The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction (46 page)

It was a curious thing, the solution I saw to my problem. It had been there all the time, I was aware of it being there, yet using the circumstances never occurred to me until the day I was sitting on my veranda reading a memo from my office manager. The note stated that Walter had pulled another coup in the market and had the Street rocking on its heels. It was one of those times when any variation in Wall Street reflected the economy of the country, and what he did was undermine the entire economic structure of the United States. It was with the greatest effort that we got back to normal without toppling, but in doing so a lot of places had to close up. Walter Harrison, however, had doubled the wealth he could never hope to spend, anyway.

As I said, I was sitting there reading the note when I saw her behind the window in the house across the way. The sun was streaming in, reflecting the gold in her hair, making a picture of beauty so exquisite as to be unbelievable. A servant came and brought her a tray, and as she sat down to lunch I lost sight of her behind the hedges and the thought came to me of how simple it would all be.

I met Walter for lunch the next day. He was quite exuberant over his latest adventure, treating it like a joke.

I said, “Say, you’ve never been out to my place on the Island, have you?”

He laughed, and I noticed a little guilt in his eyes. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I would have dropped in if you hadn’t built the place for Adrianne. After all . . .”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Walter. What’s done is done. Look, until things get back to normal, how about staying with me a few days. You need a rest after your little deal.”

“Fine, Duncan, fine! Anytime you say.”

“All right, I’ll pick you up tonight.”

We had quite a ride out, stopping at a few places for drinks and hashing over the old days at school. At any other time I might have laughed, but all those reminiscences had taken on an unpleasant air. When we reached the house I had a few friends in to meet the fabulous Walter Harrison, left him accepting their plaudits and went to bed.

We had breakfast on the veranda. Walter ate with relish, breathing deeply of the sea air with animal-like pleasure. At exactly nine o’clock the sunlight flashed off the windows of the house behind mine as the servant threw them open to the morning breeze.

Then she was there. I waved and she waved back. Walter’s head turned to look and I heard his breath catch in his throat. She was lovely, her hair a golden cascade that tumbled around her shoulders. Her blouse was a radiant white that enhanced the swell of her breasts, a gleaming contrast to the smooth tanned flesh of her shoulders.

Walter looked like a man in a dream. “Lord, she’s lovely!” he said. “Who is she, Dunc?”

I sipped my coffee. “A neighbor,” I said lightly.

“Do you . . . do you think I could get to meet her?”

“Perhaps. She’s quite young and just a little bit shy and it would be better to have her see me with you a few times before introductions are in order.”

He sounded hoarse. His face had taken on an avid, hungry look. “Anything you say, but I have to meet her.” He turned around with a grin. “By golly, I’ll stay here until I do, too!”

We laughed over that and went back to our cigarettes, but every so often I caught him glancing back toward the hedge with that desperate expression creasing his face.

Being familiar with her schedule, I knew that we wouldn’t see her again that day, but Walter knew nothing of this. He tried to keep away from the subject, yet it persisted in coming back. Finally he said, “Incidentally, just who is she?”

“Her name is Evelyn Vaughn. Comes from quite a well-to-do-family.”

“She here alone?”

“No, besides the servants she has a nurse and a doctor in attendance. She hasn’t been quite well.”

“Hell, she looks the picture of health.”

“Oh, she is now,” I agreed. I walked over and turned on the television and we watched the fights. For the sixth time a call came in for Walter, but his reply was the same. He wasn’t going back to New York. I felt the anticipation in his voice, knowing why he was staying, and had to concentrate on the screen to keep from smiling.

Evelyn was there the next day and the next. Walter had taken to waving when I did and when she waved back his face seemed to light up until it looked almost boyish. The sun had tanned him nicely and he pranced around like a colt, especially when she could see him. He pestered me with questions and received evasive answers. Somehow he got the idea that his importance warranted a visit from the house across the way. When I told him that to Evelyn neither wealth nor position meant a thing he looked at me sharply to see if I was telling the truth. To have become what he was he had to be a good reader of faces and he knew that it
was
the truth beyond the shadow of a doubt.

So I sat there day after day watching Walter Harrison fall helplessly in love with a woman he hadn’t met yet. He fell in love with the way she waved until each movement of her hand seemed to be for him alone. He fell in love with the luxuriant beauty of her body, letting his eyes follow her as she walked to the water from the house, aching to be close to her. She would turn sometimes and see us watching, and wave.

At night he would stand by the window not hearing what I said because he was watching her windows, hoping for just one glimpse of her, and often I would hear him repeating her name slowly, letting it roll off his tongue like a precious thing.

It couldn’t go on that way. I knew it and he knew it. She had just come up from the beach and the water glistened on her skin. She laughed at something the woman said who was with her and shook her head so that her hair flowed down her back.

Walter shouted and waved and she laughed again, waving back. The wind brought her voice to him and Walter stood there, his breath hot in my face. “Look here, Duncan, I’m going to go over and meet her. I can’t stand this waiting. Good Lord, what does a guy have to go through to meet a woman?”

“You’ve never had any trouble before, have you?”

“Never like this!” he said. “Usually they’re dropping at my feet. I haven’t changed, have I? There’s nothing repulsive about me, is there?”

I wanted to tell the truth, but I laughed instead. “You’re the same as ever. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was dying to meet you, too. I can tell you this . . . she’s never been outside as much as since you’ve been here.”

His eyes lit up boyishly. “Really, Dunc. Do you think so?”

“I think so. I can assure you of this, too. If she does seem to like you it’s certainly for yourself alone.”

As crudely as the barb was placed, it went home. Walter never so much as glanced at me. He was lost in thought for a long time, then: “I’m going over there now, Duncan. I’m crazy about that girl. By God, I’ll marry her if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Don’t spoil it, Walter. Tomorrow, I promise you. I’ll go over with you.”

His eagerness was pathetic. I don’t think he slept a wink that night. Long before breakfast he was waiting for me on the veranda. We ate in silence, each minute an eternity for him. He turned repeatedly to look over the hedge and I caught a flash of worry when she didn’t appear.

Tight little lines had appeared at the corner of his eyes and he said, “Where is she, Dunc? She should be there by now, shouldn’t she?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It does seem strange. Just a moment.” I rang the bell on the table and my housekeeper came to the door. “Have you seen the Vaughns, Martha?” I asked her.

She nodded sagely. “Oh, yes, sir. They left very early this morning to go back to the city.”

Walter turned to me. “Hell!”

“Well, she’ll be back,” I assured him.

“Damn it, Dunc, that isn’t the point!” He stood up and threw his napkin on the seat. “Can’t you realize that I’m in love with the girl? I can’t wait for her to get back!”

His face flushed with frustration. There was no anger, only the crazy hunger for the woman. I held back my smile. It happened. It happened the way I planned for it to happen. Walter Harrison had fallen so deeply in love, so truly in love that he couldn’t control himself. I might have felt sorry for him at that moment if I hadn’t asked him, “Walter, as I told you, I know very little about her. Supposing she is already married.”

He answered my question with a nasty grimace. “Then she’ll get a divorce if I have to break the guy in pieces. I’ll break anything that stands in my way, Duncan. I’m going to have her if it’s the last thing I do!”

He stalked off to his room. Later I heard the car roar down the road. I let myself laugh then.

I went back to New York and was there a week when my contacts told me of Walter’s fruitless search. He used every means at his disposal, but he couldn’t locate the girl. I gave him seven days, exactly seven days. You see, that seventh day was the anniversary of the date I introduced him to Adrianne. I’ll never forget it. Wherever Walter is now, neither will he.

When I called him I was amazed at the change in his voice. He sounded weak and lost. We exchanged the usual formalities; then I said, “Walter, have you found Evelyn yet?”

He took a long time to answer. “No, she’s disappeared completely.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” I said.

He didn’t get it at first. It was almost too much to hope for. “You . . . mean you know where she is?”

“Exactly.”

“Where? Please, Dunc . . . where is she?” In a split second he became a vital being again. He was bursting with life and energy, demanding that I tell him.

I laughed and told him to let me get a word in and I would. The silence was ominous then. “She’s not very far from here, Walter, in a small hotel right off Fifth Avenue.” I gave him the address and had hardly finished when I heard his phone slam against the desk. He was in such a hurry he hadn’t bothered to hang up . . .”

Duncan stopped and drained his glass, then stared at it remorsefully. The Inspector coughed lightly to attract his attention, his curiosity prompting him to speak. “He found her?” he asked eagerly.

“Oh yes, he found her. He burst right in over all protests, expecting to sweep her off her feet.”

This time the inspector fidgeted nervously. “Well, go on.”

Duncan motioned for the waiter and lifted a fresh glass in a toast. The inspector did the same. Duncan smiled gently. “When she saw him she laughed and waved. Walter Harrison died an hour later . . . from a window in the same hotel.”

It was too much for the inspector. He leaned forward in his chair, his forehead knotted in a frown. “But what happened? Who was she? Damn it, Duncan . . .”

Duncan took a deep breath, then gulped the drink down.

“Evelyn Vaughn was a hopeless imbecile,” he said.

“She had the beauty of a goddess and the mentality of a two-year-old. They kept her well tended and dressed so she wouldn’t be an object of curiosity. But the only habit she ever learned was to wave bye-bye . . .”

The ad was so screwy I didn’t want anything to do with it. But Miss Bryce was both worried and willing to pay me for the trip. Once more I looked over the unusual advertisement.

WILL THE LADY WHO LEFT THE YALE MAN CALL FOR HIM AT DARNELL’S TAVERN ON THE SAWMILL RIVER PARKWAY.

We left the car in the parking lot, and on my way to the door I said:

“This is a gag, Miss Bryce – and it didn’t miss. You’re falling for it.”

She was getting her own way and so she was feeling a little happier.

“You wait and see,” she told me. “There’s something wrong. You just wait and hear what they say.”

With that we went into the place.

It was very nice and the girl pointed this out to me with: “D’ya think I’d made a mistake about being here? I know what you’re thinking – that I was drunk and got mixed up. But I’ll even show you the booth we were in. It’s
this
way.”

She took my arm and led me to a booth about halfway down the dance floor. A waiter broke away from the bar and headed down our way. The floor was bigger than most places like that have, and the bar was at the end of the place. Booths all around the floor, with tables for two spotted out in front of them. And even as far away from the bar as we were I could see it was stocked with good liquor and a lot of it.

In other words the place had class.

The waiter came up and the girl leaned across and whispered: “That’s one of them! One of those I talked with.”

He was a tough-looking mug, and he came up as though he grudged having to give us the service. He was looking at me and paying no attention to the girl. I told him I wanted straight rye and water, and Miss Bryce said: “A Martini, please.”

He looked at her then – one of those so-here-you-are-again looks.

“That’s right, friend,” I told him. “It’s the same lady! How about the drinks?”

I watched him talking to the barman then, while the Martini was being mixed and when the order was being put on a tray.

The girl was speaking again: “You see? He knew me.”

“Well, why shouldn’t he? You told me you’d been talking to him about this missing man. He’d hardly forget a thing like that.”

“I should have gone to the police,” Miss Bryce said.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Well – well, because.”

“That’s a swell reason,” I began, and stopped because the waiter was back with the tray and with a check for the drinks already on it. He stood there, and when I didn’t do anything about it he said: “There’s the check.”

I told him I saw it.

“I just got told not to serve this lady any more drinks,” the waiter explained.

“Who told you?” I asked.

He jerked his head toward the barman and didn’t answer.

I said: “If there’s one thing I love it’s a snooty waiter. This is a public place, isn’t it? The lady isn’t drunk, is she? So you’ll serve us drinks and like it or I’ll find out the reason why.”

“I just do what I’m told,” he said to that. And I retorted: “That’s what I want, so where’s the argument? If I tell you we want a drink you get it.”

He turned his head then and beckoned for the barman, who came out from around his plank with one hand under his apron. He was as hard-looking as the waiter, but he had a nice soft voice. He used it, saying: “Trouble, Luigi?”