“I suppose it is.”
“In there, in the hospital,” the old man said, “I had this thought: What if, late at night, here in the casino, with no windows and no clocks, air conditioning out of vents all over, what if... Chuck, what if they add oxygen to the air? The very air we breathe, Chuck, this air all around us.” The old man looked around. “Here in this spider’s parlor.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” the dealer said, which was the absolute truth.
“Well, I wouldn’t know, either. Chuck. But what if it’s true? Spice up the air at night with extra oxygen, make the gamblers feel a little happier, a little more awake?”
“I’m going to have to call security now,” the dealer said.
“Oh, I’m almost done, Chuck. You sec, those penny slots downtown, they won’t lead me back anywhere. I threw myself away, and I’m not coming back at all. I would have checked out of this rotten life two or three years ago, Chuck, if it hadn’t been for this fatal attraction. Come out to the Strip late at night. Breathe deep. Get a little high on that extra oxygen, begin to hope again, get roughed up by security.”
“They don’t do that with the oxygen.”
“They don’t? Well, Chuck, you may be right.” The old man took his hands from his raincoat pockets. In his right hand, he held a can of lighter fluid; in his left, a kitchen match. “Let’s see,” he said and squirted a trail of lighter fluid onto the green felt of the table.
The dealer, wide-eyed, stomped down hard on the button. “Stop that!” he said.
The old man kept squirting lighter fluid, making dark puddles in the felt. “Security coming, Chuck?” he asked.
“Yes!”
“Good. I’d like them to travel with us,” the old man said and scraped the match along the edge of the table.
Love in the Lean Years
Charles Dickens knew his stuff, you know. Listen to this: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
Right on. You adjust the numbers for inflation and what you’ve got right there is the history of Wall Street. At least, so much of the history of Wall Street as includes me: seven years. We had the good times and we lived high on that extra jolly sixpence, and now we live day by day the long decline of shortfall. Result misery.
Where did they all go, the sixpences of yesteryear? Oh, pshaw, we know where they went. You in Gstaad, him in Aruba, her in Paris and me in the men’s room with a sanitary straw in my nose. We know where it went, all right.
My name’s Kimball, by the way, here’s my card. Bruce Kimball, with Rendall/LeBeau. Account exec. May I say I’m still making money for my clients? There’s a lot of good stuff undervalued out there, my friend. You can still make money on the Street. Of course you can. I admit it’s harder now, it’s much harder when I have only thruppence and it’s sixpence I need to keep my nose filled, build up that confidence, face the world with that winner’s smile. Man, I’m only hitting on one nostril, you know? I’m hurtin’.
Nearly three years a widow; time to remarry. I need a true heart to share my penthouse apartment (unfurnished terrace, unfortunately) with its grand view of the city, my cottage (fourteen rooms) in Amagansett, the income of my portfolio of stocks.
An income — ah, me — which is less than it once was. One or two iffy margin calls, a few dividends undistributed, bad news can mount up, somehow. Or dismount and move right in. Income could become a worry.
But first, romance. Where is there a husband for my middle years? I am Stephanie Morwell, forty-two, the end product of good breeding, good nutrition, a fine workout program and amazingly skilled cosmetic surgeons. Since my parents died as my graduation present from Bryn Mawr, I’ve more or less taken care of myself, though of course, at times, one does need a man around the house. To insert light bulbs and such-like. The point is, except for a slight flabbiness in my stock portfolio, I am a fine catch for just the right fellow.
I don’t blame my broker, please let me make that clear. Bruce Kimball is his name and he’s unfailingly optimistic and cheerful. A bit of a blade, I suspect. (One can’t say gay blade anymore, not without the risk of being misunderstood.) In any event, Bruce did very well for me when everybody’s stock was going up, and now that there’s a — oh, what are the pornographic euphemisms of finance? A shakeout, a mid-term correction, a market adjustment, all of that — now that times are tougher, Bruce has lost me less than most and has even found a victory or two amid the wreckage. No, I can’t fault Bruce for a general worsening of the climate of money.
In fact, Bruce... hmmm. He flirts with me at times, but only in a professional way, as his employers would expect him to flirt with a moneyed woman. He’s handsome enough, if a bit thin. (Thinner this year than last, in fact.) Still, those wiry fellows...
Three or four years younger than I? Would Bruce Kimball be the answer to my prayers? I do already know him and I’d rather not spend too much time on the project.
Stephanie Kimball. Like a schoolgirl, I write the name on the note pad beside the telephone on the Louis XIV writing table next to my view of the East River. The rest of that page is filled with hastily jotted numbers: income, outgo, estimated expenses, overdue bills. Stephanie Kimball. I gaze upon my view and whisper the name. It’s a blustery, changeable, threatening day. Stephanie Kimball. I like the sound.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” Agatha Christie said that. Oh, but she was quoting, wasn’t she? Shakespeare! Got it.
There was certainly a flood tide in my affair with Stephanie Morwell. Five years ago, she was merely one more rich wife among my clients, if one who took more of an interest than most in the day-to-day handling of the portfolio. In fact, I never did meet her husband before his death. Three years ago, that was; some ash blondes really come into their own in black, have you noticed?
I respected Mrs. Morwell’s widowhood for a month or two, then began a little harmless flirtation. I mean, why not? She was a widow, after all. With a few of my other female clients, an occasional expression of male interest had eventually led to extremely pleasant afternoon financial seminars in midtown hotels. And now, Mrs. Morwell; to peel the layers of black from that lithe and supple body...
Well. For three years, all that was merely a pale fantasy. Not even a consummation devoutly to be wished — now, who said that? No matter — it was more of a daydream while the computer’s down.
From black to autumnal colors to a more normal range. A good-looking woman, friendly, rich, but never at the forefront of my mind unless she was actually in my presence, across the desk. And now it has all changed.
Mrs. Morwell was in my office once more, hearing mostly bad news, I’m afraid, and in an effort to distract her from the grimness of the occasion, I made some light remark, “There are better things we could do than sit here with all these depressing numbers.” Something like that; and she said, in a kind of swollen voice I’d never heard before, “There certainly are.”
I looked at her, surprised, and she was arching her back, stretching like a cat. I said, “Mrs. Morwell, you’re giving me ideas.”
She smiled. “Which ideas are those?” she asked, and forty minutes later we were in her bed in her apartment on Sutton Place.
Aaah. Extended widowhood had certainly sharpened her palate. What an afternoon. Between times, she put together a cold snack of salmon and champagne while I roved naked through the sunny golden rooms, delicately furnished with antiques. What a view she had, out over the East River. To live such a life...