The Blue Hammer

XXIX

I drove up the dark hill to Biemeyer's house feeling angry and powerless. The house was blazing with lights but entirely silent.

Biemeyer answered the door with a drink held securely in his hand. He gave the impression that the drink was holding him up. Everything else about him, shoulders and knees and face, seemed to be sagging.

"What in the hell do you want?" His voice was husky and frayed, as if he had been doing a lot of shouting.

"I'd like to have a serious talk with you, Mr. Biemeyer."

"I can translate that. You want more money."

"Forget about the money for a change. I don't care about your money."

His face lengthened. He had hoisted his money up the mast, but I had failed to salute it. Slowly his face came together again, wrinkling around his dark hostile eyes.

"Does that mean you won't be sending me a bill?"

I was tempted to turn my back on him and leave, perhaps taking a swing at him first. But Biemeyer and his household possessed knowledge that I had to have. And working for them gave me standing with the police that I couldn't get in any other way.

"Please take it easy," I said. "The money you've advanced will probably cover it. If it doesn't, I'll send you a bill. After all, I did recover your daughter."

"But not the picture."

"I'm working on the picture, getting closer to it. Is there some place we could have a private talk?"

"No," he said. "There is not. All I'm asking you to do is to respect the sanctity of my home. If you won't do that, to hell with you."

Now even the glass in his hand was no longer steady. He waved it in a declamatory gesture and sloshed some liquor on the polished floor. Mrs. Biemeyer appeared behind him, as if the spilling of liquor was an understood signal in the family. Much farther back, half hidden by the edge of a partition, Doris stood still and silent.

"I think you should talk to him, Jack," Ruth Biemeyer said. "We've been through quite a lot in the last couple of days. And thanks in good part to Mr. Archer, we've survived it."

Her face was calm and smooth, and she was dressed for evening. Her voice was resigned. I guessed that she had made a bargain with whatever fates she recognized: bring Doris home and I'll put up with Jack. Well, Doris was there, standing like a Chirico figure in the receding distances of the house.

Biemeyer failed to put up an argument. He didn't even acknowledge his wife's remarks. He simply turned on his heel and led me through the house to his study. Doris gave me a small propitiatory smile as we went by. Her eyes were bright and scared.

Biemeyer sat down at his desk in front of the picture of his copper mine. He set down his drink and swiveled his chair toward me. "All right. What do you want from me now?"

"I'm looking for a pair of women. I think they may be together. One of them is Betty-Betty Jo Siddon."

Biemeyer leaned forward. "The society reporter? Don't tell me she's turned up missing."

"Just tonight. But she may be in danger. You may be able to help me find her."

"I don't see how. I haven't seen her in weeks. We don't go to many parties."

"She didn't get lost at a party, Mr. Biemeyer. I'm not sure how it happened, but I think she went to a nursing home in town here and got waylaid. That's the theory I have to work on, anyway."

"Where do I come in? I've never been in a nursing home in my life." He gave me a macho look and reached for his drink.

"Miss Siddon was looking for Mildred Mead."

His hand jerked and closed on his drink, spilling part of it on his trousers. "I never heard of her," he said without conviction.

"She was the subject of the painting I've been looking for. You must have recognized her."

"How?" he said. "I never met the woman in my life. What did you say her name was?"

"Mildred Mead. You bought her a house in Chantry Canyon quite a few years ago. That was a generous gift to a woman you say you never met. Incidentally, your daughter, Doris, ended up in that house last night. It's been taken over by a commune. Mildred sold them the house a few months ago and moved here. Don't tell me this is news to you."

"I'm not telling you anything."

Biemeyer's face had turned fiery red. He got to his feet. I expected him to take a swing at me. Instead he rushed out of the room.

I thought that was the end of our conversation. But he came back with a fresh drink and sat down opposite me again. His face had turned pale in blotches.

"Have you been researching me?"

"No."

"I don't believe you. How did you find out about Mildred Mead?"

"Her name came up in Arizona, together with yours."

He sighed. "They hate me there. There were times when I had to close down the smelter and put half of Copper City out of work. I know how it feels-I'm a Copper City boy myself. Back before the war, my family didn't have two nickels to rub against each other. I worked my way through high school and played football to stay in college. But I suppose you know all that already?"

I gave him a knowing look, which didn't come hard. I knew now.

"Have you talked to Mildred?" he said.

"No. I haven't seen her."

"She's an old woman now. But she was something to see in the old days. A beautiful thing." He opened and closed his free hand and gulped part of his drink. "When I finally got hold of her, it made everything worthwhile-all the work and the goddam football games getting my bones beaten. But she's old now. She finally got old."

"Is she here in town?"

"You know she is, or you wouldn't ask me the question. Or she was." He reached out with his free hand and grasped my shoulder. "Just don't tell Ruth. She's insanely jealous. You know how women are."

Just beyond the open door of the study the light stirred. Ruth Biemeyer moved into the doorway, trampling on the heels of her own shadow.

She said, "It isn't true that I'm insanely jealous. I may have been jealous at times. But it gives you no right to speak like that."

Biemeyer stood facing her, not quite as tall as she was on her heels. His face was set in creases of bitter loathing that gave it the character it had lacked.

"You were eaten up with jealousy," he said. "You have been all your life. You wouldn't give me normal sex, but when I got it from another woman you couldn't stand it. You did your dirty damnedest to break it up. And when you couldn't, you ran her out of town."

"I was ashamed for you," she said with acid sweetness. "Chasing after that poor old woman, when she was so sick and tired she could hardly walk."

"Mildred isn't so old. She's got more sex in her little finger than you ever had in your body."

"What would you know about sex? You were looking for a mother, not a wife."

"Wife?" He swept the room with an exaggerated glance. "I don't see any wife, I see a woman who cut me off when I was in my prime."

"Because you chose that old hag."

"Don't call her that!"

Their quarrel had had from the start a self-conscious dramatic aspect. They looked sideways at me as they spoke, as if I were their judge or referee. I thought of their daughter, Doris, and wondered if she had been used in this way as the audience and fulcrum of their quarrels.

I remembered Doris's memory of the scene when she had hidden in the clothes hamper in the bathroom, and I began to get angry again. This time I kept my anger hidden. Doris's parents were telling me some of the things I had to know. But both of them were looking at me now, perhaps wondering if they had lost their audience.

I said to Ruth Biemeyer, "Why did you buy that picture of Mildred Mead and hang it on the wall?"

"I didn't know it was Mildred Mead. It's an idealized portrait, and she's a wrinkled old crone by now. Why should I connect her with the picture?"

"You did, though," Biemeyer said. "And she still was better-looking than you ever were on your best day. That was the thing you couldn't stand."

"You were the thing I couldn't stand."

"At least you're admitting it now. You used to pretend that all the trouble originated with me. I was the King Kong of Copper City and you were the delicate maiden. You're not so bloody delicate, _or_ maidenly."

"No," she said. "I've grown scar tissue. I've needed it."

I was getting sick of them. I had gone through quarrels like theirs myself, when my own marriage was breaking up. Eventually the quarrels reached a point where nothing hopeful, and nothing entirely true, was being said.

I could smell the sour animal anger of their bodies, and hear them breathing quickly, out of phase. I stepped between them, facing Biemeyer.

"Where is Mildred? I want to talk to her," I said.

"I don't know. Honestly."

"He's lying," the woman said. "He brought her to town and set her up in an apartment on the beach. I have friends in this town, I know what's going on. They saw him beating a path to her door, visiting her every day." She turned on her husband. "What kind of a creep are you, anyway, sneaking away from your lawful home to make love to a crazy old woman?"

"I wasn't making love to her."

"Then what were you doing?"

"Talking. We'd have a few drinks and some conversation. That's all it amounted to."

"Just an innocent friendship, eh?"

"That's right."

"And that's all it ever was," she said sardonically. "I don't claim that."

"What do you claim?"

He pulled himself together and said, "I loved her."

She looked at him in a lost way. It made me wonder if he had ever told her that before. She burst into tears and sat down in his chair, bending her streaming face close to her v knees.

Biemeyer seemed upset, almost disoriented. I took him by the arm and led him to the far end of the room. "Where is Mildred now?"

"I haven't seen her for weeks. I don't know where she went. We got into an argument about money. I was looking after her, of course, but she wanted more. She wanted me to set her up in a house with a staff of servants and a nurse to look after her. Mildred always did have big ideas."

"And you didn't want to pay for them?"

"That's right. I was willing to pay my share. But she wasn't penniless. And she was getting old-she's in her seventies. I told her a woman has to adjust when she gets into her seventies. She can't expect to go on living like a queen."

"Where did she go?"

"I can't tell you. She moved out several weeks ago without telling me anything. She said she was going someplace to move in with relatives."

"In town here?"

"I don't know."

"You didn't try to find her?"

"Why should I?" Biemeyer said. "Why the hell should I? There wasn't anything going on between us any more. With the money from the house in Chantry Canyon, she had enough to live on for the rest of her life. I didn't owe her anything. Frankly, she was turning into a nuisance."

So was Biemeyer, but I stayed with him. "I need to get in touch with her, and you may be able to help me. Do you have any contacts at the Southwestern Savings branch in Copper City?"

"I know the resident manager. Delbert Knapp."

"Can you find out from him where Mildred Mead has been cashing her mortgage checks?"

"I guess I can try."

"You can do better than try, Mr. Biemeyer. I hate to press you, but this could be a matter of life or death."

"Whose death? Mildred's?"

"Possibly. But I'm more immediately concerned with Betty Siddon. I'm trying to trace her through Mildred. Will you get in touch with Delbert Knapp?"

"I may not be able to do it tonight. He wouldn't have the information at home with him, anyway."

"What about Mildred's local contacts? Can you help me with those?"

"I'll think about it. But you understand I don't want my name in the paper. I don't want my name mentioned at all in connection with Mildred. In fact, the more I think about it, the less I like the whole idea of getting involved."

"A woman's life may be at stake."

"People die every day," he said.

I stood up and spoke down to him. "I got your daughter back. Now I want some help from you. And if I don't get it, and something happens to Miss Siddon, I'll fix you."

"That sounds like a threat."

"It is. There's enough crap in your life to make you fixable."

"But I'm your client."

"Your wife is."

My voice sounded calm in my ears, a little distant. But my eyes felt as if they had shrunk, and I was shaking.

"You must be crazy," he said. "I could buy and sell you."

"I'm not for sale. Anyway, that's just talk. You may have money, but you're too tight to use it. The other day you were bellyaching about five hundred measly bucks to get your daughter back. Half the time you're the king of the world, and the other half you talk like poor white trash."

He stood up. "I'm going to report you to Sacramento for threatening to blackmail me. You're going to regret this for the rest of your life."

I was already regretting it. But I was too angry to try to conciliate him. I walked out of the study and headed for the front door.

Mrs. Biemeyer caught me before I reached it. "You shouldn't have said what you did."

"I know that. I'm sorry. May I use your phone, Mrs. Biemeyer?"

"Don't call the police, will you? I don't want them here."

"No. I'm just calling a friend."

She led me into the huge bricked kitchen, seated me at a table by the window, and brought me a telephone on a long cord. The window overlooked the distant harbor. Closer, near the foot of the hill, the Chantry house had lights on in it. While I was dialing the number Fay Brighton had given me, I took a second, longer look and saw that some of the lights were in the greenhouse.

I got a busy signal, and dialed again.

This time Mrs. Brighton answered on the first ring: "Hello?"

"This is Archer speaking. Have you had any luck?"

"Yes, sir, but all of it was bad. The trouble is that a whole lot of the people sound suspicious. It may be something in _my_ voice that does it to them. I'm sort of scared sitting here by myself, you know. And I don't seem to be accomplishing anything."

"How far down the list are you?"

"Maybe halfway. But I feel that I'm not accomplishing anything. Is it all right with you if I quit for the night?"

I didn't answer her right away. Before I did, she let out an apologetic snuffling sob and hung up.