All The Bells on Earth (45 page)

Bentley stumbled forward, clamping his free hand onto the heavy end of the poker, cranking it around like he was steering a bus and pulling Argyle off-balance. “No!” he shouted, but Argyle held on, falling to one knee. Bentley stomped hard on his ankle and twisted the poker again, yanking it free, then stepped back and kicked Argyle in the small of the back. “That’s for Simms!” he shouted, whipping the poker behind his back with both hands now, as if he’d take Argyle’s head off with it. He skipped forward and swung it hard, pulling it short again, scaring the bastard away. Argyle yelped, going over backward and knocking over a small table, scuttling away on his hands and knees, heading around behind a stuffed chair, where he stood up, waving both hands to ward off Bentley.

“Put it down!” Argyle shouted. “For God’s sake … !”

“Burn the church down, eh?” Bentley yelled, full of a wild rage, and he smashed a potted palm, hacking it to smithereens with the poker. Dirt and leaves flew in the air, raining down on the golem, and Bentley skipped across and hammered a vase on the fireplace mantel, then pounded the hell out of a table lamp, flattening the lampshade and smashing its porcelain base. He took aim at a piece of bird statuary, knocked a flamingo’s porcelain head flying, and then lunged without warning toward Argyle again, stabbing the end of the poker into the chair that stood between them, tearing a long gash in the material and yanking out a big wad of stuffing.

Argyle made a sideways move, as if to run, and Bentley drove the poker downward like a saber and lunged in at him again, swinging his weapon in a wild tumult of blows as if he were knocking down an army. Argyle retreated into a far corner, his arms in front of his face, and without an instant’s hesitation Bentley spun around and rushed the golem again, intending this time to finish it off. He swung the poker savagely, catching the monster full in the face as it attempted now to stand up out of its chair, its expression an eerie mixture of idiot confusion and of Argyle’s own fear and hatred.

Bentley saw the poker drive into the thing’s mouth and nose, saw a piece of its waxy flesh tear loose, heard the noise that came out of the thing’s throat. It jerked backward, perhaps from the force of the blow, perhaps to escape, and sat down hard on the arm of the chair, then slumped onto the seat, resting its disfigured head against the cushion. There was no expression in its face now, only vacancy, but somehow that made things even worse, and Bentley was suddenly full of horror at what he’d done.

He stood there panting, drained of energy, holding the poker loosely in his hand. It was over. He felt degraded, monstrous, and for a moment he was nearly sick. He hadn’t killed it. Probably he couldn’t kill it. Its eyes wandered around the room as if it didn’t quite know where it was, and it made a noise, a breathy, rapid whimper. Bentley had simply worked out his anger on it. In his mind it had been Argyle himself that had taken the beating. He wondered abruptly if the golem could feel pain. Surely not.

“Get out,” Argyle said to him, his voice croaking out of him like the voice of a strangled man. Bentley turned around, dropping the poker in surprise at what he saw. Blood ran out of Argyle’s nose and from a cut on his lip, and there was a heavy red welt across his neck. Stigmata, Bentley realized. Mirror images of the golem’s own wounds.

Full of self-loathing, Bentley groped for something to say, something to justify himself. Before whom? Argyle? God? He gestured at the golem, which lay in the chair like a dead man, its throat caved in, its face mutilated. ‘I didn’t mean …”

“I don’t care what you meant,” Argyle told him, smearing his bloody face with his hand. He looked at the stain on his palm. His hand trembled violently. His voice was wheezy and labored, and he coughed and tilted his head back as if to open his throat. “Understand me when I say that I’m indifferent to you. Just go now. Go on. Get out. Get out. Get out.” He waved both his hands, wrists turned downward, as if to sweep Bentley out of the room, out of his life. Something had come into his eyes, almost a glow, as if in the taste of his own blood he savored his victory, his imminent success.

Bentley stepped across to the door. He was deflated, utterly fatigued. Argyle hadn’t defeated him—he saw that clearly—he had defeated himself. He felt sickened and ashamed. The act of hurting the golem had humanized it in some odd, backhanded way. He felt as if he’d beaten a dumb beast, a cow or a sheep.

Pushing the door open, he stepped out onto the porch. Without looking back he descended the steps, out from under the porch roof and into a heavy drizzle. Right then something struck him hard in the small of the back, and he grunted and stumbled forward. It was his Bible. Argyle had thrown it at him.

Slowly he bent over to pick it up off the wet concrete. He steeled himself and turned around, reminding himself that the book was none the worse for wear, that Argyle couldn’t hurt it. He opened his mouth to speak, to redeem …

But the door slammed shut, hard enough so that the entire front of the house shook on its foundation. Bentley stood looking at it for a moment, then turned around and walked toward the street, standing by his car for a minute before getting in, looking up at the rainy evening sky.

Mahoney wanted Bentley to go shelling with him tomorrow morning at dawn, rain or shine, and Bentley had told him that he didn’t have time for it—too many duties, too much work. Well, suddenly he was ready for it. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he had gone anywhere merely for pleasure. What he needed right now was air—ocean air, brisk enough to blow the moths out of his coat. And according to Mahoney, there was no telling what you’d find on the beach after a storm.

I
VY FOUND
A
RGYLE AT
his desk in his business office. He wore a turtleneck sweater, and he sat and stared with his hands folded in front of him, apparently in a contemplative mood. She carried the manila envelope full of the Batavia property paperwork. “You’ve hurt yourself,” she said, seeing that his lip and cheek had been cut open. The wound was held shut with three butterfly Band-Aids.

“Golfing accident.” He gestured at the office chair and beamed at her, as if suddenly full of zip. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’ve come to me today.”

She stopped herself from pointing out how idiotic this sounded, how full of vanity, and instead she sat down and waited for him to go on.

“Everything is absolutely sailing along with the properties. They’re rushing the loan papers; escrow’s already moving. We could close in no time. Mr. Peetenpaul is
extremely
happy.”

“I dare say he is.”

“Now,” Argyle went on, winking at her, “I’ve got a little surprise for you.”

“What’s that?” She kept her voice even.

“I’d like to advance you half the commission right now, if you don’t mind, just to start sewing things up. How’s that with you? Do you mind half the money now? No added tax burden, is there, if you get it before the first of the year?”

“No,” she said, standing up and wandering over to the window. “I don’t think it’ll have any effect on taxes at all.” She saw that Murray LeRoy’s property was dug to pieces now, areas cordoned off with yellow plastic tape flipping and dancing in the wind. A generator chugged away under a plastic awning, pumping muddy rainwater out of a hole, but she couldn’t see any workmen or watchmen around the premises, and there was no longer any sign of earth-moving equipment. By this time next year the place would be up in condominiums, which was a shame.

She glanced down into the rear parking lot of the office building. The black pickup truck sat in a stall. “Where is Mr. Peetenpaul?” she asked. “He seems to have become unavailable.”

“Oh, he’s around. I can assure you of that. He’s a busy man, what with his plans. I think we can depend upon him for more business in the future.”

“Is he here now? In the building?”

“No,” Argyle said, his smile fixed on his face. “Here? Why do you ask?”

“Well, that seems to be his truck down there in the lot, doesn’t it?”

“
Is
it? Oh, of course it is. I’m having it … detailed for him. My man’s coming around this afternoon if the weather stays clear. Mobile detailing unit.”

“That’s big of you,” Ivy said, sitting down again. She saw that Argyle had his checkbook out. Apparently he was going to write out a great big check right then and there. She was reminded suddenly of Walt’s tearing up Mrs. Simms’s check in the garage the other night, and she could easily envision herself doing the same thing here, throwing the pieces in Argyle’s face. She realized that she was thinking of him as Argyle again. Robert had disappeared. “I saw Mr. Peetenpaul at the doughnut shop yesterday, at the All-Niter.”

He nodded, as if this fascinated him.

“He seemed to be on his way somewhere.”

“To eat a doughnut, probably.”

“Actually, he didn’t buy any doughnuts. He apparently abandoned his truck in the parking lot and drove away with a local woman, a Mrs. Biggs. It looked for all the world like they were carrying airline tickets.”

Argyle stared at her now, as if he didn’t quite take this in. “A Mrs. Biggs,” he said flatly.

“That’s what I was told. I wonder what exactly happened to his truck after that—the way he tossed his keys onto the floor and just walked away. I wonder, did he come back after it? Maybe I was wrong about the airline tickets?”

“Well, I don’t quite know,” Argyle said. “I’ve been a little busy myself. I see that I’m not up on the details of Mr. Peetenpaul’s life. Are you certain about this … this Mrs. Biggs? About the name, I mean? You saw the two of them leave together?” All the humor, even the false humor, had gone out of his face.

“I’m afraid I did. They seemed to be an item, actually. It almost looked as if they were taking off on their honeymoon, off to Tahiti or somewhere.”

Argyle looked away, thinking hard about something, his checkbook apparently forgotten for the moment. “I’ll be damned,” he said finally, then abruptly barked out a laugh. “Mr. Peet! That old son of a gun …”

“Look,” Ivy said, leaning forward. “Don’t bother with the check, all right? Let’s quit pretending. A little bit of honesty once in a while wouldn’t hurt much. I had hoped that after all these years things would have changed with you, but apparently they haven’t.”

“I’m afraid I don’t …” He shook his head helplessly.

“Walt was right, wasn’t he? He said that Mr. Peetenpaul was an employee of yours, and that this entire property transaction was set up to deceive me. I wanted to think differently, but it’s true, isn’t it? You’ve had something up your sleeve all along. You’ve been playing some sort of game, saying one thing, doing another. This has all been a deception.”

He looked steadily at her for a moment, as if he were scrambling to find something to say in his own defense. “We had a contract,” he said, just a little desperately, “and I intend to honor it. Humor me, Ivy, for old times’ sake. Give me another chance.” He picked up a pen and reached for the checkbook. “
This
is no deception, I assure you.”

“I’ll tear it up, Robert. I mean it. I don’t want your money. As for another chance, I don’t quite know what you mean by that, and I don’t think I want to.”

“This commission could
make
you, Ivy. It could open doors for you. I’ve got powerful friends, wealthy friends. They buy and sell property for sums of money that would astonish you. And certainly this commission, as small as it is, would very nearly save Walt, wouldn’t it? You were telling me about his business. Hanging on through the first year is
crucial
. This money could make Walt’s dreams come true—get him out of the garage and into a commercial building, who knows where he’d end up?”

“Nobody knows,” Ivy said. “What I know is that you don’t understand the first thing about Walt, and you never have. He wouldn’t touch your money twenty years ago, and he won’t touch it now. Neither would I. Don’t make me say any more about it. Please. And don’t pretend to have Walt’s best interests in mind, because you don’t, and you know it. This whole thing was a mistake. Let’s end it here.”

He shrugged and slumped back into his seat. After a moment he closed the checkbook slowly, but left it on the desktop. “I did it for you,” he said. “What does it matter who bought the property?”

“What matters is that
nobody
bought the property. You were trying to buy
me
. That’s closer to the truth, isn’t it?”

“Don’t say that. I wouldn’t do that. I can’t explain what I mean, exactly, but believe me when I tell you that I’m undergoing
changes
in my life. Profound changes. I don’t know what you’d call them—spiritual changes, I guess. I’ve finally managed to square things away. There’s a … a spiritual bankruptcy, I guess you could say, that a man can apply for when he’s in the sort of debt I’m in. I mean to say that I’ve filed
Chapter 13
, Ivy. I’m getting out from under a great … a great debt, a great weight. I’ll be free of it. By tomorrow I’ll … I’ll finally be able to feel
good
about myself.”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Robert. And to tell you the truth, I don’t think you do either. I think you’re the most incredibly self-deceived human being I’ve ever known. I’d bet a shiny new dime that by tomorrow you won’t have changed in any way at all, although you probably
will
feel good about yourself, heaven help you. So
please
don’t mention your commission again, or whatever you want to call it. Save your breath.”