Hamilton, Donald - Novel 01 (2 page)

     
Feeling the blood singing in his ears and
looking directly at the man across the table, Branch said tightly, "I
still haven't seen the card.
Or your orders.
Or leave
papers.
Anything .
,." He watched the face across
the table. It was wide and small-featured, the features too small for the face.
He watched the small girlish mouth tighten.

     
Paul
Laflin
stood up and brushed at his uniform.

     
"Come on, dear," he said.
"The man's crazy. Let's get out Of here."

     
"Wait a minute!" Branch said
sharply. Then, as they walked away from him, he glanced at the other diners, as
yet undisturbed, and sank back into his chair and watched the two of them go
out of the room and out of sight. Nineteen months an ensign, he thought,
ladder, deck, sir. And
Parkhurst
closed six months
after I came to
Chicago
. I suppose should call the
shore patrol, but where do you find it? It depends on my new C.O., he thought,
God, the man must have been talking to somebody in the Army. I suppose he
picked up the uniform in a hock shop. But what the hell did they want? That's
an awful risk to run just to get a room.

     
He looked up to see the waitress.
"No," he said. "Just.... They won't be coming back."

WHEN
THE TELEPHONE RANG he sat up and reached for the instrument and looked at his
watch, which read a quarter of three. It gave him a certain sense of loss to
know that he had slept away two and a half hours of his leave.

     
"Yes," he said curtly.
"Lieutenant Branch here."

     
The low careful voice of the girl who had
sat beside him on the train said, "This is Janet Haskell,
Lieutenant."

     
He sat quite still for a moment. Then he
said, "Well, hello," and swung his feet to the floor and pulled his
dressing gown about him. He found his glasses on the bedside table and put them
on, bringing the walls of the room into focus. He could feel his heart beating
rather more heavily than usual. He had really not expected her to call, and the
excitement of anticipation put out of his mind the last remnants of the nagging
sense of guilt with which the incident downstairs had left him, which he had
retreated to his room to forget.

     
Dressing, he watched the narrow dark face
in the mirror contort itself as he wrestled the starched regulation collar
about the rather long and knobby neck. The gold-rimmed glasses supplied him by
the naval dispensary when he had broken the old horn-rimmed pair reflected back
to him the light from the ceiling fixture. Dressed, he brushed himself off with
a small whisk-broom. In the Navy you were always brushing at yourself. It
became automatic.

     
He looked at himself in the
ribbonless
undecorated uniform and thought, well, it's too
late now. Anyway, I lived through it. What did you do in the Great War, daddy?
Well, I was an officer in the Navy. Yes, but what did you do
....
?

     
Outside it was cold, gray and blowing, and
the skirts of his uniform raincoat snapped at his legs as he walked, referring
occasionally to the Guide to Greater New, York that he carried in his pocket.
He could feel the anticipation growing in him as he approached her hotel, and
when he reached it he stopped inside the doors and brushed the dust from his
coat and straightened his tie before advancing to the desk. The clerk said she
would be right down, and he sat down on the unyielding sofa in the lounge and
polished his glasses while he waited. Then she came around the end of the desk
and he rose, returning the glasses to his nose. She was a tall girl and her
dark yellow wool suit, minutely striped with white, had the casually loose ht
characteristic of the clothes of girls who know
themselves
to be a little too thin. She wore her brown hair neatly rolled up about her
head and carried her fur coat over her arm. "Hello," she
laid
.

     
"Hi," he said, and held the coat
while she fastened
the ,t
, gold buttons of the jacket
of the suit and turned to slip her arms into the coat. He watched her face
while she buttoned herself and pulled on her gloves. She had a triangular face,
the wide cheekbones set a little back from the wide forehead and the long
pointed chin; and her mouth was very carefully delineated by the precise,
subdued lipstick.

     
"Let's get out of this hole,"
she said, glancing around and grimacing. "If it hadn't been the only room
in the city of
New York
..."

     
"I thought you were staying with
friends," he said, following her.

     
She stopped on the sidewalk as they came
out and looked up at the gray sky between the tall buildings. "I hope it
doesn't rain," she said, "I don't think I could stand it if it rained
on top of everything else."

     
He wanted to get her away from the hotel.
"Which way do we go?" he asked. He wanted to get her far enough away
that she could not change her mind and retreat.

     
"Left," she said after a moment.
"I want to try Lord and
Taylor
's first. You're sure you
don't mind
... ?"

     
"Not at all," he said.

     
"If you'd rather wait for me
somewhere
.. ."

     
"No, I'll tag along," he said.
"Tell me when to look the other way." He took her arm, somewhat
gingerly, and started her walking.

     
"Oh, I'm not going to try anything
on," she said. "Not today. What do you call it when everything goes
wrong in the
Navy
"

     
"All fouled up," he suggested.
"Snafu."

     
"Snafu," she said. "That's
it."

     
"What's the matter?" he asked.

     
"Oh, nothing," she said.
"Everything is just snafu, that's all."

     
"What?" he asked, feeling that
they were now far enough away that he could afford to show
interest.

     
"You wouldn't be interested."

     
"All right," he said,
"don't tell me."

     
She laughed and released her arm from his
grip and put her hand under his elbow. "I was going to leave a message for
you."

     
He admitted that he had been taking a nap
when she called.

     
"How terribly wholesome," she,
said. "I'm sorry if I waked you,"

     
"I was really waiting for you to
call, of course," he said and grinned.

     
She grimaced unbelievingly, smiling.

     
"I didn't honestly expect it,"
he admitted. "To be frank with you, I thought you were giving me the
gentle brush-off, at the station. Weren't you?" He glanced at her.

     
She smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
"Maybe."

     
They covered about a mile of
Fifth Avenue
and she did not find what
she was looking for. He did not think she knew what she was looking for, but
was waiting for something to strike her just right. In the last place she
bought some stockings, but it seemed to be an afterthought. As they came out on
the street again he said, grinning, "God, if I were a salesgirl I'd slap
your face."

     
She stopped on the sidewalk and looked at
him; a little startled. "Why?"

     
"Making them haul all that stuff out
without-"

     
"Well, it's not my fault if they
don't have anything worth buying," she said irritably. Then she laughed.
"Oh, all right, let's give it up and get a drink."

     
Presently they found a small bar done in
black and chrome and sat down at a table by a pillar of black the, facing each
other. As he settled himself across the table from her and watched her strip
off her black gloves absently, looking around, he could feel the accumulated
annoyance and embarrassment of the preceding hour slowly seep out of him; and he
gave her a cigarette and lighted his pipe.

     
"You're having dinner with me, aren't
you?" he said.

     
She nodded, shrugging back her coat and
smiling at him.

     
"I don't suppose there's any chance
of getting tickets to anything," he said.

     
"If you want to try ..." she
said.

     
"Tired?"

     
She nodded.
"A
little."

     
"I could use a night's sleep
myself," he admitted. "Tell me..."

     
"Yes?" she said.

     
"How long are you staying?"

     
"I don't know," she said.
"Tomorrow or the next day."

     
He gave the order to the waitress.
"Where are you from, anyway?" he asked when the girl had gone.

     
"
Evanston
," Janet Haskell said,
and he felt a small disappointment. He did not want her to be from
Evanston
. If she was from
Evanston
he would have to look her
up when he got back to
Chicago
; or decide not to look her
up. He would rather have their acquaintanceship terminate itself automatically
when the time came.

     
"Well," he said heartily,
"well, that's practically right next door to home, isn't it?"

     
She looked up and smiled and he was uncomfortably
afraid that she knew what he had been thinking. The waitress returned with
their drinks. Janet Haskell picked up her old-fashioned and tasted it
thoughtfully, watching him across the small table. It seemed to him the shape
of her mouth was suddenly a little strained through the very even, unobtrusive
lipstick.

     
"Could you lend me two hundred
dollars?" she asked abruptly, not ceasing to watch him.

     
He was proud of himself that his voice did
not falter. "Say that again. It seemed to me you said two hundred
dollars."

     
She did not say anything, only putting
down her drink and regarding him, her face calm and preoccupied.

     
"Do you need some money?" he
asked stupidly.

     
"Yes," she said.
"Two hundred dollars."

     
"Well," he said, grinning,
"yes, but let's talk in practical figures. Would twenty do you any
good?"

     
"It would pay for my room," she
said.

     
"My God," he said. "You
mean you haven't any? She did not say anything. He demanded, "Well, what
was all this shopping business, anyway?"

     
She smiled at him thoughtfully. "I
was going to pretend they wouldn't cash my check and ask you ..." There
was a sharp edge to her laughter. "Well, something
like
that. I didn't have it all worked out."

 
    
"Listen,"
he said, "I wouldn't write a check for two hundred for my best
friend." He tapped the stripes on his sleeve.
"Just
two.
Count them. Two."

     
"Oh, I wasn't going to do it all at
once," she said, her face relaxing and looking almost happy.

     
"What do you want it for,
anyway?"

     
"You're not going to give it to
me," she said gaily. "Why should I tell you?"

     
"Oh," he said a little angrily.
"Oh, now it's give."

     
"You probably wouldn't get it
back," she agreed. "Well, let's talk about something else." She
glanced at him. "Or should we just leave?"

     
"It has to be two hundred?" he
asked. "It can't be ninety-nine ninety-eight, or a hundred and fifty, it
has to be two hundred?"

 
    
"Well,
a hundred and fifty would be all right," she said. "I could pawn my
coat and watch for the rest."

     
"Oh, for Christ's sake," he
said.

     
"Let's not talk about it any
more," she said. "Are we still having dinner together?"

     
When they had finished their drinks he
took her back to her hotel in a taxi and waited in the lobby while she changed.
Two hundred dollars, he thought, my God. She came down very quickly and he
watched her cross the lobby to him, dressed now in a black silk dress that
fitted her narrow body loosely. There were gold buttons down the front of the
tunic and skirt of the dress. She had changed her shoes and walked, in high
heels, a little less freely.

     
"You look fine," he said as she
stopped by him. He took the coat and helped her into it. She touched the smooth
roll of her hair.

     
"Am I coming down? I didn't take
time-"

     
"No,
it's
fine," he said.

     
She glanced at him over her shoulder as
she tested the fastening of an earring. "Don't overwhelm me with
enthusiasm, Lieutenant." He looked at her irritably and thought, why did
She
have to spoil it?
Two hundred dollars.
Christ.

     
"You look beautiful," he said.
"If you've got yourself all assembled, let's go."

     
It was raining as they came out and
New York
in the thin rain was no
different from
Chicago
in the rain or even from
Indianapolis
in the rain. There were the
same crowds and the same policemen and the buildings did not look much taller
when you were among them. The small dignified dining room they came into did
not differ except in detail from other dining rooms in other expensive hotels
that he had entered.