Part 9

“When the Army finds out about your fantastic memory, you won’t have to worry whether the Idlewild Hotel Corporation impleads an insurance company,” Larry said. “They’ll stick you in a uniform before you can go out and buy mothballs for your other clothes.”

“The insurance company walked out of the case,” Bemrose complained. “We gave them plenty of chance to defend the action, and they wouldn’t touch it. Said they weren’t liable. Now what do they do?” He motioned helplessly. “Raise a howl because we have this order to implead them. Figure it out, Larry. If we have to pay the judgment, then turn around and sue the insurance company before we can collect a red cent----”

Larry glanced at the door.

It was Lucy. Bemrose motioned her to a chair without getting up to greet her. She smiled at Larry and sat down rather stiffly. Larry thought she looked tired, but he couldn’t tell whether it was fatigue, or the weary gray hat and mannish wool overcoat. Some women looked trim in man-tailored clothes, but not Lucy. They didn’t go with her particular beauty which needed fluffs and bows. Arthur may have insisted on the outfit, the way he handed her stripes for the bedroom, Larry guessed. Whatever had done it, she looked years older than Bemrose’s client of a few months ago.

Larry smiled at her. “Arthur tells me you’ve done a nice job of fixing over your place.”

She looked quizzically at Bemrose, her head tilted slightly. “We want you to----”

Larry waved away her apology. He turned toward Arthur. “I’ll go on down with you.”

But Bemrose picked up his brief, pretending not to hear. “Tell me what you think of this as a clincher under Point One. It’s from _Traylos_ versus _Commercial Union of America_, page three hundred fifty-nine.” He read distinctly, giving each syllable its full measure. “‘The purpose of this provision of the Civil Practice Act was to avoid circuity or multiplicity of actions--’ That’s exactly our situation. Just what section one hundred ninety-three is supposed to cover. For the life of me I don’t see how they can claim--” His voice droned on.

Lucy shifted uneasily in her chair.

“Where’s the fire?” Bemrose turned toward her sharply.

“Maybe I’d better phone Marge and tell her we’ll be late.” She went to the door. “I can dial the number out here,” she said.

“Sit down.” Bemrose swung sharply toward Larry.

The gray eyes clouded, but she sat down. She wet a finger and rubbed a scratch in the mounting of her black calf handbag.

“What do you make of this nonsense?” Bemrose slapped a page of the brief. “They maintain that the jury will misconstrue the issue. Instead of concentrating on the plaintiff’s claim, the jury will try to decide whether we’re liable or the Company. You’d think juries never had to decide more than one issue. Why in the _simplest_ actions----”

Larry half listened, while he glanced at Lucy. The stiff thread of tension held her erect. Larry felt his own neck warming with embarrassment for Bemrose.

“Have you told Lucy about the case?” he asked. “It’s a question of whether this insurance company that wrote the policies for Arthur’s client can----”

“Is it the case about the hotel?” She let her eyes thank Larry.

“Yes, it’s about the hotel,” Bemrose answered. “It’s the matter that I’ve been working on nights.”

“The decision will raise hell with insurance companies from now on if the Judge’s order sticks in this case,” Larry explained to her. “They’ll be in for a flock of nasty judgments. He’s really creating new law, your old man.” Larry nodded toward Bemrose.

“Arthur, you didn’t tell me that.” Her voice climbed happily, ready to be proud of him.

“Don’t pay any attention to what Larry says,” Bemrose broke in.

“You’ll have more fun paying attention to what _I_ say than what he says. Let me buy you both a drink,” Larry offered. “This stuff is way over our heads, isn’t it, Lucy?” He walked over and boosted her elbow.

“I have to phone Marge. Arthur promised we would get there early. She’s planning dinner for six-thirty.”

“What are they running, a radio station?” Bemrose asked. “We don’t always have to show up on time. I’ve told you we don’t. People ought to eat when they’re hungry----”

“It will only take a minute to give her a ring,” Lucy said, stretching her arm across his desk.

He pulled the instrument toward him, out of her reach. “We’ll go with Larry and have a drink.”

They found seats down the street at a bar. Bemrose ordered a Martini, rocking in an unsteady chair manufactured to look roughhewn. The place with its stone floor, dim lights, and fake log cabin furniture had the dreariness of an unaired cellar. It must have been the gloom that fortified Bemrose, his troubles crawling into this smelly hole, its dinginess hiding them. He had three Martinis while Larry finished two and Lucy sipped a lukewarm Coca-Cola. The gin made him noisy. Three lawyers Larry recognized from the County Lawyers’ smiled from the next table, and while Bemrose loudly rehashed the details of the appeals’ brief, Larry saw them stop talking. One of them might work for the insurance company-- Larry brushed Arthur’s foot, and he subsided.

He threw back his head and aimed the Martini olive down his throat. “Do you think I should write London?” Arthur asked. “I was going down to Bolling Field tomorrow, but if you think I’d do better writing that party----” When he gets loud, nasal, and starts drinking, he’s thinking of Janice. When he’s evil to Lucy, he’s taking it out on her because of Jan. When he shouts down Little Shots, he’s trying to build up his ego in order to square accounts with Janice. He wants her to know what she gave up and regret it, Larry decided.

Maybe he shouldn’t have shown Arthur the letter from Jan. But it was hard to know the best thing to do. Bemrose had read it and handed it back without any special reaction. He seemed calm enough then. It took three Martinis and Lucy----

She shoved aside her half-filled glass and sneaked a look at her lap where a lavish new diamond watch, undoubtedly a present from Bemrose, shone on her wrist. It was all right for him to give it to her, but apparently not all right for her to look at it.

“I’ll have to run along.” Larry waved for the check. “I promised the boys to stop in at the clubhouse on my way uptown, and Bess expects me home tonight for dinner.”

He patted the top of Lucy’s hand. “Bess is like your Aunt,” he explained. “She likes to sit down and eat right on time.”

_Chapter 10_

A month later Marge Daugherty, Lucy’s aunt, phoned and invited Larry to dinner, saying that she had always wanted him to come up, ever since he had been so nice about helping Lucy with her case, and that she and Ed didn’t see nearly enough of Lucy and Arthur’s friends. She made it sound casual. It was going to be just the family. They’d put on an extra plate for him, as easy as that.

Larry accepted, and joined them in a round of drinks when he arrived. Arthur complained about the old-fashioned Ed had mixed. “Still loading them with sugar.” He held his squat glass up to the light. “Damned stuff won’t even dissolve. It’s one way to kill good rye.”

“Is it too sweet again?” Marge reached for his glass. “I’ll fix you another.” She glanced at Ed accusingly on her way to the kitchen. “Just because _you_ like them sweet doesn’t mean other people want to get diabetes.”

“I only put in half the usual,” Ed muttered.

Marge picked up a fresh glass, and spooning a tip of sugar from the bowl, sprinkled a few crystals on top of an orange slice while Lucy called to her, “Not _any_ in Arthur’s.”

Bemrose let them wrangle. It was obviously satisfactory to him if they fussed over his cocktail. He sprawled in the armchair, and thanked Marge curtly when she handed him the glass, not bothering to mention the drink she had thrown away on his account.

They sat down to dinner at a table in a corner of the living room, and Marge apologized for the simple meal, assuring Larry that they were treating him just like home folks.

Ed took his place at the head of the table, although it bothered Bemrose to sit alongside. He made a to-do about straddling the table leg, and Larry understood for the first time why protocol was important at state dinners. A man’s place at the head of the table gave him authority, as though his opinions mattered. Ed’s seemed to need bolstering, at least when Bemrose was around.

They might not have started on the War as quickly if Marge had been there to appease them with small talk, but after the first course, she left the room to bring in the roast. Lucy wanted to help her, but Marge urged her to stay put, probably to keep Arthur and Ed from ruining each other’s digestions.

At that point Larry guessed why he had been invited. Marge probably hoped he would ease what must be the growing tension of these family dinners. She and Lucy together couldn’t manage Bemrose and were counting on Larry to give them a hand, or at least to show them how it was done. Larry noticed that Lucy stopped eating whenever Ed began to talk.

He was discussing the recent Nazi drive into Russia, commanded by von Bock. Already the Germans had closed in on Leningrad, although the Russian war was scarcely a hundred days old. The Nazis had about two million men and five thousand tanks in the field. “The paper tonight says they’re pretty close to Moscow,” Ed observed. “I wonder if the Russians can hold out.”

Bemrose shook his head gravely. “I hope to God they can. It’s going to take at least until spring for our stuff to get through.”

Ed meticulously buttered a roll. “We voted them some more Lend-Lease the other day. That should hold them. About five million dollars worth, wasn’t it?” he asked sharply.

“Right now it looks like another Dunkirk.”

“The Church would just as soon see them go down,” Ed remarked.

“I wouldn’t be dogmatic about it,” Bemrose pointed out. “Judge Murphy made a statement in Washington, backing up the President on Russia, and he’s a prominent Catholic.”

“You’ve got the whole Lindbergh crowd on the other side, too,” Ed reminded him. “Lindbergh, Wheeler, General Wood. Did you hear that broadcast from Rome? It said that Lindbergh had better do the talking over here instead of Roosevelt----”

Bemrose hacked viciously at the lamb bone on his plate.

Lucy put her hand on his sleeve, warning him.

“I’m still in favor of sitting tight and not going in until we have to,” Ed declared. “Once we do get in, we ought to be smart and pull out fast. This time we don’t want to feed a bunch of starving Europeans when the war is over.”

“Which would you rather see us do?” Bemrose asked bitterly. “Stay over there and keep order until they get on their feet, or maintain the biggest army in the world from now on? We’ll have to do one or the other.”

“Let the English take care of them. Or Russia. When we finish up, we ought to pull out,” Ed insisted.

Marge giggled nervously. “We aren’t even in the War, and they’re deciding what we should do when it’s over.”

Larry pointed to the lamb on his plate. “Like butter. And tell Bessie someday how you get the au gratin potatoes brown on top----”

“I don’t know what the hell we’re waiting for.” Bemrose’s voice was squeezed and harsh. “Waiting for the British to go under, I guess, so we’ll have to lick Hitler by ourselves.” He sipped his water, had trouble swallowing, and choked.

Lucy thumped his back, but he twisted away from her and bumped his knee against the table leg.

“Have you heard anything from the Army about your commission?” Marge asked him.

Lucy shook her head at Marge, and Arthur continued to cough into his napkin.

“Maybe the Army isn’t sure we’re going to get in it and isn’t handing out anything,” Ed remarked.

“They know what they can do with their commission,” Bemrose said. “I’m going to give them two more weeks. If nothing comes through, I’ll close the office and enlist.”

He will, too, Larry reflected. While a lot of fellows were figuring how they could stay out, Bemrose was going to give up a practice it had taken him almost twenty years to build. Without a second thought he would lock the office, close his house, and get into it. As a private, if they wouldn’t have him any other way. Sure, Larry knew plenty of men who were willing to go--his nephew, Bill, a farmer out in Iowa, Joe Clarke, a college friend who owned timber near Seattle, Eddie Goldbert, the kid who waited on Bessie at the vegetable store in the middle of the block, Larry’s own younger brother, Dave, a physician for the Central Chicle Company. A lot of kids just out of school couldn’t wait to get in, but he wondered how many older men past forty were willing to chuck their professions, men who could ask for safe jobs in Washington, who had access to the White House and held I.O.U.s from the party that was in, as Bemrose did. He might be an idealist, but he deserved credit for acting on his convictions.

How many in the country besides the President himself had the foresight to see what the defeat of Russia or of England might mean? If Bemrose and Janice hadn’t been around and kept pointing it out to him, Larry wondered whether he’d be hep yet, or like Ed, hoping for the best, counting on our luck to get by and let other countries do our fighting. Bemrose was a complex, mixed-up guy. But for all his queer kind of snobbishness and his tactics to indebt those who were powerful and entrenched, for all his drive to reach the top of his profession, to handle the biggest and toughest cases and win them, to be kingpin at home and to keep reminding Lucy of it, Bemrose had a deep-dyed honesty. He was willing to face up to the big questions and to act. He thought the country should be in there fighting this War, and was eager to fight. Personally. Larry might not agree with him, but he admired Bemrose’s guts.

He couldn’t help but respect a man who put what he believed ahead of what was easy and comfortable, and who was willing to trade in the working investment of a lifetime for a chance to stick by his convictions. Larry could forget his flare-ups of temper, and be damned glad Bemrose was his friend. This crowd here--Larry looked around the table--they could feel good about being related to him.

Lucy mixed small pieces of her lamb with her potatoes, as if by disguising them she would do away with the act of swallowing. She fingered her bread into doughy balls and scattered them on her butter plate. The scratched look came back to her eyes, as though someone had carelessly drawn a fingernail across the eyeball. “You tell him, Larry,” she urged. “Tell him there’s plenty of time after we get in--” Her voice shook quietly.

“You ought to think of Lucy,” Marge said. “It isn’t going to be easy for her. Not even if you wait. She’s still a bride----”

“She can get used to being an adult,” he said. “I’d hate to think of myself bringing the bride her breakfast in bed while England and Russia went under. How do you take your breakfast coffee? One sugar or two?”

“Oh, lay off,” Ed said.

Marge stopped to soothe Lucy’s shoulder on her way to the kitchen.

During dessert Larry complimented Marge extravagantly on her plum cake.

She puffed up with the flattery. “Do you really like it, Larry?” She giggled and touched his hand suggestively. “You don’t mind if I call you Larry? You’re like one of the family.”

“I never mind what a beautiful woman does,” Larry said, figuring there was no harm in flattering her. If Bemrose would only sweeten her with a compliment now and then-- He knew how, and could make it sound convincing. The difference between them was that Arthur had to _like_ someone to make an effort. It almost caused him physical pain to pretend with people he didn’t care for. Handing out flattery didn’t make Larry feel like a hypocrite. With Larry it rolled out, and when someone grabbed the hook, he felt nothing but pleasure.

“Have you heard the one about the two cloak-and-suiters who met on Sixth Avenue----”

Bemrose frowned, but Larry went on with the story. Marge laughed so hard that the tears came. Her giggle turned into a shrill cackle. Ed grinned behind the thick spectacles with high school shame at enjoying a dirty story. Lucy’s sad smile seemed to be fulfilling an obligation.

“You never told us he could--” Marge pointed at him and continued to laugh helplessly.

“Where did you pick up the accent?” Ed asked. “You sure have it down pat. Did you ever hear Lou Holtz tell them back in the old days at the Palace?”

But Bemrose didn’t smile.

“Sorry to put you through it again.” Larry turned toward him. “He’s heard me tell that story twenty or thirty times.”

Marge insisted on doing the dishes alone. After Arthur and Ed had pushed the dining table against the wall, they settled down in what became the living room. Larry expected Ed to produce his shoe wax and begin polishing the furniture, noticing him glance uneasily at the wooden leg of a chair to make sure it hadn’t been kicked. But Ed quietly fussed with his pipe. He reamed and refilled the bowl, cleaned the stem, replaced an empty match box with a fresh one, and settled back to a smoke.

“Pick up any liquor last week?” he asked Larry. A federal excise had been placed on liquor October first, and buyers had battled in the stores to lay in a tax-free supply. “I managed to get hold of a case of Bourbon.”

Larry shrugged. “I always let Bessie do the buying for the house. She said something about putting in a few bottles of Scotch. We don’t use much of the stuff----”

Lucy, who hadn’t spoken since Bemrose’s outburst at dinner, timidly said, “Arthur’s dealer on Madison Avenue saved us a case----”

Slouched in his chair and miles away, Bemrose suddenly sat up straight. “Why didn’t you tell me so before?”

“I didn’t think of it.”

“You might have thought of it,” he said. “It might have occurred to you that I don’t believe in beating the government out of taxes. If we have to levy taxes on liquor to pay for the War, and we consume liquor, then I want to pay the taxes on what we consume.”

Larry had heard him sound like that in court.

“Furthermore, I don’t want Mr. Valencia on Madison Avenue telling the neighborhood that Arthur H. Bemrose laid in enough Scotch to last him a year. It doesn’t sound good, not even if _Mrs._ Bemrose----”

Lucy raised her hand, then let her wrist drop on the arm of the chair. “It’s only a case, dear. It won’t last more than----”

His ears were stiff and red. “I suppose you told Mr. Valencia that we use a case a _week_.”

“Let her alone,” Ed interrupted. “Everyone was putting in stuff last week. The liquor stores were jammed. She only thought----”

“She doesn’t. That’s the trouble. I wish once in a while you’d _ask_ me----”

“You were in Washington.”

“You mean for a whole day I was in Washington.”

Larry closed his fingers sharply against his palm. “Arthur!”

Bemrose walked to the radio and looked at his watch as he fiddled with the dial. He skimmed through a quiz program where the master of ceremonies was saying, “Two ‘p’s’ and an ‘i.’ That’s _right_, Mrs. Anderson, that is the way you spell Mississippi, and just for that you get four clean, crisp dollar bills, count ’em, one-two-three-_four_.” Some swing music faded in and out. The dial picked up the last sentence of a shoe commercial promising that now _he_ can be taller than _she_ is, and finally the solid, academic voice of the _New York Times_ brought the nine o’clock news. Bemrose, visibly relieved, sat down to hear the headline summary.

Larry turned to Ed. “How about a hand of gin rummy?”

“Never played it,” Ed replied. “I’ll play you regular rummy.”

“You don’t have to be Einstein to learn. I can teach you in ten minutes.” He turned to Lucy and to Arthur. “Want to make it four-handed?”

But before they had a chance to answer, Ed cut in. “Arthur doesn’t play cards.”

Quizzically Larry looked at him. Why? Why didn’t he want to play cards with Ed instead of discussing the War? One of the reasons a man played cards was to while away hours that might seem interminable because he had to spend them with people he couldn’t talk to.

Bemrose flushed. “I haven’t seen tonight’s paper,” he said. “You two go ahead and play.” He went to the hall and brought back a copy of the _New York Post_. “I want to see if the Supreme Court decided anything in that anti-trust case----”

Larry motioned Lucy to watch the game, but Marge had finished the dishes and brought over a tapestry footstool cover for Lucy to work on with her. Ed clicked off the radio announcements of a sale on sunfast cotton pinafores, and except for a sudden intermittent giggle from Marge, the room settled down to an uneasy silence.

Larry saw that Bemrose was clutching the edge of the paper in his fist and sinking his teeth into the newsprint like a starved man reading a free-restaurant ad. His brow was pulled together, and his hair and mustache defied combing.

Larry expected the quiet to explode, but in a half hour nothing happened except that Ed had mastered gin rummy scoring, and Lucy and Marge had filled a corner of their tapestry cloth with even stitches of dark green wool. Larry began to draw an unrationed breath at last.

The phone rang and Marge jumped up to answer it at a table in the hall. Disappointed, she called from the doorway, “It’s for you, Larry.”

Maybe she thought nostalgically of when Lucy was single and had young men ringing her up. Larry moved toward the phone, sensing the instrument was dangerous and might explode some of the dynamite that was lying around the room. He hesitated before he lifted the receiver. Bessie’s happy, excited voice came through.

“Can you get away from there? Miss Baldwin, you know--Janice Baldwin, that friend of yours--is in town on her way to Hollywood. They’re making a picture of her book, Larry. She told me all about it. She sounds awfully nice.” Bessie chattered on. “She has to see you before she leaves town tomorrow. She wants you to call her right away.”

Larry jotted down the exchange and number as Bessie slowly repeated it. “I hope you can get away. Be sure to ask her who’s going to play the lead in the picture. I forgot.”

Icy sweat dotted Larry’s forehead. There was no use trying to fake a call to Janice with Bemrose sitting a few feet away. He walked over to him. “That was Bess,” he explained. “Jan Baldwin is back and wants to see me tonight. She’s on her way through to the Coast.”

Bemrose went on reading his paper.

“I’m going to give her a ring. Anything you’d like me to tell her?”

Bemrose shook his head. While Larry was phoning, he walked past him to Marge and Ed’s bedroom.

Five minutes later Larry found him slumped on the edge of Marge’s bed, the pink cotton bedspread wrinkled under him, his loose vest bulging.

“She sounded okay,” Larry said.

Bemrose nodded.

“I promised her I’d run over for a few minutes. Do you want me to ask her for you about Lend-Lease?”

Bemrose shook his head.

“You sure you don’t want me to give her a message?”

“What is there to say?”

“She’ll ask about you.” Larry rubbed his palm against the green metal footboard of Marge’s bed, figuring that maybe Bemrose should be seeing her instead.

“You know about me. Tell her,” Bemrose said.

“I’ll have to say goodbye to Lucy and the folks.” Larry hated to leave him in the dim bedroom, lighted only by a pink-fringed table lamp.

“Go ahead and say goodbye. I want to stay here.” Arthur’s mouth was set.

While Larry thanked Marge for the dinner, Ed brought his polishing wax and cloth into the hall, examining the fingermarks Larry had left on the telephone.

At the doorway Larry stood close to Lucy and searched her face. It was clean as a rain-emptied sky, scrubbed of emotion. He felt sorry, damned sorry, for her.

_Chapter 11_

The next day in a taxi on the way to Bemrose’s office, Larry warned Janice not to provoke any arguments.