A Kiss Before Loving

by Mack Reynolds

  Shell looked up at him woozily. He shook his head. “Hi, Biggy.”

  “Come on, we’re going to the sauna,” Biggy said. “Over at the Helsinki.”

  “How come, Biggy? You drunk? Besides, I’m mad at you.” He swayed, almost slipping from the chair. “Least, I think I am.”

  Bigelow took him by the arm. “Come on, Shell. Let’s get sobered up. We’ve got things to talk about.”

  He picked up the sketch pad, frowned at some of the caricatures on it, then stuck it into his pocket along with the portraits the tourists had abandoned. He took the other by the arm. Shell was too far gone to resist.

  “Boy, did I hang one on,” he said dismally.

  “Sure did,” Bigelow agreed. In the back of his head, he was thinking how often he, in exactly this shape, had been hauled out of some familiar bistro by Shell.

  He stopped at the bar long enough to inquire for the bill.

  “Il n’ y a pas addition, Monsieur,” he was told. The tourists had paid for Shell’s tab in return for his sketches.

  Bigelow said wryly, “I should remember this angle for the next time I run out of cash on a pub crawl.” Then he added, “If there ever is a next time.”

  He half supported Shell, half leaned him against a public pissoir, while he hailed a cab. He said, “Where’d you pick up that caricature stuff?”

  Shell looked at him blearily, “What — ”

  “Never mind.”

  A cab came sweeping in, pulled up before them in a Parisian squealing of brakes. Bigelow manhandled Shell into the back, gave directions for the Helsinki Hotel.

  “They’re going to get a shock when the two of us come in for a sauna, with me cold sober and escorting you,” he muttered. “They’ll probably go out of business, figuring they’ve seen everything now.”

  “Wha — ?” Shell demanded.

  “Nothing. I was being funny.”

  At the Helsinki, Bigelow growled as he helped the other out of his clothes in preparation for the steam room, “I’ve always told myself I’d come in here sober someday, just to find out whether or not that overgrown Amazon really gives me a worse going over with that bundle of birch switches than she does anybody else.”

  He half pushed, half tugged the dazed Shell into the steam room.

  • • •

  An hour and a half later, they were relaxed in the same chairs in the Helsinki lobby they’d occupied two days before. Shell was still on the shaky side, but lucid now.

  Bigelow didn’t attempt to pussyfoot around. He said, “Shell, how do you really feel about Connie at this point?”

  Shell looked down at a still-shaking hand and grunted disgust. “How do you mean?” he asked.

  “Well, are you still in love with her?”

  Shell grimaced and stuck his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t have to look at them. “No,” he said. He took a deep breath before going on. “I caught up with reality last night, Biggy. Possibly I haven’t thought it all out yet, but the ground work’s been done. Connie’s out of the past. She’s one of the best, but she’s not for me. Or me for her. Quite a bit I’m facing up to, besides that. This life isn’t for me, either.”

  Biggy said softly, “Going back to New Elba?”

  “And to my father’s business?” Shell shook his head. “No. That’s not for me, either. I won’t be able to stay in Paris. No way of getting work here, what with French legal restrictions. I suppose I’ll go back to the States and look around. I’ll find my niche, somewhere.”

  “Listen, Shell,” Biggy said, “Connie and I are going to be married.”

  It would have taken even more than that to have really flustered Shell Halliday at this point.

  He nodded his head seriously. “Yes. Yes, that’ll be fine. You’ll work out swell together. She’s a nice guy. So are you, Biggy. If it made any difference at all, I’d apologize for going off my rocker last night. Something just snapped. Too much loaded on at once. Kind of a straw that broke the camel’s back.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference,” Biggy said. “In fact, it was probably the thing that led Connie and me into seeing we were meant for each other.”

  Shell shot a prying glance at the big man. Those words sounded slightly on the “square” side to be coming from the supposedly ultra-cynical Biggy. But no, the other wasn’t kidding. When you got down to the really important things, they do sound not-with-it, because they’re simple and completely true without room for cheap cynicism. Biggy and Connie were meant for each other, and that was exactly the way to state it.

  Shell grinned sourly. “It’s going to come as a shock to New Elba social circles. Connie Lockwood goes off to Paris to visit her school days sweetheart and lands the celebrated Bigelow Warren for a husband.”

  Bigelow was too newly deep in this to see any humorous aspects. “Possibly we could all go back together. Get married in Ohio. You could be my best man.”

  Shell laughed softly, but shook his head. “That’d wow them, all right, but not for me. I’ve got New Elba completely out of my blood. It’s not that I want to avoid the place — in shame — but it just leaves me cold. Four or five years in Paris makes it a little difficult for me to picture myself going down to the Dairy Maid Drive-in and having a hamburger and malted in the way of a big time.”

  Biggy raised his eyebrows.

  Shell shook his head defensively. “No, I’m not running down small towns, nor hamburgers and malteds. They’re fine. But not for me, any more.”

  “What do you figure on doing, Shell?”

  “I don’t know, Biggy, but I’m in good health and I’ve been around more than average. There’ll be something.”

  The big cartoonist pulled the sketch pad and loose caricatures from his side pocket. He leafed through the pages the other had done in the Cielito Lindo and elsewhere. “What’s all this?” Biggy asked him.

  Shell flushed and reached for the pad, but the other held it away. Shell shrugged and said, “Sometimes, when I’m more than ordinarily broke, I go around the tourist haunts and do portrait sketches for a couple of francs a throw.”

  “How come I’ve never seen any of them before? I’ve seen what you used to do in the name of serious art.”

  Shell shrugged. “You’re an arrived cartoonist, Biggy. This is off-the-cuff stuff, amateur stuff. I’d be like some beginner writer showing his story to Faulkner.”

  Biggy was looking at a full-length drawing of a Parisian traffic cop. He chuckled. “You call these things portraits? I’ve never seen such insults. Do they really pay to get raked over the coals like this?”

  Shell said uncomfortably. “Sometimes they get mad. However, I sketch ’em the way I see ’em, and usually there’s something ludicrous in each person’s appearance that sums them up.”

  Bigelow suddenly brought forth a pencil. “Let’s see you do me.” He held the pad and pencil to Shell.

  “Aw, no. Look, Biggy, I’m pooped. I haven’t time for games. I haven’t been in bed all night.”

  “Come on, come on,” the big man ordered and shoved the pencil into the other’s hand.

  Shell decided to get it over with quickly. He squinted at his friend, made a quick curving line, then another. He slashed twice, thrice with the pencil. Did two or three lines of dots. The pencil moved quickly and accurately.

  “How long you been doing this stuff?” Biggy wanted to know.

  “Ever since I was a kid, really. I always liked caricatures. My mother used to give me the devil.”

  He finished the cartoon and handed it to Bigelow.

  Biggy looked at it and winced. “Oh, would some power the gift give us, to see ourselves as others see us,” he misquoted.

  “If Bobby Burns could hear that Scottish accent,” Shell snorted.

  Biggy looked up at him. “Does everybody see me as a guy with a glass perpetually in one hand, in a suit that looks as though it’s been slept in?”

  “Only those, probably, who know you in Paris.”

  “Eve
r do any of these caricatures of current political figures?” Biggy asked suddenly. “You know, de Gaulle, Castro, the President …”

  “Sometimes, just for gags or to kill time. What’s all this about, Biggy? You working up to offering me a job helping you on the Bobby strip? I’m in no mood for further charity.”

  But the other was shaking his head. “No, Shell. I’m a cold-blooded businessman when it comes to Bobby and you’re not the type. However, there’s something else. Did it ever occur to you that you’re a born political cartoonist of the satirical school?”

  “No, it never did, and it still doesn’t.”

  “Yep,” Biggy said definitely. “And it’s no matter of charity. You know the work of Vichy, the Englishman, and David Low, for that matter?”

  “Well, sure. They’re tops.”

  Biggy was looking sourly at the sketch Shell had done of him. He winced again and leafed once more through the sketch pad. “And so could you be. I’ve never seen such a knack for it. Each one of these little things is a masterpiece of character revelation.”

  Shell shrugged it off again. “I don’t know New York. I don’t know anything about the field. I wouldn’t know how to sell a political cartoon if I knew how to draw one, and I don’t.”

  Biggy shook his head negatively, pushing objections aside. “That’s what agents are for. I’ll introduce you to mine. Besides that, I’ve got two or three men on my staff who used to be in the field. They can break you in, show you the ropes. You’re a natural.”

  Shell’s mind could hardly move fast enough to encompass all this.

  The big man was continuing. “You’re probably broke. Fine, I’ll stake you to the fare back to the States and put you on my payroll until you’re strong enough to stand on your own.”

  “Hey now, wait a minute. I told you I wasn’t interested in charity.”

  “Neither am I. I told you I was cold-blooded when it came to my business. It wouldn’t be charity. In fact, I’d make money out of you. My staff turns out a lot of material besides the daily panel. We produce Sunday strips in color, Hollywood cartoons of Bobby, commercial advertising for the magazines with a Bobby motif, and a Bobby television show is in the making. Then there’s a game called Bobby and little Bobby costumes for kiddies. It’s a madhouse. As long as you work in my studio, anything realized from your efforts will go to me. You’ll simply be on the payroll. I’ll start you at, say, two hundred a week. As soon as you’re established, you can go it on your own.” He wound it up bluntly. “This is a business proposition, Shell. Say yes, or no.”

  Shell was slumped in his chair, agape.

  “Yes,” he managed to get out.

  Bigelow hesitated before saying, “We can work out the details later. The cost of your fare back to the States, that sort of thing, we can deduct from your pay. No hurry about it. Meanwhile …”

  The cartoonist dug into his pocket and emerged with some high denomination bills in a money clip. He peeled several of them off. “Meanwhile, you probably have some odds and ends to finish off here in town.” He twisted his mouth. “Old Hobbs, over at the Lycée Hotel, claims you owe him a week’s rent.”

  “Yes,” Shell said, still trying to assimilate it all. He took the money. “And there’s a few other items.”

  Biggy said, a touch of embarrassment in his voice, “I wonder if you could pull out of the suite tonight, Shell? Sleep somewhere else.”

  At first Shell didn’t get it. Then he reacted with a flush. It was none of his business. “Of course,” he said.

  The big cartoonist stood up. “I suppose you have a lot to do. We’ll be heading for New York as soon as we can get organized. A couple of days, say. Okay?”

  “Okay, boss.”

  Biggy looked at him. “I won’t be your boss for long. You’ll be on your own in no time at all.”

  “I think you’re right,” Shell told him, straight. “I have a feeling you’re right.”

  Chapter Nine

  SHELL SAW CONNIE AGAIN the next morning. He’d sloughed off the last remnants of hangover, both alcoholic and psychic, and was fresh again. In fact, he was more eager for life than he could remember ever having been.

  He’d come up for his things, was met at the door by Bigelow who walked him back to the living room, talking about air reservations. The hotel was having a bit of a hassle acquiring them on such short notice.

  Connie came out of the bedroom combing her hair, which was down over her shoulders, and humming easily to herself. Her eyes widened when she saw Shell, and then went quickly to Bigelow who smiled encouragingly at her. She wore a negligee.

  “Hello, Connie,” Shell said uncomfortably.

  “Hello, Shelley.”

  “Excuse me a minute, please,” Biggy broke in. “I’ve got something to do.” He left the room.

  Connie sat on the couch, her hands in her lap. She said, almost defensively, “Bigelow and I are going to be married, Shelley.”

  “Yes, he told me. Congratulations are in order to both of you. He’s a wonderful guy, Connie.”

  “Yes.” She hesitated. “Shelley, we’ll be seeing each other, I imagine, in New York. I think we ought to work things out now.”

  He shook his head and took one of the chairs across from her. “Nothing to be worked out, Connie. I made a fool of myself and remained one for the best part of five years. I should have called it quits when I first discovered I was no artist. Instead, I managed to hurt everyone concerned.”

  Now it was she who shook her head. “Spilt milk,” she said. “It’s silly crying over it. And in the long run, it worked out. I’ve found Biggy, and we’re right for each other. You’ve found your position. For that matter, even your father and mother will be pleased with your place as a New York political cartoonist.”

  “Biggy told you about that, eh?”

  She nodded. “It sounds wonderful,” Connie told him.

  He laughed suddenly. “You know, Connie, the old feeling is gone, but I’m still fond of you, and always will be. Don’t worry about me in New York. You can name the first child after me, or something. And I’ll be Uncle Shell.”

  “Hmmm,” she said, “that goes only if you promise to name your first Bigelow.”

  He laughed again. “I hadn’t thought about that. I suppose I will, sooner or later, wind up with a wife and family, remote as that possibility seems right now.”

  “How about that Felicity Patterson girl at the party?” she teased.

  He grunted negation. “Nice girl, but didn’t you hear her announce her engagement to Mike Brett-James?”

  “That silly wishy-washy? Don’t be ridiculous, Shelley. I know better, being a woman. That girl goes for you, Shelley Halliday. I would have been jealous the other night, had there really been anything true between you and me.”

  Bigelow came back. He assimilated the air of amiability, grinned bearishly at them both. “How’re my two best friends getting along?”

  “Friend?” Connie said indignantly. “Is that how you think of me?”

  Shell and Biggy laughed.

  • • •

  Shell Halliday sprawled in his favorite chair, at his favorite table at the Deux Magots and contemplated the scene before him. Tourists and bearded beatniks, artists and Sorbonne students, streetwalkers and expatriate alcoholics, refugees and poets, models and international bums — and even an occasional Frenchman — paraded past. He had a bock before him, a small beer.

  To his left was the Abbey, one of the oldest religious buildings in Paris and, in a solid way, one of the most beautiful. Shell wondered idly how many hours he’d spent in its shade in the past five years. Five years? It didn’t seem such a long time. This was probably the last time he’d ever sit here at the Deux Magots. Tomorrow, early, they were flying to the States.

  In a way, he didn’t regret these years in Paris. Who was it — Oscar Wilde or somebody? — who said to deny your past was to commit suicide. No, that wasn’t exactly it, but something along that line. There was no use
in regretting the past. The thing to do was profit by it. He’d learned a lot about life, here in Paris, and he intended to make use of it.

  A girl with a more than usually provocative figure was approaching. Automatically, Shell looked up to her face.

  Shirley MacLaine type, he decided all over again. It was Sissy Patterson.

  She saw him, too, and hesitated.

  Shell twisted his face ruefully and stood up.

  “I can recommend the Riesling,” he said.

  She made a face and came over to him. He held a chair for her.

  “I’m leaving this afternoon for London,” Sissy told him.

  “A drink on me — for once?” he urged.

  She shook her head. “A coke, just to keep the waiter happy. I’m cutting out drinking so heavily. It’s childish.”

  Shell ordered the coke. “Now listen for a moment,” he said. “You don’t have to believe me, but you do owe an accused man the chance to defend himself.”

  She shrugged impatiently. “If it’s about the money, Shell, don’t bother. I couldn’t care less. And I know just how broke you usually are.”

  “Look, Sissy. Listen for just a moment. The other night at the party I suddenly remembered how careless you are with your money and your purse. And I realized that gang of people we’d invited up to impress Connie were a bunch of the biggest international bums in Paris. So I went into the bedroom to get your bag and lock it in a bureau drawer. Just as I was proceeding to do that, you walked in, and when you found the bag empty, assumed that I’d done it. The fact is that my fears were evidently justified. Someone at the party pilfered your money before I ever got to it.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference, Shell. Really it doesn’t.”

  He said in irritation, “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “Sure I do. Good Heavens, it’s not important.”

  No, she didn’t believe him. He wasn’t getting through to her. It’d take a bombshell to crack the defensive armor she’d raised to protect herself. And he was all out of bombshells. And there was no way of proving he wasn’t just one more slob out for her money. It would be pointless to tell her about the new job.