A Father's Gift

When my mother got married the third time they went to Switzerland for the jousting and I had to move in with my old man. I don't hate him, but he's so goddamn charming. He enters a room and dainty feminine undergarments begin to drop like autumn leaves. No kidding. I've seen him just look at some dame he'd never even met before, and right away I could see old Dad was home free once again. Intellectually, of course, he's a lightweight.

He's an illustrator. If Coca-Cola wants a painting of a gorgeous clean-cut American girl fondling a red Irish setter, old Dad knocks it out. It's not a bad life. Part of the year he lives in Westport, and the rest in Florida. And he's a real huntin' fishin' ridin' shootin' type, too. You should see the clothes he wears. In the country he goes around in an old Brooks jacket with leather elbows and a blue work shirt and maybe a red bandanna. That's part of his earthy charm. You can just picture the dames jacking up the old rpm because At Last They Are Getting It From A Real Man. You know, like Lady Chatterley.

But that's only in the country. He has an English tailor -- the thing he's proudest of is that he hasn't gained an inch around his waist since college -- and when he takes the train into New York he looks like Anthony Eden on official business for the Commonwealth. And since he can work any time he's way ahead of the other local swordsmen if some married dame wants action at 2:30 on a Tuesday afternoon. The only thing he needs to speed up the flow of eager, happy and satisfied women is a revolving door.

Anyway, right after the wedding I caught the train. Old Dad met me at the station in Westport driving an antique station wagon, again part of his country charm. We threw all my crap in the back.

"Listen, how do you feel about living with me?" he asked. "I mean, how do you really feel?"

I hadn't lived with him since I was four or five, whenever it was they got divorced. "Well, I wanted to go to boarding school," I said, because I am always honest.

"Oh, you'll have time for that sort of thing," he said. "Next year when you're in college you'll see. This year I wanted you with me." He kept looking straight ahead at the road. "You may not believe that, Jay, but it's true. I wanted you with me. Oh, I know what you're thinking. Why now, after all these years? Well, I can't help it, I don't like little kids. They're always dropping their jelly sandwich. But you're a man now. We can have a real ball. And I've waited for this a long time."

He meant it. The old bastard had actually been planning for a long time. Jesus. What do you say? I didn't know what to say.

The house in Westport is one of those Colonials which are old as God. We carried my crap up to the second floor. He'd fixed me up a kind of apartment. My own sitting room and bedroom and stereo and a refrigerator full of beer. It was all leather and tweed and manly as hell. The only thing the old lecher had forgotten was a mirror over the king-sized sack.

"It doesn't have an outside entrance," he said, "but the place in Florida does and we'll be there most of the time. Oh, listen. I've got a car you can use."

We went down to the garage. It was an MG, red. "A friend of mine was getting rid of it, so I thought what the hell. You can take it to school next year, if you want." He paused as if he didn't know what else to say. "We'll have a good time, won't we, Jay?" he asked suddenly. "Won't we have a good time this year?"

"Oh, sure," I said. "Sure."

Well, we didn't. I'd been living there about 10 days when I went in his studio to sharpen a pencil one afternoon and he was working on an illustration. I had to laugh.

"No woman in the world's got breasts like that," I said. "You're painting your own fantasy."

He works from photographs. All illustrators do. They get a model in a pose, then photograph her. Old Dad grinned and handed me the photograph, but they still didn't look like that to me.

"I guess they do have to be seen to be appreciated," he admitted. "I'll introduce you to her."

"Gee, Dad, thanks a lot," I said and went back upstairs, but my sarcasm was wasted.

Saturday night I was lying on my sack in my underwear reading Camus. The old bastard had been invited out to din-din and about 10:30 I heard him come in accompanied by the gay abandoned tinkle of feminine laughter. He called, "Jay. Come down. I want you to meet some people."

"In a minute," I called back, but I didn't move my ass.

I kept on reading and finally I heard someone come upstairs and walk down the hall. My door was ajar. "Yoo-hoo?" she said. "Anybody home?" Oh, Christ. She was going to be cute about it.

"No," I said.

She entered, laughing, with a drink in each hand. It was Mooey-Cow, the model. She wasn't much older than I was.

"I'm Bitsy," she said, sitting beside me on the bed. "Say, you are cute. I thought your old man was just handing me the ordinary line of crap. What're you doing?" (continued on page 120)

Father's Gift (continued from page 54)

"I am reading a book, lady," I said.

She looked at the jacket. "Camus," she said, mispronouncing it. "What's it about?"

"A man is condemned to spend eternity pushing a stone to the top of a mountain. Once it gets there it rolls down and he has to push it to the top again."

"In that case you'd better have a drink," she said and put a glass in my hand. Then she took off her shoes and sat cross-legged on the bed beside me and snuggled up.

I won't say her approach was crude, but it was direct. After all, I was just lying there in my underwear. She made her move and I was so startled I jumped out of bed. To have jumped farther would have been to do myself an unkindness.

"Leggo," I said.

"What's the matter with you?" she said.

Jesus, I was embarrassed. "Listen, if you'd just like to sit here quietly, or something."

She stood up and put on her shoes. "No, thanks. I had a quiet night last night. So goodbye to you." She walked out.

Well, eventually the old man's car drove off. After a while it came back. He came upstairs switching off lights and tapped on my door. He was just tight enough to be charming, but no more. "What the hell, kid? Didn't you like Bitsy?"

I didn't want to talk about it. "She's OK."

He stared at me. "Listen, haven't you ever had a girl? There's nothing wrong with it, you know. I don't know if you know there's nothing wrong with it or not. You mustn't think there's anything wrong with it, because if you think there's anything wrong with it, well, that's wrong."

I got up to hunt for a cigarette. "Well, I always thought a person's sex life was a person's sex life. You know what I mean? I mean I don't like it thrown at me. You make me feel like the only reason you brought me here was to get me bred."

He looked tired and disappointed. "OK, Jay," he said finally. "OK, I'll leave you alone."

There was nothing I could say. The year wasn't going to be the way he wanted. But Jesus, how could it? He was 40-something years old; I was 18. How can you be old buddy-buddies in a situation like that? I couldn't even think of anything polite to say to him.

The middle of October we closed the house and went to Florida. The house there -- in Florida, that is -- had only two bedrooms, but it was modern as hell with a couple of sun decks and a big patio and a view of the Gulf. My father worked outside, usually. In the afternoons after I got back from school I'd lie on the beach in the sun by myself. That is, I did until Evie Caldwell came along.

Before I tell the gossip about Evie I'd better explain about the school. It was small, which was the most important thing, and there were only about 300 students. All the kids had known each other all their lives and had their friends and girlfriends and cliques. I was not exactly Most Popular Boy. I went to a couple of dances stag, but what the hell. So I gave it up.

Evie was in my Latin class, and she was supposed to be the sexiest girl in school. She looked the part, but in my experience the sexiest-looking girls are not always the sexiest when you get down to it. The gossip was that she was available, and insatiable -- she could never get enough at no time nowhere in this world, man. Well, gossip. It's meaningless. Gobble gobble gobble. Christ, sometimes I hate people.

Late one afternoon I was on the beach watching those crazy little birds run along the edge of the water when I saw Evie. She was walking toward me and she had on a faded blue bathing suit which was too small and she kept tugging at it and pulling it down. Then she saw me. "Oh. Hi."

I said Hi.

"You know something? I found an absolutely perfect sand dollar. That's very unusual. They usually get broken up when the tide goes in or out." She held it out.

"Sit down and have a cigarette," I said. "Or maybe a beer?" I always took beer to the beach.

"I don't smoke." She sat down beside me. There were grains of sand caught in the golden hairs on her forearm. "I can't stand to smell women who smoke. You know?"

I opened a can of beer. "Yeah, it's funny about smelling. When I was a little kid everybody used to smell different to me. Now I smoke so much."

"You haven't lived with your father before, have you?" she said. "Because he's been coming here for years."

So I told her about my mother. "You see, Switzerland's an ideal place because you can go for weekends to Paris or Rome, or even Spain."

"Are you glad she's married?"

"Well, yeah. He's a nice guy. The one before him committed suicide. Not that he wasn't nice, too. He was very considerate about the way he did it. One day when my mother wasn't in the apartment he shot himself. He put the pistol right in his ear. That's the best way if you want to shoot yourself. The lady next door was watching television and she got the super to come up with a key and they called the cops."

"Why did he do it?"

"I don't know. He was pretty nervous. He'd had four breakdowns and had to go to a sanatorium in Massachusetts. I used to watch him sweat. He'd be just sitting in a chair, not doing anything, and suddenly he'd start to sweat. Water'd pour off him. He could really sweat."

Evie looked thoughtful. "Gas is easier."

"Natural gas, you mean?"

"Uh-huh. A doctor who used to be my mother's friend said that was the best way. Of course, there's always the danger of an explosion. Carbon monoxide is probably ideal."

"You get a terrific headache from that, though, right before the end. I read a book about some polar explorers who had a poorly ventilated igloo. They lighted the stove and damn near conked out before they could get outside. That's how I know about the headaches."

"Well, a lot of times people take pills and somebody comes along and pumps them out."

I lay on my back and looked at the sky. "Maybe the ideal way would be to get in a warm tub and then take a bunch of pills and then open a vein."

"And sniff ether," Evie said. "You can buy ether in a drugstore, can't you? I think once we bought some to kill some kittens. That damn old cat we had."

I asked her if she wanted another beer, but she shook her head. "Your mother ever remarry?" I asked.

"No, and I wish she would. She drinks."

"That can be a problem."

"It used to be she'd get drunk once a month. Now it's about every week. She says the most terrible things and I have to stay home from school with her." Evie brushed sand from her legs. "Of course, I don't think she's going through the change, but I can't be absolutely sure."

"How come I didn't see you at the dances?" I said.

She grinned. "Nobody asked me."

"Aw, come off it," I said. "These guys down here out of their minds? They had too much sun? There's one Friday night. Let's go."

She glanced away. "Take me somewhere else. A movie."

"OK," I said.

She threw the perfect sand dollar toward the water. "I don't like the kids here. I hate it here. As soon as I'm 18 I'm leaving." She stood up and brushed sand off the backs of her legs and her ass. "Well, I got to go."

"Want me to drive you?"

"No. My brother's meeting me."

She had a brother named Alfred, a Neanderthal. He was older and spent his entire high school career taking courses in woodworking shop. That kind of moron. He had two cronies who had played football until they were out of eligibility -- Beano McNab and Big Fats Farr. They aren't important right now, but remember their names. Someday they'll be wanted by the FBI.

Friday night I was shaving when my father walked past the bathroom and stopped. "What're you doing?" he said, only he didn't mean that; he meant why, or for what purpose, was I shaving at that hour of the day. But I didn't bother to straighten out the old bastard's syntax.

"Date," I said.

"Who is she?"

"Girl."

"Doesn't she have a name? Perhaps I know the family. I have been coming here for a number of years."

"Evie Caldwell."

"Oh, Jesus Christ," the old bastard said.

I put down the razor. "What's so wrong with her?"

"Nothing at all. But have you seen her mother?"

"She drinks," I said.

"Who the hell cares about that?" the old man said. "I mean, have you seen her?"

"Not yet, pops," I told my real daddy.

He looked honestly worried. "I'm going to tell you the same thing my father said to me years ago. The moment you become interested in a girl take a good look at her mother. That is the way the girl will look 20 years hence. Ask yourself if that is what you want 20 years from now."

"For Christ sake, we're only going to a movie. I doubt if we'll produce issue tonight."

"All right, but I'm only asking you to think, son."

That was the first time he'd ever called me that. It was embarrassing. He followed me into my room and sat on the bed while I dressed. "For Christ sake stop worrying about me," I said. "It makes me nervous. I'll look at her mother."

I did, too. Oy.

They had a big expensive house. It wasn't anything like our house which was only a beach house. Evie's house was white and three stories with a big wall around it. I guess it was Moorish. It was lousy with gardens and flowers and hedges and the driveway was crushed clamshells. I stopped my MG under the porte-cochere. Old Alfred was sitting on the marble steps alternately picking his nose and scratching his can. That kid had rhythm. He hadn't shaved in a couple of days and was dressed correctly for cesspool cleaning.

"What's new?" I said, by way of greeting.

"Huh?" he said.

"I said, is Evie around?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"We have a date."

He giggled. "No crap? She really going out with you? That's a hot one. Boy, that's a hot one."

As the sun slowly set on Alfred, and his nose and his ass and his intellect, I went up and rang the bell. The door was open but there was a screen door and I couldn't see inside. I could hear people arguing, though. It was one of those arguments where someone says, "You don't know what the hell you're talking about," and the other person says, "The hell I don't." I mean it was on that level and there was no point in eavesdropping so I kept ringing.

A woman came to the door. She had a horsy, bitter face and she was wearing a hat with little flowers all over it and rimless eyeglasses. Her dress was made from flowered material and she had a bunch of flowers pinned to her shoulder. Christ, she even smelled like flowers.

"What do you want?" she said in a mean, nasty voice.

"I'm Jay Thornton," I said. "Would you tell Evie I'm here, please."

"Oh, for Christ sake," she said, as if she couldn't care less, and she didn't. "I'm Mrs. Caldwell." Then she turned from me and yelled, "Evie! Your date's here!" And then she just walked away. I couldn't see inside the house and it was like she'd disappeared. Then the argument started again. Goddamn mumble-mumble goddamn. I opened the door and went in.

I was in a foyer and to my left was a drawing room. The furniture was haggard-looking as if no one gave a damn about it. A fat man with a bright red face was sitting in a chair, drinking. A woman in a lace dress was leafing through a book of photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Mrs. Caldwell was pacing back and forth, arguing with the fat man. Right in the middle of the room, lying flat on his back, was a skinny guy in a double-breasted seersucker suit. One of three things had happened: he had passed out, gone to sleep, or died. Mrs. Caldwell kept stumbling over him. Every time she did she gave him a little kick, the way you do a chair in your way. He never opened his eyes or made a sound.

"The hell you say," the fat man was saying.

"The hell I don't," Mrs. Caldwell replied.

"The hell you do."

"Oh, you exasperate me," Mrs. Caldwell said and walked to the stairs. "Evie! For Christ sake, you're keeping this boy waiting!"

The fat man beckoned to me and I went into the drawing room. "Boy," he said. "You go to school?"

"Yes sir," I said.

"Good," he grunted, and I wondered what he would have said if I had said I didn't: bad? He waved his hand at the lady in the lace dress. "My wife."

"Oh, how do you do," she said, giving me a sweet smile. "You play the harp."

"No ma'am," I said.

"Oh, but you will," she said, laughing delightedly. "Oh, yes, you'll play the harp. I'm psychic."

At that moment Evie came down. She had on a white dress. Talk about a breath of spring. Oh, honey!

"Let's get the hell away from the creeps," I said under my breath.

"Yes, baby," she whispered and squeezed my hand.

"Wait just a minute," Mrs. Caldwell said. "You're not going anywhere until I look at your throat. I know you are coming down with one of your colds."

"Oh, God," Evie said.

"Open your mouth."

So Evie opened her mouth and the old bitch glanced in. "Ah-ha, inflamed," Mom cackled. "Red as hell. Take a teaspoon of whiskey before you go."

"I hate that stuff," Evie said.

"Young lady, you will do as I say."

Evie took the whiskey, shuddered slightly, and we went out and got in my MG. "Those are friends of mother's," she said. "Every Friday night they play poker."

"I sure like your dress," I told her.

She squeezed my hand. "I think it stinks."

The thing I liked about that dress was it unbuttoned down the front, all the way. We went to a drive-in movie and drank some beer I'd brought along. It wasn't until about the middle of the second feature I got that dress unbuttoned and then only the first four or five from the top. About a two-hour struggle had preceded that. She could kiss like a driven maniac, but she wouldn't let me do anything. I was about out of my mind before I got her brassiere unfastened. Oh, Christ, what rare gems from the Orient! Then she said she was hungry so I took her to get something to eat and we ended up at her house. It was dark, like the House of Usher, and we sat on the lawn. I put my hand adroitly up her dress and she hauled off and belted me. She really hit me.

"You bastard! Don't you ever do that!"

She hit me so hard she bent my brace. I wear a brace on my back teeth and it's silver and it bent. It was cutting into my gums and killing me. I was about out of my mind with pain.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"You dumb bitch," I said. I was bleeding.

"Let me see," she said, but it was too dark. "I'll go get a flashlight."

"You go to hell, I'm going home."

She grabbed my hand. "Wait a minute, baby. Wait just a minute." She ran into the house and I stood there like an idiot drooling all over myself and then she came running out. "It's OK. She's passed out."

"What the hell?" I said.

"I'll drive you home. You can't drive like that." She made me get in the MG and she drove me home. Christ, there was a light on. The old man was waiting up for me.

"Well, come on," Evie said. "You've got to tell your father." She pulled me out of the car and opened the front door and there we were, as they say, in.

The old man had been spending a quiet evening in front of the fireplace, leafing through his pornography collection. "Good God, has there been an accident? Is he seriously hurt?"

"No, I hit him. He put his hand up my dress and I hit him and bent his brace. I'm Evie Caldwell."

"You're a pair of young idiots," the old bastard said sternly. "And I'm going to telephone your mother and tell her about this."

"It won't do any good," Evie said. "She's passed out."

"For Christ sake, Dad, do something," I said. "I'm in pain. Don't just stand there. Turn on the television."

"Open your stupid mouth," he said.

So I opened my stupid mouth and he glanced into it with the intensity of a brain surgeon removing a malignancy and said, "Don't move, I'll get the needle-nosed pliers," and dashed out of the room. He dashed back, said, "This may hurt, grip something," and unbent me. Oh, blessed satisfying relief! Then we all went into the bathroom and I rinsed with peroxide and they both looked into my mouth.

"It seems all right," old Dad said to Evie.

"Well, he's stopped bleeding but he's sure mangled. You better get him to a dentist tomorrow."

"Come on, clown," I said. "I'll drive you home."

"I'm not sure you should go out with that wound," my father said. "You come right back, do you hear? I don't want you doing anything to get it infected."

"I'm glad to have met you, Mr. Thornton," Evie said.

"Come back to see us, my dear," he said. "Come often."

So I took her home. There still wasn't one light on in the old haunted house. "Oh, its poor mouth," she said, kissing me. "Its poor baby mouth. Me sorry. Me so very, very sorry." She kept kissing me. "Now I have some of your blood. Now I have some of your blood inside me."

"You dumb bitch," I said. "Why'd you do that?"

"I can't stand that sort of thing, Jay."

"You dumb stupid bitch," I said. I felt like you do when you're a little kid and get angry, that you might cry. "I love you."

"Will you promise never to do that again?"

"Yes," I said, lying my head off.

"All right. Then I love you, too."

So then I had a girl and I spent four of the most miserable months of my life. No, she kept saying. No, I don't want to do that. For instance, one afternoon we were lying on the bed in my room and I took off everything she had on, every goddamn thing, and she didn't say anything so I thought it was all right. We must've tussled for an hour before she began to cry. And I mean sob. Really heartbroken.

"What is it?" I said.

"Oh, I thought you loved me, I thought you loved me," was all she said for a long time. Then: "If you're going to do that I'll never see you again. I never will. Oh, I can't stop you, Jay. I can't stop."

"Listen, you maniac, I love you," I said.

She was still crying. "Do you really mean that, Jay? Do you really love me? Will we get married someday?"

"Hell, yes," I kept saying. "Hell, yes."

"Well, then I'll think about it," she said, and blew her nose. "I'll try to come to some kind of decision soon." And so she put on her clothes and then I drove her home.

One thing about my old man. He was discreet as hell. My room had its own entrance, of course, but he knew. He never said anything, though. I mean anything like a lot of people would. Anything crude. I respected him for that.

One afternoon Evie walked out of school and got in my car with a look on her face like someone about to undergo major surgery. "You can this afternoon if you want to," she said. "I'll let you."

I'm not going to write anything about that afternoon. That would be a hell of a thing to do.

What happened was in March I got the flu. I was out of school a week, sicker than a dog. Evie called a couple of times the first part of the week and my father took the messages. You know how it is when you've had the flu, you don't feel like doing anything. All weekend I lay around in the sun. Monday I went back.

In study hall I sat next to Esmé Todd. That was at two o'clock in the afternoon. Esmé had the largest ass and the emptiest head in the entire student body. She either whispered during study hall or wrote notes in green ink. Really a charming creature.

"You missed all the excitement being sick," she whispered as soon as the study hall teacher had told us to shut up.

"Mmmm," I said.

"Yeah," she said, chewing gum. "Evie Caldwell got knocked up."

I thought that I was going to die, right there.

"They questioned all the boys in senior class about who did it," she went on. "If you'd been here they would have questioned you, too." She reflected. "I guess it was either Beano or Big Fats."

I was dying. "What!" I hissed.

"Well, they're good friends of her brother. You know, Alfred? About three or four years ago I remember one summer a lot of kids started sleeping outside at night and Beano and Big Fats used to go over to Alfred's a lot. Yeah, it was four summers ago because she was 13 then. Alfred talked her into it because he liked Beano and Big Fats a lot."

I went out of my mind then. "How the hell do you know that?" I said, and I wasn't whispering.

Esmé looked at me blankly. "I used to watch."

I walked out of study hall. Somebody called to me, I think, but I'm not sure. I walked out of the building and got in my car. I think I drove around for an hour, but I really don't remember. There's a whole hour of my life I can't remember what I did. I couldn't think, all I could do was feel. My girl. My girl.

I drove to Evie's house and walked up the steps and rang the bell. I rang hell out of it. The door opened a crack. "Is that you, Mrs. Caldwell?" I said. "This is Jay. Jay Thornton. May I please see Evie?"

"Go away," Mrs. Caldwell said in her mean, nasty voice. "We don't want any boys around here."

"Please let me talk to her, Mrs. Caldwell."

"You go away or I'll call the police," she said. "I've got a shotgun in here."

"But it was me, Mrs. Caldwell. I'm the one."

"Don't be so sure of yourself," she said. "Anyway, I don't give a goddamn who it was. I am going to have that young lady operated." She closed the door.

I kept ringing the bell but she didn't come back. Then I really went out of my mind. I drove back to school. A lot of kids were coming down the steps at the main entrance, but the seniors usually came out the side where their lockers were. I saw Alfred and Beano and Big Fats come out of the building together and I went to meet them. "Listen," I said.

They stopped and looked at me and Big Fats grinned. "Well, hello, boy." Actually, he'd always been friendly.

I couldn't speak. I hit Big Fats as hard as I could, which wasn't very hard. He put his notebook down carefully and took the pencil from behind his ear and hit me in the mouth and broke two of my front teeth. I lay on the ground until Beano said, "Get up, you bastard," so I got up and he hit me twice in the stomach, only twice, and I lay down again and vomited. They walked off.

I lay there until the physics teacher, Mr. Jefferson, came out of the building and said to me, "Jay, you've been fighting. You know that's against the rules. I'll have to report it. I'm going to tell the principal right now." He hurried back inside, an old man with loose silver jingling in his pocket.

I got to my knees, then I stood up and walked to my car. I drove home. The old man wasn't there. I went into his room. He kept a .44 magnum handgun in a desk there. I got it out and loaded it and I was standing there bleeding all over the place and crying because I was so angry when the front door slammed.

"Jay?" he called. "You home?"

Then ice began to rattle in a martini pitcher. I walked into the room with the gun in my hand and leaned against the wall. He had on a faded pair of dungarees, that was all. He was brown as mahogany and looked like a suave pirate and I hated his goddamn charming guts. He glanced at me, cool as hell, and said, "Have a good day at school?" Then I knew he'd heard about the fight, at least.

"If you try to stop me I'll kill you," I said.

He held the martini glass up to the light. "Go for the jugular, kid, it's the quickest way."

"Cut it out," I said. "You can't con me."

He sat down and lighted a cigarette. Then he looked at me and he looked disgusted. "If there's one thing I can't stand it's a slob. For Christ sake, wipe the emotional egg off your face. What do you think life is? Roses? I didn't raise you to be a slob."

"You didn't raise me, buddy."

"Jesus, you do feel sorry for yourself," he said. "Has it ever occurred to you that by the same token I was never around to bother you?"

"I hate your goddamn guts," I told him.

"Sure you do," he said. "I know that. Because I'm a better man than you are. You're standing there trembling, tears running down your dirty face, in pain, and I am sitting at my ease calmly enjoying a drink and feeling no pain at all. That's what you hate. You hate it because you don't have it. So go ahead. Be a slob."

"Thanks for the fatherly advice," I said, and walked to the door.

"Goodbye, Jay," he said.

I turned and looked at him. The old bastard was calmly sipping the martini. He really wasn't going to stop me. "Why the hell not?" I asked him.

"If you really want to do this thing you'll find a way. No one can stop you."

I kept staring at him.

"You're my son, Jay," he said. "I love you. But I can't stop you. Only you can do that."

Jesus, the old con. They get you with it every time, don't they? I was shaking like a leaf. "You miserable, lying son of a bitch," I said and threw the gun on the sofa and put my face in my hands.

"What in the hell happened?" the old man said.

So I told him. He got up and mixed another martini before he said anything. Then he asked, "What do you want?"

"Evie," I said.

"I'll only ask you this once. Are you sure? "

"I want Evie," I repeated.

He grinned at me. "Kid, you have come to the right place. If there was ever a job for Superman this is it. Now watch your old man operate." He picked up the telephone and dialed a number. "Mrs. Caldwell? Miles Thornton here. I was wondering, could you have a drink with me? In about an hour or so. No, I thought we'd go somewhere if you haven't any objection. Perhaps later we might get something to eat. Yes, in about an hour."

He put the phone down and looked at me. "You've got nothing ahead of you but morning sickness and the PTA," he said dryly. "And you know what you've done to me? You've made me a goddamn grandfather, and I'm too young to be a grandfather."

It was twilight when I drove to Evie's house. She was standing on the steps all alone. I walked up and took her hand. She'd been crying and her eyes looked like hell. She'd probably been crying for days. "Come on," I said. "Let's go."

"I've got to tell you something," she said.

"Everybody experiments," I said. "The hell with it."

My old man didn't come home that night. As a matter of fact he didn't get back until 3:30 the next afternoon. Evie and I were on the deck, sunbathing, and when I heard him drive in I covered her with a towel. The old bastard looked haggard, really haggard.

"What the hell happened to you?" I said.

"You dig motels?" he asked.

"Jesus, really?" I said.

He slowly nodded his head.

No greater love. Believe me. When you think about that Mrs. Caldwell. No greater love. What a really charming old bastard he was!