To Sail Beyond the Sunset

  “I won’t go!”

  “—and then close this house and take an apartment for myself at the Kansas Citian—a single apartment, big enough for a sand box for Polly, not big enough for another person. I was about to move into an apartment when you and your sister showed up…so I changed my plans and rented this house, especially for you two. But neither of you have treated me decently and I’m sick of trying. I’m going to bed. You can stretch out on that couch and get a nap. But if you are not gone when I get up, I intend to call your father and tell him to come get you.”

  “I won’t go with him!”

  “Your problem. The next step could be juvenile court but that is up to your father. As a result of your choice, six years ago, he has custody.” I stood up, then recalled something. “Donald, do you know marijuana when you see it?”

  “Uh…maybe.”

  “Do you, or don’t you?”

  “Yeah… I do.”

  “Wait here.” I was back in a few moments. “What is this?”

  “That’s marijuana. But, shucks, Mama, everybody does marijuana now and then.”

  “I don’t. And no one living in this house is permitted to. Tell me what this is for.” I reached into one pocket of my robe, got out that mirror so inappropriate to a girl’s room, reached more carefully into the other pocket, got out that single-edged razor blade, placed it on the mirror. “Well?”

  “What am I supposed to say?”

  “Did you ever cut a line of cocaine?”

  “Uh…no.”

  “Have you seen it done?”

  “Uh… Mama, if you are trying to tell me that Priss is hooked on coke, all I can say is that you must be out of your mind. Of course, most kids these days have tried it once or twice, but—”

  “You have tried it?”

  “Well, sure. The janitor at our school sold it. But I didn’t like it. It rots your nose out—did you know that?”

  “I knew that. Has Priss tried it?”

  He looked at the mirror and blade. “I suppose so. It looks like it.”

  “Have you seen her try it?”

  “Uh…once. I chewed her out about it. Told her not to do it again.”

  “But, as you have told me and as she says herself, she doesn’t like to take orders. And apparently did not take yours. I wonder if it’s the janitor at her present school?”

  “Uh, it could be a teacher just as easily. Or one of the seniors, a Big Man on Campus. Or a bookstore. Lots of places. Mama, they clean up the neighborhood dealers every now and then—doesn’t make the least bit of difference; there’s a new pusher the next week. The way I hear it, it’s the same everywhere.”

  I sighed. “It beats me, Donald. I’ll get you a blanket to pull over you.”

  “Mama, why can’t I sleep in my own bed?”

  “Because you’re not supposed to be here at all. The only reason you’re being indulged even this much is that I don’t think it is safe to let you go back on the road without something to eat and a few hours sleep.”

  I went back to bed, could not sleep. After about an hour I got up and did something I should have done earlier: I searched the maid’s room.

  I found the stash. It was between the mattress and the mattress cover, at the foot of the bed. I was tempted to taste the least trace of it, having some notion from biochemistry of what cocaine should taste like, but I had sense enough—or was chicken enough—not to risk it; there are street drugs that are dangerous in the tiniest amounts. I took it back up with me, locked it, the “grass” and the cigarette papers, and the mirror and blade, into a lock box I keep in my bedroom.

  They won. I lost. They were too much for me.

  I brought Priscilla home, cured but sullen as ever. Two Public Health officers, a man and a woman, called on us (Jim’s doing, with my cooperation) almost as we were taking off our coats. They wanted to know, gently and politely, Priscilla’s “contacts”—who could have given the bugs to her and to whom she could have passed them on.

  “What infections? I’m not ill, I never was ill. I’ve been held against my will in a conspiracy! Kidnaped and held prisoner! I’m going to sue somebody!”

  “But, Miss Smith, we have copies of your lab tests and your medical history. Here, look at them.”

  Priscilla brushed them aside. “Lies! I’m not going to say another word without my lawyer.”

  At which point I made still another mistake. “But, Priscilla, I am a lawyer; you know that. What they’re asking is quite reasonable, a matter of public health.”

  I have never been looked at with such contempt. “You’re not my lawyer. You’re one of the ones I’m going to sue. And these two characters, too, if they don’t quit heckling me.” She turned her back and went upstairs.

  I apologized to the two Public Health officers. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wren and Mrs. Lantry, but I can’t do anything with her, as you can see. I’m afraid you’ll have to get her on the witness stand and under oath to get anything out of her.”

  Mr. Wren shook his head. “It would not work. In the first place, we have no way to put her on the stand; she has not broken any laws that we know of. And we don’t know of anyone who has. In the second place, a youngster with her attitude simply takes the Fifth Amendment and shuts up.”

  “I’m not sure she knows what the Fifth Amendment is.”

  “You can bet she does, Mrs. Johnson. Today all these kids are street smart and every one of them is a chimney-corner lawyer, even in a rich neighborhood like this one. Put one on the stand and he’ll holler for a lawyer and the ACLU will supply one pronto. The ACLU figures it is more important to protect a teenager’s right to clam up than it is to protect some other teenager from infection and sterility.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Those are the conditions we work under, Mrs. Johnson. If we don’t get voluntary cooperation, we have no way to force it.”

  “Well… I can do one thing. I can go talk to her principal, tell him that he has VD running around loose in his school.”

  “It won’t do any good, Mrs. Johnson. You will find that he is extremely leery of being sued.”

  I thought about it…and had to admit (the lawyer in me) that I had nothing to tell the principal if Priscilla refused to cooperate. Ask him to run “short arm inspection” (Brian’s Army slang for it) on all his older boys? He would have hundreds of parents on his neck before dark.

  “What about drugs?”

  “What about drugs, Mrs. Johnson?”

  “Does Public Health deal with drugs?”

  “Some. Not much. Drugs are usually a police matter.”

  I told them what I had found. “What should I do?”

  “Does your daughter admit that these items are hers?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about them yet.”

  “If she won’t admit it, you may have great trouble proving that the key items—the cannabis and the powder that may be cocaine—are hers, rather than yours. I know you are a lawyer…but perhaps you need to see a lawyer who specializes in such matters. There is an old saw about that, is there not?”

  (“A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client.”) “Indeed there is! All right, I’ll take advice first.”

  Donald showed up right after that. He had not been on the couch on Saturday morning; I had assumed that he had gone back to Grinnell. It was now evident from the speed with which he showed up once I fetched Priscilla home from the hospital that he had stayed in Kansas City and placed himself somewhere near to watch for her return. Evident, but not true. He had learned somehow what hospital she was in—I could think of three simple ways—then arranged for someone to let him know when she was dismissed—again, three simple ways, including bribery if he could afford it. Never mind; he showed up.

  The door chimed.

  I buzzed the door phone. “Announce yourself, please.”

  “It’s Donald, Mama.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come t
o see Priss.”

  “You can’t see her.”

  “I’ll see her if I have to bust this door down!”

  I reached up and set off the Argus Patrol’s “Mayday!” “Donald, I will not let you enter this house.”

  “Try and stop me!” He started kicking the door.

  Priscilla came running downstairs, started to open the front door. I grabbed at her; there was a scuffle, we both went down.

  I’m no fighter. Fortunately Priscilla was not trained, either. Brian had taught me just one thing: “If you have to do it, do it fast. Don’t wait.”

  As she was getting up, I punched her in the stomach—no, the solar plexus. She went down and lay there, trying to gasp air.

  I heard from outside, “Mrs. Johnson! Argus is here.”

  “Nab him and take him away! I’ll call you.”

  “Nab who?”

  “Uh—” Priscilla was trying to get up again. I punched her in the same spot; she went down the same way. “Can you wait around for twenty minutes or a half hour? He might come back.”

  “Certainly. We’ll stay as long as you need us. I’ll call in.”

  “Thank you, Rick. It is ‘Rick,’ is it not?”

  “Rick it is, Ma’am.”

  I turned around, grabbed my daughter by the hair, lifted her head, and snarled at her. “Crawl upstairs, go to your room, and stay there! If I hear another peep out of you, I’ll punch you again.”

  She did exactly as I told her to, crawled away, sobbing, and crept upstairs, slowly. I made sure all doors and windows on the ground floor were locked, then I called Dallas.

  I explained to Brian in bitter detail what had happened since I had last called him to report on our children, what I had tried to do, what had actually happened. “Brian, I can’t cope with them. You must come get them.”

  “I want no part of either one of them. I was relieved when they ran away. Good riddance.”

  “Brian, they are your children and you have custody.”

  “Which I happily turn over to you.”

  “You can’t; it takes a court to do that. Brian, since I can’t handle them, if you won’t come for them—or send someone for them—all I can do is have them arrested—”

  “On what charges? Sassing you?”

  “No. Delinquency. Incest. Use of drugs. Possession of drugs. Running away from custodial parent, Brian Smith of Dallas, Texas.” I watched his face as I read off what I would tell the juvenile court. He did not flinch when I said “Incest” so I concluded that it was no news to him. He did not flinch until I named his name and city.

  “What! The newspapers would have a field day!”

  “Yes, in Dallas I imagine both the News and the Times Herald would feature it. I don’t know whether the Kansas City Star would touch it or not. Incest is a bit whiff for their editorial policies. Particularly incest involving a sister with two of her brothers, August and Donald.”

  “Maureen, you can’t mean this.”

  “Brian, I’m at the end of my rope. Priscilla knocked me down not twenty minutes ago and Donald has been trying to break down the front door. If you won’t come here by the very next rocketplane, I am calling the police and swearing out warrants, all those charges—enough to get them locked up at least long enough for me to close this house and get out of town. No half measures, Brian. I want your answer, right now.”

  Marian’s face appeared beside his. “Mother, you can’t do that to Gus! He didn’t do anything. He told me so, on his honor!”

  “That isn’t what they say, Marian. If you don’t want them saying it on the witness stand, under oath, Brian will come here and get them.”

  “They’re your children.”

  “They are Brian’s children, too, and he has custody. Six years ago, when I left them with you, they were well-behaved children, polite, obedient, and no more given to naughty spells than any growing child. Today they are incorrigible, uncivilized, totally out of hand.” I sighed. “Speak up, Brian. What will you do?”

  “I can’t come to K.C. today.”

  “Very well, I’ll call the police and have them arrested. Have them taken in and then swear out the warrant, the criminal charges.”

  “Now wait a minute!”

  “I can’t, Brian. I’m holding them off temporarily with the patrol, the private police who watch this neighborhood. But I can’t keep them here tonight; she’s bigger than I am and he’s twice as big. Good-bye; I’ve got to call the cops.”

  “Now hold it! I don’t know how soon I can get a ship.”

  “You can hire one; you’re rich enough! How soon will you be here?”

  “Uh…three hours.”

  “That’s six-twenty, our time. At six-thirty I’m calling the cops.”

  Brian got there at six-thirty-five. But he had called me from the field in North Kansas City well before the deadline. I was waiting for him in my living room with both children…and with Sergeant Rick of the Argus Patrol and Mrs. Barnes, the Patrol’s office manager, who doubled as matron. It had not been a pleasant wait; both rent-a-cops had been forced to demonstrate that they were tougher than teenage children and would brook no nonsense.

  Brian had taken the precaution of fetching four guards with him, two men, two women, one pair from Dallas, one pair from Kansas City. That did not make it legal but he got away with it because no one—I least of all!—cared to argue technicalities.

  I saw the door close behind them, went upstairs and cried myself to sleep.

  Failure! Utter and abject failure! I don’t see what else I could have done. But I will always carry a heavy burden of guilt over it.

  What should I have done?

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  The Adventures of Prudence Penny

  It took the opening of the Cleveland-Cincinnati rolling road to nail down in George Strong’s mind that my prophecies really were accurate. I was always most careful not even to hint the source of my foreknowledge because I had a strong hunch that the truth would be harder for George to take than leaving it all a mystery. So I joked about it: my cracked crystal ball—a small time machine I keep in the basement next to my Ouija Board—my séance guiding spirit, Chief Forked Tongue—tea leaves, but it has to be Black Dragon tea, Lipton’s Orange Pekoe doesn’t have the right vibrations.

  George smiled at each bit of nonsense—George was a gentle soul—and eventually quit asking me how I did it and simply treated the message in each envelope as a reliable forecast—as indeed it was.

  But he was still chewing the bit at the time the Cleveland-Cincinnati road opened. We attended the opening together, sat in the grandstand, watched the governor of Ohio cut the ribbon. We were seated where we could talk privately if we kept our voices down; the speeches over the loudspeakers covered our words.

  “George, how much real estate does Harriman and Strong own on each side of the roadway?”

  “Eh? Quite a bit. Although some speculator got in ahead of us and took options on the best commercial sites. However, Harriman Industries has a substantial investment in D/M power screens—but you know that; you were there when we voted it, and you voted for it.”

  “So I did. Although my motion to invest three times that amount was first voted down.”

  George shook his head. “Too risky. Maureen, money is made by risking money…but not by wildly plunging. I have trouble enough keeping Delos from plunging; you mustn’t set him a bad example.”

  “But I was right, George. Want to see the figures on a We-Woulda-Made if my motion had carried?”

  “Maureen, one can always do a We-Woulda-Made on a wild guess that happens to hit. That doesn’t justify guessing. It ignores the other wild guesses that did not hit.”

  “But that’s my point, George—I don’t guess; I know. You hold the envelopes; you open them. Have I ever been wrong? Even once?”

  He shook his head and sighed. “It goes against the grain.”

  “So it does and your lack of faith in me is costing b
oth Harriman and Strong and Harriman Industries money, lots of money. Never mind. You say some speculator optioned the best land?”

  “Yes. Probably somebody in a position to see the maps before the decisions were public.”

  “No, George, not a speculator—a soothsayer. Me. I could see that you weren’t moving fast enough so I optioned as much as I could, using all the liquid capital I could lay hands on, plus all the cash I could raise by borrowing against nonliquid assets.”

  George looked hurt. I added hastily, “I’m turning my options over to you, George. At cost, and you can decide how much to cut me in after the special position we have begins to pay back.”

  “No, Maureen, that’s not fair. You believed in yourself; you got there first; the profits are yours.”

  “George, you didn’t listen. I don’t have the capital to exploit these options; I put every cent I could raise into the options themselves—if I had been able to lay hands on another million, I would have optioned still more land farther out and for longer terms. I just hope you will listen to me next time. It distresses me to tell you that it is going to rain soup, then have you show up with a teaspoon rather than a bucket. Do you want me to warn you about the next special position? Or shall I go straight to Mr. Harriman and try to persuade him that I am an authentic soothsayer?”

  He sighed. “I’d rather you told me. If you will.”

  I said most quietly, “Do you have a place where we can shack up tonight?”

  He answered just as quietly, “Of course. Always, dear lady.”

  That night I gave him more details. “The next road to be converted will be the Jersey Turnpike, an eighty-mile-per-hour road as compared with this fiddling thirty-mile-per-hour job we saw opened today. But the Harriman Highway—”

  “‘Harriman’?”

  “The D. D. Harriman Prairie Highway from Kansas City to Denver will be a hundred-mile-per-hour road that will grow a strip city thirty miles wide from Old Muddy to the Rocky Mountains. It will boost Kansas from a population of two million to a population of twenty million in ten years…with endless special positions for anyone who knows it is going to happen.”