"And what would be the point of that?"
"Isn't he by way of being an expert in… in this sort of thing?"
"What is 'this sort of thing'?"
Pushed, Jaffrey did not back down. "Maybe just what's mysterious. I think he could-well, I think he could help us." Sears was looking impatient, but the doctor did not let him interrupt. "I think we need help. Or am I the only man here who has trouble getting a decent night's sleep? Am I the only one who has nightmares every night?" He scanned them all with his sunken face. "Ricky? You're an honest man."
"You're not the only one, John," Ricky said.
"No, I suppose not," said Sears, and Ricky looked at him in surprise. Sears had never indicated before that he too might have awful nights-certainly it never showed on that big smooth reflective face. "You have his book in mind, I imagine."
"Well, yes, of course. He must have done research- he must have had some experience."
"I thought his experience was of mental instability."
"Like us," Jaffrey said bravely. "Edward must have had some reason for willing his nephew his house. I think it was that he wanted Donald to come here, if anything should happen to him. I think he knew that something would happen. And I'll tell you what else I think. I think we ought to tell him about Eva Galli."
"Tell him an inconclusive story fifty years old? Ridiculous."
"The reason it's not ridiculous is that it is inconclusive," the doctor said.
Ricky saw that Lewis was as surprised, even shaken, as he that Jaffrey had brought up the story of Eva Galli. That episode lay, as Sears had said, fifty years in their past; none of them had mentioned it since.
"Do you think you know what happened to her?" the doctor challenged.
"Hey, come on," Lewis put in. "Do we really need that? What the hell is the point?"
"The point is trying to find out what really happened to Edward. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear."
Sears nodded, and Ricky thought he could detect in his longtime partner's face a sign of-what? Relief? Of course he would not admit to it; but that it could be seen at all was a revelation to Ricky. "I'm in a little doubt about the reasoning," Sears said, "but if it would make you happy I suppose we could write to Edward's nephew. We have his address in our files, don't we, Ricky?" Hawthorne nodded. "But to be democratic, I'd like to put it to a vote first. Shall we just verbally agree or disagree and vote like that? What do you say?" He sipped from his glass and looked them over. They all agreed. "We'll start with you, John."
"Of course I say yes. Send for him."
"Lewis?"
Lewis shrugged. "I don't care one way or the other. Send for him if you want."
"That's a yes?"
"Okay, it's a yes. But I say don't drag up the Eva Galli business."
"Ricky?"
Ricky looked at his partner and saw that Sears knew how he was going to vote. "No. Definitely no. I think it's a mistake."
"You'd rather have us go on as we have been going on for a year?"
"Change is always change for the worse."
Sears was amused. "Spoken like a true lawyer, though I think the sentiment ill becomes a former member of YPSL. But I say yes, and that makes it three to one. It's carried. We'll write to him. Since mine was the deciding vote, I'll handle it."
"I've just thought of something," Ricky said. "It's been a year now. Suppose he wants to sell the house? It's been sitting empty since Edward died."
"Faw. You're inventing problems. We'll get him here faster if he wants to sell."
"How can you be sure things won't get worse? Can you be sure?" Sitting as he had at least once a month for more than twenty years in a coveted chair in the best room he knew, Ricky fervently wished that nothing would change-that they would be allowed to continue, and that they would simply tease out their anxieties in bad dreams and stories. Looking at them all in the lowered light as a cold wind battered the trees outside Sears's windows, he wished for nothing more than that: to continue. They were his friends, he was in a way as married to them as a moment ago he had considered he was to Sears, and he gradually became aware that he feared for them. They seemed so terribly vulnerable, sitting there and regarding him quizzically, as if each of the others imagined that nothing could be worse than a few bad dreams and a bi-weekly spook story. They believed in the efficacy of knowledge. But he saw a plane of darkness, cast by a lampshade, cross John Jaffrey's forehead and thought: John is dying already. There is a kind of knowledge they have never confronted, despite the stories they tell; and when that thought came into his well-groomed little head, it was as though whatever was implied in the knowledge he meant was out there somewhere, out in the first signs of winter, out there and gaining on them.
Sears said, "We've decided, Ricky. It's for the best. We can't just stew in our own juices. Now." He looked around the circle they made, metaphorically rubbing his hands, and said, "Now that's settled, who, as Lewis put it, is on the griddle tonight?"
Within Ricky Hawthorne the past suddenly shifted and delivered a moment so fresh and complete that he knew he had his story, although he'd had nothing planned and had thought he would have to pass; but eighteen hours from the year 1945 shone clearly in his mind, and he said, "Well, I guess it's me."
2
After the other two had left, Ricky stayed behind, telling them that he was in no hurry to get out into that cold. Lewis had said, "It'll put blood in your cheeks, Ricky," but Dr. Jaffrey had merely nodded-it really was unseasonably cold for October, cold enough for snow. Sitting alone in the library while Sears went off to freshen up their drinks, Ricky could hear the ignition of Lewis's car grinding away in the street. Lewis had a Morgan which he'd imported from England five years before, and it was the only sports car Ricky had really liked the looks of. But the canvas top wouldn't be much protection on a night like this; and Lewis seemed to be having a lot of trouble getting the car to start. There. He'd nearly got it. In these New York winters, you really needed something bigger than Lewis's little Morgan. Poor John would be frozen by the time Lewis got him home to Milly Sheehan and the big house on Montgomery Street, around the corner and seven blocks up. Milly'd be sitting in the semi-dark of the doctor's waiting rooms, keeping herself awake so that she could jump up as soon as she heard his key in the door, help him off with his coat and pour a little hot chocolate into him. As Ricky sat listening, the Morgan's engine coughed into life-he heard them drive away and pictured Lewis clapping a hat on his head, grinning at John and saying, "Didn't I tell you this little beauty would perform?" After he'd dropped John off, he'd leave town altogether, zipping along Route 17 until he was out in the woods, and go back to the place he'd bought when he had returned. Whatever else Lewis had done in Spain, he had earned a lot of money.
Ricky's own home was literally just around the corner, not a five-minute walk away; in the old days he and Sears had walked to their office in town every day. In warm weather they sometimes still did: "Mutt and Jeff," as Stella said. This was directed more at Sears than himself-Stella had never actually liked Sears. Of course she had never let this submerged dislike interfere with her attempts to dominate him a little. There was no question that Stella would be waiting up with hot chocolate: she'd have gone to sleep hours ago, leaving only a hall light burning upstairs. It was Stella's conviction that if he was going to indulge himself at his friends' houses and leave her behind, he could knock around in the dark when he got home, bumping his knees on the glass and chrome modern furniture she had made him buy.