This morning, after a fitful sleep, he had dressed and shaved, as a matter of pure routine. But the task of feeding himself, of making coffee, had seemed too monumental for his dazed mind. He had driven directly to the airport.
He was late, and had no time to stop off for something to eat at the lunch counter. He phoned the luncheonette for coffee and a cruller, and then set about arranging his papers before him.
When the door of the shack opened he thought it was the boy from the lunch counter. He said, "Put it down over on the desk," and reached for his wallet. When he turned, though, he discovered Gary Heaslip.
"Hello, Hennler," Heaslip said. He came through the door and leaned his buttocks against the desk.
"Hello," Hennler said, warily.
"I guess we're going to talk a little," Heaslip said. "When I was coming over here I thought I was going to beat the living hell out of you until you decided to confess, but--"
"Confess what?" Hennler said. His voice lacked conviction.
"Let's not talk like that--not between you and me, Hennler. There're no plants here now. There's no microphone and the tape's not on, and I'll probably do all the talking anyway. I'm a kind of a talkative type for a young fellow. But don't crap me. You know what I'm talking about."
Hennler said nothing. What could you say? You could hear the receiver shrilling, but you were afraid to take your eyes off Heaslip.
"Let's not have any more slip-ups," Heaslip said. "You better give one-thirteen what he wants."
Hennler turned, pulled the microphone to him and threw the switch. "Montaugan to Long Island one-thirteen, repeat please. Montaugan to Long Island one-thirteen, repeat please." He wondered if Don Freilig in one-thirteen could hear the crack in his voice. He wondered if he had ever, in his whole life, been as frightened as he was now?
The receiver repeated, and Hennler relayed the ETA to the tower. He turned back to Heaslip, not saying anything. Just waiting.
"You know why I'm here," Heaslip said. "I'm here about the way you framed me for the crash."
"I didn't--"
"You did. You know what you did. And I know what you did. I told you I thought of beating you up until you confessed. But that wouldn't do any good. You'd repudiate it. I'd go to the can for beating you, and the only one worse off would be me. I'm bad enough off as it is.
"I'm not even sure I blame you. I'm no come-to-Jesus turn-the-other-cheek boy. I'm not going to lay off you. But I don't blame you. You've got a wife and kids, and you'd never get another job if they found out what really happened. I just wanted you to know that I know what you did, and that some day you're going to come up with the evidence to prove it. A guy has to take the responsibility for his own mistakes, Hennler. He can't pass them off on somebody else.
"You hear what I say, Hennler. I know how you feel. You feel dirty. You look for someway to get clean--and there isn't any way at all.
"You killed seventeen people, August Hennler. It wasn't a bad thing to do. It was a mistake. We all make mistakes. I've made them, too. But I didn't kill anybody, and you did.
"I'm not going to do anything to you, Hennler. I won't touch you. But I will haunt you, if you don't tell the CAB exactly what happened. You've got twenty days to straighten things out. After that you can just figure yourself for one awfully miserable life.
"You're going to crack. I'll be like the Greek Furies who haunted murderers. No matter where you go. I'll be there-- haunting you. If you don't crack one way, it'll be another. You'll make another 'mistake'."
Heaslip slipped his buttocks from the desk. "All right, Hennler. That's all I had to say to you. I guess I'll go now. If you want to reach me I'm at Cartersholm, RFD number one, Montaugan." Hennler could hear his footsteps receding on the concrete.
He let his head drop on his hand. Inside was a bone-dry ache. His eyes smarted. He felt the cold sweat forming on his skin.
There was a knock at the door. Hennler jumped so that he upset the swivel chair. "What do you want?" he yelled.
"Lunch service," a voice said.
"Well, come on in. Idiot!" He handed the boy a dollar and snatched the paper bag from his hand. The coffee container fell to the floor.
"I'll get another right away," the boy said.
"No," Hennler said. "Keep the change and forget it."
August Hennler sat down in his swivel chair. For a long time he stared at the spreading pool of brown on the floor. He stabbed at a button on the intercom. The voice of the switchboard girl at the main office came on.
"This is Hennler in company communications. Get me a relief man here as fast as you can. I'm sick and I've got to leave."
He swung the swivel chair over to the typewriter and ran a blank piece of paper into the machine. For a few moments he typed rapidly, stopping only once to relay a bulletin.
He found an envelope, sealed and stamped it, and put it in his jacket pocket. After that he typed another sheet, which he folded and put in the other pocket.
Then he sat back to wait for his relief. The long minutes ticked away with the intermittent movement of the electric wall-clock. When ten minutes had passed he picked up the telephone on the desk. He told the switchboard girl. "Get me Long Distance." After a while he said, "I want to make a person-to-person call to Mrs. Evelyn Hennler at the home of Mrs. Rupert Gaines in Hyannis, Massachusetts."
He was silent for a long time. Then, "Will you ask Mrs. Gaines if she knows where Mrs. Hennler can be reached? ... All right, then. I'll talk to Mrs. Gaines ... Hello, Mother Gaines, are you absolutely sure you don't know where Evelyn is? It's a matter of life and death. I mean it. It is! ... No. There's no point in your coming here. She's not here. She left to go to Hyannis yesterday morning... No. No. Don't bother to call me. If any body calls anybody. I'll do it."
He hung up just as Kerby came in. He didn't say any thing as he put on his coat except, "So long, Jack."
Hennler walked along the concrete apron to the gallery, and into the terminal waiting room. He dropped the stamped envelope into the mailbox and went on through the terminal and across the road to his car.
As he started the motor he leaned out the window for a moment to watch the gracefully declining swoop of a descending DC-3. Then he drove out of the parking lot and headed down Park Avenue, not hurrying at all ...
XVII
EVELYN HENNLER
Evelyn Hennler saw August's car from the kitchen window. She watched him turn out of Park Avenue and into Pearl Street. Her first impulse was to race out on the sidewalk as the car turned into the drive--to tell him she was sorry she had run out, to say she knew he needed her.
But reason stopped her. Reason said, he's got to learn his lesson. He's got to understand, whatever is bothering him, he can't act like a baby. He must learn not to abuse the children.
So she stayed at the kitchen sink, planning what she would say to him. She would be very calm, very quiet. Even if he was drunk--Then she'd bring him coffee and, while he was drinking it, make it clear she was on his side. She hadn't left because she hated him but because this couldn't go on.
She heard the car on the gravel driveway at the other side of the house.
Then she began to wonder why he was home now--at this time of day. This wasn't Augie's day off. Augie never took time off. Then it occurred to her he was off because she had gone away. He'd probably phoned in, reporting sick. When she thought about it, he probably was sick. She knew she would have been sick if he had gone off.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized how unfair she had been. After all, Augie wasn't really like this--drunk and angry and unhappy. The way he was behaving meant he was in some kind of trouble.
Still, the shock of your staying away overnight might do some good. It might, in a way, bring him out of it. And the kids had had a wonderful time at the hotel. They had never been in a hotel before.
All night long, though, you had wanted to pick up the phone and call Augie, wanted to tell him to come to the hotel and pick you up.
Evelyn finished wiping the last of the dishes. Augie was taking an awfully long time to get in from the garage.
She went over to the breakfast nook and peered out. The doors of the garage were closed. He must have stopped over at Jack Castle's before coming in. She decided to go upstairs and make the bed. There was no point in going over to the Castles'.
She had been unfair. He'd come off the ships for her. He'd settled down in Montaugan. The house was nearly paid for--and it was a good little house, too. He'd bought her the disposal unit for the sink, the Bendix, the automatic ironer. Augie might never make a million dollars, but he was a good worker. They had a car and two beautiful children and Augie made things in the basement. And 'til this came up, he never drank too much.
It occurred to Evelyn there might be another woman. She stood there, holding a pillow and staring vacantly through the screened window, as she went over the past few months.
A man might act that way if there were another woman. He might drink a lot--especially if he were Augie, because Augie would feel guilty about it. But he didn't stay out late. He was always at home. Besides, you would have known; you could feel it and it would feel--different.
She finished fluffing the pillows and arranged the spread to make them look like a bolster.
It would be nice to be back in your own bed tonight, to feel Augie's back warm against your own. You would go to bed and the new-found understanding might make you--Well, that would be nice, too.
Evelyn went to the mirror. Heavens! This was no way to welcome a troubled husband. Your hair looked tousled. You needed makeup.
She went into the bathroom and washed her face. Then she returned to the bedroom and set deftly to work recomposing it, hoping Augie would remain at the Castles' long enough for her to finish. Ought to take off the apron, though.
She dropped it on the bedside chair and stood before the mirror, shaking out her dress. Perhaps there would be time before the children came home for them to come upstairs and--Then it occurred to her the Castles were away. Jack's vacation had begun last week.
Then where was Augie?
He had no other friends in the neighborhood. Perhaps he'd gone out on the front lawn. She raced down the stairs and out the front door. There was no sign of him. She called, "Augie?" And again. "Augie?"
In the backyard? But she'd looked out the back window and there'd been no one there. Still ...
She walked along the driveway at the side of the house. Then she heard the motor--a throbbing muffled sound from inside the garage. She realized the sound had been going on all the time: all the while she had been doing dishes, all the while she had been making the bed, all the while she had been primping.
She sprinted toward the garage calling, "Augie! Augie!"
The doors were tightly closed, but not locked. She yanked them open and a faint vapor of bluish gray poured out to be caught and swept away by the morning air.
She hurried to the front of the car and yanked open the driver's door.
He was lolled back on the driver's seat, his hands fallen at his sides. She said, "Augie!" whimpering. She touched his face gently. It was warm. She seized his shoulders and shook him. His head fell loosely to the right.
She slapped his cheek. Lightly, first, then harder. And harder! She put her arms about his shoulders and tried to pull him from behind the wheel. His torso tumbled toward her, slipped through her hands and hung limply. His head, dangling down from his fallen body, nearly touched the concrete floor.
As she watched, horror-stricken, he slipped the rest of the way until he had tumbled in a grotesque somersault completely free of the car.
That was when she screamed! Again and again; shrill piercing shrieks over the mechanical murmur of the automobile!
She seized his legs and dragged him along the floor to the concrete apron and thence to the lawn. She stretched him out face down and tried to remember what the Red Cross had said about artificial respiration.
You pressed and then you let go. Press and let go.
Frantically she got astride Augie's inert body. How fast? How should you do it? What should you do?
She screamed, "Help! Help!" at the top of her lungs.
Somewhere, nearby, a man's voice called, "Is that you, Mrs. Hennler?"
She said, "Help! Come help me!"
She felt hands on her shoulders. "I'll do that, Mrs. Hennler." It was Harry Spender, the policeman who lived down the block.
She stumbled to her feet and the man took her place. "My wife's ... calling a doctor ... He'll be here ... Right away ... You'd better go ... shut off the motor."
Blindly she fumbled toward the garage, cringed along the side of the car and reached for the ignition key. The note had been impaled with the thrust of the key into the lock. She turned the key and ripped the note free. The motor clucked once and died. She leaned against the body of the car and read the few lines.
"My darling Evelyn--
I tried to prevent it, for you and the kids. I just couldn't swing it. I hope this straightens everybody out. I love you. Tell Alec and Bertha I love them, too.
Augie."
The note was typewritten on Long Island Airlines stationery. Not even the name was written. She crumpled it and stumbled back to the yard. There were more people, now. Mr. Spender, dressed only in his trousers and undershirt, was rising from astride Augie's body.
"It's no good, Mrs. Hennler," he said. "We didn't get to him in time." He took her arm. "You'd better go inside. I'll take care of things out here." He led her toward the back door.
ERICA LEDBITTER
Erica found the doctor standing on the seawall, next morning. He was staring, with an empty sort of look, at the two posts a few feet off the seawall that had held the Ivalor III in times past.
He started a little when Erica said, "Ivan?" Then he turned. "Hello, Erica." He grinned wearily. "It looks as though the lot of us are pretty badly fouled up, doesn't it?"
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know. You. Me. Lor. And your boyfriend, Gary Heaslip."
"Don't call him my boyfriend."
"It doesn't matter what anybody calls him. It's what he is."
"I came down to tell you I am going to leave today, Ivan."
"I know. I rather expected you to." He looked over the Cove, blue and glassy in the morning. "I suppose it's the only thing to do." .
"I can't just stay here and watch Mrs. Carter glaring at me--and I don't want to spend my time avoiding Gary." For a moment they said nothing. Then Ivan said, "I'm not altogether sure I won't do the same thing myself. I'm trying to make up my mind. Shall I drive you to the station this afternoon? What time does your train leave?"
"I'm not going by train. I'm taking a plane to New York and then I don't know what I'll do. I may go upstate for a week or so then come back to New York and look for a job. Or I may just stay in the City."
"Let me know where to reach you, anyway," Ivan said. "I'll drive you to the airport. What time?"
"Two o'clock."
"I'll have the car by the front door at one-fifteen. Now, run along and get your things packed. Oh, there's one other thing. I'm going to give you a check for two hundred dollars--severance pay, you can call it. I'd make it more, but Lor has my economic hands tied." He looked up suddenly. "Oh, oh. There's your boy."
She turned and saw Gary coming toward them across the lawn. She started toward the house. Gary swung to meet her. She kept her face rigid.
"Erica ..." he said, when they were a few feet apart "Erica, what's--?"
She kept on going. One, two, three, four steps. Behind her she heard him say, "Please wait, Erica." But she kept on without stopping, climbing the stairs of the back porch and allowing the screen door to slap shut behind her. She felt the tears forming in her eyes as she mounted the stairway to her room.
XVIII
GARY HEASLIP
The letter arrived only a few minutes after Gary Heaslip touched rock bottom. He had known Erica was lea
ving since this morning. He had known, because Vera had told him. But the reality had not struck him until later.
All that morning he had been wondering to himself how a man could get so hung with a girl with whom he had spent only two evenings; a girl who, the night after she professed to be in love with you, went with another man.
A girl like that was too crazy for anyone. You forgot about a girl like that--as fast as you could. The trouble was, you couldn't forget very fast.
The business in the back yard this morning had been just ridiculous. It was silly to hang around. Nobody but a fool would do that.
Nevertheless, at one o'clock Gary was engaged in running the lawnmower about the flower bed near the front porch. He was perfectly aware this made him look like a schoolboy watching his sweetheart's window. He was also aware that she knew trimming the lawn was the job of the part-time gardener.
He saw Carter pull up in the Jaguar. After a while Erica came out.
"What are you doing about the trunk?" Carter asked her.
"Railway Express will pick it up tomorrow," she said. She got in the car. For one instant, as Carter started the motor, she looked directly at Gary. He raised his hand. She turned away, and the car swooped down the drive.
That was the low point.
He left the lawnmower lying where he had dropped the handle by the flowerbed, and tried to think of something to do. His watch said one twenty, and he decided to walk to the county road for the mail.
He reached the box with the mailman's car. The driver said, "Hi, Heaslip. Got something here for you."
"Thanks," Gary said. He took the bundle of letters, newspapers, flyers and stock reports, and walked slowly up the driveway. After a while he found his envelope. The upper lefthand corner was imprinted with the insignia of Long Island Airlines. He ripped it open hastily:
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