You Play the Black & the Red Comes Up Up (14 page)

THE SIMPLE PROBLEM

W
e sat in the car, watching the sea and the lights winking out on the gambling-ship and the waves coming up. Sheila was always content and happy as long as we were by the sea.

I had to get things straightened. Police or no police, I was ready to take a chance.

"Look, Sheila," I said, "Will you go away with me?"

"Where?" she said.

"Far away," I said. "We'll get married."

"What about the other women?"

"What other women?"

"You know—the others."

She said it just as if it didn't make any difference. I was going to deny it all, but I knew it wasn't any use.

"What makes you think there's other women?"

"There must be," she said. "Very, very many women must love you. They couldn't help it. You see, I know now what music you are of Debussy. You're the Afternoon of a Faun. You can't help it."

"I don't care," I said. "Won't you come away with me?"

"I couldn't leave my mother."

"Your mother!" I said. "She doesn't worry about leaving you. She's always away with Lamport, on the yacht or something. Say! I know! You were on his yacht the first time I saw you—that night. You jumped off his yacht and were swimming ashore. Did you have to do that?"

She didn't answer me. She sat a while. Then she said, real low:

"You don't understand my mother. She admires me. She thinks she has created me. I am her good self. If I go away she will think I am like she is. Then she will have nothing left."

"Well, what do you want to do?" I asked her.

"Nothing," she said.

"Well, you can't go on like you are. What will your mother say then?"

"I don't know. We can't help it."

I got a little sore, just sitting there and saying we couldn't help things. We could help it, and I was going to do something about it.

I didn't know what I could do, but I had to do something. It was only Sheila that mattered. That's all I could think of. Sheila—and that when I was with her always it was like being a kid again and not being able to get my breath and inside me just like that Tristan music we listened to on the radio that night.

Smitty had finished up the private porch on top of the chute. He'd put in flooring and we'd got a canvas army cot where you could lie and look right out over the ocean for miles.

I was sitting up there when Genter showed up. He sat on the cot beside me and we could hear the cars coming up and Smitty throwing the gears to turn them round.

"How'd you get up here?" I asked him.

"The aerie of the eagle," he said.
"How is the Goddess Diana?"

"Sheila?" I said. "Look. We want to get married."

"I see," he said. "You are the body; she is the soul. It is the harmony of perfect complements. And so it should be."

"That's all right," I said. "But there's Mamie—and Lois. Lois doesn't worry me much any more, but there's Mamie."

"Ah, yes, of course there's Mamie," he said. "But since you have a wife Mamie is not your wife so your moral responsibility there is nil. Don't consider it. The real harmony of perfect love such as flowers between you and Sheila needs no book, bell, candle, rite, or document. It blossoms and is."

"That may be okay. But I want to marry her."

"Then why not?"

I thought a while.

"Well, Mamie has something on me."

"Ah, I see," he said. He got real excited and his voice went funny. "The curve descends and the threads plait to the design. There is a design. I knew there would be." He turned to me. "And what can I do?"

"Well," I said. "I've thought till my head can't think any more. I thought maybe you could suggest something."

"I'm sorry," he said. "You see, I daren't. My effeminate hand would ruin the rugged texture and destroy the stark boldness of the primitive pattern. You alone must think."

"Christ, I've thought," I said.

"Well, think some more," he said. "It is a simple plot. You, A, love Sheila, B, but are barred from the goal by Mamie, C. How can you remove C from the structure? That's all you've got to decide."

Then he got up and smiled and shook hands with me.

"Come and see me soon," he said.

He went down the steps and I sat looking out over the ocean. Right then it came into my mind what I had to do. But I didn't let on even to myself.

THE FIRST TRY

I
got Mamie to take a day off from the Ecanaanomic work. "But it's going over big now," she said. "We have ninety- seven Encampments in California and some now even out in Iowa and Nevada. We're going to plan a campaign to build a meeting-hall for five thousand people in Los Angeles alone. It's a big thing."

"I know," I said. "But you'll work yourself into the grave if you don't watch. You've got to keep your health, haven't you?"

"Sure, I’ve got to keep my health all right."

"Well, then."

"Well, then, what?"

"Well, then, what? You deserve a day off, that's well- then-what. You need fresh air—a sea ride. Look, whyn't we run over to Catalina this afternoon and have all day tomorrow there? It will do you good."

At first she wouldn't but I kept at her. So finally she got all fixed up, wearing a sweater and slacks instead of her robe and sandals, and we caught the Catalina boat.

We kept walking round the deck and going to the back rail, and I'd stand with her, looking at the water, but it was daylight and almost all the time there'd be someone walking round the deck or standing near us.

When we got to Catalina we went to the hotel. Mamie didn't want to go out that evening. She was set on dancing, so all the evening we danced. I thought the evening would last forever. Then we went to bed.

Next morning was warm. So I said:

"What a swell day! Let's take a swim."

I thought she was going to say no, but she didn't. She said, "If you want to."

"No, not if you don't wait to," I said. "Don't you like swimming?" "It's okay if you like it" she said.

"Well, you never go down the beach," I said. "You'd ought to. The sun will do you good."

We got suits and went down on the beach.
Then I got her to walk way along with me to where there were rocks. I could see the rip tide going out and the undertow pulling plenty strong.

Finally I found a good place. I waded in and said:

"Come on, take a dip, Mamie. It's warm."

"Isn't there an undertow there?" she asked.

"No," I said. "Look, I can stand straight. I'll hold you up. Come on in."

She started in, and I looked way down the beach. There was no one around at all. It was so lonesome the sea gulls were sitting on the sand.

Come on out," I said. "You can swim a bit, can't you?"

"Pretty good," she said.

A big breaker came in, and I turned to dive through it. If they hit you standing you get thrown about pretty badly, especially against rocks.

When I came up the other side, I saw Mamie's head. I swam over, but I couldn't quite get to her. Another big one came, and when I came up through it again, Mamie was out ahead of me. She was swimming steadily, and going out with a slow eight-beat. I went after her, and she went right out, nearly a quarter of a mile I should say. Then she turned and headed back. When we got to land, I was all in. That water gave me a pretty bad beating, and I'm no dunce at swimming.

But Mamie wasn't even puffing. You know how plump women are sometimes in the water? That's the way Mamie was.

She lay on the sand and just took a sunbath. Once in a while I'd think she was laughing. I had to say something.

"You've got a pretty good crawl," I said finally.

"Yes," she said. "When I was a girl I was good. I was the first woman to do the round-Manhattan swim. I was thirty-nine hours in the water. That's what sickened me on swimming. It sickened me so much on swimming I don't care for it any more. But it was pretty good today. I think I'll have to take it up again."

She lay there, just smiling like she was happy remembering about it all when she was younger.

We went back to the hotel and packed. On the boat going back Mamie would keep going to the stern and looking at the wake. It was fairly dark and there was no one around, but I didn't make a move. That woman could have swum all the way from Catalina to the coast.

SHE JUST SAT THERE

I
was looking to see if Sheila had showed up when Genter waved to me. I went to where his car was parked and got in. He was dressed in the funniest get-up I'd seen him in yet. The chauffeur started up.

"I've just walked out on a fancy dress party," Genter told me. "Do you know who I'm supposed to be?"

"Don't tell me," I said. "Let me guess. You're Burton Schutt."

"Who's he?" Genter said.

"I don't know," I said. "I just heard someone say he's the best architect in Hollywood."

"That's interesting," Genter said. "I must remember that. But that isn't it. Who am I?"

"You tell me," I said.

He said, "I'm Dr. Crippen."

"Okay, Dr. Crippen," I said. I could see he was pretty drunk. "What do we do now?"

He started that whispering again like he did sometimes.

"We're going to put quick lime on the body of Ethel Le Neve, too. He forgot to do that."

That got me thinking about Mamie again and how I'd had it in my mind to drown her. After that I didn't talk. He went on gabbling, and when he got to his house he brought out Scotch and soda and we started in drinking. He was drinking and watching me, then he said:

"How is the triangle situation?"

"It's still there."

He seemed to get mad.

"How can you bear it? Don't you want to clench your fist and smash life in the face, beat its inane illogicalities to a pulp?"

"I guess I do, but I can't do anything."

"But you could, if you'd think," he said.

"Look, Genter. I've thought and thought till my goddam mind is purple, but thinking don't change anything and wishing don't put whiskers on a statue. I can't think any more."

"Well, let's forget it and have a good time."

We sat quite a while and did some plain and fancy drinking and got a real edge on. Genter got another bottle of Scotch. I remember that. Then he got up and said he wanted to show me something. We went to a room he'd never shown me before. He unlocked the door. It was like a museum inside.

"This is just a little hobby of mine," he said.

"What're all those things?"

"Just odds and ends. They're not important."

"What's the idea of the hooks on the whip?"

"Oh, the old monks used to use those to castigate the unruly flesh."

He got the whip and started to swing it. He nearly clipped me a clout with it. He was pretty drunk.

I said, "Look out with that thing. You're too pie-eyed to swing that."

"I am not."

"All right, you're not. But put it up anyhow."

He seemed like he remembered something.

"Oh, yes," he said.

He calmed down and showed me some other things—an iron thing he said was a chastity belt the Crusaders used to lock on their wives. What an idea that was! And he had a knife he said was used in the murder of Dorothy Smith when the guy cut her up and stuffed her full of sawdust. And then he got to a shelf all full of bottles. He said they were all deadly poisons and he told me what poisons had been used by what famous murderers.

All the bottles had labels with letters on them, and he began telling me about how they worked. He said oxalic acid would kill in a few minutes, and cantharides got people all excited before it killed them, and strychnine made a guy's head jerk all around before he died, and a spoonful of Prussic acid would kill anyone, and belladonna gave you a laughing jag before you died.

"This is the quickest poison," he said. "This is the wolfsbane or blue rocket or monkshood."

"What does it say on the bottle?" I asked him.

"Acontium Napellus,"
he said. "It's aconite. Just one- sixteenth of a grain of this has been known to kill a man."

"If you wanted to pop a guy off that would be the stuff."

"Exactly," he said, and his voice got funny and he whispered like he did sometimes. "But, of course, most poisons are easily identified by the doctor or coroner after death. The easiest one to fool them, and one of the commonest of poisons is this—arsenic."

He held up a bottle with white powder in it. I saw it said on the label just As. I was making myself get sobered down so I could remember the label.

"Just a small dose of this is enough to kill," he said. "Ah, but I bore you with my hobby?"

"No. Go ahead. I want to hear about it."

"Well, after they take this, the symptoms are exactly like inflammation of the stomach. Many doctors diagnose the death as due to cholera. It has all the appearances of cholera."

"How do you know all that?"

"Oh, just a hobby of mine."

He stood still a while. I wondered what he was staring at. Then he said:

"Did you hear someone at the front door?"

"No," I said. "I didn't hear anything."

"I'll just go look to make sure."

The moment he was gone I got the bottle off the shelf. It was marked As. I remembered that. I shoved the bottle in my pocket and walked out quickly. As I came out I met Genter.

"No one was there," he said. "Well, let's do something more cheerful than look at my silly collection. Let's have a drink."

He switched off the lights and locked the door. He didn't notice the bottle was gone.

"I guess I'd better beat it right home," I said. "I'm tired."

He said he was sorry I had to hurry, and then he called his chauffeur to drive me home.

Next day I was sobered up some and I wished I hadn't taken the bottle. I decided I wouldn't do anything about it, but then I got, to thinking of Sheila. I hadn't seen her for nearly a week. I couldn't go on not seeing her, and yet I didn't want to see her until everything was fixed.

When Mamie went out to the Ecanaanomic office, I went down the comer and bought two bottles of Scotch and put them in the kitchenette. Then I went to the pier.

All that night at the pier I thought I wouldn't do anything about the bottle. I kept feeling it in my pocket. I thought I wouldn't do anything about it.

After we closed the pier I went home. Mamie was in bed, reading. I pretended I had a big edge on.

"Where'd you get it, big boy?" she said.

"Get what?" I said. I was pretending to be indignant. "I haven't had a single drink."

"Not a single one," Mamie said. "You've had double ones."

"Well, you used to like a drink once in a while until you got that important work to fill up your life. And now we never have any good times any more like we used to. I've got to drink alone. And you know it's drinking alone that makes drunkards."

"Is that what does it?"

"Sure—drinking alone."

I went to the kitchen and got the Scotch and two glasses and a pitcher of water.

"Come on, Mamie," I said.
"Let's just have a little one."

"Okay," she said. And she got out of bed.

We sat there drinking, and Mamie began to get an edge on. She was telling me all about the Pep Paper that they'd started for the Party. The P.E.P. was her idea—it stood for Perisho's Ecanaanomic Party.

I kept wondering how to get the stuff into her drink.

Suddenly she said, "Gee, I'm hungry."

"What's the use of starting a fire and putting it out again?" I said.

"It'll be fuel for a new fire," she said.

She went to the kitchen to the icebox. Quick I took the bottle and shook some of the white stuff into her glass and swished it round. I made it a good big shot.

She came back with what was left of a roast chicken and some French bread and butter.

"Gees, I like cold chicken," she said.

She kept eating the chicken and bread, but I thought she'd never take the drink. I began to get scared she was wise, and I could see now that the powder had sort of collected in the bottom of her tumbler.

I wanted to get the tumbler out of the way, but suddenly she lifted it and drank it nearly all down.

"Let me fix you another," I said. I grabbed it quick before she could look in the bottom of it, and poured out another stiff drink. Then I swashed Shasta Water from the siphon into it. It all mixed up.

I sat watching her, but she didn't seem to be any different. She went right on gabbing, and pretty soon she took the next drink and downed that. And she still was all right.

I thought,
Maybe with this poison you have to give big doses.

But God knows I'd given her a big enough dose.

She sat there, looking babyish like she did when she drank, her face all fat and flushed.

"You aren't thinking of leaving me any more, big boy, are you?" she asked.

"Is that nice, right when we're having a good time? Pulling stuff like that?"

"I'm not pulling anything. I was just saying. See how nice it is when you're nice to me? And if you're always good and don't make any breaks I'll never do anything about it, as long as you're nice to me, I won't."

"Okay," I said. I began to sweat all over, because she wouldn't die.

She began punishing the liquor and soon was real drunk. But that was all.

Suddenly she burped. Then she said, "My God, I'm thirsty. Get me a glass of beer, big boy."

I went to the kitchen. I knew now I'd have to finish her. I opened a bottle of beer and poured it in a glass. I put in nearly all the bottle of powder, and stirred it all up. It looked funny, but I was hoping she was too drunk to
notice.

I took it back, and she drunk it right down. I sat there watching her, waiting for her to fall dead.

That woman just sat there.

And all of a sudden I knew it was no use. You just couldn't poison that woman. She should have been dead ten times over, but she just sat there. I was running sweat, and I thought I'd go nuts. It was like that woman wasn't human. She had the Indian sign on me all the time.

She just sat there, punishing the liquor.

I don't know why it was Mamie didn't die from that poison. But she didn't. Right the next morning she was moving round bright and early. I never saw anything like that woman.

To rights she should have been dead; but here she was awake, with not even a hang-over, and singing one of the Ecanaanomic songs about "the very thought of you, reminds us what to do, to make our Ecanaanomic Party's plans go through," and cooking breakfast.

I said, "How do you feel?"

"Okay," she said. "I was pretty sick last night, though, after you passed out."

"I'll bet it was the beer you drunk," I said.

"I guess. I should know better than to mix my drinks. But my God, I was thirsty."

"But do you feel all right now?"

"Sure. The beer made me sick, but I got it all off my chest last night, and then I took a good dose of milk of magnesia. You ought to try that, big boy. There's nothing like milk of magnesia for settling your stomach."

She kept on talking, and I couldn't eat any breakfast. All I could think of was that there she was walking around and kidding, and she ought to be dead.

I couldn't stand it. I had to get out. I went down the beach and sat there, watching the low tide. If I'd had any more stuff in the bottle I'd have taken it myself.

I thought maybe it was a rotten poison that had got old and didn't work any more. Or maybe it wasn't poison and Genter had been kidding me. I didn't know. Kidding or
not, I figured I ought to try to get that bottle back without him knowing it. But' I thought that it didn't matter now, because the poison hadn't worked and it didn't matter much about getting the bottle back.

But I got thinking about Sheila and her putting my hand on her belly. I was always thinking that. Right then if there'd been any poison left and I'd known for sure it was real poison I would have taken it myself.