Fortune's Hand (38 page)

“ ‘Respected'!” she cried. “So this is what Rufus Max does to a ‘respected' man! Of all the cheap, lying frauds! This is nothing but what my grandfather called ‘yellow journalism'! How dare he!” She was quivering. Her words sputtered. “How dare he do this to a good man! He's not clean enough to shine my father's shoes!”

Andrew sighed. “I know how you feel. But at least no name was given.”

She responded scornfully. “Did he need to give a name? As if Robb MacDaniel isn't instantly recognizable in that description! Max ought to be sued for defamation of character.”

“It's not that simple, Julie,” Andrew said gently. “Max is very careful about what he writes. He never has been sued.”

Julie stared at him. “You don't mean to say you approve of this?”

“It's not a question of anybody's approval. A bank is being investigated. It's a question of simple facts, facts that break your heart, I know. I'm pretty upset myself.”

“Was it necessary? Necessary to humble a man because of some bad investments?”

“Max is an investigative reporter. That's his job.
Anyway, Julie, your father's not been accused of anything.”

“You're making awfully light of it.”

“It's the bank that's in trouble, not your father. Think of it that way. I'm sure your father will. I'm sure he won't be nearly as upset as you are.”

“You're not really saying I've no right to be upset, are you?”

“No, I'm just trying to put it into perspective.”

She had, of a sudden, a dreadful thought. “Did you know this was going to be printed?”

“Yes.”

“You did? And you didn't do anything about it?”

“Julie, what could I do?”

“For God's sake, you could have told him what harm he was doing.”

“I can't ‘tell' him anything. He's my boss.”

“So you just sat there, kept your mouth closed, and let him destroy a good man's career.”

“This won't destroy his career, I tell you. He will survive this very well. You underestimate him.”

“Easy for you to say.” She began to cry. “Hasn't he had enough? With the divorce, and the house going, and Penn, and—and now this.”

“Julie dear, please try—” He knelt to put his arms around her.

“Don't touch me!” She thrust him away. “You knew about it, and you didn't even try to stop it. Don't tell me you couldn't have. I don't believe it.”

“Julie, be reasonable. I told you I only work for him. I'm nobody.”

“I don't believe that, either. If you admired my father as much as you say you do, if you loved me, you could have spoken up and taken the consequences. You could always get another job somewhere else. It's a matter of principle. I can tell you this, my father would have quit if he had been in your place. That's what loyalty is. Don't tell me you love me.”

“Julie, I do love you. Please.”

“No! No!”

He was treating this too casually. He wouldn't be doing it if Robb were his father! She had read those “investigations.” Your entire life was spread out for scandal seekers to read. Even an innocent life like Dad's. And he so proud. She knew that about him. Touchy-proud, he was. And those people, the Fowler partners and Mr. Harte, all so correct, untouchable, like Grandpa Wilson Grant. God only knows what they will do.

She stood up to face Andrew with her fury. “I'll never forgive you for this, Andrew. For standing by and watching Robb MacDaniel being dragged down into the mud. Ruined! No matter what you say, ruined. No, I'll never forgive you.”

“Julie, you're not making any sense. You're being terribly unjust. ‘You'll never forgive me.' What kind of talk is that?”

He seemed now to be thinking that it was his turn to be angry, as if he were the injured one. His flush and his bold eyes enraged her. Her own crazy tears and her runny nose enraged her.

“Get out, Andrew. I see you plainly now. So get out. Forget you ever knew me.”

“Do you mean that, Julie?”

“As much as I ever meant anything in all my life.”

He gave her a long look. Then he took his umbrella and went out, closing the door firmly behind him.

Y
esterday seemed already to have happened a long time ago. Yet in another way, Robb felt that he would always repeat and relive it.

First there had been the shock of Rufus Max's article. Of course that young fellow of Julie's—poor little Julie—could not have prevented it! And he had tried to explain that to her when, in tears at a little past dawn, she had telephoned him.

It had been still but a little past dawn when he had appeared at the office, surprising the men who were mopping the lobby floor. He hardly knew why he had gone there so early; it had just seemed the natural thing to do.

But after sitting there awhile, he decided that probably he had made a mistake, that he was not, after all, quite ready for any true conversation. The partners would be at the long table in the conference room with the elder Fowler in his place at its head. He himself
would be telling them that in all decency he should resign, and they in all decency would be telling him that he should not, that he need not, and that he was making a mountain, if not out of a molehill exactly, at most out of a hill.

And so he had simply written a letter and put it on the senior Fowler's desk. Then he had removed his photograph of Ellen with Julie and Penn, a baby in arms, taken a long look around his handsome room, and gone down to his car.

After that he had not known what to do with the rest of the day. He had known only that he did not feel like talking to anyone. So he had driven out into the country with a sandwich lunch and a paperback book, then sat down near a lake to eat and read. In the evening he had gone to a movie; he had never been much of a moviegoer, but somehow the darkness and anonymity had suited his mood. It had ended the day.

His first thought now on waking was that he had no place to which he must go. His second thought was that this was the first such morning in his entire life, for even as a child, he had been tied to the schedules of school or chores. He lay there looking at the ceiling over which the barely risen sun had drawn pale finger-shapes of light. After a while, the entire ceiling would be white, cold white, he thought, cold as the silence in the house.

Having made no conscious decision to rise, he found himself on his feet getting into his clothes. Through force of habit, he had laid them out the night before: dark suit, newly pressed; white shirt and proper regimental-striped
tie; black shoes, newly polished; keys, wallet, and change in his pockets.

He went down the slippery stairs holding to the banister because of a slight vertigo. Already, since he had told the cleaning woman not to come anymore, the kitchen had taken on the look of neglect.

“Frankly, I can't afford to keep you,” he had told her, and when she had stared at him with disbelief and mistrust, he had repeated, “No, really. I'm sorry because you've been so thoughtful and I wish I didn't have to say it, but it's true.”

When he had made a cup of instant coffee and heated a roll, he sat down at the table. The newspaper was undoubtedly lying at the foot of the driveway, but on this day he had no desire to fetch it, and that was another first for a man who had scarcely been able to start the day without the news and the editorial pages. So he stirred some milk into the coffee and stared at the moving leaves beyond the window, at the wilting violets on the sill, and at the cat's bowl still standing in the corner, although the cat had long been gone. “Lulubelle,” it said in blue letters on the rim. For some reason it brought tears to his eyes.

After a while he got up and began to walk aimlessly through the enormous rooms. Once, in his mind's eye, in that early euphoria at being the proprietor of all this splendor, he had seen and heard them filled with the warmth of motion and many voices. Now the rich furnishings stood unused as if on display, or sale.

“No doubt they soon will be,” he said aloud.

And the silence surged back. It was unbearable. Vertigo
threatened again. The air was heavy, and despite their size, the rooms closed in.

He opened the door to go outside into the cool early morning. From the front steps, the entire spread of his grounds lay in an arc. There was the vacant stable where Julie's beloved horses had stood with their noses buried in oats. There was the garage where the imported family sedan still stood beside the clumsy sports vehicle that he had bought; why, in this climate where it almost never snowed? Why? Because everybody had one. Over on his right was the British walled garden that he had fancied. No longer tended by an expert gardener, it was a wilderness of weeds; the espaliered fruit trees, now overgrown, dangled away from the walls.

No doubt somebody, someday, would set all these things to rights. Eventually, the whole area would be developed and the house, one of many, would be sold, perhaps for an exorbitant price or on the other hand, the bank, to get rid of it, would almost give it away. It made no difference to him. He would have to get out of it by the end of this month. So men come and go, but the river remains, serene and silver.

Partway up the hill on the side where the old pines marched, a pair of crows stood on a dead branch. For a minute or two they simply stood as if, like himself, they were surveying the landscape. Then all of a sudden, emitting their raucous, hideous caws, they flapped up and deposited themselves on another branch not twenty feet distant. Now what was the purpose of that?

Ellen could make a story out of it. She would paint it
in spare, Oriental strokes of black and gray, with a touch of dark pine green. She would make the crows talk. He could see her now at her drawing table, concentrating, and pleased with her work.

Dear God, he thought, and became aware of his familiar, great tiredness. So he went inside, hung his jacket most carefully on the back of a chair, and lay down on the sofa in the library.

When he awoke, the room was filled with sunshine. He looked at his watch, where the hands stood at six o'clock. But that was impossible, and looking again, he saw that that was Tokyo time. The watch was one of those elaborate mechanisms providing not only the date, but the time in all the major capitals of the world; he had had no need of it, since he had no business in any of them, yet he had bought it.

The time here showed him, in this little spot on the globe, that he had slept for over two hours, which was understandable, given the past restless night. It was the date, though, that startled him: It was Penn's birthday. He sprang up. If he were to put on some speed, he could get there with a cake for lunch.

His route to the highway lay on the other side of the city. Driving along the central avenue, he saw himself again approaching the shady campus and gothic stone of the university on that first day here, so long ago. And here he was at a bakery, the very one where the woman who was no longer his wife and he bought the world's best donuts for their Sunday breakfasts, buying a birthday
cake for their son. “So it goes,” he murmured to himself. “So it goes.”

With the cake in hand, he went next door to the sporting goods store. And now, despite the wistful spirit of the day, he felt a small smile touch the corners of his lips. Penn was playing baseball. A catcher's mitt would be the thing, his own personal mitt. At the last visit, Robb had watched the game, a great big change from playing roll ball on the lawn. And on that same day, Penn had written his name, in large, round, childish letters, it's true, but nevertheless he had written it. They had done wonders with Penn, those people in Wheatley.

What a grand thing to know that Penn was happy! You saw it on his face, which had lost the often vacant look that could break your heart. Now in Robb's inner pocket lay a crude folder of red leather, the wallet that Penn had made for him. Within his limitations, in his own world, Penn was busy. He had friends. Someday he might even have a simple, sheltered job. And he had a home, the one thing fully paid for out of the wreckage.

Ten miles beyond the next turn was the house where Devlin still lived, a solid brick mansion shrouded behind a long drive, a tunnel between old rhododendrons. Robb had been there once. Solid as Fort Knox, that house stood, and so far anyway, regardless of financial hurricanes, tornadoes, or typhoons, would stand. Other people would pick their way through the shambles.

It was a few minutes before noon when he drove into the parking lot at Wheatley. Few cars were there, and
vision was unobscured, so that he was able clearly to see the little group approaching the entrance: Ellen, Julie, and Philip, bearing gifts. They had not seen him, or they would have made some sign. Nor would Philip be walking with his arm loosely but possessively lying across Ellen's waist. She was wearing Robb's favorite spring green, although the season was fall and the leaves mellow-colored. She had been letting her hair grow; richly waved, it hung like a girl's to her shoulders.

Oh Ellen, how I loved you! And I probably love you still. What happened to us? Was it your crabby father, my crazy drive for money, or the worthless women? What?

And Julie, my Julie, you've lost your nice young man, your quick, bright boy, on account of me.

He stood there until they had gone through the door. He did not want to see them. Perhaps he should wait until they had seen Penn, and then go in. On the other hand, perhaps he should not.…

Quite suddenly, he wanted to go away. And as a workman walked past, he handed two dollar bills to him for himself along with the cake and the mitt.

“Please, will you give these to a young man named Penn? Penn MacDaniel. Here, I'll write the name. Tell him, please, they're from Dad, and give him my love.”

“I'll do that,” the man said with pity.

He got into the car and drove. You really could do this crazy thing, just drive without any destination, could turn the car to any direction on the map and keep going. You could abandon the car someplace, remove
all identification, change your name, and disappear. He must have seen dozens of movies and read dozens of books about spies meeting contacts on buses, in restaurants, or parks, or even in movie theaters, and then vanishing across borders or hiding in mobbed cities.