A Strange Kind of Love

Chapter Thirteen

The receptionist looked up and said, “You again!”

“Me again.”

“You’re all he ever talks about,” she said. “How does it feel to hit the big time?”

I wanted to tell her to relax and let the edge drop out of her voice, but I didn’t bother. It would only have gotten her fired. Her voice must have been the only thing that let her hold the job.

“You go right in,” the girl said, pushing the little black button. “He’s been ringing all day long to see if you got here yet.”

She pressed another button and I walked through the door and on into Lou’s office. He had a phone to his ear and snapped at somebody while he motioned at me to sit down.

I sat down.

“A story by Huby Randolph and you’re offering me $250?” he was saying. “250 I should take for a Randolph yarn? Maybe I should give it to you for nothing?”

The voice on the other end of the phone stammered something.

“A cent less than five yards,” Lou said, “is robbery.”

The voice stammered again.

“Good enough,” Lou said. “I’ll send a kid over for the check in a minute.”

He hung up and turned to me. “I feel good,” he said. “I just squeezed a bastard from $250 to $400 for one of the worst goddam stories I’ve ever read in my life. Sit down.”

I was already sitting down.

“Danny boy,” he said, “you are about to become famous.”

“Yeah?”

He reached for a cigarette. “Yeah. And yeah again. Lincoln House is putting everything into this one, kid. They’ll start off with a half-page in the Times and run it to a page the day before publication. By the time they’re done the name Dan Larkin will be a household word.”

I grinned. “You sure about that?”

“A household word,” he repeated. “Something you use around the house every day.”

“Like a condom?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Something like that.”

I handed him the corrected galley-proofs for the book. “Here,” I said. “I read them and Marcia read them.”

“Good,” he said. “That’s very good. Clyber’s been on my ear for two days to get the galleys back already. And who the hell is Marcia?”

“Huh?”

“You said Marcia read the galleys. Or didn’t you?”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s right. I’m getting married, Lou.”

He put out his cigarette and lit another. “Tell me another.”

“Honest. I’m getting married.”

“Say it again.”

“I’m getting married.”

“To this Marcia?”

“To Marcia.”

For about five minutes he didn’t say anything. Then he said, “That’s the best thing I’ve heard in the last ten years, Danny Boy. That’s good news.”

“Isn’t it great?”

“It is indeed. Who the hell is Marcia, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“She’s my landlady.”

“Yeah?”

I nodded.

“Hell of a smart way to save on rent.”

I grinned.

“When’s it happening? I’ll have to send a present or something. Of course, if you happen to need a best man, I might be able to dig one up. I might be able to be one. I haven’t been anybody’s best man in a long time.”

I smiled. “It’s happening tomorrow,” I said. “But I don’t need a best man because Marcia and I are going to be the only two people at the wedding. She doesn’t want anything special. We’re going to drive down to Maryland for the wedding and keep going for the honeymoon.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“You got a car all of a sudden?”

“Just got it yesterday,” I said. “Brand-new Cadillac.”

“A Cad. How does it feel to have money?”

“It feels wonderful.”

“Sit back,” he said. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and ground it out in the ashtray and shook another one out of the pack. “Danny Boy,” he said, “you got money I haven’t even told you about yet. You’re going to have more money than God before this is done.”

I waited.

“You’re not the only one who’s been reading galleys this week-end. MGM’s been reading galleys too. MGM’s been reading the galleys for your book, Danny boy.”

“And—”

“And MGM bought the movie rights over the phone for a cool quarter of a million a little over an hour ago. I thought it might sort of interest you.”

It interested me. It interested me very much, and after Lou brought me back to consciousness by sprinkling a little water in my face I had a chance to tell him just how much it interested me.

Hell, it interested him too. 10 % of it was $25,000, and that would buy a lot of toys and food for the Harris family.

It was very interesting, all things considered.

“You’ll make a goddamn fortune,” he went on. “The advance orders on the book have been pouring in over at Lincoln House, and once the ads hit the Time sand once the reviews start coming out all over the place the book’ll sell ten thousand copies a week.

“We got a bestseller on our hands, Danny Boy. It’s going to be a runaway bestseller — one that gets up near the top of the list and stays there.”

“Why?” It didn’t seem fair even to ask — it was like wondering why the sky was blue or why you were happy or something like that. Maybe I should just sit back and be glad about it.

“Because it’s a good book, Danny.”

“Is that the only reason?”

He thought for half a second, which was a long time for him. “No,” he said. “No, that’s not all. There’s also the fact that you’ve already sold the thing to Hollywood. They want to be damn sure the book sells so that the movie will have a good publicity deal behind it. You’ll get mentions in Hollywood columns and all the rest of that junk.

“And Lincoln House is a big house — they can lean on some of the reviewers and make sure the book gets a big play. The reviewers might pan it, but that doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference. They’ll talk about it, and if they spend their time saying how lousy it is you’ll still sell one hell of a lot of books.”

He stopped and I let my eyes drop shut for a minute. It was almost too much to believe, to be perfectly corny about it. It wasn’t just the money any more. It was being in first place, with all the fame and prestige that goes with it.

Hell, there’s no sense lying about it. The notion of fame was a very appealing one. I wrote stories at the beginning to get checks, but I still got one hell of a kick out of seeing my name in print. I have a hunch that every writer who writes much of anything gets that kind of a kick when he hears people talking about his book or sees his name on the cover.

There’s the oldie about the author who manages to get introduced to some biddy at a cocktail party. “Did you read such-and-such?” asks the biddy. “Read it?” he answers. “Madame, I wrote it.”

It’s an old gag, but I might even get a chance to pull it now.

“Hey!”

I looked up. Lou was still sitting at his desk with a cigarette in his mouth. “What’s a matter? Daydreaming?”

“I guess so.”

“Hell,” he said. “What do think this is — the corner saloon? This is a business office. Get the hell out of here so I can get some work done!”

As I went through the door he called after me, “Happy Wedding — I’ll send a present one of these days.”

I found out later that afternoon that the female lead in the movie — the role of Tony’s girl — was tentatively earmarked for Allison King. When Lou let me know I almost dropped the phone. There was something cockeyed about it — something that served to make the whole thing develop into a completed circle with the ends properly closed. I didn’t know whether or not to be pleased by the news.

So I told Marcia.

She thought for a long minute and then turned her eyes to me. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s very good.”

“It is?”

“Don’t you think so?”

We were sitting on the edge of my bed looking across the room to the window and I slipped my arm around her and caressed her back through her sweater. Her skin was warm and smooth.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I wanted to know how you would feel about it.”

“I think it’s good, Dan. You see, she’ll do a good job with the part.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way. Of course she’s a good actress, but why should she be particularly good at this role?Because she used to know me? I suppose that might give her more insight into the way I conceived the character, but—”

“Not just that. She is the girl in the book. Isn’t she, Dan?”

I pulled up her sweater and slipped my hand under it. Her skin felt much better without the sweater in the way and I wanted to pull her to me and make love to her then and there. Just looking at her made me want her. This was something new; before whenever I got to the point where a woman really wanted me I stopped wanting her. It was very nice for a change to have the desire completely mutual and more intense than ever before.

So thinking, I kissed her on the cheek. Then she turned and kissed me. Then we kissed each other a few times.

And that was nice, too.

“I suppose she is Tony’s girlfriend,” I said when we put a temporary halt to the kissing. “The similarities are there, all right.”

“She is.”

“And Tony is me?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “Tony used to be you, Dan. Or maybe it’s that you used to be Tony. But you’re different now, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so.”

“You changed,” she went on. “You’re a better person than Tony was. Tony was good deep inside, but you’re a very good person all the way through. You always were good, but I think there was a time when you weren’t quite as good a person as you are now.”

“I think you’re right. Marcia, do you know what makes the difference?”

She looked at me.

“You make the difference,” I told her. “You make all the difference in the world, baby. You make winning worthwhile and you make losing bearable. I think I sort of love you.”

“Mmmmmmm,” she said after I kissed her again.

“I mean it,” I said. “I’m marrying you tomorrow, you know. And I’m never letting you get away from me. We’ll leave this damned apartment house and get us a house up in Westchester or somewhere. Okay?”

“Mmmmmmmm.”

“How’d you ever get this damned place anyway?”

“I sort of own it. But I can let somebody else manage it and all that.”

“Fine,” I said. “I want you in our own house with nobody around to bother us. And with our own kids playing with their own toys on the floor. On our own floor, for that matter. Got that?”

“Got it.”

“It’s nice to have money,” I said. “It’s nice to get whatever you want. But it’s only because I have you to share everything with. Without you all this would be nothing, Marcia. Without you there wouldn’t be anything at all at the end of the long road.”

I stopped and looked at her. Her eyes were getting misty, with a faraway look in them.

“I love you,” I said. “Hell, I have to love you. You’re my whole life.”

“Dan,” she said. “You really mean that, don’t you?”

“Do you have to ask?”

“No, I guess not. I guess I know it.”

And then we were both silent.

“Dan?”

“What, honey?”

“Do I honestly make you happy?”

“Of course you do.”

“Has anybody made you happy before?”

“Never.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. I’ve never been happy like this before. I’ve never felt so good before.”

“I think it would be enough for me to spend my whole life trying to make you happy, Dan.”

And we were silent again.

Then, “Dan?”

“Yes?”

“Dan, I’m glad Allison got the part. Because I got you, Darling — and that’s so much more than she got that I feel sorry for her.”

The next afternoon the Cadillac ate up miles like a anteater gobbles up ants. It was a beautiful car — long and low and powerful. It handled perfectly, too. The road stretched out before me and my hands were relaxed on the wheel as I watched the Cad move in perfect rhythm, obeying the commands my hands made.

We were on our way to Maryland. It would have been easy enough to get a license in New York, but we wanted a honeymoon anyhow and there’s no waiting period for marriage licenses in Maryland.

Marcia was sitting beside me; our luggage was in the back seat. We were travelling light, which was something that I had insisted on. I told her that if she decided that she needed anything I would buy it for her. If she wanted a dress I would buy it for her, and if she wanted a hat I would buy it for her, and so on.

She was sitting very close beside me. I liked it that way.

I was as nervous as every bridegroom is supposed to be. I was nervous, thinking of standing before a justice of the peace and taking those proverbially solemn vows. Some people nowadays think of marriage as an easy thing, but I had decided long ago that if I ever did get married it would be for keeps. Divorce wasn’t part of my idea of the way to spend your life.

And I got nervous thinking of the wedding night, which when you come right down to it is pretty ridiculous. I felt as though I had never so much as kissed Marcia, much less made love to her.

I felt as though I had never made love to any girl in my whole life.

Perhaps it was because I had never before slept with a woman who was my wife. Somehow it would be different, better, more wonderful than before. I wasn’t quite sure just how that would come about, but it was something I was very certain of. It couldn’t help happening that way. When Marcia Banks was magically transformed in Marcia Larkin, some sort of miracle would take place.

And everything would be even better.

“How do you feel?” I asked her.

In answer she cuddled closer to me and let her head rest against my shoulder. I liked the way she nestled against me like that. It was very comfortable with her next to me, very comfortable and easy and relaxed.

“Want to stop for a bite or something?”

“If you do.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “If you’re hungry, or if you’re tired of riding so far—”

“It hasn’t been that far.

“Want to keep going then?”

She giggled. “You might stop at the nearest motel, Dan. We might find something to do.”

“Dammit,” I laughed, “you’ll have to wait until we’re married. I’m not going to seduce a bride on her wedding day.”

“What’s the matter — getting tired of me already?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well,” she said, slipping her little hand into mine, “you don’t seem interested in making love to me at all. I guess you’re just tired of it. I don’t suppose I stimulate you at all any more.”

I laughed out loud.

“I’m not kidding,” she said in mock seriousness. “This is the way it starts, with you more interested in hurrying off to Maryland than in making love to me. That’s only the beginning of it. Pretty soon we’ll be an old married couple and you’ll just make love to me on certain nights of the week. Then it will be every other night, and then every third night, and then twice a week, and then once a week, and pretty soon we won’t do it at all.”

“Do you really think that’ll happen?”

“Of course it will. And when you do make love to me, I won’t be a woman any more. I’ll just be another piece of property, like a car or a house or anything else you own. I can see it coming, all right.”

I grinned.

“Well?” she demanded. “Isn’t that what’s happening?”

“Nope.”

“Nope?”

I shook my head.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Marcia,” I said, “I firmly intend to make love to you every night until I am ninety at the very least. I’ll try to make love to you at least twice a night, although that may become a chore after a few years. But I’ll do my best.”

“That’s no good,” she said. “Not if you’re just doing it as part of a bargain.”

“I’ll want to do it,” I insisted.

“At the very least.”

“Until you’re ninety?”

“Then how come you’re so cold today?”

“I’m not, really. Why don’t you kiss me a little and test me?”

She did. She squirmed a little on the seat and pressed her lips against mine. Then she withdrew them and then kissed me again, forcing her tongue between my lips. I could feel a wave of excitement passing through my whole body; it was as if I was a kid again on his first real date.

Automatically my arm slipped around her and my hand closed around her shoulder. I steered the car with my left hand while she kissed me again, her hot little tongue working furiously against mine.

She cuddled closer and my hand dropped from her shoulder and onto her breast. My fingers closed around soft flesh and held her gently and I could hear her breathing faster and faster. She placed her hand on mine, over her breast, and stroked my hand gently.

“Dan,” she said, “never let go of me.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Never,” she said. “God, how I love you!”

I wanted her at that minute more than I had ever wanted anything. All I was conscious of was the fury of my passion for the woman beside me. Nothing else mattered; nothing else seemed to exist.

I turned my head over to her and covered her mouth with mine. Her lips parted and our tongues met. Her arms went around me and our bodies pressed together, hungry, seeking one another.

And then the Cadillac careened off the road. I jerked away from her suddenly but the car was off the road and on the soft shoulder. I pulled the wheel and slammed my foot down hard on the brakes but the car went into a skid. I fought with the wheel, my mind only half aware that twisting the damned wheel wouldn’t do any good.

Nothing would do any good.

My ears filled with the sound of Marcia’s scream. She screamed my name once, loud and shrill. The car kept skidding without a break.

Then suddenly there was a telephone pole in front of us and there was nothing to keep us from hitting, no way in the whole world to keep the Cadillac from hitting that pole. The pole got bigger and bigger and came closer and closer, and then the front of the Caddy pleated and folded like an accordion and everything went totally black as the car slammed into the pole at full speed.

You’ve read about guys getting up from an accident and walking away. That’s what happened to me. I pitched clear through the windshield without more than a few surface cuts and I landed without more than knocking the wind out of me. I was conscious again in less than a minute.

It was one of those miracles that happen every so often. In a crash like that the odds are the driver is going to be killed, and here I was in perfect shape. It was a minor miracle, all right.

Only I wish to God I had died in that crash.

Because Marcia wasn’t so lucky as I was. Marcia didn’t make it through that windshield. Part of her did, and the glass chopped her beautiful face into pieces. Her whole lovely body was cut and torn to ribbons.

Marcia was dead.

You don’t know how long it took me to realize the truth of that simple little statement. You can’t possibly know how it felt to walk back to the car and stand there looking at her broken and bloody body, dimly coming to the realization that I would never make love to her again or hear her voice again or be with her again. It wasn’t a realization that came to me in a quick, precise flash. It came slowly.

Marcia was dead.

The blood on the car and in the road was Marcia’s blood. The dead body half in and half out of the window was her body. The corpse I looked at was the woman I had loved, the only woman I had completely given myself to.

The woman I was supposed to marry in an hour or two.

Marcia.

Marcia was dead.

What happened after that doesn’t really matter. The police came and ran some kind of a minor investigation and took my statement and all that, and a few hours or days later I was back in New York. There were no relatives to claim Marcia’s body, and I ordered an inexpensive funeral for her.

I was the only person at that funeral.

I walked out of the chapel and headed downtown and kept on walking. I was at the end of the road, the long road to the top. I had followed a road that was a lot more rocky than a rainbow, and what I found at the end was just a heap of ashes. I was on the top, but it didn’t seem to make a damn bit of difference.

I was on top. My book would sell and the movie would bring in money. If I wrote another book that one would sell like hell too. I had it made.

Yeah, I had it made. But nothing made the slightest bit of difference now that Marcia was gone. She was the only thing I really wanted, wanted deep inside me. She was the only thing I ever wanted in my entire life and now she was gone.

There was no way to get her back.

No way at all.

And I was beginning to wonder why I had started on the long road to begin with. There wasn’t any particular point to it. I should have known at the beginning that it would turn out the way it did, with me having everything and yet somehow having nothing.

Because in this great big wonderful world you can have anything — anything at all.

Anything except the one thing you really want.

“Mac.”

I looked around. The man next to me was a few inches shorter than I was, and his eyes were red from drinking. His clothes were torn and messy, his breath stank, and there was the familiar defeated look in his eyes.

He was a bum.

I looked around. I had walked pretty far downtown: I was on the Bowery already. I looked back at the bum.

“Mac,” he whined, “could you spare a quarter or so toward a quart of wine? I got to have a drink, Mac.”

I looked at him.

“Please,” he said. “Please, Mac. I got to have a drink the way I’m shaking and all. Just a dime, if you can’t spare more than that. Just a dime will be a help.”

I shook my head to clear it. “Where do you buy your wine?”

He blinked. “Package store around the corner. Why?”

“Take me there.”

He hesitated. Then he led the way and I followed. He waited outside while I walked to the counter, took out my wallet, and paid 98c for a quart of muscatel. I took the quart outside and joined the bum.

“Jesus,” he said. “I—”

“Where do you go to drink the stuff?”

He led the way around another corner to an alleyway. We stood side by side against the brick wall of a factory and I ripped off the plastic seal and unscrewed the cap of the bottle. I flipped the cap to the sidewalk and watched it bounce around crazily.

Then I raised the bottle to my lips and took a long pull of the cheap wine.

It was terrible.

I wiped off the mouth of the bottle with my shirt-tail and passed it to the bum. He took a long drink and passed it back without speaking.

We stayed there, our backs resting against the brick wall. We passed the bottle of muscatel back and forth and took long drinks from it.

After the bottle was about half gone we sat down and went on passing the bottle and drinking.

A little while later a second bum stumbled into the alleyway. He sat down with us and we let him have a share of the wine. First he took a sip; then the first bum took a sip. Then the first bum passed the bottle to me.

I put it to my lips and got ready to take a drink. But first I studied the faces of the two bums. There was something vaguely familiar about them.

Somehow it seemed as though I ought to be right where I was, drinking Sneaky Pete in a Bowery alley with these two men. There seemed to be something extremely fitting about the whole thing.

I raised the bottle and drank deeply. I swallowed and passed the bottle.

I was home at last, home for good.