Mr. Bridge_ A Novel - Evan S. Connell [53]
“Wait a minute,” Douglas said. “Will you please kindly relax and listen a minute?”
“Be quick about it.”
“Huggins didn’t smack Tipton. Rodney did.”
“Let me get this straight. The Tipton boy was almost knocked unconscious. Who hit him?”
“I just told you. Rodney. Rod got him with an uppercut.”
“I see. But your friend Tipton also boxed with the chauffeur, is that correct?”
“Sure, because that’s what a round-robin means. Everybody’s got to box against everybody else. How many times do I have to explain? Only they didn’t do much except spar around. They hardly touched each other. Huggins didn’t have anything at all to do with Tipton practically getting kayoed. I mean, for cripes sake, if you don’t get it by this time I give up.”
He was telling the truth, there could be no doubt of it; even so, Mr. Bridge was not satisfied. The fact that the third boy had not been injured by the chauffeur seemed to indicate that the man was not deliberately trying to hurt them. At the same time it was all very suspect. “I don’t like this,” he said. “Not one bit.”
“Holy cow! If you’re going to box you sort of expect to get pasted on the kisser once in a while, unless you’re some sort of professional world’s champ.”
“I certainly don’t like it either,” Mrs. Bridge said.
Douglas sighed. “Nobody was trying to kill anybody. We were all kind of pulling our punches, only once in a while like I just said there’s sometimes you can’t help getting one square in the kisser. You should have seen the one I landed on Vandermeer’s breadbasket. It knocked the wind clear out of him. He was doubled over for about ten minutes.”
Mr. Bridge rocked around in his chair while he considered. Finally he said, “It sounds to me as though this business got completely out of hand.”
“Maybe. Sort of,” Douglas agreed.
“Now, you listen to me. If you want to box with your friends—with boys of your own age and size—I have no objection. But no more of this black-eye bloody-nose nonsense, do you understand? And absolutely no further boxing with that chauffeur. Or with any other servant under any circumstances. Is that clear? Do you hear me?”
“I’d have to be pretty deaf not to.”
“Very well. Suppose we drop the matter. And now I have some work to do.”
“Uh, well. . .” Douglas said.
“Yes? What is it?”
“Can you tell Harriet to let me have a piece of beefsteak?”
“If you are convinced that’s what you need, all right.”
After Douglas had left the study Mrs. Bridge asked if the meat would do much good, and Mr. Bridge replied that he did not think so.
56 Crosby
Looking through the bills at the first of the month he noted that Douglas had charged eight Bing Crosby records at the Plaza music store. He mentioned this to his wife.
“Really?” she said. “Why, he oughtn’t to be doing that. I’ll speak to him. After all, he does get an allowance. He can pay you back.”
“Never mind, it isn’t important,” he said, and opened another envelope.
A few minutes later she looked up from her magazine and said, “That’s odd. It just occurred to me. He never plays them.”
“If he doesn’t play them why did he buy them?”
“I can’t imagine. I suppose he does, but for some reason it seems to me that Carolyn is the one who puts them on the machine.”
Mr. Bridge picked up the statement from the music store and looked again at the sales receipt which Douglas had signed; then he handed the receipt to her, and as she studied it an expression of bewilderment came across her face.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. But she did not answer. “That’s his signature, is it not?”
“Oh, I suppose it must be,” she said so weakly that he could hardly hear her.
“Is it? Or isn’t it? You know his handwriting better than I do. Is that his signature, or not?” But still she hesitated. “Do you recognize it?” he insisted.
“I don’t pretend to be an expert,” she said, and touched herself