Ralph’s thoughts faltered. He felt shy about going to the police. Wasn’t the age of consent even sixteen for girls? Couldn’t Elsie even refuse to give her parents’ address?
“Hi, loony,” said a boy of about twelve, bouncing a tennis ball in front of Ralph’s house.
Ralph paid the boy no mind.
A few minutes later, when Ralph was walking from his house toward the Christopher Street subway station, he saw John Sutherland. Sutherland was walking toward him, and greeted him with a big smile.
“Evening, Mr Linderman, how’re you?” Sutherland asked, looking muscular and fit in his blue jeans and V-necked sweater. He carried a bottle-shaped object in a brown paper bag.
“Very well, thank you, and yourself?”
“Fine. By the way, Elsie’s moved way uptown on the west side. I thought it was east before. She’s doing well and she’s going out of town for a month or so. Vacation.—I think there’s a young man in the picture.”
Here Ralph saw Sutherland wink an eye. Sutherland shifted from one foot to the other in his running shoes, as if he were eager to dash away. “A young man?” Ralph asked.
“Young man she met at the school where she goes. Nice fellow, I heard.—See you, Mr Linderman!” He ran off.
“Where uptown?” Ralph called after him, but to no avail.
Sutherland was trotting now, nearly out of sight.
Ralph didn’t believe him.
30
Jack was still smiling when he reached his front door. What an act he’d put on, beaming with good cheer! He’d had the idea a couple of days ago, to give Linderman a bum steer as to Elsie’s whereabouts, the next time he saw Linderman on the street, and to throw in a boyfriend for good measure. Linderman had looked awful, dark around the eyes and with a bad shave that had left him with stubble and a couple of cuts.
The last week had brought Jack a few pieces of good news. His drawings for the yak book had been finished and approved, and he had sold between thirty and forty new spots. And Jack’s father Charles had to some extent “relented”, and Jack could not attribute it to anything except the Dreams book, the favorable impression it had apparently made on his father. Uncle Roger had informed Jack of his father’s pleasure in receiving a copy. Jack had inscribed it to his mother and father, of course, and his mother had written him a letter. Then his father had written a shorter letter stating that he was sincerely (underlined) glad to see a “fine complete job” by Jack, and he had added that Jack’s drawings looked as if he were sure of his style now, or something to that effect. The next pleasant item was that he and Natalia had decided to go to Yugoslavia and Greece in late June. Natalia loved both countries. Jack hoped to gather some happier experiences in Yugoslavia than he had at twenty-two in their prison.
By early May, Elsie had been away for more than a week in New Jersey, staying in a house with at least six other people, it seemed. She had sent two postcards addressed to Natalia and him, telling of swimming and horseback riding, and of “cooking out in the backyard”. Then a horse blanket had arrived, a “housegift” Elsie called it, yellow-and-green-checked and leather-bordered. Natalia loved it. Jack referred to it as “the stiff throw”, because it was so thick, it scarcely bent, and stuck out at the sides of their double bed. One Saturday afternoon, Natalia drove up to New Jersey to see Elsie, and returned late Sunday night. Jack didn’t ask if she had stayed the night in the house where Elsie was. He had the feeling they had gone to some nearby motel.
Jack felt cheered by his father’s friendlier attitude. Jack liked to tell himself that he could live without family closeness and moral support, but his father’s stance after the Yugoslavian prison episode had wounded Jack. “Absence of discipline” had been his father’s cry, his phrase of scorn. Never again had Jack sniffed any coke, even for fun, even when his father wouldn’t have known, or got tipsy as some people did now and then, and he’d stopped smoking. If he had ever mentioned these reforms to Uncle Roger, he had not to his father, to whom he hadn’t written, except for Christmas cards, during those seven or eight years until the present, when he had sent the Dreams book. Jack remembered a theory he’d had after stopping smoking: people didn’t need drugs, it was possible to think oneself into another or happier state, possible through music or looking at paintings, possible while working sometimes. It didn’t work in the same way that coke did, to be sure, but there was something in that theory, Jack believed still. Jack was sure that he could stand, even at an open window, and think himself into a fainting state by imagining a car accident, someone’s crushed skull, disembowelment against the steering shaft. He had never cared to carry that experiment far, lest he really faint.
Could Elsie, with her enthusiasms, do the same? “…not just New York, everything’s like a big surprise sometimes. Music, especially when I wake up…Sure I think of the hydrogen bomb, not every day, though. Then I look up and see that the sky’s still clear. But I can imagine the cloud hanging up there.” Jack remembered her talking in this vein once, remembered her naive and earnest voice.
Elsie telephoned a couple of times from Connecticut, once when they had both been home, once when Jack had been out and Natalia had told him that she called. Then Elsie was back, and Natalia went over to see her the same evening, on Greene Street. Natalia asked if he wanted to join them, but Jack said he had to work. Natalia, Elsie and Marion were going out to a restaurant in the neighborhood for dinner. Elsie was a bright pink from the sun, Natalia reported, and added that Elsie had lots of work ahead, judging from the letters she had received and the messages her agent had taken for her.
From what Natalia said about such evenings, all seemed amicable among the three of them. Was Natalia trying or not trying to take Elsie away from Marion? Was Elsie already taken away from Marion, and merely sharing the apartment with Marion now? Jack really didn’t believe the latter. More likely, Elsie was the casual one, so casual that she could easily handle two girlfriends. And Natalia was sure of herself, as always, and could afford to play a slow game, knowing that she would win in the end. Jack half expected Natalia to ask if he minded if Elsie came along to Yugoslavia and Greece. In fact, Jack wouldn’t have minded. He could imagine himself sleeping in Elsie’s hotel or pension room now and then, while Elsie spent the night with Natalia. The idea made him smile. They were going to rent a little house on a Greek island for three weeks. But it seemed that Elsie had too many jobs and commitments ahead this summer. As Natalia had remarked, Elsie Tyler was ambitious.
Jack and Natalia discussed the matter of Amelia’s next school, as Amelia would be six in late June, and Natalia wanted to take her out of the kindergarten atmosphere, as Natalia called it, of the Sterling Academy on West Twelfth Street. They consulted with the Armstrongs, whose boy Jason was a year older than Amelia, and found that the Armstrongs had opted for a parochial school. “If the parents want the child to sleep at home and want a civilized atmosphere,” Elaine Armstrong said, “parochial’s the best. No problem if you want to avoid the religious instruction, and they’re serious about standards.” So Jack and Natalia put this on their agenda, to look into parochial schools, and there was one in their neighborhood.
Bob Campbell may have been right, Jack thought, in not announcing Louis’ demise at once. The news had leaked through their friends and acquaintances, but weeks after the event. Bob said he had received some telephone calls from people, but few letters of condolence that he had been obliged to answer. Jack remembered that Natalia had informed Elsie about Louis, and it seemed that Elsie had written a letter to Bob, such a touching letter that Bob brought it along, one evening when he came for dinner, to show to Jack and Natalia. Natalia had perused the letter and, Jack thought but was not sure, her eyes were wet when she handed it back to Bob. “Louis would’ve liked that, yes,” she had said. Once in a while, on a Sunday or late in an evening, Jack felt a change in Natalia, an absentness when, or so he imagined, she was thinking that if Louis were still here, she could call him up and they might meet s
omewhere, and talk until the small hours.
Elaine Armstrong telephoned to ask if they were going to the Christopher Street Arts and Crafts sale on the coming Saturday morning. Jack and Natalia were going, and they met the Armstrongs at the northwest corner of Bleecker and Christopher, as agreed upon. They had brought their offspring, and Max gave firm orders to Jason not to get lost or else, and Jason said he could find his way home if he did. Jack preferred to keep Amelia’s hand in his. Finally Jack carried her piggy-back style. Christopher Street was a mass of people strolling past or lingering at pushcart displays, at goods propped up on planks. There was pottery, some rather good and some awful, and wooden everything from butter molds to articulated dolls.
“Human rights! C’mon, folks, let’s see some money!” a gypsylike female yelled from behind a counter of change purses and money belts.
“I’m already thirsty for a beer,” Max said to Jack. “I’ll be back in a second.” He had spotted a deli.
Natalia bought a string of dried something, which looked dreadful and not even clean. “You soak it first in water,” she said, putting it round her neck now like a garland.
“What are they, peppers?” Jack asked, but got no answer because Natalia hadn’t heard him.
Max returned with two cans of beer, and gave one to Jack.
Elaine, dressed this morning in a blue-and-white culotte suit, bent over a quilt display, and discussed with Max the purchase of a pink and green double-bed-sized quilt for a hundred and twenty dollars. Max professed not to have that much with him, but Elaine said that he did have his credit card with him, didn’t he?
Jack went up a comparatively clear stoop to get out of the press for a minute. Natalia was just below, looking at wallets and handbags, and he was sure she wouldn’t buy any, though Jack had just seen one in white leather with yellow leather stitching that had made him think of Elsie.
“Daddy, I smell—sausage!” Amelia yelled into his ear, and kicked Jack with both heels as if he were a horse.
“I smell six kinds of sausages, all awful,” Jack replied. “Wait for lunch.” Suddenly he saw Elsie across the street, about thirty yards away. “Hey, Natalia!—Elsie’s up there!” He pointed. “With Marion—across the street!”
“Yes?” Natalia came up the steps and stood beside Jack. “Hey, Elsie!—Marion!”
Elsie seemed to turn in response, she did turn, but judging from the calm way she spoke with Marion, she hadn’t heard their call, and no wonder in the general din. A hurdy-gurdy and also a juke box contributed to the low roar of voices.
“El—sie!” Amelia cried shrilly, and waved.
“We’ll never reach her in this,” Natalia said as they watched Elsie move through the crowd with Marion in the Sheridan Square direction, away from them. “Pity. We could’ve asked them to have lunch with us.”
“Yes.” They were going to have lunch somewhere with the Armstrongs.
“I want down now,” Amelia said. “And I’m awful hungry!”
Jack put her down. “I could see Elsie’s suntan from here,” he said, smiling. “It really is pink.”
“You should’ve seen it a week ago!” Natalia went down the steps. “She posed for a swim suit ad a couple of days ago. Fortunately she’s got an all-over pink at the moment.”
They had lunch at a busy corner place called The Front Porch on West 4th and nth Streets. Elaine had her pink and green quilt with her in a big plastic bag.
31
Jack was painting the curve of an armchair in dusty-pink oil, when the telephone rang. He let it ring five or six times, until his brush was nearly empty of paint. Natalia had taken Amelia out to some uptown galleries this afternoon.
“Hello?” Jack said.
“Hello, Jack!” said Marion’s voice, breathless. “Can you come? Now! Please?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Elsie’s been hurt and it’s pretty awful!”
“Where is she?”
“Here! Greene Street!”
“What happened?—Did you call a doctor?”
“N-no. There’s—” Marion sounded choked.
“Marion, call St Vincent’s! Or do you want me to do it?”
“Just come!”
“I will. But call the hospital, would you?”
Jack grabbed his keys and wallet and ran out. Had Elsie knocked herself out, falling from a ladder? Or had she been attacked in the apartment? Jack trotted south on Bleecker, keeping an eye out for a taxi.
If he saw a taxi anywhere, he’d race and get it, he swore to himself. But if that were true, couldn’t he outrace a taxi all the way? He adjusted his running and his breathing with this in mind, and planned his pedestrian-dodging yards ahead, shifting from sidewalk to street when he had to.
At Houston he headed east and crossed at a run when a red light suited him. He almost knocked over a baby carriage, because the woman pushing it tried to dodge him, but the carriage was really only jiggled a little, and Jack yelled:
“I am sorry!”
“You insane?” screamed the woman.
At last Jack pressed the bell beside the name Gill which was pencilled in above another name, and Jack remembered that Marion had been lent this apartment.
The release button sounded, and Jack thrust the door open into a small square foyer, and the next door into the hall was unlocked.
“Jack!” Marion called from somewhere up the stairs.
“Yep!” Jack took the wide stairs two at a time.
“What the hell’s going on here?” This came from downstairs left, where a door had opened.
Jack had a glimpse of a scowling middle-aged man standing with his hand on his doorknob.
“Jack, Jack, come in!” Marion said, hunched and shaking.
Jack went through another tall door to the right of the stairs.
Elsie lay on her back on the floor, with a pillow under her head. There was blood on the top of her head and down her face.
“My God!” Jack said. “What the hell happened?”
“She was attacked downstairs! I heard her yell—then I went down and somebody ran out the door. Elsie was falling, but she was still—I swear she was alive when I dragged her up the stairs! She said something to me!”
Jack pressed his thumb against Elsie’s wrist, which felt coolish to him, but he was boiling hot. Her half-open eyes scared Jack. “You phoned the hospital? St Vincent’s?”
“Vince did. Guy downstairs.—You think she’s dead, Jack?” Marion was trembling.
Jack concentrated on finding a pulse. He could not find any. He laid his sweaty forefinger against her upper lip, and could not detect any breathing. Jack pushed her white jacket aside and was shocked to see more blood at and below her waistline on her left side, under the blue cotton trousers. “Jesus!—Get a blanket, Marion!”
Marion pulled a blanket from a bed somewhere, returned trailing it, and they covered Elsie to the neck. “Jack, do you think she’s dead?”
“I dunno. F’Chris’ sake, who was it down there? Could you see?”
Marion shook her head. “I saw the door closing—White pants—I think. Elsie was falling—sort of up the stairs. Then Vince—the fellow downstairs—came out and helped me get her up. We thought even then she’d just been knocked out! We thought, just a cold towel!—I even told Vince to leave, then I called you, and then Vince came back, and I told him to phone St Vincent’s. He’s probably waiting down on the street now to show the ambulance people which apartment.”
“My God,” Jack whispered. He suddenly realized that the top of Elsie’s head looked even a bit indented. Some blood had darkened, some was still bright.
“It’s a horrible wound on the head! You think it might just be a coma, Jack?”
Jack didn’t. He thought she was dead. He heard the moan of an ambulance, ominous and tired-sounding.
“They’re here,” Marion said.
“Who the effing hell—You couldn’t see who ran out the door?”
“I couldn’t
see for sure, Jack, I swear. I suspect that fucking Fran. I swear to God!” Marion looked at him with wide, horror-stricken eyes. “Who else?”
A second or two later, there were men from the hospital in white uniforms bending over Elsie, and a policeman, still another man or two, suddenly filling up the huge room, asking questions. Jack did not exactly hear it, but Elsie had been pronounced dead, the attitude was that she was dead. Everyone had to stand back, while a man took photographs, first with the blanket, then when the blanket was removed. Marion Gill, as occupant of the apartment, was asked her name, relationship to “the girl here”, and her name, and her nearest of kin and address. Marion had to go look somewhere.
“She was supposed to be home around four,” Marion said. “No, I just know somebody ran out downstairs. I think someone in white pants. I saw the door closing.”
A man was sent down to query the people who lived on the ground floor.
Amid the confusion of several voices talking at once, Jack heard in the next seconds that a brick or “a hunk of cement” had been found on the hall floor downstairs.
Then Jack was questioned. He had identification in his wallet, corroborated by Marion, who said she had telephoned him at just after 4 and asked him to come over here. Both Jack and Marion were asked if they had any idea who might have attacked the girl, and Marion said after a hesitation, “No,” and Jack simply shook his head.
Shoes scraped across the floor. They were carrying Elsie’s body away on a stretcher.
Marion followed the stretcher, into the hall, and Jack stood by her. Jack was afraid she might faint, but she stood straight and rigid. Below, a man was photographing the stairs, and a policeman was talking with four or five men and women who Jack supposed lived in the building.