The Boy Who Followed Ripley (27 page)

“Johnny told me in Paris that Teresa has another interest. An older man, shall we say. I think that upset Frank.”

“Oh, probably. Teresa’s so pretty, she’s awfully
popular
. A girl sixteen—she’ll prefer somebody twenty or even older.” Lily smiled, as if the subject were finished.

Tom had been hoping to draw from Lily some remark on Frank’s character.

“Frank’ll get over
Teresa
,” Lily added cheerfully, but in a soft voice, as if Frank might be in the hall and able to listen.

“One more question, Mrs. Pierson, while I have the chance. I think Frank ran away from home because he was upset about his father’s death.— Isn’t that the main reason? More than because of Teresa, I mean, because at that time from what Frank told me, Teresa hadn’t cooled off.”

Lily seemed to be choosing her words before she spoke. “Frank was upset about John’s death, more than Johnny was, I know. Johnny’s sometimes in the clouds with his photography and
his
girls.”

Tom looked at Lily’s twisted face, and wondered if he dared ask her if she thought her husband had killed himself? “Your husband’s death was called an accident, I read in the newspapers. His wheelchair went over that cliff.”

Lily gave a shrug, like a twitch. “I really don’t
know
.”

The room door was still ajar, and Tom thought of closing it, of suggesting that Lily sit down, but would that interrupt the flow of truth, if she knew it? “But you think it was an accident rather than a suicide?”

“I don’t know. The ground slopes up a little there, and John never sat at the very edge. That would’ve been stupid. And his chair had a brake, of course. Frank said he just zoomed over suddenly—and why should he have put the power on unless he wanted to?” Again the troubled frown, and she glanced at Tom. “Frank came running toward the house—” She did not go on.

“Frank told me your husband was disappointed because neither of the boys wanted to— They didn’t take much interest in his work. The Pierson business, I mean.”

“Oh,
that
, true. I think the boys are terrified of the
business
. They consider it too complicated or they just don’t like it.” Lily glanced toward the windows as if the
business
might have been a big black storm coming up outside. “It was a disappointment to John, certainly. You know how a father wants
one
of his sons anyway to take over. But there’re other people in John’s family—he always called his office people his family too—who
can
take over. Nicholas Burgess, for instance, John’s right-hand man and only forty now. It’s hard for me to believe a disappointment in the boys could’ve made John want to kill himself, but I think he could’ve done it because he really felt—ashamed of being in a chair. Tired of it, I know that. And then at sunset— He always got emotional about sunsets. Not emotional, but
affected
. Happy and sad, like the end of something. Not even the sun there, but dusk falling over the water in front of him.”

So Frank had come running toward the house. Lily had spoken as if she had seen him. “Frank often went out with his father? On the cliff?”

“No.” Lily smiled. “Bored Frank. He said John wanted him to go with him that afternoon. John often
did
ask Frank. John was always counting on Frank more than on Johnny—between you and me.” She laughed a little, mischievously. “John said, “There’s something more solid in Frank, if I can just bring it out. Shows in his face.” He meant compared to Johnny, who’s more of a—I don’t know—a dreamer type.”

“I was reminded of George Wallace’s case, when I read about your husband. John perhaps had periods of depression.”

“Oh-h, not really,” said Lily with a smile now. “He could be serious and grim about his work, pull a long face one day if something went wrong, but that’s not the same as being depressed. Pierson Incorporated, business, whatever he called it, was like a big chess game to John. That’s what a lot of people said. You win a little one day and lose a little the next, and the game is never over—not even now that John’s gone. No, I think John was an optimist by nature. He could always smile—nearly always. Even in the years when he was in his chair. We always called it his chair, not a wheelchair. But it was sad for the boys, so far as having a father went, because that’s all the boys have known of him for such a long time in their lives—a businessman in a chair, talking about markets and money and people—everything invisible somehow. Not able to go out for walks or teach the boys judo or whatever fathers usually do.”

Tom smiled. “Judo?”

“John used to do judo in this very room! It wasn’t always a guest room, this room.”

They were moving toward the door. Tom glanced at the high ceiling, the wide floor that would have provided space for mats and somersaults. Downstairs the others were in the living room buffeting themselves, as Tom always thought when he encountered the word “buffet,” but in this case there was plenty of room and no elbowing crowd. Frank was drinking a Coca-Cola from the bottle. Thurlow stood by the table with Johnny, holding a scotch highball and a plate of food.

“Let’s go out,” Tom said to Frank.

Frank set his bottle down at once. “Out where?”

“Out on the lawn.” Lily had joined Johnny and Thurlow, Tom saw. “Did you ask about Susie? How is she?”

“Oh, conked out asleep,” said Frank. “I asked Evangelina. What a name! She belongs to some nutty soul group. Been here just a week, she says.”

“Susie’s here?”

“Yes, she has a room in the back wing upstairs. We can go out this way.”

Frank was opening a large French window in what must be their main dining room, Tom thought. There was a long table with chairs around it, and smaller tables with chairs near the walls, sideboards, and some bookcases also. There were platters and a cake on the table now. Frank had put on an outside light, so they could see their way across a terrace and down four or five steps to the lawn. To the left of the steps sloped the ramp that Frank had told him about. After that, it was dark, but Frank said he knew the way. A stone path was palely visible, extending across the lawn, then curving to the right. As Tom’s eyes became more adjusted to the darkness, he could see tall trees, pine or poplar, ahead.

“This is where your father used to walk?” Tom asked.

“Yes, well—not walk. He had his chair.” Frank slowed and stuck his hands into his pockets. “No moon tonight.”

The boy had stopped and was ready to go back to the house, Tom saw. Tom took a couple of deep breaths and looked back at the two-story white house with its yellowish lights. The house had a peaked roof, the porches’ roofs projected to left and right. Tom didn’t like the house. It looked newish, and of no definable style. It was not like an American southern house or a New England colonial house. John Pierson had probably had it built to order, but at any rate Tom didn’t care for the architect. “I wanted to see the cliff,” Tom said. Didn’t Frank know that?

“All right, it’s this way,” Frank said, and they walked on along the flagstone path into deeper darkness.

The flagstones were still visible, and Frank walked as if he were sure of every inch of it. The poplars closed in, then parted, and they were on the cliff, and Tom could see its edge, defined by light colored stones or pebbles.

“The sea’s out there,” said Frank, gesturing. He hung back from the edge.

“I assumed that.” Tom could hear waves below, gentle, not pounding and not rhythmic, but rather lapping. And far out in the blackness, Tom saw a boat prow’s white light, and imagined he saw a pinkish port light. Something like a bat whizzed by overhead, but Frank seemed not to have noticed it.
So here is where it happened
, Tom thought, then he saw Frank walking past him, hands in the back pockets of his jeans, to the edge of the cliff, and he saw the boy look down. Tom had an instant’s fear for Frank, because it was so dark, and the boy seemed so near the edge, even though the edge did slope up a little, Tom could now see. Frank turned back suddenly and said:

“You were talking with Mom tonight?”

“Oh, yes, a bit. I asked her about Teresa. I know Teresa’s been here.— I suppose she didn’t write you?” Tom thought it better to ask him outright than not to say anything about a letter.

“No,” Frank said.

Tom went closer to him, until they were only four or five feet apart. The boy stood straight. “I’m sorry,” Tom said. He was thinking that the girl had troubled to telephone Thurlow in Paris, once, days ago, and now that Frank was found, and safe, she was simply dropping out, with no explanation.

“Is that all you talked about? Teresa?” Frank asked in a light tone that might have implied that that was not very much to talk about.

“No, I asked her if she thought your father’s death was a suicide or an accident.”

“And what did she say?”

“That she didn’t know. You know, Frank—” Now Tom spoke softly. “She doesn’t suspect you
at
all—and you’d better let this thing blow over. Just that. Maybe it has. It’s done. Your mother said, ‘Suicide or accident, it’s done.’ Something like that. So you must pick yourself up, Frank, and get rid of—I wish you wouldn’t stand so near the edge.” The boy was facing the sea, raising and lowering himself on his toes, whether aggressively or absentmindedly, Tom couldn’t tell.

Then Frank turned and walked toward Tom, and passed Tom on the left. The boy turned again and said, “But you know I did send that chair over. I know you were talking to my Mom about what she might think or believe, but I
told
you.— I mean, I said to my mother my father did it himself, and she believed me, but that’s not true.”

“All right, all right,” Tom said gently.

“When I sent my father’s chair over, I even thought I was with Teresa—that she—liked me, I mean.”

“All right, I understand,” Tom said.

“I thought, I’ll get my father out of my life, out of our lives, for me and Teresa. I felt my father was spoiling—life. It’s funny that Teresa gave me courage then. And now she’s gone. Now there’s nothing but silence—nothing!” His voice cracked.

Odd, Tom thought, that some girls meant sadness and death. Some girls looked like sunlight, creativity, joy, but they really meant death, and not even because the girls were enticing their victims, in fact one might blame the boys for being deceived by—nothing at all, simply imagination. Tom laughed suddenly. “Frank, you
have
to realize that there are other girls in the world! You must see it by now that Teresa— She’s turned loose of you. So you must turn loose of her.”

“I have. I did that in Berlin, I think. The real crisis was there, when I heard what Johnny said.” Frank gave a shrug, but was not looking at Tom. “Sure, I looked for a letter from her, I admit that.”

“So you go on from here. Things look rotten now, but there are a lot of weeks and years ahead for you. Come on!” Tom slapped the boy on the shoulder. “We’ll go back to the house in a minute. Wait.”

Tom wanted to see the edge, and moved forward toward the lighter colored rocks. He could feel pebbles and a bit of grass under his shoes. He could feel also the emptiness below, now black, but giving out something like a sound of hollow space. And there, unable to be seen now, were the jagged rocks that Frank’s father had fallen onto. Tom turned at the sound of the boy’s steps toward him, and at once moved away from the edge. Tom had had a sudden feeling that the boy might rush him and push him over. Was that insane on his part, Tom wondered. The boy adored him, Tom knew that. But love was strange too.

“Ready to go back?” Frank asked.

“Sure.” Tom felt the coolness of sweat on his forehead. He knew he was more tired than he thought, and that he had lost track of time because of the airplane trip.

21

T
om fell asleep almost before he got into bed. Some time later, he awakened with a violent twitch of his entire body. A bad dream? If so, he didn’t remember a dream. How long had he been asleep? An hour?

“
No!
” That had been a whisper or a soft voice outside his room in the hall.

Tom got out of bed. The voices outside went on, a cooing, pigeon-like female voice mingling with Frank’s. Tom knew Frank’s room was next to his on the right. Only a few words came through, said by the woman: “. . . so
impatient
. . . I
know
. . . what,
what
will you do . . . not matter to
me
!”

That had to be Susie, and she sounded angry. Tom could detect her German accent. And in fact he could have put his ear to the door and heard more, but Tom had an aversion to eavesdropping. He turned his back to the door, groped forward toward his bed, and found his night table, on which lay cigarettes and matches. Tom struck a match, put on his reading lamp, lit a cigarette, and sat down on his bed. That was better.

Had Susie knocked on Frank’s door? More likely than that Frank had knocked on hers! Tom laughed, and lay back on his bed. He heard a door close, gently nearby, and that would be Frank’s door. Tom stood up, put his cigarette out, and stepped into his loafers, which were serving again as house-slippers as they had in Berlin. He went into the hall, and saw a light under Frank’s closed door. Tom rapped with his fingertips.

“Tom,” he said, when he heard a soft, quick tread coming toward the door.

Frank opened the door, hollow-eyed with fatigue, but smiling. “Come
in!
” he whispered.

Tom did. “That was Susie?”

Frank nodded. “Got a smoke for me? Mine are downstairs.”

Tom had his in the pocket of his pajamas. “Well, what’s she on about?” He lit the boy’s cigarette.

Frank said, “Fwoop!” and blew out smoke, nearly laughing. “She still says she saw me on the cliff.”

Tom shook his head. “She’s going to have another heart attack. Want me to talk with her tomorrow?— I’m curious to meet her.” He looked behind him at the closed door, because Frank had looked at it. “Does she wander around at night? I thought she was ill.”

“Strength of an ox, maybe.” Frank was weaving with tiredness, and fell back on his bed with his bare feet in the air for an instant.

Tom glanced around the room, saw an antique brown table on which stood a radio, a typewriter, books, a tablet of writing paper. On the floor near half-open closet doors he saw ski boots and a pair of riding boots. Pop singer posters were tacked to a vast green pinup board above the brown table, the Ramones slouching in blue jeans, and below all this were cartoons, a couple of photographs, maybe of Teresa, but since Tom did not want to bring that subject up, he did not look closely. “Damn her ass,” Tom said, meaning Susie, “she
didn’t
see you. You don’t expect another visit from her tonight, do you?”

“Old witch,” Frank said, with his eyes half closed.

Tom waved a hand, and went out and back into his room. He noticed that his own room door had a key in the lock on the inside. Tom did not lock it.

The next morning, after the breakfast ritual, Tom asked Mrs. Pierson’s permission to cut a few flowers from the garden to bring to Susie. Lily Pierson said of course he could. As Tom had supposed, Frank knew more about the garden than his mother, and assured Tom that his mother wouldn’t care what they cut. They amassed a bouquet of white roses. Tom preferred to make his visit to Susie without preparation, as it were, but Tom asked Evangelina—appropriate name—to herald his advent. The black maid did so, then asked him to wait, please, for two minutes in the hall.

“Susie likes to comb her hay,” said Evangelina with a happy smile.

After a couple of minutes, Tom was summoned by a guttural or sleepy “Come in,” and he knocked first, then entered.

Susie was propped against pillows in a whitish room now made whiter by sunlight. Susie’s hair looked yellowish and grayish also, her face round and seamed, eyes tired and wise. She reminded Tom of some German postage stamps of famous women whom, usually, Tom had never heard of. Her left arm, in a long white nightdress sleeve, lay outide the covers.

“Good morning. Tom Ripley,” Tom said. Friend of Frank’s, he thought of saying, but stopped himself. Maybe she had heard of him already, via Lily. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“Reasonably well, thank you.”

A television set was facing her bed, reminding Tom of some hospital rooms he had visited, but the rest of the room was personal enough, with old family pictures, crocheted doilies, a bookcase full of knickknacks, souvenirs, even an old top-hatted minstrel doll that might have been a relic of Johnny’s childhood. “I’m glad to hear that. Mrs. Pierson told me that you had a heart attack.— I’m sure that’s frightening.”

“Yes, when it is the first,” she replied in a grumbling voice. She was keeping a sharp, pale blue eye on Tom.

“I was just—Frank was with me for several days in Europe. Maybe Mrs. Pierson told you.” Tom got no response to this, and looked for a vase to put the flowers in, and didn’t see one. “I brought these to brighten your room a little.” Tom advanced with a smile, with his bouquet.

“Thank you very much,” said Susie, taking the bouquet with one hand—Frank had put a napkin around it—and pressing a bell at her bedside with the other.

In no time, there was a knock, Evangelina entered, and was handed the bouquet and requested by Susie to find a vase, please.

Tom was not offered a chair, but he took a straight chair anyway. “I suppose you know—” Tom wished he had ascertained Susie’s last name. “—that Frank was very upset by his father’s death. Frank looked me up in France, where I live. That’s how I met him.”

She looked at him, still sharply, and said, “Frank is not a good boy.”

Tom stifled a sigh, and tried to look pleasant and polite. “He seems quite a nice boy to me—stayed in my house several days.”

“
Why
did he run away?”

“I think he was upset. Well, all he did—” Did Susie know about Frank taking his brother’s passport? “Lots of young people run away. And then come back.”

“I think Frank killed his father,” said Susie tremulously, wagging the forefinger of the hand that lay outside the covers. “And that is a terrible thing.”

Tom inhaled slowly. “Why do you think that?”

“You are not surprised? Has he confessed it to you?”

“He certainly has not. No. I’m asking you why you think he did.” Tom frowned with seriousness, and he was affecting some surprise too.

“Because I saw him—almost.”

Tom paused. “You mean on the cliff there.”

“
Yes
.”

“You saw him— You were out on the lawn?”

“No, I was upstairs. But I saw Frank go out with his father. He
never
went out with his father. They had just finished a game of croquet. Mrs. Pierson—”

“Mr. Pierson played croquet?”

“Yes, sure! He could move his chair just where he wanted it. Mrs. Pierson always wanted him to play a little—to take his mind off—you know, business worries.”

“Frank was playing that day too?”

“Yes, and Johnny too. I remember Johnny had a date—went off. But they all played.”

Tom crossed his legs, wanted a cigarette and thought it best not to light one. “You told Mrs. Pierson,” Tom began with an earnest frown, “that you thought Frank pushed his father over?”

“Yes,” said Susie firmly.

“Mrs. Pierson doesn’t seem to think that.”

“Did you ask her?”

“Yes,” said Tom with equal firmness. “She thinks it was either an accident or a suicide.”

Susie sniffed, and looked toward her TV, as if she wished it were on.

“Did you say the same thing to the police—about Frank?”

“Yes.”

“And what did they say?”

“Ah, they said I couldn’t have seen it, because I was upstairs. But there are some things a human being
knows.
You know, Mr.—”

“Ripley. Tom. I am sorry I don’t know your last name.”

“Schuhmacher,” she replied, just as Evangelina entered with the roses in a pink vase. “Thank you, Evangelina.”

Evangelina set the vase on the night table between Tom and Susie, and left the room.

“Unless you did see Frank do it—which must be impossible if the police said so—you should not say it. It has troubled Frank very much.”

“Frank was with his father.” Again the plump but slightly wrinkled hand lifted and fell on the bedcover. “If it was an accident, even a suicide, Frank could have stopped him, no?”

Tom at first thought Susie was right, then he thought of the speed the chair controls must have been capable of. But he didn’t want to go into this with Susie. “Couldn’t Mr. Pierson have sent his chair over by himself, before Frank knew what was happening? That’s what
I
thought.”

She shook her head. “Frank came back running, they said. I didn’t see him till I went downstairs. Everyone was talking then. Frank said his father drove his chair over, I know.” The pale blue eyes were fixed on Tom.

“That’s what Frank told me too.” The moment of lying must have been like a second crime for Frank. If the boy had only come back calmly, let half an hour pass, as if he had left his father on the cliff! That, Tom realized, was what he would have done—nervous though he might have been, he would have done a little bit of
planning.
“What you think or believe—can certainly never be proven,” Tom said.

“Frank denies it, I know.”

“Do you want the boy to have a breakdown because of your—accusation?” At least Susie seemed to pause at this, and Tom pushed his advantage, if he had any, and he wanted to imagine that he had for the moment. “Unless there’s a witness or some real evidence, an act such as you describe can never be proven—or even believed in this case.” And when was the old lady going to die, Tom wondered, and let Frank off the hook? Susie Schuhmacher looked capable of another few years, and Frank could hardly separate himself from her, because she was installed in the Kennebunkport house, where the family evidently stayed quite often, and she probably went to their New York apartment also, when the family was there.

“Why should I care what Frank makes of his life? He—”

“You don’t like Frank?” Tom asked, as if amazed.

“He is—not friendly. He is rebellious—unhappy. You never know what he is thinking. He gets ideas and hangs on to them. Attitudes.”

Tom frowned. “But would you call him dishonest?”

“No,” Susie replied, “he is too polite. It goes beyond dishonesty, what I mean. More important even—” She seemed to be getting tired. “But what should I care what he does with his life? He has everything. He does not appreciate what he has, never did. He gave his mother worries, running off the way he did. He doesn’t even care about that. He is not a good boy.”

It was not a time, Tom thought, to launch into Frank’s fear or dislike of his father’s business empire, or even to ask what she might know of the influence of Teresa. Now Tom heard a telephone ringing remotely from somewhere. “But Mr. Pierson liked Frank very much, I think.”

“Maybe too much. Did the boy deserve it? Look!”

Tom uncrossed his legs and squirmed. “I think I’ve taken enough of your time, Mrs. Schuhmacher—”

“That’s all right.”

“I’ll be leaving tomorrow, maybe even this afternoon, so I’ll say good-bye now and give you my good wishes for your health. In fact, I think you look very well,” he added, meaning it. He had stood up.

“You live in France.”

“Yes.”

“I think I remember Mr. Pierson mentioning your name. You know the art people in London.”

“Yes, indeed,” Tom replied.

She lifted her left hand again, and let it fall, and looked toward the window.

“Bye-bye, Susie.” Tom made a bow, but Susie didn’t see it. Tom left the room.

In the hall, Tom ran into Johnny, lanky and smiling.

“I was just coming to rescue you! Would you like to see my dark room?”

“Sure,” Tom said.

Johnny turned and led Tom to a room on the left side of the hall. Johnny switched on red lights, which gave the effect of a black cavern with pink air in it, something like a stage set. The walls looked black, even the lump of a sofa black, and in a far corner Tom barely detected the paleness of what looked like a long sink. Johnny switched off the red and put on ordinary light. A couple of cameras stood on tripods. The black sheets now seemed minimal. It was not a big room. Tom was not knowledgeable about cameras. He didn’t know what to say when Johnny pointed to a camera that he had just acquired, except, “Really impressive.”

“I could show you some of my work. Nearly all of it’s in portfolios here, except one downstairs in the dining room which I call ‘White Sunday,’ but it’s not snow. But—I think just now Mom wants to talk with you.”

“Now? Does she?”

“Yes, because Ralph’s leaving, and Mom said she wanted to see you after he left.— How was Susie?” There was amusement, or anticipation of it, in the boy’s smile.

“Pleasant enough. Looking pretty strong, I thought. Of course I don’t know how she usually looks.”

“She’s a bit cracked. Don’t pay too much attention to anything she says.” Johnny stood straight, still smiling a little, but his words sounded like a warning.

Johnny was protecting his brother, Tom felt. Johnny knew what Susie was saying, and Frank had told Tom that Johnny didn’t believe it. Tom went downstairs with Johnny, and found Mrs. Pierson and Ralph Thurlow with his raincoat over his arm. Thurlow must have slept late today, because Tom had not seen him until now.

“Tom—” Ralph Thurlow extended a hand. “If you ever need a job—along the same lines—” He fished for something in his billfold, and extended a card. “Ring my office, would you? My home address is there too.”

Tom smiled. “I’ll remember.”

“I really mean, let’s have an evening in New York sometime. I’m off to New York now. Bye-bye, Tom.”

“Bon voyage,” Tom said.

Tom had thought that Thurlow was going to depart in the black car in the driveway, but Mrs. Pierson and Thurlow went out onto the porch and walked to the left. Tom saw that a helicopter had landed or been rolled out onto the cement circle on the back lawn. The property was so vast, Tom supposed that the Piersons might have their own hangar somewhere at the end of the cement runway, which disappeared among trees. This helicopter looked smaller than the one they had taken from New York, but perhaps he was simply getting used to the scale on which the Piersons lived. Tom looked at the black Daimler-Benz whose exhaust pipe gave out faintly visible fumes, and saw that Frank was at the wheel, alone. The car moved forward two yards or so, then reversed, smoothly.