The Complete Crime Stories (17 page)

He stood there and smoked, I stood there and smoked, and then I began to get sore. “It would seem to me you would have had more sense than to put her on here.”

“I didn't.”

“Oh, you did your part.”

“I pleaded with her not to do it. Listen, Borland, I'm not kidded about Doris, and I don't think you are either. She can't sing for buttons. She can't even get on the set before they've got her number. I tried my best to head her off. I told her she wasn't ready for it, that she ought to wait, that it wasn't her kind of a show. I even went to Leighton. I scared him, but not enough. You try to stop Doris when she gets set on something.”

“Couldn't you tell her the truth?”

“Could you?”

That stopped me, but I was still sore. “Maybe not. But you started this, just the same. If you knew all this, what did you egg her on for? You're the one that's been giving her lessons, from 'way back, and telling her how good she is, and—”

“All right, Borland, granted. And I think you know all about that too. I'm in love with your wife. And if egging her on is what makes her like me, I'm human. Yeah, I trade on her weakness.”

“I've socked guys for less than that.”

“Go ahead, if it does you any good. I've about got to the point where a sock, that would be just one more thing. If you think being chief lackey to Doris is a little bit of heaven, you try it—or maybe you have tried it. This finishes me with her, if that interests you. Not because I started it. Not because I egged her on. No—but I
saw
it. I was there, and
saw
them nail her to the cross, and rip her clothes off, and throw rotten eggs at her, and ask her how the vinegar tasted, and all the rest of it. That she'll never forgive me for. But why sock? You're married to her, aren't you? What more do you want?”

He walked off and left me. I found a pay phone, put in a call for a private ambulance. When it came I went in the dressing room again. Doris was up, and Christine was helping her into her fur coat. She was over the hysteria, but she looked like something broken and shrunken. I carried her to the ambulance, put her in it, made her lie down. Christine got in. We started off.

I carried her upstairs and undressed her, and put her to bed, and called a doctor. Undressing Doris is like pulling the petals off a flower, and a catch kept coming in my throat over how soft she was, and how beautiful she was, and how she wilted into the bed. When the doctor came he said she had to be absolutely quiet, and gave her some pills to make her sleep. He left, and I closed the door, and sat down beside the bed. She put her hand in mine. “Leonard.”

“Yes?”

“I'm no good.”

“How do you know? From what Lorentz said, they didn't even give you a chance to find out.”

“I'm no good.”

“A morning show in a picture house—”

“A picture house, a vaudeville house, an opera house, Carnegie Hall—it's all the same. They're out there, and it's up to you. I'm just a punk that's been a headache to everybody she knows, and that's got wise to herself at last. I've got voice, figure, looks—everything but what it takes. Isn't that funny? Everything but what it takes.”

“For me, you've got everything it takes.”

“You knew, didn't you?”

“How would I know?”

“You knew. You knew all the time. I've been just rotten to you, Leonard. All because you opposed my so-called career.”

“I didn't oppose it.”

“No, but you didn't believe in it. That was what made me so furious. You were willing to let me do whatever I wanted to do, but you wouldn't believe I could sing. I hated you for it.”

“Only for that?”

“Only for that. Oh, you mean Hugo, and Leighton, and all my other official hand-kissers? Don't be silly. I had to tease you a little, didn't I? But that only showed I cared whether you cared.”

“Then you do care?”

“What do you think?”

She took my head in her hands, and kissed my eyes, and my brow, and my cheeks, like I was something too holy for her to be worthy to touch, and I was so happy I couldn't even talk. I sat there a long time, my head against hers, while she held my hand against her cheek, and now and then kissed it. “… The pills are working.”

“You want to sleep?”

“No, I don't want to. I could stay this way forever. But I'm going to. I can't help it.”

“I'll leave you.”

“Kiss me.”

I kissed her, and she put her arms around me, and sighed a sleepy little sigh. Then she smiled, and I tip-toed out, and I think she was asleep before I got to the door.

I had a bite to eat, went down to the office, checked on the trunk, had a look at what mail there was, and raised the windows to let a little air in the place. Then I sat down at the desk, hooked my heels on the top, and tried to keep my head from swimming till it would be time to go back to Doris. I was so excited I wanted to laugh all the time, but a cold feeling began to creep up my back, and pretty soon I couldn't fight it off any more. It was about Cecil. I had to see her, I knew that. I had to put it on the line, how I felt about Doris, and how she felt about me, and there couldn't be but one answer to that. Cecil and I, we would have to break. I tried to tell myself she wouldn't expect to see me for a day or so, that it would be better to let her get started on her new work, that if I just let things go along, she would make the move anyway. It was no good. I had to see her, and I couldn't stall. I walked around to her hotel. I went past it once, turned around and walked past it again. Then I came back and went in.

She had the same suite, the same piano, the same piles of music lying around. She had left the door open when they announced me from the lobby, and when I went in she was lying on the sofa, staring at the wall, and didn't even say hello. I sat down and asked her how she felt after the trip. She said all right. I asked her when her rehearsals started. She said tomorrow. I said that was swell, that she'd really be with an outfit where she could do herself justice. “… What is it, Leonard?”

Her voice sounded dry, and mine was shaky when I answered. “Something happened.”

“Yes, I heard.”

“It—broke her up.”

“It generally does.”

“It's—made her feel different—about a lot of things. About—quite a few things.”

“Go on, Leonard. What did you come here to tell me? Say it. I want you to get it over with.”

“She wants me back.”

“And you?”

“I want her back too.”

“All right.”

She closed her eyes. There was no more to say and I knew it. I ought to have walked out of there then. I couldn't do it. I at least wanted her to know how I felt about her, how much she meant to me. I went over, sat down beside her, took her hand. “… Cecil, there's a lot of things I'd like to say.”

“Yes, I know.”

“About how swell you've been, about how much I—”

“Good-bye, Leonard.”

“… I wanted to tell you—”

“There's only one thing a man ever has to tell a woman. You can't tell me that. I know you can't tell me that, we've been all over it—don't offer me consolation prizes.”

“All right, then. Good-bye.”

I bent over and kissed her. She didn't open her eyes, didn't move. “There's only one thing I ask, Leonard.”

“The answer is yes, whatever it is.”

“Don't come back.”

“… What?”

“Don't come back. You're going now. You're going with all my best wishes, and there's no bitterness. I give you my word on that. You've been decent to me, and I've no complaint. You haven't lied to me, and if it hasn't turned out as I thought it would, that's my fault, not yours. But—don't come back. When you go out of that door, you go out of my life. You'll be a memory, nothing more. A sweet, lovely, terrible memory, perhaps—but I'll do my own grieving. Only—don't come back.”

“I had sort of hoped—”

“Ah!”

“… What's the matter?”

“You had sort of hoped that after this little honeymoon blows up, say in another week, you could give me a ring, and come on over, and start up again just as if nothing had happened.”

“No. I hoped we could be friends.”

“That's what you think you hoped. You know in your heart it was something else. All right, you're going back to her. She's had a bad morning, and been hurt, and you feel sorry for her, and she's whistled at you, and you're running back. But remember what I say, Leonard: you're going back on her terms, not yours. You're still her little whimpering lapdog, and if you think she's not going to dump you down on the floor, or sell you to the gypsies, or put you out in the yard in your little house, or do anything else to you that enters her head, just as soon as this blows over, you're mistaken. That woman is not licked until you've licked her, and if you think this is licking her, it's more than I do, and more than she does.”

“No. You're wrong. Doris has had her lesson.”

“All right, I'm wrong. For your sake, I hope so. But—don't come back. Don't come running to me again. I'll not be a hot towel—for you or anybody.”

“Then friendship's out?”

“It is. I'm sorry.”

“All right.”

“Come here.”

She pulled me down, and kissed me, and turned away quick, and motioned me out. I was on the street before I remembered I had left my coat up there. I went in and sent a bellboy up for it. When he came down I was hoping he would have some kind of a message from her. He didn't. He handed me my coat, I handed him a quarter, and I went out.

When I got back to the house, the kids were home, and came running downstairs, and said did I know we were all going that night to hear Mamma sing. I said there had been a little change in the plans on that, and they were a little down in the mouth, but I said I had brought presents for them, and that fixed it all up, and we went running up to get them. I went in the nursery for my bag. It wasn't there. Then I heard Doris call, and we went in there.

“Were you looking for something?”

“Yes. Are you awake?”

“Been awake. … You
might
find it in there.”

She gave a funny little smile and pointed to the dressing room. I went in there, and there it was. The kids began jumping up and down when I gave them the candy, and Doris kept smiling and talking over their heads. “I would have had Nils take your things out, but I didn't want him poking around.”

“I'll do it.”

“Where did you go?”

“Just down to the office to look at my mail.”

“No, but I mean—”

“Oh—Rochester, Chicago, Indianapolis, and around. Thought it was about time to look things over.”

“Did you have a nice trip?”

“Only fair.”

“You certainly took plenty of glad rags.”

“Just in case. Didn't really need them, as it turned out.”

Christine called the kids, and they went out. I went over to her and took her in my arms. “Why didn't you want Nils poking around?”

“Well—do
you
want him?”

“No.”

We both laughed, and she put her head against mine, and let her hair fall over my face, and made a little opening in front of my mouth, and kissed me through that. Oh, don't think Doris couldn't be a sweet armful when she wanted to be. “You glad to be back, Leonard? From Chicago—and the nursery?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“So glad, Leonard, I could—cry.”

8

I kept letting her hair fall over my face, and holding her a little tighter, and then all of a sudden she jumped up. “Oh my God, the cocktail party!”

“What cocktail party?”

“Gwenny Blair's cocktail party. Her lousy annual stinkaroo that nobody wants to go to and everybody does. I said I'd drop in before the supper show, and I had completely forgotten it. The supper show, think of that. Wasn't I the darling little trouper then? My that seems a long time ago. And it was only this morning.”

“Oh, let's skip it.”

“What! And have them think I'm dying of grief? I should say not. We're going. And we're going quick, so we can leave before the whole mob gets there. Hurry up. Get dressed.”

The last thing I wanted to do was go to Gwenny Blair's cocktail party. I wanted to stay where I was, and inhale hair. There was nothing to it, though, but to get dressed. I began changing my clothes, and she began pulling things out and muttering: “… No, not that. … It's black, and looks like mourning. … And not that. It makes me look too pale. … Leonard, I'm going to wear a suit.”

“Well, why not?”

“A suit, that's it. Casual, been out all day, just dropped in, got to run in a few minutes, lovely party—it will be, like hell. That's it, a suit.”

I always loved Doris when she dropped the act and came out as the calculating little wench that she really was. She heard me laugh, and laughed too. “Right?”

“Quite right.”

She was dressed in five minutes flat, and for once she had to wait on me. The suit was dark gray, almost black, and cut so she looked slim as a boy. The blouse was light green, but with a copper tone in it, so it was perfect for her hair. Trust Doris not to put on anything that was just green. When I got downstairs she was pinning on a white camellia that had come on the run from the florist. Another woman would have had a gardenia, but not Doris. She knew the effect of those two shiny green leaves lying flat on the lapel.

“How do I look?”

How she looked was like some nineteen-year-old flapper that spent her first day at the races, cashed $27.50 on a $2 ticket, and was feeling just swell. But she didn't want hooey, she wanted the low-down, so I just nodded, and we started out.