The Paper Grail (57 page)

There was silence then. After a moment he heard her sniff. She was crying in the darkness. It was dark now, and he couldn’t even see her face. He leaned over, reaching out to stroke her hair, but he couldn’t judge the distance and poked her ear by mistake. She laughed then. “Clod,” she said, sniffing again. “At least now I don’t have to claim you for a cousin.”

Howard didn’t comment on this. “And you didn’t know?” he asked her. “Honestly?”

“Of course I didn’t know. If I had known …”

“What?”

“If I had known … I don’t know. Maybe I would never have come back up north all those years ago. None of this would have happened. Where would we be now? Married? Living in an awful house in the suburbs somewhere, in Inglewood or Garden Grove or Pacoima. You’d be working at Delco Battery or Tubbs Cordage, supervising the night shift. I’d be barefoot and pregnant.”

“And now I’m not working at all,” Howard said. “I’m a bum.”

“Not going back to the museum?”

“Nope.”

She was silent again.

“How does that strike you?” Howard asked. “Are you excited at the prospect of me lurking around up here, getting in the way?”

“I’ll have to ask my therapist,” she said. “I could use some help around the boutique, I guess—sweeping up and all. Minimum wage until you learn the trade, though.”

“Could I talk to what’s-his-name? Chet? I want to fly on his astral plane.”

“Mrs. Moynihan would like that. She’s another of your admirers, you know.” After a moment she said, “It’s not bad having two fathers, is it?”

“I don’t know,” Howard said. “I can barely remember what it’s like to have one. Uncle Roy was pretty much my father, too. I feel a little shabby because of that. It isn’t really my place to tell you all this. Uncle Roy and your mother kept it a secret all these years, and now I’ve torn the lid off it.”

Sylvia started crying again at the mention of Uncle Roy. Howard waited for a moment and then went on. “They’ve been on the edge of revealing it, though. They keep hinting about me and you … you know …”

She sniffed again. “I know,” she said finally. “They think you’d make a fine husband. Mom told me that. I thought it was pretty weird at the time. Still sounds a little weird. Why didn’t you tell me all this yesterday, when you found the dedication in the book?”

“Because of what happened on the beach. I didn’t want to sound like I was rationalizing things, like I was making up reasons to justify our … failing in love.”

“Our
what?
” Sylvia said. “Is that the kind of thing you said to Jeanelle Shelly in the garage that time? Now you’re saying it to me in a tin shed.”

“All right,” Howard said. “When we were down in Jimmers’ basement, you weren’t paying any attention to me, anyway. All you wanted to do was play with Jimmers’ tin toys. Why
should
I have told you? I wanted to keep it for
ammunition
, to be one up on you. I was going to hold it over your head if you ever started in on Jeanelle Shelly or the ice planetoids again. I should have guessed all of it from the first, anyway. You and Jimmers. You’re peas in a pod. How could anyone think you
weren’t
his daughter?”

“You just wait,” she said. He heard her yawn sleepily. “My memory is long. We’ll see who one-ups who.”

The truck bumped over a rut in the road just then, slamming from side to side and throwing Howard off his plastic sacks. He sat down hard on the plywood floor of the shed, hearing Sylvia’s chair collapse at the same moment, and suddenly she sprawled across him in a tangle of arms and legs, clutching at him to avoid rolling into the closed shed door.

The truck slowed down then to turn off the highway. Sylvia lay against Howard, breathing softly against his ear, her hair in his face and her arms around his chest. She kissed him, and then said, “Why didn’t we think of this fifteen minutes ago? A tin shed is nearly as romantic as a wrecked Studebaker.”

With that, she kissed him again, long and hard, and he slid his hands up under her parka, along the small of her back. Her shirt was still damp with rainwater, but she was warm beneath the jacket. He held on to her as the truck crept across the gravel parking lot of Uncle Roy’s Museum of Modern Mysteries and braked to a stop.

They quietly disentangled themselves then. Howard listened hard, full of sudden tension. One of the truck doors opened. There were footsteps, and then someone knocking against the door of the museum. Then came Stoat’s voice speaking to someone. There was laughter, then the word “What?” followed by “Why?” They were asking about Mr. Jimmers. More talking followed, too low to understand, except that it obviously wasn’t happy talk. Touchey’s voice rang out clearly then, sounding irate.

Howard knew they would never get out of the shed without making God’s own screeching racket, so he waited. But he would have to move fast when the time came—tear the doors open and vault right off the side of the truck. Stoat would let them know if it was safe—if Stoat could be trusted …

There was more talk and shuffling feet on the gravel now, but still no signal from Stoat. Howard heard Gwendolyn Bundy laugh and then ask, “So where is he?”

“Back at the Sea Spray,” Stoat said. “He’s tied into a chair.”

“I’m going up there. He needs a playmate. You say he’s
tied up?
” She giggled in what sounded like the voice of a tin can.

Glenwood Touchey said, “Perhaps I’ll go along, darling. We can—”

“Nyah, nyah,” Ms. Bundy yapped at him, interrupting. “You can have him when I’m done. You’re such a bloodthirsty little man! You can practice on the two you’ve got. Do you know,
Stoatie, Glenwood wanted to take me in the woods just five minutes ago. And I mean
in
, not into. Do you want to know what he suggested?”

“Where is Heloise?” Touchey asked in a hollow voice, interrupting her.

“At home,” Stoat said, sounding relieved. “The whole thing was a success. She’s packing a bag and will meet us here.”

“Packing a bag?”

“A little vacation. She’s worked hard, and there’s a lot of planning to do. You know how big this thing is.”

“She owes me
money
,” Touchey said, his voice rising. “She sure as hell
better
show up. She told me she’d be here a half hour ago. We’ve got people tied up in chairs and she’s home packing a bag!”

“Settle down, Glen,” Gwendolyn Bundy said. “Be a little soldier. It’s late now to be full of suspicions, isn’t it? I
told
you something was wrong when she didn’t show up, but you were too damned stupid to …”

There was the sound of someone being slapped, and Gwendolyn Bundy let out a yelp.

“My ass I’m going to settle down,” Touchey yelled. “She said you’d have the money, Stoat.
You’re
her goddamn business partner. What’s going on? She’s got this precious sketch of hers and I’m getting stiffed, is that it? Or is it something else?”

There was a brief silence then, followed by a gasp and a shriek from Ms. Bundy and then the sound of Jimmers’ door opening. In a rage, Touchey said, “I’ve had my eye on you for the last week, you phony prick, and—”

“Put the damned gun away!” Stoat yelled.

Gwendolyn Bundy screamed, and there was the noise of a scuffle. “You seedy little pervert!” she shouted. “That’s
just
what we need, your damned penis substitute.”

“Shut up!” Touchey shrieked, and there was the sound of another hand slap, and then of someone hitting the ground, followed by a single gunshot that echoed through the open night.

Howard tore the shed doors open, cursing himself for having waited. He threw himself over the edge of the truck bed, trying to take his weight on his good leg and expecting either to be shot by Touchey or attacked by Gwendolyn Bundy.

Mr. Jimmers was just then coming around the front of the truck, waving his hands as if to settle everyone down. Stoat and Touchey wrestled on the ground, and Gwendolyn Bundy kicked furiously at them, not seeming to care who she kicked. A look of
vast surprise and anger crossed her face when she looked up and saw Howard. For a moment he thought she would throw herself on him in a rage, and he put his arms out to ward her off.

She turned and ran around the corner of the building instead, out toward the highway. Howard let her go. Stoat and Touchey still rolled on the gravel, their feet kicking. Touchey’s face was shriveled with insane anger, and he screamed nonsense into Stoat’s ear.

Sylvia ran straight past Howard, heading for the door of the museum. Right at that moment Touchey fired the pistol again, wildly, into the eucalyptus branches overhead. Sylvia flinched, slamming herself against the wood siding of the museum and then dashing up onto the little porch and throwing herself through the open door, disappearing inside.

Touchey waved the pistol in his right hand, which Stoat held by the wrist, jacking the gun back and forth now and slamming Touchey’s arm against the ground. Touchey gouged at Stoat’s eyes and hit him futilely on the back with his free hand, gasping and mewling, his mouth biting air. Circling around them, Howard reached down and grabbed the gun barrel as if it were the head of a poisonous snake. With his other hand he pried Touchey’s fingers off the grip.

Touchey went suddenly slack then, as if he had lost all his stuffing along with the gun. His mouth was pouty and sullen, like the mouth of a spoiled little boy set to cry. He sat up in the dirt and gravel, looking around. “Gwendolyn!” he shrieked. Gwendolyn! Damn it! You damn bitch!” But she was gone, out into the night.

“She ditched you,” Howard said. “Ran straight down the road.”

“Go to
hell!
” Touchey croaked at him, burying his face in his hands as he hooted out a long sob. “You can’t hold me here!” he shouted. “You’re
all
guilty of something.”

Stoat stood up, dusting at his pants.

“Hello,” a voice said. It was Uncle Roy, standing now in the doorway, Sylvia no doubt having untied him. He looked a mess, his hair riled and the side of his face black and blue. “Where’s the landlady?” he asked.

“Dead,” Howard said. “Drowned.”

“I
knew
it!” Touchey shouted at Stoat, so full of fury that he could barely speak. “Traitor! Stinking … pig!” He picked up a handful of gravel then and threw it at Stoat, cocking his arm back as if he were swatting flies on a tabletop. The gravel sprayed
across Stoat’s chest, and Stoat, suddenly furious, stepped in and clutched Touchey by the front of his shirt.

“That’s enough!” Uncle Roy hollered. “There’s no point in holding on to him. He’s old news now. Let the bastard go. We won’t see him again.”

Stoat immediately pushed Touchey away, and the man sprawled back into the shadows of the eucalyptus trees. He stood there sputtering, looking hard at Stoat, as if he would gladly thrash Stoat then and there except for some very damned good reason. They waited for him to speak, but instead he stomped away, following in the wake of Gwendolyn Bundy, walking straight past his car toward the highway and looking back at them over his shoulder. At the corner of the building he turned briefly and, with almost lunatic intensity, made an obscene gesture so violent and wild it must nearly have broken his wrist.

“That’s right,” Roy said to him, waving.

“He deserves more,” Howard said in a low voice, watching Touchey disappear beyond the edge of the building. He felt relief, though, at seeing him go, as if he were watching the departure of an irate door-to-door magazine salesman.

“All of us deserve more,” Uncle Roy said. He flexed his hands and worked his shoulders back and forth. “I deserve a drink.” He took a step forward, out onto the little stoop, but nearly fell over and had to catch himself on the railing. “My damned rear end is asleep from sitting on that bench for three hours. What the hell took you?”

Right then, though, before anyone could answer, there came the sound of pounding feet from the direction Touchey had taken. A man shouted. Then, weirdly, the voice of Gwendolyn Bundy piped up in a high-pitched hen’s cackle. “That’s him!” she yelled. “He’s the one who shot the fat man! He tried to kill the old Dutch lady, too!”

Howard sprinted across the back parking lot, followed by Jimmers, Stoat, and Uncle Roy. There, coming along past the picket fence and the vigilant cow skulls, Bennet and Lou Gibb swarmed toward Glenwood Touchey. Ms. Bundy stood behind them, her hands over her mouth, watching excitedly. Touchey ran right into them, as if confident that his righteous fury would bowl them down.

It was Bennet who hit Touchey first, a roundhouse punch that caught him in the chest. Almost simultaneously Lou Gibb hit him in the stomach, and for a moment Touchey seemed to levitate there in a sort of airborne somersault crouch, before flopping to
the ground, the two men closing in on either side.

“Hit him again!” Ms. Bundy yelled, dancing on the shoulder of the road next to Gibb’s car. Howard sprinted toward them along with Stoat, shouting, “No one’s been shot! No one’s been shot!” Howard pulled Bennet away, shaking his head wildly to make him understand. Uncle Roy limped up then, yelling things himself, but it wasn’t until Mr. Jimmers honked Lou Gibb’s car horn three times that the two men stepped back, shrugging their shoulders and looking as if they would happily hit Touchey again and not ask overtime pay for it.

Touchey lay curled up on the ground, with his knees tucked up and his hands over his head, sobbing and shouting unrelated and purposeless obscenities.

“Roy!” Bennet said, grabbing his friend’s shoulder. “You ain’t dead!”

“Not a bit,” Uncle Roy said.

“Then why are we beating this man up?” Bennet backed off another step, huffing and puffing, and Gwendolyn Bundy pushed past him, sinking to her knees next to Touchey. Tenderly she petted him on the back of his head.

“It’s over,” she cooed softly. “I’m so sorry. I thought … I thought … I was mad at you. I didn’t think they’d … They won’t hit my baby boy any more.” She helped him to sit up, pushing his face into her chest and hugging him, rocking him back and forth gently.

“Cripes,” Gibb said, a look of repulsion on his face. “This kind of crap ain’t natural.”

Gwendolyn Bundy turned on him furiously, her eyes pinched up. “You’re
brutal!
” she said, pulling Touchey to his feet. A thin stream of blood ran out of his nose. He gave everyone what was meant to be a hard look, his mouth a quivering slit, but then Ms. Bundy touched his cheek with her hand, and he howled and swatted at her. Together they walked off across the gravel, back toward their car. Ms. Bundy stroked Touchey’s back as he leaned heavily against her, whimpering like a small animal, his hand stroking her thigh. They could hear her talking a sort of baby talk to him, and he yelped once more, as if she had touched his cheek again.