To a man brought up year-round on a country estate, the sights and sounds of a big city can be either fascinating or overwhelming. Yesterday Geoff had been intrigued. Today he wanted all the horses, automobiles, streetcars, vendors, shoppers, strollers, bicyclers, bellhops, porters, and shoeshine boys—to go away. New York was like a London in which no one spoke English.
He'd had a response to one of his notes. Late in the day, the hottest of the year so far and certainly the steamiest, a lifesaving call came through to his rooms: it was Matthew Stevenson, an American he'd met back in his days at Eton.
The voice at the other end was exasperated. "For Pete's sake, Geoff, why didn't you call instead of writing?"
"Habit, I guess. We've only just got around to having a telephone put in at Seton Place."
"It's just sheer luck that I happened to call the New York house to check on the mail. I'm in Newport, of course."
"I'm sorry to hear that; I'd hoped we could get together during my stay," Geoff said.
"And we will, as soon as you pack your bags and come east. Do you have a car?"
"I do."
"Swell. Or better still, get down to Pier 14 and hop on the Priscilla. She's old but grand, still the best ship of the line. If you hurry you can just make it. What d'you say? No one wants to rot in the city if he can avoid it."
"I'm here for the Cup Races, but the offer sounds tempting. I could pack a bag—"
A knock at the door startled Geoff. Another one of his ships coming in? He got Matt to hold and answered it: the Naked General. She was wearing an absolutely smashing ivory dress trimmed out in black, and her red, red lips were shaped into the approximation of a smile. He invited her in—he must have, although later he had no recollection of it—and asked her to wait while he finished his call.
"Matt? Give me your number and I'll call you back."
She was staring out the window of his room, which gave him time mentally to declare her bum, absolutely and without reservation, the best he'd ever seen. She turned, and on impulse he reached into his pocket, withdrew a keyring, and tossed it to her.
Instinctively she caught it, then looked at him, puzzled. It was a new look but not a softer look: suspicion was not a soft emotion.
He shrugged. "I assume you're here for something. All I really have, besides a few old clothes, is the Dodge." It sounded more mean than he'd intended; he guessed that his feelings were still smarting from her abrupt treatment of him the day before.
"What a xenophobic race you Brits are," she said coolly, taking a seat. "Do I look as if I need anything you could possibly possess?'
A heart, it occurred to him to say, but he let it pass.
"I'm here," she began, filling in his stubborn silence "because I was feeling lousy yesterday and I think you might have caught the brunt of it."
"Really? I wasn't aware of it," he said blandly.
She gave him her suspicious look, and he wanted to say, Who's xenophobic now? but again he resisted. He had the feeling that she was there for a punch-up. He would not be suckered in.
"Anyway," she continued, giving him a sideways look, "I suppose this is an apology."
"But you're not sure?" he asked, amused.
"I was in the neighborhood," she said, as if that answered the question. "Sir Tom mentioned where you were staying."
"How are things with Sir Tom?" he asked, wondering if the old man was more tolerant than he of the Fain clan.
"I don't know. My father doesn't talk about his business to me."
"And yet you both create in metal. I should think you'd have a lot in common," he said, leaning back against the lowboy and crossing his arms.
"I don't approve of war machinery, as you may have noticed," she said testily. "Why are you so defensive?"
He did a double-take at that one. "Shouldn't I be asking that question?"
"Not at all. I'm not leaning away from you and protecting my breast with my arms the way you are."
He could see that for himself, even though he'd been trying hard not to. The black lapels of her dress led the eye to a breast that was anything but protected. He smiled and said nothing. It seemed to frustrate her.
She foraged through her bag and came up with a cigarette case which she snapped open and held out to him. When he shook his head she took one out for herself, tapped it against the silver box, and lit it without waiting for his help. Everything was done in quick, impatient movements, as though she had a train to catch. Sitting there, tapping her nails on the edge of the salon chair, her foot swinging in a short, restless stroke, she seemed his temperamental opposite. She had a world to set on fire; he'd been savagely burnt and was looking around for a comfortable cave to hide out in for a while.
Finally she jumped up—it would be inaccurate to say she rose from her chair gracefully—and spoke. "If you want to come along with me, that's all right."
He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. He had no idea how to respond to her odd invitation, but instinctively he knew that she would be mortified if he declined. The truth was, he didn't necessarily feel like declining. But he wanted to get out of the city heat and go to Newport, if only for a day or two, and he had just time enough to catch an evening steamer.
"It's very kind of you to ask," he said, hesitating as a man will who wants two things at once.
"Well, you don't have to go all snooty on me," she snapped, grinding her cigarette into a silver ashtray stand.
"I didn't know I was being a snoot. I apologize." He tried to make eye contact with her, but she was resolute in her effort to look everywhere in the room but at him. He decided in a flash that she was shy, so painfully shy that it distorted the features of her face. "I was about to go downstairs for dinner," he said, abandoning his plans for Pier 14. "Would you care to join me?"
"I asked you to dinner first!" she cried, looking at him as if he'd committed an atrocious faux pas. Her eyes were big and round and dark, almost without color; she fixed them directly on him in a blazing stare. So much for his theory that she was shy.
"I didn't realize ... do all you Americans speak in the same odd shorthand?" he asked, curious.
"At least it's English shorthand. Can we go?"
Her Speedster was brought around for them, mangled fender and all, and they got in. She tossed him her handbag. "Light me a fag, would you? Do you have a favorite speak yet?"
He knew the word from Lotsy. "No. I haven't been here very long. But I get the impression the country is wetter now than it was before Prohibition," he said, lighting a cigarette for her and passing it over.
"Check with someone you trust before you go off on your own. Some of the clip joints can get very rough. You could get hurt."
"You keep saying that," he said with an ironic smile. "Eventually I'm going to take offense."
"Yeah, well, they can get expensive too. A cousin of mine, a real rube from out west, wrote out three separate checks to cover his bill; they told him he was too drunk to sign legibly, so he tried and tried again. When he got home he found they'd all been cashed; the evening cost him seven hundred and fifty bucks. So stay away from the Tipsy Canoe, for starters. And if you do get drunk, whatever you do, don't let them call you a cab. You'll end up on the waterfront worked over and minus a wallet."
He didn't believe her, but then he didn't exactly not believe her. "You sound pretty well informed," he ventured. He wanted to add, "especially for a woman," but women's suffrage was all but a fact. Probably she let things like that go to her head. Probably she didn't care for the phrase "especially for a woman."
Amanda took a deep drag on her cigarette and flicked it overboard. "I know my way around. But any decent cop will steer you to a decent speak, if you ask him nicely."
He rubbed the underside of his chin. "Somehow I don't see myself doing that. In Great Britain we like to assume the police are on the right side of the law."
"Oh, don't be a prig. The Amendment was made to be violated. It's illogical, unenforceable, a leftover bit of jingoism from the war. The only reasonable thing about it is that it wasn't ratified in Connecticut."
"Sorry. Just trying to make conversation," Geoff said, casting his eyes skyward in the deepening twilight. It was such a hopeless task.
"Well—I just don't think you're entitled to an opinion unless you've been there," she said sullenly.
I might say the same for your war sculpture, you arrogant little wretch, he thought. Still, all he really wanted was to have an amiable, pleasant evening. He was finding that he didn't care, after all, what made Amanda Fain tick. Besides, she made him feel old. He stole a sideways glance at her; she was groping in her purse on her own, searching for another cigarette. The hell with her. Let her get her own bloody smoke. He wondered how old she was. The first bloom of youth had passed, certainly. Old enough to know better, he decided. Late twenties?
Another silence ensued; he was getting used to them. Amanda pulled up on West Fifty-Second Street, not far from an enormous brownstone monstrosity which turned out to belong to Cornelius Vanderbilt III. Amanda had answered his query about its ownership briefly, and with contempt. The Vanderbilts were less nouveau than the Fains; maybe she was envious.
She turned off the ignition and they sat there in the dark for a moment. There was an adolescent dare in her voice as she said, "How do you feel about cheap thrills?"
"They sound like something I can afford," he quipped, determined not to back down. He had the feeling that she'd challenged him to a pissing contest, and he knew that he was better equipped than she. He got out of the car. She opened her own door and started down the block. He fell in beside her and they walked along a row of elegant brownstones, many of them private residences, until they reached the middle of the block.
Amanda turned abruptly and led him down some steps to a heavily reinforced basement door. She rang the bell. A light went on above them, and a small shutter behind an iron grille slid open. Amanda murmured, "Tango." The door opened and they were let into a dim hall and up to another door, where the same process was repeated. All Geoff really wanted was a cutlet; he could have done without the theatricals.
Once inside Amanda took him directly to the bar and elbowed a niche out of the crush for them both. It was noisy and perishingly hot, and even though the clientele was of the sort that bathed before donning their tuxedoes, sweat was still sweat. On the whole, he thought he might prefer Newport.
He was half expecting her to say, "What's yer poison?" but in fact, she didn't bother to consult him. Two gin and tonics were delivered—although if he were required to flaunt the law, he'd rather have done it with vermouth—and Amanda plunked down two dollar bills, which stunned him.
"Oh, say, I can't allow—"
"I said it was my treat, didn't I? How is it? Not bad, I think. This place waters it less than most." She tapped her glass against his. "To the Volstead Act."
"You Yanks have been a lawless bunch ever since the Boston Tea Party," he said dryly, and watched her down her drink in two swallows.
She motioned to the bartender for refills. "There's a half-hour wait for the food, but it'll be worth it. It's French."
"What's the place called?"
"Gary's."
The drink was getting to him and the heat was killing him; he thought he might be getting claustrophobic. The din, the smell, his altered perceptions—it was reminiscent of the battlefield. Oh God. Not now. Don't make an ass of yourself, he thought. In desperation he began to babble on about his country home, drawing on his memories of cool, damp morning walks through what was left of their meadowland.
She was staring at him and he knew that she wasn't missing a thing, not a bead of sweat on his brow, but he didn't care. He was babbling on to save his sanity, to win the pissing contest. The round ended when a young, very sleek buck in a dinner jacket squeezed through the elegant mob, slid an arm around Amanda's waist, and dropped a comically passionate kiss on her well-formed neck.
"You!" she cried, surprised. "It's here? Tonight? I don't believe it! Marvelous!" Amanda turned to Geoff. "Meet my brother David."
This was David? That David? The one with the broken wrist? Where was the cast? Bewildered, Geoff pushed his drink away from him. Bootleg gin must not be like normal gin. He held out his hand, but David declined to take it.
"Sprained," he said, which cleared up some of the mystery.
Flushed with excitement and looking suddenly far more delectable, Amanda explained: "David's got a pal who's a Prohibition agent. He gets all kinds of tips, including which places are going to be raided on a night. We've evolved a kind of game: the last one to leave before the raid wins."
Geoff cleared his throat. "I see. Are we playing the game now, by any chance?"
Amanda looked at her brother. He nodded. "Sammy Tucker walked in with me, took one look at the new bartender, and walked out again."
"He thinks the bartender's the agent?" said Geoff, incredulous.
"Hey, those guys are good. The plant could be posing as anyone—musician, waiter, opera patron. For myself, I'm keeping an eye on the gent in the brown suit who keeps tapping his foot to the piano," David said, nodding toward one end of the bar.
Geoff let go with a laugh, a loud, bright, spontaneous laugh. He'd traveled three thousand miles for the pleasure of being rounded up in a dragnet with two infantile boozers because he got suckered into drinking gin he'd certainly pour down a sink at Seton Place, if he thought the plumbing could take it.
"What's wrong with you?" demanded Amanda. "A little nervous, maybe?"
Ah, the pissing contest; he'd almost forgotten. "Not at all. I just don't think Mr. Brownsuit is our man."
She arched her brows at him, intrigued. "Got any better suggestions?"
He glanced around at the company: most of them were in evening clothes, bound, obviously, for the theater district. Sir Tom was right: society women dressed, or undressed, like Amanda. All around him soft breasts and hips were enveloped in not too many yards of crepe and silk, trimmed in beads and sequins. Fringes seemed to swing from every protuberance. It was all very natural, very alluring. If there was a whalebone in the room, he'd stir his drink with it. Funny how he'd never noticed the change in dress back in England. All he remembered seeing there were visions of Anna in France.
Anna.
"Look, you don't have to play the game if you think it's boring," said Amanda. "We can go. I'll take you back to your hotel."
He shook himself free of the vision. "God, no. I'd drop dead of hunger," he said with a weak laugh. "All right, then: I'd say it was—that bloke there, the waiter with the salver." An arbitrary and unimaginative choice, but he had to stay in this round, and he'd been landed a punch to the gut. Anna.
"Wrong, absolutely wrong. I'm sure he's not here yet," Amanda announced flatly.
"And I'm sure it's the fella at the end of the bar," interrupted David. "Christ, look at him fidget. He's getting ready, and I'm getting out. If Louie comes looking for me, tell him I'm at Ma Maison. It's important."
"Stay out of that joint, David. That's a rotten bunch."
"Yeah, yeah." He gave Geoff a nudge. "Older sister. She should be having kids of her own, but no: dumps all her maternal instincts on little Davey." And he left them.
Embarrassed, Geoff said, "Your brother seems also to be a Freudian of sorts."
"My brother doesn't actually read books without pictures," she said, turning back to the bar and calling for two more.
One thing about Amanda: she could hold her liquor. Geoff was relying more and more on habit to keep him vertical, but Amanda stood straight as a lamppost, even with one slender foot on the bar. He watched in a woozy haze as Mr. Brownsuit, in a burst of twitchiness, approached an attractive but probably too expensive woman on their left.
"Federal agent, my foot," he murmured to Amanda. "He's on the make, pure and simple." He smiled a rather silly smile—unquestionably, he was on his way to being drunk—and added, "Is he here yet?" Amanda did seem to know her business after all.
"Not yet. How's your waiter looking?"
"Rather sweet, actually. He has kind eyes." Geoff brought his glass more or less up to his nose. "This isn't half bad stuff, you know. I may be getting a little squiffy."
"You need food." She sighed. "Well, at least you're not a mean drunk. I'm curious: what exactly are you doing over here? Sir Tom says you came to see the Cup Races, but I don't buy that. Are you in finance? Are you like our Wall Street playboys? You don't look bound for the ministry or the diplomatic corps or anything. Sir Tom says you were hurt in the war. Is that true?"
Sobering, he said dryly, "No. Sir Tom lied."
"Well, I mean I know it's true, I suppose, but ... well, you don't look like a veteran. You look too ... disengaged."
He held up his hand to the bartender for a refill. "Amanda, your sense of timing pales before your sense of tact. Are there any other subjects I can refuse to discourse on before I leave you in search of a meal? Because somewhere in this city of four-odd million, there must be cooked food for sale." His face was flushed, either with liquor or heat, and that annoyed him. He was going to have to concede another round of the pissing contest to her.
"Touchy," she remarked coolly. She began to look around again, the way she had in the hotel room, while he began to think he might be regaining the advantage. Instead, she threw five dollars on the bar and whispered, "Time to go now." Without waiting for him to argue she dragged him by a coat-sleeve away from the entry door.
They ended up in the kitchen. Amanda threw a ten-dollar bill into a salad being tossed by the chef, gasped, "Thanks, Henri," and yanked Geoff out of the service door into the alley outside. "Let's go watch the fun," she said, still breathless.
They went around to the front and stood side by side in the sweltering evening as the clientele, some angry, some laughing, were rounded up outside on the pavement. Nothing very serious was going to happen to them, obviously. The speakeasy itself would be shut down, only to open again in another brownstone, or in the same one under another name. It was all a game, a socially acceptable form of anarchy. Something about it struck at the heart of the civilized values Geoff held dear. "A nation is not governed," he quoted softly, "which is perpetually to be conquered."
Amanda looked at him thoughtfully a moment, then said, "I'm starved. Let's go."
Back in the Daniels, Geoff found himself with a spinning head and wishing desperately that she'd tire of him soon. They passed one restaurant after another, his stomach growling resentfully all the while, on their way to the Lower East Side, where she insisted the best goulash in town could be found. He didn't want goulash. He didn't want gin. He didn't want to listen to her rage over the antics of Attorney General Palmer, who had detained over six thousand Americans since the beginning of the year on suspicion of being Communists. He didn't want to hear about a federal government run amok. If anything, he thought it was the citizens who were running amok. All he really wanted was a cutlet. And maybe some tea.
He got his tea—watery, tepid—along with a bowl of goulash, a dish he considered unpalatable by definition. The Café Budapest, squeezed between a dry goods shop and a shoemaker, had an ambience light years away from Gary's elegant speakeasy. If it were ever raided it would be for violation of the health code, not for the serving of alcohol. There was no alcohol, and as a result there was no raucous laughter, no scandalized squealing. Mostly there was just low, urgent, distressingly sincere talk. Many of the men were bearded; the women, dressed in loosely layered garments which favored black, would have been labeled Bohemians half a century earlier. Two smartly dressed couples, undoubtedly taking a tour of the underside of Manhattan, stood out nearly as much as Geoff and Amanda. The red checkered tablecloths were dirty, but in the dim light no one noticed or seemed to care.
"You don't like it," Amanda challenged.
"My dear young lady, why wouldn't I? Paprika is the salt of the earth."
"I don't mean the goulash; I mean the type of crowd."
"What type is that?" he asked innocently, shoveling reluctantly into his stew.
"Socialists. Reformers. People with a sense of fairness; people who want to make sure that everyone gets half a loaf, instead of sitting idly by while some gorge themselves and others starve. There is more genuine nobility in this room than in all the speakeasies on Fifty-Second Street combined," she said with heat.
He looked into her gypsy eyes, and then around the room. "I think I see a fraud or two," he couldn't help observing.
Her dark eyes flashed triumphantly. "There! I knew it! I knew you had a simple-minded attitude about us. You think a revolutionary should look like a revolutionary, and be unkempt and smelly. It would be stretching vour imagination to breaking point to think that a well-dressed person could care, really care."
"It would be stretching my imagination to picture you giving away your elegant Speedster to that bunch of urchins crowded around it right now," he snapped. Hell and damnation; he'd let her get to him after all. This round was hers. Shit.
Her face looked as if she'd landed a lucky punch: surprised, impressed, hesitant about her next move. "So there is a pulse under that British decorum," she said at last. "I wondered."
"I can be quite obnoxious if you'd prefer," said Geoff. "But I see no—"
A hand came down on his shoulder. Geoff turned in his chair to see a dark-skinned East European with a thick black beard trimmed close staring down at him. "We have met before, have we not?" asked the visitor.
"I think not, answered Geoff politely.
"Lajos, this is Geoffrey," said Amanda, waving a cigarette between them, keeping it informal.
Geoff began to rise for the introduction, but the European waved him back down. He turned to Amanda. "We have missed you at our last gathering, Miss Fain. I hope you seem well."
"Fine, Lajos. I was working on a piece, but it's finished now. I'll be at the next meeting."
"It will be our honor." He turned to Geoff. "I have not intend to interfere. Please go on." With a stiff bow to Amanda, he left them to the remnants of their meal.
"Nice chap," said Geoff. "Has a real way with words."
"A cheap shot. I'm surprised," said Amanda, putting out her cigarette in a battered tin dish.
Embarrassed, he accepted the rebuke. "You're right, of course. Perhaps we ought to call it a night before I become a total savage." He gave her an ironical, weary smile.
"Oh, forget it," she said angrily.
But back in the car she seemed willing to do anything but. "I can't believe how true to stereotype you are. You've just spent a whole evening looking down your nose over a stiff upper lip at a cross-section of America. You're so typically class-oriented."
"You have no idea how typical my orientations are," he said tiredly. She was so relentless. He stared ahead, wondering how much longer it was to the Plaza.
"Sir Tom gave me a bum steer," she complained. "He said you were a very ordinary guy."
"I wish I could oblige." After a minute he added, "I'm surprised you trust the opinion of a knight of the realm."
"Knight of the realm! Who can take seriously someone who calls himself 'Sir Tommy Tea'?"
"You take everything else seriously," he reminded her.
"Like what?"
"In order of appearance? Your brother, your father, your sculpture, your Daniels, your gin, your Bolshie friends, and most of all—yourself."
"That's not funny, pal!"
"I rest my case."
"You ungrateful—you pompous ass!" She brought the Speedster to a screeching halt. "Get out."
"Why do I have this feeling of déjà vu?"
"Get out, get out, get out!"
He did, closing the door gently after him. "Good night, Miss Fain. I do appreciate your showing me the ropes. So to speak."
She roared off and he was left alone and grinning on a city street next to a small park. Whistling quietly to himself, he detoured behind a thick bush, where he unfastened his trousers and let loose with a long, thin stream into the greenery.
"I guess I win," he murmured with a complacent smile.