“My dear,” he said, “how nice to see you out tonight. You’re looking charming. Perfectly charming.” Releasing Lester, he turned to Pearl and claimed her hands. “It’s Miss Perkins, isn’t it? Lovely! Lester, you have an eye for the lovely ones.”
“Well, you know how it is,” Lester said. “As the saying goes, lucky in love, unlucky at cards...”
“Where I am concerned,” said Pearl, “it’s a matter of being lucky in both or neither.”
“Lester is referring to a little matter that exists between us. A very small matter that involves hardly more than our honor. Isn’t that so, Lester?” King Louie quivered with coos, and waved away the hostess, who had been hovering. “No, no. I’ll show Lester and Miss Perkins to a table myself. It will be my pleasure, my dears.”
He led them to a table and held a chair for Pearl while Lester helped himself, after which he pulled up a third chair from another table and joined the party. He sighed and gazed at Lester with limpid tenderness. Lester could feel a free drink coming on, which quickly came, and would not have objected even if he had been in a position for it, which he definitely wasn’t.
“Cheers,” said Lester. “Here’s to stud.”
“Stud?” Pearl said. “Lester, what a thing to say! Are you being dirty?”
“Not I,” said Lester. “On the contrary, I’m clean. I’ve recently been cleaned by an expert.”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. Do you, Mr. Oliver? What on earth does he mean? He’s been rather unstable all evening.”
“He’s referring, I believe to a game of chance. He’s had the most atrocious luck at it. Oh, the most atrocious!” King Louie quivered and tapped Pearl on the hand and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “The dear boy owes me money.”
“That’s nothing unusual,” she said. “He owes practically everyone money.”
“So I’ve been informed. He’s sadly overextended, I understand. Too bad, too bad. Perhaps it was rash of me to offer him credit.”
“Rash! It was positively insane.”
“I don’t think so. Really, I don’t. We mustn’t do the dear boy an injustice. No, we mustn’t.” King Louie turned his eyes upon Lester and smiled a red wet smile. “He comes from such a good family, as you know. A family of substance, I might add. Besides, our little debt is a debt of honor, isn’t it, dear boy? Oh, yes. Other financial obligations are legally actionable in one way or another, but ours is strictly one of honor. We wouldn’t dream of reneging on a debt of honor, would we, Lester dear?”
“If you are depending on Lester’s sense of honor,” said Pearl, “you are simply whistling up the wind.”
“I hope not. I do sincerely hope not. People without honor are somehow always so unlucky. The strangest things are likely to happen to them. I know of a certain man like that, poor fellow, who had a serious accident in which his nose was broken, his jaw shattered, and both arms and legs broken.”
“What kind of accident? Did he fall into a cement-mixer or something?”
“He never reported. He seemed to prefer secrecy, oddly enough.”
“Probably he was drunk when it happened. What ever became of him?”
“He died after a while. Under the circumstances, it was probably fortunate. But we are upsetting Lester with our conversation. Why are you so white, dear boy? You’ve lost all of your color.”
“He’s always upset by hearing about broken noses and jaws and things like that,” Pearl said. “He’s so handsome himself, it makes him incredibly vain.”
“He’s lovely,” said King Louie. “A lovely boy. It would be a shame if something like that happened to him.”
“Yes, it would. I don’t believe I’d care for Lester with a broken nose and jaw, let alone his arms and legs.”
“Damn it,” said Lester, “I wish you wouldn’t talk that way. I’ve had a long and difficult day, and I don’t feel like listening to it.”
“Forgive us, dear boy,” King Louie said. “I’d quite forgotten. The last rites for your grandfather were held today. A sad occasion.”
“As it turned out,” said Pearl, “it was a lot sadder than Lester anticipated.”
“Pearl,” Lester said, “will you please, for God’s sake, shut up?”
“Why, Lester, whatever is the matter with you? There is no reason at all that I can see for being rude.”
“Yes, Lester,” said King Louie, “you shouldn’t be rude. I am quite interested in Miss Perkins’ remark. Did something unexpected happen?”
“We stuck the old man away, that was all. There was nothing to it.”
“I was given certain assurances, as I recall, about an inheritance. There was to be, I believe, an immediate reading of the will. I’m loath to make this sordid reference, dear boy, but I’m wondering if the will has been read.”
“Oh, it’s been read, all right. Extractions were, that is. They were read this afternoon.”
“If I may be so blunt, what about your inheritance?”
“Senorita Fogarty got it,” said Pearl.
“Indeed! And who is Senorita Fogarty? A kept woman? One of the old man’s little secrets? Oh, this is unfortunate, Lester. This is too bad.”
“Senorita Fogarty is a Chihuahua,” Pearl said.
“A dog! Lester, is this true? Have you been disinherited in favor of a dog?”
“No, damn it,” Lester said, “it is not true. At least, it’s only partly true. I mean, Senorita Fogarty only gets to use the estate for a while, and then the rest of us get it. You’ll only have to wait a little longer. Not as long as you may think. I’ve got plans for Senorita Fogarty.”
In the midst of this speech, King Louie had begun to rise, and by the time it was finished, he had risen. He looked down at Lester sadly, one pudgy arm raised from the elbow, palm of the hand outward, in an arresting gesture.
“Please, Lester. No more protests. No more assurances. I can’t tell you how bad I feel about this. I can’t tell you how distressed.”
Turning, he walked away among the tables, ending all prospects of additional free drinks. Lester stared after him bitterly, and then transferred his bitterness to Pearl across the table.
“Thanks,” he said. “You were a great help.”
“Are you being sarcastic? What harmful did I say? I’d like to know what.”
“Oh, never mind. There’s no point in discussing it.”
“So far as I could tell, Mr. Oliver was very nice about everything. Didn’t you hear how sympathetic he was?”
“Sure, sure, He’s only a little less sympathetic than a cobra. Can’t you recognize a threat when you hear one?”
“Was he making a threat? Was that what he was doing? Well, I may not be able to recognize a threat, especially when it sounds like sympathy, but at least I can recognize your twin sister Hester, and there she is.”
“Hester? Where?”
“Behind you. She’s coming this way, and right after her, if I’m not mistaken, is your Cousin Junior.”
“Junior? Impossible. Hester wouldn’t go out anywhere with Junior.”
“Nevertheless, they are together, and here they are.”
And so they were. Hester sat down in the chair vacated by King Louie, and Junior pulled up another, which necessitated a little shifting and made things rather congested.
“Hello, Sister,” Lester said. “What are you doing here with Junior, of all people? I was under the impression that you wouldn’t be caught dead with him in public.”
“Well, he called and asked me, and I was so bored that I thought it might be better than doing nothing. I’m not sure that it is, however.”