Graves' Retreat (8 page)

    Byron nodded. “What’s even stranger, Les, is how power affects some people to do good things and other people-well, some people just can’t seem to handle it.” Then he flushed and realized he was saying something terrible about his own future father-in-law. “Of course, I wasn’t talking about Clinton.”

    Les laughed. “No, of course not.”

    Byron’s face was still red. “Well, I’d better be getting on to my office. Hope you feel better.”

    “Thanks, Byron,” Les said and meant it. He felt that for the first time in two years of knowing each other, of being polite to each other, they’d finally said something that touched on reality, their shared fear and disgust with the tyrant Clinton Edmonds.

    

    

    The morning went quickly.

    The city streets were filled with wagons and carriages bringing provisions in and taking provisions out. Through the big plate-glass window, Les could see that the sidewalks were jammed with farm families getting ready for the holidays-making the sweep down First Avenue, then over past the Granby Building that held a myriad of small businesses and shops, then down Third Avenue with its variety of colorful awnings to offer customers shade from searing sun and a roof from pounding rain.

    Clinton Edmonds came over only once that morning. As most people in the bank knew, he was negotiating to purchase a small bank in a nearby town called Tipton. He was preparing for a visit this afternoon. So, fortunately for Les, Edmonds seemed somewhat distracted when he slapped a beefy arm around him and said, “We’re going to make fools of that Des Moines team, aren’t we?”

    In the most enthusiastic voice he could summon, Les said, “We sure are, sir!”

    Placated, Edmonds moved on, eventually back to his office.

    George Buss leaned over and said, "You’re going to get a promotion out of this game. You just wait and see.” Being George, he said this completely without envy. He was just awed by the process of how the world’s wheel really turned.

    Les spent the last hour before lunch glancing up at the big Ingram watch just above the front door. He had already decided where he was going to go over the lunch hour and he was beginning to feel some urgency about it.

    Wolfs Millinery stood on the corner of Third Street South East.

    

    

    At noon time the streets were crowded with downtown workers shopping and with customers from outlying areas coming into town via buggies and the streetcars.

    Les stood in front of the millinery window peeking inside for sight of May Tolan.

    Presently all he could see was the north wall of the place, where large glassed-in cases with sliding doors displayed what seemed like hundreds of large hats with huge (sometimes overwhelming) floral ornaments, of the sort popular this year.

    In front of the cases were mahogany stands where even more hats were shown.

    Ladies in pairs and trios walked up and down the aisles of the place, trying on various hats-some evoking admiring smiles among their friends, some (the gaudier kind) eliciting smiles if not downright smirks, and still a few more puzzlement. There was one hat off which spilled enough grapes to start a vineyard. Who would wear such a thing?

    Finally, still unable to find May anywhere (and then suddenly fearing that she, too, might be on her lunch hour), Les started around to the front of the place.

    And that’s when he saw Neely.

    The big Irishman, looking like a roughneck version of a banker himself in his three-piece suit and string tie, leaned against a shop a hundred feet away smoking his hand-rolled cigarette.

    He walked over to Les with his easy gait, its very easiness suggesting a self-confidence that was really arrogance.

    “You’re following me, aren’t you?” Les said. He had begun to sweat. He was angry. He also felt, as the tightness of his stomach attested, fear. He had known Neely for twenty-five years and had never been able to understand the man. Neely was the sort who got tears in his eyes when little kids hurt themselves by falling down or getting sick. He had a real sympathy for life’s injured and wounded. But he had also seen Neely kick in a man’s ribs until the man started bleeding out of his mouth, nose and ears. Les and T.Z. had had to haul Neely off the man. Neely made no sense to Les and that made him not only inscrutable but totally dangerous, like a weapon that could be set off at any time.

    “Sure. I remember you when you were a little kid,” Neely said. “You liked to wander around-get lost.” He smiled. “I’m just making sure you don’t get lost.”

    “I’m not going to do it, Neely. What you proposed last night.”

    Neely just kept on smiling. “Sure you are.”

    “You can’t force me.”

    “Of course I can.”

    “I don’t give a damn who you tell about my past.”

    Neely’s eyes narrowed. “It isn’t your past you’ve got to worry about now, Les. It’s your brother’s past. Don’t forget that T.Z. is wanted for murder.”

    You could see by Neely’s eyes that he had succeeded in rattling Les.

    “They’d hang him and you know it.”

    “They’d hang you, too.”

    “If they caught me. Remember in the old neighborhood, Les-I always came out on top. T.Z. rarely did."

    Les sighed. “I-I’m trying to start a new life here, Neely. I don’t expect you to understand that. But that’s why I kind of-retreated back here. To start again. And now-”

    Neely took a deep drag on his quirly and tipped his hat with the broad gesture of a gentleman to a pretty bonneted young woman passing by in the fine lovely June sunlight.

    Then Neely turned back to Les. “If you do it just the way we told you, nobody will ever know you had anything to do with it.”

    “But, Neely-”

    “You ever see a man hang, Les? They hung my uncle.”

    “Neely, I know-”

    “My old man never got his brother’s screams out of his head. Even on his deathbed my old man was crying about what it had been like to see his brother die-”

    “Neely-”

    “It’ll be like that with T.Z. and you know it. He isn’t strong, T.Z. isn't. Not strong at all, kid, and you know it.”

    Les sighed. All he could think of to say was “Don’t follow me around anymore, all right?”

    Neely smiled. “Just wanted to make sure you didn’t get lost, kid.”

    “And don’t call me kid anymore, either.”

    Neely flicked his quirly into the gutter. “All right, Les. I don’t want to make you unhappy.” Then his eyes became slits in the sunlight and he said, “I’ll see you tonight, Les. Tonight.” Then he was gone.

    

    

    Before he entered the millinery store, Les had to go around the comer and get his composure back.

    People passing him on the street looked at him closely, as if he were sick or something.

    Finally, after a few minutes, he took several deep breaths, said something that resembled a prayer and then went back around the comer and into the millinery store.

    A bell tinkled as he entered the long, narrow shop and almost immediately a large woman in a yellow, bustled dress appeared and said, “Yes, sir, may I help you?”

    Les gulped and said, in a voice that sounded none too confident, “I’d like to see May Tolan.”

    And then, in the back of the store, stepping out from between parted curtains, he saw her.

    As always she looked lovely in a delicate and somewhat nervous way, her auburn hair pulled back in the sort of loose bun called a chignon. Her particular kind of prettiness reminded Les of a small kitten not quite able to cope with the world of giants surrounding it. She walked slowly toward him now, graceful in a simple tan frock, her grave brown eyes looking excited and afraid and even a bit angry all at once.

    The other woman, sensing the personal nature of the business, said, “I’ll be in the back, May dear.”

    May nodded.

    Les said, his voice shaking, the first stupid thing that came to mind. “Been a while, I guess.”

    Levelly she said, “Four months.”

    “I’ve been meaning to get hold of you.”

    “Could you help me with this?” an important-looking woman interrupted.

    “Of course,” May said.

    As he watched her, Les wondered if she ever resented it. She was so much more elegant than many of the women she waited on-yet so many of them treated her with the contempt of the wealthy.

    By the time she had finished with the first woman, several others had come into the shop, tinkling the bell, waiting impatiently to be served.

    Les had prepared so many words his head ached with the press of them all-but he could see now he would not have the opportunity he needed to say them to her. Not here.

    Les just stood there, bowler in hand, trying to look comfortable despite the scrutiny of half a dozen women who were obviously wondering what a
man
was doing here.

    The woman in yellow came back. She said, in a discreet voice, “You’re not here to see May on business?”

    “No, I guess I’m not.”

    “Well, May is very busy. This isn’t a good time.”

    “Yes. I-I guess I can see that.”

    "I can take a message for her if you’d like.”

    “No, no message. But-could you tell me when she has her lunch hour?”

    The woman frowned. “I was going to suggest that you stop back then-but I’m afraid it may be two o’clock at the rate things are going.”

    Two o’clock. Les would be back in his teller station. “All right. Why don’t you just tell her that I'll see her later, then.”

    “Fine. Sorry you didn’t get a chance to see her.” The woman, surprisingly, did not seem sorry.

    “Oh, that’s all right.”

    As he left, May was fitting a hat to a woman’s head. But he could see, around the angle of the ornamenting floral design, her brown eyes watching him.

    Sadly.

    And then it came back to him-her grief the night he’d told her that he did not want to see her anymore-how instead of tears a distance had come into her eyes, a distance he could not stand to watch, a distance far worse than words or anger could ever have been.

    He saw some of that distance in her gaze now.

    And he hurried out of there.

    

    

    “He was rude to you.”

    “It’s just his manner.”

    “You’re afraid of him.”

    “I’m just polite.”

    “He humiliates you and you let him.”

    “As I said, Susan, it’s just his manner.”

    In the center of the downtown was a square of summer green grass with park benches and tables where many of the merchants and their employees sat and ate their lunches watching pigeons trundling around and dogs chasing after them. The city groundskeeper showed some of his most beautiful snapdragons, petunias and roses in a small but famous garden here and the air was rich with its blessings.

    Susan sat across the table from Byron Fuller. She had brought them a picnic basket with chicken sandwiches and ice tea and two slices of chocolate cake for his noon hour. She liked festivities, so she also spread out a red and white checkered tablecloth that was brilliant in the daylight.

    For the first ten minutes she had stopped herself from mentioning last night-how her father had exploded at Byron over some innocently expressed political opinion (Byron was not a particular admirer of President Arthur’s) but Byron had not defended himself at all.

    But then he had never defended himself in all the years that Clinton Edmonds had been browbeating him-and Susan was beginning to lose respect for Byron. Which was why, of course, she’d turned briefly to Les Graves.

    “I need to say something to you, Byron.”

    “You know,” Byron said, in his best calm voice, “I read an article in
Harper's Weekly
a few issues ago which said-”

    “I don’t give a damn what it said.”

    Byron blushed and looked quickly around to see if any of the other people in Greene Square might have heard her use profanity.

    “My Lord, Susan,” he said.

    “I just want you to understand the gravity of this lunch today.”

    “I just don’t see what you’re so upset about.”

    “I’m upset because my whole future is at stake.”

    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

    “If my father breaks you the way he broke my brothers-we’ll never have any peace as husband and wife. He’ll run our lives because you’ll let him.”

    “I most certainly will not let him run our lives.” For the first time Byron sat up straight and seemed touched by something resembling pride.

    “Then the next time he shouts at you or tries to humiliate you- stand up to him.”

    “But he’s-”

    “He’s what?”

    “He's your father.”

    “He also happens to be a tyrant.”

    “And he’s-”

    “What?”

    “He’s-my elder. You’re supposed to have respect for your elders.”

    “You heard me, Byron. He’s destroyed the lives of my mother and my brothers, but I’ll be damned before I let him destroy my life!” Byron leaned forward and stage-whispered, “Will you please quit using profanity!
I'm a banker
-what will people think?”

    “Right now I don’t care what people think.”

    His stage whisper continued. “Well, I do care. I have to care.
I’m a banker."

    She smiled. “You look so cute right now, Byron. You’re so embarrassed and helpless-like a little boy.” She knew she loved him at moments like these. Without trying in the least, Byron was so winning, good, kind and gentle and patient, just as he’d been all the years they’d grown up together. Sometimes he was her lover and sometimes her friend and sometimes he was even her own little boy, deeply in need of help in a world far more cynical than he ever imagined it to be. She prayed, literally on her hands and knees, that her father would not destroy Byron with his own virtues.