I straightened up, breathing through my mouth so I didn’t have to smell him or the house. I stared down at him, hands on my hips, puzzling frantically what to do.
His eyes were closed, his respiration shallow but steady. I thought his face was losing some of that greenish hue that had frightened me. I decided not to call the police or paramedics. I took off my hat and coat and placed them gingerly on a club chair with a brown corduroy slipcover discolored with an enormous red stain on the seat cushion. Wine or blood.
I wandered back into the house. I found a small kitchen from which most of the odors seemed to be emanating. And no wonder; it was a swamp. I picked a soiled dishtowel off the floor and held it under the cold water tap in the scummed sink. Pipes knocked, the water ran rusty, then cleared, and I soaked the towel, wrung it out, soaked it again, wrung it out again.
I carried it back to the parlor. I pulled a straight chair alongside the chesterfield. I sat down and bent over the Reverend Stokes. I wiped his face gently with the dampened towel. His eyes opened suddenly. He stared at me dazedly. His eyes were spoiled milk, curdled and cloudy.
A clawed hand came up and pushed the towel aside. I folded it and laid it across his parchment brow. He let me do that and let the towel remain.
“I fainted?” he said in a wispy voice.
“Something like that,” I said, nodding. “You started to go down. I caught you and brought you in here.”
“In the study,” he whispered, “across the hall, a bottle of whiskey, a half-filled glass. Bring them in here.”
I looked at him, troubled.
“Please,” he breathed.
I went into the study, a shadowed chamber littered with books, journals, magazines: none of them new. The room was dominated by a large walnut desk topped with scarred and ripped maroon leather. The whiskey and glass were on the desk. I took them and started out.
On a small marble-topped smoking stand near the door was a white plaster replica of Michelangelo’s “David.” It was the only clean, shining, lovely object I had seen in that decaying house. I had seen nothing of a religious nature—no pictures, paintings, icons, statuary, crucifixes, etc.
I brought him the whiskey. He raised a trembly hand and I held the glass to his lips. He gulped greedily and closed his eyes. After a moment he opened his eyes again, flung the towel from his brow onto the floor. He took the glass from my hand. Our fingers touched. His skin had the chill of death.
“There’s another glass,” he said. “In the kitchen.”
His voice was stronger but it still creaked. It had an unused sound: harsh and croaky.
“Thank you, no,” I said. “It’s a little early for me.”
“Is it?” he said without interest.
I sat down in the straight chair again and watched him finish the tumbler of whiskey. He filled it again from the bottle on the floor. I didn’t recognize the label. It looked like a cheap blend.
“You told me your name?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Joshua Bigg.”
“Now I remember. Joshua Bigg. I don’t recognize you, Mr. Bigg. Where are you from?”
“New York City, sir.”
“New York,” he repeated, and then with a pathetic attempt at gaiety, he said, “East Side, West Side, all around the town.”
He tried to smile at me. When his thin, whitish lips parted, I could see his stained dentures. His gums seemed to have shrunk, for the false teeth fitted loosely and he had to clench his jaws frequently to jam them back into place. It was like a pained grimace.
“I was in New York once,” he said dreamily. “Years and years ago. I went to the theatre. A musical play. What could it have been? I’ll remember in a moment.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what brings you to our fair city, Mr. Bigg?”
I was afraid of saying the name again. I feared he might have the same reaction. But I had to try it.
“I wanted to talk to you about the Reverend Godfrey Knurr, Pastor,” I said softly.
His eyes closed again. “Godfrey Knurr?” Stokes repeated. “No, I can’t recall the name. My memory…”
I wasn’t going to let him get away with that.
“It’s odd you shouldn’t remember,” I said. “I spoke to his sister, Miss Goldie Knurr, and she told me you helped him get into the seminary, that you helped him in so many ways. And I saw a photograph of you with young Godfrey.”
Suddenly he was crying. It was awful. Cloudy tears slid from those milky eyes. They slipped sideways into his sunken temples, then into his feathered hair.
“Is he dead?” he gasped.
First Goldie Knurr and now the Reverend Stokes. Was the question asked hopefully? Did they wish him dead?
I turned my eyes away, not wanting to sit there and watch this shattered man weep. After a while I heard him snuffle a few times and take a gulp from the glass he held on his thin chest. Then I looked at him again.
“No, sir,” I said, “he is not dead. But he’s in trouble, deep trouble. I represent a legal firm. A client intends to bring very serious charges against the Reverend Knurr. I am here to make a preliminary investigation…”
My voice trailed away; he wasn’t listening to me. His lips were moving and I leaned close to hear what he was saying.
“Evil,” the Reverend Ludwig Stokes was breathing. “Evil, evil, evil, evil…”
I sat back. It seemed a hopeless task to attempt to elicit information from this old man. Goldie Knurr had been right; he was fuddled.
But then he spoke clearly and intelligibly.
“Do you know him?” he asked. “Have you seen him?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I spoke to him yesterday. He seems to be in good health. He has a beard now. He runs a kind of social club in Greenwich Village for poor boys and he also counsels individual, uh, dependents. Mostly wealthy women.”
His face twisted and he clenched his jaw to press his dentures back into place. A thin rivulet of whiskey ran from the corner of his mouth and he wiped it away slowly with the back of one hand.
“Wealthy women,” he repeated, his voice dull. “Yes, yes, that would be Godfrey.”
“Reverend Stokes,” I said, “I’m curious as to why Knurr selected the ministry as his career. I can find nothing in his boyhood that indicates any great religiosity.” I paused, stared at him. “Was it to avoid the draft?” I asked bluntly.
“Partly that,” he said in a low voice. “If his family had had the money, he would have wished to go to a fashionable eastern college. That was his preference, but it was impossible. Even I didn’t have that kind of money.”
“He asked for it? From you?”
He didn’t answer.
“I understand he had good marks in high school,” I went on. “Perhaps he could have obtained a scholarship, worked to help support himself?”
“It wasn’t his way,” he said.
“Then he could have gone to a low-tuition, state-supported college. Why the ministry?”
“Opportunity,” the Reverend Stokes said without expression.
“Opportunity?” I echoed. “To save souls? I can’t believe that of Godfrey Knurr. And surely not the monetary rewards of being an ordained minister.”
“Opportunity,” he repeated stubbornly. “That’s how he saw it.”
I thought about that, trying to see it as a young ambitious Godfrey Knurr had.
“Wealthy parishioners?” I guessed. “Particularly wealthy female parishioners? Maybe widows and divorcées? Was that how his mind worked?”
Again he didn’t answer. He emptied the bottle into his tumbler and drained it in two gulps.
“There’s another in the kitchen,” he told me. “In the cupboard under the sink.”
I found the bottle. I also found a reasonably clean glass for myself and rinsed it several times, scrubbing the inside with my fingers. I brought bottle and glass back to the parlor, sat down again, and poured him half a tumbler and myself a small dollop.
“You
r health, sir,” I said, raising my glass. I barely wet my lips.
“He was a handsome boy?” I asked, coughing. “Godfrey Knurr?”
He made a sound.
“Yes,” he said in his creaky voice, “very handsome. And strong. A beautiful boy. Physically.”
I caught him up on that.
“Physically?” I said. “But what of his personality, his character?”
Another of his maddening silences.
“Charm,” he said, then buried his nose in his glass. After he swallowed he repeated, “Charm. A very special charm. There was a golden glow about him.”
“He must have been very popular,” I said, hoping to keep his reminiscences flowing.
“You had to love him,” he said, sighing. “In his presence you felt happy. More alive. He promised everything.”
“Promised?” I said, not understanding.
“I felt younger,” he said, voice low. “More hopeful. Life seemed brighter. Just having him near.”
“Did he ever visit you here, in your home?”
Again he began to weep, and I despaired of learning anything of significance from this riven man.
I waited until his eyes stopped leaking. This time he didn’t bother wiping the tears away. The wet glistened like oil on his withered face. He drank deeply, finished his whiskey. His trembling hand pawed feebly for the full bottle on the floor. I served him. I had never before seen a man drink with such maniacal determination, as if unconsciousness could not come soon enough.
He lay there, wax fingers clamped around the glass on his bony chest. He stared unblinking at the ceiling. I felt I was sitting up with a corpse, waiting for the undertaker’s men to come and take their burden away.
“I understand he was in trouble as a boy,” I continued determinedly. “In a drugstore where he worked. He was accused of stealing.”
“He made restitution,” the old man said, his thin lips hardly moving. “Paid it all back.”
“You gave him the money for that?” I guessed.
I hardly heard his faint, “Yes.” Then…
“I gave him so much!” he howled in a voice so loud it startled me. “Not only money, but myself. I gave him myself! I taught him about poetry and beauty. Love. He said he understood, but he didn’t. He was playing with me. He teased me. All the time he was teasing me, and it gave him pleasure.”
I felt suddenly ill as I began to glimpse the proportions of this tragedy. Now I could understand that screeched, “Nothing happened!” And the statue of David. And the whispered, “Evil, evil, evil…”
“You loved him?” I asked gently.
“So much,” he said in a harrowed voice. “So much…”
He lifted his head to drain his tumbler, then held it out to me in a quavery hand. I filled it without compunction.
“You never married, Reverend?” I asked.
“No. Never.” He was staring at the ceiling again, seeing things that weren’t there.
“Did you tell Godfrey how you felt about him?”
“He knew.”
“And?”
“He used me. Used me! Laughing. The devil incarnate. All I saw was the golden glow. And then the darkness beneath.”
“Knowing that, Pastor, why did you help him become a man of God?”
“Weakness. I did not have the strength of soul to withstand him. He threatened me.”
“Threatened you? How? You said that nothing happened.”
“Nothing did. But I had written him. Notes. Poems. They would have ruined me. The church…”
Notes again. I was engulfed in notes, false and true…
I took a deep breath, trying to comprehend the extent of such perfidy. The pattern of Godfrey Knurr’s life was becoming plainer. An ambition too large for his discipline to contain was the motive for trading on his charm. He moved grinning from treachery to treachery, leaving behind him a trail of scars, wounds, broken lives.
And finally, I was convinced, two murders that meant no more to him than a rifled cash register or this betrayed wreck of a man.
“So you did whatever he demanded?” I said, nailing it down. “Got him out of scrapes, got him into the seminary? Gave him money?”
“All,” he said. “All. I gave him everything. My soul. My poor little shriveled soul.”
His words “shriveled soul” came out slurred and garbled, almost lost between his whiskey-loosened tongue and those ill-fitting dentures. I did not think he was far from the temporary oblivion he sought.
“Sylvia Wiesenfeld,” I said. “You knew her?”
He didn’t answer.
“You did,” I told him. “Her father owned the drugstore where Godfrey stole the money. A lovely girl. So vulnerable. So willing. I saw her picture. Did she love Godfrey, too?”
His eyes were closed again. But his lips were moving faintly, fluttering. I rose, bent over him, put my ear close to his mouth, as if trying to determine if a dying man still breathed.
“What?” I said sharply. “I didn’t hear that. Please repeat it.”
This time I heard.
“I married them,” he said.
I straightened up, took a deep breath. I looked down at the shrunken, defenseless hulk. All I could think of was: Godfrey Knurr did that.
I took the whiskey glass from his strengthless fingers and set it on the floor alongside the couch. He seemed to be breathing slowly but regularly. The tears had dried on his face, but whitish matter had collected in the corners of his eyes and mouth. Occasionally his body twitched, little moans escaped his lips like gas released from something corrupt.
I wandered about the lower floor of the house. I found a knitted afghan in the hall closet, brought it back to the parlor, and covered the Reverend Ludwig Stokes, a bright shroud for a gray man.
Then I went back into his study and poked about. I finally found a telephone directory in the lowest drawer of the old walnut desk. There was an S. Wiesenfeld on Sherman Street, not too far from the home of Goldie Knurr. It seemed strange that such tumultuous events had occurred in such a small neighborhood.
The woman who answered my ring was certainly not Sylvia Wiesenfeld; she was a gargantuan black woman, not so tall but remarkable in girth. Her features, I thought, might be pleasant in repose, but when she opened the door, she was scowling and banging an iron frying pan against one redwood thigh. She looked down at me.
“We ain’t buying,” she said.
“Oh, I’m not selling anything,” I hurriedly assured her. “My name is Joshua Bigg. I represent a legal firm in New York City. I’ve been sent out to make inquiries into the background of Godfrey Knurr. I was hoping to have a few minutes’ conversation with Miss Wiesenfeld.”
She looked at me suspiciously.
“You who?” she said. “You New York folks talk so fast.”
“Joshua Bigg,” I answered slowly. “That’s my name. I’m trying to obtain information about Godfrey Knurr. I’d like to talk to Sylvia Wiesenfeld for a few moments.”
“You the law?” she demanded.
“No,” I said, “not exactly. I represent attorneys who, in turn, represent a client who is bringing suit against the Reverend Godfrey Knurr. I’m just making a preliminary investigation, that’s all.”
“You going to hang him?” she demanded. “I hope.”
I tried to smile.
“Well…ah…” I said, “I’m sure our client would like to. May I speak to Miss Wiesenfeld for a few moments?”
She glared at me, making up her mind. That heavy cast-iron frying pan kept banging against her bulging thigh. I was very conscious of it.
“Well…” she said finally, “all right.” Then she added fiercely, “You get my honey upset, I break yo’ ass!”
“No, no,” I said hastily, “I won’t upset her, I promise.”
She stared down at me again.
“You and me,” she said menacingly, “we come to it, I figure I come out on top.”
“Absolutely,” I assured her. “No do
ubt about it. I’ll behave; I really will.”
Suddenly she grinned: a marvelous human grin of warmth and understanding.
“I do believe,” she said. “Come on in, lawyer-man.”
She led me into a neat entrance hall, hung my coat and hat on an oak hall rack exactly like the one in Miss Goldie Knurr’s home.
“May I know your name, please, ma’am?” I asked her.
“Mrs. Harriet Lee Livingston,” she said in a rich contralto voice. “I makes do for Miz Sylvia.”
“How long have you been with her?”
“Longer than you been breathin’,” she said.
The enormous bulk of the woman was awesome. That had to be the largest behind I had ever seen on a human being, and the other parts of her were in proportion: arms and legs like waists, and a neck that seemed as big around as her head.
But her features were surprisingly clear and delicate, with slanty eyes, a nice mouth, and a firm chin that had a deep cleft precisely in the center. You could have inserted a dime in that cleft. Her hands and feet were unexpectedly dainty, and she moved lightly, with grace.
Her color was a briar brown. She wore a voluminous shift, a shapeless tent with pockets. It was a kaleidoscope of hues: splashes of red, yellow, purple, blue, green—all in a jangling pattern that dazzled the eye.
“You stand right here,” she said sternly. “Right on this spot. I’ll tell Miz Sylvia she’s got a visitor. I takes you in without warning, she’s liable to get upset.”
“I won’t move,” I promised.
She opened sliding wooden doors, squeezed through, closed the two doors behind her. I hadn’t seen doors like that since I left my uncle’s home in Iowa. They were paneled, waxed to a high gloss, fitted with brass hardware: amenities of a bygone era.
The doors slid open again and Mrs. Livingston beckoned me forward.
“Speak nice,” she whispered.
“I will,” I vowed.
“I be right here to make sure you do,” she said grimly.
The woman facing me from across the living room was small, slight, with long silvered blonde hair giving her a girlish appearance, although I knew she had to be at least forty. I could not see a leg brace; she wore a collarless gown of bottle-green velvet, a lounging or hostess gown, that fell to her ankles.
The Tenth Commandment Page 38
