The Truth of the Matter Read online

  “Have to leave tomorrow. Benny and I are partners in a construction supply business, and we have to get back to Little Rock. We’re here on business anyway, and we both shouldn’t have come.”

  There was a pause.

  “We went by where you work,” Ingrahm said, “but you weren’t there. We waited a while, then we had to leave!”

  Roebuck felt the blood rush hot to his face. So that was it! That’s how Havers had gotten all those ideas about him.

  “Lou?”

  “Yeah, I’m still here.”

  “We’re staying at the Crest…on Atkins Road.”

  “I know where it is.”

  “How about coming by tonight for a drink or two? We can meet you in the lounge. Old time’s sake and all that.”

  Roebuck’s grip on the receiver tightened. “Okay, Bob. About nine?”

  “Right. It’s been a while. Maybe you better wear a red carnation.”

  Roebuck hung up.

  “See.” Alicia smiled from across the room. “No harm done.”

  Things were happening quickly, quickly. “Shut up,” Roebuck said. He pressed his fingertips to his temples.

  “Don’t talk to me like that,” Alicia said in an even voice. “They were who they said they were. It didn’t matter what I told them.”

  “It might have.”

  “Listen, Lou!” Alicia was on her feet, moving toward him. “Don’t take your frustrations out on me!”

  “You could get me killed!” Roebuck almost shouted at her. “Don’t you understand that, you stupid bitch!”

  “Oh, Christ, Lou, I’m fed up to here! You and your bullshit—”

  He slapped her hard, high on the face across the cheekbone, before he even thought.

  She stood staring at him, unafraid, very pale except for the red mark across her cheek, her eyes very steady.

  Roebuck backed up a step.

  “I don’t hit women…you know I don’t.”

  Alicia might have smiled—or was she trying not to smile? “You just did, Lou.” She turned, walked into the bedroom and closed the door softly and deliberately. He heard the lock click.

  “I don’t hit women,” Roebuck repeated to himself in a low whisper. He stared at the blank expanse of closed door. “You go to hell!” he shouted suddenly. Then he remembered that the expensive apartment was practically soundproof. “To hell with you!”

  He spun on his heel in the soft carpet and went into the kitchen. The shaker-full of martinis was in the refrigerator. He poured himself a drink in a water glass from the cabinet above the sink.

  “To hell with her,” he said to himself as he leaned back against the breakfast bar. He finished the drink in three long swallows, picked up the shaker to pour another, then set it back down.

  As Roebuck was walking across the living room, toward the front door, he realized he still had the empty glass in his hand. He stood still for a moment, then in a magnificent flurry of rage hurled the glass at the closed bedroom door. Instead of shattering as he had imagined, it merely bounced off the wood with a dull thunk. He thought of picking it up and throwing it again, then he decided against it and stalked to the door.

  None of his neighbors were in the hall. He walked swiftly to the elevator, stepped inside and pushed the button for the garage. His hands clasped and unclasped on the steel wall rail as the elevator descended seven floors to the basement.

  His black Thunderbird was parked where he had left it, shining jewel-like in the dim basement garage. Thirty more payments, Roebuck thought as he walked toward the car with echoing footsteps. He laughed to himself as he opened the door and settled back in the soft leather upholstery.

  The engine caught immediately as he turned the ignition, and tires squealed as the big car shot toward the closed garage door, then braked to a halt. The power window on the driver’s side lowered smoothly and Roebuck inserted the key with which all the building tenants were provided into the small metal box on the post near the door. The overhead door went up slowly as he twisted the key, and the Thunderbird roared out into the warm evening mist. As he turned the corner onto Twelfth Avenue Roebuck hurled the key out the window and heard it bounce off the wet pavement.

  Roebuck drove idly down Twelfth Avenue, listening to the rhythm of the Thunderbird’s wipers as they swept the mist from the wide windshield. He looked at the dashboard clock. Seven forty-five. Not too early to drive to his meeting with Ingrahm and Gipp. The Crest Motel was way on the other side of town, almost an hour’s drive if he stayed at the speed limit.

  Making a careful left turn on the slick pavement, Roebuck thought of the last time he’d seen Ingrahm. It had been how long…? Almost ten years ago in Little Rock, when Roebuck had been there and on impulse had looked up Ingrahm in the phone book. He hadn’t seen Gipp in over twenty years, but Roebuck remembered him. Gipp was one of those people who stuck in your memory, like a tiny splinter imbedded deep in the flesh of your hand, felt only when you bent a finger a certain way.

  Twenty years…that was a long time. Odd that they even remembered each other, or cared if they did remember. The three of them hadn’t really been friends in the true sense of the word. It was the army that threw them together. The army will do that to people. And the truth was that the three of them were misfits in one way or another, and misfits will band together, especially in the army.

  They were clear in Roebuck’s mind now, Ingrahm, tall, slender, even-featured, with dark hair brushed straight back. Gipp had been a little man, with rimless glasses that were forever catching the light in front of his pale gray eyes. A little man, but with a curious hardness about him, in the sure movements of his square, bony hands, in his walk, in the muscular line of his jaw, but most of all in the way he looked at people. There had been an unyielding directness to Gipp’s stare, as if he were looking at an inanimate object instead of a person.

  Roebuck had known Ingrahm in college, where they were both journalism majors before the army claimed them. They hadn’t known each other well, and in fact from what Roebuck had seen of Ingrahm at college he hadn’t liked him very much. There was a conceited self-assurance about the man, and a slyly depreciative way of talking that in a woman one might describe as cattiness.

  Ingrahm had been like that in the army too, always cutting people down in his subtle, smiling way. The only man who hadn’t fallen victim to his cunning devaluation had been Gipp, and that might have been because Gipp practically worshiped Ingrahm, and Ingrahm needed that.

  Gipp seemed to have admired Ingrahm’s smooth charm, his ease with other people. Gipp himself was a strange type of man, remote. He had wanted to be an artist of some kind, Roebuck remembered, a sculptor. And then later he’d decided to become an accountant. That was damn odd, Roebuck thought, that a man who wanted to sculpt would suddenly turn to something as dry as accounting. But then Gipp was damn odd.

  For all the time the three of them had spent together Roebuck never got to know Gipp well. Even when talking about the most personal subjects Gipp seemed to be drawn into himself, as if there were something about himself that he would not share or reveal. Roebuck had always had the feeling that Gipp vaguely resented him.

  Eight months was all the time they spent at that miserably cold camp, with its lettered streets and its drab buildings with their hand-fired furnaces. The unit was transferred out then, just after Roebuck was given his discharge after cursing out that asinine colonel in the canteen.

  Roebuck smiled as he thought of that. What had been the colonel’s name? Tarkington, that was it. Colonel Tarkington had been surprised when Private Roebuck stepped right in front of him in the line to the cash register.

  “In a hurry, Private?”

  “If I wasn’t, sir, I wouldn’t have taken your place in line.”

  “That’s not the way we act in this man’s army, Private.”

  “Your army, sir, not this man’s army.”

  The canteen had suddenly quieted as everyone realized what was happening.

/>   “What’s your name, Private?”

  “Duck, sir. Donald Duck.”

  There had been no laughter, no reaction at all from the rest of the men in the canteen.

  The colonel had stared at Roebuck for a full half minute in disbelief and anger.

  It was Roebuck who ended the silence.

  “Screw you, Colonel.”

  The colonel started to answer, then spun and walked out the door.

  Gradually conversation picked up again, with a few brief uneasy glances at Roebuck. Well, Roebuck knew what he could do, he knew how to get out of this man’s army.

  At one of the tables sat a sergeant he had always disliked, a big, beefy ex-policeman with a tendency to bully. Roebuck purchased a chocolate malted milk, then he walked to the sergeant’s table, from an angle where he wouldn’t be noticed, and calmly poured the malted milk down the sergeant’s back.

  The sergeant sat very still for a moment, and Roebuck watched the back of his thick neck color. Then, with hardly a backward glance, the sergeant elbowed Roebuck once, hard, in the stomach as he stood. Roebuck crumpled.

  “Sorry, Private,” the sergeant said, standing over him. “I sure didn’t see you there.”

  The M. P.’s had to carry Roebuck out.

  There had been a long confinement and long sessions with a battery of army psychiatrists who didn’t know enough not to disagree among themselves. Roebuck had refused to cooperate with them, of course, and he’d derived a lot of pleasure from observing their ceaseless disagreements. Then there had been a quick and formal court-martial, a suspended sentence and a medical discharge. Roebuck had fooled them. He was free.

  Roebuck noticed suddenly that he was driving faster, and he slowed and pulled to the inside lane. After a while he turned down the ramp to the section of state highway that led to Atkins Road. A green roadsign told him he was driving toward the airport. The Crest Motel was very close to the airport. No doubt Ingrahm and Gipp had flown in from Little Rock.

  A jet roared overhead, and Roebuck caught a glimpse of blinking lights above him through the mist. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. Driving the car was something like flying a jet, he thought, as he sat back in his bucket seat and read the softly lighted dials on the dashboard. He listened to the diminishing roar of the plane as he watched the wet road between swipes of the wiper blade. It was like flying on instruments, in a way.

  The exit ramp to Atkins Road loomed ahead of him as he flicked on his highlights and prepared to make a careful, precision turn.

  3

  Roebuck backed the car into a space in the Crest Motel Lounge’s parking lot and walked quickly through the dampness to the side door. He looked about him as he entered. There were perhaps a dozen people seated at booths or tables, and four or five men at the bar. Though he was sure they wouldn’t appear as they had so many years ago, Roebuck was reasonably certain that no one in the lounge could be either Ingrahm or Gipp. The dampness outside seemed suddenly remote from the lounge’s warmth and opulence. Roebuck walked to the bar and mounted a stool.

  “Bourbon and water,” he said to the bleached blonde barmaid who came to take his order. “And make it double strong, honey.”

  She glanced halfway back over her shoulder and he glimpsed the flattered look of mock annoyance on her heavily made-up face. She was about Alicia’s age, her mid-thirties, and her figure was just beginning to go. She would look like hell in another five years, Roebuck thought, but she wasn’t half bad now.

  “Bourbon and water,” the blonde repeated, setting the glass in front of him.

  “Thanks, honey.” He flicked a five-dollar bill from his wallet and laid it on the bar.

  “You know, you look something like John Wayne,” she said as she returned his change.

  “Matter of fact,” Roebuck said, “I used to be his double in a few movies. Of course, that was some years back.”

  “No kidding!” The blonde was obviously impressed, but she had to move off to take another customer’s order. Then the red-vested bartender called her over to the other side of the large lounge where they sat in a booth and began talking about something in the evening paper. Another bartender took over behind the bar. An excess of help, Roebuck thought. Apparently the weather was hurting the Crest Lounge’s business.

  He sat sipping his drink, half listening to the drone of conversation around him, and his eyes were drawn to his reflection in the back bar mirror. Sad that a man had to get older, he thought, that the machine had to wear down. Things didn’t change that much on the inside, or the outside, for that matter. Sometimes it came to Roebuck in brief flickers of thought that he had the same aspirations and dreams that he’d had as a boy, that the world was essentially the same, that nothing really changed while his reflection was aging in the mirror.

  A hand touched his shoulder gently and he jumped, spilling part of his drink.

  “How are things, Lou?”

  It was Ingrahm, thinner-haired, older, more lined, but it was Ingrahm.

  They shook hands. “You look good, Bob,” Roebuck said.

  “Thanks.”

  There was a silence as each man studied the apparition from his past.

  “The Kid’s over at a table,” Ingrahm said, motioning with his hand.

  So Ingrahm still called Gipp “the Kid.” It had been a long time since Roebuck had heard that. They walked across the lounge toward the small, hard-looking man seated at a table by the wall.

  Gipp stood as they approached and shook Roebuck’s hand. Even the faint light of the lounge was captured in his rimless spectacles.

  “You were right,” Gipp said to Ingrahm.

  “Sure,” Ingrahm said. “I told you it was him. I recognized him by the boots.”

  “So you still wear cowboy boots, huh?” Gipp said, and all three men looked down at the polished toes of Roebuck’s Western boots.

  “Most comfortable thing there is,” Roebuck said.

  “I remember now.” Ingrahm smiled. “They had a hell of a time getting them away from you in the army. Threatened to throw you in the stockade or something.”

  “Good memory,” Roebuck said. “A lieutenant and myself made a little deal about me giving up my boots. You didn’t see me on KP too often after that, did you?”

  “Come to think of it, I didn’t.” Ingrahm winked at Gipp, who was smiling mechanically.

  The blonde barmaid came over and they sat down and ordered. Ingrahm and Gipp had martinis and Roebuck ordered another bourbon and water.

  “You sure don’t look like you did when you were eighteen or nineteen,” Ingrahm said to Roebuck.

  “A long time ago,” Roebuck said. “But we saw each other in Little Rock ten years ago. That’s probably why you recognized me so easy.”

  “Probably.” Ingrahm sipped his drink, smiling around the rim of the glass.

  Ingrahm would be about forty-seven now, Roebuck thought, and Gipp about the same age. Both men a bit older than himself.

  They made the usual small talk for a while, recalled the mutual memories, and then the mutual memories seemed to run out. There was a pause.

  “We went by where you work,” Gipp said.

  “My wife told me.”

  “They didn’t know who we meant when we asked for you,” Ingrahm said. “They had you mixed up with some kind of war hero or something.”

  There was a cold feeling in the pit of Roebuck’s stomach, and he suddenly realized how much he’d always hated Ingrahm. He cleared his throat. “You fellas didn’t see any action, did you?”

  “The war was almost over,” Ingrahm said. “The story of my life. The Kid here got in on the Battle of the Bulge, though. Transferred out of the company and won himself a Silver Star, not to mention two Purple Hearts.”

  “That’s right,” Roebuck said. “You mentioned that in Little Rock.”

  Gipp was looking neither embarrassed nor proud as he lifted his glass to his lips.

  “What was your heroic act?” Roebuck asked.
r />   “Surviving,” Gipp answered flatly.

  “Ah, modesty,” Ingrahm said. “The Kid got mad over there and killed four Germans in a machine gun nest all by himself, then he took over the machine gun and he and a German tank had a run-in.”

  “You won, I take it,” Roebuck said, wishing immediately that the envy and admiration hadn’t sounded in his voice.

  “I delayed the tank long enough for a bazooka team to knock it out,” Gipp said.

  “Where’d you go after you got your medical discharge?” Ingrahm asked.

  “Back to school for a while,” Roebuck said. “Studied advertising. I held several interesting jobs.”

  “You must have a good job now.” Ingrahm searched his pockets for cigarettes, found them. Gipp lit one for him with a silver lighter. “We talked for a long time with that office manager…” He looked thoughtful. “What’s his name?”

  “George King?”

  “That’s it! He told us a lot about you when he found out we were old army buddies.”

  And I’ll bet you told him a pack of lies about me, Roebuck thought, taking a long swallow from his glass. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I quit that job today. Had my mind made up for a long time.”

  Ingrahm looked surprised. “How come?”

  Roebuck shrugged. “Greener pastures. I’ve had a position offered me in the advertising department of General Motors.”

  “That’s great.”

  “What’s this business you guys have got going?” Roebuck asked, to change the subject.

  “Construction supply,” Gipp said. “We sell supplies to individual homeowners as well as subcontractors.”

  “Sounds profitable.”

  “It’s growing,” Ingrahm said. “Almost more than the Kid and I can keep up with.” Ingrahm and Gipp exchanged glances and Gipp flashed his antiseptic smile.

  Roebuck felt a strange current in the air, the old resentment, as if he were an intruder. He wondered why they had bothered to call him. There was something compulsive, something sadistic in Ingrahm’s personality. And as for himself, Roebuck, did he secretly enjoy Ingrahm’s verbal lashings? Why had he bothered to come here if he didn’t?