Night of Fire and Snow

by Alfred Coppel

  He heard a key in the latch downstairs. The sound of the door opening and closing. And then a heavy, clumping step on the stairway.

  Miguel’s hands were trembling as he crushed the cigarette out in an ash tray.

  Tom came into the living room. His face was heavier, his body thicker. His hair had thinned a little. Miguel’s eyes went involuntarily to his legs.

  Tom said quietly, “They fixed me up pretty good, Mike.”

  Miguel sat where he was and shook his head. He couldn’t speak.

  Tom walked slowly across the room and stopped in front of Miguel. He extended his hand. “It’s been too long, Spick. But I’m glad you came.”

  Miguel took his hand. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner, Tom,” he said.

  The grip of Tom’s hand was still strong and warm.

  “How’s Nora, Mike?”

  “All right. Doing well.”

  Tom walked to the window and looked out. Miguel winced at his stiff-legged gait. “Naturally, she would be.”

  Miguel said nothing.

  “I don’t mind any more,” Tom said. “You met Kate.”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s quite a girl. I met her while I was in the hospital. She was an Army nurse. We’ve been married five years.”

  “She told me.”

  Tom turned around and looked at Miguel with a half-smile. “You know what they say about the love of a good woman? Well, it’s true.”

  Miguel nodded.

  “Around here no one even knows I was ever married to Nora Ames. I like it that way.” He lit a cigarette and sat down beside Miguel, looking at the carpet with that same half-smile on his face. “I even take Kate to see Nora’s pictures. You might say we’re fans of hers.”

  He paused and then said, “By the way. Karl Olinder called here yesterday. He warned me you might show up. He wants you to get in touch.”

  “Karl knew I’d come here,” Miguel said thoughtfully.

  “Spick,” Tom said. “I’m sorry about you and Alaine. I had a lot of time to think about it in the hospital. I could have saved it, I think. If I’d done the right thing.”

  “No. No one could have done anything.”

  “You’re wrong, Mike. Sorry, but you are. I should have kept Nora off your back. But I was hurt. I guess I didn’t want the same sort of life Ella and Oliver had.” He silenced Miguel’s protest with a gesture. “I know what you’re going to say. That Ella isn’t so bad. Spick, she even shacked up with Martin Alberg—that little zero. You knew all about that.”

  “I didn’t think you did, Tom,” Miguel said.

  “You were always the innocent one,” Tom said. “Right from that summer on the river when we were kids, I knew about it. I was so goddam ashamed I didn’t know what to do about it except be the big operator, the Mr. Know-it-all.”

  Miguel thought of Tom in the vineyard, of Tom the sophisticate, Tom the worldly one. How little we knew of one another, he thought, when we needed to know so much.

  “I had no idea you knew,” Miguel said. “I wish I had known.”

  “What for? Could you have helped me? Remember that day on your father’s boat when Ollie went after that big blonde?

  You knew then and you tried to help. But there’s nothing anyone can do.” He gave Miguel a twisted, mirthless smile. “Oh, I did a lot of thinking in the hospital, Spick. I thought about how I leaned on you. All along. I leaned on you so much that when the time came to stand on my own feet—“ Miguel swallowed hard and tried not to look at the plastic machines Tom wore—“I couldn’t. I tried to kill us both and damn near did it.”

  Tom massaged his thighs with his hands. “It wasn’t easy, any of it, Spick. I used to he in the hospital hating you and Nora. But pretty soon I had to start thinking for myself, too. Kate helped. I used to talk to her at night when I couldn’t sleep, when the pill-peddlers had me so full of hop I had to talk or go crazy. And I’d remember things that made it hard for me to keep on hating anyone. I’d think about what I wanted out of my marriage to Nora and I’d think what a damn fool I was to think I could have gotten it from her. You remember the first night—that party at my folks’ place when that son of a bitch from downstairs came up and took Ella into the bedroom? Nora never let me forget it. To give her her due, I guess that kind of respectability wasn’t what she wanted. You can’t blame her for that.”

  He stood up and went again to the window, pulling the drape aside so that he could watch the street below. “And that night at Major Cavell’s place. If Nora had hung a sign up saying she was going to get you away from Alaine it wouldn’t have been any plainer. I could have stopped it. I could have gotten the hell out of the Flight Section and taken her with me. But I didn’t. And then that day on the airplane. Nora had told me the whole story that morning and I went rocky and tried to kill us both. God, if you only knew how many times since then I’ve broken out in a cold sweat thinking about that day. I was a phony, Spick. I didn’t want to die—not really. And if it hadn’t been for you, I’d have stayed up there on the mountain.”

  He turned to face Miguel and said, “You know what Kate said to me last night after Olinder called? She said, ‘If he doesn’t come here I want you to find him.’ It’s important to her, you see?”

  “She said that?”

  Tom nodded. “I guess she knew that as long as you and I stayed apart I’d never really have Nora and the whole business off my mind.”

  “Yes,” Miguel said thoughtfully. “I can see that.”

  “I was the one who asked for the divorce,” Tom said. “Not Nora.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “There would be no reason for her to tell you, would there? The only thing is—if I’d had any idea of what it would do to you and Alaine I never would have let it happen. I swear it. When I read that book of yours—The Exile? You poor bastard, I wanted to bawl my eyes out for you, for me, for all of us. Maybe even for Nora, too. Because she isn’t ever going to have what she really wants. It doesn’t make sense, Spick, but there it is. In some crazy way both Nora and I thought we could get what we needed from you.”

  “I’ve never had much to give anyone,” Miguel said.

  “Let me finish. I got into the habit of turning to you a long while ago. Ollie and the old lady couldn’t give me what I had to have. You always did. Remember the money you got for me from Becky? I’ve often wondered what that cost you. More than two hundred bucks, I’ll bet my neck.” He drew a hand across his mouth and studied Miguel’s face somberly. “I had no business going into the Air Corps. You know it, and I do too.”

  “Alberg told me something like that once.”

  “That mealy-mouthed little snot,” Tom said. “But he was right. Oliver wanted it. He was a hotrock with a Sam Browne belt and a Sopwith Camel for six months and then he never did another damn thing all the rest of his life. That’s what he wanted for me. He meant well. It was all he knew. So I had to do it, too. I figured I could get through with you around. I did, too. Until you were shipped to Hamilton to fly for Kirbee and I was left in the fighter group. I got scared. You know what I did? I’ve never told this to a living soul. Not even Kate.”

  “You don’t have to tell me anything, Tom.”

  “Hell, I want to. Listen. I came down from Moses Lake on a weekend pass and I went to see your father. I begged him to get me transferred to the headquarters Flight Section.” Tom looked down into his cup and said, “I knew how things were with you and your dad. I told him you wanted it. I gave him the idea things would be better between you if he did this for me. And every time I’d hear you cursing his guts for not letting you go to war I would want to sink through the goddam floor. For a while I was able to convince myself I hated your insides—but it was really mine I couldn’t stand.” Tom pushed the cup away sadly and added, “So how do you forgive something like that? Your dad must have died thinking you wouldn’t even thank him for a favor to me. I knew he’d do anything for you and I took advantage of it. Does it do any go
od now to tell you how sorry I am?” Miguel said, touched, “You have nothing to be sorry for, Uncle.”

  “You mean that?”

  “I never meant anything more. The only thing either of us has to regret is all the wasted years.” Miguel was filled with a warmth, a sense of having discovered something he had always thought was lacking in his life. “You don’t owe me a thing, Uncle,” he said.

  Tom looked around the apartment. “Except all this.”

  Miguel sat back and relaxed, stretching his legs out.

  “How about some coffee? I’ll get it.”

  “Don’t move,” Tom said. “You had a rough night.”

  Miguel looked at his watch. It was eleven o’clock. “This is Saturday, isn’t it?”

  Tom nodded and poured the black coffee. “What are your plans now?”

  “I had a car last night. I think I left it down on Bay Street.”

  “I’ll drive you over. Then what?”

  “I think I want to see Dorrie,” Miguel said slowly.

  Tom nodded. They heard Katharine come in. She entered the kitchen looking flushed and pretty. “It’s chilly out,” she said. “Fall is really here.” She glanced at Tom and when she saw that he was smiling, she smiled too.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The Ford was parked on Bay Street. It had a traffic tag on the windshield. Miguel got out of Tom’s Buick and stood by the open driver’s window.

  “Thanks for everything, Tom. I mean that.”

  Tom’s big hand enfolded his. “I’m glad you came back, Spick. I can’t tell you how glad I am.” He paused and then asked, “What do you do now?”

  “Back to the hotel first. I’ll get in touch with Olinder and see what’s on his mind.”

  “He won’t be in today, will he?”

  “I can get him at home.”

  “Then what?”

  “Nosey bastard, aren’t you,” Miguel said, smiling.

  “Hollywood and Nora, Spick?”

  “I don’t know, Tom. I really don’t know yet.”

  “You don’t want any advice. I know that.”

  “No, I don’t. For the first time in my life, I really don’t.”

  “You’ll be all right?”

  “I can’t promise that. But I’m going to try, Tom. I’m going to try like hell.”

  “No more nights like last night, boy. You were on the deck.”

  “Agreed, friend. You can’t stay on the bottom. Something has to give. I was ready for the deep six before I saw you and Kate. I’m better now.”

  “Are you going to see Alaine?”

  “Don’t look for the happy ending, Uncle. It isn’t always that simple. But the answer is yes, I am going to see her. For a little while, at least.” And then he added thoughtfully, “If I can.”

  “Don’t be a stranger, Spick.”

  “No, Tom. I won’t be.”

  “No matter what. Even if it’s the dream factory and Nora.”

  “That’s a promise.”

  “We’ll be looking for you,” Tom said, and put the car in gear. Miguel stepped back and said, “Cheers, boy.”

  He watched him drive away. The sky overhead was bright and clear and a brisk wind blew in from the Marina. It smelled of salt water and the bay.

  He got into his rented car and drove up Bay Street to Columbus and through the Saturday traffic up to Nob Hill.

  He was thinking of Tom and Kate. Tom with his plastic legs and his speed shop and his Kate. He smiled a bit remembering the day Tom had taught him the rudiments of sex in the vineyard at the river. That all seemed a million years ago. And it was, too. Beyond the barrier of the war, before Alaine and Nora and even before Allie Wylie. He thought of all the things that went into the making of a man and wondered if any one thing could have been omitted in the development of the person he had become. He thought of Sandy Johnson and Midge—Midge married now to Lawt Higby and Sandy almost forgotten by those who had known him. When he thought of him at all it was because the night he died had been the beginning of something else for him. The Allie Wylie thing. The first outlines of a lovely, poignant and utterly false memory—

  He left the car in the courtyard and went inside the lobby to pick up his key. The desk clerk handed him a telegram and said,

  “There is a lady waiting for you, Mr. Rinehart. In the Peacock Lounge.”

  Miguel thought: Alaine.

  He walked swiftly across the lobby and into the lower bar. The place was nearly empty. The woman was there, all right, drinking a silver fizz and watching the entryway. It was Nora. He went over to her table and said, “Hello, Nora.”

  “Surprised?” she asked. “Or disappointed?”

  “I thought you’d be in Hollywood by this time.” He looked around. “Is Victor with you?”

  “I came alone, Mike.”

  “How did you know where to find me?”

  She threw her head back and smiled at him. “I knew you’d come here.”

  This was where it all started, Miguel thought. Right here on a night twelve years ago. So Nora was quite right in looking for him here. It couldn’t be any other way.

  “Won’t you sit down?”

  He lowered himself into a chair and said, “We’re being polite, Nora.”

  “I have to be, don’t I? You’re still angry.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not angry.”

  “There’s a chill in here, then.”

  “Nora,” he said. “Don’t.”

  She looked at him with one eyebrow raised. “Don’t what?”

  Her arch hostility sucked some of the life from him and he said, “All right, Nora, what is it?”

  “Isn’t that a strange sort of thing to ask me? Where were you last night, Mike?”

  “What are you doing now, Nora? Leaning a bit on the curb rein?” He tamped a cigarette on the table and lit it. She extended her hand and he gave it to her and lit another for himself. “Is there any reason I should tell you where I was or what I was doing?”

  “You were with a woman, that’s obvious.”

  “All right,” Miguel said in a tight voice. “I was with a woman. What else?”

  “Were you?”

  “What else?”

  “Did you see Alaine?” she asked lightly.

  “No.”

  “I don’t believe you, Mike,” Nora said. “What did Beautiful Person have to say to you? Is she ready to welcome you back into her bed?”

  Miguel began to feel the old suffocating sense of entrapment. Nora seemed to surround him so that no matter where he looked for escape, she was there with the right things to say to whip him back into line. It came as a shock, too, to realize that he was looking for escape from her. How long, he wondered, had he been thinking this way without realizing it? J. C. had sensed it, and so had Karl.

  “Nora,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me Tom was married again?”

  She began to laugh. “So that’s it.”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “Is it so important?”

  “It’s important that you saw fit not to tell me,” he said.

  Her bright gold-flecked eyes were narrowed. The flesh seemed stretched over the fine bones of her face. “So you’ve seen my dear ex-husband.”

  “Yes,” he said. “You know what it does to us?”

  “Us? You mean you and me, I take it. Why should it, as you put it, do anything to us?”

  “If you really don’t know, I can’t tell you.” He flexed the fingers of his aching hand. Nora glanced at it.

  “Is that from Tony?”

  He shook his head and said, “I hit something a lot tougher than boola-boola Ayula.”

  “You know, of course, that Tony is going to have a bridge? You broke one of his front teeth.”

  “That’s a damn shame. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  “You certainly look sorry.”

  Miguel was filled with a thick weariness. They were bogging down into trivia and bickering and he wanted to be do
ne with it. He stood up and said, “I have to go upstairs, Nora.”

  “Ill come with you.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  Her eyes glittered with angry disbelief. “You can’t do this, Mike. Not this way.”

  He felt something tighten inside himself. “Watch me,” he said. He turned and walked out into the lobby.

  Nora was right behind him when he reached the desk. The clerk said, “There’s a call for you, Miss Ames. Hollywood.”

  Nora said to Miguel, “It’s Victor, Mike.” To the clerk, she said, “Have the call transferred to Mr. Rinehart’s room. I’ll take it there.”

  “You’re really backing me into a corner, aren’t you?” Miguel said. “You’re going to make this tough.”

  “I’m not going to let you make a fool of yourself, if that’s what you mean.”

  They stepped into the elevator together and rode in silence to Miguel’s floor. She followed him down the corridor and he unlocked the door and stood aside to let her into the room.

  She turned quickly as he shut the door and put her arms around him. “Mike,” she said huskily. “Let’s not fight, darling.” He took her arms from around his neck and shook his head. “Sorry, Nora. Not this time.”

  “You’re still angry with me.”

  “I’m not angry, Nora. Try to understand that.”

  “Then why are you acting like this? I’m not one of your little tramps, Mike. I’m not just some floozy you picked up on the plane.” Her voice held a note of prideful steeliness. He looked at her smart suit and the expensive elegance of her jewels and he was remembering a night twelve years ago when a girl in a tight skirt and sweater had walked in and the piano player timed his music to her entrance. What was the song? “You Are Always in My Heart.” And now the magic was gone and Nora Ames was telling him she wasn’t just one of his tramps—

  “We’re finished, Nora,” he said. “We were really finished when I stepped on that airplane to go to Paris, only we didn’t know it—”

  “I still don’t know it,” Nora said. “I never will.”

  “Nora,” he said quietly. “Once, a long time ago, you asked me to tell you when you were doing something wrong. I don’t know if you remember it, but I do. You wore an evening perfume to go to the beach and I said something about it and you made me promise I’d always let you know when something wasn’t right for you. I’m telling you now, Nora. This isn’t right for you. Don’t act like this.”