My stake is twenty-six thousand dollars, and you are all working for me. Don't forget that. There will be no independent operating of any kind. And nothing—nothing—is going to be done that I don't know about beforehand. Clear?"
They nodded. It was a moment when an answer of any kind would have seemed presumptuous and dangerous. After a pause, Carl turned a direct glance on Louis Scapelli.
"Clothes," he said. "We are medium rich—by Alcestis standards— and so we will dress medium quiet. The girls should always be as simple as possible; very little jewellery, and the minimum of make-up. There will be plenty of time for orange lipstick and sequined bikinis when we get down to the Caribbean." Kathy smiled with private pleasure: in a single phrase Carl had managed to conjure up a grisly picture of what Diane Loring might have been tempted to wear, and to steer her away from it. "Louis—" his glanced narrowed further, "keep it down, keep it quiet. You're a simple, unassuming young man, probably studying for an accountancy job in New York or Philadelphia. You're going to coax them into bed, not scare them half-way up the cabin wall."
"I don't dig it, chief," said Louis, disgruntled. "What's wrong with this suit? It's real sharp."
"Extremely sharp," agreed Carl. "A riot at Birdland. But this is a cruise with some of the world's nicest people. Slacks for you, Louis— dark grey or green;conservative sports shirts; ties like the one I've got on now. You could lose that moustache, too."
"So what's wrong with the moustache?"
"It makes you look—" Carl decided to compromise, "—too old."
"O.K."
"And put in a few hours under a sun-lamp. . . . Professor," Carl turned, "you'll do as you are. But get yourself some white flannels and a Panama hat."
"I have them," said the Professor.
"Good for you. . . . Anyone got any questions?"
"Yeah," said Scapelli, who was not wholly appeased. "That jewellery bit—you know?"
"You mean the jewellery they don't give you?"
"Yeah. It's dangerous, lifting stuff that way. How do I know they won't start screaming?"
"You must choose people who daren't scream." Carl, always economical of gesture, suddenly slammed his fist down on the arm of his chair, so that their attention was instantly held. "That's rule number one for all of you! There isn't going to be an epidemic of thefts— reported thefts—and there isn't going to be an epidemic of complaints of rape, either. The last thing we want is a show-down or a scandal. In fact, we can't afford a single one. You, Louis, will never take anything from anyone who would dare to say: "This man was in my cabin. He must have stolen it.' And the girls are going to cultivate the art of not being found in the wrong bed."
"I don't exactly get that, Carl," said Diane.
"I'll give you an example. . . . You, Diane, will be dancing one night with one of the five or six men who have got to know you during the preceding week. He will almost certainly be a married man. He will indicate his admiration—his urgent need. You will indicate that he has put your head in the most fantastic whirl, and you just can't resist him a moment longer. You will take him to your cabin, or you will go to his. At some undetermined time, he will probably offer you a hundred dollars."
"I would hope." said Diane.
"It turns out that he has the right idea," said Carl, "but he's got the amount wrong. For you now realize that you have never been so insulted in all your life. This man has broken into your cabin—or he has lured you to his. Scandalous. Disgusting. Unheard-of. In fact it's so unheard-of that your asking price is a minimum one thousand dollars, cash, in small bills. Otherwise Uncle Carl—just across the corridor—will either call the duty-officer, or go straight to the man's wife and make a complaint."
Once again Carl had done it very well; they could all see the darkened cabin, the suggestive disarray, the flustered or frightened man, the scandalized and avenging uncle. . . . But Diane, whom life had turned into a literal, one-track creature, was still not entirely satisfied, and she did not pause long for her crucial question.
"O.K., so he folds, and pays up. But does he get his hundred bucks' worth, to start with? Or his thousand?"
Carl smiled at the form of words which, for Diane, was distinctly refined. "That's for you to decide. I think it would be more persuasive if he did get his money's worth. Guilt is a wonderful purgative."
Diane nodded carelessly. "O.K. with me. But—Kathy too?"
After a deep silence, Carl answered: "If necessary—Kathy too."
Kathy felt her face suddenly burning, as if she had been declared diseased or defective before a huge audience. Carl would explain it differently afterwards, she knew; he would indicate that her approach and her appeal were so much more subtle than Diane's, that she could do with a word what Diane needed half her body to effect. He would make it clear also that the matter would be left to her own judgment, at all times. He would rationalize the whole thing. But just at that moment, the raw terms of her employment, so baldly stated before all, shocked her unreasonably. Of course Carl had used her many times before, for occasions when a girl was the appropriate bait.
But always he had maintained a fiction that she was innocent, that she did not really do these things, that she remained his, in spite of all evidence, all probability.
He used her as a weapon, but it was as if he used her with his eyes shut, aloofly, not acknowledging that the things which gave him such delight were often hazarded, as a matter of policy, in a very different field. And he had never yet admitted, either publicly or privately, until today, the fact—the actual proposition—that in order to collect, she might have to deliver.
It was something new, it had a sting and a bite and a troublesome pain, centred under the heart. . . . When next she came to the surface, she discovered, to her surprise, that they were all saying good-bye. Diane and Louis left together; the Professor lingered to deliver his file of papers, and then stumbled off in search of the haven of his own room. Within two minutes, Carl and she were alone.
Aware of her moods, responsive to the thinnest of tensions between them, Carl was not the man to hold back, or let things lie when they should be restored to balance. He sat still in his armchair, in the darkening room now deserted by the afternoon sun, and said:
"You were very quiet, my darling."
She was looking out of the window, her back towards him; waiting to be reassured, she wanted to do nothing to delay it. After a moment she answered:
"You and I have talked more than the others, much more. I didn't have so many questions."
"Have you any questions now?"
"No, Carl."
He answered the only one he was sure about. "Of course you won't have to sleep with those men."
"Won't I, Carl?"
"You know you won't! When Diane asked me like that, I couldn't very well differentiate between you. I had to put you on the same level. But it's not true."
"Perhaps we are on the same level."
"Oh, nonsense!"
"It's only a matter of degree, isn't it?"
"You know that's not so. You are—" he gestured, "—totally different in quality. There are things Diane has to do which you don't have to do."
"But would it matter if I did them?"
"Of course it would matter! Do you think I would let you get involved in that way? I love you!"
She took the soothing draught, savoured it, allowed it to warm her. She turned from the window, slim against the pale light, and said:
"All right—I just wanted to know. . . . Why does Diane needle Louis like that, all the time?"
He took the obvious cue from her, content to follow her down this different, safer, better-buoyed channel. "I think she has doubts about his virility. And that's what he's been hired for, after all."
"Do you doubt it?"
"Well, he's not my first choice. . . . That's literally true, as you know; I wanted to get Brownell, but Brownell isn't available. However, Louis will be all right, with the correct kind of encouragement. He has basic good looks: he can be improved on; we will improve on him, with a kindly hint here and a brisk kick there. And women in search of youth—his designated targets—are not too particular, anyway. How can they be?" He mused, chin in hand. "Of course, Louis's basic trouble is signalized by his elevator shoes. He wants to be taller all over. . . . You know those small men who send you long-stemmed roses? The symbolism is positively degrading. But it supplies the clue."
"But suppose he—"
"Oh, he will be effective enough. And if not, the ladies will think it's their own fault. There is often fantastic humility in that area. I know something of it myself. ... So they will simulate, they will pretend an antique lust—"
She looked down at him. "Carl, you really are awful, you know."
"I have to be. . . . Why did you put on slacks, Kathy?"
"My declaration of independence." She stretched her arms above her head, sensuous, luxuriating. She felt beautiful once more; she was beautiful; his glance upon her lifting breasts was an authentic signature to this. "But that was an hour ago. I don't want it now."
"What do you want now?"
"To be with you. To pick up the pieces."
He sighed, in grateful relaxation. "Let's do that, together. Put on some music, Kathy. Shall we go out to dinner?"
"No."
She shuffled through their stock of records, chose one, put it on the record-player. It was Chopin again, but of a different mood: a polonaise, slow at first, rising to martial triumph and ardour, the dancers leaping, the frogged uniforms catching the torch-light. . . . He sat back, at ease, content to close one account for the day, to open another if the mood favoured them.
"How did you guess?" he asked presently.
"Guess what?"
"The music."
"I know you. Are you tired, Carl?"
"A little." He wished it were not so, but in their shared confidence it did not matter. He grinned suddenly, boyishly, his face shedding on the instant twenty infamous years. "All I really need, my darling Kathy, is a long sea voyage."