The Will

by Harvey Swados

  “I was in a panic. Stella used to call me up and start crying over the phone. I was afraid if Harold found out, he’d have me arrested, slugged, killed. So I went to Uncle Max, the only one I could get around. I tried to be tough, I said, Max you dog, I’ve been stealing rubbers from the second drawer, and they’re no good, they’re stale, they’re rotten, like everything else in your crummy store. Now I’ve got a girl in trouble, and you’ve got to make it good. He laughed, he showed me his little yellow teeth. He actually looked proud of me. Who is she? That was his first question. I said, a Polish girl, she’s in Ralphie’s home room, and he cackled like a rooster. We’re getting even with the Polacks, he said, at last we’re getting even!

  “I had the feeling then and I still have it now, that he was proud of me for doing something he never had himself. I’d been with him a lot, in the store, in the streets, collecting his rents, and I’d seen how women could put him off. He was afraid of no man, but he feared the secret strength of women, their persistence, their staying power, their ability to do what one of them must have done to his own father—hypnotize him away from his sons. When he said that I was getting even, I don’t think he meant just with the Polacks. I think he meant with women.

  “But that was all right with me, I thought we understood each other. He didn’t bawl me out, he gave me some pills for Stella. After that, when Mama told me I’d better go, I couldn’t even say that it was going to be all right, that I had medicine for the girl, that she wasn’t going to have any baby.”

  “But she did have one.”

  Mel turned blindly to Dr. Stark.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I said she did have a baby.” The doctor was absolutely imperturbable. Ignoring everyone else, he said slowly and precisely to Mel, “Max sent her to me, as pregnant as a girl can get. If he gave you pills, I’ll bet they were only placebos. Max wouldn’t take a chance on an abortifacient. He didn’t tell me who was responsible, but he left me the impression that it was Ralph. That seemed dubious, especially since you were the one who had left town. In any event, I persuaded Stella’s family, who could not sweat the name of the father out of her, to sign her into a nursing home. In due time I delivered her, and saw the baby through the adoption process. Her brother has always been grateful, which is one reason he’s been co-operative through this whole mess—all I’ve ever had to do was hint. I can’t say the same for Stella, who has four kids, last I heard, none of them delivered by me. But maybe it’s understandable that she should have turned elsewhere for a family doctor.”

  Mel sat dazed and shuddering. At last he asked, “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “Apart from the fact that you didn’t ask, I don’t volunteer professional confidences. As for your by-blow, it’s never been a part of your life, and I don’t think we ought to discuss it.”

  “So it was Max all along.”

  “I think he meant well. He couldn’t turn you down, no doubt he was pleased that you came to him rather than to your own father. But he couldn’t become an accessory, so he tricked you, and ran first to me to hint that I abort the girl, which he knew was out of the question, and then to your mother, to get you out of town in case the girl told on you.”

  “The old bastard,” Mel muttered. “The old bastard.”

  Ralph said hesitantly, “I think Uncle Max wanted to play daddy, but he didn’t know how to go about it any better than Papa. Neither one could admit to hating their father for his remarriage, after they’d sacrificed their youth for him. Max must have gotten a secret charge out of rearranging your destiny, the way his father had done to him.”

  The sun was slipping down behind the tall shrubbery outside the pavilion. As the light muted, it seemed to Kitty that the seven of them were becoming more isolated from the others in the spacious room, more self-contained. It was Mel who still held the rest of them; they waited intently for his reaction. It was not long in coming.

  “Let’s skip the philosophy,” he said with renewed brutality. “If it was Max and not Ralph who did me in, then I’ll take my vengeance on Max. I’ve got that coming to me. And I’ve got evidence.”

  The silence that bloomed in their quiet corner hung almost odorous in the air about them, as if his explosion had released some strange instantaneous blossom, exacting an awed silence rather than any exclamations of surprise, shock, or wonderment.

  It was Martin Stark who broke the silence.

  “You’re not being practical. If you want vengeance, you can hold your brothers up for a substantial settlement.”

  “And you still don’t see my purpose.”

  “As a lawyer I can assure you that you’ll get no place if you attempt to exclude your brothers.”

  “As a lawyer you shouldn’t make unsupported statements. And I should have known better than to get in touch with you today, just because of your father.”

  Dr. Stark growled, “For what it’s worth, Marty is at least as disinterested and as honest as I am.”

  “Then why is he in such a hurry for me to toss in my hand, before he even sees my cards?”

  “Just what are your cards?”

  “That’s more like it.” Mel peered at each one in turn. “The issue isn’t my father’s will, it’s Max’s. Right? If it hadn’t been for Max getting out and scuffling, Pop wouldn’t have had anything to leave Ray but his best wishes.”

  “The fact remains that Max Land did leave everything to his brother.”

  “Except for letters. He left me some very interesting letters. He made me some promises in those letters. Anybody ever tell you that?”

  The lawyer hesitated, and apparently in that instant Mel decided to take the plunge. Glancing obliquely at Ralph, he demanded of him, “According to the newspapers, you cleaned up the house. Ever come across any letters from me to Uncle Max?”

  Ralph’s reply was inaudible to everyone but Kitty. He cleared his throat and repeated the word.

  “Yes.”

  “What did you do with them? Tell us.”

  “There’s no reason for you to talk to Ralph like a district attorney,” Kitty cut in. “He’s under no obligation. Besides, he could just as easily have told you he didn’t find the letters.”

  “I’ll handle this,” Ralph said. He turned back to his brother. “I destroyed them.”

  “Who gave you the right to do that?”

  “You can’t make a moral issue out of it. I was cleaning out the junk, looking for a will. Uncle Max was dead. You were gone. Who needed your old letters?”

  “Nobody. It’s true. Still, you might have passed them around. Then these good people could have gotten some idea of what I went through during the years when Ray was living off old men and you were learning to swim with the stream.” Mel raised his hand in a gesture of magnanimity. “But it’s all right. I’ve got his letters. You’re going to wish you could have destroyed them like you destroyed mine. Because anyone who reads them can see that I was his boy, I was the one he cared for, I was the one he wanted to provide for.”

  Martin Stark remarked neutrally, “They hardly supersede his last testament.”

  “That remains to be seen. I’m not showing you my whole hand yet. But I’m anteing up now for a moral claim to Max’s estate.”

  Dr. Solomon Stark burst out laughing. It was more a carefree snort than a chuckle, and as such it was shocking. Even some of the few remaining strangers looked up from the other end of the room. Leaning forward from his stiff-legged position in the corner chair, the doctor tapped Mel on the knee.

  “I think maybe that beating jarred your brain loose after all. Can you imagine how funny it would sound in a court of law if a wild boy like you, fresh out of jail, started pressing moral claims?”

  “He who laughs last, Doc,” Mel said. “Ask your son if maybe it wouldn’t be wiser to wait until the evidence is in.”

  “Depends on the evidence,” Martin murmured. “If it’s going to be just talk and bluster … It’s getting rather late, Mel
.”

  The nurse stirred uneasily and glanced at her watch. But it was Martin himself who was most disturbed: despite his curt nonchalance, Kitty was sure that he was not happy with Mel’s renewed self-confidence.

  Mel glanced about him. He reached into the pocket of his bathrobe and drew out a folded sheet of paper. “All right, I’ll ante up. Here’s Max’s last letter to me. Don’t anybody grab—it’s a photostat. I came to town to show this to Ray. Since he says he doesn’t want to negotiate, you can all hear it in the light of what the doctor has just told us about my loyal pal, Uncle Max. Anybody who’s bored can leave.”

  No one stirred.

  “Dear Roughneck,” he read, then interrupted himself. “Max never called me Mel, maybe that’s why the letter didn’t identify me to Karpinski, when he went through my pockets. Uncle Max always liked to call me Roughneck. He says:

  You might as well know. We are never going to see each other again. You are in your jail, I am in mine. You don’t want people to know where you are, or who you are, OK, I have respected your wishes, now respect mine. I don’t want people to know either. I don’t think it is anybody’s business that I am going to die. We have always understood each other on these things which is why I feel I can tell you what I wouldn’t tell anybody else, OK? They always said you were wild, but it was like what they said about me. I don’t like to boast but if it hadn’t been for me what would have become of the family. When I ask that they can’t answer. OK, just the same I have to look after my brother even after I have gone. Even his pride I have to think about. You get the point. To put it in plain English I have to leave everything to him. Don’t think I am forgetting you. I am not. I will tell him this week that when it comes his time you are as important as the others. As far as I am concerned, more. I mean more like me and all of those who came before us who stayed in there punching so the family wouldn’t fall apart. That’s the way the human race makes progress. Not by daydreaming or by trying to get into society. You have sowed your wild oats, OK, it is about time to straighten up and fly right. In my opinion you are the one who has the nerve, more than the others, and for that reason you deserve more. Maybe you will sweep the board yet. I wish I could be there to see you show them, that is my only regret. But even though I will never see you again it gives me pleasure to think how you are going to knock them cold one of these days. You could do it on your own, I did, but if I can help you, why not. I am going to insist on that with my brother. That’s my promise to you and my bequest, OK? Must sign off now because the pain is driving me crazy. Nobody else will, but I hope that you will always remember

  MACK THE KNIFE.

  Those were his last words to me—my nickname for him, these last years.”

  Ralph sat with his eyes closed against the sun, whose last probing rays were striking across his drawn face. But Ray and the nurse, Kitty saw, were staring at each other rather than at Mel, staring with a sad surmise, like children lost in the woods. For the first time she felt that her pregnancy had separated her from this young girl by an entire generation. The doctor rocked slowly back and forth, his large capable hands locked across his knee, a faint smile on his face. Martin appeared deeply perturbed by what he had heard; he chewed his lips and gazed at Mel as if trying to read his mind.

  “There’s no evidence in that letter,” Martin said, “that your uncle ever actually communicated his desires to your father. And you understand that even if he did, they wouldn’t have any legal force—not when Raymond is willing to do just what Max suggested.”

  “We’ll let my lawyer worry about that.”

  “I know I sound stuffy. But I must point out that on a thousand-to-one shot such as yours, no reputable lawyer will go to bat for you on a contingency basis. Unless you have substantial backing, you’d really be better advised to settle right now, with your brothers.”

  “The very fact that you’re so anxious, Martin, persuades me that I’m on the right track.”

  The doctor said impatiently, “You know what you guys remind me of, with all this sparring around? Those international conferences where they bicker so much beforehand about whose piece of property to meet on, what problems they should pretend to try to settle, and who’s going to sit in what chair, that they break up before they ever get down to business. Instead of imitating grownups, who are intolerably irrational, why can’t you behave like the kids who simply allow their hatreds to evaporate so they can go on playing? Mel, if you can’t find a sucker to finance you in a hopeless struggle, why don’t you just pretend to be converted by your brothers, and settle the damn thing right now? You know something? If you’re bent on cherishing a grudge—to say nothing of making a fresh start, which I personally believe is impossible, given the nature of the beast—it’s a lot more comfortable to do it with a pocketful of change.”

  The old man knew more than all the others put together. It was fascinating, Kitty thought, to watch Mel considering how to parry him.

  Mel said carefully, “No one else but me is going to get his hands on Uncle Max’s money. Especially not Ralph and Ray. If necessary we’ll wash all the dirty linen in public. I’ll prove that my father was not of sound mind, that he’d been cracked for years, when he willed everything to Ray. And that Ray was too, that the two of them were part of Max’s private zoo. I’ll—”

  Kitty could not contain herself. “You’d do that to your own brother? After he struggled for you all these months? After he got down on his knees and asked you to forgive him for something that wasn’t even his fault?”

  “Look who’s talking. The very person who starved him half to death. You know, Kitty, I don’t see why we should keep that to ourselves either. Why shouldn’t everybody hear how this respectable young couple mistreated a helpless half-cracked brother? Then we’ll see which of us jokers is wild.”

  Kitty felt the blood drain from her face, even from her mouth, leaving her lipstick greasy and stark, like some garish mask of healthy sensuality. She worked her lips, but no words would come out.

  She heard Martin demand, “Is everybody all talked out now?”

  No one replied, and he went on, “Before we call it a day, let me just add that something has come up concerning the estate that is going to affect all of you. I can’t go into it here, I don’t even have the entire picture myself, but I suggest that we meet at my office as soon as Mel can be discharged from the hospital.” He turned to his father. “When will that be, Dad?”

  Dr. Stark shrugged tiredly. His already sallow face had gone gray, and the spark in his eyes had died down.

  “Judging by Mel’s jazzy behavior, maybe I should never have had him admitted here in the first place. Suppose we say day after tomorrow.”

  “Good enough. Can you all be at my office at nine-thirty in the morning? The earlier—”

  Mel waved his index finger like a flag. “I’m not coming to your office. If you’ve got anything more to say to me, you can say it at Max’s house.”

  “That’ll do perfectly well,” Martin acquiesced. “I shall have to bring someone else with me. You’ll understand why when we arrive.”

  Ray was already whispering good-by to the nurse. Kitty said to Ralph, in a voice that was much more unsteady than she had hoped, “Would you see me to my room, please?”

  Dr. Stark put his hand to Mel’s wrist, whether simply to squeeze it or to check his pulse Kitty could not tell, and said to him, “I’ll pick you up here day after tomorrow to discharge you and drive you out to the old house.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “No, no, I want to.” The doctor motioned to Laura that she might wheel her patient away, and with a farewell wave to Mel, strolled off with his son. He did not touch Martin any more than Ralph was touching her, or Ray, Laura; in his case, though, there was surely a paternal gesture of love that he dared not make because it might disturb the rhythm of the limp with which Martin moved decisively from objective to objective. Everyone to his private miseries. But suddenly they were all leaving, an
d Mel, she saw, was left alone with the little nurse, who was not even his, but had somehow been pre-empted by his little brother.

  In the instant that Kitty glanced back at him, Mel, fixed and furious in his wheel chair, called out to all of them. “Hey! Just a minute!” And Kitty, far from being terrified once again, was curiously certain that this snarling lone wolf was calling for his family because he could no longer bear to be alone, with no one to threaten, no one to attack.

  They all turned. Dr. Stark, with his hand at last where he wanted it, on his son’s arm; Ralph, with his dark brow tightly knit and his arm tightly enfolding Kitty’s shoulders, protecting her against any new revelations; Ray, standing apart, looking hopefully at his brother and the nurse.

  Mel did not seem to mind who overheard him. “You forgot about my name. Since Ray doesn’t want to negotiate, I’m taking my name back in another hour.”

  “It’s already yours,” Martin replied cheerfully. “Thanks for reminding me. While you were arguing with your brothers, I was having a frank talk with Lieutenant Karpinski. I must say he didn’t seem particularly surprised. In fact, he’s assured me that you won’t be disturbed here until you’re discharged. I’m off now to prepare a statement for the morning papers.”

  Mel turned savagely from them to Laura, who waited, starched and pale, offering him only the chance to get away.

  “Come on, kid,” he said to her between his teeth, “let’s get out of here.”

  14: MEL

  SEEN FROM THE WINDOW of Solomon Stark’s car, Uncle Max’s house was nothing at all like the spectral hulk that it had been the last time Mel had surveyed it, with beating heart, empty stomach, and a gnawing hunger to confront his brothers. Now, having breakfasted and dressed leisurely, if awkwardly, at the hospital, he could look at it as dispassionately as if it were simply a prison—which in a sense it was.