Five Smooth Stones (97 page)

"No, he won't I can tell. But he mustn't hate David. Because David's good. I don't know, Hunter. I don't know yet what—what happened. But I know David's goodness. No matter what things seem like. Sudsy mustn't hate him—" Her voice was shaking, and Hunter went over to her and took her arm.

"Sara, get over here and get into bed. Right now." She let him lead her to the bed, and crawled into it. "Here are two pills. Open wide—"

"No." She shook her head, and he knew he could not move her.

"Why not, luv?"

"Not until I know what happened. Hunter—all I heard— all I could hear was David saying he wouldn't—Hunter, he sounded as though he was crying—I never heard him like that —never, never—and then—then he hung up."

"You've been over it a thousand times, haven't you, pet?"

"A thousand thousand—"

"Did you think I wouldn't try and find out? I was on the phone half the night. I couldn't raise anyone, anywhere, couldn't get any word except that Brad Willis had left for

Boston." He looked at his watch. "I'm going to call again. Try him there. I'll call from downstairs, Sara. Not here."

"All right, that's all right. Just—for God's sake, find out. Please."

"Don't say 'please.' You know I will. And when I do, will you take your pills?"

"Yes." Her breath caught, and she sighed like a child whose fatigue has been unadmitted until then. "Yes. I'm tired now. But I can't sleep, Hunter, I can't—and then wake up still not knowing—"

"Tomorrow we want you to go to my family's house. For as long as you can—a week—a month—any time at all."

"Your mother wants me?"

"She'll be back tonight. You know she does."

"She's a love. Will she give me tea?"

"Pots and pots of it, I'm afraid."

"Bless her. But—I'm—I'm better alone—"

"I'll fetch you in the morning and now I'm going downstairs and call."

He left her sitting up in bed, her head on her knees, rocking gently back and forth like a mechanical doll, and still she had not wept.

When he went downstairs Suds and Rhoda were gone, and the lounge waiter told him they had left word that they would return by six o'clock. An hour later he was back at Sara's door. She had gotten up while he was gone and was sitting again in the big chair. He had the feeling that, if he had not come back, she would have sat there forever. This time he did not have to go to her, touch her, to bring her back to reality. She was running toward him. "Did you find out? Did you? Did you talk to him?"

He led her to the bed, forcing her to sit on its edge, holding both her hands tightly clasped in one of his. "Yes, I found out. I didn't talk to David, and I couldn't reach Brad in Boston. Only Peg. She sent her love, Sara."

"Go on—go on—"

"I reached Chuck Martin. He's in New Orleans, and he's been with David most of the time. David isn't there right now. Chuck told me—"

She did not speak while he told her the story until he described Gramp's death; then she swayed, whispered, "Oh, no! Please God, no. Not Gramp. Not Gramp—"

"Yes, Sara. Gramp. Li'l Joe Champlin, who never knowingly hurt a living soul." It was shock therapy, and he knew it was good because he could see life begin to return to her face. At last he said, "That's all I know. I think it's all there is to know."

She drew her hands away from his, covering her face with them, and Hunter was glad, because he hadn't thought it possible for eyes to hold more pain than Sara's had held. Her voice was muffled when she said, "Thank you, Hunter. You're so damned good and"—she dropped her hands to her lap and smiled shakily—"it upsets you like hell to hear it—"

"We are what we are, Sara." He smiled at her, tried to pull, as though by main force, another smile from her. "We do what we have to do, what we want to do. Will you take your pills now? I'll break your neck if you don't. You promised."

"Did I? All right. All right, Hunter. Whatever you say."

"And my mother's house tomorrow?"

"Let me think about—all right. Your mother's house tomorrow. I know now, I know about it now. You see, every once in a while I'd think it wasn't true. I'd think that if I could sit very still and not acknowledge it, I'd find out it wasn't true. But I know now. It is."

He handed her the pills and a glass of water and watched her as she swallowed them.

"One more thing—"

"Is it bad, Hunter? I can't take—"

"No. It's a message from Chuck to you. I'll give it verbatim; that's my kind of memory. He said: 'Tell Sara from me and from Brad that we're thinking of her. Me, I'm praying. And tell her for God's sake'—he wasn't being profane, Sara— 'for God's sake to try and understand. And not to be angry. Above all, not to be angry. David is going through hell.'" When Sara did not speak, Hunter went on. " 'Ask her'—this is still Chuck talking, Sara—'ask her if she ever heard of Gethsemane—'"

She closed her eyes. "Yes. Yes, of course I have. It was—a garden—"

He stood up, threw back the covers of the bed, and made her lie down on the stacked pillows, covering her as he would a child. "Try to sleep, Sara. More water?".

"No, thanks. I'll—I'll sleep now. Hunter—Gramp! He had his passport and—and—"

"Want me to sit over here and read for a while, until you get to sleep?"

She had turned on her side and lay now with knees drawn up, a very small mound under the blankets. One fist was pressed against her lips, and her words were difficult to hear: "No. Because I'm going to cry. Oh, God, Hunter, I'm going to cry—and I want to cry alone—"

"All right, Sara. I'll be downstairs. I'll see you're left alone, luv—"

***

In the lounge he ordered a double whiskey, drank it straight without putting the glass down, then swallowed water. He hadn't done that since they'd pulled him out of the wreck of his car on the Dover Road two years before. He leaned back, feeling as though he'd been running twenty miles with a full pack. This sort of thing, he thought, was supposed to be grist for a writer's mill. It damned well wasn't grist for his. His characters had better sense than to love the way Sara and David loved. Up to now he'd thought he'd made his characters too civilized. Now he wasn't sure. No woman, hurt as Sara had been hurt, had any business saying, "Don't let Suds hate David...." Good God, she ought to be hating him herself! That would be normal. Saying "I know David's goodness—no matter what things seem like" wasn't.

Rhoda's voice roused him from an exhausted doze. "You seem to have another patient, Cliff." Hunter straightened up, blinking.

Suds signaled to the waiter, ordered two whiskeys, and a coffee for Rhoda who asked sharply, "What about Sara?"

"What do you mean? She took her medicine like a good child. She must be sound asleep by now."

"Good," said Suds. "Well done, Hunter."

"Sit down, Rhoda, and I'll tell you both what I found out. I finally got the real gen from Chuck in New Orleans."

"Not yet. Did you leave her up there all alone? Where are the sleeping capsules?"

Hunter's eyes, usually cool and seldom wide, were wide now with astonishment. "Rhoda, you can't be serious! Do you honestly think she'd do what's called 'something drastic'? You're way off base."

"I don't care what you think, Hunter. You shouldn't have left her there alone. I'm going up—"

He jumped to his feet, took her arm. "Let her alone, Rhoda. I promised her we'd leave her alone."

"It was a very stupid thing to do. I'm going up—"

Hunter turned to Suds. "Don't let her."

Suds, unsmiling round face set and cold, said wearily: "Don't wake her, Rhoda. She'll be dead asleep after two of those. Get the maid on the floor or the housekeeper to let you in and take the pills out if it will make you feel better." He looked at Hunter. "It could be a good idea."

Hunter shrugged. "All right. Only don't wake her. The pills are on the shelf in the bathroom. It never occurred to me, and I still think it's damned silly."

He watched Rhoda leave, and when she had walked through the archway into the lobby he-said to Suds, "I have a message from Sara. For you."

"Yes?" This cold, detached man was a Suds that Hunter had never known.

"I am to tell you not to hate David. I'd like to put in my bit also. Don't."

" 'Hate' is a strong word. I'm sorry—but my understanding isn't all that elastic. I'd hardly call it 'hate' that I feel, though. Disgust, perhaps."

"Suds—listen—"

"Nothing justifies it, Hunter. You've seen Sara and been with her. Do you think anything in God's world can make it less than appalling to hurt a Sara Kent like that? What he has done is indefensible."

"It's easy to be angry, to hate someone you—"

"I told you 'hate' is a strong word."

"It's a murderous one in some places I could name. It was for Li'l Joe Champlin. Damn it, listen while I tell you what I learned—"

Rhoda rejoined them before he finished, and when the story had been told, he said: "Can't you see now, Suds? Understand? They killed more than just an old man. They killed what has made David tick. Good God, man, would you expect him to brush it off? Pick up his life and go on as if nothing had happened? What in hell did they teach you about shock?"

"Sara has already shown us all what shock can do. Even if it's only temporary, it's been unnecessary. One thing they taught me—avoid causing the patient unnecessary pain."

Hunter stood tiredly. "All right, Suds. Have it your own way. I hope to God that David never finds out how you feel. That would really do it for the poor devil."

"I'm afraid he will if I ever see him or talk to him."

"For God's sake, Suds, show a little compassion."

Suds ran a hand over his face, shivered. "I've used it all up, Hunter. As Chuck would say, 'I've run plumb out.' I'm wrung dry."

Both Suds and Rhoda were standing now. Rhoda said: "I'm afraid I feel pretty much the same way Clifton does, Hunter. We're going up to our room and freshen up and then have dinner here. Join us?"

"No. Thank you, Rhoda. I'm going back to my flat and take a shower. It just might happen that I'll get drunk."

Before they started for the lobby, Rhoda asked, "Hunter, what made you so positive Sara wouldn't do—well, something rash?"

He looked down at her, then over to Suds. "Because Sara hasn't given up. Sara won't give up. Not on David. She asked me to say something else to you. That David is good, no matter how things may look. So—I've told you. And she won't give up. That's why I wasn't in the least worried. Shocked, grieved—yes. Defeated? Not our Sara." He turned and walked away from them, toward a door to a flanking side corridor, and said over his shoulder, "See you tomorrow—"

CHAPTER 62

The one incongruous note in Joseph Klein's otherwise modern offices in Boston was an old-fashioned desk lamp with a green glass shade that had belonged to his father. Its light was far more effective in warming the chill grayness of a late winter day than fluorescence would have been. When Mrs. Hubbard, shortly before her death, had insisted that she was going to donate new lighting to the office of ALEC's executive secretary, Klein said, "Nothing doing. It kept me honest in law, it's keeping me in touch with my ancestors now."

When David Champlin and Brad Willis came into the office late in the afternoon nine days after David's last meeting with Rudy Lopez, a last feeble glow of winter sunlight was touching the western window. When it was gone Klein lighted the green-shaded lamp and leaned back in his chair. "Before you two head back south you'll need more detailed briefing than we've been able to manage this afternoon." He opened a lower drawer in his desk and took out a bulging cardboard box. "This is the manuscript of the book by Gardner Pennoyer, the New York
Times
man, that I mentioned to you. He left it with me for corrections—dates, right names, that sort of thing. It needed damned little. It's a study of the South for the past decade with enough of the century to explain the decade. I'm sure Pennoyer would be glad to have you read it, especially if you'll use the information in the way he hopes it will be used. Just don't take it out of the office." Brad said, "If we could brief it—"

David was leafing through the typed pages. "Give me some legal pads, a bottle of fountain-pen ink, and a Thermos of coffee and I'll get to it."

"Do it tomorrow," said Willis. "You're bushed. You're due home with me for dinner and the night." For three days he had been struggling to keep concern and paternalism out of his voice and attitude. David was a tired man; a man living with mental pain and suffering as he had lived with lameness, quietly; a man withdrawn from his fellow humans, remote, whipping his mind into frenzied activity, communicating with his mind only. Peg had said, "He gives me the creeps, Brad. I love him dearly, but he can't be touched—reached—at all."

"I know," answered Brad. "I've been with him for a week and I'm exhausted. Mind kissing me real hard, hon, so I can get back to reality?"

Now David said, "I'll do it tonight, Brad." Everything he said these days, thought Brad, was said with the same tone of finality. There was no "give" to him.

"You can't brief it all tonight, David," said Klein. "My God—"

"If I can't then I'll work on it tomorrow if you'll fix up a corner for me here. Now, let's get down to business—"

Hours after the night sounds of Boston's downtown streets had died away to silence, David sat at the desk in Klein's office, the green-shaded lamp throwing its circle of light over the manuscript before him and the yellow legal pad on which he was writing rapidly. Once he said aloud in the emptiness, "Thank
you,
Gardner Pennoyer. You deserve an easier name —" There could be no deadlier weapon, he thought, than fact welded to principle, and Pennoyer used that weapon with lethal accuracy. He stripped from the South—its moderates, its liberals, and its segregationists—every vestige of rationalization, held the segregationists' myth of Reconstruction's total blameworthiness up to the light of objectivity and fact. The "moderate" he left naked, blue and shivering, stripped by the cold winds of truth and analytical thinking. The "liberal" under Pennoyer's searching pen reminded one inevitably of the story of the Pharisee and the publican, and the Pharisee's loud-spoken gratitude to God that he was not as other men, while the publican stood quietly by with downcast eyes and said, "God, be merciful to me a sinner." If there was any lesson to be drawn from the book, David thought, it was that the country had need of those who could say, "Be merciful to me a sinner."