Chapter VIII: Part 8

At breakfast Marcie said, “Laur, if you think you can bear to live with me I don’t want you to move out. Nothing was your fault, nothing.”

“I couldn’t stand it, Marcie,” Laura said hoarsely without looking at her. “Neither could you.” She got up abruptly and left the table without having eaten a thing.

Marcie got up and followed her. “I wish we could still be friends, Laur.”

“We never were.”

“Oh, but we were. I like you so much, Laura.”

“Marcie, this is unbearable. Don’t talk to me. Please don’t.”

“But I can’t just leave things like this, it’s too awful.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Laura, I’ll never get over this. I’ll never forgive myself. I hurt you so.”

“Marcie, stop it!” She almost screamed at her. “I was a fool, a blind fool. I wouldn’t listen.” She was thinking of all the warnings from Jack and Beebo that she willfully ignored. But she caught herself and spared Jack another betrayal. That, at least, was something Marcie didn’t know and never would. “Never mind,” she finished. “Just drop it.” She turned away and busied herself, but Marcie wouldn’t let her go.

“You will come back tonight, won’t you, Laura? You’ll stay here until you find another place? I’ll be sick if you don’t. This is your apartment as much as it is mine. I’ll move out if you’d rather. You know that, don’t you, Laur?” She was so anxious, so eager for conciliation, so disgusted with what she had done, that Laura felt a momentary relenting and looked shyly at her. “Please come back tonight,” Marcie whispered. “I’ll worry myself sick if you don’t. Please. Promise?”

Laura shut her eyes for a moment and tried to control her voice. She hadn’t the courage to argue. She just said, “Yes,” and grabbed her purse and rushed out.

* * * * *

Laura knew, even before she reached the subway, that she wasn’t going to work that day. She knew it would be impossible for her to read, to type, to look up words, to answer the doctors, to joke with Sarah. It would be a nightmare of hypocrisy, utterly beyond her strength.

She felt shattered, ready to scream if anyone touched her, like someone with an open wound. But she held herself tightly in check. She rode aimlessly on the subway for an hour or two. She stood in bookshops with a volume in her hands and stared at the pages until the clerks, in turn, stared at her. She sat on benches in Central Park. She stopped now and then to get a cup of coffee, and late in the day, a sandwich. It enabled her to keep walking. She walked, looking at nothing but the pavement ahead of her, for a couple of hours. She paid no attention to where she was going or why. She walked to exhaust herself, to reach that country of fatigue where even the mind cannot operate and the emotions are dead.

Abruptly she found herself standing outside the McAlton in the last hour of daylight. She was not strong enough to feel surprise. On the contrary, it was as if she had been working toward it, all through that empty endless day, knowing she would end up here. And knowing, she had not needed to think of it, to make a decision. It was unavoidable.

She stood outside the main door to the lobby, looking at the people hurrying past and hoping somebody would come up to her, talk to her, even make advances to her. Anything to postpone what she knew was coming. She looked at the door and away again, and then back to it, as if it were a great sinister magnet. Sooner or later she knew she would walk through it.

She stood leaning against the gray stone of the McAlton, her fine face pale and vacant, her body apparently relaxed. She looked like a tired young career girl, waiting at the appointed place for a date. She knew it and took advantage of it. The hotel doorman strolled over to her and said, “Lovely evening, isn’t it?” And later, “Looks like he’s a bit late, Miss.” With a little smile.

Laura returned the smile faintly. She tried to engage him in conversation, but he was called away frequently, and finally, with the evening crowd converging on him, got too busy to talk to her at all. The night was violet now, turning fast to black. It was eight o’clock.

Laura turned to the door and walked through it almost automatically. Once inside she was suddenly profoundly afraid. Flashes of fear went through her; long sweeps of tremors and gooseflesh. She didn’t bother with the desk this time. She knew what floor he was on. She got the elevator and said, “Fourteenth floor, please.” She wondered if her voice sounded as shaky as it felt in her throat. She thought of simply getting off the elevator on the fourteenth floor and taking another elevator right back down. And when she was let off, she stood there in the deep carpeted hall with her heart crying “No-no, no-no, no-no,” at every beat.

“He’s my father,” she told herself. “He won’t kill me, after all. He might beat me, but he’s done that before and I’ve lived through it. I’ll be twenty-one in three weeks, so he can’t say I’m a minor. All he can do is make a speech about my ungratefulness. He’s a human being, not the devil.” She said the last aloud, in a whisper, and her own voice startled her.

Cautiously, Laura investigated room numbers, half expecting him to burst from his room and discover her unprepared. After a few false starts she found 1402 and standing there, looking at that door, she felt an enormous need to cry. She shut her eyes hard and said softly, “I won’t, I won’t.” Then she opened them, and, with her heart in her mouth, she rapped on the door.

The noise sounded huge. For a moment she wanted to run. But she didn’t. _He mustn’t see me looking panicky_, she thought. She listened. There was no sound audible. _Maybe he’s not in. Oh, dear God, maybe he left._ She didn’t know whether to exult or despair. _If I don’t face him now, I’ll never be able to face myself_, she thought. _I’ll never stand alone. I’ve got to tell him everything._ She felt desperate at the thought of having to go and search him out, to win her freedom from him. The hope that she had missed him, that he had already left for Chicago, was too sweet to banish.

She was ready to flee when the door swung open, without any preliminary sounds to warn her. She blanched uncontrollably and found herself looking at her father’s feet. Very slowly, she looked up the rest of him to his face. There was a slight frown on his heavy features. But he wasn’t at all surprised. He let her stand there until she was miserably uncomfortable, and then—only then—he spoke.

“Come in,” he said. Not “Hello, Laura.” He spoke as if she might have been the maid come to clean his room. He stepped aside slightly to permit her to walk past him. She clutched herself in her arms, fearful of touching him as she brushed past, and walked quickly across the room to a half open window on the opposite side. She looked resolutely out at the city, afraid to let him see her face.

_The minute I look at him, I’ll cry. I’ll do some damn silly weak thing, and he’ll lord it over me, and I’ll wind up promising to go home to Chicago with him. I can’t look at him. Not yet._

She listened to him moving around the room behind her and felt his eyes on her. But he said nothing. After a few moments, Laura could stand it no longer. She knew he was laughing at her. Not with his voice or his lips, but silently, inside. She turned and looked for him. He was standing across the room, his enormous back planted against the wall, his arms folded over his chest, studying her. She flinched a little, seeing his face.

“I never knew before,” he said slowly, savoring it, “how fast you could run.” He gave her a slight sardonic smile.

Laura felt her insides turn to water. Her face was white and set as plaster. She forced herself to return his gaze.

“I never knew you could swear, either,” he said. “Especially at me. As a matter of fact, I doubt whether you can, now that we’re face to face.”

It was a dare. Laura, stung, felt a flush of resistance come up in her. “If I do,” she said, “you’ll beat me. That’s your answer to everything.”

“It always worked before,” he said, mocking her.

“It worked so well that it drove me out of your house forever. It made me hate you, Father.”

“You don’t need to spell it for me, Laura. I get the idea.”

She hated his sarcasm! Her hatred flowed in her now and revived her spirit. “Is that what you wanted? To make me hate you?” she asked. “Because you’ve done a fine job. A masterful job.”

“Thanks. I’m glad we agree on one thing anyway.” He stood immovable, still smiling slightly.

_He wants to drive me frantic. He wants me to end up on my knees, incoherent. Kissing his feet. God damn him! He doesn’t care what he says as long as it’ll drive me wild._

“I must say, you took a prosaic way out, Laura. Running away is no way to solve a problem. Running away to New York is the classic cliché. There are a lot of you here in New York, you know. Silly little girls who left one set of problems at home for another set in the big city.”

Laura turned her back on him. _I won’t even answer him. If I could just hurt him somehow. Hurt him like he hurts me. What would hurt him the worst? Mother. My Mother._

“Did you slap my mother around the way you do me?” she asked him abruptly.

At this his smile faded and his face grew very hard. “Your mother never deserved it,” he said.

“Neither did I,” she retorted. “As far as I can see.”

“You are notoriously shortsighted, my darling daughter.”

“And you, Father, are blind.” Her face flushed.

Again he smiled, but his smile frightened her. “What have you been doing, Laura, that gives you such intestinal fortitude in the face of such obvious physical risk?”

She wanted to scream at him, “I hate you! I hate your God-damn sophisticated sarcasm!” But she only said tersely, “I have a job. I have some nice friends. I have money in the bank. I have a life of my own without you. I have a little confidence I never had before.” They were all lies, that started out so beautifully true. Almost all lies, anyway. But she had flung them in his face, and now he was not sure. He studied her. “Those are the problems I came to face in New York, Father. Nothing could ever persuade me to trade them for the ones at home.” _If I didn’t hate him so much I couldn’t do it. He started out wrong, trying to drive me in a corner. He gave me a chance without realizing it._

He moved away from the wall then, his face registering contemptuous amusement. He lighted a cigarette, and, to her astonishment, offered her one. She shook her head. “Well,” he observed. “You apparently haven’t taken up all the vices yet.” He turned away from her and walked about the room, firing questions at her. “What kind of job do you have?”

“Medical secretary.”

“Where?”

“With Dr. Edgar Hollingsworth.”

“Who’s he?”

“The top radiologist in the city.”

“Where’s his office?”

“Fifth and fifty-third.”

“Who are the friends?”

This abrupt switch threw her for a moment. “The friends?”

“You said you had some.”

“Oh,” she said quickly. “Do you want their names?” The little sarcasms she mustered added to her bravery.

He curled his mouth disgustedly. “Anything that will help,” he said. “Names mean nothing. Who are they?”

“Well,” she said, “some are men and some are women.”

For a triumphant moment she felt like laughing in his face. But his face had grown dark, and a flash of fear prevented her. “My roommate,” she went on, more timidly. “For one. She’s a very nice girl, I’ve met a lot of wonderful people through her. The doctors have been wonderful to me.”

“Everybody’s ‘wonderful’,” he mimicked.

“I was surprised to find that people can be nice, Father.”

“God! If a man accused me of being ‘nice’ I’d spit in his face.”

“And decent and human!” she said hotly.

His face grew dangerous now and his body tense. “Are you implying that I’m not human?”

Her fear grew suddenly quite strong and for a moment she wavered. Then she said softly, “If you’re going to beat me, Father, do it now and let’s get it over with.”

He laughed; an awful laugh she remembered very well. It was usually the prelude to violence. “Well, isn’t that noble,” he said. “Why don’t you pull down your pants and bend over? Make it easy for me?”

“You’ve beaten me all my life, whenever I displeased you. And I seem to displease you just by existing. I’ve never seen you beat anyone your own size, Father, but you’re awfully damn good at beating _me_.”

“My, aren’t we grown up!” he said. “We not only talk back to our Father now, we swear at him. That’s real sophistication.”

“You don’t know how much I hate you, Father! You can’t know! I’ve begun to think that’s what you want. You’ve worked hard enough all my life to make me hate you.”

His face changed again, became grave and heavy. Her eyes watched him intently, like eyes that have witnessed floods scan the skies for sun. He turned away from her, dragging on his cigarette, knocking ashes into a heavy glass tray on the dresser. “Why do you hate me, Laura?” he asked dispassionately. “Because I discipline you now and then? Isn’t that a father’s prerogative?”

“Not when it ruins his child’s life.”

“Is your life ruined?” he said sharply. “You have a ‘wonderful’ job, ‘wonderful’ friends. Wonderful money in the bank, wonderful everything. Hell, I seem to have done you a favor.”

“A favor! You call it a favor!” She stared at him, his hardness still astonishing her after all these years. And then she felt her resistance begin to wilt. Sooner or later all her arguments were doomed. She never won with him. The sheer physical fact of him, massive and dominant, exhausted her after a while. “I—I never wanted to hate you, Father. You were all I had. I wanted to love you. But you wouldn’t let me,” she almost whispered. _I mustn’t go on like this. I’ll cry_, she thought desperately. “I hate you because you hate me!” she flung at him.

He looked at her for some time before he answered quietly, “What makes you think I hate you, Laura?”

She was so taken aback by this that she could only stammer at him. “I don’t know, but you know you do.”

“Oh, come now. I haven’t been _that_ harsh with you.”

_It’s a trap! A trap! He wants to soften me up. He wants to see me whimpering. Oh, God, if only I could stop him, freeze him up, like other men._ “You’ve been brutal,” she said harshly and the sobs were crowding close in her throat. “You’ve treated me like a slave. Worse! you’ve beaten me sometimes for nothing. Just for the exercise.”

“I never once beat you without a reason,” he said.

“You lie!” And her voice was a furious hiss.

He glared at her. “I’m not in the habit of lying to you, Laura. Your life has been more than beatings. I sent you to the best schools. I let you go to the college of your choice. I let you join a sorority and paid all your bills. And when you came home and quit like a damn coward—without so much as an explanation, I didn’t force you to go back. I found you a good job with excellent training and a big future. I’ve given you a good comfortable home, a lot of clothes, travel.” His voice was low, controlled, but it was the calm before the storm and he was tense.

“I would have traded them all for love.” Her voice broke and she turned suddenly away, afraid to shame herself with tears in front of him.

“Let’s not get maudlin,” he said sardonically, and once again smothered the spark of tenderness that had waited so many years in Laura for expression.

“All right,” she said sharply. “Let’s not be maudlin. I have a good job here and I’m not going to leave New York. That’s what I came to tell you. Now maybe I’ll better go.” She turned and walked resolutely toward the door, but she should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. He merely placed himself between the door and Laura and she stopped, afraid to go near him. He smiled slightly at this evidence of his power over her.

“Before you leave,” he said, “suppose you explain the filial affection that made you write me to go to hell, in your little billet-doux last week?”

“Why did you say you had no daughter?” she flared.

“To teach you a lesson.”

“Are there any lessons left for you to teach me?” she said.

“Quite a few, my dear. You don’t know it all yet, even if you are almost twenty-one.”

“It almost killed me, Father,” she said, the anguish showing. “You don’t know how terribly I—” But she stopped herself, ashamed. He didn’t know, and she didn’t want him to know. She was the one who cared about their relationship, who wanted love and trust and gentleness between them. Not her father. He didn’t give a damn, as long as she minded him. “You said you had no daughter,” she repeated bitterly.

“You wanted it that way, Laura.”

She turned to stare at him, incredulous. “I?” She said. “_I_ wanted it that way?”

“You denied my existence before I ever denied yours,” he said. “You ran away from me.”

“You _forced_ me to.”

“I did no such thing.”

“You made life intolerable for me.”

“I didn’t mean to.” It was an extraordinary admission, completely unexpected, and she looked at him speechless for a moment.

“Then why didn’t you show me some kindness?” she said. “Just a very little would have gone a long way, Father.”

He crushed out his cigarette in the heavy ashtray with an expression of contempt on his face, “You women are all alike, I swear to God.” he said. “Give you a little and you demand a lot.”

“What’s wrong with a lot?” she said, trembling. “You’re my father.”

“Yes, exactly!” he said, so roughly that she ducked. “I’m your father!”

“Did you treat my mother this way?” she whispered. “Her life must have been hell.”

He looked for a minute as if he would strangle her. She stood her ground, pale and frightened, until he relented suddenly and turned his profile to her, looking out the window. “Your mother,” he said painfully, “was my wife. I adored her.”

Laura was absolutely unable to answer him. She sat down weakly in the stuffed chair by the dresser and put her face in her hands. Her father—her enormous gruff harsh father—had never spoken such a tender word in her presence in all her life.

“I could never marry again, when she died,” he said. Laura felt frightened as she always did when her mother’s death was mentioned. She expected him to turn on her unreasonably as he had so often before. “I never struck her.”

“Then why me?” she implored out of a dry throat.

He turned and looked at her, his mouth twisted a little, running a distraught hand through his hair. “You needed it,” was all he would say.

“What for?”

“You _needed_ it, that’s what for!” And she was afraid to push him further. After some minutes he said, “Laura, you’re coming back to Chicago with me.”

“No Father, I can’t. I won’t.”

“That’s why I waited for you,” he went on, as if she had said nothing.

“I won’t go to Chicago or anywhere else with you. I’m through with you.”

“You could look for work with a radiologist, if you like it so well. I won’t insist on journalism. You have a flair for it, it’s a waste to leave the field, but I won’t insist. You see, Laura, I can be human enough.”

She stared at him. She had never heard him talk like this. He glanced at her, annoyed by the look on her face. “I’ve made reservations,” he said, “for June first. That’s Saturday. I could probably get earlier ones.”

“Father.” She stood up. “I can’t come with you.”

“Don’t say that!” he commanded her, so sharply that she started.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“You can, and you will. That’s all I want to hear on the subject.” As she started once again to protest he held his hands up for silence. “No more discipline Laura. I promise you that. I was a fool. You were too, but never mind that now. I was too hard on you, it’s true. I see that. Well, you’re more or less grown up by this time. I guess we can dispense with spanking.”

“Spanking! It was more than that and you know it!”

“Don’t argue with me, Laura.” He turned on her, his voice low and fierce. Then, making a visible effort to calm himself, he said, “Get your things together and I’ll see about the reservations.”

“No.”

“Don’t fight me, Laura.”

“Father, there’s something you don’t know about me.” _I have to tell him. I’ll never be free from him till I tell him. Till he knows what he’s made of his only child._ “There’s something you don’t know about me,” she whispered.

“I don’t doubt it. Now hurry up, we’ve wasted enough time.”

“Father ... listen to me.” It was almost too hard to say. Her legs were trembling and her heart was wild.

“Well, out with it, for God’s sake! Jesus, Laura, you go through more agony.... Well? What is it?” He frowned at her tense face.

“I—I’m a—homosexual.”

His mouth dropped open and his whole body went rigid. Laura shut her eyes and prayed. She held her lower lip in her teeth, ready for the blow, and felt the humiliating tears begin to squeeze through her shut lids. She moaned a little.

He made up his mind fast and his voice cracked out like a lash. “Nonsense!” he snarled.

“It’s true!” Her eyes flew open and she cried again, passionately, “It’s true!” It was her bid for freedom; she had to show this courage, this awful truth to him, or she would never walk away from him. She would spend all her life in a panic of fear lest he find her out. “I’m in love with my roommate. I’ve made love—”

“All right, all right, all right!” he shouted. His voice was rough and his face contorted. He turned away from her and put his hands over his face. She watched him, every muscle tight and aching.

At last he let his hands drop and said quietly, “Did I do that to you, Laura?”

Without hesitating, without even certain knowledge, but only the huge need to hurt him, she said, “Yes.”

He turned slowly around and faced her and she had never seen his face like that before. It was pained and full of gentleness. Perhaps it looked that way to her mother now and then. “I did that to you,” he said again, to himself. “Oh, Laura. Oh, Laura.” His heavy brow creased deeply over his eyes. He walked to her and put his hands on her shoulders and felt her jerk with fear. “Laura,” he said, “have you ever loved a man?”

She shook her head, unable to speak.

“Have you ever wanted a man?”

Again she shook her head.

“Do you know what it’s like to want a man?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Do you want to know?” His eyes were wide and intense, his grip on her shoulders was very hard.

“I’m so afraid of them, Father. I don’t want to know.”

He seemed to be in another world. Laura was utterly mystified by his strange behavior, blindly grateful for his sudden warmth, and she let herself weep softly.

“Laura,” he said, as if he derived some private pleasure from saying her name over and over. “Your mother—you look so much like your mother. You never looked like me at all. Every time I look at you I see her face. Her fragile delicate face. Her eyes, her hair.” He put his arms around her. “Come back to Chicago with me,” he said gently. “You don’t have to love a man, Laura. I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to be like other girls, I don’t want you to go off with some young ass and give him your youth and your beauty. I don’t mind if you’re different from the rest. I can take that if you are able to.”

Laura clung to him, astonished, fearful, grateful, anxious, a whirlwind of confused feelings churning inside her.

“I want you to stay with me,” he said. “I always did. I won’t let you go.”

“You made me go, Father. You punished me so.”

“No, no Laura! Don’t you see, it was myself.” He was holding her so hard now, as if to make up for years of avoiding her, that she ached with it. She began to cry on his shoulder.

“Oh, Father, Father,” she wept. “You never told me you wanted me to stay with you. You made me believe you hated me.”

“No,” he said. “I never hated you.” He spoke in a rush, as if he couldn’t help himself, as if it were suddenly forcing its way out of him after years of suppression. “Never, Laura, it was just that I was so lonely, so terribly lonely; I wanted her so much and she was gone. And there was only you, and you tormented me.”

“I?” She tried to see his face, but he held her too close.

“You were so much like her, even when you were a child. Every time I looked at you, I—oh, Laura, it’s myself I should have punished all this time. I _was_ punished. I’ve suffered. Believe me. Laura, please believe me.”

Laura was suddenly shocked rigid to feel his lips on her neck. He put his hand in her hair and jerked her head back and kissed her full on the mouth with such agonized intensity that he electrified her. He released her just as suddenly and turned away with a kind of sob. “Ellie! Ellie!” he cried, his hands over his face.

Laura was shaking almost convulsively. At the sound of her mother’s name she grabbed the thick and heavy glass ashtray from the dresser, picking it up with both hands. She rushed at him, unable to think or reason, and brought the ashtray down on the crown of his head with all the revolted force in her body. He slumped to the floor without a sound.

Laura gaped at him for a sick second and then she turned and fled. She left the door wide open and ran in a terrible panic to the elevators. She sobbed frantically for a few moments, and then she pushed the down button. She jabbed it over and over again hysterically, unable to stop until an elevator arrived and the doors opened. She stumbled in and pressed into a back corner, helpless in the grip of the sickness in her. The operator and his two other passengers stared at her, but she paid them no heed, even when one asked if he could help her. At the ground floor the operator had to tell her, “Everybody out.”

She turned a wild flushed face to him and he said, “Are you all right, Miss?” And she glared at him, violently offended by his manner, his uniform, his question.

“Don’t you know those pants won’t make a man of you?” she exclaimed acidly. And rushed out, leaving him gaping open-mouthed after her.

Chapter Fifteen

Marcie called Jack late that night. “I haven’t heard from her. I wouldn’t bother you, but I don’t know where she is, and I’m worried,” she said. “Is she with you?”

“No. What’s the matter, Marcie? It’s only ten-fifteen.”

“She said she’d be home tonight. She promised.”

“Did you call the office?”

“Yes. She wasn’t there today.”

“Was she sick?”

“No.” Marcie was almost physically sick with shame and the fear that Laura would do herself violence. She knew well how passionately Laura could respond, how intensely she could feel. She had been truly alarmed when she called the office in the afternoon and Sarah told her they hadn’t seen Laura all day. And they’d damn well like to know where she was themselves.

“She left the house this morning to catch the subway to work. She said she’d be back tonight, but she didn’t go to work. And she isn’t back,” Marcie told Jack.

Jack’s first thought was Merrill Landon. “Out with it, Marcie. Tell Uncle Jack everything.”

“Jack, I can’t—” Jack of all people! Jack, who had a crush on Laura. Marcie would have slit her throat before she would have betrayed Laura to him. She was in no madcap mood any longer. She had wounded Laura with a callousness that shocked even herself when she thought back on it. She had no yen to hurt any more.

“Come on, doll, we’ve known each other for years,” Jack said. “Spill the beans.”

“Jack, I won’t hurt her. Not even—”

“Not even if she drops dead because you won’t tell me the truth.”

“Oh! But she won’t!”

“Oh, but she might! Now let’s have it.”

“Jack, I don’t want you to think—”

“I think all the time. It’s a congenital defect.”

“Yes, but this—”

“Oh, for Chrissake, Marcie! _Say_ it. Did you quarrel?”

“I—yes. We quarreled.”

“What about?”

“I can’t say.”

“Now you listen to me, God damn it, I’m getting worried.”

“About love.” She whispered it.

And Jack knew at once what was the matter. But why hadn’t Laura come to him? Why hadn’t she told him? She couldn’t be that ashamed. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her with the knowledge. He would be kind, with the kindness of deep sympathy. Something was wrong—more wrong than Marcie admitted, or more wrong than she knew. Or both.

“I can’t explain, Jack,” Marcie moaned.

“You don’t have to, Marcie. I get the message.”

“Should I call the police?”

“No,” he said quickly. Jack had an inborn aversion to cops. “I think I have an idea. I’ll call you back later. And call me the minute you hear anything.”

“I will, I promise!”

Jack called Beebo. “Marcie’s straight,” he said.

“So what, Jackson?”

“So Laura just found out—the hard way, apparently—and now she’s disappeared.”

“I couldn’t care less.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Look, Jack, I don’t even want to talk about the kid. I don’t want to hear her name mentioned. She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.”

“I’ve got to find her, Beebo, and you’ve got to help me.”

“The hell I do.”

“I want you to check the Lessie joints. They won’t let me in. I busted the mirror in the Colophon last month and they all hate me.”

“That’s your problem.”

“Beebo, for God’s sake. I know how bitchy she was. I’m not asking you to forget it. I’m asking you to help me find her. I think she went to see her father. From what she’s told me of him, she might be dead before we find her.”

There was a shocked silence and finally Beebo said, “Don’t play around with me, Jack. Tell me the truth.”

“That _is_ the truth. He’s a real bastard. God knows what he might have done to her. He has the Devil’s own temper and he’s been beating hell out of her since she was five years old.”

There was a reluctant pause at Beebo’s end and finally she said, “All right, damn it. All right. I’ll go look for her. If she’s with her father I don’t know what good it’ll do to check the bars down here.”

“You never know. Besides, there’s not much time.”

“Okay, Jack. I’ll get going.”

“Call me as soon as you get back. Whether you find her or not.”

“Right. Where are you going?”

“The McAlton. To check with her old man.”

“What about Terry? Can you trust him alone?” she asked with slight sarcasm.

“No,” he said matter-of-factly, looking at Terry as he spoke, in a voice that betrayed none of his passion for the boy. “I’m counting on the smoked oysters to keep him out of trouble.”

Terry grinned a little but his eyes didn’t leave the television set.

Beebo laughed. “Okay, doll, I’ll help you out, but don’t expect me to welcome Laura back and send her flowers. I’m through with that little bitch. If I find her I’ll drag her home by the scruff of the neck and dump her.”

“That’s good enough, Beebo. Thanks.”

Beebo scoured the Village. She knew it inside and out and backwards: all the gay bars, the favorite coffee shops, the side streets; the markets, the boutiques, the stalls and the brownstones; the parks, the alleys, the bookshops. Some were closed, some stayed open half the night. Wherever people collected down there, sooner or later Beebo investigated the spot.

The hours stretched out. Every hour or so she called Jack’s apartment and talked to Terry. He simply said, “Jack’s not back yet. He hasn’t called in. Okay, I’ll tell him.” And as Beebo walked she began to feel a real fear for Laura’s safety, a tender concern that welled up in her and aroused her own contempt. At three in the morning she muttered, “Oh, the hell with it. Nobody can cover the whole damn Village in one night.” She called the penthouse.

Marcie, wide awake and alarmed, answered, hoping it would be Laura. She wasn’t sure if she had a boy or a girl on the phone; she only knew it wasn’t Laura.

“Marcie?” Beebo said.

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“A friend of Laura’s. Is she there?”

“No. Do you know where she is?”

“I wish I did.”

“Who _is_ this?”

“I’ll call you back.”

Marcie sat holding the receiver and staring perplexed at the phone some minutes after Beebo hung up.

Jack got back in the first light of dawn to find Terry asleep. He sat down without taking his jacket off, and called Beebo. No answer. Terry rolled over and looked at him. He was a medium-sized well-built boy, bright and handsome and easily bored, affectionate by nature, but spoiled, quick with his temper and quick with his generosity. He was not quite sure, being young and desirable, if he was in love with Jack. He liked being admired by a lot of people. But he was not the money grubber Jack had painted for Laura. He liked to be dominated and he was waiting for Jack to make a move in that direction.

“Where the hell have you been?” he asked Jack.

“Where’s Beebo?”

“How should I know? You’re the one who knows it all.”

“Just this once, don’t get smart with me, lover. I gotta find her.” Jack was too worried to coddle him.

“She’ll call back on the hour. She’s been calling in every God-damn hour since you went out. I can’t get any sleep around here. Who’s this Laura, anyway? She must be a living doll.”

“I’ve told you a dozen times. She’s a friend.”

“You act like she was a lover.”

Jack stared at his handsome arrogant young face. “So what?” he said. “You have your affairs. I have mine.” And he turned around and walked into the bathroom and left Terry staring after him. Jack never talked that way to him, not even when he caught him _in flagrante delicto_. He never showed an erotic interest in girls, either.

The phone rang fifteen minutes later. It was Beebo. Terry answered and handed Jack the phone, listening to the conversation with his eyes half open.

“Absolutely no soap,” Beebo said. “I’ve been all over the damn Village. Nobody’s seen her.”

“She saw Landon earlier this evening,” Jack said.

“She did? Does he know where she is?”

“He doesn’t know from nothing, doll. She gave him a first class concussion. Walloped him with a glass ashtray. On the back of his head. Must have snuck up on him when he had his back turned.”

“God!” Beebo exclaimed.

“And then took off, hysterical, according to the elevator boy. She screamed all kinds of stuff at him. He says. Half of it’s crap, of course. But he did tell me one thing—”

“What’s that?”

“She told him those pants he was wearing would never make a man of him.”

After a surprised silence Beebo gave a wry tired little laugh. “Jesus,” she said. “She must have been screwy.”

“The elevator boy thought so. It sounds kind of bad. I’d better call Marcie.”

“I called her at three.”

“God, Beebo, don’t make it any worse than it is!”

“Relax. I didn’t leave my name. Just asked for Laura and Marcie said she wasn’t there. Well, Jackson? Now what? We call the cops?”

“You want us all to get thrown in the jug? They’d love to run in a bunch of queers. No, let’s wait a day. She’s a sensible girl underneath it all. She’ll come to her senses and I’m the first one she’ll call.” Terry, on the bed beside him, gave a contemptuous snort.

“I wish I felt so confident,” Beebo said.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I do too,” he admitted.

“Okay, boy, keep in touch.”

Jack hung up and sat drooping on the bed, the fatigue showing in his face.

“God, you look old,” Terry said with a characteristic lack of tact. “How old are you? You never told me.”

“Eighty-two,” Jack said.

Terry grinned, “I don’t believe you.”

“You’re not supposed to.”

“How old? Tell me.”

Jack stood up and turned to face him, in no mood for jokes. “Terry, don’t bug me. I’ve had enough of you today.” Terry gaped at him. Jack had never talked harshly to him and now he was doing it every time he opened his mouth. “I love this girl,” Jack told him. “I don’t know why, but I do know that for once I’ve found a decent sweet kid who isn’t out for every damn thing she can get from me. She can give a little, she doesn’t have to take all the time.”

“Oh, you love her!” Terry said sarcastically, propping himself up on his elbows. “That’s swell. Just swell! Thanks for letting me in on it.”

“And I’ll probably love her long after you’ve climbed out of this bed for the last time, you little bastard. You and a dozen other guys. It’s a kind of love you don’t know much about, Terry.” He was too tired, too worried, to take much heed of what he said or how. His resentment spilled out and it felt good to let go with it and he did.

Terry wasn’t used to being disciplined. He had managed, in eighteen crafty years, to avoid it. So he was surprised at himself when he reacted to Jack’s tongue lashing with a renewal of interest in him. He lay back on the bed and watched Jack strip to his underwear. Jack was not a beautiful man physically; tough and wiry, but not beautiful. Yet Terry watched him with enjoyment, wondering what to expect from him next.

Jack stretched out on the bed next to Terry. There was an hour or so when he could sleep before he had to get to the office. He turned his head a little and saw Terry watching him. “You still here?” he said. “I thought I told you to go.”

“I think I’ll stay,” Terry said, smiling. “I’m a glutton for punishment.” He was intrigued by this new side of Jack.

Jack turned over and looked at him, surprised. “You’re a brat,” he said finally. “A beautiful, unbearable, stuck-up, silly, irresistible brat.”

Terry laughed. “That’s why you love me, Superman,” he said, poking Jack in the ribs.

“Who says I love you?” Jack said wearily and turned away from him.

“Jack, be nice to me.”

“I’m worried sick and he wants me to be nice to him. Ha!” Jack told the walls.

“Damn it, I think you _do_ love this girl.”

“She bought your oysters, lover. You can spare her a little good will yourself.”

Terry dropped back on his pillow in silent surprise. It was the first hint he had had of the state of Jack’s finances.

* * * * *

Jack went to work. There was nothing to be accomplished sitting around the apartment quarreling with Terry. It wouldn’t bring Laura back any sooner, and there was not much he could do to find her now. Except call in the police and he gagged on that idea. He would wait at least until the next morning.

But at the end of the day things were getting black. Laura was still gone; Marcie was panicky and agitating for a call to the police; Beebo was glowering, furious at herself for caring what happened to Laura and yet caring anyway in spite of herself; and a thunderstorm was brewing.

They waited alone, Jack and Marcie and Beebo, in the gathering dark: each with his own peculiar fears and hopes. Jack drank. Marcie paced around the roof, praying God that Laura hadn’t killed herself. Beebo came over after a while and talked to Jack.

They talked, they drank, the phone rang. Terry wandered around the apartment in a pet because nobody was paying any attention to him. In another part of town Burr cursed silently because Marcie would pay no attention to _him_. And still elsewhere Merrill Landon lay with an aching head and heart and peppered the detective agency he had hired with evil-tempered calls while they labored to locate his daughter.

Finally Terry exploded at Jack, “If you don’t talk to me I’m going to get out of here!” He gave the nearest chair a petulant kick. “I don’t have to hang around here till I drop dead from boredom.”

“Go,” said Jack. “You’re driving me nuts anyway with that damn pacing the floor.”

“I wish I _was_ driving you nuts,” Terry retorted. “I just seem to be in your way.”

“You are, lover. Shut up and eat something. You’ll feel better.”

“I just ate!”

“Then just shut up.”

“God! This place is a mausoleum. I’ve had enough!” He went to the bedroom and grabbed a sweater, but when he reached the front door he turned and found that Jack wasn’t even looking at him. He was talking to Beebo. He was saying, “By God, it’s worth a try. I’m going over there. Nothing could be worse than sitting here wondering if she’s drowned in the damn river or swinging from a rope somewhere.”

“Oh, for Chrissake, Jack!” Beebo snapped. “Have mercy. I’m not made of stone.”

Jack got up and headed for the door. Terry stood uncertainly and watched him approach. “Make up your mind,” Jack said to him. “In or out?” His anxiety over Laura made this attitude of impatience with Terry perfectly genuine. Yet Jack was not without a small sudden pleasure at Terry’s reactions.

“How about you?” Terry said.

“Out.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“I’ll be back in an hour.”

“I want to go with you.”

Jack stared at him, again pleased and surprised. “You can’t,” was all he said, putting his cigarette in his mouth while he pulled his jacket on.

“Why the hell not?”

Jack took him by the shoulders. “Terry, you want to do something for me?”

Terry eyed him like a suspicious five-year-old. “I don’t know. You’re so bitchy tonight.” He sighed. “All right, all right. What do I have to do?”

“Stay here. And if she shows up, hang on to her. I’ll be back at—” He looked at his watch. “—at ten. No later.”

Terry threw himself in an armchair with a huge sigh of disgust. “Oh, this Laura!” he groaned. “She must be the most fabulous female in the whole goddam world.”

“She is,” Beebo said briefly. She dinched her cigarette and walked out ahead of Jack. “I’ll be at home, Terry,” she called back. “If she shows up.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll hogtie her and call all the newspapers. I’ll notify the President. Christ!”

Jack and Beebo went down the stairs together and out into the lowering night. The first drops were coming down. “What’d you give him, Jackson?” Beebo smiled. “He’s learning how to mind. He doesn’t like it very much, but he’s learning.”

Jack shrugged. “He does like it, doll. That’s the secret. He likes to be shoved around a little. I wish to hell I’d known before I bought all those stinking oysters.”

Chapter Sixteen

It was five past ten and the rain was fairly heavy outside. Terry was curled up in the armchair watching television, eating peanuts and drinking a beer. He was irritated with Jack for being late. He tried to get interested in the film and sat for a quarter of an hour with his eyes on the set, wiggling restlessly, like a child in need of a comfort station. He jumped when a knock on the door disturbed him.

“Come in, you know it’s not locked,” he said without looking up. “Where the hell were you? At least I tell you where I’m going. Well talk, damn it.” And he turned around to see a tall slim girl standing five feet from him, her long hair streaming wet and her clothes clinging to her body. He was conscious of nothing in her face but her eyes; huge, blue and heavy, dominating, agonized.

Terry stood up suddenly, stammering a little. “You must be Laura,” he said finally. “I was beginning to think you weren’t real.” He took another look at her, pale as a wraith, her eyes the only warmth in the cold oval of her face. “Are you?” he asked. And then smiled a little sheepishly. “Well, don’t just stand there. Come in and sit down.”

She moved as if she were dreaming, one hand to her forehead, and he guided her to the sofa where she half sat and half collapsed, letting her head fall back against the cushions. She looked utterly exhausted.

Terry stood hovering uncertainly over her, staring at her. At last he said, “Jack says I’ve got to keep you here.” She shut her eyes. “He’s supposed to be home at ten. He should be right along. I’m Terry. Terry Fleming. Jack says he told you about me. He certainly talks a lot about you. He thinks the world of you.” She gave no sign that she had heard or cared to hear.

At last in some consternation he said, “Would you like something to eat, Laura? You look like you could do with something.” No answer. He went out to the kitchen and opened a can of soup. He fixed up the plate with crackers and cheese and, as a second thought, smoked oysters, and poured a glass of milk. Every two or three minutes he interrupted his task to go to the doorway and check on her. He thought she might vanish, like a ghost. But she didn’t move. She looked dead. She scared him.

He put the food on a tray and brought it into the living room and sat down on the sofa next to her. He put the soup and milk on the coffee table in front of her and then he said, “Wake up. Wake up, Laura.” She didn’t stir. Terry put an oyster on a cracker. “Here,” he said, shaking her a little. “Here, for God’s sake, eat it. It’s your oyster.”

Laura stirred and opened her eyes, took one look at the smoked oyster, and turned away with a grimace. Terry was offended. “So what’s wrong with smoked oysters?” he said. “Here. It’s yours.”

She looked at him then. Really saw him. And then sat up a little, rubbing her eyes. “Mine?” she repeated dimly.

“Jack says you bought ’em.” Terry looked at her with bright eyes, curious now. “You might as well enjoy them.”

Laura sighed and then saw the soup. Terry handed her a spoon and she ate it all without a pause or a word. It seemed to give her strength, to bring her back to life. “I haven’t eaten.” she apologized. “I can’t remember ...”

“Want some more?” he asked quickly.

“No. No thanks. Maybe later.” She looked around the apartment, recognition and sense coming back to her face. “Where’s Jack?” she said, and suddenly clutched Terry’s sleeve. “Where’s Jack?” She sounded frightened.

“He’ll be back any minute,” Terry said.

Laura stared at him then. “Oh, you’re Terry,” she said.

“You’re Laura.” He grinned. “I saw you first.”

She blinked at him, unable to joke with him. Dead serious, she asked, “Did the oysters help?”

“Help?” he said. “Oh. You mean Jack and me.”

“He says you love them.”

Terry studied her, frowning over his smile, and then looked away in embarrassment. “Not the oysters so much,” he said. “But _you_ helped, in a roundabout way. By getting lost.”

“I’m glad,” she said, confused. “He loves you terribly.” She seemed to have no sense that this might startle him or be the wrong thing to say. She hadn’t the physical strength to censor herself. She spoke the necessary truths and no more. But Terry was strongly affected. He walked to the other side of the room and refused to look at her for a while, letting his feelings whirl around inside him. When he did look back, she was stretched out on the sofa, sleeping the sleep of complete exhaustion.

* * * * *

Laura woke up to find Jack sitting in the armchair sipping gingerly at a steaming cup of coffee. His eyes showed over the rim of the cup, heavy, anxious, and old. He lowered the cup when she wakened, putting it on the coffee table by the sofa and lighting a cigarette.

“It’s a nice day,” he said cautiously.

She sat up halfway. “What time is it?”

“Seven-thirty.”

Laura dropped back and shut her eyes. She found a blanket over herself and her shoes were on the floor beside the sofa.

“Well,” said Jack, “are you going to tell me where the hell you’ve been? Or am I going to ask?”

Laura turned her face suddenly to the back of the sofa and wept. “Oh, Jack,” she moaned. “I killed him. I killed him. Oh, God help me.” And she began to sob.

“Killed who?”

“My father.”

“Your father,” he said with friendly sharpness in his voice, “has a prize concussion. But he’s very much alive.”

She turned her head slowly to look at him, her eyes enormous and her heart stopped in her chest. “Alive?” Her voice was a startled whisper. She sat up suddenly and said it out loud. “Alive?” She grabbed Jack’s arms with the strength of shock. “How do you know? How do you know? Tell me quickly.”

“I will, give me half a chance.” He pushed her back down and told her of his trip to the McAlton. “I just went up to the fourteenth floor,” he said. “It was easy. There were a lot of people standing around outside his room and the elevator boy told me about it. Incidentally, you made a real friend. He thinks you’re the original Goof Nut.”

“But my father, Jack, my father?”

“There was a doctor with him. He’s okay, Mother.”

Laura half fainted and it was some minutes before Jack could bring her around. Terry sat on the floor by the sofa, watching her with interest while Jack propped her feet up on pillows. “That better?” he said.

“I hit him so hard,” she murmured the moment she was able to talk. “I was sure I killed him. Maybe he died of the concussion.” Her eyes went wide again with fear and she looked at Jack, but he shook his head with a little smile.

“No such luck,” he said. “I talked to him last night.”

She gasped. “What did you say? Is he all right? Did you tell him who you were?” The fears tumbled out of her.

“I called him on the house phone. Relax, Laura, you’re among friends. I asked him if he knew where you were. He said no.”

“What else?” Laura had clutched his arms with trembling hands.

“He was pretty curious about _me_, naturally. But I didn’t give him my name and phone number. Now calm down, will you? You’re giving me the screaming mimis.”

“What did he say?” She was crying again. “What? Tell me!”