The Sixth Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

  Driving back to the Coburn Inn, I recalled the exact conversation:

  Me: “What did he die of? Petersen?”

  Nurse Stella Beecham: “Pelvic cancer. Inoperable. He didn’t respond to chemotherapy.”

  Someone was lying. Beecham or Draper, who had signed the certificate stating congestive heart failure was the cause of death.

  And all those other puzzling statistics …

  I needed a drink.

  So, apparently, did half of Coburn. The bar at the Inn was two-deep with stand-up drinkers, and all of the booths were occupied. I took a small table, and grabbed the harried waiter long enough to order a vodka gimlet and a bag of potato chips with a bowl of taco-flavored cheese dip. My brain was whirling—why not my stomach?

  I was working on drink and dip, using both hands, when I heard a breathless …

  “Hi! Buy a thirsty girl a drink?”

  I lurched to my feet.

  “Hello, Millie,” I said, gagging on a chip. “Sure, sit down. What’ll you have?”

  “My usual,” she said. “Chivas Regal and 7-Up.”

  I don’t think she saw me wince. I shouted the order at the passing waiter, then looked around nervously; I don’t enjoy being seen in public with a cop’s wife. It’s not a matter of morality; it’s a matter of survival. But fortunately, there was an old John Wayne movie on the bar’s seven-foot TV screen, and most of the patrons were staring at that.

  “Don’t worry,” Millie laughed. “Ronnie’s working a twelve-hour shift tonight: four to four.”

  I looked at her with respect, and began to revise my opinion. I pushed the dip toward her, and she dug in.

  “Besides,” she said, spraying me with little bits of potato chip, “he doesn’t give a damn who I drink with.”

  “Besides,” I added, “he’d be happy to know you’re helping make my stay in Coburn a pleasant one. He wants me to be happy.”

  “Yeah,” she said, brightening, “that’s right. Am I really helping?”

  “You bet your sweet patootie,” I said. “Love that tent you’re wearing.”

  She looked down at the flowered muumuu.

  “Really?” she said doubtfully. “This old thing? It doesn’t show much.”

  “That’s what makes it so exciting,” I told her. “It leaves everything to the imagination.”

  She leaned forward and whispered:

  “Know what I’ve got on underneath?”

  I knew the answer to that one, but I couldn’t spoil her big yock.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Just perfume!” she shouted, leaned back and laughed like a maniac.

  Her drink arrived, and she took a big gulp, still spluttering with mirth. It gave me a chance to take a closer look at her.

  The face was older than the body. There were lines at the corners of eyes and mouth. Beneath the heavy makeup, the skin was beginning to look pouchy and tired. And there was something in her expression perilously close to defeat. But the neck was strong and smooth, firm breasts poked, the backs of her hands were unblemished. Nothing defeated about that body.

  “Where do you and Ronnie live, Millie?” I asked idly.

  “Way to hell and gone,” she said sullenly. “Out on Fort Peabody Drive.”

  I thought a moment.

  “Near Crittenden Hall?”

  “Yeah,” she said sourly, “right near it. Their fence runs along the back line of our property.

  “What have you got—a house, farm, mobile home?”

  “A dump,” she said. “We got a dump. Could I have another one of these?”

  I ordered another round of drinks.

  “Tell me, Millie,” I said, “where do the good citizens of Coburn go when they want to cut loose? Don’t tell me they all come in here and watch television?”

  “Oh, there’s a few places,” she said, coming alive. “Roadhouses. Out on the Albany post road. Nothing fancy, but they have jukes and dancing. Sometimes Red Dog Betty’s has a trio on Saturday night.”

  “Red Dog Betty’s?”

  “Yeah. There’s a big poodle in red neon outside the place. It’s kind of a rough joint. A lot of truckers stop there. But loads of fun.”

  She looked at me hopefully, but I wasn’t having any. I wasn’t drunk enough for Red Dog Betty’s and loads of fun.

  “Tell me about the places you go to in New York,” she said.

  I didn’t tell her about the places I go to; she’d have been bored silly. But I told her what I thought she wanted to hear, describing fancy restaurants, swinging bars, discos, outdoor cafes, beaches, pick-up joints and make-out joints.

  Her face became younger and wistful. She asked eager questions. She wanted to know how the women dressed, how they acted, what it cost to live in New York, could she get an apartment, could she get a job.

  “Could I have fun there?” she asked.

  I felt like weeping.

  “Sure, you could,” I said. “Maybe not every minute. It can be the loneliest place in the world. But yes, you could have fun.”

  She thought about that a moment. Then the defeat came back in her eyes.

  “Nah,” she said mournfully. “I’d end up peddling my tail on the street.”

  It was another revelation. No dumbbell she. I had underestimated her. The clown makeup and the tart’s costume she was wearing the first time I saw her had misled me. Maybe she wasn’t intelligent, but she was shrewd enough to know who she was and what she was.

  She knew that in Coburn she was somebody. Men came to the Inn lobby to buy their cigars and cigarettes and magazines and newspapers, just to wisecrack with her, to get a look at the finest lungs west of the Hudson River, to flirt, to dream. The femme fatale of Coburn, N.Y. As much a tourist attraction as Lovers’ Leap and the place where the British spy was hanged. And in New York City, she’d end up hawking her ass on Eighth Avenue, competing with 15-year-old hookers from Minneapolis, and she knew it.

  She knew it in her mind, but knowing couldn’t entirely kill the dream, end the fantasy. The wild, crazy, raucous, violent city drew her, beckoned, lured, seduced. Loads of fun down there. Loads of fun.

  The bar was emptying, the patrons going off grumbling to farms, homes, wherever. There were several empty booths.

  “Have dinner with me, Millie,” I said impulsively. “You’d be doing me a favor. I get tired of eating alone, and I’d—”

  “Sure,” she said promptly. “We’ll eat right here. Okay? I hear the meat loaf is very good tonight.”

  It was good, as a matter of fact. I think it was a mixture of beef, pork, and lamb, very juicy and nicely seasoned. With it, they served thick slices of potato that had been baked, then browned and crusted in a skillet. Creamed spinach. We both had warm apple pie a la mode for dessert. I figured if this Thorndecker investigation went on much longer, I was going to need a new wardrobe, three sizes larger.

  We had a bottle of New York State red with the meal, and brandy stingers with our coffee. Millie Goodfellow sat there, chin propped on her hand, a benign smile on her face, and I admit I was feeling the way she looked: slack, satisfied, and grinny. The memory of those eleven congestive heart failures in the past year at Crittenden Hall slid briefly into my mind, and slid right out again.

  “You were talking about going to New York,” I said. “Just you? Or you and your husband?”

  “What do you think?” she said scornfully. “He’ll never leave this turd-kicking town. He likes it here, for God’s sake.”

  “Well …” I said, “it’s his home. I understand his family have lived her for years and years.”

  “That’s not the reason,” she said darkly. “The reason he won’t get out.”

  “Oh?” I said. “What is the reason?”

  She put her two forefingers together and her two thumbs together, and made an elongated spade-shaped opening. She looked down at it, then up at me.

  “Know what I mean?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, “I think I know what you mean.�
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  We were sitting across from each other in a highbacked booth. The checkered tablecloth hung almost to the floor. Millie Goodfellow squirmed around a bit, and before I knew it, she had a stockinged foot in my groin, tapping gently.

  “Hi there!” she said brightly.

  “Uh … hi,” I said, sliding a hand below the tablecloth to grip her ankle. It wasn’t passion on my part; it was fear. One sharp kick would have me singing soprano.

  “Sex is keeping him in Coburn?” I asked.

  She winked at me.

  “You said it, I didn’t,” she said.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Julie Thorndecker.”

  She winked again.

  “You catch on fast,” she said. “She’s got him hypnotized. He’s in heat for her all the time. Walks around with his tongue hanging out. And other things a lady can’t mention. He can’t think straight. He runs errands for her. If she told him to, he’d jump in the river. He’s gone nuts. He’s out there all the time. I think they’re making it in the back seat of his cruiser. Hell, maybe they’re making it in our place while I’m working. She’d get a charge out of that: screwing my husband in my bed.”

  “Are you sure, Millie?”

  “Sure, I’m sure,” she said roughly. “But you think I give a damn? I don’t give a damn. Because you know what the funny thing is?”

  “What’s the funny thing?”

  “He thinks he’s the only one, but he’s only one of many, son. She’s laying everything in pants. Maybe even that bull dyke Agatha Binder. Maybe even that sissy stepson of hers, that kid Edward. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. I’m telling you, Constable Ronald H. Goodfellow is in for a rude awakening one of these days. Oh yes. And I couldn’t care less. But you know what burns my ass?”

  “A flame about this high?” I asked, holding my palm at table level.

  She was drunk enough to think that funny.

  “What burns me,” she said, still giggling, “is that I’ve got the reputation for being the fast one. Always playing around—you know? Cheating on my husband with every drummer and trucker who comes to town. That’s what people think. And she’s the re-feened Mrs. Lah-de-dah, wife of the big scientist, the first lady of Coburn. And she’s just a randy bitch. She out-fucks me three to one. But I get the reputation. Is that fair? You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to hire a private detective and get pictures of them together. You know—naked as jaybirds and banging away. Then I’m going to sue Ronnie for divorce and smear her name and the pictures all over the place.”

  “No, Millie,” I said, “you’re not going to do that.”

  “No,” she said dully, “I won’t. I can’t. Because Ronnie knows about me. Names, dates, places. He’s got it all in that little goddamned notebook of his. He knows about me, and I know about him. Hey!” she said brightly. “What happened to our happy little party?” Her stockinged toes beat a rapid tattoo on my cringing testicles. “Let’s you and me go up to your room. You show me the New York way, and I’ll show you the Coburn way.”

  “What’s the Coburn way?”

  “Standing up in a hammock.”

  “Hell,” I said laughing, “I don’t even know the New York way. Unless it’s impotence. I’m going to beg off, Millie. I appreciate your kind offer, but I’m somewhat weary and I’m somewhat drunk, and I wouldn’t want to disappoint you. Another time. When I’m in tip-top condition.”

  The toes dug deeper.

  “Promise?” she breathed.

  “Promise,” I nodded.

  I paid the tab, we collected hats and coats, and I walked her out to her Ford Pinto in the parking lot. She was feeling no pain, but she was talking lucidly and wasn’t staggering or anything. I believed her when she said she could get home all right.

  “As a matter of fact,” she said, “I’m practically stone cold sober. I might even stop by Red Dog Betty’s and see if there’s any action tonight.”

  “Don’t do that, Millie,” I urged. “Go home, go to bed, and dream of me. I’ll go upstairs, go to bed, and dream of you. We’ll have a marvelous dream together.”

  “Okay,” she said, “that’s what we’ll do. You’re so sweet, I could eat you up. Come in and sit with me a minute while the car warms up.”

  She pulled me into the car with her, started the engine, turned on the heater. I fumbled for a cigarette, but before I knew what was happening, she was all over me like a wet sheet. Her mouth was slammed against mine, a frantic tongue was exploring my fillings.

  I knew it wasn’t my manly charm. It wasn’t even her physical wanting. It was misery and loneliness and hurt. It was despair. And the only way she could exorcise that was to cleave to a warm bod, any bod. I just happened to be the nearest.

  She pulled her mouth away.

  “Hold me,” she gasped. “Please. Just hold me.”

  I held her, and hoped it was comfort. She took my hand and thrust it under her coat, under that long, voluminous skirt. She had been truthful: all she had on beneath the shift was perfume. She pressed my palm against a long, cool thigh. She just held it there and closed her eyes.

  “Sweet,” she whispered. “So sweet. Isn’t it sweet?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Millie, I’ve—”

  “I know,” she said, releasing my hand and smiling bravely, “you’ve got to go. Okay. You’ll be in town awhile?”

  “Another few days at least,” I said.

  “We’ll get together?” she asked anxiously.

  “Sure we will.”

  “Listen, all that stuff I said about Julie Thorndecker—I shouldn’t have said all that. It’s all bullshit. None of it’s true. I’m just jealous, that’s all. She’s so beautiful.”

  “And young,” I said, like an idiot.

  “Yes,” she said in a low voice. “She’s young.”

  I kissed her cheek and got out of there. I watched her drive away. When she turned onto Main Street, I waved, but I don’t think she saw me. I hoped she wasn’t going to Red Dog Betty’s. I hoped nothing bad would happen to her. I hoped she’d be happy. I hoped I’d wake in the morning without a hangover. I hoped I’d go to Heaven when I died.

  I knew none of these things was going to happen.

  I went back into the bar. I had two straight brandies, figuring they’d settle the old tum-tum, and I’d be able to sleep without pills. Something was nagging at me. A memory was nagging, and I couldn’t recall, couldn’t define, couldn’t pin it down. It had nothing to do with the Thorndecker investigation. It was a memory revived by something that had happened in the past hour, something that had happened with Millie Goodfellow.

  It was more than an hour before I grabbed it. I was up in my room, hunched over on the bed, two boots and one sock off, when it came to me. I sat there, stunned, a wilted sock dangling in my fingers. The memory stunned me. Not the memory itself, but the fact that when it happened, I was convinced it would turn my life around, and I’d never forget it. Now it took me an hour to dredge it out of the past. So much for the woes of yesteryear.

  What happened was this …

  About two years previously—Joan Powell and I enjoying a sharp, hard, bright, and loving relationship—I was assigned a field investigation in Gary, Indiana: not quite the gardenspot of America.

  An assistant professor in a second-rate engineering school had submitted an application for a modest grant. His specialty was solar energy, and he had been doing independent research on methods to increase the efficiency of solar cells. They’re squares of gallium arsenide that convert sunlight directly to electricity. Even the types used in the space program were horribly expensive and not all that efficient.

  The professor had developed, he said, a method of electronic amplification that boosted the energy output above that of fossil fuels at half the cost. Not only did I not know what the hell his diagrams and equations meant, but Scientific Research Records, who analyzed his proposals, more or less admitted they were stumped: “The claims made herein represent a totally new and u
nique approach to this particular problem, and there is nothing in current research to substantiate or refute the applicant’s proposals.” In other words: “We just don’t know.”

  Lifschultz Associates reported the professor was small potatoes, financially speaking. He had a mortgage, a car loan, two kids in college, and a few bucks in the bank. Small insurance, small investments, small everything. Mr. Everyman.

  Donner & Stern didn’t have much to add of a personal nature. The professor had been married to the same woman for twenty-six years, had those two kids, drove a five-year-old car, didn’t drink, gamble, or carouse, was something of an enigma to neighbors and colleagues. He was polite, quiet, withdrawn, didn’t seem to have any close friends, and apparently his only vice was playing viola in a local amateur string quartet.

  I went out to Gary to see him, and it was pretty awful. He had fixed up a basement lab in his home, but it looked like a tinkerer’s workshop to me. He didn’t talk much, and his dumpy wife was even quieter. I remember they served me a glass of cranberry juice, and put out a plate of Milky Ways cut into little cubes.

  I thought he was a loser—the whole family were losers—and I guess some of this crept into my report. Anyway, his application was denied, and he got one of our courteous goodby letters.

  A few days later he tried to swallow a shotgun and blew his brains all over his basement workshop.

  I don’t know why it hit me so hard. The professor wasn’t rejected just on the basis of my report; the special investigators had been as unenthusiastic as I was. But I couldn’t get rid of the notion that his suicide was my fault; I had done him in. If I had been a little kinder, more sympathetic, more understanding, maybe he’d have gotten his ridiculously small grant, and maybe his cockamamie invention would have proved out. Maybe the guy was another Edison. We’ll never know, will we?

  The night after I heard of his death, I had dinner with Joan Powell. We ate at a restaurant on West 55th Street that specialized in North Italian cooking. Usually I thought the food was great. That night the pasta tasted like excelsior. Powell knew my moods better than her own, and asked me what was wrong. I told her about the suicidal professor in Gary, Indiana.