Downstairs, in the kitchen, Giovannella was still busy with the dough-enough to make Guinea loaves and hot m.u.f.fins for the twenty-two regular staff who had to be fed twice a day and a little extra to sell on the side and maybe take home to her mother and father. And her children. Never forget the children. They were her shield and her badge and the whole reason she was alive on the earth and pounding away at a corpselike lump of dough in the grand environs of the McCormick kitchen. And she was was pounding, hammering away at the dough with both fists as if it were something she"d just stunned and wanted to make sure of. pounding, hammering away at the dough with both fists as if it were something she"d just stunned and wanted to make sure of.
O"Kane eased into the kitchen. Ever since their rapprochement during the earthquake two years back she"d tolerated his presence in the kitchen, but he could never tell when she"d lash out at him, not only verbally, but with any instrument, blunt or sharp, that came to hand, their entire history together bubbling and simmering in the stewpot of her eternally resentful peasant"s brain, from the time she was seventeen and a virgin and he"d seduced her, right on up to this morning, this afternoon and this evening. If Mr. McCormick had his problems with women, so did he, so did Eddie O"Kane, and they started and ended here, right here in this kitchen.
"You still at it?" she said, pounding the dough. The maid, a girl of twenty with no chin and an overripe nose but with a spread and bloom to her that more than made up for it, started slopping a mop around. It was quitting time. The kitchen was still redolent of dinner, a roast of pork with rosemary, brown gravy, mashed potatoes and green beans, with apple turnovers for dessert.
"It"s Christmas," he said.
She looked up from the dough, just her eyes, and her eyes were little pre-prepared doses of poison. "With you, it"s always Christmas."
He sidled up to the chopping board, where he"d left his cloven fruit and the bottle, keeping a wary eye out for any sudden movement. She wasn"t his wife, Giovannella, though he"d given in and in so many words asked her to be after the night of the marinara sauce and the big bed in the deserted and still subsiding house, but she carped and caviled at him as if she was. And that was strange too, utterly inexplicable, because that was what she"d wanted all along-for him to marry her-and then when he came for her and they were in bed and they"d had that sweetness and pleasure all over again, she"d refused him. "No, Eddie," she"d said, the house crepitating round them, the dark an infestation, a dog howling in duress somewhere off in the shattered distance, "I can"t marry you-you"re already married, remember? Isn"t that what you told me? And besides, I couldn"t expect you, a man like you, to raise another man"s children, could I?"
"Just one more," he said. "For good cheer. You want one?"
Nothing, not even a glance.
"How about you, Mary? You want one?"
"Get out of my kitchen," Giovannella said. Her voice was low and dangerous and the blood had gone to her ears, her beautiful coffee-and-cream ears with the wisps of black hair tucked behind them and the puckered holes punched in the flesh for the gypsy earrings she sometimes wore. He loved those earrings. He loved those ears. And he was feeling sentimental and vague, full of affection for the world and everything in it, and for her, especially for her, for Giovannella.
She stepped away from the breadboard and picked up the first thing she saw-a flour sifter, peeling green paint over the naked tin, a sprinkling of white dust.
"What?" O"Kane protested. "Come on, Giov. It"s only a little drink. It"s not going to hurt anything."
"Get-out-of-my-kitchen," she said, raising the sifter ominously.
"You"d think I was a criminal or something."
"You are," she said, and there it was, that edge in her voice, as if she were about to cry or scream. "You are a criminal. Worse-you selfish stinking big p.r.i.c.k of a man!"
He ignored her, slicing lemons, squeezing oranges, his elbows busy, the knife moving in his hand. He was angry suddenly, the generous all-embracing mood boiling off into the air like vapor. Who did she think she was? He"d had the run of the house since she was a girl in her mother"s kitchen. "Besides," he said over his shoulder, "Nick and Pat want one. They"re up there waiting for me-and lest you forget, I"m stranded here myself. You want me to look like an idiot and go back up there empty-handed?"
He would have said more, working himself into a state of real rhetorical fervor, but for the fact that the sifter suddenly ricocheted off the back of his head, and here she was, coming at him with a wooden spatula the size of a bricklayer"s tool, cursing in Italian.
The tin had gouged his head, and it was bleeding, he was sure of it, and though he had absolutely nothing to regret or retract and was just spreading a little Christmas cheer and not even drunk yet, he couldn"t help catching her by the wrist, the right wrist, just by way of defending himself. The left was another proposition all together. He"d caught the hand with the spatula, but she"d snaked away from him, as if they were doing a tarantella, everything a whirl, and s.n.a.t.c.hed up a big wooden implement that looked like a mace, and already she"d managed to connect with two savage over-the-shoulder blows to his left forearm, and why, why was she doing this?
He always felt bad when he had to hit a woman-he felt like a dog, he did-but if she was going to get familiar with him (and over what?), then he was going to get familiar with her. A pot clattered to the floor. Mary, hand to mouth, vanished. They danced away from the stove, his fingers still hooked round her wrist, the mace flailing, the breath exploding from her clamped lips in short ugly bursts-uhh-uhh-uhh-and he just got tired of it, very tired, tired of the senselessness and her barometric moods and the way she went after him all the time, and he slapped her. Just once. But it had enough force behind it so that when he simultaneously released her arm she went hurtling back against the breadboard with a sharp annunciatory crack as of a stick being snapped in two, everything sailing out into the bright kitchen void and the pale laid-out corpse of the dough upended unceremoniously on the floor.
There was no sequel. Nothing at all. No apologies or recriminations, no battle rejoined or tears shed. Because at that moment-Giovannella slapped, the dough ruined, O"Kane half-drunk and outraged and cursing and swollen up to the full height and breadth of him-there came a sudden single excoriating cry that froze them both in place: "Mama!" "Mama!" O"Kane looked to the door, the open door, and there stood little Guido, eleven years old and already thick in the shoulders, and what was in his eyes besides shock and terror and rage? Three o"clock. Three o"clock in the afternoon. O"Kane looked to the door, the open door, and there stood little Guido, eleven years old and already thick in the shoulders, and what was in his eyes besides shock and terror and rage? Three o"clock. Three o"clock in the afternoon.
Lunch was a success, everyone agreed. O"Kane lingered in the dining room with Katherine, Dr. Kempf and Mrs. Roessing while Mart escorted Mr. McCormick up to bed for his postprandial nap, and the feeling of relief and self-congratulation was palpable. It was as if they"d all gone through a war together, or a battle at least, and now here they were, all intact and no casualties. "Well, Katherine, Jane, didn"t I tell you?" Kempf crowed, stirring a lump of sugar into the black pool of his coffee.
O"Kane was stationed at the door, hands in pockets. He"d been about to retreat, along with Mart and Mr. McCormick, when Kempf signaled him with his eyes. He knew what his role was. Moral support. The nurse in evidence.
Katherine was glowing. Her lips were pursed with pleasure and she sipped at her coffee as if it were an infusion of new blood and new life. "It was wonderful, it really was. Stanley was so ... so much like his old self."
And what was so wonderful? That she"d sat down to a meal with her husband for the first time since 1906 and he hadn"t attacked her, dumped the soup over his head or jumped out the window? Small victories, O"Kane was thinking. But it was a start, one step at a time, just like when they"d had to teach him to walk all over again. It had happened. It was a fact.
"What did you think, Jane?"
Mrs. Roessing must have been in her mid-forties, by O"Kane"s calculation, but she looked ten years younger, what with her makeup and her clothes and her bright red marcelled hair. She gave Katherine a look, all eyes and teeth. "Well, I can"t really say I"m an authority on the subject, since I never knew Stanley"s old self, but his new one, at least as I saw him here today, was absolutely charming, don"t you think, Dr. Kempf?"
The doctor drew himself up, the neat slightly puffed pale little hands, the painted hair and shimmering skull. He was a puppeteer, a ventriloquist, the mad scientist showing off his creature, Svengali with his Trilby. "My word for it exactly," he said with a polished grin. "Charming."
O"Kane had been amazed himself, especially after the previous afternoon"s performance-Mr. McCormick had been a model of behavior, exactly like the man he"d golfed with at McLean, genial, courtly, haunted by neither demons nor judges. He"d been up and about when O"Kane arrived, full of smiles and little jokes, and he was very precise and efficient with his shower bath-he didn"t squat on the tiles to soap his toes or rub himself raw with the towel. And he whistled, actually whistled in the shower, like a man on his way to work, "Beautiful Dreamer" echoing off the walls, followed by a spirited rendition of "Yes, We Have No Bananas." He breakfasted with perfect comportment and good humor, joking over the toughness of the ham (which wasn"t really tough at all, if you had a knife and fork to hand, which he didn"t, and he was acknowledging the absurdity of his predicament in his own sly way) and teasing Mart over his expanding girth ("Excuse me, Mart, but is that a life preserver you"re wearing under your jacket?").
After breakfast, he took a stroll to the theater building and back, and then twice round the house, and he walked very nicely, not bothering with the cracks between the flagstones and hardly dragging his leg at all. Then there was his daily two-hour session with Dr. Kempf, from which he often emerged very upset and confused, sometimes speechless, sometimes with tears in his eyes or in a rage, but not today. Today he was perfectly composed, smiling even.
She was seated in the grand entrance hall, dressed all in gray, and O"Kane could see she"d put some time and thought into her outfit-she looked good, very good, better than she had yesterday or a year ago even. Mrs. Roessing was a middle-aged flapper in ultramarine and a silver wraparound hat, and those very fine and shapely legs exposed all the way up to her thighs in white silk stockings you could have licked right off her. O"Kane stood there like part of the decor.
"Katherine," Mr. McCormick said in a pleasant, muted voice, coming right up to her and taking her hand, which he bent to kiss, glove and all. And then, grinning till you"d think his face would split open, he turned to Mrs. Roessing. "And this must be, must be"-and here he lost himself a moment, understandably, twenty years and all that leg, and O"Kane braced himself for the worst-"Jane," he said finally, all the air gone out of him. Amazingly, he took her hand too, and bent to kiss it as if he were playing a part in a movie. he said finally, all the air gone out of him. Amazingly, he took her hand too, and bent to kiss it as if he were playing a part in a movie.
b.u.t.ters took the ladies" wraps, Mart slunk out from behind the statue, and after a few inconsequential remarks about the weather-And how lucky you are, Stanley, to have this heavenly climate year-round and you should just see Philadelphia this time of year, snow up to, well, snow up to here-the whole party made its halting way into the dining room. The table could seat eighteen in comfort, but b.u.t.ters had instructed Mary to set four places at the far end of it, Mr. McCormick to sit at the head of the table, as he was the host, his wife on his right-hand side, Dr. Kempf on his left, and Mrs. Roessing to the doctor"s left. Mart and O"Kane were to stand guard and watch them eat.
Essential to all this was Giovannella, stalking round the kitchen with her left arm in a sling-no, it wasn"t broken, only sprained-her eyes breeding rage while Mary and one of the houseboys scuttered round like scared rabbits. O"Kane had brought her flowers and a box of candy, and he"d actually crawled through the kitchen door on his hands and knees at eight-thirty A.M. to beg her forgiveness, but she wouldn"t speak to him, wouldn"t even look at him, and that was the end of that, at least for now. b.u.t.ters would be serving at table, and they would start with caviar, large gray grain caviar from Volga sturgeon, served on little gla.s.s plates set down airily between the big yellow Arezzo dinner plates, and wine, real wine, decanted from an enigmatic green bottle.
There was soup-minestrone, one of Giovannella"s specialities-followed by financieres aux truffes from Diehl"s, a salad and Italian food for the main course, very Continental. Mr. McCormick"s veal had been cut up for him in the kitchen, so as not to cause him any embarra.s.sment vis-a-vis the six silver spoons of varying size laid out at his place, and O"Kane had been instructed to particularly watch that he didn"t s.n.a.t.c.h up a knife or fork from one of his fellow diners" settings. They chatted. Ate. Sipped at their wine. O"Kane watched, his back to the wall, and he felt the p.r.i.c.kings of his salivary glands and the tumultuous rumblings of his stomach-this was when he hated his job most, this was when he felt his place, one more servant in a sea of them.
Mrs. Roessing praised the grounds-Had Stanley really had as much of a hand in laying them out as she"d heard?
Dr. Kempf: "Yes, Stanley, go ahead."
Mr. McCormick: "I, well, I-yes."
Mrs. Roessing (leaning in to show off the jewels at her throat): "It"s such a talent, landscaping, I mean-I just wish I had it. Really, my place in Philadelphia is going to the dogs, if you know what I mean."
Katherine: "Stanley"s always been clever that way-with drawings and architecture too. Haven"t you, Stanley?"
Dr. Kempf: "It"s all right. Go ahead."
Mr. McCormick: "My mother ... she always said I was, but then she wouldn"t... And I stud-studied in Paris, sketching, I mean, with Monsieur Julien. At his studios."
Dr. Kempf (by way of explanation): "Julien was very big at the turn of the century, practically doyen of the Paris art world-Stanley produced some very unique sketches under him, didn"t you, Stanley?"
Mr. McCormick: "I, well, yes. In pencil and charcoal too. I sketched the Pont-Neuf neuf times. But no nudes, never any nudes. And what do you think of that, Mrs., Mrs. Jane?"
Mrs. Roessing: "Marvelous. Simply marvelous."
It went on like that for two hours, through the successive courses, the desserts, the fruits and now, finally, the coffee. "And what"s your a.s.sessment, Dr. Kempf," Katherine asked all of a sudden, and a chill had come over her, the Ice Queen showing her face. "Can we expect more of this self-awareness and lucidity? Or is this a sort of act you"ve trained Stanley up to perform, like a dog jumping through a hoop?"
Kempf set down his cup, bowed his head, rubbed his eyes and shot a look at O"Kane, all in the s.p.a.ce of a second. "I did talk to him, yes. Yesterday he was afraid of you, afraid you wouldn"t recognize him-or love him still. We went over that this morning and we agreed that there was nothing to be afraid of, that you were his wife and would always love him. You see, the idea is to reeducate him, resocialize him, and introducing him into social situations, particularly in the company of women, is essential. In fact, I"m thinking of hiring on a female nurse."
This took O"Kane by surprise. Women, yes, but a female nurse? Upstairs? Locked in with him?
Katherine said nothing to this. The specter of the female nurse hung in the air a moment, just short of materializing, and then it dissolved. Mrs. Roessing asked for the cream. Kempf looked as if he were about to say something, but held his tongue.
"And what about his teeth?" Katherine suddenly demanded. She glanced at Mrs. Roessing. "And his body odor?"
"He bathed just this morning, didn"t he, Eddie?" Kempf said, swinging round in his seat to address O"Kane.
"Yes, sir, he did, and very nicely too. He bathes every day, without fail."
"His teeth are another matter," Kempf said, "and we"re all very concerned about their condition, but as you know, your husband has an aversion to dentists and it"s been difficult-" "
"Body and mind," Katherine said. "Mens sana in corpore sano."
"All things in time," the doctor said. "The mind and body are one, as you suggest, and by treating the mind I am am treating the body. You wait and see. As his mind becomes free of its impediments, his teeth will improve spontaneously. And then, if we still feel we need to consult a dentist, we"ll bring one in-once he"s well enough-just as we"ve brought you ladies in today." He paused a moment to brood over his cup. "You should be gratified, Katherine, after Stanley"s performance today-and I hope you"ll give me a little credit for it." treating the body. You wait and see. As his mind becomes free of its impediments, his teeth will improve spontaneously. And then, if we still feel we need to consult a dentist, we"ll bring one in-once he"s well enough-just as we"ve brought you ladies in today." He paused a moment to brood over his cup. "You should be gratified, Katherine, after Stanley"s performance today-and I hope you"ll give me a little credit for it."
"But that"s just it-it was a performance. I want my husband sane and sound, and I"m worn out with waiting. And I don"t see that psychoa.n.a.lysis is the ne plus ultra-as you well know. I"ve been in contact with Dr. Roy Hoskins, of Harvard, and he"s had great success in cases like Stanley"s by correcting glandular irregularities and I see no reason why he shouldn"t be called in to examine my husband to see if there isn"t some somatic solution to all this. After all, you can"t deny that he shows certain features of hyperthyroidism-his height, the disproportionate length of his digits and other appendages, which on seeing him today seem to me to have grown, and quite noticeably, and I really feel-"
Kempf cut her off with an impatient wave of his hand. "I couldn"t disagree more. Psychoa.n.a.lysis got him into this room to sit down at table and conduct himself as a gentleman in the presence of ladies, and psychoa.n.a.lysis will provide his cure-if we can speak of a cure at all in these cases. He is not not a hyperpituitary case, and gland feeding will accomplish absolutely nothing, I a.s.sure you." a hyperpituitary case, and gland feeding will accomplish absolutely nothing, I a.s.sure you."
The Ice Queen wouldn"t let go of it. "It wouldn"t hurt to try, would it? I really wish you would at least consider-"
"I"m sorry, Katherine," Kempf said, bringing the cup to his lips and giving her a long steady look. "Though I take note of what you"re saying and I"m willing to try anything short of witchcraft to improve your husband"s condition, believe me, the a.n.a.lytic approach is the best one, and as long as I"m in charge you"ll have to let me make those decisions. He"s improving. You"ve seen the result of it today."
Katherine leaned into the table, both her elbows stabbing at the cloth so that it bunched up around them. "Yes," she said acidly, "and I saw it yesterday."
"At least you"re seeing him," Kempf shot back. "Isn"t that something? "
"Yes, yes it is, doctor-Edward," she said. "But I expect more, much more. And I intend to stay right here in Santa Barbara for as long as it takes to see my husband"s health restored-both mental and physical. That"s my mission, that and nothing else." She looked to Mrs. Roessing for approval, and Mrs. Roessing, smoke streaming from her nostrils over her pursed and pretty lips, gave her a wink.
"What"s more," Katherine went on, the Ice Queen, all buoyed up now and never satisfied, never, "let me remind you that I I am the one who will make the final decisions here. All of them." am the one who will make the final decisions here. All of them."
Katherine was true to her word. Every day at one, through Christmas and the New Year, on through the soft stirring close of winter and the advent of the spring that was just like the winter, fall and summer that had preceded it, she and Mrs. Roessing came to have lunch with Mr. McCormick and to sit with him as late as five or six some afternoons, playing at cards or reading aloud to one another or simply sitting there in a swollen bubble of silence. O"Kane was present for all of it, and so was Mart. Mr. McCormick"s improvement had been dramatic and he was making new strides every day, but he was still dangerous and unpredictable, still a threat to his guests and himself, and when he"d made his good-byes-always bowing and sc.r.a.ping and kissing the women"s outstretched hands in a drama of self-effacement and servility that made O"Kane queasy to watch-his nurses escorted him back upstairs to the barred windows and the iron door.
He had his bad days still, days when he would stagger out of Kempf"s office in the theater house with his eyes streaming and his lips drawn tight, and then he"d try to run or take out his anger on some innocent shrub the gardeners had been attentively nurturing and shaping for years. Once, when O"Kane gave him a gentle nudge toward the house after he"d begun to stray, he bent down, pried up one of the flagstones and chased both him and Mart all round the lawn with the thing held up over his head like a weapon. Another time, for no reason at all, he kneed Mart in the privates and boxed O"Kane"s right ear so savagely it buzzed and twittered for days, like a dead telephone connection. "What"d you do that for, Mr. McCormick?" O"Kane protested, clutching the side of his head while Mart blanched to the roots of his hair and sat himself awkwardly down in the daphne bed, right atop a gopher"s mound. "Be-because," Mr. McCormick stammered, his face clenched like a fist, "because I-I hate, I hate-" He never finished the phrase. Not that day, anyway.
Still, he was improved, vastly improved, and being with women-seeing them, smelling their perfume, touching their hands with the driest fleeting caress of his lips-seemed to be working wonders for him. Katherine began to bring Mr. McCormick"s twenty-year-old niece, Muriel, with her on occasion, and at Dr. Kempf"s suggestion, they began to take Mr. McCormick on outings. At first they confined themselves to the estate, picnicking amongst the Indian mounds or taking advantage of the views from the upper reaches of the property, but before long-under supervision of Kempf, O"Kane and Martin, of course-they began having beach parties. Katherine rented a cabana on one of the splendid south-facing beaches in Carpinteria where the waves broke in gentle synchronization and you could ride them in like a dolphin, the water as warm as a bath. It was comical to see Mr. McCormick in his bathing costume, his limbs pale as a Swede"s, crab-walking up to the quavering line of foam and seawrack and then dashing back like a grade-school boy as the water washed over his toes. Comical, but healthy. It stunned O"Kane to think of it as he sat there on his beach towel, eyes riveted on Mr. McCormick while two men hired for the day hovered just beyond the breakers in a rowboat against the darker potentialities, but in all his years living here in the paradise of the world, Mr. McCormick had never once touched the ocean nor had it touched him.
It was a good time. A happy time. A time of hope. Everyone, even Nick, began to feel that something extraordinary was happening, and they were all of them almost afraid of speaking of it for fear of jinxing it. Mr. McCormick was experiencing life again, out of his cage, reintegrating himself into the grander scheme of things, particle by particle, and for his nurses, that promised-maybe, possibly, eventually-an end to their labors, and a reward. And who knew?-perhaps it would be a substantial reward, a lump sum, every punch and kick and smear on the sheets accruing interest over the unwieldy course of the years.
But it wasn"t to be. If McCormick"s constricted life had miraculously dilated during that amazing summer, opening and opening again as if there were no longer any limits, any judges, any fear or despair or self-loathing or sheer immitigable craziness, there came a day in September-and O"Kane could name it-when things began to close in again. It started with the beach. An ordinary day, the sun high and white, Mr. McCormick in good spirits, the ocean rolling and rolling all the way out to the islands that were wrapped in a band of silver fog. There was the picnic luncheon. The cabana. Young Muriel was there, daughter of a Rockefeller and a McCormick, her legs browned from the sun and her hair turned golden, and Katherine and Mrs. Roessing too, the latter daring in a skirtless bathing suit. Everything seemed fine, until Mr. McCormick, waist-deep in the surf with O"Kane to one side of him and Mart to the other, suddenly cried out shrieking in a way that made you think of men murdered in a dark alley, slit throats, the bayonet in the gut. He was shrieking suddenly and hopping on one foot till he lost his balance and plunged his face into the water and the wet sand beneath, the surf relentless and O"Kane and Mart dragging him out of the water by his arms.
What was the matter? What had happened? Was he all right? Was he hurt? Kempf, Katherine, Muriel, Mrs. Roessing, Mart, O"Kane and even the two men from the boat all crowding round, and Mr. McCormick just clutching his foot and screaming. "The Judges!" he bawled. "I knew they"d get me, I knew it!" His hair hung in his eyes and his face was twisted and wet, the black of his throat and the jagged craters of his rotten teeth, sand like a hairshirt all over his p.r.i.c.kled body. Later they discovered the cause-it was legitimate and real: he"d been lacerated by a stingaree-but that was the end of ocean bathing, and of the beach.
It was also the end of Mr. McCormick"s positive phase, because overnight he became mistrustful and paranoic again, and no amount of reasoning-the stingaree lives in the sea, it meant you no harm, it was an accident, these things happen-would convince him that the whole episode hadn"t been planned as a punishment for him. And he seemed, finally, to blame the women, their presence, for what had happened. If it weren"t for them he wouldn"t have been at the beach-were they trying to kill him, was that it? Was Katherine after his money? Did she want to see him dead? The next day he wouldn"t come to lunch, though Katherine and Mrs. Roessing were waiting in the dining room for him; O"Kane and Mart were prepared to drag him down the stairs, but Kempf said no. When he wanted to see women again, he would. On his own terms. Give him time, Kempf said.
Two days went by. Three. A week. And still Mr. McCormick refused to come down those stairs, and when the rumor reached him one afternoon that Katherine was coming up, he threw one of his fits, replete with the smashed furniture and the deranged raving and the foam on his lips. Katherine had become impatient and began to nag at Kempf, in O"Kane"s presence, threatening and storming like a madwoman in her own right: she was used to seeing her husband again, seeing him daily, and now she"d been cut off from him once more. It was intolerable. She"d have Kempf"s head-or his job at least, all ten thousand dollars a month"s worth.
It was then, right at the end of September, that the nurses decided to take matters into their own hands. "It"s a dirty shame," Nick said one night when both O"Kane and Mart had stayed behind their time because Roscoe was otherwise occupied and wouldn"t be back till nine. They all agreed. Mr. McCormick had come so far and now he was spiraling back, two full turns a day, and no one to reverse his direction. "What about what we discussed, back around Christmas of last year, remember, Eddie?" Nick said. "Getting him a woman, I mean. If his wife can"t do it for him, some-what would you call her?-some consulting nurse could. Right?"
O"Kane was elected, because of his reputation with women-a reputation long since obscured by Giovannella and little Guido and Edwina and the business end of the bottle, but never mind that. He went down to Spanishtown the next night-and it had changed, squeezed and reduced by the grand new buildings going up in the wake of the earthquake-and asked around a few of the joints he knew. It was all underground, speakeasies, triple knock and codeword-"Clara Bow"; "Big Bill"; "Dixieland"-but anybody who knew anybody or anything could get in and no questions asked. He found her at the third place he tried, a cramped downstairs s.p.a.ce so full of people, noise and smoke there was no room to breathe, let alone enjoy a drink of whatever s.h.i.t they were selling behind the bar. O"Kane sampled a few anyway, leaning into the bar as if it were a bed, a pillow, Giovannella with her dress up and a smile on her face, and when he turned his head, there she was.
She was sitting alone at a table in the middle of the room, people dancing and jostling all around her and n.o.body even giving her a second glance. She had a compressed, angry look about her, bad luck and worse news all the way round, and she was clutching a cigarette as if she were trying to strangle it. Smiling Eddie O"Kane, pimp to the McCormicks, moved in. "Hi," he said. "Mind if I join you?"
She glared at him.
He sat down.
"Buy you a drink?" he offered. The music was furious, clarinet, piano, drums, people doing the shimmy and the Charleston, the very table shaking with the thump and roar of it.
Her mouth softened. She"d been holding it very tightly, as if it might fall off her face and shatter if she wasn"t the carefulest girl in the world. She couldn"t have been more than twenty. "Sure," she said, and her lips fell back in what she probably thought was a smile.
They agreed on a price-it was dicey, real dicey, because all the way up the stairs, out the door and into the big blue-black Pierce Arrow limousine she thought she was going to bed with him, Eddie O"Kane-but when he explained the situation to her somewhere between the Salt Pond and Hot Springs Road, she began to balk, especially seeing the car and its appurtenances and Roscoe up front in his monkey cap, and he had to double the price to keep her quiet. Twelve-thirty in the morning, the night watchman, the iron gates, the house like a chunk of the night cut away with a serrated knife and blackened in India ink. Lights on upstairs, though, and Nick and Pat waiting on tenterhooks. "He won"t hurt me, will he?"
"No," O"Kane a.s.sured her, "no, he won"t hurt you. Besides, we"ve got him restrained."
Her voice, so thin and frightened it sickened him and he almost backed out of the thing right there: "Restrained?"
O"Kane didn"t know what to say. He led her up the big staircase and opened up the barred door himself, her thin cold elbow quailing under the grip of his hand, and she was trying to be brave, trying to get through with this, he could see that. "Jesus," she whispered, turning her head to get a look at the bars as they pa.s.sed through the doorway, and O"Kane held her there a minute while he turned the three separate keys in the three separate locks. And then, Nick and Pat gouging her with their eyes, she hesitated at the bedroom door and the thought of what lay behind it, the bed bolted to the floor and the barred windows and Mr. Stanley Robert McCormick, Reaper heir, lying there on his back, wrists and ankles bound up tight-double tight-to the bedposts. "You better give me the money," she said, her eyes shrunk to pinp.r.i.c.ks, the mouth a misshapen hole in the middle of her face. "Give it to me now."
Nick and Pat both watched, silent presences in a darkened room, no light but what the stars gave and the moon-it was their duty, after all-but O"Kane couldn"t do it. He should have been exhilarated, should have felt good, should have rejoiced in Mr. McCormick"s happiness, the need and thrill and privilege of every man-s.e.x, just s.e.x-but instead he went out onto the upper patio and hung his head over the drain in the corner and threw up everything he"d drunk that night, and the taste of it, full of bile, was bitter and lingering, a sharp unallayable sting of the lips and tongue that was like the very kiss of despair.
Kempf was perplexed. "I can"t understand it," he said, getting up from behind his desk and pacing up and down while O"Kane sat in a chair so comfortless and hard it might have been designed for the witness stand at the county courthouse. "We were making such progress, and now nothing: Pffft! I throw the usual bugbears up to him-his parents, his wife, the experience in Paris-and he won"t respond at all. Even free a.s.sociation"s a dud. I say "boxer dog" and he just stares at me. All he"ll say is "one slit, one slit," over and over again." He knotted his hands behind his back, shaking his head, dapper and narrow-shouldered, with the bleeding eyes and precise hair of a screen idol. "I thought we were past all that."
O"Kane didn"t respond. The doctor was talking to himself, really, as he did nearly every afternoon in the wake of his session with Mr. McCormick; O"Kane was merely a sounding board. Holding himself very rigid, hardly breathing, he let his eyes crawl round the room. The decor wasn"t substantially different from that of the Hamilton and Brush eras, but for the fact that Hamilton"s neurological molds and Brush"s Hawaiian scenes were gone, replaced by a single ma.s.sive reproduction of a painting that was affixed to the wall of Dr. Freud"s office in Vienna, or so Kempf claimed. "Le Lecon clinique du Dr. Charcot," a plaque beside it read, and it showed a white-haired doctor-presumably Charcot-supporting a young hysteric by the waist while twenty bearded students looked on and her nurse stood ready to catch her should she fall. The woman was wearing a low-cut blouse that had slipped down over her shoulders, and though she was standing, she appeared to be unconscious-either that or faking it. The significance of it all escaped O"Kane, except that the woman was a real looker and Charcot obviously had her in his power. So what was the attraction for Kempf-wish fulfillment?
"That stingaree was a d.a.m.ned unfortunate thing," Kempf mused, still pacing, "rotten luck and no two ways about it. But I thought Stanley was getting over it, I really did, and now he"s blocked again, no more sensible or responsive than a stone. Something has set him off, no doubt about it-you don"t know anything that might be troubling him, do you, Eddie?"
O"Kane, rigid, just his lips: "No, nothing at all."
"It"s funny," Kempf said, pausing now in front of O"Kane"s chair. He was looking down at him, furrowing his brow, squinting those rounded eyes till they were no more than slits. "Really odd. Nothing happened last night, did it? While you were here-or after? That you might"ve gotten wind of, that is?"
"No, nothing."
The doctor made a feint with his hand, as if he were trying to s.n.a.t.c.h something out of the air. "I just thought that Nick or Pat might"ve-"
"No. Uh-uh. They didn"t say a word."
"Well, something has happened. I"m sure of it. He won"t say, but I"ll get it out of him. You watch me. I just hope it won"t ..."
"What?"
Kempf let out a sigh. "I just hope it won"t compromise the progress we"ve made with his wife and the others-and you know, I"ve already hired on the new nurse. Mrs. Gleason. She worked under me at Saint Elizabeth"s."
And now O"Kane was stammering, just like Mr. McCormick: "I don"t think-well, it"s not my place to say, but is it really advisable to bring a woman in-I mean, at this juncture? When he seems so disturbed? Over the stingaree, I mean."
Kempf"s face fell open like a book, only it was an unreadable book-a psychology text, written in German. "Why, yes," he said, "of course. That"s the whole idea. To show him that women are no different from you and me, from men, that is, and that they"re as natural a part of living in the world as trees, flowers, gophers and psychologists. The more women we introduce him to, the more-"
He was interrupted by a knock at the door. It pushed open partway and b.u.t.ters" face, flushed and startled-looking, appeared in the aperture. "Mrs. McCormick to see you, sir. And Mrs. Roessing."
Katherine stalked into the room then, her heels punishing the floorboards, Mrs. Roessing following languidly behind. "I just can"t stand it," she announced, addressing Kempf, who"d stopped his pacing and was posed in front of the painting in the exact att.i.tude of Charcot. "And frankly, Dr. Kempf, I don"t care what your opinion or advice is on the subject, but Jane and I have come to take my husband out to luncheon-a proper luncheon-at our hotel."