by Vin Packer
“Yes, sir. I’ll do that.”
“You see, Chayka, my daughter is very ill. I can’t trust Cloward. I can’t know for sure he won’t go to my house tonight and upset her.”
“I think I can promise you he won’t.”
“Think isn’t good enough. I don’t want him near my house.”
“I see.”
“I’m going to tell Cloward in plain English that he’ll find himself in plenty of trouble, if he goes near my house. Oh, I’m going to be nice to him. I want to check out Percy through him too, confirm my suspicions on that count… The important thing is that Cloward comes here at nine-thirty.”
“I’ll call him right now, sir.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Leydecker said. “And something else, Chayka. You don’t go on duty until eleven or so, do you?”
“No.”
“I’d like you to go by my house about nine-thirty, just in case there’s any slip-up, do you see? I’ll give you $50.”
“That isn’t necess—”
“Never mind protesting, Ted. I like you. I think you’re going to amount to something!”
“Thank you, Mr. Leydecker. I certainly want to. I’ll call Cloward right now, sir.”
III.
Yes, lamb, I’ll take care of everything, GRanite 2846, for the hundredth time, but O lamb, I don’t care.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Secora?”
“Yeah.”
“Mr. Secora, this is Miss Rae, Mr. Burr’s secretary.”
“How’s it hanging?”
“What?”
She could hear laughter in the background; Oh, Al, she could hear, what a thing to say!
He was guffawing as he spoke, “You’ll understand it in your next life, Miss Rae, when you come back a man.” More laughter.
“Mr. Secora?”
“Yeah, what’s up? To what do I owe this crappy honor?”
But she could take the abuse; for you, lamb, anything!
She said, “Mr. Burr is sorry. You still have your job, Mr. Secora. It was just a little fit of temper.”
“Oh, just a little fit of temper, hah?”
“That’s all,” she said cheerily. “We all have them. But you will be paid for today, and you still have your job.”
“Miss Rae?”
“Yes?”
“When you go to work tomorrow, you tell your Mr. Burr that he can shove his job! You tell him that he can take his f—ing job and—” Miss Rae clamped down the phone’s arm, shaking, her ears burning with the obscenities Albert Secora had begun to shout.
IV.
“I don’t get it, Buzzy,” said Slater Burr. “Why would Chayka give you a message from Leydecker?”
They were all sitting at the dining room table. Jen Burr had answered the phone, and called Cloward away from the table. Cloward poked at his lemon pie and shrugged. “I guess he just ran into Leydecker, Mr. Burr.”… Above all, he was not going to be trapped into a confession of last night’s drunken folly. Not just when everything was going along smoothly.
“I just don’t get it! Chayka’s a policeman. What’s Leydecker calling in a policeman for?”
“Ted and I went to Industrial High together, Mr. Burr. I think Mr. Leydecker probably remembers that, and thought we’d be running into each other.”
If he did not keep the appointment with Leydecker, there was a chance Leydecker would call the Burrs himself, perhaps spill the whole story; then Slater Burr would know he was still foolish and back in the past… There was another reason he wanted to meet with Leydecker… not just curiosity about Laura, but back to the old fantasy. “You and I both know the truth, Donald, and I’m ready to make it up to you.”… Let all of them make it up to him, if they wanted to. Let them all feel big as hell to forgive Donald Cloward; big little gods, let them!
Slater Burr said, “Forget it! That’s my advice—forget it!”
“Mr. Burr?”
“What?”
“I want to see him. The train doesn’t go until eleven. I could still see him and catch the train. What would it hurt?”
Jen Burr said, “I’d be curious to know what he wants.”
“Oh, the hell with it! He’s got a policeman in on it, he probably wants trouble for you, Buzz!”
He could not tell Slater Burr how Ted got in on it, without giving it away. Ted had said “He’s not going to make trouble for you, Buzz—honest he isn’t. He just wants to talk to you.”
Cloward said, “He’s not going to make trouble for me.”
“How can you be so sure, Buzz?” said Slater Burr. “Remember, you’re on parole.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” Cloward lied. He looked hard at Jen, hoping she would not give away the fact he had phoned the Leydeckers last night.
Jen Burr said, “He’d still make his train, Slater. Maybe he wants to tell Donald what happened to Laura. I wouldn’t mind knowing that myself!”
“Listen!” Slater Burr was shouting. “You asked for my help, Buzz! Now you want me to help you! I told you to stay away from the Leydeckers! I’ll put you on the 11 o’clock and that’s that!”
“I said I’d be there, Mr. Burr. I want to go.”
“What’ll it harm, Slater?” Jen said.
V.
He watched Jen light a Gauloise, put it in her mouth and begin clearing the table, with the cigarette dangling there from her lips. He could hear more whooms! and he shut them out with effort, trying now to think through the haze of alcohol and the noise of china rattling as Jen stacked the plates. Jen never walked around with a cigarette hanging from her mouth, and what was a policeman calling Buzzy Cloward for, to deliver a message from Leydecker; cockeyed; he had to think straight, just for a few more hours. He could offer to drive Buzzy to the Leydeckers, take the back road, pull the choke out and flood the engine; invent motor trouble… Delay it… How long could he do that?… Or, when he got Buzzy in the car, he could reason with him, frighten him with remembrances of the past, and how Leydecker hated him… That was okay… a drink somewhere, get the kid loaded. That was okay. He would have to handle it just right. Whoom!… and Jen with the cigarette that way, as though for an instant of time, Carrie had gotten inside her, was pushing her to encourage Cloward to meet with Leydecker… But what did Leydecker want?… Secora had gone to him, told him the story; Leydecker wanted to hear more, wanted Ted Chayka to hear more… If Buzzy Cloward just skipped out, his story would not hold up… just hot air. Leydecker and Chayka would see that.
Jen said, “Slater, what are you frowning about?”
“Was I?”
Cloward said, “Mr. Leydecker probably just wants to warn me not to go near Laura.”
Jen winked at Cloward, as though she and Cloward had some little secret all their own. “I think so too,” she said. “I think that’s all he wants.”
And the most impossible, crazy ideas began spinning through Slater’s mind: a trap was being set for him. Jen had seen that the kid could not operate the Jaguar immediately; Jen was in on it. Whoom! and again.
Slater said, “Have a brandy, Buzz. We’ll have some brandy.”
“There isn’t time,” said Jen. “It’s eight o’clock. Donald will want to wash up!”
“What?” Slater looked at her, as though she were the enemy there with the Gauloise hanging off her lips. “Not time? It’s an hour and a half away!”
“I think Mrs. Burr means that I shouldn’t drink, sir.”
Jen smiled at him. “Ummm hmmm.”
What the hell was going on! And the whooms came like distant thunder, and through it all the phone ringing again… ringing, ringing, and Jen saying, “Get it, Donald, hmmm? It’s right behind you.”
twenty-one
“That was fun!” said Nancy Chayka. “You’re fun, Al. Ted’s turned into a namby-pamby.”
“If I’d gotten Slater Burr, I was just going to tell him: f— your job! You ain’t going to buy me off with your job, not any more!”
“S’afternoo
n, Al, Francie Boyson tells me the whole story, see? But she doesn’t say how she knows, see? ‘I can’t say how I know,’ she says, ‘but I know.’”
“Sure, she knows. We was hunting the same kinda thing in the same hunting ground as Slater Burr and Jen McKenzie. Boy, I don’t know why the bells didn’t ring a long time ago, when Mrs. Burr got killed.”
Nancy Chayka peeled off another nail, sitting there on the couch beside Albert Secora, in his apartment. She said, “What’d the Cloward kid say?”
“Well, I says, who is this, and he says this is Donald Cloward, see?”
“Yeah, I heard that.”
“So, I says, If I was you, Cloward, I’d get the hell out of that place before Slater Burr kills you too, I says.”
“I know, I heard that.”
“I says, You’re a sitting duck, Buzzy! It was Slater Burr driving that car, I says, and nobody else. I figured it out, I says, and I hit it right, because I got fired today for what I know, and then he tried to rehire me, Buzz. Oh, the heat’s on him, Buzz! I says, He don’t want to help you, he wants you out of town. You just happened to come near the truth yesterday, only not near enough.”
“Yeah, well, what’d he say?”
“He didn’t say nothing. I says, Are you listening? and he says, ‘Yes.’”
“Then?”
“Then I just told him. I says, Slater Burr and his dear whore wife was sleeping around before that so-called accident, and he wanted the first Mrs. Burr out of his life. I just told him. You heard me.”
“What’d he say?”
“Nothing. He just hung up.”
“Just hung up, hah?”
“Yeah… Hey, I had enough coffee. Let’s have a drink.”
“I’m supposed to baby-sit with you. You’re not supposed to drink.”
“Oh yeah? Sez who?” he laughed, putting his hand on her arm. He ran it down her arm to her skirt.
“You’re fun,” she said.
“Yeah, and I think we can have us some fun, Nancy. Get us a little snort, sort of oil us up for some fun.”
twenty-two
He knew in an instant that it was true, an instant that closed the gap between doubt and knowing, while Slater Burr came around to get inside the car where he was sitting, still unsure, until he realized what song Slater Burr was humming. Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes.
Fear began to sift down from his brain in fine sands, then became heavy pressure, and wave after wave of it swept through him, while Slater Burr started the engine.
Slater Burr said, “What was that phone call all about anyway, the last one?”
“I told you. I couldn’t understand. A drunk or something.”
“But you said ‘yes’ at one point. What’d you say ‘yes’ to?” They turned down the drive, and soon they would be alone in the night.
“Someone, whoever it was, said—I don’t remember. Something about it being the wrong number. Yes, they asked me if they had the wrong number.”
“They?”
“He did.”
“Who, Buzz?”
“I don’t know. Honestly.”
“I see.” And again, the song; only now he was whistling it. They cut across the black road leading from the Burr house, onto a side road… not the highway, which would take them right into Cayuta.
Slater Burr said, “What’re you so nervous about?”
“I’m not.”
“Playing with your comb that way.”
“Oh, that’s just a habit. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be nervous about, Buzzy.”
“Yes, sir.”
They drove along in silence. He kept whistling the song. Cloward was perspiring now, his clothes soaked. Then the engine sputtered.
Slater Burr said, “Oh, oh.”
“Something wrong?” Cloward managed.
“I better stop and have a look at the motor.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hope we don’t run into trouble out here. It’s so damn far from anything.”
He stopped the car and got out.
While he was looking under the hood, Cloward reached for a cigarette. It would be impossible to run. He could never run fast enough; Slater Burr could catch him. He fumbled for a match, but found none in his pockets. He snapped open the glove compartment and saw the gun. Quickly, he took the gun. He could think of nothing to do with it, and he saw Slater Burr walking back to the car, so he sat on it.
“I’m afraid we have some motor trouble. It might take awhile to fix it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your hand’s shaking.”
“I don’t know. I—”
“What is it, Buzzy?”
He threw the cigarette out the window, eased his hands back by the seat of his trousers.
Slater Burr said, “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
His right hand gripped the gun firmly, and he pulled his hand out from under him and pointed the gun at Slater Burr.
“What the devil?”
“You take me into town, Mr. Burr. I’ll kill you, if you don’t.”
“I told you the car’s in trouble. Now, don’t be a fool!”
“I’ll kill you, Mr. Burr,” Cloward repeated. “You’re not going to kill me.”
“Buzzy, I don’t want to…” and he moved toward Cloward, and Cloward felt his hands on his shoulders again, familiar… and his finger squeezed the trigger.
twenty-three
“That’s all the facts when you come to brass tacks,” Mrs. Basso read, “Birth and—Laura, I really think this is not a very nice poem!”
“It was your idea to read to me, Mrs. Basso,” Laura sighed.
“Well, I never suggested this sort of reading!”
“Then stop reading to me. Go home.”
“I was just waiting until your pills took and you got sleepy.”
“Birth and copulation and death,” Laura Leydecker recited. “I’ve been born and once is enough… Is the word copulation offensive, Mrs. Basso?”
“The entire poem is offensive, Laura.” Mrs. Basso flicked through the pages. “You’ve had a cream of a nightmare dream, and you’ve got the hoo-ha’s coming to you. Hoo Hoo Hoo… It’s not even poetry. I don’t like it at all!”
“Why don’t you just go home, Mrs. Basso.”
“You know the whole thing by heart anyway.”
“So I do.”
“Why should I read it to you? Really, Laura, you ought to try to pull yourself together. Your poor father is frantic.”
“Then go down to L.E. and sit with him, Mrs. Basso.”
“And you haven’t eaten…”
“No, and I won’t eat until you go home… It’s nine o’clock.”
“Oh, I’m leaving, have no fear of that. I just hoped your pills would take before I left.”
Laura Leydecker said, “You don’t like me at all, do you, Mrs. Basso?”
“I love you, Laura, and my heart goes out to you, but you don’t try. A girl like you, wasting away here, making those grotesque clay dolls, and watching the television until your eyes are red… Reading this sort of book!… You need to get out!”
“And be laughed at, Mrs. Basso? Be ridiculed?”
“Mrs. John F. Kennedy wears a wig when she goes to parties. I read it in the newspaper.”
“Well, I don’t feel like becoming the town spectacle, Mrs. Basso. I had enough of that when I was younger. At least this way, nobody knows what to laugh at. I hope they think I’ve taken to the bottle!”
“What an awful thing to say, Laura.”
“Would you rather be a drunk or bald, Mrs. Basso?”
“Why, when Jack Paar was on the Tonight Show, he’d even brag he had a hairpiece,” Mrs. Basso said.
“Mrs. Basso, I’m tired.”
“Your pills are working. Thank heaven!”
“I’m not just tired that way. I’m tired of all t
his talk about all these celebrities who have wigs. I don’t care to hear any more of it. If I have to hear any more of it, you’ll have to hear my kind of talk. Do you understand me?”
“Don’t start your disgusting talk with me, Laura. Bad enough you read this trash… this T.S. Eliot, without your talk too.”
“Give me my book back, and go home, please.”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do, Laura.”
Laura Leydecker sank her head back into the soft pillows and waited while she heard Mrs. Basso’s footsteps descending on the back stairs. Then the rattle of the garbage can, as she took the brown paper bag from it for deposit in the bin outside, on her way from the Leydeckers… then the shutting of the kitchen door.
A drowsiness fought her hunger, and she lay there for awhile, until hunger won over. She got up and slipped on the old robe, went down the long hallway, and down the stairs. Whatever the pills were she had taken, they were more effective than the others, over which she had built a certain immunity, so that it took three, sometimes four to put her to sleep. These sleeping pills had tranquilizers mixed in. I love tranquil solitude, and such society, as is quiet, ah but f— tranquillity, she thought, and she thought all the other words he had ever taught her, and put them in legion against tranquillity; ah God, f—tranquillity, and she looked in the icebox for something there to eat.
She did not even turn on the kitchen light, because f— the kitchen light, as well, and all light. She had read somewhere that even the blind turned on the lights in their homes, to better appease those with sight, to seem more like them… well, that had not been her luck, to seem like anyone, but a bald old crow, and she gave a little laugh, a little tipsy laugh—that was what those pills did to her, and by the light of the icebox she found a brick of cheese. She left the door open on the refrigerator, holding it with her leg, gnawing on the cheese, a bald old mouse, alone in the night, life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse… but it seemed then suddenly, very suddenly, that Edna St. Vincent Millay was terribly, terribly wrong: life did not go on forever: life had an end, and Laura Leydecker realized it, so quickly, and so suddenly, that she barely touched her fingers around to her back, after the crack of a gun, after the beginnings of blood warm down her flesh; life did not go on forever, for in an instant the mouse was dead.
