Opportunity, create your opportunity, prepare the ground by overlooking none of those small important trivialities which mean so much to them, then take advantage of it. And I can do that, he told himself. Indifference, perhaps, as though women were no rare thing with me; that there is perhaps another woman I had rather have seen, but circumstances over which neither of us had any control intervened. They like a man who has other women, for some reason. Can it be that love to them is half adultery and half jealousy? . . . Yes, I can do that sort of thing, I really can. . . . “She would have one suit of black under-things,” Mr. Talliaferro said aloud with a sort of exultation.
He struck the pavement with his stick, lightly. “By God, that’s it,” he exclaimed in a hushed tone, striding on. . . . “Create the opportunity, lead up to it delicately but firmly. Drop a remark about coming tonight only because I had promised. . . . Yes, they like an honorable man: it increases their latitude. She’ll say. ‘Please take me to dance,’ and I’ll say, ‘No, really, I don’t care to dance tonight,’ and she’ll say, ‘Won’t you take me?’ leaning against me, eh?—let’s see—yes, she’ll take my hand. But I shan’t respond at once. She’ll tease and then I’ll put my arm around her and raise her face in the dark cab and kiss her, coldly, and I’ll say, ‘Do you really want to dance tonight?’ and then she’ll say, ‘Oh, I don’t know. Suppose we just drive around a while? . . .’ Will she say that at this point? Well, should she not . . . Let’s see, what would she say?”
Mr. Talliaferro strode on, musing swiftly. Well, anyway, if she says that, if she does say that, then I’ll say “No, let’s dance.” Yes, yes, something like that. Though perhaps I’d better kiss her again, not so coldly, perhaps? . . . But should she say something else . . . But then, I shall be prepared for any contingency, eh? Half the battle. . . . Yes, something like that, delicately but firmly done, so as not to alarm the quarry. Some walls are carried by storm, but all walls are reduced by siege. There is also the table of the wind and the sun and the man in a cloak. “We’ll change the gender, by Jove,” Mr. Talliaferro said aloud, breaking suddenly from his revery to discover that he had passed Fairchild’s door. He retraced his steps and craned his neck to see the dark window.
“Fairchild!”
No reply.
“Oh, Fairchild!”
The two dark ‘windows were inscrutable as two fates. He pressed the bell, then stepped back to complete his aria. Beside the door was another entrance. Light streamed across a half length lattice blind like a saloon door; beyond it a typewriter was being thumped viciously. Mr. Talliaferro knocked diffidently upon the blind.
“Hello,” a voice boomed above the clattering machine, though the machine itself did not falter. Mr. Talliaferro pondered briefly, then he knocked again.
“Come in, damn you.” The voice drowned the typewriter temporarily. “Come in: do you think this is a bathroom?” Mr. Talliaferro opened the blind and the huge collarless man at the typewriter raised his sweating leonine head, and regarded Mr. Talliaferro fretfully. “Well?”
“Pardon me, I’m looking for Fairchild.”
“Next floor,” the other snapped, poising his hands. “Good night.”
“But he doesn’t answer. Do you happen to know if he is in tonight?”
“I do not.”
Mr. Talliaferro pondered again, diffidently. “I wonder how I might ascertain? I’m pressed for time—”
“How in hell do I know? Go up and see, or stand out there and call him.”
“Thanks, I’ll go up, if you’ve no objection.”
“Well, go up, then,” the big man answered, leaping again upon his typewriter. Mr. Talliaferro, watched him for a time.
“May I go through this way?” he ventured at last, mildly and politely.
“Yes, yes. Go anywhere. But for God’s sake, don’t bother me any longer.”
Mr. Talliaferro murmured “Thanks” and sidled past the large frenzied man. The whole small room trembled to the man’s heavy hands and the typewriter leaped and chattered like a mad thing.
He went on and into a dark corridor filled with a thin vicious humming, and mounted lightless stairs into an acrid region scented with pennyroyal. Fairchild heard him stumble in the darkness, and groaned. I’ll have your blood for this! he swore at the thundering oblivious typewriter beneath him. After a time his door opened and the caller hissed “Fairchild!” into the room. Fairchild swore again under his breath. The couch complained to his movement, and he said:
“Wait there until I turn up the light. You’ll break everything I’ve got, blundering around in the dark.”
Mr. Talliaferro sighed with relief. “Well, well, I had just about given you up and gone away when that man beneath you kindly let me come through his place.” The light came on under Fairchild’s hand. “Oh, you were asleep, weren’t you? So sorry to have disturbed you. But I want your advice, as I failed to see you this morning. . . . You got home all right?” he asked with thoughtful tact.
Fairchild answered “Yes” shortly, and Mr. Talliaferro laid his hat and stick on a table, knocking therefrom a vase of late summer flowers. With amazing agility he caught the vase before it crashed, though not before its contents had liberally splashed him. “Ah, the devil!” he ejaculated. He replaced the vase and quickly fell to mopping at his sleeves and coat front with his handkerchief. “And this suit fresh from the presser, too!” he added with exasperation.
Fairchild watched him with ill-suppressed vindictive glee. “Too bad,” he commiserated insincerely, lying again on the couch. “But she won’t notice it: she’ll be too interested in what you’re saying to her.”
Mr. Talliaferro looked up quickly, a trifle dubiously. He spread his handkerchief across the corner of the table to dry. Then he smoothed his hands over his neat pale hair.
“Do you think so? Really? That’s what I stopped in to discuss with you.” For a while Mr. Talliaferro sat neatly and gazed at his host from beyond a barrier of a polite and hopeless despair. Fairchild remarked his expression with sudden curiosity, but before he could speak Mr. Talliaferro reassimilated himself and became again his familiar articulated mild alarm.
“What’s the matter?” Fairchild asked.
“I? Nothing. Nothing at all, my dear fellow. Why do you ask?”
“You looked like you had something on your mind, just then.”
The guest laughed artificially. “Not at all. You imagined it, really.” His hidden dark thing lurked behind his eyes yet, but he vanquished it temporarily. “I will ask a favor, however, before I—before I ask your advice. That you don’t mention our—conversation. The general trend of it, you know.” Fairchild watched him with curiosity, “To any of our mutual women friends,” he added further, meeting his host’s curious gaze.
“All right,” Fairchild agreed. “I never mention any of the conversations we have on this subject. I don’t reckon I’ll start now.”
“Thank you.” Mr. Talliaferro was again his polite smug self. “I have a particular reason, this time, which I’ll divulge to you as soon as I consider myself—You will be the first to know.”
“Sure,” said Fairchild again. “What is it to be this time?”
“Ah, yes,” said the guest with swift optimism, “I really believe that I have discovered the secret of success with them: create the proper setting beforehand, indifference to pique them, then boldness—that is what I have always overlooked. Listen: tonight I shall turn the trick. But I want your advice.” Fairchild groaned and lay back. Mr. Talliaferro picked his handkerchief from the table and whipped it about his ankles. He continued:
“Now, I shall make her jealous to begin with, by speaking of another woman in—ah—quite intimate terms. She will doubtless wish to dance, but I shall pretend indifference, and when she begs me to take her to dance, perhaps I’ll kiss her, suddenly but with detachment—you see?”
>
“Yes?” murmured the other, cradling his head on his arms and closing his eyes.
“Yes. So we’ll go and dance, and I’ll pet her a bit, still impersonally, as if I were thinking of someone else. She’ll naturally be intrigued and she’ll say, ‘What are you thinking of?’ and I’ll say, ‘Why do you want to know?’ She’ll plead with me, perhaps dancing quite close to me, cajoling; but I’ll say, ‘I’d rather tell you what you are thinking of,’ and she will say ‘What?’ immediately, and I’ll say, ‘You are thinking of me.’ Now, what do you think of that? What will she say then?”
“Probably tell you you’ve got a swelled head:”
Mr. Talliaferro’s face fell. “Do you think she’ll say that?”
“Don’t know. You’ll find out soon enough.”
“No,” Mr. Talliaferro said after a while, “I don’t believe she will. I rather fancied she’d think I knew a lot about women.” He mused deeply for a time. Then he burst out again: “If she does; I’ll say ‘Perhaps so. But I am tired of this place. Let’s go.’ She’ll not want to leave, but I’ll be firm. And then—” Mr. Talliaferro became smug, bursting with something he withheld. “No, no: I shan’t tell you—it’s too excruciatingly simple. Why someone else has not . . .” He sat gloating.
“Scared I’ll run out and use it myself before you have a chance?” Fairchild asked.
“No, really; not at all. I—” He considered a moment, then he leaned to the other. “It’s not that at all, really; I only feel that . . . Being the discoverer, that sort of thing, eh? I trust you, my dear fellow,” he added swiftly in a burst of confidence. “Merely my own scruples—You see?”
“Sure,” said Fairchild dryly. “I understand.”
“You will have so many opportunities, while I—” Again that dark thing came up behind Mr. Talliaferro’s eyes and peered forth a moment. He drove it back. “And you really think it will work?”
“Sure. Provided that final coup is as deadly as you claim. And provided she acts like she ought to. It might be a good idea to outline the plot to her, though, so she won’t slip up herself.”
“You are pulling my leg now,” Mr. Talliaferro bridled slightly. “But don’t you think this plan is good?”
“Airtight. You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”
“Surely. That’s the only way to win battles, you know. Napoleon taught us that.”
“Napoleon said something about the heaviest artillery, too,” the other said wickedly. Mr. Talliaferro smiled with deprecatory complacence.
“I am as I am,” he murmured.
“Especially when it hasn’t been used in some time,” Fairchild added. Mr. Talliaferro looked like a struck beast and the other said quickly, “But are you going to try this scheme tonight, or are you just describing a hypothetical case?”
Mr. Talliaferro produced his watch and glanced at it in consternation. “Good gracious, I must run!” He sprang to his feet and thrust his handkerchief into his pocket. “Thanks for advising me. I really think I have the system at last, don’t you?”
“Sure,” the other agreed. At the door Mr. Talliaferro turned and rushed back to shake hands. “Wish me luck,” he said turning again. He paused once more. “Our little talk: you’ll not mention it?”
“Sure, sure,” repeated Fairchild. The door closed upon the caller and his descending feet sounded on the stairs. He stumbled again, then the street door closed behind him, and Fairchild rose and stood on the balcony and watched him out of sight.
Fairchild returned to the couch and reclined again, laughing. Abruptly he ceased chuckling and lay for a time in alarmed concern. Then he groaned again, and rose and took his hat.
As he stepped into the alley, the Semitic man pausing at the entrance spoke to him. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Fairchild replied. “Somewhere. The Great Illusion has just called,” he explained. “He has an entirely new scheme tonight.”
“Oh. Slipping out, are you?” the other asked, lowering his voice.
“No, he just dashed away. But I don’t dare stay in this evening. He’ll be back inside of two hours to tell me why this one didn’t work. We’ll have to go somewhere else.” The Semitic man mopped his handkerchief across his bald head. Beyond the lattice blind beside them the typewriter still chattered. Fairchild chuckled again. Then he sighed. “I wish Talliaferro could find him a woman. I’m tired of being seduced. . . . Let’s go over to Gordon’s.”
6
The niece had already yawned elaborately several times at the lone guest: she was prepared, and recognized the preliminary symptoms indicating that her brother was on the point of his customary abrupt and muttered departure from the table. She rose also, with alacrity.
“Well,” she said briskly, “I’ve enjoyed knowing you a lot, Mark. Next summer maybe we’ll be back here, and we’ll have to do it again, won’t we?”
“Patricia,” her aunt said, “sit down.”
“I’m sorry, Aunt Pat. But Josh wants me to sit with him tonight. He’s going away tomorrow,” she explained to the guest.
“Aren’t you going, too?” Mark Frost asked.
“Yes, but this is our last night here, and Gus wants me to—”
“Not me,” her brother denied quickly. “You needn’t come away on my account.”
“Well, I think I’d better, anyway.”
Her aunt repeated, “Patricia.”
But the niece ignored her. She circled the table and shook the guest’s hand briskly, before he could rise. “Good-by,” she repeated. “Until next summer.” Her aunt said, “Patricia,” again, firmly. She turned again at the door and said politely, “Good night, Aunt Pat.”
Her brother had gone on up the stairs. She hurried after him. leaving her aunt to call, “Patricia!” from the dining room, and reached the head of the stairs in time to see his door close behind him. When she tried the knob, the door was locked, so she came away and went quietly to her room.
She stripped off her clothes in the darkness and lay on her bed, and after a while she heard him banging and splashing in the connecting bathroom. When these sounds had ceased she rose and entered the bathroom quietly from her side, and quietly she tried his door. Unlocked.
She, snapped on the light and spun the tap of the shower until needles of water drummed viciously into the bath. She thrust her hand beneath it at intervals: soon it was stinging and cold; and she drew her breath as for a dive and sprang beneath it, clutching a cake of soap, and cringed shuddering and squealing while the water needled her hard simple body in its startling bathing suit of white skin, matting her coarse hair, stinging and blinding her.
She whirled the tap again and the water ceased its antiseptic miniature thunder, and after toweling herself vigorously she found that she was hot as ever, though not sticky any longer; so moving more slowly she returned to her room and donned fresh pajamas. This suit had as yet its original cord. Then she went on her bare silent feet and stood again at the door of her brother’s room, listening.
“Look out, Josh,” she called suddenly, flinging open the door, “I’m coming in.”
His room was dark, but she could discern the shape of him on the bed and she sped across the room and plumped jouncing onto the bed beside him. He jerked himself up sharply.
“Here,” he exclaimed. “What do you want to come in here worrying me for?” He raised himself still farther: a brief violent struggle, and the niece thudded solidly on the floor. She said Ow in a muffled suprised tone. “Now, get out and stay out,” her brother added. “I want to go to sleep.”
“Aw, lemme stay a while. I’m not going to bother you.”
“Haven’t you been staying under my feet for a week, without coming in here where I’m trying to go to sleep? Get out, now.”
“Just a little while,” she beg
ged. “I’ll lie still if you want to go to sleep.”
“You won’t keep still. You go on, now.”
“Please, Gus. I swear I will.”
“Well,” he agreed at last, grudgingly. “But if you start flopping around—”
“I’ll be still,” she promised. She slid quickly onto the bed and lay rigidly on her back. Outside, in the hot darkness, insects scraped and rattled and droned. The room, however, was a spacious quiet coolness, and the curtains at the windows stirred in a ghost of a breeze.
Mosquitoes Page 31
