The Murder of Miranda

Part I

Mr. Van Eyck had a great deal of money which he didn’t want to spend, and a great deal of time which he didn’t know how to spend. On sunny days he sat on the club terrace writing anonymous letters.

Bent over the glass and aluminum table he looked dedicated, intense. He might have been composing a poem about the waves that were crashing against the sea wall below him or about the gulls soaring high overhead reflected in the depths of the pool like languid white fish. But Mr. Van Eyck was oblivious to the sound of the ocean or the sight of birds. The more benign the weather, the more vicious the contents of his letters became. His pen glided and whirled across the paper like an expert skater across ice.

... You miserable, contemptible old fraud. Everyone is on to what you do in the shower room...

His attention was not distracted by the new assistant lifeguard sitting on the mini-tower above the pool. She was a bony redhead whose biceps outmeasured her breasts and Van Eyck’s taste still ran to blondes with more conventional anatomy. Nor was he paying, at the moment, any attention to the other club members, who dozed on chaises, gossiped in deck chairs, read under umbrellas, swam briefly in the pool. Wet or dry, they presented to the public a dull front.

Viewed from different, more personal angles they were far from dull. Van Eyck was in a position to know this. He had, in fact, made it his business as well as his hobby. He spent his time shuffling along the dimly lit corridors that led to the secluded cabanas. He wandered in and out of the sauna and massage department on the roof, the wine cellar in the basement, the boiler room and, if it wasn’t locked, the office marked Private, Keep Out, which belonged to Henderson, the manager.

Locks and bolts and signs like Keep Out didn’t bother Van Eyck, since he assumed they must be meant for other people, passing strangers, new members, crooked employees. As a result of this casual attitude, he had acquired a basic knowledge of vintage wines, therapeutic massage, Henderson’s relationship with his bookie, the heating and chlorination of swimming pools and human nature in general.

... You are weaving a tangled web and you will be caught in it, blundering spider that you are...

Van Eyck had another advantage in his pursuit of knowledge. He frequently pretended to be hard of hearing. He looked blank, shook his head sadly, cupped his ears: “Eh? What’s that? Speak up!” So people spoke up, often saying highly interesting things both in front of and behind him. He grabbed at every morsel like a hungry squirrel and stored the lot of them away in the various hollows in his head. When he was bored he brought them out to chew and finally spit out on paper.

... You must be incredibly stupid to think you can keep your evil ways hidden from an intelligent woman like me...

Van Eyck reread the sentence. Then, very lightly, he struck out woman and substituted man, leaving the original word easily legible. It was one of his favorite stratagems, to toss in small false clues and allow the reader to lead himself astray, up and down blind alleys, far from the center of the maze where Van Eyck sat secure, anonymous, shrouded in mystery, like a Minotaur.

He leaned back and took off his glasses, wiped them on the sleeve of his Polynesian print shirt and smiled at the bony redhead across the pool. No one would ever suspect that such a kindly old man, hard of hearing and seeing, was a Minotaur.

“He’s at it again,” Walter Henderson told Ellen, his secretary. “Don’t give him any more club stationery.”

“How can I refuse?”

“Say no. Like in N-O.”

“We haven’t had any complaints. Whoever he addresses the letters to can’t be club members or we’d have heard about it before this.”

“Suppose he’s sending threats to the President. On our stationery.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t. I mean, why should he?”

“Because he needs a keeper,” Henderson said gloomily. “They all need keepers... Ellen, sane people like you and me don’t belong in a place like this. I think we should run away together. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Ellen shook her head.

“You don’t consider me a fun person, is that what you’re trying to tell me? Very well. But bear in mind that you’ve seen me only in these non-fun circumstances. After five I can be awfully amusing... It’s that lifeguard, Grady, isn’t it? Ellen, Ellen, you’re making a most grievous error. He’s a creep... Now, what were we talking about?”

“Stationery.”

“A very non-fun subject. However, let us proceed. In the future club stationery is to be used exclusively for club business.”

“When members ask for some stationery it’s hard to refuse,” Ellen said. “It’s their club, they pay my salary.”

“When they joined they signed an agreement to abide by the rules.”

“But we have no rule concerning stationery.”

“Then make one and post it on the bulletin board.”

“Don’t you think it would be more appropriate if you made it, since you’re the manager?”

“No. And remember to keep it simple, most of them can’t read. Perhaps you should try to get the message across in pictures or sign language.”

Ellen couldn’t tell by looking at him whether he was serious or not. He wore Polaroid sunglasses which hid his eyes and reflected Ellen herself, twin Ellens that stared back at her in miniature as if from the wrong end of a telescope. Henderson’s glasses needed cleaning, so that in addition to being miniature, the twin Ellens were fuzzy and indefinite, two vague pale faces with short brownish hair balanced on top like inverted baskets. Sometimes, deep inside, she felt quite interesting and vivacious and different. It was always a shock to run into her real self in Henderson’s glasses.

“Why are you peering at me, Ellen?”

“I wasn’t, sir. I was just thinking there isn’t any room on the bulletin board since you put up all those pictures your nephew took of sunsets.”

“What’s the matter with sunsets?”

“Nothing.”

“And by the way, I wish you’d stop calling me sir. I am forty-nine, hardly old enough to be called sir by a mature woman of—”

“Twenty-seven.”

“I made it quite clear on my arrival how the various echelons are to address me. Let me repeat. To the maintenance men and busboys I am boss. Waiters and lifeguards are to call me sir, and the engineer and catering manager, Mr. Henderson. To you I am Walter, or perhaps some simple little endearment.” He smiled dreadfully. “Sweetie-pie, love-bunny, angel-face, something on that order.”

“Really, Mr. Henderson,” Ellen said, but the reproof sounded mild. Henderson’s lechery was, in fact, so fainthearted and spasmodic that Ellen considered it one of the lesser burdens of the job. She didn’t expect him to be around long anyway. He was the seventh club manager since she’d worked there, and though he was competent enough and had arrived with excellent references, his temperament seemed ill-suited to dealing with the wide variety of emergencies that came with the territory.

The current emergency involved the plumbing in the men’s shower room.

One of the toilets had been plugged with a pair of sneakers and a T-shirt. All three objects, in spite of their prolonged soaking, were still clearly inked Frederic Quinn and the nine-year-old was confronted with the evidence. He was then locked in the first-aid room to ponder his crime by Grady, the head lifeguard.

Little Frederic, who went to an exclusive boys’ school and knew obscenities in several languages, needed only one: “You can’t keep me a prisoner, you pig frig, you didn’t read me my rights.”

“Okay, here are your rights,” Grady said. “You’ve got a right to stay in there until hell freezes.”

“There is no hell, everybody knows that.”

“Or until a tidal wave washes away the club.”

“The correct word is tsunami, not tidal wave.”

“Or an earthquake destroys the entire city.”

“Let me out, goddammit.”

“Sorry, it’s time for my lunch break.”

“I’ll tell everybody you beat me up.”

But Grady was already on his way to his locker to get his sandwiches and Thermos.

Left to his own devices little Frederic poured a bottle of Mercurochrome over his head to simulate blood and painted himself two black eyes with burnt match tips. Once his creativity was activated, it was hard to stop. He added a mustache, a Vandyke beard, sideburns and a giant mole in the center of his forehead. Then he redirected his attention to the problem of getting out:

“Help! May Day! Police! Paramedics!”

If some of the members heard him, they paid no attention. There was a strong tradition of status quo at the club as well as the vaguely religious notion that somewhere, somehow, someone was taking care of things.

Miranda Shaw lay on a chaise beside the pool, shielded from the sun by a beach towel, a straw hat, an umbrella and several layers of an ointment imported for her from Mexico. She had no way of knowing that she was the subject of Mr. Van Eyck’s current literary project.

... What a fraud you are, acting so refined in public and doing all those you-know-what things in private. I can see behind those baby-blue eyes of yours. You ought to be ashamed. Poor Neville was a good husband to you and he is barely cold in his grave and already you’re ogling young men like Grady. Grady is hardly more than a boy and you are an old bat who’s had your face, fanny and boobs lifted. Now if you could only lift your morals...

Miranda was beginning to feel uncomfortable, and there seemed to be no particular reason why. The sound of the waves was soothing, the sun’s rays were not too warm and the humidity registered forty percent, exactly right for the complexion. It must be the new ointment working, she thought, rejuvenating the cells by stimulating the nerve endings. Oh God, I hope it doesn’t hurt. I can’t stand any more pain.

She twitched, coughed, sat up.

Van Eyck was staring at her from the other side of the pool, smiling. At least she thought he was smiling. She had to put on her glasses to make sure. When she did, Van Eyck raised his free hand and waved at her. It was a lively gesture, youthful and mischievous compared to the rest of him, which had been sobered and slowed and soured by age. He must be eighty; Neville was almost eighty when he died last spring—

She gave her head a quick hard shake. She must stop thinking of age and death. Dr. Ortiz insisted that his patients should picture in their minds only pleasant gentle things like flowers and birds and happy children and swaying trees. Nothing too amusing. Laughter stretched the muscles around the eyes and mouth.

She attempted to picture happy children, but unfortunately little Frederic Quinn was screaming again.

Since his cries for help had gone unanswered, little Frederic was resorting to threats.

“My father’s going to buy me a fifty-thousand-volt Taser stun gun and I’m going to point it at you and shock you right out of your pants. How will you like that, Grady, you creep?”

“It’ll be okay for starters,” Grady said, finishing his second peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Then what?”

“You’ll fall motionless to the ground and go into convulsions.”

“How about that.”

“And maybe die.”

“What if your father doesn’t want you running around loose with a stun gun?”

“My brother Harold can get one for me,” Frederic said. “He has Mafia connections at school.”

“No kidding.”

“I told you that before.”

“Well, I didn’t believe you before. Now I don’t believe you again.”

“It’s true. Harold’s best friend is Bingo Firenze whose uncle is a hit man. Bingo’s teaching Harold a lot of things and Harold’s going to teach me.”

“You could probably teach both of them. And the uncle.”

“What a heap of crap. I’m just a kid, an innocent little kid who was molested in the locker room by the head lifeguard. How will that sound to Henderson when I tell him?”

“Like music. He’ll probably give me a medal.”

“You’re a mean bastard, Grady.”

“You bet.”

Happy children, swaying trees, birds, flowers — Miranda couldn’t keep her mind on any of them. Her discomfort was increasing. The doctor had assured her that the new ointment wasn’t just another peeling treatment, but it felt the same as the last time, like acid burning off the top layers of skin, dissolving away the wrinkles, the age spots, the keratoids. He promised no pain. He said I’d hardly be aware of the stuff. Perhaps I used too much. Oh God, let me out of here. I must wash it off.

She didn’t allow her panic to show. She rose, draped the beach towel around her with careless elegance and headed toward the shower room. She walked the way the physical therapist at the clinic had taught her to walk, languidly, as if she were moving through water. The instruction manual advised clients to keep an aquarium and observe how even the ugliest fish was a model of grace in motion. Miranda had an aquarium installed in the master bedroom but Neville had complained that all that swimming around kept him awake. The fish solved the problem by dying off rather quickly, with, Miranda suspected, some help from Neville, because the water had begun to look murky and smell of Scotch.

She moved through an imagined aqueous world, a creature of grace. Past the lifeguard eating a peanut butter sandwich, past the young sisters squabbling over a magazine, and into the corridor, where she met Charles Van Eyck.

“Good morning, good morning, Mrs. Shaw. You are looking very beautiful today.”

“Oh, Mr. Van Eyck, I’m not. Really I’m not.”

“Have it your way,” Van Eyck said and shuffled into the office to get some more stationery. It was fine sunny weather. His venomous juices were flowing like sap through a maple tree.

The episode left Miranda so shaken that she forgot all about fish and aquariums and broke into a run for the showers. Van Eyck watched her with the detachment of a veteran coach: Miranda was still frisky and the fanny surgeon had done a nice job.

“No, Mr. Van Eyck,” Ellen said. “Absolutely no. It has the club letterhead on it and must be used only for official business.”

“I can cut the letterhead off.”

“It could still be identified.”

“By whom?”

“The police.”

“Now why would the police want to identify our club stationery?” Van Eyck said reasonably. “Has there been any embezzlement, murder, interesting stuff like that?”

“No.”

“Then why should the police be concerned?” He peered at her over the top of his rimless half-glasses. “Aha. Aha. I’m catching on.”

“If only you’d just take no for an answer, Mr. Van Eyck.”

“When you crossed the terrace you peeked over my shoulder.”

“Not really. And I couldn’t help-”

“Yes really. And you could help. What did you see?”

“You. That’s all. The word you.”

“You and then what?”

“You... well, then maybe a couple of adjectives or so. Also, maybe a noun.”

Van Eyck shook his head gravely. “I consider this a serious breech of club etiquette, Ellen. However, I will overlook it in exchange for a few sheets of notepaper. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

“Not for me. I have strict orders from Mr. Henderson. If I don’t obey them I might get fired.”

“Nonsense. You’ll outlast a dozen Hendersons. Be a good girl and rustle me up that paper. Half a dozen sheets will do for the time being.”

Little Frederic was trying a new ploy.

“Grady, sir, will you please unlock this door?”

“Can’t. I swallowed the key.”

“Hey man, that’s great. You can sue the club and I’ll act as your lawyer. We can gross maybe a couple—”

“No.”

“Okay, just let me out of here and we’ll press the flesh and forget the whole thing.”

Grady peeled a banana and took a two-inch bite. “What whole thing?”

“You know. The toilet bit.”

“Are you confessing, Quinn?”

“Hell no. Why would I pull a dumb trick like plug a toilet with my own clothes? I’m a smart kid. I was framed.”

“If you’re so smart,” Grady said, “how come you’re always being framed?”

“Someone is out to get me.”

“I have news for you, Quinn. Everybody is out to get you.”

“Tell them my father is buying me a stun gun.”

“Okay, I’ll spread the word right now.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the office. They should be the first to know.”

Before he left, Grady combed his hair in front of the mirror in the cubbyhole that served as the lifeguards’ dressing room. He knew Ellen was interested in him and there was always a chance that some day he might get interested back. She was a nice sensible girl with a steady job and great-looking legs. He could do better but he’d often done a lot worse.

“We can’t expel Frederic,” Ellen said. “He’s already expelled.”

“Then how come he’s here?”

“He must have climbed over the back fence.”

“There are four rows of barbed wire on top.”

“The engineer reported yesterday that his wire cutters were missing from the storage shed.”

“The kid’s a genius,” Grady said. “I wish we could think of something constructive for him to be a genius at.”

“You can handle him. Opinion among the members is that you’re very good with children. They seem to like you — the children, I mean.”

“What about the other people?”

“What other people?”

“The ones who aren’t children.”

“Oh, I’m sure everyone likes you.”

“Does that include you?”

She fixed her eyes at a point on the wall just over his left shoulder. “It’s against the rules for you to come into the office wearing only swim trunks. You’re supposed to put on your warm-up suit.”

“I’m not cold,” Grady said. “Are you?”

“Stop the cute act.”

“What kind of act would you like? I’m versatile.”

“I bet you are. But don’t waste any of it on me.”

He sat on the edge of the desk swinging one leg and admiring the way the sun had tanned the skin while bleaching the hair to a reddish gold. Then he turned his attention back to Ellen. Under ordinary circumstances he wouldn’t have bothered making a pass, but right now the pickings were poor. Club members were off limits, especially the teenagers who’d hung around him during the summer indicating their availability in ways that would have shocked their parents as thoroughly as little Frederic’s projected stun gun. Anyway, it was fall and they were back in school. Ellen was still here.

He said, “You sure play hard to get. What’s the point?”

“And speaking of rules, tell your girlfriends not to phone here for you. Mr. Henderson doesn’t approve of personal calls at the office.”

“Hey, you’re laying it on me pretty heavy. Lighten up, will you? I’m not your run-of-the-mill rapist.”

“You could have fooled me.”

“What are you so mad about, anyway?”

“I’m not mad, merely observant. I’ve watched you spreading the charm around for your fourteen-year-old groupies all summer and—”

“I like your eyes when you’re mad, they’re light bright green. Like emeralds. Or 7-Up bottles.”

“Yours are grey. And strictly granite.”

“I didn’t know you were such a mean-type lady.”

“I didn’t know either.” Ellen sounded a little surprised. “I guess it takes a mean-type man to bring it out in me.”

“Okay, let’s start over. I come into the office to report that I’m having some trouble with one of the kids. And you say we can’t expel him because he’s already expelled. Then I say... oh hell, I forget what I said. You really do have pretty eyes, Ellen. They’re emeralds. Forget the 7-up bottles, I just tossed them in to make you laugh. Only you didn’t.”

“It wasn’t funny.”

“In fact, you never laugh at anything I say anymore.” The telephone rang and she was about to pick it up when he reached across the desk and stopped her by grabbing her arm. “I notice you kidding around with some of the members and the engineer and even Henderson. Why the sudden down on me?”

“It’s not sudden. It’s been coming on for some time.”

“Why? I didn’t do anything to you. I thought we were friends, you know, on the same side but cool.”

“Is that your definition of friends, on the same side but cool?”

“What’s the matter with it?”

“It seems to leave out a few essentials.”

“Put them in and we’re still friends. Aren’t we?” The phone had stopped ringing. Neither of them noticed. Grady said again, “Aren’t we?”

“No.”

“Why not...? Oh hell, don’t answer that. I wouldn’t make much of a friend anyhow. Want to hear something funny? I must have had friends all along the line — I’ve got a lot going for me — but I don’t remember them. I remember the places, none of them amounting to a hill of beans, but I forget the people. They walked away or I walked away. Same difference. They’re gone like they died on me.”

“This sounds like a pitch for sympathy.”

“Sympathy? Why would I want sympathy? I’m on top of the world.”

“Fine. How’s the view?”

“Right now it’s not so bad.”

A woman was coming down the corridor toward the office and he liked the way she moved, kind of slow and waltzing like a bride walking down the aisle. She wore a long silky robe that clung to her thighs. Her blonde hair had been twisted into a single braid that fell over one shoulder and was fastened with a pink flower. With every step she took, the pink flower brushed her left breast. This seemed guileless, but Grady knew enough about women to be pretty sure it wasn’t.

He said, “Who’s the lady?”

“Mrs. Shaw.”

“She looks rich.”

“I guess she is.”

“Very rich?”

“I don’t know. How do you tell the difference between rich and very rich?”

“Easy. The very rich count their money, then put it in a bank and throw away the key. The rich spend theirs. They drive it, fly it, eat it, wear it, drink it.”

“Mrs. Shaw put hers on her face.”

“That’s not a bad choice.”

Ellen’s voice was cold. “I can understand a glandular type like you getting excited about some teenage groupies. But a fifty-year-old widow, that’s overdoing it a bit, isn’t it? She’s fifty-two, in fact. When her husband died a few months ago I had to look up their membership application to write an obit for the club bulletin. He was a very sweet old man nearly eighty.”

“What’s her first name?”

“Why?”

“I just want to know. You make it sound like a crime no matter what I say or do.”

“Her name is Miranda. But you’d better stick to Mrs. Shaw if you know what’s good for you.”

“Can’t I even ask a question without you getting all torqued up?”

“Mr. Henderson has a strict rule prohibiting fraternization between members and employees. You were warned about it several times last summer, remember? Frederic’s sister, April, the Peterson girl, Cindy Kellogg—”

“What’s to remember? Nothing happened.”

“Nothing?”

“Practically nothing.”

“Sometime when I have a week to spare you’ll have to tell me what ‘practically nothing’ covers.”

He hesitated for a moment, then leaned across the desk and patted her lightly on the top of her head. Her hair was very soft, like the feathers of a baby duck he’d found on a creek bank when he was a boy. The duck had died in his hands. “Hey, stop fighting me. I’m not so bad. What’s so bad about me?” For no reason that he could see or figure out, the duck had died in his hands. Maybe it was because he touched it. Maybe there were soft delicate things that should never be touched.

He straightened up, crossing his arms over his chest as though he was suddenly conscious of his nakedness. “I like the girls and the girls like me. Why would you want to change that? It’s normal.”

“So it’s normal. Hurray.”

“Don’t you like normal?”

“I like normal.”

“But not in me,” Grady said. “I wish we were friends, Ellen, I honest to God do. You seem to be friends with everyone else around here. What’s so bad about me?”

With the ointment washed off her face and replaced with moisturizer and makeup, Miranda felt a little calmer. But each minute had its own tiny nucleus of panic. There was a new brownish patch on her forehead, the mole on her neck appeared to be enlarging, and the first ominous ripples of cellulite were showing on her upper arms and thighs. She missed Neville to tell her that the mole and the brown patch were her special beauty spots and the ripples of cellulite existed only in her imagination. Not that she would have believed him. She knew they were real, that it was time to go back to the clinic in Mexico for more injections.

She couldn’t leave immediately or even make a reservation. Her lawyer had advised her to stay in town until Neville’s will was probated. When she asked for a reason he’d been evasive, as if he knew something she didn’t and wouldn’t want to. His attitude worried her, especially since there was a story going around that Neville’s son by his first marriage was planning to contest the will. She would have liked to question Ellen about it — Ellen might know the truth, people were always confiding in her — but when Miranda went into the office the lifeguard was there and Ellen looked a little flustered.

Miranda said, “I’m expecting to hear from my lawyer, Mr. Smedler. Has he called?”

“No, Mrs. Shaw.”

“When he does, have someone bring me the message, will you please? I’ll be in the snack bar.”

She hadn’t looked at Grady yet, or even in his direction, but he was well aware that she’d seen him. She’d been watching him off and on all morning from under the floppy straw hat and behind the oversized amber sunglasses.

She turned toward him, taking off the glasses very slowly, like a professional stripper. “You’re the lifeguard, aren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am. Grady.”

“Pardon?”

“That’s my name. Grady Keaton.”

“Oh. Well, there seems to be a child screaming somewhere.”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s the Quinn kid, Frederic.”

“Can you do something about it?”

“Probably not.”

“You might at least try. It sounds as though he’s suffering.”

“He’d be suffering a lot more right now if his father didn’t have ten million dollars. Or maybe twenty. After the first million who counts?”

Her smile was so faint it was hardly more than a softening of the expression in her eyes. “Everybody counts, Grady. You must be new around here if you haven’t learned that.”

“I’m a slow learner. I may need some private tutoring.”

“Indeed. Well, I’m sure Ellen would be willing to acquaint you with some basics.”

“Ellen and I don’t agree on basics. That presents kind of a problem.”

“Then perhaps you’d better concentrate on more immediate problems, like Frederic Quinn.”

She meant to put him in his place by sounding severe, but she couldn’t quite manage it. During the years of her marriage to Neville she’d never had occasion to use her voice to exert authority or raise it in anger. Everything was arranged so she’d have no reason to feel dissatisfied or insecure. Her only bad times were at the clinic in Mexico when she’d screamed during the injections. Even then the screams had seemed to be coming from someone else, a shrill, undisciplined stranger, some poor scared old woman: “Stop, you’re killing me.” — “The Señora will be young again!” — “For God’s sake, please stop.” — “The Señora will be twenty-five...”

For the first time she looked directly and carefully at Grady. He had a small golden mustache that matched his eyebrows, and a scar on his right cheek like a dimple. He was no more than twenty-five. She felt a sudden sharp pain between her breasts like a needle going through the skin and right into the bone. “Stop, you’re killing me.” — “The Señora will be twenty-five.”

She took a deep breath. “You’d better attend to the boy.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I may be able to help. I haven’t had much experience with children but I like them.”

“I don’t,” Grady said.

“You must like some of them, surely.”

“Not a damn one.”

“They don’t all act like Frederic.”

“They would if their fathers had ten million dollars.”

“So here we are back at the ten million. It’s quite pervasive, isn’t it, like a smell.”

“Yes, ma’am. Like a smell.”

“Well, the boy can’t be allowed to suffer simply because his father has a great deal of money. That would hardly be fair. Come on, I’ll go with you and help you quiet him down.”

“That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Shaw,” Ellen said. “Grady can handle the situation himself.”

“Of course he can. I’ll just tag along to see how it’s done... if Grady doesn’t mind. Do you mind, Grady?”

Grady didn’t mind at all.

Ellen stood and watched the two of them walk down the hall side by side. She wanted to turn and busy herself at her desk with her own work but she couldn’t take her eyes off them. In an odd disturbing way they looked exactly right together, as if they’d been matched up in a toy store and sold as a pair.

Having secured his notepaper, Mr. Van Eyck decided to drop by Mr. Henderson’s private office to thank him.

Henderson was glancing through a week-old Wall Street Journal while he ate his lunch, a pint of cottage cheese which he spooned into his mouth with dip chips. He preferred to read with his meals, on the theory that his gastric juices flowed more freely when they were not interrupted by the conversation of nincompoops.

What he read was not important, was not, in fact, even his own choice. After the swimming area of the club closed for the day he went around gathering up all the reading material that had been abandoned or forgotten — paperback books, newspapers, travel brochures, medical journals, airplane schedules, magazines, even the occasional briefcase with interesting contents like the top-secret financial report of an oil company, or complete plans for an air-sea attack on Mogadishu drawn up by retired Rear Admiral Cooper Young. Henderson had no idea where Mogadishu was, but it was reassuring to know that if and when such an attack proved necessary, Admiral Young would be ready to take care of the situation.

Economics, war, politics, porn, pathology — Henderson devoured them all while his gastric juices flowed on like some good old dependable river that never spilled or went dry. But even the best-behaved river could be dammed.

“Very decent of you, Henderson, to lend me this stuff,” Van Eyck said.

“What?”

“The notepaper. If you hadn’t lent it, I’d have pinched it of course, but this way is preferable.” The old man cleared his throat. “You will be able to take credit for making some small contribution to the cause of world literature.”

“What?”

“I’m writing a novel.”

“On our club paper?”

“Oh, don’t thank me yet, Henderson, it’s a bit premature for that. But some day a single page of this stuff might be worth a fortune.”

“What?”

“You keep repeating what. Is there something the matter with your hearing?”

Henderson dipped a chip in his cottage cheese but he couldn’t swallow, his mouth was dry. The good old dependable river had stopped flowing at its source. “This writing you’re doing on our club paper, you claim it will be worth a fortune?”

“Oh yes.”

“To whom?”

“Posterity. All those people out there. In a figurative sense.”

In a less figurative sense Henderson pictured all the people out there as a line of attorneys waiting to file suit against the club for libel, character assassination and malicious mischief. He went over to the water cooler and poured himself a drink. Perhaps he would buy a ticket to Mogadishu. If there was going to be a war there, he might be lucky enough to become one of the first casualties.

“By the way,” Van Eyck said, “to facilitate my research you might tell me how the club got its name.”

“The birds.”

“What birds?”

“All those penguins out there diving for fish.”

“Those are pelicans. The nearest penguin is ten thousand miles away. They’re an antarctic species.”

“There must be a penguin around here some place,” Henderson said quickly. “How else did the club get its name?”

“My dear chap, that’s what I asked you.”

“Ten thousand miles?”

“Approximately.”

“This puts me in an intolerable position. I’ve been telling everyone those little beasts are penguins, and now they aren’t.”

“They never were.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. But go on lying if you like. No law against it.”

Van Eyck returned to his table on the terrace. There seemed little doubt that Henderson was getting peculiar, exactly like every other manager before him. In the next few weeks the same symptoms would emerge, a tendency to twitch, to smile at inappropriate moments, to mutter to himself. A pity, Van Eyck thought, taking up his pen. He’s not really a bad sort in spite of all that money he owes his bookie.

Admiral Young’s battle plans for Mogadishu were of no concern to his two daughters, who were busy conducting a war of their own in the snack bar. Their weapons were simple, their attacks direct. Cordelia hit Juliet over the head with a piece of celery, and as she was running for the door to avoid retaliation Juliet caught her on the ear with a ripe olive. The incident was reported to Ellen, who in turn telephoned Admiral Young and advised him to come and take the girls home.

Within a few minutes Young drove up in his vintage Rolls-Royce. Though he’d been retired for a number of years, he still moved like one of his own battleships, with a complete confidence that the way ahead was clear, and if the seas got rough the stabilizers were in operational order. His thick white hair was kept in the Annapolis crew cut of his youth, so that from a distance he looked like a bald man who’d been caught in a light flurry of snow.

He parked the Rolls-Royce in the No Parking zone outside the front door where his daughters were waiting with Ellen.

“Now, girls, what’s this Ellen tells me about your fighting? Surely you’re old enough to know better.”

“She knows better,” Juliet said. “She’s older than I am.”

“Only two years,” Cordelia said.

“Which means you were talking and walking when I was born.”

“Well, I wasn’t learning not to fight.”

“You should have been. Here you are all grown up and you haven’t learned yet.”

“Dear me,” the Admiral said mildly. “Are you really all grown up, Cordelia?”

“You should know. Mrs. Young sent you a cable when I was born. You were in Hong Kong.”

“I don’t recall that it was Hong Kong.”

“It was. She tried to get there but she had to stop off in Manila to have me. There were a lot of rats around the hospital.”

“So one more wouldn’t matter.” Juliet laughed so hard at her own joke that her head, with its short brown hair, shook like a mop and she almost lost her balance.

“You mustn’t tease your sister, Juliet,” Admiral Young said mildly. “It’s unkind.”

“Well, she’s unkinder than I am, she’s had two more years of practice. I’ve got to catch up. It’s only fair I should have a chance to catch up.”

“Nobody has a guarantee that life will be fair, girls. We’re lucky to get justice, let alone mercy.”

“Oh, Pops, don’t start throwing that bull at us,” Cordelia said.

“Save it for the ensigns,” Juliet added.

“Or second looies.”

“We’re your daughters.”

“Serves you right, too.”

“We’re your fault.”

“Think about it, Pops. If you hadn’t—”

“But you did.”

“So here we are.”

And there they were, a problem not covered in the Navy rule book, yet to a certain extent a product of it.

They’d been brought up all over the world.

At the language academy in Geneva they learned enough French and Italian to order a meal and summon a taxi or policeman. They attended finishing schools in London, Rome and Paris, with no visible results except to the teachers. At the music academy in Austria, during the periods set aside for Cordelia to practice the violin and Juliet the flute, they listened to Elvis Presley records in the basement and went to old Hollywood movies dubbed in German. At the American school in Singapore most of their time was spent tearing through the streets in a jeep, Cordelia having learned to drive somewhere between Sydney and Tokyo. The effect of this cosmopolitan background had been not to make them more sophisticated and at ease with people but to isolate them. While the real world expanded around them their personal world grew smaller and tighter. No matter who was present on social occasions, they talked to or at each other, as if they were surrounded by foreigners, interchangeable and of no importance. They had become immune to people as beekeepers do to stings.

“I never really liked this club,” Cordelia said. “Did you?”

Juliet pursed her lips as though she were pondering the subject. There was no need to ponder, of course. If Cordelia didn’t like the club, neither did she. “Never. Never ever.”

“Let’s go home.”

“We’d better say goodbye to Ellen.”

“Why?”

“Noblesse oblige.”

“That’s French. I don’t recognize French rules in the U.S.A.”

“Pops is giving us an executive look.”

“Oh, all right. Goodbye, Ellen.”

“Goodbye, Ellen.”

“Goodbye, girls,” Ellen said.

Nearly everyone called them girls. Cordelia was thirty-five, Juliet thirty-three.

From his carefully chosen position on the terrace Van Eyck had an unobstructed view of what was happening at the entrance to the club. With a kind of detached loathing he watched his brother-in-law, Admiral Young, drive off in the Rolls-Royce with the two girls.

Van Eyck had strong feelings about the military and for a number of years he’d been working out plans for bringing it under control. His ideas, though varying in emphasis from time to time, remained basically the same. Salaries must be immediately and drastically reduced, especially at the upper levels. Pensions should begin no earlier than age seventy and continue only for a prudent and reasonable time. The brass should not be encouraged to live longer than necessary at taxpayers’ expense. Wars should be confined to countries with unpronounceable names and severe climates — the former would prevent television and newsmen from mentioning them, the latter would keep foreign correspondents to a minimum.

Most important of all, uniforms were to be abolished or simplified, with no more fancy hats or tailored jackets with gold braid and rows of ribbons.

If it hadn’t been for the uniform, his sister Iris wouldn’t have looked twice at Cooper Young. It was the second look that did it. Until then Iris was a nice intelligent girl, expected to marry a nice intelligent man who would put her fortune to good use and sire three or four sons to carry on with it. Instead she fell for a uniform, gave birth to two half-witted daughters and became a sour, sick old woman. Poor Iris. The crowning irony was that the Admiral retired and now wore his uniform only once a year at the Regimental Ball. Van Eyck didn’t enjoy music or dancing, and he certainly didn’t spend money lightly, but he never missed a Regimental Ball. Each one produced a yearly renewal of his anger against the military.

Van Eyck took up his pen and a sheet of the paper Ellen had given him.

Van Eyck reread the letter, making only one change. He underlined dispense with all uniforms and added an exclamation point. Once uniforms were abolished, the other reforms would automatically occur sooner or later.

He heard someone yell fire but he didn’t bother looking around. If there was, in fact, a fire, it seemed silly to yell about it instead of calling the fire department.

There was, in fact, a fire.

Little Frederic Quinn, acting on the advice of his older brother, Harold, who was taking the advice of his best friend, Bingo Firenze, whose uncle was a hit man for the Mafia, always carried a packet of matches even though he had given up smoking when he was seven. Bingo had figured it out. Fire was the best attention-getter in the world and no matter where you were something was flammable, not merely the more obvious things like paper and wood, but stuff like Grady’s polyester warm-up suit hanging on a hook in the first-aid room. It took nearly all the matches in the packet before the warm-up suit finally ignited.

“Ha ha, Grady,” Frederic said just before he passed out from smoke inhalation.

In the excitement following the discovery of the fire nobody could find the key to the first-aid room. Grady tried to pick the lock with a nail file. When that failed, the engineer pried the door open with a hatchet and put out the fire by tossing Grady’s warm-up suit into the pool.

Frederic was given artificial respiration, and in a few minutes he was conscious again and coughing up the pizza, doughnuts and potato chips he’d had for breakfast.

Miranda Shaw knelt beside him and pressed a wet towel to his forehead. “Poor child, what happened? Are you all right?”

“I want a chocolate malted cherry Coke.”

“A glass of milk would be more—”

“I want a chocolate malted cherry Coke.”

“Of course, dear. Stay quiet and someone will bring you one. How did the fire start?”

“I don’t know,” Frederic said. “I got amnesty.”

“What’s that?”

“I can’t remember.”

“The little bastard set it himself,” Grady said. “And I’m going to kick his butt in as soon as his pulse is normal. Give me the rest of the matches, Frederic.”

“What matches? I don’t remember any matches. I got amnesty.”

“You’re going to need amnesty, kid, if you don’t hand over the evidence.”

“I want a lawyer.”

“A lawyer?” Miranda repeated. “Why would a child want a lawyer?”

“I’m pleading not guilty and taking the Fifth.”

“A fifth of what, dear? I don’t understand.”

“Hey, Grady, this is a far-out chick.”

Miranda stood up, looking helplessly at Grady and holding the wet towel at arm’s length as if it had turned into a snake. “He seems to be acting so strangely. Do you suppose he could be delirious?”

“No, ma’am. He always acts like this.”

“When I get my lawyer,” Frederic said, “I’m going to sue you both for libel.”

Miranda’s silk robe was stained with smoke as well as the remains of Frederic’s breakfast, and the flower had fallen out of her hair. Grady picked it up. Some of the petals came loose in his hand and drifted down onto the tile floor. He hadn’t realized until then that the flower was genuine and perishable. He thought of the baby duck that had died in his hands and all the soft delicate things that shouldn’t be touched.

“I’m sorry,” Grady said. “I didn’t mean to wreck it like that.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I thought the thing was — oh, plastic or something you can’t wreck.”

“Forget about it, please. It simply happened.”

“Like the fire,” Frederic said. “Honest to God, Grady, one minute I was sitting there doing my transcendental meditation and the next minute I was surrounded by leaping flames.”

“There were no leaping flames.”

“I saw leaping flames. I must have been delirious.”

“No flames, no delirium. Just a little creep with some matches, and a smoldering warm-up suit which will cost the club twenty-five bucks to replace. A new door lock will bring the tab to two hundred, and cleaning and painting, fifty extra. Maybe I should add ten bucks for my medical services. I saved your life.”

“Who asked you to?”

“Nobody. People were on their knees begging me to let you croak. But I have a kind heart.”

“Yeah? Well, bring me a chocolate malted cherry Coke, double whipped cream.”

“Get it yourself,” Grady said.

“I can’t.”

“Try.”

“I bet you want me to split so you can come on with the chick. Well, ha ha, I’m not going.”

“You just changed your mind, Frederic.” Grady grabbed him under the arms and jerked him to his feet. “Ha ha, you’re going.”

“All right, I’m going, I’m going. Only don’t pull any of the mucho macho stuff till I get back, will you? It’s time I started my education. The kids depend on me for info.”

Miranda leaned against the wall, watching Frederic skip down the corridor toward the snack bar. Her braid was half-unraveled and her face had already started to sunburn.

“He’s a very strange little boy,” she repeated. “I find it difficult to understand what he’s talking about, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“What did he mean when he called me a chick?”

“A girl.”

“A girl.” Involuntarily she reached up and touched her face, as if to cover the tiny scars left by the last knife. “How nice. Though I’m afraid it’s not very accurate.”

“Accurate enough.”

“You’re kidding me.”

Sure I am, lady. But that’s the way you want it.

“Let me get this straight, Ellen.” Mr. Henderson closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips very tightly together. This was supposed to set up a magnetic current which had soothing and curative powers. “The door to the first-aid room has been burned.”

“Yes, Mr. Henderson.”

“Perhaps you mean singed or scorched, requiring a few touches of paint here and there?”

“Burned,” Ellen said. “Also, the lock’s broken.”

“I don’t understand, it doesn’t make sense, how such peculiar things happen to me.”

“Frederic Quinn was playing with matches.”

“In the first-aid room?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Grady had locked him in there to teach him not to plug toilets.”

“And while he was being taught not to plug toilets he was learning how to set fire to things.”

“He already knew. Last year it was a bunch of towels on the beach. He was cremating a dead gull.”

Henderson loosened his fingers, which were beginning to ache. No magnetic current had manifested itself, certainly not one that was soothing or curative. He felt the same vague pervasive dissatisfaction. A little here, a little there, life was letting him down. There were plus factors — he had a pleasant apartment and a job with some prestige, his ex-wife had given up her alimony by remarrying, he picked an occasional long shot at the track — but the minuses were increasing. The long shots were getting longer and the neighbors complained about his new stereo system. There were aggravations at work, members with overdue bar bills, Van Eyck’s anonymous letters, and Frederic’s parents, whose passionate quarrels and no less passionate reconciliations — Frederic, Harold, Foster, April and Caroline — posed daily and debilitating problems.

“Obviously Grady showed poor judgment in locking the boy up,” Henderson said. “He should have sent him to me.”

“He sent him to you last week. You sent him back. You told him he should handle situations like that by himself. How can you blame him?”

“Easy. I didn’t lock the little bastard in a closet.”

“I heard you give Grady orders to use his own judgment in the future. Well, the future arrived and he did. Maybe the results weren’t too good, but he tried.”

“You are becoming,” Henderson said, “increasingly transparent. Do you know what I mean, Ellen?”

“No.”

“Let us have a moment’s silence while you think about it.”

Henderson’s office was decorated with pictures of airplanes left over from an aeronautical engineers’ convention. Henderson had hung them himself. He had no interest in planes or engines of any kind. But he liked the pictures because they were non-human. He didn’t have to wonder what the expression in an eye meant, or what a mouth might have been on the verge of saying, or what a pair of ears had heard. Nobody had to wonder what an airplane had done or was going to do next. It went up and came down again.

“Transparent as glass,” Henderson said. “I have been in, what you might call, the people business for twenty-five years. I know them. So let me give you some advice, Ellen. Don’t waste your time on Grady. He has no character, no staying power. Not much of a future, in fact, unless he hits it lucky, and that’s a longer shot than any I’ve ever hit on.”

“Why are you telling me? I don’t—”

“You do. All the girls do. Getting a crush on the lifeguard is part of growing up. But you’re already grown up... Ah well, I suppose it’s too late, isn’t it? Advice usually is.”

In the parking lot south of the club Miranda couldn’t get her car started, and she sent one of the gardeners to bring someone out to help her.

The car, a gift from Neville on her last birthday, bore special license plates, U R 52, and it was as black and cumbersome as the joke itself. She hated it and intended to get rid of it at the first opportunity. But like the house and furniture of the condominium in Palm Springs, the car was considered part of the estate and couldn’t be sold until Neville’s will was probated. “You will be provided with a small widow’s allowance,” Smedler, the lawyer, had said. “In the meantime everything must be kept intact. Shall I explain to you what frozen assets are, Mrs. Shaw?” “No, thank you, Mr. Smedler. I know... ” She knew very well. Hers had been frozen for years.

Grady came out the back door of the club, barefooted but wearing jeans over his swim trunks and a T-shirt with a picture of a surfer printed on it. He seemed surprised to see her. Perhaps this was where his girlfriends waited for him and he was expecting one of them. Or two or a dozen.

“Oh, it’s you, Mrs. Shaw.” He smiled, showing teeth that were small and even but not very clean. “The gardener told me some lady wanted to see me. He was right, You are some lady.”

“I didn’t want to... to see you.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“I mean, not personally. It’s simply that I can’t start this engine.”

The car was parked in full sun, and its black paint and black leather upholstery had absorbed the heat and turned the interior into a furnace. “I really wanted a light-colored car, Neville, they’re so much cooler.” “Black has more dignity, Miranda.”

She sat, faint with heat and dignity.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Shaw?”

“I... it’s very warm in here.”

“Get out and stand in the shade. Come on, I’ll help you.”

“I can manage, thank you.”

“Leave the key in the ignition.”

She got out and he took her place behind the wheel. The engine turned over on his second attempt. He liked the sound of it, soft, powerful, steady.

“Here you are, all set to go, Mrs. Shaw.”

“What was wrong?”

“You probably flooded it. If it happens again, push the accelerator to the floorboard and let it up slowly. Or if you’re not in a hurry, wait a few minutes.”

“I’m never in a hurry. I have nothing to do.”

She didn’t know why she said it. Neither did he, obviously. He looked puzzled and a little embarrassed, as though she’d made a very personal remark and he wasn’t sure how to respond.

“I meant nothing important,” she added. “The way you have, with your job.”

“There’s nothing important about my job. I put in time, I get paid. That’s all.”

“You save lives. You saved Frederic’s only half an hour ago.”

“He’d have come around eventually. Don’t blame me for saving his life... And as far as the pool is concerned, there hasn’t been a near-drowning, or even a nearly near, since I was hired. Which is fine with me, since I’m not even sure what I’d do if somebody yelled for help. Maybe I’d walk away and let him drown.”

“You mustn’t say that. Someone might take it seriously.”

“Don’t you?”

“Of course not.”

“I hope you’re a good swimmer.”

They’d been talking above the noise of the engine. He reached over and switched it off. Then he got out, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Okay. It’s all yours, Mrs. Shaw.”

“Why didn’t you leave the engine running?”

“Causes pollution, wastes gas. You can start it again when you’re ready to leave.”

They stood beside the long black car, almost touching but not looking at each other, like strangers at a funeral.

She said, “It’s a very ugly car, don’t you agree? Such a lot of bulk and horsepower merely to take someone like me from the house to the club to the market and back to the house. My husband gave it to me on my last birthday. Did you see the license plate?”

“Not well enough to remember.”

“It’s U R 52. Neville did it as a joke so I couldn’t lie about my age. He didn’t mean to be cruel, he adored me, he would never have been deliberately cruel. He simply considered it funny.”

“Next year when you’re fifty-three the laugh will be on him. Hang on to the car for ten or fifteen years and you can have yourself a real chuckle.”

“No,” she said sharply. “I’m going to get rid of it as soon as they give me permission.”

“They?”

“The lawyers who are handling my husband’s estate. Of course, if something happened to the car they’d have to give me permission, wouldn’t they?”

“Happened like what?”

“I don’t know exactly, but there are lots of stories in the newspapers about people having paint sprayed all over their cars or their windows damaged or their tires slashed.”

“If that’s what you want,” Grady said, “maybe I can arrange it for you. I’ve got some rough pals.”

“Do you? Have rough pals, I mean.”

“I know a lot of crummy people.”

She glanced up at him with an anxious little smile. “You mustn’t take it seriously, what I said about something happening to the car. It was pretty crazy. I can’t understand why I suddenly had such a wild idea. I’m not a violent person.”

“You don’t look it.”

“Honestly I’m not.”

“I believe you, I believe you.”

“Why do you say it twice like that? It makes it sound as if you don’t really believe me.” She crossed her arms over her breasts as if for protection. Her skin was very white, and the veins so close to the surface they looked like routes of rivers on a map. “How can you think I’m a violent person?”

“Oh, come on now, Mrs. Shaw,” Grady said. “You’re having a bad day. Go home and pour yourself a drink.”

“I can’t drink alone.”

“Then take a couple of aspirins. Or don’t you do that alone either?”

She lowered her head as if it had suddenly become too heavy for her neck to support. “That wasn’t a kind thing to say. You may be right about yourself, Grady. Perhaps if someone were drowning, you’d just walk away.”

“Now wait a minute. What’s the matter with you, anyway?”

“I’m drowning,” she said. “You’re not a very good lifeguard if you can’t tell when people are drowning.”

Little Frederic Quinn was hiding behind a eucalyptus tree in the middle of the parking lot. So far the conversation had been dumb and the action nil, so he decided to liven things up by revealing his presence.

He stepped out from his cover. The burnt-match Deco work had been scrubbed off his face but most of the Mercurochrome remained, leaving his hair streaked pink and his skin interestingly diseased-looking.

“Hey, Grady, how’re you doing?”

“Beat it, you little bastard,” Grady said.

“Using foul language in front of a lady, that’s a misdemeanor.”

“What is it when a kid is hacked to pieces and thrown off the wharf to feed the sharks?”

“Why are you so torqued up? Lost the old macho magic? Wait till I tell the kids, ha ha.”

“You didn’t hear me, Quinn. I said beat it.”

“All right.”

“Now.”

“All right. I’m going, I’m going. I’m on my way. I’m— Help! Police! May Day! May Day!”

Admiral Cooper Young was returning to the club to pick up the handbag Cordelia had left in the snack bar. It was such a pleasant day he’d rolled one window down, though his wife, Iris, would be sure to notice the dust on the dashboard and complain about it. As he passed the parking lot he heard the May Day call.

“I do believe I hear someone crying for help.”

“Then shut the window,” Juliet said.

“Just because a person is crying for help,” Cordelia added reasonably, “is no reason why you should listen. You’re not in the Navy anymore. Besides, we have to hurry. There’s a one-hundred-dollar-bill in my handbag.”

The Admiral’s grip on the steering wheel tightened perceptibly. “Now where did you get a one-hundred-dollar bill, Cordelia?”

“Mrs. Young. Your wife.”

“Why did she give it to you?”

“Bribery.”

“She gave me one, too,” Juliet said, “though I wouldn’t call it bribery exactly, Cordelia.”

“I would. It was. Her instructions were to stay away from the house until the club closed because she was going to take a backgammon lesson.”

The May Day calls had ceased.

“I didn’t know your mother played backgammon,” the Admiral said.

“She doesn’t,” Cordelia said. “Yet. She’s taking a course.”

“I see.”

The Admiral did indeed see. There’d been other courses, dozens, but none of them seemed to satisfy his poor Iris. She’d been cheated and she was unable to think of any way to cheat back.

The crisis in the parking lot was altered by the sudden appearance of Mr. Tolliver, headmaster of the school Frederic more or less attended. Having learned during lunch hour that the surf was up, Mr. Tolliver shrewdly connected this information with the large number of absentees that morning. As a result he was patrolling the beach areas, armed with a pair of well-used binoculars and an officer’s swagger stick left over from his Canadian army days.

Frederic Quinn was his first trophy. The boy was given a swat on the behind with the swagger stick and the promise of two hundred demerits. He was then locked in what the students called the cop cage, the rear of the school station wagon separated from the driver’s seat by heavy canvas webbing.

Frederic proved a docile prisoner. He was tired, for one thing, and consequently, running short of ideas. For another, the new batch of demerits put him one hundred and fifteen ahead of Bingo Firenze for the current school championship. This was not a paltry achievement, in view of Bingo’s superior age and connections with the Mafia, and Frederic leaned back smiling in anticipation of a hero’s welcome.

Mr. Tolliver peered at his trophy through the canvas webbing. “Well, Quinn, what have you got to say for yourself?”

“Mea culpa.”

“So you are admitting your guilt.”

“Nolo contendere,” Frederic said. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve already been punished.”

“That’s what you think, kiddo.”

The hundred-dollar bill was still in Cordelia’s handbag, much to her disappointment. She didn’t need the money as much as she needed the attention she would have gotten if the bill had been missing. She thought of all the excitement, cops arriving at the club with sirens wailing, Henderson rounding up the employees for questioning, newsmen, photographers, maybe even an ambulance if she could have managed to faint...

“Oh hell, it’s right where I left it.”

Cordelia climbed into the back seat of the Rolls-Royce for the second time that day while her father said his second courteous farewells to Mr. Henderson and Ellen. He also wished them a Happy Thanksgiving, adding a little joke about turkeys which Ellen didn’t understand and Henderson didn’t hear.

“Thanksgiving is more than a month away,” Henderson said as the Rolls moved majestically into the street. “Was he being sarcastic, do you suppose? If he was, I should have countered with something about Pearl Harbor. ‘Happy Pearl Harbor to you, Admiral.’ That’s what I should have said... Speaking of turkeys, which I hadn’t planned on doing and don’t want to, you’d better have the catering manager come to the office to discuss the Thanksgiving menu. Thanksgiving. My God, I’m still recuperating from Labor Day and the Fourth of July. Will I make it to Christmas? Will I, Ellen?”

“I don’t know,” Ellen said.

“And you don’t care, either. I hear it in your voice, that I-don’t-care note. It’s cruel.”

“Sorry. But there’ve been so many managers, Mr. Henderson. I’d have been done in years ago if I’d allowed myself to care. I must maintain the proper emotional distance.”

“Don’t give me that crap.”

“You asked for it.”

Admiral Cooper Young lived with his wife, Iris, and the girls in a massive stone house on what had once been the most fashionable street in town.

The ride home was short and silent. It was only toward the end that Cordelia spoke in an uncharacteristically gloomy voice: “Mrs. Young’s not going to like this. She might even force us to give the money back to her.”

“She can’t if we won’t,” Juliet said. “And let’s not. Let’s stand fast.”

“She’ll think of something. You know the mean way she stops payment on checks.”

“This isn’t like that. It’s hard cash. Good as gold. Coin of the realm. And we can hide it in our bras.”

“Even so... Pops, we don’t really have to go home yet, do we?”

“Yes, girls, I think we do.” The Admiral cleared his throat. “You see, your exclusion from the club was intended to teach you a lesson, and you can’t be taught a lesson without suffering a bit.”

“Oh, I hate suffering,” Juliet said passionately. “It makes me throw up. If I throw up in the car, plus we arrive home three hours early, Mrs. Young will be really mad.”

“Now, now, now. Don’t borrow trouble, girls. Your mother will be just as glad to see you as she usually is.”

And she was.

“I told you two to stay at the club until five o’clock,” Iris Young said. “What happened?”

Cordelia answered first. “We got bounced.”

“Dishonorably discharged,” Juliet added.

“For conduct unbecoming.”

Iris banged her cane on the floor. A tall athletic woman in her younger days, she was now stooped and misshapen. Her broad sallow face seldom changed expression and the hump she carried between her shoulder blades was a backpack of resentments that grew heavier each year.

She looked at her husband not in order to see him but to make sure he was seeing her and her displeasure. “You didn’t have to bring them home, Cooper. You could have dropped them off at the zoo.”

“We were at the zoo yesterday,” Juliet said. “What’s so great about being stared at by a bunch of animals?”

“The object of going to a zoo is to stare at the animals.”

“You taught us not to stare because it’s impolite. We never ever stare, do we, Cordelia?”

“Oh God,” Iris said, but as usual He wasn’t paying any attention.

The girls finally went out to the kitchen to make some butterscotch coconut pecan cookies and Iris was left alone with her husband in the small bright room she used both as an office and a refuge.

Here Iris spent most of her time with her books and stereo, a tiny champagne-colored poodle, Alouette, and an assortment of miniature chess sets. She played chess by mail with people she’d met in other parts of the world: a diplomat’s wife in Bogotá, a medical missionary assigned to a hospital in Jakarta, a professor at the University of Tokyo, a petroleum engineer in Tabriz. She wasn’t completely crippled and could have gone places if she’d wanted to, but she’d already been everywhere and her increasing deafness made communication with strangers difficult.

She sat by the window with the elderly poodle in her lap, leaning toward the sun as if its rays could rejuvenate both of them.

“Cooper.”

“Yes, Iris.”

“The girls aren’t improving.”

“I don’t believe they are.”

“Can’t we do something, anything? I’ve been reading in the newspapers and magazines about vitamin E. Do you suppose if we put some in their food—?”

“No.”

“We could give it a try, couldn’t we?”

“No, I think not.”

The little dog began to whimper in his sleep. Iris patted his woolly head and whispered in his ear, “Wake up, Alouette. Nothing’s wrong, it’s only a dream.”

Cooper listened, sighing, wishing nothing was wrong, it was only a dream. Even the dog wasn’t fooled. He woke up with a snort and cast a melancholy look around the room. He had eyes like bitter chocolate.

“Did you say something, Cooper?”

“No.”

“I thought I heard—”

“No.”

“We hardly ever talk these days.”

“It’s difficult to find anything new to say.” And to say it loudly enough and enunciate clearly enough. “Iris, you promised me you’d ask the doctor about a hearing aid. I hate to press the point.”

“Then don’t.”

He didn’t. Besides the fact that he knew further argument would be useless, the Admiral was not combative on a person-to-person level. When his wife and the girls started fighting he got as far away as he could, usually withdrawing to his tiny hideaway in the bell tower, reached by a ladder which Iris couldn’t climb and filled with squeals and scurryings which intimidated the girls. Here, where a century ago there had been a bell to proclaim peace and good will, the Admiral sat and planned wars.

They were not the ordinary kind found in history books. They were small interesting gentlemen’s wars played under the old rules, captain against captain, plane against plane. And when they ended they left no poverty or desolation or bitterness. Everyone simply rallied round and got ready for the next one. A few people had to die, of course, but when they did, it was bravely, almost apologetically: “Sorry to let you down, old chap. I must — go — now—”

He didn’t tell his wife about these private little wars. She was too serious. A mere look from her could cripple a tank or send a platoon into disorderly retreat or bring down a plane. Iris would be no fun in battle — she would insist on winning.

“Are you paying attention to me, Cooper?”

“Certainly, certainly I am.”

“My brother Charles called to wish you a happy birthday. Is it your birthday?”

“No.”

“Good. I didn’t buy you anything... Charles must have had some reason for calling. Perhaps it’s his birthday and this was a subtle way of reminding me. Would you check the birthday book in the top drawer of my desk?”

The desk, like the other furniture in the room, was an antique. Iris had no real interest in antiques. She’d bought the house furnished when Cooper retired because she and Cooper had never lived more than a couple of years in one place and it pleased her to own a house that looked and felt and even smelled ancestral.

Cooper said, “Is Charles listed under Charles or Van Eyck?”

“Van Eyck.”

“Yes. Here it is. His birthday’s next week, he’ll be seventy-five.”

“So I was right. He meant the phone call as a hint. Well, perhaps we should celebrate in some way, since he probably won’t be around much longer. What do you think of a small dinner party?”

Cooper thought nothing at all of it but he didn’t say so. He knew perfectly well that his opinion was not being asked, Iris was merely talking to herself.

“The trouble with a dinner party is that we’ll have to invite some woman for Charles to escort. He’s alienated so many people, I wonder who’s left. Remember Mrs. Roffman who inherited all that meat money? I haven’t heard of her dying, have you?”

“No.”

“Then she’s probably still alive. We could try her.”

“Mrs. Roffman is nearly eighty. Charles prefers younger women.”

“She used to be quite beautiful.”

“I doubt that he’d take that into consideration.”

“If you’re just going to be negative about the whole thing, forget it.”

“I’m not being negative, Iris. I want you to enjoy yourself.”

“Enjoy myself?” The little dog jumped off her lap and darted across the room to hide under the desk. “Enjoy myself? Are you insane? Look at me, stuck here day after day, hardly able to move, worrying myself sick over the girls, wondering what will become of them, of me, of—”

“A small dinner party would be very nice,” Cooper said. “Very nice. As for a partner for Charles, what about Neville’s widow?”

“Who?”

“Miranda Shaw. I had a glimpse of her today at the club, so she’s obviously over her period of mourning. She might be pleased to get back in circulation even if it means sitting next to Charles.”

“I’ve never really liked Miranda Shaw,” Iris said, “but I can’t think of anyone else offhand.