The Goodbye Look

chapter 7

Though I’d visited the Tennis Club before, the woman at the front desk was strange to me. But she knew Betty Truttwell, and greeted her warmly.

“We never see you any more, Miss Truttwell.”

“I’ve been terribly busy. Has Nick been here today?”

The woman answered with some reluctance: “As a matter of fact, he has been. He came in an hour or so ago, and went into the bar for a while. He wasn’t looking too well when he came out.”

“Do you mean that he was drunk?”

“I’m afraid he was, Miss Truttwell, since you asked me. The woman with him, the blonde, was under the weather, too. After they left I gave Marco a piece of my mind. But he said he only served them two drinks each. He said the woman was tight when they arrived, and Mr. Chalmers can’t handle liquor.”

“He never could,” Betty agreed. “Who was the woman?”

“I forget her name – he’s brought her in once before.” She consulted the guest register which lay on the desk in front of her. “ ‘Jean Swain.’ ”

“Not Jean Trask?” I said.

“It looks like ‘Swain’ to me.”

She pushed the register toward me, indicating with her red fingertips where Nick had signed the woman’s name and his own. It looked like ‘Swain’ to me, too. Her home address was given as San Diego. “Is she a fairly large blonde with a good figure, fortyish?”

“That’s her. A good figure,” she added, “if you like the fleshy type.” She herself was very thin.

Betty and I walked toward the bar along the gallery that overlooked the pool. The children were still making pool noises. A few adults were stretched out on long chairs in corners, catching the thin warmth of the January sun.

The bar was empty except for a couple of men prolonging their lunch. The bartender and I exchanged nods of recognition. Marco was a short, quick, dark man in a red waistcoat. He admitted gloomily that Nick had been there.

“Matter of fact, I asked him to leave.”

“Did he have a lot to drink?”

“Not here he didn’t. I served him two single shots of bourbon, you can’t make a federal case out of that. What happened, did he wreck his car?”

“I hope not. I’m trying to catch up with him before he wrecks anything. Do you know where he went?”

“No, but I’ll tell you one thing, he was in a hell of a mood. When I wouldn’t give him a third drink, he wanted to put up a fight. I had to show him my pool cue.” Marco reached under the bar and showed it to us: the sawed-off butt of a heavy cue about two feet long. “I hated to pull it on a member, you know, but he was carrying a gun and I wanted him out of here, fast. Anyone else, I would have called the sheriff.”

“He had a gun?” Betty said in a small, high voice.

“Yeah, it was in the pocket of his jacket. He kept it out of sight but you can’t hide a big heavy gun like that.” He leaned across the bar and peered into Betty’s eyes. “What’s the matter with him, anyway, Miss Truttwell? He never acted like this before.”

“He’s in trouble,” she said.

“Does the dame have anything to do with his trouble? The blonde dame? She drinks like she’s got a hollow leg. She shouldn’t be making him drink.”

“Do you know who she is, Marco?”

“No. But she looks like trouble to me. I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing with her.”

Betty started for the door, then turned back to Marco again. “Why didn’t you take the gun away from him?”

“I don’t fool around with guns, Miss. That isn’t my department.”

We went out to Betty’s two-seater in the parking lot. The club was on a cove of the Pacific, and I caught a whiff of the sea. It was a raw and rueful smell, conjuring up the place where I had found Sidney Harrow.

Betty and I were both silent and thoughtful as she drove up the long hill to the Montevista Inn. The young man in the office remembered me.

“You’re just in time if you want to see Mrs. Trask. She’s getting ready to leave.”

“Did she say why?”

“I think she’s had bad news. It must be serious, because she didn’t even put up an argument when I had to charge her for an extra day. They usually put up an argument.”

I made my way through the oak grove and tapped on the screen door of the stucco cottage.

The inner door was open, and Jean Trask answered from the bedroom: “My bags are ready, if you want to carry them out.”

I crossed the living room and entered the bedroom. The woman was sitting at the dressing table, shakily applying lipstick.

Our eyes met in the mirror. Her hand wandered, describing a red clown mouth around her real one. She turned and got up clumsily, upsetting her stool.

“They sent you for my bags?”

“No. But I’ll be glad to carry them.” I picked up her matched blue bags. They were light enough.

“Put them down,” she said. “Who are you anyway?”

She was ready to be afraid of anyone for any reason – so full of fear that some of it slopped over into me. Her huge red mouth alarmed me. Chilly laughter convulsed my stomach.

“I asked about you at the office,” she said. “They told me they don’t have a security guard. So what are you doing here?”

“At the moment I’m looking for Nick Chalmers. We don’t have to beat around the bush. You must know he’s in serious emotional trouble.”

She answered as if she was glad to have someone to talk to: “He certainly is. He’s talking about suicide. I thought a couple of drinks would do him good. They only made him worse.”

“Where is he now?”

“I made him promise to go home and sleep it off. He said he would.”

“Home to his apartment?”

“I guess so.”

“You’re pretty vague, Mrs. Trask.”

“I try to keep myself that way. It’s less painful,” she added wryly.

“How did you get so interested in Nick?”

“It’s none of your business. And I’m not taking any static from you.”

Her voice rose as she gained confidence in her own anger. But a steady trill of fear ran through it.

“What are you so afraid of, Mrs. Trask?”

“Sidney Harrow got himself zapped last night.” Her voice was rough with self-concern. “You must know that.”

“How do you happen to know it?”

“Nick told me. I’m sorry I ever opened this can of worms.”

“Did he kill Sidney?”

“I don’t think he knows – that’s how far off base he is. And I’m not waiting around to find out.”

“Where are you going?”

She refused to tell me.

I went back to Betty and told her what I had learned, or part of it. We decided to go out to the university community in separate cars. My car was where it was supposed to be, in front of the Sunset Motor Motel. There was a parking ticket under the windshield wiper.

I tried to follow Betty’s red two-seater, but she drove too fast for me, close to ninety on the straightaway. She was waiting for me when I reached the parking lot of the Cambridge Arms.

She ran toward me. “He’s here. At least that’s his car.”

She pointed at a blue sports car standing beside her red one. I went and touched the hood. The engine was hot. The key was in the ignition.

“You stay down here,” I said.

“No. If he makes trouble – I mean he won’t if I’m there.”

“That’s a thought.”

We went up together in the elevator. Betty knocked on Nick’s door and called his name. “This is Betty.”

There was a long waiting silence. Betty knocked again. Abruptly the door was pulled open. She took an involuntary step into the room, and ended up with her face against Nick’s chest. He held her with one hand and with the other he pointed a heavy revolver at my stomach.

I couldn’t see his eyes, which were hidden by dark wraparound glasses. In contrast, his face was very pale. His hair was uncombed and hung down over his forehead. His white shirt was dirty. My mind recorded these things as if they might add up to my last sight of the world. I felt resentment more than fear. I hated the idea of dying for no good reason at the hands of a mixed-up overgrown boy I didn’t even know.

“Drop it,” I said routinely.

“I don’t take orders from you.”

“Come on now, Nick,” Betty said.

She moved closer to him, trying to use her body to distract him. Her right arm slid around his waist, and she pressed one thigh forward between his legs. She raised her left arm as if she was going to loop it around his neck. Instead she brought it sharply down on his gun arm.

The revolver was pointing at the floor now. I dove for it and wrenched it out of his hand.

“Damn you!” he said. “Damn you both!”

A boy with a high voice or a girl with a low one came out of the apartment across the hall. “What’s going on?”

“Initiation,” I said.

Nick tore himself loose from Betty and swung at my face. I shifted and let his fist go by. I lowered my head and bulled him backward into his living room. Betty shut the door and leaned on it. Her color was high. She was breathing through her mouth.

Nick came at me again. I went under his fists and hit him solidly in the solar plexus. He lay down gasping for breath.

I spun the cylinder of his revolver. One shell had been fired. It was a Colt .45. I got out my black notebook and made a record of its number.

Betty moved between us. “You didn’t have to hurt him.”

“Yes I did. But he’ll get over it.”

She kneeled beside him and touched his face with her hand. He rolled away from her. The sounds he made fighting for breath gradually subsided. He sat up with his back against the chesterfield.

I sat on my heels facing him, and showed him his revolver. “Where did you get this, Nick?”

“I don’t have to answer that. You can’t make me incriminate myself.”

His voice had a queer inhuman tone, as if it was being played back on tape. I couldn’t tell what the tone meant. His eyes were effectively masked by the wrap-around glasses.

“I’m not a policeman, Nick, if that’s what you think.”

“I don’t care what you are.”

I tried again. “I’m a private detective working on your side. But I’m not quite clear what your side is. Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head like a child in a tantrum, whipping it rapidly from side to side until his hair blurred out. Betty said in a pained voice:

“Please don’t do that, Nicholas. You’ll hurt your neck.”

She smoothed his hair with her fingers. He sat perfectly still.

“Let me look at you,” she said.

She took off his dark glasses. He grabbed for them, but she held them out of his reach. His eyes were black and glistening like asphalt squeezed from a crevice. They seemed to be leading a strange life of their own, with an inward look and an outward look alternating anxiety and aggression. I could understand why he wore the glasses to hide his sad changing eyes.

He covered his eyes with his hands and peered between his fingers.

“Please don’t do that, Nick.” The girl was kneeling beside him again. “What happened? Please tell me what happened.”

“No. You wouldn’t love me any more.”

“Nothing could stop me loving you.”

“Even if I killed somebody?” he said between his hands.

“Did you kill somebody?” I said.

He nodded slowly, once, keeping his head down and his face hidden.

“With this revolver?”

His head jerked downward in the affirmative. Betty said: “He’s in no condition to talk. You mustn’t force him.”

“I think he wants to get it off his chest. Why do you suppose he phoned you from the club?”

“To say goodbye.”

“This is better than saying goodbye. Isn’t it?”

She answered soberly: “I don’t know. I don’t know how much I can stand.”

I turned to Nick again. “Where did you get the revolver?”

“It was in his car.”

“Sidney Harrow’s car?”

He dropped his hands from his face. His eyes were puzzled and fearful. “Yes. It was in his car.”

“Did you shoot him in his car?”

His whole face clenched like a frightened baby’s getting ready to cry. “I don’t remember.” He struck himself on the forehead with his fist. Then he struck himself in the mouth, hard.

“You’re tormenting him,” the girl said. “Can’t you see he’s sick?”

“Stop mothering him. He already has a mother.”

His head came up in a startled movement. “You mustn’t tell my mother. Or my father. Dad will kill me.”

I made no promises. His parents would have to be told. “You were going to tell me where the shooting occurred, Nick.”

“Yes. I remember now. We went to the hobo jungle back of Ocean Boulevard. Someone had left a fire burning and we sat by the coals. He wanted me to do a bad thing.” His voice was naïve, like a child’s. “I took his gun and shot him.”

He made another scowling baby-face, so tight that it hid his eyes. He began to sob and moan, but no tears came. It was hard to watch his dry crying.

Betty put her arms around him. I said across the rhythms of his noise:

“He’s had breakdowns before, hasn’t he?”

“Not like this.”

“Did he stay at home, or was he hospitalized?”

“Home.” She spoke to Nick. “Will you come home with me?”

He said something that might have been yes. I called the Chalmerses’ number and got the servant, Emilio. He brought Irene Chalmers to the phone.

“This is Archer. I’m with your son in his apartment. He’s not in a good way, and I’m bringing him home.”

“Is he hurt?”

“He’s mentally hurt, and talking about suicide.”

“I’ll get in touch with his psychiatrist,” she said. “Dr. Smitheram.”

“Is your husband there?”

“He’s in the garden. Do you want to talk to him?”

“It isn’t necessary. But you’d better prepare him for this.”

“Can you handle Nick?”

“I think so. I have Betty Truttwell with me.”

Before we left the apartment I called the Bureau of Criminal Investigation in Sacramento. I gave the number of the revolver to a man I knew named Roy Snyder. He said he’d try to check the name of the original owner. When we went down to my car I put the revolver in the trunk, locked in an evidence case.