“As soon as what?” Kling asked.
“Here are the violinists,” Nora said.
One storm had blown out to sea, but another was approaching, and this time it looked as though the forecasters would be right. The first flakes had not yet begun to fall as Carella walked up the street toward The Saloon, but snow was in the air, you could smell it, you could sense it, the goddamn city would be a frozen tundra by morning. Carella did not particularly like snow. His one brief romance with it had been, oh, several years ago, when some punk arsonists had set fire to him (talk about Dick Tracy!) and he had put out the flames by rolling in a bank of the stuff. But how long can any hot love affair last? Not very. Carella’s disaffection had begun again the very next week, when it again snowed, and he again slipped and slogged and sloshed along with ten million other winter-weary citizens of the city. He looked up at the sky now, pulled a sour face, and went inside.
The Saloon was just that: a saloon.
A cigarette-scarred bar behind which ran a mottled, flaking mirror. Wooden booths with patched leatherette seat cushions. Bowls of pretzels and potato chips. Jukebox bubbling and gurgling, rock music babbling and bursting, the smell of steamy bodies and steamy garments, the incessant rise and fall of too many voices talking too loud. He hung his coat on the sagging rack near the cigarette machine, found himself a relatively uncrowded spot at the far end of the bar, and ordered a beer. Because of the frantic activity behind and in front of the bar, he knew it would be quite some while before he could catch the bartender’s ear. As it turned out, he did not actually get to talk to him until eleven-thirty, at which time the business of drinking yielded to the more serious business of trying to make out.
“They come in here,” the bartender said, “at all hours of the night, each and every one of them looking for the same thing. Relentless. You know what that word means? Relentless? That’s what the action is here.”
“Yeah, it is kind of frantic,” Carella said.
“Frantic? That’s the word, all right. Frantic. Men and women both. Mostly men. The women come for the same thing, you understand? But it takes a lot more fortitude for a woman to go in a bar alone, even if it’s this kind of place where the only reason anybody comes at all is to meet people, you understand? Fortitude. You know what that word means? Fortitude?”
“Yeah,” Carella said, and nodded.
“Take yourself,” the bartender said. “You’re here to meet a girl, am I right?”
“I’m here mostly to have a few beers and relax,” Carella said.
“Relax? With that music? You could just as easy relax in World War II, on the battlefield. Were you in World War II?”
“Yes, I was,” Carella said.
“That was some war,” the bartender said. “The wars they got nowadays are bullshit wars. But World War II?” He grinned fondly and appreciatively. “That was a glorious war! You know what that word means? Glorious?”
“Yeah,” Carella said.
“Excuse me, I got a customer down the other end,” the bartender said, and walked off. Carella sipped at his beer. Through the plate-glass window facing the side street, he could see the first snowflakes beginning to fall. Great, he thought, and looked at his watch.
The bartender mixed and served the drink, and then came back. “What’d you do in the war?” he asked.
“Goof off, mostly,” Carella said, and smiled.
“No, seriously. Be serious.”
“I was in the Infantry,” Carella said.
“Who wasn’t? Did you get overseas?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Italy.”
“See any action?”
“A little,” Carella said. “Listen . . . getting back to the idea of meeting somebody . . .”
“In here, it always gets back to that.”
“There was someone I was hoping to see.”
“Who?” the bartender said.
“A girl named Sadie Collins.”
“Yeah,” the bartender said, and nodded.
“Do you know her?”
“Yeah.”
“Have you seen her around lately?”
“No. She used to come in a lot, but I ain’t seen her in months. What do you want to fool around with her for?”
“Why? What’s the matter with her?”
“You want to know something?” the bartender said. “I thought she was a hooker at first. I almost had her thrown out. The boss don’t like hookers hanging around here.”
“What made you think she was a hooker?”
“Aggressive. You know what that word means? Aggressive? She used to come dressed down to here and up to here, which is pretty far out, even compared to some of the things they’re wearing today. She was ready for action, you understand? She was selling everything she had.”
“Well, most women try to . . .”
“No, no, this wasn’t like most women, don’t give me that most women crap. She’d come in here, pick out a guy she wanted, and go after him like the world was gonna end at midnight. All business, just like a hooker, except she wasn’t charging. Knew just what she wanted, and went straight for it, bam. And I could always tell exactly who she was gonna end up with, even before she knew it herself.”
“How could you tell?”
“Always the same type.”
“What type?”
“Big guys, first of all. You wouldn’t stand a chance with her, you’re lucky she ain’t here. Not that you ain’t big, don’t misunderstand me. But Sadie liked them gigantic. You know what that word means? Gigantic? That was Sadie’s type. Gigantic and mean. All I had to do was look around the room and pick out the biggest, meanest son of a bitch in the place, and that’s who Sadie would end up with. You want to know something?”
“What?”
“I’m glad she don’t come in here anymore. She used to make me nervous. There was something about her . . . don’t know.” The bartender shook his head. “Like she was compulsive. You know what that word means? Compulsive?”
He had left Nora at the door to her apartment, where she had given him her customary handshake and her now-expected “Thank you, I had a very nice time,” and rode down in the elevator now, wondering what his next move should be. He did not believe her doctor-boyfriend existed (he seemed to be having a lot of trouble lately with girls and their goddamn doctor-boyfriends) but at the same time he accepted the fact that there was a man in her life, a flesh-and-blood person whose identity, for some bewildering reason, Nora chose not to reveal. Kling did not appreciate anonymous competition. He wondered if a blitz might not be in order, telephone call when he got back to his apartment, another call in the morning, a dozen roses, a telegram, another dozen calls, another dozen roses, the whole stupid adolescent barrage, all of it designed to convince a girl that somebody out there was madly in love with her.
He wondered if he was madly in love with her.
He decided he was not.
Then why was he expending all this energy? He recalled reading someplace that when a man and a woman got divorced, it was usually the man who remarried first. He supposed that what he had shared with Cindy was a marriage, of sorts, and the sudden termination of it . . . well, it was silly to think of it in terms of a marriage. But he supposed the end of it (and it certainly seemed to have ended) could be considered a divorce, of sorts. In which case, his frantic pursuit of Nora was merely a part of the reaction syndrome, and . . .
Damn it, he thought. Hang around with a psychologist long enough and you begin to sound like one.