The Fiend

(14)

The following morning Ralph MacPherson rose, as usual, at 5:30. Since his wife had died he found it possible to fill his days, but the nights were unbearably lonely. He minimized them by getting up very early and going to bed when many lawyers were just finishing dinner. His matchmaking friends disapproved of this routine but Mac thrived on it. It was a healthy life.

Before breakfast he took his two dogs for a run, worked in the garden and put out food and water for the wild birds and mammals. After breakfast he read at the dining-room window, raising his head from time to time to watch the birds swooping down from the oaks and pines, the bush bunnies darting out of poison oak thickets at the bottom of the canyon and the chipmunks scampering up the lemon tree after the peanuts he’d placed in an empty coconut shell. Helping the wild creatures survive made him feel good, like a secret conspirator against the depredations and greed of man.

He reached his office at 8:30. Miss Edgeworth was already at her desk, looking fresh and crisp in a beige silk suit. Although he’d never accused her of it — Miss Edgeworth didn’t encourage personal conversation — Mac sometimes had the notion that she was making a game out of beating him to the office, no matter how early he arrived, and that winning this game was important to her; it reinforced her low opinion of the practicality and efficiency of men.

There was always a note of triumph in her “Good morning, Mr. MacPherson.”

“Good morning, Miss Edgeworth.”

Her name was Alethea and she had worked for him long enough to be on a first-name basis. But it seemed to him that “Good morning, Alethea” was even more formal than “Good morning, Miss Edgeworth.” He was afraid the day would come when he would accidentally call her what the girls in the office called her behind her back — Edgy.

He said, “Any calls for me?”

“Lieutenant Gallantyne wants you to contact him at police headquarters. It’s about a car. Shall I get him for you?”

“No. I’ll do it.”

“Mrs. Oakley also—”

“That can wait.”

He went into his office, closed the door and dialed police headquarters.

“Gallantyne? MacPherson here.”

“Hope I didn’t wake you up,” Gallantyne said in a tone that hoped the opposite. “You lawyers nowadays keep bankers’ hours.”

“Do we. Any line on the green coupé?”

“One of the traffic boys spotted it an hour ago. It’s standing in Jim Baker’s used-car lot on lower Bojeta Street near the wharf.”

“How long has it been there?”

“Garcia didn’t ask any questions. He wasn’t instructed to.”

“I see. Well, thanks a lot, Gallantyne. I’ll check it out myself.”

He hung up, leaned back in the swivel chair and frowned at the ceiling. The fact that the green car had been sold made it more likely that Kate was right in claiming that the man behind the wheel had been Sheridan. Ordinarily Mac took her accusations against Sheridan with a grain of salt. A number of them were real, a number were fantasy, but most of them fell somewhere in the middle. If she walked across a room and stubbed her toe she would blame Sheridan even if he happened to be several hundred miles away. On the other hand, Sheridan had pulled some pretty wild stuff. It was quite possible that he’d tried to frighten her into coming to terms over the divorce and had ended up being frightened himself when she pursued him with her car.

Mac thought, as he had a hundred times in the past, that they were people caught like animals in a death grip. Neither was strong enough to win and neither would let go. The grip had continued for so long that it was now a way of life. It was not the sun that brightened Kate’s mornings or the sea air that freshened Sheridan’s. It was the anticipation, for each of them, of a victory over the other. They could no longer live without the excitement of battle. Mac remembered two lines from the children’s poem about a gingham dog and a calico cat who had disappeared simultaneously:

It hardly mattered now who took the first bite, Kate or Sheridan. The important thing was how to prevent the last bite, and so far Mac hadn’t found any way of doing it. With the idea that perhaps someone else could, he had tried many times to persuade Kate to engage another lawyer. She always had the same answer: “I couldn’t possibly. No other lawyer would understand me.” “I don’t understand you either, Kate.” “But you must, you’ve known me since I was a little girl.”

Kate’s attitude toward men was one of unrealistic expectation or unjustified contempt, with nothing in between. If they behaved perfectly and lived up to the standards she set, they were god figures. When they failed as gods, they were immediately demoted to devils. Mac had avoided demotion simply by refusing either to accept her standards or to take her expectations seriously.

Sheridan’s demotion had been quick and thorough, and there was no possibility of a reversal. Sheridan was aware of this. One of the main reasons why he went on fighting her was his knowledge that no matter how generous a settlement he made or how many of her demands he satisfied, he could never regain his godship.

Mac was sorry for them both and sick of them both. He almost wished they would move away or finish the job of eating each other up. Mary Martha might be better off in a foster home.

He told Miss Edgeworth he’d be back in an hour, then he drove down to the lower end of Bojeta Street near the wharf. It was an area of the city that was doomed now that newcomers from land-locked areas were moving in and discovering the sea. Real estate speculators were greedily buying up ocean-front lots and razing the old buildings, the warehouses and fish-processing plants and shacks for Mexican agricultural workers. All of these had been built in what the natives considered the damp and undesirable part of town.

Jim Baker’s used-car lot was jammed between a three-story motel under construction and a new restaurant and bar called the Sea Aira Club. A number of large signs announced bargains because Baker was about to lose his lease. Baker himself looked as if he’d already lost it. He was an elderly man with skin wrinkled like an old paper bag and a thick, husky voice that sounded as if he’d swallowed too many years of fog.

He came out of his oven-sized office, chewing something that might have been gum or what was left of his breakfast, or an undigested fiber of the past. “Can I do anything for you?”

“I’m interested in the green coupé at the rear of the lot.”

“Interested in what way?” Baker said with a long, deliberate look at Mac’s new Buick. “Something fishy about the deal?”

“Not that I’m aware of. My name is Ralph MacPherson, by the way. I’d like to know when the car was sold to you.”

“Last night about six o’clock. I didn’t handle the transaction — my son, Jamie, did — but I was in the office. I’d brought Jamie’s dinner to him from home. We’re open fourteen hours out of the twenty-four, and Jamie and I have to spell each other. He sold the young man a nice clean late-model Pontiac that had been pampered like a baby. I hated to see it go, frankly, but the young man seemed anxious and he had the cash. Sooo—” Baker shrugged and spread his hands.

“How young a man was he?”

“Oh, about Jamie’s age, thirty-two, thirty-five, maybe.”

Sheridan was thirty-four. “Do you remember his name?”

“I never knew it. It’s in the book but I’m not sure I ought to look it up for you. I wouldn’t want to cause him any trouble.”

“I’m trying to prevent trouble, Mr. Baker. A client of mine — I’m a lawyer — is convinced that the husband she’s divorcing has been using the green coupé to spy on her. I’ve been a family friend for many years and I’m simply trying to find out the truth one way or the other. Even a description of the man would be a big help.”

Baker thought about it. “Well, he was nice, clean-cut, athletic-looking. Tall, maybe six feet, with kind of sandy hair and a smile like he was apologizing for something. Would that be the husband?”

Sheridan was short and dark and wore glasses, but Mac said, “I’m not sure. Perhaps you’d better look up the name.”

“I guess it’d be all right, being as it’s just a divorce case and nothing criminal. I don’t want to get caught up in anything criminal. It plays hell with business.”

“To the best of my knowledge, nothing criminal is involved.”

“O.K., wait here.”

Baker went into the office and returned in a few minutes with a name and address written on an old envelope: Charles E. Gowen, 495 Miria Street.

“Is that the man?” Baker asked.

“I’m glad to say it’s not.” Mac returned the envelope. “This will be good news to my client.”

“Women get funny ideas sometimes.”

“Do they not.”

If it was good news to Kate, she didn’t show it. She met him at the front door, wearing a starched cotton dress and high-heeled shoes. Her face was carefully made up and her hair neat. It seemed to Mac that she was always dressed for company but company never came. He knew of no one besides himself who any longer got past the front door.

They went into the smaller of the two living rooms and she sat on the window seat while he told her what he’d found out. With her face in shadow and the sun at her back illuminating her long, fair hair, she looked scarcely older than Mary Martha. She’s only thirty, Mac thought. Her life has been broken and she’s too brittle to bend down and pick up the pieces.

“You can stop worrying about the green car,” he told her. “Sheridan wasn’t in it.”

She didn’t look as if she intended or wanted to stop worrying. “That hasn’t been proved.”

“The car was registered to Charles Gowen. He traded it in last night.”

“Funny coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Yes. But coincidences happen.”

“A lot of them can be explained. I told you from the beginning that Sheridan was too crafty to use his own car. Obviously, he borrowed the green coupé from this man Gowen. The kind of people Sheridan runs around with nowadays exchange cars and wives and mistresses as freely as they exchange booze. Sheridan’s moved away down in the world, farther than you think.”

“I haven’t time to go into that now, Kate. Let’s stick to the point.”

“Very well. He used Gowen’s car to harass me. Then when I fought back, when I chased him, he got scared and told Gowen to sell it.”

“Why? Why didn’t he simply return it to Gowen and let the matter drop? Selling the car was what led me to Gowen.”

“Sheridan’s mind is usually, I might say always, befuddled by alcohol. He probably considered the gambit quite a cunning one.”

“What about Gowen?”

“I don’t know about Gowen,” she said impatiently. “I’ve never heard of him before. But if he’s typical of Sheridan’s current friends, he’ll do anything for a few dollars or a bottle of liquor. Don’t forget, Sheridan has money to fling around. It makes him pretty popular, and I suppose powerful, in certain circles.” She paused, running her hand along her left cheek. The cheek was bright red as though it had been slapped. “You asked, ‘What about Gowen?’ Well, why don’t you find out?”

“I don’t think there’s enough to warrant an investigation.”

She looked at him bitterly. “Not enough? I suppose you think I’ve imagined the whole thing?”

“No, Kate. But—”

“I didn’t imagine that car parked outside my house, watching me. I didn’t imagine an anonymous letter accusing me of neglecting my daughter. I didn’t imagine that chase around town yesterday. Would an innocent man have fled like that?”

“Perhaps there are no innocent men,” Mac said. “Or women.”

“Oh, stop talking like a wise old philosopher. You’re not old, and you’re not very wise either.”

“Granted.”

“If you had been in that car, would you have run away like that? Answer me truthfully.”

“You seem concerned only with the fact that he ran away. I’m more concerned with the fact that you chased him.”

“I was upset. I’d just received that letter.”

“Perhaps he had had a disturbing experience, too, and was reacting in an emotional rather than a logical manner.”

She let out a sound of despair. “You won’t listen to me. You won’t take me seriously.”

“I do. I am.”

“No. You think I’m a fool. But I feel a terrible danger, Mac, I know it’s all around me. Something awful is waiting to happen, it’s just around the corner, waiting. It can’t be seen or heard or touched, but it’s as real as this house, that chair you’re sitting on, the tree outside the window.”

“And you think Sheridan is behind this danger?”

“He must be,” she said simply. “I have no other enemies.”

Mac thought what a sad epitaph it made for a marriage: I have no other enemies. “I’ll try again to contact Sheridan. As you know, he hasn’t been answering his telephone.”

“Another sign of guilt.”

“Or a sign that he’s not there,” Mac said dryly. “As for Charles Gowen, I can’t go charging up to him with a lot of questions. I haven’t the legal or moral right. All I can do is make a few discreet inquiries, find out where he lives and works, and what kind of person he is, whether he’s likely to be one of Sheridan’s cronies, and so on. I may as well tell you now, though: I don’t expect anything to come of it. If Gowen had a guilty reason for not wanting the green coupé found, it seems to me he’d have taken a little more trouble in disposing of it. There are at least a hundred used-car dealers between here and Los Angeles, yet Gowen sold it right here, practically in the center of town.”

“He may simply be stupid. Sheridan’s friends nowadays are not exactly intellectual giants.”

Mac’s smile was more pained than amused. “One of the things a lawyer has to learn early in his career is not to assume that the other guy is stupid.”

He rose. His whole body felt heavy, and stiff with tension. He always felt the same way when he was in Kate’s house, that he couldn’t move freely in any direction because he was under constant and judgmental surveillance. He could picture Sheridan trying, at first anyway, to conform and to please her, and making mistakes, more and more mistakes every day, until nothing was possible but mistakes.

He knew he was not being fair to her. To make amends for his thoughts, he crossed the room and leaned down and kissed her lightly on the top of her head. Her hair felt warm to his lips, and smelled faintly of soap.

She looked up at him, showing neither surprise nor displeasure, only a deep sorrow, as if the show of tenderness was too little and too late and she had forgotten how to respond. “Is that a courtesy you extend to all your clients?”

“No,” he said, smiling. “Only the ones I like and have known since they were freckle-faced little brats.”

“I never had freckles.”

“Yes, you did. You were covered with them every summer. You probably still would be if you spent any time in the sun. Listen, Kate, I have an idea. Why don’t you and Mary Martha come sailing with me one of these days?”

“No. No, thank you.”

“Why not?”

“I wouldn’t be very good company. I’ve forgotten how to enjoy myself.”

“You could relearn if you wanted to. Perhaps you don’t want to.”

Her sorrow had crystallized into bitterness, making her eyes shine hard and bright like blue glass. “Oh, stop it, Mac. You’re offering me a day of sailing the way you’d throw an old dog a bone. Well, I’m not that hungry. Besides, I can’t afford to leave the house for a whole day.”

“You can’t afford not to.”

“Sheridan might force his way in and steal something. He’s done it before.”

“Once.”

“He might do it ag—”

“He was drunk,” Mac said, “and all he took was a case of wine which belonged to him anyway.”

“But he broke into the house.”

“You refused to admit him. Isn’t that correct?”

“Naturally I refused. He was abusive and profane, he threatened me, he—” She stopped and took a long, deep breath. “You’re always making excuses for him. Why? You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I’m a man. I can’t help seeing things from a man’s point of view occasionally.”

“Then perhaps,” she said, rising, “I’d better hire a woman lawyer.”

“That might be a good idea.”

“You’d like to get rid of me, wouldn’t you?”

“Let’s put it this way: I’d like for us both to be rid of your problems. My going along with you and agreeing with everything you say and do is not a solution. It gets in the way of a solution. Your difficulties can’t just be dumped in a box labeled Sheridan. You had them before Sheridan, and you’re having them now, after Sheridan. I’d be doing you no favor by pretending otherwise.”

“I was a happy, healthy, normal young woman when I married him.”

“Is that how you remember yourself?”

“Yes.”

“My memory of you is different,” he said calmly. “You were moody, selfish, immature. You flunked out of college, you couldn’t hold on to a job, and your relationship with your mother was strained. You tried to use marriage as a way out of all these difficulties. It put a very heavy burden on Sheridan, he wasn’t strong enough to carry it. Can you see any truth in what I’m saying, Kate? Or are you just standing there thinking how unfair I’m being?”

They were face to face, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring at a piece of the wall beyond his left shoulder, as if to deny his very presence. “I no longer expect fairness, from anyone.”

“You’re getting it from me, Kate.”

“You call that fairness — that repulsive picture of me when I was nineteen?”

“It’s not repulsive, or even particularly unusual. A great many girls in the same state go into marriage for the same reason.”

“And what about Sheridan’s reasons for getting married?” she said shrilly. “I suppose they were fine, he was mature, he got along great with his mother, he was a big success in the world—”

He took hold of her shoulders, lightly but firmly. “Keep your voice down.”

“Why should I? Nobody will hear. Nobody can. The Oakleys were very exclusive, they liked privacy. They had to build the biggest house in town on the biggest lot because they didn’t want to be bothered by neighbors. I could scream for help at the top of my lungs and not a soul would hear me. I’ve got enough privacy to be murdered in. Sheridan knows that. He’s probably dreamed about it a hundred times: wouldn’t it be nice if someone came along and murdered Kate? He may even have made or be making some plans of his own along that line, though I don’t believe he’d have enough nerve to do it himself. He’d probably hire someone, the way he hired Gowen.”

Her quick changes of mood and thought were beginning to exhaust Mac. Trying to keep track of them was like following a fast rat through a tortuous maze: Sheridan had borrowed the car from Gowen, who was one of his drunken friends — Sheridan had been at the wheel — Sheridan hadn’t been at the wheel — Gowen wasn’t his friend, he’d been hired — Gowen had driven the car himself. At this point Mac might have dismissed her whole story as fictional if she hadn’t produced the real license number of a real car. The car existed, and so did Gowen. They were about the only facts Mac had to go on.

“Now you’re suggesting,” he said, “that Gowen was hired by Sheridan to intimidate you.”

“Yes. He’s probably some penniless bum that Sheridan met in a bar.”

He didn’t point out that penniless bums didn’t pay cash for late-model sedans. “That should be easy enough to check.”

“Would you, Mac? Will you?”

“I’ll try my best.”

“You’re a dear, you really are.”

She seemed to have forgotten her ill-feeling toward him. She looked excited and flushed as if she’d just come in from an hour of tennis in the sun and fresh air. But he knew the game wasn’t tennis and the sun wasn’t the same one that was shining in the window. What warmed her, brightened her, made her blood flow faster, was the thought of beating Sheridan.