While I was trying to digest this, the scene froze. There was a complete lack of animation. Only the river sounds came through the quiet.
Carson Delhart shattered it. He moved away from the others. He left the strange young man still in his outraged pose, one arm extended; and Titus Willow pale, his mouth open to gasp, though he seemed to be holding his breath. In the river the girl still stood, the only movement the lapping of the water around her rigid white body.
Delhart took my arm firmly.
“Miss O’Hara, isn’t it?”
He flashed his patent leather smile for me. He had a smooth, bronzed face, high of cheekbone and forehead, with a straight, thin mouth and nose. His chin was craggy and well set. When you looked into his eyes you knew that here was a strong will. I saw it rise now as he propelled me away from the scene and toward the road. There was no arguing with Delhart. Both his manner and his grip on my arm were too firm for me to handle. I let him lead me up the embankment and through the scotch broom hedge. In a silence as complete as the one below, but deadly now like the honed edge of a razor, he helped me beneath the steering wheel of the car. The noise of the car door closing broke the silence, making a sound of complete finality.
I settled in my seat and absently rubbed my arm where he had gripped me. Panting and confused, I was half angry at what I had seen. As I regained my breath and my wits my anger transferred itself wholly to Delhart. I did not care for the way he stood now, one foot on the running board, his cold smile turned down on me.
“I’m sure I can trust your discretion, Miss O’Hara,” he said in that smooth voice. He offered me a cigaret from an opulent silver case.
“The bribe,” I said, taking a cigaret. I inclined my head as he struck a match for me. The smoke tasted good. “Just what am I supposed to be discreet about, Mr. Delhart?”
I was regaining the rest of my wits and I felt that here I had a lever to use in bargaining with Carson Delhart. He was notoriously aloof and reticent about his affairs, both public and private. That was an inevitable challenge to a newspaperman. Delhart wanted my discretion; I wanted his statement. It seemed to be a fair trade.
He was getting a cigaret for himself out of the case. He raised his cold dark eyes to mine. “It was a misunderstanding, I assure you, Miss O’Hara. Young Frew is a quixotic idiot.” He shifted his smile a notch warmer. “Shall we forget it?”
I smiled in return and tapped my cigaret against the steering post in my most sophisticated manner. “It was a rather strange situation, wasn’t it?”
He stopped smiling. He said, “It was a purely personal matter. Miss Willow chose an unfortunate time to bathe.”
“And Mr. Frew an unfortunate time to come along,” I said.
Delhart took his foot off Nellie’s running board and drew away a little. I’m sure he was flushing as much as it is possible for him to. “I don’t think we need discuss this further,” he said in that chilled voice.
“Of course,” I said. “Could you possibly drop into the Pioneer office tomorrow, then, Mr. Delhart?”
His lips thinned out. He said, “For what reason?”
“You just might want to renew your subscription to the paper,” I said. I turned on the ignition key and slipped the brake and let Nellie roll coyly forward. Delhart stepped back, out of the way, and I had a last glimpse of his face. He did not look pleased.
Nellie started on the downgrade and by the time I had her turned around and back to the bridge Delhart was gone. I went slowly across the bridge, hoping to hear something, but Nellie’s motor and the loose planking under her wheels made far too much noise. I made the turn and picked up speed.
I was nearly back to town before I realized I had one of those untouchable stories. I really had nothing to use on Mr. Delhart to pry an interview from him. Even if I had been willing to use a little discreet blackmail there was nothing I could think of that would upset him for very long. He was, like most wealthy men, far too adept at handling scandal.
I itemized: (a) Young Frew, whoever he might be, had stumbled onto a neat scene composed of Delhart and Miss Willow. Miss Willow was, I presumed, Daisy Willow, Titus’ daughter. And then Frew, whom she had called “Arthur”, either (b) saw her in the water or (c) saw her before she went into the water. I conceded that it was wholly possible for Mr. Delhart to be the innocent victim of circumstances, but Arthur Frew obviously had no such ideas. His attitude had suggested whole hog or nothing.
I could write the story and possibly get it past the boss, but I would be inviting a libel suit backed by Carson Delhart’s considerable capital. Or I could do as I knew I must and write nothing, hoping that Delhart would give me an interview before he realized how weak my position was.
I wasn’t overly surprised when I reached the office and Jud Argyle, the boss and the rest of the Pioneer staff, handed me a message. “Phone call, Addy.”
I took the message, a folded slip of paper, and glanced at it.
It read, “Call 662-J.” I crumpled the paper. That was Delhart’s number.
“Any luck, Addy?”
I made a face at Jud. He is bald and lean, a wrinkled fiftyish. I could make faces or say anything to him and he never took it amiss. Which was a good thing because Jud owned the paper, wrote half of it, set the type, and ran the press. My job, which I needed, was as much courtesy to a wounded WAC veteran as anything. Jud could have put out his weekly without my assistance.
“I have an interview from Mr. Titus Willow,” I said. “You can get the same stuff from any old publicity release. Also, I have a date.”
Jud grinned at me and reached in his desk. He brought out a full bottle of whiskey. He uncorked it, took a big sniff, sighed and replaced the cork. He put the bottle back in the drawer. It was a frequent routine with him. He never tasted the whiskey, nor any kind of liquor. Five years ago he had sworn off drinking. To remind himself of it he kept a full bottle of fine old bourbon handy. At least three times a day he would take it out and sniff with his big nose. And every time he would say, as he did now:
“That’s will power, Addy. Date with who?”
“Date with whom,” I corrected. “With Willow. Pink, pudgy, and passionate. Tomorrow night. I may get a story out of it. That charity donation rumor business.”
“Maybe,” Jud said. “Call 662-J and see what you get.”
I sat down at the telephone and gave Jenny Nellis, the day operator, the number. While she was putting through the call I leaned back and sniffed appreciatively at the familiar smells of the dusty little office. After more than two years away it was nice to be back. I had never worked any place else, nor did I have any desire to. I had worked off and on for Jud in practically every capacity since I broke his front window at the age of ten. My first job had been helping mail papers and my earnings went to pay for the window. Later, I was High School correspondent. At college I sent him items about the home town kids who were with me. After I came home from the WAC he put me on full time and landed me the job of local correspondent with the Portland Press as well.
It seemed to me that every memorable incident of my life was in some way wrapped in this tiny office and in Jud Argyle. Even when I was overseas Jud had seen to it that I got my quota of letters and gifts. He took it on himself to be a full complement of relatives to an orphan.
I said into the phone, “Keep on ringing, Jenny.”
Finally someone answered. A silky, trained voice said, “Mr. Delhart’s residence.”
“This is Miss O’Hara,” I said. “You called?”
“Oh, yes,” the voice said. “This is Mr. Hilton. Mr. Delhart’s secretary. I understand you wish an interview with Mr. Delhart.”
“We discussed it,” I said, hedging.
“Ah, um. Yes. Mr. Delhart asked me to suggest that you drop out here this evening, Miss O’Hara.”
“He was to come here,” I said.
“At nine o’clock, Miss O’Hara. Here.” The silky voice had become steel plated. Mr. Delhart’s orders were not
to be questioned. Especially by an upstart female.
I said, “All right,” and hung up. I glanced toward Jud just as the front door banged open. I was in the process of saying something to him and I couldn’t hold it back in time. I said:
“Delhart is begging for an interview.” And I was wishing I had not said it.
Both Jud and I were swivelled toward the door. Before he could say anything, a furious voice announced:
“I’ll give you the interview you want!”
III
THE WOMAN IN THE DOORWAY was one of those silver and ice blondes. Very slender, but very well constructed. She wore her tall slimness with arrogance. She had vivid red lips and bright greenish eyes, a shade or so deeper than mine. She wore a black slack suit, black blouse and black sandals. She carried a huge black purse slung over her shoulder by a strap.
She looked at me and I looked at her, and both of us were being grateful that we didn’t look like that! I knew her. So did Jud.
“Come in, Miss Martin,” he said mildly. “Close the door.”
Glory Martin, of the Delhart menage, shut the door and took a step forward. There was a chair near Jud’s desk and she sat down. She did it with the same studied grace she used in every motion. She lit a cigaret in the same way, blew her smoke in the same way.
She seemed quite at ease in the uncomfortable straight-backed chair. She paid no attention to us but looked about the office as if she had never seen it before, and as if it were all very absorbing.
I followed the movements of her eyes. From the filing cases by the fly-specked front window, along the side wall with its newspaper-littered tables, to the door leading into the shop at the rear, back along the other side wall where Jud’s desk and mine leaned wearily against the spotted and cracked and colorless plaster, and finally to the glass-faced front door through which she had just come. The office looked no different from the first time I had seen it, and certainly no different from the last time she had seen it.
I said, “Well?” sharply. I wasn’t feeling up to kow-towing to Carson Delhart’s rumored mistress.
Glory Martin had been showing her profile as she gazed at the front door. Now she gave me a full face view. Her features were very nice, a little on the hard side when she wasn’t being careful, and naturally voluptuous.
“I just got in from the ranch,” she said. That was what Delhart called his acres of timber. She said it indifferently, using her nice voice. It was well modulated except when she forgot herself and let it go. Then it sounded as it had when she first came in. A refined screech owl would have made the same sound. I had heard her talk that way when she was drunk; she was drunk quite a lot. Now, though, she was acting very restrained. As if she had never burst in on us, shouting.
“Then,” I said, “you have all the news.” I smiled pleasantly at her.
Whatever reaction I expected of her, it was not the one I got. I saw the same fear come into her eyes as I had seen displayed by Titus Willow. It lasted only a brief second, but long enough for me to make sure I had seen it. I was reminded of Willow and his unconcealed shock back there by the bridge when I had stumbled into the scene on the river bank. And I wondered if it enveloped everyone concerned with Carson Delhart. I could feel it myself, thinking back to the firm hard way in which he had manipulated me from the river to my car. His cold manner began to take on a new meaning to me.
Glory Martin was acting strangely, not at all the usual arrogant woman we had come to know. When she put her cigaret to her lips her hand shook a little. But her features hardened until I thought her make-up might crack. When she spoke, her voice was raspy; she was getting control of herself.
“Jud,” I said, glancing his way, “don’t you think you might make sure of the drugstore’s ad copy? And I promised Bosco an ice cream cone.”
Jud glared at me, but he got up and went out, taking Bosco and going through the shop at the back. When I heard the alley door close I looked again at Glory Martin. “Now,” I said, “we can take down our hair.”
She stared at me and she began to cry! All at once. “Goddam,” she sobbed. “Goddam.” Louder. She dropped the cigaret on the floor and put her head down on her knees and let her shoulders shake.
I didn’t know her very well, but even our slight contact had given me little use for her. However, I’m like a man when it comes to a woman crying. I go all soft. I got up and put her cigaret in an ashtray and then touched her shoulder.
“Want a drink?”
She raised her head and her mascara was a mess. She would never have let a man see her this way. Not even Jud. But we were alone and she had her back to the street. I got a whiff of her breath. The last thing she needed was a drink.
“Yes,” she sobbed. “Goddam.”
She put her head down again. I went to Jud’s desk and opened the left-hand-side top drawer. There was a half-filled pint of cheap bourbon there. Jud’s smelling liquor was old bonded bourbon. This cheaper stuff he kept for visitors. He never even touched the bottle except to pour out a shot to further his advertising sales or help get a good story. I hoped it would do the same for me.
I poured a good stiff drink in a paper cup, filled another with water from the cooler in the rear corner, and took the cups to Glory Martin.
She was singing the same refrain: “Goddam.” Sob. “Goddam.” Sob. She stopped, raised her head, and took the whiskey. She drained it neat and pushed away the water I offered her. I drank it myself. Then I pulled my armchair closer and sat down.
When she had finished shuddering at the liquor she started on her face with a mirror and a handkerchief. She said, “That little bitch! I’m a mess.” She jerked her head at me. Her eyes were wet with liquorous self-pity. “It’s that damned Titwillow’s fault.”
She ran down and went back to work on her face. She had stopped crying as if she controlled that emotion with a button. She even acted as if she had forgotten her fear. She was simply half tight and speaking irrelevancies.
I prompted her. “Titwillow?”
“Titus J. Titwillow,” she said in her normal voice. She snapped her compact shut and stowed it in her bag. She kept the mascara-smeared handkerchief in her hand. “Bringing his tub of a wife and that—that bitch.”
Evidently Glory Martin had little use for Daisy Willow. I tried to bring the subject around to my major interest. “Meaning Daisy, the nymph of the Teneskium?” I asked.
Glory had good control of herself. She showed no reaction of fear now. She laughed harshly. “You saw that? Sure, Pansypuss Hilton is all upset about it.” She giggled like a school-girl. “Ee-magine,” she said, mimicking Delhart’s secretary, “ee-magine what that person will do. One should be very careful in dealing with the fourth estate, you know.” And she added a word I hadn’t heard since I left the army.
I understood that I was “that” person. All I could think of to say was, “I fell right into it. But I didn’t stay long.”
Glory looked hard again. And mean, and rather frighteningly vicious for a young and sometimes lovely woman. I did not know how to cope with her sudden drunken changes of appearance. They bewildered me and they scared me. I couldn’t know what she would do next. Looking at her expression just then I was almost afraid of what she might do.
“So you know,” she said. “All right. She is after Carson. Playing little Miss Innocent. Playing cute with that wet-eared kid, Arthur Frew. Him tagging after her like a chaperone, like an idiot dog. But she’s playing Carson. And isn’t he eating it up!”
I began to think I had wasted the whiskey. This sounded like a case of jealousy, with liquor pulling all the stops. Nothing more than that. I began to get over my bewilderment and that gnawing sensation of fright that I could not quite understand.
Glory said, “Here’s your story.” Her voice was as flat as last night’s gingerale. It was emotionless, but it sent those little electric shocks the length of my spine.
“Titwillow is going to give in too. He’s going to trade his daughter
to Carson for that big charity donation.”
Certainly there was not much in the words. It could have been her jealousy building onto a rumor that was already current. Delhart’s planned donation was common enough gossip. It was not her voice, unless it could have been the very lack of tone in it. It was the entire set of circumstances that made the statement register so hard with me. What I had seen and what I had heard and what I was now seeing and hearing.
I said without meaning, “It sounds like the heroine tied to the railroad tracks touch to me.”
Glory ignored me. She said, “And the girl doesn’t want him. Biggest man in Portland and she doesn’t want him.” She seemed to be doing a fine exercise in irrelevancy.
“I thought you said she was after him.”
Glory opened her purse, put the handkerchief in, and stood up. “Got another drink? A little one?” She snapped the purse shut and then used her fingers to suggest the size of the drink she wanted.
I gave it to her, as ordered, and she took it neat, turned around and walked out on me. I half yelled, “Hey!” but she closed the door on my voice. Just like that! Before I had the door all the way open she went whizzing away in her fancy cream and chromium coupe.
I left the door open to air out her perfume which was more noticeable with the disappearance of her breath. I put the bottle in Jud’s desk. Then I stood by the door and thought of the worst words I could and applied them to Glory Martin.
Jud came in and interrupted me. He was carrying Bosco under one arm. In his other hand he held an ice cream cone. She was licking the ice cream and purring, and doing both so fast she threatened to choke. Jud dropped her and put the ice cream on a paper on the floor. She went happily to work.
“Blasted beast,” he said.
“Bosco saved my honor,” I said virtuously. “Respect her.”
Jud sat down. “All right,” he said. “Fire away.”
I pulled my chair back to my desk, made myself comfortable, and told him the whole story up to and including Glory Martin. I did not mention my sensation of being afraid. With Glory gone, with all traces of Delhart and his guests away from me it somehow seemed silly and inconsequential. The sun was still shining brightly outside. It was warm and soft and secure in here with Jud’s cigar smoke bluing the air and the familiar sounds of flies buzzing against the big front window. I could talk of it with detachment; it was only a part of a slightly unusual day. I could laugh at myself. At the moment it was nothing. Later, I learned to trust my instincts more.
Give Up the Body Page 2