Hooligans Part 17

"Because he's Dunetown's golden boy. He's handsome, he's rich, he's young. He's a lawyer, married to a beautiful woman, and an ex-football star. His politics are moderate. His family's acceptable. And he's the state racing commissioner. Isn't that enough?"

"Sounds like he was born for the job."

"Besides, Dunetown's long overdue for a governor, particularly with the city growing so, and Harry's just perfect."

"Couldn't that be a hot spot?"

"Governor?" she said.

"Racing commissioner."

"Anything but, dear boy. Harry's brought a lot of money to the state. And a lot of tax money for the schools."

"I never trust a politician who was born with his mouth full of silver," I said.

"Ah, but he wasn't."

"So he married the money, that it?"

"Do you know Harry?" she asked. Her tone was turning cautious. I had the feeling I had stretched my luck a little thin.

"Nope," I said. "Just trying to get the feel of things. Obviously he's a man with a lot of drive. A lot of ambition."

"Is there something wrong with that?" she asked.

"Not necessarily. Depends on how much ambition and how big a drive. What you're willing to trade for success."

"He didn't have to trade anything for it, darling. He got all the prizes. The town's richest and most desirable young woman, her father's political clout. But he didn't sit on his little A-frame and drink it up the way a lot of them have. He made a name for himself. "

"What's he like personally?"

She leaned back in her chair and eyed me suspiciously. I was beginning to sound a little too much like a man with an axe to grind and Babs Thomas was n.o.body's fool.

"Just what the h.e.l.l is your game, Kilmer?" she said.

"Told you, I'm trying to get a line on the town."

"No, you're trying to get a line on Harry Raines."

"Well, he's part of the big picture," I said, trying to sound as casual as I could.

She leaned forward and said flippantly, "You don't have to like a man to vote for him. Personally I find him a bit cold, but he gets things done. The rest of the state is in a depression and Dunetown is in the middle of a boom. You can't have everything. If he was any better he'd probably be in the movies."

I laughed at her rationale. I'm sure most of the voters in the state would look at Harry Raines in the same way. Babs Thomas had a bit of Everywoman in her, although I'm sure she would have killed anyone who accused her of that.

"Anyway," she said, tossing her head, "the sheriff's on his side. That's reason enough to get elected."

"That would be this t.i.tan fellow?"

"No, darling, not 'this t.i.tan fellow.' Mister Stoney. G.o.d owes him favors."

"And he and Raines are buddies?"

I was coaxing information now.

"When Chief's son, Teddy, was killed in Vietnam," she said, "Chief almost died with him. Doe married Harry less than a year later. Chief faded out of the picture right after that."

"As soon as he was sure the keys to the kingdom were in the right pocket," I said. It was not a question. "And now Sam Donleavy's running the store for Raines, isn't that it?"

"Yes. They're inseparable friends."

Listening to her was like dej vu.

"Is Donleavy one of the landed aristocracy?"

"No, he's just plain people. He's from New Joisey," she said playfully. "Nouveau riche. You'd like him."

I grimaced at her. "Thanks a lot."

"Just joking. Actually Sam's quite a charmer. His wife left him about a year ago. Ran off with her karate instructor. Sam took it quite hard at first, but he's over it now. In fact, right now I'd say he's the town's most eligible bachelor-and enjoying every minute of it."

"Is this Raines clean?" I asked.

"Clean? You mean does he bathe?" She wasn't joking; it was obvious she didn't understand me.

"No, you know-does he cheat on his wife, that sort of thing?"

"Harry, cheat? He wouldn't dare." She stared over my shoulder as she spoke and her eyes grew wide. "Speak of the devil," she said. "There's Doe Findley now."

19.

LITTLE TONY LUKATIS.

It's hard to be casual when every muscle in your body has turned to ice. I tried playing for time.

"Who?" I asked, in a voice that seemed to me to be at least an octave above normal.

"Doe Findley," Babs said impatiently, pointing over my shoulder. "Turn around!"

I turned in slow motion, still playing the charade, still acting like the whole thing was a bore. Doe was coming out of a small meeting room with a dozen other well-dressed women. She was wearing tan silk slacks and a dark green silk blouse and her golden hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and tied with a red ribbon.

"That's the horsey set," Babs said. "Thoroughbred breeders."

But I wasn't paying any attention. I was remembering the first time I ever saw Doe. Her hair was tied back just like that, except she was only fifteen at the time. Teddy brought her into the dorm, where we shared a room. She was wearing tight white jeans and a red pullover and she didn't look any more like a fifteen-year-old than I look like Muhammad Ali. I had seen her pictures, of course; Teddy was big on family pictures. But she didn't look like that in pictures. No way. All I clearly remember was that she had an absolutely sensational rear end. I couldn't take my eyes off it. I was embarra.s.sed, but my eyes kept straying. It was like a magnet. I tried, I tried really hard, but it didn't do any good. I kept sneaking peeks. Then Teddy suddenly buried an elbow in my side.

"She's fifteen," he hissed under his breath.

"What's the matter with you?" I whispered back.

"Clicking eyeb.a.l.l.s, Junior," he said. "Lay a finger on that behind before she's eighteen and I'll disengage your f.u.c.king clutch." Then he broke down and started laughing.

That was the fall of 1960, a couple of weeks after Teddy Findley and I met, became roommates, and began a friendship that would last far beyond college. He started calling me Junior the day we met. I don't know why, and he never explained it. I finally figured it was because he was taller than me. Two, three inches. n.o.body else, not even Doe, shared that privilege.

Anyway, I waited until she was eighteen. Two and a half years; that's a lot of waiting. And during those two and a half years she kept getting better and better, blossoming from little sister to big sister to woman, while I watched it happen. Teddy didn't help. He became a verbal calendar, taunting me every week of the way.

"How about it, Junior," he'd say, "only four months to go." It never occurred to me until later that I was being sized up all that time: that waiting until she was eighteen had as much to do with me as it did with her.

"Jake! Jake Kilmer. Is that really you?"

She was standing a foot away. I could feel the fire starting in the small of my back and coursing up to my neck, like the fuse on a stick of dynamite.

Time seemed to have evaded her. No lines, no wrinkles. Just pale gray eyes staring straight at me and the warmth of her hand as she squeezed mine.

I stood up and said something totally inadequate like "Hi, Doe."

Then she put her anns around me and I was smothered by the warmth of her body pressing against mine, by the hard muscles in her back and the softness of the rest of her. I was consumed with wanting her.

Then she stepped back and looked up at my face, c.o.c.king her head to one side.

"Hardly a gray hair," she said. "And every line in the right place. "

"Is that your way of saying I'm growing old gracefully?" I tried to joke.

"Oh, no," she said softly, "not that. You look beautiful." She stared hard at me for another second or two, and just as quickly turned her attention to Babs.

"I see you've cornered him already," she said playfully, and then back at me: "Call me . . . please. I have a private line. It's listed under D. F. Raines. Chief would love to see you."

I didn't buy that. To Chief I would just be bad news, a vague face from the past, a painful reminder that his son was dead. What she was really asking was, Are you coming to Windsong tonight?

"Sure," I said.

"Promise?"

"Promise. "

She didn't just leave, she turned and fled.

I sat back down and looked across the table at Babs, whose mouth was dangling open. She reached up slowly and pushed it closed with a finger.

"You sly son of a b.i.t.c.h," she said.

"What're you talking about?"

"You know Doe Findley that well?" she said.

"What do you mean, that well?"

"I mean that well."

"We knew each other in college. Twenty years ago."

"Uh-huh, honey. That wasn't a 'gee it's nice to see you again after all these years' look. That was a 'where the h.e.l.l have you been for the last twenty years' look."

"It was probably a shock seeing me again. I knew her brother."

"I don't care who you knew. These old eyes are not that bad yet. Twenty years, huh?"

"What are you raving about?" I said to her.

"So where did she fall in love with you? She didn't go to Georgia, she went to . . . oh, let's see, one of those snotty colleges up north."

Now she was doing the coaxing.

"Va.s.sar," I said. "Real hard to remember."

"So you have kept track?"

"Through Teddy."

"Oh, right. And you just sat there, letting me jabber on about the Findleys and Harry Raines . . . "

"Trash it," I said.

"Trash it?"

"Trash it. There's nothing there."

She wasn't about to back off. She leaned back in her chair and appraised me through narrowed eyes.

"Jake Kilmer. That name ought to mean something to me," she said.

She sat there struggling with her memories, trying to sort me out of the hundreds of names and faces from her past. Then recognition slowly brightened her eyes.

"Of course," she said. "You played football for the Dogs."

"You have some memory," I said, wondering how often that interlude was going to keep haunting me. I doubt that it had been mentioned once in the last ten years, and now it seemed to pop up every time I said h.e.l.lo, or maybe it was just popping up in my mind.

"You and Teddy played on the same team, didn't you?"

"For a while."

"She's not a real happy woman, Kilmer."