down there.
After fifteen minutes she came back to the kitchen, saw what I was having and got herself one. She had brushed her hair and her eyes were accustomed to the light.
She leaned against a bank of stainless steel sinks, facing me, and drank from the bottle and said, “He threw up. I turned on his electric blanket and gave him a sleeping pill.”
“I think he’s just emotionally upset.”
“You’ve had a dandy introduction to the Brell family.”
“Why did you ask me to stay?”
“Couldn’t you just wait so we could work around to it instead of coming out with it like that?”
“I’m not at my best at four in the morning.”
“Did you give him some bad news?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“George operates on the thin edge, and the edge is getting thinner all the time. I wanted to cut down the way we live, but he won’t hear of it. Any little thing could tip the scales, and then the walls come tumbling down.”
“How do you know that isn’t exactly what I want?”
She looked rueful. “Then I made a bad guess about you. Did he say anything about me tonight?”
“No. But it’s nice to know why you had me stay.”
“What do you mean?”
“I hope you had a nice long talk with the girl when she got home.”
“I guess I had to, didn’t I? Not stepmother to child. That doesn’t work, does it? Woman to woman. Call it an armed truce.”
“The next time she makes a crack like that, Gerry, it might not go over his head.”
“I think I made her understand that, if she loves her father, it would be a poor way to show it to give him a big broad hint about my infidelity. It’s a hell of a confusing world, Mr. McGee. She’s trying to throw herself away because she trusted me and I cheated on her father.”
“Can she be sure of that?”
Her laugh was ugly. “Eyewitnesses are usually pretty positive. It happened back in June. Kids are so idealistic. How can I explain to her that it really didn’t mean very much, that it was an old friend, sort of sentimental, unplanned, old-times-sake sort of thing. I don’t make a habit of that sort of thing. But ever since I heard the door open and turned my head and saw her there, pale as death before she slammed the door and ran, I’ve felt cheap and sick about it. We were getting fond of each other up until then. Now she thinks I’m a monster. Tonight she was trying to hurt me by hurting herself. I just hope George has forgotten what she said. His judgment is bad enough lately without something like that to cloud it.”
“He didn’t make any mention of what she said.”
“Good. Could this thing with Angie have made him so sick?”
“I think it’s probable.”
She tilted her pretty head and studied me. “Trav, you seem so mild and sure of yourself, and maybe you know enough about people to tell me what I should do about Angie.”
“I’m not that sure of myself.”
“I just wish there was a starting place. I can’t reach her. She looks at me with hate. I just can’t ever explain it to her.”
“Are you a good human being, Gerry? I mean good in the sense that if you put everything in the scales, they’d tip that way?”
It startled her. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought of myself that way. I think I like the lush life a little too much. That’s why I married George. I’m vain. I like men to admire me. I’ve got a coarse streak that comes out at the wrong times. But I do try to live up to… some kind of a better image of myself. And I try to improve. I came from nothing, Trav, from a little raggedy-ass spread in the Panhandle with too many kids and too few rooms. Dusted out, flooded out, burned out we had it all.
“Until I got big enough to know that if I wore a tight skirt and red shoes, I could get the pretties I’d ached for, and then smart enough to know that the cheap approach gets the cheap pretties. This house and this life, they’re big pretties, but the same old equation holds. I just don’t know. Maybe I’m good, but that goddamn scale would hesitate a long time before tilting that way.”
“Then tell the kid the whole thing. Lew proved she’s old enough. Make her identify. Level with her. The saga of Gerry Srell, up to and including your little sentimental gesture, and how you feel about her. Don’t hold anything back. Don’t let George send her away. Keep her here until she knows it all and she can balance it out herself.”
“She’ll despise me.”
“She already does.”
She brooded for a few moments. “I’ll do no sleeping tonight. I got to walk this one around, boy.” She set the empty bottle aside and said, “I have the feeling I won’t be seeing you again.”
“I have to see George once more.”
Nuevo
MY MOTEL windows were turning gray when I placed the overdue call to Chook. She was outraged, but when she calmed down she reported that Cathy lay listless on her hospital bed and answered questions in a small voice, in as few words as possible. And she liked Lois Atkinson. Very jumpy, sort of wild-eyed, but nice. They talked dance. Lois had studied ballet when she was little, but had grown too tall. And when was I coming back? That evening probably. Friday. The sun was visible from Florida, but it hadn’t gotten to me. She was trying a replacement, temporary, for Cathy. The damned girl was fair, but she kept getting so winded you could hear her gasping forty feet away. Hurry home, darling McGee.
I slept until ten, arranged afternoon airline connections, then phoned my questions to a sly elderly angle- player in New York, an old friend, a quaint hustler of the unwary marks, a sometime dealer in everything from faked Braque to union dues, from gossip column items to guest shots. I said he would hear from me again.
I checked out and had a quick breakfast and went to George Brell’s home. The pretty maid I had seen before had me wait inside the door while she checked with Mr. Brell. She came back and took me to him. He was propped up, reading the newspaper and drinking coffee. He was in a gigantic circular bed, with a pink canopy over it. In all the luxuriant femininity of that big bedroom, George looked shrunken and misplaced, like a dead worm in a birthday cake.
He threw the paper aside and said harshly, “Shut that door and pull that chair over here and sit down, McGee.”
Pride quickly rebuilds the fallen walls. And refashions the past to fit its own requirements. He stared at me. “You’re very cute, boy. I’d done a lot of drinking, and I was upset about Angie, and I was exhausted from all the deals I’ve been making lately.”
“I certainly took advantage of you, George.”
“I did a hell of a lot of talking, and some of it I can’t even remember. I’ve got some kind of a flu bug.”
“And I was pretty rough, George.”
“I want to know where we stand, McGee.”
“In what way?”
“I’m warning you, boy, the worst mistake you can make is try to use anything against me. I’m not about to try to buy you off, if that’s what you’re after. I can get rough too. Damned rough.”
“Are you planning on getting rough anyway?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“I guess if those tax people knew exactly where to look, and what historical facts they could check out, they could come back at you with a little more ammunition, George.”
He swallowed and fumbled a cigarette out of his pack and said, “You’re not scaring me. Not a bit.”
“I think we ought to forgive and forget the whole thing, George.”
