The Magician's Wife

by James M. Cain

  “You’ve had it—this is the end. You’re not seeing this dame again for the rest of your life or of hers. You’ve seen her for what she is, and if you go on asking for more, you should have yourself committed. Did you hear what I said? You’re through!”

  8

  TAKING AN ARMFUL OF towels, he stuffed them into the sofa to sop up the wine. Then he gathered up paintings and bric-a-brac, including the Orozco, and piled them on the piano. Then he got yards of paper towels and went to work on the rug to clean up the mess. He heard, almost without emotion, a bedlam of screams outside, with kicks and thumps on his door, and did nothing about it at all. He had just finished, using dustpan and whiskbroom, brushing up the last of the egg, when his inside phone rang. People had made complaints, Doris coldly informed him, “from all over the building, about some woman up there, whooping and hollering and banging on your door.” Dully he admitted, “She’s out there in the hall, I guess.” When Doris asked him what she should do, he answered foolishly that it was “your hall, not mine—do whatever you want.” On her informing him, “In a case like this I have to call the police,” he told her: “Why, sure, I guess you do.” She talked a few moments more, making it clear to him the police were going to be called.

  He hung up, put the chain lock on the door. Then, opening as far as the chain would permit, he called through the crack: “Cops are being called—they’re on their way.”

  “Ah, you would, wouldn’t you?”

  He closed the door again, remembered the ham in the oven, went in and turned it off. He waited for more kicks on his door, but none came, or any more screams, for that matter. Then his buzzer sounded, and a man’s voice said: “Police.” He opened for the officers, who said they had had a complaint, so pulling himself together, he tried to answer them sensibly. “Yes,” he said, “there was a girl out there, putting on kind of a roughhouse, but she seems to have gone—I haven’t heard her the last few minutes. She uses the freight elevator and may have gone out the back way.” The officers went, after taking in the living room. His stomach contracted again, but when he got to the bathroom with it, he discovered the trouble was sobbing, not retching. He decided to go to bed, but having had his say to the mirror, he avoided it while undressing, and when he had on his pajamas, crawled into bed. After a long time he persuaded himself he could sleep. He was just dozing off, or thought he was, when his inside phone rang again. This time when he answered he was quite peevish to Doris, asking: “Yeah, what is it now?” She said she was sorry to bother him, but “a lady is here to see you—a Mrs. Simone, the same one as was here before. But if you want me to say you’ve retired—?” He told her no, to “send her up,” then hurriedly got into his bathrobe and put on the living-room lights. Grace, when he opened, was in a dark summer suit, and stood in the hall for some moments, not responding to his pleasant “Come in.”

  “I’m not sure I’m going to,” she said coldly. “I’ve come about Sally. She’s been with me—she just left. And I think it’s rotten what you did to her!”

  “I regret I have only one boot to plant in her tail for my country. If this be treason, make the most of it!”

  “She’s horribly bruised, do you hear?”

  “Maybe so, but the cops have been here once, and unless you want a ride in the wagon, you’d better come inside.”

  She came in then and at last saw the living room. She winced as though hit with a whip, wailing: “Oh! Oh! Oh!” And then: “I—didn’t know about this. She—didn’t tell me about it! She didn’t say one word!”

  “Just told you what I did, hey?”

  “Not by name. Just—”

  “Called me a louse and went on from there?”

  “ ‘Son of a bitch’ is what she called you.”

  “Now, that sounds just like her.”

  By then she had reached the piano and begun examining the things piled on it. Seeing the Orozco, she started to cry, picking it up, touching fingers to it, turning it over, peering at the reverse side. Then, passionately: “It can be repaired—and I’ll pay for it, Clay! There’s a Mr. Gumpertz on Chase Street who’ll make it as good as new! He does marvelous restorations! He—”

  “I know Jake, of course. I’ll call him—and pay my bills, if you don’t mind. This one’s going to be big.”

  “She... didn’t mean any harm!”

  “Of course not! Just her way of having fun!”

  “Clay, please!”

  “Grace, what did you come about?”

  He had taken a seat on the sofa, the dry one with its back to the piano, and before answering, she came and sat beside him. Then she said: “I had to see you.”

  “To bawl me out.”

  “Yes.”

  “O.K. Go ahead.”

  “I can’t—not after that.”

  With a shudder, she motioned to the Orozco, and perhaps to ease things for her, he asked: “How’s my picture coming along?”

  “Rather well, I think—it’s almost done now. I was having trouble with it—the eyes were slightly cold. They looked the way they do look when you have that stare on your face that you wear most of the time. I wanted that other look, that warm, interested look that you get when you want to be friendly. And it wouldn’t come. But then something happened, I don’t quite know what. The blade—on the face I’m using a knife—gave a flick, and there was one eye as I wanted it. Then the other one came—and I stopped. Except for some work on the hands, I’m done.”

  “I’m certainly curious to see it.”

  “What do I smell, Clay?”

  “Ham. Want some?”

  “I have to admit I didn’t have much supper.”

  “I admit I didn’t get any. Come on.”

  Huddled close at the dining-room table, she sipped white wine and wolfed down ham sandwiches. Presently her hand found his, and then suddenly gripped it. “Clay,” she whispered, “you’re going to ring her, aren’t you? And say—something nice to her?”

  “You mean, now?”

  “She’s home. And she’s alone.”

  “Answer: no, Grace. I’m through with her.”

  “For me? I’m so frightened.”

  “Not for anyone. What are you frightened about?”

  “I don’t know. I keep telling myself about nothing! It doesn’t help—I keep right on having these crazy jitters. ... About her. About Alec. About Elly! About—everything!”

  “The electric chair is frightening.”

  “No! Don’t talk like that!”

  “It’s what you’re afraid of, though—have been all along. It’s why you came to me, in the hope I’d bust things up with this marriage she got herself into. Before things get out of hand. Do you know what started this thing? This brawl that we had tonight? It was because I was lousing her time schedule. She’s marking time, she says, until the old man dies—and I wanted action tonight. I made my same old pitch, that she go to Reno, have it done, and marry me! But first I wanted that both of us go to him, that husband, and lay it on the line, how things stood, so he’d know—because something happened, Grace, that made it out of the question that things could go on as before, in secret.” For the first time, then, he told of the afternoon’s episode: “a damned unpleasant occurrence, and it opened my eyes to some things. The first was I don’t blame her for all that’s happened. That guy’s an ugly customer and on top of that a fool. The second was—that fool, dunce, or jerk, I shook his hand. I made him my welcome guest, and that made it a new deal. Things can’t go on as they were. But she, do you think she got the point? She just stared at me, as though I was some kind of a nut. I got tired of listening to her and laid the law down, but good. I told her how it would be, that she was staying with me and we would go on from there. We would start a new life, I said, and opened some wine to celebrate. She threw it in my face, broke the glass and cut my cheek, and wrecked my apartment for me. So if you think I’m calling her up, you just think again. I kicked her out, and she’s lucky a boot in the tail is all she got from me. I
should have—”

  He broke off, speechless with the rage that had repossessed him, then asked: “Isn’t that what you’ve wanted, Grace? Isn’t that what you’ve asked me to do? Isn’t it now? Isn’t it?”

  “Well, not quite in that tone of voice.”

  “My tone of voice was fine. Answer.”

  “Then, if you put it that way, I say yes.”

  O.K. Now! Let’s us go on from here.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The same old thing I’ve meant with you from the start. Let’s us begin ‘going steady,’ as the high-school kids call it.”

  “Clay, that’s out of the question.”

  “You mean, you have to be loyal to her?”

  “That, partly, of course.”

  “If she’s out, what point does loyalty have?”

  “You’re not out, though.”

  She put out a hand, touched his bare neck, impulsively pulled him to her. “I own up,” she said, “there’s nothing I’d like better than to ‘go steady’ with you. Those weeks you sat for me—I made them last and last and last, I loved them so. And then the other night, when your eyes spoke to me, when I made them come alive, I knew the truth at last. But my love, Clay, isn’t only desire. It can face sacrifice too—must face it if it’s anything at all. And you’ve betrayed, with every word, how you feel about her—as she betrayed, when she came to me tonight, how she feels about you!”

  “How she feels about losing her cat’s-paw!”

  “How she feels about—what?”

  “You know what I mean, stop ‘whatting’ me. I’m sure she raged like a tiger, but it wasn’t love, my sweet. She’s not capable of it! She’s—”

  “She is, she is, she is!”

  “I interrupted. I’m sorry. Go on.”

  “Whatever she’s capable of, you’re in this, Clay!”

  “I was in it—not any more!”

  “You’re both in it!”

  Both were panting as her chair inched closer and closer and her grip on his neck tightened. Then: “Clay,” she whispered, “do you want to go on this way? The two of you fighting each other? With only one possible way for the whole thing to come out? It’s not whether you make up! It’s just a question of when! So why not do it tonight? Before you destroy each other, from pure, childish spite. ... Well, maybe not you. You’re not vindictive, that I must say, my own wonderful Clay. But she is—she can’t help it. That’s how she was born, it’s how she’s going to die. If you won’t destroy her, she’ll surely destroy you, and that’s the point it has, my loyalty to you! Clay, don’t let it happen! Call her up, make a little gag, ask if it’s turning blue, your heel mark on her bottom! So life can go on! So—”

  “Behind his back, you mean?”

  “Listen! That part can be straightened out!”

  “With a blackjack it certainly can be!”

  “Stop talking like that!”

  “I’m talking like it is—what she’s talking about!”

  “I want to finish!”

  “O.K. then, Grace—finish.”

  “Do you want to be ground to a pulp? Reduced to a nothing? Tortured so you won’t even know your own name? So you can’t think? We don’t speak of selling meat—!”

  “Oh, now I get it at last.”

  “Well, it’s about time!”

  He got up, put the ham away, washed their dishes, then went over to her and raised her face to his. “My sweet,” he said, “my own beautiful Grace, that’s one thing you don’t have to worry about!”

  “I rather imagine I do.”

  “I think we’re going to be married.”

  “I can’t even—hear what you said, Clay!”

  “You did hear.”

  He had her wait while he went to the bedroom and dressed, then walked her home, through a night even more fragrant, beblossomed, and mad than the first night they had had, had been. “We’re going to be married,” he said, “whether you like it or not. But to prove I’m free to be married, that my soul isn’t chained any more—I have to sell meat, don’t I? Grace, it’s going to be sold, all right. It’s going to be sold right away, in a way it hasn’t been sold, ever, in this town. Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve made me over, Grace—rededicated me.”

  “I wish I thought so.”

  “You’ll see.”

  9

  TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER he was staring at the sea, from the depths of a rocking chair, on the porch of a small hotel at Ocean City, Maryland—having driven there in flight from the frustration the holiday forced upon him. He had spent a sleepless night in a passion of high intention, with all sorts of fine schemes spinning around in his head, finding himself in the morning helpless to carry them out or even to do anything about his wrecked apartment. For fear his morale might ebb, and perhaps to preclude any call to Sally, he had packed his bag in a hurry and driven across the bridge that spans the bay, at length winding up at the sea. Here, to his relief, high purpose didn’t recede, but gave way to dogged resolve, and so he had had a swim, in water just a bit cold, a dinner, and a nice, brooding sulk, and now was about to retire. However, he was joined by Mr. Reed, the hotel’s proprietor, who took his meat and rated a sociable chat. In a quiet, easy way he made a standard gambit: “Nice place you got here—nice town, nice house, nice ocean”—but was just a bit startled at Mr. Reed’s sour reply. “Was nice,” he growled. “That’s all we can say, Mr. Lockwood—we had a nice place once. Now all we got is a mess—a roughhouse, nothing else but.”

  “Oh? You mean this holiday thing?”

  He was alluding to the problem at Ocean City, as at other summer resorts, of teenage boys swarming in, so police have a job on their hands.

  “That’s the climax of it, yes.”

  But there seemed to be more, and Clay knew he must listen. “You know what it puts me in mind of?” Mr. Reed went on. “California, during a brush fire. Fellow was telling me, guy that lives out there, what it’s like when they have one of them. It wasn’t threatening him—it was up the slope a ways, where it couldn’t possibly reach him. But his place was a short cut to it, so first comes it the bums, the extra help hired on by the state, to smack at it with their shovels, chop fire breaks, drag hose, squirt foam, and so on. Next comes it the bums’ girl-friends, and turns out they have quite a few, very noisy and not very well behaved. Then comes it the ice-cream trucks, the beer vendors, and the hot-dog brigade, ringing bells and sticking pennants up in the grass. Then comes it the Iowa tourists, who never saw a brush fire, out to take pictures of it. Then comes it the TV bunch, out to take pictures of everything, including the Iowa tourists. So what can this guy do? He didn’t start it—has nothing to do with it, really. But an Act of God is up there, a roaring, terrible fire. So maybe it does have beer cans around the edges, but if he squawks he’s a heel—maybe an atheist, yet. So all he can do is get tromped—and that’s how it is with us. We have an Act of God too—also with beer cans in front, an ocean that can roar as loud as a fire. And coming to see it are bums—not like in California, but bums just the same, in a way, boys. Not just a few, Mr. Lockwood, not just hundreds—thousands. And not only them but their girl-friends—what kind, I give you one guess. And not only them but the fly-by-nights, same as in California, with their ice cream, beer, and hot dogs. And tourists, and TV—giving the place a bad name. Three months from now, by Labor Day, when things come to a head, I don’t blame our cops for cracking down or our judge for getting tough. Why should it happen to us? Can you tell me, Mr. Lockwood? We weren’t doing nothing. We were just—”

  “Hold on, Mr. Reed!” said Clay suddenly, taking his feet from the railing. “Hold everything! You’ve just given me an idea!”

  “I sure hope so. What idea, Mr. Lockwood?”

  “If you can’t lick ’em, jine ’em!”

  “Jine ’em? How?”

  “Sell ’em! Ice cream. Beer. Dogs.”

  “Oh, I see what you mean. Unfortunately I’m in the hotel business—I sell a shore dinner
, two-eighty-one with tax. And would those kids pay that? I give you one guess. On top of which, the way most of them dress, I wouldn’t let ’em in. So—”

  “In my business I sell what sells.”

  “You’re leading to something, Mr. Lockwood. What?”

  “I don’t have the details yet—just a general idea, but as far as it goes, it’s clear. As I see it now, the kids tromp you, the fly-by-nights take their money, and all you get is beer cans out on the edge of the ocean.”

  “That says it, that’s exactly it!”

  “Why don’t you go for their money?”

  “But how? I sell a shore dinner! I—”

  “Wait! It’s beginning to come!”

  He took Mr. Reed by the arm and led him out to the boardwalk, then down some steps to the beach and out to the thundering surf. Then, after staring, he led back up the steps to the town, now having the first gay night of its new summer season, with neon signs lit up and orchestras sounding off. He kept on to the town’s boat harbor, one much like Channel City’s, the long inlet called Sinepuxent Bay, where various craft were tied up, prettily reflecting the lights. And as he walked he dreamed out loud: “I see it now, Mr. Reed—a corporation, locally owned—locally owned, I said, by you and a few of your friends—a right little, tight little syndicate that’ll have a series of booths—awnings, pitched on the sand, with grills and freezers and counters where girls in candy-striped pants will wait on our teenage friends and throw the empty cans in a hamper. You sell ’em ice cream, hot dogs, and beer—while I sell you what you need, I and some of my friends.” Mr. Reed, after raising the question of cash, “the capital we’ll need,” and being told, “Don’t worry about it,” began to like the idea, and presently Clay went on: “I see something else, Mr. Reed: this thing has a civic angle. It’s going to help put an end to the trouble. Because, ‘stead of fighting these kids you’ll befriend them, and ‘stead of fighting you they’ll get with it! And on Labor Day what will it be? Just a sociable cookout, that’s all.”