Penelope

by Howard Fast

  “Of course.”

  “Then why don’t you take your information to the police?”

  “Sadaba has her reasons,” Sadaba shrugged.

  “For heaven’s sake,” Hastings exclaimed, “stop talking about yourself in the third person and get to the point. If I understand you, you pretend to know who the robber is, but you prefer not to go to the police, and you claim that my wife is in some manner concerned with all this.”

  “Sadaba does not pretend.”

  “All right, who is the robber?”

  “Your wife, Mrs. James R. Hastings,” Sadaba said calmly.

  “What!”

  “Exactly,” Sadaba nodded.

  “Mrs. Sadaba—or whatever your damn name is—have you gone out of your mind?”

  “Sadaba is not the one who goes out of her mind.”

  “Get out—”

  “Nor is Sadaba ordered out. You have heard of Rasputin?”

  Rising to his feet, Mr. Hastings directed a finger at Sadaba and shouted, “Out!—or I phone the police!”

  “Please, phone the police.” And as he reached for the phone, “Sadaba is waiting.”

  James R. Hastings lifted the phone, dropped the phone, lifted the phone again, and again replaced it. He sank back into his chair, staring at the tall, gaunt woman who sat facing him like the Madame LaFarge of his own fate.

  “Rasputin,” said Sadaba calmly, “is third cousin Sadaba’s Aunt Olga Petrovich Romanoff.”

  “Does that connect?” Hastings asked in a hoarse and bemused whisper. “Who the hell is Rasputin?”

  “Rasputin is mad monk.”

  Hastings shook his head wearily. “Just what has that to do with your insane accusation that my wife robbed my bank?”

  “You think about it, Mr. James R. Hastings—is possible you are agreeing with Sadaba. Sadaba is impossible not to recognize your wife, Mrs. James R. Hastings. All Sadaba’s life is with figures and shapes and sizes. Is quicker Sadaba can make a mistake about a face than a size.”

  Staring at Sadaba, James R. Hastings thought about it, and the more he thought about it; the larger became the possibility. One part of his mind rejected it, and would always reject it; women were incapable, and of all women, Penelope was most particularly incapable. So in any practical terms, Penelope was simply not to be thought of as a bank robber. But in another part of his mind, the part that did the work of a practical man of affairs, a series of circumstances was beginning to build up.

  “Black hair,” he pointed out.

  “A wig. Please, is plain to Sadaba.”

  “The shape of the nose?”

  “A little cotton in one side.”

  “But the suit was stolen,” he pleaded.

  “Ha! And who says suit was stolen—Mrs. James R. Hastings, nobody else.”

  Mr. Hastings was beginning to regain control after the initial shock. Like many other men who had faced Sadaba without being adequately forewarned and forearmed, he had succumbed all too readily to her first wild assault. Now he was getting a grip on himself. He tried, and managed, the cool, casual smile that was his number-one weapon at board meetings and at a certain point in his arguments with Penelope—a smile that was a finely balanced mixture of assurance and contempt. He fixed his voice at that particular pitch which made junior executives squirm with agony, fear, and embarrassment, and he spoke in conjunction with his most withering glance.

  “The whole thing is preposterous. You don’t have a shred of evidence, and you come here with a contrived and ridiculous story—and hope, I imagine, to profit through it. Well, you can put that idea right out of your mind.”

  Sadaba, however, did not wither. “You are accusing Sadaba of shakedown?”

  “I was only pointing out—”

  “So call the police,” Sadaba said shortly. “You think only Mr. James R. Hastings is busy man? Sadaba is also busy woman.”

  “Evidence!” Hastings snorted. “These are presumptions—and actionable presumptions. I could sue you for your last dollar”

  Sadaba shrugged. “So sue Sadaba. Rasputin—”

  “The hell with Rasputin! What do you want?”

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars,” Sadaba said calmly.

  “You are out of your mind!”

  “So call police.”

  Mr. Hastings rose and paced back and forth across his office. The more he considered Sadaba’s contention, the more precisely each piece fitted together. The improbability of the thief stealing the yellow suit, the ten thousand dollars that Penelope was so quick to cover with her own check, the use of Sloan-Kettering—all of these fitted neatly into the pattern; and in some nightmarish manner which he hardly understood, the pattern fitted a woman he had been married to for over two decades, and whom he understood not one iota. Never had a faith been shattered more immediately and wholly than James R. Hastings’ faith in himself, his home, and all of the institutions he revered. As he paced his office, he composed headlines and painted them in enormous black letters across his mind’s eye: MILLIONAIRE’S WIFE CRACKS BANK … SOCIETY LADY RAFFLES … PENELOPE HASTINGS PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE … CITY FEDERAL BANK ROBBED BY PRESIDENT’S WIFE … STOCKHOLDERS DEMAND RESIGNATION OF JAMES R. HASTINGS. And so forth and so on, the headlines poured out of his battered soul.

  While it was true that he was hardly as rich as some millionaires, Mr. Hastings was richer than most, with enough millions to develop the kind of absolute and unique security that only American millionaires possess. It was this security that had been so mortally shaken; and watching his face, which she read with the facility of a professional fortuneteller, Sadaba realized that she had made an awful error by asking for only twenty-five thousand dollars instead of the fifty she had originally decided upon and which Ducky had talked her out of. But having given her word, she remained a woman of her word.

  When Mr. Hastings finally stopped pacing and faced Sadaba, he began with the same plaintive cry of all those facing blackmail. “How do I know that once—”

  “Sadaba’s word is a bond of honor,” Sadaba interrupted. “In old Russia—”

  “To hell with old Russia! You know damn well you have not one single shred of evidence. Not a bit. You are blackmailing me on the basis of taking a man’s good name and dragging it through the mud—and traducing the name of my wife. I could call the police. Do you know what the law says about blackmail?”

  “Sadaba is getting tired of whole thing,” Sadaba said, beginning to rise.

  “No, no! Wait a moment. Let me write you a check for five thousand—”

  “What is this? Do gentlemen bargain? Twenty-five thousand dollars, and certified.”

  “Ten.”

  “Mr. James R. Hastings, Sadaba is disappointed with you—”

  “Goddamn you, I am not a man without influence or power—”

  “You are threatening me, Mr. James R. Hastings?”

  “Fifteen—and not a cent more.”

  But in the end, Mr. James R. Hastings wrote out a check for twenty-five thousand dollars, and Sadaba sat composedly in his office until the check was certified.

  The thunder of her name announced to Penelope that her husband had come home—at least an hour early.

  “Penelope!” he roared.

  “Must you shout?”

  “I damn well must!” he replied, stalking into the bedroom where Penelope was attempting to decide upon a dress that would suit her mood for dinner.

  Penelope turned to look at him, and sighed. “Poor James—Sadaba has been to see you, hasn’t she?”

  “And you have the colossal gall to sit there and put it that way—‘Sadaba has been to see you’?”

  “I always felt that Brown was no place to send a boy,” Penelope said. “It’s one thing to have a good family, but I really don’t think there is any substitute for college in the matter of turning out a gentleman. If it had been Princeton or Harvard—”

  “What in hell are you driveling about?”

  “Your shouting.
Really—”

  “Damn it all, Penelope, will you put both feet on the ground for one moment and answer one goddamn question?”

  “Not if you are going to use that kind of language,” Penelope replied primly. “I abhor that kind of language, and you know it, James.”

  “Language be damned! Did you or did you not rob my bank?”

  Watching herself in the mirror as James spoke, Penelope realized that the corners of her mouth had begun to twitch. It would be dreadful if she burst out laughing, and she was also uncertain as to the reaction of a man like James if pressed too far.

  “Yes, James,” she answered as gently as possible.

  “‘Yes’ what?”

  She turned to face him now. “You asked me whether I had robbed your bank, James. The answer is yes. I robbed your bank.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “Then why did you ask me? And why did you pay all that money to Sadaba?”

  “How do you know I paid her off?”

  “Because she told me she was going to blackmail you, James.”

  “What? She told you that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you did nothing to stop her?”

  “Really, James, what could I do?”

  “She was lying. You never robbed the bank.”

  “Poor James,” Penelope said. “It’s so much harder to believe me capable of robbing a bank than to accept evidence that I did. And it was so very simple, James.”

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars,” Hastings said grimly. “Do you know that I just gave that wretched woman a check for twenty-five thousand dollars?”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “What in hell does that mean—‘thank goodness’?”

  “I thought she was going to ask you for fifty thousand.”

  “Fifty?” Hastings stood there, legs spread, staring at Penelope, who was wondering how angry a man of his age could get without suffering a heart attack or a stroke or something of that sort. Actually, Penelope was more than a little concerned for her husband’s health. While she did not love him, neither did she hate him; and lately she had come to feel rather sorry for him—as sorry as one can feel for a man like James R. Hastings.

  “Fifty,” Hastings repeated. “Fifty thousand dollars—”

  “But you only paid her twenty-five,” Penelope pointed out, “and as you always remind me, a penny saved is a penny earned. You remember when you proposed to make that the slogan for National Bank Week? And then they chose that silly, sentimental tage, ‘Your banker is your best friend.’ I was so provoked.”

  “What in hell are you talking about?” James whispered hoarsely. “Are you some kind of an idiot or something?”

  “And now you are going to be angry,” Penelope sighed.

  “Don’t I have a right to be angry? Don’t I have every right in the world to be angry? You rob my bank. You drag my name in the mud. You lay me open to ruin and disgrace—”

  “James, you are dramatizing.”

  “And you conspire with that lunatic Russian, that—”

  “Sadaba, James.”

  “To blackmail me for twenty-five thousand dollars—”

  “I did not conspire with her, James. And you know that you can afford twenty-five thousand very easily.”

  “It just so happens that most of my cash resources are tied up, and I can’t afford it. If you had one shred of responsibility in that silly head of yours, you would sit down this moment and write me your own check for twenty-five thousand.”

  “Oh, James—how ungallant.”

  “Like hell it’s ungallant!”

  “Really,” Penelope said, “you act as though it were my fault that Sadaba blackmailed you.”

  “And isn’t it?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Only one thing—one thing. Why did you rob my bank?”

  Penelope dared to smile. “Oh, James—isn’t it evident?”

  James R. Hastings swelled, swallowed, almost choked, and stalked out of the room.

  For a minute or two after James had gone, Penelope stood motionless, thinking very hard and trying to determine exactly how she felt about the man who was her legally wedded husband and the father of her two children. She was rather grateful for Martha’s interruption, for her thoughts brought her precisely nowhere.

  Martha was Martha the Conspirator now, devil-may-care Martha who is with you all the way down the line, come what may. The moment she entered, Penelope recognized the third lead in a very poor play that had lasted forty-eight hours earlier that season. James had tickets for the opening, and an extra pair for the dress rehearsal, which extra pair he had given to Martha and Clyde. The third lead in the play was an improbable and loyal servant who goes to jail for years to protect her employer’s honor.

  “He’s gone,” Martha whispered.

  “Why are you crouching like that?” Penelope asked.

  “That indicates loyalty,” Martha replied. “Going to divorce him?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? You don’t need his money.”

  “Martha, please stop crouching. Crouching does not indicate loyalty. Poor man, he parted with so much money. Like cutting off a piece of his soul.”

  “What soul?”

  “The older you get, Martha, the nastier you get. I told you to stop crouching.”

  Reluctantly, Martha straightened up.

  “Did he say when he’s coming back?”

  “He said he’ll be back for dinner. Penelope—did you really rob a bank?”

  “Martha! You’ve been eavesdropping.”

  “Eavesdropping? Lord, girl, the way he was shouting, you could have heard him through sleep muffs.”

  “Sleep muffs? What on earth are sleep muffs?”

  “Things rich women put over their ears so that they can sleep late.”

  “Oh? Well, I’m a rich woman. I don’t use them.”

  “You got a pure soul Why don’t you give him the boot, Penny? If you can pull off a bank job all alone—”

  “Martha, I do not go around robbing banks!”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “And you can tell the same to Clyde, in case he was wearing sleep muffs as well.”

  “We don’t wear them. I just meant, the way Mr. Hastings was shouting—”

  “I know what you meant, Martha.”

  “Yeah. Well, that’s more than I can say myself.” Martha nodded. “Are you in a bind, girl?”

  “A what?”

  “A bind, a crisis, a bad deal with the cops—”

  “Martha,” Penelope said, “will you get the devil out of here? Please!”

  Dr. Mannix’s sentiments matched Penelope’s—but were directed toward her husband. Hastings had called Gregory Mannix late that afternoon and had insisted on an appointment; and although Mannix had tried to explain that a psychoanalyst’s day is scheduled well in advance, Hastings would not take no for an answer.

  “I know how you chaps feel about fees,” Hastings had said.

  “You do?”

  “I don’t know what my wife pays you, but I suspect a nice little bundle each day.”

  “Oh?”

  “So when I say I have to see you tonight, I have to see you.”

  “I’m busy,” Gregory replied unpleasantly.

  “One hundred dollars for one hour of your time.”

  “Go fry an egg,” said Gregory.

  “Did you hear me? One hundred dollars.”

  “Up your ass,” said Gregory.

  “That’s a hell of a thing for a psychiatrist to say.”

  “It relieves my hostilities.”

  “It makes me wonder just what kind of a quack my wife has been going to,” Hastings shouted.

  “Oh, it does, does it? Well, just hold on, you second-rate son of a bitch, until I switch on the tape recorder; you just called me a quack. I know my rights. Such a crack is actionable, and boy oh boy oh boy, do I want a nice tasty piece of civil action against Mr. James R. Hasti
ngs, president of the City Federal Bank, thirty lousy branches in Greater New York.”

  “Calm down,” Hastings said, his voice sweet as honey.

  “Yeah? Well, my tape is onto the wire. Now call me a quack. Come on, you miserable rat fink—call me a quack! Harvard College, Harvard Med, Bellevue Hospital, two years overseas Army General Hospital, head of the psychiatric section—come on you lousy rat fink, call me a quack again and get it on the record.”

  “How about calling me a rat fink?” Hastings pleaded, appealing to balance and reason. “How about that?”

  “It’s not actionable. It casts no reflection on your professional ability. Believe me, Hastings, I know my law. You can’t be a doctor these days, much less a psychiatrist, without knowing your law.”

  “So we said a few rash things. I still have respect for you, Dr. Mannix.”

  “Joy.”

  “Be cynical about it, but you are my wife’s doctor. Where her health and future are concerned, it would seem to me that you cannot turn a deaf ear. I am saying that for your tape, and I am urging you most respectfully to see me for an hour or so this evening.”

  “Is something wrong with Penny?” A new note crept into Gregory’s voice.

  “What do you mean, ‘Penny’?”

  “Look, Hastings, you can’t carry out an analysis for three years without getting onto informal relations with your patients. If this concerns Mrs. Hastings legitimately, I will make room for you early this evening. Suppose we say at six o’clock.”

  “Six, then,” Hastings agreed, not realizing that Gregory was surrendering his supper hour for the sake of a woman he both loved and admired—a six o’clock eating time being one of the few holdovers from the days when he was a simple Ohio boy named Ernie Claphorn.

  Now, however, with James R. Hastings sitting in front of him in his office, across the desk from him, Gregory Mannix regretted the impulse that had led him into this situation. For three years, he had known Hastings only from Penelope’s descriptions; and while Penelope was the gentlest of women and he himself—as he liked to think—the most objective of men, he had somehow accumulated a malevolent hatred of the man who faced him. The fact that Hastings was tall, pleasant, and eminently distinguished in appearance did nothing to lessen Gregory’s intense distaste. So now he eyed Hastings with concealed disgust and asked him just what he could do for him.