“Reynolds did it,” Guild said. “The man you hired to rob you. He wasn’t much of a shot, Stoddard. Maybe you should have thought of that beforehand.” He thought of what he’d found in Reynolds’s pocket, the office key and a layout of the building. Only Stoddard could have given it to him. He smacked the key on the table.
Stoddard broke then.
He stood swaying miserably above his son, crystal tears on his jowly face. The sounds he made were intolerable for Guild to hear. Guild had sounded not unlike this one night shortly after the little girl’s death.
Guild took Dr. Fitzgerald’s arm and led him out to the hallway, where Reynolds was being wrapped in a blanket.
“What the hell’s going on in there?” Dr. Fitzgerald demanded.
Guild shook his head. “He played it a litde too cute, and it didn’t work.” He thought of Stephen. He slammed a fist into the wall.
“That’s a good way to break some knuckles,” Dr. Fitzgerald said.
But right now Guild didn’t give a damn. He didn’t give a damn at all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sportswriters would later say that it was round twelve that proved decisive.
Rooney could scarcely believe what was happening. He started landing vicious body blows at will and then spent the second half of the round concentrating on Victor Sovich’s face, opening up a wide cut above the right eye and even cutting him on the chin.
Sovich, so long accustomed to winning, began using almost pathetic defenses, limply putting his hands up in front of his face, only to have them smashed away by Rooney’s blows.
For the second time in the fight, Sovich fell down. This time it was on both knees, not just one, and this time it was Sovich who had some difficulty getting back up. He knelt there, his wide white body sleek with sweat, one glove placed on the lowest rope as he struggled to regain his footing.
Fortunately for Sovich, the bell rang. His corner people rushed in and dragged him back to the comer.
* * *
“I didn’t mean for it to happen this way,” Stoddard said as they walked back into the office.
“Why the hell’d you have me come in here, anyway?”
“Because I want you to believe me.”
“You want me to forgive you, Stoddard, and I can’t do it. You set up the robbery so you could pretend to Victor that somebody else took his money. Only it didn’t turn out so good.”
Stoddard took some whiskey, stared down at the dead face of his son. “I treated him like hell, didn’t I?”
“You know the answer to that.”
Stoddard started sobbing. He put his face in his hands and wept.
Guild stood up and walked around. His boots were heavy on the floor. He went over, exasperated, and sat on the edge of the desk, where all the money was, and had a cigarette. He looked at the money and hated it as if it were a living thing. Then Guild remembered the letter.
He said, “He found your wife.”
“What?”
“Awhile back he hired an ex-Pinkerton to look up your wife.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Here.” Guild tossed him the envelope. “Stephen never opened it.”
“Why not?”
“He said he was afraid to.”
“He went to all that trouble, and he was afraid?” Stoddard’s voice had started to rise in anger, the way it always did when Stephen had displeased his father. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken that tone.”
“It’s the tone you always took with him.”
“You want to hit me, don’t you, Guild?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Hitting you would be easy. You’re going to have to live the rest of your life with how you treated him. That’s going to be the hard part.”
Something resembling a sob came from Stoddard. He lifted the flask and had another drink. “I wasn’t always terrible to him.”
“I know.”
“I loved him.”
“That’s the hell of it.”
“What is?”
“I really think you did. And you still treated him the way you did.”
“It wasn’t easy for me.”
“I don’t suppose it was.”
“He never got over his mother leaving us, and I had to be both parents to him. Or try to be.”
“Don’t start feeling sorry for yourself, Stoddard. He’s the one who died, not you.”
Stoddard glanced up. “You going to tell Victor?”
“Right now I don’t give a damn about Victor. I want you to give me my money, and I want to get out of here.”
Stoddard brought his fist down on the desk. “I’m giving the orders around here.”
“I want my money or I’ll go and tell Victor myself what happened here.”
Guild walked over and snapped his fingers and put his hand out.
“I want my money right now.”
But for the first time Stoddard was looking at the envelope on his lap.
Even before he opened the envelope, Stoddard was crying. Guild wasn’t sure why, exactly. He just supposed Stoddard was a little bit insane now. Guild would have been.
Guild walked over to the desk with the money and started counting greenbacks. When he’d counted out his fee, he rolled the bills up and put them in his pocket.
Stoddard paid no attention.
He just kept reading the letter. He rocked back and forth and sobbed. Guild had seen Indian women mourn this way. It was not becoming to see it in a man.
Finished with the letter, Stoddard dropped it to the floor. He put his face in his hands and began his slow rocking again. He cried so violently Guild expected him to vomit.
Guild went over and picked up the letter from the floor and started reading it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Clarise sat in her hotel room, watching the street below for sight of the wagon that would take her to the train depot. She kept looking at the clock on the mahogany bureau. It was nearly five-thirty. The train left at six-thirty. She wanted to be certain not to miss it.
The heat, waning now, had left her feeling unclean. She hated that feeling. She rose and went over to the porcelain pitcher and basin on the bureau. Even warm, the water felt good on her face and hands. She opened her lacy blouse and massaged clean water onto the tops of her breasts. She thought of last night with Leo Guild. She had not liked a man, least of all a white man, in some time. But there was a humility about Guild she liked. That was the only word for it. Humility.
Going to the bed, she sat on the edge of the mattress, the box springs squeaking slightly beneath her weight. She looked at the yellow bowl of red apples against the light blue wall. In the sunlight the bowl and the apples and the wall looked like a painting. She stared at it until the tears came.
There should not be tears now, of course. She had waited so long for this day that she should feel nothing but joy.
The poison she had put in Victor Sovich’s water bottle would be taking effect by now. His punches would be ineffectual. He would die in the ring, just as her brother had died in the ring.
At first Rooney would see this as a day for celebration. A mediocre boxing career would have been turned around. Rooney would have big plans.
The light in the room was the purple of dusk. In the street below was the clatter of buggies and wagons and the faint sound of laughter from the porch where oldsters passed the time by whittling on white wood and lying to each other about the past.
She wished her brother were here with her now. He would be pleased with what she had done.
A knock. “Taxi’s here, miss.”
“Thank you.”
“He says shake a leg.”
“I’ll be right down.”
“They like to have you there early for the train.”
“Right down,” she said again.
The room had enveloped her in melancholy, and she found herself reluctant to leave. The soft song of birds, the gray light in the window, the scent of perfume spilled in her carpetbag. She did not want to leave. If she closed her eyes she could be a little girl again. Her brother would not be dead and Guild-