Case of Lucy Bending (58 page)

Teresa Empt was having a difficult time avoiding the attentions of a moony Eddie Holloway. His cow eyes followed her everywhere. She finally found refuge with a limber young man, a guest, who talked of nothing but the fierce glories of skydiving.

Teresa listened attentively. After a while, she let her knee press against his under the table. His expression changed and he began to stammer. She smiled at him encouragingly and wondered if it was too soon to turn the conversation to the architecture of gazebos.

A little before midnight, moving with exaggerated caution, William Jasper Holloway navigated into his own kitchen. He was carrying an empty ice bucket. But the plastic bags in the freezer were depleted and the trays emptied.

He thought he could manage a quick trip to the Bendings' kitchen without misadventure. He set out through the gloom, moving slowly to avoid blundering into the palms and bougainvillea that separated the two unfenced lots.

Instead, he blundered into Wayne Bending, who was hurrying from the rear of his home, carrying a knapsack. It took a moment for Holloway to realize what was happening. He dropped the ice bucket onto the soft ground.

"Wayne . . ." he said in a choked voice.

"Don't try to stop me," the boy warned. "No one can stop

_m
^ »»

me.

"But you said ... I told you I'd give you money."

"I don't want your money. I don't want nothing from nobody."

"Don't run away," Holloway said, stumbling toward the boy. "Please, please, please don't."

"I'm going," the lad said stolidly. "You can tell my dad if you like. But I'll be gone by then; he'll never find me. I left a note."

"A note?" Holloway said, groaning. "Ah Jesus, a note!"

He felt something wrench inside himself: a crack, a split, and then a widening. He saw the failure of thought, not only to deal with this twelve-year-old boy, but to deal with himself. Reason was not enough.

He put his arms clumsily about the youth. He shoved his face forward, lips pursed.

"I love you," he said. "I love you."

"What the hell's wrong with you?" Wayne shouted, pushing him away. "You crazy or something?"

"I love you," William Jasper Holloway said, gasping, heart cleft open. He tried again to take the lad into his arms. "I love you."

Wayne, cursing, shoved him violently. Holloway staggered back, sat down suddenly on the soggy earth.

"You creep!" the boy screamed at him. "You're just like all the rest."

Then he turned and ran away into the darkness. Holloway sat there, feeling the wet of the ground seep into the seat of his pants. After a while he began to weep. "You're just like all the rest." He knew what all the rest were like.

He began talking aloud to himself:

"So all that stuff about living a virtuous life, enduring a wound, sacrifice—just blather."

"No! No. I really felt that."

"Bullshit. A stiff cock: that's what you felt."

"That's cruel."

"That's
true
. You betrayed him, and you betrayed yourself. He was right; you're just like all the rest."

"We could have been friends."

"Come off it! Stop deluding yourself. You know what you wanted. Face it."

"I can't. I can't go on."

"Very dramatic! But you'll go on. Just the way you always have. That will be your punishment."

Still snuffling, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, he climbed awkwardly to his feet. He felt the seat of his pants. Soaked through and, he supposed, stained. The final touch of buffoonery in a clown's life.

He rooted around in the dark, found the ice bucket, went stumbling toward the Bendings' kitchen door. It was open a few inches. Inside, the lights burned brightly. He heard voices and stopped, one foot on the sill.

He heard Luther Empt's slurred voice: "Are you sure we're alone?"

And then the reedy, piping voice of a child:
⁴
'Hurry. Hurry.''

Holloway pushed open the door, peered cautiously around the jamb. Took one look. Then withdrew, jaw sagging, moving slowly backward until he was in gloom. He turned, threw the ice bucket from him, and began running frantically back to his own home.

He crashed through trees, tripped on bushes, trampled shrubs. Branches whipped his face. Once he fell, hurt his knee, pushed himself erect and charged clumsily on. He was

weeping again, but noisily now, sobbing, coughing. His lungs burned, his rent heart pumped wildly.

He lumbered up the stairs, pulling himself along by the banister. When he came back down, carrying Eric, the gun un-holstered and gripped purposefully, men and women were streaming into his brown, ugly living room, laughing, brushing rain from their hair and shoulders.

"Hey, Bill, where are you—"

"What are you—"

"Bill, what the—"

"Stop, Bill!"

But Bill didn't stop. He rushed out into the heavy drizzle, acknowledging the failure of reason, and wanting only to feel deeply, intensely, and let it take him where it would.

He heard the shouts behind him. He felt the wet on his face: tears and rain. But he could not stop now and, exultant, he went smashing back to the guilt that was his, and everywhere.

He burst in upon them with a roar caught in his throat. Saw the lumpish man crouched and grunting. Saw the golden girl kneeling between his legs.

William Jasper Holloway stepped close. Pointed his revolver. Emptied it into them. Saw them jerk and splatter. Explosions deafened him. Then he heard only clicks as he pulled the trigger again and again.

He flung the weapon away. Went rushing out again, dimly aware of people coming at him through the trees, baying like hounds. But he eluded them all, ran around the house to the beach.

Staggered through wet sand to the sea. Waded in without stopping. Plunged. Began swimming eastward as hard as he could. This time he was going to make it. Reach England. Portugal. Africa. Whatever.

"I called the husband," Dr. Theodore Levin said, staring at the nursery-rhyme animals painted on his office wall. "I wanted to tell him how sorry I was about what happened. And there was a question I wanted to ask him that was eating at me."

"How did he sound?" Dr. Mary Scotsby asked.

"Terrible. Well, his daughter had just been shot dead, his wife was under heavy sedation, and his older son, Wayne— the boy I talked to—is apparently a runaway. So it's understandable the man isn't tracking too well."

"What was the question you wanted to ask him?"

"You remember in the initial interview he told me about an incident that occurred during a cookout last Labor Day. Bending went into his kitchen—by the way, I think it's the same kitchen where the shooting took place—and he found Lucy seducing a man. Bending described him as a good friend. The newspaper stories said that a man, a neighbor of Bending's, had been shot to death at the same time Lucy died. I had to ask Bending if the murdered man was the same one he had caught with Lucy last year."

"What did he say?"

"Yes."

There was silence. She looked at him directly, but his gaze wandered: here, there, everywhere.

"It wasn't your fault, Ted," she said quietly.

"You can say that, and I can say that, and it doesn't help. Time! If I had more time, I could have turned that child. I know I could have. And talking about guilt, I listened to all the tapes again last night and picked up an error of omission. My error.''

"What was that?"

"When the wife told me about her sexual, uh, adventure

the night of that party four years ago, I asked her if the man involved was the husband of the woman with whom Bending had disappeared. She said it wasn't, and I let it go at that. What I should have asked was whether he was the same man caught in the kitchen with Lucy four years later."

"Why didn't you ask?"

"My delicacy will be the death of me," he said with a sour smile.

"Ted, you're just guessing. You have no evidence that the same man was involved with both mother and daughter."

"No evidence, no. But it makes sense, doesn't it? It would help explain Lucy's behavior, wouldn't it?"

"In a crazy kind of way."

"You mean in a human kind of way."

She sighed. "Ted, I have a question: Did the husband know about his wife?"

"About the bedroom incident? I doubt it."

"If he learned about it, how do you think he would have reacted?"

"It would be easy to say that, with his record of infidelity, he wouldn't give a damn. But I doubt that. I think knowledge of his wife's unfaithfulness would destroy him. He loves her, you know."

"In his way."

"Yes. In his way."

Levin's gaze finally settled on her. His stare was so intense through those bottle-bottom glasses that she stirred restlessly.

"Why are you glaring at me?"

"Mary, let's get married."

Silence. Finally . . .

"You're not joking now," she said, "are you?"

"No, I'm not joking. I wish I could tell you it's a mad, passionate love, but you know me better than that."

"Yes," she said with a short, rueful laugh, "I do know you. What is it then?"

"In espionage, there's a term they use. 'Safehouse.' It's a completely secure place where agents can stay and know they're free from danger and harm. It's a refuge, a hidey-hole. Mary, I need a safehouse. The world is too much with me. Everything's getting dark, and I'm frightened. First of all, for my own sanity. So you see, I'm asking you for very selfish reasons. I need a safehouse that offers shelter and protection. From the madness. I need your moral and emotional support. If I don't get it, I'm not sure I'm going to make it much longer. The sadness of being human is beginning to get to me. All our high hopes and dreadful defeats. Our weakness! I can't cope anymore. It's getting harder and harder for me to laugh."

"Have you told all this to A1 Wollman?"

"He tells me to pick up a creamer and get laid."

"Yes, that sounds like Al."

"But listen," he said earnestly, "I don't want you to think I'm asking you to marry me because I need a live-in shrink. Or nurse. I believe I can give you the same kind of support I want. What I'm hoping is that, between us, we can make a kind of—a kind of . . ."

"A kind of sanctuary?" she said.

"Exactly," he said, relaxing. "A kind of sanctuary. What do you say?"

"Yes," she said.

It took three trips in Professor Lloyd Craner's old Buick to move his and Mrs. Empt's clothes and personal possessions to their new apartment in the motel near the Intracoastal Waterway. It was almost 1:00
P.M
. before the job was finished.

On the last trip, Craner stopped at a liquor store and bought a bottle of chilled champagne.

"To celebrate," he said.

"What?" Gertrude asked. "Total exhaustion?"

But her mood improved when the move was completed, and they were safely ensconced in their one-bedroom unit. The little apartment was jammed with their clothing, shoes, cartons, Gertrude's shell collection, and Craner's books. But neither was ready to start putting things in order.

They sat on the bed, and Craner poured champagne into two water tumblers.

"It's from California," he said, "but in a taste test by
Consumer Reports,
it was judged as good as or better than most imported French champagnes."

She looked at him owlishly. "That's the best part of living with perfessers; they know everything."

He laughed. "I admit I tend to get stuffy at times. I'm depending on you to cut me down to size."

"You can count on me," she told him.

They sipped the wine and agreed it was just what they needed.

"The cat's pajamas," Mrs. Empt said.

"The bee's knees," Craner said.

And they both smiled, remembering.

"Gertrude, did you tell Teresa you were leaving?"

"Yeah, I told her."

"What did she say?"

"She said, 'How nice for you!' Then she said, 'We must keep in touch.' And I said, 'Sure.' Neither of us meant it. If I never see her again, it'll be too soon. And I guess she feels the same way about me. Did you tell your daughter?"

"She wasn't home. Jane is busy these days with some kind of a job that she's very secretive about. But I left a message with Eddie. I told him I was moving into my own place in a motel. He said, 'Have a ball!'"

"The best advice I've heard yet. I gather that Jane isn't exactly pining away with Bill gone."

"Not exactly."

"Neither is Teresa with Luther dead."

"How do you feel about it?"