“This is where the rich old broad comes in,” says Emily Decatur to Marianne, a speech which, in the atmosphere Bobby has tried to induce, seems brightly candid.
“I’m afraid it is,” says Bobby, preserving sincerity.
“Would the Deadrock ranch be a help?”
“Would I have to run it?”
“It’s been leased out for twenty years. You’d need to supply an address, though, if you wanted the checks to come to you. Are you up to that?”
“Yes, that would be very nice.”
“Then it’s yours,” says Emily Decatur. “Would you like an aerial photograph of it?”
“Not really.”
“Are you sure? You can see the little homestead, and tiny figures of cows and horses.”
“Thanks, but I don’t really want it.”
“Okay, it’s a deal then,” says Emily Decatur, pumping her son’s hand.
“That’s quite a gesture, Ma. Say, thanks for the nice ranch.”
“The West is where it all begins.”
“I think so.”
“You’re free, Bob.”
“That’s what the West is for, Ma, to make men free.”
“Now what’re you going to do?”
“I’m going to San Francisco to become a pimp.”
Bobby is staring from the window while Marianne does her makeup at a little desk. Bobby opens the door to permit a room-service waiter to push a linen-covered cart in and set up a table.
“How many places shall I set, sir?”
“Three, and keep the entrees in the warmer, as we are not yet ready to dine.”
The waiter sets out melons, cheese, and red and white wines while Bobby signs the check. He wishes the waiter a spirited “Andale, muchacho!” as he goes.
“Hungry, darling?”
“Famished, but I want to get my eyes on first.”
Marianne has made herself up vividly, like a courtesan.
A knock.
Bobby admits Adrienne, a brown-eyed handsome young lady.
“Just right,” Bobby cries. “Oh, goody.”
“Hello, I’m Adrienne.”
“And this is Marianne. I’m Bobby Decatur. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering you some lovely noisettes of lamb. Marianne is having coquilles Saint-Jacques and I–I’m having a cheeseburger, and I really don’t want a cheeseburger but I want to soak in the tub and watch you two dine and chat. I think the cheeseburger will be a little handier. The prospects of the entree floating between one’s knees will be eliminated.”
Adrienne says, “Here’s one with his mind in the gutter.”
“I’m no real animal,” Bobby objects, as he stacks hundreds on the table. “That should cover the eventualities.”
Soon Bobby floats in the tub, idly nipping at the cheeseburger, spurting soap from his free hand, and gleefully peering out through the bathroom door.
“Aw, come on in!”
“No!”
“Adrienne has to!”
“You said we were partners!” retorts Marianne strangely.
At the table, Adrienne says, “He must look like a prune by now. Hey, what do you guys want from me?”
“I think he’s looking for a life story.”
“No chance.”
Bobby asks Adrienne to undress and bring him some french fries. Even naked, Adrienne seems so different that the french fries acquire the status of clothes. At any rate, they soon make a tiny log jam in the tub. Bobby climbs out, scrutinizes Adrienne, touches a thing or two, and wraps himself in a towel. When they come out of the bathroom, Marianne is unclothed.
“Want to see mine?” she asks. “Bobby, you and Adrienne should go to bed together.”
“All it takes is money,” says Adrienne. Bobby is mortified by this burst of actuality. He commands Marianne to dress.
“Adrienne, look! His face is red!”
“I thought this was his idea.”
“He’s full of ideas. It’s quite lovable. He has a big inheritance, and all he wants is to be a pimp.”
“Oh, for God’s sake! I’m leaving,” says Adrienne.
At the door, Bobby and Marianne call out good night to Adrienne. Then, mute, they stare at one another.
“It wasn’t my idea.”
“I didn’t say it was a bad idea.”
“At least it didn’t cost anything.”
Bobby says, “I felt that girl was on the cynical side.”
“Nobody knew what you had in mind.”
“No, no, no. That’s not it. What I was feeling was that you two felt I knew but that I had lost my nerve.”
“You had.”
When Bobby bursts into the hallway, he says, “We’ll see about this!” He goes off in his bathrobe.
Marianne follows him to the elevators. A bellhop is standing there, and Bobby says to him, “I want a whore!”
“This isn’t that kind of hotel, sir.”
“It isn’t? I just sent one off. Now I want another.”
“No.”
“What?”
“No.”
In the lobby, Bobby pushes through clients of the hotel to the front desk. The clerk, in uniform, has seen all of this he wants to.
“I’m in Four-eighteen and I want a whore.”
“That’s out of the question.”
“Gimme that phone. This hotel needs hookers. Do you hear me?”
“Four-eighteen? You have thirty minutes to vacate Four-eighteen or I’ll see to it that New York’s finest do it for you.”
Bobby’s draining face seems to be superimposed on those of the outraged guests. Marianne has subtly blended in among them.
She asks, “Who is that young man?”
Soon Marianne sits atop the luggage outside. Bobby comes out of a phone booth. His spirits are a little droopy.
“Can’t get a room anywhere. We’re leaving this terrible city where even the smallest civilities are nonexistent.”
Bobby and Marianne sit under the vague circles of the reading lights. Rows of sleeping hands, resting upon armrests, stretch down the aisles toward the captain and crew, who cautiously adjust the 747’s triggers for the Pacific.
“When I get tired,” Bobby says, “I get scared.”
“I do too. I think about the plane falling.”
“I think we’re very tired. I’m scared and I don’t even know what of.”
“Don’t say that,” says Marianne. “I’m completely terrified.”
“What do you think it is?”
“San Francisco. I think something is waiting for us in San Francisco. And I don’t know what it is.”
Bobby imagines fog; the airplane penetrates a low ceiling to an eerie groundscape. “We’re just tired,” he says.
“That’s not the whole story. The whole story is, the attraction is getting too — I don’t know — too something.”
Bobby says, “And pretty soon the ghosts of our past will emerge.”
“How terrifying. How foul.”
“We have to wipe it all out before it kills us.”
By Nebraska, Marianne is asleep. Bobby has a reptilian restlessness the magazine rack can’t sop up. He begins to move about the aisles, staring hard at the sleeping faces, avoiding those stunned by air travel, until he catches the eye of a traveler, a man in his thirties who is wide awake.
“How you doing?”
“Fine. Kind of a long deal at night, isn’t it?”
“Sure is. Can I sit down?”
“Do, go right ahead.”
“How come you’re going to San Francisco?”
“I’m a maritime lawyer there.”
“Married?” Bobby asks. He doesn’t seem impertinent.
“Not yet.”
“I’m looking for a kind of nice hotel. Something right in the middle of things.”
“Stay at the Saint Francis. It’s on Union Square. Couldn’t be handier. You on business?”
“I just got out of one.”
“Which was?”