An Idol for Others (30 page)

He would call Clara and, for the first time in their lives without a compelling excuse, tell her he wasn’t going to spend the evening with her. Let her have a bad day too. He looked down at David and chuckled. “We ought to go out to New Brunswick and have a drink at that bar next to the theater.”

“Oh, no. That would be too much like an ending. Nothing’s ended, honey. I’ll always be around when you need me.” David rose, and they faced each other.

“You’re sure of that?” Walter looked without embarrassment into his lively, loving eyes. “I’m going to take you at your word.”

“You can, honey. You know that.”

Over drinks at “21” they drifted easily into the intimacy of the old days. By the time they had finished a leisurely dinner, Walter was regretting that they hadn’t had more evenings like this in recent years and promised himself that they would in the future. He was more than ever convinced that this afternoon’s talk had been only exploratory; they had reached no decision. He said as much when they were both putting money on the table to cover the bill. Noting that the $50 bill was missing from his wallet, he flushed with shame and distaste and went on quickly to divert his thoughts. “You won’t sign that contract without telling me, will you?” he demanded.

“You don’t want me to?”

“Of course not. They’ll wait, won’t they?”

“Oh, sure, I can stall for time. Why?”

“I want Clara to ask you to stay. What would you say to that?”

“I’d say you’re the Wizard of Oz.”

Their eyes met, and the gleam in David’s made it clear that they had both responded in the same way to the evening. Their partnership was too good to be dissolved. The battle with Clara had just begun.

It was almost midnight when they parted, and on the way home Walter had the taxi make a slight detour to pick up the first editions of the morning papers at the all-night newsstand in front of Grand Central. He glanced at the headlines by the light that bored intermittently into the back of the taxi like an erratic lighthouse as he was driven downtown. The front page of the
News
was splashed as usual with thick black ink. The light was tinged with red when the words leaped up at him:
MOVIE STAR SLAIN!
Then he was in the dark with an old movie still of the beautiful youth who had been Frank Farley imprinted on his mind. The lighthouse beam probed and lingered long enough for his eyes to scoop up the first few paragraphs of the story: “Discovered late yesterday afternoon … lavish East Side hotel … knife wounds … naked body mutilated …”

Darkness. Shock paralyzed his mind and body. A stab of light. “Police are following leads provided by a collection of photos of nude male models found …” Icy terror clutched his heart, and he began to tremble all over.

Knife wounds. Death hadn’t been caused by a fluke blow to the solar plexus. The time of death had been fixed to within an hour or so of the body’s discovery. He could account for every minute of the day from 1:30 on. Nobody had seen them speak to each other. He managed to light a cigarette with a trembling hand and sat with muscles tensed to control the shaking until he was deposited in front of his door. He let himself in to a silent apartment and made a tiptoed dash to the bedroom to make sure Clara was asleep. He returned to the living room and tore through the other papers. Only the
News
carried the story. Poor Frank probably wouldn’t attract much more attention dead than alive. He poured himself a stiff drink and sat beside a lamp and forced himself to read the account word for word.

It was scrappy, obviously hustled into the paper at the last minute to provide a juicy headline. The sexual implications were cautiously stated but not clear. Aside from the reference to the nude photographs, no indication was given of what direction the police investigation was taking. Would they want to talk to everybody who had seen him during the day? His hand still shook as he took a hasty swallow of his drink. It was unlikely that the elevator boy had recognized him or noticed that he had got off at Frank’s floor, but if necessary, he could deny it. He had got off at a lower floor. To see whom? No. That wouldn’t work. He would have to say that Farley approached him as he was leaving the bar and asked to speak to him in private about a job. He had gone up to the room for a few minutes and that was that. Would he be expected to take the initiative in reporting the encounter to the police? Why should he? He talked to dozens of people about jobs every day. Unless he had some evidence to offer, it wasn’t his business if they got murdered afterward. He drained his glass and rose to replenish it and roamed the room blindly. He became aware of the suit he was wearing, the suit he had worn all day. It was conspicuous. He would ask Clara to send it to the cleaner in the morning. There was nothing strange about that. She always sent this things out after he’d worn them a couple of times. Get it out of the house for a week. Why? He just didn’t want to be seen in it for a while.

Did the police have some method of developing film even after it had been exposed? Certainly not. Was he sure he had exposed all of it? Yes, he had seen it snap back when it ran out to the spool. There were no grounds whatsoever for his being implicated.

He would have to tell Clara he had run into Farley in case anything came out. He had to have Clara on his side. He would tell her David wanted to go to Hollywood. It was probably just as well. He shouldn’t stand in the way of David’s big chance.

He found himself pouring another drink and saw that his hands were finally steady. Another drink, and he’d be able to sleep. He had himself under control except for a knot of dread somewhere around his heart and an occasional wave of weakness that seemed to affect his legs. It suddenly occurred to him that he might not have been seen leaving, that the murderer might have gone to Frank’s room unobserved, and he stumbled to a chair and fell into it. Oh, Christ! His lunch date. Alice. David. He could answer any questions, but to be brought into it at all, even for a routine check, could wreck him. He gulped down his drink, trying to knock himself out, and dragged himself up unsteadily to slip into the haven of bed with Clara. He vowed to obscure gods that he would forget his grievance with her if he were spared any involvement with Frank’s gruesome fate.

He woke up during the night with his heart pounding, fighting his way out of a dream. Frank Farley came crashing into his consciousness. He stifled a moan. In his numbed and agitated state, it seemed to him that he carried some fatal curse that threatened every male he touched. Lying in the dark was a torment, suspended by fitful sleep. He was up early, feeling ghastly, but thankful for the sanity of daylight. If the police wanted to question him, they would surely do so discreetly, without its getting to the press.

The story was in all the papers during the day, but only a couple of the more sensational ones gave it a big play. None of them carried any hint that the police were nearing a solution. The knot of dread continued to weigh on his chest. A random reminder of yesterday’s events could make his legs feel as if they would buckle. He tried desperately to think of somebody who might be able to tell him what was going on behind the scenes, who wouldn’t think it odd his asking. He didn’t see how he could get through another day like this. He felt as if he were suffocating.

Clara noticed his strange mood but supposed he was upset about David’s leaving. He suggested that she sound out the partner about his Hollywood plans. When she did so, David seemed puzzled at first, but when she told him it was Walter’s understanding that he was accepting the offer, he agreed breezily that it was all settled. This long-awaited triumph so delighted her that she told Walter that evening that she thought they could start having children as soon as they had nursed Theatre Today through its first season. The announcement didn’t pull him out of his strange withdrawal.

The Farley story dropped out of the news the day after that. Walter had to struggle with himself to keep from calling the police just to see if they were interested in what he was prepared to tell them. He even asked Clara if she thought he should, and she brushed aside the question as if it weren’t worth a reply. He had read his Dostoyevsky. He knew he mustn’t allow his sense of guilt to draw him into the crime.

When the papers announced the following day that a suspect had been arrested, he was so relived that he almost wept. He didn’t even bother to read the story beyond seeing that it was a young waiter who had been fired by the hotel a week earlier. By this time he was resigned to David’s departure. They had referred to it a few times as if it were a foregone conclusion. In retrospect, David’s declaration of love seemed dangerous and unhealthy, a bar to their old, easy relationship. He and Clara would be Theatre Today. He would prove to Aleck and all the Washburns that he was a match for them.

She puts the telephone down and remains standing in front of it, but somehow withdrawing from it in a mime of displeased incredulity. Her back is turned, so he can’t see what is going on in her face; but he will remember the moment always, a sort of watershed, marking Before and After.

“How very odd,” Clara said.

“What’s the matter?” Walter asked, looking over the paper, intrigued by her tone of voice.

“Three million dollars is the matter.” She moved away from the fanciful Gothic console, which was the telephone’s resting place, but cast a lingering puzzled glance back at it. “Guildenstern, Guildenstern, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern say there’s been a hitch. They say I should’ve received some sort of court order. There
was
a funny looking paper in the mail the other day. I don’t understand. It’s always been perfectly clear that the money was to be paid over to me on my 30th birthday.”

“That’s certainly the impression you gave me when I married you. I was counting on it for our old age.”

“It’s nice of you to joke about it, dearest, but I’m rather upset.”

“Well, what’s the problem? Your birthday isn’t for another couple of months, thank God. I’m sure you’re suddenly going to shrivel up into a ghastly old hag. Won’t they give it to you then?”

“That’s what I’m telling you, dearest. They’ve just told me they won’t. On and on about writs and injunctions and things. I’ll have to go see them. I couldn’t make head or tail of it on the phone. They even said something that sounded as if Daddy had something to do with it.”

Walter tossed the paper aside and stood, shoving his hands into the pockets of his dressing gown. “Aha. Aleck strikes back. He’s taken his sweet time about it. Maybe this is what he’s been waiting for all these years. How many years has it been since our last charming meeting? Four? Five? Good lord. Does he have any control over the money?”

“How could he? I’m not a minor.”

“No, Clarry, you’re not.” Nor did she look it, although he couldn’t see that she had changed much in the ten years or more since they had met. She had put on no weight, nor acquired any greater assurance, since that would have been impossible. There was a new slightly sharp brittleness in her manner, but this didn’t suggest maturity so much as a habit of making decisions and issuing commands.

Or perhaps it was the visible face of sterility. He associated maturity with ripeness. Clara hadn’t ripened; she was a splendid tree that had borne no fruit. He had come to think of her more as an extension of himself than as a lover. She had become too essential to the operation of Theatre Today for them to have thought much about children again. Their professional partnership was a complete success. He still missed David, but Walter knew now that he hadn’t always been good for him. David had offered escape, an opportunity to indulge his sense of fun. Clara provided something more important for him, and he knew it; the steel of his ambition was welded to the steel of her ambition for him.

“I have a million things to do at the office,” she said. They didn’t approach each other or even consult each other with their eyes. Their sex life continued to be active, but their relations were unadorned with physical intimacies, except when they were actually in bed.

She went to the table where she had left a voluminous handbag and withdrew a leatherbound notebook and gold pencil and jotted some reminders for herself. “I’ll have to try to work the lawyers in later this afternoon.”

“We’d better not be careless about it. I don’t intend to let Aleck swindle you out of $3,000,000, if that’s what it’s all about.”

“It’s probably just lawyers’ fuss about nothing, but you’re right. I’ve got to find out. I’ve been rather counting on it.”

So had he. Would Aleck try to disinherit his daughter? Of course he would. Walter wasn’t sure that telling Aleck what he thought of him had given him $3,000,000 worth of satisfaction. Knowing it was coming had been a comfort for the last few years, pinching pennies while he moved from triumph to triumph in one of the most spectacular careers of the day. He turned and checked the Empire clock on the mantelpiece. “You better get going anyway. Herbie and his naked boy will be here in half an hour. That shouldn’t take too long. I’ll get to the office by 1:00 at the latest. I can take over for you. Don’t just try to squeeze the lawyers in. Make an appointment.”

She went to a mirror and put on a velvet beret he had designed for her. She went about the room collecting her odds and ends, gloves, handbag, the slim lacquered stick with an ornate gold head he had found for her to complete her “executive” look. She posed briefly at the door, an original and striking figure, and waved her handbag at him. “OK, dearest. See you shortly.”

Her departure drew a gust of warm air from Tenth Street in through the open window. It lifted the draperies, and they billowed and subsided as if to herald her advent into the outside world. He gathered up the morning’s mail, most of which she had already opened, and settled down to look through it. The downstairs bell rang just when he was beginning to expect it. He rose and pushed the button to release the lock below. He didn’t wait for Herbie to mount the stairs but opened the door and went back into the room. He heard him bumping about on the stairs, and then Herbie called out, “Can we come in?”