The Cry of the Owl

  Robert had been expecting it. “O.K. Thanks, Nancy,” Robert said automatically, then fear hit him like a dash of cold water. He glanced at Nancy as he stood up. Nancy wasn’t smiling, and she looked away.

  Mr. Jaffe was Robert’s immediate boss, and his office was on the other side of the reception hall. He was a square-faced man with a mustache and glasses, soft-bodied and inclined to fat. Between his sentences, he paused, compressed his full lips, and Robert could hear the breath sighed out through the bushy mustache, while he waited for his words to sink into Robert. Mr. Jaffe seemed to be trying to choose his words, but it was also plain there hadn’t been time for him to think much over. Mr. Jaffe said “a police officer” had called on him that morning, and the essence of what Mr. Jaffe had to say was that Robert’s move to Philadelphia in ten days ought to be put off until the situation here was cleared up, and that this was not his or Mr. Gerard’s—the president of Langley Aeronautics—opinion so much as that of the police, who would certainly want him to stay in the neighborhood for a while.

  Robert nodded. “I understand. I hope things will be cleared up before ten days—actually it’s just a week off now, my move. But I won’t make any plans to go until they are cleared up, of course.”

  Mr. Jaffe nodded also. Sitting on a straight chair against a wall, Robert waited, watching him as he stood inconclusively by his desk, his hands in the trouser pockets of his baggy gray suit. What bothered Robert were the things Mr. Jaffe did not say, the thoughts and doubts Robert felt in his five-second silences between sentences, while his brown eyes peered at Robert with a regretful intensity through the thick lenses. Robert felt sure the police officer, probably Lippenholtz, had told Mr. Jaffe about the prowler around Jenny’s house, perhaps the gun story of his ex-wife, perhaps about the head shrinkers. Firing might be next, Robert thought, in the form of a protracted leave of absence.

  “I may as well tell you also,” Mr. Jaffe went on, looking down at his desk, “we got a letter this morning—rather, Mr. Gerard got it. It was addressed to the president of L.A.”

  Robert followed Mr. Jaffe’s eyes and saw two typewritten sheets, one atop the other, on the pale-blue blotter of the desk.

  “A letter about you. No doubt from a crank, but still—” Mr. Jaffe looked at him.

  “May I see it?” Robert asked.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Jaffe, picking up the pages. “It’s not pleasant. And don’t think for a minute we believe it, Mr. Forester, but—I think you should see it, yes.” He handed the pages to Robert.

  Robert started to read, then only glanced down the black paragraphs of dark type, written with a fresh ribbon. Many words were crossed out, others misspelled. No signature, of course, but Greg had written it, Robert thought. The bitter, explosive tone could have come only from Greg. Here was the prowling story, the gun story as told by Nickie, and the statement that Forester was exerting his “evil, psychopathic charms over Jenny Thierolf, an unusually innocent girl of 23, and he’s already wrecked her engagement. …” The writer said in a final paragraph that he was a friend of Greg Wyncoop’s who for reasons of his own wanted to keep his name a secret, but who wanted to see justice done also. “No reputable company such as Langley Aeronautics should employ …” Robert stood up, started to hand the letter back to Mr. Jaffe, and, Jaffe making no move to take it, laid the pages back on the blue blotter.

  “I think the letter’s from Wyncoop,” Robert said. “What was the postmark on the envelope?”

  “New York. Grand Central,” said Jaffe.

  Robert remained standing. “Mr. Jaffe, I’m very sorry about this, but I have my reasons for thinking Wyncoop is alive and that he’s bound to be found if the police really look for him.”

  “What are your reasons?”

  “My main reason is that I didn’t knock him in the Delaware, and the second good reason is that letter. I think Wyncoop wrote it and I think he’s hiding out in New York.”

  Mr. Jaffe rubbed his mustache. “Well—uh—is there any truth at all in that letter, Mr. Forester?”

  Robert looked at the dark pages, started to give a qualified answer, shook his head quickly and said, “No. The way it’s written—no. No truth at all.”

  Mr. Jaffe stared at him, apparently wordless, or waiting for something more from Robert.

  “Mr. Jaffe, I think I should also say—Wyncoop is quite misled about my intentions with Jenny Thierolf. I have none. This fight needn’t have happened. None of this needed to happen.”

  Mr. Jaffe continued to stare at him. At last, he nodded. “All right, Mr. Forester. Thank you for coming in.”

  Robert lunched with Jack Nielson at twelve, as usual, in the Hangar Diner across the road from the plant. Two fellows named Sam Donovan and Ernie Cioffi generally ate with them, but today Jack and Robert were alone. If Jack had maneuvered their being alone, Robert had not seen it. It crossed Robert’s mind that Sam and Ernie might be avoiding him today. They might have thought Jaffe had fired him. Certainly everyone in the drafting room, Robert thought, knew Jaffe had called him in this morning. Robert told Jack about the postponement of the Philadelphia move, and said that a nasty letter about him with a New York postmark had come to Gerard, and that he believed the letter had been written by Greg.

  “What was in the letter?” Jack asked.

  Robert hesitated. He was smoking, though his food had arrived. “One day I’ll tell you. I don’t care to go into it now. All right, Jack?”

  “All right.”

  “I promise you I will,” said Robert, looking at him. Then he put his cigarette out and attempted the plate in front of him.

  “Oh, give it another couple of days,” Jack said confidently, as if they could do anything else.

  Directly after work, Robert went to the dentist in Langley and had the jacket for his eyetooth put on. Robert had twice postponed the appointment. The tooth looked too white to Robert, but the dentist assured him it would darken, and said also it was “practically unbreakable,” but Robert had no desire to test it anyway, on even so much as a hard apple.

  Jenny came at nine, solemn-faced and quiet. Robert had made a pot of espresso, and he offered her a brandy. They sat, she on the red couch, he in the leather armchair, with the coffee table between them.

  “I didn’t quite finish your sweater yet,” Jenny said. “I need to do some more on one sleeve.”

  It was the first time she had mentioned the sweater. “I’m going to take awfully good care of that sweater,” Robert said. “Nobody’s ever made me a sweater before.”

  She nodded absently. There were faint dark circles under her eyes. “What did you want to tell me?”

  “Well, I went to New York Sunday night. I called on Nickie. I saw her husband, too. I have an idea they know where Greg is, and I think he’s in New York.”

  “Why?”

  “Well—I know Nickie, that’s all. I know the way she kids, the way she lies, the way she looks when she’s lying. I think Greg’s in some hotel in New York and that Nickie knows where. Added to that, a letter was sent to the president of L.A. this morning, from New York, and I think Greg wrote it. I read the letter.”

  “What did it say?”

  Robert stood up, got his lighter out of his pocket, and lit a cigarette. “Just what you’d expect Greg to say. About the prowling, about my being a psychopath, according to my ex-wife. No, according to everyone who really knows me—that was it. It wasn’t signed. It was supposed to be from a friend of Greg’s.” Jenny was staring at him, and he thought suddenly of Jaffe staring in almost the same way that morning, only Jenny’s expression was sadder. “I also called the police in New York, for whatever good it’ll do. I told them I thought they should look for Greg in New York hotels. Or of course he could be staying with a friend there. Anyway, I had to give a description of Greg all over again to them. They evidently didn’t have one, not the police I called. The New York police think it’s a problem for the Pennsylvania police. And I guess naturally they weren’t much impressed b
y the fact the request came from me. I gave my name, of course. Jenny, what’s the matter?”

  She looked about to cry.

  He sat down beside her on the couch, very gently put an arm around her shoulders, then took it away. “Have your brandy. You haven’t touched it.”

  She picked up the brandy but didn’t drink it. “I saw the Tessers yesterday,” she said. “I called you last night and couldn’t get you, so I called them. I only stayed half an hour, because I got so angry with them. Now they’re saying that you were the prowler and maybe you did kill Greg and you’re being very cool about it.”

  “Oh, Jenny—Well, isn’t it perfectly natural? I mean, what the hell do the Tessers know about me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  The alarm in her eyes made him smile. “I mean, they saw me for one evening, right? And frankly I think they’re a little on the stupid side.”

  “Stupid?”

  He was sorry he had said it, or at least used that word. “Well, for instance, what can I think? About them. I saw them that one evening. Dick couldn’t hold what he’d drunk. Am I supposed to have a particularly high opinion about them?”

  “They’re my friends.”

  “I know that, Jenny. But we’re on the subject of passing judgments. Aren’t we?” He stood up. “All right, I don’t pass judgment on Dick. It was one night and he was high.”

  “He was talking in defense of you that night.”

  “But he seems to have changed his tune.”

  “Yes. Naomi, too.”

  Robert stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Well, fine. They’ve changed you, too?”

  Jenny got up from the couch. “I told you, I left them because I didn’t like what they were saying.” She started toward the bathroom, turned back and picked up her pocketbook from the couch.

  “Jenny—”

  She went on, into the bathroom, and closed the door firmly. The water ran in the basin. Frowning, Robert smoked and sipped his brandy, poured more brandy for himself. Jenny came back. “Jenny, if you’ll tell me what it is—After all, there’s nothing I can’t face after what I’ve faced this last week.”

  She was silent, standing with her pocketbook, not even looking at him now.

  “When I asked you to come over tonight, I thought you might be interested in what I had to say. It’s not much, I know. Nothing very definite and yet—” He felt she was quite deaf to him. “Aren’t you going to sit down and finish your coffee and brandy?”

  Now she looked at him, distant and sad. “No. I think I’d better go.”

  “Jenny, what is it? If you think I—that I shoved Greg in the river, just say so. Say something.”

  Jenny walked toward the fireplace, the empty black fireplace whose ashes Robert had cleaned out, and stared into it. She looked thinner to Robert, still thinner than when they had had dinner at the Jasserine Chains.

  “Who else did you see this weekend?” he asked.

  She looked at him, then shrugged slightly, like an unwilling child being quizzed by an elder. “I went over to Mrs. Van Vleet’s Sunday.”

  Robert groaned. “And what did she have to say?”

  “I looked at Greg’s room. With her.”

  Robert frowned, impatient. “Did you find out anything from that?”

  “No. I thought there might be some clue, but there wasn’t.”

  Robert lit another cigarette. “No more clothes gone? No suitcase gone or anything?”

  Jenny looked at him resentfully. “I don’t think I should see you any more, Robert.”

  It shocked him. “All right, Jenny. That’s all you have to say to me?”

  She nodded. Then, with a very stiff, self-conscious air, she took her pack of cigarettes, of which she had not smoked one, from the coffee table, put them into her pocketbook, then went to the closet for her coat. Robert reached her coat first and held it for her. He imagined she avoided his hands as she put it on, bending her shoulders so his hands would not touch her.

  “You don’t have to tell me what Mrs. Van Vleet said to you,” Robert said. “I think I know.”

  “It isn’t that,” Jenny said at the door. “Goodbye, Robert.”

  18

  Jenny did not sleep that night, and she did not go to work the next day, which was Tuesday. She did not even go to bed Monday night, but wandered around the house, sitting a few minutes to read snatches of poetry out of various books, standing at a black window to look out and listen to an owl—one of the symbols of death, she thought. She lay for a while on her bed with the light on, her hands clasped behind her head. She wore only her short terry-cloth robe. At some time, eons ago, it seemed, she had had a bath. She remembered her brother Eddie when he was eight or nine, on Saturday nights and Wednesday nights, or maybe it was three times a week, saying, “A bay-yuth?” in a tone of disbelief and shock, when Mom told him he had better go and take one. Little Eddie, dead at twelve. So much time had gone by, he seemed sometimes like a child of her own.

  At dawn on Tuesday, she fell asleep and slept until eleven. She thought of the mail, which had come at ten, but she was not at all interested in the mail. She called the bank and told Steve, who answered the telephone, that she was sick and wouldn’t be in that day. It was after twelve when she put on blue jeans and a shirt and went down to the road for the mail. There was only a postcard from a dress shop in Rittersville. Then she saw, lying flat on the bottom of the mailbox, a yellow postal card with Robert’s writing on it. It was another bird card. “‘The Lesser Evil,’ sometimes called the Peripatetic Paraclete. Habitat: gloomy valleys. Color: dark blue with black trim. Cry: ‘Cudbee worse! Cudbee worse!’” Jenny did not smile. She hardly saw it. But she remembered how happy she had been the day he showed her the clothesline bird. Jenny dropped the two postcards on the coffee table in front of her sofa. Three or four days ago, she had felt a funny shock, like fear, when she looked at Robert’s bird cards. They were all in a little book with a blue silk cover in her top drawer upstairs. Now she was no longer afraid of them.

  She said the word “death” several times, tasting and feeling it on her tongue. Brother Death, Robert had called it, and he had pretended not to like that dream, but Jenny was sure that wasn’t so. She should have known the day he told her that dream, she thought. And yet—she wondered if Robert himself really knew? Between knowing and symbolizing and being—she supposed one could symbolize and be, without knowing it. That was curious. Robert might be like a medium. But anyway, he was in the hands of it, it kept him from wanting to marry her, even from kissing her, more than once.

  In the kitchen, she poured half a highball glass full of Scotch and sipped it, without water or ice. She read some more poetry. Keats. Then Dylan Thomas. She pulled the shades down in the living room, then went outside and closed the shutters on the kitchen windows. To read by electric light made it seem the night was already here, and she was impatient for it to be night. Robert used to do that before he met her, he said. She thought of telephoning Susie and asking her to water her plants and also to help herself to whatever she liked of her things in the house—Jenny’s mother wouldn’t ever know or care, as her mother hadn’t found the time to visit her here—but plans and possessions seemed suddenly unimportant. Should she leave a note for her mother? A casual note might take the melodramatic edge off, but Jenny could not think of the right words—maybe there weren’t any. It was six o’clock before she finished the Scotch. She poured another half glassful. That left still a third of the bottle.

  Around nine o’clock, she was sitting in the living room in her blue terry-cloth robe again, with the tail end of the Scotch she had poured at six. She stared at the worn-out sides of her yellow Indian moccasins, thought them very ugly and functional, and wondered at all the steps she had made, presumably for a purpose, to wear them out so. Through the broken thonging she could see the pink-white of her big toe. She hadn’t any bills except the telephone and light, she was thinking, and her bank account could certainly cover those. And
also cover the rent until her landlord Mr. Cavanaugh could rent the place. It wasn’t worth stirring herself to write a check for. She had a flash of her parents’ horror and surprise when they heard, but that too seemed unimportant and remote, and after all, her life was her own to do with as she chose. As she sipped her drink, she thought of Robert opening the bottle and fixing himself and her a drink just a few days ago. She was glad he had had a drink from the same bottle.

  The telephone’s ring made her jump. She moved toward it very slowly.

  “Hi,” said Susie’s voice. “What’re you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I thought I’d pop over. Want to watch Rob Malloy at ten?”

  “No.”

  “What’s the matter? Are you crying?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You sound funny. Something happen?”

  “Nothing—happened.”

  “What’s with Robert? You said goodbye to him, I hope.”

  “Yes,” Jenny said.

  “Well, it’s rough for a few days, but you’ll get over it. Jen, how about my coming over? All right?”

  “No, please don’t. I’m all right. I’m drinking a Scotch, in fact.” She thought that would sound gayer.

  “Somebody there?”

  “No.”

  “Solitary drinker!” said Susie with a laugh. “Jenny, you’re moping about that guy, but just don’t make it too long, will you? I speak from experience. Whether Greg turns up or not—you admitted to me Robert was the prowler. Jeeses, Jenny, why’d you take so long to admit it?”

  Yes, she had admitted it, only Sunday, and so what? “It’s such a minor deta-ail,” Jenny said.

  “Jenny, you’ve had a lot to drink. Haven’t you? I’m gonna come over, Jen.”

  Jenny put the telephone down, trying to hang up on Susie, but her hand moved so slowly, she heard Susie’s click first. Jenny climbed the stairs to the bathroom and went directly—slowly but directly—to the Seconal bottles in the medicine cabinet. There were three bottles, the one she had taken from Robert’s medicine cabinet last night and the two she had stolen from Greg’s suitcase when he came to bring her the one for Robert. Of course, she hadn’t told Greg it was for Robert. She’d said she wanted some Seconals for herself. It had taken a little persuasion, because Greg hadn’t wanted to let her have any sleeping pills, but he had wanted to see her, so he had come over with his suitcase, argued some more, but finally given them to her. Then when he had been out of the room for a minute, she had taken the other two bottles of pink capsules she had seen in the suitcase. Probably Greg had never missed them. He had died just two weeks later. Jenny imagined Greg’s body caught on some underwater bush, some jagged, sunken log or rock in the Delaware. Maybe his body would never wash down, never be found. But she could not imagine now that she had spent days believing that Robert hadn’t knocked him in and that Greg was alive. Mrs. Van Vleet had never doubted that Robert had drowned him. Her parents knew it, too. Jenny had told them, when they called Sunday afternoon, that Robert had used to watch her through her kitchen window. Jenny had not told her mother this as if it were a horrible thing or as if Robert had ever done anything horrible to her, but her mother had been shocked. Her mother had told her father, and they had made her promise not to see him again. They had wanted her to come home, and Jenny had told them she thought she could make it by Wednesday or Thursday. Her body would, she supposed.