The Magician's Wife Part 4

"Where is this atelier, Grace?"

So they began doing his portrait while he half reclined on the window seat in the sun porch off her living room, and she worked with pencils first, doing endless sketches of him, "to get what's in your face-your eyes can be so fishy, except at certain times, and those times are what I want"; then she began working in color, with s.h.i.+ny tubes on a table and brushes laid beside them. At that stage she pushed out an easel, an upright post to which she clamped her board, already framed in raw oak, "so I can see what I'm doing." She had him wear a blue s.h.i.+rt, "to go with your eyes and bring them up," and a garnet jacket she had him buy, with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons "to go with your hair." As she worked she talked, often about the child: "Don't forget, Elly's my grandson, Clay-something I can't get used to, but it's true just the same. And if I tell the truth, he concerns me most of all, and he's what it's really about, this campaign I'm pus.h.i.+ng with you. Because he could really be blighted in case of some mess-or whatever it might be-that Sally got herself into."

But mostly she talked about Sally, her birth, her childhood, her venture into magic, her marriage, and what had come of it. She was helped by little promptings, queries of various kinds, from him, and before very long had told perhaps more than she meant to. So at the end of two or three weeks, with the portrait nearly done, he got up one night, for a stretch, from the window seat where she posed him and suddenly started to talk. "So," he said briskly, "as I get it, this sweet innocent child, barely turned seventeen, got herself sawed in half, but took no interest at all till she found out who he was, this guy in the sorcerer clothes-the son of the Gorsuch millions. Then she went into action, took a job in the act, married him, and at once gave him a son, who was also, we note, an heir. Then she started in making his life a h.e.l.l on earth in the hope of getting a settlement. But what she got was a summons, an order from the court, sued out by her father-in-law, to show cause why she shouldn't be declared an unfit mother to her child. She won, by a hair, but then cooked up a real plan, which has you scared to death."

"I still don't know what you mean."

"That we understand. But your campaign hasn't worked, so why don't we get on-talk about you and me?"

"My campaign has worked, Clay."

"No-you talked just a little too much."

"You're in love with her, Clay."

"No, no more. Sorry."

"I can prove it-or think I can."

"Interesting if true... How?"

"By watching your face when I tell you..."

"Tell me? What, for instance?"

She came over, took him by the forelock, and peered into his eyes as she said: "She's going to be free this weekend." Then she laughed at his sudden intake of breath, which came with his startled blink, and went on: "Mr. El is taking Elly for the Memorial Day weekend-she'll have evenings for you and means to call you up. I know, as she asked me, when I dropped in for lunch at Portico, if I still had the number she'd given me, or need she give it to me again? I a.s.sured her I'd kept it. Now, have I proved it or not?"

"All you've proved is she's calling me up."

But his voice sounded thick, and she laughed once more as she dropped a cloth on the picture. "Why kid yourself?" she asked. "If you could see your face, you'd accept what it means."

"I tell you, I'm through."

"And I tell you, you're not."

The call came, at his office, she opening with the charge: "You louse, you've been ducking me-not answering your phone even once." He protested he hadn't been home; "we have all kinds of grief here at the G.o.ddam shop, refrigeration went on the fritz. I've been here every night." He was oddly breathless about it, but she didn't argue much, and quickly they arranged it, the dinner Friday night, she to arrive around seven, he to "do it big, with flowers and everything." So, for the next day or so he lived on expectation, ordering bunches of roses and bringing home extra-fine steak, caviar, mushrooms, and champagne. But on Friday something happened that stood his world on its head. He was just back at his desk, from his afternoon tour of inspection, when Miss Helm appeared at his side, leaned close, and whispered: "There's a Mr. Alexis to see you, with a girl. ... Mr. Lockwood, it's the Great Alexis, I'm sure-you know, that guy at the Lilac Flamingo, the magician? And the girl, I think, is the one that works in his act. ... Is something wrong, Mr. Lockwood?"

"Did he say what he wants, Miss Helm?"

"Well, I didn't ask him. Shall I?"

"No. And nothing's wrong. Send him in."

Mr. Alexis came in importantly, a tall, slender young man in smart summer suit, with a little eyebrow mustache and sharp, squinting expression. With him came a girl, a small, plump creature with light hair and twinkling eyes, whose outfit was certainly startling, consisting as it did of pink crepe dress with no sleeves, red socklets on bare legs, white kid shoes with high heels, and red band around her head. She smiled at Clay while her companion held out his hand, announcing with bland a.s.surance: "Alexis, Mr. Lockwood-professionally known as the Great Alexis. You may have heard of me."

"Why-yes, I have," said Clay, gulping and after a moment taking the hand, then letting go after one pump.

"This is Miss Conlon-she works with me."

"Professionally known as Buster," said the girl, "and you must have heard of me."

"I have indeed," Clay a.s.sured her, taking the soft little paw she gave him. "I'm very glad to know you."

"Likewise," she said. "Very, very, very."

But as she looked Clay up and down with obvious interest, Mr. Alexis chided her: "You don't have to jump in his lap." He tried to sound facetious, but something ugly, perhaps of jealousy, showed through.

"Well, he hasn't asked me yet," she replied archly.

"Sit down, sit down, please!" Clay interjected, pus.h.i.+ng up chairs, then resuming his own seat, in the chair back of the desk. Leaning back, he coached himself to say: "I'm sorry, you'll have to talk with my lawyer-I don't handle such things myself." He a.s.sumed this was about Sally, though what Buster had to do with it he had no idea at all. So he was confused when Mr. Alexis, his aplomb somewhat regained, said: "Mr. Lockwood, Mike Dominick sent me to you, on a matter that's come up that he said you could help me on, and might be willing, if I-"

"Mike Dominick?" Clay exclaimed.

"He runs the Lilac Flamingo, that Baltimore club where I work." And then, at Clay's astonished stare: "Well, look, if I'm in the wrong place, just run me out, Mr. Lockwood. Mike told me you were a friend."

"Well, yes. I sell him meat. But-"

"Something's wrong, I can see. So-"

"No, please!"

"You don't have to jump in his lap," said Buster to Mr. Alexis. "Give him time, let him readjust. How do you know? Maybe Mike has other names too-and not at all professional. They could be aliases, even. And-"

"I'm sorry," Clay apologized. "I'm not quite caught up, that's all. Let's start over. I know Mike, of course-I've known him for years, and he's right. He is a friend. How is the old mafioso?"

"About the same," said Mr. Alexis.

"Which is not saying much," Buster murmured.

"Practically nothing at all," Clay agreed. "He's O.K., just the same. What's this matter of yours, Mr. Alexis? The one you say has come up."

"It has to do with my act."

"And my neck," Buster explained.

"I see, I see," said Clay, though he didn't.

"Next week," Mr. Alexis continued, "we go on summer schedule, with half the place closed for redecoration all through July and then the other half through August-and of course for some alteration, which is where I come in. I have to have stuff put in for an act I hope to pull off, beginning in the fall. But I have to speak up now, so contracts can be let. Because, Mr. Lockwood, take magic-what's wrong with it, now?"

"Well-is anything?"

"No! And that, my friend, is what's wrong!"

"You have to work on it," Buster told Clay. "It doesn't get any better, but at least you can understand it."

"If you'd keep your mouth shut!" snapped Mr. Alexis.

"Your wish is my command," she told him, winking at Clay and zipping her mouth with her thumb.

Mr. Alexis now grew dramatic, asking Clay: "So what makes a variety act? The perfection of it? No! The things that do go wrong! Like on the wire, when the guy misses his somersault and has to take it over-that's what they eat up, isn't it? And with dogs, the one the people love is the little white pooch who won't go over the man, but runs between his legs! Even with cats, the tiger they go for is the one that balks at his jump and has to be coaxed with the whip. But with magic, what? Nothing ever goes wrong, and I say that's what's wrong. So, I've been working on it. All last season, in our levitation, Miss Conlon went up in the air. She floated, she rose, she came down-and that was all." And then in a whisper, leaning close: "I want this girl to get lost! So when I make my little speech, pick up the steel hoop, and turn to pa.s.s it over her, she's not there. She's disappeared. I ask for quiet, for absolute quiet-I request that n.o.body move, and begin calling to her. And then a woman screams. And then I see where she is-they all see where she is-floating up under the ceiling"

"In my weightless condition," said Buster.

"But to do it," said Mr. Alexis, ignoring her, "I must have a movable cradle I can suspend her from, which must have something to run on and-"

"You want to look at our overhead stuff?"

"That's it! If I may, Mr. Lockwood!"

"Nothing to it-we'll look at it right now!"

Beads of sweat, of infinite relief, standing out on his brow, he took three coats from their hangers, gave one to Mr. Alexis, one to Buster, and slipped one on himself. Her zipper, as he pulled it up from the floor, ran over quite shapely contours, evoking her baby stare, which Mr. Alexis saw. However, nothing was said, and they trooped down to the storage room, where the rails, trolleys, and hooks excited Mr. Alexis greatly. He asked all sorts of questions about them, getting a card from his pocket and making note of the company that put such fixtures in. He inquired about strength, being a.s.sured by Clay "it's tested for tons, not pounds-has to be, as quarters of beef can get bunched, rolling along, so the strain on the rail is quite heavy. One quarter weighs two hundred pounds-more than Miss Conlon, I imagine." But when Mr. Alexis rolled one of the quarters an experimental foot or two, it made a dismaying rumble. Clay used the weighmaster's phone, told Miss Helm to come down "and bring some rubber bands-whole box, if it's there, of the biggest ones we have." When she got there with them, he took a hook off the rail, wrapped its roller in rubber, put it back again, and tried it. It rumbled scarcely at all. "Now we're coming!" said Mr. Alexis. "It's going to work, I can see that."

"I want to try it," said Buster.

"What for?" asked Mr. Alexis.

"Well, what do you think? After all, I'm going to be up there. Not somebody else, Alec-me. And I want to feel how it is."

She raised her arms, as though to be lifted up, but Mr. Alexis just stood there, not stepping forward to help. Prettily, she looked at Clay.

He lifted her.

She caught the rail, nodded.

She swung a little and jerked up and down.

"O.K.," she said, and Clay stepped forward to lift her down. To his astonishment, Mr. Alexis put out his arm, barring his way. "Not so fast," he told Clay. And then, to Buster: "You want down, let go. You'll come down."

"Well, thanks a lot," said Buster, her white kid shoes dangling. But when Clay moved to help her, Mr. Alexis stepped between. "Hey!" he growled, "she's my girl!"

"She's my guest," said Clay, "in my place. I just don't care to be sued if she falls and breaks a leg."

Shouldering Mr. Alexis aside, he took hold of Buster again and lowered her to the floor. There was a gritty moment, and then, to get things going again, as they had been before, he said: "There's just one thing: you should make sure, and check on it every few days, that it's absolutely level, whatever you have put in. I would use a spirit level and check on it myself, as that's going to be important, for control of your stuff up there, and also so it's safe." He told of a place in Mexico "where they put in all modern equipment, the best that York, Pennsylvania, puts out, and forgot one thing, alas: the way the foundations settle there on that filled land that Mexico City is built on. So this place settled too, so the cold room rails canted one hot weekend. Ten tons of meat rolled down on the end of a rail, so a bolt snapped from the weight and dumped it down on the pipes, jamming a valve. Brother, when they opened up Monday morning, was that a job for the buzzards. Spoiled meat can smell, in the heat of Mexico City, when reefer pipes go dead-and costs, if you know what I mean."

Ten minutes later, on the parking lot, his manner again suave though his face was still a bit grim, Mr. Alexis said good-by. "Thanks, Mr. Lockwood," he declaimed in his best platform voice, "you've been most helpful indeed-shown me just what I wanted. You're invited to my opening, as my guest, my personal guest."

"I-hope I can make it," said Clay.

"Likewise," said Buster. "Very."

"That does it-she's leaving him and leaving him now! G.o.d, what a heel, what a pompous, vain, and stupidly jealous heel! And what a dangerous heel! If you hadn't been there, he'd have popped that girl in the jaw! If you hadn't been bigger, he'd have popped YOU in the jaw! What a revelation of the life poor Sally has led!"

7.

POOR SALLY, WHEN SHE got there after phoning she would be late, didn't quite look like herself. She was still in her Portico uniform, with little straw hat to match, but her crisp Portico style was not on view at all. The hat was askew, the dress mussed, the face slack. She was tacky, disheveled, and loose, and her mouth, wet with desire, plainly betrayed the reason. When he opened, she clamped her arms on his neck, started a long hot kiss, and lifted her heels from the floor, as though to be carried in the direction of love. He carried her, but into the living room, which was decked, to be sure, with several vases of roses and fragrant with toast, caviar, and crumbled egg-but it wasn't their regular dovecote. "Here!" he said, putting her down and waving at the comestibles. "You must be starved." She blinked, then told him: "Well, maybe I am-but not for this stuff, just yet. What's the matter? Don't you like me?" He said he liked her fine, "but we have some talking to do." She stared, then snarled: "What is this? I come for a little romance and you give me G.o.ddam fish eggs-and a song and dance about talking we have to do. What is this, anyway? What talking?"

"Your husband was in today."

"Alec?"

"Yes, Alec. He came to the shop."

She sank to a sofa, stunned. "And you spilled it?" she whispered, licking her lips. "You told everything? After all I've said, you told him about me?"

"So happens I didn't."

Somewhat rea.s.sured, but not much, she braced to hear him out. In considerable detail, with special stress on the scene in the cold room, when he lifted Buster down, he told of the day's visitation and when he had finished said: "So!"

"Well? So what?"

"Sally, can't you see?"

"Why, I can see how he shook you up, coming in that way, but once you knew what it was, why should it be such a bomb? So he needs overhead rails and Mike sends him to you? Why shouldn't he? After all, you do sell him meat, and after all you do have overhead rails. Maybe I'm dumb, but I don't get the dramatics."

"Then maybe you are dumb."

"So-to the dumb you have to explain."

"Don't you see? I took his hand."

"Well, did it have the pox on it, Clay?"

"I can't shake his hand and sleep up with his wife."

"You are sleeping up with his wife! Or were."

"I can't do it behind his back."

"You did do it behind his back-didn't you?"

"Listen, it started that way-things got out of hand. But from the beginning I wanted it out in the open. I begged you to go to Reno and never go back to him. You wouldn't, and things coasted along. O.K., but now they can't coast any more. Listen, it's like that O. Henry story where the guy couldn't drink with the man he blackmailed. I can't take a man's wife and then shake his hand. Listen: it's not taking the wife-I don't mind that at all. If he can't keep her, she's fair game for me-life is like that and I'm not even slightly ashamed. But shaking his hand, all at the same time-that's different. I won't do it, and now that it's happened, a whole new chapter has started."

"What O. Henry story?"

"Does it matter? I forget the t.i.tle of it."

"It still makes no sense to me but- Let's get on, Clay. What new chapter? If you know."

"First, we go to him."