Росс Макдональд - The Ivory Grin

Her bosom heaved with remembered anger, like the aftershock of an earthquake: “I told her she was degenerating my God-fearing household into a dancehall, she must let my son alone. She said it was Alex’s choice and he backed her up, he said he loved her. Then I was harsh with her. The red silk pajamas over her insolent flesh, they blinded my eyes to charity. My evil anger rose up and I said she must let Alex alone or leave my house in her nightclothes as she was. I said that I was planning better things for my son than she could give him. Alex spoke up then, saying if Lucy Champion went he would go along with her.”

Now in a sense, he had. His mother’s gaze seemed to be following his image into the shadows where Lucy had preceded him.

“You let her stay, though,” I said.

“Yes. My son’s wish is powerful with me. Lucy herself went away next morning, but she left her things behind. I don’t know where she spent the day. I know she took a bus somewhere because she complained about the service that night when she came back. She was very excited in her manner.”

“Thursday night?”

“Yes, it was Thursday night. All day Friday she was quiet and meek, though worried under the surface. I guessed she was planning something, and I was fearful she intended to run away with Alex. That night there was more trouble. I saw there was going to be trouble on top of trouble if she stayed.”

“What was the Friday night trouble?”

“I’m ashamed to speak of it.”

“It may be important.” Casting back over the quarrel I had eavesdropped on, I guessed what Mrs. Norris was holding back: “She did have a visitor, didn’t she?”

“Perhaps it is best for me to tell you, if it will help Alex.” She hesitated. “Yes, Lucy had a visitor Friday night. I heard him go in by her side entrance and I watched for him and saw him when he left. She entertained a man in her room, a white man. I didn’t speak of it that night, mistrusting my anger so. I promised myself to sleep and pray on it, but I slept very little. Lucy slept late and then she went out for lunch when I was at the store. When she came back, she tempted my son. She kissed him in full sight on the public street. It was wanton and shameless. I said she had to go, and she went. My boy wanted to leave me and go with her. I had to tell him then about the man in her room.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

“I know it. I confess it. It was rash and scornful of me. And it failed to turn him from her. The same afternoon she telephoned for him and he went to her call. I asked him where he was going. He wouldn’t say. He took the car without asking for my permission. I knew then he was lost to me, whatever happened. He never before refused to do my bidding.”

She bowed suddenly, sobbing into her hands, a black Rachel lamenting the wrecked hopes of all mothers for their sons, black and white and tan. The desk sergeant appeared in his doorway and watched her in silence for a while before he spoke: “Is she all right?”

“She’s worried about her son.”

“She has a right to be,” he said indifferently. “You Archer?”

I said I was.

“Lieutenant Brake will see you in his office now, if you’re waiting.”

I thanked him, and he retreated quickly.

Mrs. Norris’s fit of grief had subsided as suddenly as it rose. She said: “I’m truly sorry.”

“It’s all right. You’ve got to remember that Alex can still be decent, even if he did disobey you. He’s old enough to make decisions.”

“I can accept that,” she said. “But that he should leave me for a light, common woman, it was cruel and it was wrong. Shed led him straight into jail.”

“You shouldn’t have worked on his jealousy,” I said.

“Have you lost your faith in him because of that?”

“No, but it gives him a motive. Jealousy is dangerous stuff to fiddle with, especially when you’re not sure of your facts.”

“There was no doubt what she was, with a white man with her late at night in her room.”

“She had only one room.”

“That’s true.”

“Where else could she have a visitor?”

“In my good front parlor,” she said. “I gave her free use of the parlor.”

“Maybe she wanted privacy.”

“Why, I’d like to know.” The question implied its own answer.

“There are plenty of reasons for a man to visit a woman. What did this man look like?”

“I saw him only a second, under the street light at the corner. He was an ordinary-looking man, middle size, middle age. At least he seemed slow in his movements. I didn’t lay eyes on his face, not to see it.”

“Did you notice his clothes?”

“I did. He wore a panama straw hat, and a light-colored jacket. His trousers were darker in color. He did not appear respectable to me.”

“He probably isn’t respectable, Mrs. Norris. But I can assure you he visited her for business purposes.”

“Do you know him?”

“His name is Max Heiss; he’s a private detective.”

“Like you?”

“Not exactly.” I rose to go.

She laid a detaining hand on my arm: “I said too much, Mr. Archer. You do still believe that Alex is innocent?”

I said: “Of course.” But I was bothered by the motive she had provided.

Mrs. Norris sensed my doubt, and thanked me sadly, withdrawing her hand.

Brake’s office was a bare cubicle walled with the same green plaster as the corridor. Close up under the ceiling, heating-pipes like sections of iron viscera hung from metal supports. A single small window, high in the wall, fly specked a square of sky.

Dr. Benning was sitting uncomfortably with his hat on his knees, in a straight chair against the wall. Brake, with his usual air of alert stolidity, was talking into the telephone on his desk: “I’m busy or haven’t you heard. Let the HP handle it. I haven’t been a traffic cop for twenty years.”

He hung up, and ran a hand like a harrow through his dust-colored hair. Then he pretended to be noticing my presence in the doorway for the first time: “Oh. It’s you. You decided to favor us with a visit. Come in and sit down. The doc here tells me you’re taking a pretty active interest in this case.”

I sat beside Benning, who smiled deprecatingly and opened his mouth to speak. Before he had a chance to, Brake went on: “Since that’s the situation, let’s get a couple of things straight. I’m no one-man team. I like help, from private cops or citizens or anybody. I’m glad you sent the doc in to fill me in on the stiff, for instance.”

“What do you think about suicide?”

Brake pawed my question away. “I’ll come to that, I got a point to make first. If you’re going to be in on this case, talking to my witnesses and messing around in general, I got to know where you stand and where your client stands.”

“My original client ran out on me.”

“So what’s your interest? The doc here tells me you think we’re trying to frame the Norris boy.”

“I didn’t put it so strongly,” Benning said. “I also happen to agree with Mr. Archer, that the lad is probably innocent.”

“Is that your opinion, Archer?”

“It is. I’d like to talk to Alex–”

“Sure you would. Did his mother hire you, by any chance? To cross me up, by any chance?”

“Having delusions of persecution, lieutenant?”

Hostility darkened his face for a slow instant, like a cloud-shadow crossing a hillside. “You admit it’s your opinion that Norris ain’t guilty. Before we do any talking, I want to know if you’re looking for evidence to hang an opinion on, like a bloody lawyer. Or looking for evidence period.”

“Evidence period. I was hired last night by a Miss Sylvia Treen. She’s Mrs. Charles Singleton’s companion.”