The Magician's Wife Part 15

"Nice when your conscience is clear."

"I asked what you want!" she snapped, pointedly not asking him to sit. "Get at it, if you don't mind. What is this business we have?"

"First: I'm going to marry your mother."

Her eyes dilated, and she stared for some moments. Then: "Are you being funny?" she whispered.

"No, not at all."

"You don't even know my mother."

"On the contrary, I know her very well." He recounted briefly his relations with Grace, especially how they had met, "through that number you gave her each night-my number, you'll recall. She got curious about it and looked it up, finally coming to see me. She approved of me and spent some time promoting the match. With some success, I may add-until, as you know, it somehow fell apart. All that time I was falling for her, and she was, for me. So when she felt, as she said, that you were as cold on me as I seemed to be on you, she felt free to follow her heart, and so, the wedding is going to take place. Don't try to attend-I won't have you there. It would make her happy, though, if you called her up." He waited, studying her, and when he saw she believed him at last, he went on: "However, that's not what I came about. I just wanted to say I've told her nothing, that I'm going to tell her nothing, of what happened a week ago-of your part in it or mine. So you can rest easy and-"

"I had no part in anything."

"Then-O.K. The case is closed."

"Oh, no. Not quite."

"... There's something I don't know?"

"There's that girl that I'm going to get."

"Are you talking about Buster?"

"Who do you think I'm talking about? She tried to put it on me, she told those lies about me-and for that I mean to get her."

"Sally, I think you're out of your mind!"

"Am I? Maybe not. The old man played me tricks and choked to death, so it seems. Alec played me tricks and drowned, so it seems. She played me tricks and she'll burn, as it will seem."

"For something we did?"

" 'We?' Who is we?"

"You and I, Sally, both of us."

"I don't even know what you mean!"

"I mean I wonder if you're all there in the head."

He studied her, trying to make up his mind whether this was just venomous talk or if something substantial lay back of it. He couldn't tell, but tried to sound reasonable as he said: "Sally, can't you see you're rocking the boat? That you're playing with TNT? You have the money! You-"

"Money's not all. Oh, no."

"... Sally, if you're figuring this as a way to copper-rivet your innocence, it may not work out that way. It could explode in your face in a way to wreck your whole life."

"That's my lookout."

He stood for some moments, rocking back and forth in front of her, then sniffed. "Sally," he said very solemnly, "if I were you, I'd get treatment for that gland. It not only makes you stink but, as I would say, leaves you a bit unbalanced."

"Is there something else?"

"You have it straight? What I said?"

"Well, I'm losing no sleep!"

"Then, fine. Did Bunny come back, too?"

"Well, the season's over, isn't it?"

Grace was badly upset when he told her about his visit, and for a time it seemed that the marriage might break up before it even got started. But when Sally called she felt better. "I wouldn't call her effusive," she remarked on hanging up, "but after all, she's involved in it too-as I mustn't forget. She was agreeable enough, though-so perhaps that was the way to handle it, and I'll say no more about it. ... Shall we eat at the club again? I'm beginning to feel it's 'our place.' "

"So O.K., but what can she do, what in the h.e.l.l can she do? Get on with your life, get on with it!"

20.

GRANT'S, THOUGH HEADQUARTERED IN the northern Middle West, mainly covered the Southeast, with branches in Richmond, Atlanta, Miami Beach, Mobile, New Orleans, and Memphis, and so the newlyweds toured Dixie at a time when Dixie was lovely, with autumn perfuming its days while touching its nights with a crisp chill. Pat's red carpet was 1,200 miles long and rolled ahead of them everywhere, so their wants were antic.i.p.ated, even to their man, which was waiting at every stop. In Miami Beach, to their great amus.e.m.e.nt, they received the announcement of their own marriage and at once called Pat to thank him. "I thought it would give you a bang," he said, evidently proud of himself. "How was that for all due deliberate speed?" Clay said it was "pure magic," and then Grace took the phone, with appreciative comments on "that paper and the engraving- oh, my, how beautifully it was done." Once more, when Clay took the phone again, Pat admired "that well-bred voice," and Clay felt very proud. But at Mobile, Pat called them to acknowledge the picture's arrival, they having called Mr. Gumpertz, their last hectic day in Channel City, and had him take it over for forwarding. Pat, after complimenting Grace, told Clay: "Listen, my grandfather's picture, my father's, and mine all look as though painted by a friend of the mayor's, which of course they were. But this is a beautiful thing-a real work of art, which is something I know about even if I don't know meat. So I hope you're proud of who you're married to."

She revealed much savvy at entertaining, not only its basic principles but also its special angles, at the hotel c.o.c.ktail parties they gave for Grant's executives and their wives. "The trick," she whispered, in a dark, conspiratorial way, "is in knowing where to splurge and where to pare the cheese. And the main thing, Clay, is champagne-it's the key to the big economies. So it costs, you say? Yes, but look what it saves. You try wetting their whistles with the standard line of mixed drinks, and you have to have a bartender, as well as an endless a.s.sortment of liquors he'll tell you he has to have-everything from quinine water to Cinzano. And once opened, that booze is all down the drain. We dare not take it with us, as we don't know the laws in these states, and even one bottle of Angostura could get your car confiscated. On top of which, you'll need an extra room where he can set up his bar. But with champagne you don't need him: the waiter we have can open, pour, and pa.s.s. You offer champagne at the start, and who turns it down? Everyone loves it, and if there is one nut who wants Scotch, O.K., you give it to him with your own lily-white hands. You have it stashed with a bowl of rocks under the buffet table-and that takes care of him. For the rest, the champagne is opened as we need it, and extra bottles go back-it's the standard procedure. So, if that's understood, we'll get to the fine points, like the kind of canapes we have."

But, though all this no doubt reflected her years abroad, in one respect, as she herself admitted, she was a "one-hundred-percent American hick": she always, on Sunday morning, sent the boy out for the hometown paper and then stretched herself out "to see what's going on-especially what Fisher's is featuring." In New Orleans, with brunch out of the way, she was comfortably flat on her stomach in their sitting room, with The Pilot strewn all around her, when she gave a sharp exclamation: "Well!" And then: "It's about time, it certainly is!"

She was in mules and crimson kimono, he in slippers and monogrammed robe, with a program about to be played in Was.h.i.+ngton tuned in on TV. "Yeah?" he inquired languidly. "What's about time, Grace?"

"They've arrested that girl, the one that killed poor Alec. That a.s.sistant he had in the act. That Buster."

"... Grace, are you sure she killed Alexis?"

"Well, they know what they're doing, I think."

"They've been known to make mistakes."

"On 'Perry Mason,' that's all."

"Grace, what would she kill him for?"

"The insurance, for one thing."

"She'd risk her own neck for that?"

"What neck? She jumped clear, didn't she? By a funny coincidence, after refusing to fasten her seat belt, as he begged her to."

"Can I see the paper, please?"

Staring at Page 1, he felt himself go slack at the picture he saw, of Buster in ecdysiast attire, and at another picture too, a smaller inset of a woman in uniform cap. This, he learned, was Policewoman Elizabeth Galbraith, who had "broken the case" by getting the parking attendant to talk, the boy who had stood around while the quarrel went on between Buster and Mr. Alexis and who had heard her "make threats." Until now, it appeared, the boy had refused to talk or admit he had heard anything, maintaining he had been "busy getting the car out." There was quite a lot more, especially about Miss Galbraith and what she had done, and the boy, whose name was Norman (Bud) Jones. It appeared he had been held as a material witness in $2,000 bail, "which was furnished by a bondsman."

Clay lay on the bed, one of the twin beds, in the bedroom, ma.s.saging his flaccid face, not quite sure how he got there. Then he put in a call to Nat Pender, getting a flash of the jitters at having to find his pen and take down the Pender home number, when Channel City Information looked it up for him. Then he put in the person-to-person, and when at last Mr. Pender came on, talking with a reasonable imitation of easy affability, "Nat," he said, "Clay Lockwood-say, I owe you a million pardons for bothering you at home and on Sunday this way, but I more or less felt I had to."

"You calling about Buster?" Mr. Pender interrupted.

"That's right. I just saw the paper."

"Clay, that girl's in trouble, a lot worse than the paper says. Because what's back of it isn't Liz Galbraith, though count on her, of course, to get her mug printed any chance she gets. Actually it's the wife who got to Bud Jones, and in a way to make him dangerous. I mean, after she got through there's no way to call him off, make him get cold feet, or listen to reason."

"You mean Mrs. Alexis."

"Yeah-she'd be better off with a tiger."

Quickly Mr. Pender sketched the background on the case. Bud, he said, had been soft on Buster himself, but for some reason hadn't minded her relations.h.i.+p with Mr. Alexis. So he had loyally "clammed," as Mr. Pender put it, about the quarrel on the lot, realizing it could mean trouble. But then "Mrs. Alexis got in it, having long talks with him out on the parking lot at night, and in the daytime asking him down to visit her at the hotel. She's put the house on sale, given up her Portico job, and moved into the Chinquapin-Plaza, with a maid and children's nurse, and the boy was flattered when she invited him for long, intimate talks. Did you know he talks with a stammer? Little by little she began telling him of Buster's imitations of how he talks. Clay, I doubt if Buster did it-it doesn't sound like her, she's a good-hearted girl, though dumb. And it's Mrs. Alexis, it seems, that has a gift at such imitations-she's been in show business herself. Anyway, she did a snow job for real, and that jerk hates Buster now. That's why he can't be seen, by her or anyone. When she ripened it up and rang Liz Galbraith about it, the rest was a foregone conclusion."

Clay listened with rising dismay and then broke in: "O.K., Nat, and thanks for filling me in-but what I called about: are you still on the case?"

"Oh, she's retained me, yes."

"How do you mean, retained you?"

Mr. Pender spoke at some length in highly ethical terms, but when Clay pressed him, explained that Buster's insurance, "which was paid her some weeks ago," made it possible for him to invoke the twenty-five to fifty percent rule, "twenty-five percent of recoveries, as retainer for taking the case, fifty percent if we go to court. Or in other words, it seems fair enough that she pay me six and a quarter thousand down, with another six and a quarter due when she's tried-which it looks as though she's going to be." Clay was staggered, but knew he must pick up the tab. He said: "Nat, I feel I should pay that fee-I have reasons we needn't go into. So when she sends her check, will you hold it? Pending receipt of my check? I'll mail it here now today." And then, doing some mental arithmetic: "Or wait a minute, Nat. I don't keep that kind of money lying around, and it'll pinch me in on my trip if I send the whole six and a quarter grand. So can I send you half? Part now, the rest to come when I get back and can sell off some stuff that I have? As I say, I have reasons-"

"Clay," said Mr. Pender, "whatever you say is fine, and I don't ask your reasons. She's a d.a.m.ned sweet kid, that anyone's ent.i.tled to go for and-" Clay opened his mouth to protest it was "nothing like that," but then realized it might be better if Mr. Pender thought it was "that" instead of something else. He let it ride, and when Mr. Pender asked where he was, told him. "But of course!" exclaimed Mr. Pender. "How stupid of me not to remember! You're on your honeymoon-and congratulations. My wife knows the bride and can't say enough in her praise!"

"Thanks," said Clay. "And thank your wife."

"O.K., it's going to cost, but you couldn't do any less, and at least with this guy she can't lose. Now! Quit your glawming, get on with your life!"

He did not, however, at once go back to the sitting room. He went to the bathroom and shaved, then got into the tub. The water was running when the tap came on the door, and he hadn't heard the phone. "Mr. Nat Pender calling," said Grace, through the door. "Will you take it? Or shall I have him call later?" He took it and listened while Nat revised their arrangement. "Clay," he said, "we kept talking about various things, and I didn't get quite caught up until we said good-by. Forget that check for part-forget any check, boy. I wouldn't louse your trip, not for anything. When you get back will be time-and she gets her check back tomorrow. Now forget her, forget me, forget everything but your wife and having a real nice time."

He dressed and at last went back to the sitting room. The TV was still on, but Grace had got herself dressed, in white faille, and the paper was neatly folded on top of the radiator. His eyes as he met hers were blank, with the look card players have, and also criminals facing the law. He glanced out at the bright sunlight, said: "Hm-looks like a nice day after all. They have nothing but rain in this place, but when the sun does s.h.i.+ne it's pretty." Then he sat down and watched the Baltimore Colts run over the Was.h.i.+ngton Redskins, or "Skins," as the announcer called them.

"May we have that off?" she asked in a moment.

"Why, sure, if it bores you."

He snapped the TV off. "Mr. Nat Pender," she said, walking over to face him, "is a criminal lawyer. What business does he have with you?"

"Hey! Who wants to know?"

"I do. Your wife. Remember?"

"Why-he called on a certain matter."

"Clay, I asked you, what matter?"

"Well-actually it was a call-back, about something he forgot to tell me. I had called him, as a matter of fact."

"About that girl?"

"Could have been. Well-yes."

"He was her lawyer before-he held a press conference for her before we left Channel City. Clay, you had something to do with that?"

"Well, I don't just now recollect, I-"

"Answer me!"

He hadn't been meeting her eye, but now, when he had to, saw a woman of ice, once a corporation executive herself, who couldn't be fobbed off with vague evasions. "O.K.," he said, "I may have."

"Did you pay his bill?"

On that he grew disagreeable, saying, "What's it to you?" and other ugly things. Her face, as she stared down at him, didn't change. "In other words," she persisted, "you paid him?"

"Well, G.o.ddamit, suppose I did?"

"Why?"

"I've told you! I don't think she's guilty!"

"That's her lookout, isn't it? Is it up to you to pay the attorney of every girl who's falsely accused? Why did you pay this man?"

"Listen, there's nothing between her and me!"

"I didn't say there was."

"Then why the third degree? Why-"

"You did it, that's why."

"I already said I did! How many times do I-"

"Stop it! Stop pretending I mean one thing when I'm talking about something else. There's only one explanation for this, one explanation that explains. You drove that car she saw, the one she thought was Sally's. You killed Alec. Didn't you?"

She stood like something Greek, like something carved in marble, while he slumped in his chair, his eyes not focusing, his mouth s...o...b..ry. Then: "Yes," he whispered.

She went to the window and stood for a while, looking out at the river, where it wound around the town. When she spoke, her voice was still cold. "What was the quarrel about?" she asked. "Why did Sally break with you?"

Falteringly at first, by jerks and gasps and gulps, with growing coherence, as confession seemed to steady him, he recounted his scenes with Sally, her visit to him and his to her at her house, and then plunged on to the visit from Buster and his talks with Mr. Pender on the phone. "That's all!" he broke out presently. "It's all I know to tell you! If you have any questions to ask, get it over with now, please! I'm not enjoying this any! And I'm not one d.a.m.ned bit sure that I'll be able to take it if you start up again-later on."

"You intend to stand by this girl?"

"I can't do less! I can't walk off and leave her! If you think I can, if you think I'm going to, you're nuts."