“Okay.” She sighed. “Let’s go.” She started up the slope, Hank behind her.
“Edge in,” he said. “Otherwise the same thing’ll happen backwards. Linda, edge in! Linda, you’re...”
The poles came up again. Slowly, Linda began to slide backward, on a collision course toward Hank. He braced himself.
“Hank!” she shouted. “I can’t stop!”
“You will,” he said, and she struck him, and they tumbled into the snow together. Her left ski came up, narrowly missing his head. Hank’s right boot, released by the awkward pressure, snapped out of the safety binding.
“I fell again,” Linda said, and Hank began laughing. “Well, you idiot, it isn’t funny,” she said. She blew snow from her lips. “If you taught me properly—”
“You know something?” he interrupted.
“What?”
“I love you.”
She blinked. “You do?”
“Yes.”
She sat with her knees up, her skis awkwardly akimbo, the poles dangling from their straps at her wrists.
“Well,” she said. “I love you, too.”
He pushed her down onto the snow. He was kissing her when her skis slid out from under her. “Hank!” she screamed, and he captured her and pinned her and kissed her again, and a skier flashing down the slope shouted, “Hey! Cut it out!”
18
Felix Anders was man who thought he was well dressed because he wore a carnation in the buttonhole of a Robert Hall suit.
Every morning, as Felix Anders waited for the train with his copy of the Daily News tucked under his arm, he surveyed the platform with a faintly bored air. There was something demeaning about having to wait for a train, and Felix Anders allowed his displeasure to show in his stance and in the set of his Lincolnesque face.
He was a tall man with straight brown hair and green eyes. The green eyes added to his expression of untouchable aloofness. He had a massive craggy nose and a lean lantern jaw, and he looked around him as if he had just delivered the Emancipation Proclamation to a horde of ignorant slaves who didn’t understand English.
Felix Anders was a butcher.
He owned a small market on Sixty-third Street and Lexington Avenue, and he cut meat for the major part of his waking day. But even in his blood-stained apron, Felix managed to look disinterested and bored. In his mind’s eye, standing outside of his body and slightly to the left of it, Felix did not look like a butcher in his butcher’s apron. He looked, instead, like a noted brain surgeon who had just performed a delicate operation. And when Felix discussed veal cutlets with female customers, he exuded the distant charm of the brain surgeon pulling off his rubber gloves after passing on the job of suturing to an assistant.
Felix was, he knew, poised, charming, bored, aloof, secretive, superior and intelligently cunning.
On Tuesday morning, as Felix waited to board the train, he noticed Larry Cole standing on the platform. He knew that he had been invited to a party at Cole’s house for this Saturday night, but he also remembered that he’d once asked Cole to work out a landscape plan, and Cole had said, “Sure, as soon as I get a chance,” and then never delivered it. Felix Anders did not take such treatment lightly.
He would, on Saturday night, go to Cole’s house and drink his liquor and eat his food, but that didn’t mean he had to say hello to him on a station platform. He busied himself with watching the tracks for the approaching 8:07. A slim redheaded girl with an overnight bag stood alongside Felix, staring down the length of track. Munificently, Felix glanced at her, and then turned away to tug at his glove. When the train pulled into the station, Felix allowed the redhead to mount the steps before him, glancing magnanimously at her legs when the skirt rode up over her nylons as she climbed the steps. He then politely shouldered a fellow commuter aside and, Daily News tucked securely under left arm, went into the car and found himself a seat near the rear. He was lighting a Parliament when Larry Cole came into the car, looked around for a moment, and then walked back to sit beside him.
Felix very rarely said hello to anyone first. He waited.
“Hi,” Larry said. “Haven’t seen you in a long time.”
“Well, you know,” Felix answered. “Busy, busy.”
“Oh, sure. I understand you’re coming over to our place this Saturday night.”
“Is that right?” Felix asked.
“Didn’t Betty tell you?”
“Must have slipped her mind.”
“Well, you are,” Larry said.
“My pleasure,” Felix answered. “Cigarette?” He extended the package to Larry.
“Thanks, I’ll have one of my own.”
“These cost a few cents more,” Felix said, even before he saw Larry’s cigarettes, “but they’re worth it.”
“I guess you get into the habit of smoking one brand, and that’s it,” Larry said, shaking a cigarette free and lighting it.
“Oh, indubitably,” Felix said, and then translated it for Larry. “Without doubt, without doubt.”
“Not too crowded this morning,” Larry said.
“It hasn’t been too bad lately,” Felix said. “They’ve added several cars. Of course, you don’t have to do this very often, anyway. I imagine it’s immaterial to you.”
“Well, I like a seat no matter how few times I go in.”
They were silent for a few moments.
“Something important?” Felix asked. “In the city?”
“The firm that sent me to Puerto Rico,” Larry said. “I told you about that, didn’t I? On the train, in fact, I think it was.”
“Yes, I seem to recall,” Felix said, remembering instantly.
“They want to see me again.”
“What about?”
“I don’t know. Probably the recommendations I made. They’re probably ready to start work on the scheme.”
“Must be interesting work,” Felix said. “Designing the buildings, and the grounds, and the... landscaping.”
“Oh, yes, it certainly is. I love it.”
Felix cleared his throat. “I hear you’re designing a house for Roger Altar.”
“Designed already,” Larry said. “We’ll be pouring the foundation as soon as the snow is gone.”
“Why would you want to design a house for him?”
“What?” Larry said. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you corr—”
Clearly and emphatically, Felix said, “Why would you want to design a house for him?”
“Yes, that’s what I thought you...” Larry paused. “Well, why not?”
“I’m only a butcher, you understand,” Felix said, making it sound as if he were saying, “I’m only a noted brain surgeon, you understand.” He raised his eyebrows. “But do you think Altar is a good writer?”
“Yes,” Larry said.
“Well, I’m only a butcher.”
Both men fell silent again.
“But,” Felix went on at last, “I think he stinks, if you’ll excuse the plain English.”
“Every man’s entitled to his opinion,” Larry said, shrugging.
“Certainly. I prefer the purists myself.”
“Like who?”
“Like James Jones,” Felix said. He paused. “Will you be seeing Altar again soon?”
“I imagine so.”
“Tell him I don’t like his books, would you? Tell him for me. Tell him Felix Anders thinks he stinks. Do me that favor.”
“I’ll introduce you. I’m sure you’d rather tell him yourself.”
“No need to do that,” Felix said. “Just pass my message on.” He paused. “How much does he get for each of those books?” Felix asked.
“I don’t know.”
“A good chunk, I’ll bet.”
“Oh, indubitably,” Larry said. “Without doubt, without doubt.”