Margie

by Howard Fast

  Margie could not have cared less what time it was. She dozed, awakened, and dozed again. She wondered why she had never really understood or appreciated Hy Golden before. A chill found its way into the elevator, but cradled in Golden’s outsized arm and wrapped in the Governor’s wife’s mink coat, Margie was snug and warm and deliriously remote from everything. When she slept, she dreamed that at either end of the shaft the massed forces of Dravina were waiting with àn assortment of pistols; when she awakened to the darkness of the elevator, broken only by virile snores, it was with a sense of reassurance.

  Time passed as it usually does, and suddenly the elevator began to move. They woke up and the lights were on, and they were descending, and in the distance the hoarse, official tones of Lieutenant Rothschild receded. Margie and Golden and Compton only had time to stagger to their feet when the elevator stopped at the lobby level. Outside, dawn was breaking. The great blackout was over.

  Strangely enough, the lobby was almost empty. A single policeman was on duty, and just as their elevator had completed its downward journey with the resumption of the electric current, so had the Police Commissioner’s elevator completed its upward journey. The policeman hardly noticed them as they went past him to the entrance of the building—for suddenly the building came to life, other elevators descending, people coming in with sandwiches and coffee, people descending from above.

  They paused at the entrance. Alan Compton looked from face to face. “Bless you, kids,” he said “Take off.”

  “We can’t let you do it for us.” Golden protested.

  “I want to do it. I have to do it. I gave you my word. So don’t argue about it. Just take off.”

  “We will remain here and explain.”

  “No time to argue,” Compton said, grim-faced and earnest, like Humphrey Bogart in a Bogart film. “Take off. I can handle this. Remember, I will have Fenton with me.”

  Margie jerked Hy Golden’s hand. “Come on now, Hy,” she said. “Alan will be all right.”

  “And take care of her,” Compton said, looking at the small, wistful, barefooted figure in the mink coat. “She’s been through enough—”

  They started down the street—or rather up the street, since they were headed toward Fifty-seventh—and at the farther corner Margie paused and looked back. Compton still stood there, his small figure almost heroic, almost tragic, as he faced his destiny like the major character in a Greek drama.

  “It’s so easy to misjudge people,” Margie said earnestly to Hy Golden.

  “It certainly is.”

  To which Alan Compton might well have said, “Amen,” as he turned back into the office building to face firmly whatever destiny awaited him. At that moment he could have written a profound essay, entitled, “On feelings of nobility, and the effect of such upon the circulatory system and the adrenalin gland.” His head erect, his chin firm, his light hair parted loosely and gracefully, in appearance not unlike one of the younger Kennedy brothers, he entered the lobby of the building just as the Commissioner, Rothschild, Kelly, Cohen, and Fenton Compton came pouring out of the elevator—Fenton still in his running shorts and his oversized policeman’s jacket, and still with the mettle and dignity of a Compton; to which his first, fighting words as he saw his cousin bore witness, namely:

  “I demand to call my lawyer!”

  “Shut up!” Rothschild answered gracefully, driving a grim, accusing finger at Alan Compton. “It’s you I want! So help me God, I will have the truth out of you and this runner if it is the last thing I ever do!”

  “Do your worst with me,” Alan Compton replied calmly.

  “Trust me!”

  The Commissioner and the District Attorney, having awakened to the fact that they had spent the worst blackout and the direst emergency ever to confront the city locked in an elevator between the eleventh and twelfth floors of an office building, departed rather hastily, leaving Rothschild to decide the destiny of the Compton cousins. For the moment Rothschild left the Comptons to the supervision of Sergeant Kelly, while he called his precinct and reported his adventures of the night.

  It must be said that Fenton graced the lobby. It is true that this was a morning when New Yorkers accepted almost anything with no more than a shrug and possibly a quick second glance; yet in his over-all story of background to the blackout the New York Times rewrite man felt impelled to include a paragraph which said, “One of the many unexplained bits of drama that wound up this unprecedented night was the sight of a man in running clothes and a policeman’s jacket in the lobby of a Park Avenue office building. The jacket was several sizes too large for him, and while the rest of the city pulled itself together, this scholarly-looking middle-aged gentleman jogged in place, keeping himself warm and in condition at the same time.”

  Rothschild returned and said, “Suppose we run into the elevator, Compton, and we’ll all have a look at Dravinian International.” Fenton paused in his jogging, and Rothschild said, “Oh no, keep running, old chap. He’s a runner,” he explained to a harassed man who was with him, and then told Alan, “This is the manager of the building. He joins our oil exploration.” And then he turned to the increasing crowd and barked with inept humor, “Stand back, stand back. Give the injured a little room and a little air.”

  They looked for the injured, while Sergeant Kelly commandeered an empty elevator and held the door open for the two Comptons, Lieutenant Rothschild, and the manager of the building. The elevator then went up to the twenty-second floor, and the party proceeded down the hall to the Dravinian International offices.

  “They moved out a week ago,” the manager explained, opening the doors with his key. “Gave up the keys. You got to watch these oil-exploration outfits because they are strictly fly by night unless they are backed by the big boys.” He led the way inside. The office was empty, orderly, and dusty. No lights were burning.

  “Who rented the place?” Rothschild asked. “Fellow by the name of Macbain? Or maybe a General Alexander?”

  “Man named Schwartz, if I remember right,” the manager replied.

  “Oh?” Rothschild prowled around the office. “Blood? That one who was shot—he must have bled a lot. You remember where the blood was, Compton?”

  Dazed, Compton stared at the spot near the filing cabinet. There was no blood, but then he could not remember whether the chauffeur was actually bleeding. He pointed to a dent in the cabinet.

  “One of them.”

  “What did he hit it with, a hammer?” Rothschild asked.

  “His head.”

  “Of course, his head. And the blood?”

  “I can’t really recall whether he bled or not.”

  “Oh? And the typewriters, Compton? The way I remember it, you were throwing typewriters all over the place.”

  “I was.”

  “And they smashed, shattered—right?”

  “Of course.”

  “No typewriters, no parts,” Rothschild observed, prowling through the place. “No blood, no bodies.” He turned to Alan Compton and asked gently, “Do I look like a patsy, Compton?”

  “Oh no. No, sir, Lieutenant.”

  “Do you imagine I enjoy being set up for a patsy?”

  “Oh no—absolutely not, sir.”

  “However,” Fenton put in, “this really places us out of it, Lieutenant. You will admit that. No bodies, no signs of violence. Therefore no charges. Which being the case, my cousin and I will now be on our way.”

  “Nope,” Rothschild said.

  “What do you mean, nope?”

  “I mean we all go back to the precinct and we talk this over.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I say so.”

  Alan Compton lost his temper, “You,” he said to Rothschild, “are a fuzz, a brute, and a bully, and absolutely no better than a state of Mississippi highway patrolman.”

  “What about the Bill of Rights, the Fourteenth Amendment, Habeus Corpus, and all the rest of it?” Fenton asked more calmly.

&nb
sp; “What about it?”

  “I promise you, sir,” Fenton continued, “that I will advance a false-arrest suit of gigantic proportions.”

  “I haven’t arrested either of you. I’m only detaining you. We will go back to the precinct and you may call your lawyer and talk it over with him. How about that?”

  “I demand our release!” Fenton shouted.

  “All right. Give us a new, revised version of what happened here last night.”

  They went back to the precinct.

  This time they sat on a wooden bench in the entranceway while Rothschild went up to his office. They sat there for almost an hour. Everyone who entered stopped to stare at the bony knees of Fenton Compton. Even hardened criminals paused to stare in astonishment at the bony knees of Fenton Compton—and let it be said to their credit that both Comptons stared back, every bit as hard and resolute as any cop or criminal.

  At the end of an hour Fenton’s lawyer appeared. His name was Biddle D. Hushman, and he looked every inch of it. Shaking hands with Fenton, he said, “This is outrageous.”

  “Outrageous,” Fenton agreed.

  “Outrageous.”

  “Absolutely outrageous,” Fenton said.

  Mr. Hushman turned to the desk and said, “I demand to see Lieutenant Rothschild.”

  “All right,” the sergeant at the desk agreed, and he picked up the telephone, called Rothschild, and said, “There is a Mr. Hushman here, who is Mr. Fenton Compton’s lawyer, and he demands to see you.” Then he said to Mr. Hushman, “Lieutenant Rothschild says that he will be right down.”

  Mr. Hushman paced angrily for a minute or so, and then Lieutenant Rothschild appeared and introduced himself.

  “I am acting for both Comptons,” Mr. Hushman snapped. “I demand that they be released immediately. And I assure you that all legal measures will be taken to protest and recover on this vicious detention.”

  “Detention?” said Lieutenant Rothschild. “I am surprised. We have made no attempt to detain these gentlemen. They are not handcuffed. They have not been arrested or charged with any crime. I was under the impression that they were cooperating with the police. But they were free to leave. Why don’t you ask them whether they made an effort to leave?”

  Mr. Hushman stared at Rothschild with justified suspicion, and then he turned to the Comptons and asked them.

  “That miserable crumb of a fuzz—” Alan began, only to be interrupted by Rothschild, who reminded Mr. Hushman that such talk was actionable.

  “You dare to mention the word actionable!” Hushman snorted.

  “Well, sir,” Rothschild said, “I fail to see what you are so exercised about. Suppose we talk man to man—Harvard?”

  “Brown,” snapped Mr. Hushman.

  “Brooklyn College. I merely wish to establish my credentials, because your clients insist on rich adjectives. However, at this moment I am a precinct cop and reasonably busy, so will you please take your goddamn clients and get to hell out of here!”

  Outside on the street Hushman said to them, “Now what was that all about?”

  Both Comptons shook their heads tiredly. Fenton needed trousers, and both needed food and sleep—in that order. Alan Compton began to remember. “Margie—I must find out whether she is all right.” To which Fenton said, “She will be all right. I find it impossible to suggest any circumstances under which your Margie—if she really exists—would not be all right.”

  Hushman said, “I still think we have an actionable position.”

  CHAPTER 12

  In which Margie takes the bit in her teeth.

  ON THE BEST and most normal of mornings it takes a good deal to excite the curiosity and interest of New Yorkers. On this particular morning, after the lights had gone out and had remained out for so long, the sight of a pretty girl, barefooted in a mink coat, was absolutely nothing unusual. Too many thousands of men and women had spent their night in idle subway trains, where they were trapped, in elevators, in terminals, hotel lobbies—and in every other conceivable place a person might spend a night if he had to—too many for any one of them to wonder where Margie’s shoes were. Margie herself was uncertain.

  “Where do you suppose I put them?” she asked Hy Golden.

  “Aren’t your feet cold?”

  “I think I threw them at the General or at pinstripe or someone—”

  “Maybe I should carry you?”

  “Hy, you are a darling, but how do you think I would feel if someone like you were carrying me down the street? Anyway, in Kapatuk, New York, where I grew up, we used to go barefoot whenever we could, and believe me, I don’t mind it one bit—not on a beautiful morning like this. Isn’t it a beautiful morning, Hy?”

  “It looks a little hazy. I would guess that the air-pollution level is about fifteen. That’s pretty high.”

  “How can you?” Margie demanded as they crossed to the north side of Fifty-seventh Street and turned west.

  “How can I what?”

  “How can you talk about the air-pollution index on a morning like this? On a beautiful, wonderful morning like this—when the sun is shining the way it is.”

  “Well,” Hy Golden said, shaking his head seriously and thoughtfully, “you can’t just ignore the question of air pollution in New York. I was reading an article about it, and it underlined the fact that we are behaving like ostriches—I mean we bury our heads in the sand, while the air we breathe becomes more and more polluted, to the point where soon we will not be able to breathe at all—and that is nothing to look forward to—”

  “What were you saying, Hy?” Margie asked.

  Hy Golden stared at her doubtfully and then shook his head and asked her where they were going.

  “To the Governor’s place, of course. Can you imagine any other place in the world that I would go right now? Oh no—I am going straight to the Governor’s place and I am going to put this mink coat and a diamond bracelet I have in my pocket right into his wife’s hands, and I am going to say to her, just as plain as can be, ‘Thank you, darling, but it’s really too old for me, and I don’t think that a girl in my position in life should wear diamonds, that is unless she is actually married to the Governor, which I am not.’”

  “But you can’t do that!”

  “And why not? I know where he lives. It’s on Fifth Avenue, just a few blocks north of the Plaza, where the cop always stands in front of the house looking so innocent, just as if he had no idea who lives there; not only the Governor, but that man who ran for President or something—what was his name?”

  “I know who you mean, but I don’t remember the name,” Hy Golden answered. “But you can’t just walk into the Governor’s apartment. Not at this hour of the morning.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’ll have you arrested or something.”

  “He will not. Any man who is as good-looking as the Governor does not go around having girls arrested, and if you don’t know that, you know absolutely nothing about men.”

  “Well, how about his wife?”

  “She’ll be so happy to get her mink coat and bracelet back—”

  “Ha! She never even knew they were missing.”

  “Hy, you know just as little about women as you do about men. I admit that you are very good with hoodlums and people like the General and that awful Gerald Macbain, but when it comes to things like this, you should trust me.”

  “What do you mean, I’m good with hoodlums?”

  “Oh, Hy,” Margie said, “I only mean that you were brave and wonderful, and I guess I owe my life to you. I suppose it’s hard for you to look at yourself as a hero, but that is just what you are.”

  “I still don’t think we should bust into the Governor’s house. We could go to the police—”

  “Do you know something, Hy?—when you have a matter of importance, you go straight to the top. And this is a matter of importance.”

  They turned north on Fifth Avenue and went to the top. Margie’s stockings had developed ho
les in the bottoms and in the toes, and the policeman who stood in front of the apartment house where the Governor lived regarded her shoeless feet without enthusiasm. But the mink coat balanced it out.

  “I have no make-up because I have no purse because somewhere there I threw it at someone, and I really could not care less,” Margie whispered to Hy Golden. “Do I look dreadful?”

  “You look very nice,” Hy Golden said.

  She told the doorman, “I would like to talk to the Governor.”

  “Oh? You got an appointment, miss?”

  “No.”

  “Nobody talks to the Governor, miss. If you had an appointment, I would put you through to his secretary. But you can’t just walk in here off the street and say to me, I want to talk to the Governor.”

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t, lady.”

  The policeman left the street and entered the lobby now and said to the doorman, “Any problems, Frank?”

  “I am telling them that nobody don’t walk off the street and talk to the Governor just like that.”

  “If no one talks to him,” Margie said, “then he is a very lonely man.”

  “Look, lady, I am not a psychologist, only a doorman.”

  “You mean a psychiatrist,” Margie said.

  “Whatever I mean, lady, you got no appointment. I cannot put you through.”

  “So why don’t both of you run along and not make any trouble for us,” the cop advised them.

  Margie was sorely tempted at this point to ask Hy Golden to pick up one of them and throw him at the other, but after a moment’s reflection she kept her temper and said to the doorman:

  “I suggest that you call the Governor and tell him that Margie Beck is here with the mink coat and the diamond bracelet intact, and I also suggest that if you don’t, both you and this officer of the law—as he undoubtedly regards himself—will be in very hot water. So there.”

  The doorman looked at the officer and the officer looked at the doorman, and then the officer nodded and the doorman shrugged.

  “What did you say your name is, lady?”