“When they see my signature on the checks, they’ll know the business is solvent, and they’ll give her all the credit she needs.”
All the checks were signed in fifteen minutes.
“Willie,” he said to the other man at the desk, “call a messenger service. I don’t want any of these checks mailed. All delivered by hand and put one of my personal compliment slips in every envelope.”
“Yes, Mr. Blackman.”
Jay walked through to the front of the store and looked at the dresses on the racks. He picked up a dress every now and then and threw it to the floor in disgust.
“What’re you doing, selling to funeral parlors? I can’t believe that you bought all this dreck. Must be a blind man who’s picking out this garbage.”
“I haven’t had time to cover the market and the store, so I only get to the city once a month.”
“Then who’s been giving you this crap?” He examined a dress and recoiled when he saw it was priced at fifteen dollars. “This is a copy of one of my dresses. Blunt knocked it off. Mine sold at sixty dollars a dozen. So how in hell’s name can you charge fifteen for a dress that isn’t worth four?”
“I paid a hundred and twenty a dozen for it.”
“Not possible. You know too much about dresses to be taken in.”
“Jean, my manageress, bought it. I okayed the invoice. She bought it from one of the salesmen who represents about six manufacturers.”
“Oh, my God,” Jay moaned. “Willie,” he screamed. “Get out here.”
Willie appeared, rubbing ink stains off his cuff.
“Check every one of Blunt’s invoices and find the dress that goes with it. She’s being overcharged.”
“The salesman usually gets here on Mondays. I wonder what he’ll think when he sees the store closed.”
“What’s his name?”
“Freddie Stevens.”
A face peered into the darkened grimy window, and a hand rapped against it. Jay opened the door. The man was wearing a camel’s hair coat, a porkpie hat, and a slimline mustache.
“Good morning,” Jay said.
“Wha’ happened?”
“Who are you?”
“Freddie Stevens.”
“Come in, Freddie.”
“I know you?”
“You will. How are the horses treating you?”
Freddie smiled a whole set of capped teeth.
“Not bad. I hit the double at Hialeah on Friday. Been balling it up all weekend.”
“I like a man who knows his horses.”
“Thanks, friend. Where’s Jean?”
“Jean took the day off.”
“Rhoda still running the joint?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Well, I’ve got some terrific numbers to show her. Immediate delivery.”
Jay switched the light on.
“Rhoda, Mr. Stevens is here to see you.”
Rhoda picked her way through a rail of dresses.
“Hiya, Rho, how’re things? Where’s Jean?”
“Off,” she said, glaring at him.
“Somethin’ wrong?” he asked uneasily.
“No, what’ve you got?”
He opened his sample case, pulled out eight dresses.
“All colors and sizes except black and brown. And I can get you delivery no later than tomorrow afternoon. What do you say? They’re runners everywhere.”
“I’ve got something to tell you, you little mother-fucker,” Jay broke in. “These dresses are last year’s and Blunt’s got a factory full of them. They only sold in brown and black, and you’re out of stock on them.”
“Now hold on, friend.”
“I’m not your friend. I’m your enemy. And you’re out of a job.”
“Who the hell do you think you are? I work for Blunt.”
“And Blunt does what I tell him to do, or he’s up shit’s creek. Now come into the office or do you want me to get tough and call the cops. You’ll get three years for fraud and embezzling.”
“You don’t scare me.”
“I will, don’t worry.”
They walked into the office in silence like pallbearers at a funeral.
“All done, Mr. Blackman. The messenger service’ll be here in half an hour. And the goods should come by three. I just rang the office.”
“You Jay Blackman?” Stevens asked, white-faced.
Jay dialed a number and waited.
“Mr. Blunt in? Tell him it’s Jay Blackman.”
“Jay? Hiya. How’s the boy?” Blunt said affably.
“Not bad, not good, Milty. I’m afraid I’ve got some unpleasant news for you.”
“Oh, Jay?”
“You know that 506 number that you copied from me last season?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“How much was it?”
“Hang on? Hey, you’re not sore, are you?”
“Why should I be? It helped my own sales. They took one look at your schmata and bought me for two bucks more.”
“It was thirty-six dollars a dozen.”
“Not a hundred and twenty?”
Willie and Stevens left the room, and Jay and Rhoda stood staring at each other.
“You finished?” Jay asked the man at the desk.
“I’ll go back to the office,” he said.
“Take the day off. You’ve done a good morning’s work.”
Jay slipped a hip flask out of his pocket and took a long pull.
“You never liked booze, or I’d offer you one,” he said to Rhoda.
“I never remember you walking around with a bar.”
“You take pills and I drink a little too much. There’s not much to choose between the two.”
“You told Blunt I was your wife. Shouldn’t you have said ex-wife?”
“It didn’t cross my mind.”
“Eva’d take offense.”
“Eva?” Jay shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
“You’re going to marry her, aren’t you?”
“Who knows?”
“Jay, I’m very grateful for what you’ve done. There’s still some feeling left, isn’t there?”
“You’re a good person, Rhoda. And I’ve hurt you. If I can make it up . . .” He put on his hat and coat and started for the door. “A few of my people will be down this afternoon to unpack the merchandise I’ve given you. They’ll set up the sale as well, Every rag, five bucks. Take it or leave it. Don’t fight success, Rhoda, and you’ll do all right. You’re peddling rags to Brooklyn housewives. They don’t want to know from Paris fashions. Give Neal a kiss from me and tell him I’ll see him on Sunday as usual.”
A week after that, on an icy Monday, Jay and Eva were married in Syracuse. He could see out of the window, over the judge’s shoulder, the snow blanketed streets and people in galoshes and boots trudging through the slush. As he stood there listening to the judge intoning the words of the marriage ceremony, he had a vision of Terry and himself lying on the sand - the timbre of her voice a bit high-pitched with a broad “a” sound. Beneath the exterior of gentility and gracious living, she had been just as dirty as him - something that had crawled out of a fetid and contaminated cloaca - with the same emotional needs. As with most philanderers, a strong puritan reaction to smut was submerged in the muddy waters of Jay’s life fluids; he could accept wallowing in the mud with Eva, because he knew they were cut from the same piece of material, but he had imagined Terry belonged to some illusory high caste that he had dreamed of joining. The real estate venture with Fredericks had fallen through shortly afterwards. He had received an amicable letter with his check enclosed, stressing the fact that his investment would not be secure. Property was a gamble, and Doug didn’t like to endanger funds given by friends. “Friends” was a nice touch that was not wasted on Jay.
The judge had a powdery belt of dandruff on the shoulder of his navy blue serge suit, which gave it the appearance of a carefully crocheted lace shawl, and Jay had a nagging desire to brus
h it off.
“Do you take this woman . . . ?”
A man slipped on the icy pavement, and a little boy helped him up and took his hand. How would Neal feel about Eva?
“To have and to hold . . .”
He had been able to help Rhoda, and he was pleased with himself. What had been impossible in marriage had proved expedient in dissolution. Neal had eyes . . . such terribly deep eyes that swallowed Jay up whenever he looked at him. The eyes didn’t look. They peered through the layers of defenses that Jay had erected. The hero’s armor weighed him down. The eyes probed, and Jay was stripped naked. How could he get to Neal? Which button should he press? He couldn’t buy him off, because he had an innate contempt for money that was almost patrician. He belonged to the caste that Jay had failed to get into.
“From this day forward . . . ?”
And Immie, what had become of Immie? Was he still serving greasy hamburgers and heartburn coffee in the same all-night dive on Delancey Street? And Barney Green? Could he make you laugh! Once he thought he had seen Barney in a nightclub. But it couldn’t have been Barney because the man was wearing a waiter’s uniform.
“I do,” he heard his voice carry in the high-ceilinged chamber, with its rows of books in a glass case. A man living in a glass cage. Eva lifted her white veil. Rose colored lipstick didn’t suit her - too much blue in it.
He pressed his mouth against hers and tasted treacly chemicals. A nauseating taste. He’d have to tell her to take it off. The judge shook his head excitedly, and dandruff floated through the air. Outside it had begun to snow heavily, and an Ontario wind yelped like a banshee as figures now dim through the frosted window struggled to cross the street, and cars stalled.
“Ten dollars a bottle, I’ve never had champagne that cost so much,” the judge’s wife, an old lady dressed in a Gibson Girl blouse and a tweed skirt two sizes too small, intoned to the gods.
“You want to get away from this weather,” the judge said. “What say? Ah, Cuba. Havana? Well, well, well, I always smoke their cigars. A friendly race? Of course, they are, Mother. All brown-skinned people are friendly. I remember reading . . .”
The chauffeur-driven car took them to the airport, and Blake, the factory manager, handed Jay a bottle of scotch to see them through the flight. Change at La Guardia Airport for a direct flight to Havana. Brown-skinned people, he thought, opening the bottle of scotch, are friendly. The stewardess brought them a setup of ice and glasses and Jay offered her a ten-dollar tip, which she declined. Company rules. Eva held the bottle firmly in her hands; her nails were painted silver. She looked like a whore, he thought.
“No more of this,” she said, “once we get settled. Have a place of our own. A proper home. Only to be social.” She tipped the bottle and gave them triples. “I’m so happy, Jay darling. It’s been worth all the heartache.”
“The heartache?”
“We love each other, so we’ve made each other suffer.”
“Of course. Here’s looking at you.” Chivas Regal, trust Blake. A good guy.
The engines revved up, and the plane started to move like a snowbird leaving the arctic or coming home to it.
“After your mother died . . .”
“Let’s not talk about her.”
“Sorry, hon. It reminds you . . .”
“Of good things. Of old smells, good smells.”
“Funny memory.”
“I always remember with my nose. That way I don’t forget.”
“I only remember camphor. Our house stank of it. I sent my mother a telegram.”
“You’re a good girl,” he closed his hand around hers.
“We’re off. A new beginning.”
With the same ending, he thought bitterly.
The room overlooked the sea. A calm emerald and blue sea with palm fronds flickering gently in the distance.
“Jay, the bathroom’s all tiled. Mosaic. I think we’ll have something similar when we build the house. And for God’s sake will you look at this. It looks like . . . but it’s not.”
“A bidet.”
“I want one.”
“Why get a small one? I’ll get you the giant size.”
“Oh, Jay, you’re kidding. They only make one size.”
“I’ll be in the bar when you’ve finished unpacking.”
“Now, Jay . . .”
“About an hour?”
“Not too much.”
“I know when to stop. I’ve been well trained.”
The barman asked him if he wanted to go to a whorehouse and Jay said yes. A taxi driver approached him as he left the bar.
“Usted el señor?”
Jay nodded. A road that snaked around the harbor eventually found its way to a small cobbled street on a hill. There was a smell of bread coming from a shop opposite the bar he entered. He followed the driver up a flight of stairs, and a woman of about fifty flashed a welcoming smile at him. The taxi driver said to the woman: “Un señor . . . Un caballero. Americano.”
She shook her head, and her smile broadened into an expanse of ivory-colored teeth. The girls were all pretty and young. The oldest was about eighteen, and he went with her. He smoked a cigarette in the room, tossed her ten dollars and as she was about to remove her suspender belt, he changed his mind and left. The driver came after him, volatile and upset. Jay handed him five dollars, and he was soothed. Jay went into the bakery and bought a loaf of bread, still hot from the oven, and ate it in the back of the taxi on the way back to the hotel.
Eva was wearing a black, sequined, low-necked dress. She had changed her lipstick, and Jay felt happier. Two couples were talking loudly at her, and Jay watched her holding court while the barman rattled a jug of martinis with a long metal spoon.
“The man himself,” she said, and the four of them turned to look at him.
“Worth waiting for,” one of the women said.
“Where’ve you been, darling?”
“Buying myself bread.”
“Oh, he’s always kidding. Never know when to take him seriously. Jay, these lovely people have asked us to join them for dinner. I wouldn’t make a decision until I asked you.”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Party, party,” a man in a seersucker suit and crew cut said. He forced his hand on Jay. “Mah name’s Hiram Gilbert and this is my wife Florence. We’re from Atlanta. Where you folks from?”
“New York.”
“Yankees,” his wife cackled.
The other couple was also from Atlanta, and they were called Langford.
“You call me Lang and him Gil, heah?” Langford guffawed.
It was like that for ten days. Jay even got to like Southern Comfort, and he liked the women so much that he slept with both of them, separately, but on the same afternoon, while Eva soaked her stockings in the bidet. He smiled to himself when he overheard Gil and Lang talking heatedly about how much they’d give for a peep inside Eva’s drawers. They only had to buy her a drink.
He pulled the big Caddy convertible into Huntingdon Close. The engine purred softly down the new macadam. The road was lined with Oregon spruce, pine, and fir. Huge trees bought fully grown by the householders of the road; they got shade, the illusion of privacy in an area where even what a man ate for dinner was public knowledge, and they represented a tacit cognition of not to say a communion with nature. Man cannot live by mortar alone, but most of the people on the road did. Neal had drifted into a doze on the ride home, and Jay was reluctant to wake him. He slid the big car into the driveway circling the house and turned off the ignition. He opened Neal’s door with care, arched his arm under his back and lifted him up. Thin for his age, needs fattening up. Needs care, Jay thought. He pressed the buzzer, and the maid came immediately. She was about to speak, but Jay put his finger to his lips, and indicated Neal, sleeping in his arms. She walked quickly up the stairs and opened the door of Neal’s room. A bedside lamp was switched on, and Jay began to undress Neal. Neal stirred, and Jay shushed him.
“It’s late,” he said. “And you’ve had a big dinner.”
“All right,” Neal said, closing his eyes as Jay and the maid put his pajamas on. Jay opened the windows and then kissed Neal on the forehead.
The maid was waiting outside on the landing for him.
“Whatsa matter, Ruby?”
“Dunno what to say. Mrs. Blackman . . .”
“Well, what about her?”
“I’d like to give you notice.”
“Notice? What for?”
“She’s downstairs . . . that’s all. I’ll go in the morning. You get yourself another girl from the agency.”
“Now what’s this all about? We like you.”
“And I like you.” She pointed a finger at Jay to make her meaning clear.
He hurried down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and rushed into the study, but she wasn’t there. He saw a light from under the living room door and heard the sound of music, something low and romantic, coming from the room. He pushed open the door slowly until it was flush against the wall, and he could take in the full room. Eva was stripped down to her brassiere and panties, and a man was sitting on the sofa applauding softly, like an opera lover at the end of an aria.
“Just in time for the late show,” Eva said.
Jay pointed to the door and told the man to get out.
“Just a minute, pal. I was invited in here.”
“Get out before I throw you out and then run you down with my car.”
“A tough guy, huh?”
“Look, this is my house and my wife.”
“Oh, so you remembered who I was?” Eva piped in.
“Sorry, I didn’t know this lady was married,” the man said, starting for the door. “I got a totally wrong impression.”
“Yeah, well it’s been corrected for you.”
“He’s my guest,” Eva shouted.
“Get dressed and go to a motel with him if you like, or go to bed.”
“Alone again?”
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you a little proverb? You don’t shit where you eat. There’s a child in the house. My child, and I don’t want him to be upset.”
“But I’m upset, doesn’t that matter?”
“See you folks,” the man said.
Seventh Avenue Page 37
