James Cain - Serenade

Then came my crack-up, and when my money was all gone I had to leave Paris. He stormed about that, wanted to support me, showed me his books to prove that an allowance for me wouldn’t even make a dent in his income. But it was that storming that showed me where things had got between him and me, and that I had to break away from him. I went to New York. I tried to find something to do, but there was nothing I could do except sing, and I couldn’t sing. That was when this agent kidded me that no matter what shape I was in I was good enough for Mexico, and I went down there.

I had read in some paper that he had disbanded his orchestra in Paris, but I didn’t know he was starting his Little Orchestra in New York until I got there. It made me nervous. I dropped in, alone, at his first concert, just so I could say I had, in case I ran into him somewhere. It was the same mob he had had in Paris, clothes more expensive than you would see even at a Hollywood opening, gray-haired women with straight haircuts and men’s dinner jackets, young girls looking each other straight in the eye and not caring what you thought, boys following men around, loud, feverish talk out in the foyer, everybody coming out in the open with something they wouldn’t dare show anywhere else. His first number was something for strings by Lalo I had heard him play before, and I left right after it. Next day, when I saw the review in the paper I turned the page quick. I didn’t want to read it. I had a note from him after Don Giovanni, and shot it right back, and one word written on it, “Thanks,” with my initials. I didn’t want to write on my own stationery, or he’d know where I was living. I felt funny about asking for opera house stationery. I was afraid not to answer, for fear he’d be around to know why.

So that’s how things stood when I was sitting beside Juana and the phone rang. She motioned to let it ring, and I did for a while, but I still hadn’t called Panamier, and I knew I had them to talk to, even if I had nothing to say. I answered. But it wasn’t Panamier. It was Winston. “Jack! You old scalawag! Where have you been hiding?”

“Why — I’ve been busy.”

“So have I, so busy I’m ashamed of it. I hate to be busy. I like time for my friends. But at the moment I’m free as a bird, I’ve got a fine fire burning, and you can hop in a cab, wherever you are — all I’ve got is your phone number, and I had a frightful time even getting that — and come up here. I just can’t wait to see you.”

“Well — that sounds swell, but I’ve got to go back to Hollywood, right away, probably tomorrow, and that means I’ll be tied up every minute, trying to get out of town. I don’t see how I could fit it in.”

“What did you say? Hollywood!”

“Yeah, Hollywood.”

“Jack, you’re kidding.”

“No, I’m a picture star now.”

“I know you are. I saw your pictures, both of them. But you can’t go back to Hollywood now. Why you’re singing for me , one month from today. I’ve arranged your whole program. It’s out of the question.”

“No, I’ll have to go.”

“Jack, you don’t sound like yourself. Don’t tell me you’ve got so big you can’t spare one night for a poor dilettante and his band—”

“For Christ sake, don’t be silly.”

“That sounds more like you. Now what is it?”

“Nothing but what I’ve told you. I’ve got to go back there. I don’t want to. I hate to. I’ve tried to get out of it every way I knew, but I’m sewed and I’ve got no choice.”

“That sounds still more like you. In other words, you’re in trouble.”

“That’s it.”

“Into the cab and up here. Tell it to Papa.”

“No, I’m sorry. I can’t... Wait a minute.”

She was grabbing for the receiver. I put my hand over it. “Yes, you go.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“You go.”

“He’s just a guy — I don’t want to see.”

“You go, you feel better, Juana’s nose, very snoddy.”

“I’ll wipe it, then it won’t be snoddy.”

“Hoaney, you go. Many people call today, all day long. You no here, you no have to talk, no feel bad. Now, you go. I say you gone out. I don’t know where. You go, then tonight we talk, you and I. We figure out.”

“... All right, where are you? I’ll be up.”

He was at a hotel off Central Park, on the twenty-second floor of the tower. The desk told me to go up. I did, found his suite, rang the bell and got no answer. The door was open and I walked in. There was a big living room, with windows on two sides, so you could see all the way downtown and out over the East River, a grand piano at one end, a big phonograph across from that, scores stacked everywhere, and a big fire burning under a mantelpiece. I opened the door that led into the rest of the suite and called, but there wasn’t any answer. And then in a second there he was, bouncing in from the hall, in the rough coat, flannel shirt, and battered trousers that he always wore. If you had met him in Central Park you would have given him a dime. “Jack! How are you! I went down to meet you, and they told me you had just gone up! Give me that coat! Give me a smile, for God’s sake! That Mexican sunburn makes you look like Othello!”

“Oh, you knew I was in Mexico?”

“Know it! I went down there to bring you back, but you had gone. What’s the idea, hiding out on me?”

“Oh, I’ve been working.”

One minute later I was in a big chair in front of the fire, with a bottle of the white port I had always liked beside me, a little pile of buttered English biscuits beside that, he was across from me with those long legs of his hooked over the chandelier or some place, and we were off. Or anyhow, he was. He always began in the middle, and he raced along about Don Giovanni, about an appoggiatura I was leaving out in Lucia, about the reason the old scores aren’t sung the way they’re written, about a new flutist he had pulled in from Detroit, about my cape routine in Carmen, all jumbled up together. But not for long. He got to the point pretty quick. “What’s this about Hollywood?”

“Just what I told you. I’m sewed on a goddam contract and I’ve got to go.”

I told him about it. I had told so many people about it by then I knew it by heart, and could get it over quick. “Then this man — Gold, did you say his name was? — is the key to the whole thing?”

“He’s the one.”

“All right then. You just sit here a while.”

“No, if you’re doing something I’ll go!”

“I said sit there. Papa’s going to get busy.”

“At what?”

“There’s your port, there’s your biscuits, there’s the fire, there’s the most beautiful snow I’ve seen this year, and I’ve got the six big Rossini overtures on the machine — Semiramide, Tancred, the Barber, Tell, the Ladra, and the Italians, just in from London, beautifully played — and by the time they’re finished I’ll be back.”

“I asked you, where are you going?”

“Goddam it, do you have to bust up my act? I’m being Papa. I’m going into action. And when Papa goes into action, it’s the British Fleet. Sip your port. Listen to Rossini. Think of the boys that were gelded to sing the old bastard’s masses. Be the Pope. I’m going to be Admiral Dewey.”

“Beatty.”

“No, I’m Gridley. I’m ready to fire.”

He switched on the Rossini, poured the wine, and went. I tried to listen, and couldn’t. I got up and switched it off. It was the first time I ever walked out on Rossini. I went over to the windows and watched the snow. Something told me to get out of there, to go back to Hollywood, to do anything except get mixed up with him again. It wasn’t over twenty minutes before he was back. I heard him coming, and ducked back to the chair. I didn’t want him to see me worrying. “... I was astonished that you missed that grace note in Lucia. Didn’t you feel it there? Didn’t you know it had to be there?”