The Sorcerer's House (24 page)

I said, "You're saying I should not do it, either. I'll heed your advice."

Trelawny wiped his nose on a tissue, and managed to look a trifle sheepish. "My own opinion is that he may have intended to fight a duel, Mr. Dunn. You will think that fantastic, I know. I know it, and I sympathize. But Alexander Skotos was at heart a scoundrel, or so he seemed to me."

Mr. Hardaway said, "A daredevil. I'd agree with that. A daredevil, but scarcely a scoundrel."

"It is a question upon which sincere men may disagree. These pistols are yours, Mr. Dunn." Trelawny paused, as if waiting for me to speak. "You may take them now, if you wish."

I did.

"Jim has the deed to Mr. Skotos's real property, I believe. Did you bring it, Jim?"

Mr. Hardaway said, "I did, and I'll sign it over to you tonight. Tomorrow I'll have a cashier's check payable to you as well."

So it was, George, that I left the law office with the deed to the Skotos Strip in my pocket and a rather heavy set of cased dueling pistols tucked under my arm. Doris had not returned; Trelawny's secretary
said she had left the building in search of an ice bag, and Mr. Hard-away and I met her in the foyer returning with one.

The question--at least, after Mr. Hardaway left us--was whether we ought to abandon our dinner plans. Doris feared that I was in too much pain to eat. I was hungry and eager to talk about you, George. And about myself, as well. Women always accuse us of wishing to talk only about ourselves; I do my best to avoid it, but it seemed to me that it could no longer be avoided.

She and I sat in front after concealing the leather-covered pistol case beneath the seat. I drove slowly; she held her ice bag to my cheek, as solicitous as any mother.

"We had better go somewhere close," I said. "This is not as old as the pistols, but I'm not sure how far it is to be trusted."

"We're going to the Lakeshore," Doris told me firmly. "Will you trust it that far?"

I shook my head.

"Well, I will, because that's where we've got to go. For one thing, they have a great big parking lot, and it won't be crowded this late. We can't possibly park this car of yours in a normal spot. It's the size of a mobile home."

"Not quite."

"Oh yes, it is. It's way too big, and we have to have a restaurant with no valet parking."

I agreed.

"And if you park it anyplace in town, there's a good chance it will be vandalized. Weren't you worried about it tonight?"

"You win," I told her, "and to confess the truth, I'm glad you did. I have a good deal of explaining to do, and the front seat of this car will be a better place for it than any table in any restaurant. If we break down on the way there, or on the way back, there will be still more time to talk."

"Talk about what?"

"About George and about me." I paused to think, but could think only about you. Then, shifting gears, about Emlyn and Ieuan. "I know another set of twins, Doris. Actually, I should say I know of them--I only know one of the brothers at all well. The brother I know is clearly
good. His twin seems clearly bad, from what I know of him. And yet . . . Well, never mind."

"I know twin brothers, too," Doris told me. "One is polite and decent, and maybe a teeny bit too modest. Not to mention pretty good in bed. The other one--the one I met tonight--strikes me as more than a little unbalanced. Not unbalanced in a nice way, either. Can you guess which brothers I mean?"

Perhaps I nodded to that, George, although I hope that I did not. "People speak of brotherly love, Doris."

"All the time. I know."

"But in our case . . . Well, I don't really love my brother George. I don't believe I ever have. Perhaps George loved me once. I hope so."

"He probably did, Bax. You're an easy man to love."

"Thank you. As I said, I don't love him, and it makes it very difficult for me to be fair to him. I am going to try tonight." I paused. I was in third gear, but there is a fourth. I decided not to attempt it until we were well away from town.

"You think you know us both. I heard what you said when George stormed in, 'Poor Bax!' George has a temper, and too often loses control of it; but it's the only fault he has, really."

"I'll bet there are at least a couple of others," Doris said, "but that one may be more than enough."

"You think there's a good brother and bad brother, like Emlyn and Ieuan, and you're right about that. There are. There are, but you've got us reversed. George is the good brother. Believe me, it's no secret. Everyone in the family knows it."

"I'd have to hear them say it, Bax, and even if I did I wouldn't believe it."

"You will." I paused looking for a road sign, but saw none. "May I tell you how I got my Ph.D.'s?"

"You stole them?"

"More or less. George would certainly say I did. We had a wealthy aunt, our Aunt Carla Baxter. Mother's brother George had left her millions. Aunt Carla died and left my brother and me a trust fund. The terms were odd."

"Ah ha! The dotty aunt!"

"I should tell you that we were undergraduates at the time she died. Her will specified that as long as we stayed in college we would receive money for tuition and a living allowance. When we had both left college--and only when we had both left--whatever remained was to be divided equally."

Doris snuggled closer, propping up the arm that held her ice bag to my cheek. "That doesn't sound crazy to me."

"George left school as soon as he received his degree, found a good job, and got married. I went on to graduate school."

"I'm glad you didn't get married, Bax. Please don't ever get married until you run into a really nice lonely brunette."

"Do you see what that meant under Aunt Carla's will? I continued to draw tuition money and my living allowance. George got nothing, and would get nothing until I left school, too. He was furious. I believe I've already told you he has a hot temper."

"You didn't have to say it."

"He tore into me. I was a selfish clod--which is perfectly true. I was a traitor and a parasite, and so on. That was true, too; but I didn't know it at the time and became very angry. We were in my apartment, a little two-room place near the campus that I was renting while I worked on a masters in English Lit. I told George to get out. He was standing over me then and shouting down at me. He likes to do that."

"Oh, Bax! I'm so sorry!"

"I stopped answering him. I'd been telling him over and over that if he'd just sit down and be reasonable, we could work something out. He wouldn't listen, so I stopped saying it. I told him to leave, to get out of my rooms."

(You will remember all this, George, I feel sure. I shall skip a few sordid details.)

"He hit me. Ever since we were small boys, he had always been able to beat me in a fight; and that time he beat me again. He kicked me before he left. I was only half conscious, but his kick broke a couple of ribs, and I've never forgotten it. I resolved upon revenge."

"I'm glad. What did you do?"

"Isn't it obvious? I stayed in school. I had always enjoyed that life. I went from one university to the next collecting degrees. Teaching classes netted me some extra money, and . . ."

"What is it?"

"I don't recognize this road. Did I take the right road out of town?"

"I'm sure you did."

"In that case, I must have turned off somewhere. This one keeps getting narrower and narrower, and there are no road signs. We lost the white strip in the middle right back there. I think it might be wise to turn back."

"Oh, keep going. We're bound to get to someplace I recognize pretty soon. You said you stayed in school. Was that until you got both Ph.D.'s?"

"Longer than that." I had the ice bag by then, I believe. I dropped it into my lap and tried downshifting to second, managed it pretty well, and felt quite proud of myself. "I took course after course until the money ran out. I was working on a third Ph.D. when that happened. Do you think you've heard the worst?"

Doris said, "So far I haven't heard anything bad at all."

"You will. I began looking for a tenured position at a really good university, someplace prestigious with a mild climate. There was that, too."

"Did you find one?"

"No, and I ran out of money while I was looking. I took two--no, three--jobs, and found I couldn't stomach any of them. I wanted challenging work that would require scholarship. What I got..." I shrugged. "It wasn't that. There was a great deal of sitting at desks in crowded noisy offices and wracking my brains for something to do in order to look busy. I lasted a month at the last one. An entire month, because I was desperate by that time."

"I've had that kind of job, too. It's why I started selling homes."

"One morning I got up, and I couldn't put on my shoes. I couldn't make myself do it--put on my shoes, go out the door, and catch the bus for the office."

"You still feel bad about it."

"Of course I do. I had applied for various jobs I might have been able to stick with. That I might have been able to tolerate, because I'd be doing something that meant something: driving a truck, teaching, or building boats. Something like that. I was overqualified. I had heard that over and over. Now I was out of work again and would soon be broke."

"What did you do, Bax?"

I motioned her to silence. I had been driving slowly out of deference to the age of the car. I stopped now, peering out. "There's a horse out there in the woods. See it? A white horse."

"Yes . . ."

I put the car in neutral and pulled up the big floor-mounted brake handle.

"What are you doing?"

"I want to take a closer look, if he'll let me. He's a beautiful animal."

The white horse eyed me and backed away. I followed it, perhaps taking a hundred steps before I lost sight of it. After that I went forward for twenty more, although I could no longer see or hear it.

When I turned and looked behind me, I could see only the headlights, and they seemed terribly far away. I know--

Ieuan has been here, George. That was why I stopped writing. He had put on a clean shirt this time, but I knew him at once. I think it was because of the way he carried himself, cringing at times and swaggering at others. He looked like me, painfully so, and I recognized myself at once.

"Mr. Dunn? Mr. Dunn, may I speak with you? It's terribly important."

That was another. Emlyn called me Bax.

"I wanted to talk to you about the werewolf? The one who's been leaving the--well, you know."

I said, "What about her?"

"She kills people."

I nodded.

The next sentence came in a rush. "She kills them and I'm afraid I'm going to get blamed for it."

"Are you really?"

"Yes, really. Why are you smiling?"

After that I tried not to smile. "Sit down, please, and I'll tell you."

He sat on the old recliner I had carried to the house in Mrs. Naber's wheelbarrow.

"You asked why I was smiling. It was because I'm at least as liable to be blamed as you are. Perhaps more liable. She's left a leg on my porch, and a head behind my house not far from the cellar door. Doesn't it worry you in the least that I may be blamed?"

"Better you than me, Mr. Dunn, but we should make common cause. Two have four times the strength of one. That's what Zwart says. It sounds crazy, but he means at times like this. Partners?" He stood and offered his hand.

"Not yet." I had started to take it, but I put my own hand down. "I'm rather a treacherous man, you see. Ask anyone."

"I'll chance it."

"I've betrayed my brother over and over. Betrayed various friends of his, too. Swindled them. Now I find I can't take your hand when I'm in a false position, Ieuan."

He stared.

"I knew of course. Don't you remember what happened in the attic? I knew you at once, and I knew you at once today. I . . . Well, I feel sure you could deceive many people, but I'm not one of them. You should try to become accustomed to that, to internalize it."

He muttered something and spat on the carpet.