The Ferguson Affair

“You know Colonel Ferguson, do you?”

“I saw him once. He marched in here one day last summer. Mr. Speare was in conference with some very important clients, but that made no difference to him. He walked into Mr. Speare’s private office and started an argument, right in front of a producing star.”

“What was the argument about?”

“Her studio didn’t want her to get married. Neither did Mr. Speare. You can hardly blame him. She had a chance to be a real big name. But that wasn’t good enough for her.” She went into meditation again. “Imagine getting the breaks she got, and not even wanting them.”

A man in a blue Italian suit and a confidential tie came in breathing dramatically. When I stood up, I was tall enough to look down at the bald spot on top of his sleek dark head.

“Mr. Speare?”

“Yeah. You must be Gunnarson. I’m twenty minutes late. They were taping a new show and a lady who shall be nameless got hysterical when they wouldn’t let her use her idiot cards. So I had to hold her hand, in case you wonder where I got the talon wounds. Come in, will you?”

I followed him along a skylit corridor to a room which contained, in addition to office equipment, a couch and a portable bar. He went to the latter like a homing pigeon. “I need a drink. Will you join me?”

“A short bourbon will be fine.”

He poured me a long one, and himself another. “Sit down. How do you like the furniture? The drapes? I chose everything myself, I wanted a place where a man can relax as he creates.”

“You’re an artist, are you?”

“More than that,” he said between gulps of bourbon. “I create artists. I make names and reputations.”

He flung his empty hand toward the wall beside his desk. It was covered with photographs of faces, the bold, shy, wistful, arrogant, hungry faces of actors. I recognized some of the faces, but didn’t see Holly May’s among them. Most of them were actors who hadn’t been heard of for years.

“How is Holly?” he said, reading my mind. “I took her picture down, in a moment of childish pique. But I still keep it in my desk drawer. Tell her that.”

“I will if I see her.”

“I thought you were her lawyer.”

“I’m her husband’s lawyer.”

A kind of gray sickness touched his face for an instant. He covered his bald spot with his left hand, as if he feared scalping or had already been scalped; and gulped the remainder of his drink. This gave him strength to clown it. “What does he want? The rest of my blood? Tell him I’m all out of blood, he can go to a blood bank.”

“Did he treat you so badly?”

“Did he? He fixed me good. Three years of work, building her up, talking her into parts, keeping her out of trouble, all gone to bloody hell. Just when she was really getting hot, she had to marry him. He’s a rough man. As you doubtless know if you work for him.”

“I don’t work for him. I give him legal advice.”

“I see.” He poured himself another drink. “Does he take it?”

“I’m hoping he will.”

“Then advise him to take a running jump in the Pacific Ocean. I know a nice deep place, complete with sharks.” He fortified himself with half of his second drink, and said: “Well, let’s have it. What does he want from me, and what is it going to cost me?”

“Nothing. I’ll be frank with you.” But not so very frank. “I came to you more or less on my own, for information.”

“What about?”

“Mrs. Ferguson.”

He considered this, and drew the conclusion I wanted him to. “How is the marriage working out?”

“It isn’t. You’ll keep this to yourself, of course.”

“Of course,” he said, struggling to suppress his glee. “I knew it couldn’t last. A doll like Holly, a girl with her future, tying herself to a dodo. Who’s divorcing who?”

“It’s too early to talk in those terms. Put it this way. Colonel Ferguson married a woman he knew nothing about. Six or seven months later he’s decided that perhaps he ought to look into her background. I thought perhaps you could help.”

“Let down her back hair, eh? I wouldn’t want to do that to a client, not even an ex-client. Besides,” he said with a lopsided smile and a pass at the top of his head, “what do I get out of it?”

He had a fishy look. I felt no compunction in playing him like a fish. “She’s under contract to you, isn’t she? If she works?”

“Why should she go back to work, with the kind of settlement he can make on her?”

“There won’t be any settlement, if he divorces her. Or gets an annulment.”

His secret glee flared up again. He thought that we were having a meeting of minds. “I see. What did you say your name was? Bill?”

“Bill.”

“Call me Mike, Bill.” He went around his desk and slumped in the swivel chair behind it. “What kind of dope do you need?”

“Everything you have. Her background, her conversations, character, personal habits, men in her life.”

“Hell,” he said. “I can’t do that to her. I’m loyal to my clients. On the other hand, she’d be better off working. It isn’t healthy for a kid like her to retire. Hell, I’d be doing her a favor, doing the industry a favor. Only what if she finds out?”

“She won’t. Not even Ferguson will hear what you tell me. It’s strictly for background use.”

“I hope so, Bill. I like the little doll. I wouldn’t want anything to come between us. You understand that?”

“Very well. Very well, Mike.”

“Okay. We understand each other. Anything I say, you quote me, I’ll deny it.” But the things he wanted to say were bubbling on his lips. “For divorce purposes, I guess you’re mainly interested in how much she slept around.”

“It isn’t the only consideration. It does enter the picture. How much did she?”

“Not a sensational amount. She did like men. Most of her friends were older men.”

“Can you mention any names?”

“For filling in the background, that hardly seems necessary.”

“You said you had to keep her out of trouble.”

“Yeah, sure, it’s one of my services to my clients. I try to be like a father to them, Bill. Holly had no father to advise her.”

“What kind of trouble did you keep her out of?”

“She wasn’t good at handling money. And she only drew four-oh-oh per week. Big ideas on a small salary can play hell with your credit. She had a lot of credit trouble.”

“You mean debts?”

He nodded.

“What did she spend her money on?”

“Clothes and gewgaws, mostly.”

“How about narcotics?”

He peered at me through narrowed eyelids. “You don’t fool around, do you, Bill?”

“I try not to, Mike. Was she on any form of drugs?”

“That I doubt. I couldn’t say for sure she wasn’t. Some of the damnedest people are. Have you got reason to suspect narcotics?”

“Nothing definite. The idea did occur to me.”

“Why, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“It’s grounds for annulment, for one thing. I don’t mean we’d ever take it into court. All we want is something to use for leverage.”

“Yeah, sure.” We were having another meeting of minds. “I don’t think there’s anything in the narcotics angle,