The Ferguson Affair

chapter 17

I WALKED AND TALKED Ferguson into the clinic and made an emergency appointment for him with their bone man, Dr. Root. It was one of those highly specialized medical partnerships where practically every organ of the human body was represented by a separate doctor. I left Ferguson in the waiting room and told him I’d be back in half an hour. He sat on the edge of a leather chair, bolt upright, like one of the stone figures you see on old tombs.

Mrs. Weinstein glanced at the clock when I walked into my office.

“It’s nearly two, Mr. Gunnarson. I hope you enjoyed your lunch.”

“Thanks for reminding me. Would you call my wife and tell her I won’t be home for lunch?”

“I presume she knows by this time.”

“Call her anyway, will you? Then I want you to place a call for me, to a man in Beverly Hills named Michael Speare.” I recited the address which Ferguson had given me. “You can probably get the number from Information. I’ll take the call in my office.”

I sat at my desk with the door closed. I spread out the clipping from Larry Gaines’s old wallet, and made an alphabetical list of the names mentioned in it: Dotery, Drennan, Haines, McNab, Roche, Spence, Treco, Van Horn, Wood, Zanella. I had an idea.

My telephone rang.

“Mr. Speare is on the line,” Mrs. Weinstein said. Over her, a man’s voice was saying: “Mike Speare here.”

“This is William Gunnarson. I’m an attorney out in Buenavista. Can you give me a few minutes of your time?”

“Not right now. I’m at Television City. My secretary transferred the call. What’s it all about?”

“A client of yours. Holly May.”

“What does Holly want?”

“It’s too confidential for the telephone,” I said, trying to sound tantalizing. “Can I talk to you in person, Mr. Speare?”

“Why not? I’ll be back in my office by three or so. You know where it is-just off Santa Monica Boulevard?”

“I’ll be there. Thanks.”

I hung up and went out and presented my list of names to Mrs. Weinstein. “I have a little job for you. It may only take a few minutes, if we’re lucky. It may take today and tomorrow. I want you to stay with it until it’s finished.”

“But I have a pile of tax forms to type up for Mr. Millrace.”

“They can wait. This is an emergency.”

“What kind of an emergency?”

“I’ll tell you when it’s over. Maybe. It could be a matter of life or death.”

“Really?”

“Here’s your problem. In 1952 the people listed here lived in a certain town. I hope in California. I don’t know the name of the town, and that’s what I’m trying to find out, the name of the town.”

“You don’t have to repeat yourself.” Mrs. Weinstein was getting interested. “So what do I do?”

“Take these names over to the telephone company and check them against their out-of-town directories-especially the smaller ones. See if you can find a directory that contains most of these names. Start with the towns near here.”

She peered at the list. “What about the first names?”

“First names are not important. When you find the right grouping of last names, or anything approximating it, I want you to make a note of the addresses.”

“It may not be so easy. 1952 is a long time ago, the way people move around nowadays.”

“I know that. But give it a good try. It really is important.”

“You can count on me.”

Ferguson was waiting outside the clinic, standing in the shadow of the cornice. His eyes still held their unseeing expression; he seemed oblivious to the life of the town around him. Though we spoke the same language, more or less, I realized how much of a foreigner he was in southern California. He was doubly alienated by what had been happening to him.

I leaned across to open the car door. “How’s your nose?”

“My nose is the least of my worries,” he said as he got in. “I spoke to that Dr. Trench of yours.”

“What did he say?”

“My wife is over two months pregnant. It’s probably Gaines’s child she’s carrying.”

“Did Trench say that?”

“Naturally I didn’t ask him. But it’s obvious. No wonder she decided to run away with him. No wonder they needed money. Now they have it.” He grinned fiercely at nothing in particular. “Why didn’t she simply ask me for the money? I’d have given it to her.”

“Would you?”

He opened his hands and looked down into them. “I might have killed her. When I went after them today, I intended to kill them both. Then I saw that truck ahead coming into the intersection. I had the idea, for a split second, that I would kill myself. My reflexes wouldn’t let me.” His right foot thumped the floor of the car. “That’s a shameful admission for a man to have to make.” He didn’t explain whether he meant his suicidal intent or his failure to carry it out.

I said: “I have an appointment with Michael Speare at three o’clock. Do you want me to drop you at home? It’s more or less on the way. You can make your accident report later.”

“Yes. I’d better get home, in case they try to get in touch.”

I set the car in motion and turned down Main Street toward the highway. “Do you have any idea where they’ve gone?”

“No, and I don’t want you getting ideas. I have no desire to see them tracked down. Is that understood? I want nothing done to either of them.”

“That may be hard to manage.”

He didn’t seem to hear me. He was back in conflict with himself, wrestling with the obscure guilt he felt. “I blame myself, you see, almost as much as I blame her. I should never have talked her into marrying me. She belonged to another generation, she needed younger blood. I was a dreaming fool even to imagine I had anything to offer to a young, beautiful woman.”

“Your attitude is very unselfish, Ferguson. I’m not so sure it’s wise.”

“That’s a private matter, between me and my-me and my conscience.”

“It isn’t wholly private. Gaines is a known criminal, wanted by the police.” I said in response to his hot and wounded look: “No, I haven’t broken your confidence and gone to the police. Gaines is wanted on other charges, burglary for one. If your wife is taken with him, there’ll be hell to pay all round. And what you want isn’t going to affect the outcome much.”

“I know I can’t assume responsibility for what happens to her.” His generosity had limits after all, which made me believe in it more. “I simply refuse to have anything to do with hunting them down myself.”

“That needs more thought, perhaps. Your wife may be more innocent than you assume. Gaines seems to be a con artist-one of those people who can talk birds out of trees. He may have sold her some fantastic story-”

“Holly is not a fool.”

“Any woman can be, when she’s infatuated. I take it you’re morally certain they’re lovers?”

“I’m afraid so. He’s been sniffing after her for months. I let it go on right under my nose.”

“Did you ever catch them in flagrante delicto?”

“Nothing like that. I was gone a lot of the time, though. They had no end of opportunities. He danced attendance on her like a gigolo. They spent whole evenings together, in my house, pretending to read plays.”

“How do you know?”

“I was there myself more than once. On other occasions Holly told me about it. No doubt she was afraid I’d find out anyway.”

“What sort of explanation did she give you?”

“The theory was that she was developing the fellow’s acting talent, and her own as well. She claimed she had to have someone to work out with.” He grunted. “I shouldn’t have been taken in by such a thin story. But she managed to convince me that she cared nothing for him personally. I actually thought she considered him a bit of an outsider, that she was simply using him for her own professional purposes.”

I made a left turn onto the highway, and climbed the ramp which rose across lower town. “Did they have professional plans together?”

“Not to my knowledge. Holly was thinking of trying the legitimate stage eventually.”

“With your backing?”

“That was the idea, I suppose.”

“Did she ever try to persuade you to back Gaines?”

“No. She knew what I thought of the fellow-a cheap gigolo.”

“Did she pay him for his company?”

“That would hardly be necessary. I fail to see what you’re getting at.”

“I’m trying to find out if they had business dealings of any kind, before today’s transaction. Was he supplying her with drugs, by any chance?”

He snorted at me: “The notion is ridiculous!”

“It’s not as strange as what we know she’s done. Leave the personal part out of it and consider. Your wife walked out on an assured fortune, and a man who would give her anything she wanted, in order to share the chances of a wanted criminal. Does it make any sense to you?”

“Yes. I’m afraid it does.” He sounded querulous. The dressing in his nose had lightened and thinned his voice. “I’m the reason. I’m physically disgusting to her.”

“Did she ever say so?”

“I’m saying so. It’s the only possible inference. She married me for my money, but even that couldn’t hold her.”

I looked sideways at him. Pain leered like skull bones through the flesh of his face. “I was simply a dirty old man pawing at her. I had no right to her.”

“You’re not exactly an octogenarian. How old are you?”

“We won’t discuss it.”

“Fifty?”

“Older than that.”

“How much money are you worth?”

His eyes veiled themselves like a bird’s. “I’d have to ask my accountants.”

“Give me a bracket, anyway, to help fill in the picture. Let me assure you, I’m not trying to figure out the size of my retainer. We’ll set it at five hundred now, if that’s all right with you.”

“Very well.” He actually smiled, at least on my side. God knew what he was doing with the other side of his face. “I suppose I could realize ten or twelve million if I had to. Why do you think it’s important?”

“If your wife had been out for the money, she could have taken you for a lot more than two hundred thousand. Without sharing it with Gaines.”

“How?”

“By divorcing you. It happens every day, or don’t you read the papers?”

“I’ve given her no grounds.”

“Never an unkind word?”

“Practically never. I was very much in love with my wife. The fact is, I still am.”

“Would you take her back if you had the chance?”

“I don’t know. I think so.” His voice had changed, as his eyes had changed when I mentioned money. We had left the highway and were approaching the green lane that led to his house. “It’s hard to imagine her ever coming back.”

But he had leaned forward, urging the car along in wild unconscious hopefulness.

His shoulders slumped as he got out of the car. The house on the cliff had an abandoned air.

Far out over the sea, a flight of birds blew in a changing line like a fragmentary sentence whose meaning was never quite intelligible. All the way in to Beverly Hills I kept thinking about those birds. They’d been too far out for me to identify, but it was the season when certain kinds of sea birds migrated, I didn’t know exactly where or why.