by Packer, Vin
“Well, it’s his birthday, too,” she said guiltily. She liked to go out on her birthday, or have a party—whoop it up. Archie liked her to cook a gourmet meal for his. He didn’t like parties or other people around to share it. She said, “He’d have to spend it alone, Neal.”
“Oh, hell, she’ll probably be back by then!” He was irritated with her for suggesting it.
“You’re right,” she said. “Dumb idea.”
“I feel sorry for him, too,” said Archie, “but we can’t adopt him.”
“That’s true,” Dru answered. “We’ll just use him and then drop him.”
She hadn’t planned on saying that; it had just popped out like the Liddy thing. Probably because of the Liddy thing.
Hostilityville.
Archie was frowning at her. “What did you just say?”
“Nothing.”
“I heard you, Dru.”
“I just feel so sorry for him.”
Archie’s tone was taut with repressed anger. “If Margaret isn’t back by then, invite him.”
She went over and put her arms around his waist; he was facing away from her, and he didn’t change his position or acknowledge her embrace.
She said, “Arch? I don’t want him. It was a dumb idea.”
He sniffed the air. “You really do need a bath,” he said snidely.
That mad, he wasn’t going to make up for a while.
CHAPTER 11
When Archie returned from walking Mrs. Muckermann back to the Gramercy, he buzzed the apartment from the lobby.
“Yes?” Dru answered.
“Mrs. Gamble?”
“Yes.”
“Your husband’s been taken to Bellevue; he went off his rocker suddenly.”
She laughed. “Archie? Get us some ice cream.”
He walked around the corner to Arnold’s and bought a quart of strawberry and a quart of chocolate, Dru’s favorite combination. He decided he’d have some, too; he decided no, he wouldn’t; he was high, but he wanted to go on drinking.
When he arrived with the ice cream, Dru was in her nightie, stacking the dishes in the dishwasher. Archie put the package on the kitchen counter and imitated Mrs. Muckermann’s twanging falsetto: “And, of course, Judy Garland, another famous Gemini, had that very same configuration when she lost her role in Valley of the Dolls, so you see, Archie, it affects the professional life.”
Dru was laughing very hard. “Oh, but—what was it she said about the way people look when Gemini is rising; what was that?”
“I know,” he said, slipping back to the imitation. “A very famous physiognomist, John Varley, noted that even though Gemini is a beautiful human sign, many people born when it is rising resemble in their heads and necks various forms of goats, kids and deers.”
“Oh, oh—yes!” Dru was holding her stomach.
“Gemini,” Archie continued as Mrs. Muckermann, “is not only the patron of intellectuals, but also of egocentrics and lunatics, like George III.”
Dru said, “Gemini is a violent sign.”
“Gemini is a barren sign.”
“Gemini,” said Dru, “is a schizophrenic sign.”
“Jesus!” Archie said. “She sure had it in for me tonight!”
“She’s really a nasty old woman, Archie.”
“Maud, she’s really rotten to the core,” said Archie, taking off on an old Noel Coward song, “it’s funny that I never thought of it before.”
“Do you want me to mix yours, or do you just want strawberry?”
“I just want Scotch splashed over a few rocks.”
“Oh, Archie.”
“What?”
“You’ve had plenty. You’ve got to write tomorrow.” He said, “I’ll finish the wine then.”
“You already finished it. Mrs. Muckermann and I had a glass apiece; you had the rest.”
“What did you serve wine with dinner for if you didn’t want me to get smashed? I thought we were going to cut that out.”
“She brought it. My God, Arch, didn’t you hear her say she’d brought it? She must have said it a dozen times!”
“Fix me the Scotch, hmmm? I’m going to put on pajamas,” he said.
As he went through the living room, the phone rang. Neal Dana said, “Archie? I hope I didn’t wake you people up?”
“We’re night people. How are you, Neal?” “Fine! I heard of a house.” “A house?”
“Dru said you were interested in renting a place out here for the summer.” “She did?”
“We were all pretty crocked. I don’t blame you if you’ve forgotten.”
That night had been the first time in years that Archie had been forced to drive with one eye closed so he could see the road.
He said, “Well, we’ve talked about it; what did you find?”
“A little place half a mile down, near Piermont. They’re going to Europe; they’ll rent it cheap if you look after their cat.”
“What’s it like?” Dru brought a Scotch in to him and sat beside him on the couch, close enough so they could share the receiver.
Neal said, “Rustic, two-story, two bedrooms and a bath upstairs, a big living room with a fireplace downstairs; kitchen, dining room. It’s off the road, on a hill, surrounded by trees. Lots of privacy.”
“How much?”
“Only two hundred dollars a month with the cat. The Cages are leaving a week or so before Memorial Day; they’ll be gone until Labor Day.”
Dru was counting on her fingers. She whispered. “Only eight hundred dollars, Arch!”
“How much is it without the cat?” They weren’t his favorite animals.
“No deal without Tiffany. But she’s a nice cat, Siamese.” “I love Siamese!” said Dru. She gave Archie one of her ardent, wistful looks.
“We’ll have to talk it over,” Archie told him. “How soon do we have to decide?”
“It’s May seventeenth now. They’ll have to know soon.”
Archie said, “If it’s such a good deal, how come somebody hasn’t snapped it up?”
“They hadn’t planned to rent it,” Neal said. “The cat was going to her mother’s, but her mother has very expensive furniture. She doesn’t want the cat unless they declaw it. They refuse—soooo.”
Dru was tugging at his shirt, mouthing the word: “Please?”
Archie said, “Can we sleep on it?”
“Sure … It’s really a bargain for out here, Archie.”
“I appreciate that. We’ll call you tomorrow.”
“One other thing,” said Dana. “I have to come in for a part for my car: I need a new muffler. I’ll probably run in next weekend. Do you want to get together?”
“Fine! Hey—I’ve got an idea,” Archie said in a boozy burst of generosity. “It’s our birthday a week from Tuesday. How about coming here to celebrate it on Saturday?”
Dru murmured under her breath, “He’s got an idea, folks.”
“I’d like that,” said Neal Dana. “It’s a date.”
“If Margaret’s back by then,” Archie said, watching Dru make an obscene “up yours” gesture at the mention of Margaret Dana’s name, “we’ll expect her, too.”
“I hope she’ll be back,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I’m a little worried.”
Archie decided not to pursue the subject. He said, “I’d like to meet her,” and then, “Okay, Neal. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Archie? Before you call tomorrow, can you do me a favor? I need the number of the English Ford dealer in Manhattan. I want to call him about the muffler, and information hasn’t got a listing. Could you find out?”
“An English Ford?” Archie said.
“Yes. A Ford Consul.”
Archie and Dru exchanged puzzled looks.
“I’ll do that,” said Archie.
“I appreciate it. Talk to you tomorrow,” Neal Dana said. Archie put down the receiver.
Dru said, “That was his car at the bottom of the hill that night.”
“Who belonged to the Ford Falcon?” “Where was the Consul last Saturday night?” Dru said. “It could have been there. I didn’t notice another car; was there one?”
“I don’t remember,” said Dru. “But he drove the Volkswagen to dinner. We followed the Volkswagen.”
“Ummm. If he had a bad muffler, it might have been in a garage.”
“But who owns the Falcon? … Arch, Tuto mentioned a ‘black chariot.’ The Falcon was black,” Dru said. “Could Tuto have arrived on the scene suddenly? Could that have been the reason everything was so peculiar?”
“Try this,” Archie said. “Something came up that caused Margaret Dana to want Neal out of the house. She sent him for champagne. But Dana suspected it was a ruse. He left his car at the bottom of the hill and waited. Tuto arrived and he caught them red-handed.”
“Caught them doing what? They wouldn’t do anything with him due back.”
“Maybe he caught them as they were getting ready to take off. In the middle of the scene, we arrive.”
“But Margaret Dana knew we were on our way.”
“Didn’t Tuto say he felt like just coming up to snatch her away? Maybe he made good his promise. Or maybe Margaret Dana picked that moment to take off. Neal would come home and find us there. In the confusion, Margaret and Tuto would have a head start,” said Archie. “But Neal fouled up the plan by sneaking back and catching them.”
“Then Tuto would have been there when we arrived.”
“They could have all been in the midst of a real ruckus!”
“And then?”
“Then when Neal got rid of us, Margaret and Tuto took off.” “And Neal knows all about it?” Dru took a gulp of his Scotch.
“It’s possible. There are loose ends, though. Why was her bag in the Volkswagen?”
Dru said, “If a woman’s running off with a man, she doesn’t take just a nightgown, slippers, and a swim suit. That’s packing for a motel, Arch. Motels all have swimming pools now. I think she just kept that bag in her car, kept the letters and the diary in it, and only used it when they rendezvoused away from the house.”
“Did they rendezvous away from the house?”
“How would I know?”
“How would you know! You all but memorized the letters and the diary—you read every word half a dozen times!” “You read them, too,” she said.
“Not the way you did, love,” he said. “Hey, that’s my drink. Leave some for me, Laura Lush.”
“Something was terribly wrong that night. But I don’t know if it had to do with Tuto.”
“We could be ‘way off base. The Falcon could belong to a friend.”
“A Falcon,” Dru mused, “with a penny on the door.” “That’s right; I remember your mentioning that.” “It isn’t much like a man to put a penny on his car door, but a boy would do it.”
“How do we know Tuto’s a boy?”
“Come on, Arch: he was all concerned about growing his hair long; he wrote about ‘kids’ his age.”
“Yeah.” Archie took his drink away from her and frowned as he thought about it. “I don’t think the fight could have been about the show. Neal doesn’t impress me as someone who’d raise hell over something so silly.”
“And he’s consented to do the show.”
“Well, he claims his reason for that is to please her.”
“I just don’t get it.”
“ ‘The stars will intercede,’ she wrote, and they seem to have obliged her, one way or the other.” “Oh, and I did the memorizing.”
Archie said, “He must be cooperating with me to please her. It’s the only reason I can think of for his going along with it.”
“And if he wants to please her, he couldn’t know about Tuto.”
Archie said, “That’s not necessarily true.” “Then he’s the masochist’s masochist.” “Or he’s in love with her. He sounds as though he is.” “If he knows about Tuto and he’s still in love with her, and still wants her back, he’s the masochist’s masochist.” “In nineteen years, you can get attached,” said Archie. “To that extent?”
“Sure, to that extent. Don’t judge everyone by what you’d do.”
“Methinks you’re just a trifle defensive suddenly.” “So I’m defensive.”
“I’d forgotten about all the horseshit you took from dear old Liddy.” “Dru, don’t start.”
She imitated him. “In nineteen years you can get attached.”
“Leave Liddy out of it.”
“I’m all for leaving Liddy out of everything!”
But she was already started.
She said, “Why didn’t she tell you what she had to tell you over the phone? Oh, no! She had to make a big deal out of it!”
“She didn’t want to upset you, as a matter of fact. She wasn’t sure I’d want you to know about it until it was all straightened around.”
“Why? Doesn’t she think we’re close?” Dru got up and marched across the room for a cigarette.
“She thought you might have a bad reaction to it, though
how she could have come to that decision, I’ll never know,” he said sarcastically.
“Bull, Archie! She wanted to get you over to her place.”
Archie said dryly, “I’m so thankful you think I’m such an irresistible, compelling—“
Dru broke in, “And you went running the very night she called!”
“Dru, you told me to go; you wanted me to go!”
“I was testing you, Gutless! I thought you might be able to resist Miss Big Boobs, but oh no! You flew out of here!”
Archie got up to go across to her and stumbled on the leg of the coffee table.
“And now you’re drunk!” she shouted. “Look at you!”
He said, “I’m loaded because I didn’t get anything to eat! Spaghetti, salad, pears and cheese; do you call that dinner? What happened to the antipasto you were going to make?”
“Mrs. Muckermann happened to it! Okay?”
“It was your idea to have her for dinner!”
“I did it for you, Archie, and you know damn well I did it for you!” There were tears of rage in her eyes as she stormed toward the bedroom, tossing over her shoulder the one-word anathema: “Gemini!”
• • •
Later, when Archie went into the bedroom, she was in bed, turned toward the wall. Archie got out of his clothes, didn’t bother putting on his pajama pants, and crawled in beside her.
“Honey?” He put his arm around her waist.
She didn’t answer.
“Maybe it would be good to get away from New York,” he said, attempting to bribe her into responding.
His second attempt at bribery didn’t work, either; she took his hand off her thigh and gave him a swift kick in the shins.
Archie fell asleep convincing himself that he would remember to write down tomorrow this new flimsy parallelism: both Neal Dana and he had owned Ford Consuls … Still, the English Ford wasn’t all that common; it wasn’t as if they’d both owned some American make.
He had a tossing, twisting night of darkness filled with the sight of Dru’s face contorted in anger, long hallways with Liddy waiting at the end of all of them, and the sound of his own voice raised with rage, until a policeman named Saturn arrested him for the murder of Anna Muckermann.
Dru’s voice asked plaintively, “Why did you do it, Neal?”
CHAPTER 12
The Friday before his birthday, Neal Dana left his house at eight-thirty in the morning and came face to face with Miss Nickerson at the top of the hill.
She had Kendal, the Doberman, on a lead, and neither of them looked very happy to be there. They were positioned by the Volkswagen. Kendal growled, but Miss Nickerson had the good manners to force a “Good morning,” and then she came right to the point.
“Where’s Mrs. Dana these days, Mr. Dana?” she said.
Her bluntness threw Neal off guard; he had never thought of her as a nosy neighbor.
He said, “She�
��s away, Miss Nickerson. How have you been?”
“Uncomfortable.”
“Oh? Maybe Kendal’s too much for you to handle. It must be quite a strain holding her back that way,” said Neal, tossing his briefcase into the front seat of the Volkswagen. Kendal eyed him with hatred.
Miss Nickerson said, “I bought Kendal so I could be comfortable, bought her when I first saw that prowler.”
“What prowler?”
“Mrs. Dana didn’t tell you?” “No.”
“There’s been some character hanging around these woods since the beginning of winter.” “Somebody hunting rabbits, maybe?”
“He’s not a hunter. Mother and I think he’s a Peeping Tom,” said Miss Nickerson. “It got so we wouldn’t sit in the downstairs unless the shades were pulled. Even in the daytime. Your wife didn’t tell you this?”
Neal supposed it had probably amused Margaret as much as it did him: the idea of some poor fellow freezing his balls off in the winter, and risking encounters with rattlers and copperheads in the spring, for a glimpse of Minnie Nickerson and her mother tatting in their front parlor.
“She didn’t mention it,” said Neal.
“For a while I thought Kendal had scared him away, but he’s been back twice in the past few weeks.”
“Well—” Neal began.
“Oh, I’m not imagining it, if that’s what your grin’s about. Kendal chased him up a tree one night.” “Really?” Neal said.
“And the Saturday night following that, he was right on your front porch.”
“Miss Nickerson,” said Neal, “I had company that night. I didn’t know you’d come up for a visit,” he said diplomatically, angrily wondering how often she “visited,” “or I would have invited you in. That was a friend of mine on my porch.”
“Oh, no,” she shook her head. “I wasn’t snooping, either. I was walking Kendal and I saw him head up the hill on foot. Your company arrived in a car. I always know when you have company, because they always give a little honk before they go up the hill. But this was quite a time after the honk. Your company was already there. I saw your wife’s car go up, the Volkswagen here, and the one following it with the redhead driving. She had on a yellow scarf.”
Archie in the Volkswagen; Dru driving the rented car. Neal lit a True. He said, “Go on.”