“Okay,” Victor Pasmore said. “They got him.”
“They got who?”
He began to lever himself up out of the recliner. “The lowlife who bumped off Marita Hasselgard, who the hell do you think? I better start thinking about dinner. Your mother’s a little under the weather today.”
“What about Hasselgard?”
“What about him? Jumped-up natives like Hasselgard can sail anything, anywhere, through any storm that comes along. I remember when Hasselgard was a kid in his twenties, he could thread needles with a sailboat.”
“You knew him?”
“I sort of knew Fred Hasselgard. He was one of your granddad’s discoveries. Glen took him out of Weasel Hollow, got him started. Back when they were developing the west side, Glen did that with a bunch of bright young native boys—saw to their education and put them on the right track.”
Tom watched his father lumber toward the kitchen, then turned back to the television.
Joe Ruddler’s violent red face filled the screen. “THAT’S IT, SPORTS FANS!” Ruddier shouted— aggressiveness was his trademark. “THAT’S ALL THE SPORTS FOR TODAY! THERE AIN’T NO MORE! YOU CAN BEG ALL YOU WANT TO, BUT IT WON’T DO ANY GOOD! RUDDLER’S CHECKIN’ OUT UNTIL TEN O’CLOCK, SO PLAY IT COOL OR PLAY IT HARD—BUT YOU GOTTA KEEP PLAYIN’ IT!” Tom switched off the television.
“You gotta keep playin’ it,” Victor chuckled from the kitchen. Tom’s father loved Joe Ruddier. Joe Ruddler was a real man. “We got some steaks here we better eat before they go bad. You want a steak?”
Tom was not hungry, but he said, “Sure.”
Victor walked out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his trousers. “Look, would you cook them? Just put them on the grill. There’s some lettuce and stuff, you could make a salad. I want to check on your mother, make her a drink or something.”
Half an hour later Victor led Gloria down the stairs as Tom was setting the table in the dining room. In the peach satin outfit, her hair limp now, Tom’s mother looked like a red-eyed ghost. She sat in front of her steak and sliced off a piece the thickness of a playing card and pushed it across the plate with her fork.
Tom asked her if she felt ill.
“We’re going out for dinner tomorrow,” Victor said. “You’ll see, she’ll be full of beans by tomorrow night. Won’t you, Glor?”
“Leave me alone,” she said. “Will everybody stop picking on me, please?” She sliced off another minuscule portion of steak, raised it part of the way to her mouth, then lowered her fork and scraped the tiny bit of meat back onto her plate.
“Maybe I should call Dr. Milton,” Victor said. “He could give you something.”
“I don’t need anything,” Gloria said, seething, “except to … be … left … alone. Why don’t you call my father, he’s the person who always fixes everything up for you.”
Victor ate the rest of his meal in silence.
Gloria turned her head to give Tom a look of real reproach. Her eyes seemed swollen. “He’ll help you get started too, anywhere you like. You can go anyplace.”
“Nobody wants me to stay on Mill Walk,” Tom said, understanding that his parents had virtually accepted his grandfather’s offer for him.
“Don’t you want to get off Mill Walk?” His mother’s voice was almost fierce. “Your father wishes he’d been able to get away from this place. Ask him!”
“I don’t think we’re very hungry tonight,” Victor said. “Let me take you upstairs, Glor. You want to be rested for tomorrow, dinner at the Langenheims’.”
“Whoopee. Dirty jokes and dirty looks.”
“I am going to call Dr. Milton,” Victor said.
Gloria slumped in her chair, letting her head loll alarmingly on her chest. Victor quickly stood up and moved behind her. He put his hands under her arms and pulled her up. She resisted for a second or two, then swatted away his hands and stood up by herself.
Victor took her arm and walked her out of the dining room. Tom heard them going up the stairs. The bedroom door closed, and his mother began screaming at a steady unhurried pulse. Tom walked twice around the dining room, then took the plates into the kitchen, wrapped the uneaten steaks in baggies and put them in the refrigerator. After Tom had washed the dishes, he walked out into the front hall and listened for a moment to his mother’s screams, which now sounded oddly
Less than half an hour later a carriage rolled up in front of the house. The doorbell rang. Tom left the television room, opened the front door, and let in Dr. Milton.
Victor stood on the lowest step of the staircase. A red wine stain shaped like the state of Florida covered the front of his shirt. Dr. Milton, who was dressed in the same outfit of cutaway and striped pants that he had worn for the picture in Lamont von Heilitz’s journal, smiled at Tom and carried his black bag toward the stairs. “Is she better now?”
“I guess,” Victor said.
Dr. Milton turned his ponderous face to Tom. “Your mother’s a little high-strung, son. Nothing to worry about.” He looked as if he wished to ruffle Tom’s hair. “You’ll see a big improvement in her tomorrow.”
Tom said something noncommittal, and the doctor carried his bag upstairs after Victor Pasmore.
By ten o’clock Tom felt as if he were all alone in the house. The doctor had left hours before, and his parents had never come back downstairs. He turned on the television to watch the news and sat on the armrest of his father’s recliner, tapping his foot.
“Dramatic conclusion to search for Marita Hasselgard’s killer,” said the reliable-looking man in the heavy glasses. “Finance Minister feared missing. Complete details after these messages.”
Tom slid onto the seat and moved the recliner into its upright position. He waited through a string of commercials.
Then came color film of what looked like the entire police force of Mill Walk, equipped with automatic rifles and bulletproof vests, firing from behind cars and police vans at a familiar wooden house in Weasel Hollow. “The hunt for Foxhall Edwardes, suspected murderer of Marita Hasselgard, came to a dramatic conclusion late this afternoon after shots were fired inside a Mogrom Street bungalow early this evening. Two officers, Michael Mendenhall and Roman Klink, were injured in the early exchange of fire. Reinforcements quickly arrived on the scene, and Captain Fulton Bishop, who had been led to identify Edwardes as the murderer of Miss Hasselgard by an anonymous tip, spoke to the suspect through a bullhorn. Edwardes chose to shoot rather than surrender, and was killed in the resulting exchange of gunfire. The two injured policemen remain in critical condition.”
On the screen, the windows and window frames of the little house splintered apart under the gunfire, and chips of stone flew away from the front of the house. Black holes like wounds appeared in the walls. Smoke boiled from the ruined door. Flames shot out onto the roof, and one side of the house collapsed in a roil of smoke and dust.
The announcer appeared again. “In a related story, Finance Minister Friedrich Hasselgard, reported earlier as lost in a squall in the Devil’s Pool, was listed an hour ago as officially missing. His luxury sailing vessel is being towed back to Mill Walk harbor by members of Mill Walk’s Maritime Patrol, who found the
Tom turned off the television, picked up the telephone, and dialed the number of the house across the street. He let it ring ten times before hanging up.
The next day, his mother floated down the stairs at noon, fully dressed, hair brushed so it shone, her face carefully and expertly made up, and came into the television room almost girlishly. The miracle had happened again. She was even wearing pearls and high heels, as if she planned to go out. “Goodness,” she said, “I’m not used to sleeping so much, but I guess I needed the rest.” She smiled at them both as she went across the room and sat on the arm of her husband’s chair. “I think I just tried to do too much yesterday.”
“That’s right,” Victor said, and patted her back.
