“Do you like this star sapphire?” Bruce asked, showing me a stone set in a big, thick, man’s gypsy hoop, which was suddenly produced from his jacket pocket. Hating all male jewelry as I do, I couldn’t comment frankly. Still, the sapphire was exquisite, set in a circle of what looked to be magnificent small diamonds.
“It’s sensational,” I said truthfully. “The most beautiful star I’ve ever seen.”
“I plan to get it reset for Emily. It’s an heirloom stone. What jeweler do you suggest?”
“My God, how would I know? Every other shop in Mexico City is a jewelry store. Fifty of the best of them must be within a stone’s throw of this restaurant.”
“Yes, but you see I don’t want just anything for Emily. Her family is ve-ry wealthy. Am I wrong?”
Suddenly it occurred to me that Bruce was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! This was simply one of my many hunches. They are usually wrong, wrong, wrong, too, but I always feel that they are right and, in my case, feeling is even worse than knowing.
“I think that Caroline and”—I took a deep breath—“Caroline and Bunny know where the next meal is coming from. But remember, Philadelphia money, like Boston money, doesn’t show the way that New York money and Chicago money shows. It stays in the bank.”
“Uh, you’ve done quite well at writing, haven’t you, uh, Patsy?”
“Fair to middling,” I said, feeling my spine stiffen. “Why?”
With a lovely display of eyes and teeth, Bruce began getting down to cases. “Well, uh, Patsy, I’ve been living pretty high on the hog lately and, uh, now that I’m getting married, uh, you see, uh, the stock market is, uh, acting rather strangely and, uh, my trustees, uh, advise, uh . . .” He gave it up and reached for his drink. The glass was gone. Why is it that people who want to get something out of you always wait until the table is cleared before getting down to cases?
Bruce was in a state of confusion, offering brandy and stingers to me, ordering a stiff Scotch and soda for himself. I was in no confusion at all. I suddenly realized that here was someone I had never very much liked and now I found myself detesting him. But what fascinated me was the bumbling, boyish, almost gauche way this patently charming, suave young man was trying to put the bite on me. I waited.
“Well, Patsy, the point is that I find myself rather short on funds, and I wondered if you could let me have a couple of thousand until Emily and I are married.”
“A couple of thousand what?”
“Why, dollars.”
“That’s a very easy question to answer. No.”
He looked almost wounded, like some child who has entered the circle of grownups, sung his song, recited his poem, performed his Chopin étude, bowed to all the ladies, shaken hands with all the men, and still not been allowed to stay up past his bedtime. All his social accomplishments lavished on me for the past weeks had gone to waste. There was no tip, no piece of cake, no champagne glass filled with ginger ale forthcoming as his just reward. He began to turn a trifle nasty—not really, because utter lovability had become such a habit with him, but I could sense that our honeymoon was over. “I believe,” he said without much conviction, “that your wife has private . . .”
My wife is the softest touch in the world. I took care of this little matter for her. “In trust, Bruce. My wife and I also have two children to educate, two taxes to pay, two establishments to run. . . .” I stopped. What I really meant was that I didn’t like him, didn’t trust him, wouldn’t give him a dollar if I had money to burn.
“Of course, Leander must have a good deal tucked away. But I don’t think I ought to . . .”
“Right, Bruce. You certainly oughtn’t. And I wouldn’t suggest asking Caroline or even Emily.” The boy was a total jerk. “What about your own family?”
“Well, there’s hardly anyone left. My brother David is in automotive engineering, but he has children to support. My sister spends almost everything keeping up her estate—we’ve always lived in Fairfield County—her gardens . . . her conservatory. . . . Well, I don’t want to trouble them. I suppose I could always sell my car. It cost ten thousand, and down here it would bring . . .”
“It would bring one of the stiffest jail sentences you ever heard of. It’s absolutely against the law to drive a car into Mexico and not to take it back out. The only crime a tourist can commit that’s worse is to pass a bad check.” I don’t know what made me settle on that particular felony, but if I’d squirted Bruce full in the face with the soda siphon he couldn’t have reacted more violently.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. To pass a bad check in Mexico—even a check drawn on insufficient funds—carries a prison sentence. No diplomatic immunity, no . . .”
“About how long does it take a New York check to clear?” He gripped his glass so hard that his knuckles were white.
“Three weeks—four maybe.”
He relaxed again. Once more I was allowed to bask in his warm smile, his sincere gaze. “Laws are funny, aren’t they?”
“Uproarious,” I said.
“Well, perhaps you could give me a word of advice about this.” From an attaché case of black alligator he produced a small unframed painting. “It’s a Pavel Tchelitchew. I’m a little tired of it, and I might just unload it on the right collector down here. Tchelitchew is still fashionable, I suppose.” How very Bruce that statement was. This well-bred imbecile didn’t care if a picture was good or important or even pretty as long as it was fashionable. Oddly enough, this particular painting wasn’t even that. In terms of pure vogue, it was decidedly unfashionable. It was a gouache painted in the last faint rays of the setting surrealist sun sometime during the late thirties. It depicted a not-very-attractive man, naked but for a long red cape studded with real paillettes. All the tired tricks of the window-trimming trade were in it—the exaggerated false perspective, the ghostly light, floorboards running into infinity, a tattered banner in the best Eugene Berman tradition, a couple of red carnations scattered on the ground. It was all beautifully conceived and painted, obviously the work of a master draftsman, but so slick and chichi and dead that it was almost comical. The only thing that surprised me was that a boy as young and as stupid as Bruce would even have heard of so special an artist or would have owned a painting of such a dubious period, which must have coincided roughly with the date of Bruce’s birth. Bruce was the sort of square young man who would know the obvious painters—Picasso, Matisse, even Dali—but not the Tchelitchews, the Carringtons, the Bermans, and Ernsts. It was like trying to sell a zoot suit.
“It’s a Tchelitchew all right,” I said. “Done about thirty-six or seven.”
“And very valuable.” It was a question rather than a statement.
“I shouldn’t think so. It’s a little old-hat—or at least it is just now.”
“But do you think some art gallery . . .”
“You could try. The Calle Niza is full of them. This whole section is.” The time had come to break away. “Well, I’m sorry I haven’t been more helpful, but thanks for lunch. . . .”
“Oh, yes. Mozo! La cuenta por favor!” As the check arrived, Bruce excused himself. I waited. I waited five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. The restaurant was empty but for me. Our table, however, was not. The Tchelitchew painting, the sapphire ring, Bruce’s gold cigarette case and lighter smartly stamped B van D were there. So was the alligator attaché case. I couldn’t help noticing that it had a red-morocco lining and that it was stamped L B B and not B van D. Waiters hovered. After half an hour I called the captain. “Will you please look in the men’s room and see if Mr. van Damm is ill?” I asked.
“But he is not here, sir. Two men came in and he went away with them.”
There was nothing for me to do but pay the check, pack up Bruce’s artifacts, and go home.
It doesn’t take long for news—good or bad—to travel around our barrio, and needless to say the Americans residing at Casa Ximinez had become about as popular with the natives
as a general tax levy, simply as a result of Starr’s film. I was prepared to run the gamut of sullen faces in the neighborhood, but I didn’t expect the full-scale mob scene that eddied and flowed through the patio for the rest of the day and night. The first person I saw was Bill Shelburne waiting in our living room.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were in New York.”
“I was. I’m back.”
“Talk about a quick trip, did . . .”
“Listen, this friend of yours—this Bruce van Damm who got engaged to Leander Starr’s daughter . . .”
“Friend of mine? Bill, I know him but . . .”
“When he came charging into my restaurant yesterday taking over the place as though he were Bonnie Prince Charlie, he gave you as a reference.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. He also gave me a check for three thousand bucks that isn’t worth . . .”
“Bill. What are you talking about?”
“This.” He flourished a check drawn on a fine old New York bank. “This happens to be my bank. Your Bruce van Damm gave me this . . . this lovely piece of baby-blue paper last night just before I flew up north. So long as I had to go to the bank anyhow, I thought I’d just deposit it.”
“And he can’t cover it?”
“Cover it? He doesn’t even have an account there. They never heard of him. So here I am stuck for tons of food, gallons of booze, a staff of thirty-three, a band. . . . He even gave me a tip—a check for one hundred dollars for singing my own songs in my own place, and it’s every bit as worthless. You certainly run with a fast set.”
“But he’s not a friend of mine. I’ve only known him for a couple of weeks. I don’t even know where he lives.”
“I do. Or at least where he lived—a very posh flat on the Hamburgo. I’ve just been there and had a little talk with his landlord who’s stuck with the same blue paper as I am—but not for so much. His just came back from the bank. And in addition to this three-thousand-dollar item, Mr. van Damm has also signed a couple of dozen tabs in the restaurant that are . . .”
“How dare you speak to my daughter that way, sir!” From the patio issued the frappé voice of Caroline Drexel Morris Starr Strawbridge in one of its rare moments of passion.
“Now see here, uh, whoever you are . . .” Mr. Strawbridge offered.
“Oh, shut up, Bunny! I don’t know who you think you are, but . . .”
“Private detective, name’s Fairfax, lady. Here’s the credentials. It seems that your daughter’s gentleman friend, a certain Bruce van Damm, took some things that dint exactly belong to him from our client, uh, Lucien Brooke Barney of New York—a Lincoln Continental car, some pictures, a star-sapphire ring, watches, cuff links, cloze, and some other stuff amounting to quite a load.”
I went to the window. Emily was in tears. Caroline was busy being the outraged mother eagle, and Bunny was just Bunny. They were being confronted by a small, wiry, little rat terrier of a man in a too-sharp gray drip-dry suit and a ditto straw telescope hat dyed gray to match. “It might also interest you folks to know that Mr. Barney has been keeping your, uh, fiancé, for the past two years. But no sooner do he and his ole lady go off on a li’l trip than the cute boy skips. Sorry to spoil the wedding plans, but I think the ceremony may be delayed ten to twenty years.”
“Wh-where is Bruce now?” Emily asked.
“Where d’ya suppose, sweetie? In the cooler.”
“And just why do you come here to tell me all this?”
“I’m here for what you can tell me. There’s this sapphire ring, some pitcher by this painter”—he consulted a list—“Cello-chew, a few other things we’re tryin’ ta trace. Chairshay la fam, like they say. And so if you’d just hand over these few items, you’d be saving your, uh, boyfriend, yourself, and I quite a bit of unpleasantness. Let’s have ’em, baby.”
“Don’t you touch my child!”
“Now, see here, sir. Our lawyers back in . . .”
“Shut up, Bunny. . . .”
I picked up the attaché case, the picture, and the ring and stepped out to the patio. “Are these what you’re after?”
“Who are you?”
“That doesn’t matter. Is this the stuff you’re looking for?”
He consulted a list again—a fairly comprehensive one. “Well, yeah, but . . .”
“Then take this foul junk, and your foul mouth and your foul mind and go.”
“Hey, now, listen.”
“Out,” I said. “Now.”
“Is . . . is this true?” Emily asked.
“I’m afraid it is, Emily.”
“. . . knew it . . . moment I saw him . . . related to Mrs. Chauncey van Damm . . . dead for years . . . didn’t even know it . . . ghastly party . . .”
“Mummy, please . . .”
“Yes, uh, Caroline, poor Emily . . .”
“Oh, shut up, Bunny. Minute you came down here to that worthless father . . .”
“Now what?” Starr came into the patio. He was still wearing the suit he’d had on the night before, and he looked drained. All he needed now was this.
“Daddy!” Emily cried. Once again the whole story came out while Bill Shelburne and I stood pointlessly around wishing we were somewhere else.
“There, there, baby,” Starr said. “Mexico is full of con men, and you and I are con-man-prone. It’s a family trait.”
“But, Daddy, I thought he loved me and . . . and all he . . . he wanted was . . .”
“Don’t cry about it, darling. Lots of people do terrible things for money.”
“I hold you responsible for this, Leander Starr,” Caroline shouted. “. . . perfectly nice boy of her own class back home simply dying to marry her . . . minute she comes anywhere near you . . .”
“Caroline,” Starr said, “have you forgotten that moonlit night in the heart of the pygmy country when I broke my whangee stick over your rather spare backside?”
“Forget? How could I forget? . . . bear the marks . . . this day . . .”
“That was but a love tap as compared with what I will do to you now if you don’t close your big, loud mouth.”
“Now, see here, Starr . . .”
“Oh, shut up, Bunny! Well, I’ve had enough of this foolishness, Emily . . . coming back to Philadelphia and marry Dick just as you’d planned to . . . telephoned him from the hotel this morning . . . be down on the first plane he can . . .”
“Howdy neighbors! Anythingue unusual goingue on?” It was Mr. Guber, a perfect sight in his crumpled seersucker.
“Yes, Mr. Guber,” Starr said. “A good deal. My daughter Emily has just been bilked by a fortune hunter, and Mr. González has skipped off with every penny of the money I raised to film Valley of the Vultures and also with the film itself. Otherwise it’s been a quiet day.”
“That’s appallingue!”
“Appalling is right. So you might just as well bring out the handcuffs, the leg irons, the bloodhounds—all the rest of it. I’m a broken, defeated old fraud and I’ll go peacefully.”
“Señor Starr! Señor Starr!” In a moment the patio overflowed with all the extras from the picture. Guadalupe’s relative the lottery ticket-salesman was at the head of the phalanx brandishing a newspaper.
“Señor Starr,” he shouted. “Now you pay us. For me two days at fifty pesos, one day at one hundred pesos. For Guadalupe . . .”
“I’m sorry,” Starr said. “I can’t pay you. I’m a ruined, bankrupt old pauper—a phony and a fraud. I don’t have a hundred centavos.”
“But you rich man, Señor Starr. Now you pay.”
“Would that I could but I can’t. I’m flat, stony broke.”
“No, Señor Starr. You rich man. See,” he shouted, unfurling the newspaper. “You look. Here you name. You win the big lottery!”
XVI
Two million pesos is a pretty piece of change in any land and any language. Even after the Mexican government bit into the big prize for its fifteen per cent income tax, Starr
was left with one hundred and thirty-six thousand United States dollars.
“Starr,” I said, “it’s a miracle! Do you know what this means? You can get in the clear with the government. Guber will settle. They’ll strike a compromise just to get your name off their books. No more flitting around from country to country. You can go back to Hollywood and be a big man again.”
“I’m a big man now, dear boy. At least big enough to pay the people who’ve given their time and money to Valley of the Vultures.”
Mysteriously meticulous and businesslike, Starr called a meeting of all his creditors—Madame X, Lady Joyce, Bunty, and Mrs. Pomeroy, the big backers; the actors; the extras; the technical help. He explained what had happened, apologized, and paid them off to the penny. He even paid Dr. and Miz Priddy and my wife and me for our work. Mr. Guber also received his four dollars for appearing as an extra, but that’s all he got. I’ve never seen so much money go so fast.
Lopez, at last a thousand dollars richer, turned up the next day with Heff by the collar. “Here’s da kid, Starr,” he said. “Now maybe we can find out where dat slob went wit’ da movie.”
“Please,” Heff said. He seemed dazed and not quite in this world.
“I found ’im in the Zócolo beggin’ handouts. Now, yuh gonna tell us where yer dad is?”
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