them away and looked down into her glass as she sipped her drink.
'I don't blame you. It's upsetting to have a stranger know the family problems. But I don't exactly go around spreading the word.'
'I know you wouldn't. I just can't understand why... she had to have such a hellish year. Maybe life evens things up. If you've been happier than most, then...' She stopped and widened her eyes as she looked at me with a kind of direct suspicion. 'Problems. About Maurie too?'
'Trying to kill herself? Not the details. Just that she was very upset about it and couldn't understand it.'
'Nobody can understand it!' She spoke too loudly and then she tried to smile. 'Honestly, Mr.... Travis, this has been such a... such a terrible...'
I saw that she was beginning to break, so I dropped a bill on the table and took her just above the elbow and walked her out. She walked fragile and I took a short cut across the greenery and through a walkway to 109. I unlocked it and by the time I pulled the door shut behind us, she had located the bath, and went in a blundering half-trot toward it, making big gluey throat-aching sobbing sounds, 'Yah-awr, Yah-awr!' slammed the door behind her. I could hear the muffled sounds for just a moment and then they ended, and I heard water running.
I went down to the service alcove and scooped the bucket full of miniature cubes and bought three kinds of mix out of the machine. I put some Plymouth on ice for myself, drew the thinner, semiopaque drapery across the big windows, and found Walter Cronkite on a colorcast speaking evenly, steadily, reservedly of unspeakable international disasters. I sat in a chair-thing made of black plastic, walnut, and aluminum, slipped my shoes off, rested crossed ankles on the corner of the bed, and sipped as I watched Walter and listened to doom.
When she came shyly out, I gave her a very brief and indifferent glance and gestured toward the countertop and said, 'Help yourself.'
She made herself a drink and went over to a straight chair and turned it toward the set. She sat, long legs crossed, holding her glass in both hands, taking small sips and watching Walter.
When he finished, I went over and punched the set off, went back and sat this time on the bed, half-facing her.
'Getting any painting done?'
She shrugged. 'I try. I fixed it up over the boathouse into sort of a studio.' She made a snuffling hiccupy sound. The flesh around her eyes was pink, a little bit puffed. 'Thanks for the rescue job, Trav. Very efficient.' Her smile was wan. 'So you know about the painting too.'
'Just that it was your thing a couple of years ago. I didn't know if you still kept at it.'
'From what I'm getting lately, I should give up. I can't really spend as much time on it as I want to. But... first things first. By the way, what did you want to talk to Maurie about?'
'Well, I hated to bother you gals so soon after Helena's death. Especially about something pretty trivial. A friend of mine-his name is Meyer-can't seem to get that custom motor sailer you people used to have out of his mind. The Likely Lady. She must be six years old now or a little more. He's been haunting the shipyards and yacht brokers for a long time, looking for something like her, but he can't turn anything up. He wants to try to track her down and see if whoever owns her now will sell. As a matter of fact, I'd already promised him I'd write to Helena when... her letter came. I made a phone call and found out she had... was gone. I told Meyer this was no tune to bother you or Maureen. But then I wondered if... well, there was anything at all I could do. I guess that because I was on the scene the last time, I'm kind of a self-appointed uncle.'
Her smile was strained. 'Don't get me started again. Lately I just can't stand people being nice to me.' She put her glass down and went over and stared at herself in the mirrored door of the bathroom, at close range. After a few moments she turned away. 'It works. It always has worked. When we were little and couldn't stop crying, Mom would make us go and stand and try to watch ourselves cry. You end up making faces at yourself and laughing... if you're a little kid.' She was frowning as she came back to her chair and her drink. 'You know, I just can't remember the name of the man who bought the Lady. I think he was from Punta Gorda, or maybe Naples. But I know how I could find out.'
'How?'
'Go down and open up the house at Casey Key and look in Mom's desk. I have to do that anyway, the lawyers say. She was very tidy about business things. File folders and carbon copies and all that kind of thing. It will all be in the folder for that year, the year she sold it. It was such a great boat. I hope your friend finds her and can buy her. Daddy said she was forgiving. He said you could do some absolutely damfool thing and the Lady would forgive you and take care of you. If you could give me your address, I could mail you the name and address of the man who bought her.'
'Do you plan to go down there soon?'
'We talked about going down Saturday morning and driving back Sunday afternoon. It ought to give us enough time. But it depends on... how Maurie is.'
'Is she physically ill?'
'In addition to being mentally ill? Is that what you mean?'
'Why the indignation? Trying to knock yourself off isn't exactly normal behavior.'
'I get... too defensive about her, maybe.'
'Just what is wrong with her?'
'It depends on who you ask. We've gotten more answers than we can use. And more solutions. Manic depressive. Schizophrenia. Korsakov's Syndrome. Virus infection of a part of the brain. Alcoholism. Name it, and somebody has said she has it.'
'Korsa-who?'
'Korsakov. Her memory gets all screwed up. She can remember everything prior to this past year, but the past year is a jumble, with parts missing. I think sometimes she uses it as a... convenience. She can really be terribly sly. As if we were against her or something. And she does manage to get terribly stinking drunk, and she does manage to sneak away from us, no matter how careful we both are. We put her in a rest home for two weeks, but she was so upset by it, so confused and baffled by it all, we just couldn't stand it. We had to bring her home. She was like a little kid, she was so pleased to be home. Oh, she's not buggy-acting at all. She's sweet and dear and a lovely person, really. But something has just... broken, and nobody knows what it is yet. If I hadn't told you all this, you could come to the house and never know anything was wrong, really.'
'But she has tried to kill herself?'
'Three times. And two of them were very close calls. We found her in time the time she took the sleeping pills. And Tom found her in the tub after she cut her wrist. The other time it was just something she'd prepared, a noose thing out of quarter- inch nylon, over a beam in the boathouse. All clumsy knots, but it would have worked.'
'Does she say why she keeps trying?'
'She doesn't remember why. She can sort of remember doing it, in a very vague way, but not why. She gets very frightened about it, very weepy and nervous.'
'Who's taking care of her now?'
'Tom is home with her. Oh, you mean what doctor? Nobody, actually. You could say we've run out of doctors. There are things Tom and I can do for her. She was doing pretty well until Mom died. Then she had... some bad days.'
'Would she remember me?'
'Of course! She hasn't turned into some kind of a moron, for heaven's sake!'
'What about those nuisance phone calls you mentioned?'
Her expression was guarded. 'Oh, just from people she gets involved with when she... manages to sneak out.'
'She gets involved with men?'
'She goes out alone. She gets tight. She's very lovely. It's hell on Tom and it isn't any of your business.'
'That's no way to speak to your kindly old uncle.'
A wan smile. 'My nerves are ragged. And that part of it just... makes me want to resign from the human race. Those damned oily voices on the phone, like filthy children wondering if Maurie can come out and play. Or like the way you see packs of dogs, following. They don't know she's sick. They don't even give a damn.'
'How often does she sneak off?'
'Not often. Maybe three times in the last four months. But that's three times too many. And she never remembers much about it.'
I took her empty glass and built her a fresh drink and took it to her, saying, 'You must have some kind of a theory. You probably know her as well as anyone in the world. What started all this?'
'When she had the second miscarriage, it was because of some kind of kidney failure. She had convulsions. I thought that could have done something to her brain. But the doctors say no. Then I thought she might have a tumor of the brain, but they did all kinds of tests and there's nothing like that at all. I don't know, Travis. I just don't know. She's the same Maurie, but yet she's not. She's more... childlike. She breaks my heart.'
'Care if I stop by and say hello?'
'What good would it do?'
'And what harm could it do?'
'Is it just kind of a sick curiosity?'
'I guess that's my bag, going around staring at crazies.'
'Damn you! I just meant that--'
