Читать книгу Dagger of the Mind - Kenneth Fearing - Страница 3

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CHRISTOPHER BARTEL

The fierce glare of the electric light beating against my eyes dragged me back to consciousness. I reached for the lamp, to switch it off and fall again into a vague half dream. I couldn’t quite place the woman who was in it, just that she had very black hair, black eyes, very pale skin, and the scent of Tabac Blonde was very heavy. But I couldn’t reach the lamp and, after a while, I saw that this blaze of light going through my head like a dentist’s drill was not from an electric globe but really a shaft of the sun pouring in through a window at the foot of the bed. It was too far to reach the shade. Then I must have stared at the clock on the end table for a long time, and when I had stared at it long enough, saw that the hands pointed to nine-thirty. Altogether too early. Finally, then, I got a connection.

This wasn’t Rockville Center. I was at Demarest Hall, the art colony. Breakfast by ten o’clock or not at all, unless I wanted to drive into town. I didn’t.

I looked around for the liquor that ought to be, had to be standing somewhere, and saw it on a table beside the easel in the middle of the studio. I made my way to it across a rug that made me feel as though I were wading, poured two inches into a glass and put it away. Then I had another one, and began to feel O.K.

The canvas mounted on the easel, the picture I was now working on, showed a mermaid sitting on a cliff waving good-bye to somebody on a steamship already far out at sea. I didn’t know whether to call it “Farewell” or “Grief.” It wasn’t exactly a masterpiece, I had to admit, but the colors in it were quite good, the balance was correct, and it wasn’t one of my best things, anyway. On the floor, leaning against the easel, stood another one, the picture of a Negro woman dancing in a flaming red gown against a background of band instruments. This one I called “The Dance.” You could feel the movement in it, lots of movement, which, after all, was my strong point. I shouldn’t go in for static effects like “Farewell.” Or perhaps it would be better to call the picture “Grief.”

I crossed the studio to the bathroom and stepped under the shower. That Tabac Blonde was no dream; it was real, though I couldn’t place it. I had to scrub like hell before it went away. Trying to figure out what had happened the evening before was like fitting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing. The last clear picture I had showed me practically carrying the writer, Harley Hale, from a night club somewhere, name and location unknown, out to a taxicab and from there, presumably, bringing him back to the Hall. I could remember that Hale had a weeping jag and nothing would do but I must hear all about his six years in Joliet. Manslaughter, entirely accidental, according to him. Then what happened before the night club and after we left it brought in nothing but a jumble of static, and I tried to put it together from the other end of the evening. Dinner in the main dining room came through without any trouble. I remembered, in particular, a nuisance by the name of Connors, said to be a poet, who had made quite a play for Lucille, and after dinner most of us had taken a dip in the pool about a quarter of a mile from the Hall. Lucille Nichols. The name slowed me up. I saw smoldering black eyes, a white, haunted, almost desperate, subtly sensual and unbelievably beautiful face. And then I got the Tabac Blonde. Waves and waves of it. Of course. We had finally gotten rid of Connors and gone to a roadhouse called the Halfway House, a small group of us, where we’d danced and cooled off some more with a few drinks. But what happened between the time we left there and I helped Hale out of the other place was another blank.

Dressed, shaved, combed, my blond and rather pink face seemed, in the mirror of the studio bathroom, quite fresh. The Bourbon was doing its stuff, and I felt much better. Generally, though, I don’t think it’s such a good thing to drink before breakfast. Along toward three or four in the afternoon, I’ve noticed, you’re apt to feel like a wreck if you do. But this was a special occasion, I felt. So I had another one, while I stuffed cigarettes into the pocket of the silk blazer Geraldine had given me. The day would be hot later on, but right now it was still cool.

My studio was one of four in a one-story building at the southern end of the quadrangle around which most of the buildings of Demarest Hall were arranged. The Hall itself was a big, rambling architectural accident housing the kitchen and dining room, the lounge, reading room and library, a game room, writing room, chapel, music room, two reception rooms, a canteen, and the director’s office and private living quarters. To reach it, I followed the oval path skirting the drive that led up to the main entrance of the Hall. The other seven studio buildings around the quadrangle were about the same as the one in which I had been placed, and this accounted for most of Demarest Hall except for the five studios away off in outlying parts of the estate, allocated to musicians, so that the rest of us wouldn’t be disturbed by the racket they constantly made.

When I stepped into the large lounge of the Hall the first person I saw was P. C. Cooke, the director of the estate. I should have said that he was around forty-five. There was a legend about Cooke to the effect that very little took place in Demarest Hall without his knowing nearly everything there was to know about it. Clairvoyant, they called him. If so, he didn’t look it. He was stout to the point of fatness, the face that he seemed to try to compose into an expression of geniality somehow displayed, instead, perpetual bewilderment and vague annoyance, while the robust good humor of his voice and manner had the effect, from time to time, of giving way to something perhaps more fundamental with him, cynicism and a sort of concentrated, though bottled-up fury.

P. C. Cooke said, with unctuous heartiness, “Good morning, Mr. Bartel. Just having breakfast?”

“Good morning,” I said. “Yes. Join me?”

He showed me a sheaf of the yellow envelopes used for official purposes by Demarest Hall, and said,

“Just as soon as I give these to the steward to distribute.”

He disappeared into the office used as post office, bank, information bureau and general canteen. Ten yards in the other direction gave entrance to the main dining hall, over which, in Gothic letters a foot high, ran the inscription:

WHILE WINE AND FRIENDSHIP CROWN THE BOARD

WE’LL SING THE JOYS THAT BOTH AFFORD

It was a minute to ten when I crossed the threshold, probably the last to appear for breakfast except for P. C. Cooke. Some seven or eight other guests of the Hall were still there, although most had finished long ago, and gone, either back to their studios, or to town, or somewhere about the estate for tennis or a swim. Breakfast was buffet. I helped myself to orange juice, onion soup, bacon and eggs and coffee, and brought the tray to the only remaining table, one of the dining room’s four, still set for service.

I said, “Good morning,” to the table in general, but looking at Lucille Nichols, and sat down. She was as vivid now as she had been in the dream. Her smile was something personal between us, and things happened to me.

She said, “Chris, I want you to meet my husband. Walter, this is Christopher Bartel.”

I nodded and said, “How do you do,” to the only strange face at the table. The face, redder and fleshier than raw beef, appeared to nod at something in the remote distance and, although no sound issued from it, the eyes behind their shining glasses gave me a prolonged, unwavering stare. While he was still memorizing me I put away the orange juice and started on the soup.

Besides the Nicholses there were at the table Connors, Hale, two girls who would be unobtrusive in any surroundings anywhere, a ghost writer by the name of Harry Dunn, and a tall, thin, abstracted person, Karl Weiss, a painter considered of some note among a few critics, and intellectuals who made a religion of the pseudo-modern and esoteric. And we were favored, presently, by the appearance of P. C. Cooke, who emerged from his office to join us at the table with a breakfast comprising one graham cracker and a glass of cold water. Cooke, reminding me of a frustrated undertaker, smiled forcefully but unhappily about the group, then addressed himself to Nichols, whom he evidently knew.

“Pleasant journey, Mr. Nichols?”

The red face slowly lifted itself and spoke, after a while, with hoarse deliberation. “Rather pleasant,” he said. “Yes.”

“Find your studio comfortable?”

“Very comfortable, thank you.” Nichols, finished with the trout he had been eating, reached for and ostentatiously removed a bone from his teeth, forgot to lay it down on the plate as he spoke. “Always a pleasure to return to the Hall.”

“It’s a pleasure to have you.”

“I like the atmosphere,” said Nichols, ignoring Cooke. He waved the fishbone for emphasis. “It’s fascinating, to say the least, to find myself again among so many fakers.” The fishbone, raised like a conductor’s baton, halted P. C. Cooke’s conciliatory smile. “Morons, lotus eaters, drug addicts,” Nichols’ words grew slower, the pauses between them longer, but the lifted baton commanded attention, “drunkards,” I gave the guy a hard look and forgot to swallow, “gangsters and their intimate consorts,” the ghost writer, Dunn, had known and written for a dozen of them, “traitors and renegades,” it came to me that a couple of evenings before, in a heated political discussion, some such language had been applied to William Glass, a political journalist present this season, “and murdering jailbirds.” Nichols’ fishbone fell to his plate and the tiny sound was like a rolling crash of thunder. I looked at Harley Hale. Rather pale in the face, he stared at Nichols, who ignored him and now, still devoting his entire attention to P. C. Cooke, allowed an ecstatic smile to spread over his face and gently added, “Yes. It suits me perfectly.”

Miss Gregg, a musician, sounded an innocent, melancholy giggle and the poetess at our table, Miss Attelio, shyly but firmly climbed upon the stage and spoke her lines.

“You make us all sound so interesting, Mr. Nichols,” she said. “If only it were true, I think it would be simply wonderful.”

Nichols’ snort of laughter was a Gargantuan shout.

“True? Wonderful? God bless you, that’s not the half of it. I forgot to add the thieving and conniving citizens of the township, who’d rather lose a crooked dollar than earn an honest one, and who hated the Demarests when they were living, and who hate the Hall and everyone in it now.” He stopped laughing and shouting long enough to blow his nose and draw a deep, gurgling breath. “Yes, and I forgot to mention our perennial plagiarists. Some of them in the past have been truly fabulous. Any plagiarists this season, Mr. Cooke?” Mr. Cooke attempted to take refuge behind a meaningless shrug. In the pause that lengthened, Nichols turned his attention to him, ponderously, once more. “And I somehow omitted to speak of escaped lunatics,” he pointedly added. “Yes, there’s nothing like a maniac at large to give that final touch to an art colony. Is there, Mr. Cooke?”

P. C. Cooke stared at the other half of his graham cracker as though he had already dined far beyond his capacity. When he spoke, his smile radiated benevolence, his eyes were a study in rage.

“Mr. Nichols, you’re a pessimist and a scholar,” he announced, and the conversation lapsed as the steward brought round the mail.

Albert Page, formerly of Highgate, moved quickly and quietly with the distribution. When he reached me he put down four letters, one of them, I noticed, in the yellow envelope of Demarest Hall.

I stopped him and said, “Albert, if you’re going to be in town this morning ...”

“Yes, sir?”

“I’d like to get something through the canteen, if it’s not inconvenient.”

“Be glad to do it, Mr. Bartel.”

“Well, you can bring back two quarts of Old Granddad ...”

“Yes, sir.”

“... two bottles of Teachers ...”

“Yes, sir.”

“... a bottle each of any good gin and dry Vermouth and a bottle of skin bracer. Got that?”

“Yes, sir, thank you. What was that last, sir?”

“Skin bracer. Any good brand. Mennen’s will do,” I said.

“Does that come in quarts, sir, or fifths?”

“It comes in small bottles and you get it at any drug store. Think you can remember?”

“Right, sir, I’m no bargain, sir, but your order will be there at the canteen by twelve o’clock noon, or would you prefer to have it delivered to your studio?”

“Better have it delivered.”

“Yes, sir, thank you.”

Albert moved away and I finished the last of my bacon and eggs. One of the letters was from Geraldine, I saw, another was from Blanche, and one was from Joan. And there was, finally, the note from P. C. Cooke. I couldn’t imagine what it would be about, unless the Hall were already billing me for extras I’d ordered, and that would be odd, since I’d been here for only four days. While I ran over the first two letters, P. C. Cooke ate the last half of his graham cracker and excused himself, followed by the Misses Gregg and Attelio, then Weiss and Harry Dunn. I realized, after a while, that I’d been the object of Mr. Nichols’ attention for some minutes past. I looked over at him. He said, in that deep, hoarse voice of his, “I beg your pardon. Your name is Christopher Bartel?”

I said, “Yes.”

“I hadn’t realized, at first,” he said. “Not the Bartel?”

I smiled and said, “Yes.”

He gestured with his forefinger as he had before with the fishbone, and his booming voice rose, “Not the Christopher Bartel who does those truly remarkable magazine covers, those luscious likenesses of Hollywood stars, those marvelous night club murals and delightful hosiery ads?”

I didn’t like the way this was shaping up. I said coldly, “This summer I’m doing something a little different. No commissions at all. My own things.”

Nichols appeared, by now, to be addressing himself to some vast, invisible audience.

“What sort of things of your own? Like that justly famous mural of yours in the cocktail lounge of the Traveller’s Club, ‘Tropical Sub-sea Life’? What gorgeous colors, Mr. Bartel, what rhythms.... Let me compliment you. And that marvelous mermaid in the background.” He shouted once, then his voice sank to a hoarse, half-whisper. “Any mermaids this summer, Mr. Bartel?”

My reaction was without any thought at all, it was purely reflex. When it was all over, and it was over in a brief moment, I was standing on my feet holding Nichols’ glasses in one hand, the hand with which I’d swept them off, and watching him struggle to rise from the floor where I’d knocked him with the other.

Lucille said, “Chris. Don’t be a fool.” Somebody else, I think it was Connors the poet, said, “Don’t be a fool, jump on the guy while he’s still down.” Hale said, rapidly, “What goes on? I didn’t even see it happen.”

Nichols, laughing and shouting, got up from the floor, methodically straightened his chair, took the glasses I mechanically extended.

“You see?” he said. “The congeniality. There’s nothing like it anywhere else. Now, if you’ll excuse us, Mr. Bartel? And Mr. Connors? And Mr. Harley Hale? I’m sure you want to get on with your interesting memoirs, Mr. Hale.”

Lucille gave me a long, helpless, resigned glance as she rose, and left the room with him. I simply watched them go. It had been stupid of me, but there was nothing I could do about that now. I sat down again.

Hale babbled, nervous and not entirely coherent, “You hear that? Hear what he said? What’s he got against me, anyway?” I lit a cigarette with elaborate indifference. “What a heel. Somebody ought to kill that guy.”

Connors got up from the table.

“That’s an idea,” he said, tossing his napkin down and turning to go. “Why don’t you?”

“Me? Say, listen, what’s the idea of a crack like that?” But Connors was already out of hearing, and Hale gave his distressed concern to me. We were alone at the table. “Think Connors meant anything by that? Anything special, I mean?” I shrugged and tried to look as bored as possible. “By God, Bartel, I want to say ... I want to say I met some queer people when I did time in Joliet, plenty queer. But they weren’t half as loony as some of these people around this place.”

I didn’t say anything. I remembered the note in the Hall envelope, and opened it. It ran:

Dear Mr. Bartel,

Conditions being such as they are at the Hall, what with not being too well staffed entirely due to economic reasons, I would take it as a personal favor if you would, in the future, not make such heavy personal shopping requests of the steward, regarding large orders for liquor, etc. etc., as these things take his time and much space in the station wagon, let alone to be delivered at your studio.

Yours most respectfully,

P. C. Cooke

I had to read it twice before I could make out exactly what Cooke was driving at, then I read it a third time with an odd sinking sensation. There was something wrong there, about that note. I passed it over to Hale.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Read it.”

While he did so, I checked over the sequence of events. By the time Hale had finished the note, handed it back and said, “Well?” I had it figured out. But it was impossible.

“P. C. Cooke brought those into the post office before he came into the dining room,” I explained. “A whole batch of letters, and this was one of them. But I hadn’t even ordered anything from Albert at that time. You heard me do the ordering, yourself, right here at the table. And Cooke himself was here all the while.”

“It’s peculiar,” said Hale.

“Peculiar? It’s not possible.”

“They say,” he said, “that fellow Cooke is a mind reader.”

I stood up. The Bourbon was wearing off, and I needed another couple of drinks to think this out.

“How the hell could he read my mind,” I asked, “when I didn’t know what was in it, myself, until I saw Albert?”