“Who did it to her?”
“That lousy husband of hers.”
“Edward?”
“Heck, no. The other one. The one that calls himself Dewar, Owen Dewar.”
I said: “Have you seen Dewar?”
“I saw him a week ago, the night he beat her up, the dirty rotten bully.” Her deep contralto growled in her throat. “I’d like to get my hands on him just for five minutes.”
“So would a lot of people, Mrs. Falk.”
She glanced inquiringly at Clare. “Who’s your friend? You haven’t introduced us.”
“I’m sorry. Mr. Archer, Mrs. Falk. Mr. Archer is a detective, Gretchen.”
“I was wondering. Ethel didn’t want me to call the police. I told her she ought to, but she said no. The poor darling’s so ashamed of herself, getting mixed up with that kind of a louse. She didn’t even get in touch with me until tonight. Then she saw in the paper about her car being picked up, and she thought maybe I could get it back for her without any publicity. Publicity is what she doesn’t want most. I guess it’s a tragic thing for a beautiful girl like Ethel to lose her looks.”
I said: “There won’t be any publicity if I can help it. Did you go to see the police about her car?”
“Jake advised me not to. He said it would blow the whole thing wide open. And the doctor told me he was kind of breaking the law by not reporting the beating she took. So I dropped it.”
“How did this thing happen?”
“I’ll tell you all I know about it. Come on into the living room, kids, let me fix you something to drink.”
Clare said: “You’re awfully kind, Gretchen, but I must go to Ethel. Where is she?”
“The Mission Rest Home. Only don’t you think you better wait till morning? It’s a private hospital, but it’s awful late for visitors.”
“I’ve got to see her,” Clare said. “I couldn’t sleep a wink if I didn’t. I’ve been so worried about her.”
Gretchen heaved a sigh. “Whatever you say, honey. We can try, anyway. Give me a second to put on a dress and I’ll show you where the place is.”
She led us into the darkened living room, turned the television set off and the lights on. A quart of beer, nearly full, stood on a coffee table beside the scuffed davenport. She offered me a glass, which I accepted gratefully. Clare refused. She was so tense she couldn’t even sit down.
We stood and looked at each other for a minute. Then Gretchen came back, struggling with a zipper on one massive hip.
“All set, kids. You better drive, Mr. Archer. I had a couple of quarts to settle my nerves. You wouldn’t believe it, but I’ve gained five pounds since Ethel came down here. I always gain weight when I’m anxious.”
We went out to my car, and turned towards the banked lights of San Diego. The women rode in the front seat. Gretchen’s opulent flesh was warm against me.
“Was Ethel here before it happened?” I said.
“Sure she was, for a day. Ethel turned up here eight or nine days ago, Tuesday of last week it was. I hadn’t heard from her for several months, since she wrote me that she was going to Nevada for a divorce. It was early in the morning when she drove up; in fact, she got me out of bed. The minute I saw her, I knew that something was wrong. The poor kid was scared, really scared. She was as cold as a corpse, and her teeth were chattering. So I fed her some coffee and put her in a hot tub, and after that she told me what it was that’d got her down.”
“Dewar?”
“You said it, mister. Ethel never was much of a picker. When she was hostessing at the Grant coffee shop back in the old days, she was always falling for the world’s worst phonies. Speaking of phonies, this Dewar takes the cake. She met him in Las Vegas when she was waiting for her divorce from Illman. He was a big promoter, to hear him tell it. She fell for the story, and she fell for him. A few days after she got her final decree, she married him. Big romance. Big deal. They were going to be business partners, too. He said he had some money to invest, twenty-five thousand or so, and he knew of a swell little hotel in Acapulco that they could buy at a steal for fifty thousand. The idea was that they should each put up half, and go and live in Mexico in the lap of luxury for the rest of their lives. He didn’t show her any of his money, but she believed him. She drew her settlement money out of the bank and came to L.A. with him to close up her house and get set for the Mexican deal.”
“He must have hypnotized her,” Clare said. “Ethel’s a smart business woman.”
“Not with something tall, dark, and handsome, honey. I give him that much. He’s got the looks. Well, they lived in L.A. for a couple of weeks, on Ethel’s money of course, and he kept putting off the Mexican trip. He didn’t want to go anywhere, in fact, just sit around the house and drink her liquor and eat her good cooking.”
“He was hiding out,” I said.
“From what? The police?”
“Worse than that. Some gangster pal from Nevada was gunning for him; still is. Ethel wasn’t the only one he fleeced.”
“Nice guy, eh? Anyway, Ethel started to get restless. She didn’t like sitting around with all that money in the house, waiting for nothing. Last Monday night, a week ago Monday that is, she had a showdown with him. Then it all came out. He didn’t have any money or anything else. He wasn’t a promoter, he didn’t know of any hotel in Acapulco. His whole buildup was as queer as a three-dollar bill. Apparently he made his living gambling, but he was even all washed up with that. Nothing. But she was married to him now, he said, and she was going to sit still and like it or he’d knock her block off.
“He meant it, too, Ethel said. She’s got the proof of it now. She waited until he drank himself to sleep that night, then she threw some things in a bag, including her twenty-five thousand, and came down here. She was on her way to get a quickie divorce in Mexico, but Jake and me talked her into staying for a while and thinking it over. Jake said she could probably get an annulment right in California, and that would be more legal.”
“He was probably right.”
“Yeah? Maybe it wasn’t such a bright idea after all. We kept her here just long enough for Dewar to catch up with her. Apparently she left some letters behind, and he ran down the list of her friends until he found her at our place. He talked her into going for a drive to talk it over. I didn’t hear what was said – they were in her room – but he must have used some powerful persuasion. She went out of the house with him as meek as a lamb, and they drove away in her car. That was the last I saw of her, until she got in touch with me tonight. When she didn’t come back, I wanted to call the police, but Jake wouldn’t let me. He said I had no business coming between a man and his wife, and all that guff. I gave Jake a piece of my mind tonight on that score. I ought to’ve called the cops as soon as Dewar showed his sneaking face on our front porch.”
“What exactly did he do to her?”
“He gave her a bad clobbering, that’s obvious. Ethel didn’t want to talk about it much tonight. The subject was painful to her in more ways than one.”
“Did he take her money?”
“He must have. It’s gone. So is he.”
We were on the freeway which curved past the hills of Balboa Park. The trees of its man-made jungle were restless against the sky. Below us on the other side, the city sloped like a frozen cascade of lights down to the black concavity of the bay.
The Mission Rest Home was in the eastern suburbs, an old stucco mansion which had been converted into a private hospital. The windows in its thick stucco walls were small and barred, and there were lights in some of them.