“Professionally known as Buster,” said the girl, “and you must have heard of me.”
“I have indeed,” Clay assured her, taking the soft little paw she gave him. “I’m very glad to know you.”
“Likewise,” she said. “Very, very, very.”
But as she looked Clay up and down with obvious interest, Mr. Alexis chided her: “You don’t have to jump in his lap.” He tried to sound facetious, but something ugly, perhaps of jealousy, showed through.
“Well, he hasn’t asked me yet,” she replied archly.
“Sit down, sit down, please!” Clay interjected, pushing up chairs, then resuming his own seat, in the chair back of the desk. Leaning back, he coached himself to say: “I’m sorry, you’ll have to talk with my lawyer—I don’t handle such things myself.” He assumed this was about Sally, though what Buster had to do with it he had no idea at all. So he was confused when Mr. Alexis, his aplomb somewhat regained, said: “Mr. Lockwood, Mike Dominick sent me to you, on a matter that’s come up that he said you could help me on, and might be willing, if I—”
“Mike Dominick?” Clay exclaimed.
“He runs the Lilac Flamingo, that Baltimore club where I work.” And then, at Clay’s astonished stare: “Well, look, if I’m in the wrong place, just run me out, Mr. Lockwood. Mike told me you were a friend.”
“Well, yes. I sell him meat. But—”
“Something’s wrong, I can see. So—”
“No, please!”
“You don’t have to jump in his lap,” said Buster to Mr. Alexis. “Give him time, let him readjust. How do you know? Maybe Mike has other names too—and not at all professional. They could be aliases, even. And—”
“I’m sorry,” Clay apologized. “I’m not quite caught up, that’s all. Let’s start over. I know Mike, of course—I’ve known him for years, and he’s right. He is a friend. How is the old mafioso?”
“About the same,” said Mr. Alexis.
“Which is not saying much,” Buster murmured.
“Practically nothing at all,” Clay agreed. “He’s O.K., just the same. What’s this matter of yours, Mr. Alexis? The one you say has come up.”
“It has to do with my act.”
“And my neck,” Buster explained.
“I see, I see,” said Clay, though he didn’t.
“Next week,” Mr. Alexis continued, “we go on summer schedule, with half the place closed for redecoration all through July and then the other half through August—and of course for some alteration, which is where I come in. I have to have stuff put in for an act I hope to pull off, beginning in the fall. But I have to speak up now, so contracts can be let. Because, Mr. Lockwood, take magic—what’s wrong with it, now?”
“Well—is anything?”
“No! And that, my friend, is what’s wrong!”
“You have to work on it,” Buster told Clay. “It doesn’t get any better, but at least you can understand it.”
“If you’d keep your mouth shut!” snapped Mr. Alexis.
“Your wish is my command,” she told him, winking at Clay and zipping her mouth with her thumb.
Mr. Alexis now grew dramatic, asking Clay: “So what makes a variety act? The perfection of it? No! The things that do go wrong! Like on the wire, when the guy misses his somersault and has to take it over—that’s what they eat up, isn’t it? And with dogs, the one the people love is the little white pooch who won’t go over the man, but runs between his legs! Even with cats, the tiger they go for is the one that balks at his jump and has to be coaxed with the whip. But with magic, what? Nothing ever goes wrong, and I say that’s what’s wrong. So, I’ve been working on it. All last season, in our levitation, Miss Conlon went up in the air. She floated, she rose, she came down—and that was all.” And then in a whisper, leaning close: “I want this girl to get lost! So when I make my little speech, pick up the steel hoop, and turn to pass it over her, she’s not there. She’s disappeared. I ask for quiet, for absolute quiet—I request that nobody move, and begin calling to her. And then a woman screams. And then I see where she is—they all see where she is—floating up under the ceiling”
“In my weightless condition,” said Buster.
“But to do it,” said Mr. Alexis, ignoring her, “I must have a movable cradle I can suspend her from, which must have something to run on and—”
“You want to look at our overhead stuff?”
“That’s it! If I may, Mr. Lockwood!”
“Nothing to it—we’ll look at it right now!”
Beads of sweat, of infinite relief, standing out on his brow, he took three coats from their hangers, gave one to Mr. Alexis, one to Buster, and slipped one on himself. Her zipper, as he pulled it up from the floor, ran over quite shapely contours, evoking her baby stare, which Mr. Alexis saw. However, nothing was said, and they trooped down to the storage room, where the rails, trolleys, and hooks excited Mr. Alexis greatly. He asked all sorts of questions about them, getting a card from his pocket and making note of the company that put such fixtures in. He inquired about strength, being assured by Clay “it’s tested for tons, not pounds—has to be, as quarters of beef can get bunched, rolling along, so the strain on the rail is quite heavy. One quarter weighs two hundred pounds—more than Miss Conlon, I imagine.” But when Mr. Alexis rolled one of the quarters an experimental foot or two, it made a dismaying rumble. Clay used the weighmaster’s phone, told Miss Helm to come down “and bring some rubber bands—whole box, if it’s there, of the biggest ones we have.” When she got there with them, he took a hook off the rail, wrapped its roller in rubber, put it back again, and tried it. It rumbled scarcely at all. “Now we’re coming!” said Mr. Alexis. “It’s going to work, I can see that.”
“I want to try it,” said Buster.
“What for?” asked Mr. Alexis.
“Well, what do you think? After all, I’m going to be up there. Not somebody else, Alec—me. And I want to feel how it is.”
She raised her arms, as though to be lifted up, but Mr. Alexis just stood there, not stepping forward to help. Prettily, she looked at Clay.
He lifted her.
She caught the rail, nodded.
She swung a little and jerked up and down.
“O.K.,” she said, and Clay stepped forward to lift her down. To his astonishment, Mr. Alexis put out his arm, barring his way. “Not so fast,” he told Clay. And then, to Buster: “You want down, let go. You’ll come down.”
“Well, thanks a lot,” said Buster, her white kid shoes dangling. But when Clay moved to help her, Mr. Alexis stepped between. “Hey!” he growled, “she’s my girl!”
“She’s my guest,” said Clay, “in my place. I just don’t care to be sued if she falls and breaks a leg.”
Shouldering Mr. Alexis aside, he took hold of Buster again and lowered her to the floor. There was a gritty moment, and then, to get things going again, as they had been before, he said: “There’s just one thing: you should make sure, and check on it every few days, that it’s absolutely level, whatever you have put in. I would use a spirit level and check on it myself, as that’s going to be important, for control of your stuff up there, and also so it’s safe.” He told of a place in Mexico “where they put in all modern equipment, the best that York, Pennsylvania, puts out, and forgot one thing, alas: the way the foundations settle there on that filled land that Mexico City is built on. So this place settled too, so the cold room rails canted one hot weekend. Ten tons of meat rolled down on the end of a rail, so a bolt snapped from the weight and dumped it down on the pipes, jamming a valve. Brother, when they opened up Monday morning, was that a job for the buzzards. Spoiled meat can smell, in the heat of Mexico City, when reefer pipes go dead—and costs, if you know what I mean.”
Ten minutes later, on the parking lot, his manner again suave though his face was still a bit grim, Mr. Alexis said good-by. “Thanks, Mr. Lockwood,” he declaimed in his best platform voice, “you’ve been most helpful indeed—shown me just what I wanted. You’re in
vited to my opening, as my guest, my personal guest.”
“I—hope I can make it,” said Clay.
“Likewise,” said Buster. “Very.”
“That does it—she’s leaving him and leaving him now! God, what a heel, what a pompous, vain, and stupidly jealous heel! And what a dangerous heel! If you hadn’t been there, he’d have popped that girl in the jaw! If you hadn’t been bigger, he’d have popped YOU in the jaw! What a revelation of the life poor Sally has led!”
7
POOR SALLY, WHEN SHE got there after phoning she would be late, didn’t quite look like herself. She was still in her Portico uniform, with little straw hat to match, but her crisp Portico style was not on view at all. The hat was askew, the dress mussed, the face slack. She was tacky, disheveled, and loose, and her mouth, wet with desire, plainly betrayed the reason. When he opened, she clamped her arms on his neck, started a long hot kiss, and lifted her heels from the floor, as though to be carried in the direction of love. He carried her, but into the living room, which was decked, to be sure, with several vases of roses and fragrant with toast, caviar, and crumbled egg—but it wasn’t their regular dovecote. “Here!” he said, putting her down and waving at the comestibles. “You must be starved.” She blinked, then told him: “Well, maybe I am—but not for this stuff, just yet. What’s the matter? Don’t you like me?” He said he liked her fine, “but we have some talking to do.” She stared, then snarled: “What is this? I come for a little romance and you give me goddam fish eggs—and a song and dance about talking we have to do. What is this, anyway? What talking?”
“Your husband was in today.”
“Alec?”
“Yes, Alec. He came to the shop.”
She sank to a sofa, stunned. “And you spilled it?” she whispered, licking her lips. “You told everything? After all I’ve said, you told him about me?”
“So happens I didn’t.”
Somewhat reassured, but not much, she braced to hear him out. In considerable detail, with special stress on the scene in the cold room, when he lifted Buster down, he told of the day’s visitation and when he had finished said: “So!”
“Well? So what?”
“Sally, can’t you see?”
“Why, I can see how he shook you up, coming in that way, but once you knew what it was, why should it be such a bomb? So he needs overhead rails and Mike sends him to you? Why shouldn’t he? After all, you do sell him meat, and after all you do have overhead rails. Maybe I’m dumb, but I don’t get the dramatics.”
“Then maybe you are dumb.”
“So—to the dumb you have to explain.”
“Don’t you see? I took his hand.”
“Well, did it have the pox on it, Clay?”
“I can’t shake his hand and sleep up with his wife.”
“You are sleeping up with his wife! Or were.”
“I can’t do it behind his back.”
“You did do it behind his back—didn’t you?”
“Listen, it started that way—things got out of hand. But from the beginning I wanted it out in the open. I begged you to go to Reno and never go back to him. You wouldn’t, and things coasted along. O.K., but now they can’t coast any more. Listen, it’s like that O. Henry story where the guy couldn’t drink with the man he blackmailed. I can’t take a man’s wife and then shake his hand. Listen: it’s not taking the wife—I don’t mind that at all. If he can’t keep her, she’s fair game for me—life is like that and I’m not even slightly ashamed. But shaking his hand, all at the same time—that’s different. I won’t do it, and now that it’s happened, a whole new chapter has started.”
“What O. Henry story?”
“Does it matter? I forget the title of it.”
“It still makes no sense to me but— Let’s get on, Clay. What new chapter? If you know.”
“First, we go to him.”
“And then?”
“Reno.”
“At my expense?”
“Sally! I pay for it, of course. We—”
“Including the millions it costs me?”
“Oh, so that’s it! It’s been said now, at last!”
“It’s been said from the beginning, Clay—the trouble is you don’t listen. You pretend nothing’s been said when it has been. Those millions, dear heart, are important. And so you get it straight, I’m not giving them up. Now, what else?”
“In the first place, you’re not in line for the millions.”
“So happens I think I am.”
“In the second place, they’re not all.”
“You mean there’s you and your lily-white hand?”
“Sally, I mean there’s you, and your more or less lily-white life.” And as she looked at him, startled, he went on: “I didn’t like this guy, and from the start I felt something peculiar. The whole thing, his idea for the trick, his coming, his testing of the rail, had something phony about it. And quite a while after he left I hit on the explanation—to my own satisfaction, at least. You used to work for him, didn’t you? In the act, before you had your baby? O.K., then—suppose Buster gets sick? Suppose she gets the flu? And he puts the bite on you to go on in her place? Sally, with you hanging up there by wires from a cradle on rails, your life will be hanging there too, and I would not give a nickel for it! That’s what we have to think about, and believe me, once you come crashing down, there’ll be no millions for you. Did you hear what I said? There won’t be anything—but a bang-up funeral, with lilies. And I happen to love you, that’s all.”
He had no recollection of having this idea at all before he started to talk, and in fact heard himself get it off with utter astonishment, mixed with some admiration. It was a pure, inspired ad-lib, but it got him nowhere at all. She listened with ill-concealed boredom and, when he was finished, said: “Well, thanks for worrying about me—though there was no reason, really. You were right, of course, about one thing: there was something phony about it. He’s dreaming about this stunt, which he thinks will be quite a sensation. But to pull it every night, with her ‘way up in the air, would get him in dutch with the cops—she’s a human being, believe it or not, and they would worry about her—maybe haul him to court. So to take care of that he’ll fake it—use a wire frame and plastic head, so she seems to be up there and isn’t. But to tell you how it’s done, as he figures, would be telling the whole wide world—and if that sounds silly to you, you don’t know magicians. They think the world is lying awake to know how their tricks are done—they guard their secrets like gold. So to cover up, to make it all look kind of real, he brings her to see you too—as though she’s the one to be reassured. But when she decided to chin herself on the rail, that was coming too thick. Now that was an idea, wasn’t it? All she wanted was a feel—from you. And the way you tell it she got it—and I don’t blame him for how he felt. He’s a crumb, he’s ruined my life—but for once I’m on his side.”
“I’ll never be on his side.”
“All right—what else?”
He tramped around, very agitated, then turned to her and blurted: “We talk—we bat it around—we don’t get anywhere. So I’m taking this bull by the horns. You’re not going back.”
“You mean, to him?”
“To him, to that house, or anywhere, but here. So, our new life begins—has begun—as of now. So why don’t we celebrate?”
He went out in the kitchen, got a quart of champagne from the icebox, with glasses he had put there to chill. Coming back, he twisted the wire off the bottle, worked the cork with skillful fingers, got it out with a festive pop. He poured a sip in one glass, tasted, then filled both glasses and raised one with a flourish. “Happy days!” he declaimed. “To you, to Elly, to me. Happy years, happy—everything.”
She made no move toward her glass. “Just goes to show,” she observed after a moment, “how mistaken you can be. How mistaken I can be.”
“Yeah? What mistakes have you made?”
“Oh, you know. Like with the rock I thou
ght I had. Well? You looked like a rock, kind of. And acted like one—I thought. But the rock turned out to be more of a mock orange. Ever see one, Clay? Kind of pretty on the outside, like a big green grapefruit. Open it up it’s not so good. Instead of juice it has milk, that’s slimy and sticks to your fingers and stinks—so you want to throw up. Like what runs in your veins, come to think of it. What a rock. What a hero. What a joy. What a comfort—to a girl in trouble that needs someone to lean on.”
O.K., lean. I’m here—not there.”
“Damn it, shut up!”
Though his finger trembled, betraying how much he was shaken, he pointed it at her glass, saying: “I toasted you ‘Happy days.’ What are you toasting me?”
She raised her glass, and he reached for his to clink. But then suddenly he was blinded, by wet stinging stuff in his eye, and realized she had thrown the wine at him. Wiping off with a napkin, he heard glass breaking, and when he could see, she was lunging at him with a stem, a glittering, splintered thing that she held in her fist, like a practiced barroom fighter. He jumped up and backed away. She jumped up and charged. Her next lunge grazed his cheek and he clipped her on the chin, toppling her over backward. When he touched his tingling cheek his finger came away red, and he went back to the bathroom, stopping the blood with a styptic pencil. When he got back to the living room he gave a gasp of horror, for pictures, cups, and mementos were all on the floor, the caviar and egg were stamped into the rug, the champagne was upside down, gurgling into the sofa, and she was on his Orozco, the finest painting he had, which had hung over the fireplace, kicking the frame apart and grinding her heels in the canvas. He grabbed her and she cursed him, he flinching at the words, so different were they in her shrill feminine accents from their sound as said by men, and so horrible. Dragging her to the door, he pushed her out. Then, aiming with care, he drove a kick at her bottom, with all his strength, that sprawled her on her face in front of the elevator.
Coming back, he closed the door, panting from exertion and gagging from revulsion. He saw her bag on the telephone table. Grabbing it up, he opened the door again and threw it at her, where she still lay on the floor. Then, banging the door shut, he dived for the bathroom, where white foamy stuff came retching up from his stomach.