What of Terry Conniston?

by Brian Garfield

  She detected movement in the corner of her vision and shifted her glance to see the stirring of a screen door at the end of the far wing of the house. She had a glimpse of Frankie Adams’ lizard-narrow shape before the comedian disappeared inside. Irritated, she wondered how long he had been standing there watching her. He was a creepy one—one of Louise’s friends from show business. He had a worn-out slimy quality like old clothes with too much shine on them. She couldn’t understand why her father tolerated Adams; but then she hadn’t understood her father for a long time anyway.

  She went inside, showered, dried her hair, put on a gray Neiman-Marcus minidress and matching sandals and looked at herself critically in the mirror. The female Dorian Grey, she thought. Glow of tan over fair young skin; a face somehow innocent of the fury raging inside.

  Hair tumbling loose over one shoulder, handbag and school-books clutched in her arm, she hurried out of her room into the corridor; she intended to go right by the office but her father came out—as if he had been lying in wait—and blocked her way. “Hi. Being exclusive, Baby?”

  I wish you wouldn’t call me that. “Hi.” Her smile was quick and false. Behind him she saw Carl Oakley in the office, tall and good-looking, preoccupied; Oakley mirrored her uncomfortable smile. Business problems, she guessed—they both looked wrung-out. Whatever it is, I’m sure money will fix it. Money always does. Her father’s answer to her every problem was, Here—buy yourself a pretty thing.

  Her father frowned earnestly. “Leaving early?”

  “Something I want to look up in the university library before class.” It was a lie: she had to get out of this house.

  “Uh,” he said, too indifferent to press her. He made a half-turn back into the office but then he changed his mind, stopped, watched her. “We ought to make time to talk. Hell of a busy summer somehow, time just frittering away.”

  Don’t tell me about all the things you haven’t had time for. I’m at the top of the list. She glanced at Carl Oakley. Now might be a good time, with Carl standing there—Carl would be a brake on her father. She said, “Summer term ends next week, you know. After exams I think I’ll go to New York.” She had a smoky voice.

  He was shocked. “New York? What about Bennington? What about school?”

  “I’m sick of it—I need a break. I’ll take a semester off, what’s wrong with that? Maybe I’ll go back in the spring.”

  “But—” He looked around over his shoulder, seeking help from Oakley, who only looked on judiciously and said nothing. “What can you do in New York? Buy better clothes? Drink better wine? It’s just as good right here.”

  She halved her nervous smile. “I guess I just want to try it on for size,” she said, and stepped past him.

  “Wait.”

  She made a half-turn and looked at him slantwise, her hair swinging forward across her face. Her father spread his hands helplessly. “Can’t talk to you. Why can’t we talk to each other any more?”

  “Let’s skip it, Daddy.”

  “No. Been skipping it too long. Christ, all our children deserve better parents. You can’t live very long without hurting someone, Baby—I’ve made my mistakes. But don’t just run out on me without a word.”

  It was so unlike him to feel at fault that she only stared. Where had all this sudden guilt come from? She hadn’t said a word! Past him, moving forward to fill the office doorway with his wide shoulders, Carl Oakley wore a worried frown which he wiped off his face quickly when Conniston turned a beseeching glance toward him. She noticed in her father’s cheek a rhythmic tic she had never seen before. Her father said, “Maybe you’re right—maybe you need a break. You’ve been in school what, fifteen years, fourteen? Suppose you take a few months off, go to Europe. Maybe you and Louise could go together”—Terry made a face but he didn’t see it—”buy some clothes, bring back some paintings, go skiing in Austria Christmastime. How’d that be? I’ll arrange all the tickets.”

  Had he never realized his kind of checkbook generosity killed love? “Daddy, please, for heaven’s sake!” What do you want now? You’ve never missed me. You’ve never shared anything with me.

  His shoulders lifted. “If you’re a single girl in New York—look, the place is just no good for you.”

  She said wearily, “Please stop treating me like a child.”

  “Why should I? You’re a star-spangled adolescent, Baby.”

  “With a mind of her own,” she shot back, and wheeled away.

  He caught her by the elbow and spun her around; she almost lost her balance. His fist hurt her arm; she winced and he withdrew it quickly, but not before a sudden hot rage flooded the tissues of her body with a debilitating shortness of breath. “Let go of me—leave me alone!” She took a step backward and braced a hand against the corridor wall.

  A dark scowl clouded his face. “Look at her, Carl. What about this escapist generation? Get tired of college so they just bug out—got the attention span of a six-year-old. Baby, time you learned to finish what you start.”

  “You were ready ten seconds ago to send me to Europe on a spree.”

  “A chance most girls would give their eyeteeth for. You turned it down—why? Out of spite. What have I done to make you hate me?”

  Back to that again. She couldn’t make him out; he frightened her—and, by frightening her, angered her beyond reason.

  He dragged the back of a hand across his mouth. “Baby—”

  “Don’t call me that!” Her voice had climbed; she clamped her lips shut and backed away. Oakley came out of the doorway and put a hand on her father’s arm. Her father shook his head as if dazed and Terry spun toward the front of the house, almost running. She batted through the front room, ignoring Louise’s startled question; ran to the carport and climbed into the red Fiberglas Daimler sports car, tossing books and handbag onto the seat and turning the key hard enough to bend it. When the engine caught she backed out with a spray of gravel and manhandled the car viciously toward the gate. By the time she passed the feeder corrals the Daimler’s eight cylinders were roaring; she fishtailed onto the graded main road at forty miles an hour and kept the pedal floored until the little red car was doing eighty and a speck of thrown dust in her eye brought her back to reality. She rubbed her eye and let the car coast down to a reasonable speed, feeling tear-moisture against her finger. She was sure now that there was no meeting ground with him. She didn’t understand him and never would; he was beyond understanding. The only way to get along with him would be at a distance, where they might achieve some precarious truce; but close to him, she hated him. I do hate him—he’s right. God, I hate him. He had killed her brother. He had driven her mother away, first to the concert stage, then to the sanitarium where she languished now in alcohol-corroded unreality. He’ll do something to me too if I don’t get away.

  The wind caught the cover of a book on the passenger seat and flipped it open. She slapped it shut and turned it around on the seat with its spine to the wind. Modern Literary Criticism. The classroom would calm her down. It was a calm place, isolated, locked away from the rest of the world—a place where P.R. meant not public relations but Partisan Review. A room full of pot-smoking short-haired girls and long-haired boys with shaggy moustaches. It was a world that would never be hers, any more than her father’s would be; she despised his world of wealth and business but she would never fit into a literary ivory tower. By the cruel trick of birth she had been forced into a circumstance where the simple desire to be a woman—unsophisticated, without intellectual or financial pretense, just a woman to make a home and have babies—was denied her.

  Seething, her mind on fire, not knowing what she wanted or how she felt, she drove at four thirty past a dusty side road that led to some forgotten destination across the hills; a dusty car was parked along the shoulder with two or three vague shapes inside but she didn’t notice it when she went by at sixty miles an hour. Four hours from now she would return by this route and pass the same side road.

 
Dressed casually for dinner, Oakley entered the splendid dark-oak dining room shortly after six o’clock in time to see Earle Conniston pour a glass of gin and anoint it with a few drops of vermouth. Conniston had got a grip on himself after Terry’s stormy departure and hadn’t said a word about it since. Oakley, his eyes narrowed with conjecture, was only faintly aware of Louise’s approach until she snapped her fingers in front of him and laughed gaily—too gaily, he thought—and, having gained his attention, presented him to the house guest, Frankie Adams, who wore Bermuda shorts and a loud short-sleeved Hawaiian sports shirt, garments which revealed undue lengths of unattractive bony legs and flaccid hairy arms. Adams had a small round head dominated by the biggest nose Oakley had ever seen.

  Shaking the little man’s hand was like gripping a fresh-caught trout. Making conversation, Oakley said, “That’s a pretty wild shirt.”

  “Yeah. It got arrested twice.” Frankie Adams grinned, showing capped teeth. His hair was slicked back, thick and Indian-black; his narrow face was meticulously shaved to minimize a Mediterranean beard-stubble and he smelled of expensive after-shave. He had the knowing eye of an accomplished procurer, the raspy voice of a pitchman; whatever his past, it had burdened him with a stealthy appearance; yet for all that, Oakley did not find him disagreeable. (He recalled a remark of Conniston’s an hour ago, sour reference to Adams: “Been here six days now. No telling when we’ll get rid of him. Some people can stay longer in a week than others can in a year.”)

  Oakley said desultorily, “You and Louise knew each other in New York.”

  “Worked some of the same teevee shows,” Adams said, and struck an Ed Sullivan pose. “And on our shew t’night, lez an’ gennulmen, the wunnenonly LLLOOOOZE HARRIS, straight from her starrn role on Browway with Misser HENNRY FONNA—Now lessere it for Franchie Athams, lez an’ gennulmen, Franchie Athams!”

  Adams bowed to the audience and coughed behind his wrist.

  Conniston came from the side bar with a small round wooden tray holding four drinks. It did not escape Oakley that the liquid in the drinks trembled. Louise was still laughing merrily at Adams’ imitation of Sullivan; Oakley had to admit it had been uncanny, even considering Sullivan’s imitability. The tone and quality of the voice had been exact, the phrasing perfect. Adams wheeled toward Louise and launched into Henry Fonda doing a Wyatt Earp speech from My Darling Clementine, which convulsed her; Conniston looked on, unamused. Louise’s tawny hair gathered light; unconsciously she struck theatrical poses in Adams’ company. (“Seems the sonofabitch out of work,” Conniston had explained. “Camping out with old buddies until his agent can get him bookings. Says he’s broke because he played slow horses. Told me his father was always ahead of his time, went bankrupt in 1928, which was supposed to break me up in helpless laughter. Can’t stand the debauched little bastard.” Understandable, now that Oakley had met Adams: the comedian had a flip manner of a sort offensive to the sanctimonious—and Conniston, in his profane way, was the most pious of men.)

  Conniston stood a slight distance apart, drinking quickly, watching Adams distastefully. Suddenly Adams turned toward Oakley, breaking off his drawl, and winked brashly. “Tell you what, Carl, send message Cairo cancel Russian oil leases or we pull out. Hell with widows and orphans. What’s one lousy billion? Teach sonabitch Arabs thing or two. Make him realize Conniston important man.”

  Adams was halfway through the speech before any of them caught on to the fact that he was doing Conniston—and doing him with eerie accuracy, down to the shoulderlifting gesture and the fast blink of eyes. The speech completed, Adams settled back to await applause. It was forthcoming only from Louise. Embarrassed, Oakley did not stir. Conniston drew himself up. Adams beamed at him, dapper and pouter-pigeon-proud. “You ready for that, hey?”

  “I don’t find that amusing,” Conniston remarked. He turned his back to Adams and strode across the room to the bar.

  Adams’ face fell; Louise said, “Really, darling”—calling her husband “darling” with steely emphasis.

  Conniston mixed a fresh martini for himself before he replied; then, turning to face them, he said caustically, “Don’t tell me you’re afraid I’ve put guest’s nose out of joint.”

  Trying to cut the tension, Adams said weakly, “Let’s have no loose remarks about my nose.” He tried to smile. With a nervous gesture toward his feet he said, “I sure admire your house, Earle. Never saw a carpet like this—you need snowshoes to travel it. Oh hell, never mind me, I thought it was funny, hey? Didn’t mean to insult you. Chalk it up I’ve spent too many years in fourth-rate clubs MC’ing blue acts. MC, that’s Mental Case, hey? Look, I’m sorry, okay?”

  Oakley watched the jewel-hard shine of Louise’s glance against Conniston. Conniston shook his head and threw back his head to drain the martini at one gulp; afterward he said, “All right—all right. Didn’t mean to fly off handle. Been a lousy day—apologize.”

  “Sure—sure,” Adams said, and stood silent, having run out of things to say.

  “Really!” Louise breathed, and strode toward the kitchen, walking with a magnificent jounce and heave of young buttocks which seemed to writhe with a life of their own. Oakley caught the way Adams stared at her, unblinking. He distinctly heard Adams whisper, “Yes sirree Bob,” although it was plain Conniston didn’t catch it. When Oakley threw a direct glance at Adams the comedian met it with a guileless lecherous wink. Oakley turned half away and closed his eyes. So that was how it was: Louise’s childish revenge. She would use Adams to pay Conniston back for his “neglect.” That was why she had uttered her extraordinary plea earlier: “He just shuts me out. What can I do?” She had been absolving herself of the blame for it. Trying to convince Oakley that whatever happened was Earle’s fault, not hers. She was an actress; she needed an audience to applaud her performance; she wanted Oakley’s good opinion.

  She must hate Earle terribly to do it right here in his own house under his nose. Watching Conniston’s broad tense back as Conniston poured himself a third drink, Oakley thought, I don’t know if I can blame her.

  A few hours later the phone rang.

  C H A P T E R Six

  Mitch Baird squatted brooding on his haunches. Below him he could see the road winding north through the hills. The heat, rising from the earth in the dusk, sucked sweat from his pores. Out across the flayed surrealist landscape dust-devils funneled erratically in yellow wheelings of sand and twigs and leaves.

  He turned around on his heels. Floyd Rymer nodded and smiled. Beyond Floyd, down in the dry arroyo, Mitch could see the dusty Oldsmobile. Theodore and Billie Jean were in the back seat. Georgie Rymer sat on a rock near the car, yawning and scratching.

  Floyd looked at his watch. “Another forty minutes, about.”

  Mitch’s eyes flickered when they touched Floyd’s. Floyd said, “Your mouth looks like a coathanger. Smile. You’re about to break out in dollar signs, remember?”

  Mitch drew in a deep breath. “I don’t like this. It’s too risky.”

  “Nothing’s risky if the stakes are high enough. Mitch, me thinks you complain too much.” The hooded gray eyes smiled lazily with cool disdain.

  “They’ll be after us for stealing that Olds, you know.”

  “Relax. These country cops have trouble finding the chief of police. The license plates are clean.”

  Mitch held his tongue. No point arguing with Floyd. All he wanted was to get away from the whole nightmare. But Floyd hadn’t let him out of his sight.

  Floyd’s eyes, wary and predatory, scrutinized him with secret amusement. “You know what you’re supposed to do.”

  “Yeah—yeah.” Mitch felt sick. “But the whole thing’s stupid.”

  “On the contrary. Mitch?”

  “What?”

  “You fuck this one up and I’ll feed you to the birds. Understood?” Floyd took the snub-barrel revolver out of his windbreaker pocket and spun it casually on his finger like a gunslinger in a Western movie. It was the only gun in the gr
oup. Floyd didn’t trust anyone else with one.

  “Take heart, Mitch,” Floyd breathed. “Into each life a little loot must fall.” He smiled and got to his feet like a cobra uncoiling. “Après vous, mon ami.” He gestured with the .38, still smiling.

  Mitch got to his feet and climbed carefully down to the car. His desert-boots dislodged pebbles and made a tiny avalanche that spilled into the arroyo with a racket. Forewarned by the noise, Billie Jean opened the back door of the car and adjusted her dress down around her meaty hips while she climbed out. Theodore made a lunge for her, missed, and barked an obscenity; he came roaring out of the car and got the laughing girl in a hammerlock.

  Floyd came off the hill and stood with his feet braced, scowling. “All right, get untangled, you two. Georgie?”

  Georgie appeared beyond the car, coming forward, trying to walk like his brother. “Everything okay?”

  Floyd looked at his watch. “Seven o’clock, and all’s well.”

  “I could use a jolt,” Georgie complained. “You know. A cat gets tense, time like this?”

  “You’ll get one,” Floyd said. Theodore and Billie Jean stirred, came forward toward the hood of the car and ranged themselves alongside Georgie. Mitch hung back. Floyd gave him a dry glance and said, “What ho. Everybody ready?”