Bagombo Snuff Box (8 page)

“You should have seen him jawing away with the Chinese
bellboys in Manila,” said Maude, challenging Charley with her eyes to top that.

“Now then,” said the writer, checking a list, “the last shot
we want is of you two coming in the front door with your suitcases, looking
surprised, as though you’ve just arrived. . . .”

In the master bedroom again, Earl and Maude obediently
changed back into the clothes they’d been wearing when they first arrived. Earl
was studying his face in a mirror, practicing looks of pleased surprise and
trying not to let the presence of Charley Freeman spoil this day of days.

“He’s staying for supper and the night?” asked Maude.

“Oh heck, I was just trying to be a good fellow on the
phone. Wasn’t even thinking when I asked him to stay here instead of at the
hotel. I could kick myself around the block.”

“Lordy. Maybe he’ll stay a week.”

“Who knows? Slotkin hasn’t given me a chance to ask Charley
much of anything.”

Maude nodded soberly. “Earl, what does it all add up to?”

“All what?”

“I mean, have you tried to put any of it together—the old
clothes, and his paleness, and that crack about doing better now than he’d had
any right to expect six months ago, and the books, and the TV set? Did you hear
him ask Converse about the books?”

“Yeah, that threw me, too, because Charley was the book
kind.”

‘All best-sellers, and he hadn’t heard of a one! And he wasn’t
kidding about television, either. He really hasn’t seen it before. He’s been
out of circulation for a while, and that’s for sure.”

“Sick, maybe,” said Earl.

“Or in jail,” whispered Maude.

“Good gosh! You don’t suppose—”

“I suppose something’s rotten in the state of Denmark,” said
Maude, “and I don’t want him around much longer, if we can help it. I keep
trying to figure out what he’s doing here, and the only thing that makes sense
is that he’s here with his fancy ways to bamboozle you out of money, one way or
another.”

“All right, all right,” said Earl, signaling with his hands
for her to lower her voice. “Let’s keep things as friendly as we can, and ease
him out gently.”

“How?” said Maude, and between them they devised what they
considered a subtle method for bringing Charley’s visit to an end before
supper.

“Zo . . . zo much for dis,” the photographer said. He winked
at Earl and Maude warmly, as though noticing them as human beings for the first
time. “Denk you. Nice pagatch you live.” He had taken the last picture. He
packed his equipment, bowed, and left with Lou Converse and the writer.

Putting off the moment when he would have to sit down with
Charley, Earl joined the maid and Maude in the hunt for flashbulbs, which
Slotkin had thrown everywhere. When the last bulb was found, Earl mixed martinis
and sat down on a couch that faced another, on which Charley sat.

“Well, Charley, here we are.”

“And you’ve come a distance, too, haven’t you, Earl?” said
Charley, turning his palms upward to indicate the wonder of the dream house. “I
see you’ve got a lot of science fiction on your shelves. Earl, this house is
science fiction.”

“I suppose,” said Earl. The flattery was beginning, building
up to something—a big touch, probably. Earl was determined not to be
spellbound by Charley’s smooth ways. “About par for the course in America,
maybe, for somebody who isn’t afraid of hard work.”

“What a course—with this for par, eh?”

Earl looked closely at his guest, trying to discover if
Charley was belittling him again. “If I seemed to brag a little when those
fool magazine people were here,” he said, “I think maybe I’ve got a little
something to brag about. This house is a lot more’n a house. It’s the story of
my life, Charley—my own personal pyramid, sort of.”

Charley lifted his glass in a toast. “May it last as long as
the Great Pyramid at Gizeh.”

“Thanks,” said Earl. It was high time, he decided, that
Charley be put on the defensive. “You a doctor, Charley?”

“Yes. Got my degree in 1916.”

“Uh-huh. Where you practicing?”

“Little old to start practicing medicine again, Earl.
Medicine’s changed so much in this country in recent years, that I’m afraid I’m
pretty much out of it.”

“I see.” Earl went over in his mind a list of things that
might get a doctor in trouble with the law. He kept his voice casual. “How come
you suddenly got the idea of coming to see me?”

“My ship docked here, and I remembered that this was your
hometown,” said Charley. “Haven’t any family left, and trying to start life
all over on this side again, I thought I’d look up some of my old college
friends. Since the boat landed here, you were the first.”

That was going to be Charley’s tale, then, Earl thought—that
he had been out of the country for a long time. Next would come the touch. “Don’t
pay much attention to the college gang, myself,” he said, unable to resist a
small dig. “Such a bunch of snobs there that I was glad to get away and forget ‘em.”

“God help them if they didn’t outgrow the ridiculous social
values of college days,” said Charley.

Earl was taken aback by the sharpness in Charley’s voice,
and not understanding it, he hastily changed the subject. “Been overseas, eh?
Where, exactly, Charley?”

“Earl!” Maude called from the dining room, according to the
plan. “The most awful thing has happened.”

“Oh?”

Maude appeared in the doorway. “Angela”—she turned to
Charley to explain—“my sister. Earl, Angela just called to say she was coming
here with Arthur and the children before dinner, and could we put them up for
the night.”

“Gosh,” said Earl, “don’t see how we can. There’re five of
them, and we’ve only got two guest rooms, and Charley here—”

“No, no,” said Charley. “See here, tell them to come ahead.
I planned to stay at the hotel, anyway, and I have some errands to run, so I
couldn’t possibly stay.”

“Okay, if you say so,” said Earl.

“If he’s got to go, he’s got to go,” said Maude.

“Yes, well, got a lot to do. Sorry.” Charley was on his way
to the door, having left his drink half finished. “Thanks. It’s been pleasant
seeing you. I envy you your package.”

“Be good,” said Earl, and he closed the door with a shudder
and a sigh.

While Earl was still in the hallway, wondering at what could
become of a man in forty years, the door chimes sounded, deep and sweet. Earl
opened the door cautiously to find Lou Converse, the contractor, standing on the
doorstep. Across the street, Charley Freeman was getting into a taxi.

Lou waved to Charley, then turned to face Earl. “Hello! Not
inviting myself to dinner. Came back after my hat. Think I left it in the
solarium.”

“Come on in,” said Earl, watching Charley’s taxi disappear toward
the heart of town. “Maude and I are just getting set to celebrate. Why not stay
for dinner and, while you’re at it, show us how some of the gadgets work?”

“Thanks, but I’m expected home. I can stick around a little
while and explain whatever you don’t understand. Too bad you couldn’t get
Freeman to stay, though.”

Maude winked at Earl. “We asked him, but he said he had a
lot of errands to run.”

“Yeah, he seemed like he was in kind of a hurry just now.
You know,” Converse said thoughtfully, “guys like Freeman are funny. They make
you feel good and bad at the same time.”

“What do you know about that, Maude?” said Earl. “Lou instinctively
felt the same way we did about Charley! How do you mean that, exactly, Lou,
about feeling good and bad at the same time?”

“Well, good because you’re glad to know there are still some
people like that in the world,” said Converse. “And bad—well, when you come
across a guy like that, you can’t help wondering where the hell your own life’s
gone to.”

“I don’t get you,” said Earl.

Converse shrugged. “Oh, Lord knows we couldn’t all dedicate
our lives the way he did. Can’t all be heroes. But thinking about Freeman makes
me feel like maybe I could have done a little more’n I have.”

Earl exchanged glances with Maude. “What did Charley tell
you he’d been doing, Lou?”

‘ “Slotkin and I didn’t get much out of him. We just had a
few minutes there while you and Maude were changing, and I figured I’d get the
whole story from you sometime. All he told us was, he’d been in China for the
last thirty years. Then I remembered there was a big piece about him in the
paper this morning, only I’d forgotten his name. That’s where I found out about
how he sunk all his money in a hospital over there and ran it until the Commies
locked him up and finally threw him out. Quite a story.”

“Yup,” Earl said bleakly, ending a deathly silence, “quite a
story, all right.” He put his arm around Maude, who was staring through the
picture window at the grill. He squeezed her gently. “I said it’s quite a
story, isn’t it, Mama?”

“We really did ask him to stay,” she said.

“That’s not like us, Maude, or if it is, I don’t want it to
be anymore. Come on, hon, let’s face it.”

“Call him up at the hotel!” said Maude. “That’s what we’ll
do. We’ll tell him it was all a mistake about my sister, that—” The impossibility
of any sort of recovery made her voice break. “Oh, Earl, honey, why’d he have
to pick today? All our life we worked for today, and then he had to come and
spoil it.”

“He couldn’t have tried any harder not to,” Earl sighed. “But
the odds were too stiff.”

Converse looked at them with incomprehension and sympathy. “Well,
heck, if he had errands he had errands,” he said. “That’s no reflection on your
hospitality. Good gosh, there isn’t another host in the country who’s got a
better setup for entertaining than you two. All you have to do is flick a
switch or push a button for anything a person could want.”

Earl walked across the thick carpet to a cluster of buttons
by the bookshelves. Listlessly, he pressed one, and floodlights concealed in
shrubberv all around the house went on. “That isn’t it.” He pressed another,
and a garage door rumbled shut. “Nope.” He pressed another, and the maid appeared
in the doorway.

“You ring, Mr. Fenton?”

“Sorry, a mistake,” said Earl. “That wasn’t the one I
wanted.” Converse frowned. “What is it you’re looking for, Earl?”

“Maude and I’d like to start today all over again,” said
Earl. “Show us which button to push, Lou.”