The Lady and Her Doctor (33 page)

“Now that's real nice of you.…” (She said how about a
bon voyage
party then.) “But I'm not in the mood.” (Joe had looked as if this was only right—for him not to be in the mood.) “All I want is for that boat to leave the pier, that will be all the
bon voyage
I need, no champagne and caviar, thanks all the same!” (She had said that if he didn't see her once, didn't let her bury the hatchet, she would go on thinking that he blamed her, but he had the answer to that.) “Lady Constant, you don't need to worry about my blaming you. You'll be hearing from Sloane's law firm one of these days and you'll see I didn't blame you. I'm doing the fair thing, Lady Constant, you're getting what you said was yours and more; you'll see. The bulk goes to the Foundation, of course, because that's the way Sloane wanted it, but I'm doing the right thing by you. They'll give you the details if you want them, I guess; ask her lawyers.” (The lawyers had told him his demands were modest. Modest.) That had been about it. Milton wet his lips again, satisfied, and turned back to Joe Dinton and the “arrangements.” “That was my dead wife's sister, Lady Constant.”

Joe ran his pencil down the estimate sheet. “She'll be in the first car with you and your sister-in-law, Mrs. Krop.”

“Let's skip it, Joe. I haven't mentioned the funeral to her; you heard me.”

“You haven't mentioned—”

“I don't even know if she knows the police released the body yet. You heard me, this is the first I contacted her. You heard why, Joe, I've been thinking maybe she held it against me that her sister took her own life.” (Joe was shaking his head. For the first time, Joe disapproved.) “She should attend, you mean? It would look funny? O.K., then, Joe, but wait a minute—” (Wait a minute. Think. Look before you leap, Milt!) “It's bad enough she'll have to mingle with me, Joe, but I just can't see her with Jenny—Mrs. Krop! You know my sister-in-law, Joe? Well, take my word for it those two are like oil and water. O.K., Lady Constant goes with me and Jenny goes in the second car.” (That set all right with Joe. The more cars the better as far as Joe was concerned. Milt had had to convince him that because it was a suicide—a disgrace, no matter how you looked at it—he wanted it as private as possible.)

“O.K. by me, Doc. You and Lady Constant in the first car and Mrs. Krop in the second Caddy.”

Milt wet his lips. “Wait a minute, Joe—” Joe held his pencil in the air. “There's someone I don't want to go to the funeral, Joe, and here I'll want your help. It's a—it's one of those things, Joe!” He pointed toward the kitchen. “The old lady, the maid—I don't want her attending. Now, this is it—I don't want her thinking it's because she's the help. You know me, whatever I am, Joe, I'm no snob. I'm a physician and I don't want the poor old biddy exposing herself in this weather. I want you to put it to her, Joe—from an outsider it will sound better. How many people do you know were the next ones buried because they insisted on attending funerals when they should have stood in bed? She can pay her respects right here. Before you leave, put it to her strong, Joe.” Milton tried to laugh. “You're
not
the Doc, maybe she'll listen to you!”

“Glad to, glad to—and talking about taking care of yourself, I'm glad to hear you're going away for a trip, Doc, you don't look well. In my business you see plenty of suicides; you can't stop them, believe me. If they gotta go, they gotta go, as the saying is. You shouldn't blame yourself.”

“I'll be all right once I get on that boat, Joe.” Why the sudden urge to see him? Bury the hatchet, she said. In my head, Milton thought, sour coming up in his mouth. I have no head, he thought. I can't think again. I still got to be prepared—one more week to go, but I can't think. “Once that boat leaves the dock, I'll be O.K., Joe!” I've got to leave that dock. I've got to go. I'm not going to let her stop me now. If you gotta go, you gotta go.

“What a boat, boy,” Joe said.

“You took a trip on the
Elizabeth
, Joe?” Everybody but him. Milton. Milton was going to go and she wasn't going to stop him now. But why the telephone call? Bury the hatchet. In my heart. Any news from Lady Constant is bad news. “Did you happen to get to the Riviera, Joe?” I'm going to get to the Riviera. Steps of living stone. Bikini bathing suits. Air like a
fin
. “Where did you go, Joe?”

“Me, Doc? To the pier on West Forty-sixth Street, that's where I went! When I came home I said to the wife, well, we took a trip, Amy, a tour. We took a tour of the
Queen Elizabath
, I said, we're different. Other people take tours on her; we took a tour of her! We got to be different, I said.”

“A tour of the
Queen Elizabeth?
”

“Don't you get it, Doc? They let you go on when she's in port. It's good advertising, I guess. They got little maps of her for the sightseers in the Cunard Line place. What would Columbus think of a boat so big you need a map to find your way around, Doc, huh? Anyhow, we took a tour of her, as I said. Nobody stopped us. The works, the whole shebang, top to toe, port to—I know it isn't
rear!
We saw all the fancy fitting and that stairway they have, and the dining room and all.” He cupped his mouth with his hand and lowered his voice. “As a matter of fact, we have a little souvenir ashtray in our place right now that says Queen Elizabeth on it!”

Milton's hand thrust itself into his pocket and felt the vial of picrotoxin he kept there all the time, for no reason. Just because. (There would be no reason. Nobody was going to stop him this time.) He said to Joe, “Port to bow!” His thumb ran over the top of the vial, as if he were testing its edge. “Dining room and all? Port to bow?”

“That's it! Sure the dining room, the dining room is one of the sights, and we covered the whole shebang. We covered the waterfront.”

“That's something, Joe, that's sure something!” He took his hand out of his pocket. “Joe, while I'm telling Lady Constant about the funeral—” His hand stretched toward the phone but he did not dial. “I want your opinion on this—” He told Joe about the
bon voyage
party she had wanted to throw and which he had turned down. Well, on second thought, should he turn it down? She—Lady Constant—said she wanted it to prove he had no hard feelings. He'd been thinking she blamed him and she'd been thinking he blamed her. Well, he asked Joe, who would it hurt? Why not, Joe, right? Now he had a witness, Milton thought, who could, if it ever came to that, swear that he, Milt, had only agreed to a little party—just the two of them, of course, a big party certainly wouldn't be the thing—because he didn't want to hurt his dead wife's sister's feelings. “You heard me before, Joe, I figured she might be holding the suicide against me, but it turns out (the way she talked), it looks as if she had a guilty conscience because of the way she was in Europe on the Riviera all these years leaving my wife here with the old lady holding the bag! Could be, right? And so, if I let her see me off, give me this little party, it will be a way of saying I don't blame her, she shouldn't go blaming herself. Tell me what you think, Joe?”

While Joe—who was the gabber of the world—told him what he thought, Milt went over it. (Wetting his lips. Making his hands stay out of his pocket, away from the vial.) If the worst came to the worst—in half an hour she'd have a bellyache. (By that time she would be off the boat. He would see to that.) Within three hours she would be gone. (If worst came to worst. If he had to.) Of course they'd autopsy. Of course they'd think of him. (If worst came to worst.) To think and to prove were two different things entirely. Of course they could radio the
Elizabeth
and get him; he knew that. Even if it took longer than four and a half days to get around to thinking of him they could get him. Europe wasn't the wilds of darkest Africa; he knew that! But to pin anything on him would be a different story. “My God, I didn't want to see her. I didn't call her up and ask her; she asked me.” (Ask Joe Dinton, he was present.) Her party, not mine. She supplied the food. (Ask Joe.) How would I give her poison? Prove it. Her hamburger, her beer. The salt from the dining room of the
Queen Elizabeth
. How did I poison her, prove it. No, Milton thought wearily, it wasn't if he did it once, he could repeat it. (He nodded at Joe who was gabbing away at a great rate.) It wasn't that he figured it would be so easy, it was just the best he could do. (If he had to.) “That's just what I thought, Joe. It's the decent thing to do.” (It's the only thing to do. She's in port, now, the
Queen Elizabeth
. Get a map like Joe had. Go to the dining room. Get the shaker. Yes. For insurance, just insurance, that's all.) He dialed the hotel number. “That's just what I was thinking, Joe.”

Day was sitting cross-legged on the floor watching Amory perched on the coffee table, putting on her stockings. He had just about given up trying to fit together the pieces of ceramic tile which Amory had broken when she flung the book at him. It was one of the Picasso tiles and he couldn't tell what went where.

Amory stuck her leg out in front of her and stared at it. “I guess having the Folsom Mausoleum is a lucky break, Day, otherwise—Sloane being a suicide—” She set her foot on the floor. “Day, where
is
unhallowed ground?”

“I'll come with you, Amory.”

“Oh, you hate funerals,” she said.

“Everyone hates funerals. Don't be ridiculous. Amory, I don't want you to go alone.”

“My dear! Now are you becoming suspicious of your driven lamb?”

“I liked it better when he wouldn't see you. I preferred it when he gave you the back of his hand, darling.”

“
And
the money.”

“
And
the money. He shouldn't
want
to see you, Amory.”

“He didn't want to, did he? I forced my attentions on him, didn't I? Dear Day, this is going to be Sloane's funeral, what could happen?”

“Nothing, I suppose. The
bon voyage
thing worries me.”

“It was the best I could do and it's going to be my party, you know. I'm supplying the food, didn't you hear? I was ready to run to caviar and champagne but he prefers beer and hamburgers—and that was the only objection, Day. He didn't in the least object to its being my party, I mean. I'm ordering the hamburgers from Hamburger Heaven and they'll be sent down to the boat just in time,
intact
, so there can't be any hanky-panky there, can there?” She scratched her calf. “If I'm found dead, Day, you won't need to analyze the food.” She remembered about the Dramamine. “Golly, I'd have to be damn suspicious to have anything analyzed any more!”

Day kissed the top of her head. “I shouldn't like finding you dead, darling.”

She frowned. “I didn't like finding Sloane dead.” She was silent while she put on her other stocking and fastened her garters and stood up and gave herself the necessary smoothing down.

Day said, “Amory—let it be!”

She shook her head. “Uhuh!”

“Drop it, Amory, please!”

“Uhuh. I'm going to see him, ducks, before he leaves and this party is the best I can do. Remember the magic wordie, Day!” She flung one arm out toward the television set. “Going, going, Day! The funeral and the party—last two chances for the magic wordie, Day!”

The ceremony, such as it was, was over. Amory was sitting in the black Cadillac into which Dr. Krop had just handed her, his fingers firm on her elbow. It seemed to her that she could still feel his fingers on her elbow and she rubbed at her black sleeve. It nauseated her to feel his fingers on her elbows and to take her mind off it she read the sign over the glass canopy: J. P. Dinton Funeral Home. Toward the rear of the sidewalk, in the shelter of the canopy, she could see a thin scatter of black coats and hats who were vaguely recognizable as distant relatives, Folsoms, Drubakers, Vanderpeels—all of them obit readers, evidently, because how else would they have known this was Sloane's funeral? (She remembered Sloane's twelfth birthday party then. Mother had not let Sloane take off her brace and she had scarcely been able to eat anything. Poor Sloane.) At the front of the sidewalk, Dr. Krop was arguing with some woman who had stepped up and tried to climb into the car. Amory watched.

Jenny knew that Milt thought she was trying to push in where she wasn't wanted, but it wasn't that. Since the suicide, she had certainly not pushed in, had she? The reason she was standing here now, insisting that she go to the cemetery in the car with them, was because of the way he had kept his eyes on the Duchess all during the ceremony. The Duchess looked like her dead sister but—different.
And how different
! What a whale of a difference a lipstick, rouge and an eyebrow pencil could make. And that woman was poison for Milt! Look at the way he had held her by the elbow and rushed her into the first car with him as if she was his best friend. That woman was bad news; from the first minute she'd heard that voice coming over the telephone, asking questions, nosing around, she, Jenny, had known her for the bad news she was—Look at her sitting there in the car waiting for Milt to come into her parlor, snug as a bug in a rug!

He is furious with her, Amory thought, pressing closer to the window of the car. Why is he so furious with her? She could not hear what Jenny was saying, but her gestures were easy to interpret: She wants to come along with the two of us. He does not want her to come with us and therefore is furious at her persistence. Obviously he could wring her neck, but why? Day would probably say, “Oh, for Christ's sake, Amory, because the good doctor wants to climb out of his class and a woman like that, so unmistakably what she is, places him. A woman like that is
de trop
in his new life and that is that.”