Please Write for Details

by John D. MacDonald

  As she turned toward Harvey he was just pushing himself up onto his feet. He tottered around in a small rubber-legged circle, his mouth slack, his eyes squinting at his myopic world. He drew his fist back to let fly at the vague image in front of him.

  “It’s me, Harvey! It’s Monica!”

  He stared around. “Where’d he go? I’ll kill ’im.”

  She picked up his glasses and handed them to him. He slipped them on and stared at Shane. The scuffle had been over almost as soon as it began. Most of the others came running over. Harvey clenched his fist a few times and then sucked his knuckles. “Hey, now!” he said.

  “What happened?” Miles demanded.

  “That man got fresh and Harvey fought with him.”

  The languid blonde drifted over and looked down at Shane with what could have been satisfaction. “Welter weight champion of the Pacific Fleet,” she said. “God only knows what that means.”

  “I’ll be damned!” Klauss said softly. They all stared at Harvey.

  He flushed and said, “Lucky punch, I guess.”

  “Will you take care of him, Margot?” Gloria asked.

  Margot yawned and said, “Why the bloody Christ should I, darling? He joined the group in Vera Cruz and he’s been going about striking people ever since. To use one of your Americanisms, he’s all yours.”

  “Not mine,” Gloria said.

  They rolled Shane over and poured water on him. He stirred and suddenly came scrambling to his feet, dancing heavily, fists balled, peering around from under the thick scarred brows. The machine slowed down and stopped and he stared at them. “Who are all you people? Where the hell am I?”

  Torrigan led him off toward the bar and the music started again. Harvey squared his shoulders. “Well … you might as well try to teach me, woman,” he said gruffly.

  “Yes, dear,” she said humbly.

  “Wha’d you call me!”

  “I … I said yes, Harvey … uh … dear.”

  They stood staring at each other, their faces crimson, until they both looked away at once. And then she shyly told him how to place his hands, and got him to start walking in time to the music. Within a half hour he was, as Monica told him, doing splendidly. She wouldn’t let anyone cut in. She told them it would spoil the lesson. And, as Harvey’s nervous consciousness of his feet began to diminish as his confidence grew, and as the mental count of ONE, two, three, ONE, two, three, became more automatic, he became increasingly aware of the fact that he was holding Miss Killdeering within the half circle of the right arm that had knocked out the welterweight champ. Her back was smooth and vibrant under his hand. She sure had beautiful eyes.

  And when the next slow number came, with Rosalinda singing of a girl named Maria Bonita, Harvey Ardos, with a masterfulness that appalled him, drew Miss Killdeering so close that she rested her head on his shoulder, her face turned slightly inward, her round forehead against the angle of his jaw. To be about two inches taller than the girl was exactly right, he decided. He had guided her away from the others, into a shadowy corner of the dining room, and they danced there in half time, in a lovely dream, their eyes half-closed. He was acutely and sweatily aware of the firm twin warmth of her breasts against him. He decided there was a lot to this dancing kick. A lot he hadn’t understood. The music ended. In the moment he released her, just before she stepped back, she planted a very small, shy, nibbly kiss against the side of his throat, just under his ear. She stepped back with pink face and glowing eyes.

  Harvey made one small strangled sound, and then he went up through the roof like a rocket. He sped up toward the sun and, as he lost velocity, he began to turn over and over. When he found he could use his arms like wings, he spiraled down until he could land directly in front of her.

  “Holy Nelly!” he said in a voice that sounded as if somebody had him by the throat.

  The party was a psychological necessity for Gambel Torrigan. He felt that through the episode with Gloria, he had lost caste. Before it had happened, he had been the volatile and expressive and somewhat alarming Mr. Torrigan, a person to be treated with respect, a person whose comments and instructions were of great value. But somehow he had become good old Gam. Somebody to chuckle about. He couldn’t awe anybody any more, not even Harvey and Monica. It was as if he had become some sort of clown. He did not permit himself to dwell on the theory that this was not too different from his experience in all the other schools. He wanted to be a person of pride and dignity. And he felt he was, on the inside. But people were stupid. They see you a little bit drunk now and then, or they have knowledge of some of your other human weaknesses, and they get that damn jocular attitude toward you.

  This party was the opportunity for proof, the chance to reestablish the original relationship. By God, once they’d all let their hair all the way down, they would see that they weren’t any more righteous and proper than Gam Torrigan. So he resolved to drink an adequate amount, but not too much. He would have the party spirit, but he would be proper. And as the others went off into the stumbling staggers, he would be there to record, to remember, to be politely amused. Dignity would be regained.

  To make certain of the success of this program, he quietly bribed Felipe to make the drinks as massive as possible. And he vowed he would nurse his own drinks. This would be the new Gambel Torrigan, now and forever more.

  For Paul Klauss the party was an opportunity to improve the dismal performance of the first part of the summer. And, more importantly, a chance to bolster his sagging morale. That damnable Margarita had managed to outwit him and humiliate him four times. The final episode had been the most disheartening. She could not have accomplished it without coaching. Every time he thought of how his heart rode high in his throat as he had scrabbled at the night chain to admit the lovely Barbara, only to be overwhelmed by the joyous fervency of Margarita again, he felt sick. Progress on all other fronts had been equally distressing. Before there had been even a slight chance to launch an effective campaign against the Babcock girl, that fool Barnum had married her. He did not doubt but what Barnum had cheated him of success. In the case of the Kilmer woman, circumstances had conspired to defeat him. True, the initial approach had not been handled too well, but such a thing could have been corrected had not that large, dull Kemp person become so friendly with her.

  As for Mary Jane Elmore, there was apparently something unnatural about her. So he could not really be blamed for failure, not under those circumstances. Hers had been a very strange response. He had strolled with her out beyond the main gate one evening a week ago, talking, he had thought, quite pleasantly to her about horses and Texas and the cattle business. She had seemed attentive and responsive, and just a promising bit drunk. So he had told her how lovely she looked in the starlight, and had put his hands on her pliant waist and, smiling fondly at her, had drawn her toward him. She had even been smiling back. But just as their lips were about to touch, her elbow had chopped him sharply under the chin and she had stomped him on the instep with a sharp high heel. When the pain had subsided somewhat he was willing to accept her apology that she really didn’t know why she’d done it. It was a sort of a reflex. And so he had recreated the original setting and atmosphere. The second time he had caught the elbow high on the cheek, and a small hard fist in the pit of the stomach and a ringing crack of a kick on the shin. When he could breathe in again without making a gagging sound, and when he could stand relatively upright, she had helped him hobble over to the bench Fidelio had improvised for himself near the gate. As he sat and rubbed his tender shin, she apologized more profusely than before. She said that if he wanted to try again, she would try to control her reflexes, but she couldn’t promise anything. After thinking it over he told her that his only intention anyway had been a friendly kiss, and under the circumstances it didn’t seem worth it. It was a pity there was something so unnatural about her. Really a pretty child. It seemed a problem for a psychiatrist. The next day he was aware that Mary Jane and her friend Bit
sy were doing a lot of giggling, but he decided that it must be some private joke. They certainly could never see anything humorous in Mary Jane’s curious affliction.

  The party was, to his way of thinking, an interesting variation on standard procedure. It was like the difference between the stalk of a game animal and the use of beaters. In the stalk the hunter used his guile and experience and knowledge of the habits of the game to get within range for the kill. And he knew which specific animal he was after. But when beaters were used, the hunter had merely to station himself at some strategic spot and keep his wits about him as the game was being driven toward him. He did not know which animal would burst out of the brush, or where it would first appear. The noise of the beaters made the animals lose much of their natural caution. The hunter had to be ready to move like lightning to take advantage of the unexpected opportunity.

  Eliminating Mary Jane and Bitsy, there remained Barbara, Jeanie Wahl—a rather remote chance but one to bear in mind—Monica, definitely of low priority but much more acceptable after one had danced with her, Margot, and Gloria Garvey. He rather hoped that Margot would be the one to create a situation of opportunity. She had high round hips and small high breasts, and a manner that was at once remote, dreamy and evil. Gloria Garvey would make a truly handsome trophy, but there was something overwhelming about her which disturbed him. Part of that impression was due to her size. He had never been partial to big women. It had been his experience that no matter how perfectly they were constructed, his tactile memories of them were of a ponderous fleshiness which offended him. Also, she had a raw, bold eye, an earthy laugh, and look of untidiness. His most valuable journal entries concerned those who had been dainty, shy, slim, small-boned and fastidious. The ones who had wept. Of all the women, Barbara was closest to his ideal target. Mother had been small and shy and sweet. He remembered how she hugged him, and her tears against his face when that hairy beast had been ugly to both of them. “Just the two of us, my pretty darling,” she would say. “Just you and me, Paul.”

  While dancing was so popular there was little he could do. He danced several times with the Englishwoman. She moved rather stiffly, but did not object to being held closely. Back when Paul had learned that the ballroom is one of the fertile areas for the hunt, and learned that he had little natural talent for dancing, he had taken an extended series of lessons and had acquired a pleasant competence.

  Margot peered at him as they danced and said, “You are really a very pretty man, darling.”

  “Thank you. You’re an exciting woman.”

  “Ah, such a perfect reading of such a tired line, darling. And you dance so well.”

  “I’d say we dance well together, wouldn’t you?”

  And she had laughed in his face and said, “Oh, dear God, I really do think that I am about to hear one of those little things I haven’t heard for years. I thought it had all died out of this brazen world, ducks. The next thing I hear from you is a terribly subtle hint that perhaps if we dance so well together, maybe we could do other things well together. Said with a naughty gleam in the eye. Do say it, darling, because maybe I can get all confused and girlish. I haven’t been confused and girlish since Rommel was chased out of the desert. You know, I might even hold my breath and see if I can get a little pink into these withered old cheeks.”

  “I was just trying to be complimentary, Margot.”

  “Oh, dear. Now you’ve gone all stanch and honorable. And I am really getting quite winded, darling. Couldn’t you launch us toward that nice bar and then haul me to a shuddering and exhausted stop and give me a transfusion? Just Scotch, darling. A great coarse dollop of it, with a dash of water and no ice.”

  Agnes Partridge Keeley sat with Dotsy and Hildabeth, drinking a sweet rum drink and talking above the sound of the music, telling them about her life in Pasadena, her home, her classes, the paintings she had sold, her investment properties. And quite suddenly she found herself sitting, in consternation, back inside herself, listening to her own voice going on and on. “… always wanted to take advantage of a single woman in a business way, trying to cheat me on leases and things, but I’ve got a head for figures and I can tell you that I don’t let them get away with a thing.” She hauled herself to a stop with an effort. “My goodness!” she said. “Do you know, I think I’m tight! I never never get tight!”

  “Well, you’ve got an inch left there of your third one,” Dotsy said, “and this is a full half of my first one, and we’re drinking the same thing, some kind of a punch he said, a Planter’s Punch, and if they made yours the same as mine I don’t wonder a bit you feel funny, because I feel pretty darn funny myself on a half a one.”

  “I have the feeling I should go outdoors,” Agnes said.

  “When you feel that way it’s a real good thing to do,” Hildabeth advised her.

  Agnes stood up. The floor seemed a long way away. When she took a step her foot came down too hard. She waited for balance. Then, with her pink face screwed up into a look of great determination, looking like the face of a fat, vicious child trying to get even by burning down the house, she plodded, implacable and monolithic, through the dancers, out through the lobby, and out through the main gate. The sun was nearly down. She felt she should walk. She did not want to walk up and down the hot road. She turned onto the path, but she could not seem to adjust to the angle of descent. She would slow to a stop with one foot poised out in front of her, or she would find herself trotting heavily forward and have to fight for balance. And suddenly, to her horror and alarm, she found the trotting was out of control. It had become a waddling lope, and then a joggling, flapping, suety gallop that could have but one horrid termination when her churning legs could no longer keep up with the upper half of her. She tried her utmost, squeaking with fear. It is to her credit that she very nearly reached the bottom before she pitched forward. Through some miracle of primitive instinct, she tucked her chin down and rolled her right shoulder under, so that she took it almost professionally. After the roll she was clear of the ground for a moment and then came down in a sitting position with a thunderous shocking thump of the seat of yellow linen slacks against the earth. There was still enough forward momentum to roll her back up onto her feet and pitch her over onto her hands and knees.

  She could easily have been seriously injured. She had not struck any rocks. She was merely shaken up. She remained upon her hands and knees for several moments, weeping with anger, fright and relief, trembling with the excess of adrenaline in her blood, that adrenaline that had burned up the liquor in moments. She was on a grassy spot. When her breathing was easier and she was not shaking so badly, she rolled slowly over into a sitting position. Under normal circumstances Agnes Keeley had difficulty in arising from a sitting position. She puffed her way up out of chairs. But on that occasion she had barely touched the ground when she found herself on her feet. The only thing, she thought, which could have duplicated such a sensation would be to sit on a carpet of hornets and have each one bite simultaneously and with enthusiasm. She clapped her hands to her seat and received such a hot renewal of sensation in those fractional areas where her hands touched that she yelped involuntarily.

  It did not take much search to learn the cause. Through some malignancy of fate, as though to even the score for an escape without serious injury, she had been permitted to thump the broadest part of her anatomy solidly on a squatty species of broad-leaf cactus plant. In luxuriant life it had been about eight inches high and about one yard across its roughly circular dimension. It lay flattened, compressed and ruined, the dark luxuriant green of the broad thick leaves split to expose the pale pithy centers. But in its moment of demise, it had accomplished, at last, the age-old ambition of all cacti, instantaneously to lose all available needles to maximum depth in an all-inclusive target of opportunity.

  Agnes reached back with caution to touch herself with one finger. It was like backing into a live wire. The dusk shadows were gathering in the bottom of the barranca. She
looked around the area until she saw a sister plant of the smashed one. She bent over and peered at it. The slender needles on the broad leaves were almost as thick as fur. She touched the needles with her finger, very lightly, and three of them, almost as fine as glass fibers, stuck into her finger and came free of the plant. She pulled them out carefully.

  The problem had monstrous aspects. Self-treatment presented incalculable difficulties. Dr. Dorothy Stepp was in Pasadena. It was unthinkable to ask the assistance of one of the female students. She was aware that her condition had very probably been noted when she had left. And she had enough objectivity to know that it was just the sort of disaster that too many of them would find hilarious.

  She climbed slowly back up the path, still snuffling from time to time. Climbing was uncomfortable. Each flex and ripple of the great buttocks seemed to send streaks of fire from side to side, as though she was being followed by a careless person with a blow torch. Once she reached the top she found that walking was hardly more comfortable. She soon adjusted to a gait which provided a minimum of discomfort. She walked carefully and rather stiff-legged, planting her feet wide and setting them down easily. The straps of her straw sandals had chafed her feet during her run, so when she reached the corridor, she kicked them off and picked them up. She padded silently down to the door of her room. Even such a minor matter as reaching into the pocket of her slacks to get her room key created shocking discomfort by tautening the seat of the slacks across the billion needles.