“She’s beautiful.”
“Use your skin.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons strode into her office. “You’re not a child. That’s Dolores’s M.O. She’s pricey. She probably kept him waiting out there.”
SEVENTEEN
Among her corps of followers, the only one who saw fit, or perhaps even dared by now, to question Mrs. Fitzgibbons on the wisdom of her plans to ruin her arch adversary was her most devoted admirer. Bruce had been apprised by his friend Matthew of the outline of Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s intentions.
“It’s important that I look my dramatic best,” she explained, as Bruce toiled absorbedly on her eyelids and lashes. “Especially my eyes. Fix them up a little scary.”
“Wouldn’t it be as well,” Bruce persisted worriedly, “to let fate take its course? After all, the poor thing has lost millions in his department. He hasn’t a leg under him. The chairman and staff are behind you. Now, in addition, you’ve successfully overruled his dismissal of Mr. Kim.”
She actually enjoyed having someone articulate the reasonable approach to a crisis of this kind, as it reinforced her pleasurable awareness of her opponent’s defenselessness. Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s motives in hounding Mr. Hooton to his ruin were no longer those of the aggressive competitor seeking power, but rather of the hate-filled victor determined to pour the full measure of her wrath on the head of one who had had the gall to oppose her in the first place. The mere thought of the man, with his big suspenders bulging, and his gold half spectacles balanced snootily on the tip of his nose, contemptuous and self-important, started her insides churning. The knowledge that the man was at her mercy imparted dark feelings of satisfaction.
“The man is going to fall,” Bruce argued. “It can only be a matter of days.”
“I appreciate your sensitive nature, Bruce. That’s how you’re built.” She humored him while regarding herself in the wall mirror.
“It’s illegal, as well.”
That line touched Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s fancy; she reacted mirthfully, while lifting her face to show Bruce a pitying glance. “Nothing’s illegal when you win, pussycat. Please. The man is nothing more than an adulterous blowhard who had the bad luck of getting in the way.” Words of this sort thrilled Mrs. Fitzgibbons. She clasped tightly the arms of her chair. “Besides,” she added, referring to her associates, “I have to consider the needs of the others. They want action. They’re in a fever state. They’re champing at the bit. They’re different from you, darling. I have to give them what they want.”
“Ever since Matthew began driving for you,” Bruce complained, “he’s become a different person. He almost never cooks. He’s out at all hours. He doesn’t clean. He leaves his clothes and beer cans lying about.”
Mrs. Fitzgibbons laughed.
“He talks like a thug,” Bruce said.
“He is a thug,” she cried. “What did you think he was?” Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s wit carried clearly from one end of the salon to the other. “What on earth are you worried about? With your looks and brains and sex appeal, he’s not going anyplace. If you can’t control the affections of a measly city hall clerk who wants nothing more from life than to go out beer drinking and banging heads at night, you’re not the artist I thought you were.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons twisted around in her chair and looked him in the eye. “Slap his face!” she said. “Throw him out of bed.... Deny him!”
These jocular cracks set both the patrons and hairdressers in Bruce Clayton’s salon laughing aloud. Bruce blushed but chimed in laughing.
Mrs. Fitzgibbons concluded with a catalog of her driver’s strong points. “He can drive a car, count to a hundred, and form an erection. Where is somebody like that going to find a lover who owns his own business and wears Italian silk boxer shorts at fifty bucks a throw?”
She was on her feet then, pulling on her coat. She was impressed with Bruce’s artistry. Her hair and makeup were just what she wanted. Her features were beautified to perfection. Her eyes looked deep-set; they glittered brightly, lending a sinister quality to her appearance.
“I wasn’t being critical.” Bruce followed her to the front door. She was snapping on her gloves. She loved Bruce more than anyone on earth. That was a fact.
“You’re supposed to be critical. That’s your function.”
“I would be willing to go, if you wanted and insisted. You know that.”
“It wouldn’t be fun for you,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons. “You stay home. Believe me, this is not your kind of outing.”
Outdoors, Matthew was waiting behind the wheel of the Buick and came round in smart fashion to open the door for her. Pulled to the curb behind Matthew’s sedan was Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s own avocado green Honda, containing Eddie Berdowsky and Howard Brouillette up front, and Julie and Emily in back. They were all staring out at Mrs. Fitzgibbons as she emerged from the mall and strode briskly to the car. After Matthew closed her door, she didn’t look back at Bruce, who watched worriedly from the sidewalk, but she was appreciative of his concern for her safety. She settled back in her seat. She was not smiling.
Mrs. Fitzgibbons snapped at Matthew. “Let’s get started. Take me out the Rifle Range Road to the old German Club. Get moving. Step on it.”
As the cars pulled smoothly out, one behind the other, accelerating in tandem, Bruce was left standing in dismay on the curb. He watched till the two cars were lost from view in the supper-hour traffic.
The wooded hills west of town, especially in the higher elevations, sustained the flimsy residue of an early snowfall. The two cars slowed to a crawl on the unpaved gravel road leading a mile up through the trees to the club. The whitened trees on either side formed a glowing channel, illuminated by the headlights. It was almost past twilight. The sky still presented patches of blue, discernible at intervals through the treetops, as darkness collected under the hardwoods and pines. Soon they came in sight of the old club. The green wooden structure looked more like a hunting lodge than a gin mill. The only car parked under the pines was that of the owner and bartender, Rudy Harnisch, as Matthew brought his black sedan to a halt near the front door. Seconds later, Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s Honda pulled noiselessly alongside and stopped. Getting out, Mrs. Fitzgibbons relished at once the feeling of solitariness and suspense which the whitened forest greatly magnified. She paused to look about herself in a grave manner, as though to impress upon the others collecting about her the gravity of their actions. Mrs. Fitzgibbons motioned with two fingers for Eddie and Matthew to precede her up the steps. Howard Brouillette and the two young women followed at her heels. From somewhere in the twilight, a shutter banged softly.
Inside, Howard went at once to see that the public telephone was working, while Eddie checked out the rest rooms. The club was empty, save for Mr. Harnisch, who folded up his newspaper and stepped behind the bar. Years ago, the club was headquarters for a local fraternal society called the Turn Verein. The interior consisted of thick pine ceiling beams, planked paneling, and an ornate walnut bar. Behind the bar, an immense but delicately frosted mirror reflected an array of neon-lighted beer signs. Mrs. Fitzgibbons led the way to the big table by the window that looked out on the summer beer garden, where metal chairs stood stacked atop a dozen tables; strings of electric lights dangling in the naked branches formed a visible tracery on the winter sky. Mrs. Fitzgibbons permitted the members of her party to order beer, but demanded a glass of mineral water with lime and ice for herself.
While waiting for Dolores to telephone from Mr. Hooton’s summer house at the lake, Mrs. Fitzgibbons maintained an edgy silence. Her face was colorless. From time to time, she turned her full attention onto one or the other of her followers and stared concentratedly. In fact, though, Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s thinking during this waiting period was unusually disorganized. For a second or two, she confused Rudy Harnisch with a tomato-faced Sacred Heart priest named Lavelle, who had married her to Larry in 1962, and who was summoned to the hospital one summer evening three years ago to give her husband his last rites. Even more confusing, a litt
le time after that, Mrs. Fitzgibbons suddenly heard the sound of her own voice, only to realize with a start that she had been talking aloud for some while; that that segment of her brain was functioning independently.
“With this shindy out of the way,” she was saying, “I’ll be in a position to work some useful changes around here. This region has everything.” She gestured at the wilderness beyond the windows. “Beautiful countryside, good utilities, a professional work force, railroads, interstate highways, universities nearby, and the best of it, a half dozen little banks ripe for the picking.” She listened to herself citing names. “The South Valley, the Citizens, the Smith’s Ferry Institute. What do you think they’ll do when I push my way in? They’ll welcome me with open arms.”
“They’ll thank their stars it was you,” said Matthew.
“With them in my pocket, I’ll build myself a financial fortress, from Worcester to Albany, with the reins in these two hands. If those big-city metropolitan banks want a fight then, won’t I give them a bloody nose!”
Eddie whooped and raised his glass mug. The others reacted noisily. Emily Krok, who didn’t like the way the bartender was gazing over in fascination at Mrs. Fitzgibbons, spoke out to him in surly fashion. “Go back to work,” she said.
“What’s he doing?” said Howard.
“Looking funny at the Chief.”
“Don’t think that tonight won’t be a lesson to everyone,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons was declaiming. “Nobody’s exempt. Not even you people. Everyone hews the line.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons sat as straight as a ramrod, with her breasts up, her eyes fixed on Julie Marcotte.
Abruptly, Julie blurted out, “I’m so worried about Mrs. Brouillette.”
“Pull yourself together!” Mrs. Fitzgibbons reprimanded the young woman.
“I’m sure he’s hurting her,” Julie protested. “And I feel so bad for Howard.”
Here everyone looked at Howard Brouillette, whose long white raincoat was, in fact, shaking to an extent that could not be explained by the draft coming from the windows. He showed his friends a sickly smile. His shiny eyeglasses glittered like the eyes of an insect.
“What if she can’t get to a phone to call us?” Julie cried. “What if she’s trapped out there and being abused?”
“If you don’t stop,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons, reiterating a threat once leveled at her by a nun, “I’ll have you taken from the room and thrashed.”
“Dolores is a professional,” Matthew offered as solace to Julie.
“I’d like to have a wife like that,” said Eddie.
“I can’t believe she’s really out here,” Julie persisted.
“I’d like to be in her boots,” Emily contributed. “Wouldn’t I like that!”
“That will never happen,” Eddie said.
“Look at me.” Julie showed her hands. “I’m shaking all over.”
“The telephone is ringing,” Eddie announced.
“Get that.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons commanded Howard.
While Mr. Brouillette made a beeline for the pay phone, Eddie, sitting in the chair next to Mrs. Fitzgibbons, capitalized on the opportunity to compliment his mother-in-law. “You should see yourself, Frankie,” he whispered privately. “You look really scary. You look like one of those Oriental Nazi dragon ladies in the movies,” he said. After a moment, he added, even more softly, “I think Barbara is beginning to understand. She knows I work evenings for you now, and that you have our best interests at heart.”
The gathering tensions had strung out Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s nerves. A hammer beat away on her brain; her presence of mind came and went.
“I know she’s your daughter,” Eddie went on, covering his mouth with his hand, “but ever since you took over at the bank, she’s become like the walking dead.” He leaned close to Mrs. Fitzgibbons, still whispering. “She knows she can’t cut it. She knows that you’re the kingpin.”
“It’s Dolores,” Matthew spoke up to affirm.
Through the window of the telephone booth, Mr. Brouillette was flashing the high sign. Mrs. Fitzgibbons nodded austerely and got to her feet.
Eddie kept close to her ear. “She just wants a house,” he said. “That’s all she talks about. A little bungalow someplace. She doesn’t suspect that I plan to get rid of her.”
“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Fitzgibbons strode to the door, tying her belt. “Assert yourself.” She showed Eddie a compact fist. “Give her a good drubbing.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” Eddie exclaimed hastily. “She’s pregnant.”
Emily Krok scooted in front of Mrs. Fitzgibbons and opened the door for her. Outdoors, night was falling fast. Although a light flurry of snowflakes was dropping softly, the sky to the east was clear and moonlit. Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s troop of followers waited by their car doors as she paused on the porch and took her measure of the night. It was just the sort of icy, windless night, she imagined, on which significant events were meant to be settled. Descending the steps, she paced rigidly across the frozen ground. Mrs. Fitzgibbons enjoyed putting on a very stern look at such times, as she had discovered this week that it aroused an unholy fear in others.
Before entering the Buick, she paused in the snowfall and scrutinized Howard Brouillette at point-blank range. His chin was trembling. The man was a sight. “Get a grip on yourself,” she ordered him.
For the next twenty minutes, the two cars, with only their dimmers burning, crept along at a sinister pace over the gravel roadbed, through the snow-cloaked trees, toward the lake. Their wipers were going. Eddie was leading the way in the Honda. Muffled by the snowfall, the two engines rumbled and droned like the echo of a lumber-camp saw. At last, to the right of the slowly moving automobiles, the dark expanse of the lake reached out into the night. A boarded-up summer cottage slid past in the dark. The snowfall was insignificant here. Eddie and Matthew killed their parking lights. The big black Buick gleamed ominously as it followed the battered Honda slowly beneath the whitened trees. Presently, the Honda came to a stop. “We’re here,” Matthew said over his shoulder.
Mrs. Fitzgibbons thrust open her door, clambered out, and started forward at once over the hard earth. That she was wearing high heels seemed not to impede her whatsoever. A hundred feet ahead, the gable and roofline of Mr. Hooton’s year-round lake house loomed in silhouette. A softly lighted window in the gable shone forth like a portal to another world. The lake lapped icily against the boat dock. Mrs. Fitzgibbons stepped along in the dark as far as the crescent of slender pin oaks that stood like sentries around the flagstone terrace. The others came Indian file behind her. Halted, she surveyed the house and grounds. Mr. Hooton’s BMW was parked between the dock and his front porch. A film of snow blanketed its roof, while the dock with its slatted planks jutted out in space like a skeleton. When Howard Brouillette drew abreast of her, his long white coat flapping, like the specter of death itself, she couldn’t look at him. He was mumbling imprecations and shivering from head to toe.
Before forcibly entering Mr. Hooton’s house, Mrs. Fitzgibbons took account of her charges. She studied them in the weak light. Of them all, Emily and Eddie were the most eager to begin. Emily was wringing her rough-skinned hands and licking her lips. Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s own face was as pale as death. She spoke in undertones. “Mrs. Brouillette is being raped,” she said.
“I want Dolores,” Howard implored.
“You’ll get Dolores,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons scolded.
“It’s too awful,” said Julie, in pain.
Mrs. Fitzgibbons gestured then with a slow, mechanical wave for Eddie and Howard to precede the rest of them onto the porch. “You two,” she said, “go first. Push it in.”
The front door of Mr. Hooton’s house swung in at the touch, however, and in less than a moment, Eddie and Howard vanished inside. The events to follow involved such tumult that Mrs. Fitzgibbons herself could scarcely perceive what was happening. Everyone began shouting, and there was a drumming of footsteps on the staircase to the upper storey.
Just as Mrs. Fitzgibbons located the banister in the dark, Emily Krok pushed past her, with her elbows going, hollering encouragement to Dolores Brouillette in a raucous voice. Somewhere a vase shattered. Chairs went over in the hall. Eddie was yelling about “this fucking furniture up here,” and in that same instant, just as Mrs. Fitzgibbons arrived on the upstairs landing, a bar of electric light shot slantwise across the corridor. Inside the bedroom, Dolores had leaped from the bed, pulling a long sail of a bed sheet behind her, and was shouting blue murder. “It’s the man from the bank, Howard!” she yelled. “He tore off my dress! I couldn’t get away! Look who it is!”
Dolores cowered in the corner of the room, with the sheet twirled about her. She looked paralyzed with fear.
“That’s my wife! What have you done to my wife?” Howard was beside himself.
“It was awful, Howard. It was horrid. Look who it is.” Dolores was worked up into an incantatory state.
Mr. Hooton in the meantime was sitting up in the middle of his bed. Under the glare of the ceiling light, his fleshy shoulders and fat pink arms created the impression of an inflated toy more than the solid bulk of a man. Atop his rubbery body, the sphere of his head flushed a bright crimson. If he had been sporting an erection at the moment his intruders banged the door in, there was nothing of it in evidence now beneath the roll of his stomach. With his mouth agape, Mr. Hooton stared up at the trim, vindictive figure of Mrs. Fitzgibbons standing over the foot of his bed. The ghastly intensity of her face and eyes expressed a tension born of causes not found in everyday stresses. Indeed, Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s appearance and mannerisms would have worried anyone upon whom she looked.
“So, I was right,” she cried, swinging her gloved fists this way and that in a show of suppressed fury.
Emily Krok was running back and forth in the room, like a ferocious dog.
Julie rushed to help Dolores. “He’s torn her dress.”
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