Boylan looked at himself in the mirror behind the bar. His eyebrows were blonder than they had been last week. His face was very tan, as though he had been lying on a southern beach for months. Two or three of the fairies at the bar were equally brown. Rudolph knew about the sun lamp by now. “I make it a point to look as healthy and attractive as I can at all times,” Boylan had explained to Rudolph. “Even if I don’t see anybody for weeks on end. It’s a form of self-respect.”
Rudolph was so dark, anyway, that he felt he could respect himself without a sun lamp.
The bartender put the drinks down in front of them. Boylan’s fingers trembled a little as he picked up his glass. Rudolph wondered how many whiskies he had had.
“Did you tell her I was here?” Boylan asked.
“Yes.”
“Is she coming?”
“No. The man she was with wanted to come and meet you, but she didn’t.” There was no point in not being honest.
“Ah,” Boylan said. “The man she was with.”
“She’s living with somebody.”
“I see,” Boylan said flatly. “It didn’t take long, did it?”
Rudolph drank his beer.
“Your sister is an extravagantly sensual woman,” Boylan said. “I fear for where it may lead her.”
Rudolph kept drinking his beer.
“They’re not married, by any chance?”
“No. He’s still married to somebody else.”
Boylan looked at himself in the mirror again for a while. A burly young man in a black turtle-neck sweater down the bar caught his eye in the glass and smiled. Boylan turned away slightly, toward Rudolph. “What sort of fellow is he? Did you like him?”
“Young,” Rudolph said. “He seemed nice enough. Full of jokes.”
“Full of jokes,” Boylan repeated. “Why shouldn’t he be full of jokes? What sort of place do they have?”
“Two furnished rooms in a walkup.”
“Your sister has a romantic disregard of the advantages of money,” Boylan said. “She will regret it later. Among the other things she will regret.”
“She seemed happy.” Rudolph found Boylan’s prophecies distasteful. He didn’t want Gretchen to regret anything.
“What does her young man do for a living? Did you find out?”
“He writes for some kind of radio magazine.”
“Oh,” Boylan said. “One of those.”
“Teddy,” Rudolph said, “if you want my advice I think you ought to forget her.”
“Out of the depths of your rich experience,” Boylan said, “you think I ought to forget her.”
“Okay,” Rudolph said, “I haven’t had any experience. But I saw her. I saw how she looked at the man.”
“Did you tell her I still was willing to marry her?”
“No. That’s something you’d better tell her yourself,” Rudolph said. “Anyway, you didn’t expect me to say it in front of her fellow, did you?”
“Why not?”
“Teddy, you’re drinking too much.”
“Am I?” Boylan said. “Probably. You wouldn’t want to walk back there with me and go up and pay your sister a visit, would you?”
“You know I can’t do that,” Rudolph said.
“No you can’t,” Boylan said. “You’re like the rest of your family. You can’t do a fucking thing.”
“Listen,” Rudolph said, “I can get on the train and go home. Right now.”
“Sorry, Rudolph.” Boylan put out his hand and touched Rudolph’s arm. “I was standing here, telling myself she was going to walk through that door with you and she didn’t walk through. Disappointment makes for bad manners. It’s a good reason never to put yourself in a position in which you can be disappointed. Forgive me. Of course, you’re not going home. We’re going to take advantage of our freedom to have a night on the town. There’s quite a good restaurant a few blocks from here and we’ll start with that. Barman, may I have the check, please?”
He put some bills on the bar. The young man in the turtleneck sweater came up to them. “May I invite you gentlemen for a drink?” He kept his eyes on Rudolph, smiling.
“You’re a fool,” Boylan said, without heat.
“Oh, come off it, dearie,” the man said.
Without warning, Boylan punched him, hard, on the nose. The man fell back against the bar, the blood beginning to seep from his nose.
“Let’s go, Rudolph,” Boylan said calmly.
They were out of the place before the barman or anyone else could make a move.
“I haven’t been there since before the war,” Boylan said, as they headed toward Sixth Avenue. “The clientele has changed.”
If Gretchen had walked through the door, Rudolph thought, there would have been one less nosebleed in New York City that night.
After dinner at a restaurant where the bill, Rudolph noted, was over twelve dollars, they went to a night club in a basement that was called Cafe Society. “You might get some ideas for the River Five,” Boylan said. “They have one of the best bands in the city. And there’s usually a new colored girl who can sing.”
The place was crowded, mostly with young people, many of whom were black, but Boylan got them a little table next to the small dance floor with an accurate tip. The music was deafening and wonderful. If the River Five was to learn anything from the band at Cafe Society it would be to throw their instruments into the river.
Rudolph leaned forward intently, gloriously battered by the music, his eyes glued on the Negro trumpeter. Boylan sat back smoking and drinking whiskies, in a small, private zone of silence. Rudolph had ordered a whiskey, too, because he had to order something, but it stood untouched on the table. With all the drinking Boylan had done that afternoon and evening, he would probably be in no condition to drive and Rudolph knew that he had to remain sober to take the wheel. Boylan had taught him to drive on the back roads around Port Philip.
“Teddy!” A woman in a short evening dress, with bare arms and shoulders, was standing in front of the table. “Teddy Boylan, I thought you were dead.”
Boylan stood up. “Hello, Cissy,” he said. “I’m not dead.”
The woman flung her arms around him and kissed him, on the mouth. Boylan looked annoyed and turned his head. Rudolph stood up uncertainly.
“Where on earth have you been hiding yourself?” The woman stepped back a little, but held onto Boylan’s sleeve. She was wearing a lot of jewelry that glittered in the reflection of the spotlight on the trumpet. Rudolph couldn’t tell whether the jewelry was real or not. She was startlingly made up, with colored eyeshadow and a brilliantly rouged mouth. She kept looking at Rudolph, smiling. Boylan didn’t make any move to introduce him and Rudolph didn’t know whether he ought to sit down or not. “It’s been centuries,” she went on, not waiting for any answers, continuing to look boldly at Rudolph. “There’ve been the wildest rumors. It’s just sinful, the way your nearest and dearest drop out of sight these days. Come on over to the table. The whole gang’s there. Susie, Jack, Karen … They’re just longing to see you. You’re looking absolutely marvelous, darling. Ageless. Imagine finding you in a place like this. Why, it’s an absolute resurrection.” She still kept smiling widely at Rudolph. “Do come over to the table. Bring your beautiful young friend with you. I don’t think I caught the name, darling.”
“May I present Mr. Rudolph Jordache,” Boylan said stiffly. “Mrs. Alfred Sykes.”
“Cissy to my friends,” the woman said. “He is ravishing. I don’t blame you for switching, darling.”
“Don’t be more idiotic than God originally made you, Cissy,” Boylan said.