James Cain - The Magician's Wife

“Don’t worry. She’s got it.”

They decided, with Atlantic City canceled, to postpone things for a day, from Tuesday until Wednesday, “to give me a chance,” as she said, “to wind things up at the store and also get something to wear. And to give you the chance, Mr. Lockwood, to put twin beds in your place — that is, if we’re using it, as I assume, when we get back from the trip, for the time that’s going to remain before we leave for Mankato.”

“That’s right — thanks for reminding me.”

“ Get rid of that bed you have! ”

The rasp in her voice startled him, and it was a moment before he realized what she meant. Then: “O.K.,” he said, “Tuesday it goes out.”

“In the meantime you’re staying here.”

But his real reason for blocking the call to Sally was his concern for what it could mean, the explosion it might cause. He pictured her, when she heard of the wedding plans, as going into a panic at what he might tell, the revelations he might make, the full confession to Grace, as a suitable prelude to marriage. In that, as he learned, he badly misgauged her, but it was what he feared, and he racked his brains for a way to reach her, and reach her before Grace did, to give her reassurance that no such disclosure would come. But how he had no idea. He dared not call her at Bunny’s place in Cape May, as he had no way of knowing if she would be free to talk. And he dared not send her a wire asking her to call him, as she might misunderstand it and go off on some tear that he couldn’t anticipate. But on Labor Day he had thought well to visit the shop, make one last holiday check, and see how things were going now that his back was turned. He arrived in late afternoon and spent some time there, not leaving until dusk to keep his dinner date with Grace. His way led up Kennedy Drive, and almost mechanically, passing Elm Street, he glanced toward Sally’s house, catching his breath when he saw a light up on the second floor. Circling the block, he parked near the Harlow Theater, walked down, and rang the bell. Nobody came, and then his ear caught the sound of a child’s laughter. He rang again, and from an upstairs window Sally called down: “I’ll be down in a minute — I can’t come just yet. Please wait.”

He waited, and then a downstairs light came on, and the door opened. Sally, in black, stiffened when she saw him, and her eyes turned to stones. “What do you want?” she snarled.

“Sally,” he said, trying to sound agreeable, “we have business — fairly important business — that should not be discussed out here on the street.”

Uneasily, still coldly hostile, she stood aside for him to enter and he stepped first into the hall, then into the room where she had put on the light. By its location, it was a living room but by its furnishings, it was what she had said it was the first evening she visited him, a “storehouse for junk.” Against one wall were three cabinets of pink brocade with gold fringe, against another a row of great baskets that crowded against a sofa and two upholstered chairs. Derisively, as he glanced uncomfortably around, she asked: “What’s the matter? Afraid something’ll jump out at you?”

“Well, it might at that,” he said grimly.

“Not at me, it won’t.”

“Nice when your conscience is clear.”

“I asked what you want!” she snapped, pointedly not asking him to sit. “Get at it, if you don’t mind. What is this business we have?”

“First: I’m going to marry your mother.”

Her eyes dilated, and she stared for some moments. Then: “Are you being funny?” she whispered.

“No, not at all.”

“You don’t even know my mother.”

“On the contrary, I know her very well.” He recounted briefly his relations with Grace, especially how they had met, “through that number you gave her each night — my number, you’ll recall. She got curious about it and looked it up, finally coming to see me. She approved of me and spent some time promoting the match. With some success, I may add — until, as you know, it somehow fell apart. All that time I was falling for her, and she was, for me. So when she felt, as she said, that you were as cold on me as I seemed to be on you, she felt free to follow her heart, and so, the wedding is going to take place. Don’t try to attend — I won’t have you there. It would make her happy, though, if you called her up.” He waited, studying her, and when he saw she believed him at last, he went on: “However, that’s not what I came about. I just wanted to say I’ve told her nothing, that I’m going to tell her nothing, of what happened a week ago — of your part in it or mine. So you can rest easy and—”

“I had no part in anything.”

“Then — O.K. The case is closed.”

“Oh, no. Not quite.”

“... There’s something I don’t know?”

“There’s that girl that I’m going to get.”

“Are you talking about Buster?”

“Who do you think I’m talking about? She tried to put it on me, she told those lies about me — and for that I mean to get her.”

“Sally, I think you’re out of your mind!”

“Am I? Maybe not. The old man played me tricks and choked to death, so it seems. Alec played me tricks and drowned, so it seems. She played me tricks and she’ll burn, as it will seem.”

“For something we did?”

“ ‘We?’ Who is we?”

“You and I, Sally, both of us.”

“I don’t even know what you mean!”

“I mean I wonder if you’re all there in the head.”

He studied her, trying to make up his mind whether this was just venomous talk or if something substantial lay back of it. He couldn’t tell, but tried to sound reasonable as he said: “Sally, can’t you see you’re rocking the boat? That you’re playing with TNT? You have the money! You—”

“Money’s not all. Oh, no.”

“... Sally, if you’re figuring this as a way to copper-rivet your innocence, it may not work out that way. It could explode in your face in a way to wreck your whole life.”

“That’s my lookout.”

He stood for some moments, rocking back and forth in front of her, then sniffed. “Sally,” he said very solemnly, “if I were you, I’d get treatment for that gland. It not only makes you stink but, as I would say, leaves you a bit unbalanced.”

“Is there something else?”

“You have it straight? What I said?”

“Well, I’m losing no sleep!”

“Then, fine. Did Bunny come back, too?”

“Well, the season’s over, isn’t it?”

Grace was badly upset when he told her about his visit, and for a time it seemed that the marriage might break up before it even got started. But when Sally called she felt better. “I wouldn’t call her effusive,” she remarked on hanging up, “but after all, she’s involved in it too — as I mustn’t forget. She was agreeable enough, though — so perhaps that was the way to handle it, and I’ll say no more about it... Shall we eat at the club again? I’m beginning to feel it’s ‘our place.’ ”

“So O.K., but what can she do, what in the hell can she do? Get on with your life, get on with it!”

Grant’s, though headquartered IN the northern Middle West, mainly covered the Southeast, with branches in Richmond, Atlanta, Miami Beach, Mobile, New Orleans, and Memphis, and so the newlyweds toured Dixie at a time when Dixie was lovely, with autumn perfuming its days while touching its nights with a crisp chill. Pat’s red carpet was 1,200 miles long and rolled ahead of them everywhere, so their wants were anticipated, even to their man, which was waiting at every stop. In Miami Beach, to their great amusement, they received the announcement of their own marriage and at once called Pat to thank him. “I thought it would give you a bang,” he said, evidently proud of himself. “How was that for all due deliberate speed?” Clay said it was “pure magic,” and then Grace took the phone, with appreciative comments on “that paper and the engraving — oh, my, how beautifully it was done.” Once more, when Clay took the phone again, Pat admired “that well-bred voice,” and Clay felt very proud. But at Mobile, Pat called them to acknowledge the picture’s arrival, they having called Mr. Gumpertz, their last hectic day in Channel City, and had him take it over for forwarding. Pat, after complimenting Grace, told Clay: “Listen, my grandfather’s picture, my father’s, and mine all look as though painted by a friend of the mayor’s, which of course they were. But this is a beautiful thing — a real work of art, which is something I know about even if I don’t know meat. So I hope you’re proud of who you’re married to.”