by Ed McBain
“Sam,” she says, “which one of them are you sleeping with?”
“Neither.”
“Or both,” Abby says.
“Neither.”
I can tell this woman I am about to blow up a railroad bridge, but I cannot tell her I am sleeping with a twenty-one-year-old law student named Sara Horne. This I cannot tell her, for it would destroy her as readily as Weglowski’s charges will destroy the trestle.
“Then who are they?”
“Hester is the one who hired me. Hester Pratt. She teaches English here at the university. Sara Horne is recording secretary for the group. I’ve been in constant touch with both of them since I arrived.”
“When did you get here?”
“Early Monday.”
“Where were you before then?”
“What do you mean?”
“You left New York after work on Thurs …”
“I spent three days in Los Angeles. Researching tractor companies.”
“Sam, I find all this spy stuff ridiculous.”
“I’m not enjoying it too terribly much myself.”
“Then come home.” She stops again. She has an annoying habit of stopping dead on the sidewalk whenever she wishes to make a point, so that sometimes I am caught in mid-stride, a step or two ahead of her. I have never liked this about her. She usually does it when we are having a heated argument. It always makes me feel foolish and observed. I do not mind feeling foolish right now, but the one thing I do not want is to be observed.
“Keep walking, Abby,” I say, and there is a harsh edge to my voice. She hesitates only a moment and then falls into step beside me. “Don’t do that again,” I warn her. “If you do, I’ll leave you standing here. Do you understand me?”
“Secret Agent X-9,” she mutters, but I know she will not repeat the action.
The street lights come on.
(Was it only last Thursday that Sara discovered street lights coming on?)
“Why are you doing this?” Abby asks.
“Because Adam is dead.”
“Adam was a fool. And so are you.”
“Abby …”
“Adam was a fool. He could have stayed in college and had his student deferment. No. He had to prove something. So what did he prove?”
“He proved he was willing to …”
“To die.”
“No. To take a stand for what he believed was right.”
“Oh. And what did he believe was right? That he should be drafted?”
“Damn you, Abby, you know that’s not what he believed!”
“He believed in magic and nonsense. He believed in you!”
“Me? What …?”
“He believed that you, by defending those Baltimore draft dodgers and later Hoffstadter, who deserved to be hanged if ever anyone …”
“Hoffstadter was trying to prove something!”
“Yes, just the way Adam was trying to prove something, just the way you’re trying to prove something now. What the hell are men always trying to prove? Why don’t they come home, and make love, and shut up? What are they always trying to prove, for Christ’s sake? That they’re men? All right, already, we believe you. You convinced Adam you were a man, didn’t you? You convinced him you were taking a stand, you were speaking out, you were doing your share in correcting the ills of our great and beloved …”
“I was! If I hadn’t defended those kids …”
“Somebody else would have, and you know it. That isn’t the point, Sam.”
“What is the point, Abby?”
We are talking in very low voices, we are almost whispering. We are walking swiftly now past glowing shop windows, the sidewalks before them scraped clean. We have not really talked since April 26, when Adam was killed, and now we are talking rapidly and in hushed voices, as though anxious to get it all out immediately and forever, but frightened lest either of us might really hear what we are saying.
“The point is that sooner or later it had to get to Adam,” Abby says in the same low voice, as tight as a clenched fist. “Eventually Adam had to take a stand that would equal your own. He couldn’t do it by ducking out of the draft because you were too expert at defending draft dodgers; how can a boy be heroic if he knows his father may charge to the rescue? So he hit upon a brilliant variation.” She pauses and then quickly says, “Did you help him with his variation, Sam?”
“I did not.”
“Didn’t you advise him to drop out of school …?”
“No.”
“… and publicly declare he wanted the Army to draft him?”
“No.”
“He dreamt that all up himself.”
“Yes.”
“With no help from you, right? All by himself, he figured it would be news if the son of the noted lawyer who’d defended those draft dodgers suddenly dropped out of college and told the world he was ready and willing to die alongside the farm hands and factory workers who were being asked to do so every day of the week. No immunity and no favors. ‘Let the nation know,’ he told the newspapers, ‘that it is destroying all of its young men in this senseless war, not merely those it may consider expendable.’ Does that sound like Adam to you?”
“It was Adam.”
“Adam who was struggling by on a C average, Adam who never in his life was a good student, Adam who …”
“I knew nothing at all about his idea until that day at Sugarbush when he told me.”
“If that’s true, Sam …”
“It is true.”
“Then why didn’t you tell him it was a bad idea?”
“Because his mind was already made up.”
“If his mind was made up, why was he asking your advice?”
“He wasn’t. He was only telling me what he planned to do.”
“And you encouraged him.”
“I told him to do whatever he thought was right.”
“You told him to get drafted and get killed, that’s what you told him!”
“Abby, for Christ’s sake …”
“You knew he’d get attention because he was your son, Big Sam Eisler, Baltimore Five. You knew he’d be putting his head on the chopping block—little hippie bastard wants to get drafted, fine, let’s accommodate him!”
“He was about to become a man! Did you want me to cut off his balls?”
“No! I wanted you to save his life!”
“He was doing the right thing!”
“He was doing the wrong thing!”
“For himself, for his conscience …”
“The hell with his conscience! Where’s his conscience now, Sam? Dead. He proved nothing. He proved they could draft him. He proved they could kill him. That’s what he proved. And you helped him do it.”
“Abby, Abby …”
“And do you know why, Sam? Because you didn’t have the guts to do it yourself. You may have convinced Adam you were a big hero, taking a stand against the war by defending those kids, but there’s one thing he didn’t know—one thing I’ve known for a long long time. You’re a phony, Sam. You’re as phony as every other man your age in this country. You made all the goddamn mistakes, and now you’re sending your sons out to correct them. The only trouble is there won’t be any sons to inherit their mistakes. It’s the end of the line, Sam. It ends with you. Because you did nothing to stop what’s …”
“I’m doing something now.”
“Too late. He’s already dead.”
She stops in the middle of the sidewalk again. She knows I will not walk away from her. I am huddled against the fierce wind that rips in off the mountain. There are tears in my eyes.
“Sam,” she says, “come home with me. Forget all this.”
“No.”
“It’s wrong, you know it’s wrong.”
“It’s right.”
“It’s against everything you believe!”
“It’s for everything I believe.”
“Do you believe in murder?” she asks, her voice rising.
“Quiet, Abby.”
“Do you?” Her voice drops to a whisper again. “Because that’s what it is, Sam. You are going to kill a man, and that’s murder, and I don’t know how you can possibly justify it, I honestly …”
“I believe in what I’m about to do.”
“Yes, like all the others who did the same damn thing.”
“This is different.”
“How? You do this, Sam, and you’re no better than they are, you’re the same kind of animal.”
“Thank you, Abby.”
“Oh, don’t, Sam, please don’t give me that injured look. This time you know I’m right.”
“You’re always right, aren’t you, Abby?”
“And don’t turn this into a stupid argument! I’m talking about your life here!”
“Yes, Abby, that’s just the point. It’s my life.”
“I thought I was a part of it.”
“No. Not this time.”
She draws in her breath. A dull look of resignation comes into her eyes. She expels the breath. “I always knew you were angry,” she says, “but I never knew you were mad. You’re here to blow up a bridge, you tell me, you’re here to kill the man who killed your son. Do you know what I think, Sam? I think yes, you’re here to kill the man who killed your son, and I think you know who that man is, and I feel very sorry for you, I feel very goddamn sorry for you.” She turns away from me, and suddenly presses the back of her gloved hand to her mouth. “I want to go back to the hotel,” she says. “I want to pack. I think there’s a seven o’clock plane. I think I can make it if I hurry. Let’s go back. I’m cold, Sam. Let’s go back. I’m cold. I’m cold.”
We are standing outside the gate to her airplane. I have carried her valise to the gate, and now I hand it to her and she looks into my eyes and says, “I lost you both last April,” and then hesitates and says, “He was my son, too, Sam. I loved him more than breath,” and turns, and walks toward the waiting aircraft without looking back at me.
Wednesday, October 30
I have been unable to reach Sara.
I keep calling the apartment, but there is no answer, and I assume that she and Gwen are both in class. But at eleven o’clock, Gwen answers the phone and when I ask her when she expects Sara, she answers coldly, “Isn’t she with you, Mr. Sachs?”
“No, she isn’t.”
“Well then, I don’t know where she is,” Gwen says. “She hasn’t been spending much time here lately.”
“Wasn’t she there last night?”
“No, Mr. Sachs, she was not here last night,” Gwen says.
“Will you leave word that I called?”
“Yes,” she says abruptly, and hangs up.
I put on my overcoat and go down to the lobby. Ralph, the desk clerk, is just about to leave, explaining a stack of notes and messages to his relief, a young redheaded girl wearing eyeglasses with tortoise-shell rims. She glances up as I approach and then goes back to her scrutiny of the pink and yellow slips on the desk. Ralph wraps a muffler around his throat, picks up two law texts and begins to walk past me.
“Just a second,” I say.
He stops. His eyes avoid mine. “Yes, Mr. Sachs?” he says.
“Were you in class yesterday, Ralph?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you see Sara?”
“Sara?”
“Sara Horne. Do you have any classes with her?”
“I have two classes with her. Procedure and Torts.”
“Was she in either one of them yesterday?”
“She took the exam in Procedure. I didn’t see her after that,” he says. He glances at his watch. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to run.”
We go out of the hotel together. On the sidewalk outside, he seems about to hurry away, suddenly changes his mind and looks up into my face instead. He is perhaps three inches shorter than I, with straight flaxen hair tumbled now by the wind, brown eyes unblinking behind thick spectacles. He takes a deep breath and says, “Why don’t you leave Sara alone?”
I do not answer. I turn and start to walk away.
“No, wait a minute,” he says. He puts his hand on my arm, and then immediately pulls it back. He continues looking into my face. “That was your wife here yesterday, wasn’t it? Does she know you’re fooling around with Sara?” I still do not answer him. “Do you know Sara has a boyfriend in Arizona? She’s a nice girl,” he says. “Leave her alone.”
“I’ll leave her alone when she asks me to.”
“She already has,” Ralph says. “You just weren’t listening.”
He turns abruptly and walks off toward the park near Chatham Hall. I stand watching him for several moments and then turn in the opposite direction, toward Seth Wilson’s apartment on North Harrington.
Seth answers the doorbell on the fourth ring.
He is wearing only a blue flannel robe and buckle ski boots. He sees my puzzled look and says, “I’m breaking them in. Do you ski?”
“I ski.”
“You have to break them in,” he says, and shrugs.
“Is Sara here?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t think you want to see her, Mr. Sachs.”
“I think I do want to see her. Where is she?”
He stands in the doorway silently, blocking my way. He is smaller than I am, but stronger. And younger. Infinitely younger.
“Let’s not hassle,” he says. “Come back later. Or better yet, tomorrow morning. She should be fine by then.”
“What do you mean? What’s the matter with her?”
“Nothing serious. She’s drunk.”
“You’re lying.”
“Mr. Sachs, she has been drunk since approximately eight o’clock last night. She …”
“Sara?”
“I believe that’s the lady we’re discussing,” Seth says. “She got here about four o’clock yesterday afternoon, said she needed to get away from it. I figured …”
“Away from what?”
“From it, man. It. I thought at first she wanted to bust a joint, maybe drop some acid. But she …”
“You’d have given her acid?”
“Why not? Wouldn’t have been the first time. I’ve got some pretty good stuff right now, as a matter of fact. Some white owsley, are you familiar?”
“No.”
“Best you can get. You drop something like green flats, you’re swallowing strychnine, speed, all kinds of shit mixed together, you never know. But this is good stuff.” He shrugs. “All academic. Sara wasn’t having any. ‘No dope,’ she told me, ‘absolutely no dope.’ So she drank instead.” He smiles. His teeth are very white against his black skin. “And drank. And drank. And drank. Slept a little last night, but started in again first thing this morning.”
“Where is she? I want to see her.”
He studies me in silence for a moment. Then he shrugs, and steps back out of the doorway. “The bedroom,” he says.
I move past him and into the living room, W. C. Fields peering at me over his spread cards, the piano on my right, through the door into the kitchen, and then turn sharply left and walk into the room with the paper stars on the ceiling. Sara is on the bed. She is wearing blue jeans and a white cotton blouse. The top button of the jeans is open. The bed under her is drenched with perspiration. Her hair is matted to her forehead. I lean over her. “Late,” she mumbles, “late,” and then rolls away toward the wall and covers her face with her hands. There is a comforter at the foot of the bed. I draw it up over her, and she immediately kicks it off, and says, “Oh God, late, he’s going to die, oh God,” and then sighs heavily, and crosses her arms over her chest and tucks her hands into her armpits, as if she is cold. I draw the comforter over her again. This time, she does not kick it away.
I go into the living room where Seth is standing in his flannel robe and buckle boots.
“She’ll be okay,” he says.
“Why’d you do this to her?�
�
“She did it to herself,” Seth says. “Man, don’t bug me. Sara’s a big girl now. She does what she wants to do.”
“I’m taking her out of here.”
“Not right now,” Seth says. “Let her sleep it off.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Fine. We have things to talk about, anyway.”
“We have nothing to talk about, Seth.”
“How about the bridge?” he says.
He is standing before the poster of W. C. Fields. The effect is one of Fields peering simultaneously over his cards and Seth’s shoulder, waiting for my response. I recognize all at one that this is not a game of chance, not the way they play it. Everyone in town seems to know about the goddamn bridge. If I get away from it alive come Saturday, it’ll be a miracle.
“What bridge?” I say.
He does not answer. Instead, as though remembering he must break in the buckle boots, he begins clomping around the living room, walking in a wide circle that takes him to the picture window and past the easy chair and the hanging mobile and the upright piano and around in front of the couch and back to the window again, the whole house shaking with his heavy tread. In the other room Sara again mutters, “Late, oh God, late.”
“What bridge?” I ask again.
He does not stop his circular clomping. As he moves past me and back again like some Frankenstein monster lost on his way to the showers, robe flapping about his muscular black legs, black thick-soled buckle boots thumping on the naked floor boards, he says, “The bridge Sara mentioned.”
“Better ask her about it then.”
“I did.”
He stops walking. The effect is highly dramatic, the silence deep and ominous after the noise of his boots.
In the other room, Sara says, “I always circle it.”
“Of course, drunks don’t often make sense,” Seth says, “but Sara …”
“Sara’s not a drunk!”
“True, true, I stand corrected. She was drunk when we talked, however.” He grins. “Still is, matter of fact.” He pauses. The grin drops from his face. “Would you like to hear what we talked about?”
“No.”
“I’ve got it all on tape, Mr. Sachs.”
“You taped Sara while …?”
“Sure. Why not?”