Undertow

by Warren Adler

  Kessler drove the car to an alley behind the hospital, obviously carefully researched, for as the car nosed slowly into the alley, a door quickly opened, the car came to a halt, and, as if on command, we knew we had to hurry through it.

  XXIII

  Chief Bernhard, his face as impassive as ever, met us in the corridor. The hall smelled of disinfectant. I noted that he had somehow dispersed his police cars outside the hospital so that they weren’t noticeable. Two of his police guarded both ends of the corridors. He led us to a wooden bench, which bore the eloquence of time on its rubbed and carved surface.

  “He’s in there with the body, Senator,” Bernhard whispered. “I would strongly suggest that you keep Mrs. James outside.”

  Don nodded and motioned to me with his eyes to follow him into the room. Karen, who had heard the whisper in the silence, slumped against the fading, dull green corridor wall. Davis sat on the bench, crossed his legs, and began making notes on a pad he had taken from his pocket.

  We found ourselves in a room that was stark white and overlit. We had to squint to put it in focus. It was devoid of any furniture, except a rolling cot on which was stretched out the sheeted body of what must have been Marlena. Beside it stood a small greying black man, his head bowed, his two hands clasped around a colorless hand of the dead girl extracted from under the sheet. Viewing him from the rear, one could see that he had not had time to change the bluish grey mailman’s uniform, which, shiny with much care, was now creased, adding a further forlorn dimension to the pathetic scene.

  I found myself swallowing hard, trying to tamp down the cry that was swelling in my chest, making my lips tremble. Don, whose reserves had depleted, could not contain himself. He made a sound, surely involuntary and primeval, like the cry from some monstrous cat that had caught a rake’s teeth in its entrails. It was one long gasp, shattering in the starkness of the room. The greying black man gave a frightened start and turned.

  His face, like some eroded riverbed, was parched with grief. The tears had ceased to come, but the eyes were heavily veined and red. He looked intensely at Don. He recognized him instantly. His lips curled slightly in anger, and then tightened, as he suddenly ripped the sheet off Marlena’s torso.

  She was a ghastly sight, her features distorted by her struggle against the sea to maintain her life. Her body, which once glistened like polished Swiss chocolate, was greyish, the color of chalk marks on a blackboard. The man’s reaction was a bad sign, I remembered thinking. But the sudden shock of viewing the body and the man’s uncommon act of anger seemed to have a calming effect on Don. It came to him as a relief, like a summer storm perhaps, fulfilling his need to be punished.

  The anger was shortlived. The black man tenderly placed both of Marlena’s hands against her chest and replaced the sheet.

  “My little girl,” he said, his voice strangely serene. “My little girl.” He was not a big man, but stood erect, with that rare dignity of pride and age that one occasionally glimpses in men treated badly by life. One could see at once where the resoluteness of his daughter had come from.

  “I can barely face you, Mr. Jackson,” Don whispered, his words coming in fits and starts, almost like gasps. The black man had turned back to his daughter’s form and had bowed his head once again.

  “I wish I could share the intensity of the pain with you, Mr. Jackson. My own pain seems so meager beside yours.”

  Don’s words came almost as a litany. “I’ve searched my mind for some logical explanation. Nothing I can think of makes any sense. One moment she was there, filled with life and beauty, and the next, gone beneath the sea. We tried to save her, Mr. Jackson. God, we tried. You must understand that. We tried.”

  The black man turned. Would he have understood if he had known that in trying to save his daughter, we, too, nearly died? Was it important for him to know that? There was no softness in his veined eyes, only hatred. Even the grief seemed less powerful than the hate.

  “I despise you, Senator,” he said quietly.

  “I know,” Don said. “Whatever explanation I might give you, I was the instrument of her death. I know that. I also know that I will not get your forgiveness.”

  The black man stared at Don, his eyes moist, his lips pressed together, reaching within himself for control.

  “Marlena was—was a jewel,” Don said, hesitantly at first, growing stronger as he chose his words, conscious of the care he had to take. In my view, he had passed the moment of greatest weakness, like a broken field runner who has shrugged off the last tackler. Perhaps it was the visibility of death in Marlena’s ashen face—its finality. Marlena was gone—irrevocably. She was an inanimate stick of rigid bone and lifeless skin that lay on the table before them. Her beauty, her youth, her spirit had disappeared beyond the surface of the sea, and what was left was the clear blue flame of grief. Don straightened and stood before the black man. Perhaps he was saying to himself at last, “I did not kill this woman.”

  “It was a ghastly accident, Mr. Jackson. Your daughter was my friend.”

  The black man turned again to the body. His shoulders hunched; his head was bowed slightly.

  “My little girl,” he said. “She was a gift from God. She was the world.” He turned again. Tears rolled down his cheeks. “Can there be no joy in this world for me?” It was the perennial cry of loss. “You cannot understand, Senator James,” Mr. Jackson said. “She was born to fulfill the meaning of black destiny. This was a special person.”

  There it was, that sense of peoplehood and blackness that Davis had feared. If he invoked that thought, if he dwelled on that idea, there was danger ahead.

  “She was a special person,” Don said. I could see emerging the ever-present mark of the professional politician, the master of the right word, the right inflection, the correct platitudes, the product of endless days and nights of meetings, testimonials, campaigns, and, yes, eulogies.

  “Her mother died when she was seven. I raised her. There was always the two of us. I was proud of her.”

  “I, too, was proud of her, Mr. Jackson.”

  He shook his head with contempt.

  “She told me she loved you. Love—what is that word? Love with a honky. Always, this romantic love brings nothing. I told her that what to her was love was to you just a philandering with a nigger girl through the back door. And now she’s dead for it.”

  “Mr. Jackson,” Don began, his voice firm and unwavering. “I admired and respected your daughter. Her death is a personal disaster for you of unfathomed proportions. I know that, and nothing, absolutely nothing, I can say will soothe your pain. But I want you to know that I grieve for her, too. I grieve for you and I grieve for me. In the context of my life, her death is a personal disaster for me as well. I would have given anything to spare us this agony. But her death is very real, Mr. Jackson, a very real thing, and, whether we like it or not, it must be faced.”

  Somehow, the strength of Don’s conviction, so straight-forward and simply stated, had a profound effect upon the black man. His eyes searched helplessly about him. I brought a chair from a corner of the little room, and he sat down.

  “Yes,” he said. “It must be faced, and I cannot accept it.”

  Don put a hand on the man’s shoulder, poised, it seemed, to comfort the man in an embrace.

  “Mr. Jackson,” Don said. “I have something to say that must be said. I know that the moment is totally inappropriate. I also know that you may have no comprehension of what I am saying—” The black man raised his head and looked at Don.

  “Senator, I am not stupid.”

  “I’m sure of that, Mr. Jackson.”

  “I understand what I must do,” he said, quietly. “I intend to bring my daughter’s body back to Philadelphia, and just as soon as I can, I will bury her next to her mama. I have no wish beyond that. My life is over, without meaning.” He shook his greying head. “You needn’t worry, Senator.”

  On the surface, it appeared as if both men had reached
each other across a void. But there was a certain lack of specifics. It was obvious that Mr. Jackson had no thirst for revenge nor did he plan any deliberate acts to embarrass or otherwise hurt Don. But a man whose daily experience was to bring mail through did not have a real understanding of the nuances and subtleties of the media world. Even as I watched the black man, crushed, his small, tight body drawn into a knot as he sat on the chair, his head slightly bowed, looking aimlessly at the floor, silent and grieved, I was ticking off the possibilities in my mind. His very abjectness could be made an issue of formidable proportions by the television camera. Certainly, the racial angle could be devastating if he chose in his intelligent and articulate way to put it across. This was a man of substance. He was not the stereotype who ate into the black man’s aspirations like lye reacting on human gut. I was certain that the business of the autopsy was moot. This man was not going to let his daughter’s body be mutilated. I felt compelled to put these thoughts into words. No one could expect this man to understand procedures of this nature. I looked at Don. His face, although drawn, pale, and thinner—even the lines around the eyes had deepened—had a firmness that reassured me. He was tough, this man James.

  “Mr. Jackson,” I said slowly. I hoped my voice was modulated to the perfect tone for these circumstances. “There are problems ahead.” I hesitated, looking at Don. He nodded assent. “There will be all sorts of attempts to draw innuendos—bad pictures.” There, I was condescending again, to a man to whom spotting condescension was a religion. “Attempts will be made to distort the truth. There will be little we can do to stop it, at least at the beginning. People will say terrible things; people will assume things about—your daughter’s character—and that of the senator. You will be outraged. You will be deeply hurt. Few, particularly in the press, will be kind. There will be some rather disgusting sentimentality. There will be pictures of your daughter everywhere, old graduation pictures; it will be cruel—very cruel.”

  I paused and waited for some reaction. I could see the thick top of his greying head. He did not lift his face to me.

  “I do not believe that you wish to compound the madness that will follow. But you must understand, our enemies are very clever. They have a formidable arsenal. They know how to play on human emotions. They know how to arouse interest. They can use you to hurt us. They can use you to hurt your daughter’s memory.”

  I knew it before the words were out. I had goofed. He lifted his head and looked at me with contempt.

  “What do you care about my daughter’s memory?” He looked at me searchingly. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “I’m Lou Castle. I hired Marlena. She was my friend.”

  He nodded. She had told him about me. I could tell from the man’s reactions that Marlena had talked about me favorably. Hell, we liked each other. She probably rated me in the colorful character category, talked about me with a smile. I guess I am a kind of comic figure. The image stood me in good stead here. I followed up my advantage.

  “What I’m talking about is keeping Marlena’s memory from being insulted. You see, we do care about her; we care about her as our comrade and friend. Marlena would understand exactly what we are talking about. She knew. And you can bet she’d understand what the implications of this situation are all about.”

  “What is it you want me to do, Mr. Castle?” the black man asked.

  “Do not talk to the press. Avoid conversations with any third person who might be tempted to talk to the press. Don’t give the press any pictures of your daughter. Bar the press from the church. Remain silent. Above, all remain silent.”

  I did not mention the autopsy. There was no question in my mind that he would never allow that to happen. What was there to find out from his point of view? He knew of Don’s relationship with Marlena. He was not a fool.

  Don had remained silent. Twenty years of beating the ball around made the game one of instinctive moves. Like a tennis match. He knew when to lob or run to the net. He knew when to step back into rear court.

  Already my mind was working on our next confrontation with Jackson. I wished Davis were with us. We’d get a picture of Don and the old man at graveside. Don, looking comforting and contrite, dripping with compassion and understanding. I saw the picture in my head. I hoped it would be raining.

  “If there is anything I can do, Mr. Jackson,” Don said, “anything at all, please, please let me know.”

  The black man turned his face upward again. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

  “I want my daughter,” he whispered. “All I want is my daughter. Oh, God, give me back my daughter.” Grief had engulfed him. He was beyond understanding now. He slumped against the wall and clasped his hands, rocking slightly, resurrecting the old Negro pain that had that special brooding futility of the black spiritual.

  We stood over him a moment, waiting for him to recover. When he grew quiet, we left.

  Karen and Davis were waiting. I drew Davis aside.

  “I hope he listens,” I said.

  “That’s essential. He could blow us right out of the water.”

  “I think he suspects that. He’s not very much interested in us, though; but he knows we were Marlena’s friends.”

  “Let’s hope that’s one obstacle hurdled. Just called in. Things couldn’t be bleaker. Our so-called friends in the senate, the unannounced three—” He referred to the three fellow senators who had geared up to fight Don in the primaries, Hopkins, Wilson, Mudd. “—all crying tragedy, all being so damned solicitous. I can see them rubbing their hands. No comment from the president; I am told that he let a pool photographer in to snap a picture as he received the news. The clever bastard.”

  “Oh, come on, Davis. You haven’t got a monopoly on all the brains in the business.”

  “Can’t you just see the caption?”

  “Let’s face it; the president used to be an amateur actor.”

  “I guess he feels pretty good now. He just won his next term.”

  As they walked toward the entrance, Chief Bernhard handed Don a note. He opened it.

  “Chuck Chalmers wants me to call,” Don said.

  “Good,” Davis said.

  “What does it mean?” I asked.

  “It means,” Davis said, “that doubt springs eternal in the human breast.”

  We ducked quickly into the waiting car and sped to the little airport on the edge of town, where we skirted the main entrance, turned into one of the runways, and came to a halt near a two-engined airplane, revved and waiting at the far end.

  On the trip back, the sound of the motors and the events of the last twenty-four hours overwhelmed us with exhaustion. When we landed, I could barely remember we had been in the air.

  XXIV

  Ernie had made sure the car kept its distance. The streets were so empty, the town so small, that following the car from five blocks away was no problem. Even when suddenly there was no car to follow, he could sense that it had come to a halt somewhere near the old red brick hospital, the only building in a dead-end street. Deliberately, he passed the building, parked the car on an empty side street, and walked the distance to the hospital.

  It was an old building, built perhaps thirty years ago, with narrow high windows, all still graced with old-fashioned pull shades. Over the high, wooden front doors was a sign engraved in cast stone: Rehoboth General Hospital. There was a parking lot along its side with a number of cars lined up neatly in two rows. Walking behind the second row of cars, stooping slightly to shield himself from exposure, he reached the rear of the hospital. There, two police cars were parked near a rear entrance marked “Emergency.”

  Ernie pulled his notebook from a side pocket; and, scribbling a note on the first empty page asking the senator to call Mr. Chalmers, he ripped it out, folded it, and wrote the senator’s name along its front.

  He could imagine the drama going on inside. Confrontation with next of kin, tears, recriminations, entreaties, the sad ritual of after-death. As a reporter, he had
seen it many times. He had trained himself to be dispassionate. Sometimes, in the case of children, he had to fight back tears, but fortunately, he had been able to conceal his emotion while on the job. Sentiment interfered with objectivity. Later, after the assignment, he somehow was able to shake it off. It became cerebral, reflective. Then, finally, like a mysterious chemical reaction, emotion became an abstraction, nothing more than a comment on the human predicament. Death, after all, was a common experience. He had learned to accept it in all its unreasonable and illogical forms, its unexpected entrances and ridiculous guises. Had he become cynical? He would fight cynicism to his last breath. It was corrosive to the movement. Indeed, beside greed, it was the principal antipersonnel device. It knocked out the movement’s members en masse, like an attack of dysentery—dysentery of the spirit. Between the moment of birth and death, there was life; and in life there was only truth; and if you loved the idea of life, then you must love the idea of truth.

  He watched the back entrance from the line of cars until he realized that he had been seen by one of the policemen. He walked to the back entrance and identified himself to the policeman, fresh faced and officious.

  “No press,” the policeman said. “Orders.”

  “I’d like to speak to your chief.”

  “I said, no press.”

  A policeman by nature is an intimidating force, but Ernie had become wise in handling policemen.

  “All I want is one word with him.”

  “Why don’t you just beat it.”

  “Look, I’m a newspaper reporter doing a job. Just like you. I have no intention of moving.” He could sense the young policeman’s frustration. Unhitching his club, the policeman slammed it into his fist.

  “I said, beat it.”

  “I would strongly suggest you don’t use that club,” Ernie said between clenched teeth. His heart beat heavily.