Clandestine

It soon became obvious to her that her husband's "opportunity of a lifetime" was the receiving of stolen goods from an L.A.-based robbery gang. Johnny, high on hop one night, had told her that Doc had garages filled with stolen merchandise all over the city. He fenced the contraband goods—furs, jewelry, and antiques—to army and navy high brass, hangers-on in the movie industry, and the gamblers and other assorted con artists who frequented Hollywood Park and Santa Anita racetracks.

Doc was a loving, solicitous husband when he was around, but Marcella started to worry. She began drinking to excess and corresponding voluminously with Will to assuage the fears that were building in her about the man she loved. He seemed to be laughing at her, thinking always two or even three steps ahead of her, and always, always smiling darkly with what she imagined to be an evil, absolutely cold light in his eyes.

Marcella decided she needed a vacation by herself. She needed to cut down her intake of alcohol and collect her thoughts. She told Doc this, and he readily agreed. She had a month's accumulated leave time coming, and her superiors were more than willing to let their fiercely competent nurse take some time off to relax.

She drove to San Juan Capistrano and swam in the sea and wrote long letters to Will, who had—amazingly—resettled in Tunnel City. Astounded by this, Marcella telephoned him there. Will told her that he had found it necessary to confront his tragic past. He had become a seeker of the spiritual path. It worked, he told her; he was at peace here, running the town movie theater, going on bookbuying missions to Chicago for the Tunnel City Public Library, and meditatively walking the cabbage fields he had once hated so terribly.

Marcella returned to Los Angeles to find she was pregnant and that Johnny was once again addicted to codeine. He had taken up with a young woman that Doc had considered unworthy and had decreed that he not see again. Cowed by his father-surrogate, Johnny had agreed, and the woman had left Los Angeles.

Marcella was angry at her husband's hold over her brother, and hurt. She had exercised authority over Johnny much more benignly. Doc would coldly order Johnny about, tell him to drive him places, instruct him on what to wear and eat; and always, always with that cold smile on his face.

Marcella was troubled. But when she told Doc the news of her pregnancy, she was overjoyed to see the laughing, witty, and tender Doc of their courtship reemerge. He was solicitous, he was considerate, he anticipated her moods perfectly. She was never happier, she wrote to Will, not ever.

Michael was born in August of 1945, and Marcella's letters to Will became less frequent. She never mentioned her new child and ignored Will's written queries about him.

"Trouble, trouble," she wrote Will in October of that year. "John and I are being questioned about a drug robbery on an aircraft carrier. We have been singled out because of Johnny's addiction. It is a terrible, terrible thing."

"Trouble, awful trouble from all quarters," she wrote in November of '45, three months after the end of the war. It was their last contact for almost six years.

Will and Johnny had run into each other in Chicago late in '49. Johnny had looked terrible: emaciated, his skin a ghastly gray. Will had sought to comfort him, had told him about the "Order of the Clandestine Heart" to which he belonged. Johnny seemed interested, but became nervous when Will pushed the point.

John DeVries was murdered in Milwaukee in 1950. His killer was never found. When Will read of Johnny's murder in the Milwaukee newspapers, he tried to contact Marcella. It was no use—he sent telegrams to her last known address only to have them returned stamped "Gone, No Forwarding Address." He called every William Harris in the Los Angeles directories, to no avail. Finally, he drove to Milwaukee and talked to the two detectives assigned to investigate the killing.

Johnny had been found at dawn on the grass at a park a few blocks off Milwaukee's skid row. He had been stabbed repeatedly with a butcher knife. He was a known morphine addict and sometime dealer. His death was obviously tied into the drug underworld. The detectives, Kraus and Lutz, were considerate and kind to Will, but closed-minded about broadening their investigation. Although they told Will they would keep him informed, he drove back to Tunnel City troubled and feeling powerless.

He was to see Marcella one last time. She knocked on his door in the summer of 1951. It was the most startling event of his life. Marcella had lost weight and was close to hysteria. They talked of John's death and she sobbed in Will's arms. Will told Marcella of the Clandestine Heart monastery, and she seemed to listen and gain brief solace.