Power, The (7 page)
Authors: Frank M. Robinson
THE
train chugged into Brockton at six, Saturday morning, when the town was still up to its neck in nightgowns and bed sheets. It stopped briefly to pick up a dozen noisy milk cans and to drop off the newspapers and William Tanner.
train chugged into Brockton at six, Saturday morning, when the town was still up to its neck in nightgowns and bed sheets. It stopped briefly to pick up a dozen noisy milk cans and to drop off the newspapers and William Tanner.
He stood on the platform for a moment watching the train rattle away down the long stretch of track, then turned to the station. It was a one-story wooden structure with a sign in front saying BROCKTON in peeling, gothic letters. A note was tacked on the waiting-room door to the effect that the station didn’t open until seven.
Apparently, when anybody left town, he thought, they had to leave on the evening train. He started walking into the village.
Brockton. It was a small town—probably not more than two thousand population. A grid of crisscrossing streets that ran for a few blocks, then faded into the prairie. Several blocks of business section and a local tavern with a broken neon sign swinging in the early-morning air and a whitewashed church with a steeple. A combination drug and hardware store with bamboo fishing poles leaning against the display window and a town hall that featured movies every Saturday and Sunday night.
Small town.
Farm town.
Backbone-of-America town where every politician wished he had been born. The town where John Olson had been born.
He checked in at a small, rambling hotel where the dust was thick on the leather-upholstered furniture in the lobby and where the bathroom was four doors down the hall. His room looked out on the main street. It was a large room, equipped with a brass bedstead and a gigantic oak bureau with a porcelain basin and pitcher on top. A glass wrapped in dusty cellophane stood next to the pitcher.
He hung up his coat and walked down the stairs to the hotel cafeteria which was, wonder of wonders, open for business. He ordered pancakes and coffee and watched the waitress as she walked back to the kitchen to fix them. She was young and eager to please—even at six-thirty in the morning—and bore a faint resemblance to the old man at the hotel desk. Probably a daughter or maybe even a granddaughter pressed into service.
The pancakes were thin and didn’t soak up the syrup and the coffee was blistering hot and strong and remarkably good.
The girl stood behind the counter three stools down, idly polishing the marble top and watching him out of the corner of her eye. She was probably wondering just who he was and exactly what he was doing there, he thought. By noon everybody in town would know that a stranger had blown in.
“That’s pretty good coffee.”
She walked back, a little too quickly, and he couldn’t help smiling. The walk went with the pink piece of ribbon in her hair. What did they call it? Simple and unaffected?
“Dad orders it special—comes in every week on the train.”
“Your father the man at the desk?”
She nodded. “He owns the hotel.”
“Nice place.”
She polished the counter some more and made too much work out of wiping the top of a ketchup bottle.
“You a salesman?”
He raised his eyebrows and she colored. “I didn’t mean to be nosy. It’s just that we’re not exactly overrun with visitors out here.”
“No, I’m not a salesman. I came here to see the Olson family.”
She frowned and he knew she was trying to think of some way of asking him about it without trying to appear too curious.
“I knew their son at the university. He died last week and I’ve brought back his belongings.” In a sense, it was exactly what he was doing. And it wouldn’t hurt for the information to get around—people might be that much more informative.
“John Olson?”
“That’s right.”
She went back to the ketchup bottle. “I didn’t know him very well. I guess I was only ten when he left town.” She folded the rag to have a clean surface. “I’ll bet Adam Hart will feel bad when he hears about it.”
For a moment he felt like the coffee and the pancakes were going to come right back up. It took every bit of will power that he had to control the tremble of his hands.
“Who’s Adam Hart?”
“Adam was a real good friend of Johnny’s—they used to be together all the time. You know kids when they hero-worship somebody older than they are.” She put the bar rag down and slid the ketchup bottle into place between the sugar bowl and the salt and pepper. “I didn’t know Adam very well,” she said slowly, looking down at the counter, “but he’s the type you never forget. You could roll all the movie stars into one and they couldn’t even begin to compare. I guess all the girls were crazy about him.”
“Is he around town now?”
She shook her head. “Oh, no. Sooner or later almost everybody leaves Brockton. Adam left about eight years ago.”
His meal was going to stay down after all, he thought. But for a moment she had really frightened him.
“This Hart fellow—what did he look like?”
Her face got pink. “Young, but not too young. Maybe twenty-five or so. Blond hair and tall and kind of thin so he looked like he was a little hungry all the time. Blue eyes and a smile that made the whole world bust right open … .”
She was serious, he thought, amazed. She hadn’t known Hart very well but she had fallen in love with him when she was ten years old. What was more, she still hadn’t shaken it.
She looked wistful. “You’d never forget him, mister. Once you saw him.”
He finished his coffee and just sat there, staring at the nickel-plated faucets and the shining glasses and the little boxes of breakfast food stacked behind the counter.
You could eliminate Petey and Marge, he thought, Adam Hart was a man. Olson was dead and he sure as hell wasn’t chasing himself. Which meant that Adam Hart
had
to be one of the five remaining men who had been at the meeting that Saturday morning. Even granting that it was eight years later, still …
had
to be one of the five remaining men who had been at the meeting that Saturday morning. Even granting that it was eight years later, still …
But the man the waitress described didn’t resemble any of them.
The Olson home was two doors down from where the paved street ended and three up from the encroaching prairie grasses. It was a small, white bungalow—too small and too new for a farm house—and Tanner guessed the Olsons had moved in recently.
He walked up the sidewalk, then hesitated a moment before knocking. It was still rather early in the morning. Maybe too early.
“You want something, mister?”
The man had come around the side of the house, carrying a half-empty bag of grass seed under one arm. He was a tall, leathery-faced man with silvered hair half hidden beneath a dungaree cap. He reminded Tanner of the farmers who used to come to the stockyards with manure still clinging to their boots.
“I’m looking for the Olsons, but maybe it’s too early.”
The man spat. “Not too early, not by two hours. Used to get up at five when I had the farm. Still got a garden and don’t see any reason why I should sleep late now.” He looked sharply at Tanner. “I’m Mark Olson. You got something on your mind?”
Tanner nodded to the small suitcase he had brought along. “I’m from the university. I brought back some of John’s things.”
The old man opened the screen door. “Come on in, son. Mother’s right in the living room.”
It was dim on the inside, with the cool, musty smell that goes with a closed-up house. In the living room, Mrs. Olson was seated in a rocker by the picture window, a colored afghan tucked up around her fleshless limbs. Her face was furrowed and stitched with fine lines and her eyes sunken and dried.
She and her husband were about the same age, Tanner guessed. But her husband was still very much alive and she was close to dying; a worn-out, run-down clock, just waiting for the final, fatal loosening of the mainspring. She had no more interest in life than to sit in her rocker in front of the window and watch the winds dart through the prairie grass and the occasional visitor wander up the street.
“I’m from the university,” he said softly. “I’ve brought back some of John’s things.”
She glanced at him and then turned back to the window, as if looking any place else but through the glass took too much effort.
“Patricia wired us that he died,” she mumbled. “She said it was too late for us to go to the funeral. She said they buried him the same day.”
Which hadn’t been true at all, he thought. Then he looked again at the old lady and realized she would never have survived the trip.
“Johnny was a good boy,” the old lady said weakly. “He should have lived longer than he did … .” Her voice trailed off and her husband tugged at Tanner’s sleeve. Tanner followed him to the small kitchen and took a seat by the table.
The old man was gruff. “You don’t want to talk to Mother too long. She’s been ailing these last few days. Johnny’s dying hit her pretty hard.”
“John was born here in Brockton, wasn’t he, Mr. Olson? Born and brought up here?”
“Lived here all of his life until he went away to college. Maybe he shouldn’t have gone. He came back one or twice in the summer and he wasn’t the same. Kind of unhappy, kind of moody.”
He set a battered, tin coffeepot on the stove and lit the burner with a match. His hand was shaking. “I always told Mother he was a farm boy, that he wasn’t cut out for school in the city.” His voice was low and close to cracking. “I’m going to miss that boy, mister. I never approved of his going to school but I set a lot in store by him just the same.”
He was going to make it painful for the old man, Tanner thought. But it had to be done.
“His whole life was here, wasn’t it? You know, his friends and relatives?”
“He had a lot of good friends.” The old man went to the pantry to get some thick, china mugs. “Never forget one. Fellow named Hart. Adam Hart. Older than Johnny but I always thought the friendship was good for the boy. A youngster makes friends with an older man and he gets a better view of life.”
The coffee was boiling but he made no move to take it off the stove.
“This Adam Hart—Johnny used to talk a lot about him,” Tanner lied. “What sort of a fellow was he?”
“All man, son. Came from a gypsy family that had settled over on the west side of town. One of those families that has two dozen kids in the house and a trained bear in the back yard. The kids just couldn’t keep away. No grass or flowers on the lot but some cherry trees the youngsters could climb. Johnny used to hang around over there. Adam was one of the gypsy boys, a lot older than Johnny. They took to each other and Adam used to help Johnny with his schoolwork and teach him how to play sports.”
He got up and poured out thick, black coffee that smelled burnt and raw. “Adam will be real sorry to hear that Johnny’s … dead.” It took an effort for him to say the word and the coffeepot shook a little, spilling the hot liquid on the oilcloth.
But Adam Hart isn’t sorry,
Tanner thought.
Probably only a little regretful that he had to go to all that trouble to kill Olson.
Tanner thought.
Probably only a little regretful that he had to go to all that trouble to kill Olson.
“Anybody know where Adam is now?”
“Nope. Nobody’s heard from him since he left town.”
“What did he look like?” The girl in the hotel restaurant had been pretty young when she had seen Hart. Her memory wouldn’t be as good as the old man’s.
“Early twenties—maybe just twenty. Light brown hair. About as tall as me, medium. Well-knit—he’d have been good behind a team of horses.”
Tanner sipped his coffee.
The Adam Hart that the girl had described and the Adam Hart that the old man had known didn’t sound at all like the same person.
Brockton High School looked a little larger than the town deserved. Tanner guessed it served half the county; the town of Brockton and the miles of farm land around it. The classrooms were deserted and for a moment he thought he was out of luck.
But the baseball coach, who was also the football coach and basketball coach and who taught swimming and track and algebra in his spare time, was still there. Coach Freudenthal was a chubby man in his middle forties with an easy, friendly air. He was working out in the gym, showing two twelve-year-olds how to shoot baskets. The backboards were old and the floor was warped but Tanner was willing to bet they still turned out championship teams.
He told the coach why he was there and the welcome smile slipped away.
“Sure, I remember Johnny. He was the star of the team when he played here. You would never have figured him for it, though.” He turned to the boys and slapped the nearest on the rump. “Okay, kids, shower up and go on home.” He started for his office. “How’d it happen, Professor?”
“His heart gave out. Overwork, I guess.”
“That’s funny, I never would have guessed he was a heart case.” Freudenthal pulled off his sweatshirt and started rubbing down his paunch with a towel. “You know, you’d never have thought he was an athlete. He just didn’t look the type, though let me tell you a lot of them don’t. He just didn’t have the build for it, but when it came to reflexes and a quick eye, I’ve never seen his equal. He won a letter in basketball.” He slipped on a shirt and started buttoning it. “Maybe this sounds odd but I don’t think he ever really enjoyed sports. He kind of drove himself to play them.”
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