Stronghold

by Stanley Ellin

I cut it short at that and head up to the roof, surprised that Coco hasn’t already deserted his post to come down and get the word. Another couple of minutes, I know, and he’ll do it.

  First thing I see is that Janet is untied and is standing in the middle of the sun deck beside Coco. All right, that’s why she’s up here, to serve as cover for anybody on duty, but we can’t have two captains on the ship, can we? “Who the hell told you to cut her loose?” I say to Coco, and the next thing I see is the muzzle of the Uzi swinging my way, getting a bead on my chest.

  So our last confrontation has taught Blackie nothing, or the one before that, or any of the others along the way. He is not a slow learner, he is just a quick forgetter. I put my hand against the butt of the Colt in my belt, and Coco says, “No, man. That would be a mistake.”

  He has said it before under the same conditions, but his tone is different now. Smooth and easy. Mellow. I hesitate, and that is the mistake. Coco says, “You are always making big things out of little things at the wrong time, Jimmy. Now take the hand away.”

  I am not always making big things out of little things at the wrong time. But right now, I realize, I am winding up tight when I should be staying loose. At least, loose enough to take a good, hard look at my partner. This is the one who came up with the idea of cutting Harvey and Lester out of the picture. Now if I were Hubert, the old blacksnake, who would I really want for company after phase two is all cleared up: very sharp James Flood or a pair of very dull rednecks? When the plane lands in St. Hilary, where I am boss man of phase three, who would I rather have to boss around than the brothers Shanklin? All right, somebody will be needed to ride shotgun on that plane, but why stay with troublesome J. Flood when the Shanklins are such untroublesome naturals for the job?

  So all that talk about scratching Harvey and Lester off the books was candy-coated crap, a way of smoothing out any prickly suspicions of Hubert, the wily one. A good mind at work there in Hubert, but it has made one fatal mistake. It has underestimated the sharp, precise, analytical intelligence of the would-be victim.

  Coco says again, “Man, take that hand away,” and now with a sharp, precise view of the situation—he will waste me here and now if I try for a showdown, and Janet Hayworth will swear he did it to protect her—I take my hand away from the gun butt.

  “What about that phone call?” Coco says. “Did you talk to the man?”

  “No. All the phones are out.”

  “Out?”

  “Out. Dead.”

  “That does not make sense.”

  “It does, if Hayworth wants to keep everybody out of the way while he’s setting up delivery.”

  Coco jerks his head toward the road. “What delivery?”

  He is sweating hard as it is. It is a pleasure watching him sweat even harder, faced with one of those unpredictables he hates. I say, “What do you want to do about it? Drive into town and ask why the delay?”

  “Do not talk foolishness, man. Talk business.”

  “All right, if Hayworth has his way, he’ll be here any time now with the money. If Duffy or the FBI have their way, they’ll be here any time now with guns. Either way, we’re ready.”

  Like it or not, Hubert has nothing better to offer. He chews on this fact awhile until he gets it down. Then he says to me, “Meanwhile, I do not want this woman up here with me ready to pass out. Bring up one of the others.”

  I bring him up Mamma Emily for company. Then, on the way down with Janet, we detour into her room, where I allow her a bare pick-me-up of meth. A nice compromise. The large jolt she measures out at first would charge her up too much. Cutting it out altogether, if she’s really gone on the stuff, could mean withdrawal convulsions, and this is no time for convulsions.

  Later, maybe.

  Marcus Hayworth

  The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.

  Not always.

  Not now.

  Anna Marcy is abiding by the letter. Late in the morning phone calls start coming in from town. By one o’clock they are coming from Lake George Village, from Glens Falls, from Bolton Landing. It seems as if the whole length of Lake George is churning with the news that Janet Hayworth had a serious accident, that the Hayworth house is locked against the world during the crisis, and that the Marcy sisters can provide information.

  Anna answers each call with patience, holding scrupulously to the letter. “Yes, I have been told Janet had a bad fall. No, I cannot tell thee more than that.” Literally true, she has been told Janet had a bad fall. Literally true, she does not feel free to tell any outsider more than that. So here is the letter giving life. This is how long-ago Friends manning stations along the Underground Railroad learned to answer the slave-hunters who broke down their doors to demand the whereabouts of fugitive Negroes. The letter can give life.

  But is it giving life in this case, or is it threatening life? More than an hour has gone by since I was supposed to deliver Flood’s plunder to him. By now his nerves must be as raw as mine, but while I sit here in my self-imposed helplessness, he may be raging through my house, taking out his fury on my family and housekeeper. Has already given Sarah Frisch and me a dose of his medicine. I try to close my mind to what he might do to his hostages, and the trying only makes the sickening images before me that much more vivid.

  And yet.

  And yet if our inaction leads Flood to torment his hostages, what would the sight of guns aimed at him do? Very young I learned that you never, never drive a barn rat into a corner. Learned it the hard way by having the cowering, twitching, beady-eyed lump I was jabbing at with a rake handle suddenly become a vengeful fury, streaking up the handle, the needle-sharp teeth sinking into my thumb, and sinking even deeper as I screaming tried to shake loose that horrible grip. I did, and then it was I who ran from the rat, not the rat from me.

  Corner James Flood, jab the handle at him, and if distance happens to protect you, he may sink those teeth into anyone else closer at hand. Meanwhile, he must know—he is not totally mad, there must be some logic working in him—that the safety of the hostages is, in the end, the surest guarantee of his own safety.

  The phone rings again. Anna goes out to the hall to answer it; Elizabeth, in a straight-backed chair across the room, continues her knitting. A mindless activity, knitting. At monthly meetings for business, all the women knit steadily, but whenever one of them enters the discussion it’s plain that only the fingers are engaged with those needles, the mind is closely following the proceedings.

  No, not all the women. Janet, on those rare occasions when she chooses to attend meetings for business, does not knit. She sits, hands idle, eyes veiled, almost as if she is judging the meeting rather than taking part in it. She speaks seldom, and when she does, the comment she offers is always a bitter one, as if it is drawn not from the Light in her, but from a darkness.

  A darkness.

  What is frightening about that now is that while I believe Emily and Deborah can maintain a peaceable front before Flood, I am not sure Janet will stand up under the test. That darkness in her makes her too self-willed, too ready to show her dislikes. If she fails to realize the extent of Flood’s madness, she can bring disaster down on everyone around her.

  Might, at this moment, have already brought down that disaster.

  But even David, on the prowl in the woods behind my house, will not be able to find that out. He wouldn’t let me go along on this scouting mission. Someone must remain here to deal with the outside world if it becomes necessary, and I am the one for that.

  So here I am.

  Elizabeth knits.

  And then Anna comes in from the hallway, her face worried. She says to me tensely, “The doctor. Orin Jeffries. You must speak with him.”

  “You let him know I was here?”

  “Do not make hasty judgments, Marcus. If I did not let him know it, there would be even more trouble with him than there is now.”

  Orin Jeffries, for all the differences between his outlook and our
s, likes to think of himself as a friend of the family. A narrow-minded, loudly opinionated man, he is one of the last people I want involved in this crisis.

  I no more than pick up the phone and say “Orin?” when he bursts out with “Is that you, Marcus? What are you doing there? What the hell is going on, anyhow? Do you know the story I’ve heard about Janet?”

  “About the accident?”

  “About a fall she took last night and an operation being set up in your house by some neurosurgeon brought in from out of town. Now let’s get it straight. Was there an accident? Was there an operation?”

  “Yes.”

  “And who did you get in when it first happened, may I ask? I was home all night. And my girl’s been checking out every local man, and none of them was called in. So who was it? It damn well had to be somebody, Marcus, because you can’t get a surgeon to come out here on your own say-so. Not that I believe for a minute that any responsible surgeon would operate under those conditions.”

  “Orin, I don’t want to talk about it now. I’ll explain later. When it’s all over.”

  “You won’t have to wait that long. Because I’ve been doing some pretty hard thinking about what could have happened to Janet. And what you’re really up to.”

  “Orin—”

  “Just you hear me out, Marcus. I have a hunch that girl overdosed last night, didn’t she? Maybe came close to killing herself. And somehow she was pulled out of it—I suppose your son-in-law’s had plenty of experience with that kind of thing—but now you are so totally goddam terrified of a scandal, you’ll do anything to prevent it. If I’m wrong about any of this, you just tell me.”

  I don’t know what to say. If I say he’s wrong, I’m back to a story he’s already torn to shreds. If I say he’s right—but I don’t have to say anything. He says it for me. “No, don’t bother to cook up some more fantasies, Marcus. She did overdose, didn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Deliberately?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Or you’re not saying. Well, I warned Emily to let you in on it when she came to me in a panic about the girl’s condition, but oh no, she had to protect you from the nasty facts of life. She never did tell you, did she?”

  “No.”

  “All right, then let it be on my head, I’m telling it to you. Your daughter’s been saturating herself with barbiturates and amphetamines and whatever the hell other high-potency stuff she can lay her hands on for months now. But get one thing straight, Marcus. I never prescribed more than a minimum dosage for her. The absolute minimum. From what Emily said, I knew the girl was loading up on it, but obviously she’s been getting it through other sources. That’s what you have to do now. Not lock her up in the house to protect her reputation or any such damn nonsense, but find out who’s supplying her and take action against it. Now is the time, Marcus. Not tomorrow.”

  I don’t have to lie further. I can only say, “Orin, if I had known—”

  “Blame Emily for that. She never told you I recommended Janet for psychiatric treatment, either, did she?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I did. Referred her to a couple of excellent men. One in New York, one in Philadelphia. She took one look at them and ran. And this is a serious business, Marcus. Considering that girl’s depressive state, it could be close to life and death. That’s why you have to move fast. For starters, have a heart-to-heart talk with your son-in-law about it. And take a good close look at that collection of freaks you rented to down the road. By the way, Janet isn’t comatose, is she? She did come out of it all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you’re a damn fool not calling me in at once, but I’ll drive over now and take a look for myself. And maybe do some plain talking to all of you.”

  “Orin, you can’t come to the house now. It’s out of the question.”

  “Damn it, are you still on that track, Marcus? Take my word for it, there won’t be any police report, any scandal.”

  “I appreciate that, Orin, but you can’t come to the house now. I absolutely forbid it.”

  “Sure, sure, we’ll talk about it there.”

  “For God’s sake, you can’t get to the house. The road is blocked.”

  “Ridge Road? Blocked?”

  “Yes. From both sides.”

  “How? Why? Marcus, you sound demented. What the hell is this? The phone out, the road blocked, you’re giving me all kinds of wild ideas. Listen to me. Is there something going on out there you can’t handle?”

  “No. You have to believe that, Orin.”

  “Jesus Christ, what you’re saying, the way you say it, all I can believe is that you’re being mysterious about some mess Janet is in. You’ve lectured me more than once on the beauties of being open with people. All right, how about trying that out on me right now?”

  “I’m sorry, Orin.”

  His phone is slammed down. It takes me a moment to realize what that explosive sound means, and even then I stand there numbly, the receiver still held to my ear.

  I can cope with my enemies, a wise man once said, but God protect me from my friends.

  I go into the parlor. Anna says to me, “Orin Jeffries is a meddlesome man.”

  “Very meddlesome,” Elizabeth says. Her knitting needles click away without a stop.

  “He means well,” I say, and then to Anna from the bottom of my heart, “I’m only sorry you let him know I was here.”

  “It could not be helped. He said if I knew so little of what happened to Janet, he would drive out to your house. The only thing to do was call thee to the phone.”

  “What will he do now?” Elizabeth asks me. “Will he come up here, does thee think?”

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t believe that story about Janet we made up, but he does suspect we’re mixed up in something serious. I don’t know what he has in mind to do about it.”

  “He is meddlesome because it fattens his pride,” Elizabeth says. “If he had a true concern, he would do only what thee asks him to.”

  “Well,” Anna says, “all we can do is wait and see.”

  We wait.

  It is after two when David returns. His shirt is plastered wetly to him, his arms are scratched, his pants dotted with burs. The virgin woodland along the ridge makes rough going.

  He walks directly into the kitchen, gulps down a glass of water, then another. Then he sits down on the edge of a chair and starts to pick the burs from his jeans. Anna puts a paper towel on the table for him to lay them on.

  He says, “They’re keeping watch from the widow’s walk with binoculars. Taking turns up there. And with one of the women alongside whoever’s turn it is. Emily was there with Digby, and then it was Deborah and one of the muscle men. Smart. Not even Duffy would get too reckless, the way they have it set up.”

  “You didn’t see Janet?” I ask.

  “No, Deborah was still up there when I pulled out. Anything happen here?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Orin Jeffries phoned. I handled it badly.”

  “I suppose the word got to him about Janet’s accident. And he’s sore because you didn’t call him in on it.”

  “No, he doesn’t buy that story. He’s convinced that Janet took an overdose of pills and we’re trying to cover it up. When he insisted on driving up here, I had to tell him the road was blocked. That really set him off.”

  David considers the bur he is holding. Finally he says, “Maybe it’s all for the best. The accident story is too thin anyhow. This way Jeffries is making a real case for us.”

  “At least in his own mind. I doubt if he’ll tell anyone else about it.”

  “I’d gladly forgive him a breach of ethics right now,” David says. “The more people he tells, the better for us.”

  Anna says reprovingly to him, “Orin Jeffries is our doctor too. I prefer he does not go around telling tales about his patients.”

  “Well, it’s not likely he does,” I say.

  There is much more
I want to say, but I have to wait until I get David out of the house where it can be said privately. I lead him toward the road, and when we are out of earshot of the house I put it to him straight out. “David, the reason Jeffries suspects Janet overdosed is because she’s been taking dangerous amounts of those pills for a long time now. Emily knew that. Did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Deborah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why wasn’t I told?”

  “I felt you should have been. Emily and Deborah disagreed.”

  “They were wrong,” I say. “Terribly wrong. David, what is this all about? Jeffries even suggested you might be responsible for Janet’s loading up on that stuff. And that you and the commune people might be supplying her with it. And I know, from what’s been let slip now and then in talk among us, that you and Deborah do smoke marijuana, don’t you?”

  “Marcus, marijuana and pills have nothing to do with each other. As for supplying Janet with pills, hell, man, I’ve been battling with her for months to give them up.”

  “You mean she’s an addict?”

  “Whatever you want to call it, she’s completely dependent on those things. Twenty-four hours a day. I don’t even know how she can function as well as she does, the amount she’s taking.”

  “But why? Am I supposed to believe that with everything Janet has, she still finds her life so unbearable that she can’t face it without drugs?”

  “Oh God, the way you put that. Marcus, that is right out of the textbook. You have no idea how it sounds.”

  “I asked you a question, David.”

  “I suppose you did. All right then, I managed to get her talking about it a couple of times. It wasn’t too coherent either time, but from what I could make of it, you’re the problem.”

  “I?”

  “Yes, you. The heroic image she worships. The godlike male. Capable, confident, perfect in all his works. A hard marker, too. No matter how desperately she tries to pass the test, she knows she never can. That’s a hell of a thing to live with, Marcus.”