The Instant Enemy

chapter 11

THE HACKETTS’ GATE was standing open. I expected to find police cars in front of the house, but the only car standing under the floodlights was a new blue Mercedes convertible. The young man who went with it came out of the house to meet me.

“Mr. Archer? I’m Sidney Marburg.”

He gave me a hard competitive handshake. On second look he wasn’t so very young. His smile was probably porcelain, and the smile-lines radiating from it could just as well have been worry-lines. His narrow black eyes were opaque in the light.

“What happened, Mr. Marburg?”

“I’m not too clear about it myself, I wasn’t here when it happened. Apparently Stephen’s been kidnapped. A young chick and a boy with a shotgun took him away in their car.”

“Where was Lupe?”

“Lupe was here. He still is – lying down with a bloody head. The boy got out of the trunk of their car and held a sawed-off shotgun on him. The girl hit him over the head with a hammer or a tire iron.”

“The girl did that?”

He nodded. “What makes it even queerer, it seems to be someone the family knows. My wife wants to talk to you.”

Marburg took me into the library where his wife was sitting under a lamp, with a phone and a revolver at her elbow. She seemed calm, but her face had a look of chilled surprise. She forced a smile.

“Thank you for coming. Sidney’s a charming boy, but he’s not much practical use.” She turned to him. “Now run along and play with your paints or something.”

He stood resentfully between her and the door. His mouth opened and closed.

“Go on now like a good boy. Mr. Archer and I have things to discuss.”

Marburg walked out. I sat on the leather hassock that matched her chair. “Where’s Mrs. Hackett?”

“Gerda went to pieces – par for the course. Fortunately I always carry chloral hydrate. I gave her a couple of capsules and she cried herself to sleep.”

“So everything’s under control.”

“Everything’s busted wide open, and you know it. Are you going to help me put it back together?”

“I have a client.”

She disregarded this. “I can pay you a good deal of money.”

“How much?”

“A hundred thousand.”

“That’s too much.”

She gave me a narrow, probing look. “I saw you turn down twenty dollars today. But nobody ever turned down a hundred grand.”

“It isn’t real money. You’re offering it to me because you think I may be in on an extortion deal. No such luck.”

“Then how did you know about it before it happened?”

“I came across the evidence. They left the map of this place lying around, almost as if they wanted to be stopped. Which doesn’t make them any less dangerous.”

“I know they’re dangerous. I saw them. The two of them came right into the living room and marched Stephen out to their car. In their dark glasses they looked like creatures from another planet.”

“Did you recognize either of them?”

“Gerda recognized the girl right away. She’s been a guest here more than once. Her name is Alexandria Sebastian.”

She turned and looked at me in surmise. I was glad the secret was coming out.

“Keith Sebastian is my client.”

“And he knew about this?”

“He knew his daughter had run away. Then he knew what I told him, which wasn’t much. Let’s not get involved in recriminations. The important thing is to get your son back.”

“I agree. My offer stands. A hundred thousand if Stephen comes home safe.”

“The police do this work for free.”

She pushed the idea away with her hand. “I don’t want them. So often they solve the case and lose the victim. I want my son back alive.”

“I can’t guarantee it.”

“I know that,” she said impatiently. “Will you try?” She pressed both hands to her breast, then offered them to me, empty. Her emotion was both theatrical and real.

“I’ll try,” I said. “I think you’re making a mistake, though. You should use the police.”

“I’ve already said I wouldn’t. I don’t trust them.”

“But you trust me?”

“Shouldn’t I? Yes, I do, up to a point.”

“So does Keith Sebastian. I’m going to have to check with him on this.”

“I don’t see why. He’s one of our employees.”

“Not when he’s on his own time. His daughter is missing, remember. He feels about her just as strongly as you do about your son.” Not quite, perhaps, but I gave Sebastian the benefit of the doubt.

“We’ll get him out here.” Abruptly she reached for the phone. “What’s his number?”

“We’re wasting time.”

“I asked you for his number.”

I looked it up in my black book. She dialed, and got Sebastian on the first ring. He must have been sitting beside the telephone.

“Mr. Sebastian? This is Ruth Marburg. Stephen Hackett’s mother. I’m at his Malibu place now, and I’d very much like to see you. Yes, tonight. Immediately, in fact. How soon can you get here? Very well, I’ll look for you in half an hour. You won’t disappoint me, will you?”

She hung up and looked at me quietly, almost sweetly. Her hand was still on the phone, as if she was taking Sebastian’s pulse by remote control.

“He wouldn’t be in on this with his daughter, would he? I know that Stephen isn’t always popular with the hired help.”

“Is that what we are, Mrs. Marburg?”

“Don’t change the subject. I asked you a straight question.”

“The answer is no. Sebastian doesn’t have that kind of guts. Anyway he practically worships your son.”

“Why?” she asked me bluntly.

“Money. He has a passion for the stuff.”

“Are you sure he didn’t put the girl up to this?”

“I’m sure.”

“Then what in hell does she think she’s doing?”

“She seems to be in revolt, against everyone over thirty. Your son was the biggest target within reach. I doubt that she picked the target, though. Davy Spanner’s probably the main instigator.”

“What does he want? Money?”

“I haven’t figured out what he wants. Do you know of any connection between him and your son? This could be a personal thing.”

She shook her head. “Maybe if you tell me what you know about him.”

I gave her a quick rundown on Davy Spanner, son of a migrant laborer, orphaned at three or four and institutionalized, then taken by foster parents; a violent dropout from high school, a wandering teen-ager, car thief, jail graduate, candidate for more advanced felonies, possibly somewhat crazy in the head.

Ruth Marburg listened to me with a suspicious ear. “You sound almost sympathetic.”

“I almost am,” I said, though my kidneys were still sore. “Davy Spanner didn’t make himself.”

She answered me with deliberate roughness: “Don’t give me that crap. I know these psychopaths. They’re like dogs biting the hands that feed them.”

“Has Spanner had previous contact with your family?”

“No. Not that I know of.”

“But the girl has.”

“Not with me. With Gerda, Stephen’s wife. The girl was interested in languages, or pretended to be. Gerda took her under her wing last summer. She’ll know better next time, if the family survives this.”

I was getting impatient with the conversation. We seemed to have been sitting in the room for a long time. Book-lined, with the windows heavily draped, it was like an underground bunker cut off from the world of life.

Ruth Marburg must have sensed or shared my feeling. She went to one of the windows and pulled back the drapes. We looked out at the broken necklace of lights along the shore.

“I still can’t believe it happened,” she said. “Stephen has always been so careful. It’s one reason they don’t have servants.”

“What’s Lupe?”

“We hardly think of him as a servant. He’s really the manager of the estate.”

“A friend of yours?”

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly. We get along.” Her half-smile, and the way she held her body, gave the words a sexual connotation.

“May I talk to Lupe?”

“Not now. He’s a pretty sick man.”

“Should he have a doctor?”

“I’m going to get him one.” She turned and faced me, visibly shaken by her own angry force. “You needn’t take responsibility for things you’re not responsible for. I’m hiring you to get my son back alive.”

“You haven’t hired me yet.”

“And I may not.” She turned back to the window. “What’s keeping him?” She clenched her hands and rapped the knuckles together, making a noise which reminded me that she contained a skeleton.

As if he’d heard it, or felt her impatient will, Sebastian turned up almost immediately. His big car threw its lights up over the pass, came around the dark lake, and stopped under the floodlights.

“You took your time,” Mrs. Marburg said at the door.

“I’m sorry. I had a phone call as I was leaving. I had to take it.”

Sebastian seemed tremendously excited. He was pale and brilliant-eyed. He looked from the woman to me.

“What’s up?”

Ruth Marburg answered grimly: “Come in, I’ll tell you what’s up.” She led us into the library and closed the door emphatically, like a warder. “Your precious daughter has stolen my son.”

“What do you mean?”

“She drove in here with her bully-boy hidden in the trunk of her car. Knocked out our manager with a tire iron. Walked into the house with bully-boy and marched Stephen out to their car and took him away.”

“But that’s insane.”

“It happened.”

“When?”

“Just before sundown. That was about five thirty. It’s after eight now. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”

“Anything. I’ll do anything.”

A delayed rush of tears almost blinded him. He wiped them with his fingers, stood swaying in the light with his hands covering his eyes.

“You’re sure it was Sandy?”

“Yes. My daughter-in-law knows her well. Mr. Archer here virtually predicted it was going to happen. Which brings me to the reason why you’re here. I want Mr. Archer to get my son back for me.”

“This means,” I told him, “that you and I may be on opposite sides. Your daughter has helped to commit a major crime. I’m afraid I can’t protect her from the consequences.”

“But I’ll expect you to cooperate with Archer,” Mrs. Marburg told him. “If you hear from your daughter, for example, you’ve got to let him know.”

“Yes.” He nodded several times. “I promise I’ll cooperate. Thank you for – thank you for telling me.”

She waved him away, out of her sight.

“Well,” she said to me when he had left the room, “do you think he put her up to it?”

“You know he didn’t.”

“Don’t tell me what I know. People are capable of anything. Even the nicest people, and he’s not one of them.” She added: “Neither am I, in case you were in doubt.”

“We’re wasting time.”

She had the last word: “You’re on my time. On your way out, will you tell my husband to bring me a double Scotch. I’m as tired as death.”

She slumped into her chair and let her face and body droop like Plasticine. Her husband was in the lighted gallery looking at the pictures. I delivered her message to him.

“Thanks, old fellow. Don’t work too hard on this assignment, will you? If Stephen doesn’t come back, all this comes to Ruth and me. I love good paintings.”

Marburg was half-serious, which was all he’d ever be. I went outside where Sebastian was waiting in my car. He was gnawing at a thumbnail. It was bleeding.

I got in behind the wheel. “Do you have something to tell me?”

“Yes. I was afraid to say it in front of her. That telephone call just before I left my house – it was from Sandy. She wanted me to come and get her.”

“Where?”

“Santa Teresa. She was cut off before she could give me directions.”

“Did she say where she was calling from?”

“No, but it was a collect call and the operator was able to trace it for me. Sandy used the office phone in the Power Plus station on this side of Santa Teresa. We’ve often driven up weekends, and stopped at that very station.”

“I’d better get up there now.”

“Take me along,” he said. “Please.”

I turned and looked into his face. I didn’t like him much, or trust him very far. But I was liking him better as time passed.

“How well do you drive?”

“I don’t have accidents, and I haven’t been drinking.”

“Okay, we’ll take my car.”

Sebastian left his in a Malibu parking lot next door to a drive-in. I had a quick sandwich, which tasted of highway fumes, while he phoned his wife. Then he phoned the Power Plus station in Santa Teresa.

“They’re open till midnight,” he told me. “And the man remembered Sandy.”

My watch said nine fifteen. It had been a long day, and I expected to be up most of the night. I climbed into the back seat and went to sleep.