Slam the Big Door

by John D. MacDonald

  “So I’m bleeding? It wasn’t me, Mike. He was ready to be messed up. He was looking for it.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  She lifted one narrow shoulder. “I just know. I can tell. I knew others like that. They get hooked on me, like on a drug, on account of—like a drug—I can stop them from thinking about anybody else or anything else in the world. I can keep them from even knowing who the hell they are, and maybe that’s what they want me for. But they got to be ready for me. So don’t blame me.”

  “You’ve got it all figured out.”

  “I’ve been here and there,” she said, and winked with great solemnity and closed the door, opened it immediately and said, “Thanks for the jugs,” and closed it again.

  After he had gone down one flight he leaned against the wall for a few moments, his eyes closed. His body felt sticky and there was a bad taste in his mouth and a dull headache behind his eyes. Though not a superstitious man, he felt that he had been in the presence of evil. Not contrived evil, full of plots and connivings, but a curiously innocent and implacable evil. He knew that Buttons should never know how close he had come to an act that would have irreparably changed his own inner image of himself, made it forever hard for him to have looked deep into his own mirrored eyes.

  As he reached the sidewalk he saw Troy paying off a cab-driver a hundred feet away. As the cab pulled away, Troy turned and saw him. Troy looked lean and pallid, unpressed, unsteady on his feet. Mike wondered what in hell he could say to Troy. Troy whirled and went around the corner onto Second Avenue, almost running. When Mike reached the corner, Troy was halfway down the block. Mike did not follow him.

  A month later, while Bunny was in Reno and her girls were with her people in Rochester, Mike got a phone call one evening from a man in New York named Grady. After he hung up Buttons stared at him, frowning, and said, “Who was that? What about Troy? When do you have to go to New York?”

  “It’s a man named Grady. Troy’s at his place, in bad shape. I either go get him, now, or Grady calls Bellevue and has him picked up.”

  “So let him call Bellevue!”

  Mike looked at her with a fond and crooked smile. “Grady said he had resigned so that left just one friend of Jamison’s. Okay. I’ll call back and tell Grady I can’t bring a mess like that into my home.”

  “Darn you anyway,” Buttons said. “I’m going to feel awfully disloyal toward Bunny, but go get him.”

  “Bunny would understand how it is.”

  It took three and a half hours to drive to New York, and another twenty minutes to locate John Grady’s bachelor apartment in the Village, so it was nearly one in the morning when Grady, a tall young man with big glasses and a harried expression, let him in.

  “Mr. Rodenska? Good. He’s in the bedroom. I got worried after I called you, so I got hold of a doctor. He charged me fifteen bucks for a house call.”

  “I’ll pay you back.”

  “Hell with that. Call it my last contribution to Troy Jamison, thank God. I better brief you. Sit down. Drink?”

  “No thanks. What did the doctor say?”

  “Alcoholism. Malnutrition. He gave him some shots.”

  “Can he be moved?”

  “Not tonight, damn it. In the morning, when he wakes up. Which will be about ten. If he has the shakes too bad to travel, he can have a two-ounce shot in the morning. I won’t be here. I’ve got to go to work.”

  “He’s out of work?”

  “Man, he’s about as far out of work as you can get. He left in a big way almost a month ago. I’m with K. F. and S. too. He hired me, as a matter of fact. There’s been talk about him for months, around the shop. His marriage busting up. And when he was coming in at all, he was coming in half-loaded. And he didn’t seem to give a damn. I think they were trying to talk him into a leave of absence. When you get as high up as Troy was, there’s a sort of rule you don’t fire a man. They took Walther Electric away from him. It had always been his baby, a very tender account. They bill three million five. They took it away two months ago. Just about three weeks ago Mueller was giving a presentation to a flock of Walther executives. Jamison came walking in, boiled. Before they could hustle him out he yelled that the new program was tired old crap, that Walther would be better off with somebody else. He busted Mueller a beaut right in the eye and knocked him down. He knocked the projection machine off the stand, then turned and told the executives of Walther he was glad he didn’t have to deal with such lintheads any more. About then they got him out, too late. Walther canceled out. And they didn’t even let Troy clean out his desk. They sent his stuff to the hotel by messenger. It’s a damn shame, Mr. Rodenska. He was as sharp as they come. But he’s dead in this industry forever. There isn’t anybody connected with it from coast to coast who doesn’t know the story by now. He’ll never get back in, and I guess he knows it.”

  “Where do you fit in, Grady?”

  “Good question. He hired me. I felt some obligation, even though I hope everybody forgets I was hired originally by Jamison. So I’ve been taking care. I got him out twice when he was charged with D and D. After he got tossed out of the hotel he slept here a few times. I’ve loaned him money.”

  “He can’t be broke!”

  “He gives a good imitation if he isn’t. Lately I’ve been thinking it isn’t going to do me any good at the agency if people find out I’m helping him. Anyhow, he’s been getting worse. And I figure I’ve paid off any obligation. Tonight was the end. He knocked. I opened the door. He staggered in, fell down, threw up on my rug and passed out. He’d told me about you. So I phoned you. I told you what I was going to do if you didn’t feel like taking over. Want to look at him? If you haven’t seen him lately, it’ll be a shock. He looks like any skid row bum.”

  • • •

  Troy woke up at eleven the next morning. He didn’t seem either surprised or grateful to see Mike, or particularly interested in the plan of going up to West Hudson. Mike could detect neither shame nor remorse. Just a dullness, an impenetrable apathy. Grady had donated some elderly but clean clothing to the cause. He had said it wasn’t necessary to have them back. After the hot bath and the permissible two ounces, Troy was steady enough to shave himself.

  Mike made a few futile attempts to start casual conversations on the way north, and then gave up. He did not take Troy home. He took him to the office of a friend who was a doctor. After the examination, Troy was taken directly to a rest home fifteen miles from town, a place which specialized in such problems. Three weeks later Mike brought him back to the house on Killian Street. Buttons received him politely, and with a measured amount of warmth.

  “When you want to talk,” Mike said, “I’ll listen. In the meantime you can stay here until you’re well.”

  “It’s a lot for you people to do.”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  “One thing you may be glad to know. They told me out there. I’m not a genuine, honest-to-God alcoholic. This was more like a nervous breakdown. So you don’t have to lock up the liquor. I thought you’d like to know that. They said I can drink socially again, if I feel like it. But not this year. It won’t matter a damn to me to see other people drinking.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll stay out of your way as much as I can. Don’t figure on trying to pull me into social things. I’m not ready.”

  “All right.”

  “I’ll go to work soon as I can.”

  “Don’t try to rush it.”

  “Maybe you could do one more thing. I don’t know where the hell I stand. I don’t even know if the house was sold. That goes into the settlement. You could check with George Broman, 114 East Forty-third. He’s my lawyer and tax guy. It’ll be interesting to find out if there’s anything left.”

  “How about alimony?”

  “It’s being set up on the basis of a percentage of earnings. That’s lucky for me, and tough on Bunny. She’s got people to help her, though. She gets it until she marri
es again. And I’ve been wondering about mail, Mike. I didn’t …”

  “I fixed that up. They were saving a bunch of stuff at the hotel. It’s here now. I changed your mailing address to here. They didn’t want you getting mail out there. Do you want to see it now?”

  “No. Not now. I’ll look at it later on.”

  He slept a great deal in those first weeks, and as the spring days grew warmer he would sun himself in the backyard. Later he began to take long walks. Buttons took pride in putting the pounds back on him. He spoke little and seldom smiled, though he was not irritable or sullen. He was good with the boys. As his strength came back he began to do minor repairs around the house—fixing doors that stuck, ripping up and replacing asphalt tile in the storeroom. He was good with his hands, neat and quick.

  The divorce became final. George Broman ascertained that, after income tax refunds had come in, and after Bunny’s settlement, Troy Jamison had a balance of nearly thirteen thousand dollars. After it was transferred to a savings account at West Hudson National, Troy insisted, despite Mike’s protests, on paying the medical expenses Mike had incurred on his behalf.

  In late June of 1953, Mike and Buttons got a letter from Bunny, postmarked Colorado Springs.

  Dearest Ones,

  You may cluck and shake your heads wisely as my entire family did, and you can feel hurt and left out, just as they did, and about all I can do is apologize and say it was all terribly sudden.

  But not too sudden, believe me. I’m Mrs. Robert Parker Linder, and I’ve been married four whole days. Bob’s ranch is twenty miles from the Springs, and it’s half dude and half working ranch. We met in Reno—both there on the same mission. We’ve gone through all the necessary soul-searching and we’re confident that it isn’t purely rebound. I’m very happy. The country here is glorious. Bob is forty, a big, slow, sweet guy with the world’s best disposition and a grin that can turn me to butter. My gals adore him, and his son, Jaimie, age sixteen, seems to think I am a wondrous thing. You can judge how messy his situation was and how blameless he was by the fact he divorced her, and he got total custody of their only child.

  Buttons, I haven’t heard from you for almost a month so I do not know whether Troy is still there with you. I hope not. You’ve had more than your share of giving and forgiving. I feel sort of queer about writing this news to him. So if he is there would you please tell him, or, if not, drop him a note. He will probably be relieved to know he is off the alimony hook. I don’t want to wish problems on you but I would rather he heard that way than more indirectly.

  As I wrote you before, Troy has court permission to see the girls at his request, but not oftener than six times a year, and for not longer than eight hours at a time. You could give him this address and tell him that when he gets back on his feet and wants to see them, he can write to me and we can make arrangements.

  All my love to both of you,

  Bunny

  The letter arrived at lunchtime. After Buttons read it she gave Mike an odd look, and then handed it to Troy to read. He was halfway through his lunch. He read it quickly, got up without a word and left the house. Mike then read it. Troy was not back by the time they went to bed. He had his own key.

  At three in the morning Buttons shook Mike awake and said, “I think he just came in, honey. He may be dreadfully drunk. You better go check.”

  He put on his robe and met Troy in the upstairs hallway. Troy was not drunk. He whispered to avoid waking the boys.

  “Sorry I took off like that, Mike. It was rude.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Walking. Thinking. A hell of a long walk.”

  As Mike looked at him he sensed that Troy had changed during that walk. There was more alertness in his expression. The brooding look was hidden. Not entirely gone. But not as obvious.

  “I had to get used to her being married to somebody else,” Troy whispered.

  “Sure. I know. Well … good night.”

  He went back to bed and told Buttons. As he was going back to sleep he realized that Troy would soon be gone.

  Two days later, on a Sunday afternoon, Troy told Mike his plans. “I know I can’t get back into advertising. Maybe I could get some crummy little job with a small-town agency, but I don’t want that. My father was a builder. Not a big one. Small houses, and I don’t think he ever had more than eight men working for him at one time. I worked for him for four straight summers. I’ve got a tiny bit of capital. That’s what I’m going to do. It’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “Here in West Hudson?”

  “No. I’ve decided on Florida. The west coast. I’m going to go down there and hire out to a contractor down there and learn what’s new in the field, and what special local problems they have. When I’m ready, I’ll try it on my own.”

  “All cured?”

  “Thanks to you, Mike. And Buttons. I’ll never forget it. It’s not … a total cure, I guess. But the best I can manage.”

  “What happened, Troy? Is that a fair question?”

  “It’s a fair question. I just wish I could give you an answer. I don’t know what the hell happened. Everything was fine. Overnight everything went sour for me. I hated the work and the city and myself. I just plain stopped giving a damn. Like a motor stopping. Running down. I don’t know.”

  “I saw that woman.”

  “I know you did. I remember seeing you in front of her place. Memory of that period is all … misty. And I don’t get things in the right order. But I remember seeing you there. Running away from you. But she didn’t do it. Everything had slipped a long, long way before I found her. She just helped me find bottom—slide all the way down.” He managed a faint smile. “It was easy.”

  “Grady told me about your farewell performance in the office.”

  “I can just barely remember that. I did a great job. It was just a few days after she disappeared. I don’t know how many.”

  “Strange girl.”

  Troy stared into space. “There should be a better word than that. I think about how it was. And sometimes it makes me want to throw up. It couldn’t have been me. But I’ve got this fear, Mike. That if I ever saw her again … I’d either kill her, or it would be the same thing all over again. But this time … there’s not as much to lose. You can only lose your career and your wife one time.”

  “Maybe it will be easier … in one sense, not having so much to lose.”

  “It’s a big comfort to me. Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound snotty. I’m dead, Mike. In a special way. Walking, breathing, eating, but dead. You’ve been swell. And there’s nothing more to say about the whole thing.”

  “Delayed combat fatigue?”

  “That’s a wild idea.”

  “Is it? Take it this way. They didn’t kill you. They just twisted you a little. New values. But the values didn’t fit you, Troy. And it took you a long time to find out. Then the roof fell in.”

  Troy studied him. “Interesting. You know, if I was anxious to find an excuse for myself, boy, I’d be hanging on every word. But somehow I don’t give a damn about the reasons. I know what happened. It happened. I didn’t dream it. Keep your psychiatrics.”

  “You must be better, you’re so much nastier.”

  For the first months after Troy left he wrote at dutiful intervals, and his letters had somewhat the flavor of those a boy might write home from army training. He had decided on Ravenna, Florida. Big opportunities for growth. He was working for Brail Brothers Construction, living in a used house trailer he bought, doing a lot of weekend fishing. The letters became less frequent and had a more distant tone. In August of 1954, he started his own small firm, doing foundation work on subcontract. Troy Jamison, Builder. They got a card at Christmas, with a short note. He was busy and prospering, had made a small investment in land and was putting up three low-cost spec houses.

  In late March he wrote them that he had married Mrs. Mary Dow, a widow. The next communication was a Christmas card, without not
e, from Troy and Mary Jamison. It looked elegant and expensive. And others in 1956 and 1957 and 1958, except that in 1958 he knew about Buttons and no cards went out.

  About two weeks before the whole thing was over, after Buttons was back in the hospital again, a letter came to the house for her from Bonita Linder, and Mike opened it. It was a warm, amusing, chatty letter, and she sounded a little bit cross about not hearing from Buttons in months.

  It made Mike realize that it wasn’t entirely fair to leave Bunny, who after all the years was still Buttons’s best friend, completely out of it. By then, through that sardonic miracle, there was enough money, and he had quit the paper in order to spend more time with her. And he was trying desperately to be steady and dependable and reliable and unhysterical about the whole thing. So that evening he had placed a call to her in Colorado, and tried to tell her how things were with Buttons. But in the middle of it something broke, and she arrived two days later, leaving the girls and her three-year-old son on the ranch, and moved in and took over with a compassionate efficiency that made things a little easier than they had been. The two women had some chances to talk, and it seemed to make Buttons a little less scared of the blackness dead ahead of her—not that she had ever whined or even come close to it, but you could tell about the being scared.

  So he thought he had been prepared for it, that he was braced for it. But when it happened it was worse than he had been able to imagine. It was like being struck blind and sick and dumb, and left in a world of strangers.

  There were plenty of friends to try to help, but Bunny helped the most. She organized the routines of death, and got him and the boys through it somehow, and stayed until he could talk to her about the future—a word that had always had a nice ring to it, but now had an ironic connotation. Bunny had wisdom. She sensed that if he tried to hold the family unit together it would be an artificial thing, and bad on the three of them. If the boys were younger they would need that security, but at fifteen and seventeen, it would be like three men forever aware of the empty chair, the empty room, the silences where her voice had been. So, in addition to getting rid of Buttons’s things, instinctively knowing the things he would want to keep, she made the arrangements to get the boys into the Melford School, and through the subtle uses of propaganda, got them into a frame of mind where they were looking forward to it.