Final Notice (14 page)

I walked through the chattering leaves and into the library, where Kate Davis and Miss Moselle stood gossiping in front of the circulation desk. The place looked eerie that late at night, with the big white lights pooling dully on the empty tabletops and collecting on the carpeting the way sunlight collects on a road bed. But then any place but my own apartment would have looked a little eerie after what I'd seen in the Lord home. And suddenly I wanted to get back to my two-and-a-half rooms. To get back there with Kate Davis and to make a little, uncomplicated love. If there is such a thing. To show some tenderness to her and to be shown tenderness in return. That's exactly what I want, I said to myself. That and a drink or two to wash the ugliness of the Lord house as far out of my life and out of Kate's life as I could.

"You look positively beat," she said to me as I walked up to her. "Did something go wrong?"

"You could say that. I think I found the Ripper."

Her blue eyes got very large behind the tortoiseshell glasses and her little mouth fell open noiselessly. "You found him?" she said breathlessly.

"His name is Haskell Lord. Hack, for short. I saw a photograph of him and he has the snake tattoo. He also has just about every other problem that Benson Howell said he would have. Broken home. Nasty, overweening mother. A history of violent behavior. Some pretty crummy friends. You name it. About the only thing that Hack Lord had going for him since he was ten years old was his brother's love. And that apparently wasn't enough."

"My God," Kate said. "Did you see him? Was he in the house?"

"No. They aren't sure where he is. That's what I've got to look into tomorrow."

"Some prospect," she said grimly. "I think you need a drink."

"Many drinks. And would you mind if we went to my place? I don't think I could take a lot of strangers tonight."

"Just one, maybe?" she said with a sweet, encouraging smile.
 
 

We got back to the Delores at nine. I called Al Foster and gave him Hack's name and description. He said he'd put out an A. P. B. That made me feel a little better. After a Scotch or two I felt better still. I stopped brooding about what to do with Haskell Lord and started enjoying Kate Davis, who was demonstrating surprising civilian skills for the great-granddaughter of an impetuous general. She made me scrambled eggs, a la M.F.K. Fisher, cooked in a cold skillet with a half-pound of butter for what seemed like an hour and a half. And it was good.

"Where'd you learn to cook?" I said to her.

She grinned at me and said, "I can even dress myself since they've given me back my belt and shoe laces."

Then she fixed me a hot toddy, a la The New York Times Cookbook. Rum and more butter and a cinnamon stick stuck in a cut-glass goblet. And it was good.

"Where'd you learn to mix drinks?" I said to her.

She grinned again. "Oh, I know lots of things. How to get tomato juice stain out of a wool sweater. How to darn a Gold Toe sock," she said, pulling at my foot.

"How 'bout making love?"

She nodded. "That, too."

"You'd make somebody a nice wife."

"Uh-uh." She shook her head and some of the playfulness went out of her smile. "I tried that route, Harry. For three years. And it's taken another three years to wash out the stain. You wonder where I got all those T.A. terms from? Well, buddy, it wasn't out of a book. I've been seeing a shrink since I left Ed. We're down to one meeting a month and I want to keep it that way. So no marriage. Not for this girl."

"You consult your shrink about everything?" I said.

"Not everything," she said, mocking my tone of voice.

"How about me? You think I might come up?"

She laughed. "I'd be willing to bet on it."

She sat down on the couch and looked me over with a bright, lecherous eye. "Well, you've had your supper. And you had your hot toddy. "What's left to do?"

I shrugged. "We could share intimacies again."

She shook her blonde head solemnly. "No. We've had enough of that, I think. At least for one day. You certainly have, haven't you?"

I thought of Haskell Lord and said, "Yeah."

"Anyway I've never been too high on sharing secrets. It reminds me of grade school when we all exchanged valentines. You know it was never the ones you got that caught at your heart. It was the ones you didn't get. The ones who forgot you or who you forgot. The past is too damn sad and small to share. So let's have what my shrink might call a 'now' experience. How does that sound?"

"O.K.," I said. "I like games. How does it work?"

"Close your eyes."

"I'm not sure I like those kind of games."

Kate winked at me and said, "You'll like this one."

I closed my eyes.

I don't know how she did it. I mean, of course, without making a sound. Whether she'd had that much practice or whether she was just being especially careful for me. But when she told me I could open my eyes again, she was sitting across the room on the baize armchair and her frilly white blouse and denim jeans, her bikini panties and her lacy brassiere were piled in a neat little stack on the bare wood floor.

She had a beautiful body and she was the sort of girl who knew it. Who didn't have to exaggerate by posturing or to play modest by hiding herself with a timid hand. No thrown-out chest, no sucked-in tummy for Kate Davis. She sat across from me as coolly as if she were fully clothed. And when she saw the look in my eye, she threw her head back and laughed.

"I told you you'd like this game," she said.

"What happens next?"

"That, my dear," Kate Davis said, "is up to you."

"Then close your eyes."

She did as she was told. I walked over to the armchair and lifted her up. Her rear end was bumpy from the twill of the cushion. She wrapped her arms around my neck and whispered. "You really are old-fashioned, aren't you?"

"Not about everything," I said and carried her to the bed.

She made love expertly -fierce, competitive love that was exhilarating. Lovemaking that left us both exhausted. I hadn't felt that kind of excitement since I was a kid breaking into my, first brassiere. And the lady seemed fairly well satisfied, too. Satisfied but, I thought, a little perplexed. A little remote. As if lovemaking weren't quite as uncomplicatedly joyous for her as it had been for me.

I stroked her blonde curls back from her forehead and pulled her beside me and didn't ask what it was, what sad song was playing in her head. Not that I didn't want to know. I did. But it was her grief and I learned a long time ago that when people want to be rescued they'll let you know. That when you butt in on your own, you're looking to soothe some pain inside of you some sense of exclusion. I wanted her to "share intimacies," as she put it. But in her own time. Because this girl was special. She had her own quirky rhythms, her own hurky jerky style of play. Sometimes funny and hurried-up. And at that moment, as she lay curled in my arms, very slow and serious.

So I held her and held my tongue. And after a time she turned in my arms so I could feel her breasts against my chest, hardtipped and as round and firm as oranges. She reached up and brushed some of the sandy hair out of my face and wiped at my eyes as if she were brushing back tears.

"Goddamn it," she said softly. "I think Jessie was right. I think I am falling in love with you."

"Maybe you'll get over it," I said.

She made a sour face and said, "I don't think so. I-know the symptoms too well."

"Well, if you're asking my opinion, I think it's a fairly good idea."

She shook her head. "It's a rotten idea."

"And why is that?"

"Because one of us will end up getting hurt."

There was no sense in pretending it wasn't possible. Maybe even probable, given the fact that both of us liked to have things,, our own ways. But, good Lord, love's as common as colds and we're just about as defenseless against it. Unless we turn into hermits or turn the impulse inward, twist it like a bramble, the way Haskell Lord had done, or treat it like a game, make it into a pleasure trip and when it stops being fun, when it starts becoming as complicated as the rest of life or when it starts making the rest of life look simple, call it quits. Some people can do that. Judging from the number of divorce cases I handle, a good number of people. But I can't. Or won't. Someone once told me that the two are one.

So I told her getting hurt was the chance we'd both have to take, which didn't seem to please her.

"Maybe you've never had a really painful realtionship?" she said defensively. "Maybe that's why you can be so highminded about it?"

I thought of Jo Riley and said, "You know what your trouble is, Kate? You think you're the first lady since Eve who made a bad bargain and got burned for it."

She drew back in the bed. "You think I'm acting like a child?"

"No," I said, "I think you're treating me like one. I told you before. I can take care of myself. I like to take care of myself. In love or not."

She looked a little hurt and said, "You mean you're not in love with me?"

"Jesus," I said. "Let's drop the subject."

She laughed mildly and hooked her legs around mine.

"You're feeling better now?" I said. she said She nodded. "Let's make love again, Harry," pulling me to her. "And talk about what it all means in the morning."
 

ONLY WHEN the morning came, there didn't seem to be any talk left in either of us. Maybe it was the look of the dreary sky. Or maybe it was just too early in the day for the "making commitments" scene she had planned. But as we sat on the couch, sipping hot coffee and reading the newspaper and generally acting like an old married couple at the start of a day, there was no talk larger than "Pass me the editorial page, would you?" or "I'll make you some coffee with egg shell in it one of these mornings," as if it had all been settled, miraculously, during the night that we would live together and see how things went.

I would have preferred to talk it out. But I didn't force the issue. Not simply for the sensible reason, for the adult reason that you can't make up another person's mind. But for the very selfish reason that I didn't want to scare Kate Davis away. I'd enjoyed making love to her more than I'd enjoyed anything in a long time. I liked the way she looked, blonde and pink in my terry robe as she sat beside me, reading the newspaper with her habitual look of high seriousness. I liked the seriousness itself, the willingness to mix it up in bed and out, and the sense of humor that accompanied it. I liked the lady enough not to risk losing her to her past or to her hard-won sense of independence. So I ptetendqd it had all been settled, too, and went about my early morning business.

I called Al Foster again and found out that Haskell Lord hadn't turned up. But A1 had gotten the C.I.D. report and, for what it was worth, the only felons with that kind of tattoo on their arms were serving life terms in Lima. Which was just as well. I told him about Effie Reaves and her brother Norris. And he said to get back in touch if I got a lead. Then I pulled out the phone book and looked up Norris Reaves's auto repair shop. It was on Harrison Pike, about two miles outside the city limits on the western edge of town. Trying to find Hack Lord could be a long process, which was why Al was letting me do the spadework. And I figured that finding Reaves's sister would be a good first step. I jotted down the address of the garage, patted Kate on the cheek and said, "I'm going to get dressed."

She looked up at me bashfully. "About last night."

"What about last night?"

"It was really fine," she said. "That's all. As good as it's been since ... well, since Ed and I fell out of love. Maybe it'll stay that way, for awhile at least."

I sat down beside her on the couch and had to fight the impulse to cup her lovely face in my hands. It was the natural impulse, given the shy look of hopefulness on that face. But the gesture smacked too much of a chauvinism that I wanted to avoid. Besides, the truth was I didn't know anymore than she did whether we'd stay together for awhile or forever.

"I think it might," I said and realized I was picking my words the way a nervous man might pick through a plate of food. "We can try to make a go of it, Kate."

She smiled fecklessly and I thought, oh hell, Harry! and threw a lot of good adult reasoning out the window. "We'll make it last, Kate. I'll see to it."

"Promise?" she said with a small, unhappy laugh.

And I promised.

I dropped Kate off at the library and gave her a kiss goodbye. A sweet, passionate kiss.

"Wow!" she said.

"My words, too."

We weren't likely to see each other until well after nightfall. She had to canvas the six girls on Ringold's list, to find out it any of them had seen a black-haired, muscle-bound young man with a tattoo on his right forearm. And I had to run down Effie Reaves. So we kissed again, like a young married couple saying their first goodbye after the honeymoon, and wished each other luck. Then she headed into the library and I backed the Pinto onto Erie and drove west to Dana and the expressway.
 
 

It would be stretching a point to call Dent, Ohio, a town. You're in it before you realize it, straight off the Boulevard and up Race Road to the Pike; then you're past it a mile farther on, when Harrison dips down into the green, hilly countryside of north Hamilton County. A couple of two-pump gas stations, a tiny trailer park, a drive-in theater marked "Closed for the Season," a handful of go-go bars with signs that read "Girls, girls, girls!" All of this set on the shoulderless curbs of a milelong stretch of highway is all there is to Dent, Ohio.