Night Gallery 1 (11 page)

Dittman smiled. The thin-lipped mouth. The slit. He looked across at his son. "Sounds like you, Archie. Sounds exactly like you." Then he turned toward Pierce. "Junior over there doesn't much care for hunting either." He moved across the room closer to Pierce. "There's a tribe in Africa, Mr. Pierce, called the Masai. Every now and then they pick out the least active of their senior citizens and put them out into the bush for the hyenas to eat alive." Again the thin smile. "Didn't Adam Smith have a theory about overpopulation?" Then, without waiting for a reply—"Well, those painted niggers didn't require fancy economists to tell them how to keep the population down. They acted out of instinct. Survival instinct."

The ice-blue eyes bored into Pierce. "Now, you'd call that cruel, wouldn't you, Mr. Pierce?" he asked. "My son feels that it's cruel."

Pierce looked briefly at the boy, then back to the father. "I'd call it savage," he said. "Uncivilized. But that's death with a purpose at least—as horrible as it is."

"And killing animals," Dittman continued on, leading Pierce along like a professor, "is heartless and uncompassionate. That your point, Mr. Pierce?"

Pierce this time deliberately looked at his watch. The nausea rose dangerously up into his throat. He was not too far away from bolting out of the room. He took a deep breath. "I really don't know very much about it, Colonel," he said, "but it's getting late. I think the three of us have something to discuss here." He nodded toward the boy, bringing him back into the fold.

But already Dittman had turned his back and was walking across the room over to the gun cases. "I don't suppose you know anything about guns either, do you, Mr. Pierce?" he asked.

Pierce felt perspiration on his forehead, and the cold clammy feeling of the preliminary stages of tomorrow's hangover. "No, Colonel," he said, "I don't know very much about guns either."

"I've got some dandies over here," Dirtman said proudly.

Pierce swallowed. He felt his protesting stomach wanting to send back the gift of venison and wine through the orifice where it had first been introduced. "I'm afraid, Colonel," he said, "that I'm . . . I'm a little tired." He looked around, forgetting at the moment where he'd left his briefcase. Then he remembered it was in the front hall. "I have the papers in my briefcase, Colonel. It's not really complicated. Just the instructions to the stock-transfer agent to arrange the distribution of the stock to the beneficiary." Again he nodded toward Dittman, Jr.

Colonel Dittman was in the process of opening the first of the glass cases. It was as if Pierce had never even said anything about the trust. "This is an interesting weapon here," he said, taking out a small carbine. "It's a Sharps breechloading percussion carbine used by the Union Army in the Civil War." He tapped with a forefinger on the case. "Alongside of it in there is a Harpers Ferry flint pistol marked with an American eagle. You can see the words 'Harpers Ferry, U.S.' on the handle."

He replaced the carbine and closed the glass case, then started up the line to the next one.

"Colonel—" Pierce was beginning to feel desperate. "If we could just talk about the trust. Now, your signature will be required—"

Dittman had already opened the next glass case. "Over here," he said, "is a revolving flintlock pistol by Elisha Haydon Collier of Boston. The machine work was by Henry Nock. This has got to be worth at least five thousand dollars." He reached in and took out another pistol. "This," he said, "is a .54 C.B. Allen-Elgin Cutlass Pistol made in 1837. It's a combination gun with an attached blade." He tapped on the glass case with the butt end of the pistol. "In there," he said, "is a Colt .44 percussion dragoon revolver."

"Colonel," Pierce said with as much force as he could conjure up.

Dittman turned and looked across the room at him; then he very slowly, deliberately, methodically replaced the weapon, closed the glass case, and took out a cigar as he retraced his steps across the room to stand very close to Pierce. "You were saying, Mr. Pierce? Something about the trust?"

Pierce nodded. "I'll get my briefcase, and—"

"There'Il be no need to get your briefcase, Mr. Pierce. I know precisely the extent of the securities in the trust. I know the amounts, the names. I know the current values. I can even give you the certificate numbers."

He took out a gold lighter, lit the cigar, took a long, luxurious drag, then ambled very slowly over to a chair near where his son sat, and sat down. "I want to add a codicil to the disposition of the contents of the trust."

"A codicil?" Pierce asked, blinking.

"That's right," Dittman responded evenly. "Something in the nature of a proviso."

"Like what?" Pierce asked.

Dittman leaned forward in the chair. "The reversion of the trust," he said, "takes place in exactly fifteen days. If, during those fifteen days, my son has not killed himself an animal, I want the trust dissolved."

Archie, Jr., stared at the fire—It was as if he felt himself invisible or alone in the room. A birthright was being stripped from him like an animal pelt. But the pale, taut face showed not a flicker of reaction.

Pierce kept staring at Dirtman. Perhaps, he thought, this was the older man's humor. Maybe he was being funny now. He tried to smile. "That trust," he started to explain, "is irrevocable, Colonel. You can't change it."

"Can't I?" Dittman's voice sounded light, almost playful.

"No, sir. You can't change it in any way."

"No way at all, huh?"

Pierce tried to smile. "Only if the boy were . . . were proven incompetent." He let his smile move over to Archie, Jr., like headlights on a turning car.

Archie Dittman, for the first time, turned to look at his father.

"What about it, Archie?" the Colonel said. "You've got a couple of million dollars' worth of gilt-edged stocks and bonds waiting for you. You're aware of that, aren't you?"

Archie, Jr. nooded. His voice was so soft that Pierce had to lean forward to catch it.

"I'm quite aware of it," the boy said.

"He's quite aware of it," the Colonel repeated, as if translating for the lawyer. "He's quite aware of the fact that he'll be a millionaire." Then he mined again toward his son. "And are you also aware, Archie, that I have just tried to put some strings on the package?"

The boy nodded.

"And are you also aware of the nature of the conditions I'm trying to impose?"

"I heard what you said," Archie, Jr., responded.

"I want you to kill an animal. All by yourself. With a gun."

Pierce looked at the boy. His fists were clenched. Pierce was suddenly aware of this. The Colonel was also. He looked at the boy's hands and smiled.

"Look at him, Pierce. Look at his hands. By God, he's reacting. Somebody just shot some adrenalin into the body. We're getting a reaction. It may be only a reflexive twitch. Maybe a muscular spasm. But, by God, there is movement." He let out a long, thin stream of cigar smoke, then let his eyes rest on Pierce. "How old are you, Mr. Pierce? Early thirties? Somewhere around there?"

Pierce nodded.

"Not a helluva lot older than my son," Dirtman said, leaning back in the chair. "Now, if your old man had done to you what I'm doing to him—" He pointed to Archie. "Arbitrarily and altogether predatorily tried to screw you out of what was yours—what would you do? How would you react?"

There was a silence in the room, broken sporadically by the sound of the occasional crack of the burning logs in the fireplace.

"The question wasn't rhetorical, Mr. Pierce. What would you do?"

"I don't suppose I'd sit still for it," Pierce answered.

"Of course not. Who
would
sit still for it? You'd either get up on your two feet and square off against your father, or you'd be on a phone calling a lawyer, or you'd raise holy hell. Now, you'd do that, wouldn't you?"

"Colonel," Pierce began.

Dittman held up his hand, with the cigar in it. "Of course you would," he interrupted. "But I'll tell you what you
wouldn't
do. You wouldn't just sit there like my son is sitting there clenching his fists. Particularly if your father had just told you to do something that went completely against your grain."

Colonel Dittman rose from his chair and moved over to the fireplace. It was like a pose, Pierce thought. For men of distinction. The thin, erect, white-haired man standing there, one hand lightly touching the mantel. The whole thing, Pierce decided at that moment, was a pose. This was just some kind of ponderous joke, an after-dinner party game that a humorless man finds festive. But Archie Jr.'s hands were shaking. Maybe he'd played this game before. Get on with it, Pierce thought. Something tense was building up in the room. Something explosive.

"My son doesn't take to killing," the Colonel said from the fireplace. "No way, no method, no victim, of any kind. He is a silent minority of one. I've taken him on trips to jungles, hunting preserves— African bush places that most boys would welcome as high adventure. But not my son. Not Archie over there. When a rifle went off, I'd find him hiding in the bushes. Or on the morning of a hunt—he'd have digestive problems—like a pregnant lady." He pointed his cigar at the boy. "He has rather that look about him, wouldn't you say, Mr. Pierce? The look of the pregnant lady? Pale, suffering, that quivering-rabbit look."

Pierce waited for the boy to say something, do something, remonstrate in some way, climb down from the whipping post, and either grab the whip or at least run away. But the boy just sat there. Pierce felt a different kind of nausea, but with it came resolve. This would have to stop right now. Retainers notwithstanding, he didn't have to be a party to this. And he wouldn't be any longer.

"Colonel," Pierce said. "None of this is my business. I'm here on a very specific item. To handle the reversion of a trust fund. That's all. That's all I'm supposed to do. As to any disagreement you may have with your son—"

Dittman interrupted him. "My disagreements with my son, Mr. Pierce, are very much your business. Because they very much relate to that trust. I have no intention of handing a gravy bowl over to a nutless, faggoty, simpering little son of a bitch who dishonors me. I have no intention whatsoever."

"I'm afraid you don't have any choice in the matter, Colonel." Pierce blurted out. He could almost visualize his father's apoplectic face. (Christ on a Cross, Bill. All you had to do was to get his Goddamned signature.) But it was too late. Pierce had taken a look at the two teams and had somehow walked over to stand alongside of Archie Dittman, Jr. Die cast. Bed made and ready to sleep in. Money paid—choice made.

"What would happen"—Dittman's voice was not particularly unfriendly—"if I simply failed to put my signature on whatever it is you've brought with you? What if I simply refused to give him a dime?"

"I'm afraid you don't have that choice," Pierce answered. "First of all, you've been paying fiduciary taxes on—"

"Oh, stop that crap, Mr. Pierce. Don't give me this fiduciary nonsense or your complicated tax language or that ponderous legal crap." He pointed to Archie, Jr. "What the hell can he do to me?"

"He can sue you."

Dittman laughed aloud for the first time. "He can
sue
me? Honest to God—that cauliflower there can honest to God get himself a battery of lawyers and sue me?" Once again he laughed and shook his head. "That Goddamn vegetable can suddenly get some guts and stand up to me?"

"That would be my advice to him, Colonel." Pierce's voice was icy.

"What would be your advice, huh? Well, I'll tell you something, Mr. Pierce. This would be
my
advice to you. Go to bed and get a good night's sleep. In the morning the three of us will go out and hunt deer. Now, if
you
suffer buck fever, you may get a little bored. That's not measles. It isn't catching. It won't affect me in the slightest. But if my son over there won't pick up a gun and bring down a deer, I'll take every piece of security in that trust fund, and by Tuesday morning I'll piss it away on every speculative highrisk wildcat venture currently available on both markets or in the back room of a bookie parlor. By Wednesday morning I can turn that two and a half million dollars into toilet paper. I'm an expert at how that's done."

Pierce just stared at him. "Would you . . . would you really do that?"

"Would and will," Dittman said.

Pierce turned toward Archie, Jr. "You don't have to sit still for this," he said to the boy. "I'm a witness to it. You could start proceedings in the morning in a court of law, and I'd represent you."

Archie, Jr., rose from his chair. If anything, he looked only tired. He looked briefly at his father and then at Pierce. "I don't want that, Mr. Pierce," he said softly. "He can do anything he wants."

"You see, Mr. Pierce?" the Colonel said. "I can do anything I want. I can dress him in a nightie, rob him blind, or put a boot up his butt—and he'll turn his cheek so Goddamn fast you'll think his head was built on a swivel." He flung the cigar into the open fire, looked at it for a moment then turned back to face the other two. "I'm going to bed now," he announced. "Breakfast at seven. We'll be out on the track by a quarter to eight. There'll be a weapon for both of you." He moved over to his son, standing a hand's length away. "I'm going to tell you something now, Archie. You've never done one single thing in your whole life to please me. From cradle to college diploma. You've shamed me. You've dishonored me. You've made me wish a hundred times . . . a thousand times . . . that there was some kind of higher law having to do with the painless eradication of imperfect infants."

Pierce let out a gasp. Involuntary. Unconscious. But audible.

Dittman ignored him. "Or some kind of ultimate computer in a maternity ward," he continued, "which could perceive weakness in an infant and prescribe accordingly."

"Colonel—" Pierce's voice was shaky. "If you keep this up, you won't leave
me
any alternative. I'll have to place a long-distance call to my father and tell him that you're incompetent."

"Me?" Dittman's voice was ice cold. "You'd have a helluva time proving that thesis, Mr. Pierce. I'm not incompetent." He pointed to the long rows of animal heads. "I happen to be one of the most efficient, deadly hunters, stalkers, and killers of wild game as there is on the Continent."