“Off duty?”
“I’m on duty. Mr. Brower is asleep right now. He prefers I don’t wear a uniform.”
“So what’s the routine, honey? He wants to talk to me. So here I am. When can he talk, and how long, and where do I stay?”
“You can stay down at the Inn. It’s quite comfortable. Or you can stay here.”
George took his dark glasses off. “What’s your suggestion, honey?”
She shrugged. “It’s up to you. Your brother is staying here in the house.”
She saw his curious reaction. His half smile remained fixed. His hand, moving to slip the sun glasses into his shirt pocket, stopped its motion. He seemed to stop breathing. Until that moment she had thought him an absurd caricature of her lover, had seen him as Sidney would be were he made shorter and much heavier and older, half bald, if all the perception and awareness were erased from his face and replaced with a coarse, meaty, animal blankness. But something about his few seconds of an absolute stillness chilled her.
Then the hand moved and the glasses went into the pocket. The smile changed. “Sid the kid, eh? When’d he get in?”
“Early yesterday.”
“Lots of time to butter old grandpop, huh?”
“I really don’t believe that’s why he came here.”
“Why should you get sore, baby? You should stick to the pill business. I guess what I’ll do, I’ll stay here. Okay with you?”
“Mr. Brower said you could stay here or at the Inn.”
“So it’s okay with him and I guess that’s what counts. Do I eat here?”
“If you wish.”
“You do the cooking?”
“No.”
“Can you show me where I sleep, maybe?”
“Your car is blocking the drive, Mr. Shanley. Suppose you leave your luggage on the walk and put the car out in the back. When you’re ready, I’ll tell you where your bedroom is.”
But when he walked into the front hallway with his suitcase, a heavy old woman was waiting for him. “I’m Mrs. Weese,” she said. “You go up the stairs and it’s the room right opposite the top of the stairs. Lunch is over, so if you ain’t et, you’ll have to go into town.”
“How do I get some ice?”
“Through that door to the kitchen and I’ll give you some if I can spare any.”
“Real service around here, mom.”
“You get the same as anybody else,” she said and turned away.
“Where’s my brother?”
“I ain’t kept track.”
George Shanley had just finished unpacking when Sid rapped on the open door and walked into the bedroom. George straightened and stared at him. “Well, well, well. My little old burr-headed brother. You look great, kid. Just great.”
Sid sat on the foot of the bed. “The gathering of the clan. It warms my heart.”
“Let’s don’t crap each other, kid brother. Since I was sixteen I seen you one time, and I haven’t exactly missed you.”
“So you found other targets for your natural sadistic tendencies.”
George leaned against the bureau and stared at him. “Just like in the airport. The big words. You want to be class, Sid? You and me, we came out of the same cellar. You got more school, maybe. What difference does it make? How much did you ever pay for a shirt? This here is an import. Twenny-fi’ bucks. I didn’t need big words to buy it. Just money. You were a soft, sissy, dreamy little kid, and you’re still dreaming. It’s my world, kid, not yours.”
“What are you so defensive about, George?”
“Stop trying to crap me, kid. What shape is the old man in?”
“Dying.”
“How long is it going to take him?”
“Nobody seems to know.”
“Not even that snotty nurse? Just who the hell does she think she is?”
“The old man likes her.”
“So she’s after the loot. It figures. If we didn’t show up, she’d make out better. How much loot is there, kid?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t seem to know much of anything. Has he decided how to split it up?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“Anybody else here beside you, me, the old man, the nurse and that fat housekeeper?”
“Just an old man who does the yard work.”
“Spooky damn house. You can have it for your share, Sid.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“When do I get to see the old bastard and do my loving grandson bit?”
“When Miss Lettinger says you can.”
“How the hell long do I have to stay here?”
“I don’t know.”
George stared out the window. “No television. No broads. Do you play gin?”
“No thanks. Have a nice rest.”
“Is the old boy upstairs here someplace?”
“No. He’s downstairs, in the study off the living room. They had a hospital bed brought in.”
“Maybe the night nurse is friendlier.”
“There’s just the one nurse, George.”
George moved over and sat on the bed. “There better be some money in this. I got four kids. Liz and the kids, they’re at Tahoe. Liz doesn’t like the summer climate in San Diego. It costs to keep them up there. Don’t get the idea I’m hurting on the long run basis. It’s just a temporary squeeze, on account of a tax audit didn’t come out so good. Take the places I’ve got, I’m grossing over a million a year. But right now would be a good time for some extra money coming in. For God’s sake, I didn’t even know I had a grandfather. Kid, you look brown and tough. That your wagon with the Texas plates out by the barn?”
“Yes.”
“What do you do down in Texas, kid? You still in the car business?”
“Yes,” Sid said. He was pleased that his voice was casual. But he could not trust his face. He walked over to the window. He looked at the steadiness of his hands as he lit a cigarette. All the alarms were working. He went over it carefully, to make certain.
“As long as people like to eat and like to drink and lay a little bet, I’m going to stay healthy,” George said.
“The old man might be worth quite a bit,” Sid said.
“You mean it?”
“Well, he might have a lot of land.”
“Land can be pretty good,” George said eagerly. “There’s a lot of ways to make out pretty good with land.”
“I saw a map with his holdings marked on it. It looked like a lot of land.”
“Where is this map, kid?”
“Down in the barn, in the back. It’s on the wall back there, varnished over.”
“Can we go down and take a look at it?”
“I guess so, George. But let’s not be too obvious about it. The old man is still alive. It doesn’t look very good to be counting up the money.”
“Sure. I see what you mean.”
“Let’s go down and go out the side door and wander around and end up out at the barn.”
They went down the stairs. Sid went to the living room door. Paula was in with the old man, and from the sound of her voice she was reading to him. He could hear Jane Weese working in the kitchen. They went out the side door. The afternoon was slightly overcast. The big yellow convertible was parked by his station wagon. Sid looked for Davie Wintergreen and saw the old man, far off, working in the old orchard on the hillside far behind the house. He nodded to George to follow him into the barn. He walked back past Paula’s car and Tom’s old sedan, past box stalls to an area used for the storage of garden tools and supplies. He walked slowly across that area, hearing George’s footsteps close behind him. Sunlight came through small high windows, diffused by dust and cobwebs.
He stopped and turned smoothly, pivoting with an accelerating power, and, keeping his right elbow tight to his side, he drove his fist deeply into the belly-softness of his brother, releasing in that merciless and malignant explosion all the persecutions of his childhood.
George gave a great g
agging belch and doubled, his face shiny grey, eyes bulging and lost. He fell to his hands and knees, sucked air with a rasping sound, collapsed onto his side and pulled his knees up. His eyes were closed. He groaned with each exhalation. Sid knelt beside him and emptied his pockets. He pocketed all the money and the keys. He ripped up the licenses and identifications and credit cards. When he put the wallet back into George’s pocket, all it contained were pictures of small children and a blonde busty woman with a porcine face.
George stirred, coughed, gagged and pushed himself into a sitting position, his head hanging between his knees. “I think you bust something inside,” he mumbled. “I think you busted me up.”
“Maybe,” Sid said. He looked around the storage area and saw a coil of half inch manila, grey with age, hanging on a nail. He went into the nearest box stall. There was a heavy overhead beam, ten feet off the floor. He tossed the rope over it. Both ends hung down.
George got clumsily to his feet. His face was plaintive. He stood in a huddled way, hugging his belly. “You sprung something, kid.”
Sid took his arm and trundled him into the box stall. George saw the rope. “Hey!” he said in a thin voice. “Hey!” He set his heels. He put his hands up and filled his lungs to yell. Sid hit him on the fatty angle of the jaw. The yell became a sigh. He caught George, sat him down like a fat listless child. He tied the rope around his brother’s thick neck. Not a slip knot. But snug. The knot was at the nape of the neck. He took the other end of the rope. He took it over to the feed bin, where there was a sturdy cross member.
George shook his head slowly. He looked around. He lifted his hands quickly to his neck. There was a look of horror in his eyes. He took a breath and Sid pulled on the rope. It choked off the yell. George’s face began to darken. With surprising agility he scrambled to his feet, whining as he did so. Sid kept the same tension on the line, and then relaxed it slightly and said, “No noise, George. No yelling.”
George fumbled at the loop and at the hard knot with thick white fingers. In a gurgling voice he said, “Please! Jesus, Sid, please!”
“Stand tall, Georgie.”
George stood very erect. Sid tested the tension very carefully, and lashed the line to the feed bin. George stopped fumbling with the knot. He stood at attention with his chin up. The flesh of his throat bulged slightly over the grey manila.
“You gone out of your mind?” he asked in a small careful voice. “Honest to God, kid, if this is some kind of a gag …”
Sid leaned against the bin and folded his arms. “Let’s talk about the car business.”
“The car business! What’s this with the car business?”
“You wanted to know if I was still in the car business.”
“Let me loose, kid. Please. What’s wrong with that? In Chicago that time, you told me you were going in the car business.”
“No, George. I didn’t tell you where I was going or what I was going to do. So let’s talk about the car business.”
“I don’t know how I knew!”
Sid put one hand against the rope and pushed. George went up onto his toes. His hands flew up to grab the rope. But he could not ease the pressure. His face darkened, his mouth craned open and his eyes began to bulge. Sid released the pressure. George gasped and coughed and Sid waited until his breathing had quieted.
“How did you know I was in the car business? Think a minute before you answer. You were a mean kid, George. Anything I had, you took it if you could use it, and broke it if you couldn’t. I hate you, George. I hate you enough to watch you stand there and strangle. It may happen, whether you tell me or not, but it’s the only chance you have. So you better take it. I’ll strangle you, George, and hide you under those tarps, and tonight I’ll drag you into a field and bury you deep. I’ll drive that rental to Syracuse and abandon it, and I’ll bury your suitcase with you. I’ll tell the old man you took a look around and decided there wasn’t enough money in the estate to interest you. How long before anybody will really start looking for you, George? How did you know I was in the car business? No. Let’s give you a one word answer. Where was I in the car business?”
“I don’t know, kid. I just don’t know.”
Sid put his hand on the rope. “Goodby, George.”
“Florida! It was Florida!”
“Who told you?”
“Two and a half years ago. I’ll tell you about it. Let me loose. Please.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You told your wife you had a brother name of George in San Diego. Then you got in trouble over the wife with Jerry Wain. You messed him up. You disappeared. They thought I’d know where you were. Two guys came out. They asked me nice and then they asked me rough. But I didn’t know a thing. They said you were in the car business. Please let me loose, Sid.”
“Then you got the letter. You’re part of the same organization Wain is. What did you do about the letter?”
“I came here. What else?”
“That look of righteous innocence is a little too much.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’d let them know I might be here, George.”
“Kid! You’re my brother!”
“And you’d set me on fire for a dollar and a half, George.”
“Why should I tell anybody?”
Sid leaned his weight into the taut line. It took George up so that his polished shoes tapped lightly at the dusty boards and he made a slow half circle. He held him there until his hands fell away from the line. When he released the tension, George sagged on the line. Sid pulled his slip knot loose and George tumbled to the floor. He lay on his back. Sid could see him breathing. Soon he regained consciousness. With little tugs on the rope Sid urged him to a sitting position.
“Boardman,” George said in a husky whisper.
“What?”
“Claude Boardman. He was big, but now he’s out of it. He’s got cancer. He knows everybody. He made some calls. Wain still wants you. I had to clear myself. If it looks like I crossed anybody, everything is gone. You understand that?”
“How was it left?”
George fingered his throat. “If you’re here, I was to make a call.”
“Did you make it yet?”
“When have I had a chance to …”
“But you were going to make it?”
“What choice have I got? I got a business to protect. I got a family to protect. What are you to me? Jesus, kid, I can’t take a chance on …”
The whining voice became a meaningless sound, and his vision blurred, and Sid pulled down on the free end of the rope with all his strength. George came writhing to his feet. Sid closed his eyes and made a harsh sound, and everything in the world was focused down to one raw sensation, the little twitchings and tuggings of the rope. And he knew that in a little while the rope would be still, and he would know a horrid peace …
Then something was splatting and thumping against his face, clawing at his hands. He opened his eyes and saw the contorted face of Paula. He released the rope and staggered back and, as he turned away, he saw George fall heavily to the dusty floor, Paula hurrying toward him. Sid walked to the wall and leaned his forehead against the rough wood. He took deep breaths. His knees were trembling. His hands were sweaty. He heard rasping, stentorian breathing.
“I think he’ll be all right,” she said. Her voice was perfectly flat and calm.
“That’s good,” Sid said in the same voice.
“Jesus,” George groaned.
“Lie still for a little while,” Paula said. “Nothing is going to happen to you. You’re all right. Lie still, Mr. Shanley.”
She came over to Sid. Her face was pale and her lips looked bloodless. “How could you do a thing like that? How could you be capable of that?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I was trying to bluff him. And then I found out he … he promised to let Wain know if I was here.”
“But nothing could justify … such an uglines
s. Nothing.”
“I know.”
“Do you know what you would have been doing to me?”
“Paula, please. It didn’t happen. Thank God it didn’t happen.”
She stared at him for a long moment, and then went back to George. She talked with George for a few minutes, and then asked Sid to help her get him up to his room. They each took an arm. George shuffled along, his chin on his chest, his hands pressed against his belly. Jane stared at them from the kitchen window, her eyes wide.
He had to rest twice on the stairway. They put him to bed. Paula dressed his raw neck, after phoning Ward Marriner. The doctor arrived twenty minutes later. George obediently gave the fabricated story, that he had tripped and fallen face down on a stake. Marriner prodded him and asked questions. He told Paula what to watch for. He gave George something for pain, and then went down with Paula to look in on Tom.
Sid went into his room and stretched out on his bed. He felt slightly nauseated. He heard the doctor’s car leave. Paula tapped at his door. He told her to come in. The sky had darkened. She sat on the edge of his bed, facing him, and took his hand in hers.
“I’m not going to pass judgment,” she said. “It shocked me. It scared me. You were somebody I don’t even know. But it’s over now. I’m telling myself you got it out of your system. It can’t happen again.”
“I’d like to be sure of that. It scared me too. When I was little I wanted to hurt him. I used to think about it. But he was too big. I’d like to be as certain as you are that it won’t happen again.”
“I can tell you something that will keep it from happening again.”
He frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“If you can’t remember what it would do to me, you could remember what it would do to your child.”
“Child!”
She swallowed and smiled wanly. “If wanting has anything to do with it, we’ve started one.”
He sat up and stared at her. “But … but I thought … you being a nurse and all …”
“I’m twenty-nine years old.” Her tone was angry. “How much of you could I count on, anyway? Could I stand around waiting for a veil and a cake? And what sterling reputation am I supposed to be protecting anyway? I wanted a child before. But I had an instinct about Jud. I thought I’d better wait a bit. When I knelt in the station wagon and looked down over the seat at you, I’d made the decision. I wasn’t going to tell you. If you’d asked me about protection, I would have lied to you. What good is the nice broad pelvic structure, and all this marvelous health? Am I supposed to wear the breasts forever as decoration? My body was waiting for the father, waiting for seed, and when I knew it, when I knew it was you, why should I consider anything else in the world except taking from you the one thing that gives me meaning, no matter what happens? And each time for us, I have been so aware of just that, Sid. Such a pulling and yearning. Such a smugness of absolute certainty. You see, I am quite sure. I don’t know why I should be. But I am. In a few weeks some friendly rabbit will confirm it. But already … I feel like a vessel. I am carrying. My heart knows it.” She began to cry and he gathered her into his arms and pulled her down and held her.
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