The Bell Tower

by Walter Blum

  “It’s all right,” Larry assured him. “Believe me.”

  “No, I shouldn’t have come at this hour.” He could see through the living room to the bedroom door, which was shut. It was obvious that Larry had company, probably that girl named Julie he’d been introduced to at the ball game. “I have no right to break in on you like this.”

  “It’s all right, believe me.”

  “No, I can’t…”

  “As long as you’re here, you might as well come in.”

  “No, this was a mistake,” Adam insisted, backing down the flagstone path. “I’ll see you at the station tomorrow. There’ll be plenty of time in the morning. It’s not that important.”

  He left a baffled Larry standing in the doorway, climbed back in the car, started up the engine and barreled down the road. Larry would probably think he’d lost his marbles, but it didn’t matter. The next thing he knew he was in Canelius again. He drove west this time, ending up on the outskirts of Forest Glen. It was too late to take in a movie, or even drive over to the ballpark to keep Sam O’Neill company. Anyway, Sam wouldn’t be there. As soon as the rain had started, they’d called the game—there was no one, really, to spend the night with except himself.

  And Susan.

  He drove to a secluded spot, parked, turned on the radio and listened to the late show from Cincinnati. The 50,000-watter there could be heard all through the region, a bright candle in the unending night. It didn’t matter what music they were playing, or what the announcer had to say, only that the sound shattered the wall of loneliness that rimmed a thousand listening lives.

  After a while he gave up, knowing that the worst thing he could do was avoid the truth. It was midnight when he got home. The house was dark and Susan, he realized, would be upstairs in bed, asleep. Undressing as quietly as possible, he slipped between the sheets, fully expecting not to sleep a wink. Instead, he was dead to the world the minute his eyes closed.

  Daylight greeted him when he came downstairs. Susan was pouring water for the coffee. The sky was cloudless. No trace remained of the rain from the night before.

  18

  Adam thought he heard her humming The Battle Hymn of the Republic to herself as she brought the coffee to the table. What an odd choice of melody on a morning like this. He looked up, hoping to make eye contact, but she seemed to have turned off the face she usually confronted the world with.

  “The coffee’s cold,” he murmured.

  “I’ll warm it up,” she said, whisking away the cup before he had a chance to stop her. She had on pink slippers and a matching pajama top, over which was wrapped a blue terry-cloth robe. She was strangely bright-eyed for that hour of the morning. Sooner or later he knew he would have to bring up the subject, but how to begin?

  “Did you have a good sleep?”

  “Good enough,” she said, her back to him as she waited for the water to come to a boil. When instant coffee had been introduced, she quickly switched to powder, which was simpler than going to the trouble of setting up the percolator and brewing a fresh cup every day.

  “No more nightmares?

  “What makes you think I have nightmares?” she wanted to know.

  “I thought—”

  “What did you think?”

  She filled a bowl with cornflakes, sliced a banana into the bowl and set it before him. Usually, he was ravenous in the morning, but today he picked at his cereal. He remembered the days of eggs and grits at the B&B, his head buried in the morning Post-Ledger, waiting to get the cobwebs untangled and the day’s agenda in order. There were no cobwebs this morning. He was fiercely awake, as though shot from a rifle, and yet all he wanted was to slide into bed, go back to sleep and try to forget what had happened the night before.

  “I thought maybe you’d have something to tell me.”

  “About what?” She had poured coffee for two and brought the cups to the table, steaming hot, along with the powdered jelly doughnut that he had taken to eating in the morning. She seemed remarkably eager to fall into whatever mood he was in at the moment. A little too eager, maybe. If there was going to be a confrontation, this was the moment for it.

  “Why don’t you tell me?” he said, aware that this sort of back-and-forth, up-and-down maneuvering was bound to lead nowhere.

  But the ball was in his court, and somehow or other he had to serve it, but he didn’t know how. He couldn’t just come right out and accuse her. She’d deny it, of course. What if she pinned him down and asked for details? What if she asked how he could be so sure about the couple standing at the registration desk at the Jefferson Davis Hotel…after all, it was dark and he was looking through a window at two people with their backs to him…he was in a moving car, which allowed him only a quick glimpse as he passed…it was illogical to think he had seen her at the hotel when she was, as she said, at home at the time…in bed…asleep.

  “Did you know I passed my driving test last week?”

  “You told me.” She’d had a learner’s permit until now; this meant she could take off any time she liked, without worrying about having another driver in the seat beside her.

  But there it was, the opening he needed. One thing leading to another. If he was sitting in the Bell Tower, this would be the perfect opportunity for a segue, and he’d know how to do it.

  “They gave you a license?” he asked.

  “It came in the mail yesterday.”

  “That was fast.”

  “Well, it depends on how many applications they have. The test wasn’t hard, and I only missed one item—they marked me down for parallel parking, which I’ve never been very good at.”

  “What about the written test?”

  Damn it! What the hell was he babbling about? Who cares about tests, written or otherwise? Why couldn’t he just grab her around the waist and shake the truth out of her, the way someone like Wally would have done? Wally wouldn’t have given a damn about her sensibilities. Wally was self-centered to a degree where discussions about driving tests, and even the location of the red Ferrari on a dark, downtown street, meant absolutely nothing. A husband’s needs were all that counted. The rest was redundant.

  “Ninety-six percent.”

  “What?”

  “The test,” she reminded him. “Just two questions missed, and they were the sort of thing you couldn’t memorize.”

  “You should have gotten a hundred percent.”

  “Why?” she asked with a touch of annoyance. “I passed, didn’t I?”

  “But you shouldn’t have missed any of the questions. I thought you were prepared.”

  “I was.”

  “Well, you’re smart enough to get a perfect score.”

  “You’re in a bad mood this morning, aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m not…damn it!

  “Maybe you should go easy on the coffee. You’ve been drinking an awful lot of it these days.”

  Now they were talking about coffee. If only he wasn’t so damned frightened of what would happen if he came right out and said what was on his mind, of what would happen if the whole thing exploded in his face, if the rockets went off. What would happen if, instead of trying to invent an alibi or dodge his questions or change the subject or encourage fantasies, she simply admitted what she’d done and was prepared to take the consequences? What then? Is that what he wanted to hear? Could he deal with that?

  Because now he was backed into a corner. If she lied, he would know it. And if she didn’t lie, that could be even more painful.

  ***

  He arrived at the station to find a heavy-set stranger with gray hair and pale blue eyes being shown around, Hunter Baines giving him the deluxe guided tour. “Ted Sauer is from St. Louis,” Baines explained. “KVMO.”

  They shook hands. Sauer gripped him with a heavy, vigorous paw that seemed capable of breaking bones, if that was the requirement. Adam knew instantly who he was. The name had been mentioned innumerable times in Broadcasting magazine, and when he came to your tow
n, it was quite clear what he was doing there. Later that morning, Wally stopped by for a chat.

  “Looks like he’s interested in us,” Wally said.

  “Sauer?”

  “Who else?” Wally perused his fingernails, a habit that was meant to express indifference and, to the acute observer, conveyed the exact opposite. “Don’t tell me you never heard of him.”

  “Of course I know who he is,” Adam snapped. “He owns radio stations.”

  “Lots of them, baby. The inside scoop is that he’s planning a radio empire that could span the continent. That’s one hell of an ambitious man. Mr. Top 40, they call him. I’ll tell you this, if Ted Sauer takes over WCAN, chances are we’ll be number one in the market in less than a year. I hear he has plans to boost the transmitter power. Think what that could mean if we went to 10,000 watts, or even fifty.”

  “I couldn’t care less.”

  “Well, I care,” Wally exuded. “Sauer is my kind of guy. Of course, things won’t be the same around here with him running things. That show of yours will have to go.” Wally sounded almost gleeful. “Your kind of corn doesn’t go with the format that’s his specialty.”

  “Corn?”

  “Well, you know what I mean. The Bell Tower and all that. Same goes for our friend Larry. We’re all fond of Kellin in Canelius, but you have to admit it doesn’t belong in a Top 40 format.”

  “Why not?”

  “It just doesn’t,” Wally snorted. “Top 40 is Top 40 and let’s face it, that’s where the future is.”

  The bastard! In all the years they’d worked together, Wally Bascom had always kept his opinions of the others to himself; now he glowed in the sunshine that would eventually burn everyone else to a crisp. But it didn’t seem to matter. The man lived, ate and breathed sales. He chewed on dollar signs, he swallowed bottom lines. It occurred to Adam that there was one other person at the station who felt the same way about Wally, and would certainly have something important at stake should Sauer move in.

  He arranged to meet Larry at the B&B for lunch.

  ***

  It had been quite a while since they’d sat together in the booth at the back of the cafe. Since Adam was married and Larry divorced, it seemed as though they were drawing farther and farther apart. They ordered coffee and sandwiches and Larry talked aimlessly about the future of the station and the direction radio in general was heading. After that, they talked about the weather and all the ugliness in Washington involving people accused of being communists, the accusations, the protests, the admissions of guilt. Larry was a diehard liberal, and his views were already well known. He mentioned Edward R. Murrow in passing, but that wasn’t what weighed on his mind.

  “Adam, there’s something wrong,” he said. “You just don’t seem like the same person I stood up for at the wedding ceremony. The other night you came to my house, and I could see it on your face that something really bad was happening, and if I’d any sense I would have insisted you come inside.”

  “It was late,” Adam reminded him.

  “I know it was late. But if I hadn’t been half asleep and not thinking straight, I wouldn’t have let you walk away like that. Now, let’s put aside all this nonsense and cut to the chase, as they say in the motion picture industry. What’s going on in your life?”

  “I’d just as soon not talk about it,” Adam murmured.

  “And I’m supposed to accept that as your final word on the subject?” Larry could sound remarkably like a third-grade teacher Adam had once had, the kind who scolds even before the reason for scolding was made clear.

  “I had no right to just barge in on you the other night. You had company.”

  “I did. And what difference, may I ask, does that make? Haven’t I always been there for you, and vice versa? When Nancy and I were fighting with that divorce, you held my hand, you understood what I was going through, although you’d never been married. You gave me the strength to continue when everything looked bleak. All right, that may sound trite—Wally has used that word in referring to me, more often than I would like—but you and I are not like Wally. You and I are on the same wavelength, and if that’s trite, if that’s cornball, well, so be it.”

  “But this isn’t your problem, Larry.”

  “Then make it my problem. If we’re going to continue to be friends, you have to open the door a crack and let me in. I gather the cause of your concern is not our recent visitor.”

  “Ted Sauer?”

  He knew it wasn’t that, and Adam was grateful that he’d concocted such an obviously askew reason. The waitress came over to take their dessert order. Larry asked for a chocolate sundae. Adam said at first that he didn’t want anything, but finally settled for a piece of cherry pie. The interruption broke Larry’s train of thought, but only for a moment. He noticed Adam, fork in hand, tracing lines and swirls on his napkin. In that instant, he could feel the answer he sought bubbling just below the surface.

  Finally, Adam looked up. “She’s having an affair,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Susan.”

  Larry’s right eyebrow rose a quarter of an inch, a habit that signified he was both surprised and at the same time skeptical. As usual, he gave the matter a moment of earnest thought before replying. “You don’t mean that,” he said in an even voice.

  “I do.”

  Larry shook his head. “I don’t believe that, not for one moment. The two of you were the ideal couple. You’re telling me that after being married for such a short time, you’ve already had a major falling out, which led to—no, it couldn’t possibly have happened. Not this soon.” He waited for Adam to step in and argue the point, but was met only with silence. “Is it someone we know?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want to tell me his name?”

  “No.”

  “All right,” Larry nodded. “There’s no point in my trying to pry it out of you. That’s not my style, and it’s none of my business, besides.” He frowned at his hands. “Is it someone you know?”

  “I saw them—”

  “Where?”

  “At the Jefferson Davis Hotel, at the registration desk, signing the registration book and then going upstairs.”

  “When was this?”

  “The other night, around ten o’clock. I was driving by the hotel. I have to go that way when I leave the station for home.”

  “What about your show?”

  “That’s the point. It was the night the transmitter broke down, remember? I thought it was like the breakdowns we’d had before, but then the station wouldn’t come back on line and I finally had to call Dominic Bardini. It turned out to be more serious than I thought.”

  “One of these days Mr. Baines is going to have to spring for a new transmitter,” Larry predicted.

  “I don’t think he plans to invest any more money.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Anyway, Dominic said it would take an hour or two to fix,” Adam continued. “There was nothing I could do about it, so I closed up the station and left early.”

  He described the route he’d taken that evening, the same one he took every night, downtown on Graham Avenue past the hotel.

  “And you’re absolutely sure it was her car?” Larry asked.

  “How many red Ferraris are there in a city the size of Canelius?” Adam wanted to know. “I guess I should have checked the license number more carefully, but it happened too fast, and by that time I’d passed it. I was already turning the corner.”

  “And?”

  “I saw them.”

  Yes, he agreed, there was always the possibility that his eyes might be playing tricks on him. It was a very dark night and he was moving when he passed the main entrance of the hotel. He’d had only a fleeting glimpse, he was tired, his mind was focused on the mishap at the station and having to cancel the rest of the show and what he planned to schedule for the next one. He’d had only a moment to make the identification.

  “So you could ha
ve imagined it.”

  “No. There was no doubt about the Ferrari.”

  Larry stared at him apprehensively. “What did you do then?”

  “I went into the hotel and made up some story about being a friend of the people who’d just registered, and how I wanted to surprise them—yes, believe it or not, that’s what I planned to do. I was going to go upstairs, wait a while out in the corridor and then bang on the door. I suppose if I had a weapon of some sort—”

  “You wouldn’t have done anything and you know it.”

  Adam bowed his head

  “You’re not the violent type, and don’t try to tell me that in the heat of the moment, you might have turned into a killer. I can’t see you with a gun in your hand, or brandishing a six-inch kitchen knife. You’re like me. For better or for worse, we’re the sort who has to wait things out. What happened then? Did you see her name in the registration book?”

  “They used an alias. John Smith and wife.”

  “The usual.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Did you go upstairs?”

  “No, I wandered around for a while, and by the time I got home she was in bed and asleep.”

  Larry rubbed his chin and dabbed at his sundae, which was already beginning to melt. Had he been a smoker, he would have spent the next few minutes puffing on an invisible meerschaum pipe, musing, contemplating, conjecturing, trying to make everything come together the way the classic detectives of literature did. He would have pointed out Adam’s mistakes. He would have offered alternatives, organized the situation into a comprehensible whole, tried to make some sense out of what appeared at first to be a series of random events.

  Adam was grateful for the absence of a pipe. The last thing he wanted now was another of Larry’s set of sage rules for marital behavior. There was a long pause, during which his friend went through the ritual of weighing all possibilities, putting the situation on a scale in case there was something they might have missed.

  Finally, he said, “So you haven’t confronted her, have you?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. The hardest thing a man has to do is tell his wife he knows she’s been cheating.”