The Far Side of the Dollar by Ross MacDonald Page A

“Do you have a cottage vacant?”
    “Ten of them. Take your pick.”
    “How much?”
    “Depends on if you rent by the day or the week. They’re three-fifty a day, sixteen a week.”
    “I’d better check with the Browns first, see if they’re planning to stay.”
    “I wouldn’t know about that. They been here three weeks.” He had a flexible worried mouth in conflict with a stupid stubborn chin. He stroked his chin as if to educate it. “I can let you have number eight for twelve a week single. That’s right next door to the Browns’ place.”
    “I’ll check with them.”
    “I don’t believe they’re there. You can always try.”
    I went outside and down the dreary line of cottages. The door of number seven was locked. Nobody answered my repeated rapping.
    When I turned away, the old man was standing in front of number eight. He beckoned to me and opened the door with a flourish:
    “Take a look. I can let you have it for ten if you really like it.”
    I stepped inside. The room was cold and cheerless. The inside walls were concrete block, and the same unnatural green as the outside. Through a crack in the drawn blind, yellow light slashed at the hollow bed, the threadbare carpet. I’d spent too many nights in places like it to want to spend another.
    “It’s clean,” the old man said.
    “I’m sure it is, Mr. Dack.”
    “I cleaned it myself. But I’m not Dack, I’m Stanislaus. Dack sold out to me years ago. I just never got around to having the signs changed. What’s the use? They’ll be tearing everything down and putting up high-rise apartments pretty soon.” He smiled and stroked his bald skull as if it was a kind of golden egg. “Well, you want the cottage?”
    “It really depends on Brown’s plans.”
    “If I was you,” he said, “I wouldn’t let too much depend on him.”
    “How is that, Mr. Stanislaus?”
    “He’s kind of a blowtop, ain’t he? I mean, the way he treats that little blonde wife. I always say these things are between a man
and
his wife. But it rankles me,” he said. “I got a deep respect for women.”
    “So have I. I’ve never liked the way he treated women.”
    “I’m glad to hear that. A man should treat his wife with love and friendship. I lost my own wife several years ago, and I know what I’m talking about. I tried to tell him that, he told me to mind my own business. I know he’s a friend of yours—”
    “He’s not exactly a friend. Is he getting worse?”
    “Depends what you mean,
worse
. This very day he was slapping her around. I felt like kicking him out of my place. Only, how would that help
her?
And all she did was make a little phone call. He tries to keep her cooped up like she was in jail.” He paused, listening, as if the word
jail
had associations for him. “How long have you known this Brown?”
    “Not so long,” I said vaguely. “I ran into him in Los Angeles.”
    “In Hollywood?”
    “Yeah. In Hollywood.”
    “Is it true she was in the movies? She mentioned one day she used to be in the movies. He told her to shut up.”
    “Their marriage seems to be deteriorating.”
    “You can say that again.” He leaned toward me in the doorway. “I bet you she’s the one you’re interested in. I see a lot of couples, one way and another, and I’m willing to bet you she’s just about had her fill of him. If I was a young fellow like you, I’d be tempted to make her an offer.” He nudged me; the friction seemed to warm him. “She’s a red-hot little bundle.”
    “I’m not young enough.”
    “Sure you are.” He handled my arm, and chuckled. “It’s true she likes ’em young. I been seeing her off and on with a teen-ager, even.”
    I produced the photograph of Tom that Elaine Hillman had given me. “This one?”
    The old man lifted it to the daylight, at arm’s length. “Yeah. That’s a mighty good picture of him. He’s a good-looking boy.” He handed the photograph back to me, and fondled his chin. “How do you