John D. MacDonald Read online

  After a few banalities, I found the silence I wanted and said, “With a few thousand years of selective breeding, Noel, I could really make an improvement in the race. I was thinking about it last night.”

  “An improvement?”

  “We ought to have a setup like the lizards do. After you grow a little older and wiser, then you shuck off your skin and become somebody else. You become a better image of yourself. The way it is now, if you change, the way people inevitably do, you’re still trapped in your old life, in the way you’ve always looked. It hardly seems fair.”

  I saw the awakening of interest in her eyes and saw at the same time that her eyes were a good shade of brown, a very dark brown that perhaps you could see only in sunlight, with some very tiny flakings of gold around the pupils.

  “What do you want to change to, Steve?”

  “Undecided. Just something different. I’m sort of a bright young man emeritus at this point. Can’t afford to look tired. Got to keep running fast. Sort of maintaining an impersonation. How about you?”

  “I guess this is just female, Steve, but I’d like to be big and golden and shiny instead of a sort of brown mouse. I sit in too many corners and watch too much and think too touch. Maybe I just want to be part of the act.”

  I allowed myself a look of contempt. “This act?”

  “No, not this act. This one is worn out. I want a better act. New and fresh, with trumpets and drums.”

  “I’ll book that. I’ll plant releases. We’ll pack the house.”

  And I looked into her eyes very seriously and intently and saw her eyes widen just a bit before they moved away, saw the faint color of pinkness on her throat, and knew that I had created in her an awareness of me and a curiosity. It’s smart tactics to stick pretty close to what you really believe, because that way you can achieve a feeling of sincerity and reality that you can’t get if you pick too fictionalized an approach. She wouldn’t be difficult. She was too mixed up and tired of her life and Randy and Wilma and herself. It didn’t take a trick shot. You could nearly fire blind and knock her off the shelf. For a little while I thought I’d better not, because it was too easy. But a man has to save himself in any way he can.

  Later, during the morning swim, after I spilled Hayes off his skis, I had a chance to stretch out on the dock and talk to her some more. Sermon on the emptiness and artificialities of our special segment of civilization. The need to get back to something clean and honest. No honesty any more. All angles. And she gave me all the little clues of a growing recklessness. Even in the way she walked, conscious of herself and of me. She began to glow from the inside, and it softened her mouth and made her laugh more often. And made her tip up the drinks. And Randy was a great help to me, in the feverish way he took care of the little errands Wilma gave him. And she gave him a great many.

  The croquet game was a special shambles. Paul Dockerty had got almost alarmingly drunk. And it was evidently the Mavis-Hayes Mutual Admiration Society that had set him off. Noel and I exchanged glances of commiseration, wry smiles, and, with increasing frequency, the reassurance of a light touching of hands. Lunch was late and very liquid and people were folding up gently to gain strength for the coming evening. I had José find me a thermos and I made up a batch of stingers and told Noel there was a place on the lake I wanted to show her. It was the critical move. She agreed readily, almost hastily, and we went down and I took out one of the runabouts and dizzied her with the speed and the curves and the roar of the water along the hull. I took her to the small island and I went over the side and towed the boat ashore and helped her out and up to the grassy bank near the familiar clump of sumac.

  She was full of areas of resistance. Some were soothed with words and others were eased with caresses. And a few were melted by the thermos. We were utterly alone, the boat out of sight of the house, the water and mountains in front of us. Capitulation, though delayed, was inevitable. And I found her full of unexpected frenzies, far too many tears, far too many of the broken words denoting a permanence that I had not expected or wanted her to feel. It gave me the troubled, confused, nervous feeling of having taken on far too much. She had never been unfaithful to Randy before. And she was convinced that now we were together forever and ever. I knew it was a rationalization. She could not excuse what she had permitted, and so she had to label it a great love. I knew that I could not keep on being evasive about this forever-and-ever deal. I could see the beginning of suspicion in her eyes. So I had to go along with it. I told her that unfortunately, my fortunes were temporarily tied up with Randy and Wilma and the others, so we would have to be very careful, make good plans, avoid impatience.

  “But it has really happened, my darling,” she said, smiling at me.

  “Really.”

  “I never expected to find you here. I’ve waited for you so long. So very, very long, Steve.”

  “It has surprised me too,” I said in momentary honesty.

  “But we’ll be together.”

  “As soon as we can make the arrangements without knocking my business in the head.”

  “She can have him. Gladly. I give him up. He’s a useless thing, Steve. He has been, for a long time. He blundered into the web and she wrapped him up, and when he couldn’t move, she sucked him dry. You’re a man, Steve. He hasn’t been a man for a long time. Oh, I’m so glad we found each other. Hold me close, Steve. Remember what you said this morning? I’ve shed my skin, you know. I’m all golden and shiny. I’m not a brown mouse any more.”

  “The new skin is fine. I like it. It’s an improvement. Extra-soft. Extra-fine texture. Guaranteed imperishable.”

  “Stop staring. You’re making me blush.”

  “Hummm, when you blush it seems to start about here.”

  “Steve!”

  We stayed there until the summer dusk and the end of the sun. And the end of the thermos, our bodies growing heavy and slow-moving with the dragging sweetness of outdoor love. I felt uneasy about entering into an implied contractual relationship for all eternity. But it was fruit on the bough that had happened to grow within reach. And I could create delay after delay, with excuses that at first would be very reasonable, and would slowly grow less reasonable, and eventually it would be a pose that we maintained as a rationalization, the idea of “someday.” And it would eventually end, as such things have ended before for me, and as they will end again, because pleasure without purpose feeds on itself until it is finally consumed and the thing is dead.

  We went back, her face so luminous with fulfillment that I was glad it was near dark when I came into the dock and saw Randy standing there, frail and still.

  “Where have you been?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  Noel laughed in the silence, in the dusk. She gave a rough and unmistakable imitation of Wilma’s voice. “Why, we seem to have been on a picnic or something, dahling. Miss me?”

  He turned and walked away. He seemed to be spending the week end walking away from me. “A little too rough, honey,” I said to her.

  “Was I? How can he afford self-righteousness? How—”

  “Ssh, honey. Please.”

  I gave her my hand and helped her out of the runabout. She came up onto the dock and leaned against me for a moment, light as a whisper. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I feel reckless, I guess.”

  “Keep it bottled up. Just for a while.”

  “Of course, darling. Anything you say. Anything.”

  But I kept an eye on her. The night was warmer than any I had seen at the lake. We ate. The stars came out. We brought bottles and glasses and ice and mix down to the dock. The lake was black and laughter sounded good. Noel had acquired a little drunken giggle. Wilma was the one who suggested we kill the lights and do our swimming the way nature had perhaps intended we should. It seemed like one of the better ideas. Judy, Randy, and Wallace Dorn backed out. I went up to the box to turn off the lights. I turned them off. I waited a few moments and then turned them back again. There were yells
of imitation anger. I put the lights off for good and felt my way back down. We were all there except Paul Dockerty. I found someone in the water. It was Mavis and she thought I was Gilman Hayes. We straightened that out quickly. I found Noel. We floated on our backs, holding hands, looking at the stars. She was fish-sleek in the water. All very gay. All very childish. Oh, we were delightful irresponsible people. There was some sort of disorganized game of tag for a time, with the rules getting continually more complicated. Randy, I think, was sulking. There was a bit of hysteria in Mavis’ laughter. I had the feeling that we were a pack of circus seals, performing for Wilma’s amusement.

  I wondered why Gilman Hayes was calling Wilma so loudly.

  Chapter Five

  (WALLACE DORN—AFTERWARD)

  I WAS most definitely happy that I did not have to join that undignified scramble for clothing in the dark while Winsan ran to switch the lights back on. I heard their wet panting. And it alarmed me a bit to recall how close I had come to joining their little debauch. I had, indeed, been tempted for a few moments, thinking of the dark lake-wet flesh of women in the night. It is the mood of recklessness that Wilma knows how to develop, going at it quite coldly, for all the impression of warmth that she gives.

  I wondered what Wilma had been thinking as the water had closed over her. Knowing her, I would judge that it had been a feeling of vast impatience, of plans interrupted. Not fear, I believe, because I feel that she, like a child, would be utterly incapable of objectively contemplating her own demise. She had a nice knack of making others die a little. Now she had died a lot. Thoroughly. And I found it quite pleasant to think about, actually. For me it was an extraordinarily convenient death. We had had our little chat. Death made her decision meaningless, as I had intended that, somehow, that decision should be made meaningless.

  I felt as though now I could begin the process of recreating my own dignity. The years of Wilma had left me precious little. Nothing, perhaps, but the appearance without the substance. Now perhaps I could begin to feel that I could be free of all these other dreadful people. Free of Randy, that husk, that ethicless nothing. Free, of course, of Hayes, and of having to use his utterly talentless blobs in the Ferris program. Free of the Jonah woman, that crude, unfeminine clown. Through at last with Winsan, who is an almost obscene exaggeration of my own loss of self-respect. Of all of them, Paul Dockerty would be the one I would keep, out of necessity. And he is the best of the lot. Perhaps he is the best because, barring Gilman Hayes, he is the most recent. A few more years or perhaps a few more months would have given him over to Wilma in some devious way so that through her control she could despoil him.

  I knew I would deal with Paul from now on, and sensed that he would retain our association. I had nothing to fear. I kept telling myself that. Nothing at all to fear.

  It did not become quite horrible for me until they were all assembled and went back and forth in their boats, dragging for her body. I envisaged the cruel hooks seeking her flesh. I have always been too imaginative, I believe.

  I could not watch it. I had been told by a uniformed and rather officious young man that I could not leave. I went to my room. I wished to ignore the whole episode. I donned my treasured flannel robe and sat in the deep chair in my room in darkness and smoked my pipe and tried to think of the work that would face me once I returned to my office. But all the time I was aware of them out there, with their lights and boats and hooks and their snickerings. I knew that it would be in the papers and that Mr. Howey would feel it necessary to call me in for one of his little chats.

  I used to feel that he liked me. He does not seem to like me any more. He cannot claim that I do not do my work. It was, of course, Wilma Ferris who poisoned him about me. That is not fair. I did not seek out the Ferris account. What Mr. Howey does not seem to realize is that I can be most effective when I handle those accounts where business is conducted on the proper plane. You should be a gentleman in business relationships. Calmness and careful thought can be much more effective than all the self-conscious bustling about in the world. A good quiet lunch and a brandy and a discussion of business problems. I never asked for the Ferris account. I have never felt entirely competent to handle it because I was never able to talk properly to that damnable woman. She seemed to be forever laughing at me. And I do not consider myself to be a ludicrous man. I am educated. I am rather well set up. I have health and, I trust, a certain dignity.

  I did not ask for the account, and had it not been given to me to handle, I should probably, even now, be on much better terms with Lucius Howey. It is quite clear to me that she poisoned him against me. Deliberately, maliciously.

  I do not understand such people. One must have good will. At times, naturally, I have been forced to deal firmly with underlings in order to protect myself. But good will is my credo. If all my accounts were such reliable conservative old firms as Durbin Brothers, life could be very enjoyable. We agree on the media. I never attempt to force them to increase their total bill. We are in complete agreement on the dignity of the copy. And what finer program to support can there be? Their Citizens’ Forum improves the mind. The Durbin Brothers consider it a privilege to support the Forum. They are my idea of the business person who is aware of his obligations to the society in which he lives. True, it is a rather small account. But an excellent product. Excellent.

  They would never be guilty of the sort of behavior that Wilma was guilty of that hideous day when I took the new copy to her apartment at her request. I had toned down some of the obvious floridities in it. And I had repaired some rather clumsy layouts. She was expressionless as she read the copy. I could not guess her reaction.

  And then she had torn it all to bits and scattered them on the floor. I did not know her well. I made some sound of dismay.

  She came over to me, her face contorted, and leaned so close to me that I leaned back in alarm. She called me Buster. She said, barely opening her mouth to say it, “Buster, you need some of the facts of life underlined for you, don’t you? That was supposed to be perfume copy. With that senile drivel you couldn’t sell sachet to your maiden aunt. All you got to do in that copy is to tell the girls that if they smell better they’ll be had more often.”

  “Really, Miss Ferris!”

  “Don’t boggle at me, you stuffed shirt. I said sexy copy and I want sexy copy. In my perfume line, I’m not selling smells. I’m selling sex. If that distresses you, Dorn, go paddling off and I’ll get somebody who can understand what I’m talking about. Maybe you don’t approve of sex, you bloodless old nanny goat.”

  “I cannot permit you to talk to me in this manner.”

  “I’ve heard tell you used to write fair copy. Get over to that desk and write something remotely usable or you’re going to be known in advertising alley as the boy who bungled the Ferris account.”

  There was nothing I could do. Actually the woman alarmed me. She kept me there for three hours. Finally I turned out something she liked. I more than half expected the magazines to turn it down. To my astonishment, they took it without comment.

  We had similar scenes later. I could never guess how she would react. And most of the time I was off balance because I was wondering why she should give the constant impression of laughing at me. She had to dominate me. I sensed that. And I could not prevent her doing it.

  I actually believe that my helpless feeling of being dominated was what finally led me into the ultimate mistake there at her apartment. I really believe that I was finally reversing our roles by regressing to that most basic of male-female relationships. And, believing that, I spent a fool’s hour in that ripest of gardens, believing that I was inflicting my will on her, enjoying to the utmost her really remarkable favors and then, to my complete horror, as I began dressing, fully expecting warmth from her, and a certain humility, she sat on the edge of her bed and began snickering and finally collapsed in helpless laughter. For a long time she could not tell me what amused her. When she could speak, she said she had imagi
ned some rather coarse, crude things, most of them to do with my mode of dress and my behavior, though I have always felt that I behaved with the dignity of a gentleman.

  So the expected reversal of roles led only to greater humiliation.

  I know she poisoned Mr. Howey against me.

  I cannot understand a person like that.

  I am totally glad she is dead.

  I am very glad.

  I rejoice.

  And I am not afraid.

  Chapter Six

  (RANDY HESS—BEFORE)

  I TOLD NOEL that Wilma expected us both for the week end, and that started another of our dry, bitter little quarrels. There is no ranting and raving. Just a sour quietness. It was not always this way. Not before Wilma. My nerves used to be better. My wife and I are almost strangers. It seems a long time since we have laughed together. And that did not matter to me very much before Gilman Hayes came on the scene, six months ago. He displaced me nearly entirely in one area of my usefulness to Wilma. I think of that and wonder how I have managed to give up all pride and decency. And I wonder why I am willing to trade day after day of the humiliating tasks she gives me just for the sake of those brief rare times when she opens her arms.

  I think of myself and wonder that I can feel so devoid of shame. I think I used to be a proud man. I have that memory. But it’s a memory that seems to belong to some other person.

  She is not bad. She is not evil. People make a mistake when they say she is evil and malicious. She is merely Wilma. I remember one time when she talked to me in a voice I had not heard before.

  “I was a fat kid, Randy. A horrible fat kid. My bones are big and there was a lot of padding on the bones. My God, I ate all the time. And I hated the way I looked. I was ugly.” She spoke quietly beside me in her bed, her profile clear against the red mist high over the city. “I used to dream that a fairy godmother would come along. She would have a wand. She would touch me on the forehead and she would tell me I was beautiful. And, in the dream, I would run, run, run to the mirror, my heart in my throat, and I’d look in and there I’d be, the same fat Wilma. I used to hate my fairy godmother. Maybe that’s what started me on this cosmetics thing, Randy. I’ve wondered about that. Magic wand. Say, make a mental note of that, will you? For the stick perfume. It might be good. I’m too relaxed to think about it right now. I guess it did other things, being fat and ugly like that. You see, I’d see the little golden girls going to their parties. I’d hide. Sometimes, when I was brave, I’d throw mud. There was a boy they all had crushes on. My God, I had a crush on him too. My heart used to go thud-thud just seeing him in the school halls. And it was so damn ridiculous. I told my psychiatrist about all this.”