The Best American Noir of the Century

It seemed I had a trip ahead of me. Stone Canyon Road came in between Beverly Glen Boulevard and Sepulveda, north of Sunset. That was out past Beverly Hills, and the whole district was made up of hills and canyons, with widely scattered homes clinging to the slopes. A car could go off almost any one of the twisting roads through there and not be noticed for a lot longer than two hours. It was the right place for privacy, if privacy was what you were looking for.

The thing to do, I decided, was to stop at the apartment first. It was on the way, so I wouldn’t lose much time, and I could take Donna along with me. Getting an explanation direct from her ought to satisfy the cops, and we could still get in a couple of drinks and a fast dinner, and make that premiere.

I covered the typewriter, put on my hat, locked up, and went down to the parking lot. It was a little past four-twenty.

II

It was a five-minute trip to the apartment building where Donna and I had been living since our marriage seven months before. I waited while a fat woman in red slacks and a purple and burnt-orange blouse pulled a yellow Buick away from the curb, banging a fender or two in the process, then parked and got out onto the walk.

It had started to cool off a little, the way it does in this part of the country along toward late afternoon. A slow breeze rustled the dusty fronds of palm trees lining the parkways along Fountain Avenue. A thin pattern of traffic moved past, and the few pedestrians in sight had the look of belonging there.

I crossed to the building entrance and went in. The small foyer was deserted and the mailbox for 2c, our apartment, was empty. I unlocked the inner door and climbed the carpeted stairs to the second floor and walked slowly down the dimly lighted corridor.

Strains of a radio newscast filtered through the closed door of the apartment across from 2c. Ruth Feldman was home. She might have word, if I needed it. I hoped I wouldn’t need it. There was the faint scent of jasmine on the air.

I unlocked the door to my apartment and went in and said, loudly: “Hey, Donna. It’s your ever-lovin’.”

All that came back was silence. Quite a lot of it. I closed the door and leaned against it and heard my heart thumping away. The white metal Venetian blinds at the living room windows overlooking the street were lowered but not turned, and there was a pattern of sunlight on the maroon carpeting. Our tank-type vacuum cleaner was on the floor in front of the fireplace, its hose tracing a lazy’s along the rug like a gray python, the cord plugged into a wall socket.

The silence was beginning to rub against my nerves. I went into the bedroom. The blind was closed and I switched on one of the red-shaded lamps on Donna’s dressing table. Nobody there. The double bed was made up, with her blue silk robe across the foot and her slippers with the powder blue pompons under the trailing edge of the pale yellow spread.

My face in the vanity’s triple mirrors had that strained look. I turned off the light and walked out of there and on into the bathroom, then the kitchen and breakfast nook. I knew all the time Donna wouldn’t be in any of them; I had known it from the moment that first wave of silence answered me.

But I looked anyway…

She might have left a note for me, I thought. I returned to the bedroom and looked on the nightstand next to the telephone. No note. Just the day’s mail: two bills, unopened; a business envelope from my agent, unopened, and a letter from Donna’s mother out in Omaha, opened and thrust carelessly back into the envelope.

The mail’s being there added up to one thing at least: Donna had been in the apartment after three o’clock that afternoon. What with all this economy wave at the post offices around the country, we were getting one delivery a day and that not before the middle of the afternoon. The phone call, the vacuum sweeper, the mail on the nightstand: they were enough to prove that my wife was around somewhere. Out for a lipstick, more than likely, or a carton of Fatimas, or to get a bet down on a horse.

I left the apartment and crossed the hall and rang the bell to 2d. The news clicked off in the middle of the days baseball scores and after a moment the door opened and Ruth Feldman was standing there.

“Oh. Clay.” She was a black-haired little thing, with not enough color from being indoors too much, and a pair of brown eyes that, in a prettier face, would have made her something to moon over on long winter evenings. “I thought it was too early for Ralph; he won’t be home for two hours yet.”

“I’m looking for Donna,” I said. “You seen her?”

She leaned negligently against the door edge and moved her lashes at me. The blouse she was wearing was cut much too low. “No-o-o. Not since this morning anyway. She came in about eleven for coffee and a cigarette. Stayed maybe half an hour, I guess it was.”

“Did she say anything about her plans for the day? You know: whether she was going to see anybody special, something like that?”