Little Less Than Kind Read online

  “I get a kind of dim idea,” said David.

  “Ah, no,” said the boy, mournfully. “Ah no.” He hung his head.

  “Why did you cripple the Cadillac?” said David.

  “Because it’s rotten.” (A spark in the eyes?)

  “Well, it has to be moved. I’d say, call a dealer.”

  “Dealer?”

  “Sell it.”

  The boy had one hand back on the bannister. He took one step down. “You want to get rid of it?”

  “It isn’t mine.”

  “His.”

  “Your mother’s. But she’d sell, if you said so.”

  “Would she?”

  “You could talk her into it. What do you think it’s worth?”

  “I don’t know.” The boy came down another step.

  “Rather keep it?”

  “It’s … my father’s.”

  “It’s a piece of machinery,” said David, “And it’s been neglected. Come on down, and we’ll take a look under the hood.”

  The boy said suddenly, “It sounded like a damn truck.”

  David grinned.

  But the boy’s head jerked. A high wailing was suddenly on the air. It was outside of the house. It was primitive. It raised the hair. David ran to the terrace.

  Cleona was staggering up the steps into the garden, her arms crossed on her bosom, wailing to the sky.

  David tood great strides. He caught her by the shoulders. “What’s the matter?”

  “Oh, Mr. David … Oh … Oh … Poor Mr. Rafe Lorimer …”

  “What is it?”

  “The police came. All the neighbors is out. They done took him.”

  “Took him?”

  “Oh, that poor child. Oh Miss Felicia, what did she want to do that for? She done jumped off a roof and she dead. Poor, poor child.” Cleona began to cry tears.

  David looked up. Abby was as white as her dress and the chair.

  Ladd Cunningham, in the terrace door, was yellow.

  “And the neighbors say somebody done told some kind of mean old story and break her heart. Oh, poor child! Just a little child and she dead so soon!”

  Ladd flashed around, turning his back. He stood and seemed to quiver. Then he broke and ran into the house.

  David said to Cleona sharply, “You’re doing a great job of breaking the news.” Her sobs choked.

  David left her and went to Abby, who was rigid. He picked her up out of the chair in his arms. “Cleona,” he called, “get Dr. Jones on the phone and tell him to come here right away.”

  “Yes, sir. Yes, sir.”

  Abby’s skin was genuinely thin. David was afraid for her. He carried Abby indoors and Cleona scuttled past them. “Where did they take Rafe?” David demanded.

  “To the morgue.”

  “Why?”

  ‘To see if it was.”

  “To see if it was! Aren’t they sure?”

  “I don’t know. Oh, her poor daddy, he got to go see if it’s his own child.” Cleona was going to wail again.

  “Get on that phone,” snapped David.

  Abby moved in his arms.

  “Hush,” he said to her. “Now is the time for you to disbelieve. Suspend your belief. Hold on.” He carried her upstairs and to her own bed. He didn’t know what was going to happen. He wanted her safe, and out of the way.

  “It might not be?” Abby whispered, as he put her down.

  “I’ll call. See if they know yet.”

  Cleona was on the downstairs phone. David heard the doorbell.

  “Even if they do, don’t let me know yet,” Abby said, with cold-blooded self-wisdom. “Let me fight it my own way. It prepares me.” She closed her eyes. Her breathing was all right. He left her.

  No sign of the boy. In his room, David supposed, and God knows how he is. He raced down the stairs and opened the front door. It was Gary Fenwick.

  “Go up to Ladd’s room,” said David quickly. “We’ve just heard.”

  The big lad looked shaken. “I just heard, too.”

  “Is it true?”

  “It’s some young girl. They took Mr. Lorimer for him to identify—”

  “All right. Go up to Ladd, Gary. I want you to do that.”

  “Well, sure,” said Gary. “But some of them are saying … It wasn’t Ladd, was it? They say somebody was telling a dirty rumor. He wasn’t the one?”

  So much, thought David, for my influence. The story is around. He said to Gary. “Yes, I’m afraid he was the one. And I don’t think he had better be alone.”

  But Gary’s face bloomed red and he stepped backwards. “Then I don’t want to have anything to do with him.”

  David, with no time to persuade, closed the door in that shocked and righteous face.

  Cleona came out of the library. “Doctor is coming.”

  “Get to your room and get hold of yourself,” David ordered. “It may not be Felicia Lorimer at all.” Cleona ducked her head and passed him. David started for the library, to call the police, find out. He heard the boy’s voice.

  “David?”

  “Yes?”

  The boy was at the top of the stairs. He had something in his hand. He said, “I have to, now.” He started down. The thing in his hand was a knife.

  “Do you really?” said David calmly. It was so pitiful that he had to keep himself from laughing.

  “Now?” the boy said pathetically. “Now, I do. Otherwise, everything was for nothing.”

  “It may not be Felicia Lorimer. That’s not certain.”

  “Yes, it is,” the boy said mournfully. “I know.”

  “But let me check.”

  The boy, coming slowly downward, said, “Did my father get to die his honorable death?”

  David was rooted where he stood, his heart contracting. “Yes, he did, Ladd.”

  “Do you swear it?”

  “I swear it.”

  “Then there isn’t any honorable way, for me. There is the only way.” The boy had stopped. He shook. “It has to be me, then.”

  “No-no,” said David, not sharply, but judiciously. He was wondering how he would get up those six or seven steps and seize the knife. The blade was out. Could the boy hurt himself? Yes, he might. David kept his gaze steady. As long as he held the boy’s gaze, the boy might not try. But the boy’s eyes knew this. They seemed to beg his pardon before they looked away.

  Then, like a tiger, a bright and burning force leaped into the house.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It swept from the terrace door to the bottom of the stairs. Its very passage blew David into a backward stagger.

  Justin Lorimer put one hand on the banister, one foot on the lowest stair, and lithe and strong and beautiful as a tiger, he paused and gathered to spring. “There you are,” he said with relish.

  The boy on the seventh stair had the knife in his right hand. His left arm crossed his body to hold to the bannister. His face lost its pathos. It hardened. He said, “You don’t need to bother.”

  “No guts?” said Justin. “Put your toy away. Or don’t. I don’t give a damn.”

  David said, with newly caught breath, “Have you checked, Justin? Have you checked?’

  “No,” said Justin, not turning, continuing to be taut. “If I was sure, then I’d kill him. Right here and right now. Shall I come up?” he said to Ladd. “Or are you coming down?”

  Ladd’s face was changing again. It was as if he saw, far away, some kind of light. He did something with his hand and the blade of the knife disappeared into its handle. He swung his arm backward and the knife thudded down upon the tenth stair. Then, he seemed to be gathering to spring.

  “He’s not himself …” David began.

  “I don’t give a damn who he is,” said Justin, not one muscle in his fine body relaxing. “Let him think he is Napoleon, For what he did to my father and my sister, I’m going to beat the living stuff out of him.”

  Ladd Cunningham said, as if to explain, quite patiently, “He has to.”
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  David saw something white flutter to the top of the stairs.

  “Abby? Stay back.”

  Neither young animal seemed to hear, or relax one muscle, and the force went between them, very strong, very clear and pure. David stepped back and put his body against the front door. He thought, Yes, they have to. Justin must Ladd needs the pain. They know, these boys. Abby doesn’t understand these things.

  But Abby was coming down the stairs. She was on the ninth stair already, white dress against the wall. She was wailing, “It can’t be Felicia. It cannot be.”

  Justin’s shoulder rippled. Ladd shifted a foot. They were both totally concentrated. David couldn’t visualize a fight on the stairs. They would tumble down. Surely they would tumble, locked and threshing. Himself concentrated, he tensed. He awaited the explosion and the tumble and Abby, to be left where she stood.

  Justin took three steps, up, quick as a cat, and tensed again, poised, concentrated. Ladd’s neck seemed to lengthen.

  But Abby cried out, “Ah, don’t! Justin, dear! Ladd my darling!” She put her foot on the eighth stair and shuffled sideways, then the other foot on the seventh stair. She turned and put the power of her beloved self between, and her son screamed with a kind of ripened desperation that burst out of him, “Get out of the way!” He flashed around like a dancer, turning away from her, but completely around, and as his body made the circle, quickly and violently, his body struck hers and Abby tumbled.

  She had no footing at all. She went like a stone, thrown. She slammed into Justin and he went backward with a yell.

  Justin fell on his back, his head on the floor, his legs on the stairs and one of them bent most unnaturally.

  Abby fell on her back, overlying him at an angle, her head downward, thrown back on the neck, just missing the wall. Her two feet were together by the banister. Her arms were strangely at her sides, her skirt decorous. She looked like a lady doll.

  David got there. “Don’t move, Abby. Not for a minute. Hold still, Justin. Are you hurt, Abby?”

  “My back,” she said clearly.

  “Where, darling? Where?”

  “In the middle. A little lower. It feels broken.”

  “Oh God! Justin, lie still, can you, boy?” David could see, where Justin’s left leg lay so crookedly, that it could not lie so unless that bone were broken. “I’ll get help. Abby, don’t move.” He said to Justin, “I’m afraid for her life. Can you bear it?”

  “I guess I got to,” Justin said between his teeth.

  David looked up behind him. Ladd Cunningham had retreated upward and was sitting on the tenth stair, holding to the balusters like a very small child illegally out of bed, watching his parents give a party.

  David bellowed, “Cleona!” He did not dare leave the spot. He had to leave the spot. She did not come soon enough. What could Cleona do if she came? He felt frantic. He had everything to do.

  Very well. Do it. He clamped down. His mind responded to discipline. The cord, the long cord! He moved carefully around the fallen. Had to risk something. The best gamble was now. Quickly.

  “Don’t leave me.” Abby did not whimper. This was almost mechanical.

  “He’s got to,” Justin said. “Lie still, Cousin Abby.”

  “Am I heavy?”

  “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

  “Something always breaks.” Abby’s voice was changing, becoming a little gay. “Who said that? I think I said that. That was pretty smart of me.”

  David was back. He had dared race into the library and drag the phone on its long cord as far as it would go, which was far enough so that he could put his head around the door-jamb and keep watch upon the bomb that still ticked, for all he knew, up there on the tenth stair.

  He dialed emergency. His mind went double. What to ask for. How the boy might plunge, or stumble recklessly down, and complete the wreckage. Kill her.

  Cleona peered from the kitchen door. She was going to shriek. She must not.

  “Go away, Cleona,” he said to her sternly. “Just keep quiet and go back. There’s nothing you can do.”

  His mind was adding up pros and cons. Quicker to speak directly. “The hospital,” he said into the phone. “Emergency.”

  Abby said, “He didn’t mean—”

  “Be quiet,” said David. If he could keep sound away … The clicking on the phone was loud in his ear. But the boy could not hear that The boy could not hear … David jumped at the sound of the doorbell. He called out, “Come in, whoever you are.”

  Knob turned. Door cracked. Aaron Silver’s head came through.

  “Get in here,” said David, “And don’t do anything. Watch. Wait.”

  Aaron and a younger man, who looked as if he had been playing football only yesterday, tall and broad, both of them came in. Neither said a word.

  David began to bark his needs into the telephone. Ambulances. For two people. One a woman, with a possibly broken back. Send special equipment to move her. And a doctor. Urgent. Very urgent.

  He put the phone on the floor. “You’ve had medical training,” he said to Aaron. ‘Tell me. Can she be moved now?”

  Aaron went closer. The other man moved beside him. Neither asked how this had happened. Neither showed any shock. They moved, they looked to see.

  “Pain, Abby?” Aaron was on his knee.

  “It hurts terribly. I said that something always breaks. I didn’t know it would be me.” Her childishness. Her own kind of courage. Her face was upside down to David. She couldn’t see him.

  Aaron touched her ankle. “Do you feel that?”

  “Yes.” By her voice, one knew she knew the possibilities.

  Aaron got up. “I’d say we need more trained hands. The risk is there.” Aaron glanced upward at Ladd, who had his cheek pressed against the balusters childishly. Aaron did not speak to him at all.

  He looked down at Justin, who was braced on his elbows with the sweat running on his brow. “Can you hold out?” Aaron asked him with compassion.

  “Yes, sir,” said Justin. “I’ve got it made.”

  Aaron’s smile was tender. The younger man went nearer, and saying nothing, he sank slowly to his knees on the floor. Slowly, and very carefully, he thrust his big left arm into the triangle of space between Justin’s shoulders and the first riser. He brought the arm slowly upward until it was giving some support.

  “Better?”

  “Yeah. Thanks. My leg, though …”

  “It does seem to be broken,” said the young doctor casually.

  Aaron said, “They won’t be long. What are they sending, Dave?”

  “Ambulance. Maybe two. A doctor. Yes, and Dr. Jones, damn him, was called long ago.” Was it so long? David wondered.

  He couldn’t see Abby now. The big young doctor bent too near her. Heavy, heavy, over them all, hung the unpredictable. No one spoke to the boy.

  “Take about six, eh, Joe?” Aaron was saying.

  “It should,” said Joe. He spoke to Justin, “If you want to pass out, I can hold you.”

  “I never do … pass out … too easy.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you, you’re entitled.” The voice was grave but easy.

  It struck David that no one was speaking to Abby. “Abby?” he said, not easily.

  “She couldn’t bear it,” said her son calmly. “She’s dead now.”

  “Fainted,” said Aaron, quick and low. He did not move but David knew that he tensed. He knew about the bomb. David’s mouth was dry. Let the boy be quiet. Let the boy cling to the balusters, frozen in shock. Let him not start to feel. Or speak. Or move. Or begin to realize. Or think of his sins. Or his wrongs. Or himself.

  Three of us, he thought. Can’t we pin him down, take him away, do something? No, not three. The big young man had, in compassion, got himself bound where he was, supporting Justin. And Aaron … the boy distrusted Aaron. How can I get up there? David pondered. Could I hold him if I did? Is there a word that can hold him? He could think of no word that was not too r
isky. Be quiet. Be still. Keep sound away.

  “Where is my son?” Rafe Lorimer’s voice said loudly. “They say he flew home. He came over here?”

  And there was Rafe coming in at the terrace door, like the family pet, without asking permission. In his paint-stiff trousers and an old white shirt, looking red-eyed, as if he had been weeping. “What I have been through!” he cried with rich emotion. “And it wasn’t my Felicia. Some poor poor girl but not my girl. I am ashamed that I am glad. But I am glad. Where is my boy?”

  David thought. We can’t have this. We can’t have questions. We can’t give answers. We must not have rich emotions. Not now. It’s too dangerous. Be quiet, Be still.

  So he walked quickly. He said in a low voice, “Rafe, go out on the terrace and sit down. Right now. Justin’s had an accident but he is all right and help is coming. You cannot do a thing here. Do as I say.”

  “But where is he?” Rafe was in the middle of the hall and the sight of two bodies, upside down, at the foot of the stairs, was not in. his range. His voice began to swell. “Where is my boy?”

  David had his arm and was tugging at it. “Be happy about Felicia. Go out there and thank God.” David was savage, in a low voice “And for God’s sake, be quiet. I’ll call you when it’s time.”

  Rafe was inert, resentful, about to protest. But a voiceless something made him. look above. Ladd Cunningham’s face peered down, through bars. Rafe shuddered violently. His feet began to shuffle. As if he were the family cat, David put him out.

  Silence. Cleona was silent and frightened, still standing in the kitchen door. David banished her with a gesture. She drew in one shuddering sob as she retreated. It was very loud in the silence. David was frightened. But he had better not be frightened. It was too dangerous. Aaron put a foot on the bottom stair. The boy stirred. Not Aaron. My job, thought David.

  He said, “And I’ll get out of the way, too.”

  He walked up the outside of the bannister, his feet on the tiny ledges. He swung his leg over to the sixth stair. He sat down on the eighth. He wound his hand to a baluster and held on tightly. The boy’s legs were under that arm. David took care not to touch them. He sat still. The bomb was to his back. But he was between Abby and the bomb.