She touched the back of my hand. `You won't let them put him back in Laguna Perdida.'
`It won't happen if I can possibly help it. I think I can. If Tom needs treatment, he should be able to get it as an outpatient.'
`He isn't sick!'
`His father must have had a reason for putting him there. Something happened that Sunday, he wouldn't tell me what.'
`It happened long before that Sunday,' she said. `His father turned against him, that's what happened. Tommy isn't the hairy-chested type, and he preferred music to trap-shooting and sailing and such things. So his father turned against him. It's as simple as that.'
`Nothing ever is, but we won't argue. If you'll excuse me for a minute, Stella, I have to make a phone call.'
The phone was on the desk under the window. I sat down there and dialed Susanna Drew's unlisted number. She answered on the first ring.
`Hello.'
'Lew Archer. You sound very alert for three o'clock in the morning.
`I've been lying awake thinking, about you among other things and people. Somebody said - I think it was Scott Fitzgerald - something to the effect that in the real dark night of the soul it's always three o'clock in the morning. I have a reverse twist on that. At three o'clock in the morning it's always the real dark night of the soul.'
`The thought of me depresses you?'
`In certain contexts it does. In others, not.'
`You're talking in riddles, Sphinx.'
`I mean to be, Oedipus. But you're not the source of my depression. That goes back a long way.'
`Do you want to tell me about it?'
`Another time, doctor.'
Her footwork was very skittish. `You didn't call me at this hour for snatches of autobiography.'
`No, though I'd still like to know who that telephone call was from the other day.'
`And that's why you called me?'
There was disappointment in her voice, ready to turn into anger.
`It isn't why I called you. I need your help.'
`Really?'
She sounded surprised, and rather pleased. But she said guardedly: `You mean by telling you all I know and like that?'
'We don't have time. I think this case is breaking. Anyway I have to make a move, now. A very nice high- school girl named Stella has turned up on my doorstep.'
I was speaking to the girl in the room as well as to the woman on the line; as I did so, I realized that they were rapidly becoming my favorite girl and woman. `I need a safe place to keep her for the rest of the night.'
`I'm not that safe.'
A rough note in her voice suggested that she meant it.
Stella said quickly behind me: `I could stay here.'
`She can't stay here. Her parents would probably try to hang a child-stealing rap on me.'
`Are you serious?'
`The situation is serious, yes.'
`All right. Where do you live?'
'Stella and I will come there. We're less than half an hour from you at this time of night.'
Stella said when I hung up: `You didn't have to do it behind my back.'
`I did it right in front of your face. And I don't have time to argue.'
To underline the urgency I took off my jacket, got my gun and its harness out of the drawer, and put it on in front of her. She watched me with wide eyes. The ugly ritual didn't quite silence her.
`But I didn't want to meet anybody tonight.'
`You'll like Susanna Drew. She's very stylish and hep.'
`But I never do like people when adults tell me I will.'
After the big effort of the night, she was relapsing into childishness. I said, to buck her up: `Forget your war with the adults. You're going to be an adult pretty soon yourself. Then who will you have to blame for everything?'
`That isn't fair.'
It wasn't, but it held her all the way to the apartment house on Beverly Glen. Susanna came to the door in silk pajamas, not the kind anyone slept in. Her hair was brushed. She hadn't bothered with makeup. Her face was
