Gay Place (67 page)

“I’m coming out. I think I’ll come out.”

“I don’t think you should … There’s nothing you can do here, and you’ll have a rough day in town tomorrow. I’d advise against it.”

“All right, Jay.”

“Fine.”

“Will you get time and charges on all these calls, Jay, so we can make them official business … Oh oh oh what an awful thing to say. I’m in shock, I must be in shock.” Once again one of her friends came on the line and advised him a doctor was on the way to the mansion.

The rural operator came back on. “I need a doctor now,” he said to her. “Will you call a doctor?”

“I’ve already called him. What’s goin’ on out there?”

“You ought to know if you’ve been listening in.”

“Is he really dead? Arthur really dead?”

“Yes. Get me an operator in town now so I can call California.”

There was a delay of several minutes, and he kept the phone to his ear, sipping whiskey mixed with water from the bathroom tap. Occasionally he looked at Arthur Fenstemaker. The Governor’s face seemed to be constricting into a terrible grin.

If I can just bring this off, he thought. If my mind doesn’t sag, if I don’t turn to jelly … Arthur would have been the man for this job, this little business. There was a man who — Sarah. Where the hell was Sarah? She must have …

“Yes?” There was Shavers again, damn his soul.

“Ed, this is Jay, I —”

“Oh! Jay! You calling about what we talked about? I hope —”

“Not exactly. I was wondering if you’ve heard from Vicki.”

“Sure have. She’s right here …”

Here comes my heart, he thought.

“Jay. Jay, doll, it was sweet of you to call …”

“I just thought we ought to have a talk.”

“You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”

“No.”

“I stayed behind a few hours today, thinking we could talk. Then I thought it wasn’t any use. I reached a kind of decision …”

“You left some things behind,” Jay said. He had a swallow from the bottle. The dead man on the bed seemed to sigh a little.

“I know, I know,” Vicki said. “I remembered when I boarded the plane. My overnight case. And some perfume in the bathroom. Did you find the perfume?”

“I found it,” Jay said. “All over the Governor’s bed.”

“What? What did you find, Jay?”

“The bedsheets reek of it. The perfume. And the Governor’s dead. Did you know that, Vicki? Or didn’t you even stop to look when you crawled out of the sack?”

“Dead!” He heard Ed Shavers say “What’s that?” and then repeating the question to Vicki, coming nearer the phone.

“Jay, Jay, wait a minute. You say Arthur’s dead? You’re kidding, you’re making a joke.”

“He’s dead, all right. Expired. Gone. That’s the way I found him tonight. Lying in bed in his pajamas in an empty house and your stuff strewn all over it. Police and newspaper people are on their way over now, and I thought I ought to tell you about it …”

“Oh God! Jay! Get my things out of there. Are they going to involve me in this?”

“The implication ought to be pretty strong in the story. I don’t see how they could resist it.”

“Well then get my things out. Hide the bag. And I think I left a bra and panties hanging in one of the bathrooms. Get everything. You’ll do that for me, won’t you Jay? Thank God you called. Do you have to tell them I was there this morning? It was just part of the morning. When did he die?”

“I’m not sure,” Jay said. “He’s been dead for some time.”

“Well do this for me, Jay. Do it if you can. At least don’t
volunteer
anything about my being there this morning. I can’t afford to get involved in anything like this. I’ve got to be careful — the studio warned me. That’s one of the reasons I’d hoped we might be able to get together again. That and just wanting you with me again. Jay … Jay? Are you listening? Will you help me, Jay?”

“I’ll help you if you’ll help me,” he said.

“Well sure. Fine. Eye for an eye, all that. What is it you want?”

“I want a divorce with none of this ‘he left me
prostate
’ business to the papers, and I want Annie to come live with me.”

There was a silence during which his lips moved in a gabble of incoherent prayer. He looked over at his friend Arthur Fenstemaker, who had done this thing for him. Arthur smiled back fiercely.

“All right,” Vicki said, all the gold gone out of her voice.

“All right? You say all right?”

“Yes. If you let me see her when I want to, let her come visit me when I’ve got time off from work.”

“That’s fine by me. It’s heaven. But how will I know you’ll keep your word?”

“If you were going to engage in blackmail by long-distance phone you should have thought of that. I can’t tell you how. I’ll just keep my word — that’s how.”

“Well … now this has all worked out nice. You’ve been very decent, Vic.”

“Oh yes. Now will you get my clothes and bag out of there please. Hide ’em, burn ’em, mail ’em to me or something.”

“It’s already taken care of. I cleaned up before I called.”

“That’s a cheap trick.” She seemed to think this was funny.

“Well, I could have always hauled the stuff out again for the newspapermen,” he said.

“You know,” she said, “you went to a great deal of trouble yourself to bargain for something you already had.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had decided — I decided this morning before I left — to let you have the divorce and even part custody of Victoria Anne. I thought it was the least I could do.”

“Least you could do?”

“You’ve got enough troubles already.”

“What do you mean, Vic?”

“Well … I’ll get to work on the divorce tomorrow. I’m in a hurry for it, actually. I’m thinking of marrying Greg Calhoun for a while … He’s been very nice.”

“You’re
thinking
about it? For a
while
?”

“Well, you know. Wear the green hat. You taught me, doll.”

“I hope not.”

“Jay. Jay love.”

“Yes?”

“It wasn’t me, love.”

“Wasn’t you? Wasn’t you what?”

“It just wasn’t me, love. All I said to the Governor this morning was goodbye. So goodbye, love.”

After she had broken the connection he stood staring at the bed until he saw the headlights of the approaching cars. He left the bedroom and walked along the hallway toward the stair. He did not know why such an idea occurred to him, but he moved past the stair to the end of the hall. He reached round the door facing and switched on the lights in Sarah’s room.

Her fallen face turned to him, red eyes staring. She lay on her side in the bed, the covers pulled up round her shoulders, clutched at her throat. For a moment he could only stand and regard her in dumbstruck innocence, his own sweet innocence, forever inviolate. When he finally moved toward the bed the fine lines in her face began to work in little spasms and then the face contorted and collapsed, with tears swelling and flooding her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said to him, her bare arms reaching out. “Oh Jay I am so sorry. I couldn’t help it, I really just couldn’t help it, and now I’ve killed him — have I killed him Jay? It should have been you — it was supposed to be you and making you all live and whole the way I felt. It was going to be so pretty with you, beautiful with you …”

Her bare arms blinded him, and he dropped down on one knee next to the bed and buried his child’s face in her hair. He could hear them downstairs, ringing the chimes, pounding the door; soon they would realize the house was open and they would make the ascent to the second floor. He did not much care. They could ransack the house, haul his friend Arthur Fenstemaker away in a shroud, set the place afire. All he wanted now was the room and the bed and Sarah’s young warmth.

“Beauty and grace,” she was mumbling in his head, “beauty and ease and grace … We’ll have it now, won’t we Jay? Such a sweet thought. But look at me —” She pulled back the covers. “All mussy. They kept coming and feeding on my lap, straddling me like bears and bugs and cows, burrowing like crabs, when all I wanted was you. I have this ledge, I have this lovely ledge for the two of us now. With a view …”

He could hear them coming up the stairs now and he stepped away and turned the light down and walked into the hall to wait. He led them into the other room and they all stood a short distance from the bed and looked at Arthur, pale blue in the soft light, bathed in the faint fragrance of woman, grinning over some great vague private joke.

Billy Lee Brammer (1929–1978) was a journalist, political operative, and author born in Dallas, Texas. He worked as a newspaperman in Corpus Christi and Austin before becoming an editor at the
Texas Observer
magazine. He then joined the staff of Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. While working for Johnson, he wrote the three novellas that make up
The Gay Place
. He began work on a sequel, but never completed it, dying at age forty-eight of a drug overdose.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1961 by B. L. Brammer

Copyright © renewed 1989 by Sidney, Shelby, and Willie Brammer

Cover design by Mauricio Diaz

978-1-4804-6103-1

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

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