On Green Dolphin Street Read Free

gray nailhead pattern. The cut was deep but clean; it ran through from the base of the thumb down into the blue wiring of the wrist.
    “Goddamn car …”
    “Maybe we should call a doctor. Perhaps it needs stitches.”
    “Stitches? No, no, it’s fine. As soon as it stops bleeding.”
    “Is this any use?” said Charlie. He was holding a first-aid box.
    “Let’s have a look,” said Mary. “You’d better keep that hand under the tap.”
    “What happened?” said Charlie.
    “It was an accident. Could I use your telephone?”
    “I’m sure we had a bandage.”
    “It’s in the hall.”
    “Did Louisa take it for her Barbie?”
    When Frank came back into the kitchen, Mary dressed the cut with what she could find in the box.
    “You sure you’re all right?” said Charlie. “Would you like a drink?”
    “Maybe some scotch? Tell me, who was that guy with the red face?”
    “Duncan Trench,” said Mary. “He’s at the Embassy.”
    “Is he a thimble-belly?”
    “What?”
    “Can he hold his liquor?”
    “I think he was tight.”
    Frank sat back with his drink. “Thank you.” For the first time since he had been back in the house, he smiled. “To tell the truth, I’m a little scared of blood.”
    “Let’s go and sit in the living room,” said Charlie, as though sensing the chance that the party might reignite. He poured himself a measure of Four Roses to keep Frank company and lit another cigarette as he put on
Songs for Swingin’ Lovers
. It no longer seemed polite to ask Frank exactly what had happened to his hand.
    “That girl told me you like jazz,” said Frank.
    “I certainly do,” said Charlie. “We don’t get to hear much in Washington. You live in New York, don’t you?”
    “That’s right,” said Frank. “I have an apartment loaned to me by a friend who’s on a foreign assignment. It’s in the Village.”
    “How lovely,” said Mary.
    “I don’t like it,” said Frank, grinding out his cigarette. “I don’t like the Village.”
    “Really? Why?”
    “Too many bakeries and antique stores.”
    Mary, standing with her back to the fireplace, looked at Frank closely for the first time. It was impossible to tell how serious he was being. Surely anyone below the age of fifty, particularly if he liked jazz, would want to live in Greenwich Village more than any neighborhood in the United States of America; but Frank didn’t seem to be joking. His face, with its long, narrow jaw on which the first shadows of the morning’s beard were darkening, was not smiling. He looked drawn and anxious: the thin lapels of his suit, the narrow tie pulled halfway down over his cotton shirt, the long limbs folded over one another combined to suggest fragility. His pants had ridden up a little, showing where the gray woolen socks hung from his shins in slouched, concentric rings. There were dark hemispheres beneath his eyes, yet he showed no signs of wanting to leave. A drop of blood fell from the saturated dressing onto the maple parquet beside his chair.
    Charlie said, “Have you heard this fellow Ornette Coleman I keep reading about?”
    “I went to see him once. At the Five Spot. I didn’t really like it. That free stuff. I’m not sure it’s as difficult as it looks.”
    “Apparently he can play the piano and the violin and the trumpet as well.”
    “Sure. But how well does he play them? That’s the point. Do you like Miles Davis?”
    “Quite,” said Charlie. “But I’m pretty much lost with anything after Duke Ellington. This hard bop stuff, you know Charlie Parker and Dizzy—”
    “Yeah, but Miles Davis is kind of melodic, too. Did you hear the
Kind of Blue
record?”
    Charlie refreshed their glasses and put his feet up on the table.
    “Would you two like something to eat?” said Mary. “Those little snacks were a long time ago.”
    “To tell the truth, darling,” said Charlie, “I’m not really hungry.”
    “Frank? I could make an omelette and toast. There are some potatoes I