Ride a Cockhorse

by Raymond Kennedy

  Of them all, though, probably the most comic manifestation of this growing tendency was found in Emily Krok, who showed up for dinner this evening wearing an old bomber jacket and a motorcyclist’s cap, giving her the appearance of an out-and-out hooligan. Emily appreciated Matthew more than she did any of the others, because of his amateur boxing as a boy, no doubt, but also because he never batted an eye when she made one of her cracks about “breaking heads” or “kicking them all blue.”

  For supper, Mrs. Fitzgibbons had engaged a two-room suite on the upper floor of the Canoe Club. When she arrived with Matthew, the others were already there. Bruce Clayton was responsible for all the arrangements and had made sure that the table was properly decorated with crystal, flowers, and candles, and had instructed Mrs. Kelliher, the lady in charge of the waiters, that Mrs. Fitzgibbons was the well-known banker whom everyone was talking about these days, and of how this chief executive was a stickler for form, and that efforts to pander to her vanity could only redound to the credit and future prospects of the restaurant. In response to that, Mrs. Kelliher smiled embarrassedly; but when she turned to walk away from Bruce, she found herself face to face with Julie and Emily Krok. They were both staring at her, and they were not smiling. It was Emily who spoke up. She pointed a bruised fingernail at Bruce and addressed the woman in an ugly voice. “That man is talking to you,” she said.

  One might almost have thought the plan that had been forming in Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s mind all that day was somehow known to the others; for there was clearly in the air that evening the sort of relief that human beings feel once a decisive order has been issued. That was not, of course, the case; for their superior had not said a word to anyone. Yet a relaxed, festive sense prevailed from the start. When Mrs. Fitzgibbons came up the stairs and entered the prettily appointed Victorian dining room, Eddie spouted aloud, “Here’s the Chief!” and everyone stood and applauded.

  Mr. Brouillette had arrived with his wife not five minutes earlier, and was standing beside her in front of the big bay windows that looked out onto the night-lit river. Dolores was blessed with a magnificent mane of rich brown hair, had a flawless complexion, and naturally dressed in such a way as to draw some attention to her physical dimensions.

  In minutes, the wine was flowing freely. Mrs. Fitzgibbons was a trifle less talkative than usual and content just to occupy center stage, with her companions gathered about her, clinking glasses, laughing, exchanging small talk. She had not troubled yet to remove her leather coat, but stood beneath the lighted chandelier, basking in the currents of affection and respect flowing from her court. Even Dolores Brouillette, who was a stranger to all of them, looked upon Mrs. Fitzgibbons with a warm glow in her eyes, as it was Mrs. Fitzgibbons, after all, who had that day hiked her husband’s salary by a big increment.

  Howard raised his champagne flute. “The first lady of banking,” he said.

  “I’ll toast to that,” said his wife.

  “To the Chief!” Eddie cried.

  Everyone touched glasses. Mrs. Fitzgibbons acknowledged the tribute with a curt nod, and raised her own glass to her lips. She didn’t like alcohol very much but enjoyed the happy effects it produced on those about her. She was exulting inside, very at one with herself and her accomplishments. A waiter, clad in white jacket and black trousers, came bustling in, bearing a broad silver tray replete with delicacies, at the heart of which was a cut glass server decorated artistically with slices of yellow peppers and glistening black olives. Behind the waiter came Mrs. Kelliher, hurrying forward to greet and welcome Mrs. Fitzgibbons. As she did so, she could not help but notice the dark, leering looks that Emily shot at her. Emily hovered nearby, closing and flexing her fingers. Her squat, misshapen figure, tilted forward, contained a powerful feeling of the grotesque.

  “Did you see how she looked at Emily?” Julie cried out in merriment, after Mrs. Kelliher had departed. Julie bugged out her eyes in mimicry.

  Everyone looked at Emily, in her leather cap and bomber jacket. “I’d like to punch her lights out,” Emily said.

  “She was shaking all over,” Julie said.

  “Who wouldn’t shake?”

  Even Mrs. Fitzgibbons laughed heartily now at the sight of Emily eyeing the doorway with her lips drawn back.

  “I’d be shaking,” said Eddie Berdowsky, who had arrived uninvited.

  “Yes, and I’d give you a good creasing, too,” Emily told him. She was already betraying signs of having had too much alcohol. “With a word from the Chief, I’d tattoo you good.”

  “She’s just teasing me,” Eddie cracked happily to Dolores, including her in the banter, while stealing a peek at the pronounced lift of Mrs. Brouillette’s white sweater behind her open jacket.

  “Eddie is a peeping Tom,” Matthew explained pleasantly.

  “Oh, I see!” Dolores brightened happily over that.

  Only Emily Krok remained grim and unsmiling. She showed Eddie the skinned knuckles of her two fists. “From punching cinder blocks.”

  Eddie downed his champagne and gestured merrily at Emily. “What a fruitcake! The day she was born, God was on unemployment!”

  Sensing the party was getting too raucous, Bruce encouraged all to come to the table. Everyone stood at his or her place while Bruce took Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s coat and seated her at the head. Mrs. Fitzgibbons was a picture. The twinkling lights from the chandelier and candles played iridescently in her hair and sent magical streams of light in sudden rainbows up and down the surface of her black dress. Her face was lit to perfection. While the others had enjoyed a few moments of relaxation among themselves, it was more than clear at the table that none save Mrs. Fitzgibbons would speak out without prompting. Consequently, a full five minutes passed without a word uttered, as Mrs. Fitzgibbons led the way in partaking of the vichyssoise. The silence was impressive. From the fireplace at the far side of the room could be heard the hot showering sounds of flaming brands disintegrating, followed by eruptive cracklings. When she did look about the table, which was infrequently, she did not make eye contact with anyone. The effects of her commanding presence were thus compounded by the minute, which imbued Mrs. Fitzgibbons with a very pleasurable sensation.

  Not until the entree was served would she reveal to her little gathering of loyalists the thrust of her latest stratagem. Prefatory to that, however, Mrs. Fitzgibbons thought it wise to display something of her firm manner and persuasive tongue, if only for the sake of Mrs. Brouillette, who was unfamiliar with the indomitable character of the Chief. She began by explaining how some of her enemies stood in complete ignorance of the dark forces collecting about them.

  Everyone at the table smiled sinisterly at the hidden menace in her words. “What do you suppose they’re doing to prepare themselves for me?”

  Mrs. Fitzgibbons paused for the waiter to refill her water glass and then depart.

  “They know I’m coming,” she said. “They know I’m not going to shut my eyes as long as there’s one of them left to interrupt my plans, or to strike at me from behind. I’ve been civil. I’ve been more than that. I’ve been cordial and pleasant. They’ve had more than a week,” she stated, “to show me a decent attitude. More than a week.”

  “That’s true,” Julie breathed out in a soft voice, and nodded with sad understanding to Bruce, sitting opposite her.

  “I’ve been the soul of patience and goodwill. I’ve given them a dozen examples of my intentions.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons paused here to break bread. Her tone was that of the reasonable leader whose tolerant nature was being ignored by ingrates. “I have promoted deserving people with this hand, while chopping out deadwood with this one. The lesson doesn’t take. They continue to defy me.”

  “The beat goes on,” said Eddie.

  “All that was necessary,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons made clear, speaking now to Howard Brouillette’s prostitute wife, while continuing to hold up her two hands, “was for such a subordinate to come to me, sit down in my office, congratulate me on my victory,
and say, ‘You have my complete support and loyalty. I recognize your authority, I can see with my two eyes the results you’re producing, and I’m going to join you in doing my level best, so help me God, to carry out your programs.’ The chairman,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons fired out in a much harsher, more strident tone of voice, “is scared to death of me. They’re not. He is, they’re not. To them, I’m like a little autumn rain shower.”

  Dolores was listening raptly, her dark eyes focused on Mrs. Fitzgibbons. Her fork was poised in the air. “They must be stupid.”

  “They know I’m going to smash them, and they continue, hour after hour, day after day, to oppose me.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons paused to show her assembled dinner guests the face and silhouette at the head of the table of the implacable destroyer. Then she reached for her wine. “Now we’re going to play according to some new rules.”

  Silently, Eddie raised his two fists.

  “This is what I’m reduced to doing. To bringing together, in the nighttime, in an out-of-the-way place, this little collection of happy-minded thugs—because that’s what you are—just to effectuate these changes that should have taken place in the normal civilized course of things.”

  Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s friends laughed spontaneously in unison over her characterization of them. Of them all, Julie was the most enthralled by Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s inflammatory proclamations. Her face shone with a bright pink glow, her love of Mrs. Fitzgibbons as transparent as could be.

  “Until today, I would have forgiven them,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons. “Had they come to me like human beings and showed a little remorse and a willingness to salve my offended feelings, I would have buried the hatchet. I would have pardoned them. Don’t misunderstand me. I would have been angry, and maybe even a little punitive, but I’d have taken them back. Now,” she said, bitterly, “that hour has passed.”

  As often happened when Mrs. Fitzgibbons contemplated her plans for her detractors, her language took on a violent edge. “Believe me,” she promised, “only the most extreme measures remain open to me from this hour forward.”

  Instantly, she shot up her hand to forestall the display of enthusiasm which her companions were eager to offer. “Oh, I know what you all want. I’m not an idiot. But as you all know, all I asked from the start was a peaceful accommodation.”

  “And that,” said Eddie, significantly, to Matthew at his side, “is not to be.”

  “Indeed, it is not,” she said.

  “Mrs. Fitzgibbons has waited day after day after day for them to come round,” Julie attested, thoroughly drawn into the spell of Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s darkening mood.

  Sitting bolt upright in her chair at the head of the table, Mrs. Fitzgibbons offered a very fetching picture of the dictatorial figure who is not reluctant to deal with malefaction and will not shrink from using whatever weapons come to hand.

  “Tonight,” she said, “I’m ordering Dolores out to Hampton Ponds, to a certain lakeside cottage out there, where she’ll begin to pave the way for the comeuppance of a man who has not only squandered millions of hard-earned dollars entrusted to his care, but who has been unrepentantly vicious toward me. Not just toward me personally,” she added, “but toward the dignity of my office.”

  Perplexed by the sudden reference to his wife, Mr. Brouillette straightened in his seat. Dolores, equally bewildered, reacted with a foolish smile. “Where am I going?” she inquired amiably.

  “Simple justice isn’t enough,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons went on. “Up until now, I’ve played according to Hoyle. If you please me, I promote you. If you fail me, I fire you. Those are the rules of civilized behavior. They are not the rules for dealing with a slick, pompous mountain of flesh who exhausts the life savings of others in the hopes of pulling down a fat bonus every December.”

  “I knew a man like that,” said Eddie.

  “Keep quiet,” Julie scolded.

  “Those aren’t the rules for dealing with a high-ranking official whose salary I pay and whose office consists of three or four of the most disgusting, bootlicking brownnosers the world has ever seen. Playing by the book is out the window.”

  “It’s about time,” said Matthew, his face and eyes glowing from the alcohol.

  “This is no small-time chiseler,” she said. “This is no downtown penny-ante Puerto Rican hustler working a street corner in Ward Two. This man was advantaged. I,” she reminded her friends, “came from nowhere. I spent years in the trenches. I started at the bottom. I know every dirty trick there is. I’ll tell you a story. The day I took over total authority, that little man upstairs made me promise that I wouldn’t act rashly—that I wouldn’t hurt the feelings of the man I was replacing.”

  Everyone laughed over the cynicism Mrs. Fitzgibbons employed in her remarks, as she smirked and opened her hands to signify a tolerance of naiveté.

  “I gave him his lollipop. Why wouldn’t I? I knew what I was going to do. I had the power. I went downstairs and in ten seconds flat took that sad sack by the neck and flung him out of his office!”

  For the first time in many minutes, the table erupted boisterously. Emily thumped the tablecloth with the heel of her fist.

  “I was expected to run that place, to manage the lives of all those people, with my hands tied behind my back. Not two days later, I gave that little man upstairs my solemn word that I wouldn’t fire anybody. We all know what happened to that!”

  Of those present, only Bruce showed an anxious reaction to Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s egotistical outburst. He watched her fuming away at her imaginary enemies with a worried look on his face.

  “I didn’t call that meeting,” she was saying. “I didn’t take a poll. I don’t govern by committee!”

  Mrs. Fitzgibbons spoke uninterruptedly for ten minutes, while the food turned cold on their plates. The only interruption came when the waiters appeared to clear the table. Just as dessert was about to be served, Dolores Brouillette paid Emily an unintended insult that set off gales of laughter. Dolores had just learned Emily’s name, but thought that she was being kidded. She didn’t believe that anyone was named Emily. “That’s a little piggy name,” she said.

  Emily, who was sitting next to Mrs. Fitzgibbons, with Mrs. Brouillette on her left, had turned to the prostitute and was gazing at her with a very hurt look. Next to Dolores, Emily resembled a creature of an inferior species. She was scrunched up in her chair, staring into Dolores’s face as if it were an immense searchlight that had suddenly located her.

  Dolores was blushing, as she believed she was being teased by her new friends. “Emily is a piggy’s name,” she said.

  “Not to me, it isn’t,” said Mr. Brouillette, in an effort to release Emily from her agony.

  “What are you talking about? Am I an idiot?” Dolores was beaming, enjoying the attention that Mrs. Fitzgibbons had drawn to her. She enjoyed being looked at. She turned her head and regarded Emily once more; her face was still heated from the sensation of being kidded along. Emily was transfixed. “What’s your last name?” Dolores asked.

  Emily’s eyes were on a level with Mrs. Brouillette’s breasts and the delicate rope of pearls that draped forward on the soft upswelling of her white cashmere sweater. She gaped at the wine glass in Mrs. Brouillette’s fingers. Emily moved her jaw from side to side before replying. “Krok,” she said.

  Dolores’s face came alive instantly, as she reached and set down her glass. “Is somebody tweaking me?” she cried gaily.

  Even Mrs. Fitzgibbons enjoyed the merriment, in particular the picture of Emily’s face twisted into a knot of misery.

  “Crock?” Dolores let out with a shriek. “Wouldn’t you just kill yourself?”

  Over dessert, Mrs. Fitzgibbons detailed the part that Mr. Brouillette’s wife was expected to play in the unfolding drama. Dolores was game for the plan right off the bat, but was slow at divining what precisely was expected. Matthew tried to clarify it for her.

  “Mrs. Fitzgibbons wants you to compromise someone,” he explained.

 
“Oh, I’d like that,” replied Dolores, sitting up and straightening her torso, conscious of the admiring looks and attention of all.

  “You’ll be remunerated,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons.

  “I couldn’t take money!” Dolores was clearly put off by the offer, but after a moment of stunned silence, during which interval everyone looked round at everyone else in disbelief, she modified her objection. “I mean, for this job,” she said.

  “You’ll take what I decide to give you.”

  As Mrs. Fitzgibbons instructed Mrs. Brouillette in the particulars of her assignment, Howard revealed some obvious symptoms of discomfort. He was hunched forward over the table, his hands pressed flat between his knees, and had taken to scraping his feet back and forth on the floor. His face was sweaty; he was smiling insanely.

  “He won’t be expecting you,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons, “so you’ll have to inveigle your way in.”

  “What is inveigle?” Dolores inquired.

  “Show him some leg,” said Eddie.

  “Matthew will drive you out to the lake house. It’s Thursday night. I know he won’t be going home from there till nine or ten o’clock.”

  “Can I drive Dolores?” said Eddie.

  “All right.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons acceded to her son-in-law. “You drive.”

  “Will the rest of us follow them?” Matthew inquired.

  “Not tonight. Let him have some rope.”

  “This is exciting,” Julie said, as Dolores and Eddie stood up and went for their things. Eddie made an elaborate act of helping Mrs. Brouillette into her coat.

  “As for you,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons instructed Eddie, “you’ll park about a hundred yards back on the road and get out of the car. That way, if Hooton is not alone in his cottage, Dolores can say she’s having motor trouble and lead him out to the car.”