The man went across the street to a parked truck. On the side of the truck were golden letters, glinting in the morning sunlight. They said: "Montaugan Appliances, Inc."
August Hennler fell limp in the car seat, his whole body sagging with a terrible exhaustion...
IRENE CARTER
Irene had intended to get up early that morning, but a Saturday sloth had kept her abed until eleven. Once out of bed, however, she had dressed hurriedly, feeling a unique joy in the sunlit morning. She plunged down the stairs with unlady-like agility, and slowed to a walk as she went into the dining room. There was coffee on the little heating stand on the sideboard, and she poured herself a cup--black, in unconscious imitation of her mother--drank it swiftly enough to burn her tongue, and started through the kitchen.
Paula May stopped her. "There was a phone call for you, Miss Irene."
"Who?" Not expecting accuracy.
"A Mr. Heller--or like that. He said his father got sick and he would call you. I don't remember exactly. But he couldn't meet you tonight or something."
"Thanks," Irene said.
"He wants you should call him back, Miss Reenie. I told him you was asleep."
"I'll call him later," Irene said.
She went toward the garage, walking slowly, conscious of her attractiveness in a black skirt and cashmere sweater with a single strand of pearls. She tried to think what it was about Gary that made him so different from other people. After all, he was older. But there was something boyish about him, too.
She went up the short flight of stairs in the back of the garage. The door was closed. She called, "Gary?" very softly. There was no answer. She pushed open the door. The upper level of the garage had been arranged as a sort of playroom, where Daddy had a bar and could entertain guests. In summer it was screened, and in winter storm windows gave a view of the water. Charles had used it as a place to keep himself when he was not in the garage. An on-shore breeze sighed gently in the screening, but the place was empty.
Irene felt a momentary pang of disappointment. But he had to be somewhere around. She went back to the kitchen.
"Where's Heaslip?" she asked Vera. "I can't find him anywhere."
"Went into New York with Miss Erica. They left first thing this morning," the cook said. "Ain't you going to eat no breakfast?"
"No, thanks, Vera." She stood there for a moment, vacantly watching Vera fussing with the dishes. There an all-gone sensation in her stomach. Erica was so pretty--and so much nearer Gary's age.
"How did they go?" she asked.
"They took the little car," Vera said. "Paula May says that man, Mr. Heller, called again."
Damn Ellis. Let him drop dead. She went into the living loom. She took a cigarette from the humidor, lit it, and went to the big radio-phonograph. She piled records on the changer and sat on the floor before the machine, an ashtray beside her. A rich contralto voice sang,
Some day he'll come to me,
The man I love,
And he'll be tall, you'll see ...
A terrible loneliness came into her. She kept thinking, Gary and Erica, Erica and Gary. Erica had been someone to talk to. Erica understood you. She knew what was cooking when you had the blues. But Erica had gone with Gary, and, though she knew it was really only for a few hours, the pressure within her said it was forever. She pressed the reject button on the changer, and Stan Kenton began to play something called "Safranski." That was when Paula May came in.
"You better cut down on that thing, Miss Reenie," she said. "Your ma's still asleep." The maid disappeared into the hallway. Irene gave a vicious twist to the knob as she turned off the machine. The music slowed and stopped with a sort of expiring squawk. She packed herself up with her crossed legs and, leaving records, albums, and ashtray in disorder on the floor, went out on the front porch.
She went back out to the kitchen. "Vera," she said, "have you seen my father?"
"He just went out by the boat," the cook said.
The feeling of depression grew in her as she started out the kitchen door. She thought of calling Ella Magnuson. But Ella's mother was taking her to New York today. Like Erica and Gary. And neither of them had troubled to tell her they were going. The June sunlight seemed suddenly chilly, empty. She found Ivan in the cockpit of the Ivalor. He was tampering with the tiller ropes where they wound on the wheel.
"What's the matter, Daddy?"
"Damned things slip," Ivan said. His face was stormy. "Give me that sandpaper. No. Not that." He scrambled over and picked up the desired article. "Look, kid. Do me a favor. Stay away from me this morning. I'm in a vile mood." He turned his back and bent once more over his work.
She stepped on the cowling and almost slipped as she bounded to the seawall.
She thought, what if I had fallen in. What if you fell and drowned, maybe. Then he'd want to talk; then he'd want to know what was the matter. What if you were found dead, one morning. They'd all be around, then.
She went angrily back into the house. Vera said. "Do you gotta keep tracking through my kitchen?"
Back in the living room she suddenly snatched the whole stack of records from the changer and threw them on the floor.
Then she went to the phone and dialed a number: "Hello, Mrs. St. George? ... May I speak to Ellis, please?... I know, I was--I was helping my father with the boat ... El? What on earth happened to you last night? ... I don't care if he was sick, you could at least have called me. You have a telephone, don't you? ... Well, there were phones at the hospital ... I don't know if I want to see anybody ... Oh, all right. You can pick me up in half an hour ..."
VI
ERICA LEDBITTER
Erica watched him behind the wheel, covertly, as she had all the way in. As she had at lunch. As she had on the trip downtown, over the bridge, in Queens Plaza. Now, as he made the swing into Queens Boulevard, she thought for perhaps the thirtieth time today, he doesn't look like a chauffeur.
There was little traffic. He appeared to be giving only cursory attention to the road, yet no opening escaped him. Certainly he was preoccupied with something--but not with her.
She thought about that. Once upon a time, when she had lived upstate in Durhamville with her uncle, Erica had felt it would be a relief if some boys had shown less preoccupation with her. The pressure of their attention had been disturbing. One must always be prepared to ward them off. She thought, now, that it might be nice to have something to ward off.
She looked back at the towers of Manhattan. A rise of land, toward the setting sun, made Queens Boulevard seem a sort of magic highway, running straight to the misty pylons of a fairy city. Then she saw the storm gathering over the southern part of Manhattan.
She touched Gary's arm. "Storm coming up in back of us," she said.
Gary returned from some corner of his mind. "I'm not worried about that one," he said. "We can outrun it easy. It's the one ahead that bothers me." She looked in front of the car. A sort of haze gave a faintly lavender cast to the early evening sky, but it seemed clear.
"Not there," he said. "A ways left of there. We may beat it, but I doubt it. Storms move pretty uniformly west to east, especially in this part of the country. I've been watching this one for a few minutes. When we get on the Parkway we'll be on a collision course with the thing."
Collision course? Weather? Navy? "Were you in the navy during the war?"
"Air force. A.T.C. Air transport," he said, slipping neatly past a gigantic bus.
Not my type at all, she thought. Air force. Arrogant young men with floppy visored caps, swaggerers. Too busy being masculine to be human. A little too sharp in civilian dress. A little too boisterous. A little too juvenile.
She asked, "Where do you come from?"
"Now--or once?"
"Once upon a time?"
"Upstate. A little town you never heard of. Oneida."
"Hi, neighbor," Erica said. "I used to live in Durhamville."
"Imagine meeting you here," Gary said, grinning. He
glanced at her for a second. Then he looked back at the road and shot between two cars. She watched the grin fade slowly to be replaced with the look of concentration.
For a while she thought about Ivan. What was he after? Why had he sent her for the abstracts today? It was clear to her--she knew the material well enough to be sure--that they had not been urgently required. They were, in fact, barely relevant to what he was doing.
They were on the Sunrise Highway, now. Far to the left she could see occasional streaks of lightning, still too remote for thunder. She looked at Gary's profile. What went on with the man? Was he so stupid he had nothing to say? Or was that just her ego talking? Once or twice, during lunch, she had caught him appraising her with his eyes, but when he saw she had noticed he turned away as if embarrassed. Was that what bothered you? Had he measured you, and found you not quite good enough for his attention? So? Let him go climb a tree. What did he want for nothing, two heads?
Erica turned back to the road. The cars wore their headlights now, and the red sparks of taillights preceded them on the vast white highway.
"Getting pretty close, now," Gary said. "We ought to get off this highway and into someplace."
Erica became aware of a steady roll, almost a drumbeat, of thunder overhead. Gary pulled the car over to the righthand lane; then he swung into a curving outlet road. The sign said, "Bay Shore." They were running beneath overcurving trees, and there were raindrops falling. Erica crossed her arms, hands on her shoulders, against the sudden chill in the air. "Damned phoney little cars," Gary said. "No tops. What good are they?" He glanced at her. "Don't you have a jacket?"
The rain was pelting down, soaking the flimsy nylon of her blouse. She shook her head, feeling her hair go stringy wet. She could see the sparkling droplets streaking his face. "Mine's in back of the scat. Get it out and put it on," he said.
She found the jacket and pulled it out. Then, stupidly, she sat holding it. He said, "Put it on. What's the matter with you?"
The rain was a downpour. Gary was driving slowly, and the little windshield of the two-seater was no help, now. Dimly, through the tearlike rainstreaks in her vision, she saw the orange glow of neon ahead.
The car pulled off the road before a hewn-log building.
Gary said, "Go on inside. I've got to put on the cover." She stood there, though, while he found the canvas and snapped it over the tonneau of the little car. He took her hand. Heads down, they ran for the Bridle Inn.
There was a big, dim, timbered barroom. Dangling wheel-shaped chandeliers dissipated only the deeper shadows. Around the walls were oaken booths. Candles flickered on the tables.
The room was almost empty. A couple occupied a corner at the far end. A bartender, white aproned, was reading behind his blue lights. A single waiter offered them the farthest removed booth from the other couple and they slid in.
Erica slipped out of the jacket. "You better hang this up," she said.
"I think you'd better keep it on." Gary said, grinning.
Puzzled, she looked down at herself. The thin fabric of the nylon, and the mesh bra beneath, clearly betrayed the pink of her nipples. She looked wrapped in cellophane. She pulled the jacket about her. "I guess I had," she said. "Have you a comb?"
"What we need," Gary said, "are several drinks." After a while the liquor arrived.
Suddenly, Erica thought, the whole thing was fun. She said, "Were you ever in Durhamville?"
"My mother's grandfather used to live there," Gary said. "He owned most of the barges on the old Erie canal. I guess he liked it because he could sit on the porch and watch his money go by. They lived in that big white house they tore down for the new highway."
The new highway, Erica remembered, was just a little older than she was. It made Gary suddenly much more adult. "How did you happen to get a job like this?" she asked. "You don't look like a chauffeur."
"Sorry. I'll try to do better. I just needed a job." He added, "Any job."
"What were you before?"
"A captain," he said. "You know, a pilot for the airlines."
"Why did you quit? Could we have another?" There was indecision on his face as he signaled the waiter.
She said, "I don't want to pry. I mean, don't tell me if you don't want to. It's really none of my business."
He grinned. "There isn't any special reason for being secretive, I guess, but I'd just as soon you didn't say anything to the Carters. That's all ..."
IRENE CARTER
The evening meal, like the formal dress of the British in darkest Malaya, was the civilized touch that held off the jungle from the Carter household. It was a tradition, a ritual that had lost its meaning. Evening after solemn evening, Ivan Carter presided as high priest at a table no more significant than the penitent's reiteration of his prescribed Hail Mary's.
Paula May, as altar girl, toted the sacraments from the kitchen. Every effort was made to close the services as promptly as nourishment permitted.
Irene was a few moments late at the table. She came into the dining room with the feeling of stepping into a movie theater in which the film has just jammed in the projector, and all action is at a stand-still. In the air there seemed to float the dying echo of her father's voice, "Shut up. Here comes Reenie." Or her mother's hissed, "Don't you dare say anything in front of that child."
Irene said, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was late. I was taking a shower when Paula May called me."
Her father looked up from his soup. "It's nice to know somebody's clean around here."
"Ivan!" her mother said.
"Oh, don't be ridiculous," he said, as though the interchange had meaning.
Her mother suddenly tapped a hidden vein of trivia. "I'm having the Montforts over for bridge Wednesday evening, Ivan. Do you think I should serve drinks? You know how Harry if after he's had a few."
"He's a lot more interesting that way than sober. Besides, they're your friends. Do what you please with them."
"Well, if you want to listen to an evening of Harry's half-dirty jokes, I don't."
"I won't be listening, my dear. I have an appointment with Doctor Riesenberg in New York that evening."
"I'm sure you have," her mother said. They had all but forgotten Irene. "I suppose you'll be taking Erica along."
"Just possibly," he said. "We may need someone to take notes. But if you need another hand--well, there's always Heaslip."
"Ivan," her mother said, "I forbid you ever--"
"Now, let's not be indiscreet," he interrupted. He turned to Irene. "What have you been doing all afternoon, kid?"
"I--I--" Irene began. Then she said, "Mother! You can't have the bridge party Wednesday. It's commencement. I'm graduating. Daddy, you too."
"Oh," her mother said. "I'm so sorry. You should have told me sooner. But there's no way I can change it now. The Montforts are in Atlantic City. They won't be back until Wednesday afternoon. Ivan, you'll just have to go with Irene."
"My dear," he said, "I don't have to do a thing. If you think a bridge party is more important than your daughter's graduation, you'll have to find someone else to substitute for you. I've been waiting eight months for Riesenberg to get back from Europe, and there's nothing I can do about it."
"It seems to me," her mother said, "that you could take some of the responsibility around this place. After all, she's your daughter."
"That's not the point," the doctor said. "This is business."
"Business!" The woman sneered. "What business do you do? Who supports this household? Who pays the bills? You don't even earn enough to pay the salary of your--secretary."
"Thank you, my dear," her father said, patting his lips with his napkin as he rose. "Thank you very much." He stalked to the kitchen door, and then looked back. "I hope the additional salary you've just taken on doesn't inconvenience you." The door swung back and forth emptily behind him, its two-way movement letting through Vera's surprise in alternating waves as she said: "Doctor, what ... doing ... kitchen?"
&
nbsp; "Baby," her mother said, turning to Irene, "I'm sorry."
Irene got up without a word and, her lips tight, went up the stairs to her room. Now it was all clear. None of them wanted her.
Irene removed her pearls and pulled her sweater over her head. She looked at herself in the dresser mirror, seeing the hair mussed by the sweater, the tired look about her eyes. She started to comb out her hair, then quit, leaving the comb still stuck in it, and went to gaze out of the window.
Behind her the door of her room opened. Her mother's voice said, "Baby ..." Very tentatively. "I'll manage to cancel--"
"Don't cancel anything on my account," Irene said. Tears rolled down her face. "Don't you or Daddy or anyone dare to come to commencement. If you do I'll spit on you right off the stage! Now, get out of here. Get out of here!"
She ran toward her mother, hands extended, and pushed her through the door, slamming it behind the older woman and turning the key in the lock.
VII
GARY HEASLIP
Gary had been studying her all day and by lunchtime had decided he liked her. As they drove out of the city he was thinking that discovery only made things the more difficult.
The role of hired seducer ill fit him. He had no technique, and the normal outgoing flow of his personality was halted because it was not voluntarily given, but was required of him. That Erica Ledbitter was the kind of girl who attracted him only complicated this situation.
He wondered, then, what Dolores thought of him after last night. Did she think she had bought him utterly? Special cut rates, this week only, $80, including all extras? It was one thing to hire a man to do a job; another quite to call upon him at three in the morning for very personal services.
The thing, last night, had somehow depersonalized you. There had been no words, no tenderness, no affection; just a great coming-together, as of stars colliding in their orbits.
Private Chauffeur Page 6
