Ideal (11 page)

“No. You know it.”

“I work. I tell them of something they have never had, of something I have never had, of life as it could be lived. I cry to them—but I get no answer. They pay millions to see me. They write to me. But do they want me? Do they really want me?”

“No. You know it.”

“I know it now—tonight. I thought I knew it—an hour ago. . . . Oh, why don't you ask me for something?”

“What do you want me to ask you?”

“Why don't you ask me to give you a job in the movies?”

“The only thing I could ask you, you've given to me already.”

She got up. She paced furiously up and down the room. Her hands grasped her elbows, and her elbows knocked against walls striped with streaks of peeling paint. She stopped before him, and her lips were hard, pitiless.

“You're a fool!” she hissed. “You're a damn fool!”

“Why are you so angry?”

“Why are you living? What do you want?”

“I don't think I'll be living much longer. I don't have to. I've seen everything I want.”

“What?”

“You.”

She looked at him, her eyes pleading. She whispered:

“What is it we want, Johnnie, you and I?”

He answered, and each word seemed to be reflected in his eyes, and his eyes were as a song:

“Have you ever been in a temple and seen men kneeling silently, reverently, their souls raised to the greatest height they can reach? To the height where they know they are clean, and clear, and perfect? When their spirit is the end and the reason of all things? Then have you wondered why that has to exist only in a temple? Why men can't carry it also into their lives? Why, if they can know the height, they can still want to live less than the highest? That's what we want to live, you and I. And if we can dream, we must also see our dreams in life. If not—of what account are dreams?”

“Ah, Johnnie, Johnnie, of what account is life?”

“None. But who made it so?”

“Those who cannot dream.”

“No. Those who can only dream.”

She stood silently, looking at him. He said:

“Sit down. We have a few hours left. What happened before—and what will happen afterwards—does it matter?”

She sat obediently. They sat far from each other. Between them stood a broken table, and a soapbox, and a candle in a bottle. The candle was a shivering glow over dark walls with beams showing through cracked paint. They talked as if the world had existed but for half an hour. Their eyes did not leave each other. Their eyes were locked as if in a long embrace. They talked, the woman who had seen all of life and the boy who had seen none, and they understood each other.

“Johnnie,” she asked suddenly, softly, “you said we had only a few hours left. Why?”

He answered without looking at her:

“It was something I was thinking.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Not now.”

Beyond the dusty skylight in the slanting roof, the sky was turning a soft, deep blue, a blue dark in a last effort. Then . . . Johnnie Dawes asked suddenly:

“You killed him?”

“We don't have to talk about that, do we, Johnnie?”

“I knew Granton Sayers. I worked for him once, caddying, at a golf club in Santa Barbara. A hard kind of a man.”

“He was a very unhappy man, Johnnie.”

“Was anyone present?”

“Where?”

“When you killed him?”

“Do we have to discuss that?”

“It's something I must know. Did anyone see you kill him?”

“No. No one saw me kill him.”

He rose. He looked at her blond hair drooping wearily to one shoulder. He said:

“It's very late. You must be tired.”

“Yes, Johnnie. Very tired.”

“You must go to sleep. Here, on my bed. I'll climb out on the roof.”

“On the roof?”

“Why, yes. I've slept there often in hot weather.”

“But it is very cold.”

“I don't mind. I'm used to it. Try to sleep for a while. Forget everything. Don't worry. I have a way out for you.”

“
You
have a way out? For
me
?”

“Yes. Out of the murder trouble. Only we won't discuss that now. Tomorrow. Try to sleep.”

“Yes, Johnnie.”

He pushed the table under the skylight, climbed up on it, opened the dusty pane, swung his body up to the frame, raising himself on two strong, young arms. He knelt by the skylight and whispered:

“Don't think of anything now. Just sleep. Good night.”

“Good night, Johnnie,” she whispered, looking up, her eyes curious.

He closed the pane softly.

He sat on the roof, his shoulders drawn together, his hands clasping his knees. He sat without moving for a long time.

Beyond a sea of rooftops, a rusty band of smoke rose slowly, and over the dark band the bright blue was ripped suddenly, and a crack of soft pink hung over the city, soft, radiant, untouched. Around him, under his feet, the houses slept, dark, soot-streaked, and only a few windows sparkled, scattered over the city, as dewdrops, pink in a coming light. There was no sun. Only the blue above was growing darker and brighter, and behind the black shadows of skyscrapers flung into the clouds, sheaves of rays streamed up, hazy, pale, colorless rays, like a halo. Johnnie Dawes sat motionless and watched the dawn rising over the city.

When he heard wheels screeching somewhere far below, and a streetcar shrieked, rattling on cold tracks, and dots of light flickered in windows, he glanced cautiously into the darkness of his garret, a darkness that guarded a pale, golden treasure on a white pillow. Then he opened the skylight and slipped down into the room.

Kay Gonda was asleep.

Her coat was thrown over her feet, and her black satin shoulders were huddled tight against the pillow, and her blond hair hung over the edge of the bed.

He touched her shoulder and called softly: “Miss Gonda!”

She opened her eyes and rolled back on the pillow, her lips parting lazily, soft and swollen a little with sleep, and said docilely, like a child:

“Good morning.”

“Good morning, Miss Gonda. I'm sorry to disturb you. But you have to get up.”

She sat up on the bed, and threw her hair back with a long, slow movement, unruly threads tangled in her fingers. She blinked, and asked lazily:

“I have to get up?”

“Yes. There's no time to lose.”

“What's on your mind, Johnnie?”

“I have a plan. To save you. No, I can't tell you now. You must trust me.”

“I trust you, Johnnie.”

“Will you do exactly as I say?”

“Yes, Johnnie.”

“Have you brought a car?”

“Yes. It is parked around the corner.”

“Now go to your car and drive away. Anywhere. Just keep on driving, out of the city, where no one can follow you. Drive all day. Toward evening you can come back. To your house. It will be all right then. You will be safe.”

She watched him fixedly, curiously. She said nothing.

“Will you do that?” he asked.

“Yes, Johnnie.”

When she was ready to go, she stopped at the door for a second. He stood looking at her. He said:

“One moment or many lifetimes—does it matter? Just to have seen you, to know that you exist, that you can exist. . . . There's only one thing I want you to remember: that I thank you.”

She repeated slowly:

“Just to know that it exists, that it can exist.”

He stood for a long time after her steps had died far downstairs. Then he walked to his table, sat down and wrote a letter. He sealed the envelope and propped it against the bottle.

Then he opened the door and listened. He heard Mrs. Mulligan shuffling up the stairs, the trash can she carried rattling against the steps. He heard her groaning in her kitchen, its door left open.

He left his door open, too. Mrs. Mulligan would hear. He wanted her to hear. . . .

 • • • 

Kay Gonda drove, at seventy miles an hour, down long smooth country roads, her hands on the wheel, her hair flying in the wind. The long, low, sparkling roadster went hurtling past rose hedges and alfalfa fields and farmhouses where bewildered eyes followed it and sunburned heads shook slowly. Her brows were drawn tightly together, her eyes steady on the flying road. In her eyes was a last question, still to be answered.

In was late, and on street corners the first lights were fighting with the glow of a red sky, when she drove back into the city. Newsboys were waving white sheets, yelling extras. She paid no attention.

She drove to her mansion and stopped her car at full speed, brakes screaming, under the white colonnade of the entrance. She ran swiftly up the steps, her heels clicking on white marble. In the dim spacious lobby inside, a nervous figure pacing furiously up and down stopped short when she entered. It was Mick Watts.

Mick Watts was sober. His shirt collar was torn open. His hair was disheveled. His eyes were bloodshot. His fists were crumpling a newspaper ferociously.

“So it's you, isn't it?” he roared. “So here you are! I knew you'd be back! I knew you'd be back now!”

“Phone the studio, Mick,” she said calmly, pulling her gloves off,
finger by finger. “Tell them to be ready to shoot at nine tomorrow. Have the wardrobe girl in my bungalow at seven-thirty and be sure she has the skirt well pressed, no wrinkles around the pockets.”

“Well, I hope you've had a good time! I hope you've enjoyed it! But I'm through! I wish I could quit!”

“You know you won't quit, Mick.”

“That's the hell of it! That you know it, too! Why did I ever meet you? Why do I have to serve you like a dog, and will go on serving you like a dog for the rest of my days? Why can't I resist any crazy whim of yours? Why did I have to go and spread those insane rumors about a murder you had never committed—just because you wanted to find out something! Well, have you found it out?”

“Yes, Mick.”

“Well, I hope you're satisfied! I hope you're satisfied with what you've done!”

And he flung the newspaper into her face.

She opened the paper slowly. The headline read: “Amazing Development in Sayers ‘Murder.'” Under it was the story:

A young man identified as Johnnie Dawes committed suicide early this morning at his home at South Main Street. The body was discovered by Mrs. Martha Mulligan, the landlady, who heard the shot and notified the police. A letter addressed to the police was found, in which the boy confessed that he had killed Granton Sayers, Santa Barbara millionaire, on the night of May 3rd, explaining the action by an old grudge against Sayers who had caused him to lose a job at a golf club some time ago, and asking the police to stop the investigation of the crime as he did not want innocent persons to be implicated. The police are baffled by the “confession” and can explain it only as the act of a crank, in view of the statement given out by Miss Frederica Sayers, sister of the deceased millionaire, when she was questioned by the police officers.

Miss Sayers' statement follows:

“I am utterly amazed by the confession of this boy, whose name I have never heard before, and I am completely at a loss to explain it, since there was nothing of the nature of a murder connected with my brother's death. My brother, Granton Sayers, committed suicide on the night of May 3rd, after he had dinner with Miss Kay Gonda. He left a letter addressed to me, the contents of which I can now make public. It is no longer necessary to keep secret the fact that my brother's business was on the verge of bankruptcy and the only thing that could save it was a deal with a powerful concern, negotiations for which were then in progress. My brother wrote that he was tired of life and had no desire to struggle any longer; that the only woman he had ever loved and who could have inspired him to live had again refused to marry him, that night. I realized that the news of my brother's suicide would be liable to break off these business negotiations, indicating as it did the desperate state of his firm. Therefore, I decided to keep the manner of his death a secret for a while. I visited Miss Gonda at her home, that night, and explaining the situation, asked her not to disclose the truth, for she alone could have guessed the circumstances of my brother's sudden death. She was gracious enough to promise this. The business deal was successfully concluded this morning and I am able to reveal the truth. I must add that I was surprised by the rumors that ascribed my brother's ‘murder' to Miss Gonda. I am completely dumbfounded by the suicide and ‘confession' of that unknown boy.”

“Well?” said Mick Watts.

“Do you mind going home, Mick? I am very tired.”

“You
are
a murderess, Kay Gonda! You killed that boy!”

“No, Mick, not I alone.”

“How can you stand there and stare at me like that? Do you know, do you realize what you have done?!”

Kay Gonda looked through the open door at the sun sinking behind brown hills, at the lights of the city twinkling on dark winding roads.

“That,” said Kay Gonda, “was the kindest thing I have ever done.”