BUtterfield 8 (19 page)

“All right, I will then, if it’ll make you feel any better. I’ll call him up right now.” She telephoned Liggett. “He’s out of town, his office said.”

“Well, phone him tomorrow.”

She went home and there was a telegram there from Liggett, asking her to meet him at their favorite speakeasy at four. They had told her at his office that he was out of town, but her life was full of inconsistencies like that.

She was there before four, and took a small table by herself and watched the world come in. That afternoon the speakeasy was visited by a fairly representative crowd. On their lips soon would be her name, with varying opinions as to her character. Most of these people were famous in a way, although in most cases their fame did not extend more than twenty blocks to the north, forty blocks to the south, seven blocks to the east and four blocks to the west. There were others who were not famous, but were prominent in Harrisburg, Denver, Albany, Nashville, St. Paul-Minneapolis, Atlanta, Houston, Portland, Me., Dayton and Hartford. Among these was Mrs. Dunbar Vicks, of Cleveland, in town on one of her three or four visits a year to see a friend’s private collection of dirty movies and to go to bed with a young man who formerly worked for Finchley. Mrs. Vicks was standing at the bar, with her back to Walter R. Loskind, the Hollywood supervisor, who was talking to Percy Luffberry, the director. Percy owed a great deal to Walter. When Percy was directing “War of Wars” he had small charges of explosive buried here and there in the ground, not enough to hurt anyone, but enough so that when the charge was set off the extras in German uniforms would be lifted off the ground. The extras had been warned about that and were being paid a bonus for this realism. It went all right until Percy decided he wanted to have one extra crawling along the ground instead of walking. When the charge was set off the extra lost both eyes, and if Walter hadn’t stood by Percy, Percy would have been in a hell of a fix. Seated directly across the room was Mrs. Noel Lincoln, wife of the famous sportsman-financier, who had had four miscarriages before she found out (or before her doctor dared tell her) that a bit of bad luck on the part of her husband was responsible for these misfortunes. Mrs. Lincoln was sitting with pretty little Alicia Lincoln, her niece by marriage, who was the source of cocaine supply for a very intimate group of her friends in society, the theater, and the arts. Alicia was waiting for a boy named Gerald, whom she took to places where girls could not go unescorted. Bruce Wix, the artists’ representative, came in and tried to get the eye of Walter R. Loskind, but Walter did not look. Bruce stood alone at the bar. Henry White, the writer, was told he was wanted on the telephone—the first move, although he did not know it, in the house technique of getting rid of a drunk. On the way out he bowed to Dr. (D.D.S.) Jack Fry, who was arriving with one of his beautiful companions. It was afternoon, so the companion was not wearing the Fry pearls, which Dr. Fry always loaned to show girls and actresses while they were out with him. Mr. and Mrs. Whitney Hofman, of Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, arrived at this time, wishing they had been better friends so they could find something to talk about without self-consciousness. They were joined by Whitney’s cousin Scott Hofman, a cross-eyed fellow who at the age of thirty did not have to shave more than once a week. Mike Romanoff came in, looked around the room, and went out again. A party of six young people, Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer House, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Whitehall, and Miss Sylvia House and Mr. Irving Ruskin, were told at the door that they could not come in because they had not made reservations. They had to make way for a Latin-American diplomat whose appointment to Washington showed what his country thought of this. He had had malaria
before
he caught
siflis,
which is the wrong order for an automatic cure. Inside again, banging on his table for a waiter, sat Ludovici, the artist, who had several unretouched nude photographs of Gloria which she wished she had back. He was with June Blake, show girl and model, who after four days was still cheerful over winning nearly a thousand dollars on Twenty Grand. The bet had not been made through a bookmaker, and involved no cash outlay on her part. It was a slightly intricate arrangement between herself and Archie Jelliffe, the axle man, who told June he would place the bet for her if she would agree to bring to his country place a certain virgin he wanted to know better. Was it June’s fault that the former virgin was at this minute in a private hospital? Robert Emerson, the magazine publisher, came in with his vice-president, Jerry Watlington. Emerson was trying to make life pleasanter for Watlington, who had just been blackballed at a good club which Emerson belonged to. Emerson sincerely regretted the blackball, now that he had put it in. Mad Horace H. Tuttle, who had been kicked out of two famous prep schools for incendiarism, was there with Mrs. Denis Johnstone Humphries (whose three names seldom were spelled right), of Sewickley Heights, near Pittsburgh. Mrs. Humphries was telling Horace how she had to drive around in a station wagon because strikers stoned her Rolls. The worst of it was she was riding in the Rolls at the time, personally holding her entry for the Flower Show, and when the stones began to beat against the car she had presence of mind enough to lie on the floor, but forgot about the roses and crushed them. Her story was not interrupted when Horace nodded to Billy Jones, the gentleman jockey, who walked quickly to the bar with two dollars in his hand, had a quick double whiskey-soda, and walked out, with the two dollars in his hand. The bartender simply entered it against Billy’s account—Billy was supposed to be a little screwy from knocks on the head. Kitty Meredith, the movie actress, came in with her adopted son, four years old, and everybody said how cute he was, what poise, as he took a sip of her drink.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” said Liggett.

Gloria looked up. “It’s all right,” she said. “In five more minutes I’d have gone, or at least I wouldn’t have been alone.”

“Who? That one that’s looking at you now?”

“I won’t tell you,” she said.

“Uh, what are you drinking?”

“Ale.”

“One ale, and a brandy and soda.”

“Well, what’s it all about?” said Gloria. “I went home and your telegram was there. I phoned you at your office, but they said you’d gone away.”

“Where were you last night?”

“Oh, no. Not in that tone. Who do you think you are?”

“All right, I’m sorry.” He went through the business of getting a cigarette lit, then he remembered and offered her one. That doubled the delay before he said: “If what I want to ask you makes you very angry will you try not to hold it against me? First of all—please let me talk—first of all, I think you know I’m crazy about you. You know that, don’t you?”

No answer.

He repeated: “You know that, don’t you?”

“You said not to interrupt.”

“Well, you do know that, don’t you?”

“I’m not so sure. Crazy about me doesn’t mean anything.”

“Well, I am. In the worst way. Don’t make a joke about it. I am crazy about you. I can’t think of anything but you. I can’t make sense for thinking about how long it’s going to be before I see you again. When I don’t know where you are, like last night. I was here and all over, trying to find you.” He saw she was not paying much attention.

“You’re right,” he went on. “That’s not what I want to talk about. At least not now. Or I mean I want to talk about it, now, but there is another matter.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“That’s what you thought. Well—Jesus, I wish we were some place else. Drink your drink and we’ll get out of here. What I want to say I don’t want to say in this madhouse, all these people yelling their heads off.”

She gulped some beer and left some in the glass. “That’s all I want.”

He left two dollar bills and a quarter on the table and they went out. He refused the taxi at the door, but walked down the block towards Fifth Avenue and took a taxi that was moving. “Fortieth Street and Seventh Avenue,” he told the driver.

“Where are we going?”

“That place you took me to the other night. The newspaper place.” He took off his hat and held it on his knee. “You know, Gloria, I’m in a bad way about you. The thing that’s happened to me usually happens to men I know who have been good husbands. I don’t mean that I’ve been an especially bad husband. I’ve been good to my wife in most ways. I’ve always kept things from her that would hurt her—”

“You’re the kind of man that would have a mistress and insult her in front of your wife because you thought that would mislead her.”

“You’re wrong. No, you’re right. The only time I had a mistress that my wife knew I did say disparaging things about her, the mistress. How do you know these things? You’re not more than I’d say twenty-two. How do you know these things?”

“How do I know them? What else has there been in my life but finding out things like that? But go on, tell me about what happens to men of your age.”

“What happens to men of my age. What happens to men of my age is this, if they’ve been good husbands. They go along being good husbands, working hard and having a good time, playing golf, making a little money, going to parties with the same crowd, and then sometimes it’s a woman they’ve known all their lives, and sometimes it’s a filing clerk in the office, and sometimes it’s a singer in a night club. I know of one case where it was a man and his sister. Not that they ever did anything about it, except that the man committed suicide, that’s all. He’d been happily married—oh, what the hell am I talking about, happily married. Is anybody happily married? I often wonder whether anybody is.” He stopped talking.

“What made you stop all of a sudden? You were going great.”

“Was I?”

“I’ll say.”

“I just discovered something, or almost did. Wondering whether anyone was happily married. I wondered if I was, and then I wondered if I wasn’t. God, I’m in a worse spot than anyone. I don’t even know if I’m unhappily married. I don’t know anything about myself. I must be happy, because whenever I’ve looked back and remembered times when I was happy, I always find that I didn’t know I was happy when I was. Well, if I’m happy now it’s because of you. Let me rave. I’m thinking out loud.”

“A little too loud for the taxi driver, or else maybe not loud enough.”

“Well, that’s all he’s going to hear. This is the end of the line.”

This time they were not greeted by the voluble bartender, but by a tall sad man who looked as though he ought to be a Texas Ranger. They went to the small room off the bar where there were booths, and when the bartender brought their drinks Liggett began: “I didn’t feel like talking about this in the taxi. Now I have to talk and get it over with. Gloria, did you take a fur coat out of my apartment Sunday?”

Silence.

“Did you? Are you not answering because you’re angry, or what?”

“What do you think?”

“I’m asking you.”

“Yes, I took it.”

“Well, will you give it back? It’s my wife’s coat, and I’ve had a hard time keeping her from telling the police.”

“Why don’t you let her tell the police?”

“Do you really want the coat that much?”

“I could have it, couldn’t I?”

“Yes. You could, but not very easily. Uh, naturally it would break up my home. The first thing the detectives would do would be to question the employees of the apartment house, and the elevator operator would remember your leaving with the coat on Sunday. Then they’d tell my wife there was a girl in the apartment Saturday night, and while my wife might possibly forgive my being unfaithful, for the sake of the children, I don’t think she’d forgive my bringing anyone into her home. It’s her home, you know, even more than it is mine, or as much. Well, so that would break up the home, but that wouldn’t be all. When the police are notified in a thing like that they like to make an arrest, so they’d probably find out who you were.”

“From you?”

“No. Not from me. They could arrest me, I suppose, but I wouldn’t tell them who it was. But from—did you take a taxi? You must have. Well, they’d find out where you went, and so on. They have ways of finding out, without any help from me. So you wouldn’t have the coat long. And what if my wife told the insurance people? That would fix me in a business way. Not that there’s much left to be fixed, but at least I have a good job. Well, if my wife became vindictive and told the insurance people to, uh, proceed just as though I were a stranger, they would arrest me for compounding a felony or accessory before the fact or something like that, and the tabloids would get hold of it. No, you can’t win.”

“Crime does not pay, eh?”

“I don’t know whether it does or not, but I do know this, you won’t gain anything by keeping the coat.”

“Except the coat.”

“Not even the coat. They’ll take it away from you. Oh, come on, don’t be unreasonable. I’ll buy you a coat just like it.”

“It’s an expensive coat.”

“It’s insured for I think four thousand dollars. That’s quite an item for an insurance company to have to make good on. What are you doing, having fun?”

“A little. You have fun with me Saturday night. Big stuff, tearing my dress and all that old cave-man act.”

“I’m sorry about that. I’ve told you before I was sorry.”

“It didn’t sound very convincing before, but now that you’re in a jam—”

“Listen, God damn it—”

“Don’t swear at me. I’m going.”

“Oh, no, you’re not.”

“Oh, yes, I
am,
and don’t you try to stop me, if you know what’s good for you.”

“Listen, you little bitch, I’ll go to jail before I let you get away with this, and you will too. Sit down.” He reached for her hand, but she ran out to the barroom.

“Let me out of here,” she said to the bartender.

“Don’t open that door,” said Liggett.

“Out of the way, Mister,” said the bartender.

“What is it, Joe?” said a man at the bar, who Liggett saw was in uniform. The man turned, and it was a patrolman’s uniform. The cop put on his cap and came over.

“Don’t hurt him. Just let me out,” said Gloria.

“Is he molesting you, lady?” said the cop.