I Could Go on Singing

by John D. MacDonald

  He smiled. “Nice try, but I would say it’s nothing at all.”

  “The doctor is a widower, of course.”

  “I wouldn’t say they’re friendly in that way, Miss Landor.”

  “Possibly she wants to expand the area of friendship. I understand the doctor is quite a handsome man. And successful. It would be a reason for being very nice to the boy, wouldn’t it?”

  At that moment Jason saw Lois come into the lounge. She stopped just beyond the door and looked around. She saw him and started toward the corner, hesitated, stopped, turned on her heel and went back out.

  “Rather nice, that,” Beth Landor said. “Did you keep her the night at The Draycott? It’s a dreary place, actually. I’ve never understood why Tommy Bird seems so fond of it.”

  “We had supper there,” he said.

  “My word, you’re actually offended, aren’t you? No harm intended, Jason. She seems a hearty piece, and I was just curious. It’s my disease, of course. Being curious.”

  “And you brought it up to prove how good you are at finding out things.”

  “Perhaps. It isn’t much of a trick, you know. Doormen, switchboard people, taxi people, stagehands and so on. Once one learns how to use them properly, it’s all quite simple.”

  “What do you want, Miss Landor?”

  She tilted her head to one side and peered at him. “I’m not making it obvious? I want something dreadfully juicy and salable about your dear Jenny. It’s presold to Sam Dean, naturally. But I can do rather well with it on the local front, you know.”

  “If I did know anything, and I assure you there is nothing, why in the world would I tell you?”

  “Are you certain you haven’t told me quite a bit, sweets? Perhaps you’ve simplified my little research chores. Here, dear. A little card with my number. My little studio apartment in Notting Hill. When I’m not there, there’s a little box that takes messages.”

  “Why should I want to call you?”

  She looked at him, and her heavy lip curled and lifted in an expression of delicate and unmistakable lust. “You might care to drop by for a little drink one evening, sweets.” She gulped the rest of her second drink, smiled and stood up and slowly walked out of the lounge, her big soft hips flexing and clenching under the taut blue fabric of the wrinkled dress.

  Jason hurried upstairs. They were all gone. He slipped a scrawled note under George’s door saying it was important they get in touch immediately. He went back down to the lobby and phoned Tommy Bird’s home number.

  “How’d you like the club?” Tommy asked as soon as he recognized the voice.

  “It was very very good. And thank you for setting it up. But I should have been able to pay.”

  “Hell, we got room for it on the account, Jase,” Tommy said. “I thought you’d like it. They know how to treat you. Want I should phone them again for you?”

  “No thanks. What I called about, what do you know about a woman named Beth Landor?”

  “I know she’s bad news. Her stuff gets into the worst sheets they got in this town. And they’ve got some beauts. She is a very smart slob, and if she gets hold of anything, she can kill you. She works alone and then peddles it for the high bid.”

  “Tommy, what if the person she wants to write about comes up with the high bid?”

  “No. I had to try that once. I went to the top offer I was authorized to give, and she just laughed at me. She likes to see her name in the paper. She likes to drop the bomb on people. Jase, is she onto something about Jenny?”

  “She might be. I don’t know. Just say she’s getting close.”

  “Would it be bad?”

  “Very very bad.”

  He heard Tommy Bird sigh. “All I can tell you, you better cover up as good as you can, and pray.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “If there was any way to get to her, I would have found it the time I was trying to buy her off.”

  “Well, we’ll do what we can.”

  “Jase, you want to join us? We’re going to Rule’s for kidney pie. We’ll be there in maybe forty minutes.”

  “Some other time, maybe. Thanks.”

  ten

  Jason Brown was not able to talk to George Kogan until after ten o’clock on Monday morning. He talked in George’s room. George seemed distracted at first, but Jason soon had his full attention.

  “That one in the blue dress? The big eater? The one with a head like an old mop?”

  “That one. Yes.”

  George sat on his bed. “Sam Dean,” he murmured. “Jesus! I guess we didn’t do as good as we thought we did.” He hit his thigh with his fist. “That settles it, pal. We’ve got to send that kid back where he belongs.” He thought for a moment. Suddenly he looked up at Jason with a wry smile. “You bugged Marney, pal. She figured you’d made a new friend. She’ll be glad to know you were in there fighting for the team.”

  “If she thinks I was attracted to that monster …”

  “Let’s go down the hall and bring her up to date.”

  Before going down the corridor, George checked the suite. Jenny was awake. She and the boy were having breakfast in her room, and planning their day. George told Ida not to let her leave before he saw her.

  As they went down the corridor George said bitterly, “He didn’t leave last night. He couldn’t leave last night. Not when they got to go buy him a tape recorder. Nobody phones Aunty. Maybe Aunty shows up with some cops.”

  Lois called to them to come in. She was adding a column of figures. She gave Jason a frosty glance and a courteous good morning.

  George straddled a straight chair and rested his arms on the back of it and grinned at Lois. “I want to set your mind at rest about the newspaper broad your friend Jason picked up.”

  She looked politely astonished. “Set my mind at rest? Did I seem uneasy about anything?”

  “She’s sort of working for Sam Dean. That’s the name she used to get Jase’s attention. She specializes in scandal, honey. And she wants to know why Jenny is spending so much time on the kid.”

  Lois put her pen down and stared at them. “Really?”

  “We were going to have dinner,” Jason said, “but you disappeared.”

  She blushed. “I thought you seemed busy.”

  “He was very busy and he did pretty good,” George said. “And now you got him sore at you for you thinking he’d latch onto a pig like that one.”

  “I didn’t examine her very closely,” Lois said. She blushed again. “Why should I care what …”

  “Okay,” George said. “You don’t care. But we’ve got us a problem. So what you do, just in case, Lois, you get us a piece of the receipts in cash, and we’ll hold it handy in the hotel safe.”

  “But Tommy said she won’t …”

  “This could be the first time,” George said.

  “How much?” Lois asked.

  “Let’s go for two thousand pounds.”

  “Blackmail money?” Lois said unhappily.

  “The practical approach,” George said. “Be ready for anything. Come on, Jase, let’s go tackle our star.”

  Jason hung back for a moment. “I wasn’t sore at anything,” he said.

  She nodded. “George imagines a lot of things. About … everybody. I did have a wonderful time yesterday. Thank you.”

  “Are you coming?” George called.

  The boy had gone to his own room. Jenny came scurrying out into the sitting room, smiling and happy. Ida was not there. “Make it fast, men,” she said. “We’re off to …” She stopped suddenly and looked intently at each of them. “What’s wrong?”

  Jason started the story. She sat down and listened quietly. George took over and finished it. “So you see,” he said, “the boy has to go.”

  “Has to go? I don’t see that at all. Why shouldn’t what Brownie told her satisfy her?”

  “We can’t take that chance,” George said.

  “Suppose I’m willing to take that chance
?”

  George sat beside her and took her hand. “Jenny darling, I’ve got to say some rough words to you. I hate to do it.”

  “You scare awful easy, George.”

  “You keep the boy around and that Landor woman is going to keep right on checking it out, and sooner or later she’ll get the jackpot idea and then she’ll find out just how old the boy is, add nine months to the age and find out just where you were and where the doctor was at that time. She’s got Sam to help her on the other end. It won’t be hard. It won’t be hard at all.”

  “So?”

  “Please, Jenny. Remember the deal with the Swede? The Stromboli thing?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “You know what messed her up most? Not leaving her husband. It was the business of deserting her daughter. The kid was ten years old. The public couldn’t forgive that, honey. Not for seven long years, not until the Italian left her and that made her an underdog again. Can’t you see what would happen to you if it came out you’d given away the only baby you ever had? Can’t you predict what they’d do to you? They’d tear you to ribbons and stomp you into the ground.”

  “George, do you really think that means very much to me right now?”

  “It should, baby. It should.”

  The boy came into the sitting room, ready to go out. He greeted the two men. And then he became aware of the odd silence of Jenny. She was looking fixedly at George, tears caught in her lashes.

  “I say, is anything wrong?” the boy asked anxiously.

  Without taking her glance away from George, she said, “Matthew, do you remember what we talked about yesterday in that churchyard at Stoke Poges?”

  “Yes, Jenny. Of course.”

  “You know I’m leaving for Paris in a few days, and I would very much like to have you come and spend the rest of your holiday with me. I’ll talk to your father and I’ll arrange everything. All you have to do is say yes.”

  The boy frowned. “But perhaps Mr. Kogan and Mr. Brown would rather I …”

  “Come here, Matthew, please.” She took his hand and looked at him. “I am inviting you. That’s the only thing that matters.”

  “Jenny, I don’t understand. Why are you being so kind to me?”

  “Because I never had a son, and I’d like to pretend for a little while I have one. Will you help me pretend?”

  The boy hesitated and then gave her a slow sweet smile. “Yes, Jenny.”

  She smiled back, gave him a quick hug and said, “Wait for me in the lobby, dear. I’ll be along soon.”

  After the door closed behind the boy, George said, “Jenny, Jenny. What are you trying to prove?”

  “I love my son,” she said in a small voice.

  “Do you know what you could be doing to him?”

  “I want him near me. His father is coming back today.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We called Miss Plimpton this morning. He’ll be in on an afternoon flight.”

  George jumped up and waved his arms wildly. “Why ask the kid’s father? Why bother with that? Hell, let’s put the kid in a wardrobe trunk and smuggle him to Paris.”

  “Shut up, George. I’ll need the car at two to go to the airport. I’ll go alone. I’ll leave Matthew here. I’ll make David agree.”

  At four o’clock that afternoon, George came to Lois’s room to get Jason. George looked subdued and worried. “She wants to cry on your shoulder, pal,” George said. “The roof fell in and then the walls fell on top of the roof. Whether she goes on tonight is anybody’s guess.”

  “Was it bad?” Jason asked.

  “It was very very bad,” George said.

  Jason went down to the suite. Ida motioned toward the closed door of Jenny’s bedroom. “Go right on in,” she said in that tone usually reserved for times of mourning.

  The draperies were drawn. She lay curled on the bed in the darkened room, her back toward the door. She wore the quilted yellow robe again, and she looked small and defeated. She turned and looked at him “Oh, Brownie,” she said in a heartbreak voice. “Brownie.”

  He went to her and sat on the bed. He patted her shoulder. “You run into stone walls,” he said, “and pick yourself up and run into them again.”

  “I know. Brownie, it was awful. You have no idea.”

  And she told him about it, and made him see and feel exactly how it was. She’d had the driver take her to the airport. She waited for David Donne outside customs. When he had seen her, he had seemed slightly startled, but he had not smiled. He was grim and silent, and his mouth was hard. She told him about phoning Miss Plimpton and finding out about the flight. She told him she wanted to talk to him, and asked him to come along with her in the limousine. He said he had his own car and driver. “I’m on my way to the hospital,” he said. “If you want to talk, you’d better come along with me.” She dismissed her driver and went along with him.

  She said the silence was awkward. She tried to make small talk about his trip to Rome. He was unresponsive. At last she said, “I have a confession to make.”

  “Have you?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve done something I shouldn’t have.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “How could you know?” she asked, shocked.

  “His aunt called me, of course. What else could she do?”

  “Are you terribly angry?”

  “I’m so sick with anger I can hardly speak,” he said in a quiet voice.

  “I … I don’t know what to say. Except that it’s so wonderful being with him.”

  “There’s just one thing I want to know. Did you tell him anything?”

  “I swear I haven’t.”

  “Are you quite sure? It isn’t like the boy to be so reckless and thoughtless and inconsiderate.”

  “I’ve told him nothing. I guess you can be angry. But I haven’t done him any harm.”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  “If I’m such an unsavory character, why did you let me see him in the first place, David?”

  He glared at her. “Why did I …?” He brought his temper under control. “As I remember, you did a great deal of begging and pleading.”

  “I never beg.…”

  He stared at her, his face rigid. “No. You never beg. You just damned well assume. What you want, you just get. You were that way thirteen years ago and you haven’t changed and you never will. You’re nothing but a self-centered, grasping, little bitch!”

  She felt the tears come into her eyes. “Is that what you think of me? How strange, I didn’t think that …”

  “Come off it, Jenny. It won’t work this time. Your meeting me doesn’t make me less sick at heart. I’ll go to Canterbury this evening and have it out with the boy.”

  “To Canterbury?” she said, baffled.

  His eyes widened. “Do you mean to say he is still with you?”

  “Yes. The reason I came to see you at the airport, David, I want your permission to take him along to Paris for my opening there. After all, he is still on holiday and …”

  He stared at her and slowly shook his head and told her she was an incredible person. He directed his chauffeur to the hotel. The remainder of the trip was silent. Before they entered the suite, Jenny stopped him and said, “Before you go in and play heavy father, remember that this was not his fault. This is all something I brought about. Keep that in mind, David.”

  When she opened the door he pushed by her, calling, “Matt? Matt?”

  The boy came out of his room. Jenny said quickly, “Matthew, dear, we didn’t win.”

  “Hello, father,” the boy said uneasily. “I wanted to come along to the airport with Jenny, but she thought it better she talk to you alone about Paris and all.”

  “She explained it perfectly. All I want you to do now is pack up and come along. Are you ready?”

  “No. But … there isn’t much. It won’t take me a minute.”

  “Hurry along, then. The car’s outside.”

&nb
sp; “All right,” the boy said and went into his room and closed the door.

  “Paris,” David said in a disgusted voice. “And Rome and Brussels and Berlin, the whole tour. Then maybe you could get him into the moving pictures.”

  “Oh for God’s sake don’t sulk. I’ll say I’m sorry. Matthew will say he’s sorry too. What do you want us to do? Grovel and sob?”

  He stared at her. “I don’t want you to do anything. I just want to get out of here as soon as possible.”

  She stared at him. “Just what was so terrible about having fun together? What’s so shameful about that? Why should that give you the right to stand there and look at me as if I were a criminal?”

  “You know what you did.”

  “All right. I broke a promise. I know it. All the years your wife was alive I kept out of the way, didn’t I?”

  “She was good for him.”

  “Fine! She was good for him. Congratulations! But what has he got now? You with your sour face, too busy to go visit him. And Aunty Beth who’s about forty years too late. What kind of life is that for him?”

  “You are either too stupid to realize, or to stubborn to admit that Matthew and I have a good relationship. We did very well before you came and we’ll do very well after you leave.”

  “My God, you know how to strike a nerve, don’t you? He needs me and I want him!”

  “He’s not yours to have, Jenny. You gave him to me a long time ago. I love him and I need him.”

  “You need him? He’s a child, David. What does he need?”

  “He’s my son and I’m going to keep him!”

  There was a heavy silence. Jenny turned toward David and said clearly, “There’s just one little thing we may be overlooking, you know. He’s my son too. I made him. So where do we go from there?”

  Jenny began to cry as she told Jason about it. She turned her agonized face toward him. “Oh, Brownie. It was so awful.”

  “What happened?”

  “Matthew. Matthew was … he was there, in the doorway. David saw him first. I don’t know how long he’d been there. But you could see by his face that he’d heard it. He stood with his suitcase and that tape recorder, and he looked so white and sick. Neither of us could think of anything at all to say to him. He swallowed hard and came into the room and said he was all packed. His voice shook. He took his things over near the door and stood with his back to us after he put them down, and asked if … if it was true.” She snuffled and blew her nose. “So David told him it was true. Then Matthew asked his father why he hadn’t told him. David said he meant to, intended to, but he kept putting it off. Then he asked me why I hadn’t told him. He looked so white and wretched and accusing. I said I’d promised his father not to. Then David decided it was time to leave. The boy didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay and get it all clearer in his mind. I had no objections. I said so. But then David reminded the boy how few orders, direct orders, he had ever given him. And he ordered him to leave. And Matthew, with a sort of shy and wonderful dignity turned to me and explained that he was leaving not because he wanted to, but because he had been ordered to. He asked me if he could phone me tomorrow and talk. I said I would like to have him do that. And then, as David was looking more and more surly, Matthew turned to him and said that he didn’t expect he would be ordered not to phone his friends. It was very brave and very firm. And … and then they left. Oh, hold me, Brownie. Hold me close. I feel as if I was falling off the edge of the world.”