Galatea (12 page)

Then came a call and I took it, in the dark living-room. It was Marge, saying Bill was upset at what had been told him by Daniel, the same officer he’d spoken to that morning. It seemed he had called Daniel, to ask for the dope on Lippert, how he was and all, and Daniel had been surprised, as “your sister’s right with him now, there in the hospital room.” She said Bill had called him a liar, but Daniel wouldn’t back down. He said an officer had seen her, one of the boys on the case, who had just come from the house and already remarked on the change in her looks, from how she had been before. Marge said: “Of course, there was no answering that, and Bill is fit to be tied. He’s outside walking around, trying to cool himself off. Duke, what’s come over Holly?”

Now I didn’t know, and this news rocked me plenty, but what I said was: “Mrs. Hollis, you got my message?”

“I did, Duke, and I knew all the time we could count on you. And from now on, please call me Marge. We know each other well enough for that, don’t you think?”

“Then, Marge, on your sister-in-law, I can only say she’s made herself over complete, and it’s caused her to go slightly haywire. It might cause you the same if you knew you had to die and then found out you didn’t.”

“I’m crazy to see how she looks.”

“She looks just—beautiful.”

She asked questions about it, and I told her all kinds of things, especially about clothes. Then: “Duke, she must know what she’s doing.”

I said we could hope so, and to have her call when she came. To do something, after she hung up, to pass another wait in the dark, I set all doors ajar, so I could duck back to the cottage if Val’s lights showed. After a long time the phone rang, and my heart jumped when Holly spoke. She said: “Darling, I had to go there, to Lippert, I mean, and quick. That was all new to me, what Val said, about his underworld life, and I almost died at the wheel of the car when it finally perked in my head the danger I’d put you in. I was waiting when he opened his eyes, and—he promised me. That you wouldn’t be bothered, he called it.”

“What do I say, ‘Oh, thanks’?”

“You do I’ll come kick your teeth in.”

“What made him act so nice?”

“He didn’t act nice a bit. He—was cold as a clam. But—I took all the blame on myself. I said you—respected Val—and had got a wrong impression. I don’t know what I said—anything I could think of. But he promised. He wasn’t nice, but he looked me in the eye and said you wouldn’t be bothered. That’s what I went there for, and now—if you don’t mind—I’d like to forget it.”

“Where is Val, incidentally?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is Marge there?”

“She is, and Bill is.”

“Put her on, please.”

But that was so I could ring off on the call without ringing down on my peeve, and all I said was that Holly had had her reasons, “though up to now I’ve managed to take care of myself.” She gave it a snicker, and I could close up the house at last and go to my room in the cottage.

I went to bed, but a fat chance I could sleep. Around midnight started a thin, misty rain, the first we’d had in two months. Around two, Val’s car lights flashed, and he swung around the house. After he closed the garage he went past the cottage with quick, grippy steps and slammed the house door hard. He was up by the time I was, called he would give me my breakfast, and ate with me, saying nothing. I got his car out, and as he climbed in, watched the look in his eye. He had no look, just a vacant stare at the fields. Then: “Duke, I’m getting that paper today. I’ll bring it home when I come.”

“I’ll be most grateful, sir.”

“Sorry it’s turned out this way.”

“However, for this year at least, there’s not much more work to be done. The Halloween pumpkins about wind it up.”

“See you later, Duke.”

I went to my room, sat, and told myself to really get grateful, to one who was turning out better than he generally got credit for. All I could stir up in myself was fear, of him, whether he’d keep his word, and what he meant about her, once he found out the truth about what she was really up to. Around nine I heard a step, and my door began to move. Then she was in my arms, and the little red hat was sliding down on one ear from the way I was holding her, pushing my hand through her hair and pressing my lips against hers. I said: “We’re playing with dynamite, but what do we care? To hell with him, to hell with anything.”

“I’ve been parked since dawn, watching, and he’s gone up to the city. Soon as I made sure of that, I parked on the back road and came on in here. I have to have some clothes.”

“He’s gone for my confession.”

We went in the house, where she said she would change to her slacks before packing the rest of her stuff, and I sat down in my place on the love seat to give her a chance to do it. She said: “Nobody asked you to stay there, grumping off by yourself.”

“Nobody’s grumping.”

“I might need some help.”

“When your bag’s packed, call me.”

“Listen, Mr. Blond, there’s something you may have forgotten. You carved me from grease, that’s true, like a turkey chipped out of ice. So I’m yours, complete. But
I’ve
got some rights just the same. There are certain things this might call for. Things I might like to do.”

“Like what, for instance?”

“Showing myself to you.”

“I can see you from here.”

“Not all of me, perhaps.”

“Enough. Plenty.”

“Some ways I might be prettier.”

“You certainly would. You’d be pinker, which of course means prettier. But the smacking, to bring up that pink, might not be so good. You git, and git quick. We’re cutting this thing off clean before we do any showing.”

She came out in the slacks, the light coat on, and the red stuff as before. She was lugging two bags and I jumped up to take them. We went out in the patio and headed back for her car, each of us stepping careful on the damp dirt that was there on account of the rain, though it had been barely a sprinkle. She grabbed one of the bags, so she could hook on to my arm and be close as we walked. But pretty soon she stopped, looked at the water tank, said: “All right, Mr. Duquesne Webster, now I’ll tell you something. You said we cut it clean, and I want you to want it that way. Just the same, until now I haven’t been too sure how it was going to be cut. I’ve been afraid—not for my sake, but for the sake of someone I love. Someone who gave me life, health, hope—everything.”

“Come on, we’ll talk in your car.”

“We’re talking here.”

She grabbed the bag I had, set both bags on the ground. She said: “That someone, I felt, was in danger. Or would be in danger if things got out of hand. You see that water tower? How high that ladder is? If I had to, I meant to use that water tower. I’ve been making out you weren’t running the pump, so gauging has been done, while you’ve dressed for dinner. Not by me. I just stood and watched. But I’m nimble now, I’d be able to climb. I would have climbed, if I knew I had to. The rest of what I’d have done, I don’t choose to say.”

“This tank is out.”

“You heard me, what I said?”

“Holly, we’re cutting it clean.”

We sat in her car, which was parked by a thicket of persimmon trees, on the little blacktop that ran behind the farm. We held hands and looked at the overcast day, which we decided was beautiful. It wasn’t like the dark days in summer, but gray, cool, and damp, full of the smell of fall. Then she said she must go, and that I should ring her at Waldorf the second I had the confession and at last we were free. She said she’d come and get me, at Clinton or wherever I was. She said we’d drive along and sing. She said we’d go to a picture show. She said we’d stop, look at the stars, and pray.

I
CAME BACK, ATE A
take-out, ran the pump, but just a little, as the light rain that had fallen couldn’t have done much for the well. I climbed up and gauged, thinking of what she had said. I met Homer when he came, rode with him out to the spinach patch, cut the last of our crop, and helped him load his crates. I told him that was all, he needn’t come any more, said I might be leaving, and shook hands. I rolled out the cultivator, from the shed where I’d put it when Lippert was taken away, finished up with my work. I got out the harrow, did what I could with that, rolled it back in the shed. By then it was coming on dark, and at last I could take off my workclothes, pack them in my bag, put on a decent suit, and be ready to leave, I hoped for good. I had just slicked down my hair when lights showed outside, and there was Val in his car.

I took it, put it away, and went to the living-room when he called come in. By then he had the lights on and was parked on the sofa, one hand held to his head as he stared down at the floor. I paid no attention to that, as he had plenty of reason, considering all that had happened, to feel low in his mind, but sat in my place on the love seat, I hoped for the last time. I waited for him to speak, but all of a sudden felt nervous when I saw him peeping at me, just once, through his fingers. At last I heard myself say: “Mr. Val—did you get me—that confession?”

“I did, Duke. I did indeed.”

He got up and went to the dining-room, the main one, that they didn’t use, and I heard him go to his office, which was at the front of the house and was reached by the dining-room door. He came back with an envelope, came over and handed it to me. It had my name on it, in ink,
Duke Webster
,
Esq
., a small, tight handwriting I’d never seen, but that I took to be his. The envelope flap was open, but inside, at last, was this thing that had plagued me so, a typed-up sheet in the form of a letter to Daniel, on the letterhead of the Prince Georges County Police. However, one corner, the one where I’d signed my name, was torn off, and I must have looked funny when I noticed it, as he said: “I did that, Duke. I had a reason.”

“It’s all right, Mr. Val, of course. Without that, it’s just a piece of paper—exactly as I’d want it. For a second—I was—startled—but I’m really—much obliged.”

“That much was due you, I thought.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“Duke, there was something I meant to do. Something that had to involve me with the police. It seemed only fair, since I would be searched and the place might be, not to leave things lying around that might involve you too. Especially considering the obligation I felt for what you did yesterday. So, to leave you easy in mind, with the confession accounted for, but at the same time not make you trouble, I did what we do in business, when things of that kind come up—I tore the signature off. That would have left you completely in the clear, as I had made Daniel turn it over to me before he had a chance to have photostats made. There’s only one copy, the one you have in your hand. Does that explain it for you?”

“Not wholly, sir. No.”

“Say what it is that puzzles you.”

“Why would the cops make a search?”

“You feel that concerns you?”

“I don’t know, sir, but it might. I have the paper, and I thank you. But, if I may say what I think, you’re still talking peculiarly.”

“I meant to kill a man.”

“Who, Mr. Val?”

“How would that concern you?”

By then there was no mistaking the hard light in his eye, but I had what I wanted of him, and that seemed to make things different. I said: “From where I sit it does. Spit it out, Mr. Val. I asked you who.”

He didn’t answer, but his hand, which had been jammed in his right coat pocket, came out with a little jerk. In it was a gun, a blue automatic, that he leveled directly at me. He said: “Burn your paper, Duke. On that your mind should be at rest. I want it to be.”

I piled confession and envelope in the copper ashtray, and my fingers trembled as I held the match, perhaps from fear of the gun, but mainly I think from relief the thing was destroyed, as I don’t remember, at that time, thinking much about the gun at all. He watched the flame, and made no move as I took the paper-cutter, chopped the embers up, and emptied them in the fireplace, banging the copper on brick. When I blew on it and put it back, he said: “Sit down—perhaps I can elucidate. Perhaps I can explain how it didn’t concern you at first, and then later did.”

He backtracked to the previous day, when he drove off in the dark, leaving me alone by the telephone. He said he’d gone to Cheverly, where the county hospital was, to talk to the cops who had Lippert, “on your behalf, Duke, because at that time I had only respect for this thing you’d done. Respect? It was reverence, as I couldn’t have done it myself, I’m too weak. The act, as I thought, of a fine righteous outrage, of loyalty to an employer, a benefactor, a friend. I wanted those cops to know that whatever Lippert would do, they had a fight on their hands, and leading that fight would be me. And I happen to have some influence, here in Prince Georges County, whether they think so or not. That was my frame of mind when I parked by the Cheverly Hospital. Imagine my feelings when I started into the place and saw my own wife’s car parked there beside mine.”

I opened my mouth to tell him the reason she’d gone there, but decided that any reason that I knew before he did could only make things worse. I clammed, watched the gun, and waited. He went on, almost sobbing, to tell the ride he had taken, “for hours, through a drizzling rain, to Annapolis. To Solomons. To La Plata. Any place, to try and deaden the torture in my heart. No use. No use.
No use!
”

By now he didn’t even try to hide the tears in his eyes, but reached around with his left to his right-hand hip pocket, got his handkerchief out, and wiped them off. Then he told of how he’d come home, and then in the morning had kept his promise. He said: “I went to the bank, got the confession out, and came with it here, to give you. I called, but you weren’t around, and I went to my desk for an envelope, so I could leave it, in your room some place, where you’d be sure to find it. And there, in my desk drawer, looking at me, was this gun. Duke, do you know whose it is?”

I had the shivers so bad, from realizing that all this must have been while she and I were out back, holding hands in her car, that I was a little late when I said: “... My gun, I imagine.”