The Americans (66 page)

Town Topics." Fennel shoved the typeset paper at Will, who was already numb from all he'd heard. His feeling of horror worsened as he read the torn galley: A hurricane of scandal is about to disturb the tranquil waters of Newport's summer scene. This particular storm promises to make its landfall near a cottage where the sun was thought to shine perpetually. Will looked up. "The sun? Is that his way of saying Mai- son du Soleil?" Fennel nodded with grudging admiration. "The bastard always finds a way to reveal identities without naming names. Read on. Read all about your dear, sweet intended!" Not so, the Saunterer discovered a fortnight ago. Next spring will bring more than the traditional blooming flowers to the young mistress of the aforesaid cottage, we are informed. The unfortunate maiden in question may one day discover that her presumably unwanted offspring has inherited a penchant for tennis - though for fetching the spheroids, not lobbing them. "Godamighty," Will whispered. For a moment he wanted to believe Mann had invented the story, but that was too farfetched; how could the publisher hope to collect hush money for a fabrication? But Will didn't see how Laura could be pregnant if what she'd told him the day after their lovemaking was true- Wait. The story said a fortnight ago. She might have thought she was pregnant then, only to find before he left Newport that she was not. It explained some things, but not all. Who was the father? Did the reference to fetching tennis balls mean it was Muldoon? If it did, Laura had lied to him. And the shacker had told the truth. Fennel saw his confusion and chuckled in a gloomy way. Sipping his champagne cocktail, he gazed out through the com8ecru curtains with eyes that almost failed to focus. Will I*forced himself to read the rest: still true, the story is a sorry ending to the season for one of the colony's premier families. Alas, it is not an unexpected ending, however. The erring maiden is said to have erred many times before, thus ensuring an absence of quality suitors upon her doorstep. Ah, la folie ddgete! Ah, la folie de la jeunesse! Will crumpled the galley. "Where do they get material like this?" "Mann depends on spies. Didn't anyone ever tell you , rthat?" He nodded, remembering; Marcus had said exactly that. "There's no telling how many informants may be scurrying around our own household, each one hoping to overhear something salable. That must be what happened in this case." "You're acting as if this could be true, Mr. Fennel." "Am I, now?" "You're pretty damn calm about it. He's written filth about your own daughter! Is it true?" "Kindly keep your voice down, Kent You'll have the club stewards on my neck." , "Is it true, goddamn it?" "Why, my boy, I don't know. It very well might be." Will felt as if a knife had been rammed into his stomach. Fennel went on, "I'd say learning whether it's the truth is your responsibility, not mine. You're the one foolish enough to think of marrying her. My only concern was to keep Mann from printing the item. If he did, I'd look like a jackass in the business community. Couldn't allow that-was He stumbled to W; squeezed his shoulder with clumsy cordiality: "Brace up, Kent. Brace up and have a cocktail. If you still want to acquire social standing overnight, my possibly pregnant daughter can give you that much." He stared into Will's dazed eyes. There was genuine sympathy in his voice as he continued: "Don't feel bad that they gulled you. They gulled me for years. I don't know you well, but you strike me as honest and decent. That's why you mustn't feel bad. Being honest and decent immediately puts you at a disadvantage with my wife and my daughter, since they-was He drank. "They are not." The tall clock ticked. Fifteen seconds passed. Thirty. The confused look cleared from Will's eyes. His head came up. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Fennel. The only person who can answer the rest of my questions is Laura." He held out the galley. Fennel didn't move to take it. Will dropped it between them and walked out.

Despite the intense heat, he walked all the way back to the Bend from midtown. It took him about an hour, and failed to produce the result he'd hoped for-a lessening of the anger and humiliation consuming him. "Being honest and decent immediately puts you at a disadvantage with my wife and my daughter." What a fool he'd been! Red-faced and perspiring, he stormed across Bayard Court and into the reception room. It was still empty. But someone from the neighborhood was inside-Mrs. Grimaldi. She and the others turned toward the door as he entered. He took note of their faces. "What's wrong?" Mrs. Grimaldi sighed. "Word has passed in the Bend that anyone visiting these rooms will incur the displeasure of a certain padrone. Nevertheless, conscience compelled me to bring news which otherwise you might not have heard for hours. Grimaldi agreed that I must come." Jo watched Will with anxious eyes. Vlandingham wiped his palms on his trousers; the revolver bulged under his surgical apron. He said, "A fisherman found Eustace Banks just after sunrise." "Found him where?" Drew said, "Propped against one of the piers of the Brooklyn bridge. With his throat cut." Will felt lightheaded for a moment. Mrs. Grimaldi said: 'That is not the worst of it. I did not have a chance to tell the others before you came in-was "Tell us what?" Jo asked. The older woman hesitated briefly. "It is being said in the streets that the death of Banks is not the end. It is being said that-was A doleful glance at Will and Drew. 'That the two young doctors will be next" , i CHAPTER XIH Carnage THE REST OF FRIDAY dragged, dark with the threat of rain. They had one patient; a woman of about thirty with a lined face and exhausted eyes. Her forearm was badly H burned. Vlandingham dressed and bandaged it in about fifteen minutes. Even that seemed too long for the woman, f bar who nervously explained that she'd fallen against her stove and wouldn't have troubled the doctors except that her arm was the one she used for twenty hours of ironing which she did every week for a Bayard Street sweater. "What she meant," Mrs. Grimaldi said after the woman left, "is that if there were any neighborhood doctors not in disfavor with Don Andreas, she would have gone to them. But at least she came. That showed more courage than most have exhibited." Drew looked skeptical. "Maybe the people in the Bend are showing common sense. Maybe we should, too." From the cabinet where she was rearranging bottles, Jo r looked at her brother. "Are you saying we should lock up and leave?" "I'm suggesting we might think about it. Does it really make sense to stay here when we've been threatened, and Banks has been murdered?" Vlandingham's swivel chair squeaked as he swung around; he'd been reading one of the texts from the shelf above his desk. But he hadn't turned a page in almost twenty minutes. In reply to Drew's question, he said: "No, it doesn't make a whit of sense-not if your sole concern is self-preservation. I can tell you this much. If we leave before noon tomorrow, we might as well not come back. The confidence I've worked years to build will be gone like that." He snapped his fingers. Then, chair squeaking again, he returned to his study of the same page.

Around six that evening, they extinguished the lamps in the office, locked up and walked slowly toward the Bowery. Heavy thunderclouds rumbled in from the northwest. Wind billowed grit and rubbish through the streets. Neighborhood people ran for cover, some of them casting pitying looks at the three men and the girl. On the corner of Mulberry, peddlers were hurriedly covering their carts with tarpaulins. Will checked the street for oncoming vehicles and got a shock. Four doors down on the far side of Mulberry, Giuseppe Corso was just turning into a saloon. Corso recognized the foursome at the interesection. He took a cheroot from his mouth and, his eyes on Will, dropped the cigar to the pavement and stepped on it. Then, laughing, he ducked inside. Will looked to see who else had noticed. Drew and Dr. Vlandingham were engaged in conversation about the comparative merits of catgut and silk ligatures. But Jo had seen Corso; her expression made that clear. Bayard Street grew almost pitch dark under the heavy clouds. After the four of them had crossed Mulberry, Jo dropped back and took Will's arm. Her touch was comfort721 ing and familiar, somehow. Her hand seemed to belong right where it was. "You've been very quiet ever since you got back from Wall Street." He shrugged, as if to indicate he had nothing to say on that subject. She went on: "I do agree with what Drew said yesterday. This really isn't your fight. I wouldn't think less of you if you left. Drew wouldn't think less of you." He remembered the contemptuous way Corso had reached for his watch chain with the knife. Remembered some of the people he'd seen in the surgery; people desperate for the care the doctors offered. Now they'd been frightened away- "But I'd think less of myself," he said. "And it is my fight. I'll stay until Sunday." He reached across with his other hand, closing it on hers. They gazed at one another and let their eyes speak eloquently of their feelings. They might have been alone on the dark, windy street. Several steps ahead, Vlandingham grabbed his derby as a gust lifted it from his head. "Hurry up, you two!" They ran to catch up. But each knew something had changed, and changed profoundly, in that moment in which they'd looked at each other. The grit-laden wind blew harder than ever. A butcher shop sign over the sidewalk creaked on its iron rod. Creaked and screeched and threatened to tear loose, just as old confusions and uncertainties were tearing loose within Will Kent. Tearing loose and blowing away-gone for good- "I wish you'd go," Jo whispered suddenly. "I don't want anything to happen to you." "I feel the same way about you." The feeling had been struggling for release for days, he realized. Even in the midst of then* predicament, he experienced a moment of almost unbelievable happiness. "That's one more reason I have to stay." His "You're more stubborn than I gave you credit for at first." He smiled. "Being stubborn is one of the chief pastimes of the Kents." "Tell me why you've been so quiet all afternoon." He frowned. "Oh-thinking." "About Don Andreas?" "Not entirely." Memories cascaded through his mind; memories of Thurman Fennel and the torn galley from Town Topics; of Muldoon's taunts; and of Laura's puzzling behavior- suggesting a quick marriage one day, only to reject the idea the next. He'd thought Laura was just a proper young woman carried away by her feelings. Her feelings for him and no one else- Damn fool, he said to himself as he and Jo walked arm in arm. Muldoon as much as told you what she was. You thought he was only saying it to settle a grudge. In the last few days he'd made a lot of discoveries about Laura Fennel. But he'd made even more important ones about himself. He'd discovered how badly false ambition could distort perception and judgment: he had believed what he wanted to believe about Laura, never what the facts suggested. He'd discovered how wrong he was to want all that the Fennels represented. Mpst important of all, he'd discovered Jo. The clouds burst with a blaze of lightning, a clap of thunder. He rushed Jo toward a covered passage between buildings. It was just half a dozen steps away but they got soaked. He heard Drew calling from shelter farther down the block. He shouted a reply but the storm muffled it. In the darkness of the passage, with thunder shaking the pavements and rain cascading from black clouds, he took Jo's waist in both hands: "I don't know any way to tell you except straight out. I've fallen in love with you. You're the only one I want." She put her hands on his shoulders. For a moment her face shone. But a sudden memory erased the radiant look: "What about the girl in Newport?" "I'll see her once more. To say goodbye. Maybe one of these days I can explain how she misled me. How I let myself be misled. But it's pointless right now." "You mean because of Don Andreas?" He nodded and kissed her. They held one another without speaking, their tightly clasped arms communicating their love, and their fear that they'd found each other too late. The most severe weather passed in less than an hour. But it rained all night and on into the next day. Drew, Will, and Jo reached the office shortly after eight-thirty Saturday morning. Dr. Clem was already there. This Saturday would regularly have been his day off. But Tie'd changed his schedule, he said. They all knew the reason. They kept the waiting room door dosed, to provide more warning if anyone tried to come in that way. The Adams revolver lay on the examination table. In the hallway of the tenement, the pump handle squeaked with its familiar rhythm. By ten Jo had cleaned the entire surgery. Will had read a chapter on delivery of a child by surgical section. Drew and Dr. Clem had used the time to go over the account book for the practice-a study good for producing a lot of dismayed laughter from both of them. About ten-fifteen, Mrs. Grimaldi appeared with a strapping, black-haired young man she introduced as her son, Tomaso. He would be staying with her in the surgery until twelve o'clock had come and gone, she said. No amount of argument from Drew and the others did any good. She had made up her mind about staying. If Don Andreas sent roughnecks at noon, at least those roughnecks would have to deal with more people than they'd bargained for. Eleven came. Eleven-thirty. Twelve. Two lamps illuminated the gloomy surgery. Rain dripped steadily in the passage beyond the curtains-which bore constant watching since there was no way to close or shutter the window. From twelve until half-past there was scarcely a word of conversation. The temperature dropped. A dank chill began to pervade the room. Soon Jo was shivering and chafing her arms. At one o'clock, Mrs. Grimaldi rose from a stool where she'd been sitting for over an hour. "Come, Tomaso. I think it is safe for us to leave. If the padrone meant to make good on his threat, he would have done so by now. Something changed his mind. I always suspected he was a cowardly windba-was "Mrs. Grimaldi," Jo whispered, pointing at the homemade curtains. "I thought I heard someone-was There was a loud explosion in the passageway. One of the curtains whipped wildly. Jo screamed as something struck Vlandingham's shelf of books and sent one spinning to the floor. IV Tomaso Grimaldi leaped at his mother and flung her to the floor. Someone outside yanked the curtains apart. In the window, looking like a goblin, Corso crouched, his derby tilted down over his eyes and a small silvery gun in his right hand. High up in the tenement, people began to shout and scream. Corso huhtSaid a target. Will lunged for the revolver on the examination table. Behind him he heard the crash of the reception room door flying open, then heavy footsteps, and Drew's warning: "Look out, it's McCauley -" A thunderous explosion. Jo cried, "Dr. Clem!" Something thudded to the floor. It was McCauley's shot that killed the older doctor. Almost immediately, Corso fired at Jo. She was hit as she ran to the fallen physician. She rose on tiptoe, an astonished expression on her face. Her hands groped toward a small black hole in the lower right side of her apron. She staggered against Vlandingham's desk, breathing hard and blinking rapidly. Will had the Adams in his right hand now. Corso tore down one of the curtains with his free hand, flinging it behind him and laughing as he pointed the muzzle of his gun at Will through the swirling smoke- Will fired. Corso's derby flipped up in the air and over the back of his head. A red cavity had been scooped from the center of his forehead. "Ahhh!" He seemed to be struggling for breath. Parallel streams of blood ran down the sides of his nose and dripped into his open mouth as he toppled backwards into the passage. Behind Will, Drew was panting and struggling with someone. Will spun; saw Drew break free of McCauley's grip and lurch toward one of the equipment cabinets. Mrs. Grimaldi and Tomaso were getting to their feet. Jo was bending forward, her arms crossed over her stomach as if to contain her pain. Drew managed to open the cabinet with his unbandaged left hand. Instruments came clattering out. Slitted eyes shining with enjoyment, Dave McCauley grabbed Drew from behind. With his other hand he brought a huge old horse pistol up to the back of Drew's head. "Let him go!" Will yelled. McCauley pivoted, squinting. Will squeezed the Adams' trigger. He felt sudden stiffness in the mechanism; applied more pressure- Nothing happened. Something had jammed or broken. McCauley held Drew's collar with his left hand while leveling his gun at W. The round black muzzle aligned with Will's forehead. Will dodged to one side. McCauley followed him unerringly. Drew wrenched away from McCauley. Will dove for the 1floor and landed next to the examination table, expecting to feel the impact of a bullet any second. McCauley let out a choked cry just as his gun boomed. His explosion of breath escalated into a moan, then to a shrill cry of pain. The bullet from McCauley's gun missed Will by a foot or so. Groggy, he climbed to his feet. Jo was walking in a small circle, moving rapidly and shaking her head as she talked to herself: "I didn't get hurt. Somehow I didn't get hurt, it was like a bee sting, can you imagine-?" He recognized the delirium and wild excitement produced by a gunshot wound. She was in shock. The wound might be far more serious than she realized. He turned to find Drew, who was reaching to yank the horse pistol out of McCauley's hand. The big man was mewling like a child. Finally Will saw why. Drew had snatched a scalpel from the cabinet. Its handle jutted from a rip in McCauley's left sleeve. The blade was imbedded in the big triceps muscle. "Jesus Christ, don't let me die. Don't let me die like a dog," McCauley babbled, slipping sideways to the wall and then dropping to his knees. Tears of terror trickled down his face. It was a wound easily survived, but McCauley didn't know that. Drew seized the advantage: "No one will help you unless you tell us who sent you here." Weaving back and forth on his knees and crying, McCauley managed to say, "Don Andreas. Who else do you think it would be?" Over the sound of Jo's agitated voice, Mrs. Grimadli spoke to her son: "La polizia, Tomaso! In fretta!" The husky young man cast one more awed glance at the carnage in the surgery, then bolted out through the reception room. In the outer hall, Will glimpsed pale faces; tenement dwellers wanting to see what had happened, yet too frightened to step over the threshold. Drew grabbed McCauley's jaw with his left hand. "Confessing to me isn't good enough. You'll have to speak your piece at Elizabeth Street. And in a courtroom." "I will if you don't let me die, I swear to God I will. Just help me. Help me" Wrathful, Drew reached across with his left hand, grasped the scalpel and tore it out. McCauley shrieked and fell sideways, fainting. Drew looked at him with disgust. Then he dropped the bloody scalpel on McCauley's shirt. He turned to his sister. She was still following that small circular path and holding her stomach. Fear on his face, he hurried to her with Will only a step behind. A sergeant and two patrolmen from Elizabeth Street arrived shortly. Ten minutes later attendants from a horse- drawn ambulance carried McCauley out on a litter. Will had applied a Spanish windlass tourniquet to arrest the bleeding of the man's arm. The attendants returned and wrapped Vlandingham's body, then Corso's. They took both from the tenement. Will struggled against the shock beginning to build up within him. He'd shot and killed a man. He told himself he'd had no choice-or even any time for rational decision. Still, the fact was inescapable. He'd killed a man. A worthless thug, maybe. But a human being. One thing helped stave off the full impact: the sight of Jo lying under a sheet on the examination table where Drew had carefully placed her. She was white as milk. And awake, although her eyes didn't quite focus. From time to time she spoke softly, laughed, or sang snatches of a song. All of it was incoherent. Mrs. Grimaldi watched Jo anxiously. Will walked to the cabinet for a decanter of medicinal whiskey. He tugged at the stopper but seemed to lack strength. His fingers had a queer, lifeless feel. c Killed a man. The police sergeant said to Drew, "Should we dump the two bodies in the courtyard and let your sister have a place in the ambulance?" Drew's voice took on that high, nasal quality. "We can't risk the ride to the hospital." "Hurt that bad, is she? Sure don't look it. There ain't much blood-was Drew exploded: "How long have you been on the force? That's a classic gunshot wound. Very probably clotted already. There may be bad internal hemorrhaging." Will's hands froze on the decanter. He had just realized what had to be done. "comI won't risk dislodging a clot during a rough ride. We'll remove the bullet here, and determine the extent of the injuries." Drew folded the sheet back and studied the hole in Jo's apron. It was a small black crater into whose center scraps of cloth had been driven by the bullet's passage. There was some blood showing, but not much. Talking more to himself than to the others, Drew continued, "Maybe the bullet spent itself in the abdominal wall. But it's more likely that the cavity was penetrated. From the position and angle of the wound, I'd suspect a perforated small intestine. That generally means several holes rather than one-was Suddenly his eyes focused on W. "For God's sake put that whiskey away." "Why?" "Because-was Drew brought his bandaged right hand up from behind the examination table. "You're the only one who can open her up and see how badly she's hurt." " vi The accumulated shock and horror of the past hour overwhelmed Will then. His hands started to shake. He pushed the glass stopper back into the decanter and held it tightly. "Look, Drew, I know she needs help. But I don't
think I can-was "Jesus, let's not repeat Castle Garden. You've had surgical training. Heard all the lectures. Watched the demonstrations -" "But I've never done a procedure like this." "Are you afraid to try?" T" Bungler. Drew mistook his frightened silence for consent: "We'll go slowly. Step by step. I'll give you advice if you need it, though I don't think you do. Mrs. Grimaldi will help too." The stout woman raised her eyebrows, then frowned. "I'll do anything you ask, dottore. As best I can." Will fought to overcome a sense of certain failure. "Drew, I don't have the skill!" His friend stared at him. "You'd better. Unless you want her to die." vu Will fixed his attention on Jo's white face. Her eyes were nearly closed but her lips were still moving, uttering airy, cheerful words he couldn't understand. Suffering from shock, she was in some other, happier place. He struggled to collect himself. As Drew had said, Jo's was almost a textbook wound. Gunshot victims frequently reported little pain. Most said the wound felt as if a small stone had hit them, or a light blow of a cane. He recalled a Harvard lecture on the tragic lessons of nr 1881. On June 30 of that year, President Garfield had been shot. He had languished and ultimately died in September because exploratory surgery was still suspect; no attending physician had been willing to probe for the assassin's bullet and remove it. The two young men didn't want to make the same mistake. Drew's gaze fixed on his friend's face. So did Mrs. Grimaldi's and that of the police sergeant. Will stared at the freckles which Jo's pallor emphasized so dramatically. He thought of all she'd come to mean to him--and what she backslash meant to his future. She meant everything. His head cleared a little more. He rubbed his eyes with his palms- "All right. I'll do it." A moment later, he said to the sergeant, "Please keep people away from that window, and out of the waiting I room." The sergeant pivoted and left. "Mrs. Grimaldi, light those lamps. Every one of them. What kind of surgical books do you have, Drew?" % "I caret et's see. We have an Ashhurst, and a Wyeth. A Smith's Operative Surgery, too." The last was a Harvard text. "Get all of them." Drew nodded. For a moment, intense emotion misted his eyes. He knew, as did Will, that physicians with close personal ties to a patient should never operate on that patient. But circumstances had forced the abandonment of the rule. Drew's glance said he'd be forever grateful to his friend. Trying to keep his mind from the frightening possibility of failure, Will went on, "Anesthetic, now. Do you have ether?" "Yes, plenty." "An inhaler-?" "That too. We have everything necessary." "We'll need the carbolic-was Again he rubbed his eyes. Mrs. Grimaldi put the chimney back on one lamp and removed another. "With all that's happened, I can't seem to remember where you keep it." Drew laughed in a ragged way. "You know something? Neither can I. But well find it." Together they started the search as lamp after lamp spread blazing light in the room.