He was beginning to be upset. If she hadn’t intended to come home this evening, she could have told him. She’d said she was going for a singing lesson. No singing lesson lasted until this time of night. She knew he was expecting her. She could have called him if she’d been delayed. He tried to look at it reasonably. Honestly tried. She had a lot of friends, of course she did. A girl with her body and hair and strange, lovely face would have more friends than she could handle. He was a newcomer, a nobody in her life. After all, she hadn’t met him until yesterday. She couldn’t be expected to drop everyone else and devote herself to him alone. She didn’t know yet how it was going to be between them. She didn’t know it was to be just these two. Two that were one. Until she understood as he did, he couldn’t be disturbed that she had other obligations. But she could have told him. She needn’t have left him here hanging on the phone, afraid to go out lest it ring. Lying around here without food, smoking too much, reading every line of the damn dull newspaper, waiting for the phone to ring. Wearing out his finger dialing.
The door buzzer sounded with an insolent suddenness while he was still lying there, trying to put down his anger, trying to see it reasonably. He jumped off the bed, and he almost ran to answer. He was angry, yes; he’d tell her plenty, but the heat of it was already dissipated in the eagerness to see her. In the joy of rushing to behold her. He opened the door, and his hand tightened over the knob as he held it wide. Sylvia Nicolai was on the threshold.
“Am I interrupting anything, Dix?” She stood there, tall and slim, at ease, her hands thrust into the deep pockets of Cashmere burberry, her gilt hair pulled smoothly away from her slender face.
He couldn’t believe it because it wasn’t she he expected. It was as if the fire of Laurel had faded, had become polite and cool and ladywise. He recovered himself quickly. He was hearty. “Come in. Sylvia.”
“You’re quite sure I’m not interrupting you?” She hesitated on the doorstep, looking beyond him into the room as if she expected Laurel there. He knew then, whatever the explanation would be, why Sylvia had come. To get a good look at Laurel.
“Not a bit. I’m not doing a darn thing. Sitting around thinking about dinner and too lazy to start out. I suppose you’ve eaten?”
She came in, still slightly hesitant. She looked at the room the way a woman looked at a room, sizing it, and approving this one. She loosed her coat with her hands in the pockets, remained standing there on her high-heeled pumps, politely, but easily. Like a family friend. Like Brub’s wife, who wouldn’t want to be an intrusion into a man’s privacy. “Oh, yes,” she said. “We ate early. We were just starting to Beverly to see a movie when Brub got a call.” A slight cloud fleeted over her eyes.
“Not another one?” he asked somberly. “Oh no.” She shook her head hard. As if she couldn’t bear to consider that. “Lochner wanted to see him, that was all.” She put a smile on her wide, pleasant mouth. “So Brub suggested I run in here and let you amuse me until he could get back. He said it wouldn’t take long.”
Fleetingly he wondered if it had been Brub’s suggestion or if it had been Sylvia’s. She had withdrawn from him previously, she didn’t now. She was forwarding herself, her smile at him wasn’t reluctant as it had been. It was free. He would have been interested day before yesterday. Now he only feigned it. “I’m delighted, Sylvia. Let me have your coat.” She allowed him to help her. She had on a brown sweater and a slim checkered skirt in browns. She was made long and lovely, like a birch tree. Laurel was made lush and warm, like a woman.
She sat down on the couch. “You have a nice place.”
“Yes, it is. I was lucky to get it. You’ll at least have a drink, won’t you?”
“I’ll have a coke. If you have one?”
“I’ll join you.” He passed her a cigarette, lit it, and left her to get the cokes. He wondered what Lochner wanted with Brub, important enough to interrupt his evening. He’d find out, for Brub would come here from Lochner. He’d want to talk about it. It was a break. If only they’d be out of here before Laurel returned.
He brought in the cokes. “Did Brub tell you he and Lochner let me go along today with them?”
“Yes. Thanks.” She took the coke. “How did you like Loch?”
“He seemed bored with it all. Is that his cover-up for being the best bloodhound on the force?”
She said, “He has a wonderful record.” Her mouth widened. “As a bloodhound, as you say. He’s head of Homicide.”
His eyes opened. “He’s the head man?” He smiled. “I would never have guessed it.”
“That’s what Brub says. He seems so different. I’ve never met him.”
“He’s worth meeting.” Dix relaxed comfortably in the arm chair. Head of Homicide. That worried old boy. “A character.” He felt easy. “I still can’t get used to Brub being a policeman.”
“It’s funny,” Sylvia said seriously. “He always wanted to be one. I suppose lots of little boys did when you and Brub were little boys. Nowadays they want to be jet-propelled pilots, from what I can gather. But Brub never gave up wanting it. And when he asked me if I’d mind, I said I’d be delighted.”
“So you’re responsible for it,” he said with mock solemnity.
“No,” she laughed. “But he asked me and I said I’d be delighted and I meant it. Anything he wanted, I’d be delighted. It isn’t much of a life. Like a doctor, twenty-four hours a day. And you never know when the phone will ring.”
“Like tonight.”
“Yes.” There hadn’t been that underlying fear in her until now. It was just a twinge; she’d recovered from the terror that had closed over her Saturday night and yesterday. She could put it away tonight. She could lose it in a bright change of subject. “We saw you last night.”
“So Brub told me.”
She was to the reason for her visit now. She was eager. “Who was she? The one you were telling us about?”
“Same one. She lives in this house.”
“How did you meet her?” She was asking for romance.
He said, “I picked her up.”
She made a little face at him.
“As I told Brub, it’s the Virginibus Arms’ good-neighbor policy,” he said. “And high time there was one. It’s bad as New York here. There you see your neighbors but don’t speak; here you don’t even see them.”
“You saw her.”
“And I picked her up,” he said impudently.
“What’s her name?”
“Laurel Gray.”
“Is she in the movies? She’s gorgeous enough to be, from what I saw of her.”
”She’s done some movies.” Again he was struck by how little he knew of her. “She doesn’t care much about it. Too early in the mornings for her.” He said it with deliberate meaning; she understood.
She said after a moment, “Will you bring her out some evening? We’d like to meet her.”
“We’ll fix up a date.” It was so easy to say, and so easy to avoid doing it. He was feeling better all the time. It had been right that Laurel was delayed. It was in order that she wouldn’t have to be inspected by Sylvia. Sylvia wouldn’t like Laurel; they weren’t cut out of the same goods. Even as he was sure of the rightness, the telephone rang. He excused himself and went to answer, certain it wouldn’t be she. It was time for Brub to check back in.
He was so certain it wouldn’t be she that he left the bedroom door open. And it was Laurel.
She said, “What are you doing, Dix?”
“Where have you been?” Irritation gnatted him again; she’d stayed out until—after nine o’clock now by the clock. And she turned up asking lightly what he was doing!
“At dinner.”
“I thought you were having dinner with me.”
“Really? I must have forgotten.”
Anger threatened him.
“Why don’t you come up?” she asked.
He couldn’t. Not now. He said, “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
>
“I have company.” His anger lurched at Sylvia then for being here, at Brub for sending her here.
There was a sharpness came into her voice. “Who’s the girl?”
“What girl?”
“The one on your couch, sweetheart.”
She’d seen Sylvia. She must have come to the door and she’d seen Sylvia and gone away. That explained the insolence in her voice. She was annoyed about it. And again the anger went out of him in the upwelling of emotion; she didn’t like his having another woman here.
He couldn’t talk openly; the bedroom was too close to the living room. The door open. And Sylvia sitting there silently, listening. Trying not to listen because she was a lady but being unable to miss what he was saying. “An old friend.” he said.
“Business, I presume?” She was sharp.
“As a matter of fact, it is,” he agreed.
“In that case, I’ll come down.”
“No!” He didn’t want her to come here. Not until Sylvia and Brub had gone. She must understand. But he couldn’t speak out. He spoke as quietly as possible into the mouthpiece. “I’ll come up as soon as I’m free.”
“What’s the matter with my coming down?” she demanded. “Don’t you think I’m good enough for your friends?”
He wondered if she’d been drinking. Belligerence wasn’t like her. she was slow and sultry and she didn’t give a damn for him or anyone. That was in her last night. And tonight, brushing him off for something better or more amusing. Now she was deliberately possessive. There was a reason and he didn’t know the reason. He wanted to shake the hell out of her. She must have known he couldn’t talk openly.
“Well?” she demanded.
He said. “I’m busy. I’ll see you as soon as I can.”
She hung up: the crack smote his eardrum. He was infuriated; he’d wanted to hang up on her but he hadn’t. She’d done it. He went back into the living room scowling, forgetting that he shouldn’t scowl, that he wasn’t alone.
Sylvia was apologetic. “I am intruding.”
“No.” He said it flatly. Without explanation. “No.” He meant it, he had no objection now to her presence. All anger was transferred to Laurel. The ear she had smote stung sharply. When he saw Sylvia studying his anger, he smiled at her. The smile was hard to come, it pained when it cracked the hard mold of his face. He said, “As a matter of fact, I’m delighted you dropped in, Sylvia. It gives me a feeling of belonging. I think it calls for a celebration—or perhaps a plaque: On this night at this spot Dickson Steele was no more the stranger from the East. After long months, he was at home.” He was talking idly, to get that look, that seeking look out of Sylvia’s eyes. He wasn’t doing half bad.
Most of it was gone when she said, “You’ve been lonely.”
“I expected it.” She wasn’t trying so hard now. Pity had expelled calculation. He didn’t want the pity and he spoke lightly. “It takes time in a new place. I knew that before I came.”
“You could have called on us sooner.” It was all gone now, the look and the search.
“Now, would you?” he demanded. “You know how it is. There’s always the knowledge that you’re making a forced entry into the other fellow’s life. Sometimes friendship survives it. More often it only spoils a good memory.”
“It’s worth trying,” she said. “How else can—”
The doorbell rang. Brub, and it hadn’t taken long. The business with Loch couldn’t have been too important. He went to the door talking, breaking in on Sylvia’s words. Wanting Brub to see how ordinary this had been. “Sometimes the dissent isn’t mutual, Sylvia. The fellow who closes the door feels a hell of a lot worse than the eager beaver. I wouldn’t want to be—”
Laurel stood there. Because she had been angry, because she had hung up on him in anger, he was so amazed that his words didn’t dissipate; they became an utter void. He didn’t realize he was scowling at her until she mirrored it ludicrously. “And what did the big bad wolf say then to Little Red Riding Hood, darling?” Deliberately she stepped past him and went into the room while he stood there scowling and empty-mouthed.
They were together. Sylvia and Laurel. Each had come for that reason, to look upon the other. He didn’t know exactly why it mattered to either of them. He wasn’t a sweepstake. Sylvia didn’t care at all; Laurel cared little enough. They were eyeing each other in the faint patronizing manner of all women to women, no matter the stake, when he turned into the living room.
He’d had a slight apprehension over the phone that Laurel might have been drinking. She hadn’t been. Her scent was perfumed, not alcoholic; she had never looked more glowing. She was in white, all white but for her radiant hair and painted mouth and eyes. Before her Sylvia was colorless and yet before Sylvia, Laurel was too richly colored. Between them was the gulf of a circumstance of birth and a pattern of living.
He said, “Sylvia, this is Laurel.” And to Laurel, “This is Sylvia. My friend Brub Nicolai’s wife.”
They acknowledged the introduction in monotone, in the same manner of social courtesy, but it did not diminish the gulf. There was nothing could diminish the gulf. He said, “Let me take your coat, Laurel. Drink?”
“No, thanks. I’ve just had dinner.” Her eyes were strange amber flowers. She opened them full on him. “I’ve been trying to call you for hours. Where have you been?”
She was a dirty little liar. She was trying to tell Sylvia it hadn’t been she on the phone getting the brush-off. He looked at Sylvia and his mouth quirked. She wasn’t fooling Sylvia. You didn’t fool Sylvia. She burrowed under words, under the way of a face and a smile for the actuality. He was suddenly cold. For he knew, was certain of the fact, that Sylvia had been burrowing beneath his surface since the night he had come out of the fog into her existence. Irritation heated him. She had no business trying to find an under self in him; she should have taken him as he was taken, an average young fellow, pleasant company; beyond that, her husband’s old friend. It couldn’t have been Brub who set her on him. There could have been no suspicion when he came to Brub’s house that night. Nor was there; yet Sylvia had searched his face and the way he spoke—and she hadn’t liked him.
He knew it with cold clarity, he’d sensed it from the first moment of meeting, she didn’t like him. He didn’t like her either with her damn prying mind. Her bitching, high-toned mind. Brub was all right; she wasn’t going to spoil Brub with Dix. She wasn’t going to be allowed.
He said to Laurel, “I’ve been right here since five o’clock.” He lit her cigarette. “Maybe you had the wrong number.”
“Maybe I did.” She took her eyes from him and laid them again on Sylvia. She didn’t think any more of Sylvia than Sylvia of her. She was more open about it, that was the way of her, the way that couldn’t be helped. Yet she had a fear of Sylvia that had no echo in Brub’s wife. She was harder than Sylvia could ever be but she wasn’t fine steel; she could be broken. She said to Sylvia and the smear of insolence was under the surface, “Where’s your husband?” She let it rest until Sylvia was ready to answer and then she didn’t wait for the answer. “I’ve wanted to meet him. I’ve heard so much about him.”
A dirty little liar. He’d not told her much or little of Brub. Brub’s name hadn’t been spoken between them.
Sylvia said, “He’ll be along. He had some business and I decided Dix would be more amusing than business.” She gave him a woman smile. Not for him, for Laurel because she scorned Laurel.
”And Dix wasn’t,” Dix said, waiting for her disavowal.
She was provocative as Laurel would have been. “I don’t know,” she said.
“Is your husband on the Mildred Atkinson thing?” Laurel asked abruptly.
He hadn’t thought she knew who Brub Nicolai was but she had known. And she’d brought up from the shadows that which Sylvia and Dix had been pretending didn’t exist there. She didn’t care; all she was attempting was destruction of their mood. Succeeding better than she could know.
/> “Yes, he’s working on it.” Sylvia didn’t like the mention of the case. That quickly the tightness was in her fingers, the set of her lips. She didn’t dissemble well.
“Gorgon told me he was,” Laurel nodded. She didn’t explain Gorgon nor did Sylvia. But Sylvia knew the name; she admitted knowledge by accepting Gorgon as casually as he was offered. Laurel went on, “He was talking about it tonight. He says Brub Nicolai’s the smartest young dick in the department.”
He felt Sylvia’s cringe at Laurel’s use of the word dick for detective. He didn’t see it; he saw nothing. His mind was knotted too tightly, so tightly the room was a blur. He steadied himself against the table.
It was good that Sylvia was there; that he was not alone with Laurel. She had been out with someone named Gorgon while Dix waited here for her. The desperate need to be alone with Laurel, to force truth from her, began hammering against his temples until he wanted to cry out from the pain of it. He had to stand there, holding himself by the pressure of his palms on the table, while the two made conversation about Brub, Brub who should be here and take his wife away.
He had to stand braced there listening to Laurel quote Gorgon to Sylvia, all of Gorgon’s damn omniscience about Brub Nicolai’s growing prowess as a detective.
He couldn’t have endured much longer. The door buzzer reprieved him. He left the two women without excusing himself. They didn’t know he was there. It was Brub at last, the Brub of these days, a frown between his eyebrows a distant look on his face until he saw Dix and smiled.
“Hello. Sylvia still here?”
“Yeah. We’ve been gabbing. Come on in.” He let Brub precede him into the living room. He didn’t want to hear any more about Gorgon. He didn’t have to. By the time he rounded into the room, Sylvia was making introductions.
In a Lonely Place Page 10
