Man Drowning

by Henry Kuttner

  “I hope you’ll enjoy yourself, Mr. Banning.”

  “I’ve started to already,” I said.

  Chapter 12

  By the time we got upstairs, Sammy had phoned ahead and the Countess’ chips were waiting for her. The layout was spread through a suite of six rooms, and voices were low and there was a scattering of evening clothes, though not enough to make me feel undressed. Mrs. De Anza got her chips at the desk and forgot about me. She headed for the roulette wheel so fast I felt the wind. I stood there, feeling in my pockets. I couldn’t even buy a brown chip. However, one thing was free here, and I took the drink a waiter offered me. I drank the brandy and exchanged the glass for another, which I carried with me as I made the rounds, trying to look undecided whether to drop a few grand on chuck-a-luck or blackjack.

  What I found, at the dice game, was Ted McElroy. It was Mac, all right, short and thick and looking like the blond Katzenjammer kid, with his lower lip stuck out and his shiny yellow hair smooth as ever. He didn’t see me; he was watching the game. I looked around the table, but I didn’t see Sherry.

  Just to make sure, I toured the place. She wasn’t there.

  Finally I went back and watched McElroy again. I kept working on the drinks the waiter kept giving me, but I took it easy, so I didn’t really feel them. After a while, when McElroy still hadn’t noticed, I decided that was all for the best, and decided to look up the Countess.

  From across the room I could see her glittering at the roulette table. She seemed to be sitting there motionless, but all that costume jewelry was quivering and shaking. As I reached her, a waiter put down an empty ash tray beside her and picked up the old one, jammed full of half-smoked butts. Mrs. De Anza stubbed out another cigarette and saw me.

  “Having a run?” I said. “Don’t kill it.” She had plenty of chips in front of her now, the right colors.

  “Play these for me, Nick.” She shoved a stack toward the edge of the table. “No, not roulette. Something else.” Her voice sounded high and thick, as though her throat had tightened.

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  She went back to the wheel. I dropped the chips in my pocket and took a few steps toward the desk before I realized what I was doing. Then I waved at a waiter, picked up another brandy, and walked into the next room. I couldn’t cash the chips. I didn’t dare. These people knew Mrs. De Anza; they’d mention it to her…The croupier had overheard her telling me to play those chips for her.

  Easy money. About eight hundred—in chips.

  I drank the brandy, with my hand in my pocket, feeling the smooth, cool surfaces, imagining I was feeling real money. And not eight hundred, either. Three thousand. The three thousand Sherry needed.

  I went on to the dice game and stacked Mrs. De Anza’s chips on the table.

  Nearly across from me was McElroy.

  An hour later I was broke.

  But McElroy was out of the game. He recognized me, I could tell that. And he started getting nervous. He covered up fairly well, but I kept watching him, and after a while he couldn’t concentrate on the game. Neither could I, but I didn’t give a damn. I was remembering that he had a date with Sherry for ten thirty, and it was a quarter after ten already. After he got out, I saw him talking to a houseman and looking at me. I stared at him. He didn’t like that at all. He suddenly remembered he had to go to the john. I wandered over to the Countess, but she was too busy to notice anything but the wheel. She still had plenty of chips in front of her. Finally she glanced up, gave me a blank stare, and forgot I existed. I had been keeping an eye open for McElroy, and I saw him coming along now. So I stepped in front of him.

  “Stay away from Sherry or I’ll knock your goddam teeth in,” I said.

  “…What?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  He glanced around, stuck out his lower lip, and said, “Who do you think you are?”

  “You heard what I said, Mac.”

  “Get out of my way.” He started past me, and I got hold of his arm. He tried to jerk it away, but I held on. He looked around again, scared.

  “Let’s talk it over,” I said.

  “Take your hand off my arm. I’ve—I’ve got an appointment. I don’t know who you are, anyhow.”

  “You’re asking for trouble. You’ll get it, too, if you make a fuss. Come over here.”

  There was a clock on the wall, and it said ten twenty-five. I lugged him across the room, in a friendly way, holding him hard enough to show I meant it. His flesh felt pulpy. His lower lip was still stuck out, but it was quivering.

  I sat him down and pulled a chair up to face him, so that our knees nearly touched. He hunched his shoulders, drew in his neck, and glared at me.

  A waiter started toward us, balancing his tray. I dropped my hand beside my knee, where McElroy could see it but nobody else could, and showed him a fist. I didn’t say anything.

  Neither did he, to the waiter. We each took a glass, and I held up mine toward the clock.

  “You don’t want to keep any dates tonight, do you?”

  He gulped his drink and it seemed to stiffen his spine.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Didn’t you find out my name?”

  “You’re going to get yourself in trouble.”

  “Well, you don’t have to stick around. You can take a walk if you want. But you’d better think it over first. I don’t like you much.”

  He licked his lips and glanced up at the clock.

  “Yeah,” I said. “But you wouldn’t want to call on a girl if you had a nosebleed, would you?”

  “You—”

  “Oh, shut up. You ought to know a few things, besides my name being Banning and Mrs. De Anza introducing me here. My first name’s Nick, but don’t call me by it. Did you know Sherry used to be married? Her name used to be Banning.”

  His eyes flickered. He shifted his weight in the chair a couple of times, looking at me sidewise. He’d turned sullen.

  “With the right kind of lawyer,” I said, “I could take you for plenty, if you got out of line. I don’t know whether or not Sherry told you she was divorced. Don’t believe everything she says. A divorce can have a lot of tricky angles, especially Mexican ones. Sometimes they turn out not even legal. Playing around with somebody else’s wife costs money, sometimes. And publicity. Your family might hate the wrong kind of publicity.”

  “Nobody tells me what to do,” he growled.

  “I’m telling you, Mac. You’re not keeping that date with Sherry tonight, see?”

  He started to get up. I leaned forward a little, waiting, watching him.

  He dropped back.

  “I can get lawyers too, don’t forget,” he said.

  “You’d better get goddamned smart ones, while you’re at it,” I said. “Maybe you’ll be needing them.”

  The muscles in his face let go, for just a second. But he tried to cover. Only he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

  After a little too long, he said, “What are you talking about?”

  I looked at him, and the same thing was in both our minds.

  “Ed Gavotte,” I said softly.

  “What do you know about it?”

  “I read the papers.” I didn’t say anything else. I just stared him down and waited, not for long. Because he sat up, tight and tense, and said fast:

  “I’m clear. I haven’t got anything to hide. I wasn’t anywhere near there. I talked to the police. I wasn’t even—”

  I laughed at him.

  He caught himself and flushed red.

  “What the hell business is it of yours?” he asked me. “You’re not a cop.”

  He was beginning to use his head a little now, and I didn’t want that. If I’d been smart, I wouldn’t have brought up the subject at all. I halfway wished I hadn’t. I was on pretty shaky ground myself, only McElroy hadn’t thought of that yet.

  I said, “I’m Sherry’s husband. Tha
t’s enough, isn’t it? Or do you like trouble?”

  “You’re the one who’ll get in trouble if you try to start anything, Banning.”

  “Sure. I could land in jail for beating the crap out of you, too. But you’d still be in the hospital. All you have to do, Mac, is stay away from Sherry. And you’re going to do it. Tonight and—”

  “Let’s go, Nick,” Mrs. De Anza said behind me.

  McElroy looked up past me blankly.

  “Hello, Mac,” the Countess said, coming around so I could see her. “How are you? Any luck? You two know each other, I see.”

  McElroy got up. So did I. He swung his eyes from me to the Countess and back again. A twisted little smile showed on his face.

  “Hello, Mrs. De Anza,” he said. “It’s been quite a while. Introduce us, will you? We just happened to get talking, but—”

  “Mr. McElroy, Mr. Banning,” she said casually. “Nick’s our new social secretary or something. And I want a cigarette, somebody.”

  McElroy didn’t move. After a moment I gave her one and lit it. All the while McElroy watched me.

  The Countess took one puff and shrugged impatiently.

  “Give my regards to your mother, Mac. Good night. Nick?”

  “Yes.”

  “Coming?”

  If McElroy had smiled again or even looked at the clock, I think I’d have swung on him. But he didn’t move. He just waited.

  I nodded at him.

  “I’ll see you,” I said. “I’ll be around.”

  He didn’t answer.

  I trailed out after Mrs. De Anza.

  She wanted to go back to the hotel. “Then home. I’m tired of Phoenix. This gay, mad metropolitan excitement exhausts me.” But she was still wound up tighter than a violin string. She vibrated, too. Her jewelry kept shifting and twinkling beside me; I could see it from the corner of my eye.

  “Tonight?”

  “Now. How long will it take you to pack? I phoned the hotel and told them to get my stuff ready. I don’t want to wait around.”

  “Give me five minutes.”

  “Five minutes.” She leaned forward, turned on the radio, and fiddled with the dial till she got a fast rumba.

  “Hurry up, Nick,” she said.

  It took me four minutes to pack. We didn’t even wait to pay the bill; they must have been used to Mrs. De Anza here. She went on ahead, while I followed with two bellboys trailing me—she’d picked up a lot of packages somewhere—and when I looked ahead, I saw her heading for a Packard that stood next to the Buick. I called her back and herded her into the right car. She got behind the wheel. When the motor started, she gunned it impatiently while the luggage was piled in. Then everybody stood back and waited. I reached in my pocket and stopped right there.

  “Nick. Come on.”

  “Tips,” I said. “I’m broke.”

  She must have had the car in gear and taken her foot off the clutch, for it jumped forward, bucked, and stopped. She opened her purse and gave me some bills. I passed them around and got in the Buick.

  “Ready,” I said.

  We started. She was an expert driver but not a good one. I couldn’t put my finger on the trouble, but I had the feeling she wasn’t making the car part of herself, the way a good driver does. It’s like throwing your leg forward to catch yourself when you stumble; it ought to be automatic. You should do it without taking time to think. The brake and the accelerator shouldn’t be levers you put your foot on; your leg shouldn’t stop at the foot. It should go right down into the heart of the engine, and into the brake drums too.

  She didn’t have that.

  Some people don’t like to follow through. They don’t recognize or accept the limits of a machine. Because they can use trick footwork themselves, they never can quite understand why a car can’t do the same thing. They feel held down. Then the only way to make up for it is to push the right foot hard on the gas pedal. That was what Mrs. De Anza was doing. By the time we were on the open road, she was hitting eighty.

  It wasn’t smart and it wasn’t safe. She wasn’t satisfied with eighty, either. The needle kept pushing up. I was glad I’d had the lights adjusted at the garage. But I was worried about the headlights of cars coming toward us. When they didn’t dim, the Countess irritably snapped the blinker from dim to bright a few times and squinted.

  “Cigarette,” she said.

  “You need both hands on the wheel.”

  “Shut up and give me a cigarette.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Nick. Did you hear what I said?” Her voice was shrill.

  “I heard you. You can’t smoke and drive when you’re going ninety.”

  “Can’t I?”

  She used one hand to fumble with her purse. I reached over and held the wheel, keeping it steady.

  She let go of the wheel completely, but didn’t slow down at all. She even speeded up. There was nothing I could do except kick her foot off the accelerator, and I was afraid to try. I didn’t know what her reaction would be, and the wrong reaction would land us in the ditch, rolling. She took her time getting out a cigarette and lighting it, holding it in the corner of her mouth so the smoke wouldn’t drift up in her eyes.

  Then she took the wheel again.

  “You’re so helpful,” she said. “Next time do it the easy way.”

  “There isn’t any easy way, going this fast.”

  “Want to get out and walk?”

  “It’s your car.”

  “It’s your neck. You seem worried about it.”

  After a minute I said, “I don’t give a damn.”

  She laughed and threw the cigarette out the window.

  “Lose your shirt?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s only money.”

  “Your money.”

  “Not even mine. That was on the house. It didn’t cost me anything. Paper profits, paper losses. I never count my chips till they’re cashed.”

  “There’s a truck ahead. No tail-light.”

  She blinked the lights, sounded the horn, and passed the truck. I leaned back again.

  “Who’s this fellow McElroy?” I asked after a while.

  “You met him.”

  “I’d seen him before. He backed into the Chewy Monday night, when I was in town.”

  “Hurt it?”

  “No. But does he do that sort of thing all the time?”

  “Only when somebody’s watching,” she said. “When he’s alone, he’s a careful driver.”

  “Well, who is he? What’s his line?”

  “Doing a high-wire act on a silver cord, these days. Now where did I meet his mother first? Europe somewhere. My husband would know. He’s got a memory like a clock.”

  I looked at her, but she just watched the road. I sighed and reached for a cigarette and then changed my mind. I didn’t want to remind her about smoking.

  “How about women?” I asked. “Does he go in for that very much?”

  “Who?”

  “McElroy.”

  “Good God, how should I know? He’s a most uninteresting little man. Unpleasant, too. See if that bottle of sleep caps is still around, will you? I want to get a good night’s sleep.”

  “They’re in the dash compartment.”

  “Look and see.”

  “Okay. Here they are.” I took the package out. The Countess turned her head to look. The car nearly went into the ditch.

  “You’d better watch the road,” I said. “I’d like to live a while longer.”

  “Then you’re a fool,” she told me. “But who isn’t? I’m a fool, too, or I wouldn’t be driving this fast, would I, Nick?”

  “It won’t get you there any quicker,” I said.

  She turned her head toward me again.

  “Where?”

  “You ought to know.”

  “I don’t know,” she said loudly, looking back at the road and slapping the wheel with
the flat of her hand. There was a sort of desperation in the slapping. “Nothing helps, Nick. Gambling. Driving. Whisky. Nembutal. Nothing.”

  “Helps what?”

  “Never mind. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I might,” I said.

  She shook her head impatiently. “You have no idea. You’ve never—you couldn’t begin to—” She laughed. “Curiously enough, though, Nick, I’m quite sane. Quite, quite sane. It will be a blow to my husband, but it’s true.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “You don’t believe me. Tomorrow night you will, though. I’m expecting a call from my lawyer in New York. Report of the sanity commission, Nick. Oh, it’s perfectly legal. My husband doesn’t know it yet, but I flew to New York and my lawyer arranged the hearing. Sounds like hallucination, doesn’t it? But it’s true.”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t believe me? Just wait. When that call comes through, and my money’s my own again, I’ll—I’ll—” her voice trailed off. She gave me a sharp look. “Do you believe me?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Does it matter?”

  “It might. Later on. I may be needing you, Nick. I don’t know yet.” Suddenly she stamped on the accelerator and the car almost jumped out from under us. She let up after a second and we eased back down to a good conservative eighty-five. She began slapping the wheel again.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Worried about the telephone call?”

  She snorted. “That? Oh no. I know the answer on that. I just can’t make a move until the papers are signed. The call is to tell me I can go ahead and…” Again her voice faded.

  “And what?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Is that what’s bothering you? The—and what?”

  She still didn’t answer.

  She didn’t say another word until we reached the ranch.

  Chapter 13

  She parked at the open part of the U and was out of the car before the motor died. I heard her quick footsteps as I went around to unload the luggage compartment. A floodlight sprang into a white glare above the patio.