The Instant Enemy

chapter 6

I PUT THE SEVERED BARRELS and stock in the trunk of my car and drove to my office on Sunset. From there I phoned Keith Sebastian at Centennial Savings and Loan. His secretary told me he had just gone out for lunch.

I made an appointment with Sebastian for early afternoon. In order not to waste the noon hour I put in a call to Jacob Belsize before I left my office.

Belsize remembered me. When I mentioned Davy Spanner’s name, he agreed to meet me for lunch at a restaurant near his building on South Broadway.

I found him waiting for me in a booth. I hadn’t seen Jake Belsize in several years, and he had aged in the interval. His hair was almost white now. The lines around his mouth and eyes reminded me of the fissured clay surrounding desert water holes.

The Special Businessman’s Dollar Lunch was a hot beef sandwich with French frieds and coffee. Belsize ordered it, and so did I. When the waitress had taken our order, he spoke under the clatter and buzz of eating, talking men:

“You weren’t too clear on the phone. What’s Davy been up to?”

“Aggravated assault. He stomped me in the kidneys.”

Jake’s dark eyes jumped. He was one of the good ones who never could stop caring. “You going to press charges?”

“I may. But he’s got heavier charges to worry about. I can’t mention names because my client won’t let me. His daughter is a high-school girl. She’s been gone for a day and a night – a night which she spent with Davy in his apartment.”

“Where are they now?”

“Driving around in her car. When I lost them, they were on the coast highway headed for Malibu.”

“How old is the girl?”

“Seventeen.”

He took a deep breath. “That isn’t good. But it could be worse.”

“It is worse, if you knew all the details. It’s much worse.”

“Tell me the details. What kind of a girl is she?”

“I saw her for two minutes. I’d say she’s a nice girl in serious trouble. This seems to be her second go-round with sex. The first go-round made her suicidal, according to a friend of hers. This time could be worse. I’m guessing, but I’d say that the girl and Davy are spurring each other on to do something really wild.”

Belsize leaned across the table toward me. “What do you think they might do?”

“I think they’re building up to some kind of crime.”

“What kind of crime?”

“You tell me. He’s your boy.”

Belsize shook his head. The lines in his face deepened, like cracks in his conception of himself. “He’s mine in a very limited sense. I can’t follow him down the street or out on the highway. I have a hundred and fifty clients, a hundred and fifty Davy Spanners. They walk through my dreams.”

“I know you can’t make it for them,” I said, “and nobody’s blaming you. I came here to get your professional judgment on Davy. Does he go in for crimes against the person?”

“He never has, but he’s capable of it.”

“Homicide?”

Belsize nodded. “Davy’s pretty paranoid. When he feels threatened or rejected he loses his balance. One day in my office he almost jumped me.”

“Why?”

“It was just before his sentencing. I told him I was recommending that he be sent to jail for six months as a condition of probation. It triggered something in him, something from the past, I don’t know what. We don’t have a complete history on Davy. He lost his parents and spent his early years in an orphanage, until foster parents took him on. Anyway, when I told him what I was going to do, he must have felt abandoned all over again. Only now he was big and strong and ready to kill me. Fortunately I was able to talk him back to his senses. And I didn’t revoke my recommendation for probation.”

“That took faith.”

Belsize shrugged. “I’m a faith healer. I learned a good many years ago that I have to take my chances. If I won’t take a chance on them, I can’t expect them to take a chance on themselves.”

The waitress brought our sandwiches, and for a few minutes we were busy with them. At least I was busy with mine. Belsize picked at his as if Davy and I had spoiled his appetite. Finally he pushed it away.

“I have to learn not to hope too much,” he said. “I have to school myself to remember that they have two strikes on them before I ever see them. One more and they’re whiffed.” He raised his head. “I wish you’d give me all the facts about Davy.”

“They wouldn’t make you any happier. And I don’t want you putting out an alarm for him and the girl. Not until I talk to my client, anyway.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Answer a few more questions. If you were high on Davy, why did you recommend six months in jail?”

“He needed it. He’d been stealing cars on impulse, probably for years.”

“For sale?”

“For joy riding. Or grief riding, as he calls it. He admitted when we’d established rapport that he had driven all over the state. He told me he was looking for his people, his own people. I believed him. I hated to send him to jail. But I thought six months in a controlled situation would give him a chance to cool off, time to mature.”

“Did it?”

“In some ways. He finished his high-school education and did a lot of extra reading. But of course he still has problems to work out – if he’ll only give himself the time.”

“Psychiatric problems?”

“I prefer to call them life problems,” Belsize said. “He’s a boy who never really had anybody or anything of his own. That is a lot of not-having. I thought, myself, a psychiatrist could help him. But the psychologist who tested him for us didn’t think he’d be a good investment.”

“Because he’s semi-psychotic?”

“I don’t pin labels on young people. I see their adolescent storms. I’ve seen them take every form that you could find in a textbook of abnormal psychology. But often when the storms pass, they’re different and better people.” His hands turned over, palms upward, on the table.

“Or different and worse.”

“You’re a cynic, Mr. Archer.”

“Not me. I was one of the ones who turned out different and better. Slightly better, anyway. I joined the cops instead of the hoods.”

Belsize said with a smile that crumpled his whole face: “I still haven’t made my decision. My clients think I’m a cop. The cops think I’m a hood-lover. But we’re not the problem, are we?”

“Do you have any idea where Davy would go?”

“He might go anywhere at all. Have you talked to his employer? I don’t recall her name at the moment but she’s a redheaded woman–”

“Laurel Smith. I talked to her. How did she get into the picture?”

“She offered him a part-time job through our office. This was when he got out of jail about two months ago.”

“Had she known him before?”

“I don’t believe so. I think she’s a woman who wanted someone to help.”

“And what did she expect in return?”

“You are a cynic,” he said. “People often do good simply because it’s their nature. I think Mrs. Smith may have had troubles of her own.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I had an inquiry on her from the sheriff’s office in Santa Teresa. This was about the time that Davy got out of jail.”

“An official inquiry?”

“Semi-official. A sheriff’s man named Fleischer came to my office. He wanted to know all about Laurel Smith and all about Davy. I didn’t tell him much. Frankly, I didn’t like him, and he wouldn’t explain why he needed the information.”

“Have you checked Laurel Smith’s record?”

“No. It didn’t seem necessary.”

“I would if I were you. Where did Davy live before he went to jail?”

“He’d been on his own for a year or more after he dropped out of high school. Living on the beaches in the summer, taking odd jobs in the winter.”

“Before that?”

“He lived with foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Spanner. He took their name.”

“Can you tell me where to find the Spanners?”

“They live in West Los Angeles. You can find them in the phone book.”

“Is Davy still in touch with them?”

“I don’t know. Ask them yourself.” The waitress brought our checks, and Belsize stood up to go.