Dennis and Alfred were on their feet instantly, Dennie's face flushed and Al's livid with anger. “That is ridiculous,” Dennie stated.
Hunter shook his head and cut him off. “I'm sorry. It was your grandfather's request. You both have stated your intentions, I now state his. Had you not bothered, this matter could have been settled immediately.” Hunter turned slowly and looked at me. “It still may be if Mr. Kelly does not care to exercise his prerogative. If he refuses, the bequest will be made as stipulated.”
Alfred stood there, his fists clenched at his sides. Dennie was leaning on the desktop, his face still flushed with the indignity of it all. The three girls hardly breathed and Marvin grinned over the top of his drink.
“A question, Counselor,” I said. “Supposing they get something on me
and
I get something on them?”
The introspective stare Hunter held on me told me more than he realized. He was evaluating me again and his estimate was going up. I was reading back into a dead mind and reading it right.
Leyland Hunter nodded sagely and said, “In that case, the entire remainder of the estate goes to you.”
Inside my head my mind was laughing because the old boy was paying off for all the times I had gotten the dirty end of the stick. He was saying,
“Go get 'em. It isn't much, but you never wanted much anyway. If they deserve it, stick it up and break it off.”
“Well,” Hunter asked me, “do you choose to exercise your prerogative?”
I didn't bother to smile. I simply looked at Dennison, then at Alfred and let a few seconds go by. “You're damned well told I do,” I said.
We drove into Linton and had supper in the log and fieldstone restaurant that used to be a gristmill. The decorations were from another era, flintlock pistols, spinning wheels, strange household utensils and relics from the time when America was vibrant with potential energy and every man an individual who knew how to determine his own destiny. The food was simple and magnificent, the wine a tasty local product, and we finally sat back, filled and ready to talk.
With our glasses filled from a fresh bottle, Hunter toasted us all. “To a successful day,” he said. “It was a pleasure to see the Barrins outraged at the mere suggestion that they might have a moral flaw.”
“You're a crafty bastard, Counselor. The old man was a shrewdie too.”
“Indeed he was. I hope you think more of him now.”
“Not more, just better.” I sipped my drink and put the glass down. “One thing went over my head, friend. You could have laid me out on that morals clause right then. Why didn't you?”
Hunter finished half his glass before he answered me. “Had they not demanded the investigation of you, I would have. You see, that was another proviso of Cameron's. I imagine he figured you wouldn't have stood a chance otherwise, so he gave you one at their expense. If they wanted to be nasty about it, they had to put up with some discomfort at least. If they weren't so simon-pure, they'd pay for their attempt to discredit you.”
I nodded and made wet circles with my finger on the tabletop. “Think much of my chances, buddy?”
“Frankly, I think it's a lost cause. I told you, I have already made inquiries and your cousins are quite re-spectacle.”
“You're too orderly, Hunter,” I said. “You didn't get your nails dirty. If you want dirt, you dig where the dirt is. Something always turns up.”
“You think you have more experience at that sort of thing than I have?”
“I wouldn't be surprised, mighty Hunter.”
“No,” he said. He finished the rest of his drink. “Nor would I.” He snapped his fingers for the check, put it on his credit card and stood up. “Now,” he said, “I hate to be party to a possible immoral act, but tomorrow I have a session with the accountants at the factory. I have arranged to stay at the Gramercy Inn for the night, with separate accommodations already made for you two. In the meantime, you may have the use of the limousine, with or without the driver. I rather suspect Willis would be happy to be relieved. He has a room reserved for him too. If you wish, you can drive back to the city if you can pick me up again tomorrow. It's your choice.”
Sharon started to laugh and gave him a look of faked anguish. “Mr. Hunter, you
really
are something. How can you even suggest a thing like that? Don't you know anything about women at all? I have no change of clothes, no nightgown ...”
“Hell, sleep in your drawers,” I said.
“Why, you...” She punched me in the arm and hurt her hand.
Hunter was watching us impishly. “I've provided for such a contingency,” he said. “The necessary apparel was purchased earlier by phone and has already been delivered to your room. I trust you'll find my selections satisfactory. My legal mind also encompasses a fairly accurate estimate of female sizes and delicate necessities.”
“You know, Counselor,” I said, “I'm beginning to wonder if there aren't a few things you could teach me.”
“In some areas only, Dog,” he replied.
Â
For an hour after we dropped Hunter and Willis off at the hotel, we cruised around Linton. By full moonlight the town was a prettier place, the grime hidden, the gradual decay of the buildings unseen. No longer was there a night shift at the factory, so the streets were quiet, most of the windows in the residential area dark. A patrol car was parked outside an all-night diner and another drifted by idly with barely a glance at us.
The memories came back again, but with little impact ... the old sandlot where I played softball with the Polacks was still there, littered with garbage now, but the wire backstop was still in place, rusted and sagging, a collection area for windblown papers.
We drove down Third Street and I said, “See that old building on the corner?”
Sharon nodded. “Looks like a haunted house.”
“Belonged to Lucy Longstreet. She was Madam Lucy then. Only whorehouse in town. That used to be a swinging joint on Saturday nights.”
“How would you know?”
I let out a laugh, remembering. “Hell, girl, kids know everything. There was a tree in the back we used to climb so we could watch the action. I'll never forget that black-haired girl from Pittsburgh. One day she and Mel Puttichi were inside on that big brass bed sexing up a storm and got little Stash so damn excited he let go of his limb and fell down on top of me and knocked us both out of the tree. I felt like whamming him. Things were just getting good.”
“Dog!”
“So what's wrong with watching? All kids are curious. It was first-class sex education.”
“And I suppose you were a steady customer at the place from then on?” she pouted.
“Hell no. Ran plenty of errands for Lucy, though. Always a buck tip and a chance to see one of the dames bare-ass when we brought in the package... if we were lucky. That black-haired dame never used to wear clothes ever. Quite a sight.”
“You're terrible.”
“They had a double murder in there one night. That ended things for Lucy. It was never the same again. I think she took her suitcases of money and moved out to the coast.”
“What happened to the girls?”
“Probably all respectable married by now. You'd be surprised how much in demand they are.”
“After working ...”
“Well, who wants a virgin anyway? Like the man said, if they're not good enough for somebody else, they're not good enough for me either.”
“Two words to you, Dog, and they're not good night.”
“You
really
a virgin?” I asked her.
“If you promise to be gentle I could prove it to you.”
“That's taking quite a chance.”
“Maybe.”
“Never mind, I'll take your word for it.”
We drove past the outskirts of Linton and Sharon told me to take a left on a country road, then another left into a lane that ended a hundred yards away. I turned around the rutted dirt oval wondering what she wanted to see here, then the lights of the car swept over the remains of a small frame cottage set back in the trees. The windows were gone and a large oak had collapsed on top of the porch, one of the limbs taking out an attic dormer. A rubble of red bricks from the chimney made a mound at its base nearly hidden by weeds and grass.
Very softly, Sharon said, “That's where I used to live. I was back here once before. My old bicycle is still out in back. It's all rusted to pieces now.”
“Who owns it?”
I felt her shrug. “The bank, I guess. There used to be a For Sale sign in the front, but nobody ever wanted the place. I had a lot of good times here, Dog. Dad and me It wasn't much, but he was happy. Neither one of us ever cared for pretentious living.”
“Then why sneak into Grand Sita?”
“Little girls are curious too. About different things, that is. You know what puzzled me about that big house you lived in?”
I shook my head.
“How you didn't get lost in it. I used to try to figure out how you could find your way between ends. I could picture myself running upstairs and down and into all sorts of crazy empty rooms, yelling and screaming and never anybody to come get me out. I was always glad to get back home.”
“You're silly,” I told her. I nodded toward the cottage. “Want to go in?”
“No. It would be too depressing. Don't let's spoil the evening.”
“We're not going to find any night life in Linton, kid.”
“You know what I'd really like to do?”
“Just name it.”
“Drive out to Mondo Beach. For once I'd like to go through the main gate as a genuine guest.”
“You know, Sharon,” I said, “I think you're a snob.”
“That's me,” she said.
Â
I found a hammer and screwdriver in the trunk of the car and knocked the lock off the hasp that held the gates shut. Wind-driven sand had piled up two feet deep along the bottom edge and we shoveled it away with our hands. When it was cleared I forced one section open, heard a hinge pry loose from the top, then I was inside. The roadway was too drifted over to try to get the car through, so Sharon took a blanket from the back seat and we started to walk toward the ocean.
After a dozen steps she stopped and said, “This ain't no place for city clothes, buster,” then kicked off her shoes, stripped her stockings off, tucked everything under her arm and waited. I grinned, did the same thing, rolled my pants legs up halfway and held out my hand.
You could smell the salt air and hear the gentle rumble of the surf long before we came out of the near-jungle of trees and undergrowth. Once all this had been neatly planted and tended, a showplace for the elite who came in horse-drawn carriages, and later in thundering, brass-shiny automobiles. Vegetation had overrun the picnic areas, the cabanas were flattened somewhere under the sand and only the foundation ruins of the old icehouse were visible. At the south end, ghosting against the sky, you could see the turreted outlines of the twenty room summer house. My grandfather had built that out of quality materials and the sea storms still had a lot of years to go before they nibbled it to pieces.
“Funny, isn't it,” I said.
“What?”
“It used to be such a great place. Now it's almost back to where it was before the old-man built it up. You know, I think I like it better this way.”
“So do I.”
We were silent for a while, just looking around in the pale moonlight. Then I took her hand, tugging her up and over the rolling dunes, the foot-high strands of grass brushing against our bare legs. We came to the last mound, and there was the gentle slope of packed sand and the water in front of us.
She spread the blanket out and curled up cross-legged on one side. “It's beautiful, Dog.”
I sprawled out next to her. “It's about the only thing the old man owned that I used to want. I figured I could put up a shack made of driftwood and pull a Robinson Crusoe bit.” I rolled on my side and looked up at her. “One year I did just that. They sent Al and Dennie to some fancy camp while the rest went to Newport for the social season and my mother and I camped out here for six days. That was when she told me about marrying my father.”
“You never knew him, did you?”
“Only through her. He was some hell raiser. She sure loved him though.”
“Why wouldn't they accept him?”
“Come off it, baby. You know the drill on that bit. If there was no money there was no position, ergo, no marriage into the Barrin family. They never thought my old lady would tell them to go toss it and get herself knocked up outside the family circle. Trouble was, when my father died she lost all the spunk she had. They squeezed her until there was nothing left. The old man had her yanked out of the apartment they were living in while she was alone and dragged her back to Grand Sita. She didn't even know she was pregnant then. He hired guards to keep my father away, got him fired from his job, had him rousted out of the state and kept my mother incommunicado until after I was born. One day the old man showed up, beat the hell out of four of the guards and took off with my mother and married her. A week later he was dead and she was back in exile again in the old man's little Siberia. I don't think she ever left it except to come here on rare occasions. When she did I was just a kid and it was all over so fast I can hardly remember it. She was dead in the morning, in the coffin by noon and buried before nightfall. I threw some rocks through the old man's greenhouse, spit in his decanter of fine booze and opened the sluicegate on the pond behind the house and drained his imported goldfish into the creek. I think the gardener covered for me and he never noticed anything wrong with his booze. The next day Alfie and Dennie knocked the shit out of me for something or other and I hit Dennie over the head with a rake. For that I got a week alone in my room and had time to think.” I stopped for a minute and looked at the ocean. “They never should have left me in that room,” I said.