The Shadow Portrait (9 page)

“I think that’s drawn butter. You dip the meat in it before you eat it,” Jolie said. She had learned this by watching the group at the next table. As Easy tasted it, she asked, “Do you like it?”

“Well, not as good as barbecued goat, but it ain’t bad. Don’t reckon it will hurt me none if I can keep it down.”

Jolie and Peter laughed at Easy’s predicament, and the three friends sat there enjoying their meal. While the musicians continued to play, Jolie began explaining how she had gotten her job. “I went inside this theater and asked to see the manager. Well, I got the manager of the theater, but he didn’t help me any—he said I’d have to talk to the producer. When I tried to find him, I couldn’t. But I did meet one of the actors. He was the nicest man. His name was Cecil B. DeMille. He told me the producer was out of the country and asked
if he could help. I told him all about working in the movie business out west and that I was in New York and needed a job. He seemed to think that I wanted to be an actress, but I told him that I could help with the costumes and with the prompting and things like that.”

“What sort of a fellow was he? Was he like the movie actors we met?”

“He had real sharp eyes and was beginning to lose his hair, but he was so nice, Peter. He took me to the director, Mr. Dunn, and made a special plea for me. Well, it must’ve been God’s doing because Mr. Dunn said, ‘You know, we’ve been needing help with the prompting, and Ethel, our costume lady, is going to have to leave. Her daughter is sick.’ Anyway, I got the job.”

“Well, congratulations. You’re still in show biz.” Peter smiled. “Now you can support us all in style.”

“They’re going to pay me thirty dollars a week. That’ll buy lots of parts for the
Jolie Blonde,
won’t it, Peter?”

“It’ll sure help.” Peter’s brow furrowed. “We’ve got to get that thing running right, or we’re never going to get her in a race.” He looked down at his hand and said, “Burned my hand on the engine yesterday. I hope it doesn’t give me any trouble.”

Easy suddenly looked up and said, “You don’t have to worry about that, Peter. I’ll take care of it.”

Peter, who had refused to go to the doctor because of the cost, suddenly grinned. “I forgot you were the expert on all these kinds of things. What’s the Easy Devlin method for curing a burn?”

“Why, there’s not much to it,” Easy shrugged. “First you take a gill of chicken fat, and you take six eggs and roast ’em on the live embers until they’re hard, and then you take out the yolks. The next thing, you mix ’em all together and cook ’em in the fat till they’re black, then you add some rue and take it out and strain it through a towel. When it’s all ready, you gotta cool it with a gill of olive oil.”

“Sounds complicated to me. Are you sure it’ll work?” Peter winked at Jolie, for the two enjoyed hearing Easy’s folk doctoring and superstitions.

“Work? Does a bear sleep in the woods? I should say it works! Of course,” he said, shrugging his thin shoulders, “Jolie will have to be the one to make it.”

“Why will I have to make it?” Jolie demanded.

“Because it will only work when a man makes it for a burn that’s on a woman, or a woman has to make it for a burn that’s on a man.”

“Oh, I should have understood that!” Jolie said, repressing a smile. “I’ll remember that the next time.” She held out her hand. “I’ve got this small wart started on my thumb here. I’ve forgotten what you’ve said to take warts off.” It was not really a wart, but Jolie liked to tease Easy about his unusual remedies.

Glancing at it casually, Easy scratched his head. “Well, the best way would be to bathe it in the water in which a blacksmith has cooled his irons. Of course, you have to do it when he ain’t lookin’ at ya.”

“I don’t think we’re going to find many blacksmiths around here,” Peter said.

“Well, the next best thing is to take a string and tie as many knots in it as you got warts, then go bury the string.” Easy looked at them suddenly with a supercilious scowl. “I know you two don’t put no stock in this kind of thing, but that’s because you ain’t educated!”

“I’ll tie a string tonight and go out and bury it,” Jolie promised. She knew she would do it, for she was very fond of Easy and didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

As the three walked home after their meal, the stars overhead began to sparkle in the darkening sky, appearing like diamonds on a great blue velvet dome. The streetlights of the city did not shine as brightly, it seemed, as those millions of stars. When they reached the apartment building, Easy went
to bed at once, but Peter said, “I’m going to sit out on the steps in the backyard.”

“I’ll sit with you. I’m not sleepy,” Jolie said.

They went outside and sat down. Peter looked at the shadowy figure of the
Jolie Blonde
and said, “It was nice of the landlady to let us keep the car out here. I don’t know what we would have done in a city like this.”

“Do you really think you’ll win a race in the
Jolie Blonde,
Peter?” Jolie asked.

She turned to him and the soft silvery light of the moon silhouetted her face. Her lips turned up slightly at the corners, and her voice grew soft as she spoke to Peter. The fragrance of lilac from her hair suddenly came to him, sliding through the armor of his self-sufficiency. She had a way of smiling that was very attractive when her chin tilted up and her lips curved in pretty lines. A serenity had come into her features that he loved. He thought about the terrible life she had led and was suddenly pleased that their paths had crossed. For a moment he studied her beautifully fashioned face, thinking, as he often did,
If only she’d get that ugly scar removed.
Yet whenever he would mention it to her, she refused to hear of it, saying that such an operation would be too expensive, and there were no guarantees it would even work.

“Sure we will. We’ll win a lot of races, and then,” he said quietly, “we’re going to take you to a doctor and see about getting that scar fixed.”

Quickly Jolie turned her head. She was embarrassed about it and had spent most of her life turning her face away from the world—ever since her stepfather had inflicted the scar. “I don’t think about that,” she said.

“I think you do. You’re always honest, Jolie. I don’t know why you turn away every time I try to talk to you about this.”

He saw the oval of her face with the dark streak lying like a velvet strip across the left side of her face. As he studied her, he remembered when he had first met her. She had been little more than a leggy kid, built more like a boy than a
girl, and full of fire. She now possessed all the fullness and grace of a mature young woman but had lost none of her spirit. It seemed very important to him that she get her scar removed and find a husband. He wanted good things for her and wanted to tell her some of his thoughts. But now that she had become such an impressive-looking woman, he somehow found it more difficult to express himself to her.

An owl suddenly sailed across the sky, casting a shadow on the ground in front of them. They both looked up, and Peter shook his head. “I guess they must feed on rats. That’s about the only game there is in the big city.”

Jolie watched the owl disappear silently into the darkness, then asked again, “What about the car, Peter? When are you going to enter it in a race?”

Peter shook his head. “It’s all a matter of money, I guess. I’ll be racing against men who have plenty of it, and we have to make do with what we’ve got.”

“I hate thinking about money,” Jolie said abruptly. “Life is so short, and grubbing after money is the last thing I want to spend my life doing.”

“I feel the same way, but it takes money to buy the parts we need,” Peter said as he looked at the
Jolie Blonde.
“I don’t know how to explain it, Jolie, but I’ve got to do this thing.”

“All right. I’ll help you with what I earn from my new job. We’ll take every penny we can find, and we’ll get the
Jolie Blonde
put together as well as we can. Don’t be discouraged, Peter,” she said, suddenly putting her hand on his arm and squeezing it. When he turned to her, she was smiling. “We can win. I know we can.”

Peter reached out, put his arm around her, and hugged her. “That’s what I like to hear. You’re good for me, Jolie.”

Jolie was silent, for the touch of his arm and the pressure of his body against hers made her heart begin to race. She had known since she had left her adolescence behind that Peter Winslow, who had been kinder to her than anyone she had
ever met, was very special to her. Now as she felt his heart beating, she whispered, “I want to help you all I can, Peter.”

When the butler opened the door and greeted him, Phil Winslow had a sudden impulse to turn and walk away. He had received the invitation in the mail to have dinner with the Lanier family and had debated about accepting. He had not been favorably impressed by Oliver Lanier on his last visit. Still, he had been anxious to learn more about the young man, Clinton, and was more curious, perhaps, about Cara Lanier. Since the night the thugs had jumped them, he had thought of the woman often. His brief encounter with her that night had caught his attention. Now, shaking aside his thoughts, he spoke to the butler, who was waiting for his response.

“I’m Phil Winslow.”

“Ah yes, Mr. Winslow. Please come in.” The butler was an older man with silver in his brown hair and cautious brown eyes. He stepped back to allow Phil to enter, closed the door, and said, “The family will be down to dinner shortly. Perhaps you’d care to wait in the drawing room.”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

Phil looked around in awe as he followed the butler. The opulent foyer was larger than many people’s living rooms. Tall, dark walnut doors were framed with leaded-glass side panels. Ornately carved moldings framed the towering ceiling from which hung a long cut-glass chandelier. A deeply textured silk wall covering framed an ornamental walnut fireplace and a stately grandfather clock chimed the quarter hour as he walked past. A wide staircase curved majestically toward the upper floor, and standing beneath it was a gleaming, marble-topped cherrywood table holding a crystal vase of fresh-cut flowers and flanked by two velvet-upholstered occasional chairs. Beneath Phil’s feet, a dark inlaid wood floor gleamed in the soft light, its finish polished to perfection.

As the butler showed him through the drawing room door
and stepped aside, Phil looked around the even larger and more opulent room—almost overwhelming in its richness of pattern, color, and ornamentation. At first he thought there was no one there. Then he heard his name called and, looking toward the fireplace, saw Clinton Lanier rise and stride across the room, extending his hand in welcome.

“Phil, I’m so glad you could come.”

“Hello, Clinton. How’s your head?”

Clinton grinned and touched his head, which now had a faint, shadowy blue mark. “After I finally woke up, I was a little addlepated for a while, but I think I’ve still got what few brains I was born with.” Clinton laughed. “One thing, though—since I was in no shape to talk that night—I do want to thank you very much for what you did for me.”

“What I did for you was take you down to a rough part of town and get you beat over the skull. No thanks needed for that.”

“No, that’s not how I see it,” Clinton said. “I don’t see yet how you got us out of that mess. All I remember is getting hit over the head with a club. But I did see you kick that first man. How in the world did you do that?”

Phil grinned, held out his hands, and said, “An artist has to have his hands, otherwise he’s out of business. When I was in Paris, there was a new sort of self-defense called kick boxing. It was really pretty impressive. Where I grew up men used their fists to fight, but there’s a lot more strength in a man’s leg than there is in his arm. The idea is that you kick people instead of hitting them, so I picked up a little of that.”

“You must’ve picked up more than a little,” Clinton insisted. His eyes gleamed with admiration. “I wish you could teach me some of that.”

“Well, you won’t be needing it, Clinton, if you stay out of dark alleys and the kind of neighborhoods I live in. I think—”

“The family is waiting, sir,” the butler interrupted. “Dinner is on the table.”

“Come along, Phil,” Clinton urged, taking his new friend
by the shoulder. “The family’s dying to hear about our adventure, and since I was out of it, you’ll have to tell them all about it.”

Phil had little inclination to relate the incident, but he walked with Clinton through gilt-stenciled doors into the long formal dining room. As an artist he couldn’t help being caught up by the soaring frescoed ceiling from which hung a brass and crystal chandelier with beautifully etched globes.
This is almost like a small museum,
he thought as he took in the many gold-framed paintings displayed on the walls, some portraits, others landscapes.

The family was gathered and waiting before yet another elegant fireplace, this one framed in imported tiles, a crackling fire radiating warmth into the room. The long dining table, draped in damask and lace, was set with handsome gold-trimmed china, ornate silverware, and delicate crystal, which sparkled by the light of the tall white tapers in silver candelabra framing a bountiful arrangement of spring flowers and ferns.