The Bind

by Stanley Ellin

  She looked relieved. “Well, all right then. I was already in one show that folded all of a sudden on the road. That was my Christmas present last year, the show folding. Once a year is enough of that for me.”

  “No sweat. In this show the producer pays off for the run-of-the-play contract, win or lose. If you deliver.”

  “Oh, if it comes to weaseling invitations out of people to go swimming in their pool—”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Jake said. He dug into his omelet. “There’s a phone in Mrs. Thoren’s bedroom. When we’re over there later on, you have to bug it.”

  He saw the fork waver in Elinor’s hand. Then she very carefully laid down the fork. “Now look, Mr. Dekker—”

  “Jake.”

  “Let’s keep it Mr. Dekker until we settle this. So you might as well know right now, Mr. Dekker, I’m not bugging anybody’s phone. Not even if the FBI asked me to do it. And to go sneaking into that woman’s bedroom—”

  Jake said: “You’re drawing a pretty fine line, aren’t you? You’ll keep everybody in the room pinned down while I do it, but you won’t do it yourself.”

  “Well, maybe it is a fine line, but that’s how I feel about it. I’d foul the whole thing up anyhow. Why can’t you do it?”

  “Because,” Jake said, “it’s not likely that a man would bust a brassiere strap or tear his stockings and have to go up to madam’s bedroom to make repairs.”

  “Oh.” Elinor thought it over at length, then said unhappily: “I’m sorry. I really am. But I can’t see it. There must be some other way—”

  “That’s beside the point, because this is the way I want it done. And it’s your job to do it. Let’s face the facts, Ellie girl. Three thousand bucks is close to being star money. I’m not paying that for a couple of walk-ons in this production.”

  Elinor gave him a strained smile. “Honest to God, are you really as hard-boiled as you’re trying to sound? Knowing how I feel about it—”

  “No,” Jake cut in, “let’s not turn this into one of those delightful cocktail-party character-analysis sessions. Just lay it on the line. Do you follow all instructions from now on and stay on the job, or do you say good-bye, Mr. Dekker, and take the noon plane back to New York?”

  Elinor said cannily: “And what happens if it’s good-bye? The Thorens already think I’m your wife. You can’t just pick another wife out of the hat to show them, can you?”

  “No, I’ll have to handle this solo. It won’t be easy, I won’t like it, but it can be done.”

  “Can it? And how do you explain around here what happened if I go back to New York right after we moved in?”

  “Oh, that,” Jake said. “That’s the easy part. After I put you in the cab to the airport, I drop in on Milt Webb and tell him I could use a few more belts of his vodka, because when you looked around this morning you said this wasn’t your idea of glamorous Miami Beach, and we had a big fight about it, and you walked out on me. If I know Milt, by tomorrow I’ll have everybody on the whole island sympathizing with me.”

  “And you would,” Elinor marveled. “You really would. Nothing can throw you, can it?”

  She abruptly rose from the table and walked out of the kitchen. He waited a few minutes, then went into the bedroom. She was lying across the bed, an arm flung over her eyes.

  Jake stood looking down at her. “I take it you’re staying,” he said.

  She removed the arm. “You ought to be glad I have a kid,” she said. “If it wasn’t for him—for what it costs with a kid—but you probably thought about that, too, didn’t you? You’re so goddam clever about everything.”

  “And honest with myself,” Jake said.

  “Look who’s giving lectures on honesty. In your line of work you can’t say a word that isn’t a lie.”

  Jake told her coldly; “I said honest with myself. Now try this on for size. Suppose I said all right, you don’t have to do anything on this job but a little light housekeeping? Only, since I’m paying three thousand dollars for the housekeeping, I’m entitled to climb into bed with you now and then. No ifs, ands, or buts.” He held up a hand to cut off what she was going to say. “No, I’m not offering you that deal. I just want you to figure out what you’d do if I did. Be honest with yourself about it, even if it hurts. Then see what you come up with.”

  He waited, his eyes fixed on hers, until she turned her head away. Then he said: “Mrs. Thoren’s phone is on a separate line, and it’s unlisted. When you do the job on it, make sure to get me the number. Now let’s go over the floor plan so you know which room is hers.”

  7

  She called him from the Thoren house at noon with the lunch invitation, and he wasted no time joining the company beside the pool there. Then he watched impassively as Elinor tried to stall off the inevitable. Finally, with condolences paid, with swimming privileges offered and accepted, with the story of the missing ring rehashed, with conversation temporarily dried up, she made her excuses and disappeared into the house. When she came out she gave him the slightest of nods along with a look that wished he were dead. Combined, they indicated that like it or not, she had planted the bug in the phone.

  A white-painted cast-iron table stood on the lawn near the pool, a beach umbrella sprouting from the center of it. Jake had maneuvered his chair in between Joanna’s and her mother’s close to the table, with Elinor seated opposite him. Now, after she returned from her mission, she passed by the table and plumped herself down in a lounger a fair distance away. Kermit, who had been in and out of the pool, promptly arranged an umbrella over her and seated himself at her feet. His hand very soon came to rest on her ankle. She let it rest there.

  Jake glanced at Charlotte Thoren to see if she was taking notice of this. That pale-lipped, haggard face, shadowed by a broad-brimmed straw hat and masked by oversized sunglasses, was impossible to read. He turned toward Joanna and caught her staring at him.

  She reddened and tried to cover her embarrassment with a too-bright voice and manner. “You don’t have very much to say, do you? Are all writers like that? Saving it for their books?”

  Jake shrugged. “If you mean the kind of writers I think you do, you’ll have to ask them about it. I’m a ghost-writer. It’s a different branch of the business.”

  “I know. You write the books, and other people get their names on them. You do the work, they get the credit. That must be awfully infuriating sometimes, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Joanna waited a moment, then said with mixed irritation and amusement: “That’s all? Just yes?”

  “Joanna,” Charlotte Thoren said, “don’t pry. And, Kermit, you will not sit down to lunch in your robe. Not with company at the table. Do get dressed at once.”

  “If that’s what the company wants,” Kermit said to Elinor, then cheerfully took himself off when she gave him a firm but friendly shove and said, “Yes, that’s what the company wants.”

  Joanna said to Jake: “Do you mind my asking about your writing?”

  “No. But I’d rather ask you some questions.” Jake pointed at the feathery line of trees bordering the lawn. “What are those? Some kind of pine?”

  “Not really. They only look like it. They’re casuarinas.”

  “Easy to tend?”

  “I guess so. Why? Thinking of planting some?”

  “Could be.” He got up and strolled across the lawn, studying the trees, Joanna close behind him. In the shadow of the gnarled branches, he turned to face her. “Look, I’m sorry about it, but I got you here on false pretenses. It was the only way I could talk to you alone for a minute.”

  “Talk about what?”

  Jake hesitated. “I feel like a damn fool saying it, but it’s about your brother. The way he’s moving in on Ellie. You must have seen it for yourself.”

  Joanna looked flustered. “Well, yes. But Kermit goes around adoring every pretty girl he meets. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Jake shook his head. “Not according to M
ilt Webb.”

  “Oh,” Joanna said. “Now the enlightenment sets in. You’ve been getting the word from Mr. Webb. Malice, Incorporated.”

  Jake said: “He’s malicious, all right. And dirty-minded and bigoted. But watching your brother in action just now, I could tell that Mr. Webb sometimes touches on the truth. Not that I’m taking his fine moral tone about Kermit. Hell, I’m the last one who’d have a right to. I went through a time myself—”

  “Yes?”

  “Funny,” Jake said reflectively. “It’s something about myself I’ve never even told Ellie. Now here I am ready to spill it to you when we hardly know each other. I guess you can blame yourself for that. How old are you? Nineteen? Twenty?”

  “Almost nineteen.”

  “Then you’re two years younger than Ellie. But somehow you seem older than her. More mature.”

  Under her dark tan, Joanna’s cheeks reddened again. “I think Ellie’s very sweet.”

  “Oh, sure. But like a kid. Like someone who doesn’t know how to grow up and become a woman. I wish there were some way you could give her lessons in that.”

  Joanna looked grave. “That’s your job, isn’t it, Jake? And maybe you ought to start on it by telling her whatever you were just going to tell me.”

  “No, I’d rather not. And it concerns Kermit, too. You see, I went through the stud phase myself. A real galloping Casanova for a while, starting when I was only around sixteen. To put it brutally, if it wore skirts it was obviously sent to me by heaven for just one purpose. And the ironic part of it—the part that makes me sick when I think of it now—”

  “Yes?” Joanna said encouragingly.

  “Well, I didn’t know it then, but the whole thing was built on hate. It was all a way of putting down my father. I had a picture of him while I was growing up, the noblest Roman of them all, you know what I mean. Then when I was sixteen I found out he was double-crossing my mother with some woman in the neighborhood. It knocked me right off balance. After that, whenever I scored with a girl it was like landing a punch on the old man’s jaw. I had a real hang-up until my analyst straightened me out.”

  “You were in analysis?”

  “For a couple of years. Until I understood my motivations. And understood I was no unique case. It seems a lot of overidealistic kids take off in the same direction the day they find out papa isn’t a saint. That’s why I don’t go around passing judgment on people like your brother, the way Milt Webb does.”

  “Maybe not,” Joanna said, “but it certainly seems to me you’re passing judgment on my father.” Her small flash of temper instantly melted into warm sympathy. “Look, I know how natural it is to apply your case to everyone else. But it’s wrong to do that, Jake. It’s unjust to yourself and them. Believe me, Kermit never had your kind of experience. He couldn’t, because my father never gave a damn for any woman except my mother. Honestly, from the way they bored him, I don’t think he even liked other women very much. Including some highly attractive ones.”

  “Oh, sure,” Jake said bitterly. “That’s what we’d all like to believe about papa, isn’t it?”

  “Jake, when you sound like that—Look, I’ve heard friends of his actually kid him about it. Old Faithful. And I was right there one night when Nera Ortega—you haven’t met her yet, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, when you do you’ll see for yourself she’s something pretty special. She lives in that place the other side of yours, and her husband’s away on business a lot of the time, so she’s a little too much on the loose for her own good. Anyhow, when she was over here for dinner one night she got a bit loaded and made a pass at Father. It was nothing, really. Totally harmless. But the way he reacted, Jake, was something to see. I mean, he turned absolutely white with rage. He actually scared her sober. And the very first trouble Kermit got himself into with a woman later on was with her. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

  Jake frowned in thought. “I think I do. You mean Kermit is reacting against your father’s morality, not his immorality.”

  “I’m almost positive of it. Not that understanding the cause and effect pretties it up any. I’ll talk to him about steering clear of Ellie, Jake. That’s what you’d like me to do, isn’t it?”

  Jake said: “Yes. As if it came from you, not me. It’s a lot better than my having it out with him where it could end up with his getting a busted jaw. I have a hunch Kermit’s really a very good guy underneath. And he’s your brother, Jo. The last thing I’d want to do is get rough with him.”

  Joanna measured him with her eyes, then said smilingly: “I’m glad of that. For Kermit’s sake.” Her expression sobered. “And you’re a very good guy, too. But Jake—”

  “Go ahead and say it, Jo. After what’s been said already, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be completely frank with each other.”

  “All right, I will say it. Jake, did it ever strike you that you’ve only exchanged one hang-up for another?”

  “I have?”

  “Yes. I mean—well, it’s your marriage. It’s in trouble, isn’t it?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “I’m afraid it is. So is the reason for it. How old are you?”

  “Oh, thirty-five, my good days. Seventy, my bad ones.”

  “You see the way you said that? There it is. That consciousness of age difference is on your mind every time you look at Ellie. That’s why you sit there with that hard look on your face, just watching every move she makes, and all pent up inside. It’s no good that way. You have to try to relate to her.”

  Jake shook his head, “I do try, Jo, but it’s uphill all the way. Believe me, it’s not like talking to you. Anyhow, I have that much now. At least, I hope I have. The chance to talk to you when the pressure gets a little too much to take. You won’t mind that, will you?”

  “No. Of course I won’t.”

  “Although you won’t be around too much longer, I suppose. That boy who was with you here last night—he’s the one, isn’t he?”

  “Last night? Oh, Hal Freeman.” Joanna slowly ran a hand up and down the trunk of the tree they stood under, feeling its texture with her fingertips. “Well,” she said vaguely, “we do have sort of an understanding, but who knows? Kid stuff, really. No, I guess I’ll be around for quite a while yet.”

  Going into the house for lunch, Jake lagged behind with Elinor. “Did you get that transmitter into the phone?” he asked.

  “Yes. And I wish I didn’t. I’m scared to even walk in there now.”

  “As long as it doesn’t show on your face. You’re doing fine so far, so don’t blow it now. Did Kermit have anything interesting to tell you?”

  “What you’d expect. Oh, yes”—Elinor gave him a malicious sidelong glance—“he said you reminded him a lot of his father. It wasn’t a compliment.”

  Jake said: “I’ll start worrying when he does compliment me. Did he happen to mention a woman named Nera Ortega?”

  “No. You really turned that Joanna on, didn’t you? What were you telling her?”

  “About her brother’s roving hands when he’s around you. She said she’d pass the word on to him.”

  Elinor said scornfully: “You think that’ll bother him any? Half the fun for anybody like him is knowing he’s putting down some stupid husband.”

  “I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” said Jake.

  8

  As soon as he could decently get away from the lunch table, he led Elinor home at a quick-step. Back in the study, he immediately activated the transmitter in the Thorens’ dining-room phone while she stood watching from the doorway. For her benefit he laid his phone on the desk and planted a monitor next to it. The tired voice which emerged from the monitor was Charlotte Thoren’s.

  “—precisely why. And Joanna is right to make an issue of it. It’s time you returned to your classes anyhow. You’ve been away from them long enough.”

  “Return to them for what?” Kermit’s voice was acid. “You know gradu
ate school doesn’t mean a damn thing to the draft board any more unless you’re pre-med.”

  “Your uncle will attend to the draft board when the time comes.”

  “Well, I don’t know if I want him to. I’m starting to think the army might be a lot easier to take than the kind of nagging I get around here.”

  “Oh, Kermit”—that was Joanna, elaborately pitying—“if you knew how horribly infantile you sounded—”

  “Infantile?” Kermit, with outrage. “What the hell’s gotten into you all of a sudden? First you make me out some kind of sex maniac because I—”

  There was dead silence. Jake waited a few seconds, then replaced the phone on its stand.

  “What happened?” Elinor said.

  “Somebody put in a call to them. It cut off the transmitter. What did you make of that argument?”

  Elinor said: “I guess Joanna must have cut loose about Kermit and me as soon as we were out of there. You don’t just sit and watch the pot, do you? You sort of like to stir it up a little, too.”

  Jake said: “I don’t have time to sit and watch. And things are shaping up fine for you this way.”

  “For me?”

  “Yes, because tomorrow we’re going over there for a swim, and Joanna’s going to be very warm and friendly to you while I get Kermit into the garage to talk Jaguars. She’ll want to pump you about me, and you’ll play along with that. It’s all the opening you’ll need to pump her about her father. I want to know especially what he did the day he was killed. How he put in that day.”

  Elinor said doubtfully: “You think I can do that without her catching wise?”

  “If you don’t work up a sweat about it in advance. Just play it cool, and let me do all the worrying for the team.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  Jake said: “Look, I learned something the hard way. The first time Sherry worked with me I told her she’d get fifteen hundred no matter what, and fifteen hundred extra if we broke the case. That was my mistake. She was so hungry for the whole three thousand that she wound herself up in knots and blew everything. That’s why it’s three thousand now, win or lose. So that you will let me do all the worrying.”