Genius Page 8

  “Alhambra, I believe.”

  “Yes. Exactly. You don’t mean to tell me that that old hound Leander still has him hoodwinked into thinking he’s going to have his name in lights when the poor little man couldn’t act his way out of a cupboard. Really, that Starr is insupportable.”

  “Do you mean Leander Starr, the famous director?” BVD said, all eager interest.

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s where we’re going. In fact, we’re a bit overdue.”

  “How I’d love to meet him.”

  “And I,” Lady Joyce said.

  “Perhaps, then—if I won’t be intruding—I’ll just say hello and then be on my way back to town.”

  “Well . . .” I began.

  “Yes, Mr. ah . . .” Lady Joyce fumbled for his name.

  “Van Damm,” he said charmingly. “But just call me Bruce.”

  “Very well,” I said, defeated. “Finish your drinks and let’s get going.” In Indian file the four of us, with BVD—“just call me Bruce”—and me making a great to-do about who would precede whom through the door.

  IV

  I suppose it was a regrettable little streak of malice that led me to take Lady Joyce to her ex-husband’s place for drinks. I was hoping that Starr would be embarrassed or nonplused or at least upstaged for once in his life. It just goes to show how little I knew my Leander Starr.

  St. Regis, however, reacted enough for two. He bustled out and all but genuflected in front of our mystery guest. “Oh, Miss Monica—Lady Joyce, I should say! Such a pleasure to meet up with you again after all these years. I wrote to you when I read of your marriage and again when that poor gentleman passed over.”

  “I know you did,” Lady Joyce said. “I shall always treasure your letters.”

  “And I your replies,” St. Regis said prettily.

  “You’re looking splendid, Albert—forgive me, Alistair. Not a day older.”

  “And you likewise your ladyship.”

  “Silver threads among the gold, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, I’ve had very much the same problem, your ladyship, but now with the beautyful range of Miss Clairol colors on the market, I’m able to mix up just the shade it always was.”

  “Even a bit redder than it used to be,” Lady Joyce said, but her tone was one of an artist appraising another’s work and entirely without malice.

  “Oh, do you really think so?” St. Regis said, dismayed, his hands fluttering to the thin underbrush of chestnut curls. “Perhaps I’d best tone it down a bit next time. But now do let me prepare you all a nice refreshment. Mr. Starr has had so many urgint long-distince calls today that he hasn’t quite finished dressing.”

  “Is he still lacing himself into that waist cincher?” Lady Joyce asked, not unkindly.

  “Oh, your ladyship!” St. Regis went off into fits of giggles and tittuped over to the bar.

  With almost a fanfarade of trumpets, Starr appeared in the doorway, paused for the expected ovation, and then advanced upon us. “Can I believe my eyes? Is it some trick of the setting sun—some magic of the candlelight or is it . . . is it . . .”

  “Yes, Leander,” Lady Joyce said. “You can sit down now. It is.”

  Starr took both of her hands in his, bowed low over them, kissed the backs and then the palms. “My golden girl. My lovely Monica. Younger and more beautiful than ever.”

  “About as young as Dame Sybil Thorndike, Leander, but thank you, anyhow. You’re looking fit.”

  Actually, Starr was got up like the cruel ballet master or as though he were about to fight a duel in the Bois de Boulogne. He wore narrow black trousers, an elastic cummerbund, which did wonders for his waistline but did tend to leave a roll above and below, pumps, and an extravagantly full white silk shirt left open two or three extra buttons to display what was still a splendid chest. Knowing that he was somewhere in his mid-fifties, I wondered unkindly whether he’d ever had his face lifted.

  I was about to introduce our hanger-on, but young Mr. van Damm was miles ahead of me, shaking Starr’s hand, spilling a few judicious bits of sincere flattery and saying “Just call me Bruce, sir.” On second thought, Bruce would have a drink—“But just one, sir, then I must go.”

  In a moment we were joined by still another uninvited guest—Catalina Ximinez. Although she and Mamacita and Perro had been put to flight earlier in the day, Madame X had apparently marshaled her forces for an all-out attack to get her rent. She had changed from the skin out and was this evening a discordant symphony in ice blue with a ma’kech gamboling across the hills and valleys of her bosom. A ma’kech, by the way, is a Mayan lucky bug, a live beetle, wearing a jeweled harness and leash, which some Mexican women of more exotic tastes than most pin onto themselves. When not being worn, the poor creatures live in small boxes where they feed off a lifetime supply of a special kind of wood. They are considered tremendously chic in certain circles (I felt sure that Bunty would have one before long), but the sight of them scampering around, tethered to the fronts of dresses, still makes me want to call the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

  Whether she knew it or not, and I suspect that she did, Señorita Ximinez couldn’t have picked a better time to hit poor Starr for the rent money than when he was on full display. All unctuous charm and coy smiles, she sidled up to Starr like a killer crab and said, “Ah, Señor Starrr, Ai see your lights burning as Ai about to go to deener party and Ai say to myself ‘Now Ai weel stop by for the rent to save poor Señor Starrr from have to bring it to mai house.’”

  “My dear,” Starr cried. “How radiant you look tonight, except for that cockroach on your knockers. Tell me, is that the one you got out of my bathtub today? They look remarkably alike.”

  “Abelardo has fix everything. Now the money pliz?”

  “But my dear, do let me introduce you round. It’s not every day that these poor Anglo-Saxons are privileged to meet the shimmering star of Yucatán Girl.”

  “Leander! You don’t mean it?” Lady Joyce said. Her tone was one of stunned incredulity that this henna-rinsed tub of lard could actually be the smoldering remains of that breath-taking Indian beauty of thirty years ago. However, the Ximinez, not overly familiar with the subtleties and nuances of English, took it as her due and began to soften a bit. Not enough, however, to forget the original purpose of her mission. “Very pliz to mit you,” she said, giving Lady Joyce the up and down. If Madame X was out of movies, she was still at them a good deal, and her interest in the former Monica James as a more prolific actress as well as one of many former Mrs. Leander Starrs, was more than casual. “And now, Señor Starrr, if Ai may trobble you for . . .”

  “Ah, malheureusement,” Starr began, striking his forehead a stunning slap, “I knew I’d forgotten something today. I meant to go to the bank, but with my severe migraine headache . . . Dennis, dear boy, do you happen to have a spare five hundred pesos? You did say five hundred, did you not, Catalina, mi corazón?”

  “Nine hondred,” Madame X said dangerously.

  “Ah, si si, they’re spelled so much alike. Dearest Patrick, do you happen to have a thousand, say?”

  I was about to reply, quite honestly, that I didn’t, when St. Regis got into the act. He did it so badly, so boldly, that I could understand why he had never seen either “Alistair St. Regis” or “Albert Schmackpfeffer” in lights, but at least the day was saved. “Oh, Mr. Starr, sir,” he said, “seeing that you were predisposed, I took the liberty of stopping by the Banco dee Mexico y Laundress and withdrawering a bit of pin money from your extinsive English holdings.” With a flourish, he produced a roll large enough to choke a horse (in very small denominations), counted out nine hundred pesos, and all but flung them at Madame X.

  “How too good of you, St. Regis,” Starr said. A deft flick of his hand and the roll of bills was in his pocket before St. Regis could get it back into his own. Miss Ximinez and Bruce van Damm were duly impressed, as anyone with half an eye could see. To the rest of us it was an old, old story
, its only variation being that for once Starr’s rent was actually paid. “Don’t bother with the receipt now, Catalina querida, just send that toothless old Indian hag around with it mañana.”

  “Mamacita?” Madame X said, her jaw dropping.

  “Whatever quaint Mayan name you call your help. Now do sit down, Pocahontas, and join us. What’ll it be, champagne or pulque?” The bar boasted rum and beer. Imported champagne runs about thirty dollars a bottle in Mexico, but Starr, now that his rent was paid and his pocket bulging with poor St. Regis’ money, was feeling very grand.

  “There is no champagne, sir,” St. Regis said, taking his cue. “They had such inferior stock at the shop that I knew you’d rather not serve any at all than to offer your guests an inferior year.”

  “Quite right of you, St. Regis, but do cable tomorrow for a few dozen cases of Taittinger Blanc de Blancs, 1953. Air France can drop it off, and you can pick it up at the airport. The duty shouldn’t be too much.”

  “Only about three hundred per cent,” my wife murmured.

  “Easy come, easy go,” Starr said with an airy gesture. “And now, Malinche, what will it be?”

  “Cerveza, por favor, señor,” Madame X mumbled. When thoroughly squelched Señorita Ximinez has a tendency to lapse into the language and manner of a back-country servant girl.

  “Pour the lady a beer, please, St. Regis, then you may have the evening to yourself. We’ll just pig it here—self-service and all that sort of thing. We don’t mind being carefree peasants, do we?”

  “Do come off it, Leander,” Lady Joyce said tolerantly.

  “It would be a pleasure, sir,” Just-call-me-Bruce said.

  “Lak de old times, Señor Starrr,” Madame X said with a soft little belch. She seemed to have forgotten entirely the brilliant dinner party she had said she was about to attend and spread a taco thickly with guacamole.

  “So, St. Regis, if there’s some little thing you’d like to do this evening . . .”

  “Oh, that’s ever so kind of you, sir,” St. Regis said. “As a matter of fact, Dolores del Río is playing quite nearby. Something about the sin of a mother, I believe. I’ve always admired her ever so. Haven’t you, your ladyship?”

  “Very much,” Lady Joyce said.

  “Darling Lolita,” Starr said dreamily, with a look that implied volumes of erotica.

  “Gee, do you know Miss del Río, sir?” Bruce said.

  “Ah, what can I say?”

  “You might say, Leander,” Lady Joyce said tartly, “that you and Miss del Río once shook hands at an Academy Award dinner during the late thirties, but as she was under contract to another studio and much too smart to get involved in one of your harebrained schemes, that’s about as far as things went.”

  “My poor, precious Monica,” Starr said sadly. “I see with regret that your enforced retirement from the screen owing to advanced senility has done nothing to soften what was always at best the tongue of an adder.”

  Lady Joyce laughed delightedly. “Oh, Leander, bravo! It does me good to be insulted by you once again—now that you’re a harmless old man.”

  “Well, at any rate,” St. Regis said nervously, “I’ve been a fan of Miss del Río’s ever since Ramona.”

  Catalina Ximinez, who had come to think of herself as the Eleanora Duse of Latin America on the strength of one film, allowed her lip to curl. “Gemme nudder beer, pliz,” she said loftily.

  “Oh, and St. Regis, before you go, would you just lay out my blue mohair and a suitable tie? This high, clear air has done such wonders for my poor head that perhaps I might even venture out to dine tonight, if these lovely ladies would deign to accompany me. My two radiant stars—tempestuous Catalina and serene Monica. Daddy and his girls.”

  “Won’t that be fun,” Lady Joyce said. “Just like D. W. Griffith and the Gish sisters.” But I didn’t notice her saying no. Miss Ximinez rolled her eyes appreciatively.

  “If, indeed, there’s any place suitably festive in this provincial backwater. I’ve been too ill to take more than a little broth.”

  “Oh, yes, indeed, sir,” Bruce van Damm said eagerly. “El Paseo is very nice, or Delmonico’s or Ambassadeurs. Or if you care for dancing we might try the Capri or Jacaranda. . . .” I noted the we, and I also promised myself that not for rubies would I go any place but to bed that night.

  “Ah, dancing. By all means dancing. And perhaps la Ximinez would favor a lonely old man with her famous paso doble.”

  Madame X favored him with a tarnished smile, a coquettish waggling of her finger, and slapped back the rest of her beer.

  “Well, just see that everything is in order before you go, St. Regis,” Starr said. He peeled a five-peso note off the roll and handed it over. “Enjoy your film and treat yourself to a little snack afterward. Buenas noches.” Movies in Mexico City cost four pesos, that left poor old St. Regis with a cool eight cents to spend on anything his little heart desired. I could see he was going to have a whale of a night.

  “Thank you, sir. And a very pleasant evening to all of you.”

  “And now,” our genial host said, “just one more little half drink, and then we’re off.” Two hours and four drinks later, after a good deal of pleading with us to join them, the merrymakers piled into the Van Damm equipage and set off, while my wife and I struggled wearily off to bed.

  My wife was dispiritedly brushing her hair by the time I’d doused the living-room lights, cleaned my teeth, and scaled the circular staircase. “Sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty . . . oh, to hell with it. I’d rather be bald.” She got into bed, took up a pencil and pad, and started to work on her five topics. This is an old practice of hers. Right after a party where there has been drinking and just before going to sleep, she writes down five subjects she’s discussed and the person she’s discussed them with to prove to herself that she hasn’t lost her grip on reality. They are unofficially known as “Mother’s Conversations at Midnight,” and gathered into one sizable volume they would form the greatest compendium of fatuosities ever bound between covers. Whenever I look for a piece of paper, I’m bound to turn up a flyblown, coffee-spotted old thing with such cryptic messages as:

  Elizabeth—Hems taken up?

  Jack—Marcia’s ectopic pregnancy—pity.

  Cyril (?)—London, Americanization of.

  Mrs. G.—Hal’s drinking.

  Couple from Rye—Progressive schools.

  She feels that this sort of thing keeps her on an even keel. It would only confuse me more the following morning. There are some things I’d rather not know.

  “What was the name of that attractive young man?” she asked.

  “Alistair St. Regis—né Albert Schmackpfeffer?”

  “No. Not that poor old auntie. The one who was so charming at the Maitland-Grims’s with that fantastic car. You know.”

  “Oh, him,” I said. “You mean Van Damm—Just-call-me-Bruce.”

  “Yes, that’s the one. Didn’t you think he was nice? You rarely see young people with such lovely manners nowadays. He’d be awfully good to have around as an extra man in New York. We always need them, and he’s tall and good-looking and personable and polite and not queer, I don’t think, and . . .”

  “And loyal, trustworthy, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”

  “Didn’t you like him?”

  “No, not especially.”

  “That’s just because you didn’t have a chance to talk to him.”

  “I don’t expect to cry myself to sleep on account of that.”

  “Well, I thought he was charming. I used to go to school with a Marie Louise van Damm. Very top-drawer.”

  “And what happened to her?”

  “Oh, she married somebody. I ran into her at a luncheon for some dreary worthwhile cause a couple of years ago.”

  “And?”

  “Well, I said hello and Marie Louise said hello and she told me her married name, whic
h I’ve forgotten, and I told her mine . . .”

  “Which she’s forgotten.”

  “Well, naturally. Then I said I’d been meaning to send her a wedding present and she said she’d been meaning to send me one and we both said why not just forget the whole thing and that was that.”

  “You do spend stimulating days in New York. I’ve always wondered about what you did.”

  “Well, I suppose she and Bruce must be related. That’s all.”

  “Did Marie Louise have an eccentric aunt in Tuxedo Park who did strange things with a Detroit Electric and Mrs. Twombley?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, she did. It was her grandmother. They also had an electric boat. That’s because people in Tuxedo have to drink the lake water.”

  “Isn’t that interesting. Well, good night,” I said, kissing her. I rolled over and closed my eyes. “Don’t keep the light on too long. It attracts bugs and also Dr. and Miz Priddy.”

  “She had a younger brother, but I think he was killed in Korea or else in an automobile crash or maybe it was a motor accident in Korea.”

  “Mm-hmmm.” I heard no more. I was sound asleep.

  The night went by as usual. Perro barked; the cats yowled; Mamacita, left to her own devices for the evening, tuned in to a stirring drama on XHTV at top volume; the vigilante blasted his whistle into our window at regularly spaced intervals; and promptly at midnight the macaw went mad. Otherwise it was as still as the grave.

  And then at one o’clock all hell broke loose. As ours is the first door one encounters upon entering Casa Ximinez, my wife and I have been the victims of many little surprises intended for other tenants. So far this year we have been showered with five dozen red carnations addressed to nobody and bearing the cryptic message “Because of last night—Always—Jimmy”; a set of pottery casseroles from the Bazaar Sabado to Miz Priddy; a full-length white-fox coat for Madame X, which makes her look like a pregnant polar bear; great masses of dry cleaning from the Tintorería Francesa all intended for other people; a very dapper little Mexican lawyer who told me that if I’d simply sign this document I’d be legally divorced from Andrea Morganthau Blackburn; and a series of flashing-eyed call girls. On this particular night we received a set of matched luggage (blue) and a ravishing eighteen-year-old daughter (white).