Glass Cell (16 page)

19

S
ullivan was invited for dinner on the Tuesday of Carter’s first week at Jenkins and Field. Hazel made an effort with the dinner—cold cucumber soup, a complicated veal and bacon and grated cheese dish, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, and a lemon soufflé for dessert. She was in a good mood.

“Ah, my favorite dish. You’re wonderful,” Sullivan said to her. He had strolled into the kitchen with his first drink.

Carter had known somehow that he would say just those words, though Hazel hadn’t said anything about the veal dish being his favorite. Hazel was cooking as if she enjoyed it tonight. She always cooked as if she enjoyed cooking—just tonight a little more so. And Timmy had brightened up, too, with Sullivan.

“How long are you going to be at this?” Sullivan asked Hazel.

“What do you mean? This?” She was slicing radishes.

“Ye-es. I don’t have to have my radishes turned into little tulips. Are you going to sit down with us?”

“He’s so unappreciative!” Hazel laughed and glanced at Carter.

“Galley slave,” Sullivan said, and beckoned to Carter to come into the living room.

Timmy trailed after them, and Carter saw Sullivan look at him. Timmy, who was concentrating on Sullivan, looked embarrassed for a moment, then at a very slight nod from Sullivan retreated back to the kitchen, hands in the pockets of his new long trousers. Sullivan had him well trained, Carter thought. He couldn’t have done that with his son.

“Have you heard any more from Gawill?” Sullivan asked. His voice was low.

“No.”

“Good.” Sullivan turned, frowning slightly, toward the kitchen. “I didn’t mean to shoo Timmy off, but I didn’t want him to hear it, either. Well, let’s hope he shuts up. At least to you.”

“And you?” Carter said.

Sullivan smiled. “I’m still here. No, I haven’t had a peep in some time—except the phone call I told you about.”

“And—what were the peeps? In the past?”

“Well—for one thing, I think I was shadowed a few times.” Sullivan looked down at the ashtray where he was mashing out a cigarette. “I’m sure Gawill wanted me to know I was being shadowed. Around my house. Wanted to scare me a little, you know.”

“I’m not sure I get the purpose of that,” Carter said.

“To scare me off his back. This was when I was asking about him in a lot of hotels in New York. Four or five years ago, you know. I haven’t noticed any shadowers for—oh, maybe a year.”

Carter didn’t believe the “maybe a year.” “Had you shadowed,” Carter said, “when Gawill himself was still in Fremont with Triumph? And then when he was in New Orleans?”

“Yes. Oh, I’m sure for a modest fee or some other kind of favor, he had a guy in New York loiter across the street from my house, then follow me for a couple of blocks—if I was walking somewhere.” He shrugged. “Not pleasant, but I never got worried enough to mention it to the police.”

Why not, Carter thought, because he didn’t want to disclose the fact that Hazel was visiting him a lot? Carter put his drink down and folded his arms. Then his thumbs gave simultaneous throbs, and he relaxed his hands. “Does Hazel know about the shadowing?”

“No,” said Sullivan. “I didn’t want to make her worry.”

Or stop her from coming to his house, Carter thought. “You don’t think you’re being shadowed now?”

Sullivan smiled at Carter. “Now that Gawill’s up here himself, maybe he feels he doesn’t need to hire any shadowers.”

Carter smiled, too. “You mean Gawill’s doing the shadowing himself? The watching?”

“If so, he’s discreet. I haven’t seen him. You’ll tell me, won’t you, if you hear anything more from him?”

“Yes. Too bad you have to be still so concerned.”

“He’s my enemy. It pays to know what your enemy is doing or even thinking.”

Neither said anything for a few moments. Sullivan had already asked him how his new job was going, and Carter had told him reasonably well. It was going to be paperwork for the next two weeks, then a trip to Detroit for two or three weeks. Sullivan had showed no surprise or interest in the fact he would be away for a few weeks, or at least he had not betrayed any.

Then Hazel and Timmy came in, and Hazel and Sullivan talked of other things, the new watercolor that Priscilla Elliott had painted and given to Hazel because she liked it. It was now framed and hanging between the two windows that gave on to the street. They talked of Europe in July, but even this Carter couldn’t or didn’t join in, though it was he who was going and not Sullivan. Timmy was keen about the trip and asked Sullivan if there were soccer games in July in Rapallo, the town where Hazel wanted to spend some time.

“Rapallo,” said Sullivan, “is a pretty small town for a stadium. I think you’d better depend on Genoa for a good soccer game.”

And Timmy sat down on the hassock, looking a little wistfully at Sullivan, as if he were suddenly realizing that Sullivan wasn’t going to be with them, that his father was, and his father didn’t know much about soccer.

Sullivan called the dinner a masterpiece, and Hazel beamed. And so did Timmy. And Carter kept hurting his thumbs that evening, gripping a knife or a cup handle too hard, until pain finally made him jittery. Carter decided that he ought to see a specialist and have an operation. That was about 10:15 p.m. An hour later, when Sullivan was leaving, he had changed his mind again. After all, the specialist Hazel had made him go to had said that after they pared the bone and the gristle down, got the joints possibly to fit, there would still be bad articulation and possibly pain, too.

“Happy, darling?” Hazel said to him, smiling.

“Yes,” he said, and put his arms around her and kissed her neck. He held her tight. She felt very solid in his arms, and yet something was not there that had been. Was it gone from Hazel or from him? Or both?

20

H
azel had to go to an office dinner in the following week. It was to be held in a hotel on 57th Street, and since there were to be a lot of speeches afterward on subjects that Hazel thought Carter would find dull, Hazel had suggested that she go alone. Carter agreed. He had some homework to do for Jenkins and Field.

“I’ll take Timmy out for an early dinner, and then he can go to the movie on Twenty-third he’s been wanting to see,” Carter said. “It’s a western or something.”

“Then you’ll pick him up?” Hazel asked. “I don’t want him wandering into a drugstore late at night and having three sodas.”

Timmy had augmented his soda intake lately. Three at a sitting were nothing unusual for him.

“I’ll find out when the show lets out and pick him up,” Carter said.

They had that conversation at breakfast. Carter found out there was a show at 6, 8, and 10, and thought Timmy ought to go to the 8, after their dinner. He telephoned at 5 o’clock and told Timmy he would be home by half past 6, a little later than usual, and they’d go out to dinner then.

Carter took a downtown bus after work, and got off at 38th Street. All day, he had thought about Sullivan, and he felt tonight was a good time for a short talk that Hazel need not know about. He wanted to ask Sullivan outright what was going on, and if Sullivan told the truth, so much the better, and if he lied, Carter thought he would know it. And if Sullivan weren’t in, that was his hard luck, but Carter hadn’t wanted to make an appointment beforehand.

When he was within thirty yards of Sullivan’s house, Carter saw Hazel. She saw him, too, nearly stopped, then came on, smiling at him.

“Well, hello!” they both said, almost simultaneously.

“You couldn’t be going to David’s!” Carter said with a laugh.

“Just what I’m doing. Taking him a book,” Hazel said, gesturing slightly with the pile of papers and books she carried in one arm, topped by her purse. “Come on. I’ve only got a minute.” She started up the steps of the house.

“No, no, that’s okay. I’ll go on.”

She looked at him.

“I just thought I’d drop in. Nothing important,” Carter said.

“Don’t be silly. If you’re here—”

Carter was walking on. “See you later,” he said, smiling and waving. He walked on to the corner like a stick man, like a man on stilts. There was no office dinner tonight. Hazel was spending the evening with Sullivan. And Carter had to admire the good face she’d put on it. If he had come up, she’d have said to Sullivan, “Look who I just ran into. Here’s the book, David,” putting down something on postnatal care of children,
faute de mieux
. “Got to be off to that Fifty-seventh Street thing, because they have a very early cocktail hour, if I get one at all. Bye-bye.” Yes, Hazel would have carried it off very smoothly. And Carter threw his head back and laughed, thinking that Hazel might beat an early retreat tonight, suspecting he’d be standing somewhere on the street, watching to see how soon she came out.

He took Timmy to where Timmy wanted to go—a cafeteria on 23rd Street, where Timmy ordered five portions of various things, three desserts, and two glasses of chocolate milk. And still Timmy was slender, a little underweight for his height. He was five feet three. In another two years, Carter thought, he would probably shoot up ten inches, and all the eating was preparing for it. He took Timmy to the movies. Carter decided to go to the show, too. It provided a noisy yet somehow restful background to his own thoughts, and he had not the faintest idea of the story when it was over.

Hazel was not home when they got back. Carter got Timmy to bed, or at least in bed with a book, with a promise that he would read no longer than fifteen minutes.

“I’m going out for a while,” Carter said. “Mommy should be home any minute, but don’t wait up for her, because you’re supposed to be asleep.”

“Where’re you going?” Timmy asked.

“Out for a walk,” Carter said. “Back soon.” The conversation reminded him of the one he’d had with Hazel.

Carter took a taxi to Gawill’s. If Gawill wasn’t in, it wouldn’t matter. If he was, fine. Carter didn’t make the taxi wait. He got out and rang the bell.

There was no answering ring, and Carter didn’t need one to reach the elevators, but he heard the grating sound of a voice through a speaking tube that he hadn’t noticed before. He yelled into it:

“Hello, Gawill, it’s Carter. Can I come up?”

“Oh, Phil! Sure, Phil, come on up.”

Carter went up.

Gawill had the door open for him, and was standing there. A depressing sound of dance music came from the door, and voices.

“You’ve got a party?” Carter said. “Then I won’t—”

“Ah, naw, no party,” Gawill said. “Come on in, Phil.”

Carter went in, glad somehow of Gawill’s welcome, though his attitude to the man Gawill introduced him to and also to the plump blonde he was with was cool. Carter hoped it didn’t show.

“Phil’s an old buddy of mine from down south,” Gawill said to his two uninterested friends.

The man was about thirty-five, a big, brawny fellow with shoulders that bulged under his well-cut suit. The blonde was just a blonde, a bit heavily made up, and Carter doubted if she had a regular job. There didn’t seem to be a girl for Gawill, unless she was in the bedroom.

“Are you a southerner?” the blonde asked Carter.

“No,” Carter said, smiling. She had a deep cleavage in the V of her brown silk dress, very high-heeled shoes, and there was a run in her right stocking. “Are you?”

“Ha! I’m from Connecticut. Originally,” she added. “Want to dance?”

“Not just now, thanks.” The girl, to Carter, was like one of the blondes on the prison movie screen, come to life and talking to him. Impulsively, he reached out and took her wrist. “But you can sit down, can’t you?”

He had meant on the broad arm of his armchair, but the girl sat in his lap. Carter was surprised at first, then he smiled. She was terribly heavy.

Gawill looked at them and said, “Hey, what’s going on here?” with a delighted smile.

“I think we’re taking off here,” said the girl’s boyfriend, holding out a hand for her.

“Bye,” said the blonde cheerfully to Carter. “See you soon, I hope.” Her breath smelled of scotch and lipstick.

Carter didn’t do her the courtesy of standing, but he waved. “I hope so. Nice to have met you both.”

They had a short conversation with Gawill near the door, which Carter didn’t listen to. Then Gawill closed the door on them.

“Ain’t she something?” Gawill said, coming back, rubbing his hands. “Anthony don’t appreciate her.” Sometimes Gawill lapsed into the New Orleans drawl of his youth.

Carter said nothing.

“So what’s on your mind tonight?— How about a shot?”

“What a good idea,” Carter said, getting up.

Gawill went off to get the stuff, and Carter stayed where he was, thinking for the second time he shouldn’t know, for politeness’ sake, where Gawill hid it in his bedroom. When Gawill came in again, Carter bowed his thanks and went into the bathroom and took it. He took the rest of the bottle he had started. It had a rubber cap that pressed on the plastic ampoule. Then he brought the empty ampoule into the living room and deposited it in one of Gawill’s busy ashtrays. “Thanks very much,” Carter said.

“Late for you, isn’t it?” Gawill remarked.

“Yes. Oh, well, Hazel’s busy tonight. An office dinner.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. So she said. She’s with Sullivan.”

“Ahah,” said Gawill, with no emotion at all, no triumph, no surprise.

“Yes, you’re right,” Carter said. He took a breath. “I was going to see Sullivan tonight to ask him straight to his face what he was doing with my wife, when who should I see walking in the door but Hazel herself.”

“You see?” said Gawill, and reached for his glass. He sighed. He looked tired, maybe a bit drunk. “Well—what’re you going to do about it?”

Carter had nothing to say. He even had no thoughts about it.

Gawill leaned back on the sofa and looked at Carter. “Oh, I suppose you’ll try asking her to stop, but she won’t. What those two have is closer than most marriages.”

Carter frowned, looking intensely at Gawill. Then I’m the person de trop, he thought. “Then why the hell don’t they say so?” Carter asked suddenly. “What’s all this beating around the bush?”

“Well, look at the advantages for both. Your wife keeps her respectability—at least with most people—she’s got a husband and child, everybody thinks probably she’s the picture of virtue, waiting six years for her husband to get out of the slammer. And Sullivan has the best of two worlds, he’s a free bachelor and he’s got a nice lay.”

The words didn’t bother Carter at all now. It was true. And it was practically a relief to hear the words said.

“So what did Hazel say when you ran into her at Sullivan’s?” Gawill sat up, smiling expectantly.

Carter smiled, too. “She said she was dropping a book by for Sullivan and she was going on to dinner.”

Gawill laughed loudly.

Carter laughed, too.

“And what did you do?”

“I—I just walked on. Didn’t go up.”

“Don’t tell me you were
asked
up,” Gawill said.

“Yes.”

More laughter. Gawill fixed him another drink, and one for himself.

“You missed your opportunity tonight—or did you?” Gawill looked at him sidewise.

“What do you mean?”

“You should’ve crashed the apartment about half an hour later and caught them inflagranty as we say in N.O. Why didn’t you?”

“Oh—” Carter looked down at his drink. “Oh, the hell with it.”

They got off the subject. They talked about fishing and frog catching, Gawill’s methods of stabbing frogs after shining a light in their eyes. He had done it as a boy around New Orleans.

It got to be after 1 a.m.

Carter hauled himself up and said he had to get home.

“Oh, I don’t see why you
have
to. Do you think Hazel’s home?”

Carter laughed at that.

He took a taxi home. He was as quiet as possible hanging up his coat, undressing in the bathroom and putting on his pajamas, which he kept on the door hook. Then he went into the bedroom. Hazel turned on the lamp.

“Where’ve you been, Phil?” she asked sleepily.

“I went to see Gawill,” Carter said.

“Gawill?” She lifted her head from the pillow. “Why? You went after the movie?”

So Timmy had been up or waked up and told her he’d gone to the movie. “Yes.” He realized he hadn’t washed, and went back to the bathroom. He came back after a couple of minutes, carrying his suit, which he hung up in the closet. “And what did you do? How was the dinner?”

She looked at him as if she thought he was drunk. Or perhaps it was only a wary look: the truth might come out.

She lit a cigarette, took a puff, and said, “Fine,” on a crest of smoke.

“You’re saying there was one— Oh, get off it, Haze.”

“All right. I’ll get off it. I spent the evening with David. Nicer company than Gawill, I think.”

“I spent the evening with Gawill, but not in bed with him.”

“I wasn’t in bed with David, either.— I can imagine the kind of stories you were given tonight—from Gawill. It’s no wonder you’re so aggressive.”

“Me aggressive?” Carter walked toward the foot of the bed. “Why did you lie about the office dinner tonight? Why do you bother lying?”

“Why did you go to Gawill’s?”

“To learn a little more of the truth, maybe.”

She touched her cigarette end in the tray, then stabbed it out. Her shoulders shook. She was weeping.

Carter shifted, embarrassed. “Oh, come on, Haze. Tears?”

She tossed her head and sat upright again, facing him as if the momentary breakdown hadn’t happened. Her eyes were not even wet. “I miss David and I need him. I suppose I got awfully used to talking to him over a period of six years.”

“I’m sure you did,” Carter said.

“He’s easy to get along with—easier than you’ve been lately.”

“Just what do you mean by that?”

“You’ve had a shot of something tonight, haven’t you? Morphine? I suppose Gawill has everything. Everything slimy.”

“Yes, I had one.”

“You look exactly as you used to in prison sometimes—a kind of phony calmness about you. A quiet drunk.”

“Your tactics tonight,” he said, “seem to be to attack me—to cover up your own activities. You can call Gawill all the names you want, he seems to know more about you than I do. And as for phonyness, I’ve had it up to here with Sullivan. That bastard can save his smiles and his good turns—”

“Like getting you a job? Close the door, Phil.”

The way she said the last words hurt Carter more than anything else she had said. She was in complete possession of herself, and thinking of Timmy’s sleep, of course, thinking of Timmy overhearing some of this. Carter closed the door slowly, resting both hands on the knob, and pondered the terrible efficiency of women: Hazel running the house in Fremont and slaving in a dress shop at the same time, Hazel being quite a good mother to Timmy, Hazel going to school and getting a master’s degree, Hazel keeping Sullivan happy and on the string all this time, Hazel—up to now—keeping him happy, too.

“Thanks.” She glanced at him sharply.

Carter felt then that she actually disliked him, that she disliked the person he had become after prison, perhaps. Certainly she hadn’t disliked him before. He had a feeling of being swept away, annihilated physically. It lasted only a few seconds. He wiped a hand across his forehead and faced her. “I can’t deny that prison changed me. I don’t think it’s made me into a monster. You may not like me. That’s another matter. I trusted you. Apart from the two weeks’ affair you told me about, I thought you were loyal to me. If I—”

“All those fine words and you’re full of morphine this minute?” She took a fresh cigarette and lit it. “All right, Phil, I know a lot of awful things happened to you in prison—and that’s why I haven’t said anything to you about it and never blamed you. I imagine you had to be in a trance or
something
to stand that filthy place. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d become a real addict. I mean a heavy one.”