Magician's Wife by James M. Cain Read Free Book Online Page B

Clay?”
    â€œYou’re a thing of beauty too, don’t forget.”
    â€œClay, she has dibs on you.”
    â€œDibs is dibs, of course. But—!”
    â€œStop talking like that, Clay.”
    â€œWhere is this atelier, Grace?”
    So they began doing his portrait while he half reclined on the window seat in the sun porch off her living room, and she worked with pencils first, doing endless sketches of him, “to get what’s in your face—your eyes can be so fishy, except at certain times, and those times are what I want”; then she began working in color, with shiny tubes on a table and brushes laid beside them. At that stage she pushed out an easel, an upright post to which she clamped her board, already framed in raw oak, “so I can see what I’m doing.” She had him wear a blue shirt, “to go with your eyes and bring them up,” and a garnet jacket she had him buy, with brass buttons “to go with your hair.” As she worked she talked, often about the child: “Don’t forget, Elly’s my grandson, Clay—something I can’t get used to, but it’s true just the same. And if I tell the truth, he concerns me most of all, and he’s what it’s really about, this campaign I’m pushing with you. Because he could really be blighted in case of some mess— or whatever it might be—that Sally got herself into.”
    But mostly she talked about Sally, her birth, her childhood, her venture into magic, her marriage, and what had come of it. She was helped by little promptings, queries of various kinds, from him, and before very long had told perhaps more than she meant to. So at the end of two or three weeks, with the portrait nearly done, he got up one night, for a stretch, from the window seat where she posed him and suddenly started to talk. “So,” he said briskly, “as I get it, this sweet innocent child, barely turned seventeen, got herself sawed in half, but took no interest at all till she found out who he was, this guy in the sorcerer clothes—the son of the Gorsuch millions. Then she went into action, took a job in the act, married him, and at once gave him a son, who was also, we note, an heir. Then she started in making his life a hell on earth in the hope of getting a settlement. But what she got was a summons, an order from the court, sued out by her father-in-law, to show cause why she shouldn’t be declared an unfit mother to her child. She won, by a hair, but then cooked up a real plan, which has you scared to death.”
    â€œI still don’t know what you mean.”
    â€œThat we understand. But your campaign hasn’t worked, so why don’t we get on—talk about you and me?”
    â€œMy campaign has worked, Clay.”
    â€œNo—you talked just a little too much.”
    â€œYou’re in love with her, Clay.”
    â€œNo, no more. Sorry.”
    â€œI can prove it—or think I can.”
    â€œInteresting if true... How?”
    â€œBy watching your face when I tell you...”
    â€œTell me? What, for instance?”
    She came over, took him by the forelock, and peered into his eyes as she said: “She’s going to be free this weekend.” Then she laughed at his sudden intake of breath, which came with his startled blink, and went on: “Mr. El is taking Elly for the Memorial Day weekend—she’ll have evenings for you and means to call you up. I know, as she asked me, when I dropped in for lunch at Portico, if I still had the number she’d given me, or need she give it to me again? I assured her I’d kept it. Now, have I proved it or not?”
    â€œAll you’ve proved is she’s calling me up.”
    But his voice sounded thick, and she laughed once more as she dropped a cloth on the picture. “Why kid yourself?” she asked. “If you could see your face, you’d accept what it means.”
    â€œI tell