Mermaid

by Margaret Millar

  “Ah yes, they make such a fuss about things like that in this country. Is it so odd, two young people going to bed together? But the fussing that went on when the señor discovered them, oh, oh, you wouldn’t believe it. Ted was forced to leave in the middle of the night. And the next morning the señor and his wife screamed at each other all through breakfast. Such language.”

  “And you think that’s why Cleo ran away?”

  “She went to find a man. She liked that business with Ted. She’s ready to get married and have children. In Mexico, pretty soon she’d be an old maid.”

  The news about Ted and Cleo had caught Aragon by surprise but he had little doubt of its validity. It fitted in with Jasper’s reluctance to have his wife questioned and with Ted’s suspicious reaction to the phone call Aragon had made to the house that morning. He asked Valencia about the call.

  “Ted was at my elbow telling me what to say. He pinched my arm so hard it left a bruise.”

  “Where was Mrs. Jasper at this time?”

  “She went to the bank to get Ted the money he wanted and wasn’t supposed to have . . . That was you on the other end of the line?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t go to school with Ted.”

  “No.”

  “You tell lies.”

  “When I have to.”

  “That’s no excuse. I hope you confess to the priest.”

  She was sucking noisily the last drops of Coke from the bottom of her cup.

  He said, “Shall I drive you home now?”

  “I haven’t finished yet. There are still things to tell.”

  “All right. Go on.”

  “Perhaps another Coke?”

  Another Coke was provided. She was clearly enjoying the scene—the food and drink, the attention, the activity going on around her—and seemed in no hurry to end it.

  “I should come here more often,” she said. “The Jasper house is so quiet, like someone died. I like a bit of noise, people laughing and music playing, even babies crying. Sometimes it’s a relief to hear the dog barking or Trocadero mowing the lawn or clipping hedges.”

  “Quit stalling, Valencia.”

  “Do you think we could come here another time?”

  “Maybe.”

  “That means no, doesn’t it?”

  “It probably does.”

  “Oh well, you’re too young for me anyway. And too Anglo. You even look Anglo with those horn-rimmed glasses of yours. Who ever heard of a Chicano wearing horn-rimmed glasses?”

  “You’re stalling again, Valencia. Get back to the subject, whatever it is.”

  “It’s Ted, of course. You weren’t the only one who tele­phoned him before he left the house. After lunch he had another call. I put him on and then I heard him say, ‘All right, I’ll be right there.’ Those were his words: ‘All right, I’ll be right there.’”

  “That doesn’t sound very sinister.”

  “Maybe not, unless you know who the caller was, or you think you know. It was her voice, Cleo’s.”

  “Cleo’s?”

  “Aha, surprised you, didn’t I? You didn’t believe me be­fore when I said she liked that business with Ted. Now you’ve changed your mind, eh? She’s young and hungry, why should she not eat?”

  “Did you inform Mrs. Jasper about this phone call from Cleo or a girl you thought was Cleo?”

  “Never. It would start another big fuss. They treat me like a dog, I behave like a dog, I say nothing.”

  “The rumor is that Ted has a number of girlfriends. It would be quite natural for him to move in with one of them after being kicked out of his own house.”

  “The voice was Cleo’s. She asked him to meet her some­place and he said all right, he would. His car was already packed with his clothes and things because he had to leave before his father got home. The señora stood at the door, waving goodbye and crying. Silly woman. What’s there to cry about when a baby bird flies out of the nest? If he stayed on, now that would be good cause for crying.”

  “What time did Ted leave?”

  “Between one thirty and two.”

  He recalled the picture of Ted as a senior in his high school yearbook, a baby bird already out of the nest even then. “Did he seem happy about going?”

  “Why not? He’s a fine-looking young man with a fine car and money in his pocket. He’s a bit on the heavy side for my taste. I prefer the lean type like you. Lean men are often stronger.”

  “I’m extremely weak,” Aragon said.

  He figured it was time to drive Valencia home.

  He let her off at the bottom of the Jaspers’ driveway. Through the trees he could see the house at the top of the hill. The main floor was dark but lights showed in some of

  the second-floor windows.

  “If I were you, Valencia, I wouldn’t mention any of this to the Jaspers. It will only increase their burden.”

  “It could very well increase mine, too. They might fire me. Chicanos are blamed for

  everything.”

  “Things are changing.”

  “Not for me.”

  “You have a comfortable place to stay, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have a room of your own, a radio and T. V. perhaps, regular meals.”

  “The meals are tasteless,” she said. “And the room is lonely without a man. Perhaps you have an older brother? An uncle?”

  “I come from a very small family of very weak men.”

  “Now you’re making fun of me.”

  “I’d like to see you smile.”

  “I never smile. I have a crooked tooth at the front. Be­sides, who’s there to smile at?

  Trocadero? He’s over sev­enty. The grocery boy goes to high school and the garbage man is black as coal.”

  “When the right man comes along you’ll smile without even thinking of your crooked tooth. And the right man won’t even see it.”

  “What a liar you are,” Valencia said, sounding pleased. “You’d better go see your priest.”

  9

  Drawford’s department store catered to the young ladies and the old money of the city’s North Side. Located at the head of a recently constructed shopping mall, it was built in the style of the string of old missions along the southern California coast. There were differences. Its bell tower clanged the hours only when the store was open for busi­ness, the taped music was soft and secular except at Christ­mas, and the thickly carpeted floors were not meant for the bare feet of padres. Bare feet were not, in fact, allowed at all. There was a sign to that effect on each of the four en­trance doors.

  The credit department was on the third floor. Its man­ager was on vacation but the

  assistant manager agreed to see Aragon.

  She was a young woman who looked as if she’d been born and brought up in the store itself, nurtured on the skinny sandwiches of its tearoom, coiffed in its beauty salon, clothed in its designer dresses, perfumed and made up in the cosmetics section, educated in the pages of its chic, glossy catalogues. Aragon would scarcely have been surprised if she’d introduced herself as Ms. Drawford.

  “I’m Mrs. Flaherty,” she said. “May I help you?”

  Aragon gave her his card and she read it through jewel-trimmed glasses from the optometry department.

  “Drawford’s is always happy to welcome an attorney,” she said with a well-practiced smile. “Especially if he’s on our side.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What can we do for you?”

  “I’m trying to find out if the holder of a certain credit card purchased anything here during the past week.”

  “I’m sorry but we cannot give out that information.” It sounded like a line from Drawford’s Training Manual for New Personnel.

  “Does that mean under any
circumstances, Mrs. Fla­herty?”

  “Almost any. It would be advisable if you’d wait for Mr. Illings to get back from his fishing trip in British Columbia. That will be in another week and a half.”

  “That might be a week and a half too late. This is really important.”

  Mrs. Flaherty threw away the manual. “Oh damn, I knew something like this was going to happen the minute he left. Right off the bat someone waltzes in, a lawyer yet, and asks for confidential information. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Use your own judgment.”

  “Okay. What’s the name of the credit card holder, the billing address and the number of the card?”

  “Cleo Jasper. The bills are probably sent to her brother, Hilton Jasper, on Via Vista.”

  “And the number of the card?”

  “I don’t have it, sorry.”

  “I’d really like to know what this is all about.”

  “And I’d really like to tell you. But as any employee of Drawford’s must realize, rules are rules.”

  “All right, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll have to get her credit card number from our files, then run it through the computer and see what comes out.”

  She was gone for five minutes, during which Aragon had time to examine her office. It was mostly chrome and glass, very neat and almost devoid of personal touches except for two small framed photographs on the desk, one of a baby and the other of a young man in football uniform who looked like Joe Namath. Drawford’s would probably not approve of an assistant credit manager having a photo­graph of Joe Namath on her desk, so Aragon assumed the picture was of Mrs. Flaherty’s husband, and the baby their joint effort.

  Mrs. Flaherty returned carrying a sheet of paper. “The computer indicates that Miss Jasper made some purchases two days ago.”

  “What were they?”

  “We don’t know yet. When a purchase is made, the slip contains the name of the credit card holder and the num­ber of the associate. When we check that number we’ll have the name of the associate and thus the department in which she or he works.”

  “By ‘associate’ you mean sales clerk?”

  “If you insist. Drawford’s believes that associate sounds better and improves morale. Now then, we’ll find out whether that associate is working today and after that you can do—well, whatever it is that people like you do.”

  “They work,” Aragon said, “ . . . and when do I get the names of the associates?”

  “My secretary’s checking that now.”

  The secretary turned out to be not a clone of Mrs. Fla­herty but a close copy. She had the same hairdo and wore an almost identical expression and dress. She said that one of

  the numbers belonged to Mrs. deForrest of the shoe salon and the other to Miss Horowitz of the better jewelry department. Miss Horowitz had sold Miss Jasper a set of rings and Mrs. deForrest had sold her two pairs of shoes.

  This was Miss Horowitz’s day off but Mrs. deForrest was on duty in the shoe salon, having clocked in at 9:07 that morning.

  Mrs. deForrest was not a product of Drawford’s cata­logues or training manual. She looked like a grandmother who’d had to go back to work in order to pay her bills.

  “Cleo Jasper,” she said, frowning. “Let me think a min­ute. I’m pretty good at names.”

  While Mrs. deForrest thought, Aragon watched the other customers: a middle-aged woman surrounded by piles of boxes which indicated she was either hard to please or hard to fit, two teenagers pooling their finances to pay for a pair of sandals, an elegantly dressed woman in a wheel­chair examining a display of matching shoes and handbags.

  “Yes,” Mrs. deForrest said. “Yes, I recall now. A young woman, who had trouble signing her name. In fact she didn’t sign her first name. She used only the initial.”

  Aragon showed her one of the pictures Mrs. Jasper had given him of Cleo.

  “Of course this is the girl,” Mrs. deForrest said. “Why didn’t you show it to me in the first place?”

  “I thought she might have changed her appearance and seeing the picture would only put you off.”

  “Well, she did not change it. The picture’s exactly her. Cute little thing. Bought a pair of Italian sandals with very high heels. She could hardly walk in them. She looked comical, like a little girl dressed up in her mother’s clothes. I urged her to buy a more sensible pair of shoes for walk­ing, with a special non-slip sole. We sell a lot of them to people who want to be sure of their footing on slippery surfaces. And that’s especially important for someone in Mrs. Jasper’s condition.”

  “Miss Jasper.”

  “Miss? Dear me, that’s getting so common these days but I still can’t help being shocked.”

  “What is common?”

  “Going right ahead and having children without bother­ing to get married. Why, she looked barely out of high school and she had that eight-month waddle if I ever saw one. That’s why the non-slip shoes were so important, to avoid a fall that might cause a premature birth.”

  “Would you take another look at this picture, Mrs. de­Forrest?”

  “Sure.” She studied the picture again, more carefully. “I certainly think it’s the same girl. I wouldn’t want to swear on a stack of Bibles. If I had to do that, swear to it in court or anything, I really couldn’t. I’d hate to get involved in anything messy.”

  “So would I,” Aragon said. But he knew he had.

  Contacted by phone at her apartment, Miss Horowitz confirmed the sale of a pair of rings to Cleo Jasper. Sales were never brisk in the better jewelry department, Miss Horowitz explained, except when there was a special sale on such things as diamonds and jade, so individual custom­ers were easy to recall. The girl had bought a set of wed­ding bands. The girl’s band was too big for her but she said she would grow into it. She didn’t want to wait for a special order . . . “I don’t wonder she was in a hurry. She was conspicuously pregnant.”

  “Was she happy about it?”

  “Quite. In fact, very. I honestly can’t understand the present generation. Can you?”

  “No.”

  He understood even less Cleo’s apparently imminent contribution to the next generation.

  When Aragon reached the parking lot of his apartment building he could hear a phone ringing from one of the open windows. He didn’t hurry. If the ringing came from his apartment he couldn’t reach the phone in time anyway. He locked his car, counting the rings of the phone automat­ically at first, then, as they continued, deliberately: ten . . . twelve . . . sixteen . . . They stopped for about half a min­ute, then began again. When he went up the steps to the second floor he realized the ringing was coming from his own apartment.

  He let himself in, breathing deeply to expel the sense of impending disaster he felt. The call must be very urgent or the ringing would have stopped at the usual six or seven.

  He said, “Hello?”

  “Mr. Aragon?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Rachel Holbrook. I’m in a café across the street. I saw your car drive up. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “How did you know where to wait?”

  “A girl in your office gave me your address and told me you usually came home at noon to pick up your mail in case there was a letter from your wife.”

  “They’re a chatty group.”

  “A bit unprofessional, yes. Would you come over and have a cup of coffee with me? It’s very important.”

  “About Cleo?”

  “It’s a related matter. Can you come?”

  He didn’t want to and she must have sensed it. Her voice hardened.

  “You owe me one, Mr. Aragon. Don’t you pay your debts?”

  “When I know what they are.”

  “Come on over and I’ll tell you about this one, such as how to pay it.”

  “All ri
ght.”

  She sat in the front booth, looking out of place in the dingy blue-collar café with its cigarette-scarred tables and splitting vinyl seats. She wore a white-brimmed hat and a dark-red suit with white collar and cuffs. He didn’t like the color, which reminded him not of burgundy or plums but of raw liver or yesterday’s blood.

  There was a glass of water in front of her, untouched. The water looked murky and the table was marked with the rings of other glasses from other meals.

  “This isn’t a nice place,” she said abruptly.

  “I didn’t pick it.”

  “I’ve become spoiled. All through college I worked in joints like this and it didn’t bother me. Now I feel—well, frightened, uneasy. Those men eating lunch at the counter, I’m sure they have no evil intentions toward me. And yet . . . and yet, perhaps they do.”

  “Their only intention is to eat their food.” And keep it down, he added silently. “What’s happened, Mrs. Hol­brook?”

  “Donny Whitfield has been missing since yesterday morning. That’s the one you owe me, Mr. Aragon.”

  “I see.”

  “You don’t appear surprised.”

  “No.”

  “He escaped in your car.”

  “I believe so.”

  “The evidence I have doesn’t indicate any actual com­plicity on your part, Mr. Aragon. Just stupid negligence, leaving your car keys in the ignition. Nothing goes unnoticed around Holbrook Hall. One of our students saw the whole thing but she didn’t report it until the search for Donny began last night. She had the make and model of your car, even the license number.” Mrs. Holbrook took a sip of water. “Although the search was as quiet and unob­trusive as possible, I knew I’d have to make up some plau­sible story about Donny to stop the speculations. I told two of the key students of the school grapevine—key for key­hole—that Donny’s father had decided to send him to a fat camp for the summer. So far, my version has been ac­cepted.”

  “Does Mr. Whitfield know about Donny?”

  “I was unable to reach him. He has a house in Palm Springs, a condominium near the harbor and a yacht moored at the marina, but he wasn’t at any of those places.”