Росс Макдональд - The Zebra-Striped Hearse

“Chief cook and bottle washer, while he lasted. He didn’t last long.”

“Why not?”

Sholto kicked at one of the sawhorses. “I don’t like to pass it on about a dead man. There was talk around that Ralph took something. I didn’t put much stock in it myself. Ralph may have been a gamblin’ fool, but that don’t make him no thief.”

“He was a gambler?”

“Yeah, he can’t stay away from the tables. It was my belief he gambled away his money and got stuck here and had to take any job he could get. He must of had some reason for hiring himself out for a cook – a young fellow with his brains. Now you tell me he’s dead,” he said with some resentment.

“Did you know him well, Mr. Sholto?”

“We shot the breeze a couple of times when I was doing repair work at the lodge. The kitchen linoleum buckled, and I had to piece it. Ralph Simpson was a likable fellow, full of ideas.”

“What kind of ideas?”

“All kinds. Man in space, the atom bomb, he had an opinion on everything. Reincarnation and the hereafter. He had a great understanding. Also, he had a system to beat the tables, for which he was trying to raise the capital.”

“How?”

“He didn’t say.”

“What is he supposed to have stolen from the Blackwells?”

“I dunno. I never got it straight.”

“Who did you hear it from?”

“Kito. He’s houseboy in one of the other lodges. But you can’t always trust these Orientals.”

“Still I’d like to talk to Kito.”

“He isn’t around any more. The family closed the place up last month and went back to Frisco.”

“Do you know their address in Frisco?”

“I have it written down in the house.”

“Get it for me, will you?”

He went in and came out with a Belvedere address written in childish longhand on the back of an envelope. I transcribed it in my notebook.

“Is there anything else you can tell me about Simpson?”

“I can’t think of anything.”

“Or anyone else who can?”

“Well, he did have a girl friend. It wouldn’t be fair to pass that on to his wife. Matter of fact, he never mentioned a wife. I thought he was a single man.”

“It hardly matters now,” I said, with my ball-point poised over the open notebook. “What’s the girl friend’s name?”

“He called her Fawn. I don’t rightly know her last name. I saw her a couple of times in the clubs with Ralph, and once or twice since.” He added, with a rueful glance at the house: “I don’t go there to gamble. I can’t afford to gamble, with my family. But I like to stand around and watch the excitement.”

“Can you describe the girl?”

“She’s a pretty little thing. She looks something like a real fawn – she has those big brown eyes.”

“What color hair?”

“Light blonde, palomino color.”

That didn’t make it easier. Palomino fillies browsed in herds on the Tahoe shores.

“You say she’s little?”

“Yeah, about five foot two or three.” He held out a hand at shoulder level. “I call that little in a woman.”

“What does she do for a living?”

“I dunno where she works, or if she works. She may not even be here any more. We have a floating population. They drift in and out. I been here for years myself, come here from Porterville when State Line was nothin’ more than a wide place in the road.”

“When did you last see Fawn?”

“A couple weeks ago, I think it was at the Solitaire. She had some older fellow on the string and they were playing the machines, leastways she was. He kept buying silver dollars for her. Yeah, I’m pretty certain it was the Solitaire.”

SHOLTO DEPOSITED ME in front of the club and bumped away in his pickup. The main street of State Line was an unstable blend of small-time frontier settlement and big-time carnival. The lake seemed artificial seen from here: a man-made lake dyed a special shade of blue and surrounded by papier-mâché mountains. In this setting it was hard to believe in death, and life itself was denatured.

I went inside the club, where the late afternoon crowd were enjoying themselves, if gamblers can be said to enjoy themselves. They wheedled cards or dice like sinners praying to heaven for one small mercy. They pulled convulsively at the handles of one-armed bandits, as if the machines were computers that would answer all their questions. Am I getting old? Have I failed? Am I immature? Does she love me? Why does he hate me? Hit me, jackpot, flood me with life and liberty and happiness.

A number of men and a few women were hanging around the bar. I waited my turn with one of the overworked bartenders and asked him where the security officer was.

“I saw Mr. Todd on the floor a minute ago.” He scanned the big room. “There he is, talking to the character in the hat.”

I made my way down one of the aisles of slot machines. Todd was an athletic-looking man in an open-necked shirt. He had iron-grey hair, iron-grey eyes, a face that had been humanized by punishment. The other man, who wore a white Stetson with a rolled brim, was drunk and fat and furious. He had been robbed, the machines were fixed, he’d see the management, invoke his influence with the governor.

With gentle firmness Todd steered him to the front door. I stepped out after Todd, away from the din of the gamblers, and showed him my photostat. He smiled as he handed it back.

“I used to be with the California Highway Patrol. Looking for somebody?”

“Several people.” I gave him full descriptions of Campion and Harriet.

“I don’t believe I’ve seen ’em, at least not together. I can’t be certain. The turnover in this place is something for the book. Sometimes I think it’s the bottleneck where the whole country passes through sooner or later.” His eyes were on the drunk, who was weaving across the street through light traffic.

“Try something easier,” I said. “A girl named Fawn something. She’s a small girl with beautiful brown eyes, I’m told, pale blonde hair. Fawn has been seen in your place.”

Todd said with more interest: “What do you want with her?”

“I have some questions to ask her. She knew a man who was murdered in California.”

“She involved?”

“I have no reason to think so.”

“That’s good. She’s a nice kid.”

“You know her, do you?”

“Sure. She’s in and out. Her last name’s King, I think, if she hasn’t remarried.”

“Has she been in today?”

“Not yet. She probably sleeps in the daytime.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know her that well. She used to work in the beauty parlor down the street. Try there. You’ll see it on the left a couple of blocks from here.”

He pointed west toward California. I went that way, past gambling houses that resembled supermarkets with nothing to sell. The first effects of night were coming on. Though everything was clearly visible, the fronts of the buildings were stark in their nakedness, as if the light had lost its supportive quality.

Marie’s Salon de Paris was closed. I knocked on the glass door. After a while a large woman emerged from a room at the back and minced toward me through the twilit shop.

She turned on a light before she opened the door. Her hair was the color of a spectacular sunset, and she wore it low on her forehead in curled bangs, a dubious advertisement for her trade. Warm air smelling of chemicals and women drifted out past her.

“I’m looking for a woman named Fawn King.”

“You’re not the first. I hope you’ll be the last. Mrs. King doesn’t work here any more.”

“Where can I put my hands on her?”

It was a bad choice of expression. Her pouched eyes went over me coldly, including my hands. I tried again: “I happen to be a detective–”