Intimate Victims (14 page)

“No book about it!” he said aloud, laughing.

She walked in as he said it. He was glad she hadn’t put anything on. “What did you say?” “I said, no book.”

She smiled. “That’s right, Ray. Even with Tommy I never …"

“Don’t talk it all away now,” he said, reaching for her. She came down and curled into him, and he kissed her for a long time. He looked at her a minute. “Don’t smile,” he said.

“All right.”

“I love you, Bunny,” he said. He was testing again — testing the sound of those words — they were okay, and he meant it. For a fraction of a second after he said them, he thought he would hear the familiar response. “Why do you suddenly announce it? You must know what prompted it. Go back over it. I was saying that I hadn’t seen round butter balls in …"

Bunny’s eyes searched his solemnly. “Thank you,” she answered.

“I love you, Bunny,” he said again.

“But now you’re smiling, after you told me not to.”

“It’s all right,” he said holding her. “It’s okay.”

She said, “Except we have to get dressed, Ray.”

“Why should we? Let’s make love again.”

“That was Scott on the phone.”

“Banjo? What’d he want?”

“He’s coming over. He’s bringing his guitar.”

“Tonight? At quarter to twelve?”

“He just got out of rehearsal, Ray. He says he wants to make me feel better, because I didn’t get the part in the play.”

Raymond Battle simply stared at her.

She said, “Oh, you’re included, Ray! If you want to be. You’ll like him. Did I ever tell you what he wrote on the blackboard that time the director didn’t show up? He wrote, ‘We was here when you was not …’ “

“Now you is here and we is not,” Raymond Battle finished it.

“Don’t tell me you’re angry,” she said, “after the nice time we had.”

T
HE MOMENT
Harvey Plangman saw Adair Trowbridge, he felt reassured. Trowbridge and the Cutlers had been watching home movies of some sort when Harvey rang the bell. Trowbridge was standing by the projector in the living room, while Lois and her father hung back near the entranceway, speaking to one another in very low voices. Harvey knew they were talking about him. He had not chanced a phone call to announce his arrival. His phone conversations the past week with Lois were most unsatisfactory. The best thing to do, he had decided, was to make a personal appearance. He was glad Trowbridge was there at the time. He had wanted that; he had prepared for it. He had read up on ferns, enough to carry on a small conversation about them — shoe-string ferns, rattlesnake ferns, interrupted ferns, and young fern leaves, or fiddleheads. Why shouldn’t he and Trowbridge be friends, after all?

His feeling of reassurance stemmed from the fact Trowbridge was very short, and rather plump. Certainly not what Harvey had expected. Instantly, Harvey felt rather patronizing toward Trowbridge. He extended a warm hand and grinned at the fellow. “Hello, Adair!” he said forthrightly. “I’ve heard a lot about you, all good,” he said benevolently.

Trowbridge’s handshake was weak and pudgy. Harvey was surprised at the fact his voice was very deep, his tone polished and with that slight accent that was not regional, but patrician. Still, the fellow was not at all suave. There were beads of perspiration dotting his forehead — the fat man’s curse, for it was a cool October evening and the skin of his arms, neck and face was very white, and almost feminine in its seemingly hairless appearance. He was not dressed very handsomely at all — navy slacks, an undistinguished silver-buckled belt, and a white shirt open at the neck. Harvey was wearing a new bright blue, red, black and gray mohair plaid coat-sweater from Celli of Milan — when he removed it the label would show — a white shirt and black knit tie, charcoal-gray slacks, and black calf shoes. The sweater, though, was his proudest possession that night. It had a continental collar, smoked pearl buttons, and a full red silk lining, with a large white label.

Adair Trowbridge, after his initial greeting, stood wordless. Behind Harvey, Lois and her father had not yet made a move forward. Harvey knew Lois was probably all upset, probably completely misled as to Harvey’s intentions this evening, but he would straighten it all out. It might be a little awkward at first, but somehow the sight of Trowbridge had given Harvey a booster shot of confidence. Trowbridge was in his late thirties, at least. Not that Harvey had any intention whatsoever of breaking up Trowbridge and Lois — not any more — but it made what he did have in mind seem all the more likely — the fact that Adair Trowbridge was such a colorless specimen. His picture in the
Tribune
had led Harvey to imagine he would be quite a bit grander than this sad chap with the receding hairline and protruding waistline.

He said to Trowbridge, “How are the ferns?”

Trowbridge smiled weakly, as Harvey continued to talk. Harvey said, “From the Latin hortus, we have garden and from the Latin cultura, we have cultivation. Horticulture.” Harvey had never taken Latin in school; any Latin he knew he had learned himself, from reading the dictionary, and the words sounded very cultured to him. He was as proud of the Latin he knew as he was of the three or four words in Russian he knew. He continued talking to Adair, saying, “A very interesting hobby, photographing flowers and whatnot. How did you become interested, Adair?”

Trowbridge was glancing back at the Cutlers with an anxious expression, his hands fooling with a reel of movie film on the projector. He said, “My father was a gardener.”

“Oh, well you’ve come a long way then. I suspect he’s proud of you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“How many gardener’s sons get their pictures in the Sunday
Tribune?”
Harvey said with a gentle smile.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Trowbridge said. “Gardening was a pleasure of my father’s.”

“Oh. Not a living, eh?”

“No … not a living.”

“I should have known from your name,” said Harvey. “How many gardeners would name their sons Adair?” Trowbridge said, “I have no idea.” “It’s a funny name,” said Harvey. “I looked it up. It means ‘from the ford by the oak trees.’ I suppose you knew that.” “No.”

“It’s Celtic,” Harvey said.

Trowbridge said nothing. Then Hayden Cutler cleared his throat in a portentous manner and stepped forward, Lois following a few paces behind.

Culter said, “I’m afraid you’ve interrupted us, Harvey. Adair was showing us some films of Venice which he took last summer.”

“While I was in the neighborhood,” Harvey said, “I thought I’d drop in and straighten out a few things.”

“I wish you’d telephoned first,” Cutler said. “We might have avoided embarrassment all the way around.”

“You mean because Adair’s here? I’m glad he’s here, Mr. Cutler, sir. Look,” Harvey smiled. “I have no ill feeling. I admit I was shocked. It was all very sudden, it seemed to me.”

“I’ve known Adair for years and years,” Lois said. “Haven’t I, Daddy?”

“Oh, never mind. Never mind,” said Harvey, “I’m resigned to it. That’s the way the ball bounces.”

“We know Adair very well,” Cutler said, “and we don’t know you very well at all, Harvey.”

“All I want is a chance, sir,” Harvey said brightly. “That’s why I came by. There’s no reason we can’t all be good friends.”

“Perhaps that’s true,” Cutler answered, “but none of our friends simply barge in on an evening. Please don’t make it any more embarrassing, Harvey. We’ve been very patient, already.”

“I don’t have leprosy, you know, sir,” Harvey chuckled. “Couldn’t we all watch Adair’s movies … Adair, you wouldn’t mind, would you?” Harvey clamped an affectionate arm across Trowbridge’s shoulders. “Bygones are bygones. Hmmm? I wasn’t much of a threat at all, anyway,” Harvey said generously. “I tried, but the best man won.”

Trowbridge was not much of a talker.

Hayden Cutler said, “We have to ask you to leave, Harvey. I’m sorry, but you force me to be very blunt.”

“But why must I leave? I’m really resigned to the whole thing, Mr. Cutler. Don’t you believe that? Lois, don’t you?”

Lois Cutler said, “I told you over the phone that I didn’t want to see you any more, Harvey.”

“But over the phone it was different. I was still upset. Look, Lois — Mr. Cutler — I’ve had time to think. You were perfectly right. I took too much for granted. It wasn’t my fault. I mean, how was I to know Adair was abroad! Lois didn’t even mention Adair. Not once.” The unfairness of his plight glowed again in Harvey’s heart like a little worm turning itself on again, and there was a slight quiver to his voice — a trembling in his insides. He started to complain more, but Cutler held up his hand. “Harvey,” Cutler said, “Lois may have been to blame for not mentioning Adair, but she and Adair made up their minds only a week after he returned. All’s fair in love and war, you know, and now it’s up to you to do the decent thing. Fade away like the good old soldier who never dies. Fade away, boy … now. I’ll walk you to the front door.”

“Can’t we all be friends anyway? Sir, I’d like your advice about entering business.”

“This way, Harvey. Come along.” Cutler had Plangman firmly by the arm.

Lois said, “Bon nuit, Monsieur.”

“I think it’s really rotten of you,” said Harvey. “After all, I was doing the sporting thing, Lois.”

“I told you over the phone, Harvey Plangman. And Daddy told you.”

“Nice to have met you, Trowbridge,” Harvey called over his shoulder. “We might have been good friends, if we’d been given the chance.”

Trowbridge only nodded, without smiling.

At the door, Hayden Cutler said, “I wouldn’t come back, Harvey. You know, you’re only making a fool of yourself. Why do that?”

“Why do you dislike me so? That’s what I can’t get through my head, Mr. Cutler. Why, I gave you a birthday party. Now I’m not even welcome in your house.”

“The birthday party you gave me was a great compliment to my daughter, Harvey.”

“But that’s what you don’t understand, sir. I liked you too. I wasn’t just interested in Lois.”

“You weren’t?”

“No, sir! You see, I’d like to consider myself a friend of the family. I’d like to feel I could drop in on you, and you could drop in on me. I don’t think Adair’s such a bad sort, at all. He has nothing to do with it, any more. I’m resigned, and I’d like to offer my friendship, sir.”

“That’s very nice, Harvey, but I’m a busy man, and I expect Lois and Adair don’t want a third wheel around.”

“Sir, I moved East for Lois. I bet you never knew that, sir.”

“That was presumptuous, Harvey. Now, you’re trying my patience.”

“You want me to just leave. Just like that, is that it? And never come back?”

“I’m sorry. I’m afraid that’s it.”

“All right, sir, but Trowbridge will get it too. I know that. Lord, didn’t I hear enough of your phone conversations together, with ‘God bless me and God bless you,’ and …"

“Get out, Plangman!”

Harvey felt himself being shoved. Then he was on the step outside, and the door was slammed shut.

He hurried down the walk to his car. He got in and drove toward town. Tears smarted in his eyes, and as he lit a cigarette, his hands trembled. When he passed the phone booth on the corner of Bridge Street in New Hope, he pulled over to the curb. A man named Axtel who was forty-three inherited two-hundred and fifty-one thousand dollars; he still knew the number without looking it up.

“Hello, Margaret,” he might say. “I’d like to come and talk with you.”

He stood in the phone booth, holding the dime in his hand. Mrs. Bowser, not Margaret — not Margaret until after he talked with her. After she trusted him and liked him. His heart was pounding; his mind busy manufacturing the fantasy:

• • •

“… and do you see, Mrs. Bowser, I’ve helped him all I could. I’ve lent him money and given him a place to stay, but if you want my opinion, he’s in much more serious difficulty than that of a man who’s committed a crime. Yes, embezzlement is serious enough, Mrs. Bowser, but he’s having a nervous breakdown. I should have realized that from the start, but I didn’t know him at all, you see. It was just chance that our coats got mixed up in that gas station, and I felt sorry for him …"

“Harvey, please call me Margaret. I’ve grown to trust you. You seem almost like a son.”

“Thank you, Margaret.”

“What can we do about it?”

“For his own good, Margaret, I think we ought to turn him in. At the risk of our friendship — yours and mine — I have to speak honestly …"

“It’s a hard decision to make. He’s my husband.”

“Would you think of me as a son? And I’ll be by your side …"

“Thank you, Harvey.”

“I grew to think of him as a father. You know, I even wrote him for advice from time to time. But I began to realize he was really seriously ill …"

“I’d like to repay you in some way.”

“I don’t want money. But if you’ll let me be by your side …"

“Harvey, I have an idea. Why don’t you come and live with us?”

• • •

He smiled. Something like that; something like that. He would figure it all out on his way there. He dropped the dime in the slot and dialed. He tried to remember what he had written in his letters to Bowser. He would have to get them back; he would have to get Margaret to agree to keep everything said between them confidential.

“I don’t want to be an accessory, you know. I was only trying to help.”

“Of course you were….

• • •

A woman’s voice answered. “Hello?” “Hello, Mrs. Bowser?” he said. “No, she isn’t here. This is Edith Summers.” “When will Mrs. Bowser return, please?” “She’s in Nassau with her mother. I’m just here watering the plants, but I write her and …” “No,” said Harvey. “Never mind.”

• • •

He walked down Main Street to the Logan Inn, and went to the bar.

“Hi!” he said to the bartender. “I’ll have an Old Smuggler and water. Pretty quiet tonight, ah?”

There was only one couple in the place, a man and woman down at the other end of the bar. He should have sat closer to them, but it was too late now. He smiled at them, and they smiled back.

“Pretty quiet tonight,” he repeated.

His hands were shaking, so that he had to wait a minute before he could sip his drink without sloshing it on his new sweater. The sweater had cost him a hundred dollars. He had bought it at Leighton’s in New York. He decided to take it off, fold it so that the Celli of Milan label showed, and place it on the bar.

He managed to raise the glass to his mouth and get a good gulp of the whisky. The couple at the end of the bar were talking together, and the bartender was working a crossword puzzle. He fought back tears. After a few minutes, he ordered another Old Smuggler and water. When the bartender served it, he said, “I guess not much happens around here after the summer season.”

“Nice and quiet, the way I like it,” the fellow said.

“That’s the way I like it too!” said Harvey. “I was telling Adair just that, a little earlier this evening …” He looked down to see if his words registered with the people at the end of the bar. They were still talking together. He said to the bartender, “Adair Trowbridge, you know him?”

“Isn’t he the fellow who takes pictures of flowers?”

“Yes, that’s Adair!” Harvey said enthusiastically.

“I don’t know him personally. I know he’s got a place around here somewheres.”

“A studio,” said Harvey. “He’s a fern man. Ferns are his specialty. Engaged to Lois Cutler. We’re all friends.”

“Umm hmm. Yeah, I know Lois and her dad.”

“Great people!” said Harvey.

“Yeah, they’re nice.” The bartender started back to his puzzle. Harvey said, “May I buy you a drink?”

“Thanks, but I don’t drink myself.”

“Maybe I can buy them one,” Harvey said, nodding at the people down at the end of the bar. They looked up and he smiled at them. “Drink?” he asked.

The man smiled back. “We’re on our way home. Thanks anyway.”