Heir Apparent

by James, Terry

  I transferred two slices onto Mrs. Morris’s plate and served myself an equal portion before taking my seat.

  “I wasn’t expecting anything so lavish.”

  “Oh, I just cobbled a few things together.”

  As I was dishing up some carrots and potatoes, Mrs. Morris filled first my glass then her own with the golden liquid and raised her glass in toast.

  “To the success of your investigation,” she said. I chuckled. She did have a sense of humor, however dry.

  Our glasses touched with an exquisite chime that somehow went on ringing in my ears long after it had ceased. I took a sip. “Nice. What is it?”

  “Cowslip wine,” she said. “It was one of Walter’s hobbies.”

  I gave the remark an appropriate moment of silence, then I dished up some of the mystery dish (rhubarb, as it turned out) and grabbed a slice of warm bread. I cut a piece of the goosemeat and forked it into my mouth. Where do I begin? The moment it made contact with my tongue and the inner lining of my cheeks, two jets of saliva shot from my submandibular glands with what can only be described as ejaculatory force. Simultaneously my nostrils flared, sucking in the powerful, gamy aroma wafting up from my plate, and I experienced a kind of visionary burst of connectedness with the bird whose life force was now passing into me. As I chewed its warm meat I sensed the cycle of its migrations, the seasonal sojourns to the wellsprings of life, the serenity of instinctual flight measured only by the throbs of numberless wingbeats, the changing contours and colors of the planet below. How I knew this had been a wild goose and not some anemic farm-raised bird, I couldn’t say apart from the story being told by the savour of its flesh. It was a shame that in the end I had to swallow it.

  “This is hands-down the most delicious thing I have ever tasted,” I said when at last my mouth was empty.

  “I sincerely doubt that.”

  “No, word of honor. I would never lie about such a thing.”

  “Well I’m glad you like it.”

  “Like it?” I exclaimed. “This isn’t on the same scale as ‘like.’ I don’t know what the word to describe it is … I flogo it.”

  It just slipped out. It must have been my giddiness over the turkey. I apologized, only realizing after I had said it that it might be construed as insensitive. Mrs. Morris smiled graciously but otherwise made no comment.

  I quickly finished off my modest portion of goose and helped myself to three more slices. Soon I was carving off a fresh sheaf. I dished up more carrots and potatoes, dipping the serving spoon into the juice pooled in the platter and drizzling it over my plate. I ate like there was no tomorrow. Even as I felt my stomach tightening, my breath growing harder to catch, I carried on, under the gracious but firm encouragement of Mrs. Morris, who couldn’t conceal her delight at seeing a strapping man at her table engorging himself in raptures on her cooking. The goose, she said, had been shot by Walter last autumn at Crystal Lake. Everything else—the potatoes, the carrots, the rhubarb, even the cowslips for the wine—had been grown in the back garden.

  “Tell me about the case you’re working on,” she said when I paused to catch my breath.

  “Business is slow at the moment,” I replied, then proceeded to tell her about some of the peculiarities of my former client and his wife: the long confession about his jealousies, their mansion in Palladian Hills coupled with her penchant for thrift stores, her driving the Sphinx with the top down through the Silage, their midday rendezvous at the sleazy Ambassador Hotel. While I spoke she gazed straight ahead, looking at nothing in particular, as if the better to imagine the scenes.

  Before I knew it I had polished off half the decanter of the wine and was feeling a pleasant buzz. She went back into the kitchen and returned with a full decanter.

  “So, was she cheating on him?” she asked, setting the decanter on the table and taking her seat.

  “If not, she should have been.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She’s a good twenty-five years younger than him,” I said.

  “That’s not an immediate disqualification for fidelity.”

  “Neither of them struck me as the sort who married for love.”

  “Why would such a man hire you to track his wife?” she asked. “No offense to your skills, but a man with those kinds of resources.”

  “As I said, it was all some kind of game. I told him where he could stuff his other job.”

  She smiled.

  “What?”

  “Oh, I’m just amused by how much like Eddie King you actually are.”

  That went straight to the top of my list of most memorable insults.

  She took a sip of her wine and elaborated. “Please don’t take offense,” she said, “but I lived with Eddie King for so many years that I feel like I know you. In some ways he was as much my creation as he was Walter’s.”

  I set my fork down and gave her my full attention.

  “Is that right?”

  “I was the one who typed up the manuscripts from his notebooks.”

  “The notebooks in the attic?”

  “Yes.”

  “How is that possible?” I said. “Half of it wasn’t even written. All those missing passages, the abbreviations, the flogos. Surely he filled in the gaps before he gave it to you.”

  “Yes and no,” she replied. “Over the years we developed a system whereby I would recycle passages from the previous novels, changing a word here and there to match the context. As I’m sure you know, mass market murder mysteries are not exactly Tolstoy. Once you have a character and a formula, the only thing that really changes from novel to novel is the plot. It got to the point where I knew precisely which passage in which novel to go to to get what I needed. I could get everything from the first three novels.”

  “But all those flogos,” I said, still incredulous. “It was left to you to replace them?”

  “Trust me, it was much easier than it sounds. All I did was steal from what Walter had already written. The only time I had to draw on my own knowledge was with the descriptions of women. Walter was hopeless on that score. He didn’t know a cloche from a broach. He came to this realization while he was writing Guttersnipe. He would rack his brain for hours trying to come up with the right terms to make a woman come to life on the page. The results were awful. They were nothing but pin-up girls. Finally I asked him to let me have a shot at one of his dames. He immediately saw the difference. After that he always left a blank spot on the page when he introduced a female character. That was the beginning of our collaboration. With each successive novel he left more and more for me to fill in. That left him free to devote his time and energy to the plots.”

  He didn’t need much time for that, I felt like saying, but I held my tongue, fascinated by all that she was telling me. I was still trying to decide how old she was. During our first interview I would have sworn she was in her mid- to late-fifties. Now, under the warm glow of the chandelier, she could have passed for mid-forties, not too much older than myself.

  “Tell me something about yourself,” she said after taking a few sips of her wine.

  “Not much to tell.”

  “Where are you from? Who are your parents? Where did you grow up? How did you end up becoming a private detective? Ironically enough, you’re the first real detective I’ve ever met.”

  I took a sip of wine, reviewed my life history, and settled on the abbreviated version: “I was born here. Lived here my entire life. My parents are Gerald and Stella King, divorced. My mother has emphysema, and I haven’t seen my father in five years. I became a private detective after getting fired from every other job I’ve ever had. That’s the real Eddie King.”

  “Modesty does not become you,” she said amiably.

  At that moment I suddenly came over very tired. All that goosefat and cowslip wine was tranquilizing my brain, putting me in a soporific stupor. I pushed my chair back a little and set my soiled serviette on my plate.

  “I should be going,”
I said. “I haven’t eaten like that since childhood Thanksgivings.”

  “Won’t you have some warm gingerbread?” she asked very sweetly.

  “I really couldn’t,” I insisted. “I can hardly breathe, I’m so stuffed.”

  I stood up. “It was a wonderful meal. I’m afraid I’ve devoured half of your goose.”

  She stood up in turn. “You’re in no condition to drive after all that wine.”

  “I regularly drive under the influence of much stronger spirits.”

  “Yes, I suppose you do,” she said with what if I wasn’t mistaken was a gleam of admiration in her eyes. She then looked down at her plate with a forlorn expression. “Well, if you must.”

  She came around the table and gently set her hand on my forearm. I was touched by the gesture.

  “Before you go, Eddie,” she said, “could I prevail upon you to do me a small favor? I hate to ask you, but …” She paused.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s my feet,” she said. “I’ve got a touch of rheumatism. Not at all bad, but on these chilly nights they can really ache.”

  “What would you like me to do?”

  “There’s some cream in the upstairs bathroom.”

  Surveying the remains of our repast, I appreciated anew the truism that nothing in life is free.

  The bathroom, like the rest of the house, was not of this century. The tub was an old enameled cast iron thing with claw and ball feet, boxed in at the front with a matching hood a good eight feet tall. The shower rose was big enough to douse a small family. It made the old iron cistern mounted high above the crapper look positively modern. I couldn’t resist relieving my bladder, if only for the chance to tug on the udder-shaped ivory pull, an indulgence I regretted when the pipes launched into a familiar groan. In the drawer of an antique shaving stand, along with a couple of straight razors and a well-worn strop, was the tube of Molten Snow.

  Back downstairs, having relocated to the living room, Mrs. Morris was reclining on her customary chair, her bare, blue-veined feet propped on the ottoman in front of her. I handed her the cream.

  “That’s very kind of you,” she said. “If you could just rub a little of it into them I would be most grateful.”

  I couldn’t think of a nice way to decline.

  “How should I … ?”

  “Whatever suits you.”

  “How about …,” I gestured towards the ottoman. There was a certain grace and agility in the way she lifted her feet and drew them back to accommodate me, shins and knees together, feet extended, that spoke of an athletic youth. I kneeled on the floor before the ottoman.

  Taking the tube back from her, I squeezed a generous dollop of the dense white cream onto my fingers and, starting with her left foot, began rubbing it in. Her feet were long, narrow and bony. It felt strange having them in my hands. I was surprised by the shapeliness of her ankles, which had I not known approximately how old the rest of her was I would have sworn weren’t a day over thirty. As I worked the cream into both feet, which were cold at the outset but soon warmed with my rubbing, Mrs. Morris sighed with relief and thanked me. A great serenity came over me as I sat there working the cream into her feet, a gentle radiance in my brain, the reward for a small charitable act. It settled into my temples and stayed there glowing softly as I took the liberty, confident that she wouldn’t protest, of massaging the cream into her soft soles. The pockets of tension here and there soon succumbed to the ministrations of my thumbs, and the lengthening of her breaths suggested that the effect was not confined to her feet.

  “You’re very kind, Eddie.”

  “Does this stuff really work?” I had to ask.

  “Oh yes. It does me a world of good.”

  “I have a little foot trouble myself.”

  “Do you?” Her head raised in genuine concern. “You’re welcome to take that tube. I have plenty.”

  “Thanks. I’m all right.”

  “I insist.” She pulled her feet off of the ottoman and sat up. “Take your shoes and socks off. I’m going to rub a little into your feet.”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Don’t be contrary.”

  “Really, I’m fine.”

  “I’m not asking you,” she said sternly. “Now take your shoes and socks off.”

  Seeing no alternative, I obeyed.

  “You’ll feel like a new man after this,” she said, squeezing some of the cream into her hands and getting to work on my right foot, which was presently propped on the ottoman, though I remained standing. It was cold at first, the strange chilly bite of camphor and eucalyptus oil. As she rubbed the cream into my foot, the sensation gradually shifted to one of stinging heat, as when the refrigerated chile pepper you’ve blithely bitten into turns out to be much hotter than you anticipated. Why I wasn’t feeling it on my hands was a mystery to me.

  “You live downtown, don’t you?” she asked after a while.

  “Yes, the Regal Arms, as you would know from the novels.”

  “I wouldn’t have made that assumption,” she said. “I suppose you enjoy living in the thick of it.”

  “It has its moments.”

  She rubbed my foot for a while in silence. It really did feel nice. Much nicer than Dr. Auerbach’s clinical hands.

  “Give me your other foot,” she said. I switched feet, and she went to work on the left.

  “How much do you pay, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  I told her. She gasped at the number.

  “For a studio apartment? That’s highway robbery.”

  I hadn’t mentioned that I lived in a studio apartment.

  “It’s standard for the location.”

  “It’s outrageous,” she said. “I can’t believe you pay it.”

  “Not much choice.”

  Her proposition, which I sensed coming before it arrived, was this: I could move in with her, live rent-free in exchange for helping her out now and then with things she couldn’t manage herself. Mostly, she said, it would give her some peace of mind having a man about the place, particularly a man of my qualifications. That, to her, was worth more than I could know. “You like my cooking. I like your company,” she said. “It seems we might be able to help each other.” I pretended to give it some thought, then replied:

  “As tempting as it is, I’m afraid that wouldn’t work for me. My work is in the city.”

  “Everyone on this street works in the city,” she said. “They seem to manage.”

  “Mine isn’t a normal job. I keep all kinds of crazy hours.”

  “I wouldn’t be any bother to you. You could come and go as you pleased. Think of the money you could save.”

  “Saving money has never been my ambition.”

  “Don’t you want anything of your own?”

  “Like what?”

  “A house. A family. A nest egg for your old age.”

  I smiled.

  I thanked her again for her hospitality, put on my shoes, and wished her a goodnight at the door. Crossing the yard, it felt like I was walking on air.

  15

  THERE IS NO stillness like Sunday morning in the heart of the city. The workers gone, the streets empty, the buildings locked up. Even the pigeons seem to have deserted the ledges. It’s always on a Sunday that I succumb to the dream of a family.

  I lingered in bed long after waking up, watching as a disinterested bystander might the passing traffic of my mind, which was fairly dense that morning, a couple of bad pile-ups at vital intersections. I considered my options. Rather I closed my eyes again, hoping to drift back to sleep. Somewhere in the building a baby was crying. It must have been several floors down, or up, for it was as faint as the bleat of a goat in a distant valley.

  Half an hour later I was still in bed, the sun shining in my face. Get up, I told myself. Rise and meet the day with alacrity. It’s a nice day. You should get out there and enjoy it. Take a drive up the coast. The windows open, sea breeze whipping through your left sleeve. C
lear the mind. Stop in some little seaside town for a bite to eat, flirt with the waitress. Drive on. Stop for gas. Drive some more. Turn around and drive back. It was all so vivid that there seemed no point in going through with it.

  I considered other options. A museum? Too quiet. The zoo? Too many kids. The beach? Too hot. Mental and spiritual paralysis stole over me as one after another I entertained and rejected every species of diversion that flitted through my mind.

  A movie!

  What was playing? I would have to go out and get a paper. At last, having a concrete objective, however inconsequential, the paralysis lifted and hope returned that I would find a pleasant way to spend the day.

  I got up and took a shower. I chose my tan suit, on the grounds that, tonally speaking, it was the lightest of the three. Another point in its favor was the relative infrequency with which I wore it, which by some quirk of perception rendered it thinner, less impenetrable than the others. The darkness, the density of the navy blue and the black suit, the warp and weft of whose fibers were steeped in all my experiences of man’s inhumanity to man, encased me in a kind of armor. In my dark suits, I knew I could take anything the nasty world dished out to me with no more than a wisecrack to buffer the pain. It was for that very reason that I rarely wore the tan suit on the job. Despite its superior fit, it had proven incompatible with the demands of my profession. I didn’t feel quite myself in it, which was precisely what this odd morning called for.

  I put on the slacks and a freshly laundered shirt. It was amazing how light I felt in it, almost buoyant. I didn’t bother putting on the jacket to go down for the paper.

  Sundays were Arturo’s day off. As much as I liked Arturo, there was a certain pleasure in being truly alone in an elevator, free to pick your nose or fart or whistle without the slightest concern of raising an eyebrow or a flattering comment from the operator.

  On the way down, the elevator stopped on the second floor. The door opened to reveal an Irish setter sitting alertly before it. The dog and I exchanged looks. “Hello there,” I said. The dog swiveled its head left and peered expectantly down the hall. I pressed the hold button and leaned out. No one there. “Coming?” I asked. The inner ridges of the dog’s brows rose eloquently. I released the button. “Suit yourself.”