Found in the Street (18 page)

22

Jack had just got back to his worktable, when the telephone rang again. Linderman had thought of something else.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Jack. Louis here.”

“Oh, Louis! You just missed Nat by about ten minutes,” Jack said. Louis and no one else sometimes called Natalia Nat.

“Well, I thought that. The thing is, I'm really calling you. I wondered if I could come by.”

Jack was surprised. “Now?”

“Yes. I'm at Saks. I'll take a taxi. I wanted to talk with you. Unless of course you're busy.”

“I'm not that busy. Sure, Louis.”

“See you. Quick as pos.” He hung up.

Most unusual, Jack thought. Jack glanced over the living-room, as if orderliness mattered, which it didn't. He went back to his workroom. This afternoon at 4,
he was due to show his latest twenty drawings, five of which would be quite new to Trews, in Trews' office at Dartmoor, Aegis. Today, thirteenth of March, would be a winding up, a finish day, Jack hoped.

The doorbell rang, and Jack buzzed Louis in.

“Brought you this,” Louis said as he came in, extending a Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bag to Jack.

This was the Saks “white box” of mixed chocolates, Louis explained, and he said everybody loved them.

“Thanks very much, Louis.” Jack opened the box and offered it to Louis, who declined.

“I won't take much of your time, Jack,” Louis said earnestly, standing in the middle of the living-room. He had removed his overcoat. The crown of his bald head shone, his large brown eyes blinked. “It's just that I—somehow—wanted to see you alone for a few minutes. You know? I don't think we've ever seen each other alone.” Louis laughed suddenly.

“Maybe not. No.—Want a coffee or anything?”

“No, thank you, Jack. May I sit down?” He sat on the sofa. Jack took the green armchair, as he usually did.

“I want to tell you—how much I appreciate your wife. She is—something special. Unique!” Louis spoke slowly. “If I'd been in any position to do so, I'd have married her.''

Jack slumped in the armchair and laced his fingers over his chest. “She probably would have refused to marry you, because it would've been too perfect.”

“Exactly! Ha-ha! That's Natalia to a
T
!—By the way, don't tell her I came to see you this morning, would you? She might think it odd. Well, it is!” Louis laughed briefly, showing big square teeth in his narrow face. “Nobody knows. Don't tell anybody. It's our secret,” Louis drawled with feigned boredom. “I don't have to tell you Natalia's the most priceless thing in my life. Even more than Bob, I think. Different way, of course, but still.” Louis laughed in a soft way that was like Natalia's laugh sometimes. “You've no reason to be jealous and you never were, never showed it, anyway.”

“I never was jealous. Cross my heart.” He watched Louis gazing at him, Louis with his long hands one upon the other on crossed legs. “Except that—you may understand Natalia better than I do.”

Elegantly Louis waved this idea away, and gazed toward the windows for a few seconds. “Another thing that's important to say today is that I'm glad Natalia married you. A person like you. Well,
you
. You're the only person I can think of or imagine that she could stand.”

“Thank you.—I mean, I'm glad to hear it.”

“She also thinks you're sexy,” Louis said solemnly. “But not in a pushy way, you know. You're her sex-object and that's important, but of course she'd never
say
it in so many words.”

Jack pressed his palms against his face for an instant. “Well, well.”

“I'd love to smoke, unless it bothers you.—Thanks. I shouldn't, but I do. The hell with it.” Louis took Natalia's jade lighter from the coffee table and lit up, the gold-rimmed lighter that Natalia seldom took out of the house, because she was afraid of leaving it somewhere. Louis handled it and looked at it as if he knew it well. “And what's the news of our little friend Elsie?”

“Elsie? Going great guns. She called us up last night. Making money hand over fist, I think.”

“Isn't that just great? Isn't she an
angel
—like
something that fell from heaven!
Oh,
I'd like to see her five years from now, when she'll be the ripe old age of twenty-five! Ah-hah-hah-
hah
!” Louis laughed wholeheartedly.

Jack had suspected, now he knew, that this was Louis' good­bye visit. Jack cleared his throat and said, “Elsie borrowed a couple of books from us. Saves her buying them for her class.”

“Oh, yes, her school. What books?”

“A Scott Fitzgerald and a Saul Bellow.”

‘‘
The Victim,
I hope. Or
Mr. Sammler's Planet.
But
The Victim
—that's
the essence of Saul Bellow with its paranoia, you know? A masterpiece. Don't you think?”

Louis talked on about Bellow, how good he was, and Jack's mind wandered a little, as his ear picked up phrases like “good and proper” or “on the tiles” (in regard to Elsie), that reminded him of Natalia's speech, reminded him that Natalia had known Louis so much longer than she had known him. One of Louis' rather large feet in a well-polished black shoe dangled from a slender ankle. A funny life-work he had, Jack thought, selling houses and apartments, doing up shabby houses, waiting calmly at home, or so Jack imagined, until the telephone rang, and Louis suddenly made a tidy sum.

“Elsie might be in danger how?” Jack asked, in response to something Louis had said. “I sort of like her new girlfriend.”

“Marion? Oh, so do I. They've been over to our place a couple of times. No, when I said danger, I meant this sudden success. It can change a person's—character, almost, since Elsie's so young. But maybe it won't hers after all. She's awfully direct—simple, blunt, even. Don't you think?” Louis looked at Jack. “She'd say good-bye to Marion in a flash, if she got a little tired of her.—Hope she doesn't soon. Elsie's full of ambition, and just now it's modeling, fine, and she doesn't need a course in literature and English grammar for that, but she's preparing for her next step.”

“And what's that, do you think?”

Louis looked at the ceiling. “Television acting? Film? Wouldn't surprise me.—Oh, Jack! Anything new about the old fellow who was following Elsie?”

“No. He's lost her, thank goodness, since she moved down to Greene. He did call me just before you did today.”

“Really? Called
you
here? What did he want?”

“Elsie's address.” Jack gave a laugh. “I said I didn't know, because she'd moved. The trouble is, he's seen Elsie coming here a couple of times. Or he knows Natalia knows her. He spies, you know.”

Louis looked thoughtful. “Unmarried, isn't he? Lives alone?”

“Yes. He's been married, he told me. His wife left him years ago.”

“I don't know what's worse, a solitary creep or a married creep. You know, these rapist-murderers who always take so long to get caught, they turn out to be married men with a couple of kids and a steady job. Then of course there's the
so
creepy, nobody would marry them, and they hate women anyway.”

“You never saw this old guy, did you, Louis?”

“No, but Natalia described him. She's seen him on the street. This type hangs on. He's probably dying to rape Elsie, but he couldn't. So he'll attack her or something.”

Jack smiled uncomfortably. “I really can't imagine that,” Jack said, realizing that he wasn't sure, however, because he didn't understand Linderman completely. “He thinks—I know this much—he thinks women are born seducers, and make-up and high heels are for leading men astray. Temptresses, he calls women.”

“That's a classic,” Louis said in an impatient and worried tone.

“Well—since he's lost Elsie's whereabouts, I'm hoping he latches on to someone else soon.”

“Yes.” Louis stood up. “Jack, my dear, I must blow. I thank you very much for letting me crash in. And I haven't even asked you how the yak book's going.”

“Okay, thanks. I have the final—um—showing of my stuff this afternoon. I'm taking the last drawings in to the art editor, I mean.”

“My good wishes go with you.”

“A quick nip, Louis?” Jack asked as Natalia might have done. “A stirrup-cup?”

“A Fernet-Branca,” Louis said with a broad smile. “Natalia would like that. A thimbleful, please, Jack.”

Jack poured it.

“Not you?”

Jack poured a small Jack Daniel's, so he could lift a glass with Louis. “Cheers!”

“Cheers!”

As Louis was putting on his overcoat, he noticed Jack's exercise rings that hung from the hall ceiling. “You still working out?”

“When I feel like it.”

Louis was smiling again. “Can I see you do something?”

Jack was not in the mood, but he took a deep breath, seized the rings and stuck his feet high in the air, flipped down and backward, forward and up again, weight on his hands, so his head was near the ceiling, but not so near as his feet had been.

“Marvelous. Oh, lovely,” Louis said softly, with admiration. “Bless you, Jack. Good-bye and thanks again.”

The door closed.

23

Jack did tell Natalia about Louis Wannfeld's surprise visit, since he wanted to and saw no good reason why he shouldn't, but Natalia was at once so on edge that Jack wished he hadn't told her. This was on a Friday evening, and Natalia remarked that she was glad that tomorrow was Saturday and she could beg off going to the gallery, because on Saturdays came the public, not the buyers, and Isabel would not mind too much.

“It means he's going to die soon. Or he thinks he is,” Natalia said to Jack.

“Does he know—about how long?”

“No. I'm sure less than a year. Maybe a lot less. He's on a strict diet now and can't drink a drop.”

Jack had noticed that Louis was thinner.

“Let's take the car and go somewhere tomorrow,” Natalia said. “I think I'll go mad if I stay here.”

Jack was a bit disappointed, because he had wanted a weekend at home. Trews had liked his drawings. Jack had wanted to laze around the house, make line drawings of Amelia as she played, or slept, or stood in front of him talking to him. He had a thick, blank-paged book half full now of Amelia since she had been a baby. He found that people laughed more at his drawings and were certainly more interested in them than in photographs he might have taken of the child.

By 11 the next morning, they were off in the Toyota, with Amelia in the back seat, and pajamas and toothbrushes for all of them in a duffel, in case they stayed the night somewhere. Natalia drove. She was a good driver, with quick reflexes, but she professed to hate driving. In the mood she was in now, driving would get rid of her nervous energy, Jack knew, which was all to the good.

“How's Elsie?” Jack knew that Natalia had called her up that morning, and talked quite a while.

Natalia smiled suddenly, close-lipped, looking straight ahead through the windshield. “Worried about her income tax now! I said, ‘Sweetie, if that's all the worry you've got!'”

Elsie didn't know how to fill out her form, because she had never paid an income tax before, Natalia said, but Marion was going to help her.

Up the Garden State Parkway they went in the cold spring afternoon. They bought a cake somewhere, telephoned, and invited themselves to tea at the house of a cousin of Natalia's mother who lived in Saddle River. Jack had met her once before. This was a change of atmosphere, and a fulfilment of duty, even if unasked, which lifted Natalia's spirits a little. After that, Jack drove, and they stopped for the night at a motel of Amelia's choice. The décor was awful, but had amusement value. Natalia had brought her bottle of Glenfiddich. The motel people put a cot up in the room for Amelia.

When they got home Sunday afternoon, the telephone was ringing. Jack was nearest to it.

“Where've you been?” asked Louis' voice.

Natalia took the telephone, talked for ages, and at last reported to Jack that Louis had invited them to a party next Saturday night. It was a come-as-you-are party, and Natalia said she had asked him if he meant opposite-sex clothes, and Louis had said no, just old clothes or whatever one liked. Lots of people were coming, it seemed.

On the following Saturday evening, Louis Wannfeld opened the door to Natalia and Jack, wearing a long black garment that glistened with tiny gold lights like stars twinkling in a night sky. He wore sandals. “I'm a mandarin tonight,” said Louis. “And you?”

“Me? Nuffin,” said Natalia.

Jack noticed that Louis would have kissed her on the cheek, but that Natalia evaded it. Natalia was not fond of cheek-kissing.

“Greetings, Jack! Come in—and lose yourself,” said Louis.

Louis' and Bob's apartment looked as crowded as at the pre-Christmas party, and the people seemed louder and more informal. The come-as-you-are idea had provoked some weird responses. Jack's eye was caught by a devilish male figure in black tights with red horns on his cap and a whip in his hand. One woman and apparently her mate had come as butterflies in diaphanous gowns over leotards with spotted wings supported by delicate wire frames. Jack saw Elsie, a figure in black, black ruffled skirt neither long nor short, broad white belt, black high-heeled shoes. Her fair hair was pulled back from her face and fastened in back with something, and hung now below her shoulders. He found his eyes lingering on her, returning, as if to a point of energy amid the mostly older crowd, but Elsie was not in action at the moment. She was standing and talking with a long-haired young woman whom Jack recognized as Genevieve, Elsie's former girlfriend.

Drinks. And hellos. Isabel Katz wore ancient jodhpurs and a pink shirt. Louis' garment was a Chinese dressing gown, Jack saw in better light, and he had an elegant white silk shirt with black bow tie under it, evening trousers, and patent leather evening slippers. Half the people Jack didn't know, or they were too thoroughly disguised for recognition. Several wore masks.

“How that takes me back! And you can still get into it!” Louis was saying to Natalia. “It looks the same as ever!
Just
like yourself!” Despite doctor's orders, Louis was a bit high tonight.

Louis' words were in praise of Natalia's outfit, which was simply an old suit, a black skirt with fine orange stripes down it, and a long-sleeved black jacket which hugged her body and stopped at the waistline. Earlier that day, Natalia had dragged it from the depths of some closet, its hanger folds not too severe, but she had given it a pressing. She had worn this often, she said, a couple of years before she had met Jack, and had always been too sentimental about it to chuck it. Jack couldn't see its great charm, but Louis gushed over it like a lover re-living evenings with his beloved.

“Ardmore . . . Fifty-second Street . . .”

Jack had to smile. He drifted over to Elsie, and said a word of greeting to her and Genevieve. A Beatles record or cassette played, but not too loudly. It was
Sergeant Pepper.

“Oh, Jack,” Elsie said in her soft voice. “
Oh,
I'm glad to see you!” With a small turn of her head and shoulders, she seemed to detach herself completely from the stolid Genevieve and focus on him.

Jack's smile broadened. “Are you? May I say you're looking gorgeous tonight?''

“But I'm so tired. You wouldn't believe it.”

No, Jack wouldn't have. Elsie was saying something about having been kept up till all hours by—what? It didn't matter. It was difficult to hear anything.

“
Fran
!
”
said Genevieve, extending a hand to get someone's attention. “Want you to meet Mr. Sutherland.”

Jack faced a sturdy young woman with short light brown hair, thin lips, and slightly worried or shy eyes. “How d'you do?”

“Fran Bowman,” said Genevieve, or so it sounded to Jack.

Fran was in trousers and dark blue shirt with a string of pale blue beads that hung down to her waist. She was bullet-headed and singularly unattractive, Jack thought. He remembered Marion saying that Genevieve's former girlfriend was a tough cookie, or some such. Elsie was watching him, and she gave Jack a smile that looked simply amused, like a child's smile. Her glance said, “Let's move on.”

Jack nodded to Genevieve, and drifted with Elsie only six feet or so away, but this meant people between them and Genevieve and her friend. “Where's Marion tonight?”

“She's coming later. She has rehearsals tonight.”

“And how're you doing with the income tax?”

Elsie gave a laugh. “It's done. Marion did most of it. It's just that I have no steady salary. It's very hard to figure.”

“I know.” Jack did know. He didn't know what next to say to Elsie, but he didn't want to leave her. “Feel like dancing?” He held out his hand.

She did not touch his hand, but they began to dance. The music wasn't
Sergeant Pepper
now, but something else that sounded especially pleasant and good for dancing. Male voices sang about good vibrations.

“That's the Beach Boys,” Elsie said. She danced gracefully, turning full turns, the rows of black lace whirling.

Who was leading? It didn't matter. People were watching Elsie. She danced effortlessly, as if she floated in another element. The music changed, the beat was faster, and Jack moved in his own style and Elsie followed, responded as if they had rehearsed. Smiling, happy, Jack found himself leaping on every fourth beat, and Elsie did the same. People moved back to give them room. Jack's vision blurred except for the glow of Elsie's head. His pleasure was the same as that he experienced when he swung himself into a refreshing sweat on the handrings, and he felt he could go on all night, or forever. He wore jogging shoes, comfortable trousers and a T-shirt. He was himself now. Some of the people in the circle around them clapped their hands with the beat. Jack caught a glimpse of Natalia standing beside Louis, both watching Elsie with fascination, and not far from Natalia, Fran, thin lips compressed as she stared at Elsie, and murmured something to Genevieve. Jack and Elsie circled each other at a distance, and Jack had the feeling that he floated in air. Then the orchestra faded, the beat faded, and Jack realized that he held Elsie in his arms, that her hands were on his shoulders, lightly. He kissed her cheek, inhaled deeply as if he would devour her, and felt her breath as she laughed.

“More!” someone shouted.

Jack was slow coming back to reality and gravity. He stood on two feet again, looking at Elsie. She moved away toward the others in an odd near-silence that had fallen over everyone, as over an audience when the curtain drops and before applause breaks out. Then some applause did break out, laughter, murmurs, and a “Bravo!” or two.
It's Elsie's power to bewitch,
Jack thought. He went in quest of a drink.

Bob Campbell stepped into his path. He wore a black gown and a dog-collar, or God-collar, like a preacher. “Jack, you may enter the kingdom of heaven, I've decided. Elsie's already there. We love her, love her!'' Bob spoke with fervor. “Is it a drink you're after, dear Jack?” Bob led him to the drinks table, remembered his favorite and poured a generous measure. “Don't you think Louis is looking well tonight?”

Jack didn't. He thought Louis looked yellowish, but he returned a polite, “Yes, indeed.”

“He's wearing a Chinese robe we bought on our round-the-world trip five years ago. Louis hardly ever puts it on, but he was keen on it for tonight—a special night. D'you notice all our old friends are here? No coke tonight, at least not from us. Tonight's an old booze party with maybe a slight hangover tomorrow, something to nurse on a cozy Sunday at home, with Bloody Marys and eggs Benedict. Yum-m.'' Bob was in ebullient good humor.

Jack wandered off, looking for Elsie, and saw her with Marion near the hall door.

“Hello, Jack!” Marion said warmly. She put a thumb under the shoulder strap of her blue overalls, under which she wore a checked shirt. “I am not as I am tonight. These are rehearsal clothes.”

“Oh? And what're you rehearsing?”

“A couple of skits with music. For a bar in the Chelsea section.”

They went to the drinks table to get something for Marion. Marion asked what he thought of Elsie's “big job,” modeling a diamond ring for a full page in
Vogue,
and was surprised that Elsie hadn't mentioned it. Jack poured tomato juice for Marion. Elsie had vanished suddenly.

“My God, there's Genevieve,” Marion said quietly, looking across the room.

“Yes. With her old friend, I think. Elsie introduced us.”

“You don't mean that awful Fran?”

“I think that's her name. So they're back together?” Jack asked in a tone of mock interest.

“No.” Marion shook her head. “Fran's willing but Genevieve isn't, I heard via the grapevine. Maybe Genevieve's carrying a torch for Elsie. I couldn't care less.—Fran ought to join the Mafia. Matter of fact somebody told me she's a dealer—in the really hard stuff, you know? Nobody likes Fran, so some awful stories get around.”

Depressing, Jack thought. He glanced toward the wide doorway to the living-room, and saw Elsie and Natalia in the hall beyond, talking with each other, Natalia gripping Elsie's hand, then they kissed, and a second time, quickly and on the lips, before they walked into the room, Natalia a bit ahead. Jack saw that Marion was looking at him with a slight smile.

“I don't mind,” said Marion. “Do you?”

Jack swallowed the sip of drink he had been holding in his mouth. “Not at all.”

“Elsie adores Natalia.”

“Oh? More than she does you?”

“I dunno,” Marion said with a shrug. “But what can I do about it?”

“Lots of people,” Jack remarked, “get attached to Natalia.—Louis, for instance.” And Jack recalled a time shortly after they had met the Armstrongs, when Max Armstrong had had more than a crush on Natalia for weeks, but had had the good sense not to press his case too hard.

“Lots of people fall in love with Elsie too,” Marion replied. She added with a laugh, “Quite a problem, these girls, you know, in bars—They just come right out with their passionate declarations.”

Jack could imagine.

Suddenly Elsie was beside them again, and Natalia back on the sofa with Louis. It was after 1 o'clock, Jack saw to his surprise when he glanced at his watch.

“Now I really am getting tired,” Elsie said more to herself than to Jack. “And hungry too.”

The canapés on the drinks table had almost vanished, and if Louis and Bob were serving anything more substantial, there was no sign of it yet. “Let's go down to my place,” Jack said. “Like before. Want to?”

“With Natalia?” Elsie asked.

Jack shook his head. “You can't tear her away from Louis for hours yet. Want to bet? Want to try?” He smiled.

Elsie didn't, and Jack went over to Natalia and told her he was taking the girls down to their place for bacon and eggs, and did she want to come?