Quite a woman, Cybil Wade. She had my admiration and gratitude, not only for her accomplishments but for producing her one and only offspring. Kerry was her mother’s daughter, thank Christ. If there’d been more than a hint of Ivan the Terrible in her makeup, I might’ve had second thoughts about marrying her.
I revised that thought a little when we reached Cybil’s cottage: there was some of her father’s contentiousness in Kerry after all. When Cybil opened the door she may have been surprised to see Emily, but she wasn’t surprised to see me. There isn’t much guile in her; she doesn’t try to hide her feelings. One look into those tawny eyes of hers-beautiful eyes; Dancer’s “Sweeteyes” tag was right on-and I knew Kerry had called her today after all.
Cybil fussed over Emily for a time; the two of them got along famously. Then she gave the kid a Coke and shooed her out to do her homework on the back patio, out of earshot. I got a bottle of beer, a seat on the couch, and a long somber look from Max Ruffe’s creator.
“I know why you’re here,” she said.
“I figured. Kerry called you, even though I asked her not to.”
“Don’t be angry with her. She felt I’d want to know as soon as possible and she was right.”
Sometimes I get the feeling there is a secret network of communication, understanding, and perspective among women that not only excludes men but that men wouldn’t quite fathom even if they were privy to it. Situations like this make me sure of it. But I went ahead and beat my head against it anyway.
“Why?” I asked her. “You wouldn’t have wanted to see him in the hospital, would you?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“I knew the man for more than fifty years.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“What time did he die?” she asked.
“… What time? Does it matter?”
“I’d like to know.”
“One fifty-seven this afternoon.”
She repeated it. Then, “What did he say about me when you saw him?”
“He said he’d read Dead Eye and it was damn good, you could still write rings around him.”
“What else?”
“Remember D-Day.”
No response; deadpan expression. Kerry told her about that, too, I thought.
“Amazing grace.”
And about that. Same deadpan nonresponse.
“He said you’d understand. Do you?”
“If I do, it’s private.”
“Sure. But you can’t blame Kerry and me for wondering. You didn’t tell her what happened on D-Day either, I take it.”
“Nothing happened on D-Day that involved Russ Dancer. I have no idea where he was that day. I happen to have been in Washington visiting my husband.”
“Okay. What about amazing grace? That ring any bells?”
“If that’s a pun, it’s in poor taste.”
“Come on, Cybil, you’re being evasive. Secrets?”
She ignored the question. “You did bring the envelope?”
It was in my briefcase; I hauled it out, handed it over. She held it for a few seconds, moving it up and down slightly as if she were estimating its weight. Then she put it down on the glass-topped table in front of her.
“Manuscript of some kind,” I said.
Sharp look. “You didn’t open the envelope?”
“You know me better than that. Besides, you can see that it’s still sealed.”
“… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… oh, shit, I hate this!”
Cybil almost never cusses. She didn’t even seem to realize she’d used a four-letter word. Which showed how upset she was under the calm facade she had on.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Talk about what? I’m not going to open the envelope in front of you, if that’s what you’re angling for.”
“It’s not.”
“I may not even tell you later what’s in it. You or Kerry.”
“Your prerogative,” I said. “Look, Cybil, I’m only trying to be helpful here, lend a sympathetic ear.”
“There’s no need for it. You think I’m mourning Russ Dancer?”
“I don’t think anything.”
“Well, I’m not,” she said. “I despised the man.”
“He loved you.”
“Damn his brand of love! I’m not sorry he’s dead, I wish our paths had never crossed. He left me in peace the past twenty years, why couldn’t he keep on that way instead of trying to come at me from the grave?”
“Come at you? How?”
She shook her head almost violently. The outburst had put flame in her thin cheeks, like a boozer’s flush. It made me remember that Cybil had been a hard drinker back in the forties, and that she’d taken at least one walk on the wild side with another member of the Pulpeteers-facts that were hard for me to imagine because of her grace and wholesome qualities. Her and Dancer, too? No, that couldn’t be what this was all about. The idea of her taking him up on one of his crude advances, drunk or sober, was ludicrous.
I watched the flush fade as she tightened the reins on her emotions. Pretty soon she said, “Finish your beer. It’s time you took Emily home and gave the child her dinner. She doesn’t eat enough as it is, she’s too thin.”
Emily’s appetite was fine; so was her weight. But I didn’t argue. Cybil had had enough of us. She wanted to be alone with that envelope and whatever was in it-alone with whatever private little demons Dancer’s life and Dancer’s death had stirred up inside her.
Kerry was home when Emily and I came in. The first thing he said when we were alone was, “I’m not going to apologize for calling her.”
“I didn’t ask you to. I don’t want to fight about this anymore.”
“Good. Neither do I.”
“I’d just like to know what’s going on here. What’s got Cybil so riled up.”
“She’ll tell us if she wants us to know.”
“Don’t you want to know? Or maybe you already know, or at least have some idea.”
“I don’t,” she said grimly, “I don’t have a clue.”
And that worried me, too. Cybil almost never cussed and Kerry almost never lied, and now both of them were acting out of character. Kerry knew or suspected, all right. And it must be pretty disturbing for her to hide it behind a flat-out lie.
11
JAKE RUNYON
He hated hospitals.
Six months of them while Colleen was dying, the last six months of her life. Short stays for tests and radiation treatments, longer stays when the cancer worsened, then that last terrible month when they both knew there was no more hope and she kept growing weaker and weaker, becoming a small wasted pitiful thing lying there among all that antiseptic white and gleaming metal. The medicine smells, sick smells, death smells. The pain, the rage he’d felt. The fight to keep a smile on his face and his voice upbeat, and the constant fear that he wouldn’t be able to get through another visit, that he’d break down right there in front of her. At least she hadn’t died in that place. The last few days at home, with him and a hospice nurse at her bedside, had been bad enough. In the hospital, the waiting and the slow slipping away would have been unbearable. He’d’ve broken down for sure.
As soon as he walked into San Francisco General, the sights and smells brought the hate spiraling up into his throat. Irrational, almost pathological-so be it. Before he’d let anybody shut him up in a place like this, stick tubes and needles in him, hook him up to machines, he’d do what he’d thought about doing in those first couple of days after Colleen was gone. He’d put the muzzle of his. 357 Magnum between his teeth and this time there’d be no sweating hesitation, no waffling; this time he’d eat it.