He bought a corsage for Julie for the party. He gave it to her in a cellophane box and watched her face change at sight of it. She twisted the box apart and tore the flower into pieces and dropped it on the floor:
“That’s not what I want. I keep telling you. Don’t give me anything like that.”
She walked off.
He picked up the mashed flower, smelled it. It smelled all right. He shook his head.
* * *
The house was full of mist from cigarettes, coming and going in great nicotine fog-banks. Bottles rattled shapely glass hips one against another, champagne tumbled into glasses, everybody talked too much. It was Friday night, Merritt had been killed and taken away Wednesday. Broghman stood in the middle of the noise. This was the circus Julie ringmastered for him, so all the big lions could look at their new tamer, sit up, give a jealous greeting, shake hands maybe. Things were smooth. Julie saw to it that people who were small-time stayed on the outer fringe, while the big Joes got through. There were plenty of them—
“So they call you Ricky, too?”
This was an old man with white hair. Name of Vanning. Some sort of contact with one of the biggest lawyers. Soft pink face, long and intelligent looking, slightly wrinkled, constantly smoking imported cigars. “Like to see you after the party, Ricky,” he said, softly.
“What about?”
Vanning chuckled a little. “We’re surprised at your showing up, Ricky. We’re respectable business men, yes we are. It’s like having a ghost coming among us. But I must admit you were clever. Used a psychological trick. Very good.”
“Keep talking.”
“In spite of the fact that you showed some originality in the way you took Ricky Wolfe’s place, you’re still one of the old school gangsters. The kind of person who used to rob a bank with a gun—”
“What’s wrong with that!”
“Unscientific. We’re—businessmen. We do our work with hints, words, a little pressure here and there. Quiet transactions. We use psychology, too, but use it all the time.” The old man brushed back his soft white hair. “Now, listen to me, young man. From now on, criminality works behind a desk. It’s been tending that way a long time, but now it’s here to stay. Science prevents you from being out in the open any more. People won’t stand for it.”
“So what do we talk about after the party?”
“About you quieting down, my boy. You attract attention. You’re old-fashioned, make too much noise.”
“So I gotta change!”
“We can give you an office downtown—”
“I’m not made that way!”
The old man kept smiling, his eyes twinkling. “On occasion, if we are forced to, we can revert to old-fashioned gangsterism, too, let me tell you. We can kill you, legally, any time, and take credit for having done the public a service. See how clever we are?”
Broghman considered Vanning a moment, his heart pounding, his eyes narrowed down to hard slits.
Vanning looked at Broghman’s eyes. “Hill Street and Sixth. The Leighton Building, after midnight.”
“I’ll think about it.”
When Vanning walked away, Julie’s face said “No,” to Broghman, with an exclamation point after it. But liquor and self-power both were fogging his brain and he could hardly see her.
The rest of the party wasn’t even a decent memory. It was blotted out by a kind of excitement, the same excitement that had followed him ever since he met Julie. It was like a big drum being pounded in his brain, louder and louder and louder.
The door slammed on the last of the departing guests. Julie held onto the doorknob, feeling it. All of the steel had poured out of her as if through a secret release. She was hardly a healthy cat animal any more. She trembled.
They padded upstairs together, through the suddenly quiet house, no words passing between them. They closed the door to her room and the first words that she said were:
“You’re not going down tonight to see Vanning. He knows he can’t handle you. He’s afraid of you. So he’ll kill you!”
He kissed her on her full, obstinate lips. She smelled fresh after the nicotine and liquor. He kissed her on the neck, the ears, the cheeks, and again on the lips, and she responded. It was a long kiss.
Her fingers bit into his arms.