A Little Tea, a Little Chat

by Christina Stead

  “Make him write it out in full,” Flack said. “I’ll go across and get his other details, as he calls them. Then we’ll show him the record—”

  “Will he write it all out? He’d smell a rat! I don’t want a showdown. He took us for the Simple Simons of Green Goods County. We were, too.”

  Grant looked nasty. Flack hastened to say, “How do we know he’s guilty? Why would he do it?”

  “For eleven thousand, two hundred and thirty-four dollars.”

  “Is that really what you paid him?”

  Grant looked guilty and confessed that this was the real total. He looked black, “Whether it’s him or his informants, we’ll squeeze it out of him. But why would he do it?”

  “One: to take you for a ride…Two: to get the money. Three: he and his crowd are genuine gangsters, I believe. Four: we don’t know he did it himself. Perhaps he’s only a catspaw. Five: they’re so tough they take you for a lamb. You are—to them. Sixth: you keep yapping you’re British; to them that’s equivalent to a Back Number.”

  “No one suspects you. You got me into this—you only meant to do me a favor, I recognize this—and you can get me out. I’ll make him spit out every cent if I have to shake out his pants and his B.V.D.’s like Uncle Jack.”

  Uncle Jack was Alfred Goodwin’s uncle, a small, worn old man, a gardener, who sold flowers in pots every spring. In winter, he sold candy and soft drinks, in a wayside shanty he had made himself. His earnings were all in cents, nickels, and dimes. Every night, when he entered his home on the East Side, he took off his trousers inside the front door, and left them lying there for Aunt Bella, his wife, to shake out. They had a large cider jar full of lead nickels. He was a good-hearted man.

  “He took me for Uncle Jack! He filled me full of wooden nickels!”

  Grant shouted with laughter. When he calmed down, he said in a businesslike tone, “When I’ve melted down his grease, the butcher won’t take him in for war-fats. Let’s think up a scheme.”

  He scooped out of his desk all March’s reports and spread them before him in a disorderly heap. He said in his husky voice, “It can all be phony. Do you think he could dream up all that?”

  “I already told you he didn’t have to think—we gave him the names. You can’t keep your mouth shut, for example. The whole town knows about this affair.”

  Grant frowned: “We’ll get a scheme, patience is the watchword. We’ll give him the British manner—naïveté, niceness. Boy, will we be naïve and nice, Simple Simons: just the picture he drew of us.”

  “Here is my idea.”

  Flack explained that on the following Sunday March and Hoag were going to visit their friends Francis O’Sullivan and Arthur Pantalona at O’Sullivan’s new house at Five Rocks, a spot on the flats, quite near March’s country hideout, about ten miles from those hills. March had built a house for O’Sullivan at Five Rocks. The house was not yet finished. Pantalona, March, and others of their close circle spent every Sunday, when there was no work in town, fixing up the house with O’Sullivan. Flack was positive that next Sunday would find them all there, because he had been invited, with Edda.

  “Peter and March called up Edda yesterday to invite her, the first time. He wants to make us sure. Maybe he feels he’s been getting away with too much.”

  Near the house was a large, unfashionable golf course which took Jews to be members. March’s crowd played there because some of their friends were Jews who came out for a game in the week end. Flack would get an invitation for Sunday dinner for Grant. Mrs. O’Sullivan was a motherly sort. Flack felt certain that O’Sullivan and Pantalona were two of March’s famous “informants” or at any rate, go-betweens for him and his “Washington crowd.”

  Perhaps it would be smarter to drop in on the March outfit, at Five Rocks, without notice. Flack would say casually that he and Grant would go out to the golf course for a game of golf, and then would stop by to see O’Sullivan: what more casual, what more natural? They would have a chance to meet everyone and see what expressions they had when he and Grant dropped certain remarks. Flack said, “But I’m going to coach you, you’re a bull in a china shop.”

  “Trust me! Trust me!”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “It was you got me into this bloody mess,” Grant said with a little ill-humor.

  “That’s right: everyone’s guilty but Papa,” said Flack.

  Grant laughed but he ruminated with a disagreeable expression. Flack continued, “Oblige me by not putting in any of your cannonballs: you have the diplomacy of an elephant imitating a fan dancer.”

  “Leave it to me.”

  “You leave it to me. You’re just there to lend weight to my words and to look as casual as possible.”

  “Leave it to me, leave it to me. Take my word, it’s a conspiracy.”

  “Has March been rogued, or is he the rogue?”

  “We’ll get it all back. I couldn’t understand him always standing there with his hand out, when you say the fella’s got millions. I don’t want to see ’em. You go, Davie!”

  He walked up and down, his hands behind his back. He whirled round, his eyes gay, “You were all wrong, and I was right: she’s no spy. She’s just a lazy, shiftless, good-for-nothing tramp, she’s innocent. Couldn’t make head or tail of it myself. He just copied it out of the newspapers. For eleven thousand, two hundred thirty-four dollars could have done it cheaper myself. Some headache. What a racketeer! He asked for it. He bought us and sold us. What suckers! We deserved it. But I’ll get back every cent. Trust me. He hasn’t seen me in action. I’ll be British. I’ll be Simple Simon.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get it back, if it’s what we think. Don’t forget—we don’t know yet.”

  “I know. I know. I’ve an instinct, always had,” said he, furiously.

  Flack finally persuaded him to go out with him on the Sunday. Grant hung back, wanted to try to see Barbara, who had been coy lately. “And I don’t blame her: for conscience-money I’m giving her the dinner service she’s been hankering and hinting for—she’ll get it. Oh, boy, she’s got to make good, too. But she will. I’ve treated her shabby. She must have sensed it. The womenly woman can sense anything. You can’t fool people in the love affair. It’s too old; it’s an old racket. It’s hard to fool people, only not me and you,” he murmured and chuckled.

  He went to one of Barb’s specialty shops and bought a very handsome service, one which had been pointed out by Barbara herself. It was to arrive on Saturday; he would come in on Monday. He kept frowning, “Damn this Sunday trip, you make it. You’re a better judge of men than I am; I’m a better judge of women. Look what you thought she was—a spy.”

  22

  On Sunday about eleven David Flack found him dressed but glowering. “What will Barb think if I’m not here just after sending her that? It’ll look like a farewell gift. She knows I’ve been shadowing her.”

  “Don’t hug the telephone, come on. She’ll be there tomorrow.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Will she leave a Christmas tree like you?”

  Grant smiled. “I know; I am her Christmas tree. I don’t think she found another like me. Not that James Alexis, not like me. I can prove it by the checks!” He roared with laughter.

  They drove swiftly out to Pennsylvania. It was a cool, gray midday, not unpleasant. Grant jingled the money in his pocket, turned his collar, twisted his necktie: “We won’t find out nothing from this junket.”

  “We’ll see.”

  About one o’clock the hired automobile began running up and down the muddy roads of a new development near the golf course. Some people near by had heard it was called Five Rocks.

  “I’ll find it, I’ve an instinct for such things,” cried Flack.

  Grant anxiously looked both sides of the road. The chauffeur seemed expert. They presently struck a muddy road called Riverside Drive, parallel to a stream, and in a moment Flack had spotted the house. “There’s a picture of it in Mar
ch’s office: he’s proud of it.” There was a green car at the gate. The back was open. Inside, down a crazy-paved driveway half-made, the big stones standing in mud, was a group of people in Saturday morning clothes—March, Hoag, the O’Sullivans, Pantalona. Grant swaggered in with an earnest look, Flack very good-natured behind him. March’s fat, short form was bent double over a heavy paving stone which he was lowering into place. His hands were muddy and scratched. He was not able to straighten up till the other greetings were over. His face was very red: the whisky-fed chops swaddling his great jaws flapped and settled back into his city collar. “What are you monkeys doing here?” he said nastily.

  Engaging Flack swam forward, hands outstretched, teeth laughing, spectacles shining. He explained everything. March softened, wiped his hands, and said to O’Sullivan, “Butch, let’s go into the house for a drink, I’m dry. Have you got a drink, Mary?”

  There was some hesitation; then O’Sullivan said with great false heartiness, “We must have something in the pantry. You rustle up something, Mary. But while Mary’s finding it—I don’t know—We’ve just moved in here and we don’t drink much—Why don’t you bring in the rest of the stones, Butch?”

  “Well—if you want to be a slavedriver, Butch,” said March and went toward the car. He was in his city clothes, with a hat on. He leaned into the back of his car and straggled with another big, flat, gray triangular stone.

  “He’s a strong man,” said Grant, a bit worried.

  O’Sullivan laughed. O’Sullivan had the fresh face of a country boy. Pantalona, in a very dark gray suit, with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders bowed, went pacing up and down the grass, swinging his legs round small tufts. He had a slightly pitted dark olive skin and an emotional, cruel, coarse face with sulky eyes, the whole theatrically wicked.

  “They say he used to be a gangster,” murmured Flack, “and O’Sullivan got him in as revenue inspector. He’s a wonderful bookkeeper and his mere appearance makes them come across. He has a weakness, though: they can’t send him into lofts. He’s afraid of mice.”

  Grant shuddered and took a pace back, “Keep him away from me, if that’s one of the Informants.”

  Flack said, “Mr. Pantalona is still going to his psychoanalyst, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” said Pantalona himself, gutturally, glancing up for a second and then looking down again and kicking a clod. “Yes, it’ll take him eighteen months more to cure me. You’d be interested to know what he says.” He had an unmusical slum voice.

  March had staggered up to them and past again with his stone. He bent double once more and carefully placed it into the path. He was redder than before. “How’s that, Butch,” he gasped.

  “That hits the spot,” said O’Sullivan. Pantalona looked on morosely and went kicking his heels down the grass patch.

  March said sadly, “Maybe I better get the others, three or four more of the damn things.”

  “Watch that blood pressure,” said Flack.

  “Oh, he’s in training,” said O’Sullivan. Pantalona came up to the path and looked curiously at March. His expression softened; it was not quite a smile that hung on his cruel mouth. O’Sullivan smiled gently and continued: “He built this house, Butch did, he put up the fence, he put up the embankment, and he made the barbecue with his own hands.”

  Seeing Grant’s astonished look, O’Sullivan added, “I had gallstones taken out last month. Butch March did all that for me. Paid for the operation, too.”

  “Why not? Do anything for a friend,” said March, gloomily. He went back to the car. His thick shoulders hung on the side of the car as he struggled with the stone. Pantalona stood there looking at this; he smiled at last, outright.

  O’Sullivan said in his sweet, low voice, “Butch March insisted on doing this for me. He comes round the place as soon as he gets home. He insisted on doing all this for me. Can’t stay away from the place. Like an uncle.”

  Mary O’Sullivan, who had come out to talk about the liquor, Scotch provided by March, it appeared, stood there laughing and stroking her folded arms, “Hugo March is a good friend, you couldn’t ask a better.”

  “Butch is a good friend,” said O’Sullivan.

  Pantalona laughed outright. “He built this whole house for O’Sullivan,” he said harshly, as if it were news.

  March dropped another stone into place. Flack was chattering away, as if everyone was in a good humor. Pantalona, distracted, not following the talk easily, walked up and down beside the path March was making, talking to him as he waddled down again. He spoke in a low voice, March panted: it was some business secret. When the third or fourth new stone was in place, they went into the house. In the house, March revived, and showed the plans with an owner’s and builder’s pride. He opened the window seats to prove they were blanket chests, showed the fastenings, took them upstairs to see the plumbing, the bedsteads. O’Sullivan sat down and let him show his eagerness out. “Very nice, very nice,” said Grant, quickly, jingling the money in his pocket; “very clean, very new.” He cast little glances at Flack.

  When they got downstairs, Flack went up to the little group—O’Sullivan, Mary, Pantalona—and after a few words, when they were all together and before the liquor came, he laughed, “I see your friend Carter does not hit it off with Roosevelt these days.”

  O’Sullivan laughed blandly, Pantalona not at all. Grant followed up with some remark thrown off the grindstone. March looked serious.

  Flack said, “I’ve always heard Carter was a rigorously honest man, almost a professor in the White House; but I’ve heard some things about him lately—it may be rumor, or perhaps no man can keep clean in Washington.”

  “Ought to be some honest men,” rumbled Grant.

  March said, “Carter’s an honest man. I wouldn’t let my best friend say a word against him.”

  Mary brought the drinks. “Thanks, Mary,” said March, and took a gulp. O’Sullivan and Pantalona drank fast too. Flack and Grant did not drink.

  Grant said, “I don’t doubt Carter’s an honest man, but probably surrounded by—pickpockets. Man gets a bad name—his secretary takes bribes, he doesn’t. Doesn’t know about it. Some men have been martyred for their secretary. It’s historical, isn’t it, Dave?”

  “There’s always someone who’ll pocket it,” said March.

  O’Sullivan laughed blandly, Pantalona said nothing: they drank.

  Flack chattered away, “I know a personal friend of Carter, a professor, a friend of mine, from Rutgers. Didn’t know till the other day when I mentioned his name. My friend thinks highly of him, is very indignant at the hue-and-cry after him because he was a friend of the President. Now he’s reformed, anyhow. Heard a funny story about him. Probably newspaper terror. Someone after him.”

  “Think I’ll go to Washington myself,” said Grant, “think I’ll take a trip, see the Secretary of Commerce about—bills of lading—got to see a man—”

  O’Sullivan said tranquilly, “If you go next week, look me up; I’ve got a little place—like to see you.”

  “Thanks,” Grant answered, “thanks, much obliged.”

  March got up, “Let’s get out, get me fresh air, don’t want to spend the week ends this way.”

  “He’s a hog for the outdoors,” said O’Sullivan.

  March said, “I want you to see the barbecue, my friends, just the same, made it myself.” He led them to the bank of the stream where a small outdoor fireplace stood, “Not finished yet, but will be by next summer.”

  “Ought to have it for this summer, don’t you think, Butch?” asked O’Sullivan in his soft voice that the breeze blew away.

  March looked grave. “Don’t see how I can.” They looked at the shallow stream and the water-ravaged banks; and then the two friends got into their car and went away in the direction of the golf course.

  “Didn’t get anything out of that,” said Grant.

  “March was embarrassed, and O’Sullivan was very curious.”

  “Yo
u think so.”

  Flack went over the scene with him in detail. Grant cried, “I believe you’re right, Dave.”

  They went right back to town, Grant talking fast and shallow about his financial situation, because his mind was full of the woman. There was no message at the hotel. He kept Flack with him while he went upstairs and routed round, miserably.

  “What’s the matter with the bloody woman?” When disturbed and grumbling he said “’ooman.” “Is she holding out on me now? Is she angry?”

  He telephoned her. The Charles Wagoner said she had gone out.

  “When? Where?”

  He turned on Flack, “It’s your fault. You dragged me out there. I saw nothing worth the trip.”

  “I thought to get the goods on March was to be your life-object.”

  “You do it. I’m not going to let the bird fly this time with my birdseed.”

  “Do you think I have nothing else to do but be your Leporello?”

  Grant cajoled and flattered, and Flack gave in, “But for God’s sake, don’t behave like a dancing bear.”

  He called Miss Russell next, with “Where’s Barbara? I’ve got to make a confession to her. I’ve been bad to her”—and made an appointment with Paula for the evening.

  In the evening he met Paula alone in the White Bar and babbled for a long time about his relations with March. He did not say, however, how much money he had spent, but “a forchun.” Paula said, after a while, “I have a confession to make too, Robbie. I was angry with you because you were seeing Barb when you were seeing me. You treated me like a doormat. You saw me to talk about Barb; and then—you made love to me too.”

  He said nothing, but watched her coming out with it, “You showed me all Barb’s letters and told me how she’d treated you, you said you were through with her too. I let you treat me like a dirty dishrag. That’s the introvert side of my nature. I’m an introvert. I’m a masochist. I’m a pervert, I like a man to wipe his shoes on me. I let you do anything you like with me after I found out you were still crazy about Barb. But I knew all the time what you were doing to me. And the more you did it, the more I wanted you. I don’t know what it was. I’m a kind of escapist. I’d rather be an old-fashioned woman, let a man walk all over me. And you’re such a rough, strong sort of man, you bring that out in a woman. So when March came to me, I told him all I knew. He came to me right away. It was all my fault.”