The Colonel

by Beau North

  I can’t. He snatched the untouched corner of the photo and pulled it out, shaking the flames out. His fingertips singed, bringing fast tears to his eyes. He looked down at what was left. Part of the boardwalk. A leg. The hand holding the photo.

  “You ruin everything, don’t you?” he said aloud, with only the crackling fire and rain pelting against the window for an answer.

  March 11, 1950

  7th Precinct Headquarters

  New York City

  Richard shifted on the hard, wooden bench, a hiss escaping from between clenched teeth as he did. Imagining the self-flagellating letters he’d send to Evie certainly wasn’t helping. The pain in his jaw was nothing to the wrenching agony of his left shoulder. He must have pulled something when he fell off the ladder. Someone sitting across from him saw him wince and laughed. Richard ignored them. He was hung over and bone-tired, feeling like a dishrag that had been squeezed a little too hard. He closed his eyes in an effort to shut out his surroundings, but his ears couldn’t block the mutters and taunts of his fellow miscreants nor could his nose not smell the stench arising from the commode in the corner.

  Somewhere, a door opened and footsteps clicked against the tile floor with quick, sure purpose. He opened his eyes to see the cop who’d filled out his paperwork, a trim young officer in a spotless uniform. His pale, freckled skin and shock of red hair gave him away as Irish. What a cliché. Howdy Doody with a badge. The brass name tag on his breast read, “Kelly.”

  “Fitzwilliam.” He stood there waiting, looking straight ahead. Slowly, painfully, Richard got to his feet and approached the bars.

  “Present.”

  “Your bail’s been posted. Step away from the bars, sir.”

  The man unlocked the cell with a key and stepped aside. The unbearable tension Richard felt ever since he’d been shoved in the back of the patrol car eased somewhat as he passed through the opening. Kelly shut the cell behind him, ignoring the taunts and grumbles of the other men.

  “My thanks for your hospitality, dubious as it was.”

  Kelly threw him a withering glare as he opened another door that led into the corridor. Beyond that was the station proper―and outside and home. Richard wanted to crawl into his bed and never leave.

  “My apologies for the lack of turndown service,” Kelly said. “The maid had the day off.”

  Richard rolled his eyes and followed the man into another small room that held a desk laden with stacks of papers, a telephone, and a typewriter that had seen better days. On the other side of the desk, looking like she just stepped out of an issue of Look magazine, sat Anne. She stood, taking his face in her gloved hands.

  “Richard! Are you all right? Your face!”

  She turned to glare at Kelly. “Why wasn’t he given ice for this? He needs medical attention.”

  The officer stared at her a long moment, his expression inscrutable.

  “Well?” she asked sharply, making color rise to the other man’s cheeks. Richard would have laughed if he didn’t know it would hurt like the blazes.

  “It’s worse than it looks, Annie,” he said, trying to placate.

  She cast him a scornful look. “I’m sure it’s no less than you deserved.”

  “We found him like this. Luckily caught the tail end of this beating or it could have been a lot worse.”

  Anne dropped her hands from his face and crossed her arms across her chest. “Who did this?”

  The officer frowned absently. “Angry husband. He came home early and found your husband―”

  “Cousin,” Anne corrected. “He’s my cousin. God help me if my standards ever dropped this low.”

  “Cousin, then.” Officer Kelly nodded. “Said angry husband found him making merry with his missus.”

  “Thank you, officer,” Anne said abruptly, halting any further details.

  “Sergeant,” Kelly corrected. Anne inclined her head, a gesture Richard recognized as her mother’s.

  Kelly handed Anne a paper sack. “His personal effects.”

  “Thank you, for all you’ve done for him.”

  “Ma’am. I was wondering…”

  “Careful, sergeant,” Richard drawled despite his swollen face. “She’s spoken for.”

  Kelly frowned at Richard. “Mrs. Mulligan was spoken for, but that didn’t seem to stop you.”

  That time Richard did laugh, wincing in pain. “And clearly mine is an example to live by.”

  “You got the tar beat out of you and rightfully so,” Anne said acidly. She turned back to Kelly. “Was there anything else, Sergeant Kelly?”

  “No, ma’am.” He turned to leave but stopped to look back at Richard. “Clean yourself up, Mr. Fitzwilliam. Next time you might not be so lucky.” And with that he left.

  Richard tried to laugh as the door clicked shut behind Kelly but found he just couldn’t. His ribs hurt; his face was a throbbing mess. His tongue was beginning to worry at a spot in the back of his mouth where he’d lost a tooth.

  Instead he looked at Anne, still standing there with her arms crossed over her chest, looking up at the ceiling. Finally she turned and left, leaving him to follow. It was a tense, silent taxi ride back to the house in Gramercy Park. He sensed the explosion to come and could only be grateful when they arrived home to find Charlotte elsewhere. His cautious eyes watched Anne moving about the house in silent, jerky gestures, her jaw clenched.

  “He likes you,” he managed to say, meaning Kelly. “That flatfoot.” He hoped to lighten the mood or break the tension. Anne’s shoulders only seemed to tighten.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “He does! Why shouldn’t he? You’re a Fitzwilliam. We’re not an ugly tribe.”

  “Well, you’ve looked better.”

  “Bah. Even at my worst I’m still ahead of the game.”

  Anne sighed. “Maybe that’s our problem. The family curse. We get our way too often. Or at least you do.”

  Richard scowled, the animal inside him waking up, and waking up hungry.

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  Anne crushed the paper sack against his chest. He could feel his keys, wallet, and watch all pressing into this shirt through the thin paper.

  “You’re unbelievable. I’d call you a bastard if you weren’t the spitting image of your father. I mean, really! All this pissing and moaning because things didn’t work out with the one girl you managed to fall for? Meanwhile you’re a wealthy white man who can go anywhere and do anything he pleases.”

  “Don’t hold back, Annie. Tell me what you really feel.”

  “All right! You’re a selfish, self-absorbed child. All those years spent obsessing over Elizabeth, while I was rotting away with mother. You couldn’t get your brain out of your pants long enough to think that maybe I could have helped you?” Her voice cracked. “Did you ever once think that maybe I was dying there? Slowly suffocating?”

  Richard fell silent. Shame, hot and sickly, filled his belly. Nothing she said rang false.

  “Anne, I’m sorry.”

  She wiped at her face with her fingertips. “You should be.”

  “But, if he’d taken you, where would I be?” a voice asked from the door. They turned to see Charlotte, holding her hat in her hands.

  Anne fell silent. Charlotte sniffed, tossing her hat onto a nearby chair. “You two, I swear. No idea how good you both had it. I handed my freedom from one tyrant to another before I could come here, start a new life in this confusing, terrifying, wonderful city…and all you two can do is live in the past.”

  “Ducks, I—” Anne started toward her, hands outstretched.

  “Oh no you don’t.” Charlotte held her hand up in a warding-off gesture. “I haven’t been allowed to speak my mind for twenty-eight years. I won’t have you silencing me too.”

  She turned to Richard. “I hate to interrupt your lost weekend, but you must stop trying to annihilate yourself with women and drink. Elizabeth wouldn’t want it, and neither do I. To tell the truth, I’m
fond of you, Dickie. Don’t make me question my decision making any more than I already do.”

  He recoiled as if slapped, but if Charlotte noticed this reaction she didn’t remark on it. She only turned to Anne; her anger noticeably hotter.

  “And you. Stop being so damned hard on him all the time. I know you spent your adult life thinking you were penniless and chained to your mother, but good lord, Anne, most of us are! Pull your head out of your backside from time to time and try to remember that.”

  “Charlotte, I’m sorry.”

  “I know you are. I know neither of you would ever intentionally be cruel or unkind to me or to each other. But I swear, if I have to listen to your squabbling and sniping anymore, I’m going to put nails through my ears.”

  Richard came forward, putting one arm around Charlotte and the other he placed gingerly around Anne’s shoulders. It still hurt like the devil, but he pulled both women to his chest. He planted a kiss on the crown of Charlotte’s hair. Even with the pain in his body, he felt his spirits lift. It felt good to be loved, even when that love came from unexpected places.

  “Forgive me, both of you. I’ve been an ass.”

  Anne’s arm went around his waist and returned his embrace.

  “You smell like one too,” Charlotte choked out.

  He laughed. It hurt but it felt better than he’d felt in months.

  “I’m going to go clean myself up then,” he said, releasing them, but keeping Charlotte’s hand in his. “And I’m going to be better.”

  She nodded and patted his face.

  He started for the door, stopped, and turned back. “One other thing. Please don’t call me Dickie.”

  Charlotte laughed and then nodded. “Dick then?”

  “God, no. If you have to call me anything, call me Fitz. I got used to it in the army.”

  “All right then, Dick.”

  15

  May 22, 1950

  Betty Parsons Gallery

  New York City

  “What do you think?” Anne leaned in close to ask him. Richard shrugged. What he wanted to say was that all the canvases were to him just blobs of color against the stark white walls.

  “I’m not sure I understand it,” he said noncommittally.

  Anne huffed and looked at Charlotte. “He’s hopeless.”

  Charlotte smiled indulgently at Anne. “I know what you mean,” she said kindly to Richard. “But I don’t think it’s so much about understanding it here”―she tapped a finger against her temple―“as what it makes you feel. Does it evoke a particular mood?”

  Richard looked at the painting again. Three indistinct sections of color stood out vividly in shades of blues and yellow. It reminded him of the sun sparkling on the ocean, which made him think of Charleston.

  “It evokes a mood, all right,” he grumbled, taking another sip of the drink in his hand. There you go. You almost made it twenty-four hours without thinking about it. You deserve a drink, old man.

  Charlotte nodded, understanding. “Not all art makes us feel pleasant. Good art seems to have an edge of uncertainty about it.”

  Richard smiled and gave her arm an affectionate squeeze. “I think you’ve taken to New York like a duck takes to water, Charlotte.”

  Charlotte chuckled softly. “Yes, who would have thought?”

  In the months that the three of them had been occupying the Fitzwilliam townhouse, he’d come to enjoy the quiet, calming presence of Anne’s beloved. At first, there had been some awkwardness with Charlotte’s discomfort being around a strange man after everything she had suffered at her husband’s hands. Once she became less skittish being around him, there was further anxiety over what, or rather who, she could talk about. Charlotte quickly guessed the reason why Richard became agitated and left the room every time she mentioned her oldest and dearest friend.

  Anne said something to Charlotte that he couldn’t hear, and they shared a little laugh. Richard didn’t pay them much attention, something in the corner of the room caught his eye.

  Her dark hair was pinned away from her face. The lines of her profile and her short, slender frame was shockingly familiar. His heart lurched in his chest. She turned as if feeling his eyes on her, and the illusion was shattered. Her eyes were a light hazel-brown, not Elizabeth’s inky black. Her lips were fuller, a mole rested on her cheekbone just under her left eye. Her eyes lit with interest as she looked him up and down. She leaned over and spoke to a man she was with―a large, rough-looking man with a pronounced slouch whose pressed suit didn’t quite mesh with his hulking presence. He glared at Richard.

  “We may need to leave in a hurry,” Richard said to Anne and Charlotte. The burly man turned and looked at their group. Richard swallowed. Anne followed the direction of his gaze. Richard caught the brief, knowing looking she exchanged with Charlotte. The one that screamed “what the hell has he done this time?” All three of them were surprised when the couple approached them.

  “May we join you?” the young woman asked. The man, Richard noticed, had surprisingly gentle eyes.

  “Please do,” Anne spoke for them.

  The girl smiled and introduced them. “I'm Abigail Huntington-Whitney. This is Joe.”

  They all shook hands. Joe’s handshake was firm, but Richard felt the massive strength the giant was holding back.

  “I’m Richard Fitzwilliam. This is my friend, Charlotte, my cousin Anne DeBourgh.”

  Abigail’s eyes widened slightly. “Not the Gramercy Park Fitzwilliams?”

  “The very same,” Richard said. “Have we met before?”

  Abigail and Joe exchanged identically sly smiles. “You don’t read Page Six, I take it. You have been naughty.”

  Richard grinned. “Only most of it is true.”

  A man with a tray brought glasses of bubbling champagne. Richard took one for himself and handed one to Abigail. He noticed her fingernails were long, pointed, and painted fire-engine red.

  “Wealthy bachelors are the only language my mother speaks,” she continued. “Mother was in despair to hear that your cousin Darcy married, though word is he married a singer so no one expects it will last. Everyone knows musicians are all mad as snakes.”

  Richard, Charlotte, and Anne all turned varying shades of red. “Your mother will have to be disappointed, I’m afraid,” Charlotte said politely. “Lizzie is very committed to Mr. Darcy.”

  “Indeed she is,” Richard agreed under his breath.

  “Oh good grief!” Abigail slapped her forehead. “Of course you’d know her! I’m a terrible gossip, forever putting my foot in my mouth.”

  “Think nothing of it,” Anne said with all diplomacy. She turned to the hulking man next to her.

  “And what do you do, Joe?"

  Abigail tittered. “Oh, Joe is my shadow. I don’t go anywhere without him. Daddy’s orders. Joe’s a queer. As flitty as they come, so he’s the only one Daddy trusts to watch me.”

  Richard, Charlotte, and Anne all nodded uncomfortably. For himself, Richard didn’t think he’d ever met anyone with such foolish bad manners. Surprisingly, he rather liked the way she talked. He was on edge wondering what awful thing was going to fall out of her mouth next. Joe didn’t seem to be upset by Abigail’s thoughtlessness; he just continued looking at them with careful eyes.

  “Who does Joe guard you from?” Richard asked.

  Abigail gave him a sly grin. “Only who I tell him to.”

  “It’s a home run and win for the New York Yankees!” Richard stood and cheered at the radio, not minding that his drink sloshed all over his hand and trousers. He was a DiMaggio man through and through, but there was no denying this Mantle kid was the real deal. The doorbell buzzed, and he heard Anne’s voice float down from upstairs.

  “Richie, can you get that?”

  “Yeah,” he called back, shaking the spilled gin from his fingers as he made his way to the marble-tiled vestibule, swinging open the heavy, arched door.

  “What the hell do you want?”
<
br />   He was out of uniform, but there was no mistaking the bright flame of his red hair. Sergeant Kelly’s eyes narrowed on the drink in Richard’s hand.

  “Mr. Fitzwilliam.”

  “I didn’t call for the boys in blue,” Richard said, leaning against the door frame. “Are you here taking donations?”

  “I’m here to see Miss DeBourgh,” Kelly snapped.

  “Is she expecting you?”

  “Richie, it’s all right,” Anne said behind him.

  “No, Annie, you have to be careful these days. You can’t just let anyone into your home.”

  “Richie, I invited him. Come in, Patrick.”

  Richard grinned, unmoving in the doorway. Kelly sidled past him.

  “An Irish cop named Patrick Kelly. Would your middle name happen to be Sean? No, let me guess…Brian.”

  “Ignore him,” Anne said, rolling her eyes. “I’ll take your hat and coat. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “No, thank you, miss.”

  “Anne, please.”

  “Anne.”

  Richard watched this exchange with cooling amusement. He shut the door and took Anne by the elbow.

  “Excuse us for a second, Jake. I need to speak to my cousin privately.”

  Anne cast an apologetic look at Kelly. “I’m sorry, Patrick. I’ll be right back.”

  Richard didn’t miss the way the officer’s face softened when Anne addressed him, the way his bright blue eyes followed her as Richard pulled her into the next room.

  “What the hell are you doing, Annie?”

  “Why are you being so rude?” she whispered back.

  “Because I’m supposed to protect the two of you, remember? You know this city has laws against…”

  “I know that!” Anne said. “He doesn’t need to know that.”

  “Anne, why is he here?”

  She shrugged. “I want to paint him.”

  He blinked back his mute surprise. “Paint him?”

  She shrugged. “I…I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since that day I came to pick you up. I’ve taken him to lunch a few times, and he’s already let me sketch him.”