“Listen,” he said, “it will be noon or even later before anybody knocks at the door. The help knows better than to disturb her when she sleeps late. But by about noon her maid would knock and go in. She wouldn’t be in her room.”
I sipped my coffee and said nothing.
“The maid would see that her bed hadn’t been slept In,” he went on. “Then she would think of another place to look. There’s a big guesthouse pretty far back from the main house. It has its own driveway and garage and so on. Sylvia spent the night there. The maid would eventually find her there.”
I frowned. “I’ve got to be very careful what questions I ask you, Terry. Couldn’t she have spent the night away from home?”
“Her clothes would be thrown all over her room. She never hangs anything up. The maid would know she had put a robe over her pajamas and gone out that way. So it would only be to the guesthouse.”
“Not necessarily,” I said.
“It would be to the guesthouse. Hell, do you think they don’t know what goes on in the guesthouse? Servants always know.”
“Pass it,” I said.
He ran a finger down the side of his good cheek hard enough to leave a red streak. “And in the guesthouse,” he went on slowly, “the maid would find—”
“Sylvia dead drunk, paralyzed, spifflicated, iced to the eyebrows,” I said harshly.
“Oh.” He thought about it. Big think. “Of course,” he added, “that’s how it would be. Sylvia is not a souse. When she does get over the edge it’s pretty drastic.”
“That’s the end of the story,” I said. “Or almost. Let me improvise. The last time we drank together I was a bit rough with you, walked out if you recall. You irritated the hell out of me. Thinking it over afterwards I could see that you were just trying to sneer yourself out of a feeling of disaster. You say you have a passport and a visa. It takes a little time to get a visa to Mexico. They don’t let just anybody in. So you’ve been planning to blow for some time. I was wondering how long you would stick.”
“I guess I felt some vague kind of obligation to be around, some idea she might need me for something more than a front to keep the old man from nosing around too hard. By the way, I tried to call you in the middle of the night.”
“I sleep hard. I didn’t hear.”
“Then I went to a Turkish bath place. I stayed a couple of hours, had a steam bath, a plunge, a needle shower, a rubdown and made a couple of phone calls from there. I left the car at La Brea and Fountain. I walked from there. Nobody saw me turn into your street.”
“Do these phone calls concern me?”
“One was to Harlan Potter. The old man flew down to Pasadena yesterday, some business. He hadn’t been to the house. I had a lot of trouble getting him. But he finally talked to me. I told him I was sorry, but I was leaving.” He was looking a little sideways when he said this, towards the window over the sink and the tecoma bush that fretted against the screen.
“How did he take it?”
“He was sorry. He wished me luck. Asked if I needed any money.” Terry laughed harshly. “Money. Those are the first five letters of his alphabet. I said I had plenty. Then I called Sylvia’s sister. Much the same story there. That’s all. ”
“I want to ask this,” I said. “Did you ever find her with a man in that guesthouse?”
He shook his head. “I never tried. It would not have been difficult. It never has been.”
“Your coffee’s getting cold.”
“I don’t want any more.”
“Lots of men, huh? But you went back and married her again. I realize that she’s quite a dish, but all the same—”
“I told you I was no good. Hell, why did I leave her the first time? Why after that did I get stinking every time I saw her? Why did I roll in the gutter rather than ask her for money? She’s been married five times, not including me. Any one of them would go back at the crook of her finger. And not just for a million bucks.”
“She’s quite a dish,” I said. I looked at my watch. “Just why does it have to be the ten-fifteen at Tijuana?”
“There’s always space on that flight. Nobody from L. A. wants to ride a DC-5 over mountains when he can take a Connie and make it in seven hours to Mexico City. And the Connies don’t stop where I want to go.”
I stood up and leaned against the sink. “Now let’s add it up and don’t interrupt me. You came to me this morning in a highly emotional condition and wanted to be driven to Tijuana to catch an early plane. You had a gun in your pocket, but I needn’t have seen it. You told me you had stood things as long as you could but last night you blew up. You found your wife dead drunk and a man had been with her. You got out and went to a Turkish bath to pass the time until morning and you phoned your wife’s two closest relatives and told them what you were doing. Where you went was none of my business. You had the necessary documents to enter Mexico. How you went was none of my business either. We are friends and I did what you asked me without much thought. Why wouldn’t I? You’re not paying me anything. You had your car but you felt too upset to drive yourself. That’s your business too. You’re an emotional guy and you got yourself a bad wound in the war. I think I ought to pick up your car and shove it in a garage somewhere for storage.”
He reached into his clothes and pushed a leather key holder across the table.
“How does it sound?” he asked.
“Depends who’s listening. I haven’t finished. You took nothing but the clothes you stood up in and some money you had from your father-in-law, You left everything she had given you, including that beautiful piece of machinery you parked at La Brea and Fountain. You wanted to go away as clean as it was possible for you to go and still go.
