Chapter 12
For two days he growled around the house, waiting for his eye lids to open and his mouth to take on the semblance of normalcy. When he went out to get some aspirin, eggs and beer, women edged away from him carefully. He looked like a bum in good clothes who had strayed in off the Bowery.
And the telephone didn't let up. All the frustrated secretaries in the office called to find out if he had polio or was run over or what.
In the middle of all this confusion came the everlasting voice of Hilda. He could do nothing that would make her stop phoning. There was nothing she wouldn't do to keep her contact with him alive.
But his eyes burned bright on the vision of Donald. The more he thought about it, the more Cee-Zee wanted to know the source of his anger.
"How do you get a guy seduced who hates your guts?" he finally blurted.
"That depends," she offered, nibbling on a pretzel. "If you're the one who's doing the seducing, it could be pretty difficult. But if you're not in the picture, I don't see that there's much of a problem."
She had said this to him before, but it hadn't penetrated. Now he understood how Cee-Zee's mind was working. But he wasn't going to let her go after this guy on her own. Too unpredictable. Maybe dangerous.
"You keep your nose out of this," he said, pointing a finger at her.
"Well, you asked me for the favor, didn't you?"
"That was then."
"And the episode down in the hall changed things?"
"Definitely."
She laughed at him silently. No doubt she didn't believe that anybody except Lilio had been responsible. She could think what she wanted, so long as she didn't try to do anything rash on her own. But he had no immediate worries on that score. She couldn't find Donald even if she wanted to unless she connected him with the number she'd called. And she had no reason to do that.
"Just shut up and recuperate," he said to her.
"You too."
They lapsed into another, day of silence.
The week was drawing to its inevitable close and he had done nothing, thought nothing of any value. Any day now, Robin would be back and he still looked like hell. That would make a fine impression on her.
In the meantime Cee-Zee, trapped along with him, began to clean up the house because she had nothing better to do. She did it without getting in his way, silently, cat-like. He only noticed after the job was complete and he wasn't sure he liked the idea.
"What did you go and do that for?" he said belligerently.
"Mind your own business."
He was looking for a fight but he held himself in check. The fight he wanted wasn't, after all, with Cee-Zee. "And look," he said, to get the anger out of his system, "if that other bitch calls here once more, tell her I'm married, tell her I'm dead, but get rid of her."
"I think you're going stir crazy," Cee-Zee commented mildly.
"You're right."
Face or no face, he couldn't stay cooped up another hour. "Why don't we go for a ride?" he said. "You haven't been out of the house for weeks."
"I'm not anxious."
"Oh?" He stopped for a moment to see just what was happening with her. He always took Cee-Zee for granted. Nothing scared her, nothing worried her. At least, so he'd thought. Now he inspected more closely.
"I've got my own reasons," she said, anticipating him.
He didn't have the patience to go into it. "Then I'm going by myself."
"Who's stopping you?"
On his way down the steps Eric passed a Western Union messenger coming up. He stood there in the middle of the flight, watching to see. His hunch was right. He saw the boy knock on his own door. He came back up the steps and took the yellow envelope out of Cee-Zee's hands. He had it torn half open before she stopped him.
"You're pretty nervous," she said. "That's for me."
He looked at the name in the glassine window. "Sorry," he said, handing it back to her.
"Expecting something?" she said.
"Maybe. Go on, open it."
"Later."
"You're expecting something too." He took it away from her and finished opening it. "Says here, 'Long time no see. Get in touch. LILIO.' " He looked at her, waiting.
"Now do you believe me?" she said, her voice shaking a little.
He couldn't tell whether it was from anger or fear. "Doesn't mean a thing. He wants to see you, that's all. Doesn't mean he sent his bozos after me."
She grabbed the telegram and crumpled it "What do you know about the way he thinks?"
"All right, I don't know. And I care less. What are you going to do about the love note?"
"See him, of course."
"Of course? If you think I'm going to fish you out of there a second time, you're out of your mind, girl." He had her by the shoulders and his fingers dug into her flesh.
"I didn't ask you to come after me in the first place," she said, her voice very low.
Her words stumped him. His hands fell away from her. He picked up the crumpled telegram lying near the sole of his wing-tipped shoe and dropped it into the waste paper basket. "Are you looking to get killed or sent up or what? I don't figure you."
She walked away from him and got a lipstick out of her purse. She hadn't worn make-up since she got out of the hospital. As she put it on now, the color glared on her mouth. "So you don't figure me," she said, regarding herself in the mirror. "I can't help that."
"If you take one step in his direction, we're through. No friendship. No nothing. And you better hear this be-! cause I mean what I say."
"I hear you." She pulled her hair back from her' temples and tied it with a fragment of turquoise ribbon.! "So I'll take my box of oatmeal and go to California.! If it rains, I'll have cereal for breakfast. If not, I'll eat the oats dry." She shook the metal lipstick at him. "Now you listen to this, big shot. There's a future for me someplace and it's not here in this two bit hole with a stuffy bag of potatoes who hasn't got the sense to keep himself from getting all mashed up. I like you fine but you're just another ego in pants crawling around the face of this earth who thinks he's ten feet tall. Yeah, you saved me. I don't know for what, but you saved me. That was j good for yesterday. And today is today. So pull your fat tongue back into your head and resign yourself. Nobody'-not you, not me-nobody ever gets anywhere worth going by sitting around and using his brains all day long.
Brains aren't big enough. There's got to be a heart somewhere. And you haven't got what it takes." She dropped the lipstick on the dresser and began stroking a tiny brush over her eyelashes.
The weeks of frustration over Cee-Zee suddenly melted in one bright glow of success. He couldn't keep his face from grinning broadly so he turned around in order not to give himself away. Her speech of accusation was not that at all, whether she knew it or not. It was the prettiest speech of frustration and jealousy he had ever heard from a woman. In effect she had told him she couldn't walk all over him and this was the one thing Cee-Zee needed to do with a man so that she could remain safe in her swaddling of contempt. Yes, he had the secret of her all right and it was working out just fine.
But now the time had come for strong arm tactics. "I'm sorry, my dear, but you're not going. If I have to tie you to the bed for a year, you're not going to mess with Lilio again."
He turned to see what effect his words had on her.
Her face was rigid with cold fury. She pretended to ignore him, continuing with the application of make-up that was gradually transforming her features into a whore's mask. Her eyelashes fanned out black from too heavy an application of mascara. The pencilled underlids were hard and almond shaped. She stood now enlarging the beauty mark high on her cheek, twirling the brown pencil carefully.
"So don't give me any more trouble," he concluded in a low voice.
She dug into her purse and brought out the amethyst earrings and screwed them onto her lobes, her chin tilted rebelliously high. He sat down in the living room and waited to see how far she would try to oppose him. He heard her pull the wrapper off a piece of gum, roll it into a ball and drop it with a small plink onto the floor. She padded to the closet and worked her feet into the high heels. They clicked around the room as she donned the remainder of her clothing.
The full picture of her now hurt him. He knew this brashness was a pose. She didn't need to leave her blouse unbuttoned so far down to reveal the ample breasts. Nor did she need the half a dozen bracelets jangling on her wrist to call attention to herself.
She passed him without saying a word, on her way to the door.
He bounced up out of the chair and pulled her back. "I said you're not going." The words came out from between clenched teeth.
"You lousy bastard," she wrenched herself free. "You gonna sit at the door with a shotgun?"
"If necessary. But it won't be. One more word out of you and I'll mess your face up worse than mine so Lilio'll toss you out on your ass. And you should be grateful."
"All right, mess me up." She swung her purse at him. The leather strap stung against his swollen eye.
He pulled it out of her hand and flung it against the wall. Then he slapped her down till she crumpled to her knees on the floor.
"That's how it is," he said finally. "Better understand it now."
He wanted to help her up but she kicked at him as he bent over. How long it would take her to cool down, he didn't know. But better an angry girl, hating his guts, than a dead one. For all her talk and lousy sense, she wasn't someone he could dispense with so easily. A peculiar twist of affection controlled him. It could goad him into anything that would keep Cee-Zee from finishing herself off with Lilio. He couldn't look at her crawling away from him on the floor.
She pushed her shoes off and stood up far away from him. "All right," she said. "All right." But the threat was the weakened threat of a tamed panther.
They studied each other's beat up faces and this time Eric went to get her a cold cloth.