a New York friend of Ulstees?l don’t remember his mentioning you.”
“No, not really. Oh, we met now and then when I came cast.”
“Oh, that’s right, youre from Chicago. It is Chicago?”
“It is. But to be honest with you, my job takes me all over the place.” And
certainly, he was honest about that.
“What do you do?”
Canfield returned with the drinks and sat down.
“Stripped of its frills, I’m a salesman. But we never strip the hills that
-obviously.-
‘T,rhat do you sell? I know lots of people who sell things. They don’t
worry about frills.”
“Well, I don!t sell stocks or bonds or buildings or even bridges. I sell
tennis courts.”
Janet laughed. It was a nice laugh. “Yotfre jokingl”
“No, seriously, I sell tennis courts.”
He put his drink down and pretended to look in his pockets. “Let’s see if
I’ve got one on me. They’re really very nice. Perfect bounce. Whnbledon
standards except for the grass. That’s the name of our company. Wimbledon.
For your information, they’re excellent courts. You7ve probably played on
dozens of them and, never knew who to give the credit to.”
‘I think that’s fascinating. Why do people buy your tennis courts? Can!t
they just build their own?-
“Sure. We encourage -them to. We make more money when we rip one out and
replace it with ours.”
“You’re teasing me. A tennis court’s a tennis courL”
“Only the grass ones, my dear. And they’re never quite ready by spring and
they’re always brown in the fall. Ours are year-round.”
She laughed again.
‘Iles really very simple. My company’s developed an asphalt composition
that duplicates the bounce of a grass court. Never melts in heat. Never
expands when frozen. Would you like the full sales pitch? Our trucks will
be here in three days and during that time we’ll contract for the first
layer of gravel. We’ll do that locally. Before you know it, you’ll have a
beautiful court right out there on Fifty-fourth Street.”
They both laughed.
145
“And I assume you’re a champion tennis player.”
“No. I play. Not well. I don’t particularly like the game. Naturally we
have several internationally known whizzes on the payroll to vouch for the
courts. Incidentally, we guarantee an exhibition match on yours the (Jay we
complete the job. You can ask your friends over and have a party. Some
magnificent parties have been held on our courts. Now, that’s generally
-the close that sells the jobl”
“Very impressive.”
“From Atlanta to Bar Harbor. Best courts. best parties.” He raised his
glass.
“Oh, so you sold Ulster a tennis court?”
“Never tried. I imagine I could have. He bought a dirigible once, and after
all, whaVs a tennis court compared to that?”
“It’s flatter.” She giggled and held her glass out to him. He rose and went
to the bar, unwrapping the handkerchief from his hand and putting it in his
pocket. She slowly extinguished her cigarette in the ashtray in front of
her.
“If you’re not in the New York crowd. wheref did you know my husband?”
“We first met in college. Briefly, very briefly. I left in the middle of my
first year.” Canfield wondered if Washington had placed the proper records
of – a long-forgotten freshman down at Princeton University.
“Aversion to books?”
“Aversion to money. The wrong branch of the family had it. Then we met
later in the army, again briefly.”
“The army?”
“Yes. But in no way like that, I repeat, no way like thad” He gestured
toward the mantel and returned to the sofa.
‘Oh?”
“We parted company after training in New Jersey. He to France and glory. Me
to Washington and boredom. But we had a helluva -time before that.”
Canfield leaned ever so slightly toward her, permitting his voice the minor
intimacy usually accompanying the second effects of alcohol. “All prior to
his nuptials, of course.”
“Not so prior, Matthew Canfield.”
He looked at her cloWly, noting that the anticipated
146
response was positive but not necessarily liking the fact “If that’s the
case, he was a bigger fool than I thought he was.”
She looked into his eyes as one scans a letter, trying to read, not between
the lines, but instead, beyond the words.
“You’re a very attractive man.” And then she rose quickly, a bit
unsteadily, and put her drink down on the small table in front of the
settee. “I haven’t had dinner and if I don’t eat soon rU be incoherent. I
don’t like being incoherent.-
“Let me take you out.”
“And have you bleed all over some poor unsuspecting waiterrt
“No more blood.” Canfield held outhis hand. “I would like to have dinner
with you.”
“Yes, I’m sure you would.” She picked- up her drink and walked with ever so
slight a list to the left side of the fireplace. “Do you know what I was
about to do?”
“No.” He remained seated, slouched deeply into the sofa.
“I was about to ask you to leave.”
Canfield began to protest.
“No, waiL I wanted to be all by myself and nibble something all by myself
and perhaps that’s not such a good idea.”
“I think that’s a terrible idea.”
“So I Wotet.”
d’G00&”
“But I don’t want to go out- Will you have, as they say, potluck with me
here?”
ITWt that be a lot of troubier,
janet Scarlett yanked at a pull cord, which hung on the wall at the side of
the mantel. “Only for the houseo. keeper. And she hasift been overworked in
the least since my husband-left.”
The housekeeper answered her summon with such speed that the field
accountant wondered if she were listening at the door. She was about the
homeliest woman Matthew Canfield had ever seen. Her hands were huge.
“Yes, madame? We did not expect you home this evening. You did tell us you
were dining with Madame ScarlattV
147
“It seems I’ve changed my mind, doesn’t it, Hannah? Mr. Canfield and I will
dine here. I’ve told him potluck, so serve us whatever luck the pot holds.”
“Very well, madame.”
Her accent had a trace of Middle Europe, perhaps Swiss or German, thought
Canfield. Her jowled face framed by her pulled-back gray hair should have
been friendly. But it, wasn’t. it was somehow hard, masculine.
Nevertheless, she made sure the cook prepared an excellent meal.
“When that old bitch wants something, she makes them all quiver and quake
until she gets it,” said JaneL They had gone back to the living room and
sat sipping brandy on the pillow-fluffed sofa, their shoulders touching.
“That’s natural. From everything rve heard, she runs the whole show.
They’ve got to cater to her. I know I would.1t
“My husband never thought so,” the girl said quietly. “She’d get furious
with him.”
Canfield pretended disinterest~ “Really? I never knew there was any trouble
between them.”
‘~Oh, not trouble. Ulster never cared enough about anything or anybody to
cause trouble. Thafs why she’d get so angry. He woulcWt fight. He’d just do
what he wanted to. He was the only person she couldn’t control and she
hated that.”
“She could stop the money, couldn’t sher, Canfield asked naively.
“He had his own.”
‘God knows thafs exasperating. He probably drove her crazy. 9.
The young wife was looking at the mantel. “He drove me crazy, too. She’s no
differem”
“Well, she’s his mother. . . .”
“And rm his wife.” She was now drunk and she stared with hatred at the
photographs. “She has no right caging me up like an animall Threatening me
with stupid gossipt Uesl’Millions of liesl My husband’s friends, not minel
Though they might as well be. mine, they)m no God damn betterl”
148
“Ulstees pals were always a little weird, I agree with you there. If
they’re being louses to you, ignore them. You don’t need them.”
Janet laughed. “That’s what rll dol I’ll travel to Paris, Cairo, and
wherever the hell else, and take ads in the papers. All you friends of that
bastard Ulster Scarlett, I ignore youl Signed, J. Saxon Scarlett, widow. I
hope[”
The field accountant pressed his luck. “She’s got information about you
from … places like that?”
“Oh, she doesn’t miss a trick. You’re nobody if the 11lustrious Madame
Scarlatti hasn’t got a dossier on you. Didn’t you know that?”
And then almost as rapidly as she had flown into rage, she receded into
calm reflection. “But iVs not important. Let her go to hell.”
“Why is she going to Europe?”
“‘Why do you care?”
Canfield shrugged. “I don’t I just read it in the polunuls. l,
“I haven7t the vaguest idea.”
“Has it anything to do with all that gossip, those lies she collected from
Paris … and those places?” He tried, and it wasn’t difficult, to slur his
words.
“Ask her. Do you know, this brandy’s good.” She finisbed the remainder in
her glass and set it down. The field accountant had most of his left. He