That Camden Summer (27 page)

In the depths of the house, the voices silenced. Gabe beat the screen door again. "Elfred, get your ass out here right now or IT come in there and drag it out! "

More silence, followed by whispering. "Elfred-I you know what this is about, so I can settle it in there in front of your family or out here in the front yard! The choice is yours, but you better make it soon or I'm comin' in!"

Down the center hall Elfred's head appeared around the dining room archway. Somewhere behind him, Grace murmured_, "Elfred, what is it? Is that Gabriel Farley?"

Elfred said, "Farley, are you crazy?"

Gabe opened the screen door and ordered, "Get your ass out here, you chicken-shit bastard! I came to give you what no woman can give you, and my blood is pumpin' mighty fast., Elfred, so don't make me come in there and get you, cause you'll only make it worse on yourself!"

Elfred, visibly frightened, wiped his mouth with a linen napkin-, then hid behind it for a moment.

Gabe stepped inside and let the door slam loudly.

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Elfred pointed a finger and said, "You get out of here, Farley, or I'll have the police on you. "

Gabe marched down the hall. "I'll get out of here when I've finished my business with you, you bastard." He collared the surprised diner and hauled him straight down the hall in a headlock, opening the screen with the top of Elfred's head while his feet pedaled to keep up. The Spear family spilled through the archway and some of them screamed as they watched the man of the house unceremoniously used as a ramrod.

"Elfred! Oh, dear God!" Grace cried, following.

Gabe hauled Elfred down four steps, still in a headlock, choking him with his necktie. Every word Gabe spoke came out in a clear baritone bellow. "Now, just so there won't be any question, this is for the woman you raped, Elfred, 'cause she can't do it herself. 'Course you knew that when you raped her, didn't you?"

He landed the first blows while Elfred's head was still couched at his hip. Four of them

- crunch', crunch, crunch', crunch - that broke Elfred's pretty little nose and put a matching strawberry on the eye Roberta had missed. He released him by thrusting a knee up and flipping him backward against his own front steps. When he landed., a rib cracked and Elfred screamed. His children and wife were standing in the doorway blubbering and crying, but Gabe worked on Elfred for another minute or so., hauling him to his feet time and again

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before Elfred's rubbery legs would finally no longer support him. Then Gabe dropped him like a used saddle, Elfred's limbs folding under him like stirrup straps while Gabe bent above him and rifled his vest pockets. He withdrew a cigar, nipped the end, spat_, struck a match with his thumbnail and puffed four stinking clouds of smoke into the lavender evening air before grabbing his prey by the hair and yanking his listless head back.

"One last thing, Elfred. An eye for an eye, a burn for a bum ... only let's not hide it. Let's put it where everyone will ask about it."

Elfred still had enough fear left to scream as the cigar coal approached the center of his moustache. In the end, Gabe's common sense reared up and stopped him when he'd only singed Elfred's moustache enough to ruin it.

"Ehh.5 you shit-sucking maggot," Gabriel said in disgust, flinging him aside and letting him fall as before, limbs crumpled in assorted directions, as Roberta's had been when Elfred took her down. Gabe stood over him, his adrenaline still pumping, his powerful carpenter's muscles scarcely taxed by the minute and a half of pulverizing the man who had preyed on women for years. "You had this coming for a long time, Elfred, and I'm happy to be the one to do it. Anybody wants to know where to find me, I'll be at home, waiting to testify as to why I ground you into chicken mash. You hear me, Elfred? The law asks, you send 'em my way.) He touched the brim of his floppy cap, which hadn't so much as shifted on his head, and bid,

"Evenin', Elfred," before turning to Roberta's car, whose engine was still running.

In his bedroom, after Gabe left, Roberta bathed herself inside and out, shuddering at times with recollection. She scrubbed her flesh until it hurt, unable to scour away the filthy feeling of Elfred's hands and male parts abusing her. Sometimes tears interrupted but she swiped at them angrily, unwilling to be bested by anyone as low and bestial as Elfred Spear.

Don't let me be pregnant, don't let me be pregnant, she begged in silence. Sometimes she mumbled the words, then catching herself at it, refused to be reduced to a demented heap of blubbering, and clamped her lips shut stubbornly.

Once she said aloud, clearly-, "Elfred, you'll pay! Mark my words, you'll pay!" little realizing Elfred already had.

When she had toweled dry, she donned Caroline Farley's maternity dress. It was tight across the bodice but it covered her and smelled of lavender from Caroline's bureau drawers. The shift Farley had given her was too short-bodied, so she left it folded on the bed, eschewing her own soiled underclothes, which she rolled in a ball and tied with the legs of her pantaloons. On the dresser top a comb and hand mirror lay, just as Caroline had left them. She removed what pins were left in her hair and combed it with stern strokes, sending bits of gravel ticking

onto the floor at her heels. While she combed, she studied Caroline's picture. A dainty rose of a woman, with every delicate feature a man could desire-, while in the mirror Roberta's own reflection showed broad cheekbones and bold features with little to recommend them, save strength, which most men disdained. Of that she had plenty. The comb moved through her hair almost defiantly, and when she'd finished, she laid it back on the crocheted dresser scarf and said, "Thank you3 Caroline. I'll do something nice for your daughter. How will that be?"

Then she sat on the chair to wait for Caroline's husband, who seemed to be taking terribly long. She had been there less than a minute when a fuzzy brown cat appeared from beneath the bed, said, "Mrr . . . " and jumped onto her lap.

She knew it by name, though they'd never met.

"Hello, Caramel," she said as it paused in a crouch, sniffing her chin, then circled and found a place next to her wad of clothing.

"Well ... so you're Caramel," she said, and lifted a hand to scratch the creature's neck. "What do you think is taking your master so long?"

When Gabe finally knocked, Roberta was dozing -with her chin on her chest.

"Roberta?" he called quietly, and her head bobbed up.

"Whmm?" she replied-, disoriented. "May I come in?"

"Oh, Gabriel ... yes ... yes, come in."

He opened the door partway and peered

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around it. The sun had set but Roberta had turned on no lamp. In the shadowed room she was only faintly sidelit from the one north window whose pane had turned violet. Her hair hung straight down her back. She'd stuck her bare feet into her white shoes, and held a roll of clothing on her lap, which was shared by Caramel, whose eyes squinted closed after identifying her master. Caroline's dress looked misplaced on Roberta's much broader shoulders, but he found himself ready to accept it there.

"I'm sorry," she said-, sitting up straighter. "I fell asleep."

He pushed the door against the wall and moved into the room where the smell of Ivory soap still lingered. "That's all right. That's good, actually. I worried that you might still be crying ... or scared ... something."

He paused at her knee and she looked up. "I've pretty much decided that tears and fright are worthless. What's done is done, and I'm not going to let myself be ruined by it."

"I hated leaving you alone, but I had to." "You've been very kind to me tonight, Gabriel. Kinder than you would have had to be, especially considering how badly it ended the last time we were together. "

He stood near her chair, looking down on her upturned face, wondering what was to become of the two of them.

"Here's your cap," he said.

When she reached for it, her hand paused. "Turn on the light, Gabriel."

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"Turn on the light."

He hid the hand behind his back, hat and all.

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"Your hand ... what have you done?31 "You know what I did. I beat the living daylights out of Elfred Spear."

"Oh, Gabriel." And after all the drying up she'd managed-, her eyes filled again. She dropped her head and put a hand to her face, trying to hide the evidence of her feelings for him, because once again this was not the time or the place to reveal them.

He settled into a squat at her knees and put the cap on the floor beside the chair. Rather than touch her, he touched the cat, rubbing its throat with one callused finger. "I'm sorry, Roberta-1 but I couldn't let it pass. Everybody's going to know now - your kids, Elfred's wife, his kids. But a bastard like that has got to be stopped sometime, and if I didn't do it-, who would?"

She nodded behind her hand and said_, "I know. It's just so unexpected ... your fighting for me. Nobody's ever fought for me. 15ve always had to fight for myself."

He reached out and put a big, bluff hand on her hair. He felt her silent weeping and went onto his knees, putting his other hand on her hair, too, drawing her forward till her forehead bumped his collarbone and his mouth rested on her mahogany hair.

They remained that way a long while. Until the window grew darker and Caramel woke up and found herself surrounded by too many

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people. Silently she leaped to the floor and padded off into the darkened house.

Then Gabriel whispered thickly, "I went out there to get your cap, and I found a button, too. And I saw the scuff marks in the gravel where he took you down, and so help me God, I wanted to go back to Elfred's house and finish him off. In all my life I've never wanted to harm anyone3 but tonight I want to kill Elfred. I believe if you'd ask me to-, I would."

Roberta pulled up her head and made out only the dim outline of Gabe's features. "How badly did you beat him?"

"Bad. I broke some bones."

110h-, Gabe. Do you think they will arrest you for it?"

"I don't know. It's a possibility. Either way, the whole town is gonna know."

She sighed and fell against the chair back, closing her eyes.

He sat back on his heels, close, but not touching her. "You thinking about your girls?" he asked.

"And yours and you. Because you know what everyone's going to say about me, don't you? I'm divorced. I must have asked for it." 11

"But I know the truth. I saw the evidence! "And you know what they'll say next., don't you? That I came to your house first. NWhat business did I have coming to the home of a single man in a state like that? Why didn't I go to my mother? But do you want to know why I didn't go to her? Because she'll say the same thing as all the rest. That it was my fault."

"No, Roberta ... she wouldn't. "

"Yes, she would. It's how she thinks. It's always the woman's fault."

He thought for a while, then said, "Roberta, I'm., sorry if I made it worse by beating him up.

She took pity on him and touched his collar. "It's all right, Gabriel. And if you stop to think about it, there is some rather exquisite sense of justice in knowing that Elfred's true character has come to light at last. After all, how can Grace ignore it now that it's right before her eyes?"

"But his girls know, too, and they don't deserve that. I shouldn't have done it in front of them. "

"No, Gabriel, you shouldn't have. But you did, and they, like all the rest of us, will just have to live with what they know about their father. Perhaps that will be the greatest penalty Elfred will pay - the loss of their respect and love."

"So you don't intend to let the law know what he did to you?"

She dropped her hand from his collar and slowly shook her head. "Absolutely not."

"1 didn't think so." He sighed and rose from his squat, towering above her again. "But it's so unfair. He should have to pay like any other criminal. "

"Gabriel, let's not talk about it anymore." It was full dark now and he saw only the faintest edge of her face as it lifted. "I'm very tired and I want to go home. "

"I'm going to take you."

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"No e girls -, please th

"The girls know what's up between us. We're not fooling them."

"What's up between us, Gabe I don't seem to know myself."

"You're tired., you said, and you've been through a lot. This isn't the time to get into that-, so hang on, Mrs. Jewett. I'm going to do something I've only done once before in my life5 on my wedding night."

A second later she was in his arms like a child on her way to bed.

"Gabriel, put me down. I'm not Caroline." "I know you're not Caroline. I've known that for quite some time5" he declared, heading for the stairs. "Turn on that light. The switch is down by your hip."

A moment later the switch snapped and the brightness made both of them squint as he carried her down the stairs.

4,You don't listen very wel15" she said, circling his neck with both arms3 for any other way the ride was awkward. "I said to put me down." "Heard you.,,

He took her through the kitchen and opened the screen door with her feet and went out into the starlight through the strong scent of roses.

"You just carried me under Caroline's rose arbor. 11

I'Ayup," he said.

"And if you drive my motorcar you'll have to walk back home."

I'Ayup," he said. "Done it before."

"And if anyone happens to be letting his cat

in for the night and sees us we'll both have to leave town-51

"Piss on 'em."

She couldn't help but smile; he was not his usual mild-mannered self tonight. He dropped her feet when they reached her car, and opened the passenger door for her, then slammed her inside. It took a minute for him to set the levers, light the headlamps and do the cranking. When he got in, he sat for a moment before putting the automobile in motion.

"Listen, Roberta. When you're feeling up to it, you and I should have a talk."

"About what?"

"About some of the things we said to each other the night of that clambake."