“Well, what a perfectly treacherous thing to do. I don’t even know Senorita Fogarty. Who is she? Is she some nasty old woman your grandfather was keeping?”
“Not quite. It would be easier to accept if she were. To put it bluntly, Senorita Fogarty is Grandfather’s Chihuahua.”
“Don’t be absurd, Lester. A Chihuahua is a dog.”
“I know what a Chihuahua is. You don’t have to tell me.”
“Lester, sweetie, you are simply telling me the most monstrous lies. I warn you that it won’t work. I’m not so easily deceived. You could surely have thought of a more credible story than that to trick me out of what you practically promised.”
“Credible or not, it’s true. As you say, I’m not crazy enough to make it up from nothing. Only Grandfather was that crazy.”
“That’s so. It must be true, and I’ll have to believe you. Is it so bad, however? How long can Senorita Fogarty be expected to live?”
“Not long at the worst, and a lot less with a little luck. If she doesn’t have any issue in the meanwhile, that is.”
“You mean pups?”
“That’s what I mean. Everything stays in trust for her pups, if there are any, and for her pups’ pups if there are any of those.”
“My God, Lester, this could just keep going on and on. What can be done to prevent it?”
“There is a plan afoot to murder Senorita Fogarty by getting her run over in traffic.”
“That sounds reasonable. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I can’t think of anything, but I’ll let you know if I do.”
She held her glass in front of her with both hands and looked at him over it with a curious expression in which the ambivalence of her feelings was clearly detectable. She was chagrined and somewhat angry, that was obvious, but at the same time she was already regretting what might become necessary for her to do. The truth was, she would be very reluctant to discard him, and would be happy and relieved if he could somehow be salvaged, but it was, of course, essential that he be solvent when salvaged, and assured of a substantial part of a million and a half dollars, if not all of it. She was hardly prepared to take on a dependent, however handsome and otherwise satisfactory, out of sheer sentiment.
“Lester,” she said, “it was too bad of you to deceive me this way.”
“I haven’t deceived you, damn it. If you ask me, it is I who have been deceived.”
“At least you were surely aware that your grandfather was crazy and was therefore subject to doing crazy things. You might have warned me. It’s quite a shock to learn suddenly that it’s questionable if you will ever inherit a single penny.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll murder Senorita Fogarty one way or another before she is allowed to become a mother. You can count on it.”
“Well, I certainly hope so. I’ve become quite attached to you, as I’ve made abundantly clear on several occasions, but you can see that I can’t afford to have you cluttering up the place and distracting me from more lucrative prospects. It simply wouldn’t be sensible.”
“Oh, I know. I don’t expect you to make any unreasonable concessions or anything.”
“In that case, we’ll just hope for the best, and in the meantime, let’s go out somewhere and have a good time and refuse to worry about it.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know, sweetie. We’ll decide on the way.”
“To tell the truth, I was rather hoping we could stay here tonight.”
“No, sweetie. That would never do. It would be far too depressing under the circumstances. Besides, you would surely want to be entertained in a manner that I’ll have to think about until I know how the will comes out.”
7
THE PLACE they eventually went to, after being at a couple of other places first, was the King Louie Lounge. As every school boy knows, there was a long line of Louies who were kings of France at various times, and one of these Louies was good enough to be made a saint afterward, and another was considered so great that he was called the Sun King to indicate just how great he was considered, although there was later some doubt about it. In between, there were a lot of Louies who weren’t any better than they should have been, and following was one who lost his head as a consequence of being a lot worse. Anyhow, with all these Louies available, almost anyone would have thought that the King Louie Lounge was named after one of them, probably the Sun King, but it wasn’t. It was named after King Louie Oliver.
King Louie Oliver wasn’t a real king, of course, of France or elsewhere, and about the only thing he had in common with most of the royal Louies was that he wasn’t any better than he should have been, even if you discounted the many who said, usually in an official capacity, that he wasn’t as good. But he seldom if ever lost his head, which was a great advantage in his lines of work, which was operating the King Louie Lounge and several other enterprises about town. As a matter of fact, he seldom lost anything at all, especially money, it being practically always just the other way around. This was a truism to which Lester could have testified under oath if it had been beneficial to his health and well-being to do so.
Unfortunately, King Louie happened to be standing at the front of the Lounge talking with the hostess when Lester and Pearl entered. He was a short man with smooth black hair and an olive complexioned face as round and benign as a full moon. His brown eyes were limpid, and his small scarlet mouth was soft. The attitude he employed with men and women alike was one of solicitous tenderness, and many of both had been deceived by it temporarily into a disastrous credulity. Now, seeing Lester before Lester could escape, he approached with mincing steps and a cooing sound that ended with a soft embrace.
“My dear,” he said, “how nice to see you out tonight. You’re looking charming. Perfectly charming.” Releasing Lester, he turned to Pearl and claimed her hands. “It’s Miss Perkins, isn’t it? Lovely! Lester, you have an eye for the lovely ones.”
“Well, you know how it is,” Lester said. “As the saying goes, lucky in love, unlucky at cards….”
“Where I am concerned,” said Pearl, “it’s a matter of being lucky in both or neither.”
“Lester is referring to a little matter that exists between us. A very small matter that involves hardly more than our honor. Isn’t that so, Lester?” King Louie quivered with coos, and waved away the hostess, who had been hovering. “No, no. I’ll show Lester and Miss Perkins to a table myself. It will be my pleasure, my dears.”
He led them to a table and held a chair for Pearl while Lester helped himself, after which he pulled up a third chair from another table and joined the party. He sighed and gazed at Lester with limpid tenderness. Lester could feel a free drink coming on, which quickly came, and would not have objected even if he had been in a position for it, which he definitely wasn’t.
“Cheers,” said Lester. “Here’s to stud.”
“Stud?” Pearl said. “Lester, what a thing to say! Are you being dirty?”
“Not I,” said Lester. “On the contrary, I’m clean. I’ve recently been cleaned by an expert.”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. Do you, Mr. Oliver? What on earth does he mean? He’s been rather unstable all evening.”
“He’s referring, I believe to a game of chance. He’s had the most atrocious luck at it. Oh, the most atrocious!” King Louie quivered and tapped Pearl on the hand and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “The dear boy owes me money.”
“That’s nothing unusual,” she said. “He owes practically everyone money.”
“So I’ve been informed. He’s sadly overextended, I understand. Too bad, too bad. Perhaps it was rash of me to offer him credit.”
“Rash! It was positively insane.”
“I don’t think so. Really, I don’t. We mustn’t do the dear boy an injustice. No, we mustn’t.” King Louie turned his eyes upon Lester and smiled a red wet smile. “He comes from such a good family, as you know. A family of
substance, I might add. Besides, our little debt is a debt of honor, isn’t it, dear boy? Oh, yes. Other financial obligations are legally actionable in one way or another, but ours is strictly one of honor. We wouldn’t dream of reneging on a debt of honor, would we, Lester dear?”
“If you are depending on Lester’s sense of honor,” said Pearl, “you are simply whistling up the wind.”
“I hope not. I do sincerely hope not. People without honor are somehow always so unlucky. The strangest things are likely to happen to them. I know of a certain man like that, poor fellow, who had a serious accident in which his nose was broken, his jaw shattered, and both arms and legs broken.”
“What kind of accident? Did he fall into a cement-mixer or something?”
“He never reported. He seemed to prefer secrecy, oddly enough.”
“Probably he was drunk when it happened. What ever became of him?”
“He died after a while. Under the circumstances, it was probably fortunate. But we are upsetting Lester with our conversation. Why are you so white, dear boy? You’ve lost all of your color.”
“He’s always upset by hearing about broken noses and jaws and things like that,” Pearl said. “He’s so handsome himself, it makes him incredibly vain.”
“He’s lovely,” said King Louie. “A lovely boy. It would be a shame if something like that happened to him.”
“Yes, it would. I don’t believe I’d care for Lester with a broken nose and jaw, let alone his arms and legs.”
“Damn it,” said Lester, “I wish you wouldn’t talk that way. I’ve had a long and difficult day, and I don’t feel like listening to it.”
“Forgive us, dear boy,” King Louie said. “I’d quite forgotten. The last rites for your grandfather were held today. A sad occasion.”
“As it turned out,” said Pearl, “it was a lot sadder than Lester anticipated.”
“Pearl,” Lester said, “will you please, for God’s sake, shut up?”
“Why, Lester, whatever is the matter with you? There is no reason at all that I can see for being rude.”
“Yes, Lester,” said King Louie, “you shouldn’t be rude. I am quite interested in Miss Perkins’ remark. Did something unexpected happen?”
“We stuck the old man away, that was all. There was nothing to it.”
“I was given certain assurances, as I recall, about an inheritance. There was to be, I believe, an immediate reading of the will. I’m loath to make this sordid reference, dear boy, but I’m wondering if the will has been read.”
“Oh, it’s been read, all right. Extractions were, that is. They were read this afternoon.”
“If I may be so blunt, what about your inheritance?”
“Senorita Fogarty got it,” said Pearl.
“Indeed! And who is Senorita Fogarty? A kept woman? One of the old man’s little secrets? Oh, this is unfortunate, Lester. This is too bad.”
“Senorita Fogarty is a Chihuahua,” Pearl said.
“A dog! Lester, is this true? Have you been disinherited in favor of a dog?”
“No, damn it,” Lester said, “it is not true. At least, it’s only partly true. I mean, Senorita Fogarty only gets to use the estate for a while, and then the rest of us get it. You’ll only have to wait a little longer. Not as long as you may think. I’ve got plans for Senorita Fogarty.”
In the midst of this speech, King Louie had begun to rise, and by the time it was finished, he had risen. He looked down at Lester sadly, one pudgy arm raised from the elbow, palm of the hand outward, in an arresting gesture.
“Please, Lester. No more protests. No more assurances. I can’t tell you how bad I feel about this. I can’t tell you how distressed.”
Turning, he walked away among the tables, ending all prospects of additional free drinks. Lester stared after him bitterly, and then transferred his bitterness to Pearl across the table.
“Thanks,” he said. “You were a great help.”
“Are you being sarcastic? What harmful did I say? I’d like to know what.”
“Oh, never mind. There’s no point in discussing it.”
“So far as I could tell, Mr. Oliver was very nice about everything. Didn’t you hear how sympathetic he was?”
“Sure, sure, He’s only a little less sympathetic than a cobra. Can’t you recognize a threat when you hear one?”
“Was he making a threat? Was that what he was doing? Well, I may not be able to recognize a threat, especially when it sounds like sympathy, but at least I can recognize your twin sister Hester, and there she is.”
“Hester? Where?”
“Behind you. She’s coming this way, and right after her, if I’m not mistaken, is your Cousin Junior.”
“Junior? Impossible. Hester wouldn’t go out anywhere with Junior.”
“Nevertheless, they are together, and here they are.”
And so they were. Hester sat down in the chair vacated by King Louie, and Junior pulled up another, which necessitated a little shifting and made things rather congested.
“Hello, Sister,” Lester said. “What are you doing here with Junior, of all people? I was under the impression that you wouldn’t be caught dead with him in public.”
“Well, he called and asked me, and I was so bored that I thought it might be better than doing nothing. I’m not sure that it is, however.”
“Isn’t it pretty risky?”
“There’s very little risk in public, and I’m far too elusive to be tricked into privacy. How are you, Pearl?”
“I’m all right, now that you are here. I must say that Lester was becoming insufferable.”
“Lester is often insufferable. You must simply learn to tolerate it.”
“It was all brought on, I’m beginning to understand, by King Louie Oliver.”
“I thought that was King Louie sitting here. What did he want?”
“It seems that Lester owes him some money, and he wants to be paid. I can’t say that I blame him, to be honest. I didn’t quite get the point of things at the time, but I think now that he was threatening to break Lester’s nose and jaw and arms and legs. I’ll have to give him credit for being a gentleman about it. He was very polite.”
“Does King Louie do that kind of work? Surely not. It’s too much like common labor. I imagine that he hires someone to do it for him.”
“Probably. Does he, Lester? Would King Louie hire someone to break your nose and jaw and arms and legs?”
“Whatever he does,” Lester said, “I want to say how much I appreciate your concern. It’s most touching.”
“Naturally, I’m concerned,” said Pearl. “Do you think I could go on caring for someone who was all broken bones and splints? It would be difficult, to say the least.”
“Oh, well,” Hester said, “it may be for the best, after all. It may stimulate Lester to do something constructive about Senorita Fogarty while the doing is still good.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” said Junior. “Lester, I hope you will do something without delay.”
“Junior,” Hester said, “you’ve behaved very well so far. You’ve been perfectly silent. Please don’t spoil things.”
“As for me,” Lester said, “things are already spoiled. I want to get out of here, that’s what I want to do. Are you coming, Pearl?”
“I may as well,” said Pearl. “It has been a dull evening altogether, and it doesn’t look like it’s getting any better.”
8
HOWEVER STRONG his incentive, Lester’s will was considerably weaker. Daily during the next week, he arose resolved to tackle Mrs. Crump without further delay, but the resolution, faced with practical problems, always diminished and was sooner or later appeased with a promise of action tomorrow. In the meantime, however, he was developing psychosomatic pains in his arms and legs, as well as in his nose and jaw, and at last he forced himself into the neighborhood of Grandfather’s house. Irresolute, filled with the most dreadful forebodings, he idled along the iron picket fence, staring
moodily at the ugly old shack, and once he lowered himself to his haunches and peered this way and that through the pickets. It had occurred to him that he might surprise Senorita Fogarty at play on the lawn. If so, and if she could be lured within reach, it would be possible to simplify matters by direct action, thus circumventing Mrs. Crump herself. But this was, of course, no more than wishful thinking. In the first place, Senorita Fogarty, as the world’s richest Chihuahua, would surely not be permitted to gambol unrestrained on the grass like any common mutt. In the second place, even if she were, she detested Lester too thoroughly to be suckered by any deceit he might conjure up. Finally compelled to face these realities squarely, Lester breathed deeply and stiffened his spine and approached the gate. Admitting himself, he went up the front walk between the cast-iron deer to the front door.
He put a thumb against the bell button and leaned upon it. After a minute, in response to the imperious bell, there was the sound of a heavy tread, and the door swung open, following a brief business with the lock, to reveal Mrs. Crump standing spraddle-legged in the aperture like an embattlement.
“Oh,” she said, “it’s you.“
“Yes, it is,” Lester said. “How are you, Mrs. Crump?”
“What do you want?”
This repeated emphasis of the second person pronoun, coupled with her pointed refusal to be decoyed into amiability, did nothing whatever to increase his optimism, which was hardly existent anyhow. Having come this far, however, he was determined now to try the issue, however disastrous the consequences.
“I want to come in, if you don’t mind,” he said.
“What for?”
“My dear lady, I’ve come here in the best of spirits and with the most innocent of intentions. I am reconciled to things as they are, and I wish to be friends.”
“Come off!”
“I assure you that it’s true. May I come in and convince you?”
“Fat chance!” Mrs. Crump defied him with her expression to convince her of anything, including the law of gravity. “I guess you can come in, though, if you want to. I won’t say I don’t mind, but I guess it won’t do any harm.”
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