Magician's Wife

by James M. Cain

  The upshot of it was that when Clay drove back, early Tuesday morning, he took Mr. Reed along, and no sooner got to his office than he “set up” a lunch for that day, in the Chinquapin-Plaza Blue Room, for the two of them, with Mr. Lomack of Greenfield Dairies, Mr. Gordon of Gordon Bakeries, Mr. Katz of Restaurant Fixtures, and Mr. Heine of Chinquapin Brewery. By then, having it all clear in his mind, he was able to lay it out to these prospective purveyors in the briefest possible time, and almost at once to sell it, to Mr. Reed’s hypnotized wonderment. In fact, he took it for granted they would come in, “as it’s something that should have been started years and years ago.” When he knew he had them, he went on: “On prices, stock, deliveries, all that inside baseball—forget it. They’re nothing, and we’re all equipped for what’s to be done. So let’s keep our eye on the main thing—it’s a public-relations question, first, last, and all the time. We have to convince that town and everybody in it that this is their enterprise—it’s not run by the fly-by-nights. The money stays in the town. It’s new money, it comes to the town, it stays there! I would say, and I hope you concur, that before we set up one tent we should run a series of ads—in The Pilot of Channel City, which circulates down at the beach—laying the whole thing out, introducing ourselves, saying who we are, coming out in the open. Then we’ll be ready to go!”

  All concurred.

  “The thing is going to take dough. I’m putting Grant’s in for five thousand bucks—as a loan, Mr. Reed, repayable out of earnings, as, of course, I couldn’t claim stock without misrepresenting to those people in Ocean City. It’s their show, without strings. Are the rest of you guys in?”

  After a startled moment, Mr. Lomack nodded and rapped with his knuckles. Mr. Gordon rapped. Mr. Katz rapped, and after thinking, Mr. Heine. “O.K.,” said Clay briskly, “that gives them twenty-five grand, which ought to hold them—anyway, to start.”

  Back in the office, he learned from Miss Helm that “a Mrs. Simone called—wants you to call her, at Fisher’s.” Grace, when he got her, seemed upset, and asked: “Have you seen The Bosun today?”

  “Oh? That columnist? On The Pilot?”

  “You’d better have a look.”

  “I will. Hold on a minute, Grace.”

  He had noticed Miss Helm with the paper, and she let him have it at once, looking, he thought, rather sheepish. Finding The Bosun, he read:

  What well-known magician, hooked in a Baltimore club, is burning because his girlfriend has started to cheat, with a big sausage-and-porterhouse man, here in Channel City?

  “Well?” he asked Grace. “So what?”

  “You don’t think it just happened, do you?”

  “No, I think a bitch put it in, as part of a get-hunk campaign that you kindly warned me of. But don’t let it worry you, Grace. I’ve been busy selling meat, tons and tons and tons of it—but this I can handle too, and when I do I’ll ring you. How’ve you been?”

  “I’ve been fine, thanks.”

  “I took a trip to the beach.”

  “I hope you enjoyed it.”

  Hanging up, he asked Miss Helm to call Mr. Iglehart, of The Pilot business office, and when Mr. Iglehart came on, he made himself most agreeable, recalling a previous meeting and bringing up the new project, with the space it was going to require for the ads in The Pilot. “And why I called,” he went on, “we’re going to need help, of course, your very valuable help, with layout and stuff like that, and I was wondering if I could come in? Take up some of your time and—”

  “Come in? Mr. Lockwood, I’ll come to you.”

  “Oh, would you? You mean, today?”

  “Well—I can. I’ll come right over now.”

  But Clay told Miss Helm: “When Mr. Iglehart comes, cool him off a while. It suits me that he waits.” So in twenty minutes or so, a good-looking young man sat, staring through the glass, while Clay stared back fish-faced, making no move to ask him in. At last he came in, or at least put his head in the door, smiling: “Mr. Lockwood? Jim Iglehart, of The Pilot.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Clay. “Come in.”

  “You called just now. About space.”

  “Did I? You must learn to take a rib.”

  “Rib? Mr. Lockwood, I don’t get it—”

  “It’s O.K., don’t give it a thought. There’s always The Baltimore Sun, which has space for me too—and doesn’t print lies about me, like this thing that I saw, after talking with you.” He handed The Pilot over, and Mr. Iglehart read The Bosun. “Well!” he faltered. “I can see why you wouldn’t like it, but—after all, Mr. Lockwood, it doesn’t name anyone!”

  “Oh, how considerate,” said Clay.

  “And it doesn’t have to mean you!”

  “Just what I told my girl—my secretary—just now. And yet they were both in, the magician and his girl. I never saw either one of them, before or since, but—they were here. And so, not only my girl but every girl in the place thinks I’m a wolf, a chaser, a—”

  “Will you give me five minutes, sir?”

  “Sure, I’ll give you till hell freezes over!”

  “Will you give me a phone to use?”

  “Help yourself, help yourself!” Clay said it sourly, waved at the phone, and walked out, winking at Miss Helm and telling her: “See that he gets his call—and let me know when he’s done talking. I’ll be down at the weighmaster’s desk.”

  He clumped down the stairs and stood watching the meat go out, over the weighmaster’s scales. Soon the phone rang and Miss Helm told him: “He’s finished, Mr. Lockwood—and wants to speak with you.”

  Going back, he found a demoralized young man wiping his brow and massaging his mouth. “Sir,” he said, “if you think that’s easy, getting a paper to take something back, you ought to try it once. ... They’re killing it in the five-thirty, and tomorrow they’ll run the retraction.”

  “Tomorrow? Why not today?”

  “Why—to catch the editions that had it.”

  “I want it retracted now!”

  “Well—that’ll suit them a lot better!”

  Why Clay preferred one edition today, for people who missed the original item, to several editions tomorrow, reaching those who had seen it, he didn’t say, and perhaps didn’t quite know. But the question of immediacy, of a gloating call to Grace, before she left her office, may have bulked large in his mind. He stood by while Mr. Iglehart called The Pilot again, talked briefly, and announced: “It’s all fixed up—be in the five-thirty”—and then promised: “O.K., well talk about space tomorrow.” Then, until the 5:30 would come, he filled in the interim with calls to Mr. Gumpertz, the furniture people, and the rug dealers, to have his stuff taken out—and with one to Miss Homan, the day girl at the Marlborough, arranging to have them admitted next day when they came. Then he called the Chinquapin-Plaza to reserve a suite for the night, it occurring to him that since his bag was packed and already in the car, he needn’t go home just yet and look at the wreckage once more.

  At last, Miss Helm brought the 5:30, and sure enough, the item was out of The Bosun’s column, and beside it was a box:

  Correction

  In earlier editions, The Bosun alleged “cheating” by an unidentified girl with an unidentified man. The Pilot has been unable to substantiate this, and regrets its publication.

  It didn’t really say much, wasn’t quite what had been promised, and perhaps left the waters more roiled than they would have been had nothing been said. But he had hardly finished it when he had Miss Helm call Grace, and when she came on the line blurted: “Read your five-thirty, Grace—you’ll get quite a surprise.”

  “I’ve just finished reading it, Clay.”

  “Proves something, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, indeed—that you’re hardly able to talk. Whatever she does or doesn’t do, it seems to wind up the same way.”

  “To me it proves she did not get away with a thing. She might just as well not have tried lousing me up. And, I am selling meat, did you hear me?”


  “Then, if you’re satisfied, fine.”

  “What are you doing tonight?”

  “Why—nothing, I guess.”

  “Dinner?”

  “At your place? I won’t go out.”

  “Temporarily I’m at the Chinquapin-Plaza.”

  He explained about his arrangements, and she said: “Then, if it’s to be in your suite, and I’m not on public view, I’d like it very much.”

  “You’ll come on your way from work?”

  “I’ll go home and change first.”

  10

  FOR THE NEXT MONTH or more he sold meat in a sort of frenzy, extending his beach involvement to Rehoboth, Delaware, and two places in Virginia, and moving not only frankfurters by the truckload but small steaks too, with patties of ground meat, lamb cut up for shashlik, and ham, tongue, and dried meat, packaged and sliced for sandwiches. He landed a drugstore chain, and then put over a coup, with a frankfurter commitment from Snax, which had the ball-park concession, and ran into trouble one day when a number of people fell ill, and had to be hauled off to the hospital, from eating dogs supplied by a Grant’s competitor. Almost nightly he exulted to Grace, either at the hotel, where he stayed two or three weeks, or the apartment, when it was put in order again. She kept up her propaganda, to reunite him with Sally, but he wouldn’t have it, even at the news she was free again, with the child at his grandfather’s, at his beachhouse, for the summer. “I’m laughing at you,” he said. “What’s it to me, Grace, whether she’s free or not?” He continued proposing marriage, but though tempted, she continued holding back. “But why?” he wanted to know. “How long do I have to prove that she means nothing to me? How much meat do I have to sell?” But she insisted that “All you’re proving is that you’re still in love with her.” And then one day, when he was just back from lunch, Miss Helm informed him: “Mrs. Granlund’s on the line-wants to speak with you.”

  “Bunny!” he gushed, taking the phone. “Long time no see no hear no touch! Why in the world—”

  “Clay!” cried a shrill, overbred, domineering voice. “I’m expecting Pat Grant tomorrow! At twelve-thirty! For lunch! Do you hear?” Before he could answer, it went on: “He must come without fail, tell him! I’m asking quite a few people, and as he’s to be guest of honor, I’ll not have any excuses—no last-minute changes of mind, no politely wired regrets, with flowers. He’s to come without fail, without fail, WITHOUT FAIL!” And, apparently as an afterthought, she added: “And of course you’re included, dear Clay—I expect you to bring him yourself.”

  “But, Bunny,” he broke in at last, after several tries, “Pat’s not here! He’s in Mankato! And I don’t quite see how—”

  “He’s here! He’s here in Channel City!”

  “Whatever you say—but he’s not.”

  “And you will bring him, Clay? Without fail?”

  “I’ll do what I can, of course.”

  Hanging up, he groused to Miss Helm about “the society mind—it’s as brittle as cut glass.” But as she laughed and turned to go, Mr. Grant himself walked in, a blocky, good-looking man in his thirties, in gabardines and beret. Blowing Miss Helm a kiss, he held out his hand to Clay, chirping: “Dr. Lockwood, I presume?”

  “O.K., Stanley, it’s me,” said Clay, giving the hand a not-too-friendly jerk. “But what’s the big idea? Spreading it all around. So everybody knows except me?”

  “Who’s everybody?”

  “Bunny Granlund, for one.”

  “I haven’t seen Bunny Granlund.”

  “She knows. She’s invited you—to lunch.”

  “Well, Clay? Hotel coffee shop’s a Portico thing, isn’t it? Maybe they have a grapevine. Maybe I was seen by someone she knows. Maybe she’s like a condor and knows without knowing how. Or maybe—”

  “I’m mollified, forget it. I guess I am.”

  “Well, look, I bring a big surprise, and how can I do that and let you know all at the same time?”

  “Then—let’s have the surprise.”

  “Hey! Not yet! Red-carpet me!”

  “Red carpets, please,” Clay told Miss Helm, who was still standing there, smiling. “Our best Corona-Coronas.” And to Pat: “I keep ’em with the meat, to have that exact humidity.”

  “No better place for cigars.”

  When the coronas had been brought, and Mrs. Granlund had been called, by Pat, with a pleasant, gracious acceptance, Clay again pressed for the surprise, but Pat seemed strangely diffident, and they went out to have dinner. On the way to the club they stopped at the apartment, where Pat played Bach and admired Clay’s pictures, now back from Mr. Gumpertz and in place again. At dinner, out on the balcony, he talked and talked and talked without coming to the point—about Clay’s baseball-park triumph, over his bad-hot-dog competitor, about the crab cakes they were having, about Château Yquem with apple pie, “a combo so queer it’s weird, but the strange part is, it’s good.” And as Clay began to fidget he suddenly burst out: “Hey! This is the worst night of my life! So let me enjoy it, will you?”

  “What’s so bad about it?”

  “For once I’m owning up to the truth.”

  “That I’m fired? Is that it? That’s the surprise?”

  “What makes you think so, Clay?”

  “We’re in for upward of fifteen grand on these beach commitments of mine—but I endorsed those drafts myself. They stand as my personal chits. So—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Backing those beach corporations.”

  “Well, why not? We should have done it before.”

  “Well, get to it. What is this, Pat?”

  “... You’re not fired—I am.”

  “You? You own the goddam outfit—don’t you?”

  “Well, yeah—but what’s to own, Clay, without somebody runs it that knows what to do with meat—besides eat it?”

  “So? Don’t you?”

  “Stop being funny, Clay.”

  “So O.K., you went to Harvard. But Svenson knows.”

  “Yes, but Sven’s turning seventy this week.”

  “No. I didn’t realize he was that far along.”

  “So he has to retire, and at long last, Clay, I’m relinquishing him the title—president. Moving on to board chairman, putting an end to this comedy I’ve been playing, of being a big meat packer, of pretending that’s what I am, when all the time I’m just third-generation rich, that can play Bach on your Steinway, honor Bunny with my presence, so all her friends will know I knew her at Bar Harbor, before her shoes got run down and she had to marry Steve, and talk about Château Yquem. Or in other words, I’ll quit being a fake. As of next week, Sven will be president, and as of the first of the year, he’ll be our beloved emeritus.”

  “Pat, it’s damned decent of you.”

  “Been decenter ten years ago.”

  “Yet I don’t mind saying, it gives me some concern.”

  “In what way, gives you concern, Clay?”

  “Who’s to follow Sven?”

  “Oh, that—yes, I see what you mean and I’m glad you brought it up. I’ve given it considerable thought, and as I see it, we need a commanding type, a guy with a loud voice, a fist like a Grant gold-medal ham, a thick neck, an aggressive way with the clients, and a mania for selling meat in eighteen different ways that never were thought of before, most of them vulgar, pushing, and rude. Or in other words, Clay, you.”

  “... Me?”

  “Now you know. That’s the surprise.”

  “Revive me, please. I think I just fainted.”

  Pat talked on, about the rigors of being a fake and the shame of “living a lie,” apparently seeing himself as a tragic figure, but sounding more like a playboy, somewhat loquacious from wine, crying into his glass. Clay hardly heard him. He stared out at the pink of the sunset, the blue of the bay, and the white of the dipping sails, until everything blended together into a polychromatic euphoria, indescribably romantic and almost unbearably beautiful. His mo
od persisted after they reached the apartment, where they went for a sociable nightcap, as Pat’s did too, he playing Bach again, and then switching to Gershwin’s Rhapsody, whose opening he called “a real pronouncement on life—it’s laugh-clown-laugh, blow-blow-thou-winter-wind, and bye-bye-blackbird all rolled into one.” Clay agreed, and Pat finished the Rhapsody, then went on to “I Got Rhythm” and “Lady Be Good.” Then a call came, and when Clay answered, The Pilot city desk told him they had heard a rumor, “a tip from Mankato, Minnesota, that you’re to be president of Grant’s. Anything to it?” Pat talked, to confirm, and soon a reporter came, accompanied by a photographer, when Clay took the floor, suddenly very important. “There’s a revolution in meat,” he proclaimed, as though making a speech to Rotary, though pausing every so often so the reporter could catch up with his notes. “We’ve come a long way since Grant’s was founded in the northwest Land o’ Lakes, because that’s where the ice was, just as it was at Chicago, that they cut in winter, stored till summer, and chilled the meat with. Now there’s ice all over, but the revolution goes on—in storing, cutting, packing, and, most of all, distributing. And so far as Grant’s is concerned, we don’t follow that revolution—we lead it. We’re in the forefront of it—have been, are still, and will be.”

  The photographer hustled out to develop his film, and then the reporter left. Pat brooded, finally remarking: “That proves it, Clay, what I was saying before. Because while you seized the opportunity and said what the moment called for, what was I doing? Looking at your pictures and grappling with the problem of who’s to paint your portrait. All Grant’s, Inc., presidents are done in oil for the board room, with fingers suitably stuck into their coat lapel: my grandfather, like Washington crossing the Rubicon; my father, like Lincoln at Valley Forge, and me, like Napoleon at Appomattox. I’ll get to Sven next, but that still is going to leave you. However, God willing, I hope—”

  “Suppose I had a candidate?”

  “Well, now, that would be a help. Who is he?”