Black Money

23

Through the door behind me I heard the telephone ring in Sylvester’s outer office. About twenty seconds later the telephone on his desk gave out a subdued echo of the ring. He picked it up and said impatiently: “What is it, Mrs. Loftin?”

The secretary’s voice came to me in stereo, partly through the telephone and partly through the door. It was just loud enough for me to hear what she said: “Virginia Fablon wants to talk to you. She’s in a state. Shall I put her on?”

“Hold it,” Sylvester said. “I’ll come out there.”

He excused himself and went out, shutting the door emphatically behind him. Refusing to take the hint, I followed him into the outer office. He was standing over the secretary’s desk, pressing her telephone to the side of his head like a surgical device which held his face together.

“Where are you?” he was saying. He interrupted himself to bark at me: “Give me some privacy, can’t you?”

“Please step out into the hall,” Mrs. Loftin said. “The doctor is advising an emergency patient.”

“What’s the emergency?”

“I can’t discuss it. Please step outside, won’t you?”

Mrs. Loftin was a large woman with a square determined face. She advanced on me, ready to use physical force.

I retreated into the hallway. She closed the door. I leaned my ear against it and heard Sylvester say: “What makes you think he’s dying?”

Then: “I see.. Yes, I’ll come right away. Don’t panic.”

A few seconds later Sylvester emerged from the office in such a blind rush that he almost knocked me over. He was carrying a medical bag and still wearing his white coat. The prosthetic telephone was no longer holding his face together.

I walked beside him toward the front door of the clinic. “Let me drive you.”

“No.”

“Has Martel been hurt?”

“I prefer not to discuss it. He insists on privacy.”

“I’m private. Let me drive you.”

Sylvester shook his head. But he paused on the terrace above the parking lot and stood blinking in the sun for a moment.

“What’s the matter with him?’ I said.

“He was shot.”

“That puts him in the public domain, and you know it. My car’s over here.”

I took him by the elbow and propelled him toward the curb.

He offered no resistance to me. His movements were slightly mechanical.

I said as I started the car: “Where are they, doctor?”

“In Los Angeles. If you can get onto the San Diego Freeway – they have a house in Brentwood.”

“They have another house?”

“Apparently. I took down the address.”

It was on Sabado Avenue, a tree-lined street of large Spanish houses built some time in the twenties. It was one of those disappearing enclaves where, in a different mood from mine, you could feel the sunlit peace of prewar Los Angeles. Sabado Avenue had a Not a Through Street sign at its entrance.

The house we were looking for was the largest and most elaborate on the long block. Its walled and fountained grounds remind me a little of Forest Lawn. So did the girl who answered the front door. I would hardly have recognized Ginny, she was so drawn around the mouth and swollen around the eyes.

She started to cry again into the front of Sylvester’s white coat. He patted her shuddering back with his free hand.

“Where is he, Virginia?”

“He went away. I had to go next door to phone you. Our phone isn’t connected yet.”

Her sentences were broken up by hiccuping sobs. “He took the car and drove away.”

“How long ago?”

“I don’t know. I’ve lost track of time. It was right after I phoned you.”

“That makes it less than an hour,” I said. “Is your husband badly hurt?”

She nodded, still clinging to Sylvester. “I’m afraid he’s bleeding internally. He was shot in the stomach.”

“When?”

“An hour or so ago. I don’t know exactly what time. The people who rented the house to us didn’t leave any clocks. I was taking a siesta – we were up most of the night – and somebody rang the doorbell. My husband answered it. I heard the shot, and I ran down here and found him sitting on the floor.”

She looked down at her feet. Around them on the parquetry were rusty spots that looked like drying blood.

“Did you see who fired the shot?”

“I didn’t actually see him. I heard the car drive away. My husband–” She kept repeating the phrase as if it might help him and her marriage to survive.

Sylvester broke in: “We can’t keep her standing here while we cross-question her. One of us ought to call the police.”

“You should have called them before you left your office.”

Ginny seemed to think I was blaming her. “My husband wouldn’t let me. He said it would mean the end of everything.”

Her heavy look swung from side to side, as if the end of everything was upon her.

Sylvester quieted her against his shoulder. Slowly and gently he walked her into the house. I went next door. A stout executive type in a black alpaca sweater was standing outside on his front lawn, looking helpless and resentful. He owned a house on Sabado Avenue, and this was supposed to guarantee a quiet life.

“What do you want?”

“The use of your phone. There’s been a shooting.”

“Is that what the noise was?”

“You heard the gun?”

“I thought it was a backfire at the time.”

“Did you see the car?”

“I saw a black Rolls drive away. Or maybe it was a Bentley. But that was some time later.”

This wasn’t much help. I asked him to show me a telephone. He took me in through the back door to the kitchen. It was one of those space age kitchens, all gleaming metal and control panels, ready to go into lunar orbit. The man handed me a telephone and left the room, as if to avoid finding out something that might disturb him.

Within a few minutes a squad car arrived, followed closely by a Homicide Captain named Perlberg. Not long after that we located Martel’s Bentley. It hadn’t gone far.

Its gleaming nose was jammed against the metal safety barrier at the dead end of Sabado Avenue. Beyond the barrier the loose ground sloped away to the edge of a bluff which overlooked the Pacific.

The Bentley’s engine was still running. Martel’s chin rested on the steering wheel. The dead eyes in his yellow face were peering out into the blue ocean of air.

Perlberg and I knew each other, and I gave him a quick rundown on the case. He and his men made a search for Martel’s hundred thousand, but found no trace of it in the car or at the house. The gunman who took Martel had taken the money too.

Ginny was in slightly better shape by this time, and Sylvester gave Perlberg permission to question her briefly. He and I sat in the living room with them, and monitored the interview. Ginny and Martel had been married by a judge in Beverley Hills the previous Saturday. The same day he had rented this house, completely furnished, through an agent. She didn’t know who the legal owner was.

No, she didn’t know who had shot her husband. She had been asleep when it happened. It was all over when she came downstairs.

“But your husband was still alive,” Perlberg said. “What did he say?”

“Nothing.”

“He must have said something.”

“Just that I wasn’t to call anyone,” she said. “He said he wasn’t badly hurt. I didn’t realize he was until later.”

“How much later?”

“I don’t know. I was so upset, and we have no clocks. I sat and watched the life draining out of his face. He wouldn’t speak to me. He seemed to be profoundly humiliated. When I finally realized how badly off he was, I went next door and called Dr. Sylvester.”

She nodded toward the doctor who was sitting near her.

“Why didn’t you call a local doctor?”

“I didn’t know any.”

“Why didn’t you call us?”

“I was afraid to. My husband said it would be the end of him.”

“What did he mean by that?”

“I don’t know, but I was afraid. When I finally did make a call, he went away.”

She covered her face with her hands. Sylvester persuaded the Captain to cut the questioning short. Perlberg’s men took pictures, and shavings of the blood-spotted parquetry, and left us alone with Ginny in the big echoing house.

She said she wanted to go home to her mother. Sylvester told her that her mother was dead. She didn’t seem to take it in.

I volunteered to get some of her things together. While Sylvester stayed with her in the living room, I went up to the master bedroom on the second floor. The bed, which was its central feature, was circular, about nine feet in diameter. I was beginning to see a good many of these king-sized beds, like hopeful altars to old gods. The bed had been left unmade, and the tangled sheets suggested lovemaking.

The suitcases were on the floor of the closet under a row of empty hangers. They had been left unpacked except for a few overnight things: Ginny’s nightgown and hairbrush and toothbrush and cosmetics, Martel’s pajamas and safety razor. I went through his suitcases quickly. Most of his clothes were new and of fine quality, some with Bond Street labels. Apart from a book by Descartes, Méditations, in French, I could find nothing personal, and even this book had no name on the flyleaf.

Later, as we drove through the endless suburbs to Montevista, I asked Ginny if she knew who her husband was. Sylvester had given her a sedative, and she rode between us with her head on his extended arm. The shock of Martel’s death had pushed her back toward childishness. Her voice sounded just a little like a sleep-talker’s: “He’s Francis Martel, from Paris. You know that.”

“I thought I did, Ginny. But just today another name came up. Feliz Cervantes.”

“I never heard of any such person.”

“You met him, or at least he met you, at a Cercle Français meeting at Professor Tapping’s house.”

“When? I’ve been to dozens of Cercle Français meetings.”

“This one was seven years ago, in September. Francis Martel was there under the name Cervantes. Mrs. Tappinger identified a photograph of him.”

“Can I see the photograph?”

I moved over into the slow lane and worked the picture out of my jacket pocket. She took it from me. Then for some time she was silent. The afternoon traffic fled by us on the left. The drivers looked apprehensive, as if they had been kidnapped by their cars.

“Is this really Francis standing by the wall?”

“I’m almost certain that it is. Didn’t you know him in those days?”

“No. Was I supposed to have?”

“He knew you. He told his landlady that he was going to get rich some day and come back and marry you.”

“But that’s ridiculous.”

“Not so very. It happened.”

Sylvester, who had been quiet until now, growled something at me about shutting up.

Ginny hung her head in thought over the picture. “If this is Francis, what’s he doing with Mr. and Mrs. Ketchel?”

“You know the Ketchels?”

“I met them once.”

“When?”

“September seven years ago. My father took me to lunch with them. It was just before he died.”

Sylvester scowled across her at me. “This is enough of this, Archer. It’s no time to poke around in explosive material.”

“It’s the only time I have.”

I said to the girl: “Do you mind talking to me about these things?”

“Not if it will help.”

She managed a wan smile.

“Okay. What happened at this lunch with the Ketchels?”

“Nothing, really. We had something to eat in the patio of his cottage. I tried to make conversation with Mrs. Ketchel. She was a local girl, she said, but that was the only thing we had in common. She hated me.”

“Why?”

“Because Mr. Ketchel liked me. He wanted to do things for me, help me with my education and so on.”

Her voice was toneless.

“Did your father know about this?”

“Yes. It was the purpose of the lunch. Roy was very naive about exploiting people. He thought he could use a man like Mr. Ketchel without being used.”

“Use him for what?” I said.

“Roy owed him money. Roy was a nice man, but by that time he owed everybody money. I couldn’t help him. It wouldn’t have done any good to go along with Mr. Ketchel’s plan. Mr. Ketchel is the kind of man who takes everything and gives nothing. I told Roy that.”

“Just what was the plan?”

“It was rather vague, but Mr. Ketchel offered to send me to school in Europe.”

“And your father went for this?”

“Not really. He just wanted me to butter up Mr. Ketchel a little bit. But Mr. Ketchel wanted everything. Men get that way when they’re afraid they’re dying.”

The girl surprised me. I reminded myself that she wasn’t a girl, but a woman with a brief tragic marriage already behind her. And what sounded like a long tragic childhood. Her voice had changed perceptibly, almost as though she had skipped from youth to middle age, when she began to call her father “Roy.”

“How often did you see Ketchel?”

“I talked to him just the once. He had noticed meat the club.”

“You say the lunch with him occurred shortly before your father died. Do you mean the same week?”

“The same day,” she said. “It was the last day I ever saw Roy alive. Mother sent me to look for him that night.”

“Where?”

“Down at the beach, and at the club. Peter Jamieson was with me a part of the time. He went to the Ketchel’s cottage – I didn’t want to – but they weren’t there. At least they didn’t answer.”

“Do you think Ketchel and your father quarreled over you?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible.”

She went on in the same flat voice: “I wish I had been born without a nose, or only one eye.”

I didn’t have to ask Ginny what she meant. I had known a number of girls for whom men insisted on doing things.

“Did Ketchel murder your father, Ginny?”

“I don’t know. Mother thought so, at the time.”

Sylvester groaned. “I don’t see the point in raking it over.”

“The point is that it’s connected with the present situation, doctor. You don’t want to see the connection because you’re part of the chain of cause and effect.”

“Do we have to go into that again?”

“Please.”

Ginny screwed up her face and rolled her head from side to side. “Please don’t argue across me. They always used to argue across me.”

We both said we were sorry. After a while she asked me in a soft voice: “Do you think Mr. Ketchel killed my husband?”

“He’s the leading suspect. I don’t think he’d do it personally. He’d more likely use a hired gunman.”

“But why?”

“I can’t go into all the circumstances. Seven years ago your husband left Montevista with Ketchel. Apparently Ketchel sent him to school in France.”

“As a substitute for me?”

“That hardly seems likely. But I’m sure Ketchel had his uses for your husband.”

She was offended. “Francis wasn’t like that at all.”

“I don’t mean sex. I believe he used Francis in his business.”

“What business?”

“He’s a big-time gambling operator. Didn’t Francis ever mention Ketchel?”

“No. He never did.”

“Or Leo Spillman, which was Ketchel’s real name?”

“No.”

“What did you and Francis talk about, Ginny?”

“Poetry and philosophy, mostly. I had so much to learn from Francis.”

“Never real things?”

She said in her anguished voice: “Why do real things always have to be ugly and horrible?”

She was feeling the pain now, I thought, the cruel pain of coming home widowed after a three-day marriage.

It was time to leave the freeway. I could see Montevista in the distance: its trees were like a green forest on the horizon. The access road straightened out toward the sea.

My mind was on Francis Martel, or whoever he was. He had driven his Bentley down this road a couple of months ago, on the track of a seven-year dream. The energy that had conceived the dream, and forced it briefly into reality, had all run out now. Even the girl beside me was lax as a doll, as if a part of her had died with the dreamer. She didn’t speak again until we reached her mother’s house.

The front door was locked. Ginny turned from it with a rejected air. “It’s her bridge day. I should have remembered.”

She found the key in her bag, and opened the door. “You don’t mind bringing my suitcases in? I’m feeling a little weak.”

“You have reason to,” Sylvester said.

“Actually, I’m relieved that Mother isn’t here. What could I say to her?”

Sylvester and I looked at each other. I got the suitcases out of the trunk of my car and carried them into the front hall. Ginny said from the sitting room: “What happened to the phone?”

“There was trouble here last night.”

She leaned in the doorway. “Trouble?”

Sylvester went to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry I have to tell you this, Ginny. Your mother was shot last night.”

She slipped from his hands onto the floor. Her skin was gray and her eyes indigo, but she didn’t faint. She sat with her back against the wall.

“Is Marietta dead?”

“I’m afraid she is, Ginny.”

I squatted beside her. “Do you know who shot your mother?”

She shook her head so hard that her hair fell like a blonde screen across her face.

“Your mother was deeply upset last night. Was something said to her, by you or Martel?”

“We said goodbye.”

She gasped over the finality of the word. “That was about all, except that she didn’t want me to go. She said she’d get money some other way.”

“What did she mean?”

“That I had married Francis for his money, I suppose. She didn’t understand.”

I said: “She told me before she died that lover-boy shot her. Who would lover-boy be?”

“Francis, maybe. But he was with me all the time.”

Her head fell against the wall with a thud. “I don’t know what she could have meant.”

“Lay off her,” Sylvester said. “I’m speaking as a friend and as a doctor.”

He was right. I felt like a tormenting devil squatting beside her. I got to my feet and helped Ginny to hers. “She ought to have protection. Will you stay with her, doctor?”

“I can’t possibly. I must have a dozen patients stacked up waiting for me.”

He glanced at his wristwatch. “Why don’t you stay with her yourself? I can call a cab.”

“I have things to do in town.”

I turned to Ginny: “Could you stand having Peter around?”

“I guess so,” she said with her head down, “so long as I don’t have to talk any more to anyone.”

I found Peter at home and explained the circumstances. He said he knew how to use a gun – trapshooting was one of his sports – and he’d be glad to stand guard.

He loaded a shotgun and brought it along, carrying it with a slightly military air. The news of Martel’s death seemed to have lifted his spirits.

Ginny greeted him quietly in the hall. “This is nice of you, Peter. But we won’t talk about anything. Okay?”

“Okay. I’m sorry, though.”

They shook hands like brother and sister. But I saw his eyes take possession of her injured beauty. It came to me with a jolt that for Peter the case had just ended. I left before he realized it himself.