The Instant Enemy (28 page)

“You can’t prove any of this,” Mrs. Marburg said.

Her son was doubtful. He slid off the stool and tried to rush me, clumsy and almost reluctant, trotting in slow motion toward his own revolver in my hand.

I had time to decide where to shoot him. If I had liked the man I might have shot to kill. I shot him in the right leg.

He fell at his mother’s feet, clutching his knee and moaning. She didn’t reach out to touch him or comfort him. She sat looking down at him in the way I imagine the damned look down, with pity and terror only for themselves, into lower circles than their own.

The sound of the shot brought Aubrey into the house. He arrested both of them and took them in on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder.

Later I made my way through the crowds of night-blooming
young people on the Strip and climbed the stairs to my office. The basket of cold chicken, washed down with a slug of whisky, tasted better than I expected it to.

I had a second slug to fortify my nerves. Then I got Mrs. Marburg’s check out of the safe. I tore it into small pieces and tossed the yellow confetti out the window. It drifted down on the short hairs and the long hairs, the potheads and the acid heads, draft dodgers and dollar chasers, swingers and walking wounded, idiot saints, hard cases, foolish virgins.

THE BARBAROUS COAST

The beautiful, high-diving blonde had Hollywood dreams and stars in her eyes but now she seems to have disappeared without a trace. Hired by her hotheaded husband and her rummy “uncle,” Lew Archer sniffs around Malibu and finds the stink of blackmail, blood money, and murder on every pricey silk shirt. Beset by dirty cops, a bumptious boxer turned silver-screen pretty boy, and a Hollywood mogul with a dark past, Archer discovers the secret of a grisly murder that just won’t stay hidden.

Crime Fiction/978-0-307-27903-3

THE BLUE HAMMER

Finding a purloined portrait of a leggy blonde was supposed to be an easy paycheck for Archer, but that was before the bodies started piling up. Suddenly, Archer finds himself smack in the middle of a decades-long mystery of a brilliant artist who walked into the desert and simply disappeared. He left behind a bevy of muses, molls, dolls, and dames—each one scrambling for what they thought was rightfully theirs.

Crime Fiction/978-0-307-27906-4

THE ZEBRA-STRIPED HEARSE

Strictly speaking, Lew is only supposed to dig up the dirt on a rich man’s suspicious soon-to-be son-in-law. But in no time at all Ross Macdonald’s private eye is following a trail of corpses from the citrus belt to Mazatlán. And then there is the zebra-striped hearse and its crew of beautiful, sunburned surfers, whose path seems to keep crossing the son-in-law’s—and Archer’s.

Crime Fiction/978-0-375-70145-0

THE DOOMSTERS

Hired by Carl Hallman, the desperate-eyed junkie scion of an obscenely wealthy political dynasty, detective Lew Archer investigates the suspicious deaths of Hallman’s parents, Senator Hallman and his wife, Alicia. Arriving in the sleepy town of Purissima, Archer discovers that orange groves may be where the Hallmans made their mint but they’ve been investing heavily in political intimidation and police brutality to shore up their rancid riches. However, after years of dastardly double-crossing and low down dirty dealing, the family seems to be on the receiving end of a karmic death blow. With two already dead and another consigned to the nuthouse, Archer races to crack the secret before another Hallman lands on the slab.

Crime Fiction/978-0-307-27904-0

THE MOVING TARGET

Like many Southern California millionaires, Ralph Sampson keeps odd company. There’s the sun-worshipping holy man whom Sampson once gave his very own mountain; the fading actress with sidelines in astrology and S&M. Now one of Sampson’s friends may have arranged his kidnapping. And Archer follows the clues from the canyon sanctuaries of the megarich to jazz joints where you can get beaten up between sets.

Crime Fiction/978-0-375-70146-7

THE GALTON CASE

Almost twenty years have passed since Anthony Galton disappeared, along with his suspiciously streetwise bride and several thousand dollars of his family’s fortune. Now Anthony’s mother wants him back and has hired Lew Archer to find him. What turns up is a headless skeleton, a boy who claims to be Galton’s son, and a con game whose stakes are so high that someone is willing to kill for them.

Crime Fiction/978-0-679-76864-7

THE DROWNING POOL

When a millionaire matriarch is found floating face down in the family pool, the prime suspects are her good-for-nothing son and his seductive teenage daughter. Archer takes this case in the L.A. suburbs and encounters a moral wasteland of corporate greed and family hatred—and sufficient motive for a dozen murders.

Crime Fiction/978-0-679-76806-7

THE WYCHERLY WOMAN

Phoebe Wycherly was missing two months before her wealthy father hired Archer to find her. That was plenty of time for a young girl who wanted to disappear to do so thoroughly—or for someone to
make
her disappear. And before he could locate the Wycherly girl, Archer had to reckon with the Wycherly woman, Phoebe’s mother, an eerily unmaternal blonde who kept too many residences, had too many secrets, and left too many corpses in her wake.

Crime Fiction/978-0-375-70144-3

ALSO AVAILABLE:
Black Money
, 978-0-679-76810-4
The Chill
, 978-0-679-76807-4
The Far Side of the Dollar
, 978-0-679-76865-4
Find a Victim
, 978-0-375-70867-1
The Goodbye Look
, 978-0-375-70865-7
The Ivory Grin
, 978-0-307-27899-9
Sleeping Beauty
, 978-0-375-70866-4
The Underground Man
, 978-0-679-76808-1
The Way Some People Die
, 978-0-307-27898-2

VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD
Available at your local bookstore, or visit
www.randomhouse.com
.