Nightwork

by Irwin Shaw

  “Of course,” Fabian said calmly. “We’ll be in all the papers. Don’t worry, Gentle Heart. I took her aside and told her that her—ah—her connection to us must remain a closely guarded secret. She swore by the head of her mother. Dora,” he said, “you realize that anything we say here is never to be repeated anywhere.”

  “Of course, Mr. Fabian.” She looked puzzled. “I really don’t understand. Who is Priscilla Dean?”

  “A low woman,” Fabian said. “I’m glad to see that you don’t go to the movies or read filthy magazines.”

  We finished the bottle of champagne without any more toasts.

  Henry was waiting for me when I got to the restaurant a little after twelve. He was not alone. Seated next to him on the banquette was a very pretty young woman with long auburn hair. He stood up as I came over to the table and shook my hand warmly. He was not wearing glasses, his teeth were capped and even, he was tanned and healthy-looking and had put on weight. He had dyed his hair and he could have passed for a man of thirty. “Doug,” he said, “I want you to meet my fiancée. Madeleine, my brother.”

  I shook hands with the lady, choking back questions. “Hank has told me so much about you,” Madeleine said. She had a low, pleasant voice.

  I sat down, facing them. I noticed that there were no drinks on the table. “Madeleine has never been out here,” Henry said, “and she thought she’d like to take a look.”

  “I really wanted to meet you,” she said, staring directly at me. She had big gray eyes that I guessed could be blue in some lights. She did not look like a woman who was engaged to a man who was reputed in some quarters to be impotent.

  “This calls for a drink. Waiter …” I called.

  “Not for us, thanks,” Henry said. “I’m off the stuff.” He sounded slightly defiant, as though challenging me to comment. I said nothing.

  “And I’ve never been on it,” Madeleine said.

  “In that case, no drinks,” I said to the waiter.

  “Shall we order?” Henry said. “I’m afraid we’re pressed for time.”

  Madeleine stood up and Henry and I stood up with her. “I won’t be having lunch with you gentlemen,” she said. “I know you have a lot to talk over. I’ll take a walk and look around this pretty little town and come back and join you for coffee.”

  “Don’t get lost,” Henry said.

  She laughed. “Not a chance,” she said.

  Henry’s face as he watched her walk toward the door was curiously intense. She had slender legs, a good figure, and her walk was ladylike but sensual. Henry seemed to be holding his breath, as though he had momentarily forgotten to breathe.

  “Holy man,” I said, as the door closed behind her, “what is all this?”

  “Isn’t she something?” he said, as he sat down.

  “She’s a lovely girl,” I said with conviction. I didn’t say it to flatter either him or her. “Now, spill it.”

  “I’m getting a divorce.”

  I nodded. “It’s about time, I guess.”

  “More than about time.”

  “Where are your glasses?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Contact lenses,” he said. “That friend of yours, Fabian, sure sent me to the right man. Give him my regards when you see him.”

  “You can do that yourself. I just left him.”

  “I’d love to. But I have to be back in New York by four.”

  “What were you doing in New York this morning?” Somehow, it had never occurred to me that it was possible for my brother to escape Scranton.

  “I live there,” Henry said. “Madeleine has an apartment there. And the business moved up to Orangeburg. That’s just about thirty minutes from the city.”

  The waiter had come back by now with two glasses of water. Henry ordered shrimp cocktail and a steak. His appetite, as well as his appearance, had improved.

  “I appreciate your coming all the way out here to see me, Hank,” I said, “but what was the hurry? Why did it have to be today?”

  “The lawyers want to have a handshake on the deal this afternoon,” he said. “We’ve been working on it for three months and they’ve finally got everything together and they don’t want to give the other side time to come up with more objections. You know how lawyers are.”

  “Not really,” I said. “What deal?”

  “I didn’t want to bother you with it until it was definite,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind. Now if you’ll begin at the beginning …”

  “I told you the business looked promising …”

  “Yes.” Guiltily, I remembered that I had considered the word “promising” in his mouth as a synonym for failure.

  “Well, it turned out to be a lot better than that.” He was silent as the waiter put the shrimp cocktail and my salad in front of us. When the waiter had left, he said, “Better than any of us ever dreamed.” He dug heartily into the cocktail. “We had to expand almost immediately. We have more than a hundred people working for us in the plant right now. The stock’s not on any of the boards yet, but it’s gone way up in value. We’ve had feelers from a half-dozen companies who want to buy us out. The biggest offer is from Northern Industries. It’s a huge conglomerate. You must have heard of them. …”

  “No,” I said, “I’m afraid I haven’t.”

  He looked at me disapprovingly, like a teacher at a pupil who neglected his homework in school. “Anyway, they’re huge,” he said. “Take my word for it. They’re the people who’re ready to give us the go sign today. They’re ready to offer us—our company, that is—a half million dollars.” He sat back and let this sink in. “Does the figure grab you?”

  “It grabs me,” I said.

  “We should have the money within a couple of months,” Henry said, resuming his meal. “What’s more, we—the two boys who came up with the idea and myself—retain running control of the business for the next five years—now, listen to this—at three times the salaries we’ve been paying ourselves, plus stock options. You’d be in on the options, of course, along with me. …”

  I wished Fabian was there at that lunch. It was the sort of thing he would wallow in.

  The waiter brought Henry his steak and he began to wolf it down hungrily, eating a baked potato and a roll, both heavily buttered, along with it. Before long he would have to watch his diet. “Figure it out, Doug,” he said, through a mouthful of food, “you put in twenty-five thousand. Our third of the stock will bring us thirty-three percent of half a million. That’s one hundred and sixty-six thousand. Your two-thirds of that …”

  “I can do the arithmetic,” I said.

  “That’s without taking into account the options,” Henry said, continuing eating. Either the hot food or the chanting of enormous figures had made his face flush and he was sweating. “Even with today’s inflation and all that crap …”

  I nodded. “It’s a nice bundle.”

  “I promised you you’d never regret it, didn’t I?” he said harshly.

  “So you did.”

  “No more other people’s money,” he said. He stopped eating and put his knife and fork down. He looked at me soberly. His eyes, through the contact lenses, were deep and clear. The little red furrows on the side of his nose had disappeared. “You saved me from drowning, Doug,” he said in a low voice. “I can never thank you enough and I won’t try.”

  “Don’t try,” I said.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “I mean—well—about everything?”

  “Couldn’t be better.”

  “You look good, kid, you really do.”

  “And so do you,” I said.

  “Well—” He shifted uneasily on the banquette. “The decision is finally up to you. Is it yes or no?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

  He smiled widely and picked up his knife and fork again. He finished his steak and ordered blueberry pie a la mode for dessert.

  “You’d better get some exercise, Hank,�
�� I said, “if you’re going to eat like that.”

  “I’m taking up tennis again.”

  “Come on out here and play sometime,” I said. “There’re a thousand courts at this end of the island.”

  “That’d be nice. I’d like to meet your wife, too.”

  “Anytime.” Then I began to laugh.

  He looked at me suspiciously. “What’re you laughing about?”

  “On the way to town this morning,” I said, “after you called, I made up my mind that when I saw you today I wasn’t going to let you have one cent more than ten thousand dollars.”

  For a moment he looked hurt. Then he began to laugh, too. We were both laughing, a little hysterically, when Madeleine came back to the restaurant to join us for coffee.

  “What’s the joke?” Madeleine asked as she sat down.

  “A family affair,” I said. “Brother stuff.”

  “Henry will tell me later,” she said. “He tells me everything. Don’t you, Henry?”

  “Everything,” he said. He took her hand and kissed it affectionately. He had never been an open or demonstrative man, but that, too, I saw had changed, along with the eyes, the teeth, the appetite. If stealing a hundred thousand dollars from a dead old man could put the expression that I saw now on Henry’s face, felony became a virtue and I would steal ten times over from ten dead men.

  When I took them to their car, Madeleine gave me their address. “You must come and see us soon,” she said.

  “I will,” I promised. None of us had any idea of how soon it was going to be.

  The show, Fabian assured me, was a great success. At one time there must have been more than sixty cars parked outside the barn. The room remained crowded, as people came and went. The champagne got a good deal of serious attention, but so did the paintings. What comments I could overhear in the din of conversation were enthusiastic. “All on the plus side,” Fabian whispered to me when we both found ourselves together for a moment at the bar. I didn’t see the critic from The Times, but Fabian told me he liked the expression on the man’s face. By eight o’clock, Dora had put red tabs on four of the big oils and six of the small ones. “Phenomenal,” Fabian exulted as he passed me. “And a lot of people have told me they’re coming back. What a pity Lily couldn’t be here. She’d adorn the room. And she loves parties.” His speech was a little thick. He hadn’t eaten all day and he had a glass in his hand at all times. I had never seen him drunk before. I hadn’t thought he could get drunk.

  Evelyn seemed somewhat dazed by it all. Quite a few of the guests were theater and movie people, and there were four or five well-known writers whom she recognized but had never met. In Washington, she had never been impressed by the Senators or ambassadors she had known, but this was a world that was new to her and she was almost tongue-tied when she had to talk to a man whose book she admired or an actress who had moved her on the stage. I found it an endearing weakness. “Your friend, Miles,” she said to me, shaking her head. “He knows everybody.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I said.

  Evelyn had to go home early, because she had promised Anna the night off. “Congratulations, darling,” she said as I accompanied her outside to her car. “It’s been splendid.” She kissed me and said, “I’ll be waiting up for you.”

  The night air was cool after the heat of the crowded gallery and I stood outside for a few minutes, enjoying the clear, unsmoky evening air. I saw a big Lincoln Continental drive up and Priscilla Dean get out with two graceful young men. The men were in dinner jackets and Priscilla was wearing a long black dress, with a bright red cape thrown over her bare shoulders. She didn’t see me and I didn’t think I had to go over to say hello to her. I followed them warily into the gallery. There was a little hush as she entered the room, and eyes turned in her direction, but the conversation rose quickly to normal pitch. It was a polite and well-mannered group, and I guessed that most of the people there, like Dora, were not the sort who patronized the kind of theaters in which The Sleeping Prince was playing, or subscribed to the magazines in which Priscilla Dean, unclothed, was so prominently featured.

  Fabian himself escorted her to the bar. I didn’t see her look at a single painting. By the time all the other guests had left, it was past ten o’clock and she was alone at the bar. Drunk. Very drunk. When there had still been a dozen or so people in the room, the two young men had tried to persuade her to leave. “We’re expected for dinner, Prissy, darling,” one of them had said. “We’re way overdue. Come on. Please.”

  “Fuck dinner,” Priscilla said.

  “We have to go,” the other young man had said.

  “Go,” Priscilla said, steadying herself against the bar. Her cape had fallen to the floor and a generous portion of her excellent upper body was on view. “And fuck you, too. Tonight I’m an art lover. Fags. My old friend from Paris, Miles Fabian, will take me home, won’t you, Miles?”

  “Of course, dear,” Fabian said, without enthusiasm.

  “He’s an old man,” Priscilla said, “but oo la, la. Nadine Bonheur has spread the word from Passy to Vincennes. A for effort. Très bien. That’s French, you fags.”

  By now, the last of the guests had vanished. I gave silent thanks that Priscilla had arrived on the scene late and that Evelyn had had to go home to mind the baby. Dora was staring at Priscilla with her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. She had told us when we interviewed her that she was looking for a quiet, clean job where she could catch up on her reading. I avoided Fabian’s eyes.

  “Stop hanging around, for shit’s sake,” Priscilla said to the two young men. “One thing I can’t stand is people hanging around.”

  The two young men looked at each other and shrugged. They said good night civilly to Fabian and me and told us how much they had liked the paintings. “Incidentally,” the older of the two said, “we’re not homosexual. We’re brothers.” They made their exit with dignity, and a minute later I heard the Lincoln Continental start up and go off.

  Fabian bent to pick Priscilla’s cape from the floor. He staggered a little and almost fell, but recovered quickly. He put the cape over Priscilla’s shoulders. “Time to go beddy-bye, dear,” he said. “I shouldn’t drive in my condition—” At least, I realized gratefully, he wasn’t that far gone. “But Douglas will drive us nice and slowly.”

  “Your condition.” Priscilla laughed raucously. “I know what your condition is, you old goat. Give me a kiss, Daddy.” She held out her arms.

  “In the car,” Fabian said.

  Priscilla held onto the table. “I won’t budge until I get my kiss,” she said.

  With an uneasy glance at Dora, who had shrunk back against the wall, Fabian leaned over and kissed Priscilla. Priscilla wiped her mouth with the back of her hands, smudging her lipstick. “I heard you can do better than that,” she said. “What’s the matter—out of practice? Maybe you ought to go back to France.” But she allowed Fabian to lead her to the door.

  “Dora,” Fabian called back, “put out the lights and lock the doors. We’ll clean up in the morning.”

  “Yes, Mr. Fabian,” Dora whispered.

  We left her there, not moving, rigid against the wall, as we went out.

  Priscilla insisted upon sitting between us in the front seat. “Cuddly,” she said. She had spilled champagne down the front of her dress and the smell was unpleasant. I rolled down my window before I turned on the ignition.

  “Now, dear,” Fabian said, “where are you staying?”

  “Springs,” Priscilla said. “That’s it. Springs.”

  “Where exactly in Springs, dear?” Fabian said patiently. “What road?”

  “How the hell do I know what road?” Priscilla said. “Just drive. I’ll show you the way.”

  “What’s the name of the people you’re staying with? We could call them and they could give us directions.” Fabian sounded like a policeman trying to get information from a lost child on a crowded beach. “Surely, you must know the name of
the people you’re staying with.”

  “Of course I do. Levy, Cohen, McMahon, something like that. Who cares? A bunch of jerks.” Priscilla leaned over and turned on the radio. The music from The Bridge on the River Kwai crashed through the car. “Come on, Mr. Clean,” she said angrily to me, “get this crate moving. You know where Springs is, I hope.”

  “Go to Springs,” Fabian said.

  I started the car. But two minutes after we had passed the sign that read, Welcome to Springs, I knew it would be a miracle if we ever found the house that Priscilla was gracing with her presence that weekend. I slowed down at every fork and crossroad and every house we passed, but Priscilla only shook her head and said, “No, that’s not it.”

  No matter how much money we were making from The Sleeping Prince, I thought, as I drove, it wasn’t worth this.

  “We’re just wasting time,” Priscilla said. “I got an idea. I have two girl friends in Quogue. On the beach. You can at least find the Atlantic Ocean in Quogue, can’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “They’re fantastic. Original swingers. You’ll love them. Let’s go to Quogue and have a gang bang.”

  “Quogue is an hour away from here,” Fabian said. He sounded very tired.

  “So Quogue is an hour away. So what?” Priscilla demanded. “Let’s have some fun.”

  “We’ve had a very long day,” Fabian said.

  “Who hasn’t?” Priscilla said. “On to Quogue.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow night,” Fabian said.

  “Fags,” Priscilla said.

  We were running through woods, on a small, dark back road that I didn’t recognize, and I wasn’t sure how I could get back to town without roaming all over the Hamptons for hours. I had just about decided to try to make my way back to East Hampton and find a hotel room for Priscilla and dump her on the sidewalk, if necessary, when my headlights picked up a car facing me, pulled over to the side of the road, with its hood up and two men looking down into the motor. I stopped the car and called out, “I wonder if you two gentlemen could tell me where …”