Read Ross Macdonald - 1960 - The Ferguson Affair Online
Authors: Ross Macdonald
Sipping
the cola, lukewarm
now,
and watching Mrs. Dotery’s
passive face across the rim of the glass, I had a sense of the largeness of the
earth spinning in light and darkness, and what it meant to bring children into
life. Something moved like an earthquake in a part of my mind so deep I hadn’t
known it existed. It was an unspoken prayer for Bill Gunnarson, Jr.
“May
I use your telephone, Mrs. Dotery?”
“Don’t
have one up here. There’s one down in the store if it’s important.” She
hesitated, and took the plunge. “You were going to tell me about Hilda.”
“Yes.
She’s dropped out of sight, under suspicious circumstances. Her husband is
deeply concerned about her. I represent him, by the way.”
“How
do you mean, suspicious circumstances? Has she done something wrong, after
all?”
“That’s
not impossible. But it’s possible she hasn’t. She seems to be mixed up with a
man named Harry or Henry Haines.”
“You
mean to tell me she’s still messing with him!” A red flush surged up from her
neck almost to her eyes.
“It
looks very much like it. You know Haines, do you?”
“Know
him? I should say so. He was the one that got her started.”
“Doing
what?”
“All
the things a girl shouldn’t do. I remember that first night she came home with
liquor on her breath—a girl of fifteen-sixteen, so woozy she couldn’t walk
straight. ‘Have you been lapping up liquor?’ I said to her. She denied it and
denied it. Then Dotery came in roaring drunk and started in on her. They had a
terrible scrap. He would
of
beat her bloody, but I
went and got the butcher knife and told him to lay off of her. ‘Lay off of
her,’ I said to him, ‘if you want to go on living.’ He saw I meant it, and he
laid
off of her.
“But
it was too
late,
we had no control after that. Dotery
he blamed me for being too soft. But I
dunno
,
you can’t beat a girl to death. Or lock her up in her
room. She would
of
jumped out the window anyway,
that’s how wild she was.
Drinking and tearing around in cars
and shoplifting in the stores and probably worse.
And Harry Haines was
the one that got her started.”
“So
they’ve been running together for quite a few years?”
“I
did my best to nip it in the bud. They were in some show together at the high
school, and he used to come in the doughnut spa. That was when we had the doughnuts,
and Hilda and June waited on customers after school. June saw them smooching in
the kitchen, and drinking vanilla extract out of pint bottles. The next time he
come
in, I was laying in wait. I tell you I sent him
packing. And I told Hilda he was poison for her, poison for any girl. I know
that lofty look that some of them have. They think that nothing’s good enough
for them. They’ll take what they can from any girl and leave her empty-handed.”
She seemed to speak with the bitterness of personal experience.
“Have
you seen Haines recently?”
“Haven’t seen him for years.
The last I heard of him they
sent him off to Preston, where he belonged. They picked up Hilda,
too—apparently he snitched on her—but they didn’t send her away. She went away
on her own a year or two later, and that was that.
Till she
turned up here last month.”
“Did
she mention Haines?”
“Not
in my hearing. She talked a blue streak about this rich oilman husband of hers,
but neither of us believed her. She seemed to be kind of flying, know what I
mean? What sort of a fellow is he?”
“He
seems to be a pretty good man, and a very successful one. But she likes Haines
better.”
“She
always was stuck on him. Sometimes I think a woman only needs two things to
make her happy—a hatchet and a chopping block. She lays her head down on the
block and gets somebody in pants to chop it off with the hatchet and then she’s
satisfied.”
“Why
did Hilda finally come home?”
“Show
off her glad rags, I guess. She was disappointed none of the others were with
us
any more
. There always used to be rivalry between
the sisters.
Seiberling
rivalry.
And, like I said, she wanted to see Frank. She got
real upset when I told her Frank was dead. I thought for a while there she was
blowing her top, crying and storming around and blaming us for things we never
done. Frank wasn’t even driving that
car,
it was
another boy name of Ralph Spindle.”
“Did
Hilda have emotional problems?”
“How
do you mean, emotional?”
“You
said that she was flying, on the point of blowing her top. Was that a new
development in her?”
“No.
I
wisht
it was. She always had a terrible temper,
back to when she was a little girl. Mostly she kept it hid pretty
good
, but then it would flare out. Frank was the only one
she got along with. She never got along with the other girls. Like when June
snitched on her that time in the doughnut shop, Hilda picked up a pan of grease
and was
gonna
throw it in her little sister’s face.
Boiling grease, you know how hot it gets, lucky I got there to stop her. The
lady from downtown said she was severely adjusted.”
“Maladjusted?”
“Maladjusted, severely maladjusted.
They said Hilda was
going through like a storm, and maybe she’d outgrow it and maybe she wouldn’t.
I guess she must of, eh? You don’t get to be a movie actress without plenty on
the ball. Did she make many movies? We don’t go to the movies since we got TV.”
“I’ve
never seen her on the screen, either. I think just one or two of her pictures
were released before she retired.”
“It’s
a young age for a girl to retire,” she said dubiously.
“How
old is Hilda?”
“Let’s
see, I was eighteen when I had her. That was some of your teen-age storm like
they were talking about. I’m forty-three now. That would make her, let’s see—”
She tried to count on her fingers and lost track.
“Twenty-five.”
She
nodded.
“Yeah.
You got a good head for figures. Dotery
has, too, if he’d only use it. He could have been a lawyer, with his brains. No
disrespect intended
,
Jim really is a smart man. That’s
one of the reasons he couldn’t stand the kids. They were all dumb, like me. I
guess you couldn’t say that Hilda was dumb, but it sure looked like it for a
while the way she handled herself.” Her mental detour converged with her
original line of thought. “I still think twenty-five is a young age to retire.
Or did they fire her?”
“No.
I’ve talked to her agent. They’re eager to get her back.”
“You
mean she’s really good?”
“She
has what they need, apparently. But they don’t have what she needs.” Whatever
that is or was.
“Hilda
always was a good-looking girl,” her mother said. “You ever see her?”
“Not
in the flesh.”
“I
got some pictures of her someplace. I’ll see if I can find them.”
Before
I could remonstrate, she had left the room, moving eagerly, as if it might
still be not too late to put salt on the tail of the ruby-breasted dream.
A
man in a sports shirt came in from the hallway without knocking. At first
glance he was handsome and young. Then I saw the muddy blur in his eyes, the
gray dusting his wavy blond hair, the smile like a fishhook caught in one
corner of his mouth.
“I
didn’t know we had visitors.”
“Just the one.
And I’m not exactly a visitor. I’m here on
business.”
Business
was a bad word. He said with hushed fury: “Get something straight—I do the business
for this family. I handle the money. What you been trying to sell the wife
behind my back?”
I
stood up, into the zone of his breath. It was as foul as his temper.
“Gold
bricks,” I said. “She decided to take a dozen.”
“Wise
guy, eh?” Teetering on his heels, he reconnoitered me from a safe distance. “I
want to know what you’re doing in this flat.”
“Your
wife knows what I’m doing here. Ask her.”
“Where
is she?” He looked wildly around the room,
then
heard
the rustling noise she was making on the other side of the wall. He rushed
through the door like a rescuer or invader.
There
was a muffled interchange, and then his voice rose uncontrolled in a queer,
high, continuous yammering. “Once a
dumbhead
always a
dumbhead
what you think you’re doing giving away the
family secrets make him pay for them if the husband’s
wellheeled
let him put up some money you
goddam
fool.”
“I
didn’t think of it.”
“I’ll
do the thinking you let me do the thinking you take my orders that way we’ll
get somewhere what you think you’re doing giving him pictures these people pay
money for pictures you sell ’
em
information so much a
word I’ve had experience in these matters the girl’s worth money alive or dead
you don’t just give it away.”
“Hush
now, Jim, he’ll hear you.”
“Let
him hear let him realize he isn’t dealing with country bumpkins I’m no booby
even if you are you lousy deadhead dragging me down all my life I could of gone
to college made something of myself but you had to make me get married I
carried you twenty-five years like a body on my back and now when one of the
house apes looks like paying off for all the money we spent on her education
you want to give it away for free what’d he do butter you up a little tell you
you
still had a figure you bloated hag?”
“You
mustn’t talk like that,” she said behind the wall. “You ought to have more
pride.”
“Pride
for what I live in a hole with a hag and every time I turn my back you throw
away another opportunity I should feel thankful no doubt but I say you’re the one
you hag you should get down on your knees and thank me for putting up with you
you
hag.”
The
sound of a slap came through the wallboard, followed by the woman’s grunt of
pain. I went through the door into the kitchen, where they were facing each
other. An old carton spilling papers and pictures stood on the
drainboard
beside them.
The
woman had her hand to her cheek, but it was Dotery who began to sob.
“Forgive
me Kate I didn’t mean it.”