Reinhart's Women (16 page)

She was leering at him. This could not have been a successful expression even when she was still pretty. Now it was ghastly.

“Hell,” she said in a husky low tone, “you got time.” She came close and dug at him with an elbow. “Want to go to a motel?”

“No, Gen, not really.” He decided, on a whim, to add: “That won’t be necessary.”

She was still leering, even as he drew her aside so that an oncoming party of four could enter the restaurant—four businessmen, by their look, the kind of fellows Reinhart had in his day tried to resemble. He had exhausted a lot of life to arrive at where he was now.

Genevieve said: “I know I used to be naïve.”

Reinhart was reaching the end of his string. “No, you weren’t. You were O.K. Now I really
have
to go, Genevieve. But please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help Blaine.”

But she persisted, horribly: “I’ve improved, Carl. I really have. I know how to do everything now. I’m not shocked by—”

He felt a sneeze coming on, all at once, and whipped out his handkerchief. No doubt she said something vile during his nasal explosion. Fortunately he had not heard it. He put his handkerchief away.

“I’m sorry, Gen. You see, I’ve taken a vow of chastity. It’s a religious thing.”

A piece of rank cowardice, to be sure, but it was the best he could do on short notice, and if he stayed longer in her presence, he might lose all responsibility for his actions.

As he walked away she cried in a voice that sounded as though it might have come from a loudspeaker: “You pansy!”

She was really broadcasting her age: that had been an archaic term for ever so long.

CHAPTER 7

I
T WAS NOT TO
be believed. No sooner had he gone back into the world than he encountered his old nemesis. Fate always arranged it so that Genevieve was there to hamstring him at the beginning of any race.

He slowed his stride, looking unhappily across the parking lot at the supermarket. He had half a mind not to return: simply to bug off and not be seen again. It would scarcely matter that much to Grace Greenwood. He suddenly convinced himself that this employment could have no possible motive but to please Winona by giving him a sinecure. Blaine had recognized that truth. And even DePau had been quite right: it could not be imagined that the gourmet department would ever come to any good.

What a fool he had been to spend all morning cooking crepes, and in a foolish costume! The result had been that he now felt worse than at any time during the last decade. In his despair he even began to think otherwise of his lunch: had the stew really been all that good? And as to Winston’s in general, what did he know after eating only one dish, not even followed by a salad?

The sequence of unhappy thoughts was interrupted when, slowly as he walked, he was almost struck by a car, a white Cadillac that rolled swiftly across the blacktop on the bias, so to speak, in defiance of the painted parking slots. Reinhart was called back to responsibility. He straightened up, looked left and right... and heard an ugly cry behind him. It was Genevieve. Had she been shouting all this while, unheard by him in his slough of depression?

“...warn you; you pervert. I’ll tell the world. I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I do!”

She was not following him. It was far worse: she remained in front of Winston’s and raised her voice to a greater volume as he receded from her. Never had he suspected that her vocal cords could be so powerful.

He refused to look about and count the persons who were observing this ugly episode. No doubt there were some, but fortunately at any given time in such a place most people were contained in cars, usually with the radio playing and, according to season, heater humming or air conditioner blowing, deaf to outdoors. Not to mention that few nowadays had the stomach to interfere with a disorderly person: this was even true of policemen, who could be killed, and doctors, who could be sued.

The white Caddy which had passed him earlier on had come to an abrupt stop and was, reverse-gear lights illuminated, backing up at excess speed. This took Reinhart’s attention off his old problem and gave him a new worry. But the car stopped just before running him down, and Helen Clayton got out of the passenger’s side.

The Cadillac accelerated away. Helen came to Reinhart. Never had he been so glad to see anyone. He wasn’t sure what effect this might have on Genevieve. It might even aggravate her problem, but at least he was no longer alone, back to the wall.

“Hi, partner,” said Helen, who was a significant presence even upon a flat sweep of blacktop. The belt of her trench coat was loosely tied, and her green scarf flapped in a breeze he had not hitherto noticed. She came to Reinhart and linked her arm with his, but jovially and not in the raptorial fashion of Genevieve.

She cried: “Back to the old assembly line!”

Reinhart decided against immediately looking back to see what effect this would have on his ex-wife. It might be possible to make some distance without Helen’s identifying the shouting, hysterical woman as being associated with him, though it was true that she had seen Genevieve in the supermarket.

“Well,” he said bluffly, “did you have a nice lunch?”

She elbowed his ribs. “Not really.” She made a snorting kind of laugh, which probably was not mirthful, but listening as he was for obstreperousness from the rear, he could not be as precise in his reactions to Helen as he would have liked.

“I see,” he said, though of course he did not. He was still tensed for a shot in the back and could not believe that he was no longer under fire. But the fact remained that he heard nothing from Genevieve. “Uh, I had a good meal, or a fine dish anyway, at Winston’s. Have you ever been there?”

Helen stopped and turned to him. “She didn’t make a scene, I hope.”

Reinhart shook his head. “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice, Helen. I’m sorry.”

“Gosh, Carl, it isn’t
your
fault.” She took his arm again. “It’s just lousy you have to be embarrassed.”

Now he took the nerve to look for Genevieve. ... She was gone.

Utterly. She must have parked her car over that way, unless she had gone into one of the shops. Was it beyond her to duck down behind the automobiles and stalk them? Could she have slipped behind the buildings, to circle around and arrange an ambush?

“You know,” he told Helen, “this is the first time I’ve laid eyes on her for ten years. I thought I was done with her forever, and I’m sure that would have been true if she had been successful in Chicago—that’s where she’s been for some time.”

“Bad penny, huh?” They resumed their walk.

“No,” said Reinhart, “not really. Genevieve’s a capable person. She’s quite good at business. It’s in her private life that she has difficulties.”

“Now, Carl,” said Helen, squeezing the arm she held, “let’s not hear you speaking without respect for yourself.”

“Was I doing that?”

“Why, sure you were!” Helen said with vigor.

He knew no serious reason why he should have found Helen so reassuring, but he did. Perhaps it was a matter of her physical solidity. From time to time, turning to speak to him, she rested her left breast on his arm. Again she was arousing him. Already they seemed not only old friends, but comfortable lovers—if there was such a thing as the latter: you wouldn’t know from Reinhart’s experience from at least as far back as the end of his Army days. He had not had a girl
friend
since then. He had never been interested in females whom he had not craved. And when sexual desire came into play, matters of relative power soon took precedence over feelings.

Back at work, an hour passed too swiftly to be believed. More persons than Reinhart would have thought shopped for food in the early afternoon, at least on this day. He had almost exhausted the crepe batter made during the morning session when DePau materialized at the table.

“Say,” he said, “your boss wants to talk to you.”

“On the phone?” Reinhart served hot, sauced, triangulated crepes to three customers. More were waiting. “Could you tell Grace I’ll call back when I get a break?” He looked up the aisle. Still more carts were coming his way. “We’re on a roll.”

There was a spiteful note in the voice of the supermarket manager. “Fella, she wants to talk to you
right now.”
DePau turned and addressed the crowd: “I’m sorry.” He waved his arms. “That’s all for today. We have to close the stand down now.” He moved so as to block their access to the area of the table occupied by the chafing dish.

Reinhart wiped his hands on a towel and removed his chef’s bonnet. He intended to complain to Grace about DePau’s officious rudeness. Surely, it was his supermarket, or anyway it was managed by him, but he had no call to be so lacking in common courtesy. Besides, another batch of batter had been made just after lunch and put to rest in the portable icebox; it would be almost ready for use now. They weren’t closing up! He considered asking those who had been turned away to wait the few moments he would be on the phone. It grieves a cook to deny an eater.

Helen, selling packets of the instant mix, looked over the bent head of a customer and raised her eyebrows at Reinhart.

“All right,” said DePau to Helen, and he actually snapped his fingers at her, “let’s close up over here too. I’ll have somebody take care of your stock.”

Helen grimaced. “What?”

“You’ll get credit for what you’ve got coming,” DePau said. “Just leave now!” He was clearly in a state of great impatience.

Helen shrugged and, turning from him, tended to something at her table.

“Did you hear me?” DePau’s voice rose an octave.

Reinhart had started away, but he lingered when the manager addressed Helen. At this latest piece of outrageousness he could not restrain himself.

“Listen here,” he said to DePau, moving towards him. “You keep a civil tongue in your head.”

The manager looked as though he might be suffocated by his internal humors. He coughed and spoke in a voice so constricted that much of what he said was unintelligible. “Police... publicity... sue...” Reinhart could distinguish at least these three words, which were menacing in a general way, but nonsensical as to particular application.

“Just calm down,” he said, his emotion changing from outrage to a concern for the man’s sanity.

But DePau seemed even more highly exercised when this had been said. Reinhart determined to get to the bottom of the matter without further delay.

“All right, let’s get to the phone.”

DePau twitched his index finger at Helen. “You too.”

They all marched through the rear to a bleak room walled in cinder block and containing battered office furniture and a remarkable amount of papers. In one corner a thin, blade-nosed woman was punching at a large calculator.

The manager handed Reinhart a telephone handset.

“Hello,” said Reinhart. “Is this Grace?”

He waited for several moments until she came onto the line.

“Carl, I think we’ll wind up the Top Shop demo, O.K.? Take the rest of the day off, and I’ll be in touch. Now give me Clayton.”

“Grace,” he asked, “has something happened?”

“Time to move on, Carl! Now just put Clayton on the line.”

Grace really was hard to withstand when she spoke ex cathedra. Reinhart licked his upper lip and gave the phone to Helen.

“Uh-huh, uh-huh. ...O.K., Grace,” Helen said. “Sure.” She hung up and said to Reinhart, smiling: “Not a bad deal, Carl. We got the rest of the day off with pay. C’mon, let’s get lost.”

DePau was hovering near the door. “You can leave by the back.”

A plump young woman appeared. She was dressed in the blue smock that constituted the store’s livery, and she carried what turned out to be the clothing from the locker that Helen and Reinhart shared.

“Listen here,” Reinhart told DePau, “some of that kitchen equipment out there is my personal stuff. I’m going out—”

The supermarket manager put a finger into the air. “All of it,” said he, “has already been packed and is on its way to the Epicon office.”

They took their outer clothing from the girl, and DePau led them quickly through a dimly lit, windowless storage area, found a door, and opened it.

Reinhart and Helen emerged onto a potholed patch of blacktop on the southern side of the building. Around the corner came an enormous truck, and to avoid being splashed by it from a pool of standing water, they moved along the sheer cinder-block wall to the corner and a vista of the rest of the shopping center.

“Mind telling me the explanation of this strange episode?” Reinhart asked. “Now that we’ve got a minute? In fact, now that we’ve got all day?”

She was laughing at him. “You’ve still got your apron on!” He undid the strings. Helen was getting into her trench coat.

In the same good-humored way she said: “Some woman called up DePau and bad-mouthed us.”

“What?” He had balled the apron and taken it in one hand while with the other he helped himself get into one sleeve of his jacket.

“Said we were drinking in public and pawing one another.”

Reinhart’s jaw ached. After a moment he realized the pain could be relieved by unclenching his teeth.

Helen went on: “Grace, to give her credit, said she didn’t believe it, but he complained to her, so what could she do?”

With wincing hang of the head, Reinhart said: “You know who that was, don’t you?”

She shrugged generously. “I’ve got an idea.”

“And I was feeling sorry for that bitch.” He finally was able to shift hands on the ball of apron and get into the other sleeve of the jacket. “Ten years! I don’t see her for ten years, and the first time she shows up...”

“Well, hell,” said his genial colleague, “look at it this way, Carl. She got us half a day off.”

The extraordinary thing was that he did not feel as dispirited as he should have. That he was not utterly devastated by this experience was due only to Helen. It was difficult to feel hopeless in her presence. He smiled at her.

“And anybody but DePau would have ignored it,” said she. “But he’s always been a dirty creep.”