Call After Midnight (2 page)

She said after a moment, “All right, if you won’t take me I’ll hire a car and drive myself up there.”

His grip on her arm tightened. There was a long pause while she met his eyes defiantly. Finally he said, “What can you do to help Peter?”

It was a valid question. “I don’t know. Nothing perhaps. But he asked me to come.”

“What exactly did Peter tell you?”

“Only that Fiora—something had happened about a gun and—and he said something about murder. Of course he didn’t mean that. But he said he needed me.”

“So, after a year Peter whistles and you—”

“
You’re
going because he needs you.”

“That’s different.”

“It’s not different. You are Peter’s friend. I’m his—his friend.”

“Peter has also been my employer and still is,” Cal said. “And I’m not a silly woman still in love with him after he’s kicked me around. I thought you had better sense.”

“Aren’t you more than a little insulting!”

“I’m not saying half enough.” But his voice changed, became warm and almost coaxing. “Now please listen to reason, Jenny. I’ll go. I’ll help Peter out any way I can. Then I’ll let you know exactly what’s happened and what the situation is. How’s that?”

“It’s sensible and very kind of you but I’m going.”

“I’ve got a good notion to carry you up to your apartment and lock you in.”

He looked capable of it. She said, “If you do, I’ll scream the house down and you’ll be had for—for assault and battery, and none of it will help Peter.”

“And Peter is all that matters.”

She thought for a moment, looking up at him, hoping for convincing words. At last she put her hand on his shoulder. “Cal, I
am
still in love with him. For the same reasons you have always been his friend. Because he’s Peter. Please, Cal, let’s hurry.”

His face didn’t change—it still had its rocky, New England look—but she thought that a look of something like compassion came into his eyes. Without speaking he took up her dressing case and opened the door.

The cold spring night fell upon them. It was a cloudy night so the street lights were haloed in mist. It had been raining and the pavements glistened. His car stood at the entrance, its lights shooting ahead into the fog.

He didn’t say anything at all until he had seated himself beside her. Then he paused for a moment, looking into the lane of lights and said slowly, “All right. I’ll take you. But it looks to me like—a dangerous crossing.”

Cal, being a railroad man, would say that. She smiled inwardly. Her common sense, which Peter had threatened, had returned. She tucked her coat around her. “If anything had been very wrong, Peter would have called the doctor.”

T
HE STREETS AT THAT
hour were almost clear with only an occasional wandering taxi. Cars were parked along the curb looking asleep yet watchful, too. They crossed Madison and Jenny had a glimpse of strings of lights from the windows of the great midtown buildings where cleaning crews worked. The red and green street lights, changing and changing upon almost deserted streets, looked queerly out of place as if the world had died around them, leaving only the memories of its living.

They crossed Lexington in the shadow of an enormous crane hovering over some kind of construction. A few coffee shops seemed to be open on Third Avenue and Second.

The East Side Drive was wet and shining in the lights from the car. Off in the blackness of the river a belated tugboat uttered a hoarse long wail.

There were lights in Doctor’s Hospital, scattered lights along the elevator shafts of apartment houses, a light over the sentry box at Gracie Mansion.

Cal was deep in thought, driving with a kind of absent-minded ease. The car had wound its way up and onto the Turnpike where the fog lights flared like ghost fires, showing the wide spaces of roadway, before Cal took out a cigarette, pushed in the little dashboard lighter and said, “There’s no use speculating about anything until we find out what really happened.”

Jenny, too, had had time to assemble the possibilities. “At the worst Fiora thought of suicide or pretended to think of it and actually got a gun and turned it on herself and hurt herself more than she intended. At the best—”

“Fiora wouldn’t even threaten suicide. She’s too content with her position as Peter’s wife.”

“Well—you’ve seen her of course, often. I haven’t.”

“Not often. Only when I have to go to Peter’s house. Usually we meet at the office or lunch at the club.”

She longed to say, Is Peter happy? It was a question she had constantly debated within herself after Peter’s telephone calls: did he sound happy, did he sound unhappy?

The lighter popped out and Cal lighted his cigarette, then remembered her, murmured an apology, gave her a cigarette and she took the lighter from his hand. He had followed her thoughts, however, for he said, “You want to know if Peter has been happy with Fiora. You’ll have to see that for yourself.”

“Yes,” Jenny said after a moment. “Yes—”

Cal shot her a swift glance which seemed to see too much.

She said quickly, “And at best, Fiora simply had some sort of minor accident, handling a gun. Probably Peter’s gun and Peter was alone in the house with her and that’s why he leaped to the notion that if she—if she dies as she won’t—he would be accused of murder.”

“And was so scared that he sent for us to hold his hand? Peter doesn’t scare that easily.”

“You know him in a business way,” Jenny said slowly.

“You mean, not as you know him. Well, it’s true he’s a good businessman, respected, fair; hard-hitting when it’s necessary. Wily, when it’s necessary, too.”

“I thought you were Peter’s friend.”

“Yes, I am,” Cal said slowly. “We get along. But I think the most sensible thing you ever did in your life was to divorce Peter.”

“It was the most foolish thing.”

“Have it your own way.” He seemed to drop the whole thing and then unexpectedly came back to it. “It’s none of my business. But I always wondered just what happened to make you divorce him.”

“Fiora,” she said with remembered bitterness.

“Well, yes but—what happened?”

“Can’t you guess?” Jenny asked bleakly.

“You must have quarreled.”

“I made a terrible scene. Then I just left. Peter had to pack up my clothes and send them to me. I wouldn’t even see him. You can’t imagine how foolish I was!”

“I can’t imagine you making a terrible scene. What did you do? Throw things?”

“Oh, it was all so trite. It doesn’t seem real now. You see Peter had been staying in town—on business he said, but often. One night when he was at home the phone rang and I happened to pick up an extension and it was Fiora and I heard them and—and Peter told her, of course he loved her, but he just couldn’t get away from me for a few days. They were making plans for the following weekend. I didn’t wait to hear any more. I stormed downstairs and accused Peter and cried and—and carried on,” she said inadequately. “Peter didn’t say anything. Not for a long time. But he finally lost his temper, too, and said, yes, he’d been seeing Fiora and he intended to go on seeing her if he wanted to. That’s when I left. I felt as if the whole world had gone to pieces.”

“But it hadn’t,” Cal said gently. “Forget it all, Jenny.”

“And then he married her.”

Cal put out one hand, took her own in a hard, warm clasp for a moment, then gave it a brisk pat and released it. “Well, you rather threw Peter at Fiora,” he said sensibly. “She’s not a girl to overlook her opportunities. You couldn’t have expected Peter to come running after you. He’s got some of the—oh, call it the railroad steel in him.”

“I don’t know what I expected.” But I know, I think I know, what I’m going to try to do now, she thought.

Cal couldn’t have guessed what she was thinking. He said though, rather dryly, “Once anybody is in the clear there’s no use asking for trouble. Advice, free.”

It was time to change the subject. Jenny said, “Have you been in New York much this year?”

“Most of the time. Very little jumping over the country.”

“How are things going?”

Cal gave her a half-smiling but perceptive glance. “You know I’ll talk about the railroad if you give me half a chance. But I’ll tell you this. For the first time since Peter’s father died the road is in the black. Give us some more time and we’ll have the best damn railroad in America.”

“You’re still a vice-president?”

“No, I was moved up to the presidency when Peter went in as chairman of the board this winter. All the elder statesmen in the business eye us gloomily and say we’re too young, but I can take a look at our balance sheets.”

Cal was a dedicated railroad man and always had been since he came, fresh from M.I.T., to work for Peter. He had moved up steadily due both to his own hard work and to Peter’s recognition of Cal’s value. Peter never made a move without consulting Cal; Peter had said that a good executive picks good men and uses them.

Her own acquaintance with Cal had amounted to a kind of remote and impersonal friendship. Whatever Cal had said of Peter and her divorce she knew that he was actually devoted to Peter, not only as his employer and co-worker but as a friend. Nobody could possibly help liking Peter.

“Peter needed you, Cal. He inherited all that money and all his stock in the road. He always said that he’s not a born railroad man as you are. In a sense he inherited his job, too. He said that you and he made a good team.”

“We both had things to learn. Still have, I suppose. But Peter gave me my chance. I couldn’t have got very far by now in one of the big roads. The Sheraton Valley has everything a big road has except size. It’ll have the size one day if I live and barring—” He put out his cigarette with a quick thrust into the ashtray. “Barring mergers.”

“Mergers? What roads?”

The car sped along for some distance before Cal replied. “One road, the Pilgrim and Southern. Nothing about it has got out yet. Some people may guess that it’s been suggested. But that’s as far as it has gone. Art Furby has been trying to talk Peter into considering the pros and cons—and ways and means, for that matter.”

“Is Art for it, then?”

“Oh, yes. And you know how Peter feels about Art.”

Art Furby had inherited his interest in Peter’s road as Peter had inherited. Art Furby’s father had been Peter’s father’s friend. Peter had a strong instinct for clinging to the past. Jenny said, “Yes, I know.”

“And of course,” Cal said, “Art’s feelings are a little sensitive right now. He expected to move up from head of the legal department to the presidency. I got the presidency instead. Peter wanted it that way, but he hates having hurt Art. So now, to make up for it, he may listen to Art.”

“Why does Art want the merger?”

“Why does anybody? He says it’ll put us in a stronger position. But we’re in the black now. Give us another few years. We’re already in a position to plow some money back into the road, new rolling stock, new steel contracts. Of course, in the end any merger decision is up to the Interstate Commerce Commission. We’d have to show need for a merger, increased ability to improve service. We’re a public carrier. In any event it would all take time, can’t be done in a day …Why did you go out and get a job?”

“Because I wanted it, of course. And I needed the money.”

“Peter told me he had made a settlement at the time of your divorce.”

“Oh, he did! A very generous one, fifty thousand dollars. He deposited it in the bank.”

“Generous! Your attorney should have insisted on alimony.”

“He did. I wouldn’t take it.”

There was a silence. Then Cal laughed shortly. “Well, I’m glad you kept the settlement.”

“Of course,” Jenny said simply. “I thought sometime I might need it.”

He put on the brake for a tollgate. The lights flared brightly above them. He tossed change into the basket and as a red light ahead changed to a green one with “thank you” on it, he gave her a half-exasperated but half-amused look. “Well, that’s sensible. But it looks to me as if you need some right now.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“That’s fine,” Cal said a little too heartily. She shot him a suspicious glance but he had rolled down a window and was peering through the mist, which grew thicker as they approached the Sound. “The turn-off is somewhere near. Can’t see—oh, here we are.”

He checked the car to look for signs and Jenny forgot railroad, forgot Cal, almost forgot Fiora. In a short time now she would enter the house where for two years she had been happy, which had been home to her, the rambling, awkward old house on the Sound.

It was out of date. It had a magnificence which was now as old-fashioned as the carriages which still stood in its huge carriage house. It was impossible to heat and impossible to staff properly. It had gardens which had had to be let go—not for lack of money, Peter had money, but for lack of gardeners. The shrubbery flourished, old and lush. The lawns were kept in order but barely that. No heating system could quite cope with the vast halls and drafty rooms of the house. Yet it had a certain strength and charm. “We ought to sell this to some school. Give it away if I could find anybody to take it. It’s a white elephant de luxe,” Peter had said. “Lonely old place, too. I suppose it was the last word in elegance in its day but its day is long past.” This, though, was mere talk. Peter would never have sold the place. Of course it was not home to Jenny, not now. But she’d see Peter.

Cal started up the car again. He gave her an odd look. “Don’t bother about your hair.”

“Why, I’m not—”

“You were smoothing it and fussing with it like a—like a girl going to her first dance. You’re beautiful,” he said coolly.

“Why, Cal!” She had never heard him compliment anybody.

“Well, you’ve got eyes, haven’t you? A mirror? You’re so far ahead of Fiora that I—Jenny, why didn’t you fight for Peter if you want him so much? There, don’t answer. I withdraw it: Here’s the turn.”

But I think I am going to fight for him, Jenny thought a little smugly. I’m sure I will. This time it’ll be different. Unless, of course, Peter and Fiora were really happy together. She decided not to think about that yet. But she had to think of Fiora until she and Cal discovered whatever trouble there was in that solid house ahead of them.