“Why thank you, Nate,” she said, and beamed, and slapped me, hard.
Then she clip-clopped past me, in her black high-heel sandals, into the spacious living room with its Duncan Phyfe furnishings, where she plopped into a textured cotton-and-silk-damask blue-green lounge chair and curled her legs up under her, sitting like a teenage girl.
I plodded in, rubbing where my face burned, and asked, “What did I do to deserve that greeting?”
She shrugged, sipped at her tumbler. “Maybe it’s because I trusted you and took your advice, and ended up getting shock treatment. Y’suppose that could be it?”
I sat on the nearby plump beige sofa. “I’m sorry about that. I just thought they’d have you talk to a shrink; I didn’t know they’d go the Frankenstein route.”
“Do you have to work at it?”
“What?”
“Talking like Humphrey Bogart in some cheap movie?”
I tossed my fedora on the coffee table. “Well, first of all, he’s trying to talk like me. Second of all, Bogie doesn’t make cheap movies.”
That made her laugh a little, then she frowned and said, “Stop that. I’ve decided not to like you.”
“When are you leaving for Florida?”
She sipped her drink. “I’m going today. Jim can follow me down whenever he likes, or not at all.”
“Why aren’t you going down together?”
Her hooded-eyed, fluttering-lashed expression included a smile that had very little to do with smiling. “We don’t do anything together, Nate, remember? Jim has some banquet tonight, for that horse’s ass replacement of his, Johnson, and then some meeting tomorrow morning. And he wants to make himself available throughout the week, in case he’s ‘needed.’ Do you think they’ll give him shock treatment, too? Or is that just reserved for the ladies?”
“I guess I can’t blame you for being bitter, but I think your husband really does need some help. Or anyway, a good long rest-and maybe a little understanding.”
She laughed, once. “Excuse me while I fucking puke, Judge Hardy! I like you better when you’re doing Bogart. Jim made his own bed; let him fuck and lie in it.”
“Did you ever consider maybe he really is under surveillance?”
Her eyes and nostrils flared as she leaned forward. “You mean, like I was? By the Reds? See, that’s typical; typical! A woman says that, and she’s a goddamn maniac! A man, a powerful man like Jim, well there’s either something to it, or maybe he just needs a little resty-bye. And understanding.”
“Jo, it’s not Jim’s imagination that Drew Pearson’s been out to get him. Is your maid working today?”
“No. It’s her day off.”
“Make some excuse and fire her. The girl’s feeding information to Pearson’s guy, Jack Anderson.”
“What? Fuck!” She flew to her feet and hurled her glass against the wall, narrowly missing a framed Currier amp; Ives, taking a chunk out of the painted plaster. It wasn’t anywhere near me, but I ducked reflexively, anyway.
“That little nigger bitch!” she shrieked. “And to think I treated her like a daughter!”
The Filipino houseboy, summoned by the crash of glass, peeked his head around the corner, observed the cursing Mrs. Forrestal, and disappeared like a turtle into its shell.
She raved and ranted as she crossed the Axminster carpet to a liquor cart, building herself a martini, surprisingly heavy on the vermouth. Then in mid-rant she stopped, turned and said, with no apparent irony, “I don’t mean to be a shitty hostess. Can I get you something to drink, Nate?”
“No thanks.”
“You think I won’t drink alone?”
She was drinking before I got here, but all I said was, “Just a little early in the day for me. Don’t let me stop you.”
“I’d like to see you try to stop me,” she said acidly, strolling back to her chair, sipping from the tumbler. “That fucking Pearson, anyway. You have a gun, don’t you?”
“Not on me.”
She sat again, tucking her legs back under her. “Well, you’re on the job-why don’t you go get it and do the world a favor and shoot that evil cocksucker.”
“That’s extra.”
She laughed hysterically at that, tears rolling down her apple cheeks.
“It wasn’t that funny, Jo.”
“I know,” she said, and her laughter stopped cold, like a switch had been thrown. Her face tightened with rage, but she was controlled as she said, “Do you know what that son of a bitch Pearson said about me? That I was a snob for enlisting Mainbocher! A snob!”
“Who’s Mainbocher?”
“You are hopelessly unschooled, aren’t you? Mainbocher is only one of finest purveyors of fashion in the world, you dumb fucking cluck. And I got him to help me design new uniforms for the Waves! Which are so much more chic than those Wac rags; but that bald bastard Pearson has the balls to criticize me for it!”
I was vaguely aware that Forrestal had attempted to involve Jo, to make her feel she had a role in Washington, and the war effort; and it didn’t surprise me that Pearson had crucified her for it.
Her eyebrows rose and the big eyes got huge. “You know what I was being paid to be a consultant to the Waves? Nothing! Not a red fucking cent! So I quit…. I told Jim he could fight the goddamn war by himself, and Pearson and the rest of the columnists could kiss my ass!”
“Was that columnists or Communists?”
Her expression froze, and then she broke out into brittle, near-hysterical laughter. Holding her stomach, rocking in the easy chair, laughing. I was a riot today. Maybe Jack Benny needed a new writer.
“Oh, I could use you around here, Nate. You would definitely cheer me up. You wanna go to Florida with us?”
“Jim wants me to, but I’m not sure …”
“We have separate bedrooms down there, just like up here. You can slip into my room late, and fuck me till my eyes pop out of my head.”
“Well, that’s nice to know …”
“And no one the wiser, not that anyone would give a shit.” She rose and wobbled over to me and sat in my lap. “Of course, there’s always right now-upstairs. Jim won’t be home till after that banquet tonight, and I’ll be long gone, on my way to Florida.”
She was long gone now.
Her hands were locked behind my neck as she wiggled her bottom into my lap. “Or are those awful little men of yours still snooping about?”
The scent of Chanel No. 5, and her still slenderly appealing figure, almost made it tempting, no matter how drunk she was. But in a way I still thought she was bluffing: those years of “open marriage,” with Forrestal banging half the good-looking broads in D.C., were a one-sided affair. That was my instinct, anyway.
“Jo, you’re a lovely woman,” I said, not exactly lying. “But let’s not rush things.”
“Why? Which of us is getting younger?”
I kissed her, tenderly, and it wasn’t half bad. “Let’s wait for a better moment.”
She shrugged. “All right,” she said, in a small voice, slipping off my lap. But once she got on her feet, she bellowed, “It’s your fucking loss!”
Then she wheeled and pointed a finger right at me; remarkably, it didn’t tremble at all. Auntie Jo wanted me.
“Did it ever occur to you, shithead, that maybe I had the idea people were after me because my husband made me think that? He’s been nuts longer than I have! He was the one who saw Reds under the bed! I just caught the sickness from him, I just didn’t wear it as well as he did … still waters running deep and all. Because I’m a little more outgoing than he is, because I’m a mother and got concerned about my children being kidnapped, because I believed the paranoid rambling fucking delusions of a man who was supposed to be a goddamn fucking tower of strength, a powerful man who oughta know whether somebody’s out to fucking get us or not, well then … what was the question?”