The Four Johns

Chapter 1

The Yerba Buena Garden Apartments, a pair of two-story six-apartment complexes, faced each other across a court flagged with black concrete rectangles. There was a small fountain in the center of the court; and a strip of soil planted to palms, white flax, pampas grass, oleander and dwarf bamboo comprised the “garden.” Mary and Susie Hazelwood occupied Apartment 12, at the far end of the south unit’s upper tier. Psychologist Harriet Brill had Apartment 10, at the street end of the balcony. Between, in Apartment 11, resided old Mrs. Bridey Kelly, a retired schoolteacher and a widow, who was very much interested in God. Apartment 9, directly below Susie and Mary, was vacant. In Apartment 8 lived a retired couple currently spending a month in Mexico. Apartment 7 irregularly housed a group of airline hostesses who came and went at unpredictable times and whom no one knew.

In the north six-plex, directly across from Susie and Mary but on the lower level, Mervyn Gray occupied Apartment 3. Apartment 2 was vacant. In Apartment 1, across from Harriet Brill but also on the lower level, lived John Boce. Apartment units 4, 5 and 6, on the top deck, were rented to three working couples who formed a clique of their own.

On the morning of Friday, June fourteenth, Mary Hazelwood, a senior at the university (with another semester to go before graduation), finished the last of her final examinations. At eight o’clock in the evening she left Apartment 12. She was wearing a sky-blue suit and a jaunty light gray coat, and she was carrying a small suitcase. She went down the steps to the court and out to the sidewalk and was seen no more.

She had confided her plans to no one, least of all her sister Susie, whom she loved dearly but with whom she quarreled regularly.

Harriet Brill was the last person to admit having seen Mary. About six o’clock, entering Apartment 12 without ringing, she found Mary, curled on the couch, talking into the telephone. Harriet stood poised on tiptoe in the event Mary should turn to look questioningly at her. Mary completed her conversation: “...I don’t know how, but I’m sure you’ll manage. You’ve got such a persuasive tongue... Please, John, be on time for once?... Please?... Naturally I love you. Who else?... Well, then... Good-bye.” The affectionate avowals were in Mary’s usual frivolous vein, and Harriet attached no significance to them. Later she was not so sure.

Mary jumped to her feet. She showed no surprise at the sight of Harriet; possibly she had been aware of Harriet’s presence. “You’ll have to forgive me,” said Mary. “I’m in a terrible rush. I’ve got to shower and change and pack a suitcase and I’ve only got an hour or so.”

“Going somewhere?” asked Harriet, eyes dancing with curiosity.

“Timbuktu. Around the moon. The robber woods of Tartary. Possibly even Los Angeles.”

“Tchk, tchk. Such high spirits!”

“Exams are over. I’m a free woman. Hurrah.”

“I scent a mystery,” said Harriet archly. “Are you eloping?”

Mary laughed, the friendly, infectious laugh that instantly reduced men to servility (if her physique had not already done so). “I might do worse. I’m twenty-two and still single. Practically a spinster.” She went into the bathroom and started the shower; and Harriet, thirty and still single, turned on her heel and marched out. She had no great affection for either Mary or Susie, though Mary was usually easier to get along with. Conceited little twerps, both of them. Just because they had sleek round bottoms and cute young faces they thought they could elbow everyone else into corners... And she wondered who the John could be that Mary loved so exclusively.

Mary’s world was full of Johns, and Harriet knew all of them. John Boce, John Viviano, John Thompson, John Pilgrim. Mary no doubt loved them all exclusively; her heart was catholic. Harriet herself scorned the tricks that Mary used to attract attention. Popularity was one thing; cheapness another. Not many people saw through the sunny façade to her mixed-up interior. The ingenuous flirting, the teasing, the laughing — they housed an underdeveloped sexuality. An enormous number of men were either blind or just didn’t care. That offensive but Byronically handsome Mervyn Gray in Apartment 3, for instance. And dear dependable John Boce, solid and comfortable as an old oak settle. Thank heaven he was starting to show more stability.

Harriet returned to her own apartment at the beginning of the deck. She was tall, with thin shoulders and legs that unfortunately emphasized her heavy hips. She wore her straight black hair in a coiled braid to frame what she felt to be the keen, classic purity of her features. Harriet had her master’s degree in psychology, and she worked at various part-time jobs as a consulting psychologist. She was addicted to violent peasant blouses, straw sandals and Mexican jewelry; she marched for peace, she folk-danced like one possessed. Her walls displayed copies of the more incomprehensible works of Picasso and Klee; besides her technical books her shelves displayed Kafka, Henry Miller, Sartre, Camus, Aldous Huxley, Bertrand Russell, C. Wright Mills and Lawrence Durrell, as well as a group of exotic cookbooks from which she concocted the most unsavory messes imaginable.

Now she prepared a cup of tea and speculated on the identity of “John.” Not that she really cared, but... She reached for the telephone, dialed a number. Then she hung up when the bell at the other end began to ring.

She chewed at her lower lip. Finally, with defiance, she dialed the number again. The bell rang — three... four... five times. No answer. Harriet returned the receiver to its cradle with a stealthy click.

Presently she took it up again and called the Bancroft Textbook Exchange, where Susie had taken a temporary job during the end-of-semester rush. Susie was a junior, a sociology major, and her finals were also over and done with. There was a short wait while Susie was called to the phone.

“Hello? Susie Hazelwood.” Susie’s voice, as usual, was self-possessed.

“Harriet here, Susie. Are you busy?”

“This madhouse? It’s always busy.”

“Oh. I thought we could have a little chat.”

“What’s happened?” asked Susie coolly.

“Happened? Nothing. It’s just that I’ve been talking to Mary. I had no idea she was leaving, Susie. For Los Angeles, apparently.” Harriet felt vindicated by Susie’s silence. A surprise. “You knew she was leaving, of course?”

“Well, more or less. I hadn’t expected— Her exams are over, there’s nothing keeping her.”

“Your home is down that way, isn’t it?”

“Ventura.”

“I suppose Mary’s going down for a visit.”

“I really don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Your own sister? Shame on you!”

“We try to keep our noses out of each other’s business.”

There was a short silence. Then Harriet decided that the snub was not a snub after all. “Who is the ‘John’ she’s going off with?”

Susie’s voice was puzzled. “What’s this again?”

Harriet reported the conversation she had overheard. “Being curious, I wondered who the ‘John’ was.”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Probably John Boce,” Harriet suggested. “He’s always been fascinated by Mary.”

But Susie was not to be goaded into an indiscreet revelation. “Nothing’s impossible.”

“‘She seemed very excited and, well, full of mischief. You know how Mary is. Only more so. And,” Harriet added in a confidential voice, “she did not deny that she might be getting married!”

“She probably didn’t deny that she was joining the Foreign Legion, either.”

“Now, Susie. After all, when a girl like—”

“Excuse me, Harriet, I’ve got a customer. Some other time?” She hung up.

Harriet rose angrily from the couch. She should have known that the little snip would tell her nothing. She poured herself a fresh cup of tea, took it out on the balcony and stood looking down into the court, wondering what the future held.

The door to Apartment 11 opened. Mrs. Kelly, a stout, arthritic woman of over seventy, stumped out on the balcony. She pulled her door shut, glanced sidewise at Harriet, tested the lock, started for the steps. She had a bland, unwrinkled face and curly white hair, which she wore in puffs over each ear, like a pair of enormous popcorn balls. She always walked past Apartment 10 hurriedly, but with Harriet leaning on the balcony rail she had no choice but to pause.

“Good evening, Mrs. Kelly,” said Harriet politely. “Let me get you a nice cup of tea.”

“Thank you, no,” said Mrs. Kelly. “I’m already late for my committee meeting.” Mrs. Kelly spent a great deal of time in the basement of the nearby” church, organizing rummage sales, church suppers, newspaper drives and the like.

“You should get yourself a nice little two-door like mine,” said Harriet. “Then you wouldn’t need to hurry so.”

“I wouldn’t know how to behave in traffic with all these freeways.” Mrs. Kelly looked past Harriet, shook her head. “Oh, dear, those steps. Every day they’re steeper. If I don’t get an apartment on the ground floor soon, I’ll have to move.”

“Oh, no!” cried Harriet. “Up here we have such a lovely view over the court!” But Mrs. Kelly had already continued on her way.

Harriet watched the stout figure jerk down the steps; then, with a fling of the head, she took her teacup and went back inside.

It was time she got ready for her own date. Her plans were made: she knew exactly what she was going to wear, and she had bought an ounce of expensive perfume. Latchouf, read the label on the bottle. How much like a sneeze! But it probably meant something exciting in French or Egyptian. She wished she knew for sure. Then, if tribute were paid to the provocative odeur... Tonight she would be pure woman. Charm was more than a matter of youth, just as youth was not necessarily a matter of years. What a miraculous business, this thing called sex! Intensely interesting. Harriet knew all about it; she had read everything from Krafft-Ebing to Sex and the Single Girl, and need take a back seat to no one. Especially a self-centered little provincial like Mary.

And Harriet went off to prepare herself for the evening.