The Underground Man (23 page)

She gave me a hard look, to see if I was trying to move in on her. She must have seen that I wasn’t, because she said:

“I’m lonely all the time—at least I used to be, until I learned to live alone. You know what I mean, if you live alone. The terrible humiliation and self-pity, with no one to blame for anything but yourself.”

“I know what you mean.” I brought her back to the subject of her marriage, which seemed to lie hidden at the center of the case. “Why did you leave your husband?”

“It was all over between us.”

“Didn’t you miss him and the little boy?”

“Not Brian. He got rough with me—you can’t forgive a man once he does that. He threatened to kill me if I tried to take Jerry with me, or even see him. Of course I missed my son, but I learned to live without him. I don’t need anyone, literally.”

“How about figuratively?”

Her smile was deep and revealing, like a glimpse of the
lights and shadows inside her head. “Figuratively is another matter. Of course I’ve felt like a dropout from the world. The worst loneliness I felt was for the children. Not just my own child—the children I taught in school. I keep seeing their faces and hearing their voices.”

“Like Martha Crandall?”

“She was one of them once.”

“And Albert Sweetner, and Fritz Snow.”

She gave me a disenchanted look. “You’ve been doing quite a lot of research on me. Believe me, I’m not that important.”

“Maybe you’re not. But Albert and Fritz and Martha keep cropping up. I gather they came together in your high school class.”

“Unfortunately, they did.”

“Why do you say unfortunately?”

“The three of them made an explosive combination. You’ve probably heard about their famous trip to Los Angeles.”

“I’m not quite clear about who the ringleader was. Was it Albert?”

“The authorities thought so at the time. He was the only one of the three who had a juvenile record. But I think it was originally Martha’s idea.” She added thoughtfully: “Martha was the one who came out of it best, too. If you can use that word about a forced marriage to an older man.”

“Who was the father of her child? Albert Sweetner?”

“You’ll have to ask Martha that.” She changed the subject: “Is Albert really dead? Martha said on the phone that he was.”

“He was stabbed to death last night. Don’t ask me who was responsible, because I don’t know.”

She looked down sorrowfully as if the dead man was in
the room at her feet. “Poor Albert. He didn’t have much of a life. Most of his adult life was spent in prison.”

“How do you know that, Miss Storm?”

“I tried to keep in touch with him.” She added after a little hesitation: “As a matter of fact he came here to this house last week.”

“Did you know he’d escaped from the pen?”

“What if I did?”

“You didn’t turn him in.”

“I’m not a very good citizen,” she said with some irony. “It was his third conviction, and he was due to spend most of the rest of his life in prison.”

“What was he in for?”

“Armed robbery.”

“Weren’t you afraid of him when he came to your door?”

“I never have been. I was surprised to see him, but not afraid.”

“What did he want from you? Money?”

She nodded. “I wasn’t able to give him much. I haven’t sold a picture for some time.”

“Did you give him anything else?”

“Some bread and cheese.”

I was still carrying the green-covered book. I got it out of my pocket.

“That looks like a book I used to own,” Ellen said.

“It is.” I showed her the book-plate in the front.

“Where did you get this, anyway? Not from Al Sweetner?”

“From your son Jerry, ultimately.”

“He kept it?” She seemed starved for any dry crumb from the past she had abandoned.

“Evidently he did.” I pointed out his penciled signature on the flyleaf. “But the thing I wanted to show you is inside.” I
opened the book and took the clipping out. “Did you give this to Al Sweetner?”

She took it in her hand and studied it. “Yes, I did.”

“What for?”

“I thought it might be worth some money to him.”

“That was a pretty double-edged act of charity. I can’t believe your motives were entirely altruistic.”

She flared up, rather weakly, as if nothing was worth getting really angry about. “What do you know about my motives?”

“Only what you tell me.”

She was silent for a minute or two. “I suppose I
was
curious. I’d been holding onto this clipping all summer, wondering what I ought to do about it. I didn’t know who had originated it. And of course I didn’t know what had happened to Leo. I thought perhaps Albert could find out for me.”

“So you turned him loose on Santa Teresa. That was kind of a crucial thing to do.”

“What was so crucial about it?”

“Albert is dead, and so is Stanley Broadhurst.” I spelled out the details for her.

“Then it was Stanley who placed this ad in the
Chronicle,”
she said. “I’d have got in touch with him if I had known. But I thought it was probably Elizabeth.”

“What made you think that?”

“I can remember when this picture was taken.” She smoothed it on her knee, as if it was a feather she had found. “Elizabeth took it, before she knew that Leo and I were lovers. It brings back everything. Everything I had and everything I lost.”

There were romantic tears in her eyes. My own eyes remained quite dry. I was thinking of everything that Elizabeth Broadhurst had lost.

The gravel in the driveway crackled under the tires of a heavy car. Ellen lifted her head. I went to the front door, with her following close behind me.

Martha Crandall was already on the veranda. Her face changed when she saw me.

“They haven’t come?”

“They never will if you don’t keep out of sight. This place is staked out.”

Ellen gave me a bright suspicious look. I asked her to go back inside and take Martha with her. Then I went down the steps to Lester Crandall’s new bronze Sedan de Ville.

He hadn’t moved from behind the wheel. “I told Mother it was a waste of time and energy. But she insisted on making the trip.” He surveyed the front of the house with a cold eye. “So this is where the famous Ellen lives. It’s practically falling down—”

I cut him short: “How about moving the car out of sight? Or slide over and let me.”

“You move it. I’m slightly pooped.”

He maneuvered his heavy body out from under the wheel and let me park the car behind the house. The elements of the case were coming together, and I felt crowded and excited. Perhaps I was subliminally aware of the noise of the second car.

When Lester Crandall and I went around to the front again, there was a figure at the foot of the driveway—an indeterminate bearded head surmounting a light triangle which looked like a warning sign. The figure was caught and drenched in approaching headlights. It was Jerry Kilpatrick, with one arm in a sling.

He must have recognized Crandall and me at the same time. He turned toward the moving headlights and called out: “Susie! Split!”

Her station wagon paused and went into reverse, backing up the road with a mounting roar of the engine. Jerry looked around uncertainly and ran stumbling out of the driveway into the arms of Willie Mackey and his large assistant Harold.

By the time I got to them, the station wagon was turning in the entrance to Haven Road, its headlights swiping like long paintbrushes at the tree trunks. It started off in the direction of San Francisco.

“I’ll phone the bridge,” Willie said.

I ran up the road to my car and followed the wagon. When I reached the near end of the bridge, traffic was beginning to line up in the right-hand lanes. The station wagon was standing empty at the head of the line.

I saw Susie out on the bridge, running hand in hand with the little boy toward the cable tower. A heavy man in patrolman’s uniform was jolting along some distance behind them.

I went after them, running as hard as I could. Susie looked back once. She let go of Ronny’s hand, moved to the railing, and went over. I thought for a sickening instant that she had taken the final plunge. Then I saw her light hair blowing above the railing.

The patrolman stopped before he got to her. The little boy loitered behind him, turning to me as I came up. He looked
like an urchin, dirty-faced, in shorts and sweater that were too big for him.

He gave me a small embarrassed smile as if I had caught him doing something that he could be punished for, like playing hooky.

“Hello, Ronny.”

“Hello. Look at what Susie’s doing.”

She was holding on with both hands, leaning out against the gray night. Along the wall of clouds that rose behind her, lightning flickered and prowled like somebody trying to set fire to a building.

I got a firm grip on the boy’s cold hand and moved toward her. She stared at me without apparent recognition or interest, as if I belonged to a different race, the kind that lived past the age of twenty.

The patrolman turned to me: “You know her?”

“I know who she is. Her name is Susan Crandall.”

“I hear you talking about me,” she said. “Stop it or I’ll jump.”

The man in uniform backed away a few feet.

“Tell him to go further away,” she said to me.

I told him, and he did. She looked at us with more interest, as part of a scene responding to her will. Her face appeared to be frozen except for her wide roving eyes. Her voice was flat:

“What are you going to do with Ronny?”

“Take him back to his mother.”

“How do I know you will?”

“Ask Ronny. Ronny knows me.”

The boy lifted his voice: “He let me feed peanuts to his birds.”

“So you’re the one,” she said. “He’s been talking about it all day.”

She gave him a wan and patronizing smile, as if she herself had put off childish things. But with her white fingers clenching the railing, her hair blowing above it, she looked like half a child and half a bird perched over the long drop.

“What would you do to me if I came back over there?”

“Nothing.”

She said as if I hadn’t spoken: “Shoot me? Or send me to prison?”

“Neither of those things.”

“What would you do?” she repeated.

“Take you to a safer place.”

She shook her head gravely. “There is no safe place in this world.”

“A safer place, I said.”

“And what would you do to me there?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re a dirty filthy liar!”

She inclined her head to one side and looked down over her shoulder, into the depth of my lying and the terrible depth of her rage.

Toward the San Francisco end of the bridge, the tow truck that carried the roving patrol came into view. I made a pushing signal with both hands, and the patrolman repeated it. The truck slowed down and stopped.

“Come back, Susie,” I said.

“Yeah,” Ronny said. “Come back. I’m afraid you’ll fall.”

“I’ve already fallen,” she said bitterly. “I’ve got no place to go.”

“I’ll take you to your mother.”

“I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to live with those two ever again.”

“Tell them that,” I said. “You’re old enough to live with
other people. You don’t have to stay over there to prove it.”

“I like it over here.” But after a moment she said: “What other people?”

“The world is full of them.”

“But I’m afraid.”

“After what you’ve been through, you’re still afraid?”

She nodded. Then she looked down once more. I was afraid I’d lost her.

But she was saying goodbye to the long drop. She climbed back over the railing and rested against it, breathing quickly and lightly. The little boy moved toward her, pulling me along by the hand, and took her hand.

We walked back to the head of the bridge, where Willie Mackey and his assistant were talking to some local officers. Willie appeared to have some clout with them. They took our names, asked a few pointed questions, and let us go.

Willie took Ronny with him in the station wagon. I hated to let the boy out of my sight. But I wanted a chance to question Susan before she saw her parents.

She sat inert while I extricated my car. The patrolman who had chased her out the walkway stopped the northbound traffic. He looked relieved to see us go.

She said in some alarm: “Where are you taking me?”

“To Ellen Storm’s house. Isn’t that where you wanted to go?”

“I guess so. My mother and father are there, aren’t they?”

“They arrived just before you did.”

“Don’t tell them I tried to jump, will you?” she said in a low voice.

“You can hardly keep it a secret. Any of it.” I paused to let the fact sink in. “I still don’t understand why you ran away like that.”

“They stopped me at the head of the bridge. They wouldn’t let me through. They started yelling at me and asking me questions. Don’t you ask me any questions, either,” she added breathlessly. “I don’t have to answer.”

“It’s true, you don’t. But if you won’t tell me what happened, I wonder who will.”

“When are we talking about? On the bridge?”

“Yesterday, on the mountain, when you went there with Stanley Broadhurst and Ronny. Why did you go up there?”

“Mr. Broadhurst asked me to. That Sweetner man told him about me—the things I said when I blew my mind.”

“What things?”

“I don’t want to talk about them. I don’t even want to think about them. You can’t make me.”

There was a wild note in her voice which made me slow the car and watch her out of the corner of my eye. “Okay. Why did you go to Mr. Broadhurst’s house on Friday? Did Albert Sweetner send you?”

“No. It was Jerry’s idea. He said I ought to go and talk to Mr. Broadhurst, and I did. Then we went up the mountain Saturday morning.”

“What for?”

“We wanted to see if something was buried there.”

“Something?”

“A little red car. We went up there in a little red car.”

Her voice had changed in pitch and register. It sounded as if her mind had regressed, or shifted to a different level of reality. I said: