Killing Cousins

Ten

After he had bathed and changed, putting his soiled garments into the bag from which he took the clean ones, Quincy left in the Buick. Stealth being necessary, he and Willie pushed the Buick out of the garage onto the incline of the drive, and Quincy leaped in nimbly and rolled backward to Ouichita Road without lights or engine. On the Road, he swung upgrade backward and then downgrade forward, still without lights or engine, and disappeared silently behind the high shrubs and bushes that grew along the way. Standing and listening in the drive outside the garage, Willie thought that she heard, finally, the Buick’s engine come to life at least a block or two away. Then she went into the garage, closing the big door after herself, and up through the house to her own room. She saw by the little clock on her dressing table that time had moved far into the morning, and she wondered if Quincy would make it to KC on schedule. But she was not particularly concerned about it, for such matters could safely be left in Quincy’s hands. Fortunately for her, the exertions of the night had exhausted her, and sleep, she thought, would come quickly. She went into the bathroom and showered, abusing Quincy a little for the mess he had left, and then, in her bed, lay and listened to the crying of an owl in her brain and went finally to sleep to the crying, although not so quickly as she had thought and hoped.

It was three o’clock the next afternoon when she opened her eyes and was instantly wide awake. It was clear to her at once that she was going to start thinking about things and getting depressed if she didn’t do something to avoid it, and the first thing to do, as a beginning, was to leave the house and go somewhere else. Considering places to go, she got up and walked over to a window and looked out onto the side lawn between the house and the hedge, and it was a hot day out there, filled with white sunlight. What she thought she would do then, seeing the hot white day, was to go swimming in the pool at the Club. The muscles of her thighs and back and arms were quite stiff from the disposal of Howard, and the swimming would be therapeutic for the muscles, as well as something to do for the sake of doing something. She thought that she would just wear her swimming suit under a beach coat, and so she put on the suit, which was rather a struggle because of its tight fit, and was on the way downstairs with the beach coat and a bright striped towel over her arm when the doorbell began to ring and kept right on ringing imperiously. She was exorbitantly startled by the harsh sound because it was a repetition of the incident that had happened last night when she was in practically the same position on the stairs, if not, fortunately, in the same circumstances. She had thought then that it was Mother Hogan ringing, and she thought the same thing now, but then it hadn’t been, and now it was. It was Mother Hogan. She came forcefully into the hall behind a magnificant bosom and stood looking sternly at Willie in her brief swimming suit. It was more of a glare than a look, to be precise. Mother Hogan, it was plain, was in no mood to tolerate equivocations.

“Willie,” she said, “where are you going naked?”

“I’m not naked. I’m wearing my swimming suit, as you can see, and it should be perfectly obvious, consequently, that I’m going swimming.”

“Shame on you, Willie! You’re as nearly naked as it’s possible to be publicly without being arrested, and in my opinion it shows extremely poor taste to go about in that condition when poor Howard has disappeared without a word to anyone.”

“He didn’t disappear without a word. He said a great many words that he damn well may be sorry for, and I’m determined that he must at least apologize for saying them when he returns, if he ever does.”

“Whatever he said, he must have been justified. Moreover, Willie, I believe that you know exactly where he went and where he is now. You’re refusing to tell me out of spite, and I demand that you tell me the truth at once.”

“Go ahead and demand as much as you please. I’ve told you and told you that I don’t know, and I don’t. It’s true, however, that I probably wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

“You see? You’re a spiteful creature, Willie, and probably worse. Have you been carrying on some disgusting affair with someone?”

“I don’t believe I care to discuss my affairs with you, disgusting or otherwise, and you had better be careful what you say unless you want to be sued for slander or something. It’s well known that you’re one of the worst scandalmongers in town, and care nothing whatever for the truth.”

Mother Hogan began to swell in the area of the bosom, which was already swollen enough, and to turn a kind of pale lavender in the face. Willie watched her uneasily in the fear that there might suddenly be another Hogan to dispose of, which would have made one more than she could possibly stand, and two too many. Mother Hogan wouldn’t breathe, that was the alarming thing. She simply stood there and kept swelling and swelling and turning that odd lavender in the face and refusing absolutely to breathe. Finally, however, just when it seemed that she must surely burst, she merely deflated instead in a kind of hissing anticlimax, like a punctured inner tube.

“Willie,” she said, “you’re a wicked girl to talk that way to a mother who is worried to distraction about her only son. However, I refuse to engage in further acrimonies. What I want to know is, do you propose to be reasonable and help me find Howard or not?”

“No, I don’t. Let Howard take care of himself. He has run away with three bags and the Buick and what else I don’t know, and he can come back when he gets ready, if he ever does, and I’m not sure at all that I give a damn if he doesn’t.”

“Very well. Now I understand clearly how you feel, and I must say it’s not surprising in one with your background. I’ll tell you something, though. There’s something very odd in all this, including your attitude, and if I haven’t heard from Howard by tomorrow morning at the latest, I shall certainly consult the police.”

“I wish you would. I’d like to consult them myself, as a matter of fact. I’m almost certain there must be some kind of law against desertion. It’s probable that I have all kinds of rights and advantages I’m not fully aware of.”

Mother Hogan retreated, an affronted and quivering mass of indignation, and Willie waited until she had completely cleared the area before going on to the garage and backing out the station wagon. She was somewhat disturbed by the threatened consultation with the police, and she would have to be quite careful about what she said, if it actually became necessary to say anything. It might be rather difficult to explain things satisfactorily to someone inclined by his position to be suspicious, but then, on second thought, it probably wouldn’t be so difficult after all, for she should have in tomorrow’s mail, or Tuesday’s at the latest, the letter from Dallas that Quincy had gone to send. As a matter of fact, Quincy was certainly in Dallas at this moment, if he wasn’t actually on his way back, and it was a comfort to think of Quincy and how clever and helpful he was. It was the practice of some people to consider Quincy a kind of failure, if not a joke, but it was certain that some of them who thought they were most superior, someone like Evan Spooner or others she could mention, would have been no help at all in a critical situation like this, and in fact they couldn’t even have been trusted to try.

There were quite a few members sitting at round tables on the terrace of the Club, and there were a great many others out on the golf course playing golf, but there didn’t appear to be so many out there as actually were, because they were so widely dispersed. In the pool were mostly kids, jumping off the high and low boards and floating about on little inflated rafts and things, but there were a few women stretched out in the sun around the sides on bright enormous towels, and one of the women stretched out was Gwen Festerwauld. She was stretched out on her belly with her face buried in the crook of an arm, and Willie, who did not at the moment care to talk with Gwen, went past her and dived into the blue water that was not really blue at all but only looked so because that was the color the tank was painted. The water was warm and deliciously sensuous on Willie’s skin. She swam slowly across the pool and back a few times, avoiding the kids, and then lay floating on her back with her eyes closed, and the warm, sensuous water was like a poultice, drawing the soreness from her arms and back and thighs. After a while she rolled over and swam to the side and crawled out and spread her towel beside Gwen’s and lay down. Gwen lifted her head, screwing up her eyes in the bright light.

“Hello, Willie,” Gwen said. “Is it you?”

“Yes,” Willie said, “it’s me.”

“Would you mind telling me where you’ve been all day?”

“I’ve been at home, that’s where. Why?”

“Because I was over at your house three times this morning, no less, and every time I rang and rang the bell but couldn’t get an answer. Are you quite sure you were at home?”

“It isn’t likely, Gwen, that I’d forget where I was no longer ago than this morning. I was in bed and asleep all the time and didn’t get up until this afternoon, only a little while ago. I couldn’t get to sleep last night, because of being upset about Howard and all, and so I finally took some pills, and I guess I took more than I should have or something, since I slept so long and couldn’t be wakened. Did you want to see me about something special?”

“I wanted to see if Howard had come back, that’s all.”

“Well, he hasn’t. Mother Hogan has been after me and after me to find out where he went, but I don’t know and I don’t care. He can come back or not. It’s all the same to me.”

“Do you suppose anything could have happened to him?”

“Oh, nonsense, Gwen. If anything had happened to him, an accident or anything like that, I would have heard about it long ago. Men carry all sorts of identification about with them in their wallets and places.”

“That’s true. It isn’t likely anything has happened to him, I guess. You’re probably right in refusing to get excited and behave foolishly. I told Marv about it, and he only laughed. He said Howard is sure to come back pretty soon.” Gwen rolled over onto her back and shuddered. “God, what a head! It’s simply bursting.”

“Aren’t you rid of your hangover yet? I must say it’s the longest one I’ve ever heard of.”

“Oh, I’m rid of the one I had yesterday. This is a new one. As I predicted, Marv came home about five and was feeling chipper as you please and acting so positively innocent that you’d never have suspected him of being a perfect bastard only a little while before. He insisted on going out to a back-yard barbecue that a friend of his had invited us to, and so we went, and there were two large kegs of beer that everyone felt compelled to empty, which we did, and I hope to die if I ever go on such a party again. It’s really amazing, Willie, how everyone simply sheds all his inhibitions at a back-yard barbecue with beer. It was all your chastity was worth to walk near a bush, and I can tell Marv, if he cares to know, that this particular friend of his who had the party has some very liberal notions regarding the prerogatives of friends.”

Willie buried her face in the crook of an elbow and quit listening. She was rather bored with Gwen’s hangovers and imperiled chastity, the latter of which was a fiction anyhow. Lying in the therapeutic sun, she began to wonder what she would do with the rest of the day and the coming night, which might be a bad time if she did nothing to prevent it, and what she planned to do was to go on lying in the sun for quite a long time and then swim some more in the warm water, which would feel cool after the sun, and finally to have something to eat and drink on the terrace, a sandwich and a salad and several Martinis. After that it would be dark, and she would drive home and take the pills that she had not needed or taken last night — or early this morning, rather — and almost the next thing she would know, with luck, it would be tomorrow, another day to be lived that could be lived when it came.