Poodle Springs

2

It was a very handsome house except that it stank decorator. The front wall was plate glass with butterflies imprisoned in it. Linda said it came from Japan. The floor of the hall was carpeted with blue vinyl with a geometric design in gold. There was a den off of this. It contained plenty of furniture, also four enormous brass candle holders and the finest inlaid desk I had ever seen. Off the den was a guest bath, which Linda called a lavatory. A year and a half in Europe had taught her to speak English. The guest bath had a shower and a dressing table and a four-by-three mirror over it. The hi-fi system had speakers in every room. Augustine had turned it on softly. He appeared in the door, smiling and bowing. He was a nice-looking lad, part Hawaiian and part Japanese. Linda had picked him up when we made a short trip to Maui before going to Acapulco. It's wonderful what you can pick up if you have eight or ten million dollars.

There was an interior patio with a large palm tree and some tropical shrubs, and a number of rough stones picked up on the high desert for nothing, but $250 apiece to the customer. The bathroom which Linda had not overstated had a door to the patio and this had a door to the pool and to the interior patio and the outside patio. The living room carpet was pale grey, and the Hammond organ had been built out into a bar at the end opposite the keyboard. That nearly threw me. Also in the living room were couches matching the carpet and contrasting easy chairs and an enormous cowled indoor fireplace six feet away from the wall. There was a Chinese chest that looked very genuine and on the wall three embossed Chinese dragons. One wall was entirely of glass, the others of brick in colors to go with the carpet up to about five feet, and glass above that.

The bathroom had a sunken bath and sliding-door closets big enough to hold all the clothes twelve debutantes could want to buy.

Four people could have slept comfortably in the Hollywood bed in the main bedroom. It had a pale blue carpet and you could read yourself to sleep by the light of lamps mounted on Japanese statuettes.

We went on to the guest room. It had matching single, not twin, beds, an adjoining bath with the same normous mirror over the dressing table, and the same four or five hundred dollars' worth of cosmetics and perfumes and God knows what on the three plate-glass shelves.

That left the kitchen. It had a bar at its entrance, a wall closet with twenty kinds of cocktail, highball and wine glasses, beyond that a top-burner stove without an oven or broiler, two electric ovens and an electric broiler against another wall, also an enormous refrigerator and a deep freeze. The breakfast table had a pebbled glass top and wide comfortable chairs on three sides and a built-in couch on the fourth side. I turned on the cowl ventilator. It had a wide slow sweep that was almost silent.

"It's too rich for me," I said. "Let's get divorced."

"You dog! It's nothing to what we'll have when we build a house. There are things here that are a bit too gaudy but you can't say the house is bare."

"Where is the poodle going to sleep, in the guest bed or with us? And what color pajamas does he like?"

"Stop it!"

"I'm going to have to dust my office after this. I'd feel inferior if I didn't."

"You're not going to have any office, stupid. What do you suppose I married you for?"

"Come into the bedroom again."

"Blast you, we have to unpack."

"I bet Tino is doing it right now. There's a boy who looks like he could take hold. I must ask him if he minds my calling him Tino."

"Maybe he can unpack. But he won't know where I want my things. I'm fussy."

"Let's have a fight about the closets, who gets which. Then we could wrestle a bit, and then-"

"We could have a shower and a swim and an early lunch. I'm starving."

"You have an early lunch. I'll go downtown and look for an office. There must be some business in Poodle Springs. There's a lot of money here and I might grab off an occasional nickel."

"I hate you. I don't know why I married you. But you were so insistent."

I grabbed her and held her close. I browsed on her eyebrows and her lashes, which were long and tickly. I passed on to her nose and cheeks, and then her mouth. At first it was just a mouth, then it was a darting tongue, then it was a long sigh, and two people as close as two people can get.

"I settled a million dollars on you to do with as you like," she whispered.

"A nice kind gesture. But you know I wouldn't touch it."

"What are we to do, Phil?"

"We have to ride it out. It's not always going to be easy. But I am not going to be Mr. Loring."

"I'll never change you, will I?"

"Do you really want to make a purring pussycat out of me?"

"No. I didn't marry you because I had a lot of money and you had hardly any. I married you because I love you and one of the things I love you for is that you don't give a damn for anybody-sometimes not even for me. I don't want to make you cheap, darling. I just want to try to make you happy."

"I want to make you happy. But I don't know how. I'm not holding enough cards. I'm a poor man married to a rich wife. I don't know how to behave. I'm only sure of one thing-shabby office or not, that's where I became what I am. That's where I will be what I will be."

There was a slight murmur and Augustino appeared in the open doorway bowing, with a deprecating smile on his elegant puss.

"At what time would Madame prefer luncheon?"

"May I call you Tino," I asked him. "Only because it's easier."

"But certainly, sir."

"Thank you. And Mrs. Marlowe is not Madame. She is Mrs. Marlowe."

"I am very sorry, sir."

"Nothing to be sorry about. Some ladies like it. But my wife bears my name. She would like her lunch. I have to go out on business."

"Very good, sir. I'll prepare Mrs. Marlowe's lunch at once."

"Tino, there is one other thing. Mrs. Marlowe and I are in love. That shows itself in various ways. None of the ways are to be noticed by you."

"I know my position, sir."

"Your position is that you are helping us to live comfortably. We are grateful to you for that. Maybe more grateful than you know. Technically you are a servant. Actually you are a friend. There seems to be a protocol about these things. I have to respect protocol just as you do. But underneath we are just a couple of guys."

He smiled radiantly. "I think I shall be very happy here, Mr. Marlowe."

You couldn't say how or when he disappeared. He just wasn't there. Linda rolled over on her back and lifted her toes and stared at them.

"What do I say now! I wish the hell I knew. Do you like my toes?"

"They are the most adorable set of toes I have ever seen. And there seems to be a full set of them."

"Get away from me, you horror. My toes are adorable."

"May I borrow the Fleetwood for a little while? Tomorrow I'll fly to L.A. and pick up my Olds."

"Darling, does it have to be this way? It seems so unnecessary."

"For me there isn't any other way," I said.