Juice (28 page)

“How do I neutralize you?” Rhein asked cautiously.

“Put up the judge for the Century Club,” Davis said, “so I can leer at him, and dance with his wife on Friday nights, and blackmail him at the men's bar for years and years.”

“Oh, come now,” Winkelmann said. His gaze wandered about the room. He pursed his lips sadly.

“You don't have to back him for the federal bench,” Davis said. “That's a matter of conscience. You know about conscience?”

“And Harrison?” Rhein said.

“You know that one,” Davis said. “You pay the widow. The maximum, and without litigation. You give us your word. Now.”

“Done,” Rhein said. “I'll give her what I said I would.”

“Then there it is,” Davis said, spreading his hands. “Everybody's troubles are over.”

“Even Storch's,” Joe said bitterly.

Farrow had waited outside. When Rhein emerged the two men spoke for several minutes. Rhein then strode briskly to his limousine, while Farrow found his more modest vehicle. Now Farrow was driving back along the shaded suburban streets he loved. Today he had the first faint notion of his true reason for loving them. They are called Elm Street and Maple Street, and they are hedged by six- to eight-room Georgian and Tudor houses with at least one superfluous, jarring crenellation, and in those houses there live many people
who do not move away.
The life makes for ordinariness, and is a mine of rare gems for the complacent satirist; it also makes for continuity, and takes a stand for valuable, and otherwise neglected, virtues, first among them a calm neighborly stanchness in adversity or natural disaster. This is provincialism, which everywhere seems to breed fatalism; and fatalism is a handy reserve in a world gone mad. For Farrow the world had gone mad, or tilted slightly on its moral axis, an hour before; but in these streets his natural composure, the orderly manifestation of his unruffled spirit, was restored to him. He had carried out his assignments; Rhein was pleased; the desired end had been attained. There was little more a man could ask. If obscurities remained, perhaps he was not meant to seek light. The important thing was that his function had been essential. He had to be assured of that, otherwise his was an aimless life. He smiled. He was needed and always would be.

He loved the lawns, and the yellow forsythia.

20

Helen was no longer crying. She removed a mirror from her handbag, examined her face, and laughed ruefully. “They'll think you've been beating me,” she said to Joe.

They, the children, and a couple whom Helen had come to think of as “the Davises” were seated at a long table in a wide bay window. The whine of traffic outside was incessant, and sunlight lay dazzling on the white tablecloth. Davis had insisted on a celebratory drink, but had compromised for lunch. The most convenient eating place was one of those gustatory Taj Mahals that line American highways, and they were in it now, and Davis disapproved fiercely. He bore the uneasy expression of a desert colonel at an embassy tea. Mrs. Newbery gazed complacently at him. She sat between Dave, at one end of the table, and his father; across from her Helen smiled. Davis, between Helen and Sally, faced Joe Harrison. “The waitress is a trull,” he said. “The furnishings are abominable. The food will be inedible and the prices inflationary. The menu will contain French phrases without written accents, and will offer a
soupe du jour
with no ‘e' at the end of
soupe,
and it will prove to be not a
soupe
but a
potage.
We could have gone to Sebastian's and had delicious hors d'oeuvres, and he would have admired Sally and given David a tot of beer.”

“We can do it some evening next week,” Helen said.

Davis looked warily from her to Mrs. Newbery. “I suppose we can,” he mumbled, and then he said scornfully, “You take a lot for granted. Here I lost a case, and almost lost a fee, and a lousy traffic case at that. No sex in it, no excitement, no big names, no ‘New York papers please copy.' The next step is negligence work in grammar-school playgrounds. I offer you a luncheon anyway—anyway, mind you—and you bring me here. Ho, Lucrezia!” He gestured to the waitress, who flew to him. “Does this wayside inn have a liquor license?”

She was unsteady, but she said, “No, sir.”

“There!” He glared at Harrison. To the girl he said, “Dismissed. Come back in three minutes with menus.”

“We have beer,” she whispered shakily.

He radiated joy. “But, my sweet,” he said. “My Ganymede; my Al Capone.” He looked at the others; they nodded. “Four bottles,” he said. “Six glasses.” She skittered off. “A lovely girl,” he said. “Of good family.”

“You're cruel.” Helen laughed.

“Never,” he said firmly. “Girls—as opposed to women—prefer male attention on any terms. I have honored her with conversation, assumed that the English language was comprehensible to her, and accepted her suggestion of beer. A sweeping triumph for her. And you call me cruel. Not to mention the sprinkling of gray in my hair, irresistible to pullets. Sally and David, will you take a little beer?”

Sally nodded. Dave said, “I like it.” He looked at his father and said, “He's a nice man. I bet he talks more than I do.”

Mrs. Newbery laughed, and Davis, watching her lips, her teeth, her glowing eyes, the movement of her dark hair, held his breath. He recovered. “You will come to a bad end,” he said sternly to Dave, who was delighted.

The girl arrived with the beer. “How old are you?” Davis asked. “Twenty?”

“Eighteen,” she gasped.

“You seem capable and mature,” he said.

She blushed and fled.

“Now,” Davis said, and poured an inch of beer for each child. “Do you know what I'm doing?” he asked Joe thoughtfully. “I'm corrupting minors and violating the liquor statutes. Do you see what the law is?”

“Even with my permission?” Joe asked. “Which, by the way, you never requested.”

“Even with your permission,” Davis said. “Everything is relative, as we have all heard time and time again; but the law is absolute. Which accounts for both Canossa and Capua. We may be moving into a new age, an age of flexibility.” He thought for a moment, and went on: “Do you know what this morning's lesson is? Not that man can find justice in spite of himself—the laws of probability would do it for him—and certainly not that he can find it through good will and hard work; but that justice has to include evil, and not reject it. Accept the rotten spot in every heart, every relationship—”

“Stop him,” Mrs. Newbery said. “Stop him now.”

“You again,” he said. “Why do you follow me around? Ah, the menus. Prepare for the worst. Batten down the epiglottises.”

They studied the menus. “I shall have,” Davis said portentously, “a chopped-walnut, cream cheese, and cucumber sandwich. I have been in far places; I have accomplished moderate derring-do. I have read
Finnegans Wake
. I have known Frenchmen without liver trouble and British majors without mustaches. I have even played volleyball. I have never eaten a chopped-walnut, cream cheese, and cucumber sandwich.”

They ordered; the girl left them. She was back soon, and they ate.

“Are people always tired afterward?” Joe asked.

Davis nodded. “Usually. You get queer reactions. Their minds go blank at the critical moment, or they become hysterical for the first time in their lives. It's a complicated species of mike fright. A good night's sleep and you'll be all right.”

“I haven't told you yet how grateful I am,” Joe said.

“Grateful,” Davis grumbled. “You ought to be grateful. I never had a duller case in my life. Where were the bloody ax, the psychopath, the smoldering female? No. An accident. A home, and a wife, and two children. The coffee boiling over. Cats and dogs. Weekly laundry. The borrowed lawn mower. Irredeemably bourgeois. Do you know what they'll say when you get back to the office?” He was momentarily serious. “They'll all come around, your assistants and your secretaries and receptionists and office boys, and they'll say, ‘You were terrific, Mr. Harrison. And we know you were in the right. We know you only did it for the widow.' And you can go back to your carpet slippers and pruning shears. And all those tradespeople you're so angry about, they'll apologize, humbly, and you'll accept their apologies. This sandwich, I regret to report, is not bad.”

“There's nothing wrong with cats and dogs and laundry,” Helen said. “They're like that sandwich: you never tried, so you don't know, so you scoff.”

“You admire Joe,” Mrs. Newbery said to him. “Joe came out of all that irredeemable bourgeoisie.”

“I admire him for having been himself even when it hurt,” Davis said, “not for having taken any particular stand.”

“All right,” she said. “But if he'd been one of your high-class rich-bitch clients do you think he'd have behaved the same way?”

“Why don't you all let it drop?” Joe complained. “You talk about me as though I weren't here. I'm accustomed to more respect.”

“They're not talking about you at all,” Davis said, grinning. “You obviously know nothing about women.”

Joe looked confused; the ladies laughed. “I'll tell you later,” Helen said. “He's a little more intelligent than I'd thought,” she said to Mrs. Newbery.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Newbery said. “Very perceptive. But no sense of reality. Like a child, as I said.”

“He likes to think he's an anarchist,” Helen said. “Very common among children.”

“How perfectly true,” Mrs. Newbery said, leaning forward brightly. “When they're a little older they begin to discriminate between social and antisocial desires; they learn to distinguish the desire for food from—I offer this disinterestedly in a spirit of honest investigation—the desire for—”

“Silence!” Davis thundered. Transformation swept his face: outrage, tenderness, suspicion, pride, bewilderment. “Leave me alone,” he muttered. “Drink your coffee.”

“Come on, Joe,” Helen said. “Let's get home. You're tired.” She rose. Davis looked up in alarm.

Joe gulped his coffee. The children came to stand with them. “Thanks again,” Joe said to Davis. “I'll call you tomorrow.” Davis stood. They shook hands. Joe kissed Mrs. Newbery. Davis glared at Helen, who smiled sweetly.

Then the Harrisons were gone, and Davis had paid the check, and he and Mrs. Newbery were crossing the graveled parking lot to his car.

“You're pensive,” she said. “What is it?”

“That damned Harrison,” he said, “with his old-fashioned language. And Helen with hers. You all do it. You ganged up on me. Good and evil and honor and carpet slippers. I don't think he knows yet why he did what he did.”

“I don't think you do either,” she said. “He understands it in his terms; you say you don't use his terms. So you can understand it your way and be all wrong.”

They had reached the car. “Stop a minute,” he said. “Let me look at you. I've been busy. You're very beautiful.”

“Yes,” she said, and stopped, and faced him. “An ornament. Beautiful. You and your old-fashioned language. Am I really so beautiful? Worthy of you?”

“Oh, shut up,” he said. “You'd leave me nothing of my own. You'd read my heart aloud and transcribe my mind. You'd take the specific gravity of my bile and exclaim in awe at the state of my liver. Stop smiling! Attend me!” He raised a hand in pontifical admonition, leaned toward her, drank her in like brandy (high proof; no hangover; properly aged) as he said, “You'd harry me and marry me and bind me and bury me.” She nodded. “You'd teach me canasta and the large breakfast.” She shook her head. Her eyes were bright, her lips parted. “You'd feed my cold and starve my fever, stroke my brow and name my children, love me little and love me long.” She nodded. “Choose my ties, set my hours, dictate brands of liver paste.” She shook her head. “Trim my hair, lave my limbs, sing to a flat lute.” She nodded. “You're wrong,” he said desperately. “Yield the dream! Abandon hope! I'm not the marrying kind.”

Mrs. Newbery was wide-eyed and tense. “I'll give you a nickel,” she offered breathlessly.

She took him then as a tide takes a beach; he stared at her, opened his hands, closed them, opened them again and grasped her shoulders and shook her and pulled her against him. “Sold!” he said wildly. “Will you marry me? Will you? Will you?”

When the Harrisons reached home Joe showered again. He changed to corduroy pants, a khaki shirt, and tennis shoes. He joined his wife in the living room. She had mixed him a drink, and he took it gratefully. He grinned, and passed one hand wearily over his face. “I'm out of it. I think I did the right thing, and I'm out of it,” he said. “Do you know what a relief that is?”

“I know,” she said. “I'm as tired as you are. I saw your face when you were staring at Davis, and I knew what you were going to say, and I could have killed you. I could have walked out of there—but then he got up and told the judge, and I would have spent the rest of my life with you in any jail in the world.”

“When I was looking at him I wasn't even thinking of you,” he said. “Or of the kids. I wasn't thinking of anything.”

“I haven't cried so much since Dave had scarlet fever,” she said. “I exploded tears. The kids hugged me and told me to be quiet. Everybody was watching, they said.”

“Where are they?” Joe said.

“Out back. I wish you'd kiss me. I could use it.”

“Your servant,” he said, and went to her.

“Much obliged,” she said.

“Any time,” he said. They shared a smile, and she touched his cheek. “I'm going out for a minute,” he said.

He went through the kitchen and out the screen door. Dave was digging under the trees, while Sally stood by. He went to them. “What are you doing?”