Ross Macdonald - 1960 - The Ferguson Affair by Ross MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page A

           “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.

  Chapter
6
                 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