The Underground Man

chapter 15

The Star Motel stood with its rear end on pilings in a narrow crowded place between the highway and the sea. The lights of the all-night service station beside it shone on its yellow stucco walls and on the weathered “Vacancy” sign which hung on the office door.

I went in and tapped the hand bell on the counter. A man came plodding out of the back room and peered at me through his creased and sleepy face.

“Single or double?”

I told him I was looking for a man, and I started to give him a description of Al. He cut me short with a shake of his frowzy head. An anger that floated like a pollution near the surface of his life came up in his throat and almost choked him.

“You got no right to wake me up for that. This is a business establishment.”

I laid two dollar bills on the counter. He sucked his anger back into his body and picked up the money.

“Many thanks. Your friend and his wife are in room seven.”

I showed him Susan’s picture. “Has she been here?”

“Maybe she has.”

“You’ve seen her or you haven’t.”

“What’s the rap?”

“No rap. She’s just a floating girl.”

“Are you her father?”

“Just a friend,” I said. “Has she been here?”

“I think she was, a couple of days ago. I haven’t seen her since. Anyway,” he said with a slanted grin, “you got your two dollars’ worth.”

I left him and moved along the railed gallery. A high tide was slapping disconsolately at the pilings. The reflection of the neon from the service station floated on the water like iridescent waste.

I knocked on the door and made its tin 7 rattle. The narrow band of light which rimmed the door widened as it opened. The woman behind it tried to close it again when she saw my face, but I put my arm and shoulder in the opening and slid inside.

“Go away,” she said.

“I only want to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Sorry. I lost my memory.” She seemed to mean it literally. “Some days I can’t remember my own name.”

Her voice was flat. Her face was without expression, though it was marked by the traces of past expressions around the eyes and at the corners of the mouth. She looked both young and old. Her body was muffled in a quilted pink robe, and I couldn’t tell if she was a well-preserved middle-aged woman or a dilapidated girl. Her eyes were the color of the darkness in the corners of the room.

“What is your name?”

“Elegant.”

“That’s a striking name.”

“Thank you. I picked it one day when I was feeling that way. I haven’t felt that way for quite some time now.”

She looked around the room as if to blame her environment for this. The bedclothes were tangled and dragging on the floor. Empty bottles stood on the dresser among tooth-marked pieces of old hamburgers. The chairs were hung with her discarded clothing.

“Where’s Al?” I said.

“He should be back by now, but he isn’t.”

“What’s his last name?”

“AI Nesters, he calls himself.”

“And where’s he from?”

“I’m not supposed to tell anybody that.”

“Why not?”

She made a vague impatient gesture. “You ask too bloody many questions. Who do you think you are?”

I didn’t try to answer that. “How long ago did Al leave here?”

“Hours. I don’t know exactly. I don’t keep track of the time.”

“Was he wearing his longhair wig and mustache and beard?”

She gave me a blank look. “He doesn’t wear any of those things.”

“That you know of.”

She showed a flicker of interest, even a little anger. “What is this? Are you trying to tell me he’s doubletiming me?”

“He may be. When I saw him tonight, he was wearing a black wig and a beard to match.”

“Where did you see him?”

“Northridge.”

“Are you the man who promised him the money?”

“I represent that man.” It was true in a way – I was working for Stanley Broadhurst’s wife. But the statement made me feel as if I was mediating between two ghosts.

Another flicker of interest appeared in her eyes. “Do you have the thousand for him?”

“Not that much.”

“You could leave me what you have.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Enough for a bindle anyway.”

“How much is that?”

“Twenty dollars would fix me up for tonight and all day tomorrow.”

“I’ll think about it. I’m not sure Al delivered on his side of the bargain.”

“You know he did, if you’re with it. He’s been hanging around for days waiting to be paid off. How much longer do you expect him to wait?”

The answer was forever, but I didn’t say it. “I’m not sure what he did was worth a grand.”

“Don’t tell me that. It was the figure mentioned.” Her vague eyes narrowed. “Are you sure you’re fronting for the money man? What’s his name – Broadman?”

“Broadhurst. Stanley Broadhurst.”

She relaxed on the edge of the bed. Before she got suspicious again, I showed her the photograph of Susan which Mrs. Crandall had given me. She looked at it with a kind of respectful envy and passed it back to me.

“I was almost as pretty as that at one time,” she said.

“I bet you were, Elegant.”

The sound of her name pleased her, and she smiled. “Not so long ago as you might think.”

“I can believe it. Do you know this girl?”

“I’ve seen her once or twice.”

“Recently?”

“I think so. I don’t keep good track of time, I’ve got too much on my mind. But she was here in the last two or three days.”

“What was she doing here?”

“You’ll have to ask Al. He made me go out and sit in the bug. Fortunately, I’m not the jealous type, that’s one good quality I have.”

“Did Al make love to her?”

“Maybe he did. I wouldn’t put it past him. But mainly he was trying to get her to talk. He made me mix up some acid in a Coke. That was supposed to loosen her up.”

“What did she talk about?”

“I wouldn’t know. He took her away someplace, and that was the last I saw of her. But I guess it had to do with the Broadman business. Broadhurst? That was what Al had on his mind all week.”

“What day was she here? Thursday?”

“I don’t remember offhand. I’ll try to figure it out.” Her lips moved in calculation, as if between that day and this she had crossed some sort of international dateline. “It was Sunday when we left Sac, I know that for certain. He took me to San Francisco to answer the ad, and we spent Sunday night there and came down here on Monday. Or was it Tuesday? What day is this again?”

“Saturday night. Early Sunday morning.”

She counted on her fingers, the days and nights crossing her eyes like shadows. “I guess he made his contact Wednesday,” she said. “He came back here and said we could cross the border by Saturday at the latest.” She looked at me in sudden alienation. “Where is the money? What happened to it?”

“It hasn’t been paid yet.”

“When do we get it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know what Al was supposed to do for it.”

“It’s simple enough,” she said. “There were this guy and this girl, and Al was supposed to locate them. You know that if you work for Broadhurst.”

“Broadhurst doesn’t confide in me.”

“But you’ve seen the ad from the Chronicle, haven’t you?”

“Not yet. Do you have a copy?”

I was moving too fast for her, and her face closed up. “Maybe I have and maybe I haven’t. What do I get out of it?”

“I promise you’ll get something. But if the ad came out in the San Francisco Chronicle, a million people must have seen it. You might as well show it to me.”

She considered this proposition. Then she got a worn suitcase out from under the bed, opened it, and handed me a folded and refolded clipping. It was a two-column ad about six inches high, reproducing the pictures I had found in Stanley Broadhurst’s rolltop desk. The accompanying text had been changed in part:

I turned to the woman who called herself Elegant. “Where are they?”

“Don’t ask me.” She shrugged, and the movement disarranged her robe. She pulled it close about her. “I think maybe I saw the woman.”

“When?”

“I’m trying to remember.”

“What’s her name?”

“Al didn’t tell me that. He didn’t tell me anything, really. But we stopped at her house on the way down here, and I got a look at her face when she came to the door. She’s older now, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same woman.” She considered the question further. “Maybe not, though. It seems to me Al got that clipping from her.”

“You mean the ad?”

“That’s right. It doesn’t make sense, does it? Maybe he was putting me on, or I’m remembering wrong.”

“Can you tell me where her house is?”

“That,” she said, “is worth money.”

“How much do you want?”

“It says in the ad a thousand. If I took less, Al would kill me.”

“Al won’t be coming back here.”

She met my eyes and held them. “You’re telling me he’s dead?”

“Yes.”

She huddled on the edge of the bed, as if the knowledge of Al’s death had chilled her. “I never thought we’d make it to Mexico.” She gave me a cold darting look, like a harmless snake. “Did you kill him?”

“No.”

“The cops?”

“What makes you say that?”

“He was on the run.” She looked around the room. “I’ve got to get out of here.” But she didn’t move.

“Where was he on the run from?”

“He broke out of prison. He talked about it once when he was high. I should have left him when I had the chance.” She stood up and made a frantic gesture. “What happened to my Volkswagen?”

“The cops probably have it by now.”

“I’ve got to get out of here. You take me out of here.”

“No. You can take a bus.”

She called me a few names, which didn’t bother me. But when I moved toward the door, she followed.

“How much money will you give me?”

“Nothing like a thousand.”

“A hundred? That would take me back to Sac.”

“Are you from Sacramento?”

“My parents live there. But they don’t want to see me.”

“What about Al?”

“He has no parents. He came out of an orphanage.”

“Where?”

“Some city north of here. We stopped there on the way down. He pointed out the orphanage to me.”

“You stopped at the orphanage?”

“You’re all mixed up,” she said with condescension. “He showed me the orphanage when we passed it on the highway – we didn’t stop there. We stopped in town to get some money for gas and food.”

“What town?”

“One of those Santa places. Santa Teresa, I think it was.”

“And how did you get the money for gas?”

“Al got it from a little old lady. She gave him twenty dollars. Al’s very big with little old ladies.”

“Can you describe her?”

“I dunno. She was just a little old lady in a little old house on a little old street. It was kind of a pretty street, with purple flowers in the trees.”

“Jacarandas?”

She nodded. “Flowering jacarandas, yeah.”

“Was her name Mrs. Snow?”

“I think that was the name.”

“What about the woman in the ad? Where does she live?”

A look of stupid cunning took hold of her face. “That’s worth money. That’s what it’s all about.”

“I’ll give you fifty.”

“Let me see it.”

I got out my wallet and gave her the fifty-dollar bill that Fran Armistead had tipped me with. I was sort of glad to get rid of it, though here again I was conscious of buying and being sold at the same time, as if I’d made a down payment on the room and its occupant.

She kissed the money. “I can really use it, it’s my ticket out of here.” But she looked around the room as if it was a recurrent nightmare she had.

“You were going to tell me where the woman lives.”

“Was I?” She was stalling, and uncomfortable about it. She forced herself to say: “She lives in this big old house in the woods.”

“You’re making this up.”

“I am not.”

“What woods are you talking about?”

“It’s on the Peninsula someplace. I didn’t pay good attention on the way. I was strung out on an Einstein trip.”

“Einstein trip?”

“When you go all the way out, past the last star, and space loops back on you.”

“Where on the Peninsula?”

She shook her head, the way you shake a watch that has stopped ticking. “I can’t remember. There’s all these little cities strung together. I can’t remember which one.”

“What did the house look like?”

“It was very old, two-storied – three-storied. And it had two little round towers, one on each side.” She erected her thumbs.

“What color?”

“Kind of gray, I think it was. It looked kind of grayish green through the trees.”

“What kind of trees?”

“Oak trees,” she said, “and some pines. But mostly oak trees.”

I waited for a while.

“What else do you remember about the place?”

“That’s about all. I wasn’t really there, you know. I was out around Arcturus, looking down. Oh yeah, there was a dog running around under the trees. A Great Dane. He had a beautiful voice.” She woofed in imitation.

“Did he belong to the house?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. He acted lost, I remember thinking that. Will that help?”

“I don’t know. What day was it?”

“Sunday, I think. I said it was Sunday, didn’t I, that we left Sac?”

“You haven’t given me much for my fifty.”

She was dismayed, and afraid I’d take it back. “You could make love to me if you want.”

Not waiting for my answer, she stood up and dropped the pink robe to the floor. Her body was young, high-breasted, narrow-waisted, almost too slender. But there were bruises on her arms and thighs like the hash-marks of hard service. She was a dilapidated girl.

She looked up into my face. I don’t know what she saw there, but she said: “Al roughed me up quite a bit. He was pretty wild after all that time in prison. I guess you don’t want me, do you?”

“Thanks, I’ve had a hard day.”

“And you won’t take me with you?”

“No.” I gave her my business card and asked her to call me collect if she remembered anything more.

“I doubt I will. I’ve got a mind like a sieve.”

“Or if you need help.”

“I always need help. But you won’t want to hear from me.”

“I think I can stand it.”

Leaning her hands on my shoulders, she raised herself on her toes and brushed my mouth with her sad mouth.

I went outside and folded Stanley Broadhurst’s ad into the green-covered book and locked up both of them in the trunk of my car. Then I drove home to West Los Angeles.

Before I went to bed I called my answering service. Arnie Shipstad had left a message for me. The man whose body I’d found in Stanley Broadhurst’s house was a recent escapee from Folsom named Albert Sweetner, with a record of a dozen or so arrests. His first arrest occurred in Santa Teresa, California.