chapter 49

When the car stopped out front and the door opened I went out and stood at the top of the steps to call down. But the middle-aged colored driver was holding the door for her to get out. Then he followed her up the steps carrying a small overnight case. So I just waited. She reached the top and turned to the driver: "Mr. Marlowe will drive me to my hotel, Amos. Thank you for everything. I'll call you in the morning." "Yes, Mrs. Loring. May I ask Mr. Marlowe a question?" "Certainly, Amos." He put the overnight case down inside the door and she went in past me and left us. "'I grow old. . . I grow old. . I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.' What does that mean, Mr. Marlowe?" "Not a bloody thing. It just sounds good." He smiled. "That is from the 'Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.' Here's another one. 'In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michael Angelo.' Does that suggest anything to you, s-fr?" "Yeah—it suggests to me that the guy didn't know very much about women." "My sentiments exactly, sir. Nonetheless I admire T. S. Eliot Very much." "Did you say 'nonetheless'?" "Why, yes I did. Mr. Marlowe. Is that incorrect?" "No, but don't say it in front of a millionaire. He might think you were giving him the hotfoot." He smiled sadly. "I shouldn't dream of it. Have you had an accident, sir?" "Nope. It was planned that way. Goodnight, Amos." "Goodnight, sir." He went back down the steps and I went back into the house. Linda Loring was standing in the middle of the living room looking around her. "Amos is a graduate of Howard University," she said. "You don't live in a very safe place—for such an unsafe man, do you?" "There aren't any safe places." "Your poor face. Who did that to you?" "Mendy Menendez." "What did you do to him?" "Nothing much. Kicked him a time or two. He walked into a trap. He's on his way to Nevada in the company of three or four tough Nevada deputies. Forget him." She sat down on the davenport. "What would you like to drink?" I asked. I got a cigarette box and held it out to her. She said she didn't want to smoke. She said anything would do to drink. "I thought of champagne," I said. "I haven't any ice bucket, but it's cold. I've been saving it for years. Two bottles. Cordon Rouge. I guess it's good. I'm no judge." "Saving it for what?" she asked. "For you." She smiled, but she was still staring at my face. "You're all cut." She reached her fingers up and touched my cheek lightly. "Saving it for me? That's not very likely. It's only a couple of months since we met." "Then I was saving it until we met. I'll go get it." I picked up her overnight bag and started across the room with it. "Just where are you going with that?" she asked sharply. "It's an overnight bag, isn't it?" "Put it down and come back here." I did that. Her eyes were bright and at the same time they were sleepy. "This is something new," she said slowly. "Something quite new." "In what way?" "You've never laid a finger on me. No passes, no suggestive remarks, no pawing, no nothing. I thought you were tough, sarcastic, mean, and cold." "I guess I am—at times." "Now I'm here and I suppose without preamble, after we have had a reasonable quantity of champagne you plan to grab me and throw me on the bed. Is that it?" "Frankly," I said, "some such idea did stir at the back of my mind." "I'm flattered, but suppose I don't want it that way? I like you. I like you very much. But it doesn't follow that I want to go to bed with you. Aren't you rather jumping at conclusions — just because I happen to bring an overnight bag with me?" "Could be I made an error," I said. I went and got her overnight bag and put it back by the front door. "I'll get the champagne." "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Perhaps you would rather save the champagne for some more auspicious occasion." "It's only two bottles," I said. "A really auspicious occasion would call for a dozen." "Oh, I see," she said, suddenly angry. "I'm just to be a fill-in until someone more beautiful and attractive comesalong. Thank you so very much. Now you've hurt my feelings, but I suppose it's something to know that I'm safe here. If you think a bottle of champagne will make a loose woman out of me, I can assure you that you are very much mistaken." "I admitted the mistake already." "The fact that I told you I was going to divorce my husband and that I had Amos drop me by here with an overnight bag doesn't make me as easy as all that," she said, still angry. "Damn the overnight bag!" I growled. "The hell with the overnight bag! Mention it again and I'll throw the damn thing down the front steps. I asked you to have a drink. I'm going out to the kitchen to get the drink. That's all. I hadn't the least idea of getting you drunk. You don't want to go to bed with me. I understand perfectly. No reason why you should. But we can still have a glass or two of champagne, can't we? This doesn't have to be a wrangle about who is going to get seduced and when and where and on how much champagne." "You don't have to lose your temper," she said, flushing. "That's just another gambit," I snarled. "I know fifty of them and I hate them all. They're all phony and they all have a sort of leer at the edges." She got up and came over close to me and ran the tips of her fingers gently over the cuts and swollen places on my face. "I'm sorry. I'm a tired and disappointed woman. Please be kind to me. I'm no bargain to anyone." "You're not tired and you're no more disappointed than most people are. By all the rules you ought to be the same sort of shallow spoiled promiscuous brat your sister was. By some miracle you're not. You've got all the honesty and a large part of the guts in your family. You don't need anyone to be kind to you." I turned and walked out of the room down the hall to the kitchen and got one of the bottles of champagne out of the icebox and popped the cork and filled a couple of shallow goblets quickly and drank one down. The sting of it brought tears to my eyes, but I emptied the glass. I filled it again. Then I put the whole works on a tray and carted it into the living room. She wasn't there. The overnight bag wasn't there. I put the tray down and opened the front door. I hadn't heard any sound of its opening and she had no car. I hadn't heard any sound at all. Then she spoke from behind me. "Idiot, did you think I was going to run away?" I shut the door and turned. She had loosened her hair and she had tufted slippers on her bare feet and a silk robe the color of a sunset in a Japanese print. She came towards me slowly with a sort of unexpectedly shy smile. I held a glass out to her. She took it, took a couple of sips of the champagne, and handed it back. "It's very nice," she said. Then very quietly and without a trace of acting or affectation she came into my arms and pressed her mouth against mine and opened her lips and her teeth. The tip of her tongue touched mine. After a long time she pulled her head back but kept her arms around my neck. She was starry-eyed. "I meant to all the time," she said. "I just had to be difficult. I don't know why. Just nerves perhaps. I'm not really a loose woman at all. Is that a pity?" "If I had thought you were I'd have made a pass at you the first time I met you in the bar at Victor's." She shook her head slowly and smiled. "I don't think so. That's why I am here." "Perhaps not that night," I said. "That night belonged to something else." "Perhaps you don't ever make passes at women in bars." "Not often. The light's too dim." "But a lot of women go to bars just to have passes made at them." "A lot of women get up in the morning with the same idea." "But liquor is an aphrodisiac—up to a point." "Doctors recommend it." "Who said anything about doctors? I want my diampagne." I kissed her some more. It was light, pleasant work. "I want to kiss your poor cheek," she said, and did. "It's burning hot," she said. "The rest of me is freezing." "It is not. I want my champagne." "Why?" "It'll get flat if we don't drink it. Besides I like the taste of it." "All right." "Do you love me very much? Or will you if I go to bed with you?" "Possibly." "You don't have to go to bed with me, you know. I don't absolutely insist on it." "Thank you." "I want my champagne." "How much money have you got?" "Altogether? How would I know? About eight million dollars." "I've decided to go to bed with you." "Mercenary," she said. "I paid for the champagne." "The hell with the champagne," she said.