The Blue Hammer

"Sure. But this isn't a routine situation. I think you should start burning up the wires."

"Because you're worried about your girl?"

"I'm worried about her and several other people. This isn't just past history that we're dealing with. There are crimes in the present, too, including the crime of murder. And I have a feeling that they're all co

"How?"

"Probably through the disappearance of Chantry. That seems to be the central event in the series." I briefly rehearsed the others, begi

"What makes you so certain that they're co

"Because the people are co

"Mrs. Chantry is out," Mackendrick said, "at least for the present. I can't bring her in for questioning on Rico's say-so." He looked at me as if he were about to say more, but fell silent.

"What about Mildred Mead?"

Mackendrick reddened in anger or embarrassment. "Who is this Mildred Mead? I never heard of her before."

I showed him my photograph of her picture and told him the story that went with it. "She probably knows more about the background of this case than anybody else. With the possible exception of Mrs. Chantry."

"Where can we find Mildred Mead? Does she live here in town?"

"She did until recently. She probably still does, in one of the nursing homes. She's the woman that Betty Siddon was looking for."

Mackendrick sat and looked at me. His face passed moonlike through a number of phases, from anger and disgust to acceptance touched with heavy humor.

"Okay," he said, "you win. We'll make the rounds of the nursing homes and see if we can find those two women."

"May I come?"

"No. I'm going to supervise this search myself."

XXXII

I told myself that it was time I talked to Fred again. It was Mrs. Chantry I really wanted to talk to. But Mackendrick had placed her off-limits and I didn't want to cross him just as he was begi

I drove across town and parked on Olive Street. The shadows under the trees were as thick and dark as old blood. The tall gray gabled house looked cheerful by comparison, with lights on all three stories. There was an interplay of voices behind the front door.

My knocking silenced the voices. Mrs. Johnson came to the door in her white uniform. Her eyes were bright with emotions I couldn't read. Her face was gray and slack. She looked like a woman who had been pushed to her limit and might break down under further pressure.

"What is it?" she said.

"I thought I'd come by and see how Fred is doing. I just found out that he'd been released."

"Thanks to Mr. Lackner." Her voice had risen, as if I weren't the only one she was talking to. "Do you know Mr. Lackner? He's in the front room with Fred."

The long-haired young lawyer gave me a grip that seemed to have become more powerful in the course of the day. He smiled and called me by name and said that it was nice to see me again. I smiled and congratulated him on his quick work.

Even Fred was smiling for a change, but rather dubiously, as if he had no established right to feel good. The room itself had a tentative air, like a stage set for a play that had closed down soon after opening, a long time ago. The old chesterfield and matching chairs sagged almost to the floor. The curtains at the windows were slightly tattered. There were threadbare places in the carpet where the wooden floor almost showed through.

Like a ghost who haunted the ruined house, Mr. Johnson appeared at the doorway. His face-including his eyes-was red and moist. His breath was like an inconstant wind that had lost its way in a winery. He looked at me without recognition but with dislike, as if I had done him a bad turn in his unremembered past.

"Do I know you?"

"Of course you do," Mrs. Johnson said. "Certainly you know him. This is Mr. Archer."

"I thought so. You're the man who put my boy in jail."

Fred jumped up white and shaking. "That isn't so, Dad. Please don't say things like that."

"I'll say them when they're true. Are you calling me a liar?"

Lackner stepped between the father and son. "This is no time for family quarrels," he said. "We're all happy here-all together and all happy, isn't that right?"

"I'm not happy," Johnson said. "I'm miserable, and you want to know why? Because this sneaking bastard here"-he pointed a wavering forefinger at me-"is lousing up the atmosphere in my front room. And I want it clearly understood that if he stays one minute longer I'll bloody well kill him." He lurched toward me. "Do you understand that, you bastard? You bastard that brought my son home and put him in jail."

"I brought him home," I said. "I didn't put him in jail. That was somebody else's idea."

"But you masterminded it. I know that. You know that."

I turned to Mrs. Johnson. "I think I better leave."

"No. Please." She pressed her doughy face with her fingers. "He isn't himself tonight. He's been drinking heavily all day. He's terribly sensitive; he can't stand all these pressures. Can you, dear?"

"Stop sniveling," he said. "You've been sneaking and sniveling all your life, and that's all right when there's no one around but us chickens. Just don't let down your guard when this man is in the house. He means us no good, you know that. And if he doesn't get out of here while I count to ten, I'll throw him out bodily."

I almost laughed in his face. He was a stout unsteady man whose speech was fed by synthetic energy. Perhaps there had been a time, many years ago, when he was capable of carrying out his threats. But he was fat and flaccid, prematurely aged by alcohol. His face and frame were so draped with adipose tissue that I couldn't imagine what he had looked like as a young man.

Johnson began to count. Lackner and I looked at each other and left the room together. Johnson came stumbling after us, still counting, and slammed the front door behind us.

"Gosh," Lackner said. "What makes a man act that way?"

"Too much to drink. He's a far-gone alcoholic."

"I can see that for myself. But why does he drink like that?"

"Pain," I said. "The pain of being himself. He's been cooped up in that run-down house for God knows how many years. Probably since Fred was a boy. Trying to drink himself to death and not succeeding."

"I still don't understand it."

"Neither do I, really. Every drunk has his own reason. But all of them tend to end up the same, with a soft brain and a diseased liver."

As if we were both looking for someone to blame, Lackner and I glanced up at the sky. Above the dark olive trees that marched in single file along this side of the street, the sky was clouded and the stars were hidden.

"The fact is," Lackner said, "I don't know what to make of the boy, either."

"Do you mean Fred?"

"Yes. I realize I shouldn't call him a boy. He must be almost as old as I am."

"I believe he's thirty-two."

"Really? Then he's a year older than I am. He seems terribly immature for his age."

"His mental growth has been stunted, too, living in this house."

"What's so much the matter with this house? Actually, if it were fixed up, it could be quite elegant. It probably was at one time."

"The people in it are the matter," I said. "There are certain families whose members should all live in different towns-different states, if possible-and write each other letters once a year. You might suggest that to Fred, provided you can keep him out of jail."