“ ‘Nuisance’ is putting it mildly. He’s a dreadful man.” A frown puckered her brows. She dropped her clippers in the pocket of her smock and smoothed the frown away with her gloved fingers. “Are you an officer?”
“I have been. I’m in private work at present.” I told her my name. “What did Barr do, exactly?”
“Nothing overt. His very look was enough. I didn’t feel safe in the same room with him. I called my husband and son, and they asked him to leave. He left rather reluctantly, muttering threats.”
“Threats of violence?”
“I don’t believe so. He spoke of buying and selling us, as if that were possible.”
Her gaze went past me and rested as if for comfort on her house, planted securely in its place in the sun. A man in blue clothes was watching us from just inside the doorway. He was very thin and still, and very young.
“I did sense violence in him, though,” she said. “What sort of a person is he?”
“One to look out for.”
Her hand went to her breast. I could see a tiny blue pulse beating in the hollow of her temple. “Is he a wanted man?”
“More of an unwanted one, I’d say. He’s been brushed off and pushed around in his time, and it may have driven him a little off his rocker.”
“You mean that he’s insane?”
“It’s possible.”
“My husband thinks he may be. Dr. Leverett is not a psychiatrist, and of course he only saw him for a minute, but he has had some experience with disturbed patients. He thinks the man is paranoid.”
“Did he say why he thinks so?”
“You can ask him yourself. Fred should be here at any minute.”
She took a tentative step towards the house, then paused and looked me over. She was an open-faced woman, not good at masking what was on her mind: was it safe to ask me into the house, or did my connection with Barr disqualify me? She said:
“Are you a friend of Mr. Barr’s?”
“I’m not his enemy.” He had been my client for a quick quarter of an hour, and I owed him that much. “I met him for the first time this morning. He tried to hire me to find a woman for him.”
She colored slightly, and her open look was confused by something hectic about her eyes. “Rose Breen?”
“That’s correct.”
“You say he tried to hire you. The implication is that he didn’t succeed. Then why are you here?”
“It’s a little hard to explain, even to myself. Barr’s staying in Malibu, and that’s more than halfway here. I decided to come the rest of the way.”
“On your own hook?” Her tone was faintly incredulous.
“Yes. I turned Barr down because I didn’t like his story, and I didn’t like his attitude. He said he’d hire someone else or run Rose down himself, and I believe him. He has a fixed idea, or claims to have, of marrying her after all these years and living happily ever after. She isn’t likely to fall in with the idea. Then there’s bound to be trouble–”
“That isn’t what he told me,” the woman cut in. “He said that he was her uncle by marriage, that he’d made some money and wanted to help her with it.”
“Now I know he’s a liar. He was probably lying to both of us. When his first story didn’t work on you, he changed it for me.”
She touched my arm. She wasn’t a small woman, but she had a hummingbird touch, light and vibrating and brief. “What do you suppose he really wants with her?”
“Nothing good, in my opinion. Rose would know.”
It was a question. She seemed embarrassed by it, and she let the embarrassment narrow into suspicion. “I fail to understand your interest in all this, or why you’ve come to me. What do you hope to gain?”
“Nothing. I like to sleep nights. That means that in the daytime I have to follow through–”
She cut me short: “On whose account are you here?”
“My own. And Rose Breen’s.”
“Do you know her?” she said sharply.
“I never heard of her until this morning. But I thought if she’s available I’d like to talk to her.”
“On what subject?”
“Joseph Barr. I thought I’d made that clear. He’s dangerous – dangerous to anyone and especially to a woman that he’s been dreaming about for fifteen years or so. He may be an escaped mental patient or convict–”
“And you may be a very imaginative man.”
“I try to be. The things that happen in the world can be pretty fantastic, and I try to stay attuned.”
She was not amused. The confusion in her eyes was affecting the rest of her face. Her beauty was loosening, coming apart like an overblown flower. I asked her the direct question:
“Mrs. Leverett, is Rose still working for you?”
“She certainly is not. Rose Breen was only with me a total of two or three months. She left fifteen years ago under circumstances that I don’t care to dwell on.”
“Circumstances?”
“I was ill at the time, and she left me without notice.” Her look was almost malevolent. The people in Foothill Drive took their servant problems very seriously. Such things happened to the emotionally unemployed.
“Is Rose still living in Santa Teresa?”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know.”
“Who would?”
“I can’t think of anyone. Not anyone.” She put on her wide hat and tied it under her chin as if it might help to hold her face together. “Now if you’ll excuse me, there are some instructions I must give the cook.”
“Do you mind if I wait for your husband?”
“I see no point in it.”
“But do you mind?”
“Wait for him if you like.”
She left me standing and walked towards the house. Her heavy grace was heavier and less graceful. She went in. I got back into the car, wondering what had happened to the conversation. We’d been getting along fairly well, I’d thought, then suddenly we weren’t communicating. I hoped I wasn’t losing my fine interrogatory touch.
I had another chance to test it, right away. The young man in blue came out of the house and down the drive. In worn and faded Levi’s and sneakers, he looked like the assistant gardener, or somebody playing the role of assistant gardener. He walked like a zombie, scuffing his feet in the gravel as if he had poor contact with reality. His intense dark gaze seemed to be fixed on another world than this one, not necessarily a better world.
The pressures of this one had stretched the brown skin over the lumpy bones of his face. His hair was short and stood up.
I saw when he reached the side of the car that he was very tall, taller than I was by an inch or two, and about half as wide.
“You’ve upset Mother,” he said tightly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“She’s very upset. She went into her room without even speaking.”
“She upsets easily.”
He considered this proposition. “Mother has had enough trouble. I don’t want her bothered.”
“I have no intention of bothering her.”
“What are you doing camping in the driveway?”
“I want to talk to your father.”
“Leverett is not my father. Leverett is my stepfather.” He leaned over to peer in at my face. His eyes were burning black. “Is that clear?”
“Leverett is your stepfather.”
“My cruel stepfather from the Siberian steppes. He’s helping me up the stepladder of success, step by step.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“A non-joke. You can un-laugh if you like.”
I un-laughed. He grinned mirthlessly in at me. “What do you want to talk to him about?”
“Rose Breen. If you’re Peter Leverett–”
“Chantry. Peter Chantry. Is that clear?”