Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (107 page)

A very funny feeling.

Because she was heading for a main highway on which would be a steady stream of cars, going fast … the speed limit was sixty-five miles an hour and, like as not, motorists in a hurry to get somewhere would be stepping it up to seventy or more, a wary eye out for motorcycle cops. If you wanted to make time, you made it on the highway, hoping to find a motel before dark. Or a roadside inn for lunch. Or a gas station where the kids could go to the john.

It was on the highways that death struck …

The knock in the engine became louder,
very
disturbing now, for she was nearing the bottom of the hill. Already she could hear the thunder of the cars below, the whine of tires on macadam, the occasional honk of a horn. Not far down, almost visible now, was the sign: COME TO FULL STOP.

But she didn’t wait to reach that point; she braked.

Nothing happened.

The car continued to coast down, blithely careening along, like a mad thing which had taken matters into its own hands. What the hell, she muttered savagely, and stepped on the brake. There was no noticeable difference. She was heading hell-bent-for-leather for the highway below, powerless to stop the plunge. For one scarifying, almost insane moment she thought about throwing open the door and jumping.

But not for long. She pictured the horrible consequences. In the hospital for months, her jaw wired, her limbs fractured, in traction …
It’s not the answer
, her frenzied brain told her, and she swerved the car, only yards from the highway and, almost breaking her arms, wrenched the wheel with all the force she could muster. There was a scream of tires, the car danced on two wheels, and then headed for the brush and grass and trees at the side of the road. Rocking violently, as she clung to the wheel with desperate strength, it came to rest between two trees, shuddering like a bull elephant, and lodged there, choked by the elms and the hard, clumpy undergrowth of bush and tall grass and torn-up earth. The engine throbbed like a dirge as she opened the door and climbed out, wobbling on unsteady legs, and stood looking at the car, which was like some wounded beast in its death throes.

Now it will burst into flames
, she thought, backing away.
Now it will die, be charred to cinders, poor thing, poor thing
… But instead the throbbing stopped, the motor died, and the little Impala, scratched but not wrecked, sat quiet and still, its tires tangled in leafy brush and moss. She left it, looking back once or twice, and plodded down the hill, standing with a finger up, and soon after was given a lift by a considerate motorist, who drove her to the gas station at Deer Crossing.

• • •

“My car’s wedged between some trees,” she told the boy who came toward her, wiping his hands on an oily rag. “Could you get it, please, and have my brakes checked? It’s a second-hand car. I had no trouble with it until today. I nearly plowed into the rush of cars at the bottom of Blount’s Hill, I would have been smashed to bits.”

“Jaysus,” he said, and opened the door of a little VW. “Hop in; we’ll see what’s what.”

They drove back. The boy got out and opened the hood, fiddling inside. She smoked nervously. Then he came toward her, the slam of the hood echoing in the still air.

“Have to garage it for a day or two.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“You try to be an auto mechanic?”

She was indignant. “I never touched the damned thing. I wouldn’t know how! What are you trying to say?”

“Brakes loused up,” he said tersely. “No doubt about it. Maybe a vandal. Anyway, there’s work needs to be done.”

“But I need a car.”

“Two or three days,” he repeated.

“Vandals,” she said slowly. “You mean something was done to my car?”

“Sure was.”

She got out and stood thinking. The telephone calls. Her brakes “loused up.” And she was to sit idly by while —

“You’re telling me that something was deliberately done to my brakes?” she asked.

“It’s got to be that way, Ma’am.”

“I see.”

She lit another cigarette, puffed avidly, and then asked if she could rent a car.

“Yes, Ma’am. I’ll have to speak to my captain, ask him how much.”

“I don’t care how much,” she snapped. “Just rent me a car and charge me whatever the going cost is. Meanwhile, get this one into shape. I want a small car with good mileage, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, and they drove back to the garage.

Ten minutes later she drove away in a little buff-colored Datsun. This might be God’s country, but they had asked a stiff price. So what? Supposing she had been killed, come face to face with that thunderous traffic … there wouldn’t have been enough left of her to put into a garbage bag.

She went on her way, grim-faced. Who had tampered with her brakes and why? It was not in her nature to be suspicious, and if it weren’t for the telephone calls she might have settled for a matter of misfortune. Brakes could go bad and brakes did … anyone knew that, but “tampered with?”

Coldly calm now, she thought of the people she was involved with: John, Pompey, Norma, Jim Bach, Ed Corliss. Clara.

And then she laughed helplessly, trying to imagine one of those persons doing something nasty to her brakes.

It was just too ridiculous …

“It’s just too ridiculous,” she said to Douglas, when he banged the screen door behind him and came toward her across the lawn.

“What is?”

“Someone wrecked my car. I mean someone did something to the brakes. Behold this rented property. Mine is garaged for a day or two.”

“Take it slow and easy,” he said. “Get out, and we’ll talk about it over drinks.”

They sat in the kitchen, sipping. “I put my foot down but nothing happened,” she said, with a delayed reaction. Her hand was barely able to hold the glass.

“Yes, and then what?”

“Why, death on the highway,” she said. “Headed for the Great Beyond.”

“Get that down you,” he ordered.

“I’m drinking it.”

“No, swallow it fast, and then another one.”

“I hate a quick drunk,” she complained, but already felt the haze settling over her, comforting, comforting.

“Here we go again, swallow, come on, swallow.”

“I’ll drown,” she said.

“No you won’t, drink.”

“Yes, Douglas.”

“That’s the girl.”

There was a silence, while they sat looking out the kitchen window. “What do you think?” she asked, after a while.

He turned away from the window and looked at her. “What do I think? I have some ideas, yes. Not fully formed yet, so I won’t say.”

“Give me a clue,” she said, feeling the liquor.

“Do
you
have any ideas?”

“Ideas? What ideas? I can’t imagine why I should be a target.”

“Come come,” he said impatiently. “You inherited the whole kit and kaboodle, didn’t you?”

She stared at him. “You mean the house?”

“Some people would give their eye teeth.”

She laughed. “But why for God’s sake? There’s no money to go with it! How can I make use of it? It was an empty gesture. I don’t know why she did it.”

“Okay, let it go for now. You’re safe and sound, in one piece. Thank God for small and large favors. Come here, I want to feel you, sound and healthy as you are.”

“I will certainly not go there,” she said spiritedly. “If you want to feel for broken bones, don’t bother, there aren’t any.”

“Well,
that
sounds like the old Margo,” he replied, grinning, and got up. In front of her he crouched down, closing his eyes. “Stroke my forehead,” he said. “I have a kind of nagging headache.”

“Why didn’t you say so? I’m sorry, Douglas.”

“Just move your fingers back and forth. I love having you touch me.”

She did that, and he knelt, letting her fingers move slowly back and forth on his forehead. “Nice,” he murmured, and his head rested on her knees. After a while he said “Thank you, better now,” and then, “Any idea who could have done something to your car?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“
My
guess is better than yours.”

“What do you mean by that?”

He gave her a quick look and then got to his feet. “I know things you don’t,” he said. “There are a few facts I have to get sorted out in my mind, and when I do we’ll talk more about this. Meanwhile, let’s go to Rockville. There’s a place called the Yellow Astor Inn. Okay, dearie?”

• • •

The Yellow Astor Inn was situated beside a small lake of purest blue, with ducks quacking stridently, and lovely overhanging old trees. They had shell steaks and a spinach salad, and the strawberry shortcake was the biscuit kind, the way upstate people made it. “You look better now,” Douglas said.

“And fatter. What a meal.”

“Let’s drive back and I’ll make fresh drinks.”

“Doug, you have work to do.”

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

So they drove back, and over whisky sours sat in the quiet, sunlit kitchen until the sun started to sink. Once Lucas came in and conferred with Douglas about some farm matter. When he went out Margo looked at the wall clock. “It’s almost five,” she said. “I must go. How about coming back with me, La Fayette? Have dinner with us again.”

“I can’t, not tonight,” he said. “What did you call me?”

“Just a silly,” she said. “Sure you won’t share our meal tonight?”

“Are you falling for me?”

“You’re not giving me much chance to, turning down my invitation.”

“Would you, if I gave you a chance?”

“You don’t really expect an answer to that?”

“You’re not much help, are you?”

“So long for now,” she said, giving his arm an affectionate pat, and getting into her car drove past the cross-bar fence, heading for home. When she pulled into the driveway, John was just climbing out of his own car. He glanced at the Datsun and lifted his eyebrows.

“Yes, it’s a rented vehicle,” she said.

“How come?”

“Mine had bad brakes. It’s laid up for a few days.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really. First time I’ve
ever
had that kind of trouble.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said, frowning.
Why don’t you ask me about it?
she thought, and shrank from the hand he had put on her elbow. After all, he could ask her what
happened …

The young assistant from the lawyer’s office was just coming out the door, attache case under his arm.

“Good evening,” he said.

“Day’s work done, Ed?”

“Yes, sir,” the young man answered.

“Coming along all right?”

“Not bad.”

“Enjoy your evening.”

“Thanks very much.”

They went inside. “I’m off to the shower,” John said. “Be down in two shakes.”

“I’ll skip drinks this evening,” she said. “I have a nagging headache.”

“Oh, sorry, anything I can do?”

“I’ll take aspirins; they’ll do the trick.”

She didn’t have a “nagging headache.” She had simply seized on Doug’s headache as an excuse. She didn’t want to make small talk, she didn’t want to drink with John, and for what reason she couldn’t have said. Simply, she didn’t
want
to, it was as plain as that. There was something tugging at her as well, a new thought, a strange, odd thought.

Ed Corliss.

He was a quiet young man,
too
quiet. An old-young man, with his attache case, his polite manner, his saying “sir” to John. There was something faintly distasteful about him.
Why? I don’t know why
, she thought,
there just is.

Take it from there
, she thought, and took it from there. Ed Corliss was here from morning till night. He could have done something to her brakes.

For what reason?

For what reason had
anyone
done something to them?

• • •

There was still fifteen minutes to go before dinner. She ran down the stairs for a bottle to take up to her room. She would have her drink, alone, upstairs. She was just about to go up again when the door opened.

It was Norma, looking very lovely in a knit pants suit the color of apricots. She saw Margo and smiled radiantly. “Hi, here’s the pest again,” she said, and dropped her keys, a little self-consciously, into her handbag. “I hope you don’t mind my letting myself in.”

“Why should I? I’m glad to see you.” She was cordial, happy that there would be a full dinner table, not just herself and John. “I’m skipping the cocktail hour, though, trying to get rid of a slight headache. See you shortly.”

“Oh, do feel better.”

“It’s not much of a headache.”

Well, there’s no doubt about it,
Margo thought, in her room.
Norma and John. Lovers. Letting herself into the house, a key at her disposal. But then I sensed it almost at once
, she thought, and smoked a cigarette, slowly changing into another dress after a quick bath. When it was seven, she went down again, and Pompey was standing at the foot of the stairs, calling for her. “Someone said you had a headache, Miss Margo?”

“It’s gone.”

“Fine,” he said, “fine.”

But it was not as festive as usual. She couldn’t forget about that terrified flight down the hill, the car out of control, and the swish of cars at the bottom. She ate without appetite, and abruptly left the living room later to John and Norma, telling Pompey that she wanted to help with the dishes. She was clumsy, though, and succeeded in dropping a dinner plate, one of the blue Spode. He swept it up with a small brush.

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “Plenty more plates from this set. Two dozen and extras, just don’t give it a thought. Belongs to you, anyways.”

Norma marched into the kitchen. “What’s this about your car?” she demanded.

“The … the brakes didn’t work.”

“John just told me. What happened?”

“They didn’t work. I plowed into some trees. No harm done. Except my car’s in repair, I rented another one.”

“Margo, dear God!”

“I escaped unharmed, as you can see.”

Pompey started flapping his arms around. “Why you didn’t tell me this?”

“I would have. In due time.”