The Blue Hammer

by Ross Macdonald

  Betty Jo backed away from me with her hands half raised and fingers spread. "You frightened me."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Carlos is making you a picture. In the meantime, I'm afraid I have to use my typewriter. I want to have my story ready for the noon edition. Incidentally, is it all right if I mention you in it?"

  "Not by name, please."

  "You're modest."

  "Hardly. I'm a private detective. I want to stay private."

  I retreated to the City Editor's desk and put my head down on my arms again. It was some time since I had gone to sleep in the same room with a girl. Of course the room was large and reasonably well lighted, and the girl had other things than me on her mind.

  This time she woke me by voice, standing well back. "Mr. Archer?"

  She had a young black with her. He showed me the black-and-white copy that he had made. It was rather blurred and grimy, as if the blond woman had slipped away still further into time, out of sight of the sun. Still her features were identifiable.

  I thanked the photographer and offered to pay him for the copy. He deplored the suggestion, pushing air toward me with his hands. He retreated into his workroom, and the girl sat down at her typewriter again. She typed a few words and stopped, withdrawing her hands from the keys and dropping them in her lap.

  "I don't know whether I can do this piece after all. I can't name Fred Johnson or the girl. It doesn't really make for much of a story, does it?"

  "It will."

  "But when? I don't really know enough about the people. If the woman in the picture is alive and reachable, that would make all the difference. I could hang the whole story on her."

  "You can anyway."

  "It would be so much better if I could say definitely who and where she is. And that she's alive if she is alive. I might even do a follow-up interview."

  "The Biemeyers might know," I said. "They may have had a personal reason for buying that picture of her."

  She looked at her watch. "It's after midnight. I wouldn't dare to call them at this time of night. Anyway, the chances are that they don't know anything. Ruth Biemeyer does a lot of talking about her relationship with Richard Chantry, yet I doubt that she was ever very close to him."

  I didn't argue. I didn't want to talk to my clients right now. The case had enlarged enormously since they had hired me, and I had no immediate hope of being able to explain it to them. But I did want another crack at Mrs. Chantry.

  "Chantry's wife was very close to him," I said.

  "You think Francine Chantry would be willing to talk to me?"

  "She can hardly refuse, since there's a murder involved. Which she's taking pretty hard. She may know all about the woman in the picture. Didn't she used to model for her husband herself?"

  "How do you know that?" Betty Jo said.

  "She told me."

  "She never told _me."_

  "You're not a man."

  "You noticed."

  XIV

  I drove Betty Jo along the deserted waterfront to the Chantry house. It was dark and silent. The parking area was empty. The party was over.

  Perhaps not entirely over. I could hear a faint sound, the sound of a woman moaning in pain or pleasure, which ended abruptly as we approached the front door. Betty Jo turned to me.

  "Who was that?"

  "It could have been Mrs. Chantry. But women all sound the same under certain circumstances."

  She let out her breath, making a small impatient angry noise, and knocked on the door. A light went on above it.

  After what seemed a long wait, the door was opened and Rico looked out at us. Lipstick was smeared on one side of his mouth. He saw me looking at it, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It dragged the red smear down across his chin. His black eyes were unfriendly.

  "What do you want?"

  "We have a couple of questions to ask Mrs. Chantry," I said.

  "She's in bed asleep."

  "You better wake her up."

  "I can't do that. She's had a big day. A big day and a big night." The lipstick smear on Rico's face touched his words with comic lewdness.

  "Ask her if she'll see us. We're investigating a murder, as you possibly know."

  "Mr. Archer and Miss Siddon," Betty Jo said.

  "I know who you are."

  Rico let us into the long front room and turned on the light. With his dark bald-eagle head jutting out of his long brown dressing gown, he looked like some kind of wild medieval monk. There was stale smoke in the deserted room. Through it I could almost hear the remembered buzzing hum of party conversation. Empty and half-empty glasses stood on most of the horizontal surfaces, including the keyboard of the grand piano. Except for the paintings on the walls-quiet windows into a more orderly world, which even murder didn't seem to have changed-the room was like a visible hangover.

  I moved around the room inspecting the portraits and trying in an amateurish way to tell if the same hand had painted the Biemeyers' picture. I couldn't tell, and neither, she said, could Betty Jo.

  But I found that the murder of Grimes, and the possible murder of Whitmore, had after all subtly changed the portraits or my perceptions of them. Their eyes seemed to regard me with suspicion and a kind of fearful resignation. Some looked at me like prisoners, some like jurors, and some like quiet animals in a cage. I wondered which, if any, reflected the mind of the man who had painted them.

  "Did you know Chantry, Betty Jo?"

  "Not really. He was before my time. Actually I did see him once."

  "When?"

  "Right here in this room. My father, who was a writer, brought me to meet him. It was a very special occasion. He hardly saw anybody, you know. All he did was work."

  "How did he strike you?"

  She considered the question. "He was very remote and shy, as shy as I was. He held me on his knee but he didn't really want to. He got rid of me as soon as he could, I think. And that suited me. Either he didn't like little girls at all, or he liked them too much."

  "Did you really think that at the time?"

  "I believe I did. Little girls are quite aware of such things, at least I was."

  "How old were you?"

  "I must have been four or five."

  "How old are you now?"

  "I'm not saying." She said it with a slightly defensive smile. "Under thirty?"

  "Barely. It was roughly twenty-five years ago, if that's what you're getting at. Chantry disappeared soon after I visited him. I often seem to have that effect on men."

  "Not on me."

  A little color invaded her cheeks and made her prettier. "Just don't try to hold me on your knee. You could disappear."

  "Thanks for the warning."

  "Don't mention it. Seriously," she added, "it gives me a funny feeling to be in this same room prying into Richard Chantry's life. It makes me wonder if certain things aren't fated. Do you think they are?"

  "Of course. By the place and the time and the family you're born into. Those are the things that fate most people."

  "I'm sorry I asked. I don't really like my family. I don't like the place and time too well, either."

  "So react against them."

  "Is that what you do?"

  "I try."

  Betty Jo's eyes shifted to a point behind me. Mrs. Chantry had quietly entered the room. Her hair was brushed, her face looked newly washed. She was wearing a white robe that molded her figure from neck to knee and swept the floor.

  "I do wish you'd find another place to react, Mr. Archer. And by all means another time. It's dreadfully late." She gave me a long-suffering smile, which hardened when she turned to Betty Jo. "What is this all about, dear?"

  The younger woman was embarrassed. Her mouth moved, trying to find the right words.

  I got out my black-and-white photograph of the stolen painting. "Do you mind taking a look at this, Mrs. Chantry? It's a photograph of the Biemeyers' picture."

  "I have nothing to add to what I told you ea
rlier. I'm sure it's a fake. I'm familiar with all of my husband's paintings, I believe, and this isn't one of them."

  "Look at it anyway, will you?"

  "I've already seen the painting itself, as I told you."

  "Did you recognize the model who sat for it?"

  Her eyes met mine in an instant of shared knowledge. She had recognized the model.

  "No," she said.

  "Will you take a look at this photo and try again?"

  "I don't see the point."

  "Try anyway, Mrs. Chantry. It may be important."

  "Not to me."

  "You can't be sure," I said.

  "Oh, very well."

  She took the photograph from my hand and studied it. Her hand was shaking, and the picture fluttered like something in a high wind from the past. She handed it back to me as if she were glad to get rid of it.

  "It does bear some resemblance to a woman I knew when I was a young girl."

  "When did you know her?"

  "I didn't really _know_ her. I met her at a party in Santa Fe before the war."

  "What was her name?"

  "I honestly can't say. I don't believe she had a definite surname. She lived with various men and took their names." Her eyes came up abruptly. "No, my husband wasn't one of those men."

  "But he must have known her if he painted the picture."

  "He didn't paint this picture. I told you that."

  "Who did, Mrs. Chantry?"

  "I have no idea."

  Impatience had been rising in her Voice. She glanced toward the door. Rico was leaning there with his hand in the pocket of his robe; and something larger than a hand, shaped like a gun. He moved toward me.

  I said, "Call off your dog, Mrs. Chantry. Unless you want this written up in the paper."

  She gave Betty Jo an icy look, which Betty Jo managed to return. But she said, "Go away, Rico. I can take care of this."

  Rico moved reluctantly into the hallway.

  I said to Mrs. Chantry, "How do you know your husband didn't paint it?"

  "I would have known if he had. I know all his paintings."

  "Does that mean you still keep in touch with him?"

  "No, of course not."

  "Then how do you know he didn't paint this some time in the last twenty-five years?"

  The question stopped her for a moment. Then she said, "The woman in the painting is too young. She was older than this when I saw her in Santa Fe in 1940. She'd be a really old woman now, if she's alive at all."

  "But your husband could have painted her from memory, any time up to the present. If _he's_ alive."

  "I see what you mean," she said in a small flat voice. "But I still don't think he painted it."

  "Paul Grimes thought he did."

  "Because it paid him to think so."

  "Did it, though? I think this picture got him killed. He knew the model who sat for it, and she told him your husband had painted it. For some reason the knowledge was dangerous. Dangerous to Paul Grimes, obviously, and dangerous to whoever killed Grimes."

  "Are you accusing my husband?"

  "No. I have nothing to go on. I don't even know if your husband is alive. Do you know, Mrs. Chantry?"

  She took a deep breath, her breasts rising like fists under her robe. "I haven't heard from him since the day he left. I warn you, though, Mr. Archer, his memory is all I live for. Whether Richard is dead or alive, I'll fight for his reputation. And I'm not the only one in this city who will fight you. Please get out of my house now."

  She included Betty Jo in the invitation. Rico opened the front door and slammed it behind us.

  Betty Jo was shaken. She crept into my car like a refugee from trouble.

  I said, "Was Mrs. Chantry ever an actress?"

  "An amateur one, I think. Why?"

  "She reads her lines like one."

  The girl shook her head. "No. I think Francine meant what she said. Chantry and his work are all she cares about. And I feel small about doing what I just did. We hurt her and made her angry."

  "Are you afraid of her?"

  "No, but I thought we were friends." She added as we drove away from the house, "Maybe I am a little afraid of her. But also I'm sorry that we hurt her."

  "She was hurt long ago."

  "Yes. I know what you mean."

  I meant Rico.

  I returned to my motel. Betty Jo came in with me to compare notes. We compared not only notes.

  The night was sweet and short. Dawn slipped in like something cool and young and almost forgotten.

  XV

  When I woke up in the morning, she was gone. A pang that resembled hunger went through me a little higher than my stomach. The phone beside the bed rang.

  "This is Betty Jo."

  "You sound very cheerful," I said. "Painfully cheerful."

  "You had that effect on me. Also my editor wants me to do a feature on the Chantry case. He says he'll give me all the time I need. The only drawback is that they may not print it."

  "Why not?"

  "Mrs. Chantry talked to Mr. Brailsford first thing this morning. He owns the paper. So they're going to have an editorial conference in Mr. Brailsford's office. In the meantime, I'm supposed to go on digging. Do you have any suggestions?"

  "You might try the art museum. Take along your photograph of the painting. There may be somebody in the museum who can identify the model who sat for it. And if we're very lucky the model may be able to tell us who painted it."

  "That's exactly what I was planning to do."

  "Good for you."

  She lowered her voice. "Lew?"

  "What do you want?"

  "Nothing. I mean, do you mind about my thinking of it first? I mean, you're older than I am, and maybe not quite so liberated."

  I said, "Cheer up. I'll probably see you at the art museum. You'll find me among the old masters."

  "I did hurt your feelings, didn't I?"

  "On the contrary. I never felt better. I'm going to hang up now before you hurt my feelings."

  She laughed and hung up on me. I shaved and had a shower and went out for breakfast. An early wind was blowing on the water. A few small craft were out in it. But most of the boats in the harbor danced in place at their moorings, naked-masted.

  I found a clean-looking restaurant and took a seat by the front window so that I could watch the boats. They gave me the empathetic feeling that I was in motion, too, scudding along under complex pressures and even more complex controls toward the open sea.

  I had ham and eggs with potatoes and toast and coffee. Then I drove uptown and parked in the lot behind the art museum.

  Betty Jo met me at the front entrance.

  I said, "We seem to be synchronized, Betty Jo."

  "Yes." But she didn't sound too happy about it.

  "What's the matter?"

  "You just said it. My name. I hate my name."

  "Why?"

  "It's a silly name. A double name always sounds like a child's name. It's immature. I don't like either of my names separately, either. Betty is such a plain name, and Jo sounds like a boy. But I suppose I have to settle for one of them. Unless you can suggest something better."

  "How about Lew?"

  She didn't smile. "You're making fun of me. This is serious."

  She was a serious girl, and more delicate in her feelings than I'd imagined. It didn't make me sorry that I had slept with her, but it lent a certain weight to the event. I hoped she wasn't getting ready to fall in love, especially not with me. But I kissed her, lightly, philanthropically.

  A young man had appeared at the entrance to the classical sculpture exhibit. He had a wavy blond head and a tapered torso. He was carrying the colored photograph of the memory painting.

  "Betty Jo?"

  "I've changed my name to Betty," she said. "Please just call me Betty."

  "Okay, Betty." The young man's voice was precise and rather thin. "What I was going to say is, I matched up your picture with one of the Lash
man pictures in the basement."

  "That's marvelous, Ralph. You're a genius." She took his hand and shook it wildly. "By the way, this is Mr. Archer."

  "The non-genius," I said. "Nice to meet you."

  Ralph flushed. "Actually it was terribly easy to do. The Lashman painting was sitting out on one of the worktables, propped up against the wall. You'd almost think it was looking for me instead of I for it. It virtually leaped right out at me."

  Betty turned to me. "Ralph has found another painting of that same blond model. One by a different painter."

  "So I gathered. May I see it?"

  "You certainly may," Ralph said. "The beauty of it is that Simon Lashman should be able to tell you who she is."

  "Is he in town?"

  "No. He lives in Tucson. We should have a record of his address. We've bought several of his paintings over the years."

  "Right now, I'd rather look at the one in the basement."

  Ralph unlocked a door. The three of us went downstairs and along a windowless corridor that reminded me of jails I had known. The workroom where Ralph took me was also windowless, but whitely lit by fluorescent tubes in the ceiling.

  The picture on the table was a full-length nude. The woman looked much older than she had in the Biemeyer painting. There were marks of pain at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her breasts were larger, and they drooped a little. Her entire body was less confident.

  Betty looked from the sorrowful painted face to mine, almost as if she were jealous of the woman.

  She said to Ralph, "How long ago was this painted?"

  "Over twenty years. I checked the file. Lashman called it _Penelope,_ by the way."

  "She'd be really old now," Betty said to me. "She's old enough in the picture."

  "I'm no spring chicken myself," I said.

  She flushed and looked away as if I'd rebuffed her.

  I said to Ralph, "Why would the picture be sitting out on the table like this? It isn't where it's usually kept, is it?"