Free Black money by Ross MacDonald

water for a month. I felt like telling him to go to hell. Watching him eat, I'd asked myself if I'd be doing Ginny a favor by bringing her back to my client. Martel at least was a man. Maybe Peter had the `makings of a man, as Ella said, but when he sat down at the table he turned into something less, an appetite that only walked like a man.

    "I don't know whether to have a chocolate eclair or a hot fudge sundae," he said seriously. .

    "Have both."

    "That isn't funny. My body needs fuel."

    "You've already stoked it with enough fuel to run a Matson liner to Honolulu."

    He flushed. "You seem to forget that I'm your employer, and you're my guest here."

    "I do, don't I? But let's get off the subject of personalities and food, and talk about something real. Tell me about Ginny."

    "After I get my dessert."

    "Before. Before you eat yourself stupid."

    "You can't talk like that to me."

    "Somebody should. But we won't argue about it. I want to know if Ginny is the kind of girl who goes off half-cocked about men."

    "She never did before."

    "Has she had much to do with men?."

    "Very little," he said. "Mainly me, in fact."

    He flushed again, avoiding my eyes. "I wasn't always so fat, if you want to know. Ginny and I sort of went steady in high school. But after that for a long time she wasn't interested in - well, sex, necking and stuff: We were still friends, and I used to take her places sometimes, but we weren't going steady in the true sense anymore."

    "What changed her?"

    "She was hitting the books, for one thing. She did well at college. I didn't."

    The fact seemed to nag him. "But it was mainly what happened to her father."

    "His suicide?"

    Peter nodded. "Ginny was very much attached to her father. Actually it took her until just about now to get over his death."

    "How long ago did it happen?"

    "Nearly seven years. Seven years this fall. He came down to the beach one night and walked into the water with all his clothes on."

    "This beach?"

    I gestured towards the window. The tide was out: the surf was far down the beach and visible only as a recurring whiteness.

    "Not right here, no. He went in about half a mile from here."

    Peter pointed towards a headland which loomed dark against the more distant harbor lights. "But there's a current in this direction and when his body came up it was right offshore here. I didn't go in the ocean for quite a while. I don't think Ginny ever went in again. She uses - she used the pool.

    He sat hunched over in silence for a moment. "Mr. Archer, can't we do something about Martel? Find out if they're married legally or something?"

    "I'm sure they are. Ginny would have no reason to lie, would she?"

    "No. But she's very much under his spell. You could see for yourself that it isn't a natural situation."

    "She seems to be in love with him."

    "She can't be! We've got to prevent him from taking her away."

    "With what? It's still a free country."

    Peter leaned across the table. "Have you considered the possibility that he's in this country illegally? He admitted he had no passport."

    "It might be worth looking into. But the worst they'd do is deport him. And Ginny would probably go along."

    "I see what you mean. It would only make matters worse."

    He lowered his cushioned chin onto his fist and became thoughtful. Our side of the dining room was filling up as people came in from outside or from the bar. A few of them wore dress clothes, and occasional diamonds and rubies sparkled on hands and throats like drippings from the past. The low sound of the ocean was lost in the rise and fall of conversation and music.

    The people seemed to be talking against the darkness that pressed at the window. Fablon and his death were still on my mind. "You say that Ginny was very fond of her father?"

    Peter came out of his thoughts with a start. "Yes. She was."

    "What sort of man was he?"

    "He was what they call a sportsman, I guess. He went in for big-game hunting and fishing and