Intimate Victims (6 page)

“Thanks for the drink,” said Harvey, “and thanks for the decent way you informed me that everything I’m wearing is all wrong.”

“Don’t mention it,” Lake Budde said sourly. He started his Sprite with a roar, backed out, extended Harvey a quick, bored salute, and drove off.

A
T THE
gas station in Lambertville, Robert Bowser heard the door of the Men’s open and close; then open and close again.

“I’m through here!” he called out, but whoever it was had gone on.

Robert dried his face and hands on the paper towels, shoved them in the disposal can, and then took his glasses from the utility shelf and put them on. As he turned to retrieve his jacket from the chair, he glanced down at a wallet lying on the floor.

It was a light blue wallet made of some sort of plastic material; a new wallet, still shiny and stiff. Robert flipped it open and read the identification card. It belonged to a Harvey Plangman, from 702 Wentwroth Avenue. Columbia, Missouri. After “In Case of Accident Please Notify” was “Sophie Plangman, Kappa Pi House, Columbia, Missouri.” The card had been made out in an ornate handwriting with circle-i dots, flourishes, and elaborate capitals, all in purple ink. There was a Missouri driver’s license behind one of the celluloid shields, and next to it, a Woolworth employee’s identification card. The next shield contained a photograph of a woman in a full skirt and peasant blouse, leaning on an arrow-shaped sign which said Toluca de Lerdo. Across the photograph was written: “Yo te amo! -Gert”. Under a third shield was a piece of paper with a list of things scribbled in the same purple ink:

Beneath that list was a penciled list headed Vocabulary.

In the money compartment was a letter, four or five ten-dollar bills, and a book of matches from Commander’s Palace in New Orleans. Robert took all of this in very quickly, not bothering to examine the side pockets. He placed the wallet on the utility shelf above the sink, wondering vaguely if he should wrap the wallet and mail it to the address, or simply leave it with the gas station attendant. It had obviously been dropped by whoever had come into the Men’s while Robert was washing up. It was a strange wallet, its contents puzzling. In the mirror above the sink, Robert saw his own reflection momentarily. He had a distinctly owlish look; a very distinct one. He studied himself for a second or so, his lips wide and firm and straight, his brown eyes serious behind the whirls of thick glass — firm jaw, a slightly large, masculine nose, and large ears, close to his head — a thick crop of wavy black hair, with the slight silver-gray tinseling — and now he was frowning. His features would be readily identifiable; the glasses clinched it. Why had he not thought to buy new frames? That would have been little enough help, but with the same old frames anyone who saw his photograph in a newspaper would know he was Robert Bowser. He had done so very little in the way of planning, little more, really, than to arrange for the flight to Brazil, and for the $25,000 in cash. He stared at himself in the mirror, his lips tipping in a bewildered, halfhearted grin of disbelief. No, he could not back down now; on Tuesday the Baker account would show a shortage of three thousand shares, plus the exaggeration of the original King & Clary investment. He was all the way into it now, and he was so unprepared! What crazy bravado had ever sustained him? A silly, sick-sounding chuckle escaped his throat, accompanied by a sudden chill, and a futile and terribly intense wish that he were anyone in the world, anyone but Robert Bowser — that he were, say, Plangman, an employee of Woolworth’s. He picked up the wallet and held it in his hand, as though by doing it he would gain something. But he gained nothing and as he turned around to pick up his coat off the men’s room chair, he realized he had lost something. He had lost his coat. It was gone, was all. In its place was a white cotton jacket, thrown across the chair so that the blue wallet must have fallen from its pocket. Someone had taken his coat, and with it, his letter to Margaret.

“A
REN’T YOU
glad to see me, Harvey?”

“Of course I am!”

“Then why don’t you relax? Who do you have to call anyway?”

“Just someone. I’m relaxed, honestly.” “Weren’t they home?”

“No, they weren’t home,” said Harvey. He set his elbows up on the table. The sleeves of the suit coat were almost to his knuckles, so that whether he stood or sat, he had to keep his arms slightly higher than his waist.

“Don’t you like it here?” Lois Cutler said. “We could go to the Canal House or Odettes, but the Logan is a more ‘fun’ place. The local people drink here. Besides, it reminds me of some of the barrooms in Columbia, n’est pas?”

“Oui.”

“It’s sort of musky, that’s it! Musky! It has a sort of musky old beery smell that is both divine and da-voon! Nelson Case was in here the other night. Do you know Nelson Case, the announcer?”

“Yes, I guess I’ve seen him on television.”

“Yes, he’s on television a lot. He lives here in New Hope. A lot of celebrities do. Is your call a local call?”

“Sort of local,” said Harvey. He had memorized the number. Ax-tel 4-3251. He was good at memorizing things. He memorized this number by thinking of a man named Axtel who was forty-three and had just inherited two-hundred-and-fifty-one thousand dollars.

“Sort of local!” Lois Cutler giggled. “How can a call be sort of local! Maybe I even know the people. Who are they? I bet Daddy knows them if I don’t!”

Harvey said, “Oh, they’re just some friends I met a while ago in Toluca de Lerdo, Mexico.” He raised his glass of Old Smuggler to change the subject. “Sursum corda!” he said.

“Sursum corda!” she said, “My, you are mysterious. A propos de rien, Monsieur Plangman, daddy says he never heard of a Colonel Plangman, not in World War ?, anyway. Daddy was in Washington then. He knew a lot of military personnel and …”

“You want to know something amusing, Lois?” Harvey interrupted. “I just had drinks with a frat brother. Lake Budde. Well, we were sitting around on the terrace of the Princeton Inn, and Lake was asking my opinion on a good sherry. I prefer Dry Fly, but that’s beside the point. The point is — suddenly he said what you just said, only you know how he pronounced it? He pronounced it a prop-puss de ry-en!”

“A prop-puss de ry-en! Oh, how ridic! Weren’t you embarrassed?”

“I was too embarrassed to correct him,” said Harvey.

Lois repeated the phrase and laughed and laughed, and Harvey looked at the clock. He thought:
A man named Ax-tel who was forty-three inherited two hundred and fifty-one thousand dollars.
He did not like leaving his name with the woman who answered the phone; he simply said he would call back, and then hung up. Already he had tried Robert Bowser’s number three times. The address was River Road, Lumberville, Pennsylvania. Lois had explained that Lumberville was like a suburb of New Hope. It was a piece of luck that he was that close to Bowser’s home. It made up for the clumsy mishandling of his impulse to pick Bowser’s jacket off the chair in the Men’s at Lambertville. He had not gone in there with anything in mind but to discard the waiter’s jacket. When he had seen the man in shirtsleeves, bent over the wash bowl, his suit coat across the chair, he had acted fast. It was a beige-colored linen suit coat, single button. Frantically, Harvey had grabbed it, dropping his own jacket in its place, moving as quickly as he could, out the door and across to the MG. He raced down the hill into Lambertville, his heart banging under his shirt, his mind whirling. When he collected his wits, on the 15 m.p.h. ride across the bridge to New Hope, he realized his wallet was still in his jacket. Until he found sanctuary in another Men’s, at the Logan Inn, he did not know what the contents were of the jacket he had stolen.

• • •

“… are you going to be around?” Lois Cutler was saying. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“You seem so nervous, Harvey. I said, how long are you going to be around?”

“I’m not too sure. I’d certainly like to meet your father.”

“Poor dumkins is in New York today. Maybe you can come to dinner tomorrow. Do you mind driving back and forth from Princeton?”

“I may stay here tonight.”

“Here?”

“Not here. In New Hope.”

“I’d ask you to stay at our place, but with Daddy gone….”

“No, no, no,” said Harvey. “I didn’t mean anything like that.”

“I didn’t think you did, but …”

“No, of course not! Not in the absence of the gerent, after all.”

“You know, Harvey, I honestly think you have one of the best vocabularies of any man I’ve ever met. Are all the Kappa Pi’s like you?”

“Very few Kappa Pi’s are like me,” said Harvey. “Lois, look, would you mind if I tried that number again?”

“Pas de tout, cheri.”

“I’ll be right back,” said Harvey rising, making sure to keep his arms above his waist.

The same woman answered the phone.

“I’m not the maid, you know,” she said. “This is the fourth time you’ve called, without leaving your name. For your information, sir, this is Mother Franklin. Anything you have to …"

Harvey let the arm of the phone drop back in its cradle. From the inside pocket of the linen jacket, he removed the envelope-sized billfold. From the money compartment, he took out the letter. Then he reread it

Along with the letter in the money compartment of the billfold, was twenty-two dollars. There was no photograph in the billfold; there were six credit cards, a Pennsylvania driver’s license, and a registration card for a new Lincoln Continental. On a slip of paper was the address of a man in São Paulo, Brazil, and a notation of a flight number on Varig Airlines, leaving Idlewild at seven-thirty on this coming Sunday night. There was also a bank book, showing a withdrawal of $25,000, across the face of which was stamped Account Closed.

It was now Friday — nine-thirty, by the clock outside the phone booth.

C
HEZ
O
DETTE
was on the River Road, just outside New Hope. As they approached it, Margaret was saying, “… because now I’m out of the mood to fix something from the freezer. And there isn’t a single thing you can do about your coat or your wallet! We’d just go home, and you’d brood.”

“I can’t eat dinner in my shirtsleeves, and I can’t wear this idiotic jacket!”

“I’ve seen men in Odette’s in short-sleeved sports shirts, Robert. It’s summer and this is a resort town. Besides, I’ll tell Odette myself that someone picked up your jacket by mistake.”

“I don’t see how it could have been by mistake. There was no one in there when I went in, and the door just opened and closed. When I turned around …"

Margaret sighed. “You weren’t carrying more than twenty dollars, and that coat is three years old. It’s not as bad as you’re making it seem.”

“Oh, no! It isn’t that bad at all.”

“Well, it isn’t! Robert, I feel like having a good dinner. It’ll do you good, too.”

“All right,” Robert said. “We’ll have to charge it.

“So we have to charge it!” Margaret answered; she shrugged her shoulders as though the whole matter was an irritating bore.

Robert let her off at the entranceway, and drove around to the side to park. Margaret was right; there was nothing he could do about it. The worst part was that he could not remember whether or not he had sealed and stamped the letter to Margaret. If he had, there was a slim chance that he was safe — that whoever had picked up his coat (stolen it? what?) would simply deposit the letter in a mailbox, as Robert would do if he were in the same situation. Nothing about the incident tallied. If it were Plangman who had taken his coat, why would he have left his behind, with his wallet still in it? The only answer Robert could come up with was that perhaps the fellow was drunk; perhaps he had not known what he was doing. The attendant at the gas station could not remember seeing another car pull in. There were simply no clues, not a one. Either Robert Bowser was ruined, right now at this very moment, or things were still at the same head.

His headache was much worse now; accompanying it was a feeling of castastrophic indifference, as though a numbness had set in, and while he could appreciate the imminent danger, he could not feel it, nor bring himself to assess its outcome.

Odette greeted him with a big smile, “Darling, I’m zo zorry about ze coat, but na-vair mind now!”

He smiled back, then spotted Margaret at a table in front by the bar. Edith and Arthur Summers were finishing dinner a few tables away, and the moment Robert joined Margaret she said, “I’ve asked the Summers over for a drink, dear. Buy them a Remy Martin or something. Edith wouldn’t let me pay for my lunch when we ate at the Logan last week.”

Robert nodded, sighed.

“Well, I had to, Robert,” said Margaret.

“It’s all right.”

“They’ll cheer us up.”

Arthur and Edith Summers were always depressingly cheerful, filled with small talk which they engaged in with zestful enthusiasm, as though there were nothing in the world as fascinating as the fact that it might rain tomorrow. Arthur Summers owned Arpedia Swimming Pools, in Quakerstown, Pennsylvania, and Edith was one of the many Bucks County matrons who fell into the category of being “interested in the arts.” This could mean almost anything: that she had taken the adult class in ceramics at the high school last fall, that she had purchased an abstract Ent-whistle from Charles IV gallery three weeks ago, or that she was a committee chairman for the Book Review Hour of The New Hope Ladies’ Lawn Improvement Guild. Arthur and Edith were both tall and thin and graying; both wore rimless glasses and looked more like brother and sister than man and wife. At cocktail parties, Edith could be relied on to explain that she never drank gin martinis because gin made her break out, and Arthur was predictably solicitous toward her after her third drink of anything, his admonishments invariably beginning, “Now, now, Mommy, we’d better go easy.”

“Robert wants to buy you a brandy,” said Margaret as they sat down. “We’ve just come in from New York.”

“Mommy’s had enough, I think. I’ll have a quickie. Then we have to run along.”

“Daddy’s going to New York tomorrow,” said Edith Summers, “and I have to drive to Chalfont for the Sautersly auction.”

Was it all as simple as it sounded? Were there undertows in the Summers’ life? The waitress appeared and Robert ordered two martinis and a brandy. What if he were simply to give in all the way now? To say simply, “I suppose I ought to tell you something, Arthur and Edith, and you too, Margaret.” He imagined himself giving in to this impulse, wondered if just that much control kept him from ruin, or if already the wheels of his ruin were in motion — if the letter he had written Margaret was right now spread out on someone’s table. He played with the idea of Arthur Summers having a similar letter somewhere, or Arthur thinking about it as they were all sitting there chatting. He looked carefully at Summers. Summers’ eyes met his for a brief instant. Brothers or not, Robert thought?”

“I had lunch at the Drake this noon,” Margaret was saying, “and everyone in New York calls very dry martinis
white
martinis. They charge 10¢ extra for them.”

“Of course they’d have to,” Arthur Summers chuckled. “They’re probably all gin.”

Edith Summers smiled like a child receiving a colored gum drop. “White martinis! I’ve never heard them called that before.”

“You better forget you ever heard it,” Arthur chuckled again.

“Oh, Daddy’s right. I get the hives from gin. My doctor says I’m allergic to gin, and that’s all there is to it! Now, it’s very peculiar, because I can drink vodka. I’ve had vodka screwdrivers, vodka martinis, vodka and tonic — anything with vodka. I can handle vodka, but not gin. Gin gives me hives the size of half dollars, all over my body.”

“That’s perfectly true,” said Arthur Summers.

“I just can’t drink it.”

“How are things at King & Clary, Robert?” Arthur asked. So it went — so it went. Robert heard himself answering questions, asking them — exclaiming, remarking — all the while his thoughts teased him with suggestive impulses, dallied around the fringes of the crisis, and cried for control. The waitress arrived with the drinks, and Robert noticed that the piano player was sitting down now; he pitied himself immensely, imagining how the music would compound the pain in his head. In the rear pocket of his trousers he was aware of the bulge of Harvey Plangman’s wallet.

Margaret said, “Edith, are you positive you won’t have a brandy?”

“Oh no, thank you. I have to drive to an auction in Chalfont tomorrow, and Daddy’s going into New York.”

“You Said That,”
Robert’s head screamed. He smiled at Edith.

“The Sautersly auction,” she smiled back.

“Well, cheers!” Margaret held up her martini. “No, wait,” she said. “Robert’s had such rotten luck on the way out — there’s an old Irish toast. You know, Robert, remember it? Why don’t we cheer ourselves up; you say that toast, hmm?”

Robert held up his glass. He recited the toast, feigning a tone of mild gaiety. In the mirror behind Margaret he could see his face, he could see it framed in the black lines of newsprint — EMBEZZLER CAUGHT!? … EMBEZZLER AT LARGE!? … “May the wind always be at your back!” he recited to his reflection, “May you always take the right turn in the road! May God take a liking to you, but not too soon.”

Edith Summers was making squeaks of delight, and Arthur murmured, “very good,” “very good,” while the glasses clinked and separated. Then Robert heard Margaret saying, “What’s the matter, Robert?”

He had been sitting there holding his glass, without drinking from it. He had been stopped in his thoughts, at the point in the toast where he had wished that one always take the right turn in the road. As clearly as when he had seen it earlier that day, Robert saw in his mind’s eye the run-down, squat, two-story gray shingle house on Route 22 out of Somerville. Just for an instant he saw it, and in that microscopic space of time, he saw himself turning the broken mailbox right side up, straightening it on its post.

“A penny for them?” said Edith Summers.

Robert forced a smile. “I was just dreaming,” he said.

He sipped the martini; the piano player began a very saccharine rendition of “Look To The Rainbow,” and a petite red headed girl standing at the piano sang along with the music.

• • •

After the Summers left, Robert ordered escargots for Margaret and himself, and a bottle of cold Mersault. Margaret was very quiet, a sign she was carefully selecting the right words for a serious discussion with Robert. She was quiet and she was playing with her wedding ring, all the signs Robert needed to warn him that Margaret was thinking about them. Robert’s headache was nearly anesthetized by the gin now, but he was not up to one of their discussions, and he tried to head it off. He started a conversation about the dinner party Margaret had planned for next week, pleased with his ability to carry it off so well. He found himself talking with ease about the food and other practical details. Maybe it would all work out. The letter to Margaret went from the table on which it had been spread out, back into the envelope; now, still sealed, it was being slipped down the slit of a mailbox. Tomorrow morning, just in case, Robert would go down to the box for their mail.

Normally Margaret could talk and talk about the arrangements. for a party; about the seating arrangements, about the provisions for shelter in case of rain, if they were having a largeish (Margaret’s word) crowd, about whether or not to hire Kenneth to serve drinks (he was quick and polite, but took home bags of food at the end) or Mrs. Johnston (who took nothing home but the great quantity of liquor she sneaked throughout an evening, each drink making her a bit nastier). Margaret, Robert soon learned, was disinterested even in the party now. She had something to say to Robert, and she began the moment the waitress poured the Mersault.

“Robert, is it that you think Clary is testing you with this Baker assignment?”

“No, it was always in the offing.”

“You’re just acting so strangely. I’ve been thinking about that remark you made ever since we left Somerville. It’s almost as though you were looking for some sort of security.”

“Margaret, I said I loved you because I just happened to feel like it. What’s wrong with telling your wife you love her?”

“I agree, it’s certainly in order. But what made you think of it at that particular moment?”

“I don’t even remember now. I don’t even remember what we were discussing.”

“I was just saying that I thought we’d go back to round butter balls.”

“Maybe I wasn’t listening carefully. I was probably daydreaming.”

“Well, Robert, it isn’t like you to daydream — and then come up with a remark like that. It isn’t like you.” “Oh, Margaret, I don’t know.”

“I’m not picking on you, dear. I’m worried. Then this business of losing your coat. The anxiety over that coat! I watched your face while we drove from Lambertville. It isn’t like you.”

“You know me pretty well, don’t you?”

“Of course, dear. That’s why I’m so concerned.”

“The wine has been over-chilled,” said Robert.

His voice seemed to come from a very long way off. Some horrible bore had said those words. He could see the whole thing, see himself sitting at a table saying the wine was over-chilled, while an odd collection of floating figures hovered above, smiling — smirking? Bud Wilde, holding his battered hat with the weather stains on the band — the window washer with his checkered cap and his big button — and then, someone else — an owlish look to his countenance — the firm jaw and the large ears. He winked at Robert Bowser. “It won’t be long now, pal,” he promised.

“I know it is,” Margaret was saying. “No one ever chills wine anymore. They simply keep it in the icebox. Robert, I’m worried about you.”

“I’m sorry. I have a headache tonight.”

“Maybe instead of the party, we should go to Nassau when you get back. I’d love to take mother too. We all need a vacation.”

“Margaret, just don’t worry. There’s nothing to worry about. There’s nothing at all to worry about.” The words came from some cavern in his mind, sweet and sure, plain and perfectly logical. Even Robert was comforted by them. He said, “Things always work out. It’s very simple.”

Margaret looked immensely relieved. “Yes,” she smiled. “I must be a little on edge myself. You know, Robert, I want you to be a vice-president very badly. It’s important for you, and high time. I’m afraid I get a little tense myself, I want it so badly for you.”

“Of course you do. I’m sorry if I didn’t appreciate …”

“No, I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s every bit as important to me as it is to you.”

“There now, feel better?” Robert said, pouring some of the Mersault into her glass.

“Much, much better. But you were acting strangely, you know. I know you better than you know yourself, Robert.”

“Yes, perhaps you do.”

“Of course I do, dear!”

They worked on their escargots for awhile. Robert did not trust himself to look closely at her until some moments had passed, though he wanted to. He almost believed he would see a complete stranger. Earlier, he had felt that, but when he looked, she was as familiar as his own face. He waited a bit, then he did look closely at her. There was the same sense of estrangement that there had been before, and the same feeling as before, that he must be going to miss her, mustn’t he? She was what he knew. Yes, he could predict her — when she would light a cigarette and when she wouldn’t — the vein that throbbed near her temple when she was tired — the way, after love-making, she always asked him to check to see if the front yard light were out (as though the abandonment of physical intercourse had made them abandoned in other ways, so abandoned the front yard light might burn all night) — her reaction to this person, that news story, his moods — all the predictable things one person learns about another in over twenty-one years. And yet — yet it was all on the surface, the same as her knowledge of him was. If things worked according to plan, Monday morning she would know a great deal more about him than he would ever know about her. He sat there looking at his wife, and wondering: did she too, at some point in an evening, remember something that was inexplicably secret, some part of her experience that she held inside her — a face, a voice, some piece of a day that would come back to her, and momentarily seduce her interest — so that she too would be left with the cocktail glass held in a toast, her mind gone to some other place, her spirit bewildered by the incident; even tantalized or afraid? Could it be even now, that she was sitting opposite Robert wondering the very same thing about him?