the Black Marble (1977) Read online

  To Madeline Whitfield the day was significant only because it was Friday. And that meant it was only two days from Sunday. And Sunday meant the Winter Show of 1977, sponsored by the elite Kennel Club of Beverly Hills, at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

  It was perhaps not as prestigious as the Summer Show, and certainly would not compare with Chicago International, or that jewel in the crown, the Westminster Kennel Club Show at Madison Square Garden. But it was an important show and for Madeline, crucial. There would be as many as five major points awarded, and Vickie with twelve needed only three more points to become a champion.

  Madeline had agonized with Vickie's handler, Chester Biggs, whether or not to show her now in the Winter Show. Should they bring her in with a coat not quite prime and risk a loss to save the prime coat for New York in February? It was a decision which had to be made weeks in advance. Vickie had never lost yet, and Madeline was beside herself with anxiety. Finally, Chester made the decision by guessing who would judge. He guessed right. The judge was a shrewd old hand, one who could not be bought with expensive gratuities. A judge who knew his business, who would not penalize Vickie because her coat was now not quite prime, who would forgive, knowing that Vickie was being readied for Madison Square Garden and everlasting glory.

  Madeline had overridden the vigorous objections of the dog handler by keeping Vickie at home these last crucial days before the show.

  "Mrs. Whitfield, I've got to keep her for you," he had said. "Owners dorit keep their dogs at home if they expect to win important dog shows!"

  "But, Chester, I just can t bear parting with Vickie. She's never spent a night away from me since I got her."

  "Mrs. Whitfield, do you want a pet or a champion? This dog is the finest miniature schnauzer bitch I've ever seen. She can win it all, do you understand? And I'm not talking about the best of breed, or best of terrier group. I'm talking about the best in show!"

  "Chester, I'm sorry," Madeline Whitfield said. "You just . . . well, it's hard to say what Vickie means to me. She's like my child, silly as that sounds."

  "It's not silly, Mrs. Whitfield. I've been a handler for a long time. I know how you feel about your Vickie. But you're so fortunate to possess a thing of rare beauty like Victoria Regina of Pasadena." He touched her hand in a gesture of understanding when he said it, thinking how that dumb name made him want to puke. "And you're a generous woman who would want to share Victoria with dog lovers everywhere, like Norton Simon and Armand Hammer share their art. Vickie will never be as beautiful as she can be, never show her true perfection, if you don't let me keep her for you. You owe it to dog lovers and to Vickie and to yourself and ..."

  But to no avail. Victoria Regina of Pasadena would sleep between her mother's pearly sheets even the Saturday night before the big show. There was nothing Chester Biggs could do about it but come to the Whitfield home to groom and train the gorgeous little bitch and try to reason with the dowdy big bitch, and try his best to win it all with this little schnauzer and build the reputation of his kennel to where even his stupid brother-in-law could run it and Chester Biggs could get his ass into real estate where he belonged.

  _ _ #

  Chester often said as much during the twelve months he was Vickie's handler. He had said it the night before the Santa Barbara Show last summer. He had said it in the bar of the hotel while drinking with three other dog handlers who discuss dog exhibitors the way thoroughbred trainers discuss horse owners. The conversation generally centered around the richest exhibitors, how much of a bonus had been laid on a handler for winning best of breed, how high the tariff would be if a client was really wealthy and competitive and you won him five major points.

  Most handlers got only $35-40 a day per dog even when showing a tough breed like a German shepherd. Perhaps $100 a point as a winning bonus. You had to own a kennel to make enough to live on. Handling and showing a few dogs for rich clients simply wasn't enough, unless your client was a crazy Persian like the one who reportedly gave his New York handler a bonus of $10,000 for bringing him a win with his Great Pyrenees bitch.

  There were some, like Buck Hickman, who found other ways to collect rich bonuses. Hickman had married a Beverly Hills client and now he was an exhibitor and hired his own handlers, and came to dog shows in blue blazers, his silver hair rinsed and back-combed and sprayed just like his dogs, with a rich mans winter sun tan, as though born to the purple. That was a secret dream of many handlers who had rich lonely female clients. Women who doted and pampered and spent up to $40,000 a year to show their dogs. Reasonably young and willing dog handlers could hope. There was always a chance, since women exhibitors outnumbered men four to one.

  When Chester Biggs sat in the bar that night in Santa Barbara, and talked about the potential of the great young schnauzer bitch who slept in the same bed as her lonely screwed-up owner in Pasadena, there was a handler present who paid more than passing attention, especially when he heard that the owner was rich and available. But he went back to more pressing problems, such as how to convince the cocktail waitress that they might be able to find a little action even in a town like Santa Barbara if she d meet him when she got off work.

  Shed almost laughed in his face because his gray roots were showing and he was tipping only fifty cents a round. "Some other time, high-roller," she finally told him.

  Philo Skinner had sat there with yet another erection left to wilt. And at his age how many were left?

  _ _ _

  Madeline had a minor hangover from the Scotch and Dal- mane. In the past she had experienced wretched ones from Scotch and Librium and Scotch and Valium. So far the Scotch and a small dose of Dalmane seemed the best way to sleep.

  Victoria was certainly alive enough at eight a. M. She frisked in the kitchen, yapping and wiggling around Yolanda, the housekeeper, formerly a live-in with Madeline, now a day worker on Mondays and Fridays.

  "Vee-kee," Yolanda grinned, showing golden Tijuana bridgework in front, a status symbol which, unfortunately, was as much a tip-off to Immigration officers as was the long shapeless hair, the cast-off clothes, the diffident bearing of the illegal aliens.

  Vickie started leaping straight up, showing off, barking, begging for the liver tidbits she knew Yolanda would get from the refrigerator.

  "Morning, Yolanda," Madeline groaned, shielding her eyes from die morning sun as she shuffled into the kitchen and collapsed at the table, tolerating Vickie's shrill and happy growls.

  "Joo wan jus cafe, Meesus?"

  "Please, Yolanda. And perhaps a little orange juice."

  "Jas, Meesus," the plump young girl nodded, first giving Vickie another slice of boiled liver, humming with the Spanish music on the radio, too loud for Madeline, who nonetheless tolerated it as she tried to concentrate on the Los Angeles Times.

  Madeline was distressed to read that one of the city's leading decorators was sick and tired of wicker and rattan and jungle plants and swore that it would be declasse in six months. Madeline looked around at the white wicker chairs and rattan loveseat, and all the hanging fern which she had bought at great cost six months before when she saw a kitchen in the Los Angeles Times done by the same decorator. It was ever thus. She would finally get the courage or the impetus or the money to embrace a style about a month before it was declasse, whether it be clothes or furniture or hairstyles.

  Lord, she wished Yolanda would turn down that radio. The frequent commercials in machine-gun Spanish were unbearable right now. And Lord, she wished she could still afford to have Yolanda live-in and take care of the house as it should be. As it was when Mason was here, before she had to close off three of the upstairs bedrooms, and the guest house, to conserve gas and keep the soaring maintenance costs in check. Many Old Pasadena scions lived on modest trusts and inheritances in mansions remodeled by Sears or Montgomery Ward. Lovely tiles which had been painted, fired, and glazed fifty years before by Spanish, Portuguese, and Mexican artisans now lay side by side with fifty-dollar sheets of formica.
Many an eight-thousand-square-foot Colonial or Tudor mansion didn't have enough furniture left to fill a three-bedroom apartment. They settled for leaky gurgling toilets but kept their expensive club memberships, hence, their identities, intact.

  One more year and the trust fund would be finished. As always, her stomach churned when she thought of it. One year. Who could have thought about such a possibility when she was Mrs. Mason Whitfield? Not even after the divorce. Her mother had always said the trust was constructed by Madeline's father to endure throughout his only child's lifetime. With "prudent" management, of course. Always, Madeline had thought of the trust anthropomorphically: at first a guardian angel, later a kindly uncle who would always be there. Except that when her father designed that trust he didn't consider something as imprudent as a breast cancer which spread to the bone and eventually devastated his widow, her property, her hospital insurance, her Medicare, and the trust fund which was to sustain Madeline Whitfield forever.

  The medical bills had been truly unbelievable. That was the word. Until you'd been visited by a relentless cancer and all it entailed-chemotherapy, radiotherapy, four years of extensive hospitalization, outpatient nursing-the expense was not to be believed.

  It was legally difficult, hence expensive, even to break the trust so that the money could be used. Lawyers had to be paid so that Madeline could pay doctors. She often thought bitterly that a physician like Dr. Corey Dills should have known how "imprudent" a raging disease could be, and how a healthy trust fund could decompose like the bones of Madeline's mother.

  Toward the end, Madeline's lawyer tried to persuade her to apply, on her mother's behalf, for Medi-Cal. Welfare. A word used in Old Pasadena with words like leftist and Socialist. It was so unthinkable it would have killed the old woman swifter than the disease. The idea of it sent Madeline Whitfield off on the worst Scotch and sedative binge of her lifetime. She continued to pay for a private room and the best medical care possible until the very end. Mercifully, the old woman's bones mortified before the withering trust fund. But the trust was itself terminally afflicted. One more year.

  There had been a few humiliating attempts to confront the inevitable. Madeline would never forget fearfully approaching the personnel desk of a women's shop on Lake Avenue.

  "May I help you?" She was an overdressed woman with green eyelids.

  "Yes, I . . . this is a resume. I understand you have a position available. I'd like to apply."

  "A position."

  "Yes, as a saleslady. I happen to have a great deal of time on my hands lately and I . . . I'd like to keep busy."

  "You'd like to apply as a part-time saleslady?"

  "Yes. Or full time, perhaps. Actually, I have a great deal of time on my hands these days and . . . yes, full time."

  The woman glanced at the resume and looked up curiously.

  "You live in the San Rafael district?"

  "Yes."

  "It's lovely up there," she smiled deferentially. "Some of our best customers live in those big lovely homes."

  "Yes," Madeline said nervously.

  "I see you have a master's degree in history, ma'am," the overdressed woman said. "And these character references, well, some of the most prominent members of the community!"

  "Yes, do you think I might . . ."

  "Tell me, Mrs. Whitfield, have you done this before? Sales, I mean? There's absolutely nothing here about work experience."

  "I haven't been in sales, no, but I think I'd be suitable," Madeline said, face flaming.

  "What kind of work have you done, ma'am?"

  "Well, I was married, you see, and . . . well, I've been awfully busy over the past twenty years. Awfully busy running my home, and of course there was a great deal of charitable work, and so forth."

  "Yes. Tell me, Mrs. Whitfield, have you ever . . . worked? I mean at a job?"

  "Not exactly at a job, but ..."

  "Yes, well we have a store policy, ma'am. We, uh, only hire ladies with experience. Actually, ma'am, I wonder if you couldn't fill up this spare time in some other way. A lady of your background, I don't think you'd like being a salesperson. I certainly know what it's like to have free time on your hands. When my children grew up . . ."

  "Yes, perhaps you're right," Madeline said, voice breaking. "One gets restless. Yes. Probably I should just increase my involvement in the Junior Philharmonic."

  "Yes, that's what I'd recommend," the woman said.

  "Yes, I think so. Yes," Madeline said, stumbling out of the office, forgetting her meticulously typed resume.

  _ # _

  Madeline looked at her watch and realized that she had to pull herself together. Chester would arrive in forty-five minutes to work with Vickie, and Madeline didn't want to be there for the session today. The anticipation was debilitating.

  It was not good to let one's fantasies fly unchecked to New York and Madison Square Garden. To the prospect of owning a national champion.

  The exclusive Beverly Hills Kennel Club had only twenty- three members. Well, there'd be twenty-four come this spring. How could they refuse to invite her to join? How could anyone in the dog world refuse her anything if . . . Westminster! Madison Square Garden! Lord!

  Madeline scalded her lip with the coffee and decided to get dressed and assuage the tenseness by window-shopping on the west side, to stroll through the boutiques and shops like Theodore's. Not that she was young or brave or slim enough to shop there. Or rich enough, since their styles were faddish and you had to be ready to change each season. But it was fun to watch the platoons of voyeurs ogling the nubile young salesgirls who were pantyless and braless, and wore see- through cotton pants and T-shirts.

  There was no such shopping in Old Pasadena. In Old Pasadena one shopped for "sensible'' clothes, comfortable loafers with low stacked heels in colors to match wool-knit pants and jackets. Scottish plaid skirts would never be out of fashion, nor would cardigans and V-neck sweaters over cream-colored blouses. Sensible.

  But if voyeurs went to shops like Theodore's to ogle the salesgirls, most Pasadena Junior Leaguers went there for similar reasons: They squandered money in overpriced west side restaurants, because of (Dare one admit it?) movie stars. "Last night at the Ma Maison, I dined next to Barbra Streisand ..."

  Though Old Pasadena deplored the libertine life-style over the hill-the star worship, the "A" tables at Chasen's, the parties upstairs at the Bistro. Though they would never live among them: the celebrities, the Jews, the nouveau riche- they were insatiable celebrity watchers. A proper Pasadena matron might never so much as glance toward the booth in the Palm Restaurant where Jack Nicholson was sitting, but her pulse was racing. And if, in the Polo Lounge, Warren Beatty said, "Pardon me, you dropped your napkin," to a Junior Leaguer from Old Pasadena, she would look at him blandly in nonrecognition, and say, "Thank you very much," grinding the Neil McCarthy salad thoroughly, with disciplined jaws that wanted to tremble!

  A maitre d' from the Huntington Sheraton Hotel commented wryly that Old Pasadena would dine and drink and dance from seven until midnight, and grumble if the check was more than twelve dollars per person. Yet they would gladly tip that much over the hill at Matteo's for an "A" table. A restaurateur could get rich off Old Pasadena, they said, if only he could bus in movie stars on Saturday night.

  Madeline Dills Whitfield happened to pass the Brown Derby while driving in Beverly Hills that afternoon. She was fantasizing with delicious abandon. She and Vickie would be photographed at the Sign of the Dove in New York. (Did they let dogs in there? Well, how could they refuse a champion who had just won at Madison Square Garden?) There was a man with them at lunch. He was a well-known exhibitor from Long Island. He changed variously with her mood. Right now he looked like Paul Newman. Madeline would be pictured with Vickie in Time magazine, and the Los Angeles Times would do a feature article about the Pasadena dog who conquered New York. Madeline Dills Whitfield would be . . . well . . . Famous.

  In Old Pasadena, family, money, even pow
er seldom got one s picture anywhere but the society page. It couldn't buy celebrity. In Old Pasadena, Madeline Whitfield would soon be as popular as a movie star.

  She was so caught up in it she drove down Vine Street without rubbernecking. No matter, there were no movie stars lunching at the Derby at that moment. But if she had looked she might have noticed a gangly, middle-aged dog handler she'd often seen at shows. He was standing at Hollywood and Vine, thinking about a massage parlor on the Sunset Strip.

  He was watching the door of the Brown Derby. He was about to commit a crime on a very holy day. But then, only two waiters in the Brown Derby and nobody in a Sunset Strip massage parlor knew it was a holy day, that it was Russian Christmas.

  Like so many Big Moments in Philo's life, it all came down to a lost erection. Philo Skinner, ever the gambler, tossed a quarter in the air. Heads I drive to that massage parlor on the Strip and give my last fifty bucks to some pimply runaway bubblegummer with undeveloped tits to go down on me. Tails, I snatch the schnauzer from the Rolls-Royce and get rich. The blood was surging in his throat, his temples, his ruined chest. He sucked his twenty-ninth cigarette of the day, and flipped the quarter.

  Heads. Later, maybe dejection, depression, regret, but now-relief. Thank God. He hadn't slept five minutes all night. He was suddenly horny as a billy goat.

  But she wasn't a pimply runaway. The woman in the massage parlor was a forty-five-year-old professional with lurid eyebrows, who wasn't impressed with Philo's white-on-white leisure suit, and the imitation gold chain dangling on his bony chest.

  "I already told you, honey,'' she said, all business, "I'll give you the standard massage, the businessman's special, or the super massage of the day. The prices are listed."

  "Sweetie," Philo Skinner retorted, "I got a picture of General Grant in my pocket, but I'm not about to give him away without knowing exactiy what I can expect."

  "I'll give you the standard massage, the businessman's ..."

  "What's wrong with you?"

  "Nothing, Officer."