James Cain - The Magician's Wife

Shouldering Mr. Alexis aside, he took hold of Buster again and lowered her to the floor. There was a gritty moment, and then, to get things going again, as they had been before, he said: “There’s just one thing: you should make sure, and check on it every few days, that it’s absolutely level, whatever you have put in. I would use a spirit level and check on it myself, as that’s going to be important, for control of your stuff up there, and also so it’s safe .” He told of a place in Mexico “where they put in all modern equipment, the best that York, Pennsylvania, puts out, and forgot one thing, alas: the way the foundations settle there on that filled land that Mexico City is built on. So this place settled too, so the cold room rails canted one hot weekend. Ten tons of meat rolled down on the end of a rail, so a bolt snapped from the weight and dumped it down on the pipes, jamming a valve. Brother, when they opened up Monday morning, was that a job for the buzzards. Spoiled meat can smell, in the heat of Mexico City, when reefer pipes go dead — and costs, if you know what I mean.”

Ten minutes later, on the parking lot, his manner again suave though his face was still a bit grim, Mr. Alexis said good-by. “Thanks, Mr. Lockwood,” he declaimed in his best platform voice, “you’ve been most helpful indeed — shown me just what I wanted. You’re invited to my opening, as my guest, my personal guest.”

“I — hope I can make it,” said Clay.

“Likewise,” said Buster. “Very.”

“That does it — she’s leaving him and leaving him now! God, what a heel, what a pompous, vain, and stupidly jealous heel! And what a dangerous heel! If you hadn’t been there, he’d have popped that girl in the jaw! If you hadn’t been bigger, he’d have popped YOU in the jaw! What a revelation of the life poor Sally has led!”

Poor Sally, when she got there after phoning she would be late, didn’t quite look like herself. She was still in her Portico uniform, with little straw hat to match, but her crisp Portico style was not on view at all. The hat was askew, the dress mussed, the face slack. She was tacky, disheveled, and loose, and her mouth, wet with desire, plainly betrayed the reason. When he opened, she clamped her arms on his neck, started a long hot kiss, and lifted her heels from the floor, as though to be carried in the direction of love. He carried her, but into the living room, which was decked, to be sure, with several vases of roses and fragrant with toast, caviar, and crumbled egg — but it wasn’t their regular dovecote. “Here!” he said, putting her down and waving at the comestibles. “You must be starved.” She blinked, then told him: “Well, maybe I am — but not for this stuff, just yet. What’s the matter? Don’t you like me?” He said he liked her fine, “but we have some talking to do.” She stared, then snarled: “What is this? I come for a little romance and you give me goddam fish eggs — and a song and dance about talking we have to do. What is this, anyway? What talking?”

“Your husband was in today.”

“ Alec? ”

“Yes, Alec. He came to the shop.”

She sank to a sofa, stunned. “And you spilled it?” she whispered, licking her lips. “You told everything? After all I’ve said, you told him about me?”

“So happens I didn’t.”

Somewhat reassured, but not much, she braced to hear him out. In considerable detail, with special stress on the scene in the cold room, when he lifted Buster down, he told of the day’s visitation and when he had finished said: “ So! ”

“Well? So what?”

“Sally, can’t you see?”

“Why, I can see how he shook you up, coming in that way, but once you knew what it was, why should it be such a bomb? So he needs overhead rails and Mike sends him to you? Why shouldn’t he? After all, you do sell him meat, and after all you do have overhead rails. Maybe I’m dumb, but I don’t get the dramatics.”

“Then maybe you are dumb.”

“So — to the dumb you have to explain.”

“Don’t you see? I took his hand.”

“Well, did it have the pox on it, Clay?”

“I can’t shake his hand and sleep up with his wife.”

“You are sleeping up with his wife! Or were .”

“I can’t do it behind his back.”

“You did do it behind his back — didn’t you?”

“Listen, it started that way — things got out of hand. But from the beginning I wanted it out in the open. I begged you to go to Reno and never go back to him. You wouldn’t, and things coasted along. O.K., but now they can’t coast any more. Listen, it’s like that O. Henry story where the guy couldn’t drink with the man he blackmailed. I can’t take a man’s wife and then shake his hand. Listen: it’s not taking the wife — I don’t mind that at all. If he can’t keep her, she’s fair game for me — life is like that and I’m not even slightly ashamed. But shaking his hand, all at the same time — that’s different. I won’t do it, and now that it’s happened, a whole new chapter has started.”

“What O. Henry story?”

“Does it matter? I forget the title of it.”

“It still makes no sense to me but— Let’s get on, Clay. What new chapter? If you know.”

“First, we go to him.”

“And then?”

“Reno.”

“At my expense?”

“Sally! I pay for it, of course. We—”

“Including the millions it costs me?”

“Oh, so that’s it! It’s been said now, at last!”

“It’s been said from the beginning, Clay — the trouble is you don’t listen. You pretend nothing’s been said when it has been. Those millions, dear heart, are important. And so you get it straight, I’m not giving them up. Now, what else?”

“In the first place, you’re not in line for the millions.”

“So happens I think I am.”

“In the second place, they’re not all.”

“You mean there’s you and your lily-white hand?”

“Sally, I mean there’s you, and your more or less lily-white life.” And as she looked at him, startled, he went on: “I didn’t like this guy, and from the start I felt something peculiar. The whole thing, his idea for the trick, his coming, his testing of the rail, had something phony about it. And quite a while after he left I hit on the explanation — to my own satisfaction, at least. You used to work for him, didn’t you? In the act, before you had your baby? O.K., then — suppose Buster gets sick? Suppose she gets the flu? And he puts the bite on you to go on in her place? Sally, with you hanging up there by wires from a cradle on rails, your life will be hanging there too, and I would not give a nickel for it! That’s what we have to think about, and believe me, once you come crashing down, there’ll be no millions for you. Did you hear what I said? There won’t be anything — but a bang-up funeral, with lilies. And I happen to love you, that’s all.”

He had no recollection of having this idea at all before he started to talk, and in fact heard himself get it off with utter astonishment, mixed with some admiration. It was a pure, inspired ad-lib, but it got him nowhere at all. She listened with ill-concealed boredom and, when he was finished, said: “Well, thanks for worrying about me — though there was no reason, really. You were right, of course, about one thing: there was something phony about it. He’s dreaming about this stunt, which he thinks will be quite a sensation. But to pull it every night, with her ‘way up in the air, would get him in dutch with the cops — she’s a human being, believe it or not, and they would worry about her — maybe haul him to court. So to take care of that he’ll fake it — use a wire frame and plastic head, so she seems to be up there and isn’t. But to tell you how it’s done, as he figures, would be telling the whole wide world — and if that sounds silly to you, you don’t know magicians. They think the world is lying awake to know how their tricks are done — they guard their secrets like gold. So to cover up, to make it all look kind of real, he brings her to see you too — as though she’s the one to be reassured. But when she decided to chin herself on the rail, that was coming too thick. Now that was an idea, wasn’t it? All she wanted was a feel — from you. And the way you tell it she got it — and I don’t blame him for how he felt. He’s a crumb, he’s ruined my life — but for once I’m on his side.”