King Cole

by W. R. Burnett

  Jean pulled up a chair and sat looking at her father anxiously. Boyle, the Negro butler, came in with her soup. She picked up her spoon and took a sip, then she laid down her spoon and said:

  “Dad, I’ll tell you the truth. Fred and I ran away to get married and I lost my nerve. I was so afraid that… with the election and all… you…”

  “You what?’’ Read was genuinely startled. He studied his daughter’s face. She looked like her mother, only prettier. She was in fact very pretty indeed and looked much younger than she really was. Let’s see; she must be twenty-two. She had her mother’s copper hair and her full lips and her blue eyes. She was also very impulsive as her mother had been; easily moved to tears and to anger. There was a certain instability about her that worried Read at times.

  “We wanted to,” said Jean; then she put her head down and began to cry. Read saw a tear fall into her soup.

  “Jean,” he said sharply, “for heaven’s sake, control yourself. You’re crying into your soup like a barfly into his beer. What’s all the excitement?”

  “Well, Fred’s mad at me because I didn’t go through with it. He says he’ll never speak to me again.”

  “Oh, that’s silly.”

  Boyle came in, glanced at Jean, and went out.

  “It isn’t silly. Fred has a terrible temper and he’s stubborn as a mule.”

  “He’s just a plain damn fool. That’s all.”

  “He isn’t. He’s a darling and I should have married him when I said I would. Oh, you don’t know how I feel. I wanted a big church wedding and all that but he didn’t. He thinks that’s hooey. So I said I would… and here I…”

  “You did quite right. After the election, you can have a big church wedding.”

  “That’s what I told Fred. We got clear up to the door at the justice of peace’s… well, the… you know what I mean. And I backed out. I told Fred there’d be headlines and everything and you wouldn’t like it on account of the election and…”

  “I’m glad you showed some sense. What’s all the hurry, anyway?”

  “Why, we’re so crazy about each other, that’s why. We’ve got to do something. I guess it’s better to get married than to…”

  “Jean!”

  “Well, I’m telling you the truth.” She began to cry again. “Fred says goddamn the old election, and I say so, too.” She jumped up and ran out of the room, crying. Read heard her climb the stairs.

  He rang the bell. Boyle came in.

  “My coffee, please.”

  When Read had finished his coffee, Boyle brought him a stack of personal mail which had come that afternoon. He glanced through it hurriedly and picked out a small envelope with “Benton Military Academy” printed in the upper left-hand corner. It was from his son, who wrote once a week dutifully and, Read could not help thinking, painfully. He knew very little about his son, who was taciturn and at times a little sullen. He always seemed much older than his age. Read often told himself: “Why, when I was eighteen I was as callow as could be.” His son, Johnny, did not seem callow at all. He hardly ever had anything to say; he’d sit with a slightly superior smile on his face, making everybody uncomfortable. Jean said he was just bashful.

  Dear Dad:

  Well, here I am right on the dot. I’m in study hall writing this. We’re not supposed to write letters at this time but I’ve got all my lessons. So I guess it won’t hurt anything. It’s been very cold here and the ground is frozen. I knocked all the skin off my knuckles at football practice this afternoon as the ground is so hard. I guess you know we beat Stivers High 14 to 0. I caught a forward pass and made a touchdown. I had thirty hours of quad and the Prexy was so tickled he canceled it. I went out to get some sandwiches just before tattoo and got caught; hence the, quad. But I’m always hungry down here. They don’t feed you enough. Well, will close as study hour is almost up. Tell Jean hello and ask her if she got rid of that punk, Fred Martin, yet. He gets in my hair.

  Your loving son,

  Johnny.

  Read smiled and glanced through the letter again. The phone rang in the hall and Boyle went to answer it. He came back in a moment.

  “For Miss Jean,” he said. “She took it on the extension.”

  “Mr. Martin?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Read smiled to himself and got up.

  “Boyle, is Charley coming over tonight?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell him to take care of this mail. I’m going out.”

  “Will you want the Cadillac, Governor?”

  “Yes. O’Leary, too. Is he back yet?”

  “I think so, sir. Will you be dressing?”

  “Not tonight.”

  Boyle went out. In a moment, Jean burst into the room. Her eyes were shining. Read paused on his way to the hall.

  “Well?”

  “It was Fred. Oh, was he hot and bothered! He begged me to forgive him, Dad. Isn’t that swell? Oh, I’m so happy. Isn’t it great to be alive?”

  “You didn’t think so a few minutes ago.”

  “I do now.”

  Read looked at her a little enviously.

  “When you get a little older you won’t be up and down so much.”

  “So what? Give us a kiss, Dad. I’m sorry for what I said about the election. I want you to be elected, Dad, and you know I didn’t mean what I said. After all, I backed out on Fred on your account.”

  Read kissed her lightly.

  “I never pay any attention to you. It’s kisses one minute and screams the next. You ought to be more like your brother.”

  “That icicle!”

  “By the way, I got a letter from him.”

  “His weekly weather report! How’s the weather at dear old Benton?”

  “Cold. He told me to ask you if you had got rid of that punk, Fred Martin, yet.”

  “Why, he’s nothing but a punk himself. Fred thinks he’s the snootiest kid he ever saw. Fred doesn’t like him at all.”

  “Well, Fred’s marrying you, not the family. Does he approve of me?”

  “Sort of.”

  Read laughed. Jean wasn’t joking. Fred Martin was all the world to her. If Fred didn’t like her father, why, then her father would have to be eliminated. It was the way of the world. Read remembered how he had disliked his wife’s brother and how she had listened docilely while he panned him. Once the bug had bitten a woman nothing meant anything to her except her current man. Jean was no exception, far from it. Read didn’t resent this at all. He wanted his daughter to be like other women!

  “Dad,” said Jean, “are you and Eileen going over to the Joneses tonight?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Well, Fred and I are going, too. Eileen’s ex brother-in-law, or whatever you call him, is going to be there.”

  “What!”

  “That’s what Lydia Jones told me. He’s visiting the Baylors in Cleveland and they’re driving down.”

  “Is he a Count, too?”

  “I wouldn’t know. His name is Vincenzo but they call him Vincent. Did you know that he was a direct descendant of Mirabeau?”

  “Now who’s been telling you that? And who is Mirabeau? Oh, yes. French Revolution.”

  “Well, their name is the same. Riquetti.”

  “Well, my name’s Cole but that doesn’t mean I’m a direct descendant of Old King Cole.”

  Jean laughed.

  “Anyway, I’m dying to meet him. They say he’s so handsome and has all the women running after him… just like his brother.”

  Read said nothing.

  “The women not only ran after him,” said Jean, smiling; “I guess they caught him. Eileen’s ex, I mean. I guess he was dreadful.”

  “Don’t talk like a damn fool,” said Read, suddenly irritated. “The sooner you get married, the better. You’re getting silly ideas. Wanting to run after some dago because he’s got a reputation as a pushover with the women. Most men are pushovers. We don’t have to import any.”

  “
Oh, all right, High Street, if you must be so provincial.” She put her nose in the air.

  Read burst out laughing, and turned away. She ran after him.

  “Daddy, I didn’t mean it. I was joking. I don’t like foreigners either… much.”

  V

  Eileen Bradley was about thirty years old. She had been places and seen things, as her father, who rather disapproved of her, said. She was tall and slender and was considered to be the best-dressed woman in Midland City. Socially, being the daughter of Major Bradley, she was the peak, and she had had her picture in the papers so much that her face was as familiar to the people of Midland City as Babe Ruth’s or Charlie Chaplin’s. She had gone to Europe to live and had come back Countess Riquetti, minus the Count. Since then she had slipped a little. She was not considered quite nice and many Midland Cityites told wild but unsubstantiated stories about her.

  She had dark hair and large, slightly oblique dark eyes; she seemed nervous and on a strain most of the time, but her face was composed. In New York or Hollywood she would have passed unnoticed; in Midland City she was an exotic.

  Sitting on a huge divan in young Lamont Jones’ gameroom with a tall drink in his hand, Read watched Eileen, who was standing by a window, smoking. She was the last word in elegance to him. Essentially unsophisticated himself, she puzzled him very much; half the things she said he didn’t understand. Her social ease made him envious, for he had so little of it himself. He was an outsider and knew it. These people merely put up with him because he was the Republican Governor of Ohio. They knew that he had waited table and that his father (poor old Dad!) had been a clerk in the gas company, controlled by the Jones family. Fundamentally, he was a nobody.

  Young Lamont Jones and Blair Meadows were playing ping-pong. Read watched them, marveling at their murderous assaults upon the poor little white ball. He did not play himself, considered it a sissy game; but he knew that this was a mere prejudice. Once it had been a sissy game; now it was fast and furious; too fast and furious for him.

  The people around him talked about ping-pong while Jones and Meadows played. He heard them discussing their “backhands” and their “forehands”; one thought topspin was the most effective offense, another said not. “All the same,” Henry Freytag cried, very red in the face, “chop is the basis of defense. If you haven’t got a chop, why, then you’re not playing ping-pong at all. Sure, topspin is best for offense. I haven’t got any topspin at all but I’ve got plenty chop and I’ll take care of your topspin as fast as you give it to me. Anybody want to play a game for five bucks?”

  Read studied Henry Freytag. He was a red-faced young man of thirty and was already getting fat. His German ancestry showed in his almost backless head and his peculiar blue eyes. Officially, he was Henry Freytag III and the heir to a huge fortune built up by his grandfather, a pioneer banker. But he hardly ever used the numeral anymore because some irreverent Midland Cityites had begun to give it a strangely vulgar pronunciation.

  Read could see that young Freytag was really excited over the ping-pong argument. Was that all he had to get excited about? Read remembered the pompous words of old Eagle Beak:

  “This is the twilight of the Rich. They have, like the French Aristocrats, outlived their usefulness and must eventually be liquidated.”

  Old Eagle Beak was quite right, in a way. Twilight was apparent, and all that the rich Henry Freytag III seemed to think about was the wonderful effectiveness of a chop in ping-pong. Read got up, put his empty glass on a table, then went over to Eileen, who was standing alone now watching the ping-pong game.

  “I wish I could play,” she said, “but I’m all thumbs.”

  “I used to play on the dining-room table,” said Read, feeling a little awkward as he almost always did with her.

  “Be careful. You’ll be telling your age.”

  Read laughed, but could think of nothing to say. The little white ball flew through the air, accompanied by the plick-plack of the bats. The young men perspired and quietly cursed their luck when their opponent won a point on a lucky net shot or a corner-of-the-table shot. Read turned.

  Jean was coming in with Fred Martin, two strange women, and a tall, thin, very handsome man with a black mustache: the descendant of Mirabeau, no doubt.

  Eileen stiffened slightly and did not smile during the introductions. The two Baylor girls gushed and chattered and told Read at great length how delighted they were to meet “our wonderful Governor.” He knew they didn’t mean a word of it, thought him an outsider, and would probably tell their friends in Cleveland that the Bradleys and the Joneses weren’t what they used to be, running around with a politician.

  Vincent Riquetti stood quite still; his handsome face very sad and apathetic. Eileen shook hands with him.

  “Hello, Vincent.”

  “Hello, Doll.”

  “Please.”

  “Oh, yes. Poor Enrico! I’m sorry I forgot, Eileen.”

  “Are you here for long?”

  “Only a little while. I’m going to California in December. Where are you going this winter?”

  “I don’t know yet. Have you met Governor Cole?”

  “No. Such a pleasure.” His hand was cold and moist; Read withdrew his own hand quickly. “You must be the father of this charming girl, here.”

  Read bowed slightly. He was irritated. He did wish that Jean wouldn’t simper so at this slick foreigner. Poor Fred! Read saw him scowling. He was such a jealous and impulsive young man and it was apparent that Jean was unduly impressed by Vincent Riquetti.

  “These midwestern girls,” said Riquetti; “so different from the girls anywhere else. Now, Eileen, of course; she’s almost European. But Miss Cole, now, or the lovely Baylor girls. Really, nothing like it; such innocent charm.” Riquetti’s face was still apathetic. All this talk was just an act, Read told himself; and an act which annoyed him very much. Jean was drinking it all in and Fred was still scowling.

  “Almost European,” said Eileen with a slight smile. “That’s almost a compliment, I believe.”

  Riquetti winced faintly.

  “Don’t misunderstand, Eileen,” he said. “You know I don’t speak the language very well. Did I say something?”

  “I think not,” said Read, meaning to be offensive, but speaking mildly.

  Fred’s smile warmed Read’s heart; he’d caught on. Riquetti ran his eyes quickly over Read’s face, then he bowed slightly.

  “I’m very happy there is no offense.”

  Eileen smiled at Read and when Riquetti, young Martin and the girls had moved on, she said:

  “Thanks, Read.”

  “Maybe he didn’t mean anything, but I wasn’t taking any chances.”

  “He always means something.”

  After a while, Jean and Riquetti played doubles against Fred and one of the Baylor girls. It was an exciting match to the spectators, who cheered and applauded from time to time. Read flushed with pleasure at the sight of Jean’s expertness and when she put over a smash, he shouted with the rest.

  Riquetti played a skillful, quiet game. Fred banged wildly at the ball, trying to make Riquetti look bad. Finally Jean and Riquetti won. In her excitement Jean flung her arms around Riquetti; who stared at her, then drew back and bowed, smiling.

  Read flushed and looked at the others; he was afraid his daughter had made a social blunder; but no one paid the least attention, except Fred whose face was stony.

  On the way home in the limousine, Eileen said: “Jean is a little impulsive, isn’t she? Vince is not a very good man to be impulsive with.”

  “I don’t think he thought anything of it.”

  “Read, you’re much too innocent. All Vince thinks of is seducing somebody. That’s what he lives for.”

  “Oh, well. Jean is pretty sensible and she’s got that Martin boy watching her like a hawk.”

  “Nice boy, Fred Martin. That’s the kind of boy I should have married. Home town boy.”

  “Did you have such a terrible
time, Eileen?”

  She said nothing; then to Read’s utter astonishment she put her head down and began to cry. He patted her shoulder awkwardly. Eileen Bradley crying? Impossible!

  “Don’t pay any attention,” she said, finally. “It was just seeing Vince; that’s all. Did you hear him call me Doll?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s what they used to call me. They seemed like such nice boys then.”

  “Are they so awful?”

  “Read, you’re just a nice Ohio man. You have no idea.”

  Read sat staring at the frosted glare of the headlights on the road; he was worried. Jean was such a scatterbrained little egg!

  When they drew up in front of the Bradley house, Eileen said:

  “Come in for a drink?”

  “Whatever you say. Are you feeling all right?”

  “Well... I’m…”

  “Never mind.” Read got out and walked up to the door with her. “Goodnight, Eileen. Thanks for going along.”

  She gave a little laugh.

  “I’d be a mummy here without you, Read. People don’t quite approve of me anymore.”

  “That’s silly. When are we getting married?”

  “Are you trying to be chivalrous? No, of course you’re not. Don’t pay any attention to me. Only seeing Vince like that… After the election, the Major says. In the spring, I think, if I haven’t shot myself meanwhile.”

  “Don’t talk like that. Are you really so unhappy?’’

  ‘‘Sometimes. Read, let’s get drunk some night. Let’s go some place and get stinko.”

  Read laughed.

  “I’m afraid that will have to wait till after the election, too. I’m the champion of the stuffed shirts. Suppose I got arrested for drunkenness or was seen drunk. Wouldn’t you like to see the headline in the Independent?”

  “They tell me Gregg Upham gives lovely parties. Take me.”

  “No. You wouldn’t like them at all. Bohemians, or think they are.”

  “You’re much too moral, Read.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “You’re much too wholesome for a person like me. Why, you’ve never even tried to sleep with me.” Read was shocked and started back a step, then he laughed.