The Far Side of the Dollar la-12 Page 8

  I punched the handbell beside it. It didn't work.

  Leaning across the counter, I noticed on the shelf below it a telephone and a metal filing box divided into fifteen numbered sections. The registration card for number seven was dated three weeks before, and indicated that `Mr. and Mrs. Robt. Brown' were paying sixteen dollars a week for that cottage. The spaces provided on the card for home address and license number were empty.

  The screen door creaked behind me. A big old man with a naked condor head came flapping into the office. He snatched the card from my fingers and looked at me with hot eyes. `What do you think you're doing?'

  `I was only checking.'

  `Checking what?'

  `To see if some people I know are here. Bob Brown and his wife.'

  He held the card up to the light and read it, moving his lips laboriously around the easy words. `They're here,' he said without joy. `Leastways, they were this morning.'

  He gave me a doubtful look. My claim of acquaintanceship with the Browns had done nothing for my status. I tried to improve it. `Do you have a cottage vacant?'

  `Ten of them. Take your pick.'

  `How much?'

  `Depends on if you rent by the day or the week. They're three-fifty a day, sixteen a week.'

  `I'd better check with the Browns first, see if they're planning to stay.'

  `I wouldn't know about that. They been here three weeks.'

  He had a flexible worried mouth in conflict with a stupid stubborn chin. He stroked his chin as if to educate it. `I can let you have number eight for twelve a week single. That's right next door to the Browns' place.'

  `I'll check with them.'

  `I don't believe they're there. You can always try.'

  I went outside and down the dreary line of cottages. The door of number seven was locked. Nobody answered my repeated rapping.

  When I turned away, the old man was standing in front of number eight. He beckoned to me and opened the door with a flourish: `Take a look. I can let you have it for ten if you really like it.'

  I stepped inside. The room was cold and cheerless. The inside walls were concrete block, and the same unnatural green as the outside. Through a crack in the drawn blind, yellow light slashed at the hollow bed, the threadbare carpet. I'd spent too many nights in places like it to want to spend another.

  `It's clean,' the old man said.

  `I'm sure it is, Mr. Dack.'

  `I cleaned it myself. But I'm not Dack, I'm Stanislaus. Dack sold out to me years ago. I just never got around to having the signs changed. What's the use? They'll be tearing everything down and putting up high-rise apartments pretty soon.'

  He smiled and stroked his bald skull as if it was a kind of golden egg. `Well, you want the cottage?'

  `It really depends on Brown's plans.'

  `If I was you,' he said, `I wouldn't let too much depend on him.'

  `How is that, Mr. Stanislaus?'

  `He's kind of a blowtop, ain't he? I mean, the way he treats that little blonde wife. I always say these things are between a man and his wife. But it rankles me,' he said. `I got a deep respect for women.'

  `So have I. I've never liked the way he treated women.'

  `I'm glad to hear that. A man should treat his wife with love and friendship. I lost my own wife several years ago, and I know what I'm talking about. I tried to tell him that, he told me to mind my own business. I know he's a friend of yours-'

  `He's not exactly a friend. Is he getting worse?'

  `Depends what you mean, worse. This very day he was slapping her around. I felt like kicking him out of my place. Only, how would that help her? And all she did was make a little phone call. He tries to keep her cooped up like she was in jail.'

  He paused, listening, as if the word jail had associations for him. `How long have you known this Brown?'

  `Not so long,' I said vaguely. `I ran into him in Los Angeles.'

  `In Hollywood?'

  `Yeah. In Hollywood.'

  `Is it true she was in the movies? She mentioned one day she used to be in the movies. He told her to shut up.'

  `Their marriage seems to be deteriorating.'

  `You can say that again.'

  He leaned toward me in the doorway. `I bet you she's the one you're interested in. I see a lot of couples, one way and another, and I'm willing to bet you she's just about had her fill of him. If I was a young fellow like you, I'd be tempted to make her an offer.'

  He nudged me; the friction seemed to warm him. `She's a red-hot little bundle.'

  `I'm not young enough.'

  `Sure you are.'

  He handled my arm, and chuckled. `It's true she likes'em young. I been seeing her off and on with a teen-ager, even.'

  I produced the photograph of Tom that Elaine Hillman had given me. `This one?'

  The old man lifted it to the daylight, at arm's length. `Yeah. That's a mighty good picture of him. He's a good-looking boy.'

  He handed the photograph back to me, and fondled his chin. `How do you come to have a picture of him?'

  I told him the truth, or part of it: `He's a runaway from a boarding school. I'm a private detective representing the school.'

  The moist gleam of lechery faded out of Stanislaus's eyes. Something bleaker took its place, a fantasy of punishment perhaps. His whole face underwent a transformation, like quick-setting concrete.

  `You can't make me responsible for what the renters do.'

  `Nobody said I could.'

  He didn't seem to hear me. `Let's see that picture again.'

  I showed it to him. He shook his head over it. `I made a mistake. My eyes ain't what they used to be. I never seen him before.'

  `You made a positive identification.'

  `I take it back. You were talking to me under false pretenses, trying to suck me in and get something on me. Well, you got nothing on me. It's been tried before,' he said darkly. `And you can march yourself off my property.'

  `Aren't you going to rent me the cottage?'

  He hesitated a moment, saying a silent goodbye to the ten dollars. `No sir, I want no spies and peepers in my place.'

  `You may be harboring something worse.'

  I think he suspected it, and the suspicion was the source of his anger.

  `I'll take my chances. Now you git. If you're not off my property in one minute, I'm going to call the sheriff.'

  That was the last thing I wanted. I'd already done enough to endanger the ransom payment and Tom's return. I got.

  8

  A BLUE SPORTS car stood in the drive behind the Hillman Cadillac. An athletic-looking young man who looked as if he belonged in the sports car came out of the house and confronted me on the front steps. He wore an Ivy League suit and had an alligator coat slung over his arm and hand, with something bulky and gun-shaped under it.

  `Point that thing away from me. I'm not armed.'

  `I w-want to know who you are.'

  He had a faint stammer.

  'Lew Archer. Who are you?'

  `I'm Dick Leandro.'

  He spoke the words almost questioningly, as if he didn't quite know what it meant to be Dick Leandro.

  `Lower that gun,' I reminded him. `Try pointing it at your leg.'

  He dropped his arm. The alligator coat slid off it, onto the flagstone steps, and I saw that he was holding a heavy old revolver. He picked up the coat and looked at me in a rather confused way. He was a handsome boy in his early twenties, with brown eyes and dark curly hair. A certain little dancing light in his eyes told me that he was aware of being handsome.

  `Since you're here,' I said, `I take it the money's here, too.'

  `Yes. I brought it out from the office several hours ago.'

  `Has Hillman been given instructions for delivering it?'

  He shook his head. `We're still waiting.'

  I found Ralph and Elaine Hillman in the downstairs room where the telephone was. They were sitting close together as if for warmth, on a chesterfield near the front window. T
he waiting had aged them both.

  The evening light fell like gray paint across their faces. She was knitting something out of red wool. Her hands moved rapidly and precisely as if they had independent life.

  Hillman got to his feet. He had been holding a newspaper-wrapped parcel in his lap, and he laid it down on the chesterfield, gently, like a father handling an infant.

  `Hello, Archer,' he said in a monotone.' I moved toward him with some idea of comforting him. But the expression in his eyes, hurt and proud and lonely, discouraged me from touching him or saying anything very personal.

  `You've had a long hard day.'

  He nodded slowly, once. His wife let out a sound like a dry sob. `Why haven't we heard anything from that man?'

  `It's hard to say. He seems to be putting on the screws deliberately.'

  She pushed her knitting to one side, and it fell on the floor unnoticed. Her faded pretty face wrinkled up as if she could feel the physical pressure of torture instruments. `He's keeping us in hell, in absolute hell. But why?'

  `He's probably waiting for dark,' I said. `I'm sure you'll be hearing from him soon. Twenty-five thousand dollars is a powerful attraction.'

  `He's welcome to the money, five times over. Why doesn't he simply take it and give us back our boy?'

  Her hand flung itself out, rattling the newspaper parcel beside her.

  `Don't fret yourself, Ellie.'

  Hillman leaned over her and touched her pale gold hair. `There's no use asking questions that can't be answered. Remember, this will pass.'

  His words of comfort sounded hollow and forced.

  `So will I,' she said wryly and bitterly, `if this keeps up much longer.'

  She smoothed her face with both hands and stayed with her hands in a prayerful position at her chin. She was trembling. I was afraid she might snap like a violin string. I said to Hillman: `May I speak to you in private? I've uncovered some facts you should know.'

  `You can tell me in front of Elaine, and Dick for that matter.'

  I noticed that Leandro was standing just inside the door.

  `I prefer not to.'

  `You're not calling the shots, however.'

  It was a curious echo of the man on the telephone. `Let's have your facts.'

  I let him have them: `Your son has been seen consorting with a married woman named Brown. She's a blonde, show-business type, a good deal older than he is, and she seems to have been after him for money. The chances are better than even that Mrs. Brown and her husband are involved in this extortion bid. They seem to be on their uppers-' Elaine raised her open hands in front of her face, as if too many words were confusing her. `What do you mean, consorting?'

  `He's been hanging around with the woman, publicly and privately. They were seen together yesterday afternoon.'

  `Where?' Hillman said.

  `At The Barroom Floor.'

  `Who says so?'

  `One of their employees. He's seen them before, and he referred to Mrs. Brown as `Tom's girl friend, the older one.'

  I've had corroborating evidence from the man who owns the court where the Browns are living. Tom has been hanging around there, too.'

  `How old is this woman?'

  `Thirty or more. She's quite an attractive dish, apparently.'

  Elaine Hillman lifted her eyes. There seemed to be real horror in them. `Are you implying that Tom has been having an affair with her?'

  `I'm simply reporting facts.'

  `I don't believe your facts, not any of them.'

  `Do you think I'm lying to you?'

  `Maybe not deliberately. But there must be some ghastly mistake.'

  `I agree,' Dick Leandro said from the doorway. `Tom has always been a very clean-living boy.'

  Hillman was silent. Perhaps he knew something about his son that the others didn't. He sat down beside his wife and hugged the paper parcel defensively.

  `His virtue isn't the main thing right now,' I said. `The question is what kind of people he's mixed up with and what they're doing to him. Or possibly what they're doing to you with his cooperation.'

  `What is that supposed to mean?' Hillman said.

  `We have to reconsider the possibility that Tom is in on the extortion deal. He was with Mrs. Brown yesterday. The man on the telephone, who may be Brown, said Tom came to them voluntarily.'

  Elaine Hillman peered up into my face as if she was trying to grasp such a possibility. It seemed to be too much for her to accept. She closed her eyes and shook her head so hard that her hair fell untidily over her forehead. Pushing it back with spread fingers, she said in a small voice that sent chills through me: `You're lying, I know my son, he's an innocent victim. You're trying to do something terrible, coming to us in our affliction with such a filthy rotten smear.'

  Her husband tried to quiet her against his shoulder. `Hush now, Elaine. Mr. Archer is only trying to help.'

  She pushed him away from her. `We don't want that kind of help. He has no right. Tom is an innocent victim, and God knows what is happening to him.'

  Her hand was still at her head, with her pale hair sprouting up between her fingers. `I can't take any more of this, Ralph-this dreadful man with his dreadful stories.'

  `I'm sorry, Mrs. Hillman. I didn't want you to hear them.'

  `I know. You wanted to malign my son without anyone to defend him.'

  `That's nonsense, Ellie,' Hillman said. `I think you better come upstairs and let me give you a sedative.'

  He helped her to her feet and walked her out past me, looking at me sorrowfully across her rumpled head. She moved like an invalid leaning on his strength.

  Dick Leandro drifted into the room after they had left it, and sat on the chesterfield to keep the money company. He said in a slightly nagging way: `You hit Elaine pretty hard with all that stuff: She's a sensitive woman, very puritanical about sex and such. And incidentally she's crazy about Tommy. She won't listen to a word against him.'

  `Are there words against him?'

  `Not that I know about. But he has been getting into trouble lately. You know, with the car wreck and all. And now you t-tell me he's been dipping into the fleshpots.'

  `I didn't say that.'

  `Yeah, but I got the message. Where does the g-girl live, anyway? Somebody ought to go and question her.'

  `You're full of ideas.'

  He had a tin ear for tone. `Well, how about it? I'm game.'

  `You're doing more good here, guarding the money. How did Hillman happen to pick you to bring the money, by the way? Are you an old family friend?'

  `I guess you could say that. I've been crewing for Mr. Hillman since I was yay-high.'

  He held out his hand at knee level. `Mr. Hillman is a terrific guy. Did you know he made Captain in the Navy? But he won't let anybody call him Captain except when we're at sea.

  `And generous,' the young man said. `As a matter of fact, he helped me through college and got me a job at his broker's. I owe him a lot. He's treated me like a father.'

  He spoke with some emotion, real but intended, like an actor's. `I'm an orphan, you might say. My family broke up when I was yay-high, and my father left town. He used to work for Mr. Hillman at the plant.'

  `Do you know Tom Hillman well?'

  `Sure. He's a pretty good kid. But a little too much of an egghead in my book. Which keeps him from being popular. No wonder he has his troubles.'

  Leandro tapped his temple with his knuckles. `Is it true that Mr. Hillman put him in the booby - I mean, in a sanatorium?'

  `Ask him yourself.'

  The young man bored me. I went into the alcove and made myself a drink. Night was closing in. The garish bullfight posters on the walls had faded into darkness like long-forgotten corridor. There were shadows huddling with shadows behind the bar. I raised my glass to them in a gesture I didn't quite understand, except that there was relief in darkness and silence and whisky.

  I could hear Hillman's footsteps dragging down the stairs. The telephone on the bar went off like
an alarm. Hillman's descending footsteps became louder. He came trotting into the room as the telephone rang a second time. He elbowed me out of his way.

  I started for the extension phone in the pantry. He called after me: `No! I'll handle this myself.'