Skulldoggery (6 page)

“Sex!” he said. “Did you say sex?”

“That’s what I said, and I’ve been trying to say it ever since I got here. Mrs. Crump is determined on a stud.”

“Can’t something be done to stop her?” said Flo. “Can’t she be arrested for flagrant immorality or something?”

“She says it’s not immoral,” Lester said. “She says all dogs are born married.”

“Is that true? Hester, are all dogs born married?”

“Whether they are or not,” said Hester, “it has no biological significance. For my part, I am not concerned with that. As usual, you have allowed yourselves to be diverted by a secondary issue. My concern is with the oatmeal.”

“Oatmeal?” Uncle Homer said. “Oatmeal won’t keep the damn dog from getting pregnant. Will it? If it will, I never heard of it.”

“It won’t keep her from getting pregnant,” said Hester, “but it could keep her from becoming a mother. It could, that is, if it were loaded with arsenic or something.”

“Hester, darling, you’re perfectly right,” Flo said. “Arsenic in Senorita Fogarty’s oatmeal would settle everything satisfactorily.”

“Well, someone go and put it in,” said Uncle Homer. “Lester, you go.”

“Not I,” Lester said. “I was there once, and I absolutely refuse to go back.”

“There’s no great hurry,” said Hester. “I don’t know just what the gestation period for a Chihuahua is, but at least it is long enough to allow us time to proceed carefully. It would never do to fail in this as miserably as Lester has failed in corrupting Mrs. Crump.”

“Well, it will have to be done sooner or later,” Uncle Homer said, “and in my opinion Lester should be required to do it. After all, he is the one who started the whole thing.”

“Like hell,” Lester said. “I won’t do it.”

“Has anyone thought
how
it’s to be done?” Flo said. “How is it?”

“I don’t know,” said Hester. “I’m trying to think of a way.”

“Maybe you had better have a martini after all,” Uncle Homer said. “It will sharpen your wits.”

I
T WAS
no later than the next day, as things went, that Lester’s resolution regarding the arsenic in the oatmeal began to waver. He had been driven by desperation into taking a walk, a form of extreme exercise that was a fair measure of his need for therapy. He had a vague idea that it would assemble his addled thoughts and somehow remove his troubles, but he was convinced after a few blocks that walking as therapy was greatly overrated, if not a plain fraud, and he returned to his apartment with the idea of resorting to gin, which was a proven treatment that could be relied upon in many cases, although not all.

Flo, who had been out when he left, was back when he returned, and came at once to the door of her bedroom to see who was there.

“Oh,” she said. “Is it you, Lester, darling?”

“As you can see,” he said, “it is.”

“I wondered where you were. Where were you?”

“If you must know, I was taking a walk.”

“A walk? Whatever for?”

“Because I wanted to, that’s what for.”

“Well, it seems like an absurd thing to do for no better reason than that. I must say, Lester, that you’ve lately become very difficult to understand. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“No, I’m not, as a matter of fact.”

“You must try to take a positive attitude, darling. Nothing is to be gained by always thinking the worst. By wandering off as you did, you missed a telephone call.”

“Telephone call? Who called? Was it Pearl?”

“No, it was a man. Someone called King Louie, I asked him King Louie who, and he said you’d know. Do you?”

“Unfortunately, I do. What did he want?”

“He wanted to talk with you, naturally, and I told him that you had just walked out for a while, never dreaming that you actually had gone on walking and walking, and then he said something that seemed odd, to say the least. He said walking was a very convenient thing to be able to do, and wouldn’t it be a shame if you couldn’t. What did he mean, exactly?”

“He meant exactly what he said. What else did he say?”

“Nothing much. He said he’d call you again later. Do you want to call him back?”

“No, I don’t. Excuse me, Mother. I think I’ll go lie down.”

“Why don’t you, darling? Clearly, you are not well.”

He went into his bedroom, but he didn’t lie down. He sat on the edge of his bed and tried to decide who was the more fearsome, King Louie or Mrs. Crump, and there didn’t seem to be much choice between the two. After a while, however, he decided that he might as well try to gain access to the oatmeal after all, inasmuch as King Louie’s hired laborers were a virtual certainty, barring solvency, whereas Mrs. Crump’s meat cleaver might, with luck, be avoided. It was a difficult decision, but having made it, he felt a little better, although not much, and he was able to give his attention to another problem that was on his mind, and the problem on his mind was Pearl.

He had not seen Pearl since they had gone to King Louie’s Lounge, and whenever he’d tried to see her she had been otherwise engaged, which meant in simplest terms that he was a candidate for consignment to the discard, if he hadn’t already been consigned. He had just about resigned himself to this humiliation, but now his resignation was disturbed by his instant hope that it was she who had called, and if he was going to take another precarious chance with Mrs. Crump, he thought, he at least owed himself another one first with Pearl. So thinking, he picked up his telephone and dialed Pearl’s number, and after a couple of rings he heard Pearl’s voice.

“Hello, Pearl,” he said. “This is Lester.”

“I know who it is, Lester. What do you want?”

“I was just sitting here thinking about you, and I thought I might run over and see you.”

“Think again.”

“Oh, come on, Pearl. There’s something important I want to tell you.”

“No, no, Lester. You mustn’t start lying again. I am having trouble enough being firm as it is.”

“Firm about what?”

“About not seeing you any more, of course. Frankly, Lester, you are the type of person a girl is always thinking about and wanting to see, even after it has obviously become a waste of time.”

“Let me come over, and we’ll see if it’s a waste of time.”

“That’s not what I mean, Lester. I admit that you are amusing when you are in the mood for it.”

“I’m in the mood now, damn it Are you?”

“I won’t say I’m not, but I can hardly afford distractions that come to nothing in the end but entertainment. You must realize, Lester, that you have been a great disappointment to me. I have to apply myself to projects with a reasonable chance of coming to something substantial.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing all week?”

“Since you ask, I don’t mind saying that I have.”

“Listen, Pearl. I said I have something important to tell you, and I have. It’s the strict truth.”

“What you think is important might not be what I think is important at all. Can’t you be a little more definite?”

“It’s about Senorita Fogarty.”

“And the will?”

“Yes.”

“Does it improve your prospects for getting all that money away from her?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“I don’t know, Lester. The last time I saw you, you were planning to get her run over in the traffic, and so far as I know nothing has been done about it yet.”

“That plan has been abandoned. It ran into complications.”

“What makes you think this one will be any simpler?”

“Wait and see if it isn’t. Damn it. Pearl, the least you can do is let me tell you about it.”

“Well, all right, Lester. You may come over, although it’s against my better judgment! I’ll meet you at the curb out front.”

“You needn’t do that. I haven’t forgotten the way up.”

“Sweetie, you aren’t coming up. I haven’t seen you for a week, as you know, and I don’t intend to expose myself to excessive temptation. It wouldn’t be safe or sensible.”

Chances for a drink at Pearl’s looking dim, he had a quick one before leaving, and it was fortunate that he did, for sure enough, when he arrived there, she was waiting for him by the curb in front. She crawled in beside him with a casual display of knees, and they peeled off in the MG with a rush that was less an expression of Lester’s eagerness to leave in a hurry than of his reluctance to leave at all.

“I hope, sweetie, for your sake,” she said, “that this doesn’t turn out to be another one of your deceptions. You had better tell me at once whatever it is about Senorita Fogarty.”

“Give me a little time, Pearl. I’ve just got here.”

“It seems to me that you have already had ample time. I don’t see why it should take a week or longer to murder a Chihuahua.”

“That’s because you were not assigned the job of doing it. I tell you there are complications that make it very difficult, if not impossible. It’s easy enough for you to be superior and critical, but for me it’s another matter entirely.”

“What happened to the original plan, that’s what I’d like to know.”

“Well, you can hardly get Senorita Fogarty run over in traffic when you can’t even get close to her. Anyone should be able to understand that.”

“That may be true, but I still can’t understand why you can’t get close to her. What’s to prevent you?”

“Not what. Who. Mrs. Crump, that’s who.”

“Have you even tried to get around Mrs. Crump? I’ll bet you haven’t.”

“I’ll bet I have. Pearl, I wish you’d try to have a little more confidence in me.”

“You haven’t done anything yet to inspire confidence, sweetie. You’ll have to admit that yourself. What happened with Mrs. Crump?”

“Never mind what happened. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It’s sufficient to say that she has necessitated a change of plan.”

“Now we have come back to it, and it had better be good. What change?”

“It is now the plan to put arsenic in Senorita Fogarty’s oatmeal.”

“Oatmeal! Does the damn dog eat oatmeal?”

“She’s been off her feed. Mrs. Crump thinks oatmeal will be good for her.”

“I doubt it. I can’t imagine oatmeal’s being good for anyone, even Senorita Fogarty.”

“That’s a matter of opinion. Anyhow, Mrs. Crump has decided that Senorita Fogarty needs oatmeal and sex.”

“Well, I can see sex. Sex might be helpful.”

“Have you lost your mind? Damn it, Pearl, the moment that dog gets introduced to sex we’re finished. We can kiss Grandfather’s money goodbye.”

“You can also kiss me goodbye. On second thought, we’ll skip the kiss.”

“I know. You don’t have to say it. However, I’m sure we will be able to load Senorita Fogarty’s oatmeal with arsenic in time. Luck has been so bad lately, it’s bound to start getting a little better.”

He’d had a vague notion of driving somewhere in the country, but some kind of morbid attraction seemed to be working against it, and he was suddenly aware that he was on the street that ran in front of Grandfather’s house. As he approached, the front door opened, and Crump appeared, walking down between the cast-iron deer from the house to the street. Senorita Fogarty’s guardian was dressed to the teeth in his Sunday best, a rusty black suit and stiff shoes. He turned, after coming out the gate, and headed for the corner at the other end of the block from the one where Lester, reflexively, had stopped to watch.

“What’s the matter? said Pearl. “Lester, why have you stopped the car?”

“There’s Crump,” Lester said.

“That little man with the bowed legs? What of it?”

“I wonder where the little devil is going?”

“What difference does it make? Lester, you have been brooding and brooding over this matter until you have become a mental case or something. It is much more to the point, in my opinion, where
we
are going, and back to my apartment is where it had better be, if you don’t mind.”

“I believe I’ll follow him and find out.”

“Not with me, sweetie. Following a bow-legged man is not quite my idea of how to spend an afternoon, even an afternoon as dull as this one.”

“Oh, come on, Pearl. Do try to cooperate a little. It wouldn’t hurt you to come with me. After all, you have as much to gain or lose as I do.”

“Well, there’s something to that, I guess. I’ve admitted that I would like to keep you at hand, provided that you can arrange to get your share of your grandfather’s money. I’ll come along. Probably he’s only going to the market or somewhere.”

But it soon became apparent that Crump, wherever he was going, wasn’t going to the market. At the corner he waited for several minutes until a bus came along, which he boarded. With Lester and Pearl trailing in the MG, he rode the bus across town for about two miles, then descending and waiting for a trolley bus, which he also boarded, clutching his transfer. The trolley bus took him about three miles farther on his way, by which time it had become apparent that Crump’s errand was a long one, and then, after waiting again on a corner, he was picked up by another bus that took him well beyond the city limits and deposited him at a terminal.

“Wherever can he be going?” Pearl said.

“I don’t know,” said Lester, “but I’ll lay ten to one that he’s up to something tricky.”

“I must say,” Pearl said, “that I am becoming more and more interested all the time. I’m glad I came along.”

And there was still farther to go. The rest of the way had to be made by Crump on foot, and he started off briskly down the asphalt road. It was now essential to secrecy to trail him at a greater distance, and Crump, ascending and descending the elevations of the road, was sometimes briefly out of sight. About a mile had been covered when Lester and Pearl, reaching the crest of an elevation behind him, were startled to find that he had disappeared completely.

“My God,” said Lester, “where has Crump gone?”

“Drive a little faster,” Pearl said. “Surely he didn’t simply vanish.”

Half a minute later, the mysterious disappearance was solved. Crump had merely turned off onto a long, curving drive that went up a slope to a remote house. Pearl saw him and pointed him out.

“There he is,” she said.

“I see him,” Lester said. “I’ll drive down the road and turn around. While we’re waiting for him to come out, we must decide what must be done.”

Having turned, he came back part way and stopped beside an Osage Orange hedge. It was apparent that he was in a condition of extreme agitation.

“What did you mean about what must be done?” Pearl said. “Lester, please stop shaking. What in the world has come over you?”

“Didn’t you read the sign beside the drive that old Crump turned into?”

“No, I didn’t. I was busy watching Crump.”

Lester’s voice was weak and tremulous from shock.

“My God, Pearl, that place is a
kennel!
“