How Like an Angel

Twenty-Four

The long-distance call came just before noon on Saturday. Quinn was puttering around his apartment waiting for Martha to arrive from Chicote. He had arranged to spend the day on the beach with her and the two children, swimming and sunning. But a high thin fog obscured the sun as efficiently as a layer of steel, and from his window Quinn looked out on a deserted beach and a grim gray sea. He was trying to decide on an alternate plan when the phone rang.

Half expecting that Martha had changed her mind about coming, he picked up the phone. “Hello.”

“I have a person-to-person call for Mr. Joe Quinn.”

“Quinn speaking.”

“Here’s your party. Go ahead, please.”

Then Karma’s voice, tremulous and quick. “I said I wasn’t ever going to phone you, Mr. Quinn. I even tore up your card, but I remembered the number on it and—well, I’m scared. And I can’t tell my aunt because she’s not here, and even if she were I couldn’t tell her because I want the message from my mother and my aunt won’t let me have anything to do with her anymore.”

“Take it easy, Karma. Now what’s this about a message from your mother?”

“Brother Tongue called me a few minutes ago and said he had a very important message for me from my mother and that he wanted to deliver it in person.”

“Where?”

“Here at the house.”

“How did he find out where you were?”

“Oh, he knows about my aunt. I often mentioned her. Anyway, I told him he couldn’t come here because my aunt was home, which was a lie, she’s working on her garden-club display for the flower show. Chrysanthemums and pampas grass with a hidden electric fan to keep the grass blowing. It’s going to be very pretty.”

“I’m sure it is,” Quinn said. “Why didn’t Brother Tongue just give you the message over the telephone?”

“He said he promised my mother he’d see me personally. To report on how I am, etcetera, I guess, though he didn’t say that.”

“Was his call a local one?”

“Yes, he’s in town. He’s coming to the house this afternoon at four o’clock, I told him my aunt would be away by that time. I thought I’d better phone you about it because you said if anything at all happened involving any member of the colony I was to let you know.”

“I’m glad you did. Listen carefully now, Karma. Does it seem likely to you that your mother would choose Brother Tongue to deliver an important message to you?”

“No.” After a moment she added, with a child’s candor, “I always thought they hated each other. Naturally we weren’t supposed to hate, but some of us did anyway.”

“All right, let’s assume there is no message, that Brother Tongue has an entirely different reason for wanting to see you. Can you guess what it might be?”

“No.”

“Perhaps it’s something quite trivial to you but not to him.”

“I can’t think of anything,” she said slowly. “Unless he wants his silly old typewriter back. Well, he can have it. My aunt bought me a brand new portable for my birthday last month. It’s a gray and pink—”

“Wait a minute. Brother Tongue gave you an old typewriter?”

“Not exactly gave it to me. I talked him out of it.”

“It belonged to him?”

“Yes.”

“And he kept it in the storage shed?”

“Yes. I used to go out there and fool around with it until the ink dried up and the ribbon broke and I didn’t have any more paper anyway. I was a mere child then.”

“Why are you so sure it belonged to Brother Tongue?”

“Because it was how I first met him. We were living in the San Gabriel Mountains and I was exploring around when I heard a funny noise like a drum. Brother Tongue was on the back porch of his shack, typing, only he wasn’t Brother Tongue then. It’s funny, if it hadn’t been for me hearing his typewriter he would never have become Brother Tongue.”

Quinn heard the front door of his apartment open and Martha’s quick light step as she crossed the room, he spoke hurriedly into the phone: “Listen, Karma. Stay right where you are. Lock the doors and don’t open any of them until I get there. I’m driving right down.”

“Why?”

“I have some questions to ask Brother Tongue.”

“Do you think that maybe my mother really gave him a message for me?”

“No, I think he wants his typewriter back.”

“Why should he? It’s so old and broken-down, he couldn’t use it for anything.”

“No, but the police could. That typewriter was in the back seat of O’Gorman’s car the night he was murdered. I’m telling you this because I want you to realize he’s a dangerous man.”

“I’m scared.”

“You don’t have to be scared, Karma. When he comes at four o’clock I’ll be in the house with you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“I believe you,” she said gravely. “You kept your other promise about the acne lotion.”

It seemed to Quinn, as he hung up, a very long time ago, in a different world.

He went into the front room. Martha was standing at the window, looking out at the sea the way she always did when she came to the apartment, as though the sea was a miracle to her after the parched earth of Chicote.

She said, without turning, “So it’s not ended yet.”

“No.”

“Will it go on forever, Joe?”

“Don’t talk like that.” He put his arms around her and pressed his mouth against her neck. “Where are the kids?”

“Staying with the neighbors.”

“They didn’t want to see me?”

“Yes, they did. It was a real sacrifice for them to miss a day with you on the beach.”

“And just what was the sacrifice for?”

“Us,” she said with a faint smile. “Richard got the idea I would like to be alone with you for a change.”

“And would you?”

“Yes.”

“He’s a very perceptive boy, our Richard.”

She turned and gazed earnestly up into his eyes. “Do you really feel that way, that he’s our Richard?”

“Yes. Our Richard, our Sally.”

“You make it sound as though we’ll all live happily ever after—”

“We will.”

“—without any problems.”

“With lots of problems,” he said. “But with lots of solutions, too, if we love and respect each other. And I think we do, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Doubt was evident in her voice, it always was, but each time they met, the doubt was becoming weaker, and he believed that eventually it would disappear entirely.

“There are times,” he added, “when you’ll think of O’Gorman and I won’t measure up.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes. And other times when the children will resent any discipline or advice from me because I’m not their real father. There will be disagreements, money problems—”

“Don’t go on.” She pressed her finger tips against his mouth. “I’ve thought of all those things, Joe.”

“All right then, we both have. We won’t be walking into marriage with our eyes closed. Why do you hesitate?”

“I don’t want to make another mistake.”

“Are you telling me O’Gorman was a mistake?”

“Yes.”

“Because it’s true or because you think I want to hear it?”

“It’s true,” she said, and her shoulders beneath his hand went suddenly tense. “Hindsight’s not as good as foresight but it serves a purpose. The marriage was my idea, really, not Patrick’s. My nesting instinct was so strong that it smothered my rationality. I married Patrick in order to raise a family, he married me because—well, I suppose there were lots of reasons but the main one was that he didn’t have the strength to oppose or displease me. Now that I know he’s dead, I can be more objective, not only about him but about myself. The basic fault of our marriage was too much interdependence on each other. He was dependent on me and I was dependent on his dependence. No wonder he loved birds, he must often have felt like a caged bird himself... What’s the matter, Joe?”

“Nothing.”

“But there is, I can feel it. Please tell me.”

“I can’t. Not right now, anyway.”

“All right,” she said lightly. “Some other time.”

He wished some other time would be a long way off, but he knew it wouldn’t. It was waiting around the corner and he could already see its shadow.

He said, “I just made a pot of coffee. Would you like some?”

“No thanks. If we’re to be in L.A. by four o’clock, we’d better start now in case we run into a traffic tie-up.”

“We?”

“Well, I didn’t drive all the way down here just to see you for ten minutes.”

“Listen, Martha.”

“I’ll be listening but I won’t hear, not if you’re going to try to stand me up.”

“It’s not a question of standing you up. Karma’s phone call took me by complete surprise. I don’t know what’s behind it. Perhaps nothing, perhaps Brother Tongue actually has a message for her from her mother. But in case things aren’t going to be that simple, I’d prefer not to have you around.”

“I’m pretty good in an emergency.”

“Even ones involving yourself?”

“Especially those,” she said with a tinge of bitterness. “I’ve had a lot of experience.”

“Then you’ve made up your mind to come with me.”

“If you don’t object.”

“And if I do?”

“Please don’t. Please.”

“I have to,” he said patiently. “Because I love you, I must steer you away from trouble when I can.”

“I thought we were going to share trouble, going to have lots of problems but lots of solutions, too. Was that all just so much talk, Joe?”

“I’m trying to warn you, Martha, I’m trying to tell you something and you won’t listen.”

“Don’t be afraid for me. It makes me feel like half a woman, the way my fears for Patrick must have made him feel like half a man. If you see me walking in front of a speeding bus, by all means yell a warning or pull me back. But this—this is wispy, unreal. What harm will it do me to go to Karma’s house with you? The girl might need looking after, she’s only a child and in a frightening situation. Don’t shut me up in a closet when I could be of some use.”

“All right,” he said with a noise that was almost a groan, “Step out of the closet, ma’am.”

“Thank you, sir. You’ll never regret this decision.”

“Won’t I.”

“You sound so funny, Joe. What’s really the matter? What’s on your mind?”

“I’m wishing,” he said, “that it was a larger closet so there’d be room for both of us.”