Росс Макдональд - The Way Some People Die

“Joe went back into the trunk of your car. In his condition, he must have made an awkward piece of luggage. You and Keith drove separately to Pacific Point. He got the body aboard the Aztec Queen , took it to sea, dumped it into the water, and swam ashore to your headlights. You took him back to the dock, where his car was, and the two of you drove to Los Angeles. That took care of the body, and more important, it took care of Dowser. It would be obvious, if and when the body was found, that Joe had drowned in a getaway attempt.

“That left just one fly in your ointment, your partner. He was useful for physical work that you couldn’t do, like rowing dead bodies around harbors and starting boat-engines, but he was a moral weakling. You knew he couldn’t stand the pressure that was coming. Besides, he’d be wanting his share of the cash. So you went up to his apartment with him and paid him off with a bullet. A bullet from my gun. Hid my gun where the cops would be sure to find it. Went home to bed and, if I know your type, slept like a baby.”

“Did I?”

“Why not? You’d killed two men and kept yourself in the clear. I have an idea that you like killing men. The real payoff for you wasn’t the thirty thousand. It was smothering Joe, and shooting Keith and Mario. The money was just a respectable excuse, like the fifty dollars to a call-girl who happens to be a nymphomaniac. You see, Galley, you’re a murderer. You’re different from ordinary people, you like different things. Ordinary people don’t throw slugs into a dead man’s back for the hell of it. They don’t arrange their lives so they have to spend a week-end with a corpse. Did it give you a thrill, cooking your meals in the same room with him?”

I had finally got to her. She leaned out of the chair towards me and spoke between bared teeth: “You’re a dirty liar! I couldn’t eat. I hated it. I had to get out of the house. By Sunday night I was going crazy with it – Joe crouched in there with frost on him–” A dry sob racked her. She covered her face with her hands.

Somewhere in the distance a siren whined.

“That’s right,” I said. “Sunday night Speed came to baby-sit for you. Later, when I talked to him, he covered for you. It will convict him along with you.”

She mastered her sobbing, and spoke behind her hands: “I should have saved a bullet for you.”

“I served your purpose, didn’t I? I couldn’t have done it better if you had briefed me. Of course you set it up for me rather nicely, phoning Dowser Tuesday morning to let him know you were available. You must have trusted me pretty far at that. I know three or four private operators who wouldn’t have followed you up to Dowser’s house. Ironic, isn’t it? I thought I was rescuing a maiden from a tower. Fall guys usually do, I guess. And the women who use them often make the mistake you did. They forget that even fall guys have minds of their own, until they fall for keeps.” I looked down at Mario, and her gaze followed mine. Her fingers were still spread across her face, as if she needed them to hold it together.

The siren rose nearer and higher, building a thin arch of sound across the desert.

“It’s sort of sad about you,” I said. “All that energy and ingenuity wasted, because you had to tie it in with murder. Now before the police get here, do you want to tell me where the money is? I need it for a client, and if I get it I’ll give you the best break I can.”

“Go to hell.” Her eyes burned furiously between her fingers. “They won’t be able to hold me, you know that? They can’t prove anything, not a thing. I’m innocent, do you hear me?”

I heard her.

The siren whooped like a wolf in the street. Headlights swept the window.

After Galley was taken away, a deputy named Runceyvall and I spent an hour or so going over the house. Mario had left a trail of blood across the kitchen floor and out the back door to the attached garage. We followed it and found the place where the gun had been cached, behind a loose board in the wall between the garage and the house. It contained a box of .45 cartridges, but no money. We found only one other thing of any significance: a couple of black hairs stuck to the interior wall of the deep-freeze. I told Runceyvall to seal it shut, and explained why. Runceyvall thought the whole thing was delightful. Shortly after two I checked in at the Oasis Inn for the rest of the night. The clerk informed me that Mrs. Fellows was still registered. I asked to be called at eight.

I was. When I had showered and looked at my beard in the bathroom mirror and put on the same dirty clothes, I strolled across the lawn to Marjorie’s bungalow. It was a dazzling morning. The grass looked as fresh as paint. Beyond a palm-leaf fence at the rear of the enclosure, a red tractor was pulling a cultivator up and down through a grove of date-palms that stood squat against the sky. High above them in ultramarine space, too high to be identified, a single bird circled on still wings. I thought it was an eagle or a hawk, and I thought of Galley.

Marjorie was breakfasting alfresco under a striped orange beach umbrella. She had on a Japanese kimono that harmonized with the umbrella, if nothing else. At the table with her a gray-headed man in shorts was munching diligently on a piece of toast.

She glanced up brightly when I approached, her round face glowing with sunburn and Gemutlichkeit: “Why, Mr. Archer, what a nice surprise! We were just talking about you, and wondering where you were.”

“I slept here last night. Checked in late, and thought I wouldn’t disturb you.”

“Now wasn’t that thoughtful,” she said to the gray-headed man. “George, this is Mr. Archer. My husband, Mr. Archer – my ex, I guess I should say.” Surprisingly, the large kimonoed body produced a girlish titter.

George stood up and gave me a brisk hand-shake. “Glad to know you, Archer. I’ve heard a lot about you.” He had a thin flat chest, a sedentary stomach, a kind bewildered face. “I’ve heard a lot about you. From Marjorie.”

“You have?”

He bestowed a loving look on the top of her head. “I feel darn silly in these shorts. She made me wear ’em. Oh well, as long as there’s nobody here from Toledo–” He gazed shortsightedly around him, seeking spies.

“You look handsome in them, George. Pull in your stomach now. I love you in them.” She turned to me with a queenly graciousness: “Please sit down, Mr. Archer. Have you had your breakfast? Let me order you some. George, bring Mr. Archer a chair from the porch and order more ham and eggs.” George marched away with his stomach held tautly in, his head held high.

“I didn’t expect to find him here.”

“Neither did I. Isn’t it wonderful? He saw my name in the papers and flew right down from Toledo on the first plane, just like a movie hero. I almost fainted yesterday when he walked in. To think that he really cares! Of course it was somewhat embarrassing last night. He had to sleep in a separate bungalow because we’re not legally married yet.”

“Yet? Don’t you mean ‘any more’?”

“Yes.” She blushed rosier. “We’re flying to San Francisco at noon to pick up the car there, and then we’ll drive over to Reno and be married. They don’t make you wait in Reno and George says he won’t wait a single minute longer than necessary.”

“Congratulations, but won’t there be legal difficulties? You can have your marriage to Speed annulled, of course, since he married you under a false name. Only that will take time, even in Nevada.”

“Haven’t you heard?” Her face, blank and unsmiling now, showed the strain she was under. “The San Francisco police recovered my Cadillac last night. He left it in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge.”