Chapter 10
When the phone rang, Rafe Kolsky leaped across the room to answer it. It had to be Mrs. Hager because, after she fled from the picnic grounds, she would never have been able to leave things that way.
This was what his suddenly rose-colored perspective told him. It was a wonderful perspective. He was like a man who'd spent his life in the shade and had suddenly come out into the sun.
He could think of nothing but Mrs. Hager's beautiful body; her warm, hungry lips, her soft, husky, tender voice telling him of love and the new world she had ushered him into.
After he got home, he thought of calling her, but he remembered what she'd said. She was timid. She was afraid to let the world know about their love. So he might have embarrassed her by calling. That was why he'd waited, alert for the ringing of the telephone.
And here it was.
His disappointment was so deep at hearing Verne Getchall's bass rumble come back over the wire that he was almost uncivil.
"What do you want, Verne?"
"A little information. I want to ask you about one of your friends."
"All right-ask away."
Rafe had scarcely heard Verne. He was wondering about Mildred Hager. Was it possible that she wouldn't call?
"What's the matter, Rafe? Are you all right?"
"Of course I'm all right."
"I thought you'd hung up."
"Why would I do that? You said you wanted some information. Go ahead. What's your question?"
"I just asked you. Which of the young louts around Rebel Hill drives a Corvette sports car?"
"A Corvette? Oh. The only one I know is Armand Beck."
"Are you sure?"
Verne could be so irritable when he wanted to be. Rafe wished he'd do his snooping elsewhere. "Of course I'm sure."
"No other Corvette's around?"
"Look, Verne. You asked me something and I told you. If there were another one around I'd know about it. They're not easy cars to overlook."
"Armand Beck, eh? Is he a black-haired character
-slim-fairly tall?"
Verne began to get through Rafe's preoccupation. Why all these questions about Armand?
"That about tags him. Why? What did he do?"
Rafe waited. "Verne-what do you want to know about Armand for? What's he been up to?"
There was still no answer. After a while, Rafe realized that Verne Getchall had hung up.
Then he was glad it had worked out this way. It gave him an excuse to do what he wanted to do. He cleared the phone and called the Hager residence.
While the connection was being made, he thought swiftly. Maybe Mrs. Hager would answer. If not, he would ask for Jimmie first. He had something to talk to Jimmie about. Then, after a reasonable time with Jimmie he would-
"Hello."
"Donna-how are you. This is Rafe Kolsky."
"Hi, Rafe. You're quite a stranger. To what do I owe this honor?"
Rafe tried to hide his annoyance. Donna would of course assume that the call was for her. He said, "That's not fair. I gave up calling because you're always so busy."
Rafe writhed at having to go through this maddening preliminary. But he'd managed to keep his impatience from showing in his voice.
Donna laughed. "Listen to him! He's taken a course in how to influence people."
The trivialities went on until Rafe thought it safe to ask, "By the way, is your wild brother around?"
"No, he's never around."
"There was something I wanted to ask him."
"Maybe I can help."
"No, it's strictly man talk. I was wondering if he'd seen Armand Beck lately."
"That character? What's he been doing-stealing hub caps?"
"Oh, nothing like that. I-"
Then chance negated all Rafe's silly little maneu-verings. Donna said, "Jimmie's not here, but my mother wants to talk to you."
Rafe's heart jumped as he waited. Maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe she was ready to tell the world about their love.
Then, still waiting, Rafe Kalsky suffered the shock of a sharp reverse. He was frightened. The fright came so suddenly that for a moment he couldn't trace its source.
Then he knew! And he thought, lord, what if she does tell the world? What would my father say?
Mildred came on the phone. "Rafe?"
If she had expected a violent protestation of love, it was not forthcoming.
Rafe's "Yes?" was timid and doubtful.
"I wonder if you would give your mother a message for me. I have to cancel our luncheon appointment because of something that came up. I'll be in New York City all day tomorrow."
"I'll tell her."
And that was all. But a sudden distance as wide as the stars now separated them.
Rafe put the phone down. It was strange, stunning. He knew that under no circumstances would he ever be able to touch Mrs. Hager again.
He had learned something.
But what?
He groped for the concept and finally rationalized it bleakly. He'd been taken. His first experience with love had been an illusion. That hadn't been spiritual at all. That had been intoxicatingly physical.
He would dream about Mrs. Hager's kiss for a while. On quiet nights he would feel her arms around him and taste her passion on his lips.
But she was nothing you ruined your life over.
He shuddered at how close he'd come to making a fool of himself, but now that he'd grown up-now that his common sense had come to the rescue-there had been no damage done.
That would be forgotten.
Fortunately, things had not passed the point of no return, and for that he was grateful.
But things passed the point of no return an hour later. At about that time, Verne Getchall walked up the drive to Tad Beck's front door and rang the bell.
Nothing happened. He waited. He rang again. The door opened. A black-headed youth eyed Verne questioningly.
"Are you Armand Beck?"
"Yes-"
Verne hit him. He lashed out his great ham of a right fist and smashed it against Armand's mouth.
Armand back-pedalled wildly, seeking to hold his balance. Verne Getchall followed him. He hit Armand again, a blow that hammered into his chest and made him gasp for the breath it took to howl.
His squall of protest was mainly from terror. A madman had invaded the house and was killing him. He saw death in Verne Getchall's eyes and in his hate-twisted face.
"You scum!" Verne rumbled as he drove his fist again into Armand's face.
Armand went over a chair and fell to the floor and Verne reached down and lifted him by his sweater and shirt.
He was holding him thus, his fist raised, when Tad Beck lumbered into the reception hall.
Beck could have been called many things, but coward was not one of them. Seeing his son in the grip of an obvious maniac, he lunged forward and threw his own bulk at Verne Getchall. Tad was pathetic as a fighter. All he had was his sprawling weight. But with Verne Getchall concentrating on Armand, that weight became effective. Off balance, Verne staggered away as he dropped Armand.
Armand had the presence of mind to crawl away, and when Verne Getchall turned after falling to one knee, he found enemies at two points on his perimeter.
He was a madman at this point, and perhaps he would have killed in his rage, but Tad Beck was not helpless. He wrenched a sword from a decorative plaque on the wall, a full-length, curved saber that had been crossed with another. Without hesitating, he drove straight at Getchall until the lethal point touched Verne's chest.
Neither man could have been called cowardly, so it was probably the sobering effect of the sword rather than fear of it that brought Verne to heel.
Keeping his eyes on Verne, Tad Beck gestured in Armand's direction.
"Call the State Police Barracks. Get a car over here."
Verne Getchall spat toward Armand in supreme contempt. "Do that, you hoodlum. They can take us both in."
Tad Beck hadn't been shocked into unclear thinking. His ugly little eyes narrowed. "Why my son? What would the charge be?"
"Rape."
"What are you talking about?"
"Assault on a mentally incompetent girl. What would you call that?"
Tad Beck lowered the sword and again waved at Armand. "Hold that call. Now let's get some sense into this mess. What girl are you talking about? In fact, who are you? What's your name?"
Verne appeared to want to renew his assault on the cowering youth whose fright-filled eyes were glued pleadingly on his father.
"My name is Getchall. Verne Getchall."
"Oh. I've heard of you. You're the eccentric who lives in Cow Hollow."
"What I am is none of your business. But you're going to wish you'd never heard my name. I'm going to drag yours through the mud!"
"Would it be too much to ask that you give me the details?"
"Ask that sneaking degenerate there. Make him tell you how he lured my daughter to the deserted house on the Cutoff; how he fixed up a room to take her into!"
Armand, his mind in panic, forgot his pain and the blood running from his face. He was a pathetic figure as he held out pleading hands and cried. "I didn't! I didn't!"
"Are you claiming that you don't know my daughter Bonnie? That you've never seen her?"
"I know her! I've seen her. I saw her once, in the woods but-"
"Be quiet, Armand. Get a towel. Wipe the blood off your face. Then we'll talk this over. And you'll tell me the truth."
Verne Getchall refused an invitation to sit down. He refused a drink. He refused to have any conversation with Tad Beck until Armand returned.
Then Tad Beck took up the questioning.
"Where did you see Mr. Getchall's daughter, Armand?"
"In the woods when I was hiking. It was near Cow Hollow I-well, I just met her. I asked her what her name was and she told me and that was all."
"When was this?"
"Late last fall."
"And you haven't seen her since?"
"No."
"Have you ever been to the Cutoff? The place Mr. Getchall mentioned?"
Armand seemed pathetically eager to tell the truth in meticulous detail.
"Yes, I've been there. All the guys around Warren-ton have been there at one time or another."
"When were you there last?"
"A-a few days ago."
Tad Beck's eyes turned even more grim. "But yon did not take Mr. Getchall's daughter there with you?"
"No! No, I didn't. I wouldn't do a thing like that."
"You know nothing about a room fixed up in the old house?"
"I've never seen it, but I know it's there."
"Explain yourself."
"I saw a light in there one night. And then I saw two people come out."
"Was one of them Mr. Getchall's daughter?"
"No."
A huge, unconscious sigh of relief shuddered through Tad Beck's ugly body.
"Did you recognize the people?"
"Yes."
Tad turned his eyes on Verne Getchall as he asked the next question. "Who were they?"
"Rafe Kolsky and Mrs. Hager."
Tad stared at his son. "Are you serious?"
"I'm telling the truth. Rafe and Mrs. Hager came out of that house together. They'd been in there a long time-up in that room."
Tad Beck believed Armand, and not from the biased viewpoint of a father. He knew Armand would not have dreamed up a scandal of that magnitude and palmed it off as a lie. He might have blamed two unidentified people, but he would not have named them.
And Verne Getchall also, was having his moment of truth. He had more reason to believe Armand than Tad Beck. He had seen Rafe and Mrs. Hager start off toward Full Moon, and he wondered why he had not thought of that before.
He realized there were two reasons. He had been thinking in terms of rape and seduction and the guilty pair didn't fit into this category. Nor did Bonnie's descriptions point his thinking in that direction.
He had been looking for one man who he believed had molested his daughter, and his fury had demanded a culprit upon whom to vent itself. He'd acted foolishly.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Tad Beck, in command now, let his contempt pour out full force. "I'm not used to having irresponsible swamp characters invade my house and assault my son. Saying you're sorry doesn't quite absolve you. I take a more serious view of the matter."
Verne Getchall's contempt was as obvious. "All right. Do what you like. I'll wait here while you call the State Troopers and make charges. And I won't deny them."
Tad Beck had hoped for the pleasure of seeing this man crawl. He felt he was entitled to that much. But Verne Getchall had no intention of doing so.
Tad scowled, his flabby lips sullen. "I suppose there's no point in making a complaint. You did have a motive of sorts. Let's just say you were stupid and let it go at that."
"You know where to find me if you change your mind," Verne said. He still refused to bend, and strode out of the house with his shoulders back and his head held high.
When the door closed, Tad Beck turned on Armand. "Have you told anybody else about this?"
"No."
"You haven't referred to it in any way?"
"Well, the other day the Lazer twins and I saw Mrs. Hager driving Rafe's jeep. It looked kind of funny. I brought it up to them after I saw Rafe and Mrs. Hager coming out of the house at Full Moon, but I didn't really tell them anything."
"See that you don't. I'll handle it myself. Just be ready in case I need you."
"My nose hurts."
Tad Beck peered into his son's face. "Wash it first. You look a mess. Then put a cold cloth on it. If it still hurts in the morning, go down and have it x-rayed.
"How'll I say I got it?"
"Oh, tell the doctor you ran into a door," Tad said with annoyance. He walked past Armand and back into his study. He was muttering to himself. "Imagine that woman. Carrying on a shoddy affair right under our noses. Did she think she could get away with that?"
Mildred Hager wasn't going to get away with anything. Not with Tad Beck watching out for the morals of Rebel Hill. But how could he best handle it? The matter had to be approached carefully. The scandal must not become public property.
Tad did not try to delude himself into believing he would proceed with regret. The exact opposite was true. He would do his duty to the club and to the community with zest and determination. He'd taken enough of Vance Hager's contempt. Why, the man had been openly insulting during their last contact. He would change his tune when he was brought before the membership committee.
There was a preliminary move Tad had to make first, however. A matter of strategy. In affairs of this kind it paid to enlist powerful allies.