The Erection Set

XI

I knew the call would come so I sat up and waited for it. At ten minutes past three the phone rang and I told Chet Linden to meet me at the Automat on Sixth Avenue. There was a deadly evenness to the tone of his voice and I could feel the mad seeping up my arms into my shoulders.

Why the hell couldn’t they lay off me? I wasn’t an unknown quantity they had to speculate about. They knew damn well what was going to happen if they pushed too far. When you make it through the hard way you aren’t about to take any shit from anybody anytime. A lot of tombstones spelled that out loud and clear.

They were waiting at a table in the back for me, Chet and Blackie Saunders, the wipe-out boy from Trenton, sipping coffee like a couple of night owls on the way home. I faked sneezing into a handkerchief and had my face hidden when I went past their backup man who made like he was looking in a storefront window next to the Automat. I turned the corner, cut back and had the nose of the .45 in his ribs without him spotting me and said, “Lets join the others, buddy.”

His reaction was real pro. Just a simple shrug of the shoulders and he headed toward the door. There might have been others, but with three under my gun, nobody was going to make any trouble at all.

When they saw us coming the picture was all there. Blackie started to rise, but Chet waved him down and nodded to me like nothing had happened at all. I took a seat with my back against the pillar, told the outside man to join me and looked at all three unpleasant faces.

“Coffee?” Chet asked.

I ignored him. “Why the kid games?” I nodded at the guy beside me.

“Blackie a habit too?”

The rangy killer from Jersey stared at me, aching for a chance to cut loose. I was hoping he would. Chet said,

“He’s on something else.”

“He’d better be, Chet. Or didn’t you tell him about me?”

“Blackie knows.”

“Then he isn’t very impressed.”

Saunders let a snarl slip into low gear. “I’m never impressed, hotshot.”

“There’s always a first time, Blackie. It’s generally the last time, too.”

“He’s got a gun in his hand,” the guy beside me said.

Chet gave him a disgusted grimace and looked back at me. “Cool it, Dog. I just want to talk.”

“Your party, kid.”

“We saw Markham and Bridey.”

“How about that?”

“You like to add all the fancy frills, don’t you?”

I grinned at him. “Why not? I don’t have a murder one going against me. As soon as the cops check those hoods’ records they aren’t going to be too interested in running me down. They like intramural rivalry. It keeps the economy active in floral shops and funeral parlors and makes their job that much easier.”

“A nice clean kill might, but this looks like an invitation to war.”

“You nailed it, Chet. That’s what it is. Unless The Turk takes it gracefully and figures it’s a warning to lay off.”

“The Turk never takes anything gracefully.”

“So I’ll put some machinery in motion.”

“In a pig’s ass you will! This kind of crap is what we were afraid of.”

“Don’t bug me, buddy,” I said. “I didn’t instigate it. Anybody who rides my tail is going to hurt and that goes for The Turk too.” I paused and looked at him. “That’s what surprises me. That little fat turd isn’t big enough to go for this kind of heavy work.”

“Ever figure somebody’s behind him pushing hard?”

“I thought of it.”

“Why, Dog?”

I didn’t answer him.

“Nobody retires from this business,” he stated flatly.

“Me,” I said. “I did.”

“You only thought you did. When you retire, you’re dead.”

“So I hear. I’ve decided to be the exception.”

Chet tasted his coffee again, then handed it to Blackie and told him to get a fresh hot one. He told the other guy to join him and when they both left he said, “I made a lot of phone calls, Dog. Right now I’m beginning to get some strange notions.”

“Like what?”

“Like why are three different international syndicates sweating like hell because you left the scene.”

“Because I know too much.”

“Everybody knows too much,” he told me. “They don’t give a damn about knowing.”

“Knock off the games, Chet.”

“Being able to prove too — much is something else again.”

“Ah, hell,” I grunted. “You mean the old dodge about tangible facts that would come out if I got knocked off?”

“Something like that.”

“Then why send Bridey and Markham after me?” Blackie and the other one came back with coffee and set the cups down on the table. When they sat down Chet stirred in his sugar and milk, then pushed the cup away from him. “Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be a hit. Maybe they were going to just take you and put the squeeze on. That pair knows all the tricks and when they want somebody to talk that somebody talks.”

“Those jokers got the wrong somebody this time.”

“And next time?”

“Get to the point, Chet. This shit is beginning to bore me.”

“We’re involved in this too, Dog. If you talk you throw all of us out into the open and let me tell you something, kid, we mean more to us than you do.”

“That why you brought your bit hit man along?”

“We have plenty of hit men, Dog. You don’t know all of them.”

“But they all smell alike.”

“I’m real sorry now that I kept the others off your back,” he said viciously. His voice was barely a whisper, but he meant every word of it.

My teeth were showing when I said, “You can always change your mind, pal. Like starting right now. I’ll take all three of you out and be gone before the noise dies down.”

Chet’s eyes narrowed and the skin pulled tight around his mouth. He knew I wasn’t fooling either and it showed in his face. “You wouldn’t get away with it.”

“Want to try?” I sat back and they could see the nozzle of the .45 staring at them from the crook of my crossed arms.

All three of them sat absolutely still. “Never mind,” Chet said.

I nodded slowly, watching them. “Then you call the plays, Chet. Just remember... I don’t play a defensive game. It’s only the guys on the offense who win. Any more tries come my way and I won’t worry about where they come from. Everybody is going to be a target, so if you’re on the ball you cool it, and get the word out to the others to cool it, otherwise it’s just all one big package as far as I’m concerned.”

I got up and stuck on my hat. The gun was back in the holster, but my hand was right where I could get to it faster than they could theirs. Chet picked up his coffee, his eyes still slitted above his cheekbones.

“Were they right, Dog? You protecting yourself with something that could blow the whole schmear?”

“You’ll never know, kid,” I said. I waited until a couple started to pass me and stepped in front of them, heading for the door, letting them cover me in case anybody decided to start blasting. When I was outside I looked back and they were still sitting there, Blackie and the other one listening to Chet. Blackie’s hands were clenched into tight fists and he slammed one against the table. I could almost hear what he was saying.

I looked at my watch. It was a quarter past four.

Sharon finished putting her makeup on, snapped the compact shut and let it drop back into her pocketbook. “You sure get a girl up at ungodly hours. You know we’re almost in Linton and it’s only ten o’clock?”

“Kids are supposed to get up early,” I said.

Her eyebrows raised and she gave me another of those oddball expressions I couldn’t quite decipher. “Kid? You wouldn’t know one if it hit you.”

“How old are you, sugar?”

“Old enough to know better than play gal Friday for you.”

“You didn’t have to come.”

“Mr. Kelly, I wouldn’t miss being with you for the world. You know what the rumormongers are putting out in our sewing circle?”

I turned my head and looked at her. “Tell me.”

“There’s something deep and dark about you. Dick Lagen has hinted at the worst sort of things and Mona Merriman seems to think you were the consort of a certain young lady who’s father was the deputy dictator of one of those new countries... who was shot to death shortly thereafter.”

“Ah, fame,” I said.

“Are those things true?” She was staring straight ahead through the windshield, her hands clasped in her lap.

“If they are, you’ll read about it in their papers soon enough.”

“You don’t seem very concerned.”

“I quit worrying a long time ago, doll.”

For a mile or so she didn’t speak, then she squirmed in her seat and I could feel her eyes on me. “What’s the matter with Lee then?”

I shrugged my shoulders and took the turnoff going east. “Nothing.”

“Dog... he’s scared to death. He looks at you like... like you’re going to explode or something.”

“You know Lee.”

“Not that well, but enough to know he’s never been like that before.” She stopped a moment, then: “It has to do with the other day, doesn’t it? I mean, about those two men. There was a piece in the News...”

“Coincidence.”

“It was on television, too. They said they were attacked and... mutilated. The police were following up leads.”

“I know. They contacted me.”

“And?”

“I couldn’t help them out. So they left.”

“Dog... they contacted me, too. I... told them we were there...”

I reached over and squeezed her knee. “You did right, honey. What’s there to hide? New York’s a big town. Anything can happen. We just happened to be there when it did.”

“Dog...”

“Look, you know how long I was gone... about a minute and a half. You think I could attack and mutilate two big guys and come out of it without a scratch?”

Her answer was a long time coming. She was remembering the blood on my shirt. “I don’t know,” she said softly.

I let out a laugh. “You flatter me, baby.” Sharon grinned back and flopped back against the cushions.

Up ahead the outline of Linton showed above the tree-line, and the quadruple smokestacks that marked the Barrin factory reared their fingers toward the sky. Three of them were dormant. The fourth was gasping out a thin wisp of gray pollutant. If Linton reflected the economy of the Barrin Industries, it wasn’t a very thriving town.

We cut through the center of the city and took the road that circled the vast factory site. The old-fashioned brick, the archaic tower and the climbing vines made the place look more like a college than a commercial complex. The one-hundred-fifty-year-old clock still kept the right time and the acres of land inside the low wall were well trimmed, but empty of the stacked materials that used to clutter the place. A steady throbbing came from inside the place and occasionally a figure would cross behind one of the windows, otherwise activity was at a minimum. About fifty cars were aligned in the parking spaces. One was directly in front of the main office entrance, even with the No Parking sign. The make and color were familiar and I looked at it again, but the question was answered when Cross McMillan stepped out of the doors, two others trailing him, and glanced around with the air of a person about to take possession.

“Your friend,” Sharon said. “I wonder what he’s doing there.”

“He thinks he’s going to take over the joint.” I laid on the gas and pulled out of sight of the entrance. “He’d better not get too smug about it.”

“Maybe he has reason to be. The McMillan family never was known for their humility. They always were pirates.”

“They never went up against big guns before.”

Again, a furrow appeared between her eyes and she took the edge of her lower lip between her teeth. “What’s happening, Dog?”

“The bastard wants it all. He’s always wanted Barrin ever since the run-in with the old man.”

“He’s forced out everybody else around here.”

“Not everybody, kid,” I told her quietly.

“You think he can’t get” — she swept her hand toward the factory site — “...all this?”

“Not without one hell of a fight.”

“Your cousins aren’t capable...”

“I’m not talking about my cousins.”

“Who are you, Dog?” Her voice had a quiver to it.

“Just a guy who wants to come home.”

“Is that all?”

“Nobody wants to let me,” I said.

“But they can’t keep you out.”

“Not anymore, kitten.”

I turned onto the intersection that angled back into town and crisscrossed the area until I came to the comer of Bergan and High streets. Time had washed over the section leaving the scars of fading paint and crumbling bricks, but Tod’s Club still stood defiantly, one of the earlier buildings structured with materials and skill old-fashioned enough to withstand the deteriorating effects of season after season and almost total neglect.

Once it had been the hub of nearly all the political and social activity that went on and twice the site where heavyweight contenders trained for the big bout. One of them even won the crown. Now, half the ground floor frontage was occupied by neighborhood stores to pay the upkeep and a shoddy frame warehouse took up the space where the half-acre picnic grounds used to be.

We parked outside the entrance and I helped Sharon out of the car. She looked around, glanced up at the grimy windows and the dirt-streaked brick. “What’s this place?”

“Don’t you remember?”

She squinted at the building again and nodded. “My father used to come here, I think. Some kind of a club isn’t it?”

“More or less.”

“The name sounds familiar. Tod’s. Yes, Dad even brought us here one time. There were games and barrels of beer and they had a sprinkler going for the kids someplace.”

“In the back.”

“That’s right.”

“What’s here now?”

“I don’t know,” I told her, “but it’s a starting point.”

We walked inside and down a familiar corridor lined with ancient stuffed fish and mounted deer heads. The brass plates beneath the trophies were tarnished and the names unreadable. Most of those names would be engraved now on the local tombstones, I thought.

An old man in dungarees was washing the floor of the west meeting room, the old cigar-burned tables and captain’s chairs pushed to one end. The restaurant that once was the pride of Linton had been sectioned off into office space. Three sections were empty. The other two held a construction company and a real estate outfit.

Voices came from the far end, competing with a televised soap opera and we walked down to the pair of half opened paneled doors and pushed through.

This room hadn’t changed. The great fifty-foot bar still stretched its length to the sliding serving windows in the wall, the gilt-framed mirror behind it reflected the hundreds of antique sporting weapons mounted on wooden pegs and the same six grinning bear heads taken by the long-dead Hiram Tod. When I was a kid the moths had eaten away most of the fur, now the toothy grimaces seemed to be coming out of mummified skulls, strangely livened by bright glassy eyes that lay loosely in dried sockets.

The pair of seedy customers drinking from schooners of beer had their feet propped on a gleaming brass rail while they argued about baseball. The skinny old bartender in the too-big shirt ignored them, polishing already shiny glasses to crystallike brilliance.

When we propped ourselves on the stools and called for a beer the two at the end stopped talking long enough to look us over, then went back to their argument. The bartender set down our glasses, rang up the money and pushed my change toward me. I looked at him carefully, studying his face, remembering the towering man with the huge gut that could bounce off full half kegs of suds onto the cellar chute, and the deep voice that used to make us hustle for the quarters we earned when we cleaned up the picnic tables.

I said, “Tod?”

The old man turned, his eyes focusing on mine. He nodded.

“You been on a diet?”

He grunted and a grin showed his false choppers. “I been on a cancer, son. Only that was a long time ago and hardly nobody remembers me fat. Who may you be?”

I stuck out my hand and waited until he took it. “Cameron Barrin was my grandfather.”

He pulled his hand away sharply. “You ain’t...”

Before he could finish I shook my head. “I’m the bastard one, Tod. Dogeron Kelly. Used to run errands for you when I sneaked out of the castle up there.”

His grin got big suddenly and he grabbed my hand again. “Damn, boy! Sure I remember you. Hell, I remember you and that Polack kid fighting to see who got the swamping job at the hunkie picnic. I put up five bucks for the winner.”

“That Polack kid sure could hit,” I said.

“Yeah, but you won.” He laughed again and pulled another beer for himself. “You know, I bet another five on the Polack.”

“Tough.”

“My own fault. I shoulda remembered you was your father’s kid.”

The beer stopped halfway to my mouth. “You knew him?”

“Sure, and your mother too. But that was before all the trouble. What a wild-assed Irisher he was. He used to meet your ma right here in this place. Oh, nobody ever knew about it or anything. She used to sing when old Barney played the piano.” He stopped for a minute, cocking his head at me. “I ain’t talking outa turn or anything, am I? Sometimes an old guy like me...”

“No sweat, Tod. It was just something I didn’t know but was glad to hear. I’m glad my mother had class enough to cut away from that bunch when she could.”

“Dead, both of them, aren’t they?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Too bad. It ain’t like before at all. What’re you doing back here?”

“Looking the old place over.”

“Not much to see anymore. Except for her.” He nodded at Sharon, smiling. “This is your daughter?”

Sharon choked on her beer and grabbed for a paper napkin to wipe her chin. When she dried off she faked a sigh of exasperation and said, “Good grief!”

“We’re not even married,” I told him.

“Made another- boo-boo, I guess,” Tod said.

“Nope, you just proved a point, Tod. I’d just better pick on somebody my own age.”

“Don’t do it on my account,” Sharon told me quickly. “I’m starting to enjoy all this after putting up with my New York image.”

“Good thing she isn’t my daughter,” I said.

“It would be a very incestuous relationship if I were.”

“I didn’t mean that.” I gave her a poke with my elbow and Tod let out a chuckle.

“Me,” he told us, “I couldn’t take the excitement you kids look for. I’m glad even the old pilot light’s gone out. Now a woman is only something that goes to the ladies’ room instead of the men’s room.” He finished his beer, filled all three and set them down again. This time he didn’t take my money. “You still didn’t say what you’re doing back. It ain’t really to just look around, is it?”

“In a way. I’m looking for information.”

Tod folded his arms on the bar and nodded. “I see. Well, it ain’t like it was, this being a place where you could learn anything, but I hear a few things now and then.”

“About Barrin Industries?”

“Shot to hell, is what. Maybe half working what used to work there. They ever get busy, they’re going to have to import a labor force. No more young people around here if they can help it.”

“How about McMillan?”

“Shoot, man. He’s the one that hired ’em all away for his factory in Aberdeen and the electronic plant outside Madrid. He even bought up a lot of property they owned so they could relocate.”

“Adjoining lots, probably, and all on the right of way to the water.”

“Correct. But who cared?”

“McMillan,” I said. “He knew what he was doing.” Tod shrugged again and spread his hands. “They was all glad to get out. They’re probably still glad. This town hasn’t improved none.”

“Ever hear anything about my cousins?”

“Dennison and Al? Them two patsies? All they do is toss parties out at the country club. Society crap, y’know? I got a niece that waits on tables out there and she tells me everything that goes on.”

“Wild?”

“Them old maids? All hankie waving and backbiting. Half the guys go only because their wives make ’em. They wind up talking golf at the bar and getting blasted. Sure not like the old days here.”

“You mean Al and Dennie are boozers?”

“Nah. They’re as bad as the old maids. With all them relatives watching an’ the way their sisters hang on ‘em, all they do is talk. Oh, they’d like to cut loose. That Dennie pinched my niece’s ass once... sorry, ma’am... and Al, he took a short cut back to town with some lady entertainer they had out there and got stuck in a ditch by the river. Bennie Sachs was on night patrol and hauled them out. Old Al had some scratches on his cheek, but he said he got them from the bushes. The dame, she wasn’t talking and never said nothin’ anyway, so we made a few jokes about it, then it all died down.” Tod let out a rumbling chuckle again and stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I still think he made a pass at her. It would take a blindman not to see that ditch in a full moon.”

“Lousy technique,” I said.

“You have a better one?” Sharon asked me.

“Later you’ll find out.”

“Ah, you kids,” Tod muttered.

I finished the beer and pushed off the stool. “Where does that niece of yours live?”

“Over on Highland. White house at the top of the hill.” He gave me a shrewd look. “You figuring to hang something on those cousins of yours?”

“I sure would like to have something to prod them with.”

“Anything doing, Louise’ll tell you. And good luck. I don’t like them snotnoses. Just tell Louise I sent you.”

“Thanks, I’ll do that.”

“You coming back?”

I nodded and pushed a pair of singles across the bar. “Hell, Tod, I’m already here.”

Sharon was beginning to enjoy the game. Linton had been her backyard too and she knew her way around the streets and rear alleys better than I did, pointing out familiar landmarks, making me pause to look at her old school and stopping in a few stores to say hello to old friends. Of the dozen or so people I spoke to, she knew several of them, but all we managed to get was a blank as far as the Barrin family was concerned. The aristocracy was safely barricaded behind their fortifications on the estate with their private lives well hidden.

After supper she agreed to tackle Tod’s niece, dropped me off at the local precinct station and drove off. I watched the taillights disappear around the comer, then went up the steps into the building.

A cop going off duty directed me to an office on the right and I walked to the door, rapped twice and walked in. The burly-shouldered guy at the filing cabinet with his back to me said, “Be with you in a minute,” then flipped through a few folders, found the one he wanted and slammed the door in. When he turned around he was about to ask me to sit down, did a slow double take that wiped the forced smile off his face and just stood there, looking at me belligerently. “You, huh?”

“It was when I came in.”

“Don’t get smart, buddy.” His elbow hitched the gun in the belt holster up in an involuntary gesture, remembering me from the beach.

I said, “Then let’s, start from the beginning.”

Bennie Sachs wasn’t quite used to being pushed. He had been a small-town cop too long, used to doing the pushing, and when it went the other way he knew he had to be up against some kind of power package. I took a seat without being asked and waited until he had settled himself behind his desk.

Finally he settled back, his face a mash of complacency. “Let’s hear it, mister.”

“Kelly,” I said. “Dogeron Kelly, cousin to Al and Dennison Barrin. Cameron Barrin was my grandfather.”

When I mentioned Al and Dennie I saw the cold look come into his eyes, but that was all that showed. “Good for you,” he told me.

“I don’t dig my cousins anymore than you do, Mr. Sachs.”

He watched me for a moment, then a twist nudged the comer of his mouth and I knew the ice was broken. “What can I do for you?”

“Drag something out of your daily reports. It goes back aways.”

“Like to Alfred and that lady singer at the country club?”

“You nailed it,” I laughed.

“Not much to it. They were sitting down there in the car when I drove up. I threw a towrope around his axle and hauled them out. I followed them back into town in case they had busted something.”

“Al had scratches on his face, I understand.”

“From the bushes he said, three nice long even ones, spaced about as far apart as a woman’s fingers and nail deep. And there wasn’t even a shrub near that ditch.”

“How’d they do it?”

“Mr. Barrin said he lost control when he went onto the shoulder.”

“But what do you say?”

“I can guess.”

“So guess.”

“He tried a little grab-ass and the dame clouted him one. Those tire tracks S’ed all over the road before he went straight into the ditch.”

“Were they arguing?”

“Nope. All nice and neat. Real pals when I drove up. The dame wasn’t even mussed. It coulda happened like he said, especially if he’d been drinking, but I didn’t smell any booze on ’im and besides, I’d sooner think I had a dirty mind.”

“That’s all there was to it?”

“Got a case of booze the next day from an anonymous donor. Good Scotch. Seems like the Barrin butler bought it.”

“Thought you weren’t supposed to take bribes?” I said through a laugh.

“Hell, I told you it was from an anonymous source. By the time I inquired, the booze was all gone. Couldn’t be sure anyway. Peggy over at the liquor store only hinted at it.”

“So Cousin Al is clean as a whistle.”

“No complaints lodged,” Bennie Sachs said. “But I bet he sure wanted a piece of that. Pretty nice-looking dame. Only trouble was, she had two broken fingernails.”

“Observant, aren’t you?”

The big cop shrugged casually. “Cops are supposed to be.”

“How about Cross McMillan?”

“Heavy taxpayer. Minds his own business.”

“Not the other day he didn’t,” I reminded him.

Sach’s thoughts drifted back to the scene in front of the gates at Mondo Beach. He picked up a cigar, bit the end off and spat the piece out. “Mr. McMillan was planning on buying that place. He had money down on it already.”

“His deal went sour. That place has been bought up.” Without looking at me, he held a match to his cigar and nodded. “That’s what I heard. He ain’t very happy about it. He had big plans for that place.”

“Tough.”

“Not on McMillan. What he wants, he gets.”

“I’ve heard that before too. The only thing he can t get is his own wife.”

Sachs shook the match out and flipped it in a comer. “I wouldn’t make noises like that if I was you. He’s pretty touchy on that subject. When he outsmarted Cubby Tillson on that land deal old Cubby mouthed off about the same thing and Cross knocked the shit outa him... and Cubby’s a pretty big apple. Fleet title-holder in the Navy back in forty-five.” He pulled on the cigar and blew a smelly blue cloud of smoke my way. “Who got the beach property now?”

“Somebody in the family, I hear.”

“You hear pretty quick. The deed ain’t even been filed yet. Cross McMillan’s going to be pretty interested in seeing whose name is on that paper.”

“Public information, Mr. Sachs. Just the property is private.” I got up and put on my hat. “Thanks for the talk.”

“Anytime,” he said. He let me get as far as the door before he said, “By the way, Mr. Kelly, you got a permit for that gun you’re wearing?”

“You’re pretty good at guessing,” I said.

His eyes gave me a smile and he stuck the cigar back in his mouth.

Sharon was waiting for me in the car outside the door and moved over to let me under the wheel. I said, “How’d you make out?”

“Zilch. They’re as pure as a virginal bride, but if you could make a case out of subtle leers and vile thoughts, you’d be in. Louise even called a couple of her gossipy friends, but the general consensus of opinion is that neither of them ever strayed from the bed of bachelorhood.”

I said something nasty under my breath and pulled away from the curb. My mind kept going back to the gleeful look I saw on Alfred’s face just before he smashed me off my bicycle with his new roadster, and the shrill cursing of Dennie as he tried to piss through a gonorrhea-infected dong. Mice don’t generally sprout batwings and fly away to goodie land.

“There was one other thing Louise remembered,” Sharon added. “Right after your grandfather died there was an explosion and a fire in the laboratory building of the factory. One of the older engineers who was alone in the place at the time was hit in the head and knocked out. The investigation later reported that it was an accident since some experimental work was under way, but the engineer kept claiming he was hit before the explosion. He kept claiming it was a bungled robbery attempt and that he had seen Alfred Barrin’s car pull up just prior to the blast.”

“Robbery?”

Sharon made a vague motion with her hands. “Apparently nothing was stolen. Alfred said he was at home with his brother and the engineer never quite recovered from his injury. He retired right after that.”

“She mention the guy’s name.”

“In fact, she did. Stanley Cramer. He used to hang out at her Uncle Tod’s place. Nice old man and he’s still alive. Lives out in the Maple Hill section right near where our old house was.”

“Curious,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because any research the Barrin plant was working on then involved aluminum extrusion processes. The lab was just a highly refined mental shop.”

“Well, that’s what she said.”

“Let’s check on it.”

The library was open, nearly empty, and the little old lady who ran it very obliging. Her cross-indexes were neat rows of cards in spiderwebby handwriting and after a thirty-second perusal she selected one, consulted it, then brought out an old library copy of the Linton Herald.

Page one held the item, a three-column piece with a photo of the destroyed laboratory. The essence of the story was much the same as Sharon had given me, but with the further explanation that the suspected cause was the collapse of the bins holding the acid containers onto the chemical storage area below. From the photo, it seemed as though the explosion had released its force against the inside wall and the damage was more superficial than anything else. There was no mention at all about my cousin.

When we were back in the car I asked Sharon where Louise got the bit about Al. “Oh, she just heard her uncle and aunt talking about it, that’s all. Anything a Barrin does in this town is big news.”

“Think you could find Cramer’s place?”

“I guess so. Not many people live out there anyway.”

It wasn’t hard to do. Stanley Cramer was listed in the phone book and a light was on in the front room of the small cottage when we got there. Through the window, I saw him get up from in front of the television set when I rang the bell, a wizened old man with bowed legs and a shuffling walk. He had a full head of white hair and an old-fashioned handlebar moustache like the Polish papas wore when I was a kid.

The porch light flickered on and the door opened. Watery blue eyes blinked up at us and he said, “Well, well. Don’t usually get company out here. You people lost?”

“Nope. You Stanley Cramer?”

“All day long.”

“Then we came to see you.”

“Now, isn’t that nice.” He smiled toothlessly under the flowing whiskers and swung the door wide. “You come right on in.”

His place was a man’s house, tidy and orderly. A collection of odd lever and gear miniature contraptions decorated the mantel over the fireplace and several framed photographs were propped on the small tables. One of them was a picture of him and my grandfather in front of the original Barrin building and must have been sixty years old.

He poured wine from a cut-glass decanter and offered it before he finally sat down opposite us and said, “It’s so nice to see somebody I even forgot the introductions. Who may you be?” He squinted at us closely. “Don’t know either one of you, do I?”

“You knew my grandfather,” I told him. “Cameron Barrin. I’m Dogeron Kelly, the family secret.”

Laughter flashed across his eyes and he shook a finger at me. “Ah, yes, I remember you, all right. Big stink about it when you came along. Old Cam was fit to be tied.”

“This is Sharon Cass. She used to live here. In fact, her father worked at Barrin.”

Cramer reached for a pair of glasses beside his chair and hooked them over his ears, then leaned forward to look at her. “You Larry Cass’s daughter?” Before she could answer he nodded vigorously. “Yes, ma’am, you sure are. Damned if you’re not your mother all over again. Same mouth, same eyes. You even got your hair like she had it. Lovely woman, your mother.”

“Thank you.”

“Sure is nice of you, coming all the way out here to see an old fossil like me.” He smiled again, sipped his wine and looked at me. “Kind of think there’s more on your mind though.”

“I thought you could help me.”

“Nothing much I’m very good at anymore, son.”

“Just a case of remembering.”

“Oh, I can do that. About all I can do.”

“Remember the explosion in the Barrin lab?”

The moustache twisted down when his smile faded. “Before and after, but not the explosion.” He took his glasses off and scratched his head. “But I guess explosions are the things you’re not supposed to remember.”

“Once you told somebody that it wasn’t the blast that got you.”

He held out the decanter, refilled our glasses and poured another one for himself. “Did I?”

“Good wine,” I said.

The watery quality had left his eyes and he watched me sharply. “You know, son, you got something of old Cam in you. He was a spooky character too. Sometimes he reminded me of a snake, other times he was all cat, smart and deadly as they come. The others, there’s no part of Cam in them at all.”

“I’m the only direct relative he had.” Then I added, “Or rather, indirect. Nobody rang bells when I was born.”

“Guess not,” Cramer chuckled. “Cam, he didn’t like to be bucked.”

“About the explosion.”

“See? Just like Cam. Wouldn’t leave a thing alone.” He tasted his wine again, rolling it around his tongue. “The explosion,” he mused finally. “Must have been a little after midnight. I was working on a heat problem we had with an aluminum alloy. I thought I heard a noise and went to turn around. That’s when I got cracked on the head. Next thing I know I was in the hospital.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t get killed.”

“Beats me how I dragged myself out of there. They found me near the front door later, but I sure don’t remember getting there.”

“You said you saw Al’s car around earlier.”

“Well now, it could have been or it couldn’t have been. About ten minutes earlier I went down to the supply.room to pick up some solder. I thought I heard a car pull up and when I looked out there was a two-tone sedan something like Al had. He’d come down once in a while to go over the books and I didn’t think anything about it. Hell, it was his place, wasn’t it?”

“In a sense.”

“So I got my solder and went back to work.”

“That’s all?”

Cramer just nodded, but his fingers pulled at his moustache thoughtfully.

“What could have blown up?”

“I was waiting for that,” he said. “Nothing, I’d say, but I’m not a chemical engineer. Maybe those acids could have caused it.”

“Somebody theorized about an attempted robbery.”

“That’s right. The explosion was against the wall where the safe was.”

“Anything worth stealing?”

He gave me another one of those vague shrugs. “Depends on how badly you need four hundred dollars in petty cash and a lot of old papers. Used to be that old safe was never even locked. For a while we used it for storage. The only reason it was there was because the lab was part of the original office before Cam built the new wing. Any cash or other valuables were in the vault over there.”

“And Cousin Al was in the clear again.”

“I take it you don’t like that boy.”

“He’s a meathead.”

“You can say that again,” Cramer agreed. “Yeah, he was clear. He was with Dennison all night. Anyway, I shouldn’t’ve shot my mouth off. That car could have belonged to anyone. It wasn’t like his big Caddie or that little foreign job he generally drove. Couple of guys at the plant even had one like it.”

“But you still think it was his,” I stated.

“Son, when an old man gets an idea stuck in his head it’s pretty hard to dislodge, even if it’s wrong. Age is funny that way.”

“Sure.”

“Incidentally, mind telling me why you’re so interested in ancient history?”

“Curiosity,” I said.

“It killed the cat.”

“If you were right, it could kill Alfred boy too.”

“And you’d like that?”

“Why not? He tried to kill me once.”

Sharon put her glass down and looked over at me. “You must be aging too. You won’t let ideas get away either.”

Stanley Cramer let out a big smile and scratched his head again. “If I were you, I’d get ideas about the pretty little lady here and let the past stay buried.”

“You may be right,” I told him. “Let’s go, pretty little lady.”

It was old and musty, animals from the field had left their litter around and nested in the stuffing from some of the chairs. Moonlight through the cracked windows ran down the silky strands of cobwebs, giving the place a fuzzy appearance.

She had asked to see it again, and this time she wanted to go in. A pair of old hurricane lamps she dug out of a cabinet were the only light, the glow soft and feeble, but enough to reflect the wetness under her eyes as she touched pieces of tattered furniture.

Her old house was too far away from town to have been vandalized by kids or used by tramps, too remote and weed hidden to be a sex pad for lovers. Twice a bat flapped past and little scratching noises came from the woodwork.

“We always had mice,” she said. “I wouldn’t let Dad trap them. He didn’t know it, but I used to leave scraps of food on the floor in the kitchen so they could eat.”

I let her talk, listening to her ramble on about days in pigtails and pinafores or her father pulling her along on a sled. Finally she stopped at the foot of the stairs, hesitated a moment, then started up. There were three rooms at the top. The door to the smallest one was open and a foot-treadle sewing machine and a spindleback chair were waiting for another seamstress.

Sharon opened the middle door, the lamp outstretched in her hand. “My father and mother’s room,” she said. I edged up close to her and looked inside. Wind and rain from a broken pane had discolored the mattress and blown the covers across the room. The veneer tops of both dressers had warped off, the mirrors discolored, barely reflecting our images.

She closed the door gently and went to the last one on the end. It didn’t open at first, then I twisted the knob, put my shoulder against the edge of it and leaned inward. It creaked open, then stuck halfway and we had to slip in one at a time.

The window was intact, and with the door wedged so tightly shut little dirt had had a chance to collect. A quilted spread still covered the bed, a few empty makeup jars and a stack of movie magazines were on one end of the bureau, a rocker leaned quietly in a corner next to an old rolltop desk and a pair of shoes were on the closet floor under a few items of outgrown clothing. She had pasted up all her hero pictures, snipped from papers and books, interspersing them with school photos and pennants stenciled with the trademarks of various vacation spots.

“And you lived here,” I stated.

Sharon walked over and put the lamp down on the dresser. “My own little sanctuary. I loved this room.”

“You never really closed down the house, did you?”

“I couldn’t. I just took what I needed and walked away. I never thought I’d come back here. Too many memories, Dog. I started out fresh.”

“You don’t wipe out memories, kid.”

That oddball look came back in her face and disappeared almost as fast. “Yes, I know.” She was looking at me in the dresser mirror, then her eyes went to one side and she picked a small photo out of the frame, smiled at it and dropped it in her pocket.

“Dog...” Her fingers were doing things with the buttons of her jacket, popping them open one by one. “Can we stay here tonight? Together?”

“You’re mixing me up in your daydreams, kid.”

“I had a lot of them in that very bed.”

“Will you quit knocking me in the head? One night on the beach I could take. It was fun and it was funny. Another time and it won’t be like that at all. You’re no little girl anymore, doll. When you take off those clothes you’re all lovely soft flesh and woman curves. I don’t buy the frustration bit at all. It gets hard on the dingus. We used to call it lover’s nuts.”

She had the jacket off and threw it on the rocking chair. She started on the buttons of the blouse when I put my lamp down and grabbed her before she could get them open. Sharon smiled and shook her head. “The last time I wanted you and you wouldn’t take me. Now I want you not to take me.”

“You don’t make sense,” I damn near shouted.

“Please, Dog? Just this once? It won’t happen again.”

“Look, fantasies are fine, but...”

“Sometimes you live with fantasies a long time. Please, Dog?” She pushed me away with small, gentle hands and walked back to the dresser. I watched her undress slowly, feeling my insides go tumbling all over again. She was more beautiful than ever in that pale yellow light, but a different kind, a beautiful, a young, unselfconscious kind of beautiful. When she was all naked she tossed the single cover back and writhed down under it.

I looked at her, wondering what the hell I was letting myself in for, then I undressed too, but not with the same unselfconsciousness. I did it fast, blew out the lamps and got in beside her.

“Just hold me,” she said.

I wanted to say the same thing, but I didn’t.