The Four Johns

Chapter 2

On the morning of Saturday, June fifteenth, Harriet used Mrs. Kelly’s accident as an excuse to call on Susie. She tried the door numbered 12 to no avail; she was forced to press the buzzer.

A minute or so passed; then Susie, in an old white terrycloth bathrobe, opened the door. “Slugabed!” sang Harriet gaily. “Eleven o’clock and still asleep?” She stepped forward; Susie grudgingly gave way.

Harriet stood in the middle of the room, looked brightly in all directions. “Did Mary get off all right?”

Susie slumped onto the couch. She looked surly and sleepy and anxious to be alone. “I suppose so. I didn’t get home till late.”

“Poor dear,” said Harriet, mock-dolefully. “I’ll make coffee.”

She ran into the kitchenette, found the coffee, rinsed out the percolator. “You should really get a Chemex. They’re more trouble, but they do brew the most delightful coffee. The water should be heated to exactly one hundred eighty-seven degrees.”

Susie’s response was unintelligible. Harriet watched her from the corner of her eye. So much she didn’t know!

Harriet set the percolator on the flame, returned to the living room, dropped into an armchair. “Then you didn’t see Mary before she left?”

“Just for a few minutes.”

“And did you learn who ‘John’ is?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“And how long will she be gone? I do hope she’s not getting married.”

Susie shrugged, showing little interest in the subject.

“Mary’s so popular and has so much fun, she’d be insane to marry so soon,” said Harriet.

There was a moment of stiff silence, which Susie showed no disposition to break. She curled her legs under the bathrobe, settled herself into the corner of the sofa.

“Poor Mrs. Kelly,” said Harriet. “I must call the hospital again.”

Susie at last was interested. “What happened to Mrs. Kelly?”

“She fell down the steps,” said Harriet in a muted voice.

“How awful! Did she break anything?”

“Her pelvis and collarbone. And her left leg.”

Susie winced. “Poor old thing.”

“A miracle she’s alive.”

“When did it happen?”

“About eight o’clock last night. I was just getting ready to go out when I heard this dreadful tumbling, thumping sound. I ran out, and there she was, all in a heap at the bottom. I thought sure she was dead.”

“Where is she now?”

“At the Sisters of Mercy. I called this morning, and they weren’t at all sure she’d pull through.”

Susie relapsed into silence. Harriet went back into the kitchen, reduced the flame under the percolator. “Are you coming to the party?”

“Party?” Susie used the word as if it were a synonym for “leprosy.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fun,” said Harriet brightly. “They have such a magnificent house. Everything clean and simple and contemporary.”

“Who is this?”

“Oleg, of course. You really should come.”

“I haven’t been invited. I don’t even know the man.”

“Of course you do, silly! Mrs. Malinski’s husband.”

Susie nodded disinterestedly. Mrs. Malinski was assistant stack superintendent at the university library, where both Mary and Harriet worked part time.

“John — John Boce — mentioned a party,” said Susie thoughtfully.

Harriet pounced. “Oh, so you’re going with John?”

Susie’s lips twitched. “I hardly think so. I’m not feeling very well.”

Harriet went into the kitchen, poured two cups of coffee. “John knows Oleg up at the lab. He’s a technician of some kind.”

“Who? John Boce?”

“Good heavens, no. John Boce doesn’t know a calipers from a turnip. He’s an accountant.” She handed Susie the coffee, seated herself in the armchair. “I don’t think Mary quit at the library,” mused Harriet. “I could call John Thompson and find out. Except that he hides out over weekends... Perhaps Mary eloped with John Thompson.” She looked at Susie questioningly.

“Nothing’s impossible,” said Susie. And just sipped her coffee.

Presently Harriet rose. “Well, I suppose I should go...”

Susie made not even a polite attempt to dissuade her; Harriet departed. For a moment after the door closed, Susie sat still. Then she put the cup down and began to cry.

Harriet, returning to her own apartment, saw John Boce enter the court from the street. He held up a beefy arm in salute, and Harriet leaned invitingly over the rail. Boce was a big man: pale, complacent, moon-faced. His clothes were untidy; he had a belly; his eyes squinted shrewdly through gold-rimmed glasses; his nose was long and lumpy. He was generous with his time and cautious with his money. To Harriet’s annoyance, he failed to slacken his pace. She stalked into her apartment.

The accountant walked to the far end of the court, stopped in front of Apartment 3, knocked a cheerful rat-a-tat-tat. He waited, knocked again: rat-a-tat-tat-a-tat-tat.

Mervyn Gray opened the door. He was barefoot and wore a dark-blue bathrobe.

“So I woke you,” said Boce, bluff and jocular. “Why not sleep nights?” He entered the apartment, looked around for the most comfortable chair, plumped into it with a fat grunt.

Mervyn sat down on the couch, rubbing his eyes. “I suppose you have some good reason for annoying me.”

“It’s noon, my boy, noon,” said Boce. His face suddenly became lugubrious. “I do have something of a problem, now that you mention it.”

“Please take it somewhere else.”

The accountant grasped the arms of the chair, gave them a series of quick slaps. “Here’s the situation. There’s a party scheduled for tonight. I thought maybe you’d let me use one of your cars. Our car, in fact.”

“Why don’t you pay me for it?” growled Mervyn. “Then you’d own it. And you wouldn’t feel guilty when you want to use it.”

“I don’t feel guilty, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“The money is what’s worrying me. Do you want the car or not? If not—”

“Don’t be hasty. I want it, but I also want to beat you down a few bucks.”

“Down from two hundred dollars? Harriet’s convinced you I’m crazy. I can get two fifty from a dealer.”

“As trade-in on a new Cad.”

Mervyn shrugged. “Forget it. Go find yourself something better.”

“Just a minute. I agree that the car is basically sound. But even you’ll admit that it’s got a few deficiencies. The top is torn. That ignition business.”

“You never need worry about losing your key.”

“That’s no worry. I like keys. And there’s a funny tick in the valves. And the paint is only adequate.”

“Which is why the price isn’t four hundred.”

John Boce stared in shock, then laughed a great hoho laugh. “Your sense of humor, absolutely deadpan!”

“I’m a clown,” said Mervyn. “Listen, tomorrow I put an ad in the paper. Now would you get the hell out of here?”

“Not so fast. There’s this party tonight. I want to give the old convertible one final test before I make up my mind.”

“You’ve been testing and checking and retesting and rechecking for three months. Don’t you have any shame?”

“Mervyn, I’m a poor man. I’ve got to nurse every dime.”

Mervyn went into the kitchenette, came back to the living room with a can of beer. Ignoring Boce’s thirsty stare, he drank.

“You cheap son of a gun,” said Boce. He lurched to his feet, went to the refrigerator, found a can of beer, opened it, returned to the chair. “Sometimes I wonder about you, Mervyn.” After a moment he said, “You know about Mary?”

“What about her?”

“She and Susie had a spat. Mary took off for Los Angeles.”

Mervyn tilted his can of beer. “A permanent separation?”

“Good Lord, I hope not. What would life be without Mary? So squeezable, so huggable, so kissable. Wow!”

“Fat lecher.”

Boce eyed Mervyn intently.

“Sarcastic bastard. Sometimes I half suspect you’re not kidding.”

“Every time I try to kid somebody I end up kidding myself.”

“That’s what I mean. You’re likely to talk yourself into thinking of me as a fat lecher.”

Mervyn reflected a moment. “It’s certainly a danger.”

“Be positive. Refer to me as fair, generous, big-hearted John.”

“I see you’re still after my Chevy.”

“I’ll pay you one fifty cash, and I’ll fix the ignition lock and patch the top.”

“O.K. If you’ll throw in your wristwatch.”

“My three-hundred-dollar Rolex?” Boce looked at his wrist, which was bare. He blinked. “Have I lost it? No, it’s in the bathroom. It must be in the bathroom. I had it last night... Oh, well, it was just a spare.” He rose to his feet. “Since you won’t sell me your car—”

“I won’t give you my car.”

“...and you won’t lend it to me, and since I’m escorting your girl to this party, Mary having absconded—”

“My girl? Who?”

“Susie.”

“Take the young hellion, and welcome!”

“In view of all the circumstances, I suppose I’ll have to urge you to come with us.”

“I’ll say this for the invitation, it’s spontaneous.”

Boce made an airy gesture. “Don’t question the good things of life. Snatch them as they fly past.”

Mervyn lay back on the couch. “I thought you had a big romance going with Harriet.” He grinned. “Susie says that Harriet plans to accept you when you propose.”

“Haha! When and if! First of all I plan to marry Mary Hazelwood.”

“It would be nice,” Mervyn agreed.

“If it weren’t for Mary, I could really go for little sister Susie. She’s clean and bright and — well, virginal.” He glanced sidewise toward Mervyn. “Isn’t she?”

“How should I know? I’ve never attempted to determine the point.”

“I thought — well, I wish I had your natural advantages.”

“Diet. Exercise. And less beer, especially mine.”

“I’ll lay myself bare,” said Boce. “I’m fat to protect my self-respect. Now Mary laughs at me, pulls my nose, rumples my hair. I might be her uncle. Well, I tell myself, why not? I am fat and avuncular. But suppose I diet, exercise, run, jump, drink my own beer, finally lose a hundred pounds. I become proud of myself. I’m trim, athletic, have a lean profile. Then what? Mary still laughs at me, she still pulls my nose, rumples my hair. So what do I tell myself?”

“That Mary doesn’t want a man, she wants an uncle. Which is what I decided three months ago.”

Boce nodded gloomily. “So the old Mervyn Gray magic failed to ring the bell.”

“I never even got my finger on it.”

The accountant was silent. He finished his beer. “Well? Are you accepting the invitation to this party? You and your car?”

“I may not stay very long. Where is it?”

“Up the hill, at Oleg Malinski’s. Do you know him?”

“No.”

“He’s an optical engineer, a genius. Tonight he’s barbecuing a sheep. There’ll be a crowd, so we’d better get there early.”

John Boce presently departed: Mervyn sprawled, thinking. Somehow he must bestir himself to sell the Chevrolet convertible, which in its present keyless condition was the property of anyone who knew where to find the hidden switch. He groaned, swung his legs to the floor, sat holding his head in his hands. He was sick of his own thoughts.

He went into the bathroom, showered, shaved, ran a comb through his hair, regarded himself in the mirror with disapproval. He was just too damn handsome in a Mexican-matinee-idol kind of way. His skin was a clear olive, eyes hazel and long-lashed, hair a dense black pelt. He wore unobtrusive clothes, having long since cultivated a sartorial reserve. But the dark grays and blues accentuated his coloring; the reserve was variously interpreted as arrogance, narcissism, or plain stupidity. So Mervyn had taken refuge in the twelfth century, where he could refresh himself with the chansons and gestes, the rondels and virelais of the Provençal jongleurs.

Mary Hazelwood was no less refreshing. Mary, uncritical and happy-go-lucky, took life as it came. She was an exuberant and enthusiastic flirt, an activity as natural and necessary to her as breathing. She flirted with John Boce, with the mailman, with Mrs. Kelly’s asthmatic grandson, with Mervyn Gray... with everyone and anyone.

Mervyn was amused and charmed; in her company he could abandon the twelfth century as well as his façade of calculated coolness. Nevertheless, the tradition of la belle dame sans merci impelled him to caution; besides, there was Susie, who possessed her own peculiar attractions.

Susie was even more perplexing than Mary. Mervyn understood that the role of Mary’s little sister posed special problems for Susie; still, she had all the necessary equipment to cope with them. Mervyn was unable to fathom her feelings toward him: did she regard him merely as an instrument to be used in her machinations — whatever they might be? Twice he had kissed her; she had seemed to melt, only to become more flippant and detached than ever. Meanwhile, Mary was Mary: pretty enough to make the heart stop, lavish with her charming provocations, and unpossessable as a sunbeam. Impossible not to love Mary! And perhaps, for one whose heart was broken, impossible not to hate her, too...

At six o’clock John Boce tramped back into Mervyn’s living room. He wore a suit of pinkish-brown silk and pointed yellow shoes. His long nose twitched; his eyes were bright. “Allons, mes enfants!” he called. “En avant! Au mouton! I smell it from here! The girls are waiting! Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

“Girls plural?”

“Harriet’s coming with us.” Boce watched from the corner of his eye. When no protest was forthcoming, he heaved a relieved sigh. “Well, boy? You ready? We’ll take the convert, eh? More room and all that.”

“The Volkswagen’s handier. The convertible’s out back, in the garage.”

The accountant started to grumble, but Mervyn had already stepped outside. Susie and Harriet waited by the fountain in the middle of the court. Susie wore a eucalyptus-green suit, and she had slicked down her tawny hair into a semblance of order. She was fluttering the fingers of her left hand against her thigh — a signal of displeasure, or tension. Harriet wore black tights under a mulberry red skirt, with a green-and-black Peruvian sweater of confused design.

They walked up the street to where Mervyn had parked the Volkswagen. He tried to maneuver Boce into the back seat with Harriet, but the fat man protested so vehemently that Susie, smiling grimly, slipped in ahead of him; and, still complaining, Boce heaved himself into the front beside Mervyn.

Mervyn looked at him for directions. “Where do we go?”

“Up Panoramic. Almost to the top. I don’t think we’ll make it in this goddamn motorized wheelbarrow.”

“I wonder if I need gas.”

“You’ve got the reserve tank. Once we get there we can coast all the way back down. C’mon, boy, move this heap. Sheep have only four legs. That’s one apiece if we get there now.”

“It’s only six o’clock. You can’t be hungry.”

“I’m always hungry.”

Mervyn started the car and set off toward the campus. John Boce sat hunched forward, pointing out traffic hazards with a nervous finger. “Next block turn... Stop. Traffic light... Now turn. All the way up Bancroft. Stop sign. Stop. Stop! You blind, Mervyn?”

Mervyn saw an opportunity to play his game. “It’s a fact I never seem to see the things. I wonder why. Maybe because I detest them so. Tall things with those bright red heads. They remind me of something, I can’t think what. My mother? That can’t be...”

Harriet Brill asked cautiously from behind, “Did your mother have red hair?”

“It’s hard to remember. She died when I was sixteen.”

“Oh,” said Harriet.

“Ignore him,” Susie said shortly.

At Boce’s direction Mervyn turned up Panoramic Way, a narrow and wickedly winding road that led up into the sky, with the reach of the bay spread out far below, and San Francisco a stipple of miniature towers in the hazy west.

Oleg and Olga Malinski lived in a house of glass and redwood perched incredibly over a cliff. A dozen cars were already parked along the street, and Boce sat on the edge of his seat while Mervyn backed into a parking place.

Harriet suddenly exclaimed, “John, I’ve been meaning to ask. Did Mary call you yesterday before she left?”

There was an instant of startled silence. Susie and Mervyn looked at John Boce, whose neck had turned red. “Why should she telephone me?”

“She spoke to a John and asked him to please be on time. I know it wasn’t you, of course—”

“Then why’d you ask?” growled Boce.

“Mary knows lots of Johns,” said Susie indifferently. “Also Petes, Wilburs, Dicks...”

“Any time you stable this goat I’ll get out,” the bulky accountant snapped at Mervyn.

Mervyn set the hand brake. “Lead the way.”

Malinski’s house was essentially one vast living room, with the incidental addition of two or three cubicles for bathing and sleeping. A deck across the entire width of the house hung out over what seemed miles of empty air. Below and beyond spread the gray cities, the leaden bay, the sky, where sunset colors were gathering.

The cars parked along Panoramic had given John Boce an unjustified fright; only eight or ten guests were in evidence. They had gathered at one end of the deck, where a whole lamb turned over glowing coals. Here stood Oleg Malinski, a small, agile man with a large, excessive head. A bushy mustache covered his wistful pink mouth; his gestures were extravagant. He drank red wine from a beaker of blue Mexican glass, he basted the lamb, he discoursed with emotion and conviction to the captive audience gathered around the spit. Boce hurried to join the group. “Oleg,” he said, “I’ve arrived. What a magnificent sheep!”

“Gad!” said someone. “You’ve ruined everything. I can’t stand the idea of eating sheep.”

“So much more for the rest of us,” said Boce with a pudgy bow. “Anyone else I can bug?”

Mervyn and Susie and Harriet came out on the deck, and Boce introduced Mervyn. Oleg absently extended the hand that held the basting brush. “Harriet I know. And Susie, of course. Where is your effervescent sister?”

Susie gave the slightest of shrugs; Harriet spoke in a voice quivering with excitement. “Can you guess? Mary has eloped.”

Oleg Malinski swung the brush dramatically high. “No! I cannot believe my ears! Who could succeed where I failed?”

“His name is John,” Harriet said.

“John? John who?”

“Not me,” said John Boce. “I plan to drown my sorrows in that sheep.”

“Please don’t call it sheep!” cried the same someone.

Mervyn went to the kitchen area to deposit the gallon of red wine he had brought; from a jug already open he filled three glasses, served Susie and Harriet. Oleg Malinski was still dwelling upon Mary’s elopement. “It must be someone we know. Ha there, John Lloyd, are you the guilty one?”

John Lloyd, a man of forty, thin and brittle as a stick-insect, smiled knowingly. “Would I admit it in the presence of my wife?” His wife, buxom, flat-footed, square-faced, gave him a look of scornful malevolence.

“I think we can consider John Lloyd unlikely,” said Oleg Malinski hastily.

“You can consider him impossible,” snapped Mrs. John Lloyd. “In more ways than one.”

“I take my oath,” said John Lloyd. “I’ve never met the young lady.”

“Very well. John Lloyd: impossible. Have we a John without a wife?” Oleg searched his guests. “I see John Thompson, library stack superintendent. Persuasive, hedonistic, enterprising, with the whip and carrot of special privilege.”

Thompson, a compact, sunburned man of thirty-five, heard the accusation with a sleepy grin. He had an air of easy competence. “My budget barely runs to paper clips, let alone whips and carrots.”

“I employ a figure of speech,” said Malinski. “In this society the manager is king. You could easily make Mary’s work a dream of Elysian pleasure: a cushion for her chair, purple ribbon in her typewriter, an extra five minutes for coffee breaks, and so forth.”

“It’s a fact that I wield considerable power,” said Librarian Thompson, “but if I were that sort of cad, why am I here now, instead of reaping the fruits of Mary’s gratitude?”

Oleg basted the lamb. “Some men are quickly sated.”

“Not that quickly.”

“Perhaps not. But meanwhile, and tentatively of course, shall we place you in the Quickly Sated category?”

“As you like.”

Susie turned away. “Disgusting men,” she muttered, not altogether under her breath. She stalked into the living room, perched on a chair, glared out the window. Mervyn went to sit beside her. She flicked a glance of reptilian chill at him, but said nothing. Mervyn sipped his red wine and held his tongue.

More guests arrived: members of the faculty, a writer or two, a contingent from the Radiation Lab. A tall man with a gaunt and quite ferocious profile and glittering black eyes came to bend over Susie. “My dear young lady!”

Susie looked up indifferently. “Hello.”

“So seldom do I see you without your sister.”

“I usually tag along.” Susie performed a perfunctory introduction: “Mervyn Gray, John Viviano,” which Viviano acknowledged impatiently.

Mervyn made no effort to join their conversation. John Viviano’s voice was alternately harsh and melodious; he used it with the control of an operatic virtuoso. He spoke of color film and skin tones; apparently his work was fashion photography. Oleg Malinski, passing by, pointed at John Viviano. “Beyond doubt this is the ‘John’ you seek. He is a well-known gallant.”

John Viviano bowed to Susie. “I am at your service.”

Susie smiled tiredly. “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

“We are not offering you new exploits,” Oleg told Viviano. “We are inquiring about an old one. What have you done with Mary?”

“Ah. You must mean, what would I like to do?”

“I leave the question as it stands.”

“I have done nothing. I have never done anything of which I am ashamed. Shame, unknown to children and to animals, is equally unknown to me.”

“Then you are not the correct ‘John.’”

“Correct for what, Oleg?”

“Mary has eloped with a ‘John’ whose identity we are eager to learn.”

Viviano glanced briefly about. “If this is true, I congratulate the man. If it is not true, I congratulate Mary.”

Susie laughed; the fashion photographer looked at her with eyebrows raised. He had said nothing funny; why had she laughed? Puzzles displeased him.

Olga Malinski came from the kitchenette bearing a great trencher mounded with pilaf. Oleg’s wife was no larger than her husband, and half of her seemed flamboyant coiffure, almost hiding her wild, wise gypsy face. She carried the pilaf out to the deck and set it on a table.

Oleg cried, “The lamb is ready! You must all be on hand when I carve, as in the old days in Budapest.” Everyone came running.

The lamb was a great success: succulent, with a crisp crust redolent of garlic, herbs and pepper.

Evening came, night. Mervyn, seeking Susie, found her by the rail staring out over the stencil of glowing cities. In silence he leaned on the rail beside her. She began to drum with her fingers. Presently she said, “I’m tired. Can we go home soon?”

“Any time you like... Oh, Oleg.”

Malinski had materialized on Susie’s other side. He looked searchingly into her face. “You are troubled. Is it because of Mary?”

“Partly.”

“Strange indeed that she would not confide in you.”

“It’s not so strange. We had a quarrel. To be accurate, I quarreled. Mary just laughed at me.”

“That would be her way. Yes. I can form no picture of Mary losing her temper.”

“Nothing affects her that deeply.”

Oleg held up his hand. “Certainly this is not true, Susie. For instance, she would never allow anyone to torment an animal.”

“She’d hit him with a brick. Several times.”

“Exactly,” said Oleg. “So you see, Mary is capable of emotion.”

“Of a certain kind, I suppose. She’s frivolous, a born vamp. Because she’s man-crazy? Not at all. Because she’s never grown up. Flirting is a game with Mary. She feels nothing, and she doesn’t understand why the men do. It mystifies her — sometimes it frightens her; I’ve seen her terrified. Still, she goes on flirting. But she very seldom — practically never — allows herself to be alone with a man. Except one. He fascinates her, for the simplest reason in the world: he’s indifferent. Pays absolutely no attention to her. So Mary is piqued.”

“Yes,” sighed Oleg. “Of course.”

“He doesn’t have a thing to recommend him. He’s a raggle-taggle would-be poet, a scrounger. A jerk, really. But he’s the only man Mary has ever thought twice about.”

“His name is John?” asked Mervyn, who had been imitating a mouse.

Susie nodded. “John Pilgrim.”