The Magician's Wife

by James M. Cain

  “Me too—like I want to cut my throat.”

  She sat down at the piano, struck a chord, said: “I love a Steinway—it doesn’t sound like any other.” She started to play, not well, but accurately, with heavily accented rhythm.

  “Chopin?” he asked.

  “Mm-hm. Waltz in A flat minor.”

  “I’ve heard it. I couldn’t have named it.”

  When she finished, he clapped. “Je vous remercie, m’sieur,” she said, getting up.

  “Oh? You speak French?”

  “It’s easy if you lived there; I did when I was little. My father, before he died, was a professor at Goucher College, but he met Mother in Paris when she was an art student there and he was studying at the Sorbonne. They got married there, and I came along quite soon—within the law but without much to spare.”

  “Your mother sounds delightful.”

  “She’s terrific—young, talented, and beautiful, with a figure to write home about, and I just love her—providing she knows her place and stays in it.”

  “And just what is her place?”

  “Out of my hair, Clay.”

  She resumed her walking around and, perhaps realizing that things were a bit flat, remarked: “So! Now you know all about me, my practically unlimited bag of tricks: I can serve corned beef, cabbage, and spud, bat out a waltz on your Steinway, parlez-vous French a little, and fake along about art.” She sighed, then added, remembering: “Oh! And twirl! Now, there’s an accomplishment for you!”

  “You mean, like a majorette?”

  “That’s it, and I was one, at the high school football games in Baltimore, where we lived. I was starred between the halves—what got me in trouble later and led to my plunge into show business.”

  “With acrobatics, no doubt?”

  “Oh, yes, especially them!”

  She was in the center of the room, and with no more ado, pressed her palms to the floor and cartwheeled over toward him, a flash of whirling skirt, silk panties, and soft, shapely legs. Then she came smartly upright before him—or would have except that a loafer flew off and threw her slightly off balance, so she toppled into his arms. Until then their moment at Portico and the other one over the phone, with little cat’s-paws of wantonness darting boldly out, hadn’t once returned. But now a tidal wave swept over them as their mouths came together and their hungry fingers dug in. Then, lifting her, he carried her back to the bedroom.

  4

  TWO HOURS LATER, STRETCHED out on one of the sofas, her head in his lap, she stared at the fire he had built and amiably answered his questions, about her childhood, her family, her schooling. She told of her years in Paris, of others in Baltimore, when her father had been summoned to teach there; of her attendance at Sarah Mitchell School, where “Bunny Granlund taught deportment before she married Steve.” This surprised him, and she admitted that at Portico she was Mrs. Granlund’s protégée. She told of her father’s death and her mother’s lean years, “when she couldn’t afford Sarah Mitchell and had to put me in Western High”; of how she had twirled with the band, “and then at one of our shows, I was the cute little thing that got picked to be sawed in half, by a young magician who came and helped us with our production.” He said: “O.K.—I can imagine the rest of that,” but she pursued the subject a little, saying: “He’s the Great Alexis, and if you haven’t heard of him, you must have heard of the Lilac Flamingo, that club in Baltimore where he works.” He said he sold the Flamingo meat, and “Mike Dominick’s a pal—at least he thinks he is.” They laughed over Mike, and she went on: “Of course Alexis is what he calls himself—it kind of sounds like magic, so he took it. He’s really Alec Gorsuch.”

  “Any relation to Mr. El?”

  “Mr. El’s his father.”

  He whistled, for Mr. El, with his auto-accessory stores, was a fabulously rich man. She said: “I don’t wonder you’re surprised that the son of someone like him would get himself mixed up with magic—but you needn’t be. In the first place he’s hipped on it, and in the second place he doesn’t like junkyards, as he calls his father’s outlets. So, that’s that. So pink brocade still looks—”

  “Like Christmas in July?”

  “Now you know.”

  She took his wrist to look at the time, but he assured: “I promised you’d go back on time, and on time you’re going to go. ... If you still want to go, that is.”

  “If I want to go? How do you mean, Clay?”

  “If you want to go at all.”

  “That I’d stay? Here with you? Tonight?”

  “Tonight—and the rest of your life.”

  She sat up, staring, and seemingly baffled. Then: “Well!” she said. “I’m not sure I know what you’re getting at, but— Clay, we’ve only known each other since morning. Afternoon, to be exact, as the luncheon menu was out, and it doesn’t come from the printers till twelve. For the rest of my—? Honey, is this a gag?”

  “No,” he said seriously. “Listen, there is such a thing as knowing the big things in life from the little ones, of being able to tell when you’ve been hit by a truck. All right, I own up, I have been. But you’ve been making noises as though it hit you too, so why do you call it a gag? What’s stopping you from staying here, tucking away with me, and then as soon as you’re ready shoving off for Reno, Tahoe, Vegas, or wherever you want it done? Then we get married, that’s all. And go on from there. That’s simple, isn’t it?”

  “Little too simple, Clay.”

  “How, too simple?”

  “In—all kinds of various ways.”

  “In one way, you’re damned right it’s simple: You’ll be here, then—and not there, warming the hay for a husband, when he gets home from his show.”

  “Oh, so that’s it!”

  “That among other things.”

  “It’s one thing you don’t have to worry about!”

  She got up, smoothed her skirt, shook her hair, and declaimed: “When I heard about Busty Buster, that girl he has in his act, and what he was doing with her—I locked my door. Did you hear what I said, Clay? I locked it and locked it for good. It was just before Elly was born and—”

  “Elly? Who is he?”

  “My little boy, who do you think?”

  “You—have a child?”

  “Well my goodness, Clay, I’m married! Wives do have children, don’t they? Elly’s three years old, and even before he came, I tell you I locked my door. I—”

  “I took you for—twenty-two, three-years old.”

  “I’m twenty-one, so happens.”

  “Then—O.K., let’s get him too.”

  “He’s at his grandfather’s now.”

  She said Mr. El had sent for the boy, to spend the Easter holidays, and had kept him a few days longer, “and that’s why I’m free to traipse over here with you.” He said: “Then stay, and when we’re ready, go get him and—”

  “Stop being the Wild Man from Borneo!”

  “Is that what I look like to you?”

  “Clay, I hate nutty ideas.”

  “O.K., but what’s nutty about it?”

  “Everything.”

  “Is there any good reason you can’t?”

  “Yes! Elly, for one thing!”

  “So he’s hanging us up—and I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I have an office back there, a spare bedroom, really, with fixtures and stuff in it that we can move out tomorrow, so workmen can come in, paint rabbits on the wall, and make a nursery out of it. Then we’ll put in his trundle bed and—”

  “Please, please, please!”

  She was touched, or seemed to be, and sat down on the opposite sofa, getting a handkerchief out of her bag, wiping her eyes and biting her lip. Then, quietly, she said: “You made me cry, Clay—that you’d feel so friendly to him, my own little boy, means something, I can tell you. But where he sleeps and the pictures he has on the wall aren’t what I’m talking about. They’re important, but they’re not all.”

  “Yeah? And what’s the rest?”


  “His full, fair share of a fortune.”

  “The Gorsuch fortune, you mean?”

  “Yes. It’s what’s been hanging things up.”

  “Things? You mean, a divorce?”

  “That’s it. Between me and Alec.”

  “All right, Sally, I begin to get it now, but make it plain, will you? So I get the picture?”

  “We’re marking time, that’s all.”

  “On what?”

  “A—certain event.”

  “Do you mean the death of Mr. El?”

  “Well, I could never make myself say it, but since you have, that’s what we’re talking about. Until that event takes place, I dare not make a move, because he could resent it, Clay—and take it out on Elly. As it is now, the will’s in Alec’s favor, with a trust fund or whatever it is, and of course when he inherits, he can make me a settlement and one for Elly too—though mine I don’t care about. I’m making a living now and can take care of myself the rest of my life, I think. But my child I can’t disregard.”

  “So where does that put us, if anywhere?”

  “Well? Tonight’s been sweet. And tomorrow—”

  “We do a retake, on the sneak—?”

  “All right, if that’s what you think it is.”

  “Think? We are on the sneak, Sally!”

  “Clay! I stay—and then what? Do you know?”

  “I told you! You go to Reno—”

  “And get not one red cent! Of what’s due me or due my little boy! If that’s not being nutty, I wouldn’t know what it is!”

  “Hey, wait, not so fast!”

  His mind had been at work and by now had somewhat caught up. He asked: “How can you hope for a settlement, if a lump sum’s what you mean, when the dough’s tied up in a trust fund? They won’t unfreeze it for you; it couldn’t be done. And if alimony’s what you mean, it won’t run one day after you’re married again. So I’m not with it, Sally, at all. And so far as Elly goes, again, if the will names your husband, your boy can’t cut in, except as you get an allowance to bring him up, until your husband dies. So who’s nutty now?”

  “... I think it’s time to go.”

  “I guess it is.”

  “My friend, you’re through with that girl. Did you hear what I said, dumbbell? They’re marking time, all right—or she is—right foot, left foot, and tearing the leaves off the calendar. Because once the old man goes, the only way that she can cut in is by another blessed event, with funeral lilies yet. And you don’t volunteer to knock that husband off—she’s nice, but not that nice, oh no. She’ll be a Merry Widow, that we know for sure, but not with your help. Do you hear? You’re through!”

  So he informed his reflection in the mirror, after taking her back to the theater, making her promise to call the next night, and rolling behind her on Elm Street, as she skipped along to a pleasant house and went in. But the next night, when he got in from the club, he found a note on his bureau, from Ellen, his cleaning woman: Mr. L.: This was under your pillow. “This” was a tortoise-shell comb with a filigree back. He sniffed it, found it full of her delicate smell. Trying to put it down, not quite being able to, he took it into the living room, held it as he sat by the window again, looking down at the city. When the phone rang he answered briskly, as though things were just as they had been at the parting the night before. He mentioned the comb; she said, “Oh-oh-oh,” with a guilty laugh. She mentioned the theater’s change of bill, “so I can go there again tonight without its looking funny.” He waited as before, across from the parking lot, telling his rear-vision mirror: “Stop borrowing trouble. Don’t jump to conclusions, Lockwood. Maybe she means what you think, maybe not, who knows? Take it as it comes. It’s just a few nights anyway before the boy is brought back, and that brings it to an end, a natural, easy end, without you smacking her down. Until then, she’s pretty nice.” The next few nights she decided to eat uptown and come to his place in her car. He gave her a key, and she let herself in the back way, scratching on his door, and being welcomed ecstatically.

  The last night he gave her dinner, prepared by himself: Grant’s steak, baked potato, peas and onions, salad, and ice cream with brandied cherries, with martinis to start things off, and Château Neuf du Pape. It all impressed her no end, except for the wine, which made her laugh. “It costs a lot, Clay—the only thing in its favor. For the rest, it makes you sleepy, and I didn’t come here to sleep.” Putting the bottle back without letting him open it, she found a Château Margaux and pulled the cork herself. “Claret’s all right,” she said. “It’s light, it leaves your head clear, and goes fine with steak. That other—it’s for the tourists, really.” Such Escoffier talk delighted him, and he spent an enchanted evening, listening to tales about Elly, his beauty, his angelic disposition, how he was loved in the day nursery where she put him each morning on going to work.

  But later, stretched out once more by the fire, she reverted to the future, the first time she had since he brought the subject up. “You know,” she said quietly, taking his hand, “I’m beholden to you for opening my eyes to—everything. The spot that I’m in, Clay. I never realized before what a heads-I-lose-tails-I-can’t-win proposition I’m up against. Because that’s true, isn’t it? That even by marking time I can’t get anything or get anything for Elly, can I? If I try for a settlement now, all I can get is alimony, which stops when I marry you, and an allowance for him. And if I wait, it’s exactly the same, with Elly nowhere, either, unless Alec should—die. Clay, they talk about four-letter words, but that little three-letter one is the worst in the language for me. It’s the truth, though, isn’t it? That once the old man—isn’t here any more Alec has to—die—I must make myself say it—before either one, Elly or I, can—share. Well, as I said, you opened my eyes, and thanks. The next thing is, what now?”

  It was some moments before he said: “I’ve told you what I think. You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs. Leave him, go to Reno, marry me—and get on with your life. So far as Elly goes, he’ll be no worse off. I’m not starving to death, I remind you. I’m plenty able to raise him.”

  “Clay, that touches me so.”

  “Will you think it over?”

  “I will. I promise. And will you think it over?”

  “... Think what over, Sally?”

  “There must be some other way!”

  “What’s wrong with this way? My way?”

  “But it seems so awful, Clay! To have my child cut off! Just left out on a limb! With no way to get it—the money that’s rightfully his!”

  “In due time he can inherit!”

  “Yes, but when is that?”

  “For that you’ll have to ask God.”

  “You’re thinking it over, all right. You have thought it over, and you’ve come to the end of the plank. You’re through—you don’t see that girl any more.”

  5

  NEXT EVENING, INSTEAD OF camping by the window, he lit the floor lamps, put on a Tchaikovsky album, and at luxurious ease sat himself down to listen. The 1812, one of his favorites, was banging briskly along when the phone rang. Smiling icily to himself, he let it go on without answering. Romeo and Juliet had started when it rang again, and again he did nothing about it. But twenty minutes later his inside phone rang, and Doris told him: “Lady to see you, sir.” Caught by surprise, he hesitated, then said: “Send her up.” He cut off the music and stood thinking, trying to fathom why Sally, so frightened of being seen, and having a key of her own to come in the back way, should be showing herself now down in the front lobby. Making nothing of it, he went out in the hall to meet her, closing the door after him and resolving she shouldn’t get in, no matter what kind of excuse, what weird, farfetched tale, he would have to come up with. But what stepped from the elevator wasn’t Sally at all, but an apparition in black, with crimson hat, gloves, bag, and shoes, that eyed him for a moment and then held out its hand. “Mr. Lockwood?” it asked. “I’m Mrs. Simone, Sally Alexis’ mother.”
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  “Oh!” he exclaimed after a startled silence. “Yes, Mrs. Simone—Sally has spoken of you. I’m honored.”

  “To say nothing of flabbergasted?”

  “Well, surprised, I admit, but pleasantly.”

  “I should have phoned, and would have, except I wasn’t sure you’d see me, and so, to head off a brush, I barged.”

  “I’m certainly delighted you did.”

  “At least it’s nice of you to say so.”

  By now he had got his door open again and ushered her in. Her reaction to the living room was much like Sally’s. And while she marched herself around, taking in various things, he stood taking her in, with more of an eye to detail than had been possible out in the hall. He noted the smart hang of the taffeta dress, and the Continental look of the matching stole that was flung over one shoulder after a turn on her neck. He noted the crimson accessories, of the exact shade to bring up her iron-gray hair. He noted the fresh, handsome face, with large hazel eyes. But most of all he noted the “figure to write home about,” a slim, sinuous thing of no more than medium size, but voluptuous in every curve. “That dress,” he said quickly when she caught him looking at her, “if it was done in dark blue, would be the Portico hostess uniform.”

  “It’s the original of the Portico hostess uniform,” she said, a bit tartly. “I designed it myself. And I wasn’t too pleased, I can tell you, when Bunny Granlund saw it and thought it was just the thing for the Portico girls to wear. I wasn’t too pleased, but it means business to the store—to Fisher’s, where I work—and I get a royalty, too, so I don’t say too much about it. In the meantime I wear it, as is.”

  “It’s lovely. Simple—and beautiful.”

  She thanked him and continued her tour of inspection. Then suddenly: “Why this?” she asked. “Why Mexico?”

  “Well, why not?” he parried.

  “It seems a bit odd somehow. In Maryland.”

  “It’s a long story. I got into meat and then thought I should learn more about it. So I bought a bunch of books, among them one called The King Ranch, that I heard really went into it. It did, all right, but went into other things too, like Texas history, the Mexican War, and that stuff. It cleared up all kinds of things for me, like why they fought that war. Why we did was no mystery at all: we just helped ourselves to a strip of desert down there, for no good reason at all except to make a prettier map, and because the Rio Grande was longer than the Nueces and made a nicer-looking boundary. But why would they fight us? It was because it just so happened that this strip of worthless desert also included a harbor, the one at Punta Isabella, inside the Brazos Santiago—the only good one they had north of Veracruz. No one is quite sure that we even knew it was there. So that’s why they went to war, and I don’t blame them one bit. When I got through with that book, I was hooked on Mexico, and my hat was off to the writer. His name is Tom Lea, and you never heard of him but—”