The Four Johns (10 page)

The girl led Mervyn down a steel spiral staircase and along a corridor behind the stacks to a large windowless room, where women sat at desks piled high with books, pamphlets and periodicals. The girl in the pink apron pushed open another of the oak doors, beckoned to Mervyn, yawned and departed.

John Thompson's office was a cheerless cubicle with battleship linoleum on the floor, brown burlap-covered walls, and a single window overlooking a forlorn scrap of lawn. The librarian, lolling in a swivel chair behind a desk, looked up with no surprise at Mervyn's entrance. He wore a tan corduroy suit, in great need of pressing, and a foully tobacco-hued knit tie.

“Hi there, Gray. Have a chair.” Thompson surveyed Mervyn with only mild interest.

Mervyn found himself clearing his throat. Finally he said, “I'm here about Mary Hazelwood.”

“You are?” said Thompson politely.

It did not seem an auspicious beginning. “Yes,” said Mervyn. “You see, Susie hasn't heard from her, and I'm frankly worried. Mary and I … But maybe I'd better not go into that.” Not a bad touch, that, Mervyn thought.

The librarian nodded like a man of the world. “Say no more.”

Mervyn was encouraged. “You were at Oleg Malinski's party, Thompson, so you know she went off with a man named John.”

“So I gathered.”

Mervyn cleared his throat again. “Look here. I'm trying to find out whom Mary went off with, and why. I don't think I need go into my reasons. Can you help me, Thompson?”

“If you mean was I the ‘John,'” the librarian said, rocking in his swivel chair dreamily, “no such luck.”

“So you said at Malinski's, and of course I don't doubt your word. But just to make it crystal clear … could you tell me where you were Friday night?”

“Friday night? Last Friday?” John Thompson clasped his hands behind his head. “Good heavens, let's see. I think I was home all evening in my apartment. Yes. Working on my book. All librarians write books.”

“Excuse me if I seem to belabor the point, but was anyone with you? I'd like to be able to cross you definitely off the list.”

Thompson shook his sleek head; he seemed amused. “Sorry, then I guess I stay on the list. I can't help you.”

“Can't? Or won't?”

The librarian opened his eyes wide. “Does it make any difference? The result is the same.” He laughed. “I didn't figure you for the jealous-suitor type, Gray. Any more than I am. The world's full of girls. Although admittedly Mary is something special.”

Mervyn rose. “I see I'm wasting your time and mine.”

Thompson said, “Oh, sit down. Your best bet is John Pilgrim, who used to work here. It was an interesting thing to watch. I mean, Pilgrim trying to ignore Mary, Mary teasing him, using all her tricks. I enjoyed every minute of it.”

“What happened?” Mervyn sat down, eagerly.

“Oh, Pilgrim finally gave in. He and Mary began to eat lunch together out of paper sacks. Bread, salami, red wine in paper cups. The wine officially
verboten
, of course, but it would have been a pity to interfere.”

“And then what?”

“I fired him.”

“How come?”

“Pilgrim was hopeless. Not a bad fellow personally—really a rather refreshing sort—but his mind simply wasn't on his work.”

“Do you have his address?”

“Yes.” The librarian swiveled to consult a file. “1909 ½-A Milton. That's south of campus.”

Mervyn made a note. Then he said in a manly way, “It would simplify matters so much, Thompson, if you could tell me … I mean eliminate yourself …” Thompson shook his head. “Gray, I work here five days a week. From three o'clock Friday afternoon to nine o'clock Monday morning I'm a different man. I like to keep my two worlds separate. And I fully intend to. You'll just have to take my word for it that I had nothing to do with Mary Hazelwood's going away.”

Mervyn rose for the second time. “Thanks for your help.”

Thompson said graciously, “Sorry I didn't prove more satisfactory.”

Mervyn returned to his car, not altogether displeased. In a sense the interview had not been a total loss; Thompson had seemed relaxed and assured. Or had it been an act? Mervyn gnawed his lower Up, worried again.

He swung south of campus, turned into Milton Street and located 1909½-A. It was a ramshackle cottage in the yard behind a ramshackle house. The district was something less than middle class, not far from the used-car lots along Shattuck Avenue.

Mervyn took a cracked concrete path that skirted a neglected lawn from which sprouted a circular aluminum clothes-drying contraption. John Pilgrim's cottage was not much more than a garage. The roof was of cheap red composition shingle; the siding had once been painted gray. Mervyn climbed two steps to the unsteady porch and knocked on the door.

There was no response. Mervyn went over to a nearby window and peered into a front room. A reed mat covered the floor. On the far wall were William Blake water-colors and a bookcase constructed of orange crates, holding two or three dozen paperbacks. Along the other wall stood a studio couch covered with dark-green monk's cloth, a cane-bottomed rocking chair and a card table.

He knocked once more, and then he gave up.

Returning to his apartment, he made a pot of coffee and some sandwiches, which he ate without appetite. Susie came into the court, ran up the steps quickly to the balcony and went into her apartment. Mervyn checked the time. One-thirty. Susie, he recalled, was planning to visit Mrs. Kelly between two and three.

Ten minutes later she emerged; she had changed from shorts into a fetching blue print dress. On impulse Mervyn went to the door.

“Hey, Susie!”

She turned and waited for him.

“Going to the hospital?”

“Yes.”

“I'll go with you.”

“I had no idea you were fond of Mrs. Kelly.”

“She seems a decent old thing.”

“She is,” Susie said shortly. Mrs. Kelly, Mervyn remembered, had mothered her and Mary, or tried to. It was probably the only mothering they had ever had. Reaching the sidewalk, Susie turned left. Mervyn halted in astonishment.

“You're going to walk it?”

“What's wrong with walking? It's only a few blocks.”

“Why, it's at least a mile! Come on, we'll take my car.”

“Someday,” said Susie, following him, “people's legs will begin to drop off.”

So they rode to the hospital, Susie sitting straight as a drum majorette.

A woman at the lobby desk directed them to Room 406. The elevator deposited them in an antiseptic corridor. Susie pushed open the door marked “406” softly and looked in. “Mrs. Kelly? You awake?”

“Oh, Susie,” a weak voice said. “Come in.”

Susie hurried into the room; Mervyn followed bashfully. He was afraid of hospitals.

“Sit down,” croaked Mrs. Kelly. She was lying flat on her back; one leg was in traction. “I'm
so
glad to see you, dear. Who is that with you? Mary?”

Mervyn stepped forward. “It's me, Mrs. Kelly. Mervyn Gray.”

Mrs. Kelly's eyes rolled and seemed to bulge. Her body swelled. And her mouth gaped and let loose a scream of terror.

“
You
!”

“Me?” Mervyn said, prickling all over. “What did I do, Mrs. Kelly?”

“
You … pushed me down the steps
!” Mrs. Kelly shrieked.

CHAPTER 7

When the floor nurse chased them out, Mervyn was pale and Susie was thoughtful.

They waited for the elevator in strained silence. Finally Mervyn laughed nervously. “The poor woman must be hallucinated.”

“She seemed quite rational till she saw you,” Susie observed.

Mervyn gave her a sour look. “She's off her rocker, that's what she is.”

“It seems to me,” Susie said, “that's a pretty feeble defense.”

“My God!” he cried. “You can't really believe …?”

“Does it matter what I believe, Mr. Gray?”

The elevator door opened; they rode down in an unfriendly silence. On the sidewalk Susie smiled distantly and said, “Thanks for the lift. I have an errand to do. I'll leave you here.”

With a hurt nod, Mervyn turned on his heel. He climbed into his car and sat glowering at the world. He hated the whole planet, notably those of its denizens who were female and fat and neurotic and had paranoid delusions. Why in heaven's name had old Mrs. Kelly accused him of having shoved her down the steps? She
must
be out of her ever-loving mind.

Still, Mervyn was uneasy. The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed to him that there was a connection between his unknown tormentor and what had just happened in Room 406. But what, how, why? He started the car and edged out into traffic.

For a few minutes he drove aimlessly, letting his blood cool. Finally he looked at his watch. Two-thirty. Thesis? Study? Research? He laughed unhappily. Fat chance!

YOU
'
LL SUFFER
, the note had said.

Stimulated to fury anew, Mervyn made recklessly for the Bayshore Freeway. He shot across the Bay Bridge and swung down the First Street off-ramp into the heart of San Francisco.

In a pay-phone directory at a service station, he looked up John Viviano's address: 30 San Angelo Place. Viviano's house proved to be a relic of pre-1906 San Francisco, clinging to the north side of Telegraph Hill, with a travel-poster view of the Embarcadero and the bay. The pinch-front frame structure was painted a dazzling white; there was a great deal of rococo fretwork and scrimshaw, and two bay windows on each floor. On the pane of the front door, ancient chipped white enamel letters proclaimed:

JOHN VIVIANO
,
ARTISAN

ENTER

Mervyn stepped into a foyer that startled him. There was black carpeting on the floor and the walls were covered with black velvet. To the left stood a spraddle-legged table painted the greenish white-blue of verdigris, supporting an antique lamp with a celadon base and a green Tiffany-glass shade.

If the décor startled him, what hung on the opposite wall almost toppled him. It was a huge photograph in an ugly gun-metal frame of a standing young woman in a décolleté Empire-like gown. She had one knee resting on a Louis XIV chair and both hands lightly touching the chair's top. And she was staring right at Mervyn with a Mona Lisa smile, and she was Mary Hazelwood.

The confrontation was so unexpected that Mervyn's heart stopped for a moment. And into his mind flashed the nightmarish image of that twisted cold figure in pale blue making an obscene splash in dark water.… Mervyn winced and turned hastily from the photograph.

The buzzer on the inner door was answered by a dark, skinny young man in a gray smock. He was almost totally bald, short and bandy-legged, with tobacco-fouled fingers. A pair of extraordinarily large black eyes looked Mervyn up and down.

“Yes?” the young man said.

“I'd like to speak to Mr. Viviano.”

“I'm Viviano. Frank Viviano.”

“Oh, I wanted John Viviano.”

“He's not here right now.”

There was the faintest overtone in the man's voice—mockery, contempt, condescension? “Will he be gone long?” Mervyn asked.

Frank Viviano shrugged. “Maybe a half hour.”

“I'll wait if I may.” Mervyn jerked his head toward the photograph. “That's Mary Hazelwood, isn't it?”

“Search me. I don't keep track of them.”

Frank Viviano stepped back and Mervyn preceded him into a large studio that was in striking and perhaps purposeful contrast to the arty foyer. The walls were unpainted plasterboard. The room was a clutter of lights, reflectors, props, cameras and photographic accessories.

“Find a seat,” said Frank Viviano indifferently. He went to a workbench, where he seemed to be repairing a large view camera.

Mervyn strolled about the studio. He looked in at the cameras—Linhof, Leica, Nikon, Mamiyaflex and two Rolleiflexes. But after a while he wandered over to the workbench. Casting about for a conversational opening, he said, “Is this a quiet day for you?”

Frank Viviano nodded. “More or less. It comes in spurts. We don't shoot much around here, just special stuff.”

“I thought John designed clothes.”

“He'll do anything for a buck.” Frank Viviano spread glue along a joint, tightened a clamp. “Designing is his downtown job. This is uptown, where life is real. Are you from some agency? Or independent?”

Mervyn was puzzled. “I don't get you.”

“Aren't you a model?”

“Hell, no.”

Frank grunted. Mervyn tried another tack. “John said he'd meet me last Friday night and he never showed up. What was he doing?”

Viviano shook his bald head. “Might as well try to chase down a seagull as John.”

“You're his brother?”

“Yeah. Couple of North Beach paisans.” He raised the lens board and tested the shutter. “I've about had it. I'm joining the Peace Corps. Get away, see something new for a change.”

“I'm about ready myself,” Mervyn said.

The brother looked up. “What do you do? You got any skills?”

“I read and write,” Mervyn answered. “I'm pretty good at tennis. In high school I played the violin.”

“I don't think you'll make it.”

“Make what?”

“The Peace Corps.”

“It's true I'm not the pioneer type.”

“Somebody's got to take it on,” said Viviano in a hard voice. “Time's over when we can let the other slobs live like dogs. Do you know what it's like in Ethiopia?” He studied Mervyn intently, the great eyes as blackly pitiless as the camera lens he held in his hand.

“All I know about Ethiopia is that Haile Selassie is the Lion of Judah, and that it used to be called Abyssinia.”