Diane poured herself a drink and turned to face Cameron. “Is Doug planning to slit another throat?” she asked.
“Yes, I think so.”
“I thought after what he did to Robinson, he might just possibly…”
“Robinson?” Liz said. “Oh, yes, that quaint little man. He played lousy bridge. Doug’s better off without him.”
‘I’m better off without whom?” King asked from the staircase, and then he came down the steps exuberantly and walked directly to Diane where she stood near the bar.
“Did you make your call, tycoon?” Liz asked.
“The lines are tied up,” King answered. He kissed his wife lightly, backed away from her with a small take, and studied the silver streak in her hair. “Honey,” he said, “you’ve got egg in your hair.”
“Sometimes I wonder why we bother,” Liz said sourly.
“Don’t you like it, Doug?” Diane asked.
King weighed his answer carefully. Then he said, “It looks kind of cute.”
“Holy God, it looks kind of cute!” Liz mimicked. “The last time I heard that was at a senior tea. From a football player named Leo Raskin. Do you remember him, Diane?”
“No. I didn’t know many football players.”
“I wore a blouse cut down to—” Liz paused and then indicated a spot somewhere close to her abdomen—“well, at least here! I was practically naked, believe me, it’s a wonder I wasn’t expelled from college. I asked Leo for his opinion, and he said, ‘It looks kind of cute.’ “
“What’s wrong with that?” King asked.
“It looks kind of cute?” Liz said. “Hell even a football player should be able to count!” She glanced quickly at her watch. “I’m getting out of here. I promised my tycoon I’d be back by four.”
“You’re late already,” Cameron said. “Have one for the road.”
“I really shouldn’t,” Liz said, and she smiled at him archly.
“Two lemon peels?”
“The memory of that boy. He knows I can’t resist his cocktails.”
Her eyes locked with Cameron’s. Neither Diane nor King paid the slightest bit of attention to all this obvious smoke. Happily, the telephone rang, and Diane picked it up.
“Hello?” she said.
“Ready on your call to Boston now,” the operator said.
“Oh, thank you. Just a moment, please.” She handed the phone to King. “Were you calling Boston, Doug?”
“Yes,” he said, taking the receiver.
Cameron looked up from the Martinis he was mixing. “Boston?”
“Hello?” King said into the phone.
“We’re ready with your Boston call now, sir. One moment, please.” There was a long pause, and then the operator said, “Here’s your party, sir.”
“Hello?” a voice asked. “Hello?”
“Is that you, Hanley?” King asked.
“Yes, Doug, how are you?”
“Fine. How’s it going up there?”
“Just about the way we expected, Doug.”
“Well, look, we’ve got to sew this thing up fast.”
“How fast?”
“Today,” King said.
“Why? Something wrong?”
“I just had the undertakers in here for a showdown,” King said, “and they’re not going to sit still for very long. What’s with our man anyway?”
“He wants to hang on to five per cent, Doug.”
“What? What the hell for?”
“Well, he feels—” Hanley started.
“Never mind, I’m not interested. That five per cent is as important to me as the rest of it, so get it. Just get it, Hanley!”
“Well, I’m trying my best, Doug, but how can I…?”
“I don’t give a damn how you do it, just do it! Go back to him, cry on his shoulder, hold his hand, go to bed with him, get what we want!”
“Well, it may take a little time,” Hanley said.
“How much time?”
“Well… actually, I don’t know. I suppose I can go over to see him right now.”
“Then go ahead. And call me back as soon as you’ve seen him. I’ll be waiting. And listen, Hanley, I’ll assume you’re going to deliver and I’ll act accordingly. So don’t foul me up. Do you understand?”
“Well, I’ll try.”
“Don’t just try, Hanley. Succeed. I’ll be waiting for your call.” He hung up and turned to Cameron. “Pete, you’re going to Boston.”
“I am?” Cameron said. He handed the Martini to Liz.
“How lucky you are!” she said. “I just adore Scollay Square.”
“You’re going to Boston with a big fat check,” King said, “and you’re going to deliver that check to Hanley, and we’re going to close the biggest damn deal I’ve ever made in my life!”
“If your lawyer’s in on it, it must be big,” Cameron said. “What’s it all about, Doug?”
“Now don’t jinx it,” King said smiling. “I don’t like to talk about anything until it’s all set. I’ll tell you all about it in due time, but not until I’m sure, okay? Meanwhile, you get on the phone and find out how the flights are running to Boston. Use the upstairs phone. I want to leave this line clear for Hanley.”
“Sure, Doug,” Cameron said, and he started for the steps. He stopped, turned toward Liz and said, “You won’t leave without saying goodbye, will you?”
Liz looked up from her Martini. “Darling, I always linger over my farewells,” she said.
Cameron smiled and went up the steps. King clapped his hands together once, sharply, and began pacing the room.
“Oh, are those vultures going to be surprised! They think they’re circling a dead body, but watch their faces when the body stands up and smacks them in the teeth! Asking me to go in with them, can you beat that, Diane?”
“Excuse me, Mr. King,” a voice said.
The man who had come in at the other end of the living room could not have been more than thirty-five years old, but at first glance he appeared much older. It was, perhaps, the way he stood hesitantly in the doorway to the living room, his shoulders hunched, the chauffeur’s uniform adding somehow to his posture of demeanor. His name was Charles Reynolds, but he was called simply Reynolds by everyone in the King household, and perhaps a man reduced to his last name is a man driven to his last retreat. Whatever the case, there was an almost tangible weakness about the man. Watching him, you felt you could reach out to touch a substance at once sticky and gelatinous. And watching him, too, you felt an extreme sympathy, a sadness. Even if you did not know his wife had died not a year ago, even if you did not know he shared the rooms over the King garage with his young son, raising the boy with the awkwardness of bereavement—even unaware of this, you felt sympathy for the man, you felt he was one of the world’s strays.