Уильям Айриш: Phantom lady

“But why get sore about it? I should think she’d be flattered.”

“It’s no use expecting a man to understand. Steal my jewelry, steal the gold fillings from my teeth, but don’t steal my hat. And over and above that, in this particular case it’s a distinctive part of her act, part of her trademark. It’s probably been pirated, I doubt that she’d give permission to—”

“I suppose it is a form of plagiarism.” He watched with slightly heightened interest, if not yet complete self-forget-fulness.

Her art was a simple thing. As real art always is. And as getting away with something at times is, too. She sang in Spanish, but even in that language there was very little intellect to the lyric. Something like this:

“Chica chica boom boom

Chica chica boom boom”

Over and over. Meanwhile she kept rolling her eyes from side to side, throwing one hip out of joint at every step she took, and throwing little nosegays out to the women members of the audience from a flat basket she carried slung at her side.

By the time she had run through two choruses of the thing, every woman in the first two or three rows was in possession of one of her floral tokens. With the notable exception of Henderson’s companion. “She purposely held out on me, to get even for the hat,” she whispered knowingly. And as a matter of fact, every time the hitching, heel-stamping figure on the stage had slowly worked her way past their particular vantage point, there had been an ominous flash, an almost electrical crackling, visible in her fuselike eves as they glided over that particular location.

“Watch me call her on it,” she remarked under her breath for his benefit. She clasped her hands together, just below her face, in vise formation.

The hint was patently ignored.

She extended them out before her, at half arm’s length, held them that way in solicitation.

The eyes on the stage slitted for a minute, then resumed their natural contour, strayed elsewhere.

Suddenly there was a distinct snap of the fingers from Henderson’s companion. A crackling snap, sharp enough to top the music. The eyes rolled back again, glowered maniacally at the offender. Another flower came out and winged over, but still not to her.

“I never know when I’m beaten,” he heard her mutter doggedly. Before he knew what she meant, she had risen to her feet, stood there in her seat, smiling beatifically, passively claiming her due.

For a moment there was a deadlock between the two. But the odds were too unequal. The performer, after all was said and done, was at the mercy of this individualistic spectator, for she had an illusion of sweetness and charm to maintain at all costs in the sight of the rest of the audience.

The alteration in the stature of Henderson’s seat mate also had an unforeseen result in another respect. As the hip-hiker slowly made the return trip, the spotlight, obediently following her and slanted low, cut across the head and shoulders of this lone vertical impediment, standing up on the orchestra floor. The result was that the similarity of the two hats was brought explosively to everyone’s attention. A centripetal ripple of comment began to spread outward, as when a stone is dropped into heretofore still waters.

The performer capitulated and capitulated fast, to put an end to this odious comparison. Up came a blackmail-extorted flower, out it went over the footlights in a graceful little curve. She covered up the omission by making a rueful little moue, as if to say, “Did I overlook you? Forgive me, I didn’t meant to.” Behind it, however, could be detected the subcutaneous pallor of a lethal tropical rage.

Henderson’s companion had deftly caught the token and subsided into her seat again with a gracious lip movement. Only he detected the wordage that actually emerged, “Thank you — you Latin louse!” He choked on something in his throat.

The worsted performer slowly worked her way off into the wings with little spasmodic hitches, while the music died down like the clatter of train wheels receding into the distance.

In the wings they glimpsed a momentary but highly revealing vignette, while the house was still rocking with applause. A pair of shirt-sleeved masculine arms, most likely the stage manager’s, were bodily restraining the performer from rushing back onstage again. Obviously for some purpose over and above merely taking bows. Her hands, held down at her sides by his bear-hug embrace, were visibly clenched into fists and twitching with punitive intent. Then the stage blacked out and another number came on.

At the final curtain, as they rose to go, he tossed his program into the discard, onto the seat he had just quitted.

To his surprise she reached down for it, added it to her own, which she was retaining. “Just as a memento,” she remarked.

“I didn’t think you were sentimental,” he said, moving slowly up the choked aisle at her heels.

“Not sentimental, strictly speaking. It’s just that — I like to gloat over my own impulsiveness at times, and these things will help.”

Impulsiveness? Because she had joined forces with him for the evening, without ever having seen him before, he supposed. He shrugged — inwardly, if not visibly.

As they were fighting their way toward a taxi, in the melee outside the entrance, an odd little mischance occurred. They had already claimed their cab, but before they could get into it, a blind beggar approached, hovered beside her in mute appeal, alms cup all but nudging her. The lighted cigarette she was holding was jarred from her fingers in some way, either by the beggar himself or someone nearby, and fell into the cup. Henderson saw it happen, she didn’t. Before he could interfere the trustful unfortunate had thrust probing fingers in after it, and then snatched them back again in pain.

Henderson quickly dug the ember out for him himself, and put a dollar bill in his hand to make amends. “Sorry, old timer, that wasn’t intentional,” he murmured. Then noting that the sufferer was still blowing ruefully on his smarting finger, he added a second bill to the first, simply because the incident could have been so easily misconstrued as the height of calloused mockery, and he could tell by looking at her it hadn’t been intended as such.

He followed her into the cab and they drove off. “Wasn’t that pathetic?” was all she said.

He had given the driver no direction as yet.

“What time is it?” she asked presently.

“Going on quarter of twelve.”

“Suppose we go back to Anselmo’s, where we first met. We’ll have a night cap and then we’ll part there. You go your way and I’ll go mine. I like completed circles.”

They’re usually empty in the middle, it occurred to him, but it seemed ungallant to mention this, so he didn’t.

The bar was considerably more crowded now, when they got there, than it had been at six. However, he managed to secure a stool for her all the way around at the very end of the bar, up against the wall, and posted himself at her shoulder.

“Well,” she said, holding her glass just an inch above bar level and eyeing it speculatively, “hail and farewell. Nice having met you.”

“Nice of you to say so.”

They drank; he to completion, she only partially. “I’ll remain here for a short while,” she said by way of dismissal. She offered him her hand. “Good night — and good luck.” They shook briefly, as acquaintances of an evening should. Then just as he was about to turn away, she crinkled her eyes at him in remonstrative afterthought. “Now that you’ve got it out of your system, why don’t you go back and make up with her?”

He gave her a slightly surprised look.

“I’ve understood all evening,” she said quietly.