Jack and Susan in 1953 (3 page)

Libby didn't even glance at the other gambling tables as she made a beeline for the roulette wheel, Jack tagging behind.

As they made their way across the room, Libby abstractedly reached into her pocketbook and brought out a small wallet. “This is all I have,” she said with a hasty sigh, as if she were too busy to spare a longer one. “Jack, be a darling, please, and go get me some chips.”

Jack looked around, and Libby—who didn't appear to have noticed anything in the room except the roulette wheel—pointed toward the opposite corner with exasperation. “Over there, you silly,” she said impatiently. “Over
there
.”

Over there
consisted of a tiny, dark triangular booth half hidden behind a screen in one corner of the room. In it sat a man in a tuxedo whose eyes were so heavy-lidded he appeared not to have slept for days.

Jack put the money on the counter, and said, “Chips please.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, what?” asked Jack. Jack had just decided that he didn't like this place, and when Jack Beaumont didn't like a thing, his voice became short and surly. It was sometimes a disadvantage not to be able to disguise his feelings, and Jack had scars to prove it.

“Yeah what kind of chips. Fi'-dollar chips, ten-dollar chips, hunnert-dollar chips, or what—what kind of chips I'm asking is what I'm asking.”

“Five-dollar chips,” said Jack. He objected to the obvious illegality of the operation and distrusted the aspect of the men who were hired to run it. But most of all, he was forced to admit, he didn't like the fact that it was Susan Bright's companion who had brought them there.

As it happened, Libby Mather was further indebted to Mr. García-Cifuentes for an introduction to the roulette croupier, and was standing quite close to Rodolfo at the edge of the table, anxiously awaiting the arrival of her chips. “You are so slow, it makes me furious,” Libby complained as Jack approached. “I could have made five hundred dollars in the last ninety seconds. How much are these worth? How much money did I give you?”

“These are five-dollar chips, and you gave me two hundred dollars,” said Jack. “Why on earth do you carry around so much money, Libby?”

“In case I'm asked to elope,” returned Libby archly, “I want to make sure I have decent shoes for the wedding.” She lurched forward and placed ten of her chips, which were red, on black.

Though he had not gone to the cage in the corner, Rodolfo had chips as well, and Jack wondered for a moment where he might have gotten them. Was he such an habitué of this Mr. Vance's establishment that he carried them about in his pocket at all times? Rodolfo was working with ten-dollar chips and was betting on even, as well as directly on the number twenty-seven.

Jack stood behind Libby and was watching as the croupier spun the wheel in one direction and snapped the small white ball into its trough, sending it around in the opposite direction. “It's very bad luck to have someone standing over your shoulder at a roulette wheel,” Libby said severely.

“I just thought I'd watch and see how it works,” Jack returned mildly.

“I'll buy you a book,” said Libby. “I don't have time to teach you. Now go away. Rodolfo,” she went on in a whisper, “ask the croupier how the table's been going tonight. Has it been running black or red?”

Jack backed off, and headed for the bar that ran down one long side of the room. Susan was seated on a stool at one end, looking a little self-conscious, as women sitting at bars alone often did in 1953.

“Rum Collins,” Jack told the barman. With the memory of how he and Susan had parted four years before, it was with some apprehension that Jack turned to her and remarked, with as much inconsequence as he could muster, “We've both been abandoned, it appears.”

“I haven't been abandoned,” said Susan. “I just have no interest in gambling. Of course, I had no idea that Libby was so…”

“Yes?” Jack prompted. For the first time Jack could smell the perfume Susan was wearing. It startled him. Lilacs.

“…enthusiastic,” said Susan. “About roulette.”

“I didn't know either,” returned Jack. “Has Rodolfo brought you to this place before?” He looked about with an air of unsettled mistrust.
What was that perfume called?

“I've never been here,” said Susan. There was an evasiveness about her answer that piqued Jack's interest.

“At the restaurant,” he said, “you did look surprised when Rodolfo mentioned it.”
Duchess of York. White lilacs. He'd bought Susan Duchess of York perfume their last Christmas together. She was still wearing it—but for another man. Very annoying.

Susan paused only a moment before answering. “Rodolfo hasn't been in New York long. I'm always surprised how well he can find his way around. It takes most people years.”

“You've been showing him about?” asked Jack with a pleasant smile.

“Rodolfo is a friend of the family,” replied Susan shortly. Then, with a smile as pleasant as Jack's had been, she remarked, “You know I was a little surprised to see you at the restaurant with Libby.”

“Really?” said Jack. “What was so surprising about it?”

“Well,” said Susan, “I had heard that you'd married a New Orleans demimondaine and that she attacked you at the reception with a cake knife when she found out that you'd made her maid of honor pregnant.”

“Sorry,” Jack replied after a moment, swallowing his anger to see what it would turn into. It turned into quiet sarcasm. “It wasn't quite like that. I'd gotten the bride's
mother
pregnant.” Jack lifted his head and rubbed his neck with two fingers.

At this meeting, their first in four years, Susan could have been coldly polite and distant, to indicate how little she cared for him now. Instead, she chose an undisguised attack, showing that her animosity was still very much alive. That was interesting, Jack decided, but he couldn't make any more out of it than that. Susan shook her head. “Isn't it strange how the truth gets distorted?” Susan briefly pondered whether she should jump down off the barstool and stalk away. Jack's mistrust of Rodolfo was apparent. His questioning of her was rude, and he ought to be punished. But if she did jump down, and in the process manage to land with her spike heel on Jack's foot, where in the room would she go? She stayed where she was.

“Yes,” said Jack. “It is strange what passes for truth these days. For instance, I'd heard that you'd married a senator's son and moved to Washington, but that he'd abandoned you for a Brooklyn laundress. I felt so bad I nearly wrote to you. I wouldn't have believed it to be true, but so many people came to me with the story…”

“No,” said Susan, looking into her glass, nearly empty. “I haven't accepted any proposals of marriage lately.” She waved to Rodolfo across the room.

“And I haven't made any.” Jack smiled in the direction of distant Libby. “Not this week anyway.”

Susan Bright signaled the bartender for another drink. “And I wouldn't either, if I were you. At least not till you've learned to take a little better care of yourself. Has that suit been pressed in the last year? Or
cleaned
?” she added, peering at the spot on the front. “I see your hair has continued to recede. Have you considered the advantages of a toupee?” Susan knew she was touching a sensitive point. Jack had straight brown hair that he combed straight back. Now that his hair was thinning in front, his forehead—always high, broad, and unlined—seemed even higher and broader. But that brow lent him a certain nobility of expression and a suggestion of intellect—at least when he was in repose. His face was sculpted, with a sharply defined jaw and high cheekbones, giving him an enormous expanse of shaven cheek. Susan had always thought him handsome, but she knew that Jack had always felt his features were too angular. Though, so far as Susan was concerned, the features of a man's face could never be
too
distinctly defined. “Or perhaps,” she went on, “you're just worrying too much about what it would be like to be married to a margarine heiress…”

Jack suddenly stood up straight. He cast a cold eye on Susan. “The intervening years haven't dulled your tongue. Don't start in on Libby, and I won't say anything against Señor García-Cifuentes.”

“I can't imagine what you
could
say against Rodolfo. Sometimes I think he's the only
real
man I've ever met.” She looked at Jack meaningfully.

“I have nothing to say against Rodolfo personally,” said Jack, paying no attention to the insult, “but I have been wondering about his friends. Do they all have such heavy jowls? And such dark beards? And smell of bay rum? And carry guns?” Jack nodded around the room, at the doorman, the croupiers, and the tuxedoed ladder men perched on their platforms like overfed penguin lifeguards.

“These aren't Rodolfo's
friends
,” said Susan. “Rodolfo just knows them. Rodolfo likes to gamble—all Cubans do, I'm told. He told me his entire Harvard education was paid for by his mother on a winning lottery ticket—you know, the Havana lottery.”

“I don't remember him from Harvard,” said Jack. “And since we seem to be about the same age, we would have been there about the same time. Are you certain—”

“Neither Rodolfo nor I can be responsible for your memory, Jack, any more than we can be responsible for your extraordinarily peculiar taste in female companions. Libby has one of the most—”

Susan left off abruptly, and for a woman who never blushed, she came very near it at that moment. Jack turned to see what had interrupted her, and found Rodolfo standing directly behind him. Jack wondered for a moment how long the Cuban had been there, but if he'd heard any of the conversation, he gave no indication. He said, “Mr. Beaumont, I think you'd better see to Miss Mather. She's…”

Jack immediately moved away from the bar to a position that gave him a clear view of the roulette wheel. But even before he could see Libby, he heard her voice, strident as only Libby's could be: “That's the fourth time in a row! That doesn't—”

Jack moved toward Libby and, glancing back over his shoulder, saw Rodolfo and Susan conferring. In seconds, Jack reached the roulette table. As before, perhaps a dozen persons were gathered around. The ball was spinning, but not a single bet had been placed on the board.

Libby spoke loudly. “I'm not betting. And I'd advise everybody else here not to bet.”

“Make yer bets,” said the croupier. “Make yer bets, please, ladies an' gen'men.”

“Don't,” Libby advised the company airily. “That's four times in a row that the zeros have come up.
Four times
.”

Jack reached her side. “Libby,” he said quietly, “what's the matter? I could hear you all the way across the room.”

“Then you know what the matter is,” she said. “The matter is that I've only got two damn chips left because this wheel has landed on zero or double zero four times in a row, and it's fine for me because that was mad money for my possible elopement and nobody's made any proposals of marriage
yet
tonight, but these other people are losing lots more money than I am—”

“Lady,” said a harsh masculine voice. “Lady, why don'tcha shut up? Why don'tcha take yer goddamn two chips and stick 'em where the sunlight won't fade 'em? Wouldja do that for everybody?”

Libby was about to retort, but just at that moment, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the tiny white ball bounce down onto the wheel. Grimly she turned and watched. “It's going to do it again. I know it is. You wait, Jack. Here it comes…”

The fuss Libby had created had attracted gamblers from the other tables, and they gathered around now, watching with bated breath as the ball came to rest…

At double zero.

“I told you!” cried Libby triumphantly, as the red-faced croupier raked in all the chips. No one had bet on double zero, so the house cleared the table. “Five times now! I'm sure that's never happened before—anywhere. It would
never
happen in Monte Carlo, because in Monte Carlo,” she explained for those around the table who just might not be apprised of the fact, “gambling is legal. It's government-controlled. The tables in Monte Carlo are
honest
.”

“Libby—” Jack began, with a strong note of caution in his voice. He glanced around and saw that Rodolfo and Susan were now standing a few feet away. Rodolfo's expression was apprehensive. Jack glanced up at the nearest ladder man. He was a fat, greasy-looking man with slick hair. He was now awkwardly climbing down from his lacquered perch, saying, “Lady, listen, you got some—”

“Do it again, I dare you!” cried Libby at the croupier. “You watch,” she said to the assembled crowd, “everybody watch what I'm doing. I have two chips left, and I'm putting one on zero and the other on double zero, and see if I don't win. I'd advise everybody in this room to put their chips on zero or double zero.”

“Place your bets,” said the croupier weakly, grasping the small pointed spire in the middle of the wheel and spinning it. He hesitated a moment before snapping the ball into motion in its trough, but did so when the ladder man cried out, “Go on, goddamnit!” As the ball spun around and around, several persons who had been hesitating placed their bets alongside Libby's meager chips.

Libby had squeezed in right next to the croupier, and grasping the edge of the roulette table, was feeling around underneath it with her foot. The croupier tried to nudge her out of the way, but Libby held her ground. “See,” she said to the crowd, “they have these buttons on the floor and when they step on them the ball falls in zero or double zero. That's what they do, that's what they did in here tonight, five times. It's like loaded dice, and—”