James Cain: The Magician's Wife

“Any relation to Mr. El?”

“Mr. El’s his father.”

He whistled, for Mr. El, with his auto-accessory stores, was a fabulously rich man. She said: “I don’t wonder you’re surprised that the son of someone like him would get himself mixed up with magic — but you needn’t be. In the first place he’s hipped on it, and in the second place he doesn’t like junkyards, as he calls his father’s outlets. So, that’s that. So pink brocade still looks—”

“Like Christmas in July?”

“Now you know.”

She took his wrist to look at the time, but he assured: “I promised you’d go back on time, and on time you’re going to go... If you still want to go, that is.”

“If I want to go? How do you mean, Clay?”

“If you want to go at all.”

“That I’d stay? Here with you? Tonight?”

“Tonight — and the rest of your life.”

She sat up, staring, and seemingly baffled. Then: “Well!” she said. “I’m not sure I know what you’re getting at, but— Clay, we’ve only known each other since morning. Afternoon, to be exact, as the luncheon menu was out, and it doesn’t come from the printers till twelve. For the rest of my—? Honey, is this a gag?”

“No,” he said seriously. “Listen, there is such a thing as knowing the big things in life from the little ones, of being able to tell when you’ve been hit by a truck. All right, I own up, I have been. But you’ve been making noises as though it hit you too, so why do you call it a gag? What’s stopping you from staying here, tucking away with me, and then as soon as you’re ready shoving off for Reno, Tahoe, Vegas, or wherever you want it done? Then we get married, that’s all. And go on from there. That’s simple, isn’t it?”

“Little too simple, Clay.”

“How, too simple?”

“In — all kinds of various ways.”

“In one way, you’re damned right it’s simple: You’ll be here, then — and not there, warming the hay for a husband, when he gets home from his show.”

“Oh, so that’s it!”

“That among other things.”

“It’s one thing you don’t have to worry about!”

She got up, smoothed her skirt, shook her hair, and declaimed: “When I heard about Busty Buster, that girl he has in his act, and what he was doing with her — I locked my door. Did you hear what I said, Clay? I locked it and locked it for good. It was just before Elly was born and—”

“Elly? Who is he?”

“My little boy, who do you think?”

“You — have a child? ”

“Well my goodness, Clay, I’m married! Wives do have children, don’t they? Elly’s three years old, and even before he came, I tell you I locked my door. I—”

“I took you for — twenty-two, three-years old.”

“I’m twenty-one, so happens.”

“Then — O.K., let’s get him too.”

“He’s at his grandfather’s now.”

She said Mr. El had sent for the boy, to spend the Easter holidays, and had kept him a few days longer, “and that’s why I’m free to traipse over here with you.” He said: “Then stay, and when we’re ready, go get him and—”

“Stop being the Wild Man from Borneo!”

“Is that what I look like to you?”

“Clay, I hate nutty ideas.”

“O.K., but what’s nutty about it?”

“Everything.”

“Is there any good reason you can’t?”

“Yes! Elly, for one thing!”

“So he’s hanging us up — and I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I have an office back there, a spare bedroom, really, with fixtures and stuff in it that we can move out tomorrow, so workmen can come in, paint rabbits on the wall, and make a nursery out of it. Then we’ll put in his trundle bed and—”

“Please, please, please!”

She was touched, or seemed to be, and sat down on the opposite sofa, getting a handkerchief out of her bag, wiping her eyes and biting her lip. Then, quietly, she said: “You made me cry, Clay — that you’d feel so friendly to him, my own little boy, means something, I can tell you. But where he sleeps and the pictures he has on the wall aren’t what I’m talking about. They’re important, but they’re not all.”

“Yeah? And what’s the rest?”

“His full, fair share of a fortune.”

“The Gorsuch fortune, you mean?”

“Yes. It’s what’s been hanging things up.”

“Things? You mean, a divorce?”

“That’s it. Between me and Alec.”

“All right, Sally, I begin to get it now, but make it plain, will you? So I get the picture?”

“We’re marking time, that’s all.”

“On what?”

“A — certain event.”

“Do you mean the death of Mr. El?”

“Well, I could never make myself say it, but since you have, that’s what we’re talking about. Until that event takes place, I dare not make a move, because he could resent it, Clay — and take it out on Elly. As it is now, the will’s in Alec’s favor, with a trust fund or whatever it is, and of course when he inherits, he can make me a settlement and one for Elly too — though mine I don’t care about. I’m making a living now and can take care of myself the rest of my life, I think. But my child I can’t disregard.”

“So where does that put us, if anywhere?”

“Well? Tonight’s been sweet. And tomorrow—”

“We do a retake, on the sneak—?”

“All right, if that’s what you think it is.”

“Think? We are on the sneak, Sally!”

“Clay! I stay — and then what? Do you know?”

“I told you! You go to Reno—”

“And get not one red cent! Of what’s due me or due my little boy! If that’s not being nutty, I wouldn’t know what it is!”

“Hey, wait, not so fast!”

His mind had been at work and by now had somewhat caught up. He asked: “How can you hope for a settlement, if a lump sum’s what you mean, when the dough’s tied up in a trust fund? They won’t unfreeze it for you; it couldn’t be done. And if alimony’s what you mean, it won’t run one day after you’re married again. So I’m not with it, Sally, at all. And so far as Elly goes, again, if the will names your husband, your boy can’t cut in, except as you get an allowance to bring him up, until your husband dies. So who’s nutty now?”

“... I think it’s time to go.”

“I guess it is.”

“My friend, you’re through with that girl. Did you hear what I said, dumbbell? They’re marking time, all right — or she is — right foot, left foot, and tearing the leaves off the calendar. Because once the old man goes, the only way that she can cut in is by another blessed event, with funeral lilies yet. And you don’t volunteer to knock that husband off — she’s nice, but not that nice, oh no. She’ll be a Merry Widow, that we know for sure, but not with your help. Do you hear? You’re through!”

So he informed his reflection in the mirror, after taking her back to the theater, making her promise to call the next night, and rolling behind her on Elm Street, as she skipped along to a pleasant house and went in. But the next night, when he got in from the club, he found a note on his bureau, from Ellen, his cleaning woman: Mr. L.: This was under y our pillow. “This” was a tortoise-shell comb with a filigree back. He sniffed it, found it full of her delicate smell. Trying to put it down, not quite being able to, he took it into the living room, held it as he sat by the window again, looking down at the city. When the phone rang he answered briskly, as though things were just as they had been at the parting the night before. He mentioned the comb; she said, “Oh-oh-oh,” with a guilty laugh. She mentioned the theater’s change of bill, “so I can go there again tonight without its looking funny.” He waited as before, across from the parking lot, telling his rear-vision mirror: “Stop borrowing trouble. Don’t jump to conclusions, Lockwood. Maybe she means what you think, maybe not, who knows? Take it as it comes. It’s just a few nights anyway before the boy is brought back, and that brings it to an end, a natural, easy end, without you smacking her down. Until then, she’s pretty nice.” The next few nights she decided to eat uptown and come to his place in her car. He gave her a key, and she let herself in the back way, scratching on his door, and being welcomed ecstatically.