Джеймс Кейн - The Moth

“Unless...”

“Yeah?”

“She’s still torching for you?”

“I saw no sign of it.”

“Me neither. What’s your idea of it, Jack?”

“I haven’t got one.”

“I didn’t feel any strain, though.”

“You can’t tell what she told him that made him feel self-conscious all this time he’s been out here. About me, I mean. Maybe she blew it up big, when he was courting her. Maybe she gave him the idea she’d heard from me, and he better propose, and that’s why he thought I was in touch with Baltimore. However, it seemed to me that whatever it was, it’s all over now, and they’d like to forget it and start over.”

“I felt that too.”

“So—?”

“Sure, let’s let ’em. I rather liked her.”

“She’s all right.”

“And he’s a duck, Jack.”

“He’s developed into something.”

“And he’s crazy about her.”

“He’s that all right.”

“And she is about him. They’re sweet.”

“Nothing like it.”

“You really mean that, Jack?”

“Of course. Why not?”

“Well... why not?’ That’s a poem, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, sure, I really mean it.”

I had stayed after they left, and sat with her by the fire, and talked a while, and left, yawning, like I was dead for sleep, and had to get back to Long Beach, on account of heavy work next day. Then I was driving, and then I was forty, fifty, or sixty miles down the line, at some damned place, maybe Oceanside, sitting by the sea, trying to shake it out of my head, what was hammering in there, that felt the same as it had felt that day in the park when I was three years old, and saw the moth fly away through the trees. Once I was in the car, it was no trouble for me to put together what the mystery was all about. My letter to Denny had crossed them up bad, him and Margaret both. It might mean what it said, and it might mean nothing but a feeler, a lead, a trick, that pretended to be interested in him, and actually be pointed at Helen. But, if he wasn’t doing anything at the time, except sit around University Place and listen to Mr. Legg talk, they had to know. And the only way to find out was for him to come out here, take a look around, and report. But after he’d been here a while, and told me nothing, he probably felt too self-conscious about it to mention it. Either that or he had brought Margaret out here, long before they said she had come, used the Castile apartment as a front, and then got nervous I’d find it out, or see her by accident, and decided it was time to spill it. All that, though, I had figured out long before dinner was over, and what was racing through my head now was Helen. Just the thought that I might see her again was enough to send me out into the night to this pile of sand by the sea, shivering at the color of the moon on the waves, face to face with what I had run away from that awful night eight years before. I stayed there till dawn, and then I came back to my apartment at the Castile, went to bed, and tried to think. After a while I knew what I was going to do. I had done everything, turned my back on what I said I believed in when I had it tough, ratted on a friend, hung on with this cold bitch who could give me what I wanted out of life — to be kingpin in this terrific business, to have money, to be a shot. And I didn’t mean to lose it all now, just for the sake of something I had given up years and years before. I was going to kill the moth. And I was going to do it when I saw her that night, by putting my cards in front of her — or some of my cards, enough to make her do what I wanted, as I thought.

“Hannah, Denny’s got to go.”

“You mean — we fire him, just like that?”

“We can make an adjustment. Give him a credit. Whatever seems right. But — get rid of him.”

“In spite of his — success with our retail sales? They’ve doubled, by the way, did you know that? The telescopes are a hit, and the advertising is getting terrific results.”

“I know about it.”

“And in spite of your friendship?”

“I hate that part, but — he’s out.”

“... May I ask why?”

“There’s more to it than I told you.”

“Involving her? Margaret?”

“I didn’t mean to deceive you. I was kidding myself.”

“You mean there was an affair?”

“No, but we were engaged. We were to be married.”

“And—?”

“I don’t want her around.”

“You mean you’re torching for her?”

“I mean it’s messy.”

“Not if it’s over.”

“It would make me uncomfortable every time I saw her, as it did last night. And what’s more, the funny way he acted tells me he’s just as uncomfortable about it as I am. It’s just something he ought not to have allowed to happen. If they got married, so O.K. But he could have told me. He could have told me, and bowed out, because God knows I’d not have wanted him, in any way, shape, or form, if I had known it.”

“Just a question of taste?”

“Something like that, yes.”

She leaned back and puffed on her cigarette through the long holder she used and sipped her champagne. Around nine thirty she said she had a headache. I left, glad I didn’t have to talk about it any more. I drove down to the Castile and went to bed and I guess I dropped off to sleep. Then there was a banging on my door. I got up and opened and she was there, in sweater, slacks, and polo coat. “Hannah! What are you doing here?”

“Just saying hello.”

“What time is it?”

“About three, I’d say.”

She came in, snapped on some lights and heat. “You better put on something warm, Jack. We’ve got some talking to do. I’ll make coffee.”

I went back to my bedroom, put on stockings, slippers, sweater, and a flannel dressing gown. When I went in the living room she had the Silex on the table, with cups and some kind of crackers she’d found. “Sugar, Jack? There doesn’t seem to be any cream.”

“Just plain.”

“Think I’ll sweeten mine.”

“At this hour, you could need it.”

“Oh, a very good hour — for our business.”

“I asked you once, what is our business?”

“Goodbye, I think. Of course I’m not sure.”

“Well — take your time.”

“Tell me about Helen.”

“... I know quite a few Helens.”

“The sister. The one you fell for.”

“When did you hear all this?”

“Just now. Tonight.”

“Margaret told you?”

“She mostly. Denny, a little. I dropped in. Sweetest little place they have. A little bungalow on Willow Avenue. One of the new ones, you know with the car port, a long portico, mission tile, and thin pillars. All in yellow and blue. Their living-room furniture was saved out from the hotel and put in storage, after the sale. Does it strike you they got fixed up awful quick? I wonder if she’s been lurking in the background some little time, without our knowing.”

“Hannah.”

“Yes, Jack.”

“I was to marry Margaret. I told you.”

“Yes, with affecting particulars.”

“I broke it off.”

“Yes, but why?”

“I didn’t love her. I woke up to the fact I was a lot more interested in a job at the hotel — or at least it had been decided by certain members of my family that I should be interested — than I was in her.”

“How fascinating!”

“Meaning what?”

“Is that a habit of yours? Being more interested in the job than the girl? It’s one way to get on in the world, and I’ve suspected for some time you know quite a lot about it. But to find out you’ve been through it before, and made your singular decision — that puts a different face on it.”

“Whose face, for instance?”