Irwin Shaw - Nightwork

“Oh.”

“That’s it.” He laughed uneasily. “Oh. That doesn’t sound like me either, does it?” He said it pugnaciously, as though somehow he was accusing me of something.

“Frankly, no,” I said.

“It isn’t like me. This is the first time since I’ve been married … I never thought it would happen. But it did happen and it’s driving me crazy. We’ve just had a few times … a few minutes, an hour, here and there. Sneaking around. It’s killing both of us. In a town like this, with people snooping around like bird dogs after everybody. We need some time together – real time. God knows what my wife would do if anybody ever said anything to her. I didn’t want it to happen, I swear to God, but it happened. I feel as though the top of my head is going to blow off. I can’t talk to anyone in this town. It’s like living with a stone on my chest, day in, day out. I never knew I could feel like this about any woman… You might as well know who it is…”

I waited. I had the terrible feeling that the name he was going to come out with would be Evelyn Coates.

“It’s that girl in my office,” he said, whispering. “Miss Schwartz. Miss Melanie Schwartz. God, what a name! ”

“Name or no name,” I said, “I can understand. She’s beautiful.”

“She’s a lot more than that. I’m going to tell you something, Doug – if it keeps going on the way it’s been going – I don’t know what I’m liable to do. We’ve got to get out of this town together … a week, two weeks, a night … But we’ve got to … I don’t want a divorce. I’ve been married ten years, I don’t want … Oh, hell, I don’t know why I should drag you into it.”

“I’ll come to dinner tomorrow night,” I said.

Hale didn’t say anything. He stopped in front of the hotel. “I’ll expect you around seven,” he said calmly, as I got out of the car.

In the elevator on the way up to my floor, I thought, Scranton isn’t all that far from Washington after all.

As I got ready for bed I kept away from the telephone in my room. I took a long time getting to sleep. I guess I was waiting for the phone to ring. It didn’t ring.

I couldn’t tell whether it was the telephone that awoke me or if I had opened my eyes just before it began to ring. I had had a nasty, jumbled dream in which I was hiding out, running, from unseen and unknown pursuers, through dark, forested country, then suddenly in glaring sunlight between rows of ruined houses. I was glad to be awake and I reached over gratefully for the telephone.

It was Hale. “I didn’t get you up, did I?” he asked.

“No.”

“Listen,” he said, “I’m afraid I have to cancel the dinner tonight. My wife says we’re invited out.” He sounded offhand and untroubled.

“That’s okay,” I said, trying not to let my relief show in my voice.

“Besides,” he said. “I talked to the lady in question and —” The rest of the sentence was muffled by a deep crescendo of sound.

“What’s that noise?” I asked. I remembered what he had said about phones being tapped in Washington.

“It’s a lion roaring,” be said. “I’m in the zoo with my kids. Want to join us?”

“Some other time. Jerry,” I said. “I’m still in bed.” After the outburst in the car after the poker game, I didn’t relish the idea of watching him play the role of the dutiful father devoting his Sunday morning to his children. I have never been expert at complicity and didn’t relish the thought of being used to deceive infants.

“See you in the office tomorrow,” he said. “Remember to bring your birth certificate.”

“I’ll remember,” I said.

The Lion was roaring as I hung up.

I was in the shower when the phone rang again. Streaming and soapy, grabbing a towel to wrap around my middle, I picked up the phone.

“Hello,” the voice said. “I waited as long as I could.” It was Evelyn Coates. Her voice was half an octave lower on the phone. “I have to leave the house. I thought you might have been tempted to call last night, after the game. Or this morning.” Her self-confidence was irritating.

“No,” I said, leaning back. trying to keep the water from dripping onto the bed. “It didn’t occur to me,” I lied. “Anyway, you seemed somewhat preoccupied.”

“What are you doing today?” she asked, ignoring my complaint.

“At the moment I’m taking a shower.” I felt at a disadvantage trying to cope with that low, bantering voice, the water dripping coldly down my back from my wet hair and my eyes beginning to smart because I had gotten some soap in them.

She laughed. “Aren’t you polite?” she said. “Getting out of a shower to answer the phone. You knew it was me, didn’t you?”

“The thought may have crossed my mind.”

“Can I take you to lunch?”

I hesitated, but not for long. After all, I had nothing better to do that afternoon in Washington. “That would be fine,” I said.

“I’ll meet you at Trader Vic’s,” she said. “It’s a Polynesian place in the Mayflower. It’s nice and dark, so you won’t see the poker-rings under my eyes. One o’clock?”

“One o’clock,” I said. I sneezed. I heard her laugh.

“Go back to your shower and then dry yourself thoroughly, like a good boy. We don’t want you spreading cold germs among the Republicans.”

I sneezed again as I hung up. I fumbled my way back to the bathroom with my eyes smarting from the soap. A dark room would suit me, too, because I knew my eyes would be bloodshot the better part of the afternoon. Somehow, I was beginning to have the feeling that I would have to be at my best physically and mentally, anytime I had anything to do with Evelyn Coates.

“Grimes,” she said to me as we were finishing lunch in the dimly lit room, watching the Chinese or Malayan or Tahitian waiter pour flaming rum into our coffee, “you give me the impression of being a man with something to hide.”

It came as a complete surprise to me. Until then our conversation had been almost absolutely impersonal – about the food, the drinks (she had had three enormous rum concoctions, with no apparent effect) – about the poker game the night before (she had complimented me on the way I played and I had complimented her) – about the various social strata in Washington and where the people of the night before fitted in, all the small polite kind of talk with which a courteous and worldly woman might fill an hour to entertain a visitor from afar who had been asked to look her up by some mutual friend. She was dressed charmingly, in a loose tweed suit and plain blue blouse, high at the throat, and had her dark blonde hair pulled back and tied with a blue ribbon in girlish fashion. I had spoken little, and, if I wondered why she had bothered to call me, I hadn’t shown it. She hadn’t mentioned the night we had spent together, and I had made up my mind not to be the first to bring it up.

“Something to hide,” she repeated. My questions to her the night I had met her, I realized, had not been forgotten. Had been filed away in that sharp, suspicious mind for future reference.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. But I avoided her eyes.

“Yes, you do,” she said. She watched the waiter finish with his performance and place the mugs of hot coffee, smelling of rum and orange and cinnamon sticks, in front of us. “I’ve seen you three times now – and this is what I don’t know about you – where you come from, where you’re going, what you’re doing in town, what business you’re in, why you didn’t call me after the other night.” She sipped at her drink, smiling demurely over the rim of the mug. “Every other man I’ve ever seen three times in one week has regaled me with his complete biography – how his father didn’t communicate with him, how important he is, what stocks he’s bought, all the influential people he knows in town, what problems he has with his wife…”