A Case of Need: A Novel (15 page)

He went on to argue that by doing safe abortions he was preserving the status quo, keeping the pressure off legislators to change the laws. And then he said something else.

“The trouble with this country,” he said, “is that the women have no guts. They’d rather slink off and have a dangerous, illegal operation performed than change the laws. The legislators are all men, and men don’t bear the babies; they can afford to be moralistic. So can the priests: if you had women priests, you’d see a hell of a quick change in religion. But politics and religion are dominated by the men, and the women are reluctant to push too hard. Which is bad, because abortion is their business—their infants, their bodies, their risk. If a million women a year wrote letters to their congressmen, you might see a little action. Probably not, but you might. Only the women won’t do it.”

I think that thought depressed him more than anything else. It came back to me as I drove to meet a woman who, from all reports, had plenty of guts: Mrs. Randall.

NORTH OF COHASSET
, about half an hour from downtown Boston, is an exclusive residential community built along a stretch of rocky coast. It is rather reminiscent of Newport—old frame houses with elegant lawns, looking out at the sea.

The Randall house was enormous, a four-story Gothic white frame building with elaborate balconies and turrets. The lawn sloped down to the water; altogether there were probably five acres of land surrounding the house. I drove up the long gravel drive and parked in the turnabout next to two Porsches, one black, the other canary-yellow. Apparently the whole family drove Porsches. There was a garage tucked back to the left of the house with a gray Mercedes sedan. That was probably for the servants.

I got out and was wondering how I would ever get past the butler when a woman came out of the front door and walked down the steps. She was pulling on her gloves as she went, and seemed in a great hurry. She stopped when she saw me.

“Mrs. Randall?”

“Yes,” she said.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but certainly nothing like her. She was tall, and dressed in a beige Chanel suit. Her hair was jet black and glossy, her legs long, her eyes very large and dark. She couldn’t have been older than thirty. You could have cracked ice-cubes on her cheekbones, she was so hard.

I stared at her in dumb silence for several moments, feeling like a fool but unable to help myself. She frowned at me impatiently. “What do you want? I haven’t got all day.”

Her voice was husky and her lips were sensual. She had the proper accent, too: flattened inflection and the slightly British intonation.

“Come on, come on,” she said. “Speak up.”

“I’d like to talk to you,” I said, “about your daughter.

“My stepdaughter,” she said quickly. She was sweeping past me, moving toward the black Porsche.

“Yes, your stepdaughter.”

“I’ve told everything to the police,” she said. “And I happen to be late for an appointment, so if you will excuse me …” She unlocked the door to her car and opened it.

I said, “My name is—”

“I know who you are,” she said. “Joshua was talking about you last night. He told me you might try to see me.”

“And?”

“And he told me, Dr. Berry, to suggest that you go to hell.”

She was doing her best to be angry, but I could see she was not. There was something else showing in her face, something that might have been curiosity or might have been fear. It struck me as odd.

She started the engine. “Good day, Doctor.”

I leaned over toward her. “Following your husband’s orders?”

“I usually do.”

“But not always,” I said.

She was about to put the car in gear, but she stopped, her hand resting on the shift. “I beg your pardon,” she said.

“What I mean is that your husband doesn’t quite understand everything,” I said.

“I think he does.”

“You know he doesn’t, Mrs. Randall.”

She turned off the engine and looked at me. “I’ll give you thirty seconds to get off this property,” she said, “before I call the police.” But her voice was trembling, and her face was pale.

“Call the police? I don’t think that’s wise.”

She was faltering; her self-confidence draining away from her.

“Why did you come here?”

“I want you to tell me about the night you took Karen to the hospital. Sunday night.”

“If you want to know about that night,” she said, “go look at the car.” She pointed to the yellow Porsche.

I went over and looked inside.

It was like a bad dream.

The upholstery had once been tan, but now it was red. Everything was red. The driver’s seat was red. The passenger seat was deep red. The dashboard knobs were red. The steering wheel was red in places. The floor carpet was crusty and red.

Quarts of blood had been lost in that car.

“Open the door,” Mrs. Randall said. “Feel the seat.”

I did. The seat was damp.

“Three days later,” she said. “It still hasn’t dried out. That’s how much blood Karen lost. That’s what he did to her.”

I shut the door. “Is this her car?”

“No. Karen didn’t have a car. Joshua wouldn’t let her have one until she was twenty-one.”

“Then whose car is it?”

“It’s mine,” Mrs. Randall said.

I nodded to the black car she was sitting in. “And this?”

“It’s new. We just bought it yesterday.”

“We?”

“I did. Joshua agreed.”

“And the yellow car?”

“We have been advised by the police to keep it, in case it is needed as evidence. But as soon as we can …”

I said, “What exactly happened Sunday night?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” she said, tightening her lips.

“Of course not.” I smiled politely. I knew I had her; the fear was still in her eyes.

She looked away from me, staring straight forward through the glass of the windshield.

“I was alone in the house,” she said. “Joshua was at the hospital with an emergency. William was at medical school. It was about three-thirty at night and Karen was out on a date. I heard the horn blowing on the car. It kept blowing. I got out of bed and put on a bathrobe and went downstairs. My car was there, the motor running and the lights on. The horn was still blowing. I went outside … and saw her. She had fainted and fallen forward onto the horn button. There was blood everywhere.”

She took a deep breath and fumbled in her purse for cigarettes. She brought out a pack of French ones. I lit one for her.

“Go on.”

“There isn’t any more to tell. I got her into the other seat and drove to the hospital.” She smoked the cigarette with a swift, nervous movement. “On the way, I tried to find out what had happened. I knew where she was bleeding from, because her skirt was all wet but her other clothes weren’t. And she said, ‘Lee did it.’ She said it three times. I’ll never forget it. That pathetic, weak little voice …”

“She was awake? Able to talk to you?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Randall said. “She passed out again just as we got to the hospital.”

“How do you know it was an abortion?” I said. “How do you know it wasn’t a miscarriage?”

“I’ll tell you,” Mrs. Randall said. “Because when I looked at Karen’s purse, I found her checkbook. The last check she had made out was to ‘cash.’ And it was for three hundred dollars. Dated Sunday.
That’s
how I know it was an abortion.”

“Was the check ever cashed? Have you inquired?”

“Of course it wasn’t cashed,” she said. “The man who has that check is now in jail.”

“I see,” I said thoughtfully.

“That’s good,” she said. “And now you must excuse me.”

She got out of the car and hurried back up the steps to the house.

“I thought you were late for an appointment,” I said.

She paused and looked back at me. “Go to hell,” she said, and then slammed the door behind her.

I walked back to my car, considering her performance. It was very convincing. There were only two flaws that I could spot. One was the amount of blood in the yellow car. I was bothered that there was more blood on the passenger seat.

Then too, apparently Mrs. Randall didn’t know that Art’s fee for an abortion was $25—just enough to cover the lab costs. Art never charged more. It was a way, in his own mind, of keeping himself honest.

T
HE SIGN WAS BATTERED: CURZIN PHOTOS
. Underneath, in small, yellowing print, “Photos for all Purposes. Passports, Publicity, Friends. One-Hour Service.”

The shop stood on a corner at the north end of Washington Street, away from the lights of the movie houses and the big department stores. I went inside and found a little old man and a little old woman, standing side by side.

“Yes?” said the man. He had a gentle manner, almost timid.

“I have a peculiar problem,” I said.

“Passport? No problem at all. We can have the pictures for you in an hour. Less, if you’re in a rush. We’ve done it thousands of times.”

“That’s right,” said the woman, nodding primly. “More than thousands.”

“My problem is different,” I said. “You see, my daughter is having her sweet-sixteen party, and—”

“We don’t do engagements,” said the man. “Sorry.”

“No indeed,” the woman said.

“It’s not an engagement, it’s a sweet-sixteen party.”

“We don’t do them,” the man said. “Out of the question.”

“We used to,” explained the woman. “In the old days. But they were such a fright.”

I took a deep breath. “What I need,” I said, “is some information. My daughter is mad about a rock-’n’-roll group, and you took their picture. I want this to be a surprise, so I thought that I’d—”

“Your daughter is sixteen?” He seemed suspicious.

“That’s right. Next week.”

“And we took a picture of a group?”

“Yes,” I said. I handed him the photograph.

He looked at it for a long time.

“This isn’t a group, this is one man,” he said finally.

“I know, but he’s part of a group.”

“It’s just one man.”

“You took the picture, so I thought that perhaps—”

By now the man had turned the picture over in his hand.

“We took this picture,” he announced to me. “Here, you can see our stamp on the back. Curzin Photos, that’s us. Been here since 1931. My father had it before I did, God rest his soul.”

“Yes,” said the woman.

“You say this is a group?” the man asked, waving the picture at me.

“One member of a group.”

“Possibly,” he said. He handed the picture to the woman. “Did we do any groups like that?”

“Possibly,” she said. “I can never keep them clear.”

“I think it was a publicity picture,” I offered.

“What’s the name of this group?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I came to you. The picture had your stamp—”

“I saw it, I’m not blind,” the man snapped. He bent over and looked under the counter. “Have to check the files,” he said. “We keep everything on file.”

He began producing sheafs of pictures. I was surprised; he really had photographed dozens of groups.

He shuffled through them very fast. “My wife can never remember them, but I can. If I can see them all, I remember them. You know? That’s Jimmy and the Do-Dahs.” He flipped through rapidly. “The Warblers. The Coffins. The Cliques. The Skunks. The names stick with you. Funny thing. The Lice. The Switchblades. Willy and the Willies. The Jaguars.”

I tried to glance at the faces as he went, but he was going very fast.

“Wait a minute,” I said, pointing to one picture. “I think that’s it.”

The man frowned. “The Zephyrs,” he said, his tone disapproving. “That’s what they are, the Zephyrs.”

I looked at the five men, all Negro. They were dressed in the same shiny suits that I’d seen in the single photo. They were all smiling uneasily, as if they disliked having their picture taken.

“You know the names?” I said.

He turned the picture over. The names were scrawled there. “Zeke, Zach, Roman, George, and Happy. That’s them.”

“O.K.,” I said. I took out my notebook and wrote the names down. “Do you know how I can reach them?”

“Listen, you sure you want them for your girl’s party?”

“Why not?”

The man shrugged. “They’re a little tough.”

“Well, I think they’ll be O.K. for one night.”

“I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “They’re pretty tough.”

“Know where I can find them?”

“Sure,” the man said. He jerked his thumb down the street. “They work nights at the Electric Grape. All the niggers hang out there.”

“O.K.,” I said. I went to the door.

“You be careful,” the woman advised me.

“I will.”

“Have a nice party,” the man said.

I nodded and shut the door.

A
LAN ZENNER WAS A HUGE MOUNTAIN OF A KID
. He wasn’t as big as a Big Ten tackle, but he was plenty large. I guessed he was about six-one and two-twenty.

Give or take.

I found him as he was leaving the Dillon Field House at the end of practice. It was late afternoon; the sun was low, casting a golden glow over Soldiers’ Field stadium and the buildings nearby—the Field House, the Hockey Rink, the indoor tennis courts. On a side field, the freshman squad was still scrimmaging, raising a cloud of yellow-brown dust in the fading light.

Zenner had just finished showering; his short black hair was still damp and he was rubbing it, as if remembering the coach’s admonition not to go out with wet hair.

He said he was in a hurry to eat dinner and start studying, so we talked as we crossed over the Lars Anderson bridge toward the Harvard houses. For a while I made small talk. He was a senior in Leverett House, the Towers, and he was majoring in history. He didn’t like his thesis topic. He was worried about getting into law school; the law school didn’t give athletes a break. All they cared about were grades. Maybe he would go to Yale law instead. That was supposed to be more fun.

We cut through Winthrop House and walked up toward the Varsity Club. Alan said he was eating two meals a day there, lunch and dinner, during the season. The food was O.K. Better than the regular crap anyway.