Stanley stopped and glanced at his watch. I saw by my own that it was close to eleven o’clock. He stood up, moved casually across the room to the closet where he’d carefully hung his tan topcoat an hour ago, took It from the hanger, slipped his arms into it without giving the appearance of a wrinkle anywhere, reached his faultlessly molded hat from the shelf above.
I almost hated to see him go. A good front man, no matter how wild. And it was too bad he sort of broke up, though it was hard to believe that now, when it got a little rough. But nobody has everything.
Charley, too, swung himself up from the lounge. His master’s voice hadn’t said anything, but maybe he was too well trained to need it.
“What about the car?” he asked.
“Don’t touch it,” Stanley ordered. “It’s safe forever, right where it is. Nobody goes near the garage of the house out there. And if you go out there to Englewood, don’t you go near it, either.”
“Well, what about that paint job? I’d like to use it.”
“That’s out. We may have a better use for it, right the way it is, paint, fender, stains, broken headlight, and all. You found it in Buffalo, and you stole the plates too, in Albany, bringing it down. Maybe we’ll give it to somebody later on. A give-away sale to one of my partners, perhaps Ravoc. We’ll see. Coming, Charley?”
Charley picked his coat from the back of the lounge. Belle stood up, crossed to the door.
“Are you serious about that Francoine Studios investigation?” she asked.
“Of course. There’s bound to be something. Why don’t you make an appointment there, yourself, before you see the woman? Make yourself even prettier.” He beamed at her. “There’s always gossip about other customers.”
“But what if there just isn’t anything at all in that line?”
“Don’t be so literal,” said Stanley, still beaming. “Any information, no matter what, can be useful. Inquire about Shana Hepworth, especially. Where is that mysterious husband of hers? Any information you get, no matter how far back it goes, in fact the farther back the better, fits some place in the design of a guilty personality, purifying through a wholesome fear, if nothing else. If I have to confront her with some forgotten episode, for instance, it was Ravoc who remembered and revealed it of course, and what effect would that have on her? And on him?”
I had a strange feeling close to laughter. Without realizing it, Belle’s own face showed the master-mind was giving her a fright, right then and there.
“You’re good, Stanley,” I said. “You could make Little Red Ridinghood think she’d eaten the wolf. And show her a piece of the fur, to prove it.”
I’d struck another jarring note, it seemed, and Stanley didn’t like it. There wasn’t any note the thinker really liked, as a matter of fact, except appreciation. Too bad. But when something went wrong, and in this set-up that would mean this Ravoc ape, I would have to take care of it, trusting to luck, while Stanley climbed into the trees. Unless, this time, I discounted half of Stanley’s delusions in advance, and used my own better judgment. Also in advance.
But Stanley ignored my crass vulgarity. Instead, he reminded me of tomorrow’s assignment.
“Just locate some promising clients carried by Inner Light, Fenner. Some really tragic case, where the girl has already patronized dozens of these salons, perhaps one of the Francoine Studios, at some time in the past. It doesn’t have to be perfect. We won’t follow all the way through on it. The shock, the realization that some force is determined to redress this wrong, that other cases of criminal malpractice may also be uncovered, ought to have a salutary effect, particularly here,, where the enormity is so flagrant.”
I said, soothingly, “All right, I get the idea. The winner of a beauty contest, after the permanent-wave machine overcooked her.”
Stanley said he would phone on the following night, and both of them left. When they were gone, Belle poured herself an outsized dab of Scotch, drank it, poured a chaser of the same. She brought it over to a writing cabinet, over which there hung a large, heavy, oval mirror. She put the glass down on the cabinet and looked at herself in the glass, then, by reflection, she looked at me. Our eyes caught there, in the mirror, and held.
“Well?” She broke the gaze, to touch a lipstick to the corner of her mouth. “What are you looking at?”
“Something all the money in the world can’t buy,” I said. “A face. If you haven’t already got it, a young, perfect, beautiful face.”
She gave herself a different look, seemed satisfied, then still peering into the mirror, returned her reflected glance to me.
“God, now you’re beginning to talk like Stanley, yourself. Something’s been bothering you all evening. If I know the way your mind works, and I do know that wonderful hell-hole, you’re inventing some serious trouble. What is it?”
“Not inventing it,” I said. “Trying to prevent it. Insurance against trouble, really.”
She said, lightly.
“And? Yes? Well?”
I didn’t quite know, myself. How to explain it to Belle, what to do with it. I poured myself a drink, lifted the glass and stared into the dark inch it contained.
“Stanley has already parlayed that traffic ticket about as far as it will go,” I said, at last. “I think we will have to parlay something else, more personal, to take us the rest of the way in. One of those partners may start to think it all over. This Ravoc, probably. They’re not really hooked. Yet.”
Belle asked, quietly, “What else? And how personal?”
I didn’t answer this, directly. There was still a different question that had been nagging at me, and now I advanced that one.
“Another thing. Stanley seems to think he is in business on a permanent basis. I don’t. To me, it looks like we’re conning something almost as cautious and complicated as banking and merchandising. We’ve got a chance to grab a package, but that’s all it is. A big package, but it has to be wrapped up and taken inside of a few months, or even weeks.”
Belle spoke into the mirror, unmoving except for her lips.
“All right. We both know Stanley. But what about that insurance against trouble?”
“This Shana Hepworth. I take it she has a lot of looks. What if she receives a present from this Ravoc, an occurrence that can’t be so very unusual, say an exquisite atomizer? Or a set of antique jars filled with face creams? But whatever it is, the stuff turns out to be loaded with sulphuric acid?”
Belle whirled around, taut and white, hysterical with fear.
“My God. You wouldn’t. Not even you.”
I tried the drink, seeing some of the possibilities.
“Thanks,” I said. “But I wouldn’t what?”
“Do that, Fenner. Destroy that woman’s face. That’s everything she has. Any woman has. You wouldn’t do that. Say you were joking, Fenner. Say it.”
I leaned back and looked at her. She was really beautiful, and I could see what such a thing would mean.
“It does get you, doesn’t it?”
She echoed the phrase, in sudden despair.
“Get me. Fenner, you’re not human. God, what am I married to?” I waited for this schoolgirl hangover to get lost of its own accord, the way it always does, and the only way it can. Then she studied me again, a little more carefully. “But you haven’t told it all. There’s more. What’s the rest of it?”
This was more like Belle. Actually, she could be, and often was, rougher and tougher in her innocent, angelic way than Charley, Stan, and myself put together.
“I haven’t told you anything yet,” I pointed out.
“After you’ve ruined that woman’s face and wrecked her life, then what?”
“I don’t intend to ruin anyone’s face,” I told her, with emphasis, and beginning to be annoyed. What kind of a man did she think I was, anyway? Somebody like Stanley could do anything, and by putting a sweet label on it, everyone loved it, even Belle. Yet when it came to some practical action, not half as crude, but without
benefit of a flowery publicity release, that was out of bounds and against the rules. It might be just silly if it weren’t so dangerous, that Belle came to believe in the very bill of goods we were trying to sell, as Stanley seemed to be doing more and more of the time. “I’m not going to wreck anybody’s face, Belle. At least, not a woman’s.” It occurred to me what a pleasure it would be to improve Stanley’s, but I didn’t say so. “There aren’t enough good-looking numbers to go around, as it is. No. But let’s get one thing straight, first, and get it straight for once and for all. Who’s been doing all the talking in this family about money, plenty of it, and then lots more? Have you ever heard me talking, all day and every day, about clothes, rocks, sables, limousines, servants, resorts, travel, and God knows what? When we’re in Paris we’ve got to be in South America, when we’re in Bio we’ve got to be back on The Strip, and when we’re out there in Vegas we’ve got to be three other places, Maine, Washington, Miami, or here.”
“All right, all right, don’t play the whole record.”
“Well, do you want that, or don’t you? If you don’t, say so now. Personally, I don’t have such expensive ambitions. I liked it just as well doing routine publicity, investigation, and promotion.”
Belle made a face filled with rapt admiration.
“Yes, indeed, Mr. Griscom, sir, I’ll bear that in mind in the future.” I nodded, and she went on, seriously, “I knew you didn’t mean that about the acid. But I don’t get it. What is it?”
I stopped, trying to see more of the possibilities. I had considered sending stuff that would mark the woman, and still did, but there was no reason to tell this to Belle.
“I haven’t worked it all out, myself,” I admitted. “But suppose she receives this atomizer, or the cream, and she discovers, even without using it, the thing contains a solution of corrosive acid. Weak and diluted, not dangerous, but it frightens her, or else it’s so obviously hot she won’t touch it at all but it gives her even a bigger scare. And the name of the sender is Ravoc, her boy friend. It would worry her, wouldn’t it?”
“It would kill her. But she’d get over it.”
“I mean, what would she do? She’d take it straight to Ravoc. He’d deny it, and probably she’d believe him, but both of them would understand they’d been given a strong hint. The first one could be followed with another gift. An attractive container of lipstick, also a caustic. And then with something else. A waiter in a restaurant might spill a glass, or a stranger in a night club, and it would splash in her face. It would be water, but she wouldn’t know that. She would never know where the next one was coming from, or what it might be. And that would put it all up to this Ravoc. What would he do? He sees he’s not only losing his girl friend, but knows by now he must have some kind of a high card in this deal, and she’s afraid of him, but besides that, Ravoc sees he’s been elected to take the fall for it, if she does happen to lose a piece of her face. What will he do, in the middle of that kind of a squeeze? Anything he’s told, to get out of it.”
Belle began to shake her head, slowly, and went on shaking it. She laughed somewhere down in her throat, without any fun.
“You are so low, Fenner, so low you really, truly, actually can’t understand, any more, how other people think, not even how they feel.”
I nearly yelled, but managed to swallow it just in time.
“Now what? I already explained, the lady’s not necessarily going to get hurt.”
“At least, not much.”
“She’ll get the scare of her life, that’s all.”
“Until something happens, something you never even thought about. But that’s not the point, Fenner. You’ve got the question wrong. It’s not what Ravoc will do. What will she do?”
I felt she probably had a good, sensible hunch, there. But I couldn’t quite untangle it. I finally said:
“Well, what can she do, except get frightened and blame Ravoc?”
Belle walked across the room and sat down on the arm of my chair. She ran her fingers through my hair, lightly, and hummed a breath of song. Then she remarked:
“Maybe I didn’t bring you up right. Somebody forgot to tell you some of the facts of life. All relationships are not the same as ours.”
I twisted around and looked at her. Those violet eyes in that face like new snow, with a red spring flower in the middle of it, also new, this blend, although it was false and meant nothing at all, still had exactly what I thought it had when I saw it first.
“And what’s the matter with ours?”
“Well, nothing, I guess. It’s you. You’ve changed. You’re turning into stone. Not just on the outside. All the way through.” I stared at her, feeling too comfortable and too lazy to react. “Well, don’t you want to say something, Mr. Griscom? A correction?”
Why not? It meant nothing, now.
“A recollection, let’s say. Eighteen or twenty thousand dollars’ worth of the Erie Chemical Company checks, scattered between there and Fort Worth. I wonder who’s saving all that paper today?”
She said, sharply, “That’s something to remember, all right. What made you think of that?”
“That was the first time I even knew a check protector could be a help, not a handicap. You taught me how, remember?” If she did, it didn’t show, and probably all of it went right past her. “But go ahead, don’t let me interrupt you. I was turning to stone. Go on from there.”
She frowned for a moment, stirred, settled herself.
“I was talking about Ravoc and Hepworth, and the fact that not all people fight like cats and dogs, something you’ve forgotten. She might not blame him for anything. She might even trust him, from the beginning. They could be in love. A lot, I mean. And if she gets the idea it’s Ravoc we’re trying to reach, then she will be the one, not Ravoc, who makes the real bid.” Then, after another moment of thought, she wound it up. “When I see her, I’ll size her up. And at the same time, I’ll give her something to start thinking about.”
It didn’t hurt to let her dream on. But the fact is, all people do fight. And in the end, it would come down to the man, nobody else.
The most reasonable thing for him to do, or try to do, would be to cut the woman and her troubles completely loose from himself. Why should he bother with them? Otherwise, he might get a new face out of it, himself.
And if he tried to get away from her, he would certainly be the first person she accused. No, we had both of them, either way. And this could be worked through the offices of Campaign Consultants, so that I not only had Ravoc, but Stanley, too, and perhaps some of his partners. This gave me a handle to all of them. The idea began to look better.
Belle slipped from the arm of the chair, into my lap. She asked, dreamily:
“Would you really do that for me?”
“Do what?”
“Ruin that woman’s face?” I gave her another and a still different stare. “It’s a dreadful notion. I know you wouldn’t actually do it. But it’s so wonderful, Fenner, that you even thought of doing it.”
Her face was in repose, and childlike. It was even enraptured, as though by some stray thought or fancy. And I knew what that stray fancy was. The image of a woman’s face, once beautiful, marked and scarred.
I said nothing. I picked her up and bore her toward the bedroom. I saw her white legs, and her angelic face, and at the same time I tried to estimate the formula for the face cream, how much acid it could take and absorb in a solid oil compound closely resembling it. Sulphur trioxide. Or better yet, dimethyl sulphate.
Had she really said, Would you really do that for me?
Chapter VI
Shana Hepworth
Almost the first thing to happen that morning, not five minutes after I reached the office, was one of those nice things that, when it does happen, seems a lucky omen that changes and fixes one’s whole mood, and promises to light up the entire day.
It was a gift from Jay. Just a matching set of jars containing face creams, each of them handwork
ed silver, very heavy and a little over-exquisite without being really different, and what would Jay know about the creams I actually use? But the jars would look well on the dressing table, and what really counted was that he had thought of them at all, without there being some special occasion, other than just wishing to send me a present.
The Generous Heart Page 8
