Night-Bloom

by Herbert Lieberman

  Temperamentally, Bidwell was poles apart from the instinctive monasticism of Watford. What drew them together in that improbable bond of friendship was a mystery to the two of them.

  “Hey, Charley. What say we punch down a couple,” Bidwell said one night at closing.

  “I can’t, T.Y. Myrtle’s …”

  “Oh, shit, Myrtle.” Bidwell flapped his arms as if he were about to take wing. “Christ, Charley, I wish you’d get off that Myrtle thing. You got all this pussy over here just pantin’ to drop their knickers for you—just itchin’ to eatchaup alive, and you go skulkin’ off to home—like some weaselly coonhound to Myrtle. Jeeesus.”

  Watford hung his uniform in one of the metal wardrobe lockers in the bank’s basement.

  “Christ, man. Ain’t you ever got a good look at that woman? I don’t mean to be unkind, Charley, but what’s a good-lookin’ dude like you wastin’ your time with a bowwow like that?”

  “I like Myrtle.”

  “Like. Like. Hell, what’s sex got to do with liking? You feel sorry for her, that’s all. You wanna take care of her, that’s one thing. But Christ, that don’t mean you have to go home and hold her hand every night. Even Myrtle don’t expect you to be faithful. She knows she’s plenty lucky. She ain’t gonna deny you a little pleasure on the side. Jeeesus. What the hell’s the matter with you, Watford? All that poontang out there packed up to the bar, them big tits just itchin’ for your palms …”

  Watford laughed good-naturedly. “Sorry, T.Y. But I’m going home and have a shower and some supper.”

  “… watch Hollywood Squares, and then, my God, get into bed with Myrtle. Jeeesus, man, be careful. You may wind up marryin’ her.”

  Watford pulled a basque shirt over his head, tucked its elasticized bottom into his trousers and belted up. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” he said and winked sagely.

  Bidwell’s expression of friendly concern turned slowly to a naughty smirk. “Just so long as it’s understood tween the two of you, Charley. Christ … I’d hate to see you stuck with …”

  “Not in the cards, old friend. Trust me.” Watford slapped the big man across the shoulder. “Now don’t go getting yourself a dose of something out there tonight.”

  Watford picked up the bag of groceries he’d purchased at lunchtime and started out.

  “Hey, Charley,” Bidwell called after him. Watford turned, “You thought any more about what I told you?”

  “About what?”

  ” ‘Bout what we discussed last week.”

  Impatience sparked in Watford’s eye. “No, I haven’t thought any more about it.” He stared back at Bidwell.

  “Piece of cake, Charley. Candy from a baby. No risk. No involvement. Clean and easy as you please. All we do is collect a nice big fat check at the end.”

  “Don’t do it, T.Y. Don’t get yourself messed up. It’s not worth it. You don’t know these people. You don’t know anything about them.”

  “I don’t have to.” Bidwell’s voice dropped, and he drew closer. Watford took a warm, sweet blast of bourbon from his breath. “All I got to do is say when certain things round here on the premises are gonna be moved off the premises. You get me? Then, just make sure I’m out on my coffee break when and if something happens.” He winked at Watford. “That don’t strike me as nothin’ illegal.”

  “Nothin’ illegal, T.Y. Just an accomplice to the crime. That’s all. Just a matter of ten to fifteen years in the pen.”

  “Who’s to say?”

  “Not me. But that crowd you’ve been talkin’ to. The first sign of trouble—push comes to shove, you won’t see their heels for the dust.”

  “Oh, Christ, Charley. That ain’t gonna happen. All we gotta do is …”

  “I don’t want to hear no more about it, T.Y.” Watford waved it off like a puff of bad air. Hoisting his grocery bag in his arms, he started out. “I don’t want to know a thing. I’ve forgotten you ever spoke to me about it.”

  19

  Nothing happened for several weeks. And by the time it did, Watford had completely forgotten his discussion with Bidwell. He was not at the bank that day, home sick with fever and chills. And that’s what made things worse.

  Whatever happened (Watford never had the whole story), it was a disaster. The two young thugs who had engineered the stickup were amateurs. It had been their simpleminded intention to interrupt a $300,000 transfer from the bank’s vaults to a Wells Fargo truck outside and then divert it to an escape car waiting with a driver out front.

  Evidently they’d had an agreement with Bidwell that he make himself scarce during the time planned for interception. Bidwell had done his part of the job—informed the thieves of the exact time of transfer, then intentionally withdrew himself to one of the vaults in the bank’s basement where he could be safely out of the way.

  The one thing the aspiring holdup men had not counted on was panic—not only that of the clients, but their own as well. The moment one lady started to scream, the younger of the two robbers started to shoot. People scattered in a dozen different directions. There was a blur of motion and a great deal of noise. One of the tellers managed to trip a direct signal to the Kansas City Police Department. At the same time an automatic Klaxon started whooping frantically, inside the bank and out on the street.

  That was all the Wells Fargo drivers needed. They decamped at once, followed directly by the escape car, minus the two fledgling holdup men.

  Though the two bank robbers sprayed a great deal of fire round the bank, miraculously they managed to hit no one. In three minutes the Kansas City police had the bank surrounded, and the two aspiring thieves in custody. They had given up without a struggle, and to add to the ignominity of it all, in the patrol car going down to the station, one of them burst into tears and immediately implicated Bidwell.

  Within the next hour another patrol car was dispatched to the bank and Bidwell was taken into custody. An hour or so later, a plainclothes detective showed up at Watford’s residence, informed him of what had happened and told him that Bidwell had been named as an accomplice and was now in custody. He then proceeded to question Watford very closely.

  “How come you picked today to stay home?” the detective asked him.

  “Because I got sick today.” Watford coughed as if to legitimize the claim.

  “Sick today, ay?” The detective rolled his eyes merrily. “That’s a mighty big coincidence, isn’t it, Watford?”

  “What’s a coincidence?” Watford’s mind was racing a mile a minute.

  “Why, your getting sick, just like that. On the very day the bank gets fingered. I hear you’re something of a hero or something down at First National City. Like, I hear you nailed a couple of would-be James and Dalton brothers yourself. You’re supposed to be quite a guy with a heater. Where’d you learn about guns, Watford?”

  The more closely the detective interrogated him, the more frightened and confused Watford grew, casting even greater suspicion on himself.

  By that time Watford grasped that he was in trouble. His personal assessment of the situation was that Bidwell had panicked and, desperate to save his own skin, had traded off the name of an additional accomplice in exchange for a more lenient sentence.

  The fact that the detective had not charged him formally, nor even taken him down to the station for further questioning was indication that they still hadn’t enough of a case against him. Clearly, parts of Bidwell’s story had not added up to the police.

  “Okay, Watford. That’s all for now.” The detective rose and tipped his hat to Myrtle who’d been sitting in the corner pale with fright and close to tears. “I’ll have to ask you not to leave town until the investigation is completed.”

  Something in the way he said it, pointedly, with an edge of sarcasm, suggested to Watford that they were at that very moment running a check with the New York City police and possibly the FBI. In both instances he did not expect that the information contained in his records would sit very well
with the Kansas City police. Then, too, there was the touchy matter of his falsified military service in Vietnam.

  The moment the detective left, Myrtle began to cry. Chivalrous, even under the worst circumstances, Watford tried to pacify her. He stroked and patted her, held her like a small child and kissed her, all the while feeling the unmistakable foreshadowings of a deadly migraine.

  The moment he felt she had gained sufficient control, he excused himself and went to his room. Once there, he took down from the shelf above the wardrobe closet his physician’s bag out of which he quickly withdrew a hypodermic needle. He filled the syringe with a substantial dose of meperidine and unbuttoned his shirt-sleeve. Rolling it up, he clenched his fist several times and amid all the heavy needle tracking on his bare arm, he probed for a clean venipuncture site. When he found the small clean bulge he sought, he jabbed the needle into the heart of it, infused the clear liquid, then deftly withdrew it.

  By this time his head felt as if hammers were pounding inside it, trying to break out the wall of the skull. In the little sitting room outside, Myrtle had turned on the TV, attempting to console herself with a daytime quiz show. In the next moment he turned off the light and lay down full length on the unmade bed. Shortly, he knew, Mother Demerol would wave her wand and commence her kindly work.

  It started as it always had with the cool spot in the center of his forehead, this followed by a sense of gradual numbing within his skull. The pain was still there, but now mercifully muffled and growing distant.

  Shortly after followed a period of muscular relaxation—the opening of clenched fists, the loosening of clamped jaws, the dreamy deconstriction of neck muscles, with the attendant warm rush of blood to the face. Then that sudden surge between his legs; the tautening and bloody engorgement of erectile tissue; that exquisite itch that only Mother Demerol could provide.

  “… escapements are commonly divided into three distinct …”

  “… recoil escapements in which the wheel moves backward or recoils, such as the verge escapement in wrist watches …”

  “… but I don’t understand …”

  “Dead beat escapements, characterized by the fact that except during the actual impulsion, the wheel remains stationary …”

  “Lastly, detached escapements …”

  Watford’s head rolled sideways across the warm pillow. Even as the ominously quiet voice hectored him from the shadows beyond, he felt the enormous joy in his loins where hands stroked him lovingly.

  “Come away, Charley,” Mother said. “Come away with me.” She untied her mesh reticule and withdrew from it a small cloisonne pillbox. “We don’t have to tolerate this any longer,” she said. He wondered at her haggard, fragile beauty. So thin she had become, so pale tissuey transparent that the blue tracery of delicate venation scrawled like calligraphy beneath her dry, taut flesh.

  “If he can’t appreciate us for what we are, Charley, darling, then let us go where we will be appreciated.” She lay him down in the bed beside her, then folded his arms across his chest with an air of elaborate ceremony. “Now close your eyes and stick out your tongue.” Her voice was a mischievous, girlish singsong. “Open wide,” she giggled. “The way you used to take your cod liver and your vitamins.”

  He felt her finger press upon the back of his tongue, the involuntary audible gulp which followed, then the tiny bitter lozenge slowly dissolving at the back of his throat.

  The detective, a man named Birge, returned the following day. And then again the day after. They went over the material they’d covered during the first interrogation, going exasperatingly round and round in circles.

  The more Watford tried to clarify his position, the more, it seemed, he implicated himself with Bidwell and the two bank robbers. Incomprehensibly, he was trying to protect Bidwell, and as he did so, the more he entangled himself in a snare of truths and half-truths.

  The detective had begun to smirk a great deal. He grew smug and almost gleefully sarcastic as he watched Watford churn and thrash about in pitfalls of his own creation.

  “What do you want from me?” Watford at last threw his hands up in despair. “Am I a suspect?”

  “Who said that?”

  “Has Bidwell said anything?”

  “You tell me.”

  “How can I tell you? You spoke to him. I didn’t. But whatever he said about me, it’s not true.”

  Once again the nasty, cunning wink. “Why would he say anything about you, Watford? You’re an innocent man. We all know that.”

  “I am innocent. But he might have said something out of revenge.”

  The detective’s eyes widened. “Revenge for what? He described you as his best buddy.”

  “We were friendly.”

  “Well, then, why would he be looking to screw his best buddy?” With the intonation of those final words, the detective fairly leered.

  When at last the man left, Watford’s head was pounding dangerously. Myrtle sat off in a corner, huddled in a chair, legs tucked up beneath her. Her pinched, avid features gazed blankly off into space and she appeared to be weighing something very carefully in her mind.

  When Watford returned to the bank the following morning, people regarded him oddly. Gone was all the easy, joshing banter of former days. All of that “Hi, Charley,” cheer was now supplanted by cool nods, uneasy grins and in some instances, naked contempt. Ogilvy, the president and chief operating officer of the bank, characteristically cordial on arrival each morning, was pointedly cold.

  It stung him. It stung him badly, for Watford had prized greatly the wide circle of friends and acquaintances he had gained for himself during his short tenure at the bank. It pleased him that so many people were truly fond of him, and that he had their confidence. Now all of that was suddenly gone.

  The most hurtful incident occurred that evening at closing. It had been Watford’s job to lock up at night. He was therefore entrusted with a full set of keys to all exits and to the outer vault room as well. That night, however, Arbuthnot, the assistant treasurer, came down at closing and informed Watford that he himself would close up.

  “I’ll need your set of keys, Charley,” he said and fixed Watford with a pair of beady, accusatory eyes.

  “I can take care of it, Mr. Arbuthnot,” Watford said.

  “That’s all right, Watford. I’ll handle opening and closing for the time being. May I have the keys?”

  Cheeks burning, eyes filling with shame, Watford dutifully handed over the keys, and though Arbuthnot had suggested that this was only a temporary situation, presumably until all the guilty parties had been arraigned, Watford knew in his heart that even if the cloud of suspicion were completely dispelled, he would never again enjoy the same unquestioning trust from his friends at the bank. The game was up for him at First National City of Kansas.

  When he got home that night Myrtle was waiting for him. Still rattled by the events of the past few days, she had spent most of the afternoon drinking.

  Now she sought solace in Watford, but he was in scarcely any condition to provide it.

  She’d gotten into her best dress and had applied, none too tastefully, a great deal of lipstick and mascara. Now she pressed close and stared up at him pleadingly. “Charley, I’ve had a lousy day. Let’s go out and forget all this. Dinner and a few drinks. We’ll both feel better. Come on.” She tugged like a small child at his sleeve.

  Watford stood there dazed, unspeaking. The pounding had resumed in his skull and he thought he was going to be sick. “Myrtle, I don’t feel too well,” he said in his quietly disarming manner, and left her whimpering in a corner.

  The intensity of throbbing in his head had caused his vision to blur. He felt nauseous and dizzy. More alarmingly, when looking at objects he found them all encircled by glaring white halos. Slightly panicked, he started to rummage frantically about the bedroom for his medicine kit.

  He took ergotamine in tablets, and the last of his Demerol in liquid form by means of a needle. Then, witho
ut bothering to undress, he lay down on the unmade bed in the dark. Myrtle followed shortly after and tried to talk with him.

  “Charley, Charley, dear,” she whimpered and lay down beside him. “I don’t care what you done, darlin’. It don’t matter to me. We’ll get a lawyer. We can still make a life for ourselves. And I’m not too old yet for kids. You oughta be happy. You deserve to be. I just got the feelin’ you ain’t been for a long time. Why not just give me a chance? What d’ya say, honey?”

  Watford concentrated hard on the mottled shadows shifting liquidly on the ceiling above him. In his shrieking head he could see Arbuthnot’s lethal smile. “I’ll need your set of keys, Charley.” He did not know if it was his head or his heart that hurt him more.

  In a vain effort to arouse him, Myrtle threw her arms about him, fastening her cold lips on his neck with the sucking intensity of a pilot fish. But Watford merely lay there, cold, impassive, unfeeling.

  What was he doing here, he brooded, next to this haggard creature with the avid eyes and the sharp ferret features? She had told him when he met her that she was twenty-nine. But he knew she was closer to forty and had simply adjusted her age to something she perceived as more acceptable to his thirty-two years.

  He had a sudden fleeting image of the pretty Pam Am ticket agent at Kennedy that wet April evening he had fled New York. The sparkling gray eyes, the pretty teeth, the soft cowl of wheat-white hair bathed in the cobalt blue of the terminal. He could have had her. He knew that, just as he knew he could have had so many—so pretty, so fair, so lovely to hold.

  And yet, something drew him endlessly, fatally downward; always pairing him with the outcast and unseemly, bonding him in fatal unity with all the misbegotten freaks of nature. Like Myrtle Wells, he was part of the great universal freak show. Why? He used to tell himself that there was something chivalric about making his special cause the castouts and the undefended. Like some hapless Don Quixote, it was a lovely, self-serving fiction used to justify the whole catalog of his many and even self-fabricated personal failures. He saw at last that pity for others, of itself, practiced as a vocation, was more like self-pity, and had made a loveless shambles of his life. But he realized as well that knowledge and self-awareness, in his case at least, would not change a blessed thing.