“The twelfth or the thirteenth. That was the agreement. She got her final divorce on March eleventh.”
“And you haven’t seen her since?”
“I have not. Frieda has, though.”
“Frieda?”
“My secretary.” He jerked a thumb towards the cottage. “Frieda went over to the house last week to pick up some of my clothes I’d left behind. Ethel was there, and she was all right then. Apparently she’s taken up with another man.”
“Do you know his name?”
“No, and I couldn’t care less.”
“Do you have a picture of Ethel?”
“I did have some. I tore them up. She’s a well-stacked blonde, natural blonde. She looks very much like Clare, same coloring, but three or four years older. You should be able to get a picture from Clare. And while you’re at it, tell her for me she’s got a lot of gall setting the police on me. I’m a respectable businessman in this town.” He puffed out his chest under the bathrobe. It was thickly matted with brown hair, which was beginning to grizzle.
“No doubt,” I said. “Incidentally, I’m not the police. I run a private agency. My name is Archer.”
“So that’s how it is, eh?” The planes of his broad face gleamed angrily in the light. He cocked a fat red fist. “You come here pumping me. Get out, by God, or I’ll throw you out!”
“Calm down. I could break you in half.”
His face swelled with blood, and his eyes popped. He swung a roundhouse right at my head. I stepped inside of it and tied him up. “I said calm down, old man. You’ll break a vein.”
I pushed him off balance and released him. He sat down very suddenly on the chaise. Frieda was watching us from the edge of the terrace. She laughed so heartily that she spilled her drink.
Illman looked old and tired, and he was breathing raucously through his mouth. He didn’t try to get up. Frieda came over to me and leaned her weight on my arm. I could feel her small sharp breasts.
“Why didn’t you hit him,” she whispered, “when you had the chance? He’s always hitting other people.” Her voice rose. “Teddy-bear thinks he can get away with murder.”
“Shut your yap,” he said, “or I’ll shut it for you.”
“Button yours, muscle-man. You’ll lay a hand on me once too often.”
“You’re fired.”
“I already quit.”
They were a charming couple. I was on the point of tearing myself away when a bellboy popped out of the darkness, like a gnome in uniform.
“A gentleman to see you, Mr. Illman.”
The gentleman was a brown-faced young Highway Patrolman, who stepped forward rather diffidently into the light. “Sorry to trouble you, sir. Our San Diego office asked me to contact you as soon as possible.”
Frieda looked from me to him, and began to gravitate in his direction. Illman got up heavily and stepped between them.
“What is it?”
The patrolman unfolded a teletype flimsy and held it up to the light. “Are you the owner of a blue Buick convertible, last year’s model?” He read off the license number.
“It was mine,” Illman said. “It belongs to my ex-wife now. Did she forget to change the registration?”
“Evidently she did, Mr. Illman. In fact, she seems to’ve forgotten the car entirely. She left it in a parking space above the public beach in La Jolla. It’s been sitting there for the last week, until we hauled it in. Where can I get in touch with Mrs. Illman?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her for some time.”
The patrolman’s face lengthened and turned grim. “You mean she’s dropped out of sight?”
“Out of my sight, at least. Why?”
“I hate to have to say this, Mr. Illman. There’s a considerable quantity of blood on the front seat of the Buick, according to this report. They haven’t determined yet if it’s human blood, but it raises the suspicion of foul play.”
“Good heavens! It’s what we’ve been afraid of, isn’t it, Archer?” His voice was thick as corn syrup with phony emotion. “You and Clare were right after all.”
“Right about what, Mr. Illman?” The patrolman looked slightly puzzled.
“About poor Ethel,” he said. “I’ve been discussing her disappearance with Mr. Archer here. Mr. Archer is a private detective, and I was just about to engage his services to make a search for Ethel.” He turned to me with a painful smile pulling his mouth to one side. “How much did you say you wanted in advance? Five hundred?”
“Make it two. That will buy my services for four days. It doesn’t buy anything else, though.”
“I understand that, Mr. Archer. I’m sincerely interested in finding Ethel for a variety of reasons, as you know.”
He was a suave old fox. I almost laughed in his face. But I played along with him. I liked the idea of using his money to hang him, if possible.
“Yeah. This is a tragic occurrence for you.”
He took a silver money clip shaped like a dollar sign out of his bathrobe pocket. I wondered if he didn’t trust his room-mate. Two bills changed hands. After a further exchange of information, the patrolman went away.
“Well,” Illman said. “It looks like a pretty serious business. If you think I had anything to do with it, you’re off your rocker.”
“Speaking of rockers, you said your wife was crazy. What kind of crazy?”
“I was her husband, not her analyst. I wouldn’t know.”
“Did she need an analyst?”
“Sometimes I thought so. One week she’d be flying, full of big plans to make money. Then she’d go into a black mood and talk about killing herself.” He shrugged. “It ran in her family.”
“This could be an afterthought on your part.”
His face reddened.
I turned to Frieda, who looked as if the news had sobered her. “Who was this fellow you saw at Ethel’s house last week?”
“I dunno. She called him Owen, I think. Maybe it was his first name, maybe it was his last name. She didn’t introduce us.” She said it as if she felt cheated.
“Describe him?”
“Sure. A big guy, over six feet, wide in the shoulders, narrow in the beam. A smooth hunk of male. And young,” with a malicious glance at Illman. “Black hair, and he had all of it, dreamy dark eyes, a cute little hairline moustache. I tabbed him for a gin-mill cowboy from Vegas, but he could be a movie star if I was a producer.”
“Thank God you’re not,” Illman said.
“What made you think she’d taken up with him?”
“The way he moved around the house, like he owned it. He poured himself a drink while I was there. And he was in his shirtsleeves. A real sharp dresser, though. Custom-made stuff.”
“You have a good eye.”
“For men, she has,” Illman said.
“Lay off me,” she said in a hard voice, with no trace of the Martini drawl. “Or I’ll really walk out on you, and then where will you be?”
“Right where I am now. Sitting pretty.”
“That’s what you think.”
I interrupted their communion. “Do you know anything about this Owen character, Illman?”
“Not a thing. He’s probably some jerk she picked up in Nevada while she was sweating out the divorce.”
“Have you been to San Diego recently?”
“Not for months.”
“That’s true,” Frieda said. “I’ve been keeping close track of Teddy. I have to. Incidentally, it’s getting late and I’m hungry. Go and put on some clothes, darling. You’re prettier with clothes on.”
“More than I’d say for you,” he leered.
I left them and drove back to West Hollywood. The night-blooming girls and their escorts had begun to appear on the Strip. Gusts of music came from the doors that opened for them. But when I turned off Sunset, the streets were deserted, emptied by the television curfew.
All the lights were on in the redwood house on the hillside. I parked in the driveway and
knocked on the front door. The draperies over the window beside it were pulled to one side, then fell back into place. A thin voice drifted out to me.
“Is that you, Mr. Archer?”
I said that it was. Clare opened the door inch by inch. Her face was almost haggard.
“I’m so relieved to see you.”
“What’s the trouble?”
“A man was watching the house. He was sitting there at the curb in a long black car. It looked like an undertaker’s car. And it had a Nevada license.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. It lighted up when he drove away. I saw it through the window. He left only a couple of minutes ago.”
“Did you get a look at his face?”
“I’m afraid not. I didn’t go out. I was petrified. He shone a searchlight on the window.”
“Take it easy. There are plenty of big black cars in town, and quite a few Nevada licenses. He was probably looking for some other address.”
“No. I had a—a kind of fatal feeling when I saw him. I just know that he’s connected in some way with Ethel’s disappearance. I’m scared.”
She leaned against the door, breathing quickly. She looked very young and vulnerable. I said:
“What am I going to do with you, kid? I can’t leave you here alone.”
“Are you going away?”
“I have to. I saw Edward. While I was there, he had a visitor from the HP. They found your sister’s car abandoned near San Diego.” I didn’t mention the blood. She had enough on her mind.
“Edward killed her!” she cried. “I knew it.”
“That I doubt. She may not even be dead. I’m going to San Diego to find out.”
“Take me along, won’t you?”
“It wouldn’t be good for your reputation. Besides, you’d be in the way.”
“No, I wouldn’t. I promise. I have friends in San Diego. Just let me drive down there with you, and I can stay with them.”
“You wouldn’t be making this up?”
“Honest, I have friends there. Gretchen Falk and her husband, they’re good friends of Ethel’s and mine. We lived in San Diego for a while, before she married Edward. The Falks will be glad to let me stay with them.”
“Hadn’t you better phone them first?”
“I can’t. The phone’s disconnected. I tried it.”
“Are you sure these people exist?”
“Of course,” she said urgently.
I gave in. I turned out the lights and locked the door and put her bag in my car. Clare stayed very close to me.
As I was backing out, a car pulled in behind me, blocking the entrance to the driveway. I opened the door and got out. It was a black Lincoln with a searchlight mounted over the windshield.
Clare said: “He’s come back.”
The searchlight flashed on. Its bright beam swiveled towards me. I reached for the gun in my shoulder holster and got a firm grip on nothing. Holster and gun were packed in the suitcase in the trunk of my car. The searchlight blinded me.
A black gun emerged from the dazzle, towing a hand and an arm. They belonged to a quick-stepping cube-shaped man in a double-breasted flannel suit. A snap-brim hat was pulled down over his eyes. His mouth was as full of teeth as a barracuda’s. It said:
“Where’s Dewar?”
“Never heard of him.”
“Owen Dewar. You’ve heard of him.”
The gun dragged him forward another step and collided with my breastbone. His free hand palmed my flanks. All I could see was his unchanging smile, framed in brilliant light. I felt a keen desire to do some orthodontic work on it. But the gun was an inhibiting factor.
“You must be thinking of two other parties,” I said.
“No dice. This is the house, and that’s the broad. Out of the car, lady.”
“I will not,” she said in a tiny voice behind me.
“Out, or I’ll blow a hole in your boy friend here.”
Reluctantly, she clambered out. The teeth looked down at her ankles as if they wanted to chew them. I made a move for the gun. It dived into my solar plexus, doubling me over. Its muzzle flicked the side of my head. It pushed me back against the fender of my car. I felt a worm of blood crawling past my ear.
“You coward! Leave him alone.” Clare flung herself at him. He sidestepped neatly, moving on the steady pivot of the gun against my chest. She went to her knees on the blacktop.
“Get up, lady, but keep your voice down. How many boy friends you keep on the string, anyway?”
She got to her feet. “He isn’t my boy friend. Who are you? Where is Ethel?”
“That’s a hot one.” The smile intensified. “You’re Ethel. The question is, where’s Dewar?”
“I don’t know any Dewar.”
“Sure you do, Ethel. You know him well enough to marry him. Now tell me where he is, and nobody gets theirselves hurt.” The flat voice dropped, and added huskily: “Only I haven’t got much time to waste.”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “You’re completely mistaken. I’m not Ethel. I’m Clare. Ethel’s my older sister.”
He stepped back and swung the gun in a quarter-circle, covering us both. “Turn your face to the light. Let’s have a good look at you.”
She did as she was told, striking a rigid pose. He shifted the gun to his left hand, and brought a photograph out of his inside pocket. Looking from it to her face, he shook his head doubtfully.
“I guess you’re leveling, at that. You’re younger than this one, and thinner.” He handed her the photograph. “She your sister?”
“Yes. It’s Ethel.”
I caught a glimpse of the picture over her shoulder. It was a blown-up candid shot of two people. One was a pretty blonde who looked like Clare five years from now. She was leaning on the arm of a tall dark man with a hairline moustache. They were smirking at each other, and there was a flower-decked altar in the background.
“Who’s the man?” I said.
“Dewar. Who else?” said the teeth behind the gun. “They got married in Vegas last month. I got this picture from the Chaparral Chapel. It goes with the twenty-five-dollar wedding.” He snatched it out of Clare’s hands and put it back in his pocket. “It took me a couple of weeks to run her down. She used her maiden name, see.”
“Where did you catch up with her? San Diego?”
“I didn’t catch up with her. Would I be here if I did?”
“What do you want her for?”
“I don’t want her. I got nothing against the broad, except that she tied up with Dewar. He’s the boy I want.”
“What for?”
“You wouldn’t be inarested. He worked for me at one time.” The gun swiveled brightly towards Clare. “You know where your sister is?”
“No, I don’t. I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”
“That’s no way to talk now, lady. My motto’s cooperation. From other people.”
I said: “Her sister’s been missing for a week. The HP found her car in San Diego. It had bloodstains on the front seat. Are you sure you didn’t catch up with her?”
“I’m asking you the questions, punk.” But there was a trace of uncertainty in his voice. “What happened to Dewar if the blonde is missing?”
“I think he ran out with her money.”
Clare turned to me. “You didn’t tell me all this.”
“I’m telling you now.”
The teeth said: “She had money?”
“Plenty.”
“The bastard. The bastard took us both, eh?”
“Dewar took you for money?”
“You ask too many questions, punk. You’ll talk yourself to death one of these days. Now stay where you are for ten minutes, both of you. Don’t move, don’t yell, don’t telephone. I might decide to drive around the block and come back and make sure.”
He backed down the brilliant alley of the searchlight beam. The door of his car slammed. All of its lights went off together. It rolled away into darkness, and d
idn’t come back.
—
It was past midnight when we got to San Diego, but there was still a light in the Falks’ house. It was a stucco cottage on a street of identical cottages in Pacific Beach.
“We lived here once,” Clare said. “When I was going to high school. That house, second from the corner.” Her voice was nostalgic, and she looked around the jerry-built tract as if it represented something precious to her. The pre-Illman era in her young life.
I knocked on the front door. A big henna-head in a housecoat opened it on a chain. But when she saw Clare beside me, she flung the door wide.
“Clare honey, where you been? I’ve been trying to phone you in Berkeley, and here you are. How are you, honey?”
She opened her arms and the younger woman walked into them.
“Oh, Gretchen,” she said with her face on the redhead’s breast. “Something’s happened to Ethel, something terrible.”
“I know it, honey, but it could be worse.”
“Worse than murder?”
“She isn’t murdered. Put that out of your mind. She’s pretty badly hurt, but she isn’t murdered.”
Clare stood back to look at her face. “You’ve seen her? Is she here?”
The redhead put a finger to her mouth, which was big and generous-looking, like the rest of her. “Hush, Clare. Jake’s asleep, he has to get up early, go to work. Yeah, I’ve seen her, but she isn’t here. She’s in a nursing home over on the other side of town.”
“You said she’s badly hurt?”
“Pretty badly beaten, yeah, poor dear. But the doctor told me she’s pulling out of it fine. A little plastic surgery, and she’ll be good as new.”
“Plastic surgery?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid she’ll need it. I got a look at her face tonight, when they changed the bandages. Now take it easy, honey. It could be worse.”
“Who did it to her?”
“That lousy husband of hers.”
“Edward?”
“Heck, no. The other one. The one that calls himself Dewar, Owen Dewar.”
I said: “Have you seen Dewar?”
“I saw him a week ago, the night he beat her up, the dirty rotten bully.” Her deep contralto growled in her throat. “I’d like to get my hands on him just for five minutes.”
The Archer Files Page 28