Please Write for Details

by John D. MacDonald

  He forced the evil thoughts out of his mind and concentrated on getting the shadow the little tree was making against the base of the faded blue wall. For a little while he made progress, and then he was aware of someone directly behind him. He thought it was Miss Keeley. But a hand was placed on his shoulder, and when he turned his head there, an inch and a half from the tip of his nose, was the distended pouch of pale-blue seersucker with its awesome burden. It was so close that Harvey’s eyes crossed. Monica was bending over him, looking at the work he had done.

  “It’s very nice, Harvey,” she said.

  “Harf!” he said, and for one horrid moment he thought his eyes would not uncross. He turned his head away. “Uh. Thanks.”

  She went back to her chair. He bit the knuckle of his first finger until tears came to his eyes. He glowered darkly over at the squatting Mexican and wanted to race over and plant such a perfect punt that there would be a clicking shower of the little pebbly teeth. He looked at his painting again and had the mad desire to snap his head forward like a striking snake and bite a chunk right out of the middle of it.

  For once the bus returned on schedule, just as Agnes was finishing her final critique of the work accomplished. Hildabeth received praise that made her beam and blush. In fact the second painting of the wall that she had done was, at a fair distance, almost indistinguishable from the works of Agnes Partridge Keeley, in both style and normal content and sweet color tones.

  “You can certainly be proud of that, Hildabeth. I think you have a marvelous talent. You should take it home with you and have it framed. Anybody would be happy to hang such a lovely thing in their home.”

  They walked back. As was his habit, Monica’s admirer walked about fifteen feet behind her until they had gone through the gate. And then he turned away, heading for the path that crossed the barranca.

  * * *

  Park and Bitsy arrived back at the hotel the next day, Tuesday, at lunchtime. They came sauntering into the big, sparsely inhabited dining room, smiling and at ease, halting all conversation and the random clink of silverware.

  “Greetings,” Park said.

  “How you all?” said Bitsy.

  They went to an unoccupied table. Park held her chair for her, kissed her on the temple when she was seated, and took the chair at her left, and they began to talk earnestly and inaudibly, their heads close together.

  “A perfect picture of guilt,” Agnes said to her table. “An attitude like that sickens me.”

  “Bet they had a time,” Hildabeth said.

  From the table where he sat with Miles, Harvey and Monica, Gam Torrigan looked over at the back of Park’s head with a sad twinge of envy.

  Jeanie said to Gil, “Look at them, dearest. I bet they’ll get married.”

  “Everybody should be married, honey. It’s all so damn efficient. No taxis. No tired little motels. No plotting and planning. No dark hallways. No sneaking around. Why, anytime you just happen to want …”

  “You hush up, greedy boy.”

  John Kemp, sitting with Barbara, Klauss, and Mary Jane, thought Park looked much better, and he did not have that look of springs wound too tightly.

  “Hah!” Mary Jane said. She shoved her chair back, picked up her iced tea, and carried it over to their table and sat beside Bitsy.

  “That’s a new outfit,” she said.

  “Like it?” Bitsy asked.

  “Very nice. Don’t suppose you care much that I nearly went crazy worrying about you.”

  “She was in good hands, Mary Jane.”

  “That point is, like they say, debatable, chum.”

  “My outfit is new too. When your playmates got playful, it took the knee out of my pants.”

  “What a terrible, horrible, tragic shame!”

  “Why are you being so nasty, Mary Jane?” Bitsy asked. “Feel guilty for not coming with me when I walked out of the party?”

  “I wish to God I had. Then you wouldn’t have made a fool of yourself.”

  Bitsy smiled blandly at her. “Of course, you’re the one with all the good judgment, dear.”

  “What’s wrong with you? You don’t act like yourself.”

  “I’m not myself. I’m somebody else.”

  “If this is a game, I don’t want to play. Who the hell are you?

  Bitsy, still smiling, said, “The second Mrs. Barnum.”

  Mary Jane stared at her, obviously shocked. She moistened her lips and said, “Now there’s a spooky idea! Lose your mind, darling? Maggie will slash you to ribbons if you take home this kind of a meathead and you know it!”

  Park bit his lip but remained silent. Bitsy kept her smile, but it was like something drawn on. “You’re so sure of that, aren’t you? We did a lot of phoning on Sunday. Maggie and the clan flew down yesterday. We were married late yesterday afternoon. A civil ceremony, but very well attended. Everybody missed you.”

  “I wasn’t invited.”

  “Maybe you can figure out why.”

  Mary Jane’s mouth trembled for a moment. She smiled, but wanly. “So I’ve said all the wrong things. Like I seem to always do lately somehow. Congratulations, or something. I want you to be happy, Bitsy.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mary Jane looked across the table at Park. “I guess you know I don’t think this is the best idea she’s ever had. It’s done now, and I hope it works, and I want to be friends.”

  “Friends,” Park said and took her hand.

  “What are your plans, kids?”

  Park said, “We thought we’d drive on down to Acapulco for a while. No plans beyond that.”

  “I’ve got myself some new plans all of a sudden,” Mary Jane said. “With you gone, Bits, I’m not going to hang around here, certainly. I’m going up home.”

  “Why don’t you wait until we come on back through, Mary Jane?” Bitsy said. “We won’t be down there long. We can go on up in convoy.”

  “Fifth wheel?”

  “Heck, no.”

  “All right. So you kids take my bug and leave me the wagon.

  It’ll be a whee of a honeymoon chariot. Please. If you don’t, I won’t be here when you come back.”

  Bitsy looked questioningly at Park, and then nodded agreement.

  Mary Jane stood up and hammered loudly on a glass with a spoon. “Big announcement, all you types. Big things going on. Introducing one bride and groom. A real sneaky pair. It happened yesterday. Gather ’round and kiss the bride. Gam, you go get some of those bottles of yours. Miles, you order up some ice. I here and now declare one official half holiday and we’ll have ourselves a reception for the bride and groom. Let’s have us a committee in charge of old shoes and rice. And music from someplace. I’m in an organizing mood. So let’s party this thing up.”

  It became a party. Park and Bitsy had planned to leave early enough to drive on through to Acapulco. And then they decided it would be enough to get as far as Taxco. Eventually they got as far as the Marik down in the center of Cuernavaca.

  Park had a chance to talk to John Kemp when he went to pack what he’d need at Acapulco and John came into his room, glass in hand, and sat on the bed.

  “Pretty sudden, boy.”

  “I’m as surprised as anybody, John. God, I was a stinking shambles on Saturday night. I was so close to the edge. I’d begun to feel like I was made of glass and pretty soon a violin was going to hit the right note and they were going to have to sweep me up. She picked me up and brushed me off. Sunday morning we walked miles in those parks. We sat on a bench and I looked at her and she smiled at me, and I knew I’d been thrashing around in a big, gray, empty ocean and by the damnedest luck in the world, I’d caught hold of the trimmest little lifeboat you ever saw. Part of this is the drinks talking, John, but it’s all true. I knew I couldn’t let her go, so I said I loved her and I needed her and let’s get married. She said, ‘I guess it’s time for that,’ and so we went back to the hotel and started running up the damnedest phone bill tracking down her fol
ks. She got Maggie, that’s her mother, on the phone and pretty soon they were both crying. And then I got on and Maggie cussed me out like I’d never heard before, and then said if I didn’t make her happy she’d spread little chunks of me all over Texas. So a big batch of them flew down in a private plane. I don’t know what it was, but it was big. They got in Monday noon. Maggie is a character. Her husband is a little Limey type who cracks the whip so you can really hear it. The little kids, her brother and sister, came too. And I couldn’t get the big cousins and uncles and their wives straightened out. It was confusing, believe me. So … I’m married again.”

  “And to some heavy money, I would suspect.”

  Park straightened up from packing his suitcase, and frowned thoughtfully. “Yes. I know. But I’m not thinking about that. I mean it didn’t have one single damn thing to do with my asking her. And she knows that too. She’s a hell of a girl, John. I had some stupid ideas about her. I didn’t have the faintest idea of what she’s really like. I had the feeling she was immature. A fun kid. But her family deal has given her so many emotional knocks that she’s grown up all the way. She doesn’t go around advertising it. She’s a thousand years older and wiser than I am. She’s a hell of a girl.”

  “Will you go back to your job?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what being back in that deal will do to me. Or if she’ll be happy in the East. She hated hell out of it when she was in school there. But it might work. It’s a decision for later. Put it this way, John. I’m going to work at my trade. I’m good at it. It wouldn’t be a happy thing for either of us if I make a nice warm nest out of her dough.”

  “Don’t ever rationalize yourself out of that position, Park.”

  “I don’t think I will. All of a sudden I’m cured of Suzie. She’s somebody I knew once, and loved very much. And now I know what it was about Suzie. She’s so damn clever that there isn’t enough room in her for warmth. I guess what I want now is a nice place to live and work to do. And I want to fix it somehow so my kids can come and visit. That little brother and sister of Bitsy’s adore her. She’ll be good with kids. And we want a great big batch of our own. Lots of them. And we want to give them the best kind of emotional security kids can have. Not the way she grew up, or I grew up. I’m talking too damn much.”

  “It’s a good kind of talk to hear, boy.”

  “Good God, listen to them out there!”

  “Torrigan is really ready.”

  “I’m through here. Let’s join the group.”

  The best parties always seem to be the spontaneous ones.

  And the spontaneous ones can only occur when group tensions have reached a point where some kind of release is unavoidable.

  A dining-room table was moved to a commanding location between the dining room and the lobby and converted into a bar, with Felipe Cedro as unexpectedly competent bartender. When a collection was taken up to replenish the liquor supply, Mary Jane drove with Gam to town in Park’s station wagon and brought back not only liquor, but three wandering musicians from the zócalo, two guitars and a portable marimba. Gam spotted Gloria Garvey in front of the Bella Vista, the first time he had seen her since their weekend, and, with certain bravado, asked her to come join the party and bring her friends—a tall English girl named Margot, with a manner so completely languid that she seemed a victim of deep hypnosis, and a knotty pug-faced little man called Shane. And they arrived at the hotel a half hour later.

  Had the party been planned in advance, it certainly would not have been anticipated that the hotel staff would join in. But when Miles Drummond looked over and happened to notice Fidelio, the driver, dancing violently and expertly with a barefoot Margarita, the two handsome jolts of Scotch he had consumed during the initial toasts to the bride reduced his potential objection to a slightly uneasy feeling soon forgotten. And not long afterward, when he saw Colonel Hildebrandt move across his line of vision, dancing in slow and stately ballroom fashion with that same Margarita, holding her at arm’s length and maintaining a tempo that had little to do with the beat of the music, it seemed perfectly natural. It was only when he found himself dancing with Margarita, her face a perfect symbol of fiesta, that he again felt uncertain, and wondered about future difficulties in enforcing discipline.

  Rosalinda Gomez quickly established her special niche, and from the delighted grinning of the mariachis and the general public approval, it was exactly where she belonged. She could sing with the eerie, spine-tingling whine of the true flamenca, or, snapping her fingers with exceptional loudness and precision, belt it out with the husky emphasis of a dusky Sophie Tucker. And she knew the lyrics to everything.

  Esperanza Clueca had joined, very dubiously, in the toast to the bride. She despised the typical borracho, as exemplified by the sodden Alberto, the gardener. And she had never touched liquor. Yet, because she had been asked, it seemed a politeness to join them. And she did like the girl from Texas with the coppery hair. She had seemed genuinely friendly. The one with the yellow hair was different. There had been, in her, a kind of contempt, a roughness in her voice when she gave orders. It was said that in Texas all Mexicans were treated in such fashion, and Esperanza had been pleased to find that in the case of the Señorita Babcock, the information was wrong.

  So she accepted the glass from Felipe, with the inch of raw tequila in the bottom. It did not seem very much. Surely such a little bit could not be harmful. She listened to the toast in English and Spanish, hesitated a moment and saw the way the others took it down in one gulp. She held her breath and did the same. White-hot lava abraded the lining of her throat. Her stomach gave a hard convulsive leap. She looked through tears and said, in a harsh and prolonged way, “Haaaaaaa …” And she felt a curious warmth that began at the pit of her stomach and spread out in every direction from that point. Within a few minutes the room had become more beautiful, all light and color. Her face lost its clinical severity when she smiled. Surely this could not be a thing of such horror, so long as one had only a little and did not become a borracho.

  When Felipe came with the bottle again, she extended her glass shyly.

  And later, it was so kind of the American Señor Wahl to teach her the American jeeterboog. It made the room whirl. And she was certain that no one had ever danced more gracefully than she.

  Of the staff, only Alberto Buceada did not join in. He had a bottle of mescal. He sat in the shade under a window with his back against the wall and quietly, without haste, killed the bottle, toppled over onto his side, and snored on into the dusk and the night.

  Hildabeth, with cherry brandy ringing in her ears, was prevailed upon to demonstrate the hula she had learned in Hawaii. After considerable earnest instruction, the musicians were able to make a determined frontal attack on “Blue Hawaii,” with ranchero overtones. Hildabeth was surprisingly graceful, and it was appreciated by everyone but Dotsy who stood by, crimson-faced, in an agony of sympathetic embarrassment.

  Harvey Ardos could not dance. He had never tried. And his shame was compounded by the obvious fact that Monica Killdeering was a superb dancer. She had the physical requirements, the suppleness, the training and the perfect sense of timing of the professional.

  Harvey stood by in jealous misery and watched her dance with Kemp, Barnum, Drummond, Torrigan, Klauss, Wahl, Shane and the colonel. Her popularity on the dance floor had become enhanced when it was discovered that she did not talk while dancing. For eight dancing men, nine if Fidelio was counted, there were eight women—the Texas girls, Jeanie Wahl, Barbara Kilmer, Monica, the languid Margot and the two maids. Harvey felt embittered and left out. By some kind of accident it had turned into one of those dancing parties. He wished they’d all drop of heat exhaustion.

  Whenever she had a chance Monica would come over to him and say, “Please try, Harvey. It’s very easy.”

  “Nah!”

  “If you can walk, you can dance. I’ll show you.”

  “Nah, thanks!”

  “Come on, H
arvey. It’s wonderful exercise.”

  “Nah, I don’t feel like learning.”

  And someone would come up and take her away. He drank and watched. He felt like going to his room and closing the door. Damn if he was going to go out and make a fool of himself. Just stand right here and get a little boiled.

  He watched Monica dancing with that hard-looking little stranger who had arrived with Mrs. Garvey. Good clothes, but he looked like an ex-fighter, as if he’d spent a few years of having his face pounded. When they turned he could see the thick hand pressed against Monica’s smooth brown back, and it made him feel queer to see it. Quite suddenly he realized she was having some kind of trouble with Shane.

  He had danced her over toward a far corner. He was talking to her and she was shaking her head. And he was holding her too tight, and they didn’t seem to be doing much dancing. Harvey put his drink on a table and got over to them fast.

  He tapped Shane on the shoulder and said, “Guess you can start giving me those lessons, Monica.”

  “On your way, bud,” Shane said.

  “I want to dance with Harvey!”

  “You’re dancing with me. Go away, Harvey.”

  As Monica struggled to free herself, Harvey moved in like a referee and pushed them apart.

  Shane tugged at his belt, took several little dance steps, snuffled against his fist and said, “Get out from behind that glassware, bud. You and me are going around and around.”

  Harvey, slightly chilled by the professional gestures, tossed his glasses on a nearby table and squinted at the blurred figure. He took three hard left hooks in the stomach, followed by a right cross high on the jaw. As the wind was being driven out of him, Harvey led with one wild despairing right and hit Shane right in the middle of the forehead, a half second before the right cross dropped him onto his face. Shane did a couple of shuffling steps. Monica, her eyes narrow and dangerous, moved in from the side and suddenly snapped both hands down on Shane’s left wrist. With one violent twist she spun him so that she had his wrist pinned high between his shoulder blades, and, as a result of pain and leverage, he was bent forward from the waist. She gave one hard shove to overcome inertia, and then, with three running steps, she ran him headlong into the stone wall. Shane dropped like a sack of spoiled potatoes.