Stranger At Home (2 page)

Joan's voice, hushed and half hysterical, was saying, “I want Mrs. Vickers, you fool. Angie.” Evidently she had said it before.

A man's voice answered. He was very drunk, and suddenly very happy. “Angie! Oh, you mean Angie.”

“Yes.”

“Well, Angie darling – hello! Where'd you go? I was looking all over...”

Joan cried out, “Listen! I'm not Angie, I'm Joan. Joan Merrill. I want to talk to Angie. Call her. It's urgent.”

“Urgent, huh? Call Angie. Urgent Angie. Whoo-oo, lady! You shouldn't talk like that even if it is true. And if you're not Angie, why did I call you up?”

“Please, for heaven's sake...!”

Vickers spoke quietly. “Joan. I don't think the gentleman wants to be disturbed.”

From Joan's end of the line there was utter silence, but the man said very distinctly, “How right you are. No lady should disturb a man on his way to where I was going when she disturbed me. Now look what's happened.” The phone gave an earsplitting bang as he let it drop on the table. Presumably he went away. From the noise there was quite a brawl going on. Vickers' mouth tightened.

“Joan,” he said. “Why was that drunk answering the phone? Aren't the servants down there?”

“I – suppose so, they're probably busy...”

“You'd better go to bed, Joan.” He sounded almost gentle. “You've had quite a shock.”

Her voice came over strangely choked and thin. “All right, Michael. Yes, I'll go to bed. Good night.”

He smiled as he hung up, briefly. The smile was neither humorous nor kind. He went out of Angie's room and down the hall to his own, and the hounds trailed after him.

His bedroom hadn't been touched, except for cleaning. Everything was as he left it. He liked his room. It was big and plain and comfortable, and there was nothing in it that was not his own. The bed was smaller than the one in Angie's room, quite hard, and without pillows.

He stripped in the middle of the floor. Ridding his body of these garments was like ridding it of a disease. He went into the bath and filled the shining porcelain with water that was close to scalding, and the cleansing pain of it as he slid in was the most pleasant thing he had ever felt in his life.

Later, clean from scalp to toe, tingling from an icy shower, fresh shaven, he looked at his naked self in the long mirror. Four years ago he had been proud of his body. Professional trainers had molded it in gymnasiums and tempered it at pleasant games –so much of this and so much of that, and sweats and salt rubs and massage, and the result was beautiful. Smooth and perfect and beautiful.

That was four years ago.

His muscles weren't smooth now. They were rigid and knotted, for use and not for play. The comfortable flesh had starved and sweated away. He rather liked himself better now. This whole business had its amusing side. He smiled.

“They will be amused, Coolin,” he said. “They will all be very much amused.”

He was astonished, a minute or two later, to find that his old clothes still fitted him.

When he was dressed he went downstairs again. Joan was not there. He left the house, drove the reluctant hounds away into the darkness, and went to the garage.

It was built for three cars. There was only one in it now. A long black convertible he didn't remember. Of course, in four years... He glanced at the registration card.

It didn't say anything about anyone named Vickers. 

The name was Harold Bryce, and the address was on North Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills.

Vickers stood looking at it, his forefinger moving lightly back and forth across the name.

Harold Bryce. Hello, Harold. It'll be nice to see you again, old boy. Very, very nice... And nice to know what your car is doing in my wife's garage.

The keys were in the lock, there was gas in the tank, and he had not forgotten how to drive.

Vickers left Harold Bryce's car well off the drive and picked his way through the haphazard mass of expensive machinery parked on the flat space below the cliff. It was near midnight. There was mist, and a late moon.

There were steps winding up the cliff, which was sheer but not high. The house lay along the top of it. It was low and rambling – Vickers liked comfortable houses – and the front of it was mostly windows. He had designed it himself. Every light was on, the blinds were up, and the front door was wide open. There was a great deal of noise coming out of it. Vickers paused at the top of the steps, facing west into the light wind.

Below him was the sea, this immediate part of it shaped into a serene little cove. He could make out the two boats riding quietly at anchor – the same Dolphin and the same cabin cruiser he had had four years ago. He could see the landing, with the dinghy tied up alongside, and on the beach, the boathouse that was half elaborate cabana.

There was somebody down there. The pale blue of the beach sand had splashes of gold on it under the cabana windows.

Vickers turned and went on to the house. In the doorway he stopped and leaned his shoulder against the jamb and stood watching.

There were two radios going full blast. One had a rhumba band. On the other, a woman with a bass voice was dying of a broken heart. No one was listening to either of them.

The living room was not particularly large, and it seemed to have several thousand people in it. The mass squirmed and shifted with a sort of yeasty unease, fraying at the edges into individual blobs. A man had gone to sleep under the big table, his feet tucked in carefully, his head pillowed on a cushion from the window seat, a handkerchief over his face. Over in the corner a woman had broken the thin rhinestone strap that held her dress up. Four men were helping her. From the way she was yelling they were making progress in some direction. On the broad window seat there was a couple that had forgotten about the party altogether. Everybody was shrieking with laughter. Some of them were just shrieking.

Nobody noticed Vickers.

A few of the people he knew. Some of them he remembered vaguely. Most of them he had never seen. There was no sign of Angie.

He moved forward into the room.

He was taller than anyone there, and he was sober, and he went through the mob like an ice breaker. Nobody even cursed him. He reached the big alcove at the end where the bar was. A man was bent double over the little bar, pawing at something on the floor behind it.

“Charlie,” he said. “Charlie.” He began to cry.

Vickers saw a man's arm sticking out across the floor. He went over and had a look. Somebody had been playing bartender and had gone to sleep on the job.

“Poor Charlie,” said the man who was crying. “He's dead. And I want another drink.”

“Not only dead,” said Vickers, “but stiff.” He dragged the snoring carcass out and flung it unconcernedly into a corner. “What'll you have?”

“Double water and no scotch.”

“Sure that's what you want?”

“S'what I been drinking all evening, and I
never
mix 'em.”

“Right.” Vickers poured a double shot of White Rock into a glass. He said casually, “Seen Angie around?”

“Angie?”

Vickers handed him the glass. “Angie Vickers. She's giving this party.”

Light broke. “Oh, Angie!” He raised his glass, screwed up an enormous wink, nodded, and took the White Rock in one swallow, after which he exhaled loudly and made the usual I-hate-the-filthy-stuff grimace. Then he leaned forward confidentially.

“I haven't seen Angie for a long, long time. Nobody ever sees Angie for a long, long time. But I'll tell you a secret. You look for Harry Bryce, or Job Crandall, or Bill Saul.” He laughed suddenly, which nearly caused him to fall on his face. “Or maybe all of 'em at once, I dunno. Anyway, Angie'll be there.”

Will she?” said Michael Vickers. His voice was almost unconcerned. “Will she really?”

The man was staring at him. “You're twins,” he said accusingly. A woman came up and took the man's arm. “You're drunk, Roddy,” she said. “Look, people, Roddy's drunk.” She thought that was very funny. Roddy glared, then frowned and sniffed the glass with the remains of the White Rock in it.

“Drunk, huh? Well, no wonder, the dirty sonofabitch – he mixed drinks on me! I was stony cold sober... where is the dirty...”

Vickers had gone.

He was back in the south wing now, where the bedrooms were strung along one side of a long passage. The other side was glass, and beyond it the garden was dark and silent under the mist. He passed the first guest room. It seemed to be sacred to the ladies for this night. A burst of female cackling came through the half open door. The next one was ditto for the men. The third door was closed. Vickers went past it, to the door of the big room on the corner that had been his and Angie's. He flung it open.

The room was empty. The little portrait of Angie he had always liked so much smiled down at him from the wall. Her eyes had sunbeams in them, those odd clear eyes that were almost golden, and her lips were parted, and there was wind in her black hair. Vickers closed the door very quietly. He went to the third guest room.

It contained a pair of frail young men who screamed at him. He looked at them and went away, back along the hall. His face was quite empty of expression. He went into the kitchen. Job Crandall was there. He was hunched over: the white enamel table, drinking beer out of a quart bottle, and he was so near passing out that he was staring like a blind man. He was nearly as tall as Vickers, loose-jointed and gracefully angular. His hair was snow-white, his face dark brown and handsome, his eyes deep blue. His red-headed wife sat on the edge of the table. She was beautifully gowned and coifed, but youth was not in her. Nothing was in her at this moment but fury and alcohol. She was cursing Job Crandall slowly and repetitiously in a low, hissing voice. Crandall drank beer and stared straight ahead of him.

Vickers said quietly, “Shut up, Harriet.” He leaned across the table. “Job. Job, remember me?”

Crandall blinked. His eyes were drugged and empty.

Harriet went on cursing.

Vickers leaned on the table for a moment, watching them. Then he went away. Just outside the door a crashing noise made him look around. Job Crandall had fallen forward across the table and the beer bottle had dropped to the floor. It didn't break. There was still some beer in it. Harriet picked it up and raised it to her thin, smeared mouth.

Vickers went back through the living room. There was still no sign of Angie there. Faces passed him. Strange faces, faces that he knew, all of them blurred and feverish with the immediacy of pleasure, unseeing. He looked into the garden. It was empty. He went out of the front door and along the terrace to the glassed-in sun deck. He found Bill Saul there, with a woman.

She was a bleached blonde with large breasts and a sultry, attractive face. She was standing in the corner, against the wall, and Bill Saul was standing against her, his hands placed one on either side of her head. He was a lean man with dark hair, and he wore a white jacket. His face was hidden against the woman's cheek. He moved it, slowly, down toward her throat, and she thrust her chin up and caught her breath aloud, and smiled.

Vickers went up and put his hand on Saul's shoulder. “Bill,” he said. “Turn around.”

Saul lifted a pale, predacious face to the moon and said three words and bent his head again.

Vickers tightened his hand and pulled. Saul was not little, and he was not weak, but he moved.

“I told you to turn around.”

Saul's face showed hollows at the temples and in the long cheeks. His hair grew to a peak on his beautiful forehead, and his eyes were as old and as colorless as the moon, and he looked like Lucifer, drunk and in rut. He said softly, “What the hell are you trying to do?” and struck.

Vickers stopped the blow before it was started. His left hand was holding Saul's soft shirt below the collar. He thrust Saul back until his head rapped sharply against an upright between the panes of glass.

“By Jesus,” Vickers said, “somebody's going to say hello to me.” He slapped Saul lightly across the face. “Say hello, Bill. Welcome me home.”

The moonlight fell between them. He saw Saul's eyes widening and he saw the woman rigid as a statue in the corner, and after a long, long time he heard Saul's voice say, “Michael Vickers.”

He let go of Saul and stepped back. He said politely, “Thank you, Bill. And now, perhaps you know where Angie is.”

Bill Saul said nothing. He did not move. He stared at Vickers and his narrow head moved once from right to left and back again. Vickers waited, not long. He turned to the woman. She had sunk into a chair. She was quite drunk and would soon be hysterical. Vickers looked through the glass, down toward the quiet sea. The lights were still on in the boathouse.

“I'll see you later, Bill,” he said, and went back to the steps. It was a long way down.

Bill Saul stood motionless. A thin film of sweat crawled over his face. The woman began to sob, but he paid no attention. He did not stir until, suddenly, the cabin cruiser woke noisily and swept out of the cove. Saul spun around and stared after it. The dinghy was bobbing now beside the mooring buoy.

Saul went to the steps and began to run down them. He found Vickers standing in the open doorway of the cabana. He was lighting a cigarette. His hands were steady and he was smiling. 

“Hello, Bill.”

Saul's tongue seemed to be oddly stiff, as though he were not used to using it. “Find Angie?”

“In a way.” Vickers pointed out to sea. “She's just taken the cruiser out.”

“Alone?”

“She was alone in the dinghy. I saw her go aboard.”

Saul said awkwardly, “She often takes the cruiser out.”

Vickers nodded. “She always did.”

Saul moved past him, into the room. He took a cigarette from a box on the table and lighted it. His hands were not steady. A glint of metal against the rough canvas cushions of the window seat caught his eye. He went over and picked up a cigarette case. It was Mexican silver, with a thunderbird on it.