The Road To Ruin Read online

  “Yes, of course.”

  “That’s one of the reasons he moved back to the Coast,” Gillette said, “so he could have enough land to have some cars around him.”

  “Wise man.”

  “Not a great collection like yours, though, he knew, he’d never catch up to that.”

  I’m loving this interview, Hall thought. “I might,” he said, “be able to give him advice, from time to time.”

  “Oh, he’d love that,” Gillette said. Leaning forward, confidential, he said, “What I was hoping was, part of this job, do you think I’d ever get to drive one of those babies every once in a while?”

  Hall beamed on him. “You can count on it,” he said.

  •

  When Hall got one look at Judson Swope, he thought, I want him on my side. A great mound of muscle topped by an artillery shell head, Swope didn’t stomp in as though he were here to move the furniture, he stomped in as though he was the furniture.

  “Sit down,” Hall invited, mostly because Swope was rather too intimidating a figure on his feet.

  Swope sat—the chair wailed in complaint, but didn’t dare crumble—and said, “I see you already got a bunch of security here.”

  “Well, I have to,” Hall explained. “I have all these valuable collections, music boxes—”

  “I know what you done.”

  “Ah.” Hall tried to read that mountainous face, but it wasn’t exactly rich with expression. “The previous fellow,” he said, “the driver, he didn’t seem to know, so I thought, perhaps …”

  “Drivers don’t know nothing.”

  “Well, that’s true, if you’ve ever had to take a long drive with one. But my, uh, my history, doesn’t bother you?”

  “You didn’t do nothin to me.”

  Perish the thought. With a shaky smile, Hall said, “That’s good then. Now, uh, now let me, uh, let me see…” He fiddled around among the papers on his desk mostly because Swope made him nervous, then did stumble across the packet of papers concerning Swope forwarded by Henry Cooper’s agency: the FBI clearance, the bankruptcy judge’s approval, the Pennsylvania State Police clean bill of health, and Mr. Judson Swope’s recent work history. Why, come to think of it, was he available, a man like this?

  Ah, Securitech. “I knew Danny and Peter,” he said, tapping the papers.

  Swope nodded, agreeing with him.

  Hall spent a moment in Memory Lane, then said, “Skated a bit close to the wind, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s what the wind’s for,” Swope said.

  Surprised, Hall said, “It is, isn’t it? We’ll get along, Judson. I may call you Judson?”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not indeed?” Hall leaned forward, enjoying both the hint of intimacy and the hint of superiority in the use of the name. “All of the hiring details were worked out at Cooper’s, salary, health benefits, all of that.”

  “They’re all fine,” Swope said.

  “Good, good. Now, housing. Have you something local?”

  “In a motel till I get a job.”

  “There’s a house available on the estate,” Hall told him. “Saves going in and out through security all the time.”

  Swope looked interested. “A house?”

  “I’m taking on four new staff today,” Hall said, feeling expansive as he heard himself say it. “I thought all four of you might like to bunk in there. Separate rooms, of course, completely furnished. My new chauffeur’s already agreed to move in.”

  “Sounds okay,” Swope agreed.

  With a happy smile—this really was an excellent day!—Hall said, “Oddly enough, that’s where my old chauffeur used to live, with his family. He was happy there.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “And I was happy with him, yes, I was. Then it turned out, there were things in his background …”

  “People make mistakes,” Swope suggested.

  “Ah,” Hall said, “but then they can’t be around me. The court is very clear on that. In any event, you’ll love the house. And I’m sure you’ll get along with the others living there.”

  Swope nodded. “Everybody gets along with me,” he said.

  •

  John Rumsey was somehow not what Hall had expected in a butler. The black suit was fine, though it suggested Rumsey might have lost a pound or two here and there in recent days. The stiff-collared white shirt, the knife-thin black necktie, the gleaming black oxford shoes as big as gunboats, all filled the bill.

  But was it right for a butler to look hangdog? How could he ever order Christmas carolers to clear out, run along there, that’ll be quite enough of that?

  On the other hand, when was the next time Monroe Hall would be in a position to be irritated by Christmas carolers? Many snows from now, according to the signs.

  The man’s defeated look to one side, his history was excellent. Clean police check, excellent former employment with an eastern European embassy in Washington. Even though only eastern, if a European embassy in Washington had found this fellow Rumsey adequate as a butler, then why shouldn’t Monroe Hall?

  Hall looked again at the records. Reason job ended: employer slain. “What?”

  Rumsey looked guilty. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “No, I know. I did. Employer slain?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Rumsey said. “That’s what happened.”

  “But—why?”

  “He went home for the holidays.”

  Which wasn’t precisely an answer to the question, but Hall let it go. He said, “So when he didn’t come back, you quit?”

  “Fired,” Rumsey said. “We were all fired, in case anybody was loyal to Chk.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “In case we were loyal to Chk.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The ambassador,” Rumsey explained. “Hildorg Chk. In case we were loyal to him, they threw us all out.”

  “Were you loyal to him?”

  Rumsey shrugged. “While he was there.”

  “Yes, of course.” Looking down at his paperwork again, Hall said, “I see I have another former employee of Ambassador Um here.”

  “Yeah, Fred.”

  “Fredric Blanchard.”

  “I’m staying with him and a cousin of his,” Rumsey said, “until I find a thing.”

  Which led Hall to offer the house where Gillette and Swope were already billeted, which was accepted at once. After that, he reassured himself that Rumsey, like the others, was content with his terms of employment, then said, “So I’ll expect you at eight in the morning, show you your pantry, where the callbells are located, internal telephone, all that. Introduce you to my wife and what’s left of the staff.”

  “That’s good,” Rumsey said. “Only, shouldn’t your wife say I’m okay first? I wouldn’t wanna think I got a thing here and then your wife says, ‘Listen, I don’t want that guy.’ I mean, it can kinda happen, that kinda thing.”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Hall said, pleased and surprised by the man’s sensitivity. “But my wife and I discussed it, and our situation is so, shall we say, unusual here, unless it’s a maid for herself, for instance, or something like that, she’ll be guided completely by me.”

  Rumsey nodded. “So if you say I’m in, I’m in.”

  “Exactly. So you can move into the house any time today, the guards at the gate will know to let you through, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “See you then,” Rumsey said, and came very close to smiling, Hall caught him at it. He should smile more often, Hall thought, it makes him look a trifle less pessimistic.

  Rumsey got to his feet and sloped across the office. Hall watched him carefully, and it seemed to him Rumsey did a very creditable handling of the door.

  •

  The last of the four, Fredric Blanchard, the private secretary, was the most difficult of the interviews because, on sober reflection, Hall finally admitted to himself he no longer needed a private secretary. There are people one n
eeds at one stage of life—a nanny, say, a tutor, a drug dealer, a bookie, a bail bondsman—that one simply doesn’t need at some other stage of life. Has no use for, no call upon.

  In a word, “I’m sorry,” Hall told the bright-eyed, sharp-nosed attentive fellow across the desk, “but I’m afraid I’ve wasted your time. I shouldn’t have had you come out here.”

  Fred Blanchard cocked his head, like a particularly attentive crow, without losing the welcoming smile he’d brought in here. “Sorry to hear that,” he said. “Can I ask how I come up short?”

  “It isn’t you, you know,” Hall told him. “It’s me. You’re overqualified. I don’t need a private secretary anymore.”

  “I have trouble believing that,” Blanchard told him.

  “Oh, I used to need a private secretary,” Hall said, with a little nostalgic sigh. “Two, in fact. They were always at each other’s throats, that was part of the fun of it. But, you see, I don’t have that kind of life any more, I’m not flying off here, skiing off there, board of directors meetings, chairman of symphony board, all that’s behind me now. I barely—you know, legally I could leave this property, if not the state, but I just don’t feel like it any more. The fire’s gone out. I just stay here.”

  “Mr. Hall,” Blanchard said, “if I may say so, sir, you need me more than ever. Now is the time you need me, sir.”

  “Need you?” Hall didn’t understand. “For what?”

  “Rehabilitation!” Blanchard cried, and pointed a stern finger at the ceiling. “It’s time,” he declared, in ringing tones, “to get your story out there!”

  “My story is out there,” Hall said, “that’s the trouble.”

  “Your old story is out there,” Blanchard insisted. “It’s time for a new story, and that’s why you need me. A personal. Private. Secretary.”

  “Yes, but—”

  But Blanchard was unstoppable. “Now, if I were PR, you’d be wrong to say yes. The evils PR do would be hard to assess. That starts with ‘P,’ and it rhymes with ‘T,’ and that means trouble. But a private secretary doesn’t have that commercial hypocritical taint. A private secretary can get the new you out there!”

  “The new me?”

  “It’s time,” declared Blanchard, “that everybody just got over it!”

  “Yes!” cried Hall. “Just myself, I—”

  “You’re chastened,” Hall told him. “You’re human after all. You regret the effects of what you’ve done, but that’s the past. That’s yesterday, when all your troubles—”

  “Would I have to give back the money?”

  “Never!” Blanchard’s eyes flashed. “You’re explaining your common humanity, you’re not feeding the multitudes!”

  “No, no, I see.”

  “We’ll start small,” Blanchard said. Somehow, he was halfway across Hall’s desk, staring into his eyes. “Church social egg rolls on the lawn. Boy Scout groups meeting here. Have your photo taken at the wheel of one of Mr. Hall’s famous cars.”

  “Not driving it!”

  “Sitting in it.” Blanchard beamed, his arms spread wide. “The squire of Pennsylvania,” he announced. “How bad a fella could he be?”

  “You’re hired!” Hall cried.

  32

  MAC SAID, “BUDDY? Wha’d we stop here for?” Here was the road along the periphery of Monroe Hall’s estate. Everything to the left of the road belonged to Hall. The guardshack entrance was about a mile and a half behind them. Buddy had pulled off where the shoulder was wide, and across the way was the end of the former tomato farm, now reverted to weeds, with the untouched woods just starting to its right.

  Buddy said, “Look at that place. Not a gate around. You could just walk in there.”

  “The wire,” Mac said.

  Buddy, sounding bedeviled, said, “I know, I know.”

  As usual, Buddy drove, Mac in back. Now Ace, beside Buddy, frowned at him and said, “Buddy? You got an idea?”

  “I don’t know.” Buddy glared at the peaceful empty field over there as though trying to read too-small print. “The wires are too close together,” he said.

  Mac said, “We know that.”

  “We don’t have a plane,” Buddy said, and nodded. “And we can’t get one, I know that.”

  “Good,” Mac said.

  Buddy said, “Could we pole-vault over it?”

  “Not me,” Ace said.

  Mac said, “Buddy, did you do pole vault in high school?”

  “I don’t think we had pole vault,” Buddy admitted.

  Mac said, “You wanna try to learn pole vault now, at your weight—”

  “Whadaya mean, my weight?”

  “You know what I mean. Any of our weight, but you’re the one wants to pole-vault. You figure you’ll get over that electric wire and not fly into it three feet off the ground like the Wright brothers—”

  “I could train,” Buddy said. “We could all train.”

  “Tonto go home now,” Ace said.

  Mac said, “I could hold your coat, Buddy. And I could take you to the emergency room after you land.”

  Buddy, exasperated, said, “Now, who the hell is this?”

  “It’s me, Buddy, Mac, your friend, and I’m trying to—”

  “No, this little white car behind us.”

  So Mac twisted around, and behind them, just off the road, had parked a little white two-seater Porsche. As Mac focused on it, both doors opened, and Mark and Os stepped out, dressed in their usual suits and sunglasses and supercilious expressions. “Hey, it’s Harvard,” he said.

  Buddy said, “I still say Dartmouth.”

  “Anyway,” Mac said, as their two alleged co-conspirators approached their Taurus, “we know they’re not Oklahoma Normal.”

  This time, without an invitation, Mark and Os simply joined them, opening both rear doors, Mark sliding in on Mac’s right, Os on his left. Fortunately, the new arrivals were both slender, so it wasn’t too crowded back there. “We’ve had a thought,” Mark said, by way of greeting.

  “We’ve had a lot of thoughts,” Mac told him.

  “Oh, really?”

  “We were here now goin over the last of them. Pole vault.”

  “Ah, “ Mark said. “We considered that one, as well. But it’s not so good on the follow-through.”

  “Follow-through?”

  “Let us say,” Mark suggested, “that one of us, or for that matter all of us, are athletic enough to pole-vault over the fence, landing in absolute safety on the far side. Do you know what happens next?”

  “Something bad we didn’t think about,” Mac guessed.

  Os said, “The pole keeps going. It hits the fence. It breaks the wire.”

  Mark shook his head. “No way to stop it.”

  Ace said, “How do you like that, Mac? Your catapult idea was better after all.”

  “Catapult?” Surprised, Mark said, “No, that’s one we didn’t think of. On the other hand, you’d hit the ground at rather an unacceptable speed, wouldn’t you?”

  “We rejected it already,” Mac said.

  “Quite sensibly. In fact,” Mark said, “we’ve noticed that you haven’t come up with anything consistently except to keep very close tabs on our friend the personal trainer.”

  Mac said, “You’ve noticed?”

  Excited, Buddy said, “I’ve seen that white car, Mac! They been following us.”

  “In reality,” Mark said, unruffled, “we’ve all been following the personal trainer, at a loss for anything else to do. You three have been in his home so often you ought to pay rent. We’ve all searched his car. Through sources I can’t reveal, we’ve gone into his background and found nothing useful to blackmail him with.”

  “Same with us,” Mac said. “Through sources we can’t reveal, we came up with the same nothing.”

  “So we now,” Mark said, “have a suggestion.”

  Sounding suspicious, the way he always did, Ace said, “Yeah? What?”

  “The approach direct,” M
ark said.

  33

  “KNOCK, KNOCK.”

  “Who’s there?” Chester asked hopelessly.

  “O.J.,” Mellon said.

  “O.J. who?”

  “Orange juice sorry now?”

  “Yes,” Chester said truthfully.

  “Time for lunch,” Mellon said. “Turn in up there, the restaurant in there’s good and it’s always empty.”

  Having left the town of Mellon’s last appointment, they were now out in the country again, driving past a mall where the tallest and most impressive construction was the sign out by the road: MIDPOINT MALL. Which, come to think of it, was probably the goal for every mall, wasn’t it?

  Turning in at that giant sign, seeing in truth acres of parking lot with only a few dusty vehicles, mostly pickups, huddled close to the glass fronts of the line of stores, Chester said, “How come it’s so empty?”

  “They lost their anchor store. What we want is down at the end, past where it used to be.”

  Driving straight ahead, ignoring the white parking-space lines painted all over the blacktop, Chester said, “How come they lost it?”

  “Went bust,” Mellon said. “It was one of those big box housewares places, but there was an even bigger one about ten miles farther on. Killed them. Now there’s nothing in here but the little satellites, the photo developer, the liquor store, cell phone store, restaurant. It’s just past where the anchor used to be.”

  Driving by the onetime anchor store, Chester slowed to look at the place. Large windows were blankly open, but showed little of the cavernous interior because there were no lights on in there. A chain was looped through the six door handles and padlocked. Above the entrance, the faint ghosts could be seen where the letters of the store’s name had been removed: SPEEDSHOP.

  Making out those letters, Chester said, “They’ve got other stores, don’t they?”

  “Oh, sure,” Mellon said. “These big chains, if they make a mistake where they put one of their places, they just walk away from it, cut their losses.”

  The restaurant was next, and last. Chester said, “Would you mind, before we go in, we drive around and take a look at the back?”