Evan Hunter - The Paper Dragon

"This is the theater, Arthur. These people are sensitive individuals who—"

"Sensitive, my ass!" Arthur said. "My play is in danger of collapsing, and you're telling me some twenty-two-year-old kid has the power…"

"She's twenty-five, and she's very talented, and your play is not in danger of collapsing."

"I won't let this happen," Arthur said, and there was such an ominous note in his voice that the alley went immediately still. "Call Mitzi. Tell her we have to know, and we have to know right away."

"Don't push this," Stern warned.

"Oscar, if I don't push this, perhaps you'd like to tell me just who will."

"We all want the play to go on. We love this play."

"You've loved it for eleven months now, your option expires in January.

"That's right."

"Yes, that's right, and January is next month."

"We can always talk about an extension," Stern said. " If we get Hester."

"If we get Hester," Arthur repeated.

"That's right, if we get Hester. If we get Hester, we get the money, it's as simple as that. Once we get the money, we can talk extension. If you're willing to grant it, we can go into rehearsal as soon as we finish casting these minor parts. Probably in time for a spring opening."

Arthur nodded. "And if we don't get Hester?"

"Let's see what she has to say, okay?"

"Okay, call Mitzi," Arthur said.

"It'll have to wait till tomorrow."

"Why?"

"Because she's in Philadelphia," Selig said. "One of her clients, Boris Whatsisname, opens in Philadelphia tonight. She's got to be there to hold his hand."

"Well, why can't you call her there? Philadelphia's only—"

"I don't want to bother her with something like this when she's got an opening. Be sensible, Arthur. It's not going to pay to get impatient here."

"All right."

"All right, Arthur?"

"I said all right."

"I'll call her in the morning, first thing."

"All right."

"And then I'll get to you."

"I'll be in court. The cross starts tomorrow."

"You call me when you're free then, all right?"

"All right," Arthur said.

Sidney looked at his watch the moment he entered the vestibule of her building. It was a quarter to four, and she had promised to wait until at least five, but he was afraid now that she had grown impatient and left earlier. The nameplate over her bell was lettered in delicate black script, Charlotte Brown , and it annoyed him just as it always did. He knew her as Chickie Brown, and the formal black script — especially since it had been clipped from her business card — conjured an image of a person about whom he knew very little, Charlotte Brown, who was part owner of a travel agency on Madison Avenue, where she arranged vacations to Haiti or Istanbul for fat matrons. Scowling at the nameplate, he pressed the button below it, and hoped there would be an answering buzz. He gripped the knob on the inner vestibule door with his right hand, put his briefcase down on the floor, patted his hair into place with his free left hand, and waited. Sighing, he walked back to the row of mailboxes, rang the bell a second time, returned to grip the doorknob again, waited, went back to the bell a third time, waited again, and had to ring yet another time before she answered. Her buzz sparked an intense and immediate anger within him, how dare she keep him waiting so long? The anger mounted as he pushed open the frosted-glass door and stepped into the hallway. Did a man have to ring a bell four times before he was admitted to a building? An attorney? Angrily, he climbed the steps to her third-floor apartment. Angrily, he knocked on the door.

"Sidney?" she called.

"Yes," he said. "It's me." For a moment, he thought his anger had caused him to forget his briefcase in the vestibule below, and then he realized that he was holding it tightly in his sweating left hand. The door opened.

"Hello," he said brusquely.

"Hello, luv," she answered warmly.

She was wearing dark green slacks and a white silk blouse. A string of green beads circled her throat. Her long hair was piled carelessly on top of her head, held there haphazardly with a green ribbon, bright russet strands falling onto her cheek and forehead, trailing down the back of her neck.

"Come in," she said, "come in," and walked barefooted toward the plush-covered chair near the window, where her cat lap supine on the arm, his tail switching nervously. She passed her extended forefinger along the length of the cat's back, and then lowered the shade against the gathering dusk. The cat's name was Shah, and Sidney despised him.

Chickie turned from the window with a pleased smile on her face, as though she had been contemplating his arrival all day, and was now enormously satisfied by his presence. She touched the cat again in passing. He lifted his head to accept her hand, and then the tail switched again, and he turned to look at Sidney with a malevolent jungle stare.

One day, you little son of a bitch, Sidney thought, I will be in this apartment alone with you, and I will drown you in the tub.

"What kind of a cat is he?" he asked Chickie.

"A nice cat," she answered.

"I meant the breed."

"Persian."

"Is that why you call him Shah?"

"No."

"Then why?"

"Because he's a nice cat. Aren't you a nice cat, Shah sweetie?" she asked, and she dropped to her knees before the chair and put her face close to the animal's. "Aren't you a lovey-cat, Shah honey?"

"Please, you'll make me vomit," Sidney said.

"I think Sidney has had a hard day in the mines," she said to the cat, and then rose and grinned and said, "Would you like a drink, Sidney? Would that help?"

"I had a very easy day," Sidney said, glaring at the cat. "I just don't happen to like your cat."

"Sidney!" she said. "I thought you loved Shah."

"No, I don't love Shah."

"I thought you did."

"No, I do not. Point of fact, I do not love any cat in the world, least of all Shah. Don't ever leave me alone in the apartment with him, or I'll drown him in the tub."

"Do you hear that, Shah?" she said playfully. "Watch out for Sidney because he'll drown you in the tub."

The cat made an ominous sound from somewhere back in his throat. "That's right, you heard her," Sidney said, and Shah made the same ominous sound again.

"He understands you," Chickie said.

"I hope he does. Why do you keep him around?"

"He was a gift."

"From whom?"

"A man."

"Who?"

"Before I knew you."

"I didn't ask you when , I asked you who ."

"An Indian."

"From India?"

"Yes, of course. Did you think I meant a Mohican or something?"

"I never know what you mean, exactly," he said, and sighed.

"Don't you want to know why he gave me the cat?"

"No."

"All right, then I won't tell you."

"Why did he give you the cat?" Sidney asked.

"Why do you think he gave me the cat?"

"Because he knew you loved cats."

"No. That is, he knew I loved cats, yes, but that's not why he gave me a present. The cat was a present, Sidney."

"Why did he give you a present?" Sidney asked, and sighed again.

"You think it's because I went to bed with him, don't you?" Chickie said.

"Did you go to bed with him?" he asked wearily.

"Sidney, what a question to ask!"

"Well, then why did he give you the filthy little animal?"

"You're angry now."

"No, I'm not angry now. But sometimes I get awfully goddamn tired of these Burns and Allen routines."

"I didn't mean to make you angry," she said. "I'm sorry." She rose quickly, lowered her eyes, and padded to the bar. "I'll make you that drink," she said.