BUtterfield 8 (9 page)

He telephoned her at home, not expecting to find her there, but there was always the chance. A timid male voice answered; probably her father, Liggett thought. She was not home and was not expected back till later this evening. That did not discourage Liggett. He thought he knew enough about her to know where to find her. He made a bundle of her evening clothes and took it with him and went downstairs and took a taxi to the Grand Central. He checked the bundle there and was going to throw away the check, but thought she might like to have the dress for some reason, maybe sentimental, maybe to patch something. Women often saved old dresses for reasons like that, and he had no right to throw away the check. Besides, the coat was all right. He hadn’t thought of that at first, because all he thought of was the torn dress. It was annoying the way he kept thinking of that. He liked to think of tearing the dress and stripping her, all in one thought, with the memory of how she had looked at just that moment, her body and her terror. But the fact of tearing a girl’s dress was embarrassing and he did not like to be left alone with that thought. He went to a speakeasy in East Fifty-third Street, the one in which two men inside of two years shot themselves in the men’s toilet. They were taking the last few chairs off the tables, getting ready to open up, but the bar was open and a man in a cutaway and a woman friend were having drinks. The man was a gentleman, in his late forties. The woman was in her early thirties, tall and voluptuous. They were a little drunk and having an argument when Liggett entered the bar, and the man took the woman’s arm and steered her away from the bar to a table in the same room but away from Liggett. Obviously the woman was the man’s mistress and he was helplessly in love with her.

“Ever since I’ve known you,” she said, very loud, “you’ve asked me nothing but questions.”

Liggett got some nickels and went to the phone booth to call an engineer friend. The engineer did not answer. He tried two other engineer friends because he wanted to go on a tour of the speakeasies where he would be likely to find Gloria, and he wanted to be with a man but not one of his real friends. They would be at home with their wives or out to parties with their wives, and he wanted to go out with a man whose wife did not know Emily. He tried these engineers, but no soap. No answer. He tried a third, a man he did not specially like, and the man was very cordial and tried to insist on Liggett’s coming right up and joining a cocktail party where there was a swell bunch. Liggett got out of that. In another minute he was sure he could have had the company of the man in the cutaway, judging by the conversation between the man and his woman. The conversation had taken a renunciatory turn and the woman was any minute now going home and sending back everything he had ever given her, and he knew what he could do with it. Not wishing to be left alone with the man, Liggett drank the rest of his highball, paid his bill and went to another speakeasy, next door.

The first person he saw was Gloria, all dressed up in a very smart little suit. She gave him a blank look. She was with a young man and a pretty young girl. He went over and shook hands and Gloria introduced him to the other people and finally asked him to sit down for a second, that they were just leaving.

“Oh, I thought we were going to have dinner here,” said Miss Day. “I’m really getting hungry.”

There was a silence for the benefit of Miss Day, who was being tacitly informed by everyone at the table that she should have known better than to say that. “Are you waiting for someone?” said Liggett.

“Not exactly,” said Gloria.

“I really feel like an awful stupid and rude and all when you were so kind to invite us for dinner,” said Miss Day, “but really, Miss Wandrous, I’d of rather stayed at the Brevoort and ate there because I was hungry then. I—” Then she shut up.

“I think we ought to go,” said Mr. Brunner. “Gloria, we’ll take a rain check on that dinner.” He had not been drinking, and he had a kind of surly-sober manner that men sometimes get who are temporarily on the wagon but usually good drinkers. Liggett quickly stood up before they changed their minds. Miss Day apparently had postponed her appetite because she got up too.

When they had gone Liggett said: “I’ve been trying to get you. I phoned all over and I was going to look everywhere in New York till I did find you. What are you drinking?”

“Rye and plain water.”

“Rye and plain water, and Scotch and soda for me. Do you want to eat here?”

“Am I having dinner with you?”

“Well, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know. What do you want that you’ve been calling me all over, as you put it, although I don’t know where you’d be apt to call me except home.”

“And the Manger.”

“That’s not funny. I was drunk last night. That won’t happen again.”

“Yes. It
must
happen again. It’s got to. Listen, I don’t know how to begin.”

“Then don’t, if it’s a proposition. Because if it’s a proposition I’m not interested.” She knew she was lying, for she was interested in almost any proposition; interested in hearing it, at least. But so far she could not tell which way he was headed. He had said nothing to indicate that he had discovered her theft of the coat, but his avoiding that topic might be tactical and only that. She resolved not to say anything about it until he did, but to wait for the first crack that would indicate that he wanted the coat back. She was not at this point prepared to take a stand about the coat. Later, maybe, but not now.

He looked down at his hands, which were making “Here’s the Church, here’s the steeple, open the door and there’s all the people.”

“Do you know what I want?” he said.

It was on the tip of her tongue to say yes, the mink coat. She said, “Why, I haven’t the faintest idea.”

He reached in his pocket and brought out the check for the bundle he had left at Grand Central. “You,” he said.

“What’s this?” she said, taking the check.

“The rye is for Miss Wandrous. Scotch for me,” said Liggett to the waiter who had sneaked up with the drinks. When he went away Liggett went on: “That’s for your dress and coat. You got the money I left. Was it enough?”

“Yes. What do you mean you want me?”

“Well, I should think that would be plain enough. I want you. I want to—if I get you an apartment will you live in it?”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I live at home with my family.”

“You can tell them you have a job and you want to be uptown.”

“But I didn’t say I wanted to live uptown. What makes you want me for your mistress? I didn’t know you had a mistress, I know that gag, so don’t you say it.”

“I wasn’t going to. I want you, that’s why.”

“Do you want me to tell you?”

“Well—”

“First you want me because I’m good in bed and your wife isn’t. Or if she is—don’t bridle. I guess she is, judging by the way you took that. But you’re tired of her and you want me because I’m young enough to be your daughter.”

“Just about,” he said. “I’d have had to have you when I was very young.”

“Not so very. I saw pictures of your daughters in your living room, and they’re not much younger than I am. But I don’t want you to feel too old so we’ll pass over that. You want me, and you think because you paid the rent for an apartment that I’d be yours and no one else’s. Isn’t that true?”

“No. As a matter of fact it isn’t. I was thinking not an hour ago, before I knew where you were, Gloria, I discovered something and that is, I didn’t care who you were with or in what bed, I still wanted you.”

“Oh. Desperate. You
are
getting a little, uh, you’re getting worried about how near fifty is, aren’t you?”

“Maybe. I don’t think so. Men don’t get menopause. I may have as many years left as you. I’ve taken good care of myself.”

“I hope.”

“I hope you have, too.”

“Don’t you worry about me. The first thing I do tomorrow is go to my friend on Park Avenue.”

“Who’s your friend on Park Avenue?”

“My friend on Park Avenue? That’s my doctor. I’ll be able to tell you this week whether there’s anything the matter with you, and me.”

“Do you always go to him?”

“Always, without fail. Listen, you, I don’t want to sit here and talk about venereal disease. You didn’t let me finish what I was saying. You think I’d be faithful to you because you gave me an apartment. My handsome friend, I would be faithful to you only as long as I wanted to be, which might be a year or might be till tomorrow afternoon. No. No apartment for me. If you want to take an apartment where we can go when I want to go with you, or where you can take anyone you please, that’s entirely up to you. But after looking around at your apartment and making a guess as to how you live? Not interested. You haven’t enough money to own me. Last year, last fall, that is, I got a pretty good idea how much I was worth. Could you pay the upkeep on a hundred-and-eighty-foot yacht? Diesel yacht?”

“No, frankly.”

“Well, this man could and does, and I’ll bet he doesn’t use it half a dozen times a year. He goes to the boat races in it and takes a big party of young people, and has it down in Florida with him when he goes, and before it was his I saw it at Monte Carlo.”

“I guess I know who that is.”

“Yes, I guess you do. Well, he wanted me, too.”

“Why didn’t you take him up if you want money?”

“Do you know why? Because do you know those pictures of pygmies in the Sunday papers? Little men with legs like match sticks and fat bellies with big umbilicals and wrinkled skin? That’s what he looks like. Also I can’t say I enjoy his idea of fun. Ugh.”

“What?”

“I honestly wouldn’t know how to tell you. I’d be embarrassed. Maybe you’ve heard, if you know who it is.”

“You mean he’s peculiar?”

“Huh. Peculiar. Listen, darling, do you know why I like you? I do like you. Do you know why? You’re just a plain ordinary everyday man. You think you’re something pretty hot and sophisticated because you’re unfaithful to your wife. Well, I could tell you things about this rotten God damn dirty town that—ugh. I know a man that was almost elected—Well, I guess I better shut up. I know much too much for my age. But I like you, Liggett, because you want me the way I want to be wanted, and not with fancy variations. Let’s get out of here, it’s too damn effete.”

“Where do you want to go?” Liggett said.

“Down to Fortieth Street to my practically favorite place.”

They went to the place in Fortieth Street, up a winding staircase. They were admitted after being peered at, it turned out, by a man with a superb case of acne rosacea. “I was afraid you wouldn’t remember me,” said Gloria.

“What? Fancy me not remembering you, Miss?” said the man, who was the bartender.

“And what will be your pleasure to partake of this Lord’s Day?” said the bartender. “Little Irish, perhaps?”

“Yes, fine.”

“And you, sir?”

“Scotch and soda.”

“Fine. Fine,” said the bartender.

It was the longest bar in New York in those days, and the room was bare except for the absolute essentials. One half of it held tables and chairs and a mechanical piano, but there was one half in front of the bar which was bare concrete floor. Liggett and Gloria were getting used to themselves and smiling at each other in the mirror when a voice rose.

“Laddy doo, Laddy doo, Lie die dee. Tom!”

“Please control your exuberation, Eddie,” said Tom, the bartender, and smiled broadly at Gloria and Liggett.

“Gimme a couple nickels, Tom, Laddy doo, Laddy doo.”

They looked at the man called Eddie, who was down at the other end of the bar, rubbing his fat hands together and sucking his teeth. He had on a uniform cap and a gray woolen undershirt and blue pants, and then they noticed he had a revolver, chain twister, handcuffs and other patrolman’s equipment. His tunic lay on a chair. “I beg your pardon, Miss and Mister,” he said. “Serve the lady and gentleman first,” said Eddie.

“I was doing that very thing,” said Tom, “and when I get done I’ll be giving you no nickels and stop askin’.”

“Laddy doo. Gimme a beer, my Far Doon friend,” said Eddie. “After serving the lady and gentleman, of course.”

“When I get good and ready I’ll give yiz a beer. It’s almost time for you to ring in anyway. What about we taxpayers of this great city? When we go to exercise our franchise at the polls we’ll change all this.”

“Civil Service. Did you never hear of the Civil Service, my laddy-buck? The members of the Finest are Civil Service and what the likes of you repeaters do at the polls affects us not one single iota. A
beer!”

“Get outa here. Go on out and ring in. It’s twenty-five to, time to box in.”

“The clock is fast.”

“God can strike me dead if it is. I fixed it meself comin’ in this evening. Go on or you’ll be wrote up again.”

“I’ll go, and I’ll be back with a hatful of nickels,” said Eddie. He pulled his equipment belt around and put on his tunic and straightened his cap and as he was leaving he said, “Will I bring you a paper?”

“Go on, don’t be trying to soft-soap me now,” said Tom.

A party of four young men came in and began to play very seriously a game with matches, for drinks. A man in an undershirt and black trousers, wearing a cap made out of neatly folded newspaper, came in and waved his hand to the match-game players, but sat alone. A man with his hat on the back of his head came in and spoke to the players and to the man with the newspaper cap. He sat alone and began making faces at himself in the mirror and went into a long story which Tom showed by nods that he was listening to. During the story the man never once took his eyes off his reflection in the mirror. Tom was attentive with the man who looked at himself, chatted about baseball with the man with the newspaper cap, kidded with the match-game players, and was courtly with Liggett and Gloria. The cop came back bearing several newspapers and a large paper bag, from which he took several containers. Out of these he poured stewed clams into dishes which Tom got out of the bottom of the free lunch bar. The cop said: “Let the lady have hers first,” and then everyone else was served while the cop looked on, happy; then he took off his tunic and laid it on the back of a chair, and then he went over to the piano.