Don't Rely on Gemini (11 page)

“Honey?” He put his arm around her waist.

She didn't answer.

“Maybe it would be good to get away from New York,” he said, attempting to bribe her into responding.

His second attempt at bribery didn't work, either; she took his hand off her thigh and gave him a swift kick in the shins.

Archie fell asleep convincing himself that he would remember to write down tomorrow this new flimsy parallelism: both Neal Dana and he had owned Ford Consuls … Still, the English Ford wasn't all
that
common; it wasn't as if they'd both owned some American make.

He had a tossing, twisting night of darkness filled with the sight of Dru's face contorted in anger, long hallways with Liddy waiting at the end of all of them, and the sound of his own voice raised with rage, until a policeman named Saturn arrested him for the murder of Anna Muckermann.

Dru's voice asked plaintively, “Why did you do it, Neal?”

The Friday before his birthday, Neal Dana left his house at eight-thirty in the morning and came face to face with Miss Nickerson at the top of the hill.

She had Kendal, the Doberman, on a lead, and neither of them looked very happy to be there. They were positioned by the Volkswagen. Kendal growled, but Miss Nickerson had the good manners to force a “Good morning,” and then she came right to the point.

“Where's
Mrs.
Dana these days, Mr. Dana?” she said.

Her bluntness threw Neal off guard; he had never thought of her as a nosy neighbor.

He said, “She's away, Miss Nickerson. How have you been?”

“Uncomfortable.”

“Oh? Maybe Kendal's too much for you to handle. It must be quite a strain holding her back that way,” said Neal, tossing his briefcase into the front seat of the Volkswagen. Kendal eyed him with hatred.

Miss Nickerson said, “I bought Kendal so I could be comfortable, bought her when I first saw that prowler.”

“What prowler?”

“Mrs. Dana didn't tell you?” “No.”

“There's been some character hanging around these woods since the beginning of winter.” “Somebody hunting rabbits, maybe?”

“He's not a hunter. Mother and I think he's a Peeping Tom,” said Miss Nickerson. “It got so we wouldn't sit in the downstairs unless the shades were pulled. Even in the daytime. Your wife didn't tell you this?”

Neal supposed it had probably amused Margaret as much as it did him: the idea of some poor fellow freezing his balls off in the winter, and risking encounters with rattlers and copperheads in the spring, for a glimpse of Minnie Nickerson and her mother tatting in their front parlor.

“She didn't mention it,” said Neal.

“For a while I thought Kendal had scared him away, but he's been back twice in the past few weeks.”

“Well—” Neal began.

“Oh, I'm not imagining it, if that's what your grin's about. Kendal chased him up a tree one night.”
“Really?”
Neal said.

“And the Saturday night following that, he was right on your front porch.”

“Miss Nickerson,” said Neal, “I had company that night. I didn't know you'd come up for a visit,” he said diplomatically, angrily wondering how often she “visited,” “or I would have invited you in. That was a friend of mine on my porch.”

“Oh, no,” she shook her head. “I wasn't snooping, either. I was walking Kendal and I saw him head up the hill on foot. Your company arrived in a car. I always know when you have company, because they always give a little honk before they go up the hill. But this was quite a time after the honk. Your company was already there. I saw your wife's car go up, the Volkswagen here, and the one following it with the redhead driving. She had on a yellow scarf.”

Archie in the Volkswagen; Dru driving the rented car. Neal lit a True. He said, “Go on.”

“I saw the prowler walk up the hill,” she said, “and I decided to do a little investigating. I took Kendal and we followed him. We didn't get too close to him, but I saw him looking in your windows. He was standing on your porch.”

Neal said, “Why didn't you call the police, Miss Nickerson?”

“Because of what they think of Mother and me. They think we're a pair of old women who imagine things.”

“Then you should have called me,” Neal said. He decided that either the police were right in their estimate of the Nickersons or some neighborhood kid had been poking around. One night last summer Neal had caught three of them skinny-dipping in the pool near midnight.

“I wanted to call you,” said she, “but Mother said he might come down to our place then.”

“Thank you for telling me about it,” said Neal. “Can I give you and Kendal a lift down the hill?”

“No thanks. Kendal needs exercise. We'll walk down.”

Neal got in behind the wheel. He said, “If you see him again, call me. I'll see that he doesn't bother you.”

“There's been a car driving slow by your turn-off down on the road, too.”

“Next time when you see something like that, just call me,” Neal said. He put the key in the ignition.

“This car's black. It drives real slow, like someone was looking up at your place.” Then she added, “I don't know what there is funny about it.”

“I was just smiling at Kendal,” said Neal. “She's a good dog, isn't she?”

• • •

Neal chuckled as he rode along River Road, deciding to tell the Gambles about Minnie and her mother and Kendal tomorrow night when he had dinner with them. Archie and Dru had made a quick decision and moved into the Cages' house yesterday. Just before Neal arrived in Piermont, he gave a glance up at the house. No signs of life. They were probably sleeping late. Neal had dropped in on them last night after work and found them fairly well settled, except for the unpacking of Archie's dozen crates of books. They had invited him to have a drink, but though he felt the same early evening loneliness which was plaguing him since Margaret's death, he refused. He was not going to take advantage of their propinquity and lead them to believe that now they were near, he would always be underfoot.

He had had a taste of loneliness three years before when Margaret had been in Bucks County. That was bad enough, but he had tolerated it by believing that she would return. It was that same temporary loneliness which overtakes a man when his wife and children are at the beach in the summer and he's in the city. He had heard his colleague, Cliff Bates, complain about it often enough. Cliff's wife took winter vacations as well. There was a period some years back when Cliff had all but lived with Neal and Margaret. Neal had complained bitterly after a while; Cliff had even taken to staying overnight. Neal would wake up first thing in the morning and hear Cliff and Margaret disporting themselves out in the pool. Then Cliff would sit across from him at breakfast, return in the evening for cocktails and dinner, drinking sufficiently after dinner for Margaret to suggest it was unsafe for him to drive.

Neal had not been able to understand it. Was the man a complete jellyfish without his wife and daughter? Were they all there was to his life away from Rock-Or? Didn't he have other interests, or other friends besides Neal and Margaret?

Now he understood all too clearly. Nineteen years of marriage was an island. You visited and were visited by the mainland as a couple. The three friends who had called since Margaret's death had all expressed their desire to “get together when Margaret returns.”

He had imagined that he would mourn more for Margaret, but again, because this time he knew she was not returning, her absence affected him much differently. He did not miss her. It was himself he missed, and having some sort of identity after five o'clock. He drank alone, ate alone, listened to music alone, and began slowly developing the unresilient, knotty little habits of a person living alone. He cleaned the house too often, began checking the evening's television fare in the morning when he read the
Times
(finding pathetic gratification when a good movie would be listed), and he jammed the freezer with Swanson's four-course frozen dinners and the cupboard with S.S. Pierce canned roast beef and chili, soups and puddings. He worked in the yard every night until it was dark; he installed “quiet” switches on all the light fixtures, as Margaret had begged him to do for years; he scraped and repainted furniture, fixed leaks, repaired screens, removed old window caulking and rearranged his library alphabetically.

He put off nothing that he could accomplish physically, but he became a mental procrastinator. He put off explaining to anyone any more than the fact that Margaret was “away"; he put off going to the police to report her absence. He put off planning or plotting his way out of it, and he put off Penny. Even his unconscious mind cooperated with him, for he had no dreams of Margaret that he could remember, nor any of Penny. The only woman to appear in a dream since Margaret's death had been Druscilla Gamble. She had run toward him in slow motion through the elephant grass, called him “Joe,” as Margaret used to, and presented him with an apple.

• • •

At the clinic there was a letter from Doubleday waiting on Neal's desk. The editor was impressed with the outline; he wondered if Neal was free for lunch one day next week.

In the midst of Neal's elation, the telephone rang. Penny.

“I have a wonderful idea, Neal. I'll fix you a birthday lunch today.”

“I can't come there.”

“No one has to know. Leave your car in the Grand Union lot. Go in the back entrance of Woolworth's and use the underground passage to our building. You just have to walk up one flight.”

“What about your father?”

“He's not here, Neal. He took the bus to Spring Valley to see my aunt.”

“Penny, it's too big a chance to take.” Last week, Cliff Bates had laughed when Neal had remarked that the switchboard girl listened in on his conversations. Neal had been testing to see if it were possible, and Cliff had relieved his mind by saying there wasn't a chance. “But aren't you getting a little paranoid, old man?” he had added.

Still, Neal didn't like these phone conversations.

Penny said, “Daddy's going to be gone until after dinner. He's going to call me before he leaves Spring Valley so I can meet his bus. It's safe, Neal. I won't get another chance to have you here for months!”

“I just can't see it. It's too risky.”

“Neal, I have to see you. I haven't seen you since—” She couldn't finish the sentence.

“I know. Be patient. Pen, I'm doing everything I can to speed things up. But we need time.”

“What are you doing?”

“What?”

“What are you doing to speed things up?” “I can't go into it on the phone.”

“It's too big a strain on me, Neal! I have to see you, Neal! I'll crack! I have things to tell you! I have to see you!” “Listen, Pen—”

“You listen for a change. Do you know I drive by your house nights? I do, Neal! Hoping to get a glimpse of you, or hoping maybe you'll drive down the hill, or walk down to get your newspaper out of the mailbox.”

“How can you get a glimpse of me from down on the road?” “I could. Maybe see you up in your yard.” “Penny? You've never walked up the hill, have you?” “No. I've wanted to, though.”

“And you don't call and listen to me say ‘Hello?' without saying anything?”

“No. I told you I wasn't doing that.”

Neal didn't believe her; if Penny wasn't making the calls, who was? And if Penny had been wearing slacks that Saturday night, would Minnie Nickerson know from a distance whether it was a man or a woman?

Now Neal was concerned. What if she were like her brother, who made such obvious errors when he committed his petty thefts, that even the police observed he was more interested in the punishment than the crime? Penny repeated, “I'll crack, Neal.”

“What time shall I come?” he said.

“You're
coming?”

“Yes. About one?”

“Any time. Any time, Neal! Come before one if you want.” “I can't come before one.”

“Oh, Neal! I feel like the world's off my shoulders.” “Just calm down. Everything's going to be okay, Pen.” “Neal? What do you want to eat?” “It doesn't matter.”

“It does! It's the first meal I've ever fixed you! I don't know what you want.” “A sandwich.”

“No, Neal! I want to fix you something good. It's your birthday next Tuesday!” “I don't care, Pen.” “Meat? What kind of meat?” “Hamburger. Something simple.”

“Neal, I'm so relieved! It's been a terrible strain. I have something to tell you. Oh, Neal, I'm dying to talk to you! Can you stay for a while? I mean, you won't run in and out in an hour, will you? Can you stay long?”

“Not too long,” said Neal, who knew that as soon as he was there it would seem too long.

• • •

Neal's secretary brought him the BISSEL, FORREST file.

Neal needed to refresh his memory on certain points. When he came to the relevancies, he ran his finger under the words slowly, as though he were underlining them in his thoughts.