Leave Her to Hell

7

In the office, sitting, I elevated my feet and began to think.

Maybe thinking is an exaggeration. I didn’t really have an idea. All I had was an itch — a tiny burr of coincidence that had caught in a wrinkle of my cortex. It didn’t amount to much, but I thought I might as well worry it a while, having nothing else on hand or in mind. What I thought I would do specifically was go back and see Faith Salem again. And I would go, if I could arrange it, when Faith and the sun were on the terrace. She had said to call ahead of time, and so I lowered my feet and reached for the phone, and that’s when I saw the gorilla.

He was a handsome gorilla in a Brooks Brothers suit, but a gorilla just the same. There’s something about the breed that you can’t miss. They smell all right, and they look all right, and there’s nothing you can isolate ordinarily as a unique physical characteristic that identifies one of them definitely as a gorilla rather than as a broker or a rich plumber. But they seem to have a chronic quality of deadliness that a broker or a plumber would have only infrequently — in special circumstances, if ever. This one was standing in the doorway watching me, and he had got there without a sound. He smiled. He was plainly prepared to treat me with all the courtesy I was prepared to make possible.

“Mr. Hand?” he said.

“That’s right,” I said.

“I have a message from Mr. Silas Lawler. He would appreciate it very much if you could come to see him.”

“I just went to see him yesterday.”

“Mr. Lawler knows that. He regrets that he must inconvenience you again so soon. Apparently something important has come up.”

“Something else important came up first. I was just getting ready to go out and take care of it.”

“Mr. Lawler is certain that you’ll prefer to give his business priority.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what to do. You go back to Mr. Lawler and tell him I’ll be around this evening or first thing tomorrow.”

“Mr. Lawler is most urgent that you come immediately. I have instructions to drive you there and bring you back. For your convenience, of course.”

“Of course. Mr. Lawler is notoriously considerate. Suppose I don’t want to go.”

“Mr. Lawler hopes you will want to accomodate him.”

“Let’s suppose I refuse.”

“Mr. Lawler didn’t anticipate that contingency, I’m afraid. He said to bring you.”

“Even if I resist?”

“As I understood my orders, Mr. Lawler made no qualifications.”

“Do you think you’re man enough to execute them without qualifications?”

“I think so.”

“In that case,” I said, “we’d better go.”

I got my hat and put it over the place where the lumps would have been if I hadn’t. Together, like cronies, we went downstairs and got into his car, which was a Caddy, and drove in it to Silas Lawler’s restaurant plus. In the hall outside Silas Lawler’s private room, we stood and listened to the piano, which was being played. What was being played on it this time was not something by Chopin, and I couldn’t identify who it was by certainly, but I thought it was probably Mozart. The music was airy and intricate. It sounded as if it had been written by a man who felt very good and wanted everyone else to feel as good as he did.

“Mr. Lawler doesn’t like to be interrupted when he’s playing,” the Brooks Brothers gorilla said.

“You can’t be too careful with artists,” I said. “They’re touchy.”

“Mr. Lawler’s a virtuoso,” he said.

He didn’t even blink when he said it. It was obviously a word he was used to and not something special for effect. I wondered if they were granting degrees to gorillas these days, but I didn’t think it would be wise to ask. There wouldn’t have been time for any answer, anyhow, for the virtuoso stopped playing the music by Mozart, or at least not Chopin, and the gorilla knocked twice on the door and opened it, and I walked into the room ahead of him.

Silas Lawler got off the bench and walked around the curve of the grand and stopped in the spot where the canary usually perches in nightclubs. He didn’t perch, however. He merely leaned. From the same chair in which she had sat yesterday, Robin Robbins looked across at me with a poker face, and I could see at once, in spite of shadows and cosmetics, that somebody had hung one on her. A plum-colored bruise spread down from her left eye across the bone of her cheek. There was still some swelling of the flesh too, although it had certainly been reduced from what it surely had been. She looked rather cute, to tell the truth. The shiner somehow made her look like the kid she said she never was.

“How are you, Hand?” Lawler said. “It was kind of you to come.”

“Your messenger was persuasive,” I said. “I couldn’t resist him.”

“Darcy, you mean. I can always depend on Darcy to do a job like a gentleman. He dislikes violence almost as much as I do. I’m sure you didn’t find him abusive.”

“Not at all. I’ve never been threatened half so courteously before.” I turned my head and looked down at Robin Robbins. “Apparently you weren’t so lucky, honey. You must have run into an inferior gorilla somewhere.”

“I fell over my lip,” she said.

Lawler laughed, and I could have sworn that there was a note of tenderness in it. “Robin’s impetuous. She’s always doing something she later regrets, and I’m always prepared to forgive her eventually, although I sometimes lose my temper in the meanwhile. Isn’t that so, Robin?”

“Oh, sure,” she said. “We love each other in spite of everything.”

“I won’t deny that Robin’s been punished,” Lawler said, “but I’m afraid I must charge you with being partially responsible, Hand. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for taking advantage of her innocence.”

“I am,” I said. “I truly am.”

“Well,” he said, “I don’t think we need to be too critical. Robin, I realize, is even harder to resist than Darcy. For different reasons, of course. She’s told me what the two of you talked about yesterday after leaving here together, and she understands now how foolish she was. Don’t you, Robin?”

“Sure,” she said. “I was foolish.”

“She wants me to ask you to forget all about it, don’t you, Robin?”

“Sure,” she said. “Forget it.”

“You see?” Lawler shrugged and shifted his weight against the piano. “Robin and I are really very compatible. We are never able to keep secrets from one another for very long.”

“That’s sweet,” I said. “I’m touched.”

He was looking directly at Robin for the first time now. “Wouldn’t you like to apologize to Mr. Hand for causing him so much trouble, Robin?”

“I apologize, Mr. Hand,” she said.

“I liked it better when you told me to go to hell,” I said.

Lawler stood erect and stopped looking at Robin in order to look at me. “That wasn’t a very gracious response, Hand. However, let it pass. I also want to apologize to you.”

“What for?”

“I’m afraid I was a little unreasonable yesterday. I understand now that you were hired to investigate the matter we discussed, and you’re naturally concerned about your fee. I have no right to ask you to sacrifice that, of course. What do you think it will amount to?”

“That depends on how long the job lasts. I get twenty-five dollars a day and expenses.”

“Very reasonable. I’ll pay you five thousand to drop the case. That should be adequate.”

“Bribery?”

“Don’t be offensive. Compensation for the loss of your fee.”

“It’s not enough.”

“Really? I figure that it comes to two hundred days’ work. What do you think would be fair?”

“Make it a million, and I’ll take it.”

“Your joke isn’t very funny, Hand. It’s bad taste to joke about a serious matter.”

“I’m not joking. You see, I’ve got to be compensated for more than the loss of a fee. I’ve got to be compensated for the loss of my integrity, such as it is. I don’t figure a million’s too much for that.”

“Nonsense. You’re wasting your time, anyhow. I assured you of that. Is it ethical to go on accepting a fee under false pretenses?”

“I explained to my client that it might not come to anything. Probably wouldn’t, as a matter of fact. We’re both satisfied.”

“Perhaps I could persuade your client that he is making a mistake. Would you care to give me his name?”

“No, I wouldn’t. The truth is, I don’t particularly care for your methods of persuasion.”

“No matter. If I really want to learn the identity of your client, I can do it easily enough. Now, however, I don’t propose to discuss this matter with you any longer. I believe I’ve made you a fair proposition. Do you still refuse to accept it?”

“Sorry. I’m holding out for the million.”

If there was the slightest sign between him and Darcy behind me, the lifting of a brow or the twitch of a tic, I never saw it. It could be, I guess, that they’d developed a kind of extra-sensory communication that functioned automatically when the time was precisely right. Anyhow, sign or not, Darcy grabbed me abruptly above the elbows from behind and wrenched my arms and shoulders back so violently that I thought for a moment I’d split down the middle like a spring fryer. At the same instant, Lawler made a fist and stepped forward within range.

“I regret this, Hand,” he said. “I really do.”

“I know,” I said. “You dislike violence. You and Darcy both.”

“It’s your own fault, of course. You’re behaving like a recalcitrant boy, and it’s necessary to teach you a lesson.”

“Don’t you think you ought to teach me somewhere else? You wouldn’t want to get blood on this expensive carpet.”

“It’s acrilan. Haven’t you heard of it? One of these new miracle fabrics. Blood wipes right off.”

“Is that a fact? Better living through chemistry. I’m impressed.”

He was tired now of the whole business. I could see in his face that he was tired, and I believe that he actually did regret what he considered the necessity of having to do what he was going to do. It was only that he knew no other way to fight, in spite of Chopin and Mozart and the veneer of respectability, than the way of violence. He wanted to get it over with, and he did. He drove the fist into my face, and it was like getting hit with a jagged boulder. Flesh split on bone, and bone cracked, and darkness welled up internally. I sagged, I guess, and hung by my arms from the hands of Darcy, and after a while, I guess, I straightened and lifted my head and was hit again in the face. When I opened my eyes after that, I was lying on the carpet, and there was blood on it. In my mouth there was more blood, and a thin and bitter fluid risen from my stomach. I was sick and in pain, but mostly I was ashamed. I got up slowly, in sections, and looked at Lawler through a pink mist.

“Your carpet’s a mess,” I said. “I hope you’re right about acrilan.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You’re a tough guy, Hand, and I like you. If you think I get any kicks out of pushing you around, you’re wrong. There’s a lavatory in there. Through that door. Why don’t you go in and wash your face?”

“I think I will,” I said.

I went in and turned on the cold tap and caught double handfuls of water and buried my face in them. The water burned like acid, but it revived me and dispelled the pink fog. In the mirror above the lavatory, I saw that a cut on my cheekbone needed a stitch or two. I found some adhesive tape in the medicine cabinet and pulled the cut together and went back out into the other room.

Lawler was seated at the grand again. Darcy was leaning against the wall behind him. Robin Robbins, in her chair, was still wearing her poker face. I thought I saw in her eyes a guarded gleam of something appealing. Compassion? Camaraderie based on mutual beatings? A raincheck? Who could be sure with Robin? I kept right on walking toward the door, and I was almost there when Lawler spoke to me.

“Hand,” he said.

I stopped but didn’t turn. I didn’t answer either. It hurt to talk, and I saw no sense in it.

“One thing more,” he said. “I made a reasonable offer, and you’d be wise to accept it. This is just a suggestion of what you’ll get if you don’t. I’ll put a check for five thousand in the mail today. You’ll get it tomorrow.”

“Thanks very much,” I said.

I started again and kept going and got on out of there.