James Cain - The Magician's Wife

“O.K., we don’t say any more.”

“Oh, yes, we do — we say plenty, now that you’ve brought the subject up, of what I may have done, with good cause, Mr. Lockwood. Where were you? Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“Oh! So you called me!”

“No, Clay, I rang you.”

The difference, it seemed, was profound. Calling, wanting to talk, was one thing, she explained in close detail. Ringing him, “making you answer your phone, and then hanging up on you, so you’d never get any sleep — that was something else.” But, she finished, “you never answered your phone. Where were you? Playing around with Buster? Or what?”

“Bunny’s looking at you.”

She laughed gaily for Bunny’s eye, then repeated, leaning close: “Where were you? You louse, I want to know!”

“At the Chinquapin-Plaza.”

“So that was it!”

As he explained she indulged in retroactive rage, at the trick he had played her in not being home in person to suffer the vengeance she’d planned, he in a retroactive gloat at the neat way he had foiled her intention. But retroactivity is fleeting and of low voltage, so presently they laughed, and she said: “So all right, all right, all right. We’ll say no more.”

“Not so fast, not so fast!”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Clay! What is it now?”

“You can come — I can’t very well stop you. I might even be glad to see you. But it’s mock-orange love for you unless you meet my condition.”

“Condition? What condition?”

“Sally, the same old one.”

“Oh? The Wild-Man-from-Borneo thing? Break up my marriage right away? Go to Reno and all that stuff?”

“That’s it. You’ve got it.”

“Well, I have to now, of course.”

He was astonished, staring to make sure she was serious. She seemed to be, and he asked: “What do you mean, ‘ now ’?”

“You’re going away, I suppose?”

“That’s right. And soon.”

“Then you could walk out on me.”

“Could? I have.”

“Aw! Aw! Listen at him — walked out on me! My, I can hardly bear it! Well, you could come walking back, if I know you — and me. I imagine I just about know how to make you!”

“Get back to the subject. My going away—?”

“Compels me to make a choice.”

“What choice, Sally? What are you talking about?”

“Well, there’s you. And there’s—!”

“The money?”

“ Yes! ”

For the first time she showed real emotion, her lips twitching, her eyes filling up. After some moments, getting herself under control, she went on: “Not that I like it, giving up twelve million bucks, but if it’s that or giving you up — I guess I’ve made up my mind. I just don’t think I’d like it, living my life without you. So, I’ve decided on you. I only hope you’re worth it.”

“Listen: I could be, at that!”

“You were always so modest, Clay!”

“I’m talking about the dough I could very well make before your life is lived. Sally, I’m on my way.”

“Then, maybe I’ve done the right thing.”

“I’ll be home before five.”

They sat studying each other, and then suddenly she said: “O.K., that’s it, so let’s cut out the jibbering and jabbering, and get down to brass tacks. I’m agreeable, and fact of the matter, I’d already made up my mind, before it all came out, what’s in the paper today. But, I have to think of my child. He’s with his grandfather, has been since Fourth of July, at the beachhouse on Brice’s Point, and if I take off now and leave him there, he’s just a hostage to hate, something to torture me with — in ways I couldn’t think up but a spiteful old man can. So I have to get my baby. So you hold everything now until I find out from Bunny, before this thing breaks up, if she’ll let me bring him to her and then take him with her tomorrow, when she leaves for Cape May, where her kids already are. Or in other words, if she’ll do that for me, I’ll go get Elly this evening and then later come to you — not forgetting, of course, I’m due at five o’clock, for a few minutes with you, if you still think you want to see me. Now, am I making sense or not?”

“Sounds A-O.K. with me.”

“I’ll see her and let you know.”

They got separated, though, when the party spilled out on the lawn, where the photographers were “setting up,” to have the advantage of sunlight. For some time Clay had to pose, with Bunny, Steve, and Pat, and then Pat grabbed his arm, dragging him up to say good-by. “We have to get out!” he whispered. “Or these people are stuck — no one can go till the guest of honor does. That’s me — I’m him! You keep forgetting my unusual eminence!” So, in a matter of seconds, Clay was pumping Bunny’s thick hand and then Steve’s thin one. He still hadn’t settled things with Sally, but then, beyond bobbing heads, she gave him a little wigwag and held up five meaningful fingers. He drove happily, in a fuzzy haze, all the way to the hotel. There Pat had to pack and was so fumble-fingered about it that Clay had a horrible fear he would miss the plane and knock his date in the head. However, by calling a bellboy to help, they finally got the job done, and made the plane by a hair. Clay got home at a quarter to five, but as he opened the door caught a familiar fragrance. When he looked she was there, on the reconditioned sofa, a beckoning hand extended. Hungrily, ecstatically, he wrapped her in his arms.

Their few minutes stretched to an hour, and then she scurried off, “to pick up some things at home that my baby’s going to need — and change my dress, while I’m at it.” He ate uptown, at the Chinquapin-Plaza, mainly to kill time until she returned. He was back by early evening and decided he ought to call Grace. “So O.K.,” he told her, “you win your bet — congratulations.”

“What bet, Clay?”

“About me. About her. About—”

“Oh! You made it up?”

“Everything’s settled, Grace. She’s come to her senses at last. She’s doing it my way — breaking her marriage up now, having it done in Reno, which of course has been your way all along.”

“I’m so glad! It makes me so happy I want to cry... And — so jealous I want to scream. Do you hear? I’d like to tear your eyes out!”

“That part is my one regret.”

“ Clay, you don’t have any regret! ”

“Well, listen, we’ve been pretty close.”

“It’s up to me to do my own weeping.”

“Then, if you want it that way—?”

“It’s not what I want. It’s what has to be!”

He particularized a little, telling of Sally’s meekness in acceding to his terms, her immediate plans for the child, and so on. Then he went on: “But I would say, Grace, we’ve come to a certain point, about family relationships. You and I will have to meet, and I thought the portrait could be the bridge. I mean, I could tell her what Pat said and ask if she knew anyone qualified to accept the commission. She’ll have to nominate you — or at least, as we would think. And that’ll do it. Do you agree?”

“Well — is a bridge really needed, Clay?”

“Well — I was just bubble-gumming.”

“Can’t we defer it, Clay?”

“O.K. — we let things take their course.”

“Once again: I’m glad.”

He played the Beethoven Third and the Tchaikovsky Sixth, and then, glancing at his watch, was startled to find it nearly eleven. She had said “somewhere around ten,” which gave her ample time, as Brice’s Point was a small place on the bay, an exclusive summer colony, a half hour’s drive from town, so allowing for all delays, for argument, even for quarreling, four hours should have sufficed. He tramped around, a feeling growing on him that something had gone wrong. At last, looking up Elwood P. Gorsuch in the phone book and choosing the one at Ch’s’p’ke Av of the three residences listed, he rang it. He had to hold on for a number of rings before a woman answered, seemingly much upset. She said, when he asked for Mrs. Alexis, “She’s not here — nobody’s here — there’s nobody here to talk.” By now greatly alarmed, he looked up the Alexis home and, for the first time, rang it. At once a man answered, and in panic he hung up. Then, in a helpless, demoralized state, he felt he had to call Grace. She listened, agreeing they had to do something, and told him to wait, not to make any more calls, “to keep your line clear,” and she’d call him back.