“I can’t — talk about it anymore. I... I... I’ll call Jim.”
There was a long pause, then the sudden sharp slamming of two doors and the background noises ceased.
“Yes?” Hearst said. “Who’s this?”
“Eric Meecham.”
“The lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t get it. I expected to hear directly from her.”
Meecham made a little sound of surprise, then covered it with a cough. “She couldn’t manage it — too many people around.”
“She’s got no business calling a lawyer in on a thing like this. I don’t like it.” There was a moment’s silence. “Is the agreement ready?”
“She’s still thinking it over.” He wasn’t sure yet who the “she” was — Virginia or Mrs. Hamilton — and he had no idea what agreement she was supposed to have made. He made a blind guess: “Your asking price is a little high.”
“I never mentioned money,” Hearst said. “I’m an honest man. If she said I mentioned money she’s a liar. I wouldn’t take a red cent from her. Just try me. Offer me money and I wouldn’t take it, see?”
“What exactly do you want?”
“I told her what I want.”
“She didn’t make it clear to me. She was quite upset.”
“I want a chance. A future. There’s no future in a town like this for a man like me. I can do things once I get a chance.”
“So?”
“Well, supposing she buys a new car and needs somebody to drive it back to California for her.”
“You’ll drive it back.”
“Sure, that’s right. And then when we get there, she’s got a lot of connections, she could fix me up with a job, maybe around a movie studio, maybe as her regular chauffeur.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“Sure, it’s reasonable, Mr. Meecham.” He sounded almost pathetically eager. “She’s got nothing to be upset about. All I’m asking is a favor in return for the favor I’m doing her.”
“She didn’t tell me what your favor was.”
Hearst hesitated, like a small boy playing cards, wanting to win the game on his own but tempted to show everyone what a good hand he had. “It’s a personal family matter,” he said.
“I see.” Meecham was sure now that the “she” was Mrs. Hamilton, and the “family” was Virginia, and the only connecting link between them and Hearst was through Loftus. But he didn’t know what this link was. Loftus had not been friendly with Hearst, he wouldn’t have confided in him; in fact, he had never even confided in Mrs. Hearst with any degree of truth.
“What I want,” Hearst said, “is an agreement.”
“What kind of agreement?”
“One that’s written down and legal, like a contract.”
“You’ll have to specify the exact terms. I can’t draw up a contract without...”
“Sure, sure, I know that.”
“We’d better have a talk about it some time,” Meecham said, deliberately evasive.
“Some time. Say, what do you think this...?”
“How about the day after tomorrow at four, or early next week?”
“Stop trying to stall me. It’s now or never, as far as I’m concerned. I want that agreement.”
“All right.” Hearst had reacted as he expected. “I’ll pick you up and we’ll go over to my office. Say in about half an hour?”
“I’ll be ready.”
“Good.”
Meecham hung up, replaced the telephone directory exactly where he’d found it, in the wastebasket, and went downstairs to his table. His dinner was waiting for him, not the veal cutlets he had ordered, but a platter of fried chicken over which Gurton was hovering and clucking like a fat old hen.
“Gurton.”
“Now listen, Meech, the cutlets were no damn good, understand? Not fit for my mother-in-law. Not fit for a...”
“Are you still carrying that Colt automatic?”
“I have to.”
“How about lending it to me for a while tonight?”
“What for?”
“I’m going calling on a few friends.”
“You with a gun, Meech? That don’t make sense. No sir, I wouldn’t lend you my gun no more than I’d serve you those cutlets. Suppose it goes off and hits you in the leg and then you have your leg amputated? How about that? Anyway, what kind of friends are these, that you’ve got to carry a gun?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
“You’re mixed in with funny people, eh?”
“Some of them are funny. Some of them are quite serious.”
“Bejesus, Meech, I think you’re kidding me. You don’t want my gun.”
“Maybe I don’t.”
“Guns are for crooks and crazy people and suckers like me who have to carry money around on a dark night. Now here’s a funny thing — nobody’s my friend in the dark. I see a guy coming up the alley on my way home, and I know him and he knows me, but he’s not my friend, understand? I always want to turn around and run. That’s what darkness does to people.”
“Or money does.”
“Well, anyway, I’m glad you were kidding. For a minute there I took you honest-to-God-serious.”
“Yes, so did I,” Meecham said.
All during dinner he wondered what kind of crazy impulse had made him ask Gurton for the automatic.
I’m nervous, he thought, like Gurton carrying his money in the dark. I have no friends. I know them and they know me, but I want to turn around and run.
19
The night was turning cold, and an eager new wind raced up and down the streets. Under the lights the sidewalks and the limbs of trees shone icy.
Meecham moved stiffly toward the house with his brief case in his hand. During the past hour when the weather had changed, some of Mrs. Hearst’s boys had made a slide of ice, three or four yards long, from the sidewalk to the porch steps. Meecham would have liked to try the slide, but the brief case felt heavy and he felt heavy. He thought, if this was another house and if Alice was with me, we might try the slide together.
On the porch, underneath the parlor window, there was a stepladder lying on its side, and a basket of pine branches and a spiral of copper wire, as if someone had started to decorate the house for Christmas and then lost interest. The parlor blinds were up, and the crystal chandelier hanging from the center of the ceiling blazed with light. A group of young men and girls were sitting around a table playing cards.
Meecham went up the steps and pressed the doorbell. The porch light went on instantly above his head like a spotlight. It stayed on for a few seconds and then it went off again, and the door was opened by Emmy Hearst. Her eyes were still puffed, but she’d put on some make-up and a black close-fitting dress that looked new and emphasized her slimness.
“Come in.”
“Thanks.”
“We’ll have to talk in the kitchen. One of the boys is entertaining.”
She closed the door behind him and led the way down the hall. Following her, Meecham had the same impression of youth and energy that he’d had the first time he saw her standing at the sink humming to herself. It had been a shock then, as it was now, when she turned around and her face showed the bitter years.
“He isn’t here,” she said abruptly. “He had to go downtown. He asked me to tell you to wait.”
“For how long?”
“He didn’t say.”
“I had an idea that he wanted to see me as soon as possible.”