Ross Macdonald - 1960 - The Ferguson Affair (19 page)

 
          
“You’re
not exactly an octogenarian. How old are you?”

 
          
“We
won’t discuss it.”

 
          
“Fifty?”

 
          
“Older than that.”

 
          
“How
much money are you worth?”

 
          
His
eyes veiled themselves like a bird’s. “I’d have to ask my accountants.”

 
          
“Give
me a bracket, anyway, to help fill in the picture. Let me assure you, I’m not
trying to figure out the size of my retainer. We’ll set it at five hundred now,
if that’s all right with you.”

 
          
“Very well.”
He actually smiled, at least on my side. God
knew what he was doing with the other side of his face. “I suppose I could
realize ten or twelve million if I had to. Why do you think it’s important?”

 
          
“If
your wife had been out for the money, she could have taken you for a lot more
than two hundred thousand.
Without sharing it with Gaines.”

 
          
“How?”

 
          
“By divorcing you.
It happens every day, or don’t you read
the papers?”

 
          
“I’ve
given her no grounds.”

 
          
“Never an unkind word?”

 
          
“Practically never.
I was very much in love with my wife.
The fact is
,
I still am.”

 
          
“Would
you take her back if you had the chance?”

 
          
“I
don’t know. I think so.” His voice had changed, as his eyes had changed when I
mentioned money. We had left the highway and were approaching the green lane
that led to his house. “It’s hard to imagine her ever coming back.”

 
          
But
he had leaned forward, urging the car along in wild unconscious hopefulness.

 
          
His
shoulders slumped as he got out of the car. The house on the cliff had an
abandoned air.

 
          
Far
out over the sea, a flight of birds blew in a changing line like a fragmentary
sentence whose meaning was never quite intelligible. All the way in to Beverly
Hills I kept thinking about those birds. They’d been too far out for me to
identify, but it was the season when certain kinds of sea birds migrated, I
didn’t know exactly where or why.

 
          
THE
BUILDING WAS long and low, almost hidden from the street by discreet plantings.
It had pastel pink walls and lavender doors which opened directly onto a kind
of veranda. Michael
Speare’s
name was tastefully
printed on one of the doors in lower-case letters, like a line from a modern
poem.

 
          
It
was one of those so-called studio offices, meant to suggest that doing business
with the occupants was an aesthetic experience. The girl at the front desk
underlined the suggestion. She had Matisse
lines,
and
a voice like violins at a nuptial feast. She used it to tell me that Mr. Speare
wasn’t back from his afternoon calls. Did I have an appointment?

 
          
I
said I had, at three. She glanced at the clock imbedded in the blonde mahogany
wall. It had no numbers on its face, but it seemed to indicate that it was ten
minutes after three.

 
          
“Mr.
Speare must have been delayed. I expect him at any moment. Will you sit down,
sir? And what was your name?”

 
          
“William
Gunnarson. It still is.”

 
          
She
looked at me like a startled doe, but “Thank you, sir,” was all she said. I sat
down on an arrangement of molded plywood and glass tubing which turned out to
be comfortable enough. The girl returned to her electric typewriter, and began
to play kitten on the keys.

 
          
I
sat and watched her. She had reddish-brown hair, but in other respects her
resemblance to Holly May was striking. It was a phenomenon I’d noticed before:
whole generations of girls looked like the movie actresses of their period.
Perhaps they made themselves over to resemble the actresses. Perhaps the
actresses made themselves up to embody some common ideal. Or perhaps they
became actresses by virtue of the fact that they already resembled the common
ideal.

 
          
My
eyes were still on the girl, without quite taking her in. She became restless
under my stare. Everything about her, varnished hair, shadowed lids, gleaming
red lips, breasts that thrust themselves on the attention, was meant to attract
stares and hold them. But the girl behind the attractions was uneasy when they
worked.

 
          
The
advertisements didn’t tell you what to do next.

 
          
She
looked up at me, her green eyes defensively hard. A different voice,
her own,
said: “Well?”

 
          
“Sorry,
I didn’t mean to be obnoxious. I was struck by your resemblance to someone.”

 
          
“I
know. Holly May. People keep telling me that. A lot of good it does me.”

 
          
“Are
you interested in acting?”

 
          
“I
wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. I’d be home in Indiana, to coin a phrase.
Raising brats.”
The nuptial violins in her voice had gone
badly out of tune. “Would you be in pictures?”

 
          
“I
played a starring role in the family album. That was as far as it went.”

 
          
“The Family Album?
I never heard of it. Has it been
released?”

 
          
“I
keep it at home in a trunk,” I said.
“The family album.
Photographs.”

 
          
“Is
that supposed to be funny?”

 
          
“It
was one of my feebler efforts. Forgive me.”

 
          
“That’s
all right,” she said magnanimously. “Mr. Speare says I got—I have no sense of
humor, anyway.” She frowned at the clock. “I wonder what’s keeping him.”

 
          
“I
can wait. Do you know Holly May?”

 
          
“I
wouldn’t say I knew her. She left town a few months after I got this job. But I
used to see her come in and out.”

 
          
“What
sort of person was she?”

 
          
“It’s
hard for me to tell. Some of the girls in the studios thought she was real
cool—real down-to-earth, no airs about her and all. At least that was what they
said. With me she was always standoffish. I don’t think she liked me.” After a
pause, she said: “Maybe she didn’t like me because I look like her. She did a
double take the first time she ever saw me.”

 
          
And
after another pause: “Some people think I’m better-looking than her, even. But
a fat lot of good it does me. I tried to get Mr. Speare to get me a job
standing in for her. He said I didn’t know how to handle myself. So I took this
course in standing, walking and standing. It cost me a hundred and sixty
dollars, and just when I was getting real good at it, she had to go and give up
the movie business.”

 
          
“That
was a tough break for you,” I said. “I wonder why she left.”

 
          
“She
wanted to get married. But it’s still a good question if you ever saw him. Why
a girl would give up a career to marry him. Of course they say he owns half the
oil in Canada, but he’s just an ugly old man. I wouldn’t marry him for all the
money in the world.”

 
          
Her
voice and her look were faintly doubtful. She sat with her green gaze resting
unconsciously on me, balancing Ferguson’s money against his personal charms.

 
          
“You
know Colonel Ferguson, do you?”

 
          
“I
saw him once. He marched in here one day last summer. Mr. Speare was in
conference with some very important clients, but that made no difference to
him. He walked into Mr.
Speare’s
private office and
started an argument, right in front of a producing star.”

 
          
“What
was the argument about?”

 
          
“Her
studio didn’t want her to get married. Neither did Mr. Speare. You can hardly
blame him. She had a chance to be a real big name. But that wasn’t good enough
for her.” She went into meditation again. “Imagine getting the breaks she got,
and not even wanting them.”

 
          
A
man in a blue Italian suit and a confidential tie came in breathing
dramatically. When I stood up, I was tall enough to look down at the bald spot
on top of his sleek dark head.

 
          
“Mr.
Speare?”

 
          
“Yeah.
You must be Gunnarson. I’m twenty minutes late. They
were taping a new show and a lady who shall be nameless got hysterical when
they wouldn’t let her use her idiot cards. So I had to hold her hand, in case
you wonder where I got the talon wounds. Come in, will you?”

 
          
I
followed him along a
skylit
corridor to a room which
contained, in addition to office equipment, a couch and a portable bar. He went
to the latter like a homing pigeon. “I need a drink. Will you join me?”

 
          
“
A short
bourbon will be fine.”

 
          
He
poured me a long one, and himself another. “Sit down. How do you like the
furniture?
The drapes?
I chose everything myself, I
wanted a place where a man can relax as he creates.”

 
          
“You’re
an artist, are you?”

 
          
“More
than that,” he said between gulps of bourbon. “I create artists. I make names
and reputations.”

 
          
He
flung his empty hand toward the wall beside his desk. It was covered with
photographs of faces, the bold, shy, wistful, arrogant, hungry faces of actors.
I recognized some of the faces, but didn’t see Holly May’s among them. Most of
them were actors who hadn’t been heard of for years.

 
          
“How
is Holly?” he said, reading my mind. “I took her picture down, in a moment of
childish pique. But I still keep it in my desk drawer. Tell her that.”

 
          
“I
will if I see her.”

 
          
“I
thought you were her lawyer.”

 
          
“I’m
her husband’s lawyer.”

 
          
A
kind of gray sickness touched his face for an instant. He covered his bald spot
with his left hand, as if he feared scalping or had already been scalped; and
gulped the remainder of his drink. This gave him strength to clown it. “What
does he want?
The rest of my blood?
Tell him I’m all
out of blood, he can go to a blood bank.”

 
          
“Did
he treat you so badly?”

 
          
“Did
he? He fixed me good.
Three years of work, building her up,
talking her into parts, keeping her out of trouble, all gone to bloody hell.
Just when she was really getting hot, she had to marry him. He’s a rough man.
As you doubtless know if you work for him.”

 
          
“I
don’t work for him. I give him legal advice.”

 
          
“I
see.” He poured himself another drink. “Does he take it?”

 
          
“I’m
hoping he will.”

 
          
“Then
advise him to take a running jump in the Pacific Ocean. I know a nice deep
place, complete with sharks.” He fortified himself with half of his second
drink, and said: “Well, let’s have it. What does he want from me, and what is
it going to cost me?”

 
          
“Nothing.
I’ll be frank with you.”
But not
so very frank.
“I came to you more or less on my own, for information.”

 
          
“What about?”

 
          
“Mrs.
Ferguson.”

 
          
He
considered this, and drew the conclusion I wanted him to. “How is the marriage
working out?”

 
          
“It
isn’t. You’ll keep this to yourself, of course.”

 
          
“Of
course,” he said, struggling to suppress his glee. “I knew it couldn’t last.
A doll like Holly, a girl with her future, tying herself to a dodo.
Who’s divorcing who?”

 
          
“It’s
too early to talk in those terms. Put it this way. Colonel Ferguson married a
woman he knew nothing about. Six or seven months later he’s decided that
perhaps he ought to look into her background. I thought perhaps you could
help.”

 
          
“Let
down her back hair, eh? I wouldn’t want to do that to a client, not even an
ex-client. Besides,” he said with a lopsided smile and a pass at the top of his
head, “what do I get out of it?”

 
          
He
had a fishy look. I felt no compunction in playing him like a fish. “She’s
under contract to you, isn’t she?
If she works?”

 
          
“Why
should she go back to work, with the kind of settlement he can make on her?”

 
          
“There
won’t be any settlement, if he divorces her.
Or gets an
annulment.”

 
          
His
secret glee flared up again. He thought that we were having a meeting of minds.
“I see. What did you say your name was? Bill?”

 
          
“Bill.”

 
          
“Call
me Mike, Bill.” He went around his desk and slumped in the swivel chair behind
it. “What kind of dope do you need?”

 
          
“Everything
you have.
Her background, her conversations, character,
personal habits, men in her life.”

 
          
“Hell,”
he said. “I can’t do that to her. I’m loyal to my clients. On the other hand,
she’d be better off working. It isn’t healthy for a kid like her to retire.
Hell, I’d be doing her a favor, doing the industry a favor. Only what if she
finds out?”