The Doomsters

35

I TALKED to Rose Parish at breakfast, in the cafeteria of the local hospital. Mildred was in another part of the same building, under city police guard and under sedation. Rose and I had insisted on these things, and got our way. There would be time enough for further interrogations, statements, prosecution and defense, for all the awesome ritual of the law matching the awesome ritual of her murders.

Carl had survived a two-hour operation, and wasn’t out from under the anesthetic. His prognosis was fair. Tom Rica was definitely going to live. He was resting in the men’s security ward after a night of walking. I wasn’t sure that Rose and the others who had helped to walk him, had done him any great favor.

Rose listened to me in silence, tearing her toast into small pieces and neglecting her eggs. The night had left bruises around her eyes, which somehow improved her looks.

“Poor girl,” she said, when I finished. “What will happen to her?”

“It’s a psychological question as much as a legal question. You’re the psychologist.”

“Not much of a one, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself. You really called the shots last night. When I was talking to Mildred, I remembered what you said about whole families breaking down together, but putting it off onto the weakest one. The scapegoat. Carl was the one you had in mind. In a way, though, Mildred is another.”

“I know. I’ve watched her, at the hospital, and again last night. I couldn’t miss her mask, her coldness, her not-being-there. But I didn’t have the courage to admit to myself that she was ill, let alone speak out about it.” She bowed her head over her uneaten breakfast, maltreating a fragment of toast between her fingers. “I’m a coward and a fraud.”

“I don’t understand why you say that.”

“I was jealous of her, that’s why. I was afraid I was projecting my own wish onto her, that all I wanted was to get her out of the way.”

“Because you’re in love with Carl?”

“Am I so obvious?”

“Very honest, anyway.”

In some incredible reserve of innocence, she found the energy to blush. “I’m a complete fake. The worst of it is, I intend to go right on being one. I don’t care if he is my patient, and married to boot. I don’t care if he’s ill or an invalid or anything else. I don’t care if I have to wait ten years for him.”

Her voice vibrated through the cafeteria. Its drab utilitarian spaces were filling up with white-coated interns, orderlies, nurses. Several of them turned to look, startled by the rare vibration of passion.

Rose lowered her voice. “You won’t misunderstand me. I expect to have to wait for Carl, and in the meantime I’m not forgetting his wife. I’ll do everything I can for her.”

“Do you think an insanity plea could be made to stick?”

“I doubt it. It depends on how sick she is. I’d guess, from what I’ve observed and what you tell me, that she’s borderline schizophrenic. Probably she’s been in-and-out for several years. This crisis may bring her completely out of it. I’ve seen it happen to patients, and she must have considerable ego strength to have held herself together for so long. But the crisis could push her back into very deep withdrawal. Either way, there’s no way out for her. The most we can do is see that she gets decent treatment. Which I intend to do.”

“You’re a good woman.”

She writhed under the compliment. “I wish I were. At least I used to wish it. Since I’ve been doing hospital work, I’ve pretty well got over thinking in terms of good and bad. Those categories often do more harm than – well, good. We use them to torment ourselves, and hate ourselves because we can’t live up to them. Before we know it, we’re turning our hatred against other people, especially the unlucky ones, the weak ones who can’t fight back. We think we have to punish somebody for the human mess we’re in, so we single out the scapegoats and call them evil. And Christian love and virtue go down the drain.” She poked with a spoon at the cold brown dregs of coffee in her cup. “Am I making any sense, or do I just sound softheaded?”

“Both. You sound soft-headed, and you make sense to me. I’ve started to think along some of the same lines.”

Specifically, I was thinking about Tom Rica: the hopeful boy he had been, and the man he had become, hopeless and old in his twenties. I vaguely remembered a time in between, when hope and despair had been fighting for him, and he’d come to me for help. The rest of it was veiled in an old alcoholic haze, but I knew it was ugly.

“It’s going to be a long time,” Rose was saying, “before people really know that we’re members of one another. I’m afraid they’re going to be terribly hard on Mildred. If only there were some mitigation, or if there weren’t so many. She killed so many.”

“There were mitigating circumstances in the first one – the one that started her off. A judge trying it by himself would probably call it justifiable homicide. In fact, I’m not even sure she did it.”

“Really?”

“You heard what Tom Rica said. He blamed that death on Grantland. Did he add anything to that in the course of the night?”

“No. I didn’t press him.”

“Did he do any talking at all?”

“Some.” Rose wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“What did he say?”

“It’s all rather vague. After all, I wasn’t taking notes.”

“Listen, Rose. There’s no point in trying to cover up for Tom, not at this late date. He’s been blackmailing Grantland for years. He broke out of the hospital with the idea of converting it into a big-time operation. Carl probably convinced him that Grantland had something to do with his father’s death, as well as his mother’s, and that there was a lot of money involved. Tom persuaded Carl to come over the wall with him. His idea was to pile more pressure on Grantland. In case Carl couldn’t boil up enough trouble by himself, Tom sent him to me.”

“I know.”

“Did Tom tell you?”

“If you really want to know, he told me a lot of things. Have you stopped to wonder why he picked on you?”

“We used to know each other. I guess my name stuck in his head.”

“More than your name stuck. When he was a boy in high school, you were his hero. And then you stopped being.” She reached across the littered table and touched the back of my hand. “I don’t mean to hurt you, Archer. Stop me if I am.”

“Go ahead. I didn’t know I was important to Tom.” But I was lying. I knew. You always know. On the firing range, in the gym, he even used to imitate my mistakes.

“He seems to have thought of you as a kind of foster-father. Then your wife divorced you, and there were some things in the newspapers, he didn’t say what they were.”

“They were the usual. Or a little worse than the usual.”

“I am hurting you,” she said. “This sounds like an accusation, but it isn’t. Tom hasn’t forgotten what you did for him before your private trouble interfered. Perhaps it was unconscious on his part, but I believe he sent Carl to you in the hope that you could help him.”

“Which one? Tom or Carl?”

“Both of them.”

“If he thought that, how wrong he was.”

“I disagree. You’ve done what you can. It’s all that’s expected of anyone. You helped to save Carl’s life. I know you’ll do what you can for Tom, too. It’s why I wanted you to know what he said, before you talk to him.”

Her approval embarrassed me. I knew how far I had fallen short. “I’d like to talk to him now.”

The security ward occupied one end of a wing on the second floor. The policeman guarding the steel-sheathed door greeted Rose like an old friend, and let us through. The morning light was filtered through a heavy wire mesh screen over the single window of Tom’s cubicle.

He lay like a forked stick under the sheet, his arms inert outside it. Flesh-colored tape bound his hands and wrists. Except where the beard darkened it, his face was much paler than the tape. He bared his teeth in a downward grin: “I hear you had a rough night, Archer. You were asking for it.”

“I hear you had a rougher one.”

“Tell me I asked for it. Cheer me up.”

“Are you feeling better?” Rose asked him.

He answered with bitter satisfaction: “I’m feeling worse. And I’m going to feel worse yet.”

“You’ve been through the worst already,” I said. “Why don’t you kick it permanently?”

“It’s easy to say.”

“You almost had it made when you were with us,” Rose said. “If I could arrange a few months in a federal hospital–”

“Save your trouble. I’d go right back on. It’s my meat and drink. When I kick it there’s nothing left, I know that now.”

“How long have you been on heroin?”

“Five or six hundred years.” He added, in a different, younger voice: “Right after I left high school. This broad I met in Vegas–” His voice sank out of hearing in his throat. He twitched restlessly, and rolled his head on the pillow, away from Rose and me and memory. “We won’t go into it.”

Rose moved to the door. “I’ll go and see how Carl is.”

I said, when the door had closed behind her: “Was it Maude who got you started on horse, Tom?”

“Naw, she’s death on the stuff. She was the one that made me go to the hospital. She could have sprung me clean.”

“I hear you saying it.”

“It’s the truth. She got my charge reduced from possession so they’d send me up for treatment.”

“How could she do that?”

“She’s got a lot of friends. She does them favors, they do her favors.”

“Is the sheriff one of her friends?”

He changed the subject. “I was going to tell you about this kid in Vegas. She was just a kid my own age, but she was main-lining already. I met her at this alumnus party where they wanted me to play football for their college. The old boys had a lot of drinks, and we young people had some, and then they wanted me to put on a show with this kid. They kept chunking silver dollars at us when we were doing it. We collected so many silver dollars I had a hard time carrying them up to her room. I was strong in those days, too.”

“I remember you were.”

“Damn them!” he said in weak fury. “They made a monkey out of me. I let them do it to me, for a couple of hundred lousy silver dollars. I told them what they could do with their football scholarship. I didn’t want to go to college anyway. Too much like work.”

“What’s the matter with work?”

“Only suckers work. And you can pin it in your hat Tom Rica is no sucker. You want to know who finally cured me of suckering for all that uplift crap? You did, and I thank you for it.”

“When did all this happen?”

“Don’t you kid me, you remember that day I came to your office. I thought if I could talk – but we won’t go into that. You wanted no part of me. I wanted no part of you. I knew which side I was on from there on out.”

He sat up in bed and bared his arm as if the marks of the needle were battle scars which I had inflicted on him: “The day you gave me the old rush, I made up my mind I’d rather be an honest junkie than a double-talking hypocrite. When they grabbed me this last time, I was main-lining two-three times a day. And liking it,” he said, in lost defiance. “If I had my life to live over, I wouldn’t change a thing.”

I’d begun to feel restless, and a little nauseated. The alcoholic haze was lifting from the half-forgotten afternoon when Tom had come to my office for help, and gone away without it.

“What did you come to see me about, Tom?”

He was silent for quite a while. “You really want to know?”

“Very much.”

“All right, I had a problem. Matter of fact, I had a couple of problems. One of them was the heroin. I wasn’t all the way gone on it yet, but I was close to gone. I figured maybe you could tell me what to do about it, where I could get treatment. Well, you told me where to go.”

I sat and let it sink in. His eyes never left my face. I said, when I got my voice back: “What was the other problem you had?”

“They were the same problem, in a way. I was getting the stuff from Grantland, all I wanted. I hear the good doctor got his last night, by the way.” He tried to say it casually but his eyes were wide with the question.

“Grantland’s in the basement in a cold drawer.”

“He earned it. He killed an old lady, one of his own patients. I told you that last night, didn’t I? Or was it just a part of the dream I had?”

“You told me, all right, but it was just part of the dream. A girl named Mildred Hallman killed the old lady. Grantland was only an accessory after the fact.”

“If he told you that, he’s a liar.”

“He wasn’t the only one who told me that.”

“They’re all liars! The old lady was hurt, sure, but she was still alive when Grantland dropped her off the dock. She even tried to–” Tom put his hand over his mouth. His eyes roved round the walls and into the corners like a trapped animal’s. He lay back and pulled the sheet up to his chin.

“What did she try to do, Tom? Get away?”

A darkness crossed his eyes like the shadow of a wing. “We won’t talk about it.”

“I think you want to.”

“Not any more. I tried to tell you about her over three years ago. It’s too late now. I don’t see any good reason to talk myself into more trouble. How would it help her? She’s dead and gone.”

“It could help the girl who thinks she murdered her. She’s in worse trouble than you are. A lot worse. And she’s got a lot more guilt. You could take some of it away from her.”

“Be a hero, eh? Make the home folks proud of me. The old man always wanted me to be a hero.” Tom couldn’t sustain his sardonic bitterness. “If I admit I was on the dock, does that make me what you call an accessory?”

“It depends on what you did. They’re not so likely to press it if you volunteer the information. Did you help Grantland push her in?”

“Hell no, I argued with him when I saw she was still alive. I admit I didn’t argue very much. I needed a fix, and he promised me one if I’d help him.”

“How did you help him?”

“I helped him carry her out of his office and put her in his car. And I drove the car. He was too jittery to drive for himself. I did argue with him, though.”

“Why did he drown her, do you know?”

“He said he couldn’t afford to let her live. That if it came out, what happened that night, it would knock him right out of business. I figured if it was that important, I should start a little business of my own.”

“Blackmailing Grantland for drugs?”

“You’ll never prove it. He’s dead. And I’m not talking for the record.”

“You’re still alive. You’ll talk.”

“Am I? Will I?”

“You’re a better man than you think you are. You think it’s the monkey that’s killing you. I say you can train the monkey, chain him up and put him in the goddam zoo where he belongs. I say it’s that old lady that’s been weighing you down.”

His thin chest rose and fell with his breathing. He fingered it under the sheet, as if he could feel a palpable weight there.

“Christ,” he said. “She floated in the water for a while. Her clothes held her up. She was trying to swim. That was the hell of it that I couldn’t forget.”

“And that’s why you came to see me?”

“Yeah, but it all went down the drain with the bathwater. You wouldn’t listen. I was scared to go to the law. And I got greedy, let’s face it. When I bumped into Carl in the hospital, and he filled me in on the family, I got greedy as hell. He said there was five million bucks there, and Grantland was knocking them off to get his hands on it. I thought here was my big chance for real.”

“You were wrong. This is your real chance now. And you’re taking it.”

“Come again. You lost me somewhere.”

But he knew what I meant. He lay and looked up at the ceiling as if there might just possibly be sky beyond it. And stars at night. Like any man with life left in him, he wanted to find a use for himself.

“Okay, Archer. I’m willing to make a statement. What have I got to lose?” He freed his arms from the sheet, grinning derisively, and flapped them like a small boy playing airman. “Bring on the D. A. Just keep Ostervelt out of it if you can, will you? He won’t like all I got to say.”

“Don’t worry about him. He’s on his way out.”

“I guess it’s Maude I’m worried about.” His mood swung down with a hype’s lability, but not as far down as it had been. “Jesus, I’m a no-good son. When I think of the real chances I had, and the dirty trouble I stirred up for the people that treated me good. I don’t want Maude to be burned.”

“I think she can look after herself.”

“Better than I can, eh? If you see Carl, tell him I’m sorry, will you? He treated me like a brother when I was in convulsions, spouting like a whale from every hole in my head. And I got more holes than most, don’t think I don’t know it. Pass the word to Carl when you see him?”

“What word?”

“Sorry.” It cost him an effort to say it directly.

“Double it, Tom.”

“Forget it.” He was getting expansive again. “This being Old Home Week, you might as well tell the Parish broad I’m sorry for brushing her off. She’s a pretty good broad, you know?”

“The best.”

“You ever think of getting married again?”

“Not to her. She’s got a waiting list.”

“Too bad for you.”

Tom yawned and closed his eyes. He was asleep in a minute. The guard let me out and told me how to reach the post-operative ward. On the way there, I walked through the day in the past when this story should have begun for me, but didn’t.

It was a hot day in late spring, three years and a summer before. The Strip fluttered like tinsel in the heat-waves rising from the pavements. I’d had five or six Gibsons with lunch, and I was feeling sweaty and cynical. My latest attempt to effect a reconciliation with Sue had just failed. By way of compensation, I’d made a date to go to the beach with a younger blonde who had some fairly expensive connections. If she liked me well enough, she could get me a guest membership in a good beach club.

When Tom walked in, my first and final thought was to get him out. I didn’t want the blonde to find him in my office, with his special haircut and his Main Street jacket, his blank smile and his sniff and the liquid pain in the holes he was using for eyes. I gave him a cheap word or two, and the walking handshake that terminates at the door.

There was more to it than that. There always is. Tom had failed me before, when he dropped out of the boys’ club I was interested in. He hadn’t wanted to be helped the way I wanted to help him, the way that helped me. My vanity hadn’t forgiven him, for stealing his first car.

There was more to it than that. I’d been a street boy in my time, gang-fighter, thief, poolroom lawyer. It was a fact I didn’t like to remember. It didn’t fit in with the slick Polaroid picture I had of myself as the rising young man of mystery who frequented beach clubs in the company of starlets. Who groped for a fallen brightness in private white sand, private white bodies, expensive peroxide hair.

When Tom stood in my office with the lost look on him, the years blew away like torn pieces of newspaper. I saw myself when I was a frightened junior-grade hood in Long Beach, kicking the world in the shins because it wouldn’t dance for me. I brushed him off.

It isn’t possible to brush people off, let alone yourself. They wait for you in time, which is also a closed circuit. Years later on a mental-hospital ward, Tom had a big colored dream and cast me for a part in it, which I was still playing out. I felt like a dog in his vomit.

I stopped and leaned on a white wall and lit a cigarette. When you looked at the whole picture, there was a certain beauty in it, or justice. But I didn’t care to look at it for long. The circuit of guilty time was too much like a snake with its tail in its mouth, consuming itself. If you looked too long, there’d be nothing left of it, or you. We were all guilty. We had to learn to live with it.

Rose met me with a smile at the door of Carl’s private room. She held up her right hand and brought the thumb and forefinger together in a closed circle. I smiled and nodded in response to her good news, but it took a while to penetrate to my inner ear. Where the ash-blond ghosts were twittering, and the hype dream beat with persistent violence, like colored music, trying to drown them out.

It was time I traded that in, too, on a new dream of my own. Rose Parish had hers. Her face was alive with it, her body leaned softly on it. But whatever came of her dream for better or worse belonged to her and Carl. I had no part in it, and wanted none. No Visitors, the sign on the door said.

For once in my life I had nothing and wanted nothing. Then the thought of Sue fell through me like a feather in a vacuum. My mind picked it up and ran with it and took flight. I wondered where she was, what she was doing, whether she’d aged much as she lay in ambush in time, or changed the color of her bright head.

The End