“Oh, so that’s what’s bugging you?”
“It may not seem like much, but—”
“I have proof he didn’t do innything!”
“Produce the proof. Now!”
So she did, a lot quicker than I expected. She just flipped up her dress, and there around her waist, over her panty hose, like a belt, was a length of shiny chain, about the size of tire chain, and between her legs, like a G-string, was another. Fastening the chains together was a little brass padlock. “My ceinture de chastité,” she explained, but called it cincher de chastity. “They had them in olden times, we read about them in school—it’s where cinch comes from, the thing you put on a horse. I had it on when I went to his office, and if he could have got through it, he’s a better man than I think—but things didn’t get that far. They made it for me at College Park Hardware, cutting the chain to my measure, and being somewhat amused when I told them the idea of it. It’s not too comfortable, but I left it on tonight as I expected to go to Miss Jane’s, and I decided to take no chances, as Burl might have been there too.”
She took a key ring from her bag, found a key, unlocked the little brass padlock, and took both chains off, putting them in her bag. “My, that feels good!” she exclaimed. “What a relief.”
“I think it’s time you went.”
“I’ll decide when I go!” She came over and slapped my face. “For the two hundredth time: I’m your wife and this is my home—you’re not putting me out and nobody’s putting me out, except me, when I’m ready to go!”
“As soon as you’re ready, I am.”
“Well I’m not, not yet.”
She went to Jane, lifted the pillow, and shook her. “Miss Jane,” she said, “I’m sorry, but there’s things I must say to you.”
Jane sat up, a broken, shamed old woman. “First,” Sonya went on, “Dale Morgan—does that name mean something to you?”
“I suppose so,” Jane answered dully. “Yes.”
“You know how she died?”
“In some sort of accident I heard.”
“Burl killed her, is how.”
Jane, who until now had taken no interest, opened her eyes wide. “What did you say, Mrs. Kirby?” she asked, very sharp.
“I said Burl Stuart killed her, in some slick way he alone could explain, for insurance he carried on her, fifty thousand dollars, which was paid—and which you’ve been living on, since you’ve been married to him. Miss Jane, here’s what I’m leading to: Burl Stuart means to kill you, for the land you’ve made him heir to, in that will you let him have, worth twenty times what he made on Dale. Miss Jane, you’re not to use your car, or go home, or give him inny kind of chance, to do to you what he did to Dale. And on top of that, right away quick, you must see your lawyer, have him do what it takes to cancel that will Burl has, so it’s not in effect inny more, and so he knows you’re no longer worth to him more dead than you are alive. Don’t tell him he must send it back—wild horses couldn’t make him, you’ll have to do more than that, your lawyer can tell you what. I would think draw a new will, maybe making Gramie your heir, as he was before and should have been all along—but that’s up to you, of course. Do you hear what I say, Miss Jane? Am I getting through to you?”
“I don’t believe one word.”
“You and the undertaker, you’re quite a pair, you are—he don’t take nobody’s word. He don’t have to.”
That seemed to reach Jane as nothing had until then, and Sonya went on: “I’m going now, so the coast is clear, for tonight. If I were you, I’d stay here if Gramie is willing—crawl in his bed and let nature take its course. Miss Jane, it just might. Because pay no attention to what Burl said, about Gramie not being normal—he’s just as normal as you are, maybe more so, being thirty years younger.” And, as Jane flinched: “Well I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but you haven’t been nice to me, spite of all I’ve been doing for you. So maybe I don’t mind cutting you up. Excuse me.”
Still carrying the coat and bag, she went scampering out to the kitchen, and for some minutes I sat with Jane, who began pulling herself together. Then, in a nervous but conversational tone she asked me: “Could any of that be true?”
“Jane, all of it’s true.”
“You’re not serious?”
“Jane, Burl means to kill you!”
At last, she seemed to get through her head that it wasn’t a game of some kind that Sonya had been playing, or a contest in nasty remarks, or something of that kind. She began gasping, as fear started to talk, and of all the things that can talk, I guess fear says it plainer. She sat there, trying for control, and occasionally massaging her lips, that sure sign of terror. Then she jumped up, saying: “I have to know more about this!” and went running out to the kitchen. Once or twice she called “Mrs. Kirby!” and then came stumbling back, a baffled look on her face. “She’s not there!” she said. “She’s not anywhere around.”
A horrible, frightening suspicion crept in on me, as I went charging back to the kitchen, whispering: “Sonya! Sonya, where are you?” But she wasn’t there, though the kitchen was in apple pie order. I went out back and called, looked for her car in the drive, then went out front and looked. It wasn’t there, it wasn’t anywhere. I let myself in the front door, went back in with Jane and sat down. She stared at me but nothing was said. Pretty soon the phone rang and I answered.
“Gramie?” said Sonya, very soft and friendly. “I’m at People’s. I called to say good-bye and blow you a kiss on the phone. I couldn’t have kissed you just now, not with her looking on.” She said more, but I kept cutting in, begging her to come back, saying I hadn’t meant it, what I’d told her before she went, and all kinds of stuff of that kind, and God knows I meant every word. But she kept holding to it, that she’d left me, that she was going away, that I mustn’t try to find out where she was or what she was doing. Then, saying she’d call now and then, “To see how you’re getting along,” she blew me the kiss and hung up.
Back in the living room, I sat for some moments with Jane staring at me. “You love her?” she asked, pretty soon.
“I’m nuts about her. She’s part of me.”
“I have to be going now.”
“Where?” I snapped. “Didn’t you hear what she said?”
“Well I can’t stay here, that’s certain!”
She was a little hysterical about it, and I took her back over it once, what Sonya had explained to her, why she couldn’t go home, why she had to go someplace where she’d be safe from Burl. All of a sudden I went to the phone and dialed Mother. “Can you put Jane up for one night?” I asked her.
“Put up with her, I think you mean!”
“Okay, call it that, but something has happened.”
“Is she there?”
“I’ll see if she wants to talk.”
Jane talked, like a schoolgirl holding her hand out to be blistered with a ruler. Then she motioned me back to the phone, and Mother said: “All right, send her over.” But instead, I took her over, on the way explaining to her what she had to do with her car: Have the garage men come and get it, first explaining to them it had better be towed, else the steering might go haywire, and she understood all right, as she collapsed into tears in the middle of it, and kept moaning: “I’m so scared! Oh, Gramie, I’m so scared.”
Mother was cool at first, but then suddenly warmed, when she saw the state she was in, and took her upstairs to bed. When she came down I explained, at least a little of it, what had happened today and tonight, and she stood there shaking her head. “Will I ever hear the end? Will there be any end to this mess?”
I didn’t have an answer to that.
It was going on twelve when I headed home once more, to enter the bleakest house, and start the blackest night, that any man ever faced.
Chapter 22
THE NEXT SIX WEEKS were a mockery. Everything broke for me, in a material way, and also broke for Mother, but everything else went flooey.
In busin
ess I got a break from the F.X. Reilly Estate, which retained me to sell ten houses, rental jobs in West Hyattsville, running $20,000 apiece. It was a $200,000 deal, and I tore in, of course. I didn’t stampede, just took it one house at a time, but in a month, believe it or not, I’d got rid of them all. I rated a bonus and got it, and had reason to feel proud—but didn’t feel anything. Because Sonya was calling by now, every two or three nights, very friendly, wanting to know how things were, and I begged her, pleaded over the phone, to come back to me, but she wouldn’t.
The worst of it was, I didn’t know where she was, but suspected it was Reno. And what really made it bad was that her mother knew. She was calling Mrs. Lang too, and Mrs. Lang would call me, in a friendly way, just wishing she could tell me where Sonya was, but of course couldn’t, as she was pledged not to. That’s nice, when your mother-in-law knows where your wife is staying, and you don’t. So maybe she’d break if you coaxed, and give you a little hint, but fat chance of that, really.
And on Mother’s end, she picked up an ace when Mort Leonard, Jane’s lawyer, heard of her bust-up with Burl, and realized what it could mean—perhaps having his own opinion of Burl to start with, and perhaps having heard a few rumors. Anyway, it seems that to revoke one will you have to draw another, but in whose favor was the question Jane was faced with. So, for various reasons, there could be only one answer, and she was back once more to Mother. That put the dream back on its feet, but I took no interest and neither did she.
“I’m sick of it!” she burst out, in my office one day. “Of her, of her land, of Burl—especially of him! Gramie, he’s been calling up, since Mort wrote him about it, about this new will that she’s drawn, so he’d know the old one was void, the one that she drew in his favor—he’s been ringing me late at night, saying horrible things. I wouldn’t put anything past him! Anything!”
And then something happened that pretty well proved she wasn’t imagining things. Jane had put her car in storage, after what Sonya had said, had it towed to Clint Jervis’s lot, intending to have it checked, but putting it off for some reason. So Clint’s boy Rod began borrowing it, to ride his girl around, and one night the steering went haywire and dumped them in the ditch. Rod and the girl weren’t hurt, but the car was a total wreck, as Jane learned next morning, when the insurance office called. Mother called me and I went over, and I’m telling you, we all looked at each other, and knew what the answer was. My birthday, as a rule, hasn’t meant much to me, though of course, people make it pleasant, and you get a bit of a bang. But this year, for some reason, I kept thinking about it, the contrast it would be with the one I had last year, my thirtieth. That day had been wonderfully pleasant—a quickie visit from Lynn, a necktie from Jane, a party at my mother’s later in the evening. Even the weather had helped. My birthday’s September 12, Old Defender’s Day, as it’s called here in Maryland, when Fort McHenry held out, and The Star-Spangled Banner was born. It’s the end of summer, the beginning of fall, with the smell of Concord grapes, like winy perfume, hanging in the air. You could smell them all over that day, and if I wasn’t perfectly happy, at least I was enjoying life, which until Sonya came along, was all I really asked.
But now it was all different. There was no winy smell, as the day was overcast, and the air felt raw. Helen Musick had remembered, and given me a bottle of lotion, and Mother of course had called—but she said nothing about coming over, and no wonder, with Jane in the house all the time. I got home around six, feeling utterly depressed, because all I could think of was Sonya, and how I wished she was there. I parked in the drive, slipped the lotion in my pocket, went up to the door, put my key in and unlocked, feeling as glum as I’d ever felt in my life.
But as soon as I opened the door a terrific surprise was there, a big birthday cake on the telephone table, with a flock of candles burning, thirty-one as I knew without counting. And then at once, from the living room, came the chords on the piano, Happy Birthday to You. It played almost to the end, and then a small thready girl’s voice sang: Happy Birthday, Dear Gramie, Happy Birthday to You! For a few terrible seconds I wasn’t quite sure, as I’d never heard her sing. But then in the arch there she was, flinging herself into my arms, burrowing her nose into my shirt, drawing deep, trembly breaths. Then our mouths came together in a long, beautiful kiss. I lifted her, so her feet swung clear of the floor, and carried her into the living room. I sat down in one of the chairs, pulled her onto my lap, and kept right on kissing her, holding her close, and patting her. After a long time our mouths pulled apart, and little by little, though still trembling, we were able to talk. I said: “So—so—and so. You came.”
“I had to, I couldn’t help it.”
“Well? I told you, didn’t I? If you had to be Little Miss Fixit, okay—but everything’s fixed. So what were you waiting for?”
“How do you mean, everything’s fixed?”
“Well I told you, last time you called!”
“Yes, but I didn’t get it straight.”
“Well, first off, Jane moved in with Mother.”
“When was this?”
“That same night. When you scared her to death.”
“Then she didn’t stay with you?”
“You think I’d let her?”
“Well after all she had the land.”
“Yeah, but now she’s left it to Mother. She’s not mad at her any more. She realizes. Or whatever the hell she does. If you ask me she’s somewhat balmy.”
“About you, she is.”
“Was. She came to her senses, I think.”
“More’n I did. I’m still balmy about you.”
“Mutual. Likewise. Vice versa. Kiss me.”
She kissed me, and some little time went by. “Gramie, don’t you know why I came?”
“I’ll bite. Why?”
“That beautiful wire you sent me.”
Now if I could say I reacted to that in a way that made some sense, or that showed I had some brains, or that did me credit in any way, I certainly would—but I can’t. All I felt was put out, or bored, or annoyed, that something apart from us was edging in between, to louse up our moment, and my only clear idea was to give it some kind of brush, so we could go on as we had been going, with kisses, pats, and talk about being balmy. I said: “Uh-huh.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said, Gramie?”
“Somebody sent you a wire.”
“You sent me a wire!”
Then, and then only, at last, not caring much, or wanting to talk about it: “I’m sorry, I didn’t send any wire.”
“Well you certainly did!”
She jumped up, went to the side table, opened her bag, took out a yellow telegram, and brought it over to me. It was a night letter, a long one, leading off about my birthday, quoting The Star-Spangled Banner, and saying all I wanted to see by the dawn’s early light was her head on the pillow beside me—and more of the same, quite poetic. It begged her to come home and help me celebrate, and wound up: “Love Love Love, Gramie.”
I said: “I know nothing about it.”
She took it, crossed to a sofa and collapsed into tears. I went over, folded her in, and asked, “Is it all that important? So somebody sent you a wire, but all it said was what I’ve been trying to say over the phone a hundred times, whenever you called, that you should come back to me, back to your home.”
“But that wire is why I came.”
“I thought I was why you came.”
“I thought you sent it is why. It’s why I got shook.”
“If I’d known where you were, I’d have sent you a hundred wires, but I didn’t, you didn’t tell me. You told your mother, and she told the Hyattsville Post Office—but she wouldn’t tell me, you forbade her.”
“I was so thrilled, you finding out where I was.”
“Well you can knock it off with those shakes, as I didn’t lift a finger to find out where you were, and wouldn’t. I have some pride left, I hope.”
“Now we’ll have to start o
ver.”
“How, start over?”
“I’ve just said. It’s why I came. But now—!”
“Yes, I think you’re right—a completely fresh start is what’s called for. I’ll mumble under your ear—work around to your mouth—then carry you up—and we’ll see if our cloud is still there.”
I started off, and just then the chimes in the hall sounded. I said: “I’ve never known it to fail that when we get in sight of our cloud, the goddam doorbell rings.”
I got up and started for the hall. Then: “Gramie!” she burst out, in a voice like a whipcrack. “I’ve just waked up! Don’t answer! Don’t do it! Don’t open that door!”
By then she was beside me, her eyes big and almost black. I said, “At least we can see who it is.”
I opened the pigeonhole and a man was there, in red jacket and Afro hairdo. I opened the door, asked: “Yes? What is it?”
He didn’t answer me, but cocked a gun in my stomach, a big, shiny, stainless steel thing, almost a submachine gun, and motioned to my hands. I put them up and he stepped inside, closing the door behind him. I said: “Okay, take it easy, just say what it is, and that’s how it’s going to be. I have money, and I’ll hand it over, but first lower that gun—this girl is my wife and I don’t want her hurt. And, to get out my wallet, I have to lower my hands, so—”
But he motioned again and I had to keep my hands up. Suddenly she said, “Gramie, it’s Burl—in that mask he brought home from Japan and the Afro wig that goes with it.”
“We can’t fool little Bright Eyes.”
He took off the wig, dropped it in the chair beside the phone table, then pulled off the mask, which was of some sort of thin rubber, with eye, nose, and mouth holes, and went on like scuba gear, and suddenly was my brother, with his same little twitchy grin that was more like a sneer.
“That feels better,” he remarked, very breezy, dropping the mask on top of the wig. “Stuff like that can be hot, this time of year.”
“Did you send me that wire?”