“None of that strikes you as newsworthy?”
“It’s fairly common knowledge,” Terrell said. He got to his feet. “But we’ve made a deal. If this girl comes up with evidence, I’ll be surprised. But I’ll be glad to use it. And here’s a bit of free advice. Watch out for booby traps.”
“We can manage, thanks.”
Terrell hesitated at the door. Something was puzzling him; this inept and rather pompous little man, the girls outside, the revival meeting atmosphere — it bothered him. He said bluntly to Sarnac, “What are you going to get out of this?”
“I want to live in a clean city,” Sarnac said. “To put it negatively, I don’t want to live under an Ike Cellars — Mayor Shaw Ticknor axis, with the moral deterioration they’ve brought to our community. I don’t want my children to grow up as cynics, sneering at conventional virtues and tolerating the fact that honesty and hard work mean nothing at all in the management of our public affairs.”
“You won’t start any arguments with those ideas,” Terrell said. “I imagine you’re all for displaying the flag on the Fourth of July and keeping marijuana out of the public schools.” Sarnac didn’t answer Terrell immediately. He studied him for a few seconds, a thoughtful little frown on his face. Finally he said, “Yes, I suppose I’m a figure of fun to you. But let me tell you something. I’ve been a professor of history for eighteen years, and I know a little of what happens to societies which come to regard decadence as just a good joke. I spent eighteen years explaining to generally uninterested young women what went wrong with Rome and Athens, how they lost the big things that made their societies not just beautiful but good. Well, I got tired of talking about the evil that flourished a couple of thousand years ago in Athens and Rome. We’ve got the same problems here, now. I didn’t wake up until I heard Caldwell giving chapter and verse on the thugs running this city. That night I applied for leave, and told my wife the trip to Europe we’d planned for a dozen years was off indefinitely.” Sarnac took out cigarettes but his fingers were trembling so badly that he couldn’t manage to strike a match. “I’m sorry for lecturing you,” he said. “It’s a bad habit of mine.”
“Maybe so,” Terrell said. He snapped his lighter and held the flame to Sarnac’s cigarette. “Maybe not.”
2
In the hotel lobby Terrell looked up Eden Myles’ address in the telephone directory: Apartment 9, Gray Gates Development. He went out into the cold, honey-colored sunlight, and waved to a cab.
The Gray Gates Development was new and elegant and expensive; ten minutes from center-city, its leaded windows and Tudor gables faced a shining loop of the Elmtree River and a range of low hills that rolled like big, soft animals along the horizon. The main building was set reverently in the middle of a dozen wooded acres, and looked more like an English country house than a functional beehive equipped with television sets, garbage disposal units, and a corps of smartly uniformed elevator operators and maintenance men. The wings of the main building bounded a common green lawn, laced with gravelled walks and beyond this was a swimming pool, tennis courts and sun decks. There was little you couldn’t buy at Gray Gates, Terrell knew. Masseurs and masseuses, therapeutic baths and pine-scented steam rooms, a choice of intimate and excellent bars and lounges — and most importantly, Terrell thought as he entered the lobby, a warm and quilted sense of privacy. Gamblers kept apartments here for big poker games, and businessmen checked in occasionally for discreet drinking bouts. More was kept here than apartments, of course; girls with mink stoles and toy poodles were fauna native to Gray Gates.
Terrell rapped on Eden Myles’ door and a girl’s voice said, “Just a second, I’m almost decent.”
“Don’t fuss on my account.” Terrell lit a cigarette and dropped the match in a sand-filled vase beside the elevator. A few seconds later the door was opened by a blond girl wearing brief white summer shorts and a man-styled yellow shirt. She smiled up at him while she knotted it snugly about her waist.
“You want Eden, I imagine. My name is Connie Blacker and I just checked in last night.” She was beautifully tanned, and her hair was bleached lightly from the sun. She wore it short and it fitted her head like a jagged little cap. Without make-up her face had the deceptively innocent appeal of a very small boy’s.
“And when will Eden be back?” Terrell asked her.
“I don’t know. She left while I was still in bed.” The girl hesitated, smiling doubtfully at him. “Should I ask you to come in?”
“Well, it would be a nice gesture.”
“She didn’t leave me any guest list. Are you friends?”
“Yes, but we’ve kept it quiet for the sake of the children.” He smiled. “My name’s Terrell, Sam Terrell. I work for a newspaper in town.”
“You know, you look like a reporter. Most newspapermen I’ve met could pass for cops. But you’ve got a — I don’t know — a kind of interesting, unhealthy look.”
“I’ve always hoped someone would notice that,” Terrell said, walking with her into the living room. The view from there was dramatic; through the big picture window he could see bleak maple trees, then stands of evergreen, and behind them the dark, tolling foothills. Gray Gates faced away from the city, turning its back to work and noise and dirt. The furniture in the long room blazed with color, yellow, magentas, smart tones of brown and green.
“Would you like coffee?” she asked him. “It’s fresh.”
“Thanks.”
“Could we have it in the kitchen? Then I can go on with my ironing. I just got off the bus last night and everything I own needs my tender loving care.”
“I like kitchens, as a matter of fact. It’s where my family spent half its time. Ate there except Sundays, drank beer there on Saturday nights.”
He followed her down a hallway to the kitchen, and took a seat at a counter that ran out flush from the range and broiler unit. Everything in sight was automatic, self-operating, studded with rheostats, gauges and clocks. To his inexperienced eyes it looked very formidable.
“Ours wasn’t much like this,” he said. “We had a wood stove and a pump.”
“Ah, a farm boy.”
“That’s right. Iowa. Corn farm.”
She smiled at him. “Are you serious? I’m from Davenport.”
“The big city, eh? Is that where you met Eden?”
“Uh-huh.” She put a cup of coffee beside him on the counter, and bowls of cream and sugar. “I won a band audition in my first year at college, and that was good for a month’s work at a local club. Eden was working there, too. She was wonderful to me, and told me to keep in touch. So I did. Eden kept insisting I should go back to college, but—” She moved to a narrow aluminum ironing board and picked up a blouse from a little pile of rolled-up garments. “Well, so here I am. Hanging onto Eden’s apron strings. She thinks I might get a job at The Mansions.”
“Singing?”
“Well, yes. I’m not awfully good, but I stay on key. And older men like me. That’s important, I think.”
“Yes, indeed,” Terrell said, nodding soberly. She was busy with her ironing, and he realized that he had never seen a pair of more beautiful legs. Even in loafers they looked wonderful; slim and smooth and brown, with light muscles that played gracefully when she lifted her feet.
“Do you know Mr. Cellars?” she said.
“Ike Cellars? Just slightly.”
She turned and looked at him. “Why do you say it like that?”
“My voice quivered with respect. That’s all. Have you met him?”
“No, but Eden says she’ll arrange it.”
Terrell’s intuitions began to work. “Have you met Frankie?” he asked casually.