curving, slavishly lacquered apricot nails against a champagne glass, a signal for the Senegalese servant to lift her, lift her away up blue-tiled stairs to firelit chambers where Morpheus, always a mischief-maker to the frantic, the insulted, but especially to the rich and powerful, joyfully awaited a game of hide-and-seek.
I SOLD A SAPPHIRE RING , also a gift from Denny Fouts, who in turn had received it as a birthday present from his Grecian prince, to Dean, the mulatto proprietor of Dean’s Bar, the principal rival of Le Parade for the colony’s
haute monde
trade. It was a giveaway, but it flew me to Paris, and Mutt, too—Mutt stuffed into an Air France travel bag.
On Thursday, at one-fifteen precisely, I walked into the Ritz bar still toting Mutt in her canvas satchel, for she had refused to remain behind in the cheap hotel room we had moved into on the rue du Bac. Aces Nelson, slick-haired and gleamingly good-humored, was waiting for us at a corner table.
He patted the dog and said: “Well. I’m surprised. I didn’t really think you’d show up.”
All I said was: “This had better be good.”
Georges, the head bartender at the Ritz, is a daiquiri specialist. I ordered a double daiquiri, so did Aces, and while they were being concocted, Aces asked: “What do you know about Kate McCloud?”
I shrugged. “Just what I read in the junk papers. Very handy with a rifle. Isn’t she the one who shot a white leopard?”
“No,” he said thoughtfully. “She was on safari in India, and she shot a man for killing a white leopard—not fatally, fortunately.”
The drinks appeared, and we drank them without another word between us, except Mutt’s intermittent yaps. A good daiquiri is smoothly tart and slightly sweet; a bad one is a vial of acid. Georges knew the difference. So we ordered another, and Aces said: “Kate has an apartment here in the hotel, and after we’ve talked I want you to meet her. She’s expecting us. But first I want to tell you about her. Would you like a sandwich?”
We ordered plain chicken sandwiches, the only variety available in the Ritz bar, Cambon side. Aces said: “I had a roommate at Choate—Harry McCloud. His mother was an Otis from Baltimore, and his father owned a lot of Virginia—specifically, he owned a big spread in Middleburg, where he bred hunting horses. Harry was very intense, a very competitive and jealous guy. But anybody as rich as he was, and as good-looking, athletic—you don’t hear many complaints. Everybody took him for a regular guy, except for this one strange thing—whenever the guys started bullshitting about sex, girls they’d laid, wanted to lay, all that stuff, well, Harry kept his mouth shut. The whole two years we roomed together he never had a date, never mentioned a girl. Some of the guys said maybe Harry’s queer. But I just knew that wasn’t the case. It was a real mystery. Finally, the week before graduation, we got loaded on a bunch of beer—ah, sweet seventeen—and I asked if all his family were comingfor the graduation, and he said: ‘My brother is. And Mom and Dad.’ Then I said: ‘What about your girl friend? But I forgot. You don’t have a girl friend.’ He looked at me for the longest while, as if he were trying to decide whether to hit me or ignore me. At last he smiled; it was the fiercest smile I ever saw on a human face. I can’t explain, but it stunned me; it made me want to cry. ‘Yes. I have a girl friend. Nobody knows it. Not her folks, not mine. But we’ve been engaged for three years. The day I’m twenty-one I’m going to marry her. I’ll be eighteen in July, and I’d marry her then. But I can’t. She’s only twelve years old.’
“Most secrets should never be told, but especially those that are more menacing to the listener than to the teller; I felt Harry would turn against me for having coaxed, or shall I say permitted, his confession. But once started, there was no surcease. He was incoherent, the
I SOLD A SAPPHIRE RING , also a gift from Denny Fouts, who in turn had received it as a birthday present from his Grecian prince, to Dean, the mulatto proprietor of Dean’s Bar, the principal rival of Le Parade for the colony’s
haute monde
trade. It was a giveaway, but it flew me to Paris, and Mutt, too—Mutt stuffed into an Air France travel bag.
On Thursday, at one-fifteen precisely, I walked into the Ritz bar still toting Mutt in her canvas satchel, for she had refused to remain behind in the cheap hotel room we had moved into on the rue du Bac. Aces Nelson, slick-haired and gleamingly good-humored, was waiting for us at a corner table.
He patted the dog and said: “Well. I’m surprised. I didn’t really think you’d show up.”
All I said was: “This had better be good.”
Georges, the head bartender at the Ritz, is a daiquiri specialist. I ordered a double daiquiri, so did Aces, and while they were being concocted, Aces asked: “What do you know about Kate McCloud?”
I shrugged. “Just what I read in the junk papers. Very handy with a rifle. Isn’t she the one who shot a white leopard?”
“No,” he said thoughtfully. “She was on safari in India, and she shot a man for killing a white leopard—not fatally, fortunately.”
The drinks appeared, and we drank them without another word between us, except Mutt’s intermittent yaps. A good daiquiri is smoothly tart and slightly sweet; a bad one is a vial of acid. Georges knew the difference. So we ordered another, and Aces said: “Kate has an apartment here in the hotel, and after we’ve talked I want you to meet her. She’s expecting us. But first I want to tell you about her. Would you like a sandwich?”
We ordered plain chicken sandwiches, the only variety available in the Ritz bar, Cambon side. Aces said: “I had a roommate at Choate—Harry McCloud. His mother was an Otis from Baltimore, and his father owned a lot of Virginia—specifically, he owned a big spread in Middleburg, where he bred hunting horses. Harry was very intense, a very competitive and jealous guy. But anybody as rich as he was, and as good-looking, athletic—you don’t hear many complaints. Everybody took him for a regular guy, except for this one strange thing—whenever the guys started bullshitting about sex, girls they’d laid, wanted to lay, all that stuff, well, Harry kept his mouth shut. The whole two years we roomed together he never had a date, never mentioned a girl. Some of the guys said maybe Harry’s queer. But I just knew that wasn’t the case. It was a real mystery. Finally, the week before graduation, we got loaded on a bunch of beer—ah, sweet seventeen—and I asked if all his family were comingfor the graduation, and he said: ‘My brother is. And Mom and Dad.’ Then I said: ‘What about your girl friend? But I forgot. You don’t have a girl friend.’ He looked at me for the longest while, as if he were trying to decide whether to hit me or ignore me. At last he smiled; it was the fiercest smile I ever saw on a human face. I can’t explain, but it stunned me; it made me want to cry. ‘Yes. I have a girl friend. Nobody knows it. Not her folks, not mine. But we’ve been engaged for three years. The day I’m twenty-one I’m going to marry her. I’ll be eighteen in July, and I’d marry her then. But I can’t. She’s only twelve years old.’
“Most secrets should never be told, but especially those that are more menacing to the listener than to the teller; I felt Harry would turn against me for having coaxed, or shall I say permitted, his confession. But once started, there was no surcease. He was incoherent, the
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