Росс Макдональд - The Barbarous Coast

“Stern, his last name is.”

“Carl Stern?”

“Yeah.” Squinting at my face, he saw the effect of the name on me. “You know him?”

“I’ve seen him in nightclubs, and heard some stories about him. If ten per cent of them are true, he’s a dangerous character. Is your nephew still with him, Tony?”

“I dunno. I bet you he is in trouble. I think you know it, only you won’t tell me.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because I seen him last week. He was all dressed up like a movie star and driving one of those sporty cars.” He made a low sweeping motion with his hands. “Where would he get the money? He don’t work, and he can’t fight no more.”

“Why didn’t you ask him?”

“Don’t make me laugh, ask him. He wooden say hello to his Uncle Tony. He is too busy riding around with blondes in speedy cars.”

“He was with a blonde girl?”

“Sure.”

“Anybody you know?”

“Sure. She used to work here last summer. Hester Campbell, her name is. I thought she had more brains, to run around with my nephew Manny.”

“How long has she been running with him?”

“I wooden know. I got no crystal ball.”

“Where did you see them?”

“Venice Speedway.”

“Wasn’t the Campbell girl a friend of your daughter’s?”

His face set hard and dark. “Maybe. What is this all about, mister? First you ask for my nephew, now it’s my daughter.”

“I just heard about your daughter this morning. She was a friend of the Campbell girl, and I’m interested in the Campbell girl.”

“I’m not, and I don’t know nothing. It’s no use asking me. What do I know?” His mood had swung heavily downward. He made an idiot face. “I’m a punchy bum. My brains don’t think straight. My daughter is dead. My nephew is a crooked pachuco . People come and punch me in the nose.”

ANTON’S windows overlooked the boulevard from the second floor of a stucco building in West Hollywood. The building was fairly new, but it had been painted and scraped and repainted in blotches of color, pink and white and blue, to make it look like something from the left bank of the Seine. You entered it through a court which contained several small arty shops and had a terrazzo fountain in the center. A concrete nymph stood with her feet in its shallow water, covering her pudenda with one hand and beckoning with the other.

I climbed the outside stairs to the second-floor balcony. Through an open door, I saw a half-dozen girls in leotards stretching their ligaments on banes along the wall. A woman with flat breasts and massive haunches called out orders in a drill-sergeant’s voice: “ Grand battement, s’il vous plaît. Non, non, grand battement .”

I walked on to the end of the balcony, trailed by the salt-sweet odor of young sweat. Anton was in his office, short and wide behind the desk in a gabardine suit the color of lemon ice cream. His face was sunlamp brown. He rose very lightly, to demonstrate his agelessness. The hand he extended had rings on two of the fingers, a seal ring and a diamond to go with the diamond in his foulard tie. His grip was like a bull lobster’s.

“Mr. Archer.”

Anton had been in Hollywood longer than I had, but he still pronounced my name “ Meester Arshair .” The accent was probably part of his business front. I liked him in spite of it.

“I’m surprised you remember my name.”

“I think of you with gratitude,” he said. “Frequently.”

“What wife are you on now?”

“Please, you are very vulgar.” He raised his hands in a fastidious gesture, and while he was at it, examined his manicure. “Number five. We are very happy. You are not needed.”

“Yet.”

“But you didn’t come to discuss my marital problems. Why do you come?”

“Missing girl.”

“Hester Campbell again?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you employed by that big naïf of a husband?”

“You’re psychic.”

“He is a fool. Any man of his age and weight who runs after a woman in this city is a fool. Why doesn’t he stand still, and they’ll come swarming?”

“He’s only interested in the one. Now what about her?”

“What about her?” he repeated, offering his hands palms up to show how clean they were. “She has had some ballet lessons from me, three or four months of lessons. The young ladies come and go. I am not responsible for their private lives.”

“What do you know about her private life?”

“Nothing. I wish to know nothing. My friend Paddy Dane in Toronto did me no favor when he sent her here. There is a young lady very much on the make. I could see trouble in her.”

“If you could see all that, why turn her husband loose on Clarence Bassett?”

His shoulders rose. “ I turned him loose on Bassett? I merely answered his questions.”

“You made him believe that she was living with Bassett. Bassett hasn’t seen her for nearly four months.”

“What would I know about that?”

“Don’t kid me, Anton. Did you know Bassett before this?”

“ Pas trop . He would not remember, probably.”

He moved to the window and cranked the louvers wider. The sound of traffic rose from the Boulevard. Under it, his voice was sibilant: “But I do not forget. Five years ago, I applied for membership in the Channel Club. They refused me, with no reason given. I heard through my sponsor that Bassett never presented my name to the membership committee. He wanted no dancing-masters in his club.”

“So you thought you’d make trouble for him.”

“Perhaps.” He looked at me over his shoulder, his eye bright and empty as a bird’s. “Did I succeed?”

“I stopped it before it happened. But you could have triggered a murder.”

“Nonsense.” He turned and came toward me, stepping with feline softness on the carpet. “The husband is a nothing, a hysterical boy. There is no danger in him ”

“I wonder. He’s big and strong, and crazy about his wife.”

“Is he rich?”

“Hardly.”

“Then tell him to forget her. I have seen many like her, in love with themselves. They think they aspire to an art, acting or dancing or music. But all they really aspire to is money and clothes. A man comes along who can give them these things, and there is the end of aspiration.” His hands went through the motions of liberating a bird and throwing it a good-by kiss.

“Did one come along for Hester?”

“Possibly. She seemed remarkably prosperous at my Christmas party. She had a new mink stole. I complimented her on it, and she informed me that she was under personal contract to a movie producer.”

“Which one?”

“She did not say, and it does not matter. She was lying. It was a little fantasy for my benefit.”

“How do you know?”

“I know women.”

I was ready to believe him. The wall behind his desk was papered with inscribed photographs of young women.

“Besides,” he said, “no producer in his right mind would give that girl a contract. There is something lacking in her – essential talent, feeling. She became cynical so young, and she makes no attempt to hide it.”

“How did she act the other night?”

“I did not observe her for very long. I had over a hundred guests.”

“She made a telephone call from here. Did you know?”

“Not until yesterday. The husband told me she was frightened of something. Perhaps she drank too much. There was nothing at my party to frighten anyone – a lot of nice young people amusing themselves.”

“Who was she with?”

“A boy, a good-looking boy.” He snapped his fingers. “She introduced him to me, but I forget his name.”