The Seven File

Nine

Grant did not expect a second call from Creasy on Sunday night. When the phone rang he was sitting close to the fireplace, chain-smoking cigarettes. For some reason he wasn’t able to relax; everything was moving on schedule, but he couldn’t make himself settle down for the tedious but inevitable wait. There were too many irritants rubbing his raw nerves; Belle’s drinking, the sloppy, tasteless food, Duke’s casual assumption of authority — as if he’d been elected to a partnership in this deal. I’ll run things, Grant thought, flipping his cigarette into the dying fire. I’ll straighten Duke out. And Belle. His thoughts were sullen and vindictive. What the hell were they taking him for?

When the phone rang the sound of it went through him with an excruciating shock. He sprang to his feet, tipping his chair over with a crash, and stared at the telephone as if it were some strange and dangerous enemy. Above him he heard Duke’s limping steps going down the hallway toward the stairs. Grant hurried across the room and picked up the receiver...

It was Creasy, excited and triumphant. The grandfather had arrived at his son’s home an hour or so ago. Carrying two grips. The money, undoubtedly...

“Okay, fine,” Grant said. “Everything else look quiet?”

“Oh, delightfully quiet.” Creasy’s voice squirmed with pleasure. “They’re behaving like lambs...”

Grant put the phone down as Duke came into the room, looking rested and fresh; he had been napping since dinner. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “Let me guess. Creasy’s been arrested.”

“I’m getting tired of your comedy routine.”

“Okay, okay,” Duke said, limping toward the fire. “I thought you’d appreciate a laugh or two.”

“The old man checked in from Boston an hour ago. He’s probably got the cash.”

“On Sunday yet. How about that? That’s the advantage of owning your own bank. We couldn’t cash a check on Sunday to buy penicillin for our dying mothers.”

“You got a nice humorous slant on life.”

“Stop worrying,” Duke said. “We’re home free, I tell you.” He glanced about the softly lit room, frowning slightly. The shadows cast by the fire leaped and flickered on the wide, pine floorboards, against the gilt bindings of a set of classics. Outside the wind and rain still banged against the sides of the house. “My brother’s really an oddball,” he said. “I’d rather be in jail.”

“Don’t talk like a fool. Look.” Grant moved closer to him. “You notice anything going on between your brother and that nurse?”

Duke grinned at him. “I said it before, you’d have made a great house-mother. The kids wouldn’t fool old lady Grant.”

“Stop thinking of me as your straight man, Duke,” Grant said softly, and his eyes were odd and cold.

Duke shrugged. “You know me, Eddie. I like a little gag every now and then.”

“Now is the wrong time,” Grant said. His dominant passion was for survival; he had killed more than once to stay alive and something of that showed in his face when he felt threatened or insecure.

“Sure,” Duke said, putting on a thoughtful expression. He had thought of Grant as shrewd and competent — but not dangerous. That could have been a serious error, he realized. “My brother and the little Mick?” He shook his head. “I think you’re imagining things, Eddie.”

“Maybe, maybe not. They don’t talk to each other. They don’t often look at each other. But when they do I get a feeling it means something.” Grant put a cigarette in his mouth, and stared at Duke with his flat pale eyes. “She came down a while ago with a bandage for his hand. I let her take care of him.”

“That’s a normal kind of impulse,” Duke said.

“Sure, sure. But if they get interested in each other they might try something foolish. They might work up the guts to give us trouble.”

“You think ahead, don’t you?”

Grant lit his cigarette. “That’s why I’m running this deal, Duke...”

Hank was sitting at the kitchen table. Belle had gone up to bed after helping him with the dishes. She had been in a mood of sodden sentimentality, telling him story after story about her son’s childhood, and insisting endlessly that she would never leave him again under any circumstances. He wasn’t sure that he had impressed her as anything but a tolerant ear, but that was enough for a start. She was a simple woman, but not stupid; she would suspect any obvious overtures. After she had gone the nurse had come down and dressed his injured hand, washing it with warm water and bandaging it with strips tom from a pillow case. This was done with Grant’s approval; he had stood in the doorway, a cigarette in his mouth, watching them with careful, thoughtful eyes. They hadn’t spoken to each other; Hank had stood close to her, seeing the light gleaming on her dark hair, the deep shadows under her eyes and the fine pale texture of her skin. But there was no communication between them, nothing but the gentle touch of her fingers on his hand. And that was an impersonal kindness, an instinctive reaction to suffering of any kind.

Now Grant and Duke were in the living room together, and Hank could hear the murmur of their voices. They took no chance in leaving him alone; the back door was locked, the key was in Grant’s possession and the windows had been nailed shut. The only way in or out was through the front door and one of them was on guard in the living room all the time. Even with two good hands he wouldn’t have had a prayer.

Hank rubbed the tips of his fingers against his forehead. The phone had rung a few moments ago. and when he heard Grant talking, he had succumbed to an old, wistful hope; perhaps Duke would have a change of heart and turn against Grant. Maybe it would happen. He was a victim of hope for he had never stopped trying to understand Duke.

Even now he was trying to understand how his brother had gotten involved with Grant. The habit of apology was too strong to break; there must be powerful reasons for what Duke had done, he thought. If he could understand him, he could forgive him. That had always been his hope.

He couldn’t judge Duke coldly, dispassionately. Never... because he was responsible for what Duke had become. He couldn’t forget that. He could only try to understand him...

They had been raised in a small town in Wisconsin, a land of brilliant lakes and fresh-smelling pine trees, a land with a nostalgic frontier feeling to it; the Chippewa reservation was only a few miles away, and most of the boys in the area had learned their trapping and hunting and fishing directly from the Indian guides. And Duke had learned more than anyone else. Even the old Indians admitted there was little they could show him. At fifteen he could disappear into the woods and live there for weeks at a time, without matches or blankets or camping equipment. He took nothing but fishhooks, line and a coil of rope for trapping. And his knife, of course. Duke was never without that. He ignored fish and game laws — a doe was meat to him. nothing else. He peddled venison to the tourists, and sold whiskey to the Indians, a federal offense. But no one was particularly exercised by his wildness. He was tall and dark, beautifully built, and was well aware of the value of his smile. If he couldn’t bully people, he charmed them. If neither tactic worked he ignored them — or struck back when they weren’t expecting it. A few people in town were onto him, of course. Horchmyer, the druggist for one. Duke had tried to buy certain items from him, and since then the old man had watched him with a cold eye. And the Rawlings family. There had been quite a bit of talk about how Jimmy Rawlings’ shoulder was broken in football practice — the whistle had blown several seconds before Duke came down hard on little Jimmy. But nothing came of the talk. There were men who took Duke’s side. Nobody blames him when he bangs over for a touchdown, do they?

That was true enough. Lamson High won twenty-two straight games with Duke as fullback, and the University scouts were all down to watch him play.

But he wasn’t popular at school. Some girls liked him, but he had little interest in that type. He preferred conflict; his favorite targets were the innocents who had been raised in families with gentleness and dignity. They weren’t prepared for his kind of attacks; they were his choice victims.

What was wrong? Hank thought, rubbing his forehead. It seemed that he had spent a lifetime trying to understand Duke.

Maybe it was his mother. He and Duke were half-brothers. Duke’s father had married a second time when Duke was eight years old. Hank had been born a year later. Duke had been a difficult youngster and Hank had grown up in an atmosphere tense and uneasy with propitiation; his mother feared she was failing with Duke and went to distracted lengths to earn his affection. Duke played on her fears; he demanded bribes, not for good conduct but as a hostage against worse; if he got this, he would not do that. These were his terms to his stepmother.

The whole house had revolved around his moods and tempers. Even his own father was involved in this blackmail; he too wanted peace in the family at any price. He was an easy-going sort, a small-town store keeper, a man who would rather lose an issue than win it, if the winning was going to cause hard feelings. He was modest and retiring: “If anyone wants my opinion, which I know isn’t likely—” That was his father’s smiling preface to any argument or discussion. Tactful, obliging — weak. The way I’m weak, Hank thought.

His father simply couldn’t handle Duke. He smiled and talked of “boys’ hi-jinks” when complaints were brought to him. And he promised that he’d have a talk with his son. But he said and did nothing. He was afraid Duke might walk out if he attempted to discipline him, but at the same time he was proud of the boy’s looks, his arrogance, his superb physical talents. The big men in town had got in the habit of dropping by the store to chat before and after games, and this was a very pleasant thing; cigars were passed, backs were slapped and there was an illusion of warm, easy equality. It would be very hard to give all this up. They were things he had never known before. It was asking a lot of him (as one teacher had asked) to take Duke off the team until his marks improved. It made lying for him almost an instinctive reflex — as he lied twice, once to the police and again to Jo Reynold’s father: “The boy was in bed at ten-thirty. Yes, I looked in on him.” It was an easy thing to say.

It went this way until the accident. And that was the end of many things, the start of many things...

The living room fire was a soft red eye, watching Hank as he fell asleep on the sofa. He was nine then, the night of the accident, but he had remembered the look of the fire all his life — that soft red eye in the darkness was a part of his nightmares. Duke was asleep upstairs and his father was in town for the monthly dinner of one of his service clubs. Perhaps if his mother had been alive it would have been different. But she had died six months before.

A falling spark must have landed on the carpet. A newspaper had caught, and then the curtains...

Hank had awakened a few minutes later, screaming through the smoke for his brother. There was no way to get up to him; the flames were six feet high in front of the stairs. And Duke couldn’t get down. So he had jumped.

Hank was under his windows by then, shouting his name over and over, and he saw Duke kick through the pane, balance himself for an instant on the ledge and then leap out into the darkness. He was grinning as he landed, his teeth flashing in his face; the danger exhilarated him, the physical challenge fired his blood. He was supremely confident, contemptuous of the risk — but the drop was long and the earth was hard as iron. Duke’s right leg was broken at the knee. After three months in the hospital he was sent home on crutches. The improvement the doctor had cautiously predicted never materialized. Duke’s limp became as much a part of him as the color of his eyes...

Hank lifted his head. Grant and Duke had stopped talking, and in the silence he heard the nurse’s soft footsteps coming down the stairs. She opened the door and crossed the living room to the kitchen, walking with quick, precise strides. She was very tired, he saw; her face was pale and drawn, and there was a tiny pulse beating rapidly in her throat. And he saw something else in her expression...

He stood up and said, “What’s the matter?”

“I think Jill is sick. She’s running a fever.”

“Well—” He wet his lips, hating to put his helplessness into his words. What could he say? That it was too bad, j and he was sorry as hell? “Should she have a doctor?” he said.

“I’m not sure. Sometimes these flare-ups go down overnight.”

They stared at each other, and again (as it had happened the first time they were alone) the tension between them was charged with significance; it was an instant of silence, probing appraisal, an attempt at a communion that might be truer than any they could establish through words. There was no time for a leisurely comparison of attitudes and values. Trust between them could only be intuitive. Hank had known this sort of thing in the army. Sometimes you looked at a man and wondered if he would still be alongside you in the next few seconds. What you knew of his poker habits, his taste in liquor and women or the fact that he loved or was bored with his wife and kids — none of that told you what you needed to know. You made a snap judgment based on criteria you could never define or articulate. And sometimes you were wrong. He understood her fear.

“Let’s hope she gets over it,” he said.

“That’s all we can do,” she said, watching him steadily. She used the plural deliberately, with an unmistakable emphasis; and she told him with that word, and with her eyes, that she believed they were on the same side.

He had no time to answer her, for Duke sauntered into the kitchen then, a speculative little smile on his lips.

“You two look pretty solemn,” he said. “Well, that’s the younger generation for you.”

Neither of them answered him and he said dryly, “Secrets, eh? You’d rather I left? And Grant, too, I suppose.”

“The baby’s running a temperature,” Hank said.

“Well, that’s a shame.” He seemed to accept this as an explanation of their curious silence. “What’s the matter with her?” he said to the nurse.

“I don’t know. It could be the ride, the change.”

“She’ll get used to that in a day or so,” Duke said. “Fevers don’t mean much in kids. Keep her nice and warm. If she’s no better tomorrow we might try a little terramycin.”

“I wouldn’t unless a doctor prescribed it,” she said.

“Sure, a doctor would be the best bet,” Duke said. He rubbed his jaw. “But that’s a pretty tough order.”

“You won’t call a doctor? Even if she gets worse?”

“We’ll do what we can,” he said. “You think we’d stand around and let the kid get real sick?” Duke put his big hands on her shoulders. “Don’t you worry, it’s going to be all right.”

Hank saw her stiffen at his touch, and he felt the heat of anger in his own cheeks.

“You’re what the doctor would order anyway,” Duke said, smiling down at her pale face. “The kid’s lucky to have you. I’ll bet you’re great with babies.”

“She may be awake now.” She attempted to turn but he held her easily with his big hands.

“You’ll hear her if she wakes up,” he said.

“Please let me go.”

“Why sure,” Duke said, grinning into the revealing anger in his brother’s eyes. “You got to go, you got to go.” He tightened his grip slightly, not to hurt her, but to let her feel the power in his hands. When he released her she stood quietly for a moment, rubbing her shoulders with the tips of her fingers, and then she turned and walked quickly from the kitchen. The two brothers watched each other in silence as she crossed the living room and started upstairs. When they heard the click of her heels above their heads, Duke shook his head and began to laugh. “Kid, forgive me, but it’s pretty funny. You’ve fallen for her! Boom! Like that!” He struck the table with the flat of his hand. “You’re ready to bump your forehead on the floor when she walks by — and for what? A couple of soulful looks. Is that all?”

Hank shrugged lightly. “She’s nice-looking, or hadn’t you noticed?”

“You’re pretty casual about it. You got used to dames in the army, eh?”

“As a matter of fact she reminds me of an old friend of yours.”

“Yeah? Who’s that?”

“Jo Reynolds.”

“Must be a couple of other people.”

“You don’t remember Jo?” Hank watched his brother with a little smile. “She had dark hair and a fair complexion. Just like this girl. You must remember her, Duke. Someone slapped her around pretty badly one night behind the football stadium. You can’t forget the row that caused. Her old man had the police on it for months.”

“Oh, that girl,” Duke said slowly.

“Sure, you know her. You used to try to date her, I think.”

Duke’s face had gone dark and hard. “Let’s forget about old times, and the kids from Big Springs,” he said. “This is now. And I got advice for you. Lay off this girl. A long way off. This is your big brother, Duke, talking, so you better listen.”

Hank shrugged again and put a cigarette in his mouth. Starting at his brother’s strangely troubled eyes, he thought: Will I be able to kill him if I get another chance?