The Stiff Upper Lip Read Online Free PDF Page A

said. “So good people are starting to talk about you.”
    â€œYeah, these French folks sure do like to talk .”
    â€œI wasn’t thinking of the French. According to what Valérie’s told me, the word’s gotten around, even to far-off places. Like California, for instance. Even people out in L.A. are starting to say: ‘Guess who I hear’s playing ball again.’”
    He didn’t respond. He just blew smoke into the air and chased it with a series of small rings.
    â€œPeople like Johnny Vee, Roscoe?”
    He didn’t look at me then, but his mustache twitched.
    â€œJohnny Who?”
    â€œJohnny Vee. You forget, else Valérie forgot to tell you. I’m from L.A. too.”
    â€œI don’ know no Johnny Vee.”
    This was a fairly dumb answer. It was, in fact, a fairly dumb conversation, and going nowhere. By this time Valérie was staring into her coffee cup. Roscoe’s gaze was across the room. The only other person in sight that I knew was the waiter. I caught his eye and made an adding motion with my index finger. He nodded back at me.
    â€œO.K., Roscoe,” I said. “Suit yourself. But if you ever remember who Johnny Vee is and want to talk about it, you know where to get hold of me. Anyway, don’t forget that it wasn’t my idea to come along tonight.”
    â€œNot your idea!” he said, aloud. “Not your idea! Well, shoot, man, it sure as shit wasn’t mine! ”
    Which narrowed it down, kind of. Valérie looked up at me, then at him.
    Then she started to cry.
    I haven’t said much about her that night. Up to this point, she’d made herself scarce. Probably she’d had it in mind for me to take over; but there was also something equivocal about her position. I mean, I’d asked her if she was in love with Roscoe Hadley, and she’d asked me back if I was jealous. I’d said no, I wasn’t jealous, and she’d said the word love wasn’t in her vocabulary, I’d said why had she gone to so much trouble for a stiff if she wasn’t in love with him, and she’d said men didn’t ask questions like that unless they were jealous, and we’d tangoed it down to the end of the ballroom and back. As far as I was concerned, though, the one time we’d gone to bed together had been by way of sealing a bargain. It had had its moments, sure; but it hadn’t been repeated.
    Anyway, now she was blubbering full-tilt, her shoulders aquiver, her face buried in the Coupole’s napery. She pulled out all the stops, and if it was nothing more than a female trick, the tears welling out of her eyes when Roscoe pulled her hands away were the genuine article.
    â€œShit, Val,” said Roscoe Hadley hoarsely, “I’ll tell him. I’ll tell him everything, honey.”
    He kept repeating that.
    Finally she let him lift her head. He took her whole face in his palm and stared at her anxiously. The hoods had lifted and his eyes were suddenly big and serious. If she wasn’t in love with him, I’d sure have to say he was with her.
    Even at the risk of appearing jealous.
    He sweet-talked her, and she let him. Then she went off to the toilet for repairs, looking suddenly small in a black velvet pants suit with a silk foulard spilling out of the neck. And while she was gone, and after she came back, Roscoe Hadley did tell me everything. Mostly. In fact, he was quite the raconteur. We ordered more coffee, and cognac to keep it company, and by the time he was done and had outgrabbed me for the check, they were stacking chairs on the tables around us.
    Suffice it to say, for now, that the day he picked up a loose ball in that Paris gym, he became a marked man again. Maybe the “trouble,” like he’d said, had stayed where it was those years when he’d been on the move under an assumed name, but once he had the ball in his hands, it was like programmed for him to start