The gun was disassembled, its two parts wrapped in the worn canvas of an old brown hunting jacket. Orrie had fired it once, in a practice session before they set out on the hunt for pheasant. He carried no weapon of his own that day, but was to get a boy’s beginner gun, a light. 410-bore, at Christmas—if his mother approved. Of course she would not have done so, had things got that far, but even before the matter of the downed bird, it was clear that he was not the boy to arm. The recoil of the twelve-gauge had almost knocked him down, though as forewarned he had braced himself, and despite his having kept the butt pressed firmly against his shoulder, it had somehow pulled away only to slam back with massive force when the shot left the barrel. His bruised shoulder had stayed sore for days. He was manly enough not to complain, but he gave the gun back to his father without discharging the second barrel (and was criticized for the lack of proper safety procedures in so doing), and never touched the weapon again until this moment.
His father had taken care of the gun: when Orrie picked up the business end and, as if he were an old hand with ordnance, squinted through the barrels, he saw they glistened with oil after all these years and, owing to the jacket in which they had been wrapped, showed little dust. It did not take much knowhow to join the barrels with the stock. Put into proximity, they virtually did the job themselves. Pointing the weapon at the window, by the light of which he had inspected the interior of the barrels, he squeezed the near trigger and then the farther, remembering too late that his father had warned, years before, against doing that and so jeopardizing the firing pins, which had a tendency, when futilely striking not metal but rather empty air, to shear off. Orrie saw that as unlikely even when his father explained by analogy: there was less strain on the arm when a fist hit a punching bag than when it missed. “But what about when it hits something hard?” Well, it anyway happened with firing pins, metal having laws of its own. Orrie never really believed it then, but he did now. Not that he had learned anything more about guns in the years since: it was just that he realized Dad had surely known what he was talking about and deserved to be taken on faith by a son who knew nothing at all in those days…. And had learned little enough later on. He was feeling worse now than he had at any time since first hearing of his father’s death, in some sort of delayed reaction, brought on by the clothing and especially the gun, the peculiar odor of which, blued-steel and oil and maybe even a touch of the polished walnut stock, he had not smelled since the pheasant hunt on which he had so let down his dad.
Just above one of the lower pockets of the canvas jacket was a series of narrow tubular pockets for the carrying of ammunition, and three now held brass-topped, red-shafted shells. Just one would do the job, of course, but with the muzzle in his lips, his arm was not quite long enough to reach the trigger, even with his finger extended to the utmost—unless he forced it so far down his throat he would gag and maybe throw up before he could blow his head off—how disgusting that would be for his mother and Ellie. Nevertheless, there was no hope for him in life. For a moment that truth was so exquisitely clear as to be beyond pain, beyond sorrow, and even beyond regret.
12
Coming back from the crematorium, E.G. had dropped Esther off at home and then gone on a few errands (picking up some meat, collecting rents). He had regretted killing Augie since the moment the deed was done, and could not now remember quite how she had talked him into participating in it. After all, at stake was only ten grand in insurance money, and all of it would have gone only for her upkeep, unless he wanted to provide more from his own pocket. Augie’s monthly allotment checks had run through her fingers like sand, and what did she spend it on? She fed the kids on cold cuts and canned junk. When he took her to the track, she expected him to finance her bets and then let her keep the rare winnings. The truth was, he had never really liked Esther. As a kid she had been an easy lay, had practically ripped his fly open the first time he found himself alone with her. She had always been addicted to him, and it was hard to avoid someone who thought so highly of you: even when you cannot return the favor, you must recognize the good taste of such an addiction.
Esther had always been crazy about him while having nothing but contempt for Augie, which if you thought about it was the goddamnedest thing imaginable, the way it all eventually worked out, and it was not over yet. E.G. never had anything against Augie. If he ever pretended to have, it was Esther who provoked him. Throughout all the years he had maintained a connection with her for one reason alone: his son. That he had never yet been able to establish much rapport with the boy was disappointing, but the situation was not hopeless. After all, they had never, he and Orrie, yet lived „ under the same roof—Esther had even insisted he go home early on those evenings he came to dinner (bringing the steak), or if he and she went out to eat, to return her at a reasonable hour and then leave. Furthermore, on the latter occasions, by always inviting both Orrie and Ellie to come along in the family unit, such events could not be defined as “dates.” For a long time now the children could be counted on to decline the invitation and dine from cans at home, leaving Esther and him to get takeout, or maybe eat nothing at all, and go to a tourist cabin. He could still service her effectively after all those years, even though she was not his type and maybe never had been.
Gena on the other hand, when she reached puberty, embodied his ideal: blonde, blue-eyed, and with flesh so young and radiant that it glowed in the dark, yet he could never begin to arouse her. His money bought him nothing but a negative: she would not stop him from doing what he wanted. It was as if she left her body with him, as she might rent out a piece of clothing, and went away somewhere until he was done with it. She was saving up for enough money to go to Hollywood, as she reminded him frequently, lest he think her just a common prostitute. If he knew anything about life after considerable experience of it, she was hustling the streets out there—if she ever got that far, for though on the money he had given her alone (plus God only knew what from others: he had no illusions about being unique in her career), she could have taken the Super Chief, she was a stingy, greedy little bitch and decided to save the fare and hitchhike, earning maybe more money en route. More likely, as he assured her, she would get robbed of the funds she carried in her underpants, when they were ripped away by the driver who raped her and maybe even slit her throat when done. E.G. told her: “You’re just a small-town kid.” She looked at him and snorted. “Oh, yeah?” He had never once seen her without a sullen mouth. You certainly couldn’t buy a smile from those lips, which remained cool under no matter how hot a kiss. She could have got anything out of him if she even pretended to like him more. He had too much pride to make that point to her, but for her sake he hoped somewhere along the line she would realize that for a girl like her to get anywhere at all, she had to submit to men, not just fuck them, with or without pay; to have some real respect. Being pretty was not enough, not anywhere, and certainly not in Hollywood, where those baldheaded old Jew producers could get any kind of quiff they wanted, didn’t have to kowtow to some little chippy from nowhere. But listening to anything he said would have interfered with her sense of herself as royalty untouched by human hands even though you might erroneously believe your cock was up to its hilt in her belly.
One day Gena up and left, without goodbyes for anybody, unless she told Ellie, that skinny, creepy little thing—though he basically felt sorry for her: her sister had got all the looks, leaving none for her, and nobody could have convinced E.G. that brains were a suitable substitute when it came to females. Esther didn’t miss Gena for a minute. Maybe she suspected what had been going on. Though different on the surface, underneath it all they had certain similarities, she and Gena, namely the whoriness, though the kid seemed to find the act distasteful and cared only for the money, whereas her mother couldn’t get enough of either. Especially as she got older, Esther verged on the nympho, but always had her hand out too, though she lived in the house free of charge except for the utilities and phone. He saw it
as a point of principle that he not pay for the enormous supplies of hot water used by her and Gena for their incessant baths or for the latter’s overuse of the telephone, which he suspected might well be for business. But no doubt he ended up footing such bills indirectly. Aside from his dick, Esther had no other purpose for him but as a source of money, and though he complained, he generally supplied her needs because of Orrie.
He admired his son. Talk about brains, Orrie had enough and then some. Straight A right through school, at college on a scholarship. This was a terrific honor, though while proud as he could be, E.G. regretted he would not be paying for the boy’s education. It would have been the vicarious fulfillment of one lifetime dream. He had himself been a good student and was certainly smart enough to have done well at higher learning, but his dad hadn’t had the funds to send him to college, and in those days nobody heard of scholarships. So he had never been a college man, could not fly the pennant at homecoming football games, had no ring with the university seal, no access to the social circles of the educated classes, something he would have liked as he became more comfortably fixed financially and could with suitable encouragement have entertained values beyond the narrowly material. But now this would be possible for Orrie, along with so much more. As a great surgeon, there would be no limit to how high he could rise. Everybody, including presidents and kings, was at a doctor’s mercy.
But Augie’s murder cast a shadow across such projections. They should never have gone through with it after the electric-fan trick had flopped, a failure that was altogether her fault. He could not get over her ignoring his warning to check the length of the cord. He should have dropped out at that first definite proof she lacked basic respect for him. He had planned so carefully, establishing exactly where a blow to the bedroom wall would communicate an effective vibration to the other side: right at where, if the plaster had been scraped away, you could find the stud, to the other side of which the little bathroom shelf was attached. A blow elsewhere, on plaster without rigid support, would likely be harmlessly absorbed and not reach the bathroom side with any force.
But all his care had gone for naught. As it turned out, they might as well have dispensed with the plan and simply burst in and drowned the poor drunk bastard without preliminaries. It would even have been more merciful. As the days went by, E.G. had begun to associate himself more with Augie than with Esther. They were both her victims, in more ways than one, and Orrie might well be the third male she destroyed. What would it mean to his scholarship if the truth were known even in a partial form? That his supposed father had been murdered by his mother, who had been given some assistance by his real father, whose mistress she had been for almost twenty years? And as to the boy’s subsequent career, if indeed he got that far now, what prosperous patients would put their lives in the hands of a doctor from a family background like that?
E.G. hated her for jeopardizing Orrie’s future. It was absolutely essential now that he himself be permanently installed on the premises. God knew what she might do behind his back. Maybe even, if she feared the authorities were closing in, she would sell him out for their promise to go easy on her. He could not allow himself to be lulled into a sense of false security by the apparent lack of police suspicion: it could be they were just biding their time, waiting for him to lower his guard. Howie Gross could be smarter than he looked, not to mention that, given Augie’s recent association with the military, the FBI might be eligible to come in. It might even be that Augie had not yet been formally discharged by the time of his death, in which case they were in the worst trouble of all. The murder of a soldier, a war hero, still on duty?
You could know a woman for two decades and foolishly believe all the while that it was you who had the upper hand, and then suddenly find the situation was precisely the reverse and that furthermore she was thoroughly evil. Moving into the house thus took courage on his part. If she would murder one man for nothing, what about another who could implicate her in a capital crime? He felt then he was laying his life on the line for Orrie, the son who as yet, it had to be admitted, despised him. But as yet Orrie did not know who his father really was.
13
It took Orrie longer to move into the attic than he had anticipated. His clothes were easily transferred, the few hangered items going on nails into the beams and the smaller stuff in two cardboard cartons. But he had to deal with the complex matter of his other possessions, some of which, like the Indian flint blade so large it must have been a spear tip and not a mere arrowhead, he had owned since quite early in life and expected to keep forever. But now the status of some had been altered by his removal to the third floor. The spearhead was of historical interest and scarcely the kind of gewgaw that could be lightheartedly discarded, though perhaps its proper place was in the natural-history museum in the city. He had not found it himself but had been given it by a man his father knew, who had been presented it by a relative of his own. But the letter opener, supposedly a small replica of King Arthur’s Excalibur, made in Japan, he had purchased himself in a novelty store that had since gone out of business. The combination pocket compass and folding magnifying glass he had bought through the mail, from an ad in a boys’ magazine. The fencing foil had been a gift of his Latin teacher, who had used it in college but never since, living in a place where no one else practiced the sport, so he gave it to Orrie, in lieu of wages, for helping him clean out his basement one Saturday. Orrie used it only to thrust at imaginary opponents in brief fantasies from swashbuckler movies, but had kept it against the day he himself went to college. Now he was there but had not as yet checked into whether there was a fencing team, and the foil meanwhile stayed home—for he had not wanted to arrive at school with it under his arm and be thought some sort of snob by fellow students whose game was football.
The books in the case included those he had received when barely old enough to read, some with only a few words on each page, below the pictures. He would have been embarrassed to be asked by a contemporary why he hung on to such and would probably have professed simply to have forgotten they were there, on the lowest shelf where you normally did not look and where dust formed a blanket (for Orrie was supposed to do his own cleaning, if any was done). But the fact was that he kept them because they had been given to him by his mother, who furthermore had, in the earliest days, when letters were yet incomprehensible to him, read aloud from the books, with his small body against her warmth, her scent his atmosphere. And then a few years later on, it was he who, showing off his new skill, would read to her. Looking back now, he recognized that her patience with him had been inexhaustible, at a time when his father, and of course his older sister, had no time to spare from their own concerns. He could recollect little about his associations with them except being complained about. But there had never been an occasion on which his mother did not receive him as if there were no more important an event in all the world.
Surely she would still be that way; it was he who had changed. When you reached a certain age, you couldn’t go running to your mother, especially if you were already worried about your dad’s low opinion of your manhood. And that your dad, at an older age than most, went off to fight in a war made your problem even greater. While his father was in combat, Orrie belonged to the high-school dramatic club (and in a one-act farce once played a girl in lipstick and rouge) and served on the debating team. But he would fight if pushed too far and once had an encounter with a boy who was so much larger than he that simply standing up to him brought more respect than anything Orrie had to that point accomplished in life, some of it coming from the bruiser himself, who afterwards called him a pal.
Despite the sentimental value of some of the stuff in the old room, he would have left much of it behind had the new tenant been anybody but Uncle Erie. The childhood books were especially cumbersome, for there were no shelves in the attic, and it did not seem right to move up the little bookcase itself and so denude one wall of its only furniture: Orrie could honor pr
inciple in such matters of order, but he would leave behind nothing of a personal nature, including the only decoration, an unframed charcoal drawing of the head of an Irish setter, done by himself in high-school art class, the only thing he had ever done that even distantly approached his own standards. It was Ellie, and not himself, who thought so highly of his talent—if this example could even be called art. The conception was not at all original: he had copied a photograph, though not in the sense of a tracing. He had used charcoal because he could not cope with water colors. Maybe he should give her the picture now.
But as it was his best, and given the likelihood that he would never again produce anything that could be called art, he really ought to present it to his mother, who furthermore was so partial to dogs. It was with her in mind, in fact, as he now remembered, he had undertaken the project, which was to be a gift at some bygone Christmas. But when he was done, back then, the drawing had just not seemed good enough for the purpose, though it was his best. He had always resisted taking advantage of a mother’s natural partiality towards her child: he did not want an approval that was obligatory. By now, however, the quality of the drawing seemed to have improved considerably, he could not say why. He had not really looked at it in years and had little memory of doing it, apart from the banal recollection that your fingers got dirty using that medium and could mark up your face if like him you often touched your features while deliberating: others in the art room would stare at him and giggle. Maybe he cared too much about public opinion, but, given his family, he was often conscious of it, while telling himself it didn’t matter, that what did matter in life was not what you came from but where you were headed.