And that’s a fact, David Tully thought.
14
Ollie Hurst trailed Tully and the butler into the foyer of the Colonial mansion. Tully wondered why the lawyer seemed so uncomfortable.
The two men waited in silence.
Mercedes Cabbott appeared, a fresh-scented and girlish vision in skirt and blouse and delicately thonged sandals. Her white hair was exquisitely coifed, as always; her tiny features and lake-blue eyes were set hard.
She looked Oliver Hurst up and down. “How are you, Ollie?” The words sounded as if she had just taken them out of a deep-freeze.
“I’m still here, Mercedes.” To Tully’s surprise, the lawyer’s tone was just as icy.
“And David.” She turned, light-footed. “Shall we go out to the terrace?”
They followed her and the butler out. She indicated two of the white iron chairs. “Would you care for a drink?”
Ollie Hurst said, “No, thank you.”
Tully said, “I’ll pass, too, Mercedes. I’d like to get right to your reason for asking me here. I know it wasn’t social.”
“That’s all, Stellers.” Mercedes waited until the butler went back into the house. “Perhaps that’s best, David. Actually, George has something to say to you, too — he’ll be down as soon as he’s through changing.” Her lips formed a hard line. “What I wanted to talk to you about concerns Andrew. Do you know where he and Sandra Jean are?”
“No,” Tully said. What in hell could George Cabbott want to see him about? “But to the best of my knowledge they’re planning to elope.”
The only sign Mercedes showed was a slight pallor. “So my bluff didn’t work. Well, darling, what am I to do?”
“Do?” Tully said. “I haven’t any idea.” He did not add what he was thinking: And I couldn’t care less.
Very suddenly Andrew Gordon’s mother turned to Oliver Hurst. “Ollie? Would you have a suggestion?”
Hurst shifted cautiously in his chair. “Are you asking for my professional opinion, Mercedes?”
“You may bill me for it.” There was nothing, utterly nothing to be learned from her voice.
“All right,” said the lawyer. “Are they of legal age?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll be happy to give you my opinion gratis: There isn’t anything you can do about it.”
Tully had never heard Oliver Hurst speak in quite that tone. It was composed of notes of bitterness, triumph, regret and barely checked temper; they formed a harsh, uncharacteristic chord. And Mercedes Cabbott’s blue eyes glittered like lake ice in deep winter at the sound of it. Whatever lay between the two obviously went back a long, long way.
“I might have expected you to say that,” Mercedes said.
“You’re licked, Mercedes.”
“My dear,” the young-old woman said softly, “I’m never licked.”
The sun bounced off Hurst’s bald head as he shifted violently back to his original position. But he did not reply, preferring to examine the hills in the distance.
Mercedes Cabbott rose and drifted to the edge of her terrace. She stood there gripping the iron railing, her back to the two men.
“It’s strange how events influence one another,” she said. “One brick falls, and a dozen others tumble after it.” She turned to face them, and again her voice was as savagely cold as her eyes. “If Ruth hadn’t gone away, Sandra Jean wouldn’t have become such a problem. But with Ruth gone, the little slut seizes an opportunity she knows may never recur.”
There’s no point in my putting my two cents in, Tully thought.
They had forgotten he was there. It was strictly a dialogue.
“You asked me for a suggestion, Mercedes,” Oliver Hurst said. The savagery in her voice had, oddly enough, purged him. He sounded almost sympathetic. “I’ll oblige.”
“Well?”
“For once in your life, acknowledge a defeat. Make the best of this, Mercedes. Try to remember that you’re not all-wise and all-powerful, after all.”
“Have I ever made any such claims?”
Ollie uttered a faint, incredulous laugh. He shook his head. “Don’t you know even now what a tyrant you are? And what a helpless parasite you’ve made out of your son? Sandra Jean isn’t the worst fate that could befall Andy. I think it’s even possible she might make a man of him out of the little you’ve left unspoiled.”
She had gone white. Her small hands reached backwards and closed around the railing convulsively.
“You have no right to come into my home and say—!”
“I’m here at your invitation, remember? And I didn’t speak until I was spoken to.” The lawyer crossed his legs easily. His aplomb seemed to increase in direct ratio to her anger. “However, if you want politeness instead of honest talk, I apologize.”
Mercedes sniffed with hauteur and came back to her chair. She seemed actually mollified!
Tully was bewildered. What was it between these two? He had never even suspected anything but a most superficial acquaintanceship. But then he thought, What the hell, it has nothing to do with Ruth; and he shrugged.
The rangy shadow of George Cabbott fell across them. His sun-bleached hair curled damply, as if he had just showered. He wore Bermuda shorts and a sports shirt with the tail out.
Cabbott’s eyes, which tended to squint from years of exposure to the sun, widened slightly at the sight of Ollie Hurst. But he merely uttered a pleasant “Hi,” stooped over his wife to kiss her — the incongruous thought crossed David Tully’s mind of Ferdinand the Bull lowering his massive head to smell a wildflower — and went to the bar-cart near the terrace table. “I take it you gentlemen aren’t drinking. Darling?”
“Not just now, George.”
“Mind if I have one?”
“What a stupid question for a smart man,” Mercedes laughed. The sight of her husband had restored her good humor.
George Cabbott dropped an ice cube into a glass, poured some Scotch in, studying its level critically, then added a few splashes of water from a silver carafe. He joined the group, sitting down and crossing one big blond-felled leg over the other.
“Now, sweetheart, where are we?”
“It’s all yours, George.” Mercedes gestured helplessly, smiling. “Believe it or not, I haven’t the foggiest notion of what George wants to talk to you about, David. When this old bear of mine makes up his mind to do things a certain way, Cleopatra herself couldn’t budge him.”
“I was told,” Cabbott remarked, “to tell you directly, Dave.”
“Tell me what?”
Cabbott sipped his Scotch, lowered the glass, agitated it gently. He watched the ice cube slide around. Then he looked up and at Ollie Hurst and said, in a perfectly agreeable voice, “Can you trust this guy, Dave?”
“What?” Tully said, blinking.
“Think nothing of it, Dave,” Hurst said. “Nobody trusts a lawyer. Especially on these premises. And especially this lawyer.”
“Look, George,” Tully said, “I don’t know what this is all about, but Ollie Hurst is my friend and my attorney, and anything you may have to say to me you can say in his hearing.”
“I don’t know,” Mercedes’s husband said in the same pleasant way. “This might be a special case.”
Oliver Hurst gripped the arms of his chair, began to get up. “I think I’d better leave, Dave.”
“You sit down,” Tully said grimly. “No, Ollie, I mean it! Or I’ll leave with you.” Hurst sank back. “What’s this special-case bit, George? Stop talking like a character in TV.”