Intimate Victims (7 page)

“I think I figured it out,” Margaret said then.

“Figured what out?”

“Do you remember that we decided to have dinner out before I got on the subject of round butter balls? Remember?” “I guess go.”

“I think you were pleased, Robert. Do you know that it’s been a very long time since we’ve been alone together? We’ve always had Mother with us.”

“Quite right.”

“Now, you won’t admit it, but I think Mother irritates you at times. No, I really think so, Robert.”

“Well — it’s a possibility.”

“Of course it is! We should try to be by ourselves occasionally. We’ll make a point to,” Margaret said gaily. “All right, dear?”

“All right, Margaret.”

“That’s what was behind that remark!” said Margaret.

“So I said, now listen, I am not the maid, for your information. I said, ‘This is Mother Franklin!’”

“Robert,” Margaret said, “perhaps it was someone calling about your coat.”

“Yes, I was thinking that myself.”

“He called five times. I counted. Five times. I said, ‘If you would simply leave your name, Mr. Bowser will call you when he gets in.’ I said, ‘This is Mother Franklin, not the maid.’”

• • •

The three of them were standing in the kitchen. Margaret was heating milk for Mother Franklin’s Ovaltine, while Robert got down the package of marshmallows. Mother Franklin was wearing one of Margaret’s Hawaiian muumuus, instead of her own nightgown, and Margaret’s tangerine nylon tricot robe, with the satin buttons and satin piping. She knew Margaret disliked having her wear her clothes. If she were left alone in the house for very long, she took it out on Margaret this way. If Margaret were to buy Mother Franklin a Hawaiian muumuu of her own, or a tangerine robe, Mother Franklin would only insist that the styles were too young for her, and refuse to wear them. Mother Franklin was a short, wiry, white-haired old woman who seemed to shrink a little more every day. When she wore sweaters — and she often did, with skirts and saddle shoes and bobby socks — the sweaters hung as though they were put over a clothes hanger. Yet this wizened old woman’s tiny body contained an iron will, and a stubbornness and nerve that made Robert often wish he could simply step down on hard, with his foot, the same way one killed a persistent and pesty bumblebee. He and Margaret had come home to find Mother Franklin in a nervous rage over the telephone calls. The least little thing could set her off; this time, she was positive that the caller did not believe she was trustworthy enough for him to leave a message. The fact was, Mother Franklin often forgot telephone messages. Robert was sure that somewhere in the back of her mind was the fantasy that Robert and Margaret had told their friends never to leave a message with Mother Franklin when they called, since she was not reliable. She ranted on about the kind of people who telephone without giving their name, and whined to Margaret that she needed some hot chocolate to help her sleep. Her white hair was rolled around large wire curlers, and she was barefoot; her toenails were painted with Margaret’s red nail polish.

“Did he say he’d call back?” Robert asked her.

“He did not!”

“Well, I hope you told him we’d be in soon?”

“I told him nothing! I said, ‘This is Mother Franklin and not the maid.’”

“It must have been about the coat,” said Margaret. “Here, Robert,” handing him the Ovaltine, “would you put a marshmallow in that for Mother?”

Robert took the cup and dropped the marshmallow in it. “And he didn’t say anything else, hmm, Mother Franklin? He just asked for me?”

Mother Franklin shrieked, “Don’t stir it! I don’t like my marshmallow stirred in! I like it to float on top!”

“Mother, don’t shout, please!” Margaret said.

“Why did he have to stir it?” Mother Franklin complained. “He knows I like it floating on top! Now, it’s all mixed in the way I hate it!”

Robert left the cup on the kitchen table and walked out of the room. Behind him he heard Margaret shushing his mother-in-law, heard her purring about Robert’s Winston-Salem assignment, about the likelihood of Robert’s vice-presidency. “We’ll all go to Nassau for a vacation, to celebrate!” he heard Margaret say, and Mother Franklin said, “The hospital’s where I’m going! My cramps are back again, and the pains down my legs, Margaret.”

• • •

In the front room (Margaret always called it the solarium) Robert walked across to his desk. He took Plangman’s wallet from his back pocket and placed it in the top drawer. He paused then, looking down at the wallet. He had not searched it thoroughly; there was a letter in the money compartment which he had not examined, and he had not gone into the wallet’s side pockets. Robert leaned across his desk and snapped on his drafting lamp. He sank into the softness of his green-cushioned desk chair and placed the wallet in front of him. From the hallway he could hear the sounds of Margaret and Mother Franklin going upstairs to bed.

The right side pocket of the wallet contained air mail stamps and a Trojan, a matchbook (empty) from the Brown Derby in California, and a page torn from a magazine of some sort, with four verses to a song called “Kappa Pi Pinning Serenade.” From the left side pocket of the wallet, Robert removed a folded piece of stationery headed COLUMBIA BUSINESS-SECRETARIAL SCHOOL, COLUMBIA, MISSOURI.

“My darling, dearest, adorable, big, beautiful — ” and then an obscenity. Robert stopped at the obscenity. He put the piece of paper aside. He did not refold it and put it back in the left side compartment, but brushed it to the edge of his desk blotter. An uncomfortable feeling came over him — a feeling that this Plangman fellow would not be a very pleasant person to know. He flipped the shields to the driver’s license; the Missouri license contained no birthdate, no identifying physical characteristics. Then from the money compartment, he took out the letter. He opened it and read it.

Dear Harvey, Of course I would like to see you if you are coming East. Mais oui!

When he came to the part about the “grizzly bear” who wanted to take the writer to Chez Odette for dinner, his heart jumped. He grabbed the envelope and read the return address. Cutler — Sugan Road — New Hope, Pennsylvania. The name was not familiar. He reached across his desk for the phone book. There was a listing for a Hayden Cutler on Sugan Road. VOlunteer 2-5408.

Uncle Avery is a vice-president of Stowe Chemical.

He sat there, his thoughts ricocheting back and forth. Plangman sounded like a young man. Although there were no fraternities where Robert had gone to college, Kappa Pi was as famous a fraternity as Sigma Chi. Was Plangman a college boy, possibly working his way through college (which would explain the Woolworth employee’s card)? If he were a college boy, wouldn’t there be a better chance that Robert’s letter to Margaret would go unread? Robert felt that was true. He should simply pick up the phone and call the Volunteer number — explain that he had lost his coat, that there had been a mix-up, that he had Plangman’s coat. He knew Stowe Chemical; it was a big and very substantial organization. Robert felt as though his coat and his wallet with the letter were in good hands — restrained hands. He picked up the telephone and dialed the number. He waited through eleven rings, then dropped the arm back in its craddle. For a moment he sat there. The palms of his hands were wet and warm; he could feel the perspiration soak his shirt. Finally, he reached for the other letter — the note — whatever it was. He leaned back and read it. “My darling, dearest, adorable, big, beautiful — ”

• • •

The letter was filled with obscenities. In the lewdest language Robert had ever read anywhere, outside of outright pornography, it cajoled, reminisced, promised, begged, and grieved. Clearly, it was not pornography. Gertrude, its writer, had no salacious intent. It was quite simply a love letter, a glorious and foul celebration of the most intimate method of communication between a man and a woman. It was wholly without subterfuge. It was blatant, screaming, weeping, puling, singing. While Robert read it, and while he sat there after he had read it, his entire being was swept with something akin to longing — not a longing for the flesh, or for the touch or sound or sight of anyone he knew; it was more like a homesickness suffered by some orphan who had no particulars with which to fill the framework of the feeling. He thought of the few letters Margaret had written to him, and of his to Margaret. He saw himself in a sudden, distilled, rapid pageant of his years — Robert Bowser — languid and divinable, a cog of ostensible conformity, bloodless and healthy as fresh white snow. Only in the Big Gamble was he different — and again the thought occurred to him that the game controlled him — even in that way, he was a cog.

Certain ideas of his rang out in his thoughts, the everyday ideas that he had always thought of as his facade — that he now suspected were simply his way of life, and would be, despite the coup. With each idea, there was a scene he could see himself in — standing in a haberdashery now, discarding the ties that were too flashy (never give a clue to the bright thread of recklessness, not even in a tie), and now in a restaurant studying the wine list (no, Hermitage Blanc is wrong with squab; better a Bordeaux), now at King & Clary’s (“In my investigation, sir, the company’s major capital project is a potash mine and plant in Saskatchewan, operated by a subsidiary. The plant is …”), and now in bed with Margaret, embraced by her, the ritual familiar and precise, waiting for the last low moan of ecstasy(?) before it was time for him to deliver himself, the apogee of control, partner in their antiseptic joy.

He could shut his eyes, lean back, and then see his shoes upstairs in the closet, row upon row, shoes for formal, semi-formal, business, spectator sports, all polished and containing their trees; then, open his eyes and see beside his drafting lamp, the red tea cannister made into an over-scale lamp with a grass-color cloth shade, for occasions when more light was necessary. Yes, he had discussed it quite seriously with Margaret; sometimes the drafting lamp was not sufficient, and Margaret had found just the right one for the solarium’s decor. Both had sat over drinks in the solarium admiring it. It was the focal point of the whole room, Margaret said.

Above Robert’s desk was the Modigliani self-portrait, circa 1918, a little-known drawing Robert had bought for an anniversary gift to the house years ago. He could remember — he could see himself in his memory — sitting with Margaret on the sofa beside him, while he discussed Brancusi’s influence on Modigliani; it was a night who knows in what year, when they had first made frozen daiquiris in their new Waring blender.

Robert stuffed the letter from Gertrude back in Plangman’s wallet. Sao Paulo — the words sounded suddenly menacing, as though the leap from here to there was too large, and there was not time enough to fit into his new role. It was too soon to go so far from what he knew, from what had held him, almost in bondage, throughout his life. São Paulo — foreign, a bright thread, which was, after all, only a thread — and not much to go on.

The sharp sound of the ringing telephone punctuated this thought. His hand trembled as he took his chances.

“Mr. Bowser?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Bowser, my name is Harvey Plangman.” “Yes, Mr. Plangman. I have your wallet, and jacket too, I believe.”

“I have yours, Mr. Bowser.” “Where are you?”

“I’m at the Black Bass, here in Lumberville.” “Why don’t you drive over here? Do you have a car? I could offer you a drink, and we could reclaim our things.” “I have a car, sir. Is your family there?” “Yes, but it’s only ten-thirty. No one’s asleep.” “Is this a private line? Do you have an extension?” “It’s quite private.”

“Mr. Bowser, were you planning to go to Brazil?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the sea around you, Mr. Bowser.” “I see.”

“You don’t have anything to be afraid of, Mr. Bowser.” “I’d better come there.”

“Yes, I think it would be much better if you came here.” “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“You’ll know who I am, all right, Mr. Bowser. I’m wearing your coat.”

“Fifteen minutes,” said Robert.

• • •

Upstairs, Margaret was giving Mother Franklin a back rub. “Don’t try to peek in and see me,” said Mother Franklin. “I haven’t a stitch on!”

“Oh, Moth-ther!” Margaret giggled.

Robert stood in the doorway. “That was the man who has my coat and wallet,” he said. “He called from the Black Bass. I’m going to run over there.”

“You should have invited him here, Robert.”

“If he’s not the sort to leave his name when he telephones,” Mother Franklin said, “he’s not the sort to ask to the house. I told him, ‘I’m not the maid here, I’m Mother Franklin.’ “

“All right! All right!” Robert snapped. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

“Robert?”

“Yes, Margaret.”

“Was it the same man whose wallet you have?” “Yes, the same one.”

“Well, that’s grand, isn’t it? It was all a mistake, it’s very simple.”

“You’re rubbing my ribs too hard!” Mother Franklin shouted. “You’re taking it out on me because I wore your muumuu, aren’t you, Margaret?”

Oh God, Robert prayed, don’t let me miss moments like this; don’t let what’s in store for me now, be bad enough for me to wish I were back here. He went down the stairs, Mother Franklin’s voice rasping his ears. “Oh, yes, you are; yes; you are, Margaret, you’re mad at me for wearing your muumuu!”

“A
ND IF
I don’t agree to your plan?” Robert Bowser asked.

“Please, Mr. Bowser, I don’t want to threaten you.”

“That’s what blackmail is all about,” said Bowser.

He studied Harvey Plangman carefully. He knew his kind, all right; you couldn’t miss his kind. When Bowser had first come into the bar, he had noticed Plangman’s stare. He was taking in everything right down to the shoes. It was as though suddenly Bowser were wearing price tags on everything, as though the labels on his clothes were all sewed on the outside. There was in his eyes that peculiar mixture of envy and hero-worship, indigenous to Plangman’s kind. And then — Plangman’s plan — a strange way to blackmail a man. An oddly inviting plan, it was, except that it depended on Bowser’s trusting Harvey Plangman. There was the catch. Harvey Plangman said, “Mr. Bowser, can’t we discuss this in a friendly way? Do you know, I liked you from the start — from the moment you walked in here. You look sort of like that Martin Gabel on ‘What’s My Line?’ ”

“I wouldn’t know,” Bowser sighed. It was like a dream, this whole thing. Not a nightmare either. Simply fantastic, unreal.

“He’s Arlene Francis’ husband,” said Plangman. “Only you’re thinner. Mr. Bowser, I know you didn’t think much of me when you first saw me. I saw the way you looked at me. Do you remember?”

“No.”

“I’m used to it, so it’s all right. I get that kind of a look nine times out of ten. That’s why this whole thing is so important to me, sir. But the part that makes me happiest, is that I’ll be doing you a favor too. You need a place to hide for awhile — a comfortable place where you’ll be safe. Sir, 702 Wentwroth is that place, believe me. So I’ll be doing you a favor, and in turn, I’ll have a chance to get my room at the top. Did you see that movie, sir, ‘Room At The Top’?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“I saw it three times. It won the Academy Award. You must not be the type for TV and movies, is that it?”

“Mr. Plangman, will you please stop skirting around the subject?”

“But your likes and dislikes are part of the subject, sir.”

“If I don’t agree to your plan, you’ll go to the police. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“We can help each other, sir. Don’t you see that? My first suggestion is that you go into New York City tomorrow and get yourself some rimless glasses. After you get to Missouri, you can change to contact lenses. Get a brush cut and grow a mustache. You might even try a beard. In Columbia, a man with a beard is not too unusual. Many of the professors have beards. What do you think I should do first? Remember, I want to make a very good impression on Hayden Cutler tomorrow night! Perhaps I should wear something special.”

Robert Bowser said, “The $25,000 withdrawn from my savings was sent on to São Paulo, Plangman.” It was a lie, of course. The $25,000 was it; it was in cash, back at the house, zipped into Robert Bowser’s tie case.

“Don’t drag it out longer than you have to, sir,” Harvey Plangman said, glancing about the terrace of the Black Bass Inn, at the view of the Delaware Canal, and the lights along the bank. “It’s pleasant here, but I’m not sure we want to stay until closing. There’s too much to do, don’t you agree?”

“You’re convinced I have it, aren’t you?”

“Do you know I’ve never had more than $250 in the bank at one time, Mr. Bowser? I felt rich when I had that much! Don’t you see how unfair it is? You’ve gone through 100,000 — pffft! Like that! You may even still have it, or more. I can only go by the bank book. I’m only asking for $10,000. A drop in the bucket, sir, don’t you agree?”

Yes, Bowser knew his kind. Big risks for small gains. It was ironical that his kind would be the stumbling-block now, that the epitome of all that Bowser had guarded himself against becoming, would present himself at the eleventh hour, stand in his way and grin — and call him “sir.”

Bowser said, “Just $10,000, and control over my movements, that’s all you’re asking.”

“$10,000 and your guidance, sir. Put it that way.”

“My guidance!”

“Don’t laugh at me, Mr. Bowser. It’s not very pleasant to be laughed at, you know.” “My guidance, ha!”

“Isn’t it clear yet? I want to enter your world, sir. The money isn’t enough. Even if I were to ask you for twice the amount, it wouldn’t be enough. Nor would $100,000. I need direction, advice — someone to tell me what to wear and say and do. Guidance, Mr. Bowser — a few pointers. Look sir, if I can just have ten thousand dollars and a few pointers, I know I can marry Lois Cutler before the winter.”

“Where do you think that will get you, Plangman?”

“Where I want to go — into your world.”

“Just like that, eh?” Bowser said, with a snap to his fingers. That was like the Plangmans of this world, all right. Hopelessly like them. What they wanted, they wanted fast, and they were not even sure what they would get. It was the difference between greed and ambition. Bowser sighed again, frustrated by Plangman’s ignorance. He said, “For one thing, Plangman, I’m not in some special world, with Hayden Cutler, Rockefeller, Paul Getty and the Vanderbilts. There’s no world like that. You’re so ill-informed, it’s preposterous. I don’t know how to talk with you.”

“Preposterous? I don’t think so. Wait a minute. I have something here.” Plangman took a pencil from his pocket, and wrote on the matchbook of the English Grill. “There!” he said, passing it across to Robert Bowser. “Suppose you were to come across these abbreviations. They were listed after Lois’ uncle’s name in the Register, the Social Register, sir.”

“Well, what about them?”

“Un, Ln, B, Pg, H. What do they mean?”

“Union Club, Links Club, Brook Club, and Harvard, I suppose,” said Bowser. “I don’t know the Pg offhand.”

“The Pg. is The Pilgrims, sir. But you got four out of five.”

“What are you getting at? Why are you off on all these tangents?”

“Don’t be impatient, sir, please! I’m simply proving that you are in the same world as Lois, at any rate. When I saw those abbreviations, I didn’t know what a one meant! Not a one, sir!”

“I don’t belong to any of those clubs, and I’m not in the Register.”

“Neither is Hayden Cutler. Both you and Hayden Cutler know about those things, though. Were you born with those facts in your heads? No, no! But you were born into that world! Well, I wasn’t! I need to be tutored, sir!”

“And you think that if you do manage to marry Lois Cutler, her father will share his wealth with you! Well, don’t make that mistake, Mr. Plangman. Don’t make that mistake!”

“I’m not after money, I’m really not! I’m after class! Over and over I tell myself how unfair it is — that some people are simply born with it — that others, like me, Mr. Bowser, are expected to sit around on the sidelines and shrug our shoulders and tell ourselves that that’s just the way the ball bounces — too bad, and all that rot! I’m tired of it, Mr. Bowser! My God, you don’t know how sick and tired of it I am! And you, sir, born with it, and it wasn’t enough. No, you had to have $100,000 in the deal!”

“I wasn’t born with — class.”

“Where did you attend college, sir?”

“Princeton.”

“Ummm hmm. Princeton. Ivy League.” “All sorts of young men go to Princeton. It means nothing — nothing.”

“It means, sir, that their mothers don’t run boarding houses, that they don’t sleep on the couches of their living rooms, and that they know things. Things! Dammit, I’m not giving you a sob story. I just want to point out that what I want isn’t so fantastic! I’m not trying to marry into the Rockefeller family, and maybe my idea of class isn’t yours. The rich can always think of somebody richer — that’s the great part about being rich, you can be so modest. But if you’re poor, Mr. Bowser, or if you’re sick, it’s very hard to think of someone poorer or sicker. You just don’t feel inclined to!”

“You don’t want to be rich, you said.”

“That’s right, Mr. Bowser. Class! That’s A-number 1. Class! I guess you think I’m primitive, hmm?”

“I think you’re crazy,” said Robert Bowser. “No one can give you class. I’d be the last person … I know very little about people like the Cutlers. The whole damned thing is …"

“Is what, sir?”

“Primitive. That’s the word, all right, Plangman.” “Tub Oakley’s favorite word for me. ‘Harvey,’ he used to say, ‘you’re a nice fellow, but you’re so primitive.’ I hated it when he said that. It was just a remark to him, but I hated it, and I kept remembering it…. Well, sir? Do you want to go over the details?”

“I don’t have the money.” Yet, oddly enough, as he said that, Bowser did not feel that he distrusted Plangman any longer. Plangman was too vulnerable. Bowser was stalling, giving himself time to think. São Paulo seemed a very long way off, and Bowser had the same feeling he had had earlier that evening in his study — that it was too big a jump — from here to there. Perhaps just this sort of person was the right one for now, just this sort of cockeyed plan — as unlikely as any Bowser could ever be a part of, and for that reason, good. And it was a gamble — but with someone like Plangman, the odds were in favor of Robert Bowser. Bowser felt sure of that. Plangman would always be more off guard than Bowser. The $10,000 was cheap enough a price for time, and a place to hide.

“You’ll get the money, sir,” Plangman was saying. “You see, I’ll tell my mother you’re a professor I met — that you’re on a leave of absence, to write a thesis. I’ll tell her that in return for a place to stay, you agree to look after 702. As I mentioned earlier, the house is in fairly good condition, sir. We’ve converted it into three apartments. You’ll live in mine, on the first floor, as I said. The other two are rented.”

“In this fantasy of yours, Mr. Plangman,” Bowser said, “what do you plan to do?”

“I’m going to get an apartment in New York, sir. A very swanky one. I’ll invent some sort of business I’m supposed to be in. You can help me with that. I’ll need to be sure of myself around Mr. Cutler. Weekends I’ll spend around here, seeing Lois. I thought of moving here, but I know how important it is to play it cool, sir. I just need time and the trappings, Mr. Bowser. A nice place. A nice car. Some advice. I’ll write you for advice. I’ll need a lot. I hope you’re a good correspondent. Then, there’s a European trip in the offing. I want either to stall it, or be included. I wouldn’t mind going to Europe on my honeymoon.”

“How would you explain to the Cutlers your sudden shortage of funds? Ten thousand doesn’t stretch far, Plangman.” Bowser was thinking that he would be well out of the whole situation before Plangman went through the money. Time was all he needed. If he had had more warning from the beginning, would he have chosen São Paulo? Probably not. It would not be his meat at all, doing his sort of work in a country whose language he could not speak. Canada was more likely.

“I’ll explain it some way,” said Plangman. “A bad investment, a business loss. I’ll need your advice on that too. The important thing is to win over Hayden Cutler — to endear myself to him, sir. I’ll honestly need a lot of advice.”

God, what a fool he really was! Half of Bowser pitied him, and the rest scorned him and his kind.

Bowser said, “Who advised you how to go about blackmailing?”

“I saw my chance and I took it, Mr. Bowser, the same as you saw your chance to become an embezzler, and became one. We’re quite a lot alike, Mr. Bowser. Do you realize that?”

“Oh, certainly, Plangman, certainly!” Bowser laughed inside; oh great god, what a fool! “Do you come here often, sir?” “I’ve never been here before.”

“Good. sir. I’m glad to hear that. It may work in our favor, that you’re not remembered as we sit here. What was I saying” Oh … that we’re alike. Yes, sir. You’re as much a victim of your way of life as I am of mine. It’s too bad you never wanted out, as I did. It’s too bad you never dreamed of entering my world, as I have of entering yours. Wouldn’t everything be perfect then! Oh, by the by, sir, I’ll want your passport. I don’t want to take the chance of your leaving me. I want your passport and the $10,000 before we part tonight. We can do it anyway you want. We can go to your house together, or I can park just down the road and you can bring them out to me. Do you think we should chance being seen together by your wife and mother-in-law? Once the authorities discover your theft, sir, they’ll be questioning anyone who’s had anything to do with you. Of course, we can always explain the wallet mix-up — but I don’t know that I should be hanging around your house. They might look into my background a bit more. I wouldn’t want them to go to 702 Wentwroth, would you?”

“Supposing I were to go along with you, Plangman,” said Bowser, “why do you want me to go to Columbia, Missouri? Why do you insist on this business of my living in your place? I could live anywhere just as well, and advise you, couldn’t I?”

Harvey Plangman said, “Well, for one thing — someone has to take care of the house. Summer session is almost over now. There’ll be two new tenants in the fall. I’d either have to pay someone to look after the place, or do it myself. I haven’t got time to scout around for someone, and I haven’t time to spend in Columbia. You appreciate that. For another thing — it’s the safest place for you, I feel. If you were to get caught, I’d very likely have to give back the money. I’d be an accessory, in fact. So your safety is important, don’t you see?”

“I could run out on you in Missouri. You’ve thought of that, I suppose.” Bowser was curious now, to see just how far ahead Plangman had thought.

“Yes, but why should you? Safety is important to you too. Sunday night we’ll fly to Columbia together. I’ll introduce you to mother and take you over to 702 and get you settled. Then I’ll fly back East, after I’ve done some packing. If you skip out then, an anonymous phone call to the police would probably put them onto you in a matter of days — even hours. They’d know your jumping-off point, anyway. But you won’t run out on me. The heat will be on, you know.”

Robert Bowser weighed it all over carefully. It might even be a godsend, and not a gamble at all. It just might be a godsend.

Plangman clapped his hand across his shoulder. “It could be so much worse, don’t you see that? You could be in handcuffs now.”