Shirley

by Howard Fast

  “Albert is through,” Shirley said, breathing deeply. “You might as well face that, Joey. Lover boy was never much of a starter to begin with, and now he’s through. So why don’t you drop that knife? I hate knives. It does something to my stomach.”

  “She’s right. Drop the knife, Joseph. Otherwise, I’ll kill you, and don’t think I’d stop at it. If I didn’t care about the other things, I don’t care about this either.”

  Santela faced Stillman then, and then he dropped the knife. “Lousy little bastard!” he screamed at Soames. “Lousy rotten faggot bastard. I’ll kill you! I’ kill you! So help me God, if it takes the rest of my life, I’ll get you and kill you!”

  “Shirley,” Stillman said tiredly. “Pick up the phone, please, and call the police.”

  She did just that.

  12. The Cold Dinner

  With Detective Romano driving, Lieutenant Burton sitting beside him, and Assistant District Attorney Larry Cohen sharing the back seat with Assistant Office Manager Michael Bergan, the squad car careened into East Seventieth Steet and began the short race between Fifth and Madison Avenues. The siren was open, screaming for traffic to clear the way for a priority mission of the City of New York, and then the whole process flattened because Detective Romano jammed on his brakes and practically stood the car on its head. Swearing over a barked shin, Lieutenant Burton demanded to know what in hell three prowl cars were doing, blocking the street?

  “Something’s up,” Detective Romano observed, climbing out of the car on one side and prompting the lieutenant to remark, as he climbed out of the other side: “You’ll get a service stripe for that. You are a hell of a profound detective. Now go and see what is up.”

  “I can tell you whose house that is,” Larry Cohen said to the lieutenant “That’s Morton Stillman’s place. It’s one of the few museum pieces of its kind left in town, a thirty-five foot whitestone occupied by a single old man. When he goes, it goes.”

  “It reminds me of the house,” Mr. Bergan said.

  “What do you mean it reminds you?” Burton growled, rubbing his shin. “I’ll see that half-witted Romano back in uniform, so help me God, I will! Is it the house or isn’t it?”

  Whatever Mr. Bergan’s decision would have been, it was halted and throttled by the emergence from the house of two pairs of uniformed patrolmen, and between each pair, carefully escorted, a dejected man. Burton halted the procession, showed his credentials, introduced Cohen and demanded the details.

  “It’s a big one, Lieutenant,” one of the patrolmen told him. “We got an attempt on assault, murder and grand larceny. Also, something for the bunco boys. Also kidnaping. In fact, it sounds like everything that anyone ever thought about.”

  “Let’s have a look at them,” Burton said.

  “That’s Morton Stillman’s house, Lieutenant,” the patrolman informed him. “Mr. Stillman is—”

  “I know who Mr. Stillman is,” Burton snapped. “Who are these two?”

  “This one—” One of the officers tilted Santela’s head up, so that his face caught the light of the sun that was just beginning to sink behind the trees of Central Park. “This one was Mr. Stillman’s private secretary. His name’s Joseph Santela. By the way, we can add to it, Sullivan Law. There’s almost nothing on the list they didn’t make. This one here, the punk, he is not familiar. He was packing a gun in a shoulder holster, just like on TV. The other one had a knife, so they’re both on the concealed weapons kick. This one is called Albert Soames.”

  Soames was weeping quietly.

  “What is he crying about?” Burton asked. “Did you push him around?”

  “Never laid a hand on either of them, Lieutenant, so help me. This is a weeper, that’s all. He was with the tears when we came in.”

  “You said kidnaping?”

  “That’s right, Lieutenant.”

  “Who? Who did they kidnap?”

  “Some kid from downtown. She’s a ringer for Mr. Stillman’s dead daughter. That’s where the bunco comes into it.”

  “Her name wouldn’t be Shirley Campbel?”

  The officer consulted his notebook and then said admiringly, “You hit the nail right on the head, Lieutenant”

  The officer stationed at the door of the town house was telling people to keep moving. “It’s all over, folks,” he said. “There’s nothing here. So just keep moving and keep the sidewalk clear.”

  Two of the prowl cars had driven off with Santela and Soames. Detective Romano asked Burton what he should do with the squad car.

  “Leave it in the middle of the street,” Burton replied sourly. “You don’t want the traffic to go by, do you?”

  “I know, Lieutenant I was just asking whether you wanted me to wait.”

  “Wait”

  “OK—OK,” nodded Romano, asking himself, “Now what the devil is he all burned up over?”

  “I want to see Mr. Stillman,” Burton told the officer at the door.

  “Sure, Lieutenant He said that if any of the police wanted to see him, I should take them in. Will you follow me, please?”

  The officer went inside. Burton followed him, and Cohen followed Burton, and Mr. Bergan walked along bleakly, following the assistant district attorney and the lieutenant. No one had asked Mr. Bergan to come, but then neither had anyone instructed him not to come. No one had congratulated him for finding the house where he had been once, ten years ago, but then, no one appeared to remember that he had been looking for the house. For thirty years, his life had been empty of any moment of true glory, of heroism, of that kind of selfless and heroic behavior that allows a man—or so Mr. Bergan thought—to stop doubting himself and to rest content upon the strong pinnacle of his own achievement. Now, finally, when that moment had come, it had even more speedily gone. Mr. Bergan had done nothing, contributed nothing, achieved nothing.

  As he walked through the ornate reception room, the past came back to Mr. Bergan, but it came back as history repeating itself. He had failed then as he had failed now. It occurred to him that he might pass by Cohen, overtake the lieutenant, tap him upon the shoulder and remind him that this was the house. He rejected the thought.

  “He knows it’s the house,” Mr. Bergan told himself.

  He also realized that Lieutenant Burton was in no mood to be reminded of anything, so he simply followed them through a broad hallway to the back of the house. Here the patrolman opened a pair of double doors, and Mr. Bergan saw a long, splendid dining room, crystal chandeliers overhead, and a table set with glittering service. At one side of the room, there was a broad buffet, crowded with platters of cold food. And at the end of the table, Shirley Campbel was eating her supper in the company of a small, white-haired old man. As they entered, the old man rose and looked at them inquiringly.

  Burton explained who he was, and he introduced the others, and when Larry Cohen shook hands with Shirley, he said that he was pleased to discover that she was real.

  “So am I,” Shirley said. “I am also pleased to know that I am alive. The only thing I don’t know is what is Mr. Bergan doing here?” There was a touch of asperity in her voice, and that reassured Mr. Bergan. It convinced him that this was the old Shirley, and that whatever she had been through, it had worked no basic change in her character.

  “Well—well, it just worked out that way.”

  “Mr. Bergan is being modest,” said Lieutenant Burton. “He led us here. The fact that we came late doesn’t alter the fact that he led us here.”

  “He did?” Shirley exclaimed.

  “Yes, he did.”

  “But how? I mean, how could he?”

  “I’ll tell you that later, Shirley,” Mr. Bergan mumbled. “I guess now, if you don’t need me—”

  “Please,” Mr. Stillman interrupted, “please, gentlemen, I have forgotten myself, my hospitality and my manners. That’s what comes of living alone for too long. Have you eaten dinner—or have I allowed you to stand here hungry?”

  There were no disclaimers.
Lieutenant Burton could not drag his eyes away from the platters of food, and Larry Cohen had missed his dinner again. Only Mr. Bergan felt sadly without appetite.

  “Then please join us in this cold supper. There is food enough and good wine, and it’s not so often that I have guests in my house these days. I think you will want to know what happened here tonight, and what better way to tell you than over a plate of good food. So please be my guests—all of you.”

  They were already heaping their plates when Stillman said to Cohen, “The more reason for me to welcome you here, Mr. Cohen. Your father and I were good friends. In fact, I think you met my daughter here a year or two before she died.”

  “You did?” Burton said to Cohen.

  The assistant district attorney shook his head helplessly, and Burton said, “You don’t need brains to be a cop—not at all. Only for the D.A.’s office.”

  It was an hour and a half later, and Burton and Cohen had gone their separate ways, and Mr. Stillman was left with Shirley and Mr. Bergan.

  Before leaving, Lieutenant Burton had taken Shirley aside and had said to her, “We may have to see you again, Shirley, and eventually you’ll have to be a witness in court—but that’s not for you to worry about. I don’t want you to worry about anything, and this is over.”

  “I didn’t think I’d ever feel good about a cop. I do.”

  “I’m glad you do,” Burton nodded. “You know, when a man has a stomach the size of mine and a daughter your age—which I have got—it gives him a certain freedom. So I can tell you that no other woman ever made me wish devoutly that I was twenty years younger.”

  Shirley went up on her toes and kissed him.

  “I’m a lousy cop,” he mumbled. “I should have been here before any of this started.”

  “You’re a wonderful cop,” Shirley grinned, and then he left, and after he and Cohen had gone, Stillman begged the two of them, Shirley and Mr. Bergan, to remain a little longer.

  “I’m a lonely man,” he said, “and tonight I’m a frightened man. I put up a cool front, but God, I was afraid.”

  “For yourself?” Shirley asked.

  “No,” he said. “No, my dear, I was afraid for you. I can’t tell you how afraid I was for you. You see, you tell me that my daughter is dead. Well, I have accepted that for a long time now. There was no other explanation why she would not get in touch with me. But when you came through that door—well, I knew you were, not Janet. I knew it the moment I saw you, but in another way you were. Every time I look at you now, I see my daughter—not the way she was—but the way she should have been. Yes, Shirley, the way she should have been, and not corroded with sadness and depression.” He addressed himself to both of them:

  “I loved her so much, and yet if you could have seen her—even when she was a child, that sorrow that pervaded her was a part of her, like a disease. If you had ever seen her, you would have remembered that sorrow. You would never have forgotten it. You would have remembered it.”

  “I did remember it,” Mr. Bergan said.

  They both looked at him curiously.

  “I remembered it because I was here once, ten years ago, and I never forgot her—and I don’t think I will in all my life. I thought it was the most beautiful face I ever saw. I guess it was.”

  “What on earth are you talking about, Mr. Bergan?” Shirley asked.

  Then he told her and Mr. Stillman the story of how he came to lead Burton and Cohen to the house. Shirley watched him as he told the story, haltingly, awkwardly, and she thought to herself that she had never really looked at Mr. Bergan before, or listened to him, for that matter. He was quite good-looking, and when he forgot about his position as assistant office manager at Bushwick Brothers, he was rather nice.

  When finally they rose to leave, Mr. Stillman went to the door with them. He said to Shirley, “My dear, I know how busy a young woman is—especially a young woman who works for a living; but what I ask is a short-term thing. I will even bluntly plead the fact that I have so short a time to live. Will you come to see me sometimes—have dinner with me, spend an hour. It need be no more than that.”

  “You know something,” Shirley said, “I’ll do it. Not because I feel sorry for you, but because I like you.”

  “Thank you, my dear,” the old man said. “Thank you for everything.”

  As Shirley and Mr. Bergan walked along Seventieth Street toward Fifth Avenue, Shirley took a handkerchief out of her purse and dabbed at her eyes.

  “You’re not crying, Shirley?” Mr. Bergan asked.

  “I am not crying, Mr. Bergan,” Shirley snapped at him. “Not by a long shot, I am not. In fact, I can inform you that I have not indulged in what is popularly known as feminine tears since I was maybe ten or twelve years old.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Bergan. Then, after a moment, he added, “My name is Michael. People call me Mike.”

  Shirley did not reply, and a few moments later, when they reached Fifth Avenue, Mr. Bergan said, “All right. I can face it. I am a loser, Shirley. I always have been.”

  “That’s a stupid thing to say.”

  “Maybe it is. God, I wanted so much to be a hero tonight. In front of you. I never wanted anything in the world as much as to be a hero.”

  “Mike,” Shirley smiled, “maybe you were.”

  Mr. Bergan took Shirley home in a cab. She told him that since it was so late, and since she was exhausted enough to sleep standing up, he should keep the cab and go on home himself. But on Minetta Street, as she got out of the cab, she leaned over and kissed him. It was her night for kissing people, she told herself. Mr. Bergan did not react. He just sat there, silent and dumfounded, while the cab drove away.

  As Shirley entered her house, Mr. Foley barred her path and demanded to know, once and for all, what was going on there.

  “You want to know?” Shirley said incredulously.

  “Indeed, I do,” the janitor replied.

  “Drop dead,” Shirley sighed, pushing him away, and said over her shoulder as she went upstairs, “One day, Mr. Foley, believe me, I am going to get angry with you. Just don’t ever ask me again what is going on. It is absolutely none of your business what is going on.”

  She entered her apartment, locked the door behind her and collapsed onto the sofa. She kicked off her shoes, stretched out her legs and took several deep breaths. Then she looked about her living room, making an inventory of its contents, seeing everything newly and with great pleasure and appreciation.

  She had been there perhaps five minutes, luxuriating in the simple fact of being at home when the telephone rang. She went into the bedroom to answer it, and the voice of Cynthia said:

  “Are you alive? Just answer me that. Are you alive?”

  “Cynthia, you would not believe it. You simply would not.”

  “Don’t I know that? I have been calling you every fifteen minutes for the past four hours.”

  “I mean it’s too much,” Shirley said.

  “I could write a book myself. Are you hurt? Wounded?”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “I could give you lessons in silliness,” said Cynthia. “I never cried so much in my life.”

  “I am perfectly all right. Exhausted—but otherwise nothing.”

  “Then start at the beginning. I want every word of it.”

  Shirley started at the beginning, and an hour later, Cynthia had more or less every word of it up to the moment Shirley had kissed Mr. Bergan.

  “Well, you know what I think?” Cynthia said at that point. “I think he deserved it absolutely—but absolutely. Because did you by any chance know that Mr. Morrow was going to fire you?”

  “No. The louse! Why?”

  “You know, absenteeism, insolence, etcetera, etcetera.”

  “Well! I can believe anything now.”

  “You won’t believe this,” Cynthia said smugly. “Just guess who went into Mr. Gerald Bushwick’s office and put up a stand up and fight for you?”

  “No?”


  “Mr. Michael Bergan. The same.”

  “Against Morrow?”

  “Against that very same louse.”

  “Oh—Cynthia! And I have been such a rat about him.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “I don’t know what makes me act like that. He says something nice to me, and what do I say to him?”

  “Drop dead.”

  “Exactly. Why do I do it?”

  “I’m no psychiatrist, Shirley, but I think you are being unduly defensive.”

  “Was he fired, Cynthia?”

  “Quite to the contrary. He was not only not fired, but Mr. Bushwick gave specific instruction to Mr. Morrow that you were not to be fired.”

  “How about that?” Shirley said.

  “So I think that right now you need some sleep.”

  “Right now,” Shirley said, “I need a long, hot bath, so that I can wipe off all traces of two creeps called Albert and Joey. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Just don’t get in late,” said Cynthia. “Just don’t give that Morrow a chance for anything.”

  13. You Only Live Once

  But the downfall of Mr. Morrow came quite differently, through an unexpected set of circumstances. Three weeks later, very suddenly, Morton Stillman died. Shirley had seen him four more times before his death, and had become very fond of him. It was a blow to her when he died, and she locked herself up in her apartment and after ten years, she allowed herself to weep. It was like a dam breaking, and it was good for her. She took the day off to go to his funeral, where she sat quietly in a corner, unnoticed by the Stillman family and unrecognized, since she had turned up the collar of her jacket, hidden her face behind a veil and her hair under a hat. She didn’t want any ghosts raised and she did not want any scenes over her resemblance to Janet Stillman.

  However, Mr. Morrow marked her absence, and sent a memo on the subject to Mr. Bushwick. He was a dogged man, and determined to come to his victory.

  Five days after this, Mr. Stillman’s will was read, and the following day, the newspapers carried headlines concerning an office employee of Bushwick Brothers on Houston Street, who had just come into a $250,000.00 trust fund. Shirley’s picture appeared alongside of a picture of Janet Stillman, and for the first time, at least a sketchy story of what had happened that night at the Stillman mansion was revealed in print.