Carter Beats the Devil (23 page)

Carter held it at an angle, to better see under the streetlights. The dial was inlaid with porcelain and abalone shell, and where the maker’s insignia was usually found, there was instead, in gold script, the name
Jessie Hayman.

“All you have to do, Carter, is show her butler the watch. You’ll have the run of her house.”

Carter thanked him. He added he was very tired, and said that since his parents lived in the city, he would be going home straightway. But Albee wouldn’t hear of it. He put Carter in a cab, and told the driver to take him to 44 Mason, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Before the cab left, Albee leaned in, to say, “Just ask yourself, Carter—in fifty years, do you want to remember that on the night you made headliner, you went home to your parents and then had a glass of warm milk and took a nap?” Albee laughed.

The question was good enough to bring Carter as far as the front stairs of 44 Mason, Jessie Hayman’s Georgian mansion. The first time Carter looked at the watch, it was one-thirty in the morning. The night air was warm. He could hear girlish laughter and piano music. Someone was playing “Waltz Me Around Again, Willie” at dizzying speed. He weighed whether he should go in or catch a taxi home. He was not the type of man to visit a parlorhouse girl. But he was wide awake, and felt perfectly capable of having just one drink and leaving.

Jessie’s butler took Carter’s hat and topcoat and led him to the parlor, which bubbled with piano music. Others from the program had already paired off with girls they liked and gone upstairs, but he still found two colleagues, Adolph and Leonard, at the piano bench, playing a merry four-handed waltz. Surrounding them were about a dozen of Jessie’s girls. Their preferred late-evening attire was long silk dresses. By the way their bodies
were silhouetted before the amber electric lights, Carter could see they no longer wore their corsets. He folded his arms then unfolded them, feeling like the clumsiest man on earth. Was it more polite to stare or to not stare?

Leonard shoved Adolph in the chest, and Adolph shoved back—one of them or the other changed the tune to “Peasie Weasie,” and at once Julius leapt up from a leather sofa (Carter hadn’t even seen him) and did an awkward little dance, which made the girls laugh. Then he sang:

My mother called Sister downstairs the other day.

“I’m taking a bath,” my sister did say.

“Well, slip on something quick, here comes Parson Brown.”

She slipped on the top step and then came on down.

Everyone in the room, except Carter and Jessie Hayman herself, joined in on the chorus as Julius continued his dance, crossing his arms like a Russian sailor and kicking his legs in the air. It was at this moment that Jessie noticed Carter, and welcomed him in. She stopped the music, calling for another round of champagne, and toasting Carter, the headliner.

“News travels quickly, doesn’t it?” Carter said to the group.

“Einstein has it all wrong,” Julius said. “Gossip travels faster than light does.” There were a couple of chuckles, Carter (who was thankful he wasn’t a comedian) among them, then Julius added, “And if any of you girls are faster than gossip, you know where to find me.”

Because of the grape blight in France, champagne was almost impossible to find, yet Jessie had an abundance of bottles. Julius sang “The Boy in the Boat” and “Pick Me a Flower,” and when his repertoire of naughty songs ran out, he made up dirty lyrics to the most innocent tunes, while his brothers fought over the piano.

Carter was happy he’d come, happy he’d had a free glass of champagne, and was ready to leave. As he was looking around for his hostess, Jessie freshened his glass.

“Mr. Carter,” she said.

“I was just looking for you,” he replied.

“I would like you to meet your greatest admirers,” Jessie said. She presented two petite women in royal blue silk gowns. They had dark skin, long, straight black hair, and almond-shaped eyes. “Marissa and Lupe Juarez, of Brazil. I’ll get all of you more champagne.”

“My name is Marissa,” said the slightly taller girl. She had a small pockmark by her hairline, but otherwise her bronze skin was flawless. She spoke with no accent. “This is my younger sister, Lupe. She’s rather shy.”

Carter shook Lupe’s hand, then Marissa’s. Each was small and soft. It was impossible to tell how old they were, eighteen, perhaps nineteen, but Carter guessed they were younger than that. They had been trained to speak like debutantes. A servant poured them champagne and they toasted Carter’s success.

“You’re a wonderful magician, Mr. Carter,” Marissa said.

“Charles, really. But thank you. It’s been quite an evening for me.”

“I understand. Your fortunes went up, they went down, they went up again.”

“Well, I hope to stay up,” Carter said too quickly, tipping up his glass to disguise his reddening face. But Marissa and Lupe simply laughed. Their laughter was a beautifully polished performance.

“I rather enjoyed the Blackmail part,” Lupe said. Her ability with cotillion discourse was slightly less agile than her sister’s. “Everyone around us was rather amazed.”

“Thank you.” Carter knew better than to rely on this particular review, but still, he was charmed. “I thought people might not have liked it.”

Lupe said, “If people didn’t like it, well, they’re wrong.” Then Carter saw something he didn’t understand: Lupe’s dark eyes were tearing up. “Thank you for what you did to that horrible man,” she said. Then she excused herself and vanished from the room.

Carter looked to Marissa for an explanation. Marissa, who was also on the verge of tears, took a sip of champagne.

“Excuse me,” she said, also departing.

Carter stared after them. He finished his champagne, then gingerly opened his Edward Koehn watch. He’d been here half an hour, and had made two beautiful girls run away in tears. He wanted to leave.

. . .

At the piano, Leonard played the first eight bars of Brahms’s Hungarian Dance in F minor, and then, with a flourish, shifted into “The Maple Leaf Rag,” which he played maniacally, shooting the keys with his fingers. Then Adolph played yet again the only song he knew, “Waltz Me Around Again, Willie.” Some of the girls were dancing together, doing the most energetic of steps: the Texas Tommy, the Bunny Hug.

Carter, drunk, watched from the couch, where Julius sat with a thick-waisted blond German girl on his lap. Somehow he found himself trying to explain to Julius, who couldn’t have been less interested, that no matter how many different ways he came at it, he could only say that he knew less today than he had yesterday.

“What, did you think you knew something yesterday?” Julius asked.

“Do you follow psychology? I’m embarrassed to be thinking this way, but I think that today I replaced my father with a father figure,” he mused. “Or perhaps I started that when I met Borax Smith.”

“You’re a complicated little weasel, I’ll give you that.”

“You know, you go from wanting your parents to love you to something else when you’re onstage, and . . .” Julius was staring at him uncertainly, and Carter remembered he was speaking to a man whose manager was his mother.

Julius managed to break the awkward silence, as was his gift. “You know what life is? One damned thing after another. No, wait, that’s love. Life is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.”

Carter looked at all the women. The champagne had not made them any less beautiful. And yet wasn’t there a chaste girl in a Yukon convent perhaps waiting for him? He couldn’t imagine two more different kinds of lives than those in this parlor and what Sarah’s was. “The one problem is, I just don’t have this love business worked out,” he concluded, almost to himself.

“I told you, love is a tale told by an idiot,” Julius said. The German girl kissed him, and pulled him upward with her strong arms. “Of course,” he said, “I may be wrong about that.”

. . .

When some hours had passed, Carter pulled back the lever at the bottom of his watch. It chimed. It was the first time he’d heard it, melodious, rich, surprisingly full: four bells, a pause, then three airy bells, sounding, yes, just like angels playing them. How had it gotten to be 4:03 in the morning? He was still on the couch. Julius had gone upstairs long ago. Leonard had disappeared briefly three times, each time with a different girl, but an hour ago he’d left for the evening with Gladys, who had chestnut hair down to her waist. Adolph had made a comic scene of being unable to decide among the women who remained, gnashing his teeth and making faces, finally scooping up a small blond Russian girl, and, hollering like a wildman, dashing up the stairs with her.

This left Carter. It was four o’clock in the morning, he hadn’t had a drink in over an hour, and he felt like the evening had wound down around him. He was the only man in a room of ten women. He noticed their yawns, their smiles when he met their eyes, their occasional glances toward the window—Jessie didn’t allow clocks in her house, but, from certain angles, you could see the clocktower across the square. Someone cranked up the gramophone, and two tall girls danced together to the second movement of a Vivaldi lute concerto.

Jessie, smiling, appeared at Carter’s side. “Mr. Carter, you’ve been a very thoughtful guest tonight.”

“Thank you,” then he realized the implied second meaning. “Lost in thought?” He laughed. “Yes, that, too.”

“If any of our girls can help you sort it all out, just say the word. If you’ll do us the honor of staying overnight, we’ll wash and press your shirt and shine your shoes, and we have a lovely chef who comes in to make breakfast.”

“Thank you.”

“
Au revoir
,” she said, and stood. As she left the room, she said a few quiet words to the Juarez girls, who left with her.

The remaining girls, one by one, wished Carter a good night, and let him know, each in her own way, he was welcome to join any of them if he so desired.

And then he was alone.

Light footsteps going up creaking stairs. The satin wallpaper had a red floral pattern embossed in it, and the air smelled of French perfume. From the couch, Carter could see out the big bay window that faced a small side garden where honeysuckle vines and oak trees grew.

In the silence, Carter could hear himself think. In the transition to headliner, he might have changed already in ways he didn’t yet know, but he had brought with him this solitude. Parts of him were built to be awake before dawn and yearning to be both absolutely still and moving everywhere at once.

Suddenly, a scrappy little terrier ran into the room. She was followed closely by Marissa and Lupe.

“Ginger!” Marissa called. “I apologize, Mr. Carter. We were going to take her for a walk.”

“We wanted you to meet a most excellent dog,” Lupe added.

“Hello, Ginger,” Carter said, letting the dog scrutinize his fingers. “Does Ginger know any tricks?”

Lupe shook her head. “She might roll over, but only if she wants to.”

“Ginger! Roll over!” Carter commanded. He made encouraging motions with his fingers, but Ginger paid no attention. The Juarez girls laughed. “Roll over!” he barked. It was like addressing a friendly and puzzled wall. Ginger sniffed at his shoes, and licked Marissa on the chin as she tucked her legs under her and sat on the rug.

“You aren’t particularly a dog trainer,” Marissa observed.

“If you think that’s bad, in just a few hours, I have to make friends with a lion.”

Lupe said something to Marissa, covering her mouth.

Carter asked, “Is that Portuguese?”

“Pardon me?” Marissa asked.

“The language you were just speaking? Portuguese?”

“No,” Marissa said.

“What other languages do they speak in Brazil?” Carter asked with honest curiosity, but as the words left his mouth, he knew that neither girl had the first idea what Brazilians spoke.

“They speak many languages,” Lupe said, looking at her older sister. “All kinds. French and German, for example.” Lupe looked at Marissa. “May I tell?”

“No. Well, I’m unsure.” Marissa looked toward the staircase, as if someone might be listening. Then she whispered to Carter, “We aren’t actually from Brazil.”

Carter nodded. “Where are you from?”

“We were raised in Texas.”

“I’ve played Texas,” he said.

Marissa looked at Carter. “We’re—” She hesitated long enough to see if she could trust him. “We’re Comanches.”

“That’s why we dislike that Mysterioso. That warpaint!” Lupe exclaimed.

“And the Alamo?” Marissa looked disgusted.

“There weren’t
Indians
at the
Alamo
,” Lupe declared with the indignation of a girl who had recently learned this herself.

“Please don’t tell Jessie we told you about us,” Marissa whispered. She took Carter’s hand. “Thank you for taking over as headliner.” She kissed him softly on the cheek, her breath smelling of peppermints.

Lupe kissed Carter on the other cheek, and also said, “Thank you.”

“When I take over the act, we won’t have that Indian business,” Carter said. “It lacks dramatic unity.” Marissa was looking into his eyes, and she put her hand on the back of his head. “Illusions must have dramatic unity,” Carter continued stupidly as Lupe kissed his hands.

“You have rather strong hands,” Lupe whispered.

Marissa opened her mouth. Her lips were full, and the moment they parted, they commanded Carter’s complete attention. “My sister and I,” she said, kissing Carter again, “are grateful to you.” Her teeth grazed his earlobe.

“Yes . . . you’re welcome . . .” He could have jumped through his skin. His arms were full of two girls. They laughed as they pushed him down on the couch. His act seemed a hundred thousand miles away. He
was drowning in their smells, silk and peppermint and perfumes distilled in France, smells of berries and apricots and tangerines.

Marissa put Carter’s left hand at the top of her stocking; Lupe did the same for his right. He could barely breathe.