Shirley Read online

  He shook his head. “I just don’t know. I know what can do—they can do almost anything they want to do. They buy men like Seppi, they seem able to buy anything they want to buy.”

  “How did you get here to America?” Shirley insisted.

  “I panicked, I suppose. I couldn’t get over that veiled threat from the man in the Foreign Office—to look into my status as a resident alien. I had nightmares then about being deported to Spain—where else could they send me?—and falling into the hands of the Falange. Then I received through the mail an envelope with no return address on it. It contained a forged British passport for one James Charlton, my own picture in it, a one-way plane ticket to New York and a hundred dollars in five-dollar bills. I knew they had sent it, but I convinced myself that all they wanted’to do was to get me out of England and away from Europe, and that in America they would leave me alone. So I used it. I left the following day. At Idle-wild—that was three days ago—the black car you spoke of, with the fat man and the thin man in it, was waiting for me. There was another man with them—they called him Mr. Santela. That’s all I know. They took me to a house somewhere in the city—”

  “In Manhattan?” Shirley asked.

  “Yes, I’m sure. From Idlewild, we went through a tunnel, that would be to Manhattan, wouldn’t it? It was a large four- or five-story house of gray granite, as much as I could see by night, a town house like so many in London. They took me up to the third floor there, handcuffed me hand and foot and left me there. Thinking about it, it’s possible that the whole purpose was to let me see you and identify you. At least, Mr. Santela spent over two hours questioning me about my cousin Carlotta. That was when he told me about the olive grower. At that time, I think you were to be brought to the house. Then, for some reason, they changed their plans and brought me here with Seppi. Mr. Santela and another man they call Flint, an American I think, remained outside in the car, while I went inside with Seppi. It’s true, I did as Seppi told me. I was terribly afraid of him. But I also wanted to see you, Shirley. I guess I wanted that as much as anything, even if they were going to kill me. Can you understand what it means to be all alone in the world—to have no one, no kith or kin, no one?”

  “That’s something I can understand,” Shirley nodded. “In a moment, I’ll be weeping.”

  “Then you can understand why I had to see you. They had almost convinced me that Carlotta was alive. God, how much I wanted to see her!” He was close to tears now, full of emotion and choking with it.

  “Chin up, Prince,” Shirley said.

  “Carlotta is dead,” he said chokingly. “I met you. God, I don’t want to die now, Shirley.”

  5. The Roof

  There was a knock on the door, and they both froze. Shirley was standing; James Charles Alexander still sprawled wearily in the chair. They looked at each other, and Shirley saw something his eyes that had not been there before, real, unsimulated fear.

  The knock on the door was repeated, and a voice called, “Miss Campbel? How about it? You’re inside, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I’m here,” Shirley replied evenly.

  “This is Mr. Foley, the janitor.”

  “You don’t sound like Mr. Foley.”

  “That’s a hell of a thing to say. What do you mean, I don’t sound like Mr. Foley?”

  “You just don’t sound like Mr. Foley.”

  “I guess I ought to know better than you what I sound like. How about that?”

  “Sue me,” said Shirley.

  “Maybe I will at that. What I want to talk to you about is all that commotion here. I want to know what gives.”

  “So do I,” said Shirley.

  “What do you mean, so do I? From what my wife tells me, you were down in the hall fighting with some hoodlums with a knife. Well, whether you know it or not, Miss Campbel, this is a decent, respectable house.”

  “Then it’s up to you to keep the hoodlums with the knives out of here,” Shirley said.

  “That’s a laugh. What do you mean, it’s up to me? Suppose you open the door and we have a little talk, Miss Campbel.”

  “I’m deshabille.”

  “You’re what?”

  “In English used by people who have an IQ over one hundred, it means I’m undressed. So go down and play with your marbles and well talk some other time.”

  “Well talk now.”

  “Look,” Shirley said coolly, “don’t get rough with me, even if you’re Mr. Foley or anybody else. It won’t pay. There’s a cop in the hall downstairs and there’s another plain-clothes cop across the street. So go away like a good boy.”

  “All right. If you want it that way.”

  “I want it that way,” Shirley said.

  She heard his steps then, down the hall and down the stairs, but when she glanced at the prince, his fear had not appreciably lessened.

  “There’s a police officer downstairs?” he whispered.

  “There is,” Shirley replied, watching him thoughtfully.

  The telephone rang. Shirley went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. Cynthia’s voice greeted her, with straightforward gratitude that Shirley was still alive.

  “What do you mean—thank God I’m still alive?” Shirley demanded. “That’s a fine, friendly thing to say.”

  “Well, you know what I mean, the way it is with you. Every time I talk to you, I just say, thank God she’s alive.”

  “Furthermore,” said Shirley, “I intend to go on staying alive. I intend to absolutely, and I’ve got news for you. This whole proposition about killing people is for the birds. It’s promoted for people who are ignorant of the whole subject. On my part, I have come to some conclusions. Anybody who goes around killing anybody is no better than an animal. Not a dog, mind you, but an animal.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” Cynthia said.

  “All right,” Shirley nodded fiercely. “Now let’s change the subject. I just want to ask you how you would react to somebody who says he’s a prince?”

  “What do you mean, a prince? You mean old-fashioned Harvard talk for being a gentleman?”

  “I mean what I’m saying, a prince. Like the Prince of Wales.”

  “Oh, that kind of a prince. Well, to begin with, he’s lying.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “It figures, he’s got to be lying. Whatever there is by that name in circulation, it’s got to be phony. I dated a guy once with an accent, he tells me he’s a Russian prince, but very poor. Always, they’re very poor, because when they were kicked out of wherever they were kicked out of, somebody always ties up the cash flow. So this one—his name is Vladimir Stavenetski—he’s got two dollars and twenty cents for a date. We should go Dutch. He turns on all the charm, and I say to him, Please, even if I am succumbing, where are we going to go for four forty, to the Colony Restaurant? So—”

  Shirley interrupted. “Look, Cynthia, you told me that story before. The point is, we are not talking about Prince Stavenetski but about Prince X.”

  “Who is Prince X? That’s phonier than Stavenetski?”

  “I just use the X to indicate a hypothetical prince. So how do you know he’s lying?”

  “He’s poor?” Cynthia asked.

  “That’s right”

  “Got tossed out of his country and can’t go back?”

  “Right.”

  “Mother and father dead? No relatives? All alone in the world?”

  “Also affirmative,” Shirley replied bleakly.

  “What kind of an accent has he got?”

  “English.”

  “I suppose he has got to keep his whereabouts secret?”

  “Sort of.”

  “So what are you asking questions, Shirley? He’s not even from Macy’s. He’s like Hearn’s on Fourteenth Street.”

  “You don’t even know who I am talking about?”

  “Do I have to know, Shirley? You got enough trouble right now without a prince. You know, Mr. Bergan, he says to me t
hat a girl with the face and figure of Shirley Campbel, she could take her pick. Except that he wants to be picked. So if this was even the Prince of Wales, with a pedigree signed by Queen Elizabeth, I’m telling you, he’s lying. You work at Bushwick Brothers, the only place you’re going to run into a prince is in the movies. Believe me.” There was a long pause after that, Shirley thinking very hard and seriously, until Cynthia said, “Shirley! Are you all right?”

  “Cynthia,” Shirley said slowly, “you know a lot more about the factory at Bushwick Brothers than I do—I mean about what they make and how they make it than I do. I mean, working for six months in the factory, you’re probably an expert—”

  “Sure, when I could be an expert on stocks and bonds and on the male sex, I’m an expert on what Bushwick Brothers make.”

  “Could they make bottles, Cynthia?”

  “Not the way they’re set up now.”

  “I mean plastic bottles.”

  “I know, I know—but that’s a different kind of plastic and a different kind of work. We machine plastic, we don’t extrude it or mold it. I mean we take hard plastic and cut it into shape with lathes and other machines. We don’t have machines for extrusions. When we need that stuff, we order it to specifications. But I don’t even know if a bottle is an extrusion. I think it’s molded, poured or something. That’s a whole different line of machinery.”

  “So why would someone come to Bushwick Brothers to buy bottles?”

  “You tell me. Is this prince in the plastics business?”

  “No.”

  “So don’t go looking for trouble,” Cynthia said. “What is happening otherwise?”

  “Nothing. You remember the bullfighter?”

  “Mr. Bergan’s bullfighter?”

  “That’s right. Well, he was in the hall at the house here, and he went for me with a knife. Lieutenant Burton shot him.”

  “You’re kidding,” Cynthia said.

  “No.”

  “You got to be kidding.”

  “No,” said Shirley.

  “So what’s all this about the prince?”

  “I got him inside,” Shirley said.

  Shirley took a moment to comb her hair and do her lips. She was not a woman deeply concerned with her mirror. Of late, she had come to accept the fact that a number of people would tell her that she was beautiful, but the moment she looked into a mirror, she would wrinkle her brow, narrow her wide, soft brown eyes and set her mouth in disapproval. The resulting stern and impatient image did not, as she saw it, confirm what others told her. The mirror was a necessity, not a joy, nor was its effect different at this moment. She had to concentrate on relaxing her mouth as she returned to the living room.

  James Charles was sitting where she had left him. He looked at her inquiringly.

  “That was my friend, Cynthia Kugelman,” she informed him. “Cynthia, like Shirley, are names not only indigenous to the West End of London but also the Tremont section of the East Bronx. I like to use words like indigenous. I used to think, as I said before, that they showed I was ignorant, not stupid. But now I got my doubts. If you talked five minutes to Cynthia, you would decide that she’s just stupid, but she’s got a lot of brains for a stupid girl, believe me.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “Of course not,” answered Shirley. “Like if I was to say, Take it from the top again, you wouldn’t understand either.”

  “Now I would,” he said eagerly. “It’s a fascinating expression.”

  “I never looked at it that way.” She walked over and put on the lamp next to the easy chair.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “To let in light.” She stood over him and tilted back his face. “You were very lucky, the way you fell over that cliff?”

  “What do you mean, Shirley?”

  She took a few steps away then, and turned to him, hands on her hips. “What did I mean? Just think it over, James Charles. You fall over a cliff hard enough to put you in the hospital for months, but you haven’t got a mark on your face. And it would be a shame if you did, being as how it’s the kind of a face Mr. Bergan would give five years of his life to have.”

  “I was, very lucky, Shirley. I did have some bad cuts on my face, but they healed perfectly.”

  “I just bet they did. Look, James Charles, I don’t regard you as any shining tower of courage, but you scare at the wrong things. You almost had a heart attack when the janitor knocked at the door.”

  “Because it wasn’t the janitor.”

  “How did you know?”

  “You said so.”

  “Because it just so happens that Mr. Foley, the janitor, is an old rummy with hands that got no education except in feeling. So the way I feel tonight, I don’t choose to Indian wrestle with him.”

  “Then it really was the janitor?”

  “It really was.”

  “Shirley,” he said, “I never pretended to be brave. There’s some notion that a prince has to be brave. Well, I’m not that kind of a prince. I never took to being a prince. It brought me and my poor mother nothing but grief and sorrow, and I never pretended to be brave.”

  “That’s a pity,” Shirley shrugged. “I seen a lot in my time, and I don’t know if anybody’s brave. I’m not, but I pretend. And I know that a lot of other decent people who are not princes by any means also pretend and do a pretty good job of it”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “OK,” Shirley nodded. “So you’re that kind of a prince. You’re not brave and you fall off cliffs and remain pretty. You also buy bottles in a plastics company that doesn’t make bottles and couldn’t make them, but only machines hard plastic.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Bushwick Brothers, where your olive grower came to buy bottles.”

  “That’s what they told me,” he insisted.

  “Naturally. Just as the British Foreign Office was so stupid they couldn’t be bothered to pick up the telephone and call Eton and find out was their roster of princes short one. Oh no. That would have taken a little intelligence. And while we’re on the subject, where is Eton College?”

  “No—it’s a public school, Shirley, not a college.”

  “That’s what comes of sitting back on your laurels as a prince, instead of cracking a book once in a while. I have never traveled farther than the Concord Hotel, where Cynthia and I once spent a weekend that was a disaster, but even with Fallsburg, New York, as my safari limit, I break up the monotony by walking to the public library. It just happens that the correct name for Eton is Eton College. It was very generous of you to tell me that in England a private school is called a public school, but that’s not enough homework for a graduate. And incidentally, where is Eton?”

  “I thought everyone knew that The town of Eton, up the Thames from London.”

  “But where? Like saying that New Orleans is down the Mississippi from St. Louis. I want to know where?”

  “Well, really, Shirley, I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” he said weakly.

  “All right. Don’t tell me. So some day I’ll marry Mr. Bergan out of sheer default, God help me, and we’ll spend the whole honeymoon in England looking for Eton. Because you can’t tell me where it is.”

  “I did tell you,” he protested.

  “Like hell you did, Buster! Eton’s in Buckinghamshire. Anyone who ever read Tom Brown’s School Days knows that. Not to mention A Yank at Eton. Who was in that? It wasn’t Mickey Rooney, but I always think of Mickey Rooney. You really told me a story. It would have brought tears from a stone, you poor, unhappy little prince. Only it’s so full of holes it belongs in the kitchen. With the sieves and the canned corn. Your poor father, who sheltered all those refugees. Your poor mother, who remained a lady until her poor, delicate lungs gave out. And all those bad men who kept pushing you over cliffs. And the great-grandfather who hunted buffalo out in Dodge City with Matt Dillon—that is really one for the books.”

&nb
sp; “What are you saying, Shirley?” he whispered.

  “I’m saying that you’re a liar from the word go. If you’re so worried about being killed any moment, why didn’t you come down when the hall downstairs was swarming with cops? You’re not only a liar, you louse up all your lies—”

  “Shirley, I swear I told you the truth. I said you wouldn’t believe me—”

  “Drop it, Buster, just drop it! You did not tell me the truth, not by a long shot! And if you think I’m afraid of you or worried about you, you’re crazy.”

  “I didn’t say I thought you were afraid of me.”

  “All right. Now we’ll take it from the top. And I want the truth. I’m sick and tired of being everybody’s patsy. So start talking. I fed you and listened to you, and now I want to know why you’re playing these idiot games.”

  “I told you the truth,” he pleaded.

  “If that’s the way you want it, OK. I pick up the phone and call a large, overweight cop called Lieutenant Burton. He’d love you. He’s the kind of a hooligan who has been waiting for years to get a real prince under the beam light in the hole he calls his office. He’s the kind of a cop who gets absolutely neurotic at the thought of people killing other people in his precinct without his permission.” She walked over to the bedroom door.

  “Shirley?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t call the cops.”

  “You’ll talk?”

  He nodded.

  “The truth this timer?”

  “I said I’ll talk.” The English accent had disappeared. “But I also have a gun. And I will use it if I have to. So forget about the cops.”

  “Start with you. Who are you?” Shirley asked.

  “An actor.”

  “And the James Charles Alexander de Montort de Bernard?” Shirley said.

  “You’ve never really felt sorry for anyone, have you, Shirley?” he asked her.

  “The only thing I can’t afford is the luxury of feeling sorry for myself. What’s your real name?”

  “Albert Soames.”

  “OK, Al—that’s better. What kind of actor are you?”

  “A lousy actor.”