Jack and Susan in 1953 Page 4

  “Actually, a great many people do,” Jack argued. “I just happen to be the only one you know.”

  “You have to move,” said Libby.

  “Why?” said Jack.

  “Because when people ask, I will not tell them that my fiancé lives between Second and Third.” She threw up her hands. “I just won’t do it!”

  “Your…fiancé…” Jack repeated slowly.

  He asked for the pitcher of highballs. Libby reluctantly allowed the indulgence, and he poured himself another.

  “When did I become your fiancé?” Jack asked. Her statement was so unexpected that he felt he ought to explore the curious situation as logically and as slowly as possible. “I thought I was your investment counselor.”

  “This afternoon you were just my investment counselor. Tonight you’re both.”

  Jack nodded slowly, but didn’t comment. Had he proposed to Libby, and forgotten the fact in the melee at the gambling club? That didn’t seem likely.

  “You just said that with my money I could have anything I wanted,” Libby pointed out.

  “I did say that,” Jack acknowledged, and as he finished off that highball he began to wish that he hadn’t had any.

  “And as it appeared,” Libby went on, “that you had no intention of asking me, I decided—”

  “—that you would ask me,” said Jack, completing the thought.

  Libby drew back in horror. “I would never ask a man to propose to me,” she protested. “But that’s no reason that I can’t accept.” She smiled a ravishing smile, and altered the position of her voluptuous body on the pillows so that it was even more alluring than before. The lighting in this room, Jack decided, had been designed precisely for the purpose of complementing the gold of Libby’s hair.

  “You must get at least twenty offers of marriage a week,” said Jack. “From all sorts of men. Why have you decided to accept the one offer that wasn’t made?”

  “I think it’s very rude of you to quiz me on such a delicate subject,” said Libby. “It’s not every day that I accept a proposal.”

  Jack cleared his throat, and held out his glass. It was strange that the more he drank, the soberer he felt.

  The funny thing was, Jack had thought about proposing to Libby. Often. His friends had suggested it to him as a wise course. The men above him in the firm had made jokes to him about it. He had received long-distance telephone calls from his father on the subject. Beyond the fact that he was truly fond of Libby, despite her obvious shallowness of character and often idiotic behavior, Jack could think of four reasons to marry Libby Mather: Libby was rich, Libby had a fabulous figure, Libby was very rich, and Libby was evidently in love with him. Besides those four, there was the additional argument that Libby was very very rich.

  It was Jack who had handled Libby’s finances for the past three and a half years, so he had an even better idea than Libby just how much money she had. To Libby, Jack’s yearly income was like the pennies that gathered at the bottom of her purse.

  She held out her hand to him. He took it politely.

  “See?” she said.

  “See what?” he said.

  “You even bought me a ring.”

  Four or five karats’ worth, he judged. Square-cut. Tiffany setting.

  Jack smiled at the ring, and he smiled at Libby; then he asked, “Why me?”

  She pulled her hand back, and pondered the question, as if she thought it surprising, but interesting.

  “You’re probably the only man I know—the only man in our circle—who hasn’t courted me for my money. I’m like a cow to them. To be led to slaughter for the meat I’ll bring. That’s what I feel like. You’ve never done that.”

  Jack blinked. “Libby, all I do is think about your money.”

  “Yes, but that’s your job. That’s different. And—as far as I can tell—you’ve done a very good job.”

  “Thank you,” said Jack modestly.

  “So now it’s time for you to take real control of my money, by marrying me. Then we can get rid of that awful place where you live. It doesn’t matter to me if you propose because of my money, or because you like my figure—that’s why so many people hate me, you know, because first they see my figure, and then they hear how much money I’ve got. Anyway, I don’t care why you ask me to marry you. Because”—and Jack had never found Libby Mather to be so candid, so straightforward, or so attractive—“I’m in love with you. I always have been. That’s why I dislike Susan so much—because I think you used to be in love with her. So I would be saying yes to your proposal because I love you. And you would be proposing because…well, I don’t really care why you propose to me, as long as you do it, of course.”

  For a few moments Jack said nothing.

  Then he spoke briefly and to the point.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SUSAN SAW THE gun in the hand of the ladder man, and her first instinct was to rush forward in an attempt to warn Libby of the danger. She took a half-step forward, and her mouth was open to shout, but then Rodolfo had a hand on her arm and was pulling her in the opposite direction.

  Before she had time to protest his interference, the fight had broken out, and the crowd had begun to rush for the exit. At any rate, Libby was obviously still alive.

  “It is their fight, not ours,” explained Rodolfo, as he led her away from the uproar toward a far corner of the room where there was a small folding screen that Susan had not noticed before. They slipped behind the screen and Susan saw that it concealed a small door. Rodolfo opened the door and pushed her through into a small room on the other side.

  “You will be safe here,” he said. “I will make sure your friends are all right.”

  Before Susan could say a word he had shut the door. To her astonishment, when she turned the knob she found it was locked.

  She blinked, trying to dissolve her surprise, and looked around the room.

  It was an office of some sort, expensively done up with a huge mahogany desk, leather furniture, paneled walls, and an Oriental carpet, but she somehow got the impression that it was rarely used. It didn’t have a window, and the only other door led to a tiny bathroom, also without a window. Either the commotion in the gambling room had suddenly stopped or the room was soundproof, for Susan heard nothing.

  She didn’t know what to do or to think. How had Rodolfo known about this room? And why was he so anxious for her to be out of the main room?

  She seated herself in one of the chairs facing the great desk, and was uncomfortably reminded of the half dozen times she had been interviewed by prospective employers. She felt as if she were being kept waiting for the entrance of the great man himself.

  Then she noticed that there was no telephone.

  Nothing about this place made any sense; then she decided that it was better to snoop than to conjecture.

  She stood up and stepped around to the other side of the desk and began opening drawers. In the top right-hand one were three number 2 pencils, unsharpened. In the second drawer was an unopened ream of bond paper. The third held only a cast-iron paperweight in the shape of the Statue of Liberty. In the center drawer was a box of Gem paper clips and an envelope filled with large rubber bands. The left-hand drawers were locked.

  In one corner of the room were two wooden filing cabinets, but these were also locked. Susan tried unsuccessfully to tilt one of them and from its weight she felt certain that the cabinet was filled with papers.

  She went into the bathroom and peered into the medicine chest, which was recessed into the wall: a box of Doeskin tissues, a tube of Ipana toothpaste, three brand-new toothbrushes, a tin of Band-Aids, and a canister of Stopette spray deodorant.

  There was nothing else at all in either room; no sign that anyone used the office as an office. Nothing to read; nothing with a letterhead; nothing bearing a trace of use, abuse, origin, or purpose. It was like a movie set office—it looked right from a certain angle, but didn’t stand up to close inspection.

  The mo
re she thought about the room, the greater its mystery.

  She returned to her interviewee’s chair in front of the desk and sat down again. Then she thought about Rodolfo, to see if that would help make a little sense of the business.

  What Susan had told Jack was true—Rodolfo was a friend of the family, though the connection was tenuous at best. Rodolfo had called with a recommendation from her uncle, James Bright. But, Susan had met her uncle James only twice, and then not since she was fourteen, which was the last time—as far as she knew—that he had visited the United States. So it was on the basis of his acquaintance with that slightly known relative that Rodolfo had one day called her up, and asked her to take pity on a poor, ignorant foreigner cast into the wilds of New York City. That had been six weeks ago, and out of boredom at first, and now out of habit, Susan was seeing Rodolfo twice a week or more. He was always charming, always polite, and—it occurred to her now—always a little mysterious. He never talked about his job; in fact, she wasn’t absolutely certain he had one. He said he did “work for the consulate,” and he claimed, occasionally acted as cicerone for wealthy or important Cubans visiting the city. He lived in a small sublet on Ninety-fourth Street between Fifth and Madison. Once she had visited it for a drink, and found the place strangely cold, with tubular steel furniture on rattan carpets. She hadn’t liked it.

  All men lied, Susan supposed, but she had never caught Rodolfo in a falsehood. He said little, but every word had the crystal ring of truth. That gave her confidence in him. He was very handsome—extraordinarily handsome in fact, almost too good-looking for a man. Large dark eyes with lashes as long as hers. A mouth that had a genuine smile, and a genuine frown, and teeth that were incandescently white. His body was firm and lithe and when she took his arm, or was thrown against him in the back seat of a taxicab, she could feel how strong he was. He had two physical flaws. The first was a scar at the top of his right shoulder she’d glimpsed once when he wore an open-collared shirt. The second was that his beard was heavy and black and grew so quickly that he had to shave at least twice a day.

  Most of what Susan liked about Rodolfo, however, was his manner. She had never met a man so supremely confident. And not an iota of that confidence was bravado. He was collected and secure. He thought about what he wanted to say before he spoke, and when he spoke his words conveyed his meaning precisely. His opinions were forthright and tended toward the simplistic, but Susan liked this.

  “I like this object and I want it for myself,” was the sort of thing Rodolfo tended to say. Or, “I do not want to go to this place, so I will not go.”

  But he had never made love to her, had never attempted to seduce her; he was as formal, polite, and collected on their tenth meeting as he had been on their first. Now she wondered why she had never found that peculiar. (She had, in fact, found it a relief after so many other, dissimilar experiences with other young men.) Susan had come to no conclusion about Rodolfo by the time he returned, about fifteen minutes later.

  “Your friends are perfectly safe,” he said, with a smile, closing the door behind him.

  Susan’s brows wrinkled. She’d thought little about Jack and Libby for the past quarter-hour, so intent had she been on her exploration of the office and her ruminations about Rodolfo.

  “That’s good,” she said, after a moment. And then, coming right to the point: “Why did you put me in here, Rodolfo, and lock the door?”

  “I wanted to make certain you would be all right.”

  “How did you know this room was here?”

  “This is Mr. Vance’s office,” he explained without hesitation. “I have been here before. During the day. Shall we go?”

  Susan nodded uncertainly.

  He opened the door and stepped back out into the gambling room of Mr. Vance’s establishment. As Susan followed, she tried to imagine what she’d find. A woman rhythmically sweeping the floor with a broom? The overfed penguins counting the receipts of the aborted evening? Maybe the room would be empty.

  She was wrong. The gambling room was exactly as it had been—filled with well-dressed people enjoying themselves at the blackjack and craps tables. The injured ladder man was no more to be seen, and Jack and Libby were gone, too. The only evidence of the violent altercation was a dark cloth that had been draped over the bloody roulette table.

  “Did everyone come back?” she asked, but a moment’s observation answered the question. “No, this is a different crowd. None of these people were here before. Where did they all come from?”

  Rodolfo shrugged. “I know nothing of the gambling business.”

  She glanced at the croupiers, the ladder men, the bouncers. All were as she had remembered them—except that a different man sat atop the elevated chair over the roulette wheel.

  What had happened while she was locked in Mr. Vance’s office?

  “Would you like to stay and play for a little while?” Rodolfo asked.

  “No, no,” Susan replied. “I’m quite ready to go…”

  Rodolfo took Susan back down to Washington Square in a taxi. It was a little past midnight.

  “Is she very rich?” asked Rodolfo as they rode down Park Avenue.

  “Who?” returned Susan, mystified once more.

  “Miss Mather. Your friend.”

  “She’s a margarine heiress,” returned Susan. “Lots of money. She’s one of those people who have even more than you imagine they have.”

  Rodolfo laughed.

  Susan shrugged, and grimaced with the same mild envy she’d felt for Libby Mather’s money ever since they’d been in school together. “I could live off the interest on her interest. So could the Netherlands. I’ve got my trust fund, of course, but my money looks to Libby like the loose change that falls between the cushions of a sofa.”

  They were silent for a few moments. Susan’s thoughts kept returning to what had happened at Mr. Vance’s establishment. How long had it been since she’d seen any sort of violence? Not since she’d last seen Jack, she deduced. How strange it was that Jack—an investment counselor—should be a magnet for guns and ambulances. Perhaps, however, this was just an isolated incident. Perhaps…

  “You used to be in love with Jack,” said Rodolfo matter-of-factly.

  Susan turned her head and stared at the Cuban. “Why do you say that?” she asked, trying to keep the sharpness out of her voice.

  “There are some things one need not be told in so many words.”

  “Yes I was. But I’m certainly not now. How did you know? I don’t—”

  “I saw it in his eyes,” said Rodolfo. “Not yours.” Susan relaxed. “Do you think he will marry her?” Rodolfo asked.

  “Jack?” said Susan. “Marry Libby?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hadn’t given it the slightest thought.” She looked out the window—the taxi was going down Fourth Avenue now, passing Fourteenth Street. “I hadn’t considered it at all. Though he might. Libby’s certainly always been after him. Or at least since we were all teenagers together. Jack’s prep school held dances with our prep school.”

  “Would he marry her for her money?”

  Susan considered this for a moment, then said, “No, I don’t think so. Not directly anyway. Though Jack is peculiar about money. His family used to have a great deal, but after his father died, his mother squandered it all. Every penny. I think that’s why he became an investment counselor. So that he could keep other people from squandering their fortunes.”

  “Then he might marry Miss Mather to keep her from spending all her money unwisely.” Susan wasn’t certain why that remark made her uncomfortable, but it did. “May I see you tomorrow night?” Rodolfo asked. “I’d like to make amends for tonight.”

  “Amends? It wasn’t your fault what happened. Libby—”

  “If you will not allow me to apologize…”

  “Yes, of course,” said Susan, realizing that this had been merely an excuse for the invitation.

  But as she was getting out of th
e taxi at the door of her apartment building, she wondered why she’d accepted…

  That night, in the tiny back bedroom of her small apartment on Washington Square, Susan Bright dreamed that she married Rodolfo García-Cifuentes in Mr. Vance’s peculiar, windowless office, with the officiating minister a large, overfed penguin.

  Susan Bright had a job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art giving lecture tours of the Gothic, Renaissance, and Classical collections—two a day in each, with fifteen-minute breaks to rest her feet and massage her throat. It’s what a degree in art history got you these days: fifty-two dollars and fifty cents a week, before taxes. It was a good thing she had her small trust fund to lean back on, otherwise she’d have been one of the million other unfortunate twenty-seven-year-old girls in Manhattan with looks, brains, and ambition, who were fighting to get ahead in a system that held about half a dozen positions worthy of their talents.

  When Susan wanted extra money she translated Soviet agricultural pamphlets for U.S. military intelligence, though why on earth the army cared by what means the Russians achieved such miserable harvests year after year was quite beyond Susan’s power of reasoning. Russian agricultural policy not only dictated the actions of seventy-five million farmers, it provided Susan Bright a very nearly up-to-date wardrobe.

  Yet there was something missing from Susan’s life. It was hard to fool yourself into thinking your life had true shape and purpose when day after day, six days a week, you glibly expatiated on the glories of Western art to groups of tourists who hadn’t the slightest idea what you were talking about. When your odd-hours were spent in the contemplation of soybean, alfalfa, and wheat quotas for the Ukrainian steppes. When your address read Washington Square, but your only view was of a windowless expanse of brick not ten feet away.

  “What I need,” Susan often said to herself, “is someone to complain to.”

  Someone-to-complain-to, of course, had certain unspoken qualifications. Male. Handsome. Accomplished. As intelligent as Susan herself.