Kiss Me Once

by Thomas Gifford

  Ten minutes later they were sitting in a dark little dive just below street level, in a black leather booth, and Cassidy had a fiery brandy burning in his belly. He’d muttered the story of Huntoon’s flat during the first brandy and Terry had had another one set up for him.

  “Believe me, Lew. I’m sorry as hell.” He sighed philosophically. “Max’s Law. Never trust a woman. Love ’em, hate ’em, worship them … just don’t trust ’em.”

  “I believed her,” Cassidy said. “I was so damn sure.”

  “You can’t hold it against her. Well, it didn’t make any sense that he turned her down—I mean, my God, amigo, just look at her. Look at a woman like Cindy just once and you get cracks in your walls, look twice and the old code’s straight out the window.” He fished one of the huge cigars out of his pocket, clipped the end, lit it.

  “But why would she lie to me?”

  “Come off it,” Terry said. “She loves you. She’s made a hell of a big deal out of getting you. Now she wants you to trust her, love her back. She doesn’t want you sitting around thinking about Huntoon humping away on her. She knows men, she knows it’d eat at you. So she told you half the story—the half that strikes her as important, her real misbehavior—but had to stop there, leaving out what’s for her unimportant.”

  “Bullshit. Looked like she’d been there recently. But we had Herb on her … so when?”

  Terry shrugged. “The point is now she’s made her move with you, she’s done with her military service.” He grinned at that. “Count on it. Take her at her word—”

  “I did. And she lied to me—”

  “Not that word. The other word. That she loves you. That’s the word that matters.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. She used to tell me she was a whore. Now she says she stopped, but she hasn’t. She had to have somebody and she picked Huntoon. It could have been anyone, he happened to be handy—”

  “Look, grow up, Lew! She’s a woman. Everybody’s got woman problems. They’re like that. They’re frightened, they’re confused, they need someone to hold them, sometimes it doesn’t matter who it is. Sometimes it’s easier if it’s someone they don’t care about—”

  “But you were right. You said she was having him and I said impossible, can’t be true, not my Cindy. And you were right, goddamn it!”

  “Drink your brandy, Lew.”

  They sat in the booth quietly drinking, watching the feet kicking through the slush at eye level past the window, listening to Helen O’Connell sing “Green Eyes” and Bing sing “Where or When.” Somebody kept feeding nickels into the box and Bing kept singing the same song over and over again. A couple of navy officers were sitting at the bar calmly getting smashed. Terry said they were drinking because of women. An army officer was sitting in a booth across the way, holding a girl’s hand. Her hair was piled on top of her head and she was wearing pearls and one of those sad wartime smiles you saw everywhere, in every bar in town, on every railway platform, on the faces of the women looking over their guys’ shoulders on the dance floor. Terry and Cassidy should have been at war, doing something to help win the damn thing, whip the Huns and the Nips so all the boys could come home again. They should have been off doing their bit somewhere, scared out of their wits but still getting on with it. Fate, or destiny, had kept them out of it and most of the time Cassidy tried not to dwell on it, most of the time he was glad, way deep down. But just then he didn’t much like it. Not just because of Cindy but because of Cindy and Karin and her father and … Mainly because he felt like a piece somehow misplaced on the game board. Nothing but the war seemed to make any sense or any difference about much of anything and he thought about what Bogart said to Bergman at the end of Casablanca, the movie everybody was seeing and crying over. Bogey was right. The problem of a few little people didn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy, mixed-up world … but Cassidy was stuck with this particular hill of beans, no way out of it. And the crazy part of it was this: It was getting dangerous and scary, just like the big war outside. They had their own little war to deal with and it occurred to him that it didn’t matter where or when you got killed. Fate had spared them the war. Maybe because fate had something else just as bad in mind. Whatever it was, you’d be the same kind of dead. Dead was dead. Going, going, gone.

  He sat at his desk and listened to Terry’s end of the conversation.

  “Bryce, it’s Terry … yeah, great seeing you, right, we oughtta do it more often … look, Bryce, I just heard about a little problem that’s come up; I thought I’d call you right away … well, to be frank, it’s about Max … oh no, he’s well enough so far as I know, but he’s in something of a bad humor … yes, not good, I agree, not good at all, he needs time to cool off … yes, well, you see it does concern you in a way … no, more directly than that, I’d say … ahhh, sure, of course … well, it all comes back to Cindy, surprise, surprise … thing is, he’s gotten the idea that you and Cindy, Cindy and you, have been seeing each other … look, Bryce, I’m talking about an affair, sleeping together … don’t ask me, but he’s dead certain and he’s loaded for bear … look, I’m not accusing you of anything, believe me, old man, I’m just telling you what Max is saying and thinking. It’s Max and you know how Max gets … oh, I understand, it’s all a terrible mistake, it’s just that Max gets a little unpredictable … yes, okay, but I don’t advise trying to make him listen to reason right this very minute, if you know what I mean … sure, in fact that’s why I called. My advice is to get back to Washington and lay low for a while; it’ll blow over. Lew and I are going to see him and try to talk some sense to him … oh, Good Lord, don’t thank us, it’s the least we can do … well, maybe you’re right about that but I have my doubts; if I were you, I’d take it pretty damn seriously … I’m aware that this is the twentieth century, Bryce, but I’m also aware that Max doesn’t figure the number of the century has much to do with you and Cindy … okay, old-timer, think about it mighty long and hard … my advice is Washington and don’t spare the horses … sure, Bryce, you’re very welcome, right, right, I’ll be in touch. Adios, Bryce.”

  Terry looked at Cassidy and stroked his moustache. He shrugged. “He’ll go, once he thinks about it. Can’t say he hasn’t been warned.” He stretched, worked his stiff shoulders. “On the other hand, I’m not his keeper. I did what I could.” He looked at his watch. “Come on, we got work to do, Lew.”

  The wind was whipping furiously, blowing the snow in sheets from the heavy boughs of the evergreens, blowing tumbleweeds of snow across the icy black driveway. Cassidy turned the Ford between the stone gatehouses and headed up toward the mansion, which glowed merrily in the dark—like a wonderful doll’s house, full of joy, a child’s dream. He parked at the front and followed Terry up the steps, across the balustrade to the sliver of light where an English butler called Bivins held the door ajar for them. “Mr. Bauman is in the game room,” he intoned while he took their coats and put them on thick wooden hangers. “Please, follow me,” he said, vastly dignified. He was tall, ramrod stiff, a fair-haired version of Arthur Treacher playing Jeeves. All his life Cassidy had dreamed of having a Jeeves or a Bivins of his own. Cindy Squires had had one within her grasp and had thrown it away. Following Bivins he imagined her in this house, catered to, feared, Max Bauman’s wife; it would all have been hers. And she’d run out on him. And screwed the Colonel and screwed Cassidy and lied to him and driven Max nuts and got Cassidy to beat Bennie so badly he’d have been better off under a marker at Mount Olivet.

  “This way, gentlemen.” Bivins took a sharp left and pushed on toward a doorway beyond which a billiard table sat like an oasis. Cassidy hoped Max wasn’t in the mood to kill the bringers of bad tidings.

  They went in, drawn by the clicking of the balls on the emerald felt. Max was leaning on his cue. He was wearing a wine-red velvet smoking jacket. An ascot of paisley design was knotted at his throat, a white shirt, the black trousers to his dinner clothes. He was smoking one of the gigantic
Havanas. His hair was carefully in place. He nodded to them, put a finger to his lips for quiet. He looked a hundred years old.

  Bob Erickson was leaning over a shot. He made an easy, gentle stroke, a bank shot which turned out well. He looked immensely pleased when Max said, “Bravo,” very softly.

  In the shadows a figure moved, someone Cassidy hadn’t seen. Terry saw the shifting figure, too, turned, almost startled by it. The man moved into the penumbral light cast by the lamps hung low over the table. He wore a vast formal shirt like a glacier drifting in the darkness, crossed by the black harness of a shoulder holster. He moved slowly like a dream of death. Max was smiling as if he’d remembered a much-loved old joke which just might be on his visitors.

  “Hello, Terry,” the big man said, turning. “Lew.”

  It was Bennie the Brute.

  He wasn’t selling toys anymore.

  “You’re looking good, kid,” Terry said. “Back in the ice business. Took my advice, I see.”

  Max said, “Bennie’s come home. Back where he belongs. A loyal knight. There’s always a place for Bennie here. Isn’t that right, Bennie?”

  Bennie’s eyes were wide and innocent behind the round lenses. The big nose like a zucchini and the polka-dot bow tie, what the well-dressed knight was wearing that season. With a shoulder holster. “That’s right, Mr. Bauman.”

  “Good to see you, Bennie,” Cassidy said.

  Bennie’s eyes, like ice cubes, turned. “Is it, Lew?”

  There was one of those endless moments while Cassidy’s life passed before his own eyes making faces at him. The gun in the pocket of his jacket felt much too heavy to lift.

  Max broke the spell.

  “So you’ve come with a report for me. Bob, some of that fine old armagnac for Terry and Lew, please.”

  They sat with their glasses at a round poker table.

  “Please, Terry, you may speak freely with Bob and Bennie, they know the situation.”

  “You’re not gonna like it, Max.”

  “I didn’t expect to like it.”

  The wind sprayed dry snow, rattling like sand, at the windows. Cassidy’s hands were sweaty and cold. Bennie leaned on the billiard table, arms folded like oars across his chest. Watching the men at the table. Watching. What was left of his memory, what had come back to him? What was going on behind the plate in his dented skull, in what was left of his brain?

  “It’s Colonel Huntoon,” Terry said.

  Max sighed, leaning back in his chair, propping his fingertips together on his smoking jacket, beneath the ascot.

  “Proof?” he inquired. “Is she with him now?”

  “Photographs of them out on the town together. Her things in his apartment.” Terry shrugged fatalistically. “She’s done a fade …”

  “Colonel Huntoon enjoyed my confidence,” Max reflected. “Even my friendship. What kind of world is this? Is trust dead? Is honor a rotting corpse? Let me tell you, it makes me want to weep for the death of trust and honor … even among men, friends …”

  Bob Erickson looked from Max to Terry to Cassidy, his forgettable face bland and objective like a banker considering your loan application and deciding how best to give you the bad news. Bennie was breathing through his mouth like a man who should have had his adenoids fixed in childhood.

  “Look, Max,” Terry said, “give it a couple days. Cindy’s just a kid when you stop and think about it. Kids make mistakes, you gotta make allowances.” There was sweat beading on Terry’s forehead. “And Huntoon? He’s nothing, just a big jerk in a fancy uniform. Tell him to get his ass down to Washington and stay there. Cindy? Hell, Max, forgive and forget … she’s a kid, forget her, she’s not enough woman for a man like you—”

  Max put him out of his misery. “Be quiet, son. I know you’re trying to help. But you’ve done your job, I appreciate your efforts. And yours, Lew. But you’re not my spiritual adviser, Terry. You’ll have my check tomorrow. Now I think you’d better go. Just go. And thank you, both of you.”

  He didn’t stand up. Bob Erickson made to see them out. Bennie nodded as they passed. His eyes never left Cassidy.

  They were halfway down the hall when there was a godawful scream behind them, then the smashing of glass on glass, a window being broken, then the splintering of a cue on wood. The scream grew into an animal howl of anguish. Cassidy turned to look back, saw Bennie standing in the doorway, slowly closing the door.

  Bob Erickson hastened them along. “Mr. Bauman’s just not himself tonight, I’m afraid. We’re going to have to find the girl. I don’t think she went to Boston, Lew … but Max says he wants to go up there himself and look around—he’s in a bad way.”

  At the front door there was no Bivins. Erickson found their coats and held them. “Allow me,” he said, good-naturedly, worry showing through. Cassidy slid his arms into the sleeves while Erickson held the blackthorn stick in one hand. “I once knew a man who had a stick like this. There was a flask concealed inside. Ingenious. Do you have a flask in yours, Lew?”

  “Not in mine, I’m afraid.”

  Terry said, “Tell me, Mr. Erickson, who the devil are you?”

  Bob Erickson gazed at him, a flicker of surprise crossing his plain, solid face. “Why, you might say I am merely a hewer of wood and carrier of water for Mr. Bauman. Thank you for coming, gentlemen. Your efforts are much appreciated.” He opened the thick front door and a blast of wind swept in like the souls of the dead looking for peace or maybe a game of billiards. “Good night, drive carefully,” he said.

  They got into the convertible, felt it buffeted by the gale. Cassidy turned the wipers on and they whisked the thin layer of dusty snow from the windshield. He started the engine. Terry let out the sigh of a lifetime.

  “Get us the hell out of here,” he said.

  They were back at the office by ten o’clock. The lights were all on. Elmo Andretti was drinking coffee from a chipped mug, making small talk with Olive, who was always willing to work late and hard.

  “What’s going on?” Cassidy said to Elmo. “You’re supposed to be keeping an eye on Bauman.”

  “Well, boss, since you guys went out there I figured I’d have a decent dinner for a change, meet you back here, then go pick up on Max at the club. I got something I thought you might want to know.”

  Terry was already at the coffee, warming his hand on the cup. “Like what, Elmo?”

  “I think Bauman is sick or something,” Elmo said.

  “Do tell!” Terry had regained the ability to grin, which had been in eclipse on the ride back into the city. “Psychotic would be more like it. We left him just now. Smashing up the furniture and howling at the wind. Bennie’s back as Official Keeper so far as I can tell …” He whistled and started pouring sugar into his coffee until it thickened.

  Cassidy said, “What’s the story, Elmo?”

  “Well, it’s like this. He’s been going to this building way up on Madison. Every day, see. I figured he was seeing a friend or something, it’s an apartment building. But just for the hell of it I went up and looked at the tenant list and there’s this doctor, one Maurice Epstein. So I called him from the corner as soon as I saw Bauman and his shadow, that Erickson character, leave. I just asked the nurse if Mr. Bauman was still there, I had a message for him … bingo, pay dirt! She said what a shame, I’d just missed him.” Elmo smiled at his audience. “Not so bad, right? So I figure the guy’s sick. It’s the only interesting thing I’ve found out about him—oh, except last night, he and Bennie were at the club having a heart-to-heart—get this—with none other than Harry Madrid! And damned if Max didn’t start crying … they helped him back to the office. I’m telling you guys, this is one sick gangster—”

  “Damn fine work, Elmo,” Cassidy said. “Now, what kind of a doctor is this Maurice Epstein?”

  “Expensive, I’ll bet,” Olive said.

  “I figured you could just look him up in some directory. I think it just said M.D.”

  “It’s okay, Elm
o.” Terry looked at Cassidy. “The night is young. We ride, amigo!”

  Forty minutes later they were standing in the cold across Madison from Dr. Maurice Epstein’s office. The doorman was finishing a thermos of coffee, shaking the last few drops into the silvery tin cap which had a handle and served as a cup. Nobody had gone in or out of the building in the twenty minutes they’d been pretending to have a friendly chat in the middle of the screaming wind. Cassidy kept thinking what it must be like in the house in Connecticut with the wind whistling across the blue snow. He hadn’t called her all day. She must be wondering what was going on and for a moment he forgot about Huntoon’s apartment, the panties and the lipstick and the rumpled sheets and the perfume. And then he got to thinking about Max crying on Harry Madrid’s shoulder. Harry Madrid and Max. The idea made him colder than the night. Why had Harry Madrid gone to Max …

  “Won’t be long now,” Terry said. “This guy has got to take a leak soon. All that coffee. I gotta piss just watching him.”

  Ten minutes later the doorman laid down his Journal-American and went into the inner lobby, passed from view. Terry was leading the way across the street, clapping his gloved hands to warm them up. He picked the door lock in maybe eight seconds and they were inside. It was quiet. The doctor’s office was at the end of a hallway leading off to the left from the core of elevators. The office door lasted four seconds, tops.

  It was like every doctor’s office in New York. A receptionist’s desk, a bank of filing cabinets, a stack of Collier’ses and Saturday Evening Posts from six months ago, a couple of prints of gondoliers in Venice, a potted fern that looked like it needed the doctor’s help, like it wouldn’t last out the night. The file cabinets were the old wooden variety. They had locks but they probably hadn’t been used in twenty years. There were even little cards with letters of the alphabet taped to the drawers. Max Bauman was in the first drawer.