The Kill-Off (18 page)

“Oh, I thought I’d meet Bobbie in town tonight,” I said. “I think it might be better than having him come here to the house, if people are doing any talking.”

“But it ain’t tonight yet,” Mama said. “You haven’t even had your supper yet. What—”

“I don’t want any supper, Mama,” I said. “Heavens, I just got through stuffing myself just a little while ago, didn’t I? Anyway, the real reason I want to leave early is so I won’t have to see Papa. I just can’t face him again so soon, after the way he acted at lunch.”

Mama started getting nervous. She said Papa would be sure to wonder about my being away at supper time, and what was she going to tell him?

I turned around from the mirror, looking pretty exasperated, I guess, because I certainly felt that way.

“Why, for heaven’s sake, just tell him the truth, Mama,” I said. “I mean, tell him I ate late and I didn’t want any supper—dinner—so I just went on into town. I’ll just walk around or drink a malted or something until it’s time to meet Bobbie. Good grief, there’s nothing wrong with that, is there? Can’t I even go down town without explaining and arguing and arguing and explaining until—”

“What you getting so excited about, girl?” Mama looked at me suspiciously. “You up to something?”

I drew in my breath real deep, giving her a good hard stare. And then I turned back to the mirror again.

“Look, girl,” Mama mumbled, apologetically. “I’m just worried about you. If you’ve got some notion of—well, I don’t know what you might be thinking about doing. But—”

“Mama,” I said. “I’m going to get awfully mad in a minute.”

“But, girl. You just can’t—”

“All right, Mama,” I said. “All right! I’ve argued and explained just as much as I’m going to, and now I’m not going to say another word. Not another word, Mama! I told you why I was leaving early. I told you I couldn’t bear to face Papa tonight, and I can’t. I simply
can’t,
Mama, and there’s no reason why I should, and I haven’t the slightest intention of making the slightest effort to do so, and—and I’m not going to say another word about it, and I don’t want to hear another word about it!”

She twitched, and rubbed her hands together. I’ll bet they wouldn’t be so red and big-veined if she wasn’t always rubbing them together. She started to argue again, but I told her I’d cry if she did. So that stopped her right at the start.

“Well,” she mumbled, “you’re going to drink a cup of coffee first, anyway. I’m not going to let you leave this house without at least something hot on your stomach.”

“Oh, Mama,” I sighed. “Well, hurry up and get it, if you’re going to! I can’t drink it after I put my lipstick on.”

She hurried downstairs, and brought me up some coffee. I drank it, and started fixing my mouth.

She watched me, twitching and massaging her hands. I caught her eye in the mirror, gave her a good hard look, believe me, and she shifted her eyes quickly. She didn’t look at me again until I was all through.

“Well,” I said, “I guess I’d better run along, now, if I want to miss Papa.”

“All right, girl.” She got up from the bed where she’d been sitting. “Take care of yourself, now, and don’t stay out too late.”

She started to kiss me good-bye; and that was kind of funny, you know, because she doesn’t go in much for kissing. I pretended I didn’t know what she meant to do, turning my head so as not to get my face smeared.

After all, I didn’t have time to fix it again, did I? And if she wanted to kiss someone, why did she have to wait until they were in a hurry and all ready to go somewhere?

“Girl,” she said, nervously. “I don’t want you getting upset again, but—promise me, girl! Promise you won’t—”

“Now, Mama, I
have
promised,” I said. “I’ve told you and told you, and I’m not going to tell you again. Now, will you please stop harping on the subject?”

“You don’t have to do anything, girl! I’ll go—I’ll think of something. Something’s bound to turn up.”

“Well,
all right!
” I said. “All right, for heaven’s sake!”

And I snatched up my purse, and left.

She called after me, but I kept right on going, down the stairs and out the door. Then, as I was going out the gate, she called to me again—waved to me from the bedroom window. So, well, I gave her a smile and waved back.

I honestly wasn’t mad, you know, and naturally I didn’t mean to do anything that would make her feel bad. It was just that I had so much on my mind, that I simply couldn’t stand any more.

It was a little after five when I got downtown, about five-fifteen. I wanted Papa to get clear home before I went to his office, so that meant I had almost forty-five minutes to kill. Well, thirty-five minutes, anyway, figuring that it would take ten minutes to walk down to the pavilion.

I sauntered around the courthouse square a couple of times, looking in the store windows. I stopped in front of the jewelry store, pretending like I was interested in the jewelry display, but actually looking at myself in the big panel-mirrors behind it.

I thought I looked pretty good tonight, considering all I’d been through. I honestly looked especially good in spite of everything.

I had on a white Cashmere sweater I’d bought two weeks before—I guessed it wasn’t rushing the season too much to wear it. I had on a new blue flannel skirt, and extra-sheer stockings and my practically new handmade suede shoes.

I studied myself in the mirror, thinking that whatever else you could say about him, you certainly couldn’t say he was stingy. Mama and I could buy just about anything we wanted to, and he’d never say a word. All he ever insisted on was that we pay cash.

Mama always kept a hundred dollars cash on hand. As far back as I could remember, she did. Whenever she or I bought anything, why, she’d tell him, and he’d give her enough to bring her back up to a hundred dollars.

Actually, she—or I should say, I—hadn’t spent much until this summer. I was actually scared to death of going in a store; afraid, you know, that the clerks might be laughing at me or talking about me behind my back. And Mama was even worse than I was. We never bought anything until we just had to. When we couldn’t put it off any longer, we’d just take the first thing that was showed to us and practically run out of the place.

Papa just talked awful about us. I never will forget some of the mean things he said. He said he’d rent Mama out as a scarecrow, if it wouldn’t’ve been so hard on the crows. And he said I looked like a leaky sack of bran that was about to fall over.

Well, he certainly hasn’t had any cause to talk that way since I started going with Bobbie. Not about me, anyhow. I simply couldn’t look dowdy around Bobbie, so I just
made
myself shop like a person should. And after I’d done it a few times, I didn’t mind it at all. I mean, I actually really liked it, and I really
did
do some shopping from then on.

Nowadays, I hardly ever go into town without buying something.

Why not, anyway? Papa has plenty of money. If he can’t treat me decent, why at least he can let me
look
decent.

I glanced at my wristwatch, saw that it was getting close to six. I started for the pavilion, walking fast. Wondering how much money there’d be in his strongbox.

I never touched the strongbox ordinarily. I had no reason to, in my ticket-selling job, so I didn’t know how much was in it. But I knew there’d be a lot. Papa didn’t do any business with the banks that he didn’t absolutely have to. He’d always paid “cash on the barrelhead,” as he says, for practically everything. And when you have as many interests as Papa, that takes a lot of cash.

Of course, the dance business had fallen off quite a bit, and some of his other things weren’t doing so well. But, goodness, what of it? Look at all the property he owned! Look at all the money he’d made when business was good! Papa could lose money for years, and he’d still be rich. Everyone in town said so. Maybe there wouldn’t be as much in the strongbox as there used to be, but there’d still be plenty. Two or three thousand dollars, at least.

I was about a half block from the pavilion when I saw Ralph Devore come out of the rear exit, and climb up into the air-conditioner shed.

I stopped dead in my tracks. I thought, Oh, golly, how
could
I have forgot about him? Why does he have to be working all the time? I was actually sick for a moment, I was so disappointed. Then, I just tossed my head and kept right on going. Because it suddenly dawned on me that it didn’t make a bit of difference whether Ralph was there or not. Even if he saw me, which wasn’t likely, it wouldn’t matter.

Ralph wouldn’t think anything of my going into Papa’s office. After all, I was the owner’s daughter, and it just wouldn’t occur to him to try to stop me or ask me what I was doing. Of course, he’d talk later when Papa missed the money, but I didn’t care about that. Bobbie and I would be gone by that time, and we’d never come back.

I went through the door of the pavilion. I started across the floor, my knees just a little shaky. Ralph was pounding on something back in the air-conditioner shed—hammering on something. The noise came out through the ballroom air-vents,
thud-bang, thud-bang,
and I kind of walked—marched—in time to it.

My feet began to drag. That crazy pounding, it was just awful; it made me feel like I was in a funeral procession or something. And it kept right on going on, after it
wasn’t
going on. I mean, I realized suddenly that Ralph wasn’t pounding any more, and all that noise was coming from my heart.

I took a deep breath. I told myself to stop acting so silly, because there just wasn’t any sense to it.

Bobbie and I would be a long way from here in another hour. Papa would know I’d taken his money—I wanted him to know it! But he wouldn’t be able to catch up with us himself, and he’d never call on the police. He’d have too much pride to let anyone know that his own daughter had stolen from him.

I was at the door of his office. I opened my purse and took out my keys, fumbled through them until I found the right one.

I unlocked the door. I stepped inside, closed it behind me, and flicked on the light. And screamed.

Because Papa was there.

He was sitting at his desk, his face buried in his arms. There was a half-full bottle of whiskey in front of him.

He sat up with a start when I screamed. He jumped up, cursing, asking me what the hell was the idea, and so on. And then when I just stood staring at him, my mouth hanging open, he slowly sat down again. And stared at me.

Ralph came running across the ballroom floor. He stopped in the doorway of the office, and asked if something was wrong. Papa didn’t say anything, even look at him. Ralph said, “Oh, uh, excuse me,” and went away again.

Papa and I went on staring at each other.

He didn’t need to ask why I was here. He knew. I’d’ve bet a million dollars that he did. He’d been scheming and planning all along, figuring out ways to get me so scared and desperate that I’d finally try this. And then, when I did try, when he’d let me get my hopes all up, thinking that I’d found a way out…

Oh, he knew all right! He’d planned it this way. What else would he be doing there if he hadn’t? Why hadn’t he gone on home to supper like he always did?

I backed toward the door. I thought,
Oh, how I hate you! HOW I HATE YOU! I hate you so much that—that—! I hate you, hate you, hate you!

Papa nodded. “Figured you probably did,” he said. “Well, you got a lot of company.”

I turned and ran.

It didn’t occur to me until later that I must have said what I was thinking. That I’d actually yelled it at him.

I
’d gotten the letter from Doc Ashton the week before. I didn’t answer it, so that Monday he phoned me. I told him to go to hell and hung up.

Only thing to do, as I saw it. And wrong or right, a man’s got to go by what he sees. He’s got a chance that way. It’s a lot handier for him. Any time a butt needs kicking, he knows whose it is.

I punched out a few letters on my old three-row typewriter. I carried them down to the post-office, thinking that they didn’t make typewriters like they used to. Thinking that they didn’t make nothing like they used to, from bread to chewing tobacco. Then, kind of snorting to myself and thinking, Well, by God, look who’s talking! Maybe they don’t make nothing like they used to because there’s no one to do the making. Nothing but a lot of whining old guys with weep-bags in place of guts.

I guessed I must be slipping. If I’d been like this back at the time I built the post-office building…
Well, maybe it would’ve been a hell of a lot better, I thought. I wouldn’t be in the spot I’m in now, and there’d be quite a few less bastards around town to give me trouble.

Yeah, the post-office job was mine. Built it under contract for old Commodore Stuyvesant, Luane Devore’s father. It’s still the biggest building in town—four stories—and it was a pretty fancy one for those days. The upper three floors were offices, each with its own toilet and lavatory. All the plumbing, the water and drain pipes, was concealed.

Well, we were about through with the job, except for the interior decorating, when I discovered a hell of a thing. I’ll never forget the day that it happened. I was up on the fourth floor at the time. I’d taken the chaw out of my mouth and tossed it in the toilet. Then I’d flushed it down and drawn myself a drink from the lavatory. And I was just about to toss it down when I noticed something in the water. A few little brown specks, so tiny you could hardly see them.

I cussed, and dumped out the water. I got myself a can of stain, and went through the building from top to bottom, flushing toilets and turning on faucets. They all turned out the same as the first. They were all cross-connected, to use the plumbing term. You had to be looking for the stain in the water, and looking damned hard, but it was there. Some of the waste water was coming out through the lavatory taps.

You see…Well, you know what the inside of a toilet bowl looks like. It has a water inlet built into it; it has to have to flush; and it also has a sewage outlet. It has the two right together, flowing together. If the plumbing ain’t exactly right, some of the sewage can get into the water inlet. Into the water you drink and wash with.

Well, the first thing I did was to cut off the water at the main. Shut off every drop in the building. I told the workmen they’d been screwing around too much on the job, that they could do their washing and drinking on their own time from now on. And they didn’t exactly love me for that, naturally. But it was the way it had to be. I couldn’t tell them the truth. If I had, it would have got all over town. People would always have been leery of the building. You could fix the trouble, and take an oath on it, but they’d never really believe that you had.

I spent the rest of the day checking the blueprints on the job, tracing out the miles of piping foot by foot. Finally, I spotted what was wrong. It was in the blueprints, the drawings, themselves. Not something that was my fault.

I took the drawings, and went to see the Commodore. Luane was right in the living room with him. And they sure were two damned sick people. I told ’em I didn’t see what they had to feel bad about.

“It’s the architects’ fault,” I said. “You’ve got something pretty new here, in this concealed plumbing, but you ain’t got a new-style building to put it in. The architects should have known that with all this angling and turning the water pipes were just about bound to get a vacuum in ’em—Yeah, Commodore?”

“I said,” he said, kind of dead-voiced, “that the architects aren’t responsible. The blueprints were drawn up from a rough design I made myself. I insisted on having my own way, despite their objections, and they’ve got a waiver in writing.”

I asked him why the hell he’d done it—why pay for expert advice and then not listen to it?

He grimaced, almost crying. “I thought they were trying to run up their bill on me, Pete,” he said. “The architect gets six percent of the cost of a job, you know, and since I’m not exactly a trusting person…” He broke off, grimacing again. “Not that I’ve had much reason to trust people. Offhand, I’d say that you were the only completely honest man I’ve ever met, Pete.”

“Well—well, thanks, Commodore,” I said. “I—”

“Have you told anyone about this difficulty, Pete? None of the workmen know? Well, do you suppose that if it wasn’t corrected—uh—do you suppose the result might be, uh, very serious?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe some of the tenants wouldn’t be hurt at all. Maybe it might be quite a while before the others came down with anything. I don’t know how many might get sick or how many might die, but there’s one thing I do know, Commodore. I know I ain’t drinking no sewer water myself, and I ain’t letting anyone else do it. So—”

I broke off. He was looking so shocked and hurt that I apologized for what I said. Yeah, by God,
I
apologized to
him!

“Quite all right, Pete,” he said. “Your concern for the public welfare is wholly commendable. Now, getting back to our problem, just what if anything can be done about it?”

I told him. The whole building would have to be repiped. Of course, we could use the same piping but it would have to come out of the walls and be put on the outside. What it actually added up to was ripping out the interior of the building, and doing it over again.

“I see.” He bit his lip. “What about your men, Pete? How will you explain to them?”

“Well—” I shrugged. “I’ll tell ’em I pulled a boner, and I’m making good on it. That won’t hurt me none, and they’ll be glad to believe it.”

“I see,” he said again. “Pete—Pete, I have no right to ask it, but everything I have is tied up in that building. Everything! I’ve exhausted my credit. If I attempt to get any more the building will be plastered with liens from basement to roof. Once it’s finished, I’ll be in fine shape. The government will lease the ground floor, and I have tenants signed up for most of the offices. But I can’t finish it, Pete, unless—and I have no right at all to ask you—”

Luane was sniffling. He put his arm around her, looking at me apologetically, and after a moment she turned and put her arms around him. It seemed pretty pitiful, you know. I took out my notebook and did some figuring.

I didn’t have hardly any ready cash, myself, but my credit was first-class. By stretching it right to the limit, I could finance the rework that had to be done, which would probably tot up to about eight thousand dollars.

Well, the Commodore practically wrung my hand off when I told him I’d do it. And I thought for a minute that Luane was going to kiss me. Then the Commodore gave me his note for ten thousand—ten thousand instead of eight. Because I’d literally saved his and Luane’s lives, he said, and even with the two thousand bonus they’d still be eternally in my debt.

Well, I guess I probably don’t need to tell you the rest of it, but I’ll do it anyway. Just in case you’re as dumb as I was.

The Commodore denied that he owed me a red cent for the rework. He said it was due to my own errors, as I’d publicly stated, and that he was contemplating suit against me for failing to follow the architects’ specifications.

“Naturally, I’d hate to do it,” he said smoothly, sort of smiling down his nose. “I imagine you have quite enough problems, as it is.”

I told him that wasn’t the only thing I had. I had his note for ten thousand, and I’d collect every penny of it. He shook his head, chuckling.

“I’m afraid not, Pavlov. You see I have no assets; I’ve transferred everything I owned to my daughter, Luane.”

Luane didn’t seem too happy about the deal. I looked at her, and she dropped her eyes; and then she turned suddenly to the Commodore.

“Let’s not do this, Father,” she said. “I know you mean it for my benefit, but—”

“Yes,” the Commodore nodded. “So the choice is yours. My feeling is that a woman untrained for any work—an unemployable, unmarriageable spinster, to state the case succinctly—is going to need every dollar she can get. But if you feel differently…”

He spread his hands, giving her that down-the-nose smile.

Luane got up and left the room.

I left, too, and I never went back. Because what the hell was the use? I couldn’t get anything from her. He didn’t have anything to get. He even had me staved off on giving him a beating, him being as old as he was.

So that was that. That was how I made out dealing with an “old-school gentleman,” and a “true aristocrat” and the town’s “first citizen” and so on.

It took me five years, working night and day, to get out of debt.

Ralph was sweeping up the dance floor when I got back to the pavilion. I kidded around with him a few minutes, and then I went for a walk down the beach. It was a good walk, sort of—looking at all the things I’d built, and knowing that no one had ever built better. In another way, it wasn’t so good: the looking gave me a royal pain. Because I could have collected just as much on cheaper buildings. And if I’d built cheaper, I wouldn’t have been in the spot I was in.

I wondered what the hell I’d been thinking about to sink so much dough into seasonal structures. I guessed I hadn’t been thinking at all. I’d just done it automatically—building in the only way I knew how to build.

I ran into Mac’s singer, Danny Lee, on the beach. She was in a bathing suit, sunning herself, and I sat down by her and talked a while. But not as long as I wanted to. It couldn’t do me any good, you know; not just chatting about things in general. And I was afraid if I hung around very long, I might do more than that. Because that little girl, she was the kind that comes few and far between. She was my kind of woman.

That Danny—if she went for you, she’d go all the way. She’d kill for you, even if she knew it might get her killed. You could see it in her. Anyways, I could see it. And it was all wrapped up in such a pretty package.

Well, though, maybe she was my kind of woman, but I wasn’t her kind of man. She wouldn’t have wanted no part of an old pot-bellied bastard like me, even if she hadn’t had Ralph Devore on the string. So I shoved off before I said or did something to make a damned fool of myself.

I circled back toward the pavilion. Rags called to me from his cottage, so I went in and had coffee with him.

He asked me how the money situation was with me, and I said that it was just about like it had been. He said he was in just about the worst shape he’d ever been in himself.

“Don’t know what the hell I’m going to do, Pete. I won’t have no band after we close here, and I don’t feel like going out single any more. I would, if there was a decent living in it. But it’s hard to break even with me on the road and Janie and the boys in New York.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking down at the floor. Feeling kind of awkward like I always did when he mentioned those boys. “Yeah—uh—I mean, what about recordings, Rags? Can’t you get some of them to do?”

He snorted and let out a string of cuss words. He said he wasn’t making any more recordings until he was allowed to do the job right. Which would be just about never, unless he owned his own record company.

“I wished you did,” I said. “If I was in a little bit better shape, I’d—”

“Yeah, yeah—” He cut me off. “Forget it, Pete. It’s really the only damned thing I want to do, but I know it’s impossible.”

He drained the coffee from his cup, and filled it up with whiskey. He took a sip, smacked his lips and shuddered. After a minute or two, he asked me what I thought about the setup between Danny and Ralph Devore.

“I mean, what can come of it, Pete? How do you think it will wind up?”

I shrugged. I said I guessed I hadn’t done much thinking about it.

“I’ve been wondering,” he frowned. “It looks like the real thing between ’em. But that pair—Ralph, in particular—well, they ain’t just a couple of lovesick kids. They wouldn’t go way out on a limb unless they saw some way off of it.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t figure they would.”

“I wonder,” he said. “I’ve been thinking. Y’know, when I first introduced them, I told her he was a rich man. And lately I’ve been thinking, wouldn’t it be a hell of a joke if…”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing. What the hell?” he laughed. “Just a crazy notion I had.”

“Well, I guess I better be going,” I said. “Getting to be about my lunch time.”

I headed back into town, and across to the far side. I started to pass by the neighborhood church, and then I slowed down and went back a few steps. I stopped in front of the vacant lot, between the church and the parsonage.

I stood there and stared at it, making myself look thoughtful and interested. Finally, I took a rule out of my pocket, and did a little measuring.

The curtain moved at one of the parsonage windows. I took out a notebook and jotted a few figures into it. Pretended to make some calculations.

I’ve had a lot of sport with that vacant lot. Once I made out like I’d found some marijuana growing on it, and another time I pretended I was going to buy it for a shooting gallery. What with one stunt and another, I’ve kept the preacher of that church worried for years. I knew he was peeking through the curtains at me now. Watching and wondering, and working up to another worry-spell.

He came out of the parsonage, finally. He didn’t want to, but he just couldn’t help it.

I went on with my measuring and figuring, acting like I didn’t see him. He hesitated in the yard, and then he came over to the corner of the fence.

“Yes?” he said. “Yes, Mr. Pavlov?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, sir, I think this will do just fine.”

“Fine?” He looked at me water-eyed, his lips starting to tremble. “Mr. Pavlov, what—what do you want of me? I’m an old man, and—”