Appointment in Samarra (18 page)

“And my orders is to see that you keep your knees together, baby.”

“Horse feathers,” she said. “Well, is it all right if I have a drink?”

“No, it ain’t all right if you have a drink. You got cockeyed once today.”

“Well, then do you want to dance with me? I gotta do something besides get up there and give these butter and egg men hot pants, don’t I?”

“No, I don’t want to dance with you,” he said. “That ain’t my orders.”

“Oh, you’re afraid.”

“All right,” he said. “I’m afraid. If you want to leave it that way, I’m afraid.”

She recognized the introduction to Body and Soul, which was one of the songs she sang. She walked slowly to the center of the orchestra platform.

*   *   *

“What does she call herself?” said Emily Ziegenfuss.

“Helene Holman,” said Dewey Hartenstein.

“Holman? She has a nerve,” said Emily.

“Why so?” said Vic Smith.

“Why, that’s the name of a real singer. Libby Holman. Isn’t that it? Libby? Or Liddy. No, Libby’s right. Yes. Libby Holman. She makes records,” said Emily.

“Well, she has as much right to the name as Libby Holman has,” said Irma Fliegler.

“She has not,” said Emily.

“She has so,” said Irma. “Libby Holman isn’t Libby
Holman’s
real name.”

“Oh,” said Emily. “Well—how do you know, Irma?”

“Because I have these friends out in Cincinnati, Ohio, or at least they’re friends of Lute’s. Lute?”

“What?” said Lute.

“What was it those friends of yours in Cincinnati, Ohio, remember, they had that meningitis that took away their two children—”

“Spinal meningitis,” said Lute, who had been talking with Willard Doane.

“I know that,” said Irma. “What was their name?”

“Oh, Schultz. Harry Schultz. Why? Shall we call him up and tell him to join the party or what?”

“No, wisecracker. I wanted to know what Libby Holman’s real name was. The singer.”

“Oh, well, why didn’t you ask me that in the first place?” said Lute.

“Well, come on, tell us what it was.”

“Fred. Her right name was Fred,” said Lute.

“Oh, bushwah on you,” said Irma. “He never talks like anyone else. Anyhow these friends, these people named Schultz in Cleveland—”

“You just got through telling us it was Cincinnati,” said Emily. “I don’t think—”

“Cincinnati, then. All right, Cincinnati. Whatever city it is this Holman comes from. Anyhow, they came from the same town as her, and they told us her real name.”

“Fred, I guess,” said Emily. “Oh, I don’t believe it. I don’t
think you know anything about it, if you ask me.” Emily had had her fourth highball.

“She’s good. I like her singing,” said Frannie Snyder.

“You
like
it?” said Emily. “You mean you actually can sit there and say you like that kind of a voice? You must be crazy, Frannie.”

“I like it all right,” said Harvey Ziegenfuss.

“Oh, who asked you?” said Emily Ziegenfuss.

“Nobody asked me. Can’t I express my opinions?”

“No. Who asked you for your opinions? Look at her. If she’s going to sing why don’t she sing, and if she’s going to do a hootchy-kootchy dance then why don’t she do it? But at least she ought to make up her mind. She’s like a burlesque show dancer.”

“How do you know what a burlesque show dancer is like?” said Harvey Ziegenfuss.

“How do I know?” said his wife. “You ask me that? You, Harvey Ziegenfuss, ask me that? All right, I’ll tell you. I know because you showed me. When we were first married you used to get me to get undressed one by one, one thing after another. That’s how I know.”

Everyone, except Harvey Ziegenfuss, laughed. “Aw, you’re nuts,” he said. But that only made them laugh a little more.

“Drinks!” shouted Lute Fliegler. “Emily, how ’bout you? Dutch, you’re ready for another. Frannie, you could stand it. Vic, what’s the matter with you? Not drinking?”

“I’m going easy,” said Vic Smith.

“You better, too, Lute Fliegler,” said Irma Fliegler.

“No worse than a bad cold, Vic,” said Lute. “What was that strange noise I heard?” He held his ear in the direction of Irma.

“You heard what I said. You better go easy yourself. Vic’s right.”

“No worse than a bad cold,” said Lute. “You’re not a man till you had it once. Dewey, how about you? You know what the governor of North Carolina said to the governor of
West
Virginia.”

“You mean the governor of
South
Carolina,” said Emily.

“No. I meant North Dakota,” said Lute. “Come on, let’s get drunk, people.”

“I’m cockeyed already,” said Dewey Hartenstein.

“I’m getting an edge on myself,” said Harvey Ziegenfuss.

“Oh, you. Who asked you?” said Emily Ziegenfuss.

“Hey, there, Zigenfusses, quit necking right out in public,” said Lute. “Wait till you get home.”

“Here’s to good old Yale,” said Dutch Snyder, who had been All-Scholastic guard on the Gibbsville High championship team back in 1914, the year Gibbsville beat both Reading
and
Allentown.

“Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you. Embrace me, my irreplaceable you,
la
la,
la
la,
la
la,
la
la,
la
dada da, um ha, um ha, um ha, um ha,
lum
dada da.” Monica Smith was singing.

“Low-zee,” said Emily. “Our cat sings better than that.”

“Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you,” Monica sang. “Embrace me la la replaceable you. Don’t be a naughty baby. Come to papa, come to papa do. My sweet embraceable you.”

“Everybody got their drink? Emily,” said Lute, “what you need is a drink.”

“Yeah,” said Harvey Ziegenfuss. “What she needs is a drink. Yeah.”

“Sure she does,” said Lute. “I didn’t say of what, did I?”

“Carbolic acid, I suggest,” said Monica Smith.

“Oh, cut fighting, you two,” said Helen Schaeffer, who up to this time had taken no part in the conversation.

“Another country heard from!” said Emily.

“Who wants to dance? I got rhythm, I got rhythm!” sang Dutch Snyder.

“Yeah. You got rhythm. You said it you got rhythm,” said Emily.

“Well, come on, what’s holding you?” said Dutch.

“Frannie,” said Emily.

“I am not,” said Frannie. “Go ahead and dance with him if you want to.” In a slightly lower tone she added: “You like it.”

“What you say?” said Emily.

“I said you like it. Go ahead and dance with him,” said Frannie.

“All right,” said Emily. “I
will
dance with him. Come on, Dutch.”

“Let’s go,” said Dutch. “I got sweet dreams in green pastures.”

The others, except Lute and Frannie, chose or were somehow maneuvered into taking partners. Lute got up and moved to a chair beside Frannie.

“That Emily Ziegenfuss,” she said. “What does she think she is? I know what
I
think she is.”

“Uh-huh. Don’t say it,” said Lute, “don’t say it. If there’s one thing I don’t like, I don’t like to hear one woman call another a bitch.”

“Well, that’s what she is, all right,” said Frannie. “It’s partly your fault, too, Lute. You know she can’t drink. Why do you keep on giving her drinks?”

“She’d be just as bad on two as she is on four or five,” he said. He dropped the levity for a moment. “The only thing to do now is make her pass out. She will.”

“Well, she can’t pass out any too soon for me,” said Frannie. “And that husband of hers, that Harvey. Trying to give me a feel under the table. Honestly! Can you imagine that? Just because she makes a fool out of him he thinks because Dutch is a sap, I guess he thinks that gives him the right to try to paw over me.”

“I don’t blame him,” said Lute. “I’d like a little of that myself.”

“Oh, you,” said Frannie, but pleased. “Gee, if they were all like you, married men I mean, it wouldn’t be so bad. Anyhow I burnt Mr. Ziegenfuss with a cigarette. He thought he was getting along fine and then I reached down and pushed the lighted end of the cigarette on the back of his hand.”

“Oh, swell. I saw him kind of jump there for a minute.”

“He jumped all right,” said Frannie. She sipped her drink and she was looking around the room, over the rim of the glass. “Say, look,” she said. “Isn’t that your boss there, just coming in?”

“My God! Yes,” said Lute. “Oh, and has he a nice package?”

“I’ll say. That’s his wife with him, isn’t it?”

“That’s her, all right,” said Lute. “That’s funny. They were
supposed to go to the dance at the country club tonight. I know that for sure.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Frannie. “They often come here when they get tired of the club dances. I often hear them talking when I go to have my hair waved. They often leave the country club dances.”

“He’s nice and drunk, all right,” said Lute.

“He doesn’t look so drunk,” said Frannie. “I’ve seen a lot worse.”

“Yes, but that boy can drink. When he’s that way you can tell he had plenty. He can drink all night without showing it. When he shows it, boy, you can be pretty sure he has damn near a quart under his belt.”

“That’s Carter Davis with him,” said Frannie.

“I know. Carter Davis, and I can’t see who the girl is.”

“I can’t either, but wait a minute. Oh, it’s Kitty Hofman. Yeah. Kitty Hofman, and there comes Whitney Hofman. I guess he was parking the car.”

“Yeah. I guess he was parking the car. I wonder if English drove,” said Lute.

“Oh, I don’t imagine so,” said Frannie. “Not if Whitney Hofman had to park the car.”

“You can’t be so sure about that. English gets that way sometimes. He can always drive when he’s stinko, but a big thing like parking the car—no, sir. That’s asking too much.”

“Well, they got a good table,” said Frannie. “Look at that old Frenchman, What’s His Name, moving that Taqua crowd around to make room for English.”

“To make room for Hofman, you mean,” said Lute.

“Oh, of course. I didn’t think of that. I like that Whitney Hofman. He’s so democratic.”

“Well, I guess if I had fourteen million bucks I imagine I’d be democratic, too. He can afford it,” said Lute.

“What are you talking about, Lute?” said Frannie. “They’re the ones that you never see democratic, those with the money.”

“No, you’re wrong there. The ones with the dough, the big dough, they’re always democratic,” said Lute.

“Oh, you have everything upside down,” said Frannie. “The ones that have a lot of money, they’re the ones you always think of as being the high-hat ones.”

“Not me, Frannie. I always think of the ones that really have more money than I’d know what to do with, I think of them as the democratic ones. If you don’t have money you’re not democratic. You don’t have to be democratic. You just act natural and nobody ever thinks of it as democratic or anything else. It’s like a story I heard about Jim Corbett.”

“Jim Corbett? Is he the one that’s staying at the Y.M.C.A.? The electric engineer?”

“Hell, no. His name is Corbin. No, Jim Corbett was the fighter, heavyweight champion. They used to call him Gentleman Jim.”

“Oh, Gentleman
Jim
. Oh, I heard of him. I always thought he was some kind of a crook. I heard of him all right. What’s the story?”

“Well, when he was here two years ago—”

“Was he here? In Gibbsville? I never knew that,” said Frannie.

“Yes, he was here for a banquet. Anyhow, one of the reporters got to talking to him about his title of Gentleman Jim, and he told the story about how he was in the subway in New York or something and somebody started pushing him around—no, that’s the one about Benny Leonard. Wait a minute. Oh, yes. This is it. Somebody was asking him why he was always so polite to everybody. He is the politest man in the world, I guess, and he said, ‘Well, when you’ve been heavyweight champion of the world, gentlemen, you can afford to be polite.’”

“What did he mean by that?” said Frannie.

“What!”
said Lute. “Let it go, Frannie. It isn’t that important.”

“Well, I just don’t see what that has to do with Whitney Hofman being democratic. I think he’s very democratic.”

“I think you better have a shot,” said Lute.

“Am I dumb or something?” she said. “You act as though I said something dumb or nay-eeve.”

“Not at all. You want ginger ale with yours, or straight?” said Lute.

“I’ll have a straight one I guess, then you can give me another in a highball.”

“That’s talking,” said Lute. “Oh. Don’t look right away, but I think we’re going to have a little company. You can look now.”

“You mean English? He’s coming over. Introduce me to him, will you?”

“Sure. If he ever makes it,” said Lute.

Julian English had stood up and looked around the room and had recognized Lute Fliegler. Immediately he told Caroline and Kitty and Whit and Carter that he had to talk to Lute. Matter of business that couldn’t wait. He excused himself and began to make his way, assisting himself by taking hold of the backs of chairs and people’s shoulders, to the table where Lute and Frannie were seated.

He extended his hand to Lute. “Luther, I came all the way over here to wish you a happy birthday. All the way over here. Happy birthday, Luther.”

“Thanks, boss. Will you sit down and have a drink with us? This is Mrs. Snyder. Mrs. Snyder, this is Mr. English.”

“I’m pleased to meet you,” said Frannie, and began to get up.

“Not leaving?” said Julian.

“Oh, no,” said Frannie. “I’ll stay.”

“Very good. Very, very good. Very good. Luther, I came over here to talk to you on a matter of business—no, sit down, Mrs. Snyder. Please sit down. You can hear what I have to say. Luther, have you any Scotch?”

“No, I only have rye, I’m sorry to say.”

“What of it?” said Julian. “Who is that man over there, Luther?”

“Where?”

“The one that’s staring at us. I think he’s dead. Did you ever hear the story about the dead man in the subway, Luther?”

“No, I don’t think I did.”

“Lucky boy. Lucky boy, Luther. I always said you were a fine fellow. Are you having a good time?”

“Pretty good.”

“How about you, Mrs. Snyder? Have I the name right?”