Magician's Wife Read Free Page B

at dinner on the bay side of the balcony. By seven he was home at the Marlborough Arms, an apartment house on Spring Street at John F. Kennedy Drive, formerly West Boulevard.
    His place, on the seventh floor, was quiet, spacious, and airy, and he was secretly, perhaps not so secretly, proud of it. It had an entrance alcove, with phone table, closet for wraps, and arches that led to the living room on one side and to a long hall on the other, along which were dining room, kitchen, bath, bedroom, second bath, and second bedroom—though this last was fixed up as an “office,” with typewriter, filing case, and dictating machine. The kitchen was a miniature World’s Fair exhibit, full of twenty-first-century gadgets, which he used on his inspirations, such as the corned beef. Office, bedroom, and dining room were in birch, not very original and not very masculine. But the living room was his, and masculine in every detail. It had large windows, looking down on city, river, and bay. Between windows were shelves filled with “books that I read,” mainly on history—handsome sets of Parton, Nevins, Van Doren, Freeman, Sumner, and the Bancrofts. They stopped at eye level, and over them, standing, leaning, or hanging, were all sorts of things: his framed diploma from Lafayette College, cups he once won for swimming, pictures of Grant’s conventions, and quite a collection of paintings, line drawings, and woodcuts, mainly Mexican. At one end of the room was a Steinway baby grand, and near it a record cabinet, with spinner, hooked up to a hi-fi system. The furniture was upholstered in crimson, and each chair had a table beside it, holding ashtrays and cigarettes. Facing the windows was a fireplace, a brass basket of wood beside it, a fine-mesh screen in front. Flanking it were two sofas, a cocktail table between. But a rug was the room’s most striking feature. It was Persian, very big, and soft to the feet over its waffle-rubber foundation. Its colors were rose, yellow, blue, and gray, but with the gray predominating. It blended subtly with the dusty tone of the paintings and with their weathered raw-oak frames.
    â€œSo! You made a sap of yourself, didn’t you? Talking about her navel—now, there was an idea for you, something to thrill any girl! And then when she smacked you down you had to blow your top—get sore, like any third-rate jerk, like some goddam truck driver. Aren’t you ever going to learn? Well, you never have. ... Forget her! She could have said, couldn’t she? Then it wouldn’t have happened! Why the hell didn’t she say? You asked her plain enough, and—knock it off, will you, forget her! You want to set yourself NUTS?”
    He got this off to his mirror, a full-length one set in the closet door in his bedroom, for, like many who live alone, he had formed the habit of mumbling while tramping from room to room—but sometimes went further than this and had things out with himself directly. He calmed himself down, however, went into the living room, and without turning the floor lamps on, sat down in a chair by a window and stared out at the gathering dusk. After some time the phone rang. “Mr. Lockwood?” asked a girl when he answered.
    â€œSpeaking,” he said.
    â€œThis is Sally Alexis.”
    â€œOh!” he exclaimed, and then again: “Oh!” But his voice sounded muffled and queer, and she seemed nonplused when she said: “You—remember me? The girl who served your lunch?”
    â€œWhy, sure I remember you. Why, yes—of course I do. Over at Portico. Well, what’s on your mind?”

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    B UT HE SOUNDED QUEERER than ever, and moments of silence went by while he cupped the phone with one hand and banged his brow with the other, telling himself, “Snap out of it. What the hell, has the cat got your tongue?” Then her voice cut across his, asking if he was Mr. Lockwood. Of Grant’s? Mr. Clay