little valley below. But no one said anything much that hadn't already been said, and around twelve, most of the lights in the town below now out, Becky and I stood up to leave. The Belicecs got their coats, and drove downtown with us to pick up Jack's car. It was parked on Sutter Place, a block and a half from the movie, and when we stopped beside their car, and they got out, I repeated to Theodora what I'd said about waking Jack up and beating it out of there if the body in their basement started to alter in any way. I got some half-strength Seconal out of my satchel and gave it to Jack, and told him that one ought to get him to sleep. Then they said good night – Jack smiling a little, Theodora not bothering to try – got into their car, and we waved, and drove on.
On our way to her house, through the dark, empty streets, Becky said quietly, 'There's a connection, isn't there, Miles? Between this and – Wilma's case?'
I glanced at her quickly, but she was staring straight ahead through the windshield. 'What do you think?' I said casually. 'You think there's connection?'
'Yes.' She didn't look to me for confirmation, but simply nodded as though she were certain. After a moment she added, 'Have there been other cases like Wilma's?'
'A few.' Watching the asphalt street in the headlight beams, I watched Becky, too, from the corners of my eyes.
But she didn't react, or say anything, for nearly a block. Then we swung into her street, and as I drew the car in to the curb, and stopped at her walk, she said – still looking straight ahead through the windshield – 'Miles, I'd meant to tell you this, after the movie.' She took a deep breath. 'Ever since yesterday morning,' she began slowly, keeping her voice calm, 'I've had the feeling that' – she finished in a panicky rush of words – 'that my father isn't my father at all!' Darting a horrified glance at the dark, shadowed porch of her home, Becky covered her face with her hands and began to cry.
Chapter five
I don't claim much experience with crying women, I but in stories I read, the man always holds the girl close and lets her cry. And it always turns out to have been the wise, understanding thing to do; I've never heard of a single authenticated case where the wise, understanding thing was to distract her with card tricks, jokes, or tickling her feet. So I was wise and understanding. I held Becky close and let her cry, because I didn't know what else to do or say. After what we'd seen in Jack Belicec's basement tonight, if Becky believed her father was an impostor who resembled her real father exactly, I didn't know how to argue with her.
Anyway, I liked holding Becky. She wasn't a big girl, exactly, but she wasn't small, and nothing in her construction had been skimped or neglected. There in my car, on the silent street in front of her home, Becky fitted into my arms very nicely, her cheek on my lapel. I was worried and scared, even panicky, but there was still room for enjoying the warm, alive feel of Becky pressed close.
When the crying tapered off to an occasional sniffle, I said, 'How about staying at my place tonight?' The idea was suddenly and astonishingly exciting. 'I'll sleep down on the davenport and all that, and you can have a room to yourself – '
'No.' Becky sat up, keeping her head ducked so I couldn't see her face, and began fumbling through her purse. 'I'm not frightened, Miles,' she said quietly, 'just worried.' She opened a compact and, bending close to the little dashboard light, carefully touched up the tear marks with a powder puff. 'It's as though Dad were sick,' she went on. 'Just not himself, and – ' She stopped, applied lipstick, folded her lips inward momentarily, then studied her face for a moment in her compact mirror. 'Well, it's just no time for me to leave,' she finished, snapped her compact shut, looked up at me, and smiled. Suddenly she leaned toward me and quickly kissed me on the mouth, very firmly and warmly. Then she opened her door and slipped out. ''Night, Miles. Phone me in the morning.' She walked quickly along the brick path leading to the darkened porch of her home.
I watched her go. I sat staring after her fine full figure, heard the tiny gritting of her shoes on the rough bricks of the path, heard her light steps go quickly up the stairs, and saw her disappear into the gloom of the porch. A pause, the front door opened, then closed behind her. And all the time I was sitting there shaking my head at myself, remembering my thoughts about Becky early in the evening. She was not, after all, turning out to be just a good pal who happened to wear skirts. Put a nice-looking girl you're fond of in your arms, I was realizing, have her weep a little, and you're a cinch to feel pretty tender and protective. Then that feeling starts to get mixed up with sex, and if you're not careful, you've made at least a start toward falling in love. I grinned then, and started the car. So I'd be careful, that's all. With the wreckage of one marriage still lying around me, I wasn't walking into another just now. Near the corner at the end of the block, I glanced back at Becky's house, big and white in the faint starlight, and knew that while I liked her fine, and while she was attractive, I could put her out of my mind without much trouble, and I did. I drove on through the quiet town thinking about the Belicecs, up there in their house on the hill.
Jack was asleep now, I was certain, and Theodora was probably in the living-room staring down at the town, right now. Most likely she was watching my headlights at this very moment, not knowing it was me. I imagined her sipping coffee, maybe smoking a cigarette, fighting the horror of what lay just under her feet in the billiard room – and building up her nerve to walk down there pretty soon, fumble for the light, then lower her eyes to that staring waxy-white thing on the kelly-green felt of the table.
Some two hours later when the phone rang, my bed lamp was still on; I'd been reading, not expecting I could fall asleep for a while, yet I had, right away. It was three o'clock; reaching out for the phone, I noted the time automatically.
'Hello,' I said, and as I spoke I heard the phone at the other end crash down into its cradle. I knew I'd answered at the first ring; no matter how tired I am at night, I always hear and answer the telephone instantly. I said, 'Hello!' again, a little louder, jiggling the phone, the way you do, but the line was dead, and I hung up. A year ago the night operator, whose name I'd have known, could have told me who'd called. It would probably have been the only light on her board at that time of night, and she'd have remembered which one it was, because they were calling the doctor. But now we have dial phones, marvellously efficient, saving you a full second or more every time you call, inhumanly perfect, and utterly brainless; and none of them will ever remember where the doctor is at night, when a child is sick and needs him. Sometimes I think we're refining all humanity out of our lives.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I began to curse tiredly. I was fed up – with telephones, with events and mysteries, with interrupted sleep, women who bothered me when I only wanted to be left alone, with my own thoughts, with everything. I lighted a cigarette knowing how bad it would taste, and it did, and I wanted to throw it away, and kept right on smoking it down to a stub. Finally, when I'd put it out, turned off the light, and was nearly asleep again, I heard the steps tumbling up the porch stairs, then the quick, liquid peal of the doorbell, always so unexpectedly louder at night, followed instantly by a frantic, rapid tapping on the glass of the front door.
It was the Belicecs: Theodora wild-eyed, her face dough-white, incapable of speech; Jack with furious, dead- calm eyes. We said only the bare words necessary to get Theodora, half carrying her, up the stairs, and onto a guest-room bed, a blanket over her, and some sodium amytal in a vein.
Then Jack sat on the edge of the bed and watched her for a long time, twenty minutes maybe, holding her hand flat between his two palms, staring at her face. I sat in my pyjamas on the other side of the room, in a big easy chair, smoking, till Jack finally looked up at me. Then I nodded my head, and deliberately spoke in a normally loud tone: 'She'll sleep for several hours at least, Jack; maybe even till eight or nine in the morning. Then she'll wake up hungry, and she'll be all right.'
Jack nodded, accepting that, sat staring at Theodora for several moments longer, then stood up, turning toward the door, and I followed after him.
My living-room is big, carpeted in plain grey from wall to wall; the woodwork is painted white, and the room is still furnished in the 1920 blue-painted wicker furniture my parents bought for it. It's a large, pleasant room that still retains, I think, some of the simpler, more peaceful feeling of a generation ago. We sat there, Jack and I, across the room from each other, with drinks in our hands, and after a few sips of his, staring dowry at the floor, Jack began to talk. 'Theodora woke me, shaking me by the front of my shirt – I slept with my clothes on – and slapping me so hard my teeth jarred. I heard her' – Jack looked up at me, frowning; he usually chooses his words rather carefully – 'not calling me, exactly, but just saying my name in a subdued, desperate kind of moan, 'Jack…
