A Flash of Green

Nine

In the bright sunlight of the Saturday mid-morning Jimmy Wing saw himself sidelong in a downtown shop window, sandy and listless, slowed by the heat, squinting into the chrome dazzle of Center Street. It struck him that he should look so unremarkable, that the blackmail mission should have worked no change upon him.

“Blackmail” was the word he had awakened with, so apt and harsh it soothed him to use it, depriving him of pretense. Yet it had overtones of melodrama which gave it a twist of comedy. It needed wax on the tips of the mustache, and hidden cameras, tape recordings, pilfered letters, a lock box. Then they would set a trap for him, and the slug would smash him against the wall. He would fall, twitch and die, as the music came up and the good guy embraced the lovely girl.

But he had learned that most people who do questionable things are as unremarkable as the people who don’t. Most people who are thrown into a cell for good reason are vastly astonished to find themselves there, because they look and feel like anyone else. It is all some kind of mistake.

Having faced the idea of digging up something Elmo could use against Dial Sinnat, he examined himself with care and concern, looking for some obvious alteration of the spirit. But he felt only a mild chagrin, a fussy anxiety about being successful at it — and not being caught at it, and a very subtle feeling of unreality, no more than a hangover or a slight fever would induce.

He had remembered old gossip, a fistfight, a damage suit which had been quietly dropped, and he had refreshed his memory in a microfilm booth at the paper. It seemed to make sense to go to a man’s enemies first. Rule one for the amateur blackmailer.

He walked around the corner onto Veronica Street and into the old Central Commerce Building, and climbed one flight of stairs to the offices of the accounting firm of Malley and Rand. The door was unlocked. The secretarial desks were empty. Chet Rand was behind his desk, his office door open. He was a soft, florid, red-headed man. His scowl turned to a smile as he recognized Jimmy Wing.

“Officially we’re closed, Jimmy,” he said. “But not for big financial figures like you. What have they got you doing now? Selling advertising?”

Jimmy sat down and looked at him amiably. “If you’re closed, why are you working? Too many accounts with two sets of books?”

“We recommend three these days. Four if it’s a partnership. What I’m doing, pal, is trying to save the skin of a stupid son of a bitch who just happened to forget to declare a little windfall he got three years ago.”

“What I want to talk about goes back a little further than that, Chet. I’m being the diligent reporter. Research. This is a confidential visit.”

“I won’t give you a crumb about any of our clients.”

“I wouldn’t ask. This is more personal. A story might break about an old buddy of yours. He might be getting into the same kind of trouble he got into once before.”

“An old friend of mine?”

“Dial Sinnat.”

Rand’s mild worn urban face changed in a startling way. For a few moments he looked capable of a dangerous violence. In a soft voice a half octave lower than his normal tone he said, “Is this your idea of a funny joke, Wing?”

“I’m serious.”

Chet Rand leaned back. “I get a lousy reaction to that name. But now I realize it isn’t fair. I tried to kill him once, and I don’t go anywhere where I might run into him. But I guess it wasn’t his fault. I was in a lot better shape then than I am now. I’m nearly twenty years younger than he is. But he like to kill me before they broke it up.”

“You dropped the suit, didn’t you?”

“There was a lot of pressure on me from all directions. From Ruthie and Don Malley and from just about every member of the Board of Governors of the Yacht Club. So I dropped it.” He gave Wing a strangely shy smile and looked away. “What I wasn’t willing to admit then, even though I guess I knew it all the time, I had to admit later. Ruthie was a slut. After what happened with Sinnat, I watched her closer. I didn’t lose my head the next time. I got the evidence on her and I used it to bulldoze her into a divorce. Somebody saw her in Phoenix over a year ago. I don’t know where the hell she is now. I keep wondering about her.”

“There was a dance that night, wasn’t there?”

“Nothing special. Just one of the Friday night things they used to have. I don’t know if they still have them. I resigned after it was all over. Sinnat had been at the hospital most of the day. Claire had twins that evening. Di came to the club from the hospital in a mood to buy champagne. I guess he got there about nine-thirty. Ruthie and I had a nice little load already, and the champagne topped it off. I guess it was about midnight I realized I hadn’t seen Ruthie for a while. I’d been playing poker dice at the bar. I went and looked in the car. She wasn’t there. I went out onto the docks looking for her. A wind had come up. Any noise I was making couldn’t be heard over the waves slapping the pilings and the boats creaking. I went way out on the end of the T and I wouldn’t have seen them at all if the moon hadn’t come out from behind a cloud at the right time. They’d pulled a bunk mattress out onto the cockpit deck of Johnny Shilling’s old Matthews, and if they hadn’t been in such a big hurry and stopped to rig a side curtain, they’d have been home free. It was a farce, I suppose. Like a dirty joke, where the husband always walks in. But it isn’t funny to the husband, Jimmy. It isn’t funny at all. They looked like farm animals, somehow. I went out of my mind. I smashed a boat hook on him, they tell me, and tried to skewer him with the splintered end. When he took it away from me, I tried to strangle him, but by the time they broke it up I had this new twist in my nose and I needed two hundred bucks worth of dental work. He’s a bull. We’d been friends. I did some work for him. We’d been in their house. They’d been in ours. Ruthie cried and lied and lied and cried. I don’t blame him now. I know she was a slut. I don’t blame him, but I still hate him.”

“Did Claire ever find out about it?”

“How could she help not hearing about it, in this town? But Claire is a tough girl, Jimmy. She’s a realist. She knows he’s no angel. She has a good life. Why should she mess it up because he did a little roaming when she was out of circulation? Hell, I can talk about it now, but there was a couple of years there when I couldn’t. If I was alone and began to think about it, I’d begin to cry. Isn’t that the damnedest thing? Not sad tears, but the way kids cry when they get mad. What kind of trouble is he getting into now?”

“I can’t talk about it, Chet. Wait and read about it in the paper.”

“What good does it do you to listen to all that old stuff?”

“Background information, Chet.”

“I don’t want it in the paper, by God!”

“It won’t be, believe me. We don’t run a scandal sheet.”

“Is it woman trouble?”

“It could be in that area.”

“I won’t wish him any luck. But how can anybody bruise the man? Name him as corespondent? There’s nobody to fire him, and she won’t divorce him. I’m telling you, pal, I spent at least a year trying to think of some way to mess him up, but short of shooting him, I couldn’t come up with a thing. They don’t give a damn for public opinion. He spends five mornings a week in the brokerage outfit. He’s quick and shrewd and he does very well at it. He’s healthy as a pig. And I’m now willing to admit he probably wouldn’t mess with any woman who wasn’t ready and willing. And Claire certainly doesn’t mess around.”

“And I suppose that when you worked on something for him, he wasn’t trying anything cute?”

Chet Rand looked at Wing narrowly. “Boy, you’re giving me the idea you’re fishing. The more I think about the story you walked in here with, the fishier it sounds.”

“What would I be fishing for? I’m just a newspaper type.”

“His personal financial records are complete and accurate. He’s got fat holdings on tax exempts, a slew of blue chips, and quite a lot of very very nice growth stuff. He doesn’t have to cut any tax corners. At least, that’s the way he was set four years ago. That closes that door. About the only tender spots I can think of would be his kids.”

Wing stared at him. “Four-year-old twins?”

“We keep the Art Center books. There’s a Natalie Sinnat drawing twelve bucks a week teaching a class of kids. Nineteen and cute.”

“I forgot about her. She’s spending the summer down here.”

“Maybe she isn’t as tough-minded as Claire and Di.”

“A man would have to be a thousand percent bastard to get at a man that way, Chet.”

Rand shrugged. “It would depend on what he had to have, and how far he’d have to go to get it. Bastardliness is relative, friend. Two months ago a partner in an old firm died. The business is worth maybe three hundred thousand. The surviving partner is buying out the widow for five thousand, because that’s the figure given in the original partnership agreement drawn up in 1932, and never updated. The partners and their wives have been close for thirty years. Now the widow can’t understand how good old Joe can do this to her. But the law says he can, and he’s doing it. Don’t talk to me about thousand percent bastards.”

“I wasn’t fishing, Chet.”

“Of course you weren’t. This was a private talk, Jimmy. Be at ease.”

“Thanks for... talking about your own bruise, Chet.”

“It doesn’t bother me much any more, I just wonder where she is, sometimes, and how she’s making out. Listen. Whatever you use on Sinnat, don’t try a boat hook. It won’t work.”

On the short ride back to the newspaper in the bake-oven heat of his old station wagon, Jimmy Wing found his sense of unreality slightly enhanced. When a traffic light stopped him, he stared at his own hand resting on the steering wheel, a long hand, veined and freckled, fuzzed with pale fur, grasping the wheel with indifferent simian competence, as apart from him as though he looked over the shoulder of a stranger.

The hand is the animal reality, he thought, for blows and tools and caresses. Morality is an unreal conjecture, for younger men than I am. Morality is the conflict of rationalizations. I am trapped by myself, unable to do more or less than the old limitations permit.

He had a specific visualization of rationalizations, seeing a little apart from the commonplace furniture of his mind, a cave pink and membranous, where the things too easy to believe were like flat leech-creatures which inched up from the dark floor to affix themselves to the soft walls. If they were peeled away quickly they did no harm. But the longer they remained the more difficult they were to dislodge. Eventually they made themselves so much a part of the walls there was no way to find them, or even to know they were there. And so truth, forever out of focus in any case, was prey to these further distortions assembled over the years. They made a comfortable muffling, a padded toughened wall, as opposed to a Calvinist rawness.

The girl lives in the unreal context of wealth, youth and beauty. It would be a favor to her to show her the world has edges and thorns.

Besides, the time to make any decision is after you find out what, if anything, is usable.

And if you don’t do it, somebody else will.

He phoned Kat from the place where he had lunch. She said she was just leaving for Jackie Halley’s house. She said she wanted to talk to him, but she’d be at the Halleys’ all afternoon. She said she had a lot to tell him and ask him. Could he stop by the Halleys’ about six o’clock? He told her that if he couldn’t make it, he’d phone her there and set up something else.

After he had turned in his Sunday edition copy, he drove to the Palm County Art Center building. It was on city-owned land at the foot of Center Street, fronting on the bay. The big tract also contained the Community Auditorium, the Teen House, the public library and the new headquarters for the city police. In the early thirties when the tract had been available for back taxes, the Cable family had purchased it and turned it over to the city for civic uses.

The Art Center was an incongruous piece of architecture for even that tropic coast, red brick Georgian with white pillars and fake shutters, more suitable to a shopping center in Williamsburg. He parked in the wide and empty asphalted area which served all the buildings in the tract. A sign on the front door of the Center announced that it was closed. The door was unlocked.

He walked through the arched entrance to the main gallery where Morton Dermond was supervising the efforts of a half dozen young people who were uncrating and hanging a show.

“Doris, darling,” Dermond yelled, “the reds in that one will absolutely slay that wonderful Ricardi. You’ll have to get it much further away. Try the west wall, dear.”

He came smiling over to Jimmy Wing. “This show is so colorful, we’re having a hideous time hanging it. How are you, Jimmy? I’m really terribly excited about this show. It’s a shame we couldn’t have gotten it during the season, but it’s really much too good for us at any time of year. It’s a traveling show. California artists. I was able to get it only because they had a little gap in their scheduling. It’s on its way from the Delgado to the Four Arts. Please don’t tell me you are going to review it! But you might do better than poor Dottie Grumbann at that. The dear thing comes to an absolute cultural stop over anything more complex than a Picasso.”

“Is this a bad time to talk to you, Mortie? I’m just feeling out a possible feature story on these summer classes for kids.”

“I can talk, if we stand here where I can see what’s happening. Charles! I want to save that center wall for the Deibenkorn, please. Why don’t you get it and hang it next, dear boy?”

“I had the idea of doing it as a sort of double interview, Mortie. One with a teacher, and one with one of the kids.”

“But you’ll have to clear the final draft with me, Jimmy. I have a very cowardly board of directors, you know. Let me see. I have just two teachers this summer. Peter Trent is sweet, but he’s practically inarticulate. I think Nat Sinnat would be really ideal. And she’d look better in a photograph than Peter would, with that grimy beard.”

“Then I have your permission to set it up with her?”

“Natalie! Come here a moment, dear!”

A girl at the far end of the gallery turned and came walking toward them, brushing her dark hair back with the back of her hand. She wore salmon-colored shorts and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Her sun-dark legs were almost but not quite too thin. She walked well, with grace and assurance. As she came close Jimmy saw that she looked flushed and hot. Her hands and shirt and chin were smudged.

“Natalie, dear, this is an old friend of mine, Jimmy Wing, from the newspaper. We can spare you for a little while here, so why don’t you take Jimmy into my office. He wants to interview you for a newspaper story about the children.”

“How do you do?” Natalie said. “I’ve heard Mrs. Hubble speak of you, Mr. Wing.”

“I don’t want to take you away from your work, Natalie.”

“She’s earned a break, Jimmy. She’s done as much as any two of the others.”

The girl picked her purse up from a bench by the arch and, as they walked out into the lobby, she said, “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to wash up. I don’t know how the paintings get so filthy. If you’ll wait for me in Mortie’s office, I won’t be long.”

Morton Dermond’s small office was a sweltering jungle of books, easels, paintings, sculpture, mobiles, magazines, posters, sandals and strange hats. He turned on the window air conditioner, cleared the junk from two contour chairs and positioned them near the only clear corner of Dermond’s desk.

The girl came in, closing the door behind her, and went to stand in front of the cold wind of the air conditioner. “This is my first summer down here,” she said. “It’s really wicked, isn’t it?”

“Once we start getting some rain every day it won’t be so bad.”

“That’s what my father keeps telling me.”

She came over and sat near him. He asked questions and made the few notes which would cue his memory. He made it clear to her that Dermond had suggested her as the person he should interview. She was quick, intelligent and more poised than he had expected. When he asked about the caliber of the children she was teaching, she said, “They are all recommended by the art teachers in the public schools. I probably shouldn’t say this, but the ones who’ve had the least instruction are the most rewarding ones. What they get in the public schools seems to sort of tighten them up. They’re afraid of their materials. Peter and I seem to spend most of our time getting them to open up, to be bold with their colors and forms.”

“Are you planning to become an art teacher, Natalie?”

She frowned. “I don’t know, really. I’ve had just one year of fine arts. I’ll be a sophomore when I go back. I like this better than I thought I would. I want to be a painter. I know I have a knack, but maybe I haven’t much talent, really. I guess you better put down ‘undecided.’ ”

As he had talked to her he had become aware of a curious duality about her. Though her expression was placid, he thought he could detect the marks of tension in her young face. And her poise was a little too nearly perfect. She began to seem more guarded than poised. He guessed there could be a great amount of neurotic tension beneath the surface, the understandable product of sensitivity and a broken home. After he had told her he would make arrangements for photographs, and had gotten from her the name of a child who would be a good one to talk to, he put his notes away and said, “Aside from the climate, Natalie, are you having a good summer?”

“A very nice summer, thank you.”

“Kat Hubble seems very fond of you.”

“She’s sweet.”

“Her husband was one of my best friends.”

“My father told me what happened to him. It seems so terrible and so pointless.”

“Your people have been wonderful to Kat.”

“They like her a lot. And her children are wonderful kids.”

“Do you think you’ll be coming down every summer while you’re in school?”

“I don’t really know. I needed... a complete change of scene this summer. I asked if I could come down.”

“I guess it was up to Claire.”

“What has this got to do with the interview, Mr. Wing?”

“Absolutely nothing,” he said, smiling at her.

“Claire is one of the warmest, most generous people I’ve ever met.”

“Well, I hope you’ll come back every summer, Natalie. You improve the local summer scenery.”

“Thank you,” she said, startled and blushing slightly.

“Have our local young men gathered around with understandable enthusiasm?”

“I haven’t been dating,” she said, and stood up. “I better get back to work before they finish all of it.”

After she was back at work he talked to Morton Dermond again. The young people had almost finished hanging the show.

“Get what you need?” Dermond asked.

“Yes indeed. It should make a good story, Mortie.”

“Nat is articulate and she’s a darling and I love the way her mind works. She’s superb with the wretched little children. I can’t endure them myself.”

“I got the idea there’s more to her than meets the eye.”

“Oh, you are so right! She arrived down here shattered, just getting over an absolutely sickening affair with some pig of a graduate student up there in Michigan, and her mother was no help to her at all. Recriminations and so on. That’s why she came down. She told me about it in confidence. Broke down completely when I was criticizing her drawings, and it all came out. She seems to be coming out of it now, bless her. But she’s terribly vulnerable. That pig destroyed her confidence. I think she yearns for someone to appreciate her. Too bad you’re a little too old for her, Jimmy. Right now, to kill time, and maybe to help get herself back together, she seems to be running a little lovelorn anonymous club, being sweet and motherly to some dreary high-school boy, who seems to worship her. I saw him once in her car. I have no idea who he is. He’s rather a beautiful boy, but he has a sort of bovine look. You know the type. Natalie is a very complex little person, and very troubled, but I can’t tell you much about her because she spoke to me in confidence. You know how it is.”

“I know. Like a sacred trust.”

“Exactly, Jimmy. Did she tell you what child to talk to? Good. Do give us a nice big spread on this if you can, old man.”

“Will try. Are you saving the bays again, Mortie?”

“What? Oh, that dreary meeting yesterday, of course. It was all sort of spiritless. You know? Actually, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s worth it. People down here seem to despise natural beauty. It seems to make them terribly uneasy. They don’t really feel secure until they can see asphalt in every direction, and they don’t trust a tree unless they’ve grown it themselves. Oh, we’ll fight the brave battle, mother, but I haven’t as much zing for it this time, and I don’t think the others do either. Except Tom Jennings. He’s incredibly warlike, you know. And little Kat Hubble is very dedicated. Will you be helping us this time?”

“It won’t be as easy, not with the owner in favor of the fill.”

“All done?” he called to the young people. “Splendid! It’s an absolutely glorious show, isn’t it? And beautifully hung. Thank you all so much! And I want you all at the reception tomorrow, please. Four o’clock. You come too, Jimmy, please.”

“If I can make it, Mortie.”

“Do try. When will the photographer come?”

“Next week some time, Mortie, during her class.” He started away and turned and said, “How were her drawings, anyway?”

“Eh? Oh, they were competent. But very constricted. Tight little exercises, as if her darling little knuckles were bone white when she did them, and she bit her lip until it bled. Absolutely virginal, actually.” Mortie giggled. “But, gracious, that certainly isn’t accurate!”

Until Jimmy Wing had driven a few blocks, the steering wheel of his car was so hot he had to keep shifting the position of his hands. It was too late for a chess game with Haas. He drove out to Cable Key, showered and changed and had time for a beer before driving to the Halleys to see Kat.