Chapter 7
Two doors west of Third Avenue on Eighty-second Street, Larry turned into the walk leading to Bemrose’s house. The muted stone dwellings on this quiet street looked as if they might belong to Boston Symphony subscribers who wore shawl-collared brocade evening wraps to the concerts.
Larry smoothed the flaps of his coat pockets before he rang the bell. He wondered if Bemrose had invited any of the poker crowd to this party, and if it weren’t a stag, why he hadn’t asked him to bring Bessie along.
The door opened, and the houseman reached for Larry’s sun-tanned straw with the paisley band.
“You’ll find them in there, sir,” he said. “There’s quite a gathering. Yes sir, quite a gathering.”
After the tiled hallway, the drawing room felt sultry. Larry nibbled through the outer layers of the crowd and saw Lucy McVail, serene in gray chiffon, before the rococo hearth, her skirt fluttering free of her narrow hips. The scalloped brown fireplace seemed pleased to include her in its composition with the worn brocade wall. She stood alone, part of the room but not of the people, an island of tidiness in a disorganized surf. Her remoteness from the others seemed to bind her to the old house. A fluff of gray-blonde hair had damped down on her cheek, Larry noted, and her pale eyes looked out with the innocent speech of a solo flute.
Bemrose hadn’t seen Larry come in. There was time to hang back and enjoy the quiet picture that Lucy made, undisturbed by waves of tension which needled the room. The rest of the guests sounded like an orchestra before a concert, each tuning up on his own without regard for the others.
Above their alcoholic discord Bemrose’s voice rose stridently as he discussed the recent Nazi landing on Crete. “You’ll see. Those bastards will use it as a base. Next thing you know we’ll have air attacks on Egypt——.”
Larry moved into the vacancy around Lucy McVail. He judged by her eyes which shifted slightly, like scraps of cloud gently moving, that she was pleased to see him. He told her that she looked cool in spite of the humid heat, and her pale eyes deepened in tone. A film as ephemeral as her gray gown kept slipping between them, and made it difficult to talk to her at first, but he was soon able to discuss her case and had launched on some theories of his about inheritance law when Bemrose elbowed in, accompanied by a man on the borderline of portliness who looked as though he financed a health club to restrain an opinionated waistline. The man’s rounded face, tomato pink, was crowned by a cap of babyfine white hair, parted at the side and brushed across the forehead like a small boy’s. Bemrose presented him. It was Davis Shore, the utility man, recipient of Bemrose’s recent free-legal-services. Larry backed away before there was a chance to introduce them while Shore, with a false try at democracy, was saying to Lucy as he left, “I used to run into a chap named McVail at the Knickerbocker Club. Any of your people?”
Bemrose called after Larry to get a drink, but he pretended not to hear. He watched Bemrose thread his way back to the door and welcome Judd Harrison, a Washington attorney who had often pooled his Washington influence with Bemrose’s in cases for anti-Administration clients. These clients constituted the profitable Wall Street side of Arthur’s practice. They were the business and financial men who, without his help or Harrison’s, might not have been able to set up appointments with the government agencies that had become vital to the running of their companies.
Judd Harrison was about four feet ten, and Bemrose had to stoop to shake hands with him. He joined Harrison in a champagne cocktail and proposed a toast. Guiding Harrison to a serving table across the room, he said in his low, easy voice, “Come over here and get one of your cigars. I stocked up on them last night. Then I’ll take you over and introduce you to the unlucky girl.”
The significance of Arthur’s remark did not reach Larry immediately. He thought of the newspaper pictures he had seen of Harrison and the oversized cigar with which he was always photographed. He thought of the compensatory device used by undersized men who smoked oversized cigars and chuckled to himself. A second later he realized what Bemrose had said, “the unlucky girl,” and why Shore, Harrison, and the other good client-friends, had been invited to a party on a hot night when the season for entertaining was about over. Larry figured that he had better look around and locate Lucy McVail’s uncle and aunt. They must be here, and if they were, they couldn’t be feeling any too much at home. From a corner near the bookshelves he heard Marge Daugherty’s uncontrolled titter.
Marge had had a few drinks and was animated, intent, and looking up at Ed Daugherty as if she could make him Charles Boyer just by looking at him that way. Ed tried to unlock her glance by directing his eyes everywhere except at her. He smiled with relief when he saw Larry walk toward them.
Larry took Marge’s glass. “This needs attention.” He had it filled with straight Scotch and asked the waiter for another like it. “Now.” He toasted her and finished his whiskey at a gulp. “Tell me how it happened. I’m trying to catch up. Things move fast around here.”
Marge shifted unsteadily to the other foot, and her husband shoved a chair under her. She rolled her eyes at Larry. “Don’t have to tell. You knew all the time.”
“No, I didn’t. Tell me. How long has it been going on?”
“A few weeks. He’s collecting the fee.” Her giggle became an incessant staccato.
“Marge!” Daugherty said. “You’ve had too much to drink.”
“Let her have fun. This doesn’t happen in the family every day. Come on, have another drink with me. How about you?” Larry asked Ed.
“I guess I could use another,” Ed admitted with excessive dignity.
Marge’s giggle had become permanent by the third refill, and Bemrose came over to tend to it. “What’s funny?” he asked, looking critically from Marge to Ed to Larry.
But before Larry had a chance to congratulate him, Judd Harrison had joined the group, bringing with him an argument that must have developed among some guests across the room. “Talk to those guys and try to shut them up before they leave here,” he cautioned Bemrose. “I swear they’re working for Vichy.”
Marge giggled, and Harrison looked at her curiously.
“Mr. and Mrs. Daugherty, my fiancée’s uncle and aunt.” Arthur frowned as he introduced them.
“Drink, Mrs. Daugherty?” Harrison asked. “That’s a beautiful niece you have. I understand they grow them like that in Iowa. Well, take care of her. This fellow will never do her any good. I’ve known him—how many years is it?”
Bemrose steered him away, quiet, competent again, and in command. “Show me who was doing the talking,” he said to Harrison. “I want to keep them away from Charlie Worden. Charlie’s with the State Department, and he’s right over there waiting to be misinformed.”
Bemrose turned and explained to Larry, “We don’t want any pro-Vichy talk to reach him. Charlie has a distasteful infirmity. He lets other people make up his mind, and when he’s had a few drinks——”
“What’s eating that fellow and Arthur?” Ed shrugged.
“They aren’t having fun like us,” Marge said. “We’re having fun, aren’t we?”
But Larry decided he had had enough. He must follow Bemrose and try to talk to him. He must tell him it was wonderful that he was getting married. Uncertainly Larry looked around, careful to avoid the fireplace and Lucy.
“Where the hell did you get that?” A lanky man of around forty with untonicked hair, a yellow tweed suit, and a bright knitted tie, lifted the highball Larry had in his hand. “Just what I need,” he said, putting out a bunch of red knuckles. “Steve Holmes, Kansas.”
“The artist?” Larry asked, standing up tall to him.
“Same.”
“Bemrose has one of yours at his office—wheat fields.”
“That’s it.” Holmes smiled.
A waiter passed a tray, and Holmes lifted off three drinks at a time, handing one to Larry.
“Come along,” Larry said. “I want to hear Bemrose give some fellows a piece of his mind.”
Holmes’ paw clamped Larry in place. “That pretty boy over there got hold of me when I came in.” He nodded toward a bald blond who talked with his hands. “Damned sterile atmosphere. Stick around,” Holmes urged.
Larry realized that except for Lucy McVail and her aunt, the party was a stag. If Bemrose had invited Mrs. Shore— Larry supposed there was one—she hadn’t accepted. Nor Mrs. Harrison. Nor any other wives. That made it all right about Bessie not being here.
“Where did he find the girl?” Holmes asked bluntly.
“In his office. She’s a client.”
Holmes whistled. “She looks as if she can use some warming up.”
“Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
“No, you tell me.” He kept Larry’s arm immobilized with one hand and tilted his glass with the other. “Does she talk?”
Larry shrugged. “I think so. She listens.”
“Jeezuschris’, why would a guy like Bemrose want to sew himself up——”
Larry smiled at Holmes and blurted out, “There was a swell girl—from Kansas.”
Holmes swooped on Larry, questioning.
“She’s a writer. She doesn’t live in Kansas now. Janice——”
Holmes was doubled up, grabbing his knee. “Don’t tell me he could have had Jan Baldwin,” he moaned.
“Do you know her?” Larry asked, figuring that it wasn’t likely. Bemrose would never have invited a friend of hers.
“Know her?” Holmes bent over. “I’ve been crazy in love with her since I was three years old.”
It was a senseless coincidence, Janice following Bemrose around, managing to get in tonight with this fellow, Holmes. But the party was a disorganized, thrown together affair. Anything could happen.
The man that Holmes had tried to avoid walked toward them, swaying in the artist’s direction. “Oh, hello.” He laughed self-consciously. “From the back I thought you were Stokowski. Did you ever hear about the time Stokie conducted in Los Angeles?”
He was telling his story with the polished enthusiasm of an anecdotist, but this room somehow didn’t seem the setting for anecdotes. It buzzed with the confusing Big Questions that were being asked without any real hope of finding the answers. This fellow was off key with his anecdotes, putting too much of himself into too little, Larry decided.
He hurried Steve Holmes toward the fireplace, and the overplump womanish voice called after them. “You must ring me up for lunch, you really must.”
Davis Shore had remained with Lucy McVail, and they hadn’t progressed beyond the weather, from what Larry could overhear. Shore saw them coming over and sidled away, nodding a thank you.
Larry watched Steve Holmes take Lucy on. Holmes stabbed at her with a few phrases that seemed to hurt him as they came out. Lucy countered with her remote smile. Apparently discouraged, the artist threw a bony shoulder forward and rested uneasily on one foot, his wordless way of saying “Yes, ma’am.”
It might have been the fog of Scotch whiskey that made him overly critical of Lucy, but Larry began to lose patience with her remoteness. She wore the Victorian house becomingly, he decided, because it represented her era. If someone like Professor or Mrs. Storey had been around, they would have spotted the anachronism. Bemrose wouldn’t want them around at this time. He wouldn’t want to defend his choice of Miss McVail. Not that there weren’t many reasons for it. Larry could see that much himself. Bemrose could always feel secure with Lucy McVail and depend on her to be worshipful of him, gentle and selfless and undemanding. Their marriage would be no competitive jockeying for superiority, as with Janice Baldwin. She was a woman with whom to settle down, with whom to be comfortable. Nevertheless these excellent reasons were bound to sound like rationalization, Larry knew, to a man like Professor Storey or to anyone else who could spot a real motive from a secondhand one.
Bemrose was bringing the anecdotist over to meet Lucy, and Steve Holmes pulled out hastily. Larry followed Steve as soon as he had grabbed a drink off a passing tray, and in a stupor of heat, noise, and alcohol, they circled the smoky room, inhaling wisps of talk.
“They’re still picketing the White House ... goddamn saboteurs.”
“Hard-boiled Harold should be good in the oil business.”
“How can a fellow tell, the way they have priorities screwed up?”
“... Lady in the Dark, fifth row.”
“A swell job. We wouldn’t have Lend-Lease if not for ....”
“Grew says it’s putting off an operation for cancer, and he’s one man who ought to know about Japs.”
The bits of talk stuck to Larry like sweat. He listened and he kept on drinking. The last two glasses were brandy, and his thinking blurred. He wondered about Marge Daugherty stranded in the next room with Ed, and he listened for her grating giggle. He shuddered when it reached him, proclaiming that Marge was tied down permanently. Larry looked around for Bemrose. He found him with the Vichyites, arguing in a voice that was pitched too high, his lips tight as a trap, and realized that it couldn’t be Vichy alone which had Bemrose worked up.
“Sonafabitch Darlan. If we don’t watch out, the French Navy—” Bemrose was saying. “To hell with the pussyfooting. We’ll never be able to play ball with them anyway.”
Steve Holmes pulled Larry out of the group around Arthur.
“Some other guy ought to lay her first,” Steve said. “Some guy ought to heat up that hunk of marble for him. He needs a woman who can wring him out. Look. One of these days he’s going to blow himself up.”
From the fireplace, Lucy nodded to them and smiled.
“Someone ought to heat her up,” Steve repeated. “She isn’t ready to take on Bemrose.”
Larry told Steve to stick around before he rushed upstairs. As he made it to the washbowl, Larry remembered that a skimpy lunch was the last solid food he had eaten, and that in the past hour he had mixed champagne, whiskey, and brandy. He couldn’t tell whether he was upset at the heart or at the stomach, but he thought of Janice Baldwin and wondered what she was doing. He thought of her huddled in an air raid shelter, or queuing up for a canned news handout.
None of it made him feel better. Larry wet a cloth and put it to his head, figuring that tomorrow it might be Janice’s turn to feel not so good. He’d cable her about Bemrose. She was a reporter, and would want to know the news when it was hot.
A couple of hours later Larry walked down Fifth Avenue with Steve Holmes. They stopped for a light at Seventy-sixth Street, across the street from the rough stone synagogue with the steep steps.
“I can’t get it,” Steve said for the seventh time since they had left Bemrose’s. “After all these years without being sewed up, I don’t see why—”
“She’ll take care of his house,” Larry said.
Steve’s sandy head twisted sideways in a question.
“The way he wants it,” Larry explained. “He’ll tell her and she’ll listen. That’s the way he likes it. No competition.”
“Who else does he tell?”
“The clients. The client-friends. You know that business about not charging them a fee if they’re his friends.”
From across the street he smelled the dank summer green of Central Park. A breeze from the west carried broken dance tunes through the darkness from the Mall.
Steve stopped. “Come to think of it, he never sent me a bill. The last time I got even. I shipped him a picture.”
Larry nodded. “Would you do him a favor if he asked you to?”
“Ye-e-es,” Holmes drawled, uncertainly.
“The chances are he doesn’t want anything from us, but Davis Shore who was there tonight— Bemrose doesn’t take any money from him either.”
Steve whistled.
“A fellow like Shore could do him favors,” Larry speculated.
“Shore was the one talking to her when we came up?” Holmes asked.
“With the pink face.”
“He looked a little dry in the mouth trying to find something to say,” Holmes observed. “Maybe he’s not making the client-friends happy, getting hitched to her.” His head dropped forward, and he lengthened his stride.
Larry puffed to keep up with him. Only a fool would have let himself get drunk on a night like this. In spite of his tropical weight suit, the back of his shirt was a washrag. “She’ll let him run the show, she’ll be easy to live with. He’ll give her money—she’s never had much. She’ll enjoy the social stuff.”
“Sounds like a business deal,” Steve said.
“What’s wrong with buying that, if the price is right? Maybe it’s as good a reason as any. I wouldn’t know for sure.” Larry swallowed to get rid of the bitter taste. “Did you have supper?” he asked abruptly.
Steve swung around. “Say, you don’t look good,” he said. “What the hell are you upset about? It’s not your funeral.”
“I had too much to drink,” Larry apologized.
“A couple of Scotch-and-sodas never made anyone look like you look,” Steve insisted.
Larry knew it was no use. The artist had third and fourth sight. Already in one evening Larry had told him more than he had confided to Bessie in a month. Steve Holmes took x-rays. He didn’t waste time with questions.
“Okay, so I like the guy.” Larry’s clammy fingers rubbed the moisture from his palms. “He’s a great guy,” he went on, talking to himself in the dark. “He’s what I always wanted to be, only it’s no use if you’re not built for it. I know his faults, and I think he’s a great guy.”
Silently they walked along. They had this side of the street to themselves. The green coaches lumbered by like middle-aged ladies with diabetes, and on a bench near a bus stop across the avenue, two sailors were draped around a couple of high school kids in purple sister dresses.
Holmes made sympathetic noises. “I know what you mean. I’d believe him if he told me the world was coming to an end next Friday night at seven fifty-nine and a quarter.”
“Every man has to have his guy,” Larry broke in. “Arthur’s been mine. For years. Since we were kids. I know every goddam one of his faults and——”
Steve Holmes gripped Larry’s arm above the wrist. “Take it easy, boy,” he said. “You’re okay. Where would you like to stop for a bite?”
Larry quickened his step, but his short legs were no match for Steve’s.
“You say he fell for Jan?” Holmes wanted to know.
“I thought he’d ask her to marry him, but they had a misunderstanding. I think he was waiting for her to come to him.”
“Jesuschris’, how did he get over her?” It came out a wail, from the bottom of Steve. “I’ve been trying, and Jesuschris’— I haven’t seen her for ten years, and she’s still around.”
Still around. Larry smiled.
“She should have married me,” Steve said. “You say she likes Bemrose?”
“When she found out what she thought he was about, she tried not to,” Larry explained. “She tried to talk herself out of him but she didn’t have much luck.”
“He’s a fifteen-story fool,” Steve exploded. “A fool.”
They had reached the scrubby uptown side of Fifty-ninth Street where slit-entranced lunchrooms framed with neon lined the sidewalk. A trolley jangled by, and Larry invited Steve to join him in a cup of coffee across at Reuben’s, but Holmes said he wanted to get back to his hotel.
From behind an oversized table at the restaurant, watching the women in their cool cotton dresses drift in from the theater, Larry thought of Bemrose going upstairs alone, away from the stale air and the dirty highball glasses.
In a few weeks he wouldn’t be able to get away by going upstairs.