In a Lonely Place (10 page)

He knew it with cold clarity, he’d sensed it from the first moment of meeting, she didn’t like him. He didn’t like her either with her damn prying mind. Her bitching, high-toned mind. Brub was all right; she wasn’t going to spoil Brub with Dix. She wasn’t going to be allowed.

He said to Laurel, “I’ve been right here since five o’clock.” He lit her cigarette. “Maybe you had the wrong number.”

“Maybe I did.” She took her eyes from him and laid them again on Sylvia. She didn’t think any more of Sylvia than Sylvia of her. She was more open about it, that was the way of her, the way that couldn’t be helped. Yet she had a fear of Sylvia that had no echo in Brub’s wife. She was harder than Sylvia could ever be but she wasn’t fine steel; she could be broken. She said to Sylvia and the smear of insolence was under the surface, “Where’s your husband?” She let it rest until Sylvia was ready to answer and then she didn’t wait for the answer. “I’ve wanted to meet him. I’ve heard so much about him.”

A dirty little liar. He’d not told her much or little of Brub. Brub’s name hadn’t been spoken between them.

Sylvia said, “He’ll be along. He had some business and I decided Dix would be more amusing than business.” She gave him a woman smile. Not for him, for Laurel because she scorned Laurel.

”And Dix wasn’t,” Dix said, waiting for her disavowal.

She was provocative as Laurel would have been. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Is your husband on the Mildred Atkinson thing?” Laurel asked abruptly.

He hadn’t thought she knew who Brub Nicolai was but she had known. And she’d brought up from the shadows that which Sylvia and Dix had been pretending didn’t exist there. She didn’t care; all she was attempting was destruction of their mood. Succeeding better than she could know.

“Yes, he’s working on it.” Sylvia didn’t like the mention of the case. That quickly the tightness was in her fingers, the set of her lips. She didn’t dissemble well.

“Gorgon told me he was,” Laurel nodded. She didn’t explain Gorgon nor did Sylvia. But Sylvia knew the name; she admitted knowledge by accepting Gorgon as casually as he was offered. Laurel went on, “He was talking about it tonight. He says Brub Nicolai’s the smartest young dick in the department.”

He felt Sylvia’s cringe at Laurel’s use of the word dick for detective. He didn’t see it; he saw nothing. His mind was knotted too tightly, so tightly the room was a blur. He steadied himself against the table.

It was good that Sylvia was there; that he was not alone with Laurel. She had been out with someone named Gorgon while Dix waited here for her. The desperate need to be alone with Laurel, to force truth from her, began hammering against his temples until he wanted to cry out from the pain of it. He had to stand there, holding himself by the pressure of his palms on the table, while the two made conversation about Brub, Brub who should be here and take his wife away.

He had to stand braced there listening to Laurel quote Gorgon to Sylvia, all of Gorgon’s damn omniscience about Brub Nicolai’s growing prowess as a detective.

He couldn’t have endured much longer. The door buzzer reprieved him. He left the two women without excusing himself. They didn’t know he was there. It was Brub at last, the Brub of these days, a frown between his eyebrows a distant look on his face until he saw Dix and smiled.

“Hello. Sylvia still here?”

“Yeah. We’ve been gabbing. Come on in.” He let Brub precede him into the living room. He didn’t want to hear any more about Gorgon. He didn’t have to. By the time he rounded into the room, Sylvia was making introductions.

“Brub, this is Laurel Gray. My husband, Mr. Nicolai.”

Laurel’s eyes took stock of Brub in the same way they had taken stock of Dix on first meeting. Thoroughly, boldly, despite Sylvia’s presence. It might be Laurel knew no better, it might be unconscious. The only way she knew to look at a man. Sylvia watched, but she wasn’t disturbed. Not about Laurel. Only when Brub had acknowledged the introduction and turned to his wife did the waver of fear come to her.

Her voice was controlled but the fear cooled it. “Everything . . . all right, darling?”

He nodded, his smile reassured her. But it wasn’t real, it came and it went. As brief as a flicker of light in the darkness.

Dix said heartily. “How about a drink, Brub?”

“Thanks.” The response was automatic, without thought for with thought Brub shook his head. “But not tonight.” As if that had been what he meant to say in the first place. “I’m too tired. Ready, Sylvia?”

“Yes.” She spoke brightly as if unaware of Brub’s depression.

Dix didn’t attempt to delay them. He knew Brub had information on the case to impart; he knew Brub would talk if he remained for a drink. The case wasn’t important to Dix at the moment: he wanted one thing only, to be alone with Laurel.

He only said. “Sorry,” putting real feeling into it, as real as if it were honest. “You better take it easy a few days, you do look tired. Can’t you fence him in. Sylvia?”

“I wish I could.” But she too was acting, her thoughts were on Brub only.

She and Laurel said the false and polite things required. Brub nodded: he was in a hurry to be gone. His arm held Sylvia’s closely.

“I’ll give you a ring.” Dix promised. He held the door ajar until they had crossed the patio, until they walked under the arch to the street. He closed it then, definitely. One stride carried him to the entrance to the living room.

Laurel coiled in the chair, her eyes smoldering, her mouth insolent, ready to strike.

He struck first. “Who is Gorgon?” She didn’t answer him.

“What’s the idea of that woman here?” she demanded.

He repeated. “Who is Gorgon?”

“Giving me the runaround. telling me not to come down here. Business!” Her voice spat.

He only repeated. “Who is Gorgon?” He began to move towards her then. There was no sound of him crossing the room.

There was no sound but her voice berating, “You can’t play me that way. There isn’t any man I’ll take that from. God knows, I won’t take it from you.”

He was standing over her. “Who is Gorgon?” The knots in his head were tightening. He couldn’t stand the tightness. His hands reached down, clamped on her shoulders and he pulled her out of the chair. “Who—”

She spoke with cold nastiness. “If you don’t take your hands off me. you won’t be any good to any woman any more.” Through her shoulders, he felt the shift of her weight and he released her, stepped away quickly. She had meant the words. The knots loosened as quickly, the shock of her intent was as ice flung in his face. With the diminishing of pain, he was weakened, his forehead was wet. He drew his sleeve across it, across the dampness of his eyes

He heard her say, “I’m getting to hell out of here.”

He couldn’t have stopped her, weakened as he was. His voice was husky. “Don’t go.”

He didn’t even look at her. He didn’t know why she didn’t leave; curiosity, perhaps. It couldn’t have been pity, she wasn’t a woman to have pity on a man.

He was surprised at the sound of her voice; it wasn’t hating now, it shrugged. “I think we both need a drink.”

He heard her go to the kitchen and he flung himself face down on the couch, his fingers gripped tight into his palms. He had wanted to kill her.

When he heard the sound of her returning, he turned. She was standing over him and she held out the glass. “Thanks, Laurel.”

She went back to the chair, sat down, and drank.

He took a swallow from his glass, another. She’d mixed it strong.

“Feel better?” she asked.

“Yes. I needed this.”

“Shall we start all over?”

His eyes went quickly to her. She meant it. He was ashamed of his anger; it hadn’t been he; some stranger had performed that way. But the stranger was himself.

“Let’s do.”

“You want to know who Gorgon is. He’s my lawyer.”

He was more ashamed. He didn’t say anything.

“I ran into him when I was leaving the studio. He wanted to talk over some business. It was nearly six.” Her eyes hardened. “I figured it wouldn’t hurt him to buy me a meal.” She looked away. “I couldn’t call you. Dix. I didn’t want him— snooping”

It was all explained. Warmth filled him, good and tender warmth. She’d wanted to be with him, to run back to him. Wanted it as much as he. He hadn’t been wrong; they were meant to co-exist. He was ready to rush to her when she hardened again. “What about her?”

He laughed. “It’s as dull as yours. Brub dropped her off while he went on business. I didn’t want her here.”

Her words barbed. “Then why did you try to keep me away? Didn’t you think I was good enough to meet her?”

“Good God, Laurel!” He was exasperated, the more so because she wasn’t up to Sylvia’s par. Yet she soared above Sylvia.

“Didn’t you?” she demanded.

He wasn’t going to get angry again. He wouldn’t let her make him angry. “Listen,” he said, “I didn’t want you let in on something that would bore the tar out of you. That’s point one. Two, I was sore at you for not showing up.”

“You expected me?”

“You know damn well I expected you. We were going to have dinner together—”

“Three?”

She was pleased, there was an up curve of her rich mouth, the mockery was again in her golden eyes.

“Three, I wanted you alone, for myself, all alone, not cluttered up with a lot of dumb people.” His voice wasn’t steady, nor was he as he pushed up to his feet. Yet he could move and he went to her, pulling her again out of the chair. His hands were strong this time, not cruel.

She said, “Wait a minute, Dix.” Her palms pushed against his shoulders, her body twisted but he didn’t let her go. His mouth closed over hers and he held her until she quieted. He held her for a long time.

When he released her, there was laughter in him where there had been pain. Exultant laughter. He said, “That’s the way it is, Laurel. That’s the way it has to be. You—and me.”

She was as beautiful as if set aflame. Her eyes slanted up at him, even her eyes were aflame. She pushed back her hair. “I guess you’re right,” she said. She rubbed at her arm. “But don’t try the rough stuff again. I won’t take it.”

“I’m sorry.” He was, and for a moment he tightened. He was more than sorry, he was afraid. He might have hurt her. He might have lost her. With her he must remember he must never take a chance of losing her. If it had happened—he shook his head and a tremble went over him.

She said anxiously, “What’s the matter?”

He didn’t answer, he took her into his arms and held her: Held her without explanation until he was quieted again.

It was morning and the sun lay bright blue against the open window. And the sun lay mildly gold where her hair had flamed on the white pillow, where again her head would rest. The room was swirling with sun and he rested there content in brightness. It was good to wake to sun, to warmth, and remembrance of warmth and bright beauty. It was good to know she would return after her little errands and business appointments and lessons were done, would return eagerly to his eagerness. For him there were the hours of day to pass, but they would trickle through his hands as quietly, as simply as sand. The sun and the day would pass; there would come night. And the night would flame with a radiance surpassing the sun.

The day passed and there was the night and another day and another night and another. Until he did not know the count of the hours or of the days. Or of the nights. They were one unto the other, a circle whirling evenly, effortlessly, endlessly. He knew beauty and the intensity of a dream and he meshed in a womb he called happiness. He did not think: This must come to an end in time. A circle had no beginning or end; it existed. He did not allow thought to enter the hours that he waited for her, laved in memory of her presence. He seldom left the apartment in those days. In the outside world there was time; in time, there was impatience. Better to remain within the dream. Even the broom-and-mop harridan could little disturb the dream.

He did not say: This will not endure forever. He did not face the awakening. There was the morning when the fleet of clouds passed over the sun but he did not accept the augury. He did not admit to mind the chill that came through the windows of an afternoon even as he closed the windows. He did not admit the scrim of gray shutting away the stars on that night.

He knew but he did not admit. It might have been a week, it might have been a day or two, or perhaps there was no time. But the restlessness was coming into her. She could not be content too long to be bound within the confines of this dream. It might have been the way her shoulders moved to a dance orchestra over the radio. It might have been the small frown as they sat again for dinner in the living room. It could have been her evasion to his questions about her hours of that particular day. Or the way in which she stood at the doorway, looking out into the night.

He had known from the beginning she was meant to be displayed. She could not be hidden away long in the cave of his dream. Yet he could not admit. She had to be the one to speak.

She telephoned him. Late, five o’clock or later. She said. Dix, I can’t meet you for dinner tonight . . . It’s business.”

He knew a little more about her now, not much, a little. She didn’t talk of herself, no more than did he. There had been slight need of words within the cave. But he knew she was studying and waiting for the big chance. Her sights were high; others had been discovered by the magical screen. She intended to be. Talent wasn’t of the same import as knowing the right guardians of the portal. The philosopher’s stone was contacts.

He couldn’t let her know his disappointment. They hadn’t played it that way. They hadn’t been soft lovers; they’d been aware of worldly needs. He wouldn’t have dared let her know his adolescent urgency. He said, “Sorry,” as if it didn’t matter. “See you later?”

He could sense her hesitation.

“If I’m not too late. There’s a party after.” There was definite hesitation now, if slight. “I’m to sing.”

He knew better but he demanded, “No matter how late, come. Wake me up.”

She didn’t say yes or no; she said nothing in a rush of words. After she had rung off, it began. Slowly at first. Like fog wisping into his mind. Only a small doubt. He could, at first, brush it away. But it moved in thicker; tightening around the coils of his brain, blotting out reason.

She was with another man. Someone with money to spend on her, big money. Uncle Fergus! Dix almost ran to the desk. He hadn’t looked at mail during these days, once or twice maybe he’d riffled for a Princeton postmark, not finding it, finding nothing but bills for Mel Terriss. Then he had forgotten mail, forgotten the dunning bills, forgotten everything in her. He pawed through the neat stack of envelopes and he found it, the letter from Uncle Fergus. There was a check inside, he glanced at the figures, two hundred and fifty dollars. He pushed open the brief typewritten letter. It said:

He crumpled the letter into a tight angry ball and hurled it across the room. He didn’t even finish reading it, he knew too well the pious platitudes about work and pay, he’d heard them all his life. When other fellows had cars and clothes and free spending, he had platitudes. It wasn’t that the old skinflint didn’t have it. There was plenty of money for stocks and bonds, real estate. Everything salted away for an old man’s idea about being a solid citizen. You’d think Uncle Fergus would have recognized the need for the things that made living worth living. He’d been a poor clod, son of a dirt farmer. He’d never had anything either, starting to work in a Princeton hardware store when he was fourteen (how well Dickson knew every step of Uncle Fergus’ meager life; he could recite it like a nursery rhyme), studying nights to get himself into the university. Dickson could see him, one of those poor boobs, peasants, owning one dark, ill-fitting suit and a pair of heavy-soled shoes, clumping to class, study, and work, and nobody knew he was in Princeton but the other peasants. Not even coming out of it cum laude, the needed touch for a big success story. Nothing, just grubbing through, worrying along to graduation; getting nothing but a diploma and a fixed belief that to be a Princeton man was like being a senator or maybe Jehovah.

Dix hadn’t wanted to be a Princeton man. Not that kind. If it could have been right, if he could have been one of the fellows he saw around town, driving a fast car, careless about expensive clothes and money and girls, club fellows he’d have grabbed it. He might as well have wanted to be senator or the Jehovah, he was Fergus Steele’s nephew and he worked in the hardware store after hours all through high school. Either he worked or he had nothing to spend. That was Uncle Fergus’ hand-embroidered, gold-framed motto: No work, no money.

A fellow had to have money, you couldn’t get a girl without money in your pockets. A girl didn’t notice your looks or your sharp personality, not unless you could take her to the movies or the Saturday night dance. And feed her after the show.

Dix hadn’t learned then how to get money without working for it. Except maybe filching a dime or a quarter from the cash register now and again. Lying about it. Once he took five dollars; he needed it, too. You couldn’t take a girl to the Junior Prom without sending her flowers. Uncle Fergus fired a delivery boy for that one.

Dix knew damn well he’d go through hell at the university. He did. He suffered, God how he suffered, that first year. He’d have quit, he’d have flunked out quick but the alternative was far worse: being packed off like a piece of cattle to a farm Uncle Fergus owned in western Pennsylvania. Either he had to be a gentleman, according to Uncle Fergus’ standards, or he could revert to the peasantry. Dix was smart enough to know he couldn’t get a job, stand on his own feet. He didn’t want to work that hard. He took the first year, working in the hardware store after school, afraid to look anyone in the eye, afraid he’d see the sneers openly, or the pity.

It was along in the spring that he started getting wise. Latching on to boys with money, rich stinkers who hadn’t any better place in the university scheme than Dix himself. They really were stinkers; Mel Terriss was a good example of the breed. But they had money. They were good for a tip if you knew a place to get a bottle of booze after hours, or took their cars to be serviced, or picked up their cleaning. They were good for a cash loan in return for a hard-luck story. You could wear their clothes, smoke their cigarettes, drink their liquor. As long as you toadied, you had a pretty good life. It notched them up higher if they could sneer at a boob of a townsman who had less than they. He took the sneers with the tips and the second year wasn’t so bad.

The second year he found Mel Terriss who hadn’t even made the stinkers’ set. He got Mel into the circle and he saw that Mel repaid him. It was easy sailing for Dix after that, with Mel’s clothes and Mel’s car and the babes thinking Dix was the rich guy and Mel the stooge. Dix had the looks and the air; he had everything Mel needed. Mel was kept soothed by Dix bringing him the women that Dix couldn’t be bothered with. And by booze. Mel was headed straight for alcoholism even then, a kid in college. The booze made him believe he was what he alone thought he was, not a stinker. Only it made him a worse stinker, of course. End of the term, Dix was Mel’s only friend. That suited Dix. It looked like two good years ahead if he could keep Mel in college; so far he’d showed Mel how to manage it with Mel’s money, paying grubs to tutor Mel through. He and Mel hated each other’s guts but each without the other was lost. They stuck together.

That was the summer when the young men knew war was fact. The only question was when it would be acknowledged. And that summer Dix enlisted in the Air Corps. All the top men of the campus were enlisting.

The war years were the first happy years he’d ever known. You didn’t have to kowtow to the stinking rich, you were all equal in pay; and before long you were the rich guy. Because you didn’t give a damn and you were the best God-damned pilot in the company with promotions coming fast. You wore swell tailored uniforms, high polish on your shoes. You didn’t need a car, you had something better, sleek powerful planes You were the Mister, you were what you’d always wanted to be, class. You could have any woman you wanted in Africa or India or England or Australia or the United States, or any place in the world. The world was yours.

That life was so real that there wasn’t any other life. Even when the war was over there was no realization of another life. Not until he stood again in the small, dark living room of his uncle’s home. It came as shock, the return to Uncle Fergus; he hadn’t really known it wasn’t going to be always the way it had been in the war years. He had mistaken interlude for life span.

Uncle Fergus had done well for himself too during the war years. He’d invented some kind of nail or screw or tool and manufactured it. But getting richer hadn’t made a change in the old man. He lived the way he always had lived, in the same uncomfortable house, with the same slovenly old housekeeper, the same badly cooked meals, and bad lighting. The only difference was more stocks and bonds and real estate. It was in a bathos of patriotism that Uncle Fergus consented to Dix’s year in California to write a book. Oh. Dix had had to do some fast talk. The old skinflint thought he was living with friends who could help him, who would keep him in line. He explained the frequent change of address as difficulties in getting office space. Once the offer was made. Uncle Fergus regretted his generosity; that was obvious. But it was too late. Dix didn’t let him withdraw.

In excess of anger Dix took the measly check now and tore it into little pieces, tore it and restore it and scattered it all over Mel’s rug. The usual check, the pittance on which to exist another month. Go to a Veterans’ Hospital. Beg. you’re a veteran, aren’t you?

He sat there at the desk, holding his hot head with his steeled lingers. Seeing through his fingers the stack of bills addressed to Mel Terriss. It was rotten luck running into Mel that night. Why couldn’t he have met Mel during the war years, when he could have sneered down at him the way he’d wanted to all his life? But Mel had been hiding out in some factory: even the Army hadn’t wanted Mel. When they met, the war was long over and Mel was a rich stinker again.

Dix had tried not to speak to Mel in the bar that night, he’d avoided the recognition, forgetting you couldn’t avoid an ass like Mel. Mel had to weave over and poke his fat, stupid face across the table. Dix could see what was churning in Mel’s mind as he looked at the blonde. Ready to start over the same old way, let Dix do the dirty work, procure the girls in exchange for tips. Well, it hadn’t worked that way; he’d stopped boot-licking six years ago. And maybe it wasn’t so bad running into Mel. Dix had the apartment and the car and the clothes: the charge accounts wouldn’t hold out forever but they were still good enough. That was the sort of money Mel had. And Mel was in Rio. good old Mel!

Without Mel, there would have been no Laurel. His brain cooling, the hunger for Laurel began gnawing again. Maybe she had had a chance to sing at some big event; she wouldn’t turn it down, he knew that, even if she hungered for him as he for her. She was like him that way, she was after big time. The only difference was she wasn’t looking for money; she wanted a spotlight.

Hatred of Uncle Fergus surged anew. Unless Dix could help Laurel get that spotlight, he’d be sloughed. As soon as the new wore off him. As soon as she found out he was broke. He couldn’t lose her, she was the only thing he had. The only right thing he’d had since he took off his uniform. In shame he got down on his hands and knees and began gathering up the tiny pieces of the check. He had to have this much money; it wouldn’t last long but it would prolong things for another week, maybe by that time he could raise more. There must be ways to get gravy out here; there were sure to be, only he hadn’t been looking for them. He hadn’t needed to, the two-fifty did well enough before he met Laurel. Delicately he picked up each small piece, being careful not to crumple them. And then came the fear that Laurel would return suddenly, find him in this ridiculous position. He began to work faster, nervously. When he had retrieved all the scraps, his hands were wet and shaking. He had to wipe the palms on his shirt before he dared piece the check together. He was careful despite his shaking fingers, putting each small piece in its proper place. Until they were put together and one piece missing. It had to be a piece of value, the “Fergus” of the signature. Frantically he searched for it, crawling on the floor like a baby, trembling with the fear that she or someone would come before it was found.