Westlake, Donald E - Novel 41 (12 page)

 
          
 
"Janice Shale," she said. Her voice
was low, pleaisandy melodious. She was wearing normal office clothing, a gray
plain skirt and white plain blouse.

 
          
 
"You've worked here how long?"

           
 
"Three years." She was answering
readily
enough,
with no hesitations, but deep in her
eyes he could see she was frightened, and wary.

 
          
 
"Mister Cartwright won't tell us why he
wants to kill himself," he began. "He's asked to speak to his wife,
but she refuses to leave home
— "
He detected a
tightening of her lips when he said that.
Disapproval of Mrs.
Cartwright?
He went on.
" —
which we
haven't told him yet. He doesn't really want to jump, Miss Shale. He's a
frustrated, thwarted man
..
There's something he wants
or needs that he can't get, and he's chosen this way to try to force the
issue." He paused, studying her face, said, "Would that something
be
you?"

 
          
 
Color started in her cheeks, and she opened
her mouth for what he knew would be an immediate denial. But the denial didn't
come. Instead, Janice Shale sagged in the chair, defeated and miserable, not
meeting Levine's eyes. In a small voice, barely audible, she said, "I
didn't think he'd do anything like this. I never thought he'd do anything like
this."

 
          
 
"He wants to marry you, is that it? And
he can't get a divorce."

 
          
 
The girl nodded, and all at once she began to
cry. She wept with one closed hand pressed to her mouth, muffling the sound,
her head bowed as though she were ashamed of this weakness, ashamed to be seen
crying.

 
          
 
Levine waited, watching her with the dulled
helplessness of a man whose job by its very nature kept him exposed to the
misery and frustrations of others. He would always want to help, and he would always
be unable to help, to really help.

 
          
 
Janice Shale controlled herself, slowly and
painfully. When she looked up again, Levine knew she was finished weeping, no
matter what happ>ened. "What do you want me to do?" she said.

 
          
 
"Talk to him. His wife won't come —she
knows what he wants to say to her, I suppose —so you're the only one."

           
 
"What can I say to him?"

 
          
 
Levine felt weary, heavy. Breathing, working
the heart, pushing the sluggish blood through veins and arteries, was wearing,
hopeless, exhausting labor. "I don't know," he said. "He wants
to die because of you. Tell him why he should live."

 
          
 
Levine stood by the right-hand window, just
out of sight of the man on the ledge. The son and the priest and
Crawley
and Gundy were all across the room, watching
and waiting, the son looking bewildered, the priest relieved,
Crawley
sour, Gundy excited.

 
          
 
Janice Shale was at the left-hand window,
tense and frightened. She leaned out, looking down, and Levine saw her body go
rigid, saw her hands tighten on the window-frame. She closed her eyes, swaying,
inhaling, and Levine stood ready to move. If she were to faint from that
position, she could fall out the window.

 
          
 
But she didn't faint. She raised her head and
opened her eyes, and carefully avoided looking down at the street again. She
looked, instead, to her right, toward the man on the ledge. 'Jay," she
said. "Jay, please."

 
          
 
"Jan!" Cartwright sounded surprised.
"What are you doing? Jan, go back in there, stay away from this. Go back
in there."

 
          
 
Levine stood by the window, listening. What
would she say to him? What could she say to him?

 
          
 
"Jay," she said, slowly, hesitantly,
"Jay, please. It isn't worth it. Nothing is worth —dying for."

 
          
 
"Where's Laura?"

 
          
 
Levine waited, unbreathing, and at last the
girl spoke the lie he had placed in her mouth. "She's on the way. She'll
be here soon. But what does it matter, Jay?
She still won't
agree, you know that.
She won't believe you."

 
          
 
"I'll wait for Laura," he said.

           
 
The son was suddenly striding across the room,
shouting, "What is this? What's going on here?"

 
          
 
Levine spun around, motioning angrily for the
boy to be quiet.

 
          
 
"Who is that woman?" demanded the
son. "What's she doing here?"

 
          
 
Levine intercepted him before he could get to
Janice Shale, pressed both palms flat against the boy's shirt-front. "Get
back over there," he whispered fiercely. "Get back over there."

 
          
 
"Get away from me! Who is she? What's
going on here?"

 
          
 
"Allan?" It was Cartwright's voice,
shouting the question. "Allan?"

 
          
 
Crawley
now
had the boy's arms from behind, and he and Levine propelled him toward the
door. "Let me ^o.'*'cried the boy. "I've got a right
to "

 
          
 
Crawley
's
large hand clamped across his mouth, and the three of them barreled through to
the receptionist's office. As the door closed behind them, Levine heard Janice
Shale repeating, "Jay? Listen to me. Jay, please. Please, Jay."

 
          
 
The door safely shut behind them, the two
detectives let the boy go. He turned immediately, trying to push past them and
get back inside, crying, "You can't do this! Let me go! What do you think
you are? Who is that woman?"

 
          
 
"Shut up," said Levine. He spoke
softly, but the boy quieted at once. In his voice had been all his own
miseries, all his own frustrations, and his utter weariness with the misery and
frustration of others.

 
          
 
"I'll tell you who that woman is,"
Levine said. "She's the woman your father wants to marry. He wants to
divorce your mother and marry her."

 
          
 
"No," said the boy, as sure and
positive as he had been earlier in denying that his mother would want to see
his father dead.

 
          
 
"Don't say no," said Levine coldly.
"I'm telling you facts. That's what sent him out there on that ledge. Your
mother won't agree to the divorce."

 
          
 
"My
mother "

 
          
 
"Your mother," Levine pushed coldly
on, "planned your father's life. Now, all at once, he's reached the age
where he should have accomplished whatever he set out to do. His son is grown,
he's making good money, now's the time for him to look around and say, 'This is
the world I made for myself, and it's a good one.' But he can't. Because he
doesn't like his life, it isn't his
life,
it's the
life your mother planned for him."

 
          
 
"You're wrong," said the boy.
"You're wrong."

 
          
 
"So he went looking." said Levine,
ignoring the boy's intenoiptions, "and he found Janice Shale. She wouldn't
push him, she wouldn't plan for him, she'd let him be the strong one."

 
          
 
The boy just stood here, shaking his head,
repeating over and over, "You're wrong. You're wrong."

 
          
 
Levine grimaced, in irritation and defeat. You
never break through, he thought. You never break through. Aloud he said,
"In twenty years you'll believe me." He looked over at the patrolman,
McCann. "Keep this young man out here with you," he said.

 
          
 
"Right," said McCann.

 
          
 
"Why?" cried the son. "He's my
father! Why can't I go in there?"

 
          
 
"Shame," Levine told him. "If
he saw his son and this woman at the same time, he'd jump."

 
          
 
The boy's eyes widened. He started to shake
his head,
then
just stood there, staring.

 
          
 
Levine and
Crawley
went back into the other room.

 
          
 
Janice Shale was coming away from the window,
her face ashen. "Somebody "down on the sidewalk started taking
pictures," she said
. "
Jay shouted at them to
stop. He told me to get in out of sight, or he'd jump right now."

           
 
"Respectability," said Levine, as
through the word were obscene. "We're all fools."

 
          
 
Crawley
said, "Think we ought to send someone for the wife?"

 
          
 
"No,
She'd
only
make it worse. She'd say no, and he'd go over."

 
          
 
"Oh God!"
Janice Shale swayed suddenly and
Crawley
grabbed her arm, led her across to one of the leather sofas.

 
          
 
Levine went back to the right-hand window. He
looked out. A block away, on the other side of the street, there was a large
clock in front of a bank building. It was almost eleven-thirty. They'd been
here almost an hour and a half.

 
          
 
Three o'clock
, he thought suddenly. This thing had to be
over before
three
o'clock
, that
was the time of his appointment with the
doctor.

 
          
 
He looked out at Cartwright. The man was
getting tired. His face was drawn with strain and emotion, and his fingertips
were clutching tight to the rough face of the wall. Levine said,
"Cartwright."

 
          
 
The man turned his head, slowly, afraid now of
rapid movement. He looked at Levine without speaking.

 
          
 
"Cartwright," said Levine.
"Have you thought about it now? Have you thought about death?"

 
          
 
"I want to talk to my wife."

 
          
 
"You could fall before she got
here," Levine told him. "She has a long way to drive, and you're
getting tired. Come in, come in here. You can talk to her in here when she
arrives. You've proved your point, man, you can come in. Do you want to get too
tired, do you want to lose your balance, lose your footing, slip and
fall?"

 
          
 
"I want to talk to my wife," he
said, doggedly.

 
          
 
"Cartwright, you're alive." Levine
stared helplessly at the man, searching for the way to tell him-how precious
that was, the fact of being alive. "You're breathing," he said.
"You can see and hear and smell and taste and touch. You can laugh at
jokes, you can love a woman —For God's sake man,
you're
alive!"