“Good evening, Glenn,” she said, and felt herself undressed by one quick sweep of his mockingly respectful eyes. She knew that he had waited on her a few times, but she had not been particularly aware of him. He fixed the credit slip quickly and hurried out for the customer’s signature. A stud animal, she thought, vain, ignorant, arrogant, potentially a troublemaker. Marty’s weakest point as manager was selection of personnel.
“How long has he been with us?” she asked casually.
“A little over six months. Glenn is one of the best I got. He’s got a lot of hustle. And when it’s slow, he doesn’t lounge around. He keeps the place hosed off and shined up.”
“Get along well with the other boys?”
“Not too good. I guess it’s just because he makes them look bad. I just changed him from the day shift.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to change. Said he had to have a lot of work done on his teeth and it was easier to set up dentist appointments for early afternoon.”
“Couldn’t you give him time off for that?”
“I told him I could, but he said he didn’t like to ask for favors like that, and besides he said he wanted to get the experience of working the late shift for a while. He’s anxious to get ahead, that boy is.”
“Maybe you ought to try to find out how much hustle he’s got when you’re not around, Marty.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing, I guess. Nothing at all. What’s his full name?”
“Glenn Lawrenz. Lives in Walterburg. Drives back and forth in a red Ford convertible he souped up himself.”
“With echo cans, I suppose,” she said acidly.
“Yeah. I guess it’s got those.”
On that same Wednesday evening at six-thirty, Nancy Drovek was stretched out on her bed, talking over the phone. “I honestly couldn’t face it, Billy, really. You have no idea. I’ve spent three days at an utter dead run after getting up with birds, yet. My feet feel like hot sponges with needles in them. The very idea of dancing makes me go gaah. I don’t get a day off until Saturday, and then right back into the track meet on Sunday. I promised my male parent I’d last out the summer. I’m even too poohed to go eat, actually. The other gals keep telling me I’ll get used to it, but right now I’m just one big solid ache. You have no idea.”
She suddenly heard a crash of glass in the kitchen.
“I’ve got to hang up now,” she said hastily. “You keep calling me, Billy. Maybe I’ll get my second wind or something. ’Bye.”
She shoved her feet into her slippers, and hurried to the kitchen, buttoning her blouse. The kitchen stank of raw bourbon. Clara was making ineffectual dabs at the shards of glass with a broom.
“Motherrr!” Nancy said and hurried to her. “I’ll take care of it, doll. You’re in your bare feet! Where are your slippers? You’ll cut your feet to ribbons!”
“Slipped … out of my hand,” Clara mumbled.
Nancy tugged at her arm, got her turned around, led her into the living room and got her seated on the couch. She squatted, lifted Clara’s feet by the ankles, carefully inspected the soles of her feet and found she had not cut herself. The slippers were there, and she put them on.
“Getting a drink,” Clara said and started to get up again.
Nancy pushed her back. “Rest easy, doll. I’ll get it.”
“No … no ice,” Clara said.
“I know, Mother.” She went back to the kitchen. Clara’s glass was on the drainboard. She took a fresh bottle from the cupboard, peeled the seal off, poured an inch in the bottom of the tumbler, filled the glass two-thirds full with tap water. She took it back in, made certain Clara’s hand was firm on the glass before she let go. “There you are.”
“Thank you. Is it … too hard work for you down there?”
Nancy was astonished. She had told Clara about the job, but had felt that Clara hadn’t comprehended.
“It’s not too hard, Mother.”
“That’s good.”
Nancy suddenly realized what was so unusual. The television set was off. “Don’t you want the television on?”
“No!” she said with unexpected quickness and force.
“All right, doll.”
Nancy went out to the kitchen, cleaned up all the glass, sponged up the spilled liquor. She kept thinking of her mother sitting in there, absolutely alone, slow thoughts moving in her head. It was kind of creepy.
She rinsed out the plastic sponge. Suddenly, as she stood by the sink, there was a knotting in her throat and a stinging in her eyes. She leaned against the sink and closed her eyes. I will never be drunk, she told herself. I will never never never be drunk my whole life. Not one time. Never. Tears came through her closed lids, heavy on her lashes. Her vow had the strength of a revelation. She had made it many times before. There was no anger left, or disgust. The only thing left was a sort of protective tolerance. Daddy said it was a sickness. If you thought of it as sickness, it was not so bad. This was a house of sickness. Quiet, shadowy and still.
Clara sat in the dim evening light of the living room, listening to the choir. It was a choir of a thousand male and female voices, singing religious music, not hymns, but those strong choral things of Bach. She could never hear the choir with complete distinctness. It was as though there was some unknown wind that dimmed the sounds, making it so clear at times she could hear the splendid soaring of the sopranos, the chanting of the basses. Then it would fade. She had been hearing it for a long time, over the sound of the television. If the television was loud enough, music would blank out the thousand voices. But she knew they sang even when she could not hear them, because as soon as the music stopped they were there again, soaring over and around and through the voice of the announcer.
It had seemed to her odd that no one else could hear them. But she was canny enough not to mention them, and risk a return to That Place. Sometimes she enjoyed the voices, but most of the time they frightened her. They never began until the afternoon, and they were very faint at first, just a wisp, a torn fragment. But then the wind changed and they became more clear. In the evening they were strong, shouting of the glory of God.
She sat and listened to them, and sipped the tepid drink. Yesterday afternoon somebody had brought mail for Charles. It was on the kitchen counter. She had gone to make a drink. She had looked at it, idly. The letter on top was not stamped. It was to Charles. It said Personal.
Back in the living room she thought of the reasons why it should say Personal. And she became convinced it had something to do with the choir and going back to That Place again, back to vomiting and sharp needles and all that trembling.
So she had opened it. It was hard to read it. She could not seem to pay attention to it. She knew what every word was, but the words did not seem to fit together. She read it many, many times. When she could understand part of what it meant, she hid it, and said nothing to Charles about it. Now all she could remember of it was one part. And she could remember that clearly.
She got up from the couch and walked over to the bookshelf and took down the ornate and handsome Bible she had been given on her sixteenth birthday. She took it back to the couch. If Charles should come in, she could be reading her Bible. It opened to the letter. She took it out of the envelope. By turning it toward the window she could make out the words. It seemed to be about people she had never heard of, things she did not understand. But they were important things.
After she had replaced the letter and Bible on the shelf she found that she could remember only that one part. It might be easier for me, my darling, if I could manage to hate her because of the way she has you so completely trapped. But I cannot hate her, even though she stands squarely in the way of the fullness of our love. I pity all three of us, but perhaps I pity her the most. Of the three of us, she is the one without love, you know. With love, you and I can never be completely defeated. Poor Clara.
I, she thought, am Poor Clara. And that is what the choir sings abo
ut. That is what I must understand. So I must listen. Understand what the music means. That’s what they called me long ago when I went to live in their big house. Poor Clara.
The choir sang. She suddenly realized the room was entirely dark and her glass had been empty for a long time. She got up and turned the lamp on, shuffled out to the kitchen and fixed a drink, careful to hold the bottle tightly.
Glory! the voices sang. Glor-reee! GLOR-REEEEE! The sopranos were tinglingly high and clear and sweet, their throbbing throats opened wide.
In the High-eye-est, chanted the male voices. All-my-eye-teeeee, sang the contraltos and altos and tenors.
CLARA they all sang together, a mighty diapason, a full rich chord that lasted her all the way back to the living room before it faded completely away.
SEVEN
On Thursday, the twenty-eighth day of June, in the Ace Cabin farthest from the highway, Sylvia Drovek, in pale-blue panties and bra, her dark hair tangled, small beads of moisture on her low forehead and her dusky upper lip, sat on Mark Brodey’s cot at four-thirty and watched him as he paced nervously and exuberantly back and forth in the small area, stripped to the waist, his corded back muscles rippling whenever he thumped his hard fist into his palm.
“I keep telling you and telling you over and over,” she said.
He stopped and looked at her. “And you’ll keep telling me as long as I keep asking. Right?”
“Sure, Mark. I don’t mind. Honest.”
He began pacing again. “I didn’t think he’d bite so damn fast. And so complete. You sure he’s not kidding you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You make damn sure tomorrow night when you’re with him.”
“Okay, Mark.”
“Like I told you, he may try to get ideas of his own. Don’t let him push you around. Make him do it my way. Your way. The old man gets his check around the twentieth every month. Right? And he’s in a sweat to get down to the bank. So we can almost figure on Chip driving him in on Monday, the twenty-third. In the middle of the morning. Set it up so you’ll have a number to call where the punk will be. He tears off to the bank. He’s got a lot of time to get them used to him between now and then.”
He stopped pacing and faced her. “Between now and then I’ll find the place where he’s to pick you up, after he’s got the cash. He might get some funny idea about running with it, by himself. Let him know that if he doesn’t show, the cops will get a tip by phone who to look for. I’ll find a good quiet place. You and me, we’ll be there waiting for him.”
“You aren’t going to … do anything to him?”
He looked at her with disgust. “Yes, I’m going to do something to him, baby. You are going to give me a chance to get close enough to him to rap him on the head. I’m going to tie him up and leave him in his car. You and I are going to drive back into Walterburg in your car, and we are going to the airport and get on an airplane with the money and take off. We’ll be packed and ready, baby. And by then I’ll have tickets lined up. And you’ll leave a note for your hubby telling how you’re taking off with the punk. By the time they locate him, we’ll be south of the border, living it up. So tomorrow night you tell him you’ll decide later where he’s to pick you up. He’s to think you two are taking off in that convertible of his, and leaving your car where it won’t be found in a hurry.”
“All right, Mark,” she said hesitantly.
He sat beside her and noticed the way she shrank away from him involuntarily. It pleased him. He picked up her hand quite gently. He said in a soft voice, “You don’t seem happy enough, cutie. I want you should be real hopped up about this. All smiles. And I certainly wouldn’t want you to get any funny ideas. You know what I’d do to you?”
“I’ll do just what you say, Mark.”
“Here’s what I’d do, cutie.” He tapped her very lightly on the nose with his fist. “No matter how far or fast you’d run, I’d find you. And I’d flatten that cute little nose.” He tapped her on the chin, grinning. “And fix you up for a set of store teeth.” He gave a tug at her hair. “Shave you bald as an egg.” He thumped her solidly on the bare thigh. “Break up both those cute legs, and leave you in a dirty ditch for the birds.”
“Please, Mark,” she said, her mouth trembling.
“You’ll do anything in this big wide world I tell you to do, and do it fast, won’t you?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“And nobody knows you even know me. Nobody knows you come here. You haven’t been bigmouth with a girl friend?”
“No.”
“Now get your clothes on and get out of here. I got thinking to do.”
Her hands shook as she got dressed. She was biting her underlip and she looked pallid and sweaty.
After she backed out and drove away, stalling the Chevy twice, Mark Brodey sat for a long time tasting the sharp sweetness of vengeance. Five crummy years working for those bastards. The girl was cowed. She’d done fine so far. He realized how lucky he had been with her. Something in her responded to being beefed around. It was something she needed and hadn’t been getting. She liked being scared to death.
From now on it had to be handled perfectly. The chaotic ideas he’d had of procedure had to be sorted out, made solid and foolproof. And the very first thing to consider was a good place for the money. A place where it could sit safely for from six months to a year. Safe from fire and damp, but easy to get at in a hurry if need be. The thought of the money made his heart bulge, and his ears ring.
The punk would arrive with the money in a small suitcase or dispatch case.… He spent an hour devising and discarding plans. Long ago a farmhouse had burned nearby. The fieldstone chimney still stood. He wandered over to it. Brush screened him from the highway. It was a hundred yards from his cabin. It was so overgrown it took him almost a half-hour to find what he was looking for. Vines covered the rotten boards that covered the old well. He looked in all directions, then knelt and shifted a board. It would do. The more he thought about it, the better he liked it. Take the money out of the case, seal it in Pliofilm bags and repack it in the case. Have a piece of wire all ready, one end securely anchored. Fasten it to the handle of the case, hang it a few feet down the well, shift the board back. It would keep for a year. And available in moments.
Suddenly he realized that the case itself, if something went wrong, might link him to Lawrenz. The money itself would be a lot harder to identify. Unlikely there’d be any record of serial numbers. So get rid of the case. Put rocks in it and drop it in the Walterburg River. Or burn it. Have something ready for the money. It wouldn’t be bulky. Not if the old man had it packed in a safety deposit box. Probably one of the big boxes. Pack it in something that would give it some additional protection. But what? Something with a very ordinary look, so that if by accident it should be seen by some nosy kid, it would not excite any special curiosity.
An inner tube would do it. Make a long slit in the inside, pack it with the Pliofilm bundles, seal the slit, hang it in the well.
It satisfied him. The other major problem remained. The exact place, the perfect place, for Lawrenz to meet Sylvia. It had to be easy to find. It had to be completely secluded. And it had to have one other essential characteristic.
On Friday afternoon, a little after four o’clock, not long after Glenn Lawrenz had come to work, Jack Paris and Pete Drovek were getting ready for their weekend fishing trip. A friend of Pete’s had a summer place on Bogue Sound and a thirty-six-foot sports fisherman. Figuring a short stop along the way for food, they could drive right on through and arrive before ten o’clock at night. Jack’s station wagon was parked in the handiest place for both of them to load, in Pete’s driveway, between the two houses, headed out. They had loaded the rod cases, tackle boxes, suitcases, beer cooler. Joan had come home from the office to see them off.
She stood with Jack beside the station wagon. Pete had gone into his house. Jack glared at his watch. She realized he was as excited as a kid about to leave
for camp.
“When do I start looking for you, darling?” she asked.
“If it’s slow Sunday, we’ll probably come in early enough to get back here late Sunday night. But if they’re hitting, we’ll stay over and leave early Monday. What the hell’s keeping Pete?”
“Have you got everything?”
“Sure. I made a list.”
Pete finally found the hat he had been looking for, a faded red job with a long bill. He backed out of the storage compartment, slapped it against his thigh to knock the dust off, put it on and turned and grinned at Sylvia. “Man shouldn’t hardly go anywhere without his lucky hat,” he said.
He hugged Sylvia strongly and casually, bent to the soft ripe rind of her mouth, kissed her with emphasis.
“Have a good time,” she said, not looking directly at him.
He shook her gently. “Be of good cheer, chunky stuff. You’ve been a dirge lately.”
“I’m okay.”
“Be back Monday. Stay out of trouble. Be wearing something you can get out of fast when I get home, doxie. The sea air does amazing things to me.”
“Pete?”
“What is it, honey?” She was looking at him pleadingly.
“When you come back could we go away together? For a long time?”
“Where?”
“Just away from here.”
“What’s so horrible about here? Cheer up, honeybundle. I can’t leave. Go buy some tricky underwear and some new shoes.”
He walked out to the station wagon with her, his arm around her, his hand on her firm and slender waist, feeling the warmth of her, the interwoven flex of her muscles as she walked. A good kid, he thought. He felt irritated with her for her recent moodiness, and felt slightly ashamed of himself. He knew that he did not have any special interest in what might be upsetting her. He just wished it was over. It was like resenting a good dog because it had a touch of mange. Or a horse with a sore foot. Or a boat with a leak. The utility was slightly reduced, the efficiency not up to par, the pleasure of perfect functioning reduced.
The Crossroads Page 12