The Bamboo Blonde

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  All he said was, "Hello, hon. Ready to go?"

  She nodded. "Aren't we a little early?"

  "Thought we might stop for a drink on the way."

  "You've had enough as usual." He wanted to go back to that truly sinister bar; even an afternoon with Dare hadn't made him forget Pembrooke. She prayed the major wouldn't be there.

  He was whistling by the window when she returned with her army-brown silk duster. "Any callers?"

  "Only Kew."

  He twirled. "Only Kew!" He seemed suspicious and then he was casual again. "What did he want?"

  "He wondered if he'd left his cigarette case."

  "An ancient stall."

  She shrugged. "Maybe. Why should he need a stall? He could come any time without it. He's a friend of ours."

  "Yours. Did he find it?"

  "No. We looked. He decided maybe he'd dropped it in his room."

  "Probably in his pocket all the time." Con was disgusted. Was it that he thought Kew had come to see her and didn't like it?

  She hoped so. It would serve him right. She smiled in the darkness as the uncomfortable coupe rattled across the street fronting the bay. "We may see him tonight."

  She saw Con's face turn to her in the street light. It was expressionless. That meant he was angry. She didn't know why.

  "Does he know where we're going?"

  "Yes—" she began.

  "You told him."

  "Yes." She defended herself. "I couldn't help it, Con." He'd stopped the machine in front of the Bamboo Bar. "He asked us to join him and Dare at dinner. What could I tell him?"

  He stated, "I suppose you also told him who we were dining with?"

  "Yes." She knew she'd done wrong but not why or how. "What could I say?"

  He started the car again, swore at the traffic light snapping red, and said above the noisy coughs of the engine, "You could have told him we were busy and let it go at that, couldn't you? I asked you not to talk. Do you think I want him scooping me? Wives as a rule don't help out their husbands' business rivals."

  She hadn't thought of their being in competition. Con must be after a story too on this Travis. She said, "I'm sorry."

  He shot the car ahead at the first warning of green, quickly leftwards into Ocean Boulevard. "Maybe we can beat him there and sneak the Travises out somewhere else to eat."

  It was no more than ten to seven when they reached the Hilton, but the Travises were seated there waiting. Walker was a skinny young officer with a round preoccupied face, pale sandy hair plastered above a recessive forehead. He didn't look like a bright boy.

  Kathie was beautiful. Even the white chiffon dress, obviously made over and without style; the blue street coat over it with the big pink fish pin on the lapel, didn't diminish her beauty: the soft soot hair, the sad contour of her face, and her eyes, blue as early night, soot-lashed. The pin might have served as model for the bulbous examples on the beach-cottage cretonne, pink, with black spots superimposed on the enamel. No one with any taste could have selected, much less worn it. It wasn't hideously smart. It was hideously banal. But fish or no fish, Kathie was exquisite.

  Griselda looked at Con. He too knew that Kathie Travis walked in beauty. It had been too much to hope that he wouldn't.

  He was smiling at the girl, "I thought we might—" and then he broke off. Griselda saw where his eyes had strayed. White-linened Kew rising from one of the period chairs. He raised a friendly hand and started toward them. He was intercepted. Without her glasses Griselda couldn't be certain, but it looked as if the man patting Kew's sleeve was Sergei Vironova, Oppy's favored foreign director. She'd done costumes for one of his pictures.

  Con put his arm' through Kathie Travis's. "We'll eat in the Sky Room. O.K.?"

  Her smile was even lovelier than her quiet face. Griselda followed to the elevators with the dull lieutenant. It wasn't fair that Kathie Travis should exist with Dare already here. In the stereotyped beauty land of movie stars, Griselda wouldn't have been disturbed by any or all women. But Kathie didn't need the Westmores or Griselda Cameron Satterlee. And Dare didn't need anything. With gloomy foreboding Griselda watched Con bend down to the slight girl's words as the elevator rose swiftly to the roof.

  They sat on the terrace looking out at the sea that moiled in twisted currents to a once mythical East, land no longer of cherry blossoms and delicate things, land of drawn sabers and crashing bombs. A low parapet protected the diners from a sheer drop to the Pike below.

  Con suggested the menu, said, "We should have stopped at the bar first. Care to investigate it, Kathie?" He had said he wanted to see Walker Travis; it seemed he'd mixed up the forenames. Griselda wasn't surprised.

  She was left with the negative little officer. She didn't know how to make conversation with him; when she spoke he was a rabbit peering insecurely from a safe dark hutch. The weather, the night, Long Beach—he scuttled from each topic back into his hiding place. And then she stopped trying, watched silently the approach of Kew and Dare Crandall.

  They came directly to her. Dare kissed her, crying, "Darling, I'm so glad to see you again! I told Con I was just furious that he didn't bring you along this afternoon but he said you had other fish to fry."

  Dare hadn't changed although she had let her hair go back to neutral. It looked as brown hair should, shining as if light were upraised above it. Her body, draped in white wool jersey, would alone make women distrust her; it had, as Griselda remembered, the sleek lines of a polo pony. She was talking to Griselda but the slant green eyes in her almost ugly face were looking at Lieutenant Travis. And Griselda could have cheered. After thirty-odd years, Dare had met her match. Walker Travis wasn't any more impressed by her than if she were a waiter. He was peering into the lighted main room where his wife and Con were laughing at the great bar.

  And Con saw him. Quickly he returned Kathie to the table, said bluntly, "Hello, Kew. Hello, Dare." With incomprehensible rudeness he shouldered them out of the way to give Kathie her chair. When he sat down. Lieutenant Travis did too. It was obvious that Con wasn't going to make introductions; Kew and Dare knew it.

  Dare said, "We must see a lot of each other while you're here, Griselda. It's been so long—" They moved beyond to an unoccupied table.

  The husky sweetness of Kathie's voice was relief after Dare's pseudo-British shrillness. She asked, "Who are they?"

  Con said wickedly, "Friends of Griselda's. The girl's quite a decorator. For fame, not nickels. She was married to a mint, son of the tobacco Crandall. He was killed in a plane wreck. Before that she was the damn best newspaperwoman ever worked New York." He added disinterestedly, "The man is Kew Brent, the Washington columnist."

  Travis's eyes colored in recognition. "I read him," he said, as if he read nothing else in the paper.

  "Too many people do." Con was enjoying himself. "That's why he exists. Mrs. Crandall is here to decorate the Swales's house."

  "Admiral Swales?" Kathie raised her eyes.

  "Yeah. The daughter."

  Kathie said, "Oh," and her head turned slightly to where she could see the other couple, there where the low wall made an angle. She said softly again, "Oh. The Swales are terribly rich." She was like a naïve child. "She'll make their house beautiful, won't she? It's that big white one on Ocean. It has private steps to the beach. I was there once at a tea. I'd like to meet that—Dare." She sounded wistful.

  "Some other time," Con replied promptly. "Not tonight. I've spent the afternoon with her. That's enough."

  "You don't like her?"

  He laughed and he had the grace not to look at Griselda. "I might like an electric current but I couldn't stand it crackling in me twenty-four hours a day."

  The small lieutenant emerged from his silence temporarily. "You understand, dear, don't you?"

  "Yes, I understand." Her expression didn't change and her voice was gentle, but there was irritation gnatting behind the words. She devoted herself quickly to Con. "You've known her long?"

  "Ye
ah. Pretty long."

  Walker Travis spoke up, "Why are you so interested in her, dear?"

  Kathie hid the irritation this time. She said, "She sounds wonderful. She's rich, and she makes money besides, and she has beautiful clothes. She's really good-looking too, in a queer sort of way. She has everything, hasn't she?"

  Con said, "Uh-huh," not very interested; and Griselda to herself said, "Everything but Con." Nor was she going to have him. This time she'd fight Dare, foul or fair, preferably foul. She hated her being in Long Beach.

  Con began to entertain. It was deliberate, and if the Travises but knew, it was a rare compliment. Griselda herself hadn't heard these tales of Ethiopia, of Spain, of France. Whether or not they were true, they were exciting. She scarcely remembered that Kew and Dare were on the roof. And then he eyed the table sprawling with empty dishes. "Let's go somewhere clean." He grinned. "Some place where we can have a drink." He took Kathie's coat to help her but he didn't. "Where'll we go? Any suggestions? I'm afraid if I ask you out to our trailer we'll have drop-ins. Griselda and I seem to be awfully popular this season."

  Walker Travis spoke as if it were prearranged, "We could go up to our room." He looked for approval to Kathie but it was not forthcoming.

  Again there was no change in the Madonna face, the gentle chime of her voice. But her, "Oh, no," was definite as concrete, and her deprecating, "Hotel rooms are so dreadful," sealed her decision.

  Con stood up. "I like hotel rooms. I'm never really happy except in a hotel room."

  The fine chiseling of Kathie's chin wasn't soft. "They depress me." She turned her smile on him. "Let's go some place where it's fun, Con."

  Dare and Kew were preparing to leave too. It might have been that they'd only come to watch Con's party. Griselda knew that was absurd, quite naturally they would finish, even as they'd started, at approximately the same time.

  Con delayed. "We'll find something to amuse you. Now if it were New York…" He beckoned the waiter.

  Kathie moved to the parapet, stood there looking over at the dark tumultuous waters beyond the crowded Pike. Griselda shivered from a safe distance. The girl turned her head. Her eyes were shining as if lighted by the stars. "Look!" she whispered. Her hand pointed, a white tendril over the sea.

  Griselda shook her head. She said, "It would make me dizzy to stand there and look over." Saying something prosaic took away the gulp at the idea.

  Kathie's eyes were wondering. "Really? I love it." Her voice was shiny too. "It makes me feel as if I have wings."

  Walker sounded anxious, "Come, dear. We're ready to go."

  Again there was the faintest displeasure under the outline of her face but she obeyed, walking not to her husband but to Con. And the undercurrent had been swept away before he saw her face.

  CHAPTER 3

  Con said, "I'll get the car," and Griselda smiled. Kathie wouldn't be so eager for Con's company when she viewed that model.

  They stood there, not long, but conversation languished as always in idle waiting. She shouldn't have heard what Kathie said to Walker; Shelley Huffaker's headline in the night's paper had sprung at her, and she stepped to the newsstand.

  But Kathie had spoken too soon, too hurriedly, before Griselda was out of earshot. "Remember, Don't mention her." It wasn't spoken gently, even her voice seemed changed, harsh.

  Griselda didn't hear the lieutenant's answer. When she turned back, paper under her arm, Con had come through the door and Kathie's window was again dressed.

  They went into the always misted night. Con flourished, "Madame, the Duesenberg." Kathie didn't care for the form of transportation, not even when Con herded her into the center place leaving Griselda to sit on top of the lieutenant, to be bumped on knees and skull. Griselda presumed there was reason for all, for the Travises, for an afternoon with Dare, even for the horrible little car. She knew one thing. There must be explanation soon or her namesake's virtue wouldn't be one of her qualities.

  Con stopped at the Bamboo. "This is the best place I've found for fun." He was that determined to find the major; even a social evening couldn't give way for it. She wanted to speak to him; she had thought she glimpsed Kew's car following them as they drove out Ocean, not that there weren't other lean black roadsters in town. But Con gave her no opportunity: he was hanging on to Kathie as if he'd won her in a lottery.

  Griselda followed hesitantly; tonight, haunted by the memory of the blonde girl, the green shadows were not amusingly sinister. Major Pembrooke was not lurking in them, and Chang displayed no conscience about throwing Con to the Thusbys. he came happily to the table.

  "Drinks all around, Chang, and don't spare the bottle." This still wasn't Con, this hyper-gay spiriting; it was imitation of some of his newspaper colleagues in their cups, not Con with Barjon Garth's business on his mind.

  Without surprise flecking anyone's lips, not even those of Chang, Kew and Dare walked in. There was no eluding them this time. Dare's narrow wrist, gemmed with marquise diamonds, rested on Con's shoulder. "Are you preceding us, darling, or vice versa?"

  Kew had hands on two neighboring chairs. "Don't mind if we join, do you?"

  This time Con had to make the introductions. "Lieutenant and Mrs. Travis, Mrs. Crandall, Mr. Brent."

  Mrs. Travis knew Mr. Brent. She acknowledged the introduction but when their eyes met there was a secret, a delightful secret, hidden in hers. Kew, at some time during his two days in Long Beach, had evidently made yet another conquest. The rabbity husband wasn't to know; that was the why of the pretense here and earlier. It lifted one care from Griselda; she wouldn't have to worry about Kathie Travis chasing Con, her starry eyes encircled Kew alone.

  Dare wedged herself between Kathie and Con, not adeptly but with arrogance; Kew sat himself by Walker Travis. Griselda between the Navy couple was in observation post. She heard Kew working toward a column on naval radio, even while Dare's narrow jade eyes posed on Kathie.

  "I've seen you before, haven't I?"

  Kathie murmured, "Perhaps. We were at the Sky Room tonight."

  "I don't mean that." Dare's pointed elbow lay on Con's coatsleeve. She put a slender cigarette into her mouth, pressed her naked shoulder against his coat, tilted her head to him for a light. When she exhaled smoke she turned narrow eyes again. "You're Shelley's friend," she stated.

  Griselda waited, startled into immobility. Dare's statement was more than definitive; it was almost accusation. And then she noticed that she wasn't the only one waiting that answer. Con's lids were down, his ears up, and he wasn't drinking. More surprising, Walker Travis was ignoring Kew, and he seemed to want to say something but he didn't know how.

  Kathie's little laugh sound was obviously a play for time. And she asked stupidly, "You mean Shelley Huffaker?"

  "Certainly I mean Shelley Huffaker." Dare was brazen. She didn't make any attempt to keep her words to this table, and she was insolently amused by Kathie's scarcely hidden discomfiture.

  Again Kathie didn't seem to know what to say. She was hesitant. "Yes—I—we—I met her in Hollywood." She glanced around the circle, began again with apparently aimless volubility, "I hardly knew her. I hadn't seen her for months."

  Dare struck. "You had lunch with her yesterday." She said it without her usual triumphant arrogance; she said it almost quietly but it might have been a dart transfixing Kathie's security. No one spoke. Griselda was certain Chang—Mr. Alexander Smithery— wasn't hovering for reorders. He was listening as eagerly to the conversation as was Con, and Kew pretending to be engrossed by his cigarette.

  And Kathie denied it, denied it barefacedly, in that too sweet, soft voice, "No, I didn't."

  Dare persisted, her lizard eyes watching Kathie with unwavering certainty. "You called her the night before, at about six. You asked her to meet you for lunch at the Hilton."

  "Yes," Kathie agreed. "I called her. But I didn't lunch with her. She didn't show up."

  Chang moved one step to Con's shoulder. "Another, Mr. Satterlee?"


  "All around," Con ordered. And he turned to Kathie. "So you knew Shelley Huffaker."

  "Very slightly, Con. I hadn't seen her for the longest time. I didn't know her well, anyway." Her great eyes were an epitome of harmlessness but she had warned her husband not to mention a her, a her who could only have been Shelley.

  Dare wasn't satisfied. She glistened when she said, "If you knew her so slightly, Mrs. Travis, how did you know she was in Long Beach?"

  Kathie answered innocently, "I noticed it in the paper. And I just thought I'd call her and see if she'd have lunch with me." She leaned across Dare to lift her dark lashes to Kew. "There was nothing wrong in that, was there?"

  Again Dare answered, "Nothing wrong at all." Her laugh wasn't pleasant. "Save that she'd only just arrived and no one but myself knew she was in Long Beach. She particularly didn't want it known."

  Kathie was sweet but stubborn. "Some reporter must have found out." Her voice expressed her awe of the gentlemen of the press.

  Kew moved words between the contestants. Con had done nothing to alleviate the tension; he might have been egging the women on, sitting back there with that enjoying smile around his mouth.

  Kew spoke with such nice matter-of-factness, "The papers are saying she was your cousin, Dare. I never heard you mention her."

  "But, darling," she shrilled with delight and was her normal self again, "I don't go about mentioning my relatives in civilized society. You've never heard me mention Uncle Ebenezer or Aunt Jerusha or Cousin Marmaduke, I'm certain."

  "Of course, he's heard of your Aunt J'ushy, Dare," Con helped out. "You remember the time she brought her old Tom in the canary cage—"

  They were off again, Kew and Dare and Con, the three. No matter what worldly ladders they had climbed since their days on the old World, there would always be the past, delightful hare-brained past, linking them. And as always when they were off again, Griselda felt left out and lonely. But tonight they did not retain the mood. It did not interest them. The reason was obvious. It was the mild naval lieutenant sitting there, quite frankly not understanding, and feeling sheepish because he didn't belong. All of them, even Dare who had no business with him, were there because he was present.