“Show? This is a party.”
“Oh—must be some shindig.”
“June’s giving it.”
“You still see her?”
“Now and then, mostly then. Her old lady crossed her up on Christmas. ’Stead of having her and her sister home, she decided she and the sister would visit June. So they came, and June had to throw them a party.”
“You heard anything about her and Jansen?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“They say they’re thick.”
“Who says?”
“It’s going around.”
“You couldn’t prove it by me.”
For a moment Lefty had watched Ben narrowly, but if the inquiry meant anything to him, Ben gave no sign. He led the way into the living room, got out Scotch, ice, and soda, and turned on the radio. Dance music came in.
“You know one thing, Lefty? The best thing about the night after Christmas is you don’t have to listen to those hymns any more.”
“I don’t know. I kind of like them.”
“I don’t mind them, except for one thing. There’s not over five or six of them and they sing them over and over again. After ‘Come All Ye Faithful’ and ‘Silent Night, Holy Night’ and ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,’ why then, what have you got?”
“Trouble with you is, you just don’t like music.”
“Come to think of it, maybe that’s right.”
“I know all them hymns.”
“Words and all?”
“I ever tell you how I started, Ben?”
“In a reform school, wasn’t it?”
“In a way it was. They put me in a reform school, and I wore a denim suit, and worked on the farm, setting out tomato plants, and hoeing onions, and thinning corn. Corn was the worst. It almost broke your back. Then I got reformed. I got religion, and when they let me out I went around preaching. And then one summer I hooked up with a big evangelist, him doing the big night meeting and me talking to the young people in the afternoon. And the night of the big thank offering, I got all the dough, at the point of a gun from the treasurer of the outfit with a handkerchief over my face. But he caught my walk, as I skipped around the corner. He knew me by that, and they got me. That’s how I know all them hymns, Ben. I started out as a preacher.”
Even Ben, a little too prone to accept everything in life as an everyday occurrence, blinked at this recital. Lefty got out his wallet and began thumbing through the wad of papers it contained. He found what he wanted, a tattered square which he handled carefully, so as not to tear it. Handing it to Ben, he said, “A regular preacher with a license.” Ben read the printing, under the imprimatur of some obscure sect, glanced at the signature, which was written over the title, Bishop of Missoula, Montana, and stared at the name which had been typed into the body of the certificate: Richard Hosea Gauss. He handed it back. “Well, say, I never knew that. That’s a funny one, isn’t it? I bet you could make them holler amen, too.”
“I still can.”
“… Little highball?”
“You notice I generally drink beer?”
“Hold everything.”
Ben disappeared into the pantribar, came back with two tall glasses, collaring creamily within a perilously short distance of the tops. He set one in front of Lefty, apologizing for being forgetful. Lefty took a meditative sip, waiting for the little hic that would follow. When it came, he said, “I guess maybe it’s a hangover from them revival days, but it always seemed to me that liquor was wrong. However—there can’t be no harm in beer.”
“Remember Pearl Harbor.”
“Oh we wouldn’t forget that.”
The party that Ben descended to, in Drawing Room B, was typically citified. That is to say, the clothes, the food, and the service were streamlined, straight out of the Twenty-First Century; the manners, the flirtation, the wit, a little dull. June had invited the whole Social Service Bureau, which was mainly feminine, and these ladies had brought husbands, lovers, and friends who ran a little to spectacles; she had invited also the firm of lawyers for whom she had worked before she entered politics, and these gentlemen had brought their wives; she had invited the city comptroller, the city assessor, the city engineer, and various other officials with whom she came in daily contact, and these gentlemen had not only brought their wives, but in some cases their whole families, consisting of in-laws, daughters, and sons. A few of the gentlemen wore white ties, but most of them wore black, and one or two of them red; there were even a few uniforms present; the party certainly didn’t lack for variety. Nor did it lack for spirit. The Looney Lolligaggers, a five-piece orchestra that the hotel recommended for small private parties, was dispensing its tunes, and most of the guests were dancing. The lunacy of the Lolligaggers, so far as one could see, consisted mainly of bouncing up and down as they blew into their instruments; otherwise they seemed to be very usual boys in white mess jackets.
June let Ben in with civility rather than hospitality. She wore a bottle green dress, with bracelet, comb, and cigarette holder of the coral that she seemed so fond of. Now that the school-teacherishness had been somewhat dissolved in cocktails, tears, and a conviction of sin, she was really a striking-looking woman, and it didn’t hurt the general effect that she was mainly ankles and eyes. Uneasily she took a look at the dancers, said she guessed he knew everyone there. By this he knew that she didn’t want to introduce him around. He nodded coolly, said he certainly knew everyone he wanted to know. She said drinks were being served in the alcove, that the waiters would take care of him. He said thanks, and started to edge his way around the floor.
His path was blocked, almost at once, by a dumpy little woman in light blue, who looked first at him and then at June in a timid, uncertain way. June hesitated, then said, “Oh, this is my mother. Mamma, Mr. Grace.”
“I’m very glad to know you, Mrs. Lyons.”
“What was the name?”
“Grace, but just call me Ben.”
“I don’t hear very well I thought at first she said Jansen. I’m just crazy to meet him. I hear he’s such a wonderful man.”
“Mamma, I told you he’s not coming.”
“I said, I didn’t rightfully hear.”
“Mrs. Lyons, a drink?”
“Yes, thanks.”
Again Ben started past the dancers, this time guiding Mrs. Lyons by the arm, and again his way was blocked, by a slender, willowy girl with light hair in a peach-colored evening dress. She glanced with a smile at Mrs. Lyons, stepped lightly aside. Mrs. Lyons said, “And this is my other daughter. Dorothy, I want you to meet Mr. Grace, Mr. Ben—”
But Dorothy was gone, slipping between dancers with quick, sure ease, never once getting bumped. Ben, the former broken-field runner, watched fascinated. However, his brow puckered with puzzlement as he turned back to the mother, for he was sure Dorothy had heard.
Mrs. Lyons, once he camped down with her near the potted plants that flanked the alcove, turned out to be more of a trial than he had bargained for. For one thing, she was slightly deaf. For another thing, she was a little tight. For still another thing, she seemed to be under the impression that she was attending a function of high society, and to be elaborately nervous as to the niceties of her conduct. He tried to get her talking about June, of whom she seemed very proud, but she kept returning to the subject, titivating her imagination by wondering if she was properly dressed, if she was downing her drink in an elegant manner, if she should find dancing partners for a stag line that seemed to be forming near the punch bowl. First by one trick, then another trick, he managed to keep her under control. June seemed appreciative, for her frostiness eased a little, and she came over now and then, stood beside him, caught his hand, and squeezed it.
It was when she was drifting away, after one of these visits, that she stopped stock still and stared. The buzzer had sounded, a waiter had opened the door, and Mayor Jansen was entering the room.
There was a murmur, then the Looney Lolligaggers
broke off their tune and launched into “O Sapphire Gem of Glory,” the Lake City municipal anthem. Mr. Jansen smiled, bowed, and allowed his hat and coat to be taken from him. He had not put on evening clothes, no doubt because his dark gray suit gave suitable emphasis to the mourning band that was sewed prominently on his sleeve. Otherwise he had changed, in ways too subtle for the naked eye, from the archetype of a Swedish dairyman into the archetype of an American Mayor. He was handsome, oily, and absurd. He had a word, a bow, and a smirk for everybody. When the anthem finished, he shook hands with June, then with her at his elbow made the circuit of the room.
When he got to Ben, he said: “Hello, please to meet you, nice party June geev us, hey, yes?” But when he got to Mrs. Lyons, he bowed low, kissed her hand, and said: “Ah, Mamma, Mamma, I been looking forwert dees meeting so much.”
He said quite a little more, and she interrupted with little answers, trying to get started, but before she could do so June had him by the elbow again, leading him away, introducing him to people on the other side of the palms. Mrs. Lyons watched hungrily, then caught the expression “Mr. Mayor,” as somebody bellowed it from the alcove. Horror-stricken, she turned to Ben. “Is that what you call him? Oh, I called him Mayor. I—”
“It’s O.K. Anything.”
“But I’ve got to apologize—”
“He’s getting paid for it! What difference does it make? It’s a free country, go up and call him Olaf and he’s got to take it.”
“Call him Olaf—why?”
“It’s his name.”
She settled back, shedding boozy tears and watching while His Honor passed a group of men, then happily squared off to face six women, all of them young, all of them reasonably pretty. Suddenly she wriggled in her chair, making ready to get up. “Hey, where you going?”
“There’s something I completely forgot.”
“Yeah, and what’s that?”
“Mr. Grace, I have to congratulate him.”
“Oh, he got elected six months ago.”
“No, no, I mean on his engagement. To June.”
“His—where did you hear that?”
“Oh, she didn’t tell me. She wouldn’t give me the satisfaction. She thinks I’m dumb, she always treats me as if I didn’t have good sense. His secretary told me. She was over here, the day before Christmas, bringing the flowers he sent, and—she told me. Let go of me. I’ve got to congratulate him. I—”
Ben, however, didn’t let go of her. He held her firmly by the wrist until she subsided into another trickle of tears. Then he wigwagged June. Busy with her important guest, she looked away. The next time he caught her eye his face was a thundercloud and in a moment she came over. “June, which is her deaf ear?”
“She can’t hear you now. What is it?”
“You better get her out of here.”
“What’s the trouble?”
“She wants to congratulate him. On the engagement.”
“What are you doing, being funny?”
“If so, why?”
“How would she know about—the engagement?”
“His secretary, darling.”
June’s eyes dilated until they seemed like big black pools, then she took her mother by the arm. Mrs. Lyons was quite amiable about it, and permitted herself to be led, as long as she was under the impression that she was being taken over to Mr. Jansen. When she saw she was headed for the door, however, she began to balk, and June had a ticklish time. Guests turned their backs, so as not to see the pathetic figure in blue, gesticulating foolishly toward the Mayor, and the Looney Lolligaggers suddenly started the “Maine Stein Song.” This was played through, however, before June got Mrs. Lyons through the door.
Ben lit a cigarette of relief, and smoked for a few moments alone. Then he became aware of the figure that was standing on the other side of the palms. Dorothy, in her peach-colored dress, stared out at the room. It was the first time he had really had a look at this girl who had started such a chain of circumstances in his life, and he looked with lively interest. It was all the more lively, since he was totally unable to connect this face with all he knew about its owner. It was, in anybody’s contest, an extremely beautiful face. It was perfectly chiseled, in profile, at least, its slightly droopy lines reminding him of pictures he had seen of ancient sculpture. There was some exquisite invitation about the mouth: it pursed a little, with an expression of expectancy. The skin was soft, with just a brush of bloom on it. What he could see of the figure was lovely too, not too tall, but slender, soft, willowy. He had decided that there must be some mistake when their glances met, and he saw the kleptomaniac.
Her eye had a bright, dancing light in it.
He squashed his cigarette, looked at the palms of his hands. They had pips of moisture on them. He had the dizzy, half-nauseated feeling of a man who has been rocked to the depths by a woman, and knows it. He got up, crossed in front of her, went into the alcove for a drink. When he had downed a hooker of rye he looked and she was still there. He started to cross in front of her again, and instead stood looking at her. He was to one side of her, and a little behind, only a few inches away. Soon he knew that she knew he was there. After a bellowing silence he heard himself say: “You’re bad.”
“I didn’t speak to you.”
“I said you’re bad.”
“Leave me alone. You belong to her.”
“Says who?”
“I hear her call up everybody, to invite them here. When she came to you, I knew you were hers. Why do you talk to me? I haven’t said a thing to you.”
She leaned against the wall. Her head tilted up and she closed her eyes. His heart was pounding now. He knew he was courting danger, knew he should drift away, and all he could do about it was begin to talk rapidly, so he could finish before June got back: “You can break away from this party. You can if you want to. I’m going to break away. And I’ll be on the sixteenth floor, in Number sixteen twenty-eight. You go up in the elevator, that’s all. You slip away from the party and go right up in the elevator. You don’t even need a coat.”
Her eyes opened. She stared straight ahead of her, and for a long time she said nothing. Then she licked her lips. “You’re bad, too.”
“We’re both bad.”
Through the stillness of early morning, so profound that even the faint whine of elevator cables was audible, came the sound of hammering fists: a woman in green, with a great coral comb in her hair, was beating on the door of 1628. She took off one slipper, beat with the heel of that. Across the hall, a door opened and a middle-aged man in pajamas asked whether she realized that he was trying to sleep. She began to cry, and as the man closed the door, staggered hippety-hop back to the elevator, where she put on her shoe. Then she pressed the button. In a moment or two the door opened; one would have said the car was there waiting for her. She stepped in, trying to control her sobs.
Inside 1628, a man and woman looked at each other by the eerie light of a radio dial. Superficially, they were handsome: he tall, fair, big-shouldered in his evening clothes; she young, slim, lovely with her trick of throwing back her head and staring at some shadowy beyond. And yet, at closer inspection, they weren’t handsome at all, or big, or lovely. There was something ferretlike about them both, something small in their faces, something wild, something a little wanton. They seemed, in some vague way, to be aware of this, and to realize that it was the reason for the intense, almost exalted delight that they took in each other, so that they touched each other eagerly, and stood close, inhaling each other’s breath. Presently she said: “She’s gone.”
“Sounds like it.”
“I’ve got to go, Ben.”
“Oh nuts, sit down, stay a while.”
“I’ve got to go, so she won’t know. I’ve go to get back into my room so I can pretend it was all some kind of a mistake. I—don’t want her to suffer. She’s suffered enough from me.”
“… I don’t want her to know either.”
“Then—good
night, Ben.”
“Listen, did you hear what I said? I don’t want her to know either. She—she’s important to me. That cluck, that Swede, is stuck on her, and through her I can make him do what I want done.”
“I know, I guessed all that.”
“Look, you got to get this straight. She does it because—”
“She’s in love with you, of course.”
“And what do you say now?”
“You know what I say.”
She hid her face in his coat, clung to him, dug her fingers into his arm. Obviously, they had got to a point where the word love, if either of them had uttered it, would have been somewhat inadequate. Insanity would have been better, and there was some suggestion of it as she raised her face to his. “I know, it means money. And so long as you give her her share, I don’t care. I don’t see how any of it could be helped. Don’t worry. She won’t know.”
“You sure? How you going to work it?”
“I don’t know … That’s the funny thing, about what makes you bad. You can go through walls, Ben. Through walls. Once I went through a whole locker room and took four handbags and got out and I wasn’t even seen. You know how I did it?”
“No.”
“You never will.”
He caught her in his arms, and for a few moments they seemed to have melted together. Then he released her, and she floated toward the door. “Don’t worry, Ben.”
She was gone, and he put away the highball tray he had put out for Lefty, emptied the ashtrays, set the room to rights. In the bedroom the phone rang. “Ben?”
“Yes?”
“June.”
“Oh, hello.”
“I’m terribly sorry, Ben.”
“About what?”
“Didn’t you hear anything?”
“I’ve been asleep.”
“Thank heaven … I did something terribly silly. On account of Dorothy. I—thought she was with you.”
Three by Cain Page 32