“They shaved the top of my head. It’s hideous. They let me look with a hand mirror when they changed the dressing. I look like one of those monastery types. You’re looking at me funny.”
“I’m making up for all the time of having you around and not looking at you.”
“What’s the verdict?”
“You are lovely, Joan Perrit. You have good bones.”
“Thick ones, apparently.”
“Mind if I keep staring?”
“If you keep staring in just that way, I’m going to clutch at you. That’s bad technique. I’m supposed to be shy and girlish and reserved. Mother said never clutch. It makes men nervous.”
“Make me nervous.”
It was a fine Saturday and a fine Sunday. We spent every possible moment together. We had talking to do, but I haven’t the faintest idea of what we talked about. We were memorizing each other. If it happens to somebody else, it is just a standard moon-June case of love. When it happens to you, it changes the world.
It had never been this way before. Not with anybody. She was alive and gay, and there was no question about what we would do with our lives. She was Joan and I wanted her for keeps. I wanted her complete with her sudden fits of shyness, and faint awkwardnesses of posture, and the clean, soft texture of her skin, and the good bones, and the structural miracle of wrist and ankle, and the surprising richness of the curve of her waist. I looked at her body and I wanted it ripe with our child. I had never felt that way before. I told her about that and she said it was a good thing. She said it could probably be arranged, that she’d seen a diagram somewhere about how you went about it. There was a lustiness about her sense of humor that I had never suspected, and it delighted me. She told me gravely that she needed to know nothing about other women in my life, because given the opportunity, she felt confident that she could induce in me considerable amnesia on that point. By the look of her eyes and lips when she said it, I had no doubt it was true. Each moment with her made the narrowness of her escape more terrifying...
The meeting was scheduled for ten o’clock on Monday morning. I was smuggled into the offices ahead of the early birds, and had a long wait in a storeroom full of office supplies. On the way to the offices Tancey told me that LeFay had been picked up in Baltimore and brought back to Arland, and there was no file on him.
At the proper moment one of Tancey’s young men unlocked the door and nodded to me. It was quarter after ten. I followed him to the paneled board room. I felt ridiculous as I walked toward the room, as though I were a female entertainer about to leap up out of a big pasteboard pie.
I erased a wide, idiotic smile from my lips as I walked in. I came very close to yelling. “Surprise!”
At first the room was a smear of smoke and faces. Uncle Al spoiled my electric moment by saying, “Thought you’d forgotten about this, Gevan.”
Tancey was in the room. I looked at Mottling and saw that look of a professional gambler who had learned not to tear up the cards when he loses. There is always another hand coming up. Niki may have gone pallid when she saw me, but I could not be certain. Her eyes were like Mottling’s. Cool, aware, speculative.
Then I saw Lester Fitch. The flesh of his face had sagged loose from the bone. His complexion was yellow. He mumbled something to Karch, the Chairman of the Board, and left the room, wavering so that his shoulder struck against the door-jamb as he left. One of Tancey’s young men followed him.
The proceedings were brief. The books confirmed my holdings and voting privilege. Walter Granby requested permission to speak. He stated that he hoped I would resume active management of the firm, pleading that he could be more valuable if he could continue to devote his entire attention to financial matters. Karch made an objection that seemed too routine. Uncle Al backed Granby’s suggestion. They all stared at me. I cleared my throat and heard myself saying that under the circumstances I would be glad to take over if it could be confirmed by a vote. Granby declined the nomination Karch made. The voting was between me and Mottling. I saw why Niki had wanted me to abstain from voting. One sizeable shareholder had been won over by Mottling, and I saw from the expression on Karch’s face that it was an unpleasant surprise. Had I not voted, Mottling would have been in.
With my block of voting shares, it was no contest. I was in. And I knew I had to show I could handle it, show that previous success had not been a fluke. I saw Tancey watching me with something like amusement in his eyes. There was a polite spatter of applause. I was renamed to the Board. I blocked Lester’s appointment to the Board.
Karch closed the meeting and people moved slowly out of the smoky room into the wide hallway. Niki came up to me in the hall and put her hand in mine and looked into my eyes. “I guess I was a stubborn, officious fool, darling. I should have realized this is where you belong. Where you have always belonged.”
“How do you mean that?”
“I don’t know anything about all this company business. I thought I was doing what Ken wanted. I guess he would have wanted you to come back more than anything. I just didn’t see it that way. I do, now.”
“Thank you, Niki.”
“Come on out to the house about five, will you darling? We’ll have a drink to you. Just the two of us. Please?”
“I’ll let you know.” Stanley Mottling came up to us, smiling.
He congratulated me and then said, “I’ll stick around and help out as long as you need me, Gevan.”
“I appreciate that.”
They both smiled at me. Their smiles were warm. It seemed incredible they were acting a part. They hadn’t given up. They would never give up. Blocked in one direction, they were instinctively seeking another.
My arrival was bad news, but Dolson was gone and LeFay was gone, and they were safe. They could concentrate on taking over Gevan Dean. The woman could marry him. Mottling could stick close to him at the plant. Maybe it could be managed just as well this way. I returned their smiles. I wanted to tell Mottling to be out of the plant in ten minutes, but I didn’t know how Tancey wanted me to handle it. I thanked them for their good wishes and watched them walk down the corridor together, and I heard Niki’s warm, calm laugh.
I found out which office was Lester’s. I went there and opened the door and walked in without knocking. It was an intrusion. Lester sat behind his desk. Tancey and the young man who had followed Lester Fitch flanked him, facing him. Tancey gave me an annoyed glance.
Lester said dully, “I tell you I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His face was still yellow.
“Mr. Fitch,” Tancey said calmly, “You’re being stupid. Sit down, Mr. Dean, and listen to this.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I felt sick and I had to leave. Something I ate, I think.”
“Who told you Mr. Dean was dead?”
“His wife called me right after he was shot.”
“Not that Mr. Dean. This one.”
“I didn’t think Gevan was dead. I don’t know what you mean.”
“If I ever saw a man seeing a ghost, it was you, Fitch. We’ve got your playmate, LeFay. He’s told us how it was worked, with you and Dolson. We can prove every bit of it. You’re a lawyer. You must know criminal law. This isn’t a case of nailing you for getting your hands on government money. I want you for murder, too. For being an accessory in the murder of the Brady girl.”
“But I didn’t even know they were going to—” He stopped abruptly.
“How did you get in with Dolson?”
“I found out how he was doing it. Nobody else knew. He had to let me in. I set Acme up on a better basis than they had it. Safer.”
“Who told you Gevan Dean was dead? Was it Mottling?”
His eyes went wide. His shock was evident. “Mottling! He hasn’t got anything to do with—” I saw the shock fade and his eyes get wary as he began to figure out some of the things that had evidently bothered him because they hadn’t added up.