The Lockwood Concern (47 page)

he, Father?" They were married the next morning in Central Falls, Rhode Island, because the state law did not require a waiting period. Their telegram read: TIME IS NO LONGER A-WASTING. WE WERE MARRIED AT TEN O'CLOCK THIS MORNING. MUCH LOVE. It was signed "Pres and Tina Hibbard." The telegram was delivered while George and Geraldine were at lunch. "You of course knew about this," said Geraldine. "I was about to say the same thing to you," said George. "Yes, but I said it first. You did know about it, didn't you?" "I knew it was in the air," he said. "Are you pleased? You are, aren't you?" she said. "I can't imagine anything that would please me more," he said. "Well, of course I was for it from the very beginning," said Geraldine. "That's right, you were," he said. "I wonder where they'll live. Do you think he'll stay at St. Bartholomew's? I can't imagine what it would be like to be surrounded by hundreds of boys just finding out about sex." "When I was there nobody ever thought about sex." "When you were there, there was at least one person thinking about it. You were probably screwing a chambermaid." "Didn't have any. We made our own beds." "Well, the wife of the headmaster or somebody." "The headmaster's wife was probably the reason why we gave so little thought to sex. As a matter of fact there weren't any females worth lusting for. There was a certain amount of buggering among the boys themselves, and if you got really hard up you could usually find someone to relieve you in one way or another. But no female while I was there. I'm sure Tina will be able to cope with the problem." "I'm sure. It's just that whenever I've visited a boys' school, they look at you, and Tina's worth looking at. And of course she being a brand-new bride, they'll all be thinking the same thing." "Those thoughts won't be confined to St. Bartholomew's." "I think it'd be a good idea if Tina had a child right away," said Geraldine. He did not dare look at her. "Do you indeed? Why do you think so?" "Well, you know as well as I do that she's not a virgin, not by any stretch of the imagination. If I'd had children, my life would have been a great deal different." "No doubt it would have." "I might have made a very good mother." "Well, I don't think you'd have made a bad one. But you must admit there are some women who lead a perfectly satisfactory life without adding to the population." "Satisfactory to whom?" "To themselves and to the men they sleep with. Wilma, for instance, is better off without children. And so is the world. Not to mention the children she might have had." "Wilma, for your information, is anything but a nice woman. I've had to change my opinion of her." "It was never very high," he said. "No, and it's lower than ever. Don't ask me why." "Why?" "I won't tell you. But with all your thinking and all your analyzing people, there's a lot you miss," she said. "I never miss a thing," he said. "Not a thing." "You're feeling pretty good. You are pleased about Tina." "Of course I am. I planned it all." "You're insufferable, positively insufferable. If anybody planned this, I did." "Sorry. It was me." "In a minute you'll have yourself believing that," she said. "However, I do thank you for the small part you played in it. You were very helpful. I shall reward you with a suitable present." "You don't have to give me any more presents. The only present I want from you is seeing you this way. In really good spirits for the first time in I don't know how long." "Nevertheless I'm going to give you a present. I'll find something in New York tomorrow that'll knock your eye out." "You're going to New York tomorrow?" "A meeting of the candy bar company. Like to come along?" "No thanks. The thought of leaving this beautiful weather for hot stuffy New York - no thanks. I'd almost like to stay here till the first of October." "Through the hurricane season?" "There may not be any hurricane." "True," he said. "Well, I'm sure Elias White will be pleased to accept an extra three weeks' rent. Our lease is up the tenth. I'll speak to the agency. However, if we're staying till the first of October, one of us ought to go to Swedish Haven just to have a look." "A look at what?" she said. "A look around, actually. We planned to reopen the house on the eleventh of September, but it'll be three weeks later now. So I think I'll run over and see how the place came through the summer, and arrange for the watchman and the gardener to keep coming. I'd like to get the place in good shape for Tina's first visit with Hibbard, whenever that will be. Later on, of course, there'll be the usual exchange of visits with his family. We ought to do some entertaining for them. They won't expect much, but a fairly good-sized dinner party in November, don't you think?" "Or a dance. We've never had a dance in that house, and we can't go on forever reminding people of Pen and Marian Strademyer. We ought to have a dance at Christmas. Have the Boston people as our house guests, and Emil Colemaif s orchestra." "I'd be more inclined to have Markel." "No, not for this kind of a party. Emil Coleman is all the rage now," she said. "Whatever you say. A dance is your idea. Don't tell me you've been wanting to have a dance all along?" "No, but I do now, and we'll never have a better excuse to have one. We'll invite everybody. Tina's friends. Your old friends. My old friends. Preston's friends. The whole membership of the country club." "I'll have to make arrangements with the bootlegger. A party that size, we'll have to order the liquor well in advance, if we want good stuff. Wimley used to be the caterer. Philadelphia." "You're as enthusiastic about this party as I am," she said. "Well, if we're going to have this kind of party, we have to do it up brown, whatever that means. I remember a party in Fort Penn, when Grace Caldwell married Sidney Tate. Agnes couldn't go, but I went anyway. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Handsome girl. Still is, I should imagine. They had everybody from the governor to a trainload of people from New York, mostly Yale. Sidney Tate was an Eli. He died several years ago. They weren't getting along so well. I used to run into her brother, Brock Caldwell. It's really not too early to start getting to work on an invitation list. A good party is either impromptu, on the spur of the moment, or everything planned well ahead, I, of course, would rather plan ahead. I'll come back from Swedish Haven full of ideas." "And when will that be?" said Geraldine. "Let's see. Tomorrow night I'll be in New York, at the Carstairs. Take the early morning train to Philadelphia. Change trains there and get to Gibbsville in time for lunch with Arthur McHenry, and he can drive me to Swedish Haven. I'll have all afternoon at the house. Order a taxi to pick me up at the house and drive me back to Gibbsville. There I can have dinner at the club or the hotel. That will give me plenty of time to take the sleeper from Gibbsville. Be in New York early the next morning and get a train to Providence. Andrew can meet me there. I'll be home in time for dinner the day after the day after tomorrow. Not bad, considering what I'll have accomplished, and the distance covered. Planning will do it." "You'll be awfully tired of trains when you get home," she said. "But I don't just sit there, you know. I'll be busy every minute. I like to work on a train. The porter puts one of those little tables in front of you, and if nothing else, it keeps the bores away. What will you be doing while I'm gone?" "Well, I've come to depend so much on Tina for company that I expect to be bored to death. So do come back as soon as you can." "If you have any messages for me, the Carstairs tomorrow. After tomorrow, either the Gibbsville Club or Arthur's office. You have both numbers in your book. Of course you could, reach me at the house, the day after tomorrow, between three o'clock in the afternoon and six o'clock in the evening. But I may be outside and not hear the ring." "I doubt if there'll be anything. Tina won't call us this week." "No, they have to get used to each other," he said. "Yes, that applies to every married couple, whether they're young or not so young." "I agree with you," he said. "And when I come back you can tell me what's on your mind. We have to plan for our future. If anything, more carefully than the young do theirs. I hope yours is going to be with me, but you'd have damn good reason for making other plans." "As you said, we can discuss all that when you get back," she said. "One of the fascinating things about life is the different levels we can think on at the same time. You and I can plan a big party, to take place four months from now. That's one level. On another level, a conversation we have three days from now could very well put a quick end to our marriage. It will largely depend on the degree of your discontent." "And, since you're such a great planner, what you plan to do about it," she said. "Precisely. But don't, please don't spend the next couple of days in building up righteous indignation. If you were to do that, there wouldn't be much use in my coming back. I might just as well stay in Swedish Haven." "I want you to come back," she said. "That's good. I want to," he said. "And I have to deliver your present. That's what might be called thinking on three levels." "The way your mind jumps around, you don't stay on any one level for long," she said. "Hmm. My mind jumps back to a few years ago when there used to be a slang expression, 'he isn't on the level.' You remember?" "There was a song. Devil on the level. She's a devil, on the level. Something like that rhymed devil and level." "I'm not very good at songs," he said. He put down his napkin. "A lot of work to do this afternoon." Anger had come over him and he did not wish to show it. Their conversation had taken a turn that put their relationship on a tentative basis. He had intended to go to bed with her that night, but he could anticipate their self-consciousness and its enervating effect; the limp man and the dry woman, benumbed and hostile. For at least three nights he was to be deprived of the pleasure of her body, and if the conversation on his return revived her resentment, it might be a week or even longer before she wanted him. It was not always necessary for her to want him; he knew that. There had been times when anyone else would have done just as well, and on several occasions their love-making had the character of adultery, for him and for her. ("You were thinking of someone else," he once said. "So were you," she said.) But until they settled the problem of her discontent they would be kept apart by surly mental activity, and he had not married her for her mental activity. More's the pity, he had allowed her to discover that fact. They were polite enough to each other when he left to take the train. He kissed her, and she smiled. He got into the little station-wagon beside Andrew, raised his hat and shook it in amiable farewell, and left her standing in the doorway in her negligee. She had at least come downstairs to see him off. The thought occurred to him that if he never saw her again - a not unusual thought at some of their partings - he would remember her as the source and repository of numerous hours of various pleasures. For that he had married her. Daisy Thorpe, successor to Marian Strademyer at the Lockwood office, stood in front of George's desk, ticking off with her pencil the items on her notepad. "... And last but not least, Mr. Edmund O'Byrne. Phoned twice yesterday and twice the day before. He was going to phone this morning, but he hasn't. You can reach him at Watkins 2044 if you wish to, but if he's in the same condition he was when I talked to him, you won't get much sense out of him." "The condition being a state of intoxication?" said George. "To put it mildly. I refused to give him your number on the Cape," said Daisy Thorpe. "Thank you. If he calls again, I'm not here. No! Wait a second. Call our broker and find out the latest price on a stock called Magico. It's not listed on the Big Board." "Right away?" "Please," said George. He waited while she had the conversation with the broker. She hung up. "It is on the Big Board. It closed yesterday at 92 and opened this morning at 93," she said. "Hmm," he muttered. He remembered his last conversation with Ned O'Byrne. The name of the stock was easy to recall: Magico. A radio company. His memory of the figures O'Byrne had mentioned was somewhat vague, but it came back to him that O'Byrne planned to get out when the price reached 40 or 50. "Get me Mr. O'Byrne," he said. "I happen to know the Watkins number is a speakeasy, Mr. Lockwood." "I happen to know it, too. Do you go there?" "Every Sunday evening." "Odd we've never run into each other there." "Oh, I've only been going there lately, since I moved," she said. She called the number and got O'Byrne on the telephone. "Ned? George Lockwood. I just got your message. How've you been?" "Are you on the Cape, or in town?" "I'm at my office. What can I do for you?" said George. "Can you have dinner with me tonight?" "Yes, as it happens, I can. Where and when?" "I'll meet you at 42 West Forty-nine, seven o'clock. Is your wife with you? We want to be sure of a table." "I'm alone. How about you?" "I'm alone too," said O'Byrne. "However, that can be rectified, after I've talked to you." "Well, we'll see," said George. Throughout the rest of the day he wondered what O'Byrne had on his mind. There was an unmistakable ring of confidence in O'Byrne's voice which probably was related to the price of the Magico stock. But at seven o'clock, when they met at the 49th Street address, O'Byrne was showing the effects of a day's hard drinking. "I never wrote to you about your brother because I didn't know him. Also, because you didn't write to me about my brother." "I didn't know about your brother," said George. "What happened to him?" "I didn't think you did. He fell in front of a subway train, a few weeks before your brother died. There wasn't much in the papers about it. Princeton football star killed in subway. Two or three inches of type and that was all." "I'm sorry, Ned. It was probably one of those days that the New York papers missed the train. Although you might have thought I'd have heard about it later." "Well, you didn't, so you're forgiven. Kevin never amounted to anything much. A wife and two children in East Orange, and a job in an insurance agency. Not even a partnership. Just a job. That isn't what I've been calling you about. Our unfortunate brothers. And I don't want to borrow any money from you. I'm doing pretty well in that respect, I'm happy to say. You won't remember, but I told you the last time I saw you, that night we had dinner together, I had a stock tip. Well, it turned out to be a good one." "Vaguely. General Electric, or something, wasn't it?" "Hell no. Mine was a real
speculation, but it's on the Big Board now, and I'm sitting pretty. Let's sit down. Georgetti, can we have this table? And two more Planter's Punches, please." They sat down. "George, I'm going to put it right on this tablecloth for you. I've debated with myself, what was the right thing to do. I gave the subject a lot of thought, and I finally came to the conclusion that by and large, you and I were pretty good friends. We were good friends in college, and while I haven't seen so much of you since those days, I still consider you a friend of mine." "And rightly so," said George. "You have to be patient a minute, because what I have to tell you isn't something you blurt out without any preamble." "We have all evening," said George. "It won't take that long, I can assure you," said O'Byrne. "First I have to ask you, did that mess your brother got into have a very bad effect on you?" "More than I realized at the time." "It was the same with me. It wasn't so much the initial shock as the slow realization that this is a son-of-a-bitch of a life. Kevin was a nice, decent guy. Married to a dull woman and had two uninteresting kids. Never made any money to speak of. Then one day he fell in front of a train on the Lexington Avenue subway. Heart attack. Much, much later I found out that for about twenty years he'd been in love with a woman that he couldn't marry or that wouldn't marry him because they were both Catholics. She came to see me after he was killed, to ask me if I'd do her a favor. The favor was to get something personal of Kevin's, like a ring or a stickpin or any small thing that he wore or carried around with him. It finally came out that what she wanted was a pair of rosary beads that he always carried. You know what they are, rosary beads?" "Oh, sure." "These were silver beads on a silver chain, very small, in a little silver box the size of a pillbox. She had nothing of Kevin's. They'd never been able to exchange presents, because her husband or Kevin's wife would have noticed it. For twenty years this woman and my brother had been in love. Maybe a couple of times a year they could manage to go to bed together. Not often, though, and she told me that they gave each other up several times and then they'd go back together again. Walks in the park. Rides on the Fifth Avenue bus. Trying to keep it platonic, which was just as hard for them as it was to have an assignation. Her husband was the exact counterpart of Kevin's wife. Unsuspecting and dun. A lawyer. Quite prominent in Catholic circles. The son of a friend of my father's. The nearest thing to a priest that a married layman can be. More money than Kevin ever had, and the two couples never saw each other." He sipped his drink. "Sad," said George. "Very sad." "The day Kevin fell in front of the train he was on his way to meet her. Probably the excitement of going to see her had something to do with the heart attack. In any case, he had it and was badly ground up. The poor son of a bitch. She waited for him, and she didn't know anything about what had happened to him till the next morning when she saw it in the papers." "And they can be pretty bad," said George. "She couldn't even go to Kevin's funeral. She was left with nothing, except one thing. The terrifying thought that he could have had the heart attack while he was in bed with her. Can you imagine what that kind of guilty feeling can do to a Catholic? No, I guess you can't. You'd have to be that kind of Catholic to know. I was brought up a Catholic, but I had a hard time putting myself in her place. She told me. First, the guilty feeling because he was on his way to meet her, the narrow escape. Then to add to it, the feeling that she must do penance. But worst of all, the knowledge that she was still in love and that that part of her life was finished. It is, too. She told me she felt sinful about asking me to get Kevin's rosary beads, but that if she didn't have something of his she would go out of her mind." "I hope you got them for her," said George. "I did. His wife was only too glad to see any sign that I was getting religion. And of course when I pretended that I lost the beads, she thought it was typical of me. Fuck her. I didn't care what she thought. It was Kevin's girl I was thinking of. The one he loved, and that really loved him. She goes to Mass every morning, and if you think it's a comfort to her, it isn't. She's only about fifty, but I'll bet she doesn't live another year." "I'm really sorry about Kevin. He was a nice guy," said George. "And this is a son-of-a-bitch of a life, George. And now comes your turn." "My turn?" said George. "As if you hadn't had enough with your brother," said O'Byrne. "How much do you know about that kid of yours?" "Which one? My daughter, or my son?" "Your son. Bing? Isn't that what they call him?" "Yes," said George. "We're not very close. He lives in California, and the only time I've seen him since college was when he came to my brother's funeral. He's making a lot of money, I know that much." O'Byrne nodded. "And headed for trouble." "Which kind?" "I was out there last winter. I spent a month in California, getting to know people in the oil business. Do you remember a fellow at Princeton named Jack Murphy?" "No, I don't believe I do. Jack Murphy? It's a fairly common name." "A class behind us. He was never any particular friend of mine, but he was Irish and we had the same feeling at Princeton that you and Harbord would have had if you'd been at Fordham. But I looked him up last winter and he was exceedingly cordial. Hospitable. He asked about you and of course wanted to know about your brother and what happened there. I wasn't able to give him any inside dope which caused him to infer that you and I weren't great buddies, and therefore he spoke freely. He said you had a son out there - which I didn't know - and that the son was going to be the next Lockwood that got in the papers. Don't you know any of this, George?" "Nothing about any trouble," said George. "What kind of trouble?" "Well, Murph told me that if your son doesn't get a bullet in his head from some jealous husband, he's liable to get one from somebody in the oil business." "The jealous husband part doesn't surprise me. The other part does. I had the impression that he was making quite a name for himself in the oil business." "Quite a name is right," said O'Byrne. "According to Murph - and some other fellows I met - there are lots of dirty tricks in the oil business, and your kid knows every one of them. Apparently he made a nice pile of money legitimately, through some friend of his." "The father of a friend of his," said George. "But he wasn't satisfied with that," said O'Byrne. "Who ever is? And when you're that young-" "Don't start making excuses for him, Ned. You'll only confuse the story. Go on." "I may have been making excuses for myself, too," said O'Byrne. "At all events, he pulled a real fast one. This is the way I got it from Murph. Your kid went into business for himself, as a wildcatter. He bought or leased a lot of equipment and went around to people who had land leases but couldn't raise the money to dig wells. He dug a well for a man named Smith. Not Smith, but that's a good enough name. After a month or two he went to Smith and said he had no more money, knowing that Smith had none, either. He told Smith that unless they got more money, he was going to have to abandon the well, and that it didn't seem to him that there was much hope anyway. Smith of course wasn't very happy about that, and he wasn't going to make any effort to try and raise more money. So they agreed to forget the whole thing, and your kid began to remove his equipment." "He actually moved the equipment away?" "Dismantled the derrick and so on and put the stuff on trucks. Just one more dry well. Charge it off to experience. Better luck next time. Your kid said he heard about some property in Mexico that he thought he'd try next, but he was convinced there was nothing on Smith's property. Then some guy came along and offered Smith a few dollars an acre for grazing land. And Smith, short of cash, sold his lease to the stranger. A week later the derrick was back in place, all the equipment in working order, and digging was resumed, Two weeks later they had a gusher." "And my son was the owner of the oil leases? How clever of him." "Well, it was clever if you don't mind living under a sentence of death. Smith has threatened to get even with him, and your kid takes the threat seriously enough to carry a gun. Never goes anywhere without one. Comes home at night and makes sure no one is hiding in the bushes around his house." "It doesn't seem to me that Smith was very smart. Why did he believe my son when he said it was a dry well?" "I guess because your son really knows the oil business. And until then he had a good reputation." "That probably would explain how my son knew there really was oil there," said George. "If Smith got a good lawyer, he could probably sue my son for misrepresentation. The man who bought the lease from Smith-" "A small ranch-owner. Nobody." "But a man who might be subpoenaed to testify against my son. Therefore a potential blackmailer. Otherwise it was a good scheme, wasn't it? Not admirable from the standpoint of ethics, but I believe they have a different set of ethics in the oil business." "You don't seem very shocked by this," said O'Byrne. "Why pretend? I'm not shocked. It would be nice if our children grew up to be respectable and successful. But if they can't be both, it's some comfort to know that they're successful. You have no children, so you wouldn't understand that." "Then I didn't have to worry about telling you all this?" "Thank you for worrying, Ned. But I'm certainly not going to worry much about my son," said George. "Looking at it another way, with complete selfishness, if he'd turned out differently, I would be the scoundrel. I practically banished him, you know. He was expelled from Princeton for cheating, and I was very unsympathetic. So he went out to California and got in the oil business. Made a fortune legitimately, made a second fortune crookedly, and thereby confirmed my harsh opinion of him. Frankly, Ned, what you've told me here makes me sigh with relief." "You always were rather peculiar," said Ned O'Byrne. "So were you. You used to have ideas of living in Ireland, fishing for salmon and filling yourself with Irish whiskey. You had a lot of odd ideas. Something about Africa, long ago. What's happened to you, Ned? Money?" "Probably. For the first time in my life I have enough of it to do what I wanted to, like living in Ireland. But instead of one million, I now want two million. And I don't think I'd be very contented fishing for salmon. It wouldn't be as exciting as matching wits against the stock market. The way I trade, George, I could lose it all in a couple of bad days. I may yet end up in Ireland, but I'm beginning to doubt it." "How does your wife feet about all this?" "You've met Kathleen," said O'Byrne. "Did she strike you as the sort of woman who wanted to live thirty-five miles from the nearest hairdresser?" "You have a point. In other words, she wouldn't care to join you in the salmon fishing." "She wouldn't mind living in Dublin, especially if I became a papal count and all that. But she's a city girl, and she'll never be anything else." "You're a city boy," said George. "Against my will. I would like to have a small house within walking distance of an Irish village and not too far from a well-stocked stream. When I wanted conversation I'd have the local doctor, the solicitor, and the parish priest in for a meal. But that wouldn't be often. I'd be content with my books, hundreds of books that I've put off reading, and some to reread. At intervals I'd go to Dublin or Belfast for a piece of tail. I'd have a Baby Austin but no telephone, and a deaf old woman to cook for me and do the housework." "Why deaf?" Because I'd prefer to keep our conversation at a minimum. Once I got her well trained there'd be weeks at a time when we wouldn't have to exchange two words. She, of course, would live out, but would bring me my tea in the morning." "There is no wife in this picture," said George. "No, there isn't, is there. The only reason I have a wife in New York is for protection. Protection from all the women who are looking for a husband. To me, having a wife is like having a lawyer. If you have a lawyer, the other lawyers don't look for your business. I may say they're slightly more ethical about it than women. Slightly. No, there's no wife in the picture I've drawn. Only whores. I've never had the kind of vitality that a husband ought to have. As far as I know, I'm perfectly normal. Heterosexual, that is. But I seem to be able to get along without a screw longer than most of my friends. When I want it, I want it just as much as anybody, but not as often. For that reason I'd have done better to stay a bachelor. I don't wish to imply that Kathleen is insatiable, but she's never believed that I haven't had a lot of women on the side." "Haven't you?" "Not very many. "How many?" said George. "Oh, that'd be impossible to say at my age. In the hundreds. But that's because there have been so many women that I only slept with once. Variety. A madam will call me up and say she has a new girl she thinks I'll like. So I obligingly present myself, and that's it. The number of women wouldn't matter except that every time I go to bed with one of those girls, I'm being unfaithful to my wife. Statistically, Kathleen is right. I've been unfaithful to her hundreds of times. But if I weren't married to her, I'd be considered just a guy that gets laid once or twice a month. Not many normal men can get along on as little as that." "A very interesting point of view. I've never thought of it that way. I always considered you a bit of a whoremaster." "When in fact I'm comparatively ascetic. Would you be interested in having your ashes hauled this evening?" "I might be. I couldn't be sure until I saw the woman," said George. "They're whores. That is, they do it for money. But they're not cheap, and they don't look cheap. We could have dinner with them right here and you wouldn't be ashamed to be seen with them." "I'd rather go some place else for dinner. I've already seen two Racquet Club fellows come in and out of here. One with his wife. And thanks to my brother, I'm semi-notorious." "Why semi?" "Semi, because not many people recognize me, but they recognize the name. We'll take the ladies someplace else." An hour or so later the foursome was formed in another speakeasy in Fifty-fifth Street. The women were strikingly handsome. The blonde, who was for O'Byrne, had a fixed grin. Her name was Elaine, and her manner revealed that she was not one of the girls whom O'Byrne had seen only once before. The other girl - neither woman was yet thirty - was rather dramatically turned