Six.
SHE MANAGED to switch it to earlier arrangements on Wednesday. By noon, in a gray February world, we had come down through snow flurries to land at Albany, and had taken off again. When the snow ended the sky was a luminous gray. I looked down at the winter calligraphy of upstate New York, white fields marked off by the black woodlots, an etching without color, superbly restful in contrast to the smoky, guttering, grinding stink of the airplane clattering across the sky like an old commuter bus.
Dana seemed pensive. She had tilted her window seat and had her face turned toward the window, and I could not tell whether her eyes were open or closed. I looked at her still hands resting in her lap, against the nubbly fabric of her suit skirt. You look at hands long enough, you can turn them into animal paws. Her hands were a little larger than perhaps they should have been, the fingers very long and firm, the nails oval, quite narrow, convex. The pads of fingers and palm were heavy. The backs of her hands were very smooth and youthful. You look at hands as animal paws, and you think of the animal aspects of the human, and suddenly you are back on that Pacific terrace, seeing that final and most dangerous form of gluttony.
Perhaps, I thought, the most absolute way of categorizing people is by what they are capable of, and what they are not capable of. Temptation does not deliver most of us into evil, because temptation is a constant and evil is a sometime thing with most of us.
So far I had seen only two people whose pattern of life had led, almost implacably, toward that terrace. One of them had been on exhibition all her adult life, driven by restless greed, emotional instability, a desire to be noticed. Her artificiality had made this just another act, not particularly real to her while it was happening. The younger one had become food for Jack London"s Noseless One long before Abelle and the M"Gruders led her onto that terrace. It, like Mexico, like the tour with Sonny Catton, was just another part of the self destruction.
I would never talk to Catton. Perhaps it had not mattered a d.a.m.n to him one way or the other. For the soul to be offended it must first exist. Perhaps to snake-mean Sonny, broads were broads were broads, and if they came in a bundle instead of in separate rooms, he could not care less. He had brought one along and discarded it for one that suited him better. Perhaps for him it was like an exchange counter.
I could not be Sonny. I had the old illusions, including the one that maybe I might be gaining a little bit, just a very d.a.m.n little bit, in wisdom as my time went by. And wisdom says there are no valuable goods on the bargain counter. Wisdom says the only values are the ones you place on yourself. And I have locked myself into this precarious role of the clown-knight in the tomato-can armor, flailing away at indifferent beasts with my tinfoil sword. A foible of the knight, even the comic ones, is the cherishing of women, and perhaps even my brand of cherishing is quaint in this time and place.
Though I have faltered from time to time, I do want the relationship, if it does be come intimate, to rest solidly on trust, affecton, respect. Not just for taking, or scoring, or using, or proving anything. That knocks out group adventures right there. Not for recreation, not for health rationalizations, not for sociologically constructive contacts. But because she is a woman, and valuable. And you are a man, and equally valuable. There are more than enough girls and boys around. Break down, McGee. Say it. Okay, for love and love alone.
They are people, G.o.ddam it, not pneumatic, hydraulic, terrace toys. Not necessarily Heloise and Abelard, Romeo and Miss Capulet, or even Nappi and Joe. But just a crumb of some kind of love there, lad. Love that makes her sweet to hold, warm to murmur to, after there"s no more fireworks left in the park. And you can"t do that with a terrace toy.
Dana rolled her head toward me and smiled and said, "I was almost asleep." She put a fist against her yawn. "You know, when you are thinking of something and then it all turns crazy and then it turns real again, and you know a dream got mixed into it."
"Tell me the crazy part."
"It"s just plain dull, Trav, really. I was wondering if the car would be there as I ordered, and then suddenly I was remembering the last time you and I wanted a car-we didn"t ever, of course-and we walked out and got into it and it didn"t have any wheels. You were furious and you kept saying they always did that to us. And I was thinking that this time I would look for the wheels before signing the slip, and suddenly I realized how nutty that was. I suppose some psychiatrist would have a ball with that."
"I suppose he"d say you were realizing I can"t get anyplace with you."
I said it off the top of my mind. She looked at me for another moment and then said, too casually, "I guess you could make it mean almost anything." She turned her face away again, and I saw the redness climb her throat and up her cheek, suffuse her forehead and slowly die away.
It had been too logical a guess, and she had for a moment accepted it, and then taken the next step of translating what it meant to dream that this time she"d look for the wheels before signing the slip. I realized I had innocently created the sort of awareness which would keep her doubly on guard against any kind of emotional involvement with me, no matter how minor.
She arranged the car while I claimed the luggage. When she got in beside me, she had a marked map in her hand. She showed it to me and said, "Just the general idea. I"ll call the turns." A most valuable gal.
"Food?" I asked.
"Woops," she said, and scrambled out and hustled back into the terminal. She came out with new marks on the map, and we went a few blocks out of our way into North Utica into one of those Italian-Tourist-Close-to-Motels enterprises called the Diplomat. It wasn"t going to excite any farflung gourmet exclamations, but the shots of anti-freeze were excellent protection against the 35-degree afternoon, the lowering sky, the chill moistness of the air. Hot Italian sausage with spaghetti al dente was a similar precaution.
You know how it is. You wonder. We had drifted into a silence not entirely comfortable. I hadn"t seen much lift or life in her. If we were going to spend a lot of time together, it could become a drag. So you wonder, and you think something up. When you say it, you more than half expect a totally blank look and some kind of query like, for example, "Hah! What"s that?"
So when she just started to wind a fork of spaghetti, I said to her, "By G.o.d, Myra, I bet you forgot to turn the thermostat down."
Her fork clattered on the plate and she said instantly, "I forget to turn it down? Frank, dear, it was on your list. Remember?"
"Of course it was on my list. I reminded you and crossed it off."
"I"d think that once, just once, you could... What was it set for?"
"Seventy-five. What else? Sixty-eight is enough for normal people. You have to have seventy-five."
"Oh G.o.d, all that lovely oil. Darling, maybe we could phone the Hollisbankers."
"So how do they get in?"
She hesitated a moment. "I have it! With Helen"s figure, Fred could slip her under the door."
I broke up. A clear victory for her side. You never know until you try. We laughed like a pair of idiots, and then her very next chuckle turned into a strangled howling sob and she jumped up and fled for the ladies" room, nearby lunch customers staring at her and me. She had finished most of her lunch. I finished mine. I would say she was gone a good ten minutes.
When she came out her color was not good. Her fine eyes were red-rimmed. She slipped meekly into her chair. She told the waitress she was finished. Just coffee, please. "I"m sorry" she said to me. "I didn"t expect that. It got a little too close. All of a sudden. I"m sorry, it was just a little too much like... another game I used to play. Don"t look so concerned. It wasn"t your fault."
"I won"t try it again."
"That"s probably better."
The coffee came. The silence was laborious. As we were getting ready to leave, she suddenly gave me a strained and vivid smile and reached a trembling hand across to touch my wrist and said, "Darling, did you remember to mail the cards to Mom and Sis?"
"I mailed them. Your mother got the one of the bucks with their horns locked."
She pursed her lips for a moment, and I knew she was thinking how to cue me so I could win. "I wonder if Mom will think there"s some kind of symbolism there, dear, and get upset or anything."
"Baby, fighting over dough is the thing she does best."
She laughed. Acknowledgment of defeat. Bad jokes win. Her eyes glistened, but she laughed. I was proud of her for coming through, but I could not help feeling guilty too. She had her adjustment, her acceptance. It wasn"t fair to stir her up. It wasn"t fair to her for me to want to see her lift a bit, to see what she looked like behind the iron control. Two games had set a pattern. We were Myra and Frank. If I tried another round, she would feel obligated. So I would leave it up to her to start the next one. And she would know I was leaving it up to her and why. That was the funny thing about us, back in the beginning. I had the absolute confidence in her knowing what I was thinking.
We went north up Route 8 into the hills. We went through a village named Poland. It looked like a Christmas card. The roads were dry, the snow banked high. It was the sort of town that you do not particularly want to live in, but wish you had come from. It looked like a very good place to be from.
Further up into the Adirondack Forest Preserve, the air was clearer and colder. The heater in the little sedan was comforting. Winding road, winter lakes, blackness of the evergreens against snow, tree-stubbled hills like the hump backs of old browsing beasts, eating away at eternity. At least we had changed the quality of our silences. Or that lovely land had changed it.
Speculator, at almost four in the afternoon, was about the size of Poland, but with about one-fifth the charm. Progress had begun to clomp down its main drag, whanging at a tin drum, sending off little cl.u.s.ters of neon.
The ski kids were roaming the area, hooting their rut cries at each other, speckling the snow banks with their bright empty beer cans. I parked in front of a big supermarket-type general store called Chas Johns, where all the fluorescence was on in the gray dullness of the overcast afternoon, and Dana called from an outdoor phone booth. She was back in a few moments and said, "They say he went down to Gloversville to pick up a railway express shipment of skis or something, and they expect him back at six."
"So, accommodations I guess. I want a chance to measure him a little, get the right time and place to break him open."
"Remember, he"ll recognize me."
"I know. And I may need you for the finale, after he"s gone soft. We"ll see."
"It"s strange. You make him sound like a locked box."
"That"s what they are, Dana. And usually somebody skimped on the design. Bad welds and a dime-store lock."
There was a small and relatively new motel jammed into almost the center of town at a strange angle. I made a try. The gentleman in command said he had one twin-bed room only because he had a cancellation, and he could let it go for one night only, because he was reserved from Thursday right through the week end, and so was everybody else. It was good snow and a good forecast, and it looked like one of the big weeks of the season.
I went back out and got in behind the wheel and said, "Dana, I can"t help how this sounds, believe me. It"s a high-school routine all the way. You can go in and ask him." I told her what I"d learned, and said, "Suppose I take it and you drive back down to Utica and stay there and come on back out in the morning."
She hesitated for four seconds and then said, "if you"d just do something about that horrible snoring, see a doctor, anything, then we wouldn"t have to go through this all the time!"
"Myra, I freely admit I do breathe a little heavy."
"A little heavy! When you get going, the neighbors run out into the night screaming "Lion, Lion"."
"Only when I get over onto my back, dear."
"Then you have a back on both sides. Anyway, dear, I"ll sleep so well in this mountain air, I don"t think you"ll bother me tonight. But do try to hold it down to a dull roar."
"You act as if I enjoyed it."
"Because, my pet, you sound as if you were enjoying it."
A car came in and I was afraid we would lose the room if we waited the game out, so I went in and signed us in as T. McGee and wife. The two three-quarter beds seemed to crowd the room. We did a lot of polite walking around each other, getting organized. An electric wall heater kept the room reasonably comfortable. With one quick trip to the ice machine, and with a considerable magic, she materialized a squat broad silver cup, the right amount of gin on ice, the two drops of bitters.
"The celebrity treatment?" I said ungraciously.
"I wouldn"t want to get out of practice."
"Well... thanks. It"s fine."
"You are so welcome, Travis."
We decided it would be best to leave her right there while I took the first little prod at Carl Abelle. The Mohawk Lodge was seven or eight miles out Indian Lake Road, over some impressively hilly highway. The grounds were aglare with floodlights against snow. The establishment was garishly new, pale varnished pine, A-frames, Swiss-kwaint gables. The sign advertised three tows, eight downhill runs, instruction, beginners" slope, Icelandic bathhouse, prime steaks, c.o.c.ktails. The whole place was noisy, bursting at the seams, with much coming and going and giggling and hooting.
I worked my way into what seemed to be the main lounge. An ox could have been roasted on a spit in the fieldstone fireplace. The ceiling was low, beams huge. There were a lot of overstuffed couches and chairs, and deep rugs underfoot. There seemed to be a great number of young people sprawled on the floor. I saw several legs in casts, arms in slings. Sweating waiters brought drinks from a corner bar, stepping over and around the people, grimly ignoring the shouts for service. A big stereo juke made loud Beatle-music, and some snow bunnies were energetically trying to revive the Twist, wearing their indoor-fireside-snuggle-pants rather than their outdoor togs.
I angled toward a waiter and stuffed a bill in his shirt pocket. It bought me four seconds of attention. "Carl Abelle," I asked.
He pointed with his head, and said, "Red jacket."
Abelle was leaning against a paneled wall. He wore a red blazer with an Olympic pocket patch, silver b.u.t.tons, a white silk ascot. He stood with his head bowed, a dainty little snow bunny in each arm. One of them was talking directly into his ear. She writhed and she worked her face in the curious manner of many women telling a dirty joke. I held off until she had made her point. Silvery glissandos from the girls. A hohoho from Abelle. I moved in and the three of them looked up at me with the polite glaze the ingroupers give the outsider. I wasn"t wearing the garments.
The girls looked very young, and the out-of-doors had given them both a lovely healthy flush. But their eyes looked wise and old. Carl looked magnificent. The bronzed blond hero, white of tooth, clear of eye. But somehow it all looked like makeup. And in spite of the tailoring, he seemed to be getting a little thick around the middle.
"Abelle?"
"Yesss?"
"I bring you a message from friends."
"Zo?"
"From Ca.s.s. From Vance and Patty. From Lee and Sonny and Whippy and Nancy and the whole gang."
"I know zose people?"
"Yes, you know zose people." I didn"t say any more. I let him hang there. He added them up. He wasn"t very good at it. His face got sulky and wary.
"Oho," he said. "Would you mean Miss Abbott? And the M"Gruders?"
"And the Cornell boys too."
"Giff them all my best regards, ya?"
"That wasn"t exactly the message, Carl."
"Zo?"
"If we could take a two-minute walk."
He hugged the bunnies, whispered to them, sent them off toward the fireplace with an identical little stroke at each upholstered little behind.
"Now we can talk here, Mister...?"
"It"s something in the car I want to show you."
"Bring it in."
"I"m sorry. I have to follow Miss Dean"s instructions."
He gained a little confidence. "Zo, you work for her. A very lovely little lady, ya?"
"She sends her very special regards."
He puffed up very nicely. But then he remembered the names I had given him. He was riot intellectualizing anything. He merely had the animal"s awareness of something not quite right. "What could that dear woman send me you could not bring in?"
I winked at him most solemnly. "Herself."
He puffed up and he glowed. "Of courze!" He nudged me. "I understand."
"She isn"t exactly waiting out in the car, you mderstand. She"s at a private lodge down by the lake. She heard you were here. She said it was a very pleasant surprise. She"s staying with old friends. Incognito."
"She sent you to bring me there?"
"On impulse. You understand."
"Oh, of courze!"
"Shall we go?"
He nibbled at his mouth, an Airedale frown between the hero brows. "I must come back later. Social obligations here. But yes, it would be rude not to come at once."
We went out to the rental car. His red blazer was handsome in the floodlights, between the snow banks. He strutted. There was a Teutonic wrinkle across the back of his neck. Maybe it had grown there in response to the faked accent. I had two inches in height, and he had at least fifteen pounds in weight. I couldn"t risk taking any sporting chance with him. He might know how.
I hurried past him and opened the car door for him. He accepted it with regal satisfaction. As he started to bend to duck into the car, I screwed my feet firmly into the packed snow, pivoted very smartly, and with the best right hook I have, made a very good attempt to drive that middle silver b.u.t.ton of the jacket right through to his backbone.
These little melodramas always make me feel like a jacka.s.s. But you must do them briskly. A sudden, merciless, ugly violence is the great leveler. Men revert to childhood. The night is full of spooks and ghosties, and they are reminded of death. A man whipped in a fair fight retains stubborn remnants of pride and honor. A man rendered helpless without warning is much more suggestible. With a great ga.s.sy belch, he doubled. With hands clasped together, I chopped down against the back of his neck off to one side, just below the mastoid bone. As he crumpled, I body-blocked him into the car, kicked his dangling legs inside and slammed the door. I imagine it took about three and a half seconds.
I got behind the wheel. He was edged partially under the dash. His relaxation was total. I could hear him snore. A few hundred yards down the highway I pulled over, hauled him onto the seat, removed his white silk scarf and tied his wrists together with it. I tied them together in crossed position, under his husky thighs. He toppled over against the door and moaned. Pathos in silver b.u.t.tons.