Chapter 7
Marvin Hett sat at the counter in the Star-Room Bar and stared into his glass. He knew it was still too early, but he glanced at his watch again compulsively. Another hour to wait! He murmured a small curse under his breath. If he didn't have to pick up this new guest, this girl, Nadine Norden, he could be back at Hillside now with Phoebe instead of killing time in a bar in San Francisco. He lifted his head and tried to catch the barman's eye.
Angela Norden's laugh was too high. "Doctor Saxon said that his associate, Marvin Hett, would call me and he did," she told her friend, Suzanne, as they sat in a booth of the Star-Room Bar.
"And he's coming to your house to pick up Nadine tonight?" Suzanne spoke very quietly.
"Yes," said Angela, "tonight." She lifted her glass and swallowed her drink quickly. "There isn't anything else I can do is there?" she asked her friend.
Suzanne shrugged.
"I told you what she was doing," Angela went on quickly. "The only thing to do was send her away!"
Suzanne looked into her glass in silence.
"Well?" Angela's voice was too high. "You recommended Doctor Saxon. I wouldn't have known about him if you hadn't told me about Rhoda."
"Rhoda was different," Suzanne's voice was flat. "Nadine isn't like Rhoda. She's not doing what Rhoda was doing."
Angela snapped her fingers at the waiter, ordered another drink. "No," she told Suzanne, "what Nadine was doing was worse. I mean Rhoda went with a man-but Nadine and Wanda!" She tried to sound shocked but didn't quite succeed.
"Oh, come on, Angela," Suzanne gave her companion a cold smile. "I remember when we were Nadine's age. I remember when you-"
"That's beside the point," Angela cut in loudly and quickly. "Anyway," she lowered her voice, "there's Vernon!" She kept her head down. "Don't forget I'm getting married to Vernon," she said.
The waiter lifted the empty glasses off their table, placed them on his tray, then moved away.
"I hadn't forgotten," said Suzanne very quietly when they were alone again.
"Don't you understand," Angela hissed almost fiercely. "If-if Vernon saw her. Saw her with Wanda! Don't you understand?"
"And Nadine's fifteen and you're thirty-five!" said Suzanne coldly.
"Yes!" she snapped out the word.
"And Vernon's twenty-five; right in between!" Suzanne looked at Angela with her eyebrows raised coolly.
"I don't want to think of it," Angela hissed.
Suzanne nodded. The slight smile on her face was more bitter than amused. You don't want to think of him in between, do you, Angela? she thought, You don't want to think of him in between Nadine's juicy little legs! Because that's where you might find him! "Come to think of it," she drawled, "if I were getting married to a man ten years younger than myself, I wouldn't want a sexy, little fifteen-year-old bouncing around either." Then she raised her voice and called "Waiter, bring us another."
The barman moved down the counter, stopped in front of Marvin. "Another drink, sir?" he asked. "Another one of our new mixture?"
"Yeah," Marvin spoke slowly. "What d'you call these specials?" he asked.
The barman smiled, placing the concoction on the bar. "It's a Golden X, sir," he grinned, "our very own!"
Marvin picked up his glass, sipped the highball thoughtfully. It was all right, he decided, but it was pretty strong! The name ran through his mind ... Golden X, Golden Sex, Sex-Sax-Pat Sax-Pat Saxon! Christ! He'd better take it easy. He didn't want to become ... He placed the glass on the bar slowly, carefully. He didn't want to be the way he was when Pat Saxon met him! As if the drink, or its name, had acted as a catalyst on his subconscious thoughts. He remembered the night five years before ... the night when he'd met Pat Saxon!
He'd been so damned drunk! So utterly, completely intoxicated! He'd been in Tijuana, drinking wine. It must have been good wine because he wasn't drinking it by the ounce or glass, but by the bottle! He didn't remember how many bottles he'd drunk and he couldn't remember why he was in Tijuana! How he'd got there. He'd been drunk too long. Too many days, weeks, maybe months! Ever since he'd lost his third job in a matter of weeks, he'd been drunk! And before that ... He knew that that was why-why he'd lost the jobs! One, two, three and shall we go round again?
So he'd gone round again and again and ended up in Tijuana. He'd blacked out in an alleyway and that was where Pat Saxon had found him and taken him to his rooms. That was how he'd met Pat! What a crazy way to meet your best friend. But he hadn't know that Sax was going to be his best friend then. He hadn't known a lot of things but Sax told them to him later.
"I found you in an alleyway," the quiet voice had said, "at first I thought you were dead ... I was half-right; you were dead drunk! So I brought you here."
Marvin had opened his eyes, seen the young fair-haired guy sitting on the edge of his bed. Bed! How did he get in bed? "How-how did I get here?" he asked, stupidly.
The young guy smiled. "Like I told you, I brought you here."
Marvin felt the cool, clean sheets on his nude skin. They felt good. Someone had undressed him! "I'm naked," he said as if it were very important. "How come I'm naked?"
"Your clothes were filthy so I sent them out to be cleaned."
Marvin just stared at him. This was crazy. The whole goddamned setup was crazy! "Why?" he asked. "I mean why did you bring me here?"
He'd shrugged. "I couldn't leave you in the street. I'd noticed you in the cafe before. You were pretty drunk then," he spoke reflectively.
Marvin felt his head spinning. "I don't get it," he muttered. "Why? Do you make a habit of bringing home bums that you find in the street drunk?"
"You're not a bum, are you?" he'd asked, calmly, trying to soothe the man.
Marvin shook his head, then closed his eyes. His head ached. He couldn't think straight. When he opened his eyes, the fair-haired guy was holding out a cigarette. He took it and accepted a light. "Who are you?" he asked, not meaning to sound as rude and abrupt as he did. "What do you do?"
"Pat Saxon," he'd said. "I'm a doctor of psychology."
Just like that! thought Marvin. Crazy!
He was grinning at him, looking younger than ever.
"You're too young to be a doctor," Marvin had blurted. "How old are you?"
"Older than you probably. I'm thirty-two!"
Marvin had stared at him. "Jesus Christ! I'm only thirty. How the hell do you look so young?"
For some reason, the question had seemed to embarrass him. Sax had stood up, strolled across the room.
"How the hell do you manage to look the way you do?" he'd asked. What a crazy way to meet anyone! Let alone your best friend!
That was something that had worried him at first. Still did, in fact. Why had he liked Sax right from the start? At first, he'd been afraid he was queer for him or something like that. But it wasn't that kind of liking, wanting. It was like, like-hell, the way you'd feel for a brother or a sister. But hell, he'd never felt like this toward his brother! Maybe if he'd had a sister, he would've! Funny that he could think of Sax as he would a woman sometimes. Funny? Like hell it was funny!
Sax had told him of his plans for Hillside. Though he hadn't decided on a name then. And when he, Marvin, had admitted that he used to work for a broker, selling stock, Sax said abruptly, "You've got yourself a job, Marv!"
So Marvin had started to work for Sax. At first he'd help raise some of the money he'd need to start the place ... the Saxon place. Then, after that he'd just sort of stayed on. Neither of them talked much about it until he'd found that he was Sax's Associate-Business Manager-Public Relations man all rolled into one impossible package. And he'd loved it! He hadn't wanted to leave Sax and he was damned sure that Pat didn't want him to go. So he'd stayed. Stayed year after year and now, Marvin thought with a sense of wonder that time could flash by so rapidly, it was five years! Five years was a long time to stay with one person ... so close to one person.
"Another Golden X, sir?"
Marvin blinked. It was the barman! Christ he had been a million miles away in time. Anxiously he glanced at his watch, then gave a small sigh of relief. It wasn't so late. "No, thanks," he told the barman, rising. "Got an appointment," he grinned at the guy, peeled off a bill from his ample roll and strolled to the door.
The doorman stopped a taxi for him. Marvin tipped him, got in the cab and sank back in the seat. The driver glanced at him questioningly and Marvin gave him Angela Norden's address.