little loving-kindness in this world, you might as well be a gopher in a hole.”

“What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t say. My name is Carol, Mrs. Carol Busch.” She offered me a red, unlovely hand. “Remember, if she changed her mind about wanting to see you, you amscray.”

She opened an inner door, and shut it firmly behind her. I went outside where I could watch the exits. Charles Meyer was waiting in his cab.

“Hiyah. Any luck?”

“No luck. I’m quitting. How much do I owe you?”

He leaned sideways to look at the meter. “Three seventy-five. Don’t you want a ride downtown? I’ll let you have it for half-price.”

“I’ll walk. I need the exercise.”

His look was sad and canine. He knew that I was lying, and he knew the reason: I didn’t trust him. Mrs. Carol Busch called me from the doorway of the unit adjoining the office. “Okay, she’s up, she wants to talk to you.”

MRS. BUSCH stayed outside and let me go in alone. The room was dim and cool. Blackout blinds and heavy drapes kept the sunlight out. A shaded bedside lamp was the only source of light. The girl sat on the foot of the unmade Hollywood bed with her face turned away from the lamp.

I saw the reason for this when she forgot her pose and looked up at me. Nembutal or tears had swollen her eyelids. Her bright hair was carelessly groomed. She wore her red wool dress as if it were burlap. Overnight, she seemed to have lost her assurance that her beauty would look after her. Her voice was small and high: “Hello.”

“Hello, Rina.”

“You know who I am,” she said dully.

“I do now. I should have guessed it was a sister act. Where is your sister, Rina?”

“Hester’s in trouble. She had to leave the country.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“I’m not sure about anything since I found out Lance is dead.”

“How did you find out? You didn’t believe me when I told you last night.”

“I have to believe you now. I picked up a Los Angeles paper at the hotel, and there was a headline about him – about his murder.” Her eyelids lifted heavily. Her dark-blue eyes had changed subtly in thirteen hours: they saw more and liked it less. “Did my sister – did Hester kill him?”

“She may have, but I doubt it. Which way did they say she went – Mexico or Canada or Hawaii?”

“They didn’t say. Carl Stern said it would be better if I didn’t know.”

“What are you supposed to be doing here? Giving her an alibi?”

“I guess so. That was the idea.” She looked up again. “Please don’t stand over me. I’m willing to tell you what I know, but please don’t cross-question me. I’ve had a terrible night.”

Her fingers dabbed at her forehead and came away wet. There was a box of Kleenex on the bedside table. I handed her a leaf of it, which she used to wipe her forehead and blow her nose. She said surprisingly, in a voice as thin as a flute: “Are you a good man?”

“I like to think so,” but her candor stopped me. “No,” I said, “I’m not. I keep trying, when I remember to, but it keeps getting tougher every year. Like trying to chin yourself with one hand. You can practice off and on all your life, and never make it.”

She tried to smile. The gentle corners of her mouth wouldn’t lift. “You talk like a decent man. Why did you come to my sister’s house last night? How did you get in?”

“I broke in.”

“Why? Have you got something against her?”

“Nothing personal. Her husband asked me to find her. I’ve been trying to.”

“She has no husband. I mean, Hester’s husband is dead.”

“She told you he was dead, eh?”

“Isn’t it true?”

“She doesn’t tell the truth when a lie will do.”

“I know.” She added in an unsentimental tone: “But Hester is my sister and I love her. I’ve always done what I could for her, I always will.”

“And that’s why you’re here.”

“That’s why I’m here. Lance and Carl Stem told me that I could save Hester a lot of grief, maybe a penitentiary term. All I had to do was fly here under her name, and register in a hotel, then disappear. I was supposed to take a taxi out to the edge of the desert, past the airport, and Carl Stern was supposed to pick me up. I didn’t meet him, though. I came back here instead. I lost my nerve.”

“Is that why you tried to phone me?”

“Yes. I got to thinking, when I saw the piece about Lance in the paper. You’d told me the truth about that, perhaps you’d told me the truth about everything. And I remembered something you said last night – the very first thing you said when you saw me in Hester’s room. You said–” her voice was careful, like a child’s repeating a lesson by rote “–you thought I was Hester, and you said you thought I was dead – that she was dead.”

“I said that, yes.”

“Is it true?”

I hesitated. She got to her feet, swaying a little. Her hand pressed hard on my arm: “Is Hester dead? Don’t be afraid to tell me if she is. I can take it.”

“Sorry, I don’t know the answer.”

“What do you think?”

“I think she is. I think she was killed in the Beverly Hills house yesterday afternoon. And the alibi they’re trying to set up isn’t for Hester. It’s for whoever killed her.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t follow.”

“Say she was killed yesterday. You assumed her identity, flew here, registered, disappeared. They wouldn’t be asking questions about her in L.A.”

“I would.”

“If you got back alive.”

It took her a second to grasp the idea, another to apply it to her present situation. She blinked, and the shock wave hit her. Her eyes were like cracked blue Easter eggs. “What do you think I should do?”

“Fade. Disappear, until I get this thing settled. But first I want your story. You haven’t explained why you let them use you for a patsy. Or how much you knew about your sister’s activities. Did she tell you what she was doing?”

“She didn’t intend to, but I guessed. I’m willing to talk, Mr. Archer. In a way, I’m as guilty as Hester. I feel responsible for the whole thing.”

She paused, and looked around the yellow plaster walls. She seemed to be dismayed by the ugliness of the room. Her gaze stopped at the door behind me, and hardened. The door sprang open as I turned. Harsh sunlight slapped me across the eyes, and glinted on three guns. Frost held one of them. Lashman and Marfeld flanked him. Behind them Mrs. Busch crawled in the gravel. In the street Charles Meyer’s shabby yellow taxi rolled away toward town. He didn’t look back.