The Bar
It was a quarter of six, and Mary Street had been gone, Purcell supposed, for half an hour. Well, mañana. J. Arthur had been loquacious. He didn’t like the Mellotts; to be more precise, he didn’t like their cat. Not that it made any difference. With all that malt moola, and the suite sold for the winter at season prices, Chiang could make a mess in J. Arthur’s egg cup if he ever got tired of the hall carpet and they both knew it.
The really gorgeous part, though, had been J. Arthur’s intimation that the Mellotts’ love for their cat was a little morbid and unnatural, and he with his hand on his fat hip for every blond boy on the beach, every seaman in the park. There was a laugh for you—if you could still laugh.
About Mary Street now, he’d be damned if he didn’t think that he’d send her flowers after all. Two dozen white roses, and one big perfect red one. That was as old as hell, of course; he had used it on Denise, he remembered, but it always worked and somehow he didn’t think Mary had been exposed much to big operators. She was more the small-solitaire and second-mortgage type.
On his way to the bar, he paused for a moment at the big gold clock in the lobby, looked at it and away. He supposed that it was beautiful, but it annoyed him as one more instance of J. Arthur’s precious taste. It made him uncomfortable, too, with its bland face and the deliberate, irrevocable swing of
its pendulum. The clock made him feel that he should hurry, that time was growing shorter, he would be too late.
Well, he would hurry, damn it. Tomorrow he would look up Mary’s address, send her the flowers. He thought again of the red and white roses.
The bartender gave him Scotch, the best, and ice, no water, and with a glass in hand, Purcell felt suddenly better. People nodded to him from tables and he made his devoirs absently, casing the room for drunks and hustlers. There were a lot of unattached women of course; the odd men had already been taken care of or were waiting for a better offer.
He had a drink with Mr. and Mrs. T. J. Sturt III. He had never met a guy, Purcell figured, with more wives than T. J. The Third had had a different wife every night this week, blonde and brunette, and now this redhead. Purcell shrugged: it was none of his business as long as they behaved themselves, but the redhead looked like trouble. She was keeping an argument alive now, something about a Real Gentleman, and, as nearly as Purcell could follow her, the Third would never be one in her book. That was always bad.
He thought of Mary Street and wondered where he could get some money. If he had some money, he could float a little ocean-front hotel, say, a fifty-room house. Made out of spit and cement, of course: if a good blow came, they would have to burrow their way to Key West and live on conchs, but it would be a lot of fun. He wouldn’t have to answer to anybody, and if he had Mary, he could wrestle an alligator every day in the lobby, like that guy in the Seminole Village. Even in the Seminole Village, though, money seemed to be chico. He moved briefly to the table where Bill and Ann McCannon sat, friendly enough, but interested only in each other.
“Evening, sir. You’re looking particularly lovely tonight, Mrs. Mac,” Purcell said mechanically and bowed. “Hope everything’s satisfactory.”
“Very satisfactory,” Bill McCannon said as Purcell moved away. “You can put your clothes back on now, Mrs. McCannon. Oh,
very
satisfactory. Mrs. McCannon
always
gives satisfaction. Want to go upstairs with our Genial Host? Why don’t you keep your goddamned whoring eyes to yourself?” he asked bitterly. “This is a bar,” he pointed out, “not a fifty-dollar House.”
“If you feel that way about me, I don’t know why you ever married me. Ah-hh darling, and when we were having such a good time.”
“Because you asked me,” Bill McCannon told her with thick sufficiency.
“You
asked
me.
I assume you were only being civil. Did you ask Ashby, too? Did you ask Kim and Xerxes?”
The lucky bastards, Purcell thought. The lucky fools. Christ, they had everything. Looks and love and more dough than they’d ever need. Ann McCannon was a beautiful girl. In a city where faces were seamed by sun and calculation, hers was without guile. He couldn’t, offhand, think of many with the same quality. Old Dr. Pomery had it and Mary Dukemer, too. That was probably why he respected them. They had something that he hadn’t seen much of in the hotel business, that he felt he didn’t have himself.
He knew most of the people in the bar, or their counterparts. They were an old story and was he sick of it! The boys and girls in the cheap rooms, the back of the house, the wrong exposure, by the elevator. The Southern belles whose grandfathers Mr. Lincoln had made poor. Glamour girls from the big town. Schoolteachers from Detroit. Secretaries and buyers from Chicago and Indianapolis with winter vacations. All looking for romance and rich husbands. Christ, some of them had come two thousand miles just to be laid.
The guys were the same too, and just as easy to spot. Remittance men without remittances. Phony Englishmen, professional Southerners, bookmakers, pretty boys, bank clerks with new suits and money for the races.
Purcell sighed and went back to the bar, his eyes on Ann McCannon’s breasts. They looked real as hell, he told himself, but he had been wrong before, oh, how wrong. A double Scotch in two-four time would help keep his strength up. He
finished his drink. There was a honey blonde in a dim corner, and, as a matter of fact, he felt pretty good. Might as well stick around a while, he supposed.
The Lobby
“I wonder if I could speak to you for a moment, Mrs. Dukemer.”
“Hi, Mary. Seen Hemingway again?”
“Ah-h-h, don’t. Mr. Purcell isn’t in yet, is he? Gee, I hoped I’d find you alone.”
“What is this, baby?” Dukemer asked. “A true confession?”
“I just wanted to talk to you. I mean, you’re an older woman. Well, I mean not
older
exactly, but you’ve been around a lot more. Were you ever in love?” Mary asked.
“Was I ever in love? Was I? Well, I guess you could say so.”
“I mean, you probably know all about men,” Mary said. “You know what I mean. I mean, were you ever seriously attracted to a man who was sort of
you know—and
a very smooth talker. He, he probably hasn’t led a very pure life,” she whispered in a burst of confidence. “But he—this man I’m talking about—he seems so
nice
anyhow, and, gee. I’ve never known anyone I liked as well. He’s sort of
older,
but I mean he’s not at all. . . The thing is,” she continued and her face suddenly glowed, “this—this man I’m talking about asked me out to dinner last night, and naturally I was terribly flattered—I mean a man like that—but it was poor Mr.
Baldwin’s birthday and I just
couldn’t
. . . . The thing, the
thing
is
,”
Mary said, “I really
do
want to see him. I might have hurt his feelings. I—I mean I’m afraid he’ll never
ask
me again.” Little Street’s hands tensed, and she looked away forlornly.
“Take it easy,” Dukemer said. “Take it easy, baby. I guess you’ve never been in love before. It’s always the same. Love is the Last Chance Saloon.
Look,” Dukemer said, inspired. “There’s a man I’m sort
of indebted to, so Sunday—of course I won’t get off until three—but well, we thought we’d have a beach party. Take some food and just sort of lie around in the sun.”
I must be going crazy, Dukemer told herself.
Me
on a picnic. Little Street and Mr. Mather. What a wild, sweet combination this is going to be. “Why don’t you and your friend join us?” she asked uncomfortably. “Get away from it all.”
“I’ll let you know,” Mary said excitedly. “I’ll—I’ll
ask
him. Gee, there’s nothing I’d like better! Do you like homemade cake—devil’s food with caramel fudge icing?” she said anxiously. “Mrs. Baldwin would let me use the oven.”
“Is there anyone who doesn’t?” Dukemer asked tartly. Didn’t the crazy kid know she was doing it for her, and ten to one it was Purcell, at that. Purcell wasn’t a bad guy, but Dukemer didn’t see how little Street could get so worked up about him. Guys like Purcell were a dime a dozen, a little more expensive, of course, during the season. She’d seen him last night at Chez Charlotte, piloting an armful of blond alimony, not that he had seemed to be having a very good time.
“See you later,” she said to little Street. She, Martha Mildred Dukemer, had had a good time last night, though. Almost good enough to make up for the bad times. Mr. Mather’s round, red face assailed her, and Dukemer’s breath caught sharply in her throat.
She’d never known a guy like him. He hadn’t even tried to kiss her, but sometimes he took her hand and sort of held it against his cheek. Poor little Street, poor kid. Falling in love with Purcell must be a little like being hit by a Brooks Brothers truck, and Dukemer thanked her private gods for Horse and Buggy Mather, the Cotton Candy Kid.
He seemed to know just how she felt about everything, what she was thinking, to understand. To Understand, and Dukemer brought herself up sharply.
To Understand?
She was even making herself sick.
“I’ll write him a note,” she heard Mary saying. “I’ll—I’ll let you know. Millie, do you think he’ll come?”
“Of course he’ll come, if he doesn’t get a better offer.” Dukemer found herself patting Mary’s hand. “Of course, he’ll come. Don’t worry, baby, he’ll be there. Why not? You’re the prettiest thing in town. See you later.”
Now see what she had let herself in for! This was what came of liking people—anyone, even another girl. She hoped, unreasonably, that Sunday wouldn’t be awkward, that Mr. Mather would have a good time. “A ah-five, five ones, and a ah-dollar’s worth of silver,” Mr. Mather said suddenly through the wicket, extending a ten-dollar bill.
“The Cashier,” Dukemer pointed out, “is supposed to shortchange
you.
”
“Delighted,” Mr. Mather said. “Please do.”
“How long can I live on four hours’ sleep a night, I keep asking myself. Mrs. D. is no Tom Edison, sweetheart. Not at all.”
Their hands brushed lightly on the marble counter. No Tom Edison. “My dear Millie,” Mr. Mather said hesitantly, rejecting the insipidity of common usage. “You are as perfect as a circle.
Degno amore,”
he said.
The Office
He could use some sleep, Purcell told himself, a great big a la carte order, and he had a monumental hangover, one you could lay carpet with. The blonde had been lousy, and it had cost him forty-two dollars at Chez Charlotte to find out that she was only establishing residence. He had had to look at pictures of her children, read letters from her lawyer.
Well, he was out the check at Chez Charlotte, and off blondes from here on in; off blondes and brunettes and redheads except, he supposed, maybe once in a while when he wanted to change his luck. He was all out for a brown girl with yellow high lights to her hair and eyes and flesh tones, a girl like a russet apple in the sun. The sweetest apple, and by God, the sweetest girl in the world.
Mary Street was the leavening he’d always needed, he told himself. He’d get some sleep tonight, and tomorrow he’d send her the roses, get started. But the morning had been a coiled gray horror. He had got through things somehow, even if he couldn’t remember much about it: still tight, he supposed, and lunched on a rising tide of nausea, but he figured that if he could just hold on long enough, the day would be over sometime, he would be off duty, could go to bed.
When he finally got off though, he had been so relieved that he felt he ought to let himself down easy. He’d go to the bar and have one beer. It would relax him and at this hour he wouldn’t find anyone there, no foreign entanglements. What was good enough for Monroe was good enough for him.
Monroe had let him down badly though. He and T. J. Sturt III had had a pick-me-up together, and after that, he was anybody’s sweetheart. The Third had attached himself firmly to Purcell as an older man, someone who really knew his way around this sin spot. The Third had a guest card for the Spray Club, too, and Purcell figured it didn’t hurt anyone to be seen there. He could be lordly with the Third, proprietary about the whole town, and the Third was in a position to relish male company. The redhead had been one wife too many.
At the Spray, Purcell kept hoping that the Old Man would drop in, see him there, so he could be offhand about it, but it had been sufficiently satisfactory as it was. They had talked about the war and women and tarpon fishing and the army and the annual Czech pilgrimage to the shrine of the martyred Cermak. Purcell told the Third about the crazy old doctor in Key West who had kept his dead wife’s body in the same room with him for, Christ, how many years? Purcell hadn’t seen the body, it was before his time, but for verisimilitude he said he had, and launched into clinical details about the bed, the body.
They left the Spray and toured the hot spots and dawn had found them circling the colored red-light district in south
Miami. The Third was his friend, his dear friend, and Purcell wanted him to see one of the prettiest real estate developments in history. They had inspected the white vine-covered cottages through a gray-blue half light, and the Third was moved almost to tears. “Prettiest thing I ever saw,” he kept saying. “A goddamned greeting card.”
They had headed for an isolated part of the beach then and stripped. Aurora could keep her goddamned rosy fingers to herself. The water had been cold, and afterwards they had eaten a terrific breakfast at an all-night and gone back to the hotel, the Third to bed and Purcell to change his clothes. If he had been changing shifts with anyone but Moxley he’d have asked them to stick around for a couple of hours, let him get some sleep, but he wouldn’t ask Moxley for change for a quarter.
In a psychotic kind of way, the day hadn’t been as bad as yesterday. Because his defenses were down, both Pallas Athene Smith and Miss Libya Hall had been able to corner him and, still drank, it had been easy to be affable. He hadn’t talked much, all that either of them wanted was an audience, preferably male, and they had found him charming. The Old Man had been extremely civil for the Old Man, and the Old Man, too, had done most of the talking. It embarrassed Purcell a little to realize that he functioned better when he didn’t know what he was doing, but he was in no position, he felt, to argue.
The Old Man was in an expansive mood. He had done everything but give him a raise, Purcell told himself. Exit Laughing. Wait till Mr. Wenton found out about Mary Street, found out that Purcell would marry her in a minute if she would have him. The honeymoon would be over with that, he supposed; he and Mary would both have to look for other jobs.
He realized after a bit that Mary didn’t know about any of this yet, the plans he was making for them. After all, they haven’t done much more than say hello. He counted on his luck, his charm. He would make her want him whether she did or not. Feeling as he did, she couldn’t, he told himself,
be indifferent to what he had to say if he ever got around to saying it.
Purcell shuffled absently through the accumulation in the assistant manager’s box; mail, warnings from the police department, interoffice memoranda. “Mr. David Purcell,
Personal”
he read suddenly in the backhanded script that all women under sixty seemed to affect. There was no stamp, no address.
Dear Mr. Purcell:
I’m so sorry that I was unable to accept your kind
invitation to dinner the other night but I’m sure that you understand about Mr. Baldwin. However, Mrs. Dukemer and I are planning a little beach party on Sunday. She isn’t off till 3:00, but we are both hoping that you’ll try to come. Please let me know.
Yours Sincerely,
Mary Ellen Street
Dukemer, the clerk, the lobby, the people in it, receded dizzily to the horizon and returned again, full circle. His eyes clung valiantly to the big gold clock. It was safe, immovable, in its place, marching against the hours, bringing four o’clock—.
At last it was four o’clock, his relief was on time. He loved Mary Street, he supposed, and it looked as if he was going to get her.
Dear Mary:—
he
wrote.
De-lighted! See you at 3:00 on Sunday. Sincerely, Dave Purcell.
Purcell headed for the bar. He would have one drink before he lost his mind, and then he was going to bed.