“I’m not an animal.”
He examined her. “Pretend I’m a doctor.”
“Mrs. Gately said you were a gentleman.”
“Not with sluts. I don’t care how gorgeous they are.”
The words did not disturb her, merely made up her mind. “I think you’d better leave.”
“Behave!” he told her in a parental tone, which triggered something within her. Her gaze unloaded too much upon him, all of it a surprise. “What the hell is it?” he asked in frustration. “My nose?” He touched it. “This?” He slapped his belly. It was a question of pride, conceit, dignity. “Maybe I remind you of somebody. Who?”
The answer was a foster father, which he had no way of knowing and never would.
“What don’t you like about me?”
“Everything,” she said with utter calm and abandon, almost with a smile of joy. Her breath blew sweet. “You’re a pig.”
His eyes tightened as if screws had been turned. Her eyes burned bright, too bright, and she shut them, squeezing the lids and breaking the rule. He made a fist without considering the strength in it.
• • •
Paige Gately took his call at her home and listened to him with anger and growing alarm, though she could not make total sense of him. “Not my fault,” he kept interjecting. Then she got the gist of it and shivered. “You fool,” she said, “you absolute fool. Will she be all right?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Can she talk?”
There was heavy pause. “Paige, I think she’s dead.”
The pause from her was heavier as she spread her fingers over her throat. Her legs went weak as if her own nerves and muscles were working against her. Then her mind, always her greatest edge, began to work.
“Paige, I’m shaking like a leaf.”
She said, to herself, Now I know why I picked Biff. To him: “Has anybody seen you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” His voice shook.
“Don’t let anybody see you,” she said. “Get a towel and start wiping. Everything you might’ve touched.”
“I don’t know if I can. Christ, if you could see me!”
“Ed, you don’t have a choice.”
She made herself a small drink, nothing strong. It was to calm her thoughts, not to dull them. Ed Fellows’s voice replayed in her mind, and, though nothing in her face changed, she almost wept. She returned to the telephone and rang up the Silver Bell, surprised when the desk clerk answered in a female voice. She had forgotten that Chick was not yet on duty. “Any problems?” she asked and was told there were not. “That’s the way I like it,” she said. “When Chick comes on, tell him he can reach me at home if anything comes up.”
Almost an hour later the doorbell rang, and she let him in. She expected to see trembling hands, but he was a solemn presence in his pinstripes, though his face was ghastly. “I wiped everywhere,” he said. “Twice, to be sure.”
“You’re mistaken,” she said, and he looked at her queerly. “You were never there. You and I never had a conversation on the phone. You know nothing at all about it, so you have nothing ever to tell me. If you do otherwise, even if we’re quite alone, I’ll walk away from you.”
“I understand,” he said in the tone of somebody granted rebirth.
“What you do now is go home. Take a bath. I recommend a long soak.”
He nodded emphatically. “Yes, I will!”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
Now there was a tremble to his hands. “There is one thing,” he said quickly, for she seemed prepared not to listen. “When I was driving away I spotted a car pulling into my space.”
“Who was it?”
“A big blond kid. I saw him, but he didn’t see me. He got out of the car and went in.”
She whistled softly. “I think you’ve lucked out.”
• • •
The boy crept into the room, his athletic jacket buttoned up to his chin, his sneakers tied tight. His purpose was to surprise her. The roar inside his head began when he neared the bed, and the cry from his lips was less a sound than a taste that came up on him. The nakedness, not the damaged flesh, appalled him. She seemed one with the white of the sheet, the fluff of the pillow, the ghostliness of the room. “It’s not fair,” he sobbed.
Her eyes had a lame look, as if scratched by a thorn. Her mouth was a wound. She said, “Help me, Wally.”
“You lied to me!” She was dying, he could see that through a flood of tears. “I was ready. I could have done it!” he proclaimed, and a sense of betrayal and injustice cut through him to the bone.
Her lips parted. When she tried to speak again, he hit her, a helpless blow, only half his strength, which was more than enough.
• • •
She looked at her watch and picked up the phone, knowing that Chick was bound to be on duty now. She considered his brain no brighter than a twenty-five-watt bulb, but sometimes she suspected she was wrong. He answered the ring at once, his voice crackling with irritation.
“This is Mrs. Gately,” she said. “Everything OK there?”
“Everything’s fine,” he sputtered, “except that damn Bauer boy nearly ran me down.”
“What was he doing there?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t give me time to ask.”
She made one more call, her last of the day, which was to Harriet Bauer, who listened without comment and then said, “Boys will be boys.”
“I wouldn’t even bother you with it except he did almost run Chick down.”
After a moment’s pause, Harriet Bauer said, “Can you connect me with Melody?”
“I’m not at the motel. I tried to call her myself, room forty-six, but she didn’t answer.”
“No matter,” Harriet Bauer said in a tone of unconcern. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
• • •
Twenty minutes later Harriet Bauer stepped into room forty-six. The sight of the body shocked her but did not stop her. She felt for a pulse, a beat, a throb and then did not touch it again nor look at it. She plucked a towel out of the bathroom, not the same one Ed Fellows had used, but she followed the same route and gave hard wipes to the same things.
No one saw her enter the room, and no one saw her leave. There was a roundabout way out of the lot, and she used it. The only one who noticed her pulling onto the main road was Attorney William Rollins, who had just come off the Route 93 exit ramp and was heading home.
Sixteen
The Bauers were buried in Spring Grove Cemetery next to their son. There was no known relatives of Alfred Bauer to attend the graveside service. The only one from Harriet’s side to make the trip from Kansas was one of her brothers, a dour-looking Baptist with close-cropped gray hair, who spoke of his dead sister as a creature who had alienated herself from God. With eyes tucked deep in his face, he looked around and said to Attorney Rollins, “Who are these people?”
Rollins nodded discreetly. “That man over there, by himself, is Sergeant Dawson, a member of our police department.”
“He doesn’t look like a man who’s at peace with himself. Nor, for that matter, do you. You have spirits on your breath. Who’s the fat woman?”
“That’s Mrs. O’Dea. And the lady beside her is Mrs. Gately. Both were dear friends of your sister and brother-in-law.”
“Who’s the one crying?”
“Miss James. She worked for Mr. Bauer.”
“And the man with the beard?”
“Dr. Stickney. Another close friend.”
“I notice you drive a Mercedes. You must be rich.”
“It’s an old one.”
“The family would like to know how much money will be coming.”
“That’s hard to say at this point,” Rollins said, squinting through his glasses. “There are claims on the estate, which could tie it up for years.”
“Our lawyer will be in touch
with you.”
“Of course.”
“Do you think we’re ready now?”
“Yes, certainly.”
He stepped past Rollins and positioned himself between the two caskets with a prayer book he did not open. He gazed at the assembled faces and raised his voice. “I’m a man of few words, so this will be short.” He cleared his throat. “You toss a pebble in a pond and make ripples. That’s life. When the ripples are gone, that’s death.”
• • •
Late that evening Attorney Rollins left the lounge at Rembrandt’s and walked precisely toward his Mercedes, swinging his arms just so. Sitting behind the wheel, the driver’s door left open and the interior dome light casting a pale glow, he patted himself down for two minutes in search of his keys. Ten minutes later, on Central Street, he failed to negotiate a curve and ran the Mercedes over a curb, onto a lawn, and into a tree.
Officer Billy Lord took the call on his cruiser radio and responded. He recognized the car, so he knew who was in it before he managed to yank the door open. “You all right, Counselor?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” Rollins said. “But it doesn’t look good for my car, does it?”
Billy Lord stuck his head in and got a whiff of him. “Look,” he said, “I want to give you a break. Anybody I can call to get you home?”
“Sergeant Dawson’s the only one I can think of.”
“Gosh, I don’t know, Counselor. Do you think he’d do that for you?”
“It’s a possibility.”
Sergeant Dawson arrived shortly, just before the tow truck, and guided Rollins into his unmarked car, which had gone through the wash that day. Inside it smelled of window spray. Rollins sat perfectly upright as they turned off Central Street, the headlights cutting a large swath.
“I appreciate this.”
“Don’t make it a habit.”
Rollins opened the top of his overcoat and pulled at the knot of his tie. “Could you turn the heat down a little? Thank you.” He rested his hands on his knees. “You know, Sergeant, I had fantasies of marrying Melody, but she never asked me to.”
“You should’ve asked her.”
“I couldn’t do that. You could have.”
Dawson made another turn and presently pulled up in front of Rollins’s house, a light left on for himself. Dawson said, “I had a problem with that, Counselor. She was like a prize racehorse. Everybody had a piece of her.”
“But you had the biggest.” Rollins pushed at his door and let himself out. Then he peered back in. “I made meals for her, but she made them for you. That was a major difference. Goodnight, Sergeant.”
• • •
Paige Gately called Chick into her office, gestured for him to sit, and offered him coffee, which she expected him to decline. He surprised her by asking for two sugars and a lot of cream. She indulged him, and he showed his appreciation with a smile that rearranged every wrinkle in his face. The cup clattered in its saucer. His grasp was sure, but his crooked finger had a problem with the cup’s delicate ear. She placed her fingers in the shallow pockets of her blazer and leaned against the side of the desk, her legs close together inside her straight skirt. “As you know, Chick, the Silver Bell won’t be mine after Friday.”
“The place won’t be the same without you,” he said with sadness.
“I’m sorry to tell you this,” she went on firmly, “but they’re bringing in their own staff. I did what I could for you, you have my word, but they have their own organization.”
“I kind of thought that was why you wanted to talk to me. Not your fault, Mrs. Gately, I know that. Those big chains don’t have much feeling for the little fellow.”
It was going too smoothly. She knew that and eyed him carefully. He slurped his coffee.
“This the cup Sonny gave you?”
“Not much gets by you, Chick.”
“I keep my eyes and ears open and mouth shut.” He spoke proudly. “When you hired me you knew you were getting loyalty. I like Sonny Dawson and all, but you’re my boss.”
She moved slowly from the side of the desk to the rear and leaned a thigh against the edge. “I’m not sure I follow that last part.”
“When the girl got killed. That terrible day I never did tell Sonny I came to work early. I was snoozing in my car. In the lot. You know how I am. Never can keep my eyes shut for long.”
“Yes,” she said tightly. “I thought you might have been doing that.” She lifted her fingers from her pockets and sat at the desk, her elbows firmly anchored. “You’re quite right, Chick. I did indeed hire you for loyalty. You weren’t really the sort one readily gave employment to, and I knew you’d be grateful.”
“I am. I always will be.”
“You will of course be entitled to severance pay.”
“Yes, I’m grateful for that too.” He drank more coffee. “But being without a job kind of takes the fun out of life. I thought Mr. Fellows might want to do something for me at the bank.”
“What did you have in mind, Chick?”
“I thought maybe a teller, so I can talk to people, see everybody who comes in and out.”
She sank back in her chair and calculated the threshold of one man against that of another while taking into account the power of her own voice. Her mouth, pursed, was a bright spot on her face. “I have a better idea,” she said with finality. “Why don’t we add a bonus to your severance pay and leave it at that.”
• • •
On a Tuesday eight inches of snow fell. In the next day’s shivering beginning, Ralph Roselli arranged for a man with a plow to clear the sloping driveway. The graded walk he began shoveling himself, his coattails flapping, his long drag of a face reddening in the sharp blue air, which chipped the knuckles of his ungloved hands.
Inside the house Rita O’Dea was munching cinnamon toast and watching Phil Donahue, whose head of hair she admired but whose guests, polygamists, she soon tired of. Peeling apart the Boston Herald, she checked her horoscope and read “The Eye,” in which her brother’s name had once appeared with frequency. While munching a dark-skinned apple, she completed nearly two-thirds of the crossword puzzle. Eventually she lumbered to the window to see how far Roselli had progressed in his shoveling. She did not immediately glimpse him because he was lying on the ground.
She tossed her mink on over her voluminous lounging pajamas and went out the door in her bunny slippers. Much of the walk was cleared, the snow hurled high on each side. Roselli lay on his back, his coat twisted to one side. She had to step over the shovel to reach him. His chin had settled into its folds, and his purple hands lay on his chest like cuts of meat.
“Your ticker?” she asked from her height, and he nodded. “This is a bad one, Ralph?” He blinked. “Can you get up?” He shook his head. His baggy face looked as if it had been filleted of all its bones. He spoke without moving his lips. He wanted an ambulance.
She bent over him, her hands stuffed into the pockets of her mink, and gazed into his misted eyes. Her words were soft. “Remember when the big boys in Rhode Island decided my brother was to be hit. Nothing nobody could do, the decision was made. You had to sit there in your car and watch Tony get it in the back of the head. Remember, Ralph, I told you I never blamed you?” She smiled down upon him. “I lied.”
• • •
“Can I join you, Sonny? — ’less you’re expecting somebody and want to save the seat.”
Sergeant Dawson looked up from his late breakfast of bacon and eggs and replied, “Be my guest.”
The waitress came, and Chick said to her, “I wish I could eat like him, but I ain’t got the stomach. All I want is a little tomato juice.”
Dawson pushed aside the newspaper he had been scanning, mostly the sports pages, basketball scores noted and forgotten. He said, “How are things at the Silver Bell?”
“Haven’t you heard, Sonny? I got no more job. The new people didn’t want me.”
“Then what are you doing here? You should be in the groun
d.”
“I know that, but everything’s frozen. So I thought I’d wait till spring.”
“You’d better tell Mr. Wholley at Spring Grove. He might have the hole already dug.”
“Jesus, you’re right, I don’t want to get on the wrong side of him. He’s the one will be looking after me.”
Dawson ate the last of his bacon. “Do you know what I think, Chick? I think you’ll outlive me and the waitress.”
The waitress delivered the tomato juice, which was ice-cold. Chick tossed off most of it with a single swallow, and it seemed to go down him like lump. Then he wiped his mouth with the bony back of his hand. “I was wondering, Sonny, can we talk confidential?”
“Sure, go ahead, I’m listening.”
“It’s something I should’ve told you before. About the girl. Melody. Tina Turner.”
Dawson’s jaw shifted. “What about her?”
“There was somebody else went speeding off that day.”
• • •
The side streets in Boston were not as cleanly plowed as in Andover. Back Bay was a mess, and traffic was a horror, headlights flaring up in the tainted air. He navigated down a narrow street where pedestrians could not keep on the sidewalks and floated up beside his car like random ghosts. The search for a parking space consumed a half hour. With chill, wet feet, he climbed the steps to the brownstone two hours after he had telephoned. “I thought you weren’t coming,” Sue Bradley said, letting him into the apartment. She felt his hands. “Cold,” she said and took his coat. “Do sit. Don’t stand on ceremony.” He dropped into a chair. She smiled, almond-eyed and fresh-skinned, the sleeves of her shaggy sweater pushed up to the elbows. “Natalie’s leaving, did you know that?”
“How would I know?”
“She’s been offered a job in Chicago, much more money. She’s really very smart, smarter than me, though she doesn’t know it. Did you know she’s fluent in five languages?”
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