Death of a Tall Man (31 page)

“I'm worried,” Freddie said. “It isn't like him. He hasn't called.”

“My dear,” the man said. “Nothing happens to the chief. He could have been tied up in Washington, so far as that goes.”

“And not have wired? Or telephoned?”

“Well—” he said. “Anyway, nothing's happened to him.” He smiled, widely. “The chief can take care of himself,” he said. “You ought to know that, Freddie.”

She said, “Of course,” but the worry was still in her voice. It was still in her mind.

“I'll check the hotel,” he said. He smiled again, making little of it. “Maybe he dozed off,” he said.

Freddie Haven took him to the telephone in the library; stood beside him as he dialed the hotel, asked to speak to Senator Bruce Kirkhill.

He listened and said, “Nonsense.”

“Of course he's registered,” he said. “Let me talk to the manager. This is the senator's secretary, Howard Phipps. It's important.”

Phipps turned to smile at Freddie Haven. “Pull rank on 'em,” he said. “If—yes? Oh—”

He talked quickly, with authority, then with an increasing puzzlement in his voice. Finally he said: “Ask him to call me at” and looked at the number on the telephone and repeated it. “Vice Admiral Satterbee's apartment,” he added. He hung up. For a moment his face was shadowed again; then he became, in an instant, very cheerful.

“Not there,” he said. “Hasn't checked in. But don't worry. Nothing happens to the chief. Hell—probably he's out there now, looking for you.” Howard Phipps jerked his head toward the living room. “Come on,” he said. “Probably he thinks you've stood
him
up.”

But Bruce Kirkhill was not in the living room. It was almost eleven-thirty, the year was running out; for Freddie, the party was running out. But the party was still there; it was still her party. She went on about the party, smiling, being a hostess. Her lips tired, forming the smile. Her voice tired, saying nothing gaily; her mind tired, straining for a familiar voice from the foyer. Not many were coming, now.

“I
am
sorry,” Mrs. North was saying. “It's a lovely party, but we do have to—” Mrs. North's voice stopped. It started again. “You're worried, Mrs. Haven,” Pam North said. “Aren't you? Something's happened?”

“I—” Freddie began, and almost went on, because there was so much reality, so much friendliness, in Mrs. North's question. But then she only smiled and shook her head.

“I'm sorry,” Pam North said. “Of course it isn't. Jerry says I—” Then, in turn, she stopped, and smiled and shook her head.

“It's a lovely party,” Mrs. North said after that. “We hate to leave, but I'm afraid—” She left the sentence unfinished and smiled again. Mr. North was beside them, and the admiral. The admiral looked at Freddie, quickly, worry on his face. She shook her head at him. She said, to Mr. and Mrs. North, the things a hostess says, and found, suddenly, that she meant them. She did not want this friendly slim woman, who so outdistanced you if you went from word to word, whose interest was so oddly bright and undisguised, to leave the party. But she walked with the Norths to the foyer and watched them go. The old year had less than half an hour left for its running out.

II

Friday, 11:35 P.M. to Saturday, 2:10 A.M.

Freddie turned back toward the living room, and Celia was waiting for her. Freddie changed her expression when she saw Celia's face, wiping the look of worry from her own. Celia was slender and very young, her blond hair hung rather long, almost to her shoulders. She had blue eyes which now sought reassurance.

“You're worried about Dad,” Celia said. “Where is he, Freddie?”

“Held up somewhere,” Freddie said, making her voice light, casual. “Seeing a politician about another politician.”

“Somewhere,” Celia repeated. “You don't know, then? You haven't heard anything?”

“He's all right, Ce,” Freddie said. “Nothing happens to the chief.”

“Howdie said that to you,” Celia told her. “But I know Dad planned to be here. Early if anything. I'm worried, Freddie. But Curt says—”

“It's nothing,” Freddie said, too quickly. “Of course it's nothing, dear. Whatever Curt said is right. Howdie's right.”

“He'd telephone,” Celia Kirkhill said. “Dad always—always remembers. Doesn't he?”

“Not—” Freddie began, and realized that would be wrong. “Usually,” she said. “But he's all right, Ce.” She made herself laugh. “After all,” she said, “we've got to let him be late now and then, Ce. We can't—” She raised her square white shoulders, let them fall, let them finish the sentence.

“Curt,” Freddie said then, glad of the chance, to a tall young man who came to stand beside Celia Kirkhill, to whom, as Freddie spoke, Celia turned instinctively, her face lighting. “You haven't got a drink! I'll get Watkins.”

She looked for Watkins, saw a maid with a tray of champagne glasses. It was almost time, then. Her head summoned the maid. “What time is it, Curt?” she said.

“Tu-twenty minutes of,” Curtis Grainger said. He was tall and thin, his hair, blond as Celia's, was short, upstanding on his long head. “Almost t-t-time.”

It was not exactly a stutter; it was a kind of hesitating, uneasily, on the brink of a word. Once, she supposed, Curtis Grainger must have stammered rather badly. He had grown stern with himself. The sternness was evident on his young face when the face was quiet. It vanished when he looked at Celia.

“Y-your father's going to miss the year,” he said, and his smile was the youngest thing about him as he looked down at Celia Kirkhill, reached out to put an arm around her shoulders. He looked over her head at Freddie Haven. “The baby's worried,” he told her. (He said, “The bu-baby's wh-worried.” After he had hesitated on the brink of a word he said it rapidly, clipping it.)

Freddie said she knew. She said it wasn't anything.

“Of course not,” Curtis Grainger said. “I've been telling Ce. As my father says, the senator's indestructible.” He grinned, disarmingly. “My father ornaments it,” he said.

“I'll bet,” Freddie said.

The buzzer had sounded in the foyer. She was conscious she was listening; that she had frozen in listening. She heard one of the maids move to the door, heard the door open, her ears straining.

“Good evening, miss,” Freddie heard Marta say, and heard a voice she knew, speaking quickly, accenting the words. “
So
late,” the voice said. “Has
every
body—?”

Breese Burnley came into the living room quickly. She wore a white dress, her shoulders bare, a thin, flat circle of diamonds about her lovely throat. As always, now in spite of her disappointment, Freddie Haven was conscious of surprise when she looked at Breese. It was difficult to grow accustomed to such perfection—such perfect perfection. Surely, coming out of a snowstorm, one strand of all the black, artfully arranged hair, would be at odds with art; surely one of the long eyelashes over deep blue eyes would have lost its curl.

“Darlings!” Breese said. “I'm
so
late.
So
sorry.”

Breese Burnley looked at Freddie with a perfect smile, at Celia, at Curtis Grainger. Then, almost without hesitating, only slowing a little as for a grade crossing, she looked on beyond them, her smile still perfect, still ready. It was sometimes difficult to speak to Breese Burnley, so rapidly did she pass you, go on to the person beyond.

“Hello, Breese,” Freddie Haven said, feeling that she was calling the words after Breese, although Breese herself had not moved. Celia said, “Hello,” and there was little expression in her young voice. Curtis Grainger said, “Hello, Bee-Bee,” making himself utter the difficult nickname, the obvious nickname, without trace of stammer. He wants, Freddie thought, to give her no hold on him, not even the hold of this tiny weakness, this meaningless vocal uncertainty.

“
So
late, darlings,” Breese said again, looking beyond them, still smiling at them. “And I
did
hurry.”

“Still time for a drink, darling,” Freddie promised her. “I'll—”

“Darling,” Breese said. “As if you didn't have
enough!
I do it myseps.” It was a catch word of hers, “myseps.” It stemmed from baby-hood. “Breese will do it herseps,” Fay Burnley said of her daughter, admiringly. Credit where it was due, Freddie had thought. Breese did it herseps, all right. (“B-B indeed,” Bruce had said of Breese. “A five-inch shell.”)

Now Breese, patting Curt's arm in passing, patting it with almost no trace of lingering, went on—went on, slim and perfect, infinitely provocative to the male, very beautiful, very certain because of her beauty. The three of them watched her go. There was a faint smile on Freddie Haven's lips. “Our only Bee-Bee,” Curt said, not bothering, now, to enunciate with precision the difficult nickname.

The smile was insecure on Freddie's lips. It faded away. She was conscious that Celia was looking at her again. The girl's eyes were demanding something.

“You're worried, Freddie,” Celia said. “You're worried too.”

It was a statement, yet it demanded answer. The girl's eyes demanded honesty.

“Yes,” Freddie said. There was nothing to add to it.

They could not stand there, so near the door from the foyer, so detached from the others. Freddie put an arm around Celia's shoulders, drew her toward the party. Everyone seemed very contented, very full of conversation. Voices were lifted a little, to be heard over other lifted voices. Uncle William's aide had found a pretty girl, and was looking beyond her toward Breese Burnley. Breese had found champagne. She had also, Freddie noticed, found Howard Phipps. She was talking to him and, so far as Freddie could tell, from a little distance, listening to what Phipps said in return. They must be talking about Breese, Freddie thought, and made a tiny mewing sound at herself for thinking it. Miaow, Freddie thought, without uttering the sound.

“Bruce!” she thought then, smiling at people, walking toward her father with her almost full glass held carefully. She thought the name with a kind of explosive force, as if she could make Bruce hear by thinking his name hard. “Bruce! Where are you?” Almost, she found, she listened for an answer.

Her father was talking to Uncle William, rank appropriately meeting rank, and she heard the words “damned Reds” and then Vice Admiral Satterbee interrupted himself and turned away from William Fensley. (Who was, after all, only a rear admiral, even if not yet “ret.”)

“Haven't seen Kirkhill,” Admiral Satterbee told his daughter. The accusation in his voice was, she was sure, only a token of concern. Her face must show her anxiety, then.

“Stood me up,” she said, keeping it light. “May I toast the year with you, Dad?”

Her father said, “Wumph.” He sounded angry.

“No excuse,” he told her. “No excuse I can see. Where is he?”

“Please, Dad,” Freddie said. “He's tied up somewhere.”

“No business being,” her father said. “Supposed to be here, isn't he?” He drew his brows down. “Unless—” he said, and stopped, thinking better of it. He looked at his daughter's face.

“Sorry, Freddie,” he said. “Don't worry.”

“It's all right, Dad,” she said.

“You'd have heard,” he said, meaning, clearly enough, that she would have heard if something had happened to Bruce. It didn't follow, she thought; it was not sufficiently consoling. But she managed to smile and nod. Then she remembered.

“You started to say something,” she told her father. “You said ‘unless,' and stopped. And you were—” She had started to go on, to ask whether he had been talking about Bruce on the telephone to a man whose voice she had never heard, which was not a voice, in texture, in rhythm, like those of the people in the room. But this was not the time for that. Watkins was standing by a window, looking at his watch, ready to open the window, to let, as it would seem, the New Year in, to let the roar of the city carry it in.

“Nothing,” her father said. “If—perhaps later, Winifred. It's almost time.”

He took out his watch to prove it. He showed her the watch. Its faint tick was a rattle in the throat of the dying year. What a thing to think! What a
way
to think!

Then the roar started. The whistles started, the bells, the indescribable sound, underlying all identifiable sounds, which was the sound of people. Someone shouted on the street below; someone, farther away, fixed a gun—an automatic, she thought—rapidly. In the room there was a kind of quiver in the air, a sudden stirring.

Her father, facing her, was raising his glass and she raised hers, to touch it. The tiny sound of touching glasses was, momentarily, clearer than any other sound.

“Happy New Year, Winifred,” her father said.

“Happy New Year,” she said. “Happy New Year, Dad.”

Her voice did not falter; she did not let it falter. They drank as the bells sounded, as sirens mourned the old year in metal-throated lament, as the tiny sound of clinking glass was repeated.

They drained their glasses, father and daughter, oddly alike in square shoulders, the way they stood, the way they moved, carrying on a custom which meant nothing. (“A toast's to be drunk, Freddie,” her father had said, long ago, perhaps when first they had drunk together, as two Satterbees, her mother dead. “If you mean it, drink it.” She had never known where her father acquired this rule, or whether he invented it.) Now her glass was empty when she lowered it from her lips.

Her father leaned down and kissed her, then. He kissed her lightly, on the check, and patted her bare shoulder.

The next hour or so meant nothing, could not afterwards be remembered. She became a hostess again, keeping the party alive after its climax; seeing that champagne was passed unhurriedly, without interruption, (“Never rush people,” her father's rule was. “Never leave them with empty glasses.”) She seemed to remember, afterward, that Breese Burnley and Howard Phipps were together a good deal of the time; that they had been together at midnight, drunk the New Year in together. She knew that Celia Kirkhill and Curtis Grainger were always together; she remembered how often, being near them, she had seen Celia's face turned toward hers, with a question in it; how often she had shaken her head. But, oddly, the tension of her own waiting had lessened after midnight. Apparently she had set that hour as an arbitrary one, the hour by which Bruce Kirkhill must appear. As the night had built toward that hour, her tension had built. But when the hour had passed, when nothing had happened, the unreasoning quality had gone out of her anxiety. She was still worried, but now she felt, more than worry, a kind of emptiness. It was as if she had been defrauded; as if she had reached out for something and, where this thing, this wanted thing, should have been there was merely nothing. With this emptiness not showing in her face, she moved from group to group; she went with Uncle William and Aunt Flo to the door, when they left half an hour after midnight; she had, with a fleeting expression, let Uncle William's aide know she sympathized as he went along, dutifully, to see that the car was there, the bluejacket who drove it on hand and competent. (The aide came back, after about five minutes, looking very pleased. He rediscovered the girl he had discovered on arrival. They continued to drink to the New Year.)