Killed in the Ratings

by William L. DeAndrea

  “Roxanne!”

  I was startled to hear Mrs. Schick yell like that. I’ve always had F. Scott Fitzgerald’s attitude about the rich—that they’re different from you and me. I don’t know how I expected Mr. Hewlen’s descendants to act: maybe they sent each other telegrams.

  “Roxanne!” she called again. To the maid, she said, “Agatha, have you seen my daughter?”

  “I think she went down to the beach, Ms. Schick.” I couldn’t tell if the Ms. was Women’s Lib talk or a slurred Mrs.

  “No problem,” I said. “How do I get down to the beach?”

  Mrs. Schick told the maid to show me the way. Agatha took me to a long flight of wooden stairs in back of the house that led down a bluff to a strip of sand between the rocky bottom of the hill and the green waters of the Sound.

  Roxanne was lying on a blanket, on her back with one knee bent, possibly asleep. My footsteps made no noise on the sand as I approached her. She had her eyes closed, and was unaware of me. I just looked at her for a couple of seconds.

  Three years ago, when I had walked into a tin-roofed shack in Albany, New York, I’d found a pale, sick, scared little girl with arms and legs that looked like route maps for the Penn Central.

  Now those arms and legs were clean; sleek and brown their whole length. The girl was sleek and brown all over, except where the blue work shirt tied under her chest gapped to show the creamy side of a young breast.

  In that shirt, and in her frayed tan cutoffs, she looked as though she’d been washed ashore. The warm sun had made her skin shiny with sweat. Her dark hair spread in a perfect fan beneath her.

  I was tempted to go away and let her sleep. I woke her as gently as I could, walking around her to block the sun from her face.

  Her eyes popped open, then combined with her mouth to make a Ballantine three-ring sign. She came up to her knees and clapped her hands together rapidly, looking for all the world like a blue-eyed seal.

  “Cobb!” she squealed. She jumped up to hug me.

  “Hey, come on, Twerp,” I protested, “you’re bending the material.”

  She laughed, and sat back down, cross-legged, on the blanket. “I suppose that was a mite childish,” she said.

  “Some of my best friends are childish,” I said. She had a right to act childishly. She’d been robbed of her own childhood.

  “Well, take off that jacket, and sit down and talk to me, Cobb!” When I had complied, she said, “Well, what brings you into the wilds of Fairfield? I haven’t seen you in years!”

  “Six months,” I said. I had paid my respects right after the accident.

  She shook her head. “Can’t you excuse a little hyperbole, for crying out loud? Heck, I even know the right figure of speech.”

  “Okay,” I said, “what kind of figure of speech is ‘for crying out loud’?”

  She looked thoughtful for a second. “Schenectady?” she asked brightly.

  I laughed. “Close enough. How’s school?”

  She shrugged. “It keeps me off the streets, and it keeps me out of Her Majesty’s way.”

  After a while, she said, “You still haven’t told me why you’re here, Cobb.”

  “I drove your mother home from Willowdale.”

  “Visiting the vegetable, huh?”

  “That’s a pretty cold thing to say, Rox. When you took off, your father never told me, ‘Go find the junkie.’ ”

  She blushed. “I’m sorry, really. I just ... I say things like that to show I can take it.” She traced curves in the sand with her fingers.

  “You don’t have to prove anything to me, Rox,” I said.

  “To myself, I do. After all, it’s all my fault.”

  9

  “Kids say the darnedest things!”

  —Art Linkletter, “House Party” (CBS)

  FREUD SHOWED US THAT we can feel guilty for large numbers of bizarre reasons. We tend to forget we can still feel guilty because we are guilty. I hoped I would like the answers to the questions I was about to ask.

  “Rox,” I said, “we’ve been through a lot, right?”

  She smiled. “Right. Barfing, and chills, and knife fights ...”

  “Ah, that was nothing. I could have handled that turkey with handcuffs on. You were the one that gave me trouble. I still have the scar where you bit me.”

  “I don’t believe it,” she said.

  I raised my right hand. “Scout’s honor. I still have to go for rabies shots.”

  She made a face. “You are a true bastard, Cobb.”

  “Of course. It’s a prerequisite for employment, these days.” I got serious. “Why is it your fault, Rox?”

  “It always is,” she said. “I give off disaster the way a firefly gives off light.”

  “Cut it out. Okay, I’ll ask you this. Why didn’t you stay overnight at your friend’s house instead of asking your father to come and pick you up?”

  She looked at me suspiciously. “Why?” she asked.

  “Trust me, Rox.”

  “ ‘Trust me,’ ” she mimicked. “ ‘Trust me.’ That’s what you tell a girl before you fuck her.”

  “I think you know me well enough to know whose side I’m on, Roxanne.” I said it rather stiffly. “Make up your mind, then tell me or not.”

  “I trust you,” she said. “But am I talking to Matt Cobb, or am I talking to the Network?”

  “Hey,” I said. “Let’s get this straight right away. I may wear the uniform, but I’ve got my own number on my back. If you’re in trouble, I’ll try my best to help you out.”

  “See that, Cobb? Do you see what you’re doing to me? What makes you think I’m in trouble?”

  “I sure as hell don’t know. You’re the one who said it was all your fault. Then you get all bent out of shape when I try to find out what you’re talking about!”

  “Okay, okay,” she said. “It’s no big thing. At least it wasn’t at the time. I was over at Frieda Treleng’s house, and about ten-thirty, she shows me a sandwich bag full of grass and asks me to share it with her. Nobody around here knows about ... before. I don’t think Frieda would have brought it up if she’d known.

  “I kept thinking things like, this is where I came in. I started to shake. And in spite of everything, I wanted to do it. I wanted to do it!”

  She had drawn her knees up to her body and was rubbing her shins nervously.

  “You can imagine how that made me feel about myself. Didn’t I know I couldn’t handle it? Didn’t I remember how I wound up? It wasn’t the grass itself—some people can take it in stride.

  “But I made a promise to myself that I would never get high again on anything; dope, booze, anything. I found out how much I wanted to break that promise. I had to get out of there. If I stayed I would have smoked that dope with her, and I couldn’t stand that. I have a hard enough time living with myself as it is.

  “I would have taken my own car home, but there was a terrible ice storm that night. I didn’t want to make Dad come out, but I had to get away!

  “I wouldn’t even wait in the house. I got my coat and stood out on the porch, freezing, waiting for Dad to show up. I got a policeman instead.”

  She hugged her knees tight to her and squeezed her eyes shut.

  “I’m sorry, Rox,” I said softly. “I had to know.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said, releasing herself to take the sun on her legs once more. “The only thing is, I had to drop Frieda. I only know one person up at school that doesn’t drink or do drugs, and she’s gay. I spend all my time locked up in my little room. I’ll be an A student in spite of myself.”

  I took her hand. “Look,” I said, “I know it’s tough, but you did the right thing by calling your father. Don’t feel guilty about it.”

  She gave me a warm look. “Thanks, Cobb. And I won’t feel guilty about the other thing, either.”

  “What other thing?”

  She laughed again. “I’m only kidding. My mother has to carry that cross.”
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br />   “What are you talking about?”

  “The argument, of course. There had to be an argument. My father was a great driver; the best driver in the world. We couldn’t ever keep a chauffeur because Dad would always criticize his driving. He wasn’t the show-off kind of good driver; he was just proud of doing something perfectly.

  “Except when he was upset and angry. Did you ever see him like that, Cobb?”

  I had. His rage was awesome.

  “Well, that’s it. When he was in a fight, he forgot everything else. I wouldn’t drive with him when he was like that. I would have that night, though,” she added in a murmur.

  “So I’m sure Dad and my mother must have had a brawl that I interrupted when I called. He never would have gone off that road any other way.”

  “What if someone deliberately tried to force him off?”

  “I don’t care.” She was adamant. “I don’t care if they sabotaged the car. He would have protected himself, somehow. Hell, the very fact he wasn’t wearing a seat belt proves he was upset. He always put his seat belt on, except when he was angry.”

  “What could they have argued about?”

  “Me,” she said. “That’s what they always argued about. My mother has never forgiven me for what I did, you know. She tries to hide it, especially now, but she thinks deep down that I’m an ungrateful little bitch.”

  I wanted to tell her she was mistaken, but I couldn’t. Mother and daughter just were not too fond of each other. It’s tragic, but it happens.

  As a diversionary tactic, I tried a terrible old joke. “Don’t swear, it sounds like hell.”

  Roxanne shook her head in mock sadness. “Oh Cobb, you are so hopeless,” she lamented. “Such a square. Three-piece suits. Rescues damsels in distress. Death on drug pushers. Doesn’t like cuss words.”

  She shook her head again, seriously, this time. “You’re much too good for the job you do. Do you know that, Cobb?”

  “Well, yeah,” I said, “but we don’t have kings in this country, so I have to settle.”

  “Ha, ha,” she said sarcastically. “But I know you, Cobb, probably as well as anybody. I’ve seen you in action. You try to come on hard-boiled, but you are strictly a thirty-second egg. You care too much. I remember when you—”

  “Come on, Roxanne!” I broke in. “What is this, ‘This Is Your Life’?”

  “All right, I’ll skip the testimonials. But what I want to say is this: Get out of it, Cobb. I only can imagine the kind of filth you have to deal with. And I’m speaking as an ex-filth. It’s gonna wreck you. It’s not a place for good guys, Cobb. I love my father, but he used to call himself the ‘Gunslinger’ and be proud of it.”

  I shook my head at her. “You’re blowing it all up out of proportion,” I said. “It’s not as bad as all that, you’ll find it in any business. Besides, I’m just going to do this until I can elbow my way back into News or Production. Then all I’ll have to do is make shows.”

  “Do you actually think they’ll let you? They love having you in Special Projects. You’re Jiminy Cricket. You have a conscience. You filter all the garbage through it, and my grandfather, Falzet, and the Network stay clean. Listen to me, Cobb, I was raised in that damn Tower.”

  “I won’t argue with you,” I said. “But just what should I do to stave off moral destruction?”

  “Please don’t laugh at me, Cobb. I literally owe you my life; I’m trying to pay you back a little.

  “Quit. Leave the Network. Become a corny old English teacher, the way you planned. Get yourself a woman, and worry about a real family, not a corporate monstrosity.”

  That looked like a good way to change the subject. “Who would have me?” I asked, joking.

  She met my eyes, not joking, and said, “I would have you, Cobb.”

  It’s the nicest thing anybody can say to you, if you think about it. I didn’t know what to say.

  For the second time in less than a day, a woman answered my thoughts as though I’d spoken them aloud. “You don’t have to say anything,” Roxanne told me. “You asked me a question and I answered it, period. I’m not a little girl. I’m a voting, taxpaying adult, and a major stockholder in the Network. And I haven’t been a virgin since I was fourteen.”

  I’ve got this joke reflex. If I don’t like the way the conversation is going, I automatically try to joke my way out, no matter how many times it takes. This time it finally worked. I told her I had probably been a virgin until she was fourteen, too.

  “Bet you asked her to marry you,” she said with a smile. “You’re such a straight arrow, you’d feel obligated.”

  I said, “You’re too goddam smart for your own good, Twerp.” I stood up, and helped Roxanne to her feet. We walked to the stairway.

  “Rox,” I said as we started up the steps, “don’t let your mother visit the hospital alone anymore, all right?”

  “How come? I hate that place ... I was stuck in there a long time myself, you know.”

  “Roxanne, I know you and your mother have problems, but she needs your help. If what you say about that argument problem is true, it means your mother is carrying around a heavier load of guilt than you are. It would explain what she almost did today.”

  She looked puzzled. “What did she almost do?”

  “She almost pulled the plug on your father’s respirator.”

  “Jesus,” she said. “Oh, Jesus. She’s been strange lately, but I never expected anything like this.”

  “Strange how? For how long?”

  “Ever since the accident. She goes out at odd hours, she jumps on the phone when it rings, things like that. At first I thought she had a boyfriend, but it doesn’t make sense. She loves Dad. That’s the one thing we agree on.”

  “She might be better off if she did have a boyfriend,” I blurted. I should know better than to think out loud. I apologized to Roxanne.

  “No, I agree with you,” she said. “Mother isn’t old, and she’s letting Dad’s condition wreck her life. If she had somebody else, she wouldn’t dwell on it so much.”

  Just before we went into the house, I asked Roxanne what the maid’s last name was.

  “Locker, Agatha Locker. Why do you ask?”

  “Because. I’m going to talk to her. I don’t want you to order her to talk to me, I want her to talk freely. It will sound more respectful if I call her Mrs.”

  “We owe Agatha a lot,” Roxanne said. “The night of the accident, when they brought me home, I was a total wreck. Agatha held me and sang to me the way she did when I was a baby.”

  Cynthia Schick wasn’t around when we went in. Roxanne went upstairs to take a look around for her. Agatha was vacuuming the dining room, and I went in there to talk to her.

  “Mrs. Locker,” I yelled over the whine of the machine.

  “What?” she yelled back.

  “I want to talk to you!”

  “What?”

  “Could you shut the vacuum cleaner off?”

  “Wait a minute,” she hollered, “let me shut the vacuum cleaner off!”

  I can’t hear you, I’ve got a banana in my ear, I thought. I was living bad jokes now.

  The machine subsided, and conversation became possible.

  “Mrs. Locker,” I said. “I hate to interrupt your work, but I’d like to ask you a question, if you don’t mind.”

  She looked indifferent. “Well, you can ask,” she said.

  “Thank you. It’s really a simple question. Did Mr. and Mrs. Schick have an argument the night of the accident?”

  “No offense, Mr. ... ?”

  “Cobb. Matt Cobb.” I apologized for not telling her right off who I was.

  “No offense, Mr. Cobb, but it ain’t none of your business.” She said it with all the dignity she could muster, which was quite a bit.

  I hemmed and hawed for a second. Mike Hammer never has trouble like that. Somebody doesn’t answer the question, he punches them out. Mickey Spillane holds a kind of horrible fascination for me.


  “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t pry,” I said, “but I work for the Network, and it’s my job to investigate certain accusations people have made about Mr. Schick. My only interest is to find out the truth, and see that innocent people don’t suffer.”

  “Like who?” she asked.

  “I won’t know who’s innocent until I find out the truth, will I?” I asked with a smile.

  She gave me a good hard look, as though she were scanning my soul for black spots. I tried to look honest.

  Finally, she said, “Well, the Good Book says ‘the Truth shall make you free.’ ”

  I was in, now. “Yes ma’am,” I said. “John, eighth chapter, thirty-second verse.”

  She beamed at me. “Now what was it you wanted to know?”

  “Just if Mr. and Mrs. Schick argued that night.”

  “Well, yes, they did. I can’t tell you what it was about, though. I was in my room, reading. They had their voices real loud, though, I could tell they were real mad.”

  “Did they have fights like that often?”

  She considered her answer, as though afraid of giving me a wrong impression. “Well,” she said, “arguing is a part of any marriage, Lord knows Locker and me had our share, rest his soul. But no, that night they were way louder than most times.”

  “Did you hear anything of the argument at all?”

  “Nope—well, I guess I did at that. They left off the fighting for a while, I guess when Miss Schick called on the phone, then just before Mr. Schick left the house, he said, ‘We better hope I am wrong!’ Just like that, only he put the Lord’s name to it, too. Then I heard the door slam.”

  I scratched my head. Bits and pieces. A mess, like a pizza with mushrooms and sausage but no crust; lots of tasty little tidbits, but nothing to hold it all together.

  Agatha had been talking. “Excuse me?” I said.

  “I asked you if that was all you wanted.”

  “Ah—yes. Thank you, you’ve been very helpful.”

  She kicked the Electrolux back to life. I left her and went back to the living room where Roxanne was waiting for me. She was talking to the plants. If that really works, we can solve the world’s hunger problems just by playing tapes of political speeches to wheat fields. Just imagine what we’d save on fertilizer.