Institute

by James M. Cain

  “Well, I would—”

  “Okay, but being cheap doesn’t help.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “If I were hauling a girl somewhere, I’d give her something to eat.”

  “Oh! Oh! Oh! Yes, of course.”

  “But not just yet!”

  She gave me a playful pat and held up her hand, and there it was—the gorge of the Susquehanna passing under us, one of the world’s great sights. She stared, then whispered: “It’s so beautiful, I always want to inhale it!”

  “Then let’s both inhale.”

  Soon we were in Havre de Grace and I pulled in at a roadside joint on the far side of town. We went in and sat at the counter and had hotdogs on rolls, buttermilk, apple pie a la mode, and coffee. She wolfed everything down, then sat sipping her coffee and breathing through her nose. Then we were in the car again.

  “Young man in a dinner jacket?” she said. “What kind?”

  “Actually, I have two—one black, one red—or, say maroon. I didn’t like it at first. The satin lapels were too shiny. But I had them changed to cross-grained silk. Now I like it fine.”

  “I wonder if I will.”

  “Just for your info, I’m the one wearing it.”

  “Well, just for your info, I’m the one that’ll be presenting it, with you inside, at dinner, when I introduce you to money—and, my sweet, I do mean money, millions and millions and millions of it—in an effort to get you your institute. But if your red dinner jacket gets a laugh, we lose before we really go to bat. Why don’t we stop at your place so I can have a look?”

  “Listen, I like the goddam coat.”

  “Why the pash goddam?”

  “I don’t want my clothes inspected.”

  She studied me for a moment and then asked: “What’s with the apartment, Lloyd?”

  “Nothing—that I know of.”

  “There has to be, from the shifty way you’re acting.

  “It’s a perfectly good condo. My mother left it to me. Now, if you don’t mind, let’s talk about something else.”

  “What’s there. A wife you haven’t mentioned?”

  “I’m not married.”

  “Lloyd, if I find you the money, they’ll want to know about you—all kinds of things, like your background and whether you have what it takes to run a biographical institute—or any institute. And why shouldn’t they know? After all, how you live is part of it. On top of that, there’s you. You’re not uninteresting, you know. They wouldn’t be human if they didn’t want to know you better.”

  It seems to me now that she said quite a bit more, but I must not have had the right answers, because all of a sudden she said: “Our apartment is in East Watergate. It’s at 2500 Virginia Avenue, if you know where that is.”

  “I do. I know East Watergate.”

  It was a haughty way of saying forget about College Park and the warthog that had an apartment there. For some time we rode in silence—to Baltimore, through the tunnel, and onto the freeway to Washington. But when I took the turnoff for College Park she said nothing. I came to the Accomac, where I lived, and pulled into the parking lot back of it. I shut the motor off and, still sitting behind the wheel, spoke my piece very stiffly.

  “O.K., there is something about my apartment. It was my mother’s before she died. It was where she lived, with her son a sort of a lodger. As such, it was a beautiful place for a middle-aged woman to call home. But for the son it has caused smiles on faces that did not, not, NOT get invited back. So if you do any smiling—”

  “What is there to smile at, Lloyd?”

  “The decor, I suppose you would call it, consists of Sonny Boy’s career. Pictures of him by the dozen, by the score, maybe even by the hundred—doing everything from riding his Shetland pony to getting his Ph.D. Which was fine for Mommy’s apartment. But for Sonny Boy to call it his, that has a peculiar look. If you want to laugh, go ahead. But it will be the last time you will. I like it, the way I like the dinner jacket. And if you don’t—”

  “Calm down, Lloyd.”

  “O.K., let’s go up.”

  We got out of the car and I locked it. I said: “I usually go in the back way, through the basement and up in the freight elevator. But today, in your honor, we can go around front and make a grand entrance through the lobby.”

  “I think we should use the back way.”

  I must have looked surprised, because she explained: “We don’t know who’s in the lobby, who might remember the beautiful frog whose picture they saw in the paper.”

  “Then through the basement it is.”

  I unlocked the basement door and led to the freight elevator where I stood with her, feeling foolish while it creaked upward. At the seventh floor we got off and I unlocked the door to apartment 7A. Then I bowed her into my apartment. For a moment she was behind me as I hung up my coat in the guest closet in the vestibule. When I turned, she was under the arch between the vestibule and the living room, her mouth parted, her eyes roving around the room. At last, without looking at me, she said in a reverent whisper: “Lloyd, how could anyone laugh? How could you even imagine that I would? It’s beautiful, simply beautiful!”

  If it weren’t for the pictures, I’d have been proud of it myself. The room wasn’t as big as the drawing room of her place, but it was still pretty big, bigger than most living rooms. On three sides were bookshelves six feet high—solid on the long side where there were no windows and broken on the side with the arch and fireplace. On the fourth side of the room was a large picture window which looked out on the university campus. The view was grassy, fresh, and green.

  She moved to the middle of the room where she kept turning around. “It’s the books that make me lower my voice. They throw a hush over any room. We have what we call ‘the library’ It’s full of reference books. Who was Moody?”

  “John Moody? Financial writer, I think.”

  “Yes! Annual Report of Earnings! I never go into that room ... What are these books? Biographies?”

  “A lot of them, yes.”

  “And you’ve read them?”

  “Well, that’s what I buy them for. I think I’ve read most of them. A lot of them, like Bancroft’s Chronicles of the Builders, nobody’s really read. But I have them. If I want to find out who Kit Carson was, it’s in there.”

  “I’ll bite. Who was Kit Carson?”

  “A scout.”

  “Never heard of him ... Oh! There’s one I have read—R.E. Lee.”

  “Nice job Freeman did on it.”

  “I bought it when I was a girl. Paid my girlish money for it. I fell for the beautiful binding. I just love scarlet. And that, reminds me to look at your jacket.” She started for the door but stopped by the cocktail table to look at an enlarged portrait photograph that was over the fireplace. She asked: “Is that who I think it is?”

  “My mother, yes.”

  “Damned good-looking.”

  “Beautiful, I’d call her.”

  “I wouldn’t. Beauty, let’s face it, is slightly dumb. She wasn’t. That face is smart. It can’t be fooled.”

  “With money, it couldn’t be.”

  “The hair, gray, almost white, is beautiful. That I admit. The face—those soft, round features, a bit like yours—is beautiful, too. But the eyes see more than beauty cares about. You say she was good with money?”

  “Better than my father.” I waved at his picture which was on a shelf off by itself. “He was a politician and real estate man. In Prince Georges County they’re practically the same thing. He was very proud of my mother—for all the wrong reasons. He died when I was ten years old without finding out how smart she was. What he doted on was her family which came in the Ark.”

  “Well? Didn’t he? Didn’t we all?”

  “Oh, not that Ark. Noah’s if that what you mean. The other one, more important here in Maryland. The first settlers came in the Ark and the Dove and landed in St. Mary’s County—the next one down the line. He was always talk
ing about how high-born she was.

  “Then you were high-born, too?”

  “I don’t do much about it. And neither did she.”

  “Wait till Richard hears about this.”

  “But when my father died, she went to town with what he left her, and doubled it and tripled it and quadrupled it—”

  “And quintupled it, I’ll bet.”

  “At least. But she wasn’t tight with it. She would help anyone out.”

  “Rich people are often like that. So is you-know-who.”

  “Just the same, when money saw her come in the door, it would come over for a pat on the head before snuggling into her handbag.”

  “The more you talk, the more I like her.”

  “She left me very well off. I don’t have to work.”

  “I’m so glad to hear it.”

  Her eyes half closed on that, and suddenly I felt foolish. I had forgotten, just for that long, how rich she was. Suddenly she said: “The coat, where is it?”

  “My bedroom, I’ll show you.”

  “I’ll find it.”

  She was gone a few minutes. I heard drawers being opened and shut. Then she was back, saying: “The coat’s fine and the dark-blue trousers are just right. But those light-blue puff-bosomed shirts are an inspiration. Lloyd, they’ll love you. You’ll look like just what you are, a high-born Maryland gentleman being gracious to his nouveau riche friends. I’ll be proud to present you. I can hardly wait.”

  “You’re putting me on.”

  “No, I’m not. Do you have a red tie?”

  “Yes. Of course I have a red tie.”

  “Just wanted to know. I forgot to look.”

  She began making the rounds of the pictures, stopping at one of a little girl beside two oxen yoked to a cart. “Who is she?”

  “My mother, when she was little. At that time, in St. Mary’s County, they used oxen all the time.”

  “As I said, the more I know about her, the more I like her.”

  In front of a picture of me with a pony, she let out a string of yelps. “Oh! Oh! Oh! I always wanted a pony and never had one! What was his name?”

  “Brownie.”

  “And look at his fuzzy forelock.”

  “He didn’t like for it to be pulled. Try it, and he’d bite you, and bite you to mean it.”

  “I would have patted his nose.”

  “That he didn’t mind.”

  She pointed at a football mounted on a rack. “What’s that about?”

  “Touchdown I scored against Navy. They gave me the ball to keep.”

  “Then you played?”

  “That’s right. My senior year I was captain.”

  “But not professionally?”

  “It didn’t interest me that way. And to be realistic about it, in professional football, at 185, I’d have been a midget.”

  “Yes, of course; you’re really quite tiny.”

  She went on, moving sideways, while I stood behind her, watching the twitch of her bottom while trying not to. She admired pictures of me taking my bachelor’s degree, my master’s, and finally, my doctor’s, stepping in close to inspect that one and saying: “Just making sure they didn’t cheat you on that costume. It’s really a gold tassle.”

  “Yes, they gave me the works.”

  She moved on to me throwing a pass in some game. Then suddenly she sat down as though collapsed and began staring at me.

  “Mrs. Garrett—Hortense! Is something wrong?” She didn’t answer me. “Are you ill?” I asked, shaking her.

  She still didn’t answer. Then a lech that felt like a sea-nettle detached itself from the seat of my pants, moved to my rear, and started crawling up my backbone. I put one arm around her and the other under her knees and lifted. “No, no, no!” she moaned.

  I started for the arch, and she kicked and twisted and struggled. One leg slipped clear and fell down. I hung onto the other one and marched on, through the arch, through the foyer and hall to the door of my room. She had closed it. I kicked it open and carried her in. I dumped her on the bed and started peeling her clothes off. I stripped off her coat, the pants of her pantsuit, the panties, bra, stockings, and shoes. When she was naked I picked them up and dropped them on a chair in a pile. She jumped up and darted for them. I grabbed her, held her, and began undressing myself. One-handed, it was a job, but it didn’t take long. When I was naked, too, I pulled the spread back. Then I rolled her in and climbed in beside her. At last, when I held her to me, her mouth found mine, and from there on in, it was volcanic.

  3

  WE LAY CLOSE FOR a long time in each other’s arms, mingling breath. Sometimes she kissed my throat but in an odd way, as though there was something special about it. In between, little by little, my mind came out of the fog. Thoughts began to run through it again. I remembered my sulk, the resentment toward her for blocking me off from her husband and his support of my institute. I wondered what had become of it. All I felt now was reverence, or something like it, for the lift she’d given me, up so high I thought I was in the clouds. I tried to think about it. Then I was inhaling the scent of her hair—so warm, clean, fragrant.

  She opened her eyes and whispered: “Why did you do that to me?”

  “Do what to you?”

  “I would call it rape.”

  “Then who am I to argue?”

  “I did my best to stop you. You can’t say I didn’t. But no, you had to go on by main force, by brute force. You’re very strong, you know.”

  “Yes, so I’ve been told.”

  “Well? I asked you something.”

  “Why I raped you—?”

  “I wish you’d tell me.”

  “My first answer to why is, why not? Why wouldn’t I rape you? The way your bottom twitched there in the living room as you looked at my pictures—first a step to the left, then another step, and for each and every step, a twitch.”

  “You rape every twitchy bottom?”

  “I never saw one before.”

  “That’s not a very good answer.”

  “You want a better one?”

  “I wish you’d give me the real one.”

  “You wanted me to, that’s why.”

  She wilted and closed her eyes. After a long time, she whispered: “Yes—I wanted you to. I may as well admit it. I fought you off, did everything I knew. And yet I was praying, not that it wouldn’t happen, but that it would. Think of that, Lloyd; I actually prayed. I tried to get God on the side of that monstrous thing! I’ve never done that before! With anyone! Except as my vows permitted, except in marriage, I mean! Do you understand what I’m saying? Do you believe me?”

  “I knew it without your telling me.”

  “Lloyd, it’s the truth.”

  “Speaking of God—”

  “You believe in Him, don’t you?”

  “Yes ... You know who invented what we did?”

  “What do you mean, invented!”

  “He did.”

  “That’s a strange idea.”

  “Well? Who else? Who else could have? The greatest invention in the history of the world. Or maybe you know a better one?”

  “Just the same, it was wrong.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It was invented partly to test us.”

  “How do you know it was?”

  “That’s the terrible part. It seemed so right!”

  “Can we get on, Hortense?”

  “On? To what?”

  “The nitty-gritty.”

  “Which is?”

  “I was hit by a truck. What were you hit by?”

  “... a truck.”

  With that, we stopped talking. We held each other close again, then pulled back and looked at each other. After awhile she whispered: “The biggest truck in the world, so big it frightens me. But because it was big, we must do what it says we must. We have to be true to it, Lloyd. We must know it was a truck, not just a motorbike.”

  “What are you getting at?”

/>   “It must never happen again.”

  “I don’t get the connection.”

  “If it was that big, it had to mean something. And if it did, we dare not besmirch it. If it was just desire, then it was cheap and meaningless. But you say you were hit by a truck, and I certainly was. So it was big. So it took us, without any warning. But now we are warned. We know what can happen. We’re no longer caught by surprise. So, all right, about what happened, life is like that. Perhaps God will forgive us. But it cannot—must not—ever happen again.”

  I’m trying to remember what she said, but even now it blurs for me. One thing doesn’t necessarily lead to another. But at the time, I didn’t argue. I just said: “That’s how you want it?”

  “It’s how it has to be.”

  “O.K., then, so be it. Kiss me.”

  She kissed me in a happy, carefree way, whispering: “That’s one thing about you, Lloyd, that I could feel from the moment I laid eyes on you. You’re decent.”

  “Climb on.”

  “On? Where?”

  “My stomach.”

  “Do you mean what I think you mean?”

  “I have impulses.”

  “But you just promised that it would not happen again.”

  “I promised that you wouldn’t be raped, and you won’t be. So climb on. Girl on top can’t be raped. All she need do is slide off.”

  “Dear God, please don’t let me.”

  “Suppose He’s pulling for me?”

  “Lloyd, please don’t make me!”

  “I’m inviting you, that’s all. I can have it engraved, if you like, but it takes a little time and—”

  “You’re tempting me!”

  “Damn it, get on!”

  “Oh!... Oh!... Ohhh!”

  It lasted longer that time, but then we were quiet and she lay in my arms again. I said: “Suppose I told you that I loved you? Would you laugh at me?”

  “I’d bat you one if you didn’t.”

  “O.K., then, that’s settled.”

  “Swak.”

  “Could I have that again?”

  “S-W-A-K. Sealed With A Kiss. You love me, and that makes me happy.”