The Caine Mutiny Read Online Free PDF

The shabby wrinkled newsman hawked imaginary victories in a hoarse voice, his headlines concealed under tarpaper. Crowds shouldered past them. “Thank you for dinner,” said May Wynn, “See you Monday.”
    “Not before? I could conceivably want to. What’s your phone number?”
    “I haven’t any phone.” Willie winced. May Wynn was really out of the lower depths. “There’s a candy store next door,” she went on, “where I can be reached in emergencies, but that’s all.”
    “Supposing an emergency arises? Give me the number of the store.”
    “Another time.” She smiled, the wariness of her look fading for a moment into coquettishness. “Can’t see you till Monday, anyway. Have to slave on my numbers. ‘By.”
    “I’m afraid I bored you with all my book talk,” said Willie, trying to fan a spark in the dying interview.
    “No, I’ve had fun.” She paused, and held out her hand. “It was an instructive afternoon.”
    She was swallowed up in the crowd before reaching the foot of the stairs. Willie walked away from the subway entrance with an absurd feeling of being newborn. The Roxy marquee, the black shafts of Radio City sprinkled with yellow lights, the restaurant signs, the groaning, darting taxicabs swam in an aura of wonder. He decided that New York was beautiful and mysterious, like Bagdad.
    At three o’clock the next morning, Willie’s mother opened her eyes in her dark bedroom, breaking out of a singularly vivid dream that she was at the opera. She listened a moment to echoes of the music that still rang in her mind, then sat up as she realized that she was hearing real music-Cherubino’s love song, floating across the hallway from Willie’s room. She got out of bed and put on a blue silk kimono. “Willie dear-records at this hour?”
    He sat in his shirt sleeves by his portable phonograph, a pad and pencil in his hand. He looked up guiltily, and snapped off the machine. “Sorry, Mother. Didn’t know it carried so.”
    “What are you doing?”
    “Stealing a stretch of Mozart for a new number, I’m afraid.”
    “You’re wicked.” She studied her son and decided that his queer exalted look was the creative frenzy. “You usually fall into bed when you get home.”
    Willie stood, laying the pad upside down on the chair, and yawned. “This thing just crossed my mind. I’m tired. It’ll wait till morning.”
    “Would you like a glass of milk? Martina made a wonderful chocolate cake.”
    “Had a chunk in the kitchen. Sorry I woke you, Mother. Night.”
    “It’s a lovely piece to steal,” she said, accepting a kiss on the cheek.
    “None lovelier,” said Willie, closing the door on her.

    May Wynn’s job at the Club Tahiti lasted for three weeks. Her Mozart novelty was well received. Her performance became a little better each evening, simpler, more lucidly rendered, and less loaded with gestures. Her agent and coach, Marty Rubin, came several times each week to watch her. After her performance he would spend an hour or more talking to her at a table or in her dressing room. He was a short stout moon-faced man, perhaps thirty-five, with pale hair and very thick rimless eyeglasses. The exaggerated breadth of shoulder and fullness of trouser in his suits showed they were bought on Broadway, but the colors were quiet browns or grays. Willie spoke to him casually. He was quite sure Rubin was a Jew, but thought no less of him for that. Willie liked Jews as a group, for their warmth, humor, and alertness. This was true though his home was in a real-estate development where Jews could not buy.
    Except for these sessions with Rubin, May’s time between shows was monopolized by Willie. Usually they sat in the dressing room, smoking and talking-Willie, the educated authority, May half respectful and half satiric as the ignoramus. After a few evenings of this, Willie persuaded her to meet him by day. He took her to the Museum of Modern Art, but that was a failure. She stared in horror at