The Complete Crime Stories (18 page)

It was only four or five blocks away, in a big penthouse on top of one of those apartment buildings on Park Avenue, so we walked. On the way, she kept damning Gwenny, and all of Gwenny's friends, under her breath, and saying she'd rather take a horsewhipping than go in and face them. But when we got there, she was all smiles. Only twenty or thirty people had shown up by then, and most of them hadn't heard of it. That was the funny thing. I had bought some papers on my way up from Cecil's, and two or three of them had nothing about it at all, and the others let it out with a line. In the theatrical business, bad news is no news. It's only the hits that cause excitement.

So they were all crowding around her with their congratulations, and wanted to know what it felt like to be a big head-liner. Of course, that made it swell. But Doris leveled it out without batting an eye. “But I flopped! I'm not a headliner! I'm an
ex
-headliner!”

“You—! Come on, stop being funny!”

“I flopped. I'm out. They gave me my notice.”

“
How
could you flop?”

“Oh please, please, don't ask me—it just breaks my heart. And now I can't go to Bermuda! Honestly, it's not the principle of the thing, it's the money! Think of all those lovely, lovely dollars that I'm not going to get!”

She didn't lie about it, or pretend that she had done better than she had done, or pretty it up in any way. She had too much sense for that. But in twenty seconds she had them switched off from the horrible part, and had managed to work it in that she must have been getting a terrific price to go on at all, and had it going her way. Leighton came in while she was talking, and said the publicity was all wrong, and he was going to raise hell about it. They all agreed that was it, and in five minutes they were talking about the Yale game Saturday.

She drifted over to me. “Thank God
that's
over. Was it all right?”

“Perfect.”

“Damn them.”

“Just a few minutes, and we'll blow. We've still got my bag to unpack.”

She nodded, and looked at me, and let her lashes droop over her eyes. It was Eve looking at the apple, and my heart began to pound, and the room swam in front of me.

Lorentz came in. He didn't come over. He waved, and smiled, and Doris waved back, but looked away quick. “I'm a little out of humor with Hugo. He must have known. You did, didn't you? He could have given me some little hint.”

I thought of what he had said, but I didn't say anything. I didn't care. I was still groggy from that look.

We got separated then, but pretty soon she had me by the arm, pulling me into a corner. “We've got to go. Make it quick with Gwenny, and then—
out!
”

“Why sure. But what's the matter?”

“The fool.”

“Who?”

“Gwenny. I could kill her. She knows how crazy I've been about that woman, and how I've wanted to meet her, and now, today of all days she had to pick out—she's invited her! And she's coming!”

“What woman?”

“Cecil Carver! Haven't you heard me speak of her a hundred times? And now—I can't meet her today. I can't have her—pitying me! … Can I?”

“No. We'll blow.”

“I'll meet you at the elevator—Oh my, there she is!”

I looked around, and Cecil was just coming in the room. I turned back to Doris, and she wasn't there.

She was with Wilkins, Cecil I mean. That meant she was going to sing. There wasn't much talk while Gwenny was taking her around. They piped down, and waited. They all had money, and position from 'way-back, but all they ever saw was each other. When a real celebrity showed up, they were as excited as a bunch of high school kids meeting some big-league ball player. I was still in the corner, and she didn't see me until Gwenny called me out. She caught her breath. Gwenny introduced me, and I said “How do you do, Miss Carver,” and she said “How do you do, Mr. Borland,” and went on. But in a minute she came back. “Why didn't you tell me you were coming here?”

“I didn't know it.”

“Is she here?”

“Didn't Gwenny tell you?”

“No.”

“It was on her account she asked you.”

“Her
account?”

“She's wanted to meet you. So I just found out.”

“Gwenny didn't say anything. She called an hour ago and said come on up—and I wanted to go somewhere. I
had
to go somewhere. Why has she wanted to meet me?”

“Admires you. From afar.”

“Only that?”

“Yes.”

“Where is she?”

“Back there somewhere. In one of the bedrooms, would be the best bet. Hiding.”

“From what?”

“You, I think.”

“Leonard, what is this? She wants to meet me, she's hiding from me—what are you getting at? She's not a child, to duck behind curtains when teacher comes.”

“I should say not.”

“Then what is this nonsense?”

“It's no nonsense. Gwenny asked you, as a big favor to her. But Gwenny hadn't heard about the flop. And on account of the flop, she'd rather not. Just—prefers some other time.”

“And that's all?”

“Yeah, but it was an awful flop.”

“You're sure you haven't told her about me? Gone and got all full of contrition, and made a clean breast of it, and wiped the slate clean, so you can start all over again—have you?
Have
you?”

“No, not a word.”

She stood twisting a handkerchief and thinking, and then she turned and headed back toward the bedrooms. “Cecil—!”

“She had a flop, didn't she? Then I guess I'm the one she wants to talk to.”

She went on back. I went over and had a drink. I needed one.

I was on my third when she came back, and I went over to her. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“What did you say?”

“Told her to forget it. Told her it could happen to anybody—which it can, baby, and don't you forget it.”

“What did she say?”

“Asked if it had ever happened to me. I told her it had, and then we talked about Hugo.”

“He's here, by the way.”

“Is he? She's not bad. I halfway liked her.”

She still didn't look at me, but I had the same old feeling about her, of how swell she was, and thought I'd die if I couldn't let her know, anyway a little. “Cecil, can I say something?”

“Leonard, I cut my heart out after you left. I cut it out, and put it in the electric icebox, to freeze into—whatever a heart is made of. Jelly, I guess. Anyway my heart. So if you've got anything to say, you'd better go down there and see if it can still hear you. Me, I've got other things to do. I've got to be gay, and sing tra-la-la-la, and get my talons into the first man that—”

She saw Lorentz then, and went running over to him, and put her arms around him, and kissed him. It was gay, maybe, but it didn't make me feel any better.

Doris came out then, and I hurried to her. I didn't want to let on about Cecil, so I began right where we left off, and asked if she was ready to go. “Oh—the tooth's out now. I think she's going to sing. Let's stay.”

“Oh—you saw her then?”

“She came back to powder. I didn't start it. She spoke to me. She remembered me. She came to my recital, you may recall.”

“Oh yes, so she did.”

“Don't ever meet your gods face to face, and especially not your goddesses. It's a most disillusioning experience. They have clay feet. My, what an awful woman.”

“You didn't like her?”

“She knew about it. And she couldn't wait to make me feel better. She was just so tactful and sweet—and mean—that I just hated her. And did she love it. Did she enjoy purring over me.”

“Maybe not. Maybe she meant it.”

“Of course she meant it—her way.”

“And what way is that?”

“Don't be so dense. Perhaps a man doesn't see through those things, but a woman does. Oh yes, she meant it. She meant every word of it—the cat. She was having the time of her life.”

I could feel myself getting hot under the collar, and all my romantic humor was gone. After what Cecil had done, and what it had cost her to do it, this kind of talk went against my grain. “And what a frump. Did you ever see such a dress?”

“What's the matter with it?”

“Well—never mind. She did say one thing, though. To forget it. That it can happen to anybody, that it has even happened to her. ‘All in a day's work, a thing you expect now and then, so what? Forget it and go on.' Leonard, are you listening?”

“I'm listening.”

“That's it. Nothing has happened. How silly I was, to feel that way about it. I don't have to quit. I just go on. Why certainly. Even she had sense enough to know that.”

I could hardly believe my eyes, and certainly not my ears. Here it had only been that morning when she was broken on the wheel, when she heard the gong ring for her if ever anybody did. And now, after just a few words from Cecil, she was standing there with her eyes open wide, telling herself that nothing had happened, that it was all just a dream. And all of a sudden, I knew that nothing
had
happened, and that it
was
all just a dream. She was the same old Doris, and it would be about one more day before we'd be right back where we always had been, with me having the fool career rubbed into me morning, noon and night, and everything else just as it was, only worse. I wondered if the way she was acting was what they call pluck. To me, it was not having sense enough to know when you've been hit with a brick.

A whole mob was there by then, and pretty soon Gwenny began to stamp her foot, and got them quiet, and she said Cecil was going to sing. But when Cecil stood up, it wasn't Wilkins that took the piano, it was Lorentz. She made a little speech, and told how he had played for her in Berlin, and how she would do one of the things they had done that night, and how she hoped it would go better this time, and he wouldn't have to yell the words at her from the piano, the way he had then. They all laughed, and she waited till they had found seats and got still, and then she sang the Titania song from Mignon.

She had made her little speech with her arm around Lorentz, and Doris looked like murder, and during the little wait she began to whisper. “That's nice.”

“What's nice?”

“She brought her own accompanist, but oh no. She had to have Hugo.”

“Well what of it?”

“Don't you see through it?”

“No. They seem to be old friends.”

“Oh,
that's
not it.”

“And what
is
it?”

“She knows he's my accompanist, and that he's been attentive to me—”

“And how would she know that?”

“She must know it, from what I said. The first thing she asked me about was Hugo, and—”

“I thought Hugo was out.”

“Maybe he is, but
she
doesn't know it. And these people don't know it. My goodness, but you're stupid about some things. Oh no, this I'll not forgive. The other, I pass over. But this is a public matter, and I'll get even with her for it, if I—”

The music started then. About the third bar Doris leaned over to me. “She's flatting.”

I wanted to get out of there. I could smell trouble, especially after that crack about getting even. I said something about going, but there was as much chance of getting Doris out of there with that singing going on as there would have been of getting a rat away from a piece of cheese. All I could do was sit there.

After the Mignon, Cecil sang a little cradle song that's been written on Kreisler's Caprice Viennois, and then she came over to Doris. “How was I?”

“Marvelous! I never heard you better.”

“I thought I was a little off myself, but they seem to like it, so I guess it was all right. Do a duet with me?”

Now I ask you, was that being nice to Doris, or wasn't it? Because that was letting her right into the big league park, it was treating her as an equal, and in front of all her friends. Doris looked scared, and stammered something about how she'd love to, if only there was something they could get together on, and Cecil said: “How about
La Dove Prende?
”

“Why—that would be all right, but of course I only know the first part, and—”

“Fine. I'll do the second.”

“If you really think I can—”

“Come on, come on, it'll do you good. You've got to ride the horse that threw you, haven't you? We'll knock 'em for a loop, and then good-bye to all that business this morning, and you'll feel fine.”

“Well—”

Cecil went back to the piano and Doris put down her handbag. Her face was savage with jealousy, rage, and venom. She whispered to me: “Show me up, hey? We'll see about that!”

Wilkins took the piano, and they started. It was terrible. Mozart has to be sung to beat, and I think I told you Doris' ideas on rhythm. I saw Wilkins look up, but Cecil dead-panned, and they went on with her. She could have sung it backwards and that pair would have carried her through, so it got a hand. They had a little whisper, and then they sang the Barcarolle from the Tales of Hoffman. That was a little more Doris' speed, and a little more that mob's speed too, so they got a big hand on it, and started over to me.

As they left the piano, Doris put her arm around Cecil's waist, and I had a cold feeling that something was about to pop. They got to me, and I started to talk fast, about how fine they had sounded, anything I could think of. They laughed, and Cecil turned to Doris. “Well—how was the support?”

“Oh fine—even if you do try to steal my men.”

Doris laughed as she said it, and it wasn't supposed to be such a hell of a dirty crack. It was just a preliminary. I could give you the rest of the talk, almost word for word, the way she intended it to go. First Cecil was supposed to look surprised, and then Doris would apologize, and laugh some more, and say it was only intended as a joke. Then it would come out about Lorentz, and Doris would say please, please, he didn't mean a thing to her—really. And then would come the real dirty crack, something that would mean Lorentz wasn't really worth having, and if Cecil was interested in him she could have him, and welcome.