Guestward Ho! (10 page)

"No, I did not!" I snapped. "Besides, he's a sick boy." "Sick, in the head," Bill said. "And would you like to know with what?"

"Oh yes, Dr. Mayo," I said, "please let me know what the eminent diagnostician thinks is wrong with Junior." My, wasn't I withering!

"Wet brain," Bill said.

"Wet what?"

"Barbara, the boy's a lush, a booze-heister, a rummy. He's a real, chronic alcoholic and I'll bet he's been on a
six-month binge and hasn't dried out from it yet."

"But, Bill," I said—not quite convinced and not quite
not convinced—"the law firm said he'd been ill and needed recuperation. They didn't mention . . ."

"You can bet your bottom dollar he's been ill," Bill said with that irritating logic. "It's real bottle fatigue.
Didn't you notice that whisky tenor? Look at his color. Look at all that blubber on him. That's not solid fat from
eating, it's alcoholic bloat. Real rummies don't eat—not
when they can drink."

"Well," I said grudgingly, "he didn't eat very much to
night and it was a
very
good roast."

"You can bet he didn't eat much," Bill said. "He still
has the shakes so bad that he could hardly pick up a fork.
And do you know why his hands look so scaly?"

"Why?"

"Because he's probably had pellagra."

"Pellagra?"
I squeaked. "Why, Bill Hooton, that's like saying he has scurvy! How could anybody have pellagra
unless he was shipwrecked or abandoned on a desert island? That just doesn't happen to people in civilization."

"You can starve to death in the middle of a supermar
ket if you don't eat," Bill said, "and that's what's happened to Junior. It's pure diet deficiency."

"But why didn't his lawyers
say
what was the matter with him?" I said, grabbing up the beautiful letter of reservation from the desk.

"Because they didn't want you to refuse him, stupid," Bill said. "And they didn't want to send him to one of
those expensive drying-out places where he'd meet nothing
but a lot of other alcoholics with the exact same problems
and no conversation except how anxious they are to get
back to the bottle. You know, unless those problem drink
ers
want
to cure themselves and go to A.A. or the Yale
Plan or a good psychiatrist, it's almost impossible to keep
them away from liquor."

"Well . . ." I muttered, not quite certain what to believe.

"And why do you suppose they asked specifically if we
had
a bar and how far we were from town?"'

"Well, I don't know," I said angrily. "All I know is that
Junior and his Valet are . . ."

"Valet!" Bill sneered. "That's a hot one! Junior's about
as well-groomed as a chimney sweep. As for Murphy, he's
the most typical hospital orderly I've ever seen—big, strong, tough, watchful. I'll bet he got his start in the
psycho ward at Bellevue. You notice that he never lets
Junior out of his sight."

By then I was convinced Bill was right, but I wouldn't
have admitted it under torture. "All I know," I said far
too elegantly, "is that Mr. Nameless and his manservant
are our guests at our ranch; that they're occupying rooms
that cost forty dollars a day; and that they will be here all summer. Besides, I think Junior is
quite
charming."

"Okay, have it your own way," Bill said. "But I don't
suggest you give a cocktail party in Junior's honor."

The next morning I locked up all the guests' liquor and
put the key down my front. I warned Evangeline to keep
an eye on the lemon extract and the vanilla and I personally poured the rest of the wine vinegar down the drain. But as the days went on I felt ashamed of myself
for being so silly. Junior was behaving himself perfectly. Although I saw him only at mealtimes, he seemed a little
gentleman. He didn't ride or swim or play tennis or even
mingle with the other guests, but he did spend quite a lot
of time sunning himself in a deck chair on his terrace and
reading crime magazines. His color was a lot better, he
was shaking less and eating more, and every week the law
firm paid his bill with a big, beautiful, baby-blue check.

By the end of the second week I was so used to Junior
that I didn't pay any attention to him, and even Murphy
seemed to be relaxing his vigilance. That was our big
mistake. I should have realized the only way to keep an
constructed alcoholic from the bottle is to nail him into
his coffin. They always find liquor; and even though Jun
ior didn't
seem
very bright, he had ways and means,
too. Junior's way was Curly and his means was bribery.

With the twenty-twenty vision of hindsight, it now
seems to me that I noticed Junior's sharp decline about the
I same time I noticed that Curly was off the ranch more than he was on it. It was during Junior's third week that
his appetite fell off and during the same week that Junior himself fell off the terrace, for no apparent reason except
that Murphy had gone into town for Mass. He looked kind of bloodshot and glassy-eyed to me, but when I got
a whiff of his breath there was nothing more telltale than a strong odor of peppermint. It was also during this week
that I noticed Curly looking resplendent in not one, but three new silk cowboy shirts of the sort that cost about twenty dollars each, or a good deal more than he could afford on the salary
we
were paying him. I noticed, too, that Curly had got into the lamentable habit of driving
around in Junior's gold Jaguar—and always at times when
Murphy was sleeping or swimming or otherwise off guard.
It worried me to think of a dope like Curly roaring over
the countryside in a five-thousand-dollar automobile that
didn't belong to him, and I told him to cease and desist.

The big blow fell late one Thursday afternoon. Buck
and Evangeline were off that day and Bill was taking the
guests out on the ride, since Curly had a sick headache
and was allegedly suffering in the bunkhouse. I was alone
in the ranch house, and Junior and Murphy were dozing in the deck chairs on their terrace. At least,
Murphy
was
asleep.

I was considering a little shut-eye of my own when I heard a car coming into the drive—and it wasn't exactly
rolling in with the noise a regular car makes, but sort of
sneaking
in, if such a thing is possible for a car to do.

"Lord, who's this coming without a reservation?" I said to The Girls.

Neither cat answered.

I peeked out the window and noticed the gold of Junior's Jaguar and the fuchsia of Curly's new silk shirt. And
I was boiling mad! Curly had claimed to have too severe a headache to take out the afternoon ride, leaving Bill to
do it on cook's day off. Yet he now seemed perfectly able
to get himself up in his new finery, borrow Junior's car,
which I had told him not to do, and have a little outing all
his own. But, as the car was moving so slowly and sur
reptitiously behind the shrubbery, I had plenty of time to
get out of the house and plant myself squarely in the middle of the driveway.

When Curly saw me he gave me a look that made me
think he'd like to gun the car up full speed and flatten me, but I stood my ground and the car stopped just short of my skirt.

"Feeling better, Curly?" I asked him.

"Uh, yes, Ma'am," he mumbled. "A little."

"And you thought that a nice little spin in Mr. Name
less' car—which I've told you sixteen times not to drive—would make you feel still better, didn't you?"

"Ma'am, I felt so poorly I just went inta.town to git me some cough medicine."

"I thought you had a headache, Curly," I said, edging
around to the side of the car. "You even mentioned some
thing about brain tumors running in your family. The distaff side, I believe you said."

"Well, I did, Ma'am," Curly stammered, "an' I drove in to git me some powders."

"You certainly got a lot of them, Curly," I said, snatch
ing the package off the seat beside him. It contained a quart bottle of gin.

"Oh, I meant to tell yuh, Ma'am, I got that for Mister
Bill. He tole me to."

"Mister Bill doesn't drink gin, Curly," I said, "and if he did, there's plenty of it in the house. Locked up." All
of a sudden I was beginning to get the whole picture—
Junior's decline and fall, Curly's new finery, his unex
plained absences—and Curly, fuchsia silks and all, did
not make a very pretty picture as an amateur bootlegger
pandering to a hopeless alcoholic whose family was try
ing to straighten him out.

"He tole me to git it in time for the cook-up, Ma'am,"
Curly said. "He wants it fer the barbecue sauce."

"My husband uses sherry in the barbecue sauce, Curly.
He uses one tablespoon and we've got gallons of sherry in die house, too."

Curly was the color of his shirt, but he was steadfast in his big lie. "I don't know nothin' about that, Ma'am. Bill just tole me . . ."

"Did he ask you before he took the ride out this afternoon or when he got back?" I asked coldly.

"Just as soon as he came back, Ma'am," Curly said hurriedly, clutching at any straw. "He come inta the
bunkhouse an' sez 'Curly, will you go inta town an' . . .' "

"Well, that
is
odd, Curly," I said, "because he isn't back yet. Now, stop lying to me and tell me the truth:
You went out and got that gin for Mr. Nameless, didn't
you?"

"Ma'am, I . . ."

"Didn't
you?"

"Well, he did ask me to . . ."

"And you've been rumrunning for him for the last couple of weeks, haven't you?"

"Well, Ma'am, I did do a couple of little errands for him when he . . ."

"And. he's been paying you money—lots of money—to
keep him supplied, hasn't he, Curly?"

"Miz Barbara, I on'y did what he . . ."

"Did it ever occur to you that he's a sick man, that
liquor is poison to him, that his family sent him out here,
with Murphy looking after him, just so he could get well
and stop drinking and . . ."

"Ma'am, he jus' likes a drink like anyone elst."

It suddenly occurred to me that I was carrying on like a fishwife right out in the wide-open spaces. It also occurred to me that it was now or never for dealing
with Curly—now, when I'd caught him red-handed. By
throwing a good scare into him we'd undoubtedly end
up with a better wrangler than we'd started with and the
Nameless family might possibly end up with a better heir.
"Come into the house, Curly," I said. "I want to talk to you."

He shambled out of the car, leaving the motor still running.

"Just leave that bottle in the car, Curly," I said, "This
is one package you're not going to deliver." With a stately
toss of my head, I guided Curly up to the ranch house,
sat him down in the empty lounge, and started my tem
perance lecture. I also dragged in such tear jerkers as Duty to One's Employer, Honesty, One Lie Leading to
a Thousand—oh, I was going great. So great, in fact, that
Curly was close to tears and I shed a couple myself.

My spiel lasted the better part of an hour and it might
still be going if I hadn't heard Murphy out in the driveway shouting, "Holymarymotheragawd!
Junior!"

I rushed to the window just in time to see Junior, drunk
as a lord, sitting in the car tipping the last of the gin to
his lips. Then I saw Murphy dash out into the driveway, but not fast enough. With a roar of the motor, the Jaguar
was off with Junior at the controls.

Curly and I raced out just as the car shot past. Junior
screamed something that sounded like a Comanche war whoop and tossed the empty bottle out with a crash. Then
he gunned the car and really roared up the driveway and
out of sight around the back of the house.

"He ain't allowed to drive!" Murphy panted. "He's wrecked a dozen cars already!" Then Murphy got into the station wagon and tried to follow, but our old Ford was no match for the Jaguar.

Oddly enough, I had sufficient presence of mind to
rush Curly down to close the front gate so that at least
Junior would be confined to our ranch and wouldn't go
killing any total strangers—just the guests and me. Then,
having been almost knocked down by the station wagon,
I got up on the terrace where I'd be a good deal safer
than I was standing in the middle of the driveway. At first
I philosophically thought it might be wiser to let Junior
drive around the property until he got tired of it or ran into something and had to stop, or until he used up all the gas, or until the quart of gin had had its full effect
and he passed out at the wheel. Whenever
that
might be. But just then I saw Bill, seven guests, and eight horses
plodding over-the hill and my heart literally stopped beat
ing. So, just to add to the general pandemonium, I joined
in the melee, too. Better to leave Bill a widower on the
ranch than to have him killed and be left there by myself,
I thought as I joined in the chase.