The Erection Set

VIII

The three of us sat in the back compartment of the limousine. Not the back seat. The compartment. When it came to practical luxuries, Leyland Hunter hadn’t been niggardly with himself. He perched in his own specially made swivel chair, idly rocking, grinning at Sharon and me like a kid showing off a new toy.

“Like it?”

“I’ve misjudged you, mighty Hunter,” I said.

He tapped the back of the partition beside him. “Color TV. The bar comes out of the wall on your side. Well stocked, I might add. Radio, freezer compartment for Ice...”

“If this back seat makes up into a bed you’d have a nice rolling bordello, friend.” Sharon’s elbow gave me a nudge and I knew she was trying to suppress a smile. “Don’t laugh, kid,” I told her. “The old goat can still deliver. In fact, he’s thinking of taking up the sport seriously.”

Sharon said generously, “I believe it.”

Leyland’s eyes twinkled. “He’s right, you know. Of course, it will be on a carefully calculated... and timed basis. My age doesn’t allow for too much exuberance these days.”

“Men,” she laughed.

“And now,” Leyland answered her, “let’s talk about women. Specifically you. Dog here has told me about your forays onto Mondo Beach. Is it possible I knew your father? Was he Larry Cass?”

Sharon’s forehead wrinkled into a puzzled frown. “Why... yes.”

“Ah, then I did know him. Quite well, in fact. At one time he was in charge of new projects at Barrin. A valuable man. Too bad they lost him.”

“He couldn’t stand the new management,” Sharon told him bluntly.

“And I can’t blame him,” Leyland said. “The era of big business came to a standstill when the giants died off. Industry has succumbed to the computer age. The incompetents move in and make up for their inadequacies by the sheer weight of numbers, college degrees and inherited wealth. Nobody pounds a table anymore or walks down in shirt sleeves for a head-on clash with a foreman who screwed things up. Cameron Barrin was a giant. It was a shame to see him go too.” The faraway look left his eyes and he glanced at Sharon with a little smile. “I remember Larry having a daughter. She went fishing with us one day.”

“In a boat?”

“Yes, a rowboat. We caught flounders. You didn’t want to put live minnows on the hook...”

“And cried! Yes, I remember that. But you were so... I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was many years ago. From the way it looks I’ll be having more fun now than I did when I was young. Incidentally, pretty little lady, I hope you have no designs on my unscrupulous friend here. There are better prospects in the world, I’m sure.”

“I’m engaged, Mr. Hunter.”

“That is no excuse. Would your fiancé approve of your being on a junket with someone like him... even for a day?”

“I doubt if he’d object. He’s very broad-minded.”

“So is Dog. That’s what I had reference to.”

“Aren’t you an acceptable chaperon?”

“Not anymore, little one. Dog has seen to that. I’ve become quite lecherous.”

“In that case, he’ll just have to protect me.”

“In that case, the cure will be worse than the disease,” Leyland said.

“Well, like the man said, ‘When rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it.’ ”

I let out a low growl and said, “You know, I really don’t have to ride back here with you two sex maniacs. There’s an empty seat beside the driver.”

Hunter gave me that funny look again. “I wish I were young enough to take you up on that, Dog.”

“Someday you might try,” I told him. “Then I’m going to ask how you got that cauliflower ear.”

“It’s quite a story,” he said.

Three generations ago Grand Sita had been a distant retreat, a manufactured barony hand tailored to Cameron Barrin’s personal preferences. The rolling hills that covered six hundred acres surrounded a mansion that reflected the tastes of the era, a walled area with private roads and every accommodation money and talent could buy. The original structure with its simple design had long ago been obscured by new additions that social position demanded, and Cameron’s Castle had ceased to become a joking venture into the country, but a place where only the fashionable were invited.

That was three generations ago.

Now it wasn’t a six-hour carriage drive any longer. A superhighway sliced through a corner of the estate, making one-third of it unusable. Public utilities won condemnation proceedings and stretched a row of ugly latticework pylons hung with high-voltage cables from east to west. New York City was an hour and fifteen minutes away and obscured by fog, but Grand Sita was worth ten times more than it cost if the land developers could force it onto the market.

Due northeast, two miles away, the vast complex of buildings that housed the machinery of Barrin Industries nestled in the archaic splendor of ivy-covered red brick on the edge of Linton, a city built, structured and occupied by people working for Barrin or servicing its employees. At one time, Linton was only the name of the millowner who had his establishment on the bank of the river. With the advent of the first Barrin factory it became a city without government. Time had changed that, though. They had a mayor now, a city council and all the trappings of modern society. They had murders, fires, a small race riot and a welfare program.

From the crest of the bridge over the railroad tracks you could see the curve of the road that turned east midway between the estate and Linton, boring through the seven miles of countryside to the summer domain of the Barrin family old Cameron had named Mondo Beach, a vast crescent of sand and surf that looked out on a still unpolluted section of water.

We turned at the fieldstone columns where the ornate wrought-iron gates were rusted into the open position. The roof of the old gatehouse had collapsed and the building was unoccupied, but an old dungaree-clad gardener riding a motorized lawn mower looked up curiously, waved and motioned for us to go on in.

Leyland Hunter said, “Most of the staff have died or retired. They never replaced them.”

“It’s still beautiful,” Sharon told him. She was peering out the window, a strange expression on her face. “I never came in this way.”

“I thought you were only here once,” I said.

“In the house. Many a time I sneaked onto the grounds.”

“Hell, I used to sneak out. It’s hard to picture somebody wanting to sneak in.”

“This was the house on the hill, Dog. Every kid I knew used to envy the ones who came here.”

“I had more fun in town.”

Hunter chuckled again, his eyes moving between us both. “I’m afraid you were to the manor born, but not bred, Dog. Whatever genes your father carried sure took hold in you.”

“Bastards have more fun, buddy,” I assured him.

“And coming home doesn’t raise any nostalgia at all in you?”

“Not a damned bit. This place doesn’t represent opulence for me at all.”

“What does, Dog?” He had stopped smiling and was watching me with a lawyer’s eyes now.

“I’ve seen better and worse.”

“You’ve played a lot of poker, too, haven’t you?”

He didn’t have to tell me what my face looked like. I said, “I hardly ever bother to bluff, Hunter boy.”

“Again, that qualification. Hardly. Very improper. I think you mean rarely.”

“So I’m stupid,” I said.

The gravel drive gave way to old-fashioned Belgian paving blocks as we pulled into the area in front of the house. I let my eyes drift out the side window and took in the towering three-story mansion with its imposing Doric columns flanking the broad staircase, and for a single second I could see the old man standing there, hands on his hips, the cane in his hand, lips twisted in a snarl as he waited for me to walk up to where he could take a cut at my rear end, a sample of what was waiting for me inside. My mother’s face would be a pale white oval in the upper window, suddenly covered by her hands, and the grinning faces of Alfred and Dennison would be hidden behind the great oak door, unseen, but their muffled laughs of anticipated pleasure ringing in my ears. Somewhere the girls would be cleverly out of sight, but not out of earshot of that cane landing on my hide.

But he never made me yell and he couldn’t make me cry. I did that later when I was alone, not from the pain, but the damn humiliation of having to take Alfred’s lumps for him. Or Dennie’s. Or one of the girls’.

It passed in a second. The old man was out in the family plot now, my mother discreetly buried in another cemetery, and the others probably above such trivia by now.

The only one there was a middle-aged butler obviously awaiting our arrival. I didn’t recognize him. “Fine reception,” I said.

Hunter nodded and hefted his attaché case. “You aren’t exactly a cause célèbre and I am simply a family retainer, I’m afraid. And, of course, Miss Cass here is an outsider. Nothing to require a formal reception.”

“Just tell me one thing, Counselor. Am I expected?”

“Of course not,” he told me. “Do you think I want to spoil all the fun?”

I grinned at him, then the grin broke into a taut laugh. I said, “I have the feeling you’re going to drag this out as long as possible.”

“You feel right, Dog. Until now, my relationship with the Barrin family has never been what you’d call fun. I think it’s about time I had a little.”

Sharon shook her head and stared at both of us. “Look, maybe it would be better if I waited in the car.”

“Kitten,” I said. “after all the trouble of sneaking onto Grand Sita. I think you deserve seeing what the Barrin clan is really like.”

The butler’s name was Harvey, and he took our hats, ushered us to the polished walnut doors of the library, slid them open ceremoniously and stepped forward to announce us.

Somehow the years fell away again for another brief instant and it was like peeking into the same room when something of momentous portent was being acted upon. There were other people then and Cameron Barrin would be seated behind the hand-carved desk. Now there were seven faces, five oddly familiar, and one was behind the desk. The butler’s voice had the same intonation old Charles’s had had and there was that same casual, almost disdainful turning of the heads as we were announced.

Harvey said, “Mr. Leyland Hunter, Miss Sharon Cass and Mr. Dogeron Kelly.”

It was funny. No... it was damned well hilarious. Oh, they saw us all at once and were willing to grant Hunter a degree of recognition with supercilious smiles, then offer Sharon an expression of semipolite curiosity, but when my name sank in there were five people there who damn near shit in their pants.

Dennison stared at me from behind the desk, his beady little eyes almost popping out. Alfred stiffened in his chair and knocked over an ashtray. Veda had a drink halfway to her mouth, didn’t know what to do with it and set it on the floor like some harridan in a Bowery barroom. Pam and Lucella just gave each other open-mouthed expressions before they looked at me again.

Only Marvin Gates, the husband Pam kept on the marital leash, was able to smile. He was half drunk, impeccably dressed like an outdated Hollywood director and he raised his drink in my direction. “Ah,” he said, “the family skeleton has come out of the closet. Welcome home.”

Pam snapped out of her shock as though she were being awakened from a bad dream. The voice that used to be shrill was coarse now and she snapped, “Marvin!”

“Sorry about that, dear,” he told her. “Thought it was the proper thing to do, y’know?” He took another pull at his drink and grinned again.

“Don’t bother getting up,” I said to the room in general. I took Sharon by the arm, led her to a leather wing-back chair and sat her down. Behind me, I knew Leyland Hunter was watching the entire tableau with satisfaction, so I put on the rest of the show.

Somehow Dennison had struggled to his feet and was standing there, still glassy-eyed, and reluctantly held out his hand. “Dogeron... I thought...”

I squeezed his hand and saw him wince. “No, I’m very much alive, Dennie.” I ran my eyes over his pudgy body. “You’ve gotten fat, kiddo.” I dropped his hand, looking down at the remains of the slob who had made my life so miserable those long years ago. He was four inches shorter than me, weighed just as much, but it was all in front and back of him, bulging through his clothes. I said, “How’s your pecker these days, Dennie?” Behind me I heard a couple of sharp gasps and Hunter covered his laugh with a cough.

Cousin Alfred didn’t bother offering his hand. That snaky face of his glared pure hatred at me, but he didn’t chance staying seated and having me yank him out of his chair. He stood up, a lanky caricature of a ferret with the same expression he had the day he clipped me with his new roadster. He said, “Dogeron,” with a voice veiled in sarcasm, wishing I’d drop dead on the spot.

“Still got a sore ass, Alfie?” I asked him.

“That broken arm ever give you troubler?” he said with quiet venom.

I grinned at him, a nice, slow, easy grin that was all teeth and half-lidded eyes. “Not a bit, Alfie.” I bent down, picked up the brass ashtray he had flipped over and squashed it double in my fist. “See?”

Not a muscle moved in his face. “Good. I often worried about it.”

“I thought you would,” I said deliberately. “It makes me feel better to know you were so concerned.”

My hellos to my three female cousins were polite and brief. They couldn’t get the horror out of their eyes so I gave them time to adjust, letting them sit there wondering what the hell was going on. Marvin Gates still wore his silly smile, busying himself making drinks for us without asking what we wanted, his eyes touching Pam’s with wry humor all the while. Somehow he was enjoying the show too and I couldn’t help liking his attitude. He was an incompetent jerk who had gotten his balls in the wringer from a sour swindle and had been paying for it a long time. Pam had laid the clout on him pretty heavy and now he was getting his turn to watch the squirming.

Behind me, the metallic snap of Hunter’s attaché case reminded me we had come for other things and I pulled up an ottoman and sat down beside Sharon. Unconsciously, her hand reached out and touched my shoulder. I could feel her fingers stiff with tension, trembling slightly at the hostility in the air.

It was Hunter’s scene now and he played it well. He had held the stage too many times in this same room and he knew all the lines and all the tricks. He knew the audience too and how to play to them.

For a moment he looked at each one individually, then: “Ordinarily, this would have been a routine meeting. However, with Mr. Kelly’s return we can enter a new dimension that has been necessarily delayed by his absence. Now...” he looked around once more, “I take it you are all quite satisfied with his identity?”

It was Alfred who said, “Shouldn’t we be?”

Hunter smiled indulgently. “After all, twenty-some years is a long time. If you prefer further documentation...”

Alfred said, “It won’t be necessary.”

“Very good.” He picked several printed sheets from his case and spread them open on his lap. “Most of the details of your grandfather’s will are well known to you. However, there are certain provisos that were to be explained only when all of you were present. Each of you who shared in the estate was given his inheritance immediately after the death of Cameron Barrin. It was only Mr. Kelly’s share that was not awarded. As you are aware, it was to be ten thousand dollars m Barrin Industries stock at the time of Mr. Barrin’s death As you well know, the number of shares representing ten thousand dollars now are quite disproportionate from the gate of Mr. Barrin’s death. I am now prepared to deliver those shares to Mr. Kelly.”

I could feel Alfred’s snide smile from where I was sitting. “Wasn’t there a provision attached to that award, Mr. Hunter?”

“You are referring to the morality clause, I believe?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you intend to investigate Mr. Kelly’s background for a possible breach of that clause?”

“You’re right again.”

Hunter looked at Dennison and he stared a smirking smile too. “I agree completely,” old Dennie said.

I was about to get up, slap them both on their ass and get out of there, but saw the motion of Hunter’s hand and sat down again.

The lawyer said, “In that case, I have been instructed to enforce another proviso which was not known to you.” He paused for a second, his face bland, but his eyes were twinkling. “Before the remainder of the estate can be awarded, Mr. Kelly has the option of conducting a full investigation of your background for a breach of the morality clause. The time limit on such investigation will be limited to three months.”

Dennis and Alfred were on their feet instantly, Dennie’s face flushed and Al’s livid with anger. “That is ridiculous,” Dennie stated.

Hunter shook his head and cut him off. “I’m sorry. It was your grandfather’s request. You both have stated your intentions, I now state his. Had you not bothered, this matter could have been settled immediately.” Hunter turned slowly and looked at me. “It still may be if Mr. Kelly does not care to exercise his prerogative. If he refuses, the bequest will be made as stipulated.”

Alfred stood there, his fists clenched at his sides. Dennie was leaning on the desktop, his face still flushed with the indignity of it all. The three girls hardly breathed and Marvin grinned over the top of his drink.

“A question, Counselor,” I said. “Supposing they get something on me and I get something on them?”

The introspective stare Hunter held on me told me more than he realized. He was evaluating me again and his estimate was going up. I was reading back into a dead mind and reading it right.

Leyland Hunter nodded sagely and said, “In that case, the entire remainder of the estate goes to you.”

Inside my head my mind was laughing because the old boy was paying off for all the times I had gotten the dirty end of the stick. He was saying, “Go get ’em. It isn’t much, but you never wanted much anyway. If they deserve it, stick it up and break it off.”

“Well,” Hunter asked me, “do you choose to exercise your prerogative?”

I didn’t bother to smile. I simply looked at Dennison, then at Alfred and let a few seconds go by. “You’re damned well told I do,” I said.

We drove into Linton and had supper in the log and fieldstone restaurant that used to be a gristmill. The decorations were from another era, flintlock pistols, spinning wheels, strange household utensils and relics from the time when America was vibrant with potential energy and every man an individual who knew how to determine his own destiny. The food was simple and magnificent, the wine a tasty local product, and we finally sat back, filled and ready to talk.

With our glasses filled from a fresh bottle, Hunter toasted us all. “To a successful day,” he said. “It was a pleasure to see the Barrins outraged at the mere suggestion that they might have a moral flaw.”

“You’re a crafty bastard, Counselor. The old man was a shrewdie too.”

“Indeed he was. I hope you think more of him now.”

“Not more, just better.” I sipped my drink and put the glass down. “One thing went over my head, friend. You could have laid me out on that morals clause right then. Why didn’t you?”

Hunter finished half his glass before he answered me. “Had they not demanded the investigation of you, I would have. You see, that was another proviso of Cameron’s. I imagine he figured you wouldn’t have stood a chance otherwise, so he gave you one at their expense. If they wanted to be nasty about it, they had to put up with some discomfort at least. If they weren’t so simon-pure, they’d pay for their attempt to discredit you.”

I nodded and made wet circles with my finger on the tabletop. “Think much of my chances, buddy?”

“Frankly, I think it’s a lost cause. I told you, I have already made inquiries and your cousins are quite re-spectacle.”

“You’re too orderly, Hunter,” I said. “You didn’t get your nails dirty. If you want dirt, you dig where the dirt is. Something always turns up.”

“You think you have more experience at that sort of thing than I have?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised, mighty Hunter.”

“No,” he said. He finished the rest of his drink. “Nor would I.” He snapped his fingers for the check, put it on his credit card and stood up. “Now,” he said, “I hate to be party to a possible immoral act, but tomorrow I have a session with the accountants at the factory. I have arranged to stay at the Gramercy Inn for the night, with separate accommodations already made for you two. In the meantime, you may have the use of the limousine, with or without the driver. I rather suspect Willis would be happy to be relieved. He has a room reserved for him too. If you wish, you can drive back to the city if you can pick me up again tomorrow. It’s your choice.”

Sharon started to laugh and gave him a look of faked anguish. “Mr. Hunter, you really are something. How can you even suggest a thing like that? Don’t you know anything about women at all? I have no change of clothes, no nightgown...”

“Hell, sleep in your drawers,” I said.

“Why, you...” She punched me in the arm and hurt her hand.

Hunter was watching us impishly. “I’ve provided for such a contingency,” he said. “The necessary apparel was purchased earlier by phone and has already been delivered to your room. I trust you’ll find my selections satisfactory. My legal mind also encompasses a fairly accurate estimate of female sizes and delicate necessities.”

“You know, Counselor,” I said, “I’m beginning to wonder if there aren’t a few things you could teach me.”

“In some areas only, Dog,” he replied.

For an hour after we dropped Hunter and Willis off at the hotel, we cruised around Linton. By full moonlight the town was a prettier place, the grime hidden, the gradual decay of the buildings unseen. No longer was there a night shift at the factory, so the streets were quiet, most of the windows in the residential area dark. A patrol car was parked outside an all-night diner and another drifted by idly with barely a glance at us.

The memories came back again, but with little impact... the old sandlot where I played softball with the Polacks was still there, littered with garbage now, but the wire backstop was still in place, rusted and sagging, a collection area for windblown papers.

We drove down Third Street and I said, “See that old building on the corner?”

Sharon nodded. “Looks like a haunted house.”

“Belonged to Lucy Longstreet. She was Madam Lucy then. Only whorehouse in town. That used to be a swinging joint on Saturday nights.”

“How would you know?”

I let out a laugh, remembering. “Hell, girl, kids know everything. There was a tree in the back we used to climb so we could watch the action. I’ll never forget that black-haired girl from Pittsburgh. One day she and Mel Puttichi were inside on that big brass bed sexing up a storm and got little Stash so damn excited he let go of his limb and fell down on top of me and knocked us both out of the tree. I felt like whamming him. Things were just getting good.”

“Dog!”

“So what’s wrong with watching? All kids are curious. It was first-class sex education.”

“And I suppose you were a steady customer at the place from then on?” she pouted.

“Hell no. Ran plenty of errands for Lucy, though. Always a buck tip and a chance to see one of the dames bare-ass when we brought in the package... if we were lucky. That black-haired dame never used to wear clothes ever. Quite a sight.”

“You’re terrible.”

“They had a double murder in there one night. That ended things for Lucy. It was never the same again. I think she took her suitcases of money and moved out to the coast.”

“What happened to the girls?”

“Probably all respectable married by now. You’d be surprised how much in demand they are.”

“After working...”

“Well, who wants a virgin anyway? Like the man said, if they’re not good enough for somebody else, they’re not good enough for me either.”

“Two words to you, Dog, and they’re not good night.”

“You really a virgin?” I asked her.

“If you promise to be gentle I could prove it to you.”

“That’s taking quite a chance.”

“Maybe.”

“Never mind, I’ll take your word for it.”

We drove past the outskirts of Linton and Sharon told me to take a left on a country road, then another left into a lane that ended a hundred yards away. I turned around the rutted dirt oval wondering what she wanted to see here, then the lights of the car swept over the remains of a small frame cottage set back in the trees. The windows were gone and a large oak had collapsed on top of the porch, one of the limbs taking out an attic dormer. A rubble of red bricks from the chimney made a mound at its base nearly hidden by weeds and grass.

Very softly, Sharon said, “That’s where I used to live. I was back here once before. My old bicycle is still out in back. It’s all rusted to pieces now.”

“Who owns it?”

I felt her shrug. “The bank, I guess. There used to be a For Sale sign in the front, but nobody ever wanted the place. I had a lot of good times here, Dog. Dad and me It wasn’t much, but he was happy. Neither one of us ever cared for pretentious living.”

“Then why sneak into Grand Sita?”

“Little girls are curious too. About different things, that is. You know what puzzled me about that big house you lived in?”

I shook my head.

“How you didn’t get lost in it. I used to try to figure out how you could find your way between ends. I could picture myself running upstairs and down and into all sorts of crazy empty rooms, yelling and screaming and never anybody to come get me out. I was always glad to get back home.”

“You’re silly,” I told her. I nodded toward the cottage. “Want to go in?”

“No. It would be too depressing. Don’t let’s spoil the evening.”

“We’re not going to find any night life in Linton, kid.”

“You know what I’d really like to do?”

“Just name it.”

“Drive out to Mondo Beach. For once I’d like to go through the main gate as a genuine guest.”

“You know, Sharon,” I said, “I think you’re a snob.”

“That’s me,” she said.

I found a hammer and screwdriver in the trunk of the car and knocked the lock off the hasp that held the gates shut. Wind-driven sand had piled up two feet deep along the bottom edge and we shoveled it away with our hands. When it was cleared I forced one section open, heard a hinge pry loose from the top, then I was inside. The roadway was too drifted over to try to get the car through, so Sharon took a blanket from the back seat and we started to walk toward the ocean.

After a dozen steps she stopped and said, “This ain’t no place for city clothes, buster,” then kicked off her shoes, stripped her stockings off, tucked everything under her arm and waited. I grinned, did the same thing, rolled my pants legs up halfway and held out my hand.

You could smell the salt air and hear the gentle rumble of the surf long before we came out of the near-jungle of trees and undergrowth. Once all this had been neatly planted and tended, a showplace for the elite who came in horse-drawn carriages, and later in thundering, brass-shiny automobiles. Vegetation had overrun the picnic areas, the cabanas were flattened somewhere under the sand and only the foundation ruins of the old icehouse were visible. At the south end, ghosting against the sky, you could see the turreted outlines of the twenty room summer house. My grandfather had built that out of quality materials and the sea storms still had a lot of years to go before they nibbled it to pieces.

“Funny, isn’t it,” I said.

“What?”

“It used to be such a great place. Now it’s almost back to where it was before the old-man built it up. You know, I think I like it better this way.”

“So do I.”

We were silent for a while, just looking around in the pale moonlight. Then I took her hand, tugging her up and over the rolling dunes, the foot-high strands of grass brushing against our bare legs. We came to the last mound, and there was the gentle slope of packed sand and the water in front of us.

She spread the blanket out and curled up cross-legged on one side. “It’s beautiful, Dog.”

I sprawled out next to her. “It’s about the only thing the old man owned that I used to want. I figured I could put up a shack made of driftwood and pull a Robinson Crusoe bit.” I rolled on my side and looked up at her. “One year I did just that. They sent Al and Dennie to some fancy camp while the rest went to Newport for the social season and my mother and I camped out here for six days. That was when she told me about marrying my father.”

“You never knew him, did you?”

“Only through her. He was some hell raiser. She sure loved him though.”

“Why wouldn’t they accept him?”

“Come off it, baby. You know the drill on that bit. If there was no money there was no position, ergo, no marriage into the Barrin family. They never thought my old lady would tell them to go toss it and get herself knocked up outside the family circle. Trouble was, when my father died she lost all the spunk she had. They squeezed her until there was nothing left. The old man had her yanked out of the apartment they were living in while she was alone and dragged her back to Grand Sita. She didn’t even know she was pregnant then. He hired guards to keep my father away, got him fired from his job, had him rousted out of the state and kept my mother incommunicado until after I was born. One day the old man showed up, beat the hell out of four of the guards and took off with my mother and married her. A week later he was dead and she was back in exile again in the old man’s little Siberia. I don’t think she ever left it except to come here on rare occasions. When she did I was just a kid and it was all over so fast I can hardly remember it. She was dead in the morning, in the coffin by noon and buried before nightfall. I threw some rocks through the old man’s greenhouse, spit in his decanter of fine booze and opened the sluicegate on the pond behind the house and drained his imported goldfish into the creek. I think the gardener covered for me and he never noticed anything wrong with his booze. The next day Alfie and Dennie knocked the shit out of me for something or other and I hit Dennie over the head with a rake. For that I got a week alone in my room and had time to think.” I stopped for a minute and looked at the ocean. “They never should have left me in that room,” I said.

“Why?”

“I thought too much,” I told her.

Down the beach something disturbed the gulls and they set up a screeching racket for a minute. A wisp of cloud ran across the moon and snaked away, letting the brightness come back again. The wind was soft and warm, a tail end of summer feel to it, just strong enough to stir the soft sand into easy motion.

Sharon’s hand ran over the back of mine and she tossed her head so her hair made ripples in the yellow light. “Dog... it’s a shame to waste this whole ocean.”

“Who’s wasting it?”

“We are. We should go use it.”

“Now?”

“Uh-huh. Right now.” She uncurled from the blanket, stood up and stretched luxuriously against the sky. Then her hands came down and did something at the back of her dress. Soundlessly, it slithered to a heap at her feet. She found the hooks of her bra and undid them. tossed that beside her, then with a single, fluid movement seemed to slide out of the tiny flowered bikini pants that were left She turned and looked at me, the night shadows flowing around tanned shoulders, reflecting off the silken whiteness of magnificent breasts that swept up and out in a daring gesture before molding into the tanned flatness of a stomach that was navel dimpled before contrasting with the bathing-suit whiteness around her hips. In the moonlight the hair of her loins was a tantalizing vee of auburn, her legs firm and softly muscular. She let me look at her a long minute, standing there with her hands on her hips, pelvis pushed forward provocatively.

Finally she said, “Coming?”

“If you don’t get the hell out of here I will,” I told her.

She laughed, turned and ran toward the surf, her stride loose and boyish. I heard her laugh again and her body splash into the water. Then I got up and took off my own clothes. I was going to leave my shorts on but that wouldn’t help matters at all, so I shrugged, took them off too and walked down to where she was waiting.

We were pleasantly exhausted when we got back to the blanket. The wind smiled and let its warm breath dry us off, and we lay on our backs staring up at the cloudless sky. I closed my eyes, wondering just how the hell this ever happened, feeling like some kind of an idiot for messing around with a nonprofessional kid. Then my eyes snapped open because the gentle touch of her fingers were on my stomach, moving slowly downward until they held me, and Sharon was leaning over me, her mouth inches from mine.

“You are beautiful, Dog,” she said.

Her mouth came closer and closer until it was a soft, warmly moist thing tasting mine with the strangest kind of touch I had ever known. My own hands ran down her naked back over the rise of her buttocks, pushed her away so I could cradle the firm thrust of her breasts, then began to explore all those lovely parts of her.

Sharon’s breath caught in her throat sharply. She smiled, kissed me again, then let her smile widen when she felt the pressure of my palms holding her away from me. “I told you I really was a virgin.”

“Damn, kid,” was all I could say.

“Does it make a difference, Dog?”

I turned on my side and let the heat ease out of me slowly. It was easier now and I felt like an even bigger idiot. “Look you,” I said, “you’re an engaged girl.”

“Woman,” she corrected.

“Okay, a woman. You got yourself a guy and you think enough of that thing to save it for him, so don’t go tossing it away.”

“Isn’t the choice mine?”

“Not with me, kid. This time it’s my choice. Just keep it safe between your legs until he gets it, hear?”

“You’re mean.”

“Just sometimes. Right now I feel damn moral. Old Hunter should be here to see this performance. He’d never believe it.”

“I’ll tease you.”

“Try it, Sharon, and you’ll be an unsatisfied, neurotic wreck in one hour. I’m too damn old not to know every gimmick there is to turn you women-children inside out.”

Her laugh tinkled in my ears and she tossed her hair again. “All right. I’ve managed this long, so I guess I can hang on a little while longer.”

“Who is he, Sharon?”

“A very nice guy. We grew up together.”

“Would he appreciate this little picture?”

“I don’t think he’d mind at all. Not really.”

“You don’t know men very well.”

“But I do. I truly do.”

She touched the side of my face, leaned down again and kissed me lightly, the tip of her tongue barely brushing my lips. My arms went around her and I laid her down beside me. Around our heads the grass rustled in the wind. I reached over her and pulled the blanket, over us both. Beside me her body was snuggled into the curve of mine, warm and naked. The moon watched us and another wisp of cloud passing its face made it seem like it winked at me.

Then the early sun woke us both and we looked at each other and kissed. Her hair was tousled and full of sand, but she didn’t care at all. We brushed each other off, got dressed, folded up the blanket and walked back to where we had left the car.

And this time we had company.

The black sedan and the patrol car flanked the limousine and the uniformed cop was peering through the window at the interior. The big beefy guy in the sports shirt and slacks was inspecting the wreckage of the padlock on the gate and neither of them heard us coming.

I said, “You fellows want something?”

The heavy-set guy turned and looked at me, his face set in a nasty scowl. “You do this?”

“That’s right.”

He dropped the lock and started toward me, but I was coming to meet him too and he didn’t like what he saw. The cop edged between us watching me, another hard-looking character with a broken nose and cold, flat eyes that come with too many years on the force. He didn’t like what he saw either.

The cop said, “Who are you, mister?”

“I asked the first question.”

“Don’t get smart, buster. I can handle you real easy.”

I looked at him with that old smile starting to come out. I couldn’t stop it because it always happened that way. “Don’t you wish you could,” I told him.

The two looked at each other, but by the time they looked back to me again I had taken two easy steps in the right direction and I wasn’t bracketed any more. The civilian wiped his hand across his partially bald head and curled his lips again. “You know this is private property?”

“Sure. It always has been. That’s why I want to know what you’re doing prowling around.”

The question came at him too fast and the sneer went back into a puzzled frown. I flipped a cigarette in my mouth and lit it. The cop was changing his original attitude now. Maybe it was because the limousine was bigger than the black sedan and I wasn’t the type he could shake up with a badge and a gun.

“I asked you your name, feller,” he said again.

“Kelly,” I told him. “Dogeron Kelly. My grandfather was Cameron Barrin and this area is still part of his estate.” I blew out a cloud of smoke and flipped the butt at the feet of the beefy guy. I said, “What difference does it make to you what I do here?”

His face was tight with anger, but the limousine was backing me up and he couldn’t quite figure the play. Finally he said, “This place won’t belong to the Barrins much longer, that’s for sure.” He looked at the cop, the cop shrugged, then they both turned and went back to their cars. Both of them kicked up sand getting out of there and the radio antenna on the black sedan snapped off when it cut too far under an underslung limb of an oak tree on the bend.

When they were out of sight Sharon came up and slipped her hand into mine. “You know who that was, Dog?”

“Sure, Cross McMillan. He still has that scar on his skull where I beaned him with a brick.”

“You love trouble, don’t you?”

“Not exactly, honey. It just seems to find me. It’s always been that way.”