Gene Wolfe - Pandora by Holly Hollander

Only come to think of it, it was possible he had, what with those mysterious calls and all. In a book, naturally, you could rule out suicide, but I couldn’t. Maybe Larry had fixed up the bomb—getting the shell one of the times he came to see Elaine, and picking the lock and so on—just to kill himself. But if he had, we’d never prove it; and anyway, I couldn’t really believe it.

That left Dad. I don’t have to give the case against him, because Sandoz already did; but what about the case for him? He could have picked the lock, sure. The box had been right there in his study for a couple of weeks at least (I couldn’t remember just how long, but it was plenty of time) and so was the shell. Only if it was him it was all over and there was no use thinking about it. And anyway I couldn’t believe that it was. Not just because he was my father and I loved him, but because a bomb at the Fair wouldn’t have been his style. If he’d wanted to mess up Larry and Elaine, he could have done it a dozen ways without doing anything illegal or running any risk. For starters, how about tipping off Molly and filing for divorce, which he could have gotten with no alimony when he showed that Elaine had been unfaithful? He had money and lawyers and a sharp, cool brain. None of that fit with a bomb and risking the chair.

Which left me nothing but dark horses. Maybe, just maybe, Bill would have been able to pick that lock. He’d fixed things around our place and made some minor repairs on the cars. Who could say he might not be good with a lock? He could have been mad at Elaine because of something she said. Or if he knew, he could have wanted her himself and been jealous because Larry’d had her and he’d never get her. And come to think of it, it was damn near certain he had known; servants always know that stuff.

Or what about Aladdin Blue? All along I’d been ruling him out like he was the detective. Outside of a book, you can’t do that. He’d been anxious to find out whether I knew what was in the box, and he’d been nice and far away when the bomb went off. As far as I knew, he’d never been to our house while the box was there; but it wasn’t downright impossible that he’d gotten into it while it was in the window at the First National. I hadn’t heard that anybody’d ever checked into how well they watched it, and one thing for sure is that a bank’s window isn’t the same as a bank vault—maybe you’ve noticed they don’t put money in the window. Or maybe he’d gotten to the box while it was at the Fair; after all, he was there. Nobody had ever proved that the shell that went off at Barton High was the same one that had been on our mantel. Germany must have made a million of those shells. When my father had carried me down the stairs, he’d been pretty careful, and even though Blue was lame he’d gotten ahead of us. My father had said, “To your left,” and Blue had gone into the study before we did. Suppose that instead of finding that dark spot, he’d picked up the shell and hidden it so well that Sandoz hadn’t found it when he searched the room. Then this evening, maybe, when Blue had gone in there, he’d fished it out and taken it away. Two things for sure about Blue: he was an ex-con, and he was slick enough to slide up a flagpole.

Probably everybody’s done it. You go to sleep all in a dither, and you wake up knowing just what you ought to do. That was how it was with me. I don’t mean I knew who done it, though if I’d had to vote right then I think I would have said Bill for Larry and some mugger for Uncle Herbert; but I knew what I personally, Holly Hollander, was going to do that very morning to try to get things squared away. I got up and got dressed, putting on the same clothes I’d worn the day before. It was before seven, and I figured that if I got going right away Mrs. Maas wouldn’t be around yet. I scribbled a note for her: “Important Stuff. Back Soon. Thanks! Holly,” and left it on the kitchen table. She kept the keys in the Ford in case the Caddy was laid up or off somewhere and Elaine needed it.

Let me come clean right here, so you don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t enjoy driving, and I’m not a very good driver. In fact, I nearly flunked driver’s ed, and that’s right next door to impossible. What’s more, I was driving with the wrong leg, if you know what I mean. My good one wasn’t used to the accelerator or the brake, and my bad one couldn’t help. What was worse, I got to thinking that Blue must have gone through the same thing, learning over again after they’d shot him, and I almost put the Ford in the ditch. When I got it stopped and backed up onto the road, I sat there and shook for five minutes or so, and swore to myself that after that I’d keep my mind on my driving.

Only I couldn’t, because I kept trying to figure out what I ought to do, and then what I ought to do if so-and-so happened, and then what I ought to do after that. And besides, I had to remember how to get to Blue’s place, and trying to find it I got lost a couple of times, so it must have been after eight when I finally got there.

Even so, I’d been wondering if he’d be up yet; but when I pulled up in front of the house I got the surprise of my life—one of them, anyhow. Parked alongside Blue’s rusty old Rumbler was a Chevy that was almost as old and almost as rusty, and it was a car I knew as well as ours: Uncle Dee’s.

He came out the front door while I was still trying to make it up the steps, and I suppose he must have been just about as surprised to see me as I’d been to see his car; but he gave me a hand and one of his thousand-watt smiles and told me how good I looked and how he would have come to see me if he’d known I was out of the hospital. I shouldn’t have broken down, I guess, but I did. I told him he’d have to be quick because I didn’t know how much longer we’d be in our house. Then I started in on how they’d arrested my father, and before I knew what had happened I was bawling like two soap operas. Tick and Muddy came out then; Tick beat it back into the house, but Muddy stayed with me even after Uncle Dee had loaned me his handkerchief, whispered, “Now, now, Holly, I know all about it; believe me, Harry’s going to be all right,” and kissed me on the cheek and driven away. He left me his hanky, and I was glad, because I didn’t have one and Muddy didn’t look like he’d have a clean one.

“I’ve got to see Mr. Blue,” I said.

“Sure, sure,” Muddy told me, and led me inside.

Blue was in the kitchen with a mug of coffee and a bowl of some kind of breakfast cereal in front of him. There wasn’t any milk on it, it was just the dry flakes, and it didn’t look to me like he’d eaten any of it. There was another chair pulled up to the table, too, with a half-full coffee mug in front of it that must have been Uncle Dee’s.

“I’m sorry,” I said; I was still wiping my eyes.

Blue’s head jerked, and he said, “Oh, Holly. What are you doing here?”

Muddy said, “He doesn’t hear a thing when he’s thinkin’. The stove could blow up.” Then to Blue: “She was out in front cryin’, Al. Me and Tick went out and got her.”

Blue nodded as if that was just what he’d figured. “Sit down. How about some fresh coffee?”

I said thanks.

“Have you had breakfast, Holly? Muddy bought a few things yesterday. You can have this, if you want it. Muddy, did you get any cream?”

“Not unless you want some, too, Al.”

Blue shook his head. “Oh, for God’s sake!”

“He don’t eat.” Muddy was out for my support. “He wants to keep weight off his leg, but he’s gonna kill himself.” It can’t have been easy for a guy not much older than me, sporting a scuzzy beard, to look righteous; but Muddy could have been a bishop.