“I don’t think so,” Mary Jane said lightly. “Willie’s awfully good at being vague. And nobody signs any affidavits. Did you ever lay her—Gretchen?”
“She’s my sister, for Christ’s sake.” His voice sounded shrill in his ears.
“Big deal,” Mary Jane said. “Sister. From what Willie says, it’d be worth the trouble.”
“You’re making fun of me.” That was it, he told himself, the older, experienced woman amusing herself teasing the simple boy up from the country.
“Hell, no,” Mary Jane said calmly. “My brother laid me when I was fifteen. In a beached canoe. Be a doll, honey, and get me a drink. The Scotch is on the table in the kitchen. Plain water. Never mind the ice.”
He got out of bed. He would have liked to put on some clothes, a robe, his pants, wrap himself in a towel, anything to keep from parading around before those knowing, measuring, amused eyes. But he knew if he did anything to cover himself she would laugh. Damn it, he thought desperately, how did I ever let myself in for anything like this?
The room suddenly seemed cold to him and he felt the goose flesh prickle all over his body. He tried not to shiver as he walked toward the door and into the living room. Gold and shadowy in the metaled mirrors, he made his way soundlessly over the deep carpets toward the kitchen. He found the light and switched it on. Huge white refrigerator, humming softly, a wall oven, a mixer, a juicer, copper pans arranged on the white walls, steel double sink, a dish-washing machine, the bottle of Scotch in the middle of the red formica table, the domestic American dream in the bright white neon light. He took two glasses down from a cupboard (bone china, flowered cups, coffee pots, huge wooden pepper mills, housewifely accoutrements for the non-housewife in the bed in the other room). He ran the water until it was cold and first rinsed his mouth, spitting into the steel sink, xylophones of the night, then drank two long glasses of water. Into the other glass he poured a big slug of Scotch and half filled the glass with water. There was the ghost of a sound, a faint scratching and scurrying. At the back of the sink black insects, fat and armored, roaches, disappeared into cracks. Slob, he thought.
Leaving the light on in the kitchen, he carried the drink back to the mistress of the household in her well-used bed. We aim to serve.
“There’s a doll,” Mary Jane said, reaching up for the glass, long, pointed fingernails glinting crimson. She raised against the pillows, red hair wanton against the pale blue and lace, and drank thirstily. “Aren’t you having one?”
“I’ve drunk enough.” He reached down for his shorts and started to put them on.
“What’re you doing?” she asked.
“I’m going home.” He put on his shirt, relieved to be covered at last. “I’ve got to be at work at nine in the morning.” He strapped on his new watch. A quarter to four.
“Please,” she said, in a small, childish voice. “Please. Don’t do that.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. He wasn’t sorry. The thought of being out on the street, dressed, alone, was exhilarating to him.
“I can’t stand being alone at night.” She was begging now.
“Call up Willie,” he said, sitting down and pulling on his socks and slipping into his shoes.
“I can’t sleep, I can’t sleep,” she said.
He tied his shoelaces deliberately.
“Everybody leaves me,” she said, “every goddamn sonofabitch leaves me. I’ll do anything. Stay till six, until daylight, until five please, honey. I’ll suck you, please …” She was crying now.
Tears all night, the world of women, he thought coldly, as he stood up, buttoned his shirt and did up his tie. The sobs echoed behind him as he stood before the mirror. He saw that his hair was mussed, plastered with sweat. He went into the bathroom. Dozens of bottles of perfume, bath-oil, Alka-seltzer, sleeping pills. He combed his hair carefully, erasing the night.
She had stopped crying when he went back into the bedroom. She was sitting up straighter, watching him coldly, her eyes narrowed. She had finished her drink but was still holding her glass.
“Last chance,” she said harshly.
He put on his jacket.
“Good night,” he said.
She threw the glass at him. He refused to duck. The glass hit him a glancing blow on the forehead, then shattered against the mirror over the mantelpiece of the white marble fireplace.
“Little shit,” she said.
He went out of the room, crossed to the front hallway and opened the door. He stepped out through the doorway and closed the door silently behind him and rang for the elevator.
The elevator man was old, good only for short trips, late at night. He looked speculatively at Rudolph as they went down the whining shaft. Does he keep count of his passengers, Rudolph thought, does he make a neat record at dawn?
The elevator man opened the elevator door as they came to a halt. “You’re bleeding, young man,” he said. “Your head.”
“Thank you,” Rudolph said.
The elevator man said nothing as Rudolph crossed the hall and went out into the dark street. Once on the street and out of sight of those rheumy recording eyes, Rudolph took out his handkerchief and put it up to his forehead. The handkerchief came away bloody. There are wounds in all encounters. He walked, alone, his footsteps echoing on the pavement, toward the lights of Fifth Avenue. At the corner he looked up. The street sign read ‘63rd Street.’ He hesitated. The St. Moritz was on Fifty-ninth Street, along the Park. Room 923. A short stroll in the light morning air. Dabbing at his forehead again with his handkerchief he started toward the hotel.
He didn’t know what he was going to do when he got there. Ask for forgiveness, swear, “I will do anything you say,” confess, denounce, cleanse himself, cry love, reach out for a memory, forget lust, restore tenderness, sleep, forget …
The lobby was empty. The night clerk behind the desk looked at him briefly, incuriously, used to lone men late at night, wandering in from the sleeping city.
“Room 923,” he said into the house phone.
He heard the operator ringing the room. After ten rings he hung up. There was a clock in the lobby. 4:35. The last bars in the city had been closed for thirty-five minutes. He walked slowly out of the lobby. He had begun and ended the day alone. Just as well.
He hailed a cruising taxi and got in. That morning, he was going to start earning one hundred dollars a week. He could afford a taxi. He gave Gretchen’s address, but then as the taxi started south, he changed his mind. He didn’t want to see Gretchen and he certainly didn’t want to see Willie. They could send him his bag. “I’m sorry, driver,” he said, leaning forward, “I want Grand Central Station.”
Although he hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours, he was wide-awake when he reported to work at nine o’clock in Duncan Calderwood’s office. He did not punch the time clock, although his card was in its slot. He was through punching clocks.
Chapter 3
1950
Thomas twirled the combination of the padlock and threw open his locker. For many months now, every locker had been equipped with a padlock and members were requested to leave their wallets at the office, where they were put into sealed envelopes and filed in the office safe. The decision had been pushed through by Brewster Reed, whose talismanic hundred-dollar bill had been lifted from his pocket the Saturday afternoon of the weekend Thomas had gone down to Port Philip. Dominic had been pleased to announce this development the Monday afternoon when Thomas reported back to work. “At least,” Dominic said, “now they know it isn’t you and they can’t blame me for hiring a thief, the bastards.” Dominic had also pushed through a raise for Thomas of ten dollars and he was now getting forty-five dollars a week.