Rose's Last Summer [= The Lively Corpse]

24

It was a deal.

Seven-thirty, and outside the window in Greer’s office hung the sea haze that preceded darkness. He pressed the wall switch and the fluorescent ceiling lights flickered on, giving Willett’s skin a moist, greenish phosphorescence.

“Sit down,” Greer said. “Finish your talk with Miss Dalloway?”

“Yes. Yes, I did.” Willett sat down, first looking carefully at the chair as if he thought Frank or Greer might pull it out from under him. “A very satisfactory talk, as a matter of fact. Certain doubtful points were cleared up.”

“Indeed?”

“I was rather hasty in judging Miss Dalloway, I’m afraid. After giving the matter some thought I’m convinced that her part in this affair was the result of a mere girlish impulse.”

“Going after three thousand dollars tooth and nail is a little more than an impulse and Miss Dalloway is a little more than a girl.”

“I don’t propose to argue,” Willett said with a decisive shake of his head. “Miss Dalloway has explained everything to me and offered to make full restitution. Under the circumstances I refuse to prosecute or sign any complaint against her.”

“I see.”

“Furthermore, I refuse to appear in court as a witness against her.”

“And Mrs. Goodfield?”

“My wife will also refuse when I explain the situation.”

“What is the situation?”

“Miss Dalloway acted on impulse and is willing to repay the money.”

“She hasn’t got the money.” Greer smiled. “I have.”

“That’s merely a technicality. It’s not your money, it’s mine.”

“You may have to go to court to prove it, Mr. Goodfield.”

“That’s ridiculous, you know it’s my money.”

“How do I know? I got it from Dalloway.”

“It’s mine,” Willett repeated like a child. “It’s my money.”

“Would you be willing to tell a judge or jury just how you’re so sure that it’s yours?”

“I... no. No. It’s a private matter between Miss Dalloway and me.”

Greer didn’t argue the point. “So you’re convinced that Miss Dalloway should be let off and any charges against her dismissed?”

“What are the charges against her?”

“So far, none. I merely held her for questioning.”

“You’ve questioned her?”

“Yes.”

“Then she may leave?” Willett said. “You’re letting her go?”

“Sure. She can go.”

“Well, well, I must say that’s very decent of you, Captain, very civilized.”

“I’m as civilized as hell,” Greer said.

“Dear me, I’m quite overwhelmed. I didn’t expect such immediate cooperation.”

“I am also as immediate and cooperative as hell.”

“Ha, ha,” Willett said painfully. “I must tell that to Ethel. I... you’re not just fooling about releasing Miss Dalloway?”

“I’m not fooling, no, indeed. Of course, I’d like her to stay around town.”

“Oh, she will. Right at my house.”

“Good. I’ll go and tell Daley to get her things out of the safe.” He left the room, closing the door behind him.

Willett glanced rather timidly at Frank. “He’s rather a decent chap for a policeman.”

“Yes.”

“His taking such a reasonable attitude was quite a surprise to me.”

To me, too, Frank thought.

“You don’t suppose he’s got something up his sleeve?”

“Oh no, not at all.”

Willett was silent for a time. Then he said in a resigned voice, “I’m sure things will work out somehow.”

“What things?”

“Oh, everything. Life is very difficult, problems leaping out at you from all sides. Take a man, an ordinary chap like myself, nothing special about him one way or another, what’s he going to do when he finds himself in a spot?”

“Try to get out of it.”

“Exactly. He must act. He must take the aggressive role. Within the law, naturally.”

“Naturally.”

“Even if some of the laws aren’t fair.”

“Which laws, for instance?”

Willett looked stubborn. “Never you mind.”

At the switchboard in the receiving room Greer was talking to Daley. “Where’s his car?”

“Half a block down on Garden Street, facing north, ’47 Lincoln, black sedan, plates 62X895.”

“Two tails should be enough. Goodfield’s not very bright and the woman is cocksure. I’ll drive my own car and Shaeffer can use that souped-up jalopy of his. Right?”

“Check.”

“Okay, hand over her stuff. I’ll take it to her. Oh yes, and tell Clyde he can come along for the ride.”

“Why?”

“I like to have a psychiatrist around. Then if I go nuts, I’ll be the first to know.”

“I should never have asked.”

“Next time, don’t,” Greer said. He had a better reason for wanting Frank to come along, but he didn’t tell Daley or even Frank himself.

Lora Dalloway was waiting to be released, her hands curled around the bars of the cell, her face peering out expectantly like a monkey’s. At some point in the past hour she had decided to switch roles, from the hard-boiled sophisticate to the sweet and wistful country girl.

Greer unlocked the door and swung it open. “All right, you can leave.”

“You mean I’m free?”

“Like a bird.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. Gee, I just can’t thank—”

“Play it straight,” Greer said. “Here’s your stuff, wallet, key ring, wristwatch, and three dollars and eighty-seven cents in cash. Sign this receipt, please.”

“What name shall I sign?”

“How about Eleanor Roosevelt’s, just to make it more interesting?”

“You know damned well what I meant. I’ve been going under the name of Ada Murphy so I thought—”

“Sign your own name.”

“You don’t have to be so grumpy about it.” She signed the receipt, Lora Eloise Frances Dalloway, and handed it back to him. “Now what?”

“You can go through that door to my office where the faithful Willett awaits you.”

“It sounds too easy. What’s the catch?”

“No catch. I’d just like to know where you’re going, so I can get in touch with you if necessary.”

“I’m going home — that is, to the Goodfields’.”

“To resume your job?”

“That’s right.”

“Very magnanimous of Goodfield to take back a woman who just rooked him of three G’s.”

“He knows I didn’t mean it. It was an impulse.”

“A girlish impulse, in fact.”

“In fact, yes.”

“You’d better watch both the impulsiveness and the girlishness, Miss Dalloway. Neither is very becoming at your age.”

“Your cracks don’t bother me.” She went into his office, slamming the door behind her so violently that the walls shook.

Greer left by the side entrance. His car was parked about twenty yards behind the black Lincoln with the engine running and Frank in the front seat looking a little worried.

“Listen, Jim. It’s nearly eight o’clock.”

“I know it.” Greer got in behind the wheel. “So?”

“Miriam expected me home an hour ago.”

“Miriam’s a nice girl. How is she, by the way?”

“You asked me that before.”

“I did? Well, it just goes to show how my thoughts dwell with her. A very fine girl, Miriam, admirable.”

“Cut it out, will you?” Frank said. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must have some idea.”

“What are you so concerned about? For a solid week you’ve been horning in on this case, hanging around, getting in my hair. Now when the time comes for you to make yourself useful, you want to back out because you’re afraid you’ll catch hell from your wife.”

“How am I making myself useful?”

“You’ll see,” Greer said. “Here they come now.”

Lora and Willett came down the front steps of the building, Lora walking briskly and a little ahead of Willett like an older sister impatient with the slowness of her little brother. At the curb she paused to wait for him and the two of them stood silhouetted by the headlights of an approaching car. The car passed and they crossed the road and got into the black Lincoln.

It was obvious from the beginning that neither of them expected to be followed. The Lincoln went directly to its destination, a dilapidated two-story building on Third Street with a green neon sign across the entrance which said tersely, Food. Inside, a fat Mexican was sleeping at the counter, his right hand still holding a half-empty beer bottle.

Willett parked at a yellow curb and Lora Dalloway got out and walked swiftly around the side of the building and up an open flight of stairs that led to a narrow balcony circling the second story.

“Part of the place is the old Pico adobe,” Greer said. “The top was added later, converted into studios that are rented out to artists.”

“What kind of artists?”

“All kinds, mostly bad.”

Lora paused at one of the arched doors on the balcony and pounded on it with both fists. The door opened inward and a woman stood outlined in the lighted arch, an enormous woman with clipped grey hair. She wore green plaid slacks and a white turtleneck sweater and she had a cigarette tucked behind her left ear.

Lora went inside and the door closed, but not for long. Within a minute she came out again and hurried along the balcony and down the steps. Before she got into the Lincoln she looked carefully up and down the street as if it had occurred to her for the first time that someone might be following her. Her eyes slid past Greer’s car without hesitating.

“Think she spotted us?” Frank asked.

“If she did, she covered it up nicely.” The Lincoln pulled away from the curb and Greer followed. “Did you recognize the woman in the green plaid slacks?”

“I’ve seen her around.”

“Name’s Billy McKeon. Between gin bouts she makes puppets and paints scenery for the various little theatre groups.”

“What possible connection could she have with Mrs. Goodfield?”

“I’m hoping Lora Dalloway will tell us that.”

At the next stop light Willett braked the Lincoln, made a careful hand signal and turned right onto Anacapa Street.

Greer leaned back, relaxed and smiling.

“For cripe’s sake,” Lora said. “Can’t we go any faster?”

“I don’t like to drive fast. Besides, it’s against the law.”

“Against the law. You kill me, you really kill me.”

“I’d like to.” Willett made the statement without emotion of any kind. “I’d like to see you dead.”

“Don’t get nasty. I might get nasty right back at you, and then you’d never find her.”

“I don’t expect to anyway.”

“We’ll find her.”

“She could be five hundred miles away by this time.”

“Well, she isn’t,” Lora said crisply. “Billy McKeon saw her this morning.”

In the dim light of the dashboard Willett’s face had a luminous pallor. “Is she — was she all right?”

“Alive and kicking.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Certainly she was all right. She bummed some food and a package of cigarettes. She wanted to stay there but Billy wouldn’t let her. She’s superstitious.”

“Can the McKeon woman be trusted?”

“Trusted to do what?”

“Not to call the police.”

“Billy wouldn’t call the police if someone had a knife at her throat. Turn left at the next corner.”

Once again Willett made a careful signal before turning. “Didn’t she tell this McKeon woman anything, where she was going, when she’d be back?”

“Nothing.”

“Did she have any money with her?”

“Where would she get any money?”

“From you.”

“I didn’t give her any money.”

“Thank God for that. It means she can’t be very far away.”

“I told you I don’t think she intended to go far. She just wanted to throw a scare into us. And,” Lora added with a bleak little smile, “she did.”

“I’m not exactly scared.”

“You exactly are. Don’t kid me. You won’t look any better in stripes than I will.”

“It’s all your fault, not mine.”

“My fault. Listen, mister, don’t make me lose my temper. Stick to the facts. I just came into the middle of a very fancy little game you’d rigged up by yourself.”

“I didn’t, I didn’t. It was her. She did it!”

“Well, don’t get hysterical. And for Pete’s sake watch the road, do you want to get us killed?”

“I don’t care. It may be the only way out.”

“Well, it’s not the only way out for me!” Lora screamed. “I’ve got a future.”

“Have you?”

“What do you mean, have I?”

“You didn’t think so much of your future when you were buying that ether.”

“I had a fit of depression, that’s all. I couldn’t see my way clear.”

“Now you can?”

“With your help, I can. I need your help and you need mine. We’re a sort of mutual aid society.”

Willett took his eyes off the road for a second and stared at her. “How much are you going to try and swindle out of me?”

“I want the money you promised my mother plus a little extra for myself.”

“I never promised your mother any lump sum. I couldn’t afford to then and I can’t now. That three thousand dollars was the last cash I have in the world. I’m at the end of my rope.”

“You’ve got the kind of rope that stretches.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said carefully, “your stock in the doll factory.”

“That must never be touched. I’ll go to prison, I’ll kill myself, before I disregard my mother’s wishes.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re sacred to me.”

“Oh nuts.”

Willett’s jaw clenched. “They are. You wouldn’t understand about human feelings.”

“Forget about feelings and let’s get back to factories. Ethel says you’re not even interested in the doll factory, and what’s more she says it’s losing money and the place is falling apart.”

“Ethel knows nothing about business. The factory is not losing money and it’s not falling apart. It simply needs recapitalization and a firm hand.”

“Yours?”

“I’m certainly going to try. I’ve had very little chance to take care of the business this past year because I’ve been traveling around with Mother.”

“Maybe that was her idea.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. Skip it.”

They were passing through the oldest section of town where front parlors had become little grocery stores or antique shops, and bright new gas stations rubbed shoulders with shabby-looking mansions that had been converted into boarding houses or two-room apartments.

Traffic was heavy and sluggish, slowed down by pedestrians ambling across the streets and children on bicycles and dogs of every size and shape and breed and mixture of breeds. These dogs were different from the dogs in the other parts of town — they had seen everything, and having seen everything, they were not so curious or so friendly. They moved in and out of traffic, skillfully, knowing which cars to step in front of and which to avoid, using their right of way with more insight and consideration than the pedestrians. Lora turned and looked out of the rear window. “Greer is still with us, six cars back.”

“What will we do?”

“I know this neighborhood. There’s a Texaco station in the next block. Drive in very slowly and I’ll duck out and hide in the restroom. Then you can lead Greer around for awhile while I walk over to the house. It’s only half a block from the gas station.”

“I can’t lead him around all night.”

“Give me half an hour.”

“You don’t even know for sure that she’s at the house.”

“Where else would she go if she was broke? She’ll be there, all right,” Lora said grimly. “She’d better be.”

“I can’t drive around all night,” he said again.

“You don’t have to. Just go home. That will give me a chance to talk to her. Then if things work out we’ll take a cab and meet you at home.”

“I hope—”

“Here’s the station. Turn in.”

He turned in, very slowly, passing within two yards of the ladies’ restroom. Lora jumped out of the car while it was moving.

She was quick, but not quick enough.

Both Frank and Greer spotted her in the three seconds that it took her to reach the door. But instead of stopping the car and waiting for her to come out Greer pressed on the accelerator.

“Aren’t you going to follow her?” Frank said.

“I don’t have to. I know where she’s going. So I think we’ll get there first and surprise her.”

Half a block down the street Greer turned into a long narrow driveway, drove to the end of it, and switched off his car lights.

Within five minutes Lora Dalloway went past the driveway and up the geranium-lined sidewalk of the house next door.