The Man Who Cancelled Himself (39 page)

“I told you—I’m not like other men.”

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that.” She gave me an approving once-over. “You look awfully nice in evening clothes.”

“You look awfully nice, period. Too bad you don’t have green eyes.”

She frowned. “But I do have green eyes.”

“That’s right, you do.” I smiled at her.

She got busy with caviar and toast, reddening. “I wasn’t sure whether you really wanted me to come or not,” she said, after taking a delicate bite and swallowing it. “And if so, when? Tonight? Tomorrow night? I didn’t know.”

“Why did you come tonight?”

“It so happens I wasn’t in the greatest of spirits myself. And I thought your invitation might have something to do with Lyle.”

“What about Lyle?”

“Does it?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Good.” She smiled at me. “Actually, I thought I scared you off before with all of that talk about Wisconsin and cookies and soccer practice. That’s … not really what I’m after. Not right now, anyway.”

“What are you after right now?”

She didn’t answer that one. Just gazed at me steadily. I gazed back at her.

And then Bobby took over. He’ll do that. Slammed into his untemp rendition of Gershwin’s “I’ve Got a Crush on You.” Then kept right on going with “Street of Dreams” and “Body and Soul.” He sounded especially good that night. Marjorie listened to him with intense concentration, her lips pursed, eyes half shut, hands folded neatly before her on the table. Her shoulders swayed slightly to the beat. I liked the way she listened.

After he finished off with “As Time Goes By,” she took a sip of her champagne and said, “Okay, you win.”

“In what way?” I asked, ordering us another bottle.

“Harry Connick, Jr., is strictly pretend. Bobby Short is for real.” She looked around the room admiringly. “Actually, it’s not just him. This whole place—it’s like going back in time and finding it to be exactly how you imagined it would be. I like it here, Hoagy.”

“Good. I was going to ditch you if you didn’t.”

Her eyes searched my face over her glass. “You used to come here with her, didn’t you?”

I nodded. “It’s true. Lulu and I have spent many evenings here.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know it’s not.”

She looked away. “I’m in the middle of reading
Such Sweet Sorrow.
…”

My second one, about the poisoned marriage between a famous writer and a famous actress. Partly autobiographical. And totally a bust. “It’s a rich novel. There’s something in there for everyone to dislike.”

“Well, I’m really enjoying it. I mean it. You’re a brilliant writer, Hoagy.”

“Correction—I was.”

“What happened?”

“If I knew that, I’d still be brilliant.” I helped myself to some more caviar. “I’m surprised you were able to find a copy of it.”

“My secretary called your publisher.”

“They’re still in business?”

“How much of it is reality and how much is fiction?”

“You make it sound like there’s a difference.”

“Are you always so sarcastic?”

“Only when I’m in a bad mood.”

“And when you’re in a good mood?”

“I’m still not a very good deal. For one thing, there’s this whopping excess baggage allowance to consider.”

She stared at me some more. “You’re not over her, are you.” It wasn’t a question.

I sipped my champagne. “I’d like to be.”

“But you’re not.”

“I’d like to be.”

“Why did you call me tonight, Hoagy?” she asked gravely.

“I’ve never had a woman bake me a pie before. It did something strange to me. What did you put in it, anyway?”

She was having none of that. She wanted a serious answer. And she was willing to sit there gazing at me, until I gave her one.

“I called you tonight because I was alone. And I didn’t want to be.”

She gave me a knowing nod. “And right away you thought of good old Marjorie.” A bitter edge crept into her voice. “Because she happens to live right around the corner, and because she happens to be so excruciatingly available. Decent figure. Good legs—”

“Great legs.”

“So you figured—go for it. Maybe you’ll get lucky. Does that about cover it?”

I tugged at my ear. “I’m just trying to get back to basics, Marjorie.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m looking for someone I can trust.”

“No, you’re not,” she argued. “You’re looking for someone you can lay.” She shook her head at me angrily. “I was wrong about you. You’re
exactly
like other men.” She reached for her scarf, slid out of the banquette, and stalked out.

I sat there for a moment, staring at my glass and thinking about how Lulu was starting to look better and better as a late-night companion. Then I threw down some money and went after her.

She was two blocks down Madison by the time I caught up with her, her stride long and purposeful. She wouldn’t stop when I called to her.

“Will you please hold up a second?” I asked, grabbing her by the arm.

She yanked free from my grasp. “Why should I?” She sniffled. She’d been crying.

I handed her a fresh linen handkerchief. She used it, shivering slightly. The breeze had picked up, turning the night air blessedly clear and crisp.

“There’s something I wanted to ask you.” I glanced skyward. It was so clear I could see stars. You rarely can in Manhattan during the summer. “Would this be an Alberta Clipper?”

She let out a short, humorless laugh. “I
don’t
want to talk about the weather.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t want to talk at all.”

“What do you want to do?”

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to say anything. Not the way she was looking at me.

We hurled ourselves at each other. There was nothing tender or sweet about it. No violins. No cherubs. Just two lonely, love-whipped people clamped hungrily together there on Madison Avenue, trying to devour one another. Some kids passing us in a Saab convertible broke out in applause.

She came up for air first. “I—I don’t know what I’m doing,” she gasped, holding my face between her hands.

“That’s okay,” I panted. “I’m a grown man—I don’t know what I’m doing either.”

“But it doesn’t make any sense,” she protested, halfheartedly.

“Now you’re catching on.”

We kissed some more. A tiny bit gentler, though not a whole lot. Before she took my hand and said, “Let’s go back to my place. I want to make love to you.” She got quite specific about how she intended to do it, too. A blow by blow description, as it were. Things I couldn’t imagine her learning about in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. Or in network programming. Maybe she picked them up from Lyle.

Now there was a horrifying thought.

It was past one, and there were no cabs in sight. We walked down to Seventy-second Street in hopes of catching one speeding crosstown. We waited in the street across from Castle Ralph, the retail monument Sir Ralph Lauren built to himself. I didn’t mind the wait. Her lips were on my neck. “One of those big new Chevy Caprices, the ones that look like baby whales, finally came cruising by us from the park, heading east. I hailed him. He blinked on his brights in response, then turned around and started back toward us. I extended my right arm. Quaint old custom. An old-time cabbie once taught me that a true pro will pull up so that his fare doesn’t have to move that arm an inch to open the passenger door handle. You don’t find many drivers that good anymore. These days they overshoot you, or stop short of you. These days they make you come to them. Our baby whale driver didn’t even slow down at all.

He speeded up. Floored it. Came roaring right at us with his brights on as we stood there in the middle of the street. And he wasn’t stopping. That wasn’t his plan at all. He was going to run us over. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that we barely had time to realize that we were dead. I froze. Marjorie screamed. Then I pushed her.

A
LL WE HAD WAS
a split second. No time to think. Only time to survive. Or to try. The way any living, breathing animal would instinctively try. I shoved Marjorie as hard as I could toward the curb. Then I dove the other way, into the middle of the street. He came barreling right between us like a big yellow four-door bowling ball, missing us both. He screeched to a halt, jammed it into reverse. He had me. I was a dead duck out there in the street, flat on my stomach. But we weren’t alone now. There were a couple of pedestrians on Madison. Cars had stopped at the signal. Witnesses, all of them. So he took off toward the park instead, burning rubber all the way. I managed to get his medallion number before he disappeared into the night. Then I struggled to my feet.

Marjorie was sprawled in the gutter, smeared head to foot with some of New York City’s filthiest, blackest wetness. She was scraped up pretty badly, too. Her knees bled through her torn stockings.

“You okay?” I asked her.

She nodded, her eyes wide with fright.

I helped her to her feet. She trembled, leaning on me heavily. Me, I had no one to lean on.

“D-Do you believe that asshole?” she gulped. “What was he trying to do?”

“Kill us,” I replied simply. Or, more exactly, one of us—me. It hadn’t been my nerves. Someone had been measuring me when I was on Hudson Street earlier that evening. Waiting for the right time and place. He’d found it, too. Almost.

She was staring at me. “Are you serious?”

“I am.” I dusted off my knees. My trousers were torn. Morris Kanter, my tailor, would have a small fit. “You may find this difficult to believe, Marjorie, but not everyone likes me.”

She let out a laugh. Relief, mostly. “You saved my life, Hoagy.”

“I would have done it for anyone—except maybe Oliver Stone.” One of her shoes was out in the street, smashed flat. I went and got it for her. Staring at it in her hand, she began to tremble. I said, “C’mon, we’ll get you checked out over at Lenox Hill.”

“No, no. I’m really fine.” She looked down at her besmirched and bloodied self. “All I want to do is get into the shower—and burn these clothes.”

I hailed us another cab. This one overshot my outstretched arm by ten feet. But at least he didn’t try to flatten us.

Marjorie headed straight for the bathroom when we got to her place. I headed straight for the liquor cabinet. It was in the cupboard over her refrigerator. One bottle of everything, most of them full, most of them good brands. It was as if she’d read a book on how to stock a bar. No problem finding the Courvoisier—the bottles were arranged alphabetically. So were the spices in her spice rack. Her kitchen was as bare and devoid of personality as the rest of her apartment. No snapshots of her college roommate’s new baby stuck to the refrigerator door. No wall calendar with engagements and family birthdays marked on it. No lists, no coupons, no gaily colored oven mitts, no nothing. I found two glasses and poured out two stiff brandies and drank them both. Then I refilled them and took them out to the living room. The phone was on the floor next to the sofa. I sat and phoned Very at home and woke him up.

“Whoa, you’re getting close, dude,” he concluded, instantly alert. “Must be you struck a nerve.”

“I sure wish I knew which nerve.”

He took down the medallion number of the cab—5P77—and said he’d phone it in. He said that the letter, being high up in the alphabet, meant it had been a fleet cab, rather than an owner-operated one.

“Driver must have been watching the Carlyle, waiting for you to come out,” he mused aloud. “You didn’t see who it was?”

“He had his brights on.”

“What makes you so sure it was a he?” he demanded.

“Touché, Lieutenant. It could have been a woman.”

“Was there anyone else in the cab? A fare?”

“I don’t believe so. I think the driver was alone.”

“And what about you, dude?”

“What about me?”

“Were you alone?”

“I was not.”

“Marjorie Daw, am I right? I
am
right.” He chuckled, immensely pleased with himself. “Way cool. At least we can cross her off our list of suspects now.”

I glanced at the hallway. She was still in the shower. “Yes, I suppose we can.”

“Where are you, dude?”

“Her place.”

“Want protection?”

“No, I think I can handle her.”

“Yo, I meant—”

“I know what you meant, Lieutenant. And I’ll be okay.”

“Cool. I’ll come by the studio in the morning. See if you can stay out of trouble until then.”

“What’s your second choice?”

He laughed. “Dude?”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Enjoy.”

I hung up and drained my brandy. She came out a moment later, scrubbed all clean and pink, her cropped blond hair slicked back, smelling of almond bath oil. She had on a sparkling white terry cloth robe. Her long, slender feet were bare. Her raw knees still oozed blood. She was clutching antibiotic ointment and bandages.

She limped slightly as she made her way over to me. “I was just thinking …”

“Always dangerous.”

“How can you be sure it was you? What if it was
me
the cabbie was trying to run down?”

“No one has any reason to kill you,” I replied, looking up at her. “Do they?”

She looked away. “Why, no. I just … You’re right. Why would they?” She started to say something more, but changed her mind.

I took the first-aid things from her. “Here, let me.”

“I can do it,” she insisted.

“Sit.” I pulled her down onto my lap. She was a feather compared to Merilee, even in her leanest of times. Feel free to tell Merilee I said so.

I stretched her long, smooth legs out onto the sofa and smeared ointment on her wounded knees. She winced but didn’t cry one bit. Just sat there sipping her brandy and watching me warily. I could feel her green eyes on me, feel the tension in her slim body. I could feel something else, too. Our feverish hunger for each other was gone, the spell broken. It was lying somewhere out in the middle of Seventy-second Street with tire marks all over it. Her good sense had taken over. Or maybe mine had. I don’t know. I only know we were back where we’d started—strangers who hardly knew each other. And we both knew it.