Stranger At Home (3 page)

Vickers said, “That looks like the one I gave Harold Bryce for Christmas five years ago.”

Saul said, “It is.” He looked around the empty room, then out the window toward the house, frowning. “Wonder where Harry's got to?”

Vickers stood quietly in the doorway, smoking, looking out to sea. “I don't know,” he said. “Except that he's gone from here.”

Vickers had not gone to bed at all. Quiet and detached, he had played host until nearly daybreak, and then had watched the party pour itself away. No one had questioned him. No one had said his name. He was not surprised. Most of them could not have said their own names.

He stood alone on the terrace for a long time. The sun came up and touched the morning mist to opalescent warmth and then burned it slowly away. Down in the cove the dinghy looked small and lonesome beside the mooring buoy. It was very quiet. The cruiser had not come back.

There were only three cars left on the flat space below. One would belong to Angie, one to the Crandalls, and one to Bill Saul. Bryce's car was where Vickers had left it, down the drive.

Vickers flung away his cigarette and went inside. The house was buried under used and empty glassware. In the kitchen he cleared away enough of the litter to make coffee. By the time it was ready the smell of it had begun to bring people out of their holes.

Bill Saul came first. His eyes were bloodshot and there were dark smudges under them, but otherwise he showed no signs of a hangover.

He said, “Hello, Vick,” and nodded toward the huge Silex. “I can use about four gallons of that.”

“Help yourself.” Vickers took his own cup and sat down. He started violently as Saul clashed his saucer on the stove. Saul smiled. “Hasn't Angie come back yet?”

“No.”

Saul walked over and sat down, not quite opposite Vickers at the kitchen table. He studied him obliquely. He had strange eyes. They seemed to suck every detail into themselves and drown it in some dark and quiet well, from which it could be resurrected at need. Like the corpses in the laboratory vats, Vickers thought.

Saul said, “Well, are you going to talk?”

“When I get ready.”

Saul nodded. “I'll save my questions, then.” He leaned back and suddenly he was laughing. ‘I'm glad you're back.”

Vickers raised an eyebrow. “You sound as though you meant that.”

“I do. This is going to be fun.”

“You always did have a weird sense of humor.”

“At least I have one, which is more than you can say. Unless...” He studied Vickers shrewdly. 

“Unless what?”

“Unless you've acquired one in your travels, along with that scar. You know, you really ought to change your name.”

“Why?”

“Well, a name is a label. You associate it with a particular thing. Take your big hound, Coolin. Suppose he vanishes for four years and comes back with horns, a ridge of bony spikes down his backbone, a fine soprano voice and a passion for artichoke hearts. He's something, all right, but he isn't Coolin.”

Vickers smiled. “Study your semantics, Bill. Coolin One is not Coolin Two. Coolin the puppy is not Coolin the hound. And yet it's all the same dog.”

Bill Saul drank coffee, his eyes pale and intent and faintly malicious over the rim of the cup. “Which are you, then? Vickers One or Vickers Two?”

“Believe me,” said Vickers, “I've lost count.” His smile went no farther than his lips. “Which do you think you'd prefer, Bill? You weren't overly fond of Vickers One, as I recall it.”

“I don't like people very much,” Saul said. “Even people I like.” He glanced at the door, then rose. “Good morning, you sweet bitch,” he said pleasantly to Harriet Crandall. “Guess who this is? Or did you know?”

Harriet Crandall stood quite still, watching Vickers' body unfold lazily. Her eyes slid upward to his face and stayed there. In the clear morning light she looked pinched and waspish and old, and her red hair had no life to it. Her body was incongruously young and curved under the dove-gray housecoat she wore.

She put both hands over her face. “Bill,” she said steadily. “I had a lot to drink last night. I may still be drunk. I seem to be looking at a man who looks like Michael Vickers. Not exactly like Michael Vickers. Just enough to make me uncomfortable.”

Vickers said pleasantly, “You go right on being uncomfortable, old girl, because I am Vickers. Have some coffee?”

“Coffee,” said Harriet. “My God.” She sat down. “I need something stronger than that.” She was suddenly angry. “Well, if that isn't just like you, Vick! To turn up here without a word of warning and frighten the living...”

“
Vick!
”

The voice came from Job Crandall. It was like a grunt produced by being kicked fairly hard in the stomach. And Crandall's face had that kind of a look on it. He reached out blindly for the door jamb.

Vickers walked over to him. “Hello, Job. I spoke to you last night, but you were a little confused. Coffee's just ready. Come on in.”

Crandall didn't move. His eyes didn't waver from Vickers' face. He began to tremble, particularly along the right side and arm. His jaw lifted, and his head drew around toward his right shoulder. His face was quite calm, bronzed and handsome, almost boyish.

Harriet said between her teeth, “Oh, for heaven's sake, stop him!”

Vickers said to Saul, “Get some ice.” Saul went off quickly. Vickers put his hand on Job's shoulder, and shook him gently. “Job. Here, now.” Saul came back with ice cubes wrapped in a dishtowel. Vickers took the cold bundle and held it firmly against the back of Crandall's neck. Crandall caught a long shuddering breath and went rigid. Vickers led him to the breakfast nook and sat him down on the padded bench. He began to rub the ice over Crandall's face and neck. Presently Crandall took the ice away from him, pressed it to his own forehead, and leaned forward over the table. His voice was uncertain, embarrassed, desperately unconcerned.

“Hello, Vick,” he said. “How are you? When did you get back?”

Harriet flounced over to the stove. “He got back last night, he says. Just walked in. Just like that. Not a word to anybody.” She splashed coffee into a cup and turned around. “If that isn't just like him! Selfish son of a bitch... missing four years, nobody knows whether he's alive or dead, and then he just turns up. I suppose that warning people beforehand would have spoiled his dramatic entrance.” She advanced toward Vickers. “And what I want to know is, what in hell happened to you? By God, if I were Angie, I'd cut your throat!”

Vickers said softly, ‘I'm just wondering if anybody made this much of a fuss when I went away.”

A woman's voice said yawningly, “Who went away? You talking about my husband?”

A tall brunette came sleepily into the kitchen. She was strictly the showgirl type, long legs and a sharp, up­thrusting bosom, all of which were displayed in a turquoise jersey sun-suit of the smallest possible dimensions. The bleached blonde who had been with Bill Saul on the sun deck was right behind her. She went over and draped herself quietly around Bill. The brunette looked around the kitchen, glanced incuriously at Vickers, and demanded,

“Where is that no-good louse, anyhow?”

Bill Saul said, “Mrs. Bryce, allow me to present Mr. Michael Vickers. Mr. Vickers, this is Jennie, who is not, I fear, as bright as a penny – the fourth Mrs. Harold Bryce. And by the way, where
is
Harold?”

The brunette Mrs. Bryce smiled at Vickers, measured him up and down, added coquetry to her expression, and tossed her breasts ever so slightly. “Pleased to meet you.”

Vickers bowed.

‘I'm getting sliced from Harold,” she said. “The bum.” She walked to the stove, her hips swinging. The blonde had gone to sleep on Saul's shoulder. Job Crandall reached out suddenly and caught Vickers' hand.

“Vick,” he said. “What happened to you? What did happen?”

Vickers looked down. His face was bland and innocent.

“You were with me, Job. You and Bill Saul and Harry Bryce. You should know what happened.”

The kitchen was quiet. Very, very quiet. And then, creeping small into the stillness, came the distant hum of a motor. Vickers straightened and turned away from Crandall and went out, to the living room, to the front door that stood open to the sun.

He watched it come, a little roaring speck that grew across the blue water and made a clean white arc into the cove. It slowed and came daintily to rest by the mooring buoy, and the motor choked, bubbled, and died. The sharp wailing cry of a gull sounded loud in the sudden silence. Vickers stood motionless, watched the lithe figure in striped jersey and dungarees make fast and then climb into the dinghy and start to row ashore. A vein began to beat in his temple.

He returned to the kitchen. The people in it had leaked out, little by little, to watch. They fell back before him. Only Bill's nameless blonde didn't care. Jennie Bryce said plaintively, “Won't
somebody
for Chrissake
tell
me...” Saul slapped her bottom hard and said, “Be quiet, darling.”

Vickers said, “Sit down, everybody. What'll you have for breakfast?”

Crandall said, “But Vick...!”

“What will you have for breakfast?”

“Bacon and eggs,” said Bill Saul. “That's always easy.” He sat down. His eyes were very bright, amused and cruel. Vickers got bacon and eggs from the refrigerator and set the heavy skillet on the stove. Jennie Bryce sat on the corner of the table and drank coffee and looked hurt and sullen. Job Crandall was in the breakfast nook, leaning on his elbows, his face suddenly lined and very tired. Harriet sat opposite him, perched on the edge of the bench. Bill's blonde was happy, curled in Bill's lap.

Vickers tied a heavy apron around him and put the bacon in the pan.

Harriet rose behind his back and went quickly and quietly toward the door.

Vickers said, not turning around, “Harriet.”

She stopped. She looked over her shoulder at Vickers, who was not looking at her. She looked around the room, and then back at Vickers. Then she went back and sat down. Bill Saul smiled.

Light quick footsteps came into the house.

Vickers turned the bacon carefully. There was no sound in the kitchen but the hot sibilance of the fat. The vein lay like a knotted cord across his forehead, below the white scar.

A voice called out from the hallway, “Hi! Who's the good samaritan? That smells wonderful – and am I starved!”

He could feel her behind him, a movement, an aliveness, even before she came into the doorway. He could feel the others, too. Silent, watching. He turned swiftly and looked at their faces, at the things caught naked behind their eyes, and the same thing was in all of them. Fear.

They tried to hide it from him, all but Bill Saul, who was enjoying himself and who never hid things anyway. And then Angie came, and she was just as he remembered.

He saw her walk into the kitchen. Black hair the color of smoke, without shininess, thick and tangled by the sea wind; her skin a glowing brown. He saw her stop, puzzled, and frown, and start to speak, half laughing, and he thought,
Her mouth is just the same, her breasts are still lovely
... Her eyes were golden, and as warm as the morning.

She saw him.

He watched her. He could not see clearly. It was very hot, and there was sweat in his eyes. He did not know whether the others were still there or not. The kitchen was long, very long, as long as four years, and Angie was walking toward him. She came slowly. He pulled off the apron because he couldn't breathe, it was so tight around him. He watched her face as it came closer, and suddenly he could see it with a terrible clarity, and it had a quivering, defenseless look. It was like a small creature stricken suddenly, stunned, still not sure. He tried to look into her eyes, and could not.

She put out her hand and touched his chest. She said. “Vick,” just once. He caught her as she fell.

She was very light in his arms. He carried her out of the kitchen, and down the long hall, with the garden bright and fresh beyond the windows. He carried her into the big room on the corner and kicked the door shut behind them, and laid her gently on the bed. Her head moved restively. She whispered, “Vick! Vick!”, half whimpering, and he bent and kissed her on the mouth, with a great tenderness. Her lips parted under his, not with passion but a sigh, and then she was looking at him, herself, Angie, awake and curiously still.

“Are you sorry, Angie? Sorry I came back?”

“Vick, I...” She shook her head, because the words wouldn't come. She lay and stared up at him. He sat on the edge of the bed, with one hand braced across her, close to her body, and he could feel the racing beat of her heart.

She whispered, “I think I always knew you'd come.”

She put her hands up, slowly, and brushed her finger­tips back along the sides of his jaw, back of his ears, into his hair. The palms of her hands folded in, cupping his head as though it were something infinitely precious and beautiful.

“I've missed you. Oh God, how I've missed you!”

Her eyes were wonderful. They had a light in them. Her fingers pressed his neck.

He bent again and lifted her into his arms, and they lay without moving for a long while. They did not kiss. Her cheek against his was wet, and finally, when he straightened and looked down at her and touched her hair, she said wonderingly, “I never saw you cry.”

He got up then, and turned away from her. There was a pressure in his temples. She said, “Darling, what happened? Tell me what happened!”

Vickers said slowly, “What did they say had happened? My friends – Job Crandall and Bill Saul and Harry Bryce?”

“They didn't know. They wired me from Mexico that you had disappeared. They did everything, and they couldn't find you-not even any trace of you. Job and Harry flew back, and Bill got some men and brought the boat back himself.” She sat up on the bed. “They didn't know, Vick. You were with them, and then suddenly you weren't. That's all.” His back was toward her. He said nothing. She burst out, “Where have you been all this time? Why didn't you send word?”