Росс Макдональд - The Barbarous Coast

“Was he a lifeguard at the club?”

“Used to be, for a couple of summers. His Uncle Tony got him the job. But lifeguard was too slow for Lance, he had to be a big shot. I heard he was a boxer for a while and then he got into some trouble, I think they put him in jail for it last year.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I don’t know, there’s too many good people in the world to make it worth my while to keep track of bums. You could of knocked me over with a brick when Lance turned up here with his gunman friend, sucking around Hester. I thought he had more self-respect.”

“How do you know he was a gunman?”

“I saw him shooting, that’s how. I woke up one morning and heard this popping noise down on the beach. It sounded like gunfire. It was. This fellow was out there shooting at beer bottles with a nasty black gun he had. That was the day I said to myself, either she stops messing around with bums or good-by Hester.”

“Who was he?”

“I never did learn his name. That nasty snub-nosed gun and the way he handled it was all I needed to know about him. Hester said he was Lance’s manager.”

“What did he look like?”

“Looked like death to me. Those glassy brown eyes he had, and kind of a flattened-out face, fishbelly color. But I talked right up to him, told him he ought to be ashamed of himself shooting up bottles where people could cut themselves. He didn’t even look at me, just stuck another clip in his gun and went on shooting at the bottles. He’d probably just as soon been shooting at me, least that was how he acted.”

Remembered anger heightened her color. “I don’t like being brushed off like that – it ain’t human. And I’m touchy about shooting, specially since a friend of mine was shot last year. Right on this very beach, a few miles south of where you’re sitting.”

“You don’t mean Gabrielle Torres?”

“I should say I do. You heard about Gabrielle, eh?”

“A little. So she was a friend of yours.”

“Sure, she was. Some people would have a prejudice, her being part Mex, but I say if a person is good enough to work with you, a person is good enough to be your friend.” Her monolithic bosom rose and fell under the flowered-cotton wrapper.

“Nobody knows who shot her, I hear.”

“Somebody knows. The one that did it.”

“Do you have any ideas, Mrs. Lamb?”

Her face was as still as stone for a long moment. She shook her head finally.

“Her cousin Lance, maybe, or his manager?”

“I wouldn’t put it past them. But what reason could they have?”

“You’ve thought about it, then.”

“How could I help it, with them going in and out of the cottage next door, shooting off guns on the beach? I told Hester the day she left, she should learn a lesson from what happened to her friend.”

“But she went off with them anyway?’

“I guess she did. I didn’t see her leave. I don’t know where she went, or who with. That day I made a point of going to visit my married daughter in San Berdoo.”

I RELAYED as little as possible of this to George Wall, who showed signs of developing into a nuisance. On the way to Los Angeles, I turned into the drive of the Channel Club. He gave a wild look around, as though I was taking him into an ambush.

“Why are we coming back here?”

“I want to talk to the guard. He may be able to give me a lead to your wife. If not, I’ll try Anton.”

“I don’t see the point of that. I talked to Anton yesterday, I told you all he said.”

“I may be able to squeeze out some more. I know Anton, did a piece of work for him once.”

“You think he was holding out on me?”

“Could be. He hates to give anything away, including information. Now you sit here and see that nobody swipes the hubcaps. I want to get Tony talking, and you have bad associations for him.”

“What’s the use of my being here at all?” he said sulkily. “I might as well go back to the hotel and get some sleep.”

“That’s an idea, too.”

I left him in the car out of sight of the gate, and walked down the curving drive between thick rows of oleanders. Tony heard me coming. He shuffled out of the gatehouse, gold gleaming in the crannies of his smile.

“What happened to your loco friend? You lose him?”

“No such luck. You have a nephew, Tony.”

“Got a lot of nephews.” He spread his arms. “Five-six nephews.”

“The one that calls himself Lance.”

He grunted. Nothing changed in his face, except that he wasn’t smiling any more. “What about him?”

“Can you tell me his legal name?”

“Manuel,” he said. “Manuel Purificación Torres. The name my brother give him wasn’t good enough for him. He had to go and change it.”

“Where is he living now, do you know?”

“No, sir, I don’t know. I don’t have nothing to do with that one no more. He was close to me like a son one time. No more.” He wagged his head from side to side, slowly. The motion shook a question loose: “Is Manuel in trouble again?”

“I couldn’t say for sure. Who’s his manager, Tony?”

“He don’t got no manager. They don’t let him fight no more. I was his manager couple years ago, trained him and managed him both. Brought him along slow and easy, gave him a left and taught him the combinations. Kept him living clean, right in my own house: up at six in the morning, skip-the-rope, light and heavy bag, run five miles on the beach. Legs like iron, beautiful. So he had to ruinate it.”

“How?”

“Same old story,” Tony said. “I seen it too many times. He wins a couple-three fights, two four-rounders and a six-rounder in San Diego. Right away he’s a bigshot, he thinks he’s a bigshot. Uncle Tony, poor old Uncle Tony, he’s too dumb in the head to tell him his business. Uncle Tony don’t know from nothing, says lay off muscadoodle, lay off dames and reefers, sell your noisy, stinky motorcycle before you break your neck, you got a future. Only he wants it now. The whole world, right now.”

“Then something come up between us. He done something I don’t like, I don’t like it at all. I says, you been wanting out from me, now you can get out. We didden have no contract, nothing between us any more, I guess. He clumb on his motorcycle and tooted away, back to Los Angeles. There he was, a Main Street bum, and he wasn’t twenty-one years old yet.

“My sister Desideria blamed me, I should go after him on my hands and knees.” Tony shook his head. “No, I says, Desideria, I been around a long time. So have you, only you’re a woman and don’t see things. A boy gets ants in his pants, you can’t hire no exterminator for that. Let him do it the hard way, we can’t live his life.

“So one of these crooks he wants to be like – this crook sees Manny working out in the gym. He asks him for a contract and Manny gives it to him. He wins some fights and throws some, makes some dirty money, spends it on dirty things. They caught him with some caps in his car last year, and put him in jail. When he gets out, he’s suspended, no more fights – back where he started in the starvation army.”

Tony spat dry. “Long ago, I tried to tell him, my father, his grandfather, was bracero . Manny’s father and me, we was born in a chickenhouse in Fresno, nowhere, from nothing. We got two strikes on us already, I says, we got to keep our nose clean. But would he listen to me? No, he got to stick his neck under the chopper.”

“How much time did he serve?”

“I guess he was in all last year. I dunno for sure. I got troubles of my own then.”

His shoulders moved as if they felt the entire weight of the sky. I wanted to ask him about his daughter’s death, but the grief in his face tied my tongue. The scars around his eyes, sharp and deep in the sun, had been left there by crueller things than fists. I asked a different question: “Do you know the name of the man that held his contract?”