“I don’t know. Do I?”
“I mean drunk enough...”
The sound of her breathing was loud in the room. I felt trapped. The way a man feels when he’s walked into something with his eyes open and doesn’t see any way out.
What got me worst was that I didn’t particularly want a way out.
“I suppose you wouldn’t want to be more explicit?” My voice sounded thick. I tossed off the rest of my glass without quite knowing I did it.
Lucile leaned back and looked past me with half-parted lips. “I married Fred Travers when I was twenty.”
I went over to the table and sloshed some straight Scotch in my glass. She didn’t appear to notice my movement.
“That was twelve years ago,” she went on.
I sat down and sipped the liquor. “The story of your life is now the order of the day.”
She glanced at me with unconcealed ferocity. “Damn all men to everlasting hell.”
I grinned at her. “What are you trying to do? Put me on the spot?”
She looked me up and down with narrowed eyes, as though she was seeing me for the first time. “Damn them because they do things to women and then evade the consequences.”
“Meaning Fred Travers?”
She shrugged her shoulders and went across the room to refill her glass. “And others before him... and after him.”
“You’re wasting time and energy,” I told her, “if you’re damning me on that score.” Things were slipping away from me. There was the woman with me and a locked door separating us from the rest of the world. There was liquor enough to bring on oblivion. Finally, there was Dolly of last night and the gray-eyed girl of the future.
Lucile came back and stood over me. Her eyes were hotly intent on mine, her fingers were cold on mine.
“I felt that way about you this afternoon.”
“Meaning... you had a hunch I’d make a satisfactory drinking companion?” I knew I was talking like a fool but I couldn’t help it. I was frightened, if you will. Goddamn it, something glowed there that doesn’t belong in a woman’s eyes.
I began wishing I hadn’t drunk so many side-cars at the tea. This was a situation that called for calm reasoning.
She said, “Yes,” and sat down.
I had forgotten what she was saying “yes” to by that time. I cast back over what had been said and remembered that I had asked her if she thought I would make a satisfactory drinking companion. Picking it up from there, I went on:
“Don’t you ever guess wrong?”
“Not about that,” she told me calmly. “Because I never felt that way about a man before.”
All I could think of to say was, “Oh,” and that seemed inadequate. She seemed to be turning as cold as ice — and as indifferent.
“Most women meet only one man in their lives with whom they feel they can go overboard.”
“And I’m elected in your life?” I tried out a feeble smile, wondering what the hell all this was leading up to. It was anti-climax after what had just gone before.
“You need another drink.” Lucile took both our glasses to the table and brought them back full. From her manner, one would not have guessed that she had had more than a couple of short ones.
I sipped mine and poured part of it on the rug when she wasn’t watching. I was afraid. It isn’t good for a man to feel that sort of fear. Realization of it set me to hating her... and to remember the reason I was in her room.
“That girl I saw you speak to this afternoon... do I know her?”
“Do you?”
“Her face was familiar but she didn’t seem to recognize me.”
Lucile said suddenly: “Damn you! You’re spoiling the party. What are you made of?” She finished her drink. Stood up.
Her eyes made me stand up with a queasy feeling inside. The feeling vanished when she moved close to me. I could hear her heart thumping and I could smell her.
An animal odor. Pungent and full-flavored. Striking directly to certain brain cells and releasing me from all inhibitions.
I put my hands on her shoulders. She gave me a level, searching glance.
My fingers tightened on the gray stuff of her gown. For an instant, I wasn’t Ed Barlow. Her breath, coming between set teeth, set my senses whirling.
She turned away from me and went into the bathroom.
She flushed the toilet just as the phone rang. I was standing close to it and reached out mechanically to lift the receiver. I said, “Hello,” and heard the voice of the girl whose hair had glinted with gold. Don’t ask me how I knew it was her voice. I knew — that’s all there was to it.
“Is this Mrs. Travers’ room?”
“It is.” I spoke into the mouthpiece, listening to Lucile go from the bathroom into the bedroom.
“May I speak to her, please?”
“Lucile isn’t in just now. She asked me to take any message that might come.”
“Oh.” The girl’s voice sounded confused. There was a little pause.
“This is Ed Barlow,” I told her quickly. “I was with Lucile at the Axelrods’ tea this afternoon.”
“Well... tell her that Cherry called. Tell her I’ve a couple of contacts and for her to call me back about them later.”
“I’ve got that.” I kept my mouth close to the phone and spoke low enough so Lucile couldn’t hear me from the bedroom. “Does she know your number?”
“Why... she should. But you can take it down if you wish.”
I said: “Perhaps I’d better.”
The girl who called herself Cherry gave me her number. I memorized it, told her I would give the message to Lucile, and hung up.
I heard Lucile calling me from the darkened bedroom. I stood in the center of the floor, irresolute. I wanted to go in to her so badly that I was almost afraid to.
She called again, hoarsely. My legs carried me toward the open door.
There was a muffled rapping behind me at the outer door as I hesitated on the threshold. I stood there, not knowing what to do. The lights in the parlor showed over the transom. The knocking got louder.
I heard Lucile utter a smothered, “Goddamn.” Then she brushed past me with a velvet robe caught about her. Went to the door and jerked it open to admit a man who smiled at her familiarly.
Chapter 6
Lucile called the man Harry, and he kissed her lightly on the cheek as he came in. He was thick-necked and short, with cheerful blue eyes. Well-dressed, with a sandy mustache and reddish hair.
She pulled away from his kiss and asked him what he wanted as though she wasn’t any too pleased to see him. He looked past her at me before answering:
“I was passing and had the happy thought of dropping in on you for a drink.” Sandy eyebrows were question marks as he kept on looking at me.
Lucile shrugged her shoulders and said: “Harry Green... Mr. Barlow.”
I shook hands with him without saying anything. He planted his feet solidly on the rug in front of me and drooped the lid of his right eye.
“Sorry to have busted in and interrupted.”
I told him that was all right, looking over his shoulder and trying to figure out what Lucile’s frantic gestures meant. It was clear that she wasn’t glad to have him there. One hand twisted the front of her robe, and her eyes on Green’s back were murderous. She bit her underlip when he turned away from me and said:
“I’ll take that drink... now that I’m here.” He went to the table and began mixing a drink as though we had both begged him to make himself right at home.
I lit a cigarette and walked over to the window with my back to them. Lucile’s voice drifted to me across the clinking of glasses.
“I told you I didn’t want to see you again.”
Without lowering his voice, Green told her cheerily: “But I knew you didn’t mean it.” There was the hiss of a siphon in his glass. I heard a little movement, and Green’s whispered: “Who is this bird?”