She could say nothing. Nothing! And because she couldn't speak, she knew her chance was gone. She was trapped-- unless she could summon up the strength to insist, and to hell with the cab man's opinion.
"Ivan--" she began. The dining room door opened.
"Daddy, Erica? What's going on?" It was Irene. The jaws of the trap closed tight and locked. Irene was the spring.
She stood there in the doorway, at once graceful and coltish, mature and childish, her body already shaped for sensuality, womanly, exciting, her mind still concerned with high school, with proms and graduations, with beach parties and petting.
Ivan promptly turned her arrival to advantage. "Nothing, kiddo. Erica wants to leave."
"That's crazy! You're not going to leave are you?" She went over to Erica.
"No, Reenie," Erica said. "I won't be leaving right away, anyhow." Gently she disengaged the younger girl's hand from her arm and, turning, went up the stairs past the trunk, past the newel posts, past the turning, through the dim upper hall and into her room, where she threw herself face down on the bed--feeling the shame, the deep, burning shame.
II
GARY HEASLIP
Gary swung the car easily into Park Avenue at the forked junction with Montaugan, veered it agilely past a diaper-service truck that had managed to block the intersection. He wondered if the Carter house was nearer or farther than the airport, but he didn't want to ask. It would be better, for the time being, if even Mrs. Carter thought him completely new to Montaugan.
The trouble was the nearer he got to Montaugan Airport, the more a sort of tense, trembling anger got into him. You couldn't let your mind get on that kind of thing. You had to switch to something else.
He concentrated on Dolores Carter. There was a lot to concentrate on. The draft from the open window of the convertible caught her dark red hair from time to time, pushing it down in front of her face, where she had to touch it back with an upraised hand. Every time she touched, it did things to her dress. There was her perfume, in the rush of wind through the convertible--some aphrodisiac savor of musk as exciting as the rutting of a billygoat. What was with this dame? Could she be had? If he were to reach over and touch her thigh would she turn to him? He looked at her sensuous profile, the full lips, the violet eyes, asking himself what this kind of woman was like in her passion?
She was a new kind of woman to him, full of dignity and sureness and poise. What if it happened? What if she was buying herself a gigolo? How would it happen? How long would it take? How would she go about letting him know? And what would he do about it if it did happen?
He couldn't be sure. Not yet, anyway.
Ahead he could see the control tower sticking up above the trees. Then the three metal roofed hangars glinted in the afternoon sun.
He looked at his watch. Three fifty-five. That would have been his return flight. He would have been checking the tower for the letdown, checking from about ten miles out over the ocean. In another minute or so you'd hear the engines of the DC-3 roaring in from Block Island.
They were abreast the hangars now. He could see the antenna of Long Island Airlines company communications radio, strung up near the windsock.
He looked at Mrs. Carter--Dolores. The wind from the hoodvent had caught her light skirt and slyly flipped it above her knees. But the momentary magic was gone. All he could think about was a man named Hennler, sitting before the transmitter of the company communications. He looked back to the road and felt two red spots of anger blossoming high on his checks.
Dolores touched his arm: "Turn right at the next intersection," she said.
As he took the turn, he heard the high, remote whine of a DC-3, still somewhere beyond the end of Long Island, lowering for the landing at Montaugan. He wondered who had the flight. Joe? Or maybe Don Freilig? Or some new man hired to replace him after--after it had happened?
He was driving the car automatically, now, following the curving black strip of macadam, while his mind slid backward, through time and upward through space, he remembered, he remembered ...
*
... There were only three passengers boarding the plane that day at Block Island. He watched them coming across the apron to the ship, checked them on the flight manifest as they climbed the five small steps built into the downhung door in the fuselage.
Marky, who was dispatcher, baggage agent and general nuisance for Long Island Airlines at Block Island, reached up for the papers. He said, "It's closing in a little at Montaugan."
Gary looked up at the sky, where scudding clouds were rapidly veiling off the blue. The door swung upward. He checked the lock, then hurried up through the ship to the cockpit. The big engines thrummed on either hand. The tail swung around and the horizon seemed to slip past the nose of the ship. Pulsing and waddling, like a walking eagle, the DC-3 taxied to the runway. She poised there as Gary ran up each engine. The hum turned to a roar and then to a blasting, almost a scream.
Phil Vert, his copilot, pushed his earphones forward and turned to him, "Anything wrong, Gary?"
"No. I just want to get into Montaugan before it closes in."
They ran through the checklist. Then he released the wheel-brakes and felt the first heavy movements as the ship began to roll. She gathered speed and buoyancy and the ground fell away beneath them, houses, roads and ponds dwindling to toylike proportions. Phil raised the landing gear. They were over open water, still climbing in a slow banking arc toward the west. Gary caught the steady tone of radio signals that lined them up on the beam.
"Take over, Phil," Gary told his copilot. "I want to check Montaugan. I got a date tonight with a cute thing at New York General, and I don't want to get stuck on the Island."
Phil grinned as he switched his headphones to the radio beam. "You absolutely can't get there no faster than this crate will go."
"Get up to five thousand and hold her there," Gary said. Then, into his microphone, "Long Island flight one-oh-five to Montaugan. Long Island one-oh-five to Montaugan. Hey, Hennler, what's it doing there?"
In the earphones a tinny voice came back, abrasive, with a metallic edge: "Montaugan to Long Island flight one-oh-five. Ceiling's holding at two thousand. Visibility three miles. It'll be fine here for another hour yet."
Gary acknowledged and watched Phil slide the plane up through the clouds and into the afternoon sunlight. Ahead the cloud tops looked denser, less like wisps of lint, and more like a vast cushion of cotton batting. The occasional glimpses of the ocean's surface, now rippled like a tiny pond, became rarer, and in a few minutes vanished altogether. By twisting around, he could see the shadow of the DC-3 trailing over the cloud piles. The hot sunlight glared in his eyes. He slipped on wide green sunglasses.
He switched off the no-smoking sign in the cabin behind him, and relaxed in his seat. It was nice to be captain on a scheduled airline, even if you had to come down from four-engine to DC-3s.
The earphone crackled sharply. "Montaugan to Long Island flight one-oh-five. Montaugan to one-oh-five. Report altitude."
"One-oh-five to Montaugan. Flying at five thousand as per flight plan."
Phil said, "What's cooking?"
"Montaugan wants to know our altitude," Gary said.
The earphones went off again. "Montaugan to Long Island one-oh-five. Boston center reports converging traffic at five thousand, clears Long Island one-oh-five, descend immediately to two thousand. Report leaving five thousand."
Gary touched Phil's arm and pointed on the altimeter to the two thousand foot mark. He watched the nose of the ship dip toward the cottony clouds. Into the microphone he said, "Roger. Leaving five thousand feet at"--he looked at his watch--"Fifteen fifty-one."
Gary watched the shift of the needle on the altimeter until it rested precisely on the two thousand mark. There was nothing else to watch, now, as the nose of the ship plowed deep into the gray bowels of the clouds. Even the engines, no more than a few feet from the cockpit windows, were only faintly visible as their whirling
propellers sawed at the watery cotton stuff.
There was no warning. Suddenly, the sound of the engines was doubled! There was a sharp jolt, a sickening falling away, an explosive crash somewhere to his right, the wheel weaving before him until he seized it and pushed hard, and Phil's voice yelling, "This is it!" ...
*
... The slap caught him full in the face. He turned his head sharply to see what had happened. Dolores was staring at him from her side of the car, her face expressionless, cold and mildly smug. It took him a fraction of a second to orient himself. There had been nothing wrong--nothing he had done in those seconds while his mind went pouring back into the past. The roaring of the DC-3 overhead had hardly changed.
No. This Carter babe had the idea she was peering into his thoughts, and the slap was because she had decided they were dirty. To hell with her!
Calmly, evenly, he braked the car and pulled to the side of the macadam road. He pulled the emergency brake lever, opened the door and stepped out. He swung the seat forward, and picked up the cowhide bag from the rear floorboards. He set it down on the road. Then he hooked both elbows over the window sill and looked at Dolores. Her expression was unchanged, except for a faint shadow of a smile.
"Look, Mrs. Carter," Gary said, "I don't have to work for you." He reached down, picked up the cowhide bag and started to walk away.
Dolores' voice caught him up. "Wait a minute, Gary--Mr. Heaslip."
Gary turned. "Yes?"
"I apologize. I'm sorry. I was only trying to find out something. I mean--Won't you get back in the car, please, and I'll explain."
Gary carried the bag back, climbed into the car, and turned to face her.
"Well?" he said.
"I--I guess I wanted to test you."
"Did you? Well try this on for size." He caught her shoulders in both hands and pulled her to him. She pressed her hands against his chest and turned her head, trying to push free. Roughly he forced her head around and kissed her.
Her lips were hard at first, tight closed, resisting. Then they softened and parted. Her hands laxed. Her body pressed against his. He could feel her trembling. "No," she said. "Gary ... Gary! No!"
He let her go and she leaned back against the cushions. She was breathing fast. Her lips were parted, her eyes half-lidded. She reached for a cigarette from the dashboard compartment and he saw her hands were shaking as he held a light for her.
"Maybe now is the time for an explanation," he said. "Don't you think?"
She nodded her head. "Of course." Her voice was husky, but she was regaining her self-possession. She drew sharply at her cigarette and stabbed it out in the ashtray.
"I suppose it's simple enough to say, once you bring yourself to it. The real difficulty is admitting it to yourself, and I guess saying it to somebody is when you really reach the final point of admitting it to yourself. In any case, the trouble is that I think I'm losing my husband ..."
EVELYN HENNLER
There was something wrong with August Hennler. Evelyn had felt it for three weeks now--ever since the crash off Montaugan Point. Once or twice she had tried to get it out of him, using that wifely superiority that worked so well in most matters. But this was something else. He had shut her out of it, and she didn't like it.
Tonight, again, he was late for dinner. She fed Alec and Bertha with a nervous attitude that soon had them both wailing pitifully. Then, in an excess of remorse, she catered to all the multitude of whims they devised as antidotes to sleep. She fetched water like a boy tending elephants. She read stories, sang songs, rocked Bertha, found Buster who belonged to Alec and was a limp and filthy rag doll of immoral antecedents. She made promises that she could not fail to keep. The kids, aware of her momentary weakness, took sadistic advantage to extract yet more. But by nine o'clock sheer physical exhaustion had overcome them.
When she closed the hall door and slipped quietly clown to the neat living room of the house on Pearl Street, the panic that had been building all through the evening peaked and broke. Dire fantasies, held in check while she was with the children, sprang into her mind.
August was the head of the four-man team that operated the company communications of Long Island Airlines. As the chief radio operator, his tour of duty ran from nine a.m. to five p.m. He should have been home by six at the very latest. In the five years that he had been working for L.I.A. he had never been late without calling her. For that matter, he had never been late at all--until that terrible crash three weeks ago. And that time he had phoned her right away, only a few minutes after the crash. He had wanted her to rush down to the airport with his home tape-recording unit. She had been forced to use a taxi for the trip because August took the car to work in the morning.
The car! What if he'd had an accident? She went to the telephone and called the airport. A man's voice said, "Long Island Airlines."
Evelyn said, "This is Mrs. Hennler. Is August still there? ... No. Do you have any idea where he could have gone? ... So do I. Thanks, Dick." She hung up.
Something was wrong. That crash had touched off something in him. Frightened him, maybe. God knew it was frightening enough when seventeen people were killed. And August had known two of them. The stewardess and Phil Vert, the copilot. The captain, somebody named Gary Heaslip, was new. They'd brought him in from the nonskeds because Phil Vert didn't have his hours yet.
But the way he'd been drinking, lately ... Not drunk ... Never really drunk ... Just a lot of little drinks, one after another. A round at the bar on the way home ... And the bottle he kept in the cabinet under the kitchen sink ... And not being able to sleep at night ... He'd been late a lot, too. Six thirty. Seven. And once seven thirty. But not this late. Not nine fifteen!
Evelyn got up from the telephone stand and got a cigarette from the pottery box on the coffee table. When the lighter refused to work, she flung it angrily down and went to the kitchen for a match.
That was when she heard the car pulling into the garage.
It took a while for him to get to the house. That gave Evelyn a chance to compose herself. There was no good being angry with him. Not now, not when he was upset like this. She lit the gas under the dutch oven, and laid out silverware and china on the kitchen table.
She found herself waiting tensely as he fumbled with the back door and then stumbled a little on the three steps that mounted to the kitchen. His eyes had a glassy look, but he tried desperately to maintain some semblance of sobriety.
With elaborate caution he seated himself at the kitchen table. Then, angrily, he pushed the plate and silverware away from him. "Well," he said, "say something. Don't just stand there. Don't want dinner, anyway."
Evelyn came around the table. "Augie," she said, "what's the matter, Hon?"
"Nothing. Can't you ever stop harping? All you ever do lately is nag."
"But I'm not nagging. I just want to help."
He pushed the chair back from the table. "Got to get some sleep."
"All right, Augie. But wouldn't you like a cup of coffee first?"
"Damn you and your goddamn coffee. Let me be, for chrissakes." He pulled himself rigidly erect and went into the living room. She heard the couch whoosh as he flung himself down. She cleaned up the dishes, and put things away before following him.
She picked up his coat from the floor and hung it in the closer, then found a blanket to put over him. He stirred a little as she wrapped the fabric around his supine body. His eyes opened briefly, and he looked at her as though he didn't quite recognize her.
The radio was playing softly in the corner among the helter-skelter of Augie's amateur transmitter, his tape recorder, and a tangle of turntables and loud speakers. She went to turn it off. She had barely touched the switch when she heard a sound behind her.
She turned and saw Augie staggering across the room toward her. "Get away from there," he yelled. "Don't you dare touch that." He struck her sharply. "God damn you," he said, "can't you stop your goddamned snooping?"
H
e slapped her again, and she fled up the stairs. For a long lime she could hear him stumbling about downstairs ...
III
IRENE CARTER
Irene Bettina Carter, had she been asked what it was she most desired of life, would probably have answered: Fulfillment. Not because she was a fool, nor even because she was seventeen years old, but because she was at a stage where the grandiose gesture seemed important to her. Her mind was full of other words, too. Words like: ripe, "go the limit," marriage, children, home. Words like: sensuous, amoral, adult, husband, passion, ravish, violate. These were a part, an important part, of the way Irene Bettina Carter thought of herself. They lay just a little below the awareness of her mind.
She would certainly have seen no connection between a casual chain of words and the fact that she was waiting for Ellis St. George. In fact, half an hour ago she had taken time out from the brushing of her heavy, lustrous hair before the vanity in her room to wonder why the word "fulfillment" kept running through her mind like that, and, having briefly wondered, abandoned the speculation as a waste of time. Then she had gone to the closet and brought out her dress for the evening, a full-skirted off-the- shoulder thing that shaped her body through the torso, accented her slender waist, and then swooped outward in graceful, flowing lines to conceal all but the tips of her silver evening slippers. She raised her arms and let the gown fall about her, concealing her slim body which was already clothed in panty, bra, and half slip. She closed the side zipper, adjusted the sleeves of the gown to ride off her shoulders, and pirouetted before the vanity mirror. Then she saw that the bra, a strapless concoction of wire and net, protruded above the decolletage of her gown. With an impatient snap of her fingers she unzipped the dress, reached inside and behind her, and loosed the bra fastening, pulling it out through the opening.
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