The End of the Pier (22 page)

From a dark brown leather armchair with a very high back came the voice of Maurice Brett: “You and Billy make a good pair.” His face and hand appeared around the edge of the chair, the smoke pluming across them. “It's a relief you've caught us non-in flagrante delicto.” His smile was ruthlessly charming, but still a smile in smoke.

“Sorry I interrupted.”

Eva Bond said to Chad's departing back, “Stay, please.” It sounded like a command, although he didn't think she meant it that way. “And please shut up, Maurice.”

She still sat perfectly straight, hands interlocked, and would have appeared to be some sort of high-powered executive except for the gown. She motioned to the leather sofa. “Won't you sit down?” She smiled. “It's all right.”

Chad wasn't sure whether she meant Chad's wetness or Brett's presence.

“Incidentally, sorry about my crass behavior,” said Brett, who was nothing of the sort.

“All right.” Chad refused to look at him.

“I expect you think I'm a bit of a rat.”

Chad said nothing. The leather arm of the sofa was glistening and supple. It reminded him of Bethanne's skin.

“. . . and make a better offer. A thousand?” Brett was waving his hand slowly, bills wedged between the fingers. “Just what you need, I believe, old sport?”

Chad felt as cold as he had in the lake. “I don't need anything.”

“But your mum might. Oh, sit down, for lord's sake. How do I know about the money? I see the question in your eyes. I know it from Bethanne, of course. Funny, she thought it rather charming: someone who couldn't be bought. That's a bit of a giggle, considering. So you still think I'm trying to blackmail you?”

“No,” said Zero's mother. “No. You're trying to control him. Why don't you get out, Maurice?”

“Actually, I'm trying to help the poor boy.” Brett rose and went swiftly to the table. He wheeled the telephone around. “Go ahead, call your mother.”

Chad wasn't sure why he even answered the man. “She won't be there.”

Brett checked his watch. “Good God, man, it's after one. Are you afraid to wake her up?”

“I mean, she won't be in the house.” Chad looked down to hide a flicker of a smile. “She'll be on the pier.”

Brett's eyebrows went up. “Where do you live—Atlantic City? Does she gamble?”

“She'll be on the end of the pier.” Chad said it again.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Nothing to you.”

Brett moved back to his chair, repocketed the money, which had never left his hand, lit another cigarette. “What in bloody hell are you kids up to? Take Billy, now . . .”

Eva Bond had risen, her fingers splayed over the top of the desk, her head down. “Leave.” Her eyes were riveted on Maurice Brett.

“Of course, darling. It's just this one little thing. Billy—Zero, as you call him—good name—put on more than his usual magnificent performance.” He turned to Chad. “What was that all about?”

“Zero's a performer. He's an act, a clown, a nice guy. You wouldn't notice the last. You don't have any children is my guess.”

“Thank. God. No.” Each word dropped like a stone, and blood rushed to his face.

He's furious, thought Chad. At least there's something beneath that air of condescension.

“Because,” Brett went on, “he enjoys humiliating his mother.” He paused.

Chad thought that might be more difficult than Brett imagined. “Mr. Brett—”

“Ah! Do I hear a note of respect?”

“No. What I'd like to know is, what're
you
up to? Goodbye.”

That, he thought, was one hell of an apology to his hostess. He shivered as he climbed the stairs.

Zero was lying on the bed in another Ralph Lauren room, wearing a silk robe and supple leather slippers, lying there with his hands behind his neck and staring at the ceiling. It looked almost as if he were back there floating on the lake.

The room was dim, the recessed lighting casting watery shadows along the walls and ceiling.

“You look like hell,” said Zero, his eyes trained on the wardrobe. “Have some clothes.”

“Your dad needs your credit cards.”

Zero rolled over. “For fuck's sake, are they still at that stupid game? ‘Diners, American Express, Lloyds Visa.' ” Zero mimicked his father's voice as his little finger made a motion of knocking ash from an invisible cigar. “I've got an Exxon card; I ditched the others, I get so sick of hearing the names. You know how
they pay up at the end of the night? Anything over, say, seven hundred—which is the kind of cash they carry to parties—anything over gets charged. Pops has one of those charge machines. And those chips? Cloak room, hat check—beyond that, don't ask me how it works. You should watch them shoot pool.”

Zero swung his legs to the floor. “Might as well go back to the party. Who's Bethanne with?”

“Last time I saw her she was with your best friend. That red-haired dude.”

Zero gave him an oddly sad look. “You're my best friend, kid. Was she upright? Prone?”

“They were in the swimming pool.”

Zero closed the door of the wardrobe, hiked his legs into some loose-looking pants. Italian, Chad thought. Armani? Ferenzi?

He tucked a shirt into them and pulled on a jacket, loose like the pants. “Open that chest, will you—bottom drawer. I need a scarf.”

The bureau was directly behind Chad's wing chair. He leaned around and pulled out the drawer. There must have been two dozen of them. The white silk scarves glittered in the uneven light. Chad pulled one out and tossed it to Zero. Why had he thought Zero had only one, since he always wore it and it always looked fresh?

“Thanks.” Zero draped the scarf around his neck, said, “Come over here, will you?” He'd opened the other side of the chest, both doors with beveled mirrors, and was stooped down, looking at the shoes. “Take a look. I've got a couple of pairs of Docksiders in here that I hardly ever wear. I think they're two different sizes, because Eva did the buying and she didn't know what size shoe I wore. Could she pick me out of a lineup, do you think?” For a moment, Zero was silent. “Try 'em on.”

“Thanks, but no.”

“What in the
fuck
are you talking about? It was
my
fault you lost the shoes.”

“You didn't know the boat would go down. You didn't plan to go for a swim.”

Zero dropped the shoes on the floor. “For fuck's sake, why the argument? Here are two pairs of the damned shoes, and I know one will fit you, Cinderella, because it's a size too big for me. I never wear them
anyway.”

Why
was
he arguing? He didn't know. “I'll find them.”

“They're at the bottom of the fucking lake, dude.” Zero was leaning against the wardrobe, arms folded, toeing the Docksiders around. “Now I guess you want the scuba-diving equipment.”

Chad sat up. “You have some?”

“You're nuts, kid. You're crazier than I am. No, I don't have any. But I'm sure there's some around. Pop, or his cronies, probably they have some. Send them down to look. They'd love it. Look, what is it about these shoes?”

Chad shrugged. “They're just part of something else.”

“The something else must really be worth hearing about.” By now Zero had flopped back on the bed again, reached over and opened the door of a walnut bedside table that was really a small refrigerator. He yanked out a beer and tossed it to Chad. “Go on.”

“With what?”

“The something else, of course. Whatever it is that's set you on this fucking search for a certain pair of shoes.”

Chad avoided an answer by asking, “Where's Casey?”

“Probably in her room, reinventing the guillotine.”

There was no delay between the knock on the door and the door's bursting open.

As if she had been called, she had come. Casey stood in the backlit doorway, in silhouette, and in the same black dress, her hair still straggling with water and bits of weed.

“Guess she finished,” said Zero. “You don't look too good, either. Where've
you
been?”

“Downstairs, being polite. People are leaving.”

“Good. I can get undressed again.”

“You could at least go down,” she said with no special interest.
Still she lingered, her hand twisting the doorknob. Then she said, “I'm dying.”

Zero, who'd been about to hit the intercom, turned swiftly and stared at her. He dropped his head back on the pillow. “Again?”

She didn't move into the room. Chad leaned forward, but he couldn't see the expression on her face. Her voice sounded pretty deadly, though.

“I'm dying. If you think it's so fucking funny—”

“Stop talking like that.” Zero threw his arm across his face.

“You
do it all the time. What kind of role model are you?”

“As good as you'll get around here. What is it this time?”

“You don't care I'm dying.”

“The last time was when you wanted to go to the stag party the night before graduation.”

“I bet you showed blue movies.” Casey picked a weed from her hair.

“Snuff films.”

“You're disgusting.”

“You seemed to forget you were ten and we were all twenty-one. That time it was . . . yes, rheumatoid arthritis, and you were walking with two canes.”

“I was in great pain,” she said stiffly.

“Because you fell off that damned horse out there even Kent Desormeaux would be afraid to get up on. Then you were dying from what you called ‘subliminal hematoma.' It's ‘subdural,' incidentally.”

“I had an accident and hit my head and it was months before I knew it. Don't you remember how woozy I was? All right, I'm dying, but you don't care. When you see me floating by the bank just like
she
did, you'll be very, very sorry.”

Zero yawned. “Yeah. Well, I'm sorry in advance. So when it happens you'll know I was sorry.”

“First I'll have to go insane.” The voice was angry but lilting—probably her version of a crazed voice.

“I hope I'm around for that. So what're you dying of this time?” There was a hesitation. “AIDS.”

•  •  •

They were still at it, the bowl and pitcher replenished, the three holes in the credit-card deck apparently filled.

In the few moments it had taken Chad to get downstairs, he had made a decision. He was leaving tomorrow (today, really); he was going back to La Porte, even if he had to hitchhike; he was quitting school, at least for a year. And he was moving in with his mom. Or at least, if that felt too dependent, maybe he could find a room in Hebrides and save up money painting houses for a year.

And during those moments a running stream of guilt simply dried up. But it was replaced, fed by another spring, another stream. Now he felt guilty about Zero, of all people. That he was letting him down.

His hand was in his back pocket, feeling for the hundred dollars he had saved for the trip. His mother had given him a twenty (“in case you have to tip the servants”).

The ring of faces looked up at him, smiling. Chad smiled back. They seemed as happy as the dwarfs when Snow White came to call. Then he looked at the big Waterford bowl, the pool of water forming; and then directly across at Mr. Bond, twisting his upraised credit cards in a little wave.

“Deal me in.”

•  •  •

Chad had three Waterford-pitcher martinis; bluffed Mr. Sardinia's AmEx flush with only a pair of Dinerses; beat out Brandon's pair of Lloydses with three Visas.

When one of the Bonds' servants touched his shoulder and said Mrs. Bond would like to see him in the library, Chad was sitting with two hundred and fifteen dollars in assorted cloak-room chips from Pierre's, the Four Seasons, and Au Pied de Cochon in Paris.

And he still hadn't figured out the rules.

E
va Bond was standing at the French window behind the desk, staring at nothing. Nothing, as far as Chad could see, but dark panes of glass.

“I was afraid you might be losing,” she said.

“I'm sure they wouldn't have allowed that.” He smiled.

She was wearing a lightweight coat in a sour shade of cream that was plain to the point of cheapness. It was a coat that she might have pulled off the rack of the old Hebrides Emporium, a small department store, now shut, where everything looked thin, poor, and out of fashion, even the salespeople, even the very walls. Chad had gone there several years ago to buy his mother a birthday present. There had been only two or three customers, yet the manager and the clerks didn't seem to notice that business had fallen off. The manager wore a boutonniere—a white carnation. The salesladies all wore crisp white collars of linen or lace, and no jewelry. In the cool, dark store, as he went from counter to counter (scarves, gloves, glassware and china), they spoke softly and pleasantly, handling their cheap goods as if they had been silk and Sevres.

He had bought a scarf first. Then a pair of brown cotton gloves that the saleslady had brought out from the display case among other pairs, each contained in its plastic box. Then a long-stemmed glass in the china and glassware section. The woman there had not appeared to think it odd at all that he was purchasing only one glass. Each item had been wrapped slowly and carefully, almost venerably, in tissue while each of the salesladies talked in low tones of the weather, and college, and La Porte.

The store was dark and cool, and exiting to a sun-blanched pavement gave him a shock.

He felt anxious and sad—anxious because he had spent all of the money on things his mother never used. She didn't wear gloves or nylon scarves. And he had realized when the glass had been deposited in its box, closed with a white Emporium seal, that it was not, after all, a martini glass but a champagne glass. Yet to return it, to hand it back to the pleasant woman in the white collar, was unthinkable, just as the sadness he felt when he looked back at the store was unspeakable. It looked doomed.