Charlie Martz and Other Stories (8 page)

Dennis whistled.

The American's wife lifted the stick from her highball and twirled it thoughtfully between her fingers as she stared into the empty fireplace.

The American said, “I think somebody's finally got you.”

Her hand waved, brushing his remark aside. “Be quiet.”

“This started yesterday at lunch,” the American said to Paco. “Trying to guess old movies just from the people in them and maybe one or two hints.”

“Your wife seems to be an expert.”

“What amazes me, we don't go to that many movies.”

“I can't think when I feel pressure,” the American's wife said.

Paco watched both of her hands rise to one side of her face, then to the other, taking off pearl earrings and placing them on the table. His gaze shifted to Lizzy Graham and saw her shoulders moving in time with the music.

“Bonus question,” Lizzy said. “What's the name of that piece.”

“It's Goodman,” Dennis said.

“‘Mission to Moscow,'” the American's wife said immediately. “About 1946.”

Paco's gaze shifted from Lizzy back to the American's wife. The Englishwoman had the better figure. At least a rounder figure, which showed well in a bikini. A little stomach. Just enough stomach. The American's wife wore a black one-piece bathing suit or a dark blue one and there were no individual attractions, only the slim clean, delicately firm line of her body from shoulder to ankle. Neither of them could compare to the German girl of last season, God, who wore the white bikini, never touching or adjusting it, and the thin-thin silver chain around her middle.

“Now when the waiter brought the drinks,” he heard the American saying, “he poured the sherry and didn't seem sure where to put it because you had a glass there too. I wanted to say, ‘For me,' but I didn't know whether to say
por mi
or
para mi
.”

“Para mi
.”

“I'll have to remember that. You know, something else, it's funny the way you pronounce words differently in different parts of Spain.
Like in Madrid it's the
Platha
. Or
serbithio
. You know, and down here it's just
plaza
and
servicio
.”

“You have this also in your country, uh?”

“I Wake Up Screaming!” the American's wife said suddenly. “Betty Grable, Carole Landis, Victor Mature
and
Laird Cregar.”

“I'm not sure though,” the American said to Paco, “that our dialect differences are the same as yours. Like a southern accent drops the
n
on the end of a word and makes it sound like
ah
or
aw.
But taking a
c
before an
e
or an
i
and making it a
t-h
sound the way Castilian does . . .”

“But taking a
c,
” Paco heard, and at the same time, closer to him, heard the American's wife say, “Peter Sellers and Terry-Thomas. Opens in a nudist camp.”

Dennis Graham laughed out loud. “
I'm All Right Jack.
You got that in the States?”

“ . . . but as far as I can make it out, the
t-h
sound is used everywhere but in Andalusia.”

“We get a lot of your films . . .
Room at the Top
. Was that big in London?”

“Oh, yes, but I don't think it was quite the study
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
was.”

“Albert Finney.”

“That's right.”

“We missed that one. How about
David and Lisa
?”

“No . . . I don't think so.”

“Dennis, that was coming when we left.”

“It's marvelous.”

“How about Ustinov's thing?”

“The one about women?”

“No, naval.”

“It could still be about women.”

“N-a-v-a-l
.”

“Billy Budd
.”

“Right!”

Now the American was saying something about North and South . . . different dialects . . . Civil War. Was Spain divided geographically during the Civil War the way the United States was?

“Yes, to some degree.”

“Here's Spain,” the American said, and was drawing an irregular square on his cocktail napkin.

“The line would be diagonal,” Paco said.

“This way?”

“Yes, with the Republican sector including Madrid.”

“You weren't in it . . . no, of course not.”

“No, I was born the last year of the war.”

The beige thigh shifted. “I'll tell you who's big in the United States right now from England. Shirley Bassey.”

“Really?”

“Oh, and Georgia Brown. In
Oliver.
”

“What about the Profumo thing, did you get much of that?”

“Much!
” It was the only thing in the paper. Christine and, what was her name, Davis?”

“Mandy Rice-Davies.”

“Yes. Oh, I
love
that name.”

“I can just barely remember newsreels,” the American was saying, “of Barcelona being bombed and people running across empty streets to shelter and looking up at the planes.”

Paco's eyes dropped to the map and saw Barcelona, the point of the pen forming a dot, going around and around to enlarge it, where Valencia should be.

“But I get confused, you know, with the term
Republicans
and
Nationalists
. We always called them Rebels or Loyalists.”

“There would be a picture of either Christine or Mandy coming out of court with the crowd all around.”

“Now the Loyalists were the Nationalists, right?”

“No, the Loyalists were the Republicans.”

“And the Rebels the Nationalists?”

“That's correct.”

“I've got to think of a way to remember that.”

“What do people in the States feel Goldwater's chances are?” Dennis Graham said.

“Oh, God, let's not get into politics. I'm lost.”

“As a person, though, he's quite charming, isn't he?”

“Well, personally I think he's a little folksy.”

Paco heard Dennis's laugh. “That's good.” And saw Lizzy Graham's shoulders moving in the strange V-neck dress that was like a long sweater that hung loose and straight to her knees when she was standing, but was not loose now the way she was moving, sitting on the floor and drumming lightly on the edge of the table.

“What's that, the one they're playing now?”

“If the Rebels were the Republicans it would be easy. You'd just have to remember
r-r.
Rebel-Republican.”

“The Ray Charles Singers or whatever they're called.”

“Un-unh. Ray Coniff.”

Dennis Graham leaned forward. “What are you two so serious about?”

“Paco's straightening me out on the Civil War. The Spanish one.”

“Oh,” Dennis said, and seemed about to say more, but he turned abruptly to the American's wife. “I've got one.”

“Time-out,” the American's wife said. Paco felt her rising and he stood up quickly, offering his hand. She touched it, her fingers tightening in his palm as she rose, but she did not look at him.

Lizzy Graham pushed up. “I'll join you.”

They were gone only a few moments when Dennis said to the American, “Did you see the records? Really an astonishing collection.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Come on.”

The American looked at Paco as he rose. “Join us?”

“I think not.” Paco smiled. “I stand all day.”

He did not turn as they circled the couch to the bar. He took a Reyno from the pack on the table, lit it, settled back for a moment, then leaned forward, raised his bourbon and sipped it. Still with his back to the two men at the bar, hearing them but not turning to look at them, he put the glass on the table, picked up the pearl earrings the American's wife had placed there, and dropped them into his side-coat pocket.

She wouldn't remember them when it was time to go; he was sure of that. But if she did, he could pretend to find them on the floor.

Tomorrow morning then, at ten o'clock, he would watch the American drive off on his daily trip to Torremolinos to cash traveler's checks or buy magazines or mentholated cigarettes or to do whatever he had been doing every morning since coming to the hotel. Between ten-fifteen and ten-thirty, the American's wife could be expected to step off the elevator and pass the desk on her way to the pool. But at ten-ten, approximately, Paco would be knocking on the door of room 615.

She would open the door in her bathing suit. She would look at him. She would show surprise. He would hold her gaze and in the next moment, in the next five seconds that could seem an eternity, he would make his judgment. If he was the least bit uncertain, he would smile, open his hand, and there would be the pearl earrings. She would say thank you and he would say
nada.
There was still a chance at this point, but it was too unlikely even to consider. It would be there in the moment their eyes held or it would not be there.

How would you bet this one? Paco thought. He thought about it as the two women returned to the table. He thought about it as
he rose and smiled and was ignored as the two women continued talking. And he decided in that moment that, if he were to do it, he would bet it even.

Returning to the hotel, they took off their shoes—all of them but Paco—and walked along the beach. In the darkness there was wind and the sound of waves breaking and far out, where the horizon would be, were two pinpoints of light.

“Is that Africa?” the American asked Paco.

“No. Ships. Sometimes from the Sierras you can see the Atlas Mountains, but not lights from this level.”

They were walking together, a dozen strides behind the Grahams and the American's wife.

“Listen, something else I've been meaning to ask you.”

“What is it?”

“Well, I don't know if you talk about it or not but . . . I was curious to know what you think of Franco. I mean what happens after he's gone? He's not young; he's going to die sometime.”

“Yes,” Paco said. “But when?”

The American began laughing and his wife and the Grahams turned to watch him.

“What's so funny,” his wife called.

“That's wonderful,” the American said finally, catching his breath. “I mean, what an attitude to have.” He raised his voice then, calling to his wife: “Hey, I told you the Spanish had a sense of humor under all their dignity. Listen to this . . .

H
ARRY MYROLD LEFT THE
men's store just across from the building and pulled his hat brim closer to his eyes before walking down around the corner to the parking lot. The early winter drizzle would have been no more than a minor irritation but for the stinging wind that blew the rain head-on against him to make him step quickly across the cinders to the two-tone Chevrolet parked near the entrance.

He threw the clothing-store box on the rear seat and jumped in too quickly, knocking his hat to one side so that his glasses slipped and hung precariously on the tip of his nose, his topcoat twisting beneath him.

Damn! Damn glasses that don't bend around your ears! Damn coat that always bunches when you get in the car!

Harry Myrold placed his hands firmly on the steering wheel, then relaxed his grip slowly against the slender coldness of the wheel. He pushed up his glasses, straightened his gray, narrow-brimmed hat, smoothed the fold of the topcoat beneath him, then very deliberately
started the car, pushing the automatic drive lever to the D position. Before edging out onto Woodward, he craned his neck to look at the brown rectangle on the rear seat that bore the squat Gothic inscription
ROSE BROTHERS
. Only forty-three dollars. He felt better.

But not for very long. In ten minutes he had gone only a few blocks. What was the matter with this damn city! Everybody comes here to make money and they spend most of their time going home.

For a mile or so he was somewhere else. Somewhere where there was sun, and he was only vaguely aware of his stubby white fists on the steering wheel and beyond them grayness, lights, and the shiny bodies of wet automobiles. Horns, brakes, and the monotonous beat of windshield wipers. A streetcar clanged close and someone behind blew with a vengeance the split second the light turned. He smiled and started off as slowly as he could, then drove almost a block less than fifteen miles an hour while the horn continued to blow and the space in front lengthened. A car from the next lane slipped in ahead of him and Harry Myrold swore out loud.

He pictured the box on the rear seat and remembered the suit hanging in the store and remembered the price tag on it.

He hunched a little lower in the seat to watch the traffic light. The red circle stood out bleakly against the rainy grayness, then in his vision the light blended with the white lights of the theater marquee ahead and across the street. Burt Lancaster.
Ten Tall Men
and
That's My Boy.
Dean Martin and Jerry . . . The light changed and he pressed the accelerator automatically . . . Lewis.

The girl walked out to the curb from where she had been standing under the marquee and stuck out her thumb as she stepped off the curbing into the street. Harry Myrold stopped as automatically as he had started, not quite knowing why, and the next thing the girl was in the car. He looked past her, as she got in, to the eight-foot cardboard legionnaire standing beneath the marquee.

“Thanks a lot.”

“Don't mention it.”

“I've been standing under that show for almost a half-hour.”

Harry Myrold couldn't think of a reply that would mean anything. He looked quickly to the left, to the car in the next lane, keeping busy to fill in for the silence.

“It's so wet out,” the girl said.

“We're getting our share,” Harry Myrold said.

“More, I'd say.”

“It's the traffic that gets me,” he came back quickly. “A little rain and it takes an hour longer to get home. I don't know what's the matter with this city!”

“It's so big.”

“Well, it's not as large as New York or Chicago or a couple of more, and they don't have this trouble when it rains.” Harry Myrold had never visited New York, Chicago, or the couple of more, but he attributed an equivalent amount of efficiency to their greatness, and he took it for granted the girl had never been to these cities. “It's a decided lack of foresight in city planning. Traffic Management's dropped the ball,” he added.

“Ye-ah, I guess so.”

“Just look, three solid lanes of cars, all creeping.” Harry Myrold pointed out the inefficiency.

“So slow,” the girl said.

He was silent for a few minutes, keeping busy with the traffic because there was nothing to say. Then something occurred to him, but he hesitated and drew and lighted a cigarette first, as if there was always something to say, and in his hesitation he said, “Cigarette?” sort of instinctively, and was sorry immediately. The girl was probably only a couple of years older than Marion, and it would be a long time before he offered Marion a cigarette.

She said, “Oh, no thanks,” very quickly, and everything was all right.

For a moment he forgot what he had planned to say. Then it came back.

“How far are you going?”

“Just to Six Mile. I go west then”—and added quickly—“I can get a bus there . . . out to Grand River.”

“I go all the way to Thirteen,” Harry Myrold said. And it occurred to him that an explanation was necessary. “We've been wanting to get out of the city for a long time, so when our little girl finished grade school last year we moved out near Bloomfield, sort of this side.”

“We live kind a out, too, but it's still in Detroit.”

“It's the only place,” Harry Myrold said vaguely. “I mean, out.”

Since picking up the girl he had not looked at her directly. His eyes would shift slightly when the traffic eased, but it was only a shape sitting straight and very close to the door. Something white about the head.

Silence again, and he returned to studying the signs along the storefronts, dancing orange and red through the gray drizzle. New York Lunch . . . Hot Roast Beef .60 . . . then a white sign with five-foot buckeye lettering that blared SALE! Drastic reduction—SALE! SALE! SALE! All suits now only 53.95! His head turned instinctively to the rear seat and the brown box that said
ROSE BROTHERS
, and he smiled.

When he turned back he glanced at the girl as he pulled his eyes back to the road.

So it was a white babushka. He tried to remember what else he had seen in the part of the second. A dark jacket. Coat? No, it was shorter. And a plain face. A white plain face with a straight nose and deep shadowed eyes. Harry Myrold smiled to himself.

He looked at the storefronts again and edged his eyes toward the girl. She was looking toward the shop windows also. Yes, the nose was straight, but he couldn't see the eyes. Say about eighteen? High
school girl going home after a few extra hours at the library. Like Marion would be doing soon. He looked at the gray outside turning to black and frowned. He could pick up the books for Marion.

“How's school?” he asked, after a glance determined that there really were books on her lap.

“Okay.”

“Do you like it?”

“It's okay, I guess.”

Marion loved it. Marion had mentioned the other night that she had just begun to live. Everybody acted so sort of grown-up and even Latin was fun.

“Do you take Latin?”

“No, I did. I finished up with it.”

Harry Myrold couldn't help himself. “
Arma virumque cano,
” he recited. “
Troyae qui primus ab oris
.”

The girl didn't say anything. Harry Myrold chuckled, but it didn't help. He was sorry he had said it. “Know that one?”

“No, I don't believe so,” she said. Then hurriedly, “My girlfriend does, I think. I think I heard her say that once.”

“I go back a long way to remember that one,” Harry Myrold said.

He quoted the verse again to himself and stopped at a stone wall after
ab oris
. “Yes, a very long way.”

“I've never regretted my Latin, even had two years of Greek,” he told her. “Mind stimulators, both of them.”

“Ye-ah, I guess so, even if they don't do you any good when you get out.”

Harry Myrold cleared his throat. “You work only eight hours a day, but you live with people twenty-four hours a day.” He stopped and said it over again to himself. It had sounded good before.

“See what I mean?” he explained. “You have to live with people all day long. You work at a job, but you have to work with people.
You have to be able to get along.” He knew clearly what he meant, but it didn't sound right.

He looked at the girl and said earnestly, “See what I mean?”

She nodded and said, “Oh, ye-ah,” but he knew she didn't understand.

“See, you can go to trade school anytime. That is, if you have to, but your education is something you should treat with respect. I'll tell you, you'll appreciate it later on, and you'll be sorry if you don't take advantage of it. I never regretted an hour of school.”

“Does the Latin help you in what you do?” the girl asked.

“Not directly, no. But as I said before, it's a mind sharpener,” and immediately wasn't sure if he had said it before. “Mental gymnastics. You exercise your body to be strong and healthy. You exercise your mind so that it will be agile, quick to respond to a given problem.” Now it was sounding better. “So I can say, yes, indirectly Latin has been very useful to me.”

“My brother was real good in Latin. Good in everything.”

“Oh?”

“That's where I heard what you said,” she said triumphantly. “Not from my girlfriend.”

“What does your brother do?”

“Works in a shop. He's a turret lathe grinder.”

“Oh.”

“I wonder if he uses his Latin.”

“Some, perhaps,” Harry Myrold said.

“Ed says he could do his job with his eyes closed and a bottle of beer in one hand.”

“Well, naturally some people have the advantage of using their education more than others.”

“Ye-ah.”

“In the selling game you have to keep on your toes . . . and . . . keep your mind sharp. You have to be quick with the answers.”

They were a block from Six Mile when he made up his mind suddenly, almost without even thinking about it. The girl was squaring her books, ready to get out at the corner. She opened her purse and slipped her hand into it, and looked up at the approaching corner.

Harry Myrold glanced at her pocketbook then saw her standing on the corner with the fifteen cents bus fare in her wet hand.

“Look, I can cut over Six just as easy as not. If we pass a bus without people standing, I'll drop you at a stop ahead of it, and if we don't, I'll take you all the way to Grand River.”

The girl looked at him and then toward the busy, illuminated corner. Her hand came out of the purse slowly.

“Thanks a lot. It's so wet out.”

“People should do more for people,” Harry Myrold said, making the left turn onto Six Mile. “It'd be a lot better world.” He felt a sudden warmness and an eagerness to talk. “Why shouldn't I give you a ride? I got all this room here and just one person in the car. Look at all the cars with just one person in them. That's why we have a traffic problem.

“Another thing, I've got a Buick at home for the wife. But she uses it so little, I have to drive it down every so often just to keep the battery charged.” He laughed.

The girl said nothing and Harry Myrold found himself being dragged back into the silence. He thought and thought but there was nothing obvious to say. The girl wasn't being much help. The warm feeling began to leave and for a moment he was sorry he had made the left turn at Six Mile. For going out of the way she could say more than
thanks a lot
. God, kids don't have anything that resembles a vocabulary! Marion was saying everything was real great. He remembered her saying, “Turk is fine. He's real calm.” Turk was five-three, pimples, and corduroy pants tight to his ankles. Of course, Harry Myrold reflected, he could possess a certain amount of calmness.

“Do you go out on dates?”

She looked at him strangely. “Sometimes. Why?”

“I was just curious,” Harry Myrold said hurriedly. “I didn't mean to be inquisitive. My daughter is just reaching the dating age. I was just thinking about it, that's all.”

“Oh.”

“I suppose she'll be begging me for a lot of formals now.” He smiled. “All kinds of parties, as you know. But I don't begrudge her a few party dresses.”

The girl said nothing.

“I suppose you have a few formals yourself. Girls seem to have to have a new one for every dance.”

“I never owned one.”

“Oh.”

They drove on in silence. A few miles out the traffic thinned considerably. The rain seemed to have stopped at the same time making the sky seem somewhat lighter. Soon Harry Myrold saw the traffic light ahead at Grand River.

“Do you go right to Grand River?”

“Ye-ah. I'll get out at the gas station if it's okay.”

“No trouble at all. I can grab a right there.”