Then I slept. I knew what I was going to do.
In the morning I spent ten minutes finding keys to give her — to the back door and to the apartment — and putting the keys on a ring. Then I went downstairs and stood under the marquee, feeling like a fool, sure that she wouldn’t come.
A bright-green Cadillac turned the corner and came to a stop beside me, and then she was leaning over, unlocking the door so I could get in. She played it straight, saying “Good morning” and commenting on a “beautiful day.” I played it the same way, making a point of the car and how nice-looking it was. She said: “It’s just a car my husband runs around in.” And that seemed to exhaust the subject.
We had gone through the tunnel under Baltimore Harbor before she brought up the call, and when she did, she made it quick: “I simply couldn’t say that I had changed my mind. It would have sounded so phoney. I said that you had hinted that you had some idea — an inspiration, you called it, that you would tell him and, of course, me — which would make me change my mind, or at least, so you thought. Then I spent half the night trying to think what your idea was — or is. Whatever. Anyway, I called him at home just now to say that curiosity was killing the cat, that I would bring you back with me to let us hear it in person. Now all you have to do is think up an idea. But if you can’t, it’s all right with me. You can just get out, thumb a ride back, and forget the whole thing.”
“Afraid I couldn’t do that.”
“I did, it so happens, come up with something myself.”
“I’m holding my breath.”
“You could name this thing after me.”
“Well, of course; I love that idea.”
“Then I could realize it would make me a pretty big frog in a puddle not too small — and that would be that.”
“I would say that’s it; we’ve got it.”
“Stop we-ing me.”
“I wouldn’t mind, at that.”
She stomped on the brake, brought the car to a sudden stop in the breakdown lane, and hauled off and gave me a slap that stung for ten minutes. Then she started again. “That may be it,” she said. “The question is not what it is, but whether he believes it.”
We drove on, two people miles apart. At the river she stared straight ahead, paying it no attention. When we crossed the Delaware line she pulled over and stopped. “Now,” she began in a stilted, self-conscious voice; “we’re within twenty minutes of Wilmington, and I’ve stopped here to plead with you to give up this idea of yours, if you still have it, that I recommend to my husband that he accept your proposal that he endow some institute with you in charge. Dr. Palmer, I assure you that if you force me to do this, it can only lead to disaster. What do you say?”
“Give me a minute to think.”
“Take as long as you want.”
So I thought, or I suppose I did, but as I remember, nothing much went through my head. At last I said: “The idea’s not mine; it’s yours.”
“You’re wrong. The idea is yours.”
“Have it your way. I won’t argue. But it’s you, don’t forget, who’s afraid. And it’s you who’s trying to cap that fear, stuff it back in the pipe by neutralizing me. Whatever I say to you now, whatever I promise to do, will leave you still afraid, except for this one thing you thought of first, that I be bought off with the institute. I want him to start. Well, so be it. Drive on.”
“Rat is flattery.”
“Self-deception is worse.”
She was to take me to his office, so we drove to a building in downtown Wilmington, which had ARMALCO chiselled over the entrance. She had barely stopped when a doorman in a maroon uniform was opening the door for her. He bowed and smiled and called her by name. I got out, but by the time I’d walked around, he had handed her down and was saying “Yes’m” when she told him to lock up because her coats and bag were inside. I followed her into the lobby, into a big elevator, then into a reception room where the girl at the desk jumped up and said a bit breathlessly: “Mrs. Garrett, Mr. Garrett’s expecting you” — and with a glance at a card — “and Dr. Palmer.”
Hortense answered her pleasantly. Then a secretary came out and spoke to her and ushered us into an office. It was an office such as I had never seen — large, with a handsome desk at one end and a fireplace at the other, cocktail table, an oriental rug, copper ashtrays, and gigantic, leather-upholstered sofas in between. But the main items in the room weren’t in it, strictly speaking; they were around it, on the walls. They were covered with shelves, of redwood, apparently with indirect lighting to illuminate scores of exhibits, scale models of the products ARMALCO made. There were motorbikes, trucks, tractors, trailers, mowers, radios, TVs — and boats. Boats and more boats. Most of the boats — the cruisers, sloops and skiffs — were no more than twelve inches long; but three of them, of regular ships, were six feet long and possibly more, exact to the smallest fitting. I went around peering at them, gasping in astonishment, while Hortense, stretched out on a sofa, listened.
Presently she explained: “My husband has a passion for things, as he calls them. The Nutting stuff in the apartment is just the beginning. He says this is what’s made him rich. He imagines himself a psychic.”
“Some of my best friends are.”
“Do you know what psychic means?”
“So? What?”
“It means you know the truth without knowing how you know it. There’s still time, before he comes in, to pull back from this Rubicon.”
“Can’t let Caesar skunk me.”
I struck a pose, my fingers in my lapel. She winced. “Oh for God’s sake, Lloyd, that’s Napoleon, not Caesar!”
“Can’t let Boney skunk me either.”
I didn’t notice at first that she had used my given name, the first time all morning. Under my coat my fingers suddenly touched the keys I’d put on the ring for her, which I’d dropped into my shirt pocket. I took them out and offered them to her.
“What’s that?”
“Keys. One to the back door of the building, one to my apartment. So the next time you come—”
“The next time I come! As funny as you are, you should be on television. Do you seriously think there will be a next time for me after the way you’ve—”
“We said we were hit by a truck, and the truck I was hit by has no reverse gear. All I know is, God willing, I’ll hope for a next time. And perhaps—”