Lee worked in the living room and finished just before dinner. His eyes looked tired and his face looked tired. He did not have much to say during dinner.
After dinner she glanced up and saw that he was staring at her, a curious expression on his face.
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked.
“You don’t have much fun, do you, Seel?”
“I’m okay.”
“The world is so full of a number of things. My God, when I think of how I could use a little more spare time...”
“Sure. And I just slop around. I’m not the big brain.”
“Let’s not fight, please. There’s been enough of that lately.”
“And it’s all been my fault. I know.”
“Please, Seel.”
“Okay. Okay.”
“I’ve got an idea. I think it would be good for you. They can use somebody in the Bursar’s office. Five mornings a week. It wouldn’t be hard work. It will pay twenty-five a week. If I should talk to Randy I think...”
“Stop thinking, then. If you think I’m going to go there every morning and drudge around, you’re completely...”
“Okay,” he said wearily. “Skip it.” He stood up and dropped his balled napkin on the table and looked down at her for a silent moment. “I only thought you might be more contented if you had something to do. You don’t seem to have the inclination or the imagination to take up a hobby. I thought it might keep you out of trouble.”
“What kind of trouble? Just what do you mean?”
He shrugged. “Who knows what kind of trouble? Maybe I thought it might make this marriage a little better.”
“You’d be surprised at how fast it would get better if we didn’t have to watch every damn dime. If we didn’t have to live in this...”
“Shut up!” The explosive violence shocked her. He had leaned toward her to yell at her, his expression savage. For once she had no retort. She heard him get his coat out of the hall closet. He banged the door when he left. She listened to the starter grind and grind until the motor caught. She got up then and began to carry the dishes out to the kitchen.
Who the living hell did he think he was? Who did he think he was veiling at? What right had he to veil? He was the one who sold the big bill of goods. Marry a writer, sure. Teaching was just a hobby. Just temporary. He was scared to write. Look at the money they made writing that junk on television. Thousands and thousands. And him with that one darn book she couldn’t hardly read because nothing seemed to happen in it. And those reviews he used to look at but didn’t any more. “Sensitive new talent.” “Promising young novelist.” He’d get to be sixty and they’d retire him with a lousy little state pension and he’d still be the same promising young novelist. He didn’t have guts, ambition, drive. So he was going over and lick old Haughton’s shoes. Big deal.
She washed the dishes quickly and carelessly and stacked them away, still faintly a-gleam with grease.
When the front doorbell rang, she decided it was Ruthie. Maybe she wanted to take in a movie, or maybe their television was broken again. She flipped off her apron, patted her hair, and walked swiftly through the house. She opened the door. The man was big and lean. The wind flapped his dark topcoat. She looked out at the curb but there was no car there.
“Mrs. Bronson?” His voice was deep and slow and important.
“Yes?”
“I’d like to speak to you a moment. May I come in?”
She hesitated. He wasn’t a salesman, she decided. He had the manner of a gentleman. She stepped back and he came into the small hallway.
“Is Mr. Bronson at home?”
“He had to go to a meeting. He left just a little while ago. He probably won’t be back for a long time. Is there something I can do?”
He moved from the hall into the living room. She was forced to follow him. It annoyed her that he didn’t take off his dark hat. He wore leather gloves. There was something strange about him, about his manner, that made her think that perhaps she had made a mistake in letting him in so readily.
“Can you tell me your name, please?” she asked, and was disturbed that her voice trembled slightly.
“I am doing a favor for a friend. A mutual friend. He asked me to stop by here and pick up something he left here for safe keeping.”
He looked down at her. She licked her lips. “I... I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do, Mrs. Bronson. I want the envelope your brother-in-law left here. Get it, please.”
“He... he sent you?” she asked, and realized at once that she had made a mistake.
“He sent me. He didn’t think it was safe for him to come into the city. Get it.”
She took two inadvertent steps toward the kitchen and then stopped and turned. He was so close to her that she took a step back away from him. She looked up at him and said, “I can’t give it to you. My husband took it and locked it up. I don’t know where it is.”
He did not answer. He walked toward her. She backed away. He backed her out into the kitchen. “I can’t give it to you!” she said thinly.
“Where is it?” he asked. She glanced toward the canisters. She could not help looking toward them. She looked back at him and saw that under his calm look he was excited, he was under great tension. He grabbed her by the arm. The strength of the grip made her gasp with pain. He whirled her over toward the counter, held her against the counter, twisted her arm up between her shoulder-blades. Her forehead hit the cupboards.
“Where is it?” he demanded again. She began to cry. He pushed her away so violently she fell and slid half under the sink. The fall dazed her. She looked up and saw him dumping out the contents of the canisters. Sugar, salt, flour, spilling them on the counter top and on the floor. He took the envelope, ripped it open, glanced at the statement and put it in his pocket. She stood up, holding onto the sink.
“Did he... get the money?” she asked weakly.
He turned and looked at her. His expression had changed. “You know about the money,” he said softly. “You and your husband know about the money.”
“Lee doesn’t know...” She stopped abruptly as she read the horrid intention in his face. It was unmistakable. She whirled and yanked open the kitchen knife drawer. As she scrabbled at the knife handles, the big leather hand closed on the nape of her neck. She screamed once in fright and pain. He yanked her away, slammed her head down against the gleaming edge of the sink. She felt the sickening impact, felt her skin split over the bone. And then she was far away, and what was happening was a dream, a boneless, fluid, swarming dream in which she sagged against strength and felt herself lifted, then forced down again, slammed down with violence against the white edge of the sink. The impact was a softness, a whirling white like winter snow, and it was like falling into snow, down through cold gray into a deep blue, into a black...
Chapter Eight
Lee Bronson
Dr. Ellis Haughton was a widower who lived with a married daughter in a modern home on the western edge of the city. His son-in-law was a prosperous corporation executive. One wing of the house had been converted into a compact suite for Dr. Haughton, with kitchen, bath, and private entrance.
Dr. Haughton was a burly old man in his early seventies. He had headed up the English Department of the State University at the time of his retirement. With the establishment of Brookton Junior College he had consented to come out of retirement and take over the job for two years. The two years had become five. He had been the man who had interviewed Lee Bronson three years before.
Lee had, at first, wondered why Haughton had been considered so desirable they had asked him to come out of retirement. He had seemed a quaint old man, vague, bumbling, eccentric. He took no classes. He had turned his neat modern office into a wilderness of papers, notes, books, disordered files. He had a staff of nine. He seemed to take no interest in how the instructors, assistant professors, and associate professors organized and conducted their courses. He was an authority on Chaucer, and every conversation with him seemed to have a fatal tendency to drift off into Chaucerian lore. He always seemed to be a little more than half asleep at faculty meetings.