Slam the Big Door

Nine

At eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, as Mike was on his second cup of coffee and had just lit the first cigar of the day, Debbie Ann came out onto the patio and joined him at the small table. She moved quickly and smiled a cordial greeting. She wore pale blue linen shorts and a white shirt with long sleeves, cut like a man’s.

“Durelda tells me you’ve eaten enough for three. She’s very pleased with you. All I can manage is hot tea, and a small experiment with dry toast.”

“Hung?” he asked.

“Uh huh! Totally.”

He looked at her with inward awe. She gave a superficial impression of daintiness, freshness and good health. She looked not quite seventeen. He looked at her dispassionately and marveled at the duplicity and resilience of woman. Her mouth had a bruised and pulpy look. There were dark shadows under her eyes. A scratch on her throat disappeared into the white shirt. And he had noticed that when she had seated herself, it had been with a trace of awkwardness, a barely perceptible wince of pain or stiffness.

The little filly had had a hard ride over the midnight steeplechase. Brown hands had lifted her over the moats and stone walls and brought her, winded and sprung, back to the stables.

He also detected a smugness about her, a little flavor of accomplishment, the end product of stolen satisfactions. Yet there was defiance commingled with the smugness, and perhaps some doubt. She was like a naughty child who would, through the blatant innocence of her poise, attempt to evade the deserved spanking.

Durelda served the tea and toast and went back to the kitchen.

“Saturday night comes around a little too often,” Debbie Ann said. “Somebody should change something.”

“We lost track of you people around eleven o’clock.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, did you? You two seemed so enthralled with each other I didn’t think you’d notice if the roof blew off.”

“She’s a nice girl. Fun to talk to. But enthralled isn’t the word. Sorry. I’d like to be more exciting, but I can’t manage it.”

“Maybe you don’t get enough encouragement.”

“Where did you go?”

She had bitten into the toast. She took her time before answering. “Oh, we walked up and down the beach to sober Troy up, and me too, I might add. And then we did a little moonlight swimming. Nothing very exciting. Is Troy up yet?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“He’ll have a head again. Not as bad as last time, but a pretty substantial one.”

“Who are you trying to kid, Debbie Ann? Me or yourself or Troy or your mother? Or everybody?”

She clattered the teacup down and stared at him. “Kid who about what? Make sense.” Her eyes were wide and utterly innocent.

“Before I walked Shirley home we went over to take a close look at the boat in the moonlight.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice. She turned dull red under her tan. “Oh! That’s a little embarrassing, friend.”

“Just that? Embarrassing?”

With narrowed eyes she said, “What would you like me to do? Tear my hair out? Beat my head on the wall? Set fire to myself?”

“Those aren’t bad ideas, but maybe you could feel a little ashamed. A little guilty.”

She shrugged. “Not particularly. It’s better if nobody knew. But you do know. And I’m assuming it was an accident. It’s too bad, but it isn’t exactly the end of the world.”

“All right. It isn’t the end of the world. I’ll buy that. But it’s a filthy relationship. Shameful.”

Her smirk didn’t quite come off. “Moral judgments so early in the morning? Come now, Mike. Loosen up. It was just one of those proximity things. That’s all. Nobody’s fault. It’s been building for a long time. That ole black magic. And sooner or later it was going to happen, and it did. A little debauch, to clear the air. It isn’t really meaningful, Mike.”

“To Mary?”

“Her marriage is bitched up beyond all recognition, and you know that as well as I do. What did she lose by what we did? Nothing at all.”

“I keep wondering what she’d think of you.”

“Oh Mike, really. Can’t you guess? If she ever finds out — and I don’t see why she has to — I know just how she’d react. Even if I gave a detailed confession, she wouldn’t listen. It would be her poor baby trying to conceal a case of drunken rape for the sake of the family honor, to avoid scandal. I’ll say to you that it was a little sneaky, and mostly my fault — hell, entirely my fault — and probably it shouldn’t have happened, but it did and it’s over and it might happen again and might not, and who can tell? But you don’t have to act as if I’m a criminal or something.”

He frowned at her, studying her. “I guess I don’t understand. You seem more mischievous than vicious. But you can perform a vicious act of seduction, a dangerous, damaging act, and have no more idea of the meaning of that act than a sand flea. You can even defend that act.”

“And why not? It’s a big busy world, Mike. Lots of things go on.”

“I guess it’s because you’re empty,” he said. “Empty in a way you don’t comprehend. It’s like being a psychopath. You have no basis for morality, do you?”

“That has the reek of church talk, doesn’t it?”

“All right. You are godless. A reincarnation of the same scented bitch that has appeared and reappeared in history. I thought they were evil women. Consciously evil. I didn’t know they were just empty. It’s kind of disappointing in a way. It takes the drama out of it. They weren’t overthrowing kings and princes and kingdoms out of malice after all. They were just satisfying a little clitoral itch, and when things started falling down they probably looked around and said, ‘Who, me?’ ”

She stared at him with a flat, surprising malevolence. “Now I get it.”

“You get what?”

“All this literate lecture routine. You didn’t make out with McGuire, did you? So you get righteous about the whole thing. I’m real nasty. And if you’d made it, my friend, you wouldn’t have one word to say, would you? I’m so sorry, dolling.”

She laughed, and he sensed she was trying to make her laughter sound completely genuine, but her eyes were not right for laughter. There was a wariness in them. The laughter sounded more artificial after it had stopped.

“We can’t communicate,” he said. “Words don’t mean the same things to us. It makes me scared about my two boys. I don’t want them to get as far away from reality as you are, Debbie Ann.”

“Reality! If anybody is living in a dream world, it isn’t me.”

“You sure of that?”

“Positive.”

He stood up and looked down at her. The sun was bright on the table and on her hair. She looked up at him politely, with an assured half smile.

“Honey,” he said. “Just you hope nothing happens to wake you up. Because if you ever wake up, you’re going to have to look in a mirror. And you won’t like it. That is my message.”

He sensed that had he been within range, she would have raked his face with her nails. “It must be comforting to be so holy. What has anybody ever done for me? I’ll do anything I damn please. I’ve got no obligations to anybody.”

“You have to eat scraps and they beat you and beat you. Things are rough everywhere.”

“I can’t understand all this fuss over...”

He didn’t hear the rest of it because he had walked away, feeling sickened. He went to the guest wing and washed his hands. He was annoyed at himself for even trying to talk to her. Something was happening to people. To the young ones. Maybe, he thought, we’ve taken something away from them and haven’t given them anything to replace it. Maybe human nature does change every thousand years or so, and this is the time of change. I don’t like it. They figured out what made the dinosaurs extinct. A batch of fast little mammals sprung up, and they lived off dinosaur eggs. They didn’t give a damn for dinosaurs. They just loved those eggs. Wonder what happened to them when there weren’t any more eggs.

He had alerted Durelda, but it was not until two o’clock that she came out onto the beach and told him Mr. Troy was up. Debbie Ann had gone boiling off somewhere in her car. Somehow the word had been spread that the Sunday routine at the Jamisons’ was finished. There was pedestrian traffic up and down the beach, but nobody stopped at the house for the buffet brunch.

He gave Troy a few minutes and then went up to the house. Troy sat on the patio drinking black coffee. He was clean-shaven, dressed in fresh slacks and a crisp sports shirt. His eyes were bloodshot and he had the shakes so badly it was difficult for him to light a cigarette.

Mike sat at the table and said, “Another nice day.”

“Certainly is.”

“Lot of people on the beach.”

“Are there?”

He made Mike feel uneasy. There was a curious remoteness about him. There was too long a delay before his automatic replies. His eyes had a curious staring look, a look almost of blindness. Mike suddenly realized where he had seen that same remoteness before. He had seen it in cases of shock. Once he had arrived at the scene of an accident after it had happened. A man had skidded into a light pole. It had struck on the passenger side, crushing the man’s wife to death. There had been a stack of folded pamphlets in the car, advertisements for the small business they owned. The pamphlets were widely scattered on the wet street. The man had gotten out of the car. His right wrist was grotesquely broken. With his left hand he was slowly, carefully, picking up the pamphlets, one by one. When Mike had gone to him to stop him he had looked up with much the same expression Troy was wearing.

“I guess we never got around to that therapy you were talking about last night, Troy.” Mike heard his own voice, curiously jolly, elaborately casual.

“... Therapy?”

“You were going to drink yourself back to that moment of truth or whatever you call it.”

“... Was I?”

“Yes. I guess it didn’t work.”

“... No, I guess it didn’t.”

“Are you all right?”

“... Me? I’m all right. Why?”

“I don’t know. You seem listless.”

“... Hungover, I guess.”

“What are the plans for today?”

“... Plans?”

“What are we going to do?”

“... I don’t know.”

“Will you join me on the beach?”

“... On the beach? No. No, I don’t think so. I’m... I’m going away.” Troy got up, turned rather slowly and walked into the living room, toward the master bedroom. There was a jerkiness about his stride, a lack of coordination, a somnambulistic quality.

“Where are you going?” Mike demanded. Troy did not answer. Mike followed him into the bedroom. Troy took a suitcase out of the storage wall and opened it on Mary’s bed. He went to the bureau and began to select things from the top drawer.

“Where are you going?”

“Away from here.”

“Why?”

“It’s time to get away from here.”

“Troy. Troy! Hold it a minute.”

Troy put a pile of shirts into the suitcase and straightened up. “You can’t stop me.”

“What does running away from it solve?”

“You don’t understand, Mike.”

“I think I’ve got more of the picture than you have, maybe. You were drunk. And it was her idea, not yours. She set you up for it.”

Troy stared at him. The immobility was gone from his face. It twisted in a horrid muscular spasm. “What did we do? Mail out invitations?”

“It was an accident. Shirley and I went to look at the boat.”

“Does... she know you know?”

“Yes. It doesn’t upset her much. I tried to talk to her about it. I couldn’t reach her.”

Troy looked down at his fist. “I thought Jerranna was as low as you could go. I was using Jerranna as a club to beat Mary with. I don’t know why. Maybe because she’s too damn good. But this — with Debbie Ann — it’s too much. I’ve got to get out of here.”

“You afraid it will happen again?”

“She told me a swim would sober me up. She turned her back. I stripped and went in. I swam out a couple of hundred feet, slow. When I stopped she was right next to me, laughing in that damn tiny little voice. She shoved me under. I chased her and caught her. Lots of laughs. Sure I was drunk. But I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t blacked out. By the time we came out there wasn’t even any attempt to put the clothes back on. We grabbed them up and went right to the boat. I can’t tell you how she looked, Mike, naked, soaking wet, laughing in the moonlight. I knew it was as wrong a thing as a man can do. But I didn’t give a damn. I told myself it couldn’t be a serious thing, the way she kept laughing.”

“Are you going away so it won’t happen again?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“So I won’t kill her. I woke up first, early. I was going to do it then. I put my hand on her throat. It woke her up. I couldn’t do it then. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to do it the second time, but I’d come closer. And then the next time I could probably do it. I’ve got to get out.”

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know. Over to Jerranna’s, maybe.”

“What am I supposed to tell Mary?”

“Tell her she’s better off. She is. Tell her to get out, like Bunny did.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“She’s my daughter, Mike.”

“Stepdaughter.”

“And it was just fine, Mike. Fine last night. Fine again this morning. She’s real good.” An expression of thoroughly savage mockery changed his face. “Try it anytime. It’s free. It’s on the house. Be my guest.”

Mike watched in silence as Troy packed. Maybe it was a good answer. It might be the easiest way for Mary. And of the three of them, she was now the only one worth any consideration.

“How about the land project, Troy?”

“I’ll go to the lawyer’s office tomorrow and sign my stock over to Mary. Maybe she can salvage something. There isn’t anything else... to turn over to her. Not a damn thing.” He took out his wallet and looked into it. “Got any money?”

Mike checked. “Sixty bucks. Want that?”

“You won’t get it back.”

“It doesn’t matter. Here.”

Troy put the money away. He started to shake hands and then pulled his hand back. “There’s no damn sense in that little gesture. It doesn’t mean anything. I don’t want your friendship, Mike. I don’t want the obligation.”

“Okay. So this is the end of that, too.” He hesitated. “Are you going to take a car?”

“No.”

“Can I drive you up to Ravenna?”

“No.”

“Good-by, Troy.”

Troy looked at him and through him and walked out. Mike followed him slowly. Saying he didn’t give a damn. Fighting his feeling of involvement. All my life, nibbled to death by lame ducks. Looking into empty people, looking for something I can’t describe, finding it sometimes. Buttons told me one time what I would have been if I’d come along ahead of the linotype. One of those old boys wandering around, telling stories to the tribes. Anything with a maximum exposure to people.

So there goes Troy Jamison, walking out of life, coat over his arm, suitcase making the other shoulder sag. Too bitched up to be survival-prone. These are the years when the basic, thousand-percent sons of bitches get along nifty. They flourish. And so, thank God, do those rare ones who are both strong and good. Like Mary. But all the Troys are screwed. Because they’re half and half. Oversimplification? The good part can’t live with the son of a bitch. And the price of everything is marked up. No bargain basements. No special clearance sales. You pay top dollar every time, and it stings.

There should be a new operation. A bitchectomy. Scalpel, clamps, sutures, deep sedation. Whichever aspect is dominant, remove the other one. Then everybody survives. Only two kinds of people. The energetic, enthusiastic, functioning son of a bitch. And the tin Jesuses.

Make a dull world. Cancel the research.

He walked out onto the path. When he was fifteen feet from the road he could see, beyond a monster sea grape, Troy walking south in the sunlight. Sunday afternoon. You don’t get tragedy, he thought, without some grotesquerie, some little taint of slapstick. Everybody is his own comedian. The wittle boy packed him wittle bag with him teddy bear and outer-space pistol and runned away.

Through the shimmer of heat he saw the car coming and soon recognized the Porsche, top down, Debbie Ann at the wheel, her hair tamed by a bright scarf.

“Don’t stop,” he said aloud. “Don’t stop, girl!”

He thought for a moment she wouldn’t, but she passed Troy and stopped and backed up very competently, then kept backing up, maintaining his pace, evidently speaking to him. Then she increased the speed and stopped twenty yards beyond him and got out and stood waiting for him.

As Troy reached her and stopped and put the suitcase down, Mike began to run. He couldn’t remember the last time he had tried to run fast. He had about three hundred yards to go, and he didn’t have the build for it. The years had done something to level ground. It all ran uphill. And he felt as if the long fleet stride of youth had shrunk to about eight inches.

He was fifty yards away when Troy hit her. Though sweat had run into his left eye, he saw it clearly. It was not a slap. It was not one of those wild windmill swings of the angry amateur. This had the merciless competence of the professional, despite the fact it was a right-hand lead. Elbow close. Nice timing, starting from heels firmly planted, so the full power of legs and back and shoulders got into it. A straight jolt, upward, the fist moving maybe ten inches before the point of impact, and with a nice follow-through — happening so quickly she had not the slightest chance to duck or move back or even begin to raise her hands.

It was the noise that made his stomach turn over. You could achieve the same effect if you took a nylon stocking, packed the foot tightly with raw chopped liver, and then swung it three times around your head before slamming it against a brick wall.

Debbie Ann went up and back, a doll slow in the sunlight, landing rump-first across the hood of the Porsche to collapse there, supine, almost motionless for an instant before sliding forward, down the blunt pitch of the hood of the Porsche, making one half turn to thud facedown on the sand-and-shell road, in front of the wheels, one arm pinned under her, the other extended over her head, legs sprawled, all of her utterly still.

Mike arrived, gasping for breath. Troy glanced toward him, but not at him. He massaged the knuckles of his right hand. He picked up his suitcase and jacket and walked on, walked south, without looking back.

As Mike knelt beside her, four people were suddenly there. He had not seen them approach. There was an elderly couple in swimming clothes, both of them brown, spindly, white-haired. He remembered seeing them at the Club, but not meeting them. The other was Marg Laybourne and her husband. It had happened almost in front of their house.

“It’s Debbie Ann!” Marg yelped. “What’s happening? Where is Troy going? What happened to her?”

“I’m a doctor,” the spindly brown man said with quiet authority. “If you’d give me some room, sir...”

Mike gladly moved out of the way. The old man knelt in the road, found the pulse in the side of the throat deftly.

“Did the car hit her? Did she fall out of it?” Marg demanded.

The doctor sat back on his haunches. “I’m retired. I’m not licensed to practice in Florida. I would say, however, that in this case it might not be wise to wait for an ambulance to come out from Ravenna. I don’t want to move her any more than necessary. I want something we can use as a stretcher, something rigid, a pillow, two blankets and a station wagon. Quickly!”

Marg stopped asking questions and did some effective organizing. After she and her husband had hurried away, the doctor looked up mildly at Mike and said, “You saw him strike her also?”

“Yes.”

“The way you were running attracted our attention, and we saw it happen.”

“Horrible,” the doctor’s wife murmured.

“There could be fractured vertebrae. That’s why I want to be very careful. And there will be shock. You can see how profusely she’s beginning to perspire.”

Mr. Laybourne arrived with a collapsed army cot. The doctor said it would do splendidly. By the time they had unfolded it and placed it beside her, with the legs still collapsed, Marg Laybourne was backing the big Buick station wagon into position. Three cars had stopped. About twenty people had gathered around, looking avid and nervous, whispering misinformation to each other.

The doctor carefully instructed Mike and Mr. Laybourne as to where to hold her, what to do when he gave the word to roll her onto the cot frame. The doctor handled her head.

“Now,” he said, and they eased her onto the cot. Mike gave an involuntary grunt of shock when he saw her face. The whole left side of it was bloodied and crushed in, grotesquely. Dust and shell fragments were stuck to the blood. The other half of her face was a soapy gray, beaded heavily with sweat. Powdered shell and dust clung to her parted lips.

Mike and Mr. Laybourne, plus four volunteers, carefully slid the improvised stretcher into the back of the station wagon. The doctor tucked the two blankets around her. He arranged the pillow in a way to minimize head movement.

“Go gently on the rough road and take corners carefully,” the doctor said, instructing Mr. Laybourne. He turned to Mike. “You, sir, and the lady, might ride in back with her. Go directly to the emergency entrance. If I could go in and use the phone in your home, they will know what to expect. They’ll be all set up to treat her quickly for shock.”

“Go right ahead. There’s a phone near the front entrance, on your left,” Marg said.

A young man approached Mike and said, “I know Debbie Ann. The keys are in her car. I’ll run it up into the carport. Okay?”

“Thanks a lot.”

“What happened to her?”

“She fell.”

“Out of the top of that pine tree?”

Mike got in. Traffic on the Trail was infuriatingly dense and slow until the continual bellowing of the horn on the Buick attracted the attention of a State Highway Patrol car, headed the other way. Within a minute he was behind them, siren keening. Mike pointed at Debbie Ann. As the patrol car passed, Mike yelled, “Ravenna Hospital!” and saw the trooper nod.

The siren opened the traffic ahead of them. Marg, well braced, held Debbie Ann’s shoulders. Mike held her by the hips. After one hard swerve when they still managed to hold her immobile, Marg turned and gave Mike a hard, impudent grin, and it astonished the daylights out of him to realize he could probably learn to like this woman. She was idle, silly and mischievous — but she reacted well to a thing like this.

They were prepared for them at the hospital, with the bottle of plasma all rigged and ready.

While Charlie took the car off to the hospital parking lot, Marg and Mike went to the waiting room.

“Wonder if I should phone Mary before we get the whole scoop,” he said.

“Phone her, of course, Mr. Rodinsky. She’ll want to be here in any case. That child is badly hurt.”

“Rodenska.”

“Troy did it, didn’t he?”

“She fell.”

“He’s been so strange lately.”

“I’ll find a phone.”

They said they thought Mrs. Jamison was out by the pool. If he would hold on a moment. It was a long moment before she came on the phone.

“Hello? Oh, Mike! I had the feeling it would be Troy. I don’t know why. How are things?”

“Mary, I don’t know any fancy way to say this. I’m at Ravenna Hospital. Debbie Ann is hurt. I think you better come right here... Mary?”

“I’m still here,” she said. “It was that damned car, wasn’t it? She drives like a fool. And she’s... dead.”

“She’s not dead!” he said angrily. “And it wasn’t the car. She — fell and hit her face.”

“Fell? Debbie Ann?”

“Yes. They’re treating her in the emergency room right now.”

“Is Troy with you? Why didn’t Troy call me?”

“We can go into all that after you get here. Who’s your regular doctor?”

“Sam Scherman, but Debbie Ann hasn’t had to see him in years and years. But you better let him know, I guess. I can’t understand how she could... I guess I should stop talking. I’ll be along very soon, Mike.”

“Don’t worry about it. She’ll be okay.”

“Is she... disfigured, Mike?”

“Temporarily. She — wants you here.”

“Tell her I’m on my way, Mike.”

He went back to the waiting room. Marg and Charlie looked at him. “How did she take it?” Marg asked.

“Pretty good. She’ll come down by cab right away.”

“That girl is in bad, bad shape,” Charlie said heavily.

Marg leaned forward and lowered her voice. “You don’t have to be so secretive, Mr. Rodenska. I’m perfectly aware of the fact you don’t like me one bit.”

“Now, Marg!” Charlie said.

“It’s perfectly true, darling. He made it quite clear the first time we met. Maybe I deserved it. I was feeling bitchy that day. Mr. Rodenska, Charlie and I are certainly aware of the fact that Mary and Troy have been having... problems. We call ourselves their friends. We haven’t wanted to butt in. We’ve heard the rumors about another woman. We haven’t helped spread those rumors. And we haven’t, in our own talks about it, taken sides. Maybe a little bit, on Mary’s side, but that’s only natural. Charlie and I have said that sooner or later either Troy or Mary or even both of them, might call on us for help. And we wouldn’t back off just because it could be a messy situation. We would help. Is that clear?”

“Very.”

“And so it has gotten messy. He got drunk and smashed the Chrysler. Mary has gone away by herself. We both saw Troy walking down the road, carrying a suitcase. He was walking away from Debbie Ann. Not looking back at all. He didn’t turn when Charlie yelled at him, and he couldn’t help hearing him. So it’s perfectly obvious that whatever happened to Debbie Ann, he did it. How messy can a situation get? Mary adores Debbie Ann. Personally, forgive the expression, I think she is a spoiled, selfish, tiresome little slut.”

“Marg!” Charlie said. “Now, Marg!”

“Hush, darling. You know, Mr. Rodenska, that Mary won’t be able to forgive Troy for hurting her so badly, hurting that invaluable daughter of hers. Here we are, perfectly willing to help in any way we can. So don’t you think it would make sense to tell us what’s going on?”

Mike thought it over. “Yes, I guess it would make sense. Maybe I should. But it isn’t my option. How much people know, no matter how close they are, is Mary’s business. And I’ve got a juicy problem of telling her how the girl got hurt. Once she knows the score and has had a chance to think things out, then you ask her. Okay?”

For a few minutes Marg stared at him with indignation and exasperation. And then suddenly she grinned at him. “If I ever have to tell somebody a secret, Mike, I’ll look you up. It would stay a secret, wouldn’t it?”

“I’ll tell you one thing, Mrs. Laybourne. You gave me that last-outpost-of-gracious-living routine, and I figured you for phony through and through.”

“So you put on an act too, didn’t you?”

“Sure I did. So my opinion is revised. Consider this an apology.”

“Thank you. But I certainly don’t know why I should feel pleased. I wasn’t looking for your good opinion, Mike. And I am, in many respects, a phony. Right, Charlie?”

“You’re always right, dear.”

A huge young doctor with a bland round face and an eighth of an inch of bright orange brush cut appeared in the doorway, filling it.

“I’m Doctor Pherson. Which of you belongs with the Hunter woman?”

“Hunter?” Mike said blankly. Then he remembered that was the name Marg had given them, Debbie Ann’s married name. The pause gave Marg an opening that she could easily have taken. “We’re neighbors and close friends and this man is just a house-guest.” But she didn’t take it. She waited. “I brought her in,” Mike said.

The huge young doctor took him fifty feet up the corridor. “First I’ll give you the scoop, and then you’ll answer some questions. We just read the wet plates. Shock is under control. She’s semiconscious. She was hurting so bad, I deadened the areas of trauma. Sedation isn’t indicated so soon after shock. She’s got a cracked vertebra in her neck, a crushed left antrum, the cheekbone mashed back in, and the skin split over it, a simple jaw fracture, one molar knocked clean out and three loosened. There’s no skull fracture, but there’s indication of a dandy concussion. And I nearly forgot, a fracture of the middle finger of the right hand. The nurse caught that. I was about to miss it. She’ll need to be watched close. I’ve ordered a special. We’ve fastened the jaw in place temporarily. We’ll have to see if she’s well enough to work on tomorrow. Who are you and what’s the relationship?”

“Mike Rodenska. I’m just a house-guest.”

“Her house-guest?”

“No. Her parents’. Her mother and her stepfather, that is. He’s Troy Jamison.”

“Oh. The builder. That place on Riley Key. Sure enough. That answers the question about the room. We’ve got a private room open right now, which is unusual, and we’ll move her there from emergency. Who’s their doctor?”

“Dr. Sam Scherman.”

“I’ll let him know. Where are her people?”

“Her mother should be getting here pretty soon. Will she be able to see her?”

“No reason why not, after we move her, but there won’t be any conversation going on. Now we come to the bonus question. How did it happen?”

“She fell.”

“Is that right?”

“She tripped and fell and... hit her face against the bumper guard on her car.”

“She was standing by the car?”

“Yes.”

“The car wasn’t moving?”

“No.”

“My friend, you can have a nice little chat with the cops. Your story is feeble. I’ll list this one as assault with a deadly weapon and let them worry about the lies you’re telling.”

“All right,” Mike said wearily. “I assume you’ll keep this to yourself. Somebody hit her.”

“With what? You’re doing better.”

“With his fist.”

Mike received a stare of cold contempt. “Look, my friend. I’ve got more to do than stand around here trying to pry the facts out of you. If you hit her, phone a lawyer. But stop wasting my time.”

“I’m telling you the truth, damn it! I saw it happen. He hit her with his fist.”

Pherson started to turn away and then turned back, dubious, skeptical. “You really mean that?”

“I swear it’s the truth.”

“His fist! Who is this joker? King Kong? Floyd Patterson?”

“Doctor Pherson, if a man is disturbed, if he’s on the edge of some sort of a breakdown, can he — be more powerful than he ordinarily would be?”

“How big is this guy?”

“Six two. Maybe close to two hundred pounds. But not in good shape. Forty years old.”

Pherson frowned. “When the normal man smacks a woman he almost always instinctively pulls his punch. If a man that big got crazy mad enough... and her bone structure is fragile, small... you’re not kidding me?”

Rodenska, with a trained reporter’s skill, told Pherson exactly what he had seen.

Pherson shook his head. “Okay. I believe. But you better get hold of the cops right now and have them pick that boy up. He came awful damn close to killing her with one punch.”

“I’d rather not.”

“So you still want to talk to the law.”

“Doctor, this is a family thing. It was her stepfather. Her mother doesn’t know that yet. I told you, I’m just a house-guest. I’d really like to leave it up to Mrs. Jamison. Maybe she’ll want to sign a complaint. I wouldn’t know. But it’s her — little problem.”

The big doctor whistled softly. “My, my, my!” he said. “Any other witnesses?”

“Two. A retired doctor and his wife. He didn’t seem talkative.”

“Well, she did fall off the front end of that car. That’s when she popped the finger. I’ll put it down as a fall. I’m going off now, right away. Soon as I arrange the room and phone Sam Scherman. Should I tell Sam the score?”

“He’ll believe you quicker than you believed me. And I guess he ought to know.”

“Okay. And I’ll leave the mother to you.”

“Thanks so much.”

“Sam will have some ideas about who should work on that face. Is she a pretty girl? It’s hard to tell.”

“Very pretty.”

“They’ll watch her close tonight. You couldn’t call her critical, but concussions are tricky.”

Mike thanked him. Apparently the heavy traffic delayed Mary. Mike was glad it did, because it gave Dr. Scherman a chance to get to the hospital and check on Debbie Ann before Mary arrived. Sam Scherman was in his fifties, an irascible little man who spoke his own brand of shorthand in a quick, light, bitter voice.

“Delivered that girl child,” he said to Mike privately. “Third delivery in career. Postpartum hemorrhage. Lost Mary, almost. Beautiful baby. Lovely girl. Damn Jamison. Used a rock or a club, clean job. Mary due?”

“Overdue,” Mike said, feeling as if he was catching the shorthand disease.

“Jamison?”

“Packed and left.”

“Why Marg and Charlie?”

“They helped bring her in. It happened almost in front of their house.”

Scherman stared at him thoughtfully. “Man slugs a woman, it isn’t politics, cheating at bridge. Emotions. Sex. And Mary away?”

“Doctor, I’d rather not make any guesses about—”

“First I’ll settle her down about the girl, tell her we’ll get Hanstohm from Tampa, put her face back together. Then with the pressure off, you better tell her who, where, how, why. She’ll find out anyway. Gutty woman. Deserves whole score. Keep her away from that damn Marg. Here she is now.”

Mary hurried to Sam Scherman, giving Mike the absent glance she would give a stranger. “Sam! Where is she? How is she? What happened?”

“Come along. Talk on the way up.”

Mike went back to the waiting room and told the Laybournes Mary had arrived and had gone up with Scherman to take a look at Debbie Ann. It was fifteen minutes before she came back, accompanied by the doctor, arguing with him.

“But I want to stay with her, Sam! Really!”

“Nonsense. No danger. Go home. All you people go home.”

“But Sam!”

“Maybe tomorrow she needs you. So then you’re dead for sleep. What good are you? You got that Placidyl left?”

“Yes, there’s a few...”

“Take one tonight. Come tomorrow with flowers. Smiling. Stop arguing.”

Mary permitted herself to be led out to the station wagon. Charlie had set the rear seat up again, refolded the cot. Mike got in back with Mary. She seemed stunned.

As they turned out of the parking lot she said, “But what happened?”

“It was an accident,” Mike said. “She took a fall.” He waited for Marg to contradict him, but she kept silent.

“Just an accident,” Charlie said ponderously.

“Where did she fall?”

“I’ll show you how it happened when we get home,” Mike said.

“Where’s Troy?”

“I’ll tell you about that too,” he said, and touched her hand with a warning pressure. She looked quickly at him and he saw the sudden comprehension in her eyes — her understanding that whatever it was that he wanted to tell her, he did not want to tell her in front of the Laybournes.

“Poor baby,” Mary murmured. “People seem so... alone in a hospital.”

“She’ll mend fast,” Mike said. “She’s healthy.”

When they got back onto the Key one half of a florid sun showed above the steel edge of the Gulf and the waterbirds were heading for their mangrove homesteads. Mary, with warmth, declined Marg and Charlie’s offer of further help, and thanked them for all they had done. Durelda’s Oscar was waiting for her. Durelda came out to meet them in the yard as the station wagon drove away.

“Miz Mary,” she said excitedly, “I was waiting on you. Something bad is going on and I can’t find out a thing about it. Some boy brang Miz Debbie Ann’s car back and said she got hurt and they was taking her to the hospital so I phoned the hospital and they toll me she was doing well as expected, so with nobody telling me nothing I toll Oscar I’d just wait right here until somebody come to let me know.”

“Thanks for waiting, Durelda. I really appreciate it. Debbie Ann had a bad fall and hurt her face, but she’s all right now. I’m sorry nobody thought to let you know.”

“They said she was lyin’ an’ bleedin’ in the road,” Durelda said darkly. “Run over, I wondered. I looked at the little car and there was no blood at all.”

“You go on home now. You’ve had a long wait.”

“I can anyway carry your bag inside before I go, Miz Mary. You home for good?”

“I guess so, Durelda.”

She started toward the house carrying the suitcase she had taken away from Mike, saying over her shoulder to them as they followed her, “With you gone ever’thing gets messed up around here, nobody telling nobody nothing.”

“I should have phoned you, Durelda,” Mike said.

“Surely you should,” said Durelda.

After Durelda left, Mary stood in the living room looking out toward the Gulf, her back to the room. “Troy packed a bag,” she said quietly.

“Yes. He left, Mary.”

“For good?”

“That was the impression he gave.”

She turned toward him, angrily. “Did you try to stop him? Did you?”

“What do you think?”

“I’m sorry, Mike. How did she fall? What’s happening? Sam acted strange. Marg and Charlie acted funny. You better tell me.”

“Can I fix you a drink?”

She laughed in a mirthless way. “One of the little niceties of the culture, Mike. People don’t say brace yourself. They don’t say I hate to tell you this. They ask you if you want a drink. Yes, I want a drink. But if you take more than sixty seconds bringing it to me, I’ll go out of my mind.”

It was dusk on the terrace. He took the drinks out there. She followed him.

“All right, Mike. I’m sitting. I’m braced. This is a strong drink. Aim and fire.”

“Troy drank heavily last night. He didn’t get up until about two. As soon as he had some coffee, he packed a bag. I couldn’t get much out of him. He didn’t want me to give him a ride. Debbie Ann was coming home in the car. She saw him walking with the suitcase. She stopped. Apparently he wouldn’t talk to her. So she backed up and got out and waited for him. I started... walking toward them. I couldn’t hear what was said. And suddenly he... hit her.”

Her eyes were round and wide in the dusk, the drink motionless halfway to her lips. “He what!”

“He hit her, Mary.”

“Couldn’t... couldn’t anybody stop him?”

“He only hit her once. He knocked her onto the hood of the car. She fell off the front end of the car. And he kept on walking.”

“This is incredible! Who else knows this? Who saw it?”

He explained about the elderly couple on the beach, about the Laybournes’ suspicions, about telling only Pherson and Scherman, and telling Pherson only to keep it from being police business.

“About the police,” he said. “That will be your decision, and Debbie Ann’s.”

“He’s sick, Mike. He’s so sick.”

“I know.”

“To just... hurt her like that. She’s so sweet. She wouldn’t hurt anybody. Tell me, Mike. Why would he do a thing like that?”

Now is the time to tell her, he thought. We’ve got her clubbed to her knees. Now we kick her in the face. Tell her about her sweet little daughter. Come on, Rodenska. Here we go.

“I don’t know why he did it, Mary.”

“It’s so pointless!”

“The fact is that he did it. And she’s going to be all right.”

“But think of the psychic damage, Mike.”

“I’m not going to worry about that.”

“Where did he go? Right to that... Rowley woman?”

“Probably.”

“I shouldn’t have gone away, Mike.”

“I’ll give you that. You’re right. You shouldn’t have gone away.”

They talked, but the talk was meaningless. They had another drink, but there was nothing festive about it. Finally he talked her into letting him fix something for them to eat. He said he knew where things were, said he could scramble the hell out of an egg. He fed the two of them. She helped clean up. She phoned the hospital to check on Debbie Ann, and then went off to bed. Mike went to his room and wrote to his sons. He took a stroll on the beach. There was a moist west wind, a haloed moon. It had been, all in all, one of the very long days. He felt too tired to try to think about anything. After he was in bed he was conscious of the stillness and emptiness of the other guest bedroom. Mary was in the far end of the main house. He wondered if she was sleeping. He hoped so.