The Deceivers (28 page)

Ray Walsh had the look of a man who reaches into a familiar drawer and feels something close around his wrist.

“What happened to amiable Carl Garrett, the happy jokester?”

“All kinds of ridiculous people are growing up these days.”

“Overconfident Ray Walsh.”

“Well, what do you think? I know I’ve suckered you into having to make a try at this thing. But I’d like to suspect there could be a little willingness along with it.”

Ray clenched his right fist, inspected the knuckles, and then held his hand out suddenly. They shook hands.

“You’re the boss man, Carl. Let’s go to work.”

Marie left after serving their dinner on trays in the bedroom, leaving Carl to clean up. Joan said she’d slept most of the afternoon, that some visitors had stopped by while she was sleeping, but Marie had turned them away. After they ate she decided she’d like to sit out on the terrace through what was left of the daylight.

She sat in the lounge chair, and after he had done the dishes, he sat on the low wall. He tried to feel comfortable with her, but he could not. He knew that he would never again be able to feel completely at ease in her presence.

He told her the Ray Walsh story, without letting her know that it had been a most critical point in his career. It had been that poised moment wherein it was decided whether he would go up or down. It seemed shocking to him that the adverse decision could have been made in such a quick and casual way. And he felt slightly sweaty when he thought of how it would have come out had he not been able to improvise a counter proposal that made sense.

And deep within himself he felt a tiny, unfamiliar quiver of excitement when he realized that, should the expanded department work out the way he wanted it to, whoever headed it up—one Carl Garrett—might be the most logical man to consider when Jim Hardy stepped out. It had been a long time since he had felt the stirrings of ambition. Yet it was not unwelcome. Maybe now, at last, he could make the full commitment of his energies and abilities. Maybe he could find it within him to take the destinies of Ballinger with deadly seriousness, become a company man, age forty-two. In thirteen years he would be fifty-five. What could thirteen years of concentrated effort bring him? Something better than boredom, perhaps. Much better than the Cindys of the world. Much better than a gray vista ahead, filled with the sterile amplitude of Mrs. Brisbie.

They were both asleep at midnight when the bedroom phone awakened them. Joan picked up the phone as he was reaching for it.

“Hello? Oh, yes, Cindy. What’s the matter? All right. Here he is.”

He turned on the bed lamp and took the phone from her.

“It’s Cindy. She sounds terribly upset.”

“Hello, Cindy.”

“Carl. Oh, Carl, could you come over, please? Just come over here. Put on a robe and come over, please.”

“What’s the matter? Cindy? Cindy?” He replaced the phone. “She wants me to come over.”

“What could it be?” Joan asked, wide-eyed. “Bucky?”

“It could be.”

“Oh, I hope not. I think I could walk over there all right. Should I come?”

“No, honey. You stay right where you are. I’ll come back and tell you just as soon as I find out.”

But, on the way across the dark lawn in robe and slippers, he knew that it was Bucky. It was inevitable that it should be Bucky. It was the final and irrevocable irony, smelling of a chance fate could not afford to miss.

He tapped on the screen door, pulled it open and walked into the empty lighted kitchen. He heard her quick steps and she came quickly, silently to him, her face a mask that broke apart in her last two steps and then was convulsively hidden in the pocket of his throat and shoulder and jaw. He held her throughout the spasmed sobbing, feeling pity and tenderness, and also an awkwardness. The awkwardness made him feel detached, a bit apart from this woman who, in tragicomic abandon, articulated her great sobs, crying haw haw haw against him, and grinding her round forehead against the angle of his jaw.

When the worst of it was over she whirled away from him and walked into the dark living room, and he followed her. She blew her nose, then stretched out on her side on the couch. He hesitated, then sat on the floor and took hold of her hand.

“Sorry,” she said. It was a cold and lost and lonely word.

“Bucky?”

“They called a little while ago. I didn’t want him to fly at night. They said he hit power lines. They said … it was quick. I … did it to him, of course.”

“You shouldn’t think that way.”

“Don’t be tiresome, Carl. There’s absolutely no rationalization that can keep me from thinking I did it.”

“Then say we did it.”

She gave a great sigh and her hand flexed in his and then was still again. “We played a nasty little game, didn’t we? Compared to this … that’s all it was. A selfish, diseased little charade. It wasn’t even real. But this is real, Carl. This is so very damn real. It’s so big and so real I can’t even fit my mind around it. I know him so. His hands and his grin, and how noisy he was brushing his teeth, and not being able to take a shower without getting the bathroom awash. Oh, Christ, Carl! What is going to become of me? I’m so damned empty. What’s wrong with us? Other people can be silly and naughty without their world going to smash. Why is my luck like this? I loved him and I was just too shallow and silly to be able to keep … to be a good guardian of what was his.”

“Cindy. Dear Cindy.”

“Yes, of course. Dear Cindy. Model wife.”

“Don’t do that to yourself.”

“But where do I go from here? Just where? Where is there any place for me where this didn’t happen?”

“I’ll have to go over and tell Joan. She’s over there worrying about it.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t bother, please.”

“Where did it happen?”

“The phone call came from Wichita. It happened near there, in a thunderstorm.”

“Who’s your lawyer?”

“Lawyer? Bob Eldon. Why?”

“I’ll be right back.”

He went and sat on Joan’s bed and said in a dull tone, “It was Bucky. Flew into a power line near Wichita.”

Joan looked stricken. Her eyes filled with tears. She turned away from him and began to cry. He picked up the book and found Bernie Madden’s number and phoned him.

Bernie’s sleepy and irritable voice answered the phone and became immediately alert when he had identified Carl. “Something wrong with Joan?”

“No, not Joan, Bernie. Cindy Cable. She got word a little while ago that Bucky got killed in his plane. She’s pretty ragged. I thought maybe a shot or someth …”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Line up somebody who’ll stay with her, Carl. Don’t let Joan try to do it. She isn’t up to it.”

Carl hung up. “Joan? Bernie says somebody should stay with her. Not you. Who do you think?”

“Wouldn’t … Molly be good?”

He decided that Molly would be very good. The phone rang a long time at the Raedeks’ before Molly answered. She agreed, without hesitation or reservation, to come at once. There was no need for Carl to pick her up. She’d drive herself over.

When he went back over, Cindy was still on the couch. He stood over her and said, “Bernie Madden’s coming by to give you something. And Molly Raedek will stay with you.”

“How competent and orderly,” she said in a small chill voice.

“How about his people? Do they know yet?”

“I don’t know. No. I didn’t call them.”

“I’ll do it. Do you have the number?”

“It’s on the front of the phone pad. Carl!”

He turned back. “What?”

“Don’t tell them your name.”

“Why not?”

“Bucky told them your name.”

The call went through without difficulty. He placed it person to person to Mr. Cable. He didn’t identify himself. Mr. Cable had a deep brassy voice. “I’m sorry to have to tell you in this way, Mr. Cable, but your son has been … has had an accident.”

“With the airplane?”

“Yes.”

“And he’s dead.”

“Uh … yes, sir.”

There was a long pause. The connection was so clear that he could hear the man’s slow and heavy breathing.

“Where did it happen and who do I contact to make arrangements about the body?”

“It happened near Wichita apparently. Perhaps if you phoned the Wichita police …”

“Who are you?”

“Just a neighbor. Cindy isn’t … wasn’t able to make the call.”

The brass voice became deeper and stronger, slow and oratorical. “That adulterous woman would not have dared to telephone this house. She broke my son’s heart and she killed him.” Between his slow words Carl could hear a woman’s voice in the background, high and shrill with an unbearable
grief. “It may be of no importance to her, but you may tell her that Gilbert telephoned his mother on Sunday and told her what he had learned about his wife. And you may tell her that I will spare no expense in a legal fight to retain custody of Gilbert’s children. She is not fit to have them, and should she undertake to oppose me, I shall prove in a court of law that she is a loose woman of bad reputation. Please give her that message. Tell her my son will be buried here. Tell her I cannot prevent her from attending the services, but she will not be made welcome and she will not be permitted to see the children.”

The line went dead. Carl hung up and went to the front door and let Molly in. Molly took Cindy into the bedroom. Cindy had become apathetic, spiritless. When Bernie arrived, Carl let him in and pointed out the bedroom. He turned on a floor lamp and sat in an armchair and turned the meaningless pages of a magazine until Bernie came back out.

Bernie came over and sat on the low coffee table. “I loaded her up with happy juice. She’s out now. No matter how bad a deal is, if you can pile some sleep on top of it, it takes some of the edge off. Molly has some pills to feed her when she comes out of it. But there’s something else. Do you happen to know of any special trouble between Cindy and Bucky?”

“Why?”

“Molly spotted something when she helped Cindy into bed. After she was passed out, Molly told me to take a look. That girl has had the living bejaysus beat out of her, and recently. It would take a special kind of mind or a special provocation to do that much damage to the tender parts of a cutie like Cindy. You have the look of a man with information.”

“Bucky did it. With a putter. And then left her for good.”

Bernie’s smile was ironic. “Maybe he didn’t really mean it to be for good. But it sure as hell is now. The usual provocation?”

“Yes.”

“Hard to believe it of Cindy. I always cased her for the type that might look available, but definitely isn’t. This is going to be bad, Carl. Real bad.”

“What do you mean?”

“The death itself would be bad enough. But on top of it she’s got a load of guilt that may be a little too heavy for anybody as sensitive as Cindy to carry around. And when the load is too heavy, you escape from it. When existence becomes untenable, you build a new place to live in. A fantasy.”

“There’s … something else too. Bucky told his parents about … the provocation and why he was leaving her. The kids are staying with them. I told Bucky’s people the news just before you arrived. His father told me they will go to court to retain custody of the kids.”

“Brother!” Bernie said. “With the responsibility of the kids she might be gutsy enough to hold herself together.” He took off his glasses and began to polish the lenses on his handkerchief. “Got any idea of who the villain of the piece is?”

Carl could not make a sound. He felt as though his throat had closed. Bernie looked at him somewhat crossly. “Well?” And still Carl could not answer. Then Bernie’s expression changed. He looked at Carl with growing pity and contempt.

“How can I be so stupid?” he said. “Bucky left his marks on both of you. Joan was out of the way. A golden chance. And you were both stupid enough to get caught.” He had lowered his voice so that Molly could not overhear. “Where did he catch you? Right here?”

Carl swallowed the coarse lump in his throat. “In a motel.”

“Real juicy. Tabloid material. I wouldn’t say you didn’t surrender to one very normal impulse, Carl. But I will tell you that I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. What happened to Bucky may be a piece of luck for you. It may mean you can successfully keep Joan from finding out. As her doctor, I wouldn’t want her to find out too soon anyway. I’ve had my foolish moments, but thank God I never ended up with the weight you’ve got hanging around your neck. If you were a nice normal son of a bitch, it would roll right off you. But I know you well enough to know how hard you take things. Cindy is right in your lap and you know it. And I don’t know what the hell you can do. I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to move Cindy to a rest home tomorrow, a nice quiet country-type place where there’ll be some canny pros to keep an eye on her until we can know which way she’s going to go.”

He held his glasses up to the light, then slipped them on, stood up. He looked at Carl and said, “What a hell of a simple world it would be if you and I didn’t have that streak of the goat in us.”

After Bernie left, Molly came out of the bedroom. “She hasn’t moved a muscle since she went under,” she said. “I never saw anything happen so fast. Does this joint serve beer?”

They went into the kitchen. Carl took two beers out of the refrigerator and they drank them in the breakfast booth.

“Bernie ask you about the ghastly condition of her little sit-down?”

“Yes. I … don’t know anything about it.”

“I wouldn’t call Cindy the type wife that needs to be beaten. I’ve heard it does improve some of them. I could make a list. I wouldn’t have put Cindy on it. Unless, of course, our Eunice came up with the incriminating facts and handed them to Bucky.”

“I suppose.”

“Wouldn’t it be hell, Carl, if Bucky had caught her out of line, beaten her, and then flown off and clobbered himself? What a fine terminal memory for what appeared to be a pretty good marriage, as marriages go around the Crescent Ridge section.”

“It would be a bad thing.”

“All right,” she said. “I could sit here all night and try to pump you and never get a thing. I brought a nightie and I’m going to crawl into the adjoining bed. Give my love to your Joan and tell her I’ll pop over as soon as I get a chance. The last time I saw you, pet, you were very drunk, and your face was in better condition.”