Cancel All Our Vows (7 page)

“I have a system,” Laura said. “When I get pinched, I pinch right back, and then look at them like this.”

Fletcher half choked on his drink as he saw the expression of vacuous idiocy that came over her face. Jane said, in an awed tone, “Good Lord, that ought to give them pause.” She took a quick sidelong glance. “Out of luck. Here he comes.”

Dr. Frike was a vast lean bony old man with a peculiarly rigid way of holding his chest out and his shoulders back. He always made Fletcher think of an upended coffin. He spoke inanities in a loud firm voice, using an explosive Hah! as punctuation.

“Well, Fletcher! And Jane, my dear. Hah! I suppose this charming couple are the new members I’ve heard so much about? Hah!”

Fletcher and Ellis got up and Fletcher performed the introductions. “Always glad to see nice young people coming in. Hah! Now you young men just sit down and I’ll walk around here. No, don’t get me a chair. I can only stay a moment.”

He took up a position between Jane and Laura, and put one lean old hand on Jane’s shoulder and one on Laura’s, squeezing in slow nervous rhythm.

He beamed down at Laura. “Hah! And how do you find our little community club?”

She looked up at him. “Why, you just drive south out of town and here it is.” She paused for effect, then said, explosively, “Hah!”

The lean fingers stopped their nervous movements. Fletcher risked a quick glance in Jane’s direction. He was
glad it was getting dark. The squeezing began again. “My dear, I’m afraid you misunderstood me, or perhaps you were making a joke. Hah!”

“Well, if you mean do I like it here, Dr. Frike, I guess I do, because everybody is just so gosh darn friendly, you know. Hah!”

Jane made a muted strangling noise. The doctor once again began the finger exercises. Laura looked at the hand on her shoulder, and Fletcher could hear her sigh. Suddenly she laid her cheek against his hand, then turned her face quickly and began to kiss the back of the doctor’s hand, making loud kissing noises. Dr. Frike snatched his hand away as though he had burned it

“And I do so love to be surrounded by real honest-to-goodness friendly people, don’t you, Doctor?”

He said, “Well … it’s a small club … I mean everybody knows … Say, I must be getting along. Pleasure to meet you. Always a pleasure … to meet new members.” He turned with the slow dignity of one of the larger water birds and walked away, unconsciously rubbing the back of his hand.

Jane borrowed Fletcher’s handkerchief and made snorting noises into it as soon as Doctor Frike was out of earshot. Laura sat, completely expressionless.

Ellis said in a low intense tone, “Maybe you ought to realize that we’re new here. Maybe you ought to stop and think once in a while. Maybe …”

“It doesn’t matter at all,” Fletcher said quickly. “That old bird is a pest. If she hadn’t done that he’d have been here for an hour.”

Jane said, with difficulty, “Worth … price of admission. God! Never forget the way … jumped. He’ll spend the rest … evening down in the cellar with the … slot machines.”

Laura sat erect. “Slots? Have we got slots here?”

“Now dear,” Ellis said.

She turned to Fletcher. “Ellis has a mathematical mind. He keeps telling me that if you put eight thousand quarters in, you will get two thousand back, or something like that. I adore slots. Can I borrow him as a guide, Jane? It distresses Ellis to see money going into a hole. And that
will give Ellis a chance to bring you up to date on the Laura problem.”

“Go right ahead, you two,” Jane said, recovering quite quickly from her speech and breathing difficulties.

Fletcher followed Laura across the terrace and into the club. He said, “Hold it while I get some change in the bar.”

“Here. I’ve got some money.”

“My treat.”

“No sir. If I hit a jackpot you’ll want half. I’ll lose my own.”

She gave him a ten. He went into the bar and changed all of it into quarters, took them back and gave her half, along with a five dollar bill from his wallet. He led her back to the stairway. “The machines are in bad repute in these here parts. So we have to keep them in the cellar. They’re too profitable to give up. They just about support the club. They don’t hit often, I’m warning you.”

She looked back up over her shoulder at him. “Who wants to hit? I just like pulling the damn handle.”

The machines were in a damp, brightly lighted little room near the furnaces. Two college boys and their dates were going partners on one of the dime machines. Laura made a beeline for the quarter machine.

She said, “Look. You’ve got some quarters, haven’t you? Same number I have? Good. We’ll put in five apiece. I’ll take my turn first. Keep your own winnings and keep them separate. When the stake is gone, we’ll see who did the best. Winner gets an extra five on the side. Okay?”

“All right with me.”

He moved to one side, leaned his shoulder against the cement wall, the wall against which the machine was placed. He watched her. She was flushed and avid. She gave the handle a good hard yank each time.

On the third pull a win chinked into the scoop. She left it there. She hit again on her fifth coin, then counted the winnings intently. “Twelve here. Twelve for five. Not bad. Your turn.”

He took her place. He pulled the handle lazily. “Nice job on the doctor.”

“Poo, Fletcher. That was an expurgated effort. He was able to walk away.”

“Rough kid, eh?”

“Not particularly. I wonder what it is that gets into the skulls of old men and makes them believe that they are utterly irresistible to all womanhood. It must be some little twist in the civilization we’re living in. Somebody, somehow, is giving them the wrong steer.”

“Not the civilization we’re living in. Any era, I’d guess. Right back to the old bull ape, kingpin of the ape clan. You see, he’s usually the oldest and the toughest, and so he has all the lady apes he wants. I think Frike just goes along with a sort of primordial instinct. The fact that it doesn’t work any more is no help to him. He has to keep kidding himself.”

“Hold it! You just put in your sixth. Don’t pull the handle. Here’s one of my quarters. My turn now. You didn’t win a thing.”

She was silent and intent as she played her second five quarters. She won three on the last one. He took her place.

She said, “Aren’t you a little out of character too, Fletcher?”

He looked at her as he pulled the handle. The college kids were going noisily up the stairs and they were alone in the small room.

“I don’t remember making any passes.”

“I don’t mean that. That was nice, that ape comparison. Where did you read it?”

“I didn’t. I was just talking.”

“You’re supposed to be able to talk creatively about debentures and stock issues and reserves for contingencies. All the rest of your conversation is supposed to be either anecdotal, or a rehash of something you read somewhere.”

He yanked the handle viciously. “Sweet Jesus, that line of chatter makes me goddamn sick. You’re in business, so you’re supposed to be an intellectual moron.” He stared at the spinning wheels as he spoke. “All the little elfin bastards that never met a payroll always stick a character in their novel known as the Dull American Businessman. All the oh-so-sensitive and suffering artistes think there’s
nothing quite so crass as a dirty old profit-seeking businessman. It’s sick-making. The dullest item I ever tried to talk to was a concert pianist. And the second dullest was a neurosurgeon, for God’s sake. Maybe it started with Babbitt. I don’t know. I
do
know that the quickest, brightest kids in the country go into business. And they don’t stop growing mentally once they’re in business.”

“Like Ellis?” she asked softly.

“Hell, Ellis is one of those one-sided people they’re talking about when they depict the businessman as being a … Wait a minute. You tricked me into that. Let’s play fair.”

“All right. Fair, Fletcher. I was needling you to see how you’d jump.”

He grinned, a bit shamefaced. “I jumped.”

“You did. Now I wonder where all that defensive strength came from. Care if I guess? Don’t put that one in. That makes six.”

He stepped aside. “Okay, guess.”

“You got hot because there are a lot of things you want to do, a lot of things you want to read. And there doesn’t seem to be time, and so you feel guilty about it.”

He thought it over while she played her five coins in rapid order. “All right. I’ll give you that point.”

“When
are
you going to make time, Fletcher?”

“God only knows.”

“If you never make time for those things, then in a few years those so-called ‘elfin bastards’ are going to be right about you, aren’t they?”

“Women aren’t supposed to be logical.”

“Great little old combination we have here, Fletcher. Logical woman and intellectual businessman. We ought to be putting this on tape, wouldn’t you say?”

“A weird conversation and you’re a strange item.”

“Part of it’s a pose. I try hard to be strange. Speaking of strange, I had a strange feeling when I caught you staring so hard at me up there when you first came.”

“I was staring. Is that so strange?”

She looked at him quite solemnly. “You had the look of a man who is looking hard for something. He doesn’t
know exactly what it is, so he won’t know when he finds it.”

“Maybe he knows already.”

“That isn’t worthy of you. That’s a Randalora Club, Minidoka type conversational pass and I resent it.”

“It was an automatic reflex. Around here you’re supposed to say things like that. Makes you gallant The ladies love it.”

“This lady was being serious and … concerned. Are you looking for something?”

“I don’t know. This is … a funny year for me. I keep losing track of myself, and wondering where the hell I’ve been, and where I might be going.”

She shut her fingers hard on his wrist. “And a funny, greedy feeling? As if the world is a big table all covered with food, and you’ve lost your appetite, but still you want to eat, and can’t?”

“You’ve been reading my mail.”

She released his wrist. “That’s another cheap, pointless remark. Some sort of a defense, I guess.”

“It could be a defense against you. I have a yen, Laura. Closely allied, perhaps, with the rape instinct. But I’m not pursuing same any further. Not in the market, thank you.”

“Implying that I am?” she demanded, her voice rising.

“I’ll rephrase it. We’re both in the market for something, and we don’t know what, but this isn’t it.”

“Jane is sweet.”

“Apropos of what?”

“I don’t know. Sweetness. Which I am not. Ellis, the humorless wretch, keeps imploring me to be sweeter to people. I always ask why. That usually stumps him for a few minutes. If I keep on asking, it usually turns out that he wants me to be sweet so he can be president of General Motors. And I refuse to pimp for a corporation.”

“Are you sure that little state of mind isn’t just delayed adolescence?”

“You have a real nasty habit of picking at weak spots, don’t you? I keep wondering that myself. Give me time. Maybe I’ll grow up. Move over. My turn.”

They played doggedly and in silence. He won a little,
but not enough to catch her. At last she was down to her last quarter.

“Last one,” she said. “Kiss for luck?”

Her perfume had an odd spicy flavor. Her hand was on the machine lever. He took her hand and pulled her quickly, almost harshly, into his arms. In his arms, with his lips driving down hard against hers, she felt neither frail nor fragile to him. She felt almost sturdy, and exceedingly alive. They swayed and bumped awkwardly against the slot machine. He released her. She was looking at him intently. “I meant the quarter, not me.”

“There are germs on money.”

“You just babble on, don’t you? Open your mouth and out comes bright sayings. Don’t you get tired?”

“It was a stupid thing to do and I’m sorry. I don’t go around doing things like that.”

She smiled. “I go around clawing big chunks of meat out of people who try it.”

“But you didn’t.”

“And I’m not entirely sure why, Fletcher. What are we getting into?”

“Nothing.”

“Repeat. Nothing. But it rocked me. It curled my stupid toes, and I have the horrid feeling that a bra strap popped. It shouldn’t rock me, Fletcher.”

“Nor me. Not on such short acquaintance.”

“There you go again.”

“I insist on a few clichés, for God’s sake.”

“Okay. Wipe your mouth. Let’s see if the magic spell worked.” She put the coin in the slot. “Put your hand over mine and we’ll both pull the handle.”

Somehow he had a feeling what was going to happen even as the handle was going down. He guessed that she did too. For while the wheels were still spinning, she reached down and picked up the front of her skirt and made a place for the coins which would overflow the scoop.

He saw the first bar snap into place, and the second, and at last the third. The machine made an agonized clanking, and then the coins showered down, overflowing the scoop, cascading into her skirt.

She looked at him with an odd expression. “That star-marks us, Fletcher. That marks us good.”

“Don’t get carried away.”

“You owe me five.”

“With that lapful you still want five?”

“I play for a lot of reasons, and I always play for keeps, Up with the five.”

He followed her slim straight legs as she went up the narrow stairs, holding the wealth in the yellow skirt. Ellis said, at the head of the stairs, “Oh, here you are? Good luck, I see.”

“All kinds of luck,” Laura said.

“I’ll bet,” Jane said a bit grimly. Fletcher resented her tone, but felt guilty.