Even from where I stood, there was a remarkable contrast between the bowed heads of the bridal couple. His bore the scars and wrinkles of over sixty years of hard times. What little hair he had was elaborately pushed around to cover the naked bits of a bullet dome. The bride, on the other hand, hadn’t weathered more than about twenty summers and had the profile of a fallen angel. Her large dark eyes were lowered in stagey solemnity.
As I was admiring this misalliance, the bearded one must have said the magic words because the mob went crazy. The air was full of confetti, balloons and flowers, and most of the celebrants converged on the blissful pair. But not Rachel Schute, who was coming at me from the crowd towing a none-too-eager Dr. James Carey behind her.
“Joe,” Rachel called, “I’m glad you didn’t miss the wedding. Wasn’t it beautiful?”
I grunted something noncommittal.
“Come on,” she said. “I want you to meet Hugo.” She turned, and I followed her gaze to a flower-overwhelmed bower, where the newlyweds were receiving the blessings of a figure in virginal-white coveralls. Hugo Fischer, I presumed. He was a thick man, blocky rather than fat, and his close-cropped, fur-like hair running nearly down to his eyebrows gave him a slightly animal look. At that moment, he was deep in conversation with the bride and groom, and his heavy features held an expression of total benevolence. He was the patriarchal figure deep in the bosom of his family. The bridegroom was well over ten years his senior, but basked in Fischer’s smile like a seal pup on a sunny rock.
Fischer wound up his benediction with a showy kiss on the bride’s ivory brow. Then he turned in our direction and was suddenly transformed. The left side of his face, hidden from me until then, was scarred with a livid, purple-red birthmark, which spread from his throat to his eyebrow like a flaming growth.
The effect was startling. The birthmark turned Fischer into a flawed idol, half-benign, half-malevolent. On the disfigured side of his face, his mouth seemed to turn down in a slight but perpetual scowl, and the eye wreathed in the dying tentacles of the birthmark had a saturnine cast.
Rachel was urging me toward Fischer when a girl in pale green coveralls approached him from the side and said something. Fischer inclined the disfigured side of his face toward her, and as he listened, his expression changed radically. The benevolent father was superseded by an outraged and angry god.
Straightening up, Fischer filled his bull-like chest and bellowed: “Form the circle!”
The effect on the crowd on the grass was instantaneous. One moment they were an aimless, happy rabble scattered over the lawn like sheep, talking, laughing, taking food and drink from long trestle tables. Then they were like so many iron filings obeying the dictates of a magnetic force. As if operating with one consciousness, all of the mob in coveralls spread swiftly but deliberately across the lawn, joining hands as they moved, until they were formed into a circle some fifty yards across with Fischer at twelve o’clock, standing with his back to the mansion’s oak double doors.
Rachel and I and a number of other plainclothes visitors were left on the periphery of the circle. Rachel didn’t seem particularly surprised by this development, but my mouth was hanging open. The faces of the residents that I could see seemed to go blank yet expectant at the same time. I noticed that Carey had left Rachel’s side and had slipped into the circle at Fischer’s left hand.
Fischer checked to see that the circle was complete and began to raise his hand in signal to someone off to one side. Then, at Fischer’s right hand, another figure in white, a slim, sallow-faced woman in her mid-forties with something haggard and haunted in her features, caught Fischer’s wrist lightly. She said something to him that I was too far away to hear. But her expression was pleading.
Fischer threw off her hand easily and finished the signal. “Yes!” he said in a booming voice. “Especially today.”
The ceremonial circle broke slightly at one point, and an escort of twelve fair-sized men in two gray columns marched into the circle led by a thin, hawk-like man in black. Between their ranks were a boy and girl not in coveralls. The circle closed like water behind them, and the phalanx pivoted smartly and stopped in front of Hugo Fischer.
“For God’s sake, Rachel,” I said. “What’s going on? Who are these people? I don’t have a program.”
“Shhh,” she shushed me. Her eyes were riveted on Fischer.
“You’d better tell me,” I warned her, “or I’ll do something human, like start laughing. Who’s the woman in white, for a start?”
“Lenore Fischer,” she whispered, just to shut me up. “Hugo’s wife.”
The bodyguard in gray peeled away with military precision leaving the character in black and the young couple in the middle of the circle. Their attitudes were a study in contrast. The couple stood with eyes downcast, as if caught in an act of original sin. The man in black stood ramrod straight, his zealot’s eyes locked on Fischer’s impassive face. He was about thirty-five, and had a face like a hammer.
“Identify,” I whispered, jabbing Rachel in the ribs.
“Don Moffitt,” she said with resignation. “Vice President of the Institute.”
At that moment, Moffitt jabbed his chin at the sky and said in a voice loud enough to be heard in Big Sur: “As you can see, Hugo, two of our lost sheep have returned.”
“What do they want?” Fischer asked, in a voice edged with malignant bonhomie. He was playing to the back rows and looked to be all set for a good time.
“They say,” Moffitt intoned, “that they want back in. They want to rejoin our community.”
“The hell they do!” pronounced Fischer, sticking his lower lip out like Mussolini.
“What did they do?” I asked Rachel.
“They left The Institute without permission—together,” Rachel said, without taking her eyes from the spectacle. “Two weeks ago.”
“That was naughty,” I said, but Rachel wasn’t listening.
“Why?” asked Fischer like a clap of thunder. “What can they want here? Perhaps they can tell me. What do you want of me? What do you want of your former brothers and sisters? Speak!”
The boy, tall, gaunt and Byronic with thick, curly black hair covering his ears, raised his dark-browed eyes toward Fischer in near defiance. But he couldn’t hold it, and let his eyes fall to the toes of his dusty cowboy boots. The girl, slight and fair and dressed gypsy style, didn’t raise her face at all. Her hair hung lank and knotted.
“Speak to Hugo,” Moffitt demanded. “He asked you a question.”
The boy’s lips moved hesitantly, but not much came out.
“Speak up!” barked Moffitt, and someone from the circle shouted:
“We can’t hear you, Lennie.”
The boy tried again, the strain showing on his face, and his voice came out broken and unmodulated as from a faulty radio. “We want to come back,” he said, “because we need The Institute.” He dropped his head again.
“But we don’t need you!” bawled Moffitt, and he was echoed by growls from around the circle.
“Throw ‘em out on the highway,” called Dr. James Carey, in a tone remarkably like Fischer’s.
“Give ‘em a dollar and put them on the road,” cried the bridegroom. His voice was raspy, his face contorted with suddenly summoned indignation. “We don’t need these bums.”
“Who the hell is the old geezer?” I whispered to Rachel.
“Pops Martin,” she said shortly. “A founding member of The Institute.”
Fischer swiveled his large head angrily in our direction, and Rachel went a deep pink. Then he turned his attention back to the more grievous sinners.
After looking at the couple for a long moment, he asked almost casually: “What do you think, Mark?”
A half dozen places to his left, a swarthy guy in his mid-twenties, tall but soft looking, as if he hadn’t yet lost all of his baby fat, preened himself for a moment and then replied in an adenoidal voice: “I can’t help wondering, Hugo, just how much they w
ant back in.”
That must have been the right thing to say, for immediately other voices around the circle took up the cry.
“Yeah, how much?”
“Tell us!”
“Beg, you motherfuckers!”
“Yes, beg! Beg!” The mob took up this popular cry all around the circle.
I nudged Rachel again, but she ignored me.
“Who’s the big baby doing the rabblerousing?” I demanded, but Rachel didn’t know I was there.
“His name is Mark Kinsey,” said a woman’s soft voice behind us. I turned around to find a fellow spectator, a middle-aged suburban matron in a very subtle blue rinse, looking at me with some irritation. “He’s The Institute’s press officer,” she added, “and we’d all appreciate it if you’d shut up.”
I thanked her none too warmly for the information and considered asking her who she thought she was, but decided against it. When I turned back to the spectacle, the crowd was still demanding that Lennie and his girlfriend prove just how sincerely they wanted to be back in the loving bosom of The Institute. Those two weren’t saying anything, just studying the grass in front of their feet as if one of them had dropped a dime.
At that moment, Hugo Fischer raised a pair of substantial arms, and the clamor died down until the silence was so complete that I could detect that someone behind me had a mild case of asthma.
“Barbara,” said Fischer in a gentle tone that didn’t convince me one hundred percent, “look at me.”
Nothing much happened, and the silence piled up like snow on a frail branch. Something had to break. It turned out to be the girl. Slowly, painfully, she raised her dirty, tear-stained face until she was looking at Hugo Fischer. Her vague eyes blinked as if she were looking into the sun.
“That’s better,” said Fischer benignly. “You look, Barbara, as if you’ve had a hard couple of weeks.”
The girl said nothing. Her face was blank with exhaustion. She swayed slightly, and the boy at her side reached automatically toward her. Waves of convulsion seemed to rock her body; she opened her mouth wider than I would have thought possible and cried: “Hugo! Please let us back in! I—please!” She put her hands to her face and slipped to her knees. Instantly, Lennie was kneeling beside her and pulling her matted head to his chest, but everybody else froze. With effort, I pulled my eyes from Barbara and Lennie to see how Fischer was taking it.
I’m not learned enough to describe the expression on Fischer’s face at that moment. It wasn’t triumph, nothing as petty as that. If anything, it was a sort of heroic, grieved satisfaction such as God might have worn if Adam and Eve had applied for readmission to the Garden of Eden.
I found it hard to take, and was just about to find something else for my eyes to do when Fischer clapped his hands and signaled to Moffitt. “Take them away,” he said in a magisterial voice and turned away. As if it had been the creation of a magic spell, the circle was gone. The coveralled members of The Institute were a celebrating throng again, and Pops Martin and his blushing bride were the focus of attention. The cordon in gray disappeared with its prisoners.
At my side, Rachel stood very still in a trance. I couldn’t think of much to say myself, so I just stood there and marveled quietly.
Then Rachel seemed to shake the spell and said: “Now, we’ll find Hugo, and I’ll introduce you to—” We both looked in the direction where Fischer had been, but he’d vanished. She was looking around when a voice said:
“Rachel, it’s lovely to see you again.” It was the woman who had politely told me to shut my face.
Rachel, who seemed glad to have something to do, said: “Hello, Eloise. Did you know?”
Eloise shook her head. “No. So far as I knew, they were nowhere near here. It was a great shock to me when they suddenly appeared like that.”
“I don’t like to be rude, Eloise,” I said, “but my name is Joe Goodey, and I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”
Rachel did the honorable thing and introduced us. She said that Eloise was Mrs. Barker, a local supporter of The Institute.
“I’m happy to meet you, Mr. Goodey,” Eloise said, “and I want to apologize to you for being so rude earlier. But we take ceremonies very seriously at The Institute. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go see someone.” She smiled opaquely and disappeared into the crowd.
“Who,” I asked Rachel, “was that?”
“That,” said Rachel, “was Barbara’s mother.”
“Barbara?” I said blankly, but then the realization hit me. “Not—”
“Yes,” she said, “that Barbara.”
Rachel got a slightly smug, pedagogic look on her face and said: “It’s not really as inexplicable as you might think, Joe. Barbara is a girl with very serious emotional problems. She’s been at The Institute for only three months, and she was making very good progress until recently when she and Lennie got too—too attracted to each other. He’s an ex-drug addict who came to The Institute from New Jersey.”
“So?” I said.
“So, Hugo banned Barbara and Lennie from seeing each other—for their own good. Two weeks ago they ran off together. And today they came back.”
“I can handle all that pretty well,” I said. “But what bothers me is that you all—even the girl’s mother—could just stand here and watch Fischer and his mad dogs play with that girl as if she were a bundle of rags.”
There was a pitying look in Rachel’s eyes when she said: “Joe, you just don’t understand. Hugo is trying to save those children’s lives. You’ve got an awful lot to learn about The Institute.”
“I’ll say,” I said.
6
Before I could say anything more, an anemic boy in pale blue coveralls was tugging on Rachel’s sleeve.
“Rachel,” he said, “Hugo is waiting to see you in his office. And your visitor.”
So my arrival hadn’t gone unnoticed at the highest levels. Perhaps the good Dr. Carey had whispered something in Hugo Fischer’s sizeable ear.
“Thank you, Glynn,” Rachel said, and she and I started walking up the drive toward the vast oak doors, which were now open. The celebrating residents and their guests were drifting freely between the lawn and the mansion. A band was playing in a large marquee at one side of the big house, and merriment was unrestrained. We pushed our way through the mob into the foyer of the mansion. It was a splendid house; someone had spent a fortune on the marble floor alone, but there was something odd and institutional about the atmosphere. I kept expecting an announcement to come blasting out of a loudspeaker.
I climbed the immaculate marble staircase at Rachel’s side. “How do I address this Fischer character?” I asked. “Your Lordship, or will a simple Sir do?”
“Everybody at The Institute,” said Rachel without a glimmer of a smile, “calls him Hugo. You’re no exception.”
On the first floor, we turned down a wide, cream colored hall. The carpets were Oriental and looked expensive. Rachel stopped outside an unmarked door from behind which I heard a low murmur of voices. She knocked softly, and the voices died.
“Come in,” called a familiar voice, a bit impatiently. When I pushed the door open, Fischer was sitting facing the door behind about a quarter acre of executive-style desk, flanked by Carey and the hard man in black, Don Moffitt. Pops Martin, a couple of pink petals still lodged in his thin locks, sat on an easy chair in front of a bay window, one leg cocked over the opposite bony knee. Mark Kinsey was perched on the opposite window sill, practicing an institutional rock and looking insecure. The walls of the office were crowded with framed 9-by-12 inch signed photographs of that same quartet and others who I assumed were big shots of The Institute. It looked like a parody of a third-rate movie producer’s office.
Rachel followed me into the room and shut the door. For lack of anything else to do, I stopped in front of Fischer and waited for him to say something. He didn’t disappoint me.
“What the hell do you want here, Goodwin?” he demanded.
A fair question that deserved an honest answer.
“The name is Goodey, Mr. Fischer, G-double-o-d-e-y, Joe Goodey,” I said. “And I’ve come here to find out which of you murdered Katharine Pierce.”
Fischer soaked it up without showing much response at all, but his honchos each reacted in a typical way. Carey let his jaw drop at my rudeness and started thinking about getting angry; Moffitt balled his fists ready for action; Kinsey rocked back a bit abruptly, hit his head against the windowpane and looked embarrassed. Only old Pops Martin did anything very active. He uncoiled himself from the chair faster than I’d have thought possible and came toward me like a small dog on a short leash. Planting both gnarled hands on the top of Fischer’s desk, he got a fierce expression on his old mug and snarled: “Watch your lip, shamus—or you’ll find yourself waking up in the gutter with your head on a dead cat.”
The word shamus went out of style in about 1938 and Martin couldn’t have whipped his weight in macaroons, but I had to give him points for originality. I’d have to think about that one. He was about to get off something even more horrific when Fischer yanked gently on his leash.
“Easy, Pops,” he said. “Don’t forget that this is your wedding day. I’m sure our visitor isn’t being deliberately provocative.” Pops retired to his chair with a nonchalant slouch, but his eyes served notice that I was on probation.
Fischer turned back to me and then had to lower his line of sight because I’d sat down on a very nice chair nobody seemed to be using. He didn’t much like the idea, but he’d get used to it. Rachel had retired to a couch out of the line of fire, and Carey was sending her obscure signals with his eyebrows. She was too busy eyeing Fischer with nervous apprehension to notice.
The Triple Shot Box (Goodey's Last Stand, Not Sleeping Just Dead & Fighting Back): Three Gritty Crime Novels Page 25