Very Cold for May

Chapter Two

From the Executives’ Building Jake crossed the boulevard to Dave’s Radio Bar. Inside it was warm, noisy, and crowded, but there was no sign of Sheila.

Dave came to meet him, a disapproving frown on his face. “She left for home about an hour ago,” he said.

“Did she seem annoyed?”

“Oh, no,” Dave said. “She liked sitting here alone and being wolfed at by a lot of characters.”

“Okay, I’m a cad,” Jake said, and walked back to the phone booth. He dropped a nickel, intending to call her but then he changed his mind and dialled another number. The voice that answered was intimate in a brash, challenging manner.

“May?” Jake said. “This is Jake.”

May was having a party, as Jake had already guessed from the sounds in the background. She insisted he come over immediately. Jake promised to be there in half an hour.

Leaving Dave’s, he took a cab to the near North Side apartment where Sheila had moved after their separation. He rang her bell and when the buzzer sounded went up the stairs.

Sheila met him on the landing. He had a good view of her slim legs as he ascended the last flight; but he noticed that one smartly shod foot was tapping significantly.

“This is no time to be unreasonable and female,” he said. “Noble caught me before I got away from the Club.”

“You say ‘Noble’ as if he and God were interchangeable ideas,” Sheila said drily. “But come in.”

Jake put his hat and coat on the back of a chair and joined her on the low couch before the fireplace. Sheila had managed to make the place reflect something of her own personality. There were fresh flowers in a squat copper vase on the coffee table, and the shelves flanking the fireplace were lined with well-used books. Several vivid modem paintings with comparatively non-frightening subject matter brightened the flat gray walls.

“Do you want a drink?” Sheila said.

Jake raised his eyebrows. “Your tone lacks cordiality. You’re not pouting, I hope.”

Sheila smiled. “I don’t feel cordial, but I’m not pouting. Whiskey and soda okay?”

“Fine.”

Sheila made two drinks in the kitchen and brought them to the coffee table. There was an unconscious grace in her movements that Jake enjoyed watching. She was slim, with dark hair which she wore in a page-boy, and gray, candid eyes. She had an easy elegance in her manner, and good humored intelligence in her features.

She sat down and tucked her feet under her, while Jake sipped his drink and relaxed.

“What was on Noble’s mind?” she said.

“A new account. Dan Riordan, the wheel, is in trouble. You know about him, I suppose. Anyway, he obviously made some bad gun barrels and is going to need a break in the papers. The government is looking into his contracts.”

Sheila lit a cigarette. “And you’re handling the account. Does that make you feel warm and cozy inside?”

“It doesn’t make me feel anything in particular,” Jake said. “Lawyers defend criminals, don’t they? We’re merely defending Riordan from an unfavorable treatment in the press.”

“The analogy stinks.”

“So it does,” Jake grinned. “But let’s talk about something serious. We still have a date, and there’s plenty of time. How about going to Dave’s and drinking some raw, green bar whiskey?”

“All right. Let’s get out before Noble whistles for you again.”

Jake got into his coat while Sheila went into the bedroom to freshen her make-up; and when she came out Jake saw that her mood had changed, that her temporary annoyance had vanished. She had struck a pose and said, “Let’s be gay and mad. Mad!”

Jake smiled pensively. “Why you left me I’ll never know. We always had fun, didn’t we?”

“Yes, but you drank too much,” Sheila said. “Also you pulled too many deals like tonight.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jake said irritably.

“Not at all,” Sheila smiled. “I wanted to be a wife, but you wanted a drinking companion.”

“Good God,” Jake said. “You sound like some creature who’s just been dragged to civilization from darkest suburbia.”

“Also, I never got adjusted to your working for a fraud like Gary Noble,” Sheila said.

“Dear, you’re beginning to rave. You work for Gary too, remember.”

“I handle an honest account, the only one he’s got, I could add.”

Jake shook his head as he followed her down the stairs. “I may be insensitive, but what the hell is so wrong with Gary? He’s a public relations man, and he’s a fathead, and he has a dull, acquisitive attitude about money, but outside of that he’s not too bad.”

“Well, let’s not quibble about it,” Sheila said. “You asked me why I wanted a divorce and I told you.” Outside they walked the half block to Lake Shore Drive to catch a Loop-bound cab. The air was cleanly cold and a sharp breeze was coming off the lake.

Sheila moved close to him and hugged his arm. “I’m in the mood for Dave’s,” she said. “It’s a perfect night for a warm, mellow bar.”

“Oh, damn,” Jake said, and tried to sound surprised. “I just remembered. We’ve got to make a stop. You know May Laval?”

“I’ve avoided her at a few parties.” She let go his arm. “You just remembered, eh?”

Jake waved to a cab. “Word of honor, this won’t take a minute.”

They climbed into the cab and he gave the driver May’s address. He turned to Sheila but she was gazing with pointed absorption at the lake.

“Now is this an adult reaction?” Jake demanded.

“What’s so wonderful about adult reactions? We had a date, remember?” She looked at him coldly. “First you stand me up for Gary Noble, and now you’re dragging me to May Laval’s bordello like a piece of baggage. What sort of reaction, adult or otherwise, do you expect?”

“Do you think I enjoy this sort of thing?” Jake demanded.

“Of course you do. That’s one of the reasons our marriage never grew into a rose-covered institution. What do you have to see May Laval about?”

“May knew Riordan during the war. She kept a diary during that time which she now intends to make into a book. Riordan is afraid she’s going to tee off on him and that, plus a Senatorial investigation, is just too much of a bad tiling.”

“This is getting lovelier by the minute,” Sheila said.

“You don’t like May, do you?”

“That’s not the point. I like being treated like a partner in the evening’s plans, instead of a gate crasher. And I don’t like May.”

“Oh, come off it,” Jake said. “May’s only trouble is that she’s too adjusted. She’s living exactly as all you chaste and conventional harpies would like to live, so you treat her like a leper.”

“Don’t be so frantic about it,” Sheila said. “Can’t I dislike her for more interesting reasons, such as, for instance, that she’s a man-hungry, pampered, overdressed bitch?”

Jake grinned at her. “Charitable, aren’t you?”

Their cab stopped before a two-story brownstone house in the old-fashioned but eminently respectable Astor Street neighborhood. Climbing out, Jake saw lights shining through the drawn curtains of the wide bay windows, and heard loud, excellent jazz coming from the first floor.

“Just a few of the girls in for a sewing bee,” Sheila said drily, as they went up the steps.

The wide, polished door was opened by a maid in a frilly black and white uniform, who led them through a dim foyer to the arched entrance of the long, elegant parlor.

The room was decorated in a rococo modem Victorian manner, with oval mirrors in chalk-white frames hanging against the flat green walls, and white china lamps with fat roses shining palely in the design. Underneath the bay windows at the end of the room was a great curved divan, covered tightly in green striped satin, and before it, a vase of roses rested on a low coffee table. Orderly clusters of small oil paintings were hung about the room, slightly below eye level, and the great, ornately carved white fireplace was flanked by bookcases that reached from the beige carpeting to the high ceiling.

There were perhaps thirty people in the room, and their high-pitched conversation and laughter mingled quite well with the jazz that poured from the black lacquered player. The women present were slim and expensive-looking, and the men were precisely the sort who could afford them.

Jake noticed a couple of municipal judges, a state Senator, and an assortment of gamblers, writers, and racketeers, chief of which latter group was the amiable and gracious Mike Francesco, who operated the city’s brothels and handbooks.

Sheila glanced down at her simple dark suit, and nudged Jake sharply. “You bastard,” she said, through a tight smile.

“You look wonderful. Colorless and self-effacing. People will think you’re my cousin from What Cheer, Iowa.”

Jake saw May then, seated cross-legged on a window seat and laughing with a hard-faced jockey and a gray haired man whom Jake didn’t know.

She was sitting in what seemed to be an inconspicuous corner, but the grouping of the guests and the lines of the room drew attention to her inevitably. May had the talent of always being noticed and noticeable. She kept the spotlight on herself, no matter where she moved.

Sheila saw her too, and murmured, “Lovely, unaffected child, isn’t she?”

Jake grinned. May was wearing a blue peasant skirt with a white blouse and ballet slippers, and her fabulous golden hair was worn long in Alice-in-Wonderland style.

Her legs which were crossed tailor fashion were bare, and she was leaning forward slightly with her elbows on her knees, in a childish but effective pose.

“All she needs is a gay little parasol,” Sheila said.

“Oh, come off it. She’s an artist at her business. Notice how overdressed everybody else looks?”

“As dear, sweet May knew they would.”

May saw them standing in the archway then, and waved a greeting. She stood up with a flash of bare legs, and skipped across to them.

“Jake,” she said. “How wonderful.” Putting a hand on Sheila’s arm, in what seemed an afterthought, she said, “And you too, Sheila. Jake didn’t say he was bringing you.”

“No, he kept it a secret,” Sheila said. “I wasn’t in on it till we got into the cab.”

“You poor dear, being dragged around like someone’s aunt. And you look so sweet, too. Such a really simple suit.”

Jake saw a touch of color in Sheila’s cheeks and knew that May’s comparatively gentle malice was not being wasted. Sheila started to say something, which would probably have been effective, but May circumvented that by laughing and turning to Jake.

Sheila let out her breath slowly, and said, “Excuse me, please. I see an old friend.”

Alone with May, Jake said, “I’d like to talk to you a minute, in private. Okay?”

“This sounds exciting. Are you, at long last, going to make a pass at me?”

“No, this is important,” he said, and smiled at the involuntary annoyance that showed in her face.

“All right,” May said. “I’ll see that everyone has drinks and we’ll sneak up to the den of horror.”

She moved away and Jake watched her, thinking that for all her good sense and humor she’d never been able to appreciate the fact that there might be men in the world who were not longing for her desperately.

May was delightful to look at, as she drifted from group to group, taking the focus of interest with her as she went. The fact that held everyone’s attention on first meeting May, was the childish, pink-and-white freshness of her skin, and her air of enormous and vital health. Her eyes were light blue, almost lavender, and clear as mirrors; and although her body was slim, she created an impression of bland voluptuousness. May looked always as if she had just been massaged, bathed, perfumed, nourished, and rested, although in fact she could get along on four hours’ sleep a night, while living to the hilt the remaining twenty hours. She had an indestructible set of glands, organs, ligaments and tissues, and the whole functioned like a beautiful, well-oiled machine.

Jake went to the buffet to get a drink. He nodded to several people he knew, and tried unsuccessfully to fend off an intense young man who wrote daytime radio serials. The young man, whose name was Rengale, was defensive about his work, but not reticent.

Jake nodded absently to his remarks, and glanced over to the divan where Sheila was sitting with a successful young magazine illustrator. The illustrator was talking animatedly, and it was obvious that he was delighted with Sheila.

Jake frowned and sipped his drink. His marriage with Sheila hadn’t worked. Sheila had called it off good-naturedly after two years that had seemed exceptionally pleasant to Jake.

They were still married, technically. Sheila had not yet filed for a divorce. But that was just a matter of time. Jake still didn’t know what had been wrong. But he couldn’t see that the break had been completely his fault.

Rengale, the radio writer, disrupted his nostalgic reflections by tapping him squarely on the chest with his forefinger.

“There’s no room for argument,” he said, making a gesture of contemptuous dismissal with his horn rimmed glasses. “The soap opera has become a whipping boy for Book-of-the-Month-Club intellectuals, and other members of the culturally nouveau riche, and now,” Rengale paused for breath and twisted his lips into a sardonic sneer, “and now, it’s a hallmark of the most utter sophistication to treat radio writers with the gentle tolerance more usually reserved for hydrocephalous adults. Because—”

“What are you writing now?” Jake said, wishing to hell May would come back.

Rengale brightened. “I’m doing a show for Mutual. Judy Trent, Copy Girl. It’s about a copy girl, you know, who gets into one scrape after another.”

“Good twist,” Jake said, gravely.

“Actually it’s not a bad show. The character of Judy, as I’ve conceived her, is a nice blend of the insecurity and compensatory aggressiveness of this present generation.” Rengale paused and looked thoughtfully at his pipe. “It’s sustaining, at the present time, of course.”

Jake saw with relief that May was coming toward him, but sighed as she was intercepted by Mike Francesca.

Mike Francesca was a small, thickly built man with curly gray hair and mild, twinkling blue eyes. His skin was deeply tanned and wrinkled, and when he smiled his face wreathed into a surprising criss-cross of lines and creases. He smiled a lot, and was unfailingly gentle and amiable in manner, even when forced by the demands of his profession to drop a cement-coated competitor into the Chicago River.

“We have not seen each other in much too long a time,” Mike was saying.

“Well, whose fault is that?” May said.

Rengale was still pouring out his troubles, but Jake could hear the conversation between May and Mike Francesca quite clearly.

“Ah, my fault,” Mike said, with an apologetic little bob of his head. “Today I lead a quiet, simple life out on my farm. I grow vegetables like my father did in Sicily, and my back has an ache in it that is very good. I dig in the ground, and drink a little wine, and go to bed early. It is very nice.”

“My God, you sound like a bad story in the Saroyan manner,” May said. “All this digging in the good clean earth, and drinking the clear red vino, and everything being so damn good. Really, Mike, it’s ghastly.”

Mike smiled without understanding. “I think you are not being very nice to an old man,” he said.

“I’m a bitch, Mike. But I’m going to square myself with you when I write my book.”

Mike continued to smile, but the warm, mobile good humor in his blunt brown features had disappeared. “Ah, I heard of this book, May. You will write about me, eh?”

“Mike, you’re my star character. Everybody is dying to get the inside story on you.”

“We had fun in the old days, eh, May? We talked a lot together, and no secrets between us, eh? Plenty of wine, plenty of talk. Maybe a little too much of both, I think.”

“Are you trying in your tactful fashion to tell me something?” May said, laughing.

“Only this, because we are friends. Write your book, but don’t hurt your old friends.” Mike smiled gently. “I am an old man now, May. I want to live on my farm and enjoy everything in peace.”

“You make it sound fetching.”

Mike put a broad, leather-skinned hand on May’s bare shoulder, and shook her slightly. “I am not one to go around saying woof! woof! to people. But I must ask you, please, to forget some of our talk, eh?”

“Okay, I’ll forget some of it,” May grinned. “But not all of it, Mike. Now you’ll have to excuse me.”

Turning quickly from him she waved at Jake. “Come on, I’m ready, lover.”

Jake excused himself from Rengale and joined May. He nodded to Mike, whom he’d known for many years, and followed May through the archway and up the stairs to the second floor.

Reaching the landing Jake looked back down and saw Mike Francesca getting slowly into his coat in the foyer. The old man was alone and there was a distressed, thoughtful expression on his face. Jake was thinking as he followed May into her bedroom that he would not like to be the cause of that particular expression on Mike Francesca’s face.

May settled herself comfortably on a chaise longue covered with pink brocade and crossed her slim legs at the ankles.

“Drink?” she said, nodding at a bottle-laden table beside the longue.

Jake sat down on a dainty three-legged chair and built two drinks. May sipped hers approvingly, and said, “Don’t you like the Walden simplicity I’ve created up here?”

Glancing around, Jake grinned. The high-ceilinged bedroom faced east, but thick pink drapes were pulled together now shutting off the view of the park and the lake. White fur rugs were scattered about the polished floor, and the immense four-poster bed, covered with fat pink pillows, stood imposingly in the middle of the room. The light was soft, and there was a fireplace and bookshelves. May’s dressing table was impressive as a tribal altar, with its flesh-toned mirrors, and the banks of crystal jars that contained hand lotions, cold creams, powders and colognes.

“You need a couple of blackamoors with ostrich fans,” Jake said. “Outside of that you didn’t miss a trick.”

“It’s cozy,” May smiled.

“The very word for it.” Jake lit a cigarette. “I managed to eavesdrop on your conversation with Francesca. Sounded grim. What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing at all,” May said. “Now, what’s on your mind?”

“I hear you’re writing a book.”

“Ah, fame,” May said, and smiled at the ceiling.

“My interest, as usual, is completely selfish. Dan Riordan has hired us to handle his press relations. He’s worried about your book.”

“He’s got no reason to worry. Unless his heart isn’t pure.”

“He’s got reason to worry then, I suppose.”

“Jake, Riordan is somewhat of a bastard. I’m a little surprised that you’re mixed up with him.”

Jake smiled. “You’re out of character. Let’s go back a bit. Do you have anything on Riordan?”

“Assuming I have. What then?”

“Are you going to use it?”

“I will if it adds to the story.”

“The book is no gag, then? You’re going ahead with it?”

“Nothing will stop me from writing this book,” May said quietly.

Jake shook his head. “I don’t get it, frankly. You’re going out of your way to stick your chin out. I yield to no one in my admiration for good, clean fun, but irritating men like Mike Francesca and Dan Riordan comes under another heading. Why are you doing it?”

“The usual, shoddy reasons,” May said coolly. “Money, prestige, and so forth. You’re being a bore, Jake.”

“Okay. Tell me something about the book then.”

May smiled dreamily. “Jake, it’s going to be a classic. It will be autobiography in the grand French manner.” She widened her eyes innocently, and said, “That’s why I can’t be too concerned with the personal feelings of the people involved, even if one of them happens to be your client.”

Jake grinned at her. “Don’t give me that ‘grand French tradition’ business. I knew you when you thought Hemingway played third for the Cubs.”

May laughed good-naturedly. “You’re the one person I can’t impress.”

“Where and how did you get the information on people like Riordan?”

May sat up, and lifted a foot-square, black lacquered box from the coffee table. She opened it and removed a thick, leather-bound book. “Here’s where the bodies are buried.”

“Well, well. The good, old-fashioned diary with all the shoddy dope. I haven’t seen one since I stopped covering murders. They’re awfully old hat now.”

“Oh, this one just covers the war years. I’ve gone modem since then. Anyway, I have all the little tidbits I need right here.”

“Well, good luck,” Jake sighed. He saw no point in talking with her now. Perhaps later he could point out to her that she was making a mistake, at least, he thought cynically, so far as Riordan was concerned.

May put the diary away and went downstairs where she was reclaimed by the jockey, who led her aggressively to the bar.

Jake stood by himself, smoking a cigarette, and gradually he began to sense a curious feeling in the air. He saw that most of the men, and several of the women, had turned when May entered the room, and were watching her now as she walked to the bar with the jockey.

They made a comical picture. The jockey was two inches shorter than May, but his body was like something made of leather and wire. May’s Alice-in-Wonderland hair, and her absurdly simple clothes, made her look like a cheerful, innocent child walking with the toughest boy in the neighborhood.

For some reason no one seemed amused by May at the moment, and in the strange silence that followed her entrance, Jake noticed definite tension in the room.

It was fear, he realized with a start. Most of the people in the room were afraid of something.

He smiled at that thought, because it seemed so melodramatic and unlikely; but then he noticed troubled expressions on several faces, and the speculative way many of the men watched May; and that, plus the odd silence and the nervous shifting about of a few people, made him realize that his first, instinctive judgment had been right.

There was fear in the room, and it was fear of May.

Sheila came over to him and asked if he was ready to leave. He said all right and started to tell her what he had noticed; but the mood of the room had changed by that time. He wondered if his imagination was becoming overactive and decided to keep still.

The knocker sounded as Jake helped her into her coat in the foyer. The maid hurried past them and opened the door.

Dan Riordan and Gary Noble walked in and Gary did a double-take on seeing Jake. But he seemed pleased, and Jake guessed it was because it would indicate to Riordan that the agency was wasting no time.

Riordan nodded to Sheila as Jake made the introductions. Then he said, “Have you talked with May?”

“Yes.”

Riordan said, “Did she mention me?”

“I did,” Jake said. “She hinted that she might have something—” He paused, looking for a tactful word, then gave it up and said, “She’s got something on you, or thinks she has, but we didn’t get too specific.”

Riordan took a long, deliberate breath, and then nodded jerkily at Sheila and strode toward the parlor.

“I’ll stick with him,” Noble said. “He called me after you left, said he wanted to see May tonight. He’s a stubborn character.”

“We were leaving, remember?” Sheila said.

They found a cab outside and started for Dave’s.

“Why the frown?” Sheila said quietly, as Jake fumbled for cigarettes.

“May. She’s drifting into trouble. And I’ll be damned if I see why. I just can’t figure it out.”

He told her what he had learned from May, and they talked about it that night until Sheila yawned pointedly, and Jake changed the subject.