Understudy for Death

by Charles Willeford

  Gladys backed away in the water, turned, and swam toward the deep end of the pool. I didn’t follow her. I struggled to my feet, slipped into my shorts and my one shoe, and limped away as I had entered, through the Florida holly hedge.

  It seemed as if several hours passed, but I was home for at least an hour before Beryl arrived. When she entered the bedroom she stumbled slightly, and I knew she was more than a little tipsy. For a moment I pretended to be asleep. I faked a loud snore, and rolled over in bed as she turned on the light and lowered the blinds over the window. But she wasn’t fooled, not for an instant.

  She giggled foolishly, and as I watched her through my slitted, half-closed eyes, she hurriedly undressed, tossing items of apparel to the left and to the right in a haphazard manner, finally kicking off her shoes. I hadn’t seen her so high in several years, but she wasn’t so tight that she wouldn’t want to make love. I didn’t have a chance to get out of it, and I knew it. Early in our marriage we had made a solemn pact, and more than once the agreement had saved our partnership from near disasters. We had vowed that all disputes, fights, and arguments stopped at the bedroom door. A man and woman can never share the same bed if they both want all the covers.

  Beryl came crawling toward me, a wicked smile on her lips; in spite of myself I had to laugh at the earnest expression on her face. The mixture of her perfume and the gin she had put away at the cast party was strong in my nostrils. Her kisses were so ardent and demanding I wondered for an ugly moment if she had been necking with someone at the party to be so stirred up—or if she had stopped somewhere for a round of heavy petting with whoever it was who had brought her home. This jealous thought was overwhelmed immediately by my own feeling of guilt and, besides I knew from past experience that it was the gin that loosened her inhibitions. I was still angry at Beryl about the play, but I wasn’t mad at her body. I had had enough sex for one day, more than enough, and although I wanted to make love to Beryl I was worried for a moment about being able to do so—a needless worry. This was no loveless affair between two indifferent people; Beryl’s warm soft mouth and tender passionate kisses came from her heart as well as her body.

  All of her reactions and responses had been speeded up by the gin, and she couldn’t have waited for me if she had wanted to, but for once I didn’t care. It was the first time in months that I managed to beat her into the bathroom afterwards, and this small victory almost made up for the woman’s traitorous action in taking a part in the play. Almost.

  Chapter Eight

  For breakfast the next morning I didn’t have any.

  Beryl’s lips were poked out sullenly; her eyes glared venomously; and her back was stiff with rage. When I informed her that I was ready for my breakfast, she snarled, and told me to fix it myself. I shrugged and looked keenly at the woman, noting with inner satisfaction that her gray eyes were rimmed with old rose, the dark color of a cock’s comb. A lovely, lovely hangover from the cast party. Too bad. Tough.

  I poured a cup of coffee, but I had no intention of preparing my own breakfast. I knew how to fry eggs, bacon, and the operation of a toaster is a simple matter, but the husband who succumbs to such a temptation is lost forever. Beryl’s sullen mood would pass, and within a day or so she would be fixing my breakfast again; so I wasn’t going to set any loser’s precedent by fixing my own meals.

  As I glanced through the newspaper I couldn’t fail to notice that a section of the movie-and-restaurant ads page had been ripped out. “If you’re looking for your old review,” Beryl said childishly, “you won’t find it! I tore it out and burned it.”

  “That’s all right, sweetie. I was only going to check it for possible typographical errors, and I can do that later at the office.”

  “Why did you do that to me?” she demanded, raising her voice. “I simply can’t understand how you could be so vindictive!”

  “Do what?” I said calmly, feigning astonishment.

  “‘Beryl Hudson was adequate in the role of Julie!’” she quoted bitterly from my review.

  “Why, you were adequate, honey. What did you expect me to say? That you were mediocre? You really were mediocre, which is an excellent descriptive phrase. I didn’t use it, however, because it has been misused so often that many people misconstrue mediocre to mean less than average. So I used adequate instead.”

  “Everybody at the party last night said I was wonderful! And I thought that you, for a change, would be proud of me…” Her lips trembled.

  “Proud of you!” I said, wadding the newspaper and tossing it on the floor. “After you made a laughingstock out of me? What in the hell was the big idea in keeping the thing a secret?” I calmed down, lowering my voice. “Hell, sweetie, if you had only told me that you wanted to play the part, I’d have helped you with it, coached you in your lines—”

  “No, you wouldn’t.” Beryl shook her head. “You’d only laugh at me. I know you too well, Richard Hudson. First, you would’ve tried to talk me out of it, making out that I was a damned fool. If that hadn’t worked you would’ve made fun of me, and finally, I’d be so upset and nervous I’d have either quit or made a big failure out of the part. You won’t believe me, I know, but I honestly didn’t want to play Julie. The only reason I went to the tryouts in the first place was to have something to do in the evenings. And that’s what I told Mr. Leanard. I told him I could help out with props and things backstage, but he insisted that I read for the part. When he gave it to me I was terrified and told him so. But he promised to help me and he did and—”

  “Whose idea was it to keep it a secret? Yours or his?”

  “It was mine. I discussed it with him, and when I told him how you’d carry on, he said if keeping the part a secret would help the show, he’d keep it a secret. That’s why the publicity release to the paper said that Julie hadn’t been cast yet.”

  “So you felt it necessary to discuss me with the director? I’m going to tell you something right now, little sister, and you’d better remember it! Your job around here is to be an adequate housewife, not an adequate actress. You don’t even know how to speak, much less get up on the stage before a paying audience!”

  “I’ll fix your breakfast,” Beryl said quietly, turning away. The familiar martyr bit.

  “Never mind.” I got up from the table. “I’ve got to go downtown. Where’s your purse? I need five dollars.”

  “I’ll get some money for you.”

  I finished dressing in the bedroom, and picked up the money Beryl had counted out on the dinette table. She had set up the ironing board, and was sprinkling clothes when I crossed to the front door. I took out my Zippo lighter, flicked it on, and held it up along the edge of the ceiling molding. There wasn’t much smoke from the lighter, but little is needed to expose cobwebs. There were a few puffs of cobwebs on the ceiling and they turned black from the coil of smoke.

  “Look,” I said. “The house is being taken over by spiders while you trot around on the stage, neglecting your duties.”

  Beryl remained unperturbed; I had pulled the trick on her before. “I gave the house a thorough cleaning last Friday,” she said coolly.

  “Yes, but this is Thursday!” And on that triumphant note, I left the house and got into the car. It was just about time, I thought, for me to have a little talk with Mr. Jack Huneker.

  On the drive to Huneker’s brick and ornamental ironwork establishment, however, I wondered if I was being absolutely fair to my wife. There was room for doubt; at least she was acting as if there were, and it was possible that she really had thought I would be pleased. She wasn’t too bright—a simple southern girl—but she was a better than average wife, all things considered. Whenever I wanted a clean shirt or a clean pair of socks or shorts, all I had to do was open the bureau drawer. Buddy was always neat and clean for school, and Beryl managed well on my slender salary. Every Saturday, without fail, I endorsed my paycheck and handed it over to her without a word. She did all of the buying, budgeting, and gave me a few dollar
s without question any time I asked for money. Of course, there wasn’t any rent to pay, but she had to save up $500 for taxes every year, and she had bought $200 in savings bonds; and there were five or six hundred dollars in the savings account. Still, she should have come to me for permission to play Julie! I could have helped her with the part. For Beryl to say that I would have laughed at her was decidedly unfair. After nine years of marriage she should have known me better than that!

  The skinny secretary in Huneker’s outer office was a plain young woman with dun hair that looked as if she had cut it herself, and without using a mirror. She wore a shapeless blue linen dress that called attention to her muddy complexion. She was bent absorbedly over her typewriter and when I rapped on her desk for attention her big brown eyes widened in fright. There was a blue-black streak on her right cheek from carbon paper.

  “I want to see Mr. Huneker. I’m Hudson, from the News-Press.”

  “Mr. Huneker isn’t in right now. Would you care to leave a message?”

  “No. When’ll he be in?”

  “I don’t know…he’s talking to Father Hardy…about the funeral!” She finished with a slight wail, and to my astonishment, followed the statement with tears. She recovered very quickly, and straightened herself in the posture typing chair. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hudson,” she apologized, grimacing, “but every time I think about it I get a little upset.”

  “Don’t apologize. To cry is a woman’s privilege, whether she has a reason or not, and I understand. You don’t know when the boss’ll be back then?”

  “No, sir. He hasn’t been in since—”

  “Is Mr. O’Keeffe in the yard?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s—” She pointed through the glass back door, and would have given me directions, but I left abruptly. I knew the way. Although I had never met Huneker, I knew Red O’Keeffe, his foreman, almost too well.

  Red O’Keeffe was the post commander of the local American Legion Post, and I saw him at the clubhouse almost every Sunday morning. When I finished dropping Beryl and Buddy off at the Unitarian Fellowship services on Sunday, I killed the time before picking them up again by drinking beer at the Legion clubhouse.

  In addition to being a professional veteran—although Red had served but six months during World War II, and had never left the continental limits of the U.S.—O’Keeffe was a man filled with all kinds of delightful prejudices. It was always a pleasure to talk to him, just to find out what he was indignant about this time. And because I liked him, I had given him many column inches of publicity concerning Legion affairs in the newspaper, even though I wasn’t a member myself. Red was tracing some intricate designs at a stand-up drawing board in his cluttered yard office when I tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Hi, Red. I came down to see Huneker, but he wasn’t in, so I thought I’d pay you a call.”

  “You doin’ the story on his wife?” he said eagerly, wiping his big hands on the bib of his blue overalls. His red hair was peppered with gray, which made him look younger than he really was, somehow; his face looked as if he had washed it in tomato soup, particularly when he was sweating freely, and his face was always wet. Always.

  I nodded. “I’m doing a sort of follow-up,” I admitted.

  “This tragedy’s hit Jack mighty hard,” Red said solemnly. “Marion was a funny girl in a lot of ways, Richard, but suicide, killing those fine kids—it’s a mystery to me.” He pursed his lips, and made a smacking noise.

  “What do you mean she was funny?”

  “The way she put on airs. That girl was too big for her britches, Richard. Me and my wife had dinner with ’em a few times, but she put on the dog too much, and after awhile, I plain out and told Jack not to ask me over anymore because I wasn’t comin’. Two or three different kinds of wine with dinner, and that kind of crap! The first time we went over I was wearin’ a sportshirt, just like everybody else in Florida. Why would anybody live in this hot, miserable state if they couldn’t dress the way they wanted? And Jack pulled me off into the bedroom, made me put on one of his sport coats. ‘Marion likes her guests to wear a coat at dinner,’ he says. Oh, I went along with it, and the next couple of times I wore a coat when I was asked over, and then, like I said, I quit goin’. Poor old Jack, she had him dressed up in a coat and tie every damned night, even when it was eighty-five and ninety. Course, their house’s air-conditioned, but even so…Jack’s okay, don’t get me wrong. He just got stuck with the wrong woman, that’s all.”

  “The paper makes us wear a coat and tie, too. You get used to it, Red, but you don’t like it.”

  “If I was you, I’d quit, by God!” He mopped his face with a red bandana.

  “Would you give me a job?” I grinned.

  “Startin’ now! And no matter what you’re makin’ I’ll raise it five bucks a week to start. All I got now are a bunch of shiftless niggers. One of ’em come up to me last week and asked me, big’s you please, mind you, what was the company plannin’ in way of a pension plan! I paid him off right then. ‘Here’s your pension, boy,’ I told him. ‘Now git!’” Red chuckled richly.

  “I knew there was some reason I didn’t want to work for you, Red.” I grinned. “No pension plan.”

  Red laughed again, and pounded me on the shoulder. “I guess you better stay on the paper at that!” he said, wiping his face again.

  Because I was curious I mentioned the incident in the office, telling Red about the secretary bursting into tears.

  “She’s got reasons,” he smiled broadly. “Yes, she’s got her reasons.”

  “Evidently,” I said casually, “she thought quite a bit of the late Mrs. Huneker.”

  “You’re wrong, Richard.” Red looked around, went to the doorway and surveyed the yard, and then nodded. “This is just between me and you and the lamppost, but Helen—Helen Devereaux’s her name—was sleepin’ with Jack Huneker on the side.” He lowered his voice to a coarse, confidential whisper. “Seems like Marion had cut him off at home, so he was getting a little overtime out of the secretary.” He winked. “Fact is, Richard, I put Jack onto her myself. You know how it is; every married man likes a little strange stuff now and then. But after I wised Jack up to Helen, I was out in the cold!” He chuckled deep in his throat. “Helen got the wild idea somewhere that Jack’d divorce Marion, and then she’d get him. See the picture?”

  “I wonder,” I said, probingly, “if Mrs. Huneker found out about the affair. That could’ve been her motive for suicide.”

  “Not a chance.” Bill shook his head. “Jack told Marion all about Helen one night when he was drunk. Marion was just happy he had a girl someplace and wasn’t bothering her anymore, that’s all. There’s a lot of women like that, Richard. But Helen was living in a dream—Jack would no more have divorced Marion than I would Lottie.”

  “Why the tears then? Huneker’s a widower, and the field is open, isn’t it?”

  “Use your head, Richard.” Red said with exasperation. “When a man gets married he wants a decent girl, not some tramp who’s sleepin’ around. If a woman’ll sleep with a man before she’s married to him she’ll sleep with another after she’s married. That’s a fact. While Jack was married Helen could kid herself into thinkin’ that some day he’d get a divorce, but now that he hasn’t got a wife anymore, the dream is over. See how that is?”

  “Damned strange reasoning, if you ask me, Red.”

  “You just don’t know women the way I do, Richard. I imagine Helen’s worried now ’cause she thinks Jack’ll fire her. And I guess he will, too. Not much else he can do, the way I see it.”

  “I suppose you’re right, Red. She could get pregnant or something, and trap him easily now.”

  “Well, Jack won’t fire her; I’ll have to do it, and I’m a tender-hearted guy. But Jack won’t fire anybody. About six months ago, one of the ironworkers got drunk on the weekend and broke his leg. You won’t believe this, Richard, but Jack kept on payin’ his salary for two months until he could get back to work. He didn’t ha
ve to, and I told him he didn’t have to, but that’s the kind of guy he is.”

  “I’m getting anxious to meet Mr. Huneker,” I said.

  “He’s got a stubborn streak in him, though. Suicides don’t get any Requiem Mass, and they aren’t buried in consecrated ground. But Jack’s got his mind made up to have Marion and the kids buried together, and when he makes up his mind, that’s that. Him and Father Hardy are going ’round and ’round right now, but my dough’s on Jack Huneker!”

  “You’ll lose, Red. There are some things—”

  “Just wait and see.”

  “I’ve got to get going, Red. It would probably be better if I waited until after the funeral to talk to Mr. Huneker anyway.”

  Red shook his head, and broadened his smile. “Don’t make any difference when you see him, Richard. He ain’t goin’ to tell you anything.”

  “Why won’t he?”

  “He’ll tell you it’s none of your business.”

  “As a newspaperman,” I said hotly, “everything is my business.”

  “You tell Jack that, and you’ll end with a black eye.” Chuckling, mopping futilely at his red face, O’Keeffe bent over his drawings, and I left his ratty little office.

  I paused for a moment in front of the secretary’s desk to light a cigarette and to take another surreptitious look at the office siren. I was truly amazed; I couldn’t see how any man could work up any desire for this bony little girl. While I had been out in the back, talking to Red, Helen Devereaux had touched up her lips with purple lipstick, and powdered her face, but these touches of make-up made her look worse. When a man had had a good-looking woman like Marion Huneker at home, it just wasn’t reasonable to have an affair with a girl like this secretary. The only plausible explanation was that Helen was available, and his wife wasn’t; and every time he had passed the girl’s desk, there she was, waiting. One day, on an impulse, he must have driven her home after work or taken her to dinner, and the affair had begun…