The Ultimate Egoist (11 page)

“No! No!” he cried.

“It’s true then?” She leaned back in her chair, overcome. Then,

“Permit me to introduce myself. Mr. Roupe, meet Miss Perry. Sandra to you. Chawmed, I’m sure.”

“Roupe?” he said weakly.

“Steve! Even your own— Don’t you remember anything?”

“No!” he cried, agonized. “No!”

“Oh, Steve, I’ve tired you out. I’m a fool. Don’t worry about it darling. Please. It will be all right.” She leaned over and lightly kissed his bandages. Suddenly she was all intentness. “Listen to me, Steve. No one must know of this. There are too many people that would welcome this as a godsend. You are a very rich man. If it could be proved in court that you had completely lost your memory, ways might be found to put you in a sanitarium, so that your money could be handled by someone else. I think we can do it. You’ve always been a peculiar, uncommunicative sort of man. Keep that up, only more so. We’ll brave this thing through, you and I.”

“Sandra, I—”

“Shhhh. Leave it to me. You’ll be on your feet before long and we can—”

“Time, Miss Perry,” said a voice at the door. A tall, gaunt man with exquisite hands came in and stood looking down at them.

“Doctor, he’s really awake!” Sandra said joyfully. “He knows me!”

“Great stuff!” said Dubois. “You’ll be your old self again in no time!” The old bromide.

And with a wink and a grin, Sandra was gone. They put Steve Roupe on a wheeled table and took him in to his third operation.

Eight months later Steve and Sandra went to their first party since the accident. It had been a hectic time for both of them, those months. A thousand and one details had been painstakingly taken care of. Every day there was some strange new development in the rebuilding of the man called Roupe.

There was the handwriting, for instance. In going over hundreds of documents, they had found that his old signature differed entirely from his new one. And Steve had spent two hours a day, every day, in painstakingly learning his old hand.

Then there were people. When he returned to his huge home near Boca Raton, Steve was deluged with invitations and visits. The servants were instructed to let no one see Mr. Roupe without being
announced and made to wait. Sandra was usually within shouting distance, and when she wasn’t she left a phone number. By the time the visitor saw Steve, Steve was well primed on all available essentials. He could call the visitor by name, gloss lightly over “memories” they shared, and cut the visit short. He learned a bushel of tricks. “About that business proposition, Mr. Roupe; could you give me an answer today?” Steve would say, “I’d like the details again, Smith; you see, since my accident I’ve been able to do nothing, and I’m way behind the times.” This with a charming smile quite new to the traditionally solemn Mr. Roupe. And when he had the details, “All right, I’ll think it over and let you know.” Then he’d talk it over with Sandra.

Some things that they ran up against were astonishing and unaccountable. When Steve tried on some of his clothes, they fitted him perfectly; except shoes. The shoes that he bought now were a half-size smaller than those he had. And many of his tastes differed. Sandra found out one evening that he could dance, and remarkably well; he had never, as far as she knew, danced before. Most amazing of all was that he had forgotten how to play the piano but had mysteriously learned the guitar.

For seven of those months Steve was covered to the eyes by bandages, and during the eighth he had strips of adhesive on his cheekbones and across the bridge of his nose. He used to stand before the cheval glass in his room, staring at the outlines of this new face, memorizing it even as he had memorized his old habits and acquaintances. It was a dark face with a pointed chin and deepset, luminous eyes. He liked it.

Sandra had become his life, even as he was hers. In more ways than one, his life had begun that day he opened his eyes and saw her by the white bed.

She came on him in the garden one day, strumming on his guitar and singing, most mournfully, the “St. James Infirmary Blues.” She knew by this that he was happy.

“Steve,” she said softly.

He looked up at her and smiled, tossing the melody about with his long fingers, ending it with a bewildering arpeggio. She took the
guitar from him and laid it on the grass and sat on his lap, putting her head on his shoulder. “Funny egg. I’d still like to know who taught you to play like that.”

“King Neptune,” he grinned

“He’s been a wonderful teacher. You have no idea how different you are, Steve. Nicer. I’ve learned things about you … Tell you something, I never suspected that you’d have the strength to pull through this. You always were so wishy-washy. But you’ve worked like a Trojan on the biggest job any man was ever given to do, and you’ve won. No one knows about your memory but me; and the only difference anyone has seen in you is that you’re ten times the person you were. I think you’re wonderful, don’t we?”

“All I’ve been is a good boy, darling, who has done what he’s told. Anyone could do what I’ve done if he had you to lead him around by the hand.” He pressed his shapely new nose into her little ear, catching the fragrance of her red-gold hair. She laughed.

“I didn’t come out here to join the mutual admiration society. I came out here to tell you that Babs Fresner is throwing a party for you. How on earth she found out that you would be unveiled next week is beyond me, but she did. Her idea of a lark. Everybody is going to be dressed like Frankenstein’s monster, in your honor.”

“Nice girl. How do we duck this one?”

“We don’t, beloved. Don’t you think it’s time we moved around a little?”

“Think we can do it?”

“We can if you’ll keep out of dark corners with people!”

“Jealous?” he whispered.

“Terribly,” she said …

Babs was the living prototype of the screwball deb of the movies, all sheer silk and studied spontaneity. She was built like a Coca-Cola bottle, Steve thought as he and Sandra made their entrance.

Babs was dressed in a modish grave-shroud and had grey circles painted around her eyes. She took Steve by both hands and gazed soulfully at him. The effect was astonishing.

“Babs!” Steve grinned at her. “You’re marvellous. You’re quite the most hideous woman I’ve ever seen.”

“Continental as ever, aren’t you? Hello, Sandra. You’re not so bad yourself.”

“Check!”

“Oh!” said Babs. “I had an idea that’s the way it was. Come and meet people.”

They went. Sandra stayed close to his elbow like a President’s secretary, whispering names, thumbnail sketches, and comebacks; nudging, covering up, and ordering retreats. Time and again she subtly changed the subject; time and again Steve grew conveniently deaf. They carried it off well.

Wherever Steve went he was surrounded by an admiring mob. Dubois’s surgery was unparalleled. He was asked a thousand and one questions about it, and congratulated a thousand times. It was in just such a group that he sensed a malignant and unpleasant stare. Turning, he looked at the man beside him.

He was quite the slimiest-looking individual Steve Roupe had ever seen. He had small eyes and a mouth oddly pointed at the corners. He was wall-eyed and flat-faced, and his dark skin shone liquidly. He had too many pointed little teeth.

Steve squeezed Sandra’s arm, and she followed his eyes. They broke away from the group.

“Who’s the greasy gentleman?”

“Goyaz. Your private enemy number one.”

“Oh? What seems to be his trouble?”

Sandra giggled. “Last year you called him a ______.” She whispered it in his ear. “He sued you for defamation of character and you proved that it was true.”

Steve looked over his shoulder at Goyaz. “Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were … Sandra, he makes me feel—oh, I don’t know.”

Alarmed by the sudden flare in his eyes, Sandra asked, “Steve! Steve, what is it?”

His brain began to rock. Up. Down. There was a light in his eyes … “Shark …”

She shook his arm. “Steve! Darling! Snap out of it!”

His face was white and she knew he didn’t hear.

“Let’s get out of here.” She piloted him to the door, where they bumped into Babs. “My god!” she shrilled. “You’re not going? You can’t do this to me!” And before Sandra could stop her, “Hey, everybody! Steve’s running out on us!”

“Shut up!” hissed Sandra, too late. “He’s sick!”

They crowded over, Goyaz with them. As he approached Steve left the floor in a great arc. Never had any of them seen a leap like that. He hit Goyaz before he hit the floor, and Goyaz skittered across the room on his back. Steve lay where he had fallen, flopping, flopping, making a noise like a baby crying …

They took him home, those shaken, frightened people, and left him alone with Sandra.

For two weeks he lay like a log, unmoving, silent. Sandra and a trained nurse cared for him, fed him, bathed him. And gradually he regained his senses. He was Stephen Roupe again, but he was a frightened, trembling travesty of himself. But under Sandra’s care he slowly returned to normal, with but occasional attacks of weakness.

They were married soon after that, and they sailed on the
Trigger
for a leisurely coastwise trip, casually exploring Florida’s thousand and one lovely inlets. Sea and sun and quiet completed the cure, and that could be the happy ending.

But there was one thing more. One afternoon they outran a tanker, heading south in ballast.

She was old, but she was clean. She was a well-decker, with a high poop and midship house. The gang on deck were chipping; they could hear the roar of her pneumatic hammers. As they drew abreast, a deep-toned bell rang twice, calling the 4 to 8 watch to relieve the 12 to 4. Its sound echoed and re-echoed in his brain, and the mental reflex of years of training made him look over his shoulder to look for his relief. But instead of a stretch of steel deck, and the flying bridge, and the skeleton outline of the ladders to the poop, a vision in blue slacks and a red bandanna halter sprawled on a polished teak deck met his eyes … It was with an astonishing calm that he met the fact that he did not know where or who he was …

Whacker.

Roupe.

He clutched at one, and then the other identity. And then the little pieces of his personalities began to fit together, and bit by bit he knew the truth.

“Hey!” cried Mrs. Roupe. “Off course! — Steve! What is it?”

She came into the cockpit and he reached out an arm and gathered her close. “Look over there,” he said.

“What; the ship?”

“Do you see what I see under the bow?”

“Yes. Porpoises; a whole school of them. But—”

“A porpoise is a wonderful creature, Sandra. He isn’t a fish, but he swims. He isn’t a bird, but he flies. A porpoise won’t harm a live man, but he’ll roll a dead one for miles … Sharks can’t live where there are porpoises. He does things for the hell of it and he’s nobody’s fool.”

E
VERY MAN A
Casanova? Sure. Every man can be, if he has the right line. A little experience, and you get to know just what line to use for each of them. Nine times out of ten, you land. What happens the tenth time is a tossup. Like Gay, for instance.

I saw Gay first as she walked into the Blue Anchor and spoke to the Syrian. I don’t know what she said to him, but she got the job. He always hires assured-looking girls. He didn’t see what I saw through the showcase as I knelt there cracking ice for the seafood display; her white, damp hands twisting and pulling at her handkerchief.

Her hair swept her slim shoulders, and her almond-shaped green eyes were deeply shadowed. She had a way of tilting her pointed chin as she spoke, parting her lips as if her teeth were a joyful secret.

The Syrian told the chef to feed her, and she walked across the dance floor and sank into a booth. I brought her dinner over, and she scarcely saw me as I put it before her. She was very hungry.

She had what it takes, and far be it from me to pass anything up. “Congratulations,” I said.

Startled, her great eyes flashed at me like heat lightning, radiant but undirected. “I mean the job,” I went on. “There’s plenty in it if you want it.”

“Oh—yes. Yes. The job. Thank you.” Her voice was small, pinched like her cheeks. Deep, though. A voice that could sing.

I liked her. She ate hungrily, but she broke her bread before she buttered it, and she cut her meat into very tiny pieces. Her fingernails were coral, not scarlet or crimson like the rest of the come-on girls at the Anchor. I glanced at the short-order counter where the chef was absent-mindedly greasing the hot plate. No orders, then. I slid into the booth opposite her. I think she saw me for the first time.

“Like it?” I asked, indicating the food.

Again that quick, impersonal glance. “Yes. He’s a good cook, isn’t he?”

I thought, now we’re getting somewhere. “Say, you’re not a Southerner.”

“How on earth did you find that out?”

Watch my smoke, says I to me. I have
just
the right line.

“Meet me,” I spouted. “Name’s Leo. Besides being the best combination bouncer and sandwich man on the Gulf Coast, I’m a master philologist. No Southerner cuts off his words or speaks as precisely as you do. Speak me a hundred words and I’ll name your origin within two hundred square miles. I’ll tell you more, too. You don’t want this job and you don’t like it, because you are not the type for it. You don’t need the job or you wouldn’t be wearing clothes like that. But you’ll go through with it because you have to, and you have to because something’s bothering you and this is the way to clear it up. See,” I wound up, just to prove how clever I was, “It’s written all over you!”

She smiled charmingly, but there was a gleam in her eye. “I know about you, too. You’re not a Southerner either. Yet you don’t cut off your words.” The smile disappeared. “That
is
a pity.”

Right on the chin. “Listen, sister—”

She slid her empty plate across the table to me. “Take that back where you got it, and see if you can’t find something besides me to keep you busy.” She wasn’t kidding.

And before I knew what I was doing I was toting that plate back to the counter. Retreat in disorder. Me!