I muttered some kind of an affirmative. I understood a part of her feeling all right. A friend of mine who lectured in economics at UCLA would call it the mystique of property. What I failed to understand was the power of her obsession. Perhaps it was explained by the fact that she felt besieged, with her daughter-in-law a fifth column in the house.
“I sometimes feel that the mountains are my sisters—” She cut herself off short, as if she’d suddenly realized that she was going off the deep end. I was thinking that she had enough ego to equip a dictator and leave enough over for a couple of gauleiters. Perhaps she noticed the change in my expression.
“I know you’re wanting to go to the party,” she said, and gave me her hand briefly. “It was nice of you to come and talk to an old woman like me.”
I started back to the house through an aisle of tall Italian cypress. It opened on a lawn in which a small swimming-pool was sunk, its filter system masked by a cypress hedge. At the far end a burlap-covered springboard stuck out over the water. The water in the pool was so still it seemed solid, a polished surface reflecting the trees, the distant mountains, and the sky. I looked up at the sky to the west, where the sun had dipped behind the mountains. The clouds were writhing with red fire, as if the sun had plunged in the invisible sea and set it flaming. Only the mountains stood out dark and firm against the conflagration of the sky.
Chapter 5
The sound of an approaching motor stopped me at the corner of the veranda. There were several more cars on the apron of the drive: a Jaguar roadster, a fishtail Cadillac, an ancient Rolls with wire wheels and a long, square British nose. Another car came into sight between the lines of palms, a quiet black machine with a red searchlight mounted on the front. I watched it being parked. A police car in that company seemed as out of place as a Sherman tank at a horse show.
A man got out of the black car and came up the flagstone walk which ascended the terraces in front of the house. He was tall and thick, a bifurcated chunk of muscle that moved with unexpected speed and silence. Even in slacks and a sports jacket, with a silk shirt open at the neck, he had the authority of a uniform, the bearing of a cop or a veteran soldier. Shadowed eyes, cragged nose, wide mouth, long jaw; his face was a relief map of all the male passions. Short hair the color of faded straw bristled on his head and sprouted from the shirt-opening at the base of his heavy red neck.
I moved a step to show myself and said: “Good evening.”
“Good evening.” He bit the words off with clean white teeth, smiling automatically, then mounted the steps to the veranda.
He glanced around as though he were ill at ease, before knocking on the door. I watched him over the veranda railing, and our eyes met for a meaningless instant. I was about to speak again—something about the weather—when I noticed Cathy curled in the porch swing as she’d been an hour before. She was leaning forward, watching the man intently.
His eyes shifted to her, and he took a step toward her. “Cathy? How are you, Cathy?” Hesitant and uncertain, the tone of a man talking to a child he didn’t know.
Her only answer was a clucking deep in her throat. With a slow boldness she rose from the swing and walked toward him in silence. Past him and down the steps and round the far corner of the veranda, without once turning her head. He pivoted on his heels and half-raised one hand, which stayed forgotten in the air until she was out of sight. The large hand, open and futile, curled into a fist. He turned to the door and struck it twice as if it had a human face.
I climbed the steps behind him while he was waiting. “Fine weather we’re having,” I said.
He looked at me without hearing what I said or seeing my face. “Yeah.”
Maude Slocum opened the door and took us in in a single swift glance. “Ralph?” she said to the other man. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I met James downtown today, and he asked me to come over for a drink.” His heavy voice was apologetic.
“Come in then,” she said, without graciousness. “Since James invited you.”
“Not if I’m not wanted,” he answered sullenly.
“Oh, come in, Ralph. It would look rather strange if you came to the door and went away again. And what would James say to me?”
“What does he usually say?”
“Nothing, nothing at all.” If they had a joke between them, it didn’t fit my wave length. “Come in and have your drink, Ralph.”
“You twisted my arm,” he said wryly, and passed her in the doorway. Almost imperceptibly, her body arched away from his. Hatred or some other feeling had drawn her as tight as a bowstring.
She remained in the doorway and moved her lips so that she blocked my way. “Please go away, Mr. Archer. Pretty please?” She tried to make it pleasant and light, but failed.
“You are kind of inhospitable, aren’t you? Apart from the curious fact that you hired me to come up here.”
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid a situation is developing, and I simply couldn’t stand the extra strain of having you around.”
“And here was I, thinking I was a welcome addition to any group gathering. You lacerate my ego, Mrs. Slocum.”
“It’s no laughing matter,” she told me sharply. “I don’t lie very well. So I avoid situations in which lying is necessary.”
“Then who’s the large character with the thirst?”
“One of James’s friends. I don’t see the point of these questions.”
“Does James have many policeman friends? I didn’t think he was the type.”
“Do you know Ralph Knudson?” Surprise made her face look longer.
“I’ve seen the pattern they’re made from.” Five years on the Long Beach force were in my record. “What’s a tough cop doing at an arty party in the hills?”
“You’ll have to ask James—but not now. He takes peculiar fancies to people.” She wasn’t a competent liar. “Of course, Mr. Knudson isn’t an ordinary policeman. He’s the Chief of Police in town, and I understand he has a rather distinguished record.”
“But you don’t really want him at your parties, is that it? I used to be a cop, and I’m still one in a way. I’ve felt that kind of snobbery myself.”
“I’m not a snob!” she said fiercely. Apparently I’d touched something she valued. “My parents were ordinary people, and I’ve always hated snobs. But why I should be defending myself to you!”
“Then let me come in for a drink. I promise to be very suave and smooth.”
“You’re so terribly persistent—as if I didn’t have enough to contend with. What makes you so persistent?”
“Curiosity, I guess. I’m getting interested in the case. It’s quite an interesting setup you’ve got here; I’ve never seen a fishline with more tangles.”
“I suppose you realize I can dismiss you, if you continue to make yourself completely obnoxious.”
“You won’t.”
“And why won’t I?”
“I think you’re expecting trouble. You said yourself that something was building up. I can feel it in the air. And it’s possible your policeman friend didn’t come up here for fun.”
“Don’t be melodramatic. And he isn’t my friend. Frankly, Mr. Archer, I’ve never had to deal with a more difficult—employee, than you.”
I didn’t like the word. “It might help you,” I said, “if you thought of me as an independent contractor. In this case I’m expected to build a house without going near the lot.” Or perhaps demolish a house, but I didn’t add that.
She looked at me steadily for twenty or thirty seconds. Finally a smile touched her generous mouth and parted it. “You know, I think I rather like you, damn it. Very well, come in and meet the wonderful people, and I’ll buy you a drink.”
“You talked me into it.”
I got my drink and lost my hostess in the same motion, as soon as we entered the big living-room. Ralph Knudson, the big man who was no friend of hers, caught her eye as she handed me my glass. She went to him. Her husband and Francis Marvell were sitting on the piano bench with their heads together, leafing through a thick volume of music. I looked around at the rest of the wonderful people. Mrs. Galway, the amateur actress, with the professional smile clicking off and on like a white electric sign. A bald-headed man in white flannels setting off his mahogany tan, who daintily smoked a small brown cigarillo in a long green-gold holder. A fat man with a cropped gray head, in a tweed suit with padded shoulders, who turned out to be a woman when she moved her nyloned legs. A woman leaning awkwardly on the arm of the chair beside her, with a dark long tragic face and an ugly body. A youth who moved gracefully about the room, pouring drinks for everybody and smoothing the receding hair at his temples. A round little woman who tinkled on and on, whose bracelets and earrings tinkled when her voice paused.