The doorman opening the Bentley door and with a whisk brushing the floor and with a cloth wiping the seats. Max climbing on the running board, smiling about him as people pass, admiring this machine. And ready to start the engine, turning to bow his head back to the hotel with suddenly a look of consternation overcoming his face.
“Hey, wait a second, Steve, did you see that. Goddamn. Holy good goddamn. Hey look. That son of a bitch the saxophone player. I have a good mind to take the goddamn five dollars back. Took it out of his goddamn pocket and was looking at it. Son of a bitch can see as good as you or I. Boy, if that don’t half-take the cake and make you lose your faith in people.”
Max putting on his driving goggles and helmet, slamming his foot down on the accelerator and the four and a half liters of engine pulling away with a gnashing of gears and explosive exhaust. Horn honking out into and up Madison Avenue and past men’s emporiums of fashion. And already doing fifty miles an hour before we reached a red light several blocks north at Forty-seventh Street. Max’s conversation turning back as it did these days, to the war days as we sailed forth farther north to Fifty-ninth Street.
“You know pal, an incident like that phony blind musician would remind you of that old motto you heard recited on board ship in the navy. When you find a friend who is good and true, fuck him before he fucks you.”
People’s heads turning to look as the great machine throbs by and with a squeal of tires and one bumping up over the cub, turns into Sixty-fifth Street.
“Remember that old apartment pal I had in the Garment District. I was kind of goddamn glad to get out of there. And glad too, I took over the lease at Waverly Place from Ertha when we went to Houston. I said ‘Let’s keep it, nice to have a bolt-hole in New York? Boy, prophetic words. And you know pal, the truth of the matter is coming out. I would have liked to have a good marriage and children like my own parents. Guess you must feel the same. But I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to throw away my life again on some goddamn woman who has no personal principles. Christ, you remember that sinking when all the guys were clinging to rafts out in the Pacific and just waiting to be eaten by sharks one by one. Jaws tearing off a leg and coming back to tear off another, some guys torn in half.”
“Gee Max, the war’s over. What do you say we kind of get on another subject.”
“Sure, pal, no problem. But it’s just how I feel sometimes. But there, right there, we’re passing the external architecture of my other club. There it is, pal. In that nice Georgian mansion building. That’s where you go where you can sit with a good old bourbon and branch water. Absent yourself from the world and all the stress and strain and be at peace with yourself in the collectively discriminating atmosphere you can enjoy with the kind of good ole boys they got as members. Take you to dinner there sometime. You’d like it. Now we’ll give this little old four and a half liters something to make noise about right down Fifth Avenue.”
The big motor turning down Fifth. Past the steps down to the zoo. And slowing outside another redbrick mansion on the corner where a policeman stands on guard. Max swerving and horns honking as he drives, ushering the Bentley to a halt at the Plaza Hotel under the elegant ornateness of its porch. Max taking off his goggles and helmet and along with a five-dollar bill, enough to rescue me from penury, handing them to the doorman. Climbing the steps, stopping at the top and with his sense of occasion, bowing to the fountain across the street. Following him into the lobby and past the Palm Court’s marble pillars and potted plants, a piano tinkling a Strauss waltz. More marble along a corridor of jewels. Display cases of diamonds, pearls, emeralds and rubies gleaming behind the glass. And into this somber paneled interior. A romantic mural of Central Park behind the bar. By a window, Max inviting me to take a seat at a table and stretching out his legs and proferring and then lighting a cigar. Puffing out the smoke as he adjusts his purple silk handkerchief in the breast pocket of his blazer. A waiter hovering near.
“Krug, my good man. Krug. Vintage 1947 would be appreciated. A bottle.”
“Coming right up, sir.”
“Now Steve, did you hear that. No ifs ands and buts. But ‘Coming right up.’ Well pal. Here we are. And I particularly like the Umbra. And you see, old bean, a first-class place, a first-class waiter and exactly what we want on its way.”
“Max there is little doubt that this is ambience of the highest order but this is going to be three bottles of champagne.”
“It’s four in fact, pal. But who’s counting or cares if you’re just that little bit inaccurate. And goddamn. Here we are back at the old Plaza. Where we’re going to go get something to eat soon in the subfuscus somberness of the old Oak Room. But bloody hell, whenever I think of that goddamn phony blind musician, it gets my goat.”
“And I don’t mind telling you Max this is really a totally wonderful way to spend an evening, never before having set foot in this most attractively sumptuous place. Nor I suspect shall I ever afford to be able to do so again. And especially to be able to get tipsy on champagne.”
“All my pleasure, pal. That’s why I was a little miffed about that girl with real smart brains called Joy. And she wasn’t giving you much Joy in return for all that bullshit you were giving her. But old buddy, for all your ole high-falutin flowery bullshit of the past, it really is good to see you. And be encouraged by a remark you just made about music. And you know the one thing I always have admired you for was your goddamn downright honesty. Remember aboard ship that’s how we met. You found my wallet in the head. Dropped out of my pants while I was taking a crap and left it behind on the deck. You wouldn’t even take a reward. Or tell me your name. Took a dickens of a time checking all over the ship to find you again to really thank you.”
“Well Max, at least for the time being, I appreciate your turning me into a saint.”
“No problem, friend. No problem, believe me.”
Delighted waiter smiling, lifting bottle from its ice bucket, displaying the label, dark crimson and gold: KRUG & CO, REIMS, PRIVATE CUVÉE EXTRA SEC. Slowly filling glasses with this saffron-hued effervescing liquid as Max holds his goblet up to the streetlight out the window and toasts the waiter.
“Here’s to you, good gentleman. Your swift expertise and to the year 1947. And to my composer pal Stephen O’Kelly’O, right there across the table, popping a peanut in his mouth. And you know pal, how you can get pressed down into the deepest dumps and depression, and talking or nobody or nothing can get you out of it, and then you make a break for it. Get in touch with an old pal. Get the old Bentley out. And like the little bubbles do from the bottom of this glass, the gloom lifts from the spirit. And while it does old buddy, just let me give you a little more idea of the whole story, pal. The sons of bitches down there in Houston are trying to get a case together to charge and sue me for embezzlement.”
“Gee Max, embezzlement.”
“Yeah. Imagine.”
“That’s pretty serious.”
“Yeah, it is, old pal. No one likes to be accused of cooking the books in old spaghetti sauce. Said I married Ertha for her money. I mean, all right, it was an incentive if other negative things were strongly taken into consideration. But you’d admit pal, that she stood out fairly well in the competition and I might have married her for herself. A damn attractive girl. Wouldn’t you admit it.”
“Yes I would, Max.”
“But then they said I was planning to forge Ertha’s signature on checks. And friend, the trouble is, it’s true, I did practice writing her autograph. I collect the goddamn things. Even the old captain’s of the ole Missouri. I mean, handwriting has long been my well-known goddamn hobby to study for Christ’s sake. She caught me—her words, not mine—as I sat there in my monogrammed silk pajamas at dawn one morning in the library, and looking over my shoulder, when I thought she was still upstairs asleep in bed. That’s the kind of subterfuge I had to contend with, tiptoeing downstairs in her bare feet and sneaking up behind me as I nearly had a whole page covered with au
tographs. I was comparing copies I had of President Roosevelt’s and Harry Truman’s. But about ten times, I had written hers. All right, I knew it was an ill-advised crazy thing to do. But it wasn’t because I was in any way desperate and trying to do anything underhanded. It was because she had such crazy illegible handwriting. Which I thought would be impossible to imitate. It ended up I could write her signature better than she could. And who knows, she could have become incapacitated or something, broken her wrist or gone gaga in her old age. I mean, if she couldn’t speak, who was going to translate her handwriting. I mean, Christ, how many times in the navy did I have to end up doing that, executing a favor for the deserving.”
“Gee, Max, have you got a lawyer.”
“Sure. But even to get falsely accused of such a thing in the kind of confidential trusted work I do in a prestigious brokerage house. It’s like they’re blackmailing me.”
“Max, stand fast.”
“Pal, I sure am. But I got to stay loose, too. Options open, keep on the move. Motto is, don’t dawdle, don’t delay. If I had, not that long time back, I could have been killed. Or maybe the better word is murdered. Right at the front gates of the old house in Houston, which in fact had only just been built. We’re driving out to a black-tie dinner party in the sky blue convertible Cadillac her father bought us as a wedding present. Or correct that. Bought her as a wedding present. The gates are closed when usually they’re always kept open. She didn’t want to spoil her finery so I had to get out of the car to open them. And then as I was loosening the latch I happened for some reason to turn around. You could hear the car’s back tires sending pebbles up into the sky and Ertha behind the wheel, in the driver’s seat and the goddamn car less than twenty feet away seemed like it was already doing fifty miles an hour as it came at me. I jumped, and wham, she hit those gates not only open but flattened them right off their hinges of solid steel and the car shot right out into and across the road and ended up on the front lawn of the big mansion across the street. And gave the poor old ornery bastard who lives there a permanent fibrillation, he claims, of the heart.”
“Gee Max. I mean couldn’t it all have been accidental.”
“Yeah, that’s what she said—her high heels slipped off the clutch or something. Except that an heiress’s butler with whom she was having an affair and who was supposed to be trying to embezzle and blackmail her, was killed like that just a few months before. Plus, the goddamn Austrian cook we had and who I didn’t trust, was watching out the window. A whole conspiracy could have been going on. Nearly fell over, I got so sick to my stomach.”
“Holy cow, Max.”
“Yeah. The cook, sort of a family retainer they had, was on her side. And yeah, holy cow, I started to watch my food. Powdered glass or arsenic or something like that in the soup to flavor it.”
“But hey, come on Max. What wife from a good family and reputable ladies college, would want to do to a good-guy husband like you something as seriously heinous as that.”
“Who said the family was any good, pal.”
“Well, their lives must have been fully financially satisfied out of the petroleum industry. Didn’t you tell me her father had an oil find that was so big that when it gushed, they thought it was an earthquake.”
“Oil wells can fast go dry too, pal. Happens all the time. So does murder. Because for a start, I carried three-quarters of a million dollars of life insurance with Ertha as the sole beneficiary.”
“Holy cow, gee Max, that’s an awful lot of insurance.”
“Yeah pal, makes you kind of careful of making sure none of your beneficiaries is close behind you as you look down over a cliff into the Grand Canyon. You think you team up in marriage for the greater good. March up an aisle. Bouquets of flowers on the altar. Big grand reception. That’s why you didn’t get an invitation to the wedding. Made a big fuss. Said you married Sylvia for her money. And I guess it was in honor of my being in the navy that we ended up sailing out of Galveston on a chartered yacht, for the honeymoon. Glamour and glory. But boy, both can be here one second and gone the next. Replaced by an ole starved diamondback someone’s put in your car, with its rattles muffled.”
“Holy cow Max, do you mean a rattlesnake.”
“Yeah pal. Zoologically Croatlus adamanteus. It’s a little goddamn different to an ordinary rattler, with its massive head and fangs. Big goddamn thing. And what it does when it bites you is give you a hell of a lot less time to live before you die.”
“Holy cow, Max.”
“You bet. Here, let’s replenish our goddamn glasses with the old Krug. Right. But here’s what’s worse, pal. I learn what’s all behind it. I used to go off on the weekends to do a little duck shooting. And I suspected something was going on. One coming weekend, she asked if I was going and how long I’d be away. I said yeah, the usual. I packed up my kit, including a little ole baseball bat and got into the ole Bentley. Now I know this sounds a little like plotting. But I had surveillance sound equipment already laid out in the cellar, where I had it rigged up to the bedroom so I could hear every goddamn thing going on in there. Then conspicuously driving away with a wave and a few beeps of the horn, outside town, I park the old Bentley to be minded by a garage I got friendly with, and I hang around a bit, waiting to head back in a taxi at what I calculated would be the crucial time after nightfall. I get out down the road a little on foot and reach the house. Then watch through the window. And I’ll be goddamned if the son of a bitch wasn’t smoking my cigars and the both of them playing my records, dancing for Christ’s sake cheek-to-cheek, and goddamn well drinking my port which I had shipped over and laid down from London. Well, I wait till our bedroom light goes on and sneak in and go down into the cellar. There, I’m waiting for the strategic time to arrive while I’m listening on my equipment. Boy, you don’t want to hear people talking about you. But at least I knew when the time was right for going upstairs. Sorry to laugh, pal. But goddamn, as I slowly opened the bedroom door, if you could have seen the look on her face, it should have been framed in gold leaf. I had the goddamn baseball bat raised. I was smiling as I tiptoed in. The two of them are naked on the bed and there he is on top of her, humping away and she’s struck dumb, looking over his shoulder as I’m approaching with the baseball bat. The timing was perfection. She’s more than struck dumb. She can’t believe it. He’s groaning on the verge while I was on the verge of an inconsolable paroxysm of laughter. His bare ass faster, up and down, up and down as I get closer, bat up higher in the air. Louisville Slugger. I thought, when the hell is she going to scream, ‘watch out, Buster.’ But she knew that if she didn’t give me the opportunity to land the bat across his bare ass, I’d have to cream him one with it right on the skull. Whamo, old friend. Buster was the bastard’s real name. But then I’m thinking, maybe she really is struck dumb. Women are unbelievable, aren’t they, pal. I think it was kind of turning into a frisson for her. I don’t mind telling you old buddy boy, that baseball was my sport. I was sort of a Lou Gehrig in high school. This was my favorite bat. I had held the record for single home runs with it. Gee, it was great. I brought it down on the bastard’s ass so hard it must have seemed like a three-thousand-year-old sequoia fell on him. Or that he was having the greatest orgasm in history. Anyway, he was a big son of a bitch and I wanted to be sure both hip joints would be fairly well out of action. Plus, I had brought up my shotgun and had it leaning by the door and had on my cartridge belt full of number-six shells. And just so everyone understood my mood, I took up my ole Holland and Holland and let off one barrel to demolish her dressing table mirror. Ertha let out a sizable ole yelp at that. I marched him out stark naked into the night, under the trees and still with a goddamn erection. But he lost that by the time we got down the drive and out into the street. I had already blown out his car windshield and his four tires to pieces. Told him to walk home. And walked behind him a way. And you could hear me singing the national anthem of Texas loud enough for the neighbors to hear. ‘The eyes of Tex
as are upon you. All the live long day. The eyes of Texas are upon you, you can not get away.’ Boy, he sure was one ole poor scared hombre.”
“Gee, Max, isn’t trying to get you for alimony and embezzlement a little bit anticlimatic, but understandable. I’m beginning to think that my life with Sylvia has really been blissful. Do you think there is anything positive peeking up out of the grim horizon.”
“Well pal, I guess instead of life being lifelong all lovely, it can be all hatred. But just to be humanely treated is all one wants from a woman. Who after they dig what they want out of you, leaving you a husk, then desert to go back to being masters of their own fate to maybe go dig something of further benefit to them out of some other poor guy’s life. Like in the spider kingdom. But pal, let’s let Krug get rid of the present concentration on my insoluble old problems. Here’s looking at you, old bean.”
Glasses tinkling in yet another toast. And the waiter delivering the remainder of the champagne to the wood-paneled vastness of the Oak Room. The evening clientele collected at the array of white tables gleaming with porcelain and glassware and polished knives, forks and spoons. And where a cheered-up Max and I dined within the somber splendor of its walls. Oysters with the remainder of the Krug and filet mignon, creamed spinach and salad with a booming Burgundy, as Max termed it. To then, as the hour before midnight approached, sacredly address, as Max also termed it, wild strawberries flown in from France and with a fine native whipped American cream to further glorify the tarnished gold glory of Château d’Yquem. My ass even felt a shiver of sympathetic pain that must have been felt by Max’s wife’s boyfriend as the baseball bat landed. And now on all sides the reassuring voices and faces and the swiveling eyes of those saved from poverty. Even a famed movie actor and actress basking in the furtive attention of all the other diners. And across this vast high-ceilinged room, all were neither sad nor glad knowing they could pay their check for dinner. And like Max, be able to retire to clean sheets to wake up on yet another day to do the same again. But the emotion of the evening taking all the turns and twists of a Tchaikovsky overture. And all I wanted to know was why it was that movie actors and actresses achieved such public idolatry when such should be reserved for the great composers.