Black Money

by Ross Macdonald

  “I’ll take you at your word,” he said. “Don’t get the idea that I’m one of these compulsive gamblers. It’s true I’m in the market, it’s the only way to outwit these confiscatory taxes nowadays—but I’m not the Vegas type of gambler. I stay away from Vegas.”

  “And that’s why you never met Leo Spillman.”

  “I admit I went there in the past. The last time I went to Vegas I was in a bad mood, a destructive mood. I didn’t care what happened. My wife—” He compressed his lips.

  “Go on.”

  He said haltingly: “I was just going to say my wife wasn’t with me.”

  “I thought you were going to say that she was having an affair with another man.”

  His face twisted in pain. “Good Lord, did she tell you that?”

  “No. It doesn’t matter how I found out.”

  “Do you know who the other man was?” he said.

  “Roy Fablon. It gave you a reason for wanting him dead.”

  “Is that an accusation?”

  “I just thought I’d mention it, doctor.”

  “Thanks very much. You throw some wicked curves.”

  “Life does, anyway. What happened your last time in Vegas?”

  “Plenty. First I lost a few hundred on the tables. Instead of cutting my losses, I got mad and plunged. Before I was through I’d exhausted my credit—it still hasn’t recovered completely—and I owed Leo Spillman nearly twenty thousand.

  “He called me into the office to talk about it. I told him I could raise ten at most, he’d have to wait for the rest. He blew a gasket and called me a cheat and a fourflusher, and a good many other names. He would have attacked me physically, I think, if the woman hadn’t restrained him.”

  “Was Kitty there?”

  “Yes. She was interested in me because she’d found out that I came from here. She reminded Spillman that it was a felony for him to use his fists. Apparently he was an ex-professional boxer. But he was in terrible shape, and I think I could have taken him.” Sylvester caressed his fist. “I did some boxing in college.”

  “It’s just as well you didn’t try. Very few amateurs ever take a pro.”

  “But he was a sick man, physically and emotionally sick.”

  “What was the matter with him?”

  “I could see that one of his optic nerves was jumping. After he calmed down a bit, I persuaded him to let me look into his eyes and take his blood pressure. I had the equipment in my car. That may seem like a strange thing to do, under the circumstances, but I was concerned about him as a doctor. With good reason. He had a bad case of hypertension, and his blood pressure was up in the danger zone. It turned out that he’d never been to a doctor, never had a checkup. He thought all that was for sissies.

  “At first he thought I was trying to frighten him. But with the woman’s help I got the fact across to him, that he was in danger of a stroke. So he suggested a deal. I was to rake up ten thousand in cash, treat his hypertension, and get the two of them a cottage at the Tennis Club. I imagine it was the weirdest deal in history.”

  “I don’t know. Spillman once won a man’s wife in a crap game.”

  “So he told me. He’s full of little anecdotes. You can imagine how I felt injecting a man like that into my club. But I had no choice, and he was willing to pay nearly ten thousand dollars.”

  “It didn’t cost him anything.”

  “It cost him ten thousand less the value of my services.”

  “Not if you paid him the other ten thousand in cash. He’d save more than enough in taxes to make up the difference.”

  “You think he was dodging taxes?”

  “I’m sure of it. They’re doing it all the time in Vegas. The money they hold back is known as ‘black money,’ and that’s a good name for it. It runs into the millions, and it’s used to finance about half of the illegal enterprises in the country, from Cosa Nostra on down.”

  Sylvester said in a chilly voice: “I couldn’t be held responsible, could I?”

  “Morally, you could. Legally, I don’t know. If everybody who collaborated with organized crime was held responsible, half the boobs in the country would be in jail. Unfortunately that won’t happen. We treat the crime capital of the United States as if it was a second Disneyland, smelling like roses, a great place to take the family or hold a convention.”

  I stopped myself. I was slightly hipped on the subject of Vegas, partly because the criminal cases I handled in California so often led there. As this one was doing, now. I said:

  “Did you know that Martel left town with Spillman seven years ago?”

  “I heard you tell me. I didn’t understand what you meant.”

  “He was a student at the local college, working part-time as a flunky at the Tennis Club.”

  “Martel was?”

  “In those days he called himself Feliz Cervantes. He met Ginny Fablon, or at least saw her, at a gathering of French students, and fell for her. He may have taken the job at the club so he could see her more often. He ran into Spillman there.”

  Sylvester was listening closely. He was quiet and subdued, as if the building might collapse in ruins around him if he moved. “How do you know all this?”

  “Part of it’s speculation. Most of it isn’t. But I’ve got to talk to Leo Spillman, and I want your help in reaching him. Have you seen him recently?”

  “Not in seven years. He never came back here. I didn’t urge him to, either. Apart from my professional contact with him, I did my best to avoid him. I never invited him to my house, for instance.”

  Sylvester was trying to rescue his pride. But I suspected it had been permanently lost, within the past half-hour, in this room.

  chapter 23

  THROUGH THE DOOR behind me I heard the telephone ring in Sylvester’s outer office. About twenty seconds later the telephone on his desk gave out a subdued echo of the ring. He picked it up and said impatiently:

  “What is it, Mrs. Loftin?”

  The secretary’s voice came to me in stereo, partly through the telephone and partly through the door. It was just loud enough for me to hear what she said:

  “Virginia Fablon wants to talk to you. She’s in a state. Shall I put her on?”

  “Hold it,” Sylvester said. “I’ll come out there.”

  He excused himself and went out, shutting the door emphatically behind him. Refusing to take the hint, I followed him into the outer office. He was standing over the secretary’s desk, pressing her telephone to the side of his head like a surgical device which held his face together.

  “Where are you?” he was saying. He interrupted himself to bark at me: “Give me some privacy, can’t you?”

  “Please step out into the hall,” Mrs. Loftin said. “The doctor is advising an emergency patient.”

  “What’s the emergency?”

  “I can’t discuss it. Please step outside, won’t you?”

  Mrs. Loftin was a large woman with a square determined face. She advanced on me, ready to use physical force.

  I retreated into the hallway. She closed the door. I leaned my ear against it and heard Sylvester say:

  “What makes you think he’s dying?” Then: “I see … Yes, I’ll come right away. Don’t panic.”

  A few seconds later Sylvester emerged from the office in such a blind rush that he almost knocked me over. He was carrying a medical bag and still wearing his white coat. The prosthetic telephone was no longer holding his face together.

  I walked beside him toward the front door of the clinic. “Let me drive you.”

  “No.”

  “Has Martel been hurt?”

  “I prefer not to discuss it. He insists on privacy.”

  “I’m private. Let me drive you.”

  Sylvester shook his head. But he paused on the terrace above the parking lot and stood blinking in the sun for a moment.

  “What’s the matter with him?” I said.

  “He was shot.”

  “That puts him in th
e public domain, and you know it. My car’s over here.”

  I took him by the elbow and propelled him toward the curb. He offered no resistance to me. His movements were slightly mechanical.

  I said as I started the car: “Where are they, doctor?”

  “In Los Angeles. If you can get onto the San Diego Freeway—they have a house in Brentwood.”

  “They have another house?”

  “Apparently. I took down the address.”

  It was on Sabado Avenue, a tree-lined street of large Spanish houses built some time in the twenties. It was one of those disappearing enclaves where, in a different mood from mine, you could feel the sunlit peace of prewar Los Angeles. Sabado Avenue had a Not a Through Street sign at its entrance.

  The house we were looking for was the largest and most elaborate on the long block. Its walled and fountained grounds reminded me a little of Forest Lawn. So did the girl who answered the front door. I would hardly have recognized Ginny, she was so drawn around the mouth and swollen around the eyes.

  She started to cry again into the front of Sylvester’s white coat. He patted her shuddering back with his free hand.

  “Where is he, Virginia?”

  “He went away. I had to go next door to phone you. Our phone isn’t connected yet.” Her sentences were broken up by hiccuping sobs. “He took the car and drove away.”

  “How long ago?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve lost track of time. It was right after I phoned you.”

  “That makes it less than an hour,” I said. “Is your husband badly hurt?”

  She nodded, still clinging to Sylvester. “I’m afraid he’s bleeding internally. He was shot in the stomach.”

  “When?”

  “An hour or so ago. I don’t know exactly what time. The people who rented the house to us didn’t leave any clocks. I was taking a siesta—we were up most of the night—and somebody rang the doorbell. My husband answered it. I heard the shot, and I ran down here and found him sitting on the floor.”

  She looked down at her feet. Around them on the parquetry were rusty spots that looked like drying blood.

  “Did you see who fired the shot?”

  “I didn’t actually see him. I heard the car drive away. My husband—” She kept repeating the phrase as if it might help him and her marriage to survive.

  Sylvester broke in: “We can’t keep her standing here while we cross-question her. One of us ought to call the police.”

  “You should have called them before you left your office.”

  Ginny seemed to think I was blaming her. “My husband wouldn’t let me. He said it would mean the end of everything.” Her heavy look swung from side to side, as if the end of everything was upon her.

  Sylvester quieted her against his shoulder. Slowly and gently he walked her into the house. I went next door. A stout executive type in a black alpaca sweater was standing outside on his front lawn, looking helpless and resentful. He owned a house on Sabado Avenue, and this was supposed to guarantee a quiet life.

  “What do you want?”

  “The use of your phone. There’s been a shooting.”

  “Is that what the noise was?”

  “You heard the gun?”

  “I thought it was a backfire at the time.”

  “Did you see the car?”

  “I saw a black Rolls drive away. Or maybe it was a Bentley. But that was some time later.”

  This wasn’t much help. I asked him to show me a telephone. He took me in through the back door to the kitchen. It was one of those space age kitchens, all gleaming metal and control panels, ready to go into lunar orbit. The man handed me a telephone and left the room, as if to avoid finding out something that might disturb him.

  Within a few minutes a squad car arrived, followed closely by a Homicide Captain named Perlberg. Not long after that we located Martel’s Bentley. It hadn’t gone far.

  Its gleaming nose was jammed against the metal safety barrier at the dead end of Sabado Avenue. Beyond the barrier the loose ground sloped away to the edge of a bluff which overlooked the Pacific.

  The Bentley’s engine was still running. Martel’s chin rested on the steering wheel. The dead eyes in his yellow face were peering out into the blue ocean of air.

  Perlberg and I knew each other, and I gave him a quick rundown on the case. He and his men made a search for Martel’s hundred thousand, but found no trace of it in the car or at the house. The gunman who took Martel had taken the money too.

  Ginny was in slightly better shape by this time, and Sylvester gave Perlberg permission to question her briefly. He and I sat in the living room with them and monitored the interview. Ginny and Martel had been married by a judge in Beverly Hills the previous Saturday. The same day he had rented this house, completely furnished, through an agent. She didn’t know who the legal owner was.

  No, she didn’t know who had shot her husband. She had been asleep when it happened. It was all over when she came downstairs.

  “But your husband was still alive,” Perlberg said. “What did he say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “He must have said something.”

  “Just that I wasn’t to call anyone,” she said. “He said he wasn’t badly hurt. I didn’t realize he was until later.”

  “How much later?”

  “I don’t know. I was so upset, and we have no clocks. I sat and watched the life draining out of his face. He wouldn’t speak to me. He seemed to be profoundly—humiliated. When I finally realized how badly off he was, I went next door and called Dr. Sylvester.” She nodded toward the doctor, who was sitting near her.

  “Why didn’t you call a local doctor?”

  “I didn’t know any.”

  “Why didn’t you call us?” Perlberg said.

  “I was afraid to. My husband said it would be the end of him.”

  “What did he mean by that?”

  “I don’t know, but I was afraid. When I finally did make a call, he went away.”

  She covered her face with her hands. Sylvester persuaded the Captain to cut the questioning short. Perlberg’s men took pictures, and shavings of the blood-spotted parquetry, and left us alone with Ginny in the big echoing house.

  She said she wanted to go home to her mother. Sylvester told her that her mother was dead. She didn’t seem to take it in.

  I volunteered to get some of her things together. While Sylvester stayed with her in the living room, I went up to the master bedroom on the second floor. The bed, which was its central feature, was circular, about nine feet in diameter. I was beginning to see a good many of these king-sized beds, like hopeful altars to old gods. The bed had been left unmade, and the tangled sheets suggested lovemaking.

  The suitcases were on the floor of the closet under a row of empty hangers. They had been left unpacked except for a few overnight things: Ginny’s nightgown and hairbrush and toothbrush and cosmetics, Martel’s pajamas and safety razor. I went through his suitcases quickly. Most of his clothes were new and of fine quality, some with Bond Street labels. Apart from a book by Descartes, Méditations, in French, I could find nothing personal, and even this book had no name on the flyleaf.

  Later, as we drove through the endless suburbs to Montevista, I asked Ginny if she knew who her husband was. Sylvester had given her a sedative, and she rode between us with her head on his extended arm. The shock of Martel’s death had pushed her back toward childishness. Her voice sounded just a little like a sleep-talker’s:

  “He’s Francis Martel, from Paris. You know that.”

  “I thought I did, Ginny. But just today another name came up. Feliz Cervantes.”

  “I never heard of any such person.”

  “You met him, or at least he met you, at a Cercle Français meeting at Professor Tappinger’s house.”

  “When? I’ve been to dozens of Cercle Français meetings.”

  “This one was seven years ago, in September. Francis Martel was there under the name Cervantes. Mrs
. Tappinger identified a photograph of him.”

  “Can I see the photograph?”

  I moved over into the slow lane and worked the picture out of my jacket pocket. She took it from me. Then for some time she was silent. The afternoon traffic fled by us on the left. The drivers looked apprehensive, as if they had been kidnapped by their cars.

  “Is this really Francis standing by the wall?”

  “I’m almost certain that it is. Didn’t you know him in those days?”

  “No. Was I supposed to have?”

  “He knew you. He told his landlady that he was going to get rich some day and come back and marry you.”

  “But that’s ridiculous.”

  “Not so very. It happened.”

  Sylvester, who had been quiet until now, growled something at me about shutting up.

  Ginny hung her head in thought over the picture. “If this is Francis, what’s he doing with Mr. and Mrs. Ketchel?”

  “You know the Ketchels?”

  “I met them once.”

  “When?”

  “September seven years ago. My father took me to lunch with them. It was just before he died.”

  Sylvester scowled across her at me. “This is enough of this, Archer. It’s no time to poke around in explosive material.”

  “It’s the only time I have.” I said to the girl: “Do you mind talking to me about these things?”

  “Not if it will help.” She managed a wan smile.

  “Okay. What happened at this lunch with the Ketchels?”

  “Nothing, really. We had something to eat in the patio of his cottage. I tried to make conversation with Mrs. Ketchel. She was a local girl, she said, but that was the only thing we had in common. She hated me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Mr. Ketchel liked me. He wanted to do things for me, help me with my education and so on.” Her voice was toneless.

  “Did your father know about this?”

  “Yes. It was the purpose of the lunch. Roy was very naïve about exploiting people. He thought he could use a man like Mr. Ketchel without being used.”

  “Use him for what?” I said.

  “Roy owed him money. Roy was a nice man, but by that time he owed everybody money. I couldn’t help him. It wouldn’t have done any good to go along with Mr. Ketchel’s plan. Mr. Ketchel is the kind of man who takes everything and gives nothing. I told Roy that.”