Ross Macdonald - 1960 - The Ferguson Affair (6 page)

 
          
“As
a matter of fact I don’t.”

 
          
“Isn’t
she a member here? It said in the paper she was. It said that she was playing
around with the lifeguard.”

 
          
He
was standing almost on my toes, talking breathily up into my face. I pushed him
away, not violently, but away. He went through a quivering transformation scene
and came out of it haggard and yelping. “Keep your hooks off
me,
I blow your head off.”

 
          
His
hand went under his jacket and tugged at a
tumorous
swelling in his armpit. Then he froze. His frozen snarl was a devil mask carved
out of white and blue stone.

 
          
I
croaked from a suddenly dry throat: “Go away.
Back to the
reservation.”

 
          
Oddly
enough he went.

 
          
MY
ILLUSION OF irresistible moral force evaporated when I looked around. Three men
were coming up from the clubhouse to the parking area. Two of them were the
plain-clothes men I had seen in the alley below Jerry Winkler’s hotel window.
Salaman
, I thought, must have built-in radar for police.

 
          
The
third man wore a dinner coat with a professional air. He accompanied the
policemen to their car and offered his regrets that he hadn’t been able to help
them as much as he would have liked to. They drove away. He turned back toward
the clubhouse, where I caught him at the door:

 
          
“I’m
William Gunnarson, a local attorney. One of my clients is involved with an
employee of the club. Would you be the manager?”

 
          
His
bright and sorrowful eyes examined me. He had the nervous calm which comes from
running other people’s parties, and a humorous mouth which took the curse off
it. “I am tonight. Tomorrow I’ll probably be looking for a job. We who are
about to die salute thee. Is it Gaines again?
Ill-gotten
Gaines?”

 
          
“I’m
afraid it is.”

 
          
“Gaines
is an ex-employee of ours. I fired him last week. I was just beginning to
indulge in the hope that he was out of my hair for good.
Now
this.”
He flipped his hand in the direction the police had taken.

 
          
“What
was the trouble?”

 
          
“You
undoubtedly know more about that than I do. Is he a burglary suspect, or
something of the sort? I’ve just been talking to a couple of detectives, but
they were terribly noncommittal.”

 
          
“We
could trade information, perhaps.”

 
          
“Why not?
My name is Bidwell. Gunnarson, did you say?”

 
          
“Bill
Gunnarson.”

 
          
His
office was oak-paneled, thickly carpeted, furnished with heavy, dark pieces. An
uneaten steak congealed on a tray on the corner of his desk. We faced each
other across it. I told him as much as I thought I needed to, and then asked
him some questions. “Do you know if Gaines has left town?”

 
          
“I
gather he has. The police implied as much. Under the circumstances, it’s hardly
surprising.”

 
          
“The
fact that he’s wanted for questioning, you mean?”

 
          
“
That,
and other circumstances,” he said vaguely.

 
          
“Why
did you fire him?”

 
          
“I’d
sooner not divulge that information. There are other people involved. Let’s say
it was done at the instance of one of the members, and leave it at that.”

 
          
I
didn’t want to leave it at that. “Is there anything to the rumor that he made a
rough pass at one of the ladies?”

 
          
Bidwell
stiffened in his swivel chair. “Good Lord, is that around town?”

 
          
“I
heard it.”

 
          
He
stroked his mouth with his fingertips. His desk lamp lit only the lower part of
his face. I couldn’t see his eyes.

 
          
“It’s
not as bad as it sounds. He simply showed too much interest in one of the
members’ wives. He was very attentive to her, and perhaps she took a little too
much advantage of it. Her husband heard about it, and objected. So I fired
him.” He added: “Thank God I did fire him, before this police investigation
came up.”

 
          
“Did
Gaines give any indications that he was using his position here for criminal
purposes?
To pick out prospects for burglary, for instance?”

 
          
“The
police asked me that. I had to answer no. But they pointed out that one or two
of our members have been victims of burglary in the past six months.
Most recently, the
Hampshires
.”

 
          
Bidwell’s
voice was rigidly controlled, but he was under great strain. A drop of sweat
formed at the tip of his nose, grew heavy and filled with light, and fell off
onto his blotter. It made a dark red stain, like blood, on the red blotter.

 
          
“How
did you happen to hire Gaines in the first place?”

 
          
“I
was taken in. I pride myself on my judgment of people, but I was taken in by
Larry Gaines. He talked well, you know, and then there was the fact that the
college sent him. We nearly always get our lifeguards from
Buenavista
College. In fact, that may be why Gaines registered there.”

 
          
“He
actually registered at the local college?”

 
          
“So
they tell me. Apparently he dropped out after a few days or weeks. But we went
on assuming that he was a college student. He was a little old for the role,
but you see a lot of that these days.”

 
          
“I
know,” I said. “I went through college and law school after Korea.”

 
          
“Did
you, now? I never did make it to college myself. I suppose that’s why I feel
a certain
sympathy for young people trying to educate
themselves. Gaines traded on my sympathy, and not only on mine. Quite a few of
the members were touched by his scholarly aspirations. He has a certain charm,
I suppose—rather greasy, but potent.”

 
          
“Can
you describe him?”

 
          
“I
can do better than that. The police asked me to rake up some pictures of him.
Gaines was always getting himself photographed. He did a lot of picture-taking
himself.”

 
          
Bidwell
brought five or six glossy prints out of a drawer and handed them to me. Most
of them showed Gaines in bathing trunks. He was slim-hipped and
wide-shouldered. He held himself with that
actorish
air, self-consciousness pretending to be self-assurance, which always made me
suspicious of a man. His crew-cut head was handsome, but there was a spoiled
expression on his mouth, something obtuse in his dark eyes. In spite of the
costume, the tan, the molded muscles, he had the look of a man who hated the
sun. I placed his age at twenty-five or six.

 
          
Keeping
one of the pictures, I gave the rest back to Bidwell. “May I have a look at
your membership list?”

 
          
It
was lying on top of his desk, and he pushed it across to me: several sheets of
foolscap covered with names in a fine
Spencerian
hand. The names were alphabetically grouped, and each was preceded by a number.
Patrick Hampshire was number 345. Colonel Ian Ferguson was number 459.

 
          
“How
many members do you have?”

 
          
“Our
by-laws limit us to three hundred. The original
membership
were
numbered from one to three hundred. When a member—ah—passes on, we
retire his number, and issue a new one. The roster runs up to 461 now, which
means that we’ve lost 161 members since the club was founded, and gained a
corresponding number of new members.”

 
          
He
recited these facts as if they constituted a soothing liturgy. I wondered if he
was talking to me simply to keep from talking to
himself
.

 
          
“Did
Gaines have much to do with the
Hampshires
, do you
know?”

 
          
“I’m
afraid he did. He gave the Hampshire youngsters some swimming lessons in their
private pool.”

 
          
“The Fergusons?”

 
          
He
thought about his answer, pushing out his lower lip, and quickly retracting it.
“I hadn’t heard that they were burglarized.”

 
          
“Neither
had I. Their number is 459. That means they’re recent members, does it?”

 
          
“Yes,
it does,” he said with vehemence. “The committee’s responsible, of course, but
I have power of veto. I should have used it.”

 
          
“Why?”

 
          
“I
believe you know why.” He rose, and walked to the wall, then turned from it
abruptly as if he’d seen handwriting on it. He came back to the desk and leaned
above me on his fingertips. “Let’s not beat around the bush, shall we?”

 
          
“I
haven’t been.”

 
          
“All right.
I admit I have. I make no apologies. The
situation is explosive.”

 
          
“You
mean the situation between Colonel Ferguson and his wife?”

 
          
“That’s
part of it. I see you do know something about it, and I’m going to be candid
with you. This club is on the brink of a major scandal. I’m doing all I can to
avert it.” His tone was portentous; he might have been telling me that war had
just been declared. “Look at this.”

 
          
Bidwell
opened a drawer in his desk and brought out a folded newspaper clipping. He
unfolded it with shaking hands, spreading it out on the blotter for me to read:

 
          
Rumor
hath it that ex-movie-tidbit Holly May, who was too sweet-smelling for
movietown
, is trying to prove the old saw about the
Colonel’s lady. Her partner in the Great Experiment is a gorgeous hunk of
muscle (she seems to think) who works as a marine menial in her millionaire
hubby’s millionaire clubby. We ordinary mortals wish that we could eat our fake
and have it, too. But gather ye sub-
rosas
while ye
may, Mrs. Ferguson. Bidwell read it over my shoulder, groaning audibly. “That
came out last weekend in a syndicated column which went all over the country.”

 
          
“It
doesn’t prove anything.”

 
          
“Perhaps
not, but
it’s
ghastly publicity for us. Can I depend
on you, Mr. Gunnarson?”

 
          
“To do what?”

 
          
“Not
to repeat to others what you’ve just said to me?”

 
          
I
hadn’t really said anything, but he imagined I had. “I won’t, unless my
client’s interests are affected. You have my word.”

 
          
“How
would your client’s interests be affected?”

 
          
“She’s
suspected of being in complicity with Gaines. She was involved with Gaines, but
innocently. She was in love with him.”

 
          
“Another one in love with him?
How does he do it? I admit
he’s a handsome brute, but that’s as far as it goes. He’s raw.”

 
          
“Some
like them raw. I take it Mrs. Ferguson is one of those who do.”

 
          
“She
and her husband aren’t too delightful themselves. I’ve made two big mistakes in
the past year, hiring Gaines, and admitting the Fergusons to membership. Those
two mistakes have combined into the biggest mistake of my life.”

 
          
“It
can’t be that bad.”

 
          
“Can’t
it? My life may be in danger.”

 
          
“From Gaines?”

 
          
“Hardly.
He’s long gone. They may be in Acapulco by now, or
Hawaii.”

 
          
“They?”

 
          
“I
thought you knew. The Holly May creature went with him. And Colonel Ferguson
blames me for the whole thing. He’s out in the club bar now, lapping up rye
whisky. I think he’s building up his courage to kill me.”