Canvas Coffin

by Gault, William Campbell

  “He wasn’t when I was out here before. He’s an artist turned photographer. He worked a lot with Brenda Vane. I didn’t know this was one of — those places, Luke. Doesn’t it give you the creeps?”

  “Yup, but it’s all a matter of taste, you know. Some pugs prefer this kind of company.”

  “Wrestlers, too, I hear.”

  “I was talking of the human race,” I said, “not wrestlers. Why do you think your friend wanted you to meet him here?”

  “I don’t know. Here he comes now.”

  The gent coming toward us wore a silver-blue suit of some soft and beautifully tailored material. He had a thin, finely modeled face and startling blue eyes. His hair was white silk, long and in perfect waves.

  “Sally, baby,” he said, as I rose. His voice was warm.

  “Hello, Michael,” she said. “Michael Lord, Luke Pilgrim.”

  His thin-fingered hand gripped mine strongly. “I’ve seen you fight,” he said. “You’re a true champion, Mr. Pilgrim.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Lots of sports writers would give you an argument on that.”

  “No, because I wouldn’t argue with a sports writer. I hear you’re doing very well, Sally. I see a lot of your work in the magazines.” He sat down on my side of the table.

  “I make a living,” Sally said. “How’s the photography?”

  “As a photographer,” he said easily, “I was nothing much. You’ll remember I wasn’t much of an artist, either. However, there’s another branch of the game at which I do very well.”

  Art studies, as they’re called, I thought.

  “Pornography?” Sally asked.

  “A blunt word.” He smiled at her. “You wanted to talk about Brenda Vane?”

  Sally nodded, studying Michael. “She posed for that sort of trash?”

  “She loved it. Brenda had an overpowering compulsion to debase herself. A masochist, too, you know.”

  “So I’ve heard. You, too, Michael?”

  “No. Money motivates me. I had no talent. You know I had no talent, Sally. But you did. And now you illustrate underwear advertisements. Which is the greater fall?”

  “Yours. Mine sells underwear. Why did you want to meet us here, Michael?”

  “I wanted to show you off to my friends, both of you. They’re prestige-conscious, these lads. They model for me, too, you know. I make all kinds of pictures, Sally. To suit any taste.”

  Flawlessly tailored, impeccably groomed, cleanly scented, he sat there, showing us the dry rot inside him.

  “Tell me about Brenda,” Sally said.

  I could feel the glances of the boys from time to time, as Michael Lord told Sally about Brenda. Michael’s fine face glowed as he talked glibly about Brenda, as he held us spellbound for the admiration of his stooges.

  He used a lot of words and told us nothing we didn’t know. Until he said, “She was shacked up with Sam Wald for a while, I heard. Remember, that’s just something I heard.”

  “That’s kind of coming down the ladder for Sam Wald, isn’t it?” I said. “He could do better than that.”

  “If you were in my business,” Lord said, “you’d never be amazed at a man’s taste. Brenda could offer a lot — to anybody.”

  Sally looked at me when he said that. Then she said, “I think we’d better hurry, Luke. The Bronsons will be waiting.”

  “The Bronsons” was a name we used when we wanted to get away fast. Sally looked pale.

  I paid the bill in a hurry and got her out of that refined atmosphere. Outside, she took a deep breath of air and stood quietly, looking up at the stars.

  Then she said quietly, “For two weeks in the spring of 1946, I was thinking of marrying Michael Lord. Isn’t he a monster, Luke?”

  “I think he’s kind of cute,” I said. “Where now?”

  “Underwear advertisements — he’s got his nerve, the puke.” She was looking out at the traffic on the street.

  “Well, you do a lot of them,” I said. “He’s about half right on that.”

  She turned to glare at me. “I’m not gifted. I’m talented, but not gifted. Do you understand the difference between those two words?”

  “I guess. Couldn’t you do illustrations for stories, or kids’ books, or something?”

  “I’ve done illustrations for stories. Kids’ books don’t pay my kind of commissions.” Her voice was sharp. “Are you criticizing me?”

  “No, honey, you’re criticizing yourself. I wonder where Charley Retzer is staying?”

  “Max would know. Why do you want to see Charley Retzer?”

  “Because Charley was out watching the box office on two Giani fights, the two fights right after Giani fought Charley.”

  “I don’t follow you, Luke.”

  “I was thinking Charley jobbed the Giani fight. And got a piece of Patsy’s next two matches in return. If Giani is afraid of an overhand right, I want to know it. That’s Charley’s best punch.”

  “But didn’t Giani almost kill Charley?”

  “Yes. And that’s easier when the other man isn’t trying.”

  “You mean Giani would do that, even if he — ”

  “Even if he knew he was going to win. In some ways, beloved, Patsy’s worse than I am.” We were driving now, and there was a drugstore about a block ahead. I said, “Stop near that drugstore; I’ll call a couple of the boys who should know where Charley’s staying.”

  The boys weren’t home, but I got his address from the hospital, the place I should have tried first.

  It was a motel on Pico, and there was a light in Charley’s unit. There was a sound of a radio, too, and as we came closer the sound of feminine voices, high and shrill.

  I knocked, and the voices stopped and Charley’s voice said, “That’s probably the manager. You babes giggle too much.”

  “Maybe I’d better wait in the car,” Sally said. “It can’t be any worse than the place we ate,” I told her.

  Then Charley was in the doorway, framed by the light behind him.

  A second, while his eyes focused to the dimness and then: “Champ! Hey, I been trying to get a hold of you.”

  “Meet my girl, Charley,” I said. “You’ve met Sal before, haven’t you?”

  “Hell, yes. I’m glad I didn’t get a hold of you, Champ. Hi, Sally. Nothing personal, kid.”

  “How personal can you get?” Sally asked. “I know there are two women in there. Is there, by chance, another man?”

  “He’s on the way,” Charley said easily. “Come on in and meet the folks.”

  The “folks” looked like a sister act, both synthetic blondes past their prime, one named Vera and one Vickie. Both had fine legs and the kind of brassières that made them look adequately endowed, even if they weren’t. These two probably were.

  The unit consisted of a living-room and kitchenette and alcove bedroom. Furnished in rattan, thick with smoke and the girls’ perfume.

  Charley snapped off the radio. “Drink, Luke?”

  “Not unless you have beer. Charley, I’ve been thinking of fighting Patsy Giani.”

  “So you told me.” The girls had gone to the bathroom, and this room was suddenly very quiet. Sally went over to sit on the rattan davenport.

  I said, “You should have licked him, Charley.”

  “Maybe. I haven’t any beer. How about you, Sal?”

  From the bathroom came the suppressed giggles of the blondes.

  “What are they doing, tickling each other?” Sally asked. “Ahh,” Charley said, “they’re good kids. What’ll it be, Sal?”

  “Nothing,” Sally said coolly. And added, “Thank you.” Charley smiled at me. “Why don’t you two get married?”

  I didn’t answer that. “You had a piece of Giani’s next two fights after your go with him, didn’t you?”

  “Not officially.” He studied me. “What gives, Luke?”

  “I was thinking Giani might have been afraid of you. I mean, his manager; I don’t think Patsy’s afraid of anybod
y.”

  “Neither am I, Luke. That’s rough talk. You saying I jobbed it?”

  “If you say you didn’t, I’ll believe you.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “This — if he was afraid of you, he was afraid of that overhand right, and though a weakness that basic doesn’t make sense, better men have had bigger blind spots. I know you got to me with it, in the seventh. If it’s true, I’d like you to work out with me for the fight.”

  “A spar-mate? Me? I should work out with you, for that kind of money?”

  “For good money. I’d make it worth your while, Charley. And the big gloves and headguards; who’d get hurt?”

  Giggling from the bathroom. A sigh from Sally.

  Charley shook his head. “You’re punchy. I’d like to see Giani get beat; that I’ll admit. Would you fight him here?”

  “Yes. He didn’t have to batter you like he did. Am I right?”

  “Maybe. You didn’t have to go crazy, either.”

  “I wasn’t quite right, after that punch in the seventh, Charley. Maybe I was rough. I don’t remember it.”

  He looked at me for seconds. “I don’t like the guy. I’d hate to see him hold the title. Give me a little time on it, Luke.”

  “Sure. I’ll let you know. Nothing’s definite, anyway. Well, keep your tail up, Charley.”

  “Mmmm-hmmm!” He smiled at Sally. “We’re friends?”

  She shook her head. “If you want, Luke, I can go home alone. I wouldn’t want you to disappoint Vicki. Or was Vera meant for you?”

  “They’re both for me,” Charley said. “I’m a two-gun man. Sally, you don’t know when you’re well off. You’ve got the cream of the crop, lady. Treat him right.”

  Sally said nothing, not even good night.

  The giggling started again as we walked to the car and the radio went on.

  “Tramp,” Sally said.

  Nothing from me.

  “First Michael with his underwear talk, and now this. Why don’t we know some decent people?”

  “We know us.”

  “The least he could have done is call it ‘lingerie.’ And Charley didn’t have to give me a sermon. They all think they’re right, don’t they?” She handed me the keys. “You drive for a change.”

  The Ford coughed into life. Sally sat on the far edge of the seat from me. She was lighting a cigarette.

  I headed the Ford west, toward the ocean.

  “Why are all fighters such — beasts? Is it because they were that to begin with? Or is it the fighting that does it?”

  “I don’t think they’re beasts,” I said. “Fighting kills some of the — oh, finer instincts in a man, maybe, but — ”

  “Some? All,” Sally said. “The canvas coffin. I wonder how many talents have been buried in a ring?”

  “I don’t know. Mickey Walker’s getting to be quite a painter. But I don’t know if he’s a good painter, or just a good painter for a former fighter, if you follow me.”

  “He’s good,” Sally said. “I’ve seen his work.”

  “Well, there’s an answer for you. He held three titles and was robbed of the fourth. He’d fight anything up to a platoon. And he’s still got his marbles.”

  “And how about you, Luke Pilgrim?”

  “I was always kind of a bastard, I guess. You’re not exactly the sweetest girl in the world, yourself, Mrs. Forester.”

  I cut over to Olympic, and down that, through the tunnel to the Ocean Highway. Sally turned her window down and threw out her cigarette.

  The moon was just a sliver in the clear sky, the water barely visible to our left. I cut the flivver into overdrive and snapped on the radio.

  In the right-hand lane, just loafing, the Santa Monica bluffs towering to our right, the lights of traffic stretching along the big curve toward Malibu.

  “Some day this has been,” I said.

  No answer from Sally. The radio was giving us the Basin Street Six and the flivver was murmuring to herself. “This is where I’d like to live,” I said. “Near the water.” No comment from my love.

  “Up there in the hills,” I went on, “a modern house, with a nice sun deck. I could lay there all day and — ”

  “Lie there,” Sally corrected me. “Would you be alone?”

  “On the sun deck, I’d be alone. You’d be in the house, sweeping and dusting and like that.”

  “You wouldn’t need me. Charley could bring over a couple of floozies.”

  “Oh, lay off, or lie off, or what the hell it is. Jesus, did I suggest any floozies? Have I ever fiddled with floozies since we met?”

  “I don’t know. How would I know?”

  “If you don’t believe in me,” I said, “leave me. Don’t needle me, just walk out. I wanted to get married. You’re the one who doesn’t want to get married.”

  Silence, and then I could hear her slide over, and then a hand was on my knee, squeezing. “I’m sorry, honey. First, that ridiculous bed this morning, and then that nasty Michael Lord and then those peroxide pukes Charley had waiting for you. It’s been an awfully depressing day.”

  “I probably didn’t use the bed,” I pointed out, “and you didn’t marry Michael Lord and even if you hadn’t come to town I’d have had nothing to do with Vera or Vickie. You’re just a natural sour puss.”

  “Well, then, what about the underwear crack? You know why that hurts, don’t you? Because it’s true.”

  “Well, quit it, then. Go back to serious painting.”

  “And starve to death? No, thanks.” Then she squeezed my knee again. “Look, Luke — seals!”

  On the opposite side of the road, here, a seafood place. And next to it, well floodlighted, a huge concrete tank. Three seals were silhouetted against the lights, their necks arched, their heads back, as though baying at the moon.

  The road was clear; I swung in a U-turn and pulled into the parking-lot flanking the tank.

  As I got out of the car, I was facing the road, and I saw this sedan going by in the direction I’d been traveling. It was only through a lucky combination of light and reflection that the face of the driver was momentarily clear.

  It was the big redheaded cop, Sergeant Nolan.

  There were one male and two females, barking their hoarse barks, stretching their necks toward us.

  “We can get fish at the store here,” Sally said. “Let’s feed them.”

  “We’re being followed,” I said. “Sergeant Nolan just went by.”

  “Who cares? I’ll get the fish.”

  The three seals stared at me, making not a sound. Then the male arched his neck toward one of the females and groaned some message. She answered, and I got the feeling they were talking about me. And not favorably. They continued to stare.

  Sally brought the fish, and we put the seals to work. They flopped and flipped and stretched their smooth necks as they waddled along the board runways. They dove for those we threw in the water, and made general asses of themselves.

  “I feel better now,” I said. “When they were laughing at me, I felt kind of inferior, but look how silly they get over a few fish.”

  “Look how silly we all get over a few fish,” she said. “Money, money, money — We even do underwear advertisements.”

  “Honey,” I said soothingly, “it sells underwear, as you told Michael. And that puts a lot of people to work. You’re contributing to the welfare of all the people who make underwear. Besides, you’re not gifted, as you admitted.”

  We were back in the ear now, and she was wiping her hands on a piece of Kleenex. “Don’t be so patronizing. Just because you’re the champion in your trade, and you know it, don’t be so damned lofty and-logical.”

  “I don’t know if I’m champ, or not,” I said. “That’s why I’m going to fight Giani.”

  “I thought that was why. All the other reasons were a lot of rationalizing. You like the top of your little ant heap, don’t you?”

  “Mmmm-hmm. And so would you, and just about
everybody else. We built a whole civilization on it.”

  “Please,” she said. “You sound like the NAM. I like you better when you talk about things you understand.”

  “To hell with you,” I said.

  I jabbed the starter button, goosed the flivver in reverse, scattering gravel.

  She was chuckling. “The road-show Walter Lippmann.”

  I burned quietly, making the flivver hum. The radio had gone on with the ignition; Dixieland blared at us.

  Traffic was thin and the Ford logging. Sally reached over to soften the blare of the Dixieland. “I’m sorry, Luke. I’m honestly sorry. But you sounded so — pompous. And I feel so — so unworthy, since dinner.”

  Ahead a traffic light turned red and I slowed the car.

  “That’s where Sunset ends,” Sally said. “Let’s take Sunset back. I like the way it winds.”

  I cut over to the left lane, saying nothing.

  “Don’t sulk,” Sally said. “What time is it?”

  “Nine-thirty.”

  “We could still see a movie. There’s a good one at the Bay. I noticed it this morning.”

  This morning seemed like a hundred years away. To our right, as we climbed Sunset, was a cult of some sort, and for a moment, I thought I saw a windmill in the moving flash of the headlights.

  Then there was a break in the foliage around the pond, and the lights of a car coming down the hill revealed the windmill at the edge of the water.

  Sally saw it, too. “Luke, look — ”

  “I saw it.”

  “Anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  Her hand was back on my knee. “Friends?”

  “I guess.”

  The old Bernheimer Gardens to our right, the new houses to our right and left, not cheap, but looking raw and temporary. Lights dotting the hills to our left, more new houses, with a view of the sea to the front and the hills all around them.

  “Lord, this town has grown,” Sally said. “George used to go deer-hunting in those hills, up there.”

  “Who cares about George?”

  “Sears Roebuck. There’s the place, Luke.”

  Redwood and pastel-yellow stucco, the four-unit building that had housed Mary Kostanic, known as Brenda Vane.

  Sally imitated the landlady’s Midwestern nasal. “Nothing cheap about Brenda.” And in her own voice, “Maroon silk sheets. Well, they probably don’t show spots.”