Джеймс Эллрой - Clandestine

Finally she said, “Bill, let’s go into the living room, okay?” She dug two terry cloth robes out of her bedroom closet, then led me into the living room, gave me a big kiss on the cheek, and sat me down on the couch like a loving mother or schoolteacher. She went back into the bedroom and returned with a large leather-bound scrapbook.

She sat down between me and my piled-up clothes and poured herself more brandy. My robe was well worn and smelled fresh. As Maggie arranged the scrapbook on the coffee table I adjusted her robe to show off a fair amount of cleavage. She reacted with a prim kiss on my cheek. I disliked her for it. The ten-year gap in our ages was beginning to show.

“Memory lane, Bill,” Maggie said. “Would you like to take a little trip down memory lane with old Maggie?”

“You’re not old.”

“In some ways I am.”

“You’re in your prime.”

“Flatterer.”

She opened the scrapbook. On the first page were photographs of a tall, light-haired man in a World War I doughboy’s uniform. He stood alone in most of the sepia-tinted photos, and in a preeminent spot in the group shots.

“That’s my daddy,” Maggie said. “Mama used to get exasperated with him sometimes, and say bad things about him. When I was a little girl I asked her once, ‘If Daddy was so mean, why did you marry him?’ and she said, ‘Because he was the handsomest man I’d ever seen.’”

She turned the page. Wedding pictures and baby pictures.

“That’s Mama and Daddy’s wedding — 1910. And that’s me as a little baby, just before Daddy went into the army.”

“Are you an only child, Maggie?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“Yes.”

She flipped the pages more rapidly. I watched time pass, seeing in minutes Maggie’s parents go from young to old and seeing Maggie go from infancy to lindy-hopping adolescent. Her face, as she danced at some long-gone high school sock-hop, was a heart breakingly hopeful version of her current one.

She drank brandy, talking on in a wistful monotone, barely heeding my presence. She seemed to be leading up to something, working slowly toward some goal that would explain why she wanted me here.

“End of volume one, Bill,” Maggie said. She got up unsteadily from the sofa and knocked over my folded sportcoat. When she picked it up, she noted its heaviness and started to fumble in the pocket where I had put my gun and handcuffs. Before I had a chance to stop her, she withdrew the .38, screamed, and backed away from me, holding the gun shakily, pointed to the floor.

“No, no, no, no!” she gasped. “Please, no! I won’t let you hurt me! No!”

I got up and walked toward her, trying to remember if both safety locks were on. “I’m a policeman, Maggie,” I said softly, placatingly. “I don’t want to hurt you. Give me the gun, sweetheart.”

“No! I know who sent you! I knew he would! No! No!”

I picked up my trousers and pulled out my badge in its leather holder. I held it up. “See, Maggie? I’m a police officer. I didn’t want to tell you. A lot of people don’t like policemen. See? It’s a real badge, sweetheart.”

Maggie dropped the gun, sobbing.

I went over and held her tightly. “It’s all right. I’m sorry you were scared. I should have told you the truth. I’m sorry.”

Maggie shook her head against me. “I’m sorry, too. I was a ninny. You’re just a man. You wanted to get laid, and you lied. I was a ninny. I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“Don’t say that. I care about you.”

“Sure you do.”

“I do.” I kissed the part in her hair and pushed her gently away. “You were going to show me volume two, remember?”

Maggie smiled. “All right. You sit down and pour me a brandy. I feel funny.”

While Maggie got her other scrapbook I put my gun back in my coat pocket. She came back hugging a slender black leather album. She beamed as if the gun episode had never happened.

We took up where we left off. She opened the album. It contained a dozen snapshots of a little baby, probably only a few weeks old, still bald, peering curiously up toward some fascinating object. Maggie touched her fingers to her lips and pressed them to the photos.

“Your baby?” I asked.

“Mine. My baby. My love.”

“Where is he?”

“His father took him.”

“Are you divorced?”

“He wasn’t my husband, Bill. He was my lover. My true love. He’s dead now. He died of his love for me.”

“How, Maggie?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“What happened to the baby?”

“He’s in an orphanage, back east.”

“Why, Maggie? Orphanages are terrible places. Why don’t you keep him? Children need parents, not institutions.”

“Don’t say that! I can’t! I can’t keep him! I’m sorry I showed you, I thought you’d understand!”

I took her hand. “I do, sweetheart, more than you know. Let’s go back to bed, all right?”

“All right. But I want to show you one more thing. You’re a policeman. You know a lot about crime, right?”

“Right.”

“Then come here. I’ll show you where I keep my buried treasure.”

We went back into the bedroom. As I sat on the bed, Maggie unscrewed the left front bedpost. She pulled off the top part and reached down into the hollowed-out bottom piece. She extracted a red velvet bag, its end held together by a drawstring.

“Would a burglar look in a place like that, Bill?” she asked.

“I doubt it,” I said.

Maggie opened the velvet bag and drew out an antique diamond brooch. I almost gasped: the rocks looked real, perfectly cut, and there were at least a dozen of them, interspersed with larger blue stones, all mounted on heavy strands of real gold. The thing must have been worth a small fortune.

“It’s beautiful, Maggie.”

“Thank you. I don’t show it to many people. Only the nice ones.”

“Where did you get it?”

“It’s a love gift.”

“From your true love?”

“Yes.”

“You want some advice? Put it in a safe-deposit box. And don’t tell people about it. You never know the kind of person you might meet.”

“I know who I can trust and who I can’t.”

“All right. Put it away, will you?”

“Why? I thought you liked it.”

“I do, but it makes me sad.”

Maggie replaced the brooch in its hiding place. I lifted her and set her down on the bed.

“I don’t want to,” she said. “I want to talk and drink some more brandy.”

“Later, sweetheart.”

Maggie slipped off her robe reluctantly. I tried to be passionate, but my kisses were perfunctory, and I was filled with a sense of loss that not even lovemaking could surmount.

When it was over Maggie smiled and kissed my cheek absently, then threw on her robe and went to the kitchen. I could hear her digging around for bottles and glasses. It was my cue. I padded softly into the living room and dressed in the semidarkness.

Maggie came out of the kitchen carrying a tray with a liqueur bottle and shot glasses on it. Her face crashed for an instant when she saw I was leaving, but she recovered quickly, like the veteran she was.

“I have to go, Maggie,” I said. She did not put down the tray, so I leaned over it, bumping it slightly, and brushed my lips against her cheek. “Goodbye, Maggie.” She didn’t answer, just stood there holding the tray.

I walked to my car. The cold air felt good, and dawn was just starting to break.

I knew that this Saturday, February 6, 1951, had been a red-letter day for me. When I got home I wrote in my diary only what I knew: Maggie Cadwallader and Lorna Weinberg. I would not realize until later that this had been the pivotal date of my life.