James Cain - The Magician's Wife

After a startled moment, Mr. Lomack nodded and rapped with his knuckles. Mr. Gordon rapped. Mr. Katz rapped, and after thinking, Mr. Heine. “O.K.,” said Clay briskly, “that gives them twenty-five grand, which ought to hold them — anyway, to start.”

Back in the office, he learned from Miss Helm that “a Mrs. Simone called — wants you to call her, at Fisher’s.” Grace, when he got her, seemed upset, and asked: “Have you seen The Bosun today?”

“Oh? That columnist? On The Pilot?”

“You’d better have a look.”

“I will. Hold on a minute, Grace.”

He had noticed Miss Helm with the paper, and she let him have it at once, looking, he thought, rather sheepish. Finding The Bosun, he read:

What well-known magician, hooked in a Baltimore club, is burning because his girlfriend has started to cheat, with a big sausage-and-porterhouse man, here in Channel City?

“Well?” he asked Grace. “So what?”

“You don’t think it just happened, do you?”

“No, I think a bitch put it in, as part of a get-hunk campaign that you kindly warned me of. But don’t let it worry you, Grace. I’ve been busy selling meat, tons and tons and tons of it — but this I can handle too, and when I do I’ll ring you. How’ve you been?”

“I’ve been fine, thanks.”

“I took a trip to the beach.”

“I hope you enjoyed it.”

Hanging up, he asked Miss Helm to call Mr. Iglehart, of The Pilot business office, and when Mr. Iglehart came on, he made himself most agreeable, recalling a previous meeting and bringing up the new project, with the space it was going to require for the ads in The Pilot. “And why I called,” he went on, “we’re going to need help, of course, your very valuable help, with layout and stuff like that, and I was wondering if I could come in? Take up some of your time and—”

“Come in? Mr. Lockwood, I’ll come to you.”

“Oh, would you? You mean, today?”

“Well — I can. I’ll come right over now.”

But Clay told Miss Helm: “When Mr. Iglehart comes, cool him off a while. It suits me that he waits.” So in twenty minutes or so, a good-looking young man sat, staring through the glass, while Clay stared back fish-faced, making no move to ask him in. At last he came in, or at least put his head in the door, smiling: “Mr. Lockwood? Jim Iglehart, of The Pilot. ”

“Oh, yes,” said Clay. “Come in.”

“You called just now. About space.”

“Did I? You must learn to take a rib.”

“Rib? Mr. Lockwood, I don’t get it—”

“It’s O.K., don’t give it a thought. There’s always The Baltimore Sun, which has space for me too — and doesn’t print lies about me, like this thing that I saw, after talking with you.” He handed The Pilot over, and Mr. Iglehart read The Bosun. “Well!” he faltered. “I can see why you wouldn’t like it, but — after all, Mr. Lockwood, it doesn’t name anyone!”

“Oh, how considerate,” said Clay.

“And it doesn’t have to mean you!”

“Just what I told my girl — my secretary — just now. And yet they were both in, the magician and his girl. I never saw either one of them, before or since, but — they were here. And so, not only my girl but every girl in the place thinks I’m a wolf, a chaser, a—”

“Will you give me five minutes, sir?”

“Sure, I’ll give you till hell freezes over!”

“Will you give me a phone to use?”

“Help yourself, help yourself!” Clay said it sourly, waved at the phone, and walked out, winking at Miss Helm and telling her: “See that he gets his call — and let me know when he’s done talking. I’ll be down at the weighmaster’s desk.”

He clumped down the stairs and stood watching the meat go out, over the weighmaster’s scales. Soon the phone rang and Miss Helm told him: “He’s finished, Mr. Lockwood — and wants to speak with you.”

Going back, he found a demoralized young man wiping his brow and massaging his mouth. “Sir,” he said, “if you think that’s easy, getting a paper to take something back, you ought to try it once... They’re killing it in the five-thirty, and tomorrow they’ll run the retraction.”

“Tomorrow? Why not today? ”

“Why — to catch the editions that had it.”

“I want it retracted now! ”

“Well — that’ll suit them a lot better!”

Why Clay preferred one edition today, for people who missed the original item, to several editions tomorrow, reaching those who had seen it, he didn’t say, and perhaps didn’t quite know. But the question of immediacy, of a gloating call to Grace, before she left her office, may have bulked large in his mind. He stood by while Mr. Iglehart called The Pilot again, talked briefly, and announced: “It’s all fixed up — be in the five-thirty” — and then promised: “O.K., well talk about space tomorrow.” Then, until the 5:30 would come, he filled in the interim with calls to Mr. Gumpertz, the furniture people, and the rug dealers, to have his stuff taken out — and with one to Miss Homan, the day girl at the Marlborough, arranging to have them admitted next day when they came. Then he called the Chinquapin-Plaza to reserve a suite for the night, it occurring to him that since his bag was packed and already in the car, he needn’t go home just yet and look at the wreckage once more.

At last, Miss Helm brought the 5:30, and sure enough, the item was out of The Bosun’s column, and beside it was a box:

In earlier editions, The Bosun alleged “cheating” by an unidentified girl with an unidentified man. The Pilot has been unable to substantiate this, and regrets its publication.

It didn’t really say much, wasn’t quite what had been promised, and perhaps left the waters more roiled than they would have been had nothing been said. But he had hardly finished it when he had Miss Helm call Grace, and when she came on the line blurted: “Read your five-thirty, Grace — you’ll get quite a surprise.”

“I’ve just finished reading it, Clay.”

“Proves something, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, indeed — that you’re hardly able to talk. Whatever she does or doesn’t do, it seems to wind up the same way.”

“To me it proves she did not get away with a thing. She might just as well not have tried lousing me up. And, I am selling meat, did you hear me?”

“Then, if you’re satisfied, fine.”

“What are you doing tonight?”

“Why — nothing, I guess.”

“Dinner?”

“At your place? I won’t go out.”

“Temporarily I’m at the Chinquapin-Plaza.”

He explained about his arrangements, and she said: “Then, if it’s to be in your suite, and I’m not on public view, I’d like it very much.”

“You’ll come on your way from work?”

“I’ll go home and change first.”

For the next month or more he sold meat in a sort of frenzy, extending his beach involvement to Rehoboth, Delaware, and two places in Virginia, and moving not only frankfurters by the truckload but small steaks too, with patties of ground meat, lamb cut up for shashlik, and ham, tongue, and dried meat, packaged and sliced for sandwiches. He landed a drugstore chain, and then put over a coup, with a frankfurter commitment from Snax, which had the ball-park concession, and ran into trouble one day when a number of people fell ill, and had to be hauled off to the hospital, from eating dogs supplied by a Grant’s competitor. Almost nightly he exulted to Grace, either at the hotel, where he stayed two or three weeks, or the apartment, when it was put in order again. She kept up her propaganda, to reunite him with Sally, but he wouldn’t have it, even at the news she was free again, with the child at his grandfather’s, at his beachhouse, for the summer. “I’m laughing at you,” he said. “What’s it to me, Grace, whether she’s free or not?” He continued proposing marriage, but though tempted, she continued holding back. “But why?” he wanted to know. “How long do I have to prove that she means nothing to me? How much meat do I have to sell?” But she insisted that “All you’re proving is that you’re still in love with her.” And then one day, when he was just back from lunch, Miss Helm informed him: “Mrs. Granlund’s on the line-wants to speak with you.”