Lady Afraid (18 page)

Driscoll swallowed. He turned to Sarah, said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Lineyack. I didn’t know who—” And he did not finish. His eyebrows shot upward. Now, Sarah knew, it had dawned on him that she was
that
woman. The one who had taken her son from Ivan’s home.

When Driscoll finally said, “I see,” he was not too happy a man.

Most had watched Driscoll, and now he said, “That should make it plain we’re not the police.”

“It does that,” Driscoll agreed vehemently.

“You
were
at the Lineyack house last night?”

“Yes.”

“So you know what happened.”

“I should!” said Driscoll bitterly. “The police practically looked down my throat and into my ears.” He threw Sarah a glance. “I don’t know why I didn’t recognize you, Mrs. Lineyack. The cops described you to me. They even showed me a photograph of you that Ivan had around. They seemed quite interested in whether I knew you. Of course I didn’t.”

Sarah gazed at Driscoll in sudden disbelief. She said, “Ivan would hardly have a photograph of me. He would have destroyed anything of that nature.”

Driscoll was not, it appeared, a man accustomed to having his word doubted. Surprise slid into his eyes, followed by sardonic disapproval of practically being called a liar.

Alice Mildred stirred a little in the chair where she sat, folding her hands, entwining the long fingers. “You hate us very much, don’t you, Sarah?” she asked gravely.

Sarah hesitated and then said, “Wouldn’t you say that I have reasons?”

Alice Mildred dropped her eyes to her hands. “You see, Sarah, it was I who kept your photograph.”

Sarah held her breath with care until she trusted words, then said, “I did not know that. I am beginning to think there are many things that we have not understood about each other, Mother Lineyack.”

Driscoll was uncomfortable. He looked over their heads at the door where the steward still stood and told the man sharply, “I won’t need you.” The steward flushed, wheeled and clutched nervously for the doorknob, and twisted his head around when Driscoll demanded, “Did you listen to the radio last night, Jim?” The steward said, “Yes, sir!” Driscoll told him, “Then you probably know who the young lady is. But don’t call the police unless I tell you to. Get out.” And the steward left.

Now Driscoll threw himself back in the chair, a thick-bodied and competent man, but puzzled and upset. He said, “Maybe you’d better give me a good reason why I shouldn’t call the police, though.”

“Why,” said Most gravely, “you have no good reason that I can see.” And then he asked, “Why don’t you?”

Driscoll scowled. “Cut it out! And, brother, it’s not because I’m afraid to.” This was so clearly true that Sarah was surprised that he had bothered to say so. Driscoll’s forefinger indicated Alice Mildred. “I wouldn’t want to cause a whoop and holler that would upset Ivan’s wife. She hasn’t been feeling well, I understand.”

“You know Ivan that well?” Most asked.

“How well? To know when one of the family has poor health—sure. I don’t know why I should tell you. I know a few people old Ivan knows, but I know them better than I know him.”

He fell silent, studying Most narrowly. He demanded, “Have you got some notion that asking me questions might make you happier?”

Most shrugged. “I’d like to ask some.”

Driscoll swung a leg over the chair arm, braced it there with hands and arms. He wore no socks and the exposed areas of his leg were firm-fleshed as oak and hairy and tanned the color of burley tobacco.

“Okay,” he said abruptly. “But let me talk first. Let me tell you just how little I know Ivan Lineyack. I’m in the trucking line, and Ivan Lineyack has a nice truck subsidiary to his fruit business, so naturally I’d heard of Ivan for years. A couple of weeks ago I got wind of a juicy contract—I won’t tell you what it is, except this: It’s a deal to haul the whole output of a national product from factory to distributor. A plenty good thing. Trouble is, I don’t have trucks and men to spare to handle it, and where the hell can you get them, times like these? Ivan Lineyack’s truck subsidiary would fill my bill. I had heard that the truck end was the only end of his business that wasn’t coining him money. I’d heard he was thinking about going back to using railroads and steamships. So I made him an offer for his truck setup. About half again as much as it was worth. I could afford to, in view of the juicy contract I had lined up. Well, the deal looked hot for a while, and then it got snagged up. My price seemed to suit Lineyack, but there was some delay about rearranging his financing setup. I take it the bankers hold a blanket mortgage on his whole company—that’s the way those RFC guys do: you borrow a buck and they demand a mortgage on everything. Well, you can’t sell mortgaged property and stay out of trouble, so Lineyack would need to have the truck subsidiary released, first satisfying the bankers a mortgage on the fruit business would make them safe. I don’t know whether he has satisfied them yet or how cool the deal has become. But not too cool, I suspect.”

Most had listened intently. “Much money involved?”

“Naturally.”

“How much?”

“Brother, it seems to me that might be some of your damned business if I really knew who you are, but probably not,” Driscoll said bluntly. “I’m telling you this to show you just how little I know Ivan Lineyack.”

Most looked at the man. “That’s reasonable enough. But how much money?”

Driscoll whacked his hands on the chair. He jumped to his feet. A dynamic man, accustomed to having his own way, he was irked by Most’s unyielding persistence. He jerked the lid from a humidor, picked out a pale cigar, and said, “Millions. And I don’t mean the digit one in front of them, either.” He lifted the cigar; his firm white teeth sheared off the nub end neatly. “What are you after, brother?”

“Did you go to dinner at the Lineyacks’ last night to discuss the deal?” Most asked.

“It wasn’t mentioned.”

“Had you thought it would be?”

“Naturally it occurred to me.” Driscoll’s jaw came forward a fraction of an inch under grim lips. His voice was emphatic. “I’m not a patient man. Maybe I’d better tell you so.”

“We’re alike in that.” Most’s composure held unshaken. “I’m not looking for trouble, friend. We’ve got some of that already.”

Driscoll said savagely, “Well, don’t bring trouble to me!”

“Don’t be a fool, Driscoll. Any trouble we bring you would have already been tailored by someone else.” Most smiled then and added with deceitful amiability, “You see, a man named Brill was killed, and Alice Mildred rushed to you at once. So we’re curious.”

He had planned to shock Driscoll, Sarah knew, and he did. Driscoll was speechless. But it was Alice Mildred who tore Sarah’s composure apart. From Alice Mildred came a thin, high sound, unnerving. Sarah whirled uneasily; she watched Alice Mildred’s composure break by degrees, like a fragile china piece being crushed in a fist. Alice Mildred’s thin, tired body lost its erectness, seemed oddly disjointed, and she covered her wan face with both hands. Sarah, suddenly on her feet and moving toward Alice Mildred, was flooded with pity.

Driscoll, now gaping of mouth and gaping of eye, digested the news that a man named Brill had been killed. Alice Mildred’s collapse was not sidetracking Driscoll; he was a single-minded man. He was, as anyone could see, a self-made man and wary; here might be danger to him. He was not concerned with an old woman’s glassy-eyed emotions.

“Killed!” Loudly, jarringly, Driscoll blurted his reaction. “Killed! A man named Brill? Who’s he? Killed, you say?”

“Shut up!” Most said, looking anxiously at Alice Mildred.

Now kneeling at Alice Mildred’s side, Sarah grasped the old lady’s hands and drew them from her face. The hands resisted a moment and then they came away quite loosely.

“Sarah! Oh, Sarah, where is our little boy?” Alice Mildred gasped. “Where is our baby?” Her voice was something afraid to come full-toned from her lips. “Why was he taken from you? Why did they do that?”

Sarah pressed Alice Mildred’s hands, murmuring, “There… There now, you should be quiet.”

“Why?” Alice Mildred cried shrilly. “Why did they? I must know.”

“Please! If you will relax—”

“Oh, dear God, Sarah, if I only knew what to do! If I only could be sure they wouldn’t hurt the little boy—I think I could tell you why he was taken.”

Stunned, Sarah searched the old lady’s agitated face for signs of a clouded mind. But the eyes were clear; there was bitter emotion in their ancient depths. But they seemed fully sane. Indecision, harrowing uncertainty, terror—these emotions were there. But they seemed to swim in lucidity.

“Mother Lineyack!” Sarah gasped. “You know who—”

“No…. Why… I believe I know why,” the old lady said clearly. “Yes…. And if Brill has been slain, I may know the why of that also.”

Driscoll, popeyed, outraged by the cold fact of murder being bandied before him, made sputterings. Murder on his doorstep! Certainly too near his doorstep! He shouted, “Get out! All of you! I want no part of this!”

Most wheeled on him. “Driscoll, I told you to shut up!”

“Murder!” Driscoll yelled in alarm. “I know nothing about a murder!” He leveled an arm at Alice Mildred. “I hardly know this old woman! I met her only once before tonight. Only once. She’s cracked. She’s been under a doctor’s care. She’s not responsible. I don’t know why the hell she came here. Get her out of here.” His voice shot up and rang pugnaciously as he warned, “Watch out, brother! Don’t you touch me!”

For Most was going at Driscoll with a hard springy stride. Driscoll jumped backward and away from Most, and his hand swept up a bottle that stood beside the cigar humidor. He held the bottle by its neck and broke the bottom from it with a smash against the table. He struck a stance with his weapon ready.

“Stop it!” Sarah cried.

Alice Mildred gathered herself with infinite effort, gained her feet, trembling, and began, “Mr. Driscoll, I am so sorry—”

“Get off this boat!” Driscoll bellowed at her. “I don’t know what you came after, and I don’t want to know.”

The old lady stared at him steadily. “Mr. Driscoll, you can forget it. I have learned what I came here to learn.”

Driscoll snorted. “I haven’t told you a thing! And I don’t need old Ivan’s truck line bad enough to get involved with his crazy wife and murder. You can just tell him that!”

“Cut it out, Driscoll,” Most said. And he added, almost as if it would be a pleasure, “Maybe you have never seen what a chair will do to a man who puts as much trust in a broken bottle as you’re putting in that one.”

Sarah threw Most a glance. “Captain, you’re making a fool of yourself.”

Most grinned a little fiercely but loosened the set of his shoulders and deliberately erased the hardness from his face.

“I guess so,” he said.

Alice Mildred held out a veined hand the hue of skim milk. “Sarah,” she said shakily, “Sarah, we Lineyacks have given you nothing but evil. But will you help me? Will you? I need your help.”

“Do you know where Jonnie is?”

The old lady shook her head. “I only know why this was made to happen—only why.”

“Then how—”

“We will talk to Ivan,” Alice Mildred said. “We will tell Ivan what I know. Ivan will want to get our little boy back. He will want him back very badly. Ivan always gets what he wants. My husband is a terribly capable man.” The old lady had spoken this succession of sentences, which were of about the same length, in about the same unmodulated voice, unvarying, without inflection, without—quite—life. “Come,” she added, and moved toward the door.

Most swung to the scowling and uneasy Driscoll, asking, “Have you a car we can use to take Mrs. Lineyack home?” It was a hopeless request, Sarah thought. But Driscoll surprised her; he dropped his eyes and his solid face grew ashamed. His hands carried the broken bottle out of sight behind his back, as if ashamed of that too. “I’ve got a blue roadster parked next to the gangplank. Use that.” He dipped a hand into a pocket. “Here are the keys.”

“Okay to leave the car at the Lineyacks?” Most asked.

“Yes. I’ll send Jim for it.”

“What did she come here to ask you?”

“I don’t know,” Driscoll said gloomily. “I haven’t the least idea. I tell you the fact, I only saw her once before in my life.”

U
NREST LOOSENED ITS GRIP
on Sarah when she was sure that Most was not going to have any final trouble with Driscoll. She went out of the houseboat and down the gangplank. She had now a warm moment in which she appreciated Most greatly. He was proving as firm a man as she had supposed he was. A quiet man, gentle. True, he had been neither quiet nor gentle a moment ago, but this did not fool her. It merely meant that Most was able to raise his own tempo to meet a need.

Sarah overtook Alice Mildred. “You won’t need to walk, Mother Lineyack. Mr. Driscoll is letting us use his car.”

The tired eyes rested on Sarah wonderingly. “Mother Lineyack…. You have always addressed me that way when you were being hurt, haven’t you, Sarah?”

“I—suppose so.”

“Do you hate me now, Sarah?”

Sarah shook her head slowly. “No. I don’t believe I do.”

“Why not, my dear?”

“I don’t know, Mother Lineyack. Perhaps I have no room left for anything but anxiety about my son,” Sarah said wearily. “And also… well, I was never able somehow to get close to you. But tonight—tonight it hasn’t been that way.” Sarah hesitated, frowning, wondering just what it was she was feeling and trying to put into words. “I don’t really know what the difference is tonight,” she said.

“Perhaps,” said the old lady, “the difference lies in me, Sarah.”

Sarah nodded. “I think it does.”

The old lady’s chin lifted. “You’re a direct woman, Sarah.”

“I suppose so,” Sarah admitted briefly. “You never liked that, did you? It always stood as a sort of fence between us.”

Alice Mildred quickly touched her breast with a thin hand. “Any fences that were in here, Sarah, were built by myself,” she said bitterly.

Here stands, Sarah thought painfully, an old woman who has been led through a completely unhappy life. This hypersensitive woman should never have married a man of Ivan’s sort, who was a physiological extreme. Ivan was too completely her opposite: he had every excess of boldness, energy, assertiveness, moral callousness. It must have been inevitable that there could be no mating of their temperaments. Alice Mildred was the one certain to be spiritually demolished.