Very Old Money

by Stanley Ellin

  Coming on pretty unsubtle herself, she realized, she couldn’t help responding with some acid: “I think the one thing certain is that Miss Lowry is what Miss Margaret expected. And approved. Otherwise, there would have been no invitation, would there?”

  Mrs. McEye instantly backwatered. “Hardly. Miss Margaret does know her own mind. And of course seeing how tall Miss Lowry is—No offense, Mrs. Lloyd—”

  “None, taken,” Amy said wearily.

  “Well, seeing that, it did strike me that Miss Margaret is—well—drawn to very tall young women. I believe I mentioned to you, didn’t I, that one of her strictest requirements for secretary concerned that matter of height.”

  “My good luck. Yes, you did mention it.”

  “Her need for a physical presence of substance. So it’s hardly unusual after all that she’d find in Miss Lowry a young friend who’d provide that, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  However, Amy thought, it seemed that the McEye, finally aware that her snooping was futile, was giving up on it. The voice took on the official volume. “About the car, Mrs. Lloyd. Did Miss Margaret indicate when she’d want it brought around for Miss Lowry?”

  “No, she didn’t.” The picture of her husband suddenly rose before Amy: he far away in that garage while she—A passage with Ma’am in the car rose to mind. “But,” she said, all innocence, “I have been wondering about Lloyd’s waiting in the garage, Mrs. McEye. Sitting there in the car. He could wait here and still have the car around in no time at all, as soon as he’s asked to.”

  “In no time at all? I’m afraid, Mrs. Lloyd—”

  “It’s cold there these evenings,” Amy said, sighting on the Achilles heel. “It means running the motor steadily just to have the heater work. It does seem wasteful.”

  “Well”—Mrs. McEye was visibly softening—“I’m sure there’s a certain wifely concern here as well as a matter of economy, but no harm in that, is there? I was in your position myself at one time, Mrs. Lloyd, if you know what I mean. But one hour will have to do. Of course he’ll remain here in the staff hall so there’s no time wasted if Miss Margaret calls for the car on short notice.”

  “One hour it is. Thank you, Mrs. McEye.”

  “As long as there’s no problem forthcoming. I’ll be going up to the office now to finish tomorrow’s work schedules. I’ll phone Lloyd from there. Good-night, Mrs. Lloyd.”

  As soon as she was gone, Hegnauer moved in for some sotto voce of her own. “You told her?”

  “No,” Amy said. “She has too much on the mind now. But I will speak to her about you tomorrow. You must take my word for that.”

  “I know. Yes. And you tell her it is my room. Not just to sleep in at night.”

  “Tomorrow,” Amy said.

  She took her coffee to the foot of the table, a fair distance away from the gathering, and when Mike showed up she observed that he certainly had his masculine priorities in order. First a cup of coffee, then a thoughtful selection of the right piece of cake, then some merry banter with the other males present, and finally he deigned to join her. He worked his chair against hers for privacy and leaned close.

  “I believe I owe all this to you, Mrs. Lloyd?”

  “Yes. And it’s nice of you to remember who I am.”

  “Always. With pleasure. But how’d you spring me? A little grease job on Mrs. Mac?”

  “Why not? Some of her damn rules are just too damn insensitive and foolish.”

  “True,” Mike said soothingly. “But to let her think I use the car heater for warmth instead of that radiator in Levine’s office—”

  “I don’t care. I wanted you here with me. Even for an hour.”

  “And here I am. But keep the voice down, darling. There are interested parties not that far away. Now let’s have it. Why the attack of nerves? Did something go wrong with Miss Margaret’s private banquet?”

  Attack of nerves just about spelled it out, Amy thought. Thank God for small favors, it wasn’t Margaret Durie making this diagnosis and getting ready for that infallible treatment of hers, that unwanted shoulder and neck massage. “No,” she said, “nothing went wrong. Not that way.”

  “Then what way?”

  “The way it feels. The way she’s behaving. Babbling on and on, all sweetness and light. And the way she looks while she’s at it. That little fixed smile. It doesn’t seem to be her at all. I got the feeling there’s somebody else in there, not her.”

  “Because she’s having her own jitters, baby. A whole year’s conniving and finally here it is, the magic moment. She has every right to be all wound up. You don’t. That may be Mrs. Mac’s style—responding to every little vibration from on high—but it should not be yours.”

  “Well, I can’t help it. And I think she’s looking to get that girl drunk. But if she wanted her here for a serious talk—”

  “That, too. Remember she’s gotten detailed reports on Kim, and one of them may have noted that here is a good solid drinker. So as the eager hostess—Hell, come to think of it, I hope this does not wind up with a mess of vomit all over the car. So far I’ve been spared that.”

  “Well, that isn’t what’s on my mind. I don’t even know what is, except that it’s unnerving.” Heedless of the company, Amy slid her arm through his. “But you are a comfort. That’s why I want you here. I feel a little better already.”

  “You know,” Mike whispered, “if we could slip upstairs for the rest of the hour—”

  “We can’t. Aside from really turning off the McEye if we’re caught, it would be embarrassing to slip away with everyone looking. This way we probably strike them as rather sweet.”

  “Now you sound like yourself,” said Mike.

  “I wish Ma’am did,” Amy said.

  The trouble was, she knew, that the comfort she was getting was not because those vibrations afflicting her had been tuned out, but because they were being shared. She was also aware of Mike’s kindly intent—to get her to stop brooding about this nonsense and about unpredictable tomorrow—when he asked Mabry if he wouldn’t rather be back in Jamaica now with New York winter coming on. Which, as usual, because Mabry could sing paeans about the Caribbean and be quite funny at it, got the expected response at length. Then there was some sober talk with Swanson about the plumbing, which apparently wasn’t getting some repairs it needed, and then some football talk with Inship and Krebs, the security men, and all in all Mike’s allotted hour was up almost before she realized it.

  The impending deadline was signaled by Brooks, who came in trundling the service cart, its litter neatly concealed by the tablecloth.

  “How’s it going up there?” Mike asked him, thus saving Amy the trouble.

  “Rewardingly,” said Brooks. He stopped the cart by the table, partly drew back the concealing cloth and lifted out a plate. “One steak done to perfection with not a bite out of it.”

  “Miss Margaret’s?” Amy asked.

  “And now mine, Mrs. Lloyd. If I put it aside for Golightly he might hit Mrs. Mac over the head with it, and that would be sad on all counts. Cold, it makes the perfect sandwich. Anyone want to share?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said Mike.

  “Then you fetch the toast and mustard while I carve.”

  Amy glanced at her watch. “You don’t have much time left,” she warned Mike.

  “I’ll wrap up mine and take it along. There’s beer there to wash it down.”

  She resentfully watched him depart for the kitchen. Never mind the loaf of bread, the jug of wine, and thou, she thought. Especially the thou. A steak sandwich, a bottle of beer, and a notebook, that’s what he’d settle for.

  “Did she eat anything at all?” she asked Brooks.

  “Ate nothing, drank nothing.” He was holding a stained steak knife and looking at the cart with a frown. Then he folded back its cover all the way and looked closer. “But the young lady did fine for the both of them. Really tucked into the food and libations. Matter of fact, last
view I had she looked distinctly under the weather and Miss Margaret was telling her she had an infallible treatment for that. Which I doubt.”

  Infallible treatment, Amy thought. Infallible treatment. Infallible treatment. She saw that Brooks was now worriedly rummaging through the soiled dishes on the cart.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “One steak knife short. I don’t understand.”

  “I’ll bet it’s on the floor up there,” O’Dowd said with satisfaction, “just waiting for her to turn an ankle on it.”

  “Well, thank you,” Brooks said. He turned apologetically to Amy. “I’m terribly sorry about this, Mrs. Lloyd, but I’ll have to risk intruding on them up there. I’ll get it at once.”

  “No,” Amy said. She saw from his startled reaction that it must have come out more violently than intended. “It’s all right. I’ll do it.”

  An infallible treatment, she thought. A knife. And a thought that had to be turned upside down to be seen with blinding clarity.

  It isn’t that she’s as tall as I am. It’s that I’m as tall as she is.

  When she abruptly stood up she found with surprise that her legs were unsteady. She almost went over sideways as she wheeled and headed for the door to Xanadu.

  “Mrs. Lloyd!” called Brooks just as the heavy door slammed behind her.

  One steak knife, she thought, heart hammering as she hastened through that endless, dimly lit tunnel. As she broke into a run she heard from the distance that door behind her slam again.

  “Amy!” Mike shouted, the echo resounding ahead of her.

  Without turning or slowing her pace, she waved an arm in response. She had no idea what the gesture was intended to mean—don’t bother me, come and help, whatever—or how he would interpret it, but that was his business. Her business, irrational or not, couldn’t wait.

  She raced past the humming boilers, through the door beyond and into the foyer. She took the stairs two at a time, discovering when she reached only the first landing—the ground floor—that she wasn’t really in the shape she should have been. Already a little winded, already straining to take the next flight at the same speed.

  She flung open the foyer door on the second floor and went down the corridor at a run. She pulled up breathless at Ma’am’s door and instantly knocked twice.

  No response.

  The McEye certainly made an effective instructress, she thought. One could hear that phonily elegant voice laying down the law. If no answer, wait a proper time and knock again. If still no answer, depart and inform her.

  To hell with that.

  Two more raps on the door, and Amy pushed it open. All that was visible across the room was Ma’am’s back as she stood behind Kim’s low armchair, and those corduroyed legs stretching out from the chair. But one step forward brought everything into view.

  Kim’s face was upturned, the nape of the neck resting on the back of the chair. Ma’am had one hand dug into that frizzy mass of dark hair, the other held a knife to that throat. The knife moved once with swift and savage intent, and there was blood. Blood, Amy saw as she croaked out a “No!” and lurched forward, and more blood and more blood. Bright red, it jetted out like a fountain, gushed out, sprayed out. The hand holding the now upraised knife was drenched with it, the green jacket and slacks were dyed with it, that white carpet spattered with it.

  And as Amy clutched at the hand holding the knife she found there was still more blood. She felt a sudden sting along her exposed forearm, and as she fell back she unbelievingly saw the line of droplets welling from the arm, the droplets quickly becoming more than a trickle.

  Now, she knew, she was going to black out. Didn’t want to but couldn’t help it, and it would be just as well that way. Just droop forward and droop forward and you’d wind up on that red wetness of carpet without even caring.

  But there could be no more hope for this with an arm suddenly tight around your waist. “Just hold on,” Mike ordered. He was half lifting her, turning her to face the door. “Just hold on and don’t look, damn it.”

  She let him bear her full weight, and she didn’t look. But there was this increasing trickle of warmth down her fingers. “My arm’s cut,” she managed to say.

  “Just hold on and don’t look,” he said, working off his belt. He looped it around the arm below the elbow and drew it tight. She found this hurt a lot more than the cut.

  “Hurts,” she said.

  “Can’t help it, baby.” He clamped a hand over her eyes. “Tight shut,” he ordered. “Don’t look.” Then: “Miss Durie, please drop that knife.”

  A long silence, broken at last by Mike. “Miss Durie, please drop that knife. You’re frightening Mrs. Lloyd.”

  Almost instantly, Amy heard the soft thud on the carpet. With his hand still over her eyes, Mike said, “I have to get to the phone. Can you hang on and make it?”

  “Yes. And you can take your hand away. I won’t look.”

  The blackout threat had passed, Amy found, her strength was flowing back, but still with eyes tight shut she clung to him as he dialed. Michael Lloyd, she told herself comfortingly, the one stable element in an insane world. Michael Lloyd. Dear Mike.

  “Mrs. McEye?” he said. “It’s Lloyd in Miss Margaret’s apartment.… Yes, something has, so get ready to move fast. There’s been a murder, and Mrs. Lloyd is also badly hurt. Call a doctor, then the police. Then tell Mr. Craig. Fast, Mrs. McEye, fast.”

  Amy heard him clap down the phone. “What was that for god’s sake?” she asked. “What did she say?”

  Mike’s voice was strange. “When I told her where I was calling from she wanted to know if anything had possibly gone wrong here.”

  She knew who she was and where she was and what had happened as soon as she woke. Realized she must have just fallen asleep like this, propped against the pillows in her own bed and wearing her flannel bathrobe with nothing underneath. And that was Mike’s hand, she was sure, pressed against her forehead trying to rouse her. She opened her eyes and found that it was. But those red lights chasing each other high up around and around the walls were puzzling.

  “Those lights?” she said.

  Mike removed the hand from her forehead. “Police cars down below, baby. And TV cars and the rest of the media and some VIP limos. I’m sorry I had to wake you up, but we’ve got VIP company of our own outside waiting to talk to you. Urgent mission, that’s the word.”

  “More detectives?”

  “No, the one who grilled us seems to have taken care of that department. How does the arm feel?”

  She touched the cocoon of bandages sheathing her left arm from wrist to elbow. “Not bad. Do you think what I told him made sense to him?”

  “Not bad is good,” Mike said, “considering there’s a dozen stitches under that wrapping. And, yes, what you told him made sense to him. Once he got it straight that you were a victim, not a perpetrator.”

  “Still, he did come on very polite. I didn’t fall asleep in the middle of it, did I?”

  “No, he was all finished by then. He told me he’s seen that happen before, that falling asleep. Said it was the best thing that could happen to you under the circumstances. But how do you feel aside from the arm? The truth.”

  Amy weighed this. “I seem to feel like two people right now. There’s me, and there’s another me watching all this. And as long as they don’t get together, I’m all right.”

  “And if they do get together?”

  “I don’t know. What time is it anyhow?”

  “About midnight,” Mike said. “You’ve only been out for about half an hour, in case you’re wondering. You didn’t hear the phone ringing?”

  “No.”

  “Abe. There was a flash on the radio about what happened here—even though they got it all wrong—and when Abe and Audie heard the name Margaret Durie they went right up the wall. They thought you might be dead. When I cooled him off he said we’re to get over there as soon as possible. They’ll be waiting
up for us, and the spare room is ours as long as we want.”

  “Can we leave here just like that?” Amy asked. “I mean, while there’s still—”

  “Any time, as long as the police can keep in touch. Are you ready to be up and around though?”

  “I think so.” She swung her legs off the bed and gingerly stood up. She got a good look at Mike’s face that way. Poor darling, she thought, thirty-five going on fifty. Which on second thought, suggested to her that she’d be wise not to confront a mirror right now. She tried a couple of steps and reseated herself on the edge of the bed. “A little shaky,” she acknowledged, “but all systems go.”

  “Most of the luggage is in the basement storeroom,” Mike said, “but there’s that pair of flight bags in the closet. That should do it for the time being.”

  “I suppose. But didn’t you say something about company waiting outside? On an urgent mission?”

  “Hell, I almost forgot. It’s Dorothy. But that’s her urgent mission, not ours. And if you’re ready to get going now—”

  “I want to see her,” Amy said. “I’m curious.”

  “Well,” Mike said, “I’ll admit I am too. And she is certainly pent up. You want to slip into something more formal first?”

  “No.” Amy tugged the robe closer around her. She noticed Mike was wearing ordinary slacks and jacket, not that smeared-up livery. “I hope you told that detective he could keep our clothes he took away.”

  “Oh, that. Since I got a receipt for them, I guess it’s manners to take them back. He informed me—”

  “Yes?”

  “First tell me if your two selves are together yet?”

  Amy saw he meant it. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Not yet.”

  “All right then. He kindly informed me that such stains are permanent, and not to waste money trying to have them removed. A penny saved is a penny earned. Now I want you to clear up one question for me, baby. You won’t mind?”

  “What question?”

  “Just before you bolted out of the staff hall you shouted something at Brooks. That puzzler about she’s not as tall as you are, you’re as tall as she is. What was that about?”