Jack Vance
Page 7
“I mean information.”
“I don’t know nothing.”
Carr assured him his interests would be safeguarded, and departed. He telephoned Cathy, then drove to the Delta Rho Beta house.
“Let’s go out where we can talk,” he suggested.
“We can talk here,” said Cathy. “I’ve got two books to read before tomorrow.”
Carr said testily, “Sometimes I’d like to find you without twenty other things to do.”
“Oh, calm down, Carr,” said Cathy soothingly. “It doesn’t make any difference, really.”
“Oh, no?” She was wearing blue jeans and a yellow sweater. He ran his eyes up her body, and she moved uncomfortably.
“Oh, stop it, Carr.” She settled into the corner
of a couch, one leg under her. “We all feel terrible about Dean.”
Carr nodded with a kind of determined belligerence. “Whoever did it—he’s not going to get away with it.”
Cathy was surprised. ” ‘Whoever’ did it? George did it!”
Carr shrugged. “I’m not so sure. I just saw him.”
“What did he say? Does he say he didn’t do it?”
“Well, not in so many words. But I saw Dean, you know—I guess it wasn’t an hour before she was killed.”
Julie came into the room. “Hello, Carr.”
Cathy made room for her on the couch. “We’re talking about Dean.”
“Oh.” Julie sat down. “What’s new?”
“I’m not so sure that George did it,” said Carr.
“Why?”
“Dean told me something, only about an hour before she—before it happened. Did you know that she was having a love affair?”
Julie shrugged. “Dean was always in love with four different men.”
“Well, you’d never guess who her boy friend was.”
“Who?”
“Robert Struve.”
“You mean— our Robert Struve? From San Giorgio?”
“That’s right.”
“But—”
“She didn’t recognize him—his face was fixed. Plastic surgery, I suppose. And he was going by a different name. She told me that he threatened her, said he had a compulsion.”
“Compulsion to do what?”
“To do what he did do, I suppose.”
Cathy said, “Did you tell the police?”
“Sure I told the police. Then they picked up George, and bulldozed him into a confession.”
“And now he says he didn’t do it?”
“He doesn’t say much of anything.”
Julie said dubiously, “They must be pretty sure, Carr. They wouldn’t arrest George unless they know.”
“My dear young woman,” said Carr loftily, “cops are people!”
“That’s what I mean,” said Julie.
“All that aside,” said Carr. “Just on the chance I’m right, and Struve is a madman—just watch your step.”
Julie said, “He wouldn’t have any reason to bother us.”
“He didn’t have any reason to bother Dean. And all he did was slice up her face till there wasn’t any left!”
CHAPTER VIII
George Bavonette was tried for the murder of Dean Pendry Bavonette, and the issue was never in doubt. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but the jury barely left the box before returning with the verdict: guilty as charged.
The judge sentenced George Bavonette to death in the gas chamber, and Bavonette listened with a drooping mouth, his fingers drumming an eccentric rhythm on the oak rail.
Carr Pendry had an angry interview with the lawyer. “That was no defense at all—’by reason of insanity’! You should have pleaded ‘not guilty’ and fought it right down the line!”
The lawyer shook his head with cool courtesy. “There wasn’t a chance, Mr. Pendry. You’re not reckoning with the weight of the evidence against Bavonette. The best we could hope for was insanity. It was clearly the work of an unbalanced mind.”
“I agree,” snapped Carr. “But why not pin it on the real murderer?”
“How can you be so sure Bavonette is innocent? There’s not a whit of evidence that he didn’t do it.”
“I’m going by what my sister told me.”
“That’s proof of nothing.”
Two weeks earlier, Joe Treddick had told Julie that next Saturday he was driving down to Monterey, and asked if she’d like to come.
“Sure,” said Julie. “So long as I get back by six or seven. It’s the Inter-fraternity Ball and I’ve got a date. What’s going on in Monterey?”
“I’ve got to get a job for the summer. A friend of mine—an old shipmate—has a fishing boat. I might as well catch fish as anything else.”
They were drinking coffee in Jack’s Restaurant outside of Sather Gate. Julie, looking out the window, raised her hand to a tall dark-haired young man with an arrogant high-bridged nose, deep-set black eyes, walking south on Telegraph.
“That’s Tex Hanna,” said Julie. “Kappa Alpha. My date for the Inter-fraternity Ball.” She watched Joe like a kitten gauging the reaction of a cricket it had just patted. Joe looked after Tex Hanna, then back at Julie.
“Nice-looking fellow.”
Julie drank her coffee. Joe’s reactions were
never predictable, though he was probably no older than Tex; certainly not as old as Carr.
Joe relaxed, watching her with an air of quiet appraisal that made Julie feel pleasantly self-conscious.
At eight o’clock Saturday morning Joe parked his weathered blue Plymouth sedan in front of the Delta Rho Beta house and Julie came running down the walk. She was wearing a dark blue pull-over, a faded-blue denim skirt.
“You’re prompt,” Julie told him as she got into the car.
“So are you.”
“Oh, I’ve got all kinds of virtues.”
They drove south with the sun phosphorescing through a high mist that swirled in across the bay from San Francisco. At San Jose the mist was gone and the sun was yellow. At Monterey a wind blew in off the Pacific from the direction of Hawaii, twisting the black cypress, flecking the face of the ocean with whitecaps.
Joe parked in front of Fisherman’s Wharf; they got out, walked down the pier. Below them, the white and blue fishing boats heaved and moaned at the moorings. The air smelt of tar and fish; infinitesimal drops of salt water blew in their faces. Joe stopped halfway down the pier, frowned at a small dirty gray trawler. He pulled a letter from his pocket, checked the number of the berth.
“This is the right place, but the wrong boat,” said Joe.
A curly-haired Italian came up out of the gray trawler with a bucket of bilge water.
“Hey,” Joe called down. “Where’s the Con-suelal”
“She’s gone. Two weeks ago. I think San Diego.”
“Thanks.”
Joe and Julie walked back down the pier. Julie took his arm.
“That’s too bad, Joe.”
“It was just an offchance.” He looked at his watch. “Eleven-thirty. How about some lunch?”
“I’m hungry.”
They had clam chowder and fried fish in a restaurant at the head of the wharf. Joe seemed restless and tense. Julie was puzzled. It hardly seemed likely that missing the fishing boat would upset him.
After lunch they walked down along the waterfront, the sea gulls wheeling and crying overhead, the wind blowing in their faces, and stood looking out across the ocean.
Joe picked up a rock, tossed it out into the surf. He laughed. “I get restless around salt water.”
“Oh,” said Julie. “Is that why you’re so moody!”
“I suppose so … Look.” He pointed to a sailboat moored to a buoy. “A Tahiti ketch. We could go anywhere in the world in that.”
” ‘We’?” Julie tugged at his arm. “You haven’t even proposed yet.”
“Boats run into money. That ketch would come to five or six thousand dollars. Another thousand to fit it out. A couple thousan
d to live on . . .”
“We’ll start saving,” said Julie. “I spend all sorts of money on Cokes and lipstick.”
“I could cut out eating,” said Joe.
They started back to Berkeley, neither one saying much, and at four-thirty arrived at the Delta Rho Beta house. The afternoon was crisp and overcast; young men and women were hurrying along the street.
“I won’t ask you in,” said Julie. “The house’ll be in an uproar.”
“Have fun,” said Joe.
Julie felt vaguely guilty. The Inter-fraternity Ball would be rich with glamour, glitter, smooth music. Julie wanted to ask Joe where he was going tonight, what he would be doing, but couldn’t.
She squeezed his hand. “I had a lovely time, Joe, even though you didn’t get a job.”
“Who wants to work?” said Joe. “Well, so long.”
” ‘Bye, Joe.”
She watched him drive down the street, then turned and went in the house.
The Inter-fraternity Ball was a great success, and so was Julie. She wore a new formal of gray and white striped cotton. Tex Hanna brought her a cluster of white orchids, which she wore in her hair. At one-thirty the orchestra played Goodnight Sweetheart; the musicians packed their instruments; the lights dimmed; the young men in tuxedos eddied out into the lobby with the girls in formals.
Tex Hanna and Julie met Cathy and her date, Tom Shaw, at Foster’s for coffee and doughnuts; then they drove back across the bridge for the two-thirty lockout.
Tex came up to the porch with Julie, kissed her good night.
Julie said, “I had a wonderful time, Tex,” which she had, and stepped inside.
She paused in the downstairs hall. She was excited, stimulated by the music and dancing and highballs, and by the idea that she’d had for the last two hours. She looked at the grandfather’s clock. 2:12. Eighteen minutes to lock out. The idea just wouldn’t keep. She opened the door. No one was in sight.
She ran down the walk to her car and drove to Barrington Hall. Here she paused uncertainly, looking up at the five-storied mass of concrete.
She couldn’t very well go to the door. If she knew Joe’s window, she might be able to throw gravel. One or two lights were glowing. One of them might be Joe’s.
A car pulled up behind her. The headlights nicked off, the motor died. A young man got out and started up the steps.
“Hi,” Julie called.
He turned, came over to the convertible, picturing sudden wonderful impossible events. “Hi!”
Julie smelled beer on his breath. “Do me a favor,” she said. “If Joe Treddick is up, would you tell him I want to see him?”
He peered waggishly in at Julie. “Won’t / do?”
“Not tonight.”
The young man turned sadly, went inside. Julie sat fidgeting, looking at her watch.
Joe came out, still dressed in gray slacks and dark sweater. He looked her over. “My, you look beautiful.”
Julie was tremendously glad she had come. “I can only stay a minute. I had a wonderful idea— and I just couldn’t wait to tell you.”
He leaned forward, his arms on the door. “What kind of idea?”
“Next week—Saturday—I want you to come home with me, up to San Giorgio. We’ll come back Sunday. Okay?”
no TAKE MY FACE
Joe looked at her thoughtfully. “Okay. But why?”
“Summer job.”
“For me?”
She nodded.
Joe straightened up a little. Julie reached out and took his hand. “Now, Joe, don’t be proud!”
“Me, proud?” said Joe. “I don’t have any pride.”
“Of course you do. I’ve been worrying about you all evening.”
Joe grinned. “Your date must have loved it.”
“Oh, he didn’t know. I’d hardly discuss it with him.”
“I imagine not … What kind of job?”
“There’s at least three possibilities … But we’ll talk about it later; I’ve got to rush back. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good night, Joe.”
“Good night.”
Julie made a screeching U-turn, gunned the convertible back up the hill. She parked, ran up the walk, burst through the door with thirty seconds to spare. Cathy McDermott, on her way up the steps, looked over the bannister.
“Julie Hovard! I thought you were home ages ago.”
TAKE MY FACE m
Julie ran up the stairs. “I’ve got lots to tell you …”
Cathy was dubious about the whole idea; she vaguely disapproved of Joe. Her values were based on social acceptance, convention, good form. She tried to explain to Julie, and since she wasn’t able to define her faint distrust, she invented reasons.
Julie scoffed at her.
Actually, Cathy could find nothing about Joe to criticize. His conduct was irreproachable. Julie revealed that he had never even tried to kiss her.
Cathy was surprised. “Why do you go out with him?”
“Oh, he’ll get around to it sometime,” said Julie. “Why don’t you come home next weekend, too?”
“I’ve got a date,” said Cathy. “Tom Shaw.”
“Bring him along.”
“I suppose I could …”
Cathy finally agreed; and next Saturday, the four drove north in Julie’s convertible.
Thus, when Carr Pendry telephoned the Delta Rho Beta house after the conviction and sentencing of George Bavonette, he was notified that Cathy had gone home for the weekend.
He arrived in San Giorgio at three, parked the Jag, went to the McDermott house, where Mrs. McDermott told him that Cathy was swimming at the Hovards’. Carr marched out on the Hovard terrace to find Julie, Joe, Cathy, and Tom Shaw lying beside the pool in the sun. Joe Treddick and Tom Shaw were elements he had not bargained for. Resentful and warm in his tweed suit, he dropped into a deck chair. “Well—they’ve convicted Bavonette. He goes to the gas chamber July seventh.”
There was a silence. Presently Julie said, “Well, I guess he has it coming to him.”
“Hah!” Carr snorted. He lit a cigarette, leaned back and blew smoke violently through his nose. “I still don’t think he did it. That poor fool of a Bavonette’s hypnotized himself.”
“But surely, he’d never admit a murder!” Julie protested.
“My dear child,” said Carr, “just read any good textbook of Freudian psychology. Read about guilt complexes, the will-to-death.”
“But why, Carr? Why should he feel guilty?”
“I don’t know,” said Carr. “After all, we don’t know a thing about Bavonette’* past.”
“Go get your bathing trunks, Carr,” said Julie. “You look all warm and flustered.”
Carr sized up Tom Shaw, gauging his own physique against Shaw’s. Deciding that it would hold up reasonably well, he jumped to his feet, cut through the garden to the Pendry home.
“Poor Carr,” said Julie. “Talk about complexes. He’ll drive himself nuts trying to prove that Robert Struve killed Dean.”
“Who’s Robert Struve?” asked Tom Shaw.
“Oh, a poor, unfortunate kid we used to know.”
“Carr thinks he killed Dean,” said Cathy. “I suppose it’s not impossible.”
“My first love,” said Julie, with a sly glance at Cathy, who looked embarrassed. Alone of all Julie’s friends, Cathy knew the whole truth of what had happened; like Julie’s mother, she had been much more upset than Julie.
Julie had all but forgotten the incident. When she thought of Robert Struve, two sharp images came to her mind. The first was a flash of blue shirt on a red motor-scooter, with Jamaica Arch ahead. Then the hateful thump, the muffled clatter of motor-scooter in the culvert … The second was the recollection of a football game during her freshman year at high school. The Paytonville team was big and tough. For three quarters the score had been tied at 6 to 6. In the last minutes of the fourth quarter, San Giorgio took the ball deep in its own territory.
Third down; Goble to Struve. Again the slow
gathering of force, the almost insolent deliberateness. Another six yards.
Goble to Struve: the same play, with now the whole Paytonville team waiting. Struve might have avoided them, but lowered his head and plunged dead into the middle of them. Another six yards.
San Giorgio was yelling. “Six yards, Robert! Six yards!”
Seven yards. Six yards. Five yards.
This was Julie’s second recollection of Robert Struve. Under the wire frame, his face had been grotesque, magnificent, like an Aztec war mask.
At dinner, Darrell Hovard was full of talk about the new country club. Ground was being broken for construction, bulldozers were already shaping the golf course.
Julie came directly to the point. “Father, Joe’s looking for a summer job. Why can’t he work up at Mountainview?”
Joe’s jaw dropped. He had expected nothing like this.
“Why, dear,” said Darrell Hovard, “that’s something quite out of my hands. All the work is contracted.”
“I know; but if you were to speak to one of the contractors …”
Joe made an uncomfortable protest, but Julie ignored him.
“You could, couldn’t you, Father?”
Darrell Hovard turned Joe a glance of careful speculation. “Just what are you able to do, Joe?”
“Really, Mr. Hovard, I didn’t—”
Margaret interceded. “Julie, dear, don’t insist! Perhaps Joe doesn’t want to be stuck all summer in a dull place like San Giorgio.”
“It isn’t that, Mrs. Hovard—”
“Joe,” said Julie, “tell Father what, if anything, you can do.”
“I’ve got a strong back,” said Joe.
“Oh, Joe,” said Julie. “He’s studying to be an engineer, Father.”
After a telephone call, it was arranged that Joe should go to work driving a dump truck immediately after finals.
CHAPTER IX
When Julie dropped Joe off in front of Barrington Hall late Sunday night, both knew their relationship had reached a critical stage. They had to go forward, or go back. If Joe had not risen to the occasion—well, Julie did not know what she would have done.