Wives and Lovers

12

George didn’t get up till noon on Sundays, and when the phone started ringing before eight he struggled out of bed, cursing.

“George? It’s Hazel. Are you all right?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes you take things like last night kind of hard and I wanted to make sure you were feeling all right because I’ve got something important to ask you.”

“Ask ahead.”

“I need some money for a friend of mine. Today. Right now.”

“How much?”

“Five hundred dollars.”

“You give me a pain,” George said.

“Listen to the deal first before you blow a fuse.”

“I’m listening.”

“Well, this friend of mine is going on a holiday. He intended to leave tomorrow but he’s got this chance to leave today and he needs five hundred dollars. He’s giving me a check and I’d like you to lend me the money so I can give it to him, and then tomorrow morning I’ll cash the check at the bank and pay you back. See?”

“It sounds damned peculiar. I can scare up the money, maybe, but why the complications?”

“Because. Will you do it, George?”

“No.”

“For heaven’s sake, why not?”

“If your friend wants five hundred dollars bring him over here. Then if he has an honest face and a reasonable balance in his bank book, I’ll cash a check for him.”

“No. It’s better the way I suggested.”

“Why?”

“Well, he has a joint account with his wife, see, and his wife doesn’t know yet that he’s going away. If the check’s made out to me I can be at the bank sharp at ten when the doors open, and if I see her there I can just push ahead of her.”

“Holy catfish.”

“That’s what he told me,” Hazel said, stubbornly. “If his wife suspects that he’s going away she might try and draw out all the money before this check can be cashed. Now do you understand?”

“It sounds like a perfect set-up for you to keep your nose out of.”

“Wait a minute, I want to close the dining-room door. I think Josephine and Harold are getting up.” There was a pause. “It’s all right now. They can’t hear.”

“What difference would it make if they did?”

“This friend of mine doesn’t want everybody to know his business.”

“He’s running out on his wife, is that it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“My gosh, George, do you have to know everything?”

“Five hundred bucks,” George said, “is five hundred bucks.”

“He’s got his reasons.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing, aiding and abetting whatever you’re aiding and abetting.”

“I know, all right.” She thought how surprised he would be if he knew too. She felt a little sorry for George that he should have to finance Ruby’s and Gordon’s trip, but it was, actually, for his own good. Eventually he’d be glad and realize that Ruby would never have married him anyway. “It’s a matter of principle,” she said, her conscience leaping slightly. “Will you get the money, George?”

“I guess I can try.”

“You’ll do it. You have hundreds of friends.”

“I can’t think of a better way of losing them.”

“Everyone’s going to be paid back. This friend of mine is a very respectable man. Just because he’s leaving his wife doesn’t mean he’s a crook.”

“All right. I said I’d try.”

“Shall I pick it up at your apartment?”

“No.” He didn’t want Hazel to see the apartment in its present condition. It hadn’t been cleaned for a month. “How about meeting me at the Beachcomber?”

“When?”

“In an hour or so.”

“I’ll be there.”

“I still hope you know what you’re doing,” George said gloomily.

“You’re always such a pessimist where money’s concerned.”

“Five hundred bucks is—”

“Yes, I know, George. Anyway, this is very nice of you. I appreciate it. I’ll do something for you someday.”

“Cut the violins,” George said and hung up.

He got dressed and made his breakfast. This was the part of living alone that he hated most, getting up to an empty apartment and having to make his own breakfast. When they were married Hazel had always cooked very elaborate breakfasts. She told everyone that George had a large frame to fill, and she filled it, in the mornings, with hot cakes and sausages and fried potatoes and blueberry muffins.

The kitchen was a mess and the refrigerator smelled sour, jammed with odds and ends of stale food. He managed to find three eggs, one of them cracked. He fried them while the coffee percolated. Some day he’d have to clean out the refrigerator but he didn’t know how to go about it. It seemed kind of drastic to take everything out, and he wondered if women had some special easy system for cleaning out refrigerators, and what they did about the smell.

While he was drinking his coffee he counted the money in his wallet. Forty-seven dollars. That meant shopping around for the difference, four hundred and fifty-three dollars. There was some cash in the safe at the Beachcomber but he had made it a rule not to touch any of it and not to borrow any money from the till even for twenty-four hours. It was the kind of thing that, once started, was hard to stop, and he was afraid his partners wouldn’t like it if they found out.

He thought of two men who would be likely to have quite a bit of cash over a Sunday. One was a small-time gambler who played poker every Saturday night in the back of a Chinese herb shop. The gambler lived with his sister who didn’t approve of gambling. She took his winnings, when she could find them, and gave them to the church and to relatives. She had become so skillful at finding his hiding places that the gambler was occasionally compelled to leave his money with George over the weekend.

The other man was a fisherman called Mix. He was the co-owner of a small Monterey fishing boat that went out to the islands for two or three days at a time. He’d been bringing in eleven or twelve hundred pounds of lobsters from every trip. George had seen him yesterday morning on the way to Vasco’s fish market to settle up his accounts for the past two weeks. He figured that Mix, after deducting expenses, should have around five hundred dollars as his share. Like a lot of other fishermen Mix hated to put his money in the bank right away. He liked to keep it around and look at it, though sometimes, if he was afraid he was going out to get stewed, he gave George some of his money to keep for him. The rest he went out and spent. As soon as he had two or three drinks, Mix suffered an acute attack of generosity. He bought presents for all his relatives back in Missouri, and shipped them off, live turtles, chocolates, clothes, toys, souvenirs of Channel City. He picked up all kinds of people in bars and bought them drinks and promised them free lobsters. Once he bought up all the papers a newsboy was selling and sent the boy home. The newspapers were heavy to carry, so Mix gave them away to various people. He’d brought a gift to George once, a second-hand set of the Harvard Classics. They were the only books George owned.

When Mix was stone broke he returned to his boat to sleep, and the next morning he would get the rest of his money from George and put it in the bank. George didn’t like to throw anything away, so he had a whole drawerful of receipts that Mix had returned to him when George handed back the money. Received from Mix Jorgen, to be held in trust until Monday, the sum of Two Hundred Dollars, signed, George Anderson. Mix Jorgen gave me $175.50 to keep for him, signed, George Anderson.

George put the forty-seven dollars back in his wallet. He felt suddenly very annoyed with Hazel, not because she’d asked him to do her a favor, but because she shared his own weakness. She was always getting involved with people. He didn’t like the sound of the five hundred dollar deal. He and Hazel could easily be left holding the bag.

He got the car out of the garage and drove down to the wharf to find Mix.

George left his car in the small parking lot beside the Beachcomber. He didn’t like to take it beyond this point, because further on some of the holes in the planking had had been covered up by thick pieces of board nailed to the planking. When one of the fish trucks hit these boards it bounced in the air, making the whole dock shudder. George preferred to walk.

The wharf was fairly quiet. The amateur fishermen were already lined up at the edge, beside the signs: “No Fishing.” “Absolutely No Fishing.” “No Fishing Beyond This Point.” As George walked on, the fish odors became stronger. A pile of empty abalone shells lay stinking in the sun. The conveyor machines, silvered with scales, smelled of dried fish blood. A young Mexican girl, all dressed up in a tight flowered crepe dress, was tying on some bait which she kept in an abalone shell. The bait was gray and black and it smelled worse than anything George had ever smelled. A small lobster boat was tied up alongside, waiting to unload. The lobsters trailed along behind the boat in crates made of laths.

He found Mix sitting against the wall of the warehouse, smoking a pipe and reading a magazine. He was a man about forty, a Middle Westerner who hadn’t seen the ocean until the war. Although he’d been a fisherman now for two years, he was still self-conscious about it. When he was not on his boat he spent hours hanging around the wharf, trying to get over the feeling that he was an impostor. He wore rubber boots, a cowboy hat, a corduroy shirt and dirty army pants.

“Improving your mind?” George said.

Mix threw down the magazine and yawned. “Habit. I started reading in the army and I can’t get over it. It’s a disease, like.”

“How’s business?”

“Hell, fishing’s no business, it’s a bum’s game. For the little guys like me, anyhow. Look.” He held out his hands. They were covered with scars and scabs and cuts. One of the cuts looked infected. “Fish poisoning. Listen, George, you take a good look at these hands and figger you’re lucky to be in a white-collar racket. Sweet Jesus, the way I work! And for what? Thirty-five cents a pound for lobster from Vasco when I could be getting forty-five at San Pedro. People like you, George, you think fishing is just sitting around sailing over the ocean blue. Sweet Jesus, if I was a sensible guy I’d go back in the army so I could do my reading by electric lights again and my pay’d come in regular instead of in fits and starts, and I wouldn’t have nothing to do with octopuses. Those things, Jesus, they get me. They get in the pots, see, and I have to gaff them. The other day one of them got me on the arm with one of his suckers. I nearly died,” he said solemnly. “I wouldn’t tell this to everybody, but when that thing got onto my arm I nearly died.”

He tapped the ashes out of his pipe for emphasis. “Eels too, I don’t like. Lobsters, now there’s something pretty about lobsters. You take a big fifteen-pound bull and watch him flopping around, he looks kinda noble. No sneaking suckers on him, by God.”

“What was the take yesterday?” George said.

“Not so good. I figure this way, somebody’s been robbing our pots, and it ain’t just starfish and eels and octopuses, it’s human. So help me Jesus, if I ever catch them I’ll use the gaff on them. Last time we only brought in eight hundred pounds.”

“Did you settle up with Vasco yesterday?”

“Sure.”

“How much?”

“Jesus, I don’t ask you how much you—”

“I need some cash until tomorrow.”

“We may be going out tomorrow.”

“Don’t kid me,” George said. “You wouldn’t go out without putting the money in the bank and by the time the bank’s open you’ll have your money back, Boy Scout’s honor.”

“I used to be a Boy Scout,” Mix said reminiscently. “Back in St. Louis. The pride of Troop Twenty-Two, and look at me now. I haven’t had a bath in a month. I wash, sure, but washing’s not like having a hot bath. Maybe some day I’ll get me a nice little apartment in town with a bathroom and a kitchen with a refrigerator, cook myself some decent meals for a change. Like this morning, you know what Pete and I had for breakfast? We figured on bacon and eggs, see, with toast. We bring out the bacon and it’s moldy. No butter, no lard. The bread don’t look so good and the eggs are getting kinda old. So Pete cooks them anyway, scrambles them in Dago red to hide the flavor. Sweet Jesus, it’s a wonder my stomach ain’t rotting away.”

“How do you know it’s not?” George said.

“I’m feeling pretty good. I feel pretty good all over except my hand is sore.” He pulled up his shirt and unfastened the money belt he wore around his middle. “How much do you want?”

“Four hundred and fifty-three dollars.”

“I’ll see if I got that much.”

He counted his money, while George watched him, amused. Mix knew down to a cent how much money he had in the belt. When he wasn’t drinking he was inclined to be careful of money, and George knew that Mix, like a lot of other fishermen around the dock who looked like bums, had a very pretty bank balance.

“Yeah,” Mix said. “Yeah, I think I got that much.”

“You know damn well you have.”

“I have to be sure, don’t I? Here. That’s four fifty-seven. Now you give me an I. O. U.”

George wrote an I. O. U. on the back of an envelope. Mix folded the envelope and put it in his money belt with the air of a man who has made a very bad bargain.

“You’ll have it back tomorrow,” George said. “On the honor of Troop Twenty-Two.”

He showed signs of wanting to leave, but Mix pretended not to notice. Mix was in a conversational mood. Often when he was alone on the boat or at one of the fishing camps over in the islands, he planned conversations. He seldom had a chance to use them because the right situation never turned up and it was hard finding a good listener.

“With me,” Mix said, “with me money is a very personal thing. I’m not tight, don’t get that idea.”

“God forbid.”

“No sir. It’s like this. When you make money the hard way like I do, you get kinda interested in what happens to it. I mean, you own it, see, you hold it in your hands maybe a couple of days and then off it goes. Maybe you put it in the bank or lend it to somebody or spend it. No matter what, you have a real personal interest in what happens to it because it belongs to you. For example, if I put a hundred dollars in the bank I like to think of all those bills working and accumulating interest, bringing home the bacon to Poppa. It’s almost like they were kids I was sending out into the world. See what I mean, George?”

“I think so.”

“It don’t sound nuts to you?”

“No.” George patted the pocket containing his wallet. “These kids of yours are going on a trip.”

Mix was pleased.

“Yeah? Where?”

“Missouri.”

“Missouri? Well, I’ll be goddamned, that’s where I come from, St. Louis. Going on an airplane, even?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, I’ll be goddamned.” Mix shook his head. “How’s that for a coincidence, me coming from Missouri and my money going to Missouri. On a plane, too. I never been on a plane.”

“I’ve gotta shove off now, Mix.”

“What’s your hurry?”

“Well, the plane’s leaving pretty soon and the kids here don’t want to miss it. They’re raising hell in my pocket.”

Mix threw back his head and roared. As soon as George left Mix tried to tell a couple of dockhands about the joke, but even though he explained it right from the beginning and told them how funny it was, they didn’t laugh.

George walked carefully across the wharf toward the Beachcomber. The money in his pocket felt heavy and he had half a notion to give it back to Mix, but he couldn’t think of any logical explanation to offer Hazel: Listen, Hazel, I’ve got a funny feeling about this money, we shouldn’t mess with it, I’ve got a hunch...

Although it was not yet nine o’clock the Beachcomber was open and Willie was behind the bar straining a martini for the lone customer, an elderly man wearing rimless spectacles and a wrinkled tuxedo.

Neither Willie nor the man paid any attention to George. They were both intent on the work in progress like alchemists about to test the results of a new formula.

“Here you are,” Willie said. “Very dry, like you asked for, Judge.”

“I did not say very dry. My exact words were very, very dry. Subtle difference there, lad.”

“Yes sir, but a martini can only get so dry. When it gets drier, it’s straight gin.”

“Mere rhetoric. A splitting of the hair of the dog that bit me.” Judge Bowridge laughed softly to himself. “You forgot the olives, lad. Three, if you please, on the side.”

“Yes sir.”

“One should never drink without eating. I learned that at my mother’s knee. Anton, she said, Anton, promise me by your dear dead father’s mustache, that you will never drink a martini without olives on the side. I have never violated that sacred trust.”

He picked up the first olive, slipped it off the toothpick and swallowed it whole like an aspirin. It made a little squeaking noise as it passed down his throat.

“Delicious,” he said.

Willie went down to the other end of the counter where George was changing into his white coat. He meant to say something unpleasant and cutting to George for running out on the business the night before but he was afraid to. Instead, he glanced back sourly at Bowridge. “He was sitting on the steps outside when I opened up. I had to let him in.”

“How’d he get here?”

“God knows. His car’s not around.”

“I’ll take care of him.” George took Willie’s place behind the bar. “Good morning, Judge.”

“Oh, there you are, Anderson. I was inquiring after your health just a moment ago. Willie informs me you keep well.”

“Well enough.”

“I am delighted to hear it. There are altogether too many half-dead people running around these days.”

“You been up all night, Judge?”

Bowridge took off his spectacles and rubbed them thoughtfully on his coat sleeve. “Now that you mention it, I don’t seem to recall going to bed. I was at a party.”

“The party still going on?”

“Oh, no, no, no. It wasn’t that type of party. It was, frankly, a lugubrious affair. Weak drinks and dull women. Bad combination. I tried to help matters by singing a few songs. Do you happen to know ‘Chewy Chewy’?”

“Not offhand.”

“A very spirited number. Like this.” He snapped his fingers in time to an invisible orchestra. “Gordon Foster and I perfected a duet. You know Foster.”

“Not personally. Hazel’s mentioned him to me.”

“An interesting fellow. Fine tenor voice, but unable to hold his liquor. The trouble with Foster is that he doesn’t eat when he drinks.” As if to set a good example, Bowridge swallowed the remaining two olives, pits and all, as he had the first. “How is Hazel?”

“Fine. I expect her here any minute.”

“Ah. In what capacity?”

“Not what you’re thinking,” George said dryly.

“I’ve been acquainted with Hazel for a great many years.”

“I know that.”

“She’s a remarkable woman.”

“I know that, too.”

“Frankly, Anderson — you don’t mind if I speak frankly?”

“No.”

“Well then, frankly, I never wanted to sign those divorce papers, Anderson, no, I did not. Oh, I signed them all right, but my heart wasn’t in it. I kept putting it off until it was time to go home. My secretary said, you haven’t signed these papers yet, and I said, goddamn it, I won’t sign them, there’s no reason on earth why these two people shouldn’t stay married. And she said, you should have thought of that while court was in session, the case is over. And so it was. I signed the papers.”

George turned away, looking stubborn and a little resentful. “It was Hazel’s idea, not mine.”

“So it would seem.”

“So it was,” George said stiffly. “You want to know what happened? — the real thing, I mean, not what Hazel’s lawyer said in court.”

“I would be very interested.”

“Well, I was late getting home one Saturday night and Hazel was waiting up for me in the front room. I was just sitting there having a beer and some potato chips and telling her a few odd things that happened during the day, and suddenly she got up, walked over to me and said, ‘I’m getting damn good and tired of your boyish blubberings.’ Just like that. Out of a blue sky.”

“A most provocative remark. What did you do?”

“Finished my beer and potato chips and went to bed. What else? She was spoiling for a fight.”

“She may simply have wanted your attention.”

“She wanted a divorce, she got it,” George said. “Let’s forget it.”

“As you wish.” Bowridge finished his martini and pushed the empty glass toward George. “One more, very, very dry. And do not look at me askance. De gustibus non disputandum. De mortuis nil nisi bonum.”

“Maybe I’d better call you a cab.”

“You may call me a whole fleet of cabs if you like,” Bowridge said graciously. “It’s only fair to warn you, however, that I have no intention of leaving. I must wait for Hazel. Besides, I like it here. The sea air is very bracing. It makes me feel alive and nimble.”

He inhaled deeply and extravagantly, opening his mouth wide to receive the bracing air. But his ageing lungs were not accustomed to such largess; he began to cough, pressing both hands against his chest as if to ease its troubles. His face looked pale and withdrawn and he seemed suddenly to have lost interest in George and the martini and the bracing air, in everything but himself. The judge was as ignorant of his body as he was aware of his mind, and this periodic rebellion inside his chest mystified and frightened him. If the day was warm and bright, and his calendar easy, he jeered at the cough, it was nothing. But on a day with a crowded calendar and pellets of rain exploding on the tiled roof of the courtroom so violently he could hardly hear what was going on inside, the cough was death, it had come like the bailiff to take him away, and away he would go, down long corridors to a dark and single cell.

“Devilish thing — don’t know what — causes it — maybe — the olives — did the olives — have pits?”

“Yes.”

“That’s it then — the pits have — lodged somewhere — devilish — damn.”

He coughed for a full minute, and when he had finished he took off his spectacles, wiped the moisture out of his eyes with a handkerchief. His chest was a little sore and his throat raw, but, having convinced himself that the cause was nothing more serious than an unfortunate lodging of olive pits, he felt quite cheerful again; the bailiff and the dark cell were years and miles away, the cough was nothing, the pits, wherever they were, would dissolve. A very dry martini would no doubt assist in their dissolution.

The judge repeated his order and when the martini came he sipped it very slowly and gravely as if it were medicine which had been prescribed for him and which he had to take whether he liked it or not.

George went out to the telephone booth in the foyer and called a cab. Through the window in the top of the door he could see Hazel’s blue Chevy coming toward the Beachcomber, bouncing over the worn planks of the wharf like a jeep. With a familiar feeling of irritation he watched her as she tried to park. Back and forth she maneuvered, three times, four times, and when she had finished the Chevy was still a good four feet from the wharf railing and straddling two parking spaces.

He opened the door and crossed the parking area. Hazel was just getting out of the Chevy, panting a little from exertion. She hadn’t dressed up as she usually did when she came to the Beachcomber. Her hair was tied up in a scarf, and she wore faded blue jeans, a striped T-shirt which had once belonged to Harold and a pair of rhinestone-studded sunglasses which she had borrowed from Josephine since Josephine was too sunburned to go out today anyway.

She gave George a long direct stare as if challenging him to make any remarks about her costume or the way she’d parked the car.

George could never resist a challenge. “You’re going to leave it there?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Look, all you’ve got to do when you want to park is pull up parallel with the car ahead, back in toward the curb until your engine is just about even with the rear window of the other car, then come to a full stop, reverse your wheel and—”

“That’s exactly what I did, and anyway you told me all that before.”

“You couldn’t have done it like that or we wouldn’t be standing out here in the middle of the road.”

Hazel colored slightly. “You seem to be pretty burned up about something. Is it the money?”

“No. And I’m not burned up.”

“You’re acting like it. It’s not my fault if I can’t park right. I do everything just like you taught me, but it doesn’t work out.”

“It isn’t the parking. It’s—” It was everything; it was the judge, the money, Ruby, it was life itself. “Hell, I don’t care if you park in the center of 101. It’s your funeral.”

“Thanks.”

He turned away, squinting up at the sun. “I guess I owe you something for last night. I guess you did your best.”

“I’d just as soon forget about it.”

“So would I.”

“Did you — you got the money all right?”

“Yes, sure.” He hesitated. “You want it now, or have you got time to come in for a drink?”

“I don’t know, it’s kind of early. The whole five hundred, did you get?”

“Here it is. Count it.”

“No. No, really—”

“Count it, go on.”

She counted the money quickly and put it in the back pocket of her jeans as if she was trying to get it out of sight as fast as possible.

“I don’t want to pry,” George said, “but I’d kind of like to know who the guy is. I deserve that much for my trouble, don’t I?”

“You’re going to get paid back. What difference does it make who the guy is?”

“Just say I’m nosy.”

“Sorry, I can’t tell you.”

“All right, it’s your business.”

Hazel turned away, avoiding his eyes. She was tempted to give him back the money right away and make a confession: I was going to play what you’d think was a dirty trick, George, only I’ve changed my mind.

But her mind refused to change. She thought, it isn’t actually a dirty trick, it’s for his own good. He said himself he wished he’d never met her. It’s my fault that he did and now it’s my fault that she’s going away. Everyone will be better off.

She said, looking a little guilty: “Maybe I could use a drink at that. I’m not dressed, though. I didn’t figure on coming in.”

“That’s all right. There’s nobody around except Judge Bowridge.”

“Is he—?”

“He is.”

“That’s too bad.”

They went inside. The judge was still sitting at the bar, his arms forming a circle around the half-finished martini. He was talking quietly but distinctly to himself in a language which neither George nor Hazel recognized but which George from past experience assumed was Latin.

“Carpe diem,” said the judge, “quam minimum credula postero. What happened to you, Anderson?”

“I went out to meet Hazel.”

“Hazel. My dear lady, I did not recognize you without your hair. Here, sit down, take off your glasses, let me admire you. O mater pulchra filia pulchrior.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Hazel said, laughing.

“No, indeed. I speak from the heart. Sit down, sit down, the night is young.”

“It’s morning.”

“I was merely using a figure of speech. I am quite aware that it’s morning. Sunday morning, as a matter of fact. I am always perfectly oriented, even when I’ve been drinking. And I might as well confess that I’ve had one or two drinks throughout the night.”

“Maybe it’s time you thought about going home.”

“I have thought about it,” Bowridge said solemnly. “It seems like an excellent idea.”

“Then—”

“But not one which appeals to me. Carpe diem, I say. Seize the day. Swing it by the tail. Let it know who’s boss.”

Hazel’s smile was a little forced. For one thing she wasn’t sure what he was talking about, and for another she had never before seen Judge Bowridge when he’d been drinking. She had heard about his periodic bats, from George and a dozen other people, but she hadn’t witnessed one, and it embarrassed her.

“I sense opprobrium in the air,” Bowridge said. “Chide me no chides, Hazel.”

“It sounds like you’re talking in riddles.”

“Like the Sphinx. Yes. But that is not my sole resemblance to the Sphinx. We are both old, desiccated, frangible. I know many fine riddles. For example, what is it that can go up the chimney down, but not down the chimney up?”

Hazel took a careful sip of the beer George had drawn for her, and tried to look thoughtful.

“It’s very simple,” the judge said. “Go on, guess.”

“I can’t.”

“Give up?”

“Yes.”

“It’s an umbrella.”

“Oh.”

“A very fine riddle, that. You don’t happen to know any, do you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, no matter, no matter. We will play Twenty Questions instead. Would you like that?”

“I really don’t know,” Hazel said earnestly. “I’ve never played them. Besides, I’ve got to go, I have an important engagement.”

Bowridge frowned. “It’s very peculiar, every time I suggest a game of Twenty Questions, people suddenly discover that they have an engagement somewhere. Is there something intrinsically repulsive about the game itself, or am I the repelling factor?”

“I really have a date. I’ve got to deliver some money.”

“Money. How very interesting. To whom?”

They were both watching her, the judge owlishly, over the top of his spectacles, and George with obvious eagerness, as if he believed that Hazel, now that she was in the presence of a Judge of the Superior Court, must tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. To some extent Hazel shared this feeling but it did not alter her decision to lie, it only made it more difficult to carry out.

George said, earnestly, “Listen, Hazel, has it entered your brain that if you give this guy money to run out on his wife, you’re kind of responsible for what happens?”

“I am not.”

“Just think about it.”

“I already have. He could get the money from someone else. The only reason he asked me is because, well, he just thought of me first, is all. He has lots of friends he could have asked.” She knew that this was a lie. Gordon had no close friends. “He would go away anyway, even without any money. I’m not responsible one bit. And I don’t see why you’re acting so petty about it.”

“It isn’t the money, it’s the way you let yourself get dragged into everybody’s business. You can’t walk up the street without getting involved with somebody.”

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I am not worried about you,” George said stiffly. “I’m pointing out to you a simple fact.”

“I already know some simple facts.”

“For instance, just for instance, remember the day you got the bright idea of driving over to Ojai to look up your mother’s long-lost cousin Gladys. That was all right, if it would have stopped there. But no. It turns out Gladys has a sister and the sister is living right here in town, teaching school. So naturally you look up the sister too, and by a strange coincidence she happens to be having a nervous breakdown and has to give up her job and has nothing to live on. The rest is history.”

“You’re getting awfully stuffy in your old age, George. I remember the bums you were always bringing home with you.”

“They didn’t stay for a couple of years.”

“I used to dread getting up in the mornings, never knowing how many bodies I’d have to step over to get to the kitchen.”

“That was different. We were married then, you had me to protect you.”

“The only thing you ever protected me from was having a good time.”

“That’s a lie, by Jesus!”

“And it’s none of your damned business who lives in my house because it’s my house.”

“I gave it to you.”

“The judge gave it to me.”

“I signed the prop—”

“Now, now,” the judge said, looking sad. “Now, now, now.”

“I signed the property settle—”

“Order in the court.”

“—meat.”

“You’re in contempt, Anderson. I fine you one martini.”

George looked down at the floor, mute and stubborn.

“You refuse to pay, Anderson?”

“That’s right. I called you a cab.”

“You realize what this means, of course. If you should ever be forced to appear in my court, I shall take a very dim view of your innocence, a very dim view indeed.”

“I’ll ask for a jury trial.”

“Naturally. But in my instructions to the jury I always have the last word.” Bowridge rose unsteadily, hanging on to the ledge of the counter, and addressed the rows of glasses behind George’s head. “Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard the evidence. This niggardly fellow, Anderson, is—”

“You’d better sit down before you fall down.”

“Very well. I always address the jury in that position anyway.” He sat down with cautious dignity, but he looked suddenly very tired, as if the act of rising, or the change of emotional atmosphere in the room, had exhausted him. He tried to revitalize himself by humming, “Chewy Chewy,” but he couldn’t remember the tune, and the sound that came from his throat was a sad sighing which had no connection with music.

“A fine melody, that,” he said, pretending that he could sing it perfectly if he chose to. “Foster sang high and I sang low, but Foster couldn’t hold his liquor and finally I had to go it alone. That’s life for you — one ends up going it alone. Lacrimae rerum. You know what that means, Anderson?”

“I guess it’s Latin.”

“It means the tears of things, the sorrows of the world.”

“Sure, sure. Just don’t start on a crying jag in here.”

“Preposterous remark,” Bowridge said. The truth was, he did want to cry a little and then go to sleep. Simple, human desires; there was no real reason why he shouldn’t gratify them. A few tears, a little sleep, and one would wake up, refreshed, forgetting the long night.

Though his eyes felt moist he could not cry and when he folded his arms on the counter and buried his head between them like a scrawny sparrow hiding from the cold and desolate winter, he could not sleep. The spinning of his heart and the ticking of his mind kept him awake. It seemed to him that he was a freak, that the simple and commonplace gratifications were always just beyond his grasp, or around the corner, or in the middle of next week.

“Your cab’s here,” George said.