Galatea

  “Haven’t I told you?”

  “But tell me now.”

  “I do, you know I do, and cut this caper out. Look, don’t you know what’s hanging us up? What everything depends on? Why I asked what I did? About my release and all?”

  “ ... I’m listening, Duke.”

  I told her about the confession, talking fast, trying to communicate without taking all day. But I had hardly started when she jumped up. She said: “So! That’s what he’s got on you! So he can ride you to town! Every day, in winter. To the Ladyship, he says, to help out there, and wear that awful white coat. And then in spring—”

  “Start all over again.”

  “Seems so hateful.”

  “I tried to tell you.”

  “All I’ve thought about, Duke, is what I was going to do—if he ever found out the truth—and tried to do something to you. I’ve had terrible things in my heart.”

  “You got that confession straight?”

  “Yes, Duke, at last.”

  “Marge says you’re to get it.”

  “Oh, if I only could.”

  “You figure on it. And in the meantime—”

  I reached for the phone again, the extension beside her bed, but once more she grabbed my hand. I said: “That guy out there is not in very good shape.”

  “We’ve been here four minutes.”

  She pointed to the electric clock beside the phone, and I said: “It takes one second to die. Little less, as a matter of fact.”

  But she held me, and I was weak and couldn’t pull clear. For two minutes nothing was said. And then suddenly she jumped up and gasped: “It wasn’t dumb! It wasn’t a mistake at all! Bringing that fool out here, and you knocking him out! It was just right!”

  She leaned close, began shaking me, and said: “It fixes everything up! You didn’t hit him for me, but for Val, don’t you get it, Duke? From indignation, that such a thing could even be in the house! And that shuts off any suspicion Val would have of you. He’s known there was somebody, but so far he hasn’t suspicioned you! And if he don’t, if we can just hold him off a little bit—I’ll get that paper, Duke. I’ll get it for you, I see it all, clear. I’m cracking this thing wide open, and I’m doing it now, tonight. And if we work it right, if you follow my lead, we’ll have it all, everything we want. And then—what?”

  “One thing at a time, Holly.”

  “Your feet cold again?”

  “No, I’ve learned.”

  “Then where we going, honey?”

  “Isn’t Nevada O.K.?”

  “Oh, I’d love it.”

  Cracking it open was just the beginning, the way she tore in with her teeth. Cops, ambulance, and Val all got there in a bunch, car after car rolling up and parking on the apron, the far side of the loop. Lippert was still out, but I was working on him with ammonia, ice, and massage, partly from how it would look, and partly from real worry, as now when I dug in his wrist I couldn’t find any pulse. But he flinched when the intern dug in his eyeball, and was groaning when they took him out on a stretcher.

  Soon as the ambulance left, the sergeant jerked a thumb at me, but Val got in it quick. He roared, asking what I was charged with; and if I was protecting his wife, why I was charged at all. He read the book on Lippert, as a no-good racketeer, who’d served one rap for perjury, had had his license suspended, and been in trouble over his taxes. It was partly an argument, partly throwing his weight, and from the squint the cops were giving it, I knew he’d have his way. The main thing for Holly and me was he was fooled, one hundred per cent apparently, and had been since I called him, told him what I had done, and asked for further orders. After the sergeant thought it over, he decided it was up to Lippert, and warned me to stand by until the hospital was heard from. Val eased off, and was quite sociable walking the cops to their car.

  He was like a tiger when he came back inside, white, trembling, and with his tongue licking his lips as he went over to her. She was on the sofa as usual, her little red hat beside her, holding the fire screen with one hand, the poker with the other, as she pushed my logs together to make them blaze up nice. It seemed strange that even now the fire was new and had hardly got burning good. He jerked the poker away, and I stepped up close pretty quick, as for a second I thought he would brain her. He saw me, nodded, put the poker in place, pushed the fire screen up. All that time she stared at him very impudent, until their eyes locked, and he burst out: “Holly, how could you? To your own home! Your family’s place! In your own car! That I bought you! Bring a gangster!”

  “Aw, Solly’s cute.”

  “Holly, are you out of your mind?”

  “But I’ve known Solly. He’s called up. He’s kidded along. We’re old friends. And the prices he’s quoting on bourbon. Why, Val, I ask you to look at these pamphlets.”

  He nodded very sarcastic, scooped all the brochures up, tilted the fire screen again, and slid them down on the flames. She looked astonished as they blazed, said: “Val, it’s you that’s out of your mind. Oh well, let’s drop it.”

  “Drop it? Drop it! My wife makes such a holy show of herself that Duke has to step in, and now we’re going to stop it!”

  “The wonderful Duke.”

  “That I apologize to.”

  “For what, Val, may I ask?”

  “For the suspicions I’ve had about him. I’ve known somebody was back of all this, and, God help me, once or twice I’ve even thought of Duke. That’s one thing I apologize for. The other thing is the spot my wife’s put him in. For what Lippert may do to him, once he’s back on his feet.”

  That caught her by surprise, I could tell by the look in her eye, but she laughed quite brassy and said: “Val, I don’t much care.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me, Holly.”

  “I’m getting sick of Duke.”

  “He’s helped you, humored you—”

  “Val, I told you, when you first mentioned him, that night over the phone, when I was down in St. Mary’s: I want no piece of him. I tell you again, now’s he dared to butt into my affairs: get rid of him.”

  “However, maybe I won’t.”

  “Then, you’re rid of me.”

  “I don’t take orders from—”

  She screamed, jumped at him, clawed at his face with her nails. Then she ran to the kitchen and came back with the long knife, of stainless chromium steel, that he used for slicing beef. She ran at him with it and I grabbed her from behind. I tied her up, told him to take the knife. She dropped it and he picked it up, stalking with it back to the kitchen. She whispered: “Now’s your chance, Duke! You offer to go! You’re willing—except for that paper! You can’t go till you get it!”

  When he came back, she was sitting by the phone table, but snapped at him with her teeth, so they gave a little click. He said: “Duke, thanks again.”

  I said: “Sir, I think I should go.”

  “That’s for me to say.”

  “I hadn’t known I was objectionable to Mrs. Val, but now—I certainly ought to leave, and I’m willing to. I remind you, though, I’m bound in a sort of way. By a—confession I gave. To Officer Daniel.”

  “That no longer figures.”

  “May I ask you why?”

  “Duke, can’t you take my word?”

  “Sir, with that paper outstanding, like some wild deuce in the deck—”

  She jumped up and screamed at him: “Why don’t you tell him the truth? That ’stead of Dan having the confession, you have? That he traded it to you, to save that trollop of his, the one took the money, and—”

  “How do you know what he did?”

  “I got it from Bill—and he knows!”

  They faced each other panting, but she had reached him, I knew. She jerked her thumb toward his office, which was in the front of the house, on the other side from the bedroom, said: “Unlock your desk, Val. Get the confession and hand it over. Because until Duke goes, your wife is out—on strike.” He sat down, wiped his lips with his handkerchief
, then made one of those switches I never could understand. In a low, extra reasonable way he said: “I did make a trade with Daniel, that’s true, all true, though I’m surprised Bill should know it. I did it partly to wind it up, the mess the girl got into. And partly for Duke’s protection, so he wouldn’t be open to shakedowns, or anything like that—unlikely, of course, as Dan is a fine officer, but on a thing like that, we shouldn’t take any chances. But I certainly wouldn’t keep it here in the house. It’s at the bank, in my box, and it just so happens that five in the afternoon is a little too late to ask them to open up—even to please you, Holly.”

  “Then tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow we’ll see.”

  “And I’ll see. Because until Duke’s out, I am. And you may be, Val. In spite of your well-laid plans, your legal caution, and all the money you’ve spent, this place still happens to be mine—and don’t get the idea I’m too nice or dumb or scared to put you on the road. Val—Duke—goes.”

  She picked her hat off the sofa, and his jaw fell as she put it on. My heart gave a jump, because, much as I hated it all, and in spite of the jolts he had given her, I had to hand it to her how she’d worked him into a corner, driven the punches in, and hung him on the ropes. It was all I could do not to kiss her as she stomped, climbed in her car, which was still parked out front, and, drove off, turning south on 5.

  He watched her, slumped down on the sofa, and then squinched up his eyes, as though things went through his mind. Then without a word he picked up his hat and coat, which he’d parked on a chair near the door, went out to his car and drove off. He took the same turn she did on 5, or in other words to southern Maryland, not toward Washington City. I had the feeling, in spite of what he had said, that he was up to something that she didn’t know and I didn’t know and nobody knew but himself.

  CHAPTER XIV

  I DID THE ONE THING I could think of, which was call Bill at Waldorf, to say she was headed his way and warn him Val might come. But who answered was Marge, and she didn’t seem much surprised at the turn things had taken. On Lippert, at least Holly’s reason for bringing him, she wouldn’t hear one word, to leave it open, I assumed, to take it as Holly would tell it, with no behind-back angles. On cops, ambulance, hospital, and how bad Lippert was hurt, she wanted to know everything, and I told her what I could. We left it she’d speak to Bill, soon as he came in from work, so at least they’d both be on guard. I tramped around a little, trying to think what should be next, heated a take-out and ate it, and tried to gulp down some coffee.

  Then came a call and I took it, in the dark living-room. It was Marge, saying Bill was upset at what had been told him by Daniel, the same officer he’d spoken to that morning. It seemed he had called Daniel, to ask for the dope on Lippert, how he was and all, and Daniel had been surprised, as “your sister’s right with him now, there in the hospital room.” She said Bill had called him a liar, but Daniel wouldn’t back down. He said an officer had seen her, one of the boys on the case, who had just come from the house and already remarked on the change in her looks, from how she had been before. Marge said: “Of course, there was no answering that, and Bill is fit to be tied. He’s outside walking around, trying to cool himself off. Duke, what’s come over Holly?”

  Now I didn’t know, and this news rocked me plenty, but what I said was: “Mrs. Hollis, you got my message?”

  “I did, Duke, and I knew all the time we could count on you. And from now on, please call me Marge. We know each other well enough for that, don’t you think?”

  “Then, Marge, on your sister-in-law, I can only say she’s made herself over complete, and it’s caused her to go slightly haywire. It might cause you the same if you knew you had to die and then found out you didn’t.”

  “I’m crazy to see how she looks.”

  “She looks just—beautiful.”

  She asked questions about it, and I told her all kinds of things, especially about clothes. Then: “Duke, she must know what she’s doing.”

  I said we could hope so, and to have her call when she came. To do something, after she hung up, to pass another wait in the dark, I set all doors ajar, so I could duck back to the cottage if Val’s lights showed. After a long time the phone rang, and my heart jumped when Holly spoke. She said: “Darling, I had to go there, to Lippert, I mean, and quick. That was all new to me, what Val said, about his underworld life, and I almost died at the wheel of the car when it finally perked in my head the danger I’d put you in. I was waiting when he opened his eyes, and—he promised me. That you wouldn’t be bothered, he called it.”

  “What do I say, ‘Oh, thanks’?”

  “You do I’ll come kick your teeth in.”

  “What made him act so nice?”

  “He didn’t act nice a bit. He—was cold as a clam. But—I took all the blame on myself. I said you—respected Val—and had got a wrong impression. I don’t know what I said—anything I could think of. But he promised. He wasn’t nice, but he looked me in the eye and said you wouldn’t be bothered. That’s what I went there for, and now—if you don’t mind—I’d like to forget it.”

  “Where is Val, incidentally?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is Marge there?”

  “She is, and Bill is.”

  “Put her on, please.”

  But that was so I could ring off on the call without ringing down on my peeve, and all I said was that Holly had had her reasons, “though up to now I’ve managed to take care of myself.” She gave it a snicker, and I could close up the house at last and go to my room in the cottage.

  I went to bed, but a fat chance I could sleep. Around midnight started a thin, misty rain, the first we’d had in two months. Around two, Val’s car lights flashed, and he swung around the house. After he closed the garage he went past the cottage with quick, grippy steps and slammed the house door hard. He was up by the time I was, called he would give me my breakfast, and ate with me, saying nothing. I got his car out, and as he climbed in, watched the look in his eye. He had no look, just a vacant stare at the fields. Then: “Duke, I’m getting that paper today. I’ll bring it home when I come.”

  “I’ll be most grateful, sir.”

  “Sorry it’s turned out this way.”

  “However, for this year at least, there’s not much more work to be done. The Halloween pumpkins about wind it up.”

  “See you later, Duke.”

  I went to my room, sat, and told myself to really get grateful, to one who was turning out better than he generally got credit for. All I could stir up in myself was fear, of him, whether he’d keep his word, and what he meant about her, once he found out the truth about what she was really up to. Around nine I heard a step, and my door began to move. Then she was in my arms, and the little red hat was sliding down on one ear from the way I was holding her, pushing my hand through her hair and pressing my lips against hers. I said: “We’re playing with dynamite, but what do we care? To hell with him, to hell with anything.”

  “I’ve been parked since dawn, watching, and he’s gone up to the city. Soon as I made sure of that, I parked on the back road and came on in here. I have to have some clothes.”

  “He’s gone for my confession.”

  We went in the house, where she said she would change to her slacks before packing the rest of her stuff, and I sat down in my place on the love seat to give her a chance to do it. She said: “Nobody asked you to stay there, grumping off by yourself.”

  “Nobody’s grumping.”

  “I might need some help.”

  “When your bag’s packed, call me.”

  “Listen, Mr. Blond, there’s something you may have forgotten. You carved me from grease, that’s true, like a turkey chipped out of ice. So I’m yours, complete. But I’ve got some rights just the same. There are certain things this might call for. Things I might like to do.”

  “Like what, for instance?”

  “Showing myself to you.”

  “I can see y
ou from here.”

  “Not all of me, perhaps.”

  “Enough. Plenty.”

  “Some ways I might be prettier.”

  “You certainly would. You’d be pinker, which of course means prettier. But the smacking, to bring up that pink, might not be so good. You git, and git quick. We’re cutting this thing off clean before we do any showing.”

  She came out in the slacks, the light coat on, and the red stuff as before. She was lugging two bags and I jumped up to take them. We went out in the patio and headed back for her car, each of us stepping careful on the damp dirt that was there on account of the rain, though it had been barely a sprinkle. She grabbed one of the bags, so she could hook on to my arm and be close as we walked. But pretty soon she stopped, looked at the water tank, said: “All right, Mr. Duquesne Webster, now I’ll tell you something. You said we cut it clean, and I want you to want it that way. Just the same, until now I haven’t been too sure how it was going to be cut. I’ve been afraid—not for my sake, but for the sake of someone I love. Someone who gave me life, health, hope—everything.”

  “Come on, we’ll talk in your car.”

  “We’re talking here.”

  She grabbed the bag I had, set both bags on the ground. She said: “That someone, I felt, was in danger. Or would be in danger if things got out of hand. You see that water tower? How high that ladder is? If I had to, I meant to use that water tower. I’ve been making out you weren’t running the pump, so gauging has been done, while you’ve dressed for dinner. Not by me. I just stood and watched. But I’m nimble now, I’d be able to climb. I would have climbed, if I knew I had to. The rest of what I’d have done, I don’t choose to say.”

  “This tank is out.”

  “You heard me, what I said?”

  “Holly, we’re cutting it clean.”

  We sat in her car, which was parked by a thicket of persimmon trees, on the little blacktop that ran behind the farm. We held hands and looked at the overcast day, which we decided was beautiful. It wasn’t like the dark days in summer, but gray, cool, and damp, full of the smell of fall. Then she said she must go, and that I should ring her at Waldorf the second I had the confession and at last we were free. She said she’d come and get me, at Clinton or wherever I was. She said we’d drive along and sing. She said we’d go to a picture show. She said we’d stop, look at the stars, and pray.