The Little Sinners was Bowridge’s private name for his fellow members of the U-Club. He never missed any of their parties, mainly because they gave him an opportunity to see the wives and so fill in a number of blank spaces about their husbands.
Bowridge entered the club on the heels of Elaine and Gordon. (This young man Foster, now, had a lot of blank spaces. He didn’t attend the special movies, he didn’t play poker or bridge after dinner. When he came to lunch he left immediately afterwards. A shy duck.)
“Hello, Mrs. Foster,” Bowridge said. “Hello, Gordon.”
“Why, Judge Bowridge,” Elaine said. “You didn’t dress up!”
“I prefer to stay on the sidelines watching the beautiful señoritas.”
“That’s no excuse. Honestly, I think you’re mean. Don’t you, Gordon? Don’t you think he’s mean?”
“The fact is,” Bowridge explained dryly, “when no one forces me at the point of a gun to dress up, I don’t dress up. What caliber weapon did you employ, Mrs. Foster?”
“None at all, so there,” Elaine said. “Gordon, wait here a minute while I fix my hair. Excuse me, will you, Judge?”
“Certainly.”
They both watched her as she went down the hall toward the powder room.
“We’re early,” Bowridge said.
“I guess we are.”
“The others, I presume, are judiciously getting pie-eyed before they start. The punch they serve at these affairs is highly suspect. Come and try some.”
“Thanks, I’ll wait for Elaine.”
“She’ll be able to find you.”
“Well—”
“Come along, come along.” Bowridge walked ponderously ahead, with his head down and his hands clasped behind his back, as if he were thinking great and solemn thoughts. “As a matter of fact, I have a little surprise for you.”
“For me?”
“Well, not strictly for you. You happened to come along at the correct psychological moment and so we will share the surprise. Look.”
The judge removed from his hip pocket a pint bottle without a label.
“Gin,” Gordon said.
“You’re absolutely wrong. Compared to this stuff, gin is mother’s milk.”
“Alcohol.”
“Correct, one hundred percent pure grain alcohol. A medical friend of mine gave it to me for my birthday. Most unusual gift, I consider. His instructions were to mix it with grapefruit juice and the resulting potion is termed a Graveyard Special, I believe. I suggest that we try some — very, very cautiously, mind you — in a glass of punch. Or—” He squinted up his face in such a jovial frown that one of the waiters, who had just received a ticket for overtime parking, scurried back into the kitchen for sanctuary. “Or we might — and I grant that this suggestion has a faint touch of the macabre — we might simply pour the whole bottle into the punch, thus sharing it with the common herd. What do you think, Gordon?”
Gordon smiled helplessly.
“Both are tempting, I must admit,” Bowridge said. “But on the whole I think we’d better keep it to ourselves rather than dissipate its energy, as it were. Of course if we had two bottles there’d be no question involved. We could keep one and put the other one in the punch, eh? But the one we would put in the punch is the one we haven’t got, so, come along, come along.”
Gordon came along, trailing Bowridge like a spaniel. The ballroom, ex-dining room, was swathed in red and yellow bunting, and a few couples were dancing to the Latin American music of Miguel Escalante. Escalante himself was handling the maracas, tossing them in the air, rolling his eyes, swaying his hips.
“I like bouncy music,” Bowridge said, approaching the nearest punch bowl. “Here we are. Now, let me see. What proportions would you suggest, Gordon?”
“I don’t know.”
“We wouldn’t want to become intoxicated. On the other hand we wouldn’t want to be niggardly with ourselves. Mean to say you have no experience in these matters, Gordon?”
“None.”
“Nor I. It will have to be guesswork, I fear.” He poured some alcohol into Gordon’s glass of punch.
“Whoa,” Gordon said.
“Pleasant flavor.”
“Very nice.” Now that the drink was in his hands Gordon realized how badly he’d needed it. If he could have three, just three drinks, as a sort of buffer between him and Elaine—
“You’re a quiet fellow,” Bowridge said. “Something on your mind?”
“No.”
“No guilty conscience?”
Gordon shrugged his shoulders.
“By the way,” Bowridge said, “how did she get you to put on that costume?”
“I put it on voluntarily.”
“Ha, to avoid argument.”
“It’s getting hot in here. I wonder whether Elaine—”
“Have another drink and relax, Gordon. That’s what I’m going to do, relax. Relax like a damn little kitten.”
Gordon was beginning to understand that Bowridge’s relaxation had started several hours ago.
“All right, I’ll have another,” Gordon said.
“Fine, fine.” Bowridge ladled out two more glasses of punch. When he added the alcohol he had to narrow his eyes to the merest slits to make them focus.
“There’s your wife,” Bowridge said.
Gordon saw Elaine standing in the doorway haughtily glancing over the couples on the dance floor. She’s self-conscious, Gordon thought, she always looks like that when she’s self-conscious. He turned his back on her and deliberately finished his drink.
“Well. There you are, Gordon,” Elaine said pleasantly. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I thought you were going to wait for me in the hall.”
“I was.”
“It isn’t as if I kept you waiting very long.”
“I persuaded him to run away,” Bowridge said.
Elaine laughed. “You’re a bad influence on my husband, Judge Bowridge!”
“I hope not.”
“And just for that, I’m going to persuade him to run away from you! Come and dance, Gordon. You’ll excuse us, won’t you, Judge? We haven’t danced together for ages.”
Gordon steered her out into the middle of the floor. She felt very light and soft in his arms. She was nearly as tall as he was and their cheeks brushed as they danced. Her skin was scented, some sweet, innocent, nostalgic scent that penetrated to Gordon’s heart: If only we could start over, if we could forget the million sour words and acid looks — Elaine had closed her eyes, the lids had closed softly over the sharp ironies in her eyes, the unspoken reproaches. I wish she would never open her eyes again. I wish—
“Why on earth are you staring at me, Gordon?”
“Was I staring? Sorry.”
“Your face looks funny. What have you and that old goat been drinking? And that’s the second time you’ve stumbled.”
“Sorry,” Gordon said again. “I was thinking about you. I was thinking it would be nice if you kept your eyes closed all the time.”
“My eyes closed? What a silly thing. Now you listen to me, Gordon. How many drinks did you have with that old goat?”
“Two.”
“Two drinks,” Elaine said contemptuously. “You should know by this time you can’t hold your liquor. Two drinks, and already your face looks funny and you’re starting to talk silly.”
“I don’t think it was silly. I was pretending, it was a game, you see. As long as you keep your eyes closed I can pretend that you love me and we have some sort of chance of going on together.”