The Underground Man

by Ross Macdonald

  “Does that mean Sweetner did the Broadhurst killing?”

  “Whoever did it wants us to think so. But it’s hardly possible. I saw Sweetner in Northridge around the time that Stanley Broadhurst was killed.” I hesitated. “Where were you about that time, by the way?”

  “Somewhere in Los Angeles, looking for Susie.”

  I didn’t ask him if he could prove it. Perhaps in recognition of this, he got out his wallet and offered me several hundred-dollar bills. But I didn’t want to take anything from him or owe him anything before the case was ended.

  “Put your money away,” I said.

  “Don’t you like money?”

  “I may send you a bill when this thing is over.”

  I went inside. Willie Mackey was sitting in the front hall with Ronny on his knee. He was telling the boy about an old con he had known who had tried to swim ashore from Alcatraz.

  I found Martha Crandall and her daughter in the front room. They were sitting side by side in the bay window, their pretty blonde heads close together.

  An hour or so ago the big old house had been as quiet as a hermitage. Now it seemed more like a family service agency. I was hoping that the whole thing wouldn’t blow up in my face.

  Deciding to risk it, I caught Martha Crandall’s eye and beckoned her over to my side of the room.

  “What is it?” she said impatiently, with a backward look at Susan. “I hate to leave her.”

  “You may have to, though.”

  She looked at me in dismay. “You mean you’re going to put her away?”

  “You may decide to, temporarily. She’s got a lot on her mind, and she’s suicidal.”

  The woman’s shoulders made a heavy movement which was meant to be lighter. “That was just a grandstand play, she says so herself.”

  “So are a lot of successful suicides. Nobody knows where the grandstanding leaves off and the thing turns dead serious. Anyone who even threatens suicide needs counseling.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to give her. Counseling.”

  “I mean professional counseling, from a psychiatrist. I’ve discussed this with your husband, and he says he’ll take her to the Medical Center tomorrow. But you’re the one who will have to carry the ball and follow through. It might be a good idea if you talked to the shrinks together.”

  She seemed appalled. “Am I such a rotten mother?”

  “I didn’t say that. But I don’t think you’ve ever leveled with her, have you?”

  “What about?”

  “Your own bad times.”

  “I couldn’t,” she said with vehemence. “Why not?”

  “I’d be ashamed.”

  “Let her know you’re human, anyway.”

  “I am that,” she said. “All right, I’ll do it.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “Sure it is. I love her, you know. Susie’s my little girl. Not so little any more, either.”

  She turned back toward her daughter, but I stopped her and led her into the furthest corner of the room. Ellen’s canvases hung along the wall like imperfectly remembered hallucinations.

  She said: “What else do you want from me?”

  “A few words of truth. I want to know what happened fifteen years ago, when Albert Sweetner visited the Yucca Tree.”

  She looked at me as if I’d slapped her. “This is a lousy time to bring that up.”

  “It’s the only time we have. I understand you left your husband. What happened after that?”

  The woman pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. “Has Lester been talking?”

  “Some. But not enough. He knows you walked out on him and took Susan along. And he knows you came back eventually. But he doesn’t know what happened in between.”

  “Nothing happened. I thought it through and changed my mind, that’s all. Anyway, this is strictly my private business.”

  “Maybe it would be if you’d kept it strictly private. But other people got mixed up in it. One of them was Susan, and she was old enough to remember.”

  Martha Crandall looked at her daughter with guilty curiosity. The girl said:

  “You’re talking about me, aren’t you? It isn’t very nice.”

  Her tone was quite impersonal and remote. She sat very still in the embrasure like an actress forbidden to step out through the proscenium into the welter of reality. Her mother shook her head at her, and then at me.

  “I can’t take this. And I don’t have to,” she said.

  “What do you propose to do? Let Susan work it out for herself without any help from you?”

  Martha hung her head like a naughty child. “Nobody ever helped me.”

  “Maybe I can help you, Mrs. Crandall. Al Sweetner told your husband that he was Susan’s father. But I don’t think he could have been. Not even an Al Sweetner would force his own daughter.”

  “Who told you he did that?”

  “Susan told me.”

  “Do we have to talk about these things?” Her look was reproachful, as if I’d made them real by naming them.

  “If Susan could, we can.”

  “When did you talk to her?”

  “Between the bridge and here.”

  “You had no right—”

  “The hell I didn’t. She’s been under terrible pressure. She had to let it out some way.”

  “Pressure from what?”

  “Too many deaths,” I said. “Too many memories.”

  Her eyes widened like lenses, as if they were trying to pick up faint light from the past. But all I could see in their centers was my own head reflected in miniature, twice.

  “What did Susan tell you?” she said.

  “Not very much. She really didn’t intend to tell me anything, but the memories forced their way out. Wasn’t she with you in the Mountain House one night in the summer of 1955?”

  “I don’t know what night you’re talking about.”

  “The night Leo Broadhurst was shot.”

  Her fringed eyelids came down over her eyes. She swayed a little, as if the memory of the shot had wounded her. I held her upright, and felt the warmth of her living flesh on my hands.

  “Does Susan remember? How could she? She was only three.”

  “She remembers enough. Too much. Was Broadhurst killed?”

  “I don’t know. I ran away and left him in the cabin. I was drunk, and I couldn’t get his car to start. But it was gone in the morning, and so was he.”

  “What kind of a car was it?”

  “A Porsche. A little red Porsche. It wouldn’t start, so I ran away on foot. I forgot all about Susan. I don’t even remember where I went.” She moved away from my hands as if they carried the contagion of that night. “What happened to Susie?”

  “Didn’t you go back for her?”

  “I did in the morning. I found her asleep in the loft. How could she remember the shooting if she was asleep in the loft?”

  “She was awake when it happened, and in the room. She didn’t make it up.”

  “Is Leo dead?”

  “I think so.”

  Martha looked at her daughter, and I turned to look. The girl was watching us intently, less like an actress now than a spectator. Our voices were too low for her to hear, but she seemed to know what we were talking about.

  “Does she remember who shot him?” her mother said.

  “No. Do you?”

  “I never saw who it was. Leo and I were making love, and I was drunk—”

  “Didn’t you hear the shot?”

  “I guess I did, but I didn’t believe it. You know? I didn’t know he was hurt until I tasted the blood on his face.” Her tongue moved over her lips. “God, what you’re dragging out of me. I thought I’d blanked out on that night. It was the worst night of my life, and I thought that it was going to be the best. We were going to go away, all three of us, and start a new life together in Hawaii. Leo bought the tickets that same day.”

  “Was he Susan’s father?”

  �
�I think so. I’ve always thought so. That’s why I went back to him when Lester threw me out. He was the first man I ever let touch me.”

  “It wasn’t Al Sweetner? Or Fritz Snow?”

  She shook her head rather fiercely. “I was already pregnant when I went to L.A. with them. That was why I went.”

  “And you let them take the rap.”

  “Leo had a lot to lose. What did they have to lose?”

  “Their whole lives.”

  She lifted her hands as though to examine them for dirt or scars. A darkness and sadness had risen in her eyes. She ducked her head and hid her face in her hands.

  Susan stepped out of her niche as if a spell had broken, and came toward us. Her face was unnaturally bright, like a radiant substance with a short half-life.

  “You’re making my mother cry.”

  “It won’t do her any harm. She’s human like the rest of us.”

  The girl looked at the woman in faint surprise.

  chapter 30

  I left them together and went out into the hallway. The little boy was lolling on Willie’s knee, stunned by fatigue.

  “He’s just about out for the count,” Willie said. “And I’ve got a new bride waiting for me eagerly in San Francisco.”

  “Give me a few more minutes. Where’s Miss Storm?”

  “In there with her son.” He pointed his thumb at the closed door of the small room under the stairs. “He’s a hardhead, which is why I’m sitting here.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Tried to fight Harold one-handed. Harold used to play football for the Forty-Niners.”

  “Where’s Harold now?”

  “Outside watching the house, in case anybody else shows up.” He made a dour face, and gave the boy a gentle poke in the ribs. “Perish the thought, eh, sleepyhead?”

  I knocked on the door of the small room. Ellen told me to come in.

  She was in the swivel chair. Her son was sitting on the floor beside the safe as if it was a stove that gave no heat. His face was so pale and wretched that it made his red hair and beard seem pasted on. His mouth had a nervous twitch, as if he was biting something, or being bitten.

  “This is Mr. Archer,” Ellen said.

  With some idea of showing friendly feeling, I asked him how his arm was. He spat on the floor in my direction.

  “It’s broken,” Ellen said. “He got it set at a clinic in the Haight-Ashbury. They asked him to check back tomorrow—”

  The boy cut off her sentence with a slashing movement of his good arm. “Don’t tell him anything. He was the one that made me lose Ariadne.”

  “Sure I did. Also I broke your arm by hitting you on the gun-butt with my head.”

  “I should have shot you.”

  He was a hardhead, as Willie said. I couldn’t tell how much of the hardness was his own and how much was induced by physical and mental pain.

  “He’s in trouble—I guess you know that,” I said to Ellen.

  “Do you mean you have to arrest him?”

  “That isn’t my job. And it isn’t my job to decide what to do with him. I’m not his father.”

  “But you’re working for him, aren’t you?” Jerry said. “If you think you’re going to drag me back to Slobville—”

  I turned on him: “Slobville can live without you. If you think the populace is waiting on the docks for your return, think again.”

  That silenced him, but I felt a little cheap about talking him down, and a little dishonest. My mind threw up an image of Roger Armistead on the marina float, looking out to sea.

  “He won’t go back to his father,” Ellen said. “I’ve been wondering if he couldn’t stay with me, at least for the present. I can arrange to get him the care he needs.”

  “Do you think you can handle him?”

  “I can give him shelter, anyway. I’ve given shelter to other troubled people.” Her face was open, willing without being eager.

  “I don’t know what the law will have to say.”

  “How does he stand with the law?”

  “It depends on his record, if any.”

  We both looked down at Jerry. He sat motionless, except for his twitch, like a sudden old man in the corner.

  “Have you ever been arrested?” I said.

  “No. I can hardly wait.”

  “It isn’t funny. If the authorities wanted to throw the book at you, they could be rough. Taking the yacht could be grand larceny. Taking the boy could be child stealing or kidnaping or contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

  Jerry looked up in dismay. “What do you think I did to him? I was trying to save his life.”

  “You almost lost it for him.”

  Jerry got his feet under him and rose awkwardly, grimacing with pain. “You don’t have to tell me that. I know I wrecked the yacht. But I didn’t steal her. Mr. Armistead left me in charge of her. Ask him.”

  “You better talk to him yourself. But not tonight.” I said to his mother: “Why don’t you put him to bed?”

  He didn’t argue. She walked him out with her arm around his shoulders. There was a look of acceptance on her face, almost as if she had lived too long without external trouble.

  I knew it wasn’t a solution. Ellen was far gone in solitude, and he was too old to need a mother, really. He had to live out his time of trouble, as she had. And there was no assurance that he would. He belonged to a generation whose elders had been poisoned, like the pelicans, with a kind of moral DDT that damaged the lives of their young.

  But I had no more time to worry about Jerry. I pulled the swivel chair around to face the phone and dialed Mrs. Broadhurst’s ranch in Santa Teresa. Jean answered immediately, in a voice that hung almost toneless between expectation and despair:

  “This is the Broadhurst residence.”

  “Archer speaking. I have your boy Ronny. He’s all right.”

  She didn’t answer right away. Through the faint buzz and clamor on the line I could hear her breathing, as if she was the only life in an electronic universe.

  “Where are you, Mr. Archer?”

  “Sausalito. Ronny’s safe and in good condition.”

  “Yes, I heard you.” Another silence. She said in a rather grudging tone: “What about the girl?”

  “I have her safe. She isn’t in very good emotional shape.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so.”

  “But she didn’t really intend to steal your son. She was running away from the man who killed your husband.”

  “All the way to Sausalito?” she said incredulously.

  “Yes.”

  “Who was the man?”

  “A bearded type with shoulder-length black hair, wearing dark wraparound glasses. Does that suggest anyone to you?”

  “There are plenty of longhairs in Northridge. Here, too, for that matter. I haven’t had many contacts with them in the last few years. I don’t know who it would be.”

  “He may be one of the crazies, a random killer. I’m going to make a suggestion which I want you to act on as soon as I hang up. Call the sheriff and ask him to send a man out. Insist on having him stay there. If he won’t, take a taxi downtown and check into a good hotel.”

  “But you told me to stay here in this house.”

  “That isn’t necessary any more. I’ve got your boy. I’ll bring him home tomorrow.”

  “Could I possibly speak to him tonight? I just want to hear his voice.”

  I opened the door and called the boy. He slid off Willie’s knee and came running, taking the receiver in both hands.

  “Is that you, Mommy? … The boat got sunk, but I came in on a surfboard.… I’m not cold. Mrs. Rawlins gave me her little boy’s clothes, and a hamburger. Susie bought me another hamburger in San Francisco.… Susie? She’s all right, I guess. She wanted to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. But we talked her out of it.”

  He listened for a moment, his face growing sober and concerned, then handed me the receiver as if it was hot. “Mommy
’s sad.”

  I said to her: “Are you all right?”

  She answered in an emotion-clogged voice: “I’m fine. And I’m deeply grateful. When will I see you and Ronny?”

  “About noon tomorrow, I’d say. We both need some rest before we drive south.”

  A short while later, after the others had left, Ellen and I put Ronny to bed in a room which she said had been hers when she was a child. An old toy phone was standing on the table beside the cot. As if to demonstrate that he never got tired, the boy picked it up and spoke into it distinctly:

  “Calling Space Control. Calling Space Control. Do you hear me? Do you hear me?”

  We closed the door on his fantasy and faced each other in the upstairs hall. The hanging yellow electric light, the stains of old rainstorms on the walls and ceiling, and the shadows that imitated them seemed to generate other fantasies. The rest of the world was cut off and far away. I felt shipwrecked on the dim shores of the past.

  “How’s Jerry?”

  “He’s worried about what Armistead will do to him. But he quieted down. I gave him a back rub and a sleeping pill.”

  “I’ll talk to Armistead when I get the chance.”

  “I was hoping you would. Jerry’s pretty tense about it. He feels terribly guilty.”

  “What did you do with the rest of the sleeping pills?”

  “I have them.”

  She touched the place between her breasts. She must have seen my eyes rest there and travel down her body. Both of us moved, so that her body was resting rather sleepily against mine. I felt her hand moving on my back, giving me a kind of sample back rub.

  “I don’t have a bed made up for you. You can sleep with me if you like.”

  “Thanks, but it wouldn’t be a good idea. You do all your living on canvas, remember?”

  “I have a large unused canvas that I’ve been saving,” she said rather obscurely. “What are you afraid of, Archer?”

  It was hard to say. I liked the woman. I almost trusted her. But I was already working deep in her life. I didn’t want to buy a piece of it or commit myself to her until I knew what the consequences would be.

  Instead of answering her in words, I kissed her and disengaged myself.

  She looked more rejected than deprived. “I don’t sleep with many men, in case you’re wondering. Leo was the only real lover I ever had.”