John MacDonald - Slam the Big Door

Defiance had gone out of her. She sat in a hospital chair and stared with lowered head at the green tile floor.

“Check it out,” he told her. “They talk about a wife or a husband being the last to know. Hell, it’s the parent who is the last to know. I’ve seen them in court. They’re terribly confused. They’re caught up in something they don’t understand. So they say to the judge, but Tommy was always a good boy. Or, Janie was always so sweet and polite to everybody. Debbie Ann doesn’t give a damn if she maneuvers you into starting a grubby mess, demanding your own husband be picked up for rape. All she could think about was getting even with Troy for bashing her. She’s not your sweet little baby, Mary. I’m sorry. She’s a woman, married and divorced, idle, sexy and, I’m afraid, a little vicious. The adoration you’ve been giving her isn’t healthy, for either of you.”

He stopped talking. She was motionless except for fingers that plucked at the seam of her skirt.

“Are you all right?”

She raised her head to look up at him. Her face looked dulled, puffy. The lines that bracketed her mouth looked deeper.

“Aren’t they going to leave me anything ? Anything at all?”

She was so much longer with the girl than he thought she would be that he had begun to feel uneasy. It had gotten so hot in the station wagon that he had walked over to the shade of a big fern palm at the corner of the lot.

When he saw her coming, it was a sight that lifted his heart. She took long strides, her head held high, the sun striking the glossiness of her dark hair and the strong planes of her brown face. She moved with a physical articulation which was, at a distance, a youthfulness which dropped her from forty-two to twenty-five. But there was no sense of letdown when she came closer. When, in a woman, full maturity is combined with character and with pride, it creates a special beauty unattainable by the very young. Her strong chin was high, and there was a look around her mouth of a person who has tasted something slightly spoiled.

It’s pride, he thought. That damn rare wonderful thing. A proud man will keep getting up. Break both his legs and he’ll still give it a try. A proud woman won’t whine. She won’t give you the stifled sob and sheepdog routine. She’ll square her pretty shoulders and stick those knockers out like a bureau drawer and suck in her tummy, and put a little swing in her hips, and spit right square in your eye.

He fell into step beside her. “I’m sorry I took so long,” she said. “I ran into Sam in the elevator. The orthopedic surgeon will operate tomorrow. He’s had a look at the X-rays and he thinks he can reconstitute that cheekbone so her face won’t be lopsided. The concussion was minor. Results of the lab tests are good.”

They got into the car and headed south toward the Key. He sensed she’d report on Debbie Ann when she was damn well ready. And she wasn’t damn well ready until two-thirty that afternoon. He was floating a hundred feet from shore when he saw her standing on the beach in skirt and blouse, shading her eyes. He thrashed in, trying valiantly to look less like a stern-wheeler in reverse, and came up the beach toward her, trying to hold his stomach firmly against his backbone.

“I’ve made all the damn fool phone calls, Mike. I’m going back to the hospital now.”

“I can get ready fast.”

“No. I’ll go in alone.” She smiled in a crooked way. “And finish the job.”

“Finish it?” he asked, and thumped water out of his ear with the heel of his hand.

“I still had little tiny doubts, Mike. I had to be sure. So I used one of — her weapons. The lie. I let her think I’d reported Troy to the police. She was delighted. I sat and led her on. I made her embroider her nasty story. She contradicted herself. I looked concerned until my face felt stiff. Then I fell on her. I told her I hadn’t called, wouldn’t call. I called her a liar. I told her if she wasn’t hurt, I’d thrash her. She got defiant. She said she would tell the police. I told her to go ahead. She could go ahead and I would see that Troy had a trial, and I would make certain that you and I and Shirley and Troy testified against her. I told her that Troy would then have a basis for civil action against her and he could very well take away most of that money she’s so fond of. Then I got very motherly when she started to cry. My heart went out to her — almost. I told her to stop trying to get even with Troy in any way. I told her she had been very bad — that she had done a monstrous thing — and she should concentrate on getting well. I kissed her on the forehead and left. I found the special and told her Debbie Ann might be quite upset for a while. I was so firm with her, Mike. So cool with my baby. And so close to breaking down in front of her. But I couldn’t let that happen. I know I shocked her terribly. She stared at me with that one pathetic eye as if she’d never seen me before.”

“Maybe she never has.”

“If she’s well enough when I go in, she’s going to get some woman talk. Woman-to-woman, not mother-to-daughter.”

“You’re quite a gal, Mary.”

“No, Mike. As long as there are motions I have to go through, I’ll go through them just as thoroughly as I can. I don’t like any part of it. It’s rough to take the veils off your eyes and really look at your own child, and see something that shames you. Can I wish a nasty job on you?”

“Sure.”

“See if you can find Troy. Tell him I’m starting divorce action immediately. Tell him about Debbie Ann and what I would have done if you hadn’t had the good sense to stop me. It might scare him a little. Tell him that Durelda is packing the rest of his things and if he’ll give me an address, I’ll have them trucked to a storage warehouse and send him the receipt. Tell him not to come back here on any pretext whatsoever. And tell him I want his stock in Horseshoe Pass Estates signed over to me immed—”

“I forgot to tell you. He said he was going to do that today. At the lawyer’s office.”

“You can use Debbie Ann’s car.” She looked at her watch. “I’m running behind schedule. I’ll see you back here?”

He watched her walk briskly up the path and across the road, light skirt swinging, red shoes in female cadence.

Efficiency, he said to himself. Pack the stuff. Hire a truck. Get the stock. Pow. The alternative — lie in a darkened room using up a whole box of Kleenex, blaming it all on Everybody Else.

Shelder’s Cottages were locked in the hot doze of siesta. Sun turned the crushed, bleached shell to a blinding white. Mike stood, squinting, in front of the porch door to number Five, trying to peer into the interior of the cottage. The Mercury was gone. He had not seen the Mercury in front of Red’s B-29 Bar. The inner door was open.

“Troy?” he called. “Jerranna?” He banged on the screen door. He had the feeling that someone in one of the cottages across the way was staring at him. He could feel the icy weight of their intentness on the sweaty nape of his neck. He turned and looked behind him. A slat of a Venetian blind fell back into place.

He shrugged and opened the screen door and walked into the cottage. It was almost as hot inside as it was out in the full glare of sunshine. The couch in the small living room had not been made up. Gray sheets were bunched at the foot, a burned hole as big as a saucer visible. The litter was inclusive — cellophane wrap and empty bottles and empty cans and butts stomped into the green grass rug and a random shoe and a black bra and seashell ashtrays, overflowing; and frayed comic books and movie magazines and girlie magazines; and damp towels; and, taped to the wall, over a lamp with a tilting broken shade, a Playgirl of the Month, in full color, her face emptied by a solicitous grimace, her rump glossy, her breasts improbable — pink junket from a jokester’s mold. She looked across the room at him with her color-press eyes, frozen there forever in that meaningless and cynical and never-to-be-fulfilled promise to infinite pimply-faced legions.