James Cain - The Magician's Wife

“Bunny!” he gushed, taking the phone. “Long time no see no hear no touch! Why in the world—”

“ Clay! ” cried a shrill, overbred, domineering voice. “I’m expecting Pat Grant tomorrow! At twelve-thirty! For lunch! Do you hear?” Before he could answer, it went on: “He must come without fail, tell him! I’m asking quite a few people, and as he’s to be guest of honor, I’ll not have any excuses — no last-minute changes of mind, no politely wired regrets, with flowers. He’s to come without fail, without fail, WITHOUT FAIL!” And, apparently as an afterthought, she added: “And of course you’re included, dear Clay — I expect you to bring him yourself.”

“But, Bunny,” he broke in at last, after several tries, “Pat’s not here! He’s in Mankato! And I don’t quite see how—”

“He’s here! He’s here in Channel City!”

“Whatever you say — but he’s not.”

“And you will bring him, Clay? Without fail?”

“I’ll do what I can, of course.”

Hanging up, he groused to Miss Helm about “the society mind — it’s as brittle as cut glass.” But as she laughed and turned to go, Mr. Grant himself walked in, a blocky, good-looking man in his thirties, in gabardines and beret. Blowing Miss Helm a kiss, he held out his hand to Clay, chirping: “Dr. Lockwood, I presume?”

“O.K., Stanley, it’s me,” said Clay, giving the hand a not-too-friendly jerk. “But what’s the big idea? Spreading it all around. So everybody knows except me?”

“Who’s everybody?”

“Bunny Granlund, for one.”

“I haven’t seen Bunny Granlund.”

“She knows. She’s invited you — to lunch.”

“Well, Clay? Hotel coffee shop’s a Portico thing, isn’t it? Maybe they have a grapevine. Maybe I was seen by someone she knows. Maybe she’s like a condor and knows without knowing how. Or maybe—”

“I’m mollified, forget it. I guess I am.”

“Well, look, I bring a big surprise, and how can I do that and let you know all at the same time?”

“Then — let’s have the surprise.”

“Hey! Not yet! Red-carpet me!”

“Red carpets, please,” Clay told Miss Helm, who was still standing there, smiling. “Our best Corona-Coronas.” And to Pat: “I keep ’em with the meat, to have that exact humidity.”

“No better place for cigars.”

When the coronas had been brought, and Mrs. Granlund had been called, by Pat, with a pleasant, gracious acceptance, Clay again pressed for the surprise, but Pat seemed strangely diffident, and they went out to have dinner. On the way to the club they stopped at the apartment, where Pat played Bach and admired Clay’s pictures, now back from Mr. Gumpertz and in place again. At dinner, out on the balcony, he talked and talked and talked without coming to the point — about Clay’s baseball-park triumph, over his bad-hot-dog competitor, about the crab cakes they were having, about Château Yquem with apple pie, “a combo so queer it’s weird, but the strange part is, it’s good .” And as Clay began to fidget he suddenly burst out: “Hey! This is the worst night of my life! So let me enjoy it, will you?”

“What’s so bad about it?”

“For once I’m owning up to the truth.”

“That I’m fired? Is that it? That’s the surprise?”

“What makes you think so, Clay?”

“We’re in for upward of fifteen grand on these beach commitments of mine — but I endorsed those drafts myself. They stand as my personal chits. So—”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Backing those beach corporations.”

“Well, why not? We should have done it before.”

“Well, get to it. What is this, Pat?”

“... You’re not fired — I am.”

“You? You own the goddam outfit — don’t you?”

“Well, yeah — but what’s to own, Clay, without somebody runs it that knows what to do with meat — besides eat it?”

“So? Don’t you?”

“Stop being funny, Clay.”

“So O.K., you went to Harvard. But Svenson knows.”

“Yes, but Sven’s turning seventy this week.”

“No. I didn’t realize he was that far along.”

“So he has to retire, and at long last, Clay, I’m relinquishing him the title — president. Moving on to board chairman, putting an end to this comedy I’ve been playing, of being a big meat packer, of pretending that’s what I am, when all the time I’m just third-generation rich, that can play Bach on your Steinway, honor Bunny with my presence, so all her friends will know I knew her at Bar Harbor, before her shoes got run down and she had to marry Steve, and talk about Château Yquem. Or in other words, I’ll quit being a fake. As of next week, Sven will be president, and as of the first of the year, he’ll be our beloved emeritus.”

“Pat, it’s damned decent of you.”

“Been decenter ten years ago.”

“Yet I don’t mind saying, it gives me some concern.”

“In what way, gives you concern, Clay?”

“Who’s to follow Sven?”

“Oh, that — yes, I see what you mean and I’m glad you brought it up. I’ve given it considerable thought, and as I see it, we need a commanding type, a guy with a loud voice, a fist like a Grant gold-medal ham, a thick neck, an aggressive way with the clients, and a mania for selling meat in eighteen different ways that never were thought of before, most of them vulgar, pushing, and rude. Or in other words, Clay, you.”

“... Me? ”

“Now you know. That’s the surprise.”

“Revive me, please. I think I just fainted.”

Pat talked on, about the rigors of being a fake and the shame of “living a lie,” apparently seeing himself as a tragic figure, but sounding more like a playboy, somewhat loquacious from wine, crying into his glass. Clay hardly heard him. He stared out at the pink of the sunset, the blue of the bay, and the white of the dipping sails, until everything blended together into a polychromatic euphoria, indescribably romantic and almost unbearably beautiful. His mood persisted after they reached the apartment, where they went for a sociable nightcap, as Pat’s did too, he playing Bach again, and then switching to Gershwin’s Rhapsody, whose opening he called “a real pronouncement on life — it’s laugh-clown-laugh, blow-blow-thou-winter-wind, and bye-bye-blackbird all rolled into one.” Clay agreed, and Pat finished the Rhapsody , then went on to “I Got Rhythm” and “Lady Be Good.” Then a call came, and when Clay answered, The Pilot city desk told him they had heard a rumor, “a tip from Mankato, Minnesota, that you’re to be president of Grant’s. Anything to it?” Pat talked, to confirm, and soon a reporter came, accompanied by a photographer, when Clay took the floor, suddenly very important. “There’s a revolution in meat,” he proclaimed, as though making a speech to Rotary, though pausing every so often so the reporter could catch up with his notes. “We’ve come a long way since Grant’s was founded in the northwest Land o’ Lakes, because that’s where the ice was, just as it was at Chicago, that they cut in winter, stored till summer, and chilled the meat with. Now there’s ice all over, but the revolution goes on — in storing, cutting, packing, and, most of all, distributing. And so far as Grant’s is concerned, we don’t follow that revolution — we lead it. We’re in the forefront of it — have been, are still, and will be.”

The photographer hustled out to develop his film, and then the reporter left. Pat brooded, finally remarking: “That proves it, Clay, what I was saying before. Because while you seized the opportunity and said what the moment called for, what was I doing? Looking at your pictures and grappling with the problem of who’s to paint your portrait. All Grant’s, Inc., presidents are done in oil for the board room, with fingers suitably stuck into their coat lapel: my grandfather, like Washington crossing the Rubicon; my father, like Lincoln at Valley Forge, and me, like Napoleon at Appomattox. I’ll get to Sven next, but that still is going to leave you. However, God willing, I hope—”