The Fiend (4 page)

Ed grinned. “And a phone number?”

“No. Not yet.”

“You gay old dog, you!”

“No. No, it's not like that actually—” Charlie stopped, real­izing suddenly that Ed wouldn't understand the truth, that there was a family at 319 Jacaranda Road who were neglecting their pretty little girl, Jessie.

Ed returned the matches. “Thanks, Charlie. And say, the old man's in a stew about something. You better check in at the front office.”

Warner was behind his desk, a small man almost lost in the welter of papers that surrounded him: order forms, invoices, sales slips, bills, correspondence. Some of this stuff would be filed, some would simply disappear. Warner had started the business forty years ago. It had grown and prospered since then, but Warner still tried to manage the place as if he per­sonally knew, as he once had, every customer by name, every order from memory. Many mistakes were made, and with each one, Warner got a little older and a little more stubborn. The business continued to make money, however, because it was the only one of its kind in San Félice.

Charlie stood in the doorway, trying to hold his head high, the way Ben kept telling him to. But it was difficult, and Mr. Warner wasn't watching anyway. He had the telephone perched on his left shoulder like a crow. The crow was talking, loud and fast, in a woman's voice.

Mr. Warner put his hand over the mouthpiece and looked at Charlie. “You know anything about some skeletons?”

“Skeletons?” The word emerged from Charlie's throat as if it had been squeezed out of shape by some internal pressure. Then he went dumb entirely. He couldn't even tell Mr. Warner that he was innocent, he had done nothing, he knew nothing about any skeletons. He could only shake his head back and forth again and again.

“What's the matter with you?” Warner said irritably. “I mean those life-size cardboard skeletons we have in stock around Halloween. Some woman claims she ordered a dozen for a pathologists' convention dance that's being held tomorrow night.” Then into the telephone, “I can't find any record of your order, Miss Johnston, but I'll check again. I promise you you'll get your skeletons even if I, ha ha, have to shoot a couple of my employees. Yes, I'll call you back.” He hung up, turning his attention to Charlie. “And believe me, I meant everything but the ha ha. Now let's start searching.”

Charlie was so dizzy with relief that he had to hold on to the doorjamb to steady himself. “Yes, sir. Right away. If I knew exactly what to search for—”

“A package from Whipple Novelty in Chicago.”

“That came in this morning, Mr. Warner.”

“It did? Well, I'll be damned.” Warner looked pleasantly sur­prised, like a man who doesn't expect or deserve good news. “Well, I hand it to you, Charlie. You're getting to know the business. I ask for skeletons, you produce skeletons.”

“No. No, I—”

“I saw you at the drive-in the other night, by the way. You were with a nice-looking young woman. Funny thing, I could have sworn I've seen her before. Maybe she's one of our cus­tomers, eh?”

“No, sir. She works at the library, in the reference depart­ment.”

“That explains it, then,” Warner said. “So she's a librarian, eh? She must be pretty smart.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It pays to have a smart wife.”

“No, no. She's not—I mean, we're not—”

“Don't fight it, Charlie. We all get hooked sooner or later.”

Charlie would have liked to stay and explain to Mr. Warner about his relationship with Louise, but Mr. Warner had picked up the phone and was dialing, and Charlie wasn't sure he could explain it anyway.

He felt sometimes that he had known Louise all his life and at other times that he didn't know her at all. In fact, he had met her about a year ago at the library. Charlie was there at Ben's insistence: “You don't want to be a stock boy forever, Charlie. I bet there are careers you never even heard about. One of them might be just down your alley but you've got to investigate, look around, find out what's available.”

And so, night after night, Charlie went to the library and read books and magazines and trade journals about electronics, photography, turkey farming, real estate, personnel management, mining engineering, cartooning, forestry, interior design, cabinet-making, raising chinchillas, mathematics. He barely noticed the woman who helped him locate some of this material until one night she said, “My goodness, you certainly have a wide range of interests, Mr. Gowen.”

Charlie merely stared at her, shocked by the sudden attention and the fact that she even knew his name. He thought of a library as a warm, safe, quiet place where people hadn't any names or faces or problems. The woman had no right to spoil it, no right—

But the next time he went, he wore a new shirt and tie, and a very serious expression which befitted a man with a wide range of interests. He took out an imposing book on archi­tecture and sat with it open on the table in front of him and watched Louise out of the corner of his eye as if he had never seen a woman before and wasn't sure what to expect from the strange creature.

He guessed, from the way her colleagues deferred to her, that she was head of the department and so must be at least in her late twenties. But she had a tiny figure like a girl's with the merest suggestion of hips and breasts, and her movements were quick and light as if she weighed scarcely anything at all. Every time Charlie caught her glancing at him, something ex­panded inside of him. He felt larger and stronger.

He was only vaguely aware that it was getting late and people were leaving the library.

Louise came from behind the desk and approached the table where he was sitting. “I hate to disturb you, Mr. Gowen, but we're getting ready to lock up.”

Charlie rose awkwardly to his feet. “I'm terribly sorry, I didn't notice. I—I was absorbed.”

“You must have great powers of concentration to study in a noisy place like this.”

“No. No, I really haven't.”

“I wish I could let you take this book home but it's from the reference shelves and isn't allowed out. Unless, of course, there are special circumstances—”

“No. No, there aren't.” Charlie hung his head and stared down at the floor. He could almost feel Ben behind him, telling him to square his shoulders and keep his head up and look proud. “I mean, I'm not an architect or anything. I don't know anything about architecture.”

He hadn't planned on telling her this, or, in fact, talking to her at all. He'd intended to let her think he was a man of some background and education, a man to be respected. Now he could hear his own voice ruining everything, and he was powerless to stop it.

“Not a thing,” he added.

“Neither do I,” Louise said cheerfully. “Except about this building, and here I qualify as an expert. I can predict just where the roof will be leaking, come next January.”

“You can? Where?”

“The art and music department. You see, last year it was the children's wing, they patched that up. And the year before, it was here, practically above my desk. So next time it's art and music's turn.”

“I'll have to come back in January and find out if you were right.”

There was a brief silence; then Louise said quietly, “That sounds as if you're going away some place. Will you be gone long, Mr. Gowen?”

“No.”

“We'll miss you.”

“No. I mean, I must have given you the wrong impression. I'm not going anywhere.”

“You didn't give me the wrong impression, Mr. Gowen. I simply jumped to a wrong conclusion. My dad says I'm always doing it. I'm sorry.”

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn't go anywhere.”

Charlie could feel Ben behind him again:
Stop downgrading yourself, Charlie. Give people a chance to see your good side before you start blabbing. You've got to put up a front, develop a sense of self-preservation.

“In fact,” Charlie said, “I can't even leave the county without special permission.”

Louise smiled, thinking it was a joke. “From whom?”

“From my parole officer.”

He didn't wait to see her reaction. He just turned and walked away, stumbling a little over his own feet like an adolescent not accustomed to his new growth.

For the next three nights he stayed home, reading, watching television, playing cards with Ben. He knew Ben was suspicious and Charlie tried to allay the suspicion by talking a lot, reminis­cing about their childhood, repeating jokes and stories he heard at work.

Ben wasn't fooled. “How come you don't go to the library any more, Charlie?”

“I've been a little tired this week.”

“You don't act tired.”

“A man needs a change now and then. I've been getting into a rut spending every night at the library.”

“You call this a nonrut?” Ben gestured around the room. Since their mother's death nothing in the house had been moved. It was as if the chairs and tables and lamps were permanently riveted in place. “Listen, Charlie, if anything happened, I have a right to know what it was.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm your older brother and I'm responsible for you.”

“No. No, you're not,” Charlie said, shaking his head. “I'm responsible for myself. You keep telling me to grow up. How can I, with you breathing down my neck? You won't allow me to do anything on my own.”

“I won't allow you to make a fool of yourself if I can help it.”

“Well, you can't help it. It's over. It's done.” Charlie began pacing up and down the room, his arms crossed on his chest in a despairing embrace. “I made a fool of myself and I don't care, I don't give a damn.”

“Tell me about it, Charlie.”

“No.”

“You'd better. If it's not too serious I may be able to cover up for you.”

“I keep uncovering and you keep covering up. Back and forth, seesaw, where will it end?”

“That's up to you.”

Charlie paused at the window. It was dark outside, he could see nothing on the street, only himself filling the narrow window frame like a painting that had gotten beyond control of the artist and outgrown its canvas. A layer of greasy film on the glass softened his image. He looked like a very young man, broad-shouldered, slim-waisted, with a lock of light brown curly hair falling over his forehead and twin tears rolling down his cheeks.

Ben saw the tears, too. “My God, what have you done this time?”

“I—I ruined something.”

“You sound surprised,” Ben said bitterly, “as if you didn't know that ruining things was your specialty in life.”

“Don't. Don't nag. Don't preach.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Charlie told him, while Ben sat in the cherrywood rocking chair that had belonged to his mother, rocking slowly back and forth the way she used to when she was worried over Charlie.

“I don't know why I said it, Ben, I just don't
know.
It popped out, like a burp. I had no control over it, don't you under­stand?”

“Sure, I understand.” Ben said wearily. “I understand you've got to put yourself in a bad light. Whenever things are going all right you've got to open your big mouth and wreck them. Who knows? This woman might have become interested in you, a nice relationship might have developed. God help you, you could use a friend. But no, no, you couldn't keep your trap shut long enough even to find out her name. . . . Don't you
want
a friend, Charlie?”

“Yes.”

“Then why in hell do you do these things?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, it's over with, it's finished. There's not much use dis­cussing it.” Ben rose, heavily, from the rocking chair. “I sup­pose this means you won't be going to the library anymore?”

“I can't.”

“You could if you wanted to. If it were me, I'd just sail in there one of these nights with a smile on my face and pretend the whole thing was a joke.”

“She knew it wasn't a joke.”

“How can you be sure? You said you turned and walked out. If you didn't stick around to watch her reaction, you can't tell what it was. She might have gotten a big laugh out of it, for all you know.”

“Stop it, Ben. It's no use.”

“It's no use always looking on the black side, either. You're a good-looking man, Charlie. A woman could easily flip over you if you gave her a chance. If you held your head up, squared your shoulders, if you thought white instead of black for a change, if you put on a front—”

Charlie knew all the ifs, including the one that was never spoken: If you got married, Charlie, some of your weight would be lifted off my back.

The following afternoon, when Charlie got home from work, there was a letter waiting for him, propped up against the sugar bowl on the kitchen table. Charlie received few letters and he would have liked to sit with it in his hands for a few minutes, wondering, examining the small neat handwriting. But Ben came out of the bedroom where he had changed from his good gabardine suit into jeans and T-shirt.