“Escaped?”
“Sure. Escaped. Climbed over the wires.”
She shook her head in mystification. He seemed to be talking in riddles like the fat woman, Bella. Monkeys on the back, little animals running around, wires to climb over. They were all English words but Miss Clarvoe couldn’t understand them. She thought, perhaps I am the foreigner, perhaps I have been out of touch too long; the language has changed, and the people. The world has been taken over by the Bellas, and the Evelyn Merricks and little men like Harry with sly insinuating smiles. I must get back to my own room and lock the door against the ugliness.
“I must . . .”
“Sure,” Harry said. “Sure. Anything for a lady.”
He led the way to his cab. Miss Clarvoe dropped the bloody handkerchief on the curb and followed him. She wasn’t aware yet of any pain, only of a terrible stiffness that seemed to cover her entire body like a plaster cast.
She got into the back seat of the cab and pulled her coat close around her. She remembered the blonde girl in Bella’s place asking what was so special about fabric imported from Scotland. Miss Clarvoe didn’t know, and it seemed important for her to figure it out. There were sheep, plenty of sheep, all over the world, but perhaps the Scottish sheep had finer wool. Wool. Sheep. Blackshear. She had forgotten about Mr. Blackshear. He was miles and years away, she couldn’t even recall his face except that it looked a little like her father’s.
The inside of the cab was dark and warm and the radio was turned on to a panel discussion on politics. All of the people on the panel had very definite ideas, firmly spoken. All of them knew exactly where the day had gone and what to expect from the night.
Harry got in and turned the radio off. “Where to?”
“The Monica Hotel.”
“You live there?”
“Yes.”
“You been living there long?”
“Yes.”
“All the time steady?”
“Yes.”
She could tell he didn’t believe her. What did he believe? What were the wires she was supposed to have climbed over? She had never seen Harry before, never, she was sure of that. Yet he acted as though he knew secrets about her, ugly secrets.
“I will pay you,” she said. “I have money in my hotel suite.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll send the boy down with it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She knew from his tone that he didn’t expect any money, that he was humoring her as he would any drunk or liar or madman who happened to be his passenger. The customer is always right.
The headlights of the car following shone into the rear-view mirror and Miss Clarvoe saw Harry’s face for a minute quite clearly. It was young and pleasant and very, very honest. A nice open face. No one would suspect what kind of mind lay behind it. The fat woman wore her malice and her miseries for all the world to see; Harry’s were hidden underneath the youthful blandness of his face, like worms at the core of an apple that looks sound from the outside.
Yet even Harry, even apple-cheeked, wormy-brained Harry knew where his day had gone. She had lost hers, dropped it somewhere like a handkerchief and picked it up again, soiled, from the dirty floor of a slut.
“Harry.”
“Yes, ma’am.” His tone was still sardonically polite.
“What day is this?”
“Thursday.”
Thursday. Douglas died this morning. Mr. Blackshear came to the hotel to tell me about it. I promised to go home and keep mother company. Mr. Blackshear offered to drive me, but I refused. I didn’t want him to touch me again. I was afraid. I went and waited in front of the hotel for a cab. People kept passing, strangers, hundreds of strangers. I felt very nervous and upset. The people terrified me and I didn’t want to go home and face mother and hear her carry on about poor dead Douglas the way she did about father. I knew what a dreadful show she would put on. She always does, but none of it’s real.
Cabs kept passing, some of them empty, but I couldn’t force myself to hail one. Then someone spoke my name and I turned and saw Evelyn Merrick. She was standing right beside me, smiling, very sure of herself. The strangers, the traffic, didn’t bother her. She’d always liked crowds and people, the more the merrier. I held my head up high, pretending I was just as poised and confident as she was. But it didn’t work. I could never fool Evelyn. She said, “Scared, aren’t you?” and she took my arm. I didn’t mind. I usually hate people to touch me, but somehow this was different. The contact made me feel more secure. “Come on, let’s have a drink some place,” she said.
Come on, let’s have a drink, let’s lose a day, let’s drop a handkerchief.
“You say something, ma’am?”
“No.”
“Like I told you, if you want to change your mind and go back . . .”
“Go back where?”
“Back where you came from.”
“I don’t know what you’re insinuating,” she said as calmly as possible. “I am going back where I came from. I live at the Monica Hotel. I have a permanent suite there and have had for almost a year. Is that clear to you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” His tone added, clear as mud. Harry had been around, he knew a thing or two, sometimes even three, and he was pretty certain that the woman had been playing around with narcotics, probably yellow jackets. She was obviously a lady and ladies didn’t go in so much for heroin. Nembutal was more genteel both to use and to procure. You didn’t have to hang around a street corner or the back booth of a café waiting for your contact. You could get yellow jackets just sitting in a nice upholstered chair in some fancy doctor’s office, telling how you were nervous and worn-out and couldn’t sleep.
Sleep wasn’t always what they got, though. Sometimes the stuff went into reverse, and they did crazy things like taking off all their clothes in the middle of Pershing Park or racing up Sunset Boulevard at eighty miles an hour and fighting with the police when they were arrested. Ladies could sometimes behave worse than women.
He glanced back at Miss Clarvoe. She was crouched in the right-hand corner of the cab, her arms pressed tautly across her chest, her lips moving slightly as if in prayer: She took my arm, I remember that, she took my arm like an old friend and said, “Godiona gavotch.” It was our secret password in school when we were in trouble and needed help. “Godiona gavotch,” I repeated, and suddenly it was as if the years had never passed, and we were friends back in school, giggling after the lights were out and plotting against the French mistress and sharing the treats from home. “Come and have a drink,” she said. It was always like that. Evelyn was the one who initiated things, who formed the ideas and made the suggestions. I was the one who tagged along. I worshipped her, I wanted to be exactly like her, I would have followed her anywhere, like a sheep, the goat, the victim. I was marked, even then, and the marks have not faded with the years but have grown more distinct. Even Harry knows. He looks at me with contempt and his voice drips with it.
Apple-cheeked Harry, I see your worms.
“You want to go in the front or the back, ma’am?” Harry said.
“I am not in the habit of using a service entrance.”
“I just thought, being you were messed up a little . . .”
“It doesn’t matter.” It did matter, she wanted nothing more than to go in the back entrance and sneak up to her room unnoticed, but it was impossible. Her keys had been in the purse she’d lost. “About the fare, I’ll send a bellboy down with the money. How much is it?”
“Three dollars even.” He stopped the cab at the marquee of the hotel but he made no move to get out and open the door for her. He didn’t expect a tip, he didn’t even expect the fare, and for once it didn’t matter much to him. She was a creepy dame, he wanted to see the end of her.
Miss Clarvoe opened the door for herself and stepped out onto the sidewalk and pulled her collar up high to hide the wound under her ear. The torn stockings, the rip in her coat, she couldn’t
hide; she could only move as rapidly as possible through the lobby, trying to outrun the stares of the curious.
Mr. Horner, the elderly desk clerk, was busy registering some new guests, but when he saw Miss Clarvoe he dropped everything and came over to her, his eyes bulging and his mouth working with excitement.
“Why, Miss Clarvoe. Why, Miss Clarvoe, for goodness sake . . .”
“I lost my keys. May I have a duplicate set, please?”
“Everybody’s been looking for you, Miss Clarvoe. Just everybody. Why, they . . .”
“They need look no further.”
“But what happened to you?”
She answered without hesitation. “It was such a nice day I decided to take a little trip into the country.” Had it been a nice day? She didn’t know. She couldn’t remember the weather of the day any more than she could its contents. “The country,” she added, “is very beautiful this time of year. The lupine is in bloom, you know. Very lovely.” The lies rolled glibly off her tongue. She couldn’t stop them. Any words were better than none; any memory, however false, was better than a blank. “Unfortunately, I tripped over a boulder and tore my coat and my stockings.” As she talked the scene came into sharper focus. Details appeared, the shape and color of the boulder she’d fallen over, the hills blue with lupine and dotted with the wild orange of poppies, and beyond the hills the gray-green dwarfs of mountains with their parched and stunted trees.
“You should,” Mr. Horner said with reproach, “have let someone know. Everyone’s been in a tizzy. The police were here, with a Mr. Blackshear.”
“Police?”
“I had to let them into your suite. They insisted. There was nothing I could do.” He leaned across the desk and added in a confidential whisper, “They thought you might have been kidnapped by a maniac.”
Color splashed across Miss Clarvoe’s face and disappeared, leaving her skin ashen. Kidnapped by a maniac? No, it wasn’t like that at all. I went with an old friend to have a drink. I was frightened and confused by all the strangers and the traffic, and she rescued me. She put her hand on my arm and I felt secure. By myself I was a nothing, but with Evelyn there beside me I could see people looking at us with interest and curiosity, yes even admiration. “Come and have a drink,” she said.
I could have stood there forever, being looked at, being admired—it is a wonderful feeling. But Evelyn likes excitement, she wanted to be on the move. She kept saying, come on, come on, come on, as if she had some very intriguing plan in mind and wanted me to share it. I said, “I promised to go home and stay with mother because Douglas is dead.” She called each of them an ugly name, mother and Douglas, and when I looked shocked she laughed at me for being a prude. I’ve never wanted to be a prude; I’ve simply never known how to be anything else. “I’ve got a friend,” Evelyn said. “He’s a lot of fun, a real joker. Let’s go over and have some laughs.”
Douglas was dead, my own brother; I shouldn’t have felt like laughing, and yet I did. I asked her who the friend was who was such a joker and I remember what she answered. It’s odd how the name has stuck in my mind when I’ve forgotten so many other things. Jack Terola. “He is an artist with the camera,” Evelyn said. “He’s going to take pictures of me that will be shown all over the country. He’s going to make me immortal.” I felt the knife of envy twisting in my heart. I wanted to be immortal, too.
“I had to co-operate with the police,” Mr. Horner said. “I didn’t have any choice. It was a question of handing over the keys to your suite or having them taken from me.”
“I dislike the idea of anyone prying into my personal affairs.”
“Everyone acted in your best interests, Miss Clarvoe.”
“Indeed.”
“After all, anything might have happened.”
“What happened,” she said coldly, “is that I went into the country with a friend of mine.”
“Ah, yes. To see the lupine in bloom.”
“That’s correct.”
Mr. Horner turned away, his lip curling slightly. It was November. The lupine wouldn’t be in bloom for another three or four months.
He returned with the duplicate set of keys and laid them on the desk. “There are some messages for you, Miss Clarvoe. You are to call Mr. Blackshear immediately; he is at your mother’s house.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh yes, and someone asked me to put this note in your box. A young lady.”
The note was written in an ostentatious backhand on hotel stationery which had been folded twice:
I am waiting in the lobby. I must see you at once. Evelyn Merrick.
She wanted to run but her legs ached with weariness; they would not carry her farther. She’d already run too far, too fast, down too many strange and terrifying streets.
Chapter 16
SHE TURNED and saw Evelyn Merrick coming toward her across the lobby, picking her way fastidiously through the crowd. The day, which had changed Miss Clarvoe, had changed Evelyn too. She wasn’t smiling and self-assured as she’d been when they met on the street. She was a grim-faced, cold-eyed stranger, dressed all in black as if in mourning.
“I see you got my note.”
“Yes,” Miss Clarvoe said, “I have it.”
“We must have a talk.”
“Yes.” Yes, we must. I must find out how I lost the day, how the minutes passed overhead without touching me, like birds in a hurry. Wild-geese minutes. I remember father took us hunting once, Evelyn and me. Father was angry with me that day because the sun gave me a headache. He said I was a spoilsport and a crybaby. He said, “Why can’t you be more like Evelyn?”
“Everyone’s been worried about you,” Evelyn said. “Where have you been?”
“You know, you know very well. I was with you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We went into the country together—to see the lupine—we . . .”
The stranger’s voice was harsh and ugly. “You’ve always told fantastic lies, Helen, but this is going too far. I haven’t seen you for nearly a year.”
“You mustn’t try to deny it. . . .”
“I’m not trying to deny it. I am denying it!”
“Please keep your voice down. People are staring. I can’t have people staring. I have a reputation, a name, to protect.”
“No one is paying the least attention to us.”
“Yes, they are. You see, my stockings are torn, and my coat. From the country. You have forgotten how we went into the country, you and I, to see the lupine. I tripped over a boulder and fell.” But her voice trailed upward into a question mark, and her eyes were uncertain and afraid. “You—you remember now?”
“There’s nothing to remember.”
“Nothing?”
“I haven’t seen you for nearly a year, Helen.”
“But this morning—this morning you met me outside the hotel. You asked me to have a drink with you, you said you were on your way over to see a man who would make you immortal and you wanted me to come along.”
“It doesn’t even make sense.”
“Yes, yes, it does! I even remember the man’s name. Terola. Jack Terola.”
Evelyn’s voice was quiet, insistent. “You went to see this man Terola?”
“I don’t know. I think we—we both went, you and I. After all, I wouldn’t go to such a place alone and besides Terola was your friend, not mine.”
“I never heard the name before in my life. Until I read the evening papers.”
“Papers?”
“Terola was murdered shortly before noon today,” Evelyn said. “It’s important for you to remember, Helen. Did you go there this morning?”
Miss Clarvoe said nothing, and her face was blank.
“Did you see Terola this morning, Helen?”
“I must—I must go upstairs.”
“We have to talk.”
“No. No, I must go upstairs and lock my door against all the ugliness.” She turned, slowly, and began wal
king toward the elevator, her shoulders hunched, her hands jammed into the pockets of her coat as if she wanted to avoid all physical contact with other people.
She waited until one of the elevators was empty. Then she stepped inside and ordered the operator to close the door immediately. The operator, an old man, was no bigger than a child, as if the years he’d spent inside the tiny elevator had stunted his growth. He was accustomed to Miss Clarvoe’s idiosyncrasies, such as riding alone in elevators, and he’d been well enough tipped, in the past, to indulge them.
He shut the door and as the elevator began to ascend he kept his eyes on the floor indicator. “A wintry day, Miss Clarvoe.”
“I don’t know. I lost mine.”
“Beg pardon, ma’am?”
“I lost my day,” she said slowly. “I’ve looked everywhere for it but I can’t find it.”
“Are you—are you feeling all right, Miss Clarvoe?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Ma’am?”
“Call me Evelyn.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, say it. Go ahead. Say Evelyn.”
“Evelyn,” the old man said and began to tremble.
Back in her suite she locked the door and without even taking off her coat she went immediately to the telephone. As she dialed, she felt the excitement rising inside her like molten lava in a crater.
“Mrs. Clarvoe?”
“Is that—that’s you, Evelyn?”
“Certainly it’s me. I’ve done you another favor.”
“Please. Have mercy.”
“Don’t snivel, I hate that, I hate snivelers.”
“Evelyn . . .”
“I just wanted to tell you that I’ve found Helen for you. I have her all locked up in her hotel room, safe and sound.”
“Is she all right?”
“Don’t worry, I’m looking after her. I’m the only one who knows how to treat her. She’s been a bad girl, she needs a little discipline. She tells lies, you know, awful lies, so she must be taught a lesson or two like the others.”
“Let me talk to Helen.”
“Oh no. She can’t talk right now. It isn’t her turn. We have to take turns, you know. It’s very inconvenient because Helen won’t voluntarily give me my turn so I just have to go ahead and take it. She was feeling weak from the accident, and her head hurt, so I simply took over. I feel fine. I’m never sick. I leave that to her. All the sordid things like being sick or getting old, I leave to her. I’m only twenty-one; that old crock is over thirty. . . .”
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