The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything (8 page)

"He always carried that," she said. "Always."

"I guess I will. I'll have to wear a vest or get some kind of a belt clip arrangement."

She was behind him, looking over his shoulder. Suddenly he was inundated by an almost strangling cloud of perfume.

"Sometimes he'd look through that little telescope and then he'd chuckle."

"I bet."

"I asked him about it once. He wouldn't let me look through it. He said I didn't speak the language. I didn't understand. Will you let me look through it?"

"I—uh—maybe when—uh—"

She came around the chair. She made a wide circle around it and stood where he could see her for the first time, some eight feet away. He tried to swallow but could manage only half the process. "Bought it two years ago," she said in a grave whisper. "Tried it on once."

She had brushed the brown hair until it gleamed, and for the first time he saw the reddish highlights in it. She was facing him squarely, but she had her face turned away from him. She stood like a recruit who had just been chewed out for bad posture. She was not trembling. Rather she seemed to be vibrating in some galvanic cycle too fast for the eye to perceive. He had the feeling that if he snapped his fingers all the circuits would overload and she'd disappear in a crackle of blue flame and a hot smell of insulation. He slowly began to strangle on the half-completed swallow. She wore a single garment. He could not guess at what possible utility it might have. There was an inch-wide ruffle of black lace around her throat. There were similar visible ruffles around her wrists. There was a third circling her hips, apparently floating in air several inches away from the pale and slender thighs. The three visible bands of black seemed joined together by some incredible substance as intangible as a fine layer of city soot, on a windshield. Miraculously affixed to this evanescence, and perfectly umbilically centered, was the pink, bloated, leering face, on some sturdier fabric, of the most degenerate looking rabbit he had ever seen.

He completed the swallow with such an effort, it felt as if he were swallowing a handful of carpet tacks. For a tenth of a second he marveled at the uncanny insight of one Hoover Hess, and with a sobbing sound of guilt, inadequacy and despair, he roared out of the apartment and down the corridor toward the stairs. He heard a howl of frustration, and a long, hoarse, broken cry of, "Oh you baaaaaaastaaaarddd!" As he clumped down the stairs the corridor fire door swung slowly shut, and he heard those hoots of laughter again, heard them begin to soar upward, and then the door closed and he could hear no more.

Two blocks from the apartment building he suddenly heard himself saying, "For God's sake, Wilma!" and realized he had been saying the same thing over and over for some time. The gold watch was still clutched in his hand. Two old ladies were staring at him with strange expressions. He slowed his headlong stride, put the watch in his pocket and gave them an ingratiating smile. One old lady smiled back. The other one tilted her chin at the sky, braced herself, and with a volume that made every car in that block give a startled swerve, screamed, "Stop thief!"

It panicked him into a dead run, but as soon as he was around the next corner he slowed down, his legs trembling. He stood staring blindly into a bookstore window until his breathing was normal. He oriented himself and discovered he was seven or eight blocks from the Hotel Birdline. Suddenly, for the first time since telling it, he remembered the lie about Uncle Omar's personal records. He remembered how crafty he had felt when telling it. Sober, he knew it was a blundering stupidity.

He went to the Birdline. The one without any space between his eyes was at the desk, the one with the volcanic acne. The clerk leaned into the small office beyond the switchboard and yelled to Hoover Hess. Hess came out, rubbing his hands, projecting the smile of agony.

"Kirb, buddy, you ready to talk business? You can't make a better—"

"Not right now, Hoover. I'm a little too rushed. I was wondering about my stuff you've got here. I thought I'd—"

"Understand, I'm a guy appreciates a sweet gesture, but I told you so long as I got the room down there, the storage was on the house, right?"

"Yes."

"And I'm the kind of a guy wouldn't change the deal on account of you inheriting big, right?"

"But—"

"So what I mean is, I'm touched by the fifty bucks, Kirb. It was a nice thing to do, believe me."

"Fifty?"

Hess looked shocked. "Was it more? Did those slimy bastards take a clip out of it on the way over here?"

"Uh—no. It wasn't any more."

"Rest easy, Kirb. They come and got the trunk and the big wooden case along about eleven this morning."

"Who?" he said weakly.

"The guys from the Elise! In the truck from the Elise! Chrissake, don't you even remember who you sent after it? Look, if you could come in and sit down for just five minutes, Kirb, I could fill you in on the whole picture. The way I figure, in exchange for consolidating the mortgages and bringing it down to an interest rate that makes sense, instead of the cannibal rates I got to pay, what you should have is a piece of it. I even got an inspiration about your name, to go with the place. The Winter House. How about that!"

"Some other time, Hoover."

"Any time you say. I'll drop everything. Everything."

Kirby headed across the lobby toward the pay phone. He had to skid to a stop to let a sailor by. The sailor had considerable velocity. He was skidding across the tile floor, revolving slowly, his eyes closed. He was smiling. He carried on into three short wide men in tense argument over a racing form, catapulted the three of them into a couch and went on over with them as the couch went over backwards.

He dialed Betsy's memorized phone number.

"Kirby! I was about to come looking for you. I tried the hotel a thousand times. Are you there now?"

"No. Look, I think you were right, at least a little bit right anyhow."

"Thanks a lot!"

"Don't be so sarcastic. The way things are going, how am I expected to trust anybody?"

"Why Kirby, dear! Your teeth are showing."

"I think I did a stupid thing. I mean I thought it was shrewd, but I was drunk at the time."

"It's a poor week for it."

"I know. But it worked, sort of. But I've got the idea they're going to be awfully damned mad. And I was supposed to meet her at two o'clock over there. She was going to take me shopping."

"Standard procedure. She has a wonderful way of getting all her men to end up looking exactly alike. They all end up looking like fairy ski instructors. I think it's the tan, the sideburns and the ascot that does it. She's mad for ascots. And it's a long way after two, Kirby."

"I have the feeling it wouldn't be too smart to go over there now. Let me tell you just what—"

"Come on over here. We can talk. I hate phones."

"I'd rather tell you over the phone."

"Come on over here. I'm alone. We can thrash it all out."

"But—but—but—"

"Get over here on the double, you clown!" She hung up.

A little word started bounding about in the back of his mind. It was made of fat little letters, fabric letters, stuffed. NINNY. The fabric, curiously, was the same shade of pink as the face of the lecher rabbit centered on Miss Farnham's gossamer funsuit. He squared his shoulders. He walked carefully around the broiling brutal confusion of cops, sailors and horse players in the front of the lobby, deaf to the resonant tock of hickory against bone, and took the single cab in front.

As they pulled away, the driver said, "Like they got Saturday night on Monday afternoon in there, huh?"

"What?"

"The riot, man!"

"Sorry, I didn't notice it particularly."

After a long silence the driver said, "I don't know what the hell kind of date you got, mister. All I know is I wisht I had it."

He had trouble finding the address. It was a crooked little bayfront street, more alley than street. The building had been added onto in random fashion over the years, and each segment of it seemed to sag in a different direction. Apartment Four, when he finally found it, was one flight up, via an open iron stairway bolted to the side of the building. The door was painted an orange so bright it seemed deafening. Over the bell was lettered
b. sabbith
. He was tempted to press the doorframe with his thumb an inch below the bell, wait ten seconds, then flee down the staircase. "Ninny," he whispered and pressed the bell. There was a tiny porthole in the door. A green eye looked out at him. The door swung open.

"Come in and look at this creepy place," she said. She was in stretch pants again. Plaid. And a sleeveless blue blouse. Barefoot. Cigarette in the corner of her mouth. Toffee hair in harsh disarray.

Most of the apartment was a big studio room. He saw a kitchen alcove and a single door which had to lead to a bath. Glass doors opened out onto a tiny breakfast porch.

She stood, hipshot, and included the whole decor in one wave of her arm. "Observe. Rugs to your ankles. Strategic lighting. Cutie little hearth with, for God's sake, a dynel tiger skin in front of it. Any chair you sit in, you need a helping hand to get out of. That damned bed is nine by nine, and twenty inches high. I measured it. The little library is all erotica. Seventeen mirrors. I counted. Thirty-one pillows. Counted them, too. In the way of groceries, one-half box of stale crackers, one-half box of stale puffed wheat, twenty-one cans of cocktail goodies, two bottles gin, fourteen bottles wine. Make a wild guess, Winter. What is Bernie's hobby?"

"Uh—philately?"

She spun and grinned at him. "You come on slow, but sort of nice, Kirby. I figured you for a fatal case of the dulls. Maybe not. I recommend this couch over here. It's the only thing you can get out of without a hoist. It must have come with the place." She sat down, patted the place beside her and said, "The detailed report, friend."

He told her all, with a little editing here and there. She seemed quieter, more thoughtful than the last time he had talked to her. "What's the stuff you had stored?"

"Just personal junk. Books, records, photographs. Tennis stuff. Hunting stuff. Even a pair of ice skates."

"That's a nice touch. Ice skates. That'll make them very happy. But we are forwarder. Now you know for sure they want something. Uncle's personal records. The clue to the edge he had over the competition. And you say there aren't any records at all. Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"Could the Farnham broad have something tucked away? She sounds desperately loyal."

"I doubt it."

"Charla and Joseph are going to be very irritable, Kirby. But I think they'll think you're still the best link to what they want. And I don't think they know exactly what they do want. But they want it bad. Badly enough so they shouldn't treat you too badly. You sure you didn't give them my address? While drunk?"

"If I had, they wouldn't be trying to find out."

"They don't want us to get together on this. They'd rather deal with a goof, not somebody I've toughened up for them."

"I don't care much for that word, Betsy."

"Oh, for goodness sake, be honest with yourself. If I hadn't planted the seeds of suspicion, Charla'd have you on a leash by now, trotting you around, scratching you behind the ears, tying your new ascots, and giving you the slow strip and tease routine, until you wouldn't be able to remember your name if somebody asked you quick."

"I'm not so sure."

"You just don't know Aunt Charla. Hell, where are we? I think you ought to trudge on back there and play cute. Make out you know what they're after. Admit you tricked them. Say you'll listen to an offer. Maybe then we'll get a better clue as to what they really want, if they know."

"I don't think I'm very good at this sort of thing."

"I
know
you're not very good at it. But hang in there. I think we might get some volunteer help. Bernie's coming down soon with a crew and some models and so on to do some commercials here. Mad ones all. Maybe they'll help us add a little more confusion to the deal."

"Do we need more?"

"Poor Kirby."

"The thing is, in eleven years you get sick of dealing with people you know you'll never see again. I kept wanting to get out. I had this idea of maybe finding a town way off a main road with maybe twenty-eight people in it, so I would know them and they would know me, tomorrow, next year, ten years from now. I could stop trying to remember names and faces. And I'd know where I was before I woke up in the morning, instead of figuring it out afterward."

"With me," she said, "it's a dream of being back in that school. I was there for six years, you know. From nine to fifteen, the longest I've ever been anywhere. And I dream a class is leaving and I have to leave too, and I'm crying. But then they take me out of the line and I know I can stay, and it's the most wonderful thing. All the others are marching away, but they're going to keep me."

"But they didn't."

"Charla came in a car big as a freight engine, with a driver in uniform and an English Lady Something with her who made a horrible snorting sound when she laughed. I was supposed to be in a play at school, but they didn't give a damn. They drove me to Paris and bought me a lot of clothes. We met some other people there, and then we all flew to Cairo."

"Sometimes you have more accent." 

"I can get rid of every trace of it when I have to." 

"Could Charla have arranged to have my uncle's places—robbed?"

"Why not? It isn't her usual style. It's a bit crude, and probably quite expensive. But she has the pragmatic approach."

"They won't be able to get that letter."

"They can afford to wait a year. And all you got was a keepsake."

He took the watch from his pocket. She reached over and took it from him. "A real grandpa kind of watch." Before he could stop her, she looked through the little gold telescope.

"Happy days," she said in a tired voice. "Don't let Bernie see this. It's all this apartment needs. There's room on that wall for a mural." She took another look. "They make this junk in Japan. A girl in school had a candybox full. Hers were all set in rings." She handed the watch back to him. Just as he put it back into his pocket, she leaned toward him, reached toward him. Because of his humiliating flight from Wilma's apartment, he had resolved to fight fire with fire. He reached toward Betsy. His aim was defective. His palm slid into and across an abrupt nubbin of breast, frank and firm under the blue blouse as an apple in the sun. And he saw a glimpse of teeth in something not a smile, and something flashed and smashed against the left side of his face. The sudden pain filled his eyes with tears. She was a blur. As vision cleared he saw her looking gravely at him as she sucked her knuckles. With the tip of his tongue he isolated the metallic crumb in his mouth, moved it out to his lips, plucked it out and stared at it. It was a piece of filling. It made a small clinking sound as he dropped it into the ashtray.