He pried her clasped hands apart and turned toward her. She wore her swim cap, and it made her face look like the face of a young, sensitive boy. She looked impishly at him, snatched the soap from the tray and began to industriously lather his chest. He took the soap away from her. “How did you get in here?”
“I just opened the glass door, darling, and stepped in.”
“How did you get into the room?”
“I asked the maid very politely, and gave her a tip, dear. Did I do something wrong? This is a convention, remember, and the rules are a little different. Oh, I’ve been here a long time. What kept you?”
“Where were you when I came in?”
“Skulking in the back of the closet. I ducked in there when I heard your key in the door. You see, dear, I thought you’d go right back into that stern and righteous routine and make everything as difficult as possible, so I thought this would save a hell of a lot of time, actually. Now you may scrub me sweetly and tenderly, and take me to bed.”
“No, Cory.”
She looked at him with a sly amusement. “No?”
He thrust her hand away. “Any other evidence is meaningless, Cory. The answer is no.”
“Why are you wasting all this sterling character on a hopeless situation?”
He took her by the shoulders, turned her around, and thrust her out into the bathroom. “Go put something on.”
“Yes, dear. Of course, dear. Anything you say, dear.”
The only clothing he had brought into the bathroom were fresh shorts and socks. When he had them on, he went into the bedroom. She had left one lamp on. She had arranged herself with due care to lighting. “I’m trying to look like that Spanish postage stamp, lover. But I don’t have the weapons she has. Come here.”
He put on a white shirt and trousers. As he was buttoning the shirt he moved closer to the bed and looked at her without any expression.
“You do mean it, don’t you?” she asked in quite a different voice, a small and rather wary voice.
“For a while the issue was in doubt. But not any more, Cory. You make it so damn difficult. I’m not trying to say I’m any better than you are. I’m not, for the love of God, saying you aren’t desirable. And I couldn’t ever say that this is an easy thing to do. But I can manage it. I’m fighting for survival, Cory. It’s a strong instinct. If today became another yesterday, I think I’d be destroyed.”
“Am I destroyed?”
“I don’t know. In one sense, possibly. I don’t know enough about you.”
With a sudden smooth economy of movement she slid under the sheet and single blanket and covered herself to the chin.
“Please turn off the light, Floyd.”
“But I’m telling you that it …”
“This is something else. Please. Then come and sit by me, and hold my hand.”
“But …”
“It won’t cost you anything to be kind, will it?”
He turned off the light. Some of the outside lighting made a faint glow on the ceiling. He took her hand when she reached toward him, and he sat on the bed.
“Maybe I can talk to you as a person, Floyd. I don’t know.”
“I like you, Cory. Does that help?”
“Yes. That helps. I was here alone for a long time. I read Jan’s letter.”
He took a deep breath and let it out. “You had no right, you know.”
“I know. She seems very nice. She seems sweet and wise. Wives should be both, I guess, but not overly sweet, and not conspicuously wise. I tried to be that way with Ralph. I was quite good at it, too. Everyone seemed to think so. Even Ralph. I was an adorable little wife, Floyd. I had the constant image of myself being an adorable and adoring little wife, and I relished it. It was a game, I guess. Trying to do as well as the grownups. Do you know?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Ralph was a properly boyish husband, with a good job. We agreed we’d have one year of just each other, and then start a baby. That’s just what we did. The bed part was good, dear. Not like yesterday with us. Sweet and melting. All he had to do was reach out toward me, and my head would get so heavy I couldn’t hold it up. I was very earnest about being everything he could ever want. He’d tell me I was all the women in the world. Isn’t that sweet?”
“I guess it’s supposed to be that way.”
“When I was three months pregnant, he had to go to Havana on a business trip. When he came back, I gave him a loving welcome. Oh, very loving indeed. But the poor dear had picked up a little packet of syphilis from a Cuban whore. By the time there was a sore, he’d infected me. The doctor he went to called me up and had me come in. He was very jolly. It didn’t have to be a tragedy. Not in this day and age. They’d knock it right out with massive doses of penicillin. But I got a bad reaction to the penicillin, and ran a high fever, and later they explained to me that it was the fever, not the infection, which turned my baby into an idiot. The third month is a bad time to have fevers, you know. So I was almost all women to my boyish husband. He needed a Cuban whore to fill out the ranks.”
Her hand tightened convulsively on his, then became inert. The silence was long and clumsy.
“There isn’t much to say, Cory. Bad luck? What can anybody say?”
“Oh, I think you need the rest of it before you make any comments. By the way, I’m a clean girl now. Don’t be alarmed.”
“You didn’t have to say that, you know.”
“I got the fastest divorce on record, dear. The baby is in a place in Maryland. It’s over five years old now. It will never speak or walk or recognize anything or anyone. He pays the freight. Two fifty a month. That’s the only settlement. They say they usually die in their early teens when they’re like that. After the divorce I was trying in an amateur way to prove to every man in the world that I was more useful than every whore in Havana, until a domineering old slob of a woman named Alma Bender took me home and nursed me back into decent physical condition, and taught me the trade.”
“The trade?”
“I’m on call, darling. All night stands only. A bill and a half, split ninety to me and sixty to Alma, because I maintain my own place. I’m twenty-eight years old, darling, and I average eight tricks a month, or a hundred a year, and I’ve had four fine years, and I think I can promise myself another ten or eleven. I take care of myself. Fifteen hundred men would be a nice memorable figure, don’t you think? I’m choosy, you know. Want to know my stipulations?”
“Should I?”
“They have to be reasonably youngish, intelligent, fairly sensitive, married and … there should be a slight boyishness about them, just enough to remind me of Ralph. Then do you know what I do?”
“I think I have a clinical idea.”
“No, darling. Beyond that. What I do is spoil them, so that they’ll spend the rest of their lives knowing they’ll never have it so good again. I clobber them so completely, they’ll be forever wistful as they lie beside their little oatmeal wives and remember how it was.”
“Revenge?”
“Of course. I’m their Havana whore. I’m the sword of justice. I give them the disease no drug can ever cure. I give them the ultimate experiences, lover, so that from that night on, nothing will ever completely satisfy them again. When they’re moaning and shuddering and gibbering, I’m laughing inside. When they want to buy a woman, and they buy me, they never stop paying for it. Sometimes I let myself enjoy them. Like with you. But almost always I fake. I put on a hell of a production, lover. It may even be better than the real thing. When it’s real, I lose track a little.”
“Do you tell all of them this?”
She pulled her hand away. “I’ve never told any of them this. All whores have hearts of gold. Haven’t you heard? Haven’t you met Suzie Wong? I enjoy my work, dear. I despise all you slobs, every one. Even you, lover. But you see, this is just a little different, because you didn’t come waving your money. You’re not technically the sort of customer I’m accustomed to.”
“Technically? What the hell, Cory! What is this?”
“Oh, you’re sort of the gift certificate type. I shouldn’t tell you, but I don’t expect it matters much one way or the other. You’re the guest of Frick and Mulaney, dear. So enjoy. It’s such a special deal, lasting so long, dear Alma clipped them for seven and a half, but only four hundred to me.”
He stood up and paced to the terrace door. “But why?”
“Is that so hard? I’m going to make a big ugly public scene over you before this clambake is over. A horrid type named Amory has cautioned me to take it easy in the public rooms of the hotel when I go dramatic. You’re going to be hung as a sheep so you’ll ease off on Mr. Mulaney, obviously. And since you are going to be hung as a sheep anyway, dear, why don’t you come to bed like a lamb?”
“Those silly bastards!”
“I probably talked too much. You’re too easy to talk to, do you know that?”
“I’ve cultivated the talent.” He sat beside her again. “On my word of honor, Cory, scene or no scene, I still give Mulaney the business. I’ve committed myself. Now the only thing such a scene could do is hurt me with the people I work for. So how about giving it up?”
“Don’t be silly! I promised, and I was paid.”
“But it won’t do any good!”
“Lover, I couldn’t care less.”
“A heart of gold. Dear God!”
“You’ll never, never forget me, Floyd. Every time you mount your darling Jan, I’ll be riding your shoulders like a witch, jeering at you, boy.”
“It won’t be that way, believe me, but why the big boot out of punishing me? I didn’t buy you. I was a damn fool, thinking I was irresistible.”
“You cheated on your marriage, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but it was …”
“So you get a little more than you asked for. And the fee is paid, lover. So you might as well get the use of it. So go walk around if you have to. Go have a drink or two. Think of me. I’ll be right here in your bed, cozy and warm and ready, waiting for you.”
“Why don’t you get dressed and go home?”
“Why should I make it easy for you, you sanctimonious bastard? You’re crawling with guilt and you think you can lighten the burden by refusing a second chance. You can’t get clean that easy, not after yesterday. If the murderer lets his next victim walk away, does that turn him into a saint?”
“Maybe it’s just that all of a sudden the merchandise looks shopworn.”
“You tried the low blow, boy, and it doesn’t work.”
He dressed slowly. By the time he was finished, she was asleep. She had turned onto her side, and in the reflected light she looked small and girlish in the bed, innocent and uninvolved. Her perfume lay on the quiet air. So get out, he told himself. Pack and check out. The job here is done, so why stay? You know where the trip wire is, so back off. Your luck is still running good. Good? Let’s call it just fair. But a good knock is in order, for the steady nerves, the morale of the hatchetman. He went slowly to the end of the corridor and walked into the suite. Bobby Fayhouser put a magazine aside and stood up. “Hi, Floyd! They’ve all gone down to dinner. Almost all of them.”
Hubbard nodded and went to the bar. He made himself a heavy highball. “To conventions,” he said. “To jackasses.”
“That’s a toast to the whole human race, isn’t it?”
“Cynicism is a privilege of the very young, Robert. Now that I’m older, I’m becoming one of the boys, earnest and folksy.”
“Are you sore about something?”
“Nothing terribly specific, I guess. Keep it to yourself, Bobby, but I am departing. This large knock and the one to follow are in the nature of farewell toasts.”
“Are you figuring on getting smashed? I mean, it’s none of my business, but I thought you’d play it cool all the way, Mr. Hubbard. But I guess, if you’re going, you can chug-a-lug a few. I guess you wouldn’t have wanted to get too loose in front of everybody while you still … you still had work to do.”
“So good reports would go back?”
“I guess so.”
Hubbard finished the drink and dropped another cube in the glass and picked up the bottle. “Let’s just say that suddenly I’ve become highly nervous, Bobby. I’m so nervous I’m forgetting to be smart. I’ve got an unused gift certificate. Everybody reads my mail. I hit white-haired ladies between the eyes. My sunburn itches. I’m stronger than I would want to be, given the choice. I didn’t take a very good shower this evening. When the world is turning, you should be able to run fast enough to stay in the same place.”
Fayhouser looked slightly alarmed. “You lose me with no trouble, sir.”
“Losing myself comes next. Cheers.”
“Excuse me and all that, but you’re setting a pace. Thirty minutes you might last. Take it out of gear right now, Mr. Hubbard, and you could coast quite a way.”
Hubbard smiled at him. “You are so right, Bobby. I should coast, shouldn’t I? If I pass out, I can’t do the damage. I have to be able to keep walking and talking, or I’ll skip my chance to become a figure of fun. My God, you should have seen good old Floyd Hubbard at that convention!”
Fayhouser said, “Don’t get me wrong in the way I mean this, Floyd, but is there anything I can do?”
Hubbard put the empty glass down. The decorator colors were brighter. His lips felt rubbery. “You are a good man, Fayhouser. Keep your head down for a while. Keep the knees slightly bent, feet apart, open stance, slow backswing.”
“I don’t play. I’m only a caddy.”
“And I used to be on the house committee,” Hubbard said, and walked out of the suite. He went down to one of the hotel bars and drank the world a little mistier, right to the place where he could find his drinking grin, and his drinking uninvolvement, and walk slowly among the people, delighted by all things, but wary of the little edges of tears or panic or violence which, unless carefully watched, could move in and bust the holiday balloon in his chest. Time changed to bottle time, running raggedly, fast and slow, and the world became an inexpert hobby film, alternating vividness with blank frames, with a tilt to the camera and the focus unreliable.
After a time when the film was blank, he was in a corridor, edged into a corner, alone with Dave Daniels and being breathed upon by him.
“Get cute again, kiddo. Go ahead.”
“I’m terribly cute,” Hubbard said, and suddenly he had the corridor rug against his cheek, and he was articulating each suck of air. Daniels helped him up, and Hubbard felt a wild delight. “We could fight,” he said, still gasping. “Let’s find a place.”
“Shut up! I’m asking you again. Where’s that slut?”
“Have you been asking me?”
“Where’s Cory? Don’t horse with me, Hubbard.”
“Cory? Dave, boy, she doesn’t like you.”
“She likes me fine. She just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Aren’t we going to fight, Dave?”
“Later.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Yes.”
“If I tell you where she is, we’ll go someplace? And fight it out?”
“We sure will, Hubbard.”
He took keys out of his pocket. It took him a long time to sort them. After he gave Daniels the key to 847, the only key he had left was the one to 1102. It seemed a hell of a thing that it should take so long to sort out just two keys. He looked up to share this ludicrous joke with Daniels, but he found himself alone in the corridor. He shrugged. He listened. He heard laughter and music and the rumble of conversation from the rooms down the hall. He headed, smiling, toward the party sounds.
Again time took a tilt, a lurch, and when the image cleared he was in the crowded parlor of a smaller, unfamiliar suite, sitting in a straight chair pulled close to a corner couch, leaning forward, grinning, talking to one of the Honey-Bunny blondes, talking so intently about something so important that it slid out of his mind the moment this
increase of awareness came upon him.
She sat slumped, flaccid and dull-eyed and slightly drunk, looking through him and beyond him. Close beside her, in the same slack, reclining posture was a man Hubbard did not know, a narrow man with a bandaged eye and shiny black hair. Honey-Bunny wore a pink, fanciful dinner dress, taut across her thighs. The man had his good eye closed, and a drink in his free hand. With his other hand he gently stroked the satiny thigh in the absent-minded way a man might stroke a dog. His head was turned toward the girl, and he spoke in a droning constant murmur which Hubbard could not understand. Each time he began to be too bold, the girl would pick his hand up by the wrist and drop it away from her.
Hubbard very cautiously, very carefully, checked the aspects of this new reality, feeling that if he was too brisk about it, it would all merge and flow away from him and he would find himself instantly in some other place and time. He turned. The room was full, and most everyone was standing, laughing, yelping above the blare of music. He saw Charlie Gromer and Stu Gallard and Cass Beatty, but he did not know any of the rest of them. He found a half cup of black coffee in his hand. He sipped it. It was tepid, and too sweet, but he could not taste liquor in it. His tie was loosened, his collar open, and his knee was damp where something had spilled and nearly dried. He looked at his watch and saw that it was twenty minutes of ten, and wondered if he had had anything at all to eat.
He looked at the slack, young, disinterested face of the girl and leaned closer and said, “What was I saying?”
“What?”
“What were we talking about?”
She focused on him with apparent effort, yawned and said, “I wooden know. You were talking and talking. Who listens?”
A Key to the Suite Page 13
