Roadwork (31 page)

He put the yearbooks back in their box helter-skelter and went on poking. He found drapes that Mary had taken down five years ago. An old easy chair with a broken arm. A clock radio that didn’t work. A wedding photograph album that he was scared to look through. Piles of magazines—
ought to get those out,
he told himself.
They’re a fire hazard in the summer.
A washing machine motor that he had once brought home from the laundry and tinkered with to no avail. And Charlie’s clothes.

They were in three cardboard cartons, each crisp with the smell of mothballs. Charlie’s shirts and pants and sweaters, even Charlie’s Hanes underwear. He took them out and looked at each item carefully, trying to imagine Charlie wearing these things, moving in them, rearranging minor parts of the world in them. At last it was the smell of the mothballs that drove him out of the attic, shaking and grimacing, needing a drink. The smell of things that had lain quietly and uselessly over the years, things which had no purpose but to hurt. He thought about them for most of the evening, until the drink blotted out the ability to think.

The doorbell rang at quarter past ten and when he opened the front door, a man in a suit and a topcoat was standing there, sort of hipshot and slouched and friendly. He was neatly shaved and barbered, carrying a slim briefcase, and at first he thought the man was a salesman with a briefcase full of samples—Amway, or magazine subscriptions, or possibly even the larcenous Swipe—and he prepared to welcome the man in, to listen to his pitch carefully, to ask questions, and maybe even buy something. Except for Olivia, he was the first person who had come to the house since Mary left almost five weeks ago.

But the man wasn’t a salesman. He was a lawyer. His name was Philip T. Fenner, and his client was the city council. These facts he announced with a shy grin and a hearty handshake.

“Come on in,” he said, and sighed. He supposed that in a half-assed sort of way, this guy was a salesman. You might even say he was selling Swipe.

Fenner was talking away, a mile a minute.

“Beautiful house you have here. Just beautiful. Careful ownership always shows, that’s what I say. I won’t take up much of your time, Mr. Dawes, I know you’re a busy man, but Jack Gordon thought I might as well swing out here since it was on my way and drop off this relocation form. I imagine you mailed for one, but the Christmas rush and all, things get lost. And I’d be glad to answer any questions you might have, of course.”

“I have a question,” he said, unsmiling.

The jolly exterior of his visitor slipped for a moment and he saw the real Fenner lurking behind it, as cold and mechanized as a Pulsar watch. “What would that be, Mr. Dawes?”

He smiled. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

Back on with the smiling Fenner, cheerful runner of city council errands. “Gee, that’d be nice, if it’s not too much trouble. A trifle nippy out there, only seventeen degrees. I think the winters have been getting colder, don’t you?”

“They sure have.” The water was still hot from his breakfast coffee. “Hope you don’t mind instant. My wife’s visiting her folks for a while, and I just sort of muddle along.”

Fenner laughed good-naturedly and he saw that Fenner knew exactly what the situation was between him and Mary, and probably what the situation was between him and any other given persons or institutions: Steve Ordner, Vinnie Mason, the corporation, God.

“Not at all, instant’s fine. I always drink instant. Can’t tell the difference. Okay to put some papers on this table?”

“Go right ahead. Do you take cream?”

“No, just black. Black is fine.” Fenner unbuttoned his topcoat but didn’t take it off. He swept it under him as he sat down, as a woman will sweep her skirt so she doesn’t wrinkle the back. In a man, the gesture was almost jarringly fastidious. He opened his briefcase and took out a stapled form that looked like an income tax return. He poured Fenner a cup of coffee and gave it to him.

“Thanks. Thanks very much. Join me?”

“I think I’ll have a drink,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” Fenner said, and smiled charmingly. He sipped his coffee. “Good, very good. Hits the spot.”

He made himself a tall drink and said, “Excuse me for just a minute, Mr. Fenner. I have to make a telephone call.”

“Certainly, of course.” He sipped his coffee again and smacked his lips over it.

He went to the phone in the hall, leaving the door open. He dialed the Calloway house and Jean answered.

“It’s Bart,” he said, “Is Mary there, Jean?”

“She’s sleeping.” Jean’s voice was frosty.

“Please wake her up. It’s very important.”

“I bet it is. I just bet. I told Lester the other night, I said: Lester, it’s time we thought about an unlisted phone. And he agreed with me. We both think you’ve gone off your rocker, Barton Dawes, and that’s the plain truth with no shellack on it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. But I really have to—”

The upstairs extension was picked up and Mary said, “Bart?”

“Yes. Mary, has a lawyer named Fenner been out to see you? Kind of slick-talking fellow that tries to act like Jimmy Stewart?”

“No,” she said. Shit, snake-eyes. Then she added, “He called on the phone.”
Jackpot!
Fenner was standing in the doorway now, holding his coffee and sipping it calmly. The half-shy, totally cheerful, aw-shucks expression was gone now. He looked rather pained.

“Mamma, get off the extension,” Mary said, and Jean Calloway hung up with a bitter snort.

“Was he asking about me?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“He talked to you after the party?”

“Yes, but ... I didn’t tell him anything about that.”

“You might have told him more than you know. He comes on like a sleepy tick-hound, but he’s the city council’s ballcutter.” He smiled at Fenner, who thinly smiled back. “You’ve got an appointment with him?”

“Why ... yes.” She sounded surprised. “But he only wants to talk about the house, Bart—”

“No, that’s what he told you. He really wants to talk about me. I think these guys would like to drag me into a competency hearing.”

“A ... what? ...” She sounded utterly befuddled.

“I haven’t taken their money yet, ergo I must be crazy. Mary, do you remember what we talked about at Handy Andy’s?”

“Bart, is that Mr. Fenner in the house?”

“Yes.”

“The psychiatrist,” she said dully. “I mentioned you were going to be seeing a ... oh, Bart, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said softly, and meant it. “This is going to be all right, Mary. I swear. Maybe nothing else, but this is going to be all right.”

He hung up and turned to Fenner. “Want me to call Stephan Ordner?” he asked. “Vinnie Mason? I won’t bother with Ron Stone or Tom Granger, they’d recognize a cheap prick like you before you even had your briefcase unsnapped. But Vinnie wouldn’t and Ordner would welcome you with open arms. He’s on the prod for me.”

“You needn’t,” Fenner said. “You’ve misunderstood me, Mr. Dawes. And you’ve apparently misunderstood my clients. There is nothing personal in this. No one is out to get you. But there has been an awareness for some time that you dislike the 784 extension. You wrote a letter to the paper last August—”

“Last August,” he marveled. “You people have a clipping serving, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

He went into a harried crouch, rolling his eyeballs fearfully. “More clippings! More lawyers! Ron, go out and snow those reporters! We have enemies everywhere, Mavis, bring me my pills!” He straightened up. “Paranoia, anyone? Christ, I thought I was bad.”

“We also have a public-relations staff,” Fenner said stiffly. “We are not nickle-and-diming here, Mr. Dawes. We are talking about a ten-million-dollar project.”

He shook his head, disgusted. “They ought to hold a competency hearing on you road guys, not me.”

Fenner said: “I’m going to lay all my cards on the table, Mr. Dawes.”

“You know, it’s been my experience that when anybody says that they’re ready to stop screwing around with the little lies and they’re about to tell a real whopper.”

Fenner flushed, finally angry. “You wrote the newspaper. You dragged your heels on finding a new plant for the Blue Ribbon Laundry and finally got canned—”

“I didn’t. I resigned at least a half an hour before they could pink me.”

“—and you’ve ignored all our communications dealing with this house. The consensus is that you may be planning some public display on the twentieth. Calling the papers and TV stations, getting them all out here. The heroic home owner dragged kicking and screaming from his hearth and home by the city’s Gestapo agents.”

“That worries you, doesn’t it?”

“Of course it worries us! Public opinion is volatile, it swings around like a weathervane—”

“And your clients are elected officials.”

Fenner looked at him expressionlessly.

“So what now?” he asked. “Are you going to make me an offer I can’t refuse?”

Fenner sighed. “I can’t understand what we’re arguing about, Mr. Dawes. The city is offering you sixty thousand dollars to—”

“Sixty-three five.”

“Yes, very good. They are offering you that amount for the house and the lot. Some people are getting a lot less. And what do you get for that money? You get no hassles, no trouble, no heat. The money is practically tax free because you’ve already paid Uncle the taxes on the money you spent to buy it. All you owe is taxes on the markup. Or don’t you think the valuation is fair?”

“Fair enough,” he said, thinking about Charlie. “As far as dollars and cents go, it’s fair. Probably more than I could get if I wanted to sell it, with the price of loans what they are.”

“So what
are
we arguing about?”

“We’re not,” he said, and sipped his drink. Yes, he had gotten his salesman, all right. “Do you have a house, Mr. Fenner?”

“Yes I do,” Fenner said promptly. “A very fine one in Greenwood. And if you are going to ask me what I would do or how I would feel if our positions were reversed, I’ll be very frank. I would twist the city’s tit for all I could get and then laugh all the way to the bank.”

“Yes, of course you would.” He laughed and thought of Don and Ray Tarkington, who would have twisted both tits and rammed the courthouse flagpole up the city’s ass for good measure. “Do you folks really think I’ve lost my marbles, then?”

Judiciously, Fenner said: “We don’t know. Your resolution to the laundry relocation problem was hardly a normal one.”

“Well, I’ll tell you this. I have enough marbles left to know I could get myself a lawyer who doesn’t like the eminent domain statute—one who still believes in that quaint old adage that a man’s home is his castle. He could get a restraining order and we could tie you up for a month, maybe two. With luck and the right progression of judges, we could hold this thing off until next September.”

Fenner looked pleased rather than disconcerted, as he had suspected Fenner would. Finally, Fenner was thinking. Here’s the hook, Freddy, are you enjoying this? Yes, George, I have to admit I am.

“What do you want?” Fenner asked.

“How much are you prepared to offer?”

“We’ll hike the valuation five thousand dollars. Not a penny more. And nobody will hear about the girl.”

Everything stopped. Stopped dead.

“What?” he whispered.

“The
girl,
Mr. Dawes. The one you were banging. You had her here December sixth and seventh.”

A number of thoughts spiraled through his mind in a period of seconds, some of them extremely sensible, but most of them overlaid and made untrustworthy with a thin yellow patina of fear. But above both fear and sensible thoughts was a vast red rage that made him want to leap across the table and choke this ticktock man until clocksprings fell out of his ears. And he must not do that; above all, not that.

“Give me a number,” he said.

“Number—?”

“Phone number. I’ll call you this afternoon and tell you my decision.”

“It would be ever so much better if we could wrap it up right now.”

“No, I don’t think so. Please get out of my house.”

Fenner gave a smooth, expressionless shrug. “Here’s my card. The number is on it. I expect to be in between two-thirty and four o’clock.”

“I’ll call.”

Fenner left. He watched him through the window beside the front door as he walked down the path to his dark blue Buick, got in, and cruised away. Then he slammed his fist against the wall, hard.

He mixed himself another drink and sat down at the kitchen table to go over the situation. They knew about Olivia. They were willing to use that knowledge as a lever. As a lever to move him it wasn’t very good. They could no doubt end his marriage with it, but his marriage was in serious trouble already. But they had
spied
on him.

The question was, how?

If there had been men watching him, they undoubtedly would have known about the world-famous crackle-crackle-boom-boom. If so, they would have used it on him. Why bother with something paltry like a little extramarital boogie-woogie when you can have the recalcitrant home owner slapped in jail for arson? So they had bugged him. When he thought how close he had come to drunkenly spilling the crime to Magliore over the phone, cold little dots of perspiration broke out on his skin. Thank God Magliore had shut him up. Crackle-crackle-boom-boom was bad enough.

So he was living in a bugged house and the question remained: What to do about Fenner’s offer and Fenner’s clients’ methods?

He put a TV dinner in the oven for his lunch and sat down with another drink to wait for it. They had spied on him, tried to bribe him. The more he thought about it, the angrier it made him.