Cape Fear (12 page)

“Yes, sir. But what about Nancy?”

“You’ll be three miles away from the other camp. I’m
going to talk to them when we take the kids down. She’s older than Jamie and less likely to forget to be cautious. But I think … she’s a more logical target. I’m going to try to handle the problem here when Cady is released. If it is handled, I’ll get word to you at once, Tommy.”

“I understand there aren’t many men over at Minnatalla,” Tommy said dubiously.

“I know that. You will see Nancy off and on, I assume. Keep reminding her to stay with the pack. She’s seen Cady. That’s going to be a lot of help to her.” He gave Tommy a detailed description of the man and said, “If a situation should come up, don’t try to be impulsive and heroic. You’re husky and you’re an athlete, but you’d be no match for the man. He’s got the size and speed and ruthlessness of a bear. And I don’t think you could stop him with a pipe wrench.”

“I understand.”

“And understand this too. I’m not being dramatic.”

“I know that, sir. I know about the dog. I never heard of anything like that before. I’ll make certain they’ll both be all right, Mr. Bowden. I won’t goof it.”

“I know you won’t. Here comes the farmer’s lady.”

He watched them walk out to the parked car. There were long whistles as Nancy approached the car. After they left, waving and yelling, Sam went back to the porch.

When Carol came out, bringing him the unexpected bonus of a tall gin and tonic, he said, “I’m thinking about pendulums.”

She sat on the railing near him. “Lecture by Bowden.”

“You can always tell, can’t you?”

“Of course, darling. Your voice gets a little bit deeper and you articulate more carefully. Out with it.”

“If I could rehearse this, it would be better. I suspect we’re near the end of the glamour days of juvenile delinquency. I think a very unusual crop of kids is coming along. Good kids, but strange. They’ve become bored with the dissipations of their elders and the animal philosophies of their contemporaries. They are tired of using the bogeyman of military service as a built-in excuse for riot and disorder. This is a very moral crop of kids. They are sophisticates, but they practice moderation by choice. They seem to have a sense of moral purpose and decent goals, which, God knows, are all right. But they appall me a little. They make me feel like a doddering degenerate. Tommy is a good kid. The pendulum is swinging back.”

She put her glass down carefully on the railing and clapped solemnly. “Hear, hear.”

“Now stop listening to me and we will sit in this stagy dusk and listen to bugs.”

“To myriad insects, please.”

“You can tell temperature from crickets.”

“So you have told me a hundred times.”

“Another sign of senility. Banality and repetitiousness. And forgetfulness, because I never can remember the formula you use on a cricket.”

“Let’s just say when the crickets sing outdoors, it’s warm enough.”

“Fine.”

They sat in silence while night came. Jamie and some of his friends were playing in the barn. The shrilling of their voices merged with the insects’ song. Sam tried to submerge himself completely in the subtle rhythms of the summer night, but he could not halt the ticking of the clock in the
back of his mind. Each second brought them closer to the return of danger. And he knew that Carol too listened to that clock. It was, he thought, somewhat like the knowledge of a mortal illness. It made the immediate beauties more vivid, all pleasures sharper, while at the same time it stained beauty and pleasure with a distressing poignancy.

When the phone rang Carol went in and answered it and came back out and said, “It’s dispersal time. Go and break up the atomic set, darling.”

“Atomic?”

“Where have you been? They are constructing an atomic sports car.”

He broke up the group. Bicycle lights went up the road and plans for tomorrow were shouted back and forth. It was the wonderful world of all the summers of childhood. Television, after having been a source of worry for a time, was back under control. Summer was time to use the big muscles, time for running and yelping. Summer was the time when the big red dog should have been running with them, banging into tanned legs and knocking them down, undergoing a quavering ride in the atomic sports car, barking with frustration at being unable to join them in a tree, collapsing loose-jointed into her corner at night to enter a dream world that set her legs twitching while she ran with consummate valor after all the monsters she had terrified into flight.

They left early for camp on Monday, the first of July. Most parents would have taken the kids down on Sunday, and
that had been the original plan, but after family debate, Sam had decided to take Monday off so that on Sunday they could picnic on the island. It had been a perfect day on the island. On the way home a stiff breeze had come up, and Bucky, accepting his Bonamine a little too late, had spent the last half hour of the trip home hanging over the rail, intensely indignant with his own stomach, aware of black betrayal.

In the early morning, excitement had closed Jamie’s stomach into a knot. He could not eat. Lists were checked. Mike Turner came down the road to bid Jamie a forlorn farewell. The wagon was loaded, the house locked, and they took off. Bucky was infected by the excitement of the others, but on the way back home he would be sunk in sour gloom until, inevitably, he would fall asleep on the back seat.

They arrived at eleven, going to Minnatalla first despite Jamie’s protestations so shrill and bitter that he had to be squashed firmly. The busy morning schedule was in frantic swing. Nancy’s friends of other summers waved and called to her. After Sam and Jamie had off-loaded Nancy’s gear into her cabin, he drove to the administration cottage and had a talk with the camp supervisor, a new man, younger than the man he had replaced. It was not a very satisfactory talk. The man’s name was Teller. Sam soon recognized the type. Teller was very much like that sort of officious social worker who considers the rules and forms more important than the human beings he deals with. He was gently patronizing, and it was clear that he thought he was dealing with an over-protective parent.

“Nancy has a very good record here at Minnatalla, Mr. Bowden. We’re delighted she’s back with us, and I am certain she will have a happy and profitable summer.”

“I’m sure she will, Mr. Teller, but that isn’t the point,” Sam said patiently. “I’m concerned with her physical safety.”

“All our campers are carefully supervised, Mr. Bowden. They’re busy every moment of the day. Lights-out is strictly enforced, and we have a very competent night watchman who makes a tour of the entire camp area four times a night. We permit all wearers of the Minnatalla merit button to go into Shadyside on Saturday afternoons. One of the staff supervises the junior campers, but the senior girls can—”

Sam interrupted, sensing how he must deal with Teller. “She has been coming here for some time. This is her fourth year. I imagine that I am almost as familiar with all these details as you are. Nancy is not to go into Shadyside at any time.”

Teller looked pained. “But surely that is unfair to the child, Mr. Bowden. When she sees others being given permission—”

“Nancy is perfectly willing to forgo those trips. She is … mature enough to recognize the fact she may be harmed.”

Teller flushed. “I do not know how wise it is to frighten a child, Mr. Bowden.”

“I haven’t made a special study of it myself. Are we in agreement? No trips to Shadyside for Nancy?”

“Yes, Mr. Bowden. I’m sure that if she has any errands, she can find someone who will be willing to make purchases for her.”

“I’m sure she can find a couple of dozen who will be willing. She’s not an unpopular child.”

“I’m sure of that.”

The situation at Gannatalla was more reassuring. After Jamie was unloaded and fed into the schedule, Sam looked up Mr. Menard. He recognized Sam from the previous year. “Hello, Mr. Bowden. Glad to have Jamie back.”

“I wanted to talk to you about—”

“A possible kidnaping deal? Tommy Kent gave me the word. I’ve advised everybody on the staff. I told them how to handle it. We won’t treat Jamie differently than we treat anybody else. But, without being obvious about it, we’re going to keep a special eye on him, and be on the lookout for anybody hanging around. We don’t want you people worrying about him. There’s no need to. And I’m going to talk to him about how he can cooperate.”

“I certainly appreciate this. Over there at the female department, Mr. Teller made me feel as if he thought I was making the whole thing up.”

“Bert is new and he’s taking himself a little seriously right now. He was a playground supervisor. Actually, he’s a lot better with kids than you’d expect. The kids will whip him into shape in a week, and as soon as I get a chance, I’ll have a little talk with him.”

“I’ll appreciate that very much. This sort of thing … isn’t very good for the nerves.”

“Anybody who goes after a man’s kids hits him where he lives. God knows there’s enough things to worry about that can happen to them accidentally. My pet nightmare is one
of them drowning. I keep the staffers counting heads every minute of the swim periods.”

“Tommy Kent seems to be a good kid.”

“I’ll let you know in a month. We get so many that start out just fine. Work like horses until the novelty wears off. Then they’re more trouble than they’re worth. If Kent can sustain it, he’s a gem.” Menard winked at Sam. “And do I detect more than a casual concern about the Bowden girl?”

“I think so.”

“Stay to lunch with us today?”

“Thanks, but we have to head back, Mr. Menard. We’ll be back on the twentieth anyway, and probably on the thirteenth too.”

On the way home, after Bucky was asleep, Carol said, “I know it has to happen, but I hate to cut the family down, really. It does make life a lot easier. But it makes it emptier too. I dread the time when they’ll all be gone. I think about it during the day sometimes, and the house seems twice as empty.”

“You can delay that day, friend wife.”

“How?”

“With a little diligence and cooperation, I think I could fix it so that … Hmmmm … you’re thirty-seven. Assume it would go away to school at eighteen. Nineteen plus thirty-seven. Yes, dear, you could be fifty-six before the house empties out completely. That is, provided we get to work on the project immediately.”

“Lascivious wretch! Beast!”

“Just finding out?”

She sat closer to him. A dozen miles went by. She said thoughtfully, “We all get so playfully cynical about another b-a-b-y. Jokes about the diaper service and the PTA. You know, if this … this Cady thing wasn’t happening to us, I’d like to have another.”

“Do you mean that?”

“I think so. Even with waddling around all stuck out in front and all the sterilizing and night feedings and later on watching it so it won’t fall and all that. Yes, I think so. Because they’re all so different. You think about what the next one would be like. Our three are—I don’t know how to say it—they’re all people.”

“I know what you mean.”

“And making people is a special thing. It’s a special and a frightening responsibility.”

“You said Bucky was the last.”

“I know. And I said it for three years. And then I stopped saying it.”

“You’re no bride, darling, even though you quite frequently manage to look like one.”

“The others were easy.”

“You didn’t say so at the time.”

“Pooh! They were easy for us Indians.”

“Twenty minutes later you’re back beading moccasins.”

“Nancy would be stricken with horror. And our friends would leer at each other and talk about carelessness.”

“But you still would go through with it?”

“Not now. Not while … we don’t know.”

“We will know, I think. Before long.”

“And when this is over, we’ll talk about it again, dear?”

“We’ll talk about it again.”

“You should have something to say. It ties you down too. It changes your life.”

“When it comes to the point where I can’t remember all their names, I’ll bring you to a quivering halt.”

They were home by four. Bucky rose up in stuporous condition and drunk-walked to the house. The sky was dark and low and the clouds that hurried by seemed just above the tops of the elms. The wind was gusty and humid. It rattled the windows of the house. The house had a feeling of emptiness. When, at six, the heavy rains came, Sam backed the wagon out into the drive so the rain would wash the dust of the trip from it.

July had come too quickly. And nineteen days could not be made to last.

SIEVERS PHONED SAM
on Monday morning, July eighth, and came up to his office at ten-thirty.

“Something has come up,” he said. “They haven’t given me much notice, as usual. I’m being transferred. California. I head up one of the Apex agencies out there. It’s a promotion.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks. It won’t be possible for me to arrange the deal we were talking about. I mean, if you decided to go ahead with it.”

“I was going to. Can’t you arrange it before you go?”

“Too far ahead. But I did a little fixing for you. Want to write this down? Joe Tanelli, 1821 Market. It’s a candy-and-cigar store, and a small-time horse room in the back. He’ll expect you on Wednesday the seventeenth. Don’t give him your name. Mention my name. He’ll know the score.
He’ll want five hundred down. That’s all right. Give it to him. And he’ll want the other five after it’s been taken care of. He’ll round up better talent than last time.”

To Sam the situation was curiously unreal. He had not thought such a conversation possible in his office. And there was nothing particularly conspiratorial about Sievers’ attitude. He could have been talking about the best place to buy fresh eggs.

“I appreciate this.”

Sievers took on the look of a man thinking back across the years. “It used to be easier long ago, in other places. You take Chicago or Kansas City or Atlanta or Birmingham in thirty-three or thirty-four. The rates were cheap. Ten bucks for a broken leg. And a tops of two hundred if you wanted somebody killed and they weren’t important. There’s only a handful of killers for hire now in the whole country and they’re on retainer for the syndicate. Even if you could contact them, the price would be up in the clouds. A hopped-up kid can be bought for less, but the job would be bungled. The pros do a clean job. Come in by plane with a good cover story. Two or three of them. Rent a legitimate car. Stay in a good hotel. Pick the time and the place and do it fast and clean and then get out. An amateur always gets caught and always sucks in the guy who hired him.”