Case of Lucy Bending (35 page)

Holloway turned to look at him. Wayne was examining the burning tip of his cigarette.

"Something wrong, Wayne?"

"Nah. Why do you say that?"

Then the memory returned to Holloway. Not easing its way into his consciousness, but coming back suddenly, with the force of a physical blow, so painful he almost gasped.

An almost identical situation. A young boy and an older man in a car. A Studebaker. Parked in a light rain. The windshield wipers whickering back and forth. The feeling of quiet intimacy.

But this moment wasn't going to end the way that one had. Holloway was certain.

"I don't know," he said. "You just look like something's troubling you."

"I got no troubles," Wayne said stolidly.

Holloway didn't think the boy handsome. Far from it. The brow was too low, the jaw almost protohuman. Lips were thin, nose a snub. The eyes saved the face: big, widely spaced, of the richest cerulean blue. Shockingly beautiful eyes.

So, despite the other clumsy features and the lumpy physique, the youth was not unappealing. He radiated vulnerability and hurt.

"Mr. Holloway," Wayne said suddenly, "could I ask you something? Something personal?"

"Well,uh . . ." Holloway said uncomfortably. "Maybe you should talk to your father about it."

The boy gave him a sullen glance. "I can't talk to my father. He's always making jokes."

"Yes, well ... All right, what is it?"

There was a long pause.

"It's hard to explain," Wayne said lamely.

"Take your time. It doesn't look like we're going anywhere for a while."

"Well, say there's this guy, and he's got a friend. A good friend—you know? And this guy has, uh, done a lot for the friend. Whatever his friend wanted. So this guy figured, you know, he should get something in return. Right? I don't mean money or anything like that."

"Just friendship," Holloway said softly. "He should get friendship in return."

"Yes. That's right. And the friend knows how this guy feels. Because he's proved it."

"The guy's proved his friendship?"

"Yes. How he feels. But then, say, the friend goes off. I mean he just sort of drifts away. He finds, uh, someone else. And after a while, he doesn't pay any attention to this guy, doesn't even want to spend any time with him. Well, what I wanted to know is why people act that way. I mean, that's not right."

Holloway sighed. "No, it isn't right. And when I tell you that's the way things are, it won't make it any better. Wayne, people change. You, me, everyone. Nothing is forever. The way you feel about someone today doesn't mean you're going to feel the same way tomorrow."

"I would," the lad said stoutly.

"Maybe—but I doubt it. Everyone changes. The problems arise when friends, or relatives, or husband and wife change at different times or at different speeds. Understand what I mean? Like the guy you're talking about and his friend . . . The friend is changing, and moving away from the guy. But if he didn't, maybe eventually the guy would change and move away from the friend."

Wayne pondered that a moment. "You really think so?"

"I really do. Everyone talks about lifelong friends, but practically no one is one or has one. People drift apart."

"That's finky," Wayne Bending said. "Could I have another cigarette? Please."

They lighted cigarettes and watched a tow truck move cautiously by in the rain, lights flashing.

He looked at Wayne Bending. The boy had such a woebegone expression that Holloway feared he might weep. He wished there was something he could do, make some physical gesture, to ease the lad's anguish.

"That guy you were talking about," he said, staring stiffly through the rain-flecked windshield, "the one with the friend—I went through something like that when I was, oh, maybe a couple of years older than you are now."

"No kidding?" Wayne said.

"I had a friend, a good friend. Or I thought he was. I really proved my friendship, and I thought we were going to be close forever. I didn't know then what I just told you, about people changing. Well, my friend changed. I didn't, but he did. And he just drifted away, out of my life. It didn't seem to bother him, but I felt lousy. It really hurt. For a long time. But then I found new friends, and gradually I forgot. That's probably what will happen to the guy you told me about. He'll make new friends, and he'll forget."

"I don't think so," Wayne Bending said dully.

William Holloway wondered what more he could say or do.

It suddenly occurred to him that this youth's pain might offer the moral choice he had been seeking. It was an opportunity to act as a virtuous man, succor one in need with no expectation of reward other than his own knowledge that he had acted unselfishly in a good cause.

"Wayne," he said, "I've lived almost four times as long as you have. That doesn't necessarily make me any smarter. But it does mean I've had certain experiences and have lived through situations that you may be facing. What I'm trying to say is that if you're ever in need of help or just want to talk about, uh, things, I'm a good listener. I won't volunteer any advice unless you ask for it. And you can be certain that anything you tell me will be private; no one will hear a word about it from me."

"'Predate that," the boy mumbled.

After a while, the obstruction up ahead was cleared, traffic began moving again. It was still pouring, and Holloway drove the youth to his home, letting him out under the carport.

Just before he slammed the door, Wayne turned back, grinned, and said, "Thanks, Mr. Holloway."

Those eyes!

It was still raining on Thursday morning when Ronald Bending came dancing into the office.

"I feel great, Ted," he said for openers. "Everything's coming up roses."

"Glad to hear it, Turk," Dr. Theodore Levin said with a somewhat sour smile. "This weather doesn't depress you?"

"Nah. Into every life a little rain must fall. Just makes you appreciate the sunshiny days all the more."

He looked like sunshine himself, in a three-piece suit of khaki poplin, a golden-yellow shirt with a wide, flowered tie, a silk pocket handkerchief that was a palette of primary colors. Oxblood moccasins with tassels.

Levin watched without expression as Bending arranged himself in the armchair. He hiked his trousers carefully to preserve the crease, crossed his knees, then lounged back comfortably and lighted one of his filter-tips.

"What's the reason for the good mood?" the doctor asked casually, stripping the cellophane from a cigar. "Business booming?"

"Couldn't be better," Bending said cheerfully. "For once in my life, things are coming my way."

"Good," Levin said, puffing away. "It's a welcome change to have someone in this office without problems."

"Oh, I've got problems. But nothing I can't handle. And talking about problems, how're you coming along with Lucy?"

"Making progress. Slowly. But I warned you not to expect quick results."

"As long as you get her straightened out," Bending said briskly. "That's all I ask. Well, what do you want to talk about today? If I wet the bed at the age of eighteen or wanted to screw my mother?"

"Did you?" the doctor asked. "Either of those things? Or both?"

Bending laughed. "You don't have much sense of humor, do you, Ted?"

"No, I don't. I find that people, especially men, frequently use humor to conceal their true feelings."

"Do you think I do that?"

"Do
you
think you do?"

"Well, what the hell, you can't go around with your feelings hanging out all the time, can you? Jokes are just the grease to make the world move a little smoother. You know what I'm getting at?"

"I know, Turk. But it's trying to make things move smoothly, and refusing to face the underlying reality, that bring so many people to this office."

"So you want me to cut the crap. Is that what you're saying?"

"Yes, that's what I'm saying."

They smiled genially at each other and let the silence grow.

Levin was wearing one of his shiny, rumpled black suits, the jacket lapels dusted with cigar ashes. There were even flakes of ash caught in his beard. He had pushed his heavy spectacles atop his thick, salt-and-pepper hair.

"Turk," he said finally in his throaty rumble, "let's understand each other. Your daughter is in therapy, and that's the only reason I'm talking to you—to help her. The longer you hold out on me, the longer you tell me lies or half-lies, the longer it's going to take to help Lucy."

"I know that, doc—Ted."

"I hope you do. I'm not treating you. I have no personal or professional interest in your life, except as it may affect Lucy."

"I've got this creepy feeling that you're leading up to something."

"The only thing that I'm leading up to is a request that you be more honest with me, more forthcoming."

Bending frowned. "You think I've been holding out on you?"

"Have you?"

"Well . . . maybe. But just on stuff that couldn't possibly affect Lucy."

Levin slammed a meaty palm onto the desk. The crack startled Bending; he looked worried.

⁴
'Everything you do affects Lucy," the doctor said.
"Everything
. And especially your relations with your wife."

"Oh," Bending said, "that. Well, like I told you, we get along. The sex thing is practically nil, but we put up appearances. The happily married couple. I told you all that; I was honest."

"I remember. I think 'indifference' was the word we agreed on. Rather than 'hostility.'"

"Yeah," Bending said. "Indifference."

Levin had several choices here. He could follow up on Bending's relationship with Grace, he could delve a little deeper into his past, or he could seek to find clues in the man's activities away from wife, children, home.

Looking at that debonair figure slumped in the armchair, noting the ironic smile—not quite a smirk—Levin had, he admitted, a totally irrational desire to dent the man. No one should be that cool and scornful.

"Let's talk about your, ah, extramarital affairs, Turk. From what you told me, I gather they have been fairly frequent."

"Fairly."

"Is there one type of woman you prefer?"

"That's a crazy question. The answer is No. But I'm curious about why you asked it."

"You would be surprised at how many married men who seek sexual gratification outside their home unconsciously select a woman who resembles their wife. Sometimes remarkably so."

"Is that right? Well, it doesn't hold for me. None of the ladies who have granted me favors look like Grace at all, or act like her."

"Prostitutes?"

Bending shifted irritably in his chair. "Absolutely not! I don't have to pay for it, Ted."

"You feel there's something shameful in paying for sexual pleasure?"

"I just don't have to do it, that's all. I'll never do it. It would spoil the whole thing."

Levin flipped down his spectacles to his eyes. He leaned forward, regarded Bending narrowly.

"Spoil what?" he asked.

"The whole thing," Bending repeated.

"If all you're seeking is sexual release, an orgasm, I fail to see how paying could spoil that."

"You don't understand, Ted. You haven't got a clue."

"Tell me," Levin said gently. "I'll try to understand."

Bending took a deep breath. "Well, I told you I wanted to be an artist. My whole training was in fine arts. Composition, harmony, proportion, color—like that. Well, I'm not an artist now, I admit it, but I think like one."

He paused, his features suddenly slack. Dr. Levin waited a moment, and then said, "And . . . ?"

Ronald Bending rose to his feet. He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. He began to pace back and forth before Levin's desk, head lowered, his voice earnest.

"It's not just sexual release," he said. "It's not just coming. For God's sake, if that was all I wanted, I could jack off, couldn't I? See, I'm being honest now. No, it's more than just getting my ashes hauled. The women I pick, the women I go after, are all beautiful. To me they are. My artist's eye. I mean, maybe it could be the texture of their skin. Or the curve of a hip. Maybe just one tit. Maybe the line of a bent leg. It could be a hundred things. But it's more, uh, sensual than sexual."

He stopped. He took his hands from his pockets. He folded his arms across his chest. He gazed down sternly at Levin. "You don't believe me, do you?"

"Is it important to you that I believe you?"

"Well, I'm just telling you the truth. Like I said, it's not sexual at all. It's sensual. The artist's eye. What it is, is a search for beauty. A love of beauty. Line, proportion, harmony, and composition. Like that."

Dr. Theodore Levin set his cigar carefully aside in the ashtray. He leaned back in the swivel chair, clasped his hands across his ash-flecked vest. He stared at the other man with a smile of soft benignity.

"Mr. Ronald Bending," he said, "you're full of shit."

Bending gave one hard bark of laughter. Then he threw himself back into the chair. He sat sideways, one knee hooked over the chair's arm. He fished into his jacket pocket for cigarettes. Levin watched him light up with fingers that trembled slightly.