by John O'Hara
It took the whole year 1930 to teach him that he just did not know his way around that stock market. Business was a simple thing, he told himself: it was buying and selling, supply and demand. His grandfather had come over here, a little English mechanic from Birmingham, and supplied a demand. His father had continued the supply and demand part, but had also gone in more extensively for the buying and selling. In 1930 Liggett reasoned with himself: the buying and selling is not up to me the way it was up to my father, and neither is the supplying of the demand up to me the way it was up to Grandfather. I am in the position of participating in the activities of both my grandfather and my father, and yet since I am not right there at the plant, I have something they didn’t have. I have a detached point of view. Liggett & Company are supplying—and selling. Now wherever I go I see buildings going up, I see excavations being made. A few common stocks—all right, all common stocks—have taken a thumping, but that’s because some of them were undoubtedly priced at more than they were worth. All right. Something happens and the whole market goes smacko. Why? Well, who can explain a thing like that; why. But it happened and in the long run it’s going to be a good thing, because when those stocks go up there again, this time they’re going to be worth it.
On that basis he brought his income down from the $75,000 he earned in 1929 to about $27,000 for 1930. His salary was $25,000 and this was not cut, for his Tammany connections were as good in 1930 as they were in 1929, and he sold. In 1929 his income from Liggett & Company, aside from salary, was $40,000, including commissions. In addition he had an income of about $10,000 from his mother’s estate, which was tied up in non-Liggett investments in Pittsburgh. In 1930 his profits from Liggett & Company amounted to $15,000, which went to his brokers, as did the $5,000 he got from his mother’s estate. But he and another man did make $2,000 apiece from an unexpected source, and they thought seriously of doing it every year.
Liggett convinced himself he had to go abroad in the Spring of 1930, and a man he had known in college but less well in the after years came to him with a scheme which took Liggett’s breath away. They talked it over in the smoke room, and as part of the scheme they bought out the low field in the ship’s pool. The next day shortly after high noon the ship stopped, and was stopped for a good hour. As a result of the delay Liggett and his friend, holding the low field, won the biggest pool of the voyage, and Liggett’s end was around $2,000. It was not clear profit, however; $500 of it went to the steward whom they had bribed to fall overboard at noon that day. In Liggett’s favor it must be said that he refused at first to go into the scheme, and would not have done so had he not been assured that a financier whom he always had looked up to as a model of righteousness and decorum had once given the bridge an out-and-out bribe, with subtle threats to back it up, to win a pool that didn’t even pay his passage. Also, Liggett had to be assured that his fellow-conspirator would choose a steward who could swim. . . .
He hurried from the train to a phone booth and called his home number. No answer. That didn’t mean anything, though. It only meant that this Gloria was not answering his telephone. He took the subway to Times Square, but instead of taking the shuttle to Grand Central he went up to the street out of that horrible subway air (it was much better when there were a lot of people in it; you could look at the horrible people and that took your mind off the air) and rode the rest of the way home in a taxi.
He looked for signs of something in the face of the elevator operator, but nothing there, only that six-months-from-Christmas “Good afternoon, sir.” He hurriedly inspected the apartment, even opening the kitchen door that opened upon the service hall.
“Well, she’s not here,” he said aloud, and went back to take a better look at the bathroom. She certainly had made a nice little mess of that. Then he noticed that his toothbrush, which always, always stood in a tumbler, was lying on the lavatory. A tube of toothpaste had been squeezed in the middle and the cap had not been replaced. He held the toothbrush to his nose. Yes, by God, the bitch had brushed her teeth with his brush. He broke it in half and threw it in a trash basket.
In the bedroom he saw her evening gown and evening coat. He picked up the gown and looked at it. He turned it inside out and looked at it at approximately the point where her legs would begin on her body, expecting to find he knew not what, and finding nothing. It was a good job of tearing he had done and he was embarrassed about that. From the way she had behaved when once he got her into bed there was no reason to suspect her of being a teaser, but why had she been so teaser-like when he brought her home? They were both drunk, and he had to admit that she was a little less drunk than he, could drink more was what he was trying not to admit. She had come home with a man she had met only that night, come to his apartment after necking with him in a taxi and allowing him to feel her breasts. She had gone to his bathroom and when she came out and saw him standing there waiting for her with a drink in his hand she accepted the drink but was all for going back to the livingroom. “No, it’s much more comfortable here,” he remembered saying, and remembered thinking that if he hadn’t said anything it would have been better, for as soon as he spoke she said she thought it was more comfortable in the livingroom, and he said all right, it was more comfortable in the livingroom but that they were going to stay here. “Oh, but you’re wrong,” she said, and looked at him in the face and then slowly down his body, the frankest look anyone ever had given him, the only time he ever was completely sure that he was looking at someone’s thoughts. He got up and put his drink on a table and took her in his arms as roughly as possible. He squeezed her body against his until she felt really small to him. She kept her drink in her hand and held it high while she leaned her head back as far as she could, her face away from his face. She stopped speaking, but she did not look angry. Tolerant. She looked tolerant, as though she were dealing with a prep school kid, as though she were suffering but knew this would be over in a little while and she would be there, with her drink in her hand and her dignity unaffected. That finally was what made him release her, but not for the reason she supposed. She thought he was going to give up, but that dignity was too much for him. He had to break that some way, so he let her go, took his arms from around her, and then snatched the top of the front of her dress and ripped it right down the front. It tore right down the middle.
Instantly there were changes. He had frightened her and she was pitiful and sweet. He didn’t even notice that her dignity was at least genuine enough to cause her to hold on to the drink and walk two steps with it to a table. For a minute, two minutes, he was ready to love her with all the tenderness and kindness that seemed to be all of a sudden at his command, somewhere inside him. He followed her to the table and waited for her to put down the drink. He was aware now, the day after, but hadn’t been last night, that she looked a little posed, in a trite pose, with her chin almost on her shoulder, her eyes looking away from him, her right arm making a protective V over her chest, her left hand cupped under her right elbow. He put his hands on her biceps and pressed a little. “Kiss me,” he said.
“As a reward,” she said.
She turned her face toward him, sufficient indication that she would kiss him. He put his hands in back of her again and kissed her tenderly on the mouth, and then she slowly lowered her arms from in front of her and put them around him, and she walked up to him without moving her feet.
Thinking of it now he knew that it went beyond love. It was so completely what it was, so new in its thoroughness and proficiency that for the first time in his life he understood how these guys, these bright young subalterns, betray King and Country for a woman. He even understood how they could do it while knowing that the woman was a spy, that she was not faithful to them; for he did not care how many men Gloria had stayed with since she left this apartment; he wanted her now. He hadn’t remembered this all afternoon, so long as he was with Emily and the girls, but right now if he could have Gloria here he would not care
if Emily and the kids came in and watched. “God damn it!” he shouted. She couldn’t possibly know the things he knew. He was forty-two, and she wasn’t less than twenty years younger than he, and—aah, what difference did it make. Wherever she was he’d find her, and he would get her an apartment tonight. This, then, was what happened to men that made people speak of the dangerous age and all that. Well, dangerous age, make a fool of yourself, whatever else was coming to him he would take if he could have that girl. But he would have to have her over and over again, a year of having her. And to make sure of that he would get her an apartment. Tonight. Tomorrow she could have the charge accounts.
He telephoned her at home, not expecting to find her there, but there was always the chance. A timid male voice answered; probably her father, Liggett thought. She was not home and was not expected back till later this evening. That did not discourage Liggett. He thought he knew enough about her to know where to find her. He made a bundle of her evening clothes and took it with him and went downstairs and took a taxi to the Grand Central. He checked the bundle there and was going to throw away the check, but thought she might like to have the dress for some reason, maybe sentimental, maybe to patch something. Women often saved old dresses for reasons like that, and he had no right to throw away the check. Besides, the coat was all right. He hadn’t thought of that at first, because all he thought of was the torn dress. It was annoying the way he kept thinking of that. He liked to think of tearing the dress and stripping her, all in one thought, with the memory of how she had looked at just that moment, her body and her terror. But the fact of tearing a girl’s dress was embarrassing and he did not like to be left alone with that thought. He went to a speakeasy in East Fifty-third Street, the one in which two men inside of two years shot themselves in the men’s toilet. They were taking the last few chairs off the tables, getting ready to open up, but the bar was open and a man in a cutaway and a woman friend were having drinks. The man was a gentleman, in his late forties. The woman was in her early thirties, tall and voluptuous. They were a little drunk and having an argument when Liggett entered the bar, and the man took the woman’s arm and steered her away from the bar to a table in the same room but away from Liggett. Obviously the woman was the man’s mistress and he was helplessly in love with her.
“Ever since I’ve known you,” she said, very loud, “you’ve asked me nothing but questions.”
Liggett got some nickels and went to the phone booth to call an engineer friend. The engineer did not answer. He tried two other engineer friends because he wanted to go on a tour of the speakeasies where he would be likely to find Gloria, and he wanted to be with a man but not one of his real friends. They would be at home with their wives or out to parties with their wives, and he wanted to go out with a man whose wife did not know Emily. He tried these engineers, but no soap. No answer. He tried a third, a man he did not specially like, and the man was very cordial and tried to insist on Liggett’s coming right up and joining a cocktail party where there was a swell bunch. Liggett got out of that. In another minute he was sure he could have had the company of the man in the cutaway, judging by the conversation between the man and his woman. The conversation had taken a renunciatory turn and the woman was any minute now going home and sending back everything he had ever given her, and he knew what he could do with it. Not wishing to be left alone with the man, Liggett drank the rest of his highball, paid his bill and went to another speakeasy, next door.
The first person he saw was Gloria, all dressed up in a very smart little suit. She gave him a blank look. She was with a young man and a pretty young girl. He went over and shook hands and Gloria introduced him to the other people and finally asked him to sit down for a second, that they were just leaving.
“Oh, I thought we were going to have dinner here,” said Miss Day. “I’m really getting hungry.”
There was a silence for the benefit of Miss Day, who was being tacitly informed by everyone at the table that she should have known better than to say that. “Are you waiting for someone?” said Liggett.
“Not exactly,” said Gloria.
“I really feel like an awful stupid and rude and all when you were so kind to invite us for dinner,” said Miss Day, “but really, Miss Wandrous, I’d of rather stayed at the Brevoort and ate there because I was hungry then. I—” Then she shut up.
“I think we ought to go,” said Mr. Brunner. “Gloria, we’ll take a rain check on that dinner.” He had not been drinking, and he had a kind of surly-sober manner that men sometimes get who are temporarily on the wagon but usually good drinkers. Liggett quickly stood up before they changed their minds. Miss Day apparently had postponed her appetite because she got up too.
When they had gone Liggett said: “I’ve been trying to get you. I phoned all over and I was going to look everywhere in New York till I did find you. What are you drinking?”
“Rye and plain water.”
“Rye and plain water, and Scotch and soda for me. Do you want to eat here?”
“Am I having dinner with you?”
“Well, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. What do you want that you’ve been calling me all over, as you put it, although I don’t know where you’d be apt to call me except home.”
“And the Manger.”
“That’s not funny. I was drunk last night. That won’t happen again.”
“Yes. It must happen again. It’s got to. Listen, I don’t know how to begin.”
“Then don’t, if it’s a proposition. Because if it’s a proposition I’m not interested.” She knew she was lying, for she was interested in almost any proposition; interested in hearing it, at least. But so far she could not tell which way he was headed. He had said nothing to indicate that he had discovered her theft of the coat, but his avoiding that topic might be tactical and only that. She resolved not to say anything about it until he did, but to wait for the first crack that would indicate that he wanted the coat back. She was not at this point prepared to take a stand about the coat. Later, maybe, but not now.
He looked down at his hands, which were making “Here’s the Church, here’s the steeple, open the door and there’s all the people.”
“Do you know what I want?” he said.
It was on the tip of her tongue to say yes, the mink coat. She said, “Why, I haven’t the faintest idea.”
He reached in his pocket and brought out the check for the bundle he had left at Grand Central. “You,” he said.
“What’s this?” she said, taking the check.
“The rye is for Miss Wandrous. Scotch for me,” said Liggett to the waiter who had sneaked up with the drinks. When he went away Liggett went on: “That’s for your dress and coat. You got the money I left. Was it enough?”
“Yes. What do you mean you want me?”
“Well, I should think that would be plain enough. I want you. I want to—if I get you an apartment will you live in it?”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, I live at home with my family.”
“You can tell them you have a job and you want to be uptown.”
“But I didn’t say I wanted to live uptown. What makes you want me for your mistress? I didn’t know you had a mistress, I know that gag, so don’t you say it.”
“I wasn’t going to. I want you, that’s why.”
“Do you want me to tell you?”
“Well—”
“First you want me because I’m good in bed and your wife isn’t. Or if she is—don’t bridle. I guess she is, judging by the way you took that. But you’re tired of her and you want me because I’m young enough to be your daughter.”
“Just about,” he said. “I’d have had to have you when I was very young.”
“Not so very. I saw pictures of your daughters in your living room, and they’re not much younger than I am. But I don’t want you to feel too old so we’ll pass over that
. You want me, and you think because you paid the rent for an apartment that I’d be yours and no one else’s. Isn’t that true?”
“No. As a matter of fact it isn’t. I was thinking not an hour ago, before I knew where you were, Gloria, I discovered something and that is, I didn’t care who you were with or in what bed, I still wanted you.”
“Oh. Desperate. You are getting a little, uh, you’re getting worried about how near fifty is, aren’t you?”
“Maybe. I don’t think so. Men don’t get menopause. I may have as many years left as you. I’ve taken good care of myself.”
“I hope.”
“I hope you have, too.”
“Don’t you worry about me. The first thing I do tomorrow is go to my friend on Park Avenue.”
“Who’s your friend on Park Avenue?”
“My friend on Park Avenue? That’s my doctor. I’ll be able to tell you this week whether there’s anything the matter with you, and me.”
“Do you always go to him?”
“Always, without fail. Listen, you, I don’t want to sit here and talk about venereal disease. You didn’t let me finish what I was saying. You think I’d be faithful to you because you gave me an apartment. My handsome friend, I would be faithful to you only as long as I wanted to be, which might be a year or might be till tomorrow afternoon. No. No apartment for me. If you want to take an apartment where we can go when I want to go with you, or where you can take anyone you please, that’s entirely up to you. But after looking around at your apartment and making a guess as to how you live? Not interested. You haven’t enough money to own me. Last year, last fall, that is, I got a pretty good idea how much I was worth. Could you pay the upkeep on a hundred-and-eighty-foot yacht? Diesel yacht?”
