Little Less Than Kind Read online

  “I don’t know, sir,” Gary looked up. “Honest.” The round eyes in the fleshy face were honest, now. And troubled, too. “He …”

  “Yes?”

  “… doesn’t like you too much.”

  “I’ve been well aware of that,” said David gravely. “I’ve tried very hard to like him. He doesn’t help much.”

  “No, sir,” Gary mumbled.

  “Can you think of anything that I can do?”

  “No, sir,” Gary’s head was down.

  “I realize,” said David, “that I am embarrassing you. I’m sorry. But I’m in a mood to try anything. I would imagine that you’d like to see him a little … lighter-hearted than he has been lately?”

  “He’s my best friend.”

  “I know.” David waited.

  “I guess you couldn’t go away,” the boy mumbled.

  “Go away? Is that it?” David pounced.

  “Well, he … did say he’d like to …”

  “Yes?”

  “… get rid of you,” burst Gary. “He doesn’t mean anything too bad.” The big lad squirmed. “He’s my best friend.”

  David said kindly, “All right. Thank you.”

  “That’s okay,” Gary said, but now that he was dismissed he lingered. “Look, Mr. Crown, there isn’t anything to worry about. Nothing’s going to happen. I mean, my Uncle Walt isn’t anybody’s fool.”

  “Let’s hope,” said David sadly, “that none of us are going to be anybody’s fool.”

  When Gary had gone, David called the Detective Bureau and asked for Walter Douglas.

  “Well, sir, that looks like a tangent, all right,” Douglas said, after listening to the whole tale of Abby’s pills. “By the way, Mr. Cunningham’s doctor, and all the hospital personnel that I could find to talk to, never had any doubt about him. No poison symptoms. Said his heart gave out with the stress of the other thing. So there’s nothing in it.”

  “Still, the boy may believe that there’s something in it. He took off in his car just before noon—I think it was—and we don’t know where he is. He may have been in an emotional state. He had a run-in of some kind with his mother and she is … very much worried. Is there any way—”

  “To pick him up?” said Douglas promptly. “That’s not my division. But I’d say no, there is not. Not simply because his mother is worried about him.”

  “I see that. But in this case she—and I—may be rightfully worried.”

  “Well,” said the policeman, “if he gets into any trouble …”

  “Worse before treatment?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m anxious to find him before there is any trouble.”

  “Yes, well … What does he drive?”

  “A Corvette. Convertible.”

  “Year? Color?”

  “Nineteen sixty-one. Blue.”

  “Know the license?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “Well, sir, I’ll … uh … keep this on hand. One thing—you might look over any snapshots he’s got.”

  “Snapshots?”

  “People take pictures of new cars, or even old ones. Sometimes the license number shows up.”

  “I see. All right, I’ll try.” Then David added a little bitterly, “It will give me something to do, won’t it?”

  Gary’s uncle said, “That’s right.”

  David hung up, thinking of the boy in the car, somewhere in the great complex of the city of Los Angeles and all its suburbs. Where anything could be found. Sea, mountains, desert, what’ll you have? Slums and alleys. Posh palaces of the rich. Hundred of miles of the decent dwellings of decent folks. Or any kind of folks. Drink, dope and depravity, or the noble arts and sciences. And everything in between. Now come … not everything is equally probable. David was, somehow, inclined to imagine the boy on a beach. But there were a hundred miles of beach.

  David sighed and went upstairs and along the wing to the boy’s room. The door was closed and he felt a great reluctance to open it. He had never yet been through this door.

  But he opened it. The room seemed pitiful to him. So young. So young. The low-slung furniture. The trappings. He did not want to touch anything. He sent his eyes searching for an album, a box, somewhere the boy would keep snapshots. He saw no such thing.

  He did not want to rummage through drawers and cupboards. The low bed had a headboard of shelves with books and papers haphazard upon them. David went to peer at these. He put one hand on the pillow to lean to look at the shelves on the far side. His hand felt something hard.

  What …? He took his hand off, feeling guilty. Then he plucked at the spread and turned it back. He shifted the pillow. There was a stone under the pillow. A stone of the size to fit the palm of the hand.

  David had seen this stone before. Hob Cunningham used to keep it on his desk, for some unknown reason. David felt a sting behind his eyes. So pitiful! He put the pillow and the spread back into place. He looked around the room once more. He hurried out of it.

  He had intruded.

  Downstairs, in the library, Abby was on the telephone.

  “Thank you so much for calling. We were worried, but I really think, don’t you, that once we get this frightful idea out of his …” She saw David come in. “Oh, David. It’s Aaron. But I’ve told him …”

  David came near and took the phone, warm from her hand.

  “Aaron?”

  “Sorry I was tied up all day. Abby says the boy thinks there was something ‘funny’ about Hob’s dying? Is that so?”

  “Seems so.”

  “Seems, eh? What do you want me to do, Dave?”

  “Talk to him.” David could see Abby’s face and its distress. “Is that a good idea?”

  “For me to talk to him? Depends. Get him to my office?”

  “I don’t know whether I can.”

  “Shall I give you a name or two? Somebody else might be better. I told you.”

  “Somebody else,” said David, “also suggested by me?”

  “Well, there is that Do you think he realizes now that he needs some help?”

  “I don’t know. He isn’t here.”

  “If he doesn’t,” Aaron said, “I thought I told you. We do not come in the white coats with the butterfly nets.”

  Not until too late, eh? thought David grimly. He did not say it. Abby was there.

  Aaron said, “Talk to him yourself. Persuade him, if you can.”

  “I can only try. Thanks, Aaron. We’ll see how it is.”

  He hung up and Abby smiled at him.

  He heard Rafe Lorimer say, “David, I must talk to you alone.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Rafe had come in unannounced. There he was, in the door to the hall, in his old clothes, his sandals, with his hair on end as it ever was. But he was not smiling any kind of smile. He had an air of exhaustion. He looked like a man who had come to the end of his rope.

  Abby’s hands were at her throat. “Oh, Rafe, what is it?”

  Rafe did not even look at her. David moved quickly. This time it was bad. He knew that He took Abby by her elbows. “Darling, if Rafe says he wants to talk to me alone?” He spoke to her gently, but he challenged her manners.

  Abby’s eyes winced, her lids fluttered. “Yes, of course,” she said. “I’m sorry.” He moved her by a gentle pressure toward the door to the living room. She kept her frightened eyes on his face, begging him. David, don’t let it be anything terrible. Don’t let it be anything that I cannot bear.

  David closed the door behind her. “All right, Rafe. What is it?”

  Rafe told him what it was.

  Her little note was pitiful. Rafe had finally found it, pinned to her pillow. Daddy: I’m going away by myself for a couple of days. You know I have to.

  Rafe, huddled in a chair, his eyes red-rimmed, said, “I was ready to try to ignore that cruel and crazy episode—just live it down for a lie. But not now. I don’t know how she heard it but she knows what that wicked boy is saying.
So listen to me, David. Somebody has got to listen. She’s seventeen years old; she’s never been away from her home. She has no money. understand that? Listen to it! No money. Where has she gone?” Rafe’s voice was rising. “Where is my little girl? He has driven her out of her home, don’t you see that? Away from her rightful protection. He’s dirtied her whole world and broken her life and driven her out and all for no reason. No reason. I have to find her. Now. Tonight. This is my child! I won’t have her driven away. And then I am going to law about this. Going to sue that boy and Abby and you and anybody else … not for the money but for some justice here.” Rafe’s voice was going into a ranting spiral. He was like a man in a cage. “But I’ll take some money, because she must have this made up to her. Do you understand that? She must have a better chance than before. I want to send her to Europe to school. Set her free, with advantages. Set her free. But not all alone and without any money in this terrible city … by herself.” Now, Rafe wept openly.

  David said quietly, “We’ll find her.” He would not minimize the trouble of this big sloppy disheveled man, more than sixty years old, weeping in the chair. He would not give false comfort. He said, “Rafe, if Ladd did this to you, then you must sue, if you want to sue, and you will win. You needn’t do it for the money. Anything, in the way of money, to send Felicia to any school in the world, you’ll have. I’ll see to that. And as for justice, I’ll go with you to see this Mr. Harper and those women, every one of them. If Ladd did this to you, then I will tell them that the boy is disturbed, that he lied in his sickness, if that there is no truth in him. Everything I can possibly do to undo this, believe me, Rafe, I will do.”

  “And can you tell me where she is now? Can you tell me that?”

  “I can go with you now,” said David. “We can search for her. I’ll take you. I’ll do what I can.”

  But Rafe huddled in the chair and falling, falling into the strange cushiony lack of any resistance at all, said sadly, “Can you give me back my little daughter … as we were?”

  David felt sick at this question because the answer was No.

  “You can’t,” said Rafe, with sad, exhausted dignity, “put Humpty-Dumpty together again.”

  David got up, every trained cell responding to a discipline. One did what one could. “Have you called the police, Rafe?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “What did they say?”

  “They said I must come in and make out a report.”

  “Then we’ll do that. I’ll take you. Have you a list of her friends?”

  “I’ve phoned them.”

  “All of them?”

  “All I know. All I know. What do I know? She hasn’t many friends. She was a home-loving child.” Rafe was going to weep again.

  “Wait a minute,” said David. “It seems to me … Cleona saw her.”

  “Cleona?”

  David started for the door.

  Rafe said, “I don’t want to see Abby. I won’t see Abby. I’m going to leave her to you. And the boy, too. I can’t see either of them.”

  “That’s all right. Sit here, Rafe. We’ll go in a minute.” David left the room.

  Rafe sat in the chair and let himself fall. He should have come to David Crown at once, at once—much sooner. David was a man of affairs, like Hob Cunningham. David was strong within the main currents. No putterer. No bungling, incompetent He’ll find her, Rafe told himself with sudden hope. And all this, all this, will pass like a very bad dream.

  Cleona’s eyes rolled. She cried out, “Something happen to that child!”

  “Why do you say that?” David spoke quietly. They were in the kitchen. Abby was in the living room.

  “She talk so silly. Worried me.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Too silly to remember.”

  “She came along our driveway?”

  “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Went ahead on down the street. She had a big old suitcase she was dragging.”

  “A suitcase?” David pounced. “And wait … didn’t you say something earlier, about a party?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. David, that’s what I said. But I can’t remember did she say Yes, she was or No, she wasn’t.”

  “Going to a party?”

  “A slumber party,” Cleona said. Her eyes rolled. “Something happen to that child?” she whimpered.

  David touched her arm and steadied her. “The suitcase is hopeful,” he said grimly.

  “Oh, I remember—She do speak like her daddy was dead.”

  “Dead!”

  “Something happen to Mr. Rafe Lorimer?”

  “No, no. He’s here. Mr. Rafe and I are going out to see what we can do. You must stay with Miss Abby.”

  “Yes, sir, but Miss Abby, she going to carry on.” Cleona looked frightened.

  “I am going to tell her,” said David clearly, “that Miss Felicia has run away and Mr. Rafe wants her found. That’s simple enough. Better not mention that you saw her at all. Try not to talk about it.”

  “Yes, sir. No, sir.”

  “Don’t leave Miss Abby. Even if Mr. Ladd comes home, just do not leave her for anything until I come back.”

  “No, sir, I ain’t going to leave her,” Cleona said. “Mr. David, don’t you let something happen to that child.”

  David went to pick up his car keys from the table in the hall and crossed into the big living room where Abby sat with a white shawl around her summer dress. He thought, I must go with this man. But if I tell Abby the whole story, I cannot go. Therefore I will not tell her the whole story—yet. And that’s what is simple enough.

  So he told her that Felicia was missing, having run away, that he must take poor Rafe to look for her, that Abby must not wait dinner, she must stay quietly here with Cleona. And be all right?

  Abby, big-eyed- shivered within the shawl.

  When the men went out by the terrace door Rafe did not look into the room where she was or speak to her and Abby called out no word to him. Cleona came in and said, “Miss Abby, you all want your dinner soon? Or you going to wait on Mr. Ladd?”

  “I don’t think Mr. Ladd will be here.” Abby touched her eyes with a corner of her shawl. “It seems not. She really is a nice little thing, Cleona, and we do know her family. I’m sure it will work out, somehow. I don’t know where they’d go. They are not of age. I suppose we’ll have a telegram.”

  Cleona looked stupid, which she was not, and said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “So I’ll tell you what.” Abby was suddenly gay. “Set a place in the breakfast room and, while I eat, you can talk to me.” Then Abby pulled her shawl tight. “I’m lonely,” she said.

  Rafe was borne comfortably, in David’s car, to the police station. Rafe made out the paper in his own handwriting as was required, and half attended to the rhythm of David’s voice. (A man of affairs.) The police said they held a Missing Person report for twenty-four hours before acting, but David Crown was not having any of that.

  “A seventeen-year-old girl who has no money?”

  “Some of these seventeen-year-old chicks are pretty hep, Mr. Crown.”

  “Not this one.” David was quietly stern. “This one is rather a solitary little girl, and rather a sensitive one who has had a very bad blow. She is not the ‘hep chick’ type and, even if she were, is in no state to be ‘hep’ tonight. It is not a very good situation.”

  “I see, Mr. Crown.”

  “I really think you had better get on it.”

  “I see, sir.”

  Rafe, while he scribbled, did not catch all the overtones that flew above his tousled head. But they left with promises that the girl would be looked for, by all the resources of the department, and at once.

  Rafe climbed back into the car and sighed heavily. He could never have accomplished that. He would have ranted or wept, and they would have put him down for hysterical. Sylvia, he thought, could have done it. But Sylvia was dead.

  “We’ll go to this Mr. Harper,” said David.

  “Now?�
��

  “Yes, because we are making an assumption here,” David said. “Only Mr. Harper talked to the boy? You didn’t see him?”

  “No.”

  “Did the ladies see him?”

  “I don’t know. They couldn’t see out the south side of my studio. Maybe through the door.”

  “We’ll have to have Mr. Harper’s, or somebody’s identification.”

  “It was Ladd Cunningham.” Rafe set his face stubbornly.

  “I believe it,” David said, “but we had better get Mr. Harper’s description, at least. I need to talk to them, anyway.”

  “But I don’t know where they live,” cried Rafe, running into a blank … just as he had been thinking how brisk, how sensible, how orderly.

  David Crown, it seemed, had ferreted the right Mr. Harper out of the phone book, somehow. All Rafe had to do was lean back.

  But at the Harpers’ little white cottage there was no answer to the bell, and no signs of life. A neighbor came down from his porch and told them, not without relish, that old Mr. Harper was in the hospital. A heart thing. So sudden! Of course, he was old. Oh yes, poor old Mrs. Harper was with him there. What the neighbor had heard, though, the old fellow was going to “get all right,” again. But one never knew, did one? That was life for you.

  Back in the car, Rafe asked, “To the hospital?”

  “I don’t think so,” said David gravely. “Those poor people have had enough trouble for one day.”

  “Oh yes. Yes, of course. ” Rafe felt shabby. He was also very weary. Tired of crisis. Tired of emotion. Tired of trouble. Tired of anger and of fear. He was an artist. He was accustomed to that detachment …

  “This Elsie Marshall,” David said. “What is her husband’s name?”

  “Oh, I know where she lives. On Hill Drive.”

  “Hill Drive, then.”

  Rafe could not stir his tired body or soul. He remained in the car while David went in to talk to Mrs. Marshall.

  David came out and said, “Well, I rather think the story has had some steam taken out of it.”