The Barbarous Coast

Chapter 2

I LEFT my car on the asphalt parking-lot in front of the main building. A Christmas tree painted brilliant red hung upside-down over the entrance. It was a flat-roofed structure of fieldstone and wood. Its Neutraesque low lines and simplicity of design kept me from seeing how big it was until I was inside. Through the inner glass door of the vestibule I could see the fifty-yard swimming-pool contained in its U-shaped wings. The ocean end opened on bright blue space.

The door was locked. The only human being in sight was a black boy bisected by narrow white trunks. He was sweeping the floor of the pool with a long-handled underwater vacuum. I tapped on the door with a coin.

After a while he heard me and came trotting. His dark, intelligent eyes surveying me through the glass seemed to divide the world into two groups: the rich, and the not so rich. I qualified for the second group, it seemed. He said when he opened the door: “If you’re selling, mister, the timing could be better. This is the off-season, anyway, and Mr. Bassett’s in a rotten mood. He just got through chopping me out. It isn’t my fault they threw the tropical fish in the swimming-pool.”

“Who did?”

“The people last night. The chlorine water killed them, poor little beggars, so I got to suck them out.”

“The people?”

“The tropical fish. They scooped ’em out of the aquarium and chunked ’em in the pool. People go out on a party and get drunk, they forget all the ordinary decencies of life. So Mr. Bassett takes it out on me.”

“Don’t hold it against him. My clients are always in a rotten mood when they call me in.”

“You an undertaker or something?”

“Something.”

“I just wondered.” A white smile lit his face. “I got an aunt in the undertaking business. I can’t see it myself. Too creepy. But she enjoys it.”

“Good. Is Bassett the owner here?”

“Naw, just the manager. The way he talks, you’d think he owns it, but it belongs to the members.”

I followed his wedge-shaped lifeguard’s back along the gallery, through shifting green lights reflected from the pool. He knocked on a gray door with a MANAGER sign. A high voice answered the knock. It creaked along my spine like chalk on a damp blackboard: “Who is it, please?”

“Archer,” I said to the lifeguard.

“Mr. Archer to see you, sir.”

“Very well. One moment.”

The lifeguard winked at me and trotted away, his feet slapping the tiles. The lock snicked, and the door was opened slightly. A face appeared in the crack, just below the level of my own. Its eyes were pale and set too wide apart; they bulged a little like the eyes of a fish. The thin, spinsterly mouth emitted a sigh: “I am glad to see you. Do come in.”

He relocked the door behind me and waved me to a chair in front of his desk. The gesture was exaggerated by nerves. He sat down at the desk, opened a pigskin pouch, and began to stuff a big-pot briar with dark flakes of English tobacco. This and his Harris tweed jacket, his Oxford slacks, his thick-soled brown brogues, his Eastern-seaboard accent, were all of a piece. In spite of the neat dye job on his brown hair, and the unnatural youth which high color lent his face, I placed his age close to sixty.

I looked around the office. It was windowless, lit by hidden fluorescence and ventilated by an air-conditioning system. The furniture was dark and heavy. The walls were hung with photographs of yachts under full sail, divers in the air, tennis-players congratulating each other with forced smiles on their faces. There were several books on the desk, held upright between elephant bookends made of polished black stone.

Bassett applied a jet lighter to his pipe and laid down a blue smoke screen, through which he said: “I understand, Mr. Archer, that you’re a qualified bodyguard.”

“I suppose I’m qualified. I don’t often take on that kind of work.”

“But I understood– Why not?”

“It means living at close quarters with some of the damnedest jerks. They usually want a bodyguard because they can’t get anybody to talk to them. Or else they have delusions.”

He smiled crookedly. “I can hardly take that as a compliment. Or perhaps I wasn’t intended to?”

“You’re in the market for a bodyguard?”

“I hardly know.” He added carefully: “Until the situation shapes up more clearly, I really can’t say what I need. Or why.”

“Who gave you my name?”

“One of our members mentioned you to me some time ago. Joshua Severn, the television producer. You’ll be interested to know that he considers you quite a fireball.”

“Uh-huh.” The trouble with flattery was that people expected to be paid for it in kind. “Why do you need a detective, Mr. Bassett?”

“I’ll tell you. A certain young chap has threatened my – threatened my safety. You should have heard him on the telephone.”

“You’ve talked to him?”

“Just for a minute, last night. I was in the midst of a party – our annual post-Christmas party – and he called from Los Angeles. He said he was going to come over here and assault me unless I gave him certain information. It jarred me frightfully.”

“What kind of information?”

“Information which I simply don’t possess. I believe he’s outside now, lying in wait for me. The party didn’t break up until very late and I spent the night here, what remained of it. This morning the gateman telephoned down that he had a young man there who wished to see me. I told him to keep the fellow out. Shortly after that, when I’d gathered my wits together, I telephoned you.”

“And what do you want me to do, exactly?”

“Get rid of him. You must have ways and means. I don’t want any violence, of course, unless it should prove to be absolutely necessary.” His eyes gleamed palely between new strata of smoke. “It may be necessary. Do you have a gun?”

“In my car. It’s not for hire.”

“Of course not. You misinterpret my meaning, old boy. Perhaps I didn’t express myself quite clearly. I yield to no man in my abhorrence of violence. I merely meant that you might have use for a pistol as an – ah – instrument of persuasion. Couldn’t you simply escort him to the station, or the airfield, and put him aboard a plane?”

“No.” I stood up.

He followed me to the door and took hold of my arm. I disliked the coziness, and shook him off.

“Look here, Archer, I’m not a wealthy man, but I do have some savings. I’m willing to pay you three hundred dollars to dispose of this fellow for me.”

“Dispose of him?”

“Without violence, of course.”

“Sorry, no sale.”

“Five hundred dollars.”

“It can’t be done. What you want me to do is merely kidnapping under California law.”

“Good Lord, I didn’t mean that.” He was genuinely shocked.

“Think about it. For a man in your position, you’re pretty dim about law. Let the police take care of him, why don’t you? You say he threatened you.”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, he mentioned horse-whipping. But you can’t go to the police with that sort of thing.”

“Sure you can.”

“Not I. It’s so ridiculously old-fashioned. I’d be the laughingstock of the entire Southland. You don’t seem to grasp the personal aspects, old boy. I’m manager and secretary of a very, very exclusive club. The finest people on the coast confide their children, their young daughters, to my trust. I have to be clear of any breath of scandal – Calpurnia, you know.”

“Where does the scandal come in?”

Calpurnia took his pipe out of his mouth and blew a wobbly smoke-ring. “I’d hoped to avoid going into it. I certainly didn’t expect to be cross-questioned on the subject. However. Something has to be done before the situation deteriorates irreparably.”

His choice of words annoyed me, and I let the annoyance show. He gave me an appealing look, which fell with a thud between us: “Can I trust you, really trust you?”

“So long as it’s legal.”

“Oh, heavens, it’s legal. I am in a bit of a jam, though, through no fault of my own. It’s not what I’ve done, but what people might think I’ve done. You see, there’s a woman involved.”

“George Wall’s wife?”

His face came apart at the seams. He tried to put it together again around the fixed point of the pipe, which he jammed into his mouth. But he couldn’t control the grimace tugging like hooks at the end of his lips.

“You know her? Does everybody know?”

“Everybody soon will if George Wall keeps hanging around. I ran into him on my way in–”

“Good God, he is on the grounds, then.”

Bassett crossed the room in awkward flight. He opened a drawer of his desk and took out a medium-caliber automatic.

“Put that thing away,” I said. “If you’re worried about your reputation, gunfire can really blow it to hell. Wall was outside the gate, trying to get in. He didn’t make it. He did give me a message for you: he won’t leave until you see him. Over.”

“Damn it, man, why didn’t you say so? Here we’ve been wasting time.”

“You have.”

“All right. We won’t quarrel. We’ve got to get him away from here before any members come.”

He glanced at the chronometer strapped to his right wrist, and accidentally pointed the automatic at me.

“Put the gun down, Bassett. You’re too upset to be handling a gun.”

He laid it on the embossed blotter in front of him and gave me a shamefaced smile. “Sorry. I am a bit nervy. I’m not accustomed to these alarums and excursions.”

“What’s all the excitement about?”

“Young Wall seems to have some melodramatic notion that I stole his wife from him.”

“Did you?”

“Don’t be absurd. The girl is young enough to be my daughter.” His eyes were wet with embarrassment. “My relations with her have always been perfectly proper.”

“You do know her, then?”

“Of course. I’ve known her for years – much longer than George Wall has. She’s been using the pool for diving practice ever since she was in her teens. She’s not far out of her teens now, as a matter of fact. She can’t be more than twenty-one or two.”

“Who is she?”

“Hester Campbell, the diver. You may have heard of her. She came close to winning the national championship a couple of years ago. Then she dropped out of sight. Her family moved away from here and she gave up amateur competition. I had no idea that she was married, until she turned up here again.”

“When was this?”

“Five or six months ago. Six months ago, in June. She seemed to have had quite a bad time of it. She’d toured with an aquacade for a while, lost her job and been stranded in Toronto. Met this young Canadian sportswriter and married him in desperation. Apparently the marriage didn’t work out. She left him after less than a year together, and came back here. She was on her uppers, and rather beaten, spiritually. Naturally I did what I could for her. I persuaded the board to let her use the pool for diving instruction, on a commission basis. She did rather well at that while the summer season lasted. And when she lost her pupils, I’m frank to say I helped her out financially for a bit.” He spread his hands limply. “If that’s a crime, then I’m a criminal.”

“If that’s all there is to it, I don’t see what you’re afraid of.”

“You don’t understand – you don’t understand the position I’m in, the enmities and intrigues I have to contend with here. There’s a faction among the membership who would like to see me discharged. If George Wall made it appear that I was using my place to procure young women–”

“How could he do that?”

“I mean if he brought court action, as he threatened to. An unprincipled lawyer could make some kind of case against me. The girl told me that she planned a divorce, and I suppose I wasn’t thoroughly discreet. I was seen in her company more than once. As a matter of fact, I cooked several dinners for her.” His color rose slightly. “Cooking is one of my hobbyhorses. I realize now it wasn’t wise to invite her into my home.”

“He can’t do anything with that. This isn’t the Victorian age.”

“It is in certain circles. You just don’t grasp how precarious my position is. I’m afraid the accusation would be enough.”

“Aren’t you exaggerating?”

“I hope I am. I don’t feel it.”

“My advice to you is, level with Wall. Tell him the facts.”

“I tried to, on the telephone last night. He refused to listen. The man’s insane with jealousy. You’d think I had his wife hidden somewhere.”

“You haven’t, though?”

“Of course not. I haven’t seen her since the early part of September. She left here suddenly without a good-by or a thank-you. She didn’t even leave a forwarding address.”

“Run off with a man?”

“It’s more than likely,” he said.

“Tell Wall that. In person.”

“Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly. The man’s a raving maniac, he’d assault me.”

Bassett ran tense fingers through his hair. It was soaked at the temples, and little rivulets ran down in front of his ears.

He took the folded handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and wiped his face with it. I began to feel a little sorry for him. Physical cowardice hurts like nothing else.

“I can handle him,” I said. “Call the gate. If he’s still up there, I’ll go and bring him down.”

“Here?”

“Unless you can think of a better place.”

After a nervous moment, he said: “I suppose I have to see him. I can’t leave him rampaging around in public. There are several members due for their morning dip at any moment.”

His voice took on a religious coloring whenever he mentioned the members. They might have belonged to a higher race, supermen or avenging angels. And Bassett himself had a slipping toehold on the edge of the earthly paradise. Reluctantly, he picked up the intramural phone: “Tony? Mr. Bassett. Is that young maniac still rampaging, around? . . . Are you certain? Absolutely certain? . . . Well, fine. Let me know if he shows up again.” He replaced the receiver.

“Gone?”

“It seems so.” He inhaled deeply through his open mouth. “Torres says he took off on foot some time ago. I’d appreciate it, though, if you stayed around for a bit, just in case.”

“All right. This trip is costing you twenty-five dollars, anyway.”

He took the hint and paid me in cash from a drawer. Then he got an electric razor and a mirror out of another drawer. I sat and watched him shave his face and neck. He clipped the hairs in his nostrils with a tiny pair of scissors, and plucked a few hairs out of his eyebrows. It was the sort of occasion that made me hate the job of guarding bodies.

I looked over the books on the desk. There were a Dun and Bradstreet, a Southern California Blue Book, a motion-picture almanac for the previous year, and a thick volume bound in worn green cloth and entitled, surprisingly, The Bassett Family. I opened this to the title page, which stated that the book was an account of the genealogy and achievements of the descendants of William Bassett, who landed in Massachusetts in 1634; down to the outbreak of the World War in 1914. By Clarence Bassett.

“I don’t suppose you’d be interested,” Bassett said, “but it’s quite an interesting story to a member of the family. My father wrote that book: he occupied his declining years with it. We really did have a native aristocracy in New England, you know – governors, professors, divines, men of affairs.”

“I’ve heard rumors to that effect.”

“Sorry, I don’t mean to bore you,” he said in a lighter tone, almost self-mocking. “Curiously enough, I’m the last of my branch of the family who bears the name of Bassett. It’s the one sole reason I have for regretting my not having married. But then I’ve never been the philoprogenitive type.”

Leaning forward toward the mirror, he began to squeeze a blackhead out of one of the twin grooves that ran from the base of his nose. I got up and roamed along the walls, examining the photographs. I was stopped by one of three divers, a man and two girls, taking off in unison from the high tower. Their bodies hung clear of the tower against a light summer sky, arched in identical swan dives, caught at the height of their parabolas before gravity took hold and snatched them back to earth.

“That’s Hester on the left,” Bassett said behind me.

Her body was like an arrow. Her bright hair was combed back by the wind from the oval blur of her face. The girl on the right was a dark brunette, equally striking in her full-breasted way. The man in the middle was dark, too, with curly black hair and muscles that looked hammered out of bronze.

“It’s one of my favorite photographs,” Bassett said. “It was taken a couple of years ago, when Hester was in training for the nationals.”

“Taken here?”

“Yes. We let her use our tower for practicing, as I said.”

“Who are her friends in the picture?”

“The boy used to be our lifeguard. The girl was a young friend of Hester’s. She worked in the snack bar here, but Hester was grooming her for competitive diving.”

“Is she still around?”

“I’m afraid not.” His face lengthened. “Gabrielle was killed.”

“In a diving accident?”

“Hardly. She was shot.”

“Murdered?”

He nodded solemnly.

“Who did it to her?”

“The crime was never solved. I doubt that it ever will be now. It happened nearly two years ago, in March of last year.”

“What did you say her name was?”

“Gabrielle. Gabrielle Torres.”

“Any relation to Tony?”

“She was his daughter.”