Frank De Felitta - Audrey Rose

Maybe this was God’s retribution, she thought—the empty glass dangling from her fingers—sent down to her in the form of Elliot Suggins Hoover.

Harold Yates lay stretched across the Barca-Lounger like a reclining Buddha. His damp features were screwed up in a curiously bemused smile as the tape came to an end.

“Boy, when you bump into ’em, you sure bump into ’em.” He chuckled softly.

“He’s gotta be a kook, right?”

“I don’t know, Bill. That’s hard for me to say. He seems to know what he’s talking about. I means, he certainly puts his case forth in a logical manner. He’s not a ranting hysteric. He’s a clam, reasonable person who seems to believe what he’s saying.”

“What the hell are you saying, Harry?” Bill’s voice was unsteady. “You telling me I’ve got to honor this guy’s demands?”

Harry held up the flat of his palm in Bill’s face.

“Whoa Bessie! Back up! I said nothing about honoring his demands. I said you can’t stop him from believing what he wants to believe in. When it comes to honoring his demands, you certainly cannot give in to him, for then you will have taken another member into your family. So regardless of what he wants, you must take steps initially to protect yourself and your family, and the law will help you in doing this.”

“Okay, give! What steps?”

“Well, initially you might adopt a less vigorous attack. You might tell him, next time he calls, that whatever he believes, thinks, or feels about your daughter sheltering the spirit or soul of his daughter, you do not subscribe to his thinking, you don’t feel that you can permit him visitation privileges, nor can you allow him to interfere with the normal course of your family life. And then you tell him, if he’s going to persist, that you’ll take legal steps to restrain him from bothering you.”

Bill thought about this, a look of uncertainty on his face.

“Is there some special way, some special legal language I should use to tell him these things?”

“If you want, I could write you a letter,” obliged Harry. “you could send it to him, registered mail, or even have it hand-delivered, return receipt requested, telling him to cease and desist from doing this objectionable act and, if he does not stop, that you are authorized to seek whatever legal remedies are available. The effect of this letter is of no real legal significance, except it is evidence to the court, should you seek injunctive relief, that Hoover was advised that what he was doing constituted a nuisance and was objectionable to you and your family.”

With a slight strain of tension in his face, Harry advanced the Barca-Lounger to the sitting position and depressed the button for his secretary. “It’s the best way to proceed, Bill; we find ways to discourage him, ways short of hauling him into court or a police station. I mean, we try all kinds of peaceful ways before we bring down the majesty and the awesome force of the law.”

The secretary, a tall woman in her early sixties, had silently entered, taken her chair, and pencil poised over memo pad, was waiting.

The “majesty and awesome force of the law.” The words had a fine, comforting ring to them, Bill thought with a tinge of emotion as he entered the elegant elevator and smiled his routine hello to Ernie.

Harry had written a strong, solid letter, couched in all those intricate, fearsome phrases that lawyers use to strike terror in the hearts of their opponents. They had sent it via special Red Arrow messenger to Hoover’s YMCA address, to be delivered into his hand, and with signed receipt to be returned to Harry’s office for safekeeping.

Having opened both locks with his two keys, Bill still had to ring, as Janice had kept the chain bolt on the door.

She seemed gayer, her mood lighter, as she took the tape recorder from his hand, placed it shakily down on the floor, then rose on her toes to kiss him, losing her balance in the process. Bill held her arms to steady her and chuckled, “Well, well, somebody’s been juicing it up.”

Janice grinned. “What the hell—”

It was just after three o’clock—a bit early in the day to be potted but, “What the hell,” Bill agreed and went to the kitchen for ice.

Janice told him the good news as he knocked ice cubes into the martini shaker. Ivy’s temperature was down to absolute normal, and Bill was an absolute genius for having predicted as much, at which point she started humming “Isle of Lovely Hula Hands” and doing sensuous things with her hips. Bill hummed along with her as they hulaed their way to the liquor cart in the living room, where Bill filled the shaker with gin and refreshed Janice’s drink. Oddly, the crisp, cold jolt of pure alcohol had a sobering effect on Bill, and a moment of seriousness ensued as he told Janice about Harry’s letter, trying to recall the specific words and phrases: “harassing, molesting, invading …” and “an ex parte order shall be issued …” and the majesty and awesome force of the law.…”

“ He called this morning and sent me a plant,” Janice told him, spacing her words out with care to keep from slurring.

“Sent you what?”

“A plant—with a note saying that even flowers do it—reincarnate, that is.”

“The bastard.”

Janice’s face screwed up in a sly and wicked smile. “I dumped it in the incin … erator,” she said falteringly. “Pot, plant, flowers, poem, the works—”

Bill grinned and clinked his glass to hers. “That’s my gal.” They sipped their drinks and looked at each other approvingly. Then Bill asked, “He called, you said?”

“Yup. Right after the plant came—and went .”

“What’d he want?”

“Wanted to come up, what do you think?”

“What’d you say?”

“Told him to … bug off , mister … go peddle yer karmers up the street!”

Bill burst out laughing. “You didn’t?”

“Or words to that effect.” Janice winked with pride and nodded her head. “He got the message all right.”

Putting down his drink, Bill reached out, drew his brave, besotted wife into his arms and kissed her soundly.

The telephone rang.

Each felt the other flinch. They drew apart.

Bill took a deep breath, then picked up the receiver.

“Yes,” he said, brusquely, then relaxed and offered the phone to Janice. “It’s Carole, for you.”

Janice’s face fell; it would be a long and weary siege, but there was no way to refuse the call.

Bill picked up drink and shaker and went upstairs to visit Ivy, whom he found sitting on the floor, Indian-style, surrounded by elements of Clue. Her eyes shone with a healthy glow as she reached up, took his hand, and placed it against her cool face.

“One game; Daddy, please?” she begged, gazing up at him with her impossible-to-refuse smile. “Mom played terrible,” Ivy complained. “I beat her without even trying.”

Bill could well understand why.

By the time he had finished the last dividend in the shaker they had played two games, which they split, and were on the final lap of the third. The time was ten to five, and good odors were wafting up to them from the kitchen.

Bill wondered if Hoover had received the letter. There was a way to check that. He made two purposeful blunders, allowing Ivy to take the third game. Her victory whoops followed him into the bedroom, where he put in a call to Harold Yates.

“Letter delivered, signed receipt returned, currently stashed in my file case,” Harold informed him with a deep rumble of satisfied laughter.

“Great,” Bill said. “He hasn’t tried to call me.”

“Nor should he! He’s on notice. From this point on, if he bothers you or your family in any way, we go to court and file for injunctive relief.”