The Will

by Harvey Swados

  “I’ll call—”

  Ralph slapped Kitty silent with the back of his hand.

  “Don’t call anybody. You hear?”

  Blood beading the bridge of his nose, the invader smashed Kitty’s lamp with the flat of his hand and threw himself heavily onto Ralph’s back. Ralph tried to roll out from under, but he could not. The only way he could bear the weight without collapsing and being smothered was to hump over on his knees, his hands clutching desperately at the sideboard of the bed frame like a drowning sailor clinging to the gunwale of a half-swamped lifeboat.

  “Just tell me,” the voice whistled in his ear, almost sobbing, “where—”

  “Up your ass!” Ralph cried in fury, releasing his grip and with a quick jerk throwing his hands high above his head, as he straightened his back. The weight fell away and he whirled about, free again. “That’s where, you bastard!”

  He grabbed up his father’s heavy old ceramic ash tray, which Kitty was pressing on him, and brought it down squarely on his attacker’s head as it advanced, lowered, bulllike, the features obscured by the straight hair hanging loose, wet, from the dripping forehead. The china shattered in his hand but did not even slow his assailant, whose skull blasted like a ram into Ralph’s chest, sending a sudden stab of agony into his lungs. Sick with pain, he raked downward with the shard that remained in his hand.

  Whimpering, his assailant staggered back, his hand to his cheek. He lurched through the open door, his naked dirty shins protruding below ragged and oil-stained chinos. Ralph sucked in air and ran after him.

  He caught up in the hallway, but the pursuer, now pursued, the left side of his face open and running blood from temple to neck, halted suddenly and turned to confront him. Lips drawn back over his teeth, supporting himself with a hand that smeared blood down the floral wallpaper as it sought a purchase, he flexed his knee and drove it at Ralph’s dangling unprotected sex.

  Instinctively Ralph cringed, his hands flying to his groin. The other whirled and made for the stairway, racing not down but upward, two steps at a time. He was bound for Ray, either by foreknowledge or by inspiration. Cursing, Ralph struggled up the stairs and on the third-floor landing managed to grasp a flying end of T-shirt. The cotton tore loose in his hand, but his fleeing foe, thrown off balance, tottered forward, the force of his movement carrying him on into the first room at the head of the stairs. Ray was safe from him here, and he from Ray, if only he could be kept in the room, whose single window gave out on a three-story drop.

  They began to circle warily, face to face in the feeble moonlight that filtered through the cobwebbed window, Ralph trying to keep the doorway at his back.

  This was the room that had been consecrated by Uncle Max for his movie posters and signboards. Here one madness served as excuse for another: only the total stranger could be so naive as to believe that this roomful of Hollywood—which gave you the sensation on entering it of having fallen into a deep smooth-sided well filled with honey instead of water-represented nothing more than a final extravagant extension of Max’s collecting mania. The contrary was the case: it was as if here at last that mania served to fill in the emotional blanks in the life of the mad bachelor.

  For here, even if the crammed room was the battle site of your fight for life, you could not but be overwhelmed by the shrinelike testaments to youth, to romance, to the myth and mystery of a world populated by the eternally young, the perfectly beautiful, the unwaveringly magnetic, all of them regally amicable and even affectionate.

  For Max, With Sincerest Best Wishes From Andrea Leeds, someone had written across Andrea’s provocative shoulder. Fondly Yours, Ann Sheridan, the Oomph Girl had stamped on her glossy eight by eleven. Heartiest Greetings, Lyle Talbot had inscribed over his Adam’s apple with a blunt pen. Leo Carillo, Johnny Mack Brown, Sonny Tufts, and their fellow gauchos, halfbacks, and navy officers jostled one another, winking and grinning from the cut-glass frames of their dime-store photos, from the curling covers of defunct fan mags, from the life-size cutouts salvaged from the storerooms of since destroyed movie palaces. Beside them, propped on flimsy wooden frames, the silhouettes of Maria Montez in harem trousers, Alice Faye in black silk stockings and tails, Mary Carlisle in bobby sox, and Lana Turner in sober WAC uniform (blouse stuffed with goodies, though), looked out with limpid-eyed emptiness on the dusty combat. At the far corner, by the window, Deanna Durbin, at once regal and winsome, presided over the slow-motion struggle in her grown-up evening gown and tiara, a Hollywood-teenager version of the Goddess of Justice.

  The two men circled before her as if performing a fraternal rite which demanded a blood sacrifice. There was no longer any other motive for this confrontation.

  Surrounded by the pantheon of those they had themselves once worshiped, benevolently regarded even by the shades of May Robson and Edna Mae Oliver, they closed, felt each other’s hot and furious breath, grappled, staggered, and fell to the barren floor. The dust touched their tongues and, as they slid, blackened along the bare boards, Ralph cried out in pain from the splinters which pierced the flesh of his thighs. Rocking together beneath the window, they toppled Deanna, who came crashing down on their heads. They paused to kick her aside, as soldiers will declare a Christmas truce, and then made for each other again.

  Ralph crooked his right arm and jerked the elbow upward into the gaping mouth, gulping air, that mirrored his own. He felt a tooth splinter as it struck his elbow and collided with the bone. But the other, far from relaxing his grip, drove Ralph to the floor once again.

  The tendons of his neck stretched and twanging, his eyeballs starting from their sockets, Ralph saw first Kitty’s feet, bare and pretty, and then the rest of her, still clad in her pajamas. From the floor, she had a statuesque aspect. What was astonishing—it made Ralph think he was going out of his mind—was that she bore a pitcher over her head in a theatrical attitude mimicking one of the more queenly movie marquee cutouts, Ann Harding or Elissa Landi. But then she moved her arms forward, at first ever so slowly, measuringly, lowering the amphora in a pantomime of grace, and thereafter with power and precision, bringing it down unerringly on the skull of his antagonist, who collapsed inertly on Ralph. Just as Ralph shifted his hips on the creaking floorboards, anxious to ease himself out from under the dead weight, the weight refused to die, but belched with a terrible inhuman sound, and heaved itself together in one final spasm of defiance.

  Enraged at this insensate refusal to accept obliteration, Ralph rolled until he could mount the maniac and punch him in the pulpy face as he had never punched anyone, punish him as he had never punished anyone, grabbing him by the hair and pounding that head against the floor until there should be nothing left of it, no reminder, no voice, no belch, no protest, no question, no demand, no teeth, no mouth, no eyes, no nothing nothing nothing …

  Kitty was tearing at him, trying to restrain his flailing arms. He brushed her aside and kept at it methodically, no longer seeing, only doing, she was scraping and pulling at him to no effect, she was crying in a non-Kitty way, like a small animal trapped under a beam, or was the sound coming from the face beneath his that was becoming a non-face, a no-longer face …

  He was only vaguely conscious of being lifted as if by a hoist, restrained, dangling, facing away from what was on the floor.

  Kitty was not there, but then she was again, wrapping him in a bathrobe and pressing compresses on his face, laving him and protecting him too from the policemen who had finally pulled him loose. There seemed to be two of them, or maybe there were more, he was not sure of anything. He thought he asked them what time it was, but the answer of the older one seemed to bear no relation to his question.

  “Prowl car. Lucky for him and you both. Another five minutes and you would of killed him.”

  “He almost killed me.”

  “Could be. Hetzel, call in for an ambulance.”

  The younger cop hurried, stumbling, out of the room.

  “Looks like a nut house. All these pictures
.” Still breathing heavily, the cop was squatting on his fat hams, his thumb on the limp blood-smeared wrist. “Now if this guy broke in, we can book him at the hospital on a felonious assault. On the other hand, if he was a friend, or like that, you may need a lawyer yourself.” He sucked saliva through his teeth. “Especially if he dies.”

  “I can’t talk.” Ralph wiped blood from his lips. “I’m sick.”

  “I can talk, Officer,” Kitty said. “He entered our bedroom and attacked my husband.”

  The policeman gazed at her emptily. “What do you mean, attacked? Did your husband catch him going through his pants? A second-story man generally doesn’t go looking for trouble. Was he armed?”

  “You must let me put my husband to bed and get help for him. After that, I’ll gladly go over everything with you.”

  “The medic on the ambulance will be here in a minute. Now in the meantime. When did he enter? In what manner? What time were you aroused?”

  Ralph spat blood into a towel. “My name is Ralph Land. It was my father and my uncle that lived here.”

  The policeman gazed at him steadily, then glanced about once more at the smiling Hollywood faces. “The ones that collected all the—”

  “There’s been plenty in the papers. Maybe if there hadn’t been so much, he wouldn’t have turned up tonight.”

  “Searching for treasure?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, I still got to file my report.”

  Ralph felt Kitty gathering breath beside him. “It will have to be tomorrow,” she said, her voice breaking. “I must call our doctor.”

  “No, no, no,” Ralph mumbled. “Nobody else. You hear? Nobody else.”

  Kitty ignored him and turned to the policeman.

  “I think something happened tonight. I am afraid I’ve lost my baby.” Her hands smoothed out the fabric of the pajamas, outlining the little bulge of the fetus. Her knuckles, Ralph observed with dull surprise, were knotted and trembling, as though it were arthritis that had suddenly affected her. “I have started to bleed. You must let us try to take care of each other until the doctor arrives.”

  As if in a new dream, this time stolen from Shakespeare, with his strong-willed Lady having gained him a new reprieve after participation in much carnage, Ralph moved in noctambular fashion under Kitty’s arm away from the suddenly quiet policeman waiting, like them, for reinforcements, and out of the grotto, stepping over the cracked form of Deanna Durbin and the huddled form beside her that lay snoring horribly in its congealing blood while it dreamed its own broken dreams.

  8: KITTY

  IF KITTY HAD FRIGHTENED an obstinate cop unnecessarily, she felt no guilt about it. Quite the contrary. She had wisely protected her unborn child, so Solomon Stark had assured her; she had at least temporarily pulled Ralph out of a hole; and she had given herself a badly needed respite.

  How good it was to be relieved of the round of responsibilities! She had been drawn into that routine insidiously, like a donkey which is first gently blinkered and then brutally beaten to make it tread a continuous circle. So it was delicious to lie on her back between crisp sheets, to sip ice water through a bent straw, to be served breakfast (no matter how dismal the food), and best of all to be freed from the necessity of making petty decisions. They were the worst; compared to them even the larger decisions—which men made so much noise about but which seemed to her to mature almost spontaneously, growing like flowers once you had planted the seeds and watered them—were simple. Becoming a mother, say, or settling in your mind the nature of your marriage.

  Yet this freedom was merely provisional. Even though Ralph had not yet come to see her or phoned her for that matter—whether from a compassionate feeling that she should have a period of absolute tranquillity, from shame at having involved her brutally in a murderous revelation of his real temper, or from hatred because she had called in outsiders against his express injunction—Kitty was perfectly aware that she had to make new decisions for herself and Ralph. Indeed, now was precisely the time for calm analysis of the blood that had flowed from the two antagonists, as well as from her own womb; yet she preferred to temporize, to enjoy these last precious hours of luxurious mindless solitude.

  Dr. Stark had installed her in a semiprivate room and promptly put her under sedation. At dawn two attendants had removed her aged roommate, from whom she had been separated by a screen anyway and who had probably died during the night. Now the other bed was stripped and bare, and through the open window (the heat had broken during the night) came the pleasant muted sounds of the city. Trucks, delivery wagons, children in a school playground across the way. A delicious sun warmed the dull green walls of the high-ceilinged old hospital room.

  There was a rap on the door. Before Kitty could speak an elderly nun entered. Smiling, she shook her head on observing how Kitty was hastening to smooth out the bedclothes.

  “Don’t disturb yourself, my dear. You have a visitor, but he can only stay a few minutes. Doctor’s orders.”

  Before Kitty could inquire as to who was coming, the old nun withdrew. Hastily Kitty combed out her hair. She had just finished making up her lips, and was blotting them with a folded piece of hospital tissue, when there was a knock on the door once again. This time it did not open.

  “Come in,” Kitty called out.

  The stranger who stood before her was heavy-set but sallow, with straight blond hair cut short and square and brushed upward, which still managed to look too thick about the ears. He was perhaps thirty-five, his muscles bulging here and there, like a weightlifter (like Ray?), in his plaid summer suit. He wore no tie, but had his open shirt collar folded out over his jacket. He would have looked more comfortable in army fatigues, Kitty thought, or grease-stained coveralls. Gesturing apologetically with his summer straw, he fetched a leatherette card case from his breast pocket and extended it as he approached her bedside. It looked absurdly small in his thick-fingered paw.

  “Detective Lieutenant Karpinski,” he said, in an unexpectedly high-pitched voice. “Sorry to bother you. I won’t take long.” For bother, he said bodder. He spoke English as though it was a second language, one that he did not speak at home but had learned, painfully, at school.

  “Harold Karpinski,” Kitty read aloud, examining the little identity card for a longer time than her caller seemed to like. She was frightened suddenly, irrationally, as one is by the arrival of an unexpected telegram, so she stalled. “The picture doesn’t look like you.”

  “They never do.” He retrieved the identity card rather brusquely. “Mrs. Land, I’m sorry the boys in the prowl car gave you a hard time.”

  “That’s what we pay them for, isn’t it?”

  Her smile had absolutely no effect on the detective, whose fleshy lips were seemingly fixed in a permanent pout. She was reminded a bit of Charles Laughton.

  “Please sit down, Mr. Karpinski.”

  He seated himself at her side, his hands, thumbs pointing toward each other, resting squatly on his muscular hams.

  “According to their reports, you were a witness of the fight.”

  “A participant, too.”

  Harold Karpinski’s solid neck settled a little more heavily into his shoulders. His features, now that the light from the open window struck them obliquely, were so strongly Slavic as to be almost Oriental, the eyes shallow in their sockets and lightly lidded, the cheekbones beneath them jutting bleakly out of an otherwise doughy countenance. Kitty was suddenly reminded terrifyingly of the sweaty panting face of her husband’s assailant.

  “Then you understand why I’m here.”

  Kitty’s insides began to ache again. “How is he, that man?”

  “He’ll live.” Detective Lieutenant Karpinski smiled, thinly, for the first time. “He got some going-over. With your help.”

  “I was afraid—”

  “Concussion, broken nose, seventeen stitches, two teeth, some hemorrhaging. But he’s a tough customer. Almost as tough as your husband.
”

  “It was horrible.”

  “We’re trying to figure out why they fought like that. A second-story man beats it when he’s surprised. And a man who finds a housebreaker calls the police. I’d say that if either one had had a firearm, the other one would be dead now.” He squinted at her. “Wouldn’t you?”

  Kitty had no place to flee. She said faintly, “You don’t know how much my husband has suffered from all the publicity about his family. He’s desperate for privacy, he didn’t want the police unless it was absolutely necessary. And then he lost his head, I suppose because he was afraid for me. As for that man, I don’t know why he was so aggressive. He was like a cornered animal. But I don’t even know his name.”

  “Marc Lafarge. At least there’s a set of prints and a record under that name.”

  Kitty’s laugh rang hysterical in her own ears. “It sounds like a name out of E. Phillips Oppenheim.”

  Karpinski was not smiling. He stared at her rather dully, uncomprehending.

  “A man who used to write books about spies and jewel thieves. That’s what Marc Lafarge sounds like.”

  “Could be. Whatever his right name is, his record isn’t strong-arm. Just the same, somebody could have hired him to beat up your husband. Or to attack you.”

  “But why?”

  “That’s what we want to know. Maybe you can help.”

  “Surely all the ridiculous stuff in the papers about hidden wealth, crown jewels, Confederate bonds, was an invitation to housebreakers. It’s a wonder it didn’t happen before.”

  “Maybe. But if it was only grab and run, why the violence?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Karpinski. I can’t think of anyone who’d want to hurt me or my husband. It might be better if you talked to him about it.”

  “The trick is to find him. Nobody answers at your house. So I figured, if he was able to get out of bed himself, he’d be here, with his wife.”