Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (35 page)

‘Try yours,’ Margaret said to me.

I sipped it. ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Very good, Rafael,’ I said to the boy.

He smiled and backed away.

There was a little noise in the hall and a man came into the tap-room. He was about my own age, slender and tanned and attractive, and at once I saw he had the Dobson cast of countenance. He came towards us, smiling.

‘Come in, Jonah,’ Margaret said. ‘This is Paul Murphy,’ she said. ‘My brother, Jonah…’

I got up.

‘Hello,’ he said, sticking out his hand cordially.

‘How are you?’ I said, shaking hands with him.

‘Rafael,’ he called, and made a measure with his hands. ‘Sit down, sit down,’ he said to me. ‘God,’ he said, waving me down, ‘nobody has any manners in this house but the servants. …’

‘
Toujours le
undergraduate,’ Margaret said.

‘Don’t be bitter now, dear,’ he said, with just a trace of bite in his tone. He picked up the tray of canapes and offered it to Margaret, who took two more and pushed them together and put them in her mouth, and then to me. I took one this time and he put the tray down and took one for himself.

I sat down and swept him with a glance. He had a hell of a flair for clothes. He wore a crew hair cut, and a tannish three-button Shetland coat, a Brooks Brothers polo model shirt with a foulard tie, gray flannel trousers, tan cashmere socks and white buck Peal shoes, with the red corrugated rubber soles, called by the English tennis shoes, and costing fifty dollars a pair. He was holding up his hands now as if he were afraid to touch anything with them, and Rafael came in with a bar towel and held it while he wiped his hands. Then Rafael handed him his drink and moved away.

Jonah held up his drink and said, ‘Salute,’ and we all drank, and I noticed now as he drank that he had practical button-holes on his coat sleeves and that just the right number, one, was unbuttoned. He was the best-dressed son-of-a-bitch I’d ever seen. I knew his school too. I could tell. You can always tell.

‘Princeton?’ I said.

‘Yes’, he said.

He did not seem surprised that I knew, but Margaret was.

‘How’d you know that?’ she asked.

‘Just guessing,’ I said.

‘Do sit down, Jonah,’ she said.

‘I will indeed, I will indeed,’ he said, sitting down, ‘in spite of the fact that I’m late already. But this is one of our rarer occasions, Mister Murphy. …’

‘Paul,’ I said.

‘I’m Jonah,’ he said. I nodded thank you and he took a swig of his drink and continued: ‘Yes, sir. A very rare occasion it is when my sister brings home a date who can speak English. …’

‘Jonah!’ she said sharply.

He laughed, not even looking at her. ‘It’s usually a Yogi or an East Indian with a practically hairless beard or some charlatan in a burnoose or…’ He looked at her. ‘What’s the name of this latest craze of yours? Cosmic Philosophy?’

‘Cosmic Consciousness,’ I said, smiling. If everybody was going to play at being bitchy, I wanted to play too. I had a better reason than either of them had.

‘That’s it,’ he said. Then his eyes widened. ‘Good God!’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me that you …’

‘No, not what you’re thinking,’ I said. ‘I read it on a sign in front while I was waiting for Margaret. And I must say, I feel the same way about it you do.’

He nodded vigorously and turned to Margaret. ‘You know, this man may be able to do you some good. I’ve been trying to tell her,’ he said to me, ‘that this damned mystic stuff’ll drive her crazy in the end. That’s what happens when a woman has too much spare time on her hands. Why don’t you get out and do something healthy?’ he said to her. ‘Get some sun. Get some color. You look like a ghost.’

‘You mean get out the way you do?’ she said. ‘You mean do something healthy the way you do? You’re a fine one to talk. Great hours you keep. Ten till twelve on the practice tee, twelve to one, lunch; one till five, golf; five till six, practice tee; six till eight, cocktails; eight till all hours more cocktails and parties…’

‘I argue that it’s healthy and that I’m in the sun,’ he said. ‘I leave it to Paul. And this month, incidentally, I’ve gone to plus one.’

‘That only means you can lose more money,’ she said.

‘Well, I’d a damn sight rather do that with it than finance these weird institutions you’re always finding. At least, I’ve got a chance to get mine back. …’

This could have been banter if there had been less sting in the words. She felt them too. She twisted on the coffee table, and flushed a little. He seemed to be pleased that he had stung her.

‘Er, plus one’s pretty good,’ I said.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘there’s not too many guys who can give it the time I do. I work at it, I really do. That’s all it takes. I’ve allotted myself five more years, and if I can’t turn the trick by then, I’ll give up and go to pouring steel. …’

‘He wants to win the National Amateur,’ she said.

‘Who doesn’t?’ I said. ‘That’s a fine title. Next to the British Amateur, I’d like to win the National myself. …’

‘It’s no cinch,’ he said. ‘The minute Bob Jones quits, Lawson Little comes in. There’s always a hell of a golfer at the top. Do you play?’

‘Not in years,’ I said. ‘And not even good then. Most of the time I spent on the golf course was caddying. I used to caddy for Jack Hutchinson.’

‘Did you?’ he exclaimed. ‘He was good, wasn’t he?’

‘One of the best,’ I said.

‘Are you new in town?’

‘About a week …’

‘What business are you in?’

‘Well I haven’t made up my mind. I’ve been flirting with insurance.’

He gave Margaret a quick look. ‘Don’t be too hasty about picking a line,’ he said. There’s a lot of good things around. …’

‘Most anything can be made good if you worked hard enough at it,’ she said, trying to sting him. He just laughed. She stood up, motioning to Rafael that everybody would have another of the same.

‘Not for me,’ Jonah said. ‘Not for me,’ he called to Rafael. He got up, finishing his drink as he rose. ‘I promised to pick up Martha early. Well,’ he said, pleasantly, ‘I’ll clear out before the brother-sister act loses its subtlety. I’ve got to change and pick up Martha… By the way,’ he said to her, ‘you’re not having dinner here, are you?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘I thought not. Then why not join us at the club? Might do you good to get out with normal people.’

‘You call your drunken friends normal people?’ she asked.

‘Catch them before they get drunk. At least, you can let them see that you have a date with a guy who speaks English and gets his hair cut once in a while. …’ He stuck out his hand to me. ‘Nice to have seen you, Paul – if I don’t see you later. Let’s have lunch sometime. …’

‘Even if I go into insurance?’

‘Even if you go into insurance…’

Thanks, Jonah,’ I said.

He took a step and paused beside Margaret. ‘Do try to make it,’ he said. He smiled at her almost sympathetically and went out.

‘I didn’t know you had a brother,’ I said.

‘I don’t brag about it,’ she said.

‘He seemed very nice.’

‘Yes, he’s nice. A little one-dimensional, but nice.’

‘I wouldn’t mind being one-dimensional myself if I could wear clothes that well,’ I said.

She looked at me, at my clothes. ‘You do all right,’ she said. She got up from the coffee table and moved around to the green davenport. She looked at me again. ‘Tell me about Mandon,’ she said. ‘How long have you known him?’

‘Mandon?’ I said. ‘Oh, not too long …’

‘Just since you’ve been in town?’

‘That’s right.’

‘He is your lawyer, isn’t he?’

I didn’t know what he had told her, probably that he was my lawyer, but the circumstances proved that there was some association, and there was no use denying it. ‘Yes,’ I said.

‘That’s why you came to Doctor Green’s that night. You were looking for him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know what kind of a reputation he has?’

‘What kind?’

‘Very, very bad …’

I took a sip of my martini. ‘I don’t quite know what you mean by bad,’ I said. ‘Bad how?’

‘He makes a business of dealing with the underworld. …’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Well, he does,’ she said. ‘When one lawyer talks about another lawyer, something’s wrong’

‘You mean Golightly?’

This is strictly confidential…’

‘Of course,’ I said.

‘He’s almost an underworld character himself.’

‘You amaze me!’ I said.

‘It’s true. I wouldn’t say it unless I knew it to be true. Do you know something else? This afternoon when I’d told him my story and begged him to help me find you and started to leave, I offered him some money for his trouble. Just as a gesture, I had only twenty dollars with me, but he took it. Imagine that!’

He hadn’t told me about that. Ten of that was mine. The son-of-a-bitch, I was thinking. …‘Well,’ I said, ‘he probably regarded it as a fee. You know how lawyers are about fees. …’

‘I don’t want you to have anything else to do with him. If you have any more legal business, take it to Fred Golightly. That’s what you should do now.’

‘Now?’ I said.

‘Now that you’re going to work for my father.’

‘I thought I made it plain on the telephone that I didn’t want to work for him.’

She pouted a little. ‘You can’t very well refuse us a chance to get out of your debt,’ she said.

‘You’ve never been in my debt.’

She pouted a little. ‘Not very many people refuse a chance to work for my father,’ she said.

‘I know,’ I said.

‘Only with you it wouldn’t be just any kind of work. He likes you. He’s very impressed with you. …’

‘Oh, sure,’ I said.

‘He has a personal interest in you. Once you’re in the company, he’d move you along very fast.’

‘Look, Margaret,’ I said. ‘I know you mean well and I appreciate it, but why don’t you let this alone? I don’t want to be in the company. I don’t want his help. I’ve got some deals on. …’

‘But whatever your deals are, father can help. Just the fact that he’s taken a personal interest in you is all you need. He’s a very big man around here. All over. Even in the whole country…’

Oh, yes, of course. The Titan. ‘I know…’ I said.

‘Won’t you stop resenting him for just a little while? Won’t you be nice to him and listen to what he has to say? Won’t you try to keep your complexes under control for a few minutes?’ she asked. ‘He’s got as many complexes as you have, and it’s easy to pick a fight with him too maybe easier, after the strain he’s been under all afternoon. Please be careful…’

Naturally, I wanted to say. If the man’s been under a strain then I shall be extremely careful. He’s the only man in the world who’s been under a strain this afternoon. I’ve been under no strain. All I did was spend a lazy and reinvigorating afternoon eating pheasant sandwiches and listening to Crosby and Columbo records. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. ‘I want you to be nice to him,’ she was saying. ‘I want you to be very nice to him. The kind of niceness I know. You will, won’t you?’

Rushing entered and spoke from the door: ‘Mister Dobson is waiting, Miss Margaret.’

‘Thank you, Rushing,’ she said. ‘Bring your drink,’ she said to me.

Rushing bowed and left.

We picked up our drinks. ‘Now, remember,’ she said. ‘I’ve told him how wonderful you are. Please don’t fight with him.’

‘I don’t want to fight with him,’ I said. ‘I just want to be left alone.’

‘Well, hear him out. He may have a surprise for you.’

We moved out into the hall. I had a glimpse of the big dining-room as we passed. Rushing was standing in the door, just closing it. The wall brackets were burning and I saw two other butlers arranging the table. There was an epergne on the table as big as a wash-tub, holding what must have been a dozen candles. The chairs were all tapestried. This, I thought, was a long way from the Great Smokies – or was it?

Margaret rapped once on a big oaken door and then opened it and we stepped in. This library was a big room, filled with books on two sides. Across the room at a heavy, over-sized desk, sat Ezra Dobson. He got up and came to meet us. He was wearing a rumpled double-breasted blue suit and a white shirt and a blue-and-yellow-figured bow tie.

‘Well, I see you found him,’ he said to Margaret. He extended his hand to me. ‘So, Murphy, we meet again. …’

‘It looks like it,’ I said, shaking hands perfunctorily.

Margaret gave me a quick glance, but Ezra Dobson had paid no attention to the remark. He said: ‘And much more pleasant than the last time, too. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. Midge, dear,’ he said, ‘I think I’d prefer to talk to Murphy alone.’

‘But, Father,’ she said petulantly. ‘I’m a big girl now.’

‘Darling,’ he said, with a trace of weariness, ‘I want to talk with Paul.’

Now it was Paul…

‘Father,’ she said.

‘Dear,’ he said, almost pleading.

This is what’s the matter with your daughter, I was thinking, this is why she got away from you. She was looking at me with disconsolate eyes. She didn’t want me to be alone with him. She was worried about my complexes.

‘Forget it,’ I said to her, a little curtly, showing off for his benefit. ‘Do as your father says. It’s all right.’

‘Yes, Paul,’ she said obediently. ‘I’ll change and wait for you in the tap-room.’

You do that, I was thinking. You get an eider-down sleeping bag and make yourself very comfortable in the tap-room. You’ll be waiting for me a long time. …

She was moving to the door.

‘Dear,’ Ezra Dobson said, ‘have the boy fix a shaker of whatever Paul is drinking and send it in.’

‘Yes, Father,’ she said.

She went on out and closed the door.

‘You have quite a way with Midge,’ he said.

‘Pardon?’ I said.

‘I tell her to go and she argues. You tell her to go and she goes.’

‘Well…’ I said.

‘Sit down, sit down,’ he said. ‘Sorry to have kept you waiting, but I’ve had trouble on my hands since three o’clock this afternoon. The bastards’ve pulled a strike on me.’

‘That’s too bad,’ I said.

‘Too bad for them,’ he said. ‘I’ll have ’em in the bread line in a week. I’ve got a police department that’s specially trained in breaking strikes and a National Guard that’s specially trained in picking up the pieces. And a few patriotic organizations that’ll wave the flag while they do it…’