How Like an Angel

by Margaret Millar

  “Lonely, are you, Willie?” she said aloud. “Well, you de­serve to be. Who kept George out at nights so he didn’t get his eight hours of sleep? Who made him eat restaurant dinners high in cholesterol and low in calcium and riboflavin? Who persuaded him to sit for hours at a movie when he should have been using his muscles at the Y?”

  In the past two weeks she had begun to talk to herself and to people who were not there and never would be. Much of what she said consisted of excerpts and homilies from her col­lection of self-help books on nutrition, positive thinking, dynamic living, health and happiness through concentration, peace of mind, and the uses and development of will power. She took all the self-styled authorities with utter seriousness, even though they frequently contradicted themselves and each other. It kept her busy and prevented her from think­ing.

  “The authorities are too stupid to recognize a simple truth. First, there was the exertion of climbing the stairs when his system was not prepared for it. His heart muscles were flabby, his arteries choked with cholesterol. Then, too, he should have had at least eighty-five grams of protein that day, and one full gram of calcium, and of course he didn’t.”

  She poured the mixture from the blender into a glass and held it up to the window over the sink. In the opaque grayness she could see youth and health and vigor, will power, happi­ness, peace of mind, free-flowing arteries, firm abdominal muscles, a fortune in real estate and eternal life.

  She took a sip of her dream cocktail.

  “If George had started his day with this, he’d be alive right now. The vertigo would never have happened.”

  The first sip had tasted bitter and the texture was wrong. She took a second and it was the same, bitter, too thin to eat, too thick to drink.

  “I must have left something out. What did I leave out?”

  September came. The O’Gorman children went back to school and every night Martha helped them with their home­work. Richard had written a theme on “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” and given it to her to check for spelling and grammatical errors.

  “This handwriting is terrible,” Martha said. “Don’t they teach handwriting in school anymore?”

  “Sure they teach it,” Richard said cheerfully. “I guess I just don’t learn it.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to read it.”

  “Just keep trying, Mom.”

  “Oh, I’ll keep trying, all right, but will the teacher?” Martha returned to the theme. According to Richard’s version of the summer, he had done more work than a company of Seabees. “This is you you’re writing about?”

  “Sure. That’s the title, isn’t it? How I Spent My Summer. Listen, Mom. Do you know what a lot of the kids are doing this year?”

  “I certainly do,” Martha said dryly. “I’ve been told often enough. Some of them are driving their own Cadillacs. Others get fifty a week allowance, are allowed to stay out until mid­night—”

  “No, I’m serious, Mom. Some of the kids—one of them, anyway, does his homework on a typewriter.”

  “At your age?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “If you use a typewriter for everything now, by the time you’re ready for college you’ll have forgotten how to write by hand.”

  “You said I couldn’t anyway.”

  Martha looked at him coolly. “Well, what I didn’t say, but what I’m saying right now, smarty pants, is that you’d better pay stricter attention to your handwriting. Is that clear?”

  Richard groaned, twitched and rolled his eyes, but he said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Beginning now. You should copy this theme over before you give it to the teacher, if you’re interested in a decent grade on it.”

  “Didn’t we have a typewriter once? A long time ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened to it?”

  Martha hesitated before she answered, “I don’t really know.”

  “Gosh, maybe it’s still around some place in the storeroom or the garage. I’m going to look for it.”

  “No. You won’t find it, Richard.”

  “I might. You said you didn’t really know where it is.”

  “I do know where it isn’t. There’s no need to ransack the storeroom and the garage looking for something that doesn’t exist. Now please don’t start telling me what the other kids are allowed to do. Just accept the fact that you’re under­privileged, abused, neglected and short-changed, and carry on from there. Will you do that?”

  “Well, gee whiz.”

  “That just about sums it up, friend. Gee whiz.”

  She kept her tone light so the boy wouldn’t suspect how much the sudden mention of the typewriter had shaken her. It had been Patrick’s, an old portable he had bought second­hand, and which had never worked properly. The keys stuck together, the margin regulators were temperamental, and the bell rang only when it wanted to. She remembered how earn­estly and patiently Patrick had hunched over it, trying to teach himself the touch system and never succeeding at that any more than he had at all the other things he had tried. I encour­aged him too much, she thought. I let him climb too high and when he fell I provided too soft a cushion so he never broke a bone or learned his own limitations.

  When Richard went back to his room to rewrite his theme, Martha picked up the telephone and put in a long-distance call to San Felice.

  Quinn answered on the second ring. “Hello.”

  “This is Martha, Joe.”

  “I was just sitting here wondering whether I should make a nuisance of myself by calling you again. I have some news for you. One of the members of the Tower, Brother Crown, has been picked up in San Diego, working at a garage. Sheriff Lassiter and I drove down yesterday to question him but we didn’t get any answers. Even when he confronted me, Crown wouldn’t admit his identity, so it looks like another dead end. I thought you would like to know about it anyway.”

  “Thank you,” Martha said. “How’s the new job?”

  “Fine. I haven’t sold any boats yet but it’s fun trying.”

  “Will you be up this week end?”

  “I can’t promise. I have to go to L.A. and make another attempt to contact Mrs. Harley Baxter Wood.”

  “Karma’s aunt?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said the house was all closed up.”

  “Yes, but I figure she’ll be opening it again now that school’s started. She has a couple of children, she can’t afford to keep on the run.”

  “Why do you think she went away?”

  “If I’m right, Karma’s with her, and the aunt’s taking no chances on any members of the colony getting to her again.”

  For a minute there was the kind of awkward silence that occurs between people who are talking about one thing and thinking about another.

  “Joe—”

  “Do you miss me, Martha?”

  “You know I do. . . . Listen, Joe, I’ve got something to tell you. I’m not sure it’s important. It didn’t come out at the in­quest into Patrick’s death because I simply didn’t remember it then, and later, when I did, it seemed too slight a matter to bring to anyone’s attention. Richard mentioned it a few min­utes ago.”

  “Mentioned what?”

  “Patrick’s typewriter. He’d put it in the car a week before, intending to take it into the repair shop. But he kept forgetting about it. I think it was in the back seat when he picked up the hitchhiker that night.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Quinn had been waiting in his car outside Mrs. Wood’s house for half an hour. When he had pressed the door chime, no one had answered, but he was pretty sure there was someone in­side. Drapes were pulled back, windows were open, a radio was playing.

  He looked at his watch. Ten o’clock. The tree-lined street was quiet except
for an occasional car and the ringing of dis­tant church bells. After a time he became aware that someone was watching him from one of the second-floor windows. There was no breeze to account for the sudden twitching of the pink net curtain.

  He went back to the front door and pressed the chime again. A cat meowed softly in reply.

  “Mrs. Wood?” he called out. “Mrs. Wood—”

  “She’s not here.” It was a girl’s voice, speaking through the crack in the door. “And I’m not supposed to answer the door when she’s not here.”

  “Is that you, Karma?”

  “You better go away or my aunt will call the police.”

  “Listen, Karma. It’s Joe Quinn.”

  “I know. I’ve got eyes.”

  “I want to talk to you,” Quinn said. “I won’t hurt you. Haven’t I always been on your side?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Then come out here on the porch and talk to me. I’d like to see you again. I’ll bet you’ve changed. Have you?”

  “You’d never recognize me,” she said with a sudden giggle.

  “Try me.”

  “You won’t tell my aunt?”

  “Of course not.”

  The door opened, and Quinn saw that she’d been right: he would never have recognized her. Her dark hair was cut short, pixie style, and a deep tan covered the remains of her acne. She wore a tight silk sheath dress, needle-heeled shoes, a pound of orange lipstick, and so much make-up on her eyes that she seemed to have difficulty keeping them open, or else she was deliberately trying to look sultry.

  “Good heavens,” Quinn said.

  “Surprised?”

  “Oh yes. Yes, very.”

  She came out on the porch and arranged herself carefully on the railing. “If my mother could see me now, wouldn’t she have a fit?”

  “A justifiable one, I think,” Quinn said. “Does your aunt allow you to go to school like that?”

  “Oh no. I can only use lipstick—pink at that—and those terribly juvenile sweaters and skirts, and low heels. But when she goes out, I experiment to find my right type.”

  “Are you happy here, Karma?”

  After a long hesitation she nodded her head. “Everything’s so different, I have so much to learn. I think my aunt likes me, but I make a lot of mistakes and my cousins laugh at me sometimes. I wish I could laugh.”

  “Can’t you?”

  “Not really. I just pretend.”

  A plane passed high overhead, and Karma stared up at it as if she wanted to be on it.

  Quinn said, “Do you ever hear from your mother?”

  “No.”

  “Does your aunt?”

  “No, I don’t think so. She doesn’t tell me about it, any­way.”

  “What happened at the Tower that last day, Karma?”

  “My aunt says I’m never to mention the Tower to anyone. I’m to act as though it never existed.”

  “But it did exist. You spent a quarter of your life there, with your mother, your brother, and sister.”

  “I’m supposed to forget all that,” she said in a frightened voice. “And I’m trying to. You mustn’t remind me, it’s not fair. It’s—”

  “How did you get here to your aunt’s house, Karma?”

  “By bus.”

  “From where?”

  “Bakersfield.”

  “How did you get to Bakersfield?”

  “In the truck.”

  “Who was driving the truck?”

  “Brother Crown of Thorns.”

  “Who else was in it?”

  “I’m not supposed to—”

  “Who else, Karma?”

  “A lot of us. My family, and Sister Glory of the Ascen­sion, and Brother Behold the Vision—oh, I don’t remember all of them.” Her eyes had gone bleak, as if the mere recital of the names made the Tower too vivid, too ominously real. “I was scared, I didn’t know what was happening. At Bakers-field my mother gave me some money and told me to take a bus to Los Angeles and then a taxi to my aunt’s house.”

  “How much money?”

  “Fifty dollars.”

  “Where did this money come from?”

  “I don’t know, but I guess the Master must have given it to her before we left the Tower.”

  “Why did everyone leave the Tower?”

  “I think it was because of Sister Blessing being sick.”

  “She wasn’t sick,” Quinn said. “She was poisoned. She died soon after we reached the hospital.”

  Karma pressed her fists tight against her mouth. Tears welled in her eyes and mixed with the mascara and slid blackly down her cheeks. “She can’t really be dead?”

  “She is.”

  “That last day, she promised she’d get me out of the Tower, to my aunt’s, and she did, didn’t she? She kept her promise, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, Karma.”

  She leaned over and wiped her cheeks with the hem of her dress. There were no more tears. Sister Blessing, though she’d been a friend to her, had also been part of a life she preferred to forget.

  “What happened to the others who were in the truck?” Quinn said.

  “I don’t know. I was the first to get out.”

  “Were you given any instructions other than to come here to your aunt’s house?”

  “No.”

  “No future plans were mentioned?”

  “Not what you’d call real plans. But I think they intended to return when they thought it would be safe.”

  “Return to the Tower?”

  “Yes. They don’t give up easily. When people believe that hard in something, they can’t just stop believing in a minute.”

  “When did you last see Brother Tongue, Karma?”

  “When he helped you put Sister Blessing in the car to go to the hospital.”

  “He wasn’t in the truck with you?”

  “No. He must have gone with the Master in the new con­vert’s station wagon. I can’t swear to it, though, because the truck left first, and everything was so rushed and confused, with people running around, and the kids crying, and all that.”

  “Was Brother Light of the Infinite in the truck?”

  “No.”

  “Brother of the Steady Heart?”

  “He wasn’t, either.”

  “The decision to leave,” Quinn said, “was made very sud­denly?”

  “Yes.”

  “By the Master?”

  “He was the Master,” Karma said simply. “No one else made decisions. How could they?”

  “Think carefully now, Karma. Did you notice whether any­one else in the truck had money besides your mother?”

  “Sister Glory of the Ascension did. She kept counting hers. She’s very stingy, I guess she wanted to be sure she hadn’t been cheated.”

  “Cheated of her share?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did the shares come from?”

  “The Master, I suppose.”

  “As far as I know, he had no money, and Mother Pureza’s had all been used up in the construction of the Tower.”

  “Maybe she had some left that she kept secret. She was always playing tricks on people, even on the Master.”

  Karma had climbed down from the railing and was staring uneasily toward the street. “You’d better go now, Mr. Quinn. My aunt will be home any minute and I have to wash my face and put my cousin’s dress away. It’s her second best, genuine silk.”

  “Thanks for the information, Karma.”

  “You’re welcome, I guess.”

  “I’m giving you a card with my address and phone number on it. If you think of something else that you haven’t told me, call me col
lect, will you?”

  She looked briefly at the card he offered her, then turned away without touching it. “I don’t want it.”

  “Keep it anyway, just in case.”

  “All right, but I won’t ever be calling you. I won’t ever be thinking of the Tower anymore.”

  The door closed behind her.

  Quinn drove back to San Felice and went directly to Sheriff Lassiter’s office. Ten minutes later Lassiter arrived, short of breath and temper.

  “This is supposed to be my day of rest, Quinn.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “Well? Did you find the kid?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’d she have to say?”

  “Not much. She doesn’t know much. Brother Crown drove the truck to Bakersfield, Karma was let off at the bus depot and told to go to her aunt’s in L.A. Her mother gave her fifty-dollars to cover the trip. Apparently all the members of the Tower were given money to help them maintain themselves until the time came to reestablish the colony.”

  “I thought you said they took their poverty seriously.”

  “They do.”

  “Then where did the money come from?”

  “Karma doesn’t know,” Quinn said. “Neither do I.”

  “Perhaps George Haywood was carrying a lot of cash that he turned over to the Master.”

  “I don’t think so. His savings account was untouched, and the last sizeable check against his commercial account was written two weeks before he left Chicote. It was for two hundred dollars. Divide two hundred dollars among twenty-five people and you don’t get fifty dollars or more apiece.”

  “Why do you say ‘or more’?”

  “Karma received fifty dollars, but she was a child on her way to a place of security. The others would need a great deal more, especially the women.”

  “But you don’t actually know they all received money.”

  “It seems unlikely that an entire colony would agree to disperse like that without money changing hands. I realize how loyal they are to each other, but I can’t see all those people uprooting themselves completely for the sake of one man, un­less they were given some reimbursement or guarantee.”