Park Avenue Tramp

by Flora, Fletcher

  “Martinis are stigmata too, when you come to think of it. They’re just as much stigmata as hitching posts and split-rail fences and people.”

  “Everything and everyone are stigmata.”

  “Correct. As stigmata, let’s drink these last two stigmata.”

  He got up again and poured them, and they drank them, and afterward they walked down the bluestone drive to the split-rail fence. Leaning against the fence, they listened to some kind of bird making a sad sound in the gathering darkness, but neither of them knew what kind of bird it was.

  “Tomorrow is Sunday,” he said. “What about Sunday?” she said. “We have to go back.”

  “Oh. I suppose we do. I suppose it wouldn’t be wise to stay any longer. Anyhow, Samantha agreed to let me use the house only for the weekend. If I didn’t keep the agreement, she might become annoyed and say something to somebody.”

  “Would she do that?”

  “Samantha’s capable of it. I don’t trust her very much, to tell the truth. I only asked her for the house because I couldn’t think of anyone else who had one that was suitable. She’s sometimes malicious and does sneaky things.”

  “In that case, we’d certainly better not annoy her.”

  “Yes, we’d better go back tomorrow. However, there will be other places we can go at other times. You see how it is? Far from not wanting to see you again, I’m already planning how it can be arranged.”

  “I’ll have to go back to work Monday night.”

  “Playing the piano?”

  “That’s my work.”

  “That’s true. It is, isn’t it? Somehow one doesn’t think of playing the piano as being work exactly.”

  “It’s work, all right. Sometimes it gets to be very hard work.”

  “I suppose it does. The hours and the people and all. Do you like it? Do you wish you were doing something else?”

  “I never wish I were doing something else besides playing the piano. I wish all the time that I were playing the piano differently in a different place.”

  “Why don’t you, then?”

  “Its not that easy. I’m as well off playing where I am as anywhere else they’d let me play.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I’m not good enough to do what I’d like to do, even if there were time to do it.”

  “I think you’re extremely good. When I was there that night and heard you suddenly start playing, I thought you were wonderful.” “Thank you, but I’m not.”

  “Are you sure? Perhaps you are merely lacking confidence.”

  “No. It’s just tricks, what Chester and I do. It’s clever sometimes, but it’s never really good.”

  “I refuse to believe it. I don’t like to hear you talk about yourself that way.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”

  “Monday night I’ll come listen to you play, and it will be very good. Will you play something especially for me if I come listen?” “I’ll play everything especially for you.”

  “Perhaps it better hadn’t be Monday, though, after all. For the sake of appearances, after being gone for the weekend, I think I’d better stay home Monday night. I’ll come Tuesday”

  “All right. Tuesday.”

  “Will you let me go to your place with you afterward?” “If you want to.”

  “I’ll want to. I’m positive already of that. Are you positive that you’ll want to let me?” “Yes. Quite positive.”

  “That’s arranged, then. And now we must stop thinking about tomorrow or Tuesday or any time but now, and you must stop being despondent and critical of yourself. Do you agree?”

  “I agree.”

  • • •

  It was now as dark as it was going to be. Stars were out, but no moon. The sad-sounding bird was vocal in the darkness.

  “Well, please don’t just stand there,” she said, “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to hold me.” “Like this?”

  “No. Put your hand here. Right here.” “Like this?”

  “Yes. Oh, yes, yes. Darling, can’t we go now? Right now?” “By the road? Someone might come.” “I don’t care.” “Afterward you would.”

  “Oh, God, God, God! Don’t you want to? Are you going on and on finding reasons not to?”

  “I want to. On the terrace. Let’s go back to the terrace.” “All right. Right, darling. But hurry! Please hurry!” So they went back to the terrace, hurrying as if they had only a few minutes instead of all night.

  CHAPTER 12

  Bertram Sweeney was ten minutes early for his appointment at three. He sat in the outer office with Miss Carling and cursed himself for having arrived before the appointed time. He had cursed himself a dozen times before for the same reason, and every time he had sworn that he would never arrive as much as five seconds early again, and then, sooner or later, he did. He knew very well that Farnese was doing nothing beyond his closed door, and he had come to interpret the unnecessary waiting as a sign of Farnese’s contempt. He wondered what would happen if he were to come late just once, but he never quite had the nerve to try it and find out, and what he decided was that he would come late the very last time, the day he came to kill Farnese, if that day came. He liked to think of killing Farnese. Of all his fantasies, the only ones that gave him more pleasure were those concerning Farnese’s wife.

  Now, waiting and cursing himself and Farnese, he watched Miss Carling. He didn’t like Miss Carling. The only thing that kept him from hating her was the exhaustion of his hatred in the hating of so many others with priority. He was aware that she loathed him, found him physically revolting, and after the passing of the first feeling of pain and degradation that this reaction always aroused in him, it delighted him that she did. In his mind he became a kind of vulgar and artless Cyrano, exploiting his ugliness to elicit her horror. He kissed the back of her neck and pinched her bottom and whispered obscenities in her ear. He rocked with laughter at her terror and disgust. He would not kill Miss Carling the day he killed Farnese, but he might, for the pleasure of it, make her grovel for her life. The memory of her fear would expunge the memory of her disdain. Afterward he would always hear her pleading for Sweeney’s mercy instead of telling Sweeney arrogantly that he was early and would have to wait.

  It was almost time to go in. The clock on the wall above Miss Carling’s severe head showed two minutes before the hour. Well, it was going to be an interesting report, the very best yet, for several pages of the notebook in Sweeney’s coat pocket were filled on both sides with Sweeney’s cramped writing. It would even be worth the waiting, the humiliation and contempt and effluvial disgust, and in the last two minutes of the waiting, Sweeney closed his eyes and anticipated the turbulence, all the more violent for being controlled, that he was going to arouse in the man he served and hated and dreamed of killing. Abortive laughter began and grew. With appreciative malice, as if he were expressing his gratitude, he began to curse Farnese again. Slowly, one by one from his full repertory of obscenities, he selected and pronounced in the barest whisper the appropriate words.

  At three precisely, Miss Carling looked across at Sweeney and nodded once sharply to indicate that he could now go in. Sweeney did not see her nod, for his eyes were closed and he was not at the moment faced in her direction, but he had developed a kind of sensitivity to Miss Carling’s movements, feeling what he didn’t see, and he stood up at once and walked across to Farnese’s private door and let himself in. Farnese was sitting behind his desk in his usual posture, his fingers laced in front of him on the desk’s top, his eyes focused on the fingers. He didn’t look up or speak or give any sign whatever that he was aware of Sweeney’s presence, and Sweeney, crossing to the chair, resumed his inaudible obscenities. He sat down heavily and removed his notebook from his coat pocket and waited.

  “Make it concise,” Farnese said. “Give me only essentials, please.”

  Sweeney took a deep breath, releasing on the breath the last vile word, and began
his report. He did not read verbatim from his notes, and this disturbed and angered him, for he took pride in the detail and accuracy of his observations and would have preferred presenting them exactly as he had set them down. He was all the more angered because he knew there was no real necessity for brevity. Farnese was a phony son of a son with nothing to do that needed doing, but he always had to act, nevertheless, as if the time he gave to Sweeney was taken from other matters much more important and pressing. What Sweeney wanted to know was, what the hell was more important and pressing than a prowling nympho wife? Nothing was more important and pressing, that was what, and Sweeney knew it, and Farnese knew it, and both of them knew that the other knew it, and who the hell was fooling who? Well, Bertram Sweeney wasn’t fooled for a minute, that was sure, and it was really funny the way the stinking phony sat there like a God-damn stone, trying to act as if nothing he was hearing made any difference in the long run, and all the time his guts were in an uproar and he was sick to death inside with the rising violence of his fury. Realizing this, Sweeney felt almost compensated for the butchery of his report. His resentment gave way to his silent internal glee.

  “Wednesday afternoon,” he said. “I followed subject, Mrs. Farnese, to a restaurant on Fifth Avenue. She was alone. She drove a Jaguar car. I waited until she left the restaurant and then followed her to an apartment building on MacDougal Street. Subsequent investigation disclosed that she went to the apartment of a Mrs. DeWitt, a divorcee. She was there for approximately three hours, after which she again left alone and drove in the Jaguar to the small nightclub in the Village which is known as Duo’s and which I had occasion to mention in my last report. Leaving Duo’s, still alone, she drove to the residence near Washington Square which I also mentioned in my last report in connection with the piano player known as Joe Doyle. She remained in this residence until approximately one o’clock. She then returned home.”

  Pausing, he lifted his eyes to the little barometer of Farnese’s passions, the fine line of scar tissue along the lower mandible. The tissue was already livid, but Farnese’s face was in perfect repose. His laced fingers held one another quietly on top of the desk.

  “Thursday?” he said.

  “Thursday morning,” Sweeney said, “approximately eleven o’clock. Mrs. Farnese left in the Jaguar and drove directly to the residence she had left at one o’clock of the same morning. She went inside and remained there until almost noon, at which time she came out in the company of Joe Doyle. They crossed the East River into Kings County and drove east to Jamaica. Since my area of operation is restricted by your orders to New York City, I turned around there and came back. At regular intervals during the rest of the day, I called the apartment on Park Avenue to see if Mrs. Farnese had returned. The maid said she hadn’t. At nine o’clock that night I went to Duo’s to see if Joe Doyle was there or was expected. He wasn’t there and wasn’t expected. The bartender told me that he was on sick leave and wouldn’t return until Monday. Tonight, that is.”

  “I know what day it is,” Farnese said.

  “Yes. Of course.” Sweeney’s thick lips formed the shape of a sound that was not part of the report. “From Duo’s I drove to the residence of Joe Doyle. The Jaguar was not parked in front or in the vicinity. I parked across the street and down the block where I could watch the house. It was about a quarter to eleven when they returned. At twelve-thirty Mrs. Farnese left alone and went home.”

  Sweeney paused again, awaiting comments, but Farnese had none to make. He unlaced his fingers, flexed them, replaced them.

  “That’s enough,” he said.

  “What?” Sweeney said.

  “I said that’s enough. The rest of your report would be superfluous.”

  Sweeney folded his notebook slowly, leaving a fat index finger between the pages as a marker. He felt as if he had been slapped in the face, and his resentment was commensurate.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “I’m quite easily understood, I believe. I already know how my wife spent the weekend. Do you find it incredible that I should learn something about my wife without your professional assistance? I’ll tell you how I know. I know because my wife has the obvious mind of a perverted child. Her deceptions, even when she elaborates on them, are transparent. Friday she informed me that she was spending the weekend at the Fairfield County house of Samantha Cox. She went there, all right, but not with Miss Cox. She went with this Joe Doyle. Isn’t that true?”

  “She sure as hell went to Fairfield County. As you say, with Joe Doyle. I don’t know what particular place in the county they went to, because I left them at the line.”

  “I know. Your area of operation is only the City. All right, Sweeney. Your devotion to orders has been sufficiently established. When you’re speaking to me, however, please avoid profanity. I don’t like profanity. I think I’ve told you this before.”

  Sweeney didn’t reply. He lowered his eyes and removed his index finger from the notebook in a sign of complete capitulation. His report and his pride were now thoroughly mutilated, and he sought expression for his feelings in the deepest and vilest cavity of his brain. Farnese, after silence, spoke again. His voice was soft and measured, as if he were weighing his thoughts and words with special care.

  “Mr. Doyle has become a fixture,” he said.

  “He hangs on,” Sweeney said with concealed relish.

  “Yes.” Farnese unlaced his fingers and made a tent of them, placing their tips together with a careful exactness that seemed to reflect the quality of his thinking. “It’s unfortunate. As you have reason to know, I am, for reasons of my own, exceedingly tolerant of my wife’s social activities. There are times, however, when it becomes advisable to interfere, and I’m inclined to believe that now is one of the times.”

  Sweeney was offended by Farnese’s oblique approach to brutality. It made him sick. He had no such reaction to brutality in itself, however. In the pustule world, he had suffered and administered it far too often himself to make of it a particular issue. It was only the indirection, the tone and posture of sadistic piety, that offended him. There was a kind of minor salvation from the worst of hell, he thought, in calling a spade a spade.

  “The same as before?” he said.

  “Yes. Do you still have your contact with Mr. Chalk.”

  “Sure. Chalk’s always available.”

  “Arrange it.”

  Sweeney put his notebook away in his pocket. He sighed and coughed and wiped his thick lips with a soiled handkerchief. He sat staring intently at the handkerchief as if he expected to find it stained with blood.

  “The price will be up,” he said.

  “It was up last time.”

  “I know. From five hundred to seven-fifty. This time it’ll be a thousand. That’s Chalk’s schedule.” “Very well. A thousand.” “When do you want it?”

  “As soon as possible. Tonight?”

  “I don’t think so. Chalk’s a careful organizer. He doesn’t like to be pressed. Maybe tomorrow night.” “All right. Take care of it and let me know.” “Sure. You want to be there?” “Yes.”

  “I’ll talk with Chalk.”

  He heaved himself to his feet and stood waiting for a few seconds to give Farnese a chance to say anything more that he might want to say. Apparently Farnese wanted to say nothing, for he remained silent, and Sweeney walked out of the office and past Miss Carling in the outer office and down ten floors to the street. It was a long descent that taxed the endurance of his obese body, and he did not ignore the elevator because he enjoyed the exercise. It was rather because the small steel box in its deep shaft was suddenly the fearful instrument of a developing encroachment. Cornered and confined in his own gross self by what he had become and was and could expect to be, he was aware of a claustrophobic fear that he didn’t understand and refused to admit.

  In his car, a plain black Ford, not new, he drove to lower Broadway and was lucky enough to find a spot to park. He was compelled to walk
two blocks, however, to reach his destination, which was a small cigar and tobacco shop. This shop was operated by the man named Chalk, and Chalk himself, in a continuation of Sweeney’s luck, was sitting on a high stool behind a high glass counter. He was a thin man with a curiously flat face, plastered hair so glossily black that it was plainly dyed, and skin that looked burned out by some former terrible fever of the flesh, brittle and checked and gray-white, the color that his name denoted.

  In Chalk’s shop you could actually buy cigars and tobacco and cigarettes and numerous items essential or incidental to smoking, but the sale of this merchandise, although he made a profit from it, was not Chalk’s principal source of revenue. Most of his income came from the sale of marijuana, which was distributed in cigar boxes by half a dozen pushers operating from his rear room. Besides this, he was usually prepared to contract various lucrative odd jobs. Like, for instance, the odd jobs he had done for Bertram Sweeney acting as the agent of Oliver Alton Farnese.

  “Hello, Chalk,” Sweeney said now, placing one elbow on the metal frame of the glass counter and leaning heavily.

  Chalk nodded. “Hello, Sweeney,” he said. “Watch the glass.”

  “Sure,” Sweeney said.

  He shifted his weight a little as a concession to Chalk’s concern, but he didn’t remove the elbow. Chalk watched him with a worried expression until it became apparent that the glass was safe, at least for the present, and then he relaxed and sucked noisily at the sodden end of a dead cigar.

  “What’s on your mind, Sweeney?” he said.

  “I was wondering if Cupid’s around.”

  “Not now. Couple days since I’ve seen him.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I mean, is he available?”

  “Could be. He usually is. You got a job for Cupid?”

  “For someone. Client of mine wants a guy taken care of.”

  “How much care of?”

  “Nothing final. Just a good lesson he’ll remember.”

  “Oh. I see. Just dressed up a little.”