Lemon in the Basket Read online

  Saiph laughed.

  Duncan could almost feel the whole world relax.

  “No, no, Aunt Maggie. That’s only the reflection,” the boy said.

  “It is?” said Maggie, mock-dubious. “Well, it may be, I suppose.”

  “You were pulling my leg,” said Saiph. “Do I say that correctly?”

  Maggie was laughing now, in lavender silver, on a set to represent a summer evening, in a sentimental musical. Duncan, paralyzed where he was, thought, But she can’t do this!

  “Oh, please,” called Maggie to those below. “Would you mind asking the musicians to hurry over that dreadful tuning-up? We can’t have it going on when the King comes, can we?”

  Duncan could almost see someone below melting, all his purposes dissolving in a wish to please her.

  Then Saiph called down something merry in his own language and somebody laughed (as it were) in that foreign tongue.

  Duncan marveled.

  “Come in. Come in, dear,” said Maggie. “Your royal grandfather should be along any minute. You do look handsome. Your mother looks most beautiful, don’t you agree?”

  (How could anything have happened here, where everyone was handsome or beautiful, and filled with summery laughter?)

  With perfect timing, on the tail of her sentence, Maggie closed (and then she nervously locked) the balcony doors.

  Jaylia was laying out another set of clothing for Saiph. Inga had her first aid kit now, bandages ready. The boy walked toward his nurse carefully. There was no sign of pain on his small face.

  Maggie looked down at her son Rufus, and one flash of pain crossed her eyes. But she said, “He seems quiet. Take Tamsen into Dad’s room, Duncan. Take the rug and all. There is another, exactly like it, on my bedroom floor. Fetch that here, will you?”

  “Maggie, we can’t—” he began.

  But Jaylia turned on him. “Do as you’re told.” He looked up into her eyes. “How many people do you insist shall die?” she hissed. “We can’t have this. You should realize …”

  Oh yes, he thought, that’s right. Now, I remember. Something about a massacre?

  Tamsen said, “Don’t let … the family … down the drain. Duncan, don’t do that.”

  “We won’t do that,” said Maggie. “Nothing has happened, here.”

  “Downstairs—there’s Lurlene.” Tamsen was gasping.

  “Does she know?” Maggie pounced, and Duncan groaned.

  “She expected. That’s how I …”

  Jaylia said, “I’ll go and see that she is seen to. I’ll also send the Doctor.”

  “Yes, go. Do that, Jaylia,” said Maggie. “And mind—you take their attention.”

  Duncan got to his feet, feeling furious. The boy, under Inga’s ministrations, was looking keen and cold. Jaylia was pulling herself together to resume … what? Power?

  “Damn white of you, to think of the Doctor,” snarled Duncan, releasing some of his feelings. He bent and scooped up his wife, rug and all. The limp body of his brother was tumbled in the process. Duncan didn’t care.

  When he stepped into the passage the Princess was walking ahead of him, encased in her stiff gold, yet with a womanly swaying. He didn’t know why, but as a person and in the flesh, she meant nothing to him anymore. Nothing at all.

  It was Maggie who nipped just ahead to open the door to the Judge’s bedroom. Duncan carried his wife, his darling burden, to the big bed and put her gently down on her face, the rug still under her.

  “Mind, no blood on you,” said Maggie quietly. She closed the door and put up a soft light. “Fetch the other rug, now. And something must be done with Rufus.”

  Duncan let his fury out on his mother. “Lug the guts into the neighbor room, eh?”

  “Do not waste our time,” said his mother, gently.

  “She is my—”

  “We cannot argue, nor can we discuss, not even plan,” said Maggie. “We must simply do this. Hurry, please, dear?”

  Duncan went into his mother’s dim and scented room and snatched the round white rug from the floor. He went into the boy’s room to lay it down, spotless and innocent, where its counterpart had been.

  Inga was working expertly to bandage the gouge in the flesh under the boy’s right arm, where the bullet had ripped at it as the arm had been raised to throw. The wound might not be serious; it must be painful. The boy’s face was stern and cold. His eyes turned. They had no guilty anguish; they did not plead to be forgiven. His voice did not apologize. It explained. “Tamsen meant to save me. I meant to save myself.”

  “Yes, I saw what happened,” said Duncan, with control. “Now, it’s save the surface and save all, eh? That’s a slogan.”

  He bent, escaping the boy’s steady eyes, and hit his brother rather sharply on a certain spot of the neck with the edge of his hand. (And why, he did not know.) Then he picked Rufus up, like a sack of beans, and carted him through the silence, the uncanny silence, of the upper passage, into the Judge’s room and dumped him on the carpet.

  Then looking gloomily down, Duncan felt himself flowing into a state of thaw. Now he remembered another boy. A bumbling cheerful little boy—the one whom Duncan had beaten at every game as soon as Duncan had grown old enough to play it. But the brother he had loved, just the same. Inept, and yet—no matter—one of them. One of the Tyler sons.

  How had Rufus come to this? Why haven’t we taken notice? Duncan thought. What has been happening, while we’ve paid it no attention? How could he have come to the point of doing so mad, so wicked a deed, and his own people not know how it was with him?

  Maggie said, reading his mind, “Poor Rufus. What will you do with him, Duncan? I must go down. And so must you. The time is very short.”

  “Telling Dad?” Duncan accepted the effort, now.

  “I think not,” Maggie said. “Not yet.” She seemed to be brooding somberly. Having said the time was short, she was not hurrying. “Improvisation on a theme,” she pronounced. “Nothing has happened.”

  “Nothing will, either,” Duncan promised her, with sudden spirit.

  His wits and energies began to operate, unimpeded by rage. He dragged his brother into the Judge’s complex of bath-shower-cupboards and all the rest.

  When he came back into the bedroom, Maggie had gone. Tamsen was lying there, her fingers tight on the edge of the pillow—in pain, but making not a whimper. He bloodied his shirt after all.

  17

  A selected number of cameras and floodlights had been let in, under strict supervision, as far as the driveway in front of the portico. As the big cars came, and the doors opened, and the beautiful people emerged in full plumage (attended by their mates), each had his moment of passage through the band of light. There was a woman reporter on a microphone, describing the costumes. Guards and police stood thick around. The general public, of course, had to watch on TV this very private, very exclusive social occasion in all its glamorous uproar.

  Behind the garage, there was a path and a gate. Here guards stood, thick, in the growing dusk, to let in certain other guests, who came this way, quietly, on foot, from cars they had left at a little distance. They were escorted through the silent gardens and taken up the terraces and let in by the garden doors.

  These few were welcomed by the Judge, where he stood placed to intercept them, and to the male of each pair he spoke quietly, saying in effect, “Not yet. Perhaps not at all. We shall see.” Then these people, all well-dressed but none startling to the eye, blended inconspicuously with the gathering crowd.

  Mrs. Hardy said to Lurlene, “So that’s the Princess, eh? I suppose, when the King shows up, everybody gets to stand in line and meet him, too.”

  “I suppose.” Lurlene licked her lips nervously.

  “Not me,” said her companion, a thin woman who carried an aura of bitter anger. She was watching her husband, a peacock, who even now was spreading his tail-feathers (the old fool!)—waiting for the Princess to notice him. “What’s she like, anyhow?”

&n
bsp; “Oh, sa-ay,” Lurlene began, with hint of much lore. Then she changed her mind and said, “You really mean you’re not going to get in line, to meet this king?”

  “Not me,” said Mrs. Hardy.

  This struck Lurlene as the height of something or other, to have the chance of meeting this king, and just not bothering. “Listen, I don’t really want to, either,” she confided.

  “So let the rest of them line up, like a herd of sheep,” said Mrs. Hardy, who may have braced herself with alcohol before she came to this arid place. “Not me, honey. Not this chicken!”

  Lurlene had to giggle. “Well,” she said, “I can tell you, she didn’t look like so much, the other morning.”

  “Oh-ho! Say, why couldn’t we go out there and sit down? I’d like to get the real skinny.” Mrs. Hardy was contemplating the terrace. It made her sick to contemplate her husband.

  “The only thing is,” said Lurlene, not quite sure whether she ought to agree, “my husband is probably looking all over the place for me.”

  “Let him,” said Mrs. Hardy viciously. “Do him a world of good.”

  “Well, O.K.,” said Lurlene, “why not?” She giggled and slid the screen, and they slipped out to the west terrace, where “live” musicians were now softly playing “background music.” The two women found a shadowy spot where there were two chairs.

  “Well, I must say, this is a heck of a lot better,” said Mrs. Hardy, who had no notion of the ring of eyes that watched them from stations all around the grounds. She lit a cigarette. “Now, what about this buxom lass, the Princess? And, by the way, can we get ourselves some punch, or whatever is going?” Mrs. Hardy had brought her own vodka and intended to have a do-it-herself cocktail party.

  Lurlene sighed with pleasure. “We sure can,” she promised. “I know this house. Just as soon as Maggie gives the word, Sam will be going around. I’ll get hold of him. You know, this princess was running around in a pair of shorts up to here.” Lurlene was, to her surprise, having quite a good time at the party. (Well, Rufus had goofed, as usual. So why not?)

  Jaylia, within doors, continued to greet the guests that Phillida continued to present. But the Princess contrived to drift her whole group close to Mitch.

  “Oh, do please excuse me?” she said to the latest candidates for her acquaintance. “Doctor Tyler?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I am to tell you that your patient would like to ask a question of monumental importance that only you can answer.”

  “Now, if that’s so,” said Mitch, smiling, “I had better go up and see what I can do.”

  Phillida, because Jaylia was laughing and looking amused, said encouragingly, “But what can the question be?”

  “My little boy,” the Princess said, charmingly, to those who stood around her, “would like to know whether he may go off his diet, for the occasion of this party, and have American ice cream.”

  “How cute!” “Isn’t that adorable!”

  Mitch smiled, with the rest. He did not hurry, but he went.

  “Have you seen Lurlene?” said Jaylia, under cover of all the cooing.

  “I know where she is,” said Phillida carelessly.

  “I hope she is … having a quiet time?”

  Phillida’s brows curled and then smoothed out. “Shall I … er …?”

  “Make sure,” said Jaylia. “Oh, yes, he is quite delighted with many American foods.”

  “I cleaned the knife,” said Duncan dourly, “by the way.”

  “Good thinking,” his brother Mitchel said.

  “Where’s the gun?”

  “Inga’s got it. Bullet’s in the wall. That’s O.K. She moved the bureau. I’ll take the knife back, then. Expect he feels naked, without it.” The Doctor was leaning over Tamsen, with a lamp turned to shine directly on her wound. “Isn’t much more than a slice off the white meat, Tamsen. You got skun, as in ‘I skun my knee.’ Bet it hurts like the devil.”

  “It does. It does,” she gasped. “Saiph is really O.K.?”

  “Not bad, either. He’s tough, that one. Still, I’ve got to get the two of you out of here somehow.”

  “Why?” Duncan was touchy to alarm.

  The Doctor’s hands were busy. He had his emergency bag of tools, always left here in his father’s room. “I’ll do what I can to dull this down, Tamsen. But not to knock your wits out. You may need them.”

  “Why can’t she just lie low until the party’s over?” Duncan bristled.

  “When is it going to be over?” Mitch said. “And what makes you think all the newsmen will leave, at any given moment? At the least, she’ll have to walk out, even if she just goes home. I’d a heck of a lot rather have her in the hospital.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, come on,” the Doctor said. “You think yon knife was sterilized?”

  “She’s not going to …”

  “No, she is not,” said the Doctor sternly. “Take a look at yourself, why don’t you? Get into one of Dad’s shirts, and quick. The old boy must be on his way by now.”

  “I don’t want to leave Tam.”

  “Yes, you do,” said Tamsen.

  “You know, I think I’ll send Phillida up,” the Doctor said, looking thoughtfully down at her. “When you do walk out of here, sweetie, you’d better look somewhat less bedraggled and torn. Bloodstains aren’t being worn this season, either. Phillida will know how to fix you up.”

  “My hair must be a perfect mess,” said Tamsen, with silly courage.

  “Are we going to get away with this?” Duncan was out of his own shirt and getting one of his father’s ready. His fingers felt thick on the studs.

  “Of course we are,” said Tamsen. “I feel better already.”

  “Trust her,” said the Doctor, and then grimly, “Where is Rufus? Him, we can’t trust.”

  Duncan said, “I’ve got him secured. I’ll show you.”

  They went into the Judge’s dressing room and Mitch crouched and said, “Oh for God’s sakes! Listen, there is no such thing as a gag that works worth a damn.” He was taking the stuffing out of Rufus’ mouth. “I’ll say you’ve got him secured,” Mitch muttered.

  Duncan had tied Rufus, hand and foot, and by the neck as well. Mitch was taking the Judge’s white silk scarf from around that limp neck. “No need to strangle him, you idiot. Bring my bag.”

  Duncan did so, and stood there, putting on the clean shirt while he watched the Doctor’s lean hands swiftly examine the physical thing there on the floor. “I hit him, you know,” said Duncan lamely.

  “You did, eh? Not too hard? Right?”

  Then Mitch sank back on his heels, where, in motionless silence, he conducted a further examination within his assessing mind. “Well, we can’t trust it,” he decreed. So Duncan watched, while the Doctor pulled back Rufus’s jacket and made an injection.

  “Should hold him till the party’s over,” Mitch said. “Poor devil.” He gave Duncan a hard look. “Come on. Time’s wasting. Give me that knife.”

  When Mitch had slipped away to take the wickedly curving, and now shining, knife back to its owner, Duncan bent over his wife. “How in hell can I leave you?”

  “Because you have to,” she said. “I can stay here …” She groped for words to brace him. “I should think you would have noticed. I do not want people to get killed.”

  “I guess I more or less begin to get the pitch,” said Duncan, wanly.

  In the boy’s room, Mitch handed over the knife silently. The boy, using his good arm, sheathed it mysteriously within his clean garments. Mitch’s trained eye checked for signs of shock. It saw none. So he smiled, in his Mephistophelian way, glanced around the room (in which nothing seemed to have happened), nodded to Inga, signifying faith, and went to meet Duncan in the passage.

  Duncan was wiping his brow.

  “Pull up your socks,” Mitch said. “If I’m breaking the rules I live by, you can damn well be a carefree playboy.”

  “Right.” Duncan settled his sho
ulder muscles. “The show must go on, eh? Our mother’s sons, eh?”

  “What else?” snapped Mitch. “Raised in the magic of make-believe.” But his eyes were softer than his words, and he grinned, before he turned to lead the way.

  They could hear the sirens.

  18

  Downstairs, the guests could hear them, too.

  Maggie, who had been suggesting by the power of make-believe that she had been among her guests all along, now went to the arch nearest the entrance door. The company was drawn into a pattern, facing this archway as if it were the stage, and the volume of sound in the room fell to a few murmurings.

  The Judge, with Jaylia on his arm, came to join Maggie. The sirens, outside, choked off. Two of those good-looking young Tyler sons came quietly down the stairs to station themselves with the others in this semblance of a receiving line.

  The Judge wondered, for a moment, where the girls were. Then he saw Phillida in the audience, and presumed that Maggie wished this kept simple. The Judge had problems of his own on his mind.

  When Al Asad came into the spotlight of attention he was no disappointment. The people swayed like grass at the impact of his royal presence and watched the ceremonious greetings with fascinated eyes.

  Then, as was understandable, the King and the Doctor drew aside, while the Judge brought Jaylia, and Maggie brought two of these long-gowned foreigners, into the big room to be engulfed.

  So it was Duncan who edged around to be near Phillida.

  Colonel Gorob did not leave the King’s side until he perceived the technical nature of the Doctor’s discourse. His uniform, his undistinguished stature, and his freckled face did not receive as many curious glances as did his more exotic companions. He was able to slip away from formalities and begin to move among the standing people quietly, his freckled ears on the alert.

  Heinz Gorob had seen the handwriting on the wall, long ago, when he had first found out that Al Saiph was not going to live to be very old. The old King was a good master, but he was not going to outlast the Colonel, and the Colonel had begun to think about his own future.