"Are you expecting visitors, Mr. Wenstrom?" asked a guarded voice.
"Yes, I am," answered Carl.
"Miss Loring and Mr. Scapelli have just inquired for you."
"Have them come up, please."
"Very well, sir."
Carl found himself smiling at the slight edge of disbelief which lingered in the man's voice. It was probable that, in this hotel, Diane and Louis Scapelli might give a certain amount of pause to the management. It was possibly their bearing, probably their clothes, and he made a mental note of the fact. If they looked out of place in the Francois Hotel, then they would look out of place on board the Alcestis, It would be a point to watch, perhaps a point to mention.
He turned back to Kathy. "They're coming up now. Louis and Diane."
"Good," she said.
As she did not move from her chair, he added: "Darling, aren't you going to dress?"
Kathy looked down at her robe, and the tiny brocade mules on her feet.
"This is all right, surely?"
"Don't be so lazy." There was a chiding good-humour in his voice, but something else as well. "Put some clothes on."
She stared up at him. "Carl, what does it matter if I'm like this?"
"It's not—businesslike."
Standing up, smiling faintly, she said, "Carl, you're wonderful."
"What do you mean?"
"Never mind. . . ." As she moved towards the bedroom she said, over her shoulder: "Stockings as well—sir?" But she did not wait for an answer.
Left to himself, Carl Wenstrom was momentarily thoughtful, the furrows deep on his forehead. Kathy, of course, was allowed to make such remarks; indeed, this gentle mockery was part of their shared love, for he ruefully acknowledged, to her as well as to himself, that his total direction of her life sometimes took absurd forms. (He had once forbidden her to read a book of scandalous memoirs by one of Hollywood's more scabrous harlots. "It is simply not suitable for you," he had said, with finality. At that time, Kathy had just turned seventeen; by conservative estimate, she and Carl must have made love at least four hundred times during the preceding year.) But perhaps, on this occasion, she had been a little too direct, a little too appropriate? He did not want to be called "sir" at any time, and particularly not this afternoon, when he was reminded by a slight headache that love-making and consecutive thought were not, at the age of fifty, perfect bedfellows.
Was she, perhaps, hinting at such a thing? If so, she had chosen an uneasy moment, one that a man who was unsure of himself would have resented. On board the Alcestis, she was to be his stepdaughter; but they were not on board yet. ,
He allowed the Chopin record to come to a finish, and turned off the record-player. Then there was a knock at the door, and when he called "Come in—it's open," Diane and Louis Scapelli entered the room.
Carl saw immediately what it was that had checked the clerk at the inquiries desk downstairs. Diane Loring could pass muster, in a brassy sort of way; she did not look like a lady, but she did not miss it by too wide a margin. Louis Scapelli was something else again. He was a dark young man, very small, very pale, with the kind of thin pruned moustache affected by gangsters of several decades ago; he had the available air, the jaunty self-consciousness, of a man prepared to be whatever suited his company—a great or small lover, a homosexual, a gambler, a pickpocket, a dancing instructor. On a good day, in a good light—the sort of day on which Carl had hired him—Louis often seemed handsome, in a cut-rate animal way which won applause from appropriate female hands; but today was not his day, nor had it been so for many a raffish moon. Today, especially, his clothes were terrible—and Carl, who had not seen him face to face for some months, knew that he would have to make that point very succinctly.
He wore a dark tussore suit, extravagantly draped; a white tie anchored by a jewelled clip; a drooping gold watch-chain; two signet rings; and patent-leather shoes with three-inch elevator heels. Carl stared at him as they shook hands. This young man, who was due to masquerade as his nephew—his favourite sister's child from upper-crust New England—looked at the moment like a caricature of one of the boys in the back room.
He also talked like one. "Hi, chief!" he said to Carl, hitching his shoulders as he glanced round the room. "Big deal. . . . How much does this joint set you back?"
"Plenty," answered Carl coolly. "That's why we're in business." He turned to the girl. "Well, Diane. Nice to see you again."
It was not nice to see her, but it was nicer than Louis Scapelli. . . . Diane Loring was small and dark, with beautiful legs and a pointed bosom fiercely, arrestingly upthrust. She had the most unvirginal face Carl had ever seen on any woman—pretty, bold, and corrupt. He was reminded of an English phrase he had heard during the war— "She's covered a lot of carpet in her time." Diane must have done just that. She looked as though she would be wonderful in bed, agile, athletic, highly efficient; but speedy and totally disengaged also— looking at her wrist-watch at intervals, counting the hours remaining out of the working day or night. She was English, but someone had wangled for her an American working-permit as a "model".
She had been a gruesomely successful call-girl when Carl had first met her. He had been looking for a girl to use as a come-on for a race-track swindle down in Florida, and Diane had certainly filled that assignment. Himself, he could never imagine making love to that rubbery, machine-made, fully-packed body; but in America, he knew, he was in a minority. Among other things, she was a coarsely sensual dancer; she had once boasted that five minutes on a dance-floor with her was as good as—well, even the thought was now unphraseable, but he believed her. ("Ever danced with a Latino?" she had once asked him. "No, of course you haven't, but believe me it's an education. They all use the Spanish grip—they must learn it in school, the dirty bastards—that's the knuckles pressing hard on the middle of your spine, so that you can't back away and you finish up practically underneath the delegate from Nicaragua. But believe me, they get a surprise when they give it to little Diane!")
Now she said: "Hallo, Carl! My, you look tired. What have you and Kathy been doing?"
"We've had some late nights." He spoke as briefly and as coolly as he had done to Louis Scapelli; he did not intend to receive either commiseration or conjecture from this dependent tramp.
"Where is Kathy, anyway?"
"Dressing."
Diane opened her mouth to comment, caught his eye, and changed her mind. Louis Scapelli crossed to the side-table where the food and drinks were set out.
"I'm bushed," he announced. "Mind if I help myself, chief?"
"Go ahead," said Carl.
Snatching a sandwich: "Where's the Prof?" Scapelli asked, between bites.
"He'll be here in a minute."
"Half corned, if I know anything about him."
"Oh, the Prof's O.K.," said Diane. "He just likes his little drop of comfort."
"Who doesn't?" said Scapelli. "Trouble is, he can't take it."
"Look who's talking!"
"Oh, lay off me!" said Scapelli irritably. "Yak, yak, yak! Don't you ever get tired?"
"Of you, yes."
"All right," said Carl coldly. "Let's not start arguing. Diane, help yourself to a drink. The Professor will be here when he gets through. He's been collecting the tickets and the travellers' cheques. He had to pick up his passport, too."
"His passport?" Scapelii's tone showed his astonishment. "Is he coming on the trip?"
"Yes."
"Gee, chief, why?"
"He'll be useful."
"That I wish to see."
Carl frowned, and his voice grew rough. "He's done a lot of work on this project already. And if I say he'll be useful, then he'll be useful, and that's all there is to it."