“Why?”
“It’s time to get away from here.”
“Troy. Troy! Hold it a minute.”
Troy put a pile of shirts into the suitcase and straightened up. “You can’t stop me.”
“What does running away from it solve?”
“You don’t understand, Mike.”
“I think I’ve got more of the picture than you have, maybe. You were drunk. And it was her idea, not yours. She set you up for it.”
Troy stared at him. The immobility was gone from his face. It twisted in a horrid muscular spasm. “What did we do? Mail out invitations?”
“It was an accident. Shirley and I went to look at the boat.”
“Does … she know you know?”
“Yes. It doesn’t upset her much. I tried to talk to her about it. I couldn’t reach her.”
Troy looked down at his fist. “I thought Jerranna was as low as you could go. I was using Jerranna as a club to beat Mary with. I don’t know why. Maybe because she’s too damn good. But this—with Debbie Ann—it’s too much. I’ve got to get out of here.”
“You afraid it will happen again?”
“She told me a swim would sober me up. She turned her back. I stripped and went in. I swam out a couple of hundred feet, slow. When I stopped she was right next to me, laughing in that damn tiny little voice. She shoved me under. I chased her and caught her. Lots of laughs. Sure I was drunk. But I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t blacked out. By the time we came out there wasn’t even any attempt to put the clothes back on. We grabbed them up and went right to the boat. I can’t tell you how she looked, Mike, naked, soaking wet, laughing in the moonlight. I knew it was as wrong a thing as a man can do. But I didn’t give a damn. I told myself it couldn’t be a serious thing, the way she kept laughing.”
“Are you going away so it won’t happen again?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“So I won’t kill her. I woke up first, early. I was going to do it then. I put my hand on her throat. It woke her up. I couldn’t do it then. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to do it the second time, but I’d come closer. And then the next time I could probably do it. I’ve got to get out.”
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know. Over to Jerranna’s, maybe.”
“What am I supposed to tell Mary?”
“Tell her she’s better off. She is. Tell her to get out, like Bunny did.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“She’s my daughter, Mike.”
“Stepdaughter.”
“And it was just fine, Mike. Fine last night. Fine again this morning. She’s real good.” An expression of thoroughly savage mockery changed his face. “Try it anytime. It’s free. It’s on the house. Be my guest.”
Mike watched in silence as Troy packed. Maybe it was a good answer. It might be the easiest way for Mary. And of the three of them, she was now the only one worth any consideration.
“How about the land project, Troy?”
“I’ll go to the lawyer’s office tomorrow and sign my stock over to Mary. Maybe she can salvage something. There isn’t anything else … to turn over to her. Not a damn thing.” He took out his wallet and looked into it. “Got any money?”
Mike checked. “Sixty bucks. Want that?”
“You won’t get it back.”
“It doesn’t matter. Here.”
Troy put the money away. He started to shake hands and then pulled his hand back. “There’s no damn sense in that little gesture. It doesn’t mean anything. I don’t want your friendship, Mike. I don’t want the obligation.”
“Okay. So this is the end of that, too.” He hesitated. “Are you going to take a car?”
“No.”
“Can I drive you up to Ravenna?”
“No.”
“Good-by, Troy.”
Troy looked at him and through him and walked out. Mike followed him slowly. Saying he didn’t give a damn. Fighting his feeling of involvement. All my life, nibbled to death by lame ducks. Looking into empty people, looking for something I can’t describe, finding it sometimes. Buttons told me one time what I would have been if I’d come along ahead of the linotype. One of those old boys wandering around, telling stories to the tribes. Anything with a maximum exposure to people.
So there goes Troy Jamison, walking out of life, coat over his arm, suitcase making the other shoulder sag. Too bitched up to be survival-prone. These are the years when the basic, thousand-percent sons of bitches get along nifty. They flourish. And so, thank God, do those rare ones who are both strong and good. Like Mary. But all the Troys are screwed. Because they’re half and half. Oversimplification? The good part can’t live with the son of a bitch. And the price of everything is marked up. No bargain basements. No special clearance sales. You pay top dollar every time, and it stings.
There should be a new operation. A bitchectomy. Scalpel, clamps, sutures, deep sedation. Whichever aspect is dominant, remove the other one. Then everybody survives. Only two kinds of people. The energetic, enthusiastic, functioning son of a bitch. And the tin Jesuses.
Make a dull world. Cancel the research.
He walked out onto the path. When he was fifteen feet from the road he could see, beyond a monster sea grape, Troy walking south in the sunlight. Sunday afternoon. You don’t get tragedy, he thought, without some grotesquerie, some little taint of slapstick. Everybody is his own comedian. The wittle boy packed him wittle bag with him teddy bear and outer-space pistol and runned away.
Through the shimmer of heat he saw the car coming and soon recognized the Porsche, top down, Debbie Ann at the wheel, her hair tamed by a bright scarf.
“Don’t stop,” he said aloud. “Don’t stop, girl!”
He thought for a moment she wouldn’t, but she passed Troy and stopped and backed up very competently, then kept backing up, maintaining his pace, evidently speaking to him. Then she increased the speed and stopped twenty yards beyond him and got out and stood waiting for him.
As Troy reached her and stopped and put the suitcase down, Mike began to run. He couldn’t remember the last time he had tried to run fast. He had about three hundred yards to go, and he didn’t have the build for it. The years had done something to level ground. It all ran uphill. And he felt as if the long fleet stride of youth had shrunk to about eight inches.
He was fifty yards away when Troy hit her. Though sweat had run into his left eye, he saw it clearly. It was not a slap. It was not one of those wild windmill swings of the angry amateur. This had the merciless competence of the professional, despite the fact it was a right-hand lead. Elbow close. Nice timing, starting from heels firmly planted, so the full power of legs and back and shoulders got into it. A straight jolt, upward, the fist moving maybe ten inches before the point of impact, and with a nice follow-through—happening so quickly she had not the slightest chance to duck or move back or even begin to raise her hands.
It was the noise that made his stomach turn over. You could achieve the same effect if you took a nylon stocking, packed the foot tightly with raw chopped liver, and then swung it three times around your head before slamming it against a brick wall.
Debbie Ann went up and back, a doll slow in the sunlight, landing rump-first across the hood of the Porsche to collapse there, supine, almost motionless for an instant before sliding forward, down the blunt pitch of the hood of the Porsche, making one half turn to thud facedown on the sand-and-shell road, in front of the wheels, one arm pinned under her, the other extended over her head, legs sprawled, all of her utterly still.
Mike arrived, gasping for breath. Troy glanced toward him, but not at him. He massaged the knuckles of his right hand. He picked up his suitcase and jacket and walked on, walked south, without looking back.
As Mike knelt beside her, four people were suddenly there. He had not seen them approach. There was an elderly couple in swimming clothes, both of them brown, spindly, white-haired. He remembered seeing them at t
he Club, but not meeting them. The other was Marg Laybourne and her husband. It had happened almost in front of their house.
“It’s Debbie Ann!” Marg yelped. “What’s happening? Where is Troy going? What happened to her?”
“I’m a doctor,” the spindly brown man said with quiet authority. “If you’d give me some room, sir …”
Mike gladly moved out of the way. The old man knelt in the road, found the pulse in the side of the throat deftly.
“Did the car hit her? Did she fall out of it?” Marg demanded.
The doctor sat back on his haunches. “I’m retired. I’m not licensed to practice in Florida. I would say, however, that in this case it might not be wise to wait for an ambulance to come out from Ravenna. I don’t want to move her any more than necessary. I want something we can use as a stretcher, something rigid, a pillow, two blankets and a station wagon. Quickly!”
Marg stopped asking questions and did some effective organizing. After she and her husband had hurried away, the doctor looked up mildly at Mike and said, “You saw him strike her also?”
“Yes.”
“The way you were running attracted our attention, and we saw it happen.”
“Horrible,” the doctor’s wife murmured.
“There could be fractured vertebrae. That’s why I want to be very careful. And there will be shock. You can see how profusely she’s beginning to perspire.”
Mr. Laybourne arrived with a collapsed army cot. The doctor said it would do splendidly. By the time they had unfolded it and placed it beside her, with the legs still collapsed, Marg Laybourne was backing the big Buick station wagon into position. Three cars had stopped. About twenty people had gathered around, looking avid and nervous, whispering misinformation to each other.
The doctor carefully instructed Mike and Mr. Laybourne as to where to hold her, what to do when he gave the word to roll her onto the cot frame. The doctor handled her head.
“Now,” he said, and they eased her onto the cot. Mike gave an involuntary grunt of shock when he saw her face. The whole left side of it was bloodied and crushed in, grotesquely. Dust and shell fragments were stuck to the blood. The other half of her face was a soapy gray, beaded heavily with sweat. Powdered shell and dust clung to her parted lips.
Mike and Mr. Laybourne, plus four volunteers, carefully slid the improvised stretcher into the back of the station wagon. The doctor tucked the two blankets around her. He arranged the pillow in a way to minimize head movement.
“Go gently on the rough road and take corners carefully,” the doctor said, instructing Mr. Laybourne. He turned to Mike. “You, sir, and the lady, might ride in back with her. Go directly to the emergency entrance. If I could go in and use the phone in your home, they will know what to expect. They’ll be all set up to treat her quickly for shock.”
“Go right ahead. There’s a phone near the front entrance, on your left,” Marg said.
A young man approached Mike and said, “I know Debbie Ann. The keys are in her car. I’ll run it up into the carport. Okay?”
“Thanks a lot.”
“What happened to her?”
“She fell.”
“Out of the top of that pine tree?”
Mike got in. Traffic on the Trail was infuriatingly dense and slow until the continual bellowing of the horn on the Buick attracted the attention of a State Highway Patrol car, headed the other way. Within a minute he was behind them, siren keening. Mike pointed at Debbie Ann. As the patrol car passed, Mike yelled, “Ravenna Hospital!” and saw the trooper nod.
The siren opened the traffic ahead of them. Marg, well braced, held Debbie Ann’s shoulders. Mike held her by the hips. After one hard swerve when they still managed to hold her immobile, Marg turned and gave Mike a hard, impudent grin, and it astonished the daylights out of him to realize he could probably learn to like this woman. She was idle, silly and mischievous—but she reacted well to a thing like this.
They were prepared for them at the hospital, with the bottle of plasma all rigged and ready.
While Charlie took the car off to the hospital parking lot, Marg and Mike went to the waiting room.
“Wonder if I should phone Mary before we get the whole scoop,” he said.
“Phone her, of course, Mr. Rodinsky. She’ll want to be here in any case. That child is badly hurt.”
“Rodenska.”
“Troy did it, didn’t he?”
“She fell.”
“He’s been so strange lately.”
“I’ll find a phone.”
They said they thought Mrs. Jamison was out by the pool. If he would hold on a moment. It was a long moment before she came on the phone.
“Hello? Oh, Mike! I had the feeling it would be Troy. I don’t know why. How are things?”
“Mary, I don’t know any fancy way to say this. I’m at Ravenna Hospital. Debbie Ann is hurt. I think you better come right here … Mary?”
“I’m still here,” she said. “It was that damned car, wasn’t it? She drives like a fool. And she’s … dead.”
“She’s not dead!” he said angrily. “And it wasn’t the car. She—fell and hit her face.”
“Fell? Debbie Ann?”
“Yes. They’re treating her in the emergency room right now.”
“Is Troy with you? Why didn’t Troy call me?”
“We can go into all that after you get here. Who’s your regular doctor?”
“Sam Scherman, but Debbie Ann hasn’t had to see him in years and years. But you better let him know, I guess. I can’t understand how she could … I guess I should stop talking. I’ll be along very soon, Mike.”
“Don’t worry about it. She’ll be okay.”
“Is she … disfigured, Mike?”
“Temporarily. She—wants you here.”
“Tell her I’m on my way, Mike.”
He went back to the waiting room. Marg and Charlie looked at him. “How did she take it?” Marg asked.
“Pretty good. She’ll come down by cab right away.”
“That girl is in bad, bad shape,” Charlie said heavily.
Marg leaned forward and lowered her voice. “You don’t have to be so secretive, Mr. Rodenska. I’m perfectly aware of the fact you don’t like me one bit.”
“Now, Marg!” Charlie said.
“It’s perfectly true, darling. He made it quite clear the first time we met. Maybe I deserved it. I was feeling bitchy that day. Mr. Rodenska, Charlie and I are certainly aware of the fact that Mary and Troy have been having … problems. We call ourselves their friends. We haven’t wanted to butt in. We’ve heard the rumors about another woman. We haven’t helped spread those rumors. And we haven’t, in our own talks about it, taken sides. Maybe a little bit, on Mary’s side, but that’s only natural. Charlie and I have said that sooner or later either Troy or Mary or even both of them, might call on us for help. And we wouldn’t back off just because it could be a messy situation. We would help. Is that clear?”
“Very.”
“And so it has gotten messy. He got drunk and smashed the Chrysler. Mary has gone away by herself. We both saw Troy walking down the road, carrying a suitcase. He was walking away from Debbie Ann. Not looking back at all. He didn’t turn when Charlie yelled at him, and he couldn’t help hearing him. So it’s perfectly obvious that whatever happened to Debbie Ann, he did it. How messy can a situation get? Mary adores Debbie Ann. Personally, forgive the expression, I think she is a spoiled, selfish, tiresome little slut.”
“Marg!” Charlie said. “Now, Marg!”
“Hush, darling. You know, Mr. Rodenska, that Mary won’t be able to forgive Troy for hurting her so badly, hurting that invaluable daughter of hers. Here we are, perfectly willing to help in any way we can. So don’t you think it would make sense to tell us what’s going on?”
Mike thought it over. “Yes, I guess it would make sense. Maybe I should. But it isn’t my option. How much people know, no matter how close they are, is Mary’s business. And I’ve
got a juicy problem of telling her how the girl got hurt. Once she knows the score and has had a chance to think things out, then you ask her. Okay?”
For a few minutes Marg stared at him with indignation and exasperation. And then suddenly she grinned at him. “If I ever have to tell somebody a secret, Mike, I’ll look you up. It would stay a secret, wouldn’t it?”
“I’ll tell you one thing, Mrs. Laybourne. You gave me that last-outpost-of-gracious-living routine, and I figured you for phony through and through.”
“So you put on an act too, didn’t you?”
“Sure I did. So my opinion is revised. Consider this an apology.”
“Thank you. But I certainly don’t know why I should feel pleased. I wasn’t looking for your good opinion, Mike. And I am, in many respects, a phony. Right, Charlie?”
“You’re always right, dear.”
A huge young doctor with a bland round face and an eighth of an inch of bright orange brush cut appeared in the doorway, filling it.
“I’m Doctor Pherson. Which of you belongs with the Hunter woman?”
“Hunter?” Mike said blankly. Then he remembered that was the name Marg had given them, Debbie Ann’s married name. The pause gave Marg an opening that she could easily have taken. “We’re neighbors and close friends and this man is just a house-guest.” But she didn’t take it. She waited. “I brought her in,” Mike said.
The huge young doctor took him fifty feet up the corridor. “First I’ll give you the scoop, and then you’ll answer some questions. We just read the wet plates. Shock is under control. She’s semiconscious. She was hurting so bad, I deadened the areas of trauma. Sedation isn’t indicated so soon after shock. She’s got a cracked vertebra in her neck, a crushed left antrum, the cheekbone mashed back in, and the skin split over it, a simple jaw fracture, one molar knocked clean out and three loosened. There’s no skull fracture, but there’s indication of a dandy concussion. And I nearly forgot, a fracture of the middle finger of the right hand. The nurse caught that. I was about to miss it. She’ll need to be watched close. I’ve ordered a special. We’ve fastened the jaw in place temporarily. We’ll have to see if she’s well enough to work on tomorrow. Who are you and what’s the relationship?”
Slam the Big Door Page 19
