The Gift Shop Read online

“Until tomorrow, Daddy,” said Harry. “I’ve got my reasons.” As long as he was making a jackass of himself, he might as well do a thorough job of it, so he hammed it up and slunk dramatically out of the bedroom door.

  He ran downstairs, out the door, leaped into his car and roared off toward his apartment where by now, or surely very soon, he would find all the piggy banks from the gift shop. Pig! “Pig” had been the word. One of the pigs, then. There had better be something in it.

  The other Fairchild sons took a hasty leave. Dick didn’t like his father’s look. He said he hoped his daddy wasn’t taking the man’s death too hard. Crime was crime. In a violent age people took their chances. Tom, who was catching an early flight in the morning back to his own capitol, enjoined his father not to take Harry too seriously. He must realize that Harry might sometimes need the spotlight, under an emotional pressure, sibling rivalry, probably unconscious.

  Elaine accompanied them down to the door with cries of reassurance. Harry couldn’t possibly be sure that the poor man’s death had any connection. Why, it couldn’t have! There must be another explanation. They needn’t worry about Uncle Paul. She would attend to the old man’s bedding-down at once. At once.

  But when they had gone Elaine slipped along the dark and somehow tomblike lower rooms to a telephone. She dialed by the light of the moon through a window.

  “Yes?” said the voice.

  “The man … the agent they sent is dead.”

  “We know.” The voice was calm.

  “I didn’t expect … I don’t like … It makes me very …”

  “Nothing to do with us,” said the voice, becoming hearty. “Very unfortunate. We are quite upset. After all, how can he tell us, now, what he did with her? We still need to know. Have you picked up anything helpful?”

  “Well, George … I mean Harry Fairchild, the youngest one …”

  “Yes?”

  “He knows something.”

  “I see.”

  “He wouldn’t say what. Of course, he may have been just clowning.”

  “We’ll keep an eye on him,” said the voice in a businesslike manner.

  “Don’t—”

  “Don’t worry.”

  The line clicked dead.

  Elaine retraced her steps and went upstairs to the old man. He was very, very tired.

  “You mustn’t worry about a thing,” she said to him. “Please, Uncle Paul. Haven’t I been the same as a daughter to you all these years? Haven’t I?” She thumped his pillows.

  “You’re a good girl, Elaine,” the old man said wearily, “and I’m grateful. But you know, she’d be …”

  Elaine began to tidy the big room now, making it dark for the night.

  “Her mother was a pretty woman,” the old man said. “Her hair … the palest … flaxen, they call it. Silk, I’d sooner say. She’d be … My little girl would be seven years of age. With flaxen hair, do you suppose?”

  There was an old frame house, tucked away at the bottom of what Southern Californians call a canyon, that had to be sturdier than it looked from the outside, since it had not, obviously, yet fallen down. Inside, it was very spacious. The room where Miss Emaline Hanks was reclining wearily on a dilapidated couch was so large that she could not even see all the way into its poorly lit corners. It was night, of course, but she wasn’t sure how far into the night. Her time sense was all askew. She had been so tumbled, and batted about in such turmoil, that she had to make an effort to realize where she was.

  She was in her sister’s house. And there was her sister, Callie, plunking herself into a canvas chair, tugging at the tab on the top of a can of beer. What could be seen of the room was insanely cluttered. But Callie was making no effort to tidy up, now that the children must be in bed at last. Now that the buzz and movements of so many children had been subtracted, Miss Emaline was even more painfully aware of the anxieties and indecisions that were batting at her from within.

  “You look awful beat, Em,” said Callie. “Relax. Relax. Maybe you aren’t used to the noise, eh? I’ll try and get them to be a little quieter tomorrow. Of course they’ll make a lot of noise shushing each other.” Callie grinned and stretched out her legs in their laddered stockings. “Quite a group, aren’t they?”

  “Where did you get all these children?” Miss Emaline said feebly.

  “Oh—here and there,” her sister said. “We can’t have any. We should know. We sure tried. But we can raise them.”

  “I know.” Miss Emaline tried not to wince at Callie’s vulgarity. “I know they are adopted. But so near of an age. And so different.”

  “Oh, well, I kinda got to wanting the ones that were too mixed-up to be wanted,” said Callie, “and the wrong age, and all. Rex, of course, he doesn’t care.”

  “But so many,” murmured Miss Emaline.

  “I’d just as leave have six more. There’s plenty of room.”

  “What are you ever …?” Miss Emaline’s imagination boggled at the thought of all these children growing up and having to be schooled at about the same time. Her anxiety veered to her own problems. “Is Bobby all right? Can she possibly go to sleep?”

  “Why sure she can,” said Callie. “The whole mob is going to get sung to sleep in a minute. Rex will do it. You’ll hear.” Callie sipped. Then her wide mouth widened. “How come her hair is cut like a boy’s, Em? Fooling somebody?”

  “I can’t tell you about her, Callie,” said Emaline with agitation. “I’ve promised. I dare not. There are wicked people. I even know exactly what I ought to do. There was a man, a good man … but he can’t help right now, and I’m afraid … I hope … Nobody knows we are here?”

  “Who’s to know?” said Callie.

  “Oh, Callie, I didn’t mean to dump us on you like this, for a night. I only wrote because I thought you and I could visit a little while at the airport. I hadn’t seen you …”

  “Been fifteen years, or something like that,” Callie said. “So this is a whole lot better, I’d say. Don’t worry so much, Em. Everybody’s gone but the two of us, from the olden days. So tell me how you’ve been. You never did get married or anything?”

  Miss Emaline said, in a whimper, “No, I never did. Or anything. All we tried … It was wasted. We only wanted them to live as the Lord would have them live. But they didn’t … they wouldn’t … I came because I am hoping …”

  “You’re all wore out, Em,” Callie said kindly. “And I think I’m going to bring you a little glass of wine now.”

  “No, no.” But Miss Emaline’s protest fell feebly from her lips. How could she tell Callie that a good woman didn’t drink alchoholic beverages? Emaline, confused and exhausted, had been taken in here. Very kindly, although it did seem effortlessly. Callie, who had just fed seven children and three adults and then merrily trooped the children to seven baths and seven beds, did not seem in the least fatigued. While Emaline felt ready to turn her face to the wall and give up the ghost. Did Callie, then, flourish like the green bay tree? Of course she’s ten years younger, thought Miss Emaline, and bashed the ugly head where it was rising.

  “I will not judge,” she said to herself.

  Callie came with the wine and put it on a table. Miss Emaline did not touch it. Callie did not urge her to touch it.

  There was a continuing sense of voices, exchanges, laughter, hanging above this room. Now Miss Emaline heard a chord of music from up there.

  “Hah!” said Callie. “Now you got to listen. I guess you wouldn’t know about the entertainment world. Rex is kinda great, Em.” Her plain face was radiant with pride.

  “I don’t know what to do,” burst Miss Emaline, who wasn’t in the world to be entertained.

  Her sister tilted the beer can and looked at her calmly. “Why don’t you just goof off for a couple of days. You’ll probably figure out what to do when you’re feeling better.”

  “Will I?” said Miss Emaline pathetically. “But you have such a houseful—”

  “Oh, well,” said Cal
lie. “I’m not the greatest housekeeper in the world, I’ll clue you. But there’s room—so why not?”

  Miss Emaline thought, if I stay, maybe I can help her. I can be useful. The big house was not dirty, she had noticed that. But it had no order. “You may be right, Callie,” she said, sinking back. “Maybe a few days. I don’t feel awfully well.”

  But Callie had tilted her head. Upstairs, the guitar was stringing chords into a sequence.

  Miss Emaline had barely spoken to Callie’s husband. Nor he to her. A strange man. A man who didn’t seem to be quite on this earth. Miss Emaline had noticed how the children seemed concerned to guide him, to shepherd him into the everyday small routines, as if he could not be expected to remember all these little things. “Papa, can we close the car windows? Or do you want to put it in the shed?” “Papa, if you’d just pull the end of the table, we can put the leaf in.” And even, “Papa, did you wash your hands?”

  He wasn’t slow-witted. Emaline knew that. On the contrary, he was very quick to understand, but he understood on another level. It was obvious that the children both respected and adored him. As for Callie, Callie was … content.

  Miss Emaline said, in decision, “Then we’ll stay, just for a while, if you’ll have us, and if he doesn’t mind. I don’t know where else to go, Callie. I must not make a mistake.”

  “Stay forever,” said Callie carelessly. “But listen. Listen!”

  The man had begun to sing. He was far away. He was up there, where the children were lying in seven beds. But all of the big old house fell into a hush, in which the singing voice was not loud, yet every note fell like a separate drop of gentle rain and every syllable was clear.

  A feeling of softening came upon Miss Emaline. It was like fainting. Her arm and hand went reaching, to be taut, to resist. She picked up the wineglass in tight fingers.

  Miss Emaline felt her eyes swell, tears start. But this was childish! She wished he would stop.

  The music had fallen as the rain falls, and now, as it ceased, a silent peace flooded the house. Miss Emaline was adrift in the quality of this silence. She was lost. She clutched for her anxieties. She could not do without them. She had never been without them.

  “Callie,” she said tensely, “you know we’ll have to be hiding here? I don’t know what else I ought to do with Bobby, right now, and she is my responsibility. Mine alone. I can’t let … I can’t let wicked people … I can’t risk … I don’t know their faces—”

  “Relax,” said Callie sleepily. “Just let your little one melt into the mob. That’s easy, isn’t it?”

  “It is NOT easy to do what’s right,” cried Emaline. “You mustn’t even talk about her, Callie. You mustn’t say that there is a strange child … not to anybody! Can you be sure that he won’t tell anybody where she came from?”

  “Oh, bless his heart,” said Callie. “Rex doesn’t care where she came from. He won’t know the difference—six or seven. He’s just taken her in, too. Listen, Em, everybody in this house loves her to pieces already. So for God’s sake, drink your wine.”

  Chapter Five

  Jean Cunliffe worked the late shift all weekdays but Friday. She came on early then, and afterward had the long weekend off. She had already been on duty since 6 A.M. when, at about a quarter to eight, Harry Fairchild came swinging in, directly to her. He did not smile. “I have to talk to you. Can you take a break?” He read her doubt before she could voice it. “What is the other lady’s name?”

  She told him and he swung away. It took him only a few seconds to achieve a signaling, although martyred, nod of Mrs. Mercer’s head. So Jean found herself, in some bewilderment, hurrying around the corner and into the coffee shop.

  “How did you work that?” she gasped.

  “It doesn’t matter.” He took a table apart from any other customers. He ordered coffee for them both, and then he said to her, severely, “You did not do what I asked you to do.”

  “Why, yes, I did, Mr. Fairchild,” said Jean earnestly. “The box should have been delivered. I gave it to the messenger myself.”

  “Oh, the box came. But you didn’t send me everything that was on that table.”

  “Well, I sure did,” said Jean, bristling up. “I sent exactly …”

  “Oh, no, you didn’t. Not exactly.” There was a lot of green in his grayish eyes. He wasn’t being particularly charming.

  “Well, I’m very sorry,” said Jean, thinking seriously of getting up and walking out of here. “But to the best of my knowledge …”

  “I suppose it isn’t altogether your fault,” he said with a pained smile that was only the token of an effort to be fair. “What about those pigs, for instance?”

  “Pigs? You mean the piggy banks? All right. I remember that there were exactly four pigs on that table. Pink, green, yellow and ivory. And that is precisely what I sent you. Did you ask your wife if she counted them?” Jean was becoming a little annoyed herself.

  The coffee came. He seasoned his, in silence. Then he said, “What did you do? Sell one?”

  “Sell one what?”

  “Piggy bank? From that table.”

  “Since they are there for the purpose of being sold …” she began stiffly.

  “That’s what I thought, when I bought them,” he snapped. “And I’ve got no wife. I unpacked the box myself.”

  “All right. Then you know you got four of them. I took the same colors, even, out of stock.”

  But he was shaking his head with a look of I-thought-as-much-you-poor-benighted-soul. “How many did you sell and to whom? You won’t know, naturally. So you’ve messed things up, but good. You managed not to send me the only thing I really wanted.”

  “What only thing?”

  “One of those pigs.”

  “If you wanted one pig, why didn’t you buy one pig? Why did you say you wanted the whole tableful? I think you can kindly stop bawling me out, and many thanks for a delicious cup of coffee.”

  Jean Cunliffe wasn’t taking on any blame she didn’t deserve, and the hell with him and his big fat, wealthy, unmarried charm.

  He didn’t speak for a moment. Then he let one eyebrow fly. “What kind of girl are you anyway?” he said. “Do you suppose you can resist blabbing to The Group? Or, in the vernacular, can you keep quiet?”

  Jean glared at him, keeping quiet in eighteen languages.

  “The trouble is,” he said ruefully, “you don’t know me and I don’t know you—but I don’t see how I’m going to get any help from you, at all, if I don’t tell you a little bit.”

  “I don’t see how, either,” said Jean promptly.

  “All right,” he said. “Here’s the point. And keep quiet about it, will you? I have reason to believe that there is an important message for me in one of those pigs. I wanted it, and I still want it.”

  Jean’s face changed. Her thoughts were racing. She knew immediately who was supposed to have put a message there. Or so this Harry Fairchild thought.

  She said, with no huffiness, “You should have told me that last night.”

  “But I didn’t think I’d better,” said Harry. “I didn’t know who might be watching and listening. Not a living soul knows about that pig but me—and now you—and let me say that you’d do well to keep things that way.”

  Jean’s mouth fell open. She didn’t laugh aloud, but she wanted to.

  “He’s dead, you know,” said Harry somberly. “Bernie. The man in the phone booth. ‘Foul play,’ the cops call it. In other words, ‘murder.’”

  She picked up her coffee with a steady hand and drank some of it. “I had no idea,” she said, in a moment, “and you admit you didn’t give me any indication.” His face kept that somber reproach. “But I can try to remember,” Jean said. That is absolutely all I can do now, isn’t it?”

  She gave him a sharp, challenging look and then squeezed her eyes shut.

  Harry Fairchild watched her. This was a nice girl, perfectly ordinary common-or-garden-variety of nice girl. Young
and breezy. Healthy. Pretty. Probably what is known as “wholesome” (within reason, of course). She had meant no harm in the world. Oh, he knew that. But when he had hopefully smashed four piggy banks to bits and found absolutely nothing in any of them, he had been a pretty frustrated fellow. Then he had figured out what might have happened. Called to find out her hours. And here he was—and he had been right, all right—but what did that matter? The whole thing was fairly hopeless.

  He had spent an early morning hour with the cops. He had admitted to them what they already knew. Yes, Bernie had been on a job for his daddy. But the cops must query his daddy about that. It had been personal, Harry told them, and threw no light, as far as he could tell.

  But now, from what they had told him, he knew that somebody was up to something, all right. Murder, plus. The word was that Honolulu police had found indications of a struggle in the parking lot at the airport there. In Bernie’s pocket there had been some hotel bills, marked paid, and the Honolulu police, having been informed of them, were going back on Bernie’s tracks. The police here had done about all that they could do. A stewardess, for instance, had testified that she had thought Bernie hadn’t looked well, she had queried him, and been sent about her other business. Bernie had not spoken to another soul on the plane, in her recollection.

  But the upsetting “plus” was that, in the airline ticket envelope from Bernie’s pocket, there had been no baggage ticket. And Bernie’s baggage had been claimed by persons unknown in Los Angeles. When Harry had pointed out that one scarcely needed a ticket, the whole business of claiming being run on as jolly and informal a basis as it was, the policeman had said that one might need a ticket if one had no other way of knowing which bag belonged to Bernie. So something was up. Somebody had acted and was still acting. But Harry didn’t think there had been any “dope” in Bernie’s baggage.

  Among Bernie’s other effects, there was a small notebook which he had kept in some strange cryptograph of his own. His secretary couldn’t read it. The police had tried her on it. So it began to look as if there existed no formal or even informal record of the “dope” that Bernie had been trying to deliver.