46

I’d heard that Drury had had his cast cut off, but it still surprised me when he stood up. The novelty of the action seemed to increase his already impressive height. Or maybe my time in Traynorville had worn me down. I was feeling smaller and older.

“When you looked in just now,” Drury asked me, “were you on your way to the Roberts?”

“Just to change my tie,” I said. “I have a date at the train station.”

“Let’s walk to the hotel together. I want to exercise this leg.”

We left Paddy and Gustin in the consulting room and crossed the empty hallway to the elevator, Drury limping slightly and supporting his weight with a cane. It was an elegant cane, of course, a long ebony stick with a silver handle. He’d probably traded his wheelchair for it at some Traynorville antique shop. He used the cane to press the elevator’s call button and then to open our last conversation as we rode the car down.

“This stick is not a prop, Scotty, I assure you. You wouldn’t believe how stiff my ankle and knee are after my short time in that cast. Which only serves me right, as you’re probably thinking.

“I hope you’re letting me off that lightly, Scotty. I hope we can part friends. I made a clean breast of things to your boss; did he tell you? I told him how you’d uncovered my sordid little plot against my own best self. It helped to say it to Maguire, the least sympathetic audience I could find, but it only helped a little. I’ll never forgive myself over what befell Hank and John.”

Outside, the sun was a gray possibility in the eastern sky, and the air was almost cool. Drury paused to light one of his expensive cigars. Then he struck out for the Roberts. He set a pace that was hard for me to match, but then, he only had two stiff joints to worry him, not to mention two ghosts to prod him along.

To help him with those, I said, “Shepard and Whitehead had a lot more to do with what happened than you. Shepard couldn’t keep his hands off Linda, and Whitehead turned blackmailer. He must have seen Linda on the terrace when the two of you were waiting for Gilbert in the dining room. She went out there from the library or some other room, and you missed her because your back was to the doors. Whitehead went looking for trouble and found it. Any responsibility left over belongs to Gilbert.”

“The unhappy little guy,” Drury said. “I must say, it isn’t very flattering to be considered a modern dress Jonah.” Being Drury, he sounded flattered about it anyway. “Tell me, was his plan really to inject me into this town like a mystery virus just to see what symptoms would break out?”

“He didn’t have a plan,” I said, repeating Gilbert’s own lament. “Just a sincere contempt for his life. I don’t think he meant to hurt anyone, least of all Linda.”

We finished our walk to the Roberts without speaking. An old man in gray overalls was using a hose to wet down the sidewalk in front of the hotel. Drury stopped to let him finish.

“Will you stay to help Linda?” I asked.

“Me? No. I doubt I’d be welcome. I’m no healer in any case. I’m an egotistical artist. I’m interested in Linda Traynor’s problems only because they’re grist for my mill. All night new conceptions have been storming my brain. What do you think of a production of Hamlet in which the same actor plays the prince and the prince’s dead father? Or how about a Macbeth in which a single person plays both Lady Macbeth and her homicidal husband? Do you think that could work?”

“Depends on how you look in drag.” I thought he was trying to get one last rise out of me, and I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. “I think you hung around last night because you wanted to help,” I said. “I think for once you were looking beyond yourself and your goddamn brilliant conceptions.”

Drury would only grin and shrug.

“So you’re going back to California?” I asked.

“No. There’s nothing waiting for me there but bill collectors. My Eden belongs to Ralph Lockard now, fair and square. I’m almost relieved in a way. That estate was my last tie to my fatal success. With that link broken, perhaps I’ll finally be able to move on.”

“Move on where?”

“I’ve been offered a chance to direct a film in Europe. The financing is shaky, but I’m used to that. If it should fall through, I can always look up the Banfi Family Circus.”

His laugh ended in a sigh. “I’ll miss having Hank around. What do you say, Scotty? Would you like to take his place?”

“No, thanks. I’d like my nice quiet life back.”

Drury laughed again. “I wish more people felt as you do. I’m afraid an increasing number of our fellow citizens are anxious to repeat Gilbert Traynor’s mistake. We’re far enough from the wars now, your war and Korea, for people to begin to take their peace and quiet for granted. I sense a general and growing desire to throw babies out with the bathwater, to change things for the sake of changing them or with the arrogant assumption that we can disregard the lessons of the past. Poor Gilbert’s learned what a fragile thing our illusion of order is and what a persistent influence the past can be. I sense that the country, perhaps the world, is poised on the edge of the same hard lessons.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” I said.

“I’m wrong a remarkable number of times,” Drury said. “For a genius, that is.”

He started to drop his cigar on the sidewalk, caught the eye of the old man winding up his hose, and flicked the butt into the gutter.

“But if I’m right, if we are on the brink of a national version of Gilbert’s experiment, you’ll think of me often. Every day will remind you of the time you rode shotgun on the Carson Drury roller coaster!”