Chapter 16
They got into Millardson's Rolls Royce. "You can drive," Eric said, holding his arm. "I wish we could drop you off at a doctor first," Cee-Zee said.
"Plenty of time for that," Eric replied. There wasn't a square inch of him that didn't feel battered. But a potent exhilaration urged him on.
He had all the Millardsons in order now. And if he wanted it, there was a fortune to be collected because of the account. Something inside him flapped its wings in freedom. He could quit his job if he liked.
His mind went back to Hilda and the fate which had claimed her. He wondered if she wasn't better off, having solved her problems in the only way she knew.
Millardson steered the car along the Belt Parkway. He had nothing to say. The fierce shrewdness in his eyes had become the hazy dullness of defeat.
The heavy car glided silently at fifty. Only the ticking of the clock on the dashboard broke the silence.
"Brace up, old man," Eric said. "Maybe shell forgive you. A little honesty goes a long way."
Millardson took a cigar out of his pocket and jammed it into his mouth, unlit.
Cee-Zee found matches in her purse and struck one for him. "Cheer up, little guy," she said.
Eric looked at her and smiled. He wondered what Cee-Zee was thinking behind her mask of control.
They came up the quiet streets of Hempstead and parked across from the frame house.
"In your condition," Cee-Zee said, "you're gonna scare the landlady." She smiled at Eric affectionately.
"You don't look so hot yourself," he replied.
She took a quick glance at herself in the rear view mirror. "I guess nobody ought to be sheltered forever," she said.
They climbed the steps of the wooden porch and Eric rang the bell.
The landlady looked at all three, her eyes widened at the sight of Eric. But he had already pushed past her and led the way up the worn carpet of the steps.
He knocked on Robin's door.
"Hello, Eric," she said and then caught sight of Cee-Zee and Millardson.
"Dad?" Her features broke into a large grin. She hugged her father and drew him into the room.
While she was embracing him, she saw the blood on Eric's sleeve. Her arms fell to her sides.
Cee-Zee said gently, 'I'm Cee-Zee Walters, a friend of Eric's."
Robin waited now, her glance studying first her father, then Eric.
Millardson took a long breath. He rubbed out his cigar in a glass ash tray and watched the smoke die. "Why don't you sit down, Robin?" Eric said tiredly. "I don't want to sit down."
Millardson examined every object in the room, unable to look at his daughter directly.
"Go on, Martin, tell your daughter all about yourself." Eric spoke coldly. Better to get this over with like a surgical cut. He had faith that Robin's courage would heal the wound once she had the facts and had them straight.
But Cee-Zee sat down, trying to withdraw herself from the picture.
"I'd like to be alone with my daughter," Millardson said.
"No," Eric replied. He had to make sure that Millardson wouldn't twist the situation.
"Well talk, somebody," Robin said. She put her hands into the pockets of her flaring skirt. Her shoulders hunched unconsciously in an effort to ward off the unknown knowledge.
"Your father has something he wants to explain," Eric said.
"Yes." Millardson ran his fingers through his hair. He swallowed and watched the trees for a moment, rustling in the night air. "I have a few things to tell you about Donald. About myself." He remained bluntly on his feet, but the rest of him seemed to be caving downward.
"Come on," Cee-Zee said to Eric. "He'll tell her everything. You can check later. Let's you and I go for a walk."
For a moment Eric wavered. But he couldn't let himself trust Millardson.
He stood behind Cee-Zee and smoked cigarettes as Millardson told his daughter the details of what he had intended for Donald and for herself.
Eric watched Robin tremble at the words, then brace herself. The innocent forehead wrinkled as her father spoke. And when it straightened out again, the first trace of understanding remained in a line that would never be erased.
She did not speak immediately. She took one of her own cigarettes and lit it, while Millardson waited for some reply, some response, his eyes cloudy and helpless behind the thick glasses.
She didn't answer for a long time. But when she did speak, something of the inner burden she had carried all these years had fallen away from her.
Sadder, but cut loose from a guilty shame, Robin was transformed now into a mature person. Eric watched her, knowing he had been justly rewarded for playing the interfering fool.
"It's all right, Eric," Robin said in a voice he could barely hear. "You can leave us alone now. Millardsons solve things their own special way. In privacy."
Eric wondered for an instant at Robin's power of forgiveness. But he saw the pride in her and the courage which he'd always believed in. How ever she worked things out with her father would be the just way, the right and proud way.
He came over and kissed her goodbye on the forehead.
Then he took Cee-Zee's arm and they left.
They stood on the corner looking at each other in the pale cone of light from a street lamp.
"We'd better get you patched together now," Cee-Zee said. And then with a hint of wickedness, "Maybe something was shot off."
"Not on your life."
But he felt tired and ready to sleep for a year. He let her get a taxi and they rode all the way to New York. He didn't care about the meter ticking away. No complications, no responsibilities touched him now.
They went to Eric's doctor. Eric came out of the operating room with his arm in a sling and his neck held stiffly by layers of bandage.
"You look great," Cee-Zee said and took him home.
He went into the bedroom and fell soundly asleep into a dreamless well of darkness.
For twenty four hours he slept.
When he awoke, he didn't know what day it was. Nor did he care. The bracing odor of coffee filled his nostrils.
"Hey!" he called.
"Yeah, hey," came the answering reply.
He turned over onto his belly and smiled into the pillow, dozing off again.
The next time when he came awake, he felt bright and clean. Automatically he wondered what day it was, what time. Then he remembered that it didn't make any difference. He was rich, if he wanted it. He was certainly independent.
"Anybody home?" he called.
Silence.
"Hey in there." More silence.
Puzzled, he got out of bed and padded around, finding no Cee-Zee. He laughed to himself. Sure, jerk. What the hell would she hang around for? For a battered old dog?
But despite-this, he felt good for everything. He went to his dresser and took out the camera and sat down with it on the bed. A voice inside told him he was never going back to the office. A loud, sure voice.
He opened the leather case and stroked the black Leica, almost expecting it to smile back at him.
Goodbye to women. Goodbye to trouble.
Though Cee-Zee had managed to slip away from him after all, he held her no malice. She had the right to her own crazy way of living, just as he had the right to his. Too bad Hilda couldn't have accepted this.
Poor Hilda. It didn't make sense to force someone into a compartment that didn't fit him. It hadn't worked for Hilda. It couldn't work with him for Cee-Zee.
He snapped the leather case closed and thought through all the magazine editors who would still remember him.
Then he hobbled to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. He stopped short, seeing all four shelves bare. Stark bare. Not even the bottle of pickled onions.
He felt his arm and tried to move his neck, cursing the fact that he would have to get dressed and go out for breakfast. Damned inconvenient.
But such is the life of a bachelor.
He found a pair of corduroy slacks and pulled them on awkwardly with one hand. The midday sun beamed on the toenails of his naked feet. He got some tennis socks and sat down on the bed to work his feet into them. Blasted nuisance. But he succeeded.
Then he found the blue canvas shoes that were his favorites. A long time since he'd worn them. He sat and looked with consternation at the untied shoe laces.
A key turned in the lock.
The sound of high heels became muted on the rattan carpet. He went to the door of the bedroom and saw Cee-Zee setting large brown bags beside the kitchen sink.
She sensed him watching her and looked up while she continued to extract cans of soup and eggs and cheese.
"You really awake this time?" she said. "It's been almost two days." She wore a lemon colored summer dress with no sleeves. The front of it buttoned between her ample breasts in mother of pearl. She wore enough lipstick to make her teeth very white.
He walked toward her, the laces slapping on the carpet
"Do me a favor," he said and lifted one foot on to the chair.
"Isn't it aggravating?" she said, bending to the other shoe. "How indispensable women are? Doesn't it ruin the male ego?"
He snorted and turned away from her. He went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth and managed to comb his hair.
When he came back out, she was scrambling eggs in a new aluminum pan. The wide belt nipped her waist emphasizing the fullness of her hips beneath.
He pulled a chair up to the table and sat down, remembering how she looked the day of her arrival.
Remembering, too, how he felt. His nervousness hidden beneath a cloak of rebellion. For some reason, he felt very calm today. Secure and sure of himself.
"But don't let it bother you," she continued. "It nearly murdered me to have to phone you that day."
He knew she was alluding to the episode with Hilda.
"Doesn't it aggravate the female ego that men are...."
"Worthless, no good, fickle, rotten." She grinned. "It's very pleasant," she replied.
The eggs and bacon and coffee warmed and made all of him comfortable. The teeth had been filed off the edges of his nerves.
"What are you going to do now?" she asked over coffee.
"Mind my own business," he grinned. "Free lance. Have a ball. I don't know. What are you going to do?"
"Free lance. Have a ball." She smiled with innuendo.
He didn't feel that he had to beat her into submission anymore. He got up and went around to her chair and pulled her head back by the roots of her soft hair.
"You're a phony," he said and pressed his mouth hard to hers.
She reached up and put a warm palm over each of his ears. Then she stood up along his body and moved in so close that their thighs touched. She slid her fingers around to the back of his neck, avoiding the bandage. Yet her touch was far from gentle. The snarling tiger of her body clawed out to him.
With his good hand he dragged her over to the couch and threw her down onto it.
The springs bounced her up, lifting her skirt above her knees. She undid the belt of her dress and dropped it. Then she pulled the dress over her head.
"Eager bitch, aren't you?" he said.
"Complaining?"
He sat down beside her, the damned arm a real nuisance now. "You used to be the hard to get kind. What happened?" He was laughing at her.
"Don't tease me," she said. "I'm too hungry."
She sat up on her knees and rubbed her breasts against him.
"I don't know if you deserve me," he played. "After all I've been through."
"Like lemon and lime," she said.
She crawled over to him and put her breasts against his face. "Don't I smell good?"
She did smell good. He put his tongue into the warm cleavage and drew it along the heavy curve of one breast, feeling the nipple graze across his eyelid. This was one bitch who really knew how to give him a rise.
She sat on his lap and let her head fall toward the carpet. He watched her breasts tumbling upward to her face, revealing the white skin of her diaphragm, somehow tender as though it had never been touched.
"Sit up, stupid," he said. "You'll crack your head in half."
She arced upward, the line of her ribs pulling gracefully. "Anything you say, boss man."
This was a new twist. "What do I hear?" he said.
She wet her lower lip for response and darted her tongue into his mouth.
He had to make one hand do for both. It travelled along her back and pinched her behind so that she jumped a little. Her nakedness pleased him with a delight that matched his feeling of freedom from the office job. She was an animal creature, proud of her body, grateful for the pleasures it could give.
She got off him and lay down on the carpet, spreading her legs and beckoning to him. "We'll be careful with that arm," she soothed. "Don't you worry."
Her eagerness was delicious. He got down beside her and let his mouth wander the length of her, roaming into the valley of her stomach and over her tensing thighs. Her hands directed his head. He heard her groaning with tantalized joy.
After a while she made him come np and hold her tight. "Do it to me," she cried. "Forever."
He managed more easily than he'd thought The arm didn't get in the way at all.
"Hard," she grunted, "real hard." She knew how to hold him and use him. They meshed like a superhuman machine, each part moving in precise rhythm with the other. Her eyes rolled wildly. She bit his chin.
He felt the muscles of her go into a spasm and he responded with a series of convulsions that sent sparks along his spine and up into his temples.
When they moved apart she staggered up and went to get him a towel.
Carefully she wiped all the sweat off his body, stroking his hips and his legs. He could see the bruises on the insides of her thighs and his mouth print on her breast Her hair fell forward in perspired clumps over her face.
But though she had satisfied him, he couldn't relax with her. Not yet Greedy for everything, something still hounded him. He had to know why she continued to protect Lilio. But he needed her to tell him of her own free will.
She had taken a sofa pillow and brought it to the floor for her naked behind. She moved closer to him and lifted his head onto her lap.
"Something's bothering you, Spooky." She stroked cool fingers through his hair.
"Nope," he denied.
"Are you thinking about Robin?" she coaxed. "I notice you haven't phoned. It's all right to call her, you know. Just to see how everything turned out."
He knew how everything turned out without calling.
Robin would move out of the house and live her own life. He also knew that Cee-Zee was fanagling. She knew he didn't give a damn about Robin anymore.
"Maybe you want me to ask where you got that ugly cut on your neck," she said finally.
He felt like she was painting him into a corner. With Cee-Zee he always had to be careful. Always a challenge, never a bore, he could never relax more than halfway with her.
"I want you to be quiet and let me enjoy a few minutes of peace," he said, half meaning it. Ever since she'd come to his apartment, the routine of his settled life had scattered like so many bits of a picture puzzle.
"You don't want peace, Spooky. You can't stand peace. You're not made for the business man's routine. Early to bed and early to rise. If that were the case, you would have been happy with Hilda."
She'd hit home and they both knew it.
Eric eyed her suspiciously. "You name it then. What do I want?"
The sun warmed her breasts, showing pale veins in a network of pulsing life beneath the now placid flesh.
"I hate to say this, poor dear." She leaned over and kissed his forehead. "But we've got the same lousy poison fueling us. We're meant for trouble, you and I."
He wanted to disagree. He wanted to say go away and let me alone, I've got things to do. But an intuition made him keep silent.
"The only thing is," she continued, "when a person gets into trouble all by himself, it's no fun."
"Oh?"
"Mm hm. I guess I learned that. When I was all alone, there was nothing to pull me out of my own miseries. I sit here and ask myself what kind of a shnook must I have been to want to marry Lilio."
"Shnook is right." He turned slightly to look at her face. Her fine nostrils flared slightly as she breathed. "But what do you mean, when you were all alone?"
"Oh, I don't feel alone now." She laughed softly. "I stopped feeling alone when I picked up the telephone to call you. It was a big moment in my life. All of a sudden, there was you, you silly thing. And you could help me. Like no one had ever helped me before."
"At least you admit it," he said with satisfaction.
"I know when I'm cooked. And I know when other people are cooked, too."
"Yeah? Like who?"
"Like you."
She moved herself out from under him and lowered his head to the pillow. "Why don't you admit it too?" She put a hand on either cheek and kissed him on the tip of his nose.
He felt no desire to deny the truth of this. She was the one woman worth having. She wouldn't interfere with anything he wanted to do. She had no silly conventions or pruderies to inhibit him. Lemon and lime, just like she said. Neither of them was the shined shoes and newspaper type. She would go gladly wherever he wanted to go. Get into all kinds of scrapes so long as they were fun. Turn up her nose at nothing but narrow-mindedness.
He sighed and grazed her chin gently with his knuckles. "Indestructible Cee-Zee," he breathed, glad of it.
"You want me, don't you, Spooky?"
He sat up and kissed her ear. "Maybe," he said, still thinking about Lilio.
"Maybe? What's maybe?" She got to her feet and put on his corduroys, rolling them up so she wouldn't trip. Then she got him a fresh cup of coffee and set it on the floor beside his knees. She went back to the kitchen.
He couldn't resist any longer. "I wish to hell you would tell me about Lilio," he called in to her as she stood beside the stove.
"Lilio?" She turned to look at him, grinning wickedly. "There's nothing to tell. I made believe I had a secret." She stuck her tongue out at him. "Just to aggravate you."
He reached beneath him with his good arm and threw the pillow at her head.
Then he burst out laughing, at himself, at her, at the world. "You bitch. You screwy hide bitch. I'm gonna have to marry you."
She stepped over the pillow and came to put her arms tenderly around his neck. "And that, my gorgeous, scrappy hunk of beefcake," she nuzzled his neck tenderly, "was exactly the point."
He sighed and thought to himself, Checkmate, honey.