Benedict Hall Read online

  “Oh, sorry, sir.” Her voice was high and thin, birdlike. “I thought you were out. I’ll come back later.”

  “No,” he said, more sharply than he intended. The pain always made him snappish. He drew himself up, and tried to speak more gently. “No, it’s all right. Come in.”

  She was a pitiful thing, with a child’s body and huge eyes with dark circles beneath them. She came in, carrying folded sheets over her arm, and it seemed to Frank her step was unsteady. He dipped a quarter out of his wallet and laid it on his pillow before he sidled past her into the hall, shouldering into his coat as he went.

  He was halfway down the corridor before he realized he had left his list on the bureau. He muttered, “Hell,” but he didn’t turn back. The list was more or less arbitrary in any case. He had simply written down every possibility he could find in the slender Seattle city directory.

  He strode out of the hotel and turned toward the port. If Alaska Steamship had no job for him, perhaps Pacific Coast would, or the Shipping Board. Failing those, he would just knock on the doors of likely places and see what turned up.

  At the Good Eats Cafeteria at First and Cherry, Frank spent a dollar on a lunch of chowder and bread. As he ate, he cast his eye over a copy of the Seattle Daily Times someone had left on the table. The headline blared, in two-inch type, that unemployment was higher than ever. Frank turned the paper over and shoved it away.

  As he paid his bill, the cashier smiled at him. She was rather pretty, in that way very young girls are, with pink skin and clear eyes, but her hands were familiar to him, broad and work-hardened, like those of the country girls of Montana. He touched his cap to her, and she blushed. He stepped out of the café and turned left.

  “Hey!” came a voice somewhere behind him.

  Frank started off down the street, assuming the call was for someone else.

  “Hey!” There was a laugh in the voice this time, and it seemed vaguely familiar. “Cowboy! Is that really you?”

  Frank stopped, and turned slowly. Cowboy was his army nickname. He hadn’t expected to hear it ever again.

  A young man bounded easily across the street toward him, dodging a truck farmer pushing a wheelbarrow full of vegetables. “Cowboy!” he exclaimed again.

  Frank, repressing an urge to slip away into the crowd, waited where he was on the sidewalk. When his old comrade reached him, he drawled, “Benedict. Completely forgot you were from Seattle.”

  Preston Benedict thrust out his hand, exclaiming, “I’ll be damned!” They shook, and Benedict said gaily, “I was sure those quacks had killed you!”

  “Not quite.” Frank took back his hand, and gazed, narrow-eyed, at Preston Benedict. He didn’t look like any other veteran of his acquaintance. His color was high, his eyes clear and untroubled. His fair hair sprang vigorously from his forehead. He made Frank feel old and used-up.

  “Come on,” Benedict said, with a wave of his hand. “Let’s have a drink. You can tell me all about it.” He put his left hand on Frank’s back, as if to guide him. The hand slid across the back of his greatcoat and encountered the empty left sleeve.

  Benedict dropped his arm and stared at the empty sleeve tucked into Frank’s pocket. “Damn, Cowboy! Lousy luck. You lost it after all.”

  Frank’s jaw ached, and he realized he had ground his teeth together. He said only, “Yes,” but hot, sudden pain flared through him.

  Benedict gripped his good arm. “Come on. We need a drink. I know a place.”

  A drink sounded better than ever to Frank, but he shook his head. “Can’t,” he said. With care, he disengaged his arm from Benedict’s hand. It wasn’t easy. Preston Benedict’s fingers were strong.

  “Why not?” Benedict demanded.

  Frank took a half step away, making a space between them. “Appointment,” he said. “I’m looking for work.”

  Benedict’s smile widened, and he clapped Frank’s good shoulder. “As am I, old man! As am I. We can compare notes. What kind of work are you hoping to do?”

  Frank made a vague gesture. “Engineering,” he said. “Came out to work with Alaska Steamship, but the strike . . . Position is gone.”

  Benedict clicked his tongue. “That’s rotten, Cowboy.”

  Frank shrugged.

  Benedict chuckled. “Talkative as always, I see,” he said. His blue eyes sparkled, and his smile was easy and confident. Frank wondered why he disliked this man. He always had, even when they were both under fire out in the East.

  “Listen, old man,” Benedict said. “I’ll let you get on with it, if you insist. But you must come up to the house, have dinner. Where are you staying?”

  “Alexis. A couple more days, anyway.”

  “Good hotel! Excellent. I’ll send the car. Six o’clock?”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think—”

  Benedict clapped his shoulder again. “No arguments, now! You must meet the mater and pater, tell them what heroes we both are.” His grin was as guileless as a boy’s. “Car at six!” He was gone, dashing back across the busy street, before Frank could think of a way to refuse.

  He chided himself as he walked on. It was nice of Benedict to pretend they were friends. By the time they met, Frank was already disillusioned, soured on the war. He had made a few friends in Allenby’s army, but most of those fellows had died in Turkey. He was disinclined to become attached to anyone else, and he didn’t share Benedict’s enthusiasm for all of it—the shooting and the bloody charges and the vanquishing of the enemy. He’d been in the field hospital when Benedict came back from Jerusalem, and by the time his first, brutal surgery was over, Benedict had shipped out.

  Frank remembered now hearing that Preston Benedict was the youngest son of a wealthy Seattle family. He wished he had found a way to escape the dinner invitation, kind though it might be. He didn’t look forward to suffering through a formal dinner, trying to be polite to well-bred strangers. Small talk was, as Preston had reminded him, not one of his skills.

  Preston congratulated himself as he strolled up Western Avenue, where coolies and Indians labored on the slippery wooden docks, hauling who-knew-what back and forth, gibbering their weird languages at one another. Mother would be pleased when he brought home a war buddy, and a superior officer at that. Father would like Parrish. Everyone did. His brother Dick should be glad to meet another man who had been in the show. Too bad about the arm, but there was something glamorous about a wounded war hero. It felt like a lucky day. Maybe Margot would be stuck at the hospital and miss dinner entirely. That would be a bonus.

  The sapphire, hanging on its silver chain beneath his shirt, felt cool and heavy against his chest. He touched it with his palm, thinking he should decide soon where he wanted to work, some office where his war record and the Benedict name would command respect. He would choose the right firm, sit down with the owner, settle his future.

  He came to a bench facing the bay, and threw himself down with his legs outstretched. The clouds had cleared, and the wintry sun shone on the Olympics rising in their snowy majesty beyond the water. Relaxing was pleasant, but, he reminded himself, he’d been idle for an entire month. That was long enough, surely, for a man to recover from his war experience.

  The Near East had been a nasty place to spend his war at first. Allenby’s people acted like snobs, looking down their noses at the Yanks, making officers like him do the scut work. He’d had to run back and forth along the supply lines, carrying other people’s gear as if he was no better than a coolie.

  But then, when the battle ebbed in the hills of Judea, he and Carter had marched into Jerusalem with Allenby’s forces, and everything changed.

  He closed his eyes for a moment against the weak sunshine. A scuffle of feet on the sidewalk made him open them again.

  A little gaggle of boys had gathered around him. There were three of them, the usual street urchins with ragged hair, short pants showing dirty ankles and scuffed boots. Their noses ran, and their faces were dirty. Preston straightened.
/>   Two of the boys backed away, but one held his ground, pointing to the insignia on Preston’s collar. “You’re an officer.” One of his front teeth was missing, and the other was broken, making him lisp.

  Preston smiled. “Of course.”

  The brat gave him a gap-toothed grin. “Didja kill anybody?”

  Another boy, from a safe distance, said, “Yeah, didja? Kill some Huns?”

  “I did.” Preston leaned forward, and the boys’ eyes widened. He said, still smiling, “Do you want me to show you how?”

  Three open mouths greeted this question. Preston laughed. He put out his left hand and caught the broken-toothed boy by the arm. He spun him around to hold him tightly around the chest, while with his other hand he grasped the kid’s skinny neck. The boy cried out, then choked as Preston’s thumb and forefinger constricted his throat. Preston lifted him off his feet, bending his neck backward. The urchin reeked of mud and grease. He kicked, and pulled at Preston’s arm with desperate hands.

  One of the other boys said, “Hey, mister! Don’t hurt Jackie, he’s—”

  “That’s captain,” Preston said. He squeezed the boy harder. Jackie’s grimy hands clawed at his sleeve. His kicks grew weaker, his tattered boots flailing harmlessly around Preston’s knees. “This is how you do it, boys.”

  “Let him go!” one of the urchins shrieked. Both of them began to cry. Their weeping was openmouthed and ugly, intensifying the mess of dirt and mucus on their faces.

  Jackie’s feet twitched, and his fingers scrabbled uselessly against Preston’s arm. He made thick gasping noises that died away when Preston tightened his fingers.

  Preston felt the curious attention of the nearest dockworkers turn to him, drawn by the boys’ wailing. He gave the hapless Jackie one last little squeeze, and released him. The boy fell to his knees, scrambling away over the pavement as he sucked in air with noisy gulps. His companions reached for him, and pulled him up between them. Jackie leaned on them, his lips white, his face pinched with panic.

  “Hey!” one of the brats sobbed. “Whatcha think you’re doing?”

  Preston chuckled as he came to his feet. The boys backed away, clinging to one another in that endearing way of the powerless. The familiarity of it, even with these unworthy adversaries, warmed Preston’s groin.

  “Scary, isn’t it?” he said.

  One of them cried, “What is?”

  Preston let his grin fade and his voice harden. “Killing people. It’s no joke.”

  “We wasn’t joking!”

  Jackie sniffled, “You hurt me, mister.”

  One of the others said, “Captain, Jackie. He’s a captain.”

  Preston nodded. “Right you are, lad. Captain.” He touched two fingers to his cap. “You learned something here, boys. See you remember.” He spun on his toes, feeling full of life. Yes, this was a lucky day. A good day to decide what to do next.

  CHAPTER 2

  Dressed in the same suit he had worn all day, Frank stood on the steps of the Alexis, awaiting the car Benedict had promised, and dreading the evening ahead.

  It had not been a good day. The managers of two firms had offered sympathy, but nothing more. With the contraction of the economy, they said, they were letting people go, not hiring. He had to screw up his courage to call upon three more businesses. Two were polite, but not interested. At the third, a company that fabricated boilers and other steel products, the proprietor took one look at his empty sleeve and said, “Major, you’re wasting your time and mine. You’d better take your disability pay and go home.”

  Frank stiffened. It was possible that one day a pension from the British Army might reach him. There had been no sign of it yet, but he wasn’t going to say so. It was none of this man’s business. “Sir,” he said, “I can be an engineer with one arm.”

  The man looked angry, as if Frank had done something to affront him. “Have you done any drafting since you got out?”

  “Happy to demonstrate,” Frank said. “Do you have a drafting table?”

  The man blew out a breath. “Look, Major.” His mouth drew down, creasing his heavy cheeks. “I went at this all wrong.” Frank watched his eyes drop once more to the empty sleeve, then rise to Frank’s face. Something flickered in those eyes, some complex emotion, quickly repressed. “I should have just said we’re not hiring.”

  Frank looked past the proprietor’s shoulder at the shop beyond. A few men in coveralls were working there. Several wore metal hard hats that looked very much like the helmet Frank had laid down for the last time when he mustered out. In a distant corner, the flare of a soldering iron cast yellow sparks over the cement floor, and in a small office to his right, a woman in a shirtwaist sat typing on a massive Underwood. The struck keys made heavy clanking sounds. Beyond her was an empty desk, holding nothing but a lamp.

  “Looks to me, sir,” Frank said stubbornly, “as if you could use some help.”

  The man gave him a mulish look, and didn’t answer for a long moment. At first Frank thought he was going to point to the door and ask him to leave, but then he saw the slight tremble of the man’s lip and a mist in his eyes that must have blurred his vision. Frank took a step back. Something was wrong here.

  The man started to speak, but his voice cracked, failing him. He cleared his throat, and stared past Frank’s shoulder. Frank knew there was nothing there but the blank stucco wall of the next building. He took another step toward the door. The man was right about one thing—he was wasting time.

  The older man finally forced his throat to work. “My son—” he began. He hung his head suddenly, and his fingers clutched the battered wooden counter in front of him, knuckles going white as he struggled to control himself.

  Frank stopped where he was. The muscles of his belly tightened.

  More than a hundred thousand American soldiers had died over there, from battle injuries, influenza, infections. Twice that many came home gravely injured, hopelessly shell-shocked, or maimed for life. The numbers were even worse for the Brits, who had been in the war three years longer.

  Frank could guess at what had caused this man’s misery. The business was supposed to go to a son who had fallen and would never return. Or his position was being held for him in the hope he would one day recover enough to take it. Or the general strike of ’19 had set the business back so far that this man, in the face of his loss, had no more heart for it.

  Frank couldn’t bear to hear it. He had no solace to offer. He growled, “Sorry to trouble you,” and turned sharply away. He let the door swing shut behind him. He didn’t look back to see if the man had recovered himself or had buried his face in his hands to weep.

  And now, after a day of such disappointments, Frank stood on the steps of the Alexis waiting for a strange car to take him to have dinner with people he didn’t know, and would never meet in the normal run of things. What kind of family would produce a man like Preston Benedict? People of privilege, certainly. Money, advantages, history, good fortune. He would simply have to endure it, tolerate the careful questions and the looks of pity. He would be polite, as he was brought up to be, and he would make his escape as early as he decently could, to go in search of more whisky.

  The Essex was a sleek black vehicle, and the driver who stepped out of it, courteously inquiring as to Frank’s name, was every bit as sleek and nearly as black. When he had ascertained that Frank was, in fact, Major Frank Parrish, the driver bowed, very much like one of the British officers’ batmen.

  The car was one of the new enclosed sedans, with burgundy velvet upholstery and polished windows shining like crystal under the electric streetlights. The driver introduced himself as “Blake, sir. Mr. Benedict’s butler.” He asked in cultured accents about the suitability of the Alexis, and Frank’s liking for Seattle, as he adjusted dials and choke and headlamps. He pressed the electric starter, engaged the clutch, and began the climb up Madison and away from the city center, driving with the same dignity he displayed in his speech.

&n
bsp; Frank settled back on the wide seat to watch the town spin slowly by. The car took a left turn, and he craned his neck to find a street sign. Broadway. They drove for another five minutes, making way for the occasional cart, and once for a streetcar clanging its way along the road, then turned right and wound even higher onto a tree-lined hill.

  “Aloha Street, Major,” Blake said as the car followed the twisting road. He turned left at the top of the hill. “Fourteenth Avenue. The Benedicts built their home here thirty years ago.” He pulled to a stop in front of an enormous white building with elegant pillars and a broad porch that wrapped around the three sides Frank could see. For a painful moment Frank simply stared at it. Benedict had called it “the house,” but this was like no house Frank had ever set foot in.

  Cupolas decorated every wall. Lights shone from three floors. A tall tree of a type Frank didn’t recognize stretched dark, leafless branches across the façade, and a wide, manicured lawn surrounded it.

  The butler said, “Here we are, sir. Benedict Hall.” Frank suddenly longed to change his mind, refuse the invitation after all, but Blake was already out of the automobile, holding the door.

  As Frank climbed out, Blake bowed again. “I’ll announce you, Major.”

  Frank followed him up the walk, feeling utterly out of place. Such formality belonged, it seemed to him, to a different age. His Montana roots had taught him nothing about such things, though he had seen it in the British forces. The aristocrats, the officers, found it natural that some other man should clean their shoes and oil their rifles, even serve tea in a dirty trench while bullets flew overhead. Frank had never become accustomed to it.

  Blake took off his driving cap as he opened the front door, revealing hair curled close to his scalp like gray wool. He left Frank standing in the hall, and disappeared.

  Frank unbuttoned his greatcoat and slipped out of it, careful to tuck the empty sleeve of his jacket securely into his pocket. When Blake returned with an attractive woman of middle age, Frank had already hung the coat on a mahogany coatrack and scuffled the dirt off his shoes onto the coir mat inside the door.