William Kienzle - Deadline for a Critic

“You didn’t tell your folks what happened?”

“I didn’t want to trouble them. Especially I didn’t want to dump a problem on them when I didn’t even know what had caused it, let alone how to handle it.”

“Then . . .?”

“My mother, of course, figured that something was wrong. What’s more, even without my telling her, she more or less guessed what had happened. Finally, we talked. When I got to the part where Ridley Groendal had pretty well killed my career with his offstage power brokering and then delivered the coup de grace with that review, Mom nodded.

“Then she told me the story. It was such a shock . . . I’ll never forget her words.”

“We never talked about this, Val. Maybe we should have. I never lied to you. I just never told you everything.”

“Mother?”

“You had a brother once.”

“What?”

“Before I met your father.”

“Before—”

“Wait, Val; let me finish. I was your age, only I didn’t know what you know. I had a crush on a young man. On our first and only date we had too much to drink and got carried away.”

“You mean that was it? One time and you were pregnant?”

Jane nodded. “I told you I didn’t know then what you do now. Even if I had, I had no intention of even necking or petting, let alone actual intercourse. But, it happened, and I was pregnant.”

“What happened to the guy? He didn’t marry you?”

Jane shook her head. “It gets complicated. But, to make a long story short, he left town.”

“Left town! And left you with a baby? But what became of him? What happened to my brother . . . my half-brother?”

“He . . . he had Down’s Syndrome.”

Valerie gasped.

“The dearest, sweetest child you’d ever want to know,” her mother continued. “I was with him as much as I possibly could be. But you know about kids with Down’s. Frequently, they don’t have a normal life span. Your brother, Billy, died when he was ten. It was about four years before I met and married your father, about five years before you were born.”

“A brother! Billy! Retarded! I wish I could have known him. I wish I could have taken care of him. I wish . . . but . . . why are you telling me this now?”

“Because . . . because of what happened to you in New York. And because you want a career in the theater.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“The father of your half-brother has everything to do with it. His name is Ridley Groendal.”

“Ridley Groendal? Ridley Groendal! It’s almost impossible to imagine. Besides, he’s gay, isn’t he? How—?”

“For a few moments, a long time ago, aided by some whisky, he wasn’t gay. And those few moments changed my whole life. And, I suppose, to be perfectly fair, they changed his life too.”

It was clear Valerie was stunned. “Groendal and you! I can’t believe it! The father of my half-brother . . . God!

“But what’s this got to do with me? It all happened long before I was born. Why would he sabotage my career? I never had anything to do with him. I don’t even know him. So, again: What’s this got to do with me?”

“It’s hard to say, baby. It’s a feeling. A feeling I’ve had all along. That he was out to get me. It’s like a scale that was left unbalanced.”

“But why? God knows you’ve had a tough enough life.”

“I know. I know. But he hasn’t done anything to me personally. I feel as if he thinks I made him leave home and that he deserves some sort of revenge for that. But he’s never gotten it. He couldn’t, I guess. For most of the time, I was so low he couldn’t kick me. But he still ‘owes’ me. That I feel. And if he can’t reach me directly, I feel he’ll try to get at me through someone I love—you.”

“Mom!”

“This is all hindsight, baby. It never entered my head for a moment that he would take it out on you. That’s one reason I never told you. But now . . . well, it seems that’s the only explanation for what he’s done.”

Val clenched her jaw. “Mom, I’m going to get the bastard for you. I swear it.”

Jane shook her head. “Val, don’t lower yourself to his level. Just take special care of yourself. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”

“Don’t worry about me, Mom. Thanks for telling me all this. It couldn’t have been easy for you. But . . . does he know about all this—about Billy?”

“I don’t know. I only saw him once after . . . that night. He didn’t seem to believe the baby I was carrying was his. Maybe he never knew about Billy. Or, if he did, he still probably wouldn’t have admitted his responsibility.”

“Then that’s my ace in the hole. I may never have to play it. I hope I don’t. But one thing: Whatever it takes, I’ll get the bastard for you. I really will.”

Again, Valerie seemed to be lost in a private fantasy.

It was as if someone had added color to a black-and-white photo, clarifying it. Koesler had lived through the original events of Valerie’s story with the principals. He’d been there when Jane and Ridley met. Later, he had felt constrained to listen to Ridley recount the details of his sexual encounter with Jane. Subsequently, Koesler had witnessed the aftermath of Ridley’s breakdown after learning of Jane’s pregnancy. Finally, Koesler had attempted to aid Jane in her struggle to raise a handicapped child.

But Koesler had been unaware of Ridley’s attempt to revenge himself against Jane through Valerie.

The priest thought of all this for a few moments before nudging Valerie on. “And then . . .?”

“And then I returned to New York, did some more modeling. Even the modeling began to suffer. It may surprise you, Father, but you can’t have a blank mind while you’re modeling. It takes a lot of concentration.”

“I never thought about that.”

“Well, it does,” she said pointedly. “And I was preoccupied with Ridley Groendal. I had a lot of trouble concentrating on my modeling. I also had a lot of trouble sleeping. It was one thing to say I was going to avenge my mother and myself, and another thing to actually do it.

“A guy like Ridley Groendal leads a pretty insulated life. Physically, it’s hard to get near him. The New York Herald is like an armed camp. You can’t get beyond the lobby without an appointment. And even then, there’s no entry until the person you’re going to see comes and gets you.

“It’s very much the same with Groendal’s apartment building. The security is excellent. And anyway what are you going to do even if you do get next to him?

“The whole thing was very frustrating. And then something else happened.”

“Huh?”

“Red Walsh graduated. He was drafted number one by the Detroit Pistons. It wasn’t the team he wanted. He wanted to go to the Knicks because he thought I was going to stay in New York and he wanted to be close to me.”

She did not state this at all self-consciously, which gave Koesler pause. He concluded she must be a most self-assured young woman.

“And that’s where he came, right after the draft. Then he came after me. Boy, did he ever! He gave the full-court press a new definition. We were together almost all the time. He got to like the theater. And I promised I would get interested in basketball.

“Well, we got engaged. By now I was so happy I had darn near forgotten about Groendal. Then it happened.”

Valerie got up and began to pace. She stopped and hunted through her purse until she found some cigarettes. She lit one. “Excuse me, Father. I rarely smoke, but I’m kind of nervous.” She looked around for an ashtray; finding none she wondered if this might be a “no-smoking” section of the rectory.

Koesler calmed her fear by finding an ashtray in one of the drawers and placing it on the desk. From her manner, he assumed she was nearing the heart of her story—the reason she had come to see him in the first place. “What happened?”