For the first time she was disagreeable to me. She said: “Duke, I made it plain, I thought, the first day you were here, that the one thing I ask, on this painful subject, is for people to mind their own business. I want to be left alone. I know, don’t worry, what it means to be like this. I know where I’m headed. It’s to the little graveyard, by my little church, down in St. Mary’s City. But it would seem to me, in view of all that, a friend wouldn’t bring this up.”
“A real friend, he would.”
“Not if he wants a friend.”
“From now on I’ll remember.”
“I do my best, Duke, my remaining time on earth, and if I do, it would certainly seem the little I ask could be given me.”
“All a friend asks is to help.”
“Duke! I’ll go insane!”
For the first time, as she started her singsong chant about the good she did on earth, I heard something phony in it. But the scream she gave wasn’t phony, and neither was the look in her eye, as she got up, left the nook, tramped through the living-room, and from there to the main dining-room, and stood staring at his office on that side of the house, which was in front of the dining-room and looked out at the drive. From that time on, I couldn’t shake off a hunch that she lived in fear, not of me, not of the St. Mary’s City graveyard, but of Val Valenty, her husband.
Came the night, in June, when he broke the news of the party. We’d had saddle of lamb, done on the electric grill, and as usual she was still at it, munching along with her eyes shut, when he and I were done. He was talking for the hundredth time about what he had done for Woman, when all of a sudden, with one of those shifts of his, he said: “However—let’s on to the shindy.”
She said: “ ... Shindy?”
“Oh, we’ll have to have one.”
“Some particular reason?”
“Housewarming! We certainly ought to do something after the trouble we had, getting the place finished and all.”
He slapped his leg, laughed, and told about some of the trouble, but she didn’t see any joke.
Pretty soon she asked: “When is the party to be?”
“Fourth of July, I thought.”
“Isn’t that pretty soon?”
“Three weeks is time enough.” He thought a minute, then admitted: “Well, that is short notice, but Congress had forced my hand.”
“Is Congress coming?”
“Good Lord, no, not all of them. But some of them would think it strange if I left them out. And with this recess they’ll be taking, the Fourth is my only choice.”
She stayed with the meat as he got off the names of the big wheels who’d been to the Ladyship, and then said to me: “Duke, will you excuse us?”
“Certainly, Mrs. Val.”
I jumped up, relieved to be out of it, yet worried for her somehow, left, and went to bed. For some time I could hear them. I couldn’t hear what they said but it sounded gritty.
She said nothing about it next morning, but her face was heavy when I brought her the hams. Then, when I said: “Hey, hey, hey,” she burst out crying, sinking into a big chair she used in the kitchen to take the weight off her feet. I said: “You cut that out, it’s no way to treat a friend. Besides, what the hell is a party?”
“I’d be ashamed to say.”
“He’s got grub, drink, help—”
“It’s not that, it’s—something I can’t go into.” And then, to shift: “Duke, there’s one thing. He’s bringing you out a coat.”
“Haven’t I got a coat?”
“It’s a white coat.”
“ ... Oh. You mean, I’m to help?”
“You don’t like that, do you?”
“If that’s how it is, that’s it.”
“I asked you something.”
“Well—no.”
“I knew you wouldn’t. I know blood when I see it. You never speak of your family—”
“In Nevada, that’s not healthy.”
“Why not, Duke?”
“Account of Grandma. In my case, Great-grandma. She dealt faro, ’tis said. In a house. In a gambling house, ’tis said. At Virginia City, in the time of the Comstock Lode, when pretty girls did very well. Out there genealogy’s not popular.”
“Miss Duke, she’s the one?”
“Miss Duquesne, really.”
“And you changed a name like that?”
I said everyone called in Du Quesny, and explained about Nevada, how one bunch that came in, especially girls, were French, another Italian, and so on. I asked: “What’s the matter with Duke? At least it’s short.”
“You should be ashamed.”
Then she said, very solemn: “All right, but one thing I guarantee: I’ll figure a way that Miss Duquesne’s great-grandson Duke won’t put on a white coat. I may need help from Bill, but I’ll see that it doesn’t happen.”
“You’re close to Bill, aren’t you?”
“I don’t say who I’m close to. Right now, it’s enough we have one little thing, a ray of some kind of sunshine. That you won’t have to be in it. That there’s something, if I’m called on to meet Miss Duquesne, that I’ll be able to tell her.”
CHAPTER V
FROM THEN ON WE WORKED on the rhubarb, hardly mentioning anything else. She blocked Val all the way, from the kind of food to be served to what his girls would wear. She said it couldn’t be pink, the Ladyship’s summer color, but had to be proper black, with white aprons and caps. To park the cars, she said, Homer could not wear his admiral’s suit, the blue-and-gold he wore for his parking job, but must have a quiet maroon, with the same maroon cap a private chauffeur wears. When my white coat was brought, she ripped the lapels with scissors, where MR. VAL was stitched in red, and bit out the threads with her teeth, to leave it perfectly plain. But whatever she dished out he took, in a peculiarly excited way, because the more she blocked him the more she really gave ground. The only real question was: would the party be given at all, and on that she never said no. I felt, from the look of fear in her eyes, that she couldn’t.
At last the Fourth rolled around, part of a long hot weekend, but with 5 not running much traffic. It was to be a cocktail party, scheduled for late afternoon, so things were quiet all morning. He went to town around noon, and I had a look at the lawn, which I’d mown and combed with a rake, to make sure no drunk in a car on 5 had pitched a beer can to mar its pool-table green. When I came back past the house, she called would I please come in and look at her dress. I went in the living-room and she came out in crepy orange, with white shoes and a necklace of some kind of pearl. She looked like a guppy that grew the size of a whale, but I took it serious and meditated some time. With her coloring, I said at last, and the orange shade of the dress, it should tote up kind of Spanish, but the white things didn’t blend. She asked if red would be better, and I said it would. She went to her bedroom and came back changed, with the orange dress still on, but with dark red shoes and a necklace of dark red beads, big ones, I think made of wood. I said it looked much better, and was glad I could really mean it. Her eyes got big and black, and she seemed childishly pleased.
Around two, when I was in my room half dressed, things began to happen. First came Homer, in the pickup truck he used, with a dishwasher boy named Bardie, and all kinds of stuff on board: a hot unit, a cold unit, hampers of liquor, glasses, dishes, and so on. The two of them carried all that into the kitchen, then got their clothes, which hung in the cab on hangers, and came to my parlor to dress. The maroon suit was mohair, and Homer, who was tall, slim, and light-complected, was pleased at how he looked in it, and how it felt, so cool. Bardie’s outfit was white, and he went into the house with it. Homer surveyed all around, partly I thought to duck work, but partly to figure things out, as the idea was to put cars out back, and leave the front unobstructed, so its beauty could be observed.
Then here came the bartender, whose name was Jake, in a yellow convertible, and the chef, Emil, in quite a high-toned sedan. Then Val came, driving three gir
ls in his car, which was also a sedan, though not a knockout like Emil’s. By then, Jake and Emil were dressing, also in my front parlor, and called out the window the girls could dress with them. By their looks I think they might have, but Val cut in pretty quick and said they should dress in the house. By then it was coming on four, and I soon was alone again, in slacks and Sunday shirt, but with the coat laid out on the bed. The ray of sunshine, I felt, had somehow got itself loused, and I would have to pass drinks. Then I heard the phone, and Val’s voice calling me. I went, and he was just coming out the door, the one from the living-room to the patio, and seemed upset. He said: “Duke—Bill just called—he’s in a spot. You know—he’s with the Association—Southern Maryland Tobacco Growers Association—down in Waldorf—and today of all days—bunch of tractors been delivered—and they got to be parked. He thought about you. What say, boy, can do?”
“I think so, Mr. Val.”
“It’ll mean your missing the party.”
“If I has to I has to.”
“Thanks, Duke. I must have Bill, there’s a reason. No Bill, no party—at least no real party.”
“Do I take a bus, or—”
“Bill’s running you down.”
By that time she was there, staring at me. She said: “Duke, I’m most grateful.”
Bill got there suspiciously quick, and didn’t say much in the car, except I should look Waldorf over, so I’d have it all straight. So I fixed it in mind, a small place twenty miles down, with lumber signs, bars lit up for the Fourth, a tobacco warehouse, and the Association showroom, but not any consignment of tractors. He stopped in front of a bar and we went inside. Marge was in a booth, in a neat speckled black dress, a Manhattan in front of her, holding places for us. She spoke, and Bill asked her: “Did Mom call up yet?”
“She and your father will be along later, with the others. I said we should all meet here.”
Bill said to me with a wink: “The St. Mary’s County bunch. Who’ll go, on account of Holly, but not till I lead the parade. Which is why Val must have me. Not that he likes me.” And then: “Brother, does Holly hate it, having to ask these people!”
That, I thought, explained quite a lot, and I was pleased to sit down with them and pass the time.
The place was dark, with some few people in it, air-conditioned cool, and a battery of bandits. We played them, after Bill got his Manhattan and I got my Coke, and they lost, but I won five dollars. So they didn’t refuse when I ordered another round. So that made it quite sociable, and it came to me if I made any pitch at all I could find out some things, especially about my release. I said: “Could I ask, with nobody else present, the deal that was made on me? We don’t speak of the caper I pulled. I mean why I was sprung.”
Nothing was said for some minutes, but something passed between them, because Bill answered, very careful: “Politics could be part of it.”
“Mr. Val is in politics?”
“What isn’t he in?”
I felt there would be more, and pretty soon she took it up: “Duke, no paper got your case, and we’ve felt, like Holly, that the less said about it the better. But, since you have brought it up, you just as well know that Val is in politics, and in a most peculiar way. How he got started on it we don’t really know, as he’s older than we are and at that time we weren’t acquainted with him. He’s from Prince Georges County, but went to work in the city, as a bus boy, at a place on Dupont Circle. But, as he claims, a bus boy is really a business man, being paid by waiters, so it wasn’t too much of a step when he opened his own place. It began then. He hires girls, but always a certain kind. They live in Prince Georges but like to work in the District. They vote and their families vote, which is the foundation of Val’s strength. And so far as you’re concerned, Duke, some of them have friends, like police officers. And some of them get in trouble, like cashiers. Once that happened, the rest, to Val, was nothing. One phone call would do it. In fact, we think it was done before your—caper. That the officer, Danny Daniel, who goes with that girl in the Ladyship, was simply told: get somebody, package him up, and send him. It happened to be you, that’s all.”
“Then Congressmen’ll come, today?”
“The ones he invites, yes.”
Bill said: “A free feed, a free drunk, a free ride in the papers, and them jerks would miss it?”
“Politics, then, helps business?”
Marge let that ride, but it seemed to annoy Bill. He said: “Duke, what is politics, to you? What’s the idea, as you get it?”
“Oh—moola. Grift. Combos.”
“That’s not it at all.”
He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, really focusing for the first time since we got here. He said: “It’s not even slightly the answer, and since you did bring this up, you just as well know why you’re here, and are not some place else. Politics is power. It’s power over you, over girls, over Holly, over me, over Congressmen, that they have to come when he says so. It’s power to use, power to trade, power to get more power. Don’t ask me why they want it. I don’t know and I’m not at all sure that they do. But the guy who thinks they want graft, or their picture in the paper, or something else of that kind, is playing right in their hands. Those guys like money, as Val does, as you do, as I do, as who don’t, for that matter. But with them it’s still an incident. The chain’s the main thing, the iron they rivet on you, so you have to do as they say—though of course you pretend to like it. ‘Senator, I’ll attend to it today, I’ll count it a privilege.’ It is in the pig’s eye.”
“How long am I in for?”
“What did Daniel tell you?”
“He didn’t say. He made me sign a confession, and the rest is up in the air. Until I reform is the idea, but when is that?”
“My guess would be, when Val’s work is done, in the fall. Once, with stock, there was work on a farm in winter. Now, no. As we hope.”
“You don’t seem too sure, Mr. Hollis.”
“Duke, Val is Val.”
She said: “Bill, he’s not that bad.”
“I should say not. He’s worse.”
He sounded bitter, and I wondered if he had chains on him, maybe of a financial kind. Marge switched to the farm, and I heard for the first time they had lived on it, she and Bill, as it really belonged to Mrs. Val, through inheritance, and was called Hollis Hill. They had tried tobacco, she said, but found that twenty-five acres weren’t enough for a cash crop, though, as she admitted, “perfect for the limited amount of vegetables a restaurant chain needs.” When Val took over, moved the cottage back, and put the big house up, was when trouble started, she said, “as we didn’t propose to live out back like tenants and pick his potato bugs for him.” She said the Association had been mighty glad to get Bill, “much to Val’s surprise.”
Outside, a car turned in, Bill looked at his watch, and I called for my check. I said: “One thing I still don’t get. If Mr. Val has such power, not to mention dough, Mr. Hollis, why does he need me? Why can’t he keep any help?”
“Booth comes around, that’s why.”
“John Wilkes Booth, you mean?”
“Like he did that night, before he stopped at Surrattsville to buy that pint of booze. He didn’t take it kindly that nobody opened up.”
She said: “He never bothered us.”
“Honey, I love you, and we led a right kind of life. But Duke might remember that the help sometimes don’t. They’re scared, with reason. That explain it, Duke?”
“I guess so. Thanks.”
Outside, more cars drove up, and I spotted a middle-aged couple that looked like Bill and his sister. Everyone out there looked sensible, and Bill did, and Marge. The sun was shining bright and traffic running heavy. And yet, after all that was said, and especially this last, I kept thinking, as I paid, of what Mrs. Val had said, that day by the tree, about a “tragic land.” Maybe it was all redeemed, and maybe a few hits weren’t.
CHAPTER VI
THEY COACHED AS TO wha
t I should say, about the tractors I was supposed to be parking, the bus I was due to take, and so on, then dropped me off at Clinton, I’d say at six thirty. I found a place to eat, fooled around, and then, around dark, strolled up the road, to see if the party was over and I could come bustling in. The house was all lit up, but not many people seemed to be left that I could see, so I came on up the drive, ready to reverse gears if anything developed. It did, right at my feet, on a small headwall over a pipe that drained a low place in the grass. It was Bill, still in his light gray suit, and sounding slightly drunk. He said: “Duke, hold it, stop. Is that you? Whyncha say something?”
“Yeah. Sure. Hello.”
“Siddown. ’M in a spot.”
“What you do, swing on someone?”
“Chrisalminey, cut the comedy.”
“Pal, what’s the trouble?”
“F’ got stuff ’m to get.”
“Stuff? What stuff?”
“F’ her. F’ Holly. ’S happened, Duke, ’t last. Ankles cracked up, but bad. All swell up, jus’ awful. ’S been coming, he knew ’t was coming, ’n he would give a goddam party. ’N doctor, he’s giv’n one too, so fat chance he would come. But he give orders. He said soak’m. Soak’m in some kind stuff f’m drugstore, ’n Marge sent me, get it. ’N f’got what ’t was. ’M parked on road, ’n f’got. Look, Duke, y’ go in, start talk’n t’ Marge, ’n find out—”
“Listen, pal, was it Epsom?”
“Chrisalminey, that’s it! Aw, pal!”
“Come on, Bill, we got to hurry.”
“Yeah, but firs’ mus’ thank you.”
“Come on now, and I’ll drive.”
His car was on 5, where he’d walked back from it, and while he was finding the key, three or four taxis passed, all lit up like Christmas trees, and turned into the drive. He said: “Homer blew, ’count of Booth. Took keys with ’m, so lot a people got to use cabs. Good thing. Damn Congressmen, tighter’n a tick.”
“Kid, we got to hurry. On ankles like that you can’t waste any time. The bigger they swell, the more she’s in agony.”