Seven Silent Men Page 9

  “They leave and somebody or other grabs for the one-dollar bill on Happy. Happy de Camp’s still only wearing a pinstripe jacket and the one-dollar bill around his you-know-what. Remember where I told you the dollar was wrapped around, Tina Beth?”

  “Billy Bee, does this story have an end?” asked the voice in the dark.

  “Sure does, hon. What happens when one agent grabs is that other agents start grabbing too. They’re chasing Happy de Camp around the office giddy as schoolboys. Happy starts grabbing back on the run. Pretty soon everybody’s grabbing at everybody and laughing and scrambling and, whammo, they end up in one big pile on top of Happy de Camp. And whammo again, guess who walks in, Tina Beth?”

  “You’re treating me like a little kid again,” Tina Beth said in the darkness.

  “’Course I’m not.”

  “Y’are so. You go on stopping and asking me questions like I was a little kid taking a test.”

  “Tina Beth, that’s my way of telling things. Always has been, you know that.”

  Hearing no further objection, Yates turned back to the mirror, tilted up his head, began to slice away foam from beneath his chin. “Right in the middle of everything, Denis Corticun walks into the office.”

  “Who?”

  Billy Yates glanced off through the door. A giggle rose in the darkness.

  More under-chin foam was cut away. “… Denis Corticun was the Brass-Balled Monkey talking to Brewmeister. The one they were toasting. The pinstripe guy I told you about earlier. Don’t you see, it’s his pinstripe jacket Happy de Camp has on. Happy de Camp and Jez Jessup snuck into Denis Corticun’s hotel room and lifted his pinstripe jacket.

  “Tina Beth, you cannot believe the expression on Denis Corticun’s face when he walked into that office. I mean, he was ash-white horrified. And he hadn’t even spotted Happy de Camp yet. Happy was buried under a pile of agents. All Denis Corticun saw was a white-lightning free-for-all. Corticun’s got this habit of clearing his throat, and he did so loudly to get attention, only it didn’t get anybody’s attention. He had to call for attention like a drill sergeant. Had to call a couple of times. When everyone quieted down, he said someone had broken into his hotel room and stolen his jacket and he wanted to know what the best procedure was for reporting the loss to the police … whether he should do it through our office or call the police directly.

  “… Which is when he saw Happy de Camp. The pile got off Happy, and Happy stood up wearing Denis Corticun’s pinstripe jacket and nothing else but the one-dollar bill. Corticun was speechless. He pointed a finger and damn near choked before he could finally shout, ‘That man doesn’t have his pants on!’ Faster than you can blink an eye, every agent in the place dropped his pants and was asking, ‘Which man?’ Poor old Preston Lyle forgot he had on these panties. Little teeny underpants that look like girls’ panties, only they’re not. They’re manufactured for men. You could have fooled me they’re manufactured for men. Once the other agents see them, they start chasing Pres like they were chasing Happy earlier. Chasing and shouting, ‘Panty raid, panty raid.’ It was a sight, Tina Beth, a sight indeed.”

  “Preston Lyle? He the one married to the redhead?”

  “Uh-uh. That’s Butch Cody. Butch is thirtyish. Pres is more our age … twenty-six or twenty-seven.”

  “Twenty-six or twenty-seven! Billy Butler Yates, you maybe can flimflam the riffraff with talk like that, but I’m nineteen. Twenty comes December. I’ll have it no other way. You go and be whatever you want. Only jest leave me home, hear?”

  Yates grinned a feeble grin reserved for those ever-increasing moments when he wasn’t sure if Tina Beth was truly offended or faking. As usual, he traveled the road of least peril. ‘You’re nineteen, and what say I promise to stop kidding about age?”

  No response came from the blackness beyond the door. “All kidding stops,” Yates declared, “and I’ll settle in at a firm twenty-eight?”

  “You won’t be twenty-eight come November,” stated Tina Beth. “Why do you make everything older?” She began to cry, loudly.

  Yates put down the straight razor and hurried across the bedroom.

  “Tina Beth,” he said, dropping to a knee beside the bed on which the cross-shadowed silhouette of a shorty-clad young woman lay facedown atop the sheets. “The last thing I want to do in this life of ours is make anything older, specially you and me.”

  She buried her head deeper under her arms.

  “Hear what I’m telling, Tina Beth?”

  “Stop lookin’ at my bottom,” came her tearful demand.

  “Honey, I’m not looking at your bottom,” he lied.

  “Yer always lookin’ at my bottom,” she said. “Every time you squinch down like that, it’s to see my bottom close. That’s all I am to you, a bottom—”

  “That’s a pernicious lie.” He rose and sat on the bed, bent over her. “It’s the top I love, not the bottom.”

  “Stop drippin’ shavin’ soap on my back.” She threw a hand blindly up behind her to fend him off. “You’re always drippin’ on me.”

  “Shows to go how all wet I am.”

  “… Stop tryin’ to make me laugh.”

  “Shows to go what a big drip I am.”

  Tina Beth rolled over, sat up abruptly and crossed her arms. “I’m no dopey-dope. I read three books a week and coulda even finished college if I had a mind to. ’Stead I married you, unfortunate to say. You never talk to me like I coulda finished anything, college included.”

  “Sure I do.”

  “Show me one ferinstance. Tell me in plain old unsyrupy words when you ever once treated me like I coulda finished college.”

  Yates gambled on repentance. “I see your point, Tina Beth. I’m ashamed and I apologize. If fences could be mended, how would you like me to talk to you?”

  “Shorter. You go on and on like some whiskery old guide in museums. You tell me all them tiny details like who’s wearing one-dollar bills and who isn’t—”

  “A man in my job’s no better than what he sees and remembers, Tina Beth.”

  “Then remember it for yerself and don’t repeat it a hundred times. You know how many times you told me Mr. Grafton sniffed and sniffed? You told me and told me. Once woulda done.”

  “I … I see what you mean. How else you’d like me to talk to you?”

  “I want you to listen to me. I know things too, lots of things. Things jest as exciting as one-dollar bills. Only you never do ask. You don’t rightly care what I do. All that counts round here is what you do. That’s why you’re always in one mess of trouble after the next mess with folks. You never once asked how my luncheon with the wives went today. That’s ’cause you don’t listen!”

  Experience had taught Billy Butler Yates that his wife was a one-two puncher in situations such as this, that her second complaint was usually the critical complaint. Answer too quickly and Tina Beth would accuse him of blind placation rather than considered understanding of her viewpoint and feelings. Tarry too long before responding and she would strafe him for indecisiveness, evasion, vaguery and disconcern.

  “Hey, yeah, how was that old luncheon anyway?” He asked enthusiastically … after counting off eight seconds under his breath. “You were going out to that country club, weren’t you? They a nice bunch of wives? You have a good time?”

  “A fine old time … considering I coulda been killed for all you cared. Coulda been buried alive under the landslide!”

  “Landslide?”

  “Someone hide your ears?”

  “A landslide in Prairie Port?”

  “What else would you call a whole side of hill, trees and all, sliding down under your very nose? On our way home it happened. Whole slices of hill slid onto the road. Mud gurgled up where the trees and earth had been, and it came oozing down too. State troopers had to block off miles and miles of road because of that mud. And it isn’t a country club at all. It’s a hunting and riding club, the Laggerette Hunt and Ride Club. We’ve been asked to
become members. Sissy Hennessy wants to put us up.”

  “Whatever you like,” Yates told her.

  “Sissy Hennessy’s a very fine woman and so are the other wives, but my Lord, do ever they chitchat.” She reached out in the darkness for the bed lamp. “Land o’loving, Billy Bee, do ever they talk around here. Gossip like there’s no tomorrow. That’s probably what God was saying with that mud slide of His … hush your mouths, catty ladies.”

  Tina Beth Yates, the night light revealed, was as blondly beautiful and provocatively formed as any young woman who ever graced an outdoor billboard advertisement for swimsuits … which she had done quite often for a short period of time prior to marrying Billy. Billboards primarily in the South and Southwest. Her daddy had been outraged at such wanton exposure, but only with Billy’s help was he able to terminate his daughter’s brief career.

  From the moment Tina Beth Lodes set eyes on Billy Yates, she was his. Not unconditionally, but his if he acted wisely and rapidly. Cut bait and shaped up to her expectations. Tina Beth was surprised by this reaction. Never had she thought she would give herself to so handsome a man. Handsome men were too selfcentered for her. Too ungiving. The world came to handsome men the way the world comes to beautiful women. Demanding little. Offering all. The handsome men she had known had demanded all, offered little. Never, never had she met anyone she thought was quite as handsome as Billy Yates. His blue eyes and square chin reminded her of a younger, better-looking Paul Newman. The quizzical expression he made when he wasn’t certain of something had, for her, all the fetching vulnerability of an unsure Jimmy Dean. His resolve, on those occasions when he finally made up his mind to do something, was not unlike that of Tina Beth’s most revered film idol, Gary Cooper.

  Images of movie heroes to the side, Billy Yates, from the first night she had allowed him, was the greatest lovemaker she had ever conceived of knowing. Never since they had been together had she thought of infidelity. There was no need. No interest in anyone but Billy.

  Billy Yates, as Tina Beth got to know him, was able to do another thing she hadn’t suspected, talk to her as she had never been talked to before. This above all became the linchpin of their love. His talking wasn’t anything specific, no particular vocal technique or imparted wisdom. Merely a manner. A shy warmth. An awkward passion. If anything, Billy sensed what subjects to avoid, such as having children. Tina Beth had no intention of bearing children until she was middle-aged, at least twenty-five.

  She was seventeen at the time they met. They had to wait until she was eighteen before they could marry. Now another year and a half had passed, and things were as good as ever … or almost. During their final months in Ohio he had become preoccupied and taciturn. It had occurred to her the reason for this was unhappiness about his work, with his assignments, but it didn’t matter. He had spoiled her with his attention and understanding, and she knew this and knew she had become too reliant on him, too selfish, to settle for anything less than she had before. When all he could provide was less, her resentment deepened. She grew to hate Ohio and the FBI, but never Billy. Never her Billy Bee. He was still who she loved and dreamed of. Still as boyishly sensitive as Jimmy D., if not as handsome as Pauly N. At least not lying on the motel room double bed with his face partially covered with shaving soap.

  “Night of horrors, what a sight!” Tina Beth had eeked as the bed lights came on. “March right into that bathroom and unmess yourself, hear?”

  Billy Yates trooped obediently off to the bathroom, straight-razored away the last of the shaving soap in record time, vigorously washed and rinsed and dried his face, then standing in the doorway, profiled the finished product. “That unmessy enough?”

  Tina Beth patted the bed. “Come sit here, good boy, and I’ll tell you all the gossip. Well, maybe not all. There’s certain things we girls best keep between ourself.”

  Once Yates lay down beside her, Tina Beth raised up and sat cross-legged facing him. “Remember how you’re always telling me FBI agents never discuss any ’ficial business with their wives, Billy Bee? Well, maybe that’s true some places, but not here in Prairie Port. Those girls cluck on like the wildest hens I ever did hear. ’Bout everything and anything. FBI work included. And lovin’, my gracious, they do love talkin’ lovin’! They’re downright scandalous.”

  Tina Beth, to her husband’s disappointment, popped a pillow down into her lap, leaned confidentially forward over it and, raising a single finger as might a child about to reveal the most precious of secrets, said, “The happiest of all the couples at Prairie Port is Elsie and Martin Brewmeister, Doris and Lester Kebbon, Sue Ann and Rodney Willis and Tricia and Ralph Dafney. Cub and Sissy Hennessy used to be one of the happiest but what with all the babies they keep having and Sissy wanting Cub to become a SAC, they may not be as happy as they used to. It’s not Cub’s idea having all the babies, it’s Sissy’s, and how she manages to maintain her figure is a marvel. Billy Bee, you will not believe that woman’s shape. She has the body of an eighteen-year-old. Bearing children seems to have no direct relationship with unhappiness. Sue Ann and Rodney Willis don’t have any children and Tricia and Ralph Dafney have one girl, but they’re every bit as happy as Doris and Lester Kebbon and Elsie and Martin Brewmeister, who have a small football team between them.”

  “Tina Beth, what’s your sudden interest in kids?” Billy asked.

  “Hush, I’m telling about lunch,” she told him. “The younger couples, like the ones I just mentioned, tend to keep more to their own group except for Sissy. Sissy is everybody’s den mom. Pauline Lyle, she’s the biggest snob of all the wives and most everybody’s least favorite. Flo de Camp, I guess that must be Happy de Camp’s wife, is the best cook. Helen Perch is the cheapest. Sally Jessup is the sweetest … and worst at keeping a secret, poor thing. Sally Jessup’s been going across the river to the University of Illinois and telling everybody it’s to see a gynecologist because of female trouble. It’s not female trouble at all. It’s male trouble. Sally’s been accompanying her husband, Jez Jessup, who has testalgia but doesn’t want anybody to know.

  “The most beautiful wife of all is Alice Sunstrom. She’s much younger than her husband, Strom Sunstrom, and maybe that’s causing problems. No one can be sure. The Sunstroms aren’t very social. They stay up in a great big house on the hill they bought a while back. Tramont Hill, that’s one of the fanciest sections of Prairie Port. It’s out in the western hills. Mister Sunstrom comes from money. Old southern money. Mister Sunstrom really runs the office here, and everybody, men and women, trust and respect him the most of anybody ’cepting Mister Grafton. They like Miz Sunstrom too, but she’s very hard to talk to even when you do get to see her. Sue Ann thinks Mister Sunstrom is going through mid-life male withdrawal. Sue Ann says it’s conceivable Miz Sunstrom is having an extramarital romance because she’s much calmer recently.”

  “This is what the wives talked about at lunch?” Yates was mildly benumbed.

  “Billy Bee, this was hors d’oeuvres! Meat on the hoof comes later. ’Course I was with the younger wives, and they do admit to being somewhat more gossipy than the older wives. Like Sue Ann says, the older wives still believe in Christmas and the Monroe Doctrine. Sue Ann told me the biggest secret around here is that Mister Grafton never did get shot by the man Mister Jarrel hired. Sue Ann says Mister Grafton shot himself on purpose to make people think it was Mister Jarrel who ordered it.”

  “Are you speaking of Wilkie Jarrel?” he asked.

  Tina Beth nodded. “Only one of the richest and most powerful people in Prairie Port, and the man Mister Grafton has sworn to arrest. Mister Grafton thinks Mister Jarrel is the corruptest man in Missouri and has been investigating him for years and years. Mister Jarrel exerted Senate pressure to have Mister Grafton stopped. Shooting himself was one way Mister Grafton could fool Edgar into letting him go on investigating.”

  “Edgar?”

  “Edgar Hoover.”

  “The wives call Director Hoover, Edgar?
”

  “Just like all their husbands have a name for Washington, D.C., they have one for him … Edgar plain. Sue Ann says Mister Grafton can play Edgar easy as an accordion.”

  “Sue Ann seems to be quite an expert.”

  “I should hope so. Sue Ann’s been fucking Mister Grafton for six months almost.”

  “What kind of garbage-mouth talk is that! You’re not some low-species sidewalk floozy!”

  “Dear child, that’s how every last wife round here talks, leastways the ones at lunch, ’cepting for maybe Sissy Hennessy. I told you, it’s their favorite subject … along with Edgar. When they cease talking ’bout Edgar, they’re talking ’bout who’s doing that word to who. ’Course Edgar gets included in that word too.”

  “If Sue Ann’s so happily married,” Yates thought aloud, “what’s she doing with Grafton?”

  “Making sure she stays happily married!” With a hand on a hip and a finger wagging in Yates’s face, Tina Beth gave every appearance of being angry. “Billy Bee, interrupt me one more time and I swear something violent and ungainly will occur. Jest moments ago you apologized for being inconsiderate and ungiving, now you’re back at your old selfish ways. May I finish what I was relatin’?”

  Billy nodded gloomily.

  “Cross your heart?”

  He crossed his heart.

  “As I was telling, Edgar gets included with that word you’re so offended by. Only not with women. Sue Ann says Edgar almost married Carmella Hebbelman of Chicago, only the female body displeased him. Tricia Dafney says he prefers young boys of the Mediterranean persuasion … ones with curly hair and big—”

  “For God’s sake, Tina Beth, you’re talking about the Director of the FBI!”

  “You said lots worse after him.”

  “I was referring to headquarters policy, not sexual proclivity.”

  “Edgar seems a mite more partial to proclivity than policy … on all counts.” Tina Beth rolled onto her stomach and reached out beyond the opposite side of the bed for the record player, by reaching out hiked what there was of the shorty nightgown high onto her back, thus rendering thoroughly naked her magnificently formed upper legs and buttocks. “’Cording to Tricia Dafney, the solitary one thing which genuinely does interest Edgar is who’s doin’ that naughty word to who.”