“Just wanted to say that was very good tennis to watch, Mrs. Watts.”
“Thank you. Last year I could take Dave. Next year I won’t take a set. Do I know you?”
“Frank and Mandy Hopson fixed up a guest card for me. I’m just in town for a short time. Travis McGee, Mrs. Watts. East coast.”
The boy brought drinks, a Coke for himself and iced tea for Viv Watts. She introduced him. Dave Sablett. He seemed a little stiff-necked about her asking me to join them. He had a proprietary air toward her, to which she seemed quite oblivious. She was still breathing deeply, her hair damp with sweat. We chatted for a little while. They were signed up for mixed doubles beginning in a few moments. They were the club’s mixed doubles champions.
I watched the match begin and it was clear after two points they were going to take it readily. So I went back inside to see, perhaps at closer range, the other half of this happy marriage.
Seven
IN THE Saturday dusk I got a drink from the outside bar and moved out of the throng. In a few minutes Viv Watts came over to where I was standing. She had on a yellow summer cotton, a new mouth. Her manner and expression were tense.
“Maybe you’ll tell me what happened in there, Mr. McGee.”
“Nothing important. I guess your husband got a little abusive and his partner quit. So he was getting ugly about having no chance to get even. Nobody wanted to partner him. It was turning into a scene, so I… sat in.”
“How much did you lose?”
“Not enough to matter, Mrs. Watts. When I found out what the stakes were, I said it was too much for my blood. Three cents a point can be murder. I said I’d go for a half cent, and your husband said he’d pick up the slack.”
She looked away with a slightly sick expression. “Five and a half cents a point. Dear God!”
“He wasn’t in any shape to play. Oh, he wasn’t leading out of turn or forgetting the bid. Nothing like that. He just got too optimistic.”
“What did you lose?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I insist!”
“Twenty-one dollars. But really…”
She bit her lip, unsnapped her white purse and dug into it. I put my hand on her wrist, stopping her.
“I really won’t take it.”
She gave up, saying, “I really wish you would. Did he go home?”
“No. After he settled up he didn’t feel very well. He’s in that small lounge off the card room… resting.”
She frowned. “Maybe I should take him home.”
“He’s sacked out. So he’s just as well off there, isn’t he?”
She stared beyond me at nothing, her eyes bleak. “He just seems to be getting wor…”
She caught herself, gave me an awkward glance. A man going sour puts an attractive wife in a strange bind. Still tied to him by what remains of her security, and by all the weight of the sentimentalities and warmths remembered, she is aware of her own vulnerability and, more importantly, aware of how other men might well be appraising that vulnerability, hoping to use it. Feeling the weight of interest and speculation on the part of friends and neighbors, and sensing that she is moving ever closer to disaster, she feels obligated to be more circumspect. Because this, too, is a kind of loyalty. She wants, when it is over, to find no way to blame herself.
“Get you a drink?” I said.
“Please, Scotch and water, please. Tall and weak.”
As I brought it to her I saw young Dave Sablett talking to her and saw her quite obviously send him away. He looked back at me, surly and indignant.
“Mr. McGee… ”
“Trav.”
“All right. Trav, do you think he might make a fuss if I tried to take him home now?”
“He well might, Vivian.”
She looked startled. “That makes me feel strange. Vivian. Vivi when I was little, and Viv now. Vivian when my mother was really cross with me. Vivian on official papers. But it’s all right. Maybe I’d like to be called that by someone. It could… remind me I have to be a grownup these days.”
“None of my business, of course. But is something really wrong with him? Health? Business?”
“I don’t know. He just… changed.”
“Recently?”
“I couldn’t say just when it started. A year ago anyway. Trav, I just can’t stay here and… be calm and social and charming, damn it. Not knowing they’re watching me and saying poor Viv. He promised it would be different this time. But if he refuses to come home… it could be worse.”
“I could bring him along without a fuss.”
She chewed her lip. “He might respond better to you. But I don’t want to spoil your evening.”
“I’m here only because I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”
“Well… if you wouldn’t mind.”
She showed me where I could bring him out the side door to the far end of the parking lot… The sun was gone, the steak grills cherry red, orange flames flickering atop the Polynesian pedestals in the cookout area, music resonant over the outdoor speakers. We brought both cars around and I parked behind hers, a small white Mercedes with dented fenders. I told her to wait and start up after I put him in my car, and I would follow her home.
I shook Crane Watts up out of the murks of sleep, and he came up thrashing and whining with irritation. “Lemme lone! Chrissake!” He focused on me, the uncertain peer of the still drunk. “You, partner. Cheap half a cent basser, and you were no damn help at all. I needed you like a head cold, partner what’s-is-name. Gimme anything better than clowns and I can take that pair.”
“You’re going home, Crane.”
“Hell you say! You being boyscout for that bitch? Screw you, samaritan. I’m staying. I’m going to have a ball.”
I plucked him up off the couch and caught the fist he threw at me, opened it quickly, regrasped it in an effective come-along, a hold which leaves the index and little finger free, and presses the middle two fingers against the palm of the captive hand. Crane Watts, face convulsed, drew his other fist back, and I gave him a good taste of a pain sufficiently exquisite to bypass the alcohol. His face went blank and sweaty and the blood drained out of it. He made a small squeak and lowered the poised fist.
“Is there some trouble here?” a nervous voice asked, and I turned and saw a club employee in the doorway.
“No trouble. I was just getting ready to take Mr. Watts home.”
I cued Watts with a little pressure. “Just going home,” he said in a gassy whisper, and with a strange imitation of a reassuring smile. The employee hesitated, said goodnight and went away.
Crane Watts made a very cautious attempt to pull his hand free, and found that it added to the pain. He walked out very carefully beside me, quite erect, taking small dutiful steps, not wavering a bit. A Nassau police official had showed me that hold. Improperly applied, it snaps the bones or dislocates the knuckles. In correct adjustment, it pulls the nerves of the two middle fingers against the knuckle bones in a way that you can hit ten on the dolorometer. Nine is the peak for childbirth and migraine, and all but the most stoic faint at some point between nine and ten. You watch their color, their sweat and the focus of their eyes to keep it below the fainting point. And it is a quiet thing. Small pain makes people roar and bellow. The excruciating ones reduce them to an almost supersonic squeak. Also, intense pain is one way to induce a sudden sobriety. By the time I opened the car door for him, I knew he would be no further trouble. I pushed him in and went around and got behind the wheel, started up and followed the Mercedes.
“Jesus,” he groaned, hugging his hand against his belly.
“It’ll throb for ten minutes or so, and then it will be all right.”
“It goes all the way up into the back of my neck fella. Is it some kind of judo?”
“Something like that.”
After a few minutes he slowly straightened up. “Beginning to go away, like you said.”
“Sorry I had to do it, Crane. I promised your wife I’d get you home.”