Where Love Has Gone (1962)

by Robbins, Harold

  Just then Nora came back into the room. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  “The Major and I were having a most interesting little chat, Nora.”

  I caught the quickly curious glance Nora threw at her mother. I looked down at the old lady. “Many thanks for the dinner, Mrs. Hayden,” I said formally.

  “You’re quite welcome, Major. You just think about what I said.”

  “I will, ma’am. And thank you again.”

  “Goodbye, Major.”

  “Night, Mother,” Nora said.

  Her mother’s voice caught us at the door. “Don’t stay out too late, dear.”

  I caught the fragrance of Nora’s perfume as she settled back in the seat. It bugged me. It wasn’t the kind of perfume one wore to a business meeting.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  “Lower Lombard Street. I’m not taking you out of your way, am I?”

  “Not at all.”

  She moved closer and I felt her hand on my arm. “Did Mother talk about me?”

  “No.” I wasn’t exactly lying. Or for that matter, telling the truth. “Why?”

  “No reason,” she said casually.

  We drove silent for a few blocks.

  “You’re not really due back at the Presidio by eight thirty, are you?”

  “No,” I said. “What about you? Can you get out of your date?”

  She shook her head. “Not now. It’s too late.” She hesitated. “It wouldn’t be fair. You understand, don’t you?”

  “I read you loud and clear.”

  She looked at me. “It’s nothing like that,” she said quickly.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  I stopped the car for a traffic light. Its red glow turned her skin to flame. “What are you going to do now?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Go down to Chinatown … the one on maybe.”

  “That’s pure escape.”

  The light changed and I started the car again. “The purest,” I agreed. “But it’s still the best way I know to turn things off.”

  I felt her hand tighten on my arm. “Is it that terrible?”

  “Sometimes.”

  I could feel her fingernails through my jacket. “I wish I were a man!”

  “I’m glad you’re not.”

  She turned toward me. “Will you meet me later?”

  I felt the hardness of her small breasts against my sleeve. I knew then that I had been right. She was everything I’d thought and it was there for the taking, but something held me back.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “No reason.” I was annoyed with myself. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me. Tell me.”

  I sensed the angry harshness creeping into my voice. “I know at least a dozen places in this town where I could get seconds if that was all I was looking for.”

  She let go of my arm and moved away. I saw sudden tears forming in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been away so long, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how to act.”

  “You don’t have to apologize. I deserved it.” She looked out the window. “Turn here. It’s in the middle of the next block.”

  I pulled the car to the curb.

  “You have three more days of leave?”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “Will you call me?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m going down to La Jolla to get in some fishing.”

  “I could come down there.”

  “I don’t think that would be wise.”

  “Oh! You’ve got a girl there?”

  I laughed. “No girl.”

  “Then why—”

  “Because I’m going back to war,” I said harshly. “Because I don’t want any ties. I don’t want to have anything to think about but making the next day. I know too many guys who lost all their tomorrows looking behind them.”

  “You’re afraid.”

  “You’re damn right I am. I told you that before.”

  Her tears were for real now. They rolled slowly down her cheeks. I put my hand on her shoulder. “Look, this is silly,” I said gently. “Everything is screwed up right now. Maybe, someday, when the war is over. If I make it—”

  She interrupted me. “But you told me yourself that no one is three times lucky.”

  “That’s about the way it figures,” I admitted.

  “Then you really don’t believe you’ll call me. Ever.” There was a strange sadness in her voice.

  “I always seem to be apologizing to you. I’m sorry.”

  She stared at me for a moment, then got out of the car. “I don’t like goodbyes.”

  I didn’t have a chance to answer as she ran up the steps without looking back. I lit a cigarette and sat there watching as she rang the doorbell. After a moment a man came and let her in.

  When I got back to my hotel, around three in the morning, there was a message under my door.

  Please call me in the morning so that we may continue our discussion.

  It was signed Cecelia Hayden.

  I crumpled the note angrily and threw it into the wastebasket. I went down to La Jolla in the morning without bothering to call her.

  Within the week I was on my way back to Australia and the war. If I ever thought that the old lady was hung up waiting for me to call I would have only been kidding myself.

  There were some things she couldn’t wait for. The next day she called Sam Corwin.

  4

  __________________________________________

  “Mrs. Hayden,” Sam Corwin said, coming into the room where the old lady waited for him. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”

  “Not at all, Mr. Corwin,” she replied crisply. “Please sit down.”

  He sank into the chair and looked at her with curiosity. Ever since she had called that morning, he had been wondering what it was she wanted to see him about.

  She came right to the point. “Nora’s been nominated for the Eliofheim Foundation Award for Sculpture.”

  Sam looked at her with a new and sudden respect. There had been rumors to that effect, but the names of the nominees were very closely guarded. Especially since this was the first award to be given since the war.

  “How do you know?” he asked grudgingly. Even he hadn’t been able to get any confirmation.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said briskly. “What is important is that I do know.”

  “Good. I’m very happy for Nora. I hope she gets it. She deserves it.”

  “That’s what I wanted to see you about. I want to be sure that she does get it.”

  Sam stared at her. He didn’t speak.

  “Money can be a terrible handicap sometimes,” Mrs. Hayden continued. “Especially in the arts. I would like to make certain that my daughter’s wealth doesn’t adversely affect her chances.”

  “I’m sure it wouldn’t, Mrs. Hayden. The judges are above that sort of thing.”

  “No one is above prejudice of one sort or another,” she said definitely. “And at the moment it seems to me that the whole liberal arts world is oriented to the Communistic ideology. Almost everything accomplished by anyone outside that group is automatically rejected as bourgeois and unimportant.”

  “Aren’t you rather oversimplifying it?”

  “Am I?” she countered, looking directly at him. “You tell me. Almost every major art award during the past few years has been won by an artist who if not actually Communistic was at least closely aligned with them.”

  Sam had no reply. She was very nearly correct. “Supposing I did agree with you. I still don’t see what can be done about it. The Eliofheim can’t be bought.”

  “I know that. But we both know that no one is beyond influencing, beyond the power of suggestion. The judges are only human.”

  “Where would I start? It would take some very important people to make them listen.
”

  “I was talking to Bill Hearst at San Simeon the other day,” she said. “He felt very strongly that Nora deserved the award. He felt it would be a triumph for Americanism.”

  Now it was beginning to make sense. He should have known right away where her information had come from. “Hearst could be helpful. Who else?”

  “Your friend Professor Bell, for one,” she said. “And Hearst has already talked to Bertie McCormick in Chicago. He’s very much interested too. There must be many others, I’m sure, if you’d put your mind to it.”

  “It would take a lot of doing. This is February, so we have less than three months before the awards are announced in May. Even then we couldn’t be sure.”

  She picked up a sheet of paper from her desk. “Your salary at the newspaper is about forty-five hundred. In addition to that you average approximately two thousand dollars for magazine articles and miscellaneous pieces.” She looked over at him. “That’s not really very much money, is it, Mr. Corwin?”

  Sam shook his head. “Not very much, Mrs. Hayden.”

  “You have expensive tastes, Mr. Corwin,” she continued. “You have a nice apartment. You live well, even if not entirely within your means. For the past few years you’ve been running into debt at an average of a little more than three thousand dollars a year.”

  He smiled. “I don’t worry too much about my debts.”

  “I realize that, Mr. Corwin. I understand that a good deal of that money is never repaid in cash, but in favors. Would I be too far off if I assumed that your overall income is in the neighborhood of ten thousand a year?”

  He nodded. “You wouldn’t be far off.”

  She put the sheet of paper back on the desk. “I’m prepared to pay you ten thousand dollars for your assistance in securing the Eliofheim Aware for my daughter. If she get it, we will enter into a ten-year contract guaranteeing you twenty thousand a year, plus ten percent of her gross earnings.”

  Sam calculated swiftly. At Nora’s present rate of output she should be able to gross between fifty and a hundred thousand a year if she won the award. “Make it fifty percent.”

  “Twenty-five percent,” she said quickly. “After all, my daughter still has to pay her gallery fees.”

  “Just a moment, Mrs. Hayden. This is going a little too fast for me. Let’s see if I understand what you’re saying. You’re hiring me as a press agent to help Nora get the Eliofheim Award?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Corwin.”

  “And if she gets the award, we then enter into an agreement whereby I become her personal representative, agent, manager or whatever for a period of ten years? For this I will be paid twenty thousand a year plus twenty-five percent of her gross earnings from her work?”

  Mrs. Hayden nodded again.

  “What if she doesn’t get the award?”

  “Then there wouldn’t be much point in any agreement, would there, Mr. Corwin?”

  “No, of course not,” he said. He looked at her shrewdly. “If we made the agreement, who would pay the guarantee?”

  “My daughter, of course.”

  “It might happen that she wouldn’t gross enough to make it worth her while.”

  “I doubt that would worry her.” The old lady smiled. “Nora is a wealthy woman in her own right. She has an income of more than a hundred thousand a year from a family trust.”

  Sam stared at her. He had known that Nora had money but he’d never realized it was anywhere near that much. “I’m curious about one thing, Mrs. Hayden. Have you talked to Nora about this?”

  She nodded. “Of course, Mr. Corwin. I wouldn’t have discussed it with you unless I had Nora’s full consent.”

  Sam took a deep breath. He should have known that. But he couldn’t keep himself from asking another question. “Then why didn’t she speak to me herself?”

  “Nora felt lit would be better if you and I discussed it first,” the old lady replied. “Then, had you not agreed, her relationship with you would not have been disturbed.”

  Sam nodded. “I see.” He fumbled in his pocket for his pipe and put it in his mouth thoughtfully. “Of course, you both realize that if I undertake this job, my decision on all business matters would be final?”

  “Nora has the greatest regard for both your integrity and acumen, Mr. Corwin.”

  “You’ve just made a deal, Mrs. Hayden.”

  “Nora will be very pleased.”

  “Where is she? There are a number of things we’ll have to discuss.”

  “I’ll have Charles call her,” Mrs. Hayden said. “I believe she’s in the studio.”

  She pressed a button and the butler appeared in the doorway. She asked him to call Nora and turned back to Sam. Her voice was deceptively gentle. “I too am very pleased, Mr. Corwin. It will be a great comfort to me to know that someone besides myself is concerned with Nora’s welfare.”

  “You can be sure that I’ll do my best, Mrs. Hayden.”

  “I’m sure that you will,” she said. “I won’t pretend that I always understand my daughter. She’s a very strong-willed person. I don’t always approve of her behavior.”

  Sam didn’t answer, just sat there sucking at his pipe and looking at her. He wondered just how much she really knew about Nora. Her next statement made it clear that there was very little that she didn’t know.

  “I imagine I might be considered old-fashioned in many ways,” she said, half apologetically. “But at times my daughter seems—shall I say—quite promiscuous?”

  Sam studied her cautiously for a moment. “May I speak frankly, Mrs. Hayden?”

  She nodded.

  “Please understand, I’m neither defending Nora nor condemning her. But I think it’s most important that you and I understand what we’re talking about.”

  She was watching him as carefully as he had watched her. “Please go on, Mr. Corwin.”

  “Nora is no ordinary person,” he said. “She’s highly talented, perhaps a genius. I don’t know. She’s finely strung, acutely sensitive and highly emotional. She needs sex the way some people need liquor.”

  “Are you trying to tell me politely that my daughter is a nymphomaniac, Mr. Corwin?”

  “That’s not what I’m trying to say, Mrs. Hayden,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Nora is an artist. She finds both a certain stimulus and an escape in sex. She told me once that it helped bring her closer to people, to know more about them, to understand them better.”

  The old lady was still watching him. “Have you and Nora—?” She left the question hanging in the air.

  He met her eyes squarely. He nodded without speaking.

  She sighed softly and looked down at her desk. “Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Corwin. I didn’t mean to pry into your personal relationships.”

  “It’s been over for a long time,” he said. “I found that out the last time she came to my place.”

  “That was about six months ago? Just about the time of her show?”

  He nodded. “She seemed very upset. She’d been crying. It seems that young major who drove her over had been pretty rough on her.”

  “Major Carey,” she said. “He seemed such a nice young man.”

  “He said something that upset her. Anyway, I sent her home in a cab a half hour after she arrived.”

  “I wondered why she got home so early that night. I’d like to ask one favor of you, Mr. Corwin.”

  “Anything I can do, ma’am.”

  “Nora has a high regard for your opinion. Help me—help her keep out of trouble.”

  “I’ll try, Mrs. Hayden. For all our sakes.”

  “Thank you,” she said. Suddenly she seemed very tired. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “Sometimes I think the best thing for her would be to get married. Perhaps then she would feel different.”

  “It might be.” But inside, Sam knew better. Girls like Nora never changed, married or not.

  They sat silently until Nora came into the room. “Mr. Corwin has
agreed to our proposition,” her mother said.

  Nora smiled. She held out her hand. “Thanks, Sam.”

  “Don’t thank me,” he said. “You may be sorry before all this is over.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Okay,” he said, his voice brisk and businesslike. “Now—what are you working on?”

  “I’m getting ready for a show that Arlene Gately is giving in April.”

  “Cancel it.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “We can’t afford it.”

  “But I promised—”

  “Then you’ll have to break your promise,” Sam said gruffly. He turned to her mother. “Make out a check for ten thousand dollars. Nora and I are going to New York.”

  “New York?” Nora asked. “Why?”

  Her mother was looking questioningly at Sam. “New York,” he repeated. “I want Aaron Scaasi to give her a shot in April.”

  “I—I couldn’t do that.”

  “Why not?” he asked harshly.

  “Because Arlene has always been my agent. She’s put on every show I’ve ever had. I can’t just walk out on her after all this time.”

  “You can and you will. Arlene Gately may be very nice but she’s nothing but a small-time, small-town dealer and you’ve outgrown her. Aaron Scaasi is recognized as one of the leading dealers in the world. A show at his gallery will do more toward getting you that award than anything else right now.”

  “But how do you know he’ll do it?”

  “He’ll do it.” Sam smiled. “Your check for ten thousand dollars says that he will.”

  All this, of course, took place while I was still in the Pacific.

  I was a big man for the Somerset Maugham kind of story. The sweating, steaming jungle lulling the white man into a torpor, then seducing him with the aid of a lovely brown-skinned maiden to a happy way of life never dreamed of in dear old Blighty. It never was like that for me. I guess I was in the wrong jungle.

  It was always cold and dank at the airstrip north of Port Moresby, and no matter how many layers of clothing you wore, the chill ate its way into your bones. Your teeth always chattered, and your nose always ran, and it was easier to catch the flu than malaria. We spent most of our spare time huddling around the pot-bellied stove in the pilots’ ready room, debating the serious tactical aspects of the war—like would Pat make the Dragon Lady before she copped Terry’s cherry, or would Daisy Mae ever succeed in freeing Li’l Abner of Momism.