Hunter and the Trap

by Howard Fast

  “I got,” Pete grinned, and everyone else was grinning now because they knew that the party was in the making, and that it would be a great, fabulous party that the town would remember and talk about for years to come.

  “And I want the mayor and his wife.”

  “Andy, it’s not like old times. This is a different kind of a mayor, and he’s a Republican—”

  “I don’t care if he’s a Single-Taxer,” Andy said. “Invite him. All he can do is say no.” And then, to show that even if he had been away, he was as cool as any of the snotty young kids around town, Andy said to O’Brian, “Who’s the lieutenant of the Nineteenth Squad? Is it still Rothschild?”

  “It is.”

  “And how are his ulcers?”

  “Rotten.”

  “Will you call him, lieutenant, and tell him that we will be having a drink or two with friends at the Carlyle, and that Andy Bell begs him to exhibit the quality of mercy if there is a complaint?”

  Pete brought me the phone then, and I got City Hall. Everyone lapsed into a careful silence as I worked my way up to the mayor; and finally I got him and told him that Andy Bell was in town. Which he knew. And then I told him that Andy was giving a party at the Carlyle tonight and it was short notice, but would he come and bring his wife?

  “I’d be delighted to come,” he said. “I can’t promise because it is short notice—but I’ll try.”

  Andy and Pete hugged each other.

  6

  There are all kinds of parties around town. There are wild parties and lush parties, and sometimes people plan all year for a party they are going to give, and with some of the rich ones I know, a party is to be put together only by a professional party manager, like the late Elsa Maxwell. There are other parties that bear the stamp of a personality, and when Andy Bell threw a party, it grew around him, like a vine around a tree. There are parties where the host sets out to corner a few personalities and to build a certain amount of status; but if people in New York were in and important, it was up to them to know that Andy Bell was giving a party and to turn up there. It was a good thing that the suite Jane Pierce had rented at the Carlyle was a big one, because most of them turned up there.

  Jane was waiting for us at the Carlyle, and she said to me, “I heard that Andy was giving a party. Was that your idea, Monte?”

  “My idea? Anyway, how did you hear?”

  “Because the President’s kid telephoned from Texas. She wants to come, I told her to come. The hell with it. I’m going to tell the hotel to set up a bar and a table with sandwiches and junk. You know what this will cost Andy? At least two grand. And he’s damn near broke.”

  “Why don’t we get that Max what’s-his-name to pick up the tab?”

  “Because Andy would blow his stack.”

  “How can he be broke? I heard that Life is paying fifty thousand dollars for the story of how he shot that lion.”

  “He spent the fifty grand before he ever hit Africa. Take my word for it.”

  Andy had gone on into the suite, and now we followed him inside. Jose Peretz was explaining how he had unpacked. He had put the guns into a bedroom closet. Diva was in one corner of the big couch in the living room. She watched us silently. It was funny how no one ever asked Andy about her, who she was or what she was to any of them. Maybe she was Jose’s girl, although I was inclined to think that Jose was some kind of faggot, not the ordinary kind but something esoteric; and since Diva had that lean, dry, meticulous look of a certain type of dyke about her, perhaps they matched. But no one asked about Diva, not even myself. In a way, Andy was very fond of Jane Pierce; he would embrace her and kiss her in front of Diva, and there was no reaction in the dark-haired woman that I could see. But then there was no reaction on her part to any of the play between Andy and other women—maybe because she knew that it never went beyond the opening of the game.

  Andy wondered about the guns, and whether there were any new laws to make things difficult.

  “You don’t have any pistols?” I asked him.

  “Just an old Santé automatic that I use for target practice.”

  “Well, don’t take it out on the street, and I’ll call my lawyer later and see if you need any kind of a license or whether you check it in downtown or what. I suppose the rest are rifles and shotguns?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t think it makes any difference, as long as you keep them here.”

  The big red-headed belly dancer came in then. She had changed clothes, from a daytime dress to a long, shimmery gown, and she told Andy that while it was a little early for the party to start, she was hungry, and she did not want to make a date with anyone else because she was going to lap on his ass like a hound dog all night.

  “Don’t you ever eat alone?” Jane asked her nastily.

  “Honey, take a second look at me. Do you think I have to?”

  The hotel waiters began to move in and set up, and I went into Andy’s bedroom to call my wife. Andy came in while I was waiting for my number, and then Jose came in with Andy’s tuxedo.

  “I had it pressed,” Jose said.

  He helped Andy dress. Liz, my wife, informed me that she had heard about the party.

  “How could you hear?”

  “The six o’clock news. Evidently, Grand Duke Alexis is flying in from Paris as some sort of publicity stunt. He expects to make the party. Am I invited?”

  “You know you are.”

  “Not that earnestly, but it’s nice to hear it from God’s right-hand man.”

  “Will you come?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world—if I can fight my way in. What do you expect, a thousand people?”

  When I put down the phone, I told Andy about the Grand Duke Alexis.

  “Who the hell is the Grand Duke Alexis?”

  “Don’t you remember? He used to have a restaurant in Beverly Hills. Now he has a place on the Left Bank.”

  “Did I ever eat there, Monte?”

  “I guess you must have, because he’s flying in tonight. That’s a big tab for a party. You should be flattered. Look, do you want me to go home and change?”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know what for. I just don’t want to drag the affair down. Look, Andy, are you short of cash?”

  “What?” He was provoked now. I had hit a soft spot. “What in hell ever gave you that notion?”

  “All I am thinking about is this damn party. It’s going to take a bundle to pay for it.”

  “Are you serious, Monte? You’re like the oldest friend I got. Otherwise, I could get real nasty.”

  I let the subject drop, and Andy and I went into the living room. Two tall, distinguished, white-haired Italians greeted him with pleasure. Afterwards, I learned that they were two of the top wheels in the Mafia; Andy had met them some years before when they had helped him to arrange a wolf hunt in Sicily.

  The party had started early, and now, long before post time, there were already two dozen people in the room. The buffet table had been set up, and Norma Smith, the redhead, was stuffing herself with good, nourishing food, namely toast and imported caviar.

  Jane Pierce whispered to her, icily, “That, darling, is thirty-six dollars a pound.”

  “Then it’s hardly the best, is it?” the belly dancer replied.

  Max Golden arrived, with two small, blond go-go girls, one hanging on to each of his arms. Their party dresses were six inches above the knee. “They’re a present to you,” Max said to Andy.

  “What are their names?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  Then Max saw Norma Smith, and he dropped the little go-go girls and made a beeline for the big redhead. The two kids gravitated to Jose—they thought he was “darling”; and I steered Andy over to meet the senator. You couldn’t have a party like this without the senator’s wife, and she had to have him with her as a door opener. The senator read books and he was really excited to meet Andy, but when he tried to talk about Afr
ican politics, Andy broke away.

  “He won’t talk politics,” I explained to the senator. “That’s because he won’t think politics.”

  “Years ago—”

  “Well, that was all years ago. Things have changed.”

  The ambassador to the U.N. came in then, and the senator had someone to talk politics to. The management had finally produced a record player, and I had them put it out on the terrace. It was getting hot in the living room anyway, so we folded back the big double doors to the terrace and eased the increasing congestion in the living room. Jock Lewis, the radio disk jockey, was persuaded to run the phonograph, and Jose tried to teach the go-go girls some flamenco steps to the beat of rock and roll. Then I saw my wife, Liz, and I had to push people aside to reach her. She was with two pugs, one an ex-lightweight and the other an ex-heavyweight, both of them Negroes, and she yelled across to me:

  “I brought some quality to your crumby party.”

  She was lit already. The Negro pugs embraced Andy and Jacky Minola, and they formed a little circle to talk about the fight game. The circle grew bigger.

  Jane Pierce pulled me aside and demanded, “Monte—what about this? What do we do?”

  “What about what?”

  “This crazy party. There are already ninety-one here by head count, and look at the doorway.”

  It was something to think about. They were coming through the door now in almost a steady stream. I recognized two movie stars, a member of “What’s My Line?” and the new parks commissioner. The quality was good.

  “It’s quite a party.”

  “If you look on it as a competition, I suppose so. I just hate to think of what the price per minute is at this moment. I didn’t have time to go out and shop for bulk liquor or anything like that. It’s all hotel rates, and have you ever looked at the catering sheet of this hotel?”

  “No.”

  “You should. And where do we put them?”

  “When it banks up solid, they can’t get in. That’s all.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Look, Jane, you can’t do anything and I can’t do anything. That’s the way it is. Let it run its course.”

  “The thing that puzzles me,” Jane said, “is this. A few hours ago, Andy decided to have a party. Now everyone in the world knows about it. How does that happen?”

  “Word of mouth.”

  “You’re a help.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do?”

  “Drop dead,” she said pleasantly. “When I think of something else, I’ll tell you.”

  7

  I slipped into Jose’s room a little later to see whether I could make a telephone call to the manager and maybe find an adjoining suite to open up, or even a room, or maybe let the overflow into the grand ballroom or something like that; and there was Diva, sprawled on the bed and staring at me.

  “Can I use the phone?” I wanted to know.

  She nodded silently, and I discovered that the manager was gone for the day and the assistant manager was somewhere in the hotel—probably at the party.

  “Hell with them,” Diva said. I couldn’t remember when I had heard her say anything else. “Let them crawl all over each other. What do you care?”

  I was sitting on the edge of the bed, a few inches from where she lay sprawled out. She reached out an arm and drew me down to her, and I let myself be drawn; and then I kissed her, a wide, hot kiss, with her tongue darting in and out of my mouth like a little snake.

  After that, I pulled up and away from her and said, “Whatever you want, Diva, I probably want double, but it’s like trying to do it in Grand Central Station. Also, my wife is out there, and she sort of hates me and she’d love an excuse to cut my heart out.”

  “You afraid of her?”

  I nodded. “Also, I always figured you were Andy’s girl.”

  “Like hell you did. You are like a stinking little open book, Monte, and I read you good. You always figured me for a dyke, and you figured Jose and me, we diddled each other. Balls. I work for Andy; I’m not his girl, and I don’t screw Jose backwards either. As for you, just go to hell.”

  “I’ll see you later,” I said, and then I went back to the party, leaving the door to the bedroom open, hoping that it might take some pressure off the living room. The living room was packed almost solid, but if you moved slowly and had some patience, you could penetrate. I got caught in a cluster of black men with fezzes and sweeping gowns, and then I saw Andy, who was trying to talk to them in Senegalese or Somali or Bantu or something like that; and he saw me and grinned and boomed:

  “What a party, Monte! What a goddamn true, beautiful party!”

  I grinned foolishly, and pushed on to Jane Pierce, who was out on the terrace, talking to a thin, worried-looking man in dinner clothes.

  “I tried,” I said. “The manager went home. The assistant manager is lost or something.”

  “This is the assistant manager, Monte,” she replied. “This is Mr. Bell’s friend, Monte Case.”

  “Well, are you responsible, Mr. Case?”

  “Andrew Bell is a very responsible man.”

  “I know that. How does one find him?”

  “He’s right there in that group of Africans,” I said.

  “There are a great many people here,” Jane said, smiling her best smile at him, “but I think it’s a very genteel lot, don’t you? We have two of the highest dignitaries in the local diocese—I can’t remember their names but they are very estimable churchmen. That tall African—you can see his fez over the crowd—is the Prime Minister of Nigeria or Ghana or the Congo. Well, it’s that sort of party—”

  “Of course, of course. It’s just a question of suffocation, simple suffocation. But if you keep the doors to the terrace open—”

  “I wouldn’t dream of closing them,” Jane said, and she led the manager away, or rather furrowed a path for him, and I went for a drink. That was not easy. The table that had been set up as a bar was practically inaccessible, but I finally got to it. My wife, Liz, was there already and drunk, good and drunk.

  “So here’s Monte,” she said. “The man’s friend. Did all of you know that Monte is the man’s friend? I’m Monte’s friend too. I got news for you—when you got a friend like Monte, you don’t need enemies.”

  People around smiled sheepishly, the way people do in such a situation. I had asked for a Scotch on the rocks but I was ready to force my way out of the place without it.

  “Don’t run away, Monte. I want you to meet my friends. Any friend of Andy’s is a friend of mine, and there’s no one here tonight but friends of Andy. Right? Right, Monte?”

  I nodded. She put her arm around a slim, blond boy who could not have been more than twenty-three or twenty-four and who was dressed in a double-breasted mod suit of dark purple corduroy with brass buttons and skin-fit trousers. “This is David Dorchester. You pronounce it Dorster, don’t you, lovey?”

  “Oh, yes, yes—Dorster.”

  “He’s just done the very best mod line in England and brought it over here. He’s exploded into our stinking reality, haven’t you, lovey?”

  “Oh—yes, quite.”

  “Four pages in Harper’s Bazaar, and you’re a friend of Andy’s—aren’t you, lovey?”

  “I admire him, of course. Read him and all that. Never met him. I would love to, really.”

  “See—he would love to, Monte. Monte is his beloved friend.”

  “How did you get here?” I asked him, if only to say something.

  “Oh, Jerry, brought me,” he said, nodding at a small, fat man who stood beside him, nursing a drink and perspiring copiously. “Jerry’s bought my line for America. Jerry has the mod field, and we’ll all be frightfully rich out of it. That kind of opportunity in America. The old country is very stodgy, you know.”

  Jerry smiled and oozed perspiration, and Liz asked him, “And how did you get here, Jerry? Friend of Andy’s?”

  “Admiration, dear lady.” He took out a
handkerchief that was soaking wet and mopped his brow. “Admirer. His publisher is my brother-in-law.”

  I got my Scotch on the rocks and broke out of there, and pushed my way through to the terrace, where I stood and shivered. I have been married twenty-four years, if you are curious. No children. I stood and shivered and drank the Scotch. Joe Jacobs joined me there.

  “Isn’t this one hell of a party,” he said. “You know, part of the cost ought to go on my swindle sheet. I will get three columns out of this and a couple of nights off the prowl. God bless you, Monte.”

  “I’m just a guest—same as you.”

  “Sure, sure—listen, Monte.” He consulted his little notebook. “Andy and the governor. Governor: ‘What are you writing now, Andy?’ Andy: ‘Nothing.’ (I imagine he hates that question. It’s a stupid question, and I guess every writer hates it.) Governor: ‘Well—I mean what are you planning?’ Andy:’Nothing. I don’t plan writing. You don’t plan an act of creation. It explodes inside of you and burns your gut until you rid yourself of it.’ Governor: ‘I never experienced quite that.’ Andy: ‘You’re rich. You have lots of things. Why the hell should you want creation? It’s pain. People don’t search for pain. They’re burdened with it.’ How about that, Monte?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t say that I really know what he’s talking about.”

  “Andy?”

  “Andy—yes.”

  “You’re a little fuzzy now.”

  “I’ve had one or two.”

  “Sure. Anyway, thank Andy, God bless him. I will try to quote him correctly. Tell him that. When I misquote him, he wants to tear me apart.”

  “I’ll tell him that.”

  My glass was empty, and I fought my way back to the bar. Liz was not there; neither was the blond boy with the mod suit. I didn’t see either of them again that night, and I hoped that the kid would please her and not turn out to be the way he looked.

  8

  At half past four in the morning, the party was over, and except for Andy’s entourage, only the red-headed belly dancer remained. She was stretched out on the couch in the living room, out cold and snoring softly. Somehow you never connect snoring with a big, sexy kid like that. Jane Pierce had kicked her way out of the debris about a half hour before, leaving me with one final look of alcoholic hostility. She had everything that a woman could want—figure, looks, brains and success—but she loved no one. Jose Peretz was beginning to clean up.