The Crossroads

by John D. MacDonald

  “Good morning, I think,” he said.

  “Good morning, Pete.” He didn’t seem crazy at all.

  “Sylvia. I have the name right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have been sitting here with the nasty suspicion that you are now the first Mrs. Peter Drovek. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” she said in a tiny voice.

  He shook his head sadly. “God damn!” he said. He got up and went over to his clothes, began to take crumpled bills out of the pockets, smooth them out and put them on the bureau, U. S. currency in one pile and Mexican in another.

  The slow sad tears filled her eyes and began to run down her cheeks. He saw her in the mirror. He turned and stared at her for a moment, then came to her bed, sat on the edge of it and took her hands. “Hey now!” he said gently. “Hey now!”

  She tried to smile but the tears still ran. “I … can’t help it. It wasn’t so m-much my idea. You were the one. You wanted to get married. Nobody could stop you. I don’t even know anything … about you!” She gave a wail of despair, tore her hands away, and plunged her face into the pillow, her back toward him, sobbing.

  “That makes us even, Sylvia. What’s your name? I mean, what was your whole name?”

  “Sylvia Marlowe,” she said, her voice muffled and sulky.

  “How old are you, dear?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Ever been married before?”

  “N-no!”

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a model.”

  “Dear Jesus.”

  She whirled and looked at him with a contorted face. “Don’t you say that! I’m not a whore. I’m a real model. I’ve been modeling for years!” She whirled away again.

  “All right, dear. No offense meant. Where did we meet?”

  “At a party in the Village.”

  “Oh. Barney’s pals. I remember it vaguely.”

  “I wish I was dead,” she said.

  “They used to arrange marriages. And they seemed to work out. You might be quite a shock to the clan, baby.”

  “We can get it all canceled maybe. Everybody was stinking.”

  He was silent for a long time. She didn’t know what he was thinking. The tears still ran.

  “Sylvia, baby, has this marriage been consummated?”

  “What? Oh. No. I mean I don’t think so.”

  The bed shifted under his weight. He slid under the covers beside her and his arms went around her. In a little while the tears stopped.

  When it was over that first time, Pete held her in his arms. They lay side by side, looking into each other’s eyes. Pete stared at her with an odd thoughtful expression. “Honeybundle,” he said finally, “this mixed-up marriage may turn out to be one big fat drunken mistake. But in one department, commonly considered essential to bliss, things seem to be supernifty.”

  “You talk funny,” she said, putting her fingers to his lips to be kissed.

  “Hand me that phone, chunky stuff, and I shall set up a mild celebration around here. Brides love to wallow in champagne.”

  And that seemed to be the last time that Pete ever talked to her in a real serious kind of way. That crazy Pete. He thought he was running out of money but it turned out Barney had picked his pocket for safekeeping. So there was enough for the three of them to go to Acapulco. From there Pete wired his people that he was married. They’d put Woonsocket on a plane back to the States. Barney found a new girl in Acapulco. They took a big cabana at the Hotel de las Americas and spent most of their time either in bed or around the pool drinking and eating Chinese food. And there were new friends, as always, to join the group. She sort of liked being married, she decided. Pete was crazy and cute. She gathered that he and his father and brothers and sister owned a motel. She worried about the money. It seemed to be a lot to spend if you just owned a motel down south someplace.

  They flew back and had a couple of days in New York. She packed up the rest of her stuff and shipped it on ahead. She found out Pete had a Corvette in a storage garage. They had a goodbye party for Barney and drove south. Pete drove in a scary way, but they certainly made good time.

  And then she had to meet the rest of the family. Pete acted nervous about that, about the only thing she had ever seen him nervous about. She stopped worrying about the money they had spent when she saw that it was a real big business, with people working for the Droveks all over the place. They all seemed friendly enough to her. Not real close like, but friendly. Everybody was so terribly busy there didn’t seem to be any time for family get-togethers. She and Pete lived in the big motel in a nice room and their house was started right away. She tried to get them to build the kind of a house she wanted, but Pete explained that it wasn’t as if they’d own it. The corporation would own it and they would just lease it from the corporation. So the architect who’d done the other work designed it and the decorators who did work for the Droveks decorated it and furnished it, and neither she nor Pete had anything to say about it, except Pete did get them to put in that great big bed. That crazy Pete.

  He went to work right away. He’d had four years of college and three years in the service, and now he would work for the Crossroads Corporation for the rest of his life. She found out about the money. Pete’s salary was a hundred and fifty dollars a week, and from his stock they got about twelve thousand dollars a year. But that didn’t mean there was a lot for her to spend. That crazy Pete spent an awful lot of money. He went on trips to see friends. He didn’t seem to want to take her along. Sometimes he would. But it wasn’t much fun. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her. He just didn’t seem to want her in that part of his life. And she certainly knew he wasn’t going off to play around with other girls. When he would come back he would be after her something fierce in that big bed, like he couldn’t ever get enough, but always kidding, sort of. Making jokes. Calling her funny names.

  Then they both had all those examinations in Walterburg. They couldn’t find anything wrong with either of them, but somehow she just couldn’t start a baby.

  She told herself that she had everything she could want. Pretty clothes and a beautiful little home and a cute husband who made enough money. But nothing seemed to really belong to her. It was like pretending to be married. His family seemed too busy to give her much time. And she couldn’t seem to make any girl friends. It wasn’t like being in the city. There were some cute girls working in the restaurants, but they knew she was one of the three Mrs. Droveks and it made it strained and funny. Not really friendly. It wasn’t that she was trapped out here in the country. Pete had bought her the secondhand Chevy on her twenty-fourth birthday. She could drive into Walterburg, but it wasn’t the sort of place where you could meet anybody sort of casual, like going in a bar or something.

  In her restlessness, when Pete was away or busy, she got into the habit of walking over to the Starlight Club at about five-thirty and having a couple of drinks at the bar, and then eating in the Motor Hotel Restaurant. She would pretend she was a woman of mystery, on a long trip. And that was the way she had met Mark Brodey, the head bartender at the Starlight Club. Before Chip fired him.

  Now she knew she was being Bad. It made her feel a little bit sick. She knew she should stop. She didn’t know how to stop. Mark was weird. He scared her. And she was most frightened of what he was trying to get her to do. Frightened because she sensed he was going to make her do it.

  She stood for a moment on the blue rug, thinking of Mark’s soft, persuasive voice and his odd eyes and how he could hurt her so suddenly and unexpectedly with his hard fists. Pete had seen the marks and she had told him she had fallen. It was like long ago, hiding the marks Daddy had made from the other kids.

  She shivered and went into the bathroom and ran water into the tub, using the perfumed bubble-bath crystals liberally. She tied her dark hair up out of the way, and stepped into water as hot as she could stand, soaked herself in the froth of perfumed suds. After she had selected and pu
t on a black-and-white pinstriped blouse and a white fleece skirt, fixed her hair and made up her face, she found that she had lost her feeling of hunger. It had been the same way the last few times she had seen Mark. Her stomach just seemed to close up. She had a cup of hot coffee and then wandered aimlessly through the house, waiting until it was time to go, pausing to look out the windows, move an ash tray, straighten a framed print, feeling tension rising until it was like a sickness.

  She left at two-thirty and drove south on 71. She was a hesitant, nervous driver. Pete had taught her to drive. A little more than eight miles south of the interchange she passed the Ace Cabins, over on the left. A quarter mile beyond was a place where she could make a U turn. A fast truck scared her. She swung around and drove slowly back toward the Ace Cabins. She made certain she had not been followed. She swung into the narrow rough road that ran behind the cabins and drove to the last cabin in the row, turned in and parked on the far side of it, out of sight of the highway. Mark’s narrow face appeared in the window, looking out at her, coldly, without welcome. She got out of the car, went quickly to the door and let herself in, her heart thumping.

  FOUR

  At a few minutes past four on that sultry Friday afternoon, Mark Brodey sat in Buddha pose on the narrow rumpled cot and watched Sylvia putting her clothes back on. She moved with a tired listlessness and her eyes were red and puffy.

  The instrument of my revenge, he thought. He liked the sound of that. Fix those goddamn Droveks good. Five long years I worked for that stinking Drovek tribe. Five years. Now bouncing one of their wives isn’t enough. Not half enough.

  When Sylvia had started the habit of coming into the Starlight Club for a few drinks before dinner, he had gone out of his way to be nice to her. Kid around a little with her. Make her laugh. Good policy. One of the wives of the management. You never could tell when you might need a friend. No idea of trying to get to her. None at all. Just innocent-like. Sexy-looking little dish, but you could tell she wasn’t on the make either. Just lonesome. No harm in it at all.

  And that’s the way things were when the roof fell in. Five years working for that outfit. Two years as head bartender. With them ever since they opened the Starlight Club, ever since they had the liquor license. It wasn’t as if what he had been taking was going to break them. It had taken him quite a while to figure out how to beat the register. There was one behind the bar. He was smart enough not to try to bring anybody else in on it. You could always work something that way. The deal was always to find a way to work your own system, all by yourself. You had to make out a check for each customer, leave it in front of the customer, and take it away only when you stuck it in the machine to print the amount of the next round on it. The checks were in serial sequence. At the end of the night your cash in the box had to even out with the check totals. All issued checks had to be accounted for. Once a month your inventory had to be checked against liquor sales.

  After he got the right idea, he managed to lift a blank bar check. He found a place where he could get a couple of hundred of them printed up, serial numbers and all. Every day when he’d go to work he’d take a couple or three along with him, slip them into the inside pocket of his white monkey jacket. Then he had the problem of picking the right bar customers. You wouldn’t want to waste one on a one-beer customer. The best deal was a couple who seemed all wound up in each other and had a lot of time and ordered hard liquor. Then you would slip in one of your own checks. Leave it right in front of the couple. Nobody ever noticed. When they were ready to go you totaled it on the machine, took their money, rang a zero and put the money into the machine and put the check in the pocket. You remembered the total and lifted it all when you closed out the machine at night. Never too heavy. Averaged around fifteen a night probably. An extra ninety a week, tax free. The organization could afford it. And, to make the inventory look all right—it never could come out right on the dime—you poured all the short shots you could all the time. A woman drinking a Collins is just as happy with a half ounce.

  So two months ago, at about six o’clock on a Saturday night, just as you’re slipping a tab for six sixty into the inside pocket of the monkey jacket, a big hand closes on your wrist. You look up and it’s Mr. Charles Drovek. You don’t even know how he got behind the bar so fast, much less how he got wise. He rips the jacket getting the tabs out, the one used one and the two unused ones.

  They take you out in back, in one of the storerooms off the kitchen. Drovek and John Clear. Cold turkey.

  “Have you been treated well?” John Clear asked.

  “Sure. I guess so. Honest, this was the first time I ever …”

  “Shut up, Brodey,” Drovek said. His face was red and his neck was swollen and those big shoulders were bulging the fabric of his shirt. He walked Brodey back against the wall. “You’ve been on the take for months. Maybe a couple of years. I couldn’t believe it. I had John double check. You’re a stinking, dirty, stupid little thief, Brodey. You aren’t worth the trouble it would take to stick you in jail where you belong. I would like to have you raise one hand, Brodey, or say one word. I would enjoy every minute of it. Go ahead.”

  “I’m not going to do anything.”

  “John, stick with him while he clears his locker out. Then get off the place, Brodey. This goes on every employee bulletin board in the place tomorrow morning, Brodey. We had a sneaking thief among us. He’s gone for good.”

  “Five years I’ve been …”

  “Shut up. You make me sick to my stomach.” Drovek turned and walked out of the room.

  “Come on, Brodey,” John Clear said. “Let’s get your stuff. Here’s your check. It covers through yesterday. No sad farewells to anybody.” He shook his head. “You were stupid, boy. It was a good job.”

  Those high and mighty Droveks. Polack bastards.

  He’d gone on a drunk in Walterburg for a while and then had tried to find a job. But the word had gotten around somehow. And how did you explain where you had been for five years? He knew that the smart thing to do would be go north. Try one of the big towns or resort areas. But he ached for a chance to get back at those Droveks. He had to do something to them. Set a fire. Something. Finally, when his money was running low, he got a counter man job in a dirty spoon diner eight miles south of the Crossroads, and he rented one of the Ace Cabins a couple of hundred yards away.

  Each night he thought of how good he had had it, and he would try to scrub the stink of stale grease out of his hair in the drizzling shower. Then he would lie on the bed and think about those Droveks. In his imagination he shot Chip in the belly a hundred times. They had no right to treat a man that way. Not after five whole years. They weren’t hurt by the little bit he had taken. He’d been worth that much to them. Actually. it hadn’t cost them a thing. He’d made it all back by shorting the other customers whenever he could.

  He remembered everything he had known and heard about the Droveks, trying to find some weakness, some way he could hurt them badly. Finally he thought of a way. A big way. But he couldn’t do it himself. Too much risk. But it could be done. If he could get somebody to do it.

  Finally he saw how Sylvia could be fitted into the picture, how she could be the one to make it work. When he was certain he called her at her home one afternoon, taking the chance he’d find her alone.

  “Mrs. Drovek? This is Mark Brodey. You remember me? The bartender?”

  “Sure. I remember you.” She sounded very cautious.

  “I guess you heard I got fired.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know why?”

  “You were stealing.”

  “That isn’t true. I wasn’t stealing, Mrs. Drovek. I was framed. But nobody will listen to me. They won’t give me a chance to explain. I wonder if you’d be willing to help me.”

  “How could I help you, Mark?”

  “It’s like this. If you could come see me, I can show you the proof how I was framed and explain it to you. Then you can put in a word wit
h Mr. Charles for me. Honest, I need help bad, Mrs. Drovek.”

  She agreed. He told her where he would be, where she should slow down and look for him. She came along a half-hour later. It was his day off. He got into the car with her and directed her to the Ace Cabins.

  “Why are we going there, Mark?”

  “Slow down now. You take a right just down beyond that sign. I got the proof in my cabin, Mrs. Drovek. I got to show it to you. Turn here. It’s the last cabin. You can park the other side of it.”

  The nearby cabins were empty. As soon as he got her inside he grabbed her. She put up a good battle at first. It was a silent struggle, just the scrape of their feet on the floor, the gasping sound of their breathing. He was beginning to be scared about it, thinking that if he had sized her up wrong and this didn’t work, he might be charged with attempted rape. Finally, when he got room to swing, he belted her a couple of good ones. It knocked the wind out of her and all the fight out of her. She started crying in a meek way and from then on she let him do just what he wanted, even co-operating with him in a half-hearted way. He knew he was getting back at the Droveks this much anyway. Punishing something that was theirs. Making it do what he wanted it to do. Making it yell with pain.

  He kept her there until nearly dark. And then he said lazily, “You know how it was, Sylvia. You kept coming in the bar to see me. I got fired. You asked what happened to me. You looked me up. You came here because you wanted to come here.”

  “No.”

  “Sure you did. You couldn’t keep away from me. Be a hell of a thing for Pete and Chip and Leo and Joan and the old man to find out what a roundheel bitch Pete married. You going to tell them?”

  “No,” she whispered. “I can’t.”