There was something a little slobbering and queer about him and I said rather sharply, “The corn-flakes company will still send you secret rings for box tops.”
He lit a cigarette, sat on the couch. “George, why is it when we grow older instead of getting smarter, we get more stupid? Why do we lose the simplicity and happiness we once held in childhood?”
“What happened, Hank, the army make you a philosopher?”
“Don't laugh it off, as we grow older we become full of sour bitterness. Too bad humans don't age for the better, like wine. The wine of humanity is pretty thin and watery.” He blew out a fairly decent smoke ring, watched it dissolve in the air, asked, “Own the oil company yet?”
“Nope. Still editing the 'Sun, published every month by the Sky Oil Company, Inc.,' and it's still as corny as it sounds.”
“And you still wear conservative suits by Brooks Brothers, custom-made shirts with stiff tab collars, Bronzini ties, make a ritual of powdering your crotch, of blending your tobacco. You take in the dance recitals, and quietly read your Times in the evening over the pre-dinner cocktail, which can only be ordered at certain bars. George, you're so wrapped up in yourself, you give so much attention to George, I envy you.”
“And I still have my little bouts with Flo—might as well make a complete inventory. Want breakfast?”
Hank shook his head.
“Then take some coffee with me.”
“I'm full of coffee. George, do me a favor.”
“Certainly,” I said, wondering how much of a bite he was going to put on me. I didn't have any money in the bank but I could always borrow a couple of hundred.
He pulled a thick white envelope out of his pocket. “Hold this for me.”
I took the envelope. It was open and full of twenty dollar bills. “What's this, black-market loot?”
“No, saved it from my salary. There's $7,000 there. Keep it in your bank for me.”
“Why don't you open an account tomorrow? I mean I don't like to hold money—you know how the green slips through my hands. What's the gimmick?”
“I'm married to the world's greatest bitch,” Hank said softly. “That's why I came home—I'm going to get a divorce, soon. I don't want Lee—that's the 'little woman'—to know about this. She's... well, I know why she is what she is, but she's... well, greedy wouldn't start to describe her. She's money-crazy. In fact, she's downright crazy. You see she... oh, it's quite a mess. No sense involving you in it.”
“This is news. How long have you been married?”
“Let's not talk about it. Put it down as one of these war marriages you've probably read too much about. It's a mess I got into with both feet. I'll get straightened out, but I'll be damned if she'll get the money.”
I put the envelope on the table, carefully. “Hank, why don't you put it in a safe deposit vault or...”
“Can't, she'd get it. You don't know what a nose she has for money. You keep it, please.”
“But Hank I have a hard time making my salary last the week. You know me and money, why I...”
“Damn it, George, do me this favor!” he said loudly, getting up, walking around the room. “I'm in a mess that's my own making. I'm in a rough jam, and all I'm asking is that you hold this.”
I didn't want to take the money, I knew myself too well, yet I had that old guilty feeling when I looked at Hank's uniform. I still had a slacker-complex even though the war had become almost a joke by this time, and being a vet was a handicap. I said, “Okay. I'll give you a receipt and...”
“No receipt. She'd find that.”
“Look Hank, please don't give me seven grand and not even take a receipt. You know the old gag—a man isn't made of stone.”
“Stop talking like a kid.”
I took paper and a pen from my desk, wrote:
I owe Hank Conroy seven thousand dollars ($7,000), payable on demand, in payment for moneys loaned me, this date.
I signed my name and the date, held it out to him. “Hank, you have to take this. Suppose I get killed falling off a bar stool? You don't have a thing to go on, and I'd hate to see this end up going to my distant cousins in L.A.”
“Forget the receipt, be serious. I'll probably be divorced, straightened out in a very few months and...”
“But I'm being serious, Hank. Seven grand is quite a bundle, what if something did happen to me?”
“Nothing will. I'll take that chance.
I looked at the envelope full of folding money and felt mixed up. “Hank, you're crazy.”
He stopped pacing the room. “That's no lie, sometimes I'm damn sure I am off my rocker. Come on, I'll take that cup of Java.”
“I don't hold the money unless you take this receipt,” I said. “The strain might easily overpower me.”
He suddenly grabbed the receipt out of my hand, walked over and pressed the panel. He put the piece of paper inside, closed the panel, and turned to me with a smile. “Feel better? No one knows about the panel but the two of us, maybe Flo, and...”
“I forgot to ever tell Flo about it.”
“Good. If anything happens to you, I'm protected.”
“But suppose the house burns down? Or...?”
“For God's sake!” Hank pushed me toward the kitchen. I went back and got the envelope. The way he left money around made me jittery.
Over coffee he told me he was going to live with his sister for a few weeks. “Just till I get an apartment or a room. Lee and my sister, they'll kill each other, if they haven't already. She wrote me she thinks Lee has already swiped some of the silver, and you know my sister Marion.”
“You don't mean she's actually stolen the silverware?”
“Probably has—I had to send Lee over a week or so ahead of my plane and... George, try to understand this, I've married a devil. A backward girl who's gone through... Hell, don't get me started on Lee. She isn't guilty. I am. We all are.”
“What?”
“I don't want to talk about it, Georgie. Look, it's as bad as this: all the way over I was hoping my plane would have an accident and I'd be killed.”
“You're the cautious type Hank, how...?”
“Forget it, it's my party,” Hank said. He began asking about fellows we'd known in the old days—and whom I hadn't seen in years. When we first moved downtown, Hank had lived in the brownstone across the street; the only kid on the block I had as a friend. He was real social register stuff, not that he ever let that get him down, or hinder our friendship.
We talked for a while longer, then he said, “Have to go and see my ever-loving wife, wired her I was coming in this morning. Thanks for holding the money.”
“I'll call you at your sister's. I might be able to line up a job or...”