Three by Cain: Serenade, Love's Lovely Counterfeit, the Butterfly (44 page)

“One thing I did I think you’ll like.”

“What’s that?”

“I ended this parole racket.”

“How do you mean?”

“Quite a few of them owed money for paroles they’d bought—to Caspar, I mean. I could have made them cough up, if I’d wanted to. In fact, Cantrell was after me to turn on the heat. Nice guy, Cantrell is.… I told him it was out. If those people got out of jail, it’s O.K. by me and they got nothing to fear from me. From now on they can start their lives over again, and I wish them all the luck in the world. You got anything against it?”

“Why should I?”

Her tone, which was wholly indifferent, rebuffed him. In a moment he said, “One other thing I did I
know
you’re going to like.”

“Yes? What’s that?”

“Those houses. The red light places. I’m closing them down. I told Cantrell there was a few things I’d stop at, and one of them was taking it off a lot of poor girls for leading a life of— ”

He stopped at the sudden blaze in her eyes. “But you’d take it off me, wouldn’t you?”

“What do you mean, take it off you?”

“For leading a life of shame with Jansen, for doing just what those girls do, for keeping him under my thumb, so you can fool him with airplanes flying around, and pinball games that pretend to be something that they’re not—for these little services, you’re perfectly willing that I lead a life of shame, aren’t you?”

“Are you that close to Jansen?”

“No, but if I had to be, you’d be perfectly willing. If it was
a choice between my honor and the money, you’d rather have the money, wouldn’t you?”

His face darkened and he lit a cigarette. Then he began the restless marching around that seemed to be his main occupation these days. After a few minutes he stopped in front of her, gave her foot an affectionate little kick. “What’s the use of having one of these every week, anyhow? You know I don’t want you to do anything with Jansen. You know that, because I’ve told you so—”

“Ben, keep quiet or I’ll scream!”

Ben filled both glasses, emptied ashtrays, did as many little things as he could think of, then at length sat down. She had been staring at the ceiling, and now began to talk in a dull, lifeless way. “His wife died today.”

“Whose?”

“Jansen’s.”

“When?”

“Just now. Before I came over here.”

“I—haven’t seen the papers.”

“He asked me to step down to his office, as he had something to tell me. I went down there, and this was it. He was terribly broken up about it. I did what I could to help him. Then—he asked me to marry him. He hadn’t intended to, then. He was going to wait till after the funeral. But it was the first time I had kissed him, and he broke down, and said it. And I said I would. And that was what I came over to tell you—”

“Hey, wait, this affects me.”

“Oh, don’t worry. That was optimism, over there in his office. I’ll not marry him. How could I, after what I’ve done to him? After what you and I have done to him? After all that he’d find out about me, that a hundred people would tell him, if I were ever fool enough to do this to him?”

Apparently there was more, but she couldn’t go on. She broke down into low, hopeless sobbing, which went on for some time. Then she jumped up and threw her glass at him.

C H A P T E R

9

Emerging from the bathroom in white shorts, Ben started the immemorial rite of donning a white tie, while Lefty lounged in the bedroom armchair, a fascinated witness. It was not, on the whole, an uninteresting performance, as Ben went through with it. For one thing there was Ben himself, as he stooped over the bed, putting studs into the shirt, checking collar, tie, and socks. Great muscles rippled in his torso, in his arms, in his shoulders, then disappeared. There was that curious accuracy of movement that seemed to mark everything he did: the sure way his fingers managed tiny problems, like buttonholes; the instinctive order that he achieved, so that nothing seemed to get lost. And then there was the absurdly brief investiture itself, the actual putting of the garments on. This show seemed to be all preparation, for once the harness was ready, it went on in a few seconds, even to tying the tie. Lefty missed no single detail, and even admitted he would give anything to be able to wear such an outfit. When he looked at his watch he started. “You going to a show you better shake a foot. It’s after nine o’clock already.”

“Show? This is a party.”

“Oh—must be some shindig.”

“June’s giving it.”

“You still see her?”

“Now and then, mostly then. Her old lady crossed her up on Christmas. ’Stead of having her and her sister home, she decided she and the sister would visit June. So they came, and June had to throw them a party.”

“You heard anything about her and Jansen?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“They say they’re thick.”

“Who says?”

“It’s going around.”

“You couldn’t prove it by me.”

For a moment Lefty had watched Ben narrowly, but if the inquiry meant anything to him, Ben gave no sign. He led the way into the living room, got out Scotch, ice, and soda, and turned on the radio. Dance music came in.

“You know one thing, Lefty? The best thing about the night after Christmas is you don’t have to listen to those hymns any more.”

“I don’t know. I kind of like them.”

“I don’t mind them, except for one thing. There’s not over five or six of them and they sing them over and over again. After ‘Come All Ye Faithful’ and ‘Silent Night, Holy Night’ and ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,’ why then, what have you got?”

“Trouble with you is, you just don’t like music.”

“Come to think of it, maybe that’s right.”

“I know all them hymns.”

“Words and all?”

“I ever tell you how I started, Ben?”

“In a reform school, wasn’t it?”

“In a way it was. They put me in a reform school, and I wore a denim suit, and worked on the farm, setting out tomato plants, and hoeing onions, and thinning corn. Corn was the worst. It almost broke your back. Then I got reformed. I got religion, and when they let me out I went around preaching. And then one summer I hooked up with a big evangelist, him doing the big night meeting and me talking to the young people
in the afternoon. And the night of the big thank offering, I got all the dough, at the point of a gun from the treasurer of the outfit with a handkerchief over my face. But he caught my walk, as I skipped around the corner. He knew me by that, and they got me. That’s how I know all them hymns, Ben. I started out as a preacher.”

Even Ben, a little too prone to accept everything in life as an everyday occurrence, blinked at this recital. Lefty got out his wallet and began thumbing through the wad of papers it contained. He found what he wanted, a tattered square which he handled carefully, so as not to tear it. Handing it to Ben, he said, “A regular preacher with a license.” Ben read the printing, under the imprimatur of some obscure sect, glanced at the signature, which was written over the title, Bishop of Missoula, Montana, and stared at the name which had been typed into the body of the certificate: Richard Hosea Gauss. He handed it back. “Well, say, I never knew that. That’s a funny one, isn’t it? I bet you could make them holler amen, too.”

“I still can.”

“… Little highball?”

“You notice I generally drink beer?”

“Hold everything.”

Ben disappeared into the pantribar, came back with two tall glasses, collaring creamily within a perilously short distance of the tops. He set one in front of Lefty, apologizing for being forgetful. Lefty took a meditative sip, waiting for the little
hic
that would follow. When it came, he said, “I guess maybe it’s a hangover from them revival days, but it always seemed to me that liquor was wrong. However—there can’t be no harm in beer.”

“Remember Pearl Harbor.”

“Oh we wouldn’t forget that.”

The party that Ben descended to, in Drawing Room B, was typically citified. That is to say, the clothes, the food, and the service were streamlined, straight out of the Twenty-First Century; the manners, the flirtation, the wit, a little dull. June had
invited the whole Social Service Bureau, which was mainly feminine, and these ladies had brought husbands, lovers, and friends who ran a little to spectacles; she had invited also the firm of lawyers for whom she had worked before she entered politics, and these gentlemen had brought their wives; she had invited the city comptroller, the city assessor, the city engineer, and various other officials with whom she came in daily contact, and these gentlemen had not only brought their wives, but in some cases their whole families, consisting of in-laws, daughters, and sons. A few of the gentlemen wore white ties, but most of them wore black, and one or two of them red; there were even a few uniforms present; the party certainly didn’t lack for variety. Nor did it lack for spirit. The Looney Lolligaggers, a five-piece orchestra that the hotel recommended for small private parties, was dispensing its tunes, and most of the guests were dancing. The lunacy of the Lolligaggers, so far as one could see, consisted mainly of bouncing up and down as they blew into their instruments; otherwise they seemed to be very usual boys in white mess jackets.

June let Ben in with civility rather than hospitality. She wore a bottle green dress, with bracelet, comb, and cigarette holder of the coral that she seemed so fond of. Now that the school-teacherishness had been somewhat dissolved in cocktails, tears, and a conviction of sin, she was really a striking-looking woman, and it didn’t hurt the general effect that she was mainly ankles and eyes. Uneasily she took a look at the dancers, said she guessed he knew everyone there. By this he knew that she didn’t want to introduce him around. He nodded coolly, said he certainly knew everyone he wanted to know. She said drinks were being served in the alcove, that the waiters would take care of him. He said thanks, and started to edge his way around the floor.

His path was blocked, almost at once, by a dumpy little woman in light blue, who looked first at him and then at June in a timid, uncertain way. June hesitated, then said, “Oh, this is my mother. Mamma, Mr. Grace.”

“I’m very glad to know you, Mrs. Lyons.”

“What was the name?”

“Grace, but just call me Ben.”

“I don’t hear very well I thought at first she said Jansen. I’m just crazy to meet him. I hear he’s such a wonderful man.”

“Mamma, I told you he’s not coming.”

“I said, I didn’t
rightfully hear.”

“Mrs. Lyons, a drink?”

“Yes, thanks.”

Again Ben started past the dancers, this time guiding Mrs. Lyons by the arm, and again his way was blocked, by a slender, willowy girl with light hair in a peach-colored evening dress. She glanced with a smile at Mrs. Lyons, stepped lightly aside. Mrs. Lyons said, “And this is my other daughter. Dorothy, I want you to meet Mr. Grace, Mr. Ben—”

But Dorothy was gone, slipping between dancers with quick, sure ease, never once getting bumped. Ben, the former broken-field runner, watched fascinated. However, his brow puckered with puzzlement as he turned back to the mother, for he was sure Dorothy had heard.

Mrs. Lyons, once he camped down with her near the potted plants that flanked the alcove, turned out to be more of a trial than he had bargained for. For one thing, she was slightly deaf. For another thing, she was a little tight. For still another thing, she seemed to be under the impression that she was attending a function of high society, and to be elaborately nervous as to the niceties of her conduct. He tried to get her talking about June, of whom she seemed very proud, but she kept returning to the subject, titivating her imagination by wondering if she was properly dressed, if she was downing her drink in an elegant manner, if she should find dancing partners for a stag line that seemed to be forming near the punch bowl. First by one trick, then another trick, he managed to keep her under control. June seemed appreciative, for her frostiness eased a little, and she came over now and then, stood beside him, caught his hand, and squeezed it.

It was when she was drifting away, after one of these visits,
that she stopped stock still and stared. The buzzer had sounded, a waiter had opened the door, and Mayor Jansen was entering the room.