Magician's Wife

by James M. Cain

  “So happens, it’s a she.”

  “Ah! Ah! Ah!”

  “For this job how much do you pay?”

  “Four-figure money, I think.”

  “Consider your problem solved.”

  He could hardly wait, when Pat took a cab to the hotel, to call Grace. She seemed a bit sleepy, even a bit grumpy, but eagerly he poured out the news of his luck. “Maybe I shouldn’t have waked you up,” he admitted, “but I wanted to tell you myself, before you saw the papers—and this is the first chance I’ve had. Pat has just gone home.”

  “Well! I’m certainly glad.”

  “But, Grace, that isn’t all there is to tell!”

  Bubbling with excitement, he told about the picture, saying: “Of course, we know it’s done, but they don’t—Grant’s, I mean. And, Grace, they’ll pay! Four-figure money, he said, which is at least a thousand dollars. Is that worth waking up for? Is it?”

  “... I imagine it better wait.”

  “Wait? For what?”

  “Till you’ve straightened things out with Sally.”

  “Sally? What does she have to do with it?”

  “Haven’t you told her?”

  “No, and I don’t intend to!”

  “Clay, you’d better.”

  “Are you starting that over again? Why?”

  “For the same old reason: you’re in love with her. And, for another reason, Clay: she’s going to be at the party!”

  “... You mean—Bunny’s?”

  “I picked out her dress this afternoon.”

  “I’m sorry I woke you, Grace.”

  “You stay away from that party, dumbbell. Did you hear what I said? Let Pat go there alone—send Bunny three dozen roses, five dozen, ten. Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go!”

  11

  THE GRANLUND HOUSE, KNOWN as “Calvert Hall,” was a fine specimen of old Maryland architecture, as well as an object lesson in the difference between things as they are and things as they seem, if adroitly distorted. From Queen Caroline Street, seen at a distance, screened by shrubbery and dwarfed by stately trees, it seemed modest in size, even small. It was of brick painted white, and in five sections: a center hall, two wings a short distance off, and two “hyphens” connecting. Its lines were thus broken, in the form of a careless sprawl, or what appeared to be a sprawl. Close up, however, from the rose garden out front, the illusion of happenstance, of small informality, vanished, and reality appeared, in the form of a stately, full-fashioned mansion. Ordinarily Clay loved it, though just as ironical as anyone at the regency of the Granlund tenure, and he often stood admiring it, perhaps imagining himself as owning it or some place not too unlike it some time in the future. Today, however, as he pulled up on the oyster-shell drive, all he could see was Sally’s coupe parked near the door. It was the only car out there, as Pat had reminded Clay that he was the guest of honor, and as such bound to come early, “as a grand entrance later just louses the hostess up.” So no one else had come, and Clay was even more nervous than he had been at the office, during a hectic morning hour of shaking hands with everyone.

  And sure enough, once a colored functionary had let them in, she met them in the hall, trim in a black silk print with red poinsettias, holding her hand out to Pat. “Mr. Grant,” she said prettily, “welcome to Calvert Hall—I’m Mrs. Alexis, and I’ll present you to the Granlunds.” Then, turning to Clay: “Mr. Lockwood, so nice of you to come, so nice to see you again.” She didn’t shake hands with him, and he made no effort to. Holding up a finger to wait, she went to the great arch of the east hyphen and stood as though waiting for some signal. “Clay,” whispered Pat, “I see good manners aplenty—it’s all you do see nowadays. I don’t see easy manners—but that girl has ’em.” Clay agreed, fighting off pride in her. Then she nodded to someone, came over, took Pat’s arm, and led through the hyphen, a bower of green things in boxes, to the great drawing room beyond. There the Granlunds were drawn up in the middle of the floor: Mrs. Bunny Granlund, a large woman of forty, who proclaimed every whim, endearment, confidence, joke, and considered opinion at the top of her lungs, as though all within earshot were deaf; Mr. Steve Granlund, a tall, dour man, with the icy affability that seems to be the interchangeable mark of grand dukes, bishops, and headwaiters. He greeted Pat cordially and congratulated Clay on his promotion, which he had read about in The Pilot. Mrs. Granlund fell on Pat’s neck, then put her arms around Clay, calling him “Dear boy” and “Our own Clay.”

  When she had placed Pat beside her, where the guests could be presented, Clay wandered off to a corner, relieved that nothing special seemed to be expected of him. There Sally followed, telling him: “Bunny asked me to take you in, as your partner, for lunch—and I said I would. Was that all right?”

  “Why, yes,” he said, sounding queer. “Sure.”

  “Well, you don’t act very pleased.”

  “I’m surprised, that’s all, that you’d want to take somebody in that had mock-orange juice in his veins.”

  “Mock-orange love is what I got—I’ll say it was quite a letdown. But who am I to complain? If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

  “Now, what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’d like to know, I bet.”

  Her look had guile in it, and he tried to growl something, but nothing seemed to come. Then, lamely, he said: “So—I guess we’re partners.”

  “O.K.—wait for me.”

  The guests, when they began arriving, were mainly men, bringing regrets from wives all over the earth, the sea, the mountains, and Europe. But a few women came too, heavily sunburned, in silk, cotton, and linen suits, all eager to help Mrs. Granlund prove her distinguished origin, before she invested it in restaurant millions. Service, at tables for four in the big dining room, was by a Washington caterer, with elegant Negro help, and not by the Portico staff, which for such an affair was a bit on the folksy side. But Sally had a table for two by the wall near the kitchen door, and from this post of vantage steered things with sharp efficiency. Under these conditions not much could be said, and Clay made no effort to say it, retiring into silence and resuming the sulk that had slipped without his meaning it to. But presently, during a lull, Sally asked in a casual way: “When is he going back? Your most likable Mr. Grant.”

  “He’s taking the four-o’clock plane.”

  “You mean, today?”

  “From Friendship. I’m riding him there myself.”

  “Then you could be free tonight?”

  He looked up to find her staring at him in an arch, innocent way. “I could be,” he answered gruffly. “I am. Why?”

  “I could pay you a visit. I still have my key.”

  He was too shaken for some moments to trust himself to look at her. Then he did, and told her: “I’m sure you could, but you’re not going to until quite a few things are explained.”

  “If you mean what I did to your place,” she whispered, leaning close, “I’m not sorry for that—I’m glad. Listen, when I go to you, in the frame of mind I was in, and you—”

  “There’s also that piece in the paper!”

  “What piece in the paper?”

  He recited The Bosun’s item, and she said: “So you think I tipped him off? All the trouble that that caused me? Do you know what it almost caused? Him breaking off with her—he began making passes at me. Well you must think I’m dumb!”

  “O.K., we don’t say any more.”

  “Oh, yes, we do—we say plenty, now that you’ve brought the subject up, of what I may have done, with good cause, Mr. Lockwood. Where were you? Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  “Oh! So you called me!”

  “No, Clay, I rang you.”

  The difference, it seemed, was profound. Calling, wanting to talk, was one thing, she explained in close detail. Ringing him, “making you answer your phone, and then hanging up on you, so you’d never get any sleep—that was something else.” But, she finished, “you never answered your phone.
Where were you? Playing around with Buster? Or what?”

  “Bunny’s looking at you.”

  She laughed gaily for Bunny’s eye, then repeated, leaning close: “Where were you? You louse, I want to know!”

  “At the Chinquapin-Plaza.”

  “So that was it!”

  As he explained she indulged in retroactive rage, at the trick he had played her in not being home in person to suffer the vengeance she’d planned, he in a retroactive gloat at the neat way he had foiled her intention. But retroactivity is fleeting and of low voltage, so presently they laughed, and she said: “So all right, all right, all right. We’ll say no more.”

  “Not so fast, not so fast!”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Clay! What is it now?”

  “You can come—I can’t very well stop you. I might even be glad to see you. But it’s mock-orange love for you unless you meet my condition.”

  “Condition? What condition?”

  “Sally, the same old one.”

  “Oh? The Wild-Man-from-Borneo thing? Break up my marriage right away? Go to Reno and all that stuff?”

  “That’s it. You’ve got it.”

  “Well, I have to now, of course.”

  He was astonished, staring to make sure she was serious. She seemed to be, and he asked: “What do you mean, ‘now’?”

  “You’re going away, I suppose?”

  “That’s right. And soon.”

  “Then you could walk out on me.”

  “Could? I have.”

  “Aw! Aw! Listen at him—walked out on me! My, I can hardly bear it! Well, you could come walking back, if I know you—and me. I imagine I just about know how to make you!”

  “Get back to the subject. My going away—?”

  “Compels me to make a choice.”

  “What choice, Sally? What are you talking about?”

  “Well, there’s you. And there’s—!”

  “The money?”

  “Yes!”

  For the first time she showed real emotion, her lips twitching, her eyes filling up. After some moments, getting herself under control, she went on: “Not that I like it, giving up twelve million bucks, but if it’s that or giving you up—I guess I’ve made up my mind. I just don’t think I’d like it, living my life without you. So, I’ve decided on you. I only hope you’re worth it.”

  “Listen: I could be, at that!”

  “You were always so modest, Clay!”

  “I’m talking about the dough I could very well make before your life is lived. Sally, I’m on my way.”

  “Then, maybe I’ve done the right thing.”

  “I’ll be home before five.”

  They sat studying each other, and then suddenly she said: “O.K., that’s it, so let’s cut out the jibbering and jabbering, and get down to brass tacks. I’m agreeable, and fact of the matter, I’d already made up my mind, before it all came out, what’s in the paper today. But, I have to think of my child. He’s with his grandfather, has been since Fourth of July, at the beachhouse on Brice’s Point, and if I take off now and leave him there, he’s just a hostage to hate, something to torture me with—in ways I couldn’t think up but a spiteful old man can. So I have to get my baby. So you hold everything now until I find out from Bunny, before this thing breaks up, if she’ll let me bring him to her and then take him with her tomorrow, when she leaves for Cape May, where her kids already are. Or in other words, if she’ll do that for me, I’ll go get Elly this evening and then later come to you—not forgetting, of course, I’m due at five o’clock, for a few minutes with you, if you still think you want to see me. Now, am I making sense or not?”

  “Sounds A-O.K. with me.”

  “I’ll see her and let you know.”

  They got separated, though, when the party spilled out on the lawn, where the photographers were “setting up,” to have the advantage of sunlight. For some time Clay had to pose, with Bunny, Steve, and Pat, and then Pat grabbed his arm, dragging him up to say good-by. “We have to get out!” he whispered. “Or these people are stuck—no one can go till the guest of honor does. That’s me—I’m him! You keep forgetting my unusual eminence!” So, in a matter of seconds, Clay was pumping Bunny’s thick hand and then Steve’s thin one. He still hadn’t settled things with Sally, but then, beyond bobbing heads, she gave him a little wigwag and held up five meaningful fingers. He drove happily, in a fuzzy haze, all the way to the hotel. There Pat had to pack and was so fumble-fingered about it that Clay had a horrible fear he would miss the plane and knock his date in the head. However, by calling a bellboy to help, they finally got the job done, and made the plane by a hair. Clay got home at a quarter to five, but as he opened the door caught a familiar fragrance. When he looked she was there, on the reconditioned sofa, a beckoning hand extended. Hungrily, ecstatically, he wrapped her in his arms.

  Their few minutes stretched to an hour, and then she scurried off, “to pick up some things at home that my baby’s going to need—and change my dress, while I’m at it.” He ate uptown, at the Chinquapin-Plaza, mainly to kill time until she returned. He was back by early evening and decided he ought to call Grace. “So O.K.,” he told her, “you win your bet—congratulations.”

  “What bet, Clay?”

  “About me. About her. About—”

  “Oh! You made it up?”

  “Everything’s settled, Grace. She’s come to her senses at last. She’s doing it my way—breaking her marriage up now, having it done in Reno, which of course has been your way all along.”

  “I’m so glad! It makes me so happy I want to cry. ... And—so jealous I want to scream. Do you hear? I’d like to tear your eyes out!”

  “That part is my one regret.”

  “Clay, you don’t have any regret!”

  “Well, listen, we’ve been pretty close.”

  “It’s up to me to do my own weeping.”

  “Then, if you want it that way—?”

  “It’s not what I want. It’s what has to be!”

  He particularized a little, telling of Sally’s meekness in acceding to his terms, her immediate plans for the child, and so on. Then he went on: “But I would say, Grace, we’ve come to a certain point, about family relationships. You and I will have to meet, and I thought the portrait could be the bridge. I mean, I could tell her what Pat said and ask if she knew anyone qualified to accept the commission. She’ll have to nominate you—or at least, as we would think. And that’ll do it. Do you agree?”

  “Well—is a bridge really needed, Clay?”

  “Well—I was just bubble-gumming.”

  “Can’t we defer it, Clay?”

  “O.K.—we let things take their course.”

  “Once again: I’m glad.”

  12

  HE PLAYED THE BEETHOVEN Third and the Tchaikovsky Sixth, and then, glancing at his watch, was startled to find it nearly eleven. She had said “somewhere around ten,” which gave her ample time, as Brice’s Point was a small place on the bay, an exclusive summer colony, a half hour’s drive from town, so allowing for all delays, for argument, even for quarreling, four hours should have sufficed. He tramped around, a feeling growing on him that something had gone wrong. At last, looking up Elwood P. Gorsuch in the phone book and choosing the one at Ch’s’p’ke Av of the three residences listed, he rang it. He had to hold on for a number of rings before a woman answered, seemingly much upset. She said, when he asked for Mrs. Alexis, “She’s not here—nobody’s here—there’s nobody here to talk.” By now greatly alarmed, he looked up the Alexis home and, for the first time, rang it. At once a man answered, and in panic he hung up. Then, in a helpless, demoralized state, he felt he had to call Grace. She listened, agreeing they had to do something, and told him to wait, not to make any more calls, “to keep your line clear,” and she’d call him back.

  In a few minutes she did, telling him: “At least I found out what it’s about. Mr. El is dead—he died in Channel City Hospital, where they brought him after he cho
ked on a nut. He always ate nuts and raisins after dinner, slapping great handfuls into his mouth, spite of everyone begging him not to—and tonight it happened, that’s all. ... Or at least so Bunny Granlund says!” In spite of herself, Grace wailed it, and then went on to explain: “I called the Alexis house, and the man who answered the call, probably the one you heard too, wasn’t Alec. When he started pumping me, trying to find out who I was, I hung up, as he sounded to me like police. That’s when I got the bright idea of giving Bunny a ring, and she told me what she knew. It seems that Mary MacReady, Mr. El’s nurse, the woman who answered you, had taken a night off when Sally showed up, and Sally put Elly to bed. Then she went out in the kitchen to make some iced tea. While out there she heard something, and when she went in the living room, Mr. El was on the floor, not able to get his breath. She thumped him on the back and, when that didn’t help, called the police to beg them to get her an ambulance. They did, and she rode in the ambulance, taking Elly along. But poor Mr. El was dead when they got to the hospital. Then Sally called Bunny, who took my little darling, God bless her—and that’s all that she knows. But, Clay, is that all? What are police doing there with Sally at home? Or are they police? Or—”

  “You’d like to find out, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’d give anything to.”

  “O.K., let’s do it together.”

  He said that driving past the house “ought to tell us something,” and she volunteered her car, as she kept it out on the street. He walked to Rosemary Park, and she met him downstairs in the lobby, in dark blue pima suit, somber and businesslike. She threaded the residential street, a route strange to him, but then suddenly popped on the Harlow Theater, now dark. She rolled down the familiar street, and as they approached the house Clay spotted white sedans in the drive. “There they are!” he whispered. “Those are police cars.”

  She kept eyes left as they drove, and suddenly murmured: “They’re out there, talking—and that’s Alec with them!”

  “They must have reached him, then.”

  “Clay, what’s it about?”

  “Maybe nothing. On a thing of this kind, don’t forget, they have to investigate—there’s an autopsy and all kinds of stuff. Doesn’t have to mean anything. Spite of the red tape, it could be mainly routine. And we can’t help tonight. All we can do, Grace, is louse her.”