Ask the Right Question (5 page)

“I guess it's time to undermine your confidence,” I said. “Here's my first report. I've found out that you were conceived in Europe, probably France, during the winter of 1953–54.”

She was a little surprised. “I never thought—” She was silent.

“Your parents were traveling there during the winter and I counted backward from your exact birth date.”

She blushed. I just smiled and watched the color come to her cheeks and then go back to wherever it came from.

“I also saw a picture of your mother pregnant with you and a picture of you arriving in Indianapolis from New York when you were two weeks old.”

“I was born in New York,” she said, though it must have been obvious that I already knew.

“Do you know why your parents went there before you were born?”

“To get away, after my grandfather died. He died in that same summer.”

I nodded. And I was realizing that in my thinking about the case I had been working mostly on whether I should take it or not. Not on how I should go about it if I did take, it. Here I had my client all ready and willing to answer questions, and I didn't really know what questions I wanted to ask her.

So I thought of one.

“I need to find some people who knew your parents around the time they were married and you were born. Can you think of any who go back that far?”

She thought. “There's Mrs. Forebush. She used to be my grandfather's maid or nurse or something. Until he died. She comes over to see me sometimes and she tells me what a man my grandfather was.” She made her eyes big on the word “man.” “Sometimes she brings me little presents, funny things like flowers or stones or old calendars she's found. Mummy hates her. Mummy goes to her room whenever Mrs. Forebush comes around.”

“What do you think of her?”

“She's OK. A little funny maybe, but she likes me.”

“Is there anybody else?”

“Well, Dr. Fishman. He's my family doctor. I know he used to be my grandfather's doctor and I know he knows Mummy and Leander because he asks me about them sometimes.”

I began to feel that she was tiring, but I plunged on. “Do you talk about old times with your mother?”

“Not really.”

“You must have asked her things like whether she had a lot of boyfriends when she was a girl, or how she did in school. Stuff like that.”

“Not really. Not a lot. That's one of the things about our family. We don't ever talk like that. The only real thing, Mummy used to take me up to the attic and read me letters she has there.” She thought. “But I don't think she had real boyfriends before Leander. That's my impression.”

She was pretty drained. There would be other times for other questions. Except for one. “Can you tell me what you will do with your biological father if I do find him?”

“I don't know,” she said. “Maybe go and live with him. I don't know for sure.”

I let it ride.

She didn't know Mrs. Forebush's address, but she gave me Dr. Fishman's. The high school she attended was Central.

My assured young woman had become a tired girl.

After she left I realized that the emotional drain and fatigue had been mutual.

5

By the time I finished dinner I had decided there were a number of ways I could go.

Mrs. Forebush looked the most direct, if she would see me. But other approaches were available.

For one thing I could try to track down some of Fleur's friends or old teachers at the Butler Nursing College. Get to the critical era by going forward from college days rather than backward from the present. The question was whether the nursing college days had been that important to Fleur Crystal.

Or I could take the general question of Eloise herself. I was fighting her fight, but the whole circumstance rested on the correctness of her blood typings.

Perhaps the thing to do was to rent a white doctor suit and go to the Crystal doorstep. “Would you all bleed into these test tubes please?”

But it wouldn't work. Eloise would giggle and blow my cover.

Instead perhaps I could learn something by talking with her teacher, Shubert, the one with whom she had done the lab work.

Or maybe Dr. Fishman would help:

From what Eloise had said about the miscarriage he knew Fleur's blood type. Certainly he would know a good deal about many of the Crystals.

Or maybe I should just go see Fleur Crystal. That would be fun. I could use all the tact of a mad elephant.

There was also a general problem of approach. But one much simpler now—after seven years in this business—than it used to be.

I called Maude Simmons. I got her permission, for ten dollars, to tell my interviewees that I was working on a feature story about the Crystals for the
Star
. If they called her to check, ten bucks more.

I decided to try Mrs. Forebush first. Having neglected to get Mrs. Forebush's first name from Eloise, I hit the phone book. Two Forebushes listed bore women's names. I tried “Anne Marie,” being conservative. She was the first one listed alphabetically.

A man answered the phone. “Forebush.”

I asked for Anne Marie.

“Gee, buddy, I'm sorry. She can't come to the phone; she's feeding the baby right now. But if it's about typing I can help you. She's a great little typist, she really is. Real smart. She can make a few words look like a lot or a lot of words look like a little. She was a secretary before the baby and she's real good.”

I was sure she was, but she was the wrong Forebush.

A man who is alone a lot warns himself about the significance of insignificant happenings. I had picked the wrong Forebush first. Let that be a warning. I found myself telling myself. Alphabetization leads to ruin.

Florence Forebush, 413 East Fiftieth Street. Humbolt 5-8234 was the right Mrs. Forebush.

The phone call. Smallest effort clearing the biggest hurdle.

“… and I wondered if you would be willing to help me out on this story by talking to me about the later years of your former employer, Estes Graham?”

“Estes?” Her voice was perky and light as life is long. “Why that would be very nice.”

“Would tomorrow be all right?”

“Now let me see. Tomorrow is Friday. Anytime between
Let's Make a Deal
and the four-thirty movie will be just fine. Will two o'clock be all right?”

Which gave me a morning to plan for. From the legions I considered teacher Shubert, Dr. Fishman, and the nurses' college. I settled on Fishman because he should have information on more than just one person.

Wilmer Fishman, Jr., MD's phone listing gave me the same number for his office and his home. I got a recording which instructed me to record a message after the chime. Instead of doing so I hung up in a mild, foolish quandary. I had expected, unconsciously, to get straight through and talk to the man. Anything else was somehow difficult.

One makes one's own problems. I hit myself on the cheek, another movement of a man alone. I called Fishman's number back again.

I left a message after the chime. Bong! Not unlike, Froggie's Magic Twanger on the old
Buster Brown Show
. I would like to have a nonmedical consultation regarding one of his families. If possible tomorrow, Friday, before one o'clock. I added my name and number and hung up.

Sitting by the phone, I dwelt a moment on the contingent nature of my plans. But it was OK. If he would see me, fine. Any time left over I could use to appear unannounced at Central High School or at Butler College of Nursing. If he wouldn't see me, I could do both. Very efficient. Very businesslike. I was a finely honed machine. Hmmmmmmmmm.

I was humming.

I stopped humming, aware for the third time that my consciousness was collapsing around me. Too much alone late and soon, not enough begetting and spending.

I made one more call. To my woman. We went out for a drink. Then we came in for a drink.

6

I woke to the phone. I don't have the sense to have it by the bed—actually to have the bed by it since the cord is short. When it rings I have to scramble. It was Dr. Fishman's secretary, who said, “Please hold for Dr. Fishman.” In the circumstances it seemed a very complex sentence. I mumbled and tried desperately to remember what part of the room I was in and where the clock was in this room. Success was the keynote of the day; I found the clock. I read 8:05. If the phone had been by the bed I would have taken it under the pillow.

“Mr. Samson? I believe you called.”

Correct! Now leave me alone! “This is a very efficient operation you run, Doctor.”

“Yes, it is.” His voice was much younger than I expected. And strong. It did well at pulling me out of my dawn daze. “Just who are you, Mr. Samson?”

“I am writing an article on the family of Estes Graham, about past history and current members. I'm interviewing people who know and have known the family. I understand that you are their doctor.”

“I am, and my father was before me. But what was it that you expect me to tell you?”

“I had hoped for your impressions of the family, anecdotes, anything.” For openers.

“Do you have the authorization of the Crystals?”

“I haven't asked for it,” you nasty man. “This is to be a feature for the
Sunday Star
. As such it's news, and it will be written anyway. So it is considered better form not to ask authorization than to ask it intending to proceed whether it is given or not.”

“I see. In that case I'm afraid I shall not be able to help you. It would be bad
form
in my profession.”

“I would not ask you to break any confidences,” not ask, beg, “and it is not an unsympathetic article.”

“Mr. Samson, short of subpoena or the specific urging of the Crystal family I shall not talk about Estes Graham, the Crystals or anything else with you. Whether you are writing a story for the
Star
or for God is no concern of mine. I believe we have no further business to conduct.”

The irreverent bastard. There's no accounting for people. He didn't even say good-bye.

Or good morning. I felt spiritual lack of the communion of mankind. I felt the real lack of a breakfast. Food is a major part of my life. I like it every day. But the refrigerator provided nothing to take the bitter edge off a rude awakening and a total lack of cooperation, however justifiable. I think sometimes I am not thick-skinned enough for this job.

Ahhh, well.

I munched toast and plotted.

I had chosen Fishman over Shubert and the nurses the night before, and I had chosen poorly. So I would correct myself this morning, and triumph over adversity and discombobulation.

A quarter of a loaf of toast later I set off for school.

Central is the city's “new” fancy public high school. Actually it's not in the city proper, but to the north, in Jefferson Township where most of the area's rich folks live. It has the biggest student parking lot in town.

It's not within walking distance of my office. I went down to the alley which separates my office from the City Market and picked up my zesty '58 Plymouth from its niche. Thence to Central.

At the door I was challenged by an elderly woman whose voice was weary at 9:10 in the morning. She did not look up as she spoke.

“You're late, you know. You got a pass?” She sat at a table by the door, grading papers.

“Actually, I'm right on time.”

Even after she looked up there were complications. People, it seems, rarely come to the school looking for ordinary teachers. They look for principals, basketball coaches, counselors or, heaven forbid, for children.

“It's the middle of the period,” she said.

“I didn't know.”

She shrugged and waved me in. I looked clean. She didn't care. She was there to put late students back on the paths of righteousness.

Prowling around the lobby I found a room labeled “Faculty Lounge,” I went in without knocking. Where better to find faculty? Inside it looked like a classroom with its dirty student desks arranged in rows. I could tell the improvement in educational methods immediately. In my day desks were bolted to the floor.

Here men and women sat smoking in the corners and there was a coffee machine in front where one might expect a gesticulating teacher.

I approached a pert, mini-skirted brunette with strands of blond carefully located in her flowing hair. She was pushing three buttons on the machine simultaneously. Coffee Black. Extra Cream. Extra Sugar.

“It's the only way to get cream and sugar on this machine,” she said. “Are you a sub? I bet you're looking for the cigarette machine. We don't have one. The superintendent had them removed when the cancer stuff came out. I'd give you one of mine only I only have two left and most men don't like menthol anyway.” She looked up at me as if it were now my turn.

“I was hoping to find a teacher here. Mr. Shubert. A biology teacher.”

“Oh, Johnny. The married one. He isn't free until third. That'll be after the rest of second and home room.”

“About what time will that be?”

“You're not a sub then, are you?”

“No. I'm not.”

“Um. Too bad,” she said, trying to be enigmatic. Presumably she only put out in the profession. “Home room ends in about half an hour. He should be in then. He isn't old enough to go anywhere else and he's not one of those intellectual freaky types.”

“Good,” I said, not understanding the hurdles I had surmounted.

She picked up her coffee, until then cooling in the machine's pocket, and she carried it into a group, all men, in the back of the room.

Which left me with the morning
Star
, sitting in the Central High School Faculty Lounge.

In the forty minutes before John Shubert made his entrance, people came and people left, but not a soul spoke a word to me.