A second cousin, wildly daring, because he estimated his take at approximately zero, said cheerfully: “What’s a cousin’s share, Hiram?”
Talbott peered at him almost approvingly.
“Shares, hell!” he snorted. “It doesn’t work that way. Nothing automatic or mathematical. The ones I like best — or rather, the ones I detest least — get the most.” His bulging blue eyes twinkled with malice. “So keep on buttering me up; I know it’s opportunism and hypocrisy, but at least I admire competence and intelligent slyness. The best phony may bet the biggest slice in the end.” He paused, then added ambiguously. “In the end!”
“Really, dear,” his wife said. “Not at dinner.”
He ignored her, and she smiled weakly at the guests, still warding off imaginary blows with her weaving hands.
“Perhaps I ought to announce your present ratings,” Talbott said, obviously relishing the notion. “Then you’ll have twenty odd years to improve them. Some of you may not live that long, but there are always children — a fresh crop of little buzzards waiting for the old man’s carcass. Not that I blame you for being greedy; I was that way myself, and still am. Only I fought my way up and satisfied that greed by action — not by being a jackal. If one of you had the guts to go out and make one measly million by some judicious bluffing, lying, cheating, or even wangling it from Uncle Sam — which is shooting at a sitting bird! — I’d have some respect for him. I’ve never believed in dirty money; it’s the only stuff that never soils to the point where people turn it down. You could take a thousand dollar bill from any sewer, and fifty jokers would be glad to snap at it with their teeth, if you gave ’em the chance.” He eyed his relatives again, and shook his big head in disgust. “Bah! I’m wasting my time. If one of you found a million dropped by mistake from a Brink’s truck, like that clown a while back, you’d return it, too. Not out of simple-minded honesty, but fear that somebody might’ve seen you pick it up, and cause trouble.”
He cut a large piece of fillet, popped it into his mouth, and chewed it vigorously, his heavy jaw-muscles working like cables under a load.
After swallowing, he gulped some wine, and without warning pointed a finger at the couple to his right.
“You, two!” Talbott snapped. “My oldest son and his missus. Ready for your rating?”
“For Heaven’s sake, Dad,” the man said. He was short and thick, with heavy jowls; his forehead was beaded with perspiration, and he reaised a soft, well-manicured hand in a gesture reminiscent of his mother. His, wife, plump and dowdy, in spite of her expensive clothes, muttered something in his ear. Their host laughed.
“Telling you to take it, hey Malcolm? Don’t cross the old man. Wait him out; get your cut of the loot. Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm Talbott,” he added jeeringly. “Respectable attorney; not about petty chiseling, but too gutless to go after the real loot among politicos and crooks. Rating? About third from the bottom, I’d say. Nowhere to go but up — that’s a comforting thought, yes, Malcolm?”
Without waiting for an answer, he turned to another couple at his left, just beyond Mrs. Talbott, who immediately blocked a whole series of jabs, even though she held a knife and fork.
“My youngest son,” Talbott said. “And his wife.” He examined her inch by shrinking inch. True, she looked like a B-girl, and had on enough of the wrong perfume to suggest an aroused civet cat, but actually Julie Talbott — Mrs. Morton Talbott — was a virtuous and kindly girl, even if she didn’t have enough brains to equip a sparrow.
Her husband paled with anger, and put his hand over hers.
“Morton Talbott,” Hiram said. “Would-be artist. Makes junk from old iron, broken dishes, and dried soupbones. When he’s through, they look exactly like old iron, broken dishes, and dried soupbones. Luckily his mother — my generous wife — subsidizes him from the household money.” His wife redoubled her fluttery guard motions, and her eyes showed anxiety. “I’ve always known about it,” Hiram continued relentlessly. “I find it amusing that a grown man will fritter away his life on such stuff while living on crumbs from my table, even though I offered him a chance to do something worth-while.”
“Like building cheap houses that fall down in a year?” Julie snapped, her brown eyes full of fire.
“Is that what I wanted you to do, Morton?” Talbott asked, his voice wickedly soft.
“Julie didn’t mean that,” Morton said. “She doesn’t understand business. I’d be glad to try—”
“Sure, now you would!” his father said coldly. “But I warned you there would be no second chance. You chose soupbones and Art; now you can wait like the others to pick my bones in twenty-six years. Your rating is just about Malcolm’s, mainly because your wife, even if she’s a little nicompoop, has some guts — even to snap at me. Probably she picked you, instead of the reverse — God knows why — so she belongs in your credit column, I figure.”
He studied his guests again, and said: “Who’s left? A nephew; still a bachelor; and one second cousin on his second wife, I believe. You two have the advantage,” he added, “that I don’t know you too well. I know that you haven’t done anything of importance, considering your ages, which means you probably never will. My nephew, William Davis,” he told the others, “is almost thirty, and still drives all over California trying to sell ladies’ underwear: that’s a career for you! But I’ll rate him a little above Morton at that, because he’s had sense enough to stay single. That way,” he said, giving his wife a crooked smile, “he can’t get the kind of sons — and daughter — like mine.”
At this mention of a daughter, all the company came to attention. It was obviously a slip, and they were curious about the cover-up to follow. But their hostess managed to draw the lightning.
“If you are serious about all this inheritance talk,” she broke in eagerly, “you really ought to do something about poor Cyrus; after all he’s so badly crippled, and June did love—”
“I told you not to mention either of them in this house ever again!” her husband said, all the playful malice gone from his voice, to be replaced by a kind of pathological anger.
“But you brought it up,” she countered weakly. “You did say ‘daughter,’ and I thought—”
“You did not think; you never have, and you don’t now!” was the brutal reply. “You don’t have the equipment, Martha, so please be quiet.”
“That’s a terrible way to talk,” Julie Talbott said, her voice shrill. “If I were you, Martha — stop it!” she added fiercely, as Morton tugged at her arm. “I’m not afraid of the old tyrant!”
“Of course, you’re not,” Hiram said, playfully malicious again. “As I said, you have nerve, but not much brains or imagination. You can’t understand what Morton knows so well — that a million dollars is worth any kind of insult — that you can lick boots for it, and then wash the polish off your tongue with champagne. With enough champagne, you can rinse the taste of anything at all off your tongue. Right, Morton?”
There was no reply. Julie glared at him; but Morton squeezed her arm until it hurt, and she settled back in her chair, flushed and breathing heavily.
“Now we come to Cousin Jerry,” Talbott said. “And his second wife, Lucy. His first one left him for greener pastures — a very sensible woman, that — and this one, I suspect, married him for me. In other words, she smelled money in the family, and even though Jerry is a clod — a beer-drinking, baseball-happy, TV-addicted clot — who’ll never make more than a hundred dollars a week — she hoped he might inherit a bundle in the not-too-distant future. I give this much to Jerry; he’s almost too much of a clod even to ponder that angle. Rather, he was; now she has him convinced.”