Vanish in an Instant (14 page)

“If you knew Earl—how good he is, this deep feeling of love inside of him. But he gave it all to her. Never saw her as she was, a hard exshperienced woman. The day he got the divorce papers she sent him from Nevada he sat in his room. All day, just sat, looking out the window. You'd think he expected her to walk past. Well, she didden walk past. She coulden. She was in Nevada. Issen at right? Eh?”

“I suppose so.”

“You bet it's right. And good ridushe to bad rubbish. Go, I told her. Go.” She pointed toward the door with ma­jestic dignity. “Go! And she went. She . . .” Her hand fell to her side. “You go too. I'm tired. You go home.”

“I will in a minute. Have you heard from Birdie since she left?”

“No.”

“Has Earl?”

“Has Earl? What has Earl?”

Meecham said patiently, “Did she write to Earl?”

“She coulden write her own name. Ignorant, under­stand? Ignorant. Whyn't you go home?”

“I'm going.” He picked up his coat and the package of letters. He stripped the brown paper from the package. Inside, there were about fifty or sixty letters, arranged, as far as Meecham could tell, in order of date. They were addressed to Earl Loftus in writing that was large and hesi­tant, like a school child's. “
Tell her to reread them
” Loftus had said, and then he'd changed his mind: “
No, don't tell her anything.
”

One of the envelopes was blank and new, and heavier than the others. Meecham put it in his pocket. He felt a kind of helpless anger against Loftus for giving him the re­sponsibility of delivering the money, and against Mrs. Lof­tus, fumbling around in her twilit world where money could buy only one thing, darkness.

The old lady had closed her eyes, and her head had sunk like a tortoise's into the worn fur collar of her coat.

“Mrs. Loftus, listen to me for a minute.”

“Whyn't you go home?”

“These are your letters. I'm leaving them here on the table. I have some money for you too. I'll give it to the Garinos to take care of. The fact is that you were right about Earl. He is in trouble. You'll be hearing about it very soon anyway. If it will make it easier for you I'll tell you myself right now. . . . Mrs. Loftus? Hey, Mrs. Loftus!”

The old lady let out a delicate snore. Darkness had been bought.

Cursing under his breath, Meecham put on his coat, turned out the ceiling light and went into the hall. Mrs. Garino was just coming up the steps from her apartment in the basement. She looked pale and calm, like the sea after a storm. She was carrying a metal tray with a pot of coffee on it and a sandwich cut daintily into diamonds and gar­nished with a radish rose.

“She's asleep,” Meecham said.

“I can wake her. She has to eat.”

“She should be in a hospital.”

“You know what that means, getting commitment papers for her as a habitual drunk. The booby hatch, that's what it means,” s
he said bitterly. “Did you give her the money you brought?”

“No.”

“How much is it?”

“Over seven hundred dollars.”

“Where would Earl get that kind of money?”

“He sold his car,” Meecham said. “And a few other things.”

“But Earl knows his mother. It's not reasonable for him to sell his things and send her a lot of money in a lump sum like that. He knows what she'd do with it.”

“He wanted her to take the money and leave town for a while, go on a little holiday.”

“A holiday, where?”

“Hasn't she any relatives she can visit?”

“Oh, for heaven's sake, Mr. Meecham. I mean, if she was your relative would you invite her for a visit? Earl must be crazy. A
holiday
. He must be . . .”

“About this money,” Meecham said. “I don't want to keep it. I hardly know Loftus, he isn't my client and I'm not taking any fee for this trip.”

She was watching him suspiciously. “You must have had some reason for coming.”

“Put it down to curiosity. Anyway I came, I accom­plished nothing. . . .”

“You found her and brought her home. That's a lot and I'm grateful.
But
I know what you're going to say about the money and the answer is no. I won't keep it for her.”

“It was just a passing thought,” Meecham said dryly.

“Why should I keep it—and dole it out to her in dimes and quarters, have her come wheedling . . .? No. I won't. Take it back to Earl. Or send it to her a little at a time so at least she won't starve.”

“Is her rent paid?”

“Up to the new year.”

“I'll pay you for January then, and give you some extra to keep her in food.”

“Earl pays her rent.”

“He won't be paying it from now on.”

“Why? What's happened?”

Meecham told her, while she stood resting the tray on the railing of the banister. She didn't express shock and incre­dulity as he expected her to and as the other people had who knew Loftus.

When he had finished she said, quietly, “Did you tell
her
?”

“I tried to. She went to sleep.”

“It's just as well.”

“She has to know sometime. It's probably written up in your own newspaper tonight.”

“Maybe. I haven't looked at it yet.” She sighed and turned away. “I'll tell her myself, tomorrow.”

“She may take it hard.”

“You think so, do you? Well, you're wrong. She's not human any more. She's like one of those things you see at a carnival, pickled in a bottle. I don't know why I try to keep her alive.” She looked down at the tray grimly. “I don't know why.”

Meecham took a hundred dollars out of the envelope, and put it on the tray.

“I'll give you a receipt,” Mrs. Garino said. “If you'll wait a minute.”

“That won't be necessary.”

“It's a funny way to do business.”

“This isn't exactly business.” It's not business, he thought, it's life; and it's not money that's involved, but human beings. The dainty sandwich with its radish rose couldn't have been bought for a thousand dollars.

15

The following
morning
Meecham reached his office a little after ten o'clock. The secretary whose services he shared with the two senior partners in the firm was be­hind her typewriter, a thin, stringy-haired, vivacious girl with glasses.

She looked at him with highly exaggerated surprise. “My goodness, it's Mr. Meecham. I hardly recognized you, it's been so long.”

“I'm a little too tired for banter this morning, Mrs. Christy.”

“Wild night?”

“Pretty wild.”

“At your age. Well. Here's the score board. Mr. Cran­ston is howling mad because his wife bought an antique highboy, and Mr. Post just went home with a migraine be­cause the Doretto case has been dismissed. And there's a girl waiting in your office, a blonde.”

“Who's the girl?”

“A Miss Dwyer. She's been waiting nearly an hour. I gave her a copy of
Fortune
to read. She looked like the in­tellectual type.”

“She's not.”

He opened the opaque glass door of his office. It had his name on it, Eric J. Meecham, in firm black letters, and whenever he saw it he felt a little firmer himself, sharp and clear around the edges.

His office was small and overfurnished, but it had a wide window with a leather-covered seat as long as a couch, where you could sit and watch the street, five stories below, or the sky, a stone's throw away.

Alice was watching the street, her chin cupped in her hand. The morning sun had turned her hair to tinsel, and Meecham wondered whether she bleached it a little. The thought of the small deception pleased him. It seemed to him charming and feminine for a woman to improve on nature.

“Hello.”

She jumped in surprise at the sound of his voice and made a motion to get up.

“No, don't move,” Meecham said. “You look pretty.”

“Do I?”

“I should hire you to come and sit there by the hour.”

She gazed at him, unsmiling. “I wish you wouldn't say smooth things to me.”

“Why not?”

“It puts me off, makes me feel that you're ordinary. Any­one can be smooth, it's just words.”

“You're cross because I kept you waiting.”

“I guess,” she said. “A little.”

He sat down beside her on the window seat. “You shouldn't be.”

“I kept
listening
for you so hard, I—well, that's a bad sign, isn't it?”

“Very bad.”

He took both her hands and held them against his chest. They looked down at the street together, remote and se­rene, like angels on a cloud.

Alice stirred finally. “Naturally it isn't going to work out.”

“Naturally. What isn't?”

“You know. Even if you feel the same way as I do. Every­thing's against it. I don't like the town and the climate's ter­rible and I'm so far from home. And then you're not very young any more and they say the older a man gets the less adjustable he is to marriage. Naturally it won't work out.”

“Naturally.”

“You don't have to keep repeating that word.”

“I'm agreeing with you. You're such a sensible young woman, I have to. Of course, there are a few other points you didn't mention. You can't cook, for one thing. And you bleach your hair.”

“How did you know? Anyway, just a little bit.”

“Also my great-uncle James was a crackpot. I don't own a house. I haven't much money, and . . .”

“Oh,
Meecham.
”

“Have I forgotten anything?”

“
Oh, Meecham, I
love
you.”

“At this point I think I might kiss you, if I didn't have one foot in the grave.”

“I didn't say you had one foot in the grave. I said you weren't very young and adjustable and . . .”

“I accept the apology.”

He took her in his arms and kissed her for a long time, feeling that he had never kissed a girl before, it was so strange and perfect.

She looked very solemn. “I will love you forever, Mee­cham.”

“You'd better. . . . Are you happy?”

She shook her head.

“Well, for Christ's sake,” he said helplessly. “Why not?”

“I'm just not, that's all. I feel awful.”

“Well, for . . .”

“I can't help it. All that sweet stuff that's been written about love, and this is how
I
feel, just plain awful. I ache, and my insides are hollow as if I could eat forever, only nothing fills me up and the sight of food makes me sick. I'll probably starve to death. I'm too thin anyway.”

“No, you're not. You're perfect.”

“No. I don't have enough of a
figure
, you know?”

“I have a rough idea.”

“I look terrible in a strapless evening gown. I tried one on in a store once. My collarbones project.”

“I happen to be very fond of projecting collarbones,” he said. “It's a regular complex.”

“You know what I mean. I'd like to be perfect for you. I'd like myself to be perfect and things to be perfect.”

“If you and things were perfect, you wouldn't look twice at me.”

“Oh, I
would
,” she said passionately. “I couldn't help it.”

“The town isn't so bad. There are worse climates, and you could always go home for visits.”

“I know.”

“We can work things out. Things don't work themselves out.”

She looked up at him, still pale and still solemn. “On top of everything else, you're nice, aren't you?”

“Sometimes I think so. Not often.”

“The climate—people get used to it, don't they? And I bet it's pretty in the spring, isn't it?”

“Very pretty.”

“With little green sprouts and buds coming out all over. I think I'll like that part of it very much.”

“I think you will.”

“Anyway, I don't feel quite so hollow anymore.”

“That's good.” He lifted her tinseled hair and kissed the soft nape of her neck. Standing there, with his mouth against her skin, he felt that he loved all women because he loved Alice.

“We've never even had a date together,” she said. “Isn't that funny, Meecham?”

“Yes.”

“We haven't had a chance to fall in love. How did it happen? How
could
it have happened?”

“If I knew I'd go out and tell the world.”

The buzzer on his desk sounded, harsh and sudden, like an alarm clock disturbing a dreamer.

He reached over and turned on the switch. “Yes?”

“There's a Mrs. Hamilton on the phone,” Mrs. Christy said. “Do you want to talk to her?”

“No, but I will.”

“O.K., go ahead.”

He turned off the switch and reached for the telephone. Alice put her hand on his arm to stop him. “Did she say—Mrs.
Hamilton
?”

“Yes.”

“Tell her I'm not here. Tell her you haven't seen me or heard from me.”

“All right, if that's what you want me to say.” He picked up the phone. “Hello.”

“Mr. Meecham, this is Mrs. Hamilton. How are you?”

“Fine. And you?”

“I'm fine too. Everything is.” She sounded so falsely cheerful that he wondered if anything at all was fine. “We seem to have a bad connection, Mr. Meecham. Will you talk louder?”

“All right.”

“The fact is, I'm a little concerned about something. I suppose it's absurd to worry about a sensible girl like Alice. But then it's sometimes the sensible ones who do and say silly things, isn't it?”

“Sometimes.”

“Have you seen her this morning?”

“No, I haven't.” He looked across the desk at Alice. She was sitting on the window seat again not watching the street, but watching him, her eyes wide and anxious. He smiled at her reassuringly but she didn't smile back. “What reason have you to worry, Mrs. Hamilton?”

“Pe
rhaps I haven't any reason. I'm not sure. She's acting peculiarly.”

“In what way?”

“It's hard to . . . well, I think she's avoiding me. This morning, for instance, she left the house, without breakfast, without saying a word to anyone. She disappeared, in fact.”

“She's probably downtown shopping.”

“Then why didn't she tell me where she was going? Surely that would have been the natural thing to do? I was right there, having breakfast with Virginia and Paul in the dining room, and Alice went past the door and that's the last I saw of her. It seems odd, doesn't it?”

“Everything seems odd until it's explained.”

“Outside of the family, you're the only person she knows in town. I had the notion that she would come to you, if something was—if she had anything on her mind.”

“What would be on her mind?”

“I haven't the slightest idea.” It was a positive yet some­how unconvincing statement.

“She might come here. If she does, I'll let you know.”

“Thank you. You realize that I'm very fond of Alice, she's a very dear girl.” She paused. It was a significant pause, Meecham thought, and he waited for the
but
. It came. “But I didn't hire her to go running off like this.”

She emphasized the word
hire
quite carefully, as if to put Alice in her place, through Meecham. Meecham resented her tone, but stronger than his resentment was his feeling that Mrs. Hamilton was a desperate woman fighting with her back to the wall against shadows that Meecham couldn't see and shapes he didn't recognize. He thought of Mrs. Loftus in her twilit world where everything was shadow, and shapes were molten and confused. The two women had nothing in common but despair. Yet it seemed that some­where, at some point, their separate worlds had collided like wandering planets, and one had lost part of itself and the other had cracked through the middle.

“Mr. Meecham, are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“You'll let me know for sure then, if Alice turns up?”

“I'll let you know. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Meecham.”

Meecham replaced the telephone on his desk, and looked at it thoughtfully, then moved it half an inch to the right. “You could have told her you were going shopping.”

“I didn't want to face her.”

“Why not?”

“I don't trust her any more. She's changed.”

“That's why you came here, to tell me she's changed?”

“No.” Alice turned and looked down at the busy street. “A man came to see her last night. I saw him, and I think she knows I saw him.”

“Who was it?”

“I don't know. But I'm sure she didn't want me to see him, that the meeting was to be a secret.”

“How did you get in on it?”

“I heard a knock on the front door, not the chime, just a short knock, like a signal. I'd been in my room lying in bed, sort of thinking things over. When I heard the knock I got up to answer it because I—well, I thought it might be you. That's another bad sign, isn't it? Every time the phone rings or there's a knock on the door or footsteps on the side­walk, every time a car stops I think it might be you.”

“That's the worst yet,” he said, smiling. “Go on.”

“I put on my robe and slippers and went down the hall. I got as far as the corner where the hall bends and then I heard voices. I looked around the corner and saw Mrs. Hamilton standing at the door talking to a man, a stranger. I don't know why but I suddenly felt furtive. I wasn't spying or eavesdropping, I couldn't even hear what they were saying. But I had the feeling that the meeting was wrong somehow and the man shouldn't have been there at that time of night.”

“What time?”

“Nearly eleven.”

“Where was the rest of the household?”

“Carney sleeps out, and the cook was in her room. . . . She has a television set and hardly ever leaves it. And Vir­ginia went with Paul to a movie. The celebration dinner had been kind of a flop. Virginia was terribly nervous so someone suggested a movie.”

“Which someone?”

“I think Mrs. Hamilton mentioned it first. Virginia agreed that it was a good idea, and she invited me to go along. It was very—thoughtful of her, wasn't it?”