The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything

by John D. MacDonald

  “Go away!” she yelled.

  He kept hammering. A door down the hall opened. A woman stared at him. He gave her a maniac grin and she ducked back into her apartment.

  Finally the door swung open. Wilma Farnham tried to block the way, but he pushed roughly by her, turned and shut the door.

  “How dare you!”

  “Now there’s a great line. It swings, Wilma.”

  “You’re stinking drunk!”

  “I’m stinking indignant. Now you sit down, shut up and listen.” He took her by the shoulders, walked her backward into the couch and let go. She fell back with a gasp of shock and anger.

  “Nothing you can say to me—”

  “Shut up!” He stared at her. She wore a burly, shapeless, terry-cloth robe in a distinctly unpleasant shade of brown. Her brown hair fell to her shoulders. She was not wearing her glasses. Her small face was wrinkled with distaste, and she squinted at him myopically. “What the hell gives you the impression you’ve got this monopoly on loyalty and virtue and honor, Wilma? What makes you so damn quick to judge everybody else, on no evidence at all? What gives you the right to assume you know the slightest damned thing about me, or how I’d react to anything?”

  “B-but you always just sort of drift with—”

  “Shut up! You did as you were told. That’s fine. My congratulations. But it doesn’t make you unique. I did as I was told, too. I did not tell them one damn thing.”

  She stared at him. “You’re trying to trick me somehow.”

  “For God’s sake, call any of the brass. Ask them.”

  She looked at him dubiously. “Not a thing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “But those lawyers told me you would tell everything. They said it was the only way you’d get a dime out of the estate.”

  “They made just as bad a guess as you did.”

  “Did you just say—nothing? Just refuse to talk?”

  “I did better than that. I told them something they couldn’t possibly accept—something they couldn’t possibly believe.”

  “What?”

  “I told them I gave it all away.”

  Her eyes were suddenly too round for squinting. “But—that’s—”

  Suddenly she began to giggle. He would not have thought her capable of any sound so girlish. Then she began to guffaw. He laughed with her. Her hoots and shouts of laughter became wilder, and the tears were running down her small face, and suddenly he realized her laughter had turned into great sobs, great wrenching spasms of grief and pain.

  He went to her, sat with her. She lunged gratefully into his arms, ramming her head into the side of his throat, snorting, snuffling, bellowing, her narrow body making little spasmed leapings with her sobs, and he could make out a few words here and there. “Sorry—so alone—ashamed—didn’t mean—”

  He held her and patted her and said, “There, there, there.”

  At last she began to quiet down. He became conscious of the fresh clean smell of her hair, and of the soft warmth of her against him, and of a hint of pleasant contour under the dreary robe. She gave a single great hiccup from time to time. Abruptly, she stiffened in his arms, thrust herself away and scrambled to the far end of the couch.

  “Don’t come near me! Don’t touch me, you son of a bitch!”

  “Wilma!”

  “I know all about you. Maybe the rest of them roll right over on their back, but you better not get the idea I’m going to.”

  “What the hell!”

  “Hah! A wonderful imitation of innocence, Kirby Winter. I’m glad you’re loyal to your uncle, but that doesn’t mean I have to respect the other things you stand for.

  “I knew what you had in mind, setting up those little conferences in that sordid hotel room. We both knew what you were after, didn’t we? That’s why I was on guard every single moment. I knew that if I gave you the slightest opportunity, you would have been after me like a madman.”

  “What?”

  “I was on guard every single minute. I had no intention of becoming your Miami plaything, Mr. Winter. You got enough of that, all over the world. I used to go to that room in absolute terror. I knew how you looked at me. And I thanked God, Mr. Winter, I thanked God for being so plain you weren’t likely to lose control of yourself. And I made myself plainer when I came to that room. Now that it’s all over, I can tell you another thing too, something that makes me sick with shame. Sometimes, Mr. Winter, in all my fear and all my contempt, I found myself wanting you to hurl yourself at me.”

  “Hurl myself!”

  “It was the devil in my heart, Mr. Winter. It was a sickness of the flesh, a crazy need to degrade myself. But I never gave way to it. I never gave you the slightest hint.”

  “All we did was sit in that room and go over the reports and—”

  “That’s what it looked like, yes. Ah, but how about the things unsaid, Mr. Winter, the turmoil and the tension underneath. What about that, Mr. Winter?”

  He raised his right hand. “Miss Farnham, I swear before God that I never, for the slightest moment, felt the smallest twinge of desire for—”

  He stopped abruptly. He saw anew the neat sterility of the apartment, the plain girl, the look on her face of sudden realization, hinting at the horrible blow to her pride that would soon be evident. And he knew that even if she was slightly mad, he could not do that to her.

  He dropped his hand abruptly and gave her a wicked wink. “I guess I can’t get away with that, can I?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  He winked again. “Hell, baby, I used to see you walking, swinging that little round can one sweet inch from side to side and I used to think—uh—if I could just get you out of those glasses and those old-lady clothes and muss your hair up a little and get a drink into you, you’d be a pistol.”

  “Y-you filthy animal!”

  He shrugged. “But, like you said, cutie, you never gave me an opening. You never made the slightest move.”

  She seemed to cover the distance from the couch to a doorway across the room in a single bound. She whirled and stared at him. Her face was pale. Her mouth worked. “Th-then,” she whispered, “if I didn’t—why in God’s name didn’t you?”

  In the trembling silence he reached for the right response, but all he could find was his own terrible moment of truth. He felt impelled to meet it. “Because—I’m scared of women. I try to hide it. Women terrify me.”

  She wore an expression of absolute incredulity. She took a half-step toward him. “But you’re so—so suave and so—”

  “I’m a lousy fake, Wilma. I run like a rabbit, all the time.”

  She bit her lip. “I—haven’t had many chances to run. But I always have. Like a rabbit. But you!”

  “You’re the first person I’ve ever told.”

  Suddenly she began to laugh again, but he could not laugh with her. He heard the laughter climbing toward hysteria.

  “No,” he said. “Not again! Please.”

  She whooped, whirled, bounded through the doorway and slammed the door. He could hear her in there, sounding like a small stampede heading through swamp country. He slowly paced back and forth until the sound diminished and finally died away. He sat in a chair, his back toward the bedroom door.

  “Wilma!” he called.

  “In a minute,” she answered, her voice husky from weeping.

  He took the gold watch out. He looked cautiously through the little telescope and shivered. He was studying the intricate monogram on the back of the watch when the bedroom door opened.

  “He always carried that,” she said. “Always.”

  “I guess I will. I’ll have to wear a vest or get some kind of a belt clip arrangement.”

  She was behind him, looking over his shoulder. Suddenly he was inundated by an almost strangling cloud of perfume.

  “Sometimes he’d look through that little telescope and then he’d chuckle.”

  “I bet.”

  “I asked him about it once. He w
ouldn’t let me look through it. He said I didn’t speak the language. I didn’t understand. Will you let me look through it?”

  “I—uh—maybe when—uh—”

  She came around the chair. She made a wide circle around it and stood where he could see her for the first time, some eight feet away. He tried to swallow but could manage only half the process. “Bought it two years ago,” she said in a grave whisper. “Tried it on once.”

  She had brushed the brown hair until it gleamed, and for the first time he saw the reddish highlights in it. She was facing him squarely, but she had her face turned away from him. She stood like a recruit who had just been chewed out for bad posture. She was not trembling. Rather she seemed to be vibrating in some galvanic cycle too fast for the eye to perceive. He had the feeling that if he snapped his fingers all the circuits would overload and she’d disappear in a crackle of blue flame and a hot smell of insulation. He slowly began to strangle on the half-completed swallow. She wore a single garment. He could not guess at what possible utility it might have. There was an inch-wide ruffle of black lace around her throat. There were similar visible ruffles around her wrists. There was a third circling her hips, apparently floating in air several inches away from the pale and slender thighs. The three visible bands of black seemed joined together by some incredible substance as intangible as a fine layer of city soot on a windshield. Miraculously affixed to this evanescence, and perfectly umbilically centered, was the pink, bloated, leering face, on some sturdier fabric, of the most degenerate looking rabbit he had ever seen.

  He completed the swallow with such an effort, it felt as if he were swallowing a handful of carpet tacks. For a tenth of a second he marveled at the uncanny insight of one Hoover Hess, and with a sobbing sound of guilt, inadequacy and despair, he roared out of the apartment and down the corridor toward the stairs. He heard a howl of frustration, and a long, hoarse, broken cry of, “Oh you baaaaaaas-taaaarddd!” As he clumped down the stairs the corridor fire door swung slowly shut, and he heard those hoots of laughter again, heard them begin to soar upward, and then the door closed and he could hear no more.

  Two blocks from the apartment building he suddenly heard himself saying, “For God’s sake, Wilma!” and realized he had been saying the same thing over and over for some time. The gold watch was still clutched in his hand. Two old ladies were staring at him with strange expressions. He slowed his headlong stride, put the watch in his pocket and gave them an ingratiating smile. One old lady smiled back. The other one tilted her chin at the sky, braced herself, and with a volume that made every car in that block give a startled swerve, screamed, “Stop thief!”

  It panicked him into a dead run, but as soon as he was around the next corner he slowed down, his legs trembling. He stood staring blindly into a bookstore window until his breathing was normal. He oriented himself and discovered he was seven or eight blocks from the Hotel Birdline. Suddenly, for the first time since telling it, he remembered the lie about Uncle Omar’s personal records. He remembered how crafty he had felt when telling it. Sober, he knew it was a blundering stupidity.

  He went to the Birdline. The one without any space between his eyes was at the desk, the one with the volcanic acne. The clerk leaned into the small office beyond the switchboard and yelled to Hoover Hess. Hess came out, rubbing his hands, projecting the smile of agony.

  “Kirb, buddy, you ready to talk business? You can’t make a better—”

  “Not right now, Hoover. I’m a little too rushed. I was wondering about my stuff you’ve got here. I thought I’d—”

  “Understand, I’m a guy appreciates a sweet gesture, but I told you so long as I got the room down there, the storage was on the house, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I’m the kind of a guy wouldn’t change the deal on account of you inheriting big, right?”

  “But—”

  “So what I mean is, I’m touched by the fifty bucks, Kirb. It was a nice thing to do, believe me.”

  “Fifty?”

  Hess looked shocked. “Was it more? Did those slimy bastards take a clip out of it on the way over here?”

  “Uh—no. It wasn’t any more.”

  “Rest easy, Kirb. They come and got the trunk and the big wooden case along about eleven this morning.”

  “Who?” he said weakly.

  “The guys from the Elise! In the truck from the Elise! Chrissake, don’t you even remember who you sent after it? Look, if you could come in and sit down for just five minutes, Kirb, I could fill you in on the whole picture. The way I figure, in exchange for consolidating the mortgages and bringing it down to an interest rate that makes sense, instead of the cannibal rates I got to pay, what you should have is a piece of it. I even got an inspiration about your name, to go with the place. The Winter House. How about that!”

  “Some other time, Hoover.”

  “Any time you say. I’ll drop everything. Everything.”

  Kirby headed across the lobby toward the pay phone. He had to skid to a stop to let a sailor by. The sailor had considerable velocity. He was skidding across the tile floor, revolving slowly, his eyes closed. He was smiling. He carried on into three short wide men in tense argument over a racing form, catapulted the three of them into a couch and went on over with them as the couch went over backwards.

  He dialed Betsy’s memorized phone number.

  “Kirby! I was about to come looking for you. I tried the hotel a thousand times. Are you there now?”

  “No. Look, I think you were right, at least a little bit right anyhow.”

  “Thanks a lot!”

  “Don’t be so sarcastic. The way things are going, how am I expected to trust anybody?”

  “Why Kirby, dear! Your teeth are showing.”

  “I think I did a stupid thing. I mean I thought it was shrewd, but I was drunk at the time.”

  “It’s a poor week for it.”

  “I know. But it worked, sort of. But I’ve got the idea they’re going to be awfully damned mad. And I was supposed to meet her at two o’clock over there. She was going to take me shopping.”

  “Standard procedure. She has a wonderful way of getting all her men to end up looking exactly alike. They all end up looking like fairy ski instructors. I think it’s the tan, the sideburns and the ascot that does it. She’s mad for ascots. And it’s a long way after two, Kirby.”

  “I have the feeling it wouldn’t be too smart to go over there now. Let me tell you just what—”

  “Come on over here. We can talk. I hate phones.”

  “I’d rather tell you over the phone.”

  “Come on over here. I’m alone. We can thrash it all out.”

  “But—but—but—”

  “Get over here on the double, you clown!” She hung up.

  A little word started bounding about in the back of his mind. It was made of fat little letters, fabric letters, stuffed. NINNY. The fabric, curiously, was the same shade of pink as the face of the lecher rabbit centered on Miss Farnham’s gossamer funsuit. He squared his shoulders. He walked carefully around the broiling brutal confusion of cops, sailors and horse players in the front of the lobby, deaf to the resonant tock of hickory against bone, and took the single cab in front.

  As they pulled away, the driver said, “Like they got Saturday night on Monday afternoon in there, huh?”

  “What?”

  “The riot, man!”

  “Sorry, I didn’t notice it particularly.”

  After a long silence the driver said, “I don’t know what the hell kind of date you got, mister. All I know is I wisht I had it.”

  He had trouble finding the address. It was a crooked little bayfront street, more alley than street. The building had been added onto in random fashion over the years, and each segment of it seemed to sag in a different direction. Apartment Four, when he finally found it, was one flight up, via an open iron stairway bolted to the side of the building. The door was painted an orange so bright it seemed deafen
ing. Over the bell was lettered b. sabbith. He was tempted to press the doorframe with his thumb an inch below the bell, wait ten seconds, then flee down the staircase. “Ninny,” he whispered and pressed the bell. There was a tiny porthole in the door. A green eye looked out at him. The door swung open.

  “Come in and look at this creepy place,” she said. She was in stretch pants again. Plaid. And a sleeveless blue blouse. Barefoot. Cigarette in the corner of her mouth. Toffee hair in harsh disarray.

  Most of the apartment was a big studio room. He saw a kitchen alcove and a single door which had to lead to a bath. Glass doors opened out onto a tiny breakfast porch.

  She stood, hipshot, and included the whole decor in one wave of her arm. “Observe. Rugs to your ankles. Strategic lighting. Cutie little hearth with, for God’s sake, a dynel tiger skin in front of it. Any chair you sit in, you need a helping hand to get out of. That damned bed is nine by nine, and twenty inches high. I measured it. The little library is all erotica. Seventeen mirrors. I counted. Thirty-one pillows. Counted them, too. In the way of groceries, one-half box of stale crackers, one-half box of stale puffed wheat, twenty-one cans of cocktail goodies, two bottles gin, fourteen bottles wine. Make a wild guess, Winter. What is Bernie’s hobby?”

  “Uh—philately?”

  She spun and grinned at him. “You come on slow, but sort of nice, Kirby. I figured you for a fatal case of the dulls. Maybe not. I recommend this couch over here. It’s the only thing you can get out of without a hoist. It must have come with the place.” She sat down, patted the place beside her and said, “The detailed report, friend.”

  He told her all, with a little editing here and there. She seemed quieter, more thoughtful than the last time he had talked to her. “What’s the stuff you had stored?”

  “Just personal junk. Books, records, photographs. Tennis stuff. Hunting stuff. Even a pair of ice skates.”

  “That’s a nice touch. Ice skates. That’ll make them very happy. But we are forwarder. Now you know for sure they want something. Uncle’s personal records. The clue to the edge he had over the competition. And you say there aren’t any records at all. Are you sure?”