Mystery

“When you said this old guy who used to be famous lived across the street from you, and I said, everybody knows that, that’s when. Because I heard my Uncle Ralph on the porch with Jerry, and my uncle said, da da da da da dum, Lamont von Heilitz, or whatever his name is, and Jerry said, he lives across the street from the Pasmores.”

“I wonder what that was about?”

“I’ll ask him,” Fritz said.

“No, don’t ask him about it. Did your uncle say anything after that?”

“He said, have a nice time, Fritzie. Which is what I thought I was going to do.” He picked himself up. “I suppose you want me to go get her and bring her here, and then go walk around the lake or something.”

“Maybe you could call her up this afternoon, or talk to her at lunch,” Tom said. “Say you’d like to go for a walk with her or something while Buddy’s out shooting with Jerry, and go around the lake so her parents won’t see you bringing her here. I just want to talk to her—I have to talk to her.”

After a second Fritz boffed his chest again, and said, “Let’s swim some more, huh? I’ll take care of things. If you’re in love with Sarah Spence, Buddy can always get married to Posy Tuttle. Buddy doesn’t care who he gets married to.”

They swam until Fritz’s mother came outside the compound to the middle Redwing dock and began calling, “Fritzie! Fritzie!”

As soon as Fritz had run back to the compound, his wet bare feet leaving footprints behind him on the track, Tom dried himself off, changed into chinos and a polo shirt, and went to the club. It was just past eleven forty-five. Lunch did not normally begin until twelve-thirty, but he was hungry—he’d eaten nothing besides half of the pie for dinner the night before, and had skipped breakfast that morning. Besides, he was too tense to wait: he suspected that the real reason he wanted to eat early was that he could be out of the club dining room before the Redwings showed up, pleased with themselves for having negotiated their way through the obstacles to their son’s engagement to be engaged. There would be one delicate hint to Fritz’s parents about trouble with the Pasmore boy, and Fritz would be unable to keep himself from sneaking shining glances across the room.

“Book scars,” Tom said to himself, and smiled.

The long table had been extended, and set for three more places. Fritz’s parents would be formally introduced, in the lowest of low-key styles, with the formality that conceals itself, to the Redwing Holding Company’s newest acquisition.

Oh, we’ve been expecting this for months.

Oh, I think the formal announcement can come whenever they’re ready, but after a year I imagine our young lady here will transfer out to Arizona. She’ll want to keep an eye on her boyfriend, won’t she?

Laughter, knowing and tolerant.

It’s so nice they didn’t make us wait until the end of the summer—you know, I was actually afraid they’d do that!

Oh, Sarah is going to love her new life.

Tom knew the real reason he was eating early.

He sat in the empty dining room with an unread, unopened book next to his ketchup-smeared plate. Two younger waiters lounged against the bar, and sunlight blazed on the terrace and fell over the first three rows of the thick red floor tiles. Tom looked down at his hands folding a heavy pink napkin, and saw the hands of Lamont von Heilitz encased in light blue gloves. He dropped the napkin on the table and left the dining room.

Back at his grandfather’s lodge, he leaned against the door. Then he began picking the papers up from the sitting room couch.

The telephone rang.

Tom hoped that Sarah had stayed behind in her lodge for a minute after her parents went to the club. “Oh, hello,” he said. He put the stack of papers on the desk.

“Tom?” He did not recognize the voice, which was that of a woman in her twenties or thirties.

“It’s Barbara Deane,” the voice said. “I’ve been thinking—if Tim Trueheart wants me to stay at the lodge, I’d better stay there. Otherwise, I’m going to be afraid of running into him every time I go to the Red Owl.”

“Okay,” Tom said.

“I’ll be along late tonight or tomorrow—don’t wait up for me or anything, I’ll just let myself in and go to my room.” She paused. “There was something I didn’t tell you the other night. Maybe you should know about it.”

She wants to tell me she was his mistress after all, Tom thought, and said that he would see her the next day. He looked at Sarah’s letters, a white stack of pages next to the much larger heap of yellow pages. He picked them up and folded them, then took all of his papers upstairs and slid them beneath his pillow.

A second later, he took them out and looked around the room. The drawer in the chessboard table seemed too obvious. At last he opened his closet and slid the papers on a shelf above his clothes.