Up a Winding Stair

by Dixon, H. Vernor

  As she talked and drank she opened the leather case, which she had placed on the table. In a few moments she had extracted a Speed Graphic camera and scattered filters, light meter, flash bulbs, and all sorts of other paraphernalia over the table. She tested the lighting conditions of the room, consulted charts, worried about the proper settings, discussed technique loudly with the man, who simply nodded, and, after a good half hour, finally got everything adjusted to her satisfaction. Naturally, she had the attention of all the other guests. Clark noticed that the waiters looked uneasy, though resigned.

  Then she called imperiously to one of the waiters, “Rudy. Rudy, dear.”

  Rudy dear sighed, shrugged helplessly, and walked to her table with all the eagerness of a man approaching the electric chair. “Yes, Mrs. Hicks.”

  “Rudy,” she said, “you’re the only one I don’t have and I need you for my collection. You won’t mind, will you?”

  Apparently it made no difference whether or not he minded. He posed as he was told, standing before the bar with a tray in his hand and wearing an embarrassed smile. The woman snapped four flash-bulb pictures of him from different angles, then slipped a bill into his hand that changed his smile to one of gratification. Clark watched the little comedy with amusement, until he suddenly found himself a part of it. As the woman again seated herself at the nearby table, she turned slowly and deliberately toward Clark, aimed the camera at him, and exploded a bulb practically in his face. His astonished expression caused her to giggle and the man at her side burst into dry tittering.

  She leaned toward Clark. “You didn’t mind, did you? I simply couldn’t resist. Whenever I seen an interesting face I must get it on film. Sort of immortalizes one, don’t you think?”

  Clark mumbled, “Sure,” and got to his feet. She was snapping pictures of the other guests as he walked out of the room.

  Rudy followed him into the hallway and stopped him at the entrance to the dining room. “Did she run you out, sir?”

  “No, no. I was leaving, anyway.”

  “I’ve seen her empty that room more than once. Whenever the manager spots her with a camera he makes her leave it at the desk.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Faye Tyrell Hicks, the only one left of the Tyrell family. That’s her husband with her, Hibbard Hicks. You don’t know them?”

  “No.”

  “Or the Tyrell family?”

  “Sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.”

  “Mostly shipping, sir. The Tyrells owned the big Solar Line until it was sold about twenty years ago.”

  “Then I suppose she got all the loot.”

  Rudy grinned. “Yes, sir. She could buy this place and turn it into a garage. Threatened to do it more than once.”

  Clark thought, O.K., let’s get the ball rolling. He took a plain card from his wallet with simply his name engraved on the face and handed it to Rudy with a dollar bill. “Tell her I’d like a copy of the one she took of me if it turns out all right. I can pick it up here at the desk.”

  Rudy’s expression was suddenly blank and unreadable as he said, “She’ll appreciate that, sir.”

  When Clark returned home after a satisfying meal he found Elsie in the master bedroom just finishing her job with the closets. She looked harassed and tired and, with his entrance, nervous.

  He dropped onto his back on the oversize bed and asked Elsie, “You know some people named Hicks?”

  She paused on her way out and turned to look back at him. “Yes, sir. Hibbard and Faye Hicks?” He nodded and she said, “They’ve visited here.”

  “What about them, Elsie?”

  Elsie knew intuitively the exact information he wanted. “Well, she’s the one with the money. I guess she’s worth millions. Mr. Hicks, now, he was wealthy too, maybe almost as much as his wife, but he lost it. I think that was when they got married, or maybe just before.”

  “He was cleaned out?”

  “Yes, sir. He don’t have a cent.”

  “Hmmmmm. They live around here?”

  “No. San Francisco. They just come down here a couple times a month. Usually stay at the Lodge, or sometimes in Carmel.”

  “Is he a golfer?”

  Elsie frowned. “I don’t really know, but I don’t think so.”

  Clark nodded. “Yeah. I can imagine where he gets all his recreation, out of a bottle. That’s all, Elsie.”

  “Yes, sir. Good night, Mr. Holt.”

  He lay there for a moment after she had gone, then got up from the bed and undressed. He stood on his hands and walked four times around the room. He came to a halt in the middle of the floor, still on his hands, and slowly lowered his body, steel-tight muscles rippling on his back, until his chin touched the floor. He pushed back up, then down again ten times, reveling in the fact that few men, aside from professional acrobats, had the strength and balance for such a feat. He snapped himself from his hands back to his feet and for the next half hour proceeded to go through a series of violent gymnastics. He was wringing wet even before he stepped under the shower.

  When he arose in the morning he religiously followed the same program of exhaustive exercises. An observer would have assumed that he was a health fanatic. Actually, aside from the pride he felt in his strength, he hated everything he was doing and every moment wasted in doing it. It was, however, a vital necessity with him. He had learned many years before, while caddying for other golfers on various public links, that nature, after giving him a beautiful body, had played him a shabby trick. He lacked co-ordination. He knew every trick in the golfing game, but it was not until he began exercising that he was able to break a hundred. Then, when he got into gymnastics and forced himself to learn balance and split-second timing, his golfing score went lower and lower, until finally, while he was still in his teens, he had become a scratch player. But gymnastics was an albatross tied firmly about his neck. If he skipped a day, his timing began to slip. Once he had lost a week, while sick with the flu, and his game had jumped into the nineties. He had to exercise violently twice a day, seven days a week, or he would be out of business. And he hated it.

  He sat on the edge of the bed after his shower and brooded about it. One day, he promised himself, he would be able to quit. One day he would have to. He was becoming too well known. There were not many places left where he and Joey could continue to work the racket profitably.

  He got up and paced the floor, turning the old, old problem over in his mind. He had taken many a sucker to the cleaners for large sums and made a better than average yearly income, but he was never able to save any of it. It was a vicious circle. He had to spend a lot for a glittering front that enabled him to make the money to spend a lot. And he was no good in business. He had tried that once, with aviation surplus, and failed.

  There was really only one way out. He paused before a full-length mirror and examined his body, grimly at first, then with a smile. That body was worth something in the circles he traveled in. One day he would run into the right woman, with plenty of capital, and that would be his out.

  Maybe, he thought, someone like that Mrs. Hicks. Cows should be easy to live with.

  Chapter Three

  JOEY MALLOY arrived two days later with Clark’s Lincoln convertible packed with luggage. He learned at the Lodge how to get to the Nyland house and drove there without calling. Clark was having lunch on the sun-flooded terrace when he looked up to find Joey standing there grinning at him.

  “Well, you old villain, you!”

  Clark jumped up and the two pounded each other on the back.

  Joey Malloy was the battered image of a Caucasian Buddha. He was a few inches shorter than Clark but twice as broad and as round as a barrel. He had heavy jowls, tiny piglike eyes, a completely bald head, and short arms and legs, so that he seemed to be almost entirely torso. He had at one time been a middleweight fighter of some promise, but too many women and too much alcohol and a talent for the rackets had brought that career to an end. Ring scars were
etched deeply about his eyes, his nose was a misshapen piece of putty, and his big ears were cauliflower lumps.

  Clark stepped back to look him over and had to laugh. Joey usually made him feel good. That was Joey’s mission in life, to make people feel good — so good, in fact, that they wouldn’t know they were being fleeced. Joey was a character and worked hard at it. He went in for wild, extravagant colors in his clothes, he deliberately assumed the diction and manners of a Brooklyn cab driver, he slapped women on the back and almost broke men’s hands in a shake, he interrupted the most serious conversations with the latest dirty stories, he insulted everyone, though laughing heartily while doing so, and people loved him. What a character! they thought, and envied Clark for being able to afford such an entertaining stooge. What they did not know was that Joey was Clark’s full partner. They split everything equally, including expenses and sometimes women.

  It was Joey who had found Clark playing in a hayfield tournament and had told him, “Look, kid, this ain’t for you. What’s this tournament circuit get you? So you turn pro someday. So what? There ain’t no real dough in that and you know it. Even if you get to be the best, you still wind up teaching some punks in a jerkimer country club where the only lively thing happens is the Sattiday-night dance. You go for that you got rocks in your head. So get this. You’re a handsome-lookin’ jerk, you got kind of a nice, quiet manner, pressure don’t bother you none, and your soul’s lousy with larceny. So you string along with me and I’ll learn you the ropes and line up all the pigeons for you and we’ll clean up. How’s that sound?”

  It had sounded good. That had been five years ago and they had been together ever since. Long Island, Detroit, Connecticut, Miami Beach, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and even a brief sojourn in Rio, where, for a short time, Clark had thought he might be a businessman. They had been lucky to get out of there with their lives and the Beach Bonanza. Larceny, it seemed, had its limits in the business world.

  Oddly enough, in spite of the strains and stresses of their particular racket, the two men had never ceased liking each other. They knew each other’s weaknesses and eccentricities and soft spots, yet the affection between them was warm and real and apparently durable. The only time a real smile ever crept into Clark’s otherwise cold eyes was when he was watching Joey’s capers. Joey’s affection was somewhat that of an indulgent father with an adopted wayward son.

  Joey beamed at Clark, then spread his arms in a broad gesture to indicate the building surrounding them. “Slummin’ again, huh? Jees, what a joint! How’d you swing this?”

  “Like to look it over?”

  “I’m on your heels, boy.”

  Clark showed him all through the house while explaining how he had come by it. Joey chuckled and slapped his back, but by the time they had completed the tour and repaired to the library he was so impressed that he was almost subdued. He stared at the shelves of books and shook his head. His reading was confined solely to the newspapers. He dropped into a chair and watched Clark push a button near the desk. When Elsie entered the room Joey blinked his surprise.

  Clark introduced them and told Elsie, “Mr. Malloy will take charge here. Anything that comes up about the house from now on, you go to him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Give him that bedroom next to mine. Is it ready?”

  “I’ll see.”

  She hesitated for a second, studying Joey, obviously baffled by his bizarre appearance, then turned away. Clark closed the door behind her. Joey blinked at the door and whistled softly.

  “Jees, that’s a real Harlem queen. She go with the house?”

  “In a way. Mrs. Nyland expects me to keep her on.” Clark sat on the edge of the desk and told Joey, “Something funny there. The other day I told her I’d have to let her go. I thought maybe she’d rather have it that way, with just two men in the house. She damn near went to pieces and practically offered to work for nothing, just to stay on. Scared to death. I can’t figure it. So you snoop around and see what cooks.”

  “Sure, kid. We don’t want no skeletons rattlin’ around.”

  They brought all the luggage from the car into the house, including three sets of golf clubs, and distributed the gear in the master bedroom and the room Joey was to use. He said that the trunks would probably arrive the next day. Elsie lined the bureau drawers with clean paper and helped them put their belongings away. When they were through, Clark tossed her the keys to the station wagon and suggested that she go into town to buy supplies, especially some three-inch steaks.

  Fear was again sharp and stark in Elsie’s eyes. “I don’t ever go into town, Mr. Holt.”

  He glanced at Joey, who was watching her shrewdly, then frowned at Elsie. “Why not?”

  Her hands fluttered helplessly toward her face. “Well, I — I — I just don’t. There was always someone else to do the buying.”

  “Not any more. You’ll have to take care of it now.”

  She looked into his narrowed eyes and knew the futility of protesting further. “Yes, sir.”

  As soon as she had gone, Clark said, “See what I mean?”

  Joey nodded and tugged thoughtfully at his lower lip. “Yeah. Somethin’ queer, all right. I’ll dig it out.”

  The trunks arrived the following morning, and were duly unpacked and stored away. Clark slipped into his working clothes, a gray sweat shirt, old slacks, and comfortable cleated shoes, and the two men went at once to the Pebble Beach course. With Joey acting as caddy, Clark spent the entire day working over the course, driving two balls with each wood, experimenting with long and short plays on the fairways, and pitching to each green from a half-dozen different angles. They learned more about that course in one day than the average good player would learn in a month. The fact that it was one of the toughest courses in the country meant nothing to them. There was no such thing as a tough course to Clark. Joey had taught him long before that in their game only the players counted, not the courses. All that Clark was interested in knowing about any course was the safe way to play it and the best position to be in for that all-important approach to the green.

  With his power, Clark could easily have been the longest driving golfer in the country. At times, during practice, he drove consistently over three hundred yards. But increased distance meant less control over the flight of the ball and the possibility of a bad lie. Clark preferred playing it a bit shorter and on the safer side. The Pebble Beach course, he noticed, being tricky and laid out with an eye to trap the unwary, was ideal for his type of game.

  While Clark played, Joe sketched out every detail of the course in a small loose-leaf notebook that could be carried in his pocket. On the sketch of each fairway a small cross was marked for the best possible lie and a circle for the best approach position. A red pencil was used to denote the bad lies, an equally important matter in Clark’s game. There were very few notes concerning putting, as the condition of the greens varied with every change of weather.

  They played every course on the Peninsula and each one went down in the notebook. With that book in his pocket, Clark had them all whipped.

  They also hung about the clubs and the caddy houses and each evening spent a number of hours in the barroom of the Lodge. Clark’s attitude was that of a wealthy young man, a bit distant and cool and rather bored. With such an attitude, he would have spent most of his time alone. Joey did the necessary ice-breaking. He talked with anyone and everyone, moved in on their tables, invited anyone he fancied to Clark’s table, and saw to it that their evenings were spent getting acquainted with everyone of consequence. At first he was frowned upon, but in a very short while he was accepted as a likable character and much sought after. The two soon knew most of the better golfers and which were the pigeons.

  Clark’s first game was with Richard Ranson, playboy heir to a fortune in ail; Tugwell, a banker; and Jepley, a real-estate broker. Ranson played in the seventies and the two other men, middle-aged, played consistently in the low eighties. Clark told the
m that his handicap was three, which lifted their eyebrows and raised the three-way five-dollar bet to a hundred on each side and a hundred on game. Clark came in with a seventy-nine and lost money all the way around. He managed the score by a slight, fading slice off to the right that, though he was never actually in trouble, usually placed him in a bad lie for that final approach to the green. Seemingly, to the others, he had to work hard to keep under eighty.

  It was midafternoon Saturday when they finished the game and paid off at the Lodge bar. The room was filled with guests and the bar was crowded with golfers comparing scores and lying about how they were “off” that day. Clark fell into the apologetic, half-angry mood of the losers.

  He bought a round of drinks for his partners and told them, “That damned slice drives me crazy. One day I break par and the next I come in like today.”

  Ranson, a tall, dark young man with an olive complexion, nodded and said, “You’d play scratch without that slice. Can’t you whip it?”

  “I’ve never been able to yet.”

  “Ever try moving in your left foot and hooking to break it?”

  “Hell, yes.” He sipped at his ginger ale, then laughed and said ruefully, “But when I hook, man, I really hook, like a boomerang. That ball really curves and I get in more trouble than with the slice. I guess it’s just one of those things I have to live with.”

  Tugwell clicked his tongue against his teeth and said, “Too bad. Without that slice you’d be a damned hard man to beat. Don’t you think maybe you’re giving yourself a beating with that three handicap? You should be handicapped anywhere from five to seven.”