by Ed Lacy
“What did the drunk say?” I asked.
“Never mind, he was drunk. You...”
“What did the drunk say? I'm curious.”
“Mister,” the counterman said, his voice soft over the phone, “I don't even know the drunk. He said something about her legs. Look, you call for the money in the afternoon, after three, that's when I come on.”
“Fine.”
“Don't worry, it's safe.”
“I know that. And thank you.” I hung up.
I took out my blending bowl and mixed some tobacco, lit my pipe. I felt badly: I wanted to wake up in the morning and have Flo next to me, hear her chatter as we read the Sunday papers, feel the good warmth of her body against mine. The damn house seemed too quiet.
I sat around, had another drink. Even my cat was out. Flo had her own place on 16th Street. Maybe by the time she reached there, she'd cool off, take a cab back. I could phone her but that would only start more talk. Besides, I wanted her to come back to me. (You're so right—I wasn't exactly a dilly to live with either.)
By four I went to bed but I couldn't sleep and by five I was too restless to even lie down—I could smell Flo's perfume on the bed. I got up, put on sweat pants and a red sweat shirt, wool socks and tap shoes, and went downstairs to dance.
The basement was a long room with a neat oil burner at one end. A mirror ran along one wall and the room was completely bare of any furniture except a phonograph with an automatic record changer.
When I was a kid we lived in Washington Heights in fairly comfortable circumstances. My father was a hard working plumber. He started manufacturing bathroom fixtures and the money rolled in. When he bought the big brownstone on 76th Street and this garage which went with the house, we weren't trying to move in society or put on the ritz. My folks liked the neighborhood and father considered the houses the same as money in the bank. I was about seventeen then and raised like a rich man's son. At Columbia I studied journalism because I had a vague desire to write and mainly because the title “writer” was a lazy catch-all that covered so many phases of life—most of them empty. By merely calling himself a “writer” a man could get by with doing nothing all his life, if he had an income. When I graduated college I worked on a Bronx paper for a while as a copy boy, then played at working in the old man's sales department. Pop was an intelligent man, told me to enjoy myself, that money was meant to be spent. We lived happily and well, had one motto: “Never touch the principal, live on the interest.”
The 1929 crash (it was actually two months before the crash) took my father's cash, his business, the big house, and even took his and mother's life shortly after. The garage was left only because nobody wanted to buy it. With his last few bucks, raised by borrowing on his insurance, we converted the garage into living quarters, and my folks brooded there till they died within a few weeks of each other. They were people who had risen from poverty and the loss of their security broke their hearts. I got in public relations, became a small-time “planter,”—a good-time Charley who made it his business to know reporters and columnists and big shots, so I could almost guarantee a story or a mention in a column in certain papers. But when I started working for the oil company and had a steady salary, I renovated the garage so I could rent out the upper floor and made the basement into my private dance studio.
You see when we were still living on Washington Heights, my mother decided I had to take dancing lessons because it was “the thing” for polite kids to do. She sent me to a beautiful woman who claimed to have been part of the original Diaghileff Ballet Russe company Otto Kahn brought to America just before or after the first world war. She was a nervous, stocky little woman with an amazingly strong and limber body. Most of the time she jabbered so fast and her accent was so intense, I couldn't make out what she was saying. But she claimed to know or have known Fokine, Nijinsky, Matisse, Ravel, and Picasso... although the names didn't mean a thing to me at fifteen. She talked of the old Paris, what a dictator, snob, and genius Diaghileff was, as she put me through the strict discipline of the classical ballet.
I was a tall, skinny kid, still scared some of my pals would find out I was taking dancing lessons—and ballet at that. I had absolutely no desire to study the dance, and even though my mother insisted, I would certainly have given it up if my teacher hadn't seduced me the third time I was in her studio. She thought nothing of it, would make love to me in French, her voice gay and light, but of course it was a great experience for me. I studied hard to be sure she would reward me with her favors. In time I was quite pleased with the hard mus-cularness my body began to take on.
The truth is I soon liked—and still like—dancing. By the time I was eighteen the novelty of “Madame's” middle-aged body had worn off, but I studied as hard as before. I soon realized that like opera, the classic ballet is static, incoherent to us, reflecting only the past, the dull glories of a dead era. It is bound by a bric-a-brac tradition completely outdated. But in the modern dance I found my interpretation of life, although even the modern dance is still hindered by many of the silly old ballet traditions. I went in for tap dancing, went crazy over Martha Graham, and even tried ballroom dancing. At one time I thought I was a second Ted Shawn and while at Columbia, the stage bug bit me badly. I couldn't be bothered with college musicals, and decided the best and fastest way to get a break would be to become a chorus boy, where my great dancing ability would surely stand out, stop the show.
One day I tried out for a Broadway show, certain it would only be a few days before I would be the premier danseur. As I was waiting in the wings for the try-out, I looked smugly at the chorus boys about me. To limber up, I did a few turns, followed by an entrechat, all in perfect form. Then some blond nance got up and did a tremendous jete, really a mad leap. I tried a few tap routines and then this joker broke out into a tap dance that would have put Fred Astaire to shame. I quietly took off my dance shoes, put on my coat and hat and walked out.
That was the end of my “career,” but I still dance, mainly for the exercise and self-enjoyment, and of course I attend all the various dance recitals.
I put ten records on the phonograph, a collection of classical, jazz, some Afro-Cuban, and even one be-bop. Then turned down the lights and began to dance—watching myself in the mirror. I did whatever I felt in the mood for; an odd mixture of ballet, tap, rumba, and a great deal of arm and body movements.
It took a half hour for the records to play and then I rested for a few minutes, put on another ten records and danced again. By this time I was wet with sweat and so tired I could hardly move. I put the records away, went upstairs. Outside, it was turning light and I drank a glass of milk, spilled some in Slob's saucer—he was my cat and on the town for the night—and threw myself across the bed. I intended to get up in a few minutes, take a shower and dry off under the sun lamp. The next thing I new, the shrill sound of the doorbell cut into my sleep, seemed to drill through my head. I sat up, saw it was nearly nine.
For a moment I sat there, listening to the bell, wondering who it was, my mind still full of sleep. Then I jumped out of bed, ran to the door. Of course it had to be Flo and I felt like a louse for not calling her. There was a great heavy wooden door, ceiling high, across the front of the living room. It had once been the garage doors, and in this a smaller door had been cut. I flung this open and stared pop-eyed at a plump man in an army uniform, gold major leafs on his shoulders, several bright ribbons on his chest. For a moment we stared at each other, he ran his eyes over my smelly sweat suit and then he suddenly laughed. He said, “Well by Christ I'm glad to see something that hasn't changed. Knew I could count on you, George, to be an institution.”
“Well for—Hank Conroy!” I said as if I didn't believe my own voice. “Where did you drop from?”
“From Frankfort. Landed at 4 a.m. Going to let me in?”
“Sorry,” I said as he walked by me and I closed the door. I'd last seen Hank in 1942 when he came in on a ten-day leave after graduating
officer school. Now he stood in the center of my living room, looking about slowly, as if seeing it for the first time, and I thought he was going to cry.
He said, “Ah, George, you don't know how good it is to see you, this room. New York's frightened the pants off me, but you—this room—the house—you're all a wonderful reminder that some things in this world of confusion are still the same. George, you're the goddam backbone of something or other.”
“Hank, carrying a load?”
He took off his hat, opened his jacket and sat down. His hair was still thick and heavy. “Drinking doesn't do me any good anymore, George. Odd, I killed time at LaGuardia, then wandered around downtown, not wanting to wake you. And here you are, up and dancing. Same old George.”
“That's me, the pillar of 74th Street. Come in the bathroom while I take a shower.”
I showered and he sat on the clothes hamper and talked. He'd been in Africa, Italy, and France. Hank had returned to the States once in '45, then back to Italy and Germany. We'd been friends since high-school and I looked at his lined and worried face, his graying hair (and he was five years younger than I—and such important five years when you reach my age), and I wished to hell I hadn't been exempt. No matter what they beefed about, the raw deals they got, the guys in the service had been places, seen things—their life had been shaken... while I had been 41 years old at the start of the war and oh, so necessary to the war effort (whatever that was) because I was editing the house organ of an oil company, doing a job that meant nothing except buttering the conceit of my bosses and the stockholders.
As I dried myself, wondering what Italy and Africa was like, I asked, “Out of the army, Hank?”
“Will be in a few days.”
“Somebody forget to tell you the war was over four or five years ago?” I asked, powdering my toes.
He shrugged his plump shoulders. “No. Don't think I've been through combat, hell, and all that. I haven't, but somehow the war turned out to be the only real thing in my life, and I tried to hang onto it. Only I got sour on the idea of living like an English Sahib in Germany and...”
He was staring at me sadly and I stopped powdering myself, asked what was wrong. “George, you're wonderful! Still using one kind of powder for your toes, another to dust your crotch, and a third for under the arms. My God, you don't know how I'm trying to get a hold of something, of my old life.”
“Got a job in the hopper?” I asked, slipping on a silk bathrobe.
“Oh, I'll get back to selling, I suppose,” Hank said.
We went back to the living room and I stepped into the kitchen, put on the electric coffee percolator, was halving grapefruit, when he called me.
He was standing in the living room next to the heavy woodwork that had once been a door leading to the upstairs apartment, before I had the wall filled in. He pressed part of one of the wooden panels, which slid back, showing an empty space. We used to call it the “hideaway” when we were kids.
Hank said happily, “Imagine, this still being here—still working.”
“Bet I haven't opened that panel—or thought of it—in fifteen years,” I said.
“Remember when this was the garage and the big car was here? We'd sit in the front seat and imagine we were racing like hell along some dark road, every yegg in the world after us, and then we'd jump out and put all sorts of crazy documents in the panel? Had some great times then.” Hank pressed the top of the panel and it slid back into place again. “Like a movie,” he added.
There was something a little slobbering and queer about him and I said rather sharply, “The corn-flakes company will still send you secret rings for box tops.”
He lit a cigarette, sat on the couch. “George, why is it when we grow older instead of getting smarter, we get more stupid? Why do we lose the simplicity and happiness we once held in childhood?”
“What happened, Hank, the army make you a philosopher?”
“Don't laugh it off, as we grow older we become full of sour bitterness. Too bad humans don't age for the better, like wine. The wine of humanity is pretty thin and watery.” He blew out a fairly decent smoke ring, watched it dissolve in the air, asked, “Own the oil company yet?”
“Nope. Still editing the 'Sun, published every month by the Sky Oil Company, Inc.,' and it's still as corny as it sounds.”
“And you still wear conservative suits by Brooks Brothers, custom-made shirts with stiff tab collars, Bronzini ties, make a ritual of powdering your crotch, of blending your tobacco. You take in the dance recitals, and quietly read your Times in the evening over the pre-dinner cocktail, which can only be ordered at certain bars. George, you're so wrapped up in yourself, you give so much attention to George, I envy you.”
“And I still have my little bouts with Flo—might as well make a complete inventory. Want breakfast?”
Hank shook his head.
“Then take some coffee with me.”
“I'm full of coffee. George, do me a favor.”
“Certainly,” I said, wondering how much of a bite he was going to put on me. I didn't have any money in the bank but I could always borrow a couple of hundred.
He pulled a thick white envelope out of his pocket. “Hold this for me.”
I took the envelope. It was open and full of twenty dollar bills. “What's this, black-market loot?”
“No, saved it from my salary. There's $7,000 there. Keep it in your bank for me.”
“Why don't you open an account tomorrow? I mean I don't like to hold money—you know how the green slips through my hands. What's the gimmick?”
“I'm married to the world's greatest bitch,” Hank said softly. “That's why I came home—I'm going to get a divorce, soon. I don't want Lee—that's the 'little woman'—to know about this. She's... well, I know why she is what she is, but she's... well, greedy wouldn't start to describe her. She's money-crazy. In fact, she's downright crazy. You see she... oh, it's quite a mess. No sense involving you in it.”
“This is news. How long have you been married?”
“Let's not talk about it. Put it down as one of these war marriages you've probably read too much about. It's a mess I got into with both feet. I'll get straightened out, but I'll be damned if she'll get the money.”
I put the envelope on the table, carefully. “Hank, why don't you put it in a safe deposit vault or...”
“Can't, she'd get it. You don't know what a nose she has for money. You keep it, please.”
“But Hank I have a hard time making my salary last the week. You know me and money, why I...”
“Damn it, George, do me this favor!” he said loudly, getting up, walking around the room. “I'm in a mess that's my own making. I'm in a rough jam, and all I'm asking is that you hold this.”
I didn't want to take the money, I knew myself too well, yet I had that old guilty feeling when I looked at Hank's uniform. I still had a slacker-complex even though the war had become almost a joke by this time, and being a vet was a handicap. I said, “Okay. I'll give you a receipt and...”
“No receipt. She'd find that.”
“Look Hank, please don't give me seven grand and not even take a receipt. You know the old gag—a man isn't made of stone.”
“Stop talking like a kid.”
I took paper and a pen from my desk, wrote:
I owe Hank Conroy seven thousand dollars ($7,000), payable on demand, in payment for moneys loaned me, this date.
I signed my name and the date, held it out to him. “Hank, you have to take this. Suppose I get killed falling off a bar stool? You don't have a thing to go on, and I'd hate to see this end up going to my distant cousins in L.A.”
“Forget the receipt, be serious. I'll probably be divorced, straightened out in a very few months and...”
“But I'm being serious, Hank. Seven grand is quite a bundle, what if something did happen to me?”
“Nothing will. I'll take that chance.
I looked at the envelope full of folding money a
nd felt mixed up. “Hank, you're crazy.”
He stopped pacing the room. “That's no lie, sometimes I'm damn sure I am off my rocker. Come on, I'll take that cup of Java.”
“I don't hold the money unless you take this receipt,” I said. “The strain might easily overpower me.”
He suddenly grabbed the receipt out of my hand, walked over and pressed the panel. He put the piece of paper inside, closed the panel, and turned to me with a smile. “Feel better? No one knows about the panel but the two of us, maybe Flo, and...”
“I forgot to ever tell Flo about it.”
“Good. If anything happens to you, I'm protected.”
“But suppose the house burns down? Or...?”
“For God's sake!” Hank pushed me toward the kitchen. I went back and got the envelope. The way he left money around made me jittery.