Million Dollar Tramp

by William Campbell Gault

  “I know. Mrs. Richards, you will get in touch with Willis Morley, won’t you?”

  She held up three fingers. “On my scout’s honor. I don’t know why he should be worried. When things pile up I always hide out for a while. This isn’t the first time.”

  “Do you want to give me your present address,” I asked, “to take back to him?”

  “The Avalon Beach,” she told me. “Do you know where that is?”

  “I do. Will you be there long?”

  “I’ll be there tonight.”

  Again, the door opened. The man who came in was young-looking, but he was the kind who always would be. He had an attractively weak face and a crew cut and lustrous brown eyes, now bloodshot.

  He stood next to Fidelia and they exchanged some words too low for me to hear. Then he walked over to the piano.

  I finished my drink and said to Fidelia, “Please get in touch with Mr. Morley, won’t you?” I started to get off the stool.

  “Wait,” she said. “I want you to hear him.”

  I ordered another drink and settled back.

  He was a little beyond me. Shearing’s about my limit. The mild Shearing. This was more intricate, and occasionally, to my untrained ear, dissonant. Maybe it was meant to be.

  Others drifted in, a few beatniks and some washed people and a few who looked like they were brothers of the duo in the corner booth. Another bartender had joined the boss and they kept busy.

  I had no place to go but home, so I drank and listened. Maybe it was the alcohol. Or maybe it was the fact that Fidelia Sherwood Richards had moved over to take the stool next to mine and I could smell her expensive perfume.

  At any rate, the piano of Pete Richards began to get through to me; I felt an empathy for Richards.

  Next to me, Fidelia moved closer and asked, “Is he coming through?”

  “Something is,” I admitted, “though I’m musically illiterate.”

  “He’s complicated,” she said. “He’s as complicated as Bach.”

  And then a big, white hand came from somewhere and rested on hers, and a petulant voice said, “Fidelia, I insist that you join us.”

  I turned to face the bigger of the two men who had been in the booth. He had looked big enough sitting down. Standing, I could see he was a giant.

  He blotted out the rest of the room. He wore an Italian silk suit, black as sin, and a fawn-gray silk shirt and the insolent smile of the oversized nonconformist.

  A tremor moved through me and I said, “Don’t be pushy. Miss Sherwood is comfortable right where she is.”

  He moved in closer, crowding between us. The tremor in me was stronger now, and I tried to control it. I put a hand on his arm.

  He turned to appraise me.

  I said, “I promised the bartender I wouldn’t start a fight. Don’t make me break a promise.”

  He smiled. “Run along, process server; you’ve done your duty.” He moved in toward the bar, and my stool began to teeter.

  I put a forearm across his chest and shoved him back.

  His big, white hand came swinging across the bar to slap my face, and I started to go over backward with the stool. I jumped in time, landing with my feet well spread as the stool clattered to the floor.

  It wasn’t a very bright thing to do, but I swung the right hand as soon as my feet were solid. It landed high on his cheek.

  His head twisted and he stumbled into the bar. A woman screamed and somebody grabbed my arm and the big pansy swung from outer space.

  I ducked, he missed, and I came forward to put the top of my head into his beefy face.

  Now both bartenders were between us and a few of the customers had come over to help them. My tormentor and I stood a few feet apart, glaring at each other over the heads of the people between. Blood dribbled down from his nose and from a gashed lip, and his eyes were murderous.

  The boss, Eddie, said, “You leave now, Puma. He’ll leave in a couple of minutes. Unless you want me to call the law.”

  “I’m on the way,” I said. “This is more his kind of place, anyway.” I shrugged free of the men holding me and started for the door.

  “Wait,” Fidelia called, and I turned to see her worming through the crowd. “Wait for me.”

  I felt warm. It wasn’t much of a conquest to have her leave the pansy for me, but it was encouraging to think she would leave the ex-husband she admired so much.

  I waited at the door and we went out together. It was dark now, a clear, fairly warm night. She took a deep breath and stared up at me.

  “You must have a car,” I said. “It’s impossible to live in this town without a car. Why do you need me?”

  “I don’t need you,” she said. “I don’t need anybody; it’s one of my vices. And I have a car. But not here. I came in a cab.”

  “Now, why would you do that, Miss Sherwood, if you have a car?”

  “Because I have another vice,” she answered. “Alcohol. At times. And I don’t like to drive when I’m drunk.”

  I stared at her and she stared at me and we thought our separate thoughts. I doubt if hers were as vulgar as mine. Finally she said, “Don’t call me Miss Sherwood.”

  “Okay, Mrs. Richards.”

  “Call me Fidelia,” she said. “Do you know what it means?”

  “Hell, yes,” I said. “Any Latin knows that. It means faithful.”

  Chapter Two

  I held the door open for her and she climbed into my weary Plymouth.

  I started the engine and asked, “Where to?”

  “We could go to the hotel and have a drink,” she suggested.

  That sounded innocent enough. I could put it on the expense account for Willis Morley; he would probably add fifty per cent and charge it to Fidelia.

  At the next corner, I swung in a U-turn and headed back toward Santa Monica and the Avalon Beach. It was a fine hotel, with two excellent restaurants and a first-rate bar, and perhaps Fidelia and I could get to know each other.

  If we got to be really intimate, perhaps I wouldn’t even put the drinks on the expense account. I can be big, if the moment warrants it.

  The U-turn had brought us back toward “Eddie’s” again, and we were going by as Eddie escorted my recent opponent to the curb. The other bartender was along for protection.

  “Some friends you have,” I said, as we drove by.

  She said nothing.

  “A nice girl like you,” I went on, “from a big family, hanging around that crummy bar with the lace underwear boys.”

  “They’re all right,” she said quietly. “They have their problems, even as you and I. Don’t be obnoxiously virile, Joe Puma. I understand it’s one of your major flaws.”

  “From Mona Greene, maybe? I did a lot for that girl. I straightened her out.”

  “Woman,” Fidelia corrected me. “She’s thirty-nine years old.”

  “She was only thirty-seven when I knew her,” I said, “and she was extremely girlish.”

  Fidelia chuckled and asked, “Could I have a cigarette?”

  I handed her my pack and some matches as we turned into Olympic. “Why would Mona Greene discuss me with you?” I asked. “I only really knew her for three days.”

  “They must have been very important days to her. She told me they changed the course of her life.”

  I said nothing. Mona had gone from me to Naples and there married that Neapolitan lover of hers. Mona Greene was one woman who had found me vulnerable.

  I turned into Ocean Front, heading for the Avalon Beach. She said, “The driveway is about half a block from here. You’ll see it soon.”

  “I know where the driveway is,” I said. “It’s at the next corner.”

  “For the hotel,” she corrected me. “I have one of the cottages and that driveway is … right here.”

  I jammed the brakes and swung sharply to the right. When she had suggested a drink, innocent Joe Puma had assumed she meant at the bar. She had meant her cottage, a long, safe way from the regist
ry desk of the main building. I felt a pressure mounting within me.

  The juniper-edged driveway twisted and turned through the palm trees that shadowed the immense lawn. I said nothing. I was afraid my voice would be shaky.

  She said softly, “Take the right turn at the next fork.”

  We went past a bungalow throwing a noisy party and past one where the lights were dim to one where the lights were out.

  “Here,” she said.

  I pulled in next to a Corvette and turned off the engine. In the dim light of a distant yard lamp, she looked up and smiled.

  I smiled. Neither of us said anything for a few seconds.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” she said. “I only brought you here for a drink and some conversation.”

  “I’m not aggressive,” I assured her. “Any ideas will have to be yours. I just hate to turn down free booze.”

  She continued to smile. “Of course,” she said.

  The cottage was low, board and batten, with a shake roof. Inside, it was paneled in mahogany, furnished in a pleasing shade of charcoal brown. There was a small sitting room off the bedroom alcove and a tiny but complete kitchenette.

  She went into the kitchen to mix the drinks. I sat on a circular sofa near the television set. All the drapes were drawn; we were snug and alone.

  A drink and some conversation… Was that all she really wanted?

  It seemed to be. She came back into the room to hand me my drink. She sat in a nearby chair and took a sip of hers. Then she said, “How did it happen that Willis Morley hired you?”

  “I was recommended to him by an attorney we both know.”

  A silence, and I said, “How did it happen that you went to Willis Morley for money?”

  “I saw his ad in the Times. It amused me. Don’t you approve of Mr. Morley?”

  I shrugged. “Even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t voice any disapproval. He was my client, today. He might be again.” I took a drink and a deep breath. “However, this so-called Doctor Arnold Foy isn’t my client and isn’t likely to be. How did you ever get mixed up with him?”

  She was rigid in her chair, staring at me. Her voice was tight. “What do you mean by the ‘so-called’ Doctor Arnold Foy?”

  I said, “I’m always leary of people who use the title of ‘Doctor’ unless they’ve spent a lot of hard years earning it.”

  “Dr. Foy,” she said evenly, “has been a godsend to me. Dr. Foy has kept me sane.”

  I smiled. “Okay. I apologize.” I lifted my drink in salute.

  “I’m sorry I suggested the drink,” she said stiffly. “You’re … impossible!”

  “As soon as I finish it, I’ll go,” I said. “And I apologize for any implied criticism of Dr. Foy. We didn’t hit it off in our little talk; I guess I’m too quick to resent an obvious superiority in another person.”

  She stared at her drink and at me. Finally, her chin lifted and she said, “And perhaps I’m too quick to defend him. Others have … talked against him, including all the physicians and psychiatrists I know.”

  “If he’s done you some good,” I said, “it doesn’t matter much what others think. For you, then, he’s automatically right.”

  She nodded and smiled sadly. “You don’t have to go. Have another drink.”

  I took her glass with me and went out to the kitchen. I mixed a very pale pair of drinks and came back to hand her hers.

  She looked at it and said, “You’re being economical with my liquor, aren’t you?”

  “You drank quite a lot at Eddie’s,” I explained, “and so did I. You said you wanted to talk.”

  “I probably didn’t,” she said, “but it was the genteel thing to say.”

  Ouch! What did I do now, move in like some gauche Lothario? I laughed, and then said, “If Dr. Foy has spent all those fifty-minute hours making you genteel, he’s wasted your money. Gentility is a monstrous middle-class goal.”

  She laughed, too. She lifted her drink and said, “Well spoken, professional peasant. Take this back and put some booze in it.”

  So, a start. But there were ethics involved now. I will not take advantage of a drunken woman. But her speech never slurred, nor did her mind slacken.

  She told me about Dr. Foy. He had released her — that was the verb she used. It is used too much. She meant he had released her from her inhibitions, but what he had probably done was release her from her conscience. Another word the quacks love is “free,” but it doesn’t describe the cost of their treatment.

  She was free now; she was a free soul. Men love women who are free souls; so many of the quacks are men.

  Some are half-men. I asked her, “Did you meet that big homo at Eddie’s? Evidently, you knew him before tonight.”

  “I met him through Dr. Foy,” she answered. “Brian is trying to overcome his … handicap.”

  “You met him through Dr. Foy? Is it just a coincidence that he hangs around the same bar you do?”

  “You’re being a detective,” she accused me.

  I shrugged.

  She said, “Brian introduced me to Eddie’s place. And I talked Eddie into hiring Pete until he comes out of this current siege.”

  I asked her quietly, “Do you still love him?”

  “His piano,” she said. “His talent, that’s all.” She stood up and took off the jacket of her linen suit. “Isn’t it warm in here?”

  Under the thin blouse, the firm lift of her breasts was sharply outlined. “It’s getting warm,” I admitted.

  The pressure I had felt in the car was subsiding. She was flawed, she was vulnerable. It’s no conquest when it’s no contest.

  “You’re quiet,” she said.

  “I’m thinking of you, Fidelia Sherwood Richards. Rich and smart and pretty — what makes you so restless?”

  “Dr. Foy says I’m seeking an impossible ideal. I suppose he means a man.”

  From the window behind her, there came the sound of a footstep on gravel, and she glanced quickly around, but the drape was drawn.

  “Did you hear that?” she asked.

  I nodded. I rose and went to the door. I turned on the outside light and looked around. Nobody was in sight.

  I came back and asked, “Were you expecting anyone?”

  She shook her head, staring at me. “I heard that same sound last night. I’m … frightened.”

  “It sounded like a footstep on gravel,” I said.

  She nodded. “And there’s no gravel out there.” She took a deep breath and stared at me candidly. “Would you stay here tonight?”

  “For cash, I will — as a bodyguard.”

  Her face stiffened and she glared at me.

  I said gently, “Don’t you get the point? If you pay me money for staying here, there is no obligation on your part to pay me in any coin beyond money. You will be a free soul and any further payment you might contemplate will be purely of our own volition.”

  She continued to stare. Then she smiled, and then she laughed. And then asked, “How much?”

  “One dollar,” I said. And thought, and other valuable considerations.

  It’s a strange, damned thing. I come into contact with a lot of wealthy people because no other kind can afford my rates. And it’s a strange damned thing how many of them are unhappy. Neurotic, obsessed, frustrated, restless, guilt-ridden.

  What in hell does a man (or woman) need? Food, shelter, clothes, a few laughs and the proper enjoyment of the bed. What else is there? If you think there is anything else, you are overeducated or underage.

  I said, “It’s a strange damned thing.”

  “What is?” she asked.

  “The number of wealthy people who are unhappy. It seems to be chronic among the rich.”

  “I’m not unhappy,” she said, “not since I met Dr. Foy.”

  I thought, if you think Foy’s got it, wait until you really know Puma. You’ll throw rocks at Foy.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “The same as before — it�
�s a strange damned thing.”

  “Have another drink,” she said, “and don’t worry about me.”

  It was acceptable advice. We drank. We didn’t get drunk, but we got friendly. And when it was time to go to bed, we put one of the twin beds into the main room and left the other in the alcove.

  She took a dollar from her purse and gave it to me and I put it into my wallet. She was a free soul now. And what was I? Underpaid.

  She turned off the lights and went into the bathroom to undress.

  I lay on my bed in the dark alcove, thinking back on the day, beginning with my visit to cherubic Willis Morley just before lunch. It had been a day full of incident, revealing a sketchy pattern of tangled lines. Foy to Brian (through Fidelia) to Eddie’s (where Richards worked because of Brian to Eddie and Fidelia) to Richards.

  There was a gap in it, somewhere. I listened to the sound of her shower and looked for the gap. It eluded me. Why did I have to play detective? My day was behind me; I had consummated the terms of my verbal contract with Willis Morley.

  The sound of her shower continued and I thought of the dollar in my wallet and the footstep on the non-existent gravel and the fine line of her firm bosom.

  The sound of her shower stopped and I thought I heard that footstep outside again. I didn’t get up to investigate. My day was behind me, a night of semi-promise was ahead.

  She turned off the light in the bathroom before coming out, so I got no glimpse of her. I heard her pad past and then the rustle of sheets on her bed.

  I went to the bathroom consoling myself with the rationalization that I really needed a night of uninterrupted sleep. You can’t win ‘em all.

  I came out twenty minutes later, and groped toward my bed. My hand felt the edge and worked toward the center and came into contact with something smoother, firmer and finer than a blanket. Her skin was smooth and warm; the delicate mist of her perfume bathed my nostrils.

  “Wrong bed?” I asked politely.

  “If that’s a question, no,” she answered. “If it’s an accusation, I’ll move.”

  It was a question, I told her, a meaningless question.

  It was all tactile, the room completely without light. The tautness of her nipples, the flatness of her stomach, the action of her loins and the fullness of her buttocks — it was all tactile. Until the half-stifled cry of her climax and the satisfied sigh of fulfillment, it was tactile.