She blinked, and her eyes were misty. She swallowed loudly, “I… don’t understand, Tod. Why?”
This was the part he had dreaded. He rubbed his face wearily and sought to organize his words. “Answer me a question first,” he demanded. “Are you still planning the big party?”
She closed her eyes.
Tod sighed again. “I was sure that would be the case. Look… I’m not sure you’ll understand what I’m trying to say. I want to tell you something about yourself You operate from a base of hate. I don’t know when it started, but it had reached its full bloom before you married your husband. You use people as objects of hate. You used me, photographs of me… so you could hurt your husband. You used yourself last week and last night; you humiliated yourself, destroyed your self-respect… not because you wanted to have sex with other men. That, at least would be understandable. No, you fucked them all solely because you needed these people for a party. Is the party going to be held for fun? No. It’s being held to hurt your husband. You’re inviting an all-Black and on the basis of what I saw of them, a fairly decent bunch of Blacks to the party. You’re going to use them as objects of hate. You want your husband to walk in and see a Black man making love to you. That’s your revenge! You’ve used us all… just as though we were expendable pawns. I have no doubt that right now you feel you’re essentially a much nicer person than Sally or Liz or Betty or Sara. I mean, in your mind they’re just a bunch of swappers. And yet, there’s this important difference between them and you; it’s what makes them far, far better human beings than you are. You see… they enjoy what they’re doing; they enjoy swapping… they do it out of hunger and love. And you, Sylvia? You do it from hate, for reasons of your own… you use us all for some stinking, petty, spiteful, little scheme of revenge.” He shook his head sadly. “It’s odd, too. You’re a woman who can give of herself, you have a great deal to give. But I don’t have time or the passive character to wait around until you come to your senses.”
Sylvia stood penitent before him, the tears streaming down her face and splashing on the blue cashmere sweater. His words had seared themselves on her consciousness. He was right; she had destroyed anything that might have been between them. Her stupidity had done it! And the punishment while on the racks of passion last night was only a precursor of the long sad days to come. Tod was a good man. Much too good for her. She wanted to fall on her knees and beg forgiveness, but he had made up his mind… and she knew she cared enough for him that she wouldn’t embarrass him by creating a scene. So when Tod said softly, “Now go take your shower,” she turned blindly and forced herself not to run to the bathroom.
She was on the floor, weeping silently a few minutes later when she heard the door open and close. Tod was gone. He hadn’t even told her good-bye. Only then did she tearfully give voice to her terrible despair.
EPILOGUE
The summer had come, all hot and brassy and then gone away. Fall and winter brought life-giving rains to a parched California and now spring had once again cloaked the brown hills with green. A soft rain was falling as Tod left the company car in care of the Barrister’s parking lot attendant.
He saw Tom Morse wave at him from a back booth and made his way across the room… stopping here and there to say a word or exchange pleasantries with various attorneys.
“Tod,” Tom said warmly, “it’s good to see you again.”
“Good to see you, too, your Honor.” Tod grinned. “Tom, you don’t look a day older than the last time I saw you.”
“Well, now… let’s see. That was over a year ago. No… by George, I shouldn’t look older. After all, I love a good, clean, healthy, wholesome and boring as hell life.” He cleared his throat and inspected the younger man. “You look different, though. You’ve lost weight, look tired.”
Tod shrugged. “I’ve been a little busy.”
Tom grunted, “Yes… I know. I’ve been keeping up with you in the Mercury-News and the Chronicle. Stories there all the time about Shelton and… ah…”
“Shelton and Jackson,” Tod said.
“Ah, yes. Shelton and Jackson. The fastest growing industrial security agency in the U.S., the papers say. Just how many people do you have working for you, anyway?”
“About two hundred and fifty on the industrial side; twenty-five or so on the private investigation section. I don’t have a definite figure, we’re expanding so rapidly.” He took a sip of his martini. “I just this morning signed a contract with the airport authority. That’ll mean another fifty or so patrolmen have to be hired.” He sighed wearily and took a deep drag on his cigarette.
Judge Morse gazed at him from under the thick gray eyebrows. He said casually, “You’ve come a long way… since last year about this time.”
“Yes… I guess it was largely a matter of waking up. I’ve changed. I stopped feeling sorry for myself, Tom. Stopped thinking about what I had become and what I should have been and began concentrating on what I could be… if I concentrated hard enough.” He grinned wryly, “All it took was twenty-four hours of concentration a day, seven days a week.”
Tom asked, playing with a matchstick and not looking at him, “No time out for play? No love life?”
Tod ground his half-finished cigarette out in the ashtray. He shook his head. “No play. No love life. No time… “ As incredible as it sounded, it was the truth. There had been no one, not even for one night or one short assignation in a motel. No one since Sylvia and that weekend in Santa Barbara almost fifteen months ago.
Tom wagged his head in dismay, “I don’t know what the young people are coming to these days.” Then he dropped the bombshell.
“Oh, incidentally, speaking of young people, I hope you don’t mind; I’ve invited Sylvia Akron to join us for lunch.”
Tod glared angrily at him and started to rise from the booth; he was pushed back by Tom’s hand. “Look, Tod,” he said sternly. “I want you to listen to me. Think of me as you did in the old days as a brother or father.” He held up his hand as Tod sought to interrupt. “How long are you going to make her do penance? My God! It’s been fifteen months. I don’t even sentence some gun-waving hoodlums that long.”
“Tom, you don’t know what in hell you’re talking about,” Tod growled unhappily.
“Don’t I? I know more than you give me credit for. I know, in spite of your protestations to the contrary, that you’re in love with her. And she freely admits that her life is nothing, absolutely nothing, meaningless, without you.”
Tod stirred restlessly, and the judge tapped the table with his cigarette case as though he were pounding the gavel in court. “Pay attention. Yes, I know far more than you could suspect. I know all about her infantile plan to get even with Bruce. She told me. Everything! I know the part you played in it, the photographs, the Santa Barbara hotel, the orgy in the Jolly… the Jolly whatever in hell it was. I know what she planned to do in Pebble Beach with the Negro swap club. What you don’t know is that she discarded that plan the instant you told her what she was really doing. I can relate to you word for word… your indictment of her the day you walked out on her. She remembers it. She feels it was justified. You had no way of knowing then that she had already come to the same conclusion about herself as you had. She hated herself She hated what she had done to the relationship between you and her. She recognized instinctively that you and she had had something special which, added together, made you both compatible to each other. You were able to talk to each other as man and woman and that’s something valuable right there. You had other things, individually and collectively. You were good for each other.”