The Ferguson Affair

chapter 6

MY ILLUSION OF irresistible moral force evaporated when I looked around. Three men were coming up from the clubhouse to the parking area. Two of them were the plain-clothes men I had seen in the alley below Jerry Winkler’s hotel window. Salaman, I thought, must have built-in radar for police.

The third man wore a dinner coat with a professional air. He accompanied the policemen to their car and offered his regrets that he hadn’t been able to help them as much as he would have liked to. They drove away. He turned back toward the clubhouse, where I caught him at the door:

“I’m William Gunnarson, a local attorney. One of my clients is involved with an employee of the club. Would you be the manager?”

His bright and sorrowful eyes examined me. He had the nervous calm which comes from running other people’s parties, and a humorous mouth which took the curse off it. “I am tonight. Tomorrow I’ll probably be looking for a job. We who are about to die salute thee. Is it Gaines again? Ill-gotten Gaines?”

“I’m afraid it is.”

“Gaines is an ex-employee of ours. I fired him last week. I was just beginning to indulge in the hope that he was out of my hair for good. Now this.” He flipped his hand in the direction the police had taken.

“What was the trouble?”

“You undoubtedly know more about that than I do. Is he a burglary suspect, or something of the sort? I’ve just been talking to a couple of detectives, but they were terribly noncommittal.”

“We could trade information, perhaps.”

“Why not? My name is Bidwell. Gunnarson, did you say?”

“Bill Gunnarson.”

His office was oak-paneled, thickly carpeted, furnished with heavy, dark pieces. An uneaten steak congealed on a tray on the corner of his desk. We faced each other across it. I told him as much as I thought I needed to, and then asked him some questions. “Do you know if Gaines has left town?”

“I gather he has. The police implied as much. Under the circumstances, it’s hardly surprising.”

“The fact that he’s wanted for questioning, you mean?”

“That, and other circumstances,” he said vaguely.

“Why did you fire him?”

“I’d sooner not divulge that information. There are other people involved. Let’s say it was done at the instance of one of the members, and leave it at that.”

I didn’t want to leave it at that. “Is there anything to the rumor that he made a rough pass at one of the ladies?”

Bidwell stiffened in his swivel chair. “Good Lord, is that around town?”

“I heard it.”

He stroked his mouth with his fingertips. His desk lamp lit only the lower part of his face. I couldn’t see his eyes.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds. He simply showed too much interest in one of the members’ wives. He was very attentive to her, and perhaps she took a little too much advantage of it. Her husband heard about it, and objected. So I fired him.” He added: “Thank God I did fire him, before this police investigation came up.”

“Did Gaines give any indications that he was using his position here for criminal purposes? To pick out prospects for burglary, for instance?”

“The police asked me that. I had to answer no. But they pointed out that one or two of our members have been victims of burglary in the past six months. Most recently, the Hampshires.”

Bidwell’s voice was rigidly controlled, but he was under great strain. A drop of sweat formed at the tip of his nose, grew heavy and filled with light, and fell off onto his blotter. It made a dark red stain, like blood, on the red blotter.

“How did you happen to hire Gaines in the first place?”

“I was taken in. I pride myself on my judgment of people, but I was taken in by Larry Gaines. He talked well, you know, and then there was the fact that the college sent him. We nearly always get our lifeguards from Buenavista College. In fact, that may be why Gaines registered there.”

“He actually registered at the local college?”

“So they tell me. Apparently he dropped out after a few days or weeks. But we went on assuming that he was a college student. He was a little old for the role, but you see a lot of that these days.”

“I know,” I said. “I went through college and law school after Korea.”

“Did you, now? I never did make it to college myself. I suppose that’s why I feel a certain sympathy for young people trying to educate themselves. Gaines traded on my sympathy, and not only on mine. Quite a few of the members were touched by his scholarly aspirations. He has a certain charm, I suppose-rather greasy, but potent.”

“Can you describe him?”

“I can do better than that. The police asked me to rake up some pictures of him. Gaines was always getting himself photographed. He did a lot of picture-taking himself.”

Bidwell brought five or six glossy prints out of a drawer and handed them to me. Most of them showed Gaines in bathing trunks. He was slim-hipped and wide-shouldered. He held himself with that actorish air, self-consciousness pretending to be self-assurance, which always made me suspicious of a man. His crew-cut head was handsome, but there was a spoiled expression on his mouth, something obtuse in his dark eyes. In spite of the costume, the tan, the molded muscles, he had the look of a man who hated the sun. I placed his age at twenty-five or six.

Keeping one of the pictures, I gave the rest back to Bidwell. “May I have a look at your membership list?”

It was lying on top of his desk, and he pushed it across to me: several sheets of foolscap covered with names in a fine Spencerian hand. The names were alphabetically grouped, and each was preceded by a number. Patrick Hampshire was number 345. Colonel Ian Ferguson was number 459.

“How many members do you have?”

“Our by-laws limit us to three hundred. The original membership were numbered from one to three hundred. When a member-ah-passes on, we retire his number, and issue a new one. The roster runs up to 461 now, which means that we’ve lost 161 members since the club was founded, and gained a corresponding number of new members.”

He recited these facts as if they constituted a soothing liturgy. I wondered if he was talking to me simply to keep from talking to himself.

“Did Gaines have much to do with the Hampshires, do you know?”

“I’m afraid he did. He gave the Hampshire youngsters some swimming lessons in their private pool.”

“The Fergusons?”

He thought about his answer, pushing out his lower lip, and quickly retracting it. “I hadn’t heard that they were burglarized.”

“Neither had I. Their number is 459. That means they’re recent members, does it?”

“Yes, it does,” he said with vehemence. “The committee’s responsible, of course, but I have power of veto. I should have used it.”

“Why?”

“I believe you know why.” He rose, and walked to the wall, then turned from it abruptly as if he’d seen handwriting on it. He came back to the desk and leaned above me on his fingertips. “Let’s not beat around the bush, shall we?”

“I haven’t been.”

“All right. I admit I have. I make no apologies. The situation is explosive.”

“You mean the situation between Colonel Ferguson and his wife?”

“That’s part of it. I see you do know something about it, and I’m going to be candid with you. This club is on the brink of a major scandal. I’m doing all I can to avert it.” His tone was portentous; he might have been telling me that war had just been declared. “Look at this.”

Bidwell opened a drawer in his desk and brought out a folded newspaper clipping. He unfolded it with shaking hands, spreading it out on the blotter for me to read:

Rumor hath it that ex-movie-tidbit Holly May, who was too sweet-smelling for movietown, is trying to prove the old saw about the Colonel’s lady. Her partner in the Great Experiment is a gorgeous hunk of muscle (she seems to think) who works as a marine menial in her millionaire hubby’s millionaire clubby. We ordinary mortals wish that we could eat our fake and have it, too. But gather ye sub-rosas while ye may, Mrs. Ferguson.

Bidwell read it over my shoulder, groaning audibly. “That came out last weekend in a syndicated column which went all over the country.”

“It doesn’t prove anything.”

“Perhaps not, but it’s ghastly publicity for us. Can I depend on you, Mr. Gunnarson?”

“To do what?”

“Not to repeat to others what you’ve just said to me?”

I hadn’t really said anything, but he imagined I had. “I won’t, unless my client’s interests are affected. You have my word.”

“How would your client’s interests be affected?”

“She’s suspected of being in complicity with Gaines. She was involved with Gaines, but innocently. She was in love with him.”

“Another one in love with him? How does he do it? I admit he’s a handsome brute, but that’s as far as it goes. He’s raw.”

“Some like them raw. I take it Mrs. Ferguson is one of those who do.”

“She and her husband aren’t too delightful themselves. I’ve made two big mistakes in the past year, hiring Gaines, and admitting the Fergusons to membership. Those two mistakes have combined into the biggest mistake of my life.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“Can’t it? My life may be in danger.”

“From Gaines?”

“Hardly. He’s long gone. They may be in Acapulco by now, or Hawaii.”

“They?”

“I thought you knew. The Holly May creature went with him. And Colonel Ferguson blames me for the whole thing. He’s out in the club bar now, lapping up rye whisky. I think he’s building up his courage to kill me.”

“Are you serious, Bidwell?”

He leaned forward into the light. His eyes were intensely serious. “The man’s a maniac. He’s been drinking ever since she took off, and he’s taken it into his head to blame me for the elopement.”

“When did she leave?”

“Last night, from here. She and her husband were having dinner in the dining room. There was a telephone call for her. She took it, and then walked right out of the club. Gaines was waiting in the parking lot.”

“How do you know?”

“One of the members saw him there, and mentioned it to me later.”

“Did you tell the police about this?”

“I should certainly say I didn’t. This is a delicate situation, Mr. Gunnarson. An insane situation, but a delicate one.” He managed a small pale smile. “Ours is the most respected club west of the Mississippi-”

“It won’t be if one of the members shoots the manager for conspiring with a lifeguard against Holly May’s chastity.”

“Please don’t spell it out.” He closed his eyes, and shuddered. “At least, if he did shoot me, it would be the end of my worries.”

“You almost mean that, don’t you?”

He opened his eyes, wide. “I almost do.”

“Does Ferguson have a gun?”

“He has an entire arsenal. Really. He’s a big-game hunter, among other things. He actually enjoys killing.”

“Maybe you better go home.”

“He knows where I live. He was there early this morning, shouting at the front door.”

“I think you should have him picked up. He may be dangerous.”

“He is. He is dangerous. But I cannot and will not bring the police into this. There is simply too much at stake.”

“What, exactly?”

“The reputation of the club. There hasn’t been a major scandal here since the Abernathy suicide pact, and that was before my tenure. All I can do now is hold on and hope that something will happen to save us at the eleventh hour.”

“Let’s hope so, Mr. Bidwell.”

“Call me Arthur, if you like. Here, let me pour you a drink.”

“No, thanks.”

He was trying to prolong the conversation. I looked at my watch. It wasn’t the eleventh hour, but it was nearly the ninth. The Ella Barker case had led me far afield, and threatened to lead me further. It was time to go home to Sally. The thought of her was like a stretching elastic which never quite snapped.

But sometimes it went on stretching.

The phone on Bidwell’s desk rang. He lifted the receiver with an effort, as if it were a heavy iron dumbbell. He listened to a scratchy voice, and said: “For God’s sake, Padilla, I told you to head him off… No! Don’t call them, that’s an order.”

Bidwell sprang to the door, slammed it shut, and locked it. He leaned against it with his arms spread out, like someone getting ready to be crucified. “Padilla says he’s coming here now.”

“Then you better get away from the door. Who’s Padilla?”

“The bartender. Ferguson told him he’s waited long enough.” Droplets were forming on his face as they do on a cold glass. “Talk to him, won’t you? Explain that I’m utterly blameless. Utterly. I had nothing to do with his blessed wife’s departure.” He stepped sideways, tanglefooted, and leaned in the corner.

“Why does he think you had?”

“Because he’s insane. He makes mountains out of molehills. I merely called her into my office to take a telephone call.”

“From Gaines?”

“If so, he must have disguised his voice. I thought myself it was a woman’s voice-not one I recognized. But Ferguson seems to think I’m in cahoots with Gaines, simply because I called his wife out of the dining room.”

“I hear you, Bidwell,” a voice said through the door.

Bidwell jumped as if he’d felt an electric shock, then slumped against the wall as if the shock had killed him.

“If I didn’t hear you, Bidwell, I could smell you. I could tell that you were in there by the smell.” The doorknob rattled. The voice outside rose an octave. “Let me in, you lily-livered swine. I want to talk to you, you Bidwell swine. And you know what about, Bidwell.”

Bidwell shuddered each time he heard his name. He looked at me pleadingly. “Talk to him, will you? It only makes him angrier when I try to talk to him. You’re a lawyer, you know how to talk to people.”

“What you need is a bodyguard.”

Ferguson punctuated this remark with a heavy thud on the bottom of the door. “Open up, Bidwell, or I’ll kick the bloody well door down.”

He kicked it again. One of the panels cracked, and sprinkled varnish on the rug.

Bidwell said urgently: “Go out and talk to him. You have nothing to fear. He doesn’t hate you. I’m the one he hates.”

Under Ferguson’s third kick, the cracked panel started to give. Standing to one side of it, I unlocked and opened the door.

Ferguson kicked air and lurched in past me. He was a big man in his fifties, shaggy in Harris tweeds. His face was long and equine. Small eyes were closely and deeply set under his overhanging gray eyebrows. They scowled around the room. “Where is he? Where is the pandering little swine?”

Bidwell was behind the door. He stayed there.

“That’s pretty rough language, isn’t it?” I said.

Ferguson swung his head to look at me. The movement tipped him off balance. He fell back against the side of the doorway. Something metallic in his jacket pocket rapped the door frame.

“You better give me your gun, Colonel. It might go off and shoot you in the hip. Those hip wounds can be painful.”

“I know how to handle firearms.”

“Still, I think you better give me your gun, just for the present. You wouldn’t want to hurt anybody-”

“Wouldn’t I, though! I’m going to hurt Bidwell. I’m going to put a hole in that hide of his. And then I’m going to skin him and nail his coyote hide on his own front door to tan.”

He sounded like a blustering drunk, but blustering drunks could be dangerous. “No, you’re not. I happen to be an attorney, and I’m arresting you. Now hand over your gun.”

“To hell with you. You look to me like another one of Bidwell’s wife-stealing pretty boys.”

He lunged toward me, lost his balance again, and hung onto the edge of the door. It closed enough to reveal Bidwell pasted to the wall behind it. Ferguson emitted a skirling cry, like bagpipes, and reached for his pocket.

I inserted my left hand between his prominent adam’s-apple and the collar of his shirt, jerked him toward me, and hit him with my right hand on the jut of the jaw. I had always wanted to hit a Colonel.

This one drew himself erect, marched stiffly to Bidwell’s desk, made a teetering half-turn on his heels, and sat down ponderously in Bidwell’s chair. He opened his mouth to speak, like an executive about to lay down company policy, then smiled at the foolishness of it all, and passed out. The swivel chair spilled him backward onto the floor.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Bidwell said. “He’ll sue us.”

“We’ll sue him first.”

“Impossible. You can’t bring suit against twenty million dollars. He’s capable of hiring the best lawyers in the country.”

“You’re talking to one of them.” I was feeling slightly elated, after hitting a Colonel. “That’s the kind of suit I’ve always dreamed of bringing.”

“But he didn’t do anything to me,” Bidwell said.

“You sound disappointed.”

Bidwell looked at me glumly. “No doubt I should thank you for saving my life. But, frankly, I don’t feel thankful.”

I squatted by the recumbent man and got the gun out of his pocket. It was a cute little snub-nosed medium-caliber automatic, heavy with clip. I held it up for Bidwell to see.

He refused to look at it. “Put it away. Please.”

“So you got his gun,” somebody said from the doorway. “I talked him into handing over one gun, couple hours ago. But I guess he had another one in the car.”

“Go away, Padilla,” Bidwell said. “Don’t come in here.”

“Yessir.”

Padilla smiled and came in. He was a curly-headed young man with a twisted ear, wearing a white bartender’s jacket. He looked over Ferguson with a professional eye.

“There’s a cut on his chin. You have to hit him?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time. Mr. Bidwell would rather have been shot. But this is a nice rug. I didn’t want them to get blood all over it.”

“It isn’t funny,” Bidwell said. “What are we going to do with him?”

“Let him sleep it off,” Padilla answered cheerfully.

“Not here. Not in my office.”

“Naw, we’ll take him home. You tell Frankie to take over the bar, we’ll take him home, put him to bed. He won’t even remember in the morning. He’ll think he cut himself shaving.”

“How do you know he won’t remember?”

“Because I been making his drinks. He killed a fifth of Seagram’s since six o’clock. I kept pouring it into him, hoping that he’d pass out any minute. But he’s got a stomach like a charred oak barrel bound with brass.”

He stooped and touched Ferguson’s stomach with his finger. Ferguson smiled in his sleep.