“Should Mr. Dennison refuse to request the resignation, we can only assume that it is, in effect, an approval of Mr. Morrow’s personal habits and attitude toward authority. If this be the case, the Banner News wishes once more to reaffirm its policy stated at the time the Mayor-City Manager form of government appeared as Option Three on the ballot. If your house needs cleaning, the thing to do is get out the rags and the soap and the bucket and get down on your knees and do it yourself.”
Teed crumpled the paper and threw it aside. He lay back and stared rigidly at the ceiling. The editorial was damning. It contained enough facts to make every honest and decent citizen of the city lose confidence in Dennison. And confidence was what Powell Dennison was going to need at the time he made public his findings to date.
When Powell came home, Teed had made his decision.
Powell pulled a chair over to the bed. “Did you read the editorial in the Banner News, Powell?”
“A very clever and thorough job. But that’s their job, Teed. To make us look just as black as they possibly can.”
“I handed it to them on a platter, Powell.”
The big man frowned. “I don’t see that. You had nothing to do with the car being left there. And you know that I’ve never tried to control your personal life, Teed.”
Teed propped himself up on one elbow. “The nicer you are about it, the more you make me feel like a heel. Damn it, I want you to drop me over the side. I insist on it. I’m resigning, as of right now.”
Powell shut his eyes for long seconds, opened them slowly. “Job too tough for you?”
“You know better than that.”
“Is it the beating you took, Teed?”
“No. It’s the fact that I’ve lied to you. I lied to you because I was doing something I knew wasn’t smart, and I didn’t want to stop because Felice Carboy was good in bed. Oh, not wonderful, you know. Just pleasantly competent.”
Powell smiled. “That isn’t exactly news, Teed.”
“When did you know?”
“One Sunday the girls and I drove out. Her car was there. The two of you were swimming. I walked back to the car and told the girls you weren’t around. So we drove on.”
“Why didn’t you collar me and tell me I was being a fool?”
“It’s a man’s privilege, Teed, to be a fool. And a woman’s privilege too. I suppose that taking that other woman out there was Rogale’s idea. An attempt to cover up?”
“All right. Do you know that Felice Carboy was killed at my camp? Do you know that I brought her body back and left it where it was found? Two specialists came out and took care of her very adequately.”
Powell said softly, “That isn’t very good, is it?”
“All they need is just a little more evidence, real or manufactured, Powell, and I’m in the soup.”
“If you resigned, Teed, they would stop hunting for evidence. Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“That wasn’t my reason. It is a reason, but not mine.”
“It’s a risk I don’t want you to take, Teed. And there’s a way out of it. That was last Monday night, wasn’t it?” He got up quickly and went to the head of the stairs. “Girls!” he called. “Come up here a minute.” He went back into the room. “Jake is home from school for lunch.”
The girls came in, smiling at first, then sobering as they sensed the tension in the room.
“Think of Monday night. What happened? Phone calls? I don’t remember getting any. We had no visitors, did we?”
Teed saw where it was heading. “I can’t let you do this.”
“Be quiet. Girls?”
Jake said, “It was a real quiet evening. I had homework piled up. You remember anything, Marse?”
“As far as I can remember, no one came and no one called,” Marcia said firmly.
“Now understand this, girls, and remember it, please,” Powell said. “I worked in my study until nine. I told you I had some things to go over with Teed, things I’d forgotten. I drove the car up to West Canada Lake and we worked so late that I stayed overnight, as I told you I might when I left, and I came back in the morning.”
“But, Daddy,” Jake said, “why do you have to…”
Powell caught her hand. “Some people are trying to frame Teed, honey, for something he didn’t do. I’m willing to perjure myself and ask you two to lie for me in order to make it impossible for them to frame him easily. You don’t have to agree. But if you do agree, you can’t change your mind later.”
Jake looked at Teed with shining eyes. “Of course, Daddy. We’ll do it, won’t we, Marse?”
Marcia nodded, as though it were of little importance.
Rogale came in midafternoon and Marcia woke Teed up from his nap. Armando looked tired. He put his brief case on the floor beside the bed.
“Your attorney reports, Teed. Jeez, what a day!”
“How does it look?”
“Well, somebody got to our ex-mayor, Judge Kennelty, with the idea that as long as we have the Heddon girl on ice, they’d be damn fools to press this Boyd question. The Deputy Chief, Wally Wetzelle, told me over the phone that the charge was being withdrawn. I picked up Dennison’s bail receipt and went and got his dough back. The opposition sort of faded away. Like swinging at a baseball and hitting a powder puff. I can’t say it makes me happy.”
“Why not?”
“You only drop one attack when you think of a better one. On a hunch I got hold of a contact I have in the D.A.’s office. Apparently as far as Trim is concerned, the Carboy kill is still ‘person or persons unknown.’ And my contact said that Wetzelle, in charge of the case, has cut the working crew down to one guy, a vague, unworldly cop named Dinst who would have trouble finding the pay phone in a phone booth. It looks like there is going to be another unsolved murder in the files of our fair city. So my uneasy feeling grows stronger.”
“What’s the policy?”
“Watchful waiting. What the hell else? Unless you people want to leap to the attack. Got enough yet?”
“Enough to get a return of grand-jury indictments against Kennelty, Koalwitz, Carboy, Joseph Lantana and three members of the Common Council. Conspiracy to defraud the public.”
“I see what you mean,” Armando said, nodding, “enough for a big stink, some indictments that won’t turn into convictions. A stink that will slowly blow away and leave the same guys in the driver’s seat, eh?”
“Nothing to touch Lonnie Raval, Armando.”
“Or his two upstanding young lieutenants, Windy Weiss and Tony Stratter. I can see how previous you’d be, popping it now. Raval would just dump the ones you got the goods on and replace them out of stock. Are you getting any closer?”
“Maybe we were, and didn’t know it, Armando. Maybe Felice was the key for the lock. I wish I knew what she was going to tell. Think Carboy knows?”
“He probably does. And if he does, Teed, he’ll gabble just like Harpo Marx. He’s like the other ones that jump when Raval snaps his fingers. Stupid and shrewd. A hell of a combination. It makes me think of the TV programs during the investigation. You could see them there, the fat-cat smarties. They sweated a little and they squirmed a little, but when it was over they hopped planes and got the bell out of there. It was the dime-a-dozen politicians that were left standing by the wringer, wondering how they got caught. And not one of them with the guts, even after being caught, to come right out and name names, trace connections, point the finger at the fat cats. No. Always waiting and hoping for a new appeal, waiting until the heat was off so they could go nuzzling back to the fat cats, saying, ‘See? I didn’t tell a thing. Now get my muzzle back in the trough. Loyal guys like me should be rewarded.’” Rogale jumped up and walked over to the window, setting his heels down hard. “They’ve got something in mind,” he muttered. “I wish I could guess what it is.”
After he had gone, Teed put on the slippers and robe that had been brought over from his apartment. He went downstairs slowly, holding onto the raili
ng. By the time he reached the downstairs hall, he was sweating and trembling with weakness. The house was empty. He saw the car full of kids slow down in front, saw Jake jump out, wave and yell at the car, come running up the steps. She wore a flaring wool skirt of Chinese red, a white cardigan.
“Hey!” she said. “You supposed to be up?”
“They told me I could. Now I’m beginning to wonder.”
“I think you’d better sit down before you fall down, Teed. Sit on the couch. Here, I’ll put the pillows down at this end.”
When she had him fixed, she sat on the couch, down by his feet. She looked at him and the flush crept up from her throat, suffused her cheeks. She looked away quickly. “I’m sorry about last Sunday night, Teed. I got kind of creepy.”
“Not too many of your birthdays ago. I upended you and paddled you. With one to grow on. Maybe you were getting even, Jake.”
Her eyes were bold, suddenly. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“What worked?”
“That one to grow on. I grew, didn’t I?” She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. Teed looked quickly away from the white cardigan.
“Jake, you mustn’t get… crazy and impossible ideas.”
“About us, Teed? Oh, I know what you think. What you and Daddy and Marse think. That I’m a fool kid with a crush on an older man. You can go right on thinking it. It won’t hurt any. Because I know you’re wrong. I love you and I’ll always love you. It isn’t kid stuff. I’m eighteen, Teed.”
“Barely eighteen and a high-school senior.”
“Look at me, Teed. Stop looking across the room. I’m old enough to have children. Your children. I want your children, Teed.”
“You’ve got to stop all this.”
“I’ve figured it all out, Teed. When I’m thirty, you’ll be forty-three. When I’m thirty-six, you’ll be forty-nine. And we’re right for each other. Couldn’t you tell when I kissed you Sunday night?”
He looked at her blazing eyes, at her intentness. He said slowly, “I didn’t feel any more or any less than I would have felt kissing any eighteen-year-old girl-child. It was very refreshing.”
“You’re trying to hurt me, trying to drive me away. You can’t, Teed. I’ll never give up. Never!”
“You’ll meet a guy tomorrow, maybe.”
“In school?” she said contemptuously. “One of those! Some pimply creep who just wants to get you out in a car and put cold hands on you.” She shuddered violently.
“Look, can we just drop the subject?”
She made one of her lightning changes of mood, became very demure. Eyes downcast. “Of course, darling. If it tires you to talk about it.”
“Don’t call me darling!”
“Not if you don’t like it, dear.”
“Give me strength,” he muttered. They heard Marcia come in the back door, dump bundles on the kitchen table. She came in, her cheeks pinked by the crisp wind of early November.
“Smells almost like snow out,” Marcia said. She stared at them. “Why are you looking angry, Teed, and why is Jake looking like a whipped pup?”
Jake stood with great dignity. “I’m afraid, my dear elder sister, that is none of your affair.” She stalked out.
“Well, fawncy that!” Marcia said, one eyebrow tilted high. “Say, are you going to eat at the table with us tonight?”
“I think so.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“Just a little shaky. A lot of the pain is gone.”
“Was Jake being silly again?”
“Thoroughly. I suppose I ought to be flattered. It just makes me feel like somebody’s grandpop. I hoped those newspaper articles would expose my feet of clay.”
“Oh, no. She told us that after you and she were married, there’d be no reason for that sort of nonsense.”
“I give up.”
“And that’s exactly what she expects you to do, Teed.”
“Look, you’re her sister. Do you have any influence?”
“Not the least bit. She calls me the ‘glacial’ type. She says that I can’t possibly hope to understand an undying passion.”
“Could you, Marcia?” he asked, wondering why he always felt it necessary to needle the girl.
She bit her lip. Without answering she turned and went out with her lithe stride, hips so firm as to almost be called chunky, swinging the tweed skirt, treading as lightly and surely as an Indian, or a Viking maiden. In her was none of Jake’s gawky grace. Marcia moved all of a piece. Teed had seen other girls who moved that way. The water skiers at Cypress Gardens. The equestrians with the circus.
Powell came home a bit later and decided that a bland drink for Teed would be in accord with his bland diet. After dinner Teed reported Armando’s comments.
Powell said, “He’s right when he says we can’t move in on Raval yet. Maybe we’ll never be able to. That Weiss is the bag man, the pickup man. Tony Stratter handles the pay-offs. Everything is cash. When and where and how Raval steps in for his cut is a deep mystery. That’s our choice, Teed. To wait and hope we can get some more while we strengthen the data we already have, or whether we pop it fast. I suspect Raval would like to have us step up to the plate right now.”
“Which is the best argument for waiting that I can think of,” Teed said, smothering a convulsive yawn.
“I forgot how this would tire you, Teed. Better go to bed.”
“I’m O.K. Just sleepy. I’ll be to work by Monday.”
“Don’t rush it. There’s plenty of time.”
“I wonder just how much time there is,” Teed said. He said good night to Powell and the girls and went up to bed. He was lost in a warm mist of sleepiness. Consciousness left him with almost the same speed that the room fell into darkness when he pulled the bed-lamp chain.
The dream has taste and color and texture. A woman-dream of astonishing vividness, of clinging warmth, of heavy scent. He struggled up through the soft strands of sleep to the awareness of the warmth against him.
“What in the…”
A hand like ice closed his lips. “Hush, Teed,” she whispered.
He pulled her hand away and whispered, “Dammit, Jake! What do you think you’re doing?”
She was shivering violently and her breath was coming fast. She pulled his arms around her, burrowed closer against his chest, her hair tickling his nostrils. His hand rested on a silky sheerness, on the trembling warmth underneath it.
“Oh, Teed, I love you so!”
“My God, you’ve drenched yourself with perfume!”
She shook with silent laughter. “Did I use too much?” she whispered. “I couldn’t see in the dark. And I couldn’t turn on the light. It’s nearly three. They’re asleep. I took one of Marcia’s nightgowns, too. I don’t have any like this.”
He wormed his imprisoned arm out from under her, rolled onto his back, folded his arms across his chest. “Jake, you go back to your own bed,” he whispered.
“Love me, Teed. It will be all right. We’ll be married, Teed.”
“By God, I’m not going to touch you. Go away. Get out of here.”
She rammed her head up into his neck, an arm across his body. “You can’t win, Teed. Even if you don’t, I’ll say you did. So see? You’ll have the name anyway, so you might as well have the game.”
“What do you think a man’s made of? I don’t love you. Even if I did, this would be a damn fool operation. Go back to your own bed, dammit.”
“I’ve got enough love for both of us, my darling.”
“O.K. You’ve got enough love for both of us. Let’s discuss it in the morning.”
“Please stop talking, darling.” She climbed up over his shoulder, found his lips with hers, her arms sliding around his neck. The scent was like a cloud around them.
He pushed her away. He heard movement and thought she was leaving.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
“Just a moment, darling. I’m getting rid of this thing. I don’t wa
nt to get it all rumpled up.”
“Put it back on. At once!”
“Too late. Ah, much too late,” she whispered, sliding back against him, pressing hard against him, round warmth against him. Her breathing was quick and shallow, her hands chill, her heart racing so hard that he felt its soft thud against his arm. He knew that she was frightened, seriously frightened, but beyond threats, beyond repulse. His will told him to get out his side of the big bed, walk over to the windows, get a cigarette from the bureau. But the sweetness and the warmth had stirred him. Even as he resolved to leave her, he turned toward her, sliding his right arm under her, finding her lips, finding, under his fingertips, the long incredible silken slope of her back. And as he searched her mouth, he felt the stiffness of fear in her body, as his hand swept across her body he felt the shrinking, the virgin reluctance, the shock at the impact of maleness.
It was enough, and just barely enough, to break the spell. He pushed her away and moved back so that they no longer touched.
“I’m not afraid, Teed,” she said in a barely audible whisper, and he knew that she had realized what had made him stop.
“Unless you’re out of this room in thirty seconds, Jake, I’m going to turn the lights on, get dressed, and leave this house.”
“You can’t. You’re not… well enough. Teed, please.”
“I never meant anything more than I mean that, Jake. And I’m right. You would have hated me, afterward.”
“I could never hate you.”
“Get dressed, Jake.”
He watched. The room was so dark that she was nothing but a pale shadow. He heard the silky rustle. Her perfume grew strong again as she leaned over the bed. Her lips were like a child’s lips. They touched his cheek, slid lightly to his mouth.
“Good night, Teed.”
“Good night, Jake. This never happened. We dreamed it, Jake.”
“It never happened, my darling.”
The door latch clicked and then clicked again as it shut. There was a faint creak of a floor board in the hall. Silence. Just the perfume left, more faint than before. He clenched his fist and struck hard at his upraised thigh. Little girl playing games with a woman’s body. Little girl with sophistication borrowed from cheap movies, philosophy from the confession magazines, glamour from the pendulous bosom of television.
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