Looking back in 1976 on the life of the fictional private eye who first came to the page pseudonymously as Joe Rogers in 1945, Ross Macdonald judged: "Archer just wasn't as well done as Spade or Marlowe. It took him a while to develop into anything substantial. The real change in him, I think, occurred in The Doomsters; he became a man who was not so much trying to find the criminal as understand him. He became more of a representative of man rather than just a detective who finds things out."{" 'Archer just wasn't as well done' ": Clifford A. Ridley, "Yes, Most of My Chronicles Are Chronicles of Misfortune," National Observer, July 31, 1976.}
The Angry Man
I thought at first sheer terror was his trouble. He shut the door of my office behind him and stood against it, panting like a dog. He was a gaunt man in blue jeans almost black with sweat and dirt. Short rust-colored hair grew like stubble on his hatless scalp. His face was still young, but it had been furrowed by pain and clawed by anger.
"They're after me. I need help." The words came from deep in his laboring chest. "You're a detective, aren't you?"
"A sort of one. Sit down and take a little time to get your breath. You shouldn't run up those stairs."
He laughed. It was an ugly strangled sound, like water running down a drain. "I've been running all night. All night."
Warily, he circled the chair in front of my desk. He lifted the chair in a sudden movement and set it back to front against the wall and straddled it. His shoulders were wide enough to yoke a pair of oxen. His hands gripped the back of the chair and his chin came down and rested between them while he watched me. His eyes were narrow and blue, brilliant with suspicion.
"Running from what?" I said.
"From them." He looked at the closed door, then over his shoulder at the blank wall. "They're after me, I tell you."
"That makes twice you've told me. It isn't what I'd call a detailed story."
"It's no story." He leaned forward, tilting the chair. "It's true. There's nothing they wouldn't do, or haven't done."
"Who are they?"
"The same ones. It's always the same ones. The cheats. The liars. The people who run things." He went into singsong: "The ones that locked me up and threw the key away. They'll do it again if they can. You've got to help me."
He was beginning to disturb me badly. "Why do I have to help you?"
"Because I say so." He bit his lip. "I mean, who else can I go to? Who else is there?"
"You could try the police."
He spat. "They're in on the deal. Don't talk police to me, or doctors or lawyers or any of the others that sold me out. I want somebody working for me, on my side. If it's money you're worried about, there's plenty of money in it. I'll be rolling in money when I get my rights. Rolling in it, I tell you."
"Uh-huh."
He sprang to his feet, striking the wall a back-handed blow which left a dent in the plaster. His chair toppled. "Don't you believe me? It's the truth I'm telling you. I'm damn near a millionaire if I had my rights."
He started to pace, up and down in front of my desk, his swivelling blue eyes always watching me. I said:
"Pick up that chair."
"I'm giving the orders. For a change."
"Pick up the chair and sit in it," I said.
He stood still for a long moment, his face changing. Dull sorrow filmed his eyes like transparent lacquer. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fly off the handle. It's just when I think about them."
"The chair," I said.
He stooped and picked it up and sat in it. "I'm sorry, Mr. Archer."
"I'm not Archer," I lied. "You've got me wrong."
His eyes blazed wide. "Who are you then? Archer's the name on the door."
"I keep Mr. Archer's books, answer his telephone for him. Why didn't you say you wanted Mr. Archer?"
"I thought that you were him," he answered dully. "A friend of mine, back where I came from, told me if I ever sprung myself — if I ever got here to L.A., that Mr. Archer would give me a fair throw if anybody would. Where is he?"
I countered with a question: "What's your friend's name?"
"He has no name. I mean I don't remember."
"Where did you spring yourself from?"
"It was a slip of the tongue. I didn't say that. Anyway, what business is it of yours? You're not Mr. Archer."
"Folsom? San Quentin?"
He was silent, his face like stone. After a while he said: "I'll talk to Mr. Archer."
"I'll call him for you." I reached for the telephone and started to dial a number. "Who shall I say wants him?"
"No you don't." His stormy mind had flashes of intuition. "I know what you're up to, ringing in the cops." He leaped across the desk and tore the phone from my hands. "And you are Mr. Archer, aren't you? You're a liar, too, like the rest of them. I come here looking for a fair throw and I get the same old dirty deal again. You're one of them, aren't you?"
I said: "Put the telephone back on the desk and sit down."
"To hell with you. You can't scare me. One thing, when a man goes through what I've been through, I'm not afraid any more. You hear me?" His voice was rising.
"They hear you in Glendale. Sit down and be quiet now."
He threw the telephone at my head. I ducked. The telephone crashed through the window and hung there on its wire. I reached for the upper righthand drawer of my desk, the one that contained the automatic. But he forestalled me.
"No you don't," he said.
His hand went into his pocket and came out holding a gun. It was a .32 Smith and Wesson revolver, nickel-plated. It wasn't much of a gun, but it was enough to freeze me where I stood.
"Put your hands up," he said. "Give me your word that you won't call the police."
"I can give it. It won't be worth anything."
"That's what I thought. You're a liar like the rest. Getaway from that desk."
"Make me. You're crazy if you think—"
He let out a yelp of fury. "I am not crazy."
He dropped the little revolver and reached for me. His hooked hands swung together and clamped on my throat. He dragged me bodily across the desk. He was tremendously strong. His pectorals were massively sculptured under the wet blue shirt. His eyes were closed. They had long reddish lashes like a girl's. He looked almost serene. Then water sprang out in little rows of droplets across his forehead. His iron fingers tightened on my throat, and daylight began to wane.
His face opened suddenly, eyes and mouth, as if he had wakened out of a walking nightmare. The blue eyes were bewildered, the mouth pulled wry by remorse. "I'm sorry. You hate me now. You'll never help me now."
His hands dropped to his sides and hung useless there. Relieved of their support, I went to my knees. Bright-speckled darkness rushed through my head like a wind. When its roaring subsided and I got to my feet, he was gone. So was the bright revolver.
I pulled myself to my feet and dragged the telephone in through the broken window. It still had a dial tone, not quite as loud as the singing tone in my head. I dialed a police number. The desk-sergeant's voice focused my wits, and I hung up without saying a word.
A homicidal maniac, or reasonable facsimile of one, had taken me in my own office. That would be a pretty story for the papers, good advertising for a private detective. Clients would be lining up six deep at my door. I sat and looked at the telephone, trying to decide whether to throw it out the window permanently.
There were footsteps in the outer office, too rapid and light for a man's. As I crossed the room, they paused outside my door. I pulled it open. A woman in a dark suit stumbled in, attached to the knob. Her jet black ducktail bob was slightly disarrayed. She was breathless.