“Of course.”
Her lips began to move as though she was already practicing in silence. She had a small, well-shaped mouth with prominent ridges between the upper lip and the nose. According to old wives’ tales, when this area was clearly defined it indicated strength of character. Aragon looked at the timid, underdeveloped girl in front of him and decided the old wives must have been wrong.
She said finally, “Tell me about my other rights.”
“Which ones?”
“Suppose I just wanted to get on a bus and go somewhere... oh, somewhere like Chicago. Could I do that?”
“It depends on whether you have sufficient funds and whether you feel capable of looking after yourself in a large city. It would be a good idea to talk it over first with your brother and his wife.”
“No way.”
“Why not?”
“They wouldn’t let me go. I’ve never been anyplace except once last Easter on a boat. Me and some of the other students at Holbrook were taken on a cruise to Catalina on Donny Whitfield’s father’s yacht.”
Holbrook Hall was known throughout Southern California as a school for the troubled and troubling offspring of the very wealthy. In the more expensive magazines it was advertised as “a facility designed to meet the special needs of exceptional teenagers and young adults.”
“How long have you been at Holbrook Hall, Cleo?”
She blushed very faintly. “You called me Cleo. That’s nice. It’s friendly, you know.”
“How long?”
“Forever.”
“Come on, Cleo.”
“A year, maybe longer. I always had a governess before that. Also Hilton and Frieda gave me lessons in things. He’s really smart and she used to be a schoolteacher. Ted goes to college. He’s their son. He drinks and smokes pot and... well, lots of things like that. Imagine him being my nephew and he’s only a year younger than I am. He tells everybody I’m a half-wit that his parents found in an orphanage.”
“So you want to get away from Ted and your brother and sister-in-law.”
“Mainly I only want to know my rights.”
“Is there money available to you?”
“I have charge cards. But if I used any of them to do something Hilton disapproved of he would probably cancel them. At least that’s what my new friend says.”
“Your new friend seems to have quite a few opinions about your affairs.”
“Oh my, yes. Some I don’t understand. Like he says we are all in cages and we must break out of them. I thought if I could get inside the cage that goes up and down your building and then out by myself again I would sort of understand what he’s talking about.”
“Why not ask him?”
“I’m supposed to try and figure things out by myself. He says I’m not as dumb as I act. I don’t understand that part either and I try. I try real, real hard.”
“I’m sure you do,” Aragon said. Cleo’s new friend, whatever his motive, was feeding her stuff she couldn’t digest. “What else does your friend advise you to do?”
“He thinks I should take some money from my savings account and spend it on whatever I want, without Hilton’s permission.”
“Could you do that?”
“I guess. If I wasn’t scared.”
“Does your friend ever bring up the subject of borrowing any of this money?”
“Oh, no. He hates money. He says it’s rotten, only that’s not the word he used.”
“‘The love of money is the root of all evil.’ Is that what he said?”
“Why, yes.” She looked pleased. “So you know him, too.”
“No. We’ve both read some of the same books. The quotation is from the Bible.”
“Is that what the Bible really says about money?”
“One of the things.”
“Then I suppose it’s true. It’s funny, though, because Hilton is very Christian, yet he works all the time to make more of it.”
“People often do.”
“Hilton quotes the Bible quite a bit. Ted says it’s a bunch of — he used a bad word. Ted knows more bad words than anyone in the world except Donny Whitfield at school. Donny talks so dirty hardly anybody can understand him. He’s fat. On our free afternoons from school we each get five dollars to spend and Donny spends his all on ice cream. His afternoons are never really free, he has to have a counselor with him every minute to keep him out of trouble. He’s a bad boy. Why are there good boys and bad boys?”
“No one can answer that, Cleo.”
“You’d think if God was going to the trouble of making boys in the first place he’d just make good ones.”
Charity Nelson, Mr. Smedler’s secretary, stuck her head in the door. When she saw that the girl was still there she raised her eyebrows until they almost disappeared under her orange wig.
“Mr. Smedler wants to see you, junior.”
“Tell him I have a client.”
“I told him. He didn’t believe me.”
“Tell him again.”
“You’re playing with fire, junior. Smedler had a big weekend.”
When Charity closed the door again the girl said, “That woman doesn’t like me.”
“Miss Nelson doesn’t like many people.”
“I’d better leave now.” She glanced uneasily at the door as if she were afraid Charity might be hiding behind it. “I took too much of your time already.”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Hilton says every second counts. He says time and tide wait for no man, whatever that means. It must mean something or Hilton wouldn’t say it.”
“What brought you to this office in the first place?”
“Nothing. I mean I pass here every day on my way to Holbrook Hall. Frieda and Hilton drive me mostly but sometimes Ted when he’s home from college. That’s scary but sort of fun, too. Anyway, that’s how I saw the little cage moving up and down and wanted a ride in it and... and...”
She had begun to stammer and he couldn’t understand her words. He waited quietly until she calmed down. He didn’t know what had excited her, all the talking she’d done or memories of riding scarily with Ted or something deeper and inexplicable.
She pressed her fists against the sides of her mouth as if to steady it. “Also I wanted to see a lawyer about my rights. I thought if I came here I’d get to ride in the little cage.”
“Sorry. That’s not possible today.”
“Some other time?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybes never happen,” she said. “Not the nice ones anyway.”
“This one will.”
She stood up and removed the coin purse from her pocket. “I’ll pay you now.” She emptied the contents of the purse on his desk: three one-dollar bills, two quarters and a nickel. “I hope this is enough. I had to pay the taxi to bring me here and this is all that’s left of my free-afternoon money.”
“Let’s make the charge one dollar. This is your first visit and I haven’t helped you very much.”
“You tried,” she said softly. “And you have a nice face.”
“Shall I call you a taxi?”
“No, I can walk. I think I’ll go to the museum. The staff likes us to go to the museum on free days. They think we’re learning something. How far is it from here?”
“About a mile and a half. Do you know the way?”
“Oh sure. I’ve been there millions of times...”
He watched from the window as she left the building. The museum was due north. She walked rapidly and confidently south.
2
The table was long and dark walnut, carved in the intricate Georgian style and designed for an elegant English dining room. But Hilton sat at the head of it as though he were a captain instructing his crew on how to maneuver through stormy seas, which to Hilton meant taxes, Democrats, inflation, undercooked lamb and bad manners.