Ex Officio

by Donald E. Westlake

  “Yes, that was unfortunate,” Wellington said. “That was one of my men. I was afraid Evelyn might mention it to Bradford, who in his turn would mention it to the Chinese. Fortunately, it didn’t happen that way.”

  Howard said, “Why didn’t you tell us what was going on? That way, there wouldn’t have been any danger of something like that going wrong.”

  “Yes, you’re right. The habit of secrecy, I suppose. I thought it best to let you continue to believe the family was working unaided until I had a concrete accomplishment to present to you. Frankly, I was afraid several members of the family would have objected if I’d said I wanted to bring in outsiders.”

  “You’re right,” Robert said. “They would have. Don’t those two back there speak English?”

  “About as well as I speak Vietnamese. They could make themselves understood if they had to. They had more pressing problems to think about just then, I suppose that’s why they didn’t attempt any English.”

  They walked on in silence until they reached the perimeter road, where Wellington said, “If you strike off in that direction, you’ll come to the blacktop road fairly soon. Then the house will be to your left. And your car, Robert, will be to the right. I go this way now.”

  Robert stuck out his hand, saying, “I think you saved our lives. Thank you.”

  Wellington looked surprised, and then a kind of bland emptiness of expression settled on his face, and he shook Robert’s hand and said, “You’re very welcome. I was pleased to be there at the right time.” He nodded to Howard, and released Robert’s hand. “I must go.”

  They stood a moment, watching Wellington walk away along the perimeter road, buttoning his topcoat. Howard thought, Why do I mistrust him so? Why do I dislike him so? There was no answer.

  iv

  HOWARD SAT IN AN uncomfortable chair in the depressing room Robert had taken in Chambersburg, and observed how Robert and Evelyn behaved when in one another’s presence. Somehow, though they acted normally, with their usual habits and patterns and ways of speech, they were nevertheless totally different. In Evelyn, it was the difference between a cloudy day and one bright with sun. In Robert, the difference was subtler, less easy to define: an infusion of strength, of tone, of some extra dimension. In any case, it was both pleasant and saddening to be in their presence, as it is always to be in the presence of a couple newly in love.

  It was Tuesday evening, and while they waited for Joe Holt to come over from Eustace and tell them the results of his examination of Brad, Robert was giving Evelyn a more detailed description of their encounter yesterday with the Chinese and Wellington and the Vietnamese than Howard had done after the event. Finishing his story now, Robert said, “Walking back to the car, all I could think about was what you’d said in the restaurant about them being professionals who know what they’re doing and us being amateurs making it up as we go along and hoping for the best. And you were right. If it had just been us amateurs out there on the Lockridge team, it would have been all over. Howard and I walked right into their arms.”

  “Babes in the woods,” Howard said. “That’s exactly what we were.”

  “You might have been killed,” Evelyn said. She and Robert were sitting side by side on his sagging sofa. They were holding hands.

  “I know it,” Robert said. “Thank God it turned out we had professionals on our side.”

  “Wellington is so sneaky,” Evelyn said. “He never tells anybody what he’s doing. I wish he’d talk to us. What if he’s doing other things, too?”

  Howard said, “I’ve been thinking about that, and I think we ought to do something about it.”

  Robert said, “The question is, what?”

  “I’m not sure. But I don’t like this feeling that he isn’t really one of us. You just said ‘the Lockridge team,’ and Wellington just doesn’t give me the impression of being part of that team.”

  “He acts like he’s above it,” Evelyn said. “As though we were children, and he was the grown-up.”

  “In yesterday’s situation,” Robert said, “that was exactly the way it was.” To Howard he said, “But I know what you mean, he really isn’t one of us. You could tell that from what he said at the meeting.”

  Knowing that Robert meant the comment about killing Brad to save him from disgrace, Howard gave him a quick frown and headshake; it was nothing to tell Evelyn.

  Who had already pounced on Robert’s statement, saying, “What did he say?”

  Robert had obviously understood Howard’s signal, and now didn’t know what to do. Howard rescued him, saying to Evelyn, “He seemed too willing to turn the problem over to some government agency.”

  “He doesn’t have any confidence in us,” Evelyn said.

  Robert said, “I hate it that we proved him right. We needed him yesterday a hell of a lot more than he needed us.”

  “In any case,” Howard said, “he’s given us more time. And I think we ought to use some of it to get the family organized better, and get Wellington to let us into his confidence. I’ll call Gene White tomorrow and see about setting up another meeting.”

  “I keep having the feeling,” Evelyn said, “that there’s something we should be doing. But I don’t know what it is.”

  Robert said, “Maybe if Wellington—” and was interrupted by a knocking at the door.

  “I’ll get it,” Howard said, and as he’d expected, it was Joe Holt. Howard held the door for him, and Joe stepped in saying, “I had a time finding this place.”

  “Most people don’t look for it,” Howard said.

  It was strange how habit overpowered one’s sense of urgency. Howard was more than anxious to hear Joe’s medical opinion of Brad, and he was sure Robert and Evelyn both felt the same way, but everyone had to go through the usual host/guest routine first, Robert getting Joe’s drink order and going to make it, Evelyn assuring herself that Joe had a more or less comfortable seat, and even Howard himself engaging in a bit of small talk about driving conditions coming out here from Philadelphia. But at last everyone settled down, and there was a little silence, and then Joe said, “It was what we thought.”

  Evelyn said, “A stroke?”

  “Yes. Without actually getting him into the hospital for a lot of tests, I can’t define the thing exactly, but I can make a rough estimate. It hit somewhere in the left hemisphere of the brain, and the damage it did was severe without being extensive. The main thing is the personality change, of course, and that’s primarily the result of a slackening of the reins, a lessening of self-control. The other symptoms are slight, and mostly unimportant.”

  Howard said, “What other symptoms?”

  “He has a very slight hemiparesis, primarily in the—I’m sorry, I use the words I think, let me start over. There is a very slight paralysis of the right side, primarily in the right leg. That’s what makes him limp when he’s tired.”

  Remembering the sight of Brad striding over the meadows, Howard said, “I haven’t noticed any limp.”

  “He doesn’t have any when he’s rested and feeling good. But if he’s tired, at the end of the day, or if he’s feeling discouraged for some reason, he does have a slight limp. He also has the symptom that complicates everything else, called anosognosia, which is an inability or refusal to acknowledge that there’s anything wrong. He won’t notice the limp, for instance, and he certainly won’t recognize the personality change.”

  Evelyn said, “Can he ever change back?”

  “No. I’m sorry, but it’s a one-way street. Any further changes he might undergo will only take him farther away from the person he used to be.”

  Robert said, “Will there be more changes?”

  “I can’t say. Probably, but not necessarily soon.”

  Howard said, “So stopgap solutions won’t do, will they? We need something permanent.”

  “Reasonably permanent, yes. Why, what stopgap solutions are you talking about?”

  Howard then told him about yesterday’s encounter wit
h Wellington, that the Chinese agents in contact with Brad had now been supplanted by a couple of Vietnamese furnished by Wellington, and that it would now be possible to stall Brad for an extra week or two, perhaps for as long as a few months. Unless the Chinese managed to regain contact with him themselves. He also mentioned his and Robert’s feelings of uneasiness about Wellington, and Joe said, “Yes, I know what you mean. One has the feeling he’s playing his own game.”

  “I think we should have another meeting,” Howard said, “and define Wellington’s relationship to the rest of us.”

  Joe said, “Shall I call Gene? I can give him a ring tomorrow, when I get home.”

  “Yes. That would be fine.”

  “And yet,” Joe said, “I don’t think we could do without Wellington. I don’t just mean in your case yesterday, but overall. I think we’ve entered his world now, whether we like it or not, and we need him to be our guide.”

  “If he’ll only level with us,” Robert said.

  “Amen,” said Howard.

  7

  SUNDAY. EVELYN STOOD AT the second-floor window of Dinah’s play room and watched Bradford walk out away through the orchard, his stick moving in his hand. Was he limping slightly? He did seem to lean on the stick a bit more than usual. Or was that simply the result of suggestion, of hearing Uncle Joe say that Bradford had an occasional limp?

  The last five days, since Joe was here, had been calm on the surface, almost pleasant because of the temporary reprieve Wellington had managed, but beneath the surface tension had been building, like an unvoiced scream, and the center of the tension was Bradford.

  He wasn’t taking the delays well. He hadn’t actually said anything about it, but Evelyn knew that was the trouble. Each day, when he returned from his walk, he would be silent and angry for a while. Wellington’s Vietnamese assistants must be having an increasingly difficult time of it.

  And there was another source of tension, within the house, which was Howard. Again, the problem was delays, this time stupid and pointless delays. Both Uncle Joe and Eugene White were trying to organize another family meeting, this one larger and more comprehensive than the last, with the agenda not only to include the problem of Wellington but also the larger problem of getting together a volunteer force of men from the family to help guard Bradford and keep the Chinese from re-establishing contact. Every day that went by, the danger of the Chinese making another attempt was increased. Every day, Bradford grew more difficult to keep in check. And yet, they couldn’t seem to get the meeting organized.

  Evelyn couldn’t understand it. All these excuses, all these postponements. It was perfectly true that these were busy men, most of them with important and time-consuming jobs, but it wasn’t a silly social get-together at stake here, it was something of vital interest to everybody in the family. Because Bradford was the family, its core and leader and the cohesive force that bound them all together, just as several decades ago it had been Bradford’s father who had been the central strength of the family. Bradford’s success had filtered out to help all the rest of them, from Sterling’s presidency of a university to Harrison’s reception of defense contracts. And Howard’s position as editor. And George’s position in television. And Joe’s reputation and position as a doctor. And on and on, spreading out to in-laws, so that the Bloor family in Cleveland and Baltimore were more important in banking circles than they would otherwise have been, and the Wellington family in Boston was more important in legal circles than they would otherwise have been.

  And yet people were stalling and delaying. Not Howard or Uncle Joe or Eugene White. But people like Harrison, who offered excuses but who really meant he didn’t want to travel back from California again. And George, whose television production schedule was suddenly much more full than it had ever seemed before; but Evelyn thought she detected Marie in that, trying to keep clear of a situation that might turn sticky. And one or two of Elizabeth’s relatives among the Bloors. And William Wellington, in Boston.

  How could people behave like that? Didn’t they realize what they owed to Bradford? How could they face themselves in the mirror?

  Howard was off in Chambersburg again today, making more phone calls, trying to goad or persuade or shame all the different family elements into picking a definite time and place for the meeting. With Bradford off on his now daily walk, Evelyn was—except for the servants and security men—alone in the house.

  Bradford was still in sight, though quite far away, when Evelyn faintly heard the sound of the main doorbell. Who would that be? She turned away from the window, told Dinah she would see her in a little while, left the room, and made her way to the front staircase and down.

  Greg and Audrey. A maid had just let them in and was about to show them into a side parlor. These were the newlyweds, Evelyn’s cousin Gregory Holt and Eugene White’s daughter Audrey, at whose wedding Evelyn and Robert had told Uncle Joe about Bradford. Bradford had phoned his congratulations to them on the morning of their wedding, and it had been arranged they would drop in for a visit on their way home from their honeymoon.

  “Hello!” Evelyn called, from halfway up the staircase, and skipped on down, smiling, delighted to be in the presence of happy and carefree people. “It’s good to see you!”

  “The moochers have arrived,” Greg said, grinning, and Audrey slapped at him and told him he was terrible. They kept managing to touch one another, and stood so that their arms and shoulders were in contact.

  Evelyn said, “What can we offer you? Have you had lunch?” She motioned to the maid to wait for instructions.

  “As a matter of fact,” Greg said, “we’re starving.” He was deeply sun-tanned still from his Mediterranean tour with the Navy. Audrey, beside him, seemed as small and white and delicate as a Dresden doll in contrast.

  “Lunch,” Evelyn told the maid, then asked Greg, “And something to drink first?”

  “You could twist my arm,” he said. If he weren’t so obviously innocent and happy, his manner would have been cloying; as it was, it seemed merely naïve and was therefore enjoyable.

  “No hard liquor for me,” Audrey said. “I’ll just go to sleep.”

  “White wine,” Evelyn suggested. “Chablis?”

  “Perfect!” Audrey said, and Greg said, “Just what the doctor ordered.”

  Evelyn told the maid, “We’ll be in the small dining room.”

  “Yes, Miss.”

  “Come along, you two,” Evelyn said, automatically picking up Greg’s style, and led the way down the hall. “How was your trip?”

  “Perfect,” Greg said. His grin seemed a permanent fixture on his face, like his nose.

  “I’d never seen the Laurentians before,” Audrey said. “My God, they’re so beautiful.”

  “I’ve never seen them in the fall,” Evelyn said. “Fred and I went up there skiing once, up above Quebec, but that was in the middle of winter.”

  “You’ve never seen autumn colors,” Greg announced, “until you’ve seen the Laurentians in October.”

  “You’ll have to go some year,” Audrey said, and suddenly looked flustered, and then lamely said, “But of course it’s beautiful around here, too.”

  Evelyn couldn’t figure out for a minute or two what Audrey’s problem was. She’d embarrassed herself just now, but how?

  Oh, for heaven’s sake, because of Fred! Evelyn almost laughed at the realization; Audrey had suddenly remembered that Evelyn was a widow now, and was making the assumption that her life was therefore essentially over. As with Ann Gillespie in Paris, once again, the same comparison. It would be cruel to suggest a light-hearted romantic journey to Ann. But not to me, Evelyn thought, smiling to herself, and suddenly wished Robert was here so she could introduce him.

  They went on into the dining room and sat down at the table by the window, where they could look out at the orchards through which Bradford would be returning. The conversation stayed in the Laurentians, and after a moment the Chablis was brought in, and Evelyn foun
d herself relaxing more and more in the casual company of these children.

  Children? Gregory was twenty-three, Audrey was nineteen or twenty. Evelyn thought, I’m less than four years older than he, and suddenly realized her birthday was coming Tuesday. She would be twenty-seven years old the day after tomorrow, and what with one thing and another she’d absolutely forgotten all about it! That had never happened to her before, to forget her own birthday.

  But that wasn’t the point. The point was that Gregory and Audrey both seemed so young, incredibly young. Why was that? Was it only because they existed for this little while without problems, so that they made such a total contrast to Evelyn’s picture of herself? But it seemed somehow as though they were years from responsibility, that they were lambs gamboling in the meadow. She thought of telling Greg about the situation with Bradford—he was family, he was young, he could be useful—and it just seemed ridiculous. She kept the conversation on a pleasant surface level.

  They were eating lunch when a maid came in and told Evelyn there was a phone call for her. She excused herself, and went to a nearby room where there was a phone.

  The voice was rough, hesitant and familiar. “Miss? This is Jimmy, down to the stables. We’ve got a sort of problem here, Miss.”

  Something wrong with the horses? Something wrong with Jester? “What is it, Jimmy?”

  “Well, Miss, the Major just come in with his uniform on and shot one of the horses.”

  She had no idea what he was talking about. “The Major? What Major?”

  “Mister Bradford’s son, Miss. Bradford, Jr. The Major. He’s sitting out in the yard here crying, and I didn’t know what to do.”

  ii

  IT WAS TRUE. BJ, dressed as always in his uniform, was sitting on the ground in the thin sunlight, his legs splayed out in front of him, his left hand shielding his face with fingers spread, his right arm out at an angle to the side, hand flat on the ground with palm up as though the Colt automatic Army issue .45 lying on the fingers was anchoring him in that position.