His emotion was genuine, Terrell felt; he wasn’t a good enough actor to fake it.
Chance took Connie’s arm and turned her toward the hotel. “Keep away from her,” he said to Terrell. “Keep away from us. We’re in different leagues.”
“Well, maybe we’ll meet in the Series,” Terrell said. He watched them walk into the hotel, seeing the sun flash on Connie’s slender beautiful ankles. Then he sighed and headed for the paper.
At his desk Terrell typed out an item for his column. He described Eden Myles’ killer, the big man with the thick, black hair and scarred forehead, and suggested that the police were looking for him in connection with the Caldwell case. For several minutes he sat frowning and staring at what he had written. This was risky business. Karsh wasn’t in or he would have asked his advice. As it was, this had to be his baby. He called a copy boy. and gave him the item as an insert for his column; it would be squeezed in time for the next edition, the two star, and be on the streets around four o’clock. And after that there would be an eruption in the Hall.
At his apartment Terrell made a mild drink, then showered and put on a fresh suit and a cheerful-looking bow tie that failed completely to match his spirits. He was expected for dinner in Crestmount, a suburb of the city, but he was reluctant to leave. For a while he stared out the window, humming to the soft music from the radio, and then he picked up the phone and called Connie’s hotel.
When she answered he said, “This is Terrell again, but I’m not selling anything. Work’s over, and I punched out. So could I talk to you just a second?”
“Yes — but why?”
She didn’t sound so bad, he thought; hardly warm, but not exactly cold. “I’m going to dinner with friends tonight, and I wondered if you’d come with me. It might be a pleasant change for you. They live out in the country, completely surrounded by air. And they’re nice people. Would you like to give it a try? I can get you back early, if that’s a problem.”
“I don’t know — I hadn’t planned anything. Is it a dress-up affair?”
“Good lord, no. This is suburbia. Host in a chef’s hat, hostess in pants. We’ll eat outside and five will get you ten that someone says, ‘This is the life!’ before the second Martinis are served.”
“I’ll need half an hour to get ready.”
“Perfect!” He couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. “Where shall I pick you up?”
“Right here at the hotel.”
“Will that be tactful?”
She said quietly, “You’ll strain yourself leaping at conclusions.”
“Sorry. See you in half an hour.”
She was waiting when he pulled up at the entrance, wearing a black dress with a stole and white gloves. He had called the Hamiltons to tell them he was bringing a date, and he realized that he was a bit eager to show her off. They didn’t talk much on the drive to Crestmount, except to comment on the beauty of the autumn countryside. It was a restful interval; she sat watching the scenery and Terrell didn’t find the silence a strain.
The Hamiltons made a great fuss over them. Bill Hamilton took Connie under his wing with a fine show of avuncular heartiness, the sort of roguish jolliness that married couples consider indicated when bachelor friends turn up with new girls. They had a drink inside and then Mona Hamilton took Connie upstairs to the powder room, and then everyone went outside to the backyard barbecue pit where Bill Hamilton was waiting with a fresh shakerful of Martinis. He said expansively, “Now you cliff-dwellers may be puzzled by a certain aroma in this vicinity. Let me put you at ease: what you are smelling now is fresh air. You probably haven’t noticed any in the city, but it won’t hurt you at all. Breathe as much as you want.”
Another couple arrived in time for the second round of drinks. Their names were Tom and Elsie Brogan, and they were young and attractive, casually chic in country clothes made not for the outdoors but for cocktail parties and brandy milk-punch breakfasts. Tom Brogan accepted a drink and stretched out gratefully in a wicker armchair. “This is the life,” he said with a deep benign sigh.
Terrell caught Connie’s eye and she smiled quickly before timing away to talk with Elsie Brogan.
Bill Hamilton broiled the steaks and Mona took charge of the drinks. Terrell found himself in a critical mood. He wished Bill would stop behaving like a master of ceremonies. Jokes, gestures, flourishes — he acted as if he were introducing the Rockettes instead of serving dinner. And Mona’s stories about her daughter struck him as plain damn silliness. Little Mona didn’t want grown-ups to tell her stories. Oh no! She told them stories. And such imaginative inventions! Mona was going to take them down on the wire recorder some night. They were so charming. No tension in them at all. Just freeform happiness.
The Brogans had children, too. Elsie Brogan indicated that she was a serious but liberal mother by suggesting that her five-year-old son might need. a psychiatrist if his adjustment to kindergarten continued unsatisfactory.
Tom Brogan began a long story about a lady analyst but decided not to finish it; the punch line wouldn’t do in the present company, he said, smiling, and obviously pleased with himself and his erotic secrets. Nothing would make him change his mind. “My masculine intuition tells me to stop,” he said, grinning broadly.
After dinner they went inside and Bill Hamilton touched a match to the logs stacked in the fireplace. Over brandies the talk switched to politics.
“It looks like Caldwell’s a dead duck, eh, Sam?” Bill Hamilton said.
“He’ll need a miracle,” Terrell said.
“He won’t get it, you watch,” Tom Brogan said. “It will be Ticknor again, and Ike Cellars and the rest of that miserable crowd. And the people couldn’t care less. They’re stupid for one thing, and they don’t give a damn for another.”
“I’ll grant that for the sake of argument,” Terrell said. “But how about you people who aren’t stupid. You don’t give a damn either. It seems to me that’s considerably worse.”
“I don’t get you, Sam,” Bill Hamilton said. “We care about what happens, of course.” His mood was serious now. “But except in a sort of philosophical way, the city isn’t my responsibility. I got sick of it, and I moved out. The schools are crummy, the streets are filthy, and it’s no place for kids. So I decided, as just one little guy, to take my family somewhere else. So what do I owe the city?”
“You make your money from it,” Terrell said. “It affects the whole state you live in. So you owe it a certain attention, at least.”
Mona Hamilton said defensively, “We sound un-liberal and un-progressive, I know. But I couldn’t stand living in the city another day. I want to be with my own kind of people. People who care about. the same things I do.”
“Everyone does,” Tom Brogan said. “Don’t apologize for how you feel. Hell, people in slums probably have the same ideas. If you had regular garbage collections they’d start moaning about the good old days when the trash collected for weeks in the gutters.”
“Well, that’s one way of looking at it,” Terrell said drily. “But here’s another: people with money and education received those advantages from the community. But they won’t put those to work except in areas that pay off in favorable zoning laws, and a pleasant life for themselves and their immediate family. They don’t accept the fact that what they’ve got has a string to it — a string tied to something called responsibility.”
Mona Hamilton looked unhappy. “I feel that sometimes. I feel we’re so lucky we should do something about it. But what can one person do?”
“Nothing at all,” Tom Brogan said, settling himself deeper in his chair. “So let’s have a nightcap and forget about politics.”