Found in the Street (13 page)

Ralph was suddenly beside the glass-enclosed terrace of the café-restaurant near Sheridan Square, hesitating. The newsstand by the subway entrance was nearby, the man there knew him.

“Hey, you!” The girl suddenly reappeared in front of him, a figure of lipstick, long hair that was plainly a wig, powder-pale face, under a garment that might have been a curtain or a counterpane. “Lay off Elsie, if you know what's good for you!—Got the idea now?”

“You tell 'im, Marion!” yelled one of the boys.

The boy with the make-up spat at Ralph and missed him. Naturally, no passerby did a thing to help. A couple of men and a woman only glanced from the unruly trio to Ralph and back again.

Ralph turned to the newspaper man. “I'll take a—”

“Y'bought your
Times,
sir,” said the man in the kiosk. “Hey! Snazzy coat you're wearing today!”

Ralph turned. The light was red, he could cross. Was even the newsstand man, whom he hardly knew—was he mocking him too? Ralph went into United Cigars, a corner place where he never went. It was triangularly shaped to fit the corner, and smelt of sweetish tobacco, chocolate bars. Ralph stared at racks of paperbacks. The trio was not coming in. He dared to relax a little. There were other customers in the shop, so Ralph did not feel conspicuous. He stared at a horizontal display of magazines, then strolled to the door, through whose glass top half he could see. He thought they were gone. He
thought
—remembering the last time, when he had crossed Sixth Avenue and found them confronting him.

Ralph at last went out briskly, turned into Christopher Street and went on toward Bleecker. True, they were not following him. They'd given it up, it seemed. No cries sounded behind him as he reached Bleecker and crossed the street toward his house, reaching already for his keys.

Upstairs, he felt suffocated with a vague shame that sat more heavily on him than his anger. Worst was the memory of
Elsie,
of her amused and heartless smile, her departure, leaving him to his fate at the hands of those hooligans.

Those hooligans were her friends, he reminded himself. Horrid, horrid and wrong!

Once more Ralph undid the buttons of his overcoat, put it onto a hanger, then brushed the shoulders with a clothesbrush, brushed down the arms where those boys had touched the coat. For all Elsie had noticed the coat, he thought, he might not have had it on at all, might have worn his old soiled-looking gray tweed.

“Wretched, wretched, wretched!” Ralph said to himself between clenched teeth.

16

On a Wednesday in December, Jack's six complimentary copies of
Half-Understood Dreams
arrived, with a congratulatory note, short but nice, from Trews. The jacket front was his drawing of the businessman father in the family, seated at his desk with an arm flung across his eyes, while a trio of figures, perhaps mama and papa and some unholy ghost, gazed at him with disapproval. All the figures were greenish, the title was in black script done with a brush in freehand. He flipped through one copy and felt a thrill of pleasure, and even pride. It was his first book. And about time, Jack thought, since he was thirty.

Joel MacPherson had collapsed about a week ago, Jack remembered, and smiled. Joel had telephoned to say that he had collapsed from Angst about
Dreams,
and was taking a few days off from work, at least four days, on doctor's orders. Dartmoor, Aegis was giving a little drinks party this coming Friday for
Dreams,
and Jack and Joel, Natalia and “some media people” and Trews were lunching together afterward.

This was the same week that Natalia had had a coffee with Elsie. Natalia's impression of her had been different from what Jack had expected. Natalia had found her extremely ambitious, and said that they had spent more time talking about the theatre and art exhibitions and painters than they had about Linderman.

“She loves the Guggenheim. And Kandinsky! She's trying to take in all of New York in one gulp—and she's had only a highschool education, you know? I suppose it's admirable—if it lasts.”

Natalia had been staring at her closet as she spoke, pulling out things that had to go to the cleaners. Jack had to pry out of her what she had concluded about the Linderman situation.

“Oh, he'll surely knock it off,” Natalia said. “He's just a lonely old bachelor who likes to look at pretty girls.”

“Yeah. I'm sure he's lonely,” Jack said.

The question of speaking to the police about Linderman evidently hadn't come up, and Jack didn't mention it. Then later the same day, Natalia said:

“I asked Elsie if she wanted to come to Louis' party and she said she'd love to. Louis' Christmas do next week, you know?”

Jack smiled, surprised. “Elsie's coming. Good.” It was funny to imagine Elsie in Louis' quietly swank apartment, among Louis' decidedly quiet chums.

“Elsie asked if she could bring a girl called Genevieve with her. I'll tell Louis. He always likes new faces.”

The Dartmoor, Aegis party took place in Trews' big square office whose windows overlooked the East River. There were eighteen or twenty people, some of them other editors of the house, who came in for a minute to shake hands with Jack and Joel. Joel had recovered, though he looked a bit pale. Trews had said to Jack, “Bring your child. It's a girl, isn't it? The press likes to see a family man.'' So the Sutherlands had brought Amelia, along with Susanne so that Susanne could take Amelia home before the lunch. Natalia circulated smoothly. For this sort of thing she was schooled, and Jack knew that when he next talked to her, she would be able to tell him who was important and who wasn't among the men and women she had spoken with.

“Do you have analytic dreams yourself, Mr. Sutherland?” a journalist asked Jack.

Amelia, as if she were in her own house, was passing plates of canapés around, a feat the others found amusing and Jack pretended not to see. Jack and Joel signed several copies together, one with a special greeting to Trews. Out of that day, Jack and Joel netted one brief radio interview, which was taped in another room before lunch, but no television spot. Jack had not expected a TV offer, nor had Trews, though Trews said he had tried.

Louis Wannfeld had strung red and green crepe paper streamers from the four corners of his living-room ceiling for his party. “An old-fashioned touch, I thought,” Louis said. It was the only sign of Christmas, except for a long fir branch on the white­clothed table that held bottles and glasses and plates of caviar and olives and the like.

Isabel Katz was present, of course, as was Sylvia Kinnock who had brought a willowy boy named Ray, who Sylvia said was a dancer with the New York City Ballet. Even Max and Elaine Armstrong had been invited, though they were not close friends of Louis' or of Louis' friend Bob Campbell. There were lots of people Jack had never seen before, presumably friends of Bob's, and there seemed to be as many women as men. Louis, looking almost formally dressed in a royal blue silk suit, white shirt, and black patent leather slippers, pointed out to Jack the bottle of Jack Daniel's on the buffet table.

Jack was grateful and touched. “How's Bob?”

“Oh, he's—over there,” Louis said, not having heard Jack correctly in the noise of conversation. “On the sofa.”

One thing about Louis' parties, Jack thought as he moved off with his drink, the oddest assortment of people mixed; and all seemed to enjoy themselves. The size of the living-room helped. No one had to stay in one place all evening. Sylvia's boyfriend or boy companion looked as thin as a rail, and it was hard for Jack to imagine him with the leg strength to be a dancer. Pipe-stem legs in narrow black trousers. Pipe-cleaner legs, even.

“Oh, Mr. Sutherland, I saw your book!” said a sturdy young woman whom Jack didn't know from Adam or Eve. “I know it's a joint effort, but the drawings will sell it first. They're funny and they also haunt you—and scare you. Maybe not you but
me
!” She laughed.

Jack nodded. “Haven't seen any reviews as yet.”

“You will. I work for the
Post.
Hazel Zelling's my name. I just met your wife and she pointed you out to me. I wrote something favorable about it today, but it won't appear for a couple of days.”

“Thanks,” said Jack, smiling.

It was more comfortable talking to Isabel and the Armstrongs. Susanne had brought a copy of
Dreams
to the Armstrongs' house, and they thanked Jack for it and for what he had written in it.

“Here's to
Dreams
!”
Max lifted his glass.

“I'm sick of it already,'' Jack said. He was thinking of the copies he had sent off to his Uncle Roger and to his father, one each. He wondered if he would ever hear what his father thought of it? “Where's Bob?” Jack said softly to Isabel. “I'm always forgetting what he looks like, and I wanted to say hello to him.”

“The plump bald one on the sofa over there,” said Isabel with a smile. “With the glasses.”

Of course. Jack recalled him now, a little less bald than Louis, gregarious and talkative, and apparently in the middle of a story now, grinning and gesticulating. Small wonder that he and Louis had been together for an uncountable number of years. Bob looked like the type who would understand and forgive everything. Jack advanced.

Jack never got to Bob, because Natalia pinched his jacket sleeve and said, “Go say hello to your friend.”

Jack had glanced around earlier for Elsie, and here she was suddenly in the middle of the room, and Louis was bending attentively over her. She wore a black satin evening dress, slit to mid-thigh. Louis was smiling broadly, beaming with hospitality. Elsie put her blond head back and laughed. She looked extremely pretty. And eye-catching.

“Hi, Elsie,” Jack said. “I see you've met your host.”

“What may I get this young lady to drink?” Louis asked.

“Good evening, Mr. Sutherland,” Elsie said. “And this is my—”

“F'gosh sake, call me Jack, Elsie.”

“—my friend Genevieve,” Elsie said, gesturing with a black­gloved hand toward a young woman in yellow with long and slightly wavy red hair.

Jack and Louis took the girls to the drinks table. Elsie wanted tomato juice, which Louis had in a big pitcher. Genevieve was only medium pretty and looked like a bore, Jack thought. Her hair was the color of baked sweet potato. Could that be real? He wished he could get colors out of his mind tonight, because they jolted him like noises.

“Isn't Natalia here?” asked Elsie.

“Right here,” Jack said, seeing Natalia two steps away behind Elsie, watching them.

The Armstrongs had drifted up, and Jack did the introducing. “. . . and Genevieve—”

“Perusky,” Elsie supplied, plainly making an effort to be polite and to do the right thing tonight.

Jack didn't bother repeating Genevieve's last name. Max and Elaine were looking at Elsie. Elsie had some kind of grease on her hair, streaks of pink rouge on her cheeks, very red lipstick. Anyway, she was spectacularly attractive tonight, and her energy or anima, or whatever it was, radiated from her even when she stood still.

“Sit down?” somebody said.

Nobody did. Elsie and Genevieve did not stay together, yet they were never far apart. Elsie went near the big east windows, standing straight, very cool looking. Her greased hair had begun to look chic to Jack.

“Do you know that girl? Or does Natalia?” asked Max Armstrong.

“We both do. She's—” Jack hesitated. “She's one of our neighbours.”

“Awfully pretty. Is she a model?”

“I think she's aiming to be an actress. She's just twenty.”

Max smiled a little. “I'd have thought even younger.”

Jack heard faint harpsichord music, and straining his ears, he could just identify it as the Goldberg Variations. Typical of Louis or even Bob to put on a cassette of Bach. Later, during or after the major eats, someone would put on rock and there would be some dancing. Louis had rolled his rugs back.

“I thought this was a formal party,” Elsie's voice said nearby in an uncharacteristically shy tone.

Elsie had said this to Natalia, Jack saw. Natalia shrugged and replied something that Jack couldn't hear.

“Hey, Jack, I just had an idea.” This was Joel at his side, bright-eyed and gesturing. “Double lives, some real, some imagined. People who have
real
second families, second jobs in other towns. A bank director could be a thief in his spare time!—Does it sound promising?”

Jack winced. “No. To tell you the truth.”

Joel's face fell, then Jack laughed, and so did Joel. “Okay,” said Joel, and drifted off.

Joel wasn't hurt, Jack knew. They had known each other too long, had had similar exchanges too often. Joel would torture himself by wanting to quit his job, and not quit it, by dreaming of a different life that he thought he wanted, but perhaps didn't want. And out of this might come a few more good ideas.

When Jack next saw Elsie, she was sitting on an arm of the sofa and Louis was standing beside her. Louis extended a hand, Elsie took it, and they crossed the room and disappeared down a hall.

People were starting on the buffet, and Jack joined them. He saw the yellow-clad, red-haired Genevieve near him with an empty plate, looking a bit lost.

“Like some of this?” Jack asked her, because he had a slice of turkey on a fork just then. He laid it on Genevieve's plate. “Are you an actress?” He didn't know what to say to Genevieve.

“No. I sell cosmetics. At Macy's.”

“Oh.” She was a bit loaded with cosmetics herself, bluey-green eyeshadow, brick-red nails. Her yellow dress, tightly belted and resembling in front the back of an Arab's pants, must be one of the ones he had glimpsed in that closet on Minetta Street. Did Genevieve know that he had been in that apartment for a few minutes? “And how's the old guy these days? Ralph?”

The vagueness suddenly vanished from Genevieve's eyes. “Oh,
that's
a little better! Did Elsie tell you she and a couple of her friends scared the—scared him so, he ran off? They chased him up Sixth. He'd been hanging around in front of our house.”

Jack grinned. “Chased him. Good!—You mean he's staying away now.”

“Well, since that day. Of course he can still turn up at Viv's.”

“Viv's?”

“The coffee shop where Elsie works.”

Jack nodded. “So you didn't talk to the police?”

“We decided against it. The less you have to do with the police—If they started investigating some of
our
friends—They are our friends, but I'm not sure the police would like them.''

Jack nodded understandingly. “Your friend Elsie's making quite a hit tonight.”

“Doesn't she look great? I dunno how she does it on no sleep. Last night—well, maybe two hours. And she's got to work Sunday to make up for tonight she's taking off.”

“What was she doing last night?”

“SoHo. Oh—” Genevieve shook her head and the red tresses stirred a little. “Some new nightspot. Guitar music.—1 can't take the late hours, because I have to be at work by eight-thirty and not half asleep either. But then I'm three years older than Elsie.—You've been very nice to Elsie. You and your wife. She likes you both.”

Jack bowed. “It's been a pleasure.” He was ready to drift away, and he thought this a good time.

“And what did you glean from Genevieve?” Natalia asked Jack a couple of minutes later.

“She works at Macy's in the cosmetics department.”

Natalia smiled, lips closed. “I knew that.—Elsie's doing all right for herself tonight. Louis thinks she's divine.”

He and Natalia left early, because Susanne wanted to go back to her family's apartment tonight. Elsie was staying on, and when they left was sitting on the arm of a big chair, surrounded by Louis, Sylvia and her friend Ray, and also Isabel. In the taxi going homeward, Natalia said Elsie had wanted to see more of Louis' paintings and drawings, so Louis had taken her into the hall and the two bedrooms. Louis had a Goya of which he was very proud, Jack remembered.

“Pity Elsie's friend's such a drip,” Jack said in the taxi.

“Isn't she.—Did Elsie give you one of those flyers about the guitarist?”

“No.”

“I'll show you at home. A girl guitarist Elsie thinks is pretty good. Named Marion. Elsie wants us to go hear her. Some bar in SoHo.”