The Road To Ruin Read online

  Kelp said, “But they don’t do that any more.”

  “Well, they can’t, with the security,” Chester said. “Also, I understand it, the company didn’t want to do business with Hall any more.”

  Kelp said, “People that fill up the food and the ground with chemicals, even those people won’t deal with Monroe Hall?”

  “He’s not well liked,” Chester said.

  “If they left the rest of the crop like that,” Stan said, “there’s probably volunteers growing in there now.”

  “Never volunteer,” Tiny commented.

  Soon the weedy field came to an end, with more farm buildings, some of them looking abandoned, and then a blacktop road that ran through a greater variety of landscape—parts with trees, cleared parts, buildings of different kinds, some looking like small residences, some like storage.

  Kelp said, “What’ve we got here now?”

  “Some of the cars are in those buildings there,” Chester said, pointing. “The ones without windows.”

  “What about the ones that look like houses?”

  “They’re houses,” Chester said. “Where the staff lives. See that nice green one? That’s where I lived, me and my family.”

  “It’s like a little village in there,” Kelp said.

  “Not as much occupied as it used to be,” Chester said. “He lost a lotta staff.”

  “Running out of money?”

  “No, he’ll never run out of money. It’s just more people he screwed, like me. And other people left ‘cause they just didn’t like him any more. It’s tough for him to hire people now. I hear he’s trying to recruit in South Africa.”

  Kelp said, “South Africa?”

  “Because they speak English,” Chester said, “but they never heard of Monroe Hall. He needs people that never heard of him. Here comes the entrance.”

  First there was a long one-story office building of gray stucco, with Venetian blinds in all the windows, some up, some down, some crooked. Then there was a six-foot-high wall of gray weathered barn siding, and then a blacktop road, one lane on either side of a rustic guardshack that looked like a tugboat coming at you. Serious-looking metal rods were down across both lanes, and three people in rent-a-cop uniforms could be seen inside the big-windowed guardshack. The blacktop road wandered in among more village-type buildings and some not-well-cared-for lawns and plantings. And way in back just a glimpse could be seen of Tara, the house from Gone With the Wind.

  Kelp drove on, past another barn-siding wall, as Dortmunder called, “Was that it? The big white house back in there?”

  Chester said, “It goes for about another mile along this road, and then there’s a shopping mall, by the intersection with the state highway.”

  Stan said, “Was that big white house back there where Hall lives?”

  “Yeah, that’s his place.”

  “Andy! Andy! Hey, dammit, Andy!”

  Kelp looked in the mirror, and there was Dortmunder again, waving like before, or maybe a little more desperately. “Hi, John,” he said. “You wanted something?”

  “Find a place and park. Stop. I gotta talk to you people and I can’t do anything back here.”

  “Sure, John,” Kelp said. “But maybe we oughta look at this mall first, see if there’s a way in from there.”

  “Forget the mall,” Dortmunder said.

  Chester said, “It isn’t easier at the mall, Andy, it’s worse. There’s an eight-foot-high chain-link fence all along the property line there.”

  “Forget the mall,” Dortmunder said. “The mall doesn’t matter.”

  Tiny said, “If we brought a truck in, we could go over the top of the fence.”

  “Forget the mall, will you?”

  Chester said, “But you’ve still got the electric fence. That goes all the way around the property.”

  “Forget the mall!”

  “Well, we’ll go on to the mall, anyway,” Kelp decided. “See what things look like along the way. I think John wants to stop for something anyway, when we get there.”

  “Yes, stop! That’s right! Stop!”

  Kelp said, “Chester, is there anything interesting along this part, before the mall?”

  “No, it’s all pretty much the same.”

  “I give up.”

  So they drove on to the mall, and when they turned in at the entrance Kelp said, “Any kind of store in particular you want, John?”

  “A parking space,” Dortmunder said. “Stop the car. Stop it. Make it stop.”

  Stan said, “That’s a pretty big fence they got up there. Maybe we should get over closer to it.”

  “Stop! Stop! Stop now!”

  “That’s what I’m doing,” Kelp said, and drove around a little, and then found a parking space not too far from the home appliance store, in case it turned out anybody needed anything. He switched off the engine, looked in the mirror, and said, “John? Here okay?”

  Twisting around, Stan said, “John, it took forever to get out here. We don’t want to waste too much time sitting around some mall. We gotta figure out a way to deal with that electric fence. We gotta figure out how to get in there and get back out again, with a whole lotta cars.”

  “Forget that,” Dortmunder said. “Forget the fence.” Finally he had everybody’s attention. They all twisted around to look at him, the ones in front banging each other up pretty well along the way, and then Tiny said, “Dortmunder, we’re outside. The fence is there, all around. We gotta get inside. We gotta get past the fence. We can’t forget it.”

  “This is what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Dortmunder said. “There’s no way to defeat the fence. We gotta do it another way.”

  Chester said, “John, there is no other way.”

  “Well,” Kelp said, “if John says there is, maybe there is. John?”

  “Monroe Hall needs staff,” Dortmunder said. “We hire on.”

  10

  OF ALL HIS CLIENTS, Flip Morriscone thought Monroe Hall was by far the one he hated the most. Oh, he hated them all, of course, flabby flatulent creatures, no self-discipline at all, expecting him to sweat for them, expecting his magic hour once a day or even once a week would make up for all the rest of their self-indulgent lives.

  But of them all, Monroe Hall was the worst. Big self-involved baby, just too precious for words. And look at the security around La Manse Monroe—as though a movie star lived there, at the very least. But who would want to get close to Monroe Hall? As far as Flip was concerned, people would pay good money to stay away from the man. But no. So here we go again.

  Flip drove his forest green Subaru Forester along the county road in the afternoon spring sunshine, perfectly on time for his three o’clock with Horrible Hall, turned in at the entrance and stopped before the iron bar, as he did three times a week, next to the guardshack.

  And as also happened three times a week, every week, thirty-some weeks and counting, the sullen-faced guard came out, pretended he’d never seen Flip before in his life, checked his name off on the clipboard he carried like a tiny shield, and demanded identification. At one point, seven or eight weeks into the relationship, Flip had tried jollity, saying, “Surely you remember me? From two days ago?” But the expressionless guard had merely said, “Gotta see ID before you come in.” So since then Flip had merely flipped the Neanderthal a quick close-up of his driver’s license, and thus gained entry.

  Well, it wasn’t quite that easy. First the clipboard, then the identification, then the call to the Master to confirm that yes, Flip Morriscone did have his usual appointment with the Big Cheese, all done with great solemnity, the required ritual, like a religious event or something.

  But then at last, also as usual, the guard raised the metal boom and Flip could zip on in and up the long two-lane blacktop to the Big House, which is the way he thought of the sprawling white mansion that dominated the view within the compound. Drive up, follow the right fork of the blacktop to the parking area beside the house, then grab his long can
vas bag from the back and carry it around to the front door. Heavy bag it was, flipped onto Flip’s shoulder, the knuckles of his right hand as he gripped the two cloth handles resting on his trapezius, flexing both the pecs and the ‘ceps.

  The first two weeks he’d had this client, there’d been an angry man waiting for him at the front of the house, dressed in a uniform something like a United Parcel deliveryperson, to take the Forester from Flip and park it, but the third week United Parcel was gone and instead the butler called to him from the open front door, “Park it around the side there, that’s a good fellow.”

  Good fellow. He’d lasted only a couple more months himself, the butler, and now it was Monroe Hall who opened the front door of the Big House to Flip three times a week. Staff seemed to be thinning out around the Big House.

  Could Hall be getting a bit light in the coffers? It seemed unlikely, with evidence of the man’s wealth everywhere you looked (though in Flip’s experience that could be misleading, too), but in any case Flip was always paid promptly. And in cash, as well; no point getting the IRS mixed up in the transaction.

  Once again, Hall himself stood in the open doorway, beaming out at him. How ridiculously happy the clients were to see him, as though he could possibly effect any real change at all in their lap-of-luxury lives. They all wanted to look like him, is what it was, so when they smiled him a greeting they were actually saying hello to the fantasy selves in their own minds.

  The reality was considerably worse. Hall, for instance, was a moderately large man, probably a welterweight in his youth, now covered with flab like a duck waiting to be roasted. To make matters worse, every time he had a session with Flip, Hall wore yet another of his matching sets of sweats; today’s were electric blue, with gold stripes up the arms and legs. Why he so wanted to look like a New Jersey mobster Flip would never understand.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Hall,” he called breezily, as he came up the walk.

  “A beautiful afternoon, Flip,” Hall told him, beaming all over his fat face. “A pity to be indoors.”

  “Oh, but it’s time to work.”

  “I know, I know.”

  Hall closed the door, his smile turning sad, then immediately happy again. “One of these days, Flip,” he said, “you and I must go riding. Great exercise. In the great outdoors.”

  They were walking toward, then up, the broad central staircase. Flip said, “Riding? Riding what, Mr. Hall?”

  “Horses, of course!” Hall beamed like a man who’d just ridden a horse all the way from Monument Valley.

  “Really?” Surprised (he didn’t like the clients to surprise him), Flip said, “I didn’t know you rode horses, Mr. Hall.”

  “I’m learning,” Hall said. As they reached the second floor and moved down the wide corridor, he gestured vaguely off to the right. “Got a couple sweet-dispositioned mares in a stable over there,” he said. “Fixed up one of the barns for them.”

  Flip stood aside to let Hall precede him into the gym, as somewhere a cuckoo said, “Cuckoo,” thrice. “That one’s late,” Flip said, and followed Hall through the doorway.

  The petulance that was never gone from Hall’s face for long came storming back. “Something else I can’t get fixed,” he said, as Flip put on the table his bag, filled with towels, liniments, small weights. “You’d think people would want to fix things. Even sent it over with one of the guards, in mufti, claim it was his clock, but they knew. Recognized it, knew it was mine.” He made a disgusted sweeping gesture. “So it runs slow, that’s all. Runs slow.”

  “But we don’t, Mr. Hall,” Flip reminded him, and waved at the side-by-side treadmills. “Shall we start with a little jog?”

  “I suppose we must,” Hall said, with the self-pitying sigh Flip knew all too well.

  “Be right with you,” Flip said, and stripped down to his running shorts and tee.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, Flip,” Hall said, hanging back as Flip moved toward the treadmill.

  “Ask me about what? No stalling now, Mr. Hall.”

  “Oh, no, certainly not.” Hall approached, but did not get on, the machine. “I was taking riding lessons,” he said. “But that fellow isn’t—He won’t do it any more. I wondered, by any chance, do you know anybody who teaches riding?”

  “Gee, I don’t, Mr. Hall,” Flip said. “Most of my friends are human.”

  Hall made a little laugh, more a whinny, as though he were becoming a horse himself. “Just a thought,” he said.

  “Come on, Mr. Hall, step up here. Let’s go for our jog.”

  So they did, bouncing along side by side among all the equipment. Hall’s gym was as complete as most professional spas, with the treadmill and Nautilus machines and barbells and anything your little jock’s heart could desire. The machines were all several years old, though, and when Flip had first seen them they hadn’t shown the slightest indication of any actual use. They were simply another of Hall’s endless collections, and why all of a sudden he’d decided to use the health equipment, Flip neither knew nor cared. It was a job, that’s all. The equipment was good, and he doubted it was ever used except when he was on the premises.

  Hall could never do more than ten minutes on the treadmill, even with the dial set at barely more than a brisk walking pace. During that time, Flip observed himself in the mirror and, to a lesser extent, observed the client.

  None of the clients wanted a mirror, but Flip insisted on it. “You have to watch yourself,” he’d tell them. “You have to see the progress you’re making. You have to figure out where you need more work.”

  All of which was true, but Flip had other reasons as well, which he saw no reason to mention. For one thing, it was punishment to make the slobs view their own hopeless efforts, punishment they richly deserved. And for another, it gave Flip the opportunity to watch himself.

  Flip Morriscone would rather watch himself than anyone else on the planet, man or woman, and that was because he was in the absolute peak of physical condition; rockhard abs, rockhard butt, legs like a centaur’s, neck like a plinth. On the treadmill, on the machines, anywhere, what he was really doing was not training the slobs. What he was really doing was watching himself, and getting paid for it. (In his dreams, he often walked beside himself, holding hands.)

  After the jog, with Hall gasping and weaving, Flip gave a period on the leglift machine, so Hall would have a little opportunity to sit. While he groaned over the strain of lifting those weights, just from the knees down, his face streaming, sweats already living up to their name, Hall said, “Flip, this is horribly hard work, but do you know, I look forward to it?”

  “Well, sure you do, Mr. Hall. It makes you feel better.”

  “It makes me feel much worse, Flip.” Hall emitted another groan, then managed a ghastly smile as he said, “Do you know what does make me feel better, Flip?”

  “What’s that, Mr. Hall?”

  “You being here.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about, Mr. Hall.”

  “No, not this torture, Flip. You being here. You.”

  Good God, Flip thought, is he throwing a pass at me? That did happen from time to time (why not, with such perfection as his?), and it was repulsive in the extreme, and usually ended with Flip saying farewell to that client, walking out on the “you must have misunderstood” malarkey. Was another client about to self-destruct?

  “I don’t follow you, Mr. Hall,” Flip said, watching Hall’s eyes like a panther watching a deer.

  “I’ve learned over the years, Flip,” Hall said, “that friendship is a sometime thing. People I thought were—Well, doesn’t matter. I know we’ve become good friends over the last few months, Flip, and I just want you to know I value that. I’m glad we’re pals.”

  “Pals,” pronounced as though just learned from a foreign language. Flip smiled large in relief; it wasn’t a pass after all. “Of course we’re pals, Mr. Hall,” he told the client.

  11

  ANNE MARIE DIDN�
��T LIKE it when Andy brooded, because it happened so seldom that it had to mean something serious had gone wrong. He’d been his usual cheery optimistic self when he’d left for Pennsylvania with John and the others, but in the three days since, his mood had considerably darkened. Not unhappy, exactly, or angry. Mostly he seemed to be stymied, to have walked into a wall somehow, unable to move, and therefore unable to catch up with his regular buoyant self.

  Generally speaking, Anne Marie left Andy to be Andy, with no interference from her. He was like a smooth-running but intricate machine whose workings were completely unknowable, and therefore not to be messed with. For instance, she knew how to drive a car and considered herself a good driver, but there were some special high-performance vehicles she wouldn’t dare try to take control of, and that’s what Andy was to her: too complex and abrupt to steer.

  But this funk had been going on for three days, which was an eternity in the weather of Andy Kelp, and it showed no signs of improving, so finally, in the midafternoon of the third day, a Saturday, when yet again she walked into the living room and Andy was slumped in his favorite chair, gazing glassy-eyed in the general direction of the television set, which didn’t happen to be switched on, she had to try at least kicking the tires a little: “Hi, Andy.”

  “Hi.” His smile was as chipper as ever, but there didn’t seem to be anything behind it.

  Feeling suddenly like the wife in a soap opera, although she was neither, she sat on the sofa, where she could see him most directly, and said, “Andy?”

  His eyes rolled toward her; his brows lifted slightly. The smile on his lips was small and nostalgic, as though he were remembering happy times rather than being in them. “Mm?”

  “What’s wrong, Andy?”

  He sat up straighter. He looked surprised. “Wrong? Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Ever since you came back from Penn—”

  “Oh, that,” he said, and brushed it away, as though now he understood what she was talking about and it was nothing, nothing. “That’s not my problem,” he said. “That’s John’s problem.”