by Clark Howard
He nodded and walked over to the inside door, aware of but unmoved by her cold tone. “Anything for you?” he asked, almost as an afterthought.
“Nothing, thank you.”
When he returned a few moments later she was sitting in the same place, the same position, but he knew she had moved at least briefly because the book she had been holding was now on a table at the end of the couch.
“No Irish whiskey,” he said, indicating the glass in his hand, “but warm vermouth will do just as well. It’ll cut the taste of anything except blood.” He sat down in a chair opposite her. “Have you ever tasted blood, Miss Jordan?”
“No. Nor Irish whiskey either, for that matter. It’s rather cheap, isn’t it?”
“Irish whiskey or blood, Miss Jordan?”
“Irish whiskey.” Her mouth tightened ever so slightly.
“Only in price, Miss Jordan, not in quality,” he told her. “And only in price because Ireland is a very poor country.”
“Perhaps that’s why it produces such crude people,” she said, her voice warming with the insult.
“Perhaps,” Devlin agreed, ignoring the obvious meaning of her remark. He sipped some of the vermouth and rose to walk over to the table where she had put her book. It was face down, its spine turned away from him, so he had to pick it up to read its title.
“Psychopathia Sexualis,” he said, not looking at her. “Isn’t that rather elementary reading for a worldly actress like yourself?”
“What is it you want, Mr. Devlin?” she asked, casting aside all pretense of politeness. “Why are you here?”
“I’m not really certain why I’m here,” he said, putting the book back on the table and returning to his chair. “Something brought me here, something I haven’t been able to ferret out of my mind yet; perhaps it has something to do with your missing husband; perhaps it has only to do with you and what you and I both felt pass between us the other night.”
As he said it, brought it out into the open, he saw the tightness leave her face, saw the hint of flushness color her cheeks, saw her lips relax and part.
“That’s as much as I can tell you about why I’m here,” he continued. “As for what I want, I want you to trust me, believe in me, confide in me and be honest with me. I want you to stop being an actress and just be yourself.”
“I’ve tried that with people before,” she told him. “It never works. It didn’t even work with my own—” She broke off her words, biting down on her lower lip.
“Your own husband,” Devlin said, finishing the sentence for her. “Don’t bite your lip like that—”
“Why not? It’s my lip.”
“Your lips are very beautiful. They shouldn’t be bitten; not by you, anyway.”
She blushed slightly again and looked away. Her fingers moved nervously at the seam of the richly brocaded housecoat, then stopped suddenly and one hand reached up to touch her throat tentatively.
“You fancy yourself to be a very clever man, don’t you, Mr.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” Devlin admitted. “But I’m not trying to be clever with you. I wish you’d believe that.”
“Exactly what are you trying to be, then?” she asked, composing herself enough to face him again.
“Not anything really. Just your friend—if you want me for one.”
“And by what extraordinary stretch of the imagination did you decide that I wanted you for a friend?” she inquired aloofly.
“I didn’t decide it at all,” Devlin said quietly. “That’s for you to do. I only hope you decide as Jennifer Jordan the woman, not Jennifer Jordan the actress.”
“What makes you think one is different from the other?”
“I can see the difference in your eyes sometimes,” Devlin told her. “And I could feel it in your hand the night we met.”
“You’re quite a romanticist, aren’t you, Mr. Devlin?” Her voice softened ever so slightly.
“I suppose I am, about some things. Important things.”
“Like being oneself?”
“Yes. With people you like.”
“Do you like me, Mr. Devlin?”
“Very much. I’m sure you already know that. You must feel it, the same as I do.”
She looked away again and Devlin could sense her nervousness returning. There’s something inside her, he thought, some kind of dread that she wants very much to rid herself of, but doesn’t know how.
“Suppose I did stop acting,” she said, her voice growing tight and uncertain again. “Suppose I did do as you said, did just be myself; what makes you think it would do any good? What makes you think that things would be any better or any different? People don’t change the world, you know; the world changes people.”
“Sometimes people change themselves,” Devlin countered, “if they want to. ”
“You don’t know anything about me—” A tremble took over her voice.
“I will,” he said quietly, “when you tell me.”
“I can’t talk to you this way—across a lighted room—when I don’t even know you—”
She rose and stood for a moment, wringing her hands, looking about the room desperately, with fear in her eyes.
“There are things that can’t be said between strangers—between a man and a woman as unfamiliar to each other as we are—”
Her eyes darted here, there, avoiding Devlin’s steady gaze. She was visibly tormented.
“But I do need help—I need someone—I need someone familiar, not a stranger—”
Suddenly she stopped. Her hands stopped, and her darting eyes and the tremble in her voice. She grew calm, startlingly calm, and her whole body, her whole being, somehow projected it so that the room which an instant before had been electric with her panic, was abruptly swept clean of all tension.
Strangely serene, she reached to the lamp and turned it off. Moonlight appeared instantly from the undraped glass door through which Devlin had watched her; a dull, nearly phosphorus moonlight, almost unreal in its perfection.
She walked over to where Devlin sat and knelt before him and took the glass from his hand.
“This is the only way,” she said, in a voice now soft and placid.
She unbuttoned the housecoat and let it fall from her naked shoulders and hang precariously around her wide naked hips. She raised her hands to Devlin’s face.
Fourteen
“How do you feel today, my dear?” Dr. Damon Fox’s voice asked from the magnetic tape slowly unwinding on the recorder in the Blue Room.
“Very well, thank you, Doctor,” the voice of Abigail Daniels answered.
“How did you sleep last night?”
“Fine. The new pills worked fine.”
“They didn’t upset your stomach like the others?”
“No, not at all.”
“Good.”
A pause.
“All right, why don’t you lie down over here and I’ll give you your injection.”
Another pause, longer this time.
“Relax now, dear, just let your arm go limp—that’s it—there. All right, just close your eyes now and think of something very pleasant. Let’s see now, if I recall correctly you thought of the ocean last time, didn’t you; what is it to be today?”
“Flowers, I think,” the girl answered. “Yes, flowers. Yellow wildflowers.”
“An excellent choice,” the doctor complimented. “I should never have thought of that myself. All right, let yourself relax and think of your wildflowers, and I shall be back with you very shortly.”
There was the sound of a click as the recorder was stopped, and almost instantly another click as it was started again.
“You’re not asleep, are you, Abigail?”
“No. But I feel like I could go to sleep very easily.”
“That’s because you’re a good girl and obeyed your doctor; you’re very relaxed, as you should be when we talk.”
“What are we going to talk about today?”
“
We’re going to talk about you, of course. You’re the only important subject there is right now.”
“Yes, I know. You always tell me that. I mean what about me are we going to talk about?”
“Well, I think today I’ll let you tell me all about your relationship with J. Walter Keyes.”
There was a long moment of silence and then the girl said, “I don’t want to talk about that today.”
“Oh. All right.”
Silence.
“Well, what are we going to talk about?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Dr. Fox said. “Why don’t you decide.”
“Let’s talk about me when I was a little girl again.”
“All right. That’s a good idea. Let’s see now, where shall we begin? Ah, suppose you tell me what you wanted to be when you grew up.”
“Well, sometimes I wanted to be a teacher and sometimes I wanted to be a nurse, but most of the time I think I wanted to be a dancer.”
“A dancer. Well, that’s a very nice occupation. Did you ever take lessons?”
“No. My parents didn’t care for the idea; they thought it would be a waste of money.”
“I see. Well, that’s too bad. Tell me, how did you happen to become a receptionist? ”
“Oh, I was working as a file clerk for this one company, right after I got out of high school, and I got to be chummy with the girl who was the receptionist there. She showed me how to operate the office switchboard, and I used to watch how she acted, you know, how she greeted people and took their names, things like that. Well, it didn’t look all that hard to me, so the next time I went looking for a job, I looked for one as a receptionist. I mean, it was a lot easier than being a file clerk; paid more, too.”
“Was your job with Mr. Keyes the first time you worked as a receptionist?”
“Yes. First and only.”
“How did you get the job, incidentally?”
“Oh, through an employment agency. I got tired of the job where I was working; my friend left to get married, and I didn’t really have any other friends there, so I just started looking around for something else.”
“Were you the only applicant for the job?”
“No. No, there were two or three others.”
“But you were the one who got the job?”
“Yes. I got the job.”
“Were you better qualified than the other girls, do you suppose?”
“I don’t think so. No, I’m sure I wasn’t.”
“Why were you selected then?”
“Do you really want to know, Doctor?”
“Certainly. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
There was an audible sigh, followed by a moment of silence and then another, quieter sigh.
“I got the job because I was young, I was unattached, I lived alone, and I wasn’t too bright.” Her voice carried a hurt, bitter tone.
“How did you know that those were the reasons Mr. Keyes hired you?”
“I didn’t know it then. I didn’t figure it out for a long time; years, actually.”
“But you’re convinced now that those were the reasons you were hired?”
“Yes. I was just what Keyes was looking for: somebody to use.”
“You’re absolutely right, of course,” the doctor agreed, “and I’m very glad that you can now admit that to yourself. I want you to put that thought away in your mind, Abigail, and keep it there; it will make things a great deal easier for you as your treatment here progresses. Now tell me, did you like your job at Keyes Enterprises? The actual work, I mean. ”
“Yes, it was a very nice job. The offices were nicer than any I’d ever worked in, and the girls all seemed to be so—so sophisticated, you know. They had such nice clothes and they knew how to act and talk, things like that. And, of course, it was all very exciting at first, meeting the movie stars who were clients of the firm, that sort of thing. All very glamorous, you know.”
“How did you get along on the job? At first, I mean. Did you seem to fit in all right?”
“Well,” she said hesitantly, “no, not really, not in the beginning. I was kind of the orphan of the office for awhile; I didn’t dress as well as the others, didn’t have the latest hairstyle, things like that.”
“How did the other girls in the office treat you? Were they friendly?”
“Not too. Oh, they weren’t unfriendly, you understand; they just acted like I was a poor relation that had come to visit for awhile. I don’t think any of them really expected me to last. Except Evelyn, that is.”
“Who was Evelyn?” asked the doctor.
“Evelyn Lund: she was Keyes’ private secretary. Now she was friendly toward me, at first anyway. She was always doing little things to try and help me improve.”
“What sort of things did she do?”
“Well, she could see that I dressed sort of drably, for instance, so she would tell me about a dress or a blouse or something that she had seen in such and such store that she thought would look nice on me. Or she might bring me a picture of some new way to set my hair. And she’d take me out to lunch with her two or three times a month, to show me the better places to eat, things like that. Of course, I’d always watch her very closely, the way she did things, ordering a drink or lunch, the way she acted, you know. Of all the people in the office, I guess Evelyn influenced me more than any other; except for Keyes, later on.”
“Why do you suppose she went out of her way to help you like that, Abigail?” the doctor inquired.
“I don’t know. I guess she felt kind of sorry for me. She didn’t really have too much to do with the other girls in the office; she kept to herself quite a bit, her attitude was kind of—I don’t know, kind of—”
“Aloof, would you say?”
“Yes, that’s the word: aloof. She didn’t really like any of the other girls very much, and frankly I don’t think they liked her very much. Of course, they all treated her in a friendly way because she worked so close to Keyes, and it’s never a good idea to get in bad with the boss’s private secretary. But I’m sure she realized how they really felt about her. So when she saw how they were acting toward me, how they were kind of tolerating me, I guess she just decided to do something about it.”
“So she began doing these little things, as you referred to them, to help you.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me, dear, do you think there’s any possibility at all that she might have been doing these things because Mr. Keyes asked her to?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think Evelyn would have, even if he had asked her to. She was pretty independent, and she seemed to have a very definite understanding with Keyes as to just what her duties were and so on. Everything was strictly business as far as Evelyn was concerned; except in my case, of course, when she chose to make an exception.”
“What was Mr. Keyes’ attitude toward you during this period when you were, how shall we put it, undergoing a change under the guidance of Evelyn Lund?”
“Oh, very proper, very correct. He was pleasant and cordial in a business way, but nothing more. With me, just as with all the other girls in the office, he was always the picture of dignity and refinement. He liked to be admired, you see, he had a very high opinion of himself, so he did everything that was necessary to make all his employees idolize him.”
“I see.” A pause. “I think I’ll have a cigarette; would you care for one, Abigail?”
“No, I don’t think so, thank you. I’m much too relaxed right now, almost limp, as a matter of fact; I’m afraid I might drop it.”
“All right.” Another pause. “Tell me now, how long was it after you began working for Keyes Enterprises that Mr. Keyes made the first overtures of being something more than proper and correct in his attitude toward you?”
“I don’t know, really. He was so clever about it all; looking back, it’s hard for me to tell the difference between when he was just playing the dignified, much-admired employer, and when he was carefully lay
ing the groundwork for—for what he had in mind for me. I guess the very first time I realized that I was being treated differently from the other girls was when he gave me the charm bracelet.”
“Tell me about that,” Dr. Fox said quietly.
“Well, I operated the small office switchboard to relay incoming calls to the proper extension; I already told you how I learned to do that, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did.”
“I thought so. Anyway, whenever there was someone talking on the phone after five o’clock, which was when the office closed, I would have to stay overtime and wait until the call was over so I could close the board and turn the line over to the answering service. All the other girls left right on the dot at five, but I rarely got out before five-fifteen or five-thirty: and usually it was Keyes who was on the phone with a late call. Of course, Evelyn always stayed until he was finished, to see if he wanted her for anything else; but later on, after I’d been there for a year or so, Evelyn started taking some art courses at night school, so she had to leave right at five in order to get to class on time. She went to school on Tuesday and Thursday nights, so that meant two nights a week that Keyes and I were alone in the office.” The girl paused. “What was I leading up to, Doctor?” she asked after a moment. “What was I going to tell you about?”
“A charm bracelet,” Dr. Fox reminded her.
“Oh, yes. Well, he gave me that after I had been working there about two years. One night when he’d kept me there until a little past five-thirty—it was on a night when Evelyn had gone to school—he came out of his office and handed me this small package and said it was something he had picked up for me on his trip to New York. He went to New York several times a year on investment business, you see, and he’d just come back that morning after being gone for a week. Well, I opened the box and inside there was a gold charm bracelet with one charm on it, a little gold telephone.
“I was very pleased, naturally; I guess it was the first really nice gift I’d ever received; it was twenty-four karat gold, you know, obviously not a dime store thing. He said it was just a little something to make up for keeping me after five so often. I told him he didn’t have to do anything like that, I didn’t mind staying late because I didn’t really have anything better to do anyway. Then he said something like, well, he couldn’t believe that, an attractive girl like me, I probably had a date every night of the week. I told him no, not me, and said there really weren’t that many men I cared to go out with. This didn’t seem to surprise him any, however; he said he knew how I probably felt, that the men he saw some of the other girls in the office meeting after work certainly didn’t impress him, and that I was probably very wise to be so discriminating; he said he admired me for it.
