John D. Macdonald

The Doll

One midweek evening he had sprayed the patch of crab grass, and now, on Saturday morning, it was lurid and twisted with overgrowth. Steve was on his knees, rooting it out. tossing it into a bushel basket. He worked steadily in the heat of the late August sun. hearing behind him the splat-splat of ball into mitt as Paulie played catch with the Quinn boy from the next block. Diana had taken her scrapbook collection of movie and TV stars across the street to the home of her friend. Betty Baker. He could hear, inside the house, the warm humming of the vacuum cleaner, operated by the capable and monolithic Mrs. Chandler. In the driveway next door a heavy young man, too well dressed for the job, was polishing a sleek new black Cadillac sedan.

Steve Dalvin straightened up to rest his back for a moment, and thought that Ellen would be enormously amused if she could see him puttering around during these weekends, manicuring the lawn. It was hard, very hard, to realize she had been dead over a year. It had been such a tragic, useless, pointless death. It had broken him into small random fragments. Paulie and Diana had been sent off to stay with Ellen’s parents for a time. It had taken him six months to learn that no answer could be found in whisky, in the arms of women anxious to comfort him, or even in work that left him exhausted. He had quit his job, done manual labor, and then, doggedly, inevitably, had recreated the family unit. Only it was not the same without Ellen, of course.

He took a small new house where she was not around every corner, where she was not in the kitchen each time you sat in the living room, where you didn’t listen for her to come wheeling into the driveway with that reckless casualness that had killed her.

Now he was finding satisfaction and a form of contentment in the closeness and trust of the small family unit. Paulie, at twelve, and Diana, at seven, had the odd emotional resiliency of the young. The sound of their laughter was good.

Mrs. Chandler, who lived nearby, had been a find. She was an elderly woman, widowed about the same time Ellen had been killed. Her son and daughter-in-law lived with her. Mrs. Chandler, a vast, gray woman of little warmth, was efficient and responsible.

Yes, Ellen would be amused at seeing her husband grubbing sedately around in the yard. The only lingering effect of her death that he could see in himself, outside of the inevitable loneliness, was an explosive fury that he had learned to control. It was something that would grow inside him until he wanted to smash walls with his hands, tilt his head back and roar at the sky.

“You call that a curve?” Paulie cried tauntingly to the Quinn boy. “Just watch this old curve.”

Steve grinned and bent over the dying crab grass again. Paulie was the immediate problem. He had inherited Ellen’s wiry, lithe strength instead of Steve’s bulk. And her sensitivity and imaginativeness had also been given him. Adolescence was going to be a rough time for Paulie. He was the quicksilver of Ellen, and Diana had inherited all Steve’s calm and stubbornness and implacability.

The young man next door with the heavy face was whistling monotonously as he polished the car. An odd setup. They had moved into the house next door over a month ago, and even Mrs. Chandler, with her curiosity and watchfulness, had been unable to determine who was who. Heavy-set men and brightly dressed young women came and went. There were regular poker games into the small hours of the morning, but never any noise. Low voices, and many comings and goings. The house had been purchased by a Mr. Prade. and the rumor was that he had something to do with the restaurant business. The Cadillacs and cases of bonded liquor and the fur coats on some of the women seemed at odds with the new, bright, cheap subdivision.

Steve heard the Quinn boy say, “Hey! Sorry, Paulie.” He heard the ball whisk through the hedge and thud hard against metal. Steve straightened up, frowning, and saw that the ball had banged against the door of the new black Cadillac sedan.

Paulie trotted through a gap in the hedge. He said to the man, “He was trying to throw a curve, and it was wild.”

The heavy young man stared soberly at the door. He didn’t look at Paulie. Paulie pounced on the ball, and as he straightened up, the young man dropped the polishing cloth, caught the front of Paulie’s T-shirt and, with casual, deadpan brutality, began to whip his heavy hand back and forth across Paulie’s mouth. Steve was standing rigid with shock. The slaps sounded thick and ugly in the morning sunlight.

At Paulie’s first cry of shock and pain Steve went toward them at a dead run, his feet noiseless on the grass. The young man must have caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned his face sharply into the big fist Steve had swung with all his strength.

The blue-white bolt of pain that crashed up through Steve’s arm blinded him, and he did not even hear the sound of the blow. Steve clamped his broken hand against his belly. The heavy-shouldered young man rocked, half-lifted his hands, and then went down with a strange slowness, sitting on his heels for a moment, then sprawling onto his side and rolling over onto his back. The left side of his face had a distorted, out-of-focus look.

Paulie stood with his eyes wide, blood on his mouth, sobs catching in his throat. The Quinn boy stared warily from the other side of the hedge, his face chalk-pale. Steve said harshly, “Paulie, you and your friend go into the house. Ask Mrs. Chandler to fix your mouth.”

He waited until they went up the back steps and into the house. He looked at his hand. It was beginning to swell. He walked around the car and went to the back of the house next door. A short, thick-set man stood just inside the screen door looking out mildly. He had a large, bland face, a head that was bald except for a fringe of delicate blond hair.

“You’re Prade, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. I saw it. That was a good thing you did, friend. Marty is stupid. I think you bust your hand. An X-ray you ought to have.” His voice was mild and casual.

“That man out there, that Marty—”

“You hit him. I see him fall. That your kid? Sorry it happened.” He pushed the door open and came heavily down the steps. Steve followed him over to the car. Marty was still out. Prade looked down at the unconscious man. and then he turned and stared at Steve. Steve saw that the man’s blue eyes seemed as lacking in depth as pale-blue marbles. Prade put one foot on Marty’s shoulder and joggled him. The man’s head rolled back and forth.

“Don’t you think you ought to call a doctor?”

Prade turned toward the house and bellowed, “Irene! Hey, Irene!”

A tall girl in a yellow sun suit came out the back door, squinting in the bright sunlight. “What you want, Lew?”

“Go call Doc Dressner. Tell him to get over here with his ambulance. Tell him we got a package for him.”

The girl came into the yard and stared at Marty. She gave Steve an appraising look. Lew Prade took two steps toward her and faked a kick. “Go phone, big nose,” he said with rough affection.

Prade said, “You can go along in the ambulance, and Doc will fix you up. He’s got nurses and X-ray at his place.”

“That man might be hurt badly, Mr. Prade. It ought to be reported to the police.”

“What’s your name?”

“Dalvin, Steve Dalvin.”

“Stevie, the cops don’t care if a guy trips over a hose and bangs his face on a car bumper. We both saw him fall just like I said. You lose time off work with that broken hand?”

“My secretary can sign letters for me.”

“What kind of a business you in?”

“I work for a contractor. Construction firm. Mostly road work.”

“I know all those boys. Which one?”

“Jennings and Ryan.”

“Nice clean people. Big outfit.”

Steve kept glancing at Marty. Lew Prade paid no more attention than if Marty were a dog sleeping near his feet. Steve didn’t like the way the man was breathing. His breath came irregularly, and it was a little labored.

Prade said, “Come on in and have a drink while we’re waiting.”

“I want to see how my boy is.”

“Sure. You go ahead. Come on over when you see the ambulance.”

“I can’t understand why he’d slap a kid around.”

“No sense. I guess he don’t like kids, anyway. He isn’t very bright. Hell, last week I send him out for cards. A dozen decks. Know what he comes back with, the featherhead?” Prade sighed and shook his head. “Pinochle decks!” He went toward the house, shaking his big head sadly.

Steve went into his kitchen. Paulie’s lips had puffed up. His eyes were full of awe and pride. “Boy, did you ever conk him! Geez, what a punch!”

The Quinn boy was staring at Steve’s hand. He yanked at Paulie’s arm and said, “Hey, look at your dad’s hand!”

Mrs. Chandler looked at Steve’s hand. “Fighting and brawling,” she muttered.

“I should have apologized for interrupting and asked him to please stop slapping my son around?”

The boys were back at the window. “He’s still out. Dad!” Paulie called with delight. “We were counting for a while. We quit when we got to two hundred. Are they just going to leave him there?”

“An ambulance is coming.” Steve said.

The Quinn boy looked at Steve with such naked worship that Steve felt an absurd desire to strut. But worry nagged him. The man could be seriously hurt. He had turned into the punch. And Steve had been running hard.

There didn’t seem to be any comfortable position in which he could hold his hand. It was half again the size of the other hand.

He said, “I’m going along in the ambulance to get this hand set.”

Paulie said. “Broken, eh?” He looked a little ill. He said, “I don’t know why the guy got so mad over a little thing like that. It didn’t even dent the car or anything.” Paulie stood very still. He said in a hushed tone, “I’m going to be sick to my stomach.”

“Run, run!” Mrs. Chandler said.

Paulie was docile about going to lie down, and Mrs. Chandler shooed the Quinn boy home. After the boy had left Steve realized that he should have told him to keep the incident to himself. Then he reflected that it probably wouldn’t have done any good. He was going to be a hero to the neighborhood small fry for quite some time.

When the ambulance backed into the drive he went across to the next house. A small, wiry man in creamy slacks and a sports shirt got out with the white-coated driver. The small man was kneeling beside Marty when Steve approached. The dark eyes flicked to Steve’s hand. “Quite a Sunday punch.” he said dryly.

“What do you think, Doctor?”

“Broke his cheekbone, maybe in a couple of places. And a concussion, I guess. Okay, Sam. Let’s load him.”

Lew Prade came across the yard. “Doc, take this fellow along and fix his hand. Have somebody bring him back. Bill me. Steve Dalvin, Doc Dressner. By the way, Doc. Marty tripped over that hose there and fell and hit his puss on the front bumper.”

“And Mr. Dalvin stepped on his own hand. Sure, Lew, sure. I understand.”

“Don’t be wise, Doc. Just don’t be wise. It’s too hot today.”

Dressner sighed in a tired way. “Sure, Lew. Ride up there with Sam, Mr. Dalvin. I’ll ride in back with the patient.”

“Highball it, Doc?” Sam asked.

“No. Normal speed, Sam.”

Sam, a young man with a narrow, anemic face, drove smoothly and well.

“Where are we going?” Steve asked.

Sam gave him a quick glance of surprise. “Doc Dressner’s place. Valley Vale. Don’t you know the place?”

“Yes, I know it. I didn’t know who owned it,” Steve said. He was grimly amused. Valley Vale was a private sanitarium primarily devoted to the treatment of alcoholism and mild nervous disorders. In the bars of Coleburne it was a standing joke. One more shot, Mac. and they’ll have you up in Valley Vale. There were nastier rumors about the place, too. Steve had driven past it many times. It was out on the Valley Road southwest of the city — a place of cedars and stone walls and ornate iron gates. When you drove by the gates you could see the green lawns inside, a segment of chateau architecture, and curving gravel drives.

When they reached the big gates they drove through them and in behind one of the buildings. Sam jumped down and swung the back doors open. A man came out of the doorway and helped with the wheeled stretcher. Marty was wheeled inside, and Steve followed.

A willowy black-eyed nurse in rustling starched white moved forward quickly. Dressner said, “I want a head X-ray on this one as fast as I can get it. Then take this man’s hand, Gloria. Mr. Dalvin, wait in there until the nurse calls you.”

The stretcher disappeared down the corridor. Steve went into a small waiting room. The magazines were new. the furniture new and smart. He looked out the window. At the foot of a long slope of green lawn was a kidney-shaped swimming pool, blossoming mushrooms of bright beach umbrellas, a group of people toasting in the sun, and someone swimming slowly back and forth across the pool.

After a few minutes the nurse came back. “Ready now, Mr. Dalvin. Follow me, please.”

In a small room the black mouth of the X-ray head pointed down at a draped table. She swung it over his hand, put the taped plate under his hand, set the dials, and went behind a small, lead-sheathed screen. The equipment buzzed as she took two shots of the back of his hand and two of the palm, moving his hand into the position she wanted it each time, careful not to hurt him. She had a pretty frown of concentration, and when she turned, the starched whiteness of her uniform drew tight along the warm lines of her tall body.

“Have you worked here long?”

“You can go back to the waiting room now, Mr. Dalvin. Dr. Dressner will see you as soon as we get the plates developed.” He flushed at the bluntness of the rebuff.

Twenty minutes later Dressner strolled into the waiting room. He sat on the corner of the desk and lit a cigarette. “Two clean breaks in that cheekbone,” he said. “No skull fracture. Severe concussion. May take him two hours or two days to come out of it. We’ll fix his face after he comes out of it.”

“I never hit anyone that hard before. I want you to know that—”

Dressner lifted his thin hand. “You heard Lew. He fell. That’s all I want to know. Understand?”

“Yes, but—”

“The nurse will be in with your pictures. We’ll see about that hand.”

Steve heard her light, quick footsteps in the hall. She came in and handed Dressner the four pictures. He spread them out on the desk and said, “Come take a look, Mr. Dalvin.”

Steve looked at the skeletal pictures. The look of the bones made him think of death. Dressner touched the pictures with a capped fountain pen. “This one here, a clean break. This one splintered a little. These knuckles jammed back. Be a little tendon damage. Gloria, I don’t think that hand is puffed too badly to take care of it right now. We’ll use a local, and put it in a cast.”

They worked together as a good team. They deadened his hand, set it, and put it in a cast. The nurse took more X-rays, and Dressner said he was satisfied with the job.

The cast was startlingly white. Gloria adjusted the height of the sling so it would be comfortable.

Dressner said. “That’ll give you trouble tonight. Maybe you won’t sleep much. But I don’t want to give you anything because you might sleep too hard and roll on it. Gloria, the keys are in the convertible. Be a good girl and drive Mr. Dalvin home.”

Gloria nodded. “I’ve some errands to do. If you wouldn’t mind waiting while I change, Mr. Dalvin—”

“Not at all. Doctor, can I phone and find out how—”

“Phone me about your hand if you want to, but if you want any dope on Marty, Lew will give it to you. I’ve got to go catch up with my guests, Mr. Dalvin. You can wait right here. Gloria won’t be long.”

Steve thanked him. The small doctor gave him a mock salute and left. Standing at the window, Steve saw him walk quickly down across the green lawns toward the group at the pool. A grill affair had been rolled into view, and a man in a chef’s hat was busy at the grill, preparing a charcoal fire.

In five minutes he heard the nurse in the corridor again, walking without any rustling of starch. She was hatless, wearing a sand-colored linen dress. She carried a white purse. “Ready?” she asked.

He walked beside her. “Nice of you to take me back.”

“Not at all, Mr. Dalvin.”

The car, an inexpensive lemon-colored convertible with a black top, was parked near an adjoining building. The nurse slid in and worked the top mechanism. The top folded into the well with a whirring sound. Steve looked up at the windows of the sanitarium and saw that they were barred. A young man wearing glasses looked down at them from one of the windows. His face was completely empty, shockingly empty.

“You have mental patients here, I understand.”

She backed the car deftly, her hand on top of the wheel, turned in the seat to look back over her shoulder. He saw that her hair was not jet. as he had supposed. The sun brought out reddish-brown glints. She said. “There’s a separate staff for the mental patients. I have nothing to do with them.”

She turned down the gravel drive. “It’s bigger than I thought.” he said.

“Yes, it is large,” she said. He felt faintly irritated at not being able to break through the nurse-patient relationship.

“Do you know Mr. Prade?”

“I know of him.”

“Good friend of Dr. Dressner’s?”

“I imagine so.”

She drove swiftly through traffic, jockeying for position, cutting across from lane to lane, judging the lights well. One light fooled her, changing just too soon. She had to wait.

“I guess it must be more interesting to work in a place like that than it would be in a public hospital.”

She looked at him calmly. “Mr. Dalvin, you keep giving me the impression that you’re trying to pump me. When Dr. Dressner asked me to take you home, it wasn’t a suggestion; it was an order.”

He felt himself flushing again. “I was making conversation.”

“It really isn’t necessary.”

“You keep giving the impression that you disapprove of me, Gloria.”

“My name is Miss Hess. If that was a question you just asked the answer is neither yes nor no. It just hadn’t occurred to me to approve or disapprove.”

He sighed. “Okay, okay.” He gave her the address. She turned at his direction several times and at last pulled up in front of his house. Diana came running out across the lawn, yelling, “Daddy, Daddy, Paulie says you hit a man and killed him and broke your hand. Did you, did you?”

He opened the door, and she stared wide-eyed at the sling and cast. “Miss Hess, this is my daughter, Diana. Honey, Miss Hess is a nurse. She helped fix my hand. And I didn’t kill anybody. Paulie shouldn’t say such stupid things.”

He took Diana’s hand and turned to thank Gloria Hess. Gloria wore a faintly puzzled expression. She looked at Diana and then at Steve.

He said, “Thanks for the ride, Miss Hess.” He closed the car door. She raced the motor and then let it idle. She looked obliquely at Steve. “You don’t work for Mr. Prade, I guess.”

He grinned. “If that is a question, Miss Hess, no. My son chased a ball into Mr. Prade’s yard. That man called Marty grabbed my son and started to slap him around pretty rough. Well, it — got me a little sore.”

She half smiled. “I should think it did. I... I’m sorry, Mr. Dalvin.”

“For what?”

She wrinkled her nose a little. Steve found the little grimace oddly entrancing. “Oh... just sorry.” The bright car shot away from the curb. He saw her hair blowing in the wind as she took the corner at the end of the street.

“That is a nice nurse!” Diana said judiciously and went into the house.

Steve stood by the porch and looked up at the corner where the car had disappeared. It had been a very long time since he had felt such a strong speculative interest in a girl. He had enjoyed watching her at Valley Vale, the way she moved, her pretty air of dedicated efficiency. Odd place to find her. And her manner had been strange with him. Almost brutally cool until she had found out that he did not work for Lew Prade. And then an apology.

He liked that sort of face. Cool and still and contained, and yet with more than a hint of all the warmth that was not permitted to break through. A woman who would keep herself to herself in normal human relationships, saving all the deep and spontaneous warmth for...

Steve, he told himself, your wheels are dragging. All that is for some young doctor with whom she is no doubt deeply and sincerely in love, and if she has the time of day for a beat old boy like you, that is just about all you can expect out of that particular department.

But, a truly wonderful wrinkle of the nose, to go with the oblique look.

The kids had had their lunch and were electioneering about the neighborhood movie. He sent them off with funds and suitable instructions about Paulie holding Diana’s hand while crossing the two streets. He watched them take off, Paulie running, Diana churning after him, making irate calliope sounds.

In the kitchen Mrs. Chandler glanced at his hand. “I fixed you nothing you can’t eat with one hand. Hurt, does it?”

“Not too bad.”

“Those people! Ought to be chased out of any decent neighborhood. Bunch of gangsters. Bunch of hoodlums with their cheap women. Hah!”

“I lost my temper.”

“Guess you did.” She set his lunch in front of him. “That Mrs. Quinn, she called up. all excited. Right after you left. Said her kid came home with a crazy story, and what was it all about.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Tell her? Told her what happened. What do you think I’d tell her? She said she won’t have her boy playing anywhere near to those kind of people. She says Paulie and her boy want to play together, Paulie can go down there where they’ve got good neighbors and a boy’s life isn’t in danger.”

Steve had lunch and then realized he had nothing to do for the rest of the day. He had brought work from the office. He was in charge of the purchase, allocation, repair, and maintenance of the heavy road machinery owned by Jennings and Ryan. With a minimum of five large road jobs going on at any one time, and with profit on the jobs depending on having the big shovels and trucks and bulldozers and Euclids at the right place at the right time, his was a key job, and a demanding job.

But he couldn’t make up estimate sheets with a broken hand.

He read for a time, then roamed restlessly around the house. This was the sort of situation in which he missed Ellen the most. The aimless discontent became something tangible, a hard knot in his chest. It was odd. not having anyone to tell things to. No one to talk to and explain all the feelings involved in the quick anger and outraged assault on the man called Marty.

He saw the small truck when it came into his driveway. Mrs. Chandler had gone down the street to her own house. He walked through the kitchen as the back-door buzzer sounded. “Mr. Dalvin?” the man asked.

“Yes.”

“Package delivery.”

The man came in with a heavy carton and set it on the kitchen table. Along the side it said, “Product of Scotland.” In the corner was printed, “Twelve Bottles.”

“Sign here, please.”

“It’s a mistake. I didn’t order it.”

“Look at my book. I got the right name and address, mister.”

“Yes, you have. Wait and let me phone the store and find out who ordered it.”

“Look, I got a lot of deliveries to make and I want to get off sometime today. Just be a nice guy and sign here. If it’s a mistake, let somebody else pick it up.”

“I can’t sign. Broke my hand today.”

“You did? Say, that’s tough! Look, put an X here with your other hand. I’ll write your name under it. I got to get some kind of a mark on this form.”

Steve made his X, and the man went off. Steve called the liquor store. It took several minutes to get hold of the right party. “Oh, yes, Mr. Dalvin, I have the order right here. It was phoned in by Mr. Prade. Anything wrong?”

“I... I guess not. Thanks.”

He hung up and awkwardly lit a cigarette just as a truck from Coleburne’s biggest department store rumbled into the driveway. A man hopped down and said, “Got some stuff for you. Two items.”

“What are they?”

“Well, one is a bike. I don’t know what’s in the big box. Where’ll I put the bike? In the garage?”

“You can take them back. I didn’t order them.”

“Mister, the only things I can take back are C.O.D.’s when I don’t get the money. Anything else, you got to get in touch with the store, and they have somebody else pick it up. I got to leave it.”

“All right, then,” Steve said tiredly. “Put the stuff in the garage.”

He stood and watched the bike lifted down. It was an English bicycle, dark maroon, with gear shift and racing tires. The mysterious box was five feet long and about two feet square. When the truck pulled out he went across to Prade’s back door and pushed the bell.

The girl in the yellow sun suit came to the door. “Oh, hi! Wanna see Lew?”

“Please.”

“Come on in, then. Lew’s in the front room.” He followed Irene through the house to the living room. It was bigger than his. The Venetian blinds were closed. The TV screen was alive, but it seemed to be ignored by all present. It took Steve a few moments to get used to the subdued light. There were several shirt-sleeved men, a few girls, many glasses, a haze of smoke.

“Here’s the neighbor, Lew,” Irene said.

Lew Prade got up off the couch, a glass of beer in his hand. “How’s it going, Stevie? Get that mitt fixed up okay? Doc is a good man. He give me a ring on Marty. Says he’s going to keep him a while. He get you back home okay?”

“He had his nurse drive me home.”

“I hear he’s got one special nurse, cute as a bug. How about a beer? I say a day like this, it’s a beer day. Folks, this is Stevie Dalvin, my next-door neighbor. There’s Bunny and Bess and Reds.”

The girls waved a lethargic greeting.

“And Al and Joey and Pritch and Henry.”

They said hello, and one of them added, “Wish I coulda seen Marty get it.”

“Prettiest sucker punch I ever saw,” Lew Prade said.

“Next time, guy,” one of the men said, “you try a sucker punch, give it to them in the neck. It works just as good, and you don’t bust your hand.”

Lew clucked sadly, “Beating up a little kid. Want a beer, Steve?”

“No, thanks. Look, could I see you alone, Mr. Prade?”

“Everybody calls me Lew. Right from the governor of the state on down. Come on in here.”

The bedroom was bright after the shaded living room. They sat on the bed. “Now, what’s on your mind?”

“Mr. Prade — Lew, I don’t want to accept those presents.”

“Lord, they come already! Those boys really jumped. How does the bike look? I asked for the best in the house. You get the best of anything, you never go wrong. I learned the hard way. Look at these slacks. Forty bucks. For twenty you can get a pair looks just as good, but they won’t hold up. This shirt is hand-painted. Guatemala. Pretty damn thing, isn’t it?”

“It’s a nice shirt, Lew. But about these gifts — I don’t want to accept them. You handle the medical expenses, and that’s enough.”

Lew took several swallows of his beer. Then he said, “And what does that make me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at it this way. I know that Marty is too dumb to keep around. Dumb and ugly. So I’m selfish. I keep him around for the laughs. I should know better. A good neighbor gets a busted hand. His kid gets slapped around. So who’s fault is it? Not Marty’s. Mine. I should never bring a punko like that into a nice neighborhood. That makes me a bad neighbor. So I got to make up. Everybody can use Scotch. The kid can have fun with the bike. Your little girl never sees a doll bigger than that one, I bet. And won’t orchids look good on your wife?”

“The orchids haven’t come yet. My wife has been dead over a year.”

“The hell you say! Damn. I should have checked, I guess. Irene, she said she saw the little girl, and I just figured a wife went along with the deal.

“But the rest of the stuff. Hell, what harm does it do, if I want to do it? You want those kids to keep thinking they live next to a bunch of bums or something? I’m nuts about kids myself.” He nudged Steve with his elbow. “Used to be one myself.”

“It doesn’t seem right.”

“You know, Stevie, I like you. You got a good attitude. Most of the people are chiselers. You know that. I like you standing up for your kid, and I like you trying to give the stuff back. You made an effort. Now forget it and come have a drink.”

“Well...”

He slapped Steve’s shoulder. “That’s it. Say, you like your job? I got a piece of a little construction company. Maybe they need somebody, hey?”

“I’m happy where I am,” Steve said.

“Man, that’s the way to be! Me, I get restless all the time. I got a restaurant-supply business and a couple of restaurants and a taxi company and a couple of dives and a little entertainment-booking business. You’d think that would keep a man busy enough, now, wouldn’t you? So what do I do? Now I’m moving back in on the meat business. Used to be in it during the war.

“Got a big place up in the lake country, and I’ve got one hell of a big duplex apartment in town. So I got bored with being in one place or the other, so I bought this little house out here. It’s in my name, but it’s Irene’s house.”

“Is she your wife?”

“You kidding? She was going to marry Pritch, and she got sore at him. Then she was running around with Marty. Now it’s Henry she’s got the hots for. You ever play poker much? We’ll have a little game started later. But maybe it’s too stiff for you. Tell you what, I’ll stake you. You make out, you pay me back. You go broke, and it’s my headache.”

“No, thanks. I wouldn’t be much good with just one hand. But thanks just the same. I better be running along. And... thanks for the presents.”

“It’s okay, Stevie. Look, you get in the habit of coming over, hey? Whenever there’s cars here, there’s a gang. All good boys and girls. A lot of kicks. They all like you fine for clobbering Marty, so you aren’t no stranger.”

Lew Prade grinned, but there was no smile in the glass-flat eyes. Steve went back to the house. The flowers came about twenty minutes later. A spray of tiny yellow orchids in a transparent box. He stood in the living room with the box in his hand. There were small beads of moisture on the petals. On impulse he phoned a delivery service. He printed crudely on the back of one of his personal cards, “Thanks for the ride.” When the motorcycle came he told the boy to deliver the flowers to Miss Gloria Hess, Valley Vale Sanitarium.

As soon as the red motorcycle had turned the corner he began to regret the impulse. It seemed a bit juvenile. But she had such a peculiarly delightful way of wrinkling her nose...

Paulie became totally incoherent over the bicycle. He was reduced to small jabbering, moaning sounds. He rode triumphantly up and down the driveway, his expression ecstatic. The doll was not a baby doll. It was a girl doll, a shade taller than Diana. It had long auburn hair, blue eyes, and freckles. Diana was completely awed.

Maybe it had been a mistake to let the kids have the gifts. But it was too late now to undo. And besides, Prade had seemed genuinely sorry, genuinely anxious to make some gesture. There was no obligation involved. At the moment, Steve told himself, they were even. And he certainly intended to keep it that way from now on.

Monday morning Steve went in to Mr. Ryan’s office and explained the broken hand. Ryan was a stocky, colorful man with considerable charm. He used it to promote the company contacts.

Ryan listened and made all the proper sounds of surprise and concern. “Lew Prade, eh? What’s he doing out there in your neighborhood?” He continued hastily. “Not that it isn’t a fine neighborhood. But that’s just it. It isn’t the sort of environment in which the Lew Prades of this world hang out.”

“You know him, then, George?”

“I’ve met him a couple of times. I know him by reputation. Hadn’t you heard of him before?”

“Seems I’ve seen his name in the papers. Not often.”

George Ryan leaned back in his chair and tapped his pencil against his chin. “He’s got a lot of contacts in state, county, and city government. He’s got a piece of Vogeling Brothers Construction. Even if we wanted city street-paving contracts, we couldn’t get them. The city engineer writes the specifications so that only the Vogeling equipment qualifies. Prade is tied in some way with Ross Farlini, and that means he’s got his fingers in a lot of dirty pies. I know he’s got bookie joints. And he’s part of the insurance combine through which the bookies pay off their bets. He books floor shows, and I’ve heard that if you want special entertainment for a smoker or something like that. Prade is the man to see. He floated to the top during the war. Black-market operations, they say. He was in gray-market steel for a while. Out of it now, I think. He’s been edging over into legitimate business. Taxis, restaurants, a restaurant-supply house.”

“You keep a pretty good dossier, George.”

“I have to watch those boys. There are times when we have to deal with them. Then it’s smart to know your man. I don’t know of Prade’s being mixed up in any actual violence, but an educated guess would be that he doesn’t go down any dark alleys alone and probably keeps a few boys around who have pistol permits. All in order, of course.”

“Where does Valley Vale come in? That’s where he sent me to have my hand fixed.”

“That’s Dressner’s outfit. Ross Farlini spent three months there after he was shot, a few years back. Some of our society names have taken the cure there. It’s a big plant, and even though his fees are certainly high enough, there must be some other source of income to keep it going. Some people say dope. I think Dressner is too smart for that. Others say he takes orders from Farlini and gets a fat retainer for maintaining a place where people can be hidden away. Dressner has a nice home right on the property. Swimming pool and all. I’ve been out there to parties a couple of times. He entertains pretty lavishly.”

“Prade talked to Dressner as if he were giving the doctor his orders.”

“That’s interesting. Could be. If Prade is Ross Farlini’s lieutenant in this end of the state then he could give the orders in Farlini’s name. And Dressner would have to take them.

“This fellow you hit — he’s in no danger?”

“According to Dressner, he isn’t.”

Steve’s attempts to ignore the hand were more determined than effective. By ten it seemed to be jumping up and down. But he was able to forget it for a time when the call came in from Gloria Hess.

“Mr. Dalvin? Gloria Hess. I called your home, and your Mrs. Chandler gave me your office number. I should have phoned you sooner. The flowers were a little — overwhelming.”

“I was afraid they’d be too spectacular. So I have to confess. They were sent as a gift to my wife, and the person who sent them didn’t know that my wife died over a year ago.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize — I’m sorry. But that doesn’t change the fact that you thought of me. I’m grateful. How is your hand?”

“It gets a little shrill now and then. Mending, I guess. Gloria, how about accepting a dinner to go with the flowers? Any evening. You name it.”

“I’m sorry. I’m really terribly busy. I couldn’t, really.”

“Oh. Mind if I try again sometime later in the week?”

“It really wouldn’t do any good, Mr. Dalvin. But thank you anyway, and thanks again for the flowers. If that hand gives you too much trouble please call Dr. Dressner right away, will you?”

“I’ll do that.”

“Good-by, Mr. Dalvin.”

“Good-by, Miss Hess.”

He hung up and stared moodily at the phone. He was restless and annoyed with himself. He didn’t feel that he’d handled the conversation very well. Seeing her again had become hugely important. Yet he had been unable to penetrate her cool and impersonal manner. It would be good to have dinner again with a pretty woman. To talk and laugh. Her hair had looked black, but in the sun it had little reddish glints...

He sighed and went back to the paper work. He decided against sending his girl out to get him a sandwich and milk shake, and went out into the lunch-hour throngs to walk off some of his restlessness. He thought he had settled permanently into a sort of placid contentment, but the strangeness of the weekend had brought back a lot of the old vague uneasiness.

Two blocks along Garland Street he noticed a lemon-yellow convertible with a black top parked at a twelve-minute meter. He waited for the light and crossed the street, not taking his eyes from the car. It was too much to expect to run into her this way. Just an identical car. Steve Dalvin, he thought, mooning around like a lovelorn high-school kid.

He drifted toward the car as unobtrusively as he could. He was furtively looking in at the seat to see if there was anything left there by which he could identify her when he heard her say, close behind him, “Don’t tell me you need another lift!”

He turned quickly, realizing that he was flushing. She stood tall and dazzlingly white in her uniform, hatless and with a drugstore package in her hand.

“I was hoping it would be you,” he said. “That was an unsatisfactory phone conversation, Gloria.”

“Was it? I’m so sorry.”

“There you go again. How do I break down that cold professional manner?”

“Why should you try, Mr. Dalvin? Excuse me, please. Dr. Dressner is waiting for this prescription.”

He held the car door open for her. She got in and slid across the seat behind the wheel, her eyes mild, her face expressionless.

“Just tell me this, Gloria. Do you have a personal, emotional reason for not having a dinner date with me?”

“I work very hard, Mr. Dalvin. I seldom leave the sanitarium. I hardly ever date anyone.”

“I just want to know you, Gloria. I’m not trying to be some kind of a wolf. Are you engaged or anything?”

“Dr. Dressner is really waiting for this, Mr. Dalvin.”

He sighed and shook his head. “I guess I can’t huff and blow your house down.”

Gloria had started the car. He leaned on the door. She looked at him. and for the second time he saw a small dancing light of humor in her eyes, accompanied by the oddly appealing little grimace. “Me and my brick house,” she said. She turned the ignition key. “Actually. Dr. Dressner is out on a call, Steve. You can buy me a quick coffee.”

As he fed the parking meter he felt a jubilation out of all proportion to the circumstances. The drugstore was a place where miracles could happen. They walked down to a small booth beyond the counter, and the starch of her uniform rustled as she slid quickly into the booth. He sat opposite her. She smiled at him, and all the coolness was gone, all the deep warmth of her broke through, somehow enclosing the two of them in a small private place, apart from the bustle around them.

“Steve, I want to—”

“Let’s get the scene set, Gloria. I had my first date when I was fifteen. I detested females. But I finally took a gal to a movie. We went to a drugstore afterward. I sat there telling myself I was bored, and all of a sudden I started looking at her. Seven billion butterflies I had, all of a sudden. You know what? Right now I’m full up to here with more butterflies.”

The waitress took their coffee order, and when she was gone Gloria looked at him severely. “Steve, you’ve got to stop that. Let me set the scene. I helped Dr. Dressner set a man’s broken hand. He’s a very pleasant and very persuasive man, and so I let him talk me into a coffee break, because it will give me a chance to tell him in a pleasanter way that I can’t go out with him.”

Steve had to wait until the waitress slid the coffee deftly in front of each of them. He was afraid of the answers to the questions he had to ask.

“Tell me this, Gloria. Are you married?”

“No, Steve.”

“Engaged?”

“No.”

He felt miraculously better. “Hate men?”

“Please, Steve. You’ll just have to accept what I say. I don’t date. I have perfectly good reasons.” She lifted the coffee cup, watched him over the rim as she sipped.

He stared soberly at her. “I have a hunch there isn’t much time. I won’t get too many chances to talk to you unless I say exactly what I mean, right now. This isn’t a pass. I have the feeling we’re very right for each other. I don’t know why. It just — happened.”

“Please don’t,” she said.

He leaned forward a bit and looked into her eyes. He said softly, “Okay, I’ve got legions of big, muscular butterflies, all flapping around. I look at you and I get a Saturday-morning feeling. A holiday feeling. Keep looking right at me, Gloria, and tell me that you haven’t got at least one tired, anemic, beat-up little butterfly trying to get up off the ground.”

She looked at him, and he saw her face whiten a bit, her eyes grow larger. “Darn you, Steve,” she whispered. “Darn you!” And she was gone, quickly, with a rustle of starched white. He paid the check and got out onto the sidewalk just in time to see the little car roll down the street and turn smoothly at the corner.

He felt pleasantly cheerful all afternoon, in spite of the throbbing of his hand, and he was in a good humor when he turned into his driveway at five-thirty. Diana was across the street with her friend. Paulie was off on the new bike. Mrs. Chandler was preparing dinner. He stood at the kitchen window with a highball made of the Prade Scotch, amusedly aware of the climate of disapproval that seemed to come from Mrs. Chandler in great cold waves. She informed him tartly that the children had been over at the Prade house again, right in the house, swilling Cokes and gobbling candy.

“I don’t think I care much for that,” Steve said.

“How are you going to stop it? They got that bicycle and that doll. What do you expect?” She sniffed and said, with enormous contempt, “Uncle Lew! Great heavens!”

Steve grinned in spite of his annoyance. “Uncle Lew, eh?”

She turned toward him, wiping her hands on her apron. “Children just don’t understand these things, Mr. Dalvin. They don’t know how to tell the bad ones. It’s all over the neighborhood we’re close friends with them or something. People snickering. I don’t know as I ought to help out here anymore.”

He frowned at her, worried. “Oh, come now, Mrs. Chandler. It’s not that serious.”

“It’s something for a body to think about.”

“I’ll just tell the kids not to go over there.”

She sniffed and said, almost inaudibly, “Hope it will work.”

At dinner he waited until the children were through and wanted to be excused. Then he said, “Paulie. Diana. I always try to give you reasons for orders. This time I’m giving you an order without reasons. Mr. Prade’s yard and his house are out of bounds. Don’t go over there.”

They agreed to obey, but very grudgingly. It made debris of exciting plans, Uncle Lew had talked about taking Paulie to a Saturday doubleheader. Irene had been going to help Diana make a new dress for the big doll.

But he repeated the order in that special tone of voice that eliminated all grumbling. It was a tone he seldom used. They closed their faces in the enigmatic way children have and marched out, making him feel like a heel.

After dinner, when the children were in bed and asleep and Mrs. Chandler had cleaned up and gone home, Steve went out into the lingering August dusk. Insects shrilled in the grass, and the air was dew damp. The distant heavy sound of the city drifted into the subdivision, borne on the night air.

He shrugged off the worry about the children and began to think pleasantly of Gloria. It had been fatuous to assume that she found him attractive, and dangerous to put it to the test, but it had worked out. It had given her an awareness of him that had not been there before. He would phone her soon, tomorrow, in fact. Or tonight? He grinned at the night, turned on his heel and went back into the house. He put his hand on the phone, then changed his mind. Just because you feel like an adolescent in love is no reason to act like one. A little mature restraint, please, Mr. D. He went back outside, wondering why on earth a girl with so much character in her face was employed out at that Valley Vale outfit. It seemed—

“Stevie?”

He turned sharply and saw the stocky silhouette of Lew Prade on the other side of the hedge. “Hi. You startled me.”

“I see you wandering around. I was sitting on the porch, thinking. I figure I got to talk to you, Stevie.”

“What’s on your mind?”

He saw the glow of the cigar slowly lifted to the man’s lips, heard the little pih-thoo sound as Lew spat out a fleck of tobacco. “The way you say that, Stevie. Cold. That’s the way I talk to a guy I expect wants a lend of some money.”

“I didn’t mean it to sound that way.”

“I was sitting on the porch. I’m thinking I can let the guy go along and he doesn’t have to know. It’s all set, so he doesn’t have to know. But maybe he’d rather know.”

There was a prickle of warning at the back of Steve’s neck. “Know what?”

“That Marty, Steve. He never come out of it. He died yesterday.”

The whole vast night stopped. The night ceased to breathe. The trees were frozen against a dark-gray sky. “No!” Steve whispered.

“Doc explained it. There was some brain damage, he says. It didn’t show up on the X-ray. Made a clot or something. That was a hell of a punch, man. Like hitting somebody with a club.”

Steve’s knees were shaking. “I... I ought to tell the police.”

“It’s a little late for that. It was in the paper this morning. But you wouldn’t recognize it. Chester Novecki his name was. Where the Marty started, I don’t know. You can look it up. Doc handled the certificate. Result of injuries caused by a fall. Tomorrow they bury him, and I send flowers. He didn’t have no family.”

“But Dressner knew that—”

“I do Doc a favor; he does me a favor. Hell, that’s the way the world is.”

“But I could still report it.”

“And make a hell of a lot of trouble for Doc, and for me, and for yourself? Don’t be such a damn fool.”

Steve thought it over. He said, “I owe you a lot. It would have been a mess.”

“A manslaughter rap. They fix easy, but it clobbers you somewhat. And those kids. Damn, they’re nice kids. They wouldn’t like it knowing their daddy kills a man with his hands.”

“I... suppose you’re right.”

“I do you a favor. Someday you do me a favor. That’s the way the world goes.”

“I guess there isn’t much I could do for you.”

“You could be wrong there, Stevie. Something will come up. It always does. Funny how it always does. You know something? You need a drink. Come on in and sit on the porch with me.”

Steve went blindly along. He kept thinking of the way Marty had fallen. That instant before the blow was struck was the last instant of consciousness left to the man. He was dead even as he fell.

Lew sent a surly Irene off to make drinks. Steve said in a low tone, “Who knows about it?”

“Well, the people who were here Saturday. But you don’t have to worry none. They’re good boys and girls. They don’t talk. If they were talkers, I wouldn’t have them around. I couldn’t afford it.” Lew switched the porch light on, got the morning paper, found the item, folded it uppermost, and handed it to Steve.

Steve’s hand shook as he read it. He handed it back. Irene brought the drinks, slumped silently in a chair near them. Lew said, “What do you do at that Jennings and Ryan?” Steve told him.

Lew asked, “How about orders for new stuff? You put them in?”

“With George Ryan’s approval. There’s a lot of money involved. One big bulldozer can come to over thirty thousand dollars.”

“How are deliveries?”

“Pretty tight. There’s so much road work all over the country, and also the Army, Navy, and Air Force are in the market. Deliveries stink, as a rule.”

“Yeah. That’s what Ricky Vogeling was telling me a while back. You got much back-ordered?”

“About a million dollars’ worth.”

“Important to your outfit, I suppose.”

“It’s critical. If it doesn’t come through we won’t be able to fulfill on contracts that have already been placed with us. Some of them have penalty clauses.”

“They treat you right down there, Stevie?”

“They’ve been fine. After my wife died I kind of went to hell. They were pretty patient with me.”

“Maybe they were figuring you’d been a good man before and you’d be a good man again, and it was worth it — you know, for business.”

“I don’t think that was it.”

“You think maybe Ryan loves you? You think it would break him up, you not in the office?”

“No, but—”

“Leave off him, Lew,” Irene said petulantly. “The guy likes his job so he likes his job. Don’t clob it for him.”

“You drag your tail in and fill these glasses again, sugar,” Lew said mildly. Irene slouched off into the dark house, banging the screen door loudly.

“She’s a moody kid,” Lew explained. “Up one day. Down the next.”

Irene came back and said, “That Diana of yours is a bug. I got some material today. Tomorrow we make a new dress for that doll.”

It was the moment to object, but Steve didn’t know how to do it. The death of Marty had taken away some of his freedom of will. “That’s fine,” he said weakly, feeling that he had betrayed Diana in some obscure way.

“How about you and Paulie coming along to the ball game with me Saturday? I got a season box,” Lew said.

“Okay,” Steve said without enthusiasm. He finished his drink and stood up.

“Don’t rush off, Stevie. The gang will be along soon.”

“I’ve got to go. Thanks for the drinks. And thanks — for the other thing.”

“Nothing to it. I told you how it works. Everything is favors.”

The long night was sleepless, miserable. Half a dozen times he got out of bed and sat by the window and smoked. The fine elation of the possible date with Gloria had turned dull. He remembered the warmth of her first genuine smile. And all the time she had known of Marty’s death. It indicated a very special form of callousness. Apparently he had read character into a face where there was none, crediting her with a warmth and sensitivity that were not there. Perhaps, right to the core, she was as cold as her manner had been at first.

In some intricate way the fates had delivered him into the hands of Lew Prade. He felt listless, defeated.

The next morning he drove to the office, wearied by the long night. By midmorning he began to have the forlorn hope that perhaps Lew Prade was working some sort of a gag, some sort of incomprehensible joke.

He phoned Dr. Dressner. An unfamiliar voice took his number and told him Dr. Dressner would phone him back. The doctor phoned about a half hour later.

“Yes, Mr. Dalvin. Hand giving you trouble?”

“No, it’s not that, Mr. Prade gave me that information last night. About... Marty.”

“Oh yes. Novecki. Unfortunate.”

“Doctor, could there have been any other cause? I mean, was it definitely the result of his — fall?”

“There’s no doubt whatever. Along with the concussion there was some deep brain damage the X-rays didn’t pick up. Slow hemorrhage. Nothing we could do about it.”

“Mr. Prade told me not to — give the authorities any. additional information about the accident.”

Dressner’s voice tightened. “I can’t conceive of how you might have any details on this matter, Mr. Dalvin. I hope you can see precisely what I mean.”

“Yes, I can, Doctor.”

After he had hung up it took him a long time to get his mind back to the work piled on his desk, the phone calls that had to be made, the follow-ups on purchase orders.

For the rest of the week Steve went through the routine of living and working in a haze of apathy and confusion. The children had discovered that the ban on the Prade property was off. Mrs. Chandler threatened to leave, and Steve did not dare bring it to an issue. The children sensed the strangeness in him. and they seemed shy and uncomfortable in his presence. A lot of the good of the past six months seemed to be coming undone.

On Saturday he went to the game. Irene went, too, and a couple he had met before, called Pritch and Bunny. The hand had stopped hurting, but it itched like fury under the cast. It was a doubleheader, a good contest, and he watched with mild interest.

Monday morning George Ryan came into his office and closed the door. He looked uncomfortable. He sat in the chair beside Steve’s desk, got his pipe going to his satisfaction, and then he said, “Steve, the last thing I want you to think is that I’ve been spying on you.”

“What are you getting at, George?”

“Al Freelander told me he saw you and Paulie at the game Saturday in Lew Prade’s box.”

“That’s right.”

“I had my car in Dave Quinn’s garage last week. He said that Prade had given your boy a bike, given your girl a big expensive doll, and given you a case of Scotch.”

Steve said harshly, “Exactly one week ago I told you of an incident that happened in his back yard. Lew felt at fault. He had those presents delivered. I couldn’t give them back without being a boor about it.”

“That’s a pretty unpleasant tone of voice, Steve.”

“I can’t help that. Do you blame me for being a little sore? You’re making some sort of implication that I’m tying myself up with Lew Prade.”

“If that’s the way you want it. boy, I’ll raise my voice a little, too. This is a damn clean company, and I’m proud of it. My two boys will be working in the company someday and I want them to be proud of it, too. We’ve never bought contracts, made kickbacks, or bribed inspectors. If we’d done that sort of thing it would have helped a lot when we were hungry for contracts. But we didn’t do it. I’ve always said that what my employees do on their own time is their own business. But you have a responsible job here. And everything Lew Prade touches he dirties. He’s got a thousand angles, all of them crooked. So I’m asking you, both as a boss and as a friend, what the hell are you doing running around with Lew Prade?”

Steve looked down at his desk. He moved a slide rule a few inches to the left. “He’s a neighbor.”

“Don’t try to kid me, Steve. Don’t try it.”

Steve looked at him. “So I’m crooked, too?”

“Damn it, a man can’t talk to you lately.”

“I do my job and I know I do it well, and when I stop doing it well. George, you can throw me out on my can.”

George stood up and stared at Steve for long seconds, expressionless, the pipe clenched in his teeth. Then he turned on his heel and left the office, closing the door quietly behind him. Steve lit a cigarette. That had been no way to talk to George. The right way would have been to tell the whole truth. But what good would that have done?...

“George, I killed that man when I hit him.”

“Why didn’t you report it to the police?”

“Well, by then it was too late.”

“Who said it was too late?”

“Lew. He said everything was fixed. It would just make trouble.”

“So you believed him. And all you had to do was pick up the phone.”

“All I had to do was pick up the phone. But one thing I do know. It’s too late now...”

Though theirs had always been, basically, a boss-employee relationship, it had also been something else. Now, in a space of fifteen minutes, that something else was gone. He thought of the time, a month after Ellen had died, he had gone stumbling-drunk to George’s house. He remembered the way it had been handled. How George had made arrangements to send him five hundred miles away into a laborer’s job for another company. But he had just found it possible to talk to George Ryan in that harsh, unpleasant tone, all bristles and indignation.

Steve knew that it was coming. He sensed it. He had been afraid of it. And yet, when it came, it was almost a relief.

It happened on the dark porch of Lew Prade’s house on Wednesday evening at ten o’clock, the evening of the second day after the scene with George.

Lew was alone in the house, and he asked Steve over. Steve had gone with a blind, puppylike obedience that filled him with self-disgust.

Lew was a long time getting to the point. The glowing cigar-end made long slow arcs from the stocky knee up to the mild lips and back down again. “Freshen your drink?”

“I’m fine, Lew. Thanks.”

“That Ryan, he’s got sons coming into the business, I understand. They’re in college now, aren’t they?”

“Yes. The oldest one will be out in two years.”

“Kids like that, they come fresh out of school, they’re snotty, you know. Got all the theory and no practice.” He sighed. “But they’ll have their old man behind them.”

“I suppose so.”

“A guy like you, Stevie. What’s the future? You’ll be taking orders from those kids. How will you like it?”

“It will be all right.”

“Stevie boy, don’t kid your old Uncle Lew. The world is full of guys like you. Smarter than tacks, but knocking themselves out because the right angle never come along.”

“How do you mean?”

“Take it like this. You got a couple of fine kids there to educate.”

“I’ll manage, somehow.”

“Sure. Somehow. Some state college for the boy and maybe a normal school or something for Diana. Those kids deserve the best. Hell, prep schools, and then Wellesley and Harvard. A little travel, maybe, before they have to start earning a living. And what have you got in the kitty? Couple of war bonds, maybe.”

“That guess is almost too good, Lew.”

“I checked your record. Not me personally. Ricky Vogeling did it. You know the construction business inside out.”

“It’s all I’ve ever done. If I don’t know something about it now I never will.”

“Ricky is a bright guy. Ambitious. I was talking to Ross Farlini a while ago. Big man in the state. You know him?”

“I’ve heard of him.”

“Ross was saying to me that he’d like to swing some of these big state road jobs to his friends. He knows I got a piece of Vogeling. Now, that fits right in with Ricky’s ideas, Vogeling Brothers is damn good on paving. A little weak on any job where you got to move a lot of earth. Man of your experience would help a hell of a lot. I told Ricky to check on you. and he did. He figures you’d be worth twenty thousand a year, plus bonus, on these big state jobs they’re going to get.”

The figure took Steve’s breath for a moment. He said flatly, “I’m not worth that.”

“You’ve been listening to Ryan too long, boy. He give you one of those inferiority complexes. Ricky says you’re worth that, and that’s good enough for me. How about it?”

“I couldn’t say yes or no right now. I’d have to talk to Mr. Vogeling and find out what he would want me to do.”

“Stevie, that firm is going to go places. Take my word for it. They’re kind of handicapped right now on the equipment angle, but I told Ricky that maybe you and I could work something out on that.”

Steve tightened up. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve got stuff coming in. A million bucks’ worth. Heavy stuff. Shovels and ’dozers and mixers and rollers. You deal with the suppliers, don’t you?”

“Yes, but...”

“So they’ll notify you on the deliveries. Ricky will place the same orders Jennings and Ryan have in. The stuff comes in. Okay, you let Ricky know, and they pick it up. It just means Jennings and Ryan got to wait a little longer, but, hell, they can afford it. That’s a big outfit.”

“I couldn’t possibly—”

“With that big equipment, and with Ross guaranteeing Vogeling’ll get the state jobs coming up. It’s a pitch that can’t lose.”

“It’s crooked.”

“Is it? You’re clear. Just a misunderstanding. By the time Ryan gets wise Ricky will have the stuff. To get it off him Ryan will have to sue. Ricky can tie him up in the courts from now until that equipment is so old he won’t want it anyway. Bills of lading can disappear. Common carriers can make mistakes. Just a big misunderstanding.”

“No, Lew. No.”

“I see a lot of guys like you, Stevie. They don’t know a good angle when it hits them in the face. Think of how you can take care of the kids. Ricky and I talked it over. Twenty thousand a year, plus a little sweetening when Ricky has the equipment.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a little fund Ricky can tap. Call it a ten-thousand bonus, in cash. You can report it for tax purposes if you want. If you want to be a sucker. It won’t be traceable.”

“Damn it, I’m not a thief, Prade. I can’t do it.”

The cigar came up in a slow arc, went down again. “You kick those words around maybe a little too free. I go along somewhat. You’re not a thief. You’re a murderer. You like the fit of that?” His voice had changed. It was as dry and hard as pebbles.

“You make that sound like a threat.”

“Sometimes you got to put the horse on a guy to make him land butter-side up. I can open that thing up. Easy. In such a way it won’t hurt Doc and it won’t hurt me. But it will hurt the hell out of you and your kids. I’d hate to do that. They’re fine kids. Always smiling and laughing. You sit over in state prison, and they go live with Granny.”

“You can’t make that fit.”

“That’s like a guy whistling going by the cemetery. You know I can make it fit you like a glove. Now, relax. Be a good guy. I did you a favor. You do me a favor. That’s the way the world works. And when you do me a favor, just to show you there’s no hard feelings, we sweeten you for ten thousand. And you get the job, too. You ask me, I don’t see how you have any choice. Any choice at all, at all.”

“It could break Jennings and Ryan.”

“So it does, and I’m crying myself to sleep.”

“I...I’ve got to think it over, Lew.”

“Now you sound like sense. No more of this thief talk. Go on and think. Tomorrow you take a long lunch hour. Come to the City Club. Ask for Mr. Vogeling’s table. Can that hurt you? To eat with the guy?”

“I... guess not.”

“Fourteen years ago I’m maybe your age. I got a handbook and a cigar concession and a lease on an empty store. Seventy bucks is a good week. But I’m watching those angles every minute. Now I’m worth a million and a half bucks. Is that bad?”

“No.”

“In this world, Stevie, you eat or you turn into a meal for somebody else. Now if I didn’t like you I could cross you on this whole deal and still get you to shift that equipment to Ricky. But I like you, and I’m going to play square all down the line. I expect the same thing from you.”

Lew and Vogeling were waiting at the table for him at the City Club. Steve had expected Ricky Vogeling to be a reptilian type. But instead he was a hefty redhead with a youthful face, scarred fists, and a heavy laugh. Until the afterlunch coffee came the talk was about horses and poker hands.

“So let’s get to work,” Lew said. “Stevie isn’t making his mind up overnight, and I don’t blame him for that. Hell, we don’t want a man who jumps too fast, do we?”

“So long as he jumps eventually,” Ricky said. “So we’ll just make like you aren’t in, and you aren’t coming with us. That suit you, Dalvin?”

“Yes. It does.”

“So I’m just a curious competitor. It doesn’t hurt Jennings and Ryan one damn bit for you to tell me. casual-like, what you have on order, does it?”

“No. That couldn’t hurt.”

“And maybe tell me when it’s due?”

“All I can give you on that is an approximation.”

“You got it all in your head?”

“Yes. The orders we’ve placed represent one sixth of our total current inventory of heavy equipment.”

Ricky took out a pencil and notebook. “Okay, Dalvin,” he said.

Steve took a hasty sip of his coffee. They were watching him carefully. They had the same expression in their eyes. Watchful, wary, and yet semi-amused. Steve thought of the kids going back to live with Ellen’s people, back to that great dim house, full of age and quietness and the smell of lavender.

Quietly, in a flat voice, he began to enumerate the equipment on order, giving model numbers, estimated delivery date, and the method of delivery. He paused now and again to let Vogeling catch up.

When he had finished. Ricky Vogeling snapped the notebook shut and put it back in his pocket. “Say, Lew, did you book that strip act into the Christopher Club? I caught it last night. That’s quite a blondie.”

“Isn’t she something? Stevie, you ought to go park your tired eyes on that chassis. Make you forget all your troubles. Anybody have a brandy with me?”

Steve knew he was late, but he stayed on recklessly and joined Lew and Ricky in a brandy. He waited for his chance and then, as casually as he dared, said. “If I want to rest my tired eyes, I want to rest them on that nurse of Doc Dressner’s. That Gloria Hess.”

“Stay away from that,” Lew said firmly, fastening his cold stare on him.

“Is that an order, Lew? Want me to say ‘Yes, sir’?”

“Don’t be wise, boy. Just don’t be wise. It’s advice, not an order. That one is all sewed up. By the Doc himself. That’s his little nurse and playmate. He can get real sore about something like that.”

“Funny. It seemed to me that they had a pretty professional relationship. I know he called her Gloria, but he was sort of formal.”

“You ever hear of fooling the public?”

“She’s very nice.”

“So she’s built nice and she’s Doc’s nurse and she’s got an expression like a deep freeze, but you heard me — stay away from it.”

Steve flushed. “You still make it sound like an order, Lew. And I’m not where you can give me orders. Yet.”

Lew studied him. He slapped his shoulder. “So you’re all tightened up, and you get sore at Lew. Hell, I was just trying to save you some time. You want some fun, I got a girl wants to date you. That Reds. She only sees you once, but she likes you. How about tonight? I’ll fix it for you.”

“No, thanks, Lew. I’ve got work to do And right now I’ve got to get back.”

“You’ll like Reds. For her, life is strictly for kicks. You finish up, come over to the house tonight. She’ll maybe be there.”

Steve shook hands with Ricky and left. He felt as if he were being drawn inevitably into the vortex of a whirlpool. He had slipped over the edge. It was impossible to return. The only possible future was to go around and around — and steadily down. Lew, Ricky, Reds. Irene — a whole new conscienceless environment where the only standard was hunger, and the only position that of the eater or the eaten.

He left the office early, and he knew it was another childish gesture of defiance. He drove through town and parked, on impulse, near a strange bar. He went in and ordered a highball. He sat alone morosely and thought of the trap he was in. He told himself he wouldn’t be committed until he actually took the first definite step that would result in one piece of equipment being diverted to Vogeling Brothers. And yet, in all practical aspects, he knew he was already committed. He had more to drink, and found he could not get Gloria out of his mind. The doctor’s playmate. Her face was vivid in his mind. The highballs jangled in his head, roared in his ears.

He got change and went to the phone booth. He phoned Valley Vale. A woman with a rusty-sounding voice answered. “Let me speak to Miss Hess,” he said thickly.

“I am sorry, but she is not on duty. Who is this, please?”

“Personal call. Steve Dalvin calling. Where can I phone her?”

“Just a moment. I can give you her private number, sir.”

She gave him the number, and he repeated it after her. He dialed that number. The phone rang five times before Gloria answered it. Her voice was sleepy.

“Yes? Who is it, please?”

“I’m making a survey of imaginary butterflies. Counting them, one and all.”

“Steve! What’s the matter? You sound so odd.”

“I sound a little drunk, you think? You know, come to think of it, I might sound a little drunk because I happen to be a little drunk.”

“Don’t get like that and phone me, Steve. Please.”

“Point number one. It has occurred to me as I sit here, immersed in sorrow, that there is no one to talk to. No one to tell my troubles to. So I must tell them, perhaps, to the person I thought you were. Does that make sense?”

“Troubles, Steve?”

He laughed a bit harshly. “You and that happy crew you’ve signed up with are experts in the trouble department. Tell them, darling, that I’m disobeying Lew Prade’s direct orders to stay away from you. Tell them that. He says you are the doctor’s hobby.”

“You are drunk,” she said tartly.

He was suddenly vastly annoyed. “Little Miss Innocence. All the time you knew. While you were thanking me for the lovely flowers in your cool and lovely voice. And in the miraculous drugstore. Every minute you knew. You are a cold cookie, Gloria. A little thing like death doesn’t touch you nurse-types. does it? Now, back off a little, because I am about to hang up with one hell of a bang—”

“Steve! Wait a minute. Please. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Believe me. This might be terribly important to — both of us.”

“I’m waiting, sugar.”

“Where are you right now? Where are you phoning from? A bar?”

“Yes.” He chuckled. “What do you know. Don’t know the name.”

“Well, go find out the name and address and tell me. I’ll wait.”

He walked out of the booth and asked the bored bartender. “The Tidy Inn. Four-teen-twelve Lincoln, mister.”

He told Gloria. “Steve,” she said, “will you wait right there? Please. Wait for me.”

“Sure. A pleasure, Miss Hess. A pleasure indeed.”

“Don’t drink any more, Steve. And phone your home. Tell them you’ll be late.”

“We’re having a late date, eh?”

“Yes, Steve. A late date. A very late date.” She hung up. He shrugged and went back to the bar and ordered another drink. Then he phoned Mrs. Chandler.

“This is Mr. Dalvin, Miz Chandler. Don’t wait up for me.”

“What!”

“Can you stay there after dinner? Like a sitter?”

“Well, I—”

“Fine. You be a sitter, then. Little bonus for sitting, Mrs. Chandler. A little sweetening.”

“Are you all right? Mr. Dalvin! Are you well?”

He grinned and hung up and said, “Old Chandler.” He finished his drink and rapped on the bar with his cast for a refill.

The bartender said, “That’s six, mate. You think you can handle seven? We give a full ounce and a half.”

“I’ll try it on for size, mate.”

But the first sip nauseated him, tickling his gag reflex. He saw a punch-board behind the bar, demanded it, and began doggedly to punch out the little slips of paper. When Gloria arrived he stood up and bowed elaborately and presented her with the flashy costume-jewelry pendant he had won on the punch-board. “For you, dear girl,” he said pompously. He smiled at her. She wore an apricot-colored cotton dress with a full skirt. It left her shoulders bare, and the short sleeves were laced up the outside with black yarn.

“You did have more, didn’t you?”

“Only because I’m weak. A formless thing, without character.”

“Come on,” she said tautly, anger showing in the shape of her mouth. He grandly waved his change toward the bartender and followed her out. She took him around the corner to an elderly gray coupe.

He got in, pulled the door shut. “And where would we be off to?”

“Someplace that has black coffee.”

“Milady has a severe tone of voice. Milady feels abused, mayhap?”

“Just be still until you’ve had coffee, please.”

She drove out of town, heading east. He slumped back in the seat and put his hands over his eyes, his feeling of gaiety suddenly gone.

“Are you going to be sick?”

“No. Not physically. Mentally, perhaps. You ever been in a barrel? You ever been in a barrel with the lid nailed on? Then they float you downstream and over the falls, Gloria. With fireworks and press releases.”

“You said Mr. Prade told you to stay away from me. Did he give a reason?”

“Sure. Said you were playmate of one Dr. Dressner. Private property. Hands off, please. Dressner might take umbrance. That’s not right. Umbrage. Picture of doctor taking umbrage. Comes in a small yellow bottle. Reinforced umbrage. Contains sodium.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Does that matter?”

“Not particularly.”

“Okay. I didn’t believe him. Don’t know why. Sounds logical enough. Valley Vale. Place of evil. Every doctor has a pretty playmate. But you see, you wrinkled your nose at me.”

“I what?”

“That day. By my house. You wrinkled your nose at me. No nose-wrinkler is a doctor’s playmate. Stands to reason, you couldn’t be a doctor’s hobby.”

She laughed. It was a very nice laugh. “Oh, Steve! You’re—”

“Delightful. Everybody considers me delightful. Lew and Ricky and Irene and some mysterious female known only as Reds. Did you know none of Lew’s friends have last names? That seems convenient. Makes it easy to fill out forms.” He stared out the window. “Where we going, hey?”

“To Veldon. Thirty miles. It’s safer, Steve.”

“Aha! Who’s after us? We bring the gats? Is this the bulletproof job?”

“Just relax, Steve. Sit closer to the window. You’ll get more air. You’ll feel better.”

“What time is it?”

“A little after six.”

“You are spectacularly beautiful, Gloria.”

“Breath-taking,” she said, a bit grimly.

“No, I mean that,” he said with the solemn determination born of alcohol. “You are genuinely beautiful. Couldn’t get you out of my head. Called you to talk to you. Wanted to talk over my woes. My sorrows.”

“Don’t start talking yet.”

“So! You think I can’t talk co-coherently. There shall be no flaw in either my logic or my diction. But my emotions are flawed. You have kids that are hostages to fortune. Whoever said that was too smart for his own good. Hostages, all right. You do good, they do good. When you’re only parent left, you got to do better than good. It’s a trap. Y’know my little girl approved. Definitely approved. Wanted me to tie a can to Old Chandler and bring you into the household. Sounds funny. Would if I could. Can I be proposing? Guess I am. Want to help me raise a couple of kids, Gloria? Nice kids. I know — prejudiced parent and all that. But they’re nice. Ellen was nice. The boy’s like her, and Diana is just like me. Stubborn as a mule team.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

He said stiffly, “I was under the impression that I was asking you if you’d care to be married to me. I am a young man — not too young, come to think of it — but a relatively young man with a great future ahead of me. Soon I shall be making twenty thousand crooked dollars a year.

“I have thirty of my original thirty-two teeth. I sing in a mildly pleasant baritone, know how to broil outdoor steak, and — ah, I want to say the right things to you. Not all this — stuff. I’m drunk, Gloria. Terrible drunk. Falling-down drunk.”

“Just a few minutes more, Steve.”

She stopped at a restaurant-roadhouse a few miles on the Coleburne side of the town of Veldon. They sat in the back in a maple booth, and he had coffee, very hot, very black. Two large cups. She watched him with her dark eyes, sitting across from him with that look of aliveness, of vibrancy. He could hear thunder growling along the horizon. The evening air was thick and musty.

“Better?” she asked.

“A little. I guess I’ve been sort of a chore. Grateful to you for rescuing me. I might have been damn fool enough to try to drive my car.”

“Now you’d better tell me, Steve. What trouble are you in?”

“It will be dull.”

“Go on. Tell me. I want to hear.”

He told her. She interrupted him often with questions, made him go back over points he had covered, made him bring in all the details.

“So,” he finished, “there you have it. Damned if I do, and damned if I don’t. Prade steers me toward the easiest way, and he calls it the only way, and I guess he’s right. He has an eye for the angles. I fell into his lap, and it didn’t take him long to find a way to use me.” He had a dull headache. The back of the hand in the cast itched.

“Want to hear my troubles, Steve?”

“Okay. A fair exchange.”

“Did you ever read about that committee they set up at the state capital a few years back? To investigate the rackets?”

“I remember it vaguely.”

“My sister was shot down on the street five years ago. She was a pretty kid. About to be married. In fact, she was buying clothes for her wedding trip that day. She had bad luck. They were killing a man that day, in the capital. A business matter. Perhaps he hadn’t cooperated or something. The executioner was a little nervous. One of the slugs missed, ricocheted off the front of a building, and hit my sister in the throat. She died on the way to the hospital. They never found who did it.”

She had spoken flatly, tonelessly, and the look of implacable hatred in her eyes shocked him. “A... a terrible thing,” he said weakly.

“I thought so. So did the boy she didn’t marry. So did the public — for about three days. Then it all died down. Those things always do. I was in training in the hospital there at the time. When the committee was started, somebody remembered the incident and remembered that the deceased had a sister who was a nurse. They came to me. I agreed to the proposition. I was arrested on suspicion on a narcotics charge and released for lack of evidence. That was my introduction to Valley Vale. I’ve been there nearly two years. I know Dressner is tied in with Ross Farlini. Lew Prade is Farlini’s errand boy in this end of the state. Dressner does Prade’s dirty work for him. My job is to keep my eyes open and be ready to testify when the committee is ready to subpoena Farlini. Dressner, Prade, and the rest of them. But I’ve learned very, very little. Not enough, yet, to balance my personal scales. They are all too wary. Dr. Dressner uses me only for what I am — a darn good professional nurse. He’s an extremely cautious man. But Lew Prade is my real target. Those are my troubles, Steve. The last twenty months haven’t been easy.”

“I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re not a part of — all that.”

She leaned forward, her eyes intent on his. “Maybe you can help me, Steve.”

“How do you mean that?”

“You didn’t mean to kill that — Novecki person. It would take your testimony to help us prove that Dressner made a misstatement of fact on the death certification, acting on Lew Prade’s orders.” Her eyes pleaded with him.

“Now, wait a minute!” he said. “I went through all that.”

“I’m thinking of my sister, Steve. Of the men who — make that sort of death possible.”

“To be maybe too damn blunt, Gloria, your sister isn’t able to approve or disapprove of your actions. But I’ve got a couple of kids who think I’m the greatest guy in the world, and—”

“How long are they going to keep thinking that, Steve? How long? They’re little kids. They could get over trouble easier right now than... Well, what will they think when they learn someday that you used your position to steal from the man who, you say, has been your friend as well as your employer? And they will find out someday. Believe me, they will.”

“You say they can get over trouble right now. One batch of it. Maybe. Ellen died and it rocked them. I ran out on them. That’s hard to forgive. But I’m back with them now. They trust me again. Don’t you see? That’s the trap. Suppose I could trust that this committee deal would really clobber Prade, Farlini, and the rest of them. Okay. Then I might be able to chance getting off with some sort of suspended sentence or something. But if your committee aims a wild punch and misses, then Prade, Incorporated, is going to make sure that I spend time in jail. And I just can’t risk that. I’ve been over it and over it in my head until I’m half crazy.”

She didn’t answer. She looked down at her coffee, frowning. He could hear the thunder more distinctly. She sighed heavily. “I suppose it is a lot to ask you to do. When you told me that Marty had died. I thought—”

“Didn’t you know?”

“No. I didn’t get a good look at the X-rays. After I was off duty they moved him over to one of the other buildings and took his records over there. When anything odd happens, it’s always in that other building, and I’m not permitted to go over there. The excuse is that a lot of the patients in there are under restraint.”

“I apologize for calling you a cold cookie. I thought when you thanked me for the flowers that you knew I’d killed him. It’s sort of a continuous nightmare — to know that you killed a man with your hands. Like a damn animal. If the kids knew that, they’d never really think about me the same way. There’d be a little awe and a little fear mixed in. I don’t want that.”

She made a brave attempt at a smile. “Anyway. I’ve learned something. I’ve learned that I haven’t been as clever as I thought. They must know I’m looking for information to use against them. Otherwise they wouldn’t have tried — so delicately — to keep us apart.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Well, I knew, of course, that a patient in another building, a patient with a Polish name, had died. I didn’t connect that up with that Marty who was brought in with you. And apparently Dr. Dressner didn’t expect Marty to die, or he’d never have brought him where I could have seen him and you in the first place. So, if we get together it means that you tell me about Marty, and. assuming I’m working against them, it would be logical for me to try to get you to make a statement to the police, or at least to the district attorney.”

“I see what you mean, Gloria.” He half smiled. “Maybe it also means that they’re not too certain I might not reverse my field.”

“You still might?”

“I told you why I can’t. I told you!”

The cars streaming by outside had their lights on. He envied the people in those cars. Perhaps every one of them had some problem — something they considered crucial, almost desperate. But there was a way out for them. He could see no way out for himself. No way that would leave him both honor and security. It was, he thought, very probably the classic choice. That last threshold choice of the human spirit. It would be naive to imagine that there existed somewhere a kind, powerful, and understanding person in authority who would listen to the entire tale, pat him on the hand, and tell him to go his way while the wicked were brought to judgment. More likely it would be a casual, dusty courtroom smelling of nervousness and boredom. “Fine a plaintiff guilty a manslaughter ’n sentence him to not lessen two or more’n five years ’n state’s prison. Next case.”

“Always,” she said softly, “always it’s yourself you have to live with.”

“Stop reading my mind, Gloria. Lew Prade has his doctrine. He talks about angles. Maybe I’m a new convert.”

“I hardly think you could be, Steve.”

“You’re so damn sure of yourself!”

“You sound irritated with me because you’re irritated with yourself.”

“Stop pushing me!”

“Steve, just how important is all that equipment? Really, I mean. To Vogeling and Lew Prade and Ross Farlini and their whole crew?”

He shrugged. “I suppose you’ve got to assume they’ll milk the contracts for the maximum they can get. You maybe read about the state-road program for the next five years? Thirty million a year. If Vogeling can get hold of the contracts, as well as the Jennings and Ryan back-ordered equipment, maybe Farlini can throw them five million a year for this end of the state. Get a few inspectors in there who’ll turn their backs when Vogeling skimps on the road foundations, and jimmy up the books on construction costs and profits, and they might be able to divvy up better than half a million on the side — apart from the recorded profits on the contract. Half a million a year. Two and a half million over a five-year period. But, you see, Vogeling must get that equipment, because it would be too obvious if the contracts were placed with a firm unable to handle it with existing equipment.”

“And you’re the key to all that profit?”

“Yes.”

“You know, Steve, it seems almost too pat. It was all fitted together so quickly and so neatly.”

“They’re fast on their feet. Lew says he is always looking for angles. So he found one and acted on it quickly. You might say that’s his trade.”

“What makes you think you can trust me, Steve?”

He stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“What’s going to keep me from telling my real boss, not Dressner, exactly what is going on?”

Her dark eyes were cool, almost hostile. He said slowly, “I am just not very bright, I guess. I wanted to talk to somebody. Somehow it was you I wanted to talk to. It never occurred to me that you would or could — clobber me. I suppose that’s the right word. You wouldn’t have to go to your boss. You could go right to George Ryan and tell him what I’m going to do, and that would be the end of it.”

“So, you just instinctively trusted me?”

“That’s the way it is.”

“Coldly and objectively, Steve, I want to stop you from doing what Prade wants you to do. I could tell myself I was doing it for your own good. Maybe we’re both too soft for this world, Steve. I can’t do it. It’s something you have to do.”

He smiled. “I thought for a minute the responsibility was being taken out of my hands. It was almost a relief. Almost, but not quite. I guess when Ellen died I lost my luck. Things have gone sour since then.”

“If you were in serious trouble. Steve, what would happen to Paul and Diana?”

“They’d go back with Ellen’s parents.”

“Is that bad?”

“It wasn’t good for them the last time. They’re quite old. They have a big. gloomy house. They were too tough on Ellen when she was a kid. The years haven’t made them any more lenient. They don’t have the usual attitude toward grandchildren. They expect too much of kids. When I got my children back it was as though they were coming out from under a big black cloud. If Ellen’s people were different it would simplify the whole thing. I feel I’m responsible to Ellen for the kids. Paulie and Diana are. at the age where— Another year in that house would mix them up for good. Kids have to have emotional security.”

She looked down at the table top. She flushed. She said, “This sounds weird, I know. but. you see, I’ve worked toward something for nearly two years, and I haven’t got anyplace, and I’m trying to find some way of being able to use what you’ve told me. We’re sitting here trying to figure something out, and— Either of us ought to be able to make any sort of suggestion, shouldn’t we?” She looked up at him quickly, her face still pink.

“What are you driving at?”

“I guess it’s partly your idea, anyway. You were talking about — thirty teeth and a pleasant baritone. I fill — certain requirements. I can make pretty good money, and I’m good with kids, and if the worst happened, I’d make them understand. while you were — away, just how it happened and why it happened. Then afterward we could maybe get it annulled or something, because it would really be just an — arrangement. But you could check on me. I could tell you the people to talk to. I’m reliable, and responsible.”

“And bright pink.”

“Don’t laugh at me. I don’t propose every day. It’s harder to do than I thought. You see, that way, they could be with me, and nobody could send them back to Ellen’s parents.”

“You’d saddle yourself with a pair kids. Just to be able to turn over more information to that investigating committee?”

“I’ve got something at stake. I’ve got what happened to my sister as well as the knowledge of two years wasted unless I can prove something.”

He looked at her. The blush had faded. She sat erect with pride and with dignity and a certain inflexibility of purpose that impressed him.

“And if, as you say, the worst happens, how do I go about making a living when I get out? Caning chairs?”

“Sometimes you can’t see beyond the end of your nose, Steve. You go to George Ryan right now and tell him the whole story, and tell him, very carefully, that you’ll endanger your own freedom and reputation rather than cheat him, and something tells me that there won’t be any problem when you get out. We should be married as quickly as possible. There are blood tests and things. It takes three days. Then we can tell the whole story to my boss and to George Ryan and to the police. I’ll drive you back to your car now and meet you at the license bureau in City Hall tomorrow morning at nine sharp.”

“Gloria, I... I don’t know how...”

She pulled her hand from under his. “This is a business arrangement, Steve. And it’s up to you. Do you want to go through with it?”

“It’s the only way out that seems to make any sense. I’d be a damn fool not to agree.”

They drove back to Coleburne. Fat raindrops began to fall as they reached the outskirts. By the time she pulled up behind his car the rain was bouncing high off the asphalt, a silver fringe on the curtain of the night. He looked at her. A neon sign that clicked off and on made an intermittent, harsh green light against the clear plane of her cheek. He took her gently in his good arm, and they held each other close. He kissed her with an unexpected clumsiness, and she responded with a dizzying warmth and then drew resolutely away from him.

“Steve — we have to keep it on the basis of — an impersonal arrangement, or I can’t go through with it. You do understand that, Steve?”

“I can understand it without liking it. Nine o’clock tomorrow?”

“Nine o’clock, Steve.”

The next morning was sunny, the air washed clean by the night’s rain. He had slept soundly for the first time since learning of Marty’s death. By nine-fifteen he was irritated, restless. By nine-thirty he was filled with vague alarm, and found himself dropping cigarettes on the tile floor of the corridor after two or three quick puffs. At nine-forty he asked the graying, spavined clerk if he might use the office phone for a local call. He had already filled out his portion of the license blank to save time.

The clerk had a musty cackle. “See’d a lot of times men didn’t show. Women always seem to. Go ahead. Like to hear how you handle a situation like this, friend.”

Steve phoned and recognized the voice of the other nurse. It was stupid not to have written down Gloria’s private number. It wasn’t listed, at least not under her name.

“Could you give me Miss Hess’s number again, please? This is Mr. Dalvin.”

“I’m sorry. Miss Hess is ill. She was taken sick in the night, Mr. Dalvin.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I’m afraid you’d have to see Dr. Dressner about that. She’s over in one of the other buildings.”

“May I speak with Dr. Dressner, please?”

“He isn’t going to be in today unless there’s an emergency and we have to call him, Mr. Dalvin.”

“Where do you call him if there’s an emergency?”

“I’m afraid I can’t give out that information, sir.”

“Who can give me a report on Miss Hess?”

“Dr. Dressner can tell you about it. He’ll be in sometime tomorrow. Maybe you could phone. About ten o’clock tomorrow?”

“Could I see Miss Hess if I came out?”

“Oh, no, sir. Visitors are allowed in this building, but not the others.”

He hung up sharply, walked toward the door, remembered to turn and thank the clerk.

With a sick feeling of apprehension, he walked the five blocks to the office. Perhaps she was actually sick. He tried to tell himself that. It didn’t work very well. Perhaps it would have been a good deal wiser not to have given his name to that other nurse, knowing that Lew Prade had told him very definitely to stay away from Gloria Hess. He could imagine the entire sequence: Doctor, a man named Dalvin asked for Miss Hess. I gave him her private number. She went out shortly after that and didn’t come back for three or four hours. Next sequence: Miss Hess, we know you saw Dalvin. It was suggested to you that you make no contact with him. We are aware of your activities, Miss Hess. We have been aware of them for some time.

He had a lurid image of injections, of full restraint, of Gloria weeping with fear. No, they wouldn’t risk anything like that, not if they knew she had been planted there. Retribution would be too quick and too certain.

He went over and over what she had told him, and he remembered that she had mentioned no name of any person to whom she reported.

He went up to his office, sat at his desk, automatically handled a few routine matters. Finally, not certain that he was doing the right thing, he looked up Lew Prade’s telephone number and phoned him.

“Yes? Who is it?”

“Steve Dalvin, Lew.”

“What’s on your mind, boy? Little info for Ricky?”

“No. A favor, Lew. How do I get in touch with Dr. Dressner?”

“Are you sick?”

“No, I just want to ask a couple of questions.”

“Okay. Hold the line. I’ll put him on. You caught us in the middle of breakfast. Why not come over and have some coffee with us?”

“I can’t leave the office, Lew. I’d appreciate it if—”

“Sure. Hold on.”

He heard voices in the background, heard a woman’s laughter, the sound of Latin-American music. “This is Dr. Dressner speaking.”

“Dalvin, Doctor. I wonder if you could give me any information about Miss Hess, your nurse. I tried to get in touch with her, and they tell me she’s sick.”

“That’s quite true.”

“What’s wrong with her, Doctor?”

“I don’t see where your interest lies, Mr. Dalvin, but I’ll try to tell you in terms you can understand. Gloria is an excellent nurse, but a very high-strung young lady. She consistently overworks, and I’ve been too busy lately to check on her. She had what you might call a collapse last night. A few delusions. Inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. She recognized her own condition and signed a voluntary commitment for ninety days. It’s really not terribly serious. Rest is the prime medication in such cases.”

“Just what are you trying to pull, Dressner?”

There was a shocked silence. “My dear Mr. Dalvin, perhaps you need some of the same treatment. You sound that way. It was a perfectly legal commitment, signed in the presence of the county health officer, and he can testify as to her irrationality. I consider your attitude quite — presumptuous.”

“Can I see her?”

“When, in my best judgment, she can be permitted to have visitors, I shall ask her if she cares to see you, Mr. Dalvin. That’s the best I can do for you, though, I repeat, I fail to see where your interest in the young lady lies.”

“We were going to get our marriage license this morning, Doctor. Does that give me a legitimate interest?”

“She mentioned that, Mr. Dalvin. I consider that part of the delusionary aspects of her condition. You can check with Dr. Daniels, the county health officer. That may cure you of your odd and, I might say, rather poorly disguised suspicions.”

“And Daniels works for Lew Prade, too, I suppose.”

“Stevie, boy, I’m on this other extension here, and I think you better quiet down and go take a cold shower or something. You bother me.”

“That’s a pretty mutual condition, Lew.”

“What you getting so hot about? I told you that nurse was out of bounds.”

“Lew, you can go to hell.”

“You still don’t figure angles, do you? I got something I don’t want to tell you over the phone. You stay in the office, and I send a boy to tell you what I got on my mind.” Lew hung up.

It was half an hour before the “boy” arrived. He was the man called Pritch. He sat down with a mild smile, bit the end off a cigar, and spat it delicately into Steve’s wastebasket. He snapped his fingers, got up, went around the desk, pulled open drawers, and closed them gently.

“Offices, they got those gimmicks in. Making recordings. It’s good to make sure.”

“I imagine.”

“You take Lew. He only talks when he’s sure it isn’t going on a tape or a record. Really talks, I mean. A guy in his position, things get taken the wrong way.”

“What did he send you to tell me?”

“You got to understand what kind of a guy Lew is. He’d go to hell and back for a friend. He says you got to count on your friends. He says he did you a favor covering up that little matter for you. You owe him a favor, and it’s all laid out what you got to do. He wants to think you’re a friend, Steve, and you two can trust each other all the way down the line. That’s the way Lew is. That’s the way he likes things.”

“You haven’t said anything yet.”

“You worried him this morning. Now, that isn’t good. He sent me over to tell you that it maybe isn’t as simple as you think. It isn’t just one of those things where if you cross him up you do a little time, maybe standing on your head. You worry him, and he thinks about other things. It upsets him. He starts thinking maybe you wouldn’t have much of a squawk to make if you had the hell beat out of you. He’d hate to have that done to a friend, being the way he is. But he gets impatient when people worry him.”

Steve rested the cast on the edge of the desk. “That’s supposed to scare me?”

“If you’re smart, it scares you. A beating isn’t like in the books, you know. It doesn’t make you any hero. You don’t bounce right back with a big smile. I got wise once. A long time ago. I should have known better. They gave it to me good. And you know, it didn’t leave a scar. Not a one. But I was a rabbit for a couple years. Jumpy. It spoils a man. You remember and wake up sweating. It doesn’t leave you with much nerve. It just leaves you with the feeling you don’t want it to happen again. But I guess nobody who’s never taken a beating can understand about it. Lew, he figured it might not impress you much. So he asks me if I got any ideas how we can lay it on the line so you’d wake up. I had an idea right away. I said, ‘Lew, the thing to promise him is that you’ll have some of the boys beat him up in front of his kids.’ That really hurt Lew. He called me a couple names. He loves kids. But after he thought it over he saw the point. He says there’s always a way to hit a man where he lives, if you look hard enough. He just hadn’t thought of that. It’s pretty standard, and I’m surprised he didn’t think of it. Those Ku Kluxers have been doing it for years. They whip anybody, they always make the family watch.” Pritch stood up, examined the end of his cigar, and lit it again. “They don’t make these anymore so they stay lit. Well, that was the message, and Lew wanted you to know that it was a little more than the rap for Marty — and, hell, he says you two ought to be friends.”

Pritch walked out, turning at the door to wave his hand in a mocking gesture of hail and farewell.

Steve sat at his desk, terribly alone. In the back of his mind was a little shadow box where he lay and yelled with fright and pain while Paulie and Diana watched with wide scared eyes.

Quit struggling, he thought. Take it as it comes. But something had altered in his mind. There had been scales in precarious balance. On one side was the threat of prison. On the other side was a crooked method of landing a crooked job. Lew had suspected, from the phone call, that the scales were tipping the wrong way. So he had placed a heavy weight on the side labeled “Prison.” By all the rules it should have reversed the direction of the scales. And yet, crazily, it seemed to have the opposite effect on his mind. Maybe it was the outrage at the threatened debasement. Coldly he realized that he could no longer take an objective approach to it. From here on in it was emotional. And the emotions said, Fight. You could save your hide from the threat of prison, and maybe learn to live with yourself. But if you saved it from the threat of pain it gave you a big yellow label you couldn’t live with.

He went to George Ryan. Ryan told him coldly to sit down.

“George, something has been going on that you don’t understand.”

“I can’t exactly consider that news, Steve.”

“I can’t tell you about it right now. You’ll just have to trust me.”

“Your attitude the last week hasn’t made that a very attractive idea, Steve.”

“I realize all that. Soon, maybe, I can tell you the score. Once I tell you, you’ll be justified in firing me. Just take my word that all this is — enormously important. I need your help. I want to get my kids out of the house and to — a safe place as soon as possible. And I want to quit right now. Quit the job until I can tell you the whole thing. This is Friday. With any luck—”

“What’s this about Paul and Diana?”

“They’re not in any physical danger. Just — emotional danger, George.”

“They know Russ, don’t they? Suppose I have him pick them up at your house and take them out to my place? Would that be okay?”

Steve thought it over. “It would be a perfect place for them to go. George. But I don’t think Russ ought to pick them up at the house. I don’t want Mrs. Chandler, even, to know where they’re going. I’ll phone her and ask her to bring them downtown. I could give Russ a note to give her that would explain it as well as it can be explained.”

“Fix it up with Russ, then. Steve — I’m glad, in a way, that you’re in some kind of trouble. It’s a better answer than the one I was beginning to have. Want to tell me about it?”

“Not yet. What do you know about Dr. Daniels, the county health officer?”

“Van Daniels. Honest, I guess. Sort of dumb. A rum pot. His brother is influential in the capital. That’s how Van Daniels happened to get the appointment.”

“I’ll tell you one thing, George. Don’t ask me to explain it. I’m telling you so you’ll understand the seriousness of the whole thing. I... killed a man.”

Steve saw George’s eyes flick toward the broken hand and away. “I won’t ask you to explain it right now, if that’s what you want, Steve. But let me know if I can help in any way.”

He put his left hand out, and Steve took it. George grinned and said, “Welcome back, anyway.”

It took him a full hour in the back files of the Coleburne Herald before he found the headlines about the setting up of a state committee composed of various state senators, to investigate organized crime in the state. The committee had been allocated seventy-five thousand dollars, and empowered to hire such outside experts as they considered necessary for the job at hand. The chairman of the committee was State Senator Gordon L. LaVerne. and in his first statement to the press LaVerne had said that the committee was fortunate in having secured the services of Brandon McGell, on leave of absence from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to supervise the methods of gathering information.

Steve wrote the names awkwardly with his left hand and walked from the newspaper office to the County Courthouse. A fat young girl was the sole occupant of the office of the county health officer. She had a bright fresh sunburn and chewed gum with great intentness.

“About a commitment? You know the name of the party?”

“A Miss Gloria Hess. She was committed to Valley Vale.”

“Recent, eh? Let me check that. Say, our copy isn’t even filed yet. Gloria Hess. Age twenty-five. Dark hair, dark-brown eyes, height five seven and a half, weight one twenty-two. That’s her, I guess. This is a voluntary commitment.”

“Does it give the reason?”

“Here. Take a look. We keep one copy, and the dupe stays in the hospital files. Then they endorse it to us when the patient is discharged.”

He ran his eye down the form. Diagnosis — anxiety neurosis. There were three signatures on the sheet. Dressner’s, Daniels’, and Gloria’s. They all had been written with the same pen, in bright blue ink. Gloria’s signature looked firm, definite. He read the fine legal print, handed it back to the girl.

“How does this sort of thing work?”

“Well, this is the easiest kind, when they do it themselves. It’s more complicated when a relative does it. And when there isn’t any relative to go to bat, it’s really tough. Then the health officer has to witness an actual act of violence and do the committing himself, and he has to take a state policeman along with him. But a person signing themselves in, that’s easy.”

“Suppose they want to sign out again? Suppose they change their mind?”

“That’s tough, mister. They’re in there for the full ninety days or until such time as the doctor says they’re well enough to be released.”

“When will Dr. Daniels be in?”

“He’s overdue now. Some days he takes a real long lunch hour.”

He waited while the girl typed languidly. Daniels came in a half hour later. He was a narrow man. Narrow head, shoulders, and body, and he had a small, incongruous potbelly, as though he were stealing a small watermelon.

“Dalvin, you said? Oh, yes, Mr. Dalvin. Dr. Dressner mentioned you. Come in, come in.” He looked at Steve without friendliness. His voice was a bit slurred and he exuded a thick, unpleasant smell of alcohol.

He waved a hand and Steve followed him back into the small office.

“Sit down, sir. I understand you want to register a complaint about the handling of the case of that Hess girl. I would like you to understand. Mr. Dalvin, that all the affairs of this office are handled in the strictest accordance with all pertinent laws and ordinances governing such—”

“Hold it, please. I think you handled it splendidly, Doctor.”

The graying eyebrows shot up. “Eh! You do?”

“Yes. I’m afraid Dr. Dressner didn’t understand me when I spoke to him over the phone. You see, Miss Hess and I were about to be married. This was a terrible shock to me. Dr. Dressner is annoyed at me because— Well, you know how it is. No doctor likes to lose the services of a good nurse.”

“Yes, but—”

“So he won’t tell me her symptoms or anything like that. And I thought you might be kind enough to tell me how she — acted.”

“Why, of course! Glad to, Mr. Dalvin. She was overwrought. Close, I would say, to hysteria. Very disconnected in her speech. Carrying on at a great rate about something or other.” He leaned forward. “Now, this won’t appear on our records, of course, but she was caught trying to break into Dr. Dressner’s private files. Very irrational behavior. Dr. Dressner and I explained to her that unless she signed herself in, we’d have to get the troopers and have them witness my involuntary-commitment procedure. Very attractive girl. High-strung type. Dressner said she seemed to have the idea that she was being persecuted, and that she was a spy or something. By then, of course, the sedative was beginning to take effect. She was quieting down nicely.”

“Sedative?”

“Oh, yes. Indicated in such conditions. Demerol, I believe Dressner uses. Very effective. Works in a matter of minutes. She was trying to tell me something she thought was important. Poor child. They always have something incomprehensible to tell you, something that’s supposed to be a matter of life and death.”

“Can you remember?”

“Oh, no. I didn’t pay any attention. Something about a person named Steve and a person named Marty.”

“Please try to remember, Dr. Daniels. My name is Steve.”

“All I can remember is that you’re supposed to go talk to this Marty.”

Steve leaned forward. “Doctor, is there any possible chance that Miss Hess was framed?”

The friendliness vanished at once. “My dear young man! It is my duty to keep that sort of thing from happening. If you think for one moment that a man of Dr. Dressner’s standing would think that he could persuade me to—”

“All right. Thanks for your help.”

Steve walked down the broad tan steps of the County Courthouse, into the hot afternoon sunlight. If Daniels had remembered correctly, it certainly did sound as though Gloria had gone off the deep end. Go tell Marty something. Go on out to the cemetery and sit on your heels and tell Marty all about it. Tell him all about the willowy nurse who thought she was a spy or something.

Well, by now the kids would be out of Prade’s reach, and Mrs. Chandler would have a wrong story to tell anyone who asked her. Prade would notice the kids were not home and quickly add two and two. He had the feeling that time was running out, and he was getting nowhere.

He got a handful of change and shut himself into the steam bath of a phone booth. “I am sorry, but Senator LaVerne cannot be reached. He is on a fishing trip in Canada. He goes every year at this time. I do not know how you could contact Mr. McGell. Perhaps I could find out and call you back?”

“This is something that is important to the senator and to Mr. McGell. I wonder if you could locate Mr. McGell for me and tell him to get in contact with me here in Coleburne as soon as possible.”

“I don’t know whether I could assume the responsibility of—”

“I can safely say, miss, that this is a matter of life and death.”

“Oh! Well, in that case, if you will give me your name again and where you can be reached—”

Steve gave her the information she wanted. He walked, damp with perspiration, out of the phone booth. A late Friday afternoon in the summer. A long weekend coming up. The world had no time for a girl who might possibly have been framed, for a man who had no weapon but anger and indignation.

A cop in pale-blue hot-weather uniform was waiting at one of the main intersections, waiting to take over traffic duties from the robot light when the afterwork rush started. Officer, I want to confess to killing a man.

No, not that way. Don’t go out of circulation too fast, he told himself. Use what freedom there is left to do something constructive — if you can think of anything. So you killed a man. mister. Who was he? Where did he live? Where did he come from? What was his business? Was he married?

All I know about him is that he was Chester “Marty” Novecki, and he didn’t die of a fall. He was pushed. In the face. I broke this hand on him.

Somewhere, he thought, there would be some record of Marty. If McGell was ever located, he’d want to know more about the man. He’d want a few details. Where did they keep such details? Probably some forlorn municipal bureau, some room stacked high with the dusty records of death. He remembered the death of his father, the long, involved form the undertaker had brought. Somebody had had to fill one of those out on Novecki. Lew had mentioned a funeral for Marty. Lew was a loyal man. He’d always throw his business to his friends.

Steve called up George and caught him as he was about to leave the office.

“Steve? Just got word your — friends are doing fine.”

“Good, George. Thanks. Say, if Lew Prade died, who’d handle the funeral?”

“That’s a funny question. Brown and Carew, probably. They’re on Vincent Street, a block beyond the Y. At least they’ve buried a lot of Lew’s friends.”

He thanked George, hung up. walked through the heat to the ultramodern undertaking establishment of Brown and Carew. As he walked he planned what he would say. He did not know anyone there, and it was highly unlikely that he would meet anyone who would know him. by name or by sight.

By the time he touched the bell he had his plan under control. A man with a sad, polite smile admitted him.

“Can we be of service, sir?”

“I hope so. My name is Dale. Insurance. We have a death claim just submitted by the widow of a man named Novecki. Chester Novecki. I believe you took care of the funeral arrangements.”

“Oh, yes, we did, Mr. Dale. My name is Thompkins. I happen to remember that matter because Mr. Prade... ah... took care of all expenses. But if I remember correctly, sir, there were no relatives.”

“Novecki had been separated from his wife, but she was still the beneficiary on a small paid-up policy. I want to determine whether or not this was the Chester Novecki on which we carry the policy, Mr. Thompkins. I’d consider it a favor if I could look at your records.”

“That’s — a rather unusual request. If you could show me some authorization, I think it might possibly be arranged.”

“I can wait while you call the local office of my company, Mr. Thompkins. Just ask them if Dale is handling the Novecki investigation.” He made his voice as casual as he dared. He gave the name of one of the larger agencies.

“I’m sure it will be all right, Mr. Dale. Would you care to come back through to the office?”

They walked down a wide, softly carpeted corridor, past small rooms where services were held, past a larger room where caskets and urns were on display, to a small, efficient-looking office in the rear. A quick, owl-eyed girl dug into the files at Thompkins’ request, handed him a long form with a deft flourish. Thompkins glanced at the form and handed it over to Steve with a similar flourish. Steve read through it quickly.

Name of deceased: Chester Novecki. Age: 50 (approx.). Height: 5' 5''. Weight: 130. Hair: Gray. Eyes: Blue. Cause of Death: Injuries resulting from fall down flight of stairs while under influence of alcohol. Treated: Emergency at Coleburne General, removed to Valley Vale day before death. Certification: Dressner.

“Is something the matter, Mr. Dale?”

“Uh... no. This doesn’t seem to be the man. We’re interested in — a much younger man.”

He looked again at the form, bewildered, confused, but with a great gladness, a gladness that seemed more chemical, more glandular than the product of any conscious thought, beginning to well up in him. The blanks regarding occupation, residence, next of kin. were all filled out with a single word — “Unknown.” Obviously a bum. One of the tired, shuffling old creeps with the broken shoes and the gray, hopeless faces, one of those vacant-lot citizens who tenderly heat up soup cans full of ethyl gas and inhale the fumes to acquire a three-day blackout, one of those to whom death itself is merely the hopelessness of each day carried to a slightly greater degree.

How simple it had been for Prade, for Dressner. Pick a bum with a hopeless prognosis out of the charity ward and let him die at Valley Vale. Then tell Dalvin, the gullible sucker, that Marty’s right name had been Chester Novecki. Cure Marty of his concussion, or whatever it was. and send him out of town so that dope, Dalvin, wouldn’t run into him on the street.

He remembered what Gloria had said, about its being too simple, too pat. And so, in the night, she had taken the chance of trying to prove her hunch, of trying to check Dressner’s records. She had been caught, and there had been little risk in making the arrangements with the righteous and simple-minded Dr. Daniels. Three months of rest for Miss Hess, while that jerk, Dalvin, channeled the Jennings and Ryan deliveries over to Ricky Vogeling. The bulk of the equipment was due during that three months. Then let the Hess girl go. Let her tell Dalvin how he’d been a sucker, and it would be too late for them to do anything about it. As the drug was taking effect on her she’d sent the clear message. Go talk to Marty. It was a clue, and he’d been too dull to catch on. And it was only because of his instinct to give to McGell as complete data as possible that he’d stumbled on the deception. Prade was, in his own way, a perfectionist. He’d probably sent a horseshoe of flowers to the funeral he’d paid for — “GOOD LUCK. MARTY.”

He thanked Thompkins, walked out into the five-o’clock heat. The air no longer smelled washed. Humidity had folded down over the city again, wilting the women, shimmering the chrome glints of the cars.

He stood uncertainly on the corner, and then walked to the lot for his car. McGell had his office phone and his home phone. It would be wise to go to the house and wait for McGell to call. And when McGell called, he’d get some news.

The street lay quiet, the newly planted maples making small spots of shade. A big phone-company truck was parked down the street from his house, and men were working on the poles.

He turned into the driveway and cut off the motor.

“Hey, Daddy!” Diana called joyously. She came plunging down the two steps from the screened porch of Lew Prade’s house and ran to the car. “Daddy, we had ice cream over at Mr. Ryan’s house.”

He opened the door. He fought against panic. She leaped to the concealed running board, clutched his leg. He glanced at Prade’s porch, saw the bulky form of Lew behind the screen.

He kept his voice low. “What are you doing back here, sugar? Is Paulie here, too?”

“Mr. Joe brought us back, Daddy. We’re having a party at Uncle Lew’s.” Her voice was shrill.

“You’re invited, Stevie,” Lew called. “Come on and join the party.” Paulie appeared beside Lew. Steve got out of the car. He felt as if he were in the middle of a vast stage, too brightly lighted. The porch was a hundred miles away across the green lawn.

Steve walked to the screen door, holding Diana’s hand. Lew held the door open. Steve looked closely at him. The man’s expression seemed calm. Steve said hello to Paulie, rumpled the boy’s hair. He was proud that his voice did not shake. The one called Pritch and the one called Joe sat on wicker chairs. Ricky Vogeling sat on the couch. They had drinks. Paulie clutched a Coke bottle. The big doll sat in a straight-backed chair by herself, wearing her half-smile, glassy and permanent. She looked to Steve as though she sat there with robotic anticipation, ceramic glee.

“Bring Stevie a drink, Irene,” Lew yelled.

“Coming up,” she answered from the back of the house.

“Sit down, Stevie.”

Steve took one of the empty chairs. Lew sat beside Ricky on the couch. Steve heard himself say idiotically, “Warm day.”

Irene smiled a bit uncertainly at Steve, handed him a drink, and went back into the house. Diana was sitting on the floor near the doll. Paulie stood by the screen door. Lew said. “Kids, go on back and talk to Irene. She’s lonesome back there.”

“Can Betty Baker Dalvin stay out here. Uncle Lew? She likes it on the porch.”

“Sure, honey. Give me a kiss and run along now.”

The children left the porch. Lew said. “You’re right, Stevie. It is warm. A warm day for running around like you’ve been, making long-distance calls, going to talk to that stupid Thompkins, getting Ryan’s driver to pick up your kids downtown. You don’t want to exert yourself so much.”

“You’ve been busy, too,” Steve said with a faint attempt at defiance.

“Marty’s on the West Coast, Stevie. He’s working for a friend. Thought you’d like to know.”

“I found out today. How big a damn fool can a man be?”

“Stevie, I give it to you straight. Ross Farlini doesn’t want any fooling around. He wants Vogeling to get that equipment fast, and you’re going to divert it to us just the way I laid it out.”

“If Marty isn’t dead...”

“It doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. You can’t call cop. What can you prove?”

“I can prove that Dressner framed Miss Hess. There are some people in the capital who’ll be interested in that.”

“Doc promises me that if anybody wants to take a look at her she won’t be able to say anything that makes sense. He’s got ways. Hell, we’ve known all along she was a plant. No point in chasing her away. They might have sneaked one in we wouldn’t know about. She’s on ice, all nice and legal, for ninety days. They got all kinds of treatments for her condition, Stevie. Some of them are pretty uncomfortable. You get wise with us, and we try to take better care of your friend Gloria. That’s item one. Item two is that in a little while we show the kids what happens to Daddy when Daddy is bad. And if that one doesn’t take, we can go right on spanking Daddy until Daddy is a nice man again.”

“You... dirty—”

“Now, Stevie. That attitude isn’t fair. You got to understand my position. Ross likes me to be efficient. I don’t want him sore at me. So I got to keep you in line. The doc and I are always anxious to please. You sort of fell into my lap, and I had you fooled thinking Marty was dead and you killed him. So you’re a little smarter than I give you credit for, and that’s okay, too. I like smart friends, and I want you to just brace yourself for this little clobbering, and everything will be fine from here on in with us.”

“No matter what you do to me, Prade, I won’t do it.”

“Movies he’s been seeing,” Pritch said with contempt.

“I guess you won’t mind if I go, Lew,” Ricky said.

“Weak stomach, Ricky? Okay, run along. You’ll get the stuff all right. Stevie is going to be a lot smarter in about fifteen minutes.”

“How did you get the kids back here?” Steve asked in a low voice.

“I had a hunch and told Joe here to keep them in sight. He told me where they went. So I sent Joe out there with a note from you. I printed it with my left hand. Just like you’d have to. Pretty slick, eh?”

“It won’t work, Prade,” Steve said, and his voice trembled.

“Irene! Send the kids out here.”

There was enough shrubbery around the porch so that whatever happened on it couldn’t be seen from the street. “Pritch, you go in turn up that radio loud.”

Pritch stood up slowly. He took two steps toward the living room and then looked out at the curb in front of the house.

“Phone company, Lew,” he said softly.

“Go stall them,” Lew snapped.

Steve turned his head and watched the three workmen heading toward the porch. Pritch met them. There were low voices Steve could not hear. He stared hard. It looked as though the tallest workman were slapping Pritch’s pockets, backing Pritch up. Ricky had got in his car. One man reached in casually and took the keys out of Ricky Vogeling’s hand.

They came up to the screen door. Lew Prade said, his voice thin and sharp, “What goes? What goes on?”

The tallest man had a lean, sad, worn face, graying hair, somber eyes. “Hello, Prade. Name’s McGell. Give him his subpoena, Benning. We got a lot of them, Prade. Blank except for the date, and we just filled those in.”

Lew said, “You know what you’re doing, maybe? You can’t touch me.”

“We’re not touching you, Prade. You got some dates. One before a committee. One before a grand jury, probably. Dressner gets a bid to the party, too. I think he’ll check Miss Hess and find she’s made an astonishing recovery.”

“You got nothing,” Lew said, regaining confidence. “Nothing at all, my friend.”

“I’m — glad to see you, Mr. McGell,” Steve said. “And if anybody ever made an understatement—”

McGell’s smile changed his face completely. “We let you sweat a little. Off the record, I like the way you were taking it. Hi, honey,” he said, sitting on his heels, arms outstretched.

Diana ran to him. She turned in his arms and smiled up at Steve. “It was a secret,” she said solemnly. “We had to promise, didn’t we, Paulie?”

Paulie had a fresh bottle of Coke. “She raised heck about hurting Betty Baker,” he said with obvious masculine disgust.

“I did not!” Diana said.

“You did so! You cried.”

Diana showed signs of being about to cry again, this time with indignation.

McGell said, “You were both good kids.”

Still sitting on his heels, one arm around Diana, McGell grinned up at Lew Prade. Steve was glad that a grin of that sort wasn’t directed at him. McGell said, “I’ve been in town for over a week, Prade. Time was getting short. I’ve been in touch with Miss Hess. The committee appropriation was about to run out on us, and so we had to nail you down fast. We wouldn’t have been able to manage it if you hadn’t tried to sucker Mr. Dalvin here.”

“Nail down. Nail down,” Lew said contemptuously. “You’ve got nothing.”

“Haven’t we? I ought to keep this to myself, Prade, but it’s too good to keep. I had a little conference with a man named George Ryan in the small hours this morning. Got his cooperation. So he phoned me at once when Dalvin here got Ryan to have the kids taken out to his house. Your Joe tailed Russ and we tailed Joe, just in case. When he turned back at the house, we went in. We had a hunch you’d try to get the kids out of there somehow. It was a scramble getting just what we needed, and I had to do a lot of talking to my girlfriend here, to get her to let me do a little operation.”

“A real one!” Diana said with awe.

“We opened up that doll, Lew, and we put a little one-tube mike and a battery pack in there. The doll sat there and took it all in, and we picked it up on tape in that truck parked down the street. Now, do you think you’re nailed?”

Lew sat down abruptly. He was chalky white. They left him there, on the porch, left him with his silent, uneasy crew, left him to long thoughts of self-excuse and worry about retribution.

McGell said, “Want to come along? I think you’ve earned it. The good doctor is going to let our Miss Hess out of her padded cell.”

They dropped the children with Mrs. Chandler, and McGell drove Steve’s car out toward Valley Vale, the borrowed phone truck following along behind them.

Steve said, “It’s — moving so fast. I thought I was way out on the end of a limb. And you showed up like the United States Cavalry. How come you talked to George Ryan?”

“After Gloria dropped you off last night, she came right to the hotel. We had a long talk. But first she made me promise that I wouldn’t use any part of it, that it had to be up to you. She told me it sounded too pat, all the way down the line. I agreed. It began to look as though maybe Marty weren’t dead. She agreed to take the chance of trying to get into Dressner’s records. After she left I did some thinking. I broke my promise. I went to Ryan, told him most of the story, told him to let me know any developments. Nice guy, that Ryan. Nice to work for, I imagine. As I told Prade, Ryan let me know about the kids. Your little girl was hard to convince. We got the truck, put the equipment aboard, and parked within range and waited. It had to work, Dalvin. If it didn’t, it was going to be no easy job getting Gloria out of there.”

Steve said, “Won’t Lew warn Dressner?”

“Not a chance. We fixed that.”

Fifteen minutes after they drove through the gates of Valley Vale, Gloria walked out of her private room, pale and shaken, her eyes enormous. She walked into Steve’s arms, and he felt the trembling of her body.

A week later Steve and Gloria sat on his front porch, drinking chilled beer in the warm summer night while Mrs. Chandler was getting the kids to bed.

Steve broke the long silence. “Every time I see that for-sale sign next door I feel good.” It was too dark to see her expression.

“It’s such a little accomplishment though, Steve. Mr. McGell says it will put only a minor crimp in Farlini’s operations. Prade and Dressner will take it in the neck, but not too seriously. All that work for so very little.”

“Don’t let me sound fatherly, darling. But if everybody starts putting little crimps in the operations of all the Ross Farlinis, this will be a better country to live in. We showed it can be done. Maybe we’ve given somebody else moral courage to take the next whack. — Listen to me! Dalvin, the monument of integrity. Until you came along I was fighting with all the reckless bravery of a cornered mouse. Just sitting on my back legs, squeaking.”

“Stop it! You think you would have gone through with it, but when it came right down to it you’d never have...”

“I want you to believe that. But I’d like to convince myself, too.”

“We’re a pair of amateurs.”

“We’re a pair.” He slid his chair closer. “Are you interested in saving my face?”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“There’s an unpleasant little clerical type who figures I was stood up. He cackled at me. I’d like him to know there really is a girl willing to fill out the rest of that blank.”

“Steve, dear, that was a business arrangement. Besides, I did the proposing. Who’d want to remember a thing like that? You’d never let me forget it.”

He found her hand in the dark, held it tightly. “All right. Miss Hess, would you care to help me provide a home for a lot of homeless butterflies?”

“Saturday-morning butterflies?”

“The kind that get in the back of your throat. Got any?”

He could tell from the sound of her voice that she was smiling. “Hold it a minute. I’ll check.”

“There better be at least one. The kids were doing some strenuous matchmaking at dinner.”

“I noticed.”

“How many butterflies, darling?”

She moved closer to him. He knew she was not smiling. Her voice was warm, tremulous. “There are too many to count, my darling,” she said. They stood on the dark porch and kissed. This time she did not withdraw. He held her close then, and, with her dark hair against his cheek, he looked out across the nighttime lawn, noting with vast, benign detachment, with fatuous delight, that there was indeed a fine crop of fireflies on this warm summer night. Too bad they couldn’t be hung in her dark hair, and it was definitely time to kiss her again, for luck.

Content

John D. Macdonald
The Doll