I ought to go over to Wales' rooming house but Mary would raise the roof if she didn't find me home. So I sit here stewing about what Mary will say like a kid who'd busted the cookie jar. Never even asked if I wanted to play cards, just made the date. Got that fast new Mexican featherweight on TV tonight too. Damn, I haven't worked out in weeks. Don't have time for anything lately.
Goddamn Night Court, I'd like to play some bridge. Mary will blow her top, eat my—
Mary opened the door, a couple of bags in her arms. She looked fine in a neat gray suit that was the right contrast for her bright blond hair.
She blew a kiss at me as she said, “Hello, hon,” dropped the packages on the couch, then took off her coat and high heels, pushed the Chinese screen out of the way and started things cooking. “I've had a hard day. Did you get a chance to call Uncle Frank?”
“Aha. Probably see him tomorrow.”
“Swell.” She got another pot working, then sat down on the couch and began to undress. I liked to see her walk with-out high heels. “It's so sticky. I hope this isn't the start of a bad summer. All I could think about this afternoon was a shower. Are you starved? I want a quick shower first.”
“I'm not starved but I want to eat soon.”
“Don will probably have a lot of stuff to eat. He's always talking about picking up foreign snacks at Charles. I got chopped meat and peas for supper. How is Uncle Frank?” She stuck out one long leg, rolled off a stocking.
“Bouncing as usual. Babes, I... I have to take a punk to Night Court for arraignment. With any luck I'll be at the bridge game by nine-thirty. I'll take a cab.” I waited for the explosion.
Her voice wasn't quite shrill as she said, “Oh, damnit, Dave, I told you they were having exactly eight and now.”
I went over and helped take off the other stocking. “Honey, I didn't plan it this way. One of those things.” I pulled her to her feet, kissed her. “Babes, you look like money from home in those panties and bra—really stacked.”
“Am I?” She kissed me quickly. “Now Dave, supper is on and I'm hungry and sweaty and—”
“I've been hungry for the last week,” I said, running my hands over her, hard.
Mary suddenly giggled in my ear, nibbled at it. Then she started unbuttoning my shirt. “Be careful of the couch spread. I like it best when it's a surprise. Oh, Davie, I would have been terribly disappointed if you had let me take my shower first.”
I undressed with the speed of a fireman. Surprise? I was as astonished as a guy suddenly finding he has it made.
Wednesday Evening
I got a break in Night Court. We were called early and since my boy had confessed, the arraignment went through fast. This Don Tills lived down in the Village in an old brownstone that had been made over into small apartments. It was still muggy and I got screwed up as always with the Village streets, and all the walking and rushing left me sweating a little.
But I was there shortly after nine and Mary was pleased. The Tills had a couple of high-ceilinged rooms with furniture like ours, only more of it and probably more expensive. Mary was wrong about them having exactly eight people, they had nine—there was a guy with a big belly and a sort of tense face, including a thick black mustache, who was sleeping off a bottle on the couch. I never did get his name or what he was doing there and nobody paid him any mind, except to break into laughter when he'd mutter, “Who's on the gate?” every ten or fifteen minutes.
They had two bridge tables set up, with chairs to match, and all the men looked about the same, between twenty-five and thirty, short haircuts, casual sport clothes, sharp alert faces, and all very sure of themselves. In fact they all sounded the same, like actors talking: good voices. The girls didn't look so much alike but they had the same intense faces and all dressed sharply. There was a portable bar and everybody had a glass and they were telling jokes when I came in— mostly some old dirty jokes with new names added. When I was introduced Mary said quickly, “I'm so glad your business appointment didn't keep you any later. We've been waiting for you before we started playing.”
“What kind of a belt would you like, Dave, rye, scotch, gin, vodka, or tequila?” Don asked me.
I was going to say I didn't drink but didn't want to sound like a square so I said, “Too warm for hard stuff. Got a beer handy?”
Grace, Don's wife, who really filled her black and gold slacks, gave me a can of beer and a kind of bottomless cup that fitted over the top of the can. She said, “Now you won't need a glass.”
I smiled. “I wouldn't have needed a glass anyway. Thank you.”
“This way the flavor of the beer isn't lost by pouring it out of the can,” Don told me. Seemed like they'd given a lot of thought to something as simple as beer drinking. Then he told everybody, “Fellow I went to Yale with and who works for a Chicago agency, wrote me one of their clients is working on a paper beer container. Has some kind of keg lining to improve the flavor, I believe.”
Everybody except me started talking about this: I was waiting to play bridge. Half the time I didn't even know what they were talking about. They had pet words they all liked to mouth: “the cost-level,” or something was “sales-wise,” or had a “built-in selling point.” Even Mary got into the act, saying, “There's something substantial about a can, gives you a feeling of getting your money's worth that a milk container, for example, doesn't have. Consumer-wise I think it would be a mistake to lose that.”
Still they all looked like nice bright people and I sipped my beer, which only made me sweat more, and glanced at myself in a wall mirror to see if my shirt looked wilted, and listened. About a half-hour later they finally got the cards out but at nine-forty-five somebody insisted the TV be turned on to one of our programs. Most boorish bilge you ever heard. We wrote several very clever programs but the client, a real corn-ball, chose this tripe.
The “program” was so short it wasn't worth all the talk—a one-minute commercial in which an uncomfortable-looking big league pitcher stumbled through a couple of lines about how he loved to use this brand of paint when he was puttering around his house. When it was over they shut off the set and everybody chattered away, arguing about the damn thing. I kept nursing my beer and keeping my trap shut.
Belly-boy on the couch broke things up by mumbling, “Who's on the gate?” between snores and then we started to play cards.
Mary and I were playing against Don and Grace Tills. He turned out to be one of these psychic bidders, bidding on what he thinks his partner should have. He opened with a diamond bid and I was holding five diamonds, ace, queen high. His wife must have had a few, she gave him a boost. He then bid spades and she took him to game in diamonds and Don went down four.
We got good cards and Mary made three no trump and two hands later we took the rubber. Don and his wife kept making tracks to the bar and were getting juiced. Even Mary was sailing a little and she can handle a bottle. Everybody must have been lapping it up waiting for me.
We were on the second rubber when a fellow at the other table stood up and took off his coat, saying, “Does anybody mind? Getting rather warm in here.”
“You ass,” Don said, “you mean you stood on convention here? Hell, anybody feels warm, strip. And that goes for the ladies too.” He took off his snappy dark-grained sport coat and opened his yellow waistcoat.