The Wrong Case Read online

  JAMES CRUMLEY’S

  THE WRONG CASE

  “James Crumley is a first-rate American writer…pyrotechnically entertaining, sexy, compassionate.”

  —THE VILLAGE VOICE

  “The Wrong Case is in the tradition of the Dashiell Hammett of The Glass Key and does full honor to Hammett. The corrupt town comes alive, the story is powerful, the writing is high calibre.”

  —STANLEY ELKIN

  “If you like your detective fiction tough and tenacious, you will love James Crumley…No one does it better.”

  —THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE

  “Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald have been looking for a successor. Now they have him.”

  —THE BOSTON PHOENIX

  “Crumley’s themes are as American and contemporary as they can be, and he explores the American West and its mythology as well as anyone.”

  —THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

  ALSO AVAILABLE IN VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES

  Airships by Barry Hannah

  Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney

  The Bushwhacked Piano by Thomas McGuane

  Cathedral by Raymond Carver

  The Chosen Place, the Timeless People by Paule Marshall

  Dancing Bear by James Crumley

  Dancing in the Dark by Janet Hobhouse

  The Debut by Anita Brookner

  A Fan’s Notes by Frederick Exley

  Far Tortuga by Peter Matthiessen

  A Handbook for Visitors from Outer Space by Kathryn Kramer

  Norwood by Charles Portis

  A Piece of My Heart by Richard Ford

  Ransom by Jay McInerney

  Something to be Desired by Thomas McGuane

  Taking Care by Joy Williams

  First Vintage Books Edition, January 1986

  Copyright © 1975 by James Crumley

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published by Random House, Inc., in 1975.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Crumley, James, 1939-

  The wrong case.

  (Vintage contemporaries)

  I. Title.

  PS3553.R78W7 1986 813′. 54 85-8882

  ISBN 978-0-394-73558-0 (pdk.)

  eBook ISBN 9781101973578

  v4.1

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Also Available in Vintage Contemporaries

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  About the Author

  for Peggy

  and with special thanks to Lee Nye

  for the loan of his faces

  and to Gil and Jean Findlay

  who provided shelter

  Never go to bed with a woman who has more troubles than you do.

  —Lew Archer

  One

  There’s no accounting for laws. Or the changes wrought by men and time. For nearly eighty years the only way to get a divorce in our state was to have your spouse convicted of a felony or caught in an act of adultery. Not even physical abuse or insanity counted. And in the ten years since I resigned as a county deputy, I had made a good living off those antiquated divorce laws. Then the state legislature, in a flurry of activity at the close of a special session, put me out of business by civilizing those divorce laws. Now we have dissolutions of marriage by reason of irreconcilable differences. Supporters and opponents were both shocked by the unexpected action of the lawmakers, but not as shocked as I was. I spent the next two days sulking in my office, drinking and enjoying the view, considering the prospects for my suddenly very dim future. The view looked considerably better than my prospects.

  My office is on the fourth floor of the Milodragovitch Building. I inherited the building from my grandfather, but most of the profits go to a management corporation, my first ex-wife, and the estate of my second ex-wife. I’m left with cheap rent and a great view. At least on those days when the east wind doesn’t inflict the pulp mill upon us or when an inversion layer doesn’t cap the Meriwether Valley like a plug in a sulfurous well, I have a great view. From the north windows, I can see all the way up the Hell-Roaring drainage to the three thousand acres of timber, just below the low peaks of the Diablo Range, that my grandfather also left me. And from the west windows, if I ignore the junky western verge of Meriwether, the valley spreads out like a rich green carpet running between steep rocky ridges. On the north side of the valley, Sheba Peak rises grandly, holding snow until the heart of summer, as white and conical as the breast of a young woman, a woman conceived in the tired dreams of a dirty miner, a dream only gold or silver might buy.

  Unlike my prospects, the view was worth toasting, which I did. Since I assumed dissolutions of marriage would arrange themselves without my professional assistance, my prospects were several and unseemly. I could take up repossession full time, taking back the used cars and cheap appliances so sweetly promised by the installment loan, pursuing bad debtors as if I were a hound from some financially responsible hell. I could do that; but I knew I wouldn’t. No more than I could live on the forty-seven bucks and odd change left each month from my office leases, no more than I could cut my timber, or no more than I could convince the trustees of my father’s estate to turn loose any of his fortune before my fifty-third birthday. At least I could have another drink out of the office bottle, another drink and another glance around my office to search for hidden assets.

  The large old-fashioned safe in the corner, left from my grandfather’s days as a banker, was empty, except for two thousand dollars of untaxed mad money. The three file cabinets were full of the records of failed marriages, not even worth anything to those unhappy folks recorded there. The portrait of my great-grandfather had been painted by a famous Western artist and drunk, and might be worth something, but it seemed unkind to consider selling my great-grandfather. Surely, I should sell my timber first. Or the old desk and Oriental rug, which looked shabby enough to pass for antiques, scarred with cigarette burns and gritty with the detritus of grief and outrage that had scraped off all the husbands and wives who had trembled through my office. Age and sorrow, those were my only assets, my largest liabilities.

  But like most men who drink too much, I had spent most of my life considering my dismal future, and it had stopped amusing me. So I had another drink and walked over to the north windows to look down on the happy, employed folk of Meriwether. Once, we Milodragovitches had been big stuff in this town, but now the only way I could look down on anybody was to climb up to my office, stare down from the windows. Lunch hour was done; people were hurrying about their business, driving back to office and store in air-conditioned cars, even though the air seemed more like spring than summer. I had never owned an air-conditioned car, so I could feel vaguely smug. Until August anyway.

  Directly beneath me, a gray-haired woman, dressed in modern elegance, stepped out of the side entrance of the bank that leased the ground floor, and as she was fussing with her open purse a long-haired kid jerked the purse out of her h
ands and fled clumsily across the street, pumping his legs and swinging his elbows wildly, like a heavy bird longing for flight. He dodged the eastbound traffic on Main, gathering speed, but he ran into the side of a car as it slowed to make a right-hand turn north on Dottle; bouncing back, he turned, grinning dreamily like a man who has just had a final fix, then stepped into the westbound lane. The car that hit him never touched brake shoe to drum but drove right through him like a good solid punch. The kid rolled up the hood, throwing the old woman’s purse straight up in the air. As the contents of the purse scattered in the air, the kid fell off the hood into the center of the intersection. Another old woman, who obviously hadn’t seen any of this, turned her giant sedan illegally left on to Dottle and ran over the kid with the two right tires. He rolled, stuck beneath the rear bumper, and she dragged him half a block up the street before she could stop.

  I had never realized that purse snatching was such a dangerous crime and I wondered what the kid needed badly enough to take up petty theft. Meriwether didn’t have much street crime, perhaps because we still suffered from some frontier idea of justice: shoot first, apologize to the survivors. Whatever the kid had intended, he was obviously dead, crumpled under the rear of the car like a road-kill carcass at the end of a broad blood spoor. The old woman whose purse had been stolen was wandering around the intersection gathering up the debris from her purse, carefully checking each item. The man who had hit the kid was walking around his car, examining it for damage. Up the street, the other old woman was being helped from her car like an invalid.

  It was a lovely summer day, smogless and fresh, and below me the flies struggled against their violent amber. But when the first siren split the air, they slipped free, went quickly about their business. Except for the kid, squashed into place, and one woman standing across the street from my building. She held her own small pink purse to her open mouth as if it were a secret message she’d devour before she’d divulge. From where I stood, she looked good. Nice legs, a trim body. Red hair that seemed aflame above the pink dress. The sort of woman who stayed out of bars and away from the likes of me.

  When the light changed, she stepped off the curb, stumbling slightly, breaking the spell. I went back to my desk, had another sip of whiskey, and opened a carton of blueberry yogurt. I watch my weight; I wouldn’t want to look like a drunk.

  As I ate I concentrated on the small decisions, letting the problem of my future take care of itself. I knew that if I had another drink I would probably get drunk instead of driving out to the university to play handball with my friend Dick Diamond, but I had another hit at the bottle just to prove that I could handle it. Have the drink, fight the drunk, play handball anyway. That was the plan. But somebody rapped timidly at my office door. Private investigators always have somebody rapping timidly at their doors, so I didn’t leap out of my chair and spring into action. Back in the days when I still had a business, I would have hidden the bottle and the half-finished yogurt, slipped into my boots, and answered the door as if I knew what I was doing. But not this day. I left things as they were, didn’t even answer until the light tapping resumed.

  “Go away,” I said. But not loudly enough.

  The lady in the pink dress opened the door and peeked around it like a kid who hopes the dentist is still out to lunch. But as she stepped into the office I could see that she wasn’t a kid. A well-preserved thirty-five perhaps, maintained not by working at it but by saving it. And she’d saved it fairly well. A slim, firm body beneath the pink knit dress. Thick, dark red hair tucked away from a sweetly freckled face. Slightly myopic eyes that had that dreamy contact-lens blur about them. A mouth, daubed half-heartedly with a color that nearly matched the freckles, that seemed mobile and generous in spite of the prim way she pursed her lips.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly, as if she had failed to meet my standards, still standing at the door. I decided that the lipstick, which would have looked bad on any other woman, gave her just the right touch, as if she were still young enough to be foolish about a lipstick, choosing a color because she liked it, not because it went well with her face. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, as if it were the password.

  “So am I. The dentist’s office is four doors down. We have the same name because we’re cousins. I’m famous, but he’s rich.”

  “Oh, but I’m not—I wasn’t looking for the dentist,” she said, flustered, then held the pink purse, which looked as if it had come in a set with the summer flats she wore, back to her mouth.

  “Surely you aren’t looking for me,” I said. “Don’t you read the papers? They don’t have divorce in this state anymore. Just dissolutions of marriage. You can do it yourself. Thirty-four-fifty. I charge a hundred a day, plus expenses. A three-day minimum.”

  “I’m from out-of-town,” she said, as if that explained everything. “And I’m not married.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “What?”

  “That you’re not married. Marriages can be messy. And expensive. I should know.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “Do you mind if I sit down? I’ve just seen a terrible accident. In the street. Some poor young man was hit by a car. Then run over. It was awful. I’m quite shaken.”

  “Certainly,” I answered, standing up, wishing I had put my boots on. “Please sit down.”

  She shut the door quietly, then walked over to the chair I was holding for her. She stepped on my foot, then nearly knocked the chair over as she sat in it.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” I said, retreating behind the desk to safety, slipping into my boots and sitting down. “Well, what can I do for you?”

  “I’ve interrupted your lunch, haven’t I?”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Please go ahead. I’ll wait.”

  Rather than argue with her, I had a spoonful of yogurt, then took out my note pad, asking her again what I could do for her.

  “Well, an old friend of mine recommended you. Said you might be able to help me.”

  “Who?” I asked, not telling her that she didn’t look like the sort of woman who needed my sort of help.

  “I’d rather not say, if you don’t mind.”

  “Why should I mind?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered, as literal as a child.

  “We’re not getting anywhere, you know?”

  “I guess not,” she said.

  “Let’s try the easy questions first, okay?”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been under quite a strain. And when I saw that young man—killed, I nearly went to pieces. I’m sorry. If you would just bear with me for a moment.”

  “Certainly. Take your time. Would you like a drink?”

  She shook her head quickly, as if she had a bad taste in her mouth. Feathers of red hair, tidily pinned back, began to drift across her face. She brushed them back, sighed, then changed her mind.

  “Yes, I think I will. Perhaps it might help. And it is after lunch, isn’t it? Do you think I could have a whiskey sour?” she asked shyly, then leaned back in her chair, fluffed her skirt, and stared at me expectantly, as if I were her favorite bartender. She looked at me silently, smiling so sweetly that I knew I must seek whiskey sours wherever they might be.

  I had had some strange requests in my office. Husbands who wanted me to do obscene things to myself when they found out that their wives were exactly the sluts they supposed them to be. Or when they found out how expensive my services were. And wives had made their share of indecent requests too. Usually concerning my fee. They tried to take it out in trade, and sometimes became angry when they discovered I’d take it out but wouldn’t trade it for anything. Some of the ideas that hurt and angry wives had in my office were damned strange. But I’d never been asked to whip up a whiskey sour.

  “Okay,” I said, “one whiskey sour coming up.” She smiled and crossed her legs, managing to kick my desk and expose a trim thigh at the same time.

  I dialed Mahone
y’s, which is forty quick steps south of my office, and told Leo to whip up two whiskey sours in go cups and to send Simon up with them. Leo grumbled a bit, grousing about fancy drinks and my running tab, but he said he’d try to remember how to make a whiskey sour. Mahoney’s is a wino bar, and anybody who asks for anything fancier than soda with their whiskey was either a sissy or a stranger.

  “The drinks are on their way,” I said after Leo hung up on me.

  “Is that legal?” she asked, concerned.

  “Sure. This is the great American West. Where men came to get away from laws. Almost everything in this state is legal. And a lot of things that are illegal are done in spite of the law. You can order ten whiskey sours in go cups, then get into your car and fly up and down the highways at whatever speed you can call reasonable and proper. You can murder your spouse and the lover in a fit, preferably of passion, and the maximum sentence is five years, and even that is usually suspended. And it’s all legal. If you prefer gambling or drugs, which are still illegal, you can find any sort of game or machine you’d like within three blocks of my office, or buy all the drugs you want, except heroin, right on the street. So don’t worry about two little drinks coming up the street.”

  “All right,” she said. “I won’t worry. Please go ahead with your lunch.”

  As I finished the remains of the yogurt, she tried very hard to sit still and look unworried. Her hands were clasped tightly around the small purse and crammed into her lap, but her fingers kept plucking at the ragged cuticles of her thumbs. At close range she seemed more girlish, nervous and giggly, like a teenaged girl on her first date. And scatterbrained and clumsy. The sort of woman who would need help to find her clothes afterward, who would always be losing things—gloves and glasses, hairpins and ribbons—then would prance around the room, smiling coyly as she looked in all the wrong places. I thought I might like that. It had been a long time since I had been with a woman who could seem innocent and vulnerable. Not that I mind strong, self-reliant women, but most of the women I knew were so tough they could chip flint hide-scrapers with their hearts. I decided that I liked this woman. Perhaps more than I should on such short notice. Whatever her problem, I intended to console her until she discovered that there wasn’t much I could do to help her. Two drinks in the office as we discussed her problem, an early dinner at the Riverfront, martinis as we waited, brandies afterward as we watched the river flow into the setting sun, then home to my little log house by Hell-Roaring Creek to smoke a little dope and watch the long mountain dusk become night, to listen to the creek rumble in its rocky bed.