“I was just walking through the door when the phone rang.”
I didn’t say anything for a minute and the silence stretched. I pictured her in her small house, a comfortable blonde who lived alone, holding the telephone to her ear and waiting a little nervously to find out what I wanted. It didn’t seem altogether fair to make her part of the wrapping paper on a frameup.
“I was wondering,” I said.
“Yes?”
“Are you busy tomorrow night, Barb? I thought we could have dinner and take in a movie.”
She said that would be very nice. She sounded pleased and maybe just a little bit giddy. I told her I would pick her up around seven. Then I cleared off my desk, said goodbye all around and left the office. I drove home. The telephone people had installed a phone for me and I called a few people to let them know my new number. Then I took a breath and called the Glade Hotel.
“Milani,” I said. “August Milani. Is he in?” My voice didn’t sound quite like Rogers’ voice. But it was as close as I could come. I waited while the desk clerk checked. Milani wasn’t in. This didn’t exactly surprise me.
“I’d like to leave a message,” I said.
“Sure.”
“My name is Rogers,” I said. “Tell Mr. Milani his terms are impossible and I’m afraid we cannot do business.”
I made him read the message back to me. Then I thanked him and broke the connection.
I took care of my evening appointments by ten. I drove the Ford back to the apartment, switched to the shabby suit and the loud tie. On the way to the Glade I pulled the hat down over my forehead and added the glasses. The desk clerk gave me the message from Rogers. I chuckled nastily and said something to the effect that the bastard wouldn’t get off so easy, that he was going to pay off sooner or later. The desk clerk tried to keep a poker face but I could tell that the words had registered. He wouldn’t forget them.
Tuesday and Wednesday, I kept feeding dimes into telephones. I called Murray Rogers’ office four or five times, each time giving my name as Milani and asking in a hoodish tone to talk to Rogers. I got through to him once and fed him the life insurance pitch all over again and he hung up on me almost at once. The other times I didn’t get past the receptionist. The poor girl must have had an interesting picture of me by then. I got nastier and nastier, and if she asked Murray about me he could only say that I was some nutty insurance salesman, a little stupider and a little more persistent than most. The girl wouldn’t believe it. She was a perfect receptionist, starched and prim and proper. But she couldn’t swallow a pitch like that.
I called my hotel a few times, leaving messages from Rogers, and I picked up the messages at the hotel and cackled triumphantly. The stage was setting itself up neatly.
Tuesday night I took Barb Lambert to dinner at an Italian restaurant. She had veal mozzarella and I had lobster fra diavolo and we knocked off a bottle of chianti together. The restaurant was the sort of place where David Niven and Jean Simmons always had dinner as a prelude to an illicit affair in a Hollywood bedroom farce. Candles burned in straw-covered wine bottles. Violin music melted forth from a public address system. The lights were dim.
Reality slipped away. Barbara became a little prettier, a little cleverer, less the unsure schoolteacher and more the vibrant woman. My hand crossed the table and covered hers. Her fingers were cool, soft. Her eyes shone.
“I’ve missed this,” she said.
“This?”
“Romance. I like it, Bill.”
“So do I.”
“We should have met more romantically,” she said lazily. “We could have been seat-partners in a transatlantic jet. You could have rescued me from a rapist in the park. Something like that. But instead we were fixed up by a pair of meddling matchmakers. That’s not very romantic, is it?”
“We could always pretend.”
She picked up her wine glass with her free hand and finished her chianti. “Let’s,” she said. “Let’s pretend. Let’s be different people. Instead of a schoolteacher I’ll be something exciting. I’ll be a call girl, all right?”
“I’ll be a customer, then.”
She laughed wickedly. “No, no, no,” she said. “That’s not romantic. I’ll be a high-priced call girl. And what will you be?”
“A wealthy prince?”
“I don’t think so. How about a master criminal?”
“A jewel thief?”
“Mmmmm,” she said. “Perfect. And do you know how we got together? You just finished robbing a horrid old woman of a fortune in emeralds, and I just finished breaking off with my wealthy old lover, and now we’re having dinner together in an intimate little spot on the Italian Riviera. Isn’t that romantic?”
A movie wouldn’t have been romantic enough. Instead we drove around searching for something exciting. We wound up in a jazz club. We were the only non-beats in the place and we drew stares that would have made Barb uncomfortable if it hadn’t been for the wine. As it was, she didn’t mind at all. We sat at a small table in front and drank dubious scotch and listened to a hard-bop quartet play funky blues.
“Romantic,” she said.
A fat girl tried to sing like Dinah Washington. A uniformed cop strolled into the club, stood for a few moments surveying the place, then turned and left. Our waitress brought fresh drinks. The musicians took a break, then came back on again.
“It’s getting late,” Barb said.
“Close to twelve.”
“And I have school tomorrow. Isn’t that silly? A call girl with school tomorrow. And my handsome jewel thief has to go to the office and sell pieces of buildings, or something. I guess we’re just turning into pumpkins, aren’t we?”
I paid the check and left too big a tip. We ducked out of the smoky club and gulped fresh air on the street outside. In the car I started to turn the key in the ignition but she put her hand on mine and stopped me. I turned. Barb’s eyes were closed, her mouth pouty. I picked up my cue and kissed her and her body shivered in my arms. Her mouth tasted of liquor and tobacco and sweet hunger. I kissed her again and she stirred in response, shifting her weight and locking her arms around my neck. My hand moved to the side of her breast. My fingers pressed the firm softness of her and she gasped with excitement.
I felt like ten different kinds of a bastard.
We didn’t talk on the way back to her place. Barb sat very close to me, her head on my shoulder, her eyes shut. She was breathing heavily. I forced my mind on my driving and tried not to think about other things. It was like struggling not to think of a white rhinoceros. The thoughts were there and I couldn’t shove them aside.
I stuck the Ford in her driveway and walked her to her door. I stood at her side while she opened the door. She turned to me, slowly, and I kissed her. Partly because I was supposed to, partly because I wanted to. The kiss lasted and built up a small head of steam, and then she shuddered slightly and drew back.
“Damn it,” she said, “I wish I were a call girl, Bill.”
It would play either way. I kissed her again and felt the warmth and intensity of her embrace. I stroked the side of her face, let my hand trail lingeringly down the front of her fine body. Then I tensed up and let go of her and forced myself to step back. “I’ll call you,” I said softly. I let go of her hand and she turned into the house and closed the door and I went back to my place and tried to sleep. It wasn’t easy. I thought about two girls, a girl named Joyce and a girl named Barbara. I thought about two ways of life, a life of back rooms and fast action, a life of hard honest work and straight living. Dangerous thoughts for a man called Wizard.
I made more calls Wednesday, two to Murray’s office, one to the Glade. I made them automatically, working like a programmed computer, speaking automatic words in my two mechanical fake voices. I left work early that day for my apartment. I took out the three onionskin copies I had typed up in Murray’s office and read them through. The second one had Thursday’s date at the top—tomorrow.
I took my Milani costume from the closet, spread it out on the bed. I looked at the snap-brim hat, the shabby suit, the loud and food-stained tie. I read through the letters again. Then I picked up the phone and dialed a number.
