Case of Lucy Bending (52 page)

"Mrs. Bending, you told me that the first manifestation of Lucy's deviant behavior was when she appeared naked on the terrace while your husband was entertaining male friends?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"Did you immediately connect the two events—what had happened the night of the party and the terrace incident?"

"No, not immediately. I thought it was just one of those silly things that children do. Then, when she continued to misbehave, I began to think there was a connection."

He looked at her sympathetically. "And blamed yourself?"

She stared down at her white gloves. "Yes."

"You've been through a bad time."

She raised her head to look at him. "I've been through hell. Hell!"

"And turned to religion for rescue?"

"Yes," she said, lifting her chin.

"But it took almost four years to seek help for Lucy." A statement, not a question.

"Doctor, there's nothing you can accuse me of that I haven't accused myself of a hundred, a thousand times. I told you, it's all my fault."

"Well, let's not waste time on recriminations. The important thing, the
only
thing, is to restore Lucy's mental and emotional health."

"Well," she said, sighing, "my part of it's over. I thought it would kill me to tell you, but it didn't."

"Confession is rarely fatal," he said dryly.

"What will you do now, doctor?"

"I don't know," he said frankly. "I must think about it."

"Does Lucy remember? What she saw?"

"Oh, I think the memory is there. She cannot yet verbalize it. She recalls the events leading up to it. Then the curtain comes down. I think she must dredge up the entire incident. Only then can we begin to talk about its meaning and how she feels about it."

Grace Bending shuddered. "She'll hate me. I know she will."

Dr. Levin began to swing slowly back and forth in his swivel chair. He longed for a cigar.

"That may be her initial reaction," he admitted. "Part of my job will be handling that hate. Do you hate her, Mrs. Bending?"

She started as if he had struck her. "How can you say such an awful thing?"

"It would be understandable if you did. After enduring such anguish on her account."

"I love my daughter, doctor."

"Do you? Almost inevitably, I find, successful therapy for a child involves therapy for the entire family. This is just a suggestion, Mrs. Bending, but what would you think of a session, or several, at which you, your husband, and all your children would be present and involved?"

"Group therapy?"

"Something like that. I would serve—oh, as a kind of master of ceremonies. But it would be up to all of you to come to a better understanding of who and what you are, as a family. It is a procedure that quite possibly might yield positive results. But first we must help Lucy. At the moment, that's our first objective. I believe our time is up, Mrs. Bending."

He saw her to the door, hovering close, fearing she might be unsteady after her emotional outburst. But she seemed sturdy enough. Almost blithe, in fact.

She turned suddenly and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

"Thank you, doctor," she said breathlessly.

He smiled and nodded. When the door closed behind her, he headed immediately for his desk to switch off the tape recorder and light a fresh cigar.

He thought her a remarkably attractive woman.

On Saturday morning, William Holloway cleaned and oiled his revolver. He crooned over Eric, handling it with excessive caution. As always, he spoke to himself (or the gun) aloud, detailing what he was about to do, was doing, had done.

Saturday morning was really the best time of the week. The kids were off somewhere, Craner was probably walking the beach with Gertrude Empt, and Jane was absent on one of those vague "errands" that were taking her away from home with increasing frequency.

And Maria had the day off, gone to Miami for an anti-Castro rally. So Holloway had the house to himself, which was a pleasure. The whole day stretched ahead of him, filled with lonely promise.

After he finished with Eric, holstered and tucked it away, he wandered downstairs in bare feet, wearing white duck trousers and a white guayabera shirt. A costume which, he admitted, made him look like a paunchy barber.

It was about 10:45
A.M
. But, like all heavy drinkers, Holloway told himself it was noon somewhere in the world. So he mixed a spicy Bloody Mary, taking almost as much pleasure in the preparation as he would in the consumption.

He swathed the glass in a paper napkin and carried his first drink of the day out onto the terrace. He walked into a pearly world.

A translucent haze filled the sky, hanging down close to the sea. This milky glow seemed thick and swirly, shot through with sparkles. It gave a shadowless light over water
^a
nd land that softened everything it touched.

The ocean was rough and the surfers were out. They paddled resolutely until they were lost in the mist. And then suddenly they came shooting in, crouched, riding a high breaker. Their shouts came faintly, muffled but joyous.

Holloway settled comfortably onto a padded deck lounge, after adjusting the back to a half-reclining position. He looked about at the creamy day, wondering why the brisk breeze didn't drive the fog away.

He watched the surfers.

There were about twenty of them, boys and young men. A few girls sitting on the beach waited for them to finish. But the surfers were oblivious to their audience. They sat astride their short Florida boards, waiting for the right comber.

Then, finding one to their liking, they stood, bent and limber, and came rushing in. Keeping a precarious balance, steering by shifting weight, they rode the wave until it subsided or until it crashed, and they were spilled, lost in the creamy foam.

William Holloway took his second drink down to the beach, sat, and watched. He took his third drink down to the shore, sat, and watched. His son was not surfing, but Wayne Bending was out there, wearing cutoff jeans and a blue tanktop.

But for the moment, Holloway didn't concentrate on him; he was trying to absorb the whole scene. The milky haze, a charging sea, surfers exploding out of the mist, hissing speed, blond hair flying, wet skin gleaming, the violent spill . . .

They were all beautiful, Holloway thought. All of them. The daring and danger only accented their beauty and youth. What did it matter if they might be vulgar, stupid, or worse? At that moment, in that setting, he saw them as young gods taming the sea, and he loved them all.

Here they came! Arms outstretched. Grinning and exultant. Working their boards. Dipping, zigzagging. And then, as the wave died, standing erect. Proud. Triumphant. It was all so elegant, so innocent, that William Jasper Holloway felt like weeping. Theirs was a joy he could witness but could not share.

And he wanted to share—his hope of living a virtuous life, enduring a wound, sacrificing . . .

He wanted to tell all this to Wayne Bending, but the boy returned again and again to the sea, never tiring. Holloway marveled at the young strength in that blunt body: bunched shoulders, sturdy legs, the soft skin streaming with froth.

"Have you thought any more about what you told me, Wayne?" "About leaving, Mr. Holloway? Yeah, I just about decided. I'm going to split."

"I wish you wouldn't."

"There's nothing for me here."

"I'm here, Wayne. I'd like to be your friend."

"Yeah . . . well . . . 'predate that. But . . . you know . .

"I'm much older than you; I know that. But there's so much I could teach you."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Not to make the mistakes I made. To go with your feelings, your instincts. Not to be ashamed of what you are. To learn to live with yourself and to soar—"

He sat there for the remainder of the afternoon, drinking slowly but steadily and hugging his knees. And all the time the beautiful boys faded into the mist and then came rushing toward him, tense and eager.

Young bodies shining. Hair flickering like flame. Arms stretching wide. Out of the haze they came, a glittering platoon, skimming the sea. They would live forever. They would never age, never die.

It was the last fuck Ronald Bending was going to get from her. She didn't think it wise to tell him that, but she was unusually affectionate and solicitous of his pleasure during their final tryst.

Jane Holloway thought of sex as—well, perhaps not as an art, but certainly as a skilled craft. Blessed with a whippy body that turned men lickerish, she had concluded at an early age that she would be a fool not to use it. Sex became her route to popularity and success.

It never meant a great deal to her—similar to scratching a mosquito bite, she reckoned—but she recognized its importance as a weapon in her war with men. And she had the determination to become proficient. Patience, practice, and a willingness to learn—from whatever source.

Turk Bending, no slouch in the mattress department himself, acknowledged her expertise.

"You could give Errol Flynn an erection," he told her.

"Turk, he's been dead for years."

"I know."

They were in that grungy motel, air conditioner still whining, walls still blotched with maps of strange worlds. She had brought along a bottle of chilled champagne and they were drinking it out of plastic cups.

"What's the occasion?" he had asked when she unwrapped the bottle.

"Oh," she said casually, "I just felt like it."

He had learned to accept her whims and thought no more of it. They polished off half the bottle and then had a grand toss in the hay during which she got them into a position which he was certain threatened his sacroiliac.

"Jesus!" he shouted. "Take it easy."

So she took it easy. So easy that his fears turned from spi

nal injury to cardiac arrest. After he had exploded, imploded, and decompressed, they sat up in bed, finished the champagne, and smoked his filter-tips.

"What are you going to do?" she asked him.

⁴⁴
At the moment? Recuperate."

⁴⁴
You know what I mean. About the corporation."

He turned to look at her. "What's Bill going to do?"

"You know Bill," she said, shrugging. "He doesn't want any trouble. He just wants out. After all, he's a bank president."

"What am I—chopped liver? Well, Bill can do what he likes. Luther and I are going to fight those slobs."

"You haven't got a legal leg to stand on."

"That's what our attorney told us. But we've got something better—the threat of publicity. We take them into court—even knowing we're going to lose—and their whole operation gets opened up in newspapers and on TV. Then the bible-thumpers start screaming—and who knows? Maybe they'll have to close up shop or at least get run out of the state. Luther and I figure they'll do just about anything to avoid that. We've got them over a barrel."

She leaned across him to stub out her cigarette in a cracked ashtray that had
Casa Manana
printed on the side.

"I wish you wouldn't," she said. "I think you're just asking for trouble."

⁴
* What kind of trouble?" he said, laughing. "You think they're going to send a limousine full of bent-noses to mow us down with tommy guns?"

⁴
'No, I don't think they'll do that. But they have money and power. I don't think you should take them lightly."

"Hey," he said, "you're the lady who was all for this deal, with your cash fee for talking Bill into coming along, and wanting a percentage when we ease Luther out. How come you've changed your mind?"

"I just think they're too strong to buck," she said. "I think the three of you should take your money and run."

"Bullshit to that," he said. "We'll threaten to drag them through the mud and they'll come around—you'll see."

"If you say so," she said, thinking Jimmy Stone had been right when he called them amateurs.

"When are you going to do all this?" she asked him.

"The lawyers are drawing up the papers now. We'll show

copies to Stone and Santangelo before we actually file. Just seeing what we're going to do will make them sit up and beg."

She turned toward him, onto her side. She moved close to him.

"Put your cigarette out," she commanded.

He did.

She pulled him to her until their noses were almost touching.

"Now what?" he said.