Росс Макдональд - The Zebra-Striped Hearse

“What does Bill Wilkinson do for a living?”

“Nothing. He must be twenty years younger than Helen is,” he said by way of explanation. “You’d never know it, she’s so beautifully preserved. And Bill has let himself go frightfully. He used to be a Greek god, I mean it.”

“Have you known him long?”

“Years and years. It’s through him I got to know Helen. He married her a couple of years ago, after his folks stopped sending him money. I wouldn’t say he married her for her money, but he married where money is. Tennyson.” Stacy giggled. “It drives him out of his mind when Helen even looks at another man.”

“She looks at other men?”

“I’m afraid she does. She was interested in me at one time.” He flushed with vanity. “Of course I wouldn’t steal another fellow’s wife. Bill knows he can trust me. Bill and I have been buddy-buddy for years.”

“Have you seen him tonight?”

“No, I haven’t. I think he went to a party in Guadalajara. He has some very good connections. His family are very well-known people in Texas.”

“Does he drive a Porsche?”

“If you can call it driving. His driving is one reason he had to leave Texas.”

“I can believe it. He almost ran me down on the road just now.”

“Poor old Bill. Some night he’s going to end up in the ditch with a broken neck. And maybe I’ll marry Helen after all, who knows?” The prospect failed to cheer him. “I need a drink, old chap. Will you have one with me?”

“All right. Drinking seems to be the favorite indoor sport around here.”

He looked at me to see if I was accusing him of being a drunk. I smiled. He gave me a Mexican-type shrug and got a bottle of Bacardi out from under the high end of the couch. He poured some into paper cups from a dispenser that hung on the wall beside the bottled water. I added water to mine.

“ Salud ,” he said. “If you don’t mind my asking, how did you happen to run into Helen Wilkinson?”

“I went to see her.”

“Just like that?”

“I happen to be a private investigator.”

He sat bolt upright. His drink slopped over the rim of the cup. I wondered what old scandal had the power to galvanize him.

“I thought you were a tourist,” he said resentfully.

“I’m a detective, and I came here to investigate a man who calls himself Burke Damis. I think he stayed with you for a night or two.”

“One night,” Stacy said. “So it’s really true about him, after all? I hated to believe it – he’s such a fine-looking chap.”

“You hated to believe what?”

“That he murdered his wife. Isn’t that why you’re after him?”

With the aid of a little rum and water I made a quick adjustment. “These rumors get around. Where did you happen to pick that one up?”

“It was going the rounds, as you say. I think it started when Bill Wilkinson told somebody at The Place that he was going to report Damis as an undesirable alien.” Stacy sounded like a connoisseur of rumors, who collected them as other men collected notable sayings or pictures of women. “The government has been bearing down on undesirables, rounding them up and sending them back across the border. Like wetbacks in reverse.”

“And Wilkinson turned Damis in?”

“I don’t believe he actually did, but he threatened to. Which is probably why Damis got out in a hurry. So he really is one jump ahead of the law?”

“A long jump,” I said. “This rumor interests me. What exactly was said?”

“Simply that Damis – which wasn’t his real name – was wanted for the murder of his wife.”

“How do you know it isn’t his real name?”

“I don’t know anything. It was all part of the rumor. I pestered Bill and Helen for more details, but they refused to talk–”

“They know more details, do they?”

“I would say so.”

“Where did they get them?”

“I’ve asked myself that question many times. I know they made their border trip last May and spent a week or so in California. That’s when the murder occurred, isn’t it? Maybe they read about it in the newspapers. But if they knew all about it, I can’t understand why they would get chummy with the man. The three of them were very buddy-buddy for a while, before Bill turned against him. Helen got too interested in Damis.”

“But Damis had a girl of his own.” Or two. Or three.

He smiled indulgently. “That wouldn’t stop Helen.”

“Do you know the girl he left here with – Harriet Blackwell?”

“I met her once, at a party.”

“Where did Damis meet her?”

“Same party, at Helen Wilkinson’s. Helen told me he asked her to invite her.”

“Damis asked Helen to invite Harriet to the party?”

“That’s what I said.”

“So that he could meet Harriet?”

“Apparently. I only know what I hear.”

The interview was beginning to depress me. Stacy’s eyes had a feeding look, as if he lived on these morsels and scraps of other people’s lives. Perhaps I feared a similar fate for myself.

He poured himself more Bacardi and offered me some. I turned it down, politely. If I wanted to get back to California tomorrow – and now I was determined to – I had some further legwork to do tonight.

“Tell me, Mr. Stacy, is there a taxi in the village?”

“There’s a man who drives people. You’d have a frightful time routing him out at three in the morning. Why?”

“I have to get out to the Wilkinsons, and I don’t feel like walking it again.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“You’re very hospitable.”

“Think nothing of it. This is exciting for me. I’ll take you on one condition, that you don’t tell Bill or Helen I had any part in this. The connection is important to me, you know.”

“Sure.”

He brought his battered Ford around to the entrance and drove me out the lake road. Roosters were crowing in the dark countryside. Stacy parked at the head of the Wilkinsons’ lane and let me go in by myself.

The Wilkinsons were having an argument which was loud enough to penetrate the walls. I stood outside the front door and listened to it.

She called him an alcoholic. He said she couldn’t talk to a Charro like that. She said it took more than a Charro hat to make a Charro , that he was a Charro like she was a member of the DAR.

He called her a sexoholic. She told him if he didn’t watch his lip she’d divorce him and turn him loose to beg in the streets. He announced that she’d be doing him a favor, since marriage to her was uphill work at best.

The argument simmered down after a while, so that I could hear the roosters in the distance, yelling with insane glee in the dead dark middle of the night. I balled up the rest of my energy in my fist and knocked on the door.

Wilkinson answered it this time. He was a big man in his thirties who looked older. His Mexican clothes and haircut made him seem to be metamorphosing under my eyes, changing into something that was strange even to himself. He had alcohol in him, red in the eye, sour on the breath, thick on the tongue.

“I don’t know you. Go ’way.”

“Just give me a minute. I’m a private detective, and I flew down from L. A. to do some checking on Burke Damis. I heard you were a friend of his.”

“You heard wrong. He came sucking around for free drinks. Once I caught onto him, I cut him dead. But dead.”

Wilkinson had a nasty whining drawl. His red eyes glared with something stronger than drink, perhaps a touch of madness.

“What did you catch on to about Damis?”

“He wormed himself into my good graces so he could get next to my wife. I don’t stand for that.”