Росс Макдональд - The Way Some People Die

Eventually the road dipped below the cloudline. Below it to the right, a flat gray arm of the sea meandered among the hills like a slow river. The opposite bank was black with trees. I followed the shore for miles, losing it and coming back to it again as the road determined. In a narrow valley close by the forsaken shore, the road branched left and right.

I stopped the car. “Which way?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sure you do, Mosquito. Bear this in mind: you’ll take your chance with Speed, or have the certainty of a Federal pen. Now which is it going to be? Which way?”

“To the right,” he answered drearily. “It’s only about a mile from here.”

We crossed a long low bridge and followed a gravel road up the opposite bank of the bay. After a while we passed a dirt road that straggled downward towards the landlocked water. “That’s it,” he said.

I braked and backed, turning into the rutted lane. “How far down is it?”

“Just around the curve.”

I cut my lights, stopped short of the curve and set my emergency brake. “Get out and walk ahead of me. If you give him warning, I’ll drop you.”

“Speed will kill me,” he said slowly and distinctly, as if he was stating a theory I had failed to understand. In the dim light from the dashboard, I could see the water shining in his eyes. I took my flashlight out of the glove compartment, and tested it on his face. It looked sick.

“Get out.” I leaned across him to open the door, and crowded out behind him. I closed the windows and locked both doors.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “afraid of the dark. I never been out here at night.”

“You’ll never go back if you keep this up. Now walk ahead of me.”

He was clinging to the door handle. I pushed him upright with the revolver muzzle, and prodded him into the road. He lurched ahead of me.

Below the curve the lane broadened into a small clearing. A cabin of rough-hewn logs sat in the clearing, one square lit window facing us. A man’s shadow moved there, growing until it covered the whole window. Then the light died behind it. There was a long dark car parked beside the cabin.

“Call him,” I said to the man at the end of my gun. The flashlight was in my left hand.

His first attempt was a dry gasp. “Keep moving and call him. Tell him who you are. Tell him that I’m a friend.”

“Mr. Speed,” he cried thinly. “It’s Mosquito.”

We were halfway across the clearing. “Louder,” I said in his ear, and jabbed him in the kidneys with the muzzle.

“Mr. Speed.” His voice cracked.

I pushed him on ahead of me. The door opened inward as Mosquito set his feet on the plank stoop.

“Who is it?” a man’s voice said from the deep inside shadow.

“Mosquito.”

“What do you want? Who’s with you?”

“A friend.”

“What friend?” The hidden voice rose in pitch.

I’d got as far as I could with that approach. Even with tear gas, tommy-guns and a police cordon, there is no way to take a desperate man without risking your life. I had an advantage over Speed, of course. I knew that he was still convalescing from Blaney’s bullet, and was probably gun-shy.

I stepped around Mosquito. “The name is Archer. A Mrs. Henry Fellows” – I pronounced the name carefully – "hired me to look for you.”

Before I finished speaking, I pressed my flashlight button. The white beam fanned the doorway. Speed crouched there, a massive figure with a black gun in his hand. We faced each other for a long tense instant. Either of us could have shot the other. I was so sharply aware of him, I felt his gun wound burning a hole in my own belly.

The starch went out of him suddenly. Without seeming to move, he shifted from the offensive to the defensive. “What do you want?” His pale bright eyes looked down at his gun, as if it was the gun that had somehow failed him.

“You might as well drop it,” I said. “I have you covered.”

He flung it down in a gesture of self-disgust. It skittered across the rough planks toward me. Instinctively, Mosquito moved to retrieve it. I set my foot on the gun and elbowed him back.

“Go away, Mosquito,” I said, watching Speed. “I don’t want to see you again.”

“Where should I go?” He sounded both hurt and unbelieving.

“Anywhere but San Francisco. Start walking.”

“All by myself? Out here?”

“Start walking.”

He stepped off the porch into gray gloom. I didn’t waste a backward glance on him. “We’ll go into the house,” I said to Speed. “You better hold your hands on top of your head.”

“You’re exceedingly masterful.” He was recovering his style, or whatever it was that kept him upright and made him interesting to women. On the shooting level he was a bum, as useless as a cat in a dogfight. But he had his own feline dignity, even with his hands up.

I picked up his gun, a light automatic with the safety still on, and juggled it into my pocket, holding the flash under my arm. “About face, colonel. No false moves, unless you want a hole in the back to match the one in the front.”

He turned in the doorway. I stayed close behind him as he crossed the room and relit the oil lamp. The flame steadied and brightened, casting a widening circle of light across the bare floor and up into the rafters. The room contained a built-in bunk, a cheap pine table, two kitchen chairs and a canvas deck-chair placed by the stone fireplace. A pair of new leather suitcases stood unopened at the end of the bunk. There was no fire in the fireplace, and the room was cold.

“Sit down.” I waved my gun at the deck-chair.

“You’re very kind.” He sprawled in the chair with his long legs spraddled in front of him. “Is it necessary for me to retain the hands-on-head position? It makes me feel ridiculous.”

“You can relax.” I sat down facing him in one of the kitchen chairs.

“Thank you.” He lowered his hands and clasped them in his lap, but he didn’t relax. His entire body was taut. The attempt he made to smile was miserable, and he abandoned it. He raised one hand to shield his worried mouth.

The hand stayed there of its own accord, brushing back and forth across his thin brown eyebrow of mustache. Its fingernails were bitten down to the quick. “I know you, don’t I?” he said.

“We’ve seen each other. This a comedown after the Oasis Inn .”

“It is, rather. Are you a detective?” I nodded.

“I’m surprised at Marjorie.” But he showed no emotion of any kind. His face was unfocused, sagging wearily on its hones. Deep lines dragged from his nose to the corners of his mouth. His fingers began to explore them. “I didn’t think I she would go to such lengths.”

“You hurt her feelings,” I said. “It’s never a good idea to hurt a woman’s feelings. If you have to rob them, you should try to do it without hurting their feelings.”

“Rob is a pretty strong word to use. She gave me the money to invest for her. She’ll get it back, I promise you.”

“And your word is as good as your bond, eh? How good is your bond?”

“One week,” he said. “Give me one week. I’ll pay it back with interest gladly.”

“How about now?”

“That’s impossible. I don’t have the money now. It’s already invested.”

“In real estate?”

“In real estate, yes.” The pale eyes flickered. The exploring hand climbed up to them and masked them for a moment.

“Don’t rack your brain for a story, Speed. I know where the money went.”

He peered at me, still hiding behind his fingers. “I suppose Mosquito told you?”

“Mosquito told me nothing.”

“She tapped my phone at the Inn, then. The sweet sow.” The hand slid down his face to his throat, where it pinched the loose skin between thumb and forefinger. “Oh, the sweet sow.” But he couldn’t work up any anger. The things that had been done to him looked worse and more important than the things he could do in return. He was sick of himself. “Well, what do you want with me? I guarantee she’ll have her money back in a week.”