The Underground Man Read online

“Where is he?”

  “On the Strip.”

  “Looking for Susan?”

  Her voice became more personal. “Yes, he is. Are you a friend of Lester’s?”

  “No. But I’ve seen your daughter. She isn’t in Los Angeles. May I come and talk to you, Mrs. Crandall?”

  “I don’t know. Are you a policeman?”

  I told her what I was, and gave her my name, and she responded with her address. It was on a street I knew off Sunset Boulevard.

  The cab took me under the freeway to Northridge. I’d kept the key to the Broadhurst garage. I asked the driver to wait while I used the key and made sure my car was still there. It was, and it started. I went out to the street and dismissed the driver.

  When I went to the back of the house a second time, I looked around more carefully. Some light came from the neighbor’s on the other side of the grape-stake fence. I noticed that the back door of Stanley Broadhurst’s house was slightly ajar. I opened it all the way and turned on the kitchen lights.

  There were marks in the wood around the lock which showed that it had been jimmied. It occurred to me that the man who had done the job might still be inside. I didn’t want to run into him accidentally. Burglars seldom intended to kill anyone, but they sometimes killed when they were caught by surprise in their dark fantasy.

  I turned off the kitchen lights and waited. The house was silent. From outside I could hear the pulsing hum of the arterial boulevard I had just left.

  The neighbors were listening to the late news on television. In spite of these normal sounds, I felt a physical anxiety close to nausea. It got worse when I went into the hallway.

  Perhaps I smelled or otherwise sensed the man in the study. In any case, when I switched on the light he was lying there in front of the broken desk, grinning up at me like a magician who had pulled off the ultimate trick.

  I didn’t recognize him right away. He had a black beard and mustache and long black hair which seemed to grow peculiarly low on his forehead. I found on closer inspection that the hair was a wig which didn’t fit him too well. The beard and mustache were false.

  Under the hair was the dead face of the man who called himself Al and had come to the house to ask for a thousand dollars. Come once too often. The front of his shirt was wet and heavy with blood, and there were stab wounds under it. He smelled of whisky.

  The inside breast pocket of his cheap dark suit bore the label of a San Francisco department store. The pocket itself was empty, and so were his other pockets. I lifted him to feel for a wallet in his hip pockets. There was none.

  I checked my notebook for the address he had given me: the Star Motel, on Pacific Coast Highway below Topanga Canyon. Then I looked at the rolltop desk which he had evidently broken open. The wood around the locking mechanism was splintered, and the rolltop section was stuck in a half-open position.

  I couldn’t force it far enough back to release the drawers, which stayed locked. But in one of the pigeonholes I found a pair of photographs of a young man and a young woman who at first glance looked alike. Clipped to the photographs was a piece of paper with the printed heading: “Memo from the desk of Stanley Broadhurst.”

  Someone, presumably Stanley, had written laboriously on it: “Have you seen this man and woman? According to witnesses they left Santa Teresa early in July, 1955, and traveled to San Francisco by car (red Porsche, Calif. license number XUJ251). They stayed in San Francisco one or two nights, and sailed July 6 en route to Honolulu via Vancouver on the English freighter Swansea Castle. A thousand-dollar reward will be paid for information about their present whereabouts.”

  I took another look at the pictures attached to it. The girl had dark hair and very large dark eyes which looked up rather dimly out of the old photograph. Her features seemed to be aquiline and sensitive, except for her heavy passionate mouth.

  The man’s face, which I took to be Captain Broadhurst’s, was less open. There were well-shaped bones in his face and hard, staring eyes set obliquely in them. The resemblance between him and the girl turned out to be superficial when I compared them. His bold stare kept him hidden in a way, but I guessed that he was a taker. She looked like a giver.

  I turned to the filing cabinet. Its top drawer had been forced, so violently that it couldn’t be properly closed. It was full of letters carefully arranged among manila dividers. The postmarks ranged over the past six years.

  I picked out a fairly recent one whose return address was the Santa Teresa Travel Agency, 920 Main Street.

  Dear Mr. Broadhurst [the typed letter said] :

  Have checked our files as per your request and confirm that your father, Mr. Leo Broadhurst, booked double passage on the Swansea Castle, due to sail from San Francisco for Honolulu (via Vancouver) on or about July 6, 1955. Passage paid for, but we cannot confirm that it was used. Swansea Castle has changed to Liberian registry, and 1955 owners and master are hard to trace. Please advise if you wish us to check further.

  Faithfully yours,

  Harvey Noble, Proprietor

  I looked at an older letter which was handwritten on the stationery of a Santa Teresa church and signed by the pastor, a Reverend Lowell Riceyman.

  Dear Stanley [it said],

  Your father Leo Broadhurst was one of my parishioners, in the sense that he sometimes attended Sunday services, as you may recall, but I have to confess that I never knew him at all well. I’m sure the fault must have been mine as much as his. He gave the impression of being a sportsman, an active and spirited man who enjoyed life. No doubt that is your recollection of him, too.

  May I suggest in all good feeling and sympathy that you be content with that recollection, and not pursue any further the course you have embarked on, against my advice. Your father chose to leave your mother and you, for reasons which neither you nor I can fathom. The heart has its reasons that the reason does not know. I think it is unwise for a son to attempt to delve too deeply into his father’s life. What man is without blame?

  Think of your own life, Stanley. You have recently taken on the responsibilities of marriage—as I, having had the pleasure of performing the ceremony, have good cause to remember. Your wife is a fine and lovely girl, clearly more worthy of your living interest than those old passions of which you have written to me. The past can do very little for us—no more than it has already done, for good or ill—except in the end to release us. We must seek and accept release, and give release.

  Concerning the marital problems of which you write me, believe me, they are not unusual. But I would prefer to discuss them with you personally, rather than commit my poor thoughts to paper. Until I see you, then.

  I looked down at the dead man, and thought of the other dead man on the mountain. The Reverend Riceyman had given Stanley good advice, which he had failed to take. A feeling of embarrassment and regret went through me. It wasn’t exactly grief for Stanley, though it included that.

  It also included the realization that I had to call the police. I left the phone in the study untouched and went back to the kitchen. As soon as I switched on the lights, I noticed the empty brown whisky bottle standing among the dishes in the sink.

  I called the Valley headquarters of the LAPD and reported a homicide. During the nine or ten minutes that the police took to answer the call, I walked halfway along the block and found Al’s Volkswagen, locked. At the very last minute, when I could already hear the siren, I remembered that the engine of my car was running. I went out to the garage and turned it off.

  I had a light hat in the trunk. I used it to cover my damaged head, and met the patrol car out in front of the house. The man next door came out and looked at us and went back into his house without saying anything.

  I took the officers in through the back door, pointing out the jimmy marks. I showed them the dead man and told them briefly how I had happened to find him. They made a few notes and put in a call for a homicide team, suggesting politely that I stick around.

  I told my story in
greater detail to a captain of detectives named Arnie Shipstad, whom I had known since he was a detective-sergeant with the Hollywood division. Arnie was a fresh-faced Swede with shrewd sensitive eyes which registered the details of the study as precisely as the cameras of his photographer did.

  The dead man had his picture taken with and without his wig and beard and mustache. Then he was carefully rolled onto a stretcher and carried out.

  Arnie lingered. “So you think he came here for money?”

  “I’m sure he did.”

  “But he got something different. And the man who promised him money is dead, too.” He picked up Stanley’s memo, which I had shown him, and read aloud: “ ‘Have you seen this man and woman?’ Is this what it’s all about?”

  “It could be.”

  “Why do you think he came here in disguise?”

  “I can think of a couple of possible reasons. He may be wanted. I’d lay even money that he is wanted.”

  Arnie nodded in agreement. “I’ll check him out. But there’s another possibility, too.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He may have been wearing the outfit for fun and games. Quite a few swingers use longhair wigs when they go quail-hunting. This one may have been planning to pick up his money and have a night on the town.”

  I had to admit there was something in the idea.

  chapter 14

  I left Sepulveda at Sunset and drove into Pacific Palisades. The Crandalls lived on a palm-lined street in a kind of Tudor manor with a peaked roof and brown protruding half-timbers.

  The mullioned windows were all lighted as though a Saturday night party was going on. But the only sound I heard before I knocked was the sighing and scratching of the wind through the dry palm fronds.

  A blond woman in black opened the ornately carved door. Her body was so trim against the light that I thought for a moment she was the girl. Then she inclined her head to look at me, and I saw that time had faintly touched her face and begun to tug at her throat.

  She narrowed her eyes and peered past me into the darkness. “Are you Mr. Archer?”

  “Yes. May I come in?”

  “Please do. My husband is home now, but he’s resting.” Her speech was carefully correct, as if she had taken lessons in talking. I suspected that her natural speech was a good deal rougher and freer.

  She led me into a formal sitting room with a blazing crystal chandelier which hurt my eyes and an unlit marble fireplace. We sat down in facing conversation chairs. Her body fell into a beautiful still pose, but her faintly pinched blond face seemed bored with it, or resentful, like an angel living with an animal.

  “Was Susan all right when you saw her?”

  “She wasn’t hurt, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You mentioned serious trouble.” Her voice was soft and small, as if she was trying to minimize the trouble. “Please tell me what you mean, and please be frank. This is the third night now that I’ve been sitting by the telephone.”

  “I know how it is.”

  She inclined toward me. Her breasts leaned out from her body. “Do you have children?”

  “No, but my clients do. Susan has one of those children with her now—a small boy named Ronald Broadhurst. Have you ever heard of him?”

  She hesitated for a moment, in deep thought, then shook her head. “I’m afraid I haven’t.”

  “Ronald’s father was murdered this morning. Stanley Broadhurst.”

  She failed to react to the name. While she listened raptly like a child at a fairy tale, I gave her an account of the day. Her hands climbed from her lap like small independent creatures with red feet, and fastened on her breasts. She said:

  “Susan couldn’t have done what was done to Mr. Broadhurst. She’s a gentle girl. And she loves children. She certainly wouldn’t hurt the little boy.”

  “Why would she grab him?”

  The word jolted the woman. She looked at me with some dislike, as if I’d threatened the dream she was living in. Her hands fell away from her breasts.

  “There must be some explanation.”

  “Do you know why she left home?”

  “I—Lester and I haven’t been able to understand it. Everything was going along smoothly. She’d been accepted at UCLA and she was on a good summer program—tennis and diving lessons and conversational French. Then on Thursday morning, when we were out shopping, she left without any warning. She didn’t even say goodbye to us.”

  “Did you report it to the police?”

  “Lester did. They told him they couldn’t promise much—there are dozens of missing young people every week. But I never thought my daughter would be one of them. Susan has had a really good life. We’ve given her every advantage.”

  I nudged her back toward the hard truth: “Have there been any radical changes in Susan lately?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Any big change in her habits. Like sleeping a lot more—or a lot less. Getting excited and staying that way, or turning apathetic and letting her appearance go to pot.”

  “None of those things. She isn’t on drugs, if that’s what you have in mind.”

  “Think about it, though. Thursday night in Santa Teresa she had what sounds like a bad trip and jumped into the ocean.”

  “Was Jerry Kilpatrick with her?”

  “Yes. Do you know him, Mrs. Crandall?”

  “He’s been here at the house. We met him at Newport. He seemed like a nice enough boy to me.”

  “When was he here?”

  “A couple of months ago. He and my husband got into an argument, and he never came back after that.” She sounded disappointed.

  “What was the argument about?”

  “You’ll have to ask Lester. They just didn’t take to each other.”

  “May I speak to your husband?”

  “He’s lying down. He’s had a rough couple of days.”

  “I’m sorry, but maybe you’d better get him up.”

  “I don’t believe I should. Lester is no longer young, you know.”

  She didn’t move. She was one of those dreaming blonds who couldn’t bear to face a change in her life. One of those waiting mothers who would sit forever beside the phone but didn’t know what to say when it finally rang.

  “Your daughter’s at sea with a teen-age dropout, under suspicion of child-stealing and murder. And you don’t want to disturb her father.” I got up and opened the door of the sitting room: “If you won’t call your husband, I think I’d better.”

  “I will, if you insist.”

  As she passed me in the doorway I could feel the small chill presence that lived like a stunted child in her fine body. The same cold presence reflected itself in the room. The chandelier for all its blaze was like a cluster of frozen tears. The white marble mantel was tomblike. The flowers in the vases were plastic, unsmellable, giving off a dull sense of artificial life.

  Lester Crandall came into the room as if he was the visitor, not I. He was a short heavy-bodied man with iron gray hair and sideburns which seemed to pincer his slightly crumpled face and hold it out for inspection. His smile was that of a man who wanted to be liked.

  His handshake was firm, and I noticed that his hands were large and rather misshapen. They bore the old marks of heavy work: swollen knuckles, roughened skin. He had spent his life, I thought, working his way to the top of a small hill which his daughter had abandoned in one jump.

  He was wearing a figured red-silk bathrobe over undershirt and trousers, and his face was rosy-purplish, his hair damp from the shower. I told him I was sorry to disturb him.

  He waved the thought away. “I’d be glad to get up at any hour of the night, believe me. I understand you have word of my little girl?”

  I told him briefly what I knew. Under the pressure of my words his face seemed to be forced back on its bones. But he refused to admit the fear that was making his eyes water.
r />   “There must be a reason for what she’s doing. Susan’s a sensible girl. I don’t believe she’s been taking drugs.”

  “What you believe won’t change the facts,” I said.

  “But you don’t know her. I spent most of the evening traipsing up and down the Sunset Strip. It gave me a real insight into what’s happening to the youth of today. But Susan isn’t like that at all. She’s very organized at all times.”

  He sat down heavily in one of the conversation chairs, as if the little speech on top of the long evening had exhausted him. I sat in the other.

  “We won’t argue,” I said. “One good lead is worth all the theories in the world.”

  “You’re very right.”

  “May I see Susan’s address book? I understand you have it.”

  He looked up at his wife, who was hovering near him. “Would you get it for me, Mother? It’s on the desk in the library.”

  After she left the room, I said to Crandall: “When something like this happens in a family, there’s nearly always some advance warning. Has Susan been in any kind of trouble lately?”

  “None at all. Never in her life, if you want the truth.”

  “Any drinking?”

  “She doesn’t even like it. I give her a taste of my drink now and then, but she always makes a face.”

  He made one himself. It stayed imprinted in his flesh as an expression of dismay. I wondered what he was remembering or trying to forget.

  “What does she do for fun?”

  “We’re a very close family,” he said. “The three of us spend a lot of time together. I own some motels up and down the coast, and the three of us go on a lot of little trips combining business and pleasure. And of course Susan has her activity program—tennis and diving lessons and French conversation.”

  He was like a man with his eyes closed trying to put his hands on a girl that wasn’t there. I began to think I had a glimmering of the problem. It was often the same problem—an unreality so bland and smothering that the children tore loose and impaled themselves on the spikes of any reality that offered. Or made their own unreality with drugs.