Goldilocks (9 page)

A chill followed the nausea, and she shivered while drying herself. She also suffered barometric throbs in the joints of her knees. Rain was imminent. She struggled into a cotton nightshirt, wrapped herself in a robe, and took small steps into the kitchen, where she heated up chicken broth. Hunched over a steaming bowl at the table, she tried to remember the year of her last checkup and determined only that it was well before Nina Scarito redecorated her office. She dipped her spoon, but her stomach allowed no more than a few sips.

The rain came a half-hour later, not much more than a drizzle licking the windows, but it dragged the day into an early evening. Ensconced under an afghan on the living-room sofa, she lay listening to the coming-home traffic up and down Mount Vernon Street. The rush and squish was a comforting sound, narcotic enough to edge her into believing that Harold might be in it. She drifted off to sleep waiting for the hum of the Plymouth in the drive, for the scrape of his key in the door.

The real rain came later, the downpour sudden and clamorous, the winds impetuous. The thunderclaps could have come from cannons. She woke with the afghan on the floor and her nightshirt sopping with sweat under her robe. Her skin burned. She staggered up from the sofa and shed the robe. The room was dark except for a streak of streetlight that gave her a false color. An explosion of thunder, the loudest yet, gave her a fright.

In the bedroom, guided by the hall light, she scrapped the sodden nightshirt for a frail gown she hoped would let her body breathe better. She pulled back the bedspread and blanket, a chore, for her arms had lost their strength, and then lay flat on her back, nothing over her, nothing wanted, for she was already sweating through the gown. She listened to the rain lash the windows. Half asleep, she heard a tree branch flogging the far side of the house and thought it was somebody moving furniture.

She slept for more than an hour and woke hot-eyed and dry-mouthed, her gown twisted under her. The house was in darkness, the electricity gone, which alarmed her until she forced her head up from the pillow and saw through the window the flashing yellow light of a utility truck prowling the street for damage. The rain had lessened. She lifted her head higher, her eyes investigating the dark of the room, failing to catch a movement in the depths. Then she heard a footfall, ever so familiar, and smelled rain in the room. A hand touched her, the fingers cool on her burning skin. “Harold,” she said without surprise. She had known all along he would come.

“No,” the voice said. “Henry.”

FIVE

I
T WAS
a little after ten in the morning. Attorney Cole, due in district court, quickly stuffed his briefcase and paused near Marge’s desk as she was slipping a creamy sheet of bond paper into her typewriter. Without looking up, positive evidence that she was out of sorts, she said, “When are you getting me a word processor? It’d be like having an extra person.”

“We have an extra person. Isn’t he in yet?”

“He’s no help to me. No, he’s not in yet.”

Cole grimaced. He had wanted Henry to deliver documents to probate court in Salem, but mostly he had wanted to see him for another reason. “Did you call the Y?”

“Yes. He’s not there.” She flicked back the hair from her jawline and raised her eyes, her face set in a recalcitrant frown. “Maybe we’ve seen the last of him.”

Cole rested his briefcase on the edge of her desk. “You still don’t like him, do you, Marge?”

“What’s there to like? Even when he’s ten feet away I feel he’s breathing all over me. Maybe I’m being silly, but that’s the way I am.”

“Should I get rid of him?”

“That’s your decision,” she said, and returned her eyes to the typewriter. When he gripped his briefcase, she said, “Your lady friend from Boston called while you were on the other line.”

“Kit?” He gave a fast look at his watch. “Does she want me to ring her back?”

“She won’t be there. She just said to say hello and to keep the faith.”

“That’s all?”

“It sounds enough to me, but what do I know?” She pressed a button on the typewriter, and a red dot flashed above the massive keyboard. Her shoulders stiff, she began typing too aggressively.

Cole swept his briefcase up and stepped away, then looked back with an obscure sense of guilt. He knew her life was not easy at home. “How’s your mother?” he asked.

She went on typing. “You don’t want to hear.”

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to. How is she?”

“Difficult,” she said, and punched another button. A blue dot appeared.

Cole said, “It took you a month to learn to use that thing. How long would it take with a word processor?”

“A day.”

“OK,” he said, “I’ll get one.”

“When?”

“You order it.” He moved to the door, looked back. “And I’ll see about Henry.”

• • •

Louise Baker and her husband lunched at the Mallard Junction Country Club. They had a choice table against the glass wall overlooking the flawless green of the links. Most of the patrons were women redolent of good breeding, fine schools, and scented late-morning baths. Some who had not known Ben was home from the hospital paused at the table on their way in or out. “Ben, you look wonderful.” Most patted a shoulder of his apple-green blazer, the breast pocket of which bore the cachet of the club. “No, no, don’t bother,” he was told each time he started to rise, as if he were a precocious but sickly child, the illness unmentioned. An older woman, deeply tanned, president of the conservation commission, bent over him and pecked his cheek. “You’re doing simply marvelously. Isn’t he, Louise?”

Alone, he said, “People are grand, aren’t they, Lou?” He smiled at her over his amber drink, an orange rind clipped to the glass. The drink contained just a touch of rum, not enough to interfere with his medication. He said, “Now I know why I’ve never wanted to live elsewhere. I’m so happy here. Are you as happy here as I am, Lou?”

“More,” she said. She tore bread. “I have everything.”

“You’re the most beautiful woman here,” he said.

She glanced around. “Yes,” she said. “I am.”

He ate sparingly until dessert, which was strawberries and peach slices with a dip dish of sour cream and brown sugar. Watching him manipulate his spoon, she felt him keenly. He seemed at once more alert and relaxed than ever, as if all the right spices had been added to the brew of chemicals simmering in his brain. His neat mustache glistened. His color was good. He said, “There’s so much more to you than there was to Janet.”

Janet was his first wife, glamorous but useless, with forebears nearly as prominent as his. She had demanded much of him and little of herself, and the result for each had been zero. She was now married to a New York stockbroker who had everything, including a clear mind. Louise said, “Don’t think about her, Ben. Think only about me.”

He finished dessert and patted his mouth with a napkin. Choosing his words carefully, he said, “I should start doing something useful. I shouldn’t depend on you for everything.”

She eyed him thoughtfully. “What would you do, Ben?”

“I thought perhaps I could help you with your investments, give you advice.”

His voice was shy. Hers was firm.

“That’s not where your strengths lie. That should be obvious to you.”

“Where do my strengths lie, Lou?”

“In being Benjamin Baker.”

“That’s enough?”

“That’s more than enough.” She motioned to the waiter. “You were
somebody
the day you were born. For me, Ben, it took a while.”

The waiter brought them coffee, regular for her, Jamaican for him, another treat. He sipped through a layer of whipped cream, the rim of the glass sugared. “Lou,” he said.

“Yes, Ben.”

“I’d rather be you.”

Fifteen minutes later they left the clubhouse and walked onto the green, where three men in bright jerseys waited at the tee. Two were semiretired businessmen, and the other was the president of Mallard Junction Community Bank, where Ben had once been a trustee and Louise, shortly after marrying him, had negotiated his hopelessly outstanding loans while opening accounts of her own, the deposits substantial. The banker stepped forward with the flash of a smile for her.

“Always a pleasure,” he said, his heavy hand swallowing her slender one. He was stocky and full-faced, with a prominent nose and genial eyes. Swiftly he turned to Ben. “Glad you could make it, Mr. Baker. Magnificent day.”

“Certainly is,” Ben said jauntily, and glanced toward one of two motorized golf carts where his bag of clubs awaited him, everything provided, including his studded shoes. Louise had seen to everything.

“You won’t need this,” she said, helping him off with his blazer and draping it neatly over her arm. Close to his ear, she said, “If you get tired, don’t be embarrassed to quit.”

“I won’t,” he promised, and sauntered off to the cart bearing his gear.

The banker shifted close to her, placing his back to the others, his hand dangling keys hooked to a leather tab, the extra set to her Porsche. “I put your money in the trunk,” he said in a low voice. “All twenties make quite a bundle. If you could return the satchel this time …”

“Why not make it a gift from the bank,” she said, taking the keys.

“Yes, of course.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Your husband seems eager to play.”

“Let him drive one of the carts. He enjoys that.” She swished back her black hair. “And go easy on him. I want him to have fun.”

“Yes, that’s something people don’t get nearly enough of.” His genial eyes were suddenly narrow with insinuation, and his smile grew. “Don’t you agree, Mrs. Baker?”

Her face took on the hard silence of stone. He started to say something more but quickly changed his mind. As he stepped back with a shrinking smile, she called out to the others, “Have a good day, gentlemen.”

In the Porsche, the windows open, she followed a back road away from the country club. The sky, swept clear of clouds, looked perfectly new, and for a while she drove slowly, savoring the smell of broom and timothy of a hayfield. Flowering dogwood flanked the entrance to a riding academy, where she had taken lessons a year ago. Then, with a glance at her watch, she speeded up.

She drove to the far edge of town, past the Birdsong Motel, and swung onto the highway to Springfield. A few miles later she veered into a tree-shrouded car stop and pulled up beside a sleek Lincoln Continental, two men in the front. She peeered out at the one on the passenger side. “How are you doing, Sal?”

“Pretty good, Mrs. Baker.”

“Everything OK?”

He turned his head and looked back at the highway, his pitted face soaking up a stray scrap of sunlight. “I don’t see a problem.”

She struck a button under the dash, and the lid of the trunk popped up. Seconds later the trunk on the Lincoln sprang open, and the driver, John, climbed out and lumbered to the rear of the Porsche. She heard him grunt when he lifted out the bulky satchel.

Sal said, “Any more problems with the Polack?”

“None. What’s our return?”

“Eighteen,” he said.

“I thought we were going for twenty.”

“They figure they got a track record with us. I didn’t want to argue.”

“You wouldn’t shit me, would you, Sal?”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

John slipped back into the Lincoln and strapped himself in behind the wheel. She eyed them both and then said to Sal, “New York or Newark?”

“Newark,” Sal said.

“Call me when you get back.”

“I always do.”

“Have a good trip,” she said, shifting into gear and pulling away first.

• • •

After finishing up in district court and lunching alone at Bishop’s, Barney Cole drove to Lawrence General Hospital, where a security guard let him park in a doctor’s space. The guard, named Alfred, was a retired cop Cole had once represented in a claim for disability in the line of duty. Cole, squinting in the sun, said to him, “I understand Buddy Pothier’s a patient.”

“Yuh, that’s what I heard,” he said, pulling on a cigarette. “I’d've looked in on him, but I don’t know him that well. Wife and I bought some dinette furniture from him years ago. Cheap stuff as I remember. Didn’t last long.”

“Hear anything about what happened to him?”

“Got beat up is all I know.” He brought up an arm and let his hand dangle from the wrist. “Long time ago I heard he was this way, but I don’t know that for a fact.”

Each turned as an ambulance, roof lights flashing, swerved into the lot and headed toward the side entrance of the emergency room.

“Business here never falls off,” Alfred said, snapping away his cigarette. “Always something doing.”

“Take care,” Cole said, stepping away.

“You too, Barney. I don’t forget what you did for me.”

The woman at the reception desk told Cole that Mr. Pothier had been moved to a private room and directed him to the new wing, which he had trouble finding at first. Checking room numbers and glancing in at beds, he heard a sigh much like the deep sound his grandmother had made when liberating herself from a corset. Farther down he glimpsed beyond an ill-drawn curtain a man perched on a bedpan, head bowed in apparent prayer for results. He forgot the number he was seeking, but an extra sense seemed to pilot him to the right room.

Buddy Pothier was sitting up, an enormous bandage taped over one eye, ugly-looking sutures in his upper lip, teeth obviously missing from a big part of his mouth. A nurse, who was pushing a pillow behind him, saw Cole out of the corner of her eye and said cheerily, “Ah, you have a visitor, Mr. Pothier.” To Cole she chirped, “You should’ve seen him a few days ago before the swelling came down. You wouldn’t have believed he could make such an improvement.”

Cole moved self-consciously toward the foot of the bed. He had only a nodding acquaintance with Pothier and had never been a customer.

“Anything more I can do you for, Mr. Pothier?” the nurse asked and was answered with a shake of the head. She stepped past Cole with a smile and left with a swish.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” Cole said, edging to the side of the bed. “I guess it’s hard for you to talk, so I won’t stay long. I’d just like to ask a couple of questions.”