The Sixth Commandment (46 page)

“What about Ernie Scoggins?” I asked him dully. “Was Scoggins blackmailing Thorndecker?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” he mumbled.

“You goddamned shitwit!” I yelled at him. “You were Thorndecker’s righthand man. You know about it all right.”

“He got a letter from Scoggins,” Draper said hastily, frightened. “Not mailed. A note shoved under his door. Scoggins was working here at the time. He helped out with the animals occasionally. And when we had burials in the cemetery. He guessed something was wrong. All those tumorous corpses …”

“Did he have any hard evidence of what was going down?”

“He stole one of Dr. Thorndecker’s journals. It was—ah—incriminating.”

“Then what happened?”

“I don’t know. Dr. Thorndecker said he’d take care of it, not to worry.”

“And he got the journal back?”

“Yes.”

“And Ernie Scoggins disappeared.”

“Dr. Thorndecker had nothing to do with that,” he said hotly.

“Maybe not personally,” I said. “But he had his wife persuade Constable Ronnie Goodfellow to take care of it. She persuaded him all right. It wasn’t too difficult. She could be a very persuasive lady. And I suppose the same thing happened when it turned out that old Al Coburn had a letter from Scoggins recounting what was in Thorndecker’s journal. So Al Coburn had to be eliminated, and the letter recovered. Constable Goodfellow went to work again, and did his usual efficient job.”

“I don’t know anything about Al Coburn,” Draper insisted, in such an aggrieved tone that he might have been telling the truth;

I couldn’t think of anything else to ask. Not only was my body weary, but my brain felt flogged. Too many strong sensations for one night. Too many electric images. The circuits were overloaded.

I stood up, pulled on my sodden coat and hat, preparing to leave. I had a sudden love for that bed in Room 3-F.

“What’s going to happen to me?” Dr. Kenneth Draper asked.

“Keep your mouth shut,” I advised him resignedly. “Tell no one what you’ve told me. Except Mary Thorndecker.”

“I can’t tell her,” he groaned.

“If you don’t,” I said, “I will. Besides, she’s already guessed most of it.”

“She’ll hate me,” he said.

“Oh, I think shell find it in her heart to forgive you,” I told him. “Just like Lord Jesus. Also, she’ll probably inherit, and she’ll need someone to help her run Crittenden Hall and the lab.”

He brightened a little at that.

“Maybe she will forgive me,” he said, almost to himself. “After all, I just did what Dr. Thorndecker told me to.”

“I know,” I said. “You just obeyed orders. Now where have I heard that before? Goodnight, Dr. Draper. I hope you and Mary Thorndecker get married and live happily ever after.”

There were two Coburn police cruisers, a car from the sheriff’s office, and an ambulance in the driveway when I went outside. The gates were wide open. I just walked out, and no one made any effort to stop me.

Thirty minutes later I was snuggling deep in bed, purring with content. The last thing I thought of before I dropped off to sleep was that I had forgotten to pick up my aluminum stepladder before I left Crittenden. I was more convinced than ever that I just wasn’t cut out for a life of crime.

I
AWOKE ABOUT ELEVEN
Monday morning. I got out of bed immediately. Showered, shaved, dressed. Finished packing and snapped the cases shut. Took a final look around Room 3-F to make certain I wasn’t forgetting anything. Then I rang for Sam Livingston, and asked him to take the luggage down to my car. I told him he could have what was left of the ale and vodka. I took the remainder of the brandy with me.

The desk clerk wanted to talk about the terrible tragedy out at Crittenden. That was his label: “Terrible tragedy.” I cut him short and asked for my bill. While he was totaling it, I glanced over toward the locked cigar stand. There was a sign propped on the counter. I went over to read it.

“Closed because of death in the family.”

I think that sad, stupid sign hit me harder than anything I had seen the night before.

I paid my bill with a credit card, and said goodby to the clerk. Went into the bar to shake Jimmy’s hand, pass him a five and say goodby. Went out to the parking lot and helped Sam Livingston stow the suitcases and briefcase in the trunk. Put my hat, coat, and brandy bottle in the back seat.

I gave Sam a twenty. He took it with thanks.

“Take care,” I said, as lightly as I could.

That ancient black face showed nothing—no distress, sadness, sorrow. Why should it? He had seen everything twice. Like Ben Faber, the old sexton, had said: nothing new ever happens.

I got in the Grand Prix, slammed the door. I stuck my hand out through the open window. The mummy shook it briefly.

“Sam,” he said, “you ain’t going to change this world.”

“I never thought I could,” I told him.

“Um …” he said. “Well, if you ever get up this way …”

I drove away. It seemed only right that the last words I heard in Coburn were an unfinished sentence.

It was a long, brooding drive back to New York. I wish I could tell you that once Coburn was behind me, the sky cleared, the sun came out, the world was born again. It would have been a nice literary touch. But nothing like that happened. The weather was almost as miserable as it had been a week ago, when I drove north. A wild west wind scattered snow flurries across the road. Dark clouds whipped in a grim sky.

I stopped for breakfast at the first fast-food joint I came to. Tomato juice, pancakes, bacon, three cups of black coffee. Nothing tasted of anything. Sawdust maybe. Wet wallboard. Paste. The fault may have been mine. Back in the car, I cleansed my palate with a belt of brandy.

I hit the road again, driving faster than I should have. It was all automatic: steering, shifting, braking. Because I was busy trying to understand.

I started with Julie Thorndecker. Maybe, as Agatha Binder said, she was a loving, sacrificing wife. But deserting a fatally ill husband to run away with a young lover is not the act of a loving, sacrificing wife. I thought that in all Julie’s actions there was a strain of sexual excitement. I do not mean to imply she was a nymphomaniac—whatever that is. I just believe she was addicted to illicit sex, especially when it included an element of risk. Some people, men and women, are like that. They cannot feel pleasure without guilt. And they cannot feel guilt unless there is a possibility of punishment.

I think Julie Thorndecker had the instincts of a survivor. If Thorndecker hadn’t saved her at that Cambridge party, someone else would have. She was too young, too beautiful to perish. Her reactions were elemental. When she saw her husband dying, she thought simply: the game is up. And so she planned to move on. She may have loved him and respected him—I think she did—but she just didn’t know how to grieve. Life was too strong in her. So she made ready to take off with a hot, willing stud. I’m sure she loved him, too. Goodfellow, that is. She would love any man who worshipped her, since he was just giving her back a mirror image of her own infatuation with herself, her body, her beauty. A man’s love confirmed her good taste.

Telford Gordon Thorndecker offered a more puzzling enigma. I could not doubt his expertise in his profession. I’d agree with everyone else and say he was a genius—if I was certain what a genius was. But I think he was driven by more than scientific curiosity and a desire for fame. I think his choice of his particular field of research—senescence, death; youth, immortality—was a vital clue to his character.

Few of us act from the motive we profess. The worm is always there, deep and squirming. A man might say he wishes to work with and counsel young boys, to give them the benefit of his knowledge and experience, to keep them from delinquency, to help them through the agonies of adolescence. That may all be true. It may also be true that he simply loves young boys.

In Thorndecker’s case, I think he was motivated by an incredible seductive, sexually active young wife as much as he was by the desire to pioneer in the biology of aging. I think, perhaps unconsciously, the disparity in their ages was constantly on his mind. He saw her almost every day: youthful, live, energetic, vibrant, physically beautiful and sexually eager. He recognized how he himself, more than twice her age, had slowed, bent, become sluggish, his blood cooling, all the portents of old age becoming evident.

The search for immortality was as much, or more, for himself as it was for the benefit of mankind. He was in a hurry to stop the clock. Because in another ten years, even another five, his last chance would be gone. There could be no reversal; he knew that. He dreamt that, with hard work and good fortune, he might never grow older while she aged to his level and beyond.

You see, he loved her.

Although he could understand the rational need for her infidelity with Goodfellow—his work must not be delayed!—jealousy and hatred cankered his ego. In the end, he could not endure the thought of those two young bodies continuing to exist, rubbing in lubricious heat, swollen with life, while he was cold mould.

So he took them with him.

Wild supposition, I know. All of it was. So I came to the dismal conclusion: how could I hope to understand others when I was a mystery to myself. I wanted desperately to tell the saga of Dr. Telford Gordon Thorndecker to Joan Powell. That brainy lady had the ability to thread her way through the tangles of the human heart and make very human sense.

It was raining in New York, too. I found a parking space only a half-block away from my apartment, and wrestled my luggage into the lobby in a single, shin-bumping trip. I collected my mail, and banged my way up the narrow staircase. Inside, door locked and chained, I made myself a dark Scotch highball and took it into the bathroom with me while I soaked in a hot tub. My feet had been wet and cold for a week; I was delighted to see the toes bend and the arches flex.

Came back into the living room, dressed casually, and went through the accumulated mail. Bills. Junk. Nothing from Joan Powell. I unpacked, put dirty laundry in the hamper, restored my toilet articles to the medicine cabinet.

Put something low and mournful on the hi-fi, and sat down to prepare an official report on the Thorndecker affair. The Bingham Foundation supplied its field investigators with a five-page printed form for such reports. It had spaces for Personal Habits, Financial Status, Religious Affiliation, Neighbors’ comments, etc., etc. I stared at the form a few minutes, then printed
APPLICANT DECEASED
in big block letters across the top page, and let it go at that.

There was a can of sardines in the refrigerator, and I finished that with soda crackers. I also ate a few olives, a slice of dill pickle, a small wedge of stale cheddar, and a spoonful of orange marmalade. But that was all right; I wasn’t hungry.

I watched the news on TV. All bad. I tried reading three different paperbacks, and tossed them all aside. I piled my outstanding bills neatly for payment. I sharpened two pencils. I smoked almost half a pack of cigarettes. I found a tin of rolled anchovies in the kitchen cupboard, opened it, and wolfed them down. And got thirsty, naturally.

About 9:30
P.M.
, on my third highball, I gave up, and sat down near the phone, trying to plan how to handle it. I brought over several sheets of paper and the sharpened pencils. I started making notes.

“Hello?” she would say.

“Powell,” I’d say, “please don’t hang up. This is Samuel Todd. I want to apologize to you for the way I acted. There is nothing you can call me as bad as what I’ve called myself. I’m phoning now to ask if there is any way we can get together again. To beg you. I will accept any conditions, endure any restraints, suffer any ignominy, do anything you demand, if you’ll only let me see you again.”

It went on and on like that. Abject surrender. I made copious notes. I imagined objections she might have, and I jotted down what my answer should be. I covered three pages with humility, crawling, total submission. I thought sure that, if she didn’t hang up immediately, I could weasel my way back into her favor, or at least persuade her to give me a chance to prove how much I loved her and needed her.

And if she brought up the difference in our ages again, I prepared a special speech on that:

“Powell, the past week has taught me what a lot of bullshit the whole business of age can be. What’s important is enjoying each other’s company, having interests in common, loving, and keeping sympathy and understanding on the front burner, warm and ready when needed.”

I read over everything I had written. I thought I had a real lawyer’s brief, ready for any eventuality. I couldn’t think of a single way she might react, from hot curses to cold silence, that I wasn’t prepared to answer.

I mixed a fresh drink, drained half of it, picked up the phone. I arranged my speeches in front of me. I took a deep breath. I dialed her number.

She picked it up on the third ring.

“Hello?” she said.

“Powell,” I said, “please don’t hang—”

“Todd?” she said. “Get your ass over here.”

I ran.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Commandment Series