The Thing in B-3

by Talmage Powell

  His brows elevated. “You mean they’re just letting him run loose?”

  “Dr. Connell has a theory....”

  “He would have!” Her father broke in.

  “A theory that Bill,” Betty continued, “is receiving a psychic impression and isn’t really crazy at all.” “Hogwash! Connell should be locked up, also, on the level below young Latham, and the key thrown away.”

  She noticed the way she was handling the brush.

  She dropped it on the dressing table with a clatter.

  Her father thrust his hands in his trousers pockets and strode a few steps back and forth. “Little wonder you had such a headache.”

  She was silent for so long that he stopped his pacing. He hesitated, then took a step toward her.

  “No, Daddy,” she said in a gusty voice, as if replying to a question. “The cause of the headache, I think, was a little more complex than you believe. You see . . . growing up, all my ideas were borrowed, mainly from you, because you were so much stronger than Mother. Things were either black or white. Everything could be cut and measured. If you couldn’t see it, smell it, taste it, or feel it, then it wasn’t worth the wasting of a thought.”

  “Bets ”

  “No.” Her head made a single, quick movement. “Please let me finish.”

  His shadow washed to the side of the dressing table. “All right, I’ve never said you couldn’t speak your mind. But I think that this house, everything we have, is pretty good proof of the soundness of my ideas.”

  “I’m not arguing with your success, Daddy. It’s just that . . . well, I don’t cut and measure things quite the way I used to.”

  His face took on the faintest of reddish tints. Then he bit back his snarl. “Bets, don’t tell me that Connell has poisoned you, too.”

  “No, but. . . .”

  “But what?” he demanded.

  “Well, even now my borrowed impulse is to mark Bill on the sick list and not look beyond that.” “What’s beyond?” he said. “Looks as plain as the nose on my face.”

  “And that’s the trouble, Daddy. The appearance of things not always expressing the truth of their reality. Your nose looks just like a nose, but when you use it, does it give you exactly the same smells that my nose gives me?”

  “Betty, I’ll hear no more of this!” He turned, taut with the need to vent his energies and emotions. He seemed about to kick a hassock out of his way. “Maybe I’d better have some plain talk with the Crownover trustees about Connell!”

  “I was trying to tell you what I feel inside, Daddy, and how it all added up to one mind-blowing headache.”

  He walked all the way to the window bays and looked out at the deepening twilight.

  When he turned, Betty knew he had made a decision. He had assessed everything with what was to him computer-like dispassion.

  “I don’t actually dislike young Latham,” he said quietly. “I’ve simply never agreed with his aims in life. I’ve wanted something better and more substantial for you.”

  “I know, but. . . .”

  He flicked his hand up. “Give me the same freedom of saying what I want to say that I gave you.”

  She nodded, huddled slightly on the dressing table seat, her hands clutched together in her lap.

  “Right now,” Rolph Atherton said, “I'm more than a little sorry for the boy. I want it broken up between you two—but not like this. I wouldn’t want it to end on a more unpleasant note.”

  “Unpleasant? What do you mean?”

  “If he’s off his rocker, who knows what he’ll do? Perhaps come out here and make trouble. So we’re going to the lake cottage for a few days. Just you and me. You can read, and rest, and take the speedboat for a good, chilly spin. You can think over Bill Latham with a lot clearer mind out there.”

  “But I’m not thinking so much about myself. If Bill should need me. . .

  “Good grief, Bets,” he said in kindly contempt, “you don’t think you could put a broken mind together again in a few days, do you? Anyway, if you’re really thinking about Bill, you’ll not want your own fears and tears around him right now.” She looked at him closely, wondering if he were playing on her feelings for Bill with a virtuoso touch.

  “You could be the worst tiling for him right now, Bets. Give him—and the doctors—a chance for a few days. You’ll strengthen yourself and come back able to do him some real good.”

  Her shoulders rose with a long sigh. “You cut it like chipping ice.”

  “But I’m right. You’ll see.” He walked to her and picked up her hand. “Now, you freshen yourself up and pack a bag, young lady, while I tell the cook we won’t be here for dinner. We’ll eat in that lodge restaurant up toward the lake. The one with the funny-sounding Indian name.”

  She watched him leave the room. She wanted to be here every second, knowing all that was happening to Bill. She glimpsed herself in that role, a fluttering nuisance worrying everyone with her questions, troubling them with her fears, helping no one. Her father was offering her the harder way, it seemed.

  She got up and crossed to the closet. She slid back the panel, exposing the rack of dresses, not really caring what she would wear.

  She reached in and lifted a dress from its hanger. It was yellow linen. It had two small rhinestones where the shoulder straps met the squarish collar.

  She had bought the dress a few days ago at a little off-campus shop catering to coeds. So far she hadn’t worn it.

  10

  A Revealing Portrait

  DRIVING TOWARD Harlandale, George Kahler worked at being friendly. He asked about Bill's courses at Crownover and insisted on picking up a bag of hamburgers at a carry-out place on the edge of the city.

  Kahler got back in the Mercedes, grinning as he handed over the food. “That’11 push a wrinkle out, anyhow.”

  “Thanks.”

  Kahler whisked the car back onto the highway. It moved with the fluid power of harnessed black leopards.

  Kahler drove with his left hand, taking a big chomp at the hamburger he held in his right.

  “Your girl in the MG?” Kahler asked.

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Real nice-looking chick.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  Kahler glanced at him. Bill’s tone hadn’t invited pursuance of the subject. And right now, Bill rated royal courtesy, at least until Kahler had finished the job of fetching him to The Oaks.

  Bill watched trees and telephone poles whip past. By now, he judged, Betty would have covered the distance of the expressway, Eastern Parkway, Fairfield Boulevard, Foxlane. She would be entering that luxurious house. Her father wouldn’t be home for a few hours yet. Bill hoped her mother would be. But that was always questionable. Mrs. Atherton was always running hither and yon, making motions to fill a life that had grown empty.

  She could try filling it a little more with Betty, Bill thought grimly.

  Kahler watched Bill without appearing to. The young fellow was sure thinking some long thoughts, he observed.

  Kahler slowed the car, turned the steering wheel, and eased across the rutty drop onto The Oaks driveway.

  Bill’s moodiness drained off a little. He braced against the armrest as the car rolled and pitched along the ruts up through the trees.

  They passed the point of their earlier confrontation. Then Kahler was stopping the car in front of the house.

  The silent, weathered face of the house held George for a moment.

  “Just be kind to her, Mr. Latham. The years haven’t been. It never hurts to be kind.”

  Bill’s hand stiffened for an instant on the door handle. His face twisted leftward in a short arc. George was looking away, toward the house. Bill studied the almost earless head that might have been carved from yellowish marble. George’s words had rung unpleasantly like a warning, a threat.

  “I didn’t come along to be unkind,” Bill said.

  George looked around with a bull-like movement of head and shoulders
. “Yes, that’s right. You’re a nice young fellow.”

  “And kindness is a two-way street,” Bill said.

  George caught the counter-warning. It seemed to amuse him. “You’re mighty right, Mr. Latham,” he agreed amiably.

  They got out of the car. As Bill walked around to fall in beside George, he looked toward the house, expecting it to show signs of life. But nothing happened. Even the big dog Blitzen was conspicuous by his absence.

  George opened the front door and bowed Bill inside.

  Bill had the sensation of a backward movement in time. The air had a mustiness that couldn’t have accumulated overnight.

  He followed Kahler into a living room where the draperies had hung limp for a generation. The style of the couches and chairs was older than his earliest memories. On a coffee table a youngish Harry Truman doggedly electioneered from the cover of a yellowing magazine. Bill had never seen a radio like the ornate cabinet model in the end of the room.

  "I'll announce you, Mr. Latham,” Kahler said, as if he spent half his time ushering in callers.

  The woman who poised for an entrance a few minutes later caused Bill to stand rooted in mild shock. She was a slender, wasted figure in a blue silk dress that reached within a dozen inches of her ankles. Her thin face was a gargoyle mask molded from white chalk, with slashes of crimson and blue marking mouth and eyes. Her hair was a sparse fall of silver that curled inward above her shoulders.

  “So nice of you to come, Mr. Latham.” With hand outstretched and a smile pulling the garish lips, she stepped forward with a lingering trace of charm and grace. The hint of what she must have once been only pointed up, pitiably, what she was today.

  Bill took the offered hand. The bones were thin and birdlike. Her touch was as dry as an old, long-stored newspaper.

  “I’m Carlotta Braxley,” she said. “Do sit down. Be comfortable. We don’t stand on too much formality here at The Oaks. You may smoke if you care to.”

  “Never picked up the habit,” Bill said.

  “Then you’re a very wise young man. Neither did Elizabeth.” She turned and moved to one of the couches facing each other before the dead fireplace. “George will serve some tea shortly, and we’ll have a good talk.”

  She sat down with a genteel breaking of the knees, her back straight. She patted the cushion beside her, and the movement provoked a hint of dust.

  Bill was nearer the opposite couch. It was a good excuse for him to sit farther from her, with the old-fashioned oaken coffee table between them.

  With a ferret intensity, she watched him sink onto the couch.

  “Do you like Crownover, Mr. Latham?”

  “Very much.”

  “Do you live in a dorm or fraternity house?”

  “I live at home,” he said. “My father is a local doctor.”

  “I see. Do you wish to become a doctor, also?” “I’d like to get into the research end of medicine. But it takes a long time and a lot of work.”

  “And I’m sure you’ll succeed.” Her quick little nods admitted no argument.

  George came in carrying a magnificent but slightly tarnished silver tea service. He set the tray on the oaken table.

  “Thank you, George,” Mrs. Braxley said. “That will be all for now, but stay on call.”

  Rising from the tray, George flicked a final warning glance at Bill. Be very kind to her, George’s eyes said.

  Bill felt his hackles rise. It came to him that this echo of a woman and this ruin-ridden estate made up Kahler’s world. These were the responsibilities that gave George a reason for existing.

  Bill sneaked a longing glance at the door. He was beginning to regret having come. But the strange urge to know more about Elizabeth Braxley still gnawed at him.

  Mrs. Braxley was asking him how he liked his tea.

  “A lump of sugar will be fine, please.”

  She poured, tonged sugar, and offered the fragile, steaming cup across the table. She tilted the heavy teapot to pour her own, saying, “Did you meet Elizabeth when she was last in the hospital?”

  “No, Mrs. Braxley, I didn’t know Eliza. . . .” “Surely you didn’t meet her when she was away at school? I’m sure she mentioned all her friends, and I don’t remember your name.” She looked at him over the thin rim of her cup. “Just how did you meet Elizabeth, Mr. Latham?”

  “Well, I started to say,” he began again, clearing his throat, “I didn’t know Elizabeth at all.”

  She had no facial expression, at least none visible through the layers of powder. “I’m afraid you’re confusing me. You came here earlier with inquiries about Elizabeth. Now you say you didn’t know her.”

  Bill shifted awkwardly. Now that the moment was here, he wondered how foolish his words would sound—and what old wounds they might reopen in Carlotta Braxley.

  “I’m waiting, young man!” For the first time her voice hinted at the emotional undertows constantly seething inside of her.

  “It isn’t something that happens every day,” Bill said.

  “No one has experienced the strange and the shocking more than I.” She pressed back, seeming to shrink into the couch. “I doubt that you could say anything that would surprise or upset me.”

  Bill set down his drink, the cup emitting a slight rattle against the saucer.

  “I have a part-time job, Mrs. Braxley, and I. . . .” “I’m sure it’s very nice. But I suggest you start getting to the point.”

  “The job is the point—at least, in a way.” Bill rubbed the knuckles of his left hand with the palm of his right. “I work evenings at the city morgue.” “A horrible place!”

  “Yes . . . well . . . night before last. . . .” Had it been that recent? He drew a helpless breath. “Mrs. Braxley, I think this has all been a mistake, starting with my coming here in the first place.”

  She inched forward, and something in her movements sent a chill through him. “But you did come, Mr. Latham. You had a reason. And you’ve aroused my curiosity dreadfully.”

  Bill found himself pressing the back of the couch, stretching the distance between himself and that hovering face. He knew he had come too far to turn back. She was going to have an explanation, or erupt like an ice-capped volcano.

  “Okay, Mrs. Braxley, I’ll tell it to you straight. If you think the trouble is with me, you won’t have to call George to throw me out. I’ll leave quietly.”

  “Then let’s by all means return to the morgue. I believe we were there, and the time was night before last.”

  His glance slid away. He sat as if studying the film of gray ash in the long-unused fireplace. “I won’t bore you with details, but I discovered a girl in one of the refrigerated drawers. Only she wasn’t there, not really.” He hesitated. “Other people couldn’t see her. Just me.”

  He slipped a look to see how she was taking it. He couldn’t tell. Her face was that of an expressionless clown out of a nightmare circus.

  “Since the drawer was actually empty,” he said, “I looked up the name of the last person who’d been in it.

  “And the name was Elizabeth’s,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “No, no, that’s only the beginning of it!” A wild, happy laugh burst through her words.

  In a fury of movement she was up and around the table. Then she dropped sideways beside Bill and clutched his hands.

  “You dear boyl” Tears of delirium spilled down the plaster-of-paris cheeks. “You dear, marvelous boyl”

  Bill struggled away in quick panic, but she wouldn’t let go. She pressed his right hand against the hollow of her cheek.

  “You bring me such happy news!”

  “Happy?” Bill gulped. He’d expected nothing like this display.

  She jumped up. Holding his hands, she dragged him to his feet.

  He held back, and her eyes snapped a bolt of anger. Bill had never seen anything like it. Once it was charged up, the white mask could express joy, sorrow, wild rage, all in the same instant.

&nbs
p; “Now, don’t be afraid, young man! We’re simply going up to Elizabeth’s room. Isn’t that why you came, to know and understand her better?”

  Bill allowed himself to be led out of the living room and up a creaking stairway. In the upper hall, Carlotta Braxley stopped at a closed door. A hush came over her. She opened the door with soft, gentle movements.

  “This room knew her private thoughts, Mr. Latham. These are the things she touched.” Mrs. Braxley held his hand and drew him inside. She moved inch by inch, as if she were on hallowed ground.

  Special as the room might be to Carlotta Braxley, Bill saw it as comfortably ordinary. It was furnished in maple and chintz. And, in one respect, it didn’t seem a part of the house. Carlotta Braxley had tried to stop the passage of time when her husband died. But in here, at least, there were reminders of the immediate past—a portable TV in the farther corner, a book about John F. Kennedy on a nearby table, and a small stereo with a tape still in place.

  “Everything is exactly as she left it, Mr Latham,” Mrs. Braxley said in hushed tones.

  Bill thought of a girl growing up in this house and staying in tune with the present only in this room. He shivered slightly.

  Mrs. Braxley slipped about the room, touching objects here and there as if it were a daily ritual. She shifted comb, brush, cologne and perfume bottles on the dressing table, probably back to the exact locations of yesterday. She smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle from the flowered bedspread.

  Bill stood as if glued. She looked at him from the foot of the bed.

  “It was terribly difficult,” she said, “first realizing and then accepting Elizabeth’s differences. She was like no other person, Mr. Latham. She was different from the day of her birth. Yes. . . .”

  Her mind drifted. She looked vaguely about the room, then refocused on Bill.

  “I’m sure your education has progressed to a knowledge of genes, chromosomes, those hereditary factors in our parents that cause us to be born the way we are.”

  “Yes.” Bill nodded. “I know something about the subject.”

  “Then you know that life progresses in a chain. Every now and then a link bursts out that’s different. We call this link a mutation. Elizabeth was a mutant . . . yes. . .