Who He? - (3)

"Black tie tonight, Scout Lennox," Cooper told him, removing the hat. "All out for the Christmas jamboree."
    "What the hell, Sam?"
    "Pull in your feet." Cooper poked at the logs with an old bayonet. "Must apologize, Sir Jasper. Only a cad would touch another man's hearth. They teach you that in Islip? Rules for Perfect Behaviour. Like passing the port to the left."
    "They taught me nothing in Islip," Lennox growled. Nevertheless he filed this lesson away, until he caught the gleam in Cooper's eye. He squirmed a little. "What's this black tie routine? More Perfect Behaviour?"
    "I'll tell you, son. There's no food in the house. So I thought we'd accept Alice McVeagh's invitation and free-load. She's giving a monster rally. A debutante party. Turkey, ham, chutney, kedgeree, boiled mutton, boiled guests, boiled debs--"
    "Who's Alice McVeagh?"
    "You'll like her. She always passes the port to the left. Gives Square parties. Strictly Square. Nobody in the business. A pleasant change."
    "I'm staying home."
    "Not a crust in the house, Jake."
    "I'm staying home."
    "Um. You want to brood, eh? In F-minor."
    "Sam, I need a party like a hole in the head."
    "The hole's there already. You need to fill it. Get dressed. We'll go mingle."
    "Sit down."
    "Get dressed."
    "Sit down."
    Cooper cocked an eye at Lennox, then sat down in the facing wing chair. Instantly one of the Siamese leaped on him. Cooper calmly extinguished it with the chef's hat and deposited it on the floor where it struggled ecstatically.
    "Death to the invaders," Cooper murmured.
    After a long pause, Lennox pointed to the frantic hat and said: "Look, Sam. That's me."
    "The cat in the hat?"
    "Yes."
    Cooper gazed at Lennox with solemn perplexity. "You said you were like a smoke-stack."
    Lennox waved his hand irritably. "I'm fighting blind, Sam. I'm in a hassle. The show's in a hassle. You know about my blackout. You know about Mason lousing the grand prize tonight?"
    Cooper nodded.
    "That's bad enough, but there's something worse. We've been getting letters. Threatening letters. The filthiest crazy letters you ever saw in your life. Five already. Blinky tells me there's a sixth up at the office ... more dangerous than the rest. If I don't do something about those letters, we may go off; but so help me, Sam, I'm so mixed up I don't know what to do."
    "Told anybody about them yet?"
    "No."
    "The network?"
    "How can I? All they have to do is smell trouble ... particularly dirty trouble like this ... and they'll yank us off. They've got a dozen clients hungry for that nine to nine-thirty spot. They've got nothing to lose."
    "Um. Dangerous letters?"
    "Filthy dangerous."
    "That means trouble if you stay on?"
    "Probably."
    "What kind?"
    "I don't know. It's an audience show. Suppose we let a lunatic in one Sunday night. You draw the pictures. Anything could happen."
    "Police?"
    "I'm afraid to go to the police."
    "Why?"
    "That turns it from a private stink into an official stink. That's why Blinky and I've been keeping it quiet. If the story gets out we'll be cancelled."
    "Not positively."
    "I won't take the chance."
    "Why not? So you're cancelled. Is that the end of the world?"
    "I won't be cancelled," Lennox said grimly.
    "No, I guess not. You won't let anything be cancelled, will you, Jake?"
    "Nobody's going to end anything for me except me."
    "And you won't ever end anything."
    "Why should I?" Lennox exclaimed impatiently. "I like what I've got. I'm thirty-five, Sam. I've come a hell of a long way from a kid telegrapher counting words in Islip, Long Island. What kind of a chicken-gut would I be to let it fall apart?"
    "This I don't follow," Cooper said plaintively. "You mean the end of 'Who He?' is the end of everything? Exit Jordan Lennox, homeless, friendless, trudging back to that clam-shack in Islip, a broken man...."
    "For God's sake, will you level with me! I've had a hell of a day and I don't feel like yakking it up. Who am I fighting, Sam? How am I going to fight? Jesus Christ on camera!" Lennox pointed again to the struggling hat. "I'm like that amateur tiger ... banging my brains out against nothing."
    Cooper looked at the bounding hat, then back at Lennox. "Exactly like that," he said softly. "The cat's doing it for kicks. So are you."
    "For kicks!"
    "Yep."
    "That's a lousy thing to say."
    "Why? It's a compliment. Everybody says you've got deep freeze inside you. I know better. This is proof you've got emotions, Jake. Trouble is you only let 'em out of hock once a year, so you have to turn it into a production to make up for lost time."
    "Who's making a production? We've got a law suit coming. We've got a lunatic knocking on the door. I've got a blank day full of memories I don't want to remember hanging over me. I've got emotions. What do you want me to do? Whistle 'Dixie'?"
    "I want you to calm down and spread it out over the rest of the year. Make a note in your gimmick book: New Year's Resolution by Jordan Lennox. I will faithfully--"
    Lennox started up from his chair. "My God! Where's the notebook?"
    Cooper shook his head.
    Lennox raced up the stairs to his bedroom. He carried a famous black gimmick book in which he noted down ideas, gags, references, characters, and so on. He had carried it for ten years. He was never without it, and had developed a nervous mannerism of feeling for it every few minutes ... a sudden sharp flexing of his right arm against his chest to see if the precious gimmick book was in place in his inside pocket.
    He came down the steps a minute later. "Where's my overcoat?" he yelled.
    "Which coat?"
    "The one I wore tonight."
    "You weren't wearing any coat."
    Lennox raced to the front closet, pulled it open and tore at the racks. Then he swung around in dismay. "It's gone."
    "Which? The burberry?"
    "No. Yes. I must have carried it in the coat last night. I lost it in the blackout."
    "Is the coat insured?"
    "To hell with the coat," Lennox cried. "I'm talking about my notebook. It's gone. Lost. The gimmick book, Sam!"
    "Forget it. I was hoping you'd lose it. It was beginning to fall apart."
    "But I've got everything in it. A year of ideas...."
    "You transcribe 'em every week," Cooper said comfortably. "You've got a complete file upstairs in the office. You haven't lost anything. Calm down."
    "What the hell is the matter with you? Can't you understand? I've carried that book for ten years. I've never been without it."
    "Then it's time you bought another one. Start the New Year right."
    Lennox paced in agitation. "I've got to remember where I was last night. I've got to remember. I've got to find that gimmick book."
    "Oh come on, Jake. How long are you going to milk this hysteria routine? Lost nights, lost books, threatening letters.... What d'you think you're doing? Auditioning? You need a new script writer, boy."
    "You lousy bastard! Maybe I need a new friend," Lennox shouted.
    "Maybe you do at that. Want to start a fight? You want to end it right now?"
    "I'm damned well fighting right now."
    "Then let's go." Cooper leaped up and faced Lennox aggressively. He cocked his right fist and pointed to his chin. "Go ahead. Let loose. I've been waiting three years to watch you throw a punch."
    Lennox looked at Cooper uncertainly. In his blind fury he could not be sure whether Cooper was grinning in anger or amusement. At that moment the Siamese burst out of the hat, leaped to Jake's rump and clawed its way up his naked back to his shoulder.
    "Jesus!" All the pressure in Lennox exploded in a strangulated yell. He doubled over. Cooper snatched the cat off his shoulder and hurled it onto the couch. He shoved Lennox into the bathroom, held his neck firmly and sluiced his back with rubbing alcohol.
    "My compliments to Captain Bligh," Lennox said through his teeth. He stamped his foot in agony, almost trampling the mink-dyed skunk.
    "Mutiny never pays," Cooper murmured, kicking the skunk out of the way. He swabbed efficiently with iodine, then led Lennox back to the fire and sat him down on a stool to dry. The Siamese, no fools they, had disappeared. Lennox sat rigid with control until the pain faded. He remained rigid.
    "Stay mad; stay human," Cooper urged. "On you it's becoming. I could kill those cats for lousing our brawl. Let's find them, Jake. I'll hold them while you beat the bejezus out of them. Then the cats can hold me while you beat the--"
    "Shut up. Don't be a damned fool, Sam."
    "Which of us is the damned fool, Jake?"
    Lennox took a deep breath and relaxed. "Me," he said. "A nuisance and a noodnick. Don't tell anybody."
    "On the contrary. I tell everybody. That's why you're getting popular."
    Lennox stood up, took Cooper's shoulder in his big grasp and clutched hard. He looked at his friend with a secret glance of devotion and gratitude, then turned away in embarrassment.
    "After we eat," Sam said casually, "we'll go look for the gimmick book. You'll start remembering. We'll find it. And don't worry.... You won't remember anything to be ashamed of."
    Lennox choked. "How's my back?" he asked. "Is there blood?"
    "Nope. Just scars."
    "Tsk! And me with that Hattie Carnegie backless collecting dust in the boudoir. Black tie?"
    "Black tie."
    Lennox went upstairs and dressed.
    Myself, I don't like Square parties; neither does my wife. Squares are all right, but there's an invisible barrier between us and them. For one thing, our tempos don't match. We can throw away a dozen gags while a Square is beating a cliché to death. For another thing, Squares persist in thinking about the entertainment business the same way they did back in Victorian times. To them we're artificial, child-like and irresponsible. When Squares learn that I'm a writer, I can see that look pass over their faces ... the look that says: He's lazy and hates to get up in the morning.
    They reveal this when they invariably ask the question: "Do you work all night?" If I say yes, they gloat, and I have to restrain the angry impulse to point out that I'm forced to work at night in order to avoid the interruption of Square phone calls and luncheon invitations and all the other pleasant devices which enable them to do four hours work from nine to five.
    My wife has a tougher time. Her face and voice are highly expressive, naturally, being an actress. Whenever she's with Squares they watch her with appraising eyes and constantly interrupt with: "Oh stop it. You're acting now, aren't you? Why can't you be natural?" Once my wife lost her temper and answered a solid citizen: "You want to go to bed with me, don't you? Why can't you be natural?"
    There was a gratifying hush of horror. I whipped out a pencil and scribbled on my cuff. "I've been watching you all with my keen eye," I announced, "and constantly analyzing ... dissecting. I'm going to crucify you in the New Yorker." We swept out, and at the door my wife turned and said: "What's more, we're not even married. He's my brother and we're living in incest."
    Jake liked Square parties. He enjoyed winning respect by admitting that he worked regularly from nine to five, by wearing proper conservative clothes, by showing the outward signs of success which business men understood and approved. He spoke about his profession like an industrialist; and although he was a sensitive, gifted writer, he pooh-poohed such matters as talent and inspiration, and discussed creativity as merchandise, his stock-in-trade.
    He liked Alice McVeagh's party. It was given in her penthouse on East End Avenue, a Georgian duplex with delicate curving staircases, panelled study, oval library, a ballroom and two kitchens, one for the staff alone. The buffet in the dining room glittered with silver and crystal ... fresh caviar on crushed ice, scarlet lobsters, smoked turkeys, great oriental melons oozing thick nectar, a frosted copper cask in which peaches soaked in liqueurs, and dozens of coffee flagons bubbling over alcohol lamps.
    The guests were charming. Cool young ladies and their energetic mothers. Pleasant young men Cooper had known at Loomis and Princeton, and the jolly old gentlemen they would in time become. They were all exquisitely casual about the perfection of their dress and manners. They were assured. They belonged. And how badly Jake wanted to belong on their terms. How badly all of us want to belong on somebody else's terms.
    He was painfully well-behaved. He stood tall and erect and moved slowly, keeping his voice quiet and his hands at his side. He had two sherrys at the bar and chatted respectfully with guests ... a burly gentleman who owned half the cotton mills in New England and was devoted to game fishing, the goggle-eyed son of a near-East ambassador who discoursed in French and broken English on Le Jazz Hot, a red-headed man loading up on white Martinis who confessed he taught scene design at Yale, a pregnant young matron who had been a famous debutante.... Jake's deep-lined face was wooden and unrecognizable to Cooper who smiled privately.
    There was music in the ballroom and couples dashed in to the buffet and back; crop-haired young men and boyish girls with delicious young figures and stereotype faces framed in straight honey hair. Lennox felt awed and hostile toward them. He escorted a brisk dowager to the buffet. She took an instant liking to him (older women always adored Lennox) and favored him with a ringing denunciation of the Metropolitan Opera Management and glowing praise for Charles of the Ritz.
    Cooper rescued him at last and took him to the ballroom. "Eat enough?" he whispered. Lennox nodded. "All right, boy. Leave us mingle."
    There was a Candle-Dance in progress in the darkened ballroom. Ten couples were turning and circling through a simple dance figure while the orchestra played "Pop Goes The Weasel." Each dancer carried a silver saucer candlestick in which a white taper burned. When the orchestra "Popped" the dance stopped, and the dancers tried to blow out each other's flames. When a candle went out, the dancer left the floor. The spinning and weaving of yellow flames gleaming on silk and satin and jewels made an enchanting picture.
    Cooper nudged Lennox and handed him a candlestick and a burning taper.
    "No, Sam!" Lennox protested.
    "Come on, gents. All out for the sack-race."
    Lennox perceived that a second dance circle was forming. There were two girls alongside Cooper, holding lighted candles and waiting impatiently to join the circle.
    "But I've never danced this before, Sam. We had fire laws in Islip."
    "You'll pick it up." Cooper whispered introductions to the girls. "My great and good friend, Arson Lupin. Ouch! Let's go."
    The four slipped into the second circle and began the dance. It was bewildering for Lennox, but he had been a schoolboy fencer and was quick and graceful for a big man. Also, he was intensely competitive. He watched sharply, learned the simple figures and protected his flame. By the time half a dozen had been eliminated from his circle, he was able to look around and enjoy himself. There was one hand-clasp in particular that had electrified him, and he was trying to identify the owner.
    It was a woman's hand, warm, slender and strong. Each time he grasped it, his spine tingled and he thought of the deep carpets in the network offices that produced leaping sparks when you touched a light switch. The hand had been helpful, too, turning him left and right with friendly pressures, leading him through his first confusion. The orchestra went "Pop." Lennox stopped, held his candle high and looked around the circle.
    There was Cooper, looking solemn and perplexed in the glimmering light as he blew mightily in the direction of Le Jazz Hot. There were two honey-haired stereotypes in thin-strapped gowns, shielding their candles with their hands. There was a horsy woman with an extinguished flame, tramping off the floor. The music started again before Lennox could examine the others. He was cynically certain that the horsy woman had owned the hand. Then, as he circled, again came that electrifying touch.
    He looked quickly at his partner. Lennox had a weakness for straw-colored blondes, big-boned women who looked Swedish. This was the exact opposite. She looked like a slave on a Moorish auction block; cropped jet hair in tight ringlets, deep dark almond eyes, a full mouth, strong white teeth. The head was beautifully poised on a long neck. She had wide shoulders and the deep-cut jersey bodice revealed a high full bosom. Her skin was astonishing, very clear, very dark, and as lustrous as black pearl under the candle-light. She was slender, not tall, and moved with a lazy grace that was familiar to Lennox but not yet identifiable.
    The orchestra went "Pop." Lennox and the girl stopped and examined each other, unmindful of their candles. She smiled. Her smile was sudden and changing, like the unexpected dazzle of light reflected from water. The music started again and she danced on to the next partner. Lennox watched her circling and weaving and suddenly recognized what was familiar about her carriage. She moved like a slender, graceful, cow-puncher; the shoulders square, the slim hips swaying, the arms slow and relaxed.
    In that moment Lennox remembered that he had written a thousand love scenes and knew that every one had been a lie. There was a thundering confusion in his head; exultation and terror pounded in his heart. His whole life seemed drawn by the burning glass of this moment into a focus on this girl. She was smiling now at Cooper and murmuring to him. Lennox could have killed Sam.
    He murdered each of her partners in succession until she came around the circle to him again. As he reached eagerly for her hand, the orchestra went "Pop." The other dancers stopped. Lennox continued until he was close to her and took her hand. In the flickering light, his face was black and white with shadows and highlights and looked almost ferocious. The girl's almond eyes widened slightly, and her smile faded, but her body did not lose its easy poise.
    Dancers nudged Lennox politely. The music had started. The girl released herself and continued. Lennox went through the motions and grimly defended his flame from extinction while the girl remained in the dance. Le Jazz Hot left. The stereotypes left. Cooper was eliminated. Six remained. Then five. Then three. Finally it was Lennox and the girl, circling and turning, hand in hand, candles fluttering no more than his own breath.
    They danced for timeless moments, and Lennox, dazed and intoxicated, was not aware that he was speaking to her in silence ... by touch, by glance, by moving expression ... revealing the secret part of himself that had never been shown before. Then he did something extraordinary for Jordan Lennox, the man who never quit, who never conceded, who had wanted to win a victory before those awesome spectators. The music went "Pop." He held out his candle to the girl, and with his right hand extinguished the flame.
    There was a burst of applause. The lights went up. The orchestra swung into a dance tune and the floor filled. Lennox lost the girl in the crush and wandered aimlessly to the side of the ballroom where an unidentified person took the candlestick from him. He went to the bar, now inhabited exclusively by the red-headed teacher from Yale and the bartender.
    "Listen," Lennox began incoherently, "A dark girl. In an off-the-shoulder dress. She.... With cropped hair and oriental eyes. She gleamed...."
    "Who?" the red-head inquired, weaving violently.
    "A girl with black short hair. She--You heard me. Do you know her? Know who she is?"
    The bartender shrugged. The red-head eyed Lennox fixedly, meanwhile shaking his head. "Never heard of her. Never-never-never. No such thing's dark girls anymore. Species extinct. Like used t'be everywhere poodles. Now only boxers. Poodles extinct. Also poodle brunettes, Q.E.D.?"
    Lennox returned to the ballroom. He searched for the girl. He searched for Cooper. Two steps led up to the white door of the oval library. Lennox mounted them for a better view and found himself face to face with Le Jazz Hot.
    "Who was she?" he burst out.
    "Pardon, M'sieur?" Le Jazz Hot goggled at him.
    "The dark girl. In the dance with us."
    "I am so sorry."
    Lennox abandoned him, left the steps and prowled around the edge of the ballroom. He went again to the bar, regarded the red-head and the bartender without comprehension, wandered off and discovered, in a hall of Chinese teapaper, a small Christmas tree hung with corsages. A honey-haired girl in a thin-strapped evening gown was unpinning some orchids from the tree.
    "I beg your pardon," Lennox mumbled.
    She looked at him curiously.
    "The dark girl who was dancing with us. Do you know her?"
    "Dancing with us?" All her charm disappeared in the bray of her voice.
    "My God!" Lennox thought in panic, "I haven't heard her speak. What if she...." Aloud, he said: "The Candle-Dance. The dark girl in our circle who--"
    "I wasn't in the Candle-Dance," the girl informed him coldly and turned away. She was the wrong stereotype.
    Lennox went back to the library steps and began searching the dance floor, couple by couple. Below him and to one side a voice called: "Psst! Hey Jake!"
    He looked down. Cooper was standing there, grinning. "Three down from the drums. With a guy in hornshell glasses."
    Lennox glared at Cooper, challenging derision, then stared at the dance band. He found her and murdered the man in the spectacles. Without moving his eyes he asked: "Who is she?"
    "Don't know."
    "I've got to meet her."
    "Grab her after this dance."
    "I've got to be introduced."
    "Come on, Jake! This isn't the nineties."
    "I want to be introduced. Can you swing it?"
    "I can try."
    Cooper departed. Lennox remained where he was, watching the girl as the man in the hornshell spectacles whirled her out to the middle of the floor. The dance ended, the couples applauded languidly and shuffled. Lennox looked around desperately for Cooper. When he turned back to the dance floor he had lost the girl again. Before he could get panicky he saw her as the music started. She was alone on the floor, walking toward him, with square shoulders and lazy arms and hips. He could not believe his eyes. She came directly to the library stairs, stepped up and held out her hand. Lennox took it and felt both of them tremble slightly.
    "Why didn't you cut in?" she asked in a candid, transparent voice.
    He could not believe his ears. Drawing her with him, he backed into the white and gold oval library. She was smiling uncertainly. After a tremulous pause she asked: "Is this how it happens?"
    Lennox couldn't speak. There was a long silence; a long communication that seemed to dread words.
    "I'm frightened," she said.
    Lennox shook his head.
    "At first I thought I'd help. You know, the dance? Then I thought you were being hasty. And then it happened, didn't it?"
    Lennox nodded.
    "If you don't let go of my hand, I'll faint ... I think. What do we do now?"
    Before he could answer, Cooper appeared in the door with a magnificent white-haired woman wearing a bronze dress and a jade necklace. Both smiled.
    "Ah! Just in time," Cooper said, "Our hostess, Madam McVeagh. Jordan Lennox."
    "So nice to have you, Mr. Lennox." Alice McVeagh shook hands magnificently. Everything about her was magnificent and overpowering. "Gabby, dear, have you met the gentlemen? Jordan Lennox ... Sam Cooper. Gabby Valentine." She overpowered Lennox. "Sam tells me you're an author, Mr. Lennox. Do you write all night?"
    Lennox pulled himself together before the Presence. "No," he answered in the voice of the second son of the Marquis of Suffolk. "I work from nine to five, Mrs. McVeagh."