Wives and Lovers (29 page)

Hazel set a match to the rubbish and walked away be­cause she did not want to see it burn. It seemed too final.

Slowly she crossed the yard. It had been only three days now since Escobar had cleaned it up, but already the grass had grown, more in some places than in others, so that the lawn looked uneven. The desert wind had de­posited a fresh pile of dead leaves and acorns and eucalyp­tus pods beside the picket fence, and in the irrigation ditch Escobar had dug along the eugenia hedge there was a burst of new little weeds, tendrils of devil grass and sprigs of filaree and clusters of toadstools. Under the ground beside the garage an enterprising gopher had built himself some additional runways and storage rooms and his excavations had left little mounds of earth. During the night a dog or cat, bent on food or mischief, had upset the ant pot underneath the orange tree and the syrupy poison had seeped out and crystallized. The ants ignored the poison and marched as usual up and down the orange tree milking the aphids and, when it was necessary, carrying them to the more tender tips of the branches, like good farmers guiding their cattle to greener pastures.

It was as if, during a space of three days, a whole new cycle of life had begun. Under Hazel's feet the ground seemed to move with bursting seeds and hatching eggs, with blind, brainless, soundless cells of things dividing and redividing; earthworms, sow bugs, nematodes, thrips, like rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief.

It's no use, Hazel thought, a dozen Escobars wouldn't change anything.

She heard the click of the gate, and turned and saw George. He looked tired and there was a bandage wrapped around his head so tightly that it crinkled his forehead and gave him a puzzled expression.

“Hello, Hazel.”

“Hello.”

“I thought you'd be up by this time. I'm on my way home and, well, I decided to drop in and see you first.”

“Oh.”

He touched the bandage lightly with his fingertips. “No questions?”

“You look like you had quite an evening.”

“I did.”

“In fact you look like you got into a fight.”

“In a way I did.”

“You'd think at your age you'd have learned to stay out of fights.”

“You're sore, aren't you, because I didn't come back last night? Well, I couldn't make it. Ruth phoned the police and they hauled me off to the hospital and wouldn't let me go until a few minutes ago. The nurse hid my clothes so I couldn't get away. And a couple of detectives kept asking me questions about who was my assailant, that's what they called him, my assailant.”

“And who was he?”

“How should I know?” George said flatly. “It was foggy and dark. I didn't get a good look at him. He jumped me, took me by surprise. I slipped on something and hit my head on the glider.”

“Is that what you told the police?”

“Yes.”

“Is it the truth?”

“Close enough.”

“What really happened?”

“What really happened,” he repeated thoughtfully, as if he had already spent a great deal of time trying to decide on an answer. “I don't know. Maybe a lot happened, maybe I only got a cut on the head.”

“George, was it—is it a bad cut?”

He looked down at her irritably. “Don't go into that Florence Nightingale routine. I'm a big boy, I can take care of myself.”

“Then why the hell don't you?”

“Here we are quarreling again. Always quarreling.”

“Well, I can't help it.” She turned and went up the porch steps. “There's some coffee on the stove, let's have a cup.”

He made no move to follow her. “No thanks.”

“Aren't you even coming in?”

“No.”

“What's the matter with you?”

“Nothing. I like it out here. Besides I can get a cup of coffee downtown. Any downtown. I can go anywhere in the world and get a cup of coffee.”

“Whatever that means.”

“It means a cup of coffee isn't what I want.” He came up the porch steps, his head bent like a charging bull. “Listen to me. I did everything I could to get back here last night. I fought nurses and doctors and even policemen. I would have given my right arm to get back to you. It seemed the most important thing in the whole world to me, not because I'm hard up, as you put it, but because, well, I don't know how to say it. I'm no good at saying things, you might laugh. And if you laughed, I might—I don't trust myself—maybe I'd kill you.”

“I don't feel like laughing.”

“Don't I seem funny to you?”

“No.”

“I am, though. I'm pretty funny. What are you crying about?”

“I'm not crying. And if I am, I can if I want to.”

“What did I do to make you cry?”

She shook her head, holding her fists against her eyes. “Nothing.”

“I must have. Goddamn it, Hazel, don't cry. I'm sorry. You hear that? I'm sorry. I don't know what for, but I'm sorry. Now will you stop crying?”

“No.”

“Well, all right,” he said. “All right.”

He put his arms around her and she buried her face against his chest, and presently they went together into the house.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

M
argaret Millar
(1915-1994) was the author of 27 books and a masterful pioneer of psychological mysteries and thrillers. Born in Kitchener, Ontario, she spent most of her life in Santa Barbara, California, with her husband Ken Millar, who is better known by the 
nom de plume
 of Ross MacDonald. Her 1956 novel 
Beast in View
 won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. In 1965 Millar was the recipient of the 
Los Angeles Times
 Woman of the Year Award and in 1983 the Mystery Writers of America awarded her the Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement. Millar's cutting wit and superb plotting have left her an enduring legacy as one of the most important crime writers of both her own and subsequent generations.

A sneak peek of Margaret Millar's
Beast in View

1

 

The voice was
quiet, smiling. “Is that Miss Clarvoe?”

“Yes.”

“You know who this is?”

“No.”

“A friend.”

“I have a great many friends,” Miss Clarvoe lied.

In the mirror above the telephone stand she saw her mouth repeating the lie, enjoying it, and she saw her head nod in quick affirmation—
this lie is true, yes, this is a very true lie.
Only her eyes refused to be convinced. Embarrassed, they blinked and glanced away.

“We haven't seen each other for a long time,” the girl's voice said. “But I've kept track of you, this way and that. I have a crystal ball.”

“I—beg your pardon?”

“A crystal ball that you look into the future with. I've got one. All my old friends pop up in it once in a while. Tonight it was you.”

“Me.” Helen Clarvoe turned back to the mirror. It was round, like a crystal ball, and her face popped up in it, an old friend, familiar but unloved; the mouth thin and tight as if there was nothing but a ridge of bone under the skin, the light brown hair clipped short like a man's, revealing ears that always had a tinge of mauve as if they were forever cold, the lashes and brows so pale that the eyes themselves looked naked and afraid. An old friend in a crystal ball.

She said carefully, “Who is this, please?”

“Evelyn. Remember? Evelyn Merrick.”

“Oh, yes.”

“You remember now?”

“Yes.” It was another lie, easier than the first. The name meant nothing to her. It was only a sound, and she could not separate or identify it any more than she could separate the noise of one car from another in the roar of traffic from the Boulevard three floors down. They all sounded alike, Fords and Austins and Cadillacs and Evelyn Merrick.

“You still there, Miss Clarvoe?”

“Yes.”

“I heard your old man died.”

“Yes.”

“I heard he left you a lot of money.”

“That's my business.”

“Money is a great responsibility. I might be able to help you.”

“Thank you, I don't require any help.”

“You may soon.”

“Then I shall deal with the problem myself, without the help from any stranger.”

“Stranger?” There was a rasp of annoyance in the repetition. “You said you remembered me.”

“I was merely trying to be polite.”

“Polite. Always the lady, eh, Clarvoe? Or pretending to be. Well, one of these days you'll remember me with a bang. One of these days I'll be famous; my body will be in every art museum in the country. Everyone will get a chance to admire me. Does that make you jealous, Clarvoe?”

“I think you're—mad.”

“Mad? Oh no.
I'm
not the one who's mad. It's you, Clarvoe.
You're
the one who can't remember. And I know why you can't remember. Because you're jealous of me, you're so jealous you've blacked me out.”

“That's not true,” Miss Clarvoe said shrilly. “I don't know you. I've never heard of you. You're making a mistake.”

“I don't make mistakes. What you need, Clarvoe, is a crystal ball so you could remember your old friends. Maybe I should send you mine. Then you could see yourself in it, too. Would you like that? Or would you be afraid? You've always been such a coward, my crystal ball might scare you out of your poor little wits. I have it right here with me. Shall I tell you what I see?”

“No—stop this—”

“I see you, Clarvoe.”

“No—”

“Your face is right in front of me, real bright and clear. But there's something wrong with it. Ah, I see now. You've been in an accident. You are mutilated. Your forehead is slashed open, your mouth is bleeding, blood, blood all over, blood all over...”

Miss Clarvoe's arm reached out and swept the telephone off the stand. It lay on its side on the floor, unbroken, purring.

Miss Clarvoe sat, stiff with terror. In the crystal ball of the mirror her face was unchanged, unmutilated. The forehead was smooth, the mouth prim and self-contained, the skin paper-white, as if there was no blood left to bleed. Miss Clarvoe's bleeding had been done, over the years, in silence, internally.

When the rigidity of shock began to recede, she leaned down and picked up the telephone and placed it back on the stand.

She could hear the switchboard operator saying, “Number please. This is the operator. Number please. Did you wish to call a number,
pullease?”

She wanted to say,
Give me the police
, the way people did in plays, very casually, as if they were in the habit of calling the police two or three times a week. Miss Clarvoe had never called the police in her life, had never, in all her thirty years, even talked to a policeman. She was not afraid of them; it was simply a fact that she had nothing in common with them. She did not commit crimes, or have anything to do with people who did, or have any crimes committed against her.

“Your number, please.”

“Is that—is that you, June?”

“Why, yes, Miss Clarvoe. Gee, when you didn't answer, I thought maybe you'd fainted or something.”

“I never faint.” Another lie. It was becoming a habit, a hobby, like stringing beads. A necklace of lies. “What time is it, June?”

“About nine-thirty.”

“Are you very busy?”

“Well, I'm practically alone at the switchboard. Dora's got flu. I'm warding off an attack of it myself.”

Miss Clarvoe suspected from the note of self-pity in her voice and the slight slurring of her words that June had been warding off the flu in a manner not approved by the management or by Miss Clarvoe herself. She said, “Will you be going off duty soon?”

“In about half an hour.”

“Would you—that is, I'd appreciate it very much if you'd come up to my suite before you go home.”

“Why, is there anything wrong, Miss Clarvoe?”

“Yes.”

“Well, gee whizz,
I
didn't do any—”

“I shall expect you here shortly after ten, June.”

“Well, all right, but I still don't see what I—”

Miss Clarvoe hung up. She knew how to deal with June and others like her. One hung up. One severed connections. What Miss Clarvoe did not realize was that she had severed too many connections in her life, she had hung up too often, too easily, on too many people. Now, at thirty, she was alone. The telephone no longer rang, and when someone knocked on her door, it was the waiter bringing up her dinner, or the woman from the beauty parlour to cut her hair, or the bellboy, with the morning paper. There was no longer anyone to hang up on except a switchboard operator who used to work in her father's office, and a lunatic stranger with a crystal ball.

She had hung up on the stranger, yes, but not quickly enough. It was as if her loneliness had compelled her to listen; even words of evil were better than no words at all.

She crossed the sitting-room and opened the French door that led on to the little balcony. There was room on the balcony for just one chair, and here Miss Clarvoe sat and watched the boulevard three flights down. It was jammed with cars and alive with lights. The sidewalks swarmed with people, the night was full of the noises of living. They struck Miss Clarvoe's ears strangely, like sounds from another planet.

A star appeared in the sky, a first star, to wish on. But Miss Clarvoe made no wish. The three flights of steps that separated her from the people on the boulevard were as infinite as the distance to the star.

June arrived late after a detour through the bar and up the back staircase which led to the door of Miss Clarvoe's kitchenette. Sometimes Miss Clarvoe herself used this back staircase. June had often seen her slipping in or out like a thin, frightened ghost trying to avoid real people.

The door of the kitchenette was locked. Miss Clarvoe locked everything. It was rumored around the hotel that she kept a great deal of money hidden in her suite because she didn't trust banks. But this was a common rumor, usually started by the bellboys, who enjoyed planning various larcenies when they were too broke to play the horses.

June didn't believe the rumor. Miss Clarvoe locked things up because she was the kind of person who always locked things up whether they were valuable or not.

June knocked on the door and waited, swaying a little, partly because the martini had been double, and partly because a radio down the hall was playing a waltz and waltzes always made her sway. Back and forth her scrawny little body moved under the cheap plaid coat.

Miss Clarvoe's voice cut across the music like a knife through butter. “Who's there?”

June put her hand on the door jambs to steady herself. “It's me. June.”

The door was unchained and unbolted. “You're late.”

“I had an errand to do first.”

“Yes, I see.” Miss Clarvoe knew what the errand was; the kitchenette already reeked of it. “Come into the other room.”

“I can stay only a minute. My aunt will—”

“Why did you use the back stairs?”

“Well, I didn't know
exactly
what you wanted me for, and I thought if it was something I'd done wrong I didn't want the others to see me coming up here and getting nosey.”

“You haven't done anything wrong, June. I only wanted to ask you a few questions.” Miss Clarvoe smiled, in a kindly way. She knew how to deal with June and people like her. One smiled. Even in an agony of fear and uncertainty, one smiled. “Have you ever seen my suite before, June?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“How could I? You never asked me up before, and I didn't get my job here until after you moved in.”

“Perhaps you'd like to look around a bit?”

“No. No thanks, Miss Clarvoe. I'm in kind of a hurry.”

“A drink, then. Perhaps you'd like a drink?” One smiled. One coaxed. One offered drinks. One did anything to avoid being alone, waiting for the telephone to ring again. “I have some nice sherry. I've been keeping it for—well, in case of callers.”

“I guess a nip of sherry wouldn't hurt me,” June said virtuously. “Especially as I'm coming down with flu.”

Miss Clarvoe led the way down the hall into the sitting-room and June followed, looking around curiously now that Miss Clarvoe's back was turned. But there was very little to see. All the doors in the hall were closed, it was impossible to tell what was behind any of them, a closet or a bedroom or a bathroom.

Behind the last door was the sitting-room. Here Miss Clarvoe spent her days and nights, reading in the easy chair by the window, lying on the divan, writing letters at the walnut desk:
Dear Mother: I am well . . . glorious weather . . . Christmas is coming... my best to Douglas . . . Dear Mr. Blackshear: Regarding those hundred shares of Atlas. . .

Her mother lived six miles west, in Beverly Hills, and Mr. Blackshear's office was no more than a dozen blocks down the boulevard, but Miss Clarvoe hadn't seen either of them for a long time.

She poured the sherry from the decanter on the coffee table. “Here you are, June.”

“Gee, thanks, Miss Clarvoe.”

“Sit down, won't you?”

“All right. Sure.”

June sat down in the easy chair by the window and Miss Clarvoe watched her, thinking how much she resembled a bird, with her quick, hopping movements and her bright, greedy eyes and her bony little hands. A sparrow, in spite of the blonde hair and the gaudy plaid coat, a drunken sparrow feeding on sherry instead of crumbs.

And, watching June, Miss Clarvoe wondered for the first time what Evelyn Merrick looked like.

She said carefully, “I had a telephone call an hour ago, June, about nine-thirty. I'd be very—grateful for any information you can give me about the call.”

“You mean, where it came from?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn't know that, Miss Clarvoe, unless it was long distance. I took three, four long distance calls tonight, but none of them was for you.”

“You recall ringing my room, though, don't you?”

“I don't know.”

“Think hard.”

“Well, sure, Miss Clarvoe. I
am
thinking hard, real hard.” The girl screwed up her face to maintain the illusion. “Only it's like this, see. If someone calls and asks for Miss Clarvoe, then I'd remember it for sure, but if someone just asks for room 425, well, that's different, see.”

“Whoever called me, then, knew the number of this suite.”