The Woman Aroused Page 5

  “Make a man of him,” the uncle chimed in. A few more veins in his thick nose and it would be mistaken for a surrealist painting.

  Over the small noise of his razor Joe yelled, “Best thing in the world for the boy. Shame folks forget about the boys holding our first line of defense—now. No welcome parades or nothing for Walt, like they had after the war.” He put his razor down, stepped into the living room, as if to emphasize the point.

  “No bonus from the states, either,” the uncle added.

  “Yeah, but at least he'll go to college under the G.I. Bill,” Joe said. His voice softened and he looked up at the picture of his wife in the hideous frame. Joe said with sincere tenderness, “That's the thing Mady wanted most—see the kid through college.”

  “My little baby sister,” the aunt said.

  “Way prices are, it would have been an awful squeeze on my salary,” Joe went on softly. “There was Walt, 17, would of been drafted anyway. I had some inside dope from one of the big shots in the office who has his ear open in Washington, that they weren't going to extend the GI Bill. So I said, 'Walt, smart thing is to get in now. You'll come out still a kid, and you can go to the Wharton School of Finance, Harvard, any place you like for four years. World's your oyster.' Walt took my advice and I'm sure glad. And I bet... so is Mady.”

  We all looked up at the picture for a moment as though we expected Mady to talk or smile. The uncle said, “Walt grown any? Always was so small, like his dear mother.”

  “Well he looks heavier. Didn't I show you this picture?” He ran into the bedroom, came out with a snap of a sharp-faced kid, his hat at a rakish angle.

  “Looks fine,” the aunt said. “Glad there was no real trouble over there, now he's coming home safe and sound.”

  “Don't know why we got our boys all over the world,” the uncle said, handing the photo back to Joe. “What they doing in Germany but protecting a lot of Jew-bastards.”

  His wife turned on him. “You stop that talk, and on Sunday too. Told you about swear words—like bastard.”

  “Let me tell you, wasn't for kids like Walt, Joe Stalin would be in France by now. Walt is putting the fear of God in the Reds,” Joe said, going back to the bathroom.

  I listened to the buzz of the razor, thought of Walt. Joe was funny with his son. He was strict with the kid, and although Joe would stay away from the house for days—with his women and bottle-emptying—long as the kid was home he never brought a bottle or a girl in the house. The boy called me Uncle George and once or twice I took him to the movies. He was a shy, moody kid, about five feet tall, and considering the way he was more or less dragged up, he'd turned out pretty well. At first I thought the army might make him more moody, but from the letters that Joe always read me, the kid seemed to take to army life. In one sense it was a break: Joe would never have put him through school.

  We went out and had a lobster dinner and it was all very dull. Joe told them they could have the apartment for the night, we were going to sleep in a Turkish bath. But when we dropped them off, I gave the cabbie my address and Joe said, “What's the matter? Come on to the baths. I got to sweat out all the booze, be in shape for the morning.”

  “I'll skip this one. I'm too tired.”

  “First time I ever saw you turn down the baths.”

  I wanted to go but where do you leave an envelope with seven grand in a Turkish bath?

  Once in the house I put the money behind the panel, cleaned up the place, changed the sheets, fed the cat, and went into a sound sleep. The next thing I knew the alarm was ringing.

  After dressing and shaving I bought the Times and a scratch sheet at a stand three blocks from the house, walked over to Fifth and took a bus downtown. I had the scratch sheet open inside the Times. Salad Days was running at 6 to 1, Henderson had liked her. But there was a horse named Sad Gal at 3 to 1. I thought of Stella and that was enough “hunch” for me. At Radio City I got off and walked over to a luncheonette on 6th Avenue (who calls it the Avenue of the Americas?), had my orange juice and coffee and crisp toast. As I finished my coffee the counterman said, “Anything else, Mr. Jackson?”

  “Sad Gal in the fourth,” I said, pushing change for the breakfast toward him, and two singles.

  “On the nose?” he said, dead-pan.

  “Of course,” I said, wondering if I ought to give Salad Days a play too. I went over to the bank and put the seven thousand into my checking account, which gave me a balance of $7,210—two hundred being the required minimum. I felt honestly relieved when the money was out of my hands, and the balance perked me up as much as if it was all really mine.

  I was fairly busy most of the day, but in the afternoon I stepped into the office of Jake Webster, a retired cop who headed the company guards and therefore (just why I never really knew) had a radio in his office. Joe came in a few seconds later, and one or two other horse players. Sad Gal won but the track odds were only 2 to 1. Salad Days paid 5 to 1. As Joe was cursing about some nag that “Was absolutely due to win, sure as hell. Why I got this tip from...” I went down for my afternoon coffee—and six dollars. (I only had afternoon coffee when my horse came in.) I kept thinking of Salad Days and suddenly it occurred to me that it had been a hunch horse after all—I'd forgotten all about collecting my nine dollars in the coffee pot! As I made a note to get the money before stopping for my pre-supper cocktails, I thought how odd it was that Hank's money had made me so jumpy.

  Seven thousand isn't small change, but neither was I the type to get excited about money—I'd spent many times seven thousand in my life; I once went through eleven thousand in a year—when I was younger. And here this money—which wasn't mine—had rooked me out of a hunch on Salad Days, by causing me to forget my money in the coffee pot. (This is how a hunch player's mind works.)

  A few months later I was going to be bitterly cursing the money for turning my life inside out, making it a nightmare of unreality.

  Chapter 2

  NOTHING MUCH happened in the few months that followed... before Hank died, or was murdered.

  I still had his seven grand in the bank and walked around like the cat who is on a diet of canaries. A few weeks after he'd given me the money, when I didn't hear from him, I called him via his sister's. Hank said he had a selling job with some sort of chemical company, that he had paid five hundred bucks under the well-known table for a top-floor apartment at 29th Street and 2nd Avenue. “Hated like the devil to hand out black-market dough, but I had to get out of Marion's house, and even a hotel room isn't good for us. One thing, walking up those damn five flights of stairs should keep me slim.”

  Hank seemed in a good mood. But a month later when I called him at his office he snapped, “George, for Christsake leave me alone. Sorry, didn't mean to go up in the air like that, but... eh... I've got a lot on my mind. I don't want you hooked up to me, can't have anything happen to that money... might need it for a getaway and...”

  “Getaway? I repeated. “Not really, Hank.”

  “No but... look, Georgie, if you want to help me, leave me alone... until I can explain this mess. Okay?”

  That was that. I went on in my usual (and oh so comfortable) rut, playing the horses, bulling at the office... taking care of all my personal wants and whims. I saw Paul Draper dance twice, went up to the Apollo on 125th Street to watch some excellent—if mechanical—tap dancers, and attended the dance recitals at the Needle Trades School and the 92nd Street Y—and of course danced whenever I felt in the mood. Flo and I went through two reunions. The first lasted a long time—almost a week—and ended when we began arguing over how hamburgers should be cooked, which led to some snide remarks on my part concerning her housekeeping, and we took off from there. I think I was the “victor.”

  The second reunion was in July, when I had my two week vacation. Flo managed to get hers then too, and with much tender weeping we arranged for a cottage out at Southampton. The cottage turned out to be one of those plain, wooden affairs, furnished very simply. The
first day we were there Flo said she didn't think much of it and wished we had one of the big summer places we passed on the way out. I mentioned I had a distant cousin in Easthampton, a boring and rather rich old man who manufactured some sort of insect powder. He had a big house.

  Flo insisted we ought to go right over and visit him and maybe stay there for a week or so. She accused me of being a snob and ashamed of her when I refused—I hadn't seen that branch of the family for nearly 15 years, and hadn't cared for them the few times I did see them. And as it happened, at the moment I was very proud of Flo—she really looked fine in a cool, long, summer dress, and a large straw hat.

  When I protested that I wasn't a snob, that I wanted to be alone with her in our little cottage, she walked out with this parting shot, “That's the coldest crap in town.”

  This was so sudden, so absolutely vulgar, I was speechless, utterly defeated. From the way Flo enjoyed saying it, I knew this was some clever line she had heard at a party, had been carefully saving and nourishing it for just such an occasion. The end result was I had spent $150 to be alone in a cottage (Sky Oil, perhaps in an effort to impress upon their employees the advantages of saving, always gave us our vacation money after we returned from our vacation. Of course advancing myself a few hundred wasn't any trouble to me—with Hank's seven thousand in my account.)

  I went over in my mind the few friends I had. Joe would be much too loud and tiresome for two weeks, even if he could get the time off. Mr. Henderson wouldn't be bad, but if he should dunk a hamburger covered with ketchup and mustard in his coffee, as I saw him do one evening after a poker game, I'd be unnerved. Beside, I didn't like to leave the house on 74th Street alone, and he was taking care of Slob.

  I waited a day to see if Flo would return, then wired Joe to come down for the week-end, and Flo's brother, Eddie, to come after the balance of the two weeks.

  Joe had recovered from the shock of his son, Walter, returning from Germany in May. For some unknown reason, at the last moment Joe decided I must be on hand to welcome the returning prodigal. I had a ticket that night for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo's Rouge et Noir, which is one of these traditional ballet things, but Alicia Markova was dancing, and of course she was worth seeing. But Joe was jumpy as a cat and I had to be with him.

  The kid was due in at eight and Joe and I had dinner together and a few drinks. Joe talked incessantly. “Crazy feeling, seeing Walt after all these years. Only three, but I mean... you know me, I say everything is in transit, flexible, so I didn't expect the boy to be the same, but...”

  “Stop it. He'll be bigger, stronger, and after a while you'll find he's a k>t tougher—grown up,” I said.

  “Hell, I'm not worrying,” Joe said. “But it's the small things. Like, how do I welcome him? He didn't say if he was coming by train or plane, so I'll meet him at the house, but this is a big deal for both of us, I want to make it a celebration. Do I take him out, or do we sit around the house and gab? If he was coming in earlier, like now, I'd take him out for a big feed, start from there. But eight o'clock... I don't even know if I should have a bottle around the house. You know Walt—always shy and reserved, and what the hell, he's still a kid and, well...”

  “Take it easy. Bring in some beer and...”

  “Beer? Great.” Joe boomed as if I'd really thought of something. “Sure, he certainly drinks beer. Beer and snacks, and we sit and shoot the breeze about Berlin, give the kid a chance to shoot his mouth off—they like that. Then you can leave—I'll be over the hurdle and don't ask me what hurdle. Think I ought to get the kid a job for the summer, or let him take it easy till school starts in September?”

  “Why don't you ask him? And stop worrying.”

  Joe grinned. “Want to know the truth—when Walt was little I used to hate his guts sometimes. I didn't blame him for Mady dying, but... he was a drag on me, especially not having a woman to look after him. But now, well by God, I'm the proudest father out. I haven't done bad with the company—think where I'd be if I'd of had a college education? Under the G.I. Bill, Walt can go to Harvard, Yale, any of them tony schools. Can you see the picture in a brace of years when I bring the kid down to the big boss. Walt will have one of them crew hair-cuts and be dressed casually—but expensive duds—and I tell the big boss, 'Sir, there's my son, Walter. Just graduated Amherst...' Hot damn!” Joe smacked his big hands together like a kid.

  We bought several quarts of beer, pretzels and cold cuts. Joe wanted to buy cigars but said, “Kid probably doesn't smoke yet. He might smoke a rope to make me feel good and get himself sick.”

  At Joe's apartment we spent a few minutes dusting the place. While I put the cold cuts and pretzels out, washed some glasses, Joe changed his tie and shirt, shaved. We sat around, listening to the radio and talking; Joe retelling stories about what a good kid Walt was... the time the teacher told Joe the kid must have a wonderful mother because the boy was so well mannered, and when Joe said he was a widower, she shook Joe's hand, said God bless him... and hot air like that.

  At eight-thirty I was tired of Joe gassing about how lonely the apartment had been without the kid, not really a home... and when I thought of all the tramps Joe had had in the place...

  By nine Joe was a nervous wreck, wondering why the kid didn't come, and rambling on and on, to keep himself from going to pieces. He was in the middle of a speech about train wrecks, maybe Walt was hurt on his way home... that's the way it always happens... when the bell rang.

  We both jumped and ran for the door. Walt was standing there, his uniform neat and pressed, a high polish on his shoes. He was dragging a barracks bag that seemed almost as tall as the kid. He hadn't put on much weight or gained any height, but you only had to look at his sharp little face, the shrewd eyes, the cigarette carelessly pasted on his lip—to see he was a man, a tough little squirt. He and Joe hugged each other awkwardly, and as Joe shut the door, Walt straightened his shirt. Joe said, “Son, you remember Uncle George?”

  “Sure. Howya, Jackson,” the kid said, brushing the corporal stripes on his sleeves as he shook hands with me. There was a strong odor of whiskey on his breath.

  We sat down, Joe and I on one side of the room, the kid on the couch beneath the picture of his mother. He looked around, said, “Place looks the same.”

  “You bet, haven't changed a thing. Wanted home to look exactly the way you remembered it,” Joe said. “Guess home looms pretty large to a soldier.”

  “Yes and no,” Walt said. I was fascinated by the cigarette actually pasted to his lips, it went up and down when he spoke like a tail wagging. “Germany isn't rugged, at least not in Berlin.”

  There was a moment of silence, then Joe suddenly bounced to his feet. “My God, I forgot the beer! You drink beer, Walt?”

  “Yeah, I'll take an amber. Had a couple with some of the guys at the station, why I'm a little late.”

  “Couple of what?” Joe asked, although he must have had a whiff of the kid's breath too.

  “Whiskey. Bastards charge you fifty cents a shot here. Over in Berlin we get a goddamn glassful for a dime.”

  Joe was staring at him bug-eyed, and I said brightly, “I'll get the beer.” I brought in three bottles and glasses. Joe poured and Walt held up his glass, said, “Here's to you, Pop. You, too, Jackson.”

  We drank and Joe said, “Guess you must of had plenty of good German beer over there.”

  Walt screwed up his thin face. “Kraut beer is a lot of crap. About the same as this, and the krauts are such hustlers, they'd water their own pee if they could grab a buck out of it. Hey Pop, still smoke a pipe?”

  Joe nodded.

  Walt reached over lazily, pulled the barracks bag to him. He dug out a box, threw it to Joe. “Jesus!” Joe said, opening it, his voice high with excitement. “George, look at this, a set of two meerschaum pipes! Genuine, meerschaum.”

  I examined the white bowls and yellow stems, all set in a gaudy red plush box, carefully handed them back to Joe. “They'll color up nicely,�
�� I said to make conversation.

  “Walt, you didn't have to bring me nothing as expensive as this,” Joe said, so pleased I thought he'd burst with pride.

  “Got lot more stuff,” Walt said, digging into the barracks bag again. He came up with a tan-leather camera case, handed it to Joe. “How's this? I got a couple of 'em.”

  “Some camera,” Joe said, opening the case.

  The kid laughed softly, said to me, “Get him—the square. Some camera. Pop that's a Leica, the camera. You can hock it for a hundred bucks any place in the world, sell it for two hundred. Five years ago you could have got a grand. Sure, I'm loaded with junk—including perfume you can give your girls.”

  “What girls?” Joe asked a little too quickly.

  “Aw come on, you ain't that old,” Walt said grinning. He pointed to the cigarette hanging from his thin lips. “In Germany this still means a girl, if you ain't too particular. Couple candy bars or a pack of butts means all night. For a carton of butts you can get a blonde midchen that's good as anything in the movies. Those kraut babes are built for it. Got you some perfume too, Jackson.”