Mario Puzo - Fools die

The guy started to laugh and laugh, and he said, “That’s the funniest thing I ever heard.”

Janelle’s face was flushed. She looked at me and then I saw the line moving and I had to get into my place. I told the guy it was very nice meeting him and told Janelle that it was great to see her again.

Two and a half hours later I walked out of the movie and I saw Janelle’s familiar Mercedes parked in front of the theater. I got in.

“Hi, Janelle,” I said. “How did you get rid of him?’

She said, “You son of a bitch.”

And I laughed and I reached over and she gave me a kiss and we drove to my hotel and spent the night.

She was very loving that night. She asked me once, “Did you know I would come back to get you?”

And I said, “Yes.”

And she said, “You bastard.”

It was a wonderful night, but in the morning it was as if nothing had happened. We said good-bye.

She asked me how long I would be in town. I said I had three days more and then I would be back in New York.

She said, “Will you call me?”

I said I didn’t think I would have time.

She said, “Not to meet me, just call me.”

I said, “I will.”

I did, but she wasn’t in. I got her French-accented voice on the machine. I left a message and then I went back to New York.

– -

The last time I ever saw Janelle was really an accident. I was in my Beverly Hills Hotel suite and I had an hour to kill before going out to dinner with some friends and I couldn’t resist the impulse to call her. She agreed to meet me for a drink at the La Dolce Vita bar, which was only about five minutes away from the hotel. I went right over there and in a few minutes she came in. We sat at the bar and had a drink and talked casually as if we were just acquaintances. She swung around on the barstool to get her cigarette lit by the bartender, and as she did so, her foot hit my leg slightly, not even enough to dirty the trousers, and she said, “Oh, I’m sorry.”

And for some reason that broke my heart, and when she lifted her eyes after lighting her cigarette, I said, “Don’t do that.”

And I could see the tears in her eyes.

It was in the literature on breaking up, the last tender moments of sentiment, the last flutters of a dying pulse, the last flush of a rosy cheek before death. I didn’t think of it then.

We held hands, left the bar and went to my hotel suite. I called my friends to cancel my appointment. Janelle and I had dinner in the suite. I lay back on the sofa, and she took her favorite position with legs tucked underneath her and her upper body leaning on mine so that we were always in touch with each other. In that way she could look down at my face and look into my eyes and see if I lied to her. She still thought that she could read somebody’s face. But also from my position, looking up, I could see the lovely line that her neck made between her chin and neck and the perfect triangulation of her face.

We just held each other for a while, and then, looking deep into my eyes, she said, “Do you still love me?”

“No,” I said, “but I find it painful to be without you.”

She didn’t say anything for a while, and then she repeated with a peculiar emphasis, “I’m serious, really I am serious. Do you still love me?”

And I said seriously, “Sure,” and it was true, but I said it in that way to tell her that even though I loved her, it didn’t make any difference, that we could never be the same again and that I would never be at her mercy again, and I saw that she recognized that immediately.

“Why do you say it like that?” she said. “You still don’t forgive me for the quarrels we had?”

“I forgive you for everything,” I said, “except for going to bed with Osano.”

“But that didn’t mean anything,” she said. “I just went to bed with him and then it was all over. It really didn’t mean anything.”

“I don’t care,” I said, “I’ll never forgive you for that.”

She thought that over and went to get another glass of wine, and after she had drunk a bit, we went to bed. The magic of her flesh still had its power. And I wondered if out of the silly romanticism of love stories there could be a basis of scientific fact. It could be true, that in the many millions of disparate cells a person met with a person of the opposite sex who had those very same cells and those cells responded to each other. That it had nothing to do with power or class or intelligence, nothing to do with virtue or sin. It was quite simply a scientific response of similar cells. How easy it would be then to understand.

We were in bed naked, making love, when suddenly Janelle sat up and withdrew from me.

“I have to go home,” she said.

And it wasn’t one of her deliberate acts of punishment. I could see that she could no longer bear to be here. Her body seemed to shrivel up, her breasts became flatter, her face gaunt with tension as if she had suffered some frightful blow, and she looked me directly in the eyes without any attempt of apology or excuses, without any attempt to reassure me for my hurt ego. She said again as simply as before, “I have to go home.”

I didn’t dare touch her to reassure her. I started to dress and I said, “It’s OK. I understand. I’ll go downstairs with you to get your car.”

“No,” she said. She was dressed now. “You don’t have to.”

And I could see she couldn’t bear to be with me, that she wanted me out of her sight. I let her out of the suite. We didn’t attempt to kiss each other good-bye. She tried to smile at me before she turned away but could not.

I closed and locked the door and went to bed. Despite the fact that I had been interrupted in mid-course, I found that I had no sexual excitement left. The repulsion she had for me had killed any sexual desire, but my ego wasn’t hurt. I really felt I understood what had happened, and I was as relieved as she was. I fell asleep almost immediately without dreams. In fact, it was the best sleep I had had in years.

Cully, making his final plans to depose Gronevelt, could not think of himself as a traitor. Gronevelt would be taken care of, receive a huge sum of money for his interest in the hotel, be allowed to keep his living quarters suite. Everything would be as it had been before except that Gronevelt would no longer have any real power. Certainly Gronevelt would have “The Pencil.” He still had many friends who would come to the Xanadu to gamble. But since Gronevelt “Hosted” them, that would be a profitable courtesy.

Cully thought he would never have done this had Gronevelt not had his stroke. Since that stroke the Xanadu Hotel had slid downhill. Gronevelt had simply not been strong enough to act quickly and make the right decisions when necessary.

But still Cully felt some guilt. He remembered the years he had spent with Gronevelt. Gronevelt had been like a father to him. Gronevelt had helped him ascend to power. He had spent many happy days with Gronevelt listening to his stories, making the rounds of the casino. It had been a happy time. He had even given Gronevelt first shot at Carole, beautiful “Charlie Brown.” And for a moment he wondered where Charlie Brown was now, why she had run off with Osano, and then he remembered how he had met her.

Cully had always loved to accompany Gronevelt on his casino rounds, which Gronevelt would usually make around midnight, after dinner with friends or after a private dinner with a girl in his suite. Then Gronevelt would come down to the casino and tour his empire. Searching for signs of betrayal, spotting traitors or outside hustlers all trying to destroy his god, percentage.

Cully would walk beside him, noting how Gronevelt seemed to become stronger, more upright, the color in his cheeks better as if he took strength through the casino’s carpeted floor.