We All Killed Grandma (5 page)

H
E
said, “Hi, anything special on your mind?”

“It’s still an aching void,” I told him, “but I’m beginning to put things into a few of the corners. Right now I’ve misplaced a Lincoln coupe somewhere. Can you enlighten me?”

“Oh, Lord, did I forget to mention
that
?”

“You forgot to mention. What happened to it? Or have I still got it?”

“You still have it, but there’s some repair work being done. Listen, it might be ready by now. Get in and we’ll find out.”

It was good to know I still had a set of wheels to roll on, whether or not they were available at the moment. I walked around Arch’s convertible and got in.

You’d never guess to see us together that Arch and I are half brothers. There may be a slight facial resemblance, but you’d have to look for it. Aside from that, no resemblance at all. He’s heavy, stocky, built like a wrestler, and I’m on the wiry side. He has blond hair to my dark brown, and he wears his cut short and sticking straight up. He still—at thirty-three—dresses like Joe College and he has a baby face and big eyes that make him look five years younger than I instead of five years older.

He started the engine and said, “Sure, Rod, you’ve got a coupe—and I’m sorry I forgot to mention it. So much other stuff to tell you. It’s around at Berkley Motors; we’ll see about it right now.”

“What happened to it? Did I wreck it?”

“No, you weren’t even in it—somebody sideswiped it when it was parked at the curb about a week ago. Dented the door and crumpled a fender and took off some paint. No damage to the car itself, just some body work—and you decided instead of trying to touch up the paint where it was scraped off, you’d have a whole new paint job. I think you told me it was going to take about a week, and it’s about that now.”

“Did I know the guy who sideswiped me? Did he stop and report it?”

“No. Hit-run. But you’re insured, so all it’ll cost you is the difference between what touching up the paint would have cost you and the all-over paint job you decided you wanted. Sorry I forgot to mention it—damn it, I still just take for granted that you know things, until they come up and I realize you don’t. Who mentioned it to you?”

“Robin,” I said.

We were stopped, waiting for a street light; he turned
to me and frowned. “Rod, you shouldn’t have seen her. I told you that. You’re just going to make it bad for both of you. You were so God damn broken up when she left you—the fact that you forgot her is the only lucky thing about your amnesia, and now you’re like as not to try to start it all over again. And if it didn’t work once—”

I said, “If it didn’t work once, it won’t work the second time. But don’t worry, she’s a complete stranger to me. And she was polite but cool.”

“She’s a wonderful girl. It’s just that—I’m thinking of your sake, Rod.”

The light changed; he let out the clutch too fast and almost stalled the car. I hoped that he was a better playwright than he was a driver.

He turned in at the driveway of a big garage a few blocks farther on; he stopped by a gas pump inside. A little redheaded man with a faceful of freckles walked over toward us with a wide grin. “Joe,” Arch told me. “You know him.”

So I said, “Hi, Joe,” and shook the hand he stuck out. His grin got wider. “Rod, you know me. The way I heard it—”

“Sorry, Joe,” I told him. “Arch briefed me. I didn’t even remember I had a car here. How’s it coming?”

“Fine,” he said. “Better than new. All done, and you could take it now but I think it’d be better if you gave it overnight tonight yet. Want maybe to look at it?”

I wanted maybe to look at it, and we started off. Then he turned and said to Arch, “Oh, you want gas, Mr. Britten?” and when Arch nodded he called out to another mechanic to take over the pump and led me up a ramp to the second floor. It made me feel good, for some reason, that the little redhead had called me Rod and Arch Mr. Britten.

We walked past a couple of other cars and there it was, black and shiny and looking as though it had just rolled off the assembly line—except these days they don’t have assembly lines that roll off cars like that one.

No, I didn’t remember it. But I was in love with it now, love at first sight. I walked around it, admiringly. I looked
through the glass of the door at the instrument panel—the speedometer showed only 56,000 miles—and inside and out it looked better than new.

“A beauty,” Joe said. “You don’t get ’em like that nowadays. I wouldn’t trade this for three or four like your brother’s, and his is a forty-nine. This baby’s got stuff. That engine’s tuned like a Swiss watch.”

I was suddenly worried. “The crash didn’t jar it any, did it, Joe?”

“Nah. Just the fender and door, and bet you can’t even tell which fender it was.” I couldn’t. Joe said, “Look, we’re charging all the traffic will bear for the body work, since that’s on the insurance, and going as light as we can on the paint job.”

“Swell of you, Joe. Always stick an insurance company.”

He grinned. “And always give a good customer, and a guy who knows cars, a break. You got a honey there, Rod.”

I thought so too. My fingers itched to lift the hood and count the horses, but if I wasn’t going to drive it off I wasn’t going to touch it either—and I wasn’t going to drive it off if Joe thought another night’s drying would be good for the paint.

I said, “It’s a swell job, Joe. I’ll be in for it sometime in the morning. Will you see she’s full of gas and ready to go—and check the oil and the water and everything and—is there anything else you can do to her?”

He laughed. “That’s why you’ve got a good car, Rod. You never want to know whether anything has to be done to it; you just want to know whether anything can be done to it. Okay, I’ll check everything as soon as I come on at nine; get it any time you want after that.”

I said, “You are speaking of the woman I love. Do not call her an
it
.”

When we got back downstairs, Arch had had to pull the convertible out of the way to let another car at the pump and he was looking impatient. So I got in without trying his patience any more.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked me, when we turned onto the street again.

I said, “I don’t care.” I didn’t. I was just living until tomorrow morning when I could get the Linc out and go
somewhere, anywhere, for a long drive. And listen to it purr; I knew damn well it would purr.

Funny, I thought, I’d loved Robin once and apparently it had hurt me to lose her. But I hadn’t fallen in love with her all over again at first sight, like I had the Linc. My fingers had itched to lift the car’s hood, but they hadn’t itched to lift Robin’s dress. Well, not much.

Arch stopped the car in front of a swanky apartment building on Renslow Boulevard. He got out on his side and said, “Come on.”

“Come on where?”

“A guy I want you to meet.”

Something about the way he said it made me suspicious. “What’s his name?”

“Krieger.”

“
Dr.
Krieger? Isn’t that the psychiatrist you mentioned? I’m not going to a psychiatrist, Arch, even to meet him socially. I told you that and I meant it.”

He said, “Listen—” and then, “Oh, hell, I’m not going to stand here while we talk.” He got back in the car. “How’d you go for a drink?”

“No,” I said, and then reconsidered. “Well, a beer maybe. If you insist on arguing.”

He drove on a few blocks and parked again, this time in front of a tavern. We went in and took a booth. I said, “Listen, Arch, I want to ask you a question. How well did we get along? Were we close to one another?”

“No, not especially. But we didn’t quarrel either. We just didn’t see a lot of each other because we didn’t have much in common. You probably think I’m a loafer and a lousy playwright—although you’re too damn polite to say so. I think you’re a Rotarian and a dope to have been working when you didn’t have to—or at least you could have picked out something more respectable to shoot for than writing advertising. You’ve always admitted it’s a lousy racket.”

“Have I?” I thought it over and then said, “Well, why shouldn’t I have? I guess it is. But it’s a legal and reasonably honest way to earn a living and if I don’t write it somebody else will—and maybe worse.”

He snorted. “Maybe you’ve forgotten the facts of your
life, but not your corny opinions. You’ve said that before, almost word for word. Listen, how’d you like to go hunting with me tomorrow? Shoot some rabbits, maybe.”

It was such a sudden change of topic that I had to read just my mental processes to think about it. Then I said, “I don’t think so, Arch. What have I got against rabbits that I want to shoot any of them?”

“I knew you’d say that, and in almost those words. Just wanted to test you, Rod. Your—”

The bartender came over and took our order and when he left, Arch went on. “Your opinions are the same on everything. You never did like hunting, even fishing.”

I opened my mouth to give him an argument against them and then decided I’d probably already done so. Instead I said, “Why the hell would my opinions change? I’m the same guy that I was, no matter what I remember or don’t remember.”

“You sure are. I’ll bet you’ve decided to go back to your job, despite that inheritance.”

“Why not? I can’t live the rest of my life on nineteen thousand dollars or whatever it’ll be. I’ve still got to make a living, don’t I? Oh, with a backlog like that I might decide eventually to go in business for myself in something or other—but I sure as hell wouldn’t decide on anything like that while I’m all mixed up and disoriented. And meanwhile—hell, I’d rather have something to do than sit on my tail.”

Arch sighed. “Yes, the same guy. You’re the same guy.”

Our drinks came and when the bartender had gone away, he said, “I guess that answers your question as to why we weren’t close, Rod. We’re so damn near opposites. Now me, I’m going to stretch my share of the inheritance to live about five years on—and keep on writing plays. I’ll be able to do it better, too, living somewhere alone, out of that house and out from under Grandma’s thumb.”

“And after the five years, what?”

“Your faith is touching. I
might
be in the big time by then. If not—” He shrugged. “—well, if I have to go to work, I will, but I’m damned if I work until and unless I have to.” He grinned. “You’ve heard my opinions before, and even if you don’t remember them you’d disagree with
me just as strongly about them as you did before. So let’s not go into that again. Let’s get to the main point. Why won’t you be sensible and see a psychiatrist?”

“I’m not sure myself,” I said. “But I know damned well I’m not going to, so can’t we just lay off the subject?”

He sighed deeply. “All right, I know that if you get stubborn about something I might as well argue with a lamp post. But tell me, and be honest, why don’t you want your memory back?”

“I do. I just don’t want to go to a psychoanalyst.”

He didn’t say anything and I didn’t. We sat there and sipped our drinks, concentrating on them as though it was important that we drink them attentively.

Then Arch ran a hand over his crew cut and looked at me again. “Damned if I know what to do about you, Rod.”

“Why do anything? Look, maybe there’s something I want to forget, so why not let me forget it?” I made circles on the table with the bottom of my glass. “And maybe I simply have psychoanalophobia—and wouldn’t that be something to cure if psychoanalysis is the only thing that would cure it?”

That got a grin out of him. “I should write a play about that. But, seriously, how about your having a talk with Pete Radik?”

“Who’s Pete Radik?”

“A friend of yours. And he isn’t a psychoanalyst, but he knows quite a bit about it. I’ve pumped him a few times for material for my work, and he knows his stuff. He’s an instructor—working for a professorship—at the university. In psychology—experimenting with Rhesus monkeys, that kind of psychology research. But he’s got a better than lay knowledge of psychoanalysis. How’s about talking to him?”

“If he’s a friend of mine I’d like to meet him. But he’s not going to get me on a couch. Lay knowledge or no lay knowledge, I won’t be laid.”

Arch said impatiently, “I told you he’s no psychoanalyst. Incidentally, he’s called up for you a couple of times. Once when you were out walking, once when you were asleep. I stalled him—I’ve stalled some others—because I figured you’d want to remeet people one at a time and not too
many all at once. How about my calling him now and seeing if he’s free this evening?”

“Make it tomorrow and it’s a deal. I don’t want to see anybody this evening.”

He nodded and went to the back of the tavern to a phone booth. I watched a big electric fan on the ceiling go around and around until he came back.

He said, “Says you should pick him up for lunch tomorrow. Get there around noon and he’ll take you out somewhere.”

“He married?”

“No. So he has to go out to eat lunch anyway and you might as well tag along. He’s a nice guy, by the way. Smarter than most of your friends.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Okay, I’ll pick him up. But where?”

He told me the address and I wrote it down on the back of an envelope that contained a bill for some shirts from a haberdashery I’d never heard of. But I’d pay the bill when I got around to it. It had come in the morning’s mail and I’d thought what a beautiful chance that newspaper story of my amnesia would give anyone who wanted to send me bills for stuff I’d never bought. But I’d worry about that if and when the bills got hot and heavy, and they hadn’t yet.

Arch glanced at his watch. “Time for me to head home for dinner. Want to come along and take pot luck?”

I turned it down. I wanted to be alone for a while; that’s why I’d told Arch I’d look up Radik tomorrow but not this evening. I gave the stall that I wanted another beer and sat there after Arch had gone out. But I didn’t order another one; I just sat there thinking. Making bricks without straw.

When I was sure Arch would be out of sight I went outside into the early warm dusk and strolled toward downtown. I didn’t know where I was going until I found myself in front of the garage that held the Lincoln.