by Mary Astor
He drew up to Elmer and handed him his ticket, saying, “Tell me, did you happen to see Mr. Carewe leave here a few minutes ago?”
Elmer grinned vacantly. Gregg reached for his wallet but the man said, “You a cop too?”
“I just want to know if he happened to say where he was going. You do know Mr. Carewe, don’t you?”
“Charlie? Sure, I know ’im. Comes here all the time. What’s up, anyway? He had a skinful, but not too bad, that’s what I told the fellows——” He gestured to where the patrol car had disappeared.
Gregg held back a question, saying instead, “I’m just a friend, I was afraid he’d been drinking too much and I’ve been trying to find him to drive him home. Did he say where he was going?”
“Home.”
“Home! It’s a little early for Charlie, isn’t it—to be going home?”
“You’re not kiddin’!” chuckled Elmer confidentially. “He said he’d be back, and I was to hold some space for him. Said he was going home and pick up his bongo drums and liven the joint up a little”—he laughed some more—“but I don’t think he’ll be back. The boys were talkin’ to me about how he kited out of here last night with a fellow’s car. I told them, I said they’d been here together and I didn’t think——” but Gregg had muttered “Thanks,” and was gone.
There were flickers of heat lightning, intermittently breaking the gloom and etching the details of the vaulting trees, their branches still, their leaves motionless. But, streaking past the car, the draft stung his face as Gregg pushed down the accelerator. Suddenly he braked and slowed as a trailer loomed up in his lights. Vacationists traveling in the lighter traffic and the coolness of the night. They were crawling, it seemed to Gregg. The trailer looked the size of a freight car, shining and long, a mansion on wheels. It was impossible to pass. Each time he edged out, another car appeared from the opposite direction, too close to chance it. Swearing, he fished for a cigarette and punched in the lighter on the dashboard. Just as he got it to his cigarette, he saw the road was clear, and with the still glowing lighter in his hand, he pulled out and around the trailer and sped ahead, almost expecting to see the rear lights of the patrol car at any moment. Now the lighter had gone cold and he pushed it back into the socket, and then threw his cigarette away in exasperation, thinking suddenly, “What the hell am I hurrying for!” Petty acts, petty frustrations were diluting his emotions. The obsessive drive to keep Charlie in his sights evaporated, and he took a deep breath as the fist in his chest let go for the first time since he had left the house.
He slowed to a reasonable speed; he was still about a half hour from home. He would be only minutes behind the patrol car, and he could begin his mission of seeing to it that the protective wall of name and position and money—and charm—was no longer effective. Whatever this particular hullaballoo, whatever it was that had made the police want to talk to Charlie in the middle of the night, Charlie would have to face it himself. Charlie was only half smart, contrary to his boast. He had never credited the great familial conspiracy, the jealous guardianship, the love and loyalty which had embraced him all his life. Now, he was really alone. Bea had escaped, John had kept from becoming too involved (“That’s the ticket!” Larry had said); Walter and Virginia at last knew how to shut a door, and he himself had worked through his most violent, most personal reactions. There was no reason why any of them, ever again, should try to gear themselves, to hope, to expect that Charlie would be anything but unpredictable. Post hoc thinking in either direction would be foolish. Someone born without the faculty of insight or perception was as deeply deprived as someone born blind or deaf; more deeply perhaps, because the blind and deaf could have the insight to know what they were missing and compensate for it.
The traffic was lighter, now, and for long intervals there were no other cars in sight. The air had become muggy, oppressive, and the lightning flickered nervously. There was a rumble of thunder and movement began to stir in the branches of the trees. Gregg lighted a cigarette, steadily this time, and blew the smoke out in a sigh of fatigue, realizing, for the first time, just how many hours he had put behind the wheel since morning.
He hoped the police car had overtaken Charlie before he reached home so Walter and Virginia wouldn’t be disturbed. He determined that if he should see them stopped on the road ahead he would simply pass them and go on without inquiry. Once home, he would shut off the phone and go to bed. Then perhaps tomorrow—but tomorrow was tomorrow.
The patrol car was standing behind Charlie’s Mercury in front of the veranda steps. The small blinker spot on top revolved busily like a miniature lighthouse beacon.
The porch light and the lights in the living room were blazing; one of the officers was speaking into the radio phone, leaning with one arm on the door of the car.
Gregg drew up behind him and, getting out, slammed the door impatiently. He walked toward the officer, who looked up at him quickly and said, “Just a moment, sir,” detaining him peremptorily. Back into the phone, he said, “Yeah, still alive, but just. Back’s broken . . .” and then, as he replaced the instrument, he said, “I wouldn’t go in just now, sir, there’s been an accident. You a friend?”
Without waiting to answer, Gregg was on his way up the steps when the officer again stopped him. “Please—sir, there’s nothing to be done, the man’s dying——” but Gregg was already flinging the screen door open, and then stopped cold as he looked at the scene in the hall. Over the shoulder of the other officer, Gregg could see Charlie lying in a shimmering pool of broken glass on the floor. Virginia knelt beside him, and Walter stood staring down expressionlessly, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his robe, his hair tousled.
The officer at his elbow was saying firmly, “Come away, sir; don’t intrude, there’s nothing you can do,” and Gregg permitted himself to be drawn back out onto the veranda.
Out of earshot, the man said, “I don’t think he’s in any pain—he’s barely conscious.”
“Well, how did it——”
“He was on his way upstairs to get his coat to come with us, when the dog—Smitty, he called it—came toward him as he got to the landing. He was pretty drunk, of course, and not very steady, and the dog kind of tripped him, I guess. We were standing in the hall and didn’t look up until he yelled—he reached out for the railing, grabbed a handful of nothing, and went over, taking the chandelier with him.”
After a moment Gregg asked, “What were you taking him in for?”
“Oh, some sorehead came down to the station demanding his arrest for stealing and wrecking his car. Mr. Carewe was very co-operative about it. Seemed like a hell of a nice guy. It’s a damned shame—my partner and I feel very badly about it.”
Charlie had just gone upstairs when the doorbell rang. Walter was dozing over a book in the library after returning from the Shelleys’ and had sleepily answered the summons. Virginia, in gown and robe, had appeared on the landing, saying, “I think I just heard him come in; I’ll call him.”
At first, Charlie was indignant with them for “barging in at this time of night,” and one of the officers said, “Well, Mr. Wynn says you’re apt to skip town,” and then Charlie had roared with laughter.
“Listen,” he said, wagging a finger, “I’m pretty drunk and all I want is some sleep, I don’t want to go any place. Don’t misunderstand, I’m happy to go along with you—the whole thing’s stupid, I can explain it very simply.”
Walter said, “When did this happen, Charlie? What’s it all about?”
Leaning against the newel post for support, Charlie said, smiling, “Mr. Garrett Wynn was too drunk to drive last night, and he wanted me to go and pick up his date for him. I’d gone on down to the Tam o’ Shanter in a cab”—momentarily his eyes flicked over Virginia, and they twinkled as he said, “I was mad as hell,” and then back to the others—“because my car didn’t have enough gas. Anyway, at the bar Garry took his key off the chain and gave it to me and said, ‘Take my car’—which i
s what I did. The car blew a tire and I went off into the ditch and then I thumbed my way home. And that’s all there is to it.”
“Mr. Carewe,” interrupted the patrolman, “you’ve got the right to say all that, and I don’t doubt for a minute that it’s true, but——”
“Why’d he wait till now to call you? Cheap son of a bitch doesn’t want to pay for the damage, that’s all!”
“If you’ll wait a moment,” said Walter, “I’ll get dressed and come with you. This is absurd!”
“Never mind, Dad, I’m all right, I can handle it.” Turning to Virginia, he said, “Go back to bed, Virgie love—you look bushed. We’ll stop for coffee somewhere, huh, fellows?”
“Sure, sure.” They both grinned. “We’ve got no drunk charge against you!”
Charlie started up the stairs and jokingly said, “You see, that’s where you’re wrong! Lucky you didn’t catch up with me till I was in my own home! I’ll just get my coat. Be with you in a minute.”
“Do you want to come and sit down?” Virginia offered, but the men declined, saying they would just wait in the car, then they heard Charlie say, “Hi, there, Smitty, old girl—watch it now—hey, cut it out——”
“Ambulance ought to be here in a few minutes,” said the officer to Gregg.
“I’d like to go in now, if I may,” said Gregg, his voice low. “I know, I know,” he said as the man started to caution him, “I won’t touch him ”
There having been no other source of light in the hall except the chandelier, the place was shadowy, lighted only by the yellow shafts from the living room and veranda, and the million reflected sparklings of the broken crystal.
Walter looked up, rubbing his tousled head in confusion. “Gregg! When did you arrive!” and then gripped his hand. “This is a miserable business—poor welcome for you.”
“Never mind,” said Gregg kindly. “I got in earlier this evening. You all right?”
Virginia heard his voice and looked up at him and he quickly knelt beside her.
“He’s trying to say something, Gregg,” she whispered, reaching up for his arm. “Something about rotten wood—something Mavis told him.”
A small dark blue velvet cushion had been eased under his head, his face bore no sign of pain except for a faint dew on his brow. Virginia wiped it gently with her handkerchief. Leaning over her, Walter whispered, “I’m going up to Bea—make sure she hasn’t heard anything.” Virginia nodded. “Have Miss Evans give her another hypo if necessary.” Walter pressed Gregg’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re home; I’ll be back in a minute.”
Charlie’s lips began to move again, and Virginia bent to hear him. “I’m scared, Virgie love—hate mysteries——” His eyes opened wide and sought her face.
Tenderly she stroked his cheek, murmuring, “It’s all right, it’s all right,” as if to a child.
“Like the fox fire—scared me—silly, nothin’ to it. You know what it comes from?”
“No, what does it come from, Charlie dear?”
There was a ghost of a chuckle in his throat as he said, “Nothin’ mysterious about it—it comes from”—his eyes glazed and he whispered—“from rotten wood—just stinkin’ rotten wood.” There was a slight smile of satisfaction on his face as a greater mystery was resolved for him.
Gregg drew Virginia to her feet, to the wide door of the east veranda, where the air blew sweet from the sea. In the distance the thunder diminished and became part of the sound of the surf. The rain began to fall, rustling in the trees like a sigh.
