Jack and Susan in 1953

by Michael McDowell

  And Susan had no intention of objecting if someone-to-complain-to also turned out to be quite rich.

  Once she had thought it might be Jack Beaumont who filled that particular bill, even though Jack’s family fortune had been squandered away by his mother. But things with Jack hadn’t worked out, which was the politest way of remembering a relationship that had been a series of cloudy misunderstandings, thunderous arguments, and lightning-bolt accusations only occasionally interrupted by brief spells of sunlit happiness. More and more she had been thinking of Rodolfo García-Cifuentes as one who might fill out the desiderata of the perfect someone-to-complain-to. Susan had taken to lingering in the Spanish rooms of the European painting galleries of the museum, studying the Velàsquez portraits. Handsome men in general, though they tended to be poisoners as often as they were royal councilors.

  She was still thinking about Rodolfo when she left the museum on the day after the incident in Mr. Vance’s establishment, and that’s why it was such a surprise to find not Rodolfo, but Jack, waiting for her on the steps outside.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “THIS IS ALL TOO sudden,” said Jack to Libby Mather, in response to her demand that he ask her to marry him. Then he wondered where he’d heard that line before.

  “Would you like another highball?” asked Libby, pouring one without waiting for his answer, and in the process moving much closer to him. Her garden of perfume seemed to envelop him, but the scent now brought to his mind the thorns that grew around Sleeping Beauty’s castle.

  “What’s the name of that perfume you’re wearing?” he asked.

  “Quelques Fleurs. Do you like it?”

  He nodded yes, which was at least more polite than the emphatic no that first had popped into his mouth.

  Libby put her head into his lap. The Cobra-Matic Arm of the new Zenith—the manufacturer had indeed made it look like a snake—did its business and yet another long-playing record began to play on the turntable, and it was even more romantic than the last music had been. The sash of Libby’s blue Chinese robe loosened, and with the nail of her middle finger Libby drew a line down the middle of her breast parting the robe—just in case Jack had not noticed her cleavage.

  It was a superfluous gesture. Libby looked romantically up into Jack’s eyes.

  “Yes, yes,” she whispered.

  “Yes what?” he asked, feeling stupid.

  “Yes, Jack, darling, I will marry you. Absolutely. Any time, any place—as long as it’s not in the morning, and as long as it’s in an Episcopal church on the Upper East Side.”

  She waited. She breathed in romantically, and her cleavage grew deeper.

  Jack finished off the highball Libby had poured for him two minutes before; it was the last of the pitcher. The emptiness of that vessel seemed to act as a signal that it was time Jack did something. He said, “Libby, I can’t give you an answer tonight.”

  “I don’t want an answer,” said Libby. “I want to hear the question.”

  “Libby,” Jack said, “I can’t ask you a question tonight.”

  “Not a question. The question.”

  “Not tonight.”

  “When, then?”

  “Next week,” said Jack, and then immediately wondered why he had. He didn’t even know what it meant.

  “What day next week?”

  Jack didn’t think at all as he answered: “A week from today.”

  “Thursday,” breathed Libby sultrily. “Next Thursday I’ll—”

  Jack checked his watch. “Actually, a week from today is Friday. It’s past midnight.”

  Libby breathed deeply and gazed soulfully up into Jack’s eyes. At the same time her fingers were busily untying the knot of her sash. Jack struggled to his feet.

  “Not a word, Libby. You can’t say anything to anybody.”

  “I won’t,” she said. “I promise. Next Friday night I’ll have a little party—a little engagement party.” Her eyes brightened. She was crying. For joy. She grabbed Jack’s hand and peered at his watch. “Is it too late to start calling people?”

  “I have to go, Libby.”

  She made no objections; she was already thinking about other things. It was as if she’d made out a list headed Things I Have to Do to Get Married, at the top of which was (1) Find a Husband. Now that she’d accomplished that, she was ready to go to work on (2) Plan the Engagement Party.

  Jack staggered out of Libby’s apartment; he leaned against the wall of the elevator on his way down to the street; his voice was thick as he mumbled good-night to the elevator man and the doorman of Libby’s building. What had he done? Well, he hadn’t proposed to Libby; he’d only agreed to propose to her. Now he had a week to figure out some way either to convince himself that the proposal was a good idea, or somehow to convince Libby that it was a bad one.

  Jack wasn’t certain if a week was going to be long enough in which to recover from the hangover that he had laid down tonight.

  Jack was waiting for her on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Not Libby, but Susan.

  The day was one of the first warm days of spring. Behind the museum the white crabapples were in bloom, and the red crabapples were close to flower. Jack had dressed too warmly, and now sat on the steps with his coat decorously over his arm, pretending to be a tourist; investment counselors did not sit on concrete steps with their jackets draped over their arms, fanning their over-heated faces with the brims of their hats. But Jack had a hangover—though it was not as bad as he thought it was going to be—and the night before he had agreed to propose marriage to a woman whom he did not love, so he didn’t care just then what the prescribed conduct was for up-and-coming Wall Streeters.

  He saw Susan emerge through the front doors. It only then occurred to him that if she had exited through the employees’ door he would have missed her. He stood and hurried to her, and had opened his mouth to speak, but something stopped him. The lilac perfume again. The simple sheath of a black dress, the red shoes. The black hair, shining in the light of the warm sun. It became very clear to Jack at that moment—despite his hangover, and despite his promise of the night before—that he would never totally love Libby Mather. Susan spoke.

  “The museum is closing,” she said, “in half an hour.”

  “I was waiting for you.”

  “I’m meeting Rodolfo in a few minutes,” she said, checking her watch. She went down a few steps, out of the crush, and seated herself quietly. The steps in front of the Metropolitan Museum are wide and shallow, perfect for a woman of Susan’s small size. They accommodated Jack less easily. His legs seemed to stretch all the way down to the sidewalk.

  “I wanted to talk to you about…”

  “About?”

  Jack cleared his throat. He looked away. He straightened the crease in his trousers.

  “About?” Susan prompted again.

  “Rodolfo,” Jack got out at last.

  Susan just nodded. As if she’d seen this coming two miles away.

  “I think I’ll move farther down,” said Susan. She got up, and walked down nearly to the sidewalk. After a few moments of surprise, Jack followed her. “You are as persistent as you are rude,” she said quietly. Now when Jack stretched his legs out, they did reach the sidewalk.

  “I’m not trying to be rude,” said Jack, straightening the crease again, and fanning his face with his hat. “It’s just…”

  Susan wouldn’t look at him. An unaccompanied off-white mongrel dog with a singularly dopey expression on his face wandered by on the sidewalk, and Susan called out softly, “Come here, Jack, come here, boy.”

  The dog, which was of medium size but had paws that would have looked more natural at the extremities of a mastiff, immediately trotted over to Susan and lapped a generous amount of saliva into the palm of her hand.

  “How did you know that dog’s name is Jack?”

  She lifted the animal’s long ears and let them drop. If dogs grin, that dog grinned. It licked Susan’s shoe. Then he
r ankle.

  “If his name isn’t Jack,” said Susan, “it should be. He’s awkward, overly eager, and none too smart. Aren’t you, Jack?”

  “He seems a very noble dog, with an engaging disposition,” said Jack. “Maybe I should buy him a hot dog. If I buy him a hot dog, will you call him something else?”

  Susan wouldn’t answer. Jack rose and went over to the man selling hot dogs from a cart at the curb not far away. He purchased two—with ketchup and relish—and brought them back over.

  “I don’t think dogs like ketchup and relish,” said Susan.

  In two bites the dog gobbled down the hot dog Jack gave him. He barked his pleasure, and the bark sounded like “Woolf!”

  “That’s what I’ll call him,” said Susan, and imitated the happy bark. “Woolf!”

  Woolf sat down on his haunches, and looked at the other hot dog Jack was holding.

  “I want this one,” said Jack, but Woolf cocked his head, and looked so forlorn that Jack relented and gave him half—after he’d scraped all the relish on to his side.

  “I thought you came here to make snide remarks about Rodolfo,” said Susan.

  “Questions,” said Jack, who had been trying to put it off. “Not snide remarks. Who is he?”

  “What right do you have to ask me that question?”

  “An old friend’s right,” Jack said.

  “Is that what we are?” asked Susan. “After four years, sworn enemies dwindle into ‘old friends.’”

  “We were never sworn enemies. You just couldn’t bear the sight of me. Rodolfo doesn’t exist.”

  “What?”

  “He doesn’t exist. He didn’t go to Harvard. The Cuban consulate has never heard of him. The Cuban embassy in Washington has no record of his being here in America. He has no account at the Banco de Habana. He doesn’t belong to that club down on Sixtieth Street where all the rich South Americans go. He’s not—”

  “Did you hire a detective?” asked Susan coldly.

  “I did all this myself,” said Jack quietly. After a moment he added, “Libby and I were worried.”

  Woolf stood with his front paws on the wax paper Jack had brought the hot dogs over in, and was licking off every dab of relish and ketchup that remained on it.

  “You might have saved yourself some trouble,” said Susan. “I know exactly who Rodolfo is.”

  “Who is he?” asked Jack in some surprise.

  “You still don’t have the right to ask me that question.”

  “Granted. But I’d feel better if you told me.”

  “Do you remember my uncle?” she asked, glancing at her watch.

  “I remember you had one.”

  “I have two, actually. The one on my mother’s side lives in San Francisco. Do you remember where the other one—the one on my father’s side—lived?”

  Jack tried to recall. Suddenly, the light of remembrance came into his eyes. “Cuba?”

  Susan smiled coldly. “That’s right. Do you remember what he did there?”

  “He…” This Jack couldn’t remember.

  “…owned a plantation,” said Susan. “Tobacco and sugarcane. Evidently Rodolfo’s family is from the same area. Everybody around there raises tobacco and sugarcane.”

  “Then why is there no record of him here?”

  “Perhaps the people you called felt you had no right to make those inquiries,” Susan suggested. “Perhaps they thought you were incredibly rude and presumptuous. Perhaps they felt that you were being a snoop. A busy-body. A troublemaker. Someone who tries to interfere in other people’s business for no good reason. Someone who…” She broke off with a shrug, seeming to indicate that she might have gone on in that vein for some time to come.

  “Is that what you think?” Jack asked.

  “Oh no, of course not! I think you had every right in the world to pry into my affairs! Every right to play the role of a cheap detective. Every right to intrude yourself where you’re not wanted, not welcomed, and not needed.”

  “That’s not what I meant to do,” Jack protested mildly.

  “Rodolfo’s late,” Susan said, looking at her watch again. “It’s his principal fault. Maybe if you’d have done a little more investigating, you’d have found that out.”

  “I’ll go,” said Jack, and got to his feet. “It’s just that…” He couldn’t think how to finish.

  Susan gazed up at him with a steady eye.

  “It didn’t work out between you and me,” she said. “So I don’t understand why you…”

  Woolf had finally given up on the wax paper and abandoned Jack and Susan in favor of the hot dog stand, where he waited in patient expectation of the vendor or another kind customer to give him another wiener, preferably with the works.

  The vendor once or twice tried to kick Woolf away, but Woolf cannily stationed himself out of the reach of the vendor’s extended leg.

  “No!” said the vendor. “You don’t get none! Go ’way, pooch. Scram!”

  Woolf, as if he understood every word, set his sights on another vendor on the opposite side of Fifth Avenue, and with a tongue-lolling insouciance, padded eagerly out into the street.

  Susan saw the traffic light change from red to green, and she saw that Woolf, in the middle of Fifth Avenue, was directly in the path of a taxicab and two trucks, behind which were a blue DeSoto convertible and a municipal bus. They were now speeding forward with the energy of mismatched racehorses released at a starting gate.

  She raised her hand and pointed, but she never screamed. It was yet another of those things that distinguished her in Jack’s mind from all other women.

  But Jack had already seen Woolf’s danger, had leaped to his feet and was now in the middle of Fifth Avenue, with the traffic bearing down on him.

  Woolf had turned with a sloppy grin to greet him, and Jack scooped the dog up in his arms.

  Horns were blowing frantically, and a truck slammed past on either side of Jack, plunging him and Woolf into a long canyon of metal and enormous rubber tires. And when those high walls disappeared, Jack found himself staring at the rapidly approaching grille of an enormous blue convertible.

  And behind the wheel of the DeSoto, Jack saw a face he recognized.

  Rodolfo García-Cifuentes’ face.

  CHAPTER SIX

  DOGS ARE SUPPOSED to possess a sense of danger. They are reputed to be able to identify hypocritical strangers in all their hidden perfidy; to smell out rabid squirrels in the underbrush of the park; to warn of the prowler at the gate.

  With Rodolfo García-Cifuentes’ blue DeSoto convertible rushing at them down Fifth Avenue, Woolf eagerly lapped at Jack’s face.

  Unable to fling himself either to the right or the left for safety, and it being nonsensical to try to outrun the speeding DeSoto, Jack heaved the dog away from him—toward Rodolfo in his car—as if the impact of dog and automobile would save him.

  Then he jumped himself.

  Woolf landed in the front passenger seat of the DeSoto, and Jack crashed with a hard thump onto the hood of the vehicle, rolled over the metal hot from the engine beneath and grabbed hold of the edge of the windshield. His hat flew off and was instantly crushed by a Piels beer truck.

  “Stop, please,” Jack begged Rodolfo.

  Rodolfo pulled over to the curb as soon as traffic permitted.

  Woolf, with an appropriate appreciation of his miraculous escape, generously licked the back of Rodolfo’s hand. Rodolfo gently pushed the dog’s muzzle away from him, and cautioned him, in Spanish, not to drool on the seat.

  A small crowd gathered around the automobile, curiously examining Jack, but carefully refraining from touching him. Jack still clung to the windshield.

  “Our friend is very lucky,” said Rodolfo to Susan, who had pushed aside the crowd to get to the car.

  Susan began to pry Jack’s fingers one by one from the rim of the windshield.

  “Woolf,” she said, “you are a very silly dog.”

  Jack was peering at
Susan. His scraped cheek was pressed against the glass. Then he tried to raise his head, but the collar of his shirt had caught and held him fast on the windshield wiper mechanism.

  “Jack,” said Susan, “do please get up before the police come and we have to explain everything and make out a written report. Rodolfo, you do have a license that’s good here in America, don’t you?”

  Rodolfo blinked, and said quietly, “Yes of course, but I’d rather not show it. Police…”

  “Yes, I know,” said Susan. “More trouble than they’re worth. My mother always advised me against getting arrested. Jack, please get down from there.”

  She reached under his arms, got a good hold on his torso, and pulled.

  His shirt, still caught, ripped a bit, but did not come loose. By the time Susan had pulled him off the hood of the car onto the sidewalk he had pulled off the wiper mechanism entirely.

  The crowd, curious and silent, had gathered in a tight circle, still watching the proceedings.

  “Here comes a policeman,” warned an old lady in a feathered hat, tugging politely at Susan’s sleeve.

  Woolf stood with his forepaws on the back of the seat, and began barking at the approaching policeman.

  “All right, stand up,” said Susan to Jack, with exasperation. She dragged out the windshield wiper that dangled from his shirt collar. “And pretend nothing happened. You got dizzy. You can say it must have been the hot dog.”

  Jack, dazed and bruised, leaned against the side of the DeSoto. Remaining in the front seat, Rodolfo smiled a tight smile at Woolf, and tried without success to keep the dog from barking.

  The policeman had also been eating a hot dog and was now wiping mustard from his mouth with the back of his hand. He gently parted the crowd and approached the convertible.

  “We stopped for a hot dog,” said Susan without preamble, “and our friend got dizzy. He’ll be all right.”

  The policeman looked at Susan, looked at Jack’s torn shirt and the windshield wiper, looked at Rodolfo in the driver’s seat, and then threw his glance slowly over the small assembled crowd.