The Fiend

by Margaret Millar

  “To Ben and Charlie’s.”

  “It sounds like the name of a bar and grill on lower State Street.”

  “What a way to talk,” Mrs. Lang said quickly. “You stop that, Joe, you just stop it. You know perfectly well who Ben and Charlie are. They’re nice, respectable—”

  Her husband silenced her with a gesture, then he turned his attention back to Louise. “Other girls seem to find satisfaction in dating only one gentleman at a time. They are also, I believe, called for at home by the gentleman. Are you different, Louise?”

  “The situation is different.”

  “Exactly what is the situation?”

  “One that I’m old enough to handle by myself.”

  “Old enough yes—at thirty-two, you should be—but are you equipped?”

  “Equipped?” Louise looked down at her body as if her father had called attention to something that was missing from it, a part that had failed to grow, or one she had carelessly lost some­where between the house and the library. She said, keeping her voice steady, “Daddy, I’m going over to play cards with two friends who happen to be male. Either one of them would be glad to pick me up here, but I have my own car and I enjoy driving it.”

  “Louise, honey, I’m not questioning your motives. I’m simply reminding you that you’ve had very little experience in—well, in keeping men in line.”

  “Haven’t I just.”

  “I also remind you that appearances still count, even in this licentious world. It doesn’t look right for a girl of your class and position to go sneaking off surreptitiously at night to visit two men in their house.”

  “Home, if you don’t mind.”

  “Call it what you will.”

  “I’ll call it what it is,” Louise said sharply. “A home, where Charlie and Ben have lived since they were children. As for my sneaking off surreptitiously, that’s some trick when you drive a sports car that can be heard a mile away. I must be a magician. Or are you getting deaf?”

  Mrs. Lang moved her heavy body awkwardly out of her chair, grunting with the effort. She stood between her husband and daughter like a giant referee between two midget boxers who weren’t obeying the rules. “Now I’ve heard just about enough from you two. Louise, you ought to be ashamed, talking fresh to your father like that. And you, Joe, my goodness, you’ve got to realize you’re living in the modern world. People don’t put so much stock in things like a man calling for his date at home. It’s not as if Charlie was a stranger you didn’t know. You’ve met him and talked to him. He’s a nice, agreeable man.”

  “Agreeable, yes.” Mr. Lang nodded dryly. “I said it was hot and he agreed. I said it was too bad about the stock market and he agreed. I—”

  Louise interrupted. “He’s shy. You embarrassed him by ask­ing him personal questions about his background and his job.”

  “I don’t mind people asking me about my job and my back­ground.”

  “You’re not shy like Charlie.”

  “What makes Charlie shy?”

  “Sensitivity, feeling—”

  “Which I don’t have?”

  Mrs. Lang put her hands, not too gently, on Louise’s shoul­ders and pushed her out of the door into the hall. “You go along now, dear, or you’ll be late. Don’t pay too much attention to Dad tonight, he’s having some trouble with his supervisor. Do you have your latchkey?”

  “Yes.”

  “Enjoy yourself, dear.”

  “Yes.” Slowly, Louise reached up and touched the bow in her hair. She could scarcely feel it through the fabric of her glove but it was still there, for Charlie. “Do I—look all right?”

  “Just lovely. I told you that before, at least I think I did.”

  “Yes. Good night, Mother.”

  Mrs. Lang made sure the door was locked behind Louise, then she went back into the living room, panting audibly, as if it took more energy to be a referee than to be a contestant. She wished Joe would go to bed and leave her to dream a little: Louise will be married in the church, of course. With a long- sleeved, floor-length bridal gown to hide her skinny arms and legs, and the right make-up to enlarge her eyes, she’ll look quite presentable. She has a nice smile. Louise has a very nice smile.

  Joe was standing where she’d left him, in the middle of the room. “Sensitivity, feeling, my foot. He seemed plain ordinary stupid to me. Hardly opened his mouth.”

  “Oftentimes you don’t bring out the best in people, Joe.”

  “Why shouldn’t I ask him questions about his job? What’s he got to hide?”

  “Nothing,” his wife said mildly. “Now stop carrying on, it’s bad for your health. Charlie Gowen is a fine-looking young man with good manners and gainful employment. He probably has a wide choice of female companions. You should consider it a lucky thing that he picked Louise.”

  “Should I?”

  “As for his being shy, I, for one, find it refreshing. There are so many smart-alecky young men going around tooting their own horn these days. That kind doesn’t appeal to Louise. She has a spiritual nature.” She added, without any change of tone, “I’m warning you, Joe. Don’t ruin her chances or you’ll regret it.”

  “Her chances for what? Becoming the talk of the town? Ac­quiring a bad reputation that might even cost her her job?”

  “Louise and Charlie will be getting married.”

  For a moment Joe was stunned into silence. Then, “I see. Louise told you?”

  “No.”

  “Charlie told you?”

  “No. Nobody told me. Nobody had to. I can feel it in the air.” She settled herself in the chair again and picked up her em­broidery. “You may laugh at my intuition, but wasn’t I right last fall when I said I could feel it in my bones that we’d have a wet winter? And about Mrs. Cudahy when I said she couldn’t last more than a week and she died the next day? Wasn’t I right?”

  He didn’t answer. It had been a wet winter, Mrs. Cudahy had died, Louise was marrying Charlie.

  Ben met her at the door. He was freshly shaved—she could smell his shaving cream when they shook hands—and he had on a business suit, not the jeans and T-shirt he usually wore around the house.

  “Well, you’re all dressed up,” Louise said, smiling. “Are we going out some place?”

  Ben looked uneasy. “No. I mean, I’m going out. You and Charlie can do what you like, of course.”

  “But I thought we were all three of us going to play cards as usual. What made you change your mind? Has anything hap­pened?”

  “No. I just figured you and Charlie might want to be alone together for a change.”

  She was seized by a panic so severe that for several seconds her heart stopped. She could feel it in the middle of her chest, as heavy and silent as a stone. “If Charlie wanted to be alone with me, he’d arrange it that way, wouldn’t he?”

  “Not necessarily. Charlie may want something but he often doesn’t know he wants it until I tell him.”

  “Until you tell him,” she repeated. “Well, did you?”

  “What?”

  “Tell him he wanted to be alone with me tonight?”

  “No. I just said I was going out.”

  “And he didn’t run away,” she said, “so that means he wants to be alone with me? How very romantic.”

  “Don’t be childish, Louise. You know Charlie as well as I do. He doesn’t spell romance for anyone.”

  A slight noise at the end of the hall made them both turn simultaneously. Charlie was standing at the door of his bed­room, coatless and with one hand on his tie as if he hadn’t quite finished dressing.

  “Why, I can so,” he said with a frown. “I can spell romance. R-o-m-a-n-c-e.”

  Louise hesitated a moment, then gave him a quick little nod of approval. “That’s very good
, Charlie.”

  “Not really. It’s an easy word. I bet I could spell it when I was nine years old.”

  “I bet you could.”

  “Maybe not, though. I can’t remember much about when I was nine. Ben does my remembering for me. You know what he remembered tonight, Louise?”

  “No. What?”

  “That I had a nice sense of humor when I was young.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “I am.” He turned to Ben. “I thought you were going out tonight. Didn’t you tell me that?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’d better hurry. Louise and I have something to talk about.”

  Louise flushed and stared down at the stained and worn car­pet. One of the first things she’d do would be to replace it. She had money in the bank, she would use it to fix the place up be­fore she invited anyone, even her parents, to visit her in her own home.

  “Well, I can take a hint,” Ben said, sounding very pleased. “I know when I’m not wanted. Good night, you two. Have fun.”

  He went outside, closing the door softly behind him, as if the slightest sound might change Charlie’s mood. The night air was cool but sweat was running down behind his ears and under his collar like cold, restless worms. Before he got into his car he turned to glance back at the house. The drapes in the front room hadn’t been drawn and he could see Louise sitting on the davenport and Charlie standing facing her, bending over a little, ready to whisper into her ear.

  Ben let out his breath suddenly and violently, as if he’d been holding it for years. He stood on the driveway for a long time, not watching the house any more, just breathing in and out, in and out, like any free man on a summer night.

  Charlie said, “Are you comfortable, Louise?”

  “Yes.”

  “If it’s too cool for you in here, I could turn on the heater.”

  “I’m fine, I really am.”

  “You don’t think I hurt Ben’s feelings, practically ordering him to get out of the house like that?”

  “I’m sure he’s not hurt. Stop worrying and sit down.”

  He sat beside her and she leaned toward him a little so that their shoulders touched and she could feel the smoothness of his arm and the hardness of its muscle. She wanted to tell him how strong he was and how much she admired strength when it was combined with gentleness like his. But she was afraid he would become mute with embarrassment, or else claim, quite flatly, that he wasn’t the way she imagined him at all, he was weak and brutal.

  “I had to get rid of him,” Charlie said, “so you and I could talk. Ben doesn’t have to be in on everything, does he?”

  “No.”

  “When he’s around and I make a remark or ask a question, he always has to know why. Ben always has to know the why of things. Sometimes there is no why. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” Louise said softly. “It’s that way with love.”

  “Love?”

  “Nobody can explain what it is, what makes people fall in love with each other. Do you remember that first night when you were sitting in the library and I looked over and there you were with that book on architecture? I felt so strange, Charlie, as if the world had begun to move faster and I had to cling like mad to stay on it. It hasn’t slowed down even for a minute, Charlie.”

  He stared down at the floor, frowning, as if he were trying to see it move in space. “I don’t like that idea. It makes me dizzy.”

  “I’m dizzy, too. So we’re two dizzy people. What’s the matter with that?”

  “It’s not scientific. Nobody can feel the world move.”

  “I can.”

  He drew away from her as if she’d confessed having a disease he didn’t want to catch. Then he got up entirely and walked over to the window. He could see the dark figure of a man standing in the driveway and he knew it must be Ben. It worried him. Ben didn’t stand quietly in driveways, he was always busy, always moving like the world and making people dizzy, unsure of themselves, unable to figure out the why of anything even if there was one.

  He said, “Did you tell Ben what we talked about on the tele­phone?”

  “What we talked—?”

  “The information I asked you to get for me. The house, who lives in the house on Jacaranda Road. You found out for me, didn’t you?”

  Louise was sitting so still he thought she’d suddenly gone to sleep with her eyes open, a dreamless sleep because her face held no expression whatever. In nice dreams you smiled, in bad ones you cried and woke up screaming and Ben came in and asked why?

  He went over and put his hand on her shoulder to wake her up. “Louise? You didn’t forget about it, did you? It’s important to me. You see, these people—the people who live in the house—have a dog, a little brown dog. When I drove past there this morning on my way to work the dog chased my car and I nearly hit the poor creature. One inch closer and I would have killed it. I must tell those people they’ve got to take better care of their little dog unless they want it to be killed by a car or something. Isn’t that the right thing for me to do?”

  He knew she wasn’t sleeping because she stirred and blinked her eyes, though she still didn’t speak.

  “Louise?”

  “Is—this what you wanted to talk to me about, Charlie?”

  “Why, yes. It may not seem important to you, but I love dogs. I couldn’t bear to hurt one, see it all mangled and bloody.”

  She looked down at her blue dress. It was spotless, unwrinkled. It bore no sign that she had run out into the street after Charlie’s car and been dragged under the wheels and lacerated; and Charlie, unaware that anything had happened, had driven on alone. He had seen nothing and felt little more. Maybe I felt a slight bump but I thought it was a hole in the road, I certainly didn’t know it was you, Louise. What were you doing out on the road chasing cars like a dog?

  “Oakley,” she said in a high, thin voice. “Mrs. Cathryn Oak­ley.”

  “The little dog has no father?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Do you spell her first name with a C or a K?”

  “C-a-t-h-r-y-n.”

  “You must have looked it up in the city directory?”

  “Yes. Mrs. Oakley is listed as head of the household, with one minor child.”

  Charlie’s face was flushed, as if he’d come out of the cold into some warm place. “It’s funny she’d want to live alone in that big house with just a little girl.”

  He knew, as soon as the words left his mouth, that he’d made a mistake. But Louise didn’t seem to notice. She had stood up and was brushing off her dress with both hands. He could see the outline of her thighs, thin, delicate-boned, with hardly any solid flesh to protect them from being crushed under a man’s weight. She wasn’t wearing any garters and he would have liked to ask her how she kept her stockings up. It was a perfectly in­nocent question on his part, but he was afraid she would react the way Ben would, as if such thoughts didn’t occur to normal men, only to him, Charlie. “Why do you ask that, Charlie?” “Because 1 want to know.” “But why do you want to know?” “Because it’s interesting.” “Why is it interesting?” “Because gravity is pulling her stockings down and she must be doing something to counteract it.”

  Louise had taken her gloves out of her handbag and was put­ting them on, holding her fingers stiff and smoothing the fabric down over each one very carefully. Charlie looked away as if she were doing something private that he had no right to watch.

  She said, “I’d better be going now.”

  “But you just got here. I thought you and I were going to have a talk.”

  “We already have, haven’t we?”

  “Not real—”

  “I think we’ve covered the important thing, anyway—Mrs. Oakley an
d her dog and her child. That was the main item on tonight’s agenda, wasn’t it? Perhaps the only one, eh, Charlie?”

  She sounded friendly and she was smiling, but he was sud­denly and terribly afraid of her. He backed away from her, until his buttocks and shoulders touched the wall. It was a cool wall with hot red roses climbing all over it.

  “Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t hurt me, Louise.”

  Her face didn’t alter except that one end of her smile began to twitch a little.

  “Louise, if I’ve done anything wrong, I’m sorry. I try to do what you and Ben tell me to because my own thinking isn’t too good sometimes. But tonight nobody told me.”

  “That’s right. Nobody told you.”

  “Then how was I to know? I saw you and Ben looking at each other in the hall and I could sense, I could feel, you were expect­ing me to do something, but I didn’t understand what it was.

  You and Ben, you’re my only friends. I’d do anything for you if you’d just tell me what you want.”

  “I won’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “You must figure it out for yourself, apart from Ben and me.”

  “I can’t. I can’t. Help me, Louise. Hold out your hand to me.”

  She walked toward him, her arms outstretched stiffly like a robot obeying an order. He took both her hands and pressed them hard against his chest. She could feel the fast, fearful beat­ing of his heart and she wished it would stop suddenly and for­ever, and hers would stop with it.

  “Oh God, Louise, don’t leave me here alone in this cold dark.”

  “I can’t make it any lighter for you,” she said quietly. “Warmer, yes, because there would be two of us. I’ve had fool­ish dreams about you, Charlie, but I’ve never kidded myself that I could turn on any lights for you when other people, even pro­fessionals, have failed. I can share your darkness, though, when you need me. I know what darkness is, I have some of my own.”

  “For me to share?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I can help you, too?”

  “You already have.”

  He held her body close against his own. “It’s warmer already, isn’t it, Louise? Don’t you feel it?”