James Cain - The Magician's Wife

“I’ll never be on his side.”

“All right — what else?”

He tramped around, very agitated, then turned to her and blurted: “We talk — we bat it around — we don’t get anywhere. So I’m taking this bull by the horns. You’re not going back.”

“You mean, to him?”

“To him, to that house, or anywhere, but here. So, our new life begins — has begun — as of now. So why don’t we celebrate?”

He went out in the kitchen, got a quart of champagne from the icebox, with glasses he had put there to chill. Coming back, he twisted the wire off the bottle, worked the cork with skillful fingers, got it out with a festive pop. He poured a sip in one glass, tasted, then filled both glasses and raised one with a flourish. “Happy days!” he declaimed. “To you, to Elly, to me. Happy years, happy — everything.”

She made no move toward her glass. “Just goes to show,” she observed after a moment, “how mistaken you can be. How mistaken I can be.”

“Yeah? What mistakes have you made?”

“Oh, you know. Like with the rock I thought I had. Well? You looked like a rock, kind of. And acted like one — I thought. But the rock turned out to be more of a mock orange. Ever see one, Clay? Kind of pretty on the outside, like a big green grapefruit. Open it up it’s not so good. Instead of juice it has milk, that’s slimy and sticks to your fingers and stinks — so you want to throw up. Like what runs in your veins, come to think of it. What a rock. What a hero. What a joy. What a comfort — to a girl in trouble that needs someone to lean on.”

O.K., lean. I’m here — not there.”

“ Damn it, shut up! ”

Though his finger trembled, betraying how much he was shaken, he pointed it at her glass, saying: “I toasted you ‘Happy days.’ What are you toasting me?”

She raised her glass, and he reached for his to clink. But then suddenly he was blinded, by wet stinging stuff in his eye, and realized she had thrown the wine at him. Wiping off with a napkin, he heard glass breaking, and when he could see, she was lunging at him with a stem, a glittering, splintered thing that she held in her fist, like a practiced barroom fighter. He jumped up and backed away. She jumped up and charged. Her next lunge grazed his cheek and he clipped her on the chin, toppling her over backward. When he touched his tingling cheek his finger came away red, and he went back to the bathroom, stopping the blood with a styptic pencil. When he got back to the living room he gave a gasp of horror, for pictures, cups, and mementos were all on the floor, the caviar and egg were stamped into the rug, the champagne was upside down, gurgling into the sofa, and she was on his Orozco, the finest painting he had, which had hung over the fireplace, kicking the frame apart and grinding her heels in the canvas. He grabbed her and she cursed him, he flinching at the words, so different were they in her shrill feminine accents from their sound as said by men, and so horrible. Dragging her to the door, he pushed her out. Then, aiming with care, he drove a kick at her bottom, with all his strength, that sprawled her on her face in front of the elevator.

Coming back, he closed the door, panting from exertion and gagging from revulsion. He saw her bag on the telephone table. Grabbing it up, he opened the door again and threw it at her, where she still lay on the floor. Then, banging the door shut, he dived for the bathroom, where white foamy stuff came retching up from his stomach.

“You’ve had it — this is the end. You’re not seeing this dame again for the rest of your life or of hers. You’ve seen her for what she is, and if you go on asking for more, you should have yourself committed. Did you hear what I said? You’re through!”

Taking an armful of towels, he stuffed them into the sofa to sop up the wine. Then he gathered up paintings and bric-a-brac, including the Orozco, and piled them on the piano. Then he got yards of paper towels and went to work on the rug to clean up the mess. He heard, almost without emotion, a bedlam of screams outside, with kicks and thumps on his door, and did nothing about it at all. He had just finished, using dustpan and whiskbroom, brushing up the last of the egg, when his inside phone rang. People had made complaints, Doris coldly informed him, “from all over the building, about some woman up there, whooping and hollering and banging on your door.” Dully he admitted, “She’s out there in the hall, I guess.” When Doris asked him what she should do, he answered foolishly that it was “your hall, not mine — do whatever you want.” On her informing him, “In a case like this I have to call the police,” he told her: “Why, sure, I guess you do.” She talked a few moments more, making it clear to him the police were going to be called.

He hung up, put the chain lock on the door. Then, opening as far as the chain would permit, he called through the crack: “Cops are being called — they’re on their way.”

“ Ah, you would, wouldn’t you? ”

He closed the door again, remembered the ham in the oven, went in and turned it off. He waited for more kicks on his door, but none came, or any more screams, for that matter. Then his buzzer sounded, and a man’s voice said: “Police.” He opened for the officers, who said they had had a complaint, so pulling himself together, he tried to answer them sensibly. “Yes,” he said, “there was a girl out there, putting on kind of a roughhouse, but she seems to have gone — I haven’t heard her the last few minutes. She uses the freight elevator and may have gone out the back way.” The officers went, after taking in the living room. His stomach contracted again, but when he got to the bathroom with it, he discovered the trouble was sobbing, not retching. He decided to go to bed, but having had his say to the mirror, he avoided it while undressing, and when he had on his pajamas, crawled into bed. After a long time he persuaded himself he could sleep. He was just dozing off, or thought he was, when his inside phone rang again. This time when he answered he was quite peevish to Doris, asking: “Yeah, what is it now?” She said she was sorry to bother him, but “a lady is here to see you — a Mrs. Simone, the same one as was here before. But if you want me to say you’ve retired—?” He told her no, to “send her up,” then hurriedly got into his bathrobe and put on the living-room lights. Grace, when he opened, was in a dark summer suit, and stood in the hall for some moments, not responding to his pleasant “Come in.”

“I’m not sure I’m going to,” she said coldly. “I’ve come about Sally. She’s been with me — she just left. And I think it’s rotten what you did to her!”

“I regret I have only one boot to plant in her tail for my country. If this be treason, make the most of it!”

“She’s horribly bruised, do you hear?”

“Maybe so, but the cops have been here once, and unless you want a ride in the wagon, you’d better come inside.”

She came in then and at last saw the living room. She winced as though hit with a whip, wailing: “Oh! Oh! Oh!” And then: “I — didn’t know about this. She — didn’t tell me about it! She didn’t say one word!”

“Just told you what I did, hey?”

“Not by name. Just—”

“Called me a louse and went on from there?”

“ ‘Son of a bitch’ is what she called you.”

“Now, that sounds just like her.”

By then she had reached the piano and begun examining the things piled on it. Seeing the Orozco, she started to cry, picking it up, touching fingers to it, turning it over, peering at the reverse side. Then, passionately: “It can be repaired — and I’ll pay for it, Clay! There’s a Mr. Gumpertz on Chase Street who’ll make it as good as new! He does marvelous restorations! He—”