Read Online Ross Macdonald - 1960 - The Ferguson Affair by Ross MacDonald - Free Book Online Page B

with a guy, so he can be mad about it, instead of—scared.”
                 “You’re
quite a psychologist, Tony.”
                 “Yeah. That will be twenty-five dollars, please.” But there
was no laughter in his voice. He’d succeeded in frightening himself, as well as
me.
                 We
had crossed the ridge that walled off the valley from the coastal shelf. I
could smell the sea, and sense its dark immensity opening below us. The
rotating beam of a lighthouse scanned the night. It flashed along a line of
trees standing on a bluff, on the flat roof of a solitary house, then seaward
on a bank of fog which absorbed it like cotton batting.
                 Padilla
turned down a hedged lane, a green trench carved out of darkness. We emerged in
a turnaround at the rear of the flat-roofed house on the bluff. Parking as
close to the door as possible, Padilla plucked Ferguson’s key ring from the
ignition, opened the house, and turned on inside and outside lights.
                 We
wrestled Ferguson out of the car and carried him through the house into a
bedroom. He was as limp as a rag doll, but as heavy as though his bones were
made of iron. I was beginning to be worried about him. I switched on the bed
lamp and looked at his closed face. It was propped on the pillow like a dead
man’s in a coffin.
                 “He’s
okay,” Padilla said reassuringly. “He’s just sleeping now.”
                 “You
don’t think he needs a doctor? I hit him pretty hard.”
                 “It’s
easy enough to find out.”
                 He
went into the adjoining bathroom and came back with a plastic tumbler full of
water. He poured a little of it on Ferguson. The water splashed on his forehead
and ran down into his hollow temples, wetting his thin hair. His eyes snapped
open. He sat up on the bed and said distinctly: “What’s the trouble, boys? Is
the dugout leaking again?”
                 “Yeah. It’s raining whisky,” Padilla said. “How you feeling, Colonel?”
                 Ferguson
sat leaning on his arms, his high shoulders up around his ears, and permitted himself to realize how he was feeling. “I’m drunk. Drunk as a skunk. My God, but I’m drunk.” He thrust a hairy
fist in one eye and focused the other eye on Padilla’s face. “Why didn’t you
cut me off, Padilla?”
                 “You’re
a hard man to say no to, Colonel. The hardest.”
                 “No
matter, cut me off.”
                 Ferguson
swung his heavy legs over the edge of the bed, got up on them like a man
mounting rubber stilts, and staggered across the room to the bathroom door. “Got to take a cold shower, clear the old brain. Mustn’t let Holly see me like this.”
                 He
walked into the stall shower fully clothed and turned on the water. He was in
there for what seemed a long time, snorting and swearing. Padilla kept a
protective eye on him.
                 I
looked around the room. It was a woman’s bedroom, the kind that used to be
called a boudoir, luxuriously furnished in silk and padded satin. A pink clock
and a pink telephone shared the top of the bedside table. It was five minutes
to ten. The thought of Sally went through me like a pang.
                 I
reached for the telephone. It rang in my hand, as if I had closed a connection.
I picked up the receiver and said: “This is the Ferguson residence.”
                 “Colonel
Ferguson, please.”
                 “Sorry,
the Colonel is busy.”
                 “Who
is that speaking, please?” It was a man’s voice, quiet and careful and rather
impersonal.
                 “A friend.”
                 “Is
the Colonel there?”
                 “Yes.
As a matter of fact, he’s taking a bath.”