Waltz Into Darkness (38 page)

He'd
delved in each time, in haste, in negligence, without counting what
was over. So long as there was something left, that was all that
mattered. Something that would take care of the next time. And now
that next time was the last time, and there was no next time beyond.

They'd
been about to go out for the evening, swirls of sachet fanning out
behind her like an invisible white peacock's tail spread in flaunting
gorgeousness, an electric tide of departure crackling about them, she
stuffing frothy laced handkerchief within the collar of her gloves,
he lingering behind a moment to pluck out gas jet after gas jet. She
was sibilant in tangerine taffeta, flounced with bands of brown
sealskin, orange willow plumes snaking like live tentacles upon her
hat. She was already in the open doorway, thirsting to be gone,
waiting a moment to allow him to overtake her and close the door
after them, and grudging that moment's wait.

"Have
you enough money with you, lovey ?" she asked companionably. And
somehow made it sound entrancingly domestic; a wife being solicitous
of her husband's welfare, much as if she'd said "Are you warmly
enough dressed ?" or "Have you brought the latch key with
you?"; though its ends were not domestic at all, but quite the
reverse.

He
consulted his money-fold.

"No,
glad you reminded me," he said. "I'll have to get some
more. I'll only be a moment, I won't keep you."

"I
don't mind," she assented graciously. "When you enter late,
everyone has a better chance to take in what you're wearing."

She
was still there by the door, idly tapping the furled sticks of her
small dress-fan, secured by silken loop about her wrist, upon the
opposite recipient palm, when he returned from the bedroom where he
had gone.

When
she saw him coming, she dipped her knees a graceful trifle, caught
higher the spreading bottom of her dress, and reached behind her to
grasp the doorknob, prepared to go, this time offering to close the
door for him instead of him for her.

Then
she saw his gait had changed, was hesitant, expiring, not as it had
been when he went briskly in.

"What
is it? Something wrong?"

He
was holding two single bank notes in his hand, half extending them
before him, as though not knowing what to do with them.

"This
is all that's left. This is all there is," he said stupidly.

"You
mean it's missing, been taken ?"

"No,
we've used it all. We must have, but I didn't know it. I could see it
growing slimmer, but--I should have looked more closely. Each time
I'd just reach in and-- There always seemed to be some over. I didn't
know until this moment that--this was all it was--" He raised it
helplessly, lowered it again.

He
stood there without moving, looking at her now, not it, as if she
could give him the answer he could not find for himself. She returned
his look, but she said nothing. There was silence between them.

Her
lips had parted, but in some sort of inward appraisal; they said no
word. A little breath came through, in a soft, wordless "Oh"
of understanding.

Her
hand left the doorknob at last, and dropped down to its own level,
against her side, with a little inert slap of frustration.

"What
shall we do?" she said.

He
didn't answer.

"Does
that mean we--can't go now ?"

He
looked at her, still without answering. Surveyed her entire person,
from head to toe. Saw how beautifully she'd arrayed herself, how
perfect in every detail the finished artistic picture she was
offering for presentation. Or rather, had intended to offer, if given
opportunity.

Suddenly
he swerved, reached purposefully--and defiantly--for his hat.

"I'll
ask for credit. We've spent enough by now, wherever it is we've gone;
they should give us that."

It
was now she who didn't move, remained poised there by the door. She
looked thoughtfully downward at nothing there was to be seen. At last
she shook her head slightly, a smile without mirth influencing her
lips. "No," she said. "It's not the same. It would
cast a pall, now, just knowing. And then they treat you with less
respect, when you ask them. Or they commence to hound you within a
few days, and you're twice as badly off as before."

She
came away from the door. She closed it at last, but now before, and
not behind, her. And she gave it a sort of fling away from her, in
doing so; let it carry itself to its proper junction. He tried to
make out if there was ill temper lurking in the gesture, and couldn't
tell for sure. It might have been nothing more than jaunty disregard,
an attempt to show him she didn't care whether she stayed or went.
But even if there was no ill temper in it, the thought of ill
temper was in his mind. So it had already appeared on the scene, in a
way.

He
watched her return, with indolent gait, to the seat before the mirror
that she had occupied for the better part of an hour only just now.
But now she gave her back to the glass, not her face. Now the former
process was reversed. Now she rid herself, one by one, with limp
gesture, of the accessories she had so zestfully attached to herself
only a brief while ago. Her gloves fell, stringy, over her shoulder
on the dressing table. Her untried fan atop them a moment later, its
stylized, beguiling usage never given a chance to go into effect. Off
came the tiny hat with orange willow feathers, she pitched it from
her broadside (but not with violence, with philosophic riddance), and
it fell upon the seat of a nearby chair. The plume tendrils
fluctuated above it for a moment, like ocean-bottom vegetation
stirring in deep water, then settled down over it.

"You
may as well turn up the gas jets again," she said dully, "as
long as we're staying in."

She
raised her feet, heels upward, one by one, and taking them from
behind, plucked off the bronze satin slippers with their spoolshaped
Louis XV heels, full three inches in length, a daring height but
pardonable because of her own stature. And let them fall as they
would, and set her stockinged soles back on the floor as they were.

And
last of all, undoing some certain something behind her, she allowed
her dress to widen and fall of its own looseness, but only down to
her seated waist, and sat that way, half-in and half-out of it, in
perfect disarray. Almost as if to make a point of it.

It
did something to him, to watch her undo that completed work of art
she had so deftly and so painstakingly achieved. More than any spoken
reproaches could have, it implicitly rebuked him.

Hands
grounded in pockets, he looked down at the floor and felt small and
humbled.

She
took off the string of pearls that had clasped her throat and,
allowing them to drizzle together, tossed them in air as if weighing
them and finding them wanting, caught them in her palm.

"Will
these help? You can have them if they will."

His
face whitened, as if with some deep inward incision. "Bonny!"
he commanded her tautly. "Don't ever say anything like that to
me again."

"I
meant nothing by it," she said placatingly. "You paid
better than a hundred for them, didn't you? I only thought--"

"When
I buy you a thing, it's yours."

They
were silent for a while, their lines of gaze in opposite directions.
He looking toward the window, and the impersonal, aloof evening
outside. She toward the door, and (perhaps) the beckoning evening
outside that.

She
lit a cigar after a while. Then said in immediate compunction, "Oh,
I forgot. You don't like me to do that." And turned to discard
it.

"Don't
put it out," he said absently. "Finish it if you like."

She
extinguished it nevertheless.

Turning
back, she reared one knee high before her, clasped her hands about
it, settled comfortably backward. Then instantly, and again with
contrition, she dissolved the pose once more. "Oh, I forgot. You
don't like me to do that either."

"That
was before, when you were supposed to be Julia," he said. "It's
different now."

Suddenly
he looked at her with redoubled closeness, as if wondering belatedly
if this was some new indirect way of chiding him: reminding him of
his past criticism of her faults. Her face seemed plotless enough,
however. She didn't even seem to see him looking at her. The edges of
her trivial mouth were curved upward in placid contentment.

"I'm
sorry, Bonny," he said at last.

She
returned her attention to him, from wherever it had strayed. "I
don't mind," she said evenly. "I've had this happen to me
before. For you, it's your first time; that makes it hard."

"You
haven't had any supper," he said presently. "And it's
nearing eight."

"That's
right," she agreed cheerfully. "We can still eat. Can't
we?"

Again
he wondered if that was an indirect jibe; again it seemed to be only
in his mind. But at least it was there in his mind; it must have
come from somewhere.

She
got up and went over to the wall and took down the pneumatic
speaking-tube. She blew through the orifice and a whistling sound
went traveling far downward, to its destination below.

"Will
you send up a waiter," she said. "We're in Suite 12."
When the man had arrived, she ordered, taking precedence over Durand.

"Bring
us something small," she said. "We're not very hungry. A
mutton chop apiece would do very nicely. No soup, no sweet--"

Again
Durand's eyes sought out her face to see if that was meant for him,
that ironic emphasis. But hers were not to be met.

"Will
that be all, madam?"

"And,
oh yes, one thing more. Bring us up a deck of cards, along with the
tray. We're staying in this evening."

"What'd
you want those for?" Durand asked, as soon as the door had
closed.

She
turned to him and smiled quite sweetly. "To play double
solitaire," she said. "I'll teach you the game. There's
nothing like it for passing the time."

His
reaction didn't come at once. It was slow, it didn't materialize for
some four or five minutes.

Then
suddenly he picked up a bisque ornament from the center table and
heaved it with all his strength, mouth knotted, and shattered it
against the wall opposite him.

She
must have been used to violence. She scarcely turned a hair, her
eyelids barely rose enough to let her see what it had been.

"They'll
charge us for that, Lou. We can't afford it now."

"I'm
going to New Orleans tomorrow," he said, thick-voiced with
truculence. "I'm taking the first train out. You wait for me
here. I'll have money for you again, you'll see. I'll raise it from
Jardine."

Her
eyes were wider open now, but whether any deeper with concern, could
not have been told. "No!" she said aghast. "You can't
go near there. You mustn't. We're wanted. They'll catch you."

"Rather
that than go on here this way, living like a dog."

Now
she smiled a real smile, beaming-bright; no sweet pale copy like a
stencil on her lips. "That's my Lou," she purred, velvet
smooth, her voice velvet warm. "That was the right answer. I
love a man that takes chances."

52

Jardine
lived on Esplanade Avenue. Durand remembered the house well. He'd had
dinner with them there on many a Sunday night during his bachelor
days, and been honorary "uncle" to 'Jardine's little girl
Marie.

The
house had not changed. It was not houses that changed, he reflected
ruefully, it was men. It was still honest, amiable, open of
countenance. He might have been standing before it again back two or
three years ago, with a little bag of bonbons in his hand for Marie.
But he wasn't.

He
stood there after he'd knocked, and kept holding his handkerchief to
his nose, as if he were suffering from a bad head cold. It was to
hide as much of his features as possible, however. And even while
doing so, it occurred to him how futile such precautions were. Anyone
who knew him by sight at all, would know him as well from the back,
without seeing his face.

Before
the door had opened he had already given up the attempt, lowered and
pocketed the handkerchief.