Sleeping Beauty

chapter 18

Topanga Court, where Martha Mungan lived, was a long step down from the Excalibur Arms. It was a collection of peeling stucco buildings huddled between the Pacific Coast Highway and the eroding cliff. An earth slide leaned against the cliff like sand in the bottom of an hourglass which had almost run out.

I parked in front of the central building. A sign offered family accommodations by the day or week, some with kitchen. A bell jingled over the door when I opened it.

Behind the archway which contained the desk there were television voices in a darkened room. A woman called out:

“Who is that?”

An empty registration card lay on the desk. Mentally I filled it in: Lew Archer, thief catcher, corpse finder, ear to anyone. I said:

“Do you know Joseph Sperling?”

“Joe? You bet I do. How are you, Joe?”

I didn’t answer her. I stood and listened to her slow footsteps as they approached the archway. Her face was closed and blind as she came through, a middle-aged woman wearing a harsh red wig and a kimono spilling colors down her front. She blinked against the light like a nocturnal animal.

“You’re not Joe Sperling. Who are you trying to kid?”

“I didn’t say I was.” I gave her my name. “Joe and I had a little talk this morning.”

“How is Joe, anyway? I haven’t seen him in years.”

“He seems to be all right. But I guess he’s getting older.”

“Aren’t we all?” Her eyes came up to mine, surprisingly bright in her drooping face. “You say you had a talk with Joe. About me?”

“About you and your husband.”

A sluggish ripple of alarm moved across her face, leaving wrinkles behind it. “I don’t have a husband – not any more.” She took a deep sighing breath. “Is Ralph Mungan in some kind of trouble?”

“He may be.”

“I’ve been wondering. He dropped out of sight so completely, it made me wonder if he’s in jail or something.”

“Something,” I said, to keep her interest alive.

A loose and empty smile took over the lower half of her face. She let it talk for her while her experienced eyes studied me. “Would you be a copsie-wopsie by any chancie-wancie?”

“A private one.”

“And you want some info on Ralph?”

I nodded. In the shadow world behind the archway, the daytime television voices were telling their obvious secrets. I’d love you but I have a fractured libido and nobody ever set it. I’d love you back but you resemble my father, who treated me rotten.

“Where is Ralph?”

“I don’t know,” I lied.

“What do you want him for?”

“Nothing very important. At least, I hope it isn’t important.”

She leaned across the counter, resting the burden of her breast on it. “Don’t play games with me, eh? I want to know what it’s all about. And what does Joe Sperling have to do with it?”

“Remember a tweed suit Joe made for Ralph’s birthday one year?”

Her eyes sharpened. “That was a long time ago. What about the suit?”

“It turned up in the ocean this morning.”

“So? It was just an old suit.”

“Have you seen it lately, Mrs. Mungan?”

“I don’t know. After Ralph left, I threw out most of his things. I’ve moved a lot since then.”

“So you don’t know who was wearing it?”

With her fingers clenched on the edge of the counter, she pushed herself upright. Something that looked like a wedding band was sunk in the flesh of the appropriate finger like a deep scar.

“Somebody was wearing it?” she said.

“A little old man with burn marks on his head and face. Do you know him, Mrs. Mungan?”

Her face went blank, as if the impact of my question had knocked all sentience from her head.

“I don’t know who it could be,” she said without force. “Did you say the tweed suit was in the ocean?”

“That’s right. I found it myself.”

“Right off here?” She gestured across the Coast Highway.

“A few miles south of here, off Pacific Point.”

She was silent, while slow thought worked at her face.

“What about the man?” she said finally.

“The man?”

“The little man with the burn marks. The one you were just telling me about.”

“What about him?”

“Is he all right?”

“Why?” I said. “Do you know him?”

“I wouldn’t say I know him. But I may have given him that suit.”

“When?”

“Answer my question first,” she said sharply. “Is he all right?”

“I’m afraid not. He was in the suit when I found it in the water. And he was dead.”

I was watching her face for signs of shock or grief, or possibly remorse. But it seemed empty of feeling. Her eyes were the color of the low city skies under which she had moved a lot.

“How did you happen to give him the suit?” I said.

She was slow in answering. “I don’t remember too well. I do quite a lot of drinking, if you want the truth, and it washes everything out, if you know what I mean. He came to the door one day when I was slightly plastered. He was just an old bum, practically in rags. I wanted to give him something to keep him warm, and that old suit of Ralph Mungan’s was all I had.”

I studied her face, trying to decide among three main possibilities: either she was leveling, or she was one of those natural liars who lied more convincingly than they told the truth, or her story had been carefully prepared.

“He came here, did he, Mrs. Mungan?”

“That’s right. He was standing where you’re standing now.”

“Where did he come from?”

“He didn’t say. I guess he was working his way along the beach. The last I saw of him, he was heading south.”

“How long ago was this?”

“I don’t even remember.”

“You must have some idea, though.”

“A couple of weeks, maybe longer.”

“Did he have a younger man with him? A broad-shouldered man of thirty or so, about my height?”

“I didn’t see any younger man.” But her look was defensive, and her voice had a whine in it. “Why are you asking me all these questions? I was just being a good Samaritan to him. You can’t blame a woman for being a good Samaritan.”

“But you didn’t remember about it at first. You thought you threw the suit out with Ralph Mungan’s other things. And then you remembered that you gave it to the dead man.”

“That’s just the way my mind works. Anyway, he wasn’t dead when I gave it to him.”

“He’s dead now.”

“I know that.”

We faced each other across the counter. Behind her in the darkened room, the shadow voices went on telling the city’s parables: Daddy wasn’t the only one who treated me rotten. I know that, love, and my libido wasn’t my only fractured part.

The woman was long past her prime, her mind leached out by drinking, her body swollen. But I rather liked her. I didn’t think she was capable of murder. No doubt she was capable of covering for it, though, if she had a guilty lover or a son.

I left, intending to pay her another visit.