Brother and Sister (7 page)

***

Later that night, in bed, Angie wondered what would eventually happen between herself and Bob. He’d been annoyed when he left tonight and it was understandable. She was ashamed of herself for the way she was treating him, but she just couldn’t help it.

He had left early, before eleven o’clock. By that time the first twinges of guilt and shame had already touched her, so she had walked him to the door. When they were in the front alcove they were out of sight of the living room, and she had made no objection when Bob had taken her in his arms and kissed her.

Then he had said, “Angie, I want to talk to you, you know that. I want to talk to you soon. And I think you know what I want to say to you.”

“Yes. But, please, not now, Bob. I’m sorry, Bob, I really am. I know this is an awful way to treat you, but I just need time. I can’t make any decision now.”

“All right,” he had said, and his arms had dropped away from her. “I’ll give you time,” he said. “But not too much. I’m not going to stay on the string forever.”

“I’m sorry, Bob,” she had whispered. “I wish I didn’t have to be this way.”

“Okay,” he had said and, without another word, had pushed open the front door and left the house.

She had gone back to the living room and sat a while longer with Paul, watching television, trying not to think about the way she was treating Bob.

But now she was in bed, in the darkness, Paul sleeping a room away. She couldn’t avoid the issue any longer.

She could avoid it with Bob
--he was patient with her,
God knew,
too
patient
--
but she couldn’t avoid it with herself.

And she had made the decision once. Or at least she had
acted,
which was the same thing. The night her parents had died. She had been ready then to sleep with Bob, and that would inevitably have meant that she would marry Bob and spend the rest of her life with him.

But her parents were dead. It hadn’t happened. Instead they had come back to a house of chaos.

Was that an omen?

No. It wasn’t an omen. God wasn’t going to go out of His way to kill two people purely and simply to give a stupid little girl like herself an omen.

She couldn’t try to find the decision, ready-made, in signs and symbols; She had to work it out for herself. She had been ready to sleep with him, that one time. Was she ready to sleep with him now? Was she ready to sleep with
anybody
now?

She didn’t know. She was afraid, of course
--
afraid of the act itself and of what it meant. And she was curious, more than curious. Actually, she was fascinated by the idea of sleeping with a man. But she didn’t know whether or not she was ready now, as she had thought herself ready that night with Bob.

She tried to imagine that Bob was in the bed with her. She thought back to the little she knew of the sex act, Tried to visualize herself and Bob doing it. His body atop hers, her legs adjusting themselves to receive him, His face looming over hers a
nd--

She shut her eyes in sudden terror, turning spasmodically onto her side, and lay shaking with awe and fear beneath the single sheet.

For in her imagining, and quite without plan or warning, the face that had seemed to be above her in her make-believe had not been Bob’s face.

It had been Paul’s. It had been the face of her brother, Paul!

SIX

Paul didn’t want to go to the lawyer’s office. He didn’t want to have anything to do with lawyers or Uncle James or anybody else. All he wanted was to be left alone, to live quietly in hiss home and be left completely alone.

But it wasn’t to be that way. He had to go down to see Uncle James and this Goddamn lawyer, Jake McDougall, and maybe now he could get the whole thing taken care of once and for all.

In one way, he was sorry Angie was coming with him, and in another way, he was glad of it. He was sorry that Angie had to be exposed to this sort of thing, but at the same time he knew that she was a calming influence on him, that she would keep him from flying off the handle and maybe doing something stupid that would only hurt his chances of keeping the house.

But what did he mean,
chances?
It was his house, wasn’t it? He had a Manila envelope containing the paper
s--
the property deed, various papers from the city assessment office and other papers
--
which proved conclusively that the house had belonged to his father. And he was his father’s heir, so the house went to him. There just wasn’t any question of it.

Then why did he feel so nervous?

Because, Goddamn him, Uncle James had something up his sleeve. Him and the lawyer. Paul knew it, he was sure of it. Uncle James was older than he was, and he had more money, and he knew a lot more about skating the edge of the law. If
there was any sort of loophole he could use to get the house away from Paul, he’d be the one to know about it. He or the lawyer.

He remembered the lawyer, vaguely, from the time Dad had been sued by that man who’d slipped on the icy sidewalk. And he also remembered that it had been Uncle James who had recommended him, saying, “You see Jake McDougall. He can fix anything up for you.”

And he’d done it, too. Dad hadn’t had to pay.

Uncle James was probably pretty sure that Jake McDougall could fix this up, too. And for all Paul knew, he was right.

He didn’t want to go and that was the truth. He almost turned back half a dozen times. But he knew Angie was right. The best thing to do was go and see the lawyer and settle the matter.

But they weren’t going to get the house. No matter what, he was sure of that much. Uncle James was not ever going to get his hands on the house.

Jake McDougall had his office in a building on Thornbridge’s one downtown street. It was the Merchants & Manufacturers Trust Co. Building, with the bank on the two-story-high main floor, and offices on the eight floors above. Jake McDougall’s office was on the seventh floor.

McDougall was unusual for a lawyer in a suburb like
Tbornbridge--
he wasn’t part of a firm, he was simply the one-man operation, plus secretary, in a three-room suite of offices. Paul seemed to vaguely remember hearing that Jake McDougall had something to do with local politics, but he wasn’t sure what.

The office itself was impressive. First there was the secretary’s reception room, very modernistic in pastel green, with a leather sofa and a coffee table and a lot of old
Time
magazines. And, of course, the secretary’s gray metal desk.

The secretary herself was a woman in her middle thirties, haughty and austere, who looked at Paul and Angie precisely as though she thought they must surely have come into the wrong office, because they could certainly have no business with Mr. McDougall. Paul bristled at the unspoken condemnation, and when he spoke his
voice was harsher than he had intended. “Mr. McDougall, please,” he said. “My name’s Paul Dane. I have an appointment.”

Her expression didn’t change, and Paul knew it had to be his
imagination that she didn’t believe his
statement about having an appointment. But imagination or not, he disliked this woman. His mood
--
grim and taciturn when he’d left the house
--
was getting steadily more sour as time went on.

The secretary picked up her phone and dialed one numeral, then said softly, “Mr. Paul Dane, sir.” She listened, returned the receiver to its cradle and said to Paul, “Go right on in. Through there.”

“Thank you,” said Paul, failing to keep the harshness out of his
voice. He took Angie’s arm and they crossed the deep-piled carpet and went into Jake McDougall’s office.

It looked very plush and expensive. The right wall was lined, side to side and top to bottom, with book shelves, all of them filled with old- and dull-looking law books. The left wall was spotted with signed photographs of politicians and veteran organization functionaries and other minor celebrities. The wall opposite the door was dominated by a large window overlooking Capital Street. The window was flanked by flags in holders
--an
American flag on the right, and a flag Paul didn’t recognize
--
mainly dark blue
--o
n the left.

Mr. McDougall’s desk was so modern it practically had jets on it. It was kidney-shaped and metal, with a formica top. The sides were bluish gray, the top an off-white. There were a few papers on the desk top, plus a white telephone and a large pen-pencil-and-ink-stand set and framed photographs of Mr. McDougall’s family.

In addition to the desk, the furniture included three blue leather armchairs, a table against the left wall, a filing cabinet and an empty coat rack near the door.

Mr. McDougall was sitting behind his desk. More than anything else in the world, he looked like a political cartoon senator. He wore a black suit coat of an old-fashioned cut, over a black vest and a white shirt and a thin black tie. He was short and stocky, with a wild mane of white hair and a round, lined, humorous face, belied by eyes that were small, shrewd and unsmiling. He wore a thick gold ring on the third finger of his left hand, a ring from some fraternal organization on the third finger of his right hand, a huge wrist watch on the left wrist, and large round, gold cuff links that peeped out from his coat sleeves.

Uncle James, looking wrathful and dangerous, sat to the right of the door, hands clenching the chair arms as though he would leap up from the chair at any second. He glowered at Paul, then turned to Mr. McDougall. “My nephew and niece,” he introduced them surlily. “Paul and Angela Dane.”

“How are you, children?” said Mr. McDougall jovially, getting to his feet. “Angela, how are you? And Paul?” He stuck a meaty hand out for Paul to shake, and after a moment’s hesitation Paul took it. The hand was hot and moist and flabby. Paul let it go after the briefest of handshakes.

“Sit down, children,” said Mr. McDougall, still jovial, pointing at the remaining two chairs. He waited until they were seated before he sat down again behind his desk. Leaning forward to put his elbows on the desk, his folded hands beneath his chin, he said, “Now, I guess we have a little problem of ownership here. It doesn’t sound to me like anything serious, like anything anybody’s going to have to go to court about. It seems to me that since you’re related we should be able to work out a fair and equitable solution right here in this office, this afternoon. Without losing time or patience, we should be able to solve this problem and still remain friends. Do you see what I mean?”

Paul saw only one thing. That he didn’t like or trust this Jake McDougall. And he wanted to make that clear from the outset.

Therefore, he said, “How are you making your money out of this, Mr. McDougall? Who’s paying your fee?
I’m
not.”

Mr. McDougall looked surprised and, for just a second, not so jovial. Then he laughed and said, “Why, your Uncle James is paying me. Of course, you don’t have to pay any money. Your Uncle James is taking care of that, and we’re all squared away.”

“Then you’re
his
lawyer,” Paul pointed out. “Maybe we ought to wait until I get a lawyer of my own.”

“Now just a minute,” snapped Uncle James before Mr. McDougall could say anything. “I didn’t call you here so you could ins
ult your elders--
”

“I didn’t come here,” Paul interrupted him, “to have my
elders
swindle me out of my house, either.”

“Your
house!”

“Now, now,” said Mr. McDougall soothingly. “Let’s not start calling one another names. Paul, if you want a lawyer you can certainly get one, though there isn’t really any need for it. All we want here today is a friendly little discussion among relatives to get the facts into the open and see where we stand.” He smiled disarmingly at Paul and spread his hands. “That’s all is to it.”

“All right,” said Paul. “You want facts, I’ll give you facts.” He got to his feet and dropped the Manila envelope onto the lawyer’s desk. “The deed for the house is in there,” he said. “And a lot of other stuff, all of it proving my father owned that house. And I’m his heir.”

“
Now just a minute--
” started Uncle James, but McDougall interrupted him, saying, “Wait a second, Jimmy. Let me take a look at these documents for a minute.”

They all waited, Paul and Uncle James ostentatiously looking away from one another the whole time. Finally, McDougall was finished. “All right. Fine. Now, Jimmy, what was it
you
had?”

“Proof that I paid for that house,” Uncle James said. “Proof that I put up every penny of it.” He lifted a brief case onto his lap and delved into it, taking out papers and explaining in a rapid-fire voice what they were. “Canceled checks,” he said, “made out to the contractor who built the house, signed by me. They add up to the full cost of the house. A letter my brother wrote me while he was on vacation, when the house was being built, thanking me for putting up the money. A signed receipt from the architect, and canceled checks proving I paid the architect.”

The lawyer looked at all these documents as well, then glanced at Paul. “Care to look these over, Paul?”

Paul shook his head. “I don’t have to. I have the deed.”

“It looks pretty much as though your uncle paid for the house, do you know that?”

“I couldn’t care less.”

“But you aren’t going to contest that. You do admit that he paid for the house?”

Paul shrugged. “It looks that way. But it was a personal loan between him and my father. Now my father’s dead and the debt is canceled.”

“But the point I’m trying to make,” said McDougall, “is that your uncle is the one who put up the money to build that house. Now, leaving law out of it for just one second
--
and I’ll get back to that, I promise you
--
and reverting to purely moral considerations, who do you think has more right to the house, the man who paid for its construction or a boy who didn’t put up a cent for it?”

“It’s my house,” said Paul stubbornly.

“From the moral point of view?” the lawyer insisted.

“From any point of view,” said Paul defiantly.

“You aren’t going to get anywhere with him by preaching fair play,” said Uncle James angrily. “He’s a sullen young brat and that’s all there is to it.”

“Now please, Jimmy,” said the lawyer soothingly. “We’re not going to get anywhere if you keep getting mad all the time. You’re going to get Paul mad and I wouldn’t blame him for it. Now, if you don’t have anything constructive to say, Jimmy, just don’t say anything. Please. Just leave the whole thing to me.”

Uncle James subsided, glowering.

McDougall smiled reassuringly at Paul again. “Now I wonder, Paul,” he said, “whether you’ve considered the question in its entirety. For instance, do you know approximately how much it will cost you a year to maintain that house? For necessary painting and repairs, replacement of furnishings, gas, electricity, heat and water, plus property taxes, plus a few other pluses? Now, you’
re a young man, Paul--
”

“I’m twenty-one,” Paul said. He was sick of being treated like a thirteen-year-old child.

McDougall nodded. “As I say
--
a young man. Are you sure you want to take on the burden of a house of that size
at your age? Now, there’s only yourself and your sister, and that’s an awful lot of house for two people.”

“I think that’s our business,” Paul told him.

“Here’s the thing, Paul,” said McDougall. “I know the magistrates in town, and I think I can tell you now what their decision would be if this little problem were to go to court. On the one hand, they would consider your claims as the heir. On the other hand, they would consider your uncle’s claims, as the man who bought and paid for the house. When you come right down to it, those two claims pretty well cancel one another out. So there are other factors that have to be taken into consideration. You and your uncle will have to be considered as individuals, as potential property owners. You are young, unemployed, with no experience as a home owner. Your uncle is a reputable and well-known local businessman. Do you see what I’m driving at, Paul?”

“I see, all right,” Paul told him. “You mean my uncle is buddy-buddy with some local judge, and he can get the judge to take my house away from me and give it to him.”