“Didn’t you get my letter?”
“Yes, but I didn’t open it. It came at one of those times when-” He let that drop. “I’ve still got it, though. I’ve been meaning to read it.”
“You should have,” she told him quite firmly. “Last spring I had to go back to Grosse Pointe to attend a family funeral. I found out some things about Junior-things I didn’t really want to know-but I heard enough to realize that it was something you really ought to know about. In some ways I suppose I’m not very admirable, but I do feel a loyalty to my friends.” She laid her hand affectionately on his. “I spent a week or so asking questions, and I had the whole story when I came back. I called the college to get your address and found out that Junior had dropped out and left a Seattle forwarding address. I knew that your home was in this state, and I thought he might be following you. That’s why I wrote you the letter. I wanted to warn you.” She looked around. “Is there someplace where we can talk?”
“The hospital chapel’s usually deserted.”
She threw back her head and laughed. “How perfectly appropriate. All right, Raphael, let’s go melt down a few plaster saints.”
Raphael told the duty nurse where they were going and got directions.
The chapel was dimly lighted and quite religious. Sacred Heart is a Catholic hospital, after all. They seated themselves, and Isabel began. “You shouldn’t feel any guilt about what’s happened to junior, Raphael,” she said quite firmly. She gestured at the inside of the chapel. “You’re in the right place. You should fall down on your knees-” She broke off. “I’m so sorry, Raphael. I didn’t mean-”
“It’s only an expression, ‘Bel. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“All right. You should thank God that it was junior and not you.”
“Me?”
“That’s why he really came herd-to destroy you-maybe even to kill you, for all I know.”
“Kill?” He was startled at that.
“You’ll understand more as we go along. I saw a little bit of this myself, but I got most of it when I went back to Grosse Pointe.”
“All right, who’s Gabriel?”
“Junior’s cousin,” she answered. “Did Junior ever tell you very much about his family?”
“Not really. Bits and pieces mostly. I gather that there’s money and that he and his father don’t get along too well. You know Damon-he exaggerates a great deal.”
“That’s a clever way to put it. There is money-a great deal of money. Old J.D.-everybody calls him that-hit upon a very simple idea when they. were developing one of the newer components in all cars. It’s the simplest thing in the world-or so I’m told but a car won’t work without it, and J.D. has the patent.”
“No kidding? Damon never said a word about that.”
She nodded. “Maybe he considers it beneath him. It’s hard to know about junior. Did he ever tell you about his cousins?”
“I think he mentioned them once-something about a large number of girls.”
“There are plenty of girls, all right. The Floods are prolific, but they seem to have trouble producing male children. There’s only one other aside from Junior-Gabriel. They grew up together, and junior hates Gabriel to the point of insanity.”
“Hate? Damon?”
“Oh, my dear Raphael, yes. Hate may even be too timid a term. You see, junior’s mother died when he was about four, and J.D. buried himself in the business. It happens sometimes, I guess. Anyway, junior was raised by servants, and he grew up to be a sullen, spiteful child, delighting in tormenting cats and puppies and his legion of female cousins.
“At any rate, the shining light of the entire family was Gabriel. Because he and junior were the only two boys, comparisons were inevitable. Gabriel was everything that junior wasn’t-blond, sunny, outgoing, athletic, polite-the kind of little boy people just naturally love. Junior, on the other hand, was the kind of little boy that you send away to military school. I gather that for a great number of years about the only thing old J.D. ever said to junior was, `Why can’t you be more like Gabriel?’ I understand that it all came to a head when the boys were about nine at Christmastime. Junior had been tormenting one of the girls-as usual-and Gabriel came to her rescue. Old J.D. caught them fighting and made them put on boxing gloves. Then, in front of the entire family, Gabriel gave junior a very thorough beating, and old J.D. rooted for him all the way.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Oh yes. The Floods are a vicious family. After that there was no hope of reconciliation. J.D. told them to shake hands when it was over, and Junior spat in Gabriel’s face. From then on he not only hated Gabriel, but his father as well. It was about then that he started being sent away to school.”
Raphael thought about that. “What kind of person is Gabriel?”
“He’s an insufferable prig. He’s been trained since babyhood to butter up old J.D.-the rest of the Floods know where the money is. He graduated with honors last year from Dartmouth Dartmouth-J.D.’s old school-and he’s now busily backstabbing his way up the ladder in the family company.”
“Good group. I can see now why Damon wanted to get away from there. But what’s all this got to do with what happened here in Spokane?”
“I’m coming to that. This is all a little bit complicated, and you have to understand it all before it makes any sense.”
“Okay. Go ahead.”
“Anyhow,” she continued, “at school junior continued his charming ways, spending most of his time trying to bully smaller boys and usually getting soundly beaten up for it by older ones. Since the schools he attended are little WASP sanctuaries, more often than not the boys who thrashed him were blond, Nordic types-replicas of dear Cousin Gabriel. So, by the time junior was fifteen or so, he’d developed a pretty serious kind of attitude.
“The turning point, I suppose, came at prep school when Junior set out quite deliberately to `get’ the school’s star athlete-a blond, curly-headed half-wit who was almost a carbon copy of Gabriel. Junior charmed the young man into accepting him as his best friend-Junior can be very charming-and then he planted some cocaine in the boy’s room. An anonymous tip to the school authorities, and the boy was expelled.”
“Flood?” Raphael said incredulously.
She nodded firmly. “Junior Flood. After the first time he did it again-and again-not always with drugs, naturally. He turned a promising young halfback into a sodden alcoholic. He introduced another boy to the joys of heroin. A brilliant young mathematician now has the cloud of possible homosexuality hanging over him. One boy went to jail. Another killed himself. Junior’s been a very busy young man. He’s made a lifelong career of destroying young men who look like his cousin Gabriel. I suppose that in time he might even have worked up the nerve to go after Gabriel himself.”
“And I . . . ?”
“Exactly, Raphael. You look more like Gabriel than Gabriel himself-and of course there’s your name. The coincidence was just too much for Junior. He had to try to get you. I suppose that’s where I came in. I was part of whatever he had in mind, but probably not all of it. Whatever it was going to be, it was undoubtedly fairly exotic. Junior was-is-quite creative, you know.”
“It doesn’t hold water, ‘Bel. Why did he bother to come to Spokane, then? Wasn’t this enough for him?” He passed his hand through the vacancy where his left leg had been.
She turned her head away. “Please don’t do that, Raphael,” she said, her tone almost faint. “It’s too grotesque.”
“You haven’t answered me.”
“I don’t know,” she said helplessly. “Who knows what’s enough for someone like junior? Maybe it was because it was an accident and he didn’t make it happen; maybe he wanted to gloat; maybe a hundred things. And then I suppose there’s always the possibility that he genuinely likes you. Maybe after the accident you no longer threatened him, and he found that you could really be friends. I really don’t know, Raphael. I have enough trouble sorting out my own motives-and God knows they’re elemental enough.”
A nurse came into the chapel, her starched uniform rustling crisply. “Mr. Taylor?”
“Yes?” Raphael answered tensely.
“Mr. Flood has regained consciousness. He’s been asking for you.”
Raphael got up quickly and reached for his crutches. ” ‘Bel?” he said.
“No. You go ahead. I don’t think I’m really up to it.”
Raphael nodded and followed the nurse out of the chapel and down the long hallway. “How’s he doing?” he asked her.
“He’ll be fine.”
“Lady,” he said, stopping, “I’ve spent too much time in hospitals to buy that.”
She turned and looked at him. “Yes. I guess you have.”