The Listening Walls

11.

It was cold and late, and ghosts of fog were prowling the streets of the city, but Miss Burton didn’t notice the time or the weather. She hurried along the sidewalk, propelled by fright, guided by instinct. Her handbag, containing the dancing shoes and the bottle of cologne, hung heavy from her shoulder and knocked against one hip as she moved.

From his parked car Dodd saw her turn the corner toward Market Street. He made no attempt to follow her since he was sure of her intention. He had planted the intention himself, deliberately, and watched it grow in her transparent eyes the way a botanist watches a seed grow between two layers of glass.

With a final flip of her yellow coat Miss Burton disappeared around the corner of Woolworth’s and Dodd was left pondering some second and third thoughts about the advisability of dragging her into the case. She was a nice girl. He didn’t like to use her, but business was business. If Rupert Kellogg was innocent of any wrongdoing, he deserved to be warned about Brandon’s suspicions and operations. If he was guilty, a warning might jolt him into action. So far he’d done nothing but sit tight and tell stories, some thin, some tall. Brandon himself was certainly not admitting the whole truth. No living woman could be as flawless as Amy.

Dodd turned on the ignition of the little Volkswagen. He was tired and depressed. For the first time since entering the case he had the feeling that Brandon might be right about his sister. Wherever and whenever Amy was found, she wouldn’t be found alive.

The house was dark. Miss Burton had never seen it at night, wrapped in fog, and she was not sure it was the right place until she went up on the veranda and saw the bronze nameplate on the door, Rupert H. Kellogg. A few hours ago the sight of the name would have given her a pleasant little thrill. Now it seemed strange, without any relation to the man who owned it. She pressed the door chime and waited, shivering with cold and fear and self- doubt. What am, I doing here? What will I say to him? How can I act calm as if nothing had happened, as if Dodd had never told me those terrible things?

Take care of yourself, Dodd had said. A woman has disappeared, don’t make it two.

She turned her head quickly and peered through the fog at the street, hoping for a moment that Dodd had followed her. But there were no cars parked along the curb, and no one was walking along the street or waiting under a lamppost. She was alone. She could enter this house and never be seen again and no one would be able to say, “Yes, I noticed her, a small woman in a yellow coat, shortly after eleven o’clock — she went in and never came out...”

The hall light splashed through the window and she reared back as if someone had thrown it at her like acid. Panting, she leaned against a pillar and watched the door slowly open.

“Why, Miss Burton,” Rupert said. “What are you doing here?”

“I–I don’t — know.”

“Is anything the matter?”

“Ev — everything.”

“You haven’t been drinking, have you?”

“No. I never drink. I’m a M-M-Methodist.”

“Well, that’s very interesting,” he said wearily, “but I hope you didn’t come all the way out here at this time of night to tell me you’re a Methodist.”

She pressed against the pillar, her teeth chattering like castanets. She wanted to run away but she was both afraid for him and afraid of him, and the double fear immobilized her.

“Miss Burton?”

“I–I was just passing by and I thought I’d — drop in and say hello. I didn’t realize how — late it was. I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’d — better be going.”

“You’d better not be going,” he said sharply. “You’d better be coming in and telling me about it.”

“About — what?”

“Whatever it is that’s making you act like this.” He opened the door wider, and waited. “Come on.”

“I can’t. It wouldn’t be proper.”

“All right, I’ll call you a cab.”

“No! I mean, I don’t want a cab.”

“You can’t stand here all night, can you?”

She shook her head and her limp, blond curls fell over her eyes so that she looked like a little old lady peering out at him through a lace curtain. He wondered what was going on behind the lace curtain.

He said, “You’re cold.”

“I know.”

“You’d better come inside and get warm.”

“Yes. All right.”

He closed the door behind her and led her down the hall to the den. An unscreened fire was burning in the grate, its flames reflected in the silver box on the coffee table. He saw her glance at the box, but briefly and without interest. There was no danger here. She couldn’t possibly know anything about the box.

“Sit down, Miss Burton.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, what’s troubling you?”

“I — well, I went to dancing class tonight at the Kent Academy. I always do on Thursdays. Not that I’m a good dancer or anything, it’s just a way of passing time and meeting people. Usually the people are O.K., nothing special but O.K. Nothing sneaky about them, I mean. If you meet someone there and he says he’s an engineer, that’s what he is, an engineer. So you’re not suspicious, I mean.”

She hadn’t intended to tell him about the dancing classes for fear he would laugh at her, but the words just came tumbling out of her mouth like blown bubbles. He didn’t laugh at her, though. He seemed very grave and interested.

“Go on, Miss Burton.”

“Well, tonight I met this man. He’s a terrible man. He said things, suggested things.”

“I’m sure you know how to deal with improper suggestions, Miss Burton.”

She flushed and looked down at her hands. “They weren’t suggestions like the kind you mean. They were about you. And Mrs. Kellogg.”

“Who was the man?”

“His name’s Dodd. He’s a private detective. Oh, he didn’t let on he was a private detective. He tried to palm himself off as a new student, but I have this friend at the Academy, he’s a lawyer...”

“What did this man Dodd say about Mrs. Kellogg?”

“That she was missing. Under mysterious circumstances.”

“She is not missing. She is in New York.”

“I told him that. But he just smiled — he has the nastiest smile, like a camel’s — and said New York was a big place with a lot of people in it but he didn’t think one of them was Mrs. Kellogg.” Before the warmth of the fire Miss Burton’s suspicions of Rupert were evaporating like fog under the heat of the sun. “If I were you I’d sue him for slander. It’s a free country but people can’t go around saying anything in their heads when it does harm to other people.”

“Well, don’t get excited.”

“I’m not excited. I’m good and mad. I said to him, ‘Listen, you keyhole cop. Mr. Kellogg’s the finest man in this city, and if Mrs. Kellogg is missing it’s not his fault, it’s hers, and why don’t you put the blame on the right person?’ And he said, as a matter of fact, he’d been thinking along those same lines himself.”

She waited, expecting his approval and his gratitude for her support. What she had no reason to expect was his quiet, malevolent whisper: “You imbecile.”

Her face crumpled under the surprise attack. “What — what did I do?”

“What didn’t you do!”

“But I was only sticking up for you, I was only trying...”

“You tried. All right. Let’s leave it like that.”

“I don’t understand,” she wailed. “What did I say wrong?”

“Probably everything.” He went over to the window, lengthening the time and space between them so that he might have a chance to regain control of himself, and, consequently, of her. He had no doubt of her loyalty. But what was loyalty? Would it break under pressure, bend under heat? How much of the truth would it take?

He could see her reflection in the window, her eyes wide with bewilderment and pain: What did I do? She looked young and simple. He knew she was neither.

“I’m sorry, Miss Burton,” he said, addressing her reflection because it was easier to lie to a reflection. “I had no right to speak roughly to you.”

“You did so have a right,” she said faintly. “If I did something wrong, even if I didn’t mean to, you’ve got a perfect right to check me up. Only I still don’t understand just what I...”

“You will, someday. For the moment we’d better both forget it.”

“But how can I stop doing something if I don’t know what I did?”

He closed his eyes for a moment. He was too weary to talk, to think, to plan, but he realized that he couldn’t allow her to leave without some explanation or instruction. It would be all right if she remained as she was now, contrite, meek, low in energy. But what of the difference in her after a night’s rest, a time to think, a good breakfast?

He could visualize her bouncing into the office in the morning (with some of the loyalty rubbed off like fuzz off a peach) and greeting Borowitz with the news: “Guess what, Borowitz? Last night I met a real private detective and he was asking me all kinds of questions about the boss’s wife disappearing.” And Borowitz, who was by nature and habit a gossip, would relay it to his girlfriend, and the girl friend to her family, and within days it would cover the city, spread by mouth like a morbid virus. The initial carrier must be stopped. It no longer mattered how.

“Miss Burton, I have great faith in your discretion, as well as your loyalty and good will. I depend on them.” He despised the false tone, the false words. They wouldn’t even have fooled the little dog Mack, but Miss Burton was breathing them in like oxygen. “I am going to take you into my confidence, knowing you’ll respect it.”

“Oh, I will. My goodness, I certainly will.”

“My wife is missing, in the sense that I’m not sure where she is. I’ve told people she is in New York because I had a letter from her postmarked New York and because I have to tell them something.”

“Why doesn’t she let you know where she is?”

“It was part of our agreement before she left. For lack of a better term, call it a trial separation. We were to let each other strictly alone for a period of time. Unfortunately, my brother-in-law, Mr. Brandon, doesn’t believe in letting anyone alone. He hired a private detective to look for Amy. Well, I hope he finds her, not for her sake or mine, but for Mr. Brandon’s. He’s making a terrible fool of himself. His wife knows it and has tried to stop him. Failing that, she came and told me all about it.”

“Was that the day she came to the office all dressed up?”

Rupert nodded. “Somewhere along the line Mr. Brandon picked up the idea that I wanted to get rid of my wife because I’m interested in another woman.” He turned to face her. She was leaning forward in the chair, tense and excited, like a child listening to a fairy tale. “Do you know who the woman is, Miss Burton?”

“Why no. Why, my goodness...”

“You.”

Her mouth fell open so that he could see the silver fillings in her bottom row of teeth. Silver, he thought. Silver box. I must get rid of the silver box. First, I must get rid of her.

He said, patiently, sympathetically, “I’m sorry this comes as a shock to you, Miss Burton. It did to me, too.”

She had dropped back into the chair, pale and limp. “That — that awful man. To say, even to think, such a terrible thing — trying to ruin my good name...”

“Not yours. Mine.”

“And all these years I’ve been a good Methodist, never even thinking about carnal things!” But even as she spoke the words, she knew they were not true. Rupert popped up too often in her mind, in her dreams, as father, as son, as lover. Perhaps he knew. Perhaps he could read it in her eyes. She covered her face with her hands and repeated in a high muffled voice, “Always a g-g-good Methodist.”

“Of course. Of course you are.”

“I — just because I touch up my hair. Nothing in the Bible says you can’t change the color of your hair. I went to the minister and asked him. I always ask the minister for advice when I’m worried.”

He looked down at her stonily, without compassion, seeing her not as a woman but as a threat, an unexploded bomb whose firing pin had to be removed with the most meticulous care. “Are you worried now, Miss Burton?”

“Worried to death.”

“Does that mean you intend to talk this over with your minister?”

“I don’t know. He’s a very wise...”

“This is a delicate situation, Miss Burton. Undoubtedly your minister is a man of wisdom and good will, but are you sure you want still another person to hear the rumor?”

“What do you mean, still another?”

“Mrs. Brandon knows. And the detective, Dodd. Gerda Lundquist too, probably, since she’s now working for the Brandons.”

“They can’t know anything,” Miss Burton said shrilly. “There’s nothing to know. It’s just a vicious rumor. I’ll deny it.”

“Can you?”

“Yes, I can. There isn’t a word of truth in it!”

“Not one word?”

She shook her head back and forth in silent pain.

“Miss Burton, suppose I told you there is some truth in it, that it’s not just a rumor?”

“No. No! Don’t tell me anything!”

“All right.”

He watched the tears slither out between her fingers and roll down her skinny wrists. She won’t explode now, he thought. She’ll just make a lot of noise and fizzle out.

She was a crying woman, not a bomb any more. He took a long deep breath and crossed the room toward her.

“Miss Burton — Pat.”

“Don’t come near me! Don’t tell me anything!”

“I said I wouldn’t. But you’d better stop crying now. Your eyes swell up when you cry.”

“How — how do you know?”

“I remember when you came to work after your mother’s funeral. Your eyelids were like blisters, and they stayed that way all day. You looked very funny.”

Slowly she took her hands away from her face. He was smiling down at her, so gently and affectionately that her heart gave a sudden thrust against her chest wall like the kick of a fetus.

He said, “You don’t want Borowitz suspecting you’ve had an emotional upset. If he sees that you’ve been crying he’ll ask questions. You have no answers.”

“I have — no answers.”

“You’re tired. Sit there quietly for a minute while I call a cab for you. Will you?”

“Yes.”

“And no more tears?”

“No.”

He called the cab from the phone in the kitchen, remembering the last time he’d called one, on a Sunday evening almost three weeks previously. He’d put in the order for a cab, and then three minutes later, according to plan, he’d canceled it. The cab company would have a record of the address and the cancellation. He didn’t know how long the company would keep such a record. Long enough, he hoped, for Dodd to find out about it; so far he was finding all the wrong things, like a retriever bringing back the decoys instead of the dead ducks. No, it was the other way around....

When he returned, Miss Burton had stopped crying but she still looked moist and disheveled.

“You’d better straighten up a bit,” he said. “You know where the bathrooms are.”

She blushed at the word, which seemed suddenly intimate and full of meaning.

“We don’t want the cab driver getting curious about your appearance,” he added. “You’ll be picked up, by the way, at the northwest corner of Cabrillo in ten minutes. I thought it would be more discreet than having him come here. Incidentally, discreet is a good word for you to remember.”

“I never ever had to be discreet before,” she said painfully. “I never ever had anything to hide before.”

“Have you now?”

“I–I don’t — know.”

“If you don’t know, you’d better act on the assumption that you have.”

“I feel so confused.”

“Try not to let it show.”

“How can I help it? How can I go to the office tomorrow morning like nothing has happened?”

“You’ve got to,” he said. “You have no choice.”

“I can quit. Maybe under the circumstances, it would be better if I quit.”

“Do you realize what will happen if you do? Mr. Brandon will immediately assume that I’m setting you up in a love nest, with my wife’s money.”

She shrank inside the yellow coat as if it were a hiding shell, a protection from the terrible intimacy of such words as love nest.

“I’m trying to help you, Miss Burton. But you have to help yourself too. And me. We’re in this together.”

“No,” she whispered. “We’re not. We’re not in anything together. I haven’t done anything, said anything. I’m innocent. I’m innocent!”

“I know you are.”

“But I’ve got to prove it. How can I prove it?”

“By keeping control of yourself. Don’t discuss me or my personal affairs with anyone. Don’t answer questions, don’t volunteer information.”

“Those are all don’ts. What can I do?”

“The best thing would be to hurry up and get out of here. Now go and wash your face and comb your hair.” The words were brusque but he spoke them in a kindly, almost paternal tone, and she reacted like an obedient child.

In the bathroom off the kitchen she washed her face and dried it on the only towel hanging on the rack. She knew it must be Rupert’s towel and when she pressed it against her forehead and her hot cheeks she wanted to cry again, just stand there for a long time and cry.

He was waiting for her in the kitchen, wearing his topcoat and a fedora. His skin looked gray under the fluorescent lights. “I’ll walk you to the corner.”

“No. You must be tired. You should go to bed.”

“I don’t want you walking along a city street alone at midnight.”

“Is it midnight?”

“Later than that.”

Outside, the fog was dripping from the eaves like rain. They walked side by side, as far apart as they could get on the narrow sidewalk, self-consciously avoiding personal contact. But the contact was there, invisibly bridging the space between them. Miss Burton could feel it as she had felt it in the bathroom, pressing Rupert’s towel against her face. She was exquisitely aware of every movement he made, every breath he took, the stride of his long legs, the swing of his arms, the sighs that seemed to be words which mustn’t be said. What words, she thought, and do I want to hear them?

She spoke to hide her thoughts. “It’s so — quiet.”

“Yes.”

“Funny, I feel so noisy inside.”

“Noisy in what way?”

“Gongs. Gongs are clanking.”

He smiled slightly. “I’ve never heard gongs. Thunder, though. Lots of that.”

“I guess everybody has their own personal noise inside.”

“I guess they do,” he said. “Your cab’s waiting.”

“I see it.”

“Here’s five dollars to cover your fare.”

She felt that by accepting the money she was accepting more than her taxi fare, but she didn’t argue, didn’t even hesitate. He put the five-dollar bill in her outstretched hand. It was the only physical contact they’d had all evening.

He returned to the house and, for the dozenth time that day, he reread the letter that had accompanied the silver box.

Rupert remembered the occasion well. Amy had been at Lake Tahoe with the Brandons at the time, so he had gone alone to the hospital to see Wilma. Without makeup, and wearing a regulation gown, she looked pale and haggard.

“Wilma?”

“Fancy meeting you here. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. If anyone can be comfortable in this stinking hole.”

“What in God’s name made you do it, Wilma?”

“Such a question.”

“I’m asking it.”

“O.K., I was bored. All those silly people chattering and laughing. I saw the pills in the medicine cabinet and took them. Have you ever had your stomach pumped out? It’s quite an experience.”

“I think you’d better go and see a psychiatrist.”

“I’ve been seeing one for the past two weeks. He’s very cute. He has the curliest eyelashes. I sit and look at his eyelashes for fifty minutes three times a week. It’s fascinating. I may get a crush on him. On the other hand I may get bored. There’s not a hell of a lot to eyelashes.”

“You’ve got to take this seriously.”

“I’m tired, pal. Get out, will you?”

In less than two months Wilma became bored with the psychiatrist’s eyelashes and quit seeing him.

Rupert returned to the letter.

Yellow roses.

“I hope,” Wilma had said once, “that when I die someone will send me yellow roses. How about it, Rupert?”

“All right. If I’m still around.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Certainly.”

“Promises to dead people are easy to break. When I think of all the promises I made to my parents — if I’ve kept any of them it’s sheer accident. So forget the whole thing, will you?”

“I don’t think,” Amy had said primly, “that people ought to talk about their own funerals...”

He tossed the letter and its envelope into the fire. Then he picked up the silver box hesitantly, as if he didn’t want to touch it. It looked like a coffin. But not Wilma’s coffin. The initials on the lid were his own.

He went out to the garage, holding the box under his topcoat.

Half an hour later, as he approached the middle of Golden Gate Bridge, he threw the little silver coffin over the guard rail. It sank first into the fog, then into the sea.