The Twenty-Seventh City : A Novel

6

Singh was all smiles; like a boy inventor, he’d used the word “results” a dozen times in half an hour. Blinking the eternal clove smoke from his eyes, he pressed the Rewind button on the tape deck, puffed, and tapped his ash onto Jammu’s office carpeting. With a lazy toe he smeared the ash to dust. He had just played, for Jammu, the scene of the arrival of Luisa Probst at the apartment of her boyfriend Duane Thompson, and then the recording of a phone call shortly following her arrival: an exchange between Thompson and Barbara Probst. “Tell her I called,” Barbara had said. “She does have our number, I believe. And if you change your mind about tomorrow, just come on over. We’d like to have you.”

Jammu had bitten off so much thumbnail that it seemed only a single layer of cells kept the red flesh from bleeding. Though not intense, the pain was like an itch, inviting aggravation. She pressed the rough end of the nail into the exposed flesh and felt the pressure far away, in her anus.

She’d never heard Barbara Probst’s voice before, or any local voice that sounded so aware of the wiretap and so contemptuous of its presence. The voice was controlled and dispassionate, its tones unmelodious but pure, as if in the woman’s throat there were a low-pass filter that eliminated the overtones, the rasp and tremor, the nasals, flutter, fear. The clarity made Jammu anxious. Not once in five months had she considered that there might be hidden elements of control in St. Louis, that behind Martin Probst there might stand not a twangy Bunny or a vapid Biz but a woman with a voice like her own. How could a voice like Barbara’s restrict itself to speaking only on domestic issues? It was impossible. In the recorded conversation Jammu could hear the workings of an undercover operation dedicated to the preservation of order. The girl wouldn’t come to the phone, but the mother assured the boyfriend, in phrases lulling and impersonal, that everything was fine. It was clear that St. Louis had Thought Police, and that Singh, with bizarre blitheness, had flushed out the voice of a master agent.

“Get any sleep last night?” Singh asked.

“Don’t ever play that voice for me again.”

The tape ran off the take-up reel. “Barbara’s? You should have heard her before she—”

“Never again, do you understand?”

It was Thanksgiving morning. At three o’clock Jammu was due at the mayor’s brownstone for dinner, a tête-à-tête for which she’d planned to spend these hours preparing. Already she could see that she wouldn’t have time even to brush her teeth beforehand, let alone pick out clothes. No doubt she’d end up going in her stretched cardigan and a drab wool skirt.

Singh cleared his throat. “As I was about to say—”

“What’s the Bonfire?”

He sighed. “Not important.”

“Who’s Stacy?”

“Last name Montefusco. A little friend of Luisa’s. She’s been lying for her.”

“Where does Thompson live?”

“University City.”

“How will she get to school if she stays with him?”

“Bus, I guess.”

Jammu nodded. “You guess. The director of Bi-State owes me one. If you think she needs a bus line to the high school, just tell me.”

“Thanks. There’s a good connection. She’s been taking a bus at night to sleep with him. Since the twenty-second of October they’ve had intercourse eleven times. On five of those occasions she was able to spend the night. Once outside during the daytime, the remaining five times in the evening, in his apartment.”

“Thank you for counting, Singh. I respect your thoroughness. But why didn’t she tell Barbara to begin with? If she’d told her, she wouldn’t have had to sneak around, or run away. How did you manage to set it up this way?”

“How did I set it up?”

“Yes.”

“The deceptions started slowly,” Singh said. “There was a conversation — November eight. Evening. Luisa, and Barbara, who tried to draw her out and overdid the ‘cool’ bit. I could understand the girl’s response.”

“Which was?”

“Heavy sigh. As if it were too late to start explaining. So she lied. Only-children sometimes feel oppressed and very often they’re duplicitous. They have no sibling rivals. Luisa doesn’t have to worry about losing favor, so she goes ahead and takes exactly what she wants. She’s also going through a typical adolescent rebellion.”

“So the family is less happy than it looked.” Jammu smiled wanly. “Who is Duane Thompson?”

“You don’t know?”

“You haven’t told me, I’ve been busy, how should I know?”

“But surely you’ve seen his pictures?”

“Don’t treat me like a baby, Singh. I’ve seen his pictures. But who is he? How well do you know him?”

Singh rolled a chair up against Jammu’s desk, sat down, and looked across the papers at her. “Not at all. Never met him. He has no connection with us—‘no taint.’ Luisa knew him from school. It came as a rude shock, because I’d spent an entire week setting her up to meet me—”

“For you to seduce.”

“Correct.”

“Good.” Jammu liked to see her employees planning in accordance with their capacities. Singh was seductive, and she was glad he knew enough to exploit it.

“I lured her to a bar, and she came alone, which was gratifying. Unfortunately I’d stepped into the bathroom when she arrived. When I came out she was talking to Thompson. They stuck together. I had no chance. And forty-eight hours later they—”

“Were having intercourse, yes. Why did you step into the bathroom?”

“It was an error.”

Interesting. Singh didn’t usually make errors like that. He had bladder control. “I ask again,” Jammu said. “Who’s Thompson?”

“A youth. Unrelated to us, apart from the fact that I got him his photo job.”

“When?”

“The same night they met.”

“Why?”

“When a man wins a million dollars, he kisses the first person he sees.”

“So I take it you weren’t opposed to their liaison.”

Singh smiled. “I wasn’t looking forward to the mechanics. Your dictum, Chief. Nothing fancy. An affair with a local boy was clearly preferable. A matter of verisimilitude. If I take credit for the results, it’s only because I did get her to the bar. And she met him there.”

“If you didn’t know him before that night, how did you know he had pictures to sell the Post?”

“I eavesdropped. Thompson was whining about it. I left, confirmed the story at the Post, and — forged ahead.”

“Amazingly quick thinking. Will she go home again?”

“Judge for yourself. To me it sounded as if she was making plans for an extended stay.”

“Are there precedents for this? Sociologically?”

“Yes and no. No, it isn’t normal for ‘better-class’ girls, or boys, to move out of their homes while they’re still in high school. Certainly Probst thinks it’s abnormal. On the other hand, Barbara is at pains to accept it. Her niece — Ripley’s daughter — moved out at age fifteen. She had a clinical problem, of course,” Singh added, “but there is a precedent in the family.”

“She’ll be homesick. She’ll be back in a week.”

“I agree it’s difficult to imagine her missing the ‘holidays.’ But she may very well hold out until then. She has her pride. She’s been away before, in France. I’d guess a month. Thirty days. That gives us time.”

“Time for what?”

“Well, assuming that the State is developing—”

“You’ve given me no evidence to suggest that it is.”

“Well, naturally, the signs are small. But I assume they’re significant, what with Probst having lost both his dog and his daughter. As early as October twenty-four — but not before, not in the September recordings — I picked up a line like this from Barbara: What’s wrong with you? You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”

“From Barbara,” Jammu repeated grimly.

“And he’s begun to sermonize with Luisa. It sounds a bit mad when he does it — speaks of ‘opportunity’ and ‘self-discipline.’ Masterpieces of irrelevance. He isn’t paying attention. Other men talk about him — they even set him up in opposition to you, as if already there are, de facto, two camps, yours and his. And I listen to him every day, I listen for an awareness of what you’re doing to the city, for a leaning one way or the other, any glimmering of historical consciousness — and there’s nothing. Zero. This could be last year, or the year before that. Your name simply isn’t spoken, except to tell someone else to forget about you. It isn’t unreasonable to believe we’re getting results.”

Jammu gave Singh a long, hard look. “And how, exactly, are you planning to get him to start working for us? What is the next step you plan to take?”

“We should go for the kill right away,” Singh replied. “Someone from your syndicate should approach him. Mayor Wesley, for example. Sometime before Luisa gets homesick — sometime in the next month — Wesley should hit Probst hard. To begin with, Probst is in trouble with Westhaven. Wesley can play on this, if you think he’s capable. He should press urban rejuvenation, the forces that lead to new growth, new solidarity. But keep your name out of it, and nothing explicit about the city-county merger either. Let Probst draw that conclusion himself.”

“So basically you’re saying that Probst is in the State and will be susceptible to our suggestions.”

“Basically, yes. It’s a situation waiting for him to walk into. He’s been sleeping on a train. You wake him up, tell him he’s in Warsaw. He’ll start speaking Polish.”

“Assuming he knows the language.” Jammu twisted in her chair to see the wall clock. It was noon. “Prepare an abstract,” she said. “I’m seeing Wesley at three so I’ll need it by two. Not that I’m certain your plan is even close to being acceptable.” She fed some notes to her shredder, by way of illustration. “You say Probst hardly knows my name. What do you expect me to do, congratulate you for that? You say he’s vague and irrelevant when he talks to his daughter. To me it sounds like he’s an ordinary father. You say that killing his dog and making his daughter run away from home hasn’t bothered him. Well? Perhaps he’s a thick-skinned individual. You say he lacks historical consciousness. May I ask what St. Louisan doesn’t? What you have painted, Singh, is a portrait of a man in excellent mental health.”

Singh had assumed an expression of dignified deafness that was reminiscent of Karam Bhandari. Jammu went on.

“You say Probst isn’t on good terms with Barbara. But maybe that’s only on the surface. She sounds like she still must be a force. Maybe she pays attention for him. She sounds like a bad person for him to rely on. I want him hearing my voice, the voice of what I’m doing. Not hers.”

“Go see him.”

“No time. Not yet. I’d need a pretext.”

“Well.” From his shirt pocket Singh produced an unusually fat-looking clove cigarette. He inspected it and put it back. “If Probst is by some chance not yet in the State, there’s more that can be done. I can step in and get Barbara any time. The groundwork is laid. But I’d prefer to hold off until we’ve seen how Probst reacts to Wesley. I recommend that you brief Wesley soon, in case Probst comes to see him of his own accord. Then if he hasn’t by the fourteenth, you can ask Wesley to approach him after Municipal Growth.”

“All right.” Jammu rose from her chair. “Bring me an abstract at home, by two.”

Barbara returned to pulling tendons with the pliers. In the stumps of the turkey’s legs there were tiny white eyes. She pressed down on the pink tissue surrounding one of them, worked the pliers into an acceptable grip, and began to tug. The phone rang. She lost her grip.

“You son of a bitch.”

She took hold of the tendon again and tugged hard as the phone rang a second and third time.

“If that’s Audrey…”

Abruptly the tendon ripped loose and slithered out, lavender and rigid like a hard-on, and trailing a maroon feather of flesh. She grabbed a dishtowel, a clean one, and rubbed the grease off her hands. She took the phone.

“Hello,” she said.

There was a silence, and she knew right away who it was.

“Oh baby, hi,” she said. “Where are you?”

“I’m at Duane’s.” The voice was very small.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.” The volume surged, as if the line had cleared. “YES. HOW ARE YOU?”

“We’re fine. Daddy just left for the football game. I’m putting together the turkey. It’s a big one. You and Duane want to come over?”

After a silence, Luisa said, “No.” Her throat clicked.

“That’s OK, you don’t have to. I just thought — was I that horrible to you?”

“Doe.” There was a long sniff. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry, then. I’m truly sorry. Will you forgive me sometime?” Barbara listened to her daughter cry. “Oh baby, what? Do you want me to come over? I can come right over.”

“Doe.”

“No, OK. You know I worry about you.”

The turkey, which had been propped against the faucet, slid with a slap to the bottom of the sink.

“Is Duane making you a nice dinner?”

“Yes. A chicken. He’s stuffing it.” Luisa swallowed. “In the kitchen.”

“We had a really nice talk last night—”

“That’s what he said.”

“He was really charming, I’d love to meet him sometime. I had—”

“I’ll call you back, OK?”

The line went dead.

Barbara looked around as if awakening, and it was morning, very bright. She hoisted the turkey back up onto its rubbery wings and found another tendon. The phone rang.

“Can I come and get some clothes tomorrow?”

Since parking promised to be a problem, Probst was walking to the football game. From the chimneys of houses on Baker Avenue, smoke rose a few feet and hooked down, as it cooled, to collect in bluish pools above the lawns. There was no light inside the little stores on Big Bend Boulevard — Porter Paints, Kaegel Drug, the sci-fi bookshop — to compete with the bright sunshine on their windows, but Schnucks, the supermarket, was still doing business. Probst stopped in to buy the pint of heavy cream that Barbara had asked for. Then he joined the stream of fans issuing from the bowels of Webster Groves.

There was a throng at the gates of Moss Field. The Visitors bleachers were packed with red-clad Pioneer fans, and the home stands, much larger, were also nearly full. Under the press box sat the Webster Groves Marching Statesmen, their brass bells and silver keys gleaming in the sun. Probst found a cozy seat near the south end of the stands, by the southern end zone, three rows from the top. To his right was a group of girls in tattered blue jeans, smoking cigarettes, and to his left was a rosy-cheeked couple in their forties, wearing orange. He felt anonymous and secure.

“Are you for Webster?” asked the woman on his left. Mrs. Orange.

“Yes.” Probst smiled courteously.

“So are we.”

He nodded in a manner indicating that he hadn’t come to the game to talk with strangers, and let the bag with the heavy cream in it slide between his hands and knees to the tier of concrete on which the bench rested. Up at the doors to the swimming pool locker rooms, where the teams were suiting up, students swarmed purposefully, as if some quality item were being handed out for free inside. Down by the field the Statesmen cheerleaders, a dozen girls in ivory-colored skirts and sweaters, began a cheer:

Probst scanned the faces around him in search of Luisa, but he was certain she wasn’t here. He wondered if she might be at the Washington U. game, sitting with Duane Thompson. Barbara made much of the fact that Duane went to Washington U.; she liked to inflate the worth of whichever boy Luisa happened at the moment to hold stock in. Probst wasn’t fooled. It was clear to him that a girl who jumped out bathroom windows had a vision of her future radically different from the one he himself had entertained. As far as he was concerned, Thompson could be a total dropout.

A great roar greeted the Pioneers as they trundled, like Marines, down the stairs to the playing field. A greater roar erupted when the Statesmen followed. Mr. and Mrs. Orange leaped to their feet, fists clenched and arms outstretched. “All right!” they yelled. Everybody stood up. Probst stood up.

Kirkwood won the toss, and a Pioneer receiver, a loping black youth, took the kickoff at the 10-yard line. At the 35 one of the Statesmen tripped him from behind, sending him in a cartwheeling somersault to land, gruesomely, on his head. The ball squirted out of bounds.

“All right! All right! All right!” the Oranges yelled. There was a queasy silence in the Kirkwood stands. The trainer and coaches ran to look after the fallen runner, who writhed on his back.

“ALL RIGHT!” the Oranges bellowed. Probst gave them a critical glance. Coarse blond hair clung to their heads like wigs, and the orange Webster jerseys they were wearing heightened the impression of fakeness. The woman’s cheeks were scarlet, her lips blue and retracted. The husband’s head swiveled back and forth as the Statesmen cheerleaders started up a new chant—

— an incongruous message, since the Pioneers had just lost one of their better players. The trainer and coaches were carrying him towards the sidelines on a stretcher.

After two losses and an incomplete pass, Kirkwood had to punt. The Statesmen took over at their own 20-yard line, and Probst was happy to immerse himself in the game, to count downs in his head and watch the line of scrimmage ebb and flow. He was happy not to be at home. At home, the night before, Barbara had given him the distinct impression that she expected him to take some kind of action regarding Luisa. He was an active businessman, wasn’t be? Be firm with her! Be hurt! Go get her! Or at least comfort your wife…But action was impossible. Luisa made him angry like a woman, not a daughter. As he lay awake in bed a single thought monopolized his mind: I have the strength not to be selfish and deceitful while she, apparently, does not. And it was clear that Barbara, lying next to him, didn’t want to hear about this. “She’s only known Duane a month,” she said. “I’m sure he’s OK, though. I can’t blame this on him. You know Luisa. She wouldn’t be there if she didn’t want to be…Oh Martin, this just tears me apart.”

Probst did not know Luisa. He began to stroke Barbara’s hair.

The Oranges sprang to their feet. “ALL RIGHT! ALL RIGHT!”

A referee thrust his arms in the air and the Marching Statesmen struck up the school song. A touchdown. How wonderful.

Deducing that he loved her, or overlooking his gall in desiring her if he didn’t, Barbara had reached down with her cold, strong fingers and adjusted the angle of his penis, leading him in. “I’ll call Lu tomorrow,” he lied in a whisper. She turned her head away from him. Her mouth was opening. He increased his pressure, and then, glimpsing her teeth, he remembered a late afternoon in September. A Friday. A van with a bad muffler driving down Sherwood Drive. Dozer, his three-year-old retriever, chasing it. Dozer who never chased things. A thud and a yelp. The driver didn’t stop, probably didn’t even know he’d hit something. Probst knelt in the street. Dozer was dead, and his teeth, the incisors and canines and molars, were grinning in bitter laughter, and his body was hot and heavy, his splintered ribs sharp, as Probst picked him up. The embrace was terrible. He hurried to get home, pushing, pushing, pushing, but it was too late: Dozer had become evil, staring in a crazy angle at the ground, which rose up mechanically to meet his feet. He dropped him on the grass. Eventually Barbara lost her patience, shed him roughly, and rolled away.

The Statesmen were lined up for another kickoff. Mrs. Orange clutched her husband’s arm and looked around pugnaciously at Probst and the people behind him, as if they didn’t deserve to live in Webster if they wouldn’t even stand up for a kickoff.

Kirkwood took the touchback and started at the 20-yard line. On the very first play the stands exploded in confetti and streamers. A Statesman safety had picked off a pass and run it all the way back for a touchdown. Mrs. Orange seemed ripped by convulsions. “ALL RIGHT! ALL RIGHT! ALL RIGHT! ALL RIGHT!”

Probst decided he’d had enough. He rose determinedly. “ALL RIGHT!” He pushed past knees and elbows, hurrying. “ALL RIGHT!” The cry was fainter now. He reached the end of the row and descended to the black cinder track. There he realized, from the lightness of his hands, that he’d left the heavy cream under the bench.

“Hey Martin!”

It was Norm Hoelzer, sitting in the second row. Hoelzer was a local small-timer. Kitchens and bathrooms. “Well hi,” Probst said.

“Some game, isn’t it?”

“Oh. It’s…” He didn’t know what it was.

“You here with Barbara?”

How dare Hoelzer know his wife’s first name?

He shook his head: no, he wasn’t here with Barbara. Hoelzer’s wife’s name was Bonnie. Grew roses. Probst forced his way through a group of boys in letter jackets.

“Hey Martin!” A hand waved from deep in the stands. Joe Farrell. Here with what looked to be his daughter and son-in-law. “Well hi,” Probst said. (At this distance Farrell of course couldn’t hear him.) He kept walking. It was a tight squeeze, with the cheerleaders taking up half the track, and fans, mostly kids, lining the cable between the cheerleaders and the Statesman benches. “Hey Martin!” another voice called from the stands. Probst — well hi! — ignored it. “Martin!” The noise, after all, was terrific. Cheers came in sheets, like the avalanching calls of katydids. Most of the cheerleaders were idle at the moment, but a few of them did flying dutchmen out of sheer high spirits. How splendidly these girls were built. Probst followed a man in a wool coat slowly, content for once to proceed at the going speed.

“Martin!” A large hand gripped his arm. The man in the wool coat had turned around, and when Probst saw his face his heart sank. It was Jack DuChamp, his old friend from high school. Probst hadn’t seen him in a good ten years.

“I wondered who was stepping on my heels!” Jack grabbed Probst’s other arm and beamed at him.

“Well!” Probst said. He didn’t know what else to say.

“I should have guessed you wouldn’t miss this game,” Jack said.

“I’d missed it for a couple of years in a row, actually.”

Jack nodded, not hearing him. “I was going to get a Coke, but the lines were too long. Do you want to come sit with me?”

The invitation closed on Probst like a bear trap on his leg. Sitting in the stands with Jack DuChamp — reminiscing about their South Side youth, comparing their utterly divergent careers — was the last thing in the world he felt like doing.

“Well!” he said again.

“Or are you here with people?”

“No, yes, I—” The look of entreaty on Jack’s face was more than Probst could stand. He’d spent too large a part of his life with Jack to be able to lie easily. “No,” he said, “I came alone. Where are you sitting?”

Jack pointed towards the north end of the field and laughed. “In the three-dollar seats!”

Probst heard himself chuckle.

“Jesus, Martin, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” Jack held his arm. They were climbing into the stands.

“It must be ten years.” Instantly Probst regretted having named the actual figure.

“We keep seeing your name in the paper, though…”

From the field Probst heard the wordless exertions of another play, the accidental grunts, rising cheers and tearing fabric. Jack DuChamp had moved his family to Webster Groves about the same time Probst and Barbara had moved there. Unfortunately, the house Jack bought was soon condemned to make room for Interstate 44, and the only houses for sale in Webster at the time were well beyond his price range. So he moved his family to Crestwood, a new town, a new school district, and Probst, whose company held the I-44 demolition contracts and did the actual razing of the houses, felt responsible. As a matter of fact, he felt guilty.

“Aren’tcha?” Jack had stopped halfway up the long stairs and was surveying the crowd to their right.

“Beg pardon?” Probst said.

“I said you’re just the same.”

“No.”

“You always did have your head in the clouds.”

“What?”

“Excuse us,” Jack said. A young family in tartan stood up to let them by. Probst tried to keep his eyes on his feet, but the dark space beneath the bench reminded him uncomfortably of the heavy cream. He wondered how few minutes he could get away with staying before he left again. Would five suffice? Five minutes to atone for a decade of silence?

Jack stopped. “Martin, this is Billy Wonder, friend of mine. Bill-y, this is Martin Probst, a very old friend of mine. He, uh—”

“Sure!” A large-boned man with buck teeth sprang to his feet. “Sure. Sure! This is quite an honor!” He took Probst’s hand and shook it vigorously.

“Didn’t catch your name,” Probst said.

“Sure! Windell, Bill Windell. Glad to know you.”

Probst stared at the buck teeth.

“Can we make some room here?” Jack said. Windell pulled Probst into a narrow space on the bench. Jack sat down fussily on his right with an air of mission accomplished. Windell slapped a pocket flask in a leather case against Probst’s chest. “Never touch the stuff! A ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” He drove his elbow into Probst’s left biceps.

“Bill’s my boss,” Jack explained.

“You’d never guess it to see us at work,” Windell said.

“Don’t you believe it.” Jack reached across Probst’s lap and unscrewed the cap of the pocket flask. “He’s done one-forty all by himself.”

“Hundred thirty maybe.” Windell gave Probst a big, practiced wink, and Probst, not bothering to wonder what in hell the two of them were talking about, was filled with the certainty that Windell was a scoutmaster. His eyes, which were blue, had a milkiness that often showed up in men charged with instilling moral values. Furthermore, he had a crewcut. “So: Martin Probst.” Windell sucked his teeth and nodded philosophically.

Probst had no place to put his elbows. He tilted the flask to his lips, intending to take a polite sip. He gagged. It was apricot brandy. Elbows almost knocking on his lap, he passed the flask to Jack, who shook his head. “Thanks. Too early in the day for me.”

He tried to return it to Windell, but Windell said, “No, be my guest.”

Probst took a long swig, wiped his mouth, and looked at Jack for the cap to the flask. Jack didn’t seem to have it. Probst noticed it below him at his feet and reached down, but his legs straightened as he bent, pushing it over the edge of their tier and underneath the bleacher in front of them. He dropped into a squat, groping down.

“Don’t. Here — no,” Jack said. “I’ll get it.”

“No, no. Here.” Probst stretched until his fingers reached the ground, then unexpectedly he tipped backwards, landing on his butt in the shade of the fans, who were leaping to their feet in response to something on the field. The cold penetrated his pants, but he was more comfortable down here. His hand traveled far, searching for the cap. It came upon a sneaker and backed away over the coarse, damp concrete, and then ran into something soft — an apple core. Screams rode the chafed air. The space was too narrow for him to see what he was doing. He groped further, sensing Windell’s scoutmasterly gaze. Probst and Jack had been Scouts together, often tentmates, all the way up through Eagledom.

Well hi! The cap. He’d found the cap. His hand closed around it. He struggled up. “I think I’d better be going,” he said.

A forlorn sound creaked out of Jack. “Nih.”

“At least stay for the half,” Windell said.

Probst remembered the peculiar power Jack could wield, the whirlpool of guilt into which he could drag his more successful friend. “How much time is left?” he asked.

“Four minutes,” Jack said reproachfully.

A messy running play expired in front of them. The score was still 13–0. Probst turned to Windell. “So, uh, where do you live, Bill?” He already knew roughly what Windell did, he being Jack’s boss and Jack being in middle management at Sears.

“We’ve been living in West County for six years.” Windell gave a laugh.

What was so funny about that?

“I see. Whereabouts?”

“Ballwin, Cedar Hill Drive. Not far from whatchamacallit. West—”

“Haven. Westhaven.”

“That’s the place. We’re about a mile east of there. I’m always driving by it. See your name a lot.”

“Yeah.” Probst sighed.

“It looks like some project.”

“The foundations alone are twenty-five acres.”

“Huh.” Windell stared at the field, where penalty flags had been dropped. Jack was sitting on his hands, apparently content to let Probst’s presence speak for itself. His nose was red. Small brushes of straight gray hair sheltered his ears.

“But it must be a long commute for you,” Probst said.

“Hm? Oh. Not too bad. It’s something you get used to.”

“Well, if we keep on building like this in West County, you’ll be sitting pretty. Who knows, maybe Sears will move its headquarters out there.”

“Sears?”

“I,” Probst said. “I thought you worked for Sears.”

“No. I’ve been with Penney since I was, God, twenty. But Jack worked for Sears. He came over to us five years ago.”

Jack sniffed and swallowed. He didn’t seem to be listening, but after a few seconds, without looking at them, he said, “That’s right,” in a loud, deep voice.

“We’ve—” Probst felt that he was going to pop like a balloon if he had to sit here a minute longer. “We’ve been pretty out of touch since Jack left Webster—”

“Oh! Way to go!” Windell shouted, interrupting him.

“What a game,” Jack agreed.

This was the moment Probst had been waiting for. He stood up quickly. “That’s it for me,” he said. “Bill, it’s nice meeting you. If you’re ever by Westhaven, one of my men will be glad to show you around. And Jack, you and I—” Escape was so close he could taste it. He looked down at Jack, who had raised his chin but wouldn’t meet his eyes. “We’ll have to get together sometime.” He clapped Jack lightly on the shoulder and started moving away.

“Martin!” Jack said suddenly. “It looks like I’ve got an extra ticket to the Big Red game on Sunday. Next week. Bill here’s got a camp-out with his Scouts, and—”

Probst turned back, feeling his face light up. “You’re a scoutmaster?”

“It’s the very least an old sinner can do for the world,” said Bill, who was not old, and seemed sinless.

“—the Redskins,” Jack was saying. “We could catch up a little, get a bite to eat before—”

“Sure, yes, fine,” Probst said, still staring at Bill.

Rolf Ripley liked a girl with pluck, and Devi, his latest acquisition, had it. Last night in her suite at the airport Marriott, she’d told him his nose was redder than a souse’s.

“A souse’s, luv? Do let’s let Rolf give us a good spank.”

“And you’ll start to cough,” she said.

“That won’t happen, luv. I don’t get coughs.”

“No?”

“No,” he said. “I’ve learned from decades of experimentation to sleep with my head flat on the mattress. That way, the what the devil d’you call it — the mucus—stays where it belongs. No cough.”

Devi laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“A cold doesn’t spread through mucus. It spreads through blood.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I heard it on the radio.”

“Then why, pray tell, do I not get coughs?”

“Your body must be as stupid as your brain!”

She was a gem, a gem. And when he wanted to change key, he simply pushed a pedal: “Take it back.”

“I take it back.”

He’d never had another quite like her. All the dishes in his past, the Tricias and Maudes and Amandas, the sex piglets and Dallas snobs and randy undergrads, the mute tarts, corporate wives and gold-digging salesclerks, banquet favors, cynical secretaries and door-to-door sluts: all paled before Devi. Even the few he’d had in London and New York were not the real item, but imports, farm-girls at heart, sinning venally, not mortally. Men from the capitals never shared their finest stock, and though Rolf was in all ways their superior, Fate had consigned him to Saint Louis. Oh, the Saint Louis girls! God knew, Rolf had tried his Pygmalion best to teach them; still they remained porcine and drawling. They couldn’t hold a candle to Devi. She was his aesthetic fulfillment, teachable and teaching, as sharp as the glitter city Bombay and, in her docility, older than the Old World, an object to rut on and an angel to frame. In fact, he damn near loved her, and if she weren’t an Indian he might have gone further and made himself her fool. But he was at pains to be careful. For not only was Devi in cahoots with S. Jammu and Princess Asha Hammaker but she was dreadfully indiscreet. Among the tidbits she had dropped were the facts that Jammu was angling for the affections of the mayor; that Asha, whose fortune was made now, was pursuing Buzz Wismer as well; and that both these South Asian lovelies were intent upon staging a real-estate panic in the ghetto. Interesting.

As for cars, he liked ’em small and fast. His Lotus whisked him home from the Marriott for a long winter’s nap, and on Thanksgiving Day his Ferrari whisked him and Audreykins to the Club for civilized noontime drinks and a brief show of holiday propriety. He was a family man, after all. It wouldn’t do to take Devi to the Club. There were too many stockholders at the bar, and Rolf of late had grown a tad fanatical about his stockholders. For the first time in years, his finances were iffy. If one of the club members downing toddies were to lose confidence in Rolf’s good judgment, why then the next member might, too, and the next, and the next, and soon the NYSE, and Rolf might find himself producing neither toaster-ovens nor inertial guidance systems, and headquartered in neither the county nor the city, and living permanently in Barbados or Lincolnshire, not Ladue. It was better not to bring Devi. These codgers liked Audreykins, and why not?

Chester (3.7 %) Murphy ambled over and confessed that Audreykins looked lovely today, as indeed she almost did, despite the fact the Armani she wore was made for a woman with a third shoulder somewhere in the vicinity of her fifth vertebra. Leaving the room to allow her and Chester to converse about Peace, Hope and Charity, Rolf placed an amorous call to Devi’s suite at the Marriott. He finished by smothering the receiver, still warm from the last caller’s breath, with kisses. When he returned he saw Audreykins absorbing the wise words of the Baseball Star, who was wearing a green blazer just a shade lighter than the one Rolf himself had on, and what with the Star being chums with Julian (5.5 %) Woolman and Chuck (major creditor) Meisner, he found it expedient to visit the bar for a refill. Drown a fever, drown a cold. He had a nasty sensation of having inhaled water. Repeated doses of The Glenlivet were the only sure cure. His muscles ached less when steeped in spirits, though his sense of blame still throbbed. This cold was the fault of Audreykins. Two weeks ago she’d been a regular snot factory, specially diligent on the night shift, and had sniffed and sniffed and sniffled, always as though she were blubbering. Barbie, it seemed, had infected her. Rolf observed that her Armani’s third shoulder had migrated into the region of her right armpit. Dear child. The Club buzzed timelessly in the afternoon sun.

“How are you feeling?” Audreykins asked an hour later, as they zipped through the cheesy business district of Webster Groves.

“Rummy, thanks,” he said.

“Too bad,” she said unkindly.

“Oh, it isn’t the cold,” he lied. “It’s the thought of another meal with Martin and Barbie and the brat.” Climbing into fourth gear for the big curve in Lockwood Avenue, he was gratified to see her foot press down on an imaginary brake. “I suppose,” he went on, “I ought to count my bloody blessings your folks are in Pago Pago.”

“I don’t see why you bring this up now. We could have gone to the Club.”

“Except then Martin would have said, ‘Uh, how about the Saint Louis Club instead? Uh, they’ve got a, uh, traditional dinner. Uh, goose, turkey, the works. Ya interested?’” Martin thought the new Saint Louis Club was the smartest place in town. Rolf did a deadly impression of Martin.

“And it’s New Zealand, not Pago Pago.”

“Mea culpa.” He glanced to his left and caught a glimpse of Sherwood Drive, fast receding. “Dash it all, why didn’t you say something?”

“Mm?” she said.

Rolf scowled. Of course she hadn’t said anything. She gave him no help. “We’ll just have to turn around then, won’t we?” Thirty yards past the railroad bridge he swung over the left-hand curb with a well-absorbed shock. Gunning the engine, he threw the Ferrari into second gear and spurted across the median. The tires grabbed the pavement. The car tore off again under the bridge and up Sherwood Drive, while Audreykins shook like a leaf.

She fairly ran up the brick walk to the Probsts’ front door. Rolf consulted his Tourneau. Twenty to four. He hadn’t intended to arrive so punctually. Audreykins aimed a few girlish taps at the front door (“It’s only us!”) and Martin must have seen them coming, because the door swung right open. He beckoned them inside, took Audreykins’s hand, and, smiling with admiration, planted a kiss on her cheek. He turned. “Rolf. Afternoon.” He wore a bright red sweater and dark plaid pants.

“Good to see you, Martin.” It was! Martin looked dashed bad, his eyes pinched and his hair full of lumps. Rolf felt better already.

Audreykins was speaking in a low voice to Barbie, and when Rolf saw them side by side his spirits dipped again. His wife paled when she stood beside her sister. He pushed her away and leaned to receive Barbie’s kiss. “Barbara, dear.” He gave her a short, strategic squeeze in the hindquarters.

“Jesus Christ!”

He straightened. “Pardon me?”

“Rolf, here, let me take your coat.” Martin was pestering his shoulders, and he shrugged the coat off. Barbie was the girl with pluck. He had the wrong sister.

The women beat an effortless retreat to the kitchen. Martin was having inordinate trouble stuffing the coats into the closet, where Rolf recognized jackets dating back to the mid-sixties. One shiny gold anorak in particular caught his eye. The Martian Look. Martin the Martian. “Those old jackets do eat up the space, what?” he said meanly.

Martin gave up, leaving Rolf’s coat and muffler draped broadside over the others, and hastily shut the door.

They repaired to the living room and stopped by the fireplace, where kindling crackled beneath sodden logs. A draft brushed Rolf’s knees. Martin and Barbara had redecorated this room since he saw it in August, and why they hadn’t gone ahead and put in carpeting was beyond his comprehension. It was as comfortable as a bloody cathedral. Martin prodded the fire with a poker. Sunlight, tinted green by encroaching ivy, showed up streaks and spatters on the row of leaded windows in the long western wall. Beneath them was a window seat with lime-colored cushions, and to Rolf’s right was the piano, which Barbie could play with less precision and more feeling than Audreykins. Barbie had clearly had complete control of the redecoration. On the wall above the sofa, where Martin would have hung mail-order prints of pheasants and setters, she’d installed a series of three outsized still lifes, all by the same fellow. The paintings dominated the room. The first was a pineapple that had been split in two; the rind was gabardine, the meat a yellow tulle. In the second were bananas, fat portentous nanners on a sea of grays and whites, and in the third, a — what? A kiwi fruit. Quartered and emerald, with dark speckles, it looked like an animal from the ocean. He regarded the three paintings somberly. It was cold and glum in here. He felt unwell.

Martin clapped the dust and ashes off his hands, and Rolf closed his eyes. The man was going to ask him how business was. Invariably the crass ass inquired about business. He waited. The question didn’t come. He opened his eyes and saw Martin frowning.

“Had a pleasant day?” Rolf asked, certain he hadn’t.

“Went to the Webster-Kirkwood game, that’s about all.”

“Luisa took you?”

Martin coughed and his face grew still more sour. “No. She’s gone for the weekend.”

“Not coming tonight? That’s a pity.”

“What can I get you, Rolf?”

“Scotch if you have it, Martin.” As if he might not.

Martin marched away and returned moments later with refreshments. He raised his glass. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Yes indeed.” Rolf turned to the dismal fireplace. One of the logs groaned. “Charming fire you have here.”

“Barbara made it,” Martin said, deadpan.

“Where are the girls?”

“They are in the kitchen.”

“And Luisa?”

“She’s spending the weekend with her boyfriend.”

Rolf looked up from his glass. Martin’s eyes were glassy. “I confess that I’m surprised, Martin.”

“Let’s go watch some football, Rolf.”

“Really quite surprised.”

They left the living room and watched football. Martin refused to acknowledge that Rolf was sick. Not that Rolf needed sympathy, but in the family room, while hominid Bears clashed with hominid Jets, he began to feel as though he really did belong in bed with his heating pad, a bottle of cheer, and the telly tuned in to the most explicit of the cable channels. Football was not his cup of tea. Down the hall in the kitchen the girls twittered ad nauseam, and the setting sun cast a spindly claustrophobic sort of light through the windows. All at once the light blinked out. It was night, though somehow the sky above Chicago was still glowing, the clouds still pink and violet. Had the game been taped? Rolf sank deeper and deeper into the corduroy-covered easy chair. A beastly spot of itch was developing in his chest. He coughed.

“You have a cold?” Martin was watching him severely.

He attempted a smile but saw that he was only being told to cover his mouth. “Yes.” He projected a full-bellied cough in Martin’s direction.

Audreykins appeared in the doorway, her third shoulder now an extra breast, and announced dinner. Rolf guessed it must be at least eight o’clock. He looked at his watch. Five-thirty! This house was hell.

Barbie had laid out a goodly spread, however. The turkey rested on a platter in front of Martin’s chair, and on the white tablecloth were silver bowls and trays stocked with yams, peas and hominy, mushroom-studded stuffing, steaming gravy, an unidentifiable whitish something, and craggy mashed potatoes. A bottle of superior Muscadet stood by. Rolf helped his wife into her chair, taking care not to touch her, and took his place on the opposite side. He rubbed his hands. “Goody!”

“Barbara made an oyster pudding for you,” said Audreykins.

“For me?” He scowled. Audreykins’s face was lost in candle flames. Didn’t she know he hated oysters? Surely she did. “There’s been some mistake,” he said. “Not…plum pudding?” Which he adored.

“You don’t like oysters?” Barbie said, making oyster eyes.

“Oh, I don’t mind them—”

“Rolf!” squeaked the candles. “Be polite, won’t you. She made it especially for you.”

“Do help yourself,” Barbie purred. “Take a lot.”

While Martin concentrated on not severing a finger with the carving knife, Rolf dutifully spaded up a helping of pudding and dumped it on his plate. It would be sandy. Oysters were always sandy.

The other bowls made the rounds, and Martin loaded each plate with sawtoothed slices. Rolf found himself face to face with several pounds of tradition. He coughed on it, his private blessing. Politely, then, for Barbie, he sank his fork into the pudding and took a bite.

Ish.

A fat oyster, and a sandy one at that.

No one else was eating. He looked up. Audreykins cleared her throat. Dear Lord! She was going to say grace.

“Maybe we should all hold hands,” she said.

He could sooner say grace than swallow this oyster. He reached for his napkin, but they were waiting for him to join them in the daft rite of holding hands. He extended his arms and winced as his left hand met Martin’s right, which was dangerously taut. But Barbie’s hand was small and muscley and warm.

“Dear God,” Audreykins quavered. “Bless this food that we are about to receive…”

He worked his fingers down between Barbara’s to the sweaty webs of skin, and tightened his grip.

“We give thanks for another harvest. For the goodness of your bounty, and the gifts around us, the blessings of family and home…”

She squeezed back, driving her diamond into his skin and bone. What a gem she was. He refused to loosen his grip. She loosened hers.

“Also, we remember the Pilgrims, and the first Thanksgiving, and Miles Standish, and the Indians, your loving help in times of need…”

This was a jolly third-grader’s grace. He gave the oyster another chew, his teeth grating. He stroked Barbara’s palm with his thumb. She snatched her hand away.

“…with Mom and Dad in New Zealand, and with Luisa, and with Bill and Ellen, and in New York, in New York…” Inevitably, she was blubbering. “And so we pray.”

His fingers crept around the gravy boat in search of Barbara’s. Then, sharply and with little warning, he coughed.

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…”

He prayed they had their eyes closed. He prayed the oyster hit the plate. Good to be rid of it in any case.

“But deliver them from evil, amen.”

“Amen!” Martin barked, clapping his hands. “Rolf, why don’t you do the honors with the wine?”

No one said a word while he filled the glasses. The oyster had alighted in his potatoes. Audreykins sniffled and held a silent dialogue with God, who seemed to be located in her napkin. This was becoming a memorably wretched evening. Without the brat around, things got rather more hostile. “Shame Luisa couldn’t be here,” he said. “Delectable vino, by the way. I shouldn’t have minded meeting this beau of hers.”

“Stop talking like that,” the candles whispered.

Barbara gave him a ghoulish non-smile. “She said she’s sorry she missed seeing you.”

“Did she now? Tebbly sweet of her.” He flayed his slice of breast and spread the skin ornamentally over the pudding. “Young love, what?”

“Yep,” Martin said. “You have enough gravy there?”

“Oodles, thanks.”

Having seen to the derailment of further conversation, he turned to his dinner, filling his stomach while Martin filled the minutes with one of his fatuous technical monologues. For a topic this evening he’d chosen the obscenity known as Westhaven. Rolf repeatedly thrust his knife at him in agreement. Yes, it was a fabulous amount of floor space. Yes, it represented quite an investment on the part of the suburban banks. Yes, it would singlehandedly alter the economic structure of the area. Yes, it would be a hundred years before blight extended that far. Yes, yes, yes—Martin clearly had no inkling of the plans of the Hammaker coterie. It still seemed to him that the westward development of the county would have no end. Uncle Rolf, having been apprised of the impending about-face of county property values, had staked out his twelve blocks in North Saint Louis while the staking was good, and was savoring this ass’s lecture on the region’s economic future. As soon as Barbara moved to clear the table, however, his romantic urges surfaced. “Mind if I use your phone, Martin?”

“Sure, go right ahead.” Martin nodded at the kitchen.

“Your study phone. I need to ring up my commodities man.”

“On Thanksgiving?”

“Markets are open tomorrow.”

“You never slow down, do you? The light’s at the top of the stairs.”

The study was lined with more books than Martin Probst could read in five lifetimes. There were big-bottomed chairs, a green and gold broadloom, a photo of a younger Barbara in a chrome-plated frame on the desk. The cold upstairs air sobered Rolf. Swiveling in Martin’s chair, rehearsing his call, he thumbed through the papers stacked on the desk and on the floor along the bookcase. Westhaven, Westhaven, Westhaven. He picked up the phone and dialed. While it rang, he turned the key stuck in the bottom drawer and pulled the drawer open.

There were letters. He riffled them. At the back, he found three small bundles tied with gray ribbons. Love letters?

He was disappointed to recognize Barbara’s handwriting, disappointed the letters hadn’t come from someone else. But he selected one of the thicker missives from the middle of the pack and tucked it in his breast pocket. It might come in handy.

Devi’s phone continued to ring. Where on earth could she be? He shut the drawer and dug through the papers on top of the desk. He found a stack of pages from the Post, a good dozen of them, with the brat’s face on every one. What kind of clown would keep so many copies? Her nose was her mother’s nose. He coughed unhappily.

Devi answered on about the twentieth ring.

She said she’d been in the bathroom. For twenty rings? She said she might be getting the flu. Rolf frowned. But she was already feeling better, she said, just hearing his voice, and perhaps he could drop by? Rolf assured her this would be most agreeable to him. He might even bring her a few small tokens of—

She made a kissy noise and rang off. She was obviously in a mood.

Pausing at the top of the stairs before descending, Rolf noticed a soft glow in the master bedroom and wondered if the brat might be hiding out here after all. Stealthily, he backtracked. The bedroom was empty. A lamp was burning above Barbara’s vanity.

From down in the dining room he heard a gentle murmur, like the happiness of water in a fountain. He heard Audrey’s voice distinctly. The murmur was repeated. They were laughing.

From the vanity he picked up one of Barbara’s combs but set it down again, afraid he might weep if he smelled it. He touched her perfume bottles one by one. He noted the differing levels of the liquids in them, the witness borne to a continuum of purchases and applications, to a selection and alteration of scent unique to this woman, unique in all the world. At the back of the vanity, among bottles of lotion and jars of cream, stood a triptych of recent photos of the brat. Rolf shivered and stared, and Luisa stared back at him, fair-haired and frank, like a girl from the reserved stocks, the girl one couldn’t touch. Larger than life, like the kiwi in the living room below him.

But this was silly. With a more vigorous shiver he shook off the spell and opened the bottom drawer of the vanity. It offered him a large assortment of lingerie. He selected a pair of black panties and pressed them to his face, inhaling. Would they fit Devi? Most definitely they would.